REPORT: The secret drone team: those who strike at 2,000 km

A unit no one talks about

Somewhere in Ukraine, a team of engineers, pilots, and analysts works in complete secrecy. We do not know their names. We do not see their faces. We do not know exactly where they operate. What we do know is that it is they — or teams like theirs — who plan and execute Ukrainian drone strikes at 1,500 and 2,000 kilometers from the front line. Oil refineries in Saratov. Defense plants in Volgograd. Ammunition depots in the Urals. They strike where no one expected them.

Journalists from Business Insider and other American media have managed to partially reconstruct the portrait of this secret team, through anonymous sources, partial documents, and interviews with Ukrainian officials who agree to speak with caution. This report draws on that available information — while acknowledging that the blind spots are vast and intentional. The operational security of these teams is a matter of life and death.

The turning point of the shadow war

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, no one anticipated that Kyiv would develop, in under four years, a long-range strike capability able to threaten Russian territory all the way to its Asian fringes. This transformation is one of the most remarkable in modern military history: a country under invasion, with limited resources, developing high-intensity offensive capabilities from almost nothing.

The emergence of these secret drone teams is directly tied to this turning point. Faced with the impossibility of a frontal breakthrough against a Russian army vastly superior in numbers and heavy equipment, Ukraine chose a strategy of attrition through deep strikes — targeting the sources supplying the Russian war machine rather than its front-line manifestations.

I know very little about these secret teams — and that is exactly as it should be. Their anonymity is their protection. But every successful strike 2,000 kilometers deep testifies to their skill, their courage, and their silent contribution to a war Ukraine cannot afford to lose. I salute them, from a distance, with admiration.

The decision chain for deep strikes

Target selection for Ukrainian deep strikes is the result of a rigorous process involving multiple echelons of the military organization and intelligence community. Analysts identify categories of targets based on their strategic and economic value: oil refineries, arms factories, ammunition depots, logistical rail hubs, command centers. Each category is assessed based on its potential impact on Russian war-fighting capacity.

This assessment is sophisticated. It integrates economic data on each site's contribution to war production, vulnerability analyses on how difficult the site is to defend or repair, and assessments of collateral risk to civilian populations. Legal specialists in the law of armed conflict participate in the validation process to ensure targets meet international humanitarian law criteria.

Intelligence sources

The quality of target selection depends on the quality of available intelligence. Ukraine benefits from several sources: commercial satellite imagery (companies like Maxar and Planet Labs provide near-real-time high-resolution images of the entire Russian landmass), intelligence shared by NATO partners, data collected by medium-altitude reconnaissance drones, and a network of human sources whose exact scope is not publicly known.

The combination of these sources allows an extremely detailed target picture to be assembled. Train movements loaded with ammunition can be tracked, new depot construction observed, and changes in industrial activity detected that betray a conversion to military production. This intelligence is the backbone of the deep strike campaign.

What Ukraine has achieved in intelligence and targeting is extraordinary for a country of its size and resources. The combination of commercial satellites, Western intelligence sharing, and human sources has created a surveillance capability once reserved for great powers. The democratization of surveillance is changing warfare.

An atypical profile

Operators on Ukraine's deep strike drone teams do not look like traditional military pilots. Many are young — in their twenties or thirties. Some have engineering backgrounds; others come from competitive gaming or computer modeling. Their technical skills in embedded systems, assisted navigation, and data exploitation are often superior to those of older colleagues trained in conventional military academies.

This generation of warriors is native to digital interfaces. They manage complex weapons systems with an ease that sometimes astonishes senior officers trained in the school of conventional arms. Their capacity to improvise technical solutions, to update flight software in real time, and to adapt to Russian countermeasures is one of the competitive advantages of Ukraine's deep strike teams.

The psychological pressure of remote combat

Operating a combat drone thousands of kilometers from the target creates a form of psychological distance that may seem numbing — but is not, really. Operators see real-time imagery of impact. They know that people are present at the sites they are striking. The distinction between legitimate military targets and the individuals who might be on them is not a comfortable abstraction — it is a reality that the best operators manage with a moral rigor that is difficult to maintain under pressure.

Testimonies gathered by independent journalists describe the solitude of these operators — separated from their families for operational security reasons, unable to speak about their work, managing in silence decisions that involve considerable destruction. This is not the glamorized profile of the war hero — it is the far more complex reality of modern warfare.

