Ukrainian drone operators are increasingly taking the fight to the Russian helicopters operating over and around the battlefield, by intercepting them with first-person view (FPV) drones. While there has been one previous report of a Russian rotorcraft successfully being attacked by a drone and several videos showing near-misses, the increasing quantity of such incidents indicates that this is now becoming a more established practice and one that’s in line with Ukraine’s development of counter-air drones.
A video that has hit social media shows a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopter. Filmed from the drone itself, the footage shows that the unmanned aerial vehicle approached the helicopter from the left rear aspect, before swinging around the tail, bringing it on a collision course with the Mi-28’s tail rotor, mounted at the end of the tail boom on the right-hand side. Targeting helicopter tail rotors in this way is very likely calculated for maximum effect.
The video feed is lost moments later, leaving it unclear as to exactly what happened, although the break would be consistent with the drone impacting the helicopter, or detonating if it was carrying a warhead. While the Mi-28 is designed with battlefield survivability in mind, any kind of damage to the tail rotor would bring the mission to an end, if not result in a total loss.
Since the tail rotor provides torque to counteract the main rotors (which are rotating either clockwise or counterclockwise), if it stops functioning, the helicopter will begin spinning in the opposite direction of the main rotor. In the best-case scenario, the pilot will then enter an autorotation and perform an emergency running landing. In the worst case, it will lead to a crash or even a mid-air breakup. The lower and slower a helicopter is flying when it loses its tail rotor, the less likely it is that the pilot will be able to recover at all.
With that in mind, there have been various claims already made that the drone brought down the Mi-28 and even that this was the first time an engagement of this kind had been successfully carried out.
Ukrainian reports suggest the incident shows the successful downing of a Mi-28 yesterday by an FPV drone operated by the M2 unit, part of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Citing sources within the SBU, The Kyiv Post reports that the Mi-28 was successfully hit by a drone over the Kursk region of southwest Russia. As you can read more about here, Russian military and security forces are currently dealing with a major machanized assault launched across the Ukrainian border and into this region.
In fact, the Mi-28 may be one of the aircraft that the Russian Ministry of Defense said yesterday that it was sending to the Kursk region, alongside reserve troops, to help repel the incursion.
On his Telegram channel, Ukrainian journalist Yurii Butusov describes the video as showing “the second attack on an enemy manned aircraft in the last week using a Ukrainian interceptor drone” but notes that the fate of the aircraft and its crew is unclear.
Meanwhile, at least one Russian account on social media also admits that the Mi-28 was hit by a Ukrainian drone, leading to a forced landing.
At this point, we don’t have evidence of what happened to the helicopter, but based on what we can see, its loss — or at the very least an emergency landing — is a distinct possibility.
Russian military bloggers state that as many as three helicopters — a Ka-52, a Mi-8, and a Mi-28 — have so far been destroyed in the Kursk incursion. Moreover, on the Russian 13th Telegram channel there are claims that all three of these rotorcraft were brought down using FPV drones.
Wreckage of the Ka-52 that was reportedly also brought down over the Kursk region in the last 24 hours:
Since the Mi-28 footage first appeared, there have been at least two more videos published that show other Ukrainian attempts to use drones to directly engage Russian helicopters. These both show the drone’s eye view of Russian Mi-8 Hip series transport helicopters, although the outcomes of the engagements are not shown.
There have been previous claims of Ukraine using a drone to destroy a Mi-8, as you can read about here.
In that instance, there was no supporting video evidence of the engagement, which was said to have involved a Russian Mi-8AMTSh helicopter, which came down in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
“Yesterday we wrote about the enemy’s attempts to operate drones against our army aviation,” wrote the Voivode Broadcasts Telegram channel, which first reported the incident, on July 31, 2024. “Unfortunately… today they succeeded.”
According to the same account, the helicopter was hit “at the moment of takeoff,” suggesting that may have been on the ground, or very close to it when the drone engaged it.
The drone engagement in the Mi-28 video is somewhat more complex, with the helicopter not flying as low or slow as the Mi-8.
There have been other previous efforts to use drones to bring down helicopters in the conflict, with videos from both the Ukrainian and Russian sides. While there have been some dramatic near-misses and close calls, there is not, as far as we know, any footage that shows a confirmed kill.
However, the three new videos demonstrate that man-in-the-loop controlled drones are now being more widely used to attack helicopters in flight, and not only when they are at their most vulnerable (i.e. low and slow, or even on the ground).
Using drones to go after helicopters is also a logical extension of Ukraine’s rapidly expanding drone-on-drone interceptor fleet, a prospect that we had suggested back in July.
As we wrote at the time:
“Drones engaging in air-to-air combat began to emerge not long after the conflict erupted. FPV drones, especially ones operating in conjunction with an airborne relay system, can absolutely hit a slow-moving helicopter a dozen miles behind the front lines. As lower-end drone technology fuses with AI/machine learning, these drones will be able to prosecute such targets of opportunity on their own, with the shackles of maintaining line-of-sight connectivity taken off.”
The possibilities presented by AI-enabled drones are something you can read more about here.
As it stands, whatever the outcome of the Mi-28 engagement, helicopters of both sides in the conflict are now facing even more threats.
Already, freedom of action for helicopters close to the front lines is severely limited by conventional air defenses. On the ground, meanwhile, helicopters are being targeted by standoff weaponry such as the Ukrainian HIMARS and ATACMS and Russian Iskander. This has also pushed them further away from the front and forced a change in tactics.
If reports that the Mi-28 was engaged over their own territory are true, then that is even more alarming for the Russians. Although it remains to be seen just how enduring this new incursion into the Kursk region will be, FPV drones can be operated by small teams operating behind the front lines, where rotorcraft present very valuable targets of opportunity.
Helicopters also provide particularly suitable targets for drones like these, even if they lack any kind of relay to extend the range of the connectivity between them and the operator. Since the targets are airborne, there is a better, unobstructed line of sight to the drone operators, allowing them to venture further while maintaining connectivity. If a relay is available, the range at which they can operate is extended even further, battery life dependent.
More generally, however, the availability and portability of FPV drones being used in their new air defense role further complicates helicopter operations especially near the front lines, as these engagements usher in something of a new era in air warfare.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com