The Drone Line: what is it, and can five units stop the Russian advance?

"The minimum objective is to stop the enemy's advance completely. And then we'll see what happens next." When Ukrainska Pravda asks a source involved in launching the Drone Line what the project's priorities are, that’s the answer they give.

Our source is talking about stopping the so-called "world’s second-greatest army" without a hint of irony or a smile. This isn’t a joke – it’s genuinely the objective for the units that have joined the Drone Line.

The project brings together five units – the 20th K-2 Separate Regiment, the 414th "Magyar’s Birds" Brigade, the 429th Achilles Regiment, the 427th Rarog (Fire Demon) Regiment, and the Phoenix Regiment – and they have five completely different stories to tell.

They have different commanders, different approaches to warfare, different philosophies, and their own communication styles. But the one thing they all have in common is that they were born out of this war, and their discoveries and their evolution of UAV deployment tactics have defined the power of drones.

On 2 February 2025, the commanders of these five units released their first joint video message, urging people to get involved in a project called Drone Power.

On 9 February, a week after making a presentation to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Drone Power became the Drone Line.

That was three months ago, but there is still little information out there about the new initiative, let alone its results. So Ukrainska Pravda set out to discover how the idea came about, what its main objectives are, how the participants were selected, why the project is not being run by the Unmanned Systems Forces, and what the Drone Line could develop into.

Three attempts to draw the Line

The Ukrainian command first considered something similar to the Drone Line at the end of 2023.

A source who has been involved in the project since its inception recalls: "[Valerii] Zaluzhnyi was Commander-in-Chief at the time, and he was presented with a similar concept. At that time, we had already progressed from the first experimental crews to companies and battalions of unmanned systems. The commander-in-chief liked everything, and everyone supported it. But they didn't manage to sign the launch orders before Zaluzhnyi was replaced."

After the commander-in-chief was replaced on 8 February 2024, a major personnel reshuffle began in the army, and the Russians were preparing to attack on new fronts, so the new commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had no time to think about new projects for a while.

Along with the arrival of the new commander-in-chief, another significant plan was being implemented in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: the creation of a separate branch of the military, the Unmanned Systems Forces. The president had instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to establish this branch on 6 February 2024, and on 10 June, Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, previously a deputy to the commander-in-chief, was appointed to command the new forces.

Everyone who worked with unmanned aerial vehicles hoped that the Unmanned Systems Forces would become the sole centre for implementing projects that would develop drone warfare.

But one of UP's sources in the defence forces leadership argues that the Unmanned Systems Forces itself initially rejected the idea of the Drone Line. "In fact, the first decision of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to launch the Drone Line was taken immediately after Sukharevskyi was appointed, and nothing came of it. The Unmanned Systems Forces then decided that they would prioritise operational depth (60-100 km) and develop deep strikes, and they weren’t interested in tactical depth of up to 10-15 km," the source said.

Ultimately, it was difficult for Sukharevskyi to immediately take on large-scale projects, as he had clashed with Syrskyi from his very first days on the commander-in-chief's team. Syrskyi was less than thrilled that Sukharevskyi had been appointed instead of one of his own people – after all, Sukharevskyi was just a brigade commander from the "lower ranks", whereas Syrskyi’s allies came from the higher command.

The army is a fairly closed and hierarchical system with its own unwritten rules. The top leadership saw Sukharevskyi as an upstart who had found himself at the top of the hierarchy by the will of the president, bypassing the established system of career advancement, and decided to teach him a lesson.

That’s why Sukharevskyi had to defend the concept of the Unmanned Systems Forces in Syrskyi’s office nearly ten times, only finally succeeding after it was brought up at a Staff meeting in the president’s presence. It’s also why in the early months of his tenure, rather than building the new branch of the Armed Forces, Sukharevskyi was effectively sent into "exile" back to the front – and so on and so forth.

In other words, at first there was little interest in engaging in UAV combat on the front lines, and shortly afterwards, because of bureaucratic manoeuvring, there was no time for it anyway.

When Ukrainska Pravda asked the heads of the units involved in the project why Sukharevskyi would not be commanding the Drone Line, they said they fully understood this decision. After all, three of the five Drone Line units were part of the Ground Forces before becoming separate regiments: Achilles came from the 92nd Brigade, Rarog from the 24th, and K-2 split off from the 54th.

According to Ukrainska Pravda’s information, the 54th Brigade, which is fighting on the Sivershchyna (northern) front, is currently suffering the most from the departure of a strong UAV unit from its ranks. Their infantry has found it significantly more challenging to hold their positions.

The understanding that the Drone Line could be created within the Ground Forces appeared in the triangle of "government – Armed Forces command – commanders of UAV units" sometime in late 2024.

