Thread by @sfrantzman

What happened to the stories about the Bayraktars that Ukraine had? In the early days of the war there was some hype about them, some videos supposedly showing them taking out things, but since then there hasn't been much? We were told it had changed the "nature" of war...?

I guess the last round of articles and details was in September? There was a meeting at the time; rferl.org/a/zelensky-tur…

I understand media sometimes wants to hype things and of course Ankara wanted more sales...but all these uncritical articles by major media about how this drone had literally "remade" war...is there maybe a place for them to go back and do a critical look, I mean did it or not?

We were told the "nature" of warfare changed because of this drone from Ankara...except as far as I can tell that's not accurate. Ankara uses them to carry out assassinations in Syria and terrorize civilians in eastern Syria. That's not really a new "nature" of war, it's crimes

Oddly the same focus that was once put on US use of armed drones (remember all that negative coverage of Obama's "drone war")...somehow that coverage evaporated when Ankara began using armed drones; then armed drones became cool.

Anyway, not only are Ankara's armed drones when used in Syria basically used for the same thing the US did in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia...except with less safeguards and rules; but in Ukraine what happened?

It's only a small part of the Ukraine war of course, but since there was so much hype about them, I'd be interested in a full account of what happened to them, attrition rates, success, failure, learning experiences etc?

Obviously #DroneWars are important and the Russian use of Iranian drones, and other drones being used in the war are important because it shows how these systems can be used, and their limitations. So since that's the case it would be interesting to know more.

I remember a few years ago when there were claims Ankara was going to sell the drones to Iraq...I questioned the report and got critique...but hey...were they ever sold to Iraq? No.

And then remember the stories about the "AI" armed drone that supposedly hunts down people without operators..."no human input" claimed articles...yeah did reports subsequently verify that or was that just another story?

In the end when it comes to Ankara's drones there is a lot of reporting that seems rarely to ask tough questions...you know "speak truth to power"...it's just whenever Ankara wants a headline, there are headlines; and then when not...so then there aren't.

So are there autonomous "killer robots" operating without operators...or not?

Are there Bayraktars in Ukraine still flying and doing missions, and if not why not, and if so, what are they doing?

And what might we learn?