Drones are key in Ukraine's fight against Russia. Now it wants 1 million more of them

The Ukraine-Russia war has become a proving ground for whatdrones can do in conflict.

Ukrainian forces have used small, first-person view (FPV) drones to blow up Russian tanks on their soiland longer-range devices todamagemilitary aircraftin Russia. Drone attacks this winterhave hit oil refineries deep inside Russian territory, as well as a major steel factory.Explosives-ladennaval drones have slammed intoRussian ships.

With the war now in its third year, Ukraine is leaning hard into drones as a combat strategy, ramping up its domestic production and counting on allies to deliver onemillion of them in the next 12 months.

Why? Because these relatively cheap, flexible tools are helping stave off the advance of Russian troopsbytargeting opposingsoldiers.

FPV drone operators fly themalong the front lines so they can hone in on and hit the opposing forces,said Samuel Bendett of CNA, asecurity think-tank in Arlington, Va.

"Individual soldiers are not safe on the battlefield," he said.

But that's just as true for Ukrainian soldiers, who must avoidthe threat posed by Russia's owndrones.

WATCH | Canada-built drones earmarked for Ukraine:

Canada sending hundreds of military-grade drones to Ukraine

6 months ago

Duration 1:56

Defence Minister Bill Blair announces the government is sending more than 800 military-grade drones to Ukraine as concerns mount that Kyiv is faltering on the battlefield, and that it can no longer rely on the United States for support.

A need 'to tilt the balance'

Two weeks ago, Canada announced it will sendmore than 800 drones to Ukraine that canspottargets "at long range" and also strike them.

Yet that's just a small fraction of the drones Ukraine wants to have on hand.

A group of Western nations including Latvia, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlandsaims to send one million drones, including small FPV drones,to Ukraine by the end of next February.

Latvian Defence Minister Andris Sprudshas said Ukraine needs these tools "to tilt the balance" in the war, particularly when it's struggling to acquire the ammunition it needs to fight back against Russia.

How likely is it that Ukraine will get the million drones it's seeking? It depends on who you ask.

"I think it's a good target to have, as Ukraine has used drones to make up for munitions," Alexander Lanoszka, an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Ontario,said via email.

But Lanoszkapointed out that European allieshave so farfailed to deliver promised amounts of ammunition toUkraine.

Bendett saidthe headline number of one million is not inconceivableas Ukraine is already producing a variety of drones, including thousands of units that can be used to strike targets at a distance.

He said with that many drones, Ukrainecould potentially launchtens of thousands of them at targets each month and even if half or more failed, that would still leave a whole lotof drones doing damage.

More drones, more pilots

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister for digital transformation, recently told Reuters that Kyiv had orderedproduction of 300,000 drones in 2023 and one-third of those were sent to the front.

He said that number did not include the additional and "significant contribution" of equipmentfrom volunteer groups.

Private organizations have also helped train many of the drone pilots working on the front lines.

One of them is the Dronarium Academy,which helpspeople learnhow to fly drones, understand their limitations and use them in battle.

"The war has definitely changed us,"founder RuslanBieliaievsaidin an emailed statement, noting the Dronariumstarted its work in 2017.

"From the very beginning, it became clear to us that this is a new format of warand drones would play one of the decisive roles."

Bieliaiev said thousands of pilots have trained on several types of drones over the course of the war with Russia. The students span all branches of the Ukrainian forces, he said.

The future is now

Col. Kristen Thompson, a U.S. air force military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, creditsUkraine's nimble use of drones with helping it hold its own against Russia.

"Ukraine's ability to acquire and crowdsource commercial drone technology, tactically modify drones in the field based on real-time feedbackand alter tactics to defeat anti-drone systems have proved to be crucial to its war effort," Thompson wrote in a recent analysis.

It's expected drones will continue to be a key part of Ukraine's war effort for some time to come.Last month,President Volodymyr Zelenskyyannounced the creation of a new drone-focused branch of the military.

Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies, predictsthis move will help the military get a more accurate picture of how drones work best in battle.In a report last month, he writesit could also make it easier to co-ordinate the training of drone pilots.

Military minds outside the country have also been watching what's happening on the Ukrainian battlefield to inform their own thinking on conflict and drones.

Last month, the U.S. army said it would stop trying todevelop a next-generation scout helicopter despite having spent$2 billion US on its effortsto date because events in Ukraine had made the projectobsolete.