The war sparked by Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is the first armed conflict where drones are so omnipresent on the battlefield. Today, the two belligerents continue to innovate to counter threats from the sky by developing inexpensive interceptors while drones integrate AI to improve precision.

Published on: 02/23/2026 - 07:06 Modified on: 02/23/2026 - 07:07

Since 2022, the war between Ukraine and Russia has become an open-air military laboratory where drones play the leading roles: strategic reconnaissance, artillery guidance, precision strikes, logistics, electronic warfare and even experimental medical evacuation.

A look back at the main aspects of this technological revolution which pushes the forces of kyiv and Moscow to constantly innovate.

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Aerial drones, stars of the battlefield

Among the most notable revolutions are FPV drones (“First Person View”, “first person view” in French), initially designed for amateur racing. Modified with explosive charges, they allow an operator equipped with a video headset to control the device as if he were on board.

Sometimes costing less than 500 euros each, these devices can neutralize very expensive armored vehicles. Their accessibility has democratized precision strikes: infantry units today have an anti-tank capability previously reserved for aviation or heavy artillery.

Also read: Ukrainian “dragon drones” spit their fire on Russian positions

Larger and more expensive, long-range drones can strike from several hundred kilometers away. Russia has made these massive attacks a cornerstone of its military strategy, in particular to damage kyiv's energy installations.

“The Russians essentially use the Geran, the Russian version of the Iranian Shahed kamikaze drone. From a technical point of view, these are propeller missiles, like the German V1s of the Second World War,” explains Marc Chassillan, consultant and expert on military issues.

Russian night attacks mobilizing 300, 400, or even 500 drones have become commonplace since the end of spring 2025, putting a strain on kyiv's anti-aircraft defenses.

“These devices are responsible for almost 80% of the damage on the front,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhaïlo Fedorov told AFP.

Innovation is not limited to the air. Land drones – small remotely operated tracked vehicles – are used to deliver munitions, lay mines or evacuate the wounded. They reduce the exposure of soldiers in the most dangerous areas.

In the Black Sea, Ukrainian naval drones also upset the strategic balance at the start of the war by threatening the Russian fleet while kyiv does not have a navy comparable to that of its adversary.

From fiber optics to AI

Maintaining a stable connection between the aerial drone and its operator is crucial. “This is where the real race is at stake: communications and connections,” military expert Kateryna Bondar told AFP.

Initially, most drones operated via radio link. But they have proven vulnerable to jamming devices that cut this link. Moscow therefore turned to drones linked to their operators by fiber optic cables and almost impossible to jam.

These cables extend over several kilometers. So much so that their massive use transformed entire areas of the front into a thick network of wires covering fields and meadows.

“It’s a good way to counter electronic warfare, but it’s not a panacea either,” says Marc Chassillan. "These areas covered with optical fiber make the terrain impassable. The other big disadvantage is the weight. A drone can only carry a small load of explosives to be able to carry the fiber optic spool. So if you want a larger explosive load, you have to make larger drones, and therefore more expensive."

Another option to avoid jamming: the use of Starlink, the satellite Internet service provider of the American company SpaceX, which allows you to maintain a high-speed connection. kyiv has equipped drones with Starlink antennas.

Russian troops quickly imitated this practice. Until Ukraine put pressure on Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, who recently agreed to deactivate the terminals used without authorization by the Russians.

Read also Deprived of Starlink, can the Russians bounce back with their Barrage-1 balloon drones?

Engineers are also working to equip drones with AI. Ukrainian companies like The Fourth Law (TFL) have developed a system that allows AI to guide drones at the time of strike. It should help improve their accuracy, because the connection is often lost before impact.

However, full drone autonomy still seems far away. For expert Kateryna Bondar, AI plays “an assistance role” but does not replace humans.

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and current director of SwiftBeat, which supplies kyiv with drones equipped with AI, also judges that it is “naive” to think that the equipment will become 100% automated. “In the foreseeable future, you will have drones first, then humans,” he said recently from kyiv.

Dead zone and tactical stalemate

With surveillance drones patrolling day and night, the battlefield has become transparent. The front line turned into a "death zone" stretching up to 20 kilometers wide.

It is impossible for the Russians and Ukrainians to concentrate forces, particularly tanks or other armored vehicles, under penalty of detection. Soldiers can only operate in small groups, moving quickly and keeping their eyes glued to the sky, hoping to go unnoticed.

As early as November 2023, the former commander-in-chief of kyiv's forces, Valeri Zalouzhny, spoke of a "tactical impasse" for the two belligerents, caused by these technological developments.

“Just like during the First World War, we have reached a technological level such that we find ourselves in an impasse,” explained the military leader in an interview with The Economist.

“Neither of the two belligerents has the means to create a hole in the opposing defense lines,” notes Marc Chassillan. “Everything is completely frozen and we do not see the end of what looks like an industrial war of attrition. As long as the Russians and Ukrainians know how to manufacture drones in the number of several thousand copies per day, the situation will remain unchanged.”

Despite the territorial gains recorded in 2025 by the Russian army - more than 5,600 km² -, the largest since 2022, they represent only 0.94% of the total area of ​​Ukraine, according to data published in January from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in collaboration with the Critical Threats Project (CTP), two American think tanks specializing in the study of conflicts.

The crucial issue of interceptor drones

The proliferation of drones has forced us to rethink anti-aircraft defense systems because it is not at all profitable to use very expensive missiles, like the American Patriots, whose unit cost reaches three million dollars, to destroy long-range drones costing $20,000.

To resolve this equation, kyiv has in recent months embarked on the local and large-scale manufacture of interceptor drones, designed specifically to destroy other drones in flight. “We opened the chapter of drone warfare with drones,” says Marko Kouchnir of General Cherry, a major manufacturer of interceptor drones.

These devices should therefore allow kyiv to reserve its most sophisticated missiles for other air threats, such as cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

Read also: Ukraine relies on the Sting, a low-cost interceptor to counter Russian drones

“This problem is about to be resolved thanks to a healthy shift taken more than a year ago to develop these small interceptor drones. These machines are going faster and faster and have no trouble catching up with the Shaheds who only fly at 150 km/h,” recalls Marc Chassillan. “On the other hand, it is still difficult to shoot down small FPV drones. This still remains a problem to be solved.”

In the field, automatic weapons or hunting rifles, whose buckshot allows them to hit small targets, are soldiers' last resorts to shoot down drones rushing towards them.

Directly inspired by the Ukrainian experience, NATO countries have stepped up initiatives in recent years to catch up in the field of combat drones and interceptors. Since September 2025, several suspicious drone incursions attributed to Russia have also led European countries to rethink EU air defense.

The latest initiative to date is that launched by France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. Called LEAP, it plans to develop inexpensive interceptor drone systems to complement traditional anti-aircraft defenses.

If the massive droneization of the Ukrainian conflict holds many lessons for armies around the world, Marc Chassillan believes that the use of drones will not necessarily be as predominant in all future conflicts.

“We must be wary of the feedback and lessons that we could draw from the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian terrain is very particular, it is a front 1,200 kilometers long. It is obviously very different in Gaza or during the war between Israel and Iran where there was no front at all,” recalls the expert. “We must therefore know how to sort between the universal lessons, the situations with which we will necessarily be confronted, and what makes this war specific and which we will never find elsewhere.”

With AFP

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