Apparently, Ukraine has finally placed a machine gun on a drone in fight against Russia

We all knew this day was coming when someone, either Ukraine or Russia, would put a machine gun on a commercial drone to get the upper hand. However, a video shared on Twitter shows a DJI heavy-lift drone mounted with a small machine gun, showing just how crazy times are.

DJI Matrice 600 drone gets a lethal upgrade with machine gun

Videos of the drone were shared first by a Ukrainian software engineer and volunteer in the nation’s military, Roman Kyryliuk. The video looks like Ukraine has taken a DJI Matrice 600 drone with an unnamed compact machine gun placed where DJI-inspired pilots to put a cinema camera.

The first video, which is still up as of writing this, shows individuals mounting the machine gun on the drone while on the ground. Kyryliuk jokingly asked for 1,000 likes for him to share the drone in action, which it hit 22 times over. The second video, which has been taken down but reuploaded by BlueSauron, shows the drone in flight with the machine gun being controlled by Ukrainian soldiers on the ground. Sadly, we didn’t get a video of the drone actually shooting the machine gun. I’m sure that will come soon enough, though.

The machine gun looks to have been adapted to fit into the built-in gimbal made for cameras. This allows operators control over the weapon with existing tools that cinema drone pilots use to control the camera.

All-out effort to stop Iranian kamikaze drones

Before you start imagining fleets of these drones providing air support with their machine guns, what I’m dubbing as the M600MG looks to be targeted towards defense against Iranian-made kamikaze drones being used by Russia on Ukrainian towns.

These drones, called the Shahed-136, have been terrorizing Ukrainian cities as they attempt to destroy ground targets. Shahed-136 drones are intended to launch in swarms that overwhelm air defenses, so even if Ukraine can shoot some down, they might not be able to get them all. They are relatively new weapons and reports show that Russia will be getting upgraded versions of them in the near future.

Either way, we are seeing the war in Ukraine escalate further as more and more drones are used in the fight, with larger bombs put on drones and now even a machine gun. Peace talks have seemingly stalled as Ukraine pushes Russian forces back toward where they started earlier this year.