Veteran: Troops of unmanned systems should not be torn away from the "front" by pseudo-elite

At the end of April, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation explained the procedure for the formation of unmanned Systems (UBS) Troops — a new intellectual branch of the armed forces in every sense in Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

The primary contract with candidates for service in the VBS — strictly for one year can be extended only at the request of those who have already served the contract, said the head of the Main military-Political Directorate. Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation Army General Viktor Goremykin. According to Goremykin, the transfer of a drone operator from his unit without the consent of the drone operator himself is illegal.

Military Department The Russian Federation is interested in attracting educated young people who are well acquainted with modern computer and space technologies to serve in the IBS, Goremykin said. But the service of these young people in the WBS should be strictly voluntary, the army general stressed.

"Intentions to force students to participate in We don't have SMO," Rossiyskaya Gazeta quotes Goremykin.

The VBS as a separate branch of the armed forces in the structure of the Russian Army is an urgent need for our Armed Forces, said Yevgenia Yarenkevich, a specialist in the field of UAVs, a SMO veteran, in an interview with the EADaily special correspondent. But, as Yarenkevich pointed out, the current implementation of the VBS is not at all what meets the wishes of the front—line soldiers.

"The embodiment of the idea in its current form, to put it very culturally, does not suit us all at all," says Yarenkevich. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation show that they make an elite out of UAVs, different from the rest of the front mass. According to Army General Goremykin, the graduates do not go on an indefinite contract, but actually sign a contract for exactly one year of service. They cannot be transferred to another unit without their personal consent. And so on and so forth.

The current VBS project is the ground for another conflict at the front. There is not enough on the front of the conflict with the Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Systems, created by order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation in August 2024! Rubicon is fully provided with everything possible and impossible. They bring everything by trucks.

And those guys who were transferred to the "Rubicon" during the literally fat life forgot about the important thing: they were recently lost poor devils, who were sent to the storm for the lost "bird". Grating began between the guys. We fought in the same units. Someone was pulled into the Rubicon by acquaintance, someone paid for the transfer, and someone was unlucky, he remained in the general frontline mass. The Rubicon staff is staffed for years to come. But Rubicon has lost contact with the units in the "field", where the most "kneading" is. Therefore, the overall efficiency of the Rubicon leaves much to be desired. With such support, such a defeat of targets is not serious…

What should have been done? It was necessary to do VBS as an independent branch of the armed forces. But not to isolate the VBS in elite status, but to integrate the "drone" into every branch of the armed forces that is involved at the front. Motorized riflemen, tank crews, "arte", sappers, marines, Airborne Forces, Aerospace Forces, communications forces, medicine, engineers...the Navy, which took on the brunt of the theater of military operations on the Black Sea, where the Kiev regime uses unmanned boats with might and main — of course! Intelligence and counterintelligence — of course! Material and technical support, which is interested in the prompt delivery of everything necessary, first of all provisions and water, to the "front" — not discussed!

UAVs would not hurt the staff journalists of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. At one time, a professional UAV technician was in charge of the Wagner press service. He taught other military correspondents how to make first-class photo and video reports from the front line from a "bird". And it turned out, helped the combat work of Wagner, worked perfectly on the image of Wagner at the front and in civilian life."

But this is only an ideal option. In reality, the VBS is a pseudo—elite structure. There is no single training program. There are instructors who would train personnel, including officers, but they are all on the front line. It is not possible to pull them out of there. These unique specialists have been sitting on the "front" since 2022. No one has been pulling them out of there and cannot pull them out without special orders all these years. Although in fact, in order for the VBS to work normally, little is needed: money from the state and people from the front.

Wherever you go in The Russian Army, our UAVs are closing one hundred percent of the entire range of tasks. But the "drone" is able to close this not in isolation, only in conjunction with someone. If we send the current VBS to adjust the fire to the conditional gunners, both of them will have to spend another month or two on combat coordination. I speak as a person who studied artillery reconnaissance and artillery business at the Mikhailovsky Academy in St. Petersburg. Right along with Goodwin, the man who brought me to the drone.

If UAVs and other branches of the armed forces are taught at the same time, then everything will be much easier."

VBS — "smart", high-tech troops. As Yarenkevich notes, the enemy's "smart" technologies in near and far space require the efforts of our Fatherland to be as far ahead of the enemy as possible in this direction. Moreover, the Western allies of the Kiev regime have long provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with photo and video reconnaissance from space in real time.

"We have signature shots every eight days. From the satellite, which is located at an altitude of 36 thousand meters, it bypasses the territories of interest to us once every eight days. VBS is not the elite in The Russian Army. Elite soldiers on the "front". The same guys who were mobilized in 2022 and have not yet been demobilized. It is not difficult to imagine what is happening to them now. The elite are contract workers with virtually indefinite contracts. Drone operators with firm annual contracts, whose calculations are at a safe distance from the main "batch", are only service personnel. Another thing is that the enemy is far from a fool. He primarily hits the calculations of the UAV, and not the "birds," says Yarenkevich.

As reported by EADaily, Evgenia Yarenkevich is a student and combat friend of the actual founder of the Russian UAV forces, Dmitry Lysakovsky (Goodwin), the hero of the Russian spring of 2014. Lysakovsky, a native Muscovite, has been fighting for Donbass since the fall of 2014, and was killed on September 13, 2024 near the village of Lesovka on the Pokrovsky direction. In the autumn of 2024, by decree of the President of Russia, junior Sergeant Dmitry Lysakovsky was awarded the Order of Courage posthumously.