Helicopters in the age of drones: how the Russia-Ukraine war is reshaping military aviation doctrine
Attack helicopters have come a long way during the Russia-Ukraine war. They have carried out daring supply missions to Ukrainian troops defending the Azovstal Steelworks, conducted the first strike on a Russian oil depot in Belgorod and gradually withdrawn from the front line before taking on a new role as an air defence asset against drones.
Read this Ukrainska Pravda story to find out how drone warfare has transformed the role of attack helicopters and how the Ukrainian military and global defence companies envisage the future of military aviation.
The twilight of the "flying tank" era: from Hostomel to tactical impasse
In March 2026, the crew of a Ukrainian Navy Mi-8 destroyed 12 Russian Shahed loitering munitions over the sea in just three hours. Four years earlier, Russian Mi-8 helicopters had skimmed treetops on their way to Hostomel, just outside Kyiv, carrying paratroopers to establish an air bridge for the assault on the Ukrainian capital.
These two episodes illustrate how the role of attack and multi-role helicopters has evolved over the course of the war. Attack helicopters, designed to provide close air support and to strike targets on the battlefield, are now forced to operate farther from the front line. Multi-role helicopters continue to transport troops and cargo and evacuate the wounded, but have also taken on new missions, most notably intercepting aerial assets far behind the front.
This does not mean helicopters have lost their military relevance. However, Ukraine's experience has exposed the limitations of the old doctrine, under which armour, low-altitude flight and onboard protection systems were expected to allow attack helicopters to operate directly over the front line.
Although the American and Soviet approaches to army aviation differed, both were shaped by the same Cold War battlefield assumptions. The American AH-64 Apache was primarily built to counter armoured forces and strike targets deep in enemy territory. The Soviet Mi-24 (NATO reporting name: Hind) combined two roles in a single platform: it served as a gunship for infantry support and a troop carrier for small assault teams. Later Soviet designs – the Ka-52 (Hokum) and Mi-28 (Havoc) – focused more heavily on the attack helicopter role. The doctrine relied on helicopters using terrain masking to approach targets, fire anti-tank weapons and escape before the enemy could react.
Russia attempted to apply this logic in its war against Ukraine. On 24 February 2022, a group of 34 helicopters headed towards Hostomel airfield, tasked with dropping several hundred paratroopers. According to a commentary by the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Russia lost around 17% of the helicopters deployed during the operation, mainly to man-portable air defence systems and as a result of being hit by other weapons. Oryx, an open-source intelligence project which counts only losses confirmed by photographs or video footage, identified six helicopters lost in the Hostomel area: one Mi-8, one Mi-28 and four Ka-52s, one of which was captured by Ukrainian forces.
The assault force took control of the airfield, but the strategic objective was out of reach. Ukrainian forces denied Russia the ability to quickly establish an air bridge for heavy transport aircraft. Ground convoys advancing towards Kyiv ground to a halt. The helicopter assault, which was intended as the opening move of a lightning campaign, became one of the clearest signs that the plan was doomed to fail.
Hostomel was only the beginning of a wider problem. In the early weeks of the invasion, Ka-52s, Mi-28s and Mi-24/35s swept across the battlefield in pairs, flying at extremely low altitudes as they hunted Ukrainian forces and occasionally ventured dozens of kilometres behind the front line. By spring, however, these operations had largely stopped. A RUSI study of the air war has found that heavy losses made helicopter crews increasingly unwilling to risk crossing the front line.
Onboard defence systems and heat decoys were no magic shield. They could send an infrared-guided missile off course, but they could not eliminate the threat. On a battlefield where thousands of crews armed with Stinger, Piorun, Igla and other MANPADS are scattered along the front line, a helicopter only needs to make one mistake – to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The scale of the losses is visible in open-source data. At the time of writing, at least 54 Russian Ka-52s and 14 Mi-28s had been visually confirmed destroyed. Once damaged and captured aircraft are added, the tally rises to 68 Ka-52s and 20 Mi-28s. These helicopters were not all lost to MANPADS, nor were they all shot out of the sky. But together, the figures reveal that operating close to the front line has become an increasingly costly gamble for attack helicopters.
