Who’s winning the drone war?
One way to look at it is numbers. But how wise is it to believe the figures put out by warring countries about its capabilities? And more importantly, drones are very fickle beasts. Many drones don’t reach their targets, jammed or otherwise. The quality of the operator decides much.
And even if one has a crack drone squad, the question of targets remains. Should lone infantry be prioritized, or harder to find targets like drone operators, radar systems, and logistics? Should the best drone units focus on the immediate battlefield, or on further, more strategic targets? And how exactly should separate drone units coordinate with ordinary mechanized brigades?
Today we’ll look at how Russia and Ukraine have been answering these questions. The outcome of the war hinges on the viability of these approaches. And, of course, the armies of the world are watching and taking notes.
Drone myths
The Australian Army Research Centre (AARC) has been working with the Ukrainian army on drones, and in mid-March a Ukrainian analyst published a two-part article on ‘myths of drone warfare’ for the AARC.
One important myth tackled was the idea that drone warfare is making human soldiers irrelevant — in fact, humans remain vital for the taking, consolidation and control of territory. Even the most advanced, AI-aided drones depend on humans for ‘target-tasking and target designation, operators, technical support specialists, communications, logistics, power supply, and intelligence data’. In addition, weather, enemy electronic warfare, and other crucial decision-making can only be performed by humans.
In fact, ‘Rather than replacing people, drones have increased the demand for human labour, judgement, and organisational capacity across the kill chain.’ Drones are useless without skilled, talented operators, and even with good operators, they need to be effectively integrated with other types of military forces.
Furthermore, the article criticized the idea, popular among Ukrainian government speakers, that drones are vastly cheaper than other weapons systems. Though a single drone may be cheaper than a single missile, there are many other costs that go into drone warfare:
The sustainment overhead of using drones further undermines the notion that they are a low-cost, low-overhead capability. High sortie rates, short platform lifespans, and intensive electronic contestation impose substantial logistical demands. Batteries, motors, airframes, sensors, frequencies, and software all require continuous replacement and modification. Tens of Mavic-type drones are lost per day in one brigade, which is tens of thousands of dollars daily – that demands proper staffing, procurement, write-off procedures, training, etc. Ukraine has shown that mass drone employment entails industrial-scale sustainment pipelines comparable in complexity—if not in unit cost—to conventional munitions supply. Volunteer teams operating outside formal logistics systems cannot support this scale or tempo of operations over time.
The second part of the AACR myth-busting series was also interesting. It criticized the following popular ideas: drones have made tanks outdated, fibre optic drones will totally replace radio-operated drones (the latter are faster and more maneuverable), and that autonomous AI drone swarms are a current game-changer (current technology is nowhere near these fantasies). It’s all in English, so there’s nothing stopping true drone connoisseurs from getting acquainted.
But the most important myth is that drones can replace humans. It is just this illusion that Ukraine’s chronically undermanned army believes in. But as the Ukrainian website Militarny wrote a few weeks ago, drones are a dead end unless integrated into broader combat operations along with infantry and other weapons systems.
Now, we’ll examine the difference between Russia’s and Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF). In both armies, just about every unit has drone operators. But in the race to improve the effectiveness of their drones, both armies have created dedicated drone branches, whose units are entirely focused on unmanned combat. Ukraine’s version was created in June 2024, but we’ll begin with the later Russian version.
But the Russian version of this institution appears to be much more integrated into the broader army than the Ukrainian one.
This is also highlighted by frustrated Russian military bloggers, who clamor for the Russian army to follow the Ukrainian and Iranian example of ‘building a second army’, whether in the face of Kiev’s USF or Tehran’s IRGC. They believe that just such a radical move is necessary in order to overcome the conservative rot that supposedly reigns among the traditional Russian military elite.
In fact, as we will see today, Ukrainian commanders and military analysts are in fact quite worried about the separation of the USF from the rest of the army. Meanwhile, the top commanders of Ukraine’s own USF regularly state the superiority of Russia’s Rubikon drone centre to any Ukrainian drone team.
We’ll now move onto the two rival USF’s — Russia’s and Ukraine’s. They actually have slightly different names — in the Russian it is the Forces of Unmanned Forces (it’s hard to translate ‘Voiska’ other than forces), while in Ukraine it is the Forces of Unmanned Systems. But I’ll just call them both USF to reduce the number of abbreviations.
Russia’s Unmanned Systems Forces
Russia’s USF was created on November 11, 2025, with Putin having declared the necessity for such a move in December 2024. At the time, defense minister Belousov responded that this would be fulfilled by the third quarter of 2025, a promise he fulfilled.
