The Future of Drones in the Russian Armed Forces

'The URAN Motorized Rifle Battalion is recruiting volunteers! A new UAV unit is being formed!'

'The Motherland is calling!'

'Defend Kursk and our Native Lands!'

These slogans are taken from an advertisement on the VKontakte page of Russia’s URAN Battalion, a volunteer formation within the Russian Ground Forces that is sponsored by Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency and partnered with the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD). It reflects the growth of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) or ‘drones’ in the Ukraine war, and the demand for their services, which on both sides of the war has led to the establishing of units dedicated to deploying and using UAVs. However, for much of the Russian force in Ukraine, these units are ad hoc and established at a local level with systems that are procured by the soldiers themselves or donated by supporters. Now there is evidence that the Russian MoD is formalising drone units across its forces, seemingly learning and evolving from the experiences of combat in Ukraine.

In December 2024, Russia’s Defence Minister Andrei Belousov proposed that Russia should form unmanned systems troops - a separate branch within the Russian armed forces designed to harness the capabilities of uncrewed systems on the land, in the air, and at sea. The new service would be stood up by the third quarter of 2025, Belousov said. The Russian MoD also called for an increase in drone production of all classes and types. On the 16 June 2025, the Unmanned Systems Troops were confirmed by President Putin in a meeting designed to shape and finalise the parameters for the 2027-2036 State Armaments Programme. 'We need to ensure their rapid and high-quality deployment and development,' he said of the new branch.

This development is in response to the use of drones in Ukraine, following seven months after Ukraine’s own creation of drone-specific formations. Russia aims to introduce new formations that centralise the capabilities and control over uncrewed systems into dedicated units. It is not clear how this would impact the current structure of the Russian Ground Forces, which already include UAV reconnaissance units. However, there has been some indication provided by recent announcements around the Russian Naval Infantry. In May 2025, Izvestia reported that regiments for uncrewed systems were being established within the navy - at least one for each of the four fleets. The regiments are expected to combine uncrewed systems from all domains under a single span of command, including uncrewed surface and submersible vessels (USVs and UUVs), with the primary role being reconnaissance and strike. They will also be deployed to counter other drones, including strike USVs and UAVs in protection of Russia’s borders and naval vessels.

Admiral Igor Korolev, former deputy commander for armament of the Pacific Fleet, told Izvestia that the units would likely be equipped with medium and long-range systems like the Forpost-R UAV, Orlan-10s, and Lancet loitering munitions. The Forpost-R is a relatively large UAV weighing 500 kg, it has a range of 250 km and endurance of 18 hours. It can also carry laser guided bombs – the KAB-20, a 20 kg bomb that has been designed specifically for use on UAVs. The small size and weight of the KAB-20 mean that a Forpost-R can carry up to four of them at a time, presumably enabling it to engage several vehicles or platforms in a single orbit.

The Orlan-10 has become a staple of the Russian armed forces as indeed it was prior to the war, however it is now used for a range of purposes in Ukraine from command and control through to target detection and recognition, as well as electronic warfare. There are various other UAVs in Russian service, but the primary system that provides similar capabilities to the Forpost-R is the Orion, which carries anti-tank guided missiles and KAB-20s. Both are now rarely seen during combat operations unless Ukrainian air defences have been pushed back.

The Lancet has become a key component of Russia’s counter-battery doctrine as well as its long-range strike doctrine. It is a loitering munition that provides a range up to 40-50 km against manoeuvring targets and has been used more than 3,000 times in Ukraine. It would provide a key strike capability for the Unmanned System Regiments, enabling them to send assets after targets identified by the larger reconnaissance platforms like the Forpost-R. It may also have the manoeuvrability and responsiveness to engage USVs, and appears to have been used at least once in intercepting a Ukrainian USV near the Kerch Bridge. Russia's capabilities outside of UAVs are less clear, however, which indicates that while the maritime Uncrewed Systems Regiments are intended to integrate capabilities across domains, they may only deploy with aerial systems as their initial capacity.

Russia's industry has developed a selection of USVs like the Vizir, designed and built by the Kingisepp Machine-Building Plant. It has a top speed of 45 knots and a range of 430km, and was reported to have successfully passed its trials with production anticipated at the end of 2024. Others have also been displayed at various Russian defence exhibitions, like Morena from KB Center for Unmanned Systems, which was also unveiled in 2024 and provides a 500kg payload with what is reported by one news outlet to be a Starlink antenna. The commander of Ukraine’s Group 13 maritime drone unit does not believe that the Russians have the ability to properly deploy the USVs, however. ‘Unmanned regiments exist on paper. They don’t currently have significant capabilities to use USVs. They are quite stubbornly working on it, but today we cannot say they have any significant success,’ he told Militarnyi in May 2025.

On land, the challenges are similar - there are platforms that have been developed but getting them into widespread service will be difficult. Russia has a range of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) such as the Courier, at least 50 of which have been deployed to Ukraine. However, the Courier appears to be a platform built by Russian volunteers, rather than a centrally controlled and procured asset from the Russian MoD. There are others, like the Marker UGV, armed with guided missiles and a 30 mm cannon, which was supposedly deployed to Ukraine in 2023. Marker is a state-developed asset that has been used in the development of machine vision navigation and in limited small-unit tactical trials. However, the overall UGV offering for the Russian armed forces is significantly less developed than its UAVs. That said, they have been used on the frontlines in Ukraine, providing logistics and a limited offensive capability. There were also efforts to develop an unmanned tank prior to the war under Project Shturm. That line of development saw Uralvagonzavod work on a T-72B3 with a modified barrel and fire control system that was expected to act as the attritable leading edge of an offensive. A contract for a prototype of the Shturm tank was signed in 2021, but very little progress seems to have been made since then.

In short, if the maritime regiments are an indicator of what is to come for Russia's Unmanned Systems Troops, it is reasonable to assume that UAVs will dominate the equipment that they are initially given. Especially since this is the focus of much of Russia’s defence industry at present. In the maritime domain, it also seems reasonable to expect USVs to be the next major technological focus for maritime operations.

Moreover, the concepts of employment around UAVs are more developed than any of the other domains, with clear applications for how they can be integrated into Russian combat operations based on extensive operational experience. This includes asymmetric deployments, such as in Syria and Donbass between 2016 and 2022, as well as the obvious high intensity conventional deployment. Russia’s defence industry has also had more success developing UAVs that are useful on the frontline than it has other systems, which will likely give them an edge in equipping the new formations. It is also reasonable to conclude that the Russian Ground Forces will retain many of their existing reconnaissance structures for the use of UAVs, especially when supporting artillery or command and control, and that strike assets like Lancet will remain within the span of command of a brigade or division.

As with the maritime regiments, it is likely that their equivalents within the Ground Forces will be given specific roles that are designed to contribute to the overall aims of the given commander. This may include counter-battery operations, as well as finding targets deep behind the frontline for long-range precision strikes. For the time being, it is likely that Russia will increase its use of unmanned systems especially in the North, around Norway and on its borders where the Russian Navy has primary responsibility for the defence of Russian territory.

© Sam Cranny-Evans, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

The views expressed in this RUSI Defence Systems article are the author's, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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