Rocket Man meet Drone Man – the future of combat
The tradition of Ukrainian aerospace continues. Driven today less by prestige than necessity, it has become a global leader in 'kopters' – as drones are locally known.
It's a longstanding tradition. On this highway to Kyiv is a Soviet-era missile, a memorial to Sergei Korolev, born in nearby Zhytomyr more than 118 years ago, considered the father of the USSR's rocket and space programme.
Korolev oversaw the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects, including the first human Earth orbit mission by Yuri Gagarin in April 1961.
His was, however, not an easy ride.
An apparently difficult child from a broken family and having failed to be accepted to the prestigious Zhukovsky Academy in Moscow on account of his poor marks (a lesson in not peaking too soon), he attended the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute to train as an aircraft designer.
Arrested on a trumped-up charge during Stalin's 'Red Terror' (as a result of which at least 800,000 died between 1936-38) as a 'member of an anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary organisation', he was imprisoned for nearly six years, some of which was spent in a Siberian Gulag.
Rehabilitated through his work in a penal design bureau producing aircraft under Tupolev and Petlyakov during World War 2, he was officially rehabilitated only in 1957.
Korolev's greatest skill was to be in strategic planning and organisation, especially necessary when, after the war, the Soviets integrated about 2,000 German aerospace and rocket scientists. This jump-started the Soviet programme, just as the Americans had done with Werner von Braun and his group, who moved to America under Operation Paperclip.
Despite his achievements being appropriated after his death in 1966 in the Soviet name, Korolev is today celebrated in his home town, with a small museum displaying the various achievements in the eponymous museum.
Visitors to the museum on a cold May day include wounded Ukrainian soldiers recovering from the bruising front line at a local hospital.
Aviation ingenuity
The country's aviation sector continues to boom, this time out of necessity in Ukraine's struggle against its nemesis, Russia. The most famous name, Antonov, continues to produce, despite frequent missile interruptions, while its university centres of excellence churn out quality graduates in design and engineering.
Sasha, 35, is also a graduate of Kyiv Polytechnic, a head of R&D with SkyRiper, one of the leading drone manufacturers in Ukraine.
Driven by a shortage of artillery ammunition, Ukraine's survival instinct and 'horizontal interaction' between frontline units and the engineers back in Kyiv and other cities, Ukrainian production is now around 100,000 drones a month.
About 10,000 are used by frontline forces each day, and seven of 10 battlefield Russian casualties are caused by drones, a shift in technology which helps to offset Russia's numerical population advantage.
'We all have friends and relatives at the frontline,' says Sasha, the leader of a youthful team (average age 22) of engineers. 'They tell us all the time what works and what they need.'
Drones are now the great equaliser in Ukraine's defence, a cost-effective way of making up the deficit in manpower, materiel and financing compared with their Russian foe. Whereas 155mm artillery rounds cost between $2,000-$7,000 each, depending on their spec, and a Javelin anti-tank missile $250,000, Ukrainian FPV (first person view) kamikaze drones are less than $500 apiece. With a range of the smaller carbon and alloy drone of up to 30km with a 4kg payload, this has effectively shrunk the 1,200km frontline.
Handled by a team of just three soldiers, and with mission times of around 15 minutes, drones can be continuously cycled. 'The frontline is now a 10km 'grey zone',' says the partner at SkyRiper, Anton, his 70-strong workforce delivering 10,000 drones a month from several sites around Kyiv.
'It's a no-go area over which drones dominate.' Most armoured vehicles – sometimes requiring as many as 10 drone hits – are knocked out usually on the way to this no-man's land.
While it makes great headlines, there is less technological focus on drone 'swarming' than last-mile targeting, avoiding Russian efforts to jam signals (in part by increasingly employing fibre-optic technology), and focusing on improved lethality and manoeuvrability.
'The drones have to be capable of going into the forests, ducking under netting, looking for the weak spots in armoured vehicles,' he says. Anton cites Marx in keeping an eye on sophistication and cost: 'In drone warfare, quantity has a quality. It's better to have 100 drones than 10, which can swarm.'
