Amid the wave of headlines about AI drones and “killer robots,” the reality is that most drone operations are still conducted by humans, and this is changing only gradually. That is why operator training remains critical and will continue to be so in the coming years. Ukrainian company Athlon Avia, in addition to producing drones, also invests in training operators for its platforms, recognizing that the reputation and effectiveness of a system depend to a significant extent on the people who use it.

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In the hands of skilled and well-trained personnel, even relatively simple systems can achieve exceptional results. In Ukraine, experienced operators routinely conduct FPV drone missions at ranges of 15, 20, or even 25 kilometers, while an inexperienced soldier may struggle to fly the same type of drone even a few kilometers.

Looking back at a recent example: when I first heard about the highly successful American-made Hornet drones equipped with AI technologies, what caught my attention was not only the drone itself, but the unit operating it: the Azov Corps, one of Ukraine’s most capable military formations, with highly experienced drone operators. So, the drone’s effectiveness can be attributed not only to its technical characteristics, but also to the skill of its users.

In a conversation with Serhii Mokreniuk, representative of Ukrainian company Athlon Avia, I learned about several areas of their work that are unusual for a drone manufacturer. The company trains drone operators, invests in motivating and developing pilots, and works to ensure that battlefield lessons are captured, shared, and integrated into military practice. The company believes that more industry representatives should adopt this approach.

Reconnaissance UAV Furia

The flagship product of Athlon Avia is Furia, one of the first fixed-wing reconnaissance drones used by the Ukrainian military and employed for artillery fire correction. It was first used during the liberation of Sloviansk in 2014.

The drone is designed for aerial reconnaissance by day and night. Its low radar signature, achieved through the use of composite materials, and its low-noise electric motor with a two-bladed propeller help reduce its detectability. The drone uses a combined navigation system based on inertial navigation with GPS correction. The system can determine target coordinates with high accuracy and supports automatic target tracking.

Ukrainian media Oboronka reported that the Ukrainian military had to develop tactics and operational requirements for the Furia almost from scratch. Before that, artillery firing manuals included procedures for ranging and fire correction using helicopters.

Currently, more than 100 brigades of the Ukrainian Defence Forces use Furia drones for reconnaissance and artillery fire correction. There are pilots with more than 1,000 flight hours who can operate for months without losing a single aircraft.

Today, the Furia can remain airborne for more than four hours, operate at altitudes of up to 3 km, and fly more than 50 km from its launch point. Earlier versions had an endurance of approximately two hours.

There is an expectation that the UAVs will soon move toward greater autonomy and wider use of artificial intelligence.

Russian sources describe the Furia as one of the main “workhorses” of Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance and have sought to study both its design and tactics of employment. For example, the Russian KCPN Analytical Center obtained and translated three versions of the Furia flight operations manual from 2022, 2023, and 2024, stating that comparing them could reveal how the system has evolved and the direction of Ukrainian design development.

Before the full-scale invasion, Athlon Avia produced around 25 Furia A1-SM systems per year. Since each system includes three aircraft, this amounted to roughly 75 drones annually. As of March 2025, the manufacturer was producing at least 200 Furia drones per month. The situation has now changed, and demand from the military for the product has increased significantly.

Importance of Training Operators

For Athlon Avia, increasing drone production is only one part of the challenge. The company argues that manufacturers also need to invest in the people, training systems, and mechanisms for transferring combat experience that determine how effectively their equipment is ultimately used on the battlefield.

“Any system needs a properly trained crew,” Serhii Mokreniuk explained. “A piece of equipment does not work without a person, but simply having a person is not enough either. It should be a highly trained person. A trained specialist is an extremely valuable resource.”

For this reason, the company has developed several initiatives that go beyond conventional manufacturing. One of them is recruitment. The company works both with serving military personnel who want to transfer into UAV-related positions and with civilians interested in joining the Armed Forces as drone pilots.

Potential recruits receive advice on selecting a military unit and navigating the process of entering or transferring into an appropriate position. The company then trains them to operate its systems. According to the producer, this work is largely managed by veterans and people with direct knowledge of how the Ukrainian military functions.

Training is mandatory for personnel who will operate the company’s systems. From scratch, the basic course takes at least four weeks and can take longer depending on factors such as weather conditions. The curriculum follows requirements established by Ukraine’s military aviation authorities and combines theoretical and practical flight training.

The company deliberately provides a broader theoretical foundation rather than teaching pilots only the mechanics of operating a particular drone. Students study areas such as meteorology and communications so that they understand the wider operational environment in which the UAV will be employed.

The manufacturer also operates two training schools and works with other educational institutions, such as training centres for pilots and higher military educational institutions that train commanders, including the Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Army Academy, the S. P. Koroliov Zhytomyr Military Institute, the National Defence University of Ukraine, the Odesa Military Academy, among others.

This is particularly important because knowledge in drone warfare becomes obsolete extremely quickly. “We are developing at such a fast pace that knowledge from 2019 is no longer relevant at all, while some knowledge from early 2026 is already outdated today,” Serhii said. “The military simply cannot always update everything quickly enough because institutional procedures are inevitably more bureaucratic.”

When the company facilitates the transfer of knowledge from experienced pilots to less experienced pilots, it also obtains high-quality data about the system itself and how it performs under specific combat conditions. This then becomes valuable input for its R&D directorate.

That is why it is important for manufacturers to develop and support the broader user community around their products. “We call ours Furia Family — an environment where everyone is constantly learning and where anyone can receive support both from the company and from fellow service members. The motto of our Furia Family community is: ‘I have a mission!’” Serhii told me.

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Turning Combat Experience into Institutional Knowledge

Another major focus of Athlon Avia is ensuring that battlefield experience does not remain confined to individual pilots or units.

The company has created a mechanism through which some of the most experienced and motivated pilots can transfer their knowledge to less experienced operators. The formats can be relatively simple. For example, when the company identifies a particular knowledge gap among crews, it may organize a webinar for 20–40 pilots and invite experienced operators to explain how they approach the problem.

“In many cases, they are essentially teaching each other,” the representative said. “We simply help them organize the process.”

The company has also experimented with much more systematic methods of capturing combat experience.

Last year, it organized a competition in which drone pilots were asked to describe one of their combat missions according to a structured template. The template was based on established approaches to analysing lessons learned and was designed to encourage pilots and crews to assess how a mission had been prepared and conducted.

The submissions were then reviewed by six judges, including instructors, university faculty members and military specialists. Each evaluator used their own criteria, producing an assessment framework that collectively included more than 120 parameters.

The purpose was not simply to select the best submission. The process allowed the company to identify recurring gaps in the pilots’ knowledge and determine what operators themselves were failing to analyse after missions.

The results eventually developed into a much greater effort. Serving military personnel were invited to jointly produce practical guidance on the employment of reconnaissance UAVs. Around 20 authors contributed to a manual covering 30 topics. The company subsequently brought instructors and service members together to develop five standardized operating procedures.

The producer says one of the most interesting outcomes was the pilots' reaction. Some participants who had helped write the documents said that the process of systematically describing and analysing their own experience had caused them to reconsider their role and place within the combat command-and-control system, as well as the approach to carrying out combat missions

Although none of this work directly changes the drone's physical characteristics, the manufacturer believes it has significantly improved the quality of its use in combat.

“This work is completely unrelated to manufacturing the product itself, but it strengthened the quality of combat missions so much that we could see the effect ourselves,” Serhii told me. “That is why we continue doing it.”

Why Drone Manufacturers Should Care About Educating Pilots

The company believes this model could and should be replicated by other defence manufacturers. Manufacturers have a direct interest in increasing the competence of the personnel operating their systems. A poorly trained crew can make an effective system appear ineffective, while experienced operators are better able to exploit the equipment’s full capabilities.

The difference between crews can already be enormous. Some operators may fly for a year without losing a single aircraft, while another crew can lose three UAVs within a week. That discrepancy cannot always be explained by the equipment itself.

There is another benefit as well: identifying, recording and “crystallizing” knowledge that would otherwise disappear when experienced personnel rotate, transfer or leave their positions.

The company says it has spoken publicly about its methodology and would be willing to share it with other manufacturers. So far, however, relatively few producers have adopted similar approaches. Some may not understand why this should be their responsibility, while others are simply overwhelmed by the immediate demands of production.

Yet the company believes even limited adoption could have a significant effect. “If even 10 percent of weapons manufacturers launched similar processes, the effectiveness of the military would increase,” the representative argued.

According to Serhii, the greatest value of Ukraine’s Defence Forces is its people, and that’s why the company invests in them. That is why Ukrainian pilots are better than Russian ones. “But we still have a problem with scaling unique combat expertise — transferring the best practices to other units, training centers, and military educational institutions,” he said.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that Ukraine offers a different model of defence production and acquisition from the traditional approach, in which manufacturers simply deliver equipment according to technical specifications set by the state authorities.

The Ukrainian model is very end-user-centric. Because military units have direct purchasing power, they assess not only equipment itself, but also the level of service that the company provides. Does the manufacturer provide a 24/7 support line? Can it quickly modify the product in response to battlefield needs? Is it ready to work directly with the unit after delivery?

Ukraine’s drone market is extremely competitive, and the strongest companies seek to distinguish themselves not only through technical characteristics, but also through the additional support they provide to military units using their products.

Some initiatives, such as the one described above, take this model a step further by introducing a broader sense of responsibility. In these cases, industry takes the lead in areas that remain underprioritized institutionally, such as capturing, systematizing, and disseminating battlefield lessons.

Some manufacturers in Ukraine invest not only in improving the effectiveness of their own products, but also in strengthening the effectiveness of the Defence Forces as a whole.

This is a model that Western industry representatives should aspire to: not simply producing equipment but taking greater responsibility for how effectively that equipment is used.

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Check out other relevant reports:

• Drone warfare in Ukraine: Hornet strike drones;

• Training Drone Operators in Wartime Ukraine: Dronarium Academy;

• Heavy Bombers: A Pilot of “Vampire” Tells About His Daily Operations.

If you are looking for concise, 2-page weekly reports on drone warfare in Ukraine and Russia, here is my Ukraine Drone Brief (available to VIP subscribers).

In this new phase of the war, major Ukrainian cities are taking the hardest hits. Russian forces are continuously striking civilian and commercial sites, including food and water storage facilities, book and clothing warehouses, and small cargo depots.

While the world is focused on AI-powered drones, one hundred thousand drone pilots on the other side of the frontline are still manually guiding drones toward these targets.

In this edition:

• Russia’s New Strike Tactics: Small and Continuous Waves;

• Gamification of War: How Ukrainian Drone Pilots Earn Points for Successful Strikes;

• What’s Wrong with Ukraine’s Arms Exports?

• Ukraine’s New Defence Minister and His Vision;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

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Russia’s New Strike Tactics: Small and Continuous Waves

Russia has shifted to a new air terror tactic in recent days – hitting Kyiv and other cities in small drone waves every 30–60 minutes around the clock. On August 27, Kyiv saw 13 air raid alerts totaling 14 hours.

August 30 became the fourth consecutive calendar day during which Kyiv has been subjected to aerial attacks, according to the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Dva Mayora. The series began overnight on August 27 and has continued with only brief interruptions.

Instead of relying exclusively on large-scale nighttime raids, Russia is employing smaller repeated groups, including high-speed jet-powered UAVs, with strikes occurring both during the day and at night. This approach forces Ukrainian air-defence units, mobile fire groups, emergency responders and municipal services to operate almost continuously.

Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov, analyzing drones’ flight trajectories over Kyiv, concluded that they are being guided by human operators rather than relying solely on automated navigation. Human control could explain the drones’ erratic maneuvers over Kyiv. Such flight patterns may also exert psychological pressure on civilians by creating panic and uncertainty. Intercepting such targets over highly populated areas remains extremely difficult for Ukrainian forces.

Jet-powered drones such as Shaheds and Banderol missile/drones are taking over roles previously performed by air-launched cruise missiles from strategic bombers or sea-launched Kalibr missiles. President Zelensky said that Russia used over 1500 drones in these 4 days, 800 of which were jet-powered.

According to Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, adviser to the president on the development of defence technology, the number of jet-powered Shahed drones Russia uses has increased by at least 67% in a single month, from approximately 1,500 to more than 2,500. Beskrestnov also said that the jet-powered Shaheds are being launched against Ukraine “practically straight from the factory.”

Prolonged air-raid alerts affect not only people’s safety but also the operation of businesses, logistics, transport, schools, kindergartens, and other areas of daily life. Russia is attempting to paralyze economic activity in the capital and other major cities, so Ukraine’s response procedures also need to change. The Ukrainian authorities plan to review approaches to the curfew and civilians’ access to more timely information about aerial threats, wrote Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Serhii Koretsky.

Recent Russian airstrikes have severely disrupted Ukraine’s commercial supply network, destroying roughly 90% of food logistics capacity used by major retailers. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov urged Ukrainians not to give in to rumours, disinformation, or panic. He said manufacturers and retailers are already restructuring their supply chains. According to Beskrestnov, Russia is not targeting “food” as such, but rather large businesses that generate tax revenue and provide jobs.

Russian milbloggers wrote that many observers are linking these developments to the recent visit of the CIA Director to Moscow and speculation surrounding possible peace negotiations. They conclude with the usual call for Ukraine’s destruction, showing that there is no real readiness in Russia for de-escalation: “We think the best backdrop for negotiations is the enemy’s capital burning. We need to keep destroying the enemy while it is experiencing a shortage of surface-to-air missiles and while we are increasing production of jet-powered Geran drones.”

Check out my recent reports:

• The Challenge of Jet-Powered Shaheds;

• What Is Russia’s Banderol Missile/Drone?

• Licence for Patriot Interceptor Missile Production: Trump Changes His Mind.

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Gamification of War: How Ukrainian Drone Pilots Earn Points for Successful Strikes

Journalist Simon Ostrovsky interviewed Andrii, a verification analyst at Brave1, about Ukraine’s e-Points system, which awards military units points for verified battlefield results. Those points can then be spent through the Brave1 Market on drones, EW systems, and other equipment.

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Not only drones, but also counter-drone systems are evolving rapidly in Ukraine and Russia — and NATO countries should take note.

This newsletter covers more than 20 weekly developments in drone warfare, with the majority focused on counter-UxS capabilities.

Since it’s the week of Ukraine’s Independence Day, I’m celebrating it with my audience by making much of my content freely available, including this edition of Ukraine Drone Brief.

Read earlier reports:

• Free full edition of Arms Trends in Ukraine: 17 August - 23 August, 2026;

• Drone Warfare in Ukraine newsletter with a free section: Korean Company Develops Battery Packs for Ukrainian Interceptor Drones.

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Aerial Drones

• President Zelensky said Ukraine should increase the number of long-range drones used to strike targets in Russia from the current level of more than 300 to 1,000 per day.

• Russian forces attacked Ukraine with seven S8000 Banderol missile drones and 96 strike UAVs (70% of them were jet-powered) on 28 August. Most of them were targeting Kyiv.

• Russia has shifted to a new air terror tactic in recent days – hitting Kyiv and other cities in small drone waves every 30–60 minutes around the clock. On August 27, Kyiv saw 13 air raid alerts totaling 14 hours.

• On August 28, a Russian jet-powered Shahed covered a record distance of around 960 km before being shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

• Russian attacks have destroyed around 90% of modern storage facilities for goods in Ukraine.

Ground Drones (UGVs)

• Ukrainian Defence Forces have begun combat testing UGVs armed with two Kalashnikov rifles. The project received grant funding and moved from concept to prototype in under six months. Its use of standard Kalashnikov rifles is intended to reduce costs and simplify scaling, while the four-wheel chassis, airless tires, and protected body are designed for operation in difficult terrain.

• Ukrainian Tencore is developing a flamethrower module for its TerMIT 2.0 UGV. The new combat module integrates eight RPV-16 rocket-propelled infantry flamethrowers, originally designed as portable infantry weapons, allowing the UGV to engage enemy personnel while operators remain at a safer distance.

