The Evolution of Drone Warfare
From Karabakh, With Love: How the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War foreshadowed the use of drones in the Russo-Ukranian War and the evolution of drone warfare in the Ukraine conflict.
While the world was focused on “other things” in 2020, a conflict reignited in the Caucuses between Azerbaijan and Armenia. What the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war lacked in scale it made up for in intensity.
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in particular played a pivotal role in shaping the battlefield both at the tactical and strategic level. While much of the West looked the other way as its new ally got wrecked by the Azeris, the Russians paid close attention. In particular, PMC Wagner.
This essay explores how the Azeri army's use of drones in the Nagorno-Karabakh war foreshadowed their importance in the subsequent Ukraine war and the evolution of drone warfare in Ukraine.
Background: Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
While at a disadvantage contra Armenia through the 1990s, Azeri fortunes changed throughout the 2000’s. Azerbaijan became a major player on the international oil markets, flooding the small nation with revenue. Constitutional reforms in 2005 allowed president Ilham Aliyev to remain president for life, and shortly thereafter he set out to modernize the Azeri military.
By 2015, it was so painfully obvious to Russia, the EU and US, that the Azeris had eclipsed Armenian military capabilities that efforts were renewed to resolve the frozen conflict in Nagorno-Karakabh.1
But it’s at precisely this moment when Armenia started flirting with the US and NATO. As we detailed in part two of Ukraine: the road to war, the US and NATO had been trying to court Russia’s neighbors, and Armenia was hoping for both economic and military aid. This aid never came.2
It's important to note that this was a frozen conflict along a heavily fortified line of contact. The two sides had fought along these same lines, from many of the same positions, just fifteen years earlier. Virtually every defensive position was known, as were the lines of approach; artillery pieces were stationed nearby with pre-planned coordinates to strike potential avenues of advance.
Any attack using the tactics and technologies of the 1990’s was bound to result in a mountain of casualties for a molehill of territorial gain. Innovation in either technology or technique was crucial to a successful attack.
The Azeri Campaign
That doesn’t mean the campaign was a walkover. By the end of the first week the Azeris had made little progress. I Corps in the north had taken a single town before getting bogged down; V Corps in the east had made no progress against the prepared Armenian defenses and progress in the south was minimal. But this is when things changed.
By the end of the first week, the psychological impact of UAV and smaller drone strikes had led to nearly 5,000 Armenian desertions. This number would reach 10,000 by the end of the war. The combination of surveillance and kamikaze drones, advanced radar systems and traditional artillery allowed the Azeris to wipe out nearly 100 Armenian radar, artillery, and missile systems for each Azeri system lost.
The stability of the central front - manned by the Azeri V Corps - allowed them to shift a large number of Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG) to reinforce the II Corps in the south of the country. This area was fairly flat and II Corps began to make progress. Azeri tanks proved highly effective when supported by infantry, drones, and artillery. Turkey had transferred several thousand Syrian mercenaries to the Azeri military. These were used as expendable assault groups to attack the most heavily defended areas and draw out hidden enemy forces.
After 2 weeks the war was clearly going the Azeri’s way. Turkish trained special forces led a long-distance raid on the capitol of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert and a ceasefire was signed not long after. It appears that the Azeris wanted to continue pushing, but the Russians stepped in. The Syrian mercenary corps faced the highest casualties with more than 550 KIA, but both sides suffered high casualties in relation to their size.
The war offers a snapshot in many ways of what we’ve seen in Ukraine and offers a number of lessons for onlookers. Contrary to the narrative of Western analysts, tanks proved to be highly effective on the modern battlefield, performing best in combined arms operations. With proper support, tanks made key breakthroughs. In urban environments, they were able to neutralize strong points and create alternative entry points for assault teams. Wagner would use tanks in a similar fashion in Bakhmut.
The role of mercenary forces is also notable. These were not necessarily highly trained members of a private military company (PMC) but alternative - and therefore expendable - forces willing to engage in fighting when casualties would be high and cause political backlash. This is reflected not only in the general use of Wagner and similar groups, but in their own use of penal battalions; echoes of this can also be seen in Ukraine’s use of Right-Sector and foreign volunteer units. In other words, some collection of forces outside of the national army whose loses would not be factored in to casualty figures and who lack the rights of a traditional military.
