Inside the Disbandment of Ukraine’s Most Effective Drone Unit — and the Power Struggle Behind It

Right now the servicemen of Ukraine’s most effective drone unit are handing over personal property, service vehicles, and are taking unmanned aircraft out into the open — over 100 of them worth more than $1 million.

Disbandment of an Effective Drone Unit Exposes Deep Internal Conflicts in Ukraine’s Military

Yesterday they turned in weapons and ammunition. Today or tomorrow they’ll begin sending highly skilled drone operators, programmers, electronics technicians, and analysts to various units of the State Border Guard Service to continue serving as riflemen. This was reported by Yuriy Kasyanov.

In all the time I’ve served in the army, since 1986, I’ve never seen the military machine work so quickly. And it’s simply horrifying — the destruction of an effective combat unit during such a brutal war.

They tell me from above that all this is happening because I “got involved in politics.” That’s not true — there is zero politics here. This is about personal grievances and personal financial interests. Big money.

Let me remind you: our troubles began a year ago with an unsuccessful, hype-driven headline attached to my interview by journalists. The interview was purely technical, about “rocket-drones,” without any politics.

After that headline was published, they wanted to disband us, to eliminate us, despite all our combat successes. They didn’t disband us, but they “blocked” us — they didn’t appoint people to positions, didn’t confer ranks, didn’t sign combat orders, and didn’t fund the purchase of components for drones.

I didn’t give interviews for a whole year and spent the year trying to negotiate with the command, representatives of the president’s office, ministers and a member of parliament to “unblock” us and allow us to fight normally. Of course we fought, but not as well as we could have.

A year passed, and I began actively writing and speaking about our problems — because I had had enough. If someone wants to just “sit out the war,” that’s not us — many of us have been fighting since 2014; we volunteered to defend Ukraine. I wrote and spoke about our problems, about the monopolization of the market by the company Fire Point.

That’s why they’re disbanding us now. They’re destroying a unit that had high combat effectiveness, one we created ourselves; we designed the drones ourselves and invested our labor and resources into the unit.

I call on the president of Ukraine, Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy: stop this nightmare!

We are in the same boat with you, at least until the end of the war; we went to fight not at your order but at the call of our hearts. We are not involved in politics and are not making money from the war. We are one of you, Ukrainians; we should not be liquidated like an enemy unit.

Help us, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych! You are the guarantor of the Constitution and citizens’ constitutional rights, and we ask for only one right and duty — to defend our country.

EMPR