Drone proliferation: The Ukraine effect

Ukraine has produced millions of drones and lost thousands more — and that hard-won expertise is now in high demand. 

In this episode of Conflicts of Interest, ACLED CEO Professor Clionadh Raleigh and ACLED Ukraine expert Witold Stupnicki unpack how Kyiv is exporting its drone warfare knowledge to Gulf states, why a $50 drone can outmanoeuvre a $3 million missile, and what that means for the future of conflict.

From frozen front lines to Saudi air bases, the drone revolution is reshaping how wars are fought — and by whom. But as Stupnicki warns, Europe shouldn't feel safe either. A shapeless, ever-present drone threat is already on its doorstep. 

This is a conversation you won't want to miss.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If we look at the amount of Ukraine production in 2024, it was around two million drones per year. Then in 2025 it jumps to four million. Now in 2026, we are looking at six to seven million drones produced in Ukraine itself.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

One of the problems I've noticed when I've spoken to people about hybrid conflict is that they don't know how to tackle an enemy that uses these types of technology. It could be one person, it could be a state, it could be a government. And that seems to be what's most destabilizing to people, not really knowing the size of the threat behind the drone.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Conflicts of interest brought to you by ACLED.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Conflicts of Interest. My name is Kleina Raleigh, and I'm here today with our wonderful Ukrainian expert, Vitolt. In fact, I have introduced you as a Ukrainian expert, which may make people think that you're Ukrainian, but you are not. Is that correct, Vitolt?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah, this is correct. I am police.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Right. Very good. Well, welcome. Today we're going to talk a little bit about one of the manifestations of modern conflict that we have all been made aware of recently, which is drone warfare. And in that discussion about drones and what a central role they are playing in modern conflict, Ukraine and its expertise on this particular form of conflict has had a very prominent role. And in fact, Ukraine, and especially their expertise around this, has had a new lease of life, if you will, about how they can guide, especially Gulf states, into dealing with this current and future threat. So, very quickly, I'm just going to give a roundup of the current Iran crisis. It's midday on Wednesday, May 6th, so you know things could change in the next few hours, but there is a discussion about a one-page agreement that's being formed. Let's hope that they manage to get through it. And I'm curious about how this is playing out in Ukraine, Vitold, and what you think of this development.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, so over the past two months, while the Iran war was unfolding, President Zelensky was signing 10-year defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, with Qatar, with UAE. And they were formalized in, you know, in late April, what he openly calls the drone deal. What Zelensky explicitly hopes for is that these deals open path to patriot missiles, which are obviously still critical for Ukraine to counter ballistic missiles, but also, you know, for some other agreements around diesel supply in times of global shortages. And finally, this way, Ukraine tries to reduce Russia's influence in that region while positioning Ukraine as a global player.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

One of the things that's particularly interesting about the Iranian war, but also upon reflection, of course, the Ukrainian war, is that the cost of offensive behavior, such as drone usage, is incredibly cheap compared to defensive actions. So the cost of defense is incredibly high, but these drones are very, very cheap. And that's leading to a change within how these countries can defend themselves, but also about how easy it is to get involved in conflict. I really do actually want to focus a little bit more on how the Gulf State seemed to be unprepared for many of the attacks by relatively cheap Iranian drones. Zelensky, and of course, really those in Ukraine itself have wanted to try to really emphasize Ukraine's anti-drone expertise as well as offer some exercises in offensive drone uh warfare.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

