On May 15th, Rishi Sunak made a startling announcement. His government would provide Storm Shadow, an air launched cruise missile, to Ukraine.
The commitment was a serious increase to Ukraine’s standoff capabilities that are already paying dividends for the Ukrainian military.
Storm Shadow was not the only promise Sunak made. Nestled into that announcement was a commitment to supply “hundreds” of attack drones for Ukraine to use.
Written by Marcel Plichta, a former Analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense and PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews. He has written on the use of drones in the Ukraine conflict for the Atlantic Council, The Telegraph, and the Spectator.
This article is the opinion of the authors and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
Details were limited but the range (200km or more), number of drones (hundreds), and their role (attack), suggests that Sunak is referring to a fixed-wing one-way attack drone similar to those Ukraine uses to strike Russian occupied Crimea and Russia itself.
Tactical drones like quadcopters usually do not have a range in the hundreds of kilometers, and the UK would not be able to deliver hundreds of advanced reusable drones in the near term.
Production and delivery of attack drones should be a short-term priority for aiding Ukraine. Making and sending a large quantity of inexpensive drones will not impact the UK’s readiness and will both degrade the Russian military and support UK drone manufacturers.
The drones were set to arrive “in the coming months,” but there has been no subsequent reporting about attack drone transfers, nor any indication that they are in development. The UK was reportedly interested in developing one way attack drones in early 2023, but only for prototypes that used methods like 3D printing to make the airframes. Given that the UK works with manufacturers like QinetiQ UK that can quickly adapt existing airframes and drones for Ukraine, the lack of focus is costing valuable time.
Delays in making and sending drones to Ukraine is all the more curious because it does not threaten U.K. national security. Sending inexpensive drones is much easier for the military to account for than sending a dwindling number of tanks and armored vehicles from storage. Sending drones is also not escalatory given that the provision of Storm Shadow, a much more capable weapon, did not lead to a significant Russian response.
Ukraine has an immediate need for attack drones with long range. For much of the conflict, Ukraine could not hit Russian depots, headquarters, and airfields behind the front line. The sudden ability to strike those sites regularly creates a serious dilemma for Russia as its leadership chooses between keeping most air defense near the front lines to deter Ukraine’s aircraft, or diverting some air defense systems to protect key facilities in the rear.
Ukraine developed and used several different kinds of one-way attack drones against Russia, but they are struggling to scale up domestic production. Ukrainian drones struck airfields across Russia in August, but a limited number of drones prevents the air campaign from reaching its full potential. Deliveries of British drones eases the short-term pressure on Ukrainian drone makers as they establish mass production. Even if the UK requires that their drones only be used against military targets in occupied Ukraine, that frees up Ukrainian-made systems for use in longer range attacks. There are plenty of valuable targets within occupied territory, including the Black Sea Fleet vessels stationed in Sevastopol.
With sufficient long range drones, Ukraine could match the tempo of Russia’s drone campaign against Ukrainian cities. Since September 2022, Russia has used approximately 2,000 Iranian made Shahed drones against Ukraine’s cities, energy grid, and grain silos. Russia can maintain a high tempo of attack with dozens of drones because it has a much larger inventory than Ukraine. While it was ineffective at forcing Ukraine to the negotiating table, Moscow’s campaign creates huge air defense dilemmas for Ukraine and spurred assistance with air defence from NATO countries. Ukraine hopes to put Russia in the same position, but without the same number of international backers and a focus on military targets.
Producing drones stands to benefit the U.K. as much as it does Ukraine. It boosts the UK’s drone industry, but making a low-cost drone with long range also has potential for export and use in training and targeting. Many NATO countries do not have the budget to procure and maintain a large fleet of missiles or other sophisticated standoff weapons. Attack drones, however, are cheap enough for smaller NATO countries to acquire and demonstrably effective at imposing costs of conventional adversaries like Russia.
The UK military will also need similar platforms for training purposes since cheap one-way attack drones are a growing threat to naval operations and expeditionary warfare. Countries like Poland and Turkey have companies like the WB Group and Baykar that are investing heavily in drones with an eye for export. UK firms need not be left behind.
It is important to hold to government to its promise to Ukraine. Kyiv demonstrated that it can use long-range drones to great effect, and that it can use them in occupied and Russian territory without civilian casualties. Forcing Russia to move their air defence to secure every facility within 700km of the front will make it safer for Ukrainian pilots and harder for Russia to blunt Ukraine’s offensives.
I wouldn’t go with just because we haven’t heard doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Ukraine really needs loads more stuff. They are fighting one of the biggest land forces in the world.
In WW2 the U.K. gave 0.8% gdp to the Soviet Union annually in aid. We currently give 0.2% to Ukraine.
We didn’t know that we had supplied ASRAAM mounted on a SupCat to Ukraine until it was spotted months after they were supplied, we were all speculating about what was meant when Air Defence was mentioned in an announcement. Sensible to give as little information as possible, hey MKs successor might be watching. Seriously though even the briefest of reports can give away valuable details that can help counter them considering much of the technology will be commercially available.
I would rather they just did the basic announcements. Some drones valued at x amount is fine. Don’t need exact number, type etc.
It’s a nice surprise when someone works it out later. Asraam supacat, tornado pylon on su24 etc.
Let’s just up the supply and build more stuff for Ukraine.
Personally I’m for only mentioning stuff well after it is making an impact on the field and the cat is well out of the bag.
I remember the announcement and remember thinking, Rishi is full of s**t, we don’t have any long range attack drones.
Probably the usual slip of the tongue from politicians that don’t know what they are doing, just like last week when’s Grant Snaps gave the RAF two aircraft carriers.
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“”supply doesn’t necessitate that we manufacture or already possess – just ordering, paying for & have delivered by somebody else would meet the remit.
