The battlefield in Ukraine is producing a striking new development: Russian troops are increasingly being confronted not only by Ukrainian soldiers, but by drones that can track them, pressure them and, in some cases, persuade them to surrender.

A recent report from NBC says Ukrainian forces have been using drones in an increasingly sophisticated effort to exploit the fear and exhaustion of Russian troops. According to the report, roughly 100 Russian soldiers surrendered to drones last winter, citing former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

The development illustrates just how dramatically drone warfare has changed the battlefield.

Ukraine has become a major center of drone warfare, deploying unmanned systems across the air, land and sea. Small first-person-view drones can observe Russian positions, track individual soldiers and attack targets, while longer-range systems strike deeper behind the front lines. The result is a battlefield where soldiers can be watched almost constantly.

For Russian troops, that creates an extraordinary psychological burden. An Ukrainian drone operator identified by the codename Mayak told NBC News that the cameras allow operators to see the reactions of soldiers in real time.

“We see their anxiety, because the camera captures a lot. We see their faces. We see how they breathe,” Mayak said. That visibility can become a weapon in itself.

According to the report, Ukrainian forces can use observation drones to locate Russian soldiers before attack drones move in. But rather than simply attacking, another drone equipped with a loudspeaker can offer exhausted troops an opportunity to surrender.

It is an unusual evolution of modern warfare: a machine in the sky effectively becomes the messenger telling a soldier on the ground that he has another option.

Ukraine has even established a program called “I Want to Live,” designed to explain to Russian soldiers how they can surrender to drones.

The instructions reportedly tell soldiers to establish eye contact with the drone, put down their weapons and raise their hands to demonstrate that they want to surrender.

The psychological implications are significant. Russian soldiers facing the drone threat may have little idea whether they are being watched, targeted or given an opportunity to survive. The same technology that can locate the soldiers can also communicate with them.

And according to the Ukrainian drone operator quoted in the report, the reactions vary dramatically.

“Maybe some of them, they walk forward and they don’t care. They just go. Walk, walk, crouch, smoke, and keep walking. Others, you see how they tremble, how they worry, how scared they are,” the person added.

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Russian soldiers, frightened and exhausted who are trying to survive are now disobeying Putin and turning their backs on their country. These revelations show an important but often overlooked truth about this war. Technology is changing not only how battles are fought, but also how soldiers experience combat.

Russian forces have frequently relied on large numbers of troops attempting to advance through heavily defended areas, with mines and drones making movement increasingly dangerous.

According to NBC, 30-mile-wide stretch of the front where mines and drones have turned movement into an extraordinarily dangerous ordeal. In that environment, the instinct to survive can become stronger than the order to keep fighting.

For Moscow, the sight of soldiers surrendering to unmanned aircraft is particularly striking and rather humiliating because it represents a reversal of the traditional battlefield hierarchy. A soldier is no longer necessarily surrendering to another soldier standing in front of them. They can be surrendering to a machine.

That does not mean Russia’s military is collapsing, nor does the reported surrender activity by itself establish the overall state of the war. But it does demonstrate how Ukraine’s growing expertise in drone warfare is being used not only to destroy equipment and attack personnel, but also to undermine the ability and willingness of Russian troops to keep fighting.

And that may ultimately be one of the most important consequences of the technology.

A drone does not need to defeat an entire unit in a conventional battle. It can observe, intimidate, isolate and communicate. If a soldier becomes convinced that remaining in place means almost certain death while surrender offers a chance to survive, the psychological battle may already have been won.

For Putin’s forces, that is an uncomfortable development. The battlefield is becoming one where Russian soldiers can be hunted from the sky, watched through cameras and, increasingly, instructed by drones to put down their weapons.

The technology may be unmanned. But its psychological impact is very human.