When Russia staged its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three-and-a-half years ago, the country relied on arms donated by western allies to defend itself. Ukraine now produces 40 per cent of the weapons it needs. Rustem Umerov, who was then defence minister but now heads Ukraine’s National Security Council, said last December that Ukraine manufactures 96 per cent of drones used by its military. It currently makes four million drones a year and could produce far more if it had the money.
Drones have all but replaced conventional weapons in this war. Both sides use them for reconnaissance, and they also crash FPV (first person view) drones loaded with explosives on to enemy armour, vehicles and positions. Roads on the eastern front are shrouded in nets intended to stop drones exploding on military traffic.
An interministerial platform called Brave1 co-ordinates weapons development. Brave1 Market, an online armoury, is the focus of a military competition called E-bal – a play on words meaning that enemy targets are f**ked. Units compete for the greatest number of points, which they can use to buy high-tech equipment from Brave1 Market.
A destroyed multiple rocket launcher is worth up to 50 points, depending on the calibre. A tank is worth 40. Killing a Russian infantryman earns 10 points. All drone camera footage feeds into the central Delta software system, so hits can be easily verified.
READ MORE
Ruslan Borovskiy (26), is the co-owner of a small drone factory in Lviv. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Lviv Polytechnic and has worked in everything from construction to horticulture. On the day of the full-scale invasion, Borovskiy thought he would join the army. He cut his long hair and practised carrying a gun while balancing on crutches from a recent operation. Bone injuries disqualified him for military service.
[ Lara Marlowe: Ukrainians fear what peace talks may bringOpens in new window ]
[ Lara Marlowe: At a hospital in Lviv, the mental toll of war weighs heavilyOpens in new window ]
Borovskiy contributed to the war effort by working at a humanitarian aid hub. Then he had an inspiration. “There was a huge need for Ukraine to produce its own weapons,” he says. “I wanted to create something that would be a game-changer for Ukraine on the battlefield.”
Borovskiy is a practising Christian. His business partner and several of his employees worship at the same church. Didn’t God say, “Thou shalt not kill?” I ask him.
“I’m creating weapons not to kill but to protect,” he replies. “Another nation is trying to destroy my nation. They kill civilians every day. Stopping Russians from killing Ukrainians is an act of love.”
Borovskiy built his first drone with a soldering iron in a friend’s kitchen. He and the company’s co-founder invested €42,000 each and obtained a grant from the Ukrainian government to create a start-up called Vitrolom, Ukrainian for windbreak. They set up shop in a former Soviet television factory. Borovskiy hired six men with backgrounds in science and technology.
Drone sizes are labelled in inches. Vitrolom’s flagship drone, Khmara, or “cloud”, has a 15-inch wingspan, twice that of an ordinary FPV, and costs €550. It is not intended to be a single-use drone, but can be “suicided” like a standard FPV can be if necessary.
Borovskiy had the idea of making Khmara, a folding drone that can be more easily carried by soldiers. He uses feedback from frontline soldiers to improve it. In bomber mode, it usually carries Soviet-made RPG-7 grenades, which are still readily available in Ukraine. It can also serve as a “matka”, the Ukrainian word for mother or queen bee.
Mother drones have trended in Russian and Ukrainian drone-making for the past 18 months. By ferrying smaller FPVs across front lines, they save the batteries of the suicide drones, thus doubling their range. The mother drone also serves as a transmitting station for video links.
Who had mother drones first, the Ukrainians or the Russians? “This is an arms race,” Borovskiy replies. “It’s hard to say who had them first.”
‘If magically you know where the Shahed is, you still must have a mobile group with interceptors beneath it. The interceptors run out of fuel in 10 to 15 minutes. You must be in the right place’
— Ruslan Borovskiy, of Vitrolom drone start-up
Russia was first to use drones piloted through fibre optic threads to avoid electronic countermeasures, Borovskiy admits. The threads can be up to 25km long. “The Ukrainian engineers I talked to a year ago thought fibre optic drones wouldn’t work. But the Russians started using them a lot early this year. It was a game-changer in Kursk,” he says, referring to the Russian border province where most of the territory taken by Ukrainians in an incursion last year has since been lost.
