Last time we signed in on frightening drone advancements in the Russian intrusion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians were dropping molten thermite along Russian trench lines and connecting surface-to-air rockets to marine drones.

Having a far smaller sized population than Russia, Ukraine has actually pinned its hopes in substantial part on drone warfare, and numerous business and companies throughout the nation are developing whatever from small aerial attack drones to enormous ground-crawling, maker gun-toting minelayers. (And this is to state absolutely nothing of all the development occurring in Western defense business like AeroVironment.)

Here are simply a few of the drone warfare developments that have actually appeared in public sources over the last couple of months.

Motherships

Ukraine has, for a long time, fielded big “mothership” drones that can bring and ultimately release a set of smaller sized attack drones. This method can, for instance, get light and quick FPV attack drones behind the cutting edge before launching them, consequently extending the attack drones’ minimal variety.

It was just this week that I came throughout video of a mothership drone introducing an attack drone to take down a much bigger Russian monitoring drone. In the video, the mothership gets in position above and behind the Russian drone, then introduces a little quadcopter drone that races towards the Russian drone and takes off. Pieces of both drones drift down as the mothership movies the action.

Drones releasing drones to assault other drones– welcome to war in 2025.

Shotguns

Considering that the start of the war, the Ukrainians have actually been strapping whatever you can possibly imagine to their drones, from grenades to mines to RPGs to thermite. Provided their recoil, weapons have actually been a larger difficulty, however this hasn’t stopped drone makers from attempting.

Current video footage recommends that genuine advances have actually been made in supporting the drone platform while shooting; one viral video reveals not one however 2 shotguns installed to a drone, which zips around blasting 3 Russian drones before targeting an infantry member on the ground. Offered the existence of 2 shotguns going off at the same time, the drone’s stability is remarkable.

This does not seem in mass production, though the Kyiv Post spoke to an aerial scout about the weapon’s energy.

Grenade launchers

Grenade launchers have actually been checked on aerial drones, however they appear more fit to a ground platform. Go into the Burya, a little tracked drone with a grenade-launching turret on top. The Burya can bring as much as 64 grenades and utilize fire-control software application and gyro stabilization to objective and fire a grenade approximately 100 meters. According to Ukraine’s military, the system has actually currently gotten in mass production and is being provided to front-line systems.

What’s next for the system? According to the designer, a Ukrainian business called Frontline, “We are planning to combine the turret’s targeting system with data from reconnaissance UAVs [that is, drones] to transmit coordinates to the target in live mode.”

Attack rifles

They might be more difficult to intend properly and might go through ammo quicker, however attack rifle drones are still being dealt with. In September, the Kyiv Post reported on the most current efforts to strap an AK-74 rifle to a drone and after that go attack Russian trenches.

Magnet/claw

One current video declares to reveal something even crazier than weapons– a drone with a big retractable claw or magnet (it’s not rather clear which)taking another drone. Consider arcade-style claw grabber makers and you’ve understood.