• Ukraine's drone operators aren't necessarily more protected than other soldiers on the battlefield.
• Saying "they are doing their job in much safer conditions is completely wrong," an official said.
• They're top targets, and a soldier said pilots sometimes need to fight just like infantry.

Ukraine's drone operators aren't necessarily spared from the horrors of war because they pilot remote systems, a senior official said. Many are in the fighting, and they're often top targets for the enemy.

Taras Berezovets, head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, a part of Ukraine's armed forces, said that with drone operators, "they do just the same job" as other soldiers. "To say that they are doing their job in much safer conditions is completely wrong."

"We should never forget that drone operators are the primary targets for Russian units," he added, speaking at a recent drone summit in Latvia. "They are trying to kill them," he said, just as Ukraine is trying to do to Russian drone pilots.

"Drone operators are first of all soldiers, and they are subject to the same psychological problems and traumas" as any other soldier, Berezovets said, explaining that he would never consider operators differently.

Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who is now a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that operators don't feel they are in any less danger because they have a remote-controlled weapon. "It's not like that," he said, rejecting the idea that the role is safer. "It's very dangerous."

"In some of the cases, we have our drone operators engage in small arms combat like infantry," he said, "So it's basically infantry with the drones." It means getting close to a fight, as soldiers with other weapons do.

Drones are a crucial weapon for both Ukraine and Russia in this war, filling shortages of both weapons and manpower. Ukraine says that drones are now causing 90% of Russia's front-line losses as usage expands.

Drone operators are also force multipliers. One pilot can launch countless drones over a deployment to scout and gather intelligence on enemy movements and targets or to launch cheap attacks on soldiers and weapon systems, including expensive gear.

That makes them priority targets.

The operators that control Ukraine's spy and strike drones often have to get close to the front lines to preserve the connection with their drones and to work effectively with regular infantry. It means they have to move, hide, and survive just like other soldiers.

Soldiers and drone operators have told Business Insider that Russia treats drone pilots as high-value targets because of the damage they can do on the battlefield. They said Russian forces have intensified attacks with missiles, bombs, and other weapons to hunt those operators, while Western analysts have noted rising casualties among Ukraine's drone pilots.

One drone operator, who spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military issues, said "when the enemy spots a drone operator somewhere, it uses every single thing at its disposal — every type of weaponry" — to eliminate them. And Ukraine is targeting Russian pilots, too.

Ukraine is working to develop solutions to protect its drone operators by keeping them farther from the fighting to decrease the risk. For instance, there is new remote-control technology that allows interceptor drone pilots to control their drones from hundreds of miles away from the launch point. But many drone types still require operators staying much closer.

Zhluktenko said that Ukraine wants to have fewer people at risk on the battlefield, but that's not always possible.

Sometimes they move operators farther back for their safety, "even if it comes at the expense of our capabilities, because these are our people and we value them so much." He described it as "a very tough balance."

"We want to keep them extremely safe, but at the same time, there is some work to be done," he said.

Ukraine is heavily pushing autonomy so drones and robots can operate with less human control, keeping soldiers farther from the fight. It's part of a broader effort to move troops out of the most dangerous areas, including by scaling ground robots that could eventually handle front-line logistics.

Mykyta Rozhkov, chief business development officer at Ukrainian drone and weapons maker Frontline Robotics, told Business Insider that "the general trend is to get the pilots as far as possible" from the front line, with the absolute bare minimum of soldiers used in dangerous areas when drones and robots can't handle it alone.

But, for now, drone operators and other soldiers remain at risk.

"Russians are right now prioritizing hitting not the assault troops or soldiers;" instead, they are aiming at drone and ground robot operators, he said.

Western militaries watching the war are also aware of how at-risk drone pilots can be. The US Army course designed to catch the force up on drone warfare is teaching soldiers what it feels like to be hunted.

Maj. Rachel Martin, the course director, previously told Business Insider that the instructors deliberately use drones against students to help them understand "what it's like to be hunted by another operator from an adversary force: what it sounds like, what it feels like, how often they need to displace in order to survive or not be observed."

That matters because "the minute you're observed, you need to move," she said. "What follows that is usually fires of some capacity," such as artillery.

