Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky stated that by April 1 of this year, the Russian authorities planned to increase the number of units of unmanned systems of the Russian army to 101 thousand servicemen.
The general said this following a meeting on the development of unmanned systems, citing intelligence data.
“Intelligence reported that this year the Russians are accelerating the creation of UAV units, trying to influence the course of hostilities, particularly in the southern directions, where our enemy is losing initiative and territory. By April 1, the Russian Federation planned to increase the number of unmanned systems troops to 101 thousand servicemen,” said Syrsky.
Separately, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military informed about the achievements of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the field of unmanned systems. According to him, in February, drones hit more than 105.2 thousand targets of the invaders. A quarter of them were accounted for by the Unmanned Systems Forces group.
“The Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to hold the advantage in the use of multirotor FPV drones, although the Russians have already acquired the capacity to produce over 19,000 FPV drones per day,” the general says.
Syrsky also noted that to counter Russian strike drones, interceptor platoons are being created in the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“Their task is to destroy enemy FPV drones, quadcopters, attack drones, and improve logistics for our troops. Anti-drone rifles, electronic warfare equipment, net launchers, etc. are used,” he explained.
In addition, the commander-in-chief spoke about achievements in the field of ground robotic complexes, stating that last month they completed more than 2.3 thousand tasks. This includes both logistics and combat and engineering tasks.
On March 4, 2026, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin signed a decree setting the staff size of the Russian army at over 2.3 million people, of which over 1.5 million are military personnel.
In December last year, Syrsky stated that the number of Russian military personnel participating in the war against Ukraine has been around 710,000 for a long time.