At a general aviation airfield 45 minutes outside Kyiv, Ivan talks enthusiastically about his Buntar B3 drone, designed at the National Aviation University at Kharkiv and built at an underground site in the capital. Battery powered, the Very Short Take Off and Landing (VTOL) multicopter is capable of 3.5 hours' endurance, with one operator capable of simultaneously controlling multiple reconnaissance drones using the Buntar Copilot system, operating safely from a position far behind the frontline.
Drone capabilities have undergone a revolution since 2022, not least in terms of range, accuracy, cost, the networking of multiple feeds and survivability.
'There are hundreds of drone manufacturers in Ukraine now,' says Ivan, CEO of Buntar Aerospace and a serial entrepreneur, who joined the infantry after the 2022 Russian invasion and was wounded in the east. 'Most of them are assembling small drones from imported parts.' The B3 is a carbon fibre machine designed for ease of operation and survivability, including a minimal radar signature.
They believe that eventually, with the pace of technological change, the drone industry will shake out to 'no more' than a dozen major manufacturers.
'We don't have the luxury of time,' says Sasha, who also serves as an officer in the Ukrainian reserves. 'We have 15,000 to 20,000 drones on the frontline at any time. But the Russians have perhaps three times this number, even though their effectiveness is about 40% of each mission, half as good as we manage.'
Buffer for Europe
The survival instinct of Ukraine has not only helped to change the current circumstances, but may also change the future of war and defence. It seems likely that international investment in Ukraine will be driven less by acts of charity in future and the defence of democracy, than self-interest, in particular in its role as what former president Viktor Yushchenko, who led the Orange Revolution in 2004, describes as 'Europe's body armour'.
While it undergoes its own domestic arms revolution, Ukraine will simultaneously have to learn to splice itself into the practical defence of Europe: air and maritime, especially, as these domains disdain borders. Ukraine will need to get itself on to the accounting book, even if it isn't formally part of Nato, as Finland and Sweden did well in the 1980s.
In the process, Ukraine has the opportunity to become a source of capability, not a market for it, to develop the most potent defence sector in Europe, fuelling its own coffers, providing deterrence capability and buttressing European combat power.
If it can manage this transition, to become not just one of the world's leading developers and manufacturers, but also exporters, Ukraine will become tougher as a target while boosting its economy. This would demand more international capital investment, which means releasing the fetters on various controls. While there is a risk of acquisitions and compromise of intellectual property, the exchange would translate into another Ukrainian tether to the Western system.
'This war has changed,' says Captain Viacheslav Shutenko, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Battalion in Ukraine's 44th Mechanised Brigade.
'In 2022, this war was … more or less classical. But, in three and a plus years,' he observed in May 2025, 'this war is about technology, this war is about precision, and this war is about speed.
Unmanned systems are no longer an auxiliary. They are decisive on the battlefield. This is why to win, Ukraine needs more drones, more unmanned systems – we need scalable production of drones and uninterrupted supply of drones.'
Setting up a defence sector for mass production of the tech that's been fundamental to their success, for their own use and for that of allies, lies at the centre of this approach. Without Europe and Ukraine working more closely together, the end of the war is likely, in the words of another rocket man, to 'be a long, long time'. DM
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
18 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Does Russia intend to restart Ukraine's occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant?
