Ukraine's Turkish-made drones face off against advanced Russian military

A TB2 Bayraktar takes flight. (Bayraktar)

WASHINGTON: As the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to unfold, the Ukrainian military has flown a Turkish-made drone that has garnered attention in recent years for its tank-killing capabilities.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces Facebook page announced that its troops launched Turkish-made TB2 Bayraktars, a medium-sized tactical unmanned aerial vehicle that can carry anti-tank missiles, as the Russian military invaded in the early hours Thursday morning.

According to the Baykar website, the TB2 UAV can fly up to 138 miles per hour and can carry four smart munitions, or up to 330 pounds. It can also carry an ISR payload. The drone is about 39 feet long with a wingspan of 21 feet with an operational altitude is 18,000 feet. It has also notably seen real-world action, providing a sense of what its capabilities and drawbacks are on the battlefield.

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The TB2 Bayraktar has been deployed in several conflicts in recent years. The Turkish government has used the system against both Syrian and Kurdish forces in the Middle East. It was also employed by the Azerbaijani military against Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, where the UAV was known for its success targeting Armenian air defense systems and tanks, largely older Russian-made equipment. But the outcome may be different against a more modern military.

“We learned from Nagorno-Karabakh that when countries have the capacity to operate armed drones on the battlefield, and air defenses are less of a concern, that drones can play an important role in anti-armor warfare,” said Michael Horowitz, a professor at University of Pennsylvania.

But while the drone proved itself useful in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020 and in Syria, it now faces a much more capable adversary.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently wrote in an op-ed for Breaking Defense that a conflict between Russia and Ukraine would provide insight into the usefulness of the modern tank on the battlefield, an aspect of land warfare that has been questioned by some experts in the aftermath of the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Reuters, citing research from London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, reported that Russia is estimated to have 2,840 main battle tanks.

“It’s different because you have two opponents who have more sophisticated militaries than what you had in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Cancian said in an interview. “The Russians, of course, have a pretty much top notch military.”

Sam Bendett, a Russian military expert who works as an adviser to the CNA think tank, said that “The Russian military has claimed that Bayraktars will not necessarily be a big threat to a force like Russia, because of Russia’s advanced early warning radars, advanced electronic warfare capabilities, and its layered air defense.”

He noted that the TB2 drones’ successes in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh came against older Soviet-made air defense systems because its low-flying and not built for speed, which makes it more vulnerable to advanced air defense systems. The United States and its allies have also provided Ukrainian forces with Javelin’s to defend against Russian tanks.

“So they could see Bayraktars from afar, they could identify it faster, and they could launch several types of countermeasures against it,” Bendett said.

Russian state media said Thursday that its military had shot down four TB2s, although claims of success in Ukraine from both sides of the conflict are hard to prove at this point.

Ukraine bought six TB2 UAVs from Turkish drone-maker Baykar for $69 million in 2019, according to Defense News, with the first drone delivered to the Ukrainian Navy in July last year. In October, the UAV was used against a Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, the first time it was used by the Ukrainian military in combat. The Ukrainian government signaled it was wants to buy 24 more TB2 drones, and since agreed with Turkey to co-produce the drone at a facility in Ukraine, Defense News reported.

For the last several years, according to a 2021 report on the Russian military from CNA, Moscow has studied the conflicts in Syria and the Nagorno-Karabakh and learned the challenges that drones could provide on the battlefield. Since then, Bendett said, the electronic warfare and counter-UAS training are nearly “synonymous.” According to a report from the Washington Post, the Russia’s Defense Ministry has posted photos of counter-TB2 training.

“They [the Russian military] are aware that Bayraktar is the most advanced tactical UAV in the employ of the Ukrainian military, and they’ve also been learning and practicing how to deal with that threat,” Bendett said.