Drone development is now official across the conflict ecosystem, from militaries to militias. The HTS’s Al-Shaheen (Falcon) Brigade, which reports directly to now-president Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, specialises in the “production, manufacturing and development of advanced drones and weapons”.

In February 2024, the Ukraine government established the Unmanned Systems Forces, the world’s first branch of a military dedicated to drone warfare.

The research focus is now on repurposable drones, small drones, drone swarms, and the cost benefit. Ukraine’s sub-$400, explosive-packed FPV quadcopters inspired by racing drones square off against Russia’s Iranian-made $20,000-100,000 Geran-2 drones (essentially, Shahed-136/131s).

Ukraine can afford to toss buckets of them at Russia, as it did in May 2025, using 524 drones to disrupt 350 commercial flights across Russia; Russia has thrown 10,000 Shaheds at Ukraine since 2022. So Ukraine can afford to lose an estimated 50-80 percent of its deployed drones; but Russia is financially crimped by a 50 percent loss. Drones are now all about the money.

In the recent India-Pakistan duel, Pakistan lobbed 300-400 low-cost drones at India like confetti, testing India’s defences and perimeters. India says it intercepted 90 percent of them, while Pakistan claims it shot down 25-77 Indian drones.

The wild figures suggest that, in typical war scenarios, drone launches and casualties are difficult to estimate for now. But this much is true: Pakistan’s Turkish-made Asisguard Songar and NESCOM Burraq drones, the latter based on the Chinese CH-3A, are far less expensive than India’s IAI Harop and Heron Mark-2.

Pakistani quadcopters were used in small swarms. India used targeted and loitering drones that were not in packs. The countries had different intentions, and their drones had differing utility.

As everywhere, the competition is as much between rival entities as it is between two arms of a single technology.

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