In the dead of night, a ground crew works under hard-to-detect green and red lights. A small succession of Ukrainian Fire Point FP-2 drones lines up for an attack mission into occupied Luhansk, more than 200 miles away.

The FP-2 is a miniature monoplane with a 6-metre wingspan and more than 100 kilograms of explosive. Its main piston engine produces a familiar scooter-like buzz, but its launch booster is something else entirely. The jet sound reverberates almost painfully as a burst of fire lurches into the distance. When the last drone launches, it is time for Ukraine's 413 Raid drone regiment to pack up and move.

It is a scene now played out nightly by dozens of Ukrainian crews, reflecting a fast-changing conflict that began with tanks, then artillery, and is now pivoting beyond a first generation of drones.

Death and destruction are being delivered by new weapons in growing volumes, hundreds of miles beyond the frontline, striking targets that are military, industrial and economic — but that affect civilians too.

Just as Ukraine has developed its drone and missile capability to nearly match Russia's — after its cities were subjected at times to hundreds of drone strikes a day — Moscow has transformed its own drone arsenal with a jet-powered revolution. The balance of power remains uncertain.

Raid is a specialist drone unit created two years ago. It has been operating Ukrainian-designed and -built FP-2 attack drones since last autumn, according to a commander who goes by the call sign Skipper — a former corporate IT worker with a master's degree in computer science.

Skipper says that where once there was only one crew capable of running two missions a week, the regiment can now do "10 times more, or even more."

Speaking from a car as rain pelts down, Skipper cautions there is "a flipside" when asked whether long-distance warfare is easier to fight because nobody has to be killed visibly. "They can do it as well," he says, noting that Raid's crews are targets too. "Maybe you don't see the enemy with your own eyes, but still it's a very dangerous game."

The FP-2 was only first publicly acknowledged by Ukraine last September. It is designed to attack hardened targets at mid-range and to disrupt Russian logistics to the frontline.

The success of Raid and other units engaged in mid-range strike operations has helped slow the pace of Russia's advance. Russia gained a modest 90 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in August, compared with 505 square kilometres a year earlier. Western officials estimate Russia is losing 6,000 more soldiers a month than it can recruit.

Within Ukraine's sprawling military, specialist drone units of the Unmanned System Forces — including the Raid regiment — work alongside army units operating closer to the frontline and special forces.

A major attack, such as the strike that disabled a Moscow refinery approximately 300 miles from the border on 20 September, involves several units operating simultaneously. A large-scale long-range attack can involve launching up to 300 drones, though the stated goal is to be able to launch 1,000 a night. Soldiers describe this as an "orchestra," in which cheaper drones identify an air corridor toward the final target.

The long-range FP-1 — priced at approximately $75,000 and a sister model to the FP-2 — has been used to repeatedly strike warehouses, refineries and other military-economic sites as far as 1,800 miles inside Russia.

According to figures from the International Energy Agency, Russia's crude oil production has fallen by 7.7 percent over the past year. Interest rates have remained at 14 percent.

"Both sides are getting better at translating deep strikes into economic effects," said Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute.

Mission planning is rarely shown publicly, but a short-range drone unit operating on the eastern Donetsk front — Unit 17, Special Operations Centre — has offered a glimpse of its work. Among its members is Znakhar, 33, a software coder before the full-scale Russian invasion, part of a squad of English-speaking men in their early thirties.