In Ukraine, civilians donate their spare cash — and watch it turn into $40 million strikes against Russia

Editor’s note: This story features several interviewees who requested to be identified only by their first name or call sign for their safety.

Every few weeks, Ukrainian bridal shop owner Ilia scrapes together a donation — usually no more than $7.

“If I had any doubts about how my money is being used, I wouldn’t give it,” said the grizzled 33-year-old, who is exempt from military service because he is blind in one eye.

Much of that money goes to the Sternenko Foundation, a prominent volunteer group that uses civilian donations to equip Ukrainian defenders with thousands of attack drones. The foundation runs regular online fundraisers, spreading the word on Telegram to Ukrainians like Ilia.

He’s one of the hundreds of thousands contributing to Ukraine’s extraordinary crowdfunding of its embattled military, which has become a key pillar of the war effort. With Ukrainian forces strapped for resources, crowdfunders domestically and globally raise money for anything Kyiv’s Western allies don’t usually provide, from civilian trucks and defensive drone nets to tourniquets and electric generators.

The Sternenko Foundation, run by Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko, specializes in fundraising for first-person-view drones, the most widely used weapon on Ukraine’s battlefield. The group has gained renown among soldiers for providing drones with rapidly updating software and designs. Some pilots say they vastly outperform the drones supplied by Ukraine’s government.

Ilia, like thousands of other donors, sends his money through the foundation’s website — then watches the results on Telegram. Units receiving drones from Sternenko post videos of battlefield hits, mixing heavy metal soundtrack with footage of their drones blasting into infantry troops and artillery.

For Ilia, the crowdfunding movement is turning his pocket change into real combat power that he can witness.

It’s a remarkably cost-effective formula in the age of modern war. The Sternenko Foundation typically aims to raise $250,000 per day, and its recipients say they are inflicting damage to Russian military hardware that collectively reaches into the billions of dollars over the last three years. As is the norm, they back up most hits with videos.

A famed beneficiary of the fund, the Ronin drone unit of the 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade in Zaporizhzhia, touts perhaps one of the war’s most audacious examples of asymmetric warfare.

Ronin pilots said in January that they had used a 10-inch FPV drone, worth $500, to disable a Buk medium-range air defense system estimated to be worth about $40 million. An uploaded video showed a drone approaching a modern Buk-M3 launcher from on high, before slamming into its missiles.

Over the next few months, Ronin FPV drones pushed deeper and deeper into Russian-held territory. In February, the pilots uploaded videos of attacks against six more Buk systems.

Last year, the Ronin pilots said they had struck just one of the SAMs. By the end of summer in 2025, their videos showed that they’d hit at least 15 in eight months.

The wrath of donated drones

The recent Buk strikes only happened because of Sternenko’s drones, a pilot from the Ronin unit, named Andriy, told Business Insider.

The Sternenko Foundation says it’s delivered over 210,000 drones since the war began, a small fraction of the 2.2 million total drones that Ukraine reported producing in 2024 alone.

Pilots like Andriy, however, say Sternenko’s drones are different.

Battlefield conditions shift fast, so the Sternenko team regularly asks pilots what upgrades are needed. Andriy said the volunteers swiftly relay that information to manufacturers, and then deliver drones with updated hardware and software in days or weeks.

“Even at night, if we are on the attack, and any problems arise, we are in contact with the drone developer, and we can solve it on the spot,” the senior soldier said.

That short feedback loop allowed for constant small tweaks to Sternenko’s drones, Andriy said, so the Ronin pilots gradually improved their 10-inch platforms. These are the workhorses of Ukraine’s FPV drones — radio-controlled, battery-powered quadcopters that use 7- to 12-inch propellers to fly.

Originally designed as flying cameras, they’ve become one of the war’s primary weapons after soldiers started fitting the cheap platforms with small, explosive payloads like rocket-propelled grenades that typically weigh 10 pounds or less. Pilots fly them right into their targets — armored vehicles, fortified positions, and soldiers.

Both sides are now locked in a perpetual race to develop new drone defenses, such as jammers that disrupt their radio signals, which drives the need for constant upgrades in the field.

