Taking out a Russian soldier costs twice as much as hitting the Kremlin's infrastructure, Ukraine says

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A Ukrainian soldier tinkers with a fixed wing attack drone.

Ukraine has calculated the average cost of its drone strike missions against Russia, and killing or wounding personnel ranks at the top.

The Ukrainian defense ministry said on Monday that, in June, striking a Russian serviceman cost its forces $3,032.

Attacking one piece of Russian equipment cost $2,674, while hitting an infrastructure facility cost $1,487 — less than half the price of striking a soldier, per ministry figures.

The announced cost comes as Ukraine has pursued making its drone attacks more cost-effective over the years. In 2024, Ukrainian troops said they spent about $20,000 on drones to kill one Russian soldier.

Western estimates say Ukraine kills or wounds about 30,000 Russian soldiers a month.

The ministry said its data was gathered from its Mission Control system, a digital command-and-control program launched in January that analyzes missions carried out by its drone forces.

Kyiv says that the system collects over 230,000 reports each week, with more than 50,000 missions logged so far.

"Mission Control made it possible not only to plan and record missions, but also to assess their economic efficiency," the ministry said on Monday. "For example, in June, every dollar spent by the Defense Forces on strikes inflicted nearly five dollars' worth of losses on Russia."

Meanwhile, the ministry estimates that it costs Russia about $65,000 to sustain one service member.

"In every category, the enemy incurs costs several times greater than ours," it added.

The system is all part of Ukraine's effort to digitalize its fragmented, paper-based command process and give commanders a synced-up operational overview of the war.

Mission Control is a module in DELTA, the country's digital battlefield management system that collects data from Ukrainian drones, frontline reports, and satellite intelligence. DELTA typically accepts records of a successful hit only if they're backed by video evidence; the defense ministry has said the system handles over 75,000 streams a day.

Kyiv said on Monday that the Mission Control lets drone teams log the cost of the weapons used in each strike, as well as the cost of the Russian equipment they damage or destroy.

"This enables rapid adaptation to changing conditions on the front line," it added.

Last month, Ukraine said its forces used DELTA to record 6,600 drone strikes a day in June, or roughly 200,000 drone strikes for that month.

Matthew is a senior reporter at Business Insider's Singapore bureau, primarily covering defense and how the war in Ukraine is rapidly changing battle technology and tactics.He joined the team in June 2021, previously focusing on internet crime and labor, examining how these issues impact modern society in Asia, with a particular emphasis on China.In 2024, he won the Singapore Press Club's Young Journalist of the Year Award. His work from 2023 also won a silver award from the North American Travel Journalists Association and accolades from Longreads.Matthew's previous work has been featured in the South China Morning Post, as well as Singaporean news companies TODAY and The Business Times.As a student, Matthew's coverage of migrant workers' nutrition in Singapore during the COVID pandemic won the SOAP Story of the Month award and the Student Category prize in the International Labor Organization's 2021 Global Media Competition on Labour Migration.Selected features: