On Ukraine’s front lines, drones play an ever more crucial role. This weekend some of the fighters took a short break for an event that they say was fun, but also crucial to improving tactics and skills: “Wild Drones”, or the national drone championships.

Maksym

A historic fortress in Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine, served as the venue for the National Drone Championships, where Ukrainian soldiers—many recently returned from the front lines—tested their piloting skills. The competition included navigating obstacle courses and hitting moving targets, designed to mirror the challenges faced in battlefield conditions, such as flying drones into small spaces and countering enemy jamming technology.

Participants used the event to exchange tactics, discuss equipment, and engage with the public. The championship highlighted the evolving role of drones in modern conflict, with soldiers sharing recent experiences from operations, including the destruction of a Russian jamming station. The event also provided an opportunity for the community to witness the intersection of tradition and modern military technology.

Ukrainian soldiers hone skills at drone championship

Once a venue for jousting tournaments, today this ancient fortress is hosting a more modern form of martial contest. The National Drone Championships. The drones must race around the obstacle course behind me, flying through gates and tunnels in a test both of the technology and the pilot's skills. We design it like that because in battlefield conditions what our guys need most is not great speed, but the ability to successfully fly into small spaces, into enemy trenches. Most of the pilots have come here straight from the front line. I can't imagine a better holiday. We can find much in common here with our ancestors, who also had to fight off invaders. In the next round, the aim is to hit a moving target in the air. We got zero points there, just missed it. In real life, though, Logan is fresh from a successful operation to destroy a major Russian jamming station in Kherson region. It was something new that had been causing us a lot of problems. After we hit it, our video signal got better and it got easier to work. But the enemy is constantly developing new jammers. The tournament is an opportunity for different drone units to share tactics and discuss equipment and to meet the general public. Halina came to visit the fortress, but says the drone show is a welcome surprise. Architectural monuments are always beautiful, but in order to keep them, we need those things. Others, meanwhile, preferred to try out more traditional weaponry.

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