The DIY robot used ChatGPT's Realtime API to respond to commands to aim and fire a rifle.

• US special operations forces are shifting their focus after decades of counterterrorism.
• Competition with China and Russia is reshaping how SOF supports the joint force.
• A senior Pentagon official said that special operations is also returning to its "roots."

A senior Pentagon official said this week that the role of US special operations is changing as the US faces increasing competition and challenges from China and Russia.

With the threat of a conflict against a powerful and advanced adversary looming, special operations forces are returning to their "roots," Christopher Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said.

The direction of special operations forces (SOF) is adapting to the largest challenges facing the US — a rapidly growing Chinese military and Russian state set on expansion by force.

Maier said during a conversation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank on Tuesday that SOF is "still doing counterterrorism, crisis response, those have been the persistent missions," but the priority is shifting towards "increasingly where we can support other elements, largely in a support role, for those strategic competition elements."

That means playing a big role in solving challenges facing the joint force, like more modern adaptations to using artificial intelligence, as well as the traditional functions of SOF, such as "being that sensor out there and providing the necessary input to decision makers to better understand a situation," noted Maier, who previously led the Pentagon's Defeat-ISIS Task Force overseeing the campaign across Iraq and Syria that relied heavily on American special operators.

Special operators are the US military's most highly trained troops, the go-to teams for small raids and secretive missions, but they lack the numbers and firepower to go up against larger conventional forces for long.

Much of the US' special operations presence in over 80 countries around the world is focused on working closely with foreign militaries, law enforcement, and embassies to keep a finger on the pulse. For the past 20 years, the US has relied on these forces for some the most unconventional and difficult missions, like teaming with partner forces to fight enemies or running shadowy helicopter assaults to kill or capture key leaders.

Maier said he views it as both a continuation of the counterterrorism and crisis response that SOF has been doing for decades and also a step back to its origins.

"We're going back to the proverbial roots of supporting the joint force with some of the hardest problems against peer adversaries," Maier said.

With the so-called War on Terror, SOF has spent over 20 years operating in counterterrorism and unconventional warfare roles, fighting quietly in a variety of environments across the world and maintaining relationships that provide the US with information on tactics of specific groups and deeper understandings of regional and security issues.

That role is now changing, albeit just as important. In a 2023 article for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, David Ucko, a professor and expert on irregular warfare, argues that leaders in Washington need to examine how to best use SOF for newer challenges against Russia and China. That includes irregular warfare, which is "highly relevant" to strategic competition with China.

But, Ucko notes, special operators fill a particular role in military operations and shouldn't be given missions that other US agencies or groups can also do.

One of the deepest challenges these secretive forces face is the widening surveillance by spy satellites and recon drones.

SOF missions often have multiple objectives like foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare; special operators can, for example, help boost a US ally's defense tactics against a foreign aggressor, such as Taiwan and China.

Allied special forces played critical roles in World War II, shaped by the need for specialization in unconventional missions and innovative tactics, such as sabotage behind enemy lines and disrupting German supply lines. In North Africa, British Special Air Services and Commonwealth Long Range Desert Group commandos aided in disrupting Axis troops deployments and airpower.

During the Cold War, special operators played a role in deterring the Soviet Union's influence, maintaining presence in and relationships with Western Europe and other areas.

All of that historical context is informing SOF's priorities today, as the US faces similar challenges against China and Russia and their activities across the world, Maier said.

"The differences, I think, here are some of the fundamental changes in adversaries' ability to access technology," he added, and their ability to "use different types of techniques than maybe we saw in the Cold War."

Both China and Russia are actively engaged in bolstering their irregular warfare tactics, including reconnaissance, disinformation, electronic warfare, cyberspace and space efforts, and psychological warfare.

In its report on China's military growth over the course of 2023, the Pentagon noted that China is expanding its capabilities towards a vision of future conflict it calls "intelligentized warfare" focused on AI, data, and controlling information spaces.

Other elements, such as China's campaigns in Taiwan to influence domestic politics and opinions on unification, are also notable.

• Ukraine's new attack in Kursk is featuring some impressive drone jamming, Russian military bloggers said.
• The bloggers reported that Ukrainian forces were able to break through because of "powerful electronic warfare."
• it's made it difficult for Russian drone operators to work in the area, they wrote.

Ukraine launched a renewed offensive in Russia's Kursk region on Sunday, where Russian pro-war bloggers say Kyiv's drone jammers have been working exceptionally well.

