It’s winter in Ucrania. La snow is piling up, the temperature is dropping, and the days are short. During the long afternoons, after nearly two years of full-scale war, the skies over the entire 600-mile front line are filled with Ukrainian and Russian drones. In centuries past, the war machine came to a halt when harsh situations pushed human staying power to the limit. The two most prominent military campaigns in this part of the world: Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and Hitler’s invasion in 1941 suffered devastating losses as the seasons changed. Today, the hapless infantry that still fills trenches and strongpoints across Ukraine faces the same unforgiving winter. But the drones dominating this war are limited only by their battery life, shortened by the bloodless — and the availability of night vision got herazades.
During the early months of the war, the front lines shifted as Ukrainian forces repelled the Russian offensive. Ukraine has gained the upper hand in the drone war, adapting advertising technologies and introducing new weapons to keep Russian forces at bay. However, since October 2022, few territories have changed hands. The Ukrainian military has scored some recent victories, adding precise strikes to Russia’s Black Sea fleet and targets deep in Russian territory. The Russian military also faced headwinds, wasting the equivalent of about 90% of the troops and aircraft with which it started the war, according to some reports. But Russia has also adjusted its strategy and the clash is now evolving in its favor. Moscow has put its defense industry on a war footing and existing military spending is more than double what it was before the war. It has also introduced thousands of drones (adding the Shahed model, designed by Iran and now assembled in Iran and Russia) with new functions to target expensive Western-supplied defense systems in Ukraine.
After Russian troops first marched on Kyiv, Ukrainian forces were praised for the technological ingenuity that helped them thwart their more powerful invader. Now, Russia has caught up in the innovation contest and Ukraine is struggling to maintain the flow of military assistance from its external partners. In order to undercut Russia’s advantage in this phase of the war, Ukraine and its allies will need to not just ramp up defense production but also invest in developing and scaling technologies that can counter Russia’s formidable new drones.
I visited Ukraine for the first time in September 2022 at the invitation of the Ukrainian-founded Yalta European Strategic Forum. Witnessing firsthand the devastation of the Russian invasion, I was impressed by the determination, resilience, and ingenuity of the Ukrainian people, their culture, and their generational industry. This holiday encouraged me to dedicate time and resources to Ukraine’s war for democracy, supporting humanitarian reasons and Ukraine’s tech ecosystem. Since then, I have returned to Ukraine several times to receive information from Ukrainian partners. Conversations on my last visit, in December 2023, highlighted the toll that generation has taken on Ukraine’s offensives and the challenge posed by new Russian hardware and drone tactics.
The use of drones is one of Ukraine’s recent successes on the battlefield. In its Black Sea campaign, the Ukrainian military has relied heavily on drones, and as of Nov. 17, it claimed to have destroyed 15 Russian warships and wrecked 12 others since the initial invasion in 2022. Ukrainian forces opposed to Russian maritime forces have kept sea lanes in the region transparent enough to allow the resumption of grain shipments, important to the Ukrainian economy. The drone movements also deprived Russia of the ability to fire missiles into Ukrainian territory from coastal vessels and weakened Russia’s defense of Crimea and its position in the Black Sea — a symbolic, economic and military victory for Ukraine.
Ukrainian drone strikes have also reached deeper and deeper into Russia in recent months. Over one week in August, a series of attacks targeted six Russian regions and set a military airfield ablaze. Ukraine has proved that it is willing and able to extend the range of its military operations, and Ukrainian officials have warned that as the war continues they will take more of the fight to Russian territory.
For now, drones are most commonly concentrated on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. When asked to identify the most productive tank destruction weapon in their arsenals, Ukrainian commanders of all ranks give the same answer: first-person drones, flying on the ground while watching a live feed from an onboard camera. Thanks to those drones, tank-to-tank clashes are a thing of the past. A Ukrainian combat commander also told me that FPV drones are more flexible than an artillery bombardment at first. of an attack. In a classic attack, the bombardment will have to stop when friendly troops reach the enemy trench line. But FPVs are so accurate that Ukrainian pilots can continue to attack Russian targets until their comrades are only a few meters away from the enemy. .
