Ukraine Pinning War Hopes on Expanded Drone Program

The Ukrainian soldiers rose in the predada, stretching, rubbing their eyes and rolling sleeping bags in a hidden basement near the front line in the east of the country. His day would not take them away. Most stayed in the basement, working with keyboards and joysticks that control drones.

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If high fire conversations fail, or the United States decides to suspend weapons, it is likely that the Ukrainian drone initiative has more importance than ever. The program, called the drone line, is doubled in unmanned systems that are assembled in Ukraine, mostly small drones in explosion flown from basement shelters.

On Monday, President Vladimir V. Putin de Russia joined the many uncertainties in the war by ordering a high three -day fire in Ukraine next month in what indicated that it was a good burn.

That announcement followed a week of war not diminished in Ukraine, including the most fatal attack against kyiv, the capital, in almost a year, and contradictory signs about what would come after the Trump administration. President Trump has been less critical of Ukraine leadership in recent days, instead of criticizing Putin for his continuous bombing or Ukraine. But Trump has not yet promised more weapons, which are still crucial.

The drone program is Meeant to help Ukraine continue to fight the war and it is a reminder, once again, or the ability of Ukraine to innovate, which has helped him to face his enemy much bigger.

“He is no longer a man against man,” said the team commander that operates from the basement in East Ukraine.

The group flies to the first-person drones, which give the pilot the video equivalent of a front row while the pumps become soldiers, cars, tanks or Russian bunkers. According to the military protocol, the commander requested to be identified only by his first name and rank, private artem.

Even before the Line Of Drones program, Ukraine depended largely on unmanned weapons, which now inflict around 70 percent of all victims in the war on both sides, says the Ukrainian army, more than all other weapons, mines. Including. While these other weapons are partly provoked by the United States, Ukrainians gather the priests in the country from components made mainly in China.

The expanded drone program, in the process since the past fall, but was formally announced in February, is kyiv plan B if he speaks to finish the war, which began with the large -scale invasion of Russia in 2022, failure.

The drones of both sides are already humming almost continuously on the battlefield. In the drone war, Russia has an advantage in quantity, while Ukraine has an advantage in quality, often becoming a first adopter of new technological approaches. Those include drones of flying re-transmitters to extend the range of explosive drones and guide drones with thin fiber optic threads that are waterproof to interference.

The strategy of the drone line has been eclipsed by the conversations of Alto El Fuego and by the derogatory evaluation of Trump of the possibilities of Ukraine without American help. (“You don’t have the letters,” Volodymyr Zelensky told President of Ukraine in a contentious Oval office meeting). But the deployment of drones has already yielded results, according to military analysts.

It has a bone partly accredited by a three -month deceleration of the Russian offensive in Ukraine. The Russian forces that occurred last fall have been in a virtual position since January, despite the presentation positions of the Russian army.

The Russian offensive reached its maximum point in November with the capture that month of 279 square miles of Ukrainian territory, according to Deepstate, an analytical group with links with the Ukrainian army. In March, Russia captured only 51 square miles, showed the group analysis. Russia’s main gain during the winter was to expel Ukraine from all, or almost all, or the Kursk region within Russia.

The Ukrainian program will complete four battalions to become drone regimes, expanding each of approximately 700 soldiers to 2,500 soldiers armed with drones in the first person, others that drop unmanned pumps and earth systems. The last one includes remote controlled vehicles armed with machine guns.

All wars stimulate innovation, since the invention of the duration of the radar, World War II to Night Vision glasses in Vietnam. But the strategy of Drones of Ukraine was also born from a key weakness of his military after more than three years of war: the decrease in the motivation of the Ukrainians to join the army. As the evasion of the draft has become generalized, the refueling of force has become a challenge.

Drones do not replace soldiers; In fact, each flight of a first person can require up to four soldiers. For flights last week in the northeast of Ukraine, a drone squad consisted of a pilot, a browser, an gunsmith and a drone pilot broadcasting.

But recruiting for these positions is easier than infantry seekers that will serve in trenches.

With less soldiers than losing than Russia, Ukraine wants to limit direct participation. That’s where drones enter.

The strategy focuses on a land belt about 18 miles deep behind the Russian front line. Saturating airspace over this area with recognition and attack drones can prevent Russian soldiers from concentrating in search of assaults. Drones, which fly to approximately 80 miles per hour, can overcome anything that moves on the floor.

“The fair evaluation is that it is working,” said Michael Kofman, the main member of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the drone program. The shortage of Russian teams and the winter climate also played a role, he said.

The goal, said Mr. Kofman, was to design a force that “can block large parts of the front” and stay without help. Ukraine, however, continues to depend deeply on the United States and European nations for air defense systems to defend cities against missiles away from the front line.

The objective of the programs is to expand over time, with experienced drones pilots who share experience with soldiers in other units in an attempt to complicate Russian logistics operations, air defense and electronic war, said Yuriy Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles. “The idea is to cover the entire front line” with drones, he said.

The Ukrainian army conducted a test last year, the Republicans in Congress arrested a bill of supplementary expenses for Ukraine. Artillery ammunition was so low that some crews trim only smoke shells. In a section of the front, near the city of Chasiv Yar, the drones teams compensated with a wave of attacks that interrupted Russia’s offensive.

Drones cost $ 500 to $ 750 each, less than large -caliber artillery shells, which cost around $ 3,000.

Other military are taking note. The US Marines. UU formed this first experimental attack on the drones of the first -person vision drones.

Private Artem is serving with the Achilles Regiment, one of the recently expanded units under the drone program. As a fifth of all the recruits of the regiment, he is a former computer programmer who worked in the flourishing Ukraine outsourcing industry before the Russian invasion.

Thought on the cover about three miles from the front line, drone equipment is not saved neither the barbarism of the war nor the danger.

On Friday, the Ukrainian crew achieved a Russian soldier outdoors, running on the green grass of a flood plain of the Oskil River. I was running for security in a tree forest. But the final frame frame showed a close -up of camouflage, a suggestion that he did not succeed.

Later in the day, the Ukrainian soldiers who placed the outdoor drones for the launch were kept out of sight when a Russian drone buzzed above the speed before accelerating and colliding close to a thunderous boom.

Yurii Shyvala Reports from Kharkiv, Ukraine.