If true, this is about as good