Ukraine Is HIDING the Most TERRIFYING Weapon That Will Win the War | Other War Stories

We all know how troop surrenders are supposed to go. Even in modern war, soldiers get surrounded and wave the white flag. Troops from the other side take the surrendering soldiers prisoner. No matter the precise format, humans are always involved until now.

Ukraine sent something so terrifying into combat that it forced Russian soldiers to surrender instantly. This is a world first and the most bizarre troops surrender in modern history has seen. Putin's forces allow themselves to be taken prisoner not by humans but by something decidedly nonhuman.

On April 13th, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zalinski revealed that Ukraine has done something that it's never done before. For the first time in history, Ukraine has used ground robots and unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs to capture a Russian position and take the soldiers stationed at the position prisoner. All without a single member of the Ukrainian infantry involved.

This is massive for Ukraine. As some two million Ukrainians are currently wanted for evading mobilization, Ukraine is coming up with the types of novel solutions to major problems that it's been creating ever since Putin invaded. People don't want to fight. That's fine. Ukraine will build robots to do the fighting for them.

For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms, ground systems, and drones. "The occupiers surrendered and the operation was carried out without infantry and without losses on our side," Ukraine's president proudly declared in a post on the website of the office of the president of Ukraine.

This is about Ukraine developing technologies that exist to save the lives of soldiers. And it's the future of a war where Putin is relying on Russia's overwhelming manpower advantage to try to whittle away at Ukraine's defenses. That strategy isn't working anymore. Ukraine is retaking territory and forcing surrenders by taking manpower out of the equation.

Let's slip into the worn-out boots of a Russian soldier for a moment. First, be happy that you even have those boots. Many of your comrades have been forced to buy their own equipment as far back as December 2022, as Russia's stockpiles of even the basics have been low almost since the day Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Still, you're in Ukraine and somehow you and a small unit of Russian soldiers have managed to establish a defensive position. You're waiting for more soldiers and equipment to arrive from the rear to reinforce your position, though you have no idea if they're coming. Starlink is down and Telegram is being blocked, so you're not getting any word at all from your commanders. So, you hunker down and hope that Ukraine doesn't find you.

Those hopes are dashed as you hear the buzzing of a drone overhead that has clearly discovered your position. You grip your rifle. Soon, you're going to have to defend the small piece of territory you helped to steal from Ukraine against soldiers who are coming to reclaim it. Only that doesn't happen. The buzzing of aerial drones gets louder. Kamikaze drones start attacking your hidey-hole. You peek out, expecting to see soldiers approaching over the horizon. But that's not what you see. In the distance, but getting ever closer, are metal monstrosities on wheels and tracks. They are rolling to your position, and you don't even need to fire off a round to know that small arms fire isn't going to do much to stop them. Not that you can fire. As quick as you poke your head out, an FPV drone comes flying towards you. Then it all stops. You look again. An entire unit of robots, some in the sky and others on the ground, stand before you. What choice do you have? You can die to the machines or raise the white flag and allow them to take you in. You're smarter than most. The white flag goes up.

And just like that, you and your comrades lose the territory that you'd occupied and allow Ukraine to pull off the sort of world first that is indicative of a brand new strategy that Ukraine now looks set to unleash across the entire battlefield.

But hold on a second. You may be thinking, haven't you heard about something like this before? On this very channel, you may have watched videos where we told you about Ukraine using robots to force the surrender of Russian soldiers in the past. That is indeed the case. The incident that Zalinsky reports is the culmination of a lot of hard work by Ukraine that has seen the country manage to capture Russian soldiers using ground robots and UAVs in isolated incidents before.

For instance, January brought with it the news that Ukraine had managed to use a Droid TWW7.62 ground robot equipped with artificial intelligence to take three Russian soldiers as prisoners of war. That claim was made by the robot's manufacturer Dev Droid and it was accompanied by a video showing Putin's troops surrendering to the ground robot. Forbes has also reported on Russian soldiers surrendering to Ukraine's robot army. On March 11th, video emerged of soldiers waving the metaphorical white flag to a drone that was equipped with a loudspeaker that was telling them in no uncertain terms what would happen to them if they didn't give up. Four soldiers took the opportunity to become prisoners in that incident, likely prompted by having seen many of their comrades die due to Ukraine's drones just minutes before.

Even as far back as August 2024, Ukraine had used the strategy of drones equipped with loudspeakers to force a Russian soldier to surrender. In this case, the soldier had been abandoned by his unit. So, he was probably delighted that a drone he would have assumed was there to kill him instead started talking about taking him prisoner.

So, the point stands. Surrenders to Ukrainian drones and robots have happened before. The difference between the latest incident and all the previous ones is that this is where things become serious for Ukraine. Every surrender up until this point has been isolated and hasn't resulted in Ukraine making any significant gains inside its own territory. But this latest one is different. And the difference is that Ukraine both forced Russian soldiers to surrender and used both its drones and ground robots to retake the territory that these soldiers had occupied.

Zalinsky hasn't revealed exactly where the liberation of territory took place, though it seems most likely that it happened somewhere in the south. Ukraine has been on a counterattacking tear in the south since the end of January, leading to it reclaiming about 480 km or about 185 miles of its land. We can now add whatever land Ukraine's drones and ground robots have just liberated, all without the help of a single infantry soldier.

Zalinsky was quick to shout out several of Ukraine's robotic systems, including the Volia, Termit, Ardal, Rattel, Protector, and Snake. He didn't say which, if any, of these systems were involved in the world first that Ukraine has just pulled off. But he did point out something else that is very interesting. It's not just territory that Ukraine's robots are reclaiming. Those machines are actively saving lives on the front.

According to Zalinsky, Ukraine's robotic systems have been involved in 22,000 missions over the last 3 months of the war. In all cases, these robots were tasked with going into areas in place of humans that would otherwise have been forced to put themselves at risk. Ukraine's retaking of territory using robots is just one example. Rescues and logistical operations are also being carried out by Ukraine's ground-based metal machines, and lives are being saved as a result. In other words, lives were saved more than 22,000 times. A robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a soldier.

"This is about high technologies in defense of the highest value, human life," Zalinsky declared when breaking the news about Ukraine's remarkable feat. What we're now starting to see is a wholesale transformation of what it means to fight inside Ukraine. Russia wasn't ready for any of this. When Putin launched his invasion, he thought the manpower and conventional metal would be enough to win the war. Even after his initial special military operation failed, Putin thought that pivoting to a war of attrition would have led to Ukraine's military burning out and fading away by now. Even as recently as September 2025, the Institute for the Study of War was reporting that Putin believed that Russia will be able to outlast Ukraine, its drones, and all of the Western support the country has been receiving. Having 700,000 Russian soldiers inside Ukraine was supposed to be the key to victory.

There's just one problem. To win an attritional war through manpower, you have to be destroying the other side's soldiers. What Russia now faces is a type of war for which it was never prepared. As Zalinsky himself puts it, "The future is already on the front line, and Ukraine is building it."

That future is making itself known in even more ways beyond the capturing of soldiers and the seizing of territory using drones and robots. The rise of the machines is upon the Ukrainian battlefield, and Ukraine's robot advantage is growing far beyond what Russia can handle.

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As each month passes, robots and drones are doing more in Ukraine. According to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Alexander Syski, robotic complexes performed 50% more tasks in March than they had in February, which is the sort of trend that we've been seeing ever since Ukraine started utilizing ground robots to go along with its UAVs. These types of increases are being accompanied by high losses incurred by Russia. Also in April, Syski revealed that Ukraine's UAVs caused 29% more enemy losses in March than they had during the previous month. Furthermore, frontline robots completed around 9,000 missions in total for Ukraine during March, which is a vast increase over the numbers from just a few months ago. For instance, November 2025 saw robots carry out less than a third of missions, with the numbers back then landing on 2,900.

None of this is happening by accident. It's all the result of a very coordinated effort that Ukraine is making to turn robots into the war fighters of the present day. We see this in the explosion in growth of Ukraine's robot army. According to Euromaidan Press, 67 of Ukraine's units were using ground robots to carry out logistics missions in November 2025. By March, the number of units had risen to 167. If you're looking for the reason why the number of robot missions Ukraine carried out between these two months has more than tripled, this is your answer. About three times as many units using robots adds up to about three times as many missions being carried out by those robots.

Ukraine's defense industry is also scaling up to meet the needs of a strategy that increasingly relies on drones and UAVs. Zalinsky says that Ukraine's UAV manufacturers are now capable of building millions of aerial death machines every single year. The number was up to 4 million annually by the end of 2025, and more funding provided to Ukraine by its partners or through the sales of its robotics to other countries could lead to the amount produced climbing even higher.

On the ground robot front, The Interpreter reported at the end of March that Ukraine has 280 companies that are all dedicated to building the types of robots that Ukraine used in its world-first event. The robots that those companies produce are transporting hundreds of tons of supplies in addition to taking part in rescue and offensive operations. Some in Ukraine's military, such as Andre Bletki, commander of the Third Army Corps, believes that these robots will cut down on Ukraine's frontline infantry requirements by 30% by the end of 2026 alone. In future, as many as 80% of the missions that Ukraine has previously needed soldiers to complete could be carried out by UAVs and robots.

Something is changing in how Ukraine uses its robots, too. In the past, ground robots have been used almost exclusively for logistics-related missions. They were and still are hunks of metal machinery onto which Ukraine can load far more supplies than it can have humans carry. The vast majority of the 9,000 missions that Ukraine's robots completed in March would have been related to logistics. However, if the capture of territory and Russian soldiers in April shows us anything, it's that Ukraine is working on making its ground robots as effective as an offensive force as they are as a logistical one.

Foreign Policy highlighted the shift we're seeing in that department on April 13th. It points out that one of the reasons why ground robots are being built on such a large scale and used so widely in Ukraine now is that they cost an average of less than $20,000 to build. The context: a Ukrainian soldier working on the front lines can earn somewhere in the region of $2,500 per month, per The New Voice of Ukraine. In just 8 months, a ground robot becomes more cost-effective than a soldier. And all of this is without even considering the extra costs that are incurred when training and equipping a frontline soldier. Those costs add thousands to the annual bill to keep that soldier operating. As for a ground robot, it doesn't need food, motivation, clothing, or training. All it needs is an operator who has a target. Everything else is wrapped up in a $20,000 package, perhaps with a few dollars added on top if the robot is packing explosives or a strapped rifle that can be used in combat operations.

There are some downsides to Ukraine's robot-heavy strategy that we're starting to see. Russia's electronic warfare, or EW, is one of them. Ukraine's robots have software, and that software needs to be updated, often monthly, to counter the new EW that Russia brings to the battlefield. As the kill zones in Ukraine widen, by Ukraine's own doing, robots and UAVs have to be modified once they arrive at their units. That second problem is a nice one to have. Larger kill zones mean that more Russian soldiers die before they get close to the frontline positions that Ukraine is defending. Units will likely be happy to make a handful of modifications if it means that Russian forces have to trudge through more miles of drone-infested territory before they can attack.

