Day of the Unmanned Systems Forces — General Staff Statement and Address by the Commander

Dear warriors of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine!

Today we mark your professional holiday for the first time. The Unmanned Systems Forces — USF — are the youngest branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and already one of the most effective.

Military historians note that armies entered the First World War on horseback and left it in tanks. Russia’s war against Ukraine began with last century’s doctrines — but it is Ukraine that forced the world to fundamentally rethink the role of unmanned systems in modern warfare.

The youngest, most technologically advanced, and the first dedicated unmanned warfare branch in the world — the USF embodies and creates the cutting edge of Ukraine’s armed struggle for freedom. There is more than enough reason to believe it will become the defining standard of 21st-century warfare.

In 2024, Ukraine became the first country in the world to establish a dedicated Unmanned Systems Force. It was a strategic, forward-looking, and necessary decision. Modern war is, above all, a war of technology, intellect, innovation, and speed.

The creation of the USF as a separate branch is proof that Ukraine adapted faster and better to the realities of modern warfare — and stayed one step ahead of everyone else. Most importantly, one step ahead of the paper tiger from Moscow.

From the first days of the full-scale invasion, drone operators have demonstrated exceptional effectiveness: detecting the enemy, conducting reconnaissance, correcting fire, striking high-value targets, and supporting combat operations across every front.

Drones stopped being an experiment or a support tool long ago. They have become one of the primary instruments of modern war — and one of the key factors keeping Ukrainian warriors alive.

Drone operators are among those who carried the war onto the territory of the aggressor state. Facilities of the Russian military-industrial complex, hundreds and thousands of kilometers from the front line, feel the consequences of their work every single day. The terms Middle Strike and Deep Strike have become, for the occupiers, symbols of inevitable punishment.

The USF today is not only about the sky. It operates on land and at sea. It is a unique combination of combat experience, engineering, analytics, and innovation. Operators, engineers, designers, programmers, analysts — all of you embody a new era of warfare.

Unmanned systems are constantly improving, opening new possibilities and creating new ways to fight the enemy. They not only destroy Russian occupiers — they save the lives of Ukrainian defenders. Evacuating the wounded from the battlefield, delivering ammunition, food, and equipment to the front, completing hundreds of logistics missions every day — all of this has become an inseparable part of what unmanned systems do.

We honor all USF warriors who fell in the fight for Ukrainian freedom. Glory and honor to every man and woman who continues to fight for Ukraine in the ranks of the Unmanned Systems Forces. All of Ukraine is proud of you.

Address by USF Commander Robert Madyar (Mадяр) The video in Ukrainian is available on Robert’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/reel/2635707440178789 and Telegram: https://t.me/robert_magyar/2468 . The English text is available here, only on Medium. Because most modern social platforms like Facebook or YouTube demand extreme sterility — so many euphemisms that the original meaning evaporates entirely. For Google or Facebook, “war” becomes “conflict” and “war criminal” becomes “the other side of the conflict”. Medium is different. So I’ll share the Commander’s words here, as he actually said them.

Artillery / shovel / drone” — that was the drone operators’ battle cry back in ’22: spot, correct the guns, stay hidden.

When we attached the first grenade to a drone as a drop weapon in spring of ’22, nobody imagined how fast that little thing would tear its way into the war.

No weapon in human history has evolved this quickly.

A wedding drone — no joke — performed beautifully at the front, and permanently, fundamentally changed the global doctrine of warfare. The way gunpowder once replaced sabres and swords.

Today the drone is the infantryman’s first assistant, the assault soldier’s partner, the artilleryman’s eyes — and at the same time, the primary weapon and instrument of retribution.

Fierce retribution. The kind the Khrobak¹ never imagined possible when it declared “Kyiv in three days”.

Consider this: in just one year — June 2025 to May 2026 — drones of Ukraine’s Defense Forces collectively destroyed and hit 302,000 enemy personnel in total losses, and over 1.2 million enemy targets.

Numbers that size don’t land right away, so let me translate them into something more vivid. The Red Square military parade holds 4,000 Khrobaks across 30-plus parade formations at a time.

300,000 carcasses in a year — that’s 75 Red Squares packed edge to edge with shredded occupiers. Four full Luzhniki stadiums. The entire roster of the Russian National Guard. A train stretching from Moscow to Ryazan. An unimaginable pile of eliminated Hordemen² — the kind that wouldn’t have stopped at the Carpathians.

On the Day of the Unmanned Systems Forces, we speak of the Birds of the USF. Today marks exactly one year since the formation of the Group — seven USF units and five Drone Line units. That was the first order I signed as Commander.

102,000 Khrobaks as of this morning in the Pidrakhuika³, and 360,000 enemy targets. 1.7 million combat sorties in one year. 300-plus pecked Khrobaks every single day — that is every third occupier destroyed in this war.

We raised these dragons, and now we are responsible for destroying the enemy at industrial scale. We trade plastic and metal — a few hundred dollars’ worth of drone — for the carcass of an occupier Khrobak. Best exchange rate in the world.

The turning point has arrived. Even the bunker geezer understands it. The freedom-loving Ukrainian Bird is everywhere.

There is no rest, no rear in the Swamps⁴ — all the way to the Urals already. Siberia is next. It’s only a matter of time.

Enemy manpower. Sources of war financing. Everything connected to weapons production. Enemy air defense. These are the four priority target groups of the USF — knock them out and we will exhaust the enemy completely and break his spine. I see no reason we cannot do exactly that.

The Birds have changed both the plan and the course of the war.

And this is not about drones. It is about people.

People whose sense of duty called them to voluntarily defend Ukraine — regardless of age, profession, or what their life looked like in peacetime. Whether they answered that call in ’22 or in ’26. What matters is that they answered it.

Warriors who build, modernize, maintain, and fight.

A complex ecosystem of modern warfare, built by yesterday’s civilians — and it works, astonishing the entire world and confounding the enemy.

Thank you for your painstaking work, day and night. For your dedicated service and your heroic fight. Thank you, and congratulations on your professional holiday — USF Day.

Keep fighting and take care of yourselves — so that when you have stood your ground and won, you can come home whole and unharmed, to those who love you and are waiting for you.

Thank you to your families for their endurance. Thank you to the people of Ukraine for their faith, their trust, and their support.

Let us honor the sacrifice of the fallen hero Birds — defenders of the Motherland. Eternal memory.

And now — back to work, Ladies and Gentlemen.

At all available depths. Against the entire despised enemy.

The way we know how, with what we have, from where we stand.

It is an honor to serve alongside you.

Glory to Ukraine!

At all available depths. Against the entire despised enemy.

Happy USF Day, Ladies and Gentlemen!

¹Khrobak — term used by Madyar and USF pilots for the Pidars. Literally “vile worm” or “maggot” in Ukrainian. In nature, worms are food for birds; in war, Madyar’s Birds annihilate the Khrobaks.

²Hordemen — Madyar’s term for Russian occupiers. It draws a parallel between modern Russia and the Mongol-Tatar Horde, portraying both as imperial powers built on conquest and subjugation.

³Pidrakhuyka — literally “the little counting thing.” The official USF online killboard. It displays verified real-time combat results from USF units, including damaged and destroyed enemy targets: https://sbs-group.army/en/

⁴Swamps — an ironic name for Russia, emphasizing decay, stagnation, and filth. The Commander of the USF, Robert Brovdi, and most soldiers use this word.