- The war in Ukraine has spawned drones packed with explosives modified with fiber optic cables.
- These drones are dangerous, as they cannot be jammed with electronic warfare and are more difficult to detect.
- But a Ukrainian company is developing a solution so frontline soldiers can find the drones.
Russian forces are using drones packed with explosives linked to their operators by fiber-optic cables to carry out unsurpassed precision attacks on Ukrainian troops and military equipment, and Kiev is looking for a solution to fight back.
Fiber optic drones have been appearing more and more in combat over the past year, and they are a challenge. These drones are dangerous because they cannot be jammed with traditional electronic warfare and are difficult to defend against, highlighting the need for a solution.
Drones are “a real problem” because “we can’t detect and intercept” them electronically, Yuriy, a major in an electronic warfare unit of Ukraine’s National Guard, told Business Insider. “If we can see, we can fight.”
The problem is one that the defense industry is taking a close look at. Kara Dag, for example, is an American-Ukrainian technology company that is developing software and hardware to defend against Russian drones for the military and is working on a solution, but it’s still early days.
The company’s chief technology officer, who goes by the pseudonym John for security purposes, said the ongoing conflict is a “war of drones”. He said that BI Ukraine had managed this war well with jamming techniques, but Russia had found ways to slip through some of its defenses.
The fiber-optic drones that Russia appears to have begun flying into battle last spring are first-person-view, or FPV, drones, but instead of relying on a signal link, they are connected to cables that maintain a stable connection. As a result, these drones are resistant to electronic warfare, such as radio frequency jammers, and produce high-quality video transmissions.
A Russian soldier launches an FPV drone in an undisclosed location in November 2024. Press Service of the Russian Ministry of Defense through AP
In August, combat footage from Russian fiber-optic drones began circulating, showing a more consistent presence on the battlefield. Now, both militaries are using these drones.
Fiber optic drones are very dangerous, John said, as they can fly in tunnels, close to the ground, through valleys and other areas where other drones can lose contact with their operators. They are also difficult to detect because they do not emit any radio signals.
Russia could use these drones to destroy Ukraine’s armored vehicles and study its defense positions, he said. Since they don’t have bandwidth issues, these drones “can transmit very high-quality images, and they literally see everything.”
However, drones are not without their disadvantages. Yuriy said that fiber optic drones are slower than untethered FPV drones and are unable to make sharp changes in direction. He said that neither Russia has many of these drones nor does it use them in every direction of the front line. But where they are used, they are a problem.
Because jamming does not work on fiber-optic drones, efforts are underway to explore other options for stopping these systems, such as audio and visual detection. But this kind of technology can be expensive and difficult to produce.
A Ukrainian fiber-optic drone is seen during a test flight in the Kiev region in December 2024. Photo by Viktor Fridshon/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
John said the company has developed a low-cost solution to locate drones with fiber optics. One element of this system is an array of dozens of microphones that can be focused on a point in the sky to listen to any nearby drones. The second element is an unfocused infrared laser that highlights any object in a certain area of the sky while a camera records any reflected light that comes back.
It is a single device that can be deployed about one kilometer from troop positions. John said the device is in laboratory testing and the next step is to put it in real combat conditions on the front lines next month. The plan is to eventually produce several thousand of these devices each month.
The introduction of fiber-optic drones into battle — and Ukraine’s subsequent efforts to counter them — underscores how Moscow and Kiev are constantly trying to innovate with unmanned systems before the enemy can adapt, a trend that has been visible throughout the war.
In an earlier interview with BI, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, described the drone technology and race being played out in this war as a “cat-and-mouse game.” He said that Kiev is trying to stay a few steps ahead of Moscow at all times.
The Ukrainian military said last month that it was testing fiber-optic drones, adding that “FPV drones with this technology are becoming a big problem for the enemy on the front line.”
On Tuesday, a Ukrainian government platform that facilitates innovation within the country’s defense industry shared new footage of fiber-optic drone demonstrations on social media. Russia, if it hasn’t already, may soon find itself working to counter these new drones as well.
