Ukraine's Drone Advances Defenses and Attack Systems Against Russia
- quzion9
- Oct 21
- 3 min read
Written by Brandon Ii
October 21st 2025
Since the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war that started almost a year ago, tensions have only gotten worse as military pressure gets stronger and disagreements tear the two countries apart even farther. As a result, warfare has increased, and in light of new technological advancements in drones, drone warfare in the war has started to become more prominent. Since their first use in 2022, drone use surged in both countries. Both sides have started to reinforce their military power using initially commercial drones and implementing a various number of strategies, leading to a prolonged war. However, Ukraine in particular is able to adapt to Russia’s proliferating drones.
Strategies Used In the War
Russia, in terms of the number of drones, has the advantage over Ukraine. However, Ukraine uses different systems and strategies to adapt to Russia’s ever increasing drones. For example, Ukraine modified their marine drones to hold anti-aircraft missiles, which allows them to take down Russian helicopters over the Black Sea. Ukraine has also expanded its long-range drone fleet, which allows them to target critical resources such as oil refineries and military sites, effectively weakening the Russian military. On top of that, Ukraine’s drones are very cheap, leading to a cost-effective system.
Timeline of the War
In 2022, commercially available drones were first taken off the shelves by Ukrainian forces in order to develop them into a powerful tool for warfare. After learning that Ukrainian forces were starting to use drones, Russian forces also started to use “kamikaze” drones used to strike Ukrainian infrastructure. In October of the same year, Ukraine was able to attack the Kerch Bridge, which effectively prevented Russia from communicating with Crimea, a territory Russia occupied at that time. Ukrainian forces then used long-range drones to release airstrikes deep into Russia. Between 2023 and 2024, both sides started to utilize drones more for effective warfare, and low-costing drones used for explosives became more popular around this time. In fact, there was a military unit created in the Ukrainian military specifically for drone forces. In this time period, Russia first used coordinated missile attacks to overwhelm the Ukrainian air forces, which then Ukraine retaliated by attacking hundreds of Russian airbases. Furthermore, in 2025, since most of the innovation happened in the past year, strategic decisions were made more rather than manufacturing. Ukrainian drones were used to attack Russian fighter jets and Russian drone barrages increased, weakening both sides significantly. Both sides are also working to integrate AI and machine learning in their drones.
A timeline of drone models the Ukrainian military used.
Ukrainian Vs. Russian Drones
Usually, when people think of a drone, they think of large drones that are used commercially around the world. However, both Russian and Ukrainian drones are very small and cheap, as if they used bigger drones, it would be too expensive. Ukrainian drones currently also use Chinese components in them to help scale to the tens of thousands of drones they produce. Ukraine also has a key interceptor drone, the General Cherry Air, which allows them to take down high-powered and costly Russian UAVs within a fraction of the original cost. This mechanism allows them to take down potentially dangerous drones, effectively strengthening their defenses.
Ukrainian soldier holding a drone and preparing to throw it.
Conclusion
Since drones are so ubiquitous now in the war, it is a matter of which country will be able to outmanufacture the other. Both countries are making significant progress with each of their own drones, but Ukraine is implementing different techniques in order for them to gain more of an advantage.
Sources
https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/special/ukraine/data-driven-drone-strikes-allow-ukraine-optimize-battlefield-tactics-track-russians-real-time/#:~:text=these%20t...-,Data%2Ddriven%20drone%20strikes%20allow%20Ukraine%20to%20optimize%20battlefield%20tactics,within%20months%2C%20instead%20of%20years.
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