Still, despite the downsides, it's clear that Ukraine's drones and robot advantage over Russia is growing, and we're starting to see the effects on the Ukrainian battlefield and inside Russia itself. Ukraine's robotic army is wreaking havoc. Forcing surrenders and capturing territory amounts to the tip of a huge iceberg.

Inside Russia itself, Ukraine has been using its long-range drones to ravage Russia's oil industry. A series of attacks against Russia's Baltic Sea ports throughout March and into April led to Russia losing access to facilities that handle up to 45% of its oil exports, per Fortune. In Primorsk alone, which is one of the two Baltic Sea ports in question, Ukraine's drone strikes led to $200 million of stored Russian oil burning up. And that's before accounting for the hundreds of millions of dollars of oil that haven't been able to leave that port or the oil terminal in Ust-Luga as a result of Ukraine strikes.

Records are also being broken on the battlefield inside Ukraine. The 22,000 missions in 3 months and 9,000 missions in March alone are both new records and, along with the incident we've already discussed, amount to world firsts. On the long-range drone front, Ukraine has also set a record for distance traveled. Zalinsky has revealed that the furthest that a Ukrainian drone has traveled to reach its target is now 1,750 km or a little over 1,080 miles away from Ukraine's border. There will be more, Zalinsky has warned. Russia has to deal with that fact as it knows that Ukraine can strike deeper into its territory than ever before.

Automation is everywhere in Ukraine's drone and robot army, too. Take the Hornet drone as an example. On April 14th, United 24 Media reported that Ukraine's Hornets, which are commonly referred to as FPV drones or loitering munitions, have been equipped with automated targeting systems that allow them to attack and strike Russian targets without any interference from a drone operator. Those new drones join many others as Ukraine is now fielding about 30% more strike drones on the front lines than Russia.

What we're seeing here is a noticeable leap that almost looks like it has happened overnight. It hasn't. For years, Ukraine has been building and tinkering. It constantly develops new types of drones and its defense industry has grown to the point where it's the envy of many other countries. 2026 is simply the year when all of that hard work is coming to fruition. And there isn't a thing that Russia or Putin can do about it.

So, what does Ukraine's managing to force Russian soldiers into the most bizarre and groundbreaking surrender in modern military history really show us? The event itself is a highlight. We could even argue that it's a blueprint, as Russia relies increasingly on infiltration tactics that see it using small units of infantry to take a tenuous hold of Ukrainian territory. The combination of UAVs and ground robots that Ukraine has just used in an infantry-less liberation mission could set the standard for similar missions all over the front lines. Wherever Russia's positions are less than solid, and that is the case for many of the places where infiltrators are crawling forward, Ukraine now has a new option that eliminates risk for its infantry and has proven effective.

Russia is staring down the barrel of a drone war gun. That gun is cocked. The ammunition is loaded. Now it's ready to fire right in the face of Putin and his cronies. Ground robots are roaming the battlefield, capturing soldiers, evacuating Ukrainian troops, and delivering supplies. UAVs are wrecking Russia on the front, in the kill zones, in the rear, and inside Russia itself. Ukraine has more drones, better technology, continued support, and perhaps more importantly than all of that, it has a reason to keep fighting. Russian soldiers are surrendering to robots because they're trapped in a war they don't want to be in. Ukraine's new approach to fighting makes that already hellish war unbearable for the soldiers that Putin is forcing to the front lines.

As we speak, Russian soldiers in the Donetsk region are getting a terrible taste of just how massive Ukraine's robotic advantage has become. Something is going very wrong for Russia in Donetsk. 9,000 missions in 30 days. That's the latest headline to come out of the Ukraine war as Ukraine has done something so massive to Russia that it will go down in history. Russia is on its knees. Ukraine's ground-based drones have put it there. What Ukraine has now is an army of unalive weapons that are bleeding Russia to death and will be the key to victory over Putin's increasingly weakening forces. The robot surge is real. Putin is staring a real-life rise of the machines in the face.

March has been a huge month for Ukraine on the ground robot front as it's broken all past records for the use of this innovative technology in its war with Russia. The past month alone has seen Ukraine launch more than 9,000 missions using its ground robots, which demonstrates both that these robots are becoming a core part of the Ukrainian military and that they are succeeding at every task that is laid out for them. That success is a huge part of the reason why we're seeing record-breaking operation figures.

Now, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense highlights that fact in a chart where it demonstrates just how much Ukraine's reliance on its ground robots, also known as unmanned ground vehicles or UGVs, has increased over just 5 months. In November 2025, those UGVs completed about 2,900 missions. That's an already impressive number that indicates the completion of almost 100 missions per day. But it was also just an early sign of the sheer tidal wave of UGVs that Ukraine was preparing to unleash in the war. By December, the number of ground robot missions completed in a month had come close to doubling as Ukraine's UGVs handled over 5,200 assignments. More than 2,000 missions were added to the monthly UGV total in January. And though there was a lull, relatively speaking, in February, as the increase in UGV missions was only 400 for a total of over 7,900, March has seen Ukraine rocket up its UGV usage once again. 9,000 missions in one month. That's over 290 ground operations involving UGVs every day.

What we're starting to see here is a pattern emerging as Ukraine grapples with several challenges on the front lines, including a manpower issue that we're going to explore later. It has turned to the main thing that has kept it competitive in a war that it was supposed to lose years ago. Technology has so often been Ukraine's savior, and its expertise in drone and robotics tech is coming to the fore in a 2026 that now seems likely to be a turning point in the war.

The robots are on the rise. Ukraine highlights that not only in the number of missions that UGVs are completing, but also in the number of units it has that are now actively deploying these robots. Euromaidan Press points this out in its report on Ukraine's latest achievement as it notes that there has also been a sharp increase in the number of Ukrainian units using UGVs to go along with the rise in UGV operations. Back in November 2025, just 67 of Ukraine's military units were using ground robots. Fast forward to today and 167 of Ukraine's units are now using ground robots. Among them are the units that the Ministry of Defense has highlighted as top performers. The First Separate Medical Battalion is making heavy use of UGVs. When we dig into the startling evolution of Ukraine's ground robots, however, UGVs are also finding use in Ukraine's assault units, as the Third Separate Assault Brigade and the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade are also standouts that have been name-checked by Ukraine's Ministry of Defense. Ukraine adds that the Third Operational Brigade and the 95th Separate Air Assault Policia Brigade have also made excellent use of UGVs. This is a large spread of units, each of which serves different purposes, and it shows us that there has been a distinct shift in ground drone technology that has made UGVs some of the most versatile assets that Ukraine has in its arsenal.

Ground robots aren't some brand-new type of technology that have only just arrived on the scene in Ukraine. As is so often the case, what seems to be an overnight success story is actually the result of years of work that have contributed to the evolution of a technology that is now starting to showcase its true potential. Early ground robots, as used in Ukraine, were fairly primitive compared to what we're starting to see on the battlefield today. That's not to say that they weren't useful. Back in November 2025, which is uncoincidentally the starting point for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's figures, UGVs were being used all over the front lines as supply vehicles, with Russian unmanned aerial vehicles making it incredibly difficult for Ukrainian troops and traditional vehicles to transport supplies without being targeted. Small UGVs that are easy to camouflage and difficult to spot were starting to make a name for themselves. They could carry food and ammunition from the rear to the front lines, as they have been doing in embattled regions like Bakhmut, where such supplies often mean the difference between life and death. At the time, the BBC said the battle of Bakhmut would likely go down as the first in history to involve the mass use of UGVs both for logistical support and as a tool that Ukraine could use to evacuate wounded soldiers. In fact, around 90% of all supplies being delivered to the frontline forces in Bakhmut were arriving courtesy of ground robots by November. The BBC said one of the UGVs the outlet highlighted in its article was called the Termit, and it has a capacity of about 200 kg or 440 lb. Offloaded from a van, it can be remotely controlled to its destination by an operator stationed several miles away. That process highlights what makes UGVs so invaluable to Ukraine. They reduce risk, but they can also do much more than that. We mentioned evacuations a moment ago. The battle for Krovsk may well have served as a blueprint for the use of UGVs to cart injured soldiers away from hot zones elsewhere in Ukraine today.

On April 7th, United 24 Media reported that Ukraine managed to pull off six evacuations using its ground robots in just 24 hours. Those robots aren't complicated, at least in terms of their looks and functionalities. They look like little more than stretchers on wheels, often with bars that allow for an injured soldier to be loaded onto them. What they can do is cover large distances far faster than a person attempting to carry a wounded soldier away from the battle. In the 24-hour operation upon which United 24 Media reported, two of Ukraine's UGVs combined to cover a distance of roughly 300 km or about 186 miles. Find a human who can cover that sort of distance in 24 hours and you've found the sort of soldier that simply doesn't exist. There are now six Ukrainian soldiers who are alive due to UGVs. There are also Russian soldiers who are dead because of Ukraine's ground robot technology.

As that tech has evolved, Ukraine has been moving beyond using UGVs for logistics and evacuation. The once benign vehicles are being turned into lethal attacking forces. And it's in this type of usage that things get really serious for Russia. But before we dig into that, you are watching the Military Show. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, now is the perfect time to do so to ensure that you never miss one of our videos.

2026 has seen Ukraine embark on a massive campaign to deploy armed UGVs. And these killer robots are making their presence felt in a far more tangible and devastating way to Russia's forces than the robots that Ukraine uses for logistics and evacuation. Ukraine's combination of innovation and being able to use whatever it has on hand to create death-dealing weapons has come to the fore here. The BBC reports that Ukraine's K2 Brigade, which it says is the first to have a dedicated UGV battalion, has taken to mounting Kalashnikov machine guns on its ground robots. As Alexander Afan Saiv, who leads the K2 Brigade's UGV battalion, notes, "They open fire on a battlefield where an infantry man would be afraid to turn up, but a UGV is happy to risk its existence."

Imagine what that must mean for the small units of Russian soldiers that Putin has been sending to infiltrate Ukraine's territory. Those units might be expecting drones in the skies or soldiers on the ground. But then they come face to face with what looks like a tiny tank that has a machine gun mounted on top. Surrender is the only option, and it has to be done fast because that UGV can spray bullets and then move on without giving a thought to what it's doing. It doesn't need to think. It has no concept of death, and it can be replaced with another machine if Russia's soldiers somehow manage to counteract it.

It's not just UGVs roaming around with machine guns that Putin's troops have to worry about. Ground robots can also carry bombs. Ukraine has been coming up with some terrifically powerful ways to use that sort of functionality. After all, remember what we've already told you about UGVs. They're often small enough to move undetected. UGVs can also be parked away in cover, often for hours at a time, preserving their batteries as they wait to ambush unknowing Russian forces that are unfortunate enough to choose their location as the place to hold up. And with hundreds of pounds of carrying capacity, a UGV is more than capable of delivering the sort of firepower that can ruin a Russian's life in a heartbeat.

