The Drone War Over Ukraine (w/ Samuel Bendett)

Drone warfare has emerged as one of the most defining and disruptive features of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. What began as a supporting capability has now become a central element of modern combat, transforming the battlefield with swarms of low-cost UAVs conducting everything from reconnaissance and resupply to direct attacks. The implications extend far beyond Eastern Europe, as non-state actors, authoritarian regimes, and militaries worldwide take note and begin to adapt. How has the drone war in Ukraine changed military doctrine, and what does it mean for future conflicts from Gaza to the Taiwan Strait?

In this episode, Paul Saunders speaks with Samuel Bendett, a defense and technology advisor at the CNA Corporation. Bendett’s previous experience includes working for National Defense University, the U.S. Congress, the private sector and nonprofit organizations on foreign policy, international conflict resolution, and defense and security issues.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sam, you follow very closely the Russian military and especially Russian drones and UAVs. And you’ve been observing very intently now—tragically, for over three years at this point—the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the use of drones in that conflict. How important would you say drones have been in the war so far and why?

Well, they’re extremely important now. And you can’t really read any analysis or report from the front without actually coming across the topic of UAVs. UAVs fulfill multiple roles for the combatants on both sides, such as: conducting persistent intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance of the battlefield; conducting combat operations and bombing missions; mining and demining missions. They are also acting as signal repeaters to extend the operating ranges of other drones. They carry other drones into combat as small aircraft carriers. They even perform limited logistics roles where they can deliver supplies and ammunition and medicines to the soldiers.

This type of Ukrainian combat—this attritional type of war that we are witnessing right now—is unique. But a lot of aspects of this specific combat can be replicated, and in fact are replicated in other conflicts around the world. Ultimately, what this war has demonstrated is that a military that has a lot of legacy systems and larger manned assets can also field a lot of unmanned assets in absolutely staggering quantities. And this is what makes Ukraine combat rather unique.

The Ukrainian and Russian militaries last year each fielded around 1.4 to 1.6 million UAVs and are on track to deliver millions more this year. And this massive quantity that enables all of the mission sets that I just described is also enabled by the fact that a lot of these tactical UAVs are in fact assembled from commercial components. This enabled the Ukrainian military and their supporters in the community, as well as the Russian military and their supporters, to assemble lots and lots of different types of UAVs.

This war made commercial drones like the Chinese DJI Mavic an absolutely indispensable part of combat and has demonstrated that with a little bit of persistence and with some funding and access to some of the Chinese supplies, anyone or any groups of individuals—and certainly militaries around the world—can gather enough resources to assemble and field their own UAVs. This is the war of one-way attack drones as much as it is a war of multi-purpose, multi-use UAVs that perform reconnaissance, intelligence, or other types of roles.

Both sides—Ukraine and Russia—are using long-range, one-way attack drones to target each other’s infrastructure and civilian targets, as well as energy targets and military targets. And so alongside of legacy UAVs that were developed prior to 2022 by Russia and by Ukraine, there are also multiple types of new UAVs that have been fielded and developed and assembled since 2022 onwards.

We’re now clocking the fourth year of this conflict with dozens of different UAV types fielded by each belligerent. And this, of course, makes the battlefield at the tactical edge rather transparent. It prevents significant gathering of resources. It prevents significant accumulation of materiel or of soldiers for a breakthrough. And that’s why this conflict has turned into this incremental, attritional type of war that we’re witnessing.

It’s really quite striking to think about each side using more than a million drones. I would imagine—if you think about weapons—it seems the only thing that one would use more of would be bullets or artillery shells.

That’s a very good point. That’s exactly what both sides are doing. Ukrainians have fielded very sophisticated tactics in using these tactical UAVs, as a way to offset some of the shortages that they had with artillery shells. And of course, drones did not replace artillery shells simply because artillery shells have much more destructive power and much greater destructive capability than a single UAV. But a well-trained UAV crew can actually hold off a much larger advancing and attacking force. Ukrainians and Russians are acknowledging that a single UAV crew can actually hold off a formation as large as a military platoon or even a company that is advancing. This war and all the drones which are used in this conflict have enabled the defenders to have a very significant advantage.

The second question for you: for people observing this conflict from the United States, I think it’s fairly easy to see the progress that Ukraine has made with drones. There’s really a lot available online. And certainly, Ukraine has worked hard to publicize the advances that it’s made. It’s less easy for the casual observer to see what Russia has done. As you kind of look at the war and how it’s unfolded on the Russian side, what kind of improvements have you seen technologically in capabilities in the Russian approach to using drones? How much progress has Moscow made?

So, a very good question, and I have to respond with a caveat: obviously, we’re witnessing this war in real time, more or less. We have access to multiple messaging platforms and social media platforms that have lots of videos, commentary, imagery, and the like. But what we’re seeing is actually a fraction of what’s actually happening, because we are witnessing information war as it unfolds in real time. Obviously, each side tries to showcase more of their successes rather than failures. They’re not going to openly publicize or comment on their failures, although that also exists out there in the information space. Each side is essentially trying to showcase their adversaries as less capable. And that’s the type of content we’re witnessing.

