Russia attacks 1 soldier on the frontline with 15 drones: kill zone borders are rapidly expanding

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:04]Drones have become so cheap that Russia has gone from being unwilling to spend one drone on a single Ukrainian soldier to sending more than a dozen for a single person, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman said. At the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, its troops never attacked a single soldier or even a group of three with drones, Business Insider writes.

[00:00:27]They definitely had higher priority targets such as armored vehicles or tanks, noted Taras Berezovets, head of the Military Cooperation Department of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces. But now, on the front lines, they can use up to 15 drones to kill one soldier, he emphasized at the Drone Summit 2026, a meeting of military officials and drone industry leaders in Latvia, a NATO member state. Drones are largely determining the course of the war in Ukraine for both sides. Some drones conduct on the battlefield, others drop bombs or simply crash into targets and explode. The skies are so crowded with drones that maneuvering becomes an exceptionally difficult task for both vehicles and infantry, according to media reports. Drones have created kilometers-wide kill zones on the front lines, medium-range attack drones are disrupting logistics operations, >> [music] >> and long-range drones are striking targets thousands of kilometers away.

[00:01:29]It's a brutal drone war that is becoming increasingly robotic. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in March that 90% of Russia's front-line losses were caused by drones. However, Russia has also built up a significant arsenal, which it uses to hunt, track, and attack Ukrainian soldiers.

[00:01:49]Berezovets explained that the increase in Russian drones hunting individual Ukrainian soldiers is due to the abundance of inexpensive drones. As attack and surveillance weapons, >> [music] >> they have become overwhelmingly present in this war and fundamentally changed the way it is waged. Combat drones, especially inexpensive first-person view FPV drones, are now very cheap.

[00:02:13]Berazovit emphasized.

[00:02:14]>> [music] >> You can destroy a tank worth millions of euros with a single drone costing $500, and this is a new economics of war, completely changing the very nature of war, including psychologically, he noted. In this war, drones are used to destroy and damage expensive weapons and equipment such as tanks, helicopters, and air defense systems. The benefits are clear. Both Ukraine and Russia produce these disposable weapons by the millions. They are cheap, expendable, and a key element of modern warfare. The effectiveness of drones in Ukraine has prompted Western militaries to develop larger fleets of unmanned systems and improve their defenses against drones, while potential adversaries, including Russia and China, are building their own drone forces. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the advantages of using vast quantities of cheap, disposable weapons on the battlefield alongside expensive, sophisticated systems that are often available only in limited quantities and that Western [music] militaries have relied on for decades. Western armies may not have to rely on drones as heavily as Ukraine does, but officials in Europe, the [music] US, and NATO acknowledge that their use is changing the nature of future wars and raising questions about whether the West is ready for them. Berazovit said partner countries should draw on our experience by learning from and alongside Ukraine in drone warfare.

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