Azeri Use of Drones
In collaboration with Turkey, the Azeri military deployed a variety of drones including the Bayraktar TB2, to perform a diverse set of functions: gathering intelligence, conducting precision strikes, and disrupting Armenian forces. The success of these drone operations demonstrated the transformative potential which unmanned aerial systems could have on the modern battlefield.
Unmanned air assets are nothing new, nor has their potential for use been wholly ignored by the world's militaries. NATO military forces have employed them in a limited capacity in Afghanistan and Syria.
But the Azeri military was really the first to adopt them on a large scale and employ them in a systematic way.3 What they have done for drone warfare is similar to what German Field Marshall Heinz Guderian did for tank warfare: instead of employing them piecemeal, they were adopted at scale and used in an organized and systematic fashion.
From the Azeri campaign we can take away three key pillars of drone warfare: Intelligence, Precision Strike, Disruption of enemy forces.
Intelligence
One of the key takeaways for onlookers of the Nagorno-Karabakh war was the effectiveness of drones in providing intelligence in real time. The Azeri army used UAVs to survey the battlefield, identify enemy positions, and monitor the movement of Armenian forces. This intelligence advantage allowed Azerbaijan to make informed decisions, adjust its tactics in real-time, and gain a strategic edge over its adversary. This capability proved decisive, as just when it seemed that the Azeri’s were bogged down, they were able to identify weak points and cut off reinforcements during subsequent attacks.
Precision Strikes
The precision capabilities of drones were another critical aspect that foreshadowed their importance in Ukraine. Azeri drones conducted targeted strikes on Armenian positions, infrastructure, and military assets. Accessibility to drones at the unit level allowed Azeri front-line commanders to quickly identify and neutralize problematic targets as they appeared. The accuracy of these strikes minimized collateral damage - though they would make up for this by destroying any and everything with a cross on it - reduced the risk to Azeri ground forces and minimized the impact of Armenian defenses.
The level of precision drones provided showcased their potential to shape the outcome of a conflict without resorting to large-scale, indiscriminate attacks - and at a significantly lower cost than conventional FIRES assets.
Disruption of enemy forces
The conflict highlighted the evolving role of drones in disrupting enemy operations and their psychological impact on enemy forces. Azerbaijan effectively used UAVs to neutralize key Armenian assets, such as air defense systems and artillery positions, reinforcements and resupply convoys. By doing so, Azeri forces created favorable conditions for their ground offensives and limited the ability of the Armenian military to mount a cohesive defense. It did not take long for Armenian forces, hearing the distinct buzzing of a drone, to flee their positions. The successful disruption of enemy capabilities through drone warfare became a blueprint for future military strategies.
These three pillars of drone warfare acted as a key force multiplier for the Azeri army and would become crucial to the fighting in Ukraine for both sides.
PMC Wagner
Many have tried to argue that Ukraine had watched the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and adopted drones to meet the Russian threat soon after the invasion. But this isn’t exactly what happened. The Ukrainian Army (AFU), being a defacto NATO force, continued down the path their US advisors had paved for them: large tank maneuvers, prepared defensives, limited use of drones in a more or less experimental role. Some of the more elite units who had been stationed along the line of contact prior to the war saw the value of drones - though still primary in terms of intelligence - but didn’t have the funding to obtain them at scale. While the Russians came into the war much better prepared in terms of drone and counter drone operations, they too would take some time to ramp up the scale of their drone fleet.
The detachment commanders of PMC Wagner on the other hand recognized the significance of drone technology and were quick to implement the three pillars of drone warfare. Wagner, being a small and highly adaptable force of elite operators constantly engaged in some level of conflict was well suited to quickly adopt emerging tactics.4
No later than the battle of Popasna, Wagner had implemented drones throughout their combat detachments, developing an integrated command and control structure allowing commanders at the operational and detachment level unprecedented battlefield awareness and precision strike capabilities.
