Bayraktar TB2 over eastern Ukraine: drone deal between Kyiv and Ankara angers Moscow

Ukraine is reported to have deployed a Bayraktar TB2 near the Donbas for the first time, according to the Ukrainian platform “Military Aviation in Ukraine”. The Turkish drone reportedly took off on 9 April from an airfield in Kherson Oblast in the south of the country and then flew over the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv oblasts bordering the Donbas.

The flight over eastern Ukraine was reportedly confirmed by Yuri Mysyagin, deputy head of the Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence in Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Its purpose was most likely reconnaissance.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has so far not commented on the drone flight of 9 April. What is certain, however, is that the TB2 is part of the inventory of the Ukrainian armed forces. Under then-President Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine signed an agreement with Türkiye in early 2019 for twelve drones, six of which have been delivered so far. Last year, a contract followed for a further 48 TB2 including munitions, ground control stations and other infrastructure.

The drones are to be produced in Ukraine, as Vadym Nozdria explains in a report. He is Director General of UkrSpecExport, which concluded the contracts with the Turkish manufacturer Baykar Makina and belongs to Ukroboronprom, the state group of the Ukrainian defence industry. According to Nozdria, this would cut procurement costs by up to 35 per cent. The drone has already been tested several times over Ukraine, including missile firings. In future, the Ukrainian Navy is to use them alongside the air force.

Bayraktar TB2 – the “standard-bearer” from Türkiye

The Bayraktar TB2 (Tactical Block 2) is a tactical unmanned aircraft for reconnaissance and combat and belongs to the medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) class. According to the manufacturer Baykar Technologies, the drone is 6.5 metres long with a twelve-metre wingspan; it climbs to a maximum altitude of eight kilometres and stays airborne for up to 27 hours.

With a payload of 150 kilograms, it can carry up to four laser-guided Roketsan MAM-L and MAM-C munitions. This is intended to enable the TB2 to attack armoured vehicles, main battle tanks, artillery pieces, troop concentrations, mobile air defence systems and mobile rocket launchers. In Türkiye, the armed forces, police and the paramilitary Jandarma have operated the Bayraktar TB2 since 2014. Besides Ukraine, buyers include Azerbaijan and Qatar.

The drone owes its name to Selcuk Bayraktar, owner and chief technology officer of Baykar. The son-in-law of President Erdoğan was closely involved in developing the TB2 and is regarded as the driving force behind Turkish drone development. The name is also symbolic: Bayraktar translates as “standard-bearer”. Owing to its military successes so far, the fully autonomous combat drone is considered a flagship project.

Its use has turned the tide on several fronts: in Syria in 2016 during the Turkish military offensive “Euphrates Shield”, in 2018 during Operation “Olive Branch” and in 2020 during “Spring Shield”. It also played an important role in the Libyan civil war, where the forces of the Tripoli government used it – and not least in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh last year.

Experts agree that the Turkish drone – alongside the Israeli IAI Harop “kamikaze drone” – contributed decisively to Azerbaijan’s military victory; it is often even described as “decisive for the outcome”. Its effectiveness and its contribution to victory in the Nagorno-Karabakh war were underlined some two weeks ago, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev awarded Selcuk Bayraktar the “Karabakh Order”.

The Turkish drone is not only very effective but also comparatively cheap: estimates put the cost of one unit including associated infrastructure at between one and two million euros. With its successes, the Bayraktar TB2 has already made a name for itself in the drone industry. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, for example, called it an “innovative and leading technology”.

Brothers in arms on the Black Sea

As the latest military-technical agreements between Kyiv and Ankara show, the 2019 drone deal is likely to have been only the start of longer-term cooperation. Agreements on closer bilateral cooperation gathered pace before the end of last year. In the autumn, Ukraine sold Türkiye the S-125 surface-to-air missile system.

In December 2020, both sides then signed contracts for the construction of Milgem-class corvettes for the Ukrainian Navy. They also agreed a joint venture between Ukraine’s UkrSpecExport and Türkiye’s Baykar to manufacture Bayraktar TB2 drones in Ukraine. Under this agreement, Kyiv may also export the drones to third countries.

