- Ukraine leaders welcome the “breakthrough” Army of Drones this week
- The total 819,737 drone strikes are said to have eliminated Russian military assets in 2025
- Despite the E-Points Initiative, in which uncrewed air system (UAS) units accrue points for kills, the military still maintains a balance between hard and soft kill systems
Ukraine claims 819,737 drone strikes eliminated various Russian military targets in 2025.
It is a “breakthrough” moment, said the young tech savvy Defence Minister Mykhailo Federov during the Army of Drones gathering on 26 January 2026, where government leaders bestowed awards to their deadly UAS units.
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The data represents a profound reliance on Ukraine’s home-built drone technologies. GlobalData defence analyst Fox Walker reflected on the country’s efforts to scale military UAS production, “wisely converting commercial equipment into military systems along the way”.
It is believed that Ukraine produced between four to five million drones in 2025 alone.
But drone warfare now dominates the military’s force structure more than ever before: for the first time, Federov continued, we have received “real, verified battlefield data that can be used to support data-driven management decisions.”
In other words, the military sifts through video footage of UAS engagements and the data informs future procurement to repeat the proven tactical successes.
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By GlobalDataData driven decisions
Federov has previously alluded to the creation of a national Drone Command and Control network.
The project will enable drone teams to input mission data into a central database in a bid to digitise information collection and dissemination. Unit commanders will be able to see real-time updates of battlefield operations, with the next step being to launch a similar programme for use by artillery regiments.
This model is currently facilitated by the E-Points initiative, in which tactical units accrue points for confirmed kills depending on the type of enemy threat. Values are assigned to the level of threat perceived. Russian combat drones appear to accrue the most points, exceeding that of mobile platforms such as tanks which are, of course, far more vulnerable in an environment saturated with loitering munitions.
Of the 820,000 reported engagements, the government revealed that the highest engaged threat were Russian personnel, of which 240,000 were either killed or wounded (nearly a quarter of strikes).
This may partly be due to the abysmal Russian response to Ukrainian drone strikes. Open source footage demonstrates that individual troops, when facing attack drones, simply freeze in place due to a lack of basic training.
Hard and soft kill
The system clearly favours effectors over the means to detect, recognise and track enemy threats.
One Ukrainian defence industry expert, Andriy Dovbenko, founder and principal of UK-Ukraine Tech Exchange, rightly observed that the “gamification” of the E-Points system does not grant points for the number of lives saved by passive sensors in and around cities and public infrastructure.
Yaroslav Filimonov, the chief executive of Kvertus, a Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) specialist, told Army Technology that soft kill systems are not sidelined, even though successful suppression does not always leave obvious visual proof.
“The Points Initiative itself does not hold back the EW sector. It works. While any system can be refined over time — for example, by further standardising how EW effects are confirmed — we do not see a systemic bias that prevents EW units from being resourced or from procuring equipment.”
It is said there are 900 Ukrainian drone builders compared to 300 companies working in EW.
But the drone sector has its own issues too, Walker considered. Comparing the Ukrainian military UAS market with that of other defence sectors requires considering the rampant innovation, short life cycle, and novelty of the drones market.
“Indeed, of the many drone variants in Russia’s war in Ukraine, even the most elite can be rendered redundant within a few weeks because of counter-drone technology enhancements.”
Of the drones that are deployed, not all of them find a suitable target; the much-discussed fibre-optic drones used in the war reportedly do not hit their target as much as 80% of the time.
Even so, drones are having a major tactical impact on the battlefield in Ukraine: uncrewed systems now account for more than 75 to 80% of all combat deaths.
