Ukraine’s recent assault on airbases across Russia has already ushered in a new conventional wisdom: the expensive, human-crewed weapons (tanks, planes, ships) that have long defined the world’s “advanced” militaries have been rendered obsolete by inexpensive drones.

However, this view is incomplete, and perhaps dangerously misleading. Today’s drone warfare offers sobering lessons that go far beyond the vulnerability of expensive legacy weapons; and the looming integration of AI into drone warfare will make the current situation look positively quaint.

Consider the lessons of the Ukraine war so far. First, the impact of drones goes far beyond legacy weapons. Drones have indeed rendered tanks and armored personnel carriers extremely vulnerable, so Russian ground assaults now frequently use troops on foot, motorcycles, or all-terrain vehicles.

Drones are also effective against almost everything else. Ukraine has used drones to destroy Russian targets as varied as weapons factories, moving trains, ammunition stores, oil refineries, ships, and ports. It could be worse; in fact, Ukraine has shown great restraint, considering Russia’s barbaric conduct. Airport terminals, train stations at rush hour, athletic and concert stadiums, pharmaceutical factories, hospitals, schools, nursing homes — all are equally vulnerable.

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Two additional sobering lessons from Ukraine concern how drone warfare depends on its industrial base. First, speed and responsiveness are critical. Drone technology, weapons, and tactics now evolve at a blinding pace. A new drone will be useful for only 2-6 months. The other side develops countermeasures, requiring the development of new products, against which new countermeasures are developed, and so on.

At first, the drones used in Ukraine were crude weapons, radio-controlled by a pilot who needed to be nearby. As drones became more sophisticated and lethal, jamming was used to block their radio signals, which led to frequency changes and then frequency hopping, which was then countered by multi-frequency jammers, which then engendered drones that attack jamming equipment.

Then Russia developed drones controlled via fiber-optic cable — impervious to jamming. Ukraine tries to track the cable to its source and kill the pilots (with drones). Now Ukraine has fiber-optic drones, too.

Guidance is ever more sophisticated, so that drones can evade radar by flying very low or using stealth technology. But drone detection and tracking systems have also advanced, employing networks of cellphones and microphones connected to audio analysis software, as well as using Lidar, radar, and cameras.

In response, however, Ukraine’s drone industry and military developed a revolutionary model of weapons research and development, production, and deployment, based on direct, continuous communication between frontline units and drone producers.

Here, Ukraine benefited from having a strong startup ecosystem, which supports a weapons industry (with hundreds of companies) capable of designing, producing, and fielding a new weapon in a matter of weeks. This year, Ukraine will produce more than four million drones, most of them models that did not exist even a year ago. Unfortunately, Russia has adapted as well, also relying heavily on private startups.

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Some 80% of the electronics used in Russian drones are sourced from China. While Ukraine was initially highly dependent on China, it has reduced its reliance to perhaps 20%, most of that obtained covertly.

Yet US and European defense R&D and procurement remain slow and uncompetitive, which cripples their ability to defend against drones, as well as their ability to use them. Although few people realize it, the US and NATO now desperately need Ukraine for its drone expertise.

Moreover, AI will change everything. Ukraine’s 1 June operation used 117 drones, each controlled by a skilled operator, and reports suggest that something like half were defeated by Russian defenses — jamming, mainly — because the drones needed to be in radio communication with their controllers. Had they been autonomous, there could have been a thousand of them.

And with AI, there is no need for pilot communication, and thus no effective jamming, greatly increasing drone range and lethality. Five years from now, it will be terrifyingly easy to launch preemptive strikes on conventional targets.

True, the required AI functionality still demands far more computing power and memory than can be put into a small drone. Nor is it cheap. Nvidia chips, for example, cost up to $50,000 each, so even one powerful AI processor would make most drones prohibitively expensive.

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However, that’s changing fast, driven by the goal of putting serious AI capability into every phone. When that happens, those same capabilities will be available to every drone weapon. And with the sole, vital exception of AI processors, the entire supply chain for both phones and drone weapons is dominated by China.

Stuart Russell, an AI specialist at the University of California, Berkeley, has long argued for an arms-control treaty to prevent the spread of small, mass produced, AI-controlled drone weapons. He even underwrote the production of a short film, Slaughterbots, which dramatizes the risks these drones could pose in the wrong hands.

