Beyond the Front Line: Ukraine Is Deepening Its Drone Wall

Long-range Ukrainian strikes have dominated recent headlines, and for good reason: they are causing lasting damage. In April, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said strikes on Russian military infrastructure had caused around $25.5 billion in damage.

‘We’ve contracted a record number of mid-range strike systems,’ said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister. With both the production and usage of mid-range strike drones scaling up, Kyiv is now pushing to expand that kill zone further.

‘Ukraine should seek to expand the kill zone to at least 45 to 50 km in order to deny Russian forces their main method of advancing with infiltration tactics,’ George Barros, director of innovation and open source tradecraft at the Institute for the Study of War, told me in an interview.

This shift is most visible in mid-range drone strikes. Definitions vary, but the relevant zone is roughly 30 to 200 km from the front. This is where forces mass, logistics networks operate, and headquarters coordinate frontline activity.

Ukraine has adapted more quickly than Russia to the changing nature of the war, with optical-fibre first-person-view (FPV) drones, invented by Russia, being the main exception, said Kyle Glen, an open-source analyst. He argued that Ukraine’s defensive position had forced it to innovate under pressure, while Russia’s offensive focus had left it increasingly exposed as Ukrainian long-range drones moved closer to parity with Russian systems.

‘Ukraine has modernised its drone tactics,’ said Dmytro Putiata, a drone operator with Ukraine’s 20th Unmanned Systems Brigade and drone warfare specialist. ‘Some of the drones that were previously used for deep strikes are now also being redirected to medium-depth strikes. Ukraine has also developed drones specifically for strikes at operational depth.’

Ukrainian mid-range drones regularly strike Russian storage bases for drones and missiles, command posts, ammo depots, locomotives, radar stations and many other targets. ‘Logistics has always been a problem for the Russians, and now Ukraine is actively attacking it,’ said Putiata.

Ukraine has also intensified strikes on Russian missile launchers in occupied Crimea, carrying out around 10 attacks in just over two months. Open-source analysis suggests that these operations are part of a broader campaign, with nearly 600 mid-range strikes using FP-1 and FP-2 drones into occupied territories since the start of the year.

In late April, Ukrainian drone units reportedly struck Russian Mi-28 and Mi-17 helicopters at a field landing site in the Voronezh region, around 150 km from the front.

Russia is vast and almost impossible to defend in full. It must prioritise where air defenses are placed, yet Ukraine has had growing success destroying those systems with mid-range strikes.

Ukraine is now using satellite connectivity, including Starlink, to strike Russian rear areas across occupied territory. ‘One of our priorities for the coming months is middle strikes, that is, targeting the enemy at a depth of up to 120–150 kilometers,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X in April.

Bryan Pickens, a former US Army Green Beret who has fought alongside Ukrainian special forces, said, ‘Looking ahead, AI will play an even larger role. Systems are becoming more capable, requiring fewer inputs from human operators.’ He said that ‘in advanced cases, operators simply define the target and general parameters, while the system handles execution.’

One of the mid-range Ukrainian strike drones that has attracted significant attention on the Russian side in recent months is the Hornet, which uses AI-assisted targeting and was reportedly developed by a US-based company owned by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. I saw this drone in action on the front last year, striking Russian logistics.

Key to Ukraine’s drone success is adaptation velocity: the ability to test new solutions, deploy them quickly, and refine them under battlefield conditions. Recent footage appeared to show the Hornet being tested with a balloon-assisted launch system, a technique that could help drones avoid early detection and extend their reach beyond the system’s usual range.

Pickens added, ‘Instead of manually flying each drone, soldiers may simply task the system: go to a specific trench line, search a grid location, identify exposed infantry, prioritise electronic warfare systems, tanks, or vehicles, and operate under defined rules of engagement.’

Around Donetsk, Ukraine’s First Corps Azov says its drone units are maintaining surveillance and control over key Russian supply routes, including the Donetsk Ring Road. On the roads around Mariupol, destroyed Russian logistical vehicles are increasingly visible after strikes by Ukrainian drones. Petro Andryushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, wrote on X that ‘Russians are increasing efforts to disguise military transport as civilian vehicles.’

Crimea is also a major focus of this campaign, as Ukrainian mid-range drones increasingly target the military infrastructure and logistics underpinning Russia’s hold on the occupied peninsula.

It is a sign of what is to come, as AI-enabled drones are increasingly used against Russian logistics with greater precision and scale. Drones now fly over logistical routes searching for targets to strike.

This is now the stated logic of Ukraine’s mid-range strike campaign. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister, said Kyiv had ‘seized the initiative’ from Russia in mid-range strikes. The goal, he said, is to isolate the battlefield, target logistics and electromagnetic-warfare systems, neutralise officers and reduce Russian infantry presence on the front line.

In April 2025, I wrote that a ‘new kind of no man’s land is forming, battlefields that will be increasingly saturated with semi-autonomous drones that seek and destroy anything that moves.’

That prediction is now beginning to materialise as Ukraine’s drone wall becomes more offensive, driven by AI-enabled systems that expand the kill zone, disrupt Russian logistics, and steadily undermine Moscow’s ability to sustain frontline operations.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

AI contributed no ideas to this article – David Kirichenko.

This article appeared originally at The Strategist (ASPI).