Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he will Despite three weeks of Russian shelling, Ukraine has maintained a strong defence of its cities by employing Turkish-made drones to launch surprise attacks on the invaders.

The Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, which carry lightweight, laser-guided bombs, excel in low-tech battles and have been supplied to more than a dozen countries, including Azerbaijan, Libya, Morocco, and Ethiopia.

According to Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute in London, the drones have carried out unexpectedly successful attacks in the early stages of Ukraine’s fight with Russia, before the Russians could put up their air defences on the battlefield.

“Because they are medium-altitude, slow-flying aircraft with a huge electromagnetic signature and a large radar cross-section, the (TB2s) shouldn’t have a significant influence.” And, because the Russians have advanced air defence systems, they should be shot down. Watling noted, “The terrain is fairly open and provides superb radar coverage.”

“They’ve been effectively flying in at a low level and then going up and raiding with them,” he said. “Such eye-catching targets of opportunity.”

“The freedom to utilise those drones is dwindling,” Watling said, as the Russians become more coordinated and push out their air defences. As a result, the Ukrainians are now having to be more cautious about when they commit them.”

On March 9, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace lauded the drones, as well as other weapons supplied to Ukraine by the West, in a briefing to Parliament.

“One of the ways they’re supplying close air support or actual fire in depth is through Turkish TB2 UAVs, which are delivering munitions onto their artillery and indeed their supply lines, which are vitally essential in slowing or blocking the Russian advance,” Wallace explained.

Drones have also become a hit on social media. Their airborne video of Russian armoured vehicles being destroyed has become a vital instrument in Ukraine’s information war.

Ukraine’s envoy to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar, tweeted videos of drone assaults, including one that purported to show a convoy of wrecked Russian military vehicles.

He captioned one of the videos with “Mashallah” or “Praise be.”

A video was published to YouTube and broadcast on Ukrainian radio utilising the song “Bayraktar,” which has explosions timed to the beats.

“They’ll be valuable as long as they can fly in and are armed.” “They’ll largely be good for propaganda,” said Aaron Stein, research director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. “People are fascinated by the films because they show an airstrike in high resolution.”

In 2019, Turkey began exporting the TB2 drones to Ukraine, which used them to battle Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region, a move Moscow condemned as “destabilising.”

Turkish officials have declined to reveal details about the drone shipments to Ukraine, such as the number of drones sold and whether Kyiv is being resupplied. The number of TB2s in Ukraine is estimated to be between 20 and 50, according to independent estimations.

The drones, which are estimated to cost under $2 million each, are made by the Baykar defence company, which is owned by the family of Selcuk Bayraktar, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law. The chief technical officer of Baykar is Bayraktar.

The TB2 is credited as assisting Turkey’s partner Azerbaijan in battling Armenian-backed forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2020, as well as in Libya.

Ankara has also employed drones against Kurdish insurgents in Turkey, northern Iraq, and Syria.

According to Stein, such low-cost drones will have a long-term impact on warfare as a helpful tool of attrition as well as a means of attracting the attention of more expensive enemy jets.

“It’s the Toyota Corolla of drones, in my opinion.” “It doesn’t do everything your high-end sports vehicle does, but everything accomplishes 80% of it,” he remarked. “Even for a high-end military like the United States, the core premise of striking a superior force on an attributable, low-cost platform has inherent value.”

The additional $800 million in military aid to Ukraine announced by President Joe Biden on Wednesday would include an undefined number of US-made drones. There are also 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 100 grenade launchers, 20 million rounds of small arms ammo, and grenade launchers and mortar rounds included.

According to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorised to speak publicly, the White House has been considering giving Ukraine access to US-made Switchblade drones that can fly and strike Russian targets. It was unclear whether they or other drones would be included in the additional drones that Biden indicated would be supplied to Ukraine.