
Deadly, elite, and scaling — inside Russia’s Rubikon front-line drone system
Russia has centralized volunteer drone units like Rubikon into a professional system that is eroding Ukraine’s early edge in UAV warfare and threatening its front lines.

Kollen Post is the defense industry reporter at the Kyiv Independent. Based in Kyiv, he covers weapons production and defense tech. Originally from western Michigan, he speaks Russian and Ukrainian. His work has appeared in Radio Free Europe, Fortune, Breaking Defense, the Cipher Brief, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, FT’s Sifted, and Science Magazine. He holds a BA from Vanderbilt University.


















