Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov hinted at the development of drone-related technology that could become a «game changer» in the war with Russia.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov hinted at the development of drone-related technology that could become a «game changer» in the war with Russia.
This is stated in a post by the Ministry of Digital Transformation. It notes that drones have already become game changers of war and have now turned into weapons that destroy Russian equipment worth millions of dollars. The Ministry of Digital Transformation recalled that in three years the number of companies dealing with drones has increased from 7 to 500.
«Thanks to this, the number of new defense tech developments is growing every day, and a new secret technology is already in the works, which is also related to drones. This is a new game changer in technological warfare that will change the course of hostilities. And the faster we scale defense innovation, the more advantage we will gain on the battlefield», — the Ministry of Digital Affairs claims.
The ministry refers to the words of Mikhail Fedorov, and notes that this «technological game changer already exists»; they promise to reveal details about it «soon».
One of these technologies could be a «drone swarm,» which experts have been talking about for a long time. In the fall of 2024, the Brave1 cluster, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the General Staff, and the National Guard already conducted tests with the participation of 17 teams of manufacturers , 7 of which presented their drone swarm technology developments, and another 10 — guided munitions.
Also last year, one of the Kyiv-based UAV developers, Serhiy Krupienko , said that his company would soon launch a new, previously unseen development on the front lines — an artificially created «swarm» of seven drones capable of interacting with each other and blowing up tanks, as well as spying on the enemy.
The appearance of such technology in Ukraine was expected in 2025. Domestic developers already have products that can group 10–15 drones. In the future, this could be about 100 «birds.»
«We are talking not only about combining not only drones, but also ground and aircraft. These will be not only FPV, but also reconnaissance drones that will communicate with ground platforms,» said Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Affairs Oleksandr Bornyakov.
Drones will inform ground platforms about targets that are invisible to robots due to terrain features. The platform will then move in a given direction or independently aim at the object. At the same time, drones in the air distribute targets among themselves and operate autonomously within a certain square.
Previously, the Ukrainian Magura V5 surface drone, designed to destroy enemy ships and coastal targets, has received a new upgrade that allows it to operate together with a «swarm» of decoy drones. This overloads Russian defense systems, allowing the main strike vehicles to reach the target.
Among Ukrainian AI developments for uniting drones into groups is an AI system called Styx from Ukrainian startup Swarmer, which manages a network of reconnaissance and strike drones.
«As for swarms, this is a hot technology, we are working on 5 MVPs. The technology of group use of drones is more effective, one operator will be able to control not one UAV, but an entire group,» — said Nataliya Kushnerska, head of the Brave1 defense cluster, in February 2025.
According to Kushnerskaya, among the game-changing technologies on the frontline funded by Brave1 were trench electronic warfare in 2023, and ground-based robots and drone ammunition in 2024. In 2025, it could be the missile program, but «aerial drones remain the base.»
In the summer of 2024, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov announced that the Brave1 defense cluster would begin issuing grants to companies involved in missile programs .
«We even have a special project, which I won’t talk about yet, but it is related to missile programs, and this year there will be hundreds of grants for companies involved in this area,» said the head of the Ministry of Digital Affairs.
Since the teaser mentions drone-related technology, it may be referring to the completion of a new drone missile with increased range or other advantages. Ukraine first used such a weapon on August 24, 2024, hitting a target in Russian-occupied territory with a Palanytsia drone missile. The president called it a weapon of «an absolutely new class».
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorovsaid that the cost of producing new «Palyanytsya» drone missiles is less than $1 million, and the military is turning to the private sector to further reduce production costs.
Later, Volodymyr Zelensky also handed over to the Defense Forces of Ukraine the first batch of the latest Peklo drone missiles with a range of 700 km and a speed of 700 km per hour. It was noted that in terms of their effectiveness, Ukrainian drone missiles are not inferior to certain types of Russian cruise missiles, but are much cheaper.