Deputy head of Russia’s USF Sergei Ishtuganov gave an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda outlining this new branch of the army in November 2025:
“We have already formed standard regiments, battalions, and other units,” Sergey Ishtuganov, Deputy Head of the Unmanned Systems Forces, told Komsomolskaya Pravda. “Their combat operations are conducted according to a unified plan and in coordination with other units within troop groupings.
At the same time, the expansion of the combat strength of existing units and the creation of new units within the Unmanned Systems Forces continues. The units are staffed with operators, engineers, technicians, and other support specialists.”
There are also big plans for the training of drone operators:
“Today, specialists are being trained at the Ministry of Defense’s universities, at military training centers affiliated with civilian universities, at public organizations, and at manufacturers of unmanned systems,” continues Sergei Ishtuganov. “But work is already underway to create a higher military educational institution for the Unmanned Systems Forces.”
One Russian military telegram wrote about his hopes for the USF in November 2025:
Drone operators must not be sent into assault infantry roles, as some commanders do. Otherwise, the entire process of creating dedicated drone units loses its meaning. “Plugging holes” is a consequence of deeper problems, and those problems are the result of careless command decisions. There is hope that these forces will become a kind of “shield” for successful drone operators, so that they do not share the fate of Ernest and Goodwin [a recent scandal wherein talented Russian drone operators were sent to die in an infantry assault - EIU]
He also hoped this would improve the supply situation:
In combat conditions, losing a drone is very easy, and if you have strict limits on drone numbers, your capabilities are restricted. It’s no secret that drones are currently in short supply almost everywhere—especially night drones, especially domestic analogues of the “Baba Yaga.” The only exception is Rubikon, which is personally overseen by defense minister Belousov. There is hope that these forces are being created, among other things, to solve supply issues, so that every unit could eventually become at least a “mini-Rubikon.”
Finally, he hoped that the USF would improve the situation with financial rewards for valuable targets struck, as well as improved drone R&D, repairs, and other related affairs. He also desperately desired for the USF to cut through the notorious amounts of paperwork the Russian army is afflicted with:
There is hope that thanks to these forces, we will no longer need a thousand paperwork forms and reports like: “permission to bypass EW requested, comrade colonel.”
In short, the hope is that the Russian USF will streamline standards and supplies for drone operators in the Russian army.
How big is the USF? In mid-March, head of the Ukrainian army Oleksandry Syrsky claimed that the Russians plan to increase the size of their USF to 101,000 by April 1, 2026. According to the leader of the Ukrainian USF Robert Brovdi, the Russian USF had 86,000 operators in February.
These are colossal numbers. Because of the threat posed, Brovdi called to anally rape Ukrainians resisting mobilization.
And on April 2, the Russian military analyst Valery Shiraev stated his belief that the outcome of the war will be decided by the USF. He notes that the government is currently waging a large-scale media campaign to encourage young people, including university students, to sign a contract with the USF.
These contracts are uniquely attractive in the Russian army because they have a fixed term. This shows how eager the government is to get people into the USF. Ukraine’s USF, like all other units, has indefinite contracts. The Russian USF contract offers 210,000 roubles a month, more than $2,600 USD, which is significantly higher than in Ukrainian units.
Shiriaev also hints at vast subterranean struggles over the fate of the USF:
The USF will decide everything. You know, even now in Russia the USF still do not have a commander-in-chief; one has not been appointed. Formally, there are some deputies and so on. This indicates very large administrative, behind-the-scenes battles,
The future leader of the USF will wield control over massive resources “worth many, many billions—perhaps tens of billions”. There’s a hint at the struggle over rent revenues, but this is certainly true of Ukraine’s drone ecosystem as well.
Russia’s Drone Line
Like the USF, both Russia and Ukraine have a ‘Drone Line’ program. And again, the concept is quite different in both cases.
I’ll go into it in more detail, but first a quick explanation of Ukraine’s Drone Line project, initiated in March 2025 by the USF. The aim of the Drone Line was for 5 of the most effective USF brigades to extend the ‘kill zone’ for Russian troops to 10-15 kilometers away from the front line of enemy troops (FLET). These USF drone brigades are mobile, moving all across the front wherever needed.
Russia’s 2nd Combined Arms Army (2nd CAA) also started its own Drone Line project in mid-2025, but this was a local project, unlike Ukraine’s Drone Line. Also unlike Ukraine’s Drone Line, it was not limited to a certain group of elite drone teams. Instead, it aimed to coordinate work between Russian drone operators and regular brigades in the territory the 2nd CAA is responsible for.
