On the battlefield, difficulties multiply for Kiev. To face new threats, Ukraine is seeking to level the battlefield with the support of technology. In the air, at sea and on land, the Ukrainian army is preparing some surprises for the Russian army
The next few months will be crucial for Ukraine. Regardless of the official position of the new American administration, President-elect Donald Trump has already warned that Kiev should expect less military support. But with the European Union’s military production capacity unable to replace American support, Ukraine is developing a series of new weapons to compensate with technological superiority for the advantage Russia has in numbers on the battlefield.
They are resistant, mobile, highly deadly and have an advantage: unlike infantry, they can be hit by enemy ammunition. One of the main Ukrainian innovations for the battlefield will appear not only in large numbers, but also in great variety, as early as next year. Ukraine is experimenting on the front line with more than 100 types of unmanned ground vehicles and “tens of thousands” have already been ordered.
These systems resemble, in some cases, large remote-controlled cars, capable of passing various obstacles to fulfill a varied number of missions, from the medical transport of soldiers injured in combat, logistical support, territory mining operations, combat with firearms and “suicide” missions. These drones have been tested regularly throughout 2024 and have shown that they are capable of operating in different types of terrain. Before being sent to support the Ukrainian army, unmanned systems must demonstrate that they can operate on ramps, sandy terrain or even mud-filled trenches.
And four multirole models are already known that will enter combat in 2025. They are called “Tanchik,” “Targan 2K,” “Targan 200,” and “Bureviy.” These systems are designed to perform a wide range of missions, which include reconnaissance, sabotage, evacuation, attack and logistics. The four vehicles are different – they have different ranges and load capacities – but they are relatively cheap, with the most expensive costing just over three thousand euros.
Some of these models are already being used on the front line, albeit in limited numbers, particularly in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops occupy part of Russian territory. For the Ukrainian government, the objective with these drones is to free up as many front-line soldiers as possible, replacing them with drones, at a time when Kiev is facing serious problems in meeting its own recruitment targets.
“Robots will evacuate soldiers, deliver supplies, lay mines and replace soldiers so they do not become live targets for enemy drones. This is a war of technology, and the more technology we have at the forefront, the greater our advantage will be.”, Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation when announcing the acquisition of thousands of these new four models.
Robots with intelligence?
As the number of digital systems continues to increase on the front lines, the future of warfare appears increasingly clear. The war began with soldiers controlling machines inside, transitioned to pilots remotely controlling various devices and we are facing the transition of aircraft controlled by Artificial Intelligence systems. The path is not as short as Ukraine would like, but in this field Kiev has an extremely valuable resource that can contribute to making the technological leap: data.
Ukraine has millions of hours of battlefield drone footage that can be used to train artificial intelligence models to make decisions in combat situations. And, according to Oleksandr Dmitriev, founder of OCHI, a Ukrainian technology non-profit organization, more than two million hours of pilot footage has been collected from more than 15,000 drone operator teams since 2022. There are more than 228 years of images that could become vital for training Artificial Intelligence.
“This is food for AI: if we want to teach AI, you give it two million hours [de vídeo] and it will become something supernatural,” Dmitriev told Reuters.
This information can be used so that the next generation of drones can use combat tactics more effectively, by analyzing the angles and trajectories that are most successful. But not only. This collection of images will make AI models more efficient in identifying Russian targets on the battlefield.
And every day more material arrives from the front. According to Dmitriev, every day about six terabytes of new images from the front line arrive at his organization. Some of the new images already belong to systems that use embedded artificial intelligence systems, as is the case with the Ukrainian drone company Vyriy. At the end of November, company founder Oleksii Babenko said that tens of thousands of drones with an AI targeting system will arrive at the front line later this year.
“At the drone school in Kiev, we and other companies are teaching our pilots how to work with this system. The results have been incredible. Around 90% of drones successfully hit the target”, revealed the young entrepreneur, who insists that these drones “are not fully autonomous”, they are just “a first step” in this direction.
There are some systems flying in Ukraine that are already completely capable of flying autonomously. One of them was created and manufactured in Portugal. The AR3 from the Portuguese company Tekever is one of the Ukrainian military’s favorite surveillance instruments due to its ability to function despite Russian attacks on communications and GPS systems. The AI system of these drones makes them extremely resistant and able to operate without a pilot.
But the most feared system that is still under development is the ability to operate “drone swarms”. Several Ukrainian companies are currently competing to develop computer systems capable of executing commands on dozens of drones operating interconnected. These systems are not yet ready to reach the battlefield, but they have already gone further.
And it is understandable that these are one of the most feared mechanisms. Ukraine currently has a significant drone production capacity. In 2024, Ukraine ordered 1.6 million drones of various types, although the main model purchased by the army are small FPV drones that have cameras that allow them to be piloted remotely. Hundreds of thousands of drones acting together and autonomously could have devastating effects on the battlefield and implications that reach far beyond the frontline in Ukraine.
Turbulent waters in the Black Sea
The impact of technological innovations in the Ukrainian war reached all theaters of operations. But nowhere was the impact as asymmetric as in the fight for dominance of the Black Sea. Without a navy capable of confronting the imposing Russian Black Sea Fleet, which ten years earlier occupied the Crimean peninsula, Moscow was expected to control the total seas. But the reality was very different, with Ukraine developing and deploying powerful naval drones that sank part of the fleet and forced it to retreat to the distant port of Novorossiysk.
Now Ukraine has just unveiled a new type of naval drone with never-before-seen capabilities that go far beyond the older Magura and Sea Baby models. The new design has already been made public by the Ukrainian navy and, in addition to the large quantities of explosives it carries on board, it also carries several aerial drones, which take off before reaching the target.
This new model appears to be larger than the models used in the past by Ukraine, thus being able to carry a greater number of capacities on board. In addition to the small hangar with capacity for at least four FPV drones, this small craft has several detonation sensors in various directions on the bow, so it can detonate on contact with the target. At the stern there is a second hangar for what experts believe to be a store for laying naval mines.
According to a publication from the Ukrainian army, these drones have already begun to be tested in combat. Vice Admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa made public the results of a Ukrainian navy operation against a Russian gas extraction platform in the Black Sea. These platforms, located in the Black Sea, are disputed territory. Both Ukraine and Russia have used these structures to install surveillance sensors and equipment to jam the GPS signal. This Ukrainian attack focused on destroying this equipment.
💥Maritime drones of the Navy unit made precise strikes on Russian targets
The results of the work were shown by the Commander of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Vice-Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa.
In detail
— Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@UA_NAVY)
This new equipment made it possible to conduct a much more complex attack than was carried out with its predecessors. In the shared images, it is possible to see the aerial drones being launched before arriving at the real target. This allows Ukraine to reconnoitre the target in situ and from multiple angles. So, these systems directly attack the Russian sensors and the men who were on the platform. Each of these drones is operated by a pilot who is in the same operating room as the naval drone driver.
According to independent analyst HI Sutton, this device introduced a new feature by sailing in reverse to release an explosive charge close to the platform. The naval analysis expert points out that if these explosives have a timer, this could mean that naval drones could become reusable, lowering costs per unit and creating a deterrent barrier on the Ukrainian coast.