Naval Drones

• Ukrainian Uforce has unveiled the new MV11 maritime drone. It is described as the largest platform in the Magura family and one of Europe’s largest USVs. Designed for open-sea operations, the MV11 can transport and launch other drones far from shore and is intended for reconnaissance, surveillance, maritime support missions, and carrying fuel or equipment for other unmanned systems.

AI

• A Russian drone that attacked Zaporizhzhia on July 6 was reportedly equipped with an experimental AI system capable of autonomously identifying a target for attack. Three people were killed in the strike. Analysis of debris found that the drones had onboard minicomputers, sold commercially by Nvidia, that made their targeting decisions. Ukrainian expert said that the drone was a preprogrammed tool trained in virtual reality to track specific objects, such as a gas station.

  A Ukrainian company told me that each of the technologies mentioned, including target identification and model training, has already been under development for some time.

  However, operator-controlled missions still account for the overwhelming majority of drone operations, with the human operator remaining the primary decision-maker.

• Russian state media claims that Russian forces are attacking Ukrainian units with AI-enabled drones that allegedly recognize Ukrainian military uniforms and vehicle license plates.

C-UAS

• Russia has equipped some Shahed/Geran drones with an EW system designed to disrupt interceptor drones. When a Ukrainian interceptor approaches, the Shahed’s EW receiver detects the interceptor’s video-transmission frequency and activates a jammer on the same frequency. The Shahed’s jammer reportedly transmits at roughly five times the interceptor’s power, overwhelming the video link and preventing the pilot on the ground from seeing the drone’s feed.

• Ukraine works on the “Mayachnia” project to support drone navigation and precise positioning in the Black Sea when satellite communications are unavailable. Deployment of an autonomous radio-beacon network based on the Skyline platform began late last year. The beacons operate independently, are equipped with backup power sources, and are integrated into a centralized network.

• Ukrainian forces are testing the Spys interceptor drone, developed by WIY Drones to counter jet-powered UAVs. An initial batch of 50 drones has been delivered to military units for combat testing. The interceptor has a stated operational speed of up to 450 km/h, while testing recorded a maximum speed of 600 km/h.

• Ukrainian Wild Hornets introduced an upgraded Hornet Vision VTX Pro video-transmission module for its interceptor drones. The new version more than doubles output power to 4 W, increasing video-link and control range by up to 50% under favorable conditions. It also improves the interception effectiveness against low-flying targets by more than 20% and provides greater resistance to electronic warfare and radio-frequency interference.

• Russia has begun mass production of the domestic electronic warfare system “Volna Kupol Garant,” capable of countering the Starlink satellite system.

• Russian state corporation Rostec has launched production of the SOKOL-08 mobile radar, which incorporates machine-learning algorithms. According to Russian sources, the system can track up to 100 targets simultaneously, identify small drones, and automatically filter out false detections.

• A Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter has been integrated with interceptor drones for engaging Russian UAVs. The helicopter can carry up to six interceptors, which are likely controlled either from onboard the Mi-8 or remotely via Starlink.

• Ukrainian BlueBird Tech has launched an upgrade campaign for its Chuika 3.0 drone detectors, adding a fourth frequency band covering 6–8.8 GHz.

• Ukrainian tech startup Zvook is conducting research and development into hydrophones engineered for passive underwater acoustic monitoring.

Cooperation Deals

• Ukraine and Norway have signed a defence cooperation agreement under the Drone Deal format. This is the tenth country establishing a Drone Deal with Ukraine.

• American Palladyne AI and Ukrainian-Estonian NORDA Dynamics, a developer of a drone autonomy ecosystem, announced a collaboration to integrate Palladyne AI’s SwarmOS™ decentralized, collaborative autonomy platform with the Underdog Autonomy Module, NORDA’s autonomous terminal guidance product for next-generation unmanned swarm operations.

• Finnish Patria and Ukrainian General Cherry signed a LoI. Patria plans to initiate drone production in Finland, which would support the development of Europe’s defence capabilities

• Ukraine would receive about 90% of the drones built by Finnish companies under a planned Finland–Ukraine framework agreement. The other 10% would stay in Finland.

• Britain signed a partnership with Ukraine to jointly develop artificial intelligence tools for defence and security, ​giving British researchers access to a Ukrainian battlefield data platform ‌used to train military AI systems.

Relevant Global Developments

• Chinese drone manufacturers are focusing on low-cost interceptor drones produced using 3D printing and equipped with artificial intelligence. The technology is also being actively exported abroad, including to Russia.

• An explosive drone found near a Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig airport in early August bore the hallmarks of devices typically employed by Russia's Military Intelligence Directorate, the GRU, a U.S. intelligence source told.

• Slovak police thwarted a planned arson attack on the Ukrainian Skyeton production facility in the eastern part of the country, where unmanned systems are manufactured.

• Japan’s defense procurement agency has signed a mass-production agreement for interceptor drones, selecting the Terra B1, a rocket-launched system developed by domestic industrial giant Terra Drone. The Terra B1 is the Japan-made counterpart to the Terra A1, which was fielded on Ukrainian battlefields earlier this year.

• The UAE has built massive protective cages around fuel tanks at Dubai airport after one of those tanks was struck by an Iranian drone early in the war.

Work with Ukraine

• The Ukrainian agency Calibrated organizes Defence Tech Comms Bootcamps, a training programme designed for Ukrainian defence-tech professionals. The programme provides insights into market opportunities and potential areas of cooperation across different regions and countries. The autumn edition will focus on opportunities in Asia. Calibrated is currently open to sponsorship partnerships. Contact them here.

The Ukraine Drone Brief is usually available exclusively to VIP subscribers, while all other newsletters are available to regular paid subscribers.

Thank you for considering supporting my work with a paid subscription. None of the content in this newsletter is sponsored, so your support helps me continue doing this work independently and dedicate more time to it.

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Read earlier relevant reports:

• Ukraine’s Pursuit of Drone Autonomy: NORDA Dynamics;

• The Fourth Law: Autonomy for Every Drone;

• What Is Russia’s Banderol Missile/Drone?

• Ukraine’s First Autonomous Interceptor Drones;

• Drones Against Civilians: How Russia Uses UAVs to Kill and Terrorize.

Ukraine held its first robot parade, showcasing unmanned ground vehicles moving in formation, maritime drones, FPV drone swarms, and interceptor drones. Over the past year, Ukraine has significantly strengthened its unmanned capabilities. At the same time, new threats continue to emerge. One of the most pressing challenges is Russia’s growing use of jet-powered Shahed/Geran drones. While effective countermeasures are only beginning to emerge, some Ukrainian developers are partnering with international companies to design and test potential solutions.

In this edition:

• Korean Company Develops Battery Packs for Ukrainian Interceptor Drones;

• The Challenge of Jet-Powered Shaheds;

• What Is Russia’s Banderol Missile/Drone?

• Heavy Bombers: A Pilot of “Vampire” Tells About His Daily Operations.

For more concise weekly updates on developments in drone warfare in Ukraine and Russia, consider subscribing to my Saturday edition of the Ukraine Drone Brief, available to VIP subscribers.

As you know, none of my publications are sponsored, so I rely on your support to continue this work. Thank you for reading and supporting me and Ukraine!

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Korean Company Develops Battery Packs for Ukrainian Interceptor Drones

According to Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR), North Korea is now deploying around 400 drone operators to Russia. HUR says their drones will likely be used for reconnaissance and attacks against targets inside Ukraine.

South Korea, meanwhile, remains reluctant to provide military support to Ukraine, which also limits its opportunities to learn directly from Ukraine’s combat experience. At the same time, South Korean businesses seem to recognize the importance of working with Ukraine much faster.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the first Korean company testing its defence solution with Ukrainian military units. Several other Korean innovators have also been partnering with Ukraine.

Mobius is the South Korea-based company now developing, with Ukrainian partners, a high-performance battery solution for a new generation of interceptor drones capable of reaching speeds of more than 400 km/h — and potentially exceeding 600 km/h. I spoke with Eugene Choi, CEO of Mobius, to learn how this cooperation is progressing.

When the company first explored cooperation with Ukraine, its initial idea was relatively broad: developing batteries for use across different types of drones. During early discussions, the company was advised that competing with Ukrainian manufacturers in batteries and components for inexpensive drones would make little sense. “Ukraine is probably the best in the world when it comes to low-cost drones,” Eugene told me. “Cost-wise, they are way better than us.”

Instead, the Korean company began exploring technologies in which its own advantages could complement Ukrainian expertise. Ukrainian developers were seeking battery systems capable of supporting interceptor drones flying faster than 400 km/h.

As Russia increases the share of jet-powered Geran drones in its mass attacks against Ukraine, conventional interceptor drones are too slow to engage these faster-moving targets. Jet-powered Gerans can fly at speeds exceeding 300 km/h, while an interceptor generally needs to be at least 20% faster than its target. Recently, Ukraine’s Defence Forces have received their first domestically produced jet-powered interceptor, Alexa Spatium.

High-speed interceptor drones place very different demands on their power systems than conventional FPV drones.

The Korean company Mobius is developing its battery packs using commercially available cells. The innovation lies primarily in how those cells are integrated into the battery system. One of the greatest challenges is heat. Very high discharge rates can cause battery cells to heat rapidly, creating both performance and safety problems. The Korean design combines a specialized thermal-management material with a customized circuit architecture intended to prevent overheating during high-power operation.

Ukraine’s winters create another challenge for battery-powered drones. Batteries stored or deployed in very low temperatures may require time to reach an optimal operating temperature before providing maximum performance. For conventional systems, several minutes of preparation may be acceptable. Air-defence interceptors do not have that luxury. When a Russian Shahed or another aerial target is detected, an interceptor may need to launch almost immediately.

“For interceptor drones, it should be a very quick response,” Eugene Choi from Mobius explained. “Warm-up time is going to be critical.”

The project has now reached the final design stage. The formal testing of the latest design is expected to begin in September. The company representative also plans to travel to Ukraine for that purpose.

Mobius deliberately designed the pack around a standardized architecture so that it could potentially be integrated into several platforms. This could include other high-performance drones, unmanned maritime systems, and additional battery-powered defence applications that require high power output. Standardization is particularly important for Ukraine’s rapidly expanding drone ecosystem, which includes thousands of drone models.

The company is interested in working not only with its existing Ukrainian partners but with other interceptor-drone developers in Ukraine and NATO countries.

If interceptor production reaches hundreds of thousands of systems annually, battery manufacturing will also have to move far beyond prototype quantities. For the initial phase, the company plans to begin small-volume production in South Korea before the end of this year. Its current target for October through December is approximately 2,000 battery packs per month.

If Ukrainian demand grows as expected, that capacity would be insufficient. The company therefore plans to expand production during the first quarter of next year and is considering establishing an assembly facility in Eastern Europe. Poland is one of the leading options because of its role as a logistics hub supporting Ukraine. The location could also offer an advantage: reducing investors’ concerns about concentrating the production of strategically important defence technology in a facility that could become a target of a Russian operation.

The longer-term model could consequently involve two production locations: one in South Korea and another in Eastern Europe closer to Ukrainian customers.

The company is also raising investment to accelerate this expansion. Several Korean investors and at least one European investor have expressed interest, according to the company representative.

According to Eugene, there is another obstacle to Korea–Ukraine defence cooperation – a bureaucratic one. For South Korean citizens, travelling to Ukraine remains difficult because government authorization is required; obtaining permission can take approximately 45 days.

Eugene also added that attempts to contact the relevant embassy channels had been difficult. A dedicated fast-track mechanism for companies participating in approved Ukraine–South Korea defence and technology projects could therefore make defence cooperation between the businesses considerably easier.

Although the future of a formal Ukraine–South Korea defence partnership remains uncertain, growing business involvement in Ukraine is creating a precedent for deeper cooperation and offering some hope that the broader relationship may eventually change.

Considering the U.S. administration’s decision to scale back military exercises with South Korea, Seoul may find itself in a situation similar to that of other U.S. allies, including Canada and European countries, which have been diversifying their defence partnerships over the past year. In this context, deeper defence cooperation with Ukraine could make particular sense for South Korea.

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Read other relevant reports:

• Newtype Industries: The First Korean Defence Startup Testing in Ukraine;

• Ukraine and South Korea: Underexplored Opportunities for Defence Cooperation;

• Inside Ukraine’s Interceptor Drone Race: A Pilot’s View;

• Drone warfare in Ukraine: war in the Middle East and Ukraine’s expertise.

The Challenge of Jet-Powered Shaheds

According to Ukrainian electronic warfare expert and adviser to the President, Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov, Russia is increasingly using jet-powered Shahed drones and other strike systems for attacks against targets in Ukraine’s rear areas.

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Today is Ukraine’s 35th Independence Day! 🇺🇦 For more than a third of those 35 years, Ukraine has been defending itself against aggression from its neighbour, Russia. All that time and resources could have been spent on economic development, education, and culture. Instead, Ukraine has already been at war for 12 years and is now spending 40% of its GDP on defence while losing its youngest and brightest people.

Ukraine, which entered this war essentially disarmed, has transformed into a global security provider, helping allies and partners around the world defend themselves against dictatorial regimes seeking greater global dominance.

On this 35th Independence Day, we should thank everyone serving in Ukraine’s Defence Forces, everyone working in the Ukrainian defence industry and civil society, and all Ukrainians who contribute to the country’s resilience and keep it a stronghold of democracy.

We should also value a society that remains vocal, that disagrees and protests, that is not afraid to criticize, and that continues to ask for the support it needs to carry out a mission that is not only about Ukraine’s future, but about the future of all democracies.

Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Heroes!

For the occasion of Ukraine’s Independence Day, this edition of my newsletter is free.

In this edition:

• Ukraine Aims to Secure Additional Air Defence Missiles Ahead of Winter;

• Ukraine Advances Development and Production of Domestic KABs;

• How the Helicopter War Is Changing in Ukraine;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

Thank you for reading and supporting my work and Ukraine!

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Ukraine Aims to Secure Additional Air Defence Missiles Ahead of Winter

CNN was recently granted access to a Patriot system operating in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian officials to highlight the severity of the country’s interceptor shortage. The launcher showed clear signs of frequent use across all 16 launch tubes. However, the system’s chief engineer in Ukraine said he had not seen the Patriot fire in six weeks.

According to Ukraine’s data, Russia has the potential to produce up to 1,300 ballistic missiles a year, and currently has around 600-630 such missiles at its disposal. Additionally, Russia has been positioning North Korean ballistic missiles within striking range of seven Ukrainian regions, including Kyiv. Ukrainian intelligence and the Institute for the Study of War wrote that six launchers have been deployed in Russia’s Voronezh region, while North Korea has supplied Moscow with around 50 KN-series ballistic missiles.

Following a call with President Zelensky, French President Macron has pledged to expand military support for Ukraine. Macron said France would continue working through the Anti-Missile Coalition established in Paris in July.

The Anti-Missile Coalition is a 10-member European initiative aimed at developing a more affordable European alternative to countering ballistic missile threats, rather than relying solely on US-made Patriot systems. At the coalition’s launch, Macron also said France planned to accelerate deliveries of the new SAMP/T system to Ukraine and provide licences enabling Ukrainian production of interceptor missiles, SCALP long-range cruise missiles, and other munitions. Ukraine is expected to receive one SAMP/T air-defence system and new air-defence radars from France this autumn.

Also, President Zelensky met former US presidential envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on August 22. The president underscored the importance of securing additional Patriot interceptor missiles ahead of winter. “Ukraine is ready to buy them, and any efforts in this direction are important,” he said.

Euronews reported that, according to a European Commission official familiar with discussions over the EU’s €90 billion loan for Ukraine, Kyiv has proposed using part of the next defence funding package to procure anti-ballistic missile systems, alongside other priority capabilities.

Oleh Katkov, editor-in-chief of Defense Express, told Radio NV that we should not expect the situation with the Patriot anti-ballistic interceptors to improve dramatically in the near future — and that even the United States faces serious limitations in that regard.