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is in cold shutdown; however, Russian officials openly speak of their plans to restart it. This is despite urgent safety concerns. Many of us have a false impression that international bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are responsible for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants. However, this is a misconception. The IAEA does not have enforcement powers or direct responsibility for nuclear safety. Instead, the IAEA provides guidance, conducts peer reviews and issues recommendations, but it is ultimately up to each national government to ensure that nuclear facilities within its territory are operated safely. So, in the case of South Africa's Koeberg, the IAEA can assess the site and provide expert opinions or recommendations, but the South African government — through the National Nuclear Regulator and other relevant authorities — retains full responsibility for determining what is considered safe, based on their own regulatory frameworks and risk assessments. At the same time, nuclear accidents know no borders. Incidents such as Chernobyl in Ukraine (1986) and Fukushima in Japan (2011) demonstrate that radioactive contamination can spread through atmospheric and oceanic pathways far beyond the site of the disaster, with far-reaching global implications. A decision taken by a single government can affect not only its neighbouring countries, but also dozens of others, even those located on other continents. Zaporizhzhia The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has created a set of unprecedented challenges for nuclear experts — most notably, the military occupation of a fully operational nuclear power plant in the Zaporizhzhia region. While the city of Zaporizhzhia itself is not occupied, Enerhodar — where the nuclear power plant is located — has been under Russian occupation since March 2022 and remains on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces. The IAEA has shown leadership in its efforts to ensure the safety of the occupied facility; however, it faces several limitations. First, the IAEA may only monitor the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and has access only to the areas that the Russian government has approved. Thus, some parts of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where military forces or military equipment are held, might not be available for monitoring. Second, the IAEA's Fundamental Safety Principles, approved in 2006, set out the core standards for nuclear safety. The IAEA monitoring mission has documented violations of all these principles at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. In response to the ongoing risks, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi proposed five concrete principles in May 2023, aimed at safeguarding nuclear safety and security during armed conflict. However, the incident on 14 February 2025 — when a Russian drone strike punctured the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's roof and triggered a fire that took three weeks to extinguish — underscores that the threat of attack on nuclear installations remains persistent. Crucially, there is still no enforcement mechanism in place to ensure these principles are upheld. The occupying government holds full responsibility for all nuclear risks that might occur at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, but the impact might be global again. It is one of the 10 largest nuclear power plants in the world. Currently, it is in cold shutdown; however, Russian officials are constantly openly speaking of their plans to restart the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Restarting the plant Alexei Likhachev, head of Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom, declared in 2023 that they are working on restarting the station. Just a few days ago, another official asked 'for the fastest possible launch of all six units of the station'. This is despite urgent safety concerns surrounding the plant, even in its current cold shutdown, non-operational mode. A recent Greenpeace report suggests that Russia is building new power lines in occupied Ukrainian territory to link the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to the Russian grid. Despite the urgent and ongoing safety concerns, Greenpeace's investigation demonstrates that Russia's plans are more than just wishful thinking and empty words. Since February this year, Russia has constructed 90km of an electricity grid line and pylons in occupied Ukrainian territory between Mariupol and Berdiansk. The direction of construction indicates that the new electricity line will be connected to a substation in the occupied city of Melitopol and to another in Mariupol to the east. Ultimately, this development confirms Russia's plans to connect the nuclear plant to Russia's electricity grid so that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant can supply electricity to Russia. Torture Beyond this, research released by Ukrainian human rights organisation Truth Hounds in 2023 showed a pattern of the systematic torture of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant employees by the Russian occupying administration. A new report planned for release by the organisation in July 2025 will further elaborate on these findings, including new evidence of widespread, systematic torture. Truth Hound's findings indicate that a Russian nuclear company, Rosatom, is complicit in the abuse of civilians and the plant's employees, which often occurs within the plant itself and has resulted in at least six people being tortured to death. Another report by RUSI suggests that, while there is no evidence that Rosatom staff have performed the torture themselves, 'staff seem to have played a critical role in the process by identifying uncooperative Ukrainian personnel to the FSB' (Russia's Federal Security Service). Kakhovka Dam Importantly, following Russia's reckless destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in 2023, the nuclear plant was effectively cut off from its water source, which is essential for cooling processes and the plant's overall safety. Russia has also placed landmines in the vicinity of the plant. The plant has additionally suffered from qualified personnel shortages since Russia's occupation, and general degradation of its equipment due to a lack of maintenance. After more than three years of full-scale war, international norms continue to be violated at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and the nuclear risks that governments are willing to tolerate are placing all of us in danger. Regulatory violations and staff abuses at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant have been well documented and must be acknowledged by those who plan future nuclear procurement. It remains up to individual governments to decide who best to cooperate with. But can anyone truly remain non-aligned when it comes to compromising on nuclear safety? DM Dzvinka Kachur is a research fellow at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University and co-founder of the NPO, Ukrainian Association of South Africa. Isabel Bosman is a researcher in the African Governance and Diplomacy Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). Oksana Pokalchuk is the executive director of Ukrainian-based international human rights NGO Truth Hounds.