We saw that in January when footage emerged of a UGV mission carried out by Ukraine's Third Army Corps. That video highlighted a UGV operator using a control pad that looks like it was pulled straight from a video game console to steer a small UGV into a collapsed building. Carefully navigating the rubble, which also highlights how UGVs have developed to traverse tough terrain. The robot enters a small opening where Russian soldiers are attempting to hide away. Boom. A huge explosion takes out the encamped Russians. It later emerged that Ukraine's UGV had traveled about 20 km or around 12.4 miles to reach its target, and that it was carrying 12 landmines. Again, this is Ukraine using what it has to hurt Russia. And it did just that to devastating effect when taking out Russia's soldiers. A remote-controlled UGV carrying mines that can be detonated from a distance is a huge threat to infiltration units that have been tasked with staying out of sight. Those hidden units can't see what's coming for them. By the time a UGV arrives, it's too late for them to do anything about it.

And there's more. Russia is already having to deal with UGVs that are sustaining Ukraine's ground forces and directly attacking Putin's soldiers. What Russia never expected was that it would have to worry about UGVs also becoming an important tool that Ukraine can use to minimize the damage that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine's cities with its aerial bombardments.

On April 4th, The Kyiv Independent revealed that Ukrainian soldiers had used a special firefighting UGV for the first time while dealing with a fire in the Donetsk-based city of Kratorsk. Currently one of the targets in Russia's spring offensive, that city has been struck by a Russian attack that caused a fire in a residential district. That fire was spreading toward gas canisters. Sending soldiers or human firefighters in to deal with it was a massive risk. So, Ukraine chose option B. It sent in a UGV that was able to douse the fire enough to stop it from spreading. The soldiers operating the UGV were able to stay at a safe distance, which both eliminated the risk posed by the gas canisters and minimized the risk of a repeat of the Russian shelling that caused the problem in the first place. Again, it's the sort of creativity that has allowed Ukraine to survive for as long as it has against Russia's seemingly endless supply of manpower.

And all of this talk about minimizing risk brings us nicely to what Ukraine's UGVs and the fact that it is using them in more operations than ever before really mean. As important as the sorts of incidents that we've highlighted so far most certainly are, it's the benefits that lie behind what we see that are vital to Ukraine. A key among those benefits is one that Ukraine desperately needs. UGVs go a long way towards solving Ukraine's manpower problem.

After more than four years of war, Ukraine faces plenty of challenges when it comes to getting much-needed manpower onto the front lines. According to a March piece by the Carnegie Endowment, those challenges include severe shortages in some areas of the front lines, record rates of absence within the military, and a dwindling number of volunteer recruits. Combine all of that with fatigue among the existing soldiers who are locked into a constant battle for survival where they eliminate scores of Russian soldiers only to see more take their place, and you get the early signs of a crisis. DW points out that Ukraine isn't devoid of manpower. Around 30 to 35,000 people are called up for military service in the country every month. However, many of these would-be soldiers are attending Ukraine's military training against their will, and that is leading to the high number of desertions that Ukraine is experiencing. The outlet says Ukraine is trying to counteract these manpower issues. It's extended the length of its military training from 30 to 51 days to ensure that recruits are better prepared for what life is like on the front lines. Forbes adds that some in Ukraine's military high command are also arguing that Ukraine needs to do a better job of placing the troops that it mobilizes. Morale, though it will always be a challenge, becomes less of a problem when troops don't feel as though they've only been assigned to places where Ukraine needs quick fixes, argued former chief of staff of the Azov Brigade, Bohdan Krevtovych. His point, and one that Ukraine seems to be trying to address, is that recruits need to know more and feel useful in the war, or else they start to feel like little more than warm bodies. Compounding all of this is the manpower advantage that Russia already has. With a population that is roughly four times the size of Ukraine's, Russia can absorb losses that now total more than 1.3 million. Ukraine does not have that capacity, nor does it want to lose troops at such a massive scale.

The rise of UGVs is the key to everything that Ukraine does on the ground as its war with Russia moves into 2026 and beyond. According to the Modern War Institute at West Point, Ukraine's increasing use of UGVs has already reduced personnel casualties by up to 30%. As claimed by Ukraine's General Staff, that alone is a major benefit of ground robots. Fewer casualties means that Ukraine doesn't have to worry so much about replacing killed and wounded soldiers. That in turn gives Ukraine some breathing room to confront the assignment and training challenges we've mentioned, as we're seeing in how Ukraine now provides 21 more days training to its recruits. For Ukraine, UGVs are as much about slowing its own rate of personnel attrition as they are about enhancing the rate of attrition being experienced by Putin's forces.

After all, ground robots are now proving that they can be an attacking force. But it's Ukraine's unmanned aerial vehicles that are still tearing through Russian soldiers and equipment faster than anything else that Ukraine has in its arsenal. Those aerial drones are replacing Ukrainian soldiers in the vast kill zones that Ukraine has created. UGVs are replacing them on the logistics and medical evacuation fronts. According to United 24 Media, some in Ukraine's military believe that UGVs could also be the key to replacing the soldiers that Ukraine doesn't have through recruitment. In other words, they replace as much as they say.

Andre Bletki, who commands Ukraine's Third Army Corps, which you may remember from the story of the UGV that delivered mines to Russian infiltrators, suggests that Ukraine is on the cusp of a revolution. UGVs could outright replace a third of the soldiers that Ukraine currently has committed to ground operations. If that prediction comes true, it's huge for Ukraine. The manpower burden that Ukraine faces would be reduced enormously. Soldiers on the front lines would also be able to rotate in and out with more frequency, which adds up to more well-rested soldiers supported by robots and drones who are fighting against Russia's increasingly ragged forces.

With all of these benefits in mind, is it any wonder that Ukraine is committing to building as many UGVs as possible? Ukraine now has 280 companies that are committed to building UGVs. The Loi Institute reports it noted in a March 30th piece that Ukraine's Third Assault Brigade had used UGVs to transport so many goods that it would have needed 10,000 soldiers, each capable of carrying 20 kg or around 44 lb of equipment, to match them. That's a difference-maker so massive for Ukraine that investment into UGVs is a necessity rather than a nice-to-have. Ukraine now plans to produce over 20,000 UGVs in 2026 alone. The Jamestown Foundation adds, "If each of these robots can carry 100 kg of equipment, and that's an estimate that is on the very low end of the scale, that will be equivalent to recruiting 50,000 soldiers." Robots can get more done in a logistical sense than human soldiers. That sort of efficiency is priceless for Ukraine as it adapts to Russia's latest attempts to bombard its defenses with cannon fodder in the 2026 spring and summer offensive.

Russia understands the risk that UGVs pose to its attritional strategy. It is trying to take Ukraine's UGVs out of the equation to force the use of manpower that Ukraine doesn't want to spare. An April 6th report published by Lier.net notes that Russia has created entire units that have the sole purpose of hunting down Ukraine's UGVs. Those units are extensions of those that Russia has already created to target Ukraine's logistical pipelines. But they now face a robot enemy that is harder to spot and capable of doing things that soldiers can't. Clearly, Russia's attempts to stop Ukraine aren't working. UGVs carrying out 9,000 missions in a month is evidence of that.

But what Putin and his forces aren't ready for is the fact that what we're seeing in Ukraine is just the starting point. More UGVs are coming. Thousands more. And if Ukraine can transition to using a large robot army quickly enough, the manpower advantage that Russia has enjoyed for over 4 years becomes moot. In a battle between meat and machines, the meat loses. UGVs may just be the key to Ukraine's entire strategy of bleeding Russia to death.

What we see here is yet another example of how Ukraine's innovative approach to warfare has put Russia on the back foot. That innovation hasn't gone unnoticed. Look up to the sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's something so utterly unhuman that it's making Russian soldiers surrender to Ukraine in droves. Whenever Ukraine sends this, it results in Putin's troops waving the white flag as they desperately try to avoid imminent death. Sinister and unfeeling, this is something that Ukraine unleashed time and time again over the winter. And it's going to become an even more important weapon than it already is in 2026. Have you guessed what we're talking about yet?

It's Ukraine's drones, and they've been forcing Russia's soldiers to give up throughout the winter. Ukraine's Defense Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, provides the details in a March 7th exposé. "This winter, more than 100 occupiers laid down their arms thanks to the work of unmanned units. Every captured soldier is an opportunity to bring our defenders home, better off," declared Fedorov. We'll get to the second part of his statement in a moment.

First, over 100 occupiers laying down their weapons when faced with drones is something that simply isn't supposed to be happening, but it is. And it's because Putin's forces know how terrifying these drones are. Ukraine's machines fly overhead constantly, watching and waiting for any glimpse of a soldier in the vast kill zones that Ukraine has created around the settlements that it's defending. These drones are responsible for between 70 and 80% of all casualties that occur on the front lines. So, Russia's soldiers know what it means when a drone has them in its sights. They will be seconds away from death. The only way to escape is to surrender.

And that's what we see time and time again in a video that Fedorov published alongside his exposé to prove that what he's saying isn't just a load of hot air. We see Russian soldiers with their hands raised. Some stranded out in the open, knowing that they have nowhere else to go. Others hidden away in a shelter only to discover that a drone has spotted them and is ready to unleash hell. The footage is interspersed with occasional examples of what happens to the soldiers who are foolish enough not to surrender to Ukraine's sinister flying machines. And it isn't pretty. The surrendering soldiers have likely seen far too many examples of what will happen to them. They know better than to risk their lives in fights with Ukraine's drones. And if you keep watching, you'll discover that these soldiers are still risking it all when they wave the white flag.

But before we get to that, we said that these sorts of drone surrenders shouldn't be happening. At least, they've never really happened in any other war before, as traditional surrenders usually occur when a soldier or unit has been backed into an inescapable corner by a much larger force. In other words, surrenders rarely happen in one-on-one situations, at least before the Ukraine war. But that's what we're seeing now. Drones simply have to hover overhead, and Russian soldiers are raising their hands and following the commands that emanate from the drones to allow themselves to be taken prisoner by Ukraine.

This is precisely what Ukraine wants. And the reason why comes down to the prisoner exchanges to which Fedorov alludes in his exposé. It will be all too easy for Ukraine's drone operators to simply zero in on the Russian soldiers that they located on the battlefield. They've done it plenty of times before and continue to do so to the tune of eliminating thousands of Putin's forces every single month. On March 5th alone, Pravda reported that Russia lost an estimated 900 soldiers during the previous 24 hours, which reinforces the fact Ukraine's small metal monstrosities are the biggest dealers of death in the entire war. After all, remember we said 70 to 80% of casualties being caused by drones. This means that between 630 and 720 of the casualties Russia experienced in just 24 hours came at the hands, or should we say bombs and kamikaze strikes, of Ukraine's drones. Bumping up the Russian casualty rate is never a bad thing for Ukraine. But now Ukraine is able to use the terrifying reputation that its drones have developed to get its hands on something even more valuable than yet another Russian name in the obituary column. By taking prisoners, Ukraine gives itself something to trade for the lives of soldiers that have been captured by Russia's forces. Right now, prisoner exchanges are really the only source of semi-peaceful activity that occurs between Russia and Ukraine on the battlefield. So, drones capturing over 100 Russian soldiers during the winter alone provides some much-needed bargaining power to get more Ukrainian soldiers home and potentially back onto the battlefield.

