Sirsky reported that in December, the Armed Forces hit more than 54,000 targets with the help of UAVs

In December 2024, more than 54,000 targets of the Russian Federation were hit by the operators of the Forces of Unmanned Systems of the Armed Forces. Almost half of this result – 49% – was provided by kamikaze drones, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, announced on January 5.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces added that the Ukrainian military has started using FPV drones on fiber optics.

“There is a further increase in the number of applications of unmanned systems on the battlefield. The enemy has increased the share of attack UAVs with a fiber-optic control channel, which pose a threat to military equipment during its movement. However, we are not standing still and have also started using FPV drones on fiber optics, which expands the possibilities for defeating and destroying Russian military equipment and personnel,” the post states.

On December 31, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov said that “the Russians are massively using FPV drones with a cable, which creates a huge problem.” He explained that such FPV drones cannot be stopped by electronic warfare (EW).

In October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that Ukraine had already produced and sent a million drones to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which were purchased at state expense.

During the Russian-Ukrainian full-scale war, the role of drones increased significantly. On the front line for the Armed Forces, they partially compensate for the superiority of the Russian forces in artillery. Also, they have become indispensable for long-range, hundreds of kilometers, strikes on military facilities on the territory of Russia – under conditions when Ukraine’s western partners do not dare to grant Kyiv permission to use long-range missiles manufactured by the USA, Great Britain and France for this purpose.