Ukrainian surveillance drones.<\/p>\n
14th UAS Regiment photo<\/p>\n
Deploying millions of small explosive drones every month, Ukrainian forces have created a kill zone extending 16 miles behind the front line of Russia\u2019s wider war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Relentlessly striking troop formations, artillery<\/a>, air-defense vehicles and\u2014perhaps most importantly, supply lines\u2014the drones have made life along the front line a nightmare for Russian troops.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you simply drive on any roads, you risk your life,\u201d one Russian blogger wrote<\/a>. \u201cIn principle, this has been the case for a year, since the spring of 2024, but now the frequency of attacks is much higher for the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukrainian forces turned to small drones during the worst months of the prolonged ammunition shortage in early 2024. Now, a network of workshops all over Ukraine churns out more than 2 million small first-person-view drones\u2014each weighing a few pounds and clutching a small warhead\u2014every month.<\/p>\n The developers are constantly improving the drones with better warheads and jam-resistant controls, among other innovations.<\/p>\n In the 39th month of Russia\u2019s wider war, the unmanned aerial vehicles now form a complex and constantly evolving system\u2014one that has managed to stay ahead of Russian efforts to defeat it with armor, nets, shotguns and radio jammers.<\/p>\n \u201cThey fly in flocks,\u201d the blogger explained, \u201cwith preliminary reconnaissance from aircraft-type UAVs.\u201d Bomber drones lobbing small explosives back up the single-use explosive FPVs. And repeater drones, which capture and relay radio signals, extend the range of the smallest drones from just a few miles to 10 or more.<\/p>\n The Russians deploy millions of drones every month, too, but Ukrainian jamming is generally superior\u2014and can ground many radio-controlled drones. Fiber-optic drones, controlled via signals traveling along miles-long fibers, are more difficult to defeat.<\/p>\n But fiber-optic drones are expensive, costing thousands of dollars apiece, compared to just hundreds of dollars for a wireless drone. And Ukraine\u2019s long-range strike drones have been bombarding Russia\u2019s fiber-optics factories in order to suppress production of these unjammable drones.<\/p>\n A new and more powerful Russian jammer called Black Eyes could shift the aerial balance of power over the front line. Serhii \u201cFlash\u201d Beskrestnov, a leading Ukrainian drone expert, called<\/a> Black Eyes \u201cdangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n But the Ukrainians appreciate the risk\u2014and have been hunting down the Black Eyes using specially-equipped FPV drones that communicate on non-standard frequencies that the Black Eyes can\u2019t reliably block.<\/p>\n The result, for now, is that Ukraine has a drone advantage. That helps explain why, in recent months, Russian advances in eastern Ukraine have slowed to a crawl\u2014and Russian casualties have increased.<\/p>\n The next step for Ukraine\u2019s Unmanned Systems Forces, the independent military service overseeing the country\u2019s millions of drones, may be to further extend the depth of the robotic kill zone.<\/p>\n