Ukraine Readies 10,000 Drone Pilots Ahead of Counteroffensive: Official

Ukraine has now trained 10,000 drone pilots as Kyiv seeks to exploit its technological edge over occupying Russian troops, ahead of the long-awaited Ukrainian spring counteroffensive Kyiv hopes can liberate significant swaths of territory.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister for innovation, development of education, science and technology, and its minister of digital transformation, told a Ukrainian Rada TV channel telecast on Thursday that Kyiv has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the country’s so-called “Drone Army.”

“We have recently completed the first part of the UAV pilot training project; 10,000 pilots have been trained during this time,” Fedorov said. “That is, the Drone Army is about the comprehensive development of the UAV sector, both from the point of view of production and from the point of view of their use.”

“During the year, we managed to raise $325 million. It is interesting that people support this fundraising from 110 countries around the world.”

Ukraine’s drone program is once again in the spotlight this week amid a spate of strikes on Russian infrastructure targets close to the battle area, which Kyiv has refused to confirm or deny responsibility for. Ukrainian leaders did deny involvement in an apparent dual-drone attack on the Kremlin this week, which skeptics suggested might have been a Russian “false flag” operation to justify an intensification of Moscow’s bombardments of Ukrainian cities.

Drones are an increasingly important element of Kyiv’s arsenal. Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek: “The use of drones helps us to save lives of our soldiers and civilians.”

“The Russians have dug in, and to drive them out of trenches we need drones,” Merezhko added.

Fedorov has previously said Ukraine intends to launch up to 60 companies producing military-use drones, among them UAVs capable of air-to-air combat against enemy drones. Ukraine reportedly already possesses semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons that use artificial intelligence.

Fedorov told the Associated Press last year that fully autonomous combat drones represent the “logical and inevitable next step” in Ukrainian weapons research and noted that Kyiv has been undertaking “a lot of R&D in this direction.” Fedorov added: “I think that the potential for this is great in the next six months.”

Drones of varying sizes and capabilities have become central to the ongoing war, used by front line troops for reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and even bombing missions—whether as kamikaze weapons or dropping grenades—against enemy units and positions. Many of these UAVs are commercial-grade.

Both Ukraine and Russia have regularly used more sophisticated longer-range drones to attack infrastructural targets far behind the front lines.

“This is a technological war, it is necessary to use UAVs more effectively and save the lives of our soldiers,” Fedorov said last month. “That is why the Drone Army project was launched as part of the fundraising platform UNITED24. Over eight months of work, it has already contracted 1,765 ‘birds’ for a total sum of $3.4 billion.”

Other parts of the Ukrainian government are also pushing ahead with drone procurement projects. In March, Yuriy Shchigol—the head of the State Service for Special Communications of Ukraine—said the department would spend some $867 million on military drones, most of which would be indigenously-produced. Such UAVs, he said, should be considered expendable and replaceable like other types of ammunition.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, told Newsweek earlier this year that drones are among the most important weapons for Kyiv’s continued efforts to liberate occupied territory.

“We will win faster and with fewer losses, if we have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of reconnaissance and combat drones,” Gerashchenko said. “We need combat aviation which has been discussed a lot recently. And also, as I say often—this war is a war of drones, they are the super weapon here.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Update 5/5/2023, 10:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include additional comment from Oleksandr Merezhko.