A 17-Minute Documentary Is Sounding the Alarm on Drone Warfare — and What It Means for American Troops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAiFssbOJdE

A short film filmed on the front lines of Ukraine is delivering a warning that goes far beyond Eastern Europe. As U.S. troops engage in active combat operations against Iran, the lessons from Kherson may already be overdue.

"Drone Hunters of Kherson" runs just 17 minutes, but the message it carries is urgent. The documentary follows former Navy pilot Ken Harbaugh as he embeds with elite Ukrainian military units — the first American to do so with the 11th "M. Hrushevskyi" Brigade, the 34th Coastal Defense Brigade, and the 30th Marine Corps — to document a new kind of war that he describes as "a blend of trench warfare and the Terminator."

For most of the last century, artillery was the dominant force behind mass casualties on the battlefield. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that calculus has shifted. Drones — cheap, widely available, and increasingly lethal — have taken center stage.

Civilians in the Crosshairs

Russian forces have uploaded their own first-person view (FPV) drone footage to the internet, showing the moments these unmanned aircraft track and close in on human targets. What's striking, according to Harbaugh, is not just the technology — it's the intent.

"They're talking about hunting humans. They're talking about it as a kind of flex, and they post these images on Telegram, and they share them around. … It's not collateral damage. Civilians are the targets. Little old ladies walking back from the market with shopping bags under their arms. They're the targets."

The film shows Ukrainian counter-drone units patrolling on foot in the Kherson and Odessa regions, placing themselves physically between Russian drone operators and the civilians those drones are hunting. The reason those patrols must be on foot comes down to one specific technology: fiber optic drones.

Unlike radio-controlled drones, fiber optic drones run entirely through wire. They cannot be jammed. They produce no electromagnetic signature and cannot be detected by traditional means. As Harbaugh explained, the only way to stop them is with a human presence on the ground.

"So you have to have people between the drone operator and the civilian targets," Harbaugh said.

America Is Behind — and the Clock Is Ticking

Harbaugh made the documentary alongside former U.S. Representative Denver Riggleman, who serves as an executive producer. Both men came away from their time in Ukraine with a sobering assessment of American readiness.

"We don't have an answer for it. The public is barely even aware of the threat. They know what drones are, but they do not know about their offensive capabilities and just how cheap and ubiquitous they are and how easily they can be turned into weapons."

Part of the problem, they argue, is the speed at which modern drone warfare evolves compared to the pace of U.S. military procurement. Harbaugh described witnessing what he called a "compressed innovation cycle" on the Ukrainian front lines — one that looks nothing like the American defense acquisition process.

"I have seen the innovation cycle at the front in Ukraine occur in a matter — I'm not exaggerating — of hours, and I've seen triggering mechanisms for warheads that are about to be fitted to the next day's drones being based on the next day's targets."

He went on to draw a direct contrast with how the U.S. military operates.

"That kind of innovation, which takes hours or days in Ukraine, literally takes years in the United States when you go through the procurement process, the design iterations and all the various approvals … unless we adopt some of the Ukrainian approach to innovation, we're never going to be able to adapt to a battlefield that changes by the day. We cannot have an innovation system that operates in timescales of years and decades responding to a battlefield that changes by the day."

Riggleman echoed that concern, noting that even the world's largest defense budget hasn't kept pace with the speed of this threat.

"Even with the biggest military budget in the world, we're trying to catch up."

The Warning Hits Home

The documentary was filmed last fall, but its release comes at a particularly pointed moment. The United States is now in its second month of combat operations against Iran. Since the U.S. and Israel launched their joint offensive, known as Operation Epic Fury, on Feb. 28, 13 American service members have been killed and nearly 300 wounded.

Just last Friday, an Iranian missile and drone attack struck Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, injuring a dozen U.S. troops — two of them seriously.

For Riggleman, the early losses in that conflict speak directly to the film's central argument.

"I think the lack of preparedness was evident that the first U.S. service members killed was by a Shahed [drone]. When you're looking at drone warfare, we should have been well ahead of the curve with a U.S. military the might that we have, and instead, we're at the mercy of countries that had to adapt in real time in a wartime environment."

The situation in Ukraine offers a window into what that real-time adaptation looks like on the ground. Soldiers live and fight in underground positions reminiscent of World War I trenches, even as advanced drone technology buzzes overhead. As Riggleman put it:

"You have people underground living like [it's] 1916, while you have fiber optic and radio-controlled drones buzzing around."

And when it comes to actually stopping those drones, the solutions remain frustratingly low-tech — and imprecise.

"The best way right now to shoot down drones is with a Kalashnikov … or with a .50 cal. I actually got to do that training, and even in a simulated environment, I was lucky to get 20 to 30%. These guys [have] got to be on target every time."

Ukraine, the documentary argues, is the proving ground for 21st century warfare. What happens there — and how quickly the U.S. chooses to learn from it — may determine how prepared American forces are the next time drones fill the sky.