New technologies are allowing Ukrainian drone operators (who are high-priority targets) to control drones from relatively safer locations hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. But human soldiers often still have to go to dangerous places to transport, prepare and launch these aircraft.

Operators of Ukrainian interceptor drones and other unmanned aerial systems are increasingly using satellite connections that allow them to operate far from the launch site, potentially even from another country. The creators describe these capabilities as a key way to protect pilots in Russia’s crosshairs.

However, it is often still necessary to get the aircraft to a launch site and prepare it, meaning soldiers are still needed closer to danger, at least for now.

Ukrainian drone maker Wild Hornets, for example, has developed technology that allows pilots to fly the company’s interceptor drones from hundreds of kilometers away. However, the company told Business Insider that ground forces are still transporting and preparing the plane.

With satellite communications technology for combat drone operations, “we can place our pilots anywhere when there is a stable Internet connection for them,” Dmytro “Liber” Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who now serves as a lessons learned analyst at Ukraine’s 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment “RAID,” told Business Insider.

“But this doesn’t eliminate the need for ground groups, people who actually plant the explosive, place the drone outside the bunker, etc.,” he said.

Remote piloting removes the operator from the launch point, but not necessarily the rest of the support team. Troops may still need to transport the drones, unload and assemble them, place explosives and communications equipment, and position them for launch. Efforts are underway to leverage other unmanned systems, such as ground robots, to launch interceptors and first-person view drones, but these robotic motherships are not yet ubiquitous on the front lines.

New technology is moving some people to safer places, but protecting everyone involved in a drone operation by keeping them away from the fighting is “impossible so far,” Zhluktenko said.

Trying to get troops out of danger

Ukraine is doing everything it can to keep as many soldiers as safe as possible, but there are limitations. Forces are still needed on the front lines for a variety of missions, even as robotic systems become increasingly prolific.

In more traditional missions with drones controlled by radio frequency connections, operators generally need to stay closer to their drones. But units are trying, when possible, to move “our drone operators further away to give them more security,” Zhluktenko said.

They do so “even if it is at the expense of our capabilities, because these are our people and we value them very much.”

“The first principle, the first rule, is their safety, but it’s a very difficult balance. We want to keep them extremely safe, but at the same time, there’s work to do. So it’s a very, very difficult balance.”

Keeping drone operators safe is critical for Ukraine because Russia often treats them as prime targets, according to soldiers, drone operators and military officials.

Ukrainian drones destroy more Russian targets than any other weapon and the pilots are force multipliers. An operator can conduct repeated missions to gather intelligence and launch attacks.

That makes technology that separates pilots from launch sites particularly valuable.

Then-Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in April that “the pilot is no longer tied to the position. The drone is in the sky, while control is carried out from a protected environment in kyiv, Lviv or even abroad.”

“This increases the effectiveness of interception, minimizes risks for operators and allows capabilities to be expanded without being tied to the front,” he said.

Ukraine is investing heavily in technology designed to keep its soldiers further out of intense fighting, including drones, ground robots, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems that allow weapons to detect, target and attack with little or no human involvement.

Ukraine wants to replace certain human tasks, such as front-line logistics, with fully robotic systems, both to protect lives and to offset Russia’s advantage in manpower.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has said, for example, that “the main task of ground robots is to reinforce our units and replace soldiers in the most dangerous areas.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made that goal explicit in April when he said Ukraine’s ground robot force had carried out more than 22,000 front-line missions over the previous three months.

That meant “lives were saved more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a warrior,” he said.

Then-commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said in October that Ukraine was prioritizing “high-tech systems that will help reduce the presence of soldiers directly on the battlefield.”

Ukraine’s ultimate goal is “to have fewer people on the direct battlefield and at direct risk,” Zhluktenko said. At least for now, humans are still in the mix. It’s not all-out robotic warfare.