Last time we checked in on terrifying drone developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians were dropping molten thermite along Russian trench lines and attaching surface-to-air missiles to naval drones.
Possessing a far smaller population than Russia, Ukraine has pinned its hopes in significant part on drone warfare, and hundreds of companies and organizations across the country are building everything from tiny aerial attack drones to massive ground-crawling, machine gun-toting minelayers. (And this is to say nothing of all the innovation happening in Western defense companies like AeroVironment.)
Here are just a few of the drone warfare innovations that have appeared in public sources over the last few months.
Motherships
Ukraine has, for some time, fielded large “mothership” drones that can carry and eventually deploy a set of smaller attack drones. This approach can, for example, get light and fast FPV attack drones behind the front lines before releasing them, thereby extending the attack drones’ limited range.
But it was only this week that I came across footage of a mothership drone launching an attack drone to take down a much larger Russian surveillance drone. In the video, the mothership gets in position above and behind the Russian drone, then launches a small quadcopter drone that races toward the Russian drone and explodes. Fragments of both drones float down as the mothership films the action.
Drones launching drones to attack other drones—welcome to war in 2025.
A drone with two shotgun barrels, out hunting another drone.
Shotguns
Since the start of the war, the Ukrainians have been strapping everything imaginable to their drones, from grenades to mines to RPGs to thermite. Given their recoil, guns have been a bigger challenge, but this hasn’t stopped drone makers from trying.