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10 April 2026

Russia’s Drone Line Experiment

Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata

During 2025, the Russian military continued to experiment with improving its employment of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) in support of its maneuver forces. The Russian military actively records statistics on the effectiveness and success of different types of UAS in its units and develops recommendations for improving their efficiency. One of these initiatives was titled “Drone Line” by Russia’s 2nd Combined Arms Army (2 CAA), which began last summer. It was developed in response to the rapidly expanding role of UAS in the war and to Ukraine’s own Drone Line initiative, which was scaled at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. 

However, these two initiatives differed despite the same title. Ukraine’s Drone Line involved the establishment of five UAS regiments and brigades, which were intended to reinforce the maneuver brigades holding the front line. These units were initially assigned to the Ukrainian Ground Forces but were later transferred to the newly formed Unmanned Systems Forces. These Drone Line units were supposed to operate further past the forward line of enemy troops (FLET) than the UAS units within a regular maneuver brigade. The goal was to extend the “kill zone” from 10 kilometers beyond the FLET to 15 kilometers.

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