In fact, we've seen one of these prisoner transfers occur recently. Just a day before Fedorov revealed what Ukraine's drones managed to achieve during the winter, Al Jazeera reported that Ukraine and Russia had completed a 2-day prisoner swap that saw each side receive 500 of its captured soldiers. Were any of the soldiers that Ukraine's drones caught part of this exchange? We don't know for sure, but it seems likely. And if they were, we see the ultimate irony that Ukraine's machines that are so scary to any Russian soldier who comes across them are the indirect saviors of Ukrainians who might have wasted away or been tortured to death as Russia's prisoners.

But by now you might be wondering how all of this works. After all, we just told you that the traditional way for soldiers to surrender has nothing to do with drones. It couldn't have. Drones, although they have existed long before the war, have only really emerged as a viable all-purpose tool during Ukraine's defense of its territory against Putin's aggression. And it's in boosting that defense through innovation and new drone designs that Ukraine has been able to develop the capability to capture prisoners without one of its soldiers having to be present at the moment of capture.

There are several examples of how this can be done. Artificial intelligence, or AI, plays a role in some cases. On January 27th, 1924 Media reported that one of Ukraine's AI-powered ground robots had managed to capture a trio of soldiers during a combat operation. The robot in question was a Droid TWW7.62, which was built by Dev Droid and being operated remotely by a Ukrainian soldier who is part of the country's Third Separate Assault Brigade. "Without risk to our fighters, the mission was completed remotely. The exchange fund has been replenished. This is what modern warfare looks like. Robots on the front line, people safe," the brigade said when announcing the capture. The Droid TWW7.62 is a remotely operated unmanned ground vehicle built on the NUMO platform. That's a pretty big incentive for a Russian soldier to surrender right there. Just imagine a big hunk of metal that you can't stop with small arms fire, bearing down on you with a machine gun that could shred you apart in seconds, and you can guess why arms would be raised in a heartbeat. It's here where the AI comes into play, as it's used by the drone to improve the accuracy and firing efficiency of the attached gun. Perhaps Russia's trio of surrendering soldiers had just seen Ukraine's ground drone destroy their comrades with unerring accuracy, and they decided they wanted no part of that fight. Regardless, it seems that the drone was used to lead the surrendering soldiers to Ukraine's position where they were officially taken captive.

And that seems to be the crux of how this all works. A drone can't apply zip ties or take a soldier into custody itself. But what it can do is present such a massive threat that a soldier is convinced to surrender. Then, after the soldier disarms himself under the threat of the drone that is staring them in the face, they are led to where Ukraine wants them to be. So, they're taken captive.

That seems to have been what happened during an incident upon which United 24 Media reported on February 17th. In that instance, a pair of Russian soldiers initially surrendered to one of Ukraine's drones before convincing three more of their comrades to do the same thing. And how did Ukraine make it happen? United 24 Media says that the drone in question was equipped with a loudspeaker to which Ukraine blared warnings about what was going to happen to any Russian soldiers found in the north Sloviansk direction that it was patrolling. "Russian soldiers, we know where you are hiding. We are giving you one last chance. In 1 hour, your shelter will be completely destroyed. If you surrender, you will live and return to your families. All your groups that moved with you yesterday have already been destroyed and are lying in the fields," came the message from the loudspeaker.

This is propaganda turned into real power. And the worst of it for Putin's soldiers is that they know that these warnings are 100% accurate. They've seen comrades die in droves to Ukraine's drones. So an unhuman weapon delivering such a pointed warning is something to be taken seriously. In this case, five Russian soldiers got the message. Then they followed the drone to a safe place where they could surrender. At least most of them did. United 24 Media reports that other Russian soldiers fired on one of those trying to surrender, which offers a little hint about something we mentioned earlier in terms of Putin's troops taking their lives into their own hands when they wave a white flag. It's a damned if you do and destroyed by a drone if you don't situation, and we're about to dig a

little deeper into it. But before we get to that, there's plenty more where this came from. If you're getting value from the military show, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss our videos.

So, how are Russian soldiers taking their lives into their own hands when they surrender to Ukraine's drones? After all, it seems like the worst of their experience should be over, right? They haven't been blown up by a drone and they're on their way to the relative safety of a Ukrainian prison to wait it out until they're traded back to Russia. If only it were that simple.

To say that Putin takes a dim view of Russia's surrendering soldiers would be an understatement. Russia's leader is a man who believes that everybody he sends to the front lines should be willing to fight until the very end for his cause. And if they find themselves in an unwinable situation, they should kill themselves before they're captured. This isn't hyperbole. In December 2024, UKR inform reported that Russian soldiers were being given instructions by their commanders on how to commit suicide if they were at risk of being captured or surrendering, which just shows you how little Putin values the soldiers that he's sending to Ukraine.

If a Russian soldier can't go through with eliminating themselves and instead surrenders to Ukraine, then any number of horrific fates might await them. The best of these fates is a lengthy prison sentence forced upon them by the Kremlin. To Putin, voluntary surrender, like what we saw in Federov's video, is a crime worthy of extreme punishment. We learned that on April 15th, 2025, which is when the Moscow Times reported on Russia issuing a first official prison sentence to a soldier who had voluntarily surrendered to Ukraine. That soldier named Roman Ian was a junior sergeant who was stripped of his rank and told that he would have to serve a 15-year sentence for the crime of not allowing himself to die in Ukraine for Putin's power fantasy.

Now, take a guess at how long the sentence for murder is in Russia. If you guessed up to 15 years, you're a winner. Under article 105 of Russia's criminal code, murder with no aggravating circumstances is punished with a sentence of between 6 and 15 years. There are larger sentences for murder with aggravating circumstances up to and including the death sentence. But that doesn't change the fact that even Ishan received a sentence reserved for some of the absolute worst in Russian society. All for the crime of attempting to surrender to Ukraine.

But hey, he might be able to get out of his jail time. All he has to do is become one of the 180,000 plus convicts that Russia has recruited for its military, which we suppose will give him another chance to surrender. The Kremlin probably won't make the same offer to Eeanition that it makes to many of its other criminals. That is, unless it wants to manufacture a circumstance where the soldier faces an even worse fate than the one he's been given.

After all, you could argue that even is one of the lucky ones. He got imprisoned for trying to surrender to Ukraine. Other Russian soldiers get killed. We've seen this several times during the course of the war. Back in July, Militani reported on one such incident which saw one Russian soldier shoot another as the second soldier attempted to surrender to Ukraine. One of Ukraine's drones observed the entire incident from overhead, perhaps having been used by Ukraine to convince the shot soldier to give himself up. Footage of the incident exists, though much of it is too graphic to share in this video. But what you see if you watch the video is the surrendering soldier being shot once from a distance, leading to him crumbling to the ground. Few seconds later, the shooter follows up by walking right up to the soldier and shooting him in the head.

It's a terrible fate, but it's one that Russia seems to actively encourage in a military where every soldier exists for no other reason than to throw themselves at Ukraine's defenses. If the soldier won't even do that, they're as good as dead to Putin anyway. What difference does it make to Russia's callous leader if that soldier is shot by Ukraine or one of his own comrades? At least the dead soldier won't give Ukraine something that it can trade for one of its own captured soldiers.

Another incident was captured on video on October 2025. Reported on by TVP World this time, Russia's forces used one of its own drones to kill a man who was attempting to either desert or surrender to Ukraine. The soldier had barely even started the process of giving himself up. Ukraine's ground forces said that one of their reconnaissance drones had seen the soldier begin to lay down his arms, likely as preparation to surrender to Ukraine. Almost as soon as the weapon hits the ground, an explosive device dropped by a Russian drone lands next to him. Boom. The explosion kills the surrendering soldier in an instant. Again, the footage is too graphic to share in this video because the ground forces said in his statement, "This is yet another evidence that the enemy does not value the lives of even its own soldiers."

We have one more example. On February 10th, United 24 media reported that Russia's forces are still attacking their own soldiers, especially when those soldiers are attempting to give themselves up Ukraine's drones. The outlet reports on a pair of Putin soldiers who had surrendered to Ukrainian drones flown by the 24th separate mechanized brigade in the Chazy region. As the drones guided the Russian soldiers to a location where they could surrender, a Russian FPV drone attack, killing both.

This is the reality that a Russian soldier faces in Putin's army. And we've seen it too many times to count. But what this tells us is the conditions that Putin is forcing his soldiers to endure are so horrific that they are still willing to risk it all when one of Ukraine's drones gives him the opportunity. These contraptions, which have delivered so much death to Putin's men, are still being seen as potential saviors, if not from other Ukrainian drones, than from the surrendering soldiers comrades. Even with all of this risk, Russia's soldiers still hold their hands up and follow Ukraine's drones. Fedorov said it happened over 100 times during the past winter alone. And in total, Russia's soldiers are surrendering in record numbers, even with the threats of prison and death by the hands of their own comrades looming over them.

On December 31st, United 24 media reported that over 10,000 of Russia's soldiers have been taken prisoner by Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion. The number will be even higher now after the winter. And though this seems like a small number given that Russia is believed to have some 700,000 soldiers in Ukraine, keep in mind what we've just told you. These are 10,000 soldiers who will eventually be sent back to Russia. They know that prison might await. So might the prospect of being sent back to the front where they might be shot by their commanders if they try to surrender again. Heck, they might even be shot as soon as they arrive as a form of delayed punishment for what they did.

Many now look at Ukraine's drones as a safe way out of the war that Putin pushed them into. It's a lot safer than sticking with inept commanders who point rifles at their heads. The soldiers so much as breathe a word that questions their orders. What Ukraine has found here is a way to encourage non-cont surreners. It keeps its own soldiers safe while giving Russians a way to give up. All by using the very drones that have killed Putin's forces in drones. And in a kind of strange twisted bonus for Ukraine, any Russian who fails to surrender because their own forces kill them still amounts to a win for Ukraine. That's one more soldier eliminated from the battlefield. As for the drones, they simply move on to the next target. It's no real surprise that so many of Russia's soldiers are now so willing to take their chances with a Ukrainian drone ahead of staying in the field.

The numbers are in, and Russia is experiencing the largest troop losses in modern history. They come in their millions, unfeilling, destructive, ready to tear apart any Russian soldier who is unfortunate enough to get in their way. Putin knows them and fears them. His soldiers are scared to death all over the battlefield as Ukraine is unleashing a warning swarm that is going to be an unstoppable force. The Russian front lines are being flooded with a weapon that Putin's psies know all too well, FPV drones. "The enemy will feel it," Ukraine's president Vladimir Zilinski declared as he delivered a speech to mark Ukrainian gunsmith day on April 13th. He went on to declare that Ukraine has developed into a major force as an arms developer and the primary factor driving this development is the millions of FPV drones that Ukraine is now producing. They have set the stage for everything that Ukraine does now. The interceptor drones, longrange missile drone hybrids, and robotic systems that Ukraine is also developing have all been made possible because Putin's invasion forced the country to develop its expertise in FPV drones. Russia has created a monster, and that monster is eating Putin's forces alive on the battlefield. "The capabilities of Ukraine's defense industry amount to millions of FPV drones per year," Zilinski roared.