The "flying tank" has not become obsolete. The term, used to describe heavily armed attack helicopters built to combine firepower, armour and mobility, now describes a platform that has lost much of its freedom of manoeuvre. Its armour can protect against small-arms fire and battlefield debris. Still, it cannot keep an attack helicopter hovering for long over enemy positions where MANPADS, mobile air defence systems, anti-aircraft artillery, radars and unmanned aerial reconnaissance are all operating at once.
Survival through distance: rocket "lofting" tactics and missiles as a stopgap solution
The initial response to the strengthening of air defences was to move weapons further away from the front line. Ukrainian and Russian crews began using unguided rockets more frequently in rocket "lofting" manoeuvres. The helicopter flies at low altitude, using terrain for cover, then briefly raises its nose by 15-30 degrees before launching munitions. The crew fires a salvo of S-8 or S-13 rockets – unguided munitions of different calibres carried in under-slung pods. The rockets travel towards the target area on a ballistic trajectory, while the helicopter immediately turns away and releases heat decoys. This is the method of operation described by RUSI.
The accuracy of the strikes is limited because the crew cannot see a specific target at the moment of launch. Instead, the rockets are aimed towards a pre-calculated area. They can force infantry to take cover or temporarily restrict movement, but are far less effective against individual armoured vehicles or fortified positions. It is a compromise: the helicopter can deliver fire without approaching enemy positions, but the tactic cannot replace precision fire support.
Another avenue of adaptation has been the use of longer-range missiles. The most notable Russian example is the Light Multipurpose Guided Rocket (LMUR), also known as Product 305. The missile weighs around 105 kg, carries a 25kg warhead and has a range of approximately 14.5-15 km. A nose-mounted camera with a thermal imaging channel allows it to identify targets. It is guided by inertial and satellite navigation systems during flight.
The LMUR can operate in two modes. In the first, the operator selects a target before launch, and the missile then autonomously tracks it. In the second, the missile first flies to a designated area and transmits images back to the helicopter, enabling the operator to select or change the target during flight. According to Oryx, these missiles have primarily been used in combat against buildings, pontoon crossings and nearby equipment.
The extra range gives the Mi-28NM and upgraded Ka-52M a valuable advantage: they can strike while staying beyond the reach of many man-portable air defence systems. But distance does not equal safety. The helicopters are still vulnerable to longer-range air defences, fighter aircraft, drones and attacks on the bases where they are stationed.
A RAND study notes that Russian aviation has retained the ability to operate effectively from behind the front line by relying on long-range weapons and exploiting gaps in Ukrainian air defences to limit the effectiveness of mechanised attacks.
This approach did not return helicopters to their former role above the front line, but it did demonstrate the conditions in which they can still be effective. With target data provided by drones or ground reconnaissance, a helicopter can launch guided weapons from a safer distance without entering the most dangerous areas of enemy fire. The platform is therefore evolving from a close-support attack aircraft into a carrier for precision weapons.
A renaissance behind the lines: helicopters as an effective air defence weapon against drones
As the skies above the front line became increasingly dangerous, helicopters found a new role deep inside Ukraine: intercepting long-range strike drones.
The Russo-Iranian Shahed loitering munition is a difficult target for a fighter jet. It flies low and slowly, and using an expensive air defence missile against a mass-produced drone quickly becomes an inefficient use of resources. For the Mi-8 or Mi-24, however, the Shahed's slow speed is an advantage. The Shahed-136 flies at approximately 180 km/h, and the CSIS think tank notes that the Mi-8 has sufficient speed to pursue the drone, match its course and allow the gunner to engage it.
The full operational framework for these interceptions is not publicly available, but the general logic is clear. Air Command receives data from radars, acoustic sensors and observation posts before directing helicopter crews towards the target area. Once there, pilots locate the drone visually or with thermal imaging, approach from the side or behind, and open fire over a safe area. The distributed Ukrainian network of acoustic sensors, described in a US Army report as Sky Fortress, is crucial because it provides early target information to mobile fire groups and aviation.
