January 19, 2025: When Ukraine was invaded by Russia in 2022, the Russians expected a quick victory taking weeks or weeks. Three years later, the war continues because of massive NATO military and economic aid, and the creativity of Ukrainians in developing new ways to defeat the enemy. The Ukrainian did this with a combination of ingenuity and desperation. One result was the invention of drone warfare. A year after the invasion it was becoming obvious that drones were dominating the battlefield. Since the war began in early 2022 drones have increased at the expense of traditional artillery. The reasons were obvious. Drones were more flexible, cheaper and came in many different models. Drones could be controlled by nearby operators and sent after targets over a thousand kilometers distant using GPS guidance and several backup systems if electronic jamming of GPS signals is encountered.

This situation began once Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022 and intense combat meant both sides quickly lost most of their conventional offensive weapons. These losses included armored vehicles, especially tanks for the Russians. Longer range weapons, like artillery, which delivered most of its fire power to targets 30 kilometers distant and a smaller number of guided missiles, which could reach targets over a hundred kilometers distant, tended to survive the heavy losses suffered by armored vehicles that fought at close range. The Ukrainians quickly ran out of artillery ammunition and were the first to adopt drones because they had to, and the Russians are still trying to catch up.

The Russians lost most of their tube artillery in 2023 by burning their tube liners out. By the second half of 2023 both sides had turned to drones, which were cheaper, easier to obtain and provided more flexible alternatives. It was soon discovered that drones had a seemingly endless number of new capabilities. One of the more crucial qualities was the ease of obtaining drones and modifying them or building larger or smaller versions. The technology required for current drone warfare evolved over the last few decades as the commercial quadcopters and hobbyist fixed wing remotely controlled aircraft achieved a degree of maturity in design and reliability. This made it possible for users or developers to confidently and quickly modify existing drones t0 meet their needs.

Most of the resulting drones were short range models operating no farther than ten kilometers from their user. This meant the combat zone was a much more dangerous place than it ever had been in the past. The surveillance was constant and round the clock. More expensive drones with night-vision sensors, usually based on a combination of object and heat detection and interpretation, provided adequate surveillance at night or in fog or misty conditions.

Then there are logistical considerations. Reusable drones have to be recharged or refueled between missions. Drones built as single-use weapons have to be checked out before actual use. This is especially true for the long-range attack models. These fixed-wing drones go after targets a thousand kilometers or more distant and tend to use a single diesel or gasoline fueled engine. These engines must be sturdy and reliable because everything depends on a reliable propulsion system. Another critical component is the navigation and target acquisition system. Resistance to electronic jamming is essential. Electronic jamming technology is constantly evolving to deal with improved guidance systems that make earlier jammers ineffective or less effective. This makes every new drone design likely to be compromised and obsolete in short order. With the inexpensive technology drones use, rapid evolution is easier to achieve and the ability to quickly develop ways to disrupt new tech is essential.

Another major limitation is the need for trained drone operators. They need a dozen or more hours of training before they are able to start operating these drones effectively, and another few dozen hours of actual use before they are able to make the most out of the system. These drones are difficult to shoot down until they get close to the ground and the shooter is close enough, as in less than a few hundred meters, to successfully target a drone with a bullet or two and bring it down. Troops are rarely in position to do this, so most of these drones are able to complete their mission, whether it is a one-way attack or a reconnaissance and surveillance mission. The recon missions are usually survivable and enable the drone to be reused. All these drones are constantly performing surveillance, which means that either side commits enough drones to maintain constant surveillance over a portion of the front line, to a depth, into enemy territory, of at least a few kilometers. At one point, the Ukrainians developed tactics to penetrate farther into enemy territory with continual surveillance, often up to 20 kilometers into Russian-held territory. This made it extremely difficult for the Russians to supply their front-line troops, even with drinking water. The Russians responded but were never able to get ahead of the Ukrainian drone developers and users.

