A one-page intelligence sheet from your first call with Dimas, plus a status check on the follow-up questions you are drafting so you do not re-ask anything he already answered.
Picture this: it is Monday morning, you are sitting down with your architect to sketch drone concepts. Before anyone opens a CAD file, you open this page on the second monitor. In ninety seconds you both remember exactly where the pain is, what is still unknown, and which three questions are worth a commander's scarce attention on the next call.
The fiber-optic cable itself is low quality right now. This is a top, recurring problem across the companies he sources from.
"a lot of companies... the same problem is the quality of fiber optic"
Battery quality is the second hard problem. Bad batteries are a direct reason drones fail to reach targets.
"sometimes we have no quality batteries and that's why we can reach targets"
Radio is very hard: jamming and frequency problems. Frequency-hopping modules do not help. Fiber-optic carries video signal and control over the cable, sidestepping jamming.
Out of 10 drones launched, 4 to 6 hit the target. Sometimes as low as 2. He confirmed the ~20% floor others report is real.
Stated payload capacity is 1.5 to 4.5 kg. Fiber-optic drones operate at 10 to 30 km depending on how far the target is. (He gave the "1,5 - 4,5" range himself, so the 4.5 kg figure is now sourced to Dimas, not just outside notes.)
When the fiber cable breaks, both signal and control are lost at once and the drone simply disappears. There is no fixed failure distance: it is manufacturer-dependent, and two batches from the same maker can perform differently.
"when the cable breaks, we lose both the signal and control, the drone simply disappears due to the fiber break"
Anti-drone systems are "very useful and relevant now, they do a lot of work on the front." His named best are DROZD and GENERAL CHERESHNYA. This is the thread that put counter-UAS on the table.
Fiber-optic, payload under 4.5 kg:
Fiber-optic drone costs roughly 75,000 UAH (about $1,800-2,000), not $75k USD as first transcribed. That is a 20 km fiber FPV on the Brave1 Market. Satellite (Starlink) drones cost more than fiber-optic; price is the main barrier for the satellite tier (he did not give a figure). See the price decode.
Procurement: Dimas can buy directly with his brigade's budget if a prototype proves useful.
Strong skepticism about AI hitting humans. Even non-AI drones sometimes hit their own soldiers; an AI drone could hit one soldier plus a second nearby. A manual FPV operator is preferred because the operator keeps control.
"when an FPV operator has control in his hands it's better for us because we can control what he is doing"
AI could suit vehicles and large targets, not humans. Tree lines make targets hard to find, and AI will not make that easier. AI also needs scarce programmers and a lot of time the front line does not have.
He has specialists, a training camp, and a front line. Flow: his specialists trial a prototype in training, then field it, then give you honest feedback on what works and which drone part to fix.
| Your planned question | Status | What the call already gave us |
|---|---|---|
| Fiber-optic: What kilometer range do your drones fly at the moment? | STILL OPEN | No range figure given anywhere on the call. Safe and worth asking. |
| Fiber-optic: At what kilometer do you start seeing cable-quality problems? | STILL OPEN | Never quantified. He only said the cable is "low quality" in general. Worth asking, and it pairs naturally with the range question. |
| Fiber-optic: What are the usual problem symptoms? | ANSWERED | Now resolved in his later written answers: on a cable break both signal and control are lost at once and the drone disappears; failure distance is manufacturer-dependent, not fixed. No need to re-ask the symptom. |
| Payload under 4.5 kg: Is that total weight with the drone, or besides the drone? | PARTIAL | Dimas confirmed the envelope is 1.5-4.5 kg ("1,5 - 4,5"), so the number is real and his. Still worth one clarifier: is that with the airframe or the warhead/cargo on top? |
| 5. Specs / brands: Can you share your drones' specifics, brands, or a website, so we get the perfect idea of the requirements? | PARTIAL | He named categories only (fiber-optic, radio/digital, Starlink) - no brand, model, or link. Strong question, and asking for a website is low effort for him (paste a link vs type specs). You correctly dropped the "which issues" half: the issues are already known (cable + battery quality, ~20% min hit rate). |
Do NOT re-ask: what the issues are (cable + battery quality, already crystal clear), whether radio works (it does not, jamming), the hit rate (4-6/10), or whether he wants AI on humans (a firm no). Re-asking these signals you did not listen to the recording and burns a commander's limited attention.
| Question to put to Dimas | Status | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Current cable: which fiber-optic cable brand / spec are you flying now? | OPEN | You cannot promise a "better cable" until you know the benchmark you are beating. |
| Current battery: which battery brand / spec is in the drones now? | OPEN | Same logic - the battery upgrade is half the MVP; you need the baseline. |
| Night / thermal: do your drones have night-vision or thermal cameras, and do you operate at night? | OPEN | Asked 2026-05-25 (7:06-7:07 PM); still unanswered. Shapes whether a night/thermal option belongs in the spec. |
| VTOL: are VTOL drones useful to you? | OPEN | Only anti-drones are explicitly confirmed useful; VTOL not yet answered. |
| Manufacturer links: websites / detailed specs for Goryn, Uryi, Ronni, Beshket? | OPEN | Lets you reverse-engineer exact requirements and identify the real makers. |
| Satellite price: what does a Starlink / satellite drone actually cost? | OPEN | He said it costs more than fiber but gave no figure; needed to size that tier. |