Daily Maverick
15-05-2025
- Daily Maverick
Rocket Man meet Drone Man – the future of combat
The tradition of Ukrainian aerospace continues. Driven today less by prestige than necessity, it has become a global leader in 'kopters' – as drones are locally known. It's a longstanding tradition. On this highway to Kyiv is a Soviet-era missile, a memorial to Sergei Korolev, born in nearby Zhytomyr more than 118 years ago, considered the father of the USSR's rocket and space programme. Korolev oversaw the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects, including the first human Earth orbit mission by Yuri Gagarin in April 1961. His was, however, not an easy ride. An apparently difficult child from a broken family and having failed to be accepted to the prestigious Zhukovsky Academy in Moscow on account of his poor marks (a lesson in not peaking too soon), he attended the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute to train as an aircraft designer. Arrested on a trumped-up charge during Stalin's 'Red Terror' (as a result of which at least 800,000 died between 1936-38) as a 'member of an anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary organisation', he was imprisoned for nearly six years, some of which was spent in a Siberian Gulag. Rehabilitated through his work in a penal design bureau producing aircraft under Tupolev and Petlyakov during World War 2, he was officially rehabilitated only in 1957. Korolev's greatest skill was to be in strategic planning and organisation, especially necessary when, after the war, the Soviets integrated about 2,000 German aerospace and rocket scientists. This jump-started the Soviet programme, just as the Americans had done with Werner von Braun and his group, who moved to America under Operation Paperclip. Despite his achievements being appropriated after his death in 1966 in the Soviet name, Korolev is today celebrated in his home town, with a small museum displaying the various achievements in the eponymous museum. Visitors to the museum on a cold May day include wounded Ukrainian soldiers recovering from the bruising front line at a local hospital. Aviation ingenuity The country's aviation sector continues to boom, this time out of necessity in Ukraine's struggle against its nemesis, Russia. The most famous name, Antonov, continues to produce, despite frequent missile interruptions, while its university centres of excellence churn out quality graduates in design and engineering. Sasha, 35, is also a graduate of Kyiv Polytechnic, a head of R&D with SkyRiper, one of the leading drone manufacturers in Ukraine. Driven by a shortage of artillery ammunition, Ukraine's survival instinct and 'horizontal interaction' between frontline units and the engineers back in Kyiv and other cities, Ukrainian production is now around 100,000 drones a month. About 10,000 are used by frontline forces each day, and seven of 10 battlefield Russian casualties are caused by drones, a shift in technology which helps to offset Russia's numerical population advantage. 'We all have friends and relatives at the frontline,' says Sasha, the leader of a youthful team (average age 22) of engineers. 'They tell us all the time what works and what they need.' Drones are now the great equaliser in Ukraine's defence, a cost-effective way of making up the deficit in manpower, materiel and financing compared with their Russian foe. Whereas 155mm artillery rounds cost between $2,000-$7,000 each, depending on their spec, and a Javelin anti-tank missile $250,000, Ukrainian FPV (first person view) kamikaze drones are less than $500 apiece. With a range of the smaller carbon and alloy drone of up to 30km with a 4kg payload, this has effectively shrunk the 1,200km frontline. Handled by a team of just three soldiers, and with mission times of around 15 minutes, drones can be continuously cycled. 'The frontline is now a 10km 'grey zone',' says the partner at SkyRiper, Anton, his 70-strong workforce delivering 10,000 drones a month from several sites around Kyiv. 'It's a no-go area over which drones dominate.' Most armoured vehicles – sometimes requiring as many as 10 drone hits – are knocked out usually on the way to this no-man's land. While it makes great headlines, there is less technological focus on drone 'swarming' than last-mile targeting, avoiding Russian efforts to jam signals (in part by increasingly employing fibre-optic technology), and focusing on improved lethality and manoeuvrability. 'The drones have to be capable of going into the forests, ducking under netting, looking for the weak spots in armoured vehicles,' he says. Anton cites Marx in keeping an eye on sophistication and cost: 'In drone warfare, quantity has a quality. It's better to have 100 drones than 10, which can swarm.' At a general aviation airfield 45 minutes outside Kyiv, Ivan talks enthusiastically about his Buntar B3 drone, designed at the National Aviation University at Kharkiv and built at an underground site in the capital. Battery powered, the Very Short Take Off and Landing (VTOL) multicopter is capable of 3.5 hours' endurance, with one operator capable of simultaneously controlling multiple reconnaissance drones using the Buntar Copilot system, operating safely from a position far behind the frontline. Drone capabilities have undergone a revolution since 2022, not least in terms of range, accuracy, cost, the networking of multiple feeds and survivability. 