According to Katkov, citing multiple reports, the U.S. inventory of PAC-3 MSE interceptors is only slightly above 800. With roughly 60 Patriot systems in U.S. service, this would be enough to fully load only about two launchers per system at most.

Russia is already producing more ballistic missiles than the United States produces PAC-3 MSE interceptors. Russia currently produces around 110 weapons per month that require Patriot-class interception, while Lockheed Martin manufactures only about 60 PAC-3 MSE missiles per month.

Alternative foreign suppliers are extremely limited. Katkov argued that Israel, for instance, should be excluded as an option, as it has blocked even the re-export of Israeli-made weapons to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s domestic systems will also take time. According to the latest estimates he cited, testing of an interceptor missile for the Ukrainian Freyja air-defence system may begin only in summer 2027. A considerable period would then still be required to complete trials, begin low-rate production, scale up serial manufacturing, and deliver meaningful quantities to the military.

Raytheon can reportedly produce around 220 GEM-T/PAC-2 missiles per year. These can be used against ballistic targets, but unlike PAC-3 MSE, they generally do not destroy the incoming missile through hit-to-kill interception. Instead, they may damage or deflect it, meaning the missile and its warhead can still fall and explode elsewhere.

Even if Ukraine receives a larger share of available Patriot missiles, the global supply remains far below the scale of the threat.

Without waiting for additional interceptors, Ukraine is also pursuing an alternative approach to reduce the threat posed by ballistic missile attacks. Earlier, citing a podcast with Ukrainian aviation expert Anatoliy Khrapchynskyi, I reported that Russia was seeking to increase the number of missile launchers available for its strikes and that one of Ukraine’s priorities would be to target those launchers.

Last week, Zelensky said Ukraine had launched a new operation aimed at Russian ballistic missile launchers near the border. Ukrainian forces had struck an Iskander ballistic missile launcher.

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Ukraine Advances Development and Production of Domestic KABs

Russian guided aerial bombs, or KABs, remain one of the most serious threats to Ukraine’s Armed Forces, which still lack a dedicated countermeasure against them. In 2026, Ukraine has increasingly focused on developing its own capabilities in this category.

Ukraine’s Leveler or Equalizer (“Vyrivniuvach”) guided aerial bomb has completed the required testing, been codified for use by the Armed Forces, and is now officially being procured for the military. DW reports on this and other innovations:

• Leveler, developed by Brave1 participant DG Industry, is a glide-and-correction module that converts a conventional 250 kg aerial bomb into a precision-guided weapon. Its stated range is 10 to 130 km, and it is designed to strike targets at operational depth.

• Leveler is made up of roughly 90% Ukrainian and Western components.

  Nearly all of its key elements have been developed in Ukraine, from the wing assembly to the flight-control software. The main exceptions are certain chips and microelectronic components.

• Unlike the French AASM guided bomb, Leveler does not have its own propulsion system.

• Integrating the bomb with Western aircraft such as the F-16 and Mirage 2000 would require certification from the aircraft manufacturers. Brave1 says, however, that the weapon is technically compatible with both platforms.

• According to Ukrainian authorities, it is only one of roughly ten Ukrainian guided-bomb projects currently under development. These systems are at different stages of testing, with some undergoing more advanced trials and others broader evaluation.

• Developers are also working on modules for bombs of different sizes, not only 250 kg weapons. Among the systems under development is a version with a 500 kg warhead, twice the weight of the model already being procured.

• All of the systems are Ukrainian-made. Ukrainian designs are significantly cheaper than foreign equivalents, making it easier to scale up production. The cost of Leveler is estimated to be about three times lower than that of the U.S.-made JDAM-ER kit.

• Guided aerial bombs remain among the most difficult targets for Ukrainian air defences, largely because of the way they are employed. Russian aircraft climb to the required altitude and speed before releasing the bombs from outside the engagement range of Ukrainian air-defence systems. The munition then accelerates and uses its own guidance systems to reach the target.

• Ukrainian forces can intercept guided aerial bombs, but far less frequently than drones. Electronic warfare systems that are effective against UAVs have only a limited impact on KABs.

• This is one reason Russia uses KABs in areas where artillery is less effective or unavailable, including sectors where Ukrainian forces hold an advantage or where Ukrainian EW is actively disrupting Russian drones.

• The intensity of Russian guided-bomb strikes has increased significantly. Russia used an average of around 180 KABs per day in 2025, while the current rate has risen to more than 300 per day.

Military Transfers to Ukraine and Defence Cooperation

• 🇩🇪 According to the draft budget, the German government plans to increase military aid to Ukraine to a record level in 2027. The budget line covering assistance to countries affected by aggression will total €11.612 billion, with around €9.05 billion allocated specifically to support Ukraine.

• 🇳🇴 Norway plans to maintain its support for Ukraine at NOK 85 billion ($9.15 billion) in 2027, with the majority of the funding expected to be allocated to military assistance.

• 🇮🇹 Italian defence giant Leonardo has set up a subsidiary in Ukraine. Leonardo Ukraine will focus on scientific and engineering R&D spanning communications and navigation systems, software, IT services, and electronic and optical technologies.

• 🇺🇸 The U.S. Army is seeking companies capable of supplying scarce and obsolete components for M2A2 ODS-SA Bradley infantry fighting vehicles intended for military assistance to Ukraine.

  Following repairs, the vehicles are expected to be fully operational and ready for transfer to Ukraine, and their subsequent maintenance must be supported without delays due to spare-parts shortages.

• 🇸🇪 🇫🇷 Contracts for the supply of foreign-made Gripen and Rafale fighter jets to the Ukrainian Air Force include provisions for the localization of production and maintenance in Ukraine.

• 🇫🇷 The Ukrainian Khyzhak anti-drone turret was tested in the Mediterranean aboard the French Navy frigate La Fayette. This marks the first known test of a Ukrainian military system by the French Navy.

Defence Production and Innovation in Ukraine

• Around 80% of the artillery shells ordered for Ukraine’s Defence Forces are now produced domestically. Most of them are long-range 155 mm rounds.

• Construction of a solid rocket fuel plant in Denmark, planned by the Ukrainian missile manufacturer Fire Point, has been delayed until the end of 2027, while projected costs have more than tripled. Danish authorities have removed more than 20 legal and regulatory barriers to allow Fire Point to establish a production site in the country for fuel used in its Flamingo cruise missiles. However, the company now needs to build a new facility after determining that the building it initially acquired was unsuitable for solid rocket fuel production.

• Ukraine’s Defence Ministry’s Center for Innovation and Development of Defense Technologies is expanding its team after the number of DELTA users tripled over the past year. The center is recruiting specialists from the civilian IT sector to work on digital products designed for frontline use.

How Ukraine’s Helicopter War Is Changing

Russia’s full-scale invasion has significantly changed the role of both attack and multirole helicopters in Ukraine, writes Arkadii Dotsenko for Oboronka.

Attack helicopters, originally designed to provide close support to ground forces and operate directly over the battlefield, are now forced to remain farther from the front because of dense air defences, electronic warfare, and the growing threat from drones.

Multirole helicopters still transport personnel and cargo and evacuate the wounded, but they have also taken on new missions, including the interception of long-range strike drones deep behind the front.

• As the airspace over the battlefield became increasingly dangerous, a new niche emerged for helicopters in the Ukrainian rear: hunting Shahed-type drones.

• The Shahed-136 travels at roughly 180 km/h, while helicopters such as the Mi-8 have enough speed to catch up with the target, match its course, and give an onboard gunner time to engage it.

• The full architecture of these interceptions is not publicly disclosed, but the general principle is clear: air-defence command receives information from radar stations, acoustic sensors, and observation posts and guides the helicopter crew toward the target area. Once there, the crew searches for the drone visually or with thermal imaging equipment, approaches it from the side or rear, and engages it over an area where falling debris poses a limited risk.

• Ukraine’s distributed network of acoustic sensors, sometimes referred to as Sky Fortress, is particularly important because it can provide early targeting information to both mobile fire teams and aviation. In this role, the helicopter becomes an airborne mobile fire group.

• In July 2026, it was disclosed that Soviet-made helicopters were being upgraded with modern communications, navigation, reconnaissance, and targeting systems. These upgrades are intended not only to make it easier to find drones, but also to integrate helicopter crews into Ukraine’s broader air-defence network, allowing them to receive targeting data in time, maintain situational awareness, and coordinate with ground-based air-defence systems.

• Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters have also been equipped with thermal sights and high-rate-of-fire machine guns, including six-barrel M134 Miniguns. In March 2026, the Ukrainian Navy published footage showing one crew destroying 12 Shahed drones within three hours.

According to Brigadier General Pavlo Bardakov, Commander of the Ukrainian Army Aviation, this capability was not developed overnight. “We have been working on this for more than a year. A lot of research was done to understand how to search for and destroy Shaheds in the most effective way, because nobody in the world had really done this before,” he said.

The task is especially difficult at night because finding a black target is extremely challenging, particularly when there is no moonlight and complete cloud cover.

At the same time, he stressed that Russia continues to adapt: “The situation has changed now. The antenna environment is different, and the tactics of UAV employment are different as well.”

Russia has already begun experimenting with ways to protect its drones from helicopter interception. In December 2025, Ukraine documented for the first time a Shahed-136 carrying a Soviet R-60 air-to-air missile, a weapon originally designed to engage aircraft and helicopters.

The threat also works in the opposite direction. Attack helicopters have themselves become targets for small FPV drones.

In August 2024, operators from the Security Service of Ukraine’s Special Operations Center “A” struck a Russian Mi-28 helicopter in flight over Russia’s Kursk region with an FPV drone. The drone hit the area around the tail rotor, damage to which can cause a helicopter to lose control.

These developments may eventually require helicopters to carry their own dedicated counter-drone protection, including optical, thermal, acoustic, or compact radar sensors, electronic warfare systems, and potentially kinetic counter-UAS systems.

Ukraine’s current helicopter force has been shaped not only by the war with Russia but also by decades of operational experience abroad.

Bardakov recalled that Ukrainian Army Aviation went through a difficult period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, when there were chronic shortages of fuel, personnel, and spare parts.

The recovery began around 2002–2003, when Ukrainian helicopter crews started participating extensively in United Nations missions in countries including Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Côte d’Ivoire.

Those deployments became an important training ground for a generation of Ukrainian pilots. According to him, Africa played a very significant role in developing highly experienced pilots and in forming many of Ukraine’s helicopter aces. “A young pilot could return after a mission with around 300 flight hours and a level of training that allowed him to conduct independent flights. For us, that was an enormous contribution in terms of ready crews.”

Operating in Africa also pushed crews to understand the limits of their aircraft: “High temperatures, mountains, difficult weather conditions — you had to really feel the helicopter and calculate every takeoff and landing very carefully. Africa does not forgive mistakes.”

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine withdrew its aviation personnel and assets from overseas missions.

Despite extensive modernization, Ukraine’s current helicopter fleet faces a structural problem: much of it is Soviet-designed, and many of the necessary spare parts were historically produced in Russia.

Bardakov said Ukraine has already modified some of its helicopters to use Western weapons, navigation systems, and other equipment, but modernization can only extend the life of the existing fleet for so long.

“Aviation is always expensive. Helicopters are expensive, pilot training is expensive, maintenance is expensive, and aviation weapons are expensive.”

The problem is particularly acute because Soviet-era helicopters cannot remain in service indefinitely: “Most of the spare parts for the helicopters we currently operate were produced in Russia. Sooner or later, the service life of these helicopters will come to an end, and there will be nothing to replace them with.”

For that reason, Ukraine expects that in the medium term it will have to transition to Western helicopters — not necessarily newly manufactured aircraft, but potentially modernized platforms obtained from partner countries.

For Army Aviation, Bardakov said the UH-60 Black Hawk is currently seen as one of the strongest candidates for a future core platform.

“The main helicopter we see is the UH-60 Black Hawk — a universal aircraft for both combat and transport missions. It has proven itself in many operations and, in our view, offers an optimal balance of capability, price, and effectiveness.”

Defence Express has also reported that Ukrainian Army Aviation wants the UH-60 to become the foundation of its future helicopter fleet, although separate discussions are ongoing with Bell regarding possible localization of the UH-1Y Venom and AH-1Z Viper in Ukraine.

Bardakov cautioned, however, that not every Western helicopter is suitable for the realities of the current war. Ukraine requires aircraft that can remain stored outdoors, be maintained to a significant degree by their own crews, and work with appropriate avionics and weapons without requiring an excessively fragile support structure.

“Very delicate and very expensive machines do not necessarily correspond to the conditions of modern war. We have to approach this from a practical point of view.”

According to Bardakov, teaching experienced Ukrainian pilots to physically fly a Western helicopter is not the hardest part. “If you put an experienced pilot into the cockpit of almost any Western helicopter, after a few hours he can understand the basics, because the principles of flight control are largely the same.”

The bigger challenge is the entire technical ecosystem around the aircraft.

Maintenance manuals, technical documentation, instructor training, and operating procedures are generally in English. That means the transition to Western platforms will require not only aircraft and spare parts, but also a long-term training and support infrastructure.

Bardakov described Russian helicopter crews as performing many of the same missions as Ukrainian Army Aviation, but with an advantage in the age and technical sophistication of their aircraft. “Their equipment is newer and more modern. From a purely technical perspective, they are significantly ahead.”

Yet the technological competition continues to evolve rapidly.

Defence Express recently published footage of a Russian Ka-52 helicopter attempting to intercept a Ukrainian FP-1 long-range strike drone. The helicopter reportedly launched an air-to-air missile at the UAV, but the missile missed its target.

Drones have not made helicopters obsolete. Helicopters remain essential for transporting troops and cargo, evacuating wounded personnel, inserting small groups, and operating from areas without prepared airfields. But the war in Ukraine is forcing Army Aviation to change its tactics, equipment, and even its understanding of what a helicopter is supposed to do.

Updates in Russia

• Some Russian forces in northern Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts are disbanding tank units to prioritize drone and assault operations amid broader military reorganizations to optimize for positional warfare.

• According to Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR), Russia has built a secret military biolaboratory complex in the Tver region, where experiments involving dangerous pathogens are being conducted under the cover of veterinary research.

• Russia may free up to 20,000 combat-ready troops stationed in border regions to reinforce the most intense frontline sectors in Ukraine by replacing them with North Korean personnel.

• The Kremlin is recruiting local gang members in NATO countries to sabotage defence manufacturers to test NATO’s resolve. The attacks appear carefully calculated to fall just short of triggering Article 5, Nato’s mutual defence clause, intelligence officials believe.

  Recently, a building belonging to Milrem Robotics, a Tallinn-based firm that supplies weapons to Ukraine, was set ablaze.

Developments on the Battlefield and Beyond

• On the night of August 20, Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine using several types of missiles and 168 drones.

  At dawn, one of Ukraine’s mobile border-guard fire teams detected an incoming Russian cruise missile in its sector and shot it down with a machine gun, which is an extremely difficult task.

• Ukraine’s Parliament approved President Zelensky’s nomination of Yevhenii Khmara as Ukraine’s new Defence Minister. Khmara replaces Mykhailo Fedorov, who headed the ministry for six months, from January 14 to July 16, 2026.

  Khmara is an SBU major general and career special operations officer. He served for more than 15 years in the Security Service of Ukraine’s Special Operations Center “A” (“Alpha”).

• French OSINT analyst Clement Molin reported that while it's hard to get precise statistics, it's established that around 10 to 20% of Russian drones are not shot down during strikes on Ukraine. When Kyiv strikes Russia, we're talking about a maximum of 2 to 5% hitting their target. “Nevertheless, many less defended targets are within range of the drones, particularly in the border regions,” he added.

• The August 21 Russian double-tap strike against a shopping center in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, caused a 9,000 square-meter fire, killed 16 people, and injured 130, including 26 children. Putin claimed Russian strikes impact combat operations in a “positive way” and stated that Kyiv “opened a Pandora’s box” by attacking Russian economic sites.

