Ukrainian soldiers rose with thrusts, stretched, rubbed their eyes, rolled their sleeping bags in underground hideouts near the country’s eastern frontlines. Their day will not take them far. Most stayed underground and worked with joysticks that controlled the keyboard and drone.
In a moment of uncertainty for Ukraine, the country wobbled between hopes that President Trump’s ceasefire talks would end the war and that the US feared that it would withdraw military support, and soldiers were taking part in a Ukrainian military initiative focused on drones that they hoped that Keyi would allow him to stay in the American arms battle.
If a ceasefire meeting fails, or if the US decides to stop shipping weapons, Ukrainian drone initiatives could be more important than ever. The program, known as the Line of Drones, doubles the unmanned systems assembled in Ukraine.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a three-day ceasefire in Ukraine next month, adding much of the uncertainty of the war by showing him that he is a gesture of goodwill.
The announcement followed a week of unabated war in Ukraine, which included the most deadly attacks on the capital Kiev in nearly a year and conflicting signals about what comes from the Trump administration. President Trump has not been very critical of Ukraine’s recent leadership, instead criticizing Putin for continuing to bomb Ukraine. But Trump has yet to promise more weapons.
The drone programme aims to help Ukraine continue to fight war, and once again reminds us of Ukraine’s ability to innovate.
“It’s no longer a man towards a man,” said the commander of a team run from a basement in eastern Ukraine.
The group will fly first-person view drones to give pilots the equivalent of front row seats as bombs surge towards Russian soldiers, cars, tanks and bunkers. In line with military protocols, the commander asked to be identified only by his name and rank private artem.
Even before the drone line programme, Ukraine relied heavily on unmanned weapons. The Ukrainian army is giving about 70% of all casualties in war on both sides than all other weapons combined with all other weapons, such as tanks, Hautzers, mortars, land mines, etc. These other weapons are partially provided by the US, but Ukrainians assemble drones domestically from components made primarily in China.
Kiev’s Plan B fails if the expanded drone program, which has been in work since last fall but officially announced in February, speaks to end the war that began with a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
Drones from both sides are already hammering continuously across the battlefield. In the drone war, Russia has volume, but Ukraine has advantages in quality, and often becomes the first adopter of a new technological approach. These include flying a retransmitter drone to expand the scope of the explosive drone and directing the drone with thin fiber optic threads of hair impermeable to jamming.
The line of drones strategy is hidden by ceasefire talks and the assessment of Trump’s rejection of Ukraine’s opportunities without US assistance. (“You don’t have a card,” he told Ukrainian President Voldimi Zelensky at an oval office meeting). However, military analysts say the drone deployment has already brought results.
It has been partially recognized in a three-month slowdown in Russian attacks in Ukraine. Despite the attacks that costly to staging Russian forces, Russian forces that advanced last fall have been on a virtual stall since January.
The Russian attack peaked in November with a 279 square miles of capture of 279 square miles of Ukrainian territory, according to Deep State, an analytical group with ties to the Ukrainian army. Russia occupied just 51 square miles in March, the group’s analysis showed. The main benefit of Russia’s winter was to expel Ukraine from all or almost all of the Kursk region within Russia.
The Ukrainian programme will fill out four drone battalions to become a drone regiment, each expanding from around 700 soldiers to first-person view drones, others dropping bombs, and 2,500 soldiers armed with unmanned ground systems. The final one includes a remote controlled vehicle armed with machine guns.
All wars promote innovation from the invention of radar during World War II to Vietnam’s nighttime goggles. However, Ukrainian drone strategy emerged from a significant weakness in the military after more than three years of war. It is a declining motivation for the Ukrainians to join the Army. As avoidance of drafts became widespread, replenishing force became a challenge.
Drones do not replace soldiers. In fact, each flight of a first-person drone may require up to four soldiers. On last week’s flight in northeastern Ukraine, the drone team consisted of pilots, navigators, armor, and pilots from retransmitted drones.
However, recruiting for these positions is easier than finding soldiers for infantry serving in the trench.
With fewer soldiers losing than Russia, Ukraine wants to limit direct involvement. That’s where the drones come in.
This strategy focuses on lands that are approximately 18 miles deep at the Russian frontline. Saturating the area’s airspace with reconnaissance and strike drones will prevent Russian soldiers from gathering for attack. A drone that flies at about 80 mph can outweigh anything that travels to the ground.
“The fair assessment is that it’s working,” said Michael Coffman, a senior fellow at Carnegie’s International Peace Fund, about the drone program. Russia’s under-equipment and winter weather also played a role, he said.
According to Coffman, the goal was to design a power that “can lock up most of the front” and to maintain ourselves without our help. However, Ukraine still relies heavily on the US and European countries to protect its cities against missiles far from the frontlines.
The goal of the program is for experienced drone pilots to share their expertise with soldiers from other units to complicate logistics, air defense and electronic warfare operations in Russia, and expand over time. “The idea is to cover the entire frontline,” he said.
The Ukrainian military tested last year when Congressional Republicans stagnated Ukrainian supplementary fees. The cannon ammunition ran so low that some crew fired only shells of smoke. In one section in the front near the town of Chasiv Yar, the drone crew was compensated with gusts of attacks that disrupt the Russian attack.
Drones cost between $500 and $750 each, less than a large caliber cannon and cost around $3,000.
Other troops are taking notes. This year, the US Marines formed the first experimental attack drone squad to fly First-Person View drones.
Private Artem serves the Achilles Regiment, one of the recently expanded units under the drone program. Like a fifth of all recruits to the regiment, he is a former computer programmer who worked in the booming outsourcing industry in Ukraine before the Russian invasion.
It is covered about three miles from the front line, but the drone crew is inescapable of the wild bar and danger of war.
On Friday, Ukrainian crews rammed through the green grass of the flood plain of the Oskill River, catching one Russian soldier at the open. He was running for safety in a grove. However, the final frame of the video feed shows a close-up of camouflage, suggesting that he didn’t make it.
Later that day, Russian drones were bustling overhead before they crashed nearby with a thunderous boom, leaving Ukrainian soldiers who had placed their drones outdoors for launches.
Yurii Shyvala contributed to a report from Kharkiv, Ukraine.
