On the Ukrainian front, air supremacy is no longer decided in combat between fighters, but in continuous interaction among swarms of droneshuman operators and jamming systems electronics that transform the contact line into a space of algorithmic warfare. FPVs, initially seen as improvised weapons, have become the main system of death and attrition: around 80% of casualties on land it comes from them.
It happens that the conflict has pushed Ukraine towards a change more typical of a science fiction movie.
The new war. Yes, the scale of the conflict has pressured Ukrainian forces into a qualitative change: moving from individual missions to structures where a single operator coordinates multiple aircraftconverts previously manual tasks into semi-automated processes and, above all, introduces the ability to pit drones against drones, in a low-cost air defense designed to counter the Russian saturation with Shaheds, decoys and missiles.
Squadron Commander. This is where a new name emerges. The Pasika system, developed by Sine Engineering and already operational in Ukrainian units, transforms the figure of the drone operator into something never before seen in a war: a single human being which can plan, launch and monitor multiple FPV platforms from a unified interface. Instead of constant manual piloting, Pasika allows to predefine mission zones, routes and attack points, and switch video between drones without losing control.
Its essence is not to replace the human, but extend your capacitylightening the cognitive load under stress and allowing attention to focus on target selection and tactical coordination. The key lies in its architecture resistant to electronic warfare: Sine.Link provides encrypted transmission and alternative navigation when GPS is interfered, while terminal guidance modules They allow you to fix targets and free the operator to manage the next drone. The result is a multiplication of efficiency: three to five times more operational performance with the same human resources, on a front where the shortage of specialists is as critical as that of ammunition.
Automation against wear. In addition to precision attacks, Pasika enables functions previously unthinkable in volume: automated delivery of supplies when the ground is too dangerous for vehicles, silent reconnaissance missions in radio-off mode and anti-tank mine placement using predetermined patterns. The logic is always the same: reduce human exposure, increase cadence and sustain tactical pressure.
A crucial component is modularity: More than a hundred Ukrainian manufacturers have integrated the systems into their models, indicating an expanding industrial ecosystem and an interoperability doctrine accelerated by the urgency of war. The future vision is clear: logistics boxes that they store dozens or hundreds of drones and launch them automatically when activated, with no personnel present.
Drone-based defense. In parallel with this increase in offensive capacity, Ukraine is preparing to scale the production of interceptor drones up to 600–800 units per daywith the explicit goal of fighting swarms with swarms. These fast quadcopters are designed to pursue and destroy Shaheds and other Russian drones in flight, at a cost of between $3,000 and $6,000 per unit, compared to hundreds of thousands or millions it costs a conventional anti-aircraft missile.
Russia is trying to overwhelm defenses by launching waves of cheap devices combined with guided missiles, and the only sustainable response is low-cost, distributed air defense. In that sense, Ukraine already has shown results: some models of interceptors managed to shoot down nine out of ninety drones attackers in a single night, and Zelensky claimed that 150 shootdowns had occurred in a context of 810 enemy drones. It is not just about volume, but about the ability to respond in a modular, flexible and continuous way, in a reasonable cost band for a country exhausted by years of total war.
Swarms against swarms. The combination of systems like Pasika and the mass production of interceptors changes the very structure of combat. The traditional equation (more soldiers, more artillery, more platforms) is being replaced by the relationship between operators and disposable air units. The question, therefore, is no longer how many weapons each side has, but rather how many platforms each operator can manage and how resistant the communications network is under interference.
If Ukraine manages to stabilize the manufacturing and deployment of these systems, the intensity of the drone war will increase, but so will the army’s ability to sustain operations without depending exclusively on human reserves, increasingly more difficult to move.
First war where the hand does not shoot. Thus, the war in Ukraine is inaugurating a new military paradigm in which victory depends less on raw power and more on the ability to integrate sensors, links, partial autonomy and efficient operators in flexible structures. Plus, the figure of the solitary pilot disappears: in its place emerges the swarm coordinatorthe distributed node manager, the operator who manages dozens of machines remotely.
If you also want, what is at stake is not only the Ukrainian front, but the war model that will define the coming decades: a battlefield where air superiority no longer belongs to whoever has the best planes, but to whoever can put more eyesmore wings and more simultaneous decisions in the air, at the lowest possible cost.
A first war where the winning hand is not the one that shoots, but the one that coordinates.
Image | Sergei S., Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
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