Rifle-toting Ukrainians hunt Russian drones from prop planes

Ukrainians are hunting down Russian drones armed with nothing more than shotguns and rifles while dangling out of prop lanes as part of a low-tech solution to Moscow’s high-tech aerial assassins.

Although Kyiv has some of the West’s most advanced air-defense systems, including US-made Patriot missiles and F-16 jets, the nation has been forced to deploy such unconventional tactics to counter Russia’s ever-escalating drone bombardments because of the sheer number of devices being deployed.

Pilots and gunners in Ukraine’s 11th Army Aviation Brigade have been tapped to take the Soviet-era Yak-52 prop planes to the skies, with the two-person aircraft shooting down 120 drones this past year with only shotguns and rifles, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“There is such great new technology now, yet I am still hanging out of the cockpit shooting at drones with a shotgun,” said an auto mechanic-turned gunner who has shot down more than 60 Russian UAVs.

The tactics of the 11th bring back aerial warfare to its World War I days, where marksmen had to lean out of their cockpits with a gun to take out the enemy fighters.

The Yak-52 is so basic that it has no radar, with the pilots only guided by radio before having to rely on their own eyes to spot the Russian drones soaring over the border.

The prop planes fly within 200 to 300 feet of the drone before the gunner opens his plane’s canopy to fire.

One of the gunners of the 11th likened the experience to an extreme version of a soldier having to fire his gun while riding on a horse.

The cockpit gets so cold that the pilots and gunners need thick jackets and fur-lined helmets to stay warm, yet another detail that harkens back to the beginnings of aerial combat.

Despite the seemingly low-tech solution, these tactics account for about 10% to 12% of all drones intercepted by Ukraine on a typical day, according to the 11th’s deputy commander, Col. Mykola Lykhatskiy.

Along with shooting down the UAVs, Lykhatskiy said his fighters even deploy an old British tactic that uses their planes’ wings to tilt a drone and send it off course.

But the tricky maneuvers come with even more risks as Russia continues to upgrade its drone tech, allowing its pilots to use cameras to directly target the prop planes.

In July, the 11th’s top commander, Kostyantyn Oborin — a k a “Kamikaze” — was killed by a Russian ballistic missile.