4 Ukrainian Drone Operators Can Stop Russian Attack Before Own Troops Arrive
The inexorable math of Ukraine's increasingly drone-driven strategy is becoming sharper - and more painful for Russia. With 46,000 casualties inflicted on Kremlin forces last month - a record for the war and close to the 50,000 considered insupportable - Ukraine can now demonstrate that two drone teams of four individuals can eliminate three companies of Russians - 200 to 300 men.
At that rate, especially given the Kremlin's increasing difficulty in finding more cannon fodder even among its poorest, most downtrodden populace, the growing Ukrainian battlefield momentum is becoming simply too overwhelming to resist for Russian forces. JL
Ryder Blackthorn reports in Frontline Signal:
Ukraine cannot afford to trade soldiers with Russia one for one. It doesn’t have an endless reserve of people to throw into assaults, rotations and supply runs. So Ukraine’s changing that equation. A four-person drone crew can scout enemy positions, attack vehicles, hunt supply routes and stop Russian troops before they get close enough to force a direct fight. An FPV crew has four members: A crew commander. An FPV pilot. A relay pilot. A loader. Everyone is trained to perform the other jobs if necessary. Together, they can carry out more than 30 missions during an operation. Across two years of combat, two crews eight operators had eliminated between 200 and 300 Russian personnel. Three companies...
Sometimes Ukraine’s infantry never has to open fire.
That distance, the space between a Russian soldier and a Ukrainian position, is becoming one of Ukraine’s most valuable weapons.
Why?
Ukraine cannot afford to trade soldiers with Russia one for one. It doesn’t have an endless reserve of people to throw into assaults, rotations and supply runs.
Russia often behaves as if it does.
So Ukraine’s changing that equation.
A four-person drone crew can scout enemy positions, attack vehicles, hunt supply routes and stop Russian troops before they get close enough to force a direct fight.
And increasingly, ground robots are carrying the ammunition, food and fuel needed to keep those crews operating.
The machines aren’t replacing Ukrainian soldiers entirely.
They’re trying to keep them alive.
From One Mavic to an Entire Drone Crew
A Ukrainian soldier with the call sign Hots has watched this transformation happen almost from the beginning.
He joined the war in 2015, shortly after finishing school, and initially served as an infantryman in his native Luhansk region.
Back then, he told RBC-Ukraine, having one Mavic drone for an entire company was unusual.
Even when units had one, they were still learning what to do with it.
The first missions were mostly reconnaissance and artillery correction. Then soldiers began experimenting with dropping explosives. By 2023, Hots and several other servicemen were finding drones through volunteers, training themselves and trying to convince commanders that FPVs deserved a permanent place on the battlefield.
That argument didn’t always go smoothly.
Hots recalled using night-capable Mavics to attack a Russian position without permission. By morning, the position had been destroyed, and his commanders were demanding to know who had done it.
Once they found out, the response wasn’t exactly a promotion.
They told the drone team to take its Mavics away because nobody had approved the operation.
Military bureaucracy had just watched a handful of soldiers dismantle an enemy position overnight and apparently decided that the paperwork was the real emergency.
The battlefield eventually won the argument.
Ukraine planned to acquire approximately 4.5 million FPV drones during 2025, up from more than 1.5 million the previous year. Ukrainian manufacturers and suppliers produced 96% of the drones purchased in 2024, according to Reuters.
What began with one rarely used Mavic has become an industrial system consuming millions of aircraft.
Four People Before the Infantry
Hots now commands an unmanned systems crew within Artan, a special unit of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence.
His FPV crew has four members:
A crew commander.
An FPV pilot.
A relay pilot.
A loader.
Everyone is trained to perform the other jobs if necessary.
Together, they can carry out more than 30 missions during an intense operation.
FPV crew commander Hots of the Artan special unit of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence | Credit: Vlad Nesterov/RBC-Ukraine
But FPVs don’t simply fly toward a target and explode.
They can enter buildings, bunkers and damaged structures that larger reconnaissance drones cannot safely inspect. A crew can record the interior, send the footage to an assault unit and map where Russian soldiers are hiding before Ukrainian infantry moves.
Fiber-optic drones push that capability further.
Because the drone remains connected to its operator through a physical cable, it can continue operating in areas saturated with electronic warfare. It can fly into buildings, search rooms and attack targets without relying on a radio signal that Russian jammers can disrupt.
During one operation near Lyman, Hots said four Russian soldiers entered a damaged tree line and attempted to hide beneath what remained of the trees.
A Mavic could no longer see them clearly.
The FPVs went inside.
One flight found the first soldier. Additional drones located the others. According to Hots, approximately 30 minutes passed between discovering the group and completing the final strike.
Ukraine’s infantry never had to fight them at close range.
That is the consequence hidden behind most drone footage.
Every assault stopped several hundred meters away is one that doesn’t reach a Ukrainian trench.
Eight Operators and Three Russian Companies
Hots made an extraordinary claim during the interview.
He estimated that one experienced four-person crew could eliminate 50 or 60 Russian soldiers during a major operation, with some results approaching 100.
Looking across approximately two years of combat involving his crew and later two crews, he estimated that eight operators had eliminated between 200 and 300 Russian personnel.
Roughly three companies.
Those are battlefield estimates provided by the unit, and they cannot be independently verified. They also represent cumulative results, not eight people destroying three companies in a single afternoon.
But the number illustrates the brutal efficiency Ukraine is trying to create.
During another Russian assault in the Zaporizhzhia direction, Hots said Moscow committed more than 50 pieces of equipment within several hours.
His crew conducted 33 to 35 FPV missions in four hours.
