Exploding drones are proving a weapon unlike any other in Ukraine, and no one is safe, combat videos show

• Cheap exploding drones have a reputation as asymmetric tank killers, but they're more than that.
• These weapons are unlike any other threat in Ukraine and are reshaping combat.
• Footage show these things killing troops, even lone soldiers, in trenches, hideouts, and in the open.

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More and more, it isn't just tanks and armored vehicles falling prey to cheap hobby drones packed with explosives in Ukraine. These weapons are seemingly everywhere, killing not just unlucky vehicle crews but also dismounted infantry, sometimes even just a single soldier. Anything that moves is at risk.

"Welcome to the future. It sucks," a drone expert told Insider as combat footage from Ukraine on social media increasingly shows that nothing and no one is safe from these weapons.

While videos from the war still regularly show first-person-view (FPV) drones slamming into tanks, armored personnel carriers, and supply trucks, footage also frequently shows precision strikes on dugouts, troop hideouts, trenches, squads, and lone soldiers. 

The videos, a few of which appear in this article, are graphic images of the human cost of war and highlight just how much these weapons, really unlike anything else on the battlefield, are changing this conflict. As drone fleets grow and more pilots become trained on the technology, they're exacting heavy casualties on enemy troops and contributing to the war's increasingly static lines.

No other weapon is doing all of the things these unusual weapons do, from flying into vehicle hatches to chasing down soldiers. There's no missile, bomb, bullet, or artillery shell that can do these things, at least not like this.

Not only are there more of these drones out there, Samuel Bendett, a military robotics and unmanned systems researcher, told Insider, but drone operators are also engaging in so-called "free hunts," where they search for enemy targets and destroy what they find with the same drone.

"Earlier, FPV strikes took place only after it was scouted by an ISR drone," he said, referring to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations. "Now, FPV drones take off and look for the target while in flight," and when they find one, "they just strike it."

These drones, often cheap hobby-style racing drones that cost several hundred dollars and are equipped with plastic explosives or a rocket-propelled grenade warhead, fill a combat role somewhere between a sniper rifle, a missile, and artillery, eliminating both enemy vehicles and personnel.

And the effect of these one-way systems is magnified by the lack of combat airpower near the front lines due to the high risk of being shot down. If a drone goes down, a pilot just sends another one out.

"It is that technology that enables a very precise hit exactly where you want it," Bendett said.

"You can literally pilot it to any spot on a tank or an armored vehicle. You can maneuver it so that it strikes that very one small undefended area," he said. "That is why we're seeing videos of these literally flying into hatches, doors, dugouts."

The videos of drone strikes that show up on open-source intelligence channels on an almost daily basis are likely only a fraction of the drone operations being conducted, as many probably fail for any number of reasons, from being jammed to simply running out of battery.

But the effectiveness of the attacks, many of which have taken out tanks worth millions of dollars, has both Ukraine and Russia hunting one another's drone operators, often with exploding drones.

'This is the future of warfare'

The proliferation of exploding FPV drones, remotely operated systems able to deliver a heavy blow with an unparalleled precision, as well as other unmanned systems, is reshaping fighting in Ukraine.

While artillery and the expenditure of substantial amounts of ammunition are still defining elements of this conflict, a Ukrainian service member said in September his unit hadn't really fired its rifles in half a year and was often relying on drones.

The Ukrainian soldier said in a video posted online that "this is the future of warfare: shooting drones at each other rather than bullets or shells." Other troops have made similar comments, talking about abandoning more traditional weapons in favor of these deadly drones.

Bendett told Insider that this kind of fighting has the potential to lead to "sort of a stationary kind of impasse because each side can have its movements observed, tracked, and eventually hit."

"Any large scale movement becomes very dangerous," he said, adding that "ultimately, both sides acknowledge that anything that moves, anyone that moves can be observed, tracked, and potentially slammed with an FPV drone." From the videos, it's clear this is the state of the war today.