In Ukraine’s grinding war of attrition, innovation has become equally as important as firepower. With greater creativity taking place in the electronic warfare (EW) domain, drone technologies face increasing vulnerabilities to jamming and hijacking, prompting new methods of autonomous conflict — fibre optic tethered drones. These drones are tethered directly to the pilot’s operating system using fibre optic cable, making the drone impervious to signal jamming and spoofing devices. These drones are well suited for operating in dense EW environments where traditional drones are vulnerable to disruption.
Russian fibre optic drones have proved disruptive tools of war, particularly against vulnerable Ukrainian rear echelon units. Their presence has functioned as battlefield distraction, creating operational dilemmas and information uncertainty that Russia has successfully exploited in the Kursk region. But why have they not matched initial expectations as potentially strategically useful weapons?
Fibre optic drones are an inherently short-range asset due to their tethered components and added weight, limiting the ability of the system to threaten distant command-and-control (C2) structures. Their payloads are too limited to take out fortified positions or critical infrastructure minimising their ability to act as force-multipliers in high-impact operations. As a result, their utility is confined to specific missions only.
First fielded by the Russian army in the summer of 2024 on the Kursk and Pokrovsk fronts, fibre optic drones quickly demonstrated tactical value. The intelligence gathered by these drones helped Russian forces recaptured 64% of the Kursk Oblast. Niche tactical advantages in high-fidelity imagery and capacity offer troops more advanced mapping systems, such as LIDAR (which has many strategic benefits from aiding in landmine countermeasures to Line of Sight mapping). This makes fibre optic drones superior for surveillance, reconnaissance, and target acquisition.
However, limitations in mobility, as well as cumbersome logistics requirements, has stalled enthusiasm. Their more costly and less agile components offer further restrictions. And greater susceptibility to weather conditions makes them less dependable. These restrictions heavily limit the operational use of tethered drones, preventing their use in difficult terrain such as dense forest and urban areas where there is a risk of entanglement. Their lack of speed and manoeuvrability makes them unsuitable for rapid strikes and swarm attacks, diminishing their lasting battlefield impact.
For Ukraine, these shortcomings are exacerbated by Russia’s more advanced EW capabilities, such as in tools like Krasukha-4, which have made EW resistance vital to operational success. Even with Western assistance, these Russian advantages are likely to continue for some time and while the psychological impact of an “unjammable” drone is likely to force Ukrainian commanders to rethink their approach to drone warfare, there is still no easy solution. Despite its early success, the fibre optic drone platform hasn’t advanced any broader strategic objectives for Russia or shifted the conflict dynamics.
Although Fibre optic drones haven’t revolutionised EW, they have demonstrated the rapid pace of innovation and measures and countermeasures as both sides strive for drone dominance. The disjointed integration of fibre optic drones into existing doctrines on both sides has undermined the utility of fibre optic drones, reducing them to ad hoc solutions to EW rather than dedicated weapons. For the system be effective, C2 structures and tactics must be designed with specific capabilities of the drone in mind.
For the time being, and despite ongoing vulnerabilities due to EW, traditional first-person view (FPV) drones continue to be more versatile, and far cheaper and easier to replace. This has made them, to date, far more impactful on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, with ongoing infrastructure in place to support replenishment.
FPV drones have shaped Ukrainian military doctrine to maximise the effectiveness of the system but don’t support fibre optic integration well enough to be effective. Fibre optic drones primarily remain tactical assets with limited operational scope. Any strategic integration of fibre optic drones would require a significant reworking of Ukraine’s battlefield logistics architecture—one that is unlikely to produce proportional strategic returns. Meanwhile, the requirement for more specialised equipment, as well as secure and static launch sites (and technically trained personnel to operate effectively), lessens their value from Kiev’s perspective.
Ultimately, fibre optic drones are unlikely to significantly alter battlefield conditions or have a broader effect on the conflict. Tactical and supply shortcomings on both sides constrain their strategic impact, making less effective than initially hoped. Instead, they reflect an addition to the existing toolkits of Russia and Ukraine rather than a fundamental shift in strategy and will not replace Russia’s brutal meatgrinder tactics. While they offer new ways to gather intelligence, they cannot offset the broader disadvantages Ukraine faces in firepower, logistics, and EW warfare.
Their use reveals more about the evolving nature of modern war—and the desperation of the Kremlin—than about the future of drone warfare.
(Braeden Davey is a research associate at RMIT university with a particular interest in AI and military uncrewed systems.)
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It’s still a drone in the end. Track the drone and cut the wire.
Easier said than done, I think.