Even that type of rather biased and subjective content that we are absorbing can also give us a good idea of what’s actually out there. If we combine that with state media and official media and other media outlets that often talk about drone developments, we can actually paint a fairly sophisticated picture—again, with a caveat that what we are witnessing is just the official information out there. We don’t have the full aperture of what it is that we’re actually observing.

So, Russia is mirror imaging a lot of Ukrainian developments. In fact, in this war, mirror imaging is a daily occurrence. As soon as one side gets a technological advantage, it is countered by the other side or copied by the other side. And so, the technological advantage can last anywhere from three weeks, but no more than three months. After that, the technology has to be adapted, iterated upon, changed, and so on. Russians have adopted a lot of military capabilities with respect to drones that the Ukrainians have done as well. So, Russians are using FPV drones, Russians are using signal repeaters, Russians are using logistics UAVs and the like.

Russians are very keen to publicize their achievements in fielding long-range loitering munitions that they acquired from Iran. They’re flying it under their own name of Geran. Now, they’re actually flying them with the companion UAVs like the Gerbera and the like to overwhelm Ukrainian advances. Russians are fielding a lot of fixed-wing ISR UAVs that are very important targets for Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainians have spent a lot of time and energy trying to take down Russian ISR drones—those that conduct surveillance and intelligence, such as Orlans or Supercams or Albatrosses or Zalas. Some of these Ukrainian interceptions are even targeting Russian loitering munitions. And in turn, Russians are trying to copy Ukrainian practices of flying multi-rotor heavy drone bombers, which were originally designed for agricultural purposes. They’re trying to develop their own or launch their own interceptors against the Ukrainian heavy multi-rotor drones. So again, it’s a mirror image and Russians have copied a lot of successes that Ukraine has done. But Russians also have their own breakthroughs.

Russia’s very important breakthrough came in August of 2024, when they were the first to field a fiber optic-controlled UAV in the Kursk region against the advancing Ukrainian forces. Up until that point, Ukraine had the first mover advantage in UAV technologies and in many cases in some of the counter UAV technologies. But Russians were the first to field the fiber optic-controlled UAVs in large quantities and continues to do so today as recognized by the Ukrainians.

Of course, Ukrainians countered and fielded their own fiber optic drones. And this technology race basically goes on on a daily basis. We are witnessing it as it unfolds in some of the information spaces—again—knowing that some of what we’re seeing may only be a part of the picture.

The third and final question for you here—and you touched on this a little bit at the outset in your first answer: the Russian invasion of Ukraine is obviously a very particular conflict. And from a certain perspective, every war is very particular because the terrain is different, the participants are different, the technologies are different, the time is different, other conditions are different. But it’s a very unique situation. How much of the experience from this conflict do you think will ultimately be transferred elsewhere and be applicable in other wars that we may see in the future?

It’s a very good question, and I think we are already witnessing the shades and echoes of Ukraine combat in combat situations and environments around the world. In the Middle East, in Africa, in Southeast Asia, in Latin America, the belligerents, the militaries, the non-state actors, the terrorist organizations are flying quadcopters, FPV-type drones, and other types of loitering munitions, which are very similar to those used by both sides in Ukraine.

As this war unfolds in the public space—as all of this information basically is in the public domain—there are now YouTube videos on how to assemble FPV drones. There are instructional videos on how to assemble different types of UAVs. There are multiple types of instructions in Ukrainian, Russian, and possibly now in other languages on how to fly these drones, how to conduct themselves in the midst of a drone attack, what to do and not to do when a military force is advancing and the adversaries use UAVs and so on. A lot of that can be translated into multiple languages. So, the knowledge is out there for a very determined party, an individual, groups of individuals or military to analyze all of this information coming out of Ukraine and develop their own technologies and tactics. Again, we’re seeing some of that applied in conflicts around the world already.

Going forward, any significant conflict in an urban environment and other environments is probably going to feature some form of UAV technology we’re witnessing today in Ukraine, simply because both sides in this conflict have demonstrated that they can build massive UAV forces on the cheap, train a large amount of UAV operators, and develop a technical base, whether it comes from the military-industrial sector or from the society and the volunteers, who can actually support the development and training of UAV operators and assembly of certain types of technologies.

Future conflicts will feature some of what we’re seeing in Ukraine, whether we’re talking about close-range combat or long-range combat that will utilize tactical drones or long-range UAVs.

Thank you very much, Sam Bendett, for a great conversation today about drones in the Russian war in Ukraine. As a reminder, Sam is from CNA Corporation here in the Washington, D.C. area. This is Paul Saunders with the “Three Questions” podcast for The National Interest. Thanks, everyone, for listening today. And we’ll be out with another episode in two weeks.

Thanks, Paul.