Ukrainian soldier with a predator drone, photo by Maxim Subotin, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. courtesy of Wikimedia

THE END OF 2024 LOOKED GRIM FOR UKRAINE: President Trump was promising no further aid, and Hungary under Viktor Orbán was vowing to block any further European Union financial support. Seeing an opportunity, Russia poured all the manpower possible into collapsing Ukrainian front lines, hoping to convince Trump that Russia’s victory and Ukraine’s defeat were inevitable, so that he would pressure Ukraine into a peace treaty favorable to Putin.

Instead, Ukraine dug in. They continued to innovate, and gained superiority in drone warfare at the short, medium, and long ranges. As a result, the front lines have remained essentially stabile, while Russia is scraping the bottom of the barrel for manpower and losing more people than it is recruiting.

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Russia has opted for producing large quantities of a few types of drones rather than investing in technical innovation, but at least for now, Ukrainian production of small drones appears to exceed Russia’s, with at least 3–4 million units produced in 2025 and a goal of up to 7 million in 2026. This is within spitting distance of the 10 million per year that Ukraine estimates it will need to completely overwhelm Russia and achieve decisive victory. It’s also a tremendous advantage. Drones are the dominant force on the lines today, causing approximately 75–80 percent of all casualties. Ukraine now has 1.3 drones at the front line for every 1 Russian drone, and they are of better quality. Additionally, Ukraine has reportedly begun operating AI powered small drone “swarms” that are semi-autonomous and coordinate their attacks.

Slava Ukraine!