So active discussions are underway with several other regional countries, like Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman, and over 200 of Ukrainian drone experts have already deployed across the region. And the connection between the war in Ukraine and in the Middle East is this single-shared problem because the Shahed drone and then Gerand drone, which is the Russian equivalent of the Shahet drone, are essentially the same solution, and Ukraine has spent last four years learning at terrible cost how to defeat those. So the result that we are seeing right now is that Gulf countries, but also increasingly the United States itself has been turning to Kiev for help, and Ukrainians are saying that look, Shahet and Geran is basically the same technology, we know how to combat it, and most importantly, our solutions are cheap. And maybe one additional point that I would like to mention is really what uh happened at Prince Sultan Air Base in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the late merch. So basically, Iranian Shachat drone destroyed 500 million US dollars US E3 century aircraft, which has rattled American defense planners. What is critically important here is the mathematics behind all of the drone warfare, right? So using 4 million US dollars Patriot interceptor against a Shachat drone that was between 20 and 50,000 dollars, most obviously failing even before this incident. I mean it's an economic suicide to keep doing that. So what Ukraine offers is something different.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Can you actually tell us about what's happening within Ukraine and how Russia and Ukraine are engaging with drone warfare, just so we get a good lay of the land about what a conflict looks like that has been very affected by drone manufacturing and use?

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, so in Ukraine, basically every year we are seeing an increase in drone warfare on both sides. So both Ukraine and Russia are moving very quickly and are developing new solutions both defensively and offensively each year. And then looking at the volume specifically, these figures are extremely remarkable. So if we look at the amount of Ukraine production in 2024, it was around 2 million drones per year. Then in 2025 it jumps to 4 million. Now in 2026, we are looking at six to seven million drones produced in Ukraine itself. Then the number is very ambitious, number is very high, and it includes many different types of drones, right? It obviously includes one-way attack drones, which are more costly, but then it also includes the so-called FPV drones, which stands for first-person view drone where the operator basically, through using Google, follows the drone's vision real time. And then it also includes interceptor drones, which is the newest development from 2024, which are small and very cheap drones used to intercept the traditional versions of these drones.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Okay, that's super interesting. I remember seeing a piece from General Petraeus talking about how the drone production in Ukraine is targeted, as you mentioned, in the several millions. I think he mentioned nine million, but I'm sure that there's variations on that. It seemed incredibly high, and that they were being reprogrammed very often to address the new challenges or the new types of target that they would be expected to hit.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yes, exactly. When a Russian electronic warfare unit jumps a Ukrainian drone frequency, here's what happens: the soldier who was operating the drone calls the manufacturer directly, right? So there is no tender, there is no requisition form, no formal procedure. Basically, the engineer who designed the drone has a conversation with the operator who just lost it. He basically redesigns the relevant components and the updated drone is back in the field even within seven days. And this is an incredible organizational development that we can see in uh in Ukraine because I mean, obviously, when we compare it to the standard Western procurement procedure, they take years or even decades. And Ukrainians have cut it to days. At the same time, Russians are doing the same. They are developing and iterating very quickly and decreasing their volume of production very rapidly.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

One of the things you mentioned earlier was that Ukraine is making a business out of telling people how to defend themselves against these types of drone swarms. What are some of those tactics that they're able to share with UAE or Qatar or Saudi Arabia?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So the most important and the newest one currently would be the interceptor drone. So basically, here we are talking about the relatively small and extremely cheap type of drone. Its cost is basically between 2,000 and 3,000 US dollars, and these drones are being used to counter, to damage, and to attack the more traditional Shahetz type of drones. We are seeing it being deployed right now in the Middle East to protect US and Gulf assets. There is one specific case that I would like to mention. So despite President Trump saying early in March that the US does not need Ukrainian support to defend itself and Gulf countries from drone attacks, after the attack on its military base in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, they have changed their mind and they have actually deployed the Ukrainian system called SkyMap in this particular base. And this is basically a command and control system to detect and then to deploy these interceptor drones at scale.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

That's super interesting. I also heard that I think it was yesterday that there was a jamming of coordinate systems, geographic systems on ships within the Strait of Hormuz, and that it was potentially done in order to prevent drones coming from Iran from going into other countries, such as UAE, for example. So jamming or I think Petraeus also mentioned kind of a microwave system to prevent drone swarms. Is Ukraine using those features? And if not, how soon before we expect to see those types of things?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah, so we are thinking of many different solutions. So in the command and control system called SkyMap, they are actually using acoustic sensors because shaket drones are extremely loud but operate at very low altitude. They are, you know, they are very difficult to spot on a rugger, but they are relatively easy to hear them. And I'm sure you know anyone who's been to Ukraine since 2022 can confirm it. So, you know, these are microphone uh sensors that are located across the area and are spotting it in real time and sending signal to interceptor drone operators to engage. But there are many different technologies and they do differ in terms of their uh sophistication.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

