Russian Molniya UAVs are being used on the battlefield as «motherships» for FPV drones, carrying them as far as 70 kilometers behind enemy lines before they are deployed against targets, military analyst Mikhail Khodarenok has said.

According to Khodarenok, this tactic has significant potential. Information coming from the Ukrainian side indicates that similar methods are already being used with other types of UAVs. Some carriers can reportedly deploy several FPV drones, and he expects the number carried by a single platform to increase.

Khodarenok identified mass deployment and relatively low cost as the main advantages of the concept. Using expensive aircraft bombs with television or laser guidance against small, ordinary targets is economically inefficient, he argued.

For the same reason, the carrier itself must remain relatively inexpensive. Combining a low-cost mothership with FPV drones makes it possible to attack such targets without using significantly more expensive aviation munitions.

Khodarenok expects these tactics to become increasingly widespread, with the number of FPV-drone carriers involved in strikes growing in what he described as a logarithmic progression.