Russian fiber-optic FPV drones reach Kramatorsk, Ukraine's Donbas stronghold
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Russian FPVs are reaching deeper into Ukraine’s Donbas fortress belt of highly fortified cities.
Photos published on X May 5 by Iryna Rybakova , a press officer for the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian military, show the aftermath of a drone strike on a car in a residential area of Kramatorsk, the temporary capital of Ukrainian-held Donetsk Oblast.
Rybakova specifically identified the strike as the work of a first-person view (FPV) drone connected by a fiber-optic cable, a dangerous weapon that has not been a major threat in Kramatorsk until now.
Fiber-optic drones are famously resistant to many of the vulnerabilities of drones that operate by radio frequency, including jamming, spoofing or loss of connection beyond the line of sight. In urban environments, buildings typically break up that connectivity, but fiber-optic FPVs in a densely populated civilian area can wreak havoc, with Russia’s attacks on civilians in Kherson being one of the clearest examples within Ukraine today.
Russia gets most of its fiber-optic spools direct from China, while Ukrainian drone makers rely on a series of intermediaries that result in less reliable and shorter-range optical fiber.
The Kyiv Independent has previously reported on the extended range of these deadly drones in front-line cities like Kharkiv. While much smaller as a city, aKramatorsk is a staging area for many Ukrainian units operating in the Donbas and is among Ukraine’s most heavily fortified municipalities.
Kramatorsk already faces regular Russian missile and glide bomb attacks, but fiber-optic FPVs could further erode what remains of civilian life in the city today.
