Ukrainian Drones Can Now Be Flown From Anywhere on Earth

[00:00:00]Before vibe coding and AI ruined everything, there used to be a wonderful class of job where you were hired to perform a routine task. And if you knew a little bit of code, you could just automate it so that your job suddenly became just watching YouTube videos and occasionally sending an email saying, "Let's circle back to it or nothing from me. Thanks, guys."

[00:00:22]Well, it seems like Ukraine is well on their way to making that teleawwork dream a reality for an unusual class of person, a drone pilot. But that's not even the craziest part. Let's talk about it. So, Ukraine has approved a what they call a NATO standard drone control system. This means that the drone control system likely just adheres to uh NATO requirements for remote systems and operability and terms. But the most important part is that it actually enables UAVs to be operated from remote locations, including literally outside of Ukraine entirely.

[00:00:59]So this reportedly system has already been used in combat conditions. And I actually saw this in December of 2025 when I was in Ukraine where uh the 25th Airborne showed how ground drones were actually able to be operated by operators in Kev over 100 kilometers away. This was in part using a Starlink system and some other relays. But the wild part is that this is now combat ready. It says Ukraine Ukraine has cleared its first remote drone control system for operational use under a NATO standard codification procedure. The system allows Ukrainian drone operators to control UAVs from remote locations far from the battlefield. Now, this is sort of interesting for because one, I mean, it's going to save lives because hunting drone pilots and drone operational control centers is a core task of Russian drone operators. But also, it's interesting because famously, when I was in Afghanistan, the drone pilots were almost always operating out of Air Force bases in Nevada. There used to be a joke that you were talking to the drone pilot who was likely eating Burger King after having picked up their shift in an air conditioned trailer in Nevada and somehow was still drawing combat pay.

[00:02:16]Pretty funny. Now, obviously like those pilots in Nevada, they aren't subject to artillery fire, FPV drone strikes, or even electronic warfare targeting the launch sites. Now, this doesn't mean that no one is at risk. A human being still has to launch a drone. The drone needs to still physically arrive at a launch site, but the at least moving the pilot away from the front line reduces that exposure. It takes what would normally be a three to fiveman team that remember when they're in position they have to have batteries, food, water, ammunition, medical supplies, and more, right? Drone repair parts, all to fly those drones and maintain the low latency that's necessary. Now, the system called Hornet Vision Control was developed by the Wild Hornets company and allows operators to control the drones from anywhere in the world and officially approved by Ukraine's defense forces under NATO standard codification.

[00:03:20]Right. It uh the reportedly it actually focuses on longrange drone operations.

[00:03:27]And I think the crazy part is early demonstration showed that this can actually work up to 2,000 kilometers in testing scenarios. Says the Ukrainian pilot controlled an inter an interceptor drone in northern Ukraine while outside the country 2,000 kilometers away. A first in the world. This is crazy at baseline, but also the uh system is actually compatible with a number of existing interceptors like the Sting interceptor as a standalone product and as part of a integrated air defense package. So that implies that for example uh air defense missions in the Gulf countries, they can literally not even have to deploy pilots at all. They can deploy a few do a dozen operators and simply remote in Ukrainian drone pilots who say, "Listen, today's interceptor mission is in Qatar, so buckle up." And that is wild for a bunch of reasons. One, it reflects Ukraine's continued investment in improving its manpower situation, and that is reducing losses and expanding the abilities.

