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By Sean Rayment
Russian soldiers are using “invisibility cloaks” to hide from heat-seeking Ukrainian drones capable of locking on to individual thermal signatures.
The cloaks are designed to prevent troops from being attacked by drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras and high explosives. The cameras allow drone operators to target Russian soldiers in all weather conditions, both by day and by night, because they can identify heat emitted by the body.
To help protect themselves from attack, Russian troops have begun wearing £60 cloaks and ponchos often used by hunters to stay warm in winter or bad weather. The thermal ponchos have the unfortunate effect of making the soldiers appear as though they are wearing giant bird costumes.
The use of thermal cloaks was revealed by a Ukrainian drone team from the 120th Territorial Defence Brigade, which posted a video of a Russian soldier wearing one on the frontline in Ukraine.
The cloaks are made of heat-trapping fabric containing metal filaments that can retain almost all of the wearer’s body heat. As well as keeping troops warm, the cloak also masks their infrared signature when viewed from the outside. To a drone equipped with a thermal camera, a thermally camouflaged soldier should be indistinguishable from the surrounding snowy landscape.
Unfortunately for the Russian soldier pictured, he was killed after being identified by a daytime camera fitted to a Ukrainian drone.
Russian troops have also reportedly been hiding in £30 thermal camping toilets, usually used by campers.
The use of cloaks to evade drones is the latest development in a conflict increasingly dominated by drone warfare.
It can also be revealed that a British Army brigade was “destroyed” in a NATO war game just miles from the Russian border.
In a military exercise in Estonia last year, the brigade was overrun by Ukrainian forces in a “contested and congested” battlefield environment.
Hedgehog 2025, an exercise involving more than 16,000 troops from 12 NATO countries, simulated a battle filled with drones, according to the head of Estonia’s unmanned systems unit. In one scenario, a force numbering several thousand troops, including a British brigade and an Estonian unit, was defeated by Ukrainian forces.
Described as a “horrible” result for NATO, the British brigade and Estonian unit were “just walking around, not using any kind of disguise, parking tents and armoured vehicles”.
A participant who portrayed the enemy told the Wall Street Journal: “It was all destroyed.”
Lieutenant Colonel Arbo Probal, Estonia’s UAV chief, said the exercise was aimed at testing soldiers’ adaptability under fire.
He said: “The aim was really to create friction, the stress for units and the cognitive overload as soon as possible.”
It has also emerged that Ukrainian troops have developed drones capable of destroying Russian tanks hidden underground in fortified bunkers.
The drones have been able to locate Russian tanks and armoured fighting vehicles by locking on to radio signals sent between Russian units. Intelligence experts say that using radio signals, known as signals intelligence, allows troops to fix enemy locations accurately.
Once their positions have been identified, the drones fly into the bunkers and destroy the tanks and armoured vehicles using high explosives.
One Ukrainian drone operator claimed that his unit had destroyed four tanks, 11 infantry fighting vehicles and killed 19 Russian soldiers in a week by attacking underground bunkers.
The soldier, who identified himself only as Kriegsforscher, said: “We know that Russians planned to attack our positions with infantry fighting vehicles.”
He added that his unit had been destroying “Russian IFVs and tanks in their shelters”.
Russian drones can be equipped with a variety of explosives, from mortar bombs to shaped charges, which can penetrate tank armour.
Ukrainian drone operators have also flown small drones equipped with grenades through the commander’s hatch in a tank turret, causing the shells inside to explode.
Russian commanders began hiding tanks and armoured vehicles underground to protect them from drone attacks after thousands were destroyed by Ukraine.
Ukrainian drones have previously been fitted with optical cameras and thermal imagers, which could locate camouflaged drones at night by identifying engine hot spots.
Targeting tanks using signals intelligence means there is now no hiding place for Russian troops on the frontline.
Ukrainian commanders have claimed that the tanks destroyed recently had been hidden in preparation for an attack on key Ukrainian positions.
One intelligence source said: “The use of signals intelligence to attack Russian armoured vehicles hidden in underground bunkers shows how quickly the Ukrainians can adapt to changes on the battlefield. The key is being able to locate areas where Russian troops are building up forces and hiding tanks and armoured vehicles.
“But if Ukraine can deliver these attacks at scale, it could have a major impact on any forthcoming Russian spring offensive.”
Since the start of the war in 2022, an estimated 11,000 Russian tanks and 24,000 infantry fighting vehicles have been destroyed, many by drones.
As well as vast quantities of equipment, an estimated 1.2 million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded fighting in Ukraine.