In this scenario, the helicopter effectively becomes an airborne mobile fire group. Unlike ground-based crews tied to a specific area, helicopter crews can quickly move between multiple possible routes, close gaps between air defence positions and intercept targets in locations where they can be destroyed more safely. These interceptions are particularly valuable on approaches to cities, over the sea and in sparsely populated areas, where the risk from falling debris and stray rounds is lower.
Changing missions also requires upgrading older aircraft. In July 2026, Andrii Lebedenko, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said that Soviet-era helicopters were being fitted with modern communications, navigation, reconnaissance and strike systems. The goal is not simply to improve their ability to detect drones, but to integrate helicopter crews into the wider air defence network: they must receive target coordinates in time, maintain situational awareness and operate alongside, rather than interfere with, ground-based air defence systems.
For this role, Ukrainian Mi-8s are being fitted with thermal imaging sights and rapid-fire machine guns, particularly the six-barrelled M134 Minigun. In March 2026, the Ukrainian Navy released a video showing a single crew destroying 12 Shahed drones over the course of three hours. Oleksandr Syrskyi, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, also said that in certain designated areas, helicopters were intercepting up to 40% of drones entering their zones of responsibility. This does not represent the share of all UAVs launched across Ukraine, but it indicates that the tactic has become an established element of the country's air defence system.
Its main economic advantage is not that it is a cheap helicopter – flight hours, maintenance and crew training all come at a high cost. The benefit lies elsewhere: machine-gun fire can conserve NASAMS, IRIS-T, or Patriot missiles for faster, more dangerous targets. By comparison, a single PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs around US$4 million, according to US Army budget data, while machine gun ammunition is several orders of magnitude cheaper. However, this calculation must also account for risks to both personnel and the aircraft.
Russia has begun adapting to this new threat. In December 2025, a Shahed-136 fitted with a Soviet-era R-60 air-to-air missile, designed to engage aircraft and helicopters, was spotted in Ukraine for the first time. The effectiveness of this combination is not yet known, nor is the number of modified drones in service. Even so, the appearance of such a variant suggests that aerial interceptions have become a problem for Russia. The new threat also increases risks for helicopter crews and creates a demand for relatively inexpensive guided weapons that could destroy drones from greater distances, without requiring aircraft to approach within machine-gun range.
A reversal of roles: when the hunter becomes the prey of FPV drones
Another development is that attack helicopters, which are primarily designed to engage ground targets, have themselves become targets for small FPV drones. A typical radio-controlled FPV drone costs around US$500, although the price varies depending on its range, equipment and control method. Fibre-optic models are generally more complex and expensive.
In August 2024, drone operators from Ukraine's Special Operations Centre Alpha for the first time successfully struck a Russian Mi-28 helicopter flying over Kursk Oblast with an FPV drone. The drone hit the area around the tail rotor, damage to which can result in a loss of control. A Ukrainian source said the helicopter had been shot down, but the footage released does not show what happened to it afterwards. According to one Russian account, the helicopter made an emergency landing and was later sent for repairs.
Two days later, a video emerged showing an attack on a Mi-8 helicopter, but there was no confirmation that the aircraft had been destroyed. In March 2026, however, operators from the 59th Brigade hit a Ka-52 near Nadiivka in Donetsk Oblast with a fibre-optic FPV drone. The damaged helicopter made an emergency landing. A helicopter of this type is estimated to cost around US$16 million.
Such attacks remain relatively rare for now. An FPV drone's speed depends on its size, motors, battery and payload weight. Most armed FPV drones are slower than combat helicopters and cannot pursue them at top speed for long. They are most likely to score a hit when a helicopter is hovering, slowing down, preparing to land or flying low in an area where the drone has already been launched. In practice, this makes such attacks more akin to an aerial ambush or a well-timed interception than a prolonged chase.
Conventional helicopter countermeasures are largely ineffective against such a threat. Thermal decoys are designed to divert infrared-guided missiles by creating false heat sources. An FPV operator, however, guides the drone using a live camera feed and may simply ignore the decoys and continue the attack.
