After a long hiatus, the Bayraktar TB-2 twin-tail boom medium altitude, medium endurance (MAME) drone is once again carrying out strike missions against Russian forces. The most recent example came on Wednesday, in an attack on a Russian boat and troops on the Black Sea coast.
Though limited in numbers, these strikes mark a resurgence of sorts for a weapon so effective in the early days of the all-out war against Russian land convoys and vessels that a song was written about it. While still used to surveil less contested areas, the propeller-driven drones had receded from the front lines as a strike weapon due to their vulnerability to Russian air defense and electronic warfare.
“The Navy destroyed another high-speed boat of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which was trying to deliver an airborne troops unit to the Tendrivska Spit. 7 occupiers were destroyed, 4 wounded,” the Ukrainian Navy said on Telegram. While the Navy did not say how the strike took place, a video on the post shows the surveillance and attack from the view through the Bayraktar’s distinctive video feed symbology.
Several weeks earlier, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) released a video of a TB-2 strike on another small Russian boat, this time near Zaliznyi Port in the Kherson region, about 30 miles southeast of the Spit. TB-2s drop small guided weapons, allowing them to strike multiple objects on a single sortie.
In June, the Ukrainian Navy showed a video of a TB-2 attack on a Russian landing craft on Kherson’s west coast.
Before that, however, there was a long pause in the use of the TB-2 to carry out attacks.
Ukraine began using these drones, made by the Turkish Baykar company, even before the onset of the full-on war. The first reported strike came in October 2021 when it was used to destroy a 122mm D-30 howitzer belonging to Russian-backed separatist forces in the country’s eastern Donbas region that Ukrainian authorities said was responsible for killing one of its soldiers and wounding another.
The TB-2 would go on to play a big role for Ukraine in the early part of the full-on war as an unmanned platform able to conduct both strike and reconnaissance missions. Bayraktar attacks were pivotal to stopping the long Russian mechanized columns heading toward Kyiv.
The TB-2s also helped Ukraine recapture Snake Island in the Western Black Sea by attacking targets on the rocky outcropping and ships trying to access it.
This success gave Ukraine a rare glimmer of hope during a time when its future as an independent nation was on the line. In February 2022, Ukrainian artist Taras Borovok released a catchy song about the Bayraktar drones that went viral online.
By March 2022, at least 26 TB-2s had been destroyed, according to the Oryx open-source tracking group. The actual figures could be significantly higher because Oryx only tabulates losses for which there is visual evidence.
“Russia began adapting to the TB2 threat,” the Ukrainian United24 media outlet noted in June. “Improved electronic warfare and layered air defense systems made it increasingly difficult for large, slow drones to operate safely. Ukrainian officials acknowledged that TB2s had become highly vulnerable to Russian systems like Pantsir-S1, Buk, and Tor.”
By 2023, the Ukrainian military had largely withdrawn the Bayraktars from attack roles, instead focusing on “reconnaissance, target designation, and rare strikes in lightly defended areas,” United24 pointed out.
You can see one example of a TB-2 destroyed by Russian air defenses in the following video.
The recent return of the Bayraktars as strike weapons has been made possible by constant Ukrainian attacks on Russian air defenses in Crimea and Kherson, both Ukrainian and Russian sources note.
Yesterday’s Bayraktar attack “is particularly significant given that Ukraine’s Defense Forces appear to have systematically worked to make such missions possible by suppressing Russian air defense systems — interestingly, also through the use of unmanned technologies,” the Ukrainian Defense Express news outlet noted on Thursday.
“Previously, the ‘Bayraktars’ had already operated in the Spit area, but were used exclusively in reconnaissance mode from a distance, not risking getting close to strike, as they would inevitably become victims of air defense,” the Russian Military Informer Telegram channel posited on Wednesday. “Now, apparently due to regular strikes by Ukrainian drones [launched from boats] with Starlink on air defense and radar on the coast of Kherson region and Crimea, Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2s have received a corridor for freer operation.”
The following video shows one example of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian air defenses and radar systems.
Ukraine has also been executing an ongoing suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) campaign for years now, including using fighter-launched AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs) and guided glide bombs to reach across the front lines and takeout anti-air systems. This is backed by persistent intelligence gathering, especially across the radio-frequency spectrum. TB-2s operating near the far western reaches of Russian-held territory would make sense as this is an area where these anti-air defense tactical jet operations would have occurred regularly.
Ukraine’s long-range campaign against highly-prized Russian air defenses in Crimea is also topic that The War Zone has also frequently addressed. As we noted in a previous story: “Taking out these systems potentially opens holes in Russia’s air defense overlay of the peninsula and the northwestern Black Sea. This could go a long way to ensuring the survivability of standoff strike weapons, like Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG, and other attacks, such as those by long-range kamikaze drones.” The loss of these systems could also help via a reduction in situational awareness over the skies of southern Ukraine.
Openings for use of the TB-2 may have also increased because of fighting for the Tendrivska Spit. This is a narrow stretch of land in Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast on the shore of the northern Black Sea. It is also the furthest west Russian troops have reached so far. The littoral nature of this area and its terrain may also limit the deployment of Russian short-range air defense systems.
Beyond land-based air defenses, interceptor drones are increasingly used by both sides to attack enemy drones.
“Russian military forces use the Tendra Spit as a stronghold for observation and conducting operations in the northern part of the Black Sea,” the Ukrainian Militarnyi media outlet noted on Wednesday. “In particular, the invaders deploy relay stations there to extend the flight range of reconnaissance and strike drones.”
While the TB-2’s use for strike missions in this area points to a safer block of airspace to operate in, it is surely not without major-risk. The advantage of the TB-2 is that if it is shot down no crew is lost. No combat search and rescue effort is needed. And a precious manned tactical aircraft is not stricken from the Ukrainian Air Force’s roster. In other words, the TB-2s can be risked where manned platforms cannot. This is especially important as the TB-2s, like manned tactical aircraft, can dynamically attack moving targets of opportunity, something most standoff weapons cannot.
Another factor for the use of TB-2s for a wide variety of missions, including risky ones, is that they are now being produced in Ukraine. Of note is that Russia recently attacked the facility near Kyiv where these are being made. This was the fourth strike in six months at a factory where tens of millions of dollars had been invested.
A few uses of the Bayraktar as a strike weapon don’t mean that these drones are now going to be a regular feature of Ukraine’s aerial strike force. However, these attacks show Ukraine’s ability to quickly adapt to battlefield conditions and take advantage of seams and openings created in Russian air defenses. It also puts into question the exact state of Russia’s vaunted air defense overlay that extends into Ukrainian-help territory. After years of being battered, significant cracks could be showing.
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