Ukraine’s drone mastery overwhelms Russia’s numerical superiority

Raikov said that while the enemy uses more fiber-optic drones, Ukraine’s tactical approach gives it the upper hand.

“Our brigade now has a sufficient number of fiber-optic drones, and they probably carry out half of all missions that would otherwise be done by FPV drones,” he noted.

He added that these drones allow Ukrainian troops to create so-called killzones — areas of guaranteed enemy elimination.

“The idea of a killzone is to force the enemy to move on foot for at least 20 kilometers before reaching the front line," he explained.

"It takes them two or three days with delays in transit dugouts — and the risk of death is extremely high along the way. By the time they get to the front, eight or nine out of ten won’t make it.”

Fiber-optic drones have become one of the most lethal tools on the battlefield in the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. However, they’re not used solely by the enemy: Ukraine’s Defense Ministry officially codified its own Stalker fiber-optic drone, produced by TechEx, earlier this year.