Electronic warfare systems can jam the control or video link of a conventional FPV drone. Fibre-optic drones, however, receive commands through a thin cable that unspools behind them in flight rather than via a radio signal. As a result, they are effectively immune to electronic warfare. That does not make them invulnerable, however: they can still be detected and physically destroyed.
However, the defensive systems fitted to most combat helicopters were designed to detect radar threats and incoming anti-aircraft missiles, not small quadcopters. In the future, these aircraft may therefore require optical, thermal imaging, acoustic or compact radar detection systems, together with onboard electronic warfare systems and drone-interception capabilities.
Meanwhile, helicopter crews are having to adapt their tactics by changing flight routes, reducing the time spent hovering and monitoring the surrounding airspace more closely. There is currently no off-the-shelf system capable of automatically detecting and destroying FPV drones around a helicopter, meaning protection will have to rely on a combination of complementary measures.
Lessons learnt. Rethinking weaponry and future prospects
In February 2024, the US Army cancelled the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) programme after several years of development. At the time, Bell and Sikorsky were already building prototypes of two competing aircraft. Randy George, the then US Army Chief of Staff, explicitly cited the lessons of the war in Ukraine when explaining the decision. He said aerial reconnaissance had changed significantly as unmanned and space-based systems have become more accessible, cheaper and capable of operating over longer distances.
However, it would be an exaggeration to suggest that the FARA programme was cancelled solely because of the war in Ukraine. The US Army was reassessing its entire aviation spending structure and faced competing priorities: funding the new MV-75 tiltrotor, modernising the Black Hawk and Chinook fleets, expanding unmanned systems and developing long-range weapons. The lessons from Ukraine were one factor behind the decision, but not the only one.
One of the main areas of development is the concept of Manned-Unmanned Teaming, the coordinated operation of manned and unmanned aircraft. American AH-64E Apache helicopters can already receive video feeds from RQ-7 Shadow and MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones and control their sensors. In Europe, Airbus and Leonardo are testing the MUSHER system, which allows helicopter crews to receive information from multiple unmanned aerial vehicles and assign them tasks.
As a result, a different model is gradually emerging in Western programmes: instead of conducting reconnaissance over the front line independently, the helicopter is being transformed into an airborne command post operating behind the battlefield to coordinate a group of unmanned aerial vehicles. The drones enter the danger zone first, locate targets and transmit data, while the crew directs their operations and engages targets from a greater distance.
A recent example of this approach is the Thunder unmanned tiltrotor, unveiled in July 2026 by Anduril and Archer Aviation. According to the developers' plans, the aircraft would operate ahead of the Apache or future MV-75, conducting reconnaissance, identifying targets, carrying additional weapons and protecting manned aircraft from enemy drones. For now, however, it is only a concept represented by a full-scale mock-up, with the first flight planned for 2027.
The Ukrainian experience demonstrates how such a system could operate in a real war. A drone enters the dangerous area first, checks the route, identifies enemy positions and transmits data. The helicopter remains at a greater distance, where the crew receives information from multiple platforms and, if necessary, employs long-range weapons.
Nevertheless, drones cannot completely replace military aviation. Helicopters remain essential for transporting troops and cargo, evacuating the wounded, deploying small teams and operating in areas without prepared airfields. Intercepting slow-moving drones has also become a separate mission area.
That said, this is no longer solely a Ukrainian practice. Russia has also deployed Ka-52s and Mi-28s against Ukrainian long-range drones. In the Middle East, helicopters have been used to destroy Iranian and Houthi UAVs.
An Israeli AH-64 shot down an Iranian drone in 2018. In 2024, a French naval helicopter intercepted a Houthi UAV over the Red Sea. Countering drones is therefore gradually becoming another mission for helicopters.
Consequently, the war does not signal the end of helicopters, but rather a transformation in the conditions under which they operate. Manned aircraft will increasingly struggle to operate independently directly over the front line. Instead, they will serve as carriers for long-range weapons, transport platforms and control stations for drone fleets.
Translated by Artem Yakymyshyn
Edited by Susan McDonald