November 22, 2025: In Ukraine, swarms of FPV/First Person View drones have revolutionized how wars are fought. There are few methods to defeat drone attacks. The primary defensive measure is electronic jamming of the control signal between the drone operator and the drone. Jamming is of limited effectiveness because active jammers are easy targets for drones programmed to home in on and destroy jammers. Depending on how they are programmed, drones will either land if jammed or return to where they were launched. Another technique is to equip an FPV with a kilometer or so of thin fiber optic cable. This cannot be jammed, although occasionally the cable breaks before the drone has carried out its attack.

Despite those defensive measures and the small explosive payload drones carry, most of the armored vehicles damaged or destroyed in Ukraine were done in by armed drones. Over 70 percent of all Russian casualties are now the result of drone attacks.

Drone warfare is increasingly common and dominating most combat zones. Tactics and techniques are also evolving as Ukraine and Russia both experiment with new tactics, and drone designs. Both nations are also increasing production of drones and the number of trained operators. Both Russia and Ukraine realize that drones provide unprecedented surveillance of the battlefield, but not all of it. That requires more drones and operators.

In 2024 Ukraine established its Drone Force to coordinate production and operator training efforts. By 2025 Ukraine was producing nearly 400,000 drone a month and expects to at least triple than in 2026. The Drone Force coordinated the production of drones by civilians. This was done in homes, barns, garages or any space where production of a few dozen or a few hundred drones could be carried out.

Ukraine also supported civilian drone building operations efforts to become commercial. Currently there are over 30 commercial drone manufacturers, many of them underground or abandoned tunnels to protect them Russian drone or missile attacks. Then there’s the Killhouse Academy, run by the Ukrainian Army 3rd Corps. They run a six to ten day course that is free to members of the 3rd Corps but costs everyone else about $200. The course includes the basics of operating, repairing and even building your own drone. This is not every difficult, because all you have to do is modify a consumer quadcopter or fixed wing drone. The course also features a large abandoned industrial space with mockups of typical battlefield obstacles and targets for drone operators to practice on. Students learn out to operate an FPV drone and how to avoid being spotted and attacked by a Russian drone. Students are also given demonstrations of what electronic jamming can do to an FPV drone and how to deal with that. Students are also sh

Killhouse also offers more technical, and more expensive, advanced courses. Graduates of these courses include teenagers expecting to be in the army eventually as well as those who want to start building drones for the troops, often soldiers they know. Many students are just curious about drones and their use in the Ukraine War. This has attracted journalists as well as elderly Ukrainians with grandchildren in the army.

In 2023, a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainians were building their own drones, often at home or scattered workshops. By late 2024 Ukrainians were producing over 150,000 drones a month. In 2025 Ukraine aims to produce up to four million drones. By purchasing components in bulk, thousands of Ukrainian men and women are building these drones for the armed forces or for someone they know in the military. Troops at the front also build and modify drones to fit their immediate situations. For the soldiers, designing better drones is often a matter of life or death.

The Ukrainians have kept ahead of the Russians in drone technology and production. The Russian government discourages, or even outlaws, individuals building drones and centralizes drone production. This gives the Ukrainians an edge in drone quantity and quality. The Ukrainians are defending their homeland and Russia is having an increasingly difficult time justifying continued fighting and killing or disabling over a million Russians in Ukraine.

All these drone developments make combat more dangerous for the troops on the ground. Drones not only keep an eye on enemy troops but are always ready to go in and put them out of action, as in dead or wounded. Troops are still fighting each other on the ground, but now they have to worry about constant surveillance and attacks from the growing number of drones hovering over the battlefield. In addition to operators there are the drone maintainers, who repair damaged or otherwise disabled drones and service those needing a battery recharge or simply a fresh battery.

