Videos that appeared online on Sunday depict the 1,500-pound, propeller-driven drones—which can range hundreds of miles—striking a Russian patrol boat and supply truck in occupied southern Ukraine.
That TB-2s are venturing south into nominally Russian-controlled air space implies two things: that Kyiv has managed to rebuild its TB-2 force, nine months after Russian air-defenses badly attrited the 70-drone force.
The TB-2’s dramatic reappearance also points to the steady degradation of Russian air-defenses across swathes of southern Ukraine as Kyiv’s 2023 counteroffensive grinds into its fourth month—and Ukrainian brigades make slow but steady progress along two main axes in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts.
The Turkish-made TB-2—a 21-foot-long, satellite-controlled drone with day-night optics and hardpoints for small, five-mile-range missiles—was an early icon of Russia’s 19-month wider war on Ukraine.
After recovering from air and missile strikes that destroyed some of their 20 TB-2s on the ground on day one of the wider war, the Ukrainian air force and navy sent the drones into action in north-central Ukraine and elsewhere.
Russian brigades were rolling toward Kyiv. But every mile they advanced stretched their supply lines as well as the air-defense coverage that protected both front-line and rear-area formations.
The TB-2 operators exploited that over-extension. First, the drones went after the short-range air-defense systems protecting Russian tank battalions and supply convoys. In just the first month of the wider war through mid-March 2022, the TB-2s plinked no fewer than 10 Russian surface-to-air missile launchers, including Buks, Tors and a Pantsir.
“Once they were free of Russian air-defenses, the Ukrainians … began deploying their TB-2s for their other two important tasks—for reconnaissance and for close air support,”
wrote Tom Cooper, an author and expert on the Russian military.
Stripped of their air-defenses, Russian tanks and supply trucks were easy pickings. “In the Kyiv area, they have mauled many of Russian armored formations,” Cooper reported at the time. “In the south, they have directed massive and precise artillery barrages on the Kherson airport and the [Russian] units besieging Mykolaiv.”
TB-2s also fired missiles at several field headquarters. The effect on the Russians was profound.
“TB-2s are also wrecking the Russians’ nerves,” Cooper wrote. “We’ve seen several videos showing entire Russian [battalions] turning around and fleeing after losing only a few vehicles to TB-2s.”
The Russians fired back, shooting down at least a dozen TB-2s in the first six months of the wider war. A steady supply of fresh airframes from Turkish firm Bayraktar—at least 35 in the first year of the conflict—kept the TB-2 force in the fight.
It wasn’t cheap. A TB-2 unit with control hardware and six airframes can cost as much as $100 million.
After the invaders retreated from Kyiv—and, six months later, also quit Kharkiv Oblast in northeastern Ukraine and northern Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine—the front line stabilized. The Russians hurried to reinforce their air-defenses along the 600-mile front.
The slow-flying TB-2s couldn’t survive in this environment.
“Once the Russian military got its act together, it was able to down many TB-2s,”
Samuel Bendett, an analyst with CNA in Washington D.C., told Insider. By now the Russians have shot down or destroyed on the ground no fewer than 24 TB-2s—a third of the fleet.
Late last year the Ukrainians pulled back the TB-2s, mostly relegating them to reconnaissance missions on the Ukrainian side of the line of contact. That kept the drones out of harm’s way, for the most part. For more dangerous missions directly over Russian battalions, the Ukrainians began using small, explosives-laden first-person-view racing drones—each costing just $5,000.
But an FPV drone ranges just a few miles from its operator. And it pretty much is a single-use system. For deeper and repeated strikes, the TB-2 still is the better drone. But it wasn’t until this month that the conditions were right for the rebuilt TB-2 force to resume offensive operations.
The attack on the Russian KS-701 patrol boat, which the Sunday video depicts in gruesome detail, is particularly impressive. The TB-2 watches from high overhead—quiet and unseen—as Russian sailors and troops on the shore unload supplies from the 29-foot boat.
The Russians don’t know they’re being watched until the missile strikes the KS-701, damaging it and obliterating some of the people aboard it.
It’s not hard to understand how the TB-2s regained their operational freedom. Since launching their counteroffensive on June 4, Ukrainian forces firing precision munitions—artillery, bombs, rockets and FPV drones—steadily have been eroding Russian air-defenses across southern Ukraine. On the southern front alone, the Ukrainians have knocked out at least 13 SAM launchers that independent analysts can confirm.
It’s possible the same dynamics that loosed the TB-2s on Russian battalions around Kyiv in February and March 2022 are in play in southern Ukraine today. TB-2s work best where enemy air-defenses are most stressed. That TB-2s again are firing missiles at Russian troops is a strong indicator that Russian air-defenses in the south are in trouble.
The danger, for the Russians, is a TB-2 feedback loop—whereby the Ukrainian drones exploit gaps in Russian air-defenses in order to target the air-defenses that still are intact. So on and so forth until the SAM umbrella over whole oblasts collapses, giving the TB-2s even greater freedom to crisscross occupied territory and strike Russian battalions and supply convoys at will.