The "Operation Z" channel, a collection of dispatches from Russian war correspondents, wrote that the attack had focused on the Bolshesoldatsky district, to the northeast of the Ukrainian-held pocket in Kursk.

"In order to break through, the Ukrainian Armed Forces covered the area with powerful electronic warfare systems, making it difficult for our UAVs to operate," wrote the Telegram channel, which has over 1.6 million subscribers.

Razvedos Advanced Gear & Equipment, a Russian military news Telegram channel with over 152,000 subscribers, echoed those comments in a post on Sunday.

"It cannot be said that they were not expected in this direction, but they managed to VERY effectively use electronic warfare," it wrote of the fighting in Bolshesoldatsky.

Roman Alekhine, a military blogger with about 218,000 subscribers, wrote on his channel: "The enemy has covered the attack area with electronic warfare, so many drones are useless."

Alekhine later posted that some Russian drone operators were still able to switch to unjammed frequencies.

Sergei Kolyasnikov, another military blogger with about 498,000 subscribers, reported that about 10 Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles had entered the Bolshesoldatsky region.

"The area is covered with some powerful electronic warfare, nothing is flying at all," he wrote.

The specifics of Ukraine's new push this week into Russian territory are still unclear. Kyiv initially launched a surprise counteroffensive into Kursk in August, where it took an estimated 480 square miles of Russian land but has been slowly pushed back since.

Ukraine has stayed mostly silent on the matter. But Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation run by Ukraine's national security and defense council, alluded to an assault on Sunday by posting that Russian troops in Kursk "were attacked from several directions and it came as a surprise to them."

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukraine's president, also hinted at an attack by writing on his Telegram channel that Russia was "getting what it deserves" in Kursk.

Meanwhile, Russia has outright declared that Ukraine had attacked again.

"On January 5, at about 09:00 Moscow time, in order to stop the advance of Russian troops in the Kursk direction, the enemy launched a counterattack with an assault group consisting of two tanks, a barrier vehicle, and 12 combat armored vehicles with troops in the direction of the Berdin farm," its defense ministry told state media.

As reports of Ukraine's jamming efforts emerged, the defense ministry published a video of a Russian drone operator coordinating a tank strike on an unknown target in a forested area, saying he was working in Kursk.

The Ukrainian and Russian Defense Ministries did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Electronic warfare has increasingly been key on the battlefield as both Russia and Ukraine turn to cheap drones for reconnaissance, loitering munitions, and close-range bombing runs.

One development has seen both sides deploy wired drones. These use long fiber optic cables unfurled from a spool as the aerial system takes flight, allowing it to bypass jamming systems.

Should they become mainstream, they may pose yet another challenge for militaries that are already spending big on preparing against drone threats. The US, for example, is paying some $250 million to Anduril, Palmer Luckey's defense startup, for 500 drones and an electronic warfare system called Pulsar.

• Finland accused a Russian ship of dragging its anchor to sever undersea cables in the Baltic.
• Officials said the vessel, Eagle S, is part of a "shadow fleet" transporting sanctioned oil.
• The EU believes Russia is responsible for incidents that have disrupted power and internet service.

Western nations have long suspected that Russia has been deliberately severing vital underseas cables — but without much to prove it.

That may have changed after officials in Finland pointed to an unusually vivid piece of evidence tied to a Russia-linked ship.

Finnish officials on Sunday said they found miles and miles of tracks on the bed of the Baltic Sea that indicate a Russia-linked tanker could be responsible for slicing a cluster of valuable data and power cables.

Sami Paila, the detective chief inspector of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, said "dragging marks" from an aging tanker's anchor had been found beneath the Baltic Sea near the cables, Reuters reported.

"The track is dozens of kilometers in length," Paila said.

Germany's foreign minister on Friday cited the incident as a "wake-up call," saying it would be naive to consider it an accident.

The minister, Annalena Baerbock, pushed for further European sanctions on the so-called "shadow fleet" of ships tied to Russia.

Finnish officials boarded the Eagle S after the Estlink 2 subsea cable carrying electricity and four other cables carrying data were damaged on Wednesday.

Estlink 2 is one of two cables carrying electricity between Finland and Estonia. Officials have said it might not be functional again until August, Reuters reported.

The Finnish telecommunications firm Cinia said the damage caused disruptions in internet communications between Rostock, Germany, and Helsinki and could take weeks to repair.