Ukraine’s military has established a Drone Academy to train drone operators in basic and advanced skills. There are courses for commanders on how best to manage and use drones. This is essential because now Ukrainian infantry battalions have nearly as many drones as troops. The American military likes to call this a force multiplier. That is, a battalion with lots of drones is more effective, and lethal, than a battalion without so many drones. The Ukrainian military is the first to go so far in this direction and appear to be benefitting from the massive use of drones. Other nations are closely following this development and preparing to adopt what works for Ukraine. Russia is more conservative in how they deal with this, even though they are also using massive numbers of drones. There are already dozens of Ukrainian companies offering training for drone operators and the Ukrainian military uses the services of these firms. Ukraine seeks to have more than 10,000 trained operators as quickly as possible. Dro

Earlier in 2023 Ukraine revealed that it planned to spend over half a billion dollars on drones but did not reveal the extent of their efforts to add more capabilities to commercial drones as well as the growing number of drones being manufactured by Ukrainian companies. Ukrainian developers and manufacturers are often small groups of civilian hobbyists that proved capable of creating new features for drones, both commercial and hobbyist-created models. The Russian invasion spurred a lot of innovation, mainly among Ukrainian developers. Among the items available to commercial customers are a lot of digital video camera items as well as lighter, miniaturized computer components that can be assembled and programmed by users to perform essential tasks, like using AI apps and data from onboard video cameras of enemy forces, even if they are camouflaged or in underground bunkers. Constant combat use of these systems enables developers to address shortcomings and continually improves the hardware and software carried on these hunter killer drones. Earlier in the war two drones were needed for this but now all that tech and weapons can be carried and used by one drone. The Ukrainian military also holds competitions to find the most skilled drone operators and honor them with promotions and more challenging assignments.

Wartime developers are able to improve their tech and hardware more rapidly because there is continuous feedback from users. Ukraine has an edge here because many of these developers are hobbyists who know little about peacetime development, its bureaucracy and counter-productive over-supervision. Ukrainian developers are often creating these new drone techs for friends or family members who are now in the military and eager for whatever help they can get. The Ukrainian military sees this entrepreneurial spirit as an advantage, not some form of insubordination or recklessness the way the Russian military regards unauthorized innovations. Despite that, some Russian innovators have appeared and been allowed to work. Russian commanders and civilian officials are less willing than their Ukrainian counterparts to encourage individual initiatives. Another problem is that the economic sanctions have made it more difficult for Russians to obtain the commercial tech that Ukrainians still have access to and frequently

Such free access to Western and Chinese components means Ukraine can build very capable and lethal drones that are designed to carry out one or a small number of missions. That is why Ukraine and Russia are each losing thousands of drones a month. Cheap, useful, and expendable is now the rule with most battlefield drones.

This innovation explains the greater success of Ukrainian drones against Russian targets on the battlefield or deep inside Russia. Despite all the innovation, the majority of these drones are basically loitering munitions that can be sent out to areas where there is known or suspected enemy activity and kill it when they find it. In the past a separate surveillance drone was needed to spot targets, usually enemy troops, and vehicles. These drones have video cameras and a link to operators who view the video on a tablet or via goggles containing small video screens while the operators have a form of handheld game controller to maneuver the drone and select a target for the drone to collide with and explode. The video comm link was a vulnerability the Russian exploited as they developed new types of electronic jammers that could disable these comm links. The new Ukrainian drones that combine finding and killing capabilities on one drone that can also detect and destroy these Russian jammers, which are usually

You can see how this works in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian troops are better trained in the accurate use of rifle fire. It was Ukrainian troops who frequently used commercial quadcopters equipped with grenade or small bomb carry and release mechanisms. The Ukrainian soldiers often bought commercial drones for this and spent hours at a time sending out their quadcopter to search for targets. The quadcopter would have to frequently land to recharge. That demonstrates another 21st century development; the proliferation of electronic devices an infantryman can and often will take with him into combat.

Input from Ukrainian engineers was essential because many of the most effective Soviet-era weapons engineers were Ukrainian. That meant Ukraine had a tradition of pragmatic and innovative weapons development that was mobilized after the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea and part of Donbas. The capabilities of the Ukrainian engineers were not exactly a state secret, just not newsworthy. Foreigners familiar with weapons development knew about the Ukrainian skills and those who visited Ukraine for whatever reason, like American and other NATO military advisors, got a closer look at what those Ukrainian engineers, as well as civilian hobbyists, could do.

Those skills became even more important after the invasion began and suddenly engineers and scientists in other fields began applying their skills to rapidly develop new weapons and equipment to protect Ukraine from the Russians. After the invasion began the capabilities of the Ukrainian engineers became part of the reporting on how the Ukrainians stopped and turned back the Russian attack.