“The only thing keeping Ukrainian lines in the shape they are right now is drones, FPV, and bomber drones; without them, it would be very bad.”
That’s the stark assessment of Ukraine’s frontline reality by Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst and director of Rochan Consulting. With troop numbers dwindling and US aid in question, Ukraine is relying more than ever on unmanned aerial systems to plug the gaps and hold the line. The country’s defense increasingly depends not just on boots on the ground, but on a web of cheap but lethal machines in the sky.
According to Ukrainian officials and military analysts, Russia’s summer offensive is already underway, unfolding across the south, east, and northeast, combined with intensified large-scale drone and missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukrainian cities.
Russian forces are advancing at their fastest pace this year, having opened a new front in Sumy, captured several villages near the border, and amassed an estimated 50,000 troops in the region in part to prevent Ukraine from redeploying units toward Donetsk, where the main push is anticipated.
“The main Russian effort into the summer will once again be against the key towns of Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk,” said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. Russia’s continued objective, he noted, is the full occupation of Donetsk.
The offensive comes as Ukraine faces a shortage of troops, with recruitment rates still falling short of what’s needed to maintain its (approximately one million-strong) armed forces. Meanwhile, the Kremlin claims Russian recruitment has exceeded its targets every month this year.
How to stop it? Tech is a large part of the answer, and drones in particular. According to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former armed forces commander who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, his country must think about “a high-tech war for survival.” In a May 22 speech, he said this will use “a minimum of human resources and a minimum of economically cheap means to achieve maximum effect.”
Drones have become central to Kyiv’s battlefield strategy, not only for surveillance and strikes, but to hold the line, stop Russia’s advance, and substitute for soldiers it doesn’t have.
What is emerging is a new kind of layered defense, which Ukrainian officials call a “drone line” and some analysts refer to as a “drone wall:” a continuous defensive corridor of drones along Ukraine’s most vulnerable positions.
Ukrainian forces now use drones for everything from reconnaissance and strike missions to logistics, evacuation, and mine-laying. In some areas, they’ve become a substitute for infantry altogether.
“The frontline is fragmented,” said Muzyka, “there aren’t enough soldiers to man their defensive positions, so they use drones.”
First-person view (FPV) drones are launched at a scale unseen anywhere else in modern conflict, often by small units operating close to the line of contact. Their aim isn’t just to harass Russian troops, but to delay and disrupt advances long enough for Ukrainian forces to reposition or counterattack.
But their impact should be seen for what it is. They are tactical enablers in war, not a complete overhaul of military strategy, according to Mathieu Boulègue, a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
“You don’t win a war with drones, but you can definitely help achieve battlefield victory with the use of drones and the long-term planning on how you use them,” he said. Commanders can also, as Ukraine demonstrated in attacks against Russian military airfields on June 1, do huge damage to key enemy assets at scale.
According to Watling, Russia’s offensive momentum picked up in late 2024. But “advances then stalled as Ukraine adapted to Russian assault tactics and imposed [the] deep belt of attrition that prevented Russian troops reaching the line of contact in sufficient numbers to break through.”
The drone wall is the technological backbone of this belt, offering persistent aerial surveillance, strike capability, and protective cover for Ukraine’s overstretched infantry. The kill zone is not a fixed structure, but a dense network of FPVs, interceptors, and jammers.
Unmanned weapons now inflict about 70% of all casualties in the war on both sides, according to the Ukrainian military — more than all other weapons combined.
The drone wall has reshaped Ukraine’s defense and how modern warfare is fought, but it hasn’t solved the war’s underlying imbalance. In theory, the system gives commanders time to respond: to deploy artillery, anti-tank teams, or drone swarms against approaching Russian forces. In practice, gaps still remain.
“The problem is that if Russians capture one or two positions, then you immediately start to have gaps in your front,” said Muzyka. “Ukraine doesn’t have the manpower to quickly respond to such events. Drones are used to plug the gaps and then deploy any available reserves to the frontline, but as we’ve seen recently, it doesn’t always work.”
Russian forces are also adapting. To blind Ukrainian artillery, Moscow has stepped up strikes on the radar stations guiding drone interceptors, said RUSI’s Watling. The attacks limit Ukraine’s ability to knock down reconnaissance drones that guide Russian glide bombs and ballistic missiles aimed at its rear.
Ukraine’s drone operators are increasingly at risk. Using direct finding, signals intelligence, and reconnaissance, Russian units are locating and killing Ukrainian pilots with wire-guided drones and glide bombs.
Fiber-optic drones are the latest development in a fast-paced technological arms race now unfolding on the battlefield. Controlled by cable instead of radio, they are immune to jamming, a troubling development for Ukrainian defenders.
“The only way to counter it is to destroy it physically or to cut the fiber cable,” said Muzyka.
Even so, Ukraine’s reconnaissance drones have rendered tactical surprise on the battlefield impossible. “Up to 20km, 30km, Ukrainians have a very good understanding of what’s in front of them,” Muzyka said. “The problems begin when you need longer-range reconnaissance.”
Amid uncertainty over the future of military and intelligence support from the US, this gap is concerning.
“Ukraine’s long-range strikes are heavily reliant on US intelligence for targeting coordinates, so a cutoff of intelligence sharing would degrade Ukraine’s ability immediately,” said Riley McCabe, associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. “The impact would be felt in days, not weeks or months.”
Were US-enabled precision strikes to stop, Ukraine would lose much of its ability to conduct accurate strikes deep into Russian-held territory. That could allow Russia’s logistics network to move closer to the frontline and potentially accelerate its assault.
“But Ukraine can continue to mine, drone strike, and shell Russian advances,” said McCabe.
Its increased drone production is extraordinary. It went from producing 1.5 to 2 million drones, to a projected 4.5 million this year. The country has also made impressive advances across drone software, hardware adaptation, and domestic production, now producing 30% of its own weapons domestically.
“It’s remarkable,” said Boulègue, “When you have not much left and you still make it work because you’re innovative, you’re quick, you’re smart, and you don’t have a choice because if you stop, then your country disappears.”
The coming months will be challenging, not least because of concerns that joint Chinese-Russian engineering teams are now producing standardized products at a huge scale — Ukrainian experts now fear Russia could send 1,000 Shaded-type drones against its defenses every night.
From Ukraine’s perspective, it needs every element of its defense system to work well. There will be “a premium on the efficiency of Ukrainian drone and artillery operations, the ability of Ukrainian commanders to preserve their troops, and the continuity of supplies flowing from Ukraine’s international partners,” said Watling.
He, for one, is optimistic. If Ukraine can stop Russia “reaching the borders of Donetsk between now and Christmas, and Kyiv’s [allies] are diligent in degrading Russia’s economy, Moscow will face hard choices about the costs… [of] continuing the war,” he said.
Mila Tanghe holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was an Intern with the Editorial team at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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