The Pentagon-funded military analyst Michael Kofman created this diagram portraying the work of the Russian drone line a few days ago:
Rubicon, Russia’s most skilled drone squad, was responsible for the most distant targets, which makes sense. Spetznaz drone teams were given a closer target range, and the drone operators in regular brigades were given the closest, easiest targets. This is quite logical, and it indicates quite a lot of thought given to coordination between different military units — in contrast to the Ukrainian Drone Line and USF, where there are a number of conflicts between the elite drone units and regular units.
According to Kofman, the above experiment with a ‘Drone Line’ for a 32 kilometer section of the front was scaled up and employed by the entire Center Group of Forces by the end of the summer of 2026. The Center Group is responsible for much of the Donbass. Due to the intensity of battles here, 1,700 drone teams were assigned to the Center Group by the end of 2025, the highest number anywhere on the frontline.
What seems rather important is that the Drone Line involves strict limits on the number of drones each unit can use daily. This is in contrast to the Ukrainian army, where each unit acts more autonomously, where the E-points system means that the more targets destroyed, the more discounted drones one can produce. But this results in a lack of coordination and increased inequality between units.
Kofman also covers another Russian Drone Line experiment, this time further north, in the area of the West Group of Forces. 170 drone crews were assigned to the area of the 6th Combined Army.
The details of the Drone Line were different here, but what matters more is that Kofman relays the opinions of Ukrainian troops active here. They said that Russian UAV capabilities increased over the period the Drone Line was implemented here.
Ukraine’s USF
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces was established on June 11, 2024, and now comprises 12 combat units. By comparison, there are more than 500 units of all sorts in the entire army.
The most effective unit in the USF is the 414th ‘Madyar’s Birds’ Brigade, which makes up 40% of all hits. This unit was originally led by Robert Brovdi, aka ‘Madyar’, who has been head of the USF since mid-2025.
According to Brovdi, the USF currently accounts of 8% of all drone operators in the army. Originally, it had only 3,000 personnel, but now it has 20,000, 2.2% of the total Ukrainian army.
It is meant to expand to 5% of the entire army by reaching 45,000 personnel. This will supposedly allow it to cover the entire 1200 kilometer frontline at tactical, operational and strategic levels. Per Brovdi, the USF covers the following drone-related matters for its units:
command, force generation, training, planning, standardization of accounting/equipment/safety protocols/conduct, coordination of use, provision of equipment, munitions, and everything necessary, as well as oversight of execution.
In January, Brovdi stated his hope that 2026 would see this standardization by the USF involve drone operators in the rest of the army.
According to General Syrsky, the Ukrainian army destroyed 105,200 targets in February 2026, with the USF responsible for a quarter of those. He also claimed that though the Ukrainian army retains an advantage in terms of multi-rotor FPV drones, the Russians are now producing more than 19,000 FPV drones daily. I won’t go into the disputed territory of who has more drones at the frontlines — if you read Russian military telegrams, they’ll complain the Ukrainians do, and if you read Ukrainian military telegrams, they’ll say the opposite.
Ukraine’s Drone Line
Ukraine’s Drone Line project, initiated in March 2025, is based on the five most effective units of the USF — Brovdi’s “Birds of Madyar” unmanned systems brigade, the “Rarog”, “K-2”, “Phoenix”, and “Achilles” regiments. It became part of the USF in June 2025.
In early March 2026, minister of defense Mikhailo Fedorov stated that 1,000 drone teams are involved in the Drone Line project. It was apparently responsible for a third of all Russian infantry losses from January to February 2026.
Militarnyi.ua writes that Drone Line units receive additional funding for matters including but not limited to the purchase of drones, electronic warfare equipment, and transport.
These unmanned units are meant to be a ‘second line’ behind infantry, preventing the Russians from developing their offensives. The Ukraine-NATO developed DELTA communications systems reduced the length of the kill-chain and provides additional data on Russian positions, while the E-points system further rewards high-performing drone units.
At the end of 2025 and throughout early 2026, the Drone Line system began focusing on destroying more Russian infantry than can be recruited. According to Militarny, the implementation of video confirmation requirements has lead to significant reduction in the number of claimed casualties, without assault intensity dropping. This seems to indicate that this confirmation system is reducing lies.
These video confirmations are used to purchase discounted equipment using the E-points system The E-points system assigns a certain number of points for different types of targets destroyed, and these points can then be used to purchase discounted drones and other weapons on the Brave-1 marketplace, as seen below.
On April 1, Fedorov declared the formation of a new USF unit focused purely on Russian drone operators. Enemy operators receive twice as many E-points as ordinary infantry.
Criticism of Ukraine’s drone strategy
Ukraine’s Drone Line and USF has existed for quite some time longer than Russia’s equivalents, and Ukrainian military commanders have voiced a number of complaints. The data published by the USF itself also indicates some serious issues.