Ukraine's drones are now traveling historic distances with the current record of 1,750 km or 1,087 mi for a single strike likely to be broken soon as the likes of the Flamingo, Neptune, Rout, and more undergo continued development. But the one place where the millions of Ukrainian drones are being felt most of all is on the front lines. The numbers prove it. As Ukraine's defense industry levels up over and over again, the results are seen in the record numbers of casualties that Russia is experiencing. According to Alazer, Ukraine tallied 35,351 confirmed casualties in March alone, with drones being responsible for 96% of the Russian dead and wounded. That casualty rate was 29% higher than we saw in February, which is a number large enough that Russia can't even use March having three more days to excuse it.

Compare the first 3 months of 2026 to last year, and you get into the real record-breaking stuff. Right now, Russia is suffering 316 casualties for every square kilometer of Ukraine that it captures. Last year, that number was 120 casualties. Almost triple the number of Russian soldiers are dying for the same amount of territory. And it's the millions upon millions of drones that Ukraine produces that are doing the lion's share of the damage. The percentages vary depending on the source. Zilinski himself says that drones are now responsible for about 90% of Russia's casualties, which is roughly in line with Al Jazzer's claims. On the front lines, the commander of Ukraine's 431st separate unmanned aerial systems battalion, Ilia Machina, puts the number at closer to 80%. But quibbles about the percentage aside, the message that Putin needs to have forced into his ears is clear. Ukraine's drone revolution is destroying Russia. The terrorists in the skies are only going to get stronger and more capable.

All of this has been made possible by explosive growth within Ukraine's defense sector that simply wouldn't have happened if Putin's desire for an empire hadn't overwhelmed whatever sense of logic that he once had. Ukraine was already a fairly prominent weapons exporter and manufacturer. The Kev Post says that it ranked 10th in the world for weapons exports in 2016, though that only amounted to $528 million in sales. That number would look nice in your bank account, but it's dwarfed by the billions of dollars that the likes of Russia and the US make from selling their weapons. Plus, the outlet notes many of Ukraine's exports from around this time consisted of Soviet era equipment that it had repaired and sold on.

Now, things are much different. The millions of drones that Ukraine is building every year aren't just tearing through Russian soldiers and equipment. They are the foundation on which an entire defense industry is being built. An industry that is attracting attention from all over Europe and more recently the Middle East as Ukraine's expertise in aerial and ground robotics is starting to attract the sort of investment that could take the number of drones it builds from millions into tens of millions. We'll be coming back to the insane rise of Ukraine's weapons industry soon. After all, it's the reason behind the massive shift we're seeing on the battlefield right now. But first, let's focus on Ukraine's FPV drones.

Though Zilinski is referring to all of Ukraine's drones when he shares the millions number, FPV drones represent the bulk of what Ukraine is making. They are also becoming the unstoppable force that Russia's soldiers simply can't handle. And to explain why, let's transport ourselves into the boots of a Russian soldier for a moment, courtesy of a brilliant report by the Telegraph that explains exactly what it feels like to encounter one of Ukraine's FPV drones on the battlefield.

You try to creep forward through the wreckage and burned foliage of the battlefield. Both are signs of what happens in a seemingly neverending war. You find cover and you hide. Overhead, you can hear the faint buzzing. A peak outside reveals that drones are circling overhead. You don't know if they're destructive FPV drones or reconnaissance drones that will summon the FPV drones to your position. All you know is that you need to get back into hiding so the cameras built into the drones don't catch sight of you. Not that it will matter. Unknown to you, FPV drones are doing more than circling the skies. They're lurking in the high grass and forested regions, waiting to pounce on any Russian soldier who dares try to move forward. FPV drones are also flying through buildings as their small size makes it possible for them to fly through open windows and cracks. In the end, those are the drones that get you. As much as you try to hide, Ukraine's overwhelming number of FPV drones makes it possible for the country to search everywhere in the vast kill zones it's created. You heard the buzzing getting louder as the drone searched the wrecked building in which he took shelter. By the time the buzz had turned into a roaring cacophony of noise, it was too late to run. The drone hit you. You're eliminated from the war. And there are many, many more of these flying terrors awaiting your comrades.

This is the fate shared by thousands of Russian soldiers who are ordered into the vast kill zones that Ukraine has created. Stretching tens of kilometers beyond the front lines. These kill zones see Ukraine combine a mixture of weapons that are designed to slow Russian advances, funnel troops into designated spots for artillery ambushes, and ultimately wipe out Russian assaults before they ever really get off the ground. Trenches and dragons teeth fill these kill zones, stopping tanks and armored vehicles in their tracks. Spool upon spool of barbed wire is laid out, forcing Russian soldiers to move slowly lest they be sliced to ribbons. But underpinning it all are the FPV drones, deployed in their hundreds and constantly watching. It's these drones that descend on the tanks that get stuck in ditches. FPV drones are so often the last thing that a Russian soldier sees when they're trying to slowly cut their way through barbed wire. And it's all down to the fact that Ukraine can now create millions of these drones, which is what allows the kill zones to even exist at all. Without FPV drones, these kill zones would be more like traditional defenses that were erected in many ground wars up to this point. Ditches and barbed wire are hardly new. They're defenses that have been used for as long as tanks have existed. The drones are the added component, and they're so effective, not just because Ukraine has become a master of the technology behind FPV drones, but it's also found a way to manufacture those drones at scale. Even as Russia assaults its territory, Ukraine has developed a weapons manufacturing industry that has become the envy of the entire world.

But before we dig deeper into that, this is a quick reminder that you are watching the Military Show. If you're getting value from this video, remember to subscribe to the channel so you can keep up with our uploads.

So, we know that Ukraine is building millions of drones, Zilinski told us. The question now is, how did a Ukrainian defense industry that was once almost wholly reliant on selling repaired Soviet era equipment develop into the behemoth that it is today? The maturation of Ukraine's drone development processes has had a huge role to play in all of this. Earlier in the war, Ukraine's drone manufacturers weren't organized. They could barely even be called manufacturers in the traditional sense of the word. Often a manufacturer was an IT engineer tinkering with commercially available drones at home to turn them into killing machines or a small collective of volunteers who got together to start making drones to account for Ukraine's needs. The Lazar Group is a perfect example of this do-it-yourself early attitude. Now one of the most important drone units in Ukraine's military, the group was started by a former Ukrainian TV producer who had funds and the desire to develop drones. Working alongside volunteers, that's exactly what the producer did. Now that producer, Pavlo Yelazarov, is the Ukrainian Air Force's deputy commander. That sort of upward trajectory mirrors that experienced by Ukraine's drone industry and its defense sector as a whole. Over the last four years, we've seen Ukraine's drone manufacturers go from having ramshackle operations hidden away in basement to becoming full-fledged businesses that are not only keeping Ukraine on the front foot in the war, but will likely become a foundational stone of Ukraine's post-war economy.

Ukrainian drone manufacturers are now getting listed on NASDAQ, as is the case with the AI startup Swarmer. Other producers are signaling deals with companies in the US and Europe, which brings in much needed investment that allows them to increase manufacturing volumes and develop the next generations of FPV drones that will unleash hell on Russian soldiers in Ukraine. The numbers alone show us how much of a role drones have played in expanding Ukraine's defense sector. Before Putin launched his invasion in 2022, Ukraine's defense sector was underfunded and reliant on selling archaic equipment. But since then, it has grown enormously in value. According to the Kev School of Economics, Ukraine's defense sector is now worth 6.8 billion, which is six times its value in 2021. Ukraine has around 1,200 private defense companies, which combined to have the capacity to produce $50 billion worth of weapons, assuming they attract the appropriate investment. Ukraine has built a $50 billion industry in four years as bombs fall all around. Drones are at the heart of all of it.

One of the key factors behind Ukraine's systemization of its drone production was the introduction of the Brave 1 system. Launched in April 2023 and entirely state-owned, Brave 1 allows Ukraine's government to issue grants to drone developers and other weapons manufacturers. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested via this program, all with an eye toward helping Ukraine's drone developers build businesses rather than basement operations. The previously mentioned Swarmer was one of Brave 1's many beneficiaries. That NASDAQ listed business got a leg up from a $48,000 Brave 1 investment that has allowed the company to balloon into what we see today. Today, we are starting to see more traditional business mechanisms take over, which allows for the sort of drone production that Zilinsky mentions. Smaller companies emerging into larger drone manufacturers, which has resulted in about 80% of Ukraine's total drone production being handled by a small handful of firms that have grown because Ukraine saw the value in FPV drones and other unmanned vehicles. Investment in a war effort has turned Ukraine's drone industry into big business.

Again, the numbers showcase everything. According to the Kev Independent, Ukraine produced 4.5 million drones in 2025. Rewind to 2 years prior and the numbers were much smaller. Just 300,000 drones were produced in 2023. Incidentally, that's the same number of drones that the US intends to produce over the next two years. Of course, America spends far more on much more advanced weaponry than Ukraine is building. But let's say Ukraine is pulled into a war where drones are the answer to a lot of the cost cutting questions. Say a war with a country like Iran, which uses cheap shahid drones to attack facilities. Suddenly, 300,000 drones over 2 years looks like small potatoes. and a gap opens up that could be filled by Ukrainian drone manufacturers selling their products to the US military. Those sorts of deals will be the reason why Ukraine's ability to produce millions of drones annually will be so crucial in the post-war period when the country is rebuilding its economy. Ukraine has rewritten the rules of ground warfare with its FPV drones and the rest of the world will play catchup by buying Ukrainian tech when that tech is no longer needed to fend off Russia.

But let's come back to the battlefield for a moment. Selling drones to other nations is secondary to flooding contested territory with drones right now for Ukraine. And what the growth of the country's domestic defense industry allows is for Ukraine to become less reliant on other nations for its defense than it has been at any other point during the war with Russia. Again, we've seen huge developments from the early months of the invasion to today. When Putin first sent troops into Ukraine, it was Ukraine's brave initial defense that pushed Russia's forces back and set what become the battle lines that we've seen ever since. However, the defense had to be sustained. For years, the reason why Ukraine was able to survive and stay in the fight was because of the military aid that it received from other nations. That aid is still flowing in, of course. According to the Keel Institute's Ukraine Support Tracker, Ukraine has received about 316.7 billion or a little over $373 billion in allocated aid from the US and Europe over the last 4 years. That's a lot of money, and it has been essential to Ukraine. What this aid means is that Ukraine has sometimes found itself beholdened to the rules for weapons usage that have been set by its allies. Several examples of this were seen in 2025. The year saw the US stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine, though both were later restored. America also created a new approval method for the use of attackums against Russia that essentially served to block Ukraine's use of the missile. Ukraine has since started using attackums once more, but the point stands that relying on foreign aid also meant that Ukraine had to roll with the punches of a sometimes turbulent geopolitical situation.

