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The Russian - Ukraine war can be best described as a 'drone war' given the advances in technology and tactics that have accured. The guide below provides insight into the variety of drones in use on the battlefield and the advances that have added this lethal new weapon into arsenals.
In the past five years, uncrewed aerial vehicles (drones) have become indispensable in modern warfare. The Russia–Ukraine war has accelerated their ascent: on any given day, there may be hundreds or even thousands of drones operating across the frontlines and behind them.
Cheap, mass-produced consumer technology is the foundation for this growth. Militaries are adapting commercial designs to produce a diverse array of deadly tools.
In sheer numbers, first person view (FPV) drones now dominate the war. Pilots fly them by remote control, sitting in a nearby position and wearing virtual reality goggles to see through the drone’s camera.
FPV drones are very fast, highly manoeuvrable, and often attack by crashing into moving targets and exploding. They are used to strike armoured vehicles, to intercept helicopters and hostile drones, drop anti-personnel mines, and to land near roads and wait to ambush enemy vehicles.
Russia’s main FPV drone is the Molniya-2. Made from plywood, each one can be assembled for less than a thousand dollars using mostly commercial parts, then armed with repurposed mortar or artillery shells.
Russia plans to make two million FPV drones this year.
To avoid radio jamming, Russia has begun controlling these drones via fibre optic cables up to 40 kilometres long. The battlefield is now littered with tens of thousands of very thin fibre optic cables.
FPV drones are also beginning to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) – at first to assist pilots, and later for greater autonomy.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has so far only engaged with FPV drones by racing commercial devices in multinational competitions.
Multicopters are more general-purpose and easier to operate than FPV drones. They can be used for battlefield reconnaissance, intercepting hostile drones, electronic warfare, GPS jamming, communications relay, delivering packages and dropping small mines or bombs. Many are commercial drones modified with different kits for different missions.
Russia commonly uses small hobbyist quadcopters such as the Chinese-made DJI Mavic 3, the DJI Matrice and the Autel EVO II.
There are also larger purpose-built machines, such as the MiS-150 quadcopter and MiS-35 hexacopter, which can carry payloads up to 15 kilograms. The in-development Buran hexacopter can carry a whopping 80kg.
The ADF operates the R70 Sky Ranger quadcopter for airbase surveillance and defence tasks.
Winged drones come in two broad groups: one-way (kamikaze or loitering) and reusable.
One‑way drones are used for long‑range strikes against cities, transport and infrastructure. Russia mainly uses the Geran series, which it manufactures in a giant factory 1,000km east of Moscow from designs based on Iran’s Shahed drones.
The medium-sized Geran is most common, used for long-range strikes against Ukrainian cities, transport networks, and civilian and military infrastructure.
By late June 2025, Russia had fired some 29,000 Gerans, and it can now make 2,700 more each month. Simplified versions with no warhead are also used as decoys to distract air defences – not only in Ukraine, but also in Poland and Romania.
The main reusable drones are the Orlan-10 and the ZALA 421. These provide battlespace surveillance and help coordinate artillery and FPV drone strikes on Ukrainian targets.
Orlan-10s are now being also used as motherships carrying and launching smaller FPV drones.
Another reusable drone is the ZALA Lancet, used for both reconnaissance and strike missions. It is a so-called “loitering munition”: it can be launched, stay in the air for some time, identify targets with an onboard camera, and then attack if its human operator commands. More sophisticated than FPV drones, these are also far more expensive.
The ADF operates several reconnaissance drones similar to the Orlan-10: the Shadow Tactical, Wasp AE and Puma AE.
The ADF has also recently purchased some loitering munitions: the Switchblade 300 and OWL.
The ADF also operates the very large Triton maritime surveillance drone, which has no Russian equivalent, and is developing the Ghost Bat, a high-speed drone able to assist fast jet fighter and strike aircraft.
Counter-drone technology is in high demand. However, drones are small, fast and numerous, which makes it inherently difficult to defend against them in a comprehensive way.
Counter-drone systems include combinations of warning sensors, backpack and vehicle-mounted electronic jammers, gun systems, surface-to-air missiles, laser devices and electromagnetic pulse systems.
FPV and multicopter drones are too small for fighter aircraft to counter them. However, larger aircraft-like drones are more vulnerable. New air-launched rocket systems now allow fighters to shoot down a dozen Gerans during each sortie.
As drones become even more widespread and diverse, the balance between cheap mass-produced attack platforms and effective, adaptable defences will shape the conflicts of the future.
Molniya: Militaer Aktuell;
Fibre optic drone: АрміяІнформ/Wikimedia;
MiS-150: Lamp of Knowledge/YouTube;
MiS-35: United24 Media;
R70-skyranger: ELP;
Geran-2: Scott Peterson/Getty Images;
Orlan-10: Mike1979 Russia/Wikimedia;
Zala 421: Airforce Technology/JSC Concern;
Zala lancet 3: Vitaly V Kuzmin;
Puma-3-AE: Naval Technology/Business Wire;
Wasp-AE: Sgt. Janine Fabre, Australian Defence. Infographics: Matt Garrow/The Conversation.
