July 31, 2025: If Ukraine were left without any NATO or American aid, they would still have a chance of winning with their battalions and regiments of drones, particularly if they attack the transformers powering Russia’s electrified railroad system. Ukraine has four drone battalions that will form drone regiments, expanding each from about 700 soldiers to 2,500 soldiers armed with first person-view drones and others that drop bombs. Four-man Ukrainian drone squads operate from basements or bunkers, with one a drone pilot, another the navigator, another the armorer and finally a pilot for the retransmitting drone. Drones currently cause some 70 percent of Russian casualties.

If necessary, the Ukrainians are ready to fight on alone and win. This is because most of their drones are manufactured locally from components imported from China. The Chinese will sell to anyone, anywhere and deliver in a timely manner. Chinese component manufacturers complain that they can barely keep up with the Ukrainian demand for the life-saving drones.

Vladimir Putin is telling his people that Russia’s economic future is troubled. The reality is that the Russian economy will probably collapse by the end of the year even if the Ukrainians leave the rail transformers alone. Vladimir Putin wants peace so he will not be removed from power as millions of Russians starve because the vital rail system is continuing to collapse.

Although Russia produces more drones than Ukraine, they lag in quality and innovations. Ukrainian drones have re-transmitter drones that extend the explosive drones’ range as well as guiding drones with hair-thin fiber-optic threads that are impervious to Russian jamming. So far this year Russia has gained little ground, much of territory recaptured inside Russia as the Ukrainians have stalled Russian advances in eastern Ukraine. Next comes the Russian collapse with Vladimir Putin vainly insisting it’s not his fault.

Ukraine is also short of people and all these drone innovations are meant to do the job with far fewer soldiers. This is great for Ukrainian morale, as is the current lack of Russian forward movement. For Russia that means fewer Russian soldiers deserting. Vladimir Putin gets a bump in popularity for that and might even become popular when a defeated Russia enables the troops to go home and rebuilding the Russian economy

Several million drones are being built this year. The total for 2024 was 1.5 million drones. 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 is able to hit its first and only target. The majority of 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 drone can see. Each of these drones carries half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the drone 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 drone sounds over the combat zone. There are videos of terrified Russian soldiers staring at the drone that is about to kill them.

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 as a way 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.