June 6, 2025: Latvia, one of the three Baltic states, is delivering 15,000 drones to Ukraine by the middle of 2025. The international drone coalition, led by Lithuania and Britain, was formed in early 2024 to organize drone shipments to Ukraine from countries willing and able to do so. Meanwhile Ukraine is currently producing 200,000 drones a month and expects to deliver about three million drones in 2025. Latvia borders Lithuania, Belarus, Russia and Estonia and sees itself on the list of future Russian conquests if Ukraine is defeated. Russia has already announced that it is prepared to take on NATO countries like Lithuania once Ukraine is defeated.

Ukraine considers drones a decisive weapon in their war with Russia. Ukraine basically invented modern drone technology and tactics. Drone production in 2024 was 1.5 million drones. That will double in 2025. There have been problems. Chinese component producers are having a hard time keeping up. At least 70 percent of Ukrainian drones are built entirely in Ukraine, and the rest from imported parts or whole assemblies. Some Ukrainian firms have improvised by using plywood and similar materials for their drones. For the FPV First Person View drones, cheaper is better if the drone can hit its first and only target. Most Ukrainian drones are FPV models, which are considered a form of ammunition.

The soldier operating the FPV is a kilometer or more away and uses FPV goggles to see what the day/night video camera on the UAV can see. Adding night vision doubles the cost for each UAV, so not all of them have that capability. Each of these UAVs carries half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the UAV into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. This is an awesome and debilitating weapon that has been used constantly in the last year. Some of the video is captured and posted on social media. These videos show Russian soldiers in large numbers being terrified of UAV sounds over the combat zone.

Ukraine also developed an interceptor drone that can destroy other drones. This is achieved by using FPV drones to detect the enemy drone and destroy it via collision. This is made possible by using drones controlled by FPV operators. While the first FPV drones were quadcopters, the interceptor drones are faster fixed wing models that look like remotely controlled model aircraft.

The interceptor drones are used to take down Russian reconnaissance and surveillance drones that locate targets for Russian artillery, and for air strikes by manned aircraft or explosives equipped FPV drones that can go after a moving target. Unlike manned aircraft, drones are smaller and slower with top speeds of 100 to 150 kilometers an hour and only operate at low altitudes under 1,600 meters. Note that these drones are still unable to catch helicopters, which they could damage. Fixed wing aircraft, like jet fighters, are another matter as they rarely fly low enough for the drones to reach, much less hit such a fast-moving aircraft. The Ukrainians have been able to incorporate the new killer drone capability into their air defense systems, which means the air defense radars and fire control systems recognize drones large enough, or metallic enough, to show up on radar. Modern aircraft tracking radars are not designed to detect, much less track, small slow and low flying drones.

The Russian solution to this Ukrainian interference is to send more surveillance drones accompanied by attack drones to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defense system. Sometimes this works for a while, but the Ukrainians are generally faster to improvise and modify systems that don’t work until they do. Russian forces rely more on massive use of whatever they have. This sometimes works because, as the Russians like to point out, quantity has a quality all its own. That worked until it didn’t as the Ukrainians found ways to quickly overwhelm Russian defensive measures and destroy more of their artillery target spotting and reconnaissance drones in several areas. If the Ukrainians can continue to manufacture lots of these interceptor drones that simply collide with their targets, the Russians are in big trouble because Ukrainian artillery can operate more freely and effectively and suffer lower losses.

Ukrainian long-range drones have devastated Russian oil storage and refining sites in western Russia. Factories for producing electronic components of drones have also been destroyed as well as a large storage site for military equipment. This went up in a spectacular explosion that could be seen over ten kilometers away. Ukrainian drone attacks have temporarily shut Moscow airports and even damaged buildings on the outskirts of Moscow. Russia is forced to use multi-million-dollar air defence missiles to shoot down some of these drones. The Ukrainians have developed swarm tactics that get past this and hit their targets. The attacks in and around Russian cities reminds the average Russian that the Ukrainians are on the verge of defeat. By the end of the year Russian civilians may witness the defeat of their forces in the Ukraine War.