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Ukraine’s Drones Have a Mothership

Russians Are About to Face Significant Trouble in Kherson Oblast

Shankar Narayan
4 min readJan 7, 2025
Image Credit: German Based Global Democracy Activist Tendar

My jaw dropped.

Actually, that might be an understatement.

When reports started trickling in about Ukrainian drones flying out of a mothership in the Black Sea to strike some of Russia’s ridiculously expensive air-defense assets in southern Kherson, I was torn — desperately wanting to believe it, yet almost unable to wrap my head around it.

Because if it were true, it changed everything. Not just for the Russia-Ukraine war, but far beyond.

By the end of December 2024, Ukraine’s naval drones, armed with R-73 missiles, had reportedly taken down two Russian helicopters transporting crew members in the region. According to Russian ultranationalists, it was the largest single-day loss of Russian Air Force personnel since the invasion began. An estimated 16 to 32 crew members were killed in the attack.

The way Russian ultranationalists lamented the incident made me wonder: were a significant number of those aboard the helicopters experienced Russian pilots? There’s no way to know.

Now, let’s put these two datapoints together:

  1. Ukraine’s naval drones can successfully engage Russian helicopters — and win.

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Shankar Narayan
Shankar Narayan

Written by Shankar Narayan

He didn't care what he had or what he had left, he cared only about what he must do.

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