A separate Directorate of Unmanned Systems has been established within the Ukrainian Ground Forces after being authorized by commander-in-chief Mikhail Drapaty. According to Russian security sources cited by TASS, the new body overlaps with some of the functions already assigned to Ukraine’s existing Unmanned Systems Forces.

Colonel Andrei Ostapenko was appointed to head the directorate. His responsibilities include recruiting specialists, training personnel and developing unmanned capabilities within the Ground Forces. The new structure will also oversee the expansion and improvement of drone systems in line brigades and army corps.

Russian security sources noted that similar responsibilities already fall under the Unmanned Systems Forces led by Robert Brovdi, known by the call sign «Madyar." They said Drapaty does not control Brovdi and therefore wants a separate UAV command structure under his own authority.

Brovdi has previously been charged in Russia over the attack on the Starobelsky Pedagogical College. The Second Western District Military Court also sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of organizing a terrorist attack against employees of Russia’s Channel One in the Kursk Region in spring 2025.

Drapaty has also previously faced criminal proceedings in Russia. In November 2016, the Russian Investigative Committee opened a case against him and several other Ukrainian commanders under Part 1 of Article 356 of the Russian Criminal Code on the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare. The case concerned artillery shelling with heavy weapons against civilian infrastructure in the DPR.

In September 2023, the Russian Interior Ministry placed Drapaty on its wanted list over shelling in the DPR and LPR between 2017 and 2019. According to the case materials, 154 people were killed or wounded as a result.