One crucial Ukrainian innovation was massive use of First Person Viewing or FPV armed drones. The drone operator using a wireless connection with the FPV drone could see what the drone’s video camera could see and quickly find a target and attack. The FPV drone operator used a headset covering his eyes to see the drone video and used a controller similar to video game controllers. For some drones, it was a video game controller. When the Russians use enough jamming to prevent any FPV drone from operating, the Ukrainians developed a drone controlled via a thin fiber optic cable. This limited range to a few kilometers but it could not be jammed. Ukrainian engineers found other solutions like a backup guidance system that used a picture of the target plus likely alternate targets for the attack drone to crash into and explode. This use of attacking has long been used by some anti-tank weapons. In those situations the operators get the crosshairs on the target then pull the trigger. The missile launches and homes in on image, even if the target moves. Decades of cheaper and smaller electronics allows these Hone On Image systems to be small enough and cheap enough for drones costing less than a thousand dollars each.

These drone evolutions revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides are producing as many as they can. Not having enough of these to match the number the enemy has in a portion of the front means you are at a serious disadvantage in that area. These drones are still evolving in terms of design and use and are becoming more effective and essential.

Ukraine even created a new branch of their military, the Drone Force. This is in addition to the Ukrainian Air Force that consists of manned aircraft. The Drone Force does not control the drones Ukrainian forces use regularly but does contribute to developing new drone models and organizing mass production for those new models that are successful. Drones have been an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles in Ukraine's current war are fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces were soon using cheap, at about $500 each, quadcopter drones controlled by soldiers a kilometer or more away using FPV goggles. Adding night vision at least doubles the cost for each drone, so not all of them have or need that capability. Each of these drones carries half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. This is an awesome and debilitating weapon when used in large numbers over the combat zone. If a target isn’t moving or requires more explosive power that the drones can supply, one of the drone operators can call in artillery, rocket, or missile fire, or even an airstrike. Larger, fixed wing drones are used for long range, often over a thousand kilometers, operations against targets deep inside Russia.

Armed FPV drones have revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides are producing as many as they can. Earlier in the Ukraine War Russia used Iranian Shahed-136 drones that Iran sold for about $200,000 each. Ukraine demonstrated that you could design and build drones with similar capabilities at less than a tenth of what the Shahed-136. The Iranian drone was more complex than it needed to be. Even the Russians soon realized this and turned from the Shahed-136 for more capable drones they copied from Ukrainian designs or ones Russians designed. Ukrainian drone proliferation began when many individual Ukrainians or small teams designed and built drones. The drones served as potential candidates for widespread use and mass production. This proliferation of designers and manufacturers led to rapid evolution of drone capabilities and uses. Those who could not keep up were less successful in combat and suffered higher losses.

Because of drones, air forces have ceased to be dominant when it comes to influencing the war on the ground. This is despite efforts to maintain their ability to bomb targets in direct support of ground operations. Air forces traditionally have blind spots in tactical air reconnaissance which hurts their overall effectiveness. Blame this on a bad attitude towards Bomb Damage Assessment or BDA. This is the business of figuring out what impact on the enemy was after you bomb. The problem of the air force leaders being deceived by the people on the ground being bombed began during World War II. This was when air forces used large scale aerial bombing for the first time. Right after that conflict, the U.S. did a thorough survey of the impact of strategic bombing on Germany and Japan. It was discovered that the impact was far different from what air force BDA during the war had indicated. The U.S. air force vowed to do better next time. But as experience in more than half a dozen subsequent wars demonstrated, the enemy on the ground continued to have an edge when it came to deceiving the most energetic BDA efforts. Starting in 2022, the Ukraine War revealed the BDA situation had changed, because of the constant drone presence which meant BDA was persistent and that surveillance not only revealed the damage done but identified new targets.

Before drones, the only proven technique for beating the BDA problem was to have people on the ground, up close, checking up on targets, while the fighting was going on. Those with powerful air forces do not want to do this because of the risk of some of their commandos getting killed or captured, and because the intel and air force people were sure that they knew what enemy was up to down there. After 2022 FPV drones solved that problem.

During the early 21st century, when the U.S. developed persistent drone surveillance, the irregular forces they were facing proved capable of reducing the effectiveness of the drone effort. This spotlights another useful fact; airpower can be useful on the ground but that happens over time and not quickly. Small drones changed that by providing continuous surveillance and the ability of drones to attack anything an FPV drone could detect.

