Ukraine creates official, integrated drone branch of its armed forces

Militaries in the UK, US, France, and elsewhere have long maintained specialized units within their armies, navies, and air forces to accomplish specific kinds of tasks. In the very middle of its defensive war against Russia, Ukraine is now taking that structuring a step farther by creating an entirely separate branch for drone operations.

The apparently unprecedented move was announced last week by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an address on a number of topics relating to the country’s battle against invading Russian army. In it, Zelenskyy announced the formation of an entirely new division of the armed forces dedicated to drone activity, which is thought to be the first of its kind in the world. 

The innovation – made as Ukraine fights for its independence, and even existence – reflects not only the immeasurable importance of UAVs in having permitted the country to push back the early, massive gains made by Russia following its February 2022 invasion. It also echoes the out-of-the-box thinking that allowed Ukraine forces to redeploy countless consumer, enterprise, homemade, and newly mass-produced craft as remarkably potent assets against a far larger and better-equipped enemy.

“Drones… have proven their effectiveness in battles on land, in the sky and at sea,” Zelenskyy said during the speech. “I have just signed a decree initiating the establishment of a separate branch of our Defense Forces – the (Uncrewed) Systems Forces. This is not a matter of the future, but something that should yield a very concrete result shortly.”

In creating the stand-alone division, Zelenskyy is clearly looking to turn what for long appeared to be the scrappy but quirky effort using small UAVs as crucial reconnaissance, intelligence, and attack assets, into a fully established, centrally organized arm of the military. The objective: to multiply the strength of those desperate aerial efforts into a coordinated drone force.

“The large-scale destruction of the occupiers and their equipment is also the domain of drones,” Zelenskyy explained. “The current list of tasks is clear: special staff positions for drone operations, special units, effective training, systematization of experience, constant scaling of production, and the involvement of the best ideas and top specialists in this field. This is a task for the army, the Ministry of Defense, and the government as a whole.”

In support of that effort, Ukraine deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov told Reuters Monday that Ukraine plans to produce thousands of long-range attack drones this year. That looks to build on gains made on designing craft with enhanced capacities, and shifting manufacturing levels that generated 300,000 UAVs last year into higher gear.

“The category of long-range kamikaze drones is growing, with a range of 300, 500, 700, and 1,000 kilometers,” Fevorov told Reuters, noting the constantly improving capabilities of Ukraine’s drones and production potentials. “Two years ago, this category did not exist… In December alone, drone deliveries were 50 times higher than in the entire 2022. Just imagine, the system was not prepared for that, and I think the logistics did not realize that such volumes were possible.” 

Now those capacities will be organized to provide for a full-fledged drone division of Ukraine’s armed forces. The anticipated advantages of centralization will also benefit pilot training programs, as well as what have been deft hacking, spoofing, and electronic warfare innovation by the nation’s aerial geeks wreaking havoc on Russian drone control systems. 

And given the way the nation’s repurposing, deployment, and construction of drones has demonstrated to the rest of the world uses of the craft nobody even thought possible before, it may well be that other, bigger countries wind up following Ukraine’s lead on establishing dedicated UAV military branches.

“Israel was the first to develop drone warfare but they don’t have a special branch of service,” Brookings Institution military expert Bruce Riedel told CNBC when asked whether any other nation had a similar unit to the one Ukraine is creating. “None that I know of, so it is a first.”