Ukraine Targets Russian Drone Operators Through FPV Supply Chain Sabotage
An ancient strategem takes new postindustrial forms
According to the Kyiv Post, HUR, the Ukrainian intelligence directorate, has sabotaged the supply chain for Skyzone Cobra X v4 FPV drone control goggles in Russia.
Ukrainians clearly want to inspire fear in the enemy that their supply chain is compromised. HUR shared a photo of multiple booby-trapped goggle sets on a table with the Post.
The “so-called ‘Banderite hideouts’ producing surprise-loaded goggles for Russian occupiers are no longer limited to the Ukrainian Carpathians,” an anonymous team member tells the Post, “they now exist deep in Russian Siberia as well.”
During January and early February around 80 sets of the FPV goggles had been sent through several different Russian volunteer groups to various Russian armed forces drone units. HUR concealed around 15 grams (half an ounce) of plastic explosive, a detonator and a battery inside the equipment’s casing near a cooling fan which sits close to the user’s temple.
Between Feb. 4 to 7 at least eight Russian drone pilots were seriously injured, possibly blinded, after the bombs inside the goggles functioned while they were wearing them.
While it is nowhere near as spectacular as Operation Grim Beeper, the Israeli intelligence operation that effectively put Hezbollah’s middle management out of action in September 2024, it is getting the attention of Russian milbloggers who worry what other supply chains are compromised.
The CIA reportedly has a unit devoted to supply chain operations. “What’s surprising about this shift in the approach by the U.S. government is that it took so long,” write Calder Walton, a historian at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Kevin Quinlan, a “value chain management” professional.
“Globalization is not playing out the way it was supposed to. The tenets of liberal economic policy, including perfect competition and efficiency, are receding in favor of the idea of resiliency against risks posed by adversaries, especially China and Russia.” Turns out that letting communists be the world’s factory has potential risks, who knew?
Disillusionment with globalization, especially its borderlessness, has fueled reactionary political movements across the western world. The borderlessness of the supply chain makes it very difficult for a civilian volunteer group buying FPV goggles to be sure that every link of the chain is secure.
Attacking your enemy’s supply chain is a very old strategem in warfare. What’s new is the technology of information management used to efficiently control the supply chain. Due to wartime sanctions, choices in that kind of business software are currently limited within Russia. Perhaps HUR has figured out a way to exploit this.
