Page 33 - bne magazine February 2024_20240206

bne February 2024 Cover Story I 33
Ukraine has developed new long- range drones that can attack targets deep in Russian territory and are threatening both its oil and gas facilities near St Petersburg, the second largest city in Europe.
Ukraine hit Russia’s critical Ust-Luga oil and gas complex in Russia’s northwest on January 20, a distance of some 1,400km from Ukraine’s border that could halt oil and gas champion Novatek’s exports of petroleum products entirely.
The drones started a fire at the complex and narrowly missed causing much more severe damage as one drone fell only 15mn away from a full oil storage tank, according to reports. The plant, which accounts for all of Novatek’s exports of petroleum products, but
not LNG, has been shut down to effect repairs.
Russia’s main oil and gas fields in Siberia, however, at over 2,000km from Ukraine’s border, remain safely well out of range, but most of European Russia, bounded by the Ural mountains, where 80% of the population lives, is now in range.
Since the start of the war, Ukraine
has been developing kamikaze drone technology that can fly ever deeper into Russian territory. The first Ukrainian drones to reach Moscow came in a
little reported wave of drones launched against Russia from Ukraine at the end of February last year that got little play in the international press, as they caused little damage and only one person died.
That was followed by a far more spectacular drone attack on the Kremlin itself when two drones were shot down over the roofs of the mustard yellow building at around 4am in the morning in May last year. Since then, residential areas in Moscow have been hit a few times, but so far without causing any casualties, as it became clear Ukraine had developed better drones that can make the 700km journey from Ukraine’s border to Moscow.
That capability has now been extended, putting most of European Russia and the nearby oil and gas facilities, as well
as Russia’s biggest western oil export terminal at Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland, in range.
Drone tech
Drone innovation has been the hallmark of the Ukraine war. Early in the conflict, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) took cheap, commercially produced drones, and jury-rigged them by hanging Soviet- era grenades underneath that could
be remotely released by the operators
– often with deadly accuracy. On one occasion, an AFU operator dropped a grenade through the sunroof of a SUV killing several Russian soldiers who were attempting to evacuate their wounded during a firefight with Ukrainian
crowdfunding efforts, or “dronations.” At just one thousand dollars per unit, the small drones can be rapidly amassed and repurposed by operators for a specific effect,” the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) said in a note last week
Weaponized drones came to the fore when Azerbaijan used cheap but deadly Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones to great effect in the short Second Nagorno-Karabakh war with Armenia in 2020. The Bayraktar drones sent governments around the world scrambling to develop new and more effective drones. Ukraine in particular commissioned a Bayraktar TB2 drone factory.
“Early in the conflict, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) took cheap, commercially produced drones, and jury-rigged them by hanging Sovietera grenades underneath that could be remotely released by the operators”
forces. These drones have been used to counter Russia’s mechanised armour to devastating effect and many were bought with money raised by the public through “dronations.”
“Many of these “hobbyist” drones have been acquired through grassroots
“The TB2’s ability to carry multiple air-to-ground munitions and loiter for long periods allowed Ukrainian forces to penetrate Russian air defences and strike heavy targets. However, as time progressed and Russia took greater control of the skies, it was able to detect and shoot down these larger models
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