UKRAINE is using a gruesome new drone which incinerates enemy troops by showering them with molten metal.

The aircraft carry canisters of thermite — a mixture of aluminium and iron oxide developed over a century ago to weld railway tracks.

Thermite burns so fiercely it ignites anything it touches, is near-impossible to put out and stops burning only once the mixture runs out.

Ukrainian forces fly the drones over Russian infantry hiding in woods and then remotely detonate the canisters, which spew molten metal shards at temperatures of more than 2000C on the enemy below.

Defence industry analyst Nicholas Drummond, a former British Army officer, said: “It is very nasty stuff.

“Using a drone to deliver it is quite innovative.

“I would not have liked to have been on the receiving end.”

Despite causing horrific injuries, thermite drones are not banned under international law providing they are used to attack military and not civilian targets.

One Ukraine commander said his unit used thermite drones to force Russian troops out into the open so they could be attacked with conventional weapons.

He claimed that since his unit arrived in the Pokrovsk area of Ukraine, it has killed more than 3,000 Russian soldiers.

The officer, who is in charge of a company known as Dovbush’s Hornets, said: “We used a lot of resources to try and drive them out and destroy them.”

A 2022 Human Rights Watch report on thermite bombs described their “horrific human cost”.

It said: “They can cause damage to muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, blood vessels, and even bones.”

/UKRAINE