Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has released its first video of a home-made FPV drone engaging the much larger and much more expensive attack helicopters on the battlefield, giving Ukraine new targets as drones continue to change the way we view war.

A video released by the Ukrainian military and posted online by the Ukrainian news agency Kyiv Independent shows an FPV drone attempting to hit the tail rotor of a Mi-28 attack helicopter. This is the first video of such an attack, as it is a much more expensive and difficult target.

The video cuts off before you see what happened to the helicopter, but it is assumed that it hit the tail rotor. Since this is a weak point on most helicopters, there is a good chance that the attack was successful and caused the aircraft to crash.

Russia’s war in Ukraine remains an eye-opening event for those of us in the drone industry. We all know how good drones are at tracking people, surveying land, and getting real-time intelligence, but now we understand drones as a more direct means of warfare.

What began a few years ago as a war in which the defending nation further developed existing technologies is now Ukraine, which is a textbook example of how cheap, domestically built drones can be used effectively in combat.