Ukraine Wants to Be a School for Drone Operators

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Ukraine has developed a deep well of drone operational experience that it can export to the United States and its allies.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, few anticipated that the war would evolve into a grinding conflict defined by cheap, expendable drones. Technological cycles are accelerating, and each new weapons iteration becomes cheaper and faster. Ukraine’s experience shows that the decisive variable is not the hardware itself, but rather the human capital behind it.

While a broader European battlefield would differ in important respects, the core dynamics of drone warfare would almost certainly carry over. “There’s an assumption that Ukraine’s reliance on drones is situational, and that Western air superiority would negate the need for such systems. That’s dangerously wrong,” said a former US Special Forces operator who previously worked with a Ukrainian Special Operations Forces regiment and wished to remain anonymous.

When Russia intensified its hybrid warfare across Europe over the past year, many governments looked to Kyiv for lessons on how to respond. Ukraine, out of necessity, had already spent years applying the lessons of unmanned systems warfare. In early October, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen urged European countries to “take all the experiences, all the new technology, all the innovation from Ukraine, and put it in our own rearming.”

Faced with dwindling foreign aid and Russia’s relentless offensives that consumed vast numbers of its own troops, Ukraine sought an asymmetric answer. By 2024, Kyiv had begun forming what became known as a “drone wall” across the front. 

Cheap drones were deployed across the front to stop Russian meatgrinder advances and destroy armored vehicles before they reached Ukrainian trenches. Dmytro Kavun, co-founder and president of Dignitas Ukraine, a US-based tech nonprofit, said Ukraine realized it had to “fight smarter, not just harder” against a larger opponent.

This new defensive architecture transformed the battlefield. According to Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, leader of Ukraine’s unmanned systems, drone units make up just 2 percent of Ukraine’s personnel. Still, they are responsible for roughly one-third of all enemy casualties. Major General Maik Keller, deputy commander of NATO’s support headquarters for Ukraine, noted that “Ukraine faces a numerically superior enemy and has held its ground for years.” Much of that resilience has come from its ability to adapt quickly and scale unmanned systems across the front.

Russia’s Drone Offensive

As drone warfare spread, Russia adapted its tactics. The conflict evolved into a constant contest of innovation and counter-innovation. Each side sought new ways to outmaneuver the other, introducing technologies that were quickly met with countermeasures. 

Russian systems jammed Ukrainian drone signals, forcing pilots to rely on skill and quick reflexes to strike their targets. Many learned to hit targets even when their video feeds became unstable or partially cut off. While embedded with drone units on the front, I sat in trenches and watched pilots pursue and strike fast-moving targets with extraordinary precision, including Russian soldiers racing across open ground on motorbikes.

Recent Ukrainian drone footage also demonstrates the potential of drones in dense urban environments, showing how effectively they can conduct reconnaissance even when no infantry is visible. 

Video gaming experience comes in handy with the fast reflexes, as drone schools have pointed out that gamers are among the best pilots. “A 20-year-old pilot with the right skills can kill more people than a sniper with 20 years’ experience,” said Yurii Butusov, commander of a specialized drone unit from the 13th Khartiia Brigade. Ukraine is also leveraging data to gamify warfare, awarding pilots bonuses for confirmed strikes that they can use to purchase additional equipment and supplies.

As Russia’s ground offensive lost momentum, the Kremlin resorted to its terror bombing campaign. Ukrainian cities came under constant attack from missiles and drones. By September 2025, Russia had launched more than 800 drones in a single night. Ukraine’s air defense systems struggled to keep pace, and the cost of intercepting each drone with a missile became rapidly unsustainable.

Ukraine’s Drone Interception Strategy

In response, Ukraine began developing and deploying its own interceptor drones to destroy Russian drones in the air. Faced with manpower shortages on the front, Ukraine has even explored training civilian Territorial Defense volunteers to operate interceptor drones over their own cities. 

Through initiatives such as FreedomSky, led by Dignitas Ukraine, volunteer air-defense units are being developed to detect and intercept Shahed drones before they reach populated areas. “FreedomSky is more than a tactical effort,” said Kavun. “It’s a strategic model in which volunteer civilian defense formations can collaborate with military units to defend their own cities.”

Ukrainian experience shows that equipment alone does not guarantee effectiveness. Mobile fire groups must be trained to establish overlapping fields of fire, operate effectively at night, conserve ammunition against decoys, and redeploy frequently to avoid being mapped by enemy reconnaissance. These are tactical skills learned through iteration in combat.  

Ukrainian engineers note that standard drone bomb drops achieve only 40–60 percent accuracy under ideal conditions, and far less in wind or poor visibility. A miss of just half a meter can mean total failure against armored targets. Precision, therefore, depends heavily on pilot skill and coordination.

Oleksandr Yakovenko, CEO of TAF Industries, stated that Ukrainian producers now make drones of comparable quality to foreign models. Still, their effectiveness depends on operator skill, as even the best platform fails without a capable pilot.

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Drones Need Operators

Ukrainian units report not only a shortage of pilots but also a lack of technically skilled and motivated recruits. Training a pilot from scratch to a basic operational level can take at least three months. Training a First-Person-View (FPV) drone pilot can cost roughly 300 times more than training an infantryman. FPV pilots, in particular, must also act as engineers, repairing and reconfiguring their systems in the field. 

Major Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles unmanned systems regiment, noted: “Everyone knows that a pilot is trained for four months, and with every sortie he becomes better. There is no final level a pilot reaches to become an absolute guru; he will always continue to develop.” 

The Russian side understands this as well. The Kremlin has set a goal of training one million specialists in unmanned systems by 2030. Russia has created a dedicated Unmanned Systems Forces branch, is expanding specialized training programs, and plans to open a military school focused solely on unmanned systems for officers. 

