One merged intelligence sheet from both UAV interviews. Every claim is tagged by who said it: DIMAS SERHII or BOTH when the two independently agree. They are different units, so agreement between them is strong signal, and disagreement tells you the answer depends on context.
Picture this: Monday, you and AJ are deciding what to actually prototype. Instead of re-listening to two long recordings, you open this. The green "BOTH" cards are your safest bets (two separate front-line units said the same thing). The divergence table stops you from designing for one unit's reality and breaking the other's.
Two different units, same conclusion. Treat these as the load-bearing facts for any prototype decision.
About 1 in 5 drones reaches the target, and it is roughly independent of which drone you use.
Both units tried or saw AI / auto-aim drones and dropped them. This is the single most important thing to internalize before pitching AI.
Neither will let a drone autonomously pick a human target near their own troops. The manual operator stays in control by design.
The hardest environment for both signal and targeting. Any prototype has to assume obstructed line of sight, not open field.
Both flag cost as a real constraint on fiber, even though it dodges jamming.
Both have a real path to procurement and offered honest field feedback on prototypes - via others, not personally.
Different units, different doctrine. Design for both or you will fix one unit's problem while ignoring the other's.
Everything each source said, topic by topic. Blank / not raised means that person did not cover it.
| Topic | Dimas D | Serhii S |
|---|---|---|
| Unit | Regular brigade; commander officer. | Separate unmanned (drone-only) battalion; high-level role, defines targets, 2 years in. |
| Drone types | Fiber-optic (preferred), radio + digital, Starlink/satellite. Fiber carries only video + control; the drone still flies on its own onboard battery. | FPV (manual), heavy bombers (Baba Yaga, at night), Mavic recon, fiber-optic, DJI Matrice retranslators (relays), Bulava long-range complex. |
| Named models | Goryn (top digital camera, but landing/release unreliable) · Uryi (balanced, good load, unstable in strong wind) · Ronni (stronger optics, worse camera) · Beshket ("top of the top"). All fiber-optic, payload under 4.5 kg. | Fiber: Vyriy, Gromylo, Beshket (mostly 10/13"). Radio: Heneral Chereshnya, F10, Rarog, Vyriy, Shrike, Kalibri (mostly 7/8/10/13"). From the Brave1/Delta catalog. |
| Anti-drone (counter-UAS) | "Very useful and relevant now, they do a lot of work on the front." Best per Dimas: DROZD and GENERAL CHERESHNYA. | Not raised in this interview. |
| Payload / range | Payload 1.5-4.5 kg; fiber operating range 10-30 km by target distance. | Fiber range 15-20 km for zone circles, 25-30 km to locate bases/staging/equipment. |
| Preferred to hit | Fiber-optic (anti-jam). | Regular FPV (fiber too slow/costly); fiber only for direct contact + recon. |
| Hit rate | 4-6 / 10, sometimes 2. | 1-2 / 10 good conditions; ~20% regardless of drone. |
| Jamming | Radio jamming severe; frequency-hopping does NOT help, so fiber. | Loses more to Russian jamming. Tactical jammers (10-50 km) avoidable via mid-flight channel switching; deep-area (>20 km, near cities) jammers defeat them. |
| Auto-aim / AI | Heard it "doesn't work", units go manual; skeptical for humans, maybe OK for vehicles / large targets. A previously-contacted brigade tried AI drones, said "fuck this, it doesn't work" and reverted to manual. | Tested a couple: 3-5 min lock, imprecise. Only works at 10-50 m from target, not 500 m. Operator must still see target. Root-cause guess: not the processor but camera quality + software quality (Sayed proposed software optimized to run faster on the same processor). |
| Long-range strike | Not raised. | Bulava complex flies over 60 km: a wing-type secondary targeting/surveillance drone ("Swavans") loiters high (~500-1000 m), detects and locks the target, then a connected strike drone is released and hits (laser-guided-missile style). Needs two operators (one to lock, one to release). Very costly. Used vs groups, heavy equipment, important buildings. |
| Signal loss cause | Not detailed. | Radio is line-of-sight; lost low (5-10 m) or higher; trees/concrete; retranslators reach 400-500 m but fail if enemy near trees and relay 10-15 km off. |
| Crew per drone | Not specified (manual FPV operator). | ~3 per position: 2 aim/wind + 1 spotter (arms + places drone). |
| Daily volume | Not specified. | 10-15 drones/day per position (quiet days); ~10 fiber flights/day. |
| Training time | Not specified. | ~1 month + co-pilot field time for a new FPV operator. |
| Cost | Fiber drone ~75,000 UAH (~$1,800-2,000, NOT $75k USD). Satellite/Starlink drones cost more than fiber-optic, which is their main barrier. | Fiber "really costly" and, by late May, "not really in demand right now because of its cost"; Bulava complex very costly. |
| Procurement | Buys directly with brigade budget if a prototype proves useful. | Govt-supplied + self-purchase budget (approved allow-list only); production needs Brave1 listing/certification (donations exempt; certification reportedly ~24 hrs now, far easier than before the war); plus "Yabali" e-points gamification (verified kills to points, redeemed on Brave1 market). |
| Test path | Specialists trial in training camp, then field, then feedback. | Passes to commanders; needs ~10-12 unit batch for clear statistics; can connect decision-makers. |
| One thing to fix | Not framed this way (implied: component quality). | "The signal" - signal loss above all. |
Serhii answered things Dimas did not. Re-scored so you only ask what is genuinely still missing.
| Question | Status | What we now have |
|---|---|---|
| Km range strike drones fly today | PARTIAL | Serhii gives surrounding numbers (retranslators 400-500 m altitude, tactical zone 10-50 km, Bulava 60 km+) but no clean fiber/FPV strike range. Still worth one crisp number from each. |
| Km where cable quality degrades | STILL OPEN | Neither gave a distance threshold. Ask Dimas specifically (it is his pain point). |
| Cable problem symptoms | ANSWERED | Dimas: on cable break both signal and control are lost and the drone simply disappears; failure distance is manufacturer-dependent (some unusable from the start, some snap mid-flight, two batches from the same maker can differ). Serhii adds: cut by trees/obstacles, lost to strong wind, heavier + more sensitive, slow setup; the longer the flight on the tether, the higher the snap risk. |
| Payload envelope (1.5-4.5 kg) | ANSWERED | Dimas: payload 1.5-4.5 kg; his named models fly fiber-optic under 4.5 kg. Still worth confirming whether the figure is payload carried besides the airframe or all-up. |
| Drone specifics / brands / website | PARTIAL | We now have model names: Dimas runs Goryn / Uryi / Ronni / Beshket; Serhii lists Vyriy / Gromylo / Beshket (fiber) and Heneral Chereshnya / F10 / Rarog / Vyriy / Shrike / Kalibri (radio) from the Brave1 catalog. Still missing: the manufacturer websites / detailed specs behind Dimas's four named models (requested, not yet provided). |
The convergent, low-risk bet is NOT autonomous human targeting. Both units have already tried AI/auto-aim and rejected it, and both fear friendly fire. Pitching "AI that picks and hits humans" walks straight into their strongest objection.
The opening both of them actually point at is kill-chain reliability:
Next call, keep it to four light asks (do not bombard): 1) clean strike-drone range, 2) the 4.5 kg payload definition, 3) specific FPV/fiber models or a website, 4) for Dimas only, the distance where cable quality starts failing. Everything else both men already answered.