She said that the goal is to simulate an enemy force actively searching for them and to test their reactions "so they get used to one being hunted by the enemy." The US is used to having control of the air in its conflicts, where anything in the air above them is likely friendly, but that may not be the case in future fights.

Berezovets said Western militaries should study Ukraine's experience, including how heavily Russia targets drone units and command centers. He said Ukraine has to keep moving them because "this war, especially in terms of the drone war, is like a cat-and-mouse game. The Russians are always searching for the locations of our drone units."

He said allies ought to consider building drone command centers "deeper underground," like Ukraine does when it can, even though it's expensive work. He said that "they should be as deep as possible."

• Ukraine's fast-moving fight means once-cutting-edge defense tech can quickly lose relevance.
• An official said counter-drone tech no longer ideal for Ukraine could still help allies.
• Partner nations want defenses fast as they prepare for Shahed-style drone threats.

A Ukrainian official said the country's earlier counter-drone technology, even if it's no longer sufficiently cutting-edge for its own fight, could still be useful for partner nations worried about similar threats and searching for good-enough solutions now.

Ukraine is in a constant innovation race with Russia, with both sides trying to rapidly develop drones and counter-drone defenses to beat the other side. Technology that was once key can rapidly become obsolete on the battlefield, yet still be a better option than what many allies have available now to meet the challenge.

Davyd Aloian, the deputy secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said some Ukrainian drone technology, including some early designs for interceptor drones built to shoot down incoming attack drones, may no longer be an ideal solution for Ukraine's needs but could still work elsewhere, where the weapons race is moving more slowly.

In the event of attacks against other countries in Europe, for example, he said "it would be better to have at least the solutions that showed their efficiency months ago."

Aloian's idea aligns with a key lesson NATO nations are learning from the war in Ukraine: having a lot of good-enough weapons available today beats a limited arsenal of perfect ones that come too late.

The deputy secretary said that this dynamic was visible in the Middle East during the Iran war, when the US and its Gulf allies faced attacks by Iran's Shahed drones. Though Tehran used some newer jet-powered one-way attack drones, like Moscow is increasingly deploying, it relied heavily on propeller-driven Shahed designs — the kind that Ukraine had been battling since early in Russia's war.

During the Iran war, Ukraine sent roughly 200 military experts to the Middle East to help nations strengthen their air defenses. It also sent troops and Ukrainian anti-drone solutions, which were used in combat. The fight triggered a sharp increase in interest in interceptor drones.

Aloian said that designs that were a year old and less relevant at home still proved effective in the region.

"We are ready to share our operation, technologies, and experience, and everything that will be needed in order for our partners to achieve the same level of defense deterrence that we have in Ukraine," Aloian said.

A starting place could be gear that Ukraine no longer has use for but could still prove practical for another operator in another kind of fight.

Aloian said it would be useful for allies to have "access to those solutions that are efficient." Even if they're not used in a fight, they could hold value as training tools, he said.

Ukrainian officials have said that Kyiv is willing to send partner nations defense technology, including interceptors, when it can do so without hurting its fight. It is also planning to export some systems, including long-range drones, that are no longer useful on its battlefield but still interest partners.

Aloian said that in the war with Russia, "speed is essential," and the defense industry has to work much faster than what allies are used to. Within months, "solutions will already be outdated."

Ukrainian officials have said that interceptor drone designs can change so quickly that the advantage of a new model may be negated within months. Companies are constantly upgrading platforms while swiftly phasing out obsolete systems. There are possibilities for those systems, though, in regions like the Middle East or elsewhere in Europe.

NATO countries are increasingly concerned about drones, especially after several Russian long-range drone incursions, but they are not under the same immediate pressure as Ukraine, which faces bombardments regularly. Officials have argued that, as they prepare for future drone threats, there is real value in defenses that are available now.

Ukraine has shifted from being a country many expected to be quickly overrun by Russia and urgently seeking help from cautious partners to being a source of new battlefield technology and tactical lessons that many Western militaries now want to study.

Aloian said Ukraine has "the experience, and we have the knowledge, we have the solutions" that it's already sharing "with our, not even partners, but with friends."

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to partner with Silicon Valley.
• Zelenskyy said the tech hub's AI skills and Ukraine's wartime drone experience could be "powerful."
• Ukraine has built a drone arsenal that's captivated the world as it fights Russia's invasion.

