Prospects for high-precision weapons on drones

BLUF: Equipping drones with guided munitions offers precise target engagement and reduces the required sortie rate. However, the concept requires further refinement due to its high cost.

EXCLUSIVE: The MoD will be responsible for determining surplus capacity to defense producers, a key step to obtaining export permissions. 

Ukraine’s defense startup UGS is developing a UGV with land-to-air missiles for air defense.

And NATO EW systems are not weaker than Ukrainian counterparts, but there are pitfalls in how they are used, said Ihor Krynychko, CEO of drone maker SkyAssist.

THE BIG STORY: Equipping drone bombers with high-precision ammunition 

The idea of using drone bombers to carry high-precision weapons emerged when it became clear that copter-type drones had limitations: manual targeting and limited accuracy.

Developing high-precision ammunition for drones increases effective hits per sortie, allows them to strike from safer altitudes, and reduces pilot training requirements. It makes attacks both more survivable and more reliable.

The Problem: 

When it comes to copter-type bombers, their primary purpose is simply to deliver explosives to the target, drop them, and aim for a successful strike. 

But the accuracy of these products is very low, despite being dropped from a height of 100-150 meters, according to Andrii, a representative of a company that makes guided aerial bombs for UAVs. 

Andrii asked that we not disclose his surname and company name for security reasons.

Since the drops are made from a low altitude, these copters can easily be destroyed with small arms or shot down by a drone interceptor, he added.

How High-Precision Ammo Helps:

One advantage of using high-precision ammunition on drones is that they can drop munitions from a higher altitude, making it more difficult for enemy forces to detect and destroy the bomber.

Reconnaissance drones can also be equipped with guided munitions to expand their usefulness, enabling them to find a target and immediately strike it, Andrii explained. 

Here’s the big challenge, however: the cost. 

While a drone bomber can cost between $12,000 and $20,000, guided munitions are significantly more expensive. 

The price tag is between $10,000 and $100,000, said Oleksandr Kviatkovskyi, an engineer and board member of the NGO Aerorozvidka, a public organization for the development of military solutions.

Drone characteristics and guidance

There are several requirements a drone must meet in order to carry high-precision ammunition, according to Kviatkovskyi. These include: 

There are also several different types of guidance currently used, according to both developers. 

One would be when the ammunition is autonomous and can fly to the target on its own after the operator captures the target and programs in the coordinates. It is developed by Ukrainian manufacturers such as FRDM Group, Deftak, and M‑Fly.

During the target‑acquisition procedure, an image is shown, and the operator must select the target on it, Andrii said. 

Another way of improving accuracy is by using laser guidance. Several Ukrainian companies do this, such as Skyeton and DWARF Engineering. The main advantage to this is its resistance to interference, making it difficult to jam. Additionally, laser guidance systems currently used in Ukraine can operate both at night and during the day, Kviatkovskyi said. 

However, lasers also have critical drawbacks. Their use requires constant manual targeting by the operator, which increases the demands on personnel, as one operator controls the drone while another must keep the laser beam on the target. In addition, the equipment is expensive, heavy, and bulky, reducing the weight of ammunition that the drone can carry, he added.

The use of computer vision based on AI-powered object recognition is becoming an alternative as a more modern approach, Kviatkovskyi told Counteroffensive.Pro. 

The Fourth Law, Zir System, and other modules can be used for this. An operator points at the target in the camera view, and the system automatically follows it.

Range of application

In general, the ammunition's range will be equal to the UAV's flight range, Andrii explained.

The drone acts as a horizontal carrier, delivering the ammunition to the target area, and the projectile itself corrects its trajectory during descent, Kviatkovskyi said. 

This means the ammunition doesn’t have a long flight. Its horizontal maneuver from the drop point is usually measured in tens of meters, and in extreme cases reaches up to 100 meters. 

Theoretically, a missile could be mounted on a drone, increasing the range of destruction to tens or even hundreds of kilometers, Kviatkovskyi added. This requires a complex missile design with an engine and an advanced guidance system. 

Creating such a solution is a challenging and high-priced engineering task that has yet to be accomplished in Ukraine, however.

The Ukrainian military has used high-precision guided munitions on a heavy bomber drone, with a laser guidance system. Russians intercepted the drone that carried such ammunition.