In April 2025, it became known that Ukraine had created a drone missile «Bars» with a range of up to 800 km. It was noted that «Bars» is a development of private manufacturers, not state-owned ones, and belongs to the class of drone missiles. According to an insider, the parameters of «Bars» most closely resemble the drone missile «Hell».
The Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, Herman Smetanin, during the briefing «Ukrainian Weapons 2024», mentioned «Bars» when listing Ukrainian missiles: «Hell», «Palyanytsia» and «Ruta». It is also known that a Ukrainian team of volunteer engineers is developing a «Trembita» missile, which can reach Moscow.
One of the technologies that could change Russia’s war against Ukraine could be the mass production of interceptor drones that would shoot down the Iranian-Russian Shahed/Geran, which terrorize Ukrainians by the hundreds almost every night.
Similar UAVs are being developed by several Western companies. In late 2024, Brave1 reported that Ukrainian operators flew a Tytan drone from German manufacturer Tytan Technology to personally test its capabilities. This UAV is designed to intercept Russian-Iranian Shahed drones and enemy reconnaissance drones and can be controlled from the Steam Deck.
Earlier, it was reported that two American tech companies, IronNet and Asterion Systems, have created a counter-UAV system, which is called a potential «game changer» in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The defense network is formed by combining IronNet’s Iron Dome cybersecurity system, which provides real-time cyber threat detection, with Asterion’s Hitchhiker counter-UAV technology. The system is designed to neutralize enemy drones.
It is the drones that will be countered by Hitchhiker, a high-speed, electrically powered interceptor drone designed to destroy enemy drones, such as the Iranian Shahid, more cost-effectively than traditional defense systems, such as expensive Patriot missiles.
Additionally, Swedish startup Nordic Air Defence has developed the Kreuger 100 platform, which launches extremely small drones to intercept enemy UAVs. They can be launched from a handheld device or a compact ground-based system, and are capable of countering Russian Orlan-10 reconnaissance drones and Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones.
Ukrainian developers are also producing drones to counter Russian kamikaze drones. In April, an interceptor drone was demonstrated that can fly at a maximum altitude of 5 km and accelerate to a speed of 200 km/h, and the maximum flight altitude is 5 km. It is noted that this is the most successful Shahed interceptor, having already shot down more than 20 such UAVs.
Most of all, the Ukrainian company Wild Hornets' Sting «shaheed hunter» is known, which can fly at speeds of over 160 km per hour and climb to a height of about 3 km. Later, the company showed testing of a new version of the Sting drone, which was compared on social networks to a fighter jet from Star Wars. The updated UAV reached speeds of over 200 km per hour.
Recently, the Wild Hornets first showed a video of the interception of a «shaheed» by a Sting drone:
Fiber-optic data transmission technology is far from new — it has been used for decades as part of fiber-optic cables that carry Internet connections. But the war in Ukraine has «breathed new life» into the technology, and fiber-optic drones are now being actively used by the Russian occupiers and the Defense Forces.
The main reason for the popularity of fiber optics on the front line is the impossibility of jamming it with electronic warfare systems. It is very difficult to directly cut a fiber optic wire, although when it starts to bend, clinging to obstacles, it can break the connection.
Last winter, it was reported that the Russians were 3-4 months ahead of Ukrainian developers, provided they could match production. At the time, the Brave1 cluster noted that more than 25 teams of engineers were working on creating fiber-optic drones, and about 10 of them were preparing documentation to codify their developments.
On May 20, 3DTech became the first Ukrainian developer to complete the codification procedure for the line of fiber-optic unmanned aerial vehicles «Predator REBOFF» at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. On this day, it was also announced that a group of people’s deputies had developed two bills to exempt fiber-optic cables imported into Ukraine for the production of UAVs from customs duties .
Earlier, Kyrylo Veres, commander of the «K-2» battalion of the 54th separate mechanized brigade named after Hetman Ivan Mazepa, disagreed with the statement that 2025 will be the year of ground robotic systems. In his opinion, it will be the year of «fiber optics».