There is something profoundly human about these drone operators who carry the weight of their strikes in silence. We should never forget that behind the statistics and impact reports, there are women and men making impossible choices under impossible conditions. Their courage deserves our recognition — and our compassion.

Drones that learn

The drones used in Ukrainian deep strikes are systems in constant evolution. Every mission produces data — on Russian countermeasures, on navigation patterns that allow defenses to be evaded, on radar detection signatures that betray aircraft. This data feeds rapid improvement cycles, often within weeks rather than the months or years of conventional military development cycles.

Teams of engineers are working in parallel on navigation improvements — substituting GPS, which is vulnerable to electronic jamming, with inertial navigation and terrain optical recognition systems. These systems allow the drone to continue toward its target even in areas of heavy Russian electronic jamming — a countermeasure that had disrupted earlier generations of Ukrainian aircraft.

Mass versus precision

Ukraine's deep strike doctrine combines two complementary approaches. The first is that of mass: sending dozens, even hundreds of drones simultaneously to saturate Russian air defenses. Air defense — however sophisticated — has a limited number of simultaneous intercepts it can conduct. Saturating that number forces defensive choices that leave certain targets unprotected.

The second approach is that of precision: missiles like the Flamingo or the cruise missiles supplied by allies, used to strike specific high-value targets with surgical precision. These two approaches reinforce each other — kamikaze drones saturate defenses, creating windows of opportunity for precision strikes.

The mass-precision combination developed by Ukraine is a truly original military doctrine — born of necessity, refined by experience, and adapted to the constraints of a country that cannot afford infinite armies. It is pure military strategy, and it works.

Refineries, depots, factories

The documented successes of Ukraine's deep strike campaign are numerous. Dozens of Russian oil refineries have sustained significant damage — Russian oil production has recorded consecutive monthly declines according to The Moscow Times. Major ammunition depots have been destroyed in the Kursk, Belgorod regions and deeper inside Russian territory. Arms plants in Tula, Kazan, Volgograd, and other cities have been targeted with varying results.

A scoreboard maintained by Ukrainian pilots, reported by Business Insider, records more than 800,000 «hits» on Russian targets since the start of the systematic drone campaign. This figure aggregates all types of strikes — from front-line drones to long-range missiles — but illustrates the scale of a campaign that has not ceased since 2022.

Limits and failures

But the campaign also has its limits and failures. Many drones are intercepted by Russian defenses before reaching their target. Russian electronic warfare systems have successfully disrupted or diverted some aircraft. Missions have failed because of adverse weather conditions, technical problems, or last-minute changes in target defenses.

Russia has also adapted its methods of protecting strategic sites — constructing protective nets above fuel depots, dispersing stockpiles, and maintaining reinforced mobile air defense presence around critical installations. These adaptations have made certain targets harder to access and continually force Ukrainian teams to innovate.

Talking about successes without mentioning failures would be dishonest. Ukraine's deep strike campaign is not perfect — no military campaign is. What matters is the net balance: do the damages inflicted on Russia's war economy outweigh the Ukrainian costs? I believe so. But absolute certainty is impossible without access to classified data from both sides.

Western weapons that enable the range

Ukraine's deep strike capability is a combination of national innovation and Western support. Missiles like the American ATACMS, British Storm Shadows, and French SCALPs extended Ukraine's operational range beyond what its own drones could reach alone. These systems, supplied after months of political deliberation, changed the operational balance of power.

Western intelligence sharing is just as important as the weapons themselves. Information on Russian air defense positions, on the least-protected approach routes, on temporal windows of reduced defensive activity — all of this considerably improves the odds of success of each mission. This intelligence partnership is one of the least visible but most decisive aspects of Western support for Ukraine.

Technology transfers and their impact

Technology transfers between Western defense industries and their Ukrainian counterparts have also played a crucial role. Ukrainian engineers gained access to guidance, propulsion, and materials technologies that accelerated the development of their own systems. Formal and informal industrial partnerships developed with companies in Poland, Estonia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This industrial cooperation is a form of multiplication of Ukrainian military power that goes beyond simple weapons deliveries. By helping Ukraine develop its own military production capacity, allies are creating long-term resilience that will progressively reduce Ukrainian dependence on foreign deliveries — a strategically desirable evolution for both parties.

The industrial cooperation between Ukraine and its Western allies is one of the most positive developments of this tragic conflict. From this war will emerge a Ukrainian defense industry capable of sustaining the country in the long term. If Ukraine survives — and it will survive — it will emerge with a national military capability that will protect it for decades to come.

