Transcription
In the southern city of Kherson, at least two people have been killed today. A Russian drone hitting a minibus, seven injured. Details still coming through from local officials.
Separately, along Ukraine's northern border with Belarus, President Zelensky saying military analysts are recording, quote, "Rather unusual activity in the past 24 hours." He's not going into details. He's put said in a post as well on Telegram today. The activity it's seen on that side of the border means that Ukraine will act if matters escalate.
Uh meanwhile, Russian troops are reported to be inching towards the city of Kostantinovka, which is in the eastern Donetsk region, trying to establish a foothold for some time there. This is according to a top military official of Ukraine today. Now, Kostantinovka with several other cities, three cities in fact, is part of the so-called fortress belt in the east fortified by Ukraine's military.
Let's get a wider look at what's going on. Let's bring in Olena Hrynenko, a Ukrainian defense analyst who specializes in drones and unmanned systems and military technology, too. She is the founder of Ukraine's Arms Monitor publication which tracks arm transfers and publishes dedicated Ukraine drone brief as well. Olena's in Toronto. Welcome to France 24, Olena. Great to speak to you tonight.
Let's begin. Let's talk first about something that I've seen you've looked into and you've written about this week, which is fascinating. This is something that appears to be now on the battlefield, so-called Martian drones used by Ukraine, reportedly worrying Russian troops. And there's a lot of mystery around them. What are they?
Well, there are a lot of developments on the Ukrainian side that are not publicly disclosed. And when we are talking about Martian martial drones, we are referring mostly to uh Russian reports, reports from Telegram channels, reports from Russian media. Um and this type of reporting appears on different directions, on the Berisha direction, on the southeast of Ukraine, in Donetsk direction. Uh so, Russians are very alarmed uh because Ukraine reportedly started using uh these drones, fixed-wing kamikaze drones. Uh they are flying at very low altitudes and they are silent. So, they do not produce a lot of sound. They That's why it's uh harder to detect them. Um and the Russians are worried because these drones allegedly are using artificial intelligence or at least elements of that and they have high destructive power. So, uh actually, they managed to inflict a lot of damage. Uh however, there are no confirmed reports from Ukrainian side about the use of these drones. Uh Russians are also allegedly um claiming that these drones might be produced with the help of Western companies, Western governments, uh but there are no confirmed reports. First of all, Ukraine uh hasn't released anything about these drones and my own sources uh cannot confirm or deny these claims. Um and I guess we will need to wait and see on how the developments are unfolding.
And the alarm about this from the Russian side, I think I've I've read within your reporting and your sources suggestions that within the AI ability that it kind of takes away the autonomize it to an extent. There's there's less human input than there was before. And again, just try to understand the veracity of this. Is there a pattern when you're looking at drone warfare, the technological improvements? Is it often coming from the Russian side where you're trying to work out how Ukraine's technology improving? You know, is it something Is this part of the course? Have you seen this week before from Russia saying this first and you discover it later on that it's true or not?
Well, yes, AI-enabled technologies are widely used by both Ukraine and Russia. And something that is used by Russia are neural networks. Um we saw these technologies used in Kharkiv region, for example. But the thing is that the extent to which these technologies are being integrated is not something that we that we really expect. It doesn't seem like a sci-fi movie yet. So, there is no full autonomy on the battlefield. Uh Russians also tend to use a lot of disinformation. Uh we know it as a matter of fact. Uh so, they tend to overestimate um their own military capabilities. They describe everything in much better picture than it is in reality. Um but at the same time, we see that Russian systems uh they are full of innovations, but they also fail quite often. So, they do not um actually correspond to the claimed capabilities. Uh so, there is a lot of uh I would say uh combat happening in the informational space as well. Um and it's it's very important to keep track of different reports and check the verified information. There are different all things reports, independent ones, independent analysts that are tracking and and checking these developments. Um so, we always need to put uh this in larger context.
This is very good to know because as you scroll your socials, this is something that you see and actually to look at the moment we can I think we can say these are still reports that they're being used, that you haven't seen solid evidence of that yet. Now, just give us an idea of what used to be called the front lines and what it looks like, the so-called killing zone now, the weaponry that's dominating, the types of drones you are noticing in terms of the the cadence, the rhythm of this war.
