Dnipro had a thriving underground nightlife and club scene. Now the that scene has been forced to go high above ground to explore the cutting edge of UAV warfare.

Oct. 11, 2025

They were DJs, venue managers, and marketing leaders, people whose lives revolved around late night and loud music in the creative underground of Dnipro. When Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, many of them did not flee or simply switch to relief work.

Instead, they turned the same creativity that once filled dance floors of Dnipro into a new weapon of war – swapping beats for bombs, and clubs for drones aimed at Russian supply lines.

At first much of it was improvisation. They were buying batteries, sending off consumer drones, and organizing benefit concerts. But the effort quickly hardened into a professionalized campaign.

Turntables became tablets for piloting, party flyers became logistics manifests, and playlists became flight plans for strikes deep into enemy lines. This is no ordinary war as Ukraine has relied on the ingenuity and resourcefulness of its people to survive and adapt.

“You don’t need a military background to make a difference,” said Heorhii Volkov, 38, a former marketer and electronic-music promoter who now commands the Yasni Ochi drone strike unit inside the 13th Khartiia Brigade. “I began working with drones Feb. 25, 2022 – the day after the invasion. At first we were volunteers. By early 2023 my team joined the 23rd Brigade to build its aerial reconnaissance capability.”

Heorhii Volkov, the commander of Yasni Ochi (“Clear Eyes”), a drone unit with the 13th Khartiia Brigade. (Photo by David Kirichenko)

Yevhen Honcharov, a drone pilot who co-founded Module, a well-known underground venue in Dnipro, described how its social fabric translated into wartime resilience. “Before the full-scale invasion, I was the owner of a nightclub and concert venue called Module,” he said.

Yevhen Honcharov, co-founder of the Module underground venue in Dnipro, now serves as a drone pilot with the Yasni Ochi unit. (Photo by David Kirichenko)

The club closed two months before the war when a major Dnipro oligarch, Vadym Iermolaiev, bought the land and forced them out. “But around that club we had built a big community – volunteers and military people alike.”

That network quickly mobilized. “Many of our residents, DJs, bartenders, even my co-founder, went to the front,” Yevhen said.

“Those of us who stayed behind began actively helping: collecting supplies, buying Mavics and other drones, protective gear – everything we could get in the first days. We even organized concerts and events to raise money for the military.”

The unit’s engineering backbone is Serhii. Before the war he was both a DJ, including at the famed Module club, and software developer, but today he serves as Yasni Ochi’s main engineer. In the early weeks of the invasion, he helped organize cyberattacks against Russian websites before turning to 3D-printing mounts that converted consumer drones into simple bombers.

Now Serhii is central to the unit’s technical growth, training thousands of Ukrainian defenders and driving new designs that extend the range and accuracy of their drones.

For Yevhen, the transition was not just logistical but psychological. “Earlier, when rockets twice destroyed my apartment, I felt fear and anxiety,” he said. “Now explosions hardly affect me. War hardens you. You accept that at any moment you might be killed or injured. You stop worrying about it and just focus on doing your job.”

That mix of civilian agility and battlefield urgency has pushed Ukrainian teams well beyond reconnaissance.

In some areas, drones now carry out a significant share of strikes, supplementing or replacing artillery when ammunition is scarce. But limits remain – range, weather, payload, enemy countermeasures – and the work is dangerous.

Volkov, who previously served with the 23rd Separate Mechanized Brigade, recalled the 2023 counteroffensive. “In our sector we achieved the deepest penetration of Russian lines compared to neighboring units,” he said. “Mathematically we had strong results, but the overall counteroffensive fell short of the dramatic breakthroughs of earlier operations like the 2022 Izyum offensive.”

Member of the Yasni Ochi drone unit oversee a long-range drone bombing mission against Russian targets in the Kharkiv sector. (Photo by David Kirichenko)

The shortcomings, he argued, were complex: “We only had about four months to recruit and train our brigade. Offensive operations are far more demanding than defensive ones.”

Technical limits also weigh heavily. “Most strike drones we use reliably operate in the 20- to 30-kilometer band,” Volkov said. Anything beyond that is feasible only in ideal conditions. Strong headwinds, for example, can prevent a drone from reaching its target.

Even so, the payoff was clear. “We were attacking their entire logistical chain – the trucks moving shells and crews, the people providing air-defense cover – not just the gun itself. Artillery can only work if all of its supporting pieces work.”

Yasni Ochi used newer drones that now combine advanced communications with AI-assisted targeting, allowing them to lock onto vehicles and strike deep into Russian logistics chains even when connections are degraded. They are increasingly hitting deeper into Russia with the tech.

Ukraine’s decentralized drone ecosystem has been both a strength and a friction point. Volkov praised its innovation but warned that duplication and delays can sap efficiency. “We need more decisive top-down coordination,” he said. “Clear standards, better integration of designs, and less time lost to commercial competition.”

For the men who made this transformation, the goals remain pragmatic. “My primary mission is clear: bring my people home alive,” Volkov said. “Success means not only accomplishing objectives but ensuring as many of my soldiers as possible remain safe and healthy.”

Those who came from the creative world also dream of returning to it. “After the war, I want to return to culture,” Yevhen said. “Dnipro is a city of a million but loses people because there’s little to do beyond work. One of my missions was to create cultural spaces so people could grow and spend free time meaningfully.”

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/61521