Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.
Armed "FPV" multirotor drone footage from the Russia-Ukraine War is often viewed within the narrow context of that particular conflict. This newly released video captures Ukraine's use of armed "FPV" multirotor drones—of the radio frequency (RF) communication uplink/downlink variety as opposed to those of the fiber optic (FO) communication uplink/downlink variety—to attack a Russian train operating in Russian-controlled territory within Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region.
It is important to note that this video could just as easily depict the targeting of a freight train—or a passenger train—located essentially anywhere in the world. A hypothetical train targeted located elsewhere in the world may be transporting hazardous materials, it may be transporting large volumes of readily combustible petroleum products and/or chemicals in tank cars/wagons. A hypothetical targeted train located elsewhere in the world may more generally be transporting cargo that is of critical importance to a given country.
Although there already exist both possible and plausible countermeasures against such attacks, most countries will likely find it difficult to secure the entirety of their expansive railway networks and all their trains, not least in a context in which the threats to all forms of critically important infrastructure are also fast expanding. While inexpensive and, as such, plentiful armed "FPV" multirotor drones are severely limited in terms of both range—as well as endurance—and payload—which results in a limited destructive radius and a high reliance on secondary destructive effects against cargoes that readily combust and are ideally explosive in nature—the new possibilities for very surgical micro-level targeting should be alarming for those responsible for protecting critical infrastructure against attacks by both state and non-state armed actors in times of both war and peace. What happens in the Russia-Ukraine War and in other active conflicts is unlikely to be forever contained to such conflicts, the barriers to entry are distressingly low, and there are no fundamental reasons as to why such an attack cannot be undertaken elsewhere in the world.
While the above video is part of what continues to be a fairly rare genre of armed "FPV" multirotor drone strikes against mobile non-purely military targets located far from the frontlines, there is a steadily expanding library of footage capturing the use of armed "FPV" multirotor drones to undertake very surgical micro-level attacks against stationary infrastructure, including both local energy storage and distribution and electricity generation and transmission, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War. This notably includes the use of armed "FPV" multirotor drones of the fiber optic communication uplink/downlink variety to target specific machinery located inside an otherwise enclosed building. Such attacks can, of course, also take place essentially anywhere else in the world.
Footage of tank cars/wagons loaded being targeted and set aflame. While the destructive effects and radius of the onboard warhead are very limited, some targets such as these tank cars/wagons are—when loaded/filled—highly susceptible to secondary destructive effects that dwarf the primary destructive effects of the warhead.