Startup Spirit Drives Ukraine's Drone Warfare Success

Brovdi approaches war like a business, likening it to a product cycle in which constant data collection and iteration drive improvements. In a recent talk in Germany, he noted that Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces make up just 2% of the army but are responsible for eliminating one-third of enemy troops. Their primary weapon of choice is a first-person-view (FPV) drone .

The largest war in Europe since World War II has also demanded increasingly rapid procurement cycles. Weapons and tech solutions could become ineffective within weeks or months. Take the Turkish Bayraktar drone , for example. It featured heavily in the early months of the war, but eventually became a rare sight on the battlefield due to Russian countermeasures.

So, even when Ukraine was starved of artillery shells due to the pause in US aid in late 2023, it increased its reliance on cheap drones. This shift also offered an advantage in that Kyiv could widely deploy low-cost, scalable technologies that can be rapidly iterated and adapted.

Ukraine is now on pace to produce a few million of these FPV drones, which help form the backbone of its“drone wall” that is holding the line against Moscow. But there is always room for greater optimization on the battlefield and for better use of data to determine where pilots should focus their efforts.

In August 2024, the Army of Drones introduced a new points-based rewards program, which has seen success on the front. The points system was referred to as the“mathematics of war,” by Mykhailo Fedorov , Ukraine's minister of digital transformation.

Each drone strike is logged and verified using footage from the same FPV drones used in combat, allowing kills to be accurately tracked and scored. High-value targets such as Russia's advanced T-90M tanks yield higher scores, which can make a unit eligible for bonuses that are likely to be paid in the form of additional drones.

The system incentivizes pilots to seek out impactful targets and ensures that the most successful units receive prompt resupply.

Brovdi's own unit, the elite“Birds of Magyar,” has thrived under this model and has been credited with destroying an estimated 8% of all Russian armored vehicles. In April 2025, the system was integrated with Ukraine's Brave 1 Market , a platform that allows frontline units to directly acquire equipment, bypassing traditional procurement delays.

The points system isn't static. It is updated depending on battlefield needs. Recently, the points system was updated to give more focus to killing enemy drone pilots to blind their operations.

Russia has since confirmed that, following changes Brovdi made to the scoring system, Ukrainian attacks on Russian drone crews have intensified , focusing on fiber-optic operators. The points system is also meant to foster healthy competition between different drone units through this data-driven approach to rewards.

Heorhii Volkov, a former entrepreneur who is commander of the drone unit Yasni Ochi (“Clear Eyes”) within Ukraine's 13th National Guard“Khartiia” Brigade, is a strong proponent of the points system and of Ukraine's broader data-driven approach to warfare.

A drone pilot from Volkov's Yasni Ochi named Yevhen, callsign“Ice,” said the system“encourages competition within our field and ensures that the most effective units receive the best equipment. When a unit's performance can be calculated and clearly demonstrated in numbers, it allows for in-depth analysis and informed conclusions.”

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Speaking about the points system, Serhii, callsign“Gray,” from the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, said,“I believe it has further motivated pilots to strike various types of targets, since these points can be exchanged for new drones.”

“On the one hand, it's a great incentive system: The more efficient the crew or the battalion as a whole, the more you get rewarded for your work,” said Andrii, callsign “Murphy,” from the 419th Battalion of Unmanned Systems.“I think it is a good tool for internal competition between units, so that battalions compete with each other in efficiency and improve their skills.”

However, one drawback of the data-driven approach is that it can lead to greater inequalities between units, Andrii acknowledged. Newer units will struggle to match the capabilities of more experienced and better-resourced brigades.

Still, Ukraine's unmanned systems, its startup-style approach to procurement and an increasing reliance on data-driven decision-making are rapidly becoming central to Kyiv's strategy for waging asymmetric warfare and continuing to bring the fight to Russia.

David Kirichenko is associate research fellow at the London-based Henry Jackson Society think tank and a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist, activist and security engineer who reports from the Ukraine side of the war. Follow him on X at @DVKirichenko

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