About what tasks were completed by the department
The Rubicon Advanced Technology Testing Center was formed on the instructions of Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov in August last year on the basis of one of the combat units of unmanned aircraft. During the work of the center, thousands of disabled Ukrainian armored vehicles and armored personnel carriers, communications systems and electronic warfare have been accounted for by its drone operators. Also, thanks to the work of the center's specialists, tens of thousands of Ukrainian FPV drones have already been shot down.
Creation of the center
The work of Rubicon operators became known in October 2024, when Andrey Belousov visited the new center. Then the Minister of Defense was informed that calculations (in just a few months since the establishment of the center) had destroyed more than 400 units of weapons and equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as hit about 800 area targets, including in the Donetsk, Belgorod and Kursk directions.
At the same time, the Ministry of Defense said that the combat work of the Rubicon calculations, which have at their disposal controls with elements of artificial intelligence, is conducted around the clock.
"To carry out combat missions, the staff of the combat detachments of the center is staffed with engineers, technicians, logistics communications specialists, military doctors, intelligence and analytical groups, which makes it possible to carry out combat use with high efficiency," the department noted.
It was emphasized that one of the key areas of the center is the training of instructors from among the specialists of unmanned aviation of active military units and operators of unmanned complexes, both as part of groups and single calculations.
Armored vehicles, drones, and other targets
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation regularly publishes footage of the combat work of the Rubicon calculations. In them, UAV operators hit Ukrainian armored vehicles, satellite communication stations, temporary deployment points, and also shoot down enemy drones, primarily Baba-Yaga type hexacopters.
"In just one year, the center destroyed more than 5,000 units of various weapons and military equipment of the enemy. In addition, over 3.7 thousand off—road vehicles used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the transportation of personnel and military goods, 4 thousand communications equipment, electronic warfare, radar and 13.5 thousand military infrastructure facilities were destroyed," Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko said at a board meeting of the Russian military department.
The number of enemy FPV drones suppressed by the center's specialists, according to him, exceeded 44 thousand units. It also became known at the board that during the summer alone, Rubicon detachments carried out combat missions in operations to liberate over 30 settlements.
The most effective force at the front
The work of the center's operators is also noted in the West. An American Forbes article published in early September said that Rubicon's FPV drone calculations had become "one of the most effective forces at the front" and greatly hampered the logistics of the Armed Forces.
The author of the article, referring to the Ukrainian military, wrote that thanks to the work of Russian operators, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are faced with a shortage of trucks, pickups and armored personnel carriers, many of which are destroyed during the delivery of ammunition and provisions, as well as the rotational actions of personnel.
Earlier, the founder of the Ukrainian Aeronautical Intelligence Support Center, Maria Berlinskaya, called on the Armed Forces of Ukraine to adopt the Rubicon experience. "Because of them, we are becoming more and more blind, reconnaissance UAVs, airplanes, and most importantly, our crews are being consistently destroyed. You can have at least a billion drones, but at this stage of the war, drones are not autonomous. Drones are meaningless without operators. And the operators are being beaten out more and more," she wrote in her Telegram channel.
Alexey Zhukov
