Ukraine's point system rewarding battlefield kills is steering drone units toward more strategic Russian targets
Sinéad Baker | Jun 18, 2026 | 6:18 AM CTUkraine's "e-Points" system, which rewards soldiers for hitting prized targets, is doing more than rewarding battlefield kills. It is helping steer soldiers toward higher-value Russian targets.
The system rewards units that eliminate Russian soldiers or destroy military equipment and upload video confirmation to the military, which awards them points they can use to buy drones, ground robots, electronic warfare systems, and other gear from the government's Brave1 Marketplace.
Officials have said it works "like Amazon," but for military technology.
Updates to what the system rewards have worked to "incentivize all of the units along the entire front line to strive to go after targets that are more challenging to pursue. And I think that's having effects," Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russian warfare expert at the US-based Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider.
Ukraine unveiled the system last year, initially offering the largest rewards for strikes on valuable equipment such as tanks and launchers. It was later widened to reward reconnaissance missions and operations that involved ground robotic systems, as well as actions by snipers and mobile air-defense teams shooting down Shahed attack drones.
Previously, soldiers could easily focus on "things that are really in front of you," like infantry and tanks, Stepanenko said. Now, soldiers are incentivized to "go after these very complex and more challenging targets," including rear-area infrastructure, barracks, and trucks more than 100 kilometers from the front.
She characterized the point system as one of several factors contributing to Ukraine's newfound momentum on the battlefield, as Kyiv uses new drones and better planning to hit Russian logistics and other targets in areas that were once safer for Moscow.
Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone pilot who is now a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that the system was "absolutely" encouraging Ukrainian soldiers to go after different types of targets than they were before.
"That's the whole point of the system," he said.
It's not perfect, but it "really creates the incentive for more strategically viable targets" identified by Ukraine's general staff, Zhluktenko said. Rather than hitting what's readily available, soldiers are pursuing targets that better align with Ukraine's overall strategy and work together more cohesively.
The points system gives Ukraine's command a way to shift battlefield behavior quickly. If the military decides it needs more of a certain target destroyed, it can raise the reward. Units then have a direct reason to adjust because the points help them get the equipment they need. . . .
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-e-points-system-steers-units-toward-more-strategic-targets-2026-6
