Explosive drones can kill you but also transport you to medics. They can sink ships and reconnoiter the battlefield in incredible detail. They can do something else too — they can make the frontline infantry lighter and nimbler by lifting heavy equipment that would otherwise have to be carried.
That represents a significant development on Ukraine’s frontlines, where the armed forces are again developing new skills which every army will have to consider in this new world of warfare.
That’s because both armies have used small first-person-view (FPV) drones to establish heavily policed kill zones along the front line. “With a 20 km kill zone, it’s practically impossible to organize logistics,” Anatolii Tkachenko, a Ukrainian mortar battery commander with 92 Brigade, told the author. “Infantry are walking 30 km. Mortar crews and drone operators are walking 10 to 15 km.”
In key sectors such as Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk, Russia deploys its top drone units, as do the Ukrainians. Russia typically sends waves of infantry to infiltrate Ukrainian positions, while its drone operators, such as from Rubicon, focus on striking Ukrainian logistics — a model that was first successfully used in Kursk.
In such kill zones, traditional resupply by truck is extremely hard. Resupply runs are growing rarer in those strategic sectors, so many soldiers have to walk for miles, carrying everything they will need. Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are now used across the front for logistics, but the road leading to Kostiantynivka is littered with their wreckage. The next option, and what Ukraine has increasingly been relying upon for resupply, has been heavy bomber drones.
“Heavy bomber drones are currently the only viable way to resupply forces within 10 km of the front line,” Andrii, a drone operator from 59 Brigade (Da Vinci Wolves), said in an interview. “UGVs still provide fairly unreliable logistics because of enemy FPV drones. Any offensive without logistics is doomed from the outset, and so is a sustainable defense.”
This is far from easy. Russia has gotten better at shooting those drones down. Data from its Rubicon Center claims a 54% year-over-year increase in multicopter drone takedowns in June, which includes heavy bombers.
But the tactic is being used and is drawing attention. Russian milblogger Alexander Karchenko stated that lightly equipped Ukrainian infantry are infiltrating positions, while pressing ahead via resupply from the heavy bomber drones. Once they reach an advanced position and receive heavier equipment for an assault, they can quickly attack. Previously, slow-moving targets, such as soldiers burdened with heavy loads, made for easier drone prey.
“One of the consistent themes in ground warfare is the problem created by the increasing weight carried by infantry and special operations soldiers,” Rob Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told the author. “Infantry mobility is critical, but militaries have struggled dealing with the tradeoff between force protection and mobility.”
So why can’t Russia do the same? The answer is that the Kremlin’s forces still lack high-quality heavy bomber drones of their own, something Vladimir Putin was forced to admit in a December press briefing. Russian soldiers have even been forced to scour the battlefield for downed Ukrainian heavy bomber drones, while also creating an ecosystem devoted to their repair and re-use.
Ukrainian heavy bomber drones, such as the Vampire, which the Russians have nicknamed the Baba Yaga, can also fly at night, while having a reach of up to 60 km (37 miles). Operating at night, even while being loud, makes them harder to shoot down.
Lee added that some Ukrainian assault regiments and special forces (SSO) battalions have “adapted by employing heavy bomber drones in direct support of small infantry or SSO teams.”
Drones such as the Vampire can “sustain these teams with food, water, ammunition, medical gear, and other logistics needs.”
During an assault, Ukrainian units will be limited by their ammunition supply, for example. If Ukrainian special forces conduct a raid behind enemy lines, they will need to be resupplied as soon as their supplies begin to run low. Heavy bomber drones flying at night increase the odds of keeping the unit supplied and sustaining its operations.
As artificial intelligence proliferates across the front on both sides, minimizing signatures will become increasingly crucial, making lightly equipped troops the key to future operations.
Drones are the main obstacle to staying alive on the front, so “remaining in tree lines or forest with cover and concealment as much as possible is a priority,” said Lee. “In some cases, assault teams will try to cross open fields as fast as possible by carrying minimal gear and sprinting across. Heavy bomber drones can then bring their rucksacks and other equipment to them once they are under the concealment of trees.”
If Ukraine’s ongoing drone counteroffensive proves successful in the coming months, Ukrainian soldiers will need to press ahead to take ground. While it may make the gray zone somewhat less dangerous to traverse, drones will remain a significant threat.
The ability to remain agile and move quickly will be important for soldiers advancing to recapture ground while being resupplied by heavy bomber drones. This is just one piece in the broader effort to develop combined arms warfare with unmanned systems on the battlefields in Ukraine.
David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist who has been covering Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine since 2022, and is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
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.
