On an ill-advised stroll in the woods near the Russia-Ukraine front line, Ukrainian drone pilot Dmytro heard the sickening whine of a Russian quadcopter.
He had been on the other side of this scene many times, sitting in a remote bunker, wearing a headset and closing in with an attack drone to take down exposed Russian soldiers.
Now, Dmytro ran, firing his rifle wildly above him. “It’s disorienting to be shot at” when flying a drone, he said. “I missed, but luckily I think it made him miss too.”
Such encounters have become grimly familiar along the Ukrainian front lines. After about two years of striking Russian units with near impunity, Ukraine’s scrappy, innovative drone pilots have become the hunted.
Their tormentor is a dynamic new Russian unit known as Rubikon. Using sophisticated tools and its own fleet of hunter drones, the team has been locating, tracking and killing Ukrainian operators before they can launch.
“It’s easy to replace a drone, but it’s hard to replace a drone pilot,” said Dmytro, who was a successful rapper before the war.
Rubikon’s emergence has driven a chilling reversal on the digital battlefield, overturning one of Kyiv’s biggest tactical advantages. Its success has piled pressure on Ukraine’s army already on the back foot against the more numerous and better-funded Russians.
Rubikon “is our main problem”, said Artem Kariakin, a Ukrainian serviceman near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, a key town on the frontline that appears to be on the verge of falling after a year-long fight.
“If the Russians did not have such competent drone operators, their infantry would not be able to infiltrate the city,” Kariakin said. “It is very dangerous to be a drone operator right now.”
Rubikon has about 5,000 people and vast financial resources, said Rob Lee of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Rather than striking Kyiv’s frontline infantry, the unit focuses on taking out pilots and severing Ukraine’s logistics. Hitting as far as 10km behind Ukrainian lines, they target vehicles and drones — heavy quadcopters or wheeled robots — used to resupply the frontline.
On top of its offensive operations, Rubikon plays a big role in training other Russian drone units.
Lee said: “It’s more than a unit; it is a centre — a centre for all kinds of unmanned systems development. That means [research and development], analysis, development of tactics, techniques and procedures. Ukrainian units will say that they often notice a qualitative improvement after these guys get trained by Rubikon.”
Its creation — outside Russia’s clunky and arbitrary command chain — is one piece of evidence that Moscow’s army, once a lurching, uncoordinated mass, has begun to innovate.
“In a lot of ways, they’re the opposite of the way the Russian military operates,” Lee said. “They’re not working based on this bureaucratic quota system; instead, it’s more akin to innovative Ukrainian drone units who can respond faster, take initiative.”
The strategy of operating beyond the front lines has given them the upper hand in the ever-evolving drone war, which officials and analysts reckon to be responsible for 70 per cent to 80 per cent of military casualties. As Rubikon undermines Kyiv’s supply chain and drone operation, Ukraine’s pilots are forced to focus their attacks on trying to slow the rapidly advancing Russian soldiers.
In the hunt for pilots, Rubikon’s reconnaissance units will often track down operatives sheltering in basements or behind a tree line — and either take them out or send their location to the Russian air force.
They typically search for tell-tale antennas on hilltops and tall buildings, knowing pilots need a clear line of sight to their receivers, Dmytro said. Reliant on radio signals, attack and reconnaissance drones operators can be no more than a few kilometres from the frontline.
Advances in electronic warfare also mean they are easier to find. In the contest of drone versus drone, control of the electromagnetic spectrum is as decisive as dominating the skies.
Both sides operate massive jammers and electronic intelligence stations to locate and disable the other’s drones, though the jammers themselves create a bright electronic signature that is easy to find and destroy. Both can also hack into the other’s camera feeds and use radio direction finders to locate transmitters.
“It’s a cat-and-mouse game with physics as the umpire,” said Tom Withington, an expert on electronic warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.
Rubikon’s sheer resources and manpower allow it to maintain a relentless pace, according to Zoommer, a Ukrainian soldier in a small drone unit near Pokrovsk, who asked to be identified by his call sign.
Zoommer said: “They have a lot of people, and that means they can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can change teams every five hours, they can sleep. It’s more difficult for us because we don’t have many people to rotate all the time, and we still need to sleep.”
Before Rubikon descended on Pokrovsk, “it was like a holiday for us”, Zoommer said.
Drones can give a “decisive advantage” to defenders by making the battlefield transparent, said Bob Tollast, a RUSI research fellow. Ukraine’s small, semi-autonomous units were highly effective in causing chaos when Russia had no advanced drone operation of its own.
But Moscow has made a huge effort to absorb the lessons Ukraine has learned, Tollast said. Now, Kyiv must counter Rubikon’s highly organised strategy by developing a clear, centralised battle plan of its own, he added.
Dmytro’s brigade has created anti-drone cells to target Russian pilots in return, but a spokesperson declined to share details. Ukrainian pilots have also been taking various precautions, such as varying routines, launch positions and transmitters, and making better use of camouflage and cover.
The new rules are simple, Dmytro said: “Be humble, be silent, mask your position, and don’t move when it’s not necessary.”
“Maybe I want to go for a little walk, I have 20 minutes and it’s good for my health? No, no, no. It’s a very bad idea, OK? Best to sit in your trench and watch Instagram.”
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