A Never-Ending Supply of Drones Has Frozen the Front Lines in Ukraine

In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill. The reason: rapid innovations in drone technology.

- Ian Lovett & Daniel Kiss

From just a few commercial and homemade drones, which the Ukrainians used at the start of the war to locate invading Russian columns, unmanned vehicles now dominate the battlefield.

Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line. Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers.

Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles.

'Wedding drones' at war

When Russia sent tank columns into Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine needed to find out where they were headed—and fast.

Enter the humble "wedding drone," available in stores for about $2,000 and repurposed to scan for enemy units rather than capture nuptial panoramas.

Deployed by enthusiasts acting independently or attached to army units, the drones helped Ukrainian forces, which were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, to know exactly where to deploy to counter Russian arrowheads.

Surveillance drones quickly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Often provided by charity funds, they were used to scan enemy positions for equipment, stores and headquarters. At first, teams of analysts would watch screens of footage stored on memory cards. Within a year of the full-scale invasion, the drones provided real-time images so artillery gunners could direct their fire onto a target.