Ukraine has officially established the Day of Unmanned Systems Forces — it will be celebrated annually on June 11. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the corresponding decree.

The Unmanned Systems Forces were separated into a distinct branch of the military in 2024 — a decision that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, drones were primarily used as reconnaissance and fire correction tools. Today, they strike ammunition depots hundreds of kilometers from the front line, destroy armored vehicles and naval targets in the Black Sea.

The scale of change — in figures: Ukraine produces, according to various estimates, over a million drones per year and continues to expand its capacity. Individual Ukrainian FPV strikes have been recorded at distances of over 1,500 kilometers from the border — deep into Russian territory.

This new holiday is not merely a symbolic gesture. It solidifies the institutional status of a structure that has effectively changed the logic of modern warfare: cheap mass-produced weapons against expensive equipment from Soviet and NATO doctrines. A single FPV drone costing a few hundred dollars regularly destroys a tank worth a million or more.

The question that remains open: will the Ukrainian industry manage to maintain its technological advantage in the drone race — given that Russia is also increasing its own production of strike drones every month.