Relentlessly droning Russian troops and vehicles just west of Huliaipole in southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the Ukrainian 237th Unmanned Systems Battalion isn't just blocking a Russian offensive. It's also working out a possible new anti-vehicle tactic.

A video montage of the battalion's work, published on 30 October, depicts recent drone strikes on trucks, armored vehicles, and artillery. Most of the depicted strikes involve the usual first-person-view drones. But a few involve much heavier fixed-wing drones.

That's unusual. Ukrainian units usually reserve their fixed-wing drones, including Fire Point FP-1s and FP-2s, for deep strike hundreds of kilometers behind the disputed gray zone. When the FP-1/2s and similar drones strike closer to the gray zone, it's usually for so-called "middle strikes" on Russian supply lines.

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Fixed-wing drones aren't normally involved in strikes on individual armored vehicles, and for one main reason: cost. An FP-1 or FP-2 might cost $50,000. After all, these drones weigh hundreds of kilograms, pack warheads as heavy as 158 kg, and range hundreds of kilometers. By contrast, the tiny FPV drones that carry out most of the strikes on Russian infantry and assault vehicles in and around the gray zone weigh just a couple of kilograms, half of which might be warhead, and cost just $500 apiece.

In other words, the more expensive fixed-wing drones are for precise, destructive strikes on high-value targets well behind the gray zone. The cheaper FPV drones are for hounding hapless individual Russian infantry and vehicle crews as they struggle toward or across the gray zone. Expensive drone for expensive target. Cheap drone for cheap target.

Tougher vehicles

But there's a problem. Heaping layers of anti-drone armor on their assault vehicles, the Russians have produced whole classes of vehicle that are highly resistant to FPV strikes. Metal cages, plates, mesh, and spines can trigger FPVs' warheads a safe distance from a vehicle's hull. Some of these turtle, hedgehog, and porcupine vehicles have absorbed dozens of FPV strikes before succumbing.

The drone strike math is changing. If it takes dozens of $500 drones to maybe take out an up-armored vehicle, it might be cost-effective to swap in a single fixed-wing drone, instead—and virtually guarantee that a single hit will result in a catastrophic kill. A hedgehog vehicle might survive repeated near-misses by FPVs with their 1-kg warheads. No vehicle survives a direct hit by an FP-2 packing a 158-kg warhead.

It's possible the 237th Unmanned Systems Battalion is poised to make the switch. And the tactic could spread as Ukrainian industry churns out more and more fixed-wing drones and Russians up-armor more and more vehicles. It's possible the new drone tactic and the new anti-drone vehicles will soon meet on a larger scale. "If Russia ever dares to return to armored assaults, I predict one [Ukrainian] adaptation will be to middle-strike the crap out of these with the large fixed wings that have a substantially larger warhead compared to FPVs," observer Moklasen wrote.

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For now, it's enough for the 237th Unmanned Systems Battalion to keep up the pressure on the Russian 127th Motor Rifle Division and adjacent units across the gray zone west of Huliaipole. Last year, the Russians achieved some of their most dramatic victories along this axis as they pushed outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian defenders west toward Zaporizhzhia City.

Back in February, the Ukrainians reinforced—and struck back. Aided by the abrupt bricking of Russia's thousands of smuggled and stolen Starlink satellite terminals, a clutch of Ukrainian assault and air assault brigades counterattacked, swiftly erasing months of Russian gains. Now the Ukrainians west of Huliaipole have one job: hold the line.

They're doing just that. "In 2026, the Ukrainian army has succeeded in stabilizing the southern front, reclaiming more territory than it has lost," mapper Clément Molin wrote. "The Russian army is continuing its offensive from Huliaipole along a 30-km-wide front, though its rate of advance remains limited."

It may remain limited, in part, because the Ukrainians are aiming heavier drones at the few armored vehicles the Russians dare to send across the gray zone. Smashed by warheads weighing tens of kilograms or more, the vehicles don't get very far.

Armored vehicles aren't dead in Ukraine—they just need a lot of help. That's one of the biggest lessons from the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps' Operation Vivaldi, its recent successful counteroffensive just north of the town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.

Russia spent 18 months building its salient toward Sloviansk; Ukraine took much of it back in three. By 30 September, three of four planned phases in, the operation had returned 176 sq km to Ukrainian control, taken 250 Russian prisoners, and cost Russia more than 5,000 killed and wounded, Ukraine's presidential office said. It also foiled a Russian plan to break into the rear of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban area, the office said.

