In a conversation arranged through Help Ukraine Gothenburg (HUG), Nordic Defence Sector's editor in chief Jacob Wollheim spoke with two members of Ukraine's 14th Brigade "Chervona Kalyna", which operates in the Donbas direction. Their account of how land combat has changed since 2022 is blunt: the killing zone has grown ten-fold, drones evolve from week to week, and what decides the fight is not the number of drones but knowing how to see the enemy and coordinate them.
Ivan and Oleksii first came into contact with HUG through Hug for Heroes, the Swedish organisation's recovery and reintegration programme for Ukrainian war veterans. The two men come to the conversation from very different starting points. Ivan is a professional officer who joined the army in 2016, having been a lawyer before the war began in 2014. He served in reconnaissance and special operations, and his unit was among the first to fly drones, using a DJI Mavic as early as 2020.
– On the first day of the Russian invasion in 2022, I had a Mavic in my bag, and I went straight to work with it, says Ivan.
During one of his missions, Ivan was wounded and lost his leg, but after recovery and rehabilitation he returned to service.
Oleksii took the other route. Before 2022, he was a private entrepreneur. He joined after Russia's full-scale invasion that same year, started as an ordinary infantryman, found his place in unmanned systems, and now leads a UAV platoon in the same brigade. Both frame their visit to Sweden the same way: to share hard-won experience and to build practical connections between Ukraine and the Nordics.
Commercial drones like the DJI Mavic were everywhere early in the war. Is there still a use for civilian drones, or has electronic warfare made them obsolete?
– They are still used a lot, says Oleksii. First, because it is a plug-and-play product, so it is very easy to learn and to prepare for the battlefield. And second, because DJI has wonderful cameras, good algorithms and a lot of features that are very useful in reconnaissance.
But the ceiling is close, he adds.
– We are on the limits of these drones. We need other technology, because of the limits of range and flight duration. I think that in the near future we will have military products for that.
That shift is already visible in how the drones are used. Early on, DJI drones served as small bombers, and their cameras made them effective at spotting and breaking up Russian infantry advancing in small groups. But enemy action has pushed the crews further back, to positions where the DJI often can no longer be used, and the work has moved to FPV drones, with which those small groups are harder to spot.
People often say a drone or a tactic in Ukraine can be obsolete within a week or two. Can you give a sense of how fast things change?
The clearest measure, Oleksii says, is distance.
– A year ago, the distance for reconnaissance was one and a half to two kilometres, so our UAV crews were very close to the zero line. Right now it is 15 or 20 kilometres.
The so-called killing zone, he says, now runs 15 to 20 kilometres from both sides.
– Of course, it dramatically changes everything, from the tactics to the technology.
In NATO there's a lot of effort going into keeping manoeuvre warfare alive, for instance by adding protection to vehicles, both armour and counter-UAS systems. Do you see a future where a vehicle, or a column, can carry enough protection that manoeuvre warfare still works?
– It is too early to eliminate the tanks and other armour, says Oleksii. The main problem is not to hit the drones. The main problem is to detect the drones.
Today, he says, the answer is mostly passive: additional armour, cages, and so on. The next step is active defence.
– In the near future, he says, we will find a solution for detection, cheap enough, manoeuvrable and versatile, and it will bring the tanks and the armoured vehicles back to the battlefield. Now we have only protection. The near future is about active defence, to shoot down the drones.
In other words, the cost logic of interception is close to solved. The unsolved part sits earlier in the kill chain: detecting and fixing the target.
In the Nordics we split warfare into operational, tactical and strategic levels, partly by strike range. Does that framework still hold?
It holds, both men say, but the ranges have exploded. At brigade level, Oleksii says, the reach today is around 150 kilometres, used to find and destroy enemy logistics and command posts with reconnaissance drones and strike drones such as the Hornet. Ivan puts the upper end higher still, up to 300 kilometres, where a brigade fields systems such as the Hornet for middle-range strikes.
– In Ukraine, brigades, not divisions, not corps, can kill the enemy up to 150 kilometres, Oleksii says. In Europe, maybe in Sweden, it is impossible now.
The lesson they draw is not about any single weapon.
– The most important thing is the combination of reconnaissance, intelligence and different strike capabilities, on every level, Oleksii says.
The point, Ivan adds, is not the number of drones.
– Many people in Europe think it is important to have a large number of drones. No. It is important to know how to use them, how to build a system, and how to coordinate different types of drones.
How do you coordinate all of that across units?
Through a digitalised battlefield, Oleksii says. Targeting flows down from brigade to battalion to platoon, rather than a platoon choosing its own targets, and timing is everything.
– It is like online war. It is not one big battle like in the Second World War, from morning to evening. It is a lot of small battles, he says. Situational awareness is very important. Every leader, on every rank, has to understand what is going on right now.
Much of that runs on Delta, Ukraine's command-and-control system, which the officers will describe only in general terms.
– Something. Not classified, Oleksii jokes.
It is a digital system, they explain, that gives every level the same picture at the same time.
– A platoon commander and the chief of the army can see what is going on at the same time. That is why we can make decisions quickly, says Ivan.
– Modern war is about information, Oleksii adds.
Underneath the technology, both keep returning to people.
– To survive in this war, you have to be smart, because the enemy is bigger than we are, says Oleksii.
– We must use our brain, and we must adapt very fast, Ivan adds.
Is there a breakthrough since 2022 that outsiders tend to overlook?
For Oleksii, it is horizontal connections. Not just the vertical military hierarchy, but fast links between platoons, and between the military, civil society and manufacturers.
– The connection between the manufacturer and the crews of a UAV platoon is very fast, and that is one of the main achievements, he says. You cannot adapt so quickly if you do not have these communications. And it is always about the right people in the right place.
Ivan offers a concrete example from 2022, when his unit began dropping munitions from a Mavic.
– I called my friend and said, you can use a Mavic with a grenade. It is very easy, he says.
Within three or four months, all units were using it.
Today, both stress, that feedback loop has to be permanent. Producers need an online service connection to the units, working around the clock, because software and hardware fixes cannot wait.
– If I have time, I can go to a producer, to his office, and we drink coffee and talk about his product, Ivan says.
The personal connection matters.
The same speed defines the electronic-warfare fight. FPV drones rely on frequencies, and, as Ivan puts it, one frequency is good today and useless tomorrow, because the enemy's EW units adapt to it.
– It is a battlefield of frequencies right now, Oleksii says.
Above the cheap FPVs, you use more sophisticated drones such as the Hornet and Bumblebee. What do they add?
They are more capable and more stable, Oleksii says, with AI features that assist the pilot. The choice depends on the target: ordinary FPVs against infantry, the Bumblebee for a range of missions including resupply, the Hornet for middle-range strikes against enemy logistics.
– For every type of drone there is a place on the battlefield, he says.
The AI, he stresses, helps choose and guide toward a target, but the decision to strike stays with the pilot. What the more expensive drones buy is resilience: several channels, harder to jam than a cheap FPV in a battlefield of frequencies.
A related idea popular in Europe, the modular drone with interchangeable payloads, gets a more sceptical hearing.
– It sounds very great, says Ivan, but it will be better if we test it first. On Russians, for example.
A message to the Nordics
Both men, and HUG, say they are interested in connecting with Nordic defence companies, across the whole spectrum. This extends past UAVs to evacuation vehicles, mine-laying systems and electronic warfare as well. They say that the opportunity goes both ways. Ukraine, they argue, needs innovation, production capacity and reliable partners, while the Nordic countries have much to learn from its experience of modern warfare.
Help Ukraine Gothenburg can be reached at hug.ngo or contact@hug.ngo.
