Near the end of his 2015 book Swarm Troopers, David Hambling notes that “there has been conflict in the east of Ukraine since 2014”:
Militias in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, apparently with covert backing from Russia, have been fighting against government forces. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has not always been efficient in providing the best equipment; critics say that the procurement process is managed badly and undermined by corruption. Ukrainian forces needed drones for reconnaissance and surveillance on the front line. When they could not get them through official channels, they took procurement into their own hands.
The Aerorozvidka project and the People’s Project are both devoted to making up the Ukrainian drone shortfall. Using private money — and in the case of the People’s Project, crowdfunding — they have adapted commercial drones for battlefield operations. At the larger end of the scale, the PD-1 “People’s Drone” is a fixed-wing craft with a ten-foot wingspan and a pusher propeller. Many of the other drones are simply commercial models like the DJI Phantom supplied by supporters in the US.
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The Ukrainians fit their drones with improved communications, as their opponents have access to effective Russian jammers and have jammed both drone communications and GPS navigation signals. They have also learned to be careful about placement of communication antennas when controlling the drones, and the need for controllers to keep moving. On two occasions, their drone operators have been hit by mortar fire when the Russians pinpointed them by their radio signals.
The Ukrainian drones can find and track the enemy and direct artillery fire in real time. Aerorozvidka even claims to be working on drones armed with homemade missiles.
Any Western soldier who has to expose themselves to enemy fire during reconnaissance may well wonder why they do not have access to the same small drones as the Ukrainians.