What do the "unbeatable" Russian hypersonics destroyed by a state-of-the-art Su-57 fighter jet and a successful assault without a single infantryman have in common? All of these are modern achievements of the Ukrainian army's ingenuity, already recorded in military history textbooks. We have collected the main achievements of the Ukrainian army, in which Ukraine became a pioneer in the world.
What do the "unbeatable" Russian hypersonics destroyed by a state-of-the-art Su-57 fighter jet and a successful assault without a single infantryman have in common? All of these are modern achievements of the Ukrainian army's ingenuity, already recorded in military history textbooks. We have collected the main achievements of the Ukrainian army, in which Ukraine became a pioneer in the world.
On the night of October 29, 2022, the Black Sea began to come under the control of small unmanned boats, which sank Russian ships in Sevastopol. The attack was described as the first-ever naval operation carried out entirely by drones — no traditional ships, no live crew. Before that, drones could adjust fire or gather intelligence, but here they were given a major role — strike.
Ukrainian naval drones penetrated the port’s multi-layered defenses, forced naval artillery to open fire, and still reached their targets. According to official data and OSINT analysis by researchers, at least three ships were damaged as a result, including the flagship Admiral Makarov.
The Ukrainian Magura V5 naval drone became the world's first drone to sink an enemy warship, destroying Russian ships such as the Caesar Kunikov and Ivanovets.
In late 2024, Ukrainian engineers decided to go even further and equip a naval drone with a weapon usually seen under the wing of a fighter jet: the R-73 air-to-air missile. This led to the operation near Cape Tarkhankut, where Magura V5s went hunting not for ships, but for Russian Mi-8 helicopters operating over Ukrainian positions. The Ukrainian naval drone destroyed two helicopters and damaged another, which barely made it to land.
In May 2025, Magura became the first in the world to destroy two Su-30 fighter jets . Later, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, reported that the planes were shot down by AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missiles launched from Magura V7 unmanned boats.
Until May 2023, the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles lived in Russian propaganda as an absolute weapon: “they cannot be shot down,” “they fly ten times faster than sound,” “no air defense will have time to react.” When, on the night of May 4, over the Kyiv region, the Ukrainian military saw a ballistic target on the screen and fired at it from the Patriot complex, they first thought it was an Iskander — only the found fragments showed that it was the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal. Thus was born the world's first confirmed case of interception of a hypersonic ballistic missile by air defense means.
Air Force Commander Mykola Oleschuk then wrote on Telegram: “I congratulate the Ukrainian people on this historic event. Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal” — and these words were instantly spread throughout the world’s media. The fighters of the 96th Anti-Aircraft Brigade, who shot down the missile, completed a Patriot training course in less than three months.
January 2024 brought Ukraine one of the most high-profile aviation victories of this war — the destruction of a Russian A-50 over the Sea of Azov . The A-50 is the “eyes and brains” of Russian aviation, a long-range radar detection platform that sees Ukrainian planes and missiles hundreds of kilometers away and issues commands to fighters and bombers. No one in the world has ever struck such a machine during real combat operations.
According to the Ukrainian command, the A-50 was shot down on the evening of January 14, when it was operating in the Sea of Azov area, and along with it was hit and the Il-22 relay plane, which managed to reach the airfield, but turned out to be beyond repair. How exactly the A-50 was "taken out" was not officially disclosed for a long time, but later American and Ukrainian sources confirmed that a key role was played by a bunch of air defense systems, including Patriot and Soviet systems used in the "missile ambush". The Ukrainian military called this tactic SAMbush - when air defense systems work like hunters, hiding until the last moment, and then firing at a rare but critically important target.
The destruction of the A-50 was a shock for the Russian army: they have only a few aircraft of this type, each with unique equipment and a trained crew. Ukrainian sources and British intelligence noted that after the loss of the A-50, Russia was forced to pull other such aircraft further away from the front line and change routes - this is what the real effect of a strike looks like, which "takes" out of the sky not just one target, but an entire control system.
In June 2024, Ukrainian intelligence showed satellite images of the Akhtubinsk airfield in the Astrakhan region, where the Russian Federation's flagship fighter is visible on the parking lot, with craters from explosions and characteristic traces of fire nearby. In the "before" images, the plane is standing intact, in the "after" images, there are black spots and craters around it: this is what reality looks like when the war reaches even the Russian aviation test center almost 600 kilometers from the front.
The Russian Defense Ministry directly called this operation “the world’s first Su-57 downing,” and the Russian Telegram channel Fighterbomber reluctantly confirmed that the plane had been damaged by drone debris and was currently being considered for possible repair. Global media outlets, from Al Jazeera to Bloomberg, called it the first recorded strike on a fifth-generation fighter: a machine that Russian propaganda has described for years as “invisible,” “ultramodern,” and one that operates “beyond the reach of foreign air defenses.”
In February 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on the creation of a fundamentally new branch of the armed forces - the Forces of Unmanned Systems. And in June they were officially introduced: this is a separate structure within the Armed Forces, responsible for air, ground and sea unmanned and robotic complexes.
Ukraine has become the first country in the world to legally and organizationally separate the “drone army” into an independent branch of the military — alongside the ground forces, air force, and navy. Ukrainian military officials are openly talking about a “precedent” that has not existed since the creation of military aviation: the state has officially recognized that unmanned systems are not a temporary addition, but a new foundation for war.
And we are already seeing the consequences of this decision every day, when long-range strikes on the enemy's economic capabilities are also added to the enemy's military losses. Almost every day since July of this year, the SBS reported on the destruction of the Russian refinery, Wildberries warehouses , and now the Ozon infrastructure has been added to this list.
In the spring of 2026, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a phrase in his speech that seemed fantastic to many: “for the first time in the history of this war, the enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms — ground systems and drones.” The details of the operation were kept secret, but it was known that Ukrainian combat robots Ratel, TerMIT, Rys, Zmiy, Protector, Volia, and others were operating — a whole “zoo” of machines.
It is worth noting the operation of the 3rd separate assault brigade, during which Russian soldiers in the Kharkiv region surrendered to a ground robot that drove up to a destroyed bunker. FPV drones and kamikaze robots first "cleared" the defenses, then machine guns were used, and then other unmanned platforms literally led the prisoners to Ukrainian positions. The brigade openly called this "the first confirmed successful assault in modern warfare, carried out completely without the participation of infantry."
