4 days ago
WATCH Russian war correspondent dodge Ukrainian suicide drone
Russian war correspondent Andrey Filatov on Saturday published dramatic video footage of him narrowly dodging a Ukrainian first-person-view (FPV) suicide drone that exploded just a few meters away from the journalist. The day before, multiple Ukrainian outlets reported that he went missing on the front lines of the conflict.
On Saturday, Filatov published a video that showed him riding a motorcycle while being pursued by a Ukrainian suicide drone. When warned of an incoming UAV, he turns the motorbike aside and ducks as it whirrs past and explodes just a few meters ahead of him.
According to the journalist, he was checking a radio interference blind spot along a Russian logistics route, which was created when an electronic jammer post along it was moved. This made the area vulnerable to Ukrainian radio-controlled drones.
Russian war correspondent and drone specialist Andrey Filatov survives an extremely close call in the Pokrovsk direction
'[Ukrainian forces] began to see further, and the road ended up in radio shadow,' he wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday. He rode too far ahead of his companions, who had a jamming unit mounted on their car, and had to 'dodge' the drone, Filatov explained.
The development of jamming technology has made radio-controlled drones far less effective and has increasingly forced both sides in the Ukraine conflict to use optic cable-controlled UAVs. These drones are slower, but are entirely immune to radio interference.
The area where Filatov was attacked is situated along the Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) sector of the frontline, where Russian forces are advancing to encircle the major Ukrainian logistics hub city.
