July 29, 2025: Ukraine is planning its post-war future. Russian leader Vladimir is still defiantly determined to continue his war in Ukraine, but even he admits that the Russian economy is in bad shape and getting worse. A defiantly paranoid Putin has been increasing his personal security as he sees more of his senior generals die in explosions and whatever other fatal accidents the Ukrainians can come up with.

Putin knows he will probably not survive defeat in Ukraine. He described his Special Military Operation in Ukraine as necessary to keep NATO from encircling and destroying Russia. His resistance backfired, with neutral neighbors Sweden and Finland joining NATO and joining other NATO nations in upgrading and expanding their armed forces. Ukraine is now seen as a valuable ally to NATO and will probably join it eventually. Putin insists this will never happen while his plans for reviving the Soviet Union are fading fast. Russian military performance in the Ukraine War has been an epic failure. By early 2025 Russia has lost over a million men dead, wounded, deserted and millions more fleeing the country to avoid military service.

Ukraine is already making more economic and military deals with NATO countries. The United States was especially eager to learn the details of how Ukraine did it and obtain technical details on drone development, production and use.

Earlier this year Ukraine created a new branch of their military, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle/ 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 and instead develops new drone models and organizes 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 were 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 First Person Viewing/FPV goggles to see what the video camera on the drone can see. Adding night vision at least doubles the cost for each drone, so not all of them have 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.

Drones are difficult to shoot down and are most at risk to electronic warfare and jamming. Drone guidance systems were quickly modified to deal with that threat. Most 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 both sides commit 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.

This massive use of FPV-armed drones has 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 and 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.

One countermeasure that can work for a while is electronic jamming of the drones’ control signals. Drone guidance systems are constantly modified or upgraded to cope with this. Most drones have flight control software that sends drones with jammed control signals back to where they took off from to land for later use. The jammers are on the ground and can be attacked by drones programmed to home in on the jamming signal. Countermeasures can be overcome and the side that can do this more quickly and completely has an advantage. That advantage is usually temporary because both sides are putting a lot of effort into keeping their combat drones effective on the battlefield.

Military leaders in other nations have noted this and are scrambling to equip their own forces with the most effective drones. 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 becoming more effective and essential. Ukraine has offered to assist its allies to adapt to the revolutionary new drone warfare. Ukrainian drone developers, manufacturers and users are already in big demand by NATO countries to advise them on how to join the drone revolution. While the Ukrainian does this largely cost free to NATO nations that supplied weapons and economic aid throughout the war, anyone else pays a fee. Russia is providing similar services for China, North Korea, Iran and anyone else that can afford it.

Drones have been a surprise to American air power advocates. 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. 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

After a century of trying, the ground forces and non-aviation naval forces still cannot get the people up there to come down and get a much needed reality check on what is happening down below where battles and wars are still decided. Meanwhile the proliferation of surveillance and armed drones have in many cases replaced conventional air forces, at least for operations close to the ground and requiring more urgency to find and attack targets. As American aviation experts are schooled on how Ukraine and Russia developed the revolutionary drone war concepts, they will have tough decisions to make. There is still much for conventional air power to do. Israeli warplanes and some American B2 bombers recently demonstrated that in Iran. Israeli and NATO air forces are already investigating how the Iran attack might have been conducted by aircraft carrying thousands of drones.

The drones are here, they are not going away for a while, and everyone has to learn how to adapt or perish. For free or for a fee, Ukraine will explain how that works in practical terms what was learned during the first Drone War.