However, kyiv has lost its benefits in the drone war. Russian forces copied many of the tactics Ukraine developed over the summer, adding large, coordinated strikes employing multiple types of drones. First, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones hover above the ground to monitor the battlefield and identify targets from a distance. They then transmit the enemy position to pilots employing low-flying, highly maneuverable FPV drones, who can perform precision counter-movements to mobile and desktop targets, all within a distance of the front line. Once those drones have eliminated the initial targets, the military vehicles fight through minefields to unleash the ground attack. Since late 2022, Russia has used a combination of two locally produced drones, the Orlan-10 (a surveillance drone) and the Lancet (an attack drone), to destroy everything from artillery systems to fighter jets. and tanks. Ukraine outperformed Russia in drone strikes early in the conflict, but it doesn’t have a drone mix that fits Russia’s new damaging duo.
At the same time that the Orlan-Lancet team has become decisive in battle, Russia’s superior electronic warfare capabilities allow it to jam and spoof the signals between Ukrainian drones and their pilots. If Ukraine is to neutralize Russian drones, its forces will need the same capabilities. A limited number of Ukrainian brigades have acquired jamming equipment from U.S. suppliers or domestic startups. Without it, the combination of Russian attack drones and Russian jamming of Ukrainian drones threatens to push Ukrainian forces back into the territory that they fought so hard to free early in the war.
Most of the weapons provided through the West have performed poorly in the face of Russian anti-aircraft systems and electronic attacks. When missiles and attack drones are aimed at Russian sites, they are faked or shot down. Weapons in particular can be thwarted by GPS jamming. A small number of U. S. F-16 fighter jets are expected to arrive in Ukraine later this year, and are expected to temporarily arrive in paints aimed at the Russian planes themselves, which are lately devastating Ukrainian defenses. with guided bombs. But it’s unclear exactly how the F-16s will fare in the context of active electronic warfare and as opposed to long-range missiles deployed via Russian aircraft.
Russian forces have copied many of the tactics that Ukraine pioneered.
Russia has stepped up its military offensives despite the harsh winter, and the expansion of its production capacity has played a vital role in this new development. Ukrainian officials estimate that Russia can now produce or acquire around 100,000 drones per month, while Ukraine can only produce a portion of that amount. International sanctions have also not stopped other types of production by the Russian military. Russia doubled the number of tanks built each year before the invasion, from 100 to 200. Russian corporations also manufacture ammunition at much lower costs than their Western counterparts, compromising safety: a 152-millimeter artillery shell costs around $600 a year. It is produced in Russia, while producing a 155-millimeter projectile costs up to ten times as much in the West. This economic disadvantage will be difficult for Ukraine’s allies to overcome.
After months of relative calm in Kyiv, Russia has also resumed its usual drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital. So far, Ukrainian forces have managed to trip and shoot down nearly all incoming aircraft, but that cover will be difficult as Moscow introduces technology. It innovates drones, increases domestic production, develops new tactics to evade stumbles, and launches high-volume aircraft. Attacks that simply overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Shahed, is far less expensive than the air defense systems needed to neutralize it.
Although Russia’s cyber war has had little effect so far, the Ukrainian military’s reliance on cellular knowledge and smartphones to coordinate its operations leaves it vulnerable to long-term attacks. A recent surge in Russian attempts to shut down cellular networks in Ukraine may have serious consequences. As Russian capability spreads to multiple fronts in this fight, Ukrainian commanders have become less positive than they were just a few months ago. Their concentration shifted from offensive operations to protecting their existing positions and keeping their forces intact.