• On August 22, Russia fired a ballistic missile towards Kyiv in the middle of the day, while the German foreign minister was visiting Ukraine’s capital.

• On the evening of August 17, a Russian Banderol missile crossed the border near Transnistria and continued toward central Moldova.

  Ukraine’s HUR previously told Militarnyi that Russia is capable of producing around 80 Banderol missiles per month. About a month ago, a new ground-based launcher developed specifically for the missile was also revealed. Previously known launch platforms for the S8000 Banderol included the Orion UAV and the Mi-28 attack helicopter.

• In Odesa Oblast, a Russian jet-powered drone struck a passenger train locomotive traveling from Zhytomyr to Odesa. All passengers and railway personnel were evacuated in time. The train was carrying 593 passengers, including 15 children.

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Ukraine is launching larger drone attacks, with more than 600 drones sent toward Moscow, while Russian drones are now regularly reaching NATO territory by air and sea. Russia’s expansion of drone launch sites suggests that this trend is likely to continue.

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Aerial Drones

• Ukraine reportedly developed a plan, codenamed “M&Ms,” to launch up to 1,000 autonomous, low-cost drones toward Moscow in a single night. The operation, developed under former Defense Minister Fedorov, was intended to overwhelm Russian air defenses and disrupt air traffic at Moscow’s airports. According to The Atlantic, Zelensky expressed reservations about such a mission, warning that it could be seen as “piracy”. Another official in the President’s Office denied that there was any such plan.

• Russia is switching to jet engines not only for Shahed-type drones but also for lower-cost BM-35 mid-range strike drones. They can reach speeds of over 350 km/h, have a range exceeding 200 km, and carry a 10 kg warhead.

• Russian jet-powered Geran-3 can fly from the Belarusian border to Kyiv in approximately 35 minutes — around four times faster than the previous version. Jet-powered Geran drones currently account for 20-30% of all such drones.

Ground Drones (UGVs)

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On August 7, Abelardo de la Espriella was inaugurated as President of Colombia. During his election campaign, he promised to bring peace to Colombian society, which continues to be affected by hundreds of armed groups.

Given the new government’s political orientation toward the US and the broader Western world, the coming four years present a window of opportunity to revive cooperation between Colombia and Ukraine. I spoke with a Ukrainian drone pilot, defence industry representatives, and Colombian thought leaders and realized that such cooperation would be mutually beneficial. Ukraine could gain a strong ally in South America, while Colombian authorities could strengthen their capabilities to counter domestic security threats.

Why are guerrilla groups so difficult to counter? Because they retain the initiative and choose when and where to attack. Ukraine could contribute to developing a solution to counter armed groups in Colombia: from shaping the overall strategy and developing practical solutions, such as identifying the commercial sources of drones and building electronic warfare systems, to planning offensive actions aimed at regaining the initiative.

This article is available in Spanish. Thanks to the volunteer community InformNapalm and Anna Garsia for translating. ¡Este artículo está disponible en español! Muchas gracias a Anna Garsia, voluntaria de la comunidad internacional de InformNapalm, por su trabajo en la traducción de esta publicación.

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A week before this major political transition, I was in Bogotá for a conference organized by the Naval Academy of Strategic Studies and attended by personnel from the Colombian Navy and Army. I delivered a 40-minute presentation on drone and counter-drone innovations in Ukraine.

In Colombia, drones are not a novel technology. For over a decade, they have been used by paramilitary and drug-trafficking groups for a variety of illicit purposes, including reconnaissance, delivery, and attacks against government forces. Although the Colombian government pursued several projects in drone and anti-drone warfare, they demonstrated limited effectiveness. In this context, closer cooperation with Ukraine would help Colombia keep pace with emerging threats.

Through private conversations, I learned that there had been several attempts to establish cooperation on these issues, but due to political challenges in recent years, they did not materialize. I believe this is about to change.

Colombia–Ukraine Relations and the Russia Factor

Bilateral relations between Ukraine and Colombia have been underprioritized for years. The first communication between the presidents of the two states took place in April 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion. In the first months of the full-scale invasion, Colombia voted in support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity at the UN General Assembly. In the following years, however, it mostly abstained from voting on relevant resolutions.

Ukraine does not currently have a resident diplomatic mission in Colombia; bilateral relations are overseen by the Ukrainian Embassy in Peru.

Russia, on the other hand, has long maintained a strong presence in the country, allowing it to spread its narratives and build influence. Prof. Carlos Patiño from the National University of Colombia informed me that Russia has operated — and continues to operate — a structured intelligence network in Colombia since 2017.

Despite the official congratulations on de la Espriella’s victory, Russia’s frustration with the election outcome is already evident in the coverage of several pro-government information channels. The Telegram channel Rybar, for example, has been criticizing his counterterrorism agenda daily and apparently no longer includes Colombia on the list of friendly countries.

This is a good sign.

There are very few international organizations in Colombia actively trying to counter Russia’s influence. One of them is the German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. The director of its Colombia office, Dr. Kristin Wesemann, told me that one of the Foundation’s goals is to support democratic institutions, security, and innovation-driven economies around the world. In Colombia, the Foundation works to counter disinformation and Russian narratives. It also raises awareness of developments in Ukraine and Europe and organizes workshops with military personnel, police, and politicians to strengthen understanding of Russian propaganda and influence operations.

In the context of drone warfare, Russia has already been advancing multiple disinformation narratives, claiming that Ukraine allows cartels and paramilitary groups to gain drone warfare experience or is even supplying drones to South America. These claims have been repeatedly refuted, but they can still resonate with unprepared audiences.

European intelligence agencies have also warned that Russia has been collecting captured Ukrainian drones for potential use in staged provocations in third countries. It would therefore not be surprising to see Russia attempt a similar tactic in Latin America, potentially using captured Ukrainian drones to manufacture evidence supporting its disinformation narratives.

Colombians in the Russia–Ukraine War

Currently, around 16,000 foreigners are serving in Ukraine’s armed forces, with citizens of Latin American countries comprising about 40% of that number. Some sources estimate that around 7,000 Colombians have fought in Ukraine, where they have been praised for their strong preparation and resilience on the battlefield. For instance, in July, an assault group of Colombian volunteers fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces eliminated Russian troops on a section of the front between Ukrainian positions in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Under international law, foreign soldiers in Ukraine are not mercenaries but members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; they have the right to prisoner-of-war status and are protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Ukrainian authorities say they attempt to check the profiles of all foreign combatants applying to join the Armed Forces and even reject some. At the same time, we can understand that amid the massive manpower needs on the battlefield, Ukraine has limited resources to verify the backgrounds of every foreign volunteer.

In private conversations in Colombia, I was told that over the previous four years, there had been little interest among Colombian authorities in working with Ukraine to address this problem.

With Ukraine planning to expand foreign recruitment in the near future, this could become a more serious issue. The Executive Director of the Institute of Political Science, based in Bogotá, Carlos Augusto Chacón, believes that it’s important for Colombia and Ukraine to exchange information on criminal recruiters and intermediaries, strengthen vetting of foreign recruits, investigate attempts to divert military knowledge or components, and establish robust end-use controls. “Any investigation of Colombian returnees must be based on individualised evidence and conducted under judicial oversight, without treating all veterans or volunteers as security risks,” Carlos added.

Currently, Ukraine is building a system in which foreign recruits will be vetted and sign contracts directly with military units. Since the government plans to involve private recruitment companies and pay them for each candidate who joins the military, Ukraine will also need to check the people who identify and bring them into the recruitment system. The government should know every local agent used by a recruitment company. Before departure, candidates should receive information about their contracts, pay, and future service directly from a government-authorized centre. “When a company recruits people abroad through several intermediaries, the government should be able to see the entire chain. Otherwise, Ukraine may thoroughly check someone once they reach the country while knowing very little about how — or on what terms — they were brought there,” wrote Ihor Bezkaravaynyi, Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine.

The actual number of foreign nationals fighting for Russia remains unknown. As of March 30, Ukraine had identified 27,407 foreign nationals serving with Russian forces from at least 135 countries.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), together with two other organizations, has analyzed Russia’s recruitment of foreigners. Cuba and Colombia have been identified as the main recruitment hotspots in the region.

In early August 2026, Colombian news channel Noticias Caracol published an investigation based on testimonies from the families of missing soldiers, describing how Russia is recruiting Colombian citizens and using them as cannon fodder in its war of aggression against Ukraine.

Russia recruits Colombians for several reasons. First, Colombia has a large number of people with military and paramilitary experience as a result of the country’s long-running armed conflict. The second reason is economic, as financial incentives can make such recruitment attractive to vulnerable individuals. A third factor is that the Colombian government has not yet taken strong measures to prevent or oppose these recruitment efforts.

The investigation also described the routes through which recruits are reportedly sent to Russia. From Colombia, recruits are first sent to Peru or Panama and then to Brazil. From there, they may travel through Morocco, India, or the UAE before eventually reaching Russia, using routes through countries that maintain relatively close relations with Moscow. While the Russian Embassy in Colombia stated that it was not involved in recruiting Colombian citizens, the Colombians featured in the investigation presented contracts signed with the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Looking at this issue in a broader context, it is important to understand that even if Colombian fighters were not cartel or paramilitary members at the time of recruitment, once they return home, they might become targets for violent groups seeking their knowledge and expertise and offering better economic opportunities.

The Use of Drones by Non-State Actors in Colombia

Violence in Colombia has lasted for decades. The modern armed conflict officially began in 1964 with the formation of two separate guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). Despite reconciliation processes, several groups that now use drones refused to demobilize following the 2016 peace agreement.

In 2025, illegal armed groups in Colombia expanded significantly and together numbered more than 27,000 members. Armed groups, which finance themselves through drug trafficking, illegal mining, and other crimes, remain active in Colombia after a six-decade conflict that has left more than 450,000 people dead.

The use of drones has risen sharply in recent years. Armed groups are using these systems mainly for two purposes: attacks and surveillance. They target specific infrastructure and attack police and the army, but another very common use is territorial control through surveillance flights.

One of the more effective tactics is to use drones for forward observation, identifying and adjusting targets before attacks with improvised explosive devices launched on indirect trajectories. Armed groups also use weaponized drones to drop 60 mm grenades vertically onto positions. Another method involves climbing to high altitude before approaching the target and releasing the payload, helping the drone reduce its exposure to some counter-UAS systems.

Colombia’s mountainous and heavily forested terrain provides armed groups with concealed areas from which they can prepare and launch drone-enabled attacks. In regions such as Catatumbo, Cauca, Nariño, and Urabá, security forces can find their movements disrupted by drones operated from hidden rear positions.

Armed groups in Colombia obtain drones through several channels, including consumer marketplaces such as Amazon and Temu, local intermediaries, and cross-border smuggling networks. Commercial systems are then adapted for operational or combat use.

Colombia’s MoD reported 8,395 weaponized drone attacks in 2025, 333 of which were “effective” in striking their targets. This represented a 445% increase over 2024, when 61 effective incidents were recorded. Overall, according to the Defence Ministry, 20 people were killed by drones in 2025, and 297 were injured.

The offensive use of armed UAVs in Latin America reached its most significant escalation on 21 August 2025, when an FPV drone “successfully” targeted a Colombian National Police helicopter, killing 12 police officers.

Since 2019, Colombia’s security forces have acquired at least nine counter-UAS systems from both domestic and international suppliers. So far, however, these investments have produced limited results. Illegal armed groups continue to adapt quickly, including by using platforms such as Autel drones with frequency-hopping capabilities that can bypass some systems currently in service. According to technical assessments, jammers may be only 30–50% effective even against relatively basic drones. Armed groups have already been reported using lower-frequency links that conventional jammers struggle to disrupt.

From their involvement in the Russia–Ukraine war, foreign volunteers are also learning how to bypass military jamming. Some are seeking drones controlled through fibre-optic cables, which allow operators to maintain a connection over long distances without relying on vulnerable radio links.

According to reports, Colombian armed groups are already beginning to use FPV drones but still lack some of the more advanced technical expertise seen in Ukraine, including “how to encrypt the communication between the drone and the person piloting it, or how to set up the explosive charge the way they do in Ukraine.”

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Window of Opportunity for Colombia and Ukraine

“The new administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella is likely to mark a decisive shift away from the negotiation-centred Total Peace policy. The new approach is expected to place greater emphasis on restoring state authority, protecting civilians, recovering territorial control, and dismantling the command, financial, logistical, and political-support networks of illegal armed groups,” says political scientist Carlos Augusto Chacón.

The new president is politically close to the United States and the Trump administration, which will certainly provide opportunities for American businesses to become more involved in Colombia. But there may also be room for Ukrainian innovations, particularly since the Colombian military and law-enforcement agencies recognize they need to learn from Ukraine.

In June 2026, President Zelensky expressed interest in strengthening bilateral relations with Colombia, while de la Espriella responded that his government would be open to expanding cooperation between the two countries.

But what specific technologies from Ukraine would actually be relevant for Colombia?

The threats the two countries face are different. Colombian authorities need to respond to highly adaptive and fast-moving actors with significant resources, rapid decision-making processes, and few constraints imposed by norms or regulations.

Ukrainian contact from one of the elite drone units told me that dealing with guerrillas equipped with drones is a particularly difficult task for any government. “The initiative will remain with guerrilla groups because they are likely to act first. Buildings are easy targets: a drone could be directed at the window of a politician while the operator is hundreds of kilometres away, in the jungle,” he told me.

Yet, we managed to identify several areas where Colombia could benefit from Ukraine’s experience.

• Prioritize early warning and the human component

Against criminal groups, detecting a drone is only part of the problem. Authorities should focus on identifying operators, training locations, assembly workshops, logistics networks, and procurement patterns before deploying drones.

“The only realistic option is to act proactively and target the sources of the threat before drones are deployed. That means identifying the workshops where drones are assembled, locating the pilots and training sites, and using intelligence to disrupt these networks. OSINT and human intelligence can play a major role here, but authorities should also pay attention to seemingly minor indicators: people talk, and information eventually emerges. Commercial activity can also reveal patterns. For example, pilot training inevitably involves crashes and broken components. If someone suddenly starts buying hundreds of propellers every month from radio or hobby stores, that should at least raise a question: why does this person need so many? These small signals, when combined, can help identify a threat before it materializes,” the Ukrainian drone operator told me.

• Establish layered counter-drone defence

BlueBird Tech, the producer of the Chuika drone detector, which is widely used in Ukraine, said that the most realistic approach for Colombia would be a multi-layered counter-drone system combining passive RF detectors, electro-optical cameras, tools for locating drone operators, and localized jamming capabilities. Such a system should be relatively affordable, energy-efficient, and suitable for deployment around military bases, prisons, critical infrastructure, border areas, and mobile convoys. Within this architecture, drone detectors could play a central role by providing early warning and situational awareness.

When dealing with criminal groups, it is often not enough simply to detect the drone itself. It may be equally important to identify the operator’s location and collect information that can later support intelligence or law-enforcement operations.

BlueBird Tech noted that for asymmetric conflicts, drone detectors need to be optimized differently from those for large-scale warfare. Under such conditions, key requirements include a low false-alarm rate, sustained autonomous 24/7 operation, discreet installation, and the ability to determine the operator’s direction or approximate location.

Particular attention should be paid to detecting activity on widely used commercial platforms and short bursts of communication, as criminal groups may operate a drone for only a few dozen seconds. At the same time, fully autonomous drones may have a very limited RF signature, making them difficult to detect with RF sensors alone. The most effective approach is therefore to combine radio-frequency, optical, and acoustic sensors.

• Electronic warfare and military communication

Colombian political scientist Carlos Augusto Chacón believes that jamming alone will not be effective against every threat. The new government inherited an ongoing national counter-drone programme. Its priority should be to evaluate its effectiveness, ensure interoperability among the Armed Forces and Police, conduct realistic operational testing, and avoid fragmented or duplicative procurement.