So actually, this is going to seem very ridiculous in light of what we've just been discussing, but I've been in Florida recently and all of my Amazon packages got delivered by drone into my backyard in that case. And it was very loud, but it was also very effective, which means that as they get deployed much more within people's kind of civilian life, the way in which people are kind of used to this as being both a tool for civilians and a tool for warfare is going to become more commonplace. But I wonder if people are ready for the types of changes that it imposes on a conflict or a battlefield. What do the Ukrainians say about their own experience dealing with these loud or frequent drones within the areas under conflict?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, this is the reality of Ukrainian society. It is now also increasingly the reality of Russian society. Russians have been conducting daily, most of these strikes are happening during the night, but on a daily basis, they have been conducting drone and missile strikes across the entire country. And obviously, the civilian population to some extent has gotten used to it. So obviously, Ukrainians are verifying via large amount of internet applications what is actually coming, and then they are actually deciding whether they should go to the bunker or not. But obviously, the the toll on your mental health and on your body, I mean, if you continue to endure it for years, is is immense, right? And then also I would like to mention one specific tactic that has been employed by the Russians, especially on the Dnipro rivers. The phenomenon called human safari, which was first documented in Kerson in 2024. It basically what Russian drone operators are doing, they are positioned on the one side of Dnipro river, and then they are using these first-person view drones to hunt civilians on the other band of the river. They are targeting on purpose pedestrians, cars, ambulances, school buses, basically anyone who steps outside, and we've seen some new levels of lethality using this tactics.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Thanks, Viro. That's that's an absolutely horrible development, especially within Ukraine. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how we've seen those same technologies and drones, how they have been used in Europe, or how they're being used by Hezbollah or some other contexts in which the more traditional conflict of Ukraine-Russia is transcended into something more like, as you were saying, a normalcy around using these types of weapons.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, so we are seeing that this spread of uh use of drones in many conflicts all around the world. And more specifically, in March this year, we've seen Hezbollah deploying fiber optic, first-person view drones. So the technology behind fiber optic drone is basically a spool of fiber optic cable that physically joins drone to its operator. So there is no radio signal to jump, there is no GPS to spoof, you know, no basically no electronic emissions to detect, and these cables can extend to even up to 30 kilometers. So basically, Hezbollah, since March this year, has been deploying this technology in southern Lebanon against Israeli forces. And this technology again was first used in Ukraine and is now being used extensively by both Russians and Ukrainians, and many Ukrainian frontline towns are now covered with what looks like silver spider webs from these fiber optic cables. So in in Lebanon, Israel, which obviously possesses one of the most sophisticated uh, you know, electronic warfare systems in the world, couldn't stop these drones because their technology is not adopted to counter such low-tech solution. You had to adopt the same way as it is done in Ukraine, you know, using uh physical nets, uh cages on military vehicles, and many other low-tech solutions.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Wow, that is disturbing news. I think we have seen those pictures of Ukrainian towns that look like a mesh covers them, um, which is interesting, of course, is when you were just saying that the kind of microwave system or jamming technology is is also like an invisible mesh over particular areas and not allowing the drone technology to get through. Okay, so Vitold, we've talked a little bit about the costs of offense and the costs of defense, and they were in in many ways, one, of course, defense was much more costly than offense, especially with drones. But it sounds to me now that we effectively have almost rebalanced those two, right? Which is that Ukraine has had to be incredibly innovative, both offensively and defensively. Why do you think that is, and what has it done to the Ukraine conflict more generally?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

So before the war, Ukraine did not really have any domestic drone production. And given the constant lack of, first of all, manpower, which Ukraine is still facing, and increasingly so. Secondly, funding for the Western military systems, they had to innovate. And they did. They innovated their organizational system and their domestic productions. Right now, Ukraine has around 500 companies competing and producing these drones on a daily basis. No, with no dominant contractor competing, working to solve the issues real time. And despite the system being distributed and not centralized, they have actually agreed on some modularity, which means that modules between these drones and software components are interchangeable, which also eases and accelerates the innovation process.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