'There are hundreds of drone manufacturers in Ukraine now,' says Ivan, CEO of Buntar Aerospace and a serial entrepreneur, who joined the infantry after the 2022 Russian invasion and was wounded in the east. 'Most of them are assembling small drones from imported parts.' The B3 is a carbon fibre machine designed for ease of operation and survivability, including a minimal radar signature. They believe that eventually, with the pace of technological change, the drone industry will shake out to 'no more' than a dozen major manufacturers. 'We don't have the luxury of time,' says Sasha, who also serves as an officer in the Ukrainian reserves. 'We have 15,000 to 20,000 drones on the frontline at any time. But the Russians have perhaps three times this number, even though their effectiveness is about 40% of each mission, half as good as we manage.' Buffer for Europe The survival instinct of Ukraine has not only helped to change the current circumstances, but may also change the future of war and defence. It seems likely that international investment in Ukraine will be driven less by acts of charity in future and the defence of democracy, than self-interest, in particular in its role as what former president Viktor Yushchenko, who led the Orange Revolution in 2004, describes as 'Europe's body armour'. While it undergoes its own domestic arms revolution, Ukraine will simultaneously have to learn to splice itself into the practical defence of Europe: air and maritime, especially, as these domains disdain borders. Ukraine will need to get itself on to the accounting book, even if it isn't formally part of Nato, as Finland and Sweden did well in the 1980s. In the process, Ukraine has the opportunity to become a source of capability, not a market for it, to develop the most potent defence sector in Europe, fuelling its own coffers, providing deterrence capability and buttressing European combat power. If it can manage this transition, to become not just one of the world's leading developers and manufacturers, but also exporters, Ukraine will become tougher as a target while boosting its economy. This would demand more international capital investment, which means releasing the fetters on various controls. While there is a risk of acquisitions and compromise of intellectual property, the exchange would translate into another Ukrainian tether to the Western system. 'This war has changed,' says Captain Viacheslav Shutenko, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Battalion in Ukraine's 44th Mechanised Brigade. 'In 2022, this war was … more or less classical. But, in three and a plus years,' he observed in May 2025, 'this war is about technology, this war is about precision, and this war is about speed. Unmanned systems are no longer an auxiliary. They are decisive on the battlefield. This is why to win, Ukraine needs more drones, more unmanned systems – we need scalable production of drones and uninterrupted supply of drones.' Setting up a defence sector for mass production of the tech that's been fundamental to their success, for their own use and for that of allies, lies at the centre of this approach. Without Europe and Ukraine working more closely together, the end of the war is likely, in the words of another rocket man, to 'be a long, long time'. DM
TimesLIVE
29-04-2025
- TimesLIVE
Russian satellite linked to nuclear weapon programme ‘out of control': US
The secretive Russian satellite in space that US officials believe is connected to a nuclear anti-satellite weapon programme has appeared to be spinning uncontrollably, suggesting it may no longer be functioning, in what could be a setback for Moscow's space weapon efforts, according to US analysts. The Cosmos 2553 satellite, launched by Russia weeks before invading Ukraine in 2022, has had bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year, according to Doppler radar data from space-tracking firm LeoLabs and optical data from Slingshot Aerospace shared with Reuters. Believed to be a radar satellite for Russian intelligence and a radiation testing platform, the satellite last year became the centre of US allegations that Russia for years has been developing a nuclear weapon capable of destroying entire satellite networks, such as SpaceX's Starlink internet system that Ukrainian troops have been using. US officials assess Cosmos 2553's purpose, though not itself a weapon, is to aid Russia's development of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Russia has denied it is developing such a weapon and said Cosmos 2553 is for research purposes. Russia, which launched the first man in space in 1961, has for decades been locked in a security race in space with the US that, in recent years, has intensified and seeped into public view as Earth's orbit becomes a hotspot for private sector competition and military technologies aiding ground forces. The Cosmos 2553 satellite has been in a relatively isolated orbit 2,000km above Earth, parked in a hotspot of cosmic radiation that communications and Earth-observing satellites typically avoid.
