After the DIY bomb printers back in Zaporizhzhia, I visited a larger-scale drone workshop in Kyiv that has been operating since December 2023. These guys have multiple 3D printers, and produce drones, drone detectors and other radio-controlled warfare and reconnaissance devices for use on the front lines.
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Sashko chatted to the drone-builders in Ukrainian, and later summarised for me. One of the members of the collective, who I’ll call Yevhen, used to work for a state enterprise where he assembled drones, both FPV (First Person View, i.e. a drone with a camera on it) and the larger ‘Baba Yaga’ model which is mostly used at night and is particularly feared by Russian soldiers. Although he received a good salary there, the company was mismanaged and staff ended up either working flat out – twelve hours a day – or idling with nothing to do. One worker died of a heart attack, attributed to the stress of the job. A few sat around watching Russian YouTube channels, to Yevhen’s annoyance.
Here’s a video of Baba Yaga drones in action.
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Yevhen had enough of the situation at the state enterprise and resigned. Now he has no salary, but is able to do much more useful work for the front line because the collective can organise their own time and resources, compared to a centralised state enterprise fulfilling commissions from the Ministry of Digital Transformation (which is responsible for technology and digitalisation). Ideally this ministry would become more efficient, but ‘efficiency’ and ‘government department’ seldom go well together anywhere in the world, so for now volunteers are picking up the slack.
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The picture set above shows three parts of a drone control system. On the left, the pole with the cap perched on top is a ground station, a transmitter for controlling drones. It’s powerful enough that the Russians might be able to detect and then destroy it. The grey box in the centre is part of a smaller, lower-powered transmitter. In the picture on the right: the green object is a power pack and the pink box contains more electronics.
The whole setup allows the drone operator to remain at a safe distance from the main transmitter that the Russians might detect and destroy.
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The Night Witches of WW2 now are drones!