You Decide: Boy Scouts Project or Weapon of War — Ukraine Shows Off Captured Drone Oddity

Ukraine’s border guard showed off what they claim is a Russian drone they brought down behind the front lines, but its unsophisticated design left one Ukrainian to reply it was more “school flying club” than warzone.

Photographs of a drone which Ukraine’s 31st Brigade National Guard claimed they brought down in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (region) show a nearly totally intact aircraft.

Configured in a push-pull configuration with a pair of flat-twin model aeroplane petrol engines — rare because the configuration is considered inefficient — the aircraft appears to be mainly built from plywood and aluminium box section. Ukraine says they believe the drone was “designed for reconnaissance” and “launched by the Russians”.

The drone’s rather ramshackle if not homemade appearance and vintage styling prompted one Ukrainian social media follower of the National Guard account to quip the aircraft looked “school flying club” quality. In terms of technical sophistication, the craft looks only a slight improvement on a design the Russians themselves were bombed with in Syria in 2018.

A naive design or not, the bird was apparently a deadly one, with the guard reporting it carried “an explosive substance”. This is not unusual for the Ukraine war, where so-called suicide drones packed with explosives have proven a cheap alternative to cruise missiles. Even commercially built, military-grade drones in frontline service — apart from their GPS control packages and explosive loads — have more in common with high-end model plane hobbyists than advanced guided munitions, which cost millions of dollars.

Ukraine has been accused of trying to bomb Moscow — and even assassinate President Vladimir Putin — with such drones. The Russians, for their part, drop Iranian-built Shahed suicide drones, which are a much more serious affair and carry around 100 pounds of high explosives in their nose, on Ukrainian cities every day.

As for the “flying club” drone discovered this week, Russia would also not be the only country deploying drones of more rustic quality, particularly given in a military context they are becoming considered as disposable or single-use devices. Ukraine has been reported to be using cardboard disposable drones developed by an Australian company, which is reportedly sending 100 a month.

The United States is giving disposable drones consideration too, with the U.S. Marine Corps testing a plywood drone for frontline resupply duties.