Menacingly dubbed ‘dracarys drones’ in reference to HBO’s Game of Thrones in which the word is used as a command to order dragons to breathe fire, the new piece of hardware rains down molten pieces of metal on its targets.
With aid-starved Ukrainian soldiers along the frontline being forced to innovate, the new terror weapon is the brainchild of a Ukrainian start-up company producing explosive devices, including thermite charges, designed to be delivered by drones.
Although the weapon is unlikely to cause personal injury unless in the case of a direct hit, it deprives the Russians of cover, exposing them to Ukrainian artillery, as well as potentially seriously affecting morale.
A video shared on social media by Ukraine’s 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade, shows a tree line occupied by Russian forces sprayed by a white-hot flame from a drone that is also dropping munitions below.
As the drone swiftly flies away after delivering its payload, the trees and adjacent fields are left on fire.
Other videos show the Ukrainians using small and agile FPV (first-person view) drones to ignite forests used by the Russians for cover.
A Russian headache
Dmitri, a popular Estonian blogger operating the War Translated channel on X, shared an entry from a Russian soldier, in which he describes the new drones, which he encountered in the Kherson region.
The soldier wrote: “The
khokhols [Russian slur for Ukrainians] also got a new drone that drops a thermite charge. This has given us a headache.”
Thermite is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide (or simply rust) powder. Once ignited, it burns at extremely hot temperatures, between 2,000 and 2,500 degrees Celsius.
This is hot enough to burn through steel plates. If a drone manages to drop thermite on an incapacitated or abandoned armored vehicle, it can result in generating enough heat to ignite fuel and ammunition inside.
Since the mixture contains its own oxidant, it is extremely hard to put out using conventional means.
The soldier added that the Russians have struggled to find a way to protect themselves from the new weapon.
At first, they attempted to spread nets over their dugouts to prevent the drone from flying into them, but this did not effectively protect them from burns. Ultimately, they resorted to digging in deeper and using sand, firebrick or concrete for protection.
He also wrote that “There should always be water and sand to put out the fire” on hand, although as one X user commented under Dmitri's post, this is not an effective way to put out flaming thermite.
The soldier also complained that the soldiers must improvise and attempt to protect themselves at their own expense.
Legality and effectiveness
Dismissing concerns that the new weapon may not be ethical, the Kyiv Post pointed out that the drones are not used directly against individuals.
It added that thermite “is unlikely to cause much direct injury unless an individual is unfortunate enough to be struck directly by a burning fragment” but it is capable of igniting any flammable material, for example, trees and dry crops.
Used in this way, the new weapon is best applied toward depriving the enemy of useful cover or smoking them out to be taken out by artillery and additionally impacting their morale.