This is the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Baltic region.

The Eagle S, registered in the Cook Islands, was carrying about 35,000 tons of unleaded gasoline loaded in Russian ports. It was traveling to Egypt when the Finnish coast guard stopped it.

Finnish officials say it's likely part of a "shadow fleet," a network of vessels registered through complex ownership deals that carry fuel in an effort to circumvent international sanctions on Russia's oil trade.

This is the first time a part of the fleet has been accused of involvement in subsea cable sabotage.

"The suspected vessel is part of Russia's shadow fleet, which threatens security and the environment, while funding Russia's war budget," Kaja Kallas, the chief foreign affairs official for the EU, said.

"We will propose further measures, including sanctions, to target this fleet," Kallas posted on X.

Russia has long denied any role in damaging subsea cables in the Baltic. The Russian embassy in the UK did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Internet cables between Germany and Finland and Sweden and Estonia were damaged in November. A Chinese vessel was detected in the vicinity when the damage occurred.

Estonia on Friday said it would be stepping up efforts to defend the undamaged Estlink 1 cable.

"We've decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland," Hanno Pevkur, Estonia's defense minister, said.

• China is readying forces that could seize Taiwan in a future attack, analysts and officials say.
• Any military operation is likely to rely partly on China's militarized police.
• The People's Armed Police has been training in a wide range of conditions, including water.

China is preparing its militarized police for kinds of combat that would play a key role in any invasion of Taiwan.

A September report from China Central Television shows what appears to be the People's Armed Police Force, or PAP, simulating attacks from inflatable boats.

Footage and pictures from Chinese state-run outlets show the extent of the combat training and battlefield simulation — blockade breakthroughs, grenade throwing, battlefield rescue, and group tactics in cold, hot, and high-altitude conditions.

This training indicates PAP soldiers "are getting ready" for a takeover of Taiwan, said Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia Engagement at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington, DC.

Clandestine movement by water would be an essential capability to quell resistance in Taiwan's populated areas near the coast and rivers.

"From my observation, they train hard; they are well equipped and disciplined, and they're given stringent ideological training for the reason that they are probably, in my view, the primary reserve force for section invasion," Goldstein said.

"If they went forward with a full-up invasion, I think an amphibious assault is not just conceivable but is quite a possibility," he added.

Urban training

Since its founding in 1982, China's PAP has been firmly placed under the country's military.

These armed police are a shock force in China's vast state security apparatus. The force plays a key internal security role, mostly in law enforcement, counterterrorism, disaster response, and maritime rights protection.

Beijing also regularly uses them for propaganda. One likely goal of publicizing the recent training was to intimidate Taiwan and its backers.

Alessio Patalano, a professor of war and strategy in East Asia at King's College London, said the PAP's inclusion in any takeover of Taiwan would make sense given their urban training.

He told BI the PAP keeps "highly skilled" special forces at hand who are involved in surgical operations to capture strategic goals where mobility, speed, and familiarity with operating in urban areas are key.

PAP special forces maintained security at Beijing Olympic venues in 2008, conducted drills in Shenzhen near Hong Kong in 2019, and have engaged in multiple counter-terrorism operations in China's Xinjiang region over the years, according to Chinese state-run media.

"To that extent, whether in decapitation scenarios or early stages of operations to seize key port and airport infrastructures, the use of PAP should be regarded as a viable, if not preferable, option," Patalano said.

A supporting role

It's unlikely that the PAP would participate in the first stages of any island landing.

"That is the purview of the PLA," said Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in DC. The PLA is China's main military — the People's Liberation Army.

He said that the PAP would instead initially participate in operations to firm up internal security in mainland China, including suppressing signs of social unrest, protecting critical infrastructure, and clearing out national highways to facilitate the delivery of supplies to regions near Taiwan.

Any attempt to seize Taiwan, a self-ruled island of 23 million that Beijing views as a breakaway province, would require warships, armored vehicles, and heavy firepower, to answer Taiwan's advanced missiles, tanks, and F-16 fighter jets.

However, if PLA's operations in Taiwan didn't go according to plan, and it faced a protracted campaign, Wuthnow said the PAP's Special Operation Forces could be mobilized to institute military governance through missions in urban areas like Taipei.

Another aspect of the PAP's response could involve China's Coast Guard, which it oversees.

