Drone War! Russia is losing the battle on the Ukrainian front

Ukraine is a leader in the use of FPV drones. One of the main reasons for this is the fundamentally different approach to the production of this weapon in the two warring countries, writes Forbes.

Small unmanned aerial vehicles, particularly kamikazes with sights, have become a key weapon in the war of attrition currently being waged in Ukraine. A NATO official recently told Foreign Policy magazine that FPVs have caused more than two-thirds of Russian tank losses in recent months, eclipsing artillery, guided missiles and other weapons. Both countries now produce massive amounts of unmanned aerial vehicles, but recently Russian drone strikes on the battlefield have been on the wane, while Ukrainian drone strikes have been on the rise like never before. What is the reason for Russia's failure?

The FPV drone, a small racing quadcopter turned kamikaze, is a low-cost precision weapon capable of hitting tanks and other targets from 20km away. They have proven to be equally effective against artillery, infantry positions and trucks. As 2023 progressed and thousands of FPVs were deployed, both sides began to appreciate just how important this new weapon was becoming.

However, approaches to drone production in Ukraine and Russia are quite different. In Ukraine, this is a highly decentralized industry, with the Ministry of Defense purchasing drones from dozens of relatively small manufacturers. What's more, there is even an initiative in Ukraine where several thousand volunteers assemble drones at home in their spare time.

At the same time, in Russia the system is highly centralized. While there are small teams out there making drones themselves, their scale is small and they are funded mainly by citizen donations. However, the majority of the tens of thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles that the Russian military receives are produced by just one company, the so-called "Sudoplatova Group". It was this company that received billions of rubles from the state budget for the production of unmanned aerial vehicles.

"Soviet-style centralization can lead to economies of scale. But the Soviet system also had huge flaws, and these may be at the root of their dramatic decline in FPV performance, Forbes writes.