All it takes is one FPV drone, and old North Korean iron blows up like fireworks. The outdated multiple rocket launch systems that North Korea has supplied to Russia have proven fatally vulnerable to Ukrainian FPV drones, Business Insider reports. 

Ukrainian drones don’t just hit targets. They target loaded munitions directly in open launch tubes, causing explosions, fires, and catastrophic damage.

According to the military, the 429th Separate Regiment of Unmanned Systems Achilles launched a drone at a North Korean 107mm Type-75 launcher when it was already loaded. The strike triggered a chain reaction — missile explosions, fire, debris.

The Type-75 is Pyongyang’s version of the Chinese Type-63, equipped with 12 open launch tubes. These old launchers have been spotted on the Russian front for several months now, and they are the ones exploding en masse after drone strikes.

Another case involved the 413th Battalion of Unmanned Systems. In late June, a drone hit one of the munitions in an M1991 launcher. It resulted a premature launch, pierced truck chassis, and a smoke-filled cabin from which soldiers jumped out.

Most Korean weapons are copies of Soviet or Chinese systems that Russia has long used. For example, old BM-21 Grads are also loaded manually and lack drone protection.

In contrast, Western systems like the American M142 HIMARS have protected rocket containers, making the job much harder for kamikaze drones.

While North Korea supplies Russia with outdated systems, militaries around the world are already betting on drones, which are cheap, accurate, and lethally effective.

Next month, US troops will gather at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, for a new kind of “Top Gun” school—this one focused on Ukraine-style, kamikaze first-person-view (FPV) drones, Defense One reports. The event is part of the Pentagon’s Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) program, which tests cutting-edge unmanned systems under simulated urban combat conditions.

The urgency reflects Ukraine’s rapid drone advances. In late 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense ramped up production and training of FPV drones, which quickly became a cornerstone of its battlefield strategy. By February, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) estimated these drones accounted for 70% of Russia’s battlefield losses—forcing a recalibration of US strategy.

Alexander Lovett, deputy assistant secretary of defense for prototyping and experimentation, said the US military is now building out FPV drone schools across the services. At T-REX, teams will square off in “red versus blue” drone battles, with counter-drone technologies also on display.

Ukraine’s drone playbook inspires US strategy

Ukraine’s success has shown that cheap, agile FPV drones can deliver outsized impact. While consumer drones have been used in war since Russia’s 2014 invasion, Ukraine’s scale and innovation pushed them from novelty to necessity.

Today, Ukraine is producing around 200,000 drones a month, according to CNA analyst Sam Bendett—a pace the US has yet to match.

Replicator falls short, procurement gets decentralized

The Pentagon’s Replicator program, launched in 2023 to scale low-cost autonomous drones, has so far fallen short of expectations. In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a shift: allowing units to procure drones directly, without waiting on traditional acquisition pipelines.

“We need to be world class, and we will,” Hegseth said, calling the move a way to “open the aperture” to more suppliers and systems.

“The beginning of American drone dominance”

Emil Michael, the new undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, described the Pentagon drone showcase this week as “the beginning of American drone dominance.” But he acknowledged the US lags behind Ukraine, Russia, and especially China.

A major factor is training: Ukrainian forces regularly operate in jamming-heavy environments, something the US struggles to replicate due to FAA and FCC restrictions on jamming, which protect civilian networks.

Michael said drone manufacturers must internalize lessons from real-world conflicts like Ukraine’s. “That’s sort of endemic to becoming a drone manufacturer in the [United States],” he said.

Ukrainians to observe and advise at T-REX

To bridge that gap, Ukrainian military personnel will attend T-REX, offering firsthand feedback. One organizer told Defense One the feedback will likely be “blunt.”

“If you are not operating in Ukraine, then your stuff is not serious,” said Brandon Tseng, co-founder of Shield AI, which works with both US and Ukrainian forces. He noted many companies failed to survive Ukraine’s harsh electronic warfare environment.

Lovett echoed that challenge: “We have limited places where we can do that,” he said, referencing jamming exercises. The Pentagon is working with regulators to open more test ranges, but change will be slow.

Creative autonomy as the path forward

According to Bendett, the US will likely never replicate China’s DJI dominance, but can lead through decentralized innovation. “We have to shake loose our own creativity,” he said.

Allowing commanders to choose their own drones—and learning directly from Ukrainian combat experience—may be key.

“We’ve opened the door for rapid acquisition,” said Michael. “If you’re a smart builder… you could build to those specifications.”

Ukraine's defense technology cluster Brave1 has launched the development of anti-drone rifle rounds, significantly increasing the chances of hitting fast-moving aerial targets, the group said in a statement on June 30.

According to Brave1, the ammunition appears similar to standard rounds used in automatic rifles but features a specially designed warhead that increases the likelihood of shooting down FPV (first-person-view) drones or commercial quadcopters such as the DJI Mavic before they strike.

These types of drones are being used extensively on the battlefield by both Ukrainian and Russian forces. The cost-effective FPV drones have proven highly effective in destroying expensive military equipment.

The manufacturer has already codified the new rounds according to NATO standards, Brave1 said. The goal is to supply every infantry soldier with a magazine of specialized ammunition for use in case of aerial threats.

"These rounds that significantly improve the chances of hitting a moving target are a new development by Brave1," Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.

"Our common goal is to ensure that every infantryman has a magazine of such ammunition and can equip his rifle with it in case of an air threat."

Ukraine continues to scale up its drone warfare capabilities. The Defense Ministry said on March 10 that it plans to purchase 4.5 million FPV drones in 2025 at a cost exceeding Hr 110 billion ($2.6 billion), with most of the funds allocated through the Defense Procurement Agency.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has set a goal of producing at least 30,000 long-range drones in 2025.

Tired of military aid delays, Ukraine has designed its own ballistic missile — and it’s already in mass-production

Ukraine announced on June 13 that its short-range Sapsan ballistic missile would go into mass production, a major development in Kyiv’s ongoing efforts to domestically produce the weapons it needs to fight Russia’s full-scale invasion. As Ukraine faces growing challenges in securing weapons from Western partners, and Russia continues launching

The Kyiv IndependentYuliia Taradiuk