The coast guard is already "very much" on the front lines of China's "coercive" campaign against Taiwan, Wuthnow said, and its role seems to be increasing.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's mountainous terrain, as well as its few major land routes and numerous river crossings, would make it difficult for any invading forces to move.

"If the population of Taiwan were not compliant with a PRC-led occupation authority, the period where the PRC would need to rely on their own police might be quite prolonged," said Philip Shetler-Jones, a senior research fellow in the International Security team at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China.

The more PAP forces can take over the "public order" task, the more it frees up combat troops, he added.

An imminent invasion

Military experts and defense officials see signs — like China's rapid modernization of its armed forces over the past two decades and drills around Taiwan — that suggest that China could take action within a few years.

But the form of that action is a matter of debate, from a blockade to a full-scale invasion.

During a 2021 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Phil Davidson, then the US Indo-Pacific commander, said Taiwan was "clearly" one of China's "ambitions" and that he believed the threat would be "manifest" within the next six years.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in October, as part of the country's anniversary celebrations, that reunification with Taiwan was "where the greater national interest lies, and it is what the people desire."

"The wheel of history will not be stopped by any individual or any force," he added.

Goldstein of Defense Priorities, who described himself as a bit of an outlier, said he believes China is ready to take over Taiwan now "if they choose to," and that the PAP's Special Operation Forces would likely play a significant role.

They "will be in very high demand in a Taiwan scenario," he said.

He added that China regards Taiwan as internal security. "So, for them, the use of these forces is entirely legitimate."

The country's defense ministry has said it is able to spot 12,000 Russian pieces of equipment a week using AI identification tools.

• Frank Kendall, the Air Force Secretary, hit back on Elon Musk's comments slamming the F-35.
• While Kendall said he respects the billionaire, he said Musk is "not a warfighter."
• Musk has trashed the F-35 as obsolete compared to drones, but Kendall said that reality is decades away.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Elon Musk should learn more about air combat tech before publicly slamming crewed fighter jets as obsolete.

"I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk as an engineer," Kendall said on Thursday at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

"He's not a warfighter, and he needs to learn a little bit more about the business, I think, before he makes such grand announcements as he did," Kendall said.

Musk recently drew public attention for posting on X that crewed fighters, such as the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, were inefficient compared to drones and have a "shit design."

Calling the makers of the F-35 "idiots," Musk posted videos of drone swarms and wrote that crewed fighters would be shot down easily by modern surface-to-air missile defenses and enemy drones.

Kendall, who oversees the US Air Force's budget, said Musk's vision of drone superiority is many years away.

"It's provocative, it's interesting," he said of Musk's statements. "I can imagine at some point; I don't think it's centuries, by the way; I think it's more like decades when something like he imagines can occur."

"But we're not there," Kendall added. "And it's going to be a little while before we get there."

Musk did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Kendall said he pushed the Air Force on a "key decision" to field drones that work in tandem with crewed fighters.

Still, he added the US may eventually reduce its planned purchases of the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter that Lockheed Martin manufactures, depending on how quickly other tech advances.

"Our inventory objective for the F-35 is 1,700 and some. I don't know what we'll end up buying, and nobody can predict that right now," the secretary said.

But he also doesn't think the F-35 will be replaced anytime soon, and said the US is still buying more of the aircraft for now and in the near future.

"It is dominant over fourth-generation aircraft. Period. And in a very, very serious way. It's not even close. And there's no alternative to that in the near term," he said.

The US has been looking into a sixth-generation fighter, also known as the next-generation air dominance program, that will focus on crewed jets that work collaboratively with drones.

Kendall said that if the NGAD program continues, it will still take years to produce that fighter in quantity, and it will be initially "very expensive" to manufacture.

It's unclear how Musk's views on the F-35 and drones may materially affect US defense spending. The billionaire has been made the cohead of a new Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to reduce what it sees as excess federal expenses.

Musk is in President-elect Donald Trump's close orbit and showed this week that he can wield considerable influence in Congress when Republican lawmakers followed his lead on trashing a bipartisan bill that sought to avoid a government shutdown.

Meanwhile, Kendall is expected to step down as Air Force Secretary when President Joe Biden, who appointed him, leaves office in January. The secretary expressed a desire in September to remain in his post as the Trump administration takes over.

David Packouz is a former arms trader. In 2005, he joined the arms dealer Efraim Diveroli at AEY, bidding on contracts for the US military. In 2007, AEY won a $300 million contract to supply munitions to Afghanistan. Packouz was part of a cover-up to disguise the true identity of the ammunition, concealing that it was of Chinese origin.

