Name: Drone arms race transforms war in Ukraine, with U.S. now learning lessons | 60 Minutes
Uploaded: 2026-03-30T21:33:28.000Z
Duration: 13 min 23 s
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Now, Holly Williams on assignment for 60 minutes.

When America went to war with Iran last month, the U.S.

military faced an enemy using mass-produced drones to deadly effect.

The same weapons have been used for years in Ukraine, some of them supplied by Iran to Russia.

Unmanned and remotely controlled, drones have transformed the Ukrainian battlefield.

They're estimated to inflict around 80% of combat casualties on both sides.

The technology is nothing short of revolutionary, and it's evolving rapidly.

As we discovered, to adapt to the new era, the U.S. military is learning lessons from Ukraine.

Forget everything you think you know about warfare.

The traditional front line in Ukraine has expanded to a roughly 10-mile-wide strip called the kill zone.

Anyone who sets foot there can be spotted by a drone operator and hunted down.

This was a narrow escape for some Ukrainian soldiers.

They call these Frankenstein tanks, retrofitted with cages and mesh to deflect drone strikes.

Netting covers roads close to the front, designed to catch them before they hit their target.

To evade interference from electronic jammers, both militaries launch drones attached to miles-long spools of fiber optic wire, leaving behind a digital spider's web.

Beside a frozen lake, Ukraine's security service took us to see one of their most treasured weapons.

I mean, it looks a bit like a fishing boat scout.

It's a sea drone developed in Ukraine called Sea Baby.

We're protecting this operator's identity because he's a target for Russian assassination.

Is that enough to take out a Russian warship?

Produced for around $300,000, Ukrainian sea drones have destroyed warships that cost tens of millions.

Ukraine says it's used them to sink or disable 11 Russian vessels.

Which one is more useful, a warship or a sea drone like the Sea Baby?

I think it's really hard to destroy these drones because they are smaller.

That's why to have like 10 ships like this is much better than having one big one.

To be clear, you're saying you'd rather have 10 sea drones than a warship.

Oleksandr Komyshyn started out the war as the CEO of Ukraine's railways.

He was so good at his job helping millions of Ukrainians to evacuate that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recruited him to become the architect of Ukraine's drone program.

Komyshyn told us he helped boost Ukraine's production from 2,000 drones a year to 4 million.

For the outnumbered Ukrainians, the inexpensive new technology has allowed them to level the battlefield.

We have to count the number of drones we use, efficiency of each of them, cost to kill for every Russian.

And what is the cost of killing every Russian?

You would be surprised, but the cost of killing every Russian is less than $1,000 now.

That's why they send so many people to die on the front line.

Would you want to be in Vladimir Putin's shoes right now?

He wanted us to become weaker, became much stronger.

Ten retired U.S. generals told us they agree that Russia isn't winning the war despite its territorial gains.

Some cautioned that Ukraine isn't winning either.

But with the help of drones, has managed to draw Russia into a stalemate.

This is like a kind of obstacle course for drones.

Ukraine's military has set up drone training academies to teach the new technology.

I mean, practice makes perfect, am I right?

And the rapid shifts in tactics that come with it.

This ground drone, mounted with a .50 caliber machine gun, recently held off a Russian attack single-handedly for 45 days straight.

In January, three Russian soldiers surrendered to a similar robotic drone.

Our main idea is we can send the robot and to not risk with a human life.

So for us, it's a human life is the most important.

Ukraine says it makes more than 95% of its own military drones, harnessing talent from some unusual places.

Roman Tikachenko is a former brewery engineer who founded a company called Tencor and developed these remote-controlled armored evacuation drones to transport wounded soldiers.

They gave us a demonstration at a military training ground and claim the drones have saved hundreds of lives.

How do you figure out what your next design needs to be?

That means the soldiers who are on the front line.

The soldier said, "We need a drone to do evacuations." And you built it.

The same drone base can be adapted to mount a 40-millimeter grenade launcher, controlled from a bunker which could be hundreds of miles away.

When it comes to drones, how quickly is the technology changing?

It means from the point you send a drone to the front line, get the feedback, change something,

and get the new version, it could be as short as one week.

At this point, I would say that's equilibrium.

Equilibrium in a drone arms race, and both sides will take any help they can get.

Air Logics makes aerial surveillance drones for the Ukrainian military.

Their production spread across more than 20 sites to minimize risk because they've already been bombed twice by Russia.

but the company recently secured over a million dollars from an American investment fund that specializes in Ukrainian drone technology.