Special Report: Still significant limits on UAV swarms says Ukraine's EW and cyber warfare chief

Image of the Kvertus MS Azimuth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) detection and direction finding station in Ukraine in March 2024. (Global Images Ukraine via Getty )

Russian forces in Ukraine are not currently deploying a swarming capability involving multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, Chief of the General Directorate of Electronic and Cyber Warfare of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told Janes on 15 July.

“Sure, the Russians can launch multiple drones [UAVs], of course. With swarming, I think we have to understand that they [Russian forces] have not realised this capability yet,” Col Pavlenko said. He defined swarming as a software capability enabled by AI which allows the simultaneous coordination of a number of UAVs to strike a target without operator involvement. “Swarming requires complex AI applications,” Col Pavlenko said, adding that “swarming software exists, but it is not combat proven yet”. He also said Russian forces struggle to target an area at long range using more than 10 piloted UAVs simultaneously. “Actually, we've seen this because Russians try to launch hundreds of UAVs simultaneously, but they travel 200 km and they do not arrive simultaneously to the attack area and this gives us time to react.”

Countering swarms

At least once a week, Ukraine experiences a long range “combination attack” from Russia, said Col Pavlenko, involving waves of Shahed-type one way attack (OWA) UAVs. These attacks include turbojet engine UAVs, ballistic missiles, and loitering munitions fitted with radio technology to create a mesh network for command-and-control (C2). “Usually, such attacks are on the Kyiv region but recently on Odesa region as well,” Col Pavlenko said. He went on to stress that a combination attack is different to a UAV swarm.

In June 2026, Janes