Striking Beyond The Grey Zone

Quadcopter FPVs dominate the so-called “grey zone” around the front line, and have made conventional battlefield logistics impossible. Back in 2023, the small drones started destroying any truck or van within several miles of the front, often in high-speed chases. Now resupply is by motorbike, ground robot or drone or in the case of Russia, carried on the backs of unfortunate soldiers known as camels.

Out of the range of the FPVs the situation was more normal. Vehicles and fuel and ammunition dumps suffered only occasional attacked by long-range, fixed wing drones like the Bulava which can reach 40 miles or more.

This changed with the coming of the “Martians. “

“The drone flies at low altitudes (around 200 m) along our transport routes, then locks on to the target and strikes,” according to Russian milblogger Hammer of the Witches who inspected one such drone. “This is an extremely dangerous drone—it's difficult to hear, undetectable by detectors, flies deep into our rear, and is resistant to electronic warfare."

The “Martian” nickname comes from the Russian belief that the drone uses navigation technology developed by NASA for Mars missions. Rather than finding its way by GPS, the drone uses visual navigation, matching terrain features to an internal map. This means that GPS jamming, which can stop other drones, is useless.

Hammer notes that the drone is fitted with American Qualcomm chips and is "very well assembled, this is evident even from the cables used... Overall, this indicates either that the drone was assembled in the West, or that the enemy has significantly improved the quality of drone production."

The drone has an AI-enabled vision system to lock on to a target. High-quality optics identify and track targets from long range.

While Russian fuses tend to be unreliable, with many images of unexploded drones left after attacks, the Martian reliability is said to be “nearly 100%” leaving very few to be examined.

But the biggest technological innovation is the Martian’s communication system. The Russians say that it has a digital modem which hides its communications in civilian Wi-Fi traffic at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, using a non-standard encrypted signal. This suggests that it is using chaos encryption or similar method to make the signal invisible against other Wi-Fi activity. The Russians believe the drones use a mesh radio, so each Martian acts as a relay for other drones, creating a covert communications network behind Russian lines.

The end result is a drone which cannot be detected, cannot be jammed, and can reliably find and hit moving targets. Shooting them down is difficult even with massed small arms; Hammer says the only Yolka interceptor drones offer significant protection. But they note that the Yolka’s target tracking only works in ideal conditions and the hunter can become the hunted:

“In bad weather, its auto-lock may fail, in which case the Hornet can attack the Yolka operator,” says Hammer. “Unfortunately, such situations are not uncommon.”

And of course, interceptors like Yolka are only found at the front line. Trucks fifty miles away are unprotected.

Martian Unmasked

Ukrainian media identify Martian as the Hornet drone made by Swift Beat, under what was Project Eagle and now appears to be Perennial Autonomy, previously known as White Stork. This is an outfit set up by Eric Schmidt, formerly of Google.

In 2023 Schmidt wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal “The Future of War Has Come in Ukraine: Drone Swarms” saying how that large numbers of low-cost drones were transforming warfare, stating “The future of war will be dictated and waged by drones.” Schmidt noted how much impact drones had already made in the Ukraine conflict and described it as “a stark warning of the future wars to come,” highlighting the need for all nations to start preparing for the drone future.

Schmidt did not just talk big. He set up the privately-funded company in 2023, and in July 2025 signed a deal with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense to supply “hundreds of thousands” drones at cost price. These include interceptors and the Hornet attack drones, and production is now clearly ramping up. The company also supplies hardware to the U.S military.

No official details have been released of the Hornet. However, Ukrainian sources suggest that the drone has a seven-foot wingspan and cruises at around 60 mph. The cost for the basic version is said to be around $6,000, up to double that for more advanced versions, which presumably sport better communications, sensors and AI.

Footage released of attacks from the Ukrainian side confirms that the Hornet has an unusual user interface and seems able to lock on to targets from long range. It might even lock on to a specific part of a vehicle like a wheel or fuel tank.

Its range is unknown but is clearly over 80 miles, as there are many images of burning trucks at this distance. The range of the drone is a particular concern in occupied Crimea. Russia has captured a corridor of land so the area can be supplied without using the precarious Kerch Bridge. But the Hornets can reach all the way across that corridor, hitting anything on the roads.

The Age Of Road Cutter Drones

“The land route to Crimea increasingly resembles the roads in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The remains of destroyed vehicles are scattered along the sides of the road. The enemy is disrupting the supply with drones,” writes Russian milblogger Maxim Kalishnikov, quoted by Preston Stewart on X.

Images of destroyed vehicles support this narrative.

“The situation in the low-altitude airspace is getting worse and worse for us every day,” writes another. “The problem is with the "Martian" and its ilk…. [these drones] are almost impossible to detect and sometimes even to see… In a split second you're already on fire.”

They compare the situation to a couple of years ago when Russia gained the upper hand by deploying jam-proof fiber optic drones at scale ahead of Ukraine, enabling them to re-take Kursk.

“Now the situation is the same, but exactly the opposite. The advantage is on the side of the Ukrainians.”

Another Russian blogger quoted by OSINT analyst TT_125 notes that highway R-150 is currently paralyzed due to Hornets. They say that there has been some success with jamming Wi-Fi frequencies, but even this is useless if the Hornet has already locked on to a target, or if it has a Starlink terminal.

“But the worst thing in this whole situation …ALL the work of the Hornets will be analyzed by neural networks, and within half a year or a year, we are very likely to face fully automated Hornets or other drones that EW will not be able to suppress. The drone will simply arrive in a certain zone and then circle around until it chooses a target that the neural network selects for it as a priority.”

This hints at a significant shift in warfare ahead. Even if front-line units can be completely supplied with jammers, lasers, interceptors, computer-controlled, radar-guided guns or other counter-drone weaponry, the logistics behind them is wide open. Unless every truck can be equally well protected, units at the front will be quickly starved of fuel, ammunition and other supplies.

Destroying tanks 10 miles away may turn out to be less important than destroying trucks 100 miles away. And, as the Russians note, the drones are fast getting more capable.

This week saw a new twist: a balloon launch system for Hornets which carries the drones on the convenient prevailing easterly winds and can increase range by a factor of two or more.

Schmidt’s vision of a war dominated by small, low-cost drones may have looked extreme in 2023. Three years on it is starting to look prophetic.