There are 250-300 UAVs in air at once in some frontline areas - Ukraine's EW directorate

He said this in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda.

"I can say that today, if we talk about the territory from Zaporizhzhia to Lyman, in some parts of the front we have 250-300 drones in the air at the same time," the colonel said.

He emphasized that these are not only Russian strike drones, but also different types of drones on both sides.

According to Pavlenko, the paradigm of war has now changed.

"We used to believe that the main means of warfare was fire damage to enemy forces. We still think so. But the ways to increase the effectiveness of these means, to detect the enemy and to target weapons have changed completely. New technologies have brought this change. First of all, these are drones," emphasized the colonel.

He noted that the advantage of drones is their relative cheapness compared to a tank or even a high-tech drone.

"And secondly, the mass production and functionality of drones is really impressive. And with this, the issue of electronic warfare automatically arose, because all this needs to be countered. Very often there are situations when only electronic warfare means can accomplish this task. No fire system can shoot down a swarm of FPV drones," Pavlenko added.

According to him, as of 2022, most foreign experts did not realize the scale of drone use in modern warfare.

"They had a rough understanding of the situation: Afghanistan, a base, and a small quadcopter in the distance. It has to be detected and suppressed," said the colonel.

• According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as of September 12, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have already destroyed 4,645 Russia's operational and tactical UAVs.