"Drones, drones, drones. Just drones. Lots of drones". An exhausted Ukrainian platoon commander speaks of the changing nature of modern warfare while being medically evacuated from the front lines.
Kamikaze drones. Surveillance drones. Bomber drones. Drones that destroy other drones. These machines are soaring through the skies on a massive scale. They are cheap, deadly and among the main reasons why Ukraine believes it can resist advancing Russian forces this year and beyond, according to dozens of Ukrainian commanders, officials and arms manufacturers involved in the defense of Kiev.
Ukrainian soldiers describe the drone-infested corridor, spanning 10 kilometers on both sides of the contact line, as a "death zone" because the remotely piloted drones used by both Ukrainian and Russian sides can quickly detect and neutralize targets.
According to two Ukrainian commanders interviewed by Reuters, the evolution of the Russia-Ukraine war into the most intense drone conflict to date has reduced Russia's ability to use its traditional battlefield advantages of troop numbers, artillery and tanks.
Any large a vehicle operating near the front line is now becoming an obvious target, meaning Russian forces can no longer make rapid advances like they did in 2022 with columns of armored vehicles, Ukrainian commanders say, as well as the founder of "OCHI", a Ukrainian non-profit system that centralizes and analyzes video feeds from 15,000 Ukrainian drones operating on the front line.
"The enemy sees you completely," emphasized Oleksandr Dmitriev, the founder of the system. "It doesn't matter where you go or what you drive," he added.
According to Ukrainian commanders, Russia has adapted its tactics: its forces now typically attack in small groups of five or six people - on foot, on motorcycles or in four-wheel drive vehicles - in an attempt to expose Ukrainian positions, draw their fire and then strike them with drones.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Despite the changes in warfare, Russian forces remain in the lead and are making slow but steady progress in eastern and northern Ukraine. Russia has also caught up in unmanned technology, a technology that it lagged behind at the start of the war, military analysts say, and like its enemy, is rapidly producing drones domestically at a rate of several million drones a year.
Meanwhile, European leaders are scrambling to parse U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement this week that the United States would supply weapons to Ukraine through NATO and that the European Union would pay for them. Many details remain unclear, including the types and quantities of weapons, how quickly they would be delivered and how Washington would be paid for, U.S. and European officials said this week.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the delivery plan. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the war has gone on for too long and Trump wants to end the killing, which is why he is selling U.S. weapons to NATO for Ukraine and threatening Russia with major sanctions.
The people interviewed for this article, who spoke before Trump announced the arms for Ukraine, said they believed Kiev could continue to fight and resist Russia even without U.S. military aid, although they did not say exactly how long that could be.
Many pointed out that the superiority of drones has somewhat leveled the playing field and made Ukraine more self-sufficient, and they also pointed to increasing military supplies from European allies.
"We can hold out for months," said Oleksandr Kamyshin, an arms expert and strategic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, when asked what would happen if the US arms supply stopped. "In 2023 and 2024 it would be much worse - we would be talking about days or weeks," he stressed.
Polish military analyst Konrad Muzyka, who has visited the front lines more than once, said Ukraine's focus is on reducing the strength of Russian attacks, stressing that Kiev currently lacks the capacity to launch its own offensives.
He said Ukraine would likely struggle to wage a long war of attrition due to manpower shortages and Russia's superior resources. While drones have changed the battlefield, he warned against overestimating their ability to compensate for the lack of artillery and mortars.
"To inflict the damage that an artillery shell inflicts on a target, dozens of drones would have to be used," he stressed. "Drones can fill the gaps to some extent and give you some breathing space, but they are no substitute for artillery," he added.
Rains of Destruction
Drones are demons, or at least for those in the death zone that spans the 1,000-kilometer line of contact.
Reconnaissance drones on both sides - resembling small planes made of plastic or Styrofoam and equipped with sophisticated cameras - can detect enemies from several kilometers away.
They hover over the front line and transmit in real time what they see.
They find targets for the flotillas of drone bombers - often coffee-table-sized hexacopters that can launch precision-guided grenades with 3D-printed tails, as well as kamikaze drones, some with attached anti-tank grenade launcher warheads to pierce armor, which can hit soldiers, tanks and weapons systems.
A platoon commander evacuated from the front, Ivan, 35, nicknamed "Atom", said soldiers on both sides now see drones as the biggest threat to their lives, replacing the shells, mines and enemy fighter jets that were the main dangers at the beginning of the war.
The medic traveling with him on the bus, Olga Kozum, 34, agrees: Most of the battlefield injuries she and her colleagues treat are caused by drones, she says. it.
According to internal Ukrainian estimates obtained by Reuters, in 2024, drones carried out 69% of strikes on Russian troops and 75% of strikes on vehicles and equipment. About 18% of strikes on Russian infantry and 15% of strikes on vehicles and equipment were carried out by artillery, and even fewer by mortars, the same estimates show.
The drone arms race during wartime has spawned many innovations – Both sides have short-range, fiber-optic drones that cannot be electronically jammed, as well as "interceptors" that seek out and destroy enemy reconnaissance and attack drones.
Kiev's planned production this year of 30,000 long-range drones designed to strike targets deep inside Russia, such as weapons depots and energy facilities, gives Ukraine the ability to pose an increased offensive threat, said Vadim Sukharevskiy, commander of the country's drone forces until early June.
The average price of a long-range strike drone ranges from $50,000 to $300,000, about 10 times less than a missile with a similar range, although the drone's warhead is smaller, Sukharevskiy said in an interview conducted in the period. when he was still in office.
"This is our asymmetric response", he says, adding that Ukraine began developing such drones "precisely because we lack missiles".
Kamyshin, an adviser to President Zelensky, adds: "You can't win a big war if you only defend yourself". Long-range drone strikes are "one of the main cards that Ukraine can play against Russia right now".
Wanted: American Patriot air defense systems and "Intel”
Ukraine's military-industrial base is expanding rapidly and currently accounts for about 40% of the weapons and equipment used, including drones, Zelensky said, who yesterday set a goal of increasing the share to 50% in the next six months.
Kiev is also seeking to diversify its stockpiles, and its European allies are providing increasing amounts of ammunition with the aim of making the country more resilient to geopolitical shocks.
The Kiel Institute, based in Germany, estimated in a report last month that Europe had overtaken the United States in overall military aid provided during the war for the first time since June 2022, with the total reaching 72 billion euros compared to 65 billion from the United States.
The institute said aid deliveries to Ukraine had changed significantly in March and April as the United States did not provided new support, and Europe increased its own.
While the US was, and remains, the largest supplier of artillery shells to Ukraine, Europe is increasing its capacity and purchasing hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition from both countries on the continent and beyond.
Of the approximately 420,000 artillery shells received by Ukraine from the beginning of the year until about mid-May, only 160,000 were from the US, a European security source said.
Kamyshin says Ukraine produced in 2024 about 2.4 million of its shells, although most of them are for mortars, which have a shorter range.
However, Ukraine is particularly dependent on the United States for air defense and intelligence sharing, military analysts say.
Kiev is keen to obtain American Patriot air defense systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles that Russia is increasingly launching. According to analysts at the Ukrainian publication "Defense Express", as of April this year, Ukraine had seven fully operational systems, far fewer than the 25 that Zelensky had requested.
Ukraine often relies on American satellite intelligence for drone and long-range missile attacks. If the US stops providing them, European countries can only replace them for a short period of time, the European Union Institute for Security Studies says.
Translated from English: Simeon Tomov and Anelia Penkova, BTA