Additional Footage of "FPV" Drone Strikes Against Petrol/Gas Stations In Ukraine
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Viewing so-called “First Person Video” (“FPV”) drone footage from the Russia-Ukraine War is often a quite sordid affair. There are, however, several “genres” of “FPV” drone footage that are not only more palatable to non-sadistic audiences by virtue of not (directly) depicting the injuring or killing of any human beings but by offering a window into the new options—and new threats—enabled by technological change. One such “genre” is the employment of armed “FPV” drones, typically of the multirotor as opposed to the fixed-wing variety, against fixed—stationary—structures of various types. This dynamic is best characterized as the highly surgical micro-level targeting of fixed—stationary—sites, including critical infrastructure. While severely limited in terms of both range and destructive effects, technological change in the form of low-cost and plentiful armed “FPV” multirotor drones weighing just several kilograms allows militaries to attack an incredibly and unprecedentedly large and diverse (potential) target bank that was previously not possible due to the qualitative and/or quantitative limitations of strike capabilities broadly conceived.1
As armed “First Person Video” (“FPV”) multirotor drones, including those of the fiber optic (FO) uplink/downlink variety, become available in increasingly large numbers, the scope for using these inexpensive and plentiful uncrewed aircraft-turned-munitions against a broader range of targets increases. In a recent post, I covered the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones to target petrol/gas stations and similar local energy storage and distribution infrastructure in northeastern Ukraine, as well as one incident in which Ukrainian forces attacked a Russian gas/petrol station in Russia’s Belgorod province.
In another recent post, I covered the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones against energy transmission infrastructure in the Kherson metropolitan area by a different Russian Army drone group.
A Russian “FPV” drone unit operating across the Dnieper River from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson has released several videos indicating that the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones to attack local energy storage and distribution in a very surgical manner is expanding across the Russia-Ukraine War.
The Russian “FPV” drone unit operating in the northeastern sector of the Russia-Ukraine War has released a video that indicates the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones to target other petrol/gas stations beyond those covered in my recent post. As the following video indicates, armed “FPV” multirotor drones are being used to attack a variety of dual-use targets that are important to Ukraine’s war effort but would not be characterized as military targets of the type found on an ideal-type battlefield that does not exist in the Russia-Ukraine War.