After an investigation by The New York Times, he was charged with 71 counts of fraud and faced 355 years in prison. He was sentenced to seven months of house arrest and issued with a 15-year arms-dealing ban. His story was the subject of the 2016 movie "War Dogs" and Guy Lawson's book "Arms and the Dudes."

Packouz speaks with Business Insider about corruption in shipping and transport, the influence of middlemen and politicians, and links to organized crime.

After leaving house arrest, Packouz developed Instafloss and founded the music company Singular Sound, which developed the BeatBuddy. He also cofounded War Dogs Academy, a contracting training service.

Arms trafficking involves the illegal trade and smuggling of weapons across borders, bypassing laws and fueling conflicts. Arms dealing is the legal sale of weapons by authorized dealers, conducted under strict regulations like background checks and export licenses and overseen by bodies such as the UN Arms Trade Treaty.

For more, visit:

www.davidpackouz.com/

www.singularsound.com/

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• Ukrainian units desperate for drones to hold Russia back are crowdfunding many of their weapons.
• Civilians and veterans have been sponsoring deadly strikes for under $1,000.
• Researchers say it's opened a new era of civilians directly sponsoring war en masse.

With $1 million, Oleksandr Chernyavskiy says he can change the war for him and his comrades.

The enlisted soldier is assigned to a drone prototyping unit with Ukraine's 241st Territorial Defense Brigade — a battle-hardened formation of reservists deployed along the eastern and northern fronts. His unit supplies 11 battalions with new drone designs, mostly cobbled together from commercial parts and Soviet arms. It also makes other weapons, too.

For $80,000, he says his team can completely build a 17-inch drone armed with a rifle — essentially a flying AK-47 or M4. Another prototype, a modified Soviet ZU-23-2 antiaircraft gun, needs $70,000 worth of parts to be fully automated to strike down Russian drones.

Chernyavskiy estimates roughly $1 million in funding would allow his unit to develop home-grown AI-controlled drone swarm tech, primarily using the money to pay software engineers and buy parts.

Much of this work, he said, depends on how much his unit can crowdfund. He ran an NGO before the war and is partly responsible for coordinating and advocating for that money.

"For drones, most funding is from volunteer help, by donors," Chernyavskiy told Business Insider. "When we have government or defense ministry funds, we try to buy regular things like mortars, shells, all connected to ammunition."

Crowdfunding has long been a pillar of Ukraine's war effort, with civilians pitching in for years to send aid supplies, clothing, and cash to the front lines. Low-cost drones, proven to be effective on the modern battlefield, have become one of the hottest commodities among units battling Russian assaults.

A commonly crowdfunded drone, a seven-inch commercial unit that carries a small payload, costs less than $1,000 to build and arm. A typical 155mm artillery shell, meanwhile, costs between $2,500 and $4,000 for Western factories to produce.

Chernyavskiy said that drones can't replace artillery, which can suppress enemy forces, serve as fire support, and hammer front-line positions at range. But drones have their place in this war, as the world has repeatedly seen. With these systems, for around an average of $15,000, his men can take out a Russian tank worth significantly more.

Ukrainian fundraisers like him have formed a robust network that pulls in millions of dollars weekly for drones, working with a mix of local manufacturing lines to turn the cash into precision strike munitions. To keep donors abreast of their work, they report daily with first-person videos of exploding drones slamming into enemy positions and vehicles.

Chernyavskiy said that Russian forces typically can't advance when harassed by drones. "If you can have 100 explosions in one day, it means no Ukrainian will be killed this day," he said. Swarming the air with recon drones also gives Moscow little chance to launch surprise attacks.

Civilian war support at an 'astonishing' scale

But due to availability, there are days when his unit can only deploy five, maybe 10 drones, reducing resistance and allowing Russian troops to get close to Ukrainian trenches and overwhelm them.

Chernyavskiy said the flow of cash from civilian supporters is keeping his men alive.

"I think it's certainly unprecedented," Federico Borsari, a resident fellow who studies technology and drone warfare at the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank, said of the current crowdfunding movement.

Borsari said that drones, easy to build and deadly, have changed how civilians can support a war effort en masse. With Ukraine, an individual civilian can now remotely yet directly pay for a hit on an enemy soldier or tank, he said.

"Really, the scale of the rapport is astonishing," Borsari said. "We're talking about hundreds of thousands of drones provided to the Ukrainian military."

