The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on January 8th that their airbase in Syria was attacked by drones on the night of January 5th. The drone strike is the latest in the series of several other attacks on Russian forces in Syria. Russian military officers have no clue who is attacking them over and over. The Defense Ministry said that a total of 13 drones attacked the airbase. He described them as “massive application of unmanned aerial vehicles.” The drones targeted two separate locations.
Russian anti-aircraft managed to neutralize seven of the drones that attacked while the rest of the drones did not cause much damage after they exploded upon touching the ground. When the drones were examined, the military officers discovered that they are all crudely assembled. All the drones were carrying locally made bombs which were fitted in small plastic fins under the wings. Russian Defense Ministry’s official post said, “It was the first time when terrorists applied a massed drone aircraft attack launched at a range of more than 50 km using the modern GPS guidance system.”
Drones that attacked Russian Airbase were more likely remote controlled. Drones have been used in various form during warfare since the 19th century. However, this is the first time that a swarm of drones has been employed in the modern defense programs. Duke Robotics, a defense contractor, has a similar project under work currently. They are building an ordinary looking, multi-rotor drone called the TIKAD. No matter how ordinary it is, it is not a regular hobby drone since it is armed with a high-powered rifle.
The advocates of drone warfare call it the future of military operations. According to them, there is no need to put the lives of human soldiers in danger when a drone can perform their work for them. Deploying smaller drones in the war zone can also end up becoming cheaper than using a regular UAV for example Predator. The unknown attackers are definitely up to something even if they are making use of crude and home-made drones that bombed the Russian forces. This was the first time that a group of drones attempted to attack anywhere, however, this won’t end here and there will be more attacks to come in future.