Giving Ukraine the supply contacts specs and ability to produce home produced drones of UK design would be a way better way of doing this. Drones produced in Ukraine can be fired into Russia and not break any limits on their use. Funnily enough Ukraine has long range drones doing just that and the us has supplied industrial 3d printers.
We dont but others do that we can simply order and have shipped to Ukraine, doesnt mean it isnt and hasnt happened does it.
I think supplying Storm Shadow is coming very good on the politicians word that occasionally they do what they say, even you must be able to see that.
Agreed we have done that with other items like AMRAAM for for missile defence systems. Not sure we likely advertised to Hitler how many Spitfires and Hurricanes we were supplying to Russia. Certainly it’s still not known how many of various US aircraft were ever sent to Russia.
https://www.forcesoperations.com/delair-livrera-plus-de-150-drones-aux-forces-ukrainiennes/
Delair will send 150 drones. Never heard of them before. They seem to be simple machines.
I just don’t get the logic in some of this rhetoric, just because we haven’t heard anything doesn’t mean it isn’t happening ! Why advertise everything as some sort of political boast ? Far better to quietly announce things after the fact or just wait for the Orcs to announce they have landed and then just say nowt.
Just like how we announced the delivery of Storm Shadow to Ukraine but neglected to say how we had quietly already integrated them for the Ukrainian SU24’s.
The drone dilemma will be high on all NATO member priority lists. For defence purposes, a combination of jamming* together with airborne anti-drone swarms over critical sites seems a possible response. Not like the Government & population haven’t
a) suffered massive bombing before (repaid with considerable interest during WW2)
b) lived under the threat of MAD and lower yield tactical weapons ever since
We’d cope well enough with adequate commitment
Still more concerned by the extent to which our economy is evidently in hoc to China over manufacturing & the essential worldwide resources required for future technologies. That and their attempted control of the Lines of Communication.
Many companies and nations will be absorbing as much data as possible from Ukraine to make decisions on future purchases in the drone field.
Use of them is clearly a major factor in conflict now.
One upshot of this war for the UK is that it’s changed what made the military useful for Prime Ministers.
It used to be that they were only interested in special forces, presumably with a streaming headcam for them to watch through.
But now politicians get to do things with missiles and tanks so perhaps they’ll start to see them as politically valuable too?
I have not researched uk drone industry , but get impression uk is in the stoneage and always developing instead of building the drones. With all the skills base in uk , especially air skills base this must surely be an industry where uk could do very well. Its my impression that the top brass of armed forces are really behind the curve in thinking. Uk should have thousands ready to go for use with infantry platoon and battalion brigade level , but we clearly have not developed these structures yet
Yep my only knowledge is a few years working for an RC company as consumer drones were literally taking off. All were sourced either directly from what were being produced in China generically or were designed here and then Chinese Companies were used to produce them under contract using appropriate locally produced electronics. That only changes as you go way up the scale but I suspect you have to go pretty high before you get into much non Chinese origin but generally of Japanese, German or US origin and beyond that where very specialist technology is used which while being far more military orientated start to get ultra expensive. Whatever the UK manufacturer below the likes of Bae I suspect virtually everything electronic used will be of foreign origin.
I feel that this article is somewhat disgenerious , in it fails to mention that these past few months the Ukraine has started hitting Russian assets well inside the country with UAVs of unknown origin, but due to the countries helping Ukraine banning their weapons to be used outside its internationally recognised borders. Kyiv has obviously received help regards its new drone fleets (be it sea or air) even more interesting is how it came out in the wash this week , that the US has supplied the Ukraine with industrial 3 d printing fabs. According to Bill La Plante, US undersecretary of defence. “it is changing the ball game” of how quickly Ukraine’s military is able to repair trucks, rocket systems and other weaponry or equipment provided by the West over the last 18 months.”
Whos to say others havn’t already handed over one such fab.
Thanks Marcel for this fascinating article. Just a note that for a UK audience Miles is the primary distance measure, not km. Continental Europe uses km; I thought the USA was primarily miles too.
What HMG says & does are usually pretty detached. Terrible state of affairs but a sad reality. Especially in terms of defence when it often gives a false rosy impression while grinding capability down to dangerous levels.
I hope the shrillest complaints for lack of substance or tardiness is from UKR herself, suffering huge damage & casualties daily from inadequate western support, for all we have done & provided so far.
If we’d donated/provided the kit we have come to now or in planning sooner after the invasion, we’d be far ahead of where we are now. All we’ve done is allow more oxygen & room for Russia to run amock & more civilians to die. Putin has been free to ecalate at will.
Indeed!
I don’t understand the negative tone either.
Storm Shadow has been delivered and has been very, very effective. Just ignore anything the Telegraph’s resident naysayer, Lewis Page, comes out with. Ask Mr Zelensky – he things it is a good weapon – sadly we have a finite supply.
The fact we kept quiet about the SU integration was probably to make sure the SU’s didn’t become the primary target.
Drones are coming from somewhere?
Maybe AUS have supplied a kit to stamp out the cardboard wings etc and and they are getting some kids to glue them together? Even the Germans might supply waxed cardboard 🙂
Maybe UK is contract manufacturing the PCB’s and controls and sending them over as a kit for local assembly?
Maybe UK is supplying a variety of pre-made charges to be fitted to the drones?
I gave no idea: but there are many ways to help an ingenious and determined ally.
WHY should it, Explain why the UK taxpayer should Arm Ukraine for an offensive rather than a defensive. UK provided Tanks, USA provided a Promise. defending Ukraine is on thing, but did Notice all those Ukrainian men of fighting age sat in Poland watching a football match, another group in the UK run up a £150k electricity bill while camped in a empty Department store
probaby banshe drone with warhead