Wagner's operational commander at Soledar, Anton Elizarov, callsign Lotus, went a step further by outfitting commanders, assault units, and breachers with GoPro style cameras, laser targeting detection systems and drone counter measures. All combat footage was channeled to his command post. This footage, along with drone footage and other intelligence assets, was repeatedly reviewed by Anton and commanders on the ground to isolate mistakes and shift tactics on a daily basis.5 This allowed Wagner forces to effectively lift the fog of war and shift tactics on the fly.
By the end of the battle of Soledar, Wagner was more lethal and technologically advanced than any other force on the battlefield. This would become abundantly clear in Bakhmut, a battle which will be studied by militaries around the world for the next hundred years.
Russian drone use in Ukraine
Much has been said about the Russian advantage in artillery and certainly this is warranted; but it must be understood how UAV, first person view drones (FPV) in particular, have filled two crucial capability gaps in indirect fire capabilities: precision strikes in an urban or danger close environment and strikes on moving targets.
More traditional methods of handling these situations cause tremendous damage, are expensive, and time consuming, as they require contact and coordination with operational level assets. If you level a building to destroy an enemy position, you run the risk of creating a dozen more in the rubble. This is a problem faced by both the Germans in Stalingrad, and US forces in Fallujah. A drone can fly into a particular room - or bunker/trench line - and detonate. Another can fly through the building and locate other enemy positions.
It is nearly impossible for a howitzer or mortar crew to hit a moving target without a direct line of sight. Even then the chances aren’t great. Air assets can engage a moving target, but this is incredibly risky on the modern battlefield and the cost of a guided missile is astronomical when compared to a FPV drone.6
Drones have enabled these capabilities to be employed at the platoon and company level at a fraction of the cost. This has exponentially increased the firepower and range of infantry units. This proliferation of assets which had previously been at the regimental or brigade level is the real strength of drones on the modern battlefield.7 To be clear, while small units are issued a variety of drones, the Russian Army has dedicated units for waging drone warfare against enemy forces. This allows for a concentration of drone assets being piloted by dedicated specialists - just as Guderian did with the German Panzer forces prior to World War II. This had led to the drone swarm attacks we’ve seen in Ukraine.
Terrain Denial
A key consideration of shaping a battlefield is denying your enemy access to key terrain. Traditionally this has been done through mines, tank traps, razor wire, machine gun emplacements, flooding, etc. The Russian Army (RA) in Zaporizhzhia proved that drones are not only effective at terrain denial but can provide terrain denial in depth.
Well ahead of the traditional defensive lines, tank traps and minefields, the Russians deployed large amounts of surveillance, kamikaze, and bomb-dropping drones. This allowed the RA to spot AFU formations at their staging points, and direct conventional air assets to strike the AFU while still ten kilometers from the first Russian positions. As they moved closer - already taking loses - they would begin to be struck by Kamikaze drones.
As we noted in Les Incompetents the minefields were simply the last straw. By the time the AFU reached the extensive minefields laid by the RA, they had suffered twenty percent or more casualties. Once they entered the minefields, all hell broke loose. In addition to drones, Kamikaze drones and anti-tank guns were ready to engage.
This led to AFU infantry dismounting their armored vehicles in an attempt to dig in and slowly move forward using small unit tactics. But here the bomb-dropping drones came into their own. As Ukrainian soldiers attempted to attack, defend their positions, or even relax in a dugout, a Russian drone would drop a grenade on them. Tree lines are only a partial reprieve since, as we have said, drones can be flown into small spaces; I’m sure both sides have gotten pretty good at shooting at drones.
Ukrainian drone use
None of that is to say that Ukrainian forces at the front hadn’t been using FPV drones - as noted above. But these were largely local actions taken to compensate for the lack of conventional fire support and intelligence assets. These were commercial drones acquired by the frontline units themselves with money raised through fundraising campaigns the units and their families would launch of their own accord. This is still a common practice today.
During the battle of Bakhmut the AFU began utilizing FPV quadcopters and more traditional fixed-wing UAVs on a large scale. The adaptability and versatility of drones has allowed Ukrainian forces a marked increase in capabilities. The AFU is not, however, capable of building a drone fleet - both in numbers of drones or the size and number of drone units - capable of matching the Russians.