Ukraine has experience fighting and defending itself using drones. American tech companies have AI firepower. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the combination of the two could be world-changing.

"American technological companies have a lot of different interesting AI technologies that we don't have. And we have a lot of things that they don't have because of our experience on the battlefield," Zelenskyy said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I think this cooperation can be huge and the most powerful in the world."

Ukraine, out of necessity, has built an arsenal of drone tech and anti-drone tech on a shoestring budget, captivating the global defense industry as it's largely held the line — despite its underdog status — since Russia launched its full-scale invasion over four years ago.

Ukraine said three types of homegrown drones allowed it to strike in the vicinity of Moscow earlier this month, and that it had developed a fixed-wing mid-range attack drone that's helped it strike in areas Russia once deemed safe. It's learned valuable lessons in the process, like the need for drone units to always be on the move and for their command centers to be buried underground to protect them.

The AI craze in the United States, meanwhile, coupled with a Defense Department eager to develop new autonomous military technology, is fueling the growth of a Silicon Valley defense tech industry. Companies like Anduril, led by Palmer Luckey, who built the Oculus virtual reality headset that Facebook bought in 2014, have raised billions to develop new uncrewed weapons systems.

Ukraine has since become an important potential proving ground for some of that new hardware.

Through a state-backed "Test in Ukraine" program launched last year, hundreds of international companies have applied to test drones, counter-drone systems, AI, electronic warfare tools, naval drones, and ground robots in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy on Sunday said he wants to deepen this symbiotic relationship further, and soon. His message to Silicon Valley: Stop talking and start building.

"We need to negotiate already," Zelenskyy said Sunday. "Not to speak about it. Just to take steps and to do it as quick as possible."

• Russia hunts Ukrainian drone operators, units, and command centers.
• As a result, Ukraine tries to keep them on the move and concealed and underground.
• A Ukrainian defense official said the West should take heed, even though it makes things expensive.

RIGA, Latvia — The West would do well to make sure that its future drone units and command centers are mobile and ideally underground because they are such high-value targets, a Ukrainian defense official said.

The West is investing heavily in drone warfare and tactics after seeing how effective they have been in the war in Ukraine, and Ukraine has hard-earned lessons to offer.

One of the lessons Taras Berezovets, the head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, a branch of the country's armed forces, said the West can learn from its experiences is just how high-value drone units and command centers are as targets and how much effort is required to protect them.

"This war, especially in terms of the drone war, is like a cat-and-mouse game. The Russians are always searching for the locations of our drone units," he said, so Ukraine is always relocating them, especially if there is a chance they have been exposed.

Speaking at a drone summit in Latvia attended by Business Insider, he said that Western allies also need to consider building drone command centers "deeper underground."

"This is much more expensive, but with Russians and our Ukrainian experience, you can believe that it's always better to hide these command centers and training centers deeper underground," Berezovets said.

He said, "They should be as deep as possible."

Berezovets said that the lesson may be harder to apply in the smaller NATO countries, which have less room than Ukraine to keep relocating drone units and command centers. Ukraine is nearly 10 times the size of Latvia, and in smaller countries, he said, "it would be much harder for you to find these locations."

As an alliance, NATO gains more depth by dispersing units across its members, but in a wartime situation, moving command centers, training sites, and combat drone units across borders would bring its own complications, from logistics and communications to permissions and coordination.

Many of Ukraine's drone command centers are kept concealed and operate underground when they can. Some centers have been built as mobile vehicle-based systems, with the command apparatus established inside trucks and armored vehicles.

Drone operators also regularly operate from concealed or underground positions, flying their drones as remotely as possible to stay safe.

Drone command centers, which can range from small to large operations, are high-value targets because they coordinate the work of high-impact weapons. Ukraine says drones are causing 90% of Russia's front-line losses. Ukraine has also publicly celebrated when it has hit Russian drone command centers.

And it's not just command posts that are in the crosshairs. Individual Ukrainian drone operators are also priority targets.

Ukrainian soldiers and officials have described drone pilots as Russia's top targets, and Berezovets called them "the primary targets for Russian units," saying that "they are trying to kill them." The threat extends up the chain as well. The head of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces said last year that Russia had tried to strike multiple Ukrainian drone unit leaders at once.