So that's really interesting. So it came of necessity, and their innovation continues, of course, because of the necessity of other countries, like we've just spoken about in the Gulf. I want to actually bring us back to the Gulf very quickly, and that is because one of the lessons we've learned over the last two months is that an air war will not win a conflict. And in fact, it creates often a response that allows it to continue, but it's not in any way a defining end to a conflict for it to be mainly occurring in the air. So tell me what you think the point of this drone warfare is. Is it, as you said, to make up for a lack of manpower? Is it simply a cheaper way to conduct conflict? What is the end point here and what is in the use of drones?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Right. Yeah, so I do I do agree. Drones by themselves cannot win a war. In April, we've had a situation where ground drones captured a Russian position in Ukraine, reportedly so, but drones cannot hold the position, men do. So this is really an important factor. And look, this is a this is a war of attrition, right? I mean, uh one side increases its production of drones and its volumes, and then the other side has to come up with new innovative solutions to defend against them. So it's more like both sides do not have a choice. They have to continue. If one of them continues, then the other has to continue as well. But it will not lead to any strategic developments on the front line, right? I mean, the Ukrainian frontline has been frozen for years now, very minor developments in uh in Zaporizhka or Donetsk region. Despite all of these efforts, drones by themselves are not able to win these wars. I think that the key strategic question here is whether basically on one side Ukraine is able to actually sustain manpower, and then on the other side, you know, whether Russia will be forced to run mass mobilization, which obviously they don't want to for various reasons, but the amount of casualties that are on both sides on a daily basis are extremely high and will continue to do so.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

So that's super interesting. So what we have here is extremely high innovation and extremely fast development of these drones and technology around that, but frozen front lines and high levels of fatalities. And it seems to me like that maybe is the perfect way to describe conflict that does involve a lot of drones, which is that you basically are surrounded by conflict in many ways, but you don't actually make any progress on either side because the technology is just as adoptable on the other side as it is on the initiating side.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yes, I would have put in the bed there.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

So one of the things that I would say that that's an important aspect here is that they're not going to go anywhere. They will become a much more frequent component of our, as I mentioned, civilian life, but also our military life. But the number one thing that, you know, besides what's happening in the Gulf and besides what's happening in Ukraine, that I find so worrying about the drone technology more broadly is that it obscures the size of your enemy. You know, one of the problems I've noticed when I've spoken to people about hybrid conflict is that they don't know how to tackle an enemy that uses these types of technology. It could be one person, it could be a state, it could be a government, it could be the front lines of a much bigger conflict. And that seems to be what's most destabilizing to people, not really knowing the size of the threat behind the drone.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Right, this is true, and this is something what Europe should embrace for as well. Following the wave of drones that were spotted in Denmark that forced closure of Danish airports last year, Vladimir Putin himself said that there is a large amount of people across Europe that every day will be launching these drones because they can and because they like it, right? This phrase which I which I obviously paraphrased is a great example of what Europe should be embracing for from many directions, right? I mean, first of all, one very obvious that we've also seen last year would be one-way armed drones coming straight from Russia or from Belarus towards uh NATO countries, and we've seen it in Poland in September last year. But then again, you know, there are these non-military drones that you know that have been spotted all across Europe. Some of them launched from shadow fleet vessels, some of them launched from unknown locations, and this is something that we will see more of in Europe in the coming future.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Yeah, what you've described there is like a shapeless but ever-present threat that we are in many cases benignly facing in Europe now, but other parts of Europe, of course, it's anything but benign. I want to thank you very much for your time and expertise, Vithol. It's been a pleasure to chat with you about uh something that I'm sure we will return to several times in the future. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

You've been listening to Conflicts of Interest with Professor Cleaner Raleigh, brought to you by ACLED, the world's leading source of political violence and protest data. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and follow us on socials for updates in the meantime.