"At the time it was felt that most of the strongest UAV units were under the command of the Ground Forces. We talked to the commanders of those units – some agreed, some refused, but the core was formed and we could make a start," a UP source in the Ground Forces recalls.

The project was launched on its third attempt in early 2025: a new decision was made by the leadership, and Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, Commander of the Ground Forces, was made responsible for the Drone Line.

Finally, the composition of the units was determined, and a support team was formed from people in the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and the Ground Forces. The only issue that remained unresolved was: why create a separate command for unmanned systems if it does not include the best UAV units?

"We don't understand it ourselves," a source in the Unmanned Systems Forces told UP. "But it looks like the Unmanned Systems Forces were created to give the president some good publicity. Now the Drone Line has been created for the same reasons. Whether this will affect the course of the war remains to be seen. But it looks good."  

The Drone Line: scaling up the best

The Drone Line emerged as a result of the digitalisation of a new type of warfare.

First, the army introduced the Delta situational awareness system. Later, based on this, Army Bonus, better known to the general public as eScore, was launched in the defence forces. The way it works is that UAV units are awarded points for confirmed enemy losses, which can be exchanged for additional drones and other weapons for their unit.

"This bonus project created a critical mass of data," one of the people responsible for eScore told UP. "We finally had accurate numbers, confirmed by at least two videos, for the scale of our units’ work and enemy losses. But most importantly, we were able to identify who is really efficient on the battlefield. And there were plenty of surprises. For example, it was this rating that revealed the Phoenix unit, which consistently ranked at the top in terms of the number of strikes."

That meant that when it became necessary to select units for the Drone Line, it was enough to open up the Delta rating and select the most effective ones.

"We’re not here to reinvent the wheel, but to enable the best units to become even better," explains one interviewee who was closely involved in the Drone Line’s launch. "Those who have progressed, we scale up from a platoon to a UAV regiment or brigade. They already know how to fight – they just need some support. And we also scale up the commanders, because it’s one thing to command a company and quite another to increase in size several times over to a regiment. This is also a huge challenge for the commanders."

"We’re effectively strengthening a new army within the old army," another UP source involved with the Drone Line adds. "All these units have grown out of a few crews, their commanders have no connection to the ‘old’ army, and now, thanks to the score system and projects like the Drone Line, they’ve been given the opportunity to develop not through their connections within some group of generals, but by being effective."

In terms of doctrine, the project also represents something completely new. As people in the Ground Forces Command explain, the Russians can only advance on the battlefield where they are able to push through weaker units. Roughly speaking, if the 3rd Assault Brigade is deployed to a certain section of the front, the command can rest assured that there will be no failure in electronic warfare, their drones will fly, and there will be no other major disruptions.

"But all successful units have weaker attached or adjacent units on their flanks where the commanders are in no great hurry to figure out what this new way of fighting is all about," a UP source from the project team explains. "And that’s where the enemy pushes through. When a weak unit collapses on the flank, the strong one must retreat too, so that the enemy doesn’t get behind them.

The Drone Line’s task is to become the second line behind weaker infantry units and thus hold the front line."

Military personnel and analysts have calculated how many FPV crews, Mavic drones, heavy bomber drones and reconnaissance UAVs are needed per kilometre of the front line to stop the enemy completely. 

"Previously, all our units had a sort of nomadic lifestyle," one of the Drone Line project developers explains. "They were constantly being moved around and used to plug gaps. Now the idea is for these regiments and brigades to ‘settle down’ on a particular section of the front line and become a stabilising force there. Because whenever there’s a brigade stationed somewhere and it’s later replaced by another one, there’s always a collapse at first and serious problems until everything is adjusted.

But if our units stay in the same area for a long period of time, the electronic warfare [crews] will know where and how to operate, and the [drone] pilots will learn the terrain and that means they’ll work more effectively. Eventually they’ll begin to train the line brigades in front of them and gradually expand ‘their’ section of the front line."

So over time, each unit of the Drone Line, like the future corps, should be fighting on a single fixed stretch of the front line.

This will help the regiments firstly to fight from their own, previously prepared positions, and secondly to thoroughly study the enemy and inflict fire damage systematically, explains Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles Regiment.

It is likely that Drone Line units will not be spread across the entire 1,200 km of the active front line, but will be concentrated on the most challenging fronts, in Kharkiv, Luhansk and above all Donetsk oblasts.

The Line on the ground: what has changed for the units themselves

"When the Drone Line was launched, first of all, all five of us began to expand, and secondly, our financial support changed – we were allocated additional funds from the state budget," says Dmytro Oleksiuk, commander of the Phoenix Regiment. "Each regiment received UAH 4 billion (about US$96.2 million), if I’m not mistaken, and Magyar’s Birds got UAH 6 billion (US$144.3 million). Ammunition supplies and staffing also changed. Everyone has basic military training for 45 days now, and we have it for 30. The doors to all training centres and pilot schools are open to us on a priority basis."