Fast forward to 2026, and Ukraine's domestic defense sector has expanded to the point where Ukraine itself is now providing 82% of the weapons, equipment, and ammunition that are purchased by Ukraine's Defense Procurement Agency. Just a year before, that percentage was 46%. which means that most of the weapons purchased for Ukraine's military came from foreign partners. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced in February that Ukraine's production capacity has increased 50fold since the war began, meaning that the homegrown defense industry meets more than 50% of the Ukrainian military's needs. This is a shift towards self-reliance that Putin never anticipated and frankly wouldn't have happened if Russia were truly the allconquering force in Ukraine that Putin tries to claim it to be.

So when Zilinski talks about Ukraine building millions of drones per year, he's not just talking about the impact those drones are having on the battlefield. Thousands of Russian soldiers being eliminated by Ukraine's homegrown weapons may capture all of the headlines, but it's everything that has led Ukraine to this point that is really important. Ukraine is becoming increasingly self-reliant, with drones being a large part of the reason why. Ukraine's drones also put it in a position where it will be able to generate billions of dollars from weapons sales in its postwar future and are today allowing the country to sign defense deals and attract millions of dollars from the West. All of which aid it in its defense against Putin's forces. Millions and millions of drones don't just mean tens of thousands of Russians dead every month. They mean a brighter future for Ukraine when the blight of its war with Russia passes.

Now, could more be done to grow Ukraine's drone manufacturing? Absolutely. There's a very simple logic at play here, which is that the more money Ukraine can get, be that through direct purchases from partners, grants, loans, or military aid, the stronger its drone manufacturing sector can become. We've seen the constant upward tick in production within that sector already from 300,000 drones built in 2023. Ukraine hit 4.5 million in 2025. As we said earlier, the country's 2026 target is even more ambitious. Euromidan Press reports that Ukraine's deputy defense minister Sirhi Boiev has told NATO's operational force development framework that Ukraine is shooting for a target of 7 million drones built in 2026. The number could be even higher. Back in June 2025, Ukraine's former defense minister Rustto Mamirov claimed that the country's targeted investment into drone manufacturing had given it the capacity to build 10 million drones every year. So 7 million drones in 2026 may be 2.5 million more than the number built during the previous year, but it's still 3 million shy of the capacity that Ukraine had almost a year ago. And who knows, that capacity might have grown even higher due to even more investment by Ukraine in the consolidation of so many of the country's once fractured drone making companies.

The point we're making here is simple. Ukraine is already in a position to flood the front lines with millions of FPV drones of its own making. And though that flood is already drowning Putin's forces by the thousands, it could be turned into a tidal wave. All Ukraine needs is more time and money. If it gets both, the drone revolution that Ukraine kickstarted will be the savior of the entire nation, both during the war and in the years that follow.

Now, we focused predominantly on FPV drones in this video, but Ukraine has so much more to offer than that. There is something that breaks the laws of physics that is killing Russians in Ukraine. Unseen, undetectable, unstoppable. It is a wonder of manufacturing. Ukraine's most secret black project weapon has just started a war-winning assault. But Ukraine is keeping quiet. This is a hidden weapon that it knows can help win the war. But we know that it's in the skies for one reason. Russia is panicking about it. And some Russian sources are bucking the Kremlin narrative to let the world know about the new Ukrainian terror in the skies.

Ukraine is fielding a new generation of tactical drones that improve on everything that the country has built up to this point. These drones can fly further than anything that Ukraine has unleashed on the front lines before. They're invisible to the detectors that Russia deploys to spot Ukraine's drones coming, and they are immune to the jamming and other electronic warfare or EW techniques that Russia has deployed in the past. Those drones have started to dominate the battlefield inside Ukraine. And the only reason that we know they exist is that the Russians are crying about them. The AFU has started using Martians for strikes against Holivka. Bled the headline from the Russian news agency TAS on April 8th. Just the fact that TAS refers to the drones as Martians tells us that these new weapons feel as though they're not of this world. The invisible drone is here breaking the laws of physics as it flies. And the Russian appointed mayor of Holivka, Ivan Pricodko, has plenty to say about them. The enemy has begun using new drones called Martians, which unfortunately have a cruising speed of up to 300 km/h or 186 mph. No longer fly under operator guidance, but are controlled by artificial intelligence, Prooco declared. This is a terrifying prospect for Russia. Not only are these drones pretty much impossible to detect, but they're guiding themselves to their targets using artificial intelligence. That makes them even more unstoppable, if that's even possible. After all, a drone that guides itself doesn't need an operator. And if there are no operators, there are no targets behind the lines that Russia can attack to stop Ukraine from controlling these drones. Russia is defenseless. Ukraine has found the perfect killer weapon. More accurately, Ukraine has built the perfect weapon. And we'll get into what we know about that in a few minutes.

Before that, there are far more Russians panicking than one regional governor lording it over a city that he shouldn't control in the first place. Ricco has offered some more hints, stating that Ukraine's drones are undetectable by electronic warfare systems and drone detectors don't spot them. However, it's the brutal chen special forces commander apti allowed, who is now one of Russia's many pro-war military bloggers who has pulled back the Kremlin curtain on what Ukraine has unleashed on Putin's forces. In an April 6th video, Allowed revealed that Ukraine's new drones are absolutely wrecking Russian logistics along the front lines and in the near rear. In essence, Ukraine has introduced a new generation drone, which is creating serious logistics challenges. These drones operate day and night and are inaudible except in the final seconds when they're diving. As in the video, they're undetectable by conventional detectors and are protected from electronic warfare. Aloudino revealed, he added that there are theories about how Ukraine's new drones operate, though there is nothing concrete. AI is again a key factor. Ukraine may also be dropping them from Starlink powered relays, which extend their range. Wings are also being built into the drones, which is something else we'll explore later, which adds to their speed and makes them practically inescapable, aloud enough.

None of this sounds possible. As effective as Ukraine's drones have been over the past 4 years, Russia was able to counter them. If it had EW in place, it could stop these drones in their tracks. The telltale buzz could usually be heard, even if Russia's soldiers on the ground couldn't do anything about the incoming drones. and trackers, radars, and other detectors could at least offer Putin's forces some warnings that Ukraine's flying death dealing machines were inbound. Now, there's nothing. No warning, no escape, and definitely no word from Ukraine about what it has unleashed on Russia's troops. However, there have been clues that something like this was coming. The mention of Martian drones isn't a coincidence, as that term has appeared in the news before. There are also reports of other technological advancements that Ukraine has made that may or may not be tied to the new drones that it's using.

So, we come to the obvious question. What do we know or think that we know about Ukraine's ultra secret drones that are now terrorizing Putin's pies? Let's start with the Martian drone name. Back in December, the New York Times published an interesting story covering the exploits of a drone pilot named Leaper, who was fighting against Russian forces in the fields near the small settlement of Boriska. This tiny village sits right against the Russian border and has been occupied for a large portion of the war. Leaper's job is to make life hell for the occupiers. And he may well have been using the very type of drone that Russia's media is now panicking about. The New York Times recounts the tale of Leaper and his navigator Boar, identifying the movements of a Russian drone team that had set up shop in an abandoned warehouse. The duo tried to unleash some of Ukraine's normal drones at the warehouse, only to find that EW jammed them before they could strike their target. Then came the Bumblebee, a new type of drone created as part of a secret venture that is reportedly being led by former chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt. Bumblebee offered the answer to the Ukrainian drone operator's problem. The drone was launched into the sky. Leaper reached over on his controls and flicked a switch. Suddenly, a drone that was being controlled by humans became autonomous. The Bumblebee drone swept toward the target of its own valition. Jamming couldn't stop it. Even as the drone's signal connection was lost, it kept moving on due to the inbuilt software that kept it zoned in on its target. Every Russian attempt to stop the drone failed, the bumblebee crashed into the wall of the warehouse, making it clear to Russia's drone team that it would have to move. If it didn't, more bumblebees would be coming. Could this have been the first flight of the Martian drone that is now flying undetected over occupied Ukraine? If not the first, it was almost certainly among them.

At around the same time, the New York Times reports Russian soldiers outside the Ukrainian cities of Khiv and Kupyans were dealing with a similar kind of drone. The only way to stop these drones was to shoot them down. That could only be done if you were lucky enough to spot them and accurate enough to hit them before they found their targets. One of these drones took out an armored car in the region. And Russia managed to get its hands on the wreckage of the Ukrainian drone. The wreckage was shipped off to the Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions, which is a Russian drone manufacturing business based outside of Moscow. That's when the bumblebee was dubbed the Marcenine in Russia. Marcenine is the Russian word for Martian. That name was given to Ukraine's secretive new drone based on Russia's assumption that it was developed not in Ukraine, but as part of NASA's ingenuity program. That program led to the creation of a small and autonomous helicopter that eventually flew on Mars. If the Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions is to be believed, Ukraine is now fielding a version of that drone, either as is from NASA or developed in the same sort of technology that allows for the silent and AI powered flight that is now being reported all over occupied territories of Ukraine. We said that this drone broke the laws of physics, but flying on Mars. It looks like Russia is now dealing with a new threat that has quite literally been out of this world.

Ukraine is keeping its lips firmly sealed about all of this. But if the New York Times is correct, the Martian drone has been developed either by or with some help from NASA and Ukraine has unleashed it against Russia's forces. There are more hints that something like this was coming. Some from the battlefield and some dropped by Ukraine itself. But before we go deeper into that, this is the Military Show and we bring you the full picture, not just the headlines. Hit subscribe now if you want to make sure you stay ahead of the curve.

So there are more hints about Ukraine's new drones. Some of these hints come from Ukrainian companies. On December 5th, United 24 media reported that a Ukrainian defense technology firm named DoD Solution has started equipping Ukraine's armed forces with a new AI based autog guidance system that is able to lock onto targets even when those targets are moving. The firm, which is based in Leviv, said that this new system could be embedded into kamicazi drones so that they can keep track of their targets in GPS contested environments. In other words, jamming won't work. Spoofing is useless. GPS is taken out of the equation, all due to a system that appears as though it can be installed onto any drone that Ukraine has. The plot thickens. The Martian may be a standalone drone, but the tech behind it, or at least something similar, may be widely available across Ukraine.

Fast forward to the end of March, and Ukraine's Ministry of Defense has also been talking about new drone technologies. In a Telegram post, Ukraine's Minister of Defense, Mko Federov, claimed that Ukraine has started testing a new generation of bomber drones at the Brave 1 testing ground. Brave 1 is the program that Ukraine has created to encourage and support drone manufacturers throughout the country to come up with new technologies that can be used against Russia's occupying forces. The new generation of bombers means greater range, higher payload, secure communications, and the ability to operate from safe positions, better off review, before adding that Ukraine was testing both small and heavy bombers. The former of which are used against infantry and light equipment, while the latter deal with fortifications and heavy equipment. However, it was a little nugget that Fedorov revealed about the testing that should catch your attention. Each board was tested 20 km under the influence of electronic warfare, hitting the target and returning, Ukraine's defense minister claimed. Again, it's there. Resistance to Russian EW and jamming.