These warnings align with growing realizations that for future fights, Western militaries will need to be more mobile, discreet, and dispersed.

Sir John Stringer, NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told Business Insider that Ukraine demonstrates that what the West has become used to in the decades since the Cold War, the "big single air operation center, which a lot of people have grown up with over the last sort of 35 years," is no longer viable.

Force dispersal comes with complications though. "The more distributed it becomes, the more difficult and challenging it is," he said.

Some Ukrainian defense companies have said their Western counterparts should consider no longer producing in a single large site, but instead break up their efforts across multiple locations. It makes the work harder, they say, but it's safer.

Many Ukrainian companies break up their work like this to avoid being a target, and some also work underground.

Achi, the CEO of Ukrainian defense firm Ark Robotics, told Business Insider that the company makes sure to keep different parts of "manufacturing independently from the other" and is flexible about location.

"We try to avoid building a gigafactory. I would love that, to be honest, I think this is literally the best way to do it. You build a huge factory, everything is in there," he said, speaking using a pseudonym as a security precaution.

But even as the company explores manufacturing in other parts of Europe, it still wants to keep that principle, and thinks the wider defense industry there should learn that lesson.

Achi said that "as default for defense-based manufacturing going forward, you don't want to have huge factories in one place because they are these targets. " He called it "a much deeper long-term lesson" rather than something that only companies in Ukraine need to pay attention to.

Karmo Saar, the head of sales for Estonian company Krattworks, which makes drones used by Ukraine, told Business Insider that some of Ukraine's big drone makers have more than 15 production sites, even though it would be easier and cheaper to run everything in one big facility. He said the rest of Europe needs to learn from that, warning that if a war starts, "I think we're going to be punished."

• Ukraine is looking to inflict at least 200 Russian casualties for every square kilometer Moscow captures.
• Its forces have hit this target in recent months as they stymy Russian battlefield advances.
• Ukraine's defense chief attributed this to its mid-range strikes and Russia's loss of Starlink.

Ukraine is aiming to inflict at least 200 Russian casualties for every square kilometer that Moscow captures on the battlefield. Gains have become increasingly costly for Russian forces in recent months.

"Each kilometer of advance costs the enemy disproportionately high losses," Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov recently told reporters during a meeting to discuss the results of combat operations so far this year.

The Russian military lost 67 soldiers — killed or wounded — per square kilometer of advance in October 2025. This has increased to 165 in January, 244 in February, 254 in March, and 179 in April, Fedorov said, adding that Moscow suffered 35,203 casualties in April alone.

"Our strategic goal is to inflict at least 200 enemy losses for every square kilometer of advance," he said. "Dynamics show that Ukraine has significantly slowed the enemy's advance and is gradually regaining the initiative. At the same time, we are increasing active operations and liberating territory."

Fedorov attributed the uptick in Russian casualties to several factors, including Elon Musk's decision to disable Starlink satellite internet service for Russian forces in February. Moscow has been unable to replace this capability, allowing Ukraine to exploit the situation on the battlefield, the defense minister added.

Another factor is Ukraine's push to build out an arsenal of mid-range strike drones, hitting Russian targets at an operational depth that prevents its forces from carrying out assault operations on the front lines.

"We have actively begun procuring mid-strike drones, which have become one of the key technological advantages on the front line," Fedorov said.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, assessed that these developments have led to a steady decline in Russia's rate of advance on the battlefield since November 2025. They also cited repeated Ukrainian ground counterattacks as a contributing factor.

The ISW conflict analysts reported in early May that "Russian forces in April 2026 suffered a net loss of territory controlled in the Ukrainian theater for the first time" since Kyiv's 2024 incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

They said Russia lost control of 116 square kilometers in April, though this figure does not account for areas where its troops briefly infiltrated into Ukrainian territory.

Russia occupied nearly 27% of Ukraine weeks after launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022, a peak that it has since been unable to return to. Four years later, in March 2026, this figure had dropped to below 20%, according to ISW data.

During that time, Russia has accumulated roughly 1.3 million battlefield losses, Col. Joby Rimmer, a senior UK military advisor, said in late April.

Ukraine, by contrast, has suffered an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 casualties in this war, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US-based think tank.