At a dinner years ago, he told me that it would soon be easy to target individuals using facial recognition or, say, everyone wearing a cross, a yarmulke, or any other religious or political symbol.

Since any meaningful treaty is unlikely in the current geopolitical environment, we must prepare for a world that probably will contain such weapons. But the Western defense establishment increasingly looks like the typical “legacy” company that has been caught off guard by technological disruption. In markets, legacy resistance can be costly, but the costs are purely monetary. In warfare, they can and will be deadly.

Last year, Ukrainian military intelligence did what sounds like science fiction: they fed thousands of images of Russian jets into artificial intelligence systems, training machines to hunt and dive-bomb strategic bombers meant to launch nuclear annihilation.

On 1 June, those AI-trained killing machines proved they learned their lessons perfectly.

Ukrainian forces loaded homegrown drones into ordinary trucks, smuggled them deep into Russia’s rear, and unleashed mechanical predators that struck four airbases from the Arctic to Siberia — wiping out a $7 billion of Russia’s elite air force in a single day.

With 41 aircraft reduced to wreckage — the largest single-day funeral for Russian aircraft since WWII — Putin’s elite “red lines” air threat that kept the West cowering for years would take decades to restore — if sanctions ever allow it.

Behind this massacre lies Ukraine’s domestic drone empire that has exploded from desperate start-ups into a $2.8 billion war machine in just three years — and it just launched the AI arms race that will haunt every future battlefield.

From garage tinkering to 4.5 million killer drones

The devastating attack, dubbed the operation “Spiderweb,” resulted from three years of rapid drone evolution — a transformation that turned Ukraine’s drone warfare from a desperate improvisation to a high‑volume, precision‑strike ecosystem Russia often struggles to match.

In the early days of full-scale war, Ukraine’s defense ministry purchased thousands of drones, still relying heavily on ad hoc production, crowdfunding, and volunteer ingenuity. Yet, it took just two years to leap from garage builds to global leadership, pioneering drone technology.

By 2024, the government had scaled up procurement to over 1.5 million drones, with 96% of contracts awarded to domestic manufacturers. In 2025, Ukraine tripled its investment, allocating more than $2.6 billion – one-fifth of Ukraine’s total defense procurement – toward drones, including plans to deliver 4.5 million FPV models to the battlefield.

With factories now producing millions of drones and some operators flying up to 15 missions a day, Ukraine’s domestic drone industry has evolved from battlefield improvisation to full-scale industrialization — delivering lethal, low-cost systems at speed, with growing flexibility and automation.

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These drones have become central to Ukraine’s battlefield strategy — pinpointing, punishing, and relentlessly pushing back Russian forces. As The New York Times put it, “It feels as if there are a thousand snipers in the sky.” Still, Ukraine’s technological edge is under pressure, with questions mounting over how long it can maintain dominance.

In contrast, Russian troops are often starved for drones, with some battalions receiving just 10 to 15 FPV (First-person view) drones per week.

“We know where they are flying from, but there is nothing to kill with,” lamented one Russian operator.

Regulatory bottlenecks have made matters worse. “Heavy drones now require state approval,” wrote a Russian blogger, noting that units have begun constructing their own drones to fill the gap left by a struggling domestic industry, increasingly strained by the relentless race to modernize.

The bomb witch that haunts Russians armed with sticks

While Russia faces production setbacks, Ukraine is pushing forward with increasingly advanced systems. Among the most distinctive innovations is the “Baba Yaga” — a heavy multirotor drone named after the mythical Slavic witch.

Unlike smaller FPV drones, the Baba Yaga can carry 45-pound payloads like aerial bombs, mortar shells, anti-tank mines, and even guided bombs, making it ideal for hitting bunkers and supply depots. In response, Russian troops have resorted to crude countermeasures — attaching long sticks to knock Ukraine’s bulky bombers out of the sky.

However, Baba Yaga is just one part of Ukraine’s evolving drone arsenal. While new platforms continue to emerge, older systems are also being upgraded to stay deadly. Mavic drones, for instance, pioneered light bombing tactics early in the war, serving as surprisingly lethal anti-personnel systems despite their commercial origins

Since then, FPVs have taken over the role, offering greater payload capacity and flexibility. Some FPV drones now carry up to six VOG grenades – compared to the two typically deployed by Mavics – allowing for more impactful strikes with greater reach and frequency.

