Russia’s military isn’t just targeting Ukrainian drones; it’s going after their pilots, too.
An elite unit called Rubikon has made it its mission to track, hunt, and kill Ukraine’s drone operators, who have emerged as a scrappy and effective force in Kyiv’s war effort. “It’s easy to replace a drone, but it’s hard to replace a drone pilot,” one Ukrainian rapper-turned-operator said. It marks a “chilling reversal on the digital battlefield,” the Financial Times wrote, and suggests Russia’s typically sclerotic military is finding ways to innovate as the war approaches its fourth anniversary.
“It’s a cat-and-mouse game with physics as the umpire,” an electronic warfare expert said.