Ukrainian officials have signaled their intention to increasingly replace humans with robotic systems, including drones, wherever possible near the front lines, especially for logistics missions.

• A Ukrainian robot maker says long wars may favor cheap, scalable ground systems, not top-of-the-line armor.
• Expensive tanks and armor are limited and slow to replace, while robots can scale fast.
• Using attritable ground robots for some missions could reduce the strain on traditional vehicle stocks.

Ukraine's experience shows Western militaries how major yearslong conflicts can deplete tanks and armored vehicles and why warfighting robots might matter more in the long run, a Ukrainian ground robot maker told Business Insider.

In a long, high-cost conflict, the number of vehicles needed for tasks ranging from combat to logistics could make relying on expensive armored vehicles like tanks unsustainable, Oleg Fedoryshyn, the director of R&D at Ukrainian robotic systems maker DevDroid, said.

These systems are expensive and slower to produce, making it difficult to replace heavy losses, Fedoryshyn said. However, robots, he said, are "quite cheap" and significantly easier to produce and replace if they're destroyed.

Officials in the US and allied militaries have raised concerns that in a prolonged war — particularly against a near-peer adversary like Russia or China — stockpiles of key munitions, including air defense and precision weapons, could be strained. Likewise, vehicle inventories, especially in the age of cheap drone strikes, could suffer heavy attrition in a protracted conflict.

Fedoryshyn's comments align with broader warnings from Western officials that Ukraine's war has highlighted the need for large volumes of cheaper, attritable systems, essentially inexpensive and expendable mass that militaries can fall back on when more traditional assets are damaged or destroyed.

Ukraine has underscored how a war like its fight against Russia's invasion can demand both sophisticated systems and large numbers of expendable ones.

Ukraine fields masses of cheap weaponry. Many of its low-cost drones fail to reach their targets or have a significant impact, but they are deployed at such a scale that they can still eliminate far more expensive systems. High losses are expected — and generally acceptable — because they are cheap and quick to replace.

Ukraine has a growing fleet of ground robots that are used to evacuate injured soldiers, carry weaponry and heavy goods, lay and remove mines, and attack Russian positions with weaponry. These are also expendable. As Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said this month, the focus is on making cheap and effective systems that Ukraine can scale quickly.

Some Western military leaders have also argued the need to manage costs. US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said last year, as the service reevaluated the Robotic Combat Vehicle program, that "we can't sustain a couple-million-dollar piece of equipment that can be taken out with an $800 drone and munition."

The war has highlighted how vulnerable tanks and armored vehicles can be to artillery and cheap drones. Drones costing hundreds of dollars destroyed tanks worth millions. Tanks have adapted with new armor and tactics but remain at risk.

Ground robots are not a perfect replacement for tanks and armored vehicles, and Western militaries likely wouldn't want to entirely replace those traditional assets. Those vehicles have more power to get over tough terrain, provide far more protection for important assets that need to be brought across the battlefield, and can conduct far larger and more impactful attacks.

But ground robots can take over some roles and keep humans safer in the process. They can attack positions with explosives or mounted weapons such as machine guns and grenade launchers. They can also deliver to the front lines.

The latter use is one in which Ukraine is investing heavily. Fedorov said recently that Ukraine's goal is to use ground robots for 100% of front-line logistics missions.

Tanks have seen mixed performance in Ukraine and reduced use after heavy losses. Ukraine is still making and getting some armored vehicles from partner countries and has requested more tanks, but it is increasingly placing far more emphasis on other types of weaponry.

Constant drone surveillance, limited air cover, and limited numbers of tanks have made Ukraine's armored operations more difficult. The more advanced Western militaries might struggle less, but these factors could still pose a challenge, especially if they find themselves in a protracted slog.

Ukraine is betting big on its robots. Fedorov announced last week that Ukraine will contract 25,000 new robots in the first half of this year, which is double what it contracted for all of last year.

Fedoryshyn said that his company is able to quickly make updates and repairs to its robots, including by having teams that stay near the front lines to quickly fix damaged systems or make rapid upgrades to them. That allows for same-day repairs and even recovery of damaged robots from the battlefield.

• Ukraine's battlefield robot fleet is rapidly growing and is being updated quickly.
• One maker told Business Insider it can make remote fixes in minutes and has staff always near the front.
• It said it is always updating capabilities to stay on top, and the West must learn from that speed.