The Ukrainian drone pilot agrees that jamming everything is not an option. “Police should have access to separate frequencies and dedicated channels that remain usable while jamming is active. One option is to deliberately leave several protected ‘gaps’ in the EW coverage for police communications, using frequencies that are not typical for commercially available systems. The broader principle is that law enforcement should have specialized communications technologies that criminal groups cannot easily replicate with civilian radios. Otherwise, you may disrupt the cartel’s drones and communications, but at the same time lose police communications”.

HIMERA, a Ukrainian producer of tactical radios that recently tested its communication system in the Amazon jungle, noted that the trials were conducted in difficult climatic and geographic conditions, including lowland jungle terrain and heavy tropical rainfall.

The company commented that modern hybrid warfare and efforts to counter transnational organized crime require tactical communications systems that ensure information security, withstand electromagnetic countermeasures, and maintain operational continuity in geographically challenging environments. Their experience in Ukraine has enabled HIMERA to develop a solution that maintains effective communication even in the most challenging conditions. The company believes that such technologies could also be useful for other countries operating in difficult terrain and confronting organized armed groups.

Ukrainian EW producer Kvertus told me that it currently has no specific projects in Colombia but sees significant potential for cooperation. Each country has its own specific operating environment; for this reason, any counter-drone solution has to be adapted to local conditions and the specific nature of the threat.

According to the company, any potential cooperation with Ukraine would need to begin with a request from the Colombian side. If Colombia identifies a need for Ukrainian expertise and technologies, the next step could be to launch a dialogue at the state and relevant government-agency levels to define specific requirements, possible formats of cooperation, and the procedures necessary to implement such projects.

• Strengthen intelligence with the use of AI

The international intelligence community InformNapalm, which has conducted a series of successful OSINT, CYBINT, and HUMINT investigations and contributed to operations against Russian forces, told me that one of the key directions for the development of modern intelligence is the creation of an integrated ecosystem for situational awareness and intelligence fusion, capable of combining information from different intelligence disciplines and the widest possible range of relevant sensors.

This does not necessarily mean creating a single centralized database. More important is establishing an information environment in which data from different institutions can be securely shared, compared, and complemented. Such information may come from HUMINT, SIGINT, GEOINT, OSINT, CYBINT, financial intelligence, technical surveillance, and other relevant sources.

According to InformNapalm, the key challenge is moving from analysing isolated signals toward working with large volumes of accumulated data. Modern algorithms and AI systems can significantly scale analysts’ work by identifying hidden connections, recurring patterns of behaviour and movement, detecting anomalies, analysing changes over time, and helping to develop likely scenarios.

At the same time, the quantity of information should never substitute for its quality. In this model, AI should support analysts rather than replace human judgement or responsibility for final assessments.

InformNapalm sees two interconnected priorities in a complex security environment like one in Colombia:

• The first is expanding the number and diversity of relevant sensors where gaps in observation exist.

• The second, equally important, is improving the sharing, correlation, processing, and timely dissemination of information already available across different institutions. Even high-quality intelligence has limited value if it remains isolated within one agency or reaches decision-makers too late.

Conclusions

The most relevant areas of cooperation between Ukraine and Colombia are limiting violent non-state groups’ access to lessons from Ukraine’s battlefield and strengthening the capabilities of Colombian authorities to address emerging security threats.

In the age of drone warfare, it is important to prioritize the human component of unmanned operations. At least for now, around 80% of a drone mission’s success still depends on the crew. Violent non-state groups will attempt to train their personnel — if not in Ukraine, then in Russia. If that is not possible, they may seek to recruit Colombians and other South Americans returning from the war, or even Ukrainian or Russian soldiers who eventually retire and begin looking for better economic opportunities.

The international organization, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, published a report based on an analytical exercise conducted with Ukrainian drone pilots, concluding that organized crime’s use of drones is now multi-domain. The integration of drones and humans, and the convergence of physical and digital methods, produces a flexible and resilient criminal system that is increasingly difficult to counter with conventional law enforcement tools.

That is why strengthening cooperation channels between Ukraine and Colombia in this area is highly advisable, particularly as Colombia’s political climate is expected to become more favorable. The Colombian Police and Armed Forces are already eager to learn from Ukraine’s experience in drone and counter-drone operations. Strong cooperation channels between the militaries and law-enforcement agencies of both countries, including field visits and regular exchanges, would significantly support this effort. “Ukraine knows better than almost any other country how to train personnel for drone warfare. Ignoring this experience would be like shooting oneself in the foot—especially if drone warfare in the jungle is already on the horizon,” mentioned a Ukrainian drone operator.

When it comes to the actual protection of infrastructure, government facilities, and the lives of police and military personnel, Ukraine has worked with several countries, particularly in the Middle East, on establishing layered air defence systems tailored to their specific needs and operational requirements. A similar approach could be applied to Colombia, with Ukrainian experts helping develop a strategy to protect against and counter multiple threats posed by emerging technologies.

It also closely aligns with Ukraine’s broader priorities, including its ambition to become a global security provider, and could open doors to cooperation with other South American countries facing similar security challenges.

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Read my earlier reports:

• (Un)Manned Warfare: 80% of Drone Success Depends on Pilot Skill;

• Crime by Drone: a New Paradigm for Organized Crime (report by GI-TOC);

• Good Radios Save Lives: HIMERA Tactical Communications in Ukraine;

• Mesh Networks and EW Trends in Ukraine.

Also, check out my list of articles on the theme of Air Defence and Counter-UAS.

• The Hornet Carousel: Why Quantity Matters - July 2026 - link;

• Ukraine’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov Campaign. Operation MoLoChKa - July 2026 - link - *free;

• Ukraine’s Deep-Strike and Middle-Strike Missions: Who Chooses the Targets? - June-July 2026 - link;

• Ukraine’s Behemoth Drone Strikes the Chonhar Bridge - June 2026 - link - *free;

• How Middle-Strike Drones Are Destroying Russian Logistics - June 2026 - link;

• Hornet or Martian-2, Analyzed by Russians: Technical Characteristics of an “Unjammable” Drone - June 2026 - link - *free;

• Ukraine’s Use of Aerostats for Middle-Strike Campaign - June 2026 - link;

• Russian Countermeasures Against Hornet Drones - June 2026 - link;

• Rubikon’s Experience Against Hornet Drones - June 2026 - link;

• Ukraine’s FPV Drone Hits Target at 103 km: A New Record - June 2026 - link - *free;

• Russians Alarmed by Ukraine’s Mysterious “Martian” Drone - May 2026 - link.

Also, check the theme “Deep Strike Capabilities”.

Ukraine’s air-defence situation is not improving. Meanwhile, Russia’s ballistic-strike capabilities are expanding amid renewed North Korean involvement and additional missile deliveries. North Korean ballistic missiles have reportedly already been used against Ukrainian cities, causing civilian casualties.

The lack of additional air-defence support for Ukraine ultimately benefits Russia, which is preparing to employ hundreds of cruise and ballistic missiles in future strikes.

In this edition:

• North Korean Ballistic Missiles Strengthen Russia’s Salvos Against Ukraine;

• Russia’s Key Task: Increase the Number of Missile Launchers;

• Ukraine Used 15 Domestic Weapons Types in Its Strike on Novorossiysk Base;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

Thank you for reading and supporting my work!

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North Korean Ballistic Missiles Strengthen Russia’s Salvos Against Ukraine

President Zelensky reported on August 11 that Russian forces launched a North Korean-supplied KN-23 ballistic missile at Zaporizhzhia. During the combined missile and drone strike on the night of August 10–11, Russia also used Iskander-M ballistic missiles and Zirkon missiles, heavily targeting civilian and industrial infrastructure in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia.

Earlier reports of Russia’s use of North Korean ballistic missiles emerged after the July 30 strike on Kryvyi Rih, when a missile that Ukrainian authorities identified as North Korean reportedly deviated from its intended target by around 15 km, struck a residential building, and killed a family of six.

The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Russia is likely using small numbers of North Korean-supplied KN-23 missiles in its nightly strike packages to battle-test the systems and improve their accuracy. ISW continues to assess that the addition of more North Korean missiles to Russia’s arsenal will allow Russia to intensify its ballistic missile strikes against Ukraine in the near future without having to dip into its S-400 and Zirkon missile stocks.

Ukrainian sources previously reported that Pyongyang had supplied Moscow with a new batch of 40 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles. Russia is expected to receive up to 120 such missiles and six launchers in total.

According to Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, Russia can currently launch a simultaneous salvo of up to 77 ballistic and cruise missiles against Ukraine and plans to increase that number to 200.

Ukrainian intelligence estimates that North Korea has supplied Russia with around 150 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles since late 2023.

Russia began using North Korean KN-23 missiles against Ukraine in late 2023, and they have since been repeatedly employed in strikes on Ukrainian cities and other populated areas.

The KN-23 and KN-24 have longer ranges and larger warheads than Russia’s Iskander missiles, although they are generally less accurate. This combination of range and destructive power makes North Korean ballistic missiles a significant threat to Ukraine.

ISW referred to a South Korean outlet, EToday, which obtained documents from Russia’s Voronezh regional government indicating that construction of a Rosgvardia training facility is expected to be completed by the end of 2026. The outlet suggested the site could potentially host North Korean personnel, pointing to recent Ukrainian reports that Russia may station a North Korean missile unit in Voronezh Oblast.

Zelensky again called on South Korea to provide air-defence missiles in exchange for Ukraine’s combat experience and expanded drone cooperation.

South Korea operates U.S.-made Patriot systems and their interceptors, although any transfer would require U.S. approval. Seoul also has domestically developed ballistic-missile defence systems, such as Cheongung-II, which Ukraine would welcome. Such a transfer, however, would be more complex because it would likely require launchers and supporting infrastructure, not just interceptor missiles.

Following Zelensky’s request, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed its existing stance of not providing lethal weapons to Ukraine, stating, "The provision of defense materials to various countries has been carried out while complying with relevant domestic laws and policies." South Korea's legislation prohibits supplies of lethal weapons to countries in a state of war.

In 2024, Putin warned South Korea, saying that it would be making "a big mistake" if it arms Ukraine.

Following South Korea’s recent rejection of Ukraine’s request for air-defence capabilities, the Russian pro-government outlet Rybar claimed that Kyiv had failed to provide Seoul with sufficient evidence of North Korean military support for Russia.

Russia therefore benefits from South Korea withholding weapons from Ukraine, but also portrays Seoul’s decision as a rejection of Ukrainian intelligence on North Korean involvement.

“If Seoul becomes a direct military supplier to Ukraine, Russia could respond by deepening its military cooperation with Pyongyang or providing North Korea with capabilities that would make the security environment on the peninsula even more dangerous,” writes The Korea Times in a recent column. Russia’s cooperation with North Korea has already contributed to improvements in the accuracy of North Korean ballistic missiles, exposed North Korean troops to drone warfare tactics, and encouraged Pyongyang to start mass production of one-way attack drones. RUSI reports that Russia’s partnership with North Korea could advance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme through technical aid and proliferation financing.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said this week that Russia no longer supports calls for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and fully backs North Korean leader’s efforts to strengthen the country’s sovereignty and defence capabilities. Against this backdrop, on August 16, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to substantially scale back planned joint military exercises with South Korea. He cited his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong Un, and also expressed frustration that South Korea had declined to support U.S. efforts to denuclearize Iran. The U.S. is currently the main security partner of South Korea.

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Recently, much of my research has focused on the Ukraine-South Korea angle. Check the relevant reports on my Substack:

• Ukraine and South Korea: Underexplored Opportunities for Defence Cooperation;

• Newtype Industries: The First Korean Defence Startup Testing in Ukraine.

Also, my comments are available in this article for KoreaPro: South Korea’s drone overhaul aims to prepare its military for a new era of war.

And here is the most recent Korean-language article published by EToday with my comments.

Russia’s Key Task: Increase the Number of Missile Launchers

Russia adjusted its air-attack tactics again in July, while continuing to modernize its missiles and experiment with new weapons designed to exploit Ukraine’s air-defence constraints.

In a recent episode of the Ukrainian podcast Kliati Pytannia, aviation expert Anatolii Khrapchynskyi discussed how Russia’s missile campaign is evolving.

A few points I found particularly important:

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More countries are learning from Ukraine’s defence innovations: Canada wants to acquire long-range drones, the United States is seeking naval systems, and even Russia is creating its own drone marketplace - similar to Ukraine’s Brave1.

The new edition of the weekly Ukraine Drone Brief is ready for your attention. It is available exclusively to VIP subscribers—please consider supporting me by subscribing. You can also check out the free edition of this newsletter.

Also, here are my earlier reports from this week:

• Newtype Industries: The First Korean Defence Startup Testing in Ukraine;

• Ukraine’s Interceptors Against Jet-Powered Shaheds: Key Challenges.

Thank you for reading and supporting my work!

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Aerial Drones

• Russian forces have accumulated around 6,200 Geran drones of various types as of August - Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) reported. During periods when Russian forces are replenishing their stockpiles, they launch 150–200 drones per attack, occasionally reaching 300.

• According to HUR, Russia produces around 2,800 Geran-2 attack drones per month.

• In some attacks, Russian jet-powered UAVs account for up to two-thirds of the total drones deployed. The situation is changing rapidly: in July, Russia deployed five times as many jet-powered UAVs as in June.

• In July, Ukraine’s Defence Forces carried out an average of more than 250 medium-range strike drone missions per day. Over the month, they conducted around 7,800 strikes with drones of this class, a 126% increase compared with June.

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President Zelensky announced that Ukraine is ready for a Drone Deal and closer defence cooperation with South Korea. And I’ve just met the first Korean startup, Newtype Industries, that is testing its defence solution with Ukrainian military units, and interviewed its CEO, Sengwon (Joe) Cho, who has recently returned from Ukraine. He told me about their innovation, Barbara, an AI-enabled software solution designed to improve the artillery kill chain.

“In Ukraine, I don’t know why, but you feel like you want to defend this country,” Joe told me. And that deeply touched me.

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Importance of Artillery in Modern Combat

Unlike many new defence startups that focus on unmanned systems, Newtype Industries is working with a more traditional capability: artillery. In South Korea, artillery remains an important element of the country’s sovereign defence capacity.

South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace produces the K9 Thunder 155 mm self-propelled howitzer, one of the world’s most successful tracked artillery systems. The K9 is currently in service or on order with 11 countries and has achieved significant export success compared with other major Western systems, including the American M109, German PzH 2000, and French CAESAR.

South Korea is also a major producer of 155 mm ammunition. In 2023, Seoul reportedly agreed to lend the United States 500,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition, giving Washington greater flexibility in supporting Ukraine’s ammunition needs. The following year, South Korea announced plans to begin mass production of a new generation of 155 mm ammunition for the K9 Thunder.

Joe, the CEO of Newtype Industries, is a former Korean field artillery officer. He told me that today, much of the international attention surrounding Ukraine’s battlefield innovation is focused on FPV drones. But Ukraine’s shortage of 155 mm ammunition was one of the factors that accelerated the rapid adoption of cheaper FPV drones. Yet drones have not eliminated the need for conventional artillery. Instead, the challenge is finding a more effective way to combine both capabilities.

“If the Ukrainian military had a proper software system to control fires efficiently and coordinate 155 mm ammunition coming from all over the world, they might already be in a very different situation,” he argued. Ammunition is scarce, he said, making the efficiency of every artillery engagement increasingly important.

Ukrainian military officials express similar views on the role of artillery in modern combat. “Contrary to the popular idea that drones have ‘killed’ artillery, the current war has shown the opposite: guns remain one of the main tools on the battlefield,” said professional artillery officer and reserve colonel Viktor Kevliuk in an interview with Texty.Org that I summarized here.

At the same time, drones, digital technologies, and new logistics have transformed artillery into a complex IT-enabled system in which the gun itself is only the final link in the chain.

One of the key lessons of the war is that the speed of the “detect–process–strike” cycle can matter more than the sheer number of guns. Artillery increasingly requires a dedicated data-processing layer that can rapidly convert intelligence into targeting information. In this sense, the gun becomes almost like a “printer” that delivers coordinates through shells. The advantage, therefore, may not belong to the side with the largest number of barrels, but to the one that can turn battlefield intelligence into an accurate strike faster.