These benefits for the units became possible because one of the Drone Line’s objectives is to create strong horizontal links between the strongest UAV units and roll out their experience across the entire army.

Another key objective for all Drone Line units is to protect their own infantry. The defence forces have calculated that most enemy personnel are wiped out within 5 km of the contact line. The objective now is to push this mark back at least to 10 km, and ideally to 15-20 km, in order to destroy Russian infantry as it is being transported to positions.

There is also a maximum plan – to eventually strike the enemy at a depth of 50 km from the front line.

Military personnel call this range the "kill zone" – the area where the enemy can be destroyed using drones.

Oleh Huit, Commander of the Rarog Regiment, explains the concept of the kill zone to UP: "The kill zone is 50 km deep and is divided into sectors: 5-10 km, 10-15 km, 10-20 km and 20-50 km. Each section has its own reconnaissance crew that immediately signals for a fire strike. We have to prevent enemy infantry from approaching, whether on foot or in tracked vehicles, disrupt their logistics, destroy their artillery, and hit their rear supply and air defence systems."

"At 5 km depth, there should be no enemy at all – everything there will be mined," adds Dmytro Oleksiuk from the Phoenix Regiment. "At 10 km we’ll destroy all logistics; at 15 km we’ll knock out their artillery. Our reconnaissance wings are constantly working to find the enemy’s logistical hubs."

The soldiers explain that building an effective kill zone means not only promptly hitting moving targets such as armoured vehicles carrying Russian infantry, but also destroying any hideouts in front of Ukrainian positions – houses, basements and ruins where the enemy can become entrenched.

"We won’t be launching any counteroffensives, so if we want to create a kill zone, all of that must be destroyed," says a source currently defending the Novopavlivka front.

Does the launch of the Drone Line change anything for the average service member from Rarog or Magyar’s Birds? Technically, no.

Mavic operators will still fly reconnaissance missions over Russian-held forested areas, FPV drone operators will hunt down enemy infantry, pickups and armoured vehicles, and Vampire drone operators and engineers will drop munitions on Russian hideouts at night.

"We’re not interested in media projects [like the Drone Line – ed.], we’re constantly stuck in these damned forested areas," an FPV operator from one of the Drone Line units tells UP. "We’ve always been able to recruit people anyway. When I joined, my company had four assault groups, and now there are 13. We keep expanding our range and zone of operations. The only thing holding us back is the weather."

The people who will really feel the effect of the Drone Line – and especially of a well-constructed kill zone – are the Ukrainian infantry.

However, it will only be possible to speak of results when each of the units expands to regiment level and takes control of its designated sector of the front.

The tentative deadline for the full launch of this project, according to Oleh Khasan from Rarog, is the end of 2025.

*   *   *

The Drone Line is similar in many ways to another recruitment project launched under the auspices of the President’s Office – the Offensive Guard. As part of that project, which also featured an extensive promotional campaign and mass text messaging, the National Guard expanded and reinforced nine assault brigades ahead of the 2023 offensive.

Although the Offensive Guard did not play a decisive role in the 2023 offensive, its scaling-up at the time, the additional equipment and the increased operational freedom of its commanders translated into a significant strengthening of the National Guard.

For example, the Burevii Brigade, which suffered heavy losses and ran into problems during the defence of Sievierodonetsk in 2022, has been able to grow into a powerful unit that’s now effectively holding off Russian forces near Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast. And the Khartiia Brigade has become the basis of one of the two future corps of the National Guard.

The Drone Line has every chance of becoming a success story too. 

However, as of now, only three months into the project, most of what was planned remains theoretical and hypothetical. The units are not being scaled up as quickly. That is why UP’s sources say the Line is still a long way from fully unlocking its potential.

Still, there are already clear indicators of how involvement in the project affects units’ performance. For instance, the Magyar’s Birds Brigade has assembled more new crews in the last three months than some older units have in three years of the war. As a result, Magyar’s Birds have been the undisputed leaders on the eScore ranking in recent months.

"If you compare the first month when these points were introduced to now, Magyar has tripled in size! Now we’re looking for ways to incentivise other units to keep the competition going," a member of the Drone Line team told UP.

"Competition between units drives progress," adds a source in the Ukrainian Ground Forces command. "That’s why no one is going to standardise how they fight. On the contrary, we need them to compete, to keep looking for new technological solutions and improvements. And thanks to the constant horizontal interaction, these discoveries will be instantly absorbed by other teams."

Authors: Roman Romaniuk, Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda

Translators: Myroslava Zavadska, Anna Kybukevych

Editor: Teresa Pearce