Oleksandr Skarlat, a volunteer who has been running a fundraising Telegram channel since the war began, said most of his donors paying for drones are regular civilians sending part of their salaries.

Others are small businesses with cash to spare, he said. Skarlat, a professional swimmer, works as a member of a Telegram network of five fundraising volunteers led by Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko. Skarlat told BI he's helped raise $2.5 million for 100,000 drones.

"We started using drones because of the lack of ammunition. It was from a need of striking positions and priority targets in the most effective and cheapest way," he said. Throughout the war, Ukraine has repeatedly struggled with insufficient amounts of ammunition, such as much-need 155mm artillery shells.

In Kyiv, restaurants, cafés, and barber shops often display QR codes for customers to throw in a few dollars for drone production, said Mark J. Lindquist, a former US Air Force analyst now living in Ukraine to crowdfund for local units.

"It has to be in the millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, because it's the most effective way for an average citizen to put together a small amount of money and make a huge difference on the battlefield," Lindquist told BI.

Lindquist, who worked as a motivational speaker before leaving for Ukraine in 2022, now flies back to the US regularly to raise money at public events for front-line units.

He estimates that he and his fundraising partners have brought in about $13 million in aid, and he now asks Americans to donate toward civilian vehicles and commercial drones that can be turned into weapons like loitering munitions.

Yet Lindquist is frustrated with donors in the US, whom he says frequently balk at paying for something that can kill.

"Largely, Americans have shied away from things that would drop these bombs you see on Instagram," he said.

Drones aren't always used for deadly ends, though. Chernyavskiy hopes to raise $50,000 to complete a land evacuation drone that can navigate deep forest terrain and retrieve lone Ukrainians guarding trenches.

With the 241st Territorial Brigade low on manpower and guns, Chernyavskiy said soldiers sometimes find themselves stationed alone on the front lines for abnormally long rotations. He said many fear it is a one-way ticket to the trenches.

"If you are injured, no one will help you; you have no chance," he said. "People usually spend one or two days in the trenches. Now they spend half a month. You can go crazy."

A drone that fetches the wounded, or even corpses, raises morale among troops who know that their bodies can still be returned to be honored, Chernyavskiy said.

US and European veterans fueling the crowdfunding effort

Chernyavskiy's unit also receives cash from Americans, often from military veterans willing to chip in anything from lunch money to $15,000 each. He said he's brought about two dozen veterans to the front lines to see his unit's work.

"After they see what is going on, they help much faster," he said with a laugh.

It's a broad effort. Daniel Viksund, a Norwegian veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan as a combat engineer and tank driver, has been coordinating donations to Ukraine, primarily from Scandinavia, since 2022.

He told BI that many of his donors are current and former military members who, after seeing videos of drones in action, sought to send more of them to Ukraine.

"Our main focus is drones. Everybody was doing cars and medical stuff. Army veterans like us, we like to do things and make it happen," Viksund said.

His 20-man nonprofit, Veteran Aid Ukraine, has sent some 500 drones to Kyiv's forces and paid for about 2,500 more. Viksund said videos sent to him from Ukrainian units show those drones have destroyed at least 60 main battle tanks and over 100 armored vehicles.

He's proud of his organization's work in Chasiv Yar, where they sent 200 drones to units defending the embattled city in late spring as US congressional infighting locked up billions in vital aid.

Viksund said Veteran Aid Ukraine alone can't provide nearly enough drones for Kyiv's remote operators. He estimates that they expend 4,000 drones on average a month.

"But when all the small rivers come together, you make a big river," he said.

Russian organizations have also been donating drones for Moscow's units, but not on such a scale.

"You don't necessarily see the same level of grassroots efforts in Russia because they have the state capacity and state resources to marshal the economy toward the war in a different way," said Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities.

Kavanagh said the crowdfunding effort has been meaningful in filling gaps in Western aid, though it's dwarfed by the sheer might of the traditional arsenals sent to Kyiv.

The US and Europe have collectively sent about $90 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including powerful F-16 fighter jets, long-range missile platforms, and millions of ammunition rounds.

Return on investment in war

Some Western donors and volunteers say that lower-tech drones can make a significant difference for just a fraction of that cost.

One such donor is a wealthy software engineer in the US Mountain West who said that he had spent about $105,000 sending 142 drones to Ukraine, including eight Chinese-made Mavics that cost around $1,700 each and are popular for recon missions.