Defying critics who insisted vehicles couldn't possibly survive in the drone-patrolled gray zone, the 3rd Army Corps repeatedly deployed mechanized forces as it counterattacked across a roughly 100 sq km salient the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies had extended toward Sloviansk, one of the last two big free cities in Donetsk Oblast.

Maneuvering for months under a veil of secrecy, the 3rd Army Corps found and exploited gaps along the flanks of the 20th and 25th CAAs, ultimately breaking into the Russian armies' rears and forcing them to pull back across the Zherebets River in order to avoid encirclement.

Armored vehicles were key to the Ukrainian effort. They sped assault troops into battle, dropped them off under fire, and then supported them as they clashed with the Russians. "Maneuver warfare isn't going anywhere," stated Ryan O'Leary, a US Army veteran who once commanded volunteers in Ukraine.

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3rd Army Corps commanders knew they were taking a risk deploying armored vehicles in a Russian-controlled salient patrolled by first-person-view drones from Russia's elite Rubicon Center drone unit. But they clearly believed that, with adequate support, the vehicles could accomplish their missions—and survive.

They were right. A dramatic video shot by 3rd Army Corps troopers depicts the troopers disembarking from their armored trucks and rushing into the fight while small arms fire clatters all around them.

Given the intensity of the Russian fire, a mechanized assault "was the only real way to push positions in an effective manner to keep losses low as well as gain and hold momentum and aggression," O'Leary wrote. Walking into battle under the cover of trees might help the infantry avoid the attention of overhead drones, but it takes too long to sustain an aggressive assault, and it can be difficult to mass enough footborne infantry to overcome stiff enemy defenses.

"This is something that hasn't changed even with the advent of drone warfare coming of age," O'Leary added. "Suppression tactics and such have changed and now there is more than just indirect fires and counterassaults that you must be able to suppress and plan for."

But the concept of the infantry-carrying armored vehicle "isn't going anywhere," O'Leary stressed. "Especially when it takes a drone tens of minutes to get to target area, acquire target and hit the target. Right now, the front is extremely susceptible to maneuvering forces on assaults if it is planned right and executed properly."

The 3rd Army Corps' Operation Vivaldi is an excellent example of an operation that was planned right and executed properly—in ways that helped the corps' mechanized forces fight and survive.

Careful preparation

The corps explained that it deployed footborne scouts to find the best paths for follow-on vehicular assaults—and subsequent medical evacuations. Scouts "conducted recon of the front lines, ensured the breakthrough of equipment and led adjacent units along secret paths while evacuating the wounded," the 3rd Army Corps stated.

Before the armored vehicles rolled into action along the pre-scouted paths, the 3rd Army Corps deployed robotic engineering vehicles to clear Russian mines. After that, the corps sent in old BTR-60 wheeled armored vehicles modified for remote control and packed with anti-tank mines. These "robotic kamikaze complexes ... were used to demolish the enemy's strongest fortifications," the corps said.

Only after the assault routes were scouted and cleared of mines and Russian strongpoints did the manned vehicles and their precious infantry cargo roll out. We don't know how many losses the 3rd Army Corps' mechanized infantry suffered on the attack, but we do know they ultimately prevailed—when the battered Russian 20th and 25th CAAs retreated.

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"Recent Ukrainian operations demonstrate that maneuver is not dead," stressed Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army general. "Despite the difficulty in ground operations maneuver observed in eastern Ukraine over the past few years, offensive operations are still possible in modern war. But they need the intellectual effort to develop new techniques to make them viable and repeatable at scale."

In addition to the reconnaissance and robots-first engineering and suppression tactics the 3rd Army Corps employed, Ryan recommended commanders deploy more drone-grounding electronic warfare and use AI tools to help plan attacks.

But ages-old human elements are still essential, Ryan wrote. "Developing viable methods for offensive tactical and operational maneuver in the 21^st century also demands the inclusion of older ideas about the employment of mass, logistic support and casualty evacuation [and the] maintenance of morale and leader's provision of purpose to their people."

Even when the assault route is clear, it's understandably terrifying to ride in an armored vehicle across drone-patrolled terrain. But a good leader can motivate their troops to try.