What started as the Bumblebee drone, which Russia has dubbed the Martian, seems to have become a technology that Ukraine is integrating into all sorts of drones. Longrange bomber drones, shortrange light bombers that can ruin infantry. And then there are the wings. You didn't forget about them, did you? We'll refresh your memory. In his report about Ukraine's new physics bending drones, Alloudinov said that some of the drones that he has seen and heard reports of are being equipped with wings that increase their range and make them much faster. In an April 8th report, Militani revealed that Russia's Rubicon unit, which is the country's elite drone group, has also seen Ukraine's winged drones in action. It says that Ukraine is strapping wings onto its FPV quadcopter drones, which provides aerodynamic lift that reduces the amount of energy the FPV drones consume while flying. Less energy consumed mean that drones can fly further before their batteries are drained, allowing them to strike targets that are deeper behind the Russian lines. The example Rubicon discovered was equipped with a PG7 warhead that can destroy armored vehicles, personnel, and fortifications. There's no mention of automation or resistance to EW in this report, but it's easy to figure out where Ukraine may be going with this new wing drone. If other reports are true, Ukraine has modules it can load into its drones that allow them to use AI for testing. Those modules are being tested in bomber drones by the Ministry of Defense as we speak, and the Martian may well be a singular drone that has provided the inspiration for everything that Russia is reporting right now.

But there may be one more twist in this tale. The US appears to be somewhat involved in what Ukraine is sending Russia's way right now. At least NASA seems to be. Ukraine is also developing its own AI drone technology for a new generation of terrifying war-winning weapons. However, another player may have also entered the game. Europe. At least that's according to Aloudinov, who has this to say about the automated and silent killer drones that are plaguing Russia's forces right now. Our guys shot some down and looked at them. It appears they are jointly produced. Ukraine, Germany, Ukraine, France. They are modernized. They fly farther than the old ones. We see that European countries are trying to test their new technologies in Ukraine in the present war. France and Germany may be involved as well. That wouldn't come as too much of a surprise if these were standard drones that Ukraine is using against Russia. Germany has a joint production program with Ukraine which is named build with Ukraine and France has been moving toward joint projects with Ukraine for quite some time now. But if they are involved in making the AI powered drones that Ukraine is now using, the implications are massive. Could we be seeing the US, France, Germany, and perhaps even some unnamed players all cooperating or building off each other's technology to help Ukraine? It's possible. And that cooperation only feeds into the already impressive drone innovation that we've seen from Ukraine over more than four years of fighting against Russia.

The one thing we know for certain is that the messaging coming out of Russia's front lines right now is precisely the opposite of what the Kremlin wants people to hear. Putin and his cronies have crafted a narrative around the Ukraine war. Russia is the unstoppable force. Russia has the technological advantage. There is nothing that Ukraine can introduce that Russia hasn't thought up first. We always knew that was nonsense. But now, Russian voices are saying the exact opposite of what the Kremlin wants people to hear as Ukraine's drone advantage is being acknowledged throughout the country. The Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, adds to this in its April 9th battlefield report, where it points out that many Russian pro-war sources are now claiming that Ukraine has created an advantage with its air interdiction efforts. These innovations are a large part of the reason why Ukraine has inflicted more casualties on Russia during the first quarter of 2026 than it did during the same period of 2025. The ISW adds those casualties are heavy. In March alone, Ukraine counted 35,351 Russian casualties with 96% of those casualties being caused by Ukraine's drones. Al Jazzer reports that number was a 29% increase over the February casualty rate and it's also slightly ahead of the previous record monthly Russian casualty rate which was set in December. In short, more Russian soldiers are dying to drones than ever before and that may well be because Ukraine has introduced a new physicsdefying EWist AI powered and utterly silent generation of drones to the battlefield. It's only going to get worse for Russia from here.

Ukraine may be happy to let its results do the talking while only dropping hints about the new tech that it's using against Russia. It's allowing Russian forces to discover that tech firsthand as they get blown to pieces by it. For Alexi Chadayv, who is a Russian scientist and the general director of the scientific and production center Bushkun, which is a drone development and testing facility, what we're seeing now are the early signs that Russia has lost leadership in small sky operations over the past 6 months. Ukraine is advancing its drone technology while Russia is at a standstill. Ranges have been doubled. Production has been boosted by 250% since December, said the Kev Post. While Russia still relies on fiber optic drones, which resist EW but are limited in range due to being attached to cables, Ukraine is moving into a new AI powered generation of drones that are wrecking Russia on the front and in the rear. Ukraine is now pulling well ahead of Russia in the drone space in a war that has been defined by the usage of these very weapons. and Ukraine is only just getting started.

The country isn't restricting its use of AI to the strike drones that are sneaking through occupied airspace and hitting Russia with deadly accuracy. Defense against Russia's long-range strikes is another Ukrainian priority. And AI is helping out there, too. In an April 1st article, the Kev Post revealed that Ukraine is in the midst of developing new AI powered drone swarms that it can use to counter the Shahid type drones that Putin has been flinging Ukraine's cities and infrastructure. These long-range strikes are a problem. Ukraine's air force said that Russia fired 6,462 drones at Ukraine in March. With AI in the mix, Ukraine is creating the capability for one drone operator to control the entire swarms of interceptor drones that can counter Russia's Shahit type threat. This is defense multiplication. Rather than onetoone control, Ukraine is creating a one to many solution. It means that it will soon be fielding interceptor drones that can autonomously strike against Russian drones once an operator moves them into position. Ukraine was always a drone innovator. Now it's a juggernaut in the making. Just like the mutant of X-Man infamy, this juggernaut is unstoppable and it's only growing more powerful with time.

It's not just AI, EW resistance, and a dangerous generation of new drones that Russia has to contend with. Volume is another major issue. Ukraine intends to build 7 million drones in 2026. For context, that's more than seven drones for every active soldier in Ukraine's military. Costs are also being pulled down. The Kev Independent reports on one incident where it says that Ukraine managed to take out a $25 million Russian air defense system using a drone that cost $500 to build. That's a 50,000 times difference in price. And it's proof that Ukraine's work to counter Russia's equipment and manpower numbers advantage is starting to pay off. Drones are going to decide the Ukraine war. And now Ukraine has the perfect combination of volume and technological superiority to transform a weapon that was once keeping it in the fight into one that will win the entire war.

The tech keeps on coming too. We mentioned that the US and several European countries are getting involved in Ukraine's drone revolution. But there's another nation that has entered the mix, and that's one that Russia never saw coming. It was one of the few areas of the Ukraine war where Russia could claim to hold the advantage. A tactic born from sheer volume that allowed Russia to wreck Ukrainian infrastructure and destroy Ukrainian soldiers. But Ukraine has turned everything around. Now Ukraine is outclassing Russia in something truly terrifying. The only war that matters is being won as Ukraine's strike drones come out on top. Russia is done and Ukraine is just getting started.

For the first time since Putin launched his invasion, Ukraine is deploying more strike drones across the front lines than Russia. That's according to the deputy head of the office of the president Pavlo Palisa who says that the gulf is massive and it's going to grow larger. The ratio of strike drone usage front strike between us and the enemy is now different 1.3 to one in our favor. That is, we are using 30% more strike drones than the enemy and this is producing results. Those results can't be disputed as Putin launches Russia's spring offensive with a strategy that seems to amount to little more than throwing more meat against Ukraine's defenses. Russia's casualty rate is rising. In March, Ukraine killed or injured 33,988 Russian soldiers through drone strikes alone. In Donetsk, where Russia is pushing its offensive in a desperate attempt to take the oblast that is right at the top of Putin's priority list, Ukraine's drones are contributing heavily to Russia losing 316 soldiers for every square kilometer that they take. This is drone-based attrition. And now that Ukraine has pulled ahead of Russia on the strike drone front, it's only going to get a lot more devastating for Putin's forces. Fiber optic drones, which are an area in which Russia has long held the advantage, represent the most prominent example of the turnaround that we're now

Seeing on the front. These drones, which are hardwired and thus mostly immune to jamming and other electronic warfare techniques that plague other types of FPV drones, have been the bane of Ukraine's defenses for a long time. Now they're the wired thorn in Russia's side. Palisa reveals that fiber optic systems now account for 32% of the daily drone strikes that Ukraine conducts across the entire front. For Russia, that number is lower, hitting 24%. This tells us that Russia is struggling more than ever before to coordinate its fiber optic drone strikes. And that struggle is emerging right at the point where Ukraine is leaning more heavily into using this type of strike drone than ever before.

Ukraine isn't having things all its own way. As impressive as the shift obviously is, Alisa knows that Ukraine is only matching Russia on fiber optic drone quality, even if it's winning on volume. For any other country, that would be enough for Ukraine. That is an indicator that more needs to be done to improve its strike drones to the point where they have Russia beaten on every conceivable level. Furthermore, though Ukraine has the overall advantage, Russia is still maintaining some pockets where its strike drone strategy is outpacing Ukraine's. There are areas where the Russians are concentrating efforts and trying to create an advantage in the small sky to ensure first of all the possibility of tactical success for their ground units. PISA points out still none of this takes away from what Ukraine has achieved. This is a massive turnaround on the battlefield and it's one that Russia is absolutely desperate to counter. Russia will need to find some answers soon.

While nobody expected this shift, there's a second drone related component where Ukraine has also started dominating Russia. We'll get to that second component soon. On the strike drone front, much of Ukraine's success is owed to its creation of fast kill zones that span multiple miles around the fortified regions that it wants to defend. Those kill zones are laden with reconnaissance and strike drones, which are on a neverending hunt for Russian soldiers who are trying to infiltrate behind Ukraine's lines. Soldiers and equipment get spotted. Then they get blown up by drones. It's a pattern that is repeating over and over across the front lines. And it's the big reason why Russia's spring offensive casualty figures are as high as they are.

According to Forbes, Russia's answer to this problem is to make use of drone swarms that it believes will allow it to counteract Ukraine's kill zone strategy. Using autonomous drone swarms, Russia believes it will be able to pierce Ukraine's drone defenses, thus clearing pathways for soldiers on the ground to conduct assaults. There's a certain type of logic to this approach, but it has its faults. For one, Ukraine is building more strike drones than Russia, 30% more if Peliser is correct. Immediately, that means Russia's swarm strategy faces a numbers issue that suggests it could only be deployed sparingly across the front lines. Operators are also needed for these swarms. Yes, they may be autonomous to a degree. But drones still need operators, even if it's just to get them in position and off the ground. Those operators have to put themselves within range of Ukraine's strike drones, and that means they become targets. With Russia's proposed counter to Ukraine's drone advantage being imperfect at best, Ukraine now has the license to lean more heavily into the new advantage that it's created for itself.