With six kids at home, he told BI that he's cut back on purchases like upgrading their 2011 GMC Savannah and fixing his couch.

"I just think that if I spend a little less, someone will survive. Someone will have a husband and father," said the software engineer, who asked not to be named out of concern that Russian intelligence services would target him. BI knows his identity and has verified his donations to a Ukrainian platform.

One of his favorite items is a 10-inch drone made from DJI parts that can be converted into a bomber with a six-pound payload.

He said each of these $1,600 drones has a typical lifespan of 50 missions and that, with a minimum hit rate of 33%, delivers at least 16 strikes on Russian targets.

"If you give these guys $100 million, they can win the war for you," he said. A common hope among drone warfare enthusiasts is that with more drones and jammers, Ukraine can effectively slow the Russian advance while exhausting its manpower and equipment.

Chernyavskiy holds on to the dream that when those resources run dry, Ukraine will have an opening to strike back and reclaim territory. Yet he cautioned against thinking that only deploying low-cost drones will win the war.

"For example, if you have fog weather, you can't fly these drones because you can see nothing," Chernyavskiy said. "But artillery does not care about the fog. If they have coordinates, they will fire and destroy whatever is alive in this sector, no problem."

Western donors wish they had more to give

Questions loom for Ukraine's future in this fight. The country continues to face shortages of troops and matériel, persistent Russian advances, and the possibility that the incoming US administration will restrict or cut the critical aid it relies on. But private citizens retain the ability to make a difference, fundraisers say.

Lindquist, the former US Air Force analyst turned fundraiser, said Americans haven't realized how far their money can go if they help fund drones in Ukraine.

"The Ukrainians have come up with a solution to be able to strap a bomb to a $500 drone and take out a $2 million tank," he said.

"If people were to understand that power of drones, we could do what our grandparents did in World War II," he added.

The software engineer in the Mountain West said he's been trying to get his friends to donate, too, but to no avail.

"They'll say they don't want to kill people. Then I ask if they want to buy a tourniquet," he said. "They think it's cool that I'm doing it, but they want me to be the one doing it."

In Ukraine, Chernyavskiy is frustrated, too. But as he says, "feelings change nothing."

"Lack of money, lack of resources. This is the nature of war," Chernyavskiy said.

Yet he stressed his brigade is stretched thin, and that if they run out of drones, the fighting turns to rifle combat. Outnumbered in the trenches, it's a battle the Ukrainians almost always lose, he said.

Last week, he said, a commander who ran one of the drone development projects with him was killed by Russian fire.

"If we have a lack of donors' help, our friends are killed, and then we are killed," he said. "If we can't pay for drones, if we don't have ammunition, we pay for it with lives."

Translation by Sofiia Meleshenko.

• Ukraine's navy released images of vessels with what is likely a dazzle-camouflage paint job.
• It stems from a WWI-era tactic to make it harder for the enemy to gauge a ship's speed and direction.
• A naval expert told BI that the tactic has limited use, but could help against drones.

Ukraine's navy has revealed a fresh paint job on some of its vessels, which appear to have adopted a World War I-era tactic of using dazzle camouflage.

The Ukrainian navy shared the images on social media on Thursday, showing versions of the paintwork.

The vessels included at least one small armored artillery boat and an island-class patrol vessel, according to military site MilitaryNYI.

The boats were pictured taking part in a demonstration for naval experts from Denmark, which is cooperating with Ukraine on various naval issues, Ukraine's navy said.

It's unclear when the paint job was applied.

In the pictures, the boats feature distinctive, jagged patterns in various shades of gray, likely a design approach meant to confuse enemy onlookers.

The idea is that the differing shapes trick the eye, making it hard to calculate a ship's speed and direction.

How much of an edge it will really give Ukraine's boats in modern warfare remains to be seen.

"This does appear to be dazzling camouflage," Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power expert at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, told Business Insider.

He said the tactic could have some utility against optical sensors — on drones, for example — "but would have less value against radar-guided threats."

Dazzle camouflage first emerged in World War I as a means to confuse enemy submarines and reduce their ability to effectively aim torpedoes.

However, it has also seen some modern usage.

In 2021, the Royal Navy's HMS Tamar was repainted in dazzle camo as a way to give it a "distinct identity" before it set off on a tour, the BBC reported.

In July 2023, Russia also used a related gambit, painting its ships with blocks of black at each end in an apparent attempt to make them appear smaller and, therefore, harder to strike accurately.