Thanks to the updates on Sternenko’s funded drones, the Ronins eventually received FPV quadcopters that could fly reliably beyond 18 miles. Many of Russia’s Buks were positioned beyond that limit, Andriy said.

“We started hitting Buks as fast and as efficiently as we could,” the drone pilot said. Sternenko’s volunteers also provided a new type of drone that acted as a signal repeater, he said, strengthening the wireless communications link between the drone and its operator in jammed areas.

Andriy said the Ronin unit typically takes three to four FPV drones to finish off a Buk air defense system and estimates that it cost them 55 drones, or $27,500, to disable 15 systems collectively worth between $150 million and $600 million.

A striking cost ratio

That cost ratio means that for every $1 spent by donors through Sternenko, the Ronin pilots were inflicting at least roughly $5,450 worth of damage to Russia’s military.

Independent analysts told Business Insider it’s difficult to determine the exact dollar value of these strikes, but that their cost efficiency is astronomically high.

“A Buk-M3 battery is valued at around $100 million, but that would be the export price,” said Benjamin Blandin, a researcher with the Japanese nonprofit Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies.

Older batteries, such as the Buk-M1, might have cost foreign customers around $45 million. Still, Blandin cautioned that the Russian defense ministry is known to purchase homegrown assets, such as tanks like the T-72, at a far cheaper rate than the sale price for other nations.

Many estimates say that, with such a deep discount, the Buk-M1 costs Moscow about $10 million per system.

A Buk battery also consists of many parts, including multiple launchers, a command post, and a main radar.

“Typically, the radar itself, and fire control computers are the most expensive part of the system,” said Robert Tollast, a researcher of land warfare for the UK-based Royal United Services Institute.

When analyzing the Ronin videos of Buk hits, he said the unit clearly damaged radars in some clips.

Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher of arms transfers for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said that destroying one critical Buk component, such as the main radar, could put the rest out of action, prompting Ukrainians to say they destroyed the entire thing.

“But no matter what price is taken or how out-of-action the system had been made, it’s still a very much higher USD value lost than that of a few drones used against it,” he added, referring to US dollars.

Donated drones, a class above the rest

Russia, realizing its Buks were being hunted, started pulling them further away from the frontline in Zaporizhzhia, Andriy said. Still, he said his unit was able to use donated drones to hit a Buk at a distance of 55 kilometers, or 34 miles — a staggering feat for today’s FPV technology.

“When we mentioned the distance to other foundations, their eyes went wide with surprise,” Andriy said.

Out of roughly 30 to 40 FPV drones he pilots in a two-day shift, Andriy estimated that 95% typically come from the foundation.

Ukrainian soldiers also receive drones purchased by the Ministry of Defense. Andriy said these can be outdated, and he prefers the crowdfunded drones.

The commander of the Dovbush Hornets, the drone unit of the 68th Jaeger Brigade in Pokrovsk, told Business Insider that state-funded drone deliveries suffer from a typical issue that plagues governments: It can take too long to turn immediate feedback into updated systems.

In a war where techniques and jamming frequencies evolve in a matter of weeks, that delay can be the difference between victory and death.

“With the Sternenko situation, their representatives call the unit and ask what specific technical characteristics of drones they need, and they just buy the one that suits the unit,” said the major, whose call sign is Fierce. “But for the Ministry of Defense, they already have the drones accumulated, so they just give them to the unit.”

State-funded drones are needed, but often have to be sent to a manufacturer for retweaking.

“These drones are sometimes impossible to use on certain sections of the front lines,” Fierce said. “So the fighters have to invest their own salaries in the drones, to modify them and change the control frequencies. It takes time and their personal money.”

The issue was common enough for the Sternenko Foundation to launch a refitting project for Ministry of Defense drones, called reDrone, primarily to add hardware upgrades such as motor controllers.

In a statement to Business Insider, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said that its provided FPV drones are purchased from private manufacturers “to create a sustainable, large-scale, and predictable supply system” for its troops.

“At the same time, in wartime conditions, certain units may have specific needs that can be promptly met through volunteer initiatives,” it wrote. “The flexibility of drone supplies from volunteers complements the large-scale state system of equipping the army.”

