A tactic developed by Ukraine to attack helicopters with small drones has apparently found its way to the jungles of the war-torn nation of Myanmar. Rebels fighting Myanmar’s junta say they used a first-person view (FPV) drone to down an Mi-17 Hip transport helicopter attempting to land with supplies. The government, however, claims the helicopter crashed due to mechanical failure. Regardless, the claimed attack is nothing out of the realm of possibility. There are rapidly evolving threats to helicopters in combat zones, including from lower-end drones, raising concerns about degradation in their utility on future battlefields.
Video emerged on social media showing the video feed of what purports to be an FPV drone operated by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) careening toward the helicopter, which was hovering just a few feet off the ground at the time. The video cuts off as the FPV drone gets right next to the helicopter’s rotor blades. The video then shows a different angle of what appears to be a small explosion amongst the Mi-17’s rotors. The helicopter reportedly later crashed a short distance away, killing everyone on board.
While similar videos have emerged from Ukraine, the Hip variant and color scheme of the aircraft is different than what the Russians use.
“KIA troops bombed the helicopter on a football pitch near Infantry Battalion 56’s headquarters in Shwegu town,” KIA spokesman Colonel Naw Bu told The Irrawaddy, an independent publication run by exiled Myanmar journalists living in Thailand. “He said it also bombed the grounded helicopter with drones.”
On Tuesday, “the colonel said two of three helicopters sending reinforcements and supplies to the junta’s embattled 21st Military Operation Command (MOC) headquarters in Bhamo were hit by rockets and drones while dropping supplies and airlifting troops,” The Irrawaddy reported.
The War Zone cannot independently verify the KIA claims, however, the fact that the helicopter crashed is not in dispute.
The military government’s version of the events, which claimed that the helicopter crashed due to a “technical fault” was “first broadcast on state television Tuesday night, hours after independent online news outlets reported that a powerful ethnic Kachin armed group and allied pro-democracy fighters had shot down one of three army helicopters,” The Associated Press reported. It happened “shortly after some army transport helicopters delivered what was described as administrative supplies for soldiers at frontline posts in Kachin’s Bhamo township, about 280 kilometers (175 miles) northeast of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city,” according to the AP.
Shwegu, where the helicopter crashed, is a town in Myanmar’s north, about 50 miles west of the border with China.
Myanmar’s military, which came to power in February 2021 after seizing authority from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, has been battling pro-democracy resistance forces loosely allied with armed ethnic minority groups seeking greater autonomy, the wire service explained.
KIA “is one of the stronger ethnic armed groups, capable of manufacturing some of their own weapons, and whose fighters are battle-hardened from years of resistance,” according to AP. “The Kachin group is on good terms with the armed militias of the pro-democracy movement, known as the People’s Defense Force, that was formed to fight military rule after the 2021 army takeover. The two forces have fought side by side against the army not only in Kachin, but also in the nearby Sagaing region.”
The government’s once formidible armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, “have suffered a series of unprecedented defeats since 2024, especially in areas to the east near the Chinese border and in the western state of Rakhine, after an alliance of three powerful militias launched a coordinated offensive on Oct. 27, 2023,” AP explained.
The Mi-17 loss came amid a KIA offensive push toward Bhamo, Kachin state’s second largest city, that was launched in December.
Though much of Bhamo has been seized by the KIA and its allies, “the MOC 21 headquarters is holding out because of junta air support,” The Irrawaddy reported. Myanmar’s military “has lost at least five helicopters and three tactical combat jets since it seized power,” AP noted. “Resistance forces have several times claimed to have downed military aircraft but their claims could not be confirmed.”
Most combat aircraft in Myanmar’s military come from China or Russia, which also supply other armaments. Many Western nations maintain an arms embargo and other sanctions against the ruling military.
As we noted earlier in this story, the claimed attack on the government helicopter mirrors a tactic developed by Ukraine. The first indications of this came in July 2024, when a Russian Mi-8AMTSh Hip helicopter was lost near Donetsk City. Russian sources report it was downed by a Ukrainian one-way attack drone. You can see the aftermath of that incident in the following video.
More recently, operators of the Bombus Balista unit from the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine claimed last week that they hit a Russian Ka-52 “Alligator” combat helicopter using an FPV drone. That incident was captured on video, which you can see below.
The war in Ukraine, in particular, has highlighted the growing vulnerability of helicopters. In the ensuing months after launching its all-out invasion, Russia lost many of its Ka-52s, as we previously noted, as well as other helicopters. At the time, Ukraine was using man-portable air defenses (MANPADS), and, to a lesser extent anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to attack Russian rotary wing aviation. Helicopters are especially vulnerable when executing terminal operations (landing or taking off) or are slowly moving around at low altitudes.
To date, Russia has lost at least 122 helicopters of all variants, according to the Oryx open-source tracking group. That includes at least 42 Hip-8 transports and 64 Ka-52 alligators. Those figures could be higher because Oryx only tabulates losses for which it has visual confirmation.
Helicopter vulnerability to these weapons did not begin in Ukraine. Anti-tank missiles, in general, proved a particularly effective tool for under-resourced forces when engaging superior militaries. Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, the conflict in Syria also underlined ATGM’s secondary anti-helicopter capabilities. In that war, insurgent-rebel groups, such as ‘Sham Legion,’ used ATGM capabilities when targeting Syrian military helicopters when they were most vulnerable on the ground or while landing or taking off. The following video shows one such engagement.
Beyond traditional ground-based air defenses, which are becoming far more capable and deeply integrated/networked at an accelerating rate, helicopters have to now contend with FPV drones and loitering SAMs, as well as loitering interceptor drones, that can be used against rotary wing aircraft, as well. Countermeasures to some of these threats really have not caught up. The threat posed by drones, in general, has also vastly reinvigorated proliferation of short-range air defenses for counter-UAS needs, but many of these systems can also engage helicopters. Then there is the aerial threat, with fighter and support aircraft becoming more capable of spotting low and slow flying helicopters thanks to advanced sensors. The distances involved with future wars alone could relegate even the most advanced traditional helicopters into support roles. All this creates an increasingly complex and unpredictable operational reality for military helicopters, even in low-to-medium threat environments.
The proliferation of lower-end weaponized drones spurred by knowledge gained on and disseminated from battlefields around the world is only accelerating the threat posed by these accessible technologies, including to helicopters. Case in point is how criminal actors, like Mexican cartels, are now employing weaponized drones with regularity. This will only continue to grow, which puts at risk many targets virtually anywhere, but especially on the battlefield. Point defense of key locations using FPV drones against helicopters are of extreme concern, especially for units tasked with going after high-priority and well-armed targets, like the U.S. special operations community. Hard to procure shoulder-fired missiles used to be the best way for small units to counter an incoming helicopter assault, but now FPV drones can race forward to take out helicopters as they approach or are over their target. And they can do it at a fraction of the cost and hassle. There is no defense for this aside from electronic warfare, and fiber optic-linked FPVs eliminate this vulnerability entirely.
With all this in mind, what we just saw in Myanmar is only a taste of what’s likely to come.
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