Ukraine's drone teams are operating more like tech startups than military units

• Ukraine's drone units are operating more like scrappy startups than traditional military units.
• The Wall Street Journal visited a battalion that was formed by unpaid civilians but has evolved.
• Its headquarters has workshops for engineers, a pilot-training school, and a ping-pong table.

Some of Ukraine's drone units are operating more like edgy tech start-ups than military units, as they continue to play an oversized role in the country's military defenses.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, drone pilots are now the deadliest soldiers on the modern battlefield. And the way they operated is far from traditional military approaches.

The Journal met with Clear Eyes, a drone battalion that started out as unpaid civilian enthusiasts relying on commercial drones to track Russian military movements.

The battalion's headquarters now has workshops for engineers, a pilot-training school, as well as a ping-pong table.

Meanwhile, the group uses houses in eastern Ukraine as bomb factories and tech hubs to modify Soviet-era rocket-propelled grenades and upgrade Russian glide bombs to create larger munitions for their drones.

Heorhiy Volkov, 37, the owner of a marketing agency who leads the battalion, sometimes gives the impression of heading a startup rather than a military unit, according to the Journal.

Volkov said the key to success is innovation, logistics, and communications, as well as solid military tactics.

"One good pilot doesn't change anything," he said, adding: "We are a team of civilians who want to kill Russians with our cleverness and technology."

The Journal reported that the majority of personnel in Ukrainian drone units never served in the military before, and largely ignore aspects of ranks, including saluting and waiting for orders.

Since the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has turned to drones to try to give it an edge against Russia's larger military.

Ukraine has used drones to conduct strikes on Russian ammunition depots, and gas and oil facilities deep inside Russia, eroding Russia's artillery advantage.

Earlier this year it used unconventional strategies and innovative naval technologies, including sea drones, to go after Russia's Black Sea Fleet, forcing it to relocate away from its Crimea headquarters.

In September, nighttime footage released by Ukraine showed "dragon drones" dropping molten material on Russian positions, likely as part of efforts to instill fear in Russian troops.

The Journal also interviewed Oleksandr Dakhno, a 29-year-old former director of a coworking space.

Dakhno is now a drone pilot who claims to have killed about 300 Russian soldiers in a year and a half, and to have once flown a drone with a 9-pound bomb into a school auditorium where Russian soldiers were sheltering.

In October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country can now produce 4 million drones a year, and is ramping up production.

"In extremely difficult conditions of the full-scale war under constant Russian strikes, Ukrainians were able to build a virtually new defense industry," he added.