About us

The idea for UA Drone Group came about in a kitchen in Kharkiv, Ukraine in April 2023.

As many of us, trying to help Ukraine, we were a group of Ukrainian, American, Australian, Canadian, and British preparing food for soldiers and displaced people during russia's invasion of Ukraine starting in 2022.  Many of us came to Ukraine without a clear vision of what to do, but rather a passion and feeling that something had to be done.

Those with military experience had joined the legion. Those without made food, or camo-nets.

One night we were gathered in the home of one of the volunteers in Kharkiv for a weekly dinner we used to share together when we started talking to a couple volunteer soldiers from the west about their experience.

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One of those soldiers was Gypsy, one of the two founders of this group. The other was Brad, also known as Switchback. Brad was a renowned sniper from Canada who came after the invasion to support Ukraine as a soldier.  We were very curious about his experience and started chatting.

He told us that he was in a defensive position near Kupyansk, holding the line. Every week he would go on mission to a small bombed out village and stay in the last remaining house for around 72 hours.  He would bring 1.5 litres of water. Some food he mostly wouldn't bother eating. His rifle, some ammunition, sleeping materials, and that was about it.  The first question was why the supplies seemed so sparse.  From the news of America and Europe supporting Ukraine, we assumed every soldier was well-kitted, unfortunately it wasn't so, especially for foreign volunteers.  In my eyes, what he was doing made Brad a hero, but he was largely unappreciated.

He told us how, in this one remaining village house, he would defend the position every day as listen to oncoming artillery, getting a feel for which shellings were likely to land near by by the sound of their whistling through the wind.  Often enemy soldiers would try to advance across the grey zone field and they would shoot them one by one. their bodies would lay there for weeks, often becoming food for stray dogs.

The main problem that Switchback and his companions had was a tank.  The tank was positioned behind a hill only a few hundred meters away.  Everyday this tank would drive up on to the top of the hill, volley several rounds at the house Switchback was defending, and then roll back down to its protection behind the hill.

I was very confused when i heard this, "don't you have anything to shoot the tank with?"

"Like what?"

"I thought you guys all had javelins"

"Those types of weapons all go to elite ukrainian units, all we are given is a rifle"
The thought of Brad and Gypsy camped out on the front line with nothing but a rifle against a russian tank greatly disturbed me.  It was at that moment that i decided something had to be done. We promised that when we returned from the kitchen in Kharkiv back to our day jobs in Europe and AMerica we would all band together and buy Gypsy a Mavic 3 Drone. And that is how drone group started.

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After the first Mavic, with our friends we decided to start a chat group and each pitch in several dollars each week or month to buy drone for other units we were personally in contact with as well. As the chat expanded and more people joined, we continued buying Mavics and REB, we eventually moved on to building our own FPVs.

All of the drones we have been able to provide are thanks to small donations from our several UA Drone Group "Groupies".