At the time, Russia's Black Sea Fleet was being targeted by Ukraine, which was using long-range missiles and drones to take out vessels.

This resulted in the relocation of much of the Russian fleet from the strategic port of Sevastopol, in Crimea, to the further away port of Novorossysk.

Ukraine's navy has no large ships on active duty and consists mainly of small vessels, like those seen in the recent images.

Denmark's recently-announced cooperation with Ukraine aims to address issues of protecting Ukrainian ports and securing the Black Sea grain corridor, as well as the removal of naval mines and helping it to develop a more modern fleet, Ukraine's navy said.

In October, Denmark announced a $340 million aid package for Ukraine, which included new weapons and equipment.

• Russia is intensifying its use of drone attacks against Ukraine.
• It's using decoy drones to outwit Ukrainian defenses, according to the ISW.
• Around half the drones used to attack Ukraine are decoy drones, a report said.

Russia is stepping up its use of decoy drones to distract Ukrainian air defenses in mass aerial attacks, according to The Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

It comes as both Ukraine and Russia ratchet up their drone and missile strikes.

In the latest attack, Russia launched a record 188 Shahed drones at Ukraine on Monday night and early Tuesday, Ukraine said.

The ISW, a Washington, DC-based think tank that monitors the conflict, said that Ukraine reported around half of the drones used in the attack had gotten lost.

This, said the ISW's analysts, suggests that "Russian forces likely used a large number of decoy drones to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses."

It said that Russia "will likely continue to use decoy drones and experiment with varying strike packages to increase the effectiveness of long-range strikes against Ukraine ahead of and during the winter."

In recent weeks, Russia has intensified its aerial attacks on Ukraine, likely with the goal of debilitating Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the cold winter months.

Ukraine uses a mixture of air defense missile systems and electronic warfare technology to counter the attacks.

But Russia has used a variety of tactics to overcome Ukrainian air defenses, striking Ukraine with a variety of drones and missiles at the same time and using decoys to create holes to exploit.

The Associated Press in November found that Russia was using swarms of fake drones to surround deadly thermobaric drones, which are highly destructive.

A source, described as familiar with a secret Russian munitions factory where the drones are made, told the outlet that around half the drones now targeting Ukraine are decoys.

The thermobaric drones create a high-pressure vortex capable of penetrating thick walls and causing injuries including collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, and brain damage, the AP said.

It's unclear if thermobaric drones were among the weapons used in the strikes on November 25-26.

• Russia is intensifying its attacks against Ukraine's depleted military.
• Ukraine's forces are low on ammunition and equipment.
• Its drone units account for 80% of Russian losses, The New York Times reported.

Ukraine's drone units now account for at least 80% of Russian frontline losses, The New York Times reported.

Commanders in the Ukrainian military told the Times that the Ukrainian military had become increasingly dependent on its drone warfare capabilities amid ammunition and troop shortages.

A dozen troops told the outlet they'd noticed a decrease in the number of rockets fired from US-made HIMARS missile systems being used by Ukraine against Russian forces.

The weapons have a range of around 50 miles and are used to strike targets behind enemy lines.

"HIMARS — I barely hear them at all anymore. They're almost nonexistent," Sgt. Maj. Dmytro, a 33-year-old drone operator and company leader, told the Times.

"If we had more munitions, it could compensate for the lack of people."

The outlet reported that small Ukrainian drone teams had become prized targets for Russia.

Drone pilot Sgt Maj. Vasyl told the outlet that Russia was attacking drone teams using thousand-pound glide bomb munitions that are fired from the air and are usually used to target buildings or defensive positions.

"If they detect a drone operator, everything is thrown at us," he said.

Drones have become a defining element of the war, as has the resulting arms race.

Ukraine's frontline drone units work in small teams, using remotely controlled first-person-view (FPV) drones to surveil and target Russian forces.

They pack drones with explosives, which they then drive into Russian positions or armored vehicles.

Ukraine's drone industry has rapidly expanded during the war. It is developing sophisticated new models and relatively cheap designs for use on the frontlines.

In October, Ukraine exceeded its annual target of producing a million FPV drones for its military, Lieutenant General Ivan Havryliuk, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, told RBC-Ukraine.

At the same time, weapons and ammunition supplies from Ukraine's Western allies have been arriving at the frontline slowly as Ukraine is struggling to recruit more troops.