Civilians at the heart of the fight

In Konotop, just 60 miles from the northern front, Ilia is also a volunteer. He said he’s driven donated vehicles and equipment dozens of times to soldiers in the greater Sumy and wartorn Donbas regions.

Ilia said he was nearly killed on four occasions on these supply runs near the frontlines.

“God decided I am more useful here on this Earth,” he laughed.

Ukraine, strained from years of war, has long relied on its civilians to support the front with battle supplies.

“This war is a black hole that just keeps sucking up all of our resources,” said Oleksandr Skarlat, the Sternenko Foundation’s director.

The overwhelming majority of donations received by the foundation come in small amounts from Ukrainian civilians, said Skarlat, a national finswimming athlete before the invasion.

The foundation says it raises roughly 300 million hryvnia, or about $7.2 million, from over 450,000 individual contributions a month.

The group operates like a hub, connecting manufacturers with drone units, then paying for and delivering drones to those troops, Skarlat explained to Business Insider.

“The foundation’s advantage is speed and time,” he said. “An expensive drone is not always better. If new components are released, they must be purchased and transferred to the units immediately.”

That process is now a well-oiled machine, but it is limited by whatever resources Sternenko’s team can raise. They try to prioritize squads that produce better results, such as the Ronins and Dovbush Hornets, which operate in Pokrovsk.

Sternenko, a popular internet personality, uses his following to promote fundraisers and repost strike footage uploaded by recipient units. In May, he was shot in the thigh during an assassination attempt that Ukraine’s security service said was orchestrated by Russia.

As proof to donors, the foundation meticulously records its drone deliveries, their cost, and recipients in a public database. Sternenko’s team posts daily videos of drone squads receiving hundreds of FPVs, paid for by civilians.

Over time, the foundation has become one of Ukraine’s premier crowdfunders, well-known among the military units flying the deadly FPVs filling the battlefield.

“I don’t want to offend anyone,” said Fierce, the Dovbush Hornets commander. “But there are some organizations and people that try to help, and they don’t even understand the quality of their drones and how they can fit the tasks of our units. The Sternenko Foundation has a well-built base, and they have the quality.”

A formula that works, oft-uncredited

More recently, the foundation is asking civilians to donate to a new project, dubbed “Shahedoriz,” that raises funds for interceptor drone development. Ukraine, hard-pressed to stop Russia’s intensifying Shahed waves, is trying to develop more interceptors that can destroy enemy drones and missiles to shore up its struggling air defenses.

One of the new drones is the Sting, a high-speed piloted FPV drone designed by Ukrainian manufacturer Wild Hornets to chase down the Shahed-136.

Alex Roslin, a Canada-based foreign coordinator for Ukrainian drone manufacturer Wild Hornets, said the Sting has achieved more than 130 successful kills so far. All of the interceptors were purchased by Sternenko, he told Business Insider.

Roslin believes local crowdfunders like the foundation play an outsize role in the war but are strangely overlooked in the West.

“Without these volunteers and the donors who generously contribute, for Ukraine, it would be a catastrophe,” he said.

Skarlat put it in stronger terms. “If not for the support of the volunteers,” he said, “Ukraine would most likely already be in the hands of the occupation regime.”

At night, Ilia looks up and watches Shaheds hurtle through the Konotop sky, Ukrainian tracer bullets and drones soaring up to meet them. “This is why we just keep donating, keep sending money,” Ilia said.

Many of the Shaheds fly onward to Kyiv, but some strike at home in Konotop too, and the number of casualties in the city has grown steadily, he said.

Ilia, grinning, said he doesn’t seek shelter during the air raid warnings. Three and a half years of war have driven the fear of bombs from him, he said. But when asked in a video call about his son in the third grade, and the boy’s future, the bridal apparel businessman’s smile fell.

After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat. “My main motivation is him,” he said. “It is my motivation to keep helping and donating.”

“I don’t need the Russians to die. I won’t go to their home when this is over. I just want them to leave so I can protect my family,” he said. “We just want to live a normal life.”

Translation by Sofiia Meleshko.

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