Ukraine is updating its battlefield robots rapidly and remotely like smartphones.

The use of robots is surging on Ukraine's battlefields, replacing troops in roles from logistics to combat. But the war is changing so fast that, without constant upgrades, the robots can lose their effectiveness.

Oleg Fedoryshyn, director of R&D at Ukrainian robotic systems maker DevDroid, told Business Insider that the company designs its products so that they can be updated as easily as possible, "like mobile phones or operating systems.

"We can update it remotely, and we add some new features, we fix some bugs," he said, sharing that the firm updates the software used by its robots every few weeks and can make remote fixes within minutes, critical amid wartime urgency.

Working to stay relevant

It can design a new update, test it with a brigade, and roll it out across all deployed systems within a week, Fedoryshyn said. The company builds a range of combat robots, along with components that let units mount weapons like grenade launchers and machine guns.

There are limits to remote upgrades, just as there are with smartphones. The technological evolution still requires hardware updates from time to time, a bigger ask, but a necessity to keep up with the pace of change in combat.

They typically do a major modification about every six months, delivering new capabilities, such as more than doubling the distance the robot can travel.

To expedite some processes, the company deploys teams near the front line to fix damaged systems or make rapid hardware upgrades. That allows for same-day turnaround, and teams can even help evacuate disabled robots from the battlefield.

Fedoryshyn compared it to " a warranty, like when you buy a new car," and said it allows soldiers to stay focused on operations.

When the company works on a broken system, it analyzes what failed and whether upgrades are needed: "We think how to do it better."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been marked by rapid technological change, with battlefield tech constantly evolving. Ukrainian soldiers say equipment can become outdated within weeks or months.

Soldiers often adapt gear in unexpected ways, feeding back into rapid redesigns. DevDroid says it has 24/7 support chats with every unit using its systems. At 3:30 a.m., a unit can ask for help and get a response, Fedoryshyn said.

The idea to arm robots with anti-tank RPGs, now a feature that's being rolled out, first came from soldier feedback, which accelerates the iterative development process.

Lessons in speed

NATO officials have warned that Western industry and militaries need to learn from Ukraine's speed. Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, for instance, previously told Business Insider that the alliance needs Ukraine's "adaptation DNA."

The UK's armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, warned last year that Western military processes are "outdated." In Ukraine, drone tech "iterates every two to three weeks on the front line," he said, arguing that NATO must rethink how it procures weapons.

The speed of innovation has pushed defense manufacturers to design systems that are easier to update, including making them more modular and software-driven. Fedoryshyn said that was key because "it's quite easy to update software, but it's hard to update some hardware."

It's something the US Army increasingly views as critical. Leaders at its new drone school previously told Business Insider that they primarily want to work with companies that make plug-and-play gear that can be updated easily.

Maj. Wolf Amacker, who leads the Army's Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Tactics Branch at the Aviation Center of Excellence, said that when it comes to defense manufacturers, "if whatever they're building isn't modular with other industry partners to work together, then I'm going to go with another industry partner that is."

Robots are a growing part of Ukraine's military. Their usage has surged, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying they carried out more than 22,000 frontline missions in three months.

Ukraine has plans to go much further. Its defense minister this week revealed plans to contract 25,000 new robots in the first half of this year, which is double last year's total, and said that the country's goal is to eventually have 100% of front-line logistics carried out by robots.

Business Insider got exclusive access to see how the US Army's Germany-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment is training for a possible war with Russia.

A group of soldiers known as OPFOR pretends to be the enemy, practicing the same style of trench warfare that has become commonplace in the Russia-Ukraine war.

An Army platoon must traverse mountainous terrain before finding the OPFOR's trench and attacking it.

• Russia has equipped its cheap "Molniya" strike drones with more battery power and better cameras.
• The modifications allow Russia to use these drones for a new purpose — battlefield reconnaissance.
• Moscow doesn't need to rely too heavily on its more expensive reconnaissance drones.

Russia has boosted the range and vision of its fixed-wing Molniya drones, turning cheap, crude aircraft into more capable platforms that can now scout as well as strike in Ukraine.

The upgrades let Moscow lean more on the Molniya ("lightning" in Russian) for battlefield reconnaissance, replacing the pricier surveillance drones like the Supercam and Orlan-10.