This drive for greater range, precision, and coordination has led to Ukraine’s next leap in drone warfare.

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Among Ukraine’s latest innovations is mothership drones — large UAVs capable of carrying and launching multiple FPV drones mid-flight. Designed for long-range missions, these platforms allow Ukrainian forces to strike deep behind enemy lines, overwhelming Russian defenses with coordinated, multi-drone assaults.

FPV drones have become Ukraine’s key interceptors, targeting Russian reconnaissance drones, while Russian units use theirs to hunt down Ukraine’s Baba Yagas.

“FPV drones are about tactical dominance. They bring chaos, fear, and uncertainty to close combat,” a Russian commentator wrote. “They are cheap, massive and deadly effective – and their potential grows with each passing day…These are no longer makeshift weapons, but new close-combat artillery.”

And in Ukrainian hands, they’ve become a relentless force — now fired more often than many large-caliber artillery shells.

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Much of Ukraine’s drone warfare success comes from specialized units. The Birds of Magyar, one of the country’s most prolific teams, carried out over 11,600 sorties in March 2025 alone — striking more than 5,300 targets, or one every eight minutes.

The majority of these hits came from FPV drones (67%) and heavy bombers (31%). While FPV strike footage tends to dominate social media, it’s the less flashy “Baba Yaga” night bombers that may be doing most of the actual damage on the ground.

These UAVs specialize in destroying infrastructure and personnel shelters, not just enemy armor. In March alone, they carried out 1,701 strikes on Russian infantry, with 1,002 confirmed kills and dozens of bunker-busting missions. By April, Ukrainian drone brigades reported hitting 83,000 targets — a 5% increase in just one month.

Russian milblogger “Vault 8” noted that Ukrainian FPV and reconnaissance drones now dominate up to 25 kilometers behind the front line — making road travel perilous and turning rear areas into a “highway of death,” where even vehicles far from combat zones are frequently destroyed. Both sides are being forced to adapt to this new reality — and the consequences are already visible on the battlefield.

Now, Ukraine is using these drones to construct a “drone wall” along the front line — extending the no-man’s land by dozens of kilometers and deterring Russian advances through constant aerial threat.

With FPV drones now functioning as the new artillery of modern warfare, mobility has become critical. For months, Russian forces have used motorcycles to lead high-risk assaults, a tactic born out of necessity due to mounting losses of armored vehicles to Ukrainian drones. In response, Ukraine’s 425th Skala Assault Regiment has established its own motorcycle assault company — aiming to match speed with survivability on a battlefield shaped by drones.

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Beyond direct strikes, the unit also lays mines, conducts aerial reconnaissance, and has carried out over 10,000 missions to date — including tests of jamming-resistant drones. As national production ramps up to 200,000 drones a month, the Birds of Magyar have seen their kill rate skyrocket: from fewer than 300 confirmed targets a year ago to over 5,000 today, eliminating one Russian soldier every 6.5 minutes.

Even Ukraine’s logistics have taken to the skies. Vampire drones are now being used to deliver food and ammunition to frontline units, flying at low altitudes to evade detection. Smaller FPV drones, typically 10 to 15 inches in size, are also employed — their crews far more mobile and adaptable.

While larger bombers must release payloads from higher altitudes to avoid small arms fire, FPVs can dive straight into targets as small as a single meter across, offering unmatched precision.

“FPVs are more effective against pinpoint targets, where the scale of damage doesn’t matter, but accuracy does,” says Danylo, a drone pilot from the 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade.

FPVs hunt by day, bombers mine by night

However, larger drones like the Vampire come with trade-offs. They require vehicle transport, limiting mobility, and must either launch close to the front — risking exposure — or fly long distances, increasing the chance of detection.

“At long range, it’s very visible in thermal cameras and can be intercepted, even shot down by another FPV, before it even crosses the line of contact,” says Oleksii, a drone unit commander from the same brigade.

Even Russian volunteers admit it: Ukraine’s heavy Vampire drones — built to hunt down artillery crews, tanks, and command posts — are giving Kyiv a strategic edge, thanks to their disciplined rollout and battlefield precision. And the arms race isn’t slowing down. Ukraine recently logged its first confirmed kill with a drone-mounted grenade launcher, pushing the boundaries of what flying machines can do in combat.