Matt Garrow, Editorial Web Developer, The Conversation and Michael Lucy, Science Editor, The Conversation
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
As a scholar researching clouds, I have spent much of my time trying to understand the economy of the sky. Not the weather reports showing scudding rainclouds, but the deeper logic of cloud movements, their distributions and densities and the way they intervene in light, regulate temperatures and choreograph heat flows across our restless planet.
Recently, I have been noticing something strange: skies that feel hollowed out, clouds that look like they have lost their conviction. I think of them as ghost clouds. Not quite absent, but not fully there. These wispy formations drift unmoored from the systems that once gave them coherence. Too thin to reflect sunlight, too fragmented to produce rain, too sluggish to stir up wind, they give the illusion of a cloud without its function.
We think of clouds as insubstantial. But they matter far beyond their weight or tangibility. In dry Western Australia where I live, rain-bringing clouds are eagerly anticipated. But the winter storms which bring most rain to the south-west are being pushed south, depositing vital fresh water into the oceans. More and more days pass under a hard, endless blue – beautiful, but also brutal in its vacancy.
Worldwide, cloud patterns are now changing in concerning ways. Scientists have found the expanse of Earth’s highly reflective clouds is steadily shrinking. With less heat reflected, the Earth is now trapping more heat than expected.
When there are fewer and fewer clouds, it doesn’t make headlines as floods or fires do. Their absence is quiet, cumulative and very worrying.
To be clear, clouds aren’t going to disappear. They may increase in some areas. But the belts of shiny white clouds we need most are declining between 1.5 and 3% per decade.
These clouds are the best at reflecting sunlight back to space, especially in the sunniest parts of the world close to the equator. By contrast, broken grey clouds reflect less heat, while less light hits polar regions, giving polar clouds less to reflect.
Clouds are often thought of as an ambient backdrop to climate action. But we’re now learning this is a fundamental oversight. Clouds aren’t décor – they’re dynamic, distributed and deeply consequential infrastructure able to cool the planet and shape the rainfall patterns seeding life below. These masses of tiny water droplets or ice crystals represent climate protection accessible to all, regardless of nation, wealth or politics.
On average, clouds cover two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, clustering over the oceans. Of all solar radiation reflected back to space, clouds are responsible for about 70%.
Clouds mediate extremes, soften sunlight, ferry moisture and form invisible feedback loops sustaining a stable climate.
If clouds become rarer or leave, it’s not just a loss to the climate system. It’s a loss to how we perceive the world.
When glaciers melt, species die out or coral reefs bleach and die, traces are often left of what was there. But if cloud cover diminishes, it leaves only an emptiness that’s hard to name and harder still to grieve. We have had to learn how to grieve other environmental losses. But we do not yet have a way to mourn the way skies used to be.
And yet we must. To confront loss on this scale, we must allow ourselves to mourn – not out of despair, but out of clarity. Grieving the atmosphere as it used to be is not weakness. It is planetary attention, a necessary pause that opens space for care and creative reimagination of how we live with – and within – the sky.
For generations, Australia’s First Nations have read the clouds and sky, interpreting their forms to guide seasonal activities. The Emu in the Sky (Gugurmin in Wiradjuri) can be seen in the Milky Way’s dark dust. When the emu figure is high in the night sky, it’s the right time to gather emu eggs.
The skies are changing faster than our systems of understanding can keep up.
One solution is to reframe how we perceive weather phenomena such as clouds. As researchers in Japan have observed, weather is a type of public good – a “weather commons”. If we see clouds not as leftovers from an unchanging past, but as invitations to imagine new futures for our planet, we might begin to learn how to live more wisely and attentively with the sky.
This might mean teaching people how to read the clouds again – to notice their presence, their changes, their disappearances. We can learn to distinguish between clouds which cool and those which drift, decorative but functionally inert. Our natural affinity to clouds makes them ideal for engaging citizens.
To read clouds is to understand where they formed, what they carry and whether they might return tomorrow. From the ground, we can see whether clouds have begun a slow retreat from the places that need them most.
For millennia, humans have treated weather as something beyond our control, something that happens to us. But our effects on Earth have ballooned to the point that we are now helping shape the weather, whether by removing forests which can produce much of their own rain or by funnelling billions of tonnes of fossil carbon into the atmosphere. What we do below shapes what happens above.
We are living through a very brief window in which every change will have very long term consequences. If emissions continue apace, the extra heating will last millennia.
I propose cloud literacy not as solution, but as a way to urgently draw our attention to the very real change happening around us.