But that is not all: a few days ago it emerged that the Ukrainian manufacturer Motor Sich is to supply the engines for the Bayraktar TB2 in future. Until now, the drone’s engines came from Rotax, a manufacturer in Upper Austria. Last October, however, Rotax’s Canadian parent company Bombardier imposed a delivery stop after the use of the Turkish drones in the Nagorno-Karabakh war became known.

Motor Sich already builds the AI-450S engines for Türkiye’s Akinci combat drones. Yet the list of joint projects between Ankara and Kyiv does not end there: some 30 joint arms and defence projects are planned in total, the Ukrainian ambassador to Türkiye, Andrii Sybiha, said a few weeks ago.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on 10 April, both reaffirmed their wish to work more closely together in defence.

The two Black Sea littoral states stand shoulder to shoulder not only in military technology but also politically. In view of Russian troop movements on the Ukrainian border, Türkiye has clearly sided with Ukraine; Erdoğan promised Zelensky “all necessary support”. The political closeness between Ankara and Kyiv is not new, of course, even if it becomes particularly evident in times of crisis: in recent years Erdoğan has repeatedly stressed that Türkiye will always support Ukraine’s independence and never recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Closeness between Kyiv and Ankara worries Moscow

The Kremlin is displeased that Ukraine and Türkiye are stressing their solidarity precisely now, as the situation between Kyiv and Moscow comes to a head. Russia appears particularly bothered that Ukraine is acquiring the highly effective Turkish “standard-bearers” – they enhance the country’s military capabilities.

In Syria, Libya and above all Nagorno-Karabakh, it became clear that the drone is superior to Russian weapons. The Turkish drone was able to destroy both the S-300 surface-to-air missile system used by Armenia and the Syrian armed forces’ Pantsir-S1 short-range air defence missile system. For destroying the Pantsir-S1 it even earned the nickname “Pantsir hunter”. The separatists in eastern Ukraine also use the latter system.

Now that Ukraine has Bayraktar drones, the question arises of the extent to which its armed forces could use them in combat and how such use would affect the further course of the conflict. Lieutenant Colonel Markus Reisner of the Theresian Military Academy, at any rate, sees escalation potential in increased drone use in eastern Ukraine – especially as Ukraine has recently begun producing its own “kamikaze” drones of the Hrim type (English: thunder).

Recent statements by Russian government officials show how much Moscow’s displeasure over the major drone deal between Türkiye and Ukraine is growing. After the two presidents met on 10 April and the alleged flight of the Bayraktar drone near the Donbas border the day before, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Türkiye not to fuel “militaristic sentiments” given the heightened tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.

In addition, three days after the meeting between Zelensky and Erdoğan, Russia suspended most charter and scheduled flights to Türkiye until June. Officially, this was justified by the sharply deteriorated epidemiological situation in Türkiye; but it seems clear that Russia wants to express its displeasure at Türkiye’s rapprochement with Ukraine.

Calculation on both sides

What Kyiv gains from cooperation with Ankara is obvious. Türkiye is not only helping the post-Soviet state modernise its military. It also means a great deal to Kyiv symbolically that the regional power publicly stands behind it and supports Ukraine’s NATO membership. But what does Türkiye gain – apart from economic profit – from working with Ukraine?

For Ankara, the relationship with Kyiv has a pronounced strategic dimension. The rapprochement with Kyiv is meant to balance Ankara’s relations with Moscow on the one hand and with Kyiv on the other; at the same time, it is meant to help contain Russia’s growing military presence in the Black Sea.

With its cooperation plans and declarations of solidarity with Kyiv, Ankara is thus sending Moscow a certain warning not to let the situation escalate. A rupture between the two regional powers is not to be expected, however. Whether Syria, Libya or Nagorno-Karabakh – as numerous as the fronts on which Moscow and Ankara pursue opposing goals are, so varied are their shared political, economic and military interests.