Barbara Software for the Artillery Kill Chain

In Ukraine, Newtype Industries is currently testing Barbara, AI-enabled software designed to improve the artillery kill chain.

Barbara focuses on the communication link between forward observers and fire direction officers, who process targeting information and decide whether and how artillery should engage a target. Rather than replacing these officers, the system is intended to help them process battlefield information faster and reduce human error while keeping a person in the decision-making loop.

Joe describes Barbara as a tool intended ultimately to help preserve the relevance and effectiveness of field artillery in an increasingly drone-dominated battlefield. He explained that the software was named after Saint Barbara, traditionally regarded as the patron saint of artillerymen.

Newtype Industries therefore began with artillery command-and-control software but has gradually expanded Barbara toward a broader cooperation system linking traditional artillery with unmanned systems, including strike drones.

The founder argues that artillery should not simply be understood as “a gun and a tube,” but as one component of a larger fires architecture.

“I don’t think drones are pushing artillery back. They are enhancing the power of fires,” he said. “They need to cooperate within one system. They are not separate tools.”

The idea behind Barbara originates partly from the founder’s own experience in the South Korean military.

He joined the military in 2010 as a field artillery officer, shortly before the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November of that year, which killed two South Korean Marines and two civilians. His unit became involved in military efforts intended to prevent further escalation.

During that period, he says he saw serious weaknesses in targeting procedures and communication between officers.

Wanting to better understand how these problems could be addressed, he later travelled to the United States and completed a field artillery captain’s course in 2014. But he encountered another problem there: after years of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he felt that much of the institutional knowledge surrounding conventional large-scale warfare had eroded.

In 2015, while serving as a battery commander near South Korea’s western frontline, another North Korean provocation reinforced his concerns. Despite the five years that had passed since the Yeonpyeong incident, he believed many of the same command-and-control problems remained unresolved.

He eventually left the military and founded a company to work on the problem himself.

According to Joe, many solutions developed by major defence primes are primarily designed around the requirements of senior headquarters. “Large primes say they are solving battlefield problems, but very often they are solving the problems of generals—which are partly administrative problems,” Joe said.

Barbara instead targets the lower tactical level.

The system uses voice-focused AI running through a smartphone carried by soldiers. A soldier can verbally report battlefield information, and Barbara converts that speech into a structured report that can be transmitted to a fire direction officer.

The software can also flag potential problems, for example, if reported coordinates appear incorrect or if a target may be located in a civilian area. The final engagement decision, however, remains with the human operator.

This human-in-the-loop architecture is important. Battlefield information is messy, language varies between units, and mistakes in targeting data can have serious consequences.

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Getting Into Ukraine Was the Hard Part

For Newtype Industries, gaining access to Ukraine’s battlefield testing ecosystem was a major challenge.

Before establishing its current contacts, the company had repeatedly attempted to enter the Ukrainian market and apply for opportunities to test its system but received little response.

That changed after the founder was introduced to the Reaktion Group, which helped connect the company with Ukrainian military contacts.

Reaktion Group is a strategic intelligence, risk, and operational advisory firm that provides intelligence across Eurasia, along with field-based support in Ukraine. Headquartered in Canada, the company has been operating directly in Ukraine since 2022. It facilitates defence-tech companies seeking to battle-test drones and other dual-use products in Ukraine.

So far, the group has worked with around 10 companies from Asia, Europe, and North America, helping them test their technologies and develop partnerships with Ukrainian companies and other relevant stakeholders.

Newtype Industries has met with two Ukrainian units and received initial feedback from combat brigades. According to the founder, one reaction from Ukrainian personnel was that Barbara represented a capability they did not currently have in their existing systems.

Testing is still ongoing. Following an initial verification period, the company says the process moved relatively quickly toward a more advanced level of battlefield testing.

However, testing schedules in Ukraine cannot operate like conventional commercial product trials.

Development depends heavily on the battlefield situation. Ukrainian units must prioritize combat operations, and foreign companies cannot expect soldiers to interrupt ongoing missions simply to test new technology. As a result, Newtype Industries adjusts Barbara incrementally based on feedback whenever operational circumstances allow.

The company does not expect the current testing process to extend beyond 2026, although the timeline remains dependent on battlefield conditions.

More Than a “Battle-Proven” Label

For many foreign defence companies, Ukraine has become attractive as a place to validate technology under real combat conditions. But Newtype Industries is cautious about treating Ukrainian testing merely as a marketing certificate.

“There are a lot of scams around the words ‘battle proven,’” Joe said.

His immediate priority is to mature Barbara into a system that Ukrainian units can genuinely field and use. Only after that process does the company expect to pursue wider opportunities.

Newtype Industries sees potential customers among European countries, particularly Baltic and Nordic states, as well as in the United States and South Korea. Ukraine’s battlefield experience could make the technology more relevant to these markets.

The company completed its seed investment round approximately a year ago and is now seriously raising a pre-Series A round.

For Joe, however, the experience in Ukraine has also had a personal impact.

He said that foreign defence entrepreneurs arriving in Ukraine often encounter not only soldiers willing to explain battlefield problems but also civilians who make visitors feel personally invested in the country’s survival.

“When you meet the people and soldiers there, when you sit in shelters during air strikes together with local people, you start thinking that you want to contribute to defending this country,” he said.

We finished our conversation by discussing the recent updates on North Korean involvement in the war against Ukraine. Last week, it was reported that a North Korean missile unit had begun deploying to western Russia and could be equipped with up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine.

This comes at a time when Russia is already putting significant pressure on Ukraine’s air defences with repeated ballistic missile attacks, knowing that Ukraine has very limited means to protect its civilian population against such strikes.

Unfortunately, developing Ukraine’s own air defence systems will require significant time and resources. For now, much depends on international partners helping Ukraine strengthen its protection against deadly Russian missile attacks.

Despite the absence of a formal defence cooperation agreement between Seoul and Kyiv focused on the joint development of defence technologies, opportunities for business engagement remain significant.

When I visited Seoul this May on a work trip, I saw considerable interest among Korean startups in working with Ukraine, but also perhaps a lack of understanding of how to move forward. Korea is also increasingly interesting for Ukrainian defence entrepreneurs, who are open to exploring new markets despite their traditional focus on Europe.

This fall, the Ukrainian agency Calibrated is organizing Defence Tech Comms Bootcamp, a training programme designed for Ukrainian defence-tech professionals that will focus on introducing them to opportunities in Asia, including potential cooperation with Korean partners. Calibrated is currently open to sponsorship partnerships, and if you are interested, you can contact them here.

Check out my recent articles on the topic:

• Ukraine and South Korea: Underexplored Opportunities for Defence Cooperation;

• Ukraine-Proven Technology Opens Doors in Europe: The Case of Dutch Company Intelic;

• Drone Testing in Ukraine: Experience of Lithuanian Granta Autonomy.

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My publications are entirely independent and not sponsored. This digest is supported only by private individuals — readers and subscribers like you.

Defence alliances are an indispensable part of the Russia–Ukraine war. For years, we have seen Russia’s relations with some of its long-standing partners weaken for several reasons: Moscow’s increasingly unreliable behaviour as an ally, the absence of a decisive position of strength on the battlefield, and even its difficulties in protecting its own territory and critical infrastructure.

Ukraine’s ability to defend itself through domestic innovation, rapid adaptation, and a growing defence-industrial base may increasingly appear more attractive to countries looking for new security and defence partnerships.

Türkiye appears to be gradually moving closer to Ukraine on certain defence issues, Serbia has signalled interest in deeper engagement with Kyiv, and Kazakhstan’s leadership has become more outspoken in distancing itself from aspects of Russia’s war.

In this edition:

• Türkiye Sells Critical Defence Equipment to Ukraine;

• War-Related GPS Jamming Could Pose Problems for Civil Aviation in Europe;

• Ukraine’s Interceptors Against Jet-Powered Shaheds: Key Challenges;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

As I’ve repeatedly mentioned, none of the content in my newsletter is sponsored, and I produce it as an independent researcher. That is why your paid subscription would significantly support my work!

For drone-related developments, check Drone warfare in Ukraine: battlefield testing and emerging UAV trends and Ukraine Drone Brief.

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Türkiye Sells Critical Defence Equipment to Ukraine

According to the U.S. State Department, Ukraine acquired from Türkiye 70 M39 ATACMS ballistic missiles, 12 M270 multiple-launch rocket systems capable of firing GMLRS and ATACMS, and tens of thousands of cluster munitions.

The U.S. State Department has notified Congress that it is prepared to approve the transfer, saying it is consistent with U.S. security assistance objectives.

According to the documents, Türkiye wants to reduce its stocks of older weapons so it can focus on modernization and sustainment of existing systems. Ukraine, meanwhile, seeks to acquire the equipment to strengthen its offensive and defensive fire-support capabilities against Russia. The transfer is expected to begin once the congressional review period is completed.

The founder of Ukraine’s Kruk drone training center, Viktor Taran, wrote that the transfer is politically significant: Türkiye is re-exporting a U.S.-origin strike system to Ukraine with Washington’s approval, potentially creating a precedent for other countries holding American-made weapons.

According to Viktor, the 12 M270 launchers are particularly significant because each carries two rocket pods, compared with one on HIMARS, effectively doubling the salvo per vehicle and increasing the number of Ukrainian launch platforms Russia must locate and target.

The package also includes around 2,500 unguided M26 rockets with cluster warheads, providing Ukraine with a cheaper option for striking troop concentrations, assembly areas and other dispersed battlefield targets without expending scarce precision-guided munitions.

The older M39 ATACMS lacks GPS guidance and is less precise than later variants, but its cluster warhead contains hundreds of submunitions, making it useful against dispersed targets such as airfields, air-defence positions and ammunition depots. Ukraine previously used this type of ATACMS against Russian helicopter bases in Berdyansk and Luhansk in October 2023.

According to Russian Telegram channels, some ATACMS missiles may already have been delivered to Ukraine. Such transfers could be carried out discreetly via commercial shipping routes from Türkiye to Ukraine or through the Romanian port of Constanța.

Russians also argue that the reported transfer comes as Ukraine is preparing for more intensive operations in the autumn, while accumulating long-range strike capabilities, including drones and Flamingo missiles.

Türkiye, while supplying military assistance to Ukraine in a more low-key manner, has always been an important contributor to Ukraine’s defence capabilities. In particular, the use of Bayraktar TB2 drones by Ukraine’s Defence Forces proved highly effective at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Although their significance later declined due to Russia’s advanced electronic warfare capabilities, in summer 2025, after a long pause, Bayraktar TB2 drones reappeared in the sky as Ukrainian forces struck a Russian boat and troops on the Black Sea coast.

In June 2026, the Ukrainian Navy released rare footage showing the destruction of an entire group of Russian unmanned surface vessels heading toward the Ukrainian coast. Defence Express noted that the footage shows the distinctive interface of a Bayraktar TB2 strike drone, suggesting that the system was used in the operation.

The strikes were likely carried out using MAM-L or MAM-C guided munitions, or laser-guided missiles with semi-active seekers, which have previously been seen in service with Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2s.

Following extensive Ukrainian strikes against Russian radar stations and surface-to-air missile systems, including in occupied Crimea, the operating environment over parts of the Black Sea appears to have become more permissive. This has allowed Ukraine to employ Bayraktar TB2s again against Russian boats and USVs.

In addition to Bayraktar drones, Türkiye has also provided laser-guided missiles, protective gear, Kirpi armoured vehicles, Cobta II armoured vehicles, Escort BTS410 semi-automatic shotguns, Canik M2 heavy machine guns to Ukraine.

Recent policy signals from Türkiye — including its decision to join the Drone Capability Coalition for Ukraine and its willingness to abandon the Russian S-400 air defence system to potentially return to the F-35 fifth-generation fighter program — demonstrate a shift toward deeper cooperation with NATO allies. According to The WSJ, as of July 2026, Turkey was in talks to transfer S-400 to the UAE in hopes of lifting the US ban on its purchase of advanced F-35 warplanes.

Last week, Türkiye proposed that both Russia and Ukraine declare a moratorium on strikes against vessels in the Black Sea and is awaiting responses from both sides. Attacks have affected Turkish vessels, as well as ships with Turkish owners or Turkish crews.

Read my earlier report: Bayraktar TB2 Drones and Ukraine-Türkiye Strategic Defence Partnership.

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War-Related GPS Jamming Could Pose Problems for Civil Aviation in Europe

According to WIRED, the May accident involving a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air medevac plane, which crashed after taking off from Roswell, New Mexico, occurred while U.S. military personnel were conducting a GPS-jamming exercise. It marked the first time GPS jamming had contributed to the crash of a civilian aircraft in the United States.

GPS disruptions caused by electronic warfare might affect civilian aviation in Europe, particularly over the Baltic Sea. This creates navigation risks, as pilots may lose the signal or receive false positioning data.

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Ukraine’s drone strikes are becoming larger in scale, the systems are growing more sophisticated, and targets are being selected more carefully. Russia retaliates with mass strikes involving hundreds of missiles, against which Ukraine still lacks sufficient means of protection.

This is the new edition of my Ukraine Drone Brief — a weekly roundup of drone-related developments in Ukraine and Russia. Check it out here to see what the brief looks like. It’s available for VIP subscribers.

For long-form reporting, check my recent newsletters:

• Ukraine’s Long-Range Strike Tactics Become More Precise;

• Drone warfare in Ukraine: battlefield testing and emerging UAV trends.

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Aerial Drones

• Ukraine has used long-range drones to attack roughly 20 Wildberries facilities (Russian Amazon) since mid-July. Wildberries was estimated to have lost roughly 10% of its warehouse space.

• Russians claim that Ukrainian long-range drones now pose one of the greatest threats to Russia’s deep rear. Ukraine now has several strike UAV types, including the An-196 Liutyi, UJ-26 Bober, Fire Point FP-1, Bars RS, Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat, Morok, and Sichen.

  The key factor is Ukraine’s ability to replenish its drone stocks quickly as production capacity expands, allowing the Armed Forces to launch large numbers of drones almost daily.

• According to the Ukrainian DroneBomber OSINT channel, out of around 1,500 Ukrainian drones used to penetrate Moscow-region air defences, only one managed to get through.

• A new generation of multifunctional Russian Gerbera UAVs has begun appearing on the front line. It is larger than the original design and may also be remotely controlled. These UAVs enter the country’s airspace, fly within it for some time, and then return to enemy-controlled territory. They could operate in an electronic intelligence (ELINT) role.

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The pace of adaptation in drone warfare is so rapid that even the most effective technologies can be countered within months. Ukraine is currently facing several challenges, including Russian efforts to disrupt Starlink services, which are indispensable to many of its drone operations, as well as Russia’s own domestic innovation, including the growing use of AI-enabled technologies and mesh-network solutions in drones.

Foreign companies operating in Ukraine have a unique opportunity to learn from this fast adaptation cycle and bring a greater sense of urgency to the development and fielding of technologies in their own countries.

In this edition:

• Ukraine-Proven Technology Opens Doors in Europe: The Case of Dutch Company Intelic;

• Where Drone Warfare in Ukraine Stands, and Where It Is Heading;

• Why Tactical Radars Are So Important in Ukraine.

As usual, a detailed list of the major drone-related developments is available in my weekly newsletter, Ukraine Drone Brief, for VIP subscribers.

Just a reminder: my publications are entirely independent and not sponsored. This digest is supported only by private individuals — readers and subscribers like you.

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Ukraine-Proven Technology Opens Doors in Europe: The Case of Dutch Company Intelic

In early July, the Dutch Ministry of Defence signed a strategic partnership agreement with the local company Intelic and announced an investment of more than €30 million to create an interoperability-focused software foundation for the country’s future UAV ecosystem.

It was particularly interesting for me because I know Intelic through its work in Ukraine, so it was nice to see the company’s efforts recognized in its home country.

