Ukraine’s war against Russia is accelerating the transformation of drone warfare, with unmanned systems now shaping combat on land, at sea and in the air. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in January that drones were responsible for destroying more than 80% of enemy targets. Kyiv has also expanded the use of unmanned ground vehicles, including systems deployed more than 10 kilometers behind Russian lines by heavy aerial drones. Ukraine’s Third Army Corps says these tactics helped it retake 125 square kilometers of territory during a recent operation. The transformation is also apparent at sea. Ukraine’s Navy said this month that a Sargan-3000 unmanned surface vessel had destroyed a Russian drone boat in the Black Sea, in what it called the first naval battle between unmanned surface vessels. Ukraine has increasingly relied on naval drones to challenge Russia’s conventional maritime advantage, a development explored in TVP World’s report on Ukraine’s expanding naval-drone fleet. Russia, meanwhile, is adapting with fiber-optic-controlled systems and faster jet-powered attack drones, fueling a technological contest that continues to reshape the battlefield.
