A pilot from the 13th Khartiia Operational Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard flies an FPV drone during a training session to practice flight tactics in conditions simulating combat and maximize the effectiveness of strikes, on November 5, 2025. (Photo by Viacheslav Madiievskyi/Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NO USE RUSSIA. NO USE BELARUS. (Photo by Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
In a recent interview with SkyNews, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, outlined his current strategy against Russia, which focuses on wearing down the Russian army as much as possible. In a war of attrition, this means Ukraine must reduce Russian personnel and equipment while preserving its own. Ukraine faces a significant disadvantage in such a conflict because of Russia’s larger population and more robust defense industry. Over the past three years, Ukraine has worked to offset this disadvantage through its extensive use of drones. While Ukraine has been continually improving drone technology, frontline units have also been developing new tactics for employing these systems to further strain Russian resources. Recent reports from Ukrainian news outlets and social media have highlighted several of these innovative drone tactics now being introduced by Ukrainian troops.
Audio Deception: Drones With Speakers
While drones have typically been used for reconnaissance, surveillance, or precision strikes, Ukrainian soldiers are now employing them for psychological operations and battlefield deception. According to Russian reports on social media, Ukrainian drones have been equipped with loudspeakers that play recordings of military vehicles. These false audio signatures prompt Russian forces to deploy reconnaissance drones and one-way strike drones against what they believe to be an incoming threat. This wastes Russian resources, since the one-way strike drones cannot be recalled, while also forcing Russian units to reveal their positions. Ukraine, meanwhile, expends minimal resources in the process, especially since the drone is reusable.
Image captured from video posted on social media of a Ukrainian soldier launching a drone with a speaker mounted to it. The video claims that the drone played messages requesting Russian soldiers to surrender.
Social Media Capture
The social media post also describes a more elaborate technique in which speaker-equipped drones play recordings of distress in Russian, including cries for help and groaning. This tactic draws Russian soldiers out of their secured positions, making them vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery or strike-drones already cued to the location. With the Russian forces more exposed, these strikes become more effective, increasing the attrition of Russian forces while reducing Ukraine’s overall resource expenditure.
Seeing Through The Fog: Drones Working With Ground Robots
Over the past few weeks, Russian forces have made significant gains in Kharkiv, Pokrovsk, and Huliaipole due to heavy fog and freezing rain degrading Ukraine’s arsenal of FPV-style drones. These weather conditions reduce visibility, making it difficult for Ukrainian drone operators to spot potential targets. Additionally, wind and precipitation create unstable flight conditions, especially at higher altitudes, making precision strikes nearly impossible.
Captures from video posted on social media showing footage from a Ukrainian drone on November 15, 2025 as it hunts for Russian targets around Yalta and Dachne through dense fog.
Social Media Capture
Given the importance of drones in their defenses, Ukrainian forces quickly developed a solution by incorporating ground robots into their defenses. The ground robots hide along Russian avenues of approach, monitoring the roads for any vehicle. When it identifies a Russian vehicle, it notifies a Ukrainian drone operator about the vehicle’s position and direction. A strike drone then moves into position along the road, flying low to avoid heavy winds. Using the fog as concealment, it then waits for the Russian vehicle to arrive before striking it. This approach has reportedly been successful, destroying numerous Russian armored vehicles, slowing down the Russian advance.
The Resourcefulness Of Ukrainian Soldiers
In addition to these newly adopted drone tactics, videos posted on social media show the resourcefulness of Ukrainian drone operators as they find novel ways to use their drones to attack Russian soldiers and equipment. For example, a recent video shows the feed from what appears to be a broken Ukrainian FPV drone inside a building in Pokrovsk. However, the drone is still fully functional and is next to a structural support for the building. As a Russian soldier approaches the drone to retrieve it, the drone detonates, causing the building to collapse on the Russian soldiers inside.
Image captured from a video posted on social media from a Ukrainian drone feed in Pokrovsk front on November 29, 2025. The drone appears to be broken, luring in a Russian soldier. The drone detonates shortly thereafter destroying the building.
Social Media Capture
Ukrainian soldiers are also finding ways to manage resource constraints, since many units are operating in positions where they cannot be readily resupplied. A recent video posted to social media shows a drone dropping an antitank mine into a Russian trench, where it detonates. While not a new method, it is highly resourceful, reemploying Russian munitions that have been littered across Ukraine. Throughout the conflict, even when faced with difficult conditions, Ukrainian forces have consistently found ways to keep fighting.
New Drones And New Tactics
As Ukrainian soldiers continue to innovate new drone tactics, Ukraine’s defense industry is developing and fielding increasingly advanced drones. Over the past three years, Ukraine has leveraged its pre-war technology sector to produce advanced systems with improved navigation, artificial intelligence-based controls, computer vision, and swarm behavior. These ongoing developments are necessary for Ukrainian drones to remain effective on the battlefield, as Russia has also been deploying more capable counter-drone technologies.
These advanced drones are reaching frontline units at a rapid pace, where soldiers are able to test them in combat and develop tactics that take advantage of their expanding capabilities. The battlefield has effectively become a testing ground in which Ukrainian forces refine drone employment based on evolving threats, terrain, and conditions. As the war continues, and Ukraine’s frontline adaptation of drone tactics will remain one of its most important advantages, shaping both the battlefield and modern warfare.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/vikrammittal/2025/12/11/ukraine-innovated-new-frontline-drone-tactics-to-erode-russian-forces/