According to the company, its presence in Ukraine became an important source of credibility and trust. Intelic’s involvement in Ukraine began after it participated in a hackathon in Kyiv in 2024, and it has maintained a local presence in the country ever since.

The ability to demonstrate that its system had been tested under combat conditions and used by Ukrainian military units provided strong evidence for the Dutch MoD that the technology was operationally relevant.

I spoke with Marc Derksen, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Intelic, to learn what insights the company has drawn from its work in Ukraine and how it plans to adapt them to European realities.

The two main Intelic innovations developed on the basis of its experience in Ukraine are NEXUS, a command-and-control software platform for drones, and Intelic BASE, a European catalogue of unmanned technologies inspired by Ukraine’s Brave1 Market.

NEXUS is a common command-and-control interface that allows operators to control drones produced by different manufacturers through a single system. “For example, a military unit may operate ten different types of reconnaissance drones, each with its own software and interface. NEXUS allows operators to control these systems through one interface, providing a consistent user experience,” Marc explained.

The software is currently used by approximately 15 Ukrainian military units. These units have already conducted more than 5,500 missions using the platform, primarily for resupply and strike operations.

NEXUS is also being integrated with Ukraine’s DELTA situational-awareness system. This allows information collected by drones to be transferred directly to DELTA and displayed on the operational map. As a result, operators do not have to manually share coordinates or other information through messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Signal.

In Ukraine, Intelic also partners with the Ukrainian defence company Gurzuf Defence, which manufactures the Heavy Shot heavy multicopter. The drone can carry a payload of up to 30 kg and operate at ranges of up to 20 km with a return trip.

In March 2026, the Dutch Ministry of Defence ordered 1,400 Heavy Shot drones for Ukraine, which were subsequently delivered to the Ukrainian military. I first learned about this cooperation from Russian Telegram channels, which frequently express concern about the growing integration of Ukrainian and European defence technologies.

As many readers of my newsletter know, Ukraine has a “zoo of technologies,” especially when it comes to unmanned systems. Last year alone, more than 500 new drone models were approved for use in Ukraine. The lack of standardization creates challenges for Ukrainian pilots, who must learn to operate each system, while also complicating training and repairs.

The broader objective of NEXUS is to reduce the fragmentation created by Ukraine’s “zoo of drones,” in which military units often operate numerous systems with different control interfaces. Similar fragmentation also exists across Europe, with more than 700 defence producers.

The platform is not automatically compatible with every drone. Integration requires cooperation with the manufacturer, technical testing, and confirmation that the system meets the necessary requirements.

Intelic works directly with Ukrainian drone manufacturers to integrate and test their systems with NEXUS. Cooperation usually begins before a product is deployed operationally so that both sides can verify that the drone and the software function properly together.

Related to NEXUS is Intelic BASE, a catalogue or marketplace for drones where Intelic showcases unmanned technologies that are already integrated with its software. It currently serves the needs of the Dutch Armed Forces and includes manufacturers from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. Ukraine is represented on the platform by TAF Industries and several other unnamed partners.

Intelic BASE is not a procurement or sales platform. Instead, it serves as a portfolio showcasing available systems. When a government or another customer is interested in purchasing a system, the Intelic BASE team can connect them directly with the manufacturer, but it does not participate in the transaction itself.

Although the platform primarily focuses on European companies, it is also open to manufacturers from other NATO countries. For instance, Canadian companies interested in accessing the European market could therefore potentially be included, particularly if their products can be integrated with the NEXUS software.

The company plans to use the €30 million in funding from the Dutch Ministry of Defence over a three-year period to develop and refine the software architecture needed to integrate unmanned aerial and ground systems into a single operational ecosystem.

The Netherlands is known for being particularly effective and for standing out among other NATO members in its adoption of defence innovation. This case perfectly illustrates how cooperation with Ukraine can inspire change at home.

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Earlier, I wrote about the Lithuanian company also testing its defence innovation in Ukraine: Drone Testing in Ukraine: Experience of Lithuanian Granta Autonomy.

Where Drone Warfare in Ukraine Stands, and Where It Is Heading

Two Ukrainian experts—Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a military radio technology specialist and adviser to the President of Ukraine on the development of defence technologies, and Serg Marco, a marine, a sniper, and a senior sergeant of the drone company of the 59th brigade —recorded a webinar for Victory Drones discussing the latest drone-related developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Here is the summary of their conversation.

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With Ukraine facing a shortage of interceptors, Russia fired a record 126 ballistic missiles in July. Moscow appears to be drawing more heavily on its reserves to exploit the current gap in Ukraine’s air defence and carry out high-impact strikes with limited opposition.

In total, Russia fired 376 missiles at Ukraine during the month—more than twice the number launched in June.

Some of these missiles are reaching Polish airspace. Poland, along with other NATO members, already needs to consider how to counter this threat and support Ukraine’s air defence capabilities.

In this edition:

• Licence for Patriot Interceptor Missile Production: Trump Changes His Mind;

• Ukraine’s Long-Range Strike Tactics Become More Precise;

• How Russia Is Disrupting Starlink;

• Ukraine’s Lessons for NATO and the German Armed Forces;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

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For the first time in two years, I postponed the release of my newsletter by a day.

Last week, I was in Colombia, where I delivered a presentation to the Colombian Navy on drone warfare in Ukraine. It was a major milestone in both my personal and professional life. I have been fascinated by Colombia for the past 20 years, so it was incredible to finally visit the country and contribute, in some way, to its security and defence.

I will prepare a separate publication on the opportunities for defence and security cooperation between Ukraine and Colombia. This is a highly promising area, particularly in light of the political changes in the country.

Licence for Patriot Interceptor Missile Production: Trump Changes His Mind

President Zelensky reported that on the night of 31 July-1 August, Ukraine’s Air Force managed to intercept only one out of 27 Russian ballistic missiles due to a shortage of Patriot interceptors and called on partners to provide additional air defence capabilities.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we discussed how, during the NATO Summit in Ankara, US President Donald Trump said that the United States planned to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot air defence interceptors.

Last week, however, he walked back his earlier promise. According to The New York Times, when asked about the agreement, Trump said, “We have not agreed to that,” suggesting that he had changed his mind because “it is a hard thing to give away that kind of technology” and because of the risk that “the people you give the technology to could someday turn on you.”

US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said that negotiations on the joint production of interceptors for Patriot systems with Ukraine and European partners are ongoing. However, an agreement is unlikely to be reached before this winter.

In earlier discussions, both government-affiliated officials and independent experts in Ukraine were cautiously optimistic about the US decision to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot interceptors. They warned that establishing production lines in Ukraine would be a lengthy process, meaning that actual interceptor production would likely begin only in a few years.

The shift in the US president’s rhetoric has no immediate impact on Ukraine’s current air defence capabilities. Nevertheless, it contributes to a broader sense of weakened security across Europe, which would also require additional air defence capacity in the event of Russian attacks.

On July 30, a Russian missile crossed into Poland as part of Russia’s massive strike against Ukraine. Polish authorities confirmed that the object that crashed in eastern Poland was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile carrying a significant explosive payload. A Ukrainian pilot had tracked the missile but was unable to intercept it; he turned back 20 seconds before reaching the border because he could not have flown into Polish airspace. The missile was manufactured in the second quarter of 2026 at a facility in the Moscow region.

Ukrainian analyst Serhiy Naumovych wrote that there is no reason to believe that Russia’s ballistic missile campaign will ease in the coming months. Everyone is preparing for a major war, and every country needs its own missile stockpile. Ideally, those stockpiles should be increased. Following Trump’s military operation, the United States itself reportedly has very few of these missiles left—fewer than 1,000, according to some estimates. Its stocks must be replenished ‘to protect American citizens, not Ukrainians.’

Ideally, the stockpile should be 10,000–20,000. At current production rates, manufacturing that number would take 10–20 years.

He added that the only relatively quick way to try to stop Russia’s ballistic missile campaign in the coming months is to intensify ballistic missile strikes against targets in Moscow, so that every 10–15 days the city experiences scenes similar to those in Kyiv. “Only then might Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence receive, through the communication channels used for prisoner exchanges, a request to ‘discuss a moratorium on strikes against rear areas,” Naumovych added.

Ukraine has been working on several other options for countering Russian missiles, including its own air defence system, Freija, and the LIMA electronic warfare system, which is reportedly capable of interfering even with ballistic threats.

Another option is to target Russian defence enterprises that manufacture missiles and their components—not only with drones, which carry relatively limited explosive payloads, but with missiles powerful enough to ensure that Russia cannot quickly restore the damaged production capacity.

Again, this is not a task for Ukraine alone, but for a united coalition of partners capable of supporting it. Eventually, Ukraine will not be able to intercept every Russian missile heading towards NATO territory—a development that would naturally follow previous incursions by Russian drones into Poland.

According to The Atlantic, Zelensky asked Trump to persuade Musk to allow Ukraine to use Starlink for guiding long-range drones toward ballistic missile launchers in Russia.

SpaceX currently restricts the use of Starlink on Russian territory. Zelensky reportedly wanted to discuss the issue directly with Musk during his visit to the United States, but the meeting did not take place.

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Ukraine’s Long-Range Strike Tactics Become More Precise

Eighteen Russian refineries were targeted in July, including the Omsk refinery, the country’s largest and located more than 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Bloomberg counted 30 attacks on oil infrastructure during the month, the second-highest total after 32 in May.

Of the 26 Russian refineries hit by Ukrainian drones and forced to halt production, only eight had returned to full operation as of July 27.

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Ukraine is extending the range of its deep-strike drones, while Russia is seeking to localize motor production for FPV drones. Russia has already tried to localize fibre-optic cable production—and we all remember how that turned out.

For those who do not remember: the production site was struck by Ukrainian drones and put out of operation for at least a year.

Here is my weekly edition of Ukraine Drone Brief. Check all earlier publications here.

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Aerial Drones

• Ukrainian long-range drone attacks have disabled at least 30% of Russia’s actual oil-refining capacity and 45% of its nominal capacity.

• Ukraine’s Fire Point modernized its long-range drones. The FP-1 can now fly up to 3,400 km while carrying a 60 kg warhead. The FP-2 has a range of up to 700 km and can carry a warhead weighing up to 200 kg.

• The Kyiv production facility of US company Terminal Autonomy was destroyed in a Russian missile strike. Terminal Autonomy makes precision “deep-strike” drones with guidance systems that are resistant to Russian jamming signals.

• According to Russian sources, the battery compartment is the most vulnerable part of the heavy Baba Yaga hexacopter Ukrainian drones. Russians use tracer and armor-piercing incendiary ammunition to bring down such drones.

• Russia’s serially produced Boomerang FPV drones can operate on frequencies up to 7.2 GHz, beyond the coverage of most drone detectors.

• Ukrainian forces observed an unusual configuration of Russia’s multipurpose Gerbera drone towing an FPV drone on a rope or cable. The purpose of the setup remains unclear.

Ground Drones (UGVs)

• Since the start of 2026, UGVs in Ukraine have carried out 66,300 missions, taking on the riskiest logistics and evacuation tasks.

• The Protector by Ukrainian Armor is Ukraine’s largest UGV by payload, weight, and dimensions, with a declared carrying capacity of 1,480 kg. It is also considered relatively survivable, completing around 20 missions on average. One Protector transported nearly 15 tonnes of supplies in a month. A single delivery can provide a unit with essential supplies for a week of combat operations.

Naval Drones

• Russia plans to build a 500-ton unmanned vessel for anti-submarine warfare and expand unmanned-systems units across its navy. Russia’s Northern Fleet has established its first unmanned-systems regiment, comprising two battalions of unmanned surface vessels and one battalion of unmanned underwater vehicles. A second regiment is planned for the Pacific Fleet in 2027.

• The Russian Navy now rarely operates in the Black Sea. Vessels launch Kalibr missiles directly from port because of the threat of Ukrainian naval drone strikes. The Ukrainian military is currently focusing primarily on vessels capable of carrying cruise missiles.

• Navies are unlikely to abandon traditional large warships in the coming years. A new concept of naval warfare is emerging in which uncrewed surface vessels will become an important complement to conventional naval forces.

C-UAS

• Ukraine’s Defence Forces have used STING interceptor drones to destroy more than 9,000 Russian Shahed/Geran and Gerbera drones of various modifications, including jet-powered versions.

  The highest-altitude STING interception occurred at 6,858 metres, when it destroyed a Zala reconnaissance drone worth approximately $200,000.

• Close to Russia’s MoD, Telegram channel Rybar published information about how Qatar is transforming its air-defence system with input from Ukraine. According to it, Qatar has acquired RADA RPS-42 radars, Merops interceptors, Zirka interceptor drones, and STING interceptors.

  Within a year, Ukrainian companies are expected to provide Qatar with more than 20,000 interceptor drones, 100 USVs, 16 radars, and at least 48 trained crews. It is currently unclear how Rybar obtained this information or how credible it is.

• Ukraine’s drone manufacturer General Cherry launched a service allowing businesses to protect their facilities from drone attacks. The offering includes licensed air-defence operations, trained pilots and mobile response teams, counter-drone systems, personnel training, and technical support for businesses seeking to establish their own protection capabilities.

• Ukraine unveiled a new EW system called STRYI, designed to disrupt FPV drones. The manufacturer advertises operation across 300-6000 MHz and claims engagement distances of up to 50 km under favourable conditions.

• Russia developed an experimental floating fire-support platform, the Plot-40, to protect naval bases and ports from naval drones. The Plot-40 is armed with a remotely operated machine-gun module.

  It remains unclear whether a crew will be stationed aboard to operate the weapon or whether the platform will feature advanced AI capabilities for automatic target classification.

• The Russian Navy corvette Stoikiy, which performs escort missions, has been fitted with additional 12.7 mm Kord heavy machine guns and 7.62 mm PKM machine guns to defend against Ukrainian naval drones.

• Ukraine’s Kharkiv region has launched an experimental three-tier defence system against Russian fibre-optic drones. It combines an active counter-drone perimeter, anti-drone netting along major roads, and mobile fire groups with shotguns and automated weapon turrets.

Cooperation Deals

• Ukraine and Latvia signed a series of memoranda to deepen cooperation on unmanned systems. The partnership aims to attract investment in UAV production, transfer Ukrainian technologies, and establish modern dual-use testing infrastructure in Latvia.

• Ukraine’s EDRONE and Romania’s OVES Enterprise plan to launch drone production in Romania.

• Ukrainian manufacturer F-Drones has delivered its first 2,000 F10 FPV drones to the United States.

• Kyiv and London could expand their defence cooperation through the exchange of missile and drone production technologies, President Zelensky said.

• Estonian-Ukrainian DoD Solution announced a strategic partnership with US-based Lantronix. The companies will work to accelerate the large-scale deployment of the AURA AI autonomy platform for unmanned systems.

Related Geopolitical Developments

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged the military to step up the use of unmanned and AI technologies by 2027.

• Britain chose proven in Ukraine Tekever AR5 surveillance drones to keep British troops safe through round-the-clock intelligence gathering. The AR5 has been selected to replace the ageing Watchkeeper drones.

• American AEVEX Aerospace received an $88.1 million contract from the U.S. Army following its delivery of Phoenix Ghost family drones to Ukraine.

AI and Autonomy

• Ukraine has had drones with target-guidance technology for over a year; however, these systems are still primarily purchased directly by individual military units rather than supplied centrally to the Armed Forces.

Components

• The Ukrainian Oko Camera has unveiled its first purpose-built thermal imaging camera for ISR drones.

• Russia is importing production lines to manufacture drone motors domestically, potentially enabling the production of millions of FPV drones. If the industry takes off, Russia’s defence sector will no longer need to import drone motors from China.

Work with Ukraine

• Brave1 and NATO officially opened applications for their first joint innovation programme, UNITE – Brave NATO. The first call focuses on developing counter-drone solutions and strengthening air defence. To participate, companies from Ukraine and NATO member states must submit a joint application.