While high-precision guided munitions for drones are technically feasible, their widespread use remains uncommon. Most current applications remain experimental or adapted on a small scale, and large-scale deployment is constrained by cost and technical challenges. 

The system represents one approach currently under development to make these capabilities more practical and accessible.

The main advantage of UAVs is their relatively low cost per flight hour and minimal risk to personnel compared to fighter jets, which require a crew of dozens and significant financial resources. This makes the development of high-precision drone ammunition a logical step, provided it proves economically viable.

BUSINESS LUNCH TOPICS: What our reporting shows!

The Defense Ministry will determine what constitutes surplus production because it is aware of both manufacturers' production capacity and of the army's needs. The MoD is also responsible for funding contracts through the appropriate platforms, Oleg Tsilvik, acting head of the State Service for Export Control, told Counteroffensive.Pro.

The exact calculation the MoD will use to make that determination is still being worked out.

"In my view, the best approach would be to have a certain buffer in case additional funding becomes available. So the logic is this: First, we meet the MoD needs within the existing budget, then we create a certain reserve that can be deployed immediately if additional funding appears. And only then exports. That's export capacity," Tsilvik said.

The MoD, the Ministry of Economy and National Security and the Defense Council of Ukraine will make a final decision on that. 

We will follow up with the updates here. There's no final decision yet on which types of goods can be exported. Maritime drones, anti-tank guided missiles, and light armored vehicles are among the categories under discussion. But with armored vehicles, an issue may arise in that the state urgently needs them, but can't afford to buy enough.

The main focus for Ukraine’s authorities is permits for exporting finished products, not on allowing for the transfer of technologies abroad, Tsilvik said.

A simplified export procedure could also be introduced if Ukraine signs an intergovernmental or interdepartmental agreement with another country. Such an agreement would need to specify the products approved for export. 

At the moment, however, this is very bureaucratic and requires the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be involved in such agreements.

Ukrainian defense company Unmanned Ground Solutions (UGS) is developing an air defense version of its UNEX ground drone (UGV). UNEX is based on the SHERP all-terrain vehicle, which can carry 1,700 kg. 

Developers are in talks with Ukrainian and European companies to integrate air defense on the platform, according to Oleksandr Mykhailov, marketing lead of the company. This would include:

Radar to detect aerial targets could also be integrated depending on the mission, Mykhailov said.

Latvia recently hosted the BALTIC TRUST 25 exercises, where the main task was to test drones against jamming from electronic warfare (EW). Twenty electronic warfare teams and drone crews took part, from the Netherlands, Spain, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

Western EW systems have technically caught up to Ukrainian ones, Ihor Krynychko, founder of Skyassist, a drone maker, told Counteroffensive.Pro. 

He noticed this after the exercises in Latvia, when the Skyassist team moved to the front lines in Ukraine and their main drone, the Sirko 2M3, operated under Ukrainian and Russian jamming. 

But Europeans are lagging in how they use these systems, Krynychko said. In real combat conditions, they would be quickly destroyed. Weak camouflage, for instance, in which NATO forces covered equipment with a net in the middle of a field, would have led to destruction by an FPV drone if it were done on Ukraine’s battlefield. Also, the systems themselves are quite bulky and easy to detect, he said. 

Among the participants with electronic warfare equipment, manufacturers used systems ranging from 50 W to 1.3 kW. Electronic warfare equipment operated at frequencies from 400 MHz to 6 GHz, with a range of up to 3 km. 

Ukrainian orders/legislation we’re tracking: 

By: Oksana Zabolotna

Establishing the Cyber Forces within the Armed Forces

Draft Law №14011 of September 9, 2025

Why it’s important: Modern military operations rely heavily on secure communication, intelligence, surveillance, and command systems, all of which are vulnerable to cyberattacks. A specialized cyber unit will enhance the military’s ability to protect critical infrastructure, counter cyber threats, conduct offensive and defensive cyber operations, and ensure the resilience of advanced military technologies.

Stage: Passed the first reading in the Verkhovna Rada.

Initiator: A group of 18 Members of Parliament from the ‘Servant of the People’ faction, led by Oleksandr Fediyenko.

What’s next: The legislation is being prepared for a second reading, after which, if approved, it will be sent to the president to be signed into law. 

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