Knowing that a battlefield victory is unlikely the AFU has switched to using its kamikaze drones in terroristic acts against the Russian population, mirroring the tactics used by groups like the Islamic State and Hamas in hopes that the Russian people will overthrow Putin. Not only civilian targets in the occupied territories, but Belgorod, Moscow, and even St. Petersburg have been hit by explosive packed drones.
The emerging threat of terror drones
This last development does highlight the role of drones in asymmetric warfare and terrorist operations. The world became painfully aware of this possibility on October 7, 2023, when video footage of Hamas operated drones destroying Israeli gun emplacements and other critical military infrastructure flooded television and social media. ISIS and other terrorist organizations have used drones extensively in more recent years.8
The international community has taken note of the impact of drone warfare in these conflicts and their use in terrorizing civilian populations. Nations around the world now recognize the true strategic value of incorporating drone assets into their military and national security infrastructure, leading to increased research, development, and procurement of unmanned aerial systems.
But at what point does the use of UAV and drone technology to ensure public safety cross the line into a violation of liberty and privacy? That is the question plaguing politicians and ethicists around the world, and one I will not attempt to tackle right now.
Conclusions
The Azeri army's use of drones in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war foreshadowed the critical role unmanned systems would play in the conduct of the subsequent Ukraine war. In both conflicts, actors facing larger and more conventional adversaries turned to drones as a means of compensating for military disparities. Drones provided a cost-effective and accessible way for smaller forces to enhance their military capabilities and challenge larger, technologically advanced forces.
The lessons learned from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including the significance of real-time intelligence, precision strikes, and disruption of enemy operations, will inform the military strategies of nations around the globe for the foreseeable future - and in yet unforeseeable ways. The fact that the rise of drones stems largely from a short conflict between two minor players is a reminder for strategists around the world that success in the next war could depend largely on the attention paid and the conclusions drawn from what may seem at the time to be an obscure and irrelevant conflict.
On paper, the Armenians still had a larger military, but their equipment was hardly serviceable, not having been updated since the mid 1990s. The Azeri’s had a more highly motivated, better trained, technologically and tactically advanced force.
Ironically, it was Azerbaijan who would receive help from NATO, by way of Turkey. The Azeris are a Turkic people. Erdogan has been hoping that if Azerbaijan can reclaim the southern portion of Armenia, it will create a continuous trade corridor between Turkey and the Turkish states of Central Asia.
To be clear, they only had around a dozen Bayraktar TB2 UAVs. But proportionate to the force, this was pretty dense. These and smaller drones, being integrated into the fighting doctrine of the Azeri military is what made the difference. The Azeris and Armenians were otherwise using the same equipment - though the Azeri models were a bit newer - and much of the same training and force structure, being post-soviet states.
US military personnel who came into contact with Wagner while serving in Syria have all stated that they were impressed by Wagner. They have described them as being highly disciplined and having technology “at least as capable” as US equipment.
Anton Elizarov, like most of Wagner’s top commanders, was a former commander of a Spetsnaz detachment before joining Wagner in late 2016. He served as a detachment commander in the Central African Republic, Syria, and Libya. These conflicts, though brutal as civil wars always are, were of a much lower intensity than the fighting in Ukraine. This allowed Wagner to hone its command-and-control capabilities, experiment with new tactics and weapons applications. That their tactics, particularly their use of drones and other technologies, were effective and well-honed prior to arriving in the Donbass is proved by their breaking of the deadlock upon arrival.
How ironic it is that we spend trillions of dollars to build all these wunterwaffe, and they are destroyed by a $100 drone or IED. When it was IEDs we said “well this technology will pay off in the next big one.” Now, the next big one is here, and the world’s second most powerful military is using tens of thousands of small commercials drones.
The same can be said for their intelligence capabilities. Their low cost, ability to get into tight spaces and be issued to virtually any soldier on the modern battlefield makes them a game changer.
To be fair, the CIA’s Drone Wars under the Obama Administration was dropping bombs on schools, clinics, and civilian vehicles in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia over ten years ago. See The Way of the Knife; by Mark Mazetti.