• The Brave1 defense cluster postponed the third Defense Tech Valley, Ukraine’s largest international defense technology summit, after a missile strike on a testing site in the Kyiv region.

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Relevant publications:

• “Baba Yaga” Drones in Ukraine: Key Trends;

• Vampire, or “Baba Yaga,” Drones: New Tactics for Frontline Logistics;

• FPV Drone Production: The One-Piece Flow Model at Vyriy Industries;

• FPV Drone Localization in Ukraine;

• Ukraine to Create Sea-Based Interceptor Drone Defence Line;

• Why Russia Still Cannot Counter Ukraine’s Naval Drones.

Although Ukraine continues to deplete Russia’s resources, intelligence agencies across several countries warn that Russia could launch an offensive against a NATO member within a few years—or possibly even within months.

European partners have been studying Ukraine’s experience for several years, yet they still appear to lack comprehensive systems to protect themselves against these threats.

In this edition:

• Five Steps to Protect a Country From Russia;

• Space Domain of the Russia-Ukraine War: Communication Satellites;

• FPV Drone Production: The One-Piece Flow Model at Vyriy Industries;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

Many of the drone-related developments I publish in my weekly Ukraine Drone Brief.

Thank you for reading and supporting my work!

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Five Steps to Protect a Country From Russia

Last week, media reports indicated that British intelligence assessed NATO could face a direct challenge from Russia “within months,” aimed at testing the Alliance’s resolve. Also, Russia may seek to exploit any perceived weakening of the United Kingdom’s resolve following a change of prime minister.

Recently, US intelligence warned Poland that Moscow is planning an armed "provocation" in Poland. Poland's prime minister said the country was preparing for "various" scenarios.

Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, in an interview with journalist Caolan Robertson, outlined five steps that could help NATO states effectively stop a potential Russian offensive.

1. Create a buffer zone along the Russian border.
   Brovdi called for the immediate establishment of a buffer zone 2–5 kilometres wide. According to him, this is an effective distance for the dense deployment of drones capable of preventing enemy movement.

   This zone could make enemy movement nearly impossible if protected by a comprehensive drone shield capable of detecting and stopping advancing forces.

   This would also require clearing vegetation and reshaping parts of the terrain. Such measures should be implemented immediately along the entire border.

2. Deploy an extensive fibre-optic communications network.
   The zone should be equipped with a dense fibre-optic communications network linking drone launch sites to pilots operating from command posts far behind the front line, allowing them to respond immediately.

   A single remote operator at a command post should be able to control five, ten, or even fifteen drones positioned along the front line.

   Earlier, I wrote about how Russia has been deploying fiber-optic “waiting” drones that are capable of remaining in ambush for extended periods and are not affected by electronic warfare systems.

3. Build specialized mobile counter-drone air-defence.

   A mobile air-defence network should be established immediately, with dedicated elements focused exclusively on countering drones—including reconnaissance UAVs and loitering munitions such as Shaheds. Reconnaissance UAVs are considered priority targets on the front line because they collect critical intelligence for subsequent attacks.

   Regarding Shaheds, Russia could eventually launch thousands of those per day. Intercepting them with Patriot missiles would be financially unsustainable.

4. Establish an Unmanned Systems Forces brigade

   Every country should urgently establish an unmanned systems brigade with at least 300 crews capable of performing a wide range of missions—from border patrol and deep reconnaissance to FPV strikes, night-bomber operations, mining, logistics, and other tasks.

5. Expand long-range strike capabilities.
   The first 30, 40, or 50 deep-strike crews should also be established rapidly.

According to Brovdi, any NATO member could complete these five steps by the end of the year.

My contact in Ukraine’s Defence Forces commented that for the Eastern European partners, the most important thing is understanding the danger—and understanding whom they are dealing with.

“Everything within 15 kilometres of the border is doomed. Logistics within a 30-kilometre zone face roughly a fifty-fifty chance of survival. They must be prepared to lose people and territory, to look the beast in the eye and not run. Only then does it make sense to discuss technology. As for how to resist, they should come to Ukraine and learn.

Ideally, our headquarters should be filled with military partners, including officers from the Baltic states, observing the war without filters and adapting its lessons to their own realities. Perhaps they will even develop solutions better than ours,” he added.

French OSINT analyst Clément Molin and the authors of the Polish outlet Służby i Obywatel analyzed satellite imagery and sections of the fortifications visible on Google Maps and concluded that Poland and the Baltic states have not established a continuous system of fortifications along their borders with Russia and Belarus. The defensive line remains fragmented and lacks sufficient depth to withstand a potential Russian offensive.

German Armed Forces personnel have joined the implementation of Poland’s East Shield programme. The programme involves constructing a network of engineering obstacles and fortifications along Poland’s borders with Russia and Belarus.

Earlier, I published several reports assessing different types of threats and highlighting the need for stronger protection, including:

• The Next Drone Threat Comes from the Sea: Is NATO Ready?

• Drone warfare in Ukraine: defending against aerial and naval threats.

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Space Domain of the Russia-Ukraine War: Communication Satellites

Communications satellites enable long-distance communication to share information and coordinate action. Militaries can also use communications satellites to pilot drones remotely. Both Ukraine and Russia are seeking to develop domestic satellite constellations for communications purposes, reducing their dependence on foreign commercial providers.

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In addition to their strike campaigns at sea, Ukraine and Russia have been exchanging a series of attacks on each other’s logistics hubs. Russia has targeted Ukraine’s Nova Poshta delivery network for years, carrying out nearly 70 strikes. Ukraine is now responding by targeting Russian logistics centres.

This week’s edition of the Ukraine Drone Brief covers more than 20 drone-related developments in Ukraine and Russia. Read last week’s edition to see whether this type of brief would be relevant to you.

Also, check out the latest edition of my other newsletter, Drone Warfare in Ukraine, featuring in-depth stories such as: Jet-Powered Shaheds and How Ukraine Plans to Counter Them.

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Aerial Drones

• According to President Zelensky, Ukrainian-made drones will be capable of flying more than 4,000 km in 2026, with ranges of 5,000–10,000 km expected in 2027.

• Russia twice attacked passenger trains in the Zaporizhzhia region with Shahed drones, and in another incident targeted a train in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

  A guided drone deliberately hit a locomotive despite civilians being nearby. The attack involved a Shahed Seeker variant equipped with a high-resolution camera and a target-acquisition system.

• Russia’s jet-powered Shahed drones with real-time operator control pose a significant threat to parts of northern, eastern, and southern Ukraine, as well as northern Kyiv. Operators of warehouses, fuel stations, and industrial facilities are recommended to prepare for possible strikes.

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Protection against drones—both aerial and naval—is the focus of this week’s newsletter.

While Russia is doubling down on jet-powered Shaheds and Ukraine is searching for effective countermeasures, Ukraine’s campaign in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov is disrupting Russia’s export logistics. So far, Russia has been unable to implement sufficient measures to protect its vessels and other maritime assets.

In this edition:

• Jet-Powered Shaheds and How Ukraine Plans to Counter Them;

• Frontline Air Defence in Ukraine (based on the Ukrainian podcast);

• Why Russia Still Cannot Counter Ukraine’s Naval Drones (based on the Russian podcast).

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Meanwhile, thanks to your donations to my drone fundraiser, I managed to purchase not one but two Mavic 3T drones for my friend’s unit. Here is their thank-you video!

Jet-Powered Shaheds and How Ukraine Plans to Counter Them

Russia has been using jet-powered Shahed/Geran drones against Ukraine for over a year. President Zelensky identified countering these threats as one of Ukraine’s most important priorities. These drones can reach speeds of up to 500 km/h, making them extremely difficult for Ukraine’s existing air defence solutions—including mobile fire groups and interceptor drones—to counter.

The use of jet-powered Shaheds is particularly dangerous in Ukrainian regions bordering Russia. A Geran-3 launched from Russia’s Belgorod region can reach Kharkiv in about 70 seconds, leaving air defence units even less time to respond than during an S-300 missile attack. Jet-powered drones targeting Kharkiv reach speeds of up to 450 km/h. This speed complicates detection: it appears on the radar, and a second later it is already somewhere else. The sound they produce in flight also resembles that of a missile.

At the same time, jet-powered Shaheds have many vulnerabilities.

They are highly unmaneuverable. The Russians have installed a powerful engine in the lightweight, almost paper-thin airframe of the old Shahed. It cannot withstand even very wide, multi-kilometre turns without losing a great deal of speed. It is precisely during these turns that Ukraine’s air defences often manage to intercept them.

So far, the flight patterns of the jet-powered variants resemble testing, possibly even without warheads. The enemy is still experimenting and learning.

There also appear to be launch-related problems. The launch process is evidently lengthy and technically complicated. While conventional Shaheds can be launched by the dozens simultaneously, the jet-powered variants are launched, at best, one at a time every half-hour. Their range is also relatively limited.

Marian Zablotsky, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian currently serving in air defence units, described jet-powered Shaheds as “a new challenge for which there is not yet an immediate, large-scale response.” Proposed solutions for countering such attacks already exist and have been submitted by several manufacturers.

A representative of Ukraine’s General Staff identified three main interception systems currently being developed by military innovators to counter this threat:

• Interceptor drones — these operate at specific altitudes and speeds that are better “not disclosed publicly.” They also use specialized guidance algorithms designed to improve accuracy when pursuing a target from behind.

• A fixed-wing platform capable of carrying other interceptors — these interceptors would accelerate to speeds of 500–700 km/h and operate at the altitudes used by Russia’s jet-powered Shahed drones (4–6 km, and up to 9 km). This option could become the most widely deployed because it is cost-effective and easy to scale.

• A “smart” missile — described as a “new architecture built from inexpensive components,” capable of operating at altitudes of up to 6 km and ranges of up to 15 km.

If these solutions prove effective, the General Staff plans to combine them.

Jet-powered Shaheds are most dangerous when operated under real-time control through a mesh network, says Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a former adviser to Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and a current adviser to President Zelensky.

With support from BRAVE1 and the General Staff’s Main Directorate of Electronic Warfare, Ukrainian EW manufacturers are working on technologies designed to jam the mesh-radio control channels used by Shaheds.

The development of interceptors designed to counter this threat is gaining momentum in Ukraine.

The SPYS interceptor drone, presented by the Ukrainian company WIY Drones, has a maximum speed of 600 km/h, a range of 12 km, and a payload capacity of 0.3 kg. It is equipped with a target-guidance system and supports the integration of autonomous launch and deployment capabilities for reaching the target area.

SkyFall unveiled its new P1-SUN JetKiller interceptor, designed to counter jet-powered Shaheds. It can reach speeds of up to 370 km/h. It has undergone combat testing and has already destroyed more than a dozen jet-powered Shaheds.

According to Ukrainian experts, conventional Shaheds won’t disappear. They will be directed toward the line of contact and used much like artillery. They will also probably be employed more frequently against Ukraine’s western regions.

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I track the latest innovations, including interceptor drones, in my weekly two-page newsletter, Ukraine Drone Brief, available to VIP subscribers.

Frontline Air Defence in Ukraine

In an interview with Militarnyi, the commander of the Ramses Air-Defence Drone Battalion discusses modern frontline air defence: how Ukrainian forces protect infantry from reconnaissance and strike drones, counter waves of Shaheds, and respond to the growing threat of jet-powered UAVs.

Here is my summary of their conversation.

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Let’s take a look at what is happening in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. The number of Russian vessels that have been hit by Ukrainian forces is approaching 200. While destroying the vessels is not the primary objective, disrupting Russia’s export logistics is—and the economic costs of these attacks, along with the resulting logistical losses, are immense.

In this edition:

• Ukraine’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov Campaign. Operation MoLoChKa;

• Russia Launched Over 40 Missiles at Kyiv;

• Fedorov’s Dismissal: Key Points;

• and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.

Also, check out my latest Ukraine Drone Brief, available for unpaid and paid readers!

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Ukraine’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov Campaign. Operation MoLoChKa

The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, regularly posts updates on the force’s operations, “MoLoChKa” and “Crimean Switch Off,” which target vessels in the Black and Azov seas, as well as energy infrastructure in occupied Crimea.

Between July 1 and 19, the two operations targeted 176 vessels linked to Russia’s shadow fleet and 96 energy facilities. The strikes have been carried out using aerial and naval drones.

Brovdi said that Operation “MoLoChKa” would continue indefinitely. He also explained the name of the operation: the acronym (MLChK) stands for “Moscow Will Fall Through Crimea.”

Most of the vessels struck by Ukraine’s forces did not sink but sustained varying degrees of damage. “The goal is to paralyse Russia’s feeder fleet, an important component of its shadow fleet,” Brovdi said. The feeder fleet involves small and medium-sized, 140-metre flat-bottomed tankers with a deadweight capacity of 7,000 tonnes.

The operation is part of a broader effort by Ukraine’s Defence Forces to systematically disrupt Russian logistics, restrict the supply of fuel and ammunition, and strike at Russia’s oil exports through the Sea of Azov.

On the southern axis, Russian logistics depend primarily on two main routes. The first runs through the Kerch Strait and includes the Crimean Bridge, ferry crossings, and maritime links between Russian ports and occupied Crimea. According to Brovdi, the Kerch ferry crossing has already lost 75% of its capacity.

The second is the land corridor along the Sea of Azov, passing through Taganrog, Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol. This route also remains under constant Ukrainian fire control. That is why the Kremlin decided to make greater use of the Sea of Azov as an alternative logistics route.

The Sea of Azov is also used for so-called offshore oil transshipment. Under this arrangement, small tankers transported oil from Russian ports to anchorage areas near the Kerch Strait, where it was transferred to larger ocean-going vessels bound for India, China, and other countries.

The consequences of this operation extend far beyond military logistics, as the Sea of Azov is also a key export route for Russian grain. CNN reported that about a quarter of Russia’s wheat exports is shipped through the Sea of Azov.

On July 13, Russia temporarily suspended applications for passage through the Kerch Strait and the Azov–Don Canal. Russia is reportedly preparing to reroute its grain exports that previously passed through the Sea of Azov.

Russian military bloggers acknowledged that the Ukrainian attacks have become continuous and now affect commercial navigation. They noted that none of the ships had sunk and that no major oil spills had been observed; however, sinking vessels may not be Ukraine’s primary objective. The strikes appear designed to hit bridges and other critical sections of the ships, intimidate crews, discourage further voyages, and ultimately paralyse maritime traffic. In their assessment, the campaign is achieving this effect with considerable success.

Also, a vessel need not sink to be removed from service. If the bridge and its internal equipment burn out, repairs may be too expensive, take a long time, or become nearly impossible under sanctions.

The insurers are increasingly unwilling to cover vessels operating in such high-risk conditions. The cost of marine insurance in the Black Sea increased 204-fold in the second quarter of 2026, while the loss ratio for reinsurance covering drone-attack risks reached 2,800%.

The bloggers also highlighted Russia’s reactive approach to protecting civilian and industrial infrastructure. According to them, vessel owners received no instructions on how to respond. This mirrors the situation with strikes on oil refineries, whose owners failed to coordinate their own defences, assumed that Ukrainian attacks would not reach their facilities, and did not put adequate protective measures in place. The military, meanwhile, remained focused on the front line, leaving the protection of refineries and commercial shipping to private operators.

Possible protective measures for vessels include installing chain-link barriers at least 15 metres away from vulnerable parts of vessels. The bloggers claimed that specialists capable of organising such defences are available, but usually demand full payment in advance—and many Russian companies remain unwilling to pay for these services.

According to the ATESH resistance movement, Russia is deploying personnel from its elite Rubikon Drone Centre to protect vessels linked to its shadow fleet in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Up to three service members could be assigned to each tanker. They are expected to use twin-mounted machine guns, man-portable air-defence systems, and interceptor drones to repel Ukrainian attacks.

Read my earlier reports:

• Ukraine Wants to Isolate Crimea from Russia;

• Russia’s Rubikon: What Drives Its Success in Drone Warfare;

• Ukraine’s Asymmetric Counteroffensive.

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