The skies became so crowded that pilots would reach a target only to discover another crew had already destroyed it. They would turn toward the next vehicle and sometimes find that one burning as well.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Hots, the commander of an unmanned systems crew with the Artan special unit of the Defense Intelligence Department of Active Operations | Credit: Vlad Nesterov/RBC-Ukraine
The equipment still mattered.
But the real result came afterward.
The surviving Russian infantry arrived without the armored force meant to carry and protect it. Ukrainian troops could then deal with a broken assault rather than tanks driving directly toward their positions.
Don’t Hunt the Tank, Starve the Position
A burning tank makes dramatic footage.
A destroyed supply vehicle carrying bags of food doesn’t.
But the supply vehicle may matter more.
Hots said his teams increasingly hunt Russian logistics instead of waiting for valuable equipment to appear.
They place FPV drones along supply routes and use them as ambush weapons. These drones, sometimes called zhduns, or “waiters,” can land with an explosive payload and remain in position until a vehicle approaches.
Because the drone is already near the route, it may need only two or three minutes to reach its target after taking off again.
The crews target trucks, motorcycles, scooters and unmanned ground vehicles carrying ammunition, food and personnel.
Destroying one vehicle carrying several bags of supplies may not look strategically important.
But those supplies could support dozens of Russian soldiers. Without ammunition, fuel or food, a position becomes harder to hold. A repaired vehicle can return the next day, so even damaged equipment remains a target.
This is how a small drone crew creates an effect far larger than the explosion itself.
Send the Machine Into the Kill Zone
Russia is hunting the drone crews just as aggressively.
Hots described entering and leaving a position as more dangerous than flying. Once Russia locates a launch site, it becomes a priority target for drones, artillery and airstrikes.
Logistics becomes the weak point.
Someone must still carry replacement drones, explosives, batteries, generator fuel, water and food to the crew. Every person making that journey risks being spotted.
Ukraine is increasingly sending ground robots instead.
These vehicles can carry supplies through mined or drone-covered routes without placing another soldier behind the wheel. If Russia destroys the vehicle, Ukraine loses equipment.
Not a trained operator.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense says unmanned ground vehicles have conducted more than 66,000 missions during 2026. These machines can carry loads weighing between 200 and 300 kilograms, even while operating under enemy fire.
Ukraine has also contracted more than 22,000 ground vehicles this year, nearly double the number purchased throughout 2025, according to ArmyInform, the Ministry of Defense’s news agency.
That expansion is happening because the rear of the battlefield is no longer particularly far from the front.
A Royal United Services Institute study found that some Ukrainian brigades attributed approximately half their casualties to Russian FPVs, artillery and glide bombs striking rear areas.
Rotations, resupply missions and equipment recovery now expose soldiers to enormous danger.
Replacing those journeys with machines doesn’t merely save labor.
It removes another human body from Russia’s target list.
In May 2025, three Ukrainian soldiers from Artan X were captured after Russian forces reportedly used an unknown chemical substance that left them unable to fight.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence quickly organized a rescue.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, which cited Defense Intelligence, Ukrainian drones helped free the three soldiers from Russian captivity.
Hots provided more detail about the operation.
FPVs were used to draw the Russian soldiers out of a basement. Once the captives moved away from their guards, Ukrainian operators attacked the Russian group.
A Mavic fitted with a loudspeaker then guided the three Ukrainians back toward friendly positions.
The same type of machine designed to fly explosives into a bunker became a set of eyes and a voice leading captured soldiers home.
That may be the clearest example of what these systems actually provide.
Options.
A commander can inspect a building without sending a soldier through its door. A crew can strike an assault before infantry makes contact. A robot can carry ammunition down a route watched by Russian drones.
And three captured soldiers can be shown where to run.
Drones Still Aren’t Magic
None of this means infantry is becoming obsolete.
Drones cannot hold a trench, clear every building or occupy territory. They fail. Batteries die. Fiber-optic cables break. Weather interferes with flights. Pilots become exhausted, and electronic warfare changes constantly.
RUSI has estimated that FPV missions may achieve success rates around 30%, depending heavily on training, tactics, weather and battlefield conditions.
Ukraine therefore needs enormous quantities of drones, and skilled people capable of using them.
Hots described crews working for 24 hours, sleeping for two and returning to their positions. During intense periods, they can conduct 40 flights in a day.
Russia is always searching for the sound, signal or movement that reveals where those flights originate.
A drone may be disposable.
An experienced pilot isn’t.
That distinction is why the human element remains at the center of everything Artan is doing.
“Robots don’t fight wars. People who operate them do.”
The Home Waiting Beyond the Front
For Hots, this war eventually leads back to Luhansk.
His parents were forced to abandon the home where they had lived their entire lives after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
He has since fought near his native region. Close enough to know he was home, but unable to reach the place itself.
Many of his friends never made it that far.
One was killed in Mariupol. Another died while evacuating an assault group. Families were left without fathers, husbands and sons.
That history explains why saving Ukrainian infantry isn’t an abstract technological goal for him.
It is personal.
“Our primary task is to save the lives of our infantry.”
Four people operating drones cannot win the war alone.
But they can stop a Russian assault before it reaches the trench. They can break the supply line keeping another position alive. They can send a machine down a road that might otherwise kill a Ukrainian soldier.
And sometimes, they can guide three captured men back home.
Ukraine’s machines are moving deeper into the kill zone.
The people behind them are still waiting for the day they can move in the opposite direction — toward the homes Russia forced them to leave.
I've read a lot of posts on this topic, but yours was the clearest I've seen. I would like to rewrite your essay for my run 3 blog. You can visit my website.
As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance. Learn more...
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I've read a lot of posts on this topic, but yours was the clearest I've seen. I would like to rewrite your essay for my run 3 blog. You can visit my website.
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