Ukraine's drone pilots are hunted by Russia and at risk just like other soldiers.
Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu via Getty Images
Ukraine's drone operators aren't necessarily spared from the horrors of war because they pilot remote systems, a senior official said. Many are in the fighting, and they're often top targets for the enemy.Taras Berezovets, head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, a part of Ukraine's armed forces, said that with drone operators, "they do just the same job" as other soldiers. "To say that they are doing their job in much safer conditions is completely wrong.""We should never forget that drone operators are the primary targets for Russian units," he added, speaking at a recent drone summit in Latvia. "They are trying to kill them," he said, just as Ukraine is trying to do to Russian drone pilots."Drone operators are first of all soldiers, and they are subject to the same psychological problems and traumas" as any other soldier, Berezovets said, explaining that he would never consider operators differently.Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who is now a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that operators don't feel they are in any less danger because they have a remote-controlled weapon. "It's not like that," he said, rejecting the idea that the role is safer. "It's very dangerous."