Russia has been equipping some of its Molniyas with additional batteries to extend their range, a high-definition camera, and a mesh modem for better communications, Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, an advisor to Ukraine's defense ministry, told Business Insider.

The Molniyas have historically been considered one-way attack drones that carry a warhead and explode on impact. They have been adapted for other missions, though, including carrying smaller first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters, resembling a mothership.

Beskrestnov, a prominent Ukrainian drone warfare expert, said Russia began operating newly modified Molniyas around two months ago and has increasingly used them for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes since then.

The Molniya ISR variant lacks a warhead and is instead equipped with advanced surveillance electronics, including a microcomputer and a rotating camera with a 10-fold optical zoom, according to a US military weapons information portal.

The modified Molniyas are significantly cheaper than the more traditional fixed-wing Supercam S-350 or the Zala Z-16, well-known Russian reconnaissance drones estimated to cost up to $100,000 apiece. The inexpensive Molniyas are made of light materials such as plywood, foam, and aluminum.

Beskrestnov said that Russia can obtain 10-15 Molniyas for the same price. The saturation of Ukrainian interceptor drones over the battlefield has pushed Moscow to opt for cheaper, more expendable assets for reconnaissance and targeting.

He speculated that this shift is driven by increased Ukrainian interceptor activity.

Dimko Zhluktenko, a soldier in Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment, said the modified Molniya drones are relatively easy to manufacture, giving Russia an ideal price for reconnaissance missions. He called these efforts "the war of scale" in a social media post earlier this month.

Neither Russia's defense ministry nor its US embassy responded to a request for comment on the Molniya ISR developments.

Russia and Ukraine have been constantly modifying their drones during the war to try to gain an advantage before the other side either catches up with the technology or develops a defensive countermeasure.

One of the biggest changes is a shift from radio links — easily jammed — to fiber-optic cables that are largely immune to the electronic warfare saturating the battlefield.

These fiber-optic cables have primarily been used to operate smaller FPV drones. However, Russia has begun using them with larger, fixed-wing platforms such as the Molniya.

Russia and Ukraine have taken their innovations a step further with unusual armaments, in some cases equipping drones with air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles to hunt down aircraft.

• Russia has clawed back about 10% of its 2026 oil trade deficit this month, Zelenskyy said.
• Two weeks of war in the Middle East earned Moscow about $10 billion, he said, citing Ukrainian intel.
• The Trump administration is also easing sanctions on Russian oil for about 4 weeks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia had earned $10 billion in two weeks of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

That's about 10% of what Moscow has lost in the oil trade so far this year, he said in a post on X.

Zelenskyy wrote that Ukrainian intelligence reports indicated that global oil sanctions and Kyiv's strikes on Russian energy infrastructure had pushed Moscow's deficit for 2026 to over $100 billion.

"Now we see they have made around 10 billion over two weeks of the war in the Middle East," Zelenskyy wrote. "This is really dangerous. It gives Putin more confidence that he can continue the war."

"The situation around Iran brings him more money," Zelenskyy added of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin.

His remarks come as oil prices skyrocketed in the weeks after the US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28. Both have heavily bombed Iran's oil infrastructure, which produces crude primarily for Asian markets, while Tehran's retaliatory strikes have also damaged energy facilities in the Middle East.

More critically, Tehran is effectively stalling traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for about a fifth of the world's oil, with a string of attacks on commercial ships plying the waterway.

Russia, meanwhile, stands to gain from rising oil prices as one of the world's largest exporters, though its dominance has been partially stymied by Western sanctions to punish and inhibit its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Trump administration also announced on Friday that it was temporarily easing those sanctions to relieve the global oil supply, allowing trade of Russian crude for roughly four weeks.

In his post, Zelenskyy also warned that easing sanctions would be "helpful" to Putin.

Oil and gas are crucial pillars of the Russian economy, even as it faces global sanctions, and much of the government's revenue comes from taxing these industries.

In January and February, for example, Moscow said it earned about $$10.2 billion in both months from oil and gas revenue, down 47% year-on-year when accounting for currency swings. Its total revenues for the same period were about $58.7 billion, its finance ministry said.

