It’s not a US law enforcement vehicle but a Ukrainian army Mitsubishi L200, in pursuit of a quadcopter surveillance drone.

These soldiers are training to be the eyes of the Ukrainian military, which has embarked on a massive expansion of its fleet of surveillance drones. Today, the ten soldiers are learning to pilot their machines from a moving vehicle.

“It’s very important to have a drone in every combat unit, because it’s our eyes in the sky,” said Lt. Anton Galiachinsky, 40, an expert in visual data analysis taking part in the exercise.

If the Turkish combat drones of the Ukrainian army have been much talked about since the beginning of the conflict, inflicting severe damage on Russian armored vehicles, Ukraine was before the war deprived of surveillance drones.

Without a dedicated unit, it must rely on patriotism and donations for equipment and pilot training.

The soldiers followed by AFP follow the courses of Global Drones Academy, a company run by Anton Veklenko, drone pilot since 2015 and “highly demanded” since the start of the war.

– “Hard to spot” –

“One of the most important aspects of training is safety,” Veklenko told AFP.

Drone photography specialist Anton Veklenko, 35, now teaches how to become a pilot – but above all how not to become the target of Russian fire.

“At the start of the war, many of our soldiers died because they did not know they were being watched,” he said. “We have developed a method allowing the pilot not to reveal his position”, he continues without saying more.

These small drones allow kyiv to conduct reconnaissance along the front lines, to spot Russian troops and equipment, and even to direct artillery fire from a distance. They save Ukrainian lives, but they are expensive and few in number.

Both sides have also used smaller radio-controlled machines, but kyiv says Russian electronic countermeasures jamming their communications systems are increasingly effective.

In early July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed for donations to purchase a fleet of military drones around the world to form a Ukrainian “Drone Army”.

About 13.5 million euros were collected, which will finance a first series of 200 machines equipped with thermal cameras, GPS and mapping software.

“The main thing is that they are hard to spot, so that they are hard to take down,” says the website linked to Mr Zelensky’s appeal.

According to Yury Shchygol, head of Ukraine’s cyber-security and intelligence service, a contract has already been signed with Polish manufacturers and four tactical drones have already been received.

His teams are studying possible contracts in Portugal, the United States, Japan and Israel, he added during a meeting with the press this week.

Mr. Zelensky also called for “dronations” of smaller devices to take place in Ukraine, the United States or Poland. Commercial drone hobbyists and pilots have started donating their devices to bolster the “Drone Army”, but Ukraine is aiming higher.

“We received 30 drones under the Donate Your Drone program, both from Ukrainians and from abroad. Our goal is to collect 1,000,” Shchygol said.

The campaign even took an urgent turn this week, with warnings from US officials saying Russia plans to acquire hundreds of combat drones from Iran.

Learning how to operate civilian drones takes two weeks, said Yuri Shchygol, while pilots of military reconnaissance drones will receive a month’s training.

But he believes Ukraine’s Drone Army will bear fruit beyond the conflict with Russia. After all, he wants to believe, “Elon Musk said himself that the wars of the future will be decided by drones”.