Unmanned Systems Forces

Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) is the world's first independent military branch dedicated entirely to unmanned systems, established by presidential decree on 11 June 2024. The branch operates across land, sea, and air domains, integrating drone warfare, maritime surface drones, and ground robots under unified command. It was created to remedy years of drone capability fragmented across infantry and special operations units. As of its first year it comprised approximately 3,000 personnel while accounting for an estimated 35% of damage inflicted on Russian forces and equipment despite representing around 2% of Ukraine's total armed forces.

On 5-6 June 2026, the USF carried out what became the war's most operationally significant long-range naval strike: more than 400 drones flew roughly 1,000 km deep into Russia to hit the Baltic Fleet at Kronstadt, setting fire to the missile corvette Boikyi and striking the Petergofskaya oil depot, the Neste terminal at Lomonosov, and a naval arsenal at Bolshaya Izhora. It was the first confirmed Ukrainian naval strike in the Baltic Sea. Moscow did not dispute the strike.

Earlier, in Operation SNOW for Akhmat on 20-21 May 2026, the USF had deployed 11 drones with 100 kg warheads against Sever-Akhmat's training facility in Snizhne, killing 65 cadets and one instructor. Russia cited that operation as justification for its 24 May Oreshnik barrage. The USF's Code 9.2 drone unit also struck the Chonhar Bridge on 7 June, forcing Russian supply runs into Crimea to reroute via Armyansk and adding roughly 130 km to the supply corridor. Russia created its own unmanned systems Arm in November 2025, directly citing the Ukrainian model.

The USF's maritime drone campaign shifted theatre again in July, moving out of the Sea of Azov into the Black Sea overnight on 15 July under Operation MoLoChKa, which struck 20 shadow-fleet vessels in a single night, 17 oil tankers, 2 gas tankers and a tugboat, including the AIS-dark tankers Louise 1 and Banda. A further 12 vessels were hit on 17 July, taking the 6-17 July total to 159 shadow-fleet vessels struck across both seas. The 8 July Sea Baby strike on the tanker Blue near Yalta was a separate operation run by the SBU, not the USF, and should not be conflated with the maritime drone force's own campaign.