Just how many Ukrainians are pilots flying drones in combat against Russia?Figures are imprecise but they are impressive. According to official Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) statements, total service personnel participating in drone operations one way or another is about 80,000 men and women. The number of trained pilots is not made public.The best-documented (and most effective) subset of those troops, Ukraine’s elite Unmanned Systems Forces [Сили безпілотних систем (literally, Force of Pilotless Systems) Збройних Сил України (Armed Forces of Ukraine), or SBS of the AFU], currently number about 15,000 personnel. Pilot counts are classified but, current SBS recruiting offers roughly one pilot slot to every two non-flying job slots.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.But besides pilots flying for the SBS, the AFU fields dedicated drone units in more than one hundred maneuver brigades and close to five hundred maneuver battalions and regiments.In interviews, Ukrainian pilots and drone unit commanders told Kyiv Post that that the number of first-line Ukrainian drone pilots, counting all service branches, flying robot aircraft in combat against Russia certainly number in the tens of thousands. Estimates by those operators ranged from 25,000-40,000 active drone operators/pilots.By comparison, the entire Italian Air Force – pilots, weathermen, mechanics, cooks, carabinieri, and generals and adjutants inclusive – numbers about 35,000-43,000 service personnel and around 1,500 pilots.