As Ukraine so often does, it's filling in the one gap that we've already mentioned. Palisa says that quality, though not an outright issue, is something that Ukraine can improve on the strike drone front. Right now, it has parity with Russia in that area and an advantage in terms of volume. However, new technologies are emerging on the battlefield that are turning Ukraine's strike drones into even more dangerous weapons than they already are. Artificial intelligence or AI is playing a huge role in Ukraine's efforts to pull ahead on the quality front. In an April 9th report, the Kev Post said that the Ukrainian military has unleashed a new generation of AI powered tactical drones that are immune to jamming and are difficult for radars that look out for the electronic signatures produced by drones to detect. These new AI drones aren't just hard to bring down. They're also rangier than the strike drones that Ukraine already has in place. The Kev Post says that Ukraine's next generation of drones can travel about twice as far as those that are already killing Russian soldiers in their thousands. That makes them versatile as well as dangerous. And it opens up opportunities for Ukraine to use its AI powered strike drones on Russia's own territory as well as inside the occupied regions of Ukraine.

Those opportunities are already being taken. And in a rare event, we have a Russian official to thank for revealing the truth. Ivan Preodko, who is the Russia appointed mayor of the occupied city of Holivka, says that he has seen Ukraine's new AI powered drone swarms with his own eyes. The enemy has begun using new drones called Martians, which unfortunately have a cruising speed of up to 300 km, 186 mph. No longer fly under operator guidance, but are controlled by artificial intelligence. The Keef Post reports Prooco is saying before. He added, "They are undetectable by electronic warfare systems, and drone detectors don't spot them." There are rumors that these drones are the product of joint manufacturing agreements with the likes of Germany and France. But for Russia, it all amounts to Ukraine having strike drones that can fly farther, hit harder, and build upon the quantity advantage that Ukraine has just established.

Speaking of flying farther, a big problem gets even worse for Russia. In an April 8th piece, United 24 media reported that Ukraine has also been working on a new type of FPV drone that is capable of striking deeper behind Russian lines. Again, that system is reportedly already in use, and it's being captured on video by Russia's elite Rubicon drone unit. The footage shows us that Ukraine has started adding aerodynamic wings to the quadcopter FPV drones that it's using against Russia. Those wings provide additional lift, which in turn reduces the amount of energy needed to keep the drones airborne. Less energy used leads to more time spent in the sky, and more time in the sky means the drones can cover a greater distance than they could before. It's a solution so simple that it's ingenious. Basic aerodynamics combined with what Ukraine already has is creating a brand new threat for Russia. Add these new FPV drones to the AI powered swarms striking the occupied territories and the advantage that Ukraine now has on the strike and fiber optic drone fronts, and you get a recipe for something that truly terrifies Russia. The drone war on the front lines is being won by Ukraine. And that isn't the only win that Ukraine has scored on the drone front. But before we go deeper into that, you are watching the military show. There's a lot more where this comes from. So make sure you're subscribed so you never miss one of our videos.

So Ukraine is winning the drone war on the front lines. Putin would at least hope that Russia could maintain its advantage in the deep strike category. At least that way, Russia's terrorization of Ukraine's cities and civilians could give its soldiers an edge on the ground. But there's bad news, Putin. Not only is Ukraine outgunning Russia in the drone war being waged on the front lines, but it's also coming out on top in long-range strikes. And Ukraine's deep strike strategy is all about destroying the Russian war machine from the inside rather than using the same terroristic tactics that Putin employs.

On April 6th, United 24 media reported that the previous March was the first month since Putin launched his invasion that Ukraine fired more drones at Russia than Russia managed to launch at Ukraine. Bearing in mind that the figures can be colored by propaganda that each nation wants to put forth, Ukraine's air force reports that it had to defend itself against 6,462 of Russia's drones in March. About 90% of those drones were intercepted or otherwise suppressed, Ukraine says. As for Russia's Ministry of Defense, it claims the country's air defenses shot 7,347 Ukrainian drones out of the sky. Of course, Russia is acting like it has a 100% success rate against Ukraine's drones. It obviously doesn't. And this revelation isn't the flex that Russia's defense ministry believes it to be. Shot down or not, Ukraine launched almost 900 more longrange drones than Russia. Another quantity disparity is rearing its head. And it's a disparity that is clearly in favor of Ukraine.

Making matters even worse for Russia is that it 6,462 drones that it launched were a record for 2026. It was 28% higher than the number of Russian drones launched in February, which in turn had been an increase over the number of drones that Russia launched in January. Russia also launched 52% fewer missiles against Ukraine in March than it did in February, which suggests that Putin's forces were trying to compensate for lower missile output with more drones. If that was the case, then Ukraine has just casually shattered Russia's 2026 drone record. Another advantage is slipping away for Putin, and this is a big one. Russia's long-range campaign was calculated, dangerous, and very much designed to terrorize Ukraine civilians. We saw that during the past winter when Russia ramped up its long-range strikes as temperatures inside Ukraine dropped as low as -4° F. Russia used that opportunity to hit Ukraine's heating and power infrastructure as hard as it could, which forced Ukraine's people to endure a harsher winter than normal. Russia's long-range strikes have also been increasing in volume and frequency since the war began. The New Voice of Ukraine has the figures, noting that Russia carried out 3,10 drone attacks in 2022. The next year, that number nearly doubled to 6,11. In 2024, it was 15,955. And 2025 brought with it 26,327 drone attacks. These numbers represent a consistent escalation of long-range strikes that the outlet notes cost 2,132 Ukrainian civilians their lives in the first 11 months of 2025 alone. Another 10,522 had been wounded by December, and those numbers add to horrifying civilian casualty statistics for the war as a whole.

Ukraine is countering Russia's deep strikes. Before we cover that, Ukraine is also fighting fire with fire. Where Putin targets civilians, Ukraine is breaking records with long and medium-range drone strikes that are surpassing what Russia can muster and destroying key equipment and military infrastructure. Russia's air defenses are a particular target, and they have been for a long time now. In 2025 alone, Ukraine's Security Service or SBU wiped out a staggering $4 billion worth of Russian air defense equipment. This systematic destruction of Russia's air defenses has carried on into 2026 as a soldier with the call sign Schultz told the Kev Independent in March. We gradually chip away at the entire rock and try to exhaust their air defense capabilities in order to expand this kill zone for their production facilities, enterprises, equipment, headquarters, and so on, says Schultz, who is part of the 413th Regiment of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces. And he's not wrong. Between June 2025 and March 2026, almost a third of Ukraine's verified attacks across Russia and the occupied territories targeted air defense infrastructure with even more focused on Russia's anti-access and aerial denial assets. Groundwork was being laid with these types of strikes. And now that Russia's air defenses are in a worse state than they've ever been, Ukraine is taking advantage. That's why we're now seeing Ukraine launch more longrange drones than Russia. It's not that Ukraine didn't have the numbers in the past. What Ukraine wanted to do was make sure those numbers counted for something when they're unleashed. Russia's long-range attacks are scattershot. Ukraine's deep strikes are surgical, and they're made possible because it spent months carving through Russia's air defenses.

And the outcome of all of this, let's just say that Russia is feeling the burn. A series of strikes that Ukraine has conducted against Russia's Baltic oil terminals throughout March and into April has destroyed oil storage units and shut down a pair of ports that are jointly responsible for 40% of Russia's oil exports. With oil prices having shot up in the wake of Operation Epic Fury in Iran, these strikes couldn't be better timed. They have cut off Russia's oil lifeline right at the point when Putin and his Kremlin cronies were in the best position to profit from it they have been in for years. Ukraine has already cost Russia about $1 billion in oil revenue due to these attacks, TVP World reports, and they were made possible by Ukraine's strikes against Russia's air defenses. Ukraine is now unleashing its flying sanctions at a rate that Putin could never have expected. Longrange drones are bringing the war that Russia started right back home, which in turn places political pressure on Putin. Russia was supposed to sweep through Ukraine during the special military operation. But not only has Ukraine been batting Russia back for over four years, but it's now ahead of Russia on both the strike and long-range drone front. Even those as close to Putin as former defense minister Sergey Shuyu are dropping bombs with statements that acknowledge that the war against Ukraine hasn't gone to plan. If these reactions continue to be ignored, the tightening of control and accumulated frustration could eventually trigger an explosion in one region and then a chain reaction, says Alexi Melnik, who is the co-director of foreign policy and international security studies at the Razumov Center. The ingredients are already there. Dissatisfaction with the authorities, a growing sense of insecurity and increasing instability. Melnikats, a few aspects of the war in which Putin could have claimed to be winning have been snatched away from him. Russia falling behind in the drone war is just another shot to the gut for a Russian president whose strong man image was tarnished long ago.

Even the drone economics battle is coming out in Ukraine's favor. As Ukraine launches more long-range drones than Russia, Putin is having to deal with Ukraine also creating counter drone technologies that make Russia's deep strikes less effective. Ukraine now has interceptor drones that cost anywhere between $1,400 and $2,400 and are more than enough to stop Russia's Shahid type drones, which cost more than 10 times as much in their tracks. Ukraine's drone expertise has also placed it in high demand in the Middle East, where Gulf states are signing decadel long defense deals with Ukraine, so they can benefit from the expertise and equipment that has been forged from over 4 years of war against Russia. In short, Ukraine is winning the drone war in more ways than one.

On the numbers front, Ukraine comes out on top in both the strike drone and long-range drone departments. That doesn't seem set to change anytime soon. Ukraine is actively scaling up its drone production. Ukraine's deputy defense minister, Sir Hai Boev, said in January that Ukraine intends to build 7 million drones of all varieties in 2026. Ukraine also has ambitious plans to open 10 drone factories throughout Europe this year, allowing its means of production to spread to countries that Putin can't target without starting a war with NATO. Ukraine has pushed ahead and it's going to be doing everything that it can to stay there. The mentions of Europe and the Gulf States also highlight how Ukraine's drones have led to the nation becoming a major geopolitical influencer. In 2022, Ukraine was a relatively small player that had grain and natural resources to offer. Now, it's a leader in what may be the most important weapons of the 21st century. Russia has been well and truly outclassed. And what does that mean for Putin? We've already seen the answers. More of Russia's soldiers are dying as the disastrous start to the spring offensive in Ukraine has led to those forces running into the brick wall of Ukraine's strike drones. Inside Russia and the occupied territories, air defenses, oil, and every other military target burn. Ukraine is becoming a key influencer on the global stage as Putin's grasp waines. And then there are the numbers. Ukraine simply has more. It's launching more strike and long-range drones than ever before. More drones than Russia can handle. And as it plans for the rest of 2026, the one thing we know for certain is simple. Ukraine is only going to get stronger in the drone war. It's already crippled Russia's Baltic lifeline. And Ukraine showed just how impactful its drones could be by delivering an absolute week from hell to Russia's shores. Ports that were once considered untouchable are now on fire. And the economic fallout is going to be enough to set Russia even further behind Ukraine in the drone war. A dangerous new phase of the war has been entered. And you can find out more if you watch our video. And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to the Military Show so that you always catch our analysis of the latest developments in the Ukraine war. And thank you for watching.