It may be the first time a drone has destroyed a helicopter in mid-air.

It may be the first time a drone has destroyed a helicopter in mid-air.

Ukrainian forces deploy more than 100,000 explosive first-person-view drones a month all along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 28-month wider war on Ukraine. The drones smash into armored vehicles, chase down exposed infantry and follow artillery fire back to its origin in order to target Russian howitzers.

And today one of the small quadcopter drones—remotely steered by an operator wearing a virtual-reality headset—shot down a Russian helicopter, apparently for the first time.

Photos and videos that circulated on social media depict the Mil Mi-8 transport helicopter burning near Donetsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. “A speedy recovery to the survivors,” one Russian blogger wrote.

This new use of explosive drones has been a long time coming. As long ago as September, Ukrainian operators first tried ramming their flying robots into Russian helicopters mid-flight. The drone threat got so serious that the Russian air force began assigning some helicopters to escort other helicopters.

  • corsicanguppyEnglish
    116·
    2 months ago

    It’s be great if we cooled it with the chasing of infantry. If you’re chasing, then they’re running, and if they’re running away from ya it’s a war crime.

    I know, I know: Russia has been the poster-child for war crimes, with Israel. But we need to be people still at the end of this. So just maybe we don’t say “chasing”.

    • sandbox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      2 months ago

      That’s not true, it’s a war crime to shoot at enemies who have surrendered. Running away isn’t surrendering. There’s no way to tell if an enemy is running away to withdraw to better cover or because they intend to cease being a combatant all together. That’s why we have the requirement of surrender. If they were waving a white flag and got bombed, you’d have a point, but that’s clearly not what was described.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        1 month ago

        It’s even more brutal than that. There’s no requirement for air forces to take surrender into account because they cannot reasonably or effectively accept a surrender.

        The Ukrainian drones that have led surrendering Russians back to where they can be taken into custody is way above and beyond what’s required.

        • rasmus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          1 month ago

          But its better for Ukraina if the Russian soldier can trust that they can surrender safely so that they, hopefully more people do it.

        • corsicanguppyEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          no requirement for air forces

          To also identify and separate combatants and non-combatants before carpet-bombing? If you can’t spot one, you can’t spot the other.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 month ago

            That’s in regards to proportional force, not the rules around surrendering forces. They absolutely have to restrict themselves to proportional force.