The Ukrainian drone schools training operators for war are having to rewrite their lessons as fast as every other week to get students ready for an ever-changing battlefield.
Within the drone battle, a critically important aspect of this war, tech and tactics are shifting rapidly. Three drone schools told Business Insider that it’s imperative they keep their lessons up to date because it’s life or death on the battlefield.
To maintain relevance and the tactical edge, the instructors are visiting the front regularly, keeping in touch with former students, and testing out new technology to shape their curriculum.
A race to stay on top
Tetyana, a Ukrainian veteran who goes by the call sign “Ruda” and is now the head of R&D for Dronarium, a drone training school with sites in Kyiv and Lviv, told Business Insider that changes sometimes take place every two weeks.
At the front, the evolution of technology is “moving forward at a very fast pace.” It means that “also we have to be very fast in our adaptability.”
Dmytro Slediuk, head of the education department at Dronarium, told BI that “we continuously make changes to our training programs.”
For the most part, he said, no two lectures on the same subject are exactly the same; something is always changing. Over 16,000 students have trained at the school. Their comments and experiences are reflected in the training program curriculum, Slediuk said. Instructors also visit the front lines, and service members come to the school, where they deliver insight into the latest in warfighting.
There are also group chats with soldiers, Tetyana said. It’s two-way communication, with soldiers sharing front-line feedback and instructors providing guidance and advice.
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Vitalii Pervak, CEO of another training school, Karlsson, Karas & Associates, said that it is absolutely vital that schools teach what is informed by and needed for the field.
“We do not teach things that will not be necessary in combat,” he said. “We constantly update our instructors’ knowledge,” occasionally with visits to the front to “see firsthand what has changed, what remains relevant, and what can be discarded.”
Viktor Taran, the CEO of the Kruk Drones UAV training center, told Business Insider that all students are in group chats with their instructors, and that connection is preserved after the training is complete. “Cadets go to the front line, type questions in those chats, or provide information about new enemy tactics.”
New information is added to the courses, with some topics updated every three months, he said.
A rapidly changing fight
Drone strikes are responsible for most front-line hits and casualties, with both sides using them in lieu of traditional weaponry.
The result is constant modifications to how they are used and their tactics, as well as the drones themselves, with new types frequently entering the battlefield.
Luke Pollard, the UK’s armed forces minister, said this year that Western militaries risk becoming outdated. He said drone warfare is evolving so fast that “we have to fundamentally challenge our assumptions.”
He said that drone technology in Ukraine “iterates every two to three weeks on the front line,” while NATO militaries “build and procure really expensive high-end bits of kit. And it will take you five, 10 years: five years to run a procurement challenge, another 10 years to build it.” At that rate, the system may already be obsolete by the time it’s ready for war.
Defense companies watching Ukraine can see the speed of change, too, and are moving quickly to make changes. Matt McCrann, CEO of the US arm of Droneshield, a company making counter-drone systems for the US and Europe, recently told Business Insider that weapon development cycles are shifting from months and years to weeks.
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Companies are regularly engaging in approaches similar to the drone schools — chats with soldiers and even front-line visits — to keep their understanding of warfighting demands up to date. Some companies have previously told BI that the ways Ukrainians are using tech have come as a surprise, so that communication and engagement are critical.
Gediminas Guoba, the CEO of Lithuanian company Granta Autonomy, which has drones in Ukraine, told Business Insider over the summer that he visits the battlefield himself “just to understand how it really works” and see what changes need to be made to its products to keep them relevant.
And it’s beneficial for soldiers too, sparking faster iteration. Ukrainian drone operators have told Business Insider that they keep in touch with companies making their drones to give them feedback on how they can be improved, as well as to get things like replacement parts.
From the companies making drones to the troops using them to the schools training operators, everyone is rushing to maintain the edge, but the schools are not simply fighting to stay on top of changes. Targeted by Russian attacks and often seeking donations to help fund the training, they’re fighting for survival as well.