“Ukrainian ‘Vampire’ type heavy drones have a complementary role to FPVs,” explained Roy Gardiner, an open source weapons researcher and former Canadian officer. “While FPVs attack Russian logistics vehicles during the day, heavy drones attack the same vehicles at night by precision mining Russian roads.”

In some cases, however, FPVs outperform larger drones. Russian vehicles often stay far from the frontline — beyond the effective range of many Vampires, but still within reach of nimble FPVs. FPVs also handle Russian jamming more effectively, thanks to their ability to switch control frequencies mid-flight — an edge bulkier drones lack.

“FPVs, even with an effectiveness rate of 30–40%, cause more damage than the Vampire,” said Andrii of the 59th Brigade.

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Russia, meanwhile, is still playing catch-up — with no counterpart to the Baba Yaga and a drone fleet that trails badly in both design and deployment.

“Ukraine invested in its fleet of larger, long-range drones as a response to Russia’s investment in Shahed/Geran drones,” observed Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

He adds that Russia seems content with the performance of its Geran drones, having produced them by the thousands and prioritized their low cost and mass deployment — although points out that these systems serve a different purpose.

Gardiner notes that Moscow has talked up its plans for a homegrown drone industry, yet it failed to deliver.

“There have been indications that Russian drone units have been forbidden to make direct purchases without permission from above,” he adds.

In the meantime, Russian units have resorted to bizarre improvisations, including the “Vobla,” a jerry-rigged drone with four quadcopters connected to a single flight controller.

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While Russia leans on improvised workarounds, Ukraine’s drone innovation is drawing international attention, with Kyiv marketing itself as Europe’s future defense hub.

According to Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at UC San Diego, Ukrainian specialists are now training NATO personnel in Poland and the UK. They have even consulted the Pentagon on how to use American weapons more effectively in combat — a testament to how far Ukraine’s defense innovation has advanced.

“Ukraine’s defense industry will be massive as well. It was a critical hub in Soviet production and will now be part of Europe’s,” he says.

In this dynamics, Ukraine’s growing defense industry is part of a larger shift — one that positions the country not just as a supplier, but as a cornerstone of Europe’s security architecture.

“Europe needs Ukraine as a shield. We have the biggest army on the continent. We are the only ones with an army that knows how to contain Russia.” Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief, said. “The only one with an army that knows how to wage modern, high-tech warfare.”

The 1,000-drone barrage that could tip the war

However, Ukraine’s technological edge won’t last unchallenged. Russia is rapidly catching up — and in some areas, pulling ahead, such as with fiber optic drones.

Russian strike drones are now reaching deep into Ukraine’s rear — including the Kramatorsk–Dobropillia highway, a key supply route located more than 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) behind the front line. These attacks are being carried out with fixed-wing “Molniya” drones and the smaller “Tyuvik,” a modified version of the Iranian-made Shahed drone.

A Russian kamikaze drone was also reportedly using AI and machine learning to enhance targeting, scanning highways for military vehicles, and recently adapting to evade interceptor drones.

Amid these developments, some Ukrainian experts are sounding the alarm. Maria Berlinska, head of the Air Intelligence Support Center, warned that Russia may soon be capable of launching over 1,000 Shahed-type strike drones per day.

“By the end of May 2025, we are starting to fall further and further behind in the technological race,” she says. “In a number of areas, parity still exists, but in general, the Russians are increasingly ahead.”

She attributs this shift to something more structural than battlefield improvisation.

“We lasted for more than three years. But these solutions are increasingly being surpassed by systemic, monumental scientific projects from joint Russian-Iranian-Chinese engineering teams,” Berlinska says.

These warnings underscore a growing anxiety within Ukraine’s defense tech community: the innovation gap is narrowing. Oleksandr Yakovenko, who leads one of Ukraine’s leading drone companies, warned that while Ukraine previously was two steps ahead of the Russians, now they’re only “one step ahead of them.”

That concern extends far beyond the present battlefield. Tatarigami, a former Ukrainian officer and open-source intelligence analyst, warned that unless Russia suffers a major defeat or economic collapse, it could use the coming years to build and stockpile equipment.

“If Russia spends several years building and stockpiling equipment while leveraging Chinese industry and Western parts, its future military will be more modern and technologically advanced than during the 2022 invasion,” he wrote.