Institutionalizing deep strike

Ukraine's secret drone teams are not crisis formations destined to disappear with the war. They are in the process of becoming a permanent, institutionalized military capability — a pillar of Ukraine's defense doctrine for decades to come. The accumulated experience, developed know-how, and built infrastructure are strategic assets that Ukraine has every interest in preserving and developing.

Ukrainian military academies have begun integrating deep strike doctrine into their training programs. Generals who have overseen these operations are writing doctrine manuals. Engineers who developed the drone systems are teaching the next generation of technicians. Knowledge is spreading, institutionalizing, and becoming national heritage.

The stakes for the post-war period

In a ceasefire or end-of-conflict scenario, this deep strike capability will be one of the key elements of Ukraine's deterrence against future Russian aggression. A Ukraine capable of striking any point on Russian territory with precision is a Ukraine that changes any future aggressor's calculus. Offensive capability becomes an instrument of durable peace.

That is why it is crucial that Western support for Ukraine's deep strike capability not be merely a conjunctural response to the current war — but a long-term investment in the security of a free and sovereign Ukraine. Today's secret teams are tomorrow's guardians of the peace.

I often think about what Ukraine will look like in twenty years, if it wins this war. It will have a cutting-edge defense industry, one of the most battle-hardened armies in the world, and drone teams capable of defending its borders with a precision few states can match. That is not how you would want a nation to develop — but it will be its reality.

Electronic warfare against drones

Russia has invested massively in electronic warfare to counter Ukrainian drones. GPS jamming systems are deployed in concentric rings around strategic sites. Radioelectric decoys attempt to divert drones from their trajectory. Specialized drone interception and neutralization units have been created within the Russian army. This race between attack systems and defense systems is permanent and knows no pause.

Ukrainian teams are responding by developing redundant navigation systems — combining GPS, inertial navigation, and optical visual recognition so that the loss of one signal does not compromise the mission. Rapid software updates — sometimes within hours of detecting a new Russian jamming technique — are one of the competitive advantages of Ukrainian deep strike teams against a Russian military organization often slower to adapt.

Physical defense of Russian sites

Beyond electronic warfare, Russia has adapted the physical defense of its strategic industrial and military sites. Metal nets and physical barriers are installed above fuel tanks and storage docks. Drone-hunting battalions — equipped with jamming rifles, short-range anti-aircraft guns, and Pantsir-S1 systems — are permanently deployed around the most critical installations.

These adaptations have increased the interception rate of Ukrainian drones on certain target categories. But they also carry an enormous cost: significant military resources are diverted from the front line to protect the rear. Air defense systems that could protect Russian forces in Ukraine are being repositioned to defend Volgograd, Saratov, or Kazan. This is a strategic distraction that Ukraine consciously exploits.

The race between Ukrainian drones and Russian countermeasures is the microcosm of this entire war: a permanent battle of adaptation and counter-adaptation, where creativity and speed of innovation matter as much as raw resources. And so far, Ukrainian teams have generally won this technological battle.

These faceless warriors

Ukraine's secret drone teams embody something essential in this conflict: the creativity and determination of a people that refuses to be crushed. They operate in the shadows, without public recognition, without medals or victory speeches. Their work is invisible until a refinery explodes in Saratov or a plant burns in Volgograd. Then their existence is briefly revealed — before diving back into the silence necessary for their survival.

These faceless warriors are Ukraine's answer to an invasion that was supposed to destroy it in a matter of days. They are proof that intelligence, innovation, and will can compensate for a disparity of forces. And they will keep striking — for as long as necessary, as deep as possible — until the war Putin declared is finally over on Ukraine's terms.

What their fight means for us

For those of us watching this conflict from our screens, in the safety of our liberal democracies, these secret teams are a reminder that freedom carries a concrete human cost. It is paid by engineers who work night and day in bunkers, by pilots who carry the weight of their strikes in silence, by technicians who risk their lives to keep systems running under Russian bombardment. Freedom is not free. It is paid for by those who defend it, often without the rest of the world knowing.

Zelensky put it better than anyone: Ukraine is not asking the West to fight in its place. It is asking for the tools to fight for itself. These secret drone teams are the living demonstration of what a determined people can accomplish with the right tools and the right support. Give them those tools. They know what to do with them.

These secret teams striking at 2,000 kilometers — they are the Ukrainian version of the Resistance. Those who fight in the shadows for the light of freedom. I do not know their names. But I know their worth. And this war must end in a way worthy of the sacrifice they are making.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

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