• Western militaries need to study one Ukrainian operation in particular for drone warfare lessons.
• Officials say Operation Spiderweb, which struck dozens of Russian jets, offers key lessons.
• The US Army's drone course director told Business Insider it's "the one event that I teach to the students."

Western militaries are investing heavily in drone warfare after seeing their impact in Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion. And while it isn't necessary to absorb every lesson, current and former military officials say one major operation is worth studying closely.

Maj. Rachel Martin, director of the US Army's Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course designed to accelerate training on small drone warfare, told Business Insider that the 2025 Operation Spiderweb is "the one event that I teach to the students."

Offensive potential

In the operation, Ukraine smuggled drones into Russia, drove them to positions close to Russian airfields, and launched them at strategically valuable aircraft. The Ukrainian drones hit 41 Russian warplanes and caused an estimated $7 billion in damage.

The strikes showed how arsenals of small, cheap drones can destroy high-value military assets far from the front — and how difficult they are to defend against.

The operation was complex and took roughly a year and a half of planning, but, Martin said, it showed "that a small amount of money could be spent to destroy something at the strategic level," in this case, bombers and other high-dollar aircraft.

It cost Russia billions of dollars when it "is already hurting financially from being in a prolonged war."

Seeing that kind of low-cost attack destroying assets that could take years to replace, she said, "was a big eye-opening experience for the world." It highlighted not only what was possible with attack drones on offense, but also critical vulnerabilities.

Defensive realizations

The Ukrainian operation sparked a realization in the West about the need for significantly more protection at air bases, especially those hosting essential mission tools, such as nuclear deterrence elements.

Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara, the deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration for the US Air Force, said of the operation last year that "disruptive" technologies like the drones seen in the Ukraine war "will have big implications not just for our bomber force or our nuclear force but really any critical infrastructure."

"We have counter-drone capabilities at these bases. Do we need to continue to modernize? Do we need to accelerate?" he said. "Yeah, absolutely, all that."

The majority of the most strategic US air assets are based inside the continental US. American airpower also depends heavily on warplanes stationed at air bases around the world. Defending against drones has proven challenging at both home and abroad, as the Tower 22 disaster and a number of domestic incidents have highlighted.

European air bases have likewise grappled with the challenge of drones, making the lessons of Operation Spiderweb particularly poignant.

Retired Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, who spent 36 years in the British Royal Air Force and served as its director of joint warfare, said last month that Operation Spiderweb holds key lessons that NATO allies need to learn.

When it comes to modern drone warfare, the West has more to learn from operations like Spiderweb than from day-to-day front-line drone fighting, he said at the UK think tank Chatham House. The West doesn't necessarily need to engage in heavy quadcopter warfare at the front when it has artillery and substantial airpower.

"The lessons that we need to learn are more from Operation Spiderweb, where Ukraine employed these drones in a much more sophisticated way and really did start to take out some significant targets," Bagwell said. That operation had a high-level strategic effect on a stronger adversary for a comparatively lower cost. It's asymmetric warfare that the West can't ignore.

Picking up lessons from the war

The US is using drone warfare in ways beyond what Spiderweb demonstrated, drawing on other lessons from the war. In its war with Iran that started last month, it has used drones to attack Iranian targets, including the new one-way attack LUCAS drones.

It's also still employing traditional drone tactics, using platforms like the uncrewed strike and reconnaissance drone MQ-9 Reaper.

The Army's new drone course is just one of the many ways that it is advancing its drone warfare capabilities, along with other moves like plans to buy at least a million drones in the next two or so years. Allies across NATO are taking similar steps.

Martin said their power is undeniable, and the course itself was created because the Army could see that it was behind in small drone warfare and needed to fix that. But the US is not in the same existential fight that Ukraine is, nor is it facing the same weapons shortages.

Drones have kept Ukraine in the fight against Russia even as other weapons ran out. They haven't been decisive, though, indicating that deep stocks of traditional and advanced weaponry still matter.

The US Army course teaches soldiers that drones aren't always the right weapon.

Bagwell also cautioned against leaning too heavily on drones. He said that drones have been "hugely useful" for Ukraine, but "these have not won the war for either side."

He said that Ukraine has "had to adapt and fight the way they can only fight, and I applaud them for what they have done. But there is a question for us in the West as to whether that is the way we want to fight."