Russian universities have reportedly been assigned quotas to provide technically trained students to the Unmanned Systems Forces, effectively embedding military drone development within the country’s higher education system.

Babay, the 63rd Separate Mechanized Brigade’s Unmanned Systems Battalion’s deputy commander, told me that the Russians “have more of everything. But we’re more qualified.” He added, “If we see them, they die.”

Developing skilled operators at scale is now one of the most important variables in the war. A ground robot commander from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade pointed out that “each operator is a specialist and a professional in his own right. He needs to be developed, taught, and constantly trained to improve his skills. War is constantly changing, and we must improve with it.”

Ukrainian instructors understand this better than anyone. They have trained and fought under constant drone attacks, where even small mistakes can cost lives. Ukrainian training centers also maintain direct feedback loops with frontline units. Graduates report what worked and what failed, allowing course materials to evolve quickly. 

Therefore, building strong training programs that prepare soldiers for real battlefield conditions should be a high priority. That institutional shift is already underway. In 2025, Denmark committed approximately €33 million to upgrade Ukrainian military training centers, funding instructor housing, classrooms, communications equipment, and specialized training tools. The project, implemented jointly by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, Denmark, and the Come Back Alive Foundation, is scheduled for completion by 2027. It reflects a transition from wartime emergency improvisation to rebuilding the long-term infrastructure for force generation.

Maria Berlinska, head of Ukraine’s Aerial Intelligence Support Center, argued that “military education can take place anywhere. You can study from your phone.” More than 150,000 service members have registered for wartime technology courses since 2022, reflecting how quickly Ukraine moved drone and electronic warfare training online.

This is where Ukrainian trainers began to play an increasingly important role. Alongside the rapid spread of drones, interceptors, and ground robots, Ukraine has developed a strong network of volunteer organizations dedicated to training operators in how to use these technologies effectively on the battlefield. 

Lyuba Shipovich, CEO of Dignitas Ukraine, told me that her organization helped pioneer public fundraising for FPV drones, launched some of the first official FPV training programs inside Armed Forces training centers, and later pushed the Ministry of Defense to begin formal procurement. Dignitas followed the same model with ground robots, opening the first official training school for unmanned ground systems and pressing the state to scale up purchases. 

Ukraine has over 30 certified schools for training drone operators, and there is demand for even more training centers. In February, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces released an online simulator that uses real combat drone footage to help ordinary people learn to identify enemy equipment. 

Indeed, much of the current debate among European officials now centers on scaling drone production and building Europe’s own defensive “drone wall.” Yet Ukrainian experts emphasize that technology alone will not guarantee security. Fedir Serdiuk, co-founder of MOWA Defence, argues that Europe needs to prioritize people and not factories, stating, “First, the conversation should be about humans and skills, and second, about equipment. You first talk about training centres for officers and soldiers, then about factories.” 

Kavun frames it similarly: effective defense requires aligning “People, Process, and Technology.” In Ukraine’s case, that has meant training operators (“people”), reforming institutional approaches (“process”), and supplying battlefield-tested systems (“technology”) simultaneously rather than treating hardware as the primary solution.

Ukraine’s Global Lessons for Drone Warfare

Lessons from Ukraine’s drone warfare are already spreading globally. Throughout 2025, Ukrainian specialists increasingly began training European partners, reflecting Kyiv’s transformation from a recipient of military aid to a provider of battlefield expertise. In April, Ukraine was already training British troops in drone warfare. The British Army has since established its first dedicated “drone hub,” where soldiers can repair and develop drones using technologies such as 3D printing, following Ukrainian advice. I saw this firsthand while working with units near the front. At their bases, 3D printers ran continuously, producing rapid iterations of drone components and the release mechanisms for dropping explosives.

“Ukraine understands how technology is transforming modern warfare, and I believe the whole world can learn from our experience,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian member of parliament from the Holos party. 

During the Hedgehog-2025exercises in Estonia, Ukrainian drone pilots operated alongside NATO forces and exposed serious tactical shortcomings and vulnerabilities in high-intensity drone combat. Ukrainian commanders said some infantry units did not disperse when drones approached, and vehicles were parked close together, making them easy targets on a real battlefield. “If you are detected, consider yourself ‘200,’” one pilot explained, emphasizing how survival now depends on avoiding aerial observation. 

By September, Ukrainian instructors joined Danish forces for joint counter-drone drills. They agreed to train Polish soldiers and engineers in drone defense, highlighting Ukraine’s expertise in both defensive and offensive unmanned operations. In late 2025, Ukrainian trainers also worked with Australian and Swedish troops on drone warfare. 

Following the recent Iranian drone bombardments, Kyiv offered to send top drone operators to the Gulf States to help support their defense, in exchange for them pushing Moscow for a temporary ceasefire. In a piece I wrote for The National Interest in July 2025, I argued that “the Gulf States should look to Kyiv for inspiration and begin developing their fleets of drones.”

After years of relying on conventional defense models, Europe’s leaders, and now many others around the world, are increasingly turning to Kyiv for lessons forged in real combat using unmanned systems. Ukraine’s battlefield experience offers insights that no peacetime training or simulated exercise can replicate, and the world is beginning to recognize how important those lessons will be for its own defense.

About the Author: David Kirichenko

David Kirichenko  is a freelance journalist and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. His research focuses on autonomous systems, cyber warfare, irregular warfare, and military strategy. His analyses have been widely published in outlets such as the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, the Irregular Warfare Center, Military Review, and The Hill, as well as in peer-reviewed journals.

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© The National Interest