According to the Ukrainian government minister for technology, the country has purchased some 1,400 drones, largely for reconnaissance, and aims to build military variants that can strike the explosive drones Russia has employed in its ongoing war with Ukraine.
Mykhailo Fedorov, minister of digital transformation, told AP that the conflict is the first major war in the internet era. He attributed the transformation of the fight to drones and satellite internet networks like Elon Musk's Starlink.
Ukrainian SU-27 fighters escort an SU-24 fron-line bomber during an air force exercises on Starokostyantyniv military airbase on October 12, 2018. - The large-scale air force exercises with the United States and other NATO countries "Clear Sky 2018", which will run until October 19, are being held in western Ukraine.
War of Drones
Ukraine has invested in small unmanned aerial vehicles like the Fly Eye that are used for intelligence gathering, combat surveillance, and reconnaissance.
In recent weeks, Russian authorities had claimed that Ukrainian drones had attacked several of their military installations, including one on Monday, when they claimed that Russian forces shot down a drone that was nearing the Engels airbase, more than 600 kilometers (over 370 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Three servicemen were killed by debris, according to the Russian military, but no aircraft were harmed. The facility is home to the Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers with nuclear weapons that have been used to attack Ukraine, according to AP.
The Ukrainian government has never openly admitted carrying out such drone operations, but AP notes that they have made cryptic references to other forms of reprisal Russia may anticipate for its conflict in Ukraine.
According to Fedorov, Ukraine is researching and developing drones that could combat and destroy other drones.
Russia has recently been conducting airstrikes in Ukrainian territory using drones created by Iran along with cruise missiles, artillery operations, and rockets.
Need for Mobile Communications
The minister emphasized the need for mobile communications for both military and civilian needs throughout the conflict and noted that the areas in the country's center and east, including Kyiv, Odesa, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia had been the hardest to maintain service in.
He claimed that occasionally, less than half of Kyiv's mobile phone towers are operational because Russian airstrikes have damaged the infrastructure that supports them.
The government of Ukraine is currently preparing to connect the 30,000 mobile phone towers to generators so they can continue to operate even if airstrikes disrupt the electrical infrastructure.
Ukrainians may begin to rely more heavily on satellite networks like Starlink since there is now no other choice if blackouts start lasting longer, according to AP.
There are now about 24,000 Starlink stations running in Ukraine. Fedorov tweeted a request to Musk, who promptly started producing them during the early stages of the conflict through his company, SpaceX.
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