Home › Security › Ukraine's first Bayraktar TB2 strike in Donbas
Ukraine's first Bayraktar TB2 strike in Donbas
Summary
A retrospective on the day Ukraine confirmed its first combat use of the Turkish-made drone, and on the losses reported near Hranitne.
What did Ukraine's military actually change in the Donbas war on 26 October 2021? It confirmed that it had carried out its first drone strikes with the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2, destroying a D-30 howitzer belonging to pro-Russian separatists.
The confirmation marked the first reported use of the armed drone in the conflict by Ukrainian forces. The target was a single artillery piece, a D-30 howitzer, and the strike was presented as a successful test of the system in the field.
The same day brought a reminder of the cost of the ground war. Rebel artillery fire near Hranitne, in Donetsk Oblast, killed one Ukrainian soldier and wounded another.
A weapon type already in wide use
Armed unmanned systems were not new to warfare. Ukraine was among the countries identified as having operational unmanned combat aerial vehicles as of 2019, alongside Turkey, Russia and a number of others. The announcement on 26 October 2021 nonetheless placed a Turkish-made combat drone in Ukrainian hands on the Donbas front line, in a conflict otherwise characterised by artillery exchanges of the kind that claimed the soldier's life near Hranitne.
The reports from that day describe one drone strike and one fatal shelling. They give no wider assessment of what the drone's use would mean for the front line.