[00:04:33]Because remember, if you have a core group of people just like those pilots in Nevada where basically you could just run them in three shifts at a time and you didn't have to do the very expensive process of flying them into Afghanistan for years at a time. Uh feeding them, supplying them, keeping them safe. It's a lot of work. It was just easier to just put them in a trailer in Nevada and say, "Listen, there's three shifts and whenever a drone pilot is needed, you just simply dial in. You don't have to, for example, fly a pilot from one sector to the other. That's what we're seeing here, where a single team of drone intercept pilots can simply sit around and just wait to remote into a Sting interceptor and say, "Listen, here's the distance and direction of this incoming enemy aircraft, fly out and do your intercept, and then you blow it up and you get you enter the queue and get into another mission." It's very, very efficient, right? And because that's the other thing with military and if you've ever been in the military, you understand that waiting around is just what you do. But that's a bug, not a feature of being in the military. It sometimes is a feature, right? timing has to be synced up. But it's oftentimes a bug where you say, "Listen, somewhere on the battlefield there's a medic who is sitting around scrolling TikTok on their phone and somewhere else on the battlefield is a wounded soldier who's like, "Damn, I could really use a medic right about now." And so that is a logistics mismatch, right? The medic is somewhere where they're not needed at that moment and they're somewhere else where there is a need. this ability to instantly remotely connect the skilled fighter with the need for that person to link them up lightning fast anywhere in the world is represents a massive efficiency gain. Again, imagine if you could do it with medics to say wherever their need wherever a medic is, you can Star Trek teleport them to the wounded soldier to help. And I think but this is also a reflection of Ukraine's growing investment in interceptors conceptually because according to uh the Ukrainian defense minister Michel Fedorov he said actually that the intercept rate of standard shaheds or grand drones has actually risen. This is a this is a statement by the way from May uh where over the past four months deliveries of interceptors have increased by two and a half times and meaning that they are cheaper, faster and more scalable response to Russian attacks. Says that the target is a stable 95% interception rate for airborne targets. uh and he said that actually one of the core things that happens now is what they call a NATO style afteraction review looking at uh how to be better, what we need to do better next time and what the Russians are doing. But more importantly, what we're seeing is month after month growing statistics where that interception rate is very very high. A 95% intercept rate means that for Russia to hit a single target, they need to launch 20 Shahed interceptors.

[00:07:47]It is a massive undertaking. Now, before we talk about the Russian response to this, I wanted to mention, of course, guys, that if you want to support the channel and get access to uncensored combat footage uh and the deep dive analysis that we can't do here on YouTube, you want to become a member at combatnews.com.

[00:08:06]This is my Patreon equivalent. Patreon has actually kicked me off of their platform. Uh but uh the link is in the description. You can join all the other members, get access to this stuff. Any one of these tiers will get you access.

[00:08:18]But if you want the to submit questions for the Q&A, get the shout outs and more, you want to look to the lieutenant and colonel tier memberships. Thank you guys for that do support me. So the Russian strategy feels extremely Russian because instead of innovation, what we're seeing is just more of the same.

[00:08:36]Literally, Russia's aircraft output doubled in April driven by a surge in drone manufacturing, namely uh FPV drones. In fact, Russia's aviation industry, which includes FPV drone output rose 117% yearonear in April.

[00:08:54]This is from this are this is from a week ago. This is from Rostat and it is a acceleration actually from the 2025 growth rate. So production in the sector increased 78%. So clearly for Russia they're realizing yeah drones are the only thing that's really working in a sustainable way. To put this in context, Russia's overall defense industry expanded 16% and basically the rest of Russia the Russian economy contracted.

[00:09:24]So essentially the the only thing growing in any kind of substantive way is the Russian drone industry fueled by the mass production of inexpensive FPV drones uh which is a dominant feature of fighting on the ground and I think that uh in 2024 Russia planned to produce 1.4 million drones. Now, according to Commander Sirki, uh Russia plans to manufacture, no kidding, nearly 7 million FPV drones and 7.8 8 million drone warheads or payloads, about 20,000 units a day, which is crazy because that is, you know, almost twice of what Ukraine is putting out, which is one of the reasons I think you're seeing Ukraine look more for reliability. And that if you can make the drone 10% more expensive, but double the likelihood that it's going to achieve a lethal hit, that is superior to the Russian drone tactic where they say, "Listen, they don't have to be supremely accurate.

[00:10:25]They have to be accurate enough. And if need be, we will throw a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth drone at those targets. And you know, if you we took a look actually at Russian combat footage in today's Combat Vet News episode, and and we've seen a lot of that that the Russian uh FPV drones simply lack that final fight uh uh controllability that it's kind of a it's more of a ballpark piece of tech. So, thanks to you guys.

[00:10:53]We're going to learn more as we learn more. Uh, thanks to Brendan, Alfred, Peter, Mike, William, Thomas, Deborah, Paul, Jeff, and the Lieutenant Tier folks. We really appreciate you guys, and we'll see you over there. Uh, cheers.