Yeah, the front line, the kill zone, um is um something that extends actually from 10 to 15 km, sometimes to 20 km. Um and in different directions uh of of the front line, it's different because the intensity of combat also differs. The capabilities deployed by Russia and Ukraine also vary across different directions. So, uh but when we are talking about the kill zone, we we mean this uh this range from 10 to 15 km where everything that is going to be detected within this range uh is going to be targeted and uh most likely destroyed. We are talking about military personnel, uh vehicles, ground robots. Um so, both sides are increasingly using their unmanned technologies. Uh aerial drones that are monitoring the kill zone uh from the air. Uh we have Mavic drones, we have FPV drones uh also used on different ranges. Uh but also we have unmanned ground drones. Um something extensively used particularly by Ukraine uh because Ukraine has shortage of military personnel. Uh and one of the current goals uh for Ukrainian commanders is to replace uh infantry infantrymen with ground robots, save uh lives of personnel, but also delegate to robots uh a lot of tasks uh that can be conducted uh on the battlefield without risking.
Which takes us to something that happened this week and I'd like your thoughts on this. Let's just take a look. This is unmanned technology used for rescue operations. What happened on Wednesday? This is Lemans'ka in Odessa Oblast. An elderly lady, she's 77-year-old Antonina Harutsna. Uh she was rescued by drone operators from the third army corps. There's a note attached to the vehicle saying, "Granny, get in." There's no sound here, but this is this is what happened. Olena, because this vehicle then moves her up 2 to 3 hours to safety. What do you make of that? And the And we're starting to see more of this, aren't we? The rescue operations in the middle of the killing zone.
Exactly. What we saw in this video is the mission by the third third army corps, which is one of the pioneers in the use of unmanned ground robots. Um and the mission was to evacuate the elderly woman from the um rear from the next to front line area. Uh I believe the mission was successful. It's very popular. Uh so, what we see is that um well, actually, it's very dangerous, obviously, for civilians to be uh to to continue living in that zone. And the woman was living there for all these years of very intensive fighting. Uh and finally, she decided to evacuate, but she wasn't she she wouldn't be able to do that without the help of this uh robot. Um currently, medical evacuation and also logistical tasks are the main purposes of the use of ground robots in Ukraine and Ukrainian commanders want to delegate 100% of those missions to ground robots. Uh but also they are being increasingly used in the strike operations as well. We saw that they captured several Russian positions. Uh they Russian soldiers laid down weapons in front of ground drones. Um so, all these developments are real and and happening on the battlefield already.
You talk about FPV drones, first-person drone view drones. And you also we talk about and we have over over the weeks of the fishing nets that are starting to appear in some of the cities to try to defend against the drones and some sent by French fishermen as well, some basic measures to try to stop rapidly advancing technology. But what we're starting to see being exported as well is not the FPV drones, but the fiber optic drones particularly being used more and more in the past month reportedly by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tell us about what you're seeing in terms of the balance of the fiber optic drones, how they're working, how to understand basically am I right to say the way they work is you can get past the blocking techniques of technologies and they they can travel a great distance.
FPV fiber optic drones are well very similar by that by their technology, by their construction to usual FPV drones. They are the same with only one difference. The control is being done through the fiber optic cable. So it's a physical cable attached to the drone. These drones cannot reach very remote areas. So the distances they can travel are very limited. 25 km, 30 km. Well, there was actually the Russian case, the Russian report of fiber optic drone reaching 50 km range, but these are rare. So the the range is rather limited. Yes, their main advantage is that they cannot be jammed. They cannot be countered by electronic warfare measures. So they need to be disabled physically rather by by shooting down shooting them from firearms or by cutting their fiber optic cable. And that's actually a big problem on Ukraine's battlefield because Russia was able to field thousands of these systems last year. Russia has the production of fiber optic cable. Russia imports a lot of fiber optic cable from China. And that's why that that's one of the largest challenges on Ukraine's battlefield because there is no countermeasure that would address this type of threats on a very on a mass scale. So you need to deal with them one by one.
It's incredible to hear actually when it comes down to the techniques you can use to defend against them. As you said, literally shooting them down in in brief time we have before the the headlines are upon us, 30 seconds or so. Do you sense that Russia and Ukraine are on a par with their defense technology drone abilities right now or is one ahead of the other?
It is difficult to say. They both have different advantages and different weaknesses. For example, Ukraine is very innovative. So the scale of innovation, the speed of iteration is unbelievable. Just one month is a is a typical time when system becomes obsolete in Ukraine. So you need to iterate very fast both hardware and software. But at the same time Russia leads in its ability to scale. So Russia picks the most the most productive technology, for example, Shahed loitering munitions and then produces this type of systems in large quantities. The same is happening with fiber optic drones as we discussed. So then for Ukraine it is very.
The headlines are approaching ever nearer, but Elena, we will talk again no doubt because this technology is advancing fast. Thank you for your time tonight. Elena Kryshenitska, Ukraine defense analyst, specialist in drones, unmanned systems and founder of Ukraine's Arms Monitor publication. Stay with us, we'll be back in just a moment on France 24.