2/ 'Voenkor Kotenok' blames a range of factors, including bureaucratic inertia, commanders' mismanagement of UAV specialists, a technological deficit, different approaches, and the staffing of some Russian UAV with "cronies" who want what they think are safer roles. He writes:

3/ "The war in Ukraine is being marked by the creation of a new branch of the armed forces.

4/ "We are talking about the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), the use of which has forced a change in the entire tactics of combat operations, forcing not only a rewriting of combat regulations, but also fundamentally new, radical decisions to conserve personnel.

5/ "If we talk about the development of the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), then, while all is equal with Ukraine, for example, our forces are growing "from the top down," with the minister and deputy minister of defence personally overseeing the issue, while for the enemy,…

6/ …it has grown from the bottom up, horizontally. The Ukrainian Armed Forces' Unmanned Systems Forces have developed and continue to develop through volunteer centres.

7/ "Many civilian specialists have been recruited into the USF, both by them and by us. And it is precisely civilians who are proving their effectiveness in both places.

8/ "The enemy has created the [Ukrainian] USF. Their commander is an authoritative and effective leader—the so-called “Magyar,” Robert Brovdi, who initially began developing “poultry farms” as a businessman…

9/ …and who approaches the command of a new type of troops based on modern effective methods. This is a clear example of effective management and encouragement through efficiency. This is a military market that was conceived with the participation of the same “Magyar.”

10/ "And if we look at the statistics on the use of USF, both in Russia and among our counterparts, we will see that the most effective units are those commanded by purely civilian personnel.

11/ "When the USF was created, they immediately repurposed a military academy for these tasks, complete with the appropriate equipment, military registration specialties, organizational structure, staffing categories, and so on.

12/ "In our country, the President announced the creation of the [Russian] USF about six months ago. But a commander for the force has still not been appointed!

13/ "And it's generally unclear what it will be—a separate branch/service of the armed forces or a separate service, like the Special Operations Forces. So, the USF exists, sort of, but it still hasn't been defined as a single, coherent, staffing structure. They do, but we don't.

14/ "Yes, we have effective units like Rubicon, which report directly to the Minister of Defence and are evolving. Plus, each military district is creating some form of unmanned regiments/brigades, etc.

15/ "But these regiments and brigades are far from being staffed by the best specialists.

16/ "And due to the fact that the Armed Forces are rife with nepotism, the UAV (USF) regiments and brigades are filled with cronies who believe that by serving there, they will not have to fight, but will instead command equipment dozens of kilometers away from the front line.

17/ "They're [also] sending those they want to get rid of: officers who have committed misdemeanours, liars, and those who refused to serve with dishonesty.

18/ "This is the principle behind sending people to a UAV unit in one of the central military districts, according to the principle “Here you go, God, this is what we don't need."

19/ "The enemy isn't just using the USF; every regiment, brigade, and division has its own dedicated UAV unit. We have some, too, but unfortunately, they're mostly freelance units.

20/ "Often, these guys fly well, at the level of Rubicon, but they're under constant threat of being effectively liquidated or disbanded and transferred to other units. Today you're a machine gunner, tomorrow a scout, the day after that an artilleryman, and so on.

21/ "There is still a dependence on the whims of commanders: “Today you looked at me the wrong way, today you are an FPV pilot, and tomorrow you will go on the assault with an automatic rifle.”

22/ "This is the main difference between our systems and theirs. But practically the entire European Union is working for the enemy. We're currently trying to keep up with the advances in "lower sky" unmanned systems. Fibre optic drones are our invention.

23/ "We have good drones, but the problem is that Russia lacks heavy drones like the MQ-9 Reaper and Bayraktar TB2. Yes, we cleared the skies of Bayraktars in the Ukrainian theatre of operations with modern air defence systems,…

24/ …but we still lack heavy UAVs capable of carrying out long-range missile and bomb strikes with guided bombs like the AGM-114 Hellfire (USA).

25/ "A person could sit in a command centre in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, or St. Petersburg and control a heavy drone that delivers missile and bomb strikes in support of assault and reconnaissance groups, clearing the Black Sea of UAVs. We don't have that!

26/ "Right now, we are chasing UAVs with combat aircraft, like helicopters. But we could deploy the much-heralded “Hunters” [Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik] or Reaper analogues with the same avionics and weapons. Where are the “Hunters” and their analogues?

27/ "We also need to consider that a heavy drone needs its own weapons: missiles, guided bombs, etc. Then we can eliminate the human factor, because with the development of air and missile defence systems, it can be difficult to get a pilot to fly an assault mission under fire.

28/ "People do their duty, take risks, but they're afraid because it's fraught with danger. The same applies to the human factor in naval operations, where people can patrol on boats, but even here there's a great danger...

29/ "Of course, humans will always kill humans, and ultimately, human soldiers will always fight, but to facilitate missions, we are facing the massive development of unmanned systems of all types—marine, air, and ground. Tactics must adapt to this.

30/ "Specialists who understand and develop this technology should be protected, not sent off with laptops to storm the Dnipro or Oskol [rivers].

31/ "Sometimes it happens that the commander, excuse me, is an idiot: "I don't have an FPV [unit], form a combined group of FPV specialists, and go ahead, assault!" There are more than one or two examples.

@ChrisO_wiki It’s these advancements that will bring about totally autonomous control :(. No more radio links, just ai doing its thing using ic embedded lidar mapping data. The predicted evolution is glaringly obvious.