The next few months will be complicated for Ukraine. During my stopover in kyiv in December, government and military officials I spoke with shared their concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin was announcing a second mass draft round and a primary offensive in eastern Russia. Ukraine after the Russian elections in March. The resilience of Russia’s war economy, its growing material production and its demographic merit, combined with uncertainty about the continuity of Western aid to Ukraine – specifically in a US election year – give Putin an explanation for Why you should redouble your efforts. Meanwhile, the local merit that Ukraine enjoyed at the start of the invasion has eroded. Russian troops have established themselves on Ukrainian soil and have littered eastern Ukraine with landmines, which are injuring and killing Ukrainian combatants and civilians, even in spaces reconquered through the Ukrainian army. The growing strength of Russian defenses in eastern Ukraine is also helping to explain the disappointing final results of the much-hyped Ukrainian summer offensive. While Russian forces are now probing parts of the front line for weaknesses, the Ukrainian military has followed an “active defense” posture. He managed to thwart the Russian attacks, but this luck came at a high price.
In this phase of the war, as the front lines stabilize, the skies will be filled with an ever-increasing number of drones. Ukraine aims to acquire more than two million drones by 2024 (part of which will be produced domestically) and Russia. He’s on his way to succeeding, at least in that purchase. With so many aircraft deployed, any troop or aircraft moving on the ground will become simple targets. Therefore, the two armies will concentrate more on getting rid of each other’s weapons and engaging in drone strikes. aerial fights between drones. As technological advances increase the diversity of drones, their operators and other systems will be able to stay many miles away from the battle.
But remote operation of a drone-centric war will not necessarily lower the human cost. In fact, developments so far suggest that the opposite is true. As Ukrainian military officials explained to me in December in Avdiivka, a city in the Donetsk region, ground assaults remain an integral part of Russia’s drone targeting strategy. The Russian army sends groups of poorly trained draftees and convicts to attack the Ukrainian frontline, forcing Ukrainian troops to respond and reveal their camouflaged positions. Now visible to the drones overhead, the Ukrainian positions are then pounded by Russian artillery. I heard estimates of around 100 to 200 people dying on each side every day in this type of combat—and the number could rise as the lethality and quantity of drones increase.
Russia and Ukraine will focus more on getting rid of each other’s weapons and engaging in aerial combat between drones.
Meanwhile, in both Europe and the United States, war fatigue is beginning and Ukraine is beginning to fracture. Declining monetary and military aid from the West may also turn the fragile stalemate in the conflict into an opening for Russia. Russia has enough ammunition stocks and production lines to keep fighting for at least another year; Ukraine will want to protect more materials from Western munitions if it wants to make plans for the distant future. Ukraine also wants anti-aircraft and attack missiles to strike fast-moving air targets. Aware that U. S. GPS-based weapons would arguably not withstand Russian electronic warfare, Ukrainian startups are working tirelessly to expand complex drones that can withstand spoofing and jamming. Only with increasingly capable weapons systems, whether offensive or defensive, will Ukraine be able to buck the trend on the battlefield. Bridging this innovation and sourcing gap will require sustained monetary and technical support from Kyiv’s allies.
The prognosis could change with a decisive shift on the battlefield, but for now neither Russia nor Ukraine is expecting a swift end to the fighting. To avoid a protracted war, the West needs to back a concerted military effort to push back Russian forces and a diplomatic effort to bring the parties to the negotiating table. The alternative is years of further suffering for those in the war zone. While I was in Kyiv in December, ten Russian missiles were launched and intercepted by air defenses, including U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles, in the middle of the night. Fifty-two people in my neighborhood were injured by falling debris—including six children.
Ukrainians’ deep love for their country fuels their resilience and determination, even as they are constantly confronted with the reminder of the fatal truth of war. Putin is betting that internal divisions and divided attention will distract Western capitals from the fight for Ukraine’s survival as the conflict enters a complicated new phase. Only by neutralizing Russia’s achievements will Ukraine and its allies be able to get out of evil.