We must move from reaction to atmospheric co-design – not as technical fix, but as a civic, collective and imaginative responsibility.
Professor Christian Jakob provided feedback and contributed to this article, while Dr Jo Pollitt and Professor Helena Grehan offered comments and edits.
Rumen Rachev, PhD Candidate, Edith Cowan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Australians have watched on in horror as more details have come to light about the shooters in the Bondi terror attacks.
As people grapple with the tragedy, many wonder how such a thing could have happened in a country that has long prided itself on its tough gun laws.
The 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram, and 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, had six guns. Police confirmed all of them were registered firearms. The father, who was fatally shot by police, had a recreational hunting licence and was a member of a gun club.
National Cabinet has since committed to a raft of new gun laws, including renegotiating the National Firearms Agreement, caps on the amount of firearms any one person can own and limiting open-ended licensing.
So how easy is it to get a gun in Australia currently, and how might the reforms work?
Gun control laws vary slightly in each state and territory, but are broadly similar. We’ll look here at the laws in New South Wales.
The first step is to apply for a firearms licence. As part of this, authorities will conduct a background check to ensure there’s no criminal history, including mental health orders or domestic violence charges.
The applicant must also pass the “fit and proper person” test. NSW Police says this test checks someone is “of good character, law abiding, honest, and shows good judgement”.
If these standards are met, a firearms licence is granted.
But in order to actually buy a firearm, people must apply for a “permit to acquire”. This is linked to the specific firearm they’d like to purchase.
If it’s their first gun, there’s a 28 day waiting period before they can have it in their possession. Subsequent guns do not need a waiting period as long as it’s in the same category they already have approval to own.
They must also pass a safety course, with both practical and theoretical components, including a written test.
Firearms, once acquired, must be stored in a specific way. Guns cannot be stored while loaded, for instance, and ammunition must be kept in a separate safe.
Finally, someone must have a “genuine reason” to buy a firearm. These include working as a primary producer, or participating in recreational hunting, among others. They need to prove a genuine reason for each and every firearm purchase. Personal protection is not a a genuine reason.
Applicants need to prove their reason is truthful. This may be proof of membership to a gun club, or a letter with express permission from the landowner on whose property they intend to hunt.
Importantly, if someone holds a firearm licence for recreational purposes, they must compete in a certain amount of competitions each year. In NSW, it’s two to four.
Many parts of Australian gun control laws work well.
The genuine reason provisions are particularly useful. By requiring people to engage with the firearm-owning community, it stops so called “lone-wolves” from buying a gun just to have.
My research with gun clubs has also shown members can be a crucial grassroots safety check. They typically look out for each other and check in if there’s a concerning shift in someone’s attitudes or beliefs.
If things seem particularly dangerous, many report fellow members to the police so they can investigate further. The gun owning community also want our communities to be safe.
It raises the question of how engaged the shooter in this case was with his local gun community.
While the exact circumstances for these two shooters are still emerging, we know one of the men was known to ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). The guns were registered to the father.
National Cabinet has agreed to a list of measures, including speeding up work on a national firearms register and limiting gun licences to Australian citizens.
They will also move to cap the number of guns a person can own. Western Australia did this earlier this year. Recreational shooters in WA can have up to five firearms, while primary producers and competition shooters can have up to ten.
It’s not uncommon for people to have more than one firearm. Licensed firearm owners in NSW have an average of about four, according to a 2025 report.
While it’s reasonable to examine the working of our current gun control measures, it’s unclear how effective such a measure would be. In the case of the Bondi attack, we need more information about the sorts of guns that were used and how many were used.
Plus, under the current laws across the country, people can’t buy more guns just because they feel like it. They have to prove a genuine reason to own another one.
National Cabinet also decided to limit open-ended firearm licensing.
As it stands, licences are usually not granted for life. Renewal periods differ depending on the jurisdiction, but in NSW most licences are issued for somewhere between two and five years. We don’t yet know if any changes would make these renewal periods more frequent.
But licensing mechanisms, like recent concerns over working with children checks in the childcare sector, only capture what we know has happened. Unless people have already fallen foul of the law, authorities won’t necessarily find any concerning behaviour.
Indeed, authorities have said the Bondi shooter who owned these firearms had “no incidents” with his licence. Renewing it more regularly may have unearthed something important, or it may not have. We don’t know enough about this incident yet to say if such a law change would have been useful here.
If reviews were made much more frequent, that would require a large-scale increase in police resources.
One change that might help would be to actively involve firearms dealers in these legal changes. They have the most contact with those purchasing guns and may have valuable intelligence about how their customers are behaving and thinking.
So while changes in the letter of the law may or may not help monitor firearms owners, we have to ensure it’s implemented effectively too. This means resourcing authorities properly, working closely with communities and making sure legal changes would actually tell us what we need to know to prevent deadly gun violence.
Suzanna Fay, Associate Professor in Criminology, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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