US Is Transferring Large Suicide Drones to Ukraine to Kill Russians
"I'm convinced that when we get the first set of Switchblades in, there will be an immediate request from the Ukrainians for more"
Source: The Week
The $300 million lethal aid package for Ukraine that the Pentagon announced Friday will include the latest Switchblade combat drones, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed Tuesday.
According to Bloomberg, the White House previously announced a shipment of “series 300” Switchblade drones, which weigh 3.3 pounds, can fly about six miles and stay aloft for about 15 minutes, and are “designed to attack personnel and light vehicles” with a warhead roughly equivalent to a 40mm grenade.
The Switchblade-600 drones to which Austin referred, Bloomberg reports, weigh 50 pounds, can fly over 24 miles and stay aloft for 40 minutes, and and have the capability to destroy tanks.
Writing for The Spectator on Tuesday, Sam Cranny-Evans explains that the Switchblade-300 “is launched from a tube,” is “about the size of a baguette,” and “is fitted with an explosive warhead,” noting that the warhead on the Switchblade-600 is the same one used by Javelin anti-tank missiles.
For both models, the “operator flies the drone into an area of interest before detecting, identifying, and attacking a target with lethal effect,” Cranny-Evans added. Switchblade drones are sometimes referred to as “kamikaze drones” because they crash into their targets and explode on contact.
Source: Reuters
A small number of Ukrainians have been trained in the United States on how to operate killer “Switchblade” drones, single-use weapons that fly into their targets and detonate on impact, a senior U.S. defense official disclosed on Wednesday.
The Ukrainians undergoing training on the Switchblades and other weaponry number less than a dozen. They had arrived in the United States for regular military education programs prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
“We took advantage of the opportunity to pull them aside for a couple of days and provide them some training, particularly on the Switchblades UAV,” the senior U.S. defense official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “UAV” refers to an unmanned aerial vehicle.
The United States withdrew its military advisers from Ukraine ahead of Russia’s invasion, seeking to avoid a direct military confrontation between U.S. and Russian forces that could escalate into a broader war.
As a result of the withdrawal, the United States and NATO have largely constrained their provision of weaponry to Ukraine to systems that Ukrainian forces knew how to operate prior to Russia’s invasion.
That includes U.S. weapons that have given Ukraine an edge against Russian forces, like Javelin anti-tank missiles and portable Stinger surface-to-air missiles that can target Russian aircraft. It also includes Soviet-era systems that are still in the inventories of some NATO nations.
But Switchblades, which are relatively easy-to-use and could be highly effective in attacking Russian ground forces, had not been part of training packages prior to Russia’s invasion. The drones are made by AeroVironment Inc.
The drones, which have a range of 40 km (25 miles), can be used against vehicles including trucks, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
In recent testimony, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, said the United States had committed to sending Ukraine 100 Switchblade systems.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday that the Pentagon is sending Ukraine two variants of the Switchblade, including one with an anti-armor warhead.
“The Switchblade 600 and 300 will move as quickly as they possibly can,” Austin told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
Ukrainians are expected to quickly use the first 100 systems sent.
“I’m convinced that when we get the first set of Switchblades in, there will be an immediate request from the Ukrainians for more,” the top U.S.commander in Europe, Air Force General Tod Wolters, told Congress on March 30.
The senior U.S. official declined to say on Wednesday where in the United States the training of Ukrainians was taking place or offer more information on other weapons systems they’re being trained on.
“Our expectation is that these individuals will be heading back into Ukraine relatively soon as they were originally anyway,” the official told reporters.
So what is the Russian plan to interdict weapons and other equipment shipments coming into Ukraine from Poland or elsewhere?
Do they have one?
I know they’ve struck a few locations in western Ukraine, but it seems to me that implementing a comprehensive surveillance and targeting plan, using satellites, drones, manned aircraft and missile strikes, would be one of their top priorities at the moment. Yet I see very little on the subject even on sites that are providing generally good information about the war.
And that’s the point.
The Kremlin doesn’t know either.
I can see Russia providing weapons to places where the US is at war. After all, tit for tat is perfectly fair.
Yes, no doubt. But that’s longer-term. What Russia needs right now is a way to stop what we’re sending into Ukraine. And frankly, it doesn’t seem to me that it is that overwhelming a task given that they can position assets in Belarus and Transnistria.