Ukraine has now been using fibre optic drones on a large scale for approximately six months. “They solve the problem of electronic countermeasures, but that’s not a panacea,” Borovskiy says. “The cable is glass, and if it bends the pilot loses control. Also, the thread tends to tangle as it comes off the bobbin. You need really good pilots. I know units who’ve given up on them.”
Russia’s Iranian-made Shahed drones have become some of the most dreaded weapons in the war. These “poor man’s cruise missiles” are crudely made, large, slow-flying triangles with a warhead that combines high explosives, small tungsten balls for penetration and incendiary chemicals that create a fireball. Ukraine says their widespread use against cities at night violates article 51 of the Geneva conventions, which requires militaries to distinguish between civilian and military targets. Russia has copied and improved on the Shahed, calling its own version Gerbera, or geranium.
The Shahed/Gerbera drone can be shot down by anti-aircraft missiles, attack helicopters and aircraft, even machine guns. The challenge is to detect them on time. Russia is constantly upgrading the killer drones. “They’ve installed jet engines, which makes them go much faster. And they started flying at higher altitudes so mobile brigades can’t shoot them down,” Borovskiy says. “They dive towards the target at the end of the trajectory.”
[ ‘I have no expectations’: Ukrainian scepticism grows amid push for peaceOpens in new window ]
Ukraine is developing interceptor drones which will find and destroy the Shaheds. “The problem is you have to detect the incoming drone,” Borovskiy explains. “They are radio transparent because of their fibre glass exterior. It’s impossible to cover all Ukraine with a detection system. If magically you know where the Shahed is, you still must have a mobile group with interceptors beneath it. The interceptors run out of fuel in 10 to 15 minutes. You must be in the right place.”
The closest thing Ukraine has to the Shahed is the smaller Bober or Beaver drone, which is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – these look like miniature traditional winged aircraft. “The Beaver is more advanced than the Shahed,” says Borovskiy. “It was invented by Ukraine in 2023, and we use them in similar fashion, but against airbases and refineries, not civilians. The Shahed carries a 90-kilo warhead, the Beaver up to 20 kilos.”
Last June 1st, Ukraine staged Operation Spiderweb, in which Ukrainian agents hired Russian drivers who unwittingly transported FPV drones concealed above the false ceilings of freight containers. They drove to the vicinity of Russian airbases up to 4,600km from the Ukrainian border. The roofs of the containers were opened and drone pilots in Ukraine used the Russian mobile network to crash the drones into 41 military aircraft. Ukraine thus disabled up to one third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet in one fell swoop. “It was an act of genius,” says Borovskiy.
Vasyl Malyuk, who heads Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service, later said Spiderweb had originally been planned for May 9th but had to be postponed because Russian truck drivers were incapacitated by drink.
Artificial intelligence is the next frontier in drone technology. “We’re at the beginning of a revolution in warfare,” says Borovskiy. “In future, machines will fight machines and take decisions humans used to take. It is terrifying and exciting. At present, Russia and Ukraine are concentrating on killing each other’s pilots. It’s getting scarier.”
Borovskiy and his colleagues at Vitrolom are striving to improve Solomon, a small black box with an AI-programmed microchip that rides on the belly of the Khmara drone. It can perform the functions of target identification and autonomous flying, without GPS or other electronic guidance. The system is still at an experimental stage.
Borovskiy demonstrated Solomon’s capabilities at drone shows in Lviv and Kyiv last month. “In a test in Kyiv, our drone recognised six out of eight camouflaged targets – the highest score.” He capitalised on the attention to apply for another €170,000 in development funding. Canadian and Danish officials have also shown interest.
Borovskiy used the initial €42,000 in government seed money to purchase a spectrum analyser and lab power supplier. Other equipment includes six 3D printers, an industrial cutting machine and a ground station, which looks like a laptop computer and goggles in a small suitcase. Borovskiy and his team built the ground station themselves.
If there is eventually a ceasefire or peace agreement, Borovskiy says Vitrolom may self-destruct, while Russia continues stoking its weapons industry. He predicts Ukraine will be too preoccupied by postwar presidential and parliamentary elections to continue the arms race. Then he reconsiders. “I hope this technology will have a better application than killing people,” he says. “There’s a lot of potential for delivering goods and in agriculture. We may export them.”
