Russian Troops' 'Huge-Ass Stupid' Thermal Blankets Backfired—And Got Them Killed
Instead of hiding the Russians from drones, the blankets gave them away
A trio of Russian troops tried to sneak across open terrain toward the front line presumably somewhere around Novomykolaivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast recently.
The Russians did the smart thing and moved at night, under thermal camouflage that should—in theory—hide them from surveillance drones with infrared sensors. But the Russians made one predictable and fatal mistake: they hid under thermal blankets that were cooler than the surrounding summertime terrain was.
Instead of disappearing from Ukrainian drones’ heat sensors, they stood out. A bomber drone from the Ukrainian army’s 59th Assault Brigade spotted them—and approached with a clutch of grenades. (See video above.)
The Russians knew they were in trouble. They apparently heard the drone coming, crouched in place and pulled their blankets tightly over them.
But it didn’t help.
It wasn’t some exposed limb sticking out from under a blanket that gave them away—it was the blankets themselves. The temperature differential between the ground and the outside of the blankets was so great that that blankets appeared as black shapes amid the gray and white landscape on the bomber drones’ infrared sensor.
The drone operator took their time aiming their grenades. The first round hit within feet of the crouching Russians. Arterial blood spray from one badly wounded Russian glowed hot on the drone’s camera. The ammunition the Russians were carrying, which cooked off following the second grenade impact, glowed even hotter.
The blasts left the landscape painted with blood, body parts and hot fragments.
How not to hide
Drones are everywhere all the time as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 40th month. Even on a quieter stretch of the 700-mile front line such as that held by the 59th Assault Brigade. Even at night.
Both sides urge their troops to conceal themselves from the ever-present drones. “Use thermal blankets, similar to those that are often placed in … first-aid kits,” the Ukrainian government advised its forces in a 2024 field manual. “If possible, take care and use mylar capes, blankets, cloth. They effectively reflect infrared radiation.”
But the thermal camo can work too well—especially during the summer. Cheaper mylar blankets tend to uniformly trap a lot of heat: it’s hot under them and cool on top. When the ground is warmer than the outside of the blanket is, the wearer will appear as solid dark square on any infrared sensor.
Thin Line Defense Co.’s comparison of a $400 thermal blanket versus a $4 thermal blanket dramatically illustrated the problem. With the $400 blanket—a “bag of farts,” the tester jokingly called it—“you can blend in.”
The cheaper mylar blanket did not blend in. Instead, it marked the tester with the same cold signature that gave away those unlucky Russians outside Novomykolaivka . “Our drone starts panning and looking for us trying to see if we’ve somehow disappeared in the trees—and, nope, there we are, a big huge-ass stupid bag behind a tree on thermal,” the tester reported. “It’s just this obviously black metallic thing.”
The lesson is clear. You can hide from a night-sensing drone. But it’ll cost you $400. Try doing it for $4, and you might wind up like the Russian infantry the 59th Assault Brigade plinked on that field in Donetsk.
The thermal blankets’ tragic betrayal of those unfortunate Russians isn’t an isolated incident. It’s been happening with some frequency all along the eastern front line in Ukraine.
In mid-May, a group of Russian infantry wearing thermal camo moved toward positions held by the Ukrainian army’s 63rd Mechanized Brigade near the city of Lyman. The 63rd Mechanized Brigade’s night-vision FPV drones easily spotted the approaching Russians not by their heat, but by their lack of heat under the blankets.
A barrage of first-person-view drones rained down on Russians. The “funny occupiers in the Lyman region … put on anti-drone raincoats and thought that now they are safe,” the 63rd Mechanized Brigade joked.
A photo apparently depicting the morning aftermath of that nighttime massacre revealed multiple impacts from FPVs—and five or six discarded thermal blankets, some potentially concealing dead Russians. A second photo depicted five sprawled Russian bodies.
Read more:
A Heat-Trapping 'Bag of Farts' Can Protect You From Ukraine's Deadly Night Drones. But It'll Cost You $400.
The Ukrainian Deep State analysis group obtained a photo graphically illustrating what happens when desperate Russian troops execute a good idea—but badly.