Despite being a successful high-tech operation, American air forces, especially the Navy and USAF, frequently have trouble adjusting to changes they do not agree with. When the Cold War ended in 1991 the air force was still largely thinking about continuing to operate as they had done in the Cold War, but the technology and tactics of warfare were changing. The post-Cold War enemy no longer consisted of large, organized forces spread over huge areas. The enemy was increasingly irregulars who were harder to spot from the air. The air force reluctantly adapted, in part because the army and CIA adopted new reconnaissance and surveillance techniques like drones and persistent surveillance. This pattern is returning as the air force reorganizes after the decade of heavy combat and big budgets the war on terror produced. Now the air force is turning its attention to a near-peer opponent in the form of a rapidly expanding and modernizing China's military. Unexpectedly the Ukraine War emerged first with Russia and Ukraine fighting each other. Ukrainians had the advantage of material and intellectual support from NATO countries. Ukraine was the first to develop and use small, innovative drone designs. These often came from civilians, who were seeking to assist friends of family members in the army. Building drones in homes or garages became a major source of drones for Ukrainian troops.

Russia adapted to their disadvantage in drone development by concentrating on electronic jammers, as well as building a lot of drones, often copying successful Ukrainian drones. By rapidly upgrading their jammer technology, Russians can disrupt a lot of new Ukrainian drone tech for a while. This disruption is becoming more important for the Russians because Ukraine has developed several generations of long range that are increasingly reaching their targets deep a thousand or more kilometers inside Russia. That means Russian economic and military facilities far from Ukraine are suddenly under attack. These targets include refineries and fuel storage sites as well as weapons development, manufacturing, and storage facilities. In 2023 these attacks destroyed about fifteen percent of Russian refining capacity, reducing, for months, the amount of vehicle fuel available for commercial and military users.

Air bases and ballistic missile storage or launch sites are also under attack. Targets as distant as the Russian Northern Fleet bases around Murmansk are under attack. The first attack was a surprise because the Russians never expected an attack from Ukraine which was 2,000 kilometers to the south. After that first attack Russia had to upgrade the Murmansk area air defenses. These defenses were stripped of most of their air defense systems in 2023 so they could be used by bases closer to the Ukrainian border. This has caused a shortage of anti-aircraft systems that can intercept some or all of the drones depending on how many drones and air defense systems are involved.

To deal with this Ukraine has increased production of drones considerably and the objective for 2024 is two million new drones built, mostly armed ones. For 2025 emphasis shifted to more long range drones equipped with guidance and targeting systems built to resist jamming. Ukraine is building over 1,500 of these long range drones a month and more Russians are seeing nearby military facilities explode. If the target is a fuel, chemical or munitions storage site the explosions are spectacular. Hitting factories, vehicle parks, military bases or air defense systems is less spectacular but even more worrisome for the Russians. There are not enough air defense systems to guard all these targets and with Ukraine now going after air defense systems as well, it is difficult to produce enough new air defense systems to expand the force as well as replace combat losses.

Hundreds of armed drones used in single attacks are seen as more effective than conventional tube artillery, which is now seen as a poor substitute for drones. Factories for manufacturing drones are often established in underground facilities to avoid Russian missile attacks. Nearly all the components needed for drone production are available commercially and can be purchased from European or American suppliers and imported. Custom components are manufactured locally in well protected installations. Drone quality and quantity are a Ukrainian advantage they do not want to lose.

Russia is also increasing drone production, in part because they lost their few A-50 surveillance aircraft in 2023 and since then depended on drones for surveillance. Another Russian disadvantage is their reliance on larger and more expensive surveillance and attack drones. The Russians have been quick to adapt and copy Ukrainian drone designs whenever they obtain a new one that had crash landed intact. Often all it takes is a description of a new Ukrainian drone. Russian drone manufacturers have become adept at copying Ukrainian drone designs based on minimal information. Because of this both Ukrainian and Russian troops face the same drone threat.

The economic sanctions imposed on Russia because of the Ukraine War have been adjusted to make it more difficult and expensive to obtain drone components. These sanctions have crippled the Russian economy, which is now operating as if it were involved in a major war. China will sell Russia dual-use components that have commercial and military uses, but not solely military items because that would put China at risk of Western sanctions. Russia can have these items quietly smuggled in, but this costs more and takes longer to get what you want. Some military items are difficult for smugglers to get and take longer to obtain. Russia has to be careful about spending because it has gone through its multi-billion dollar national emergency fund and government income is limited because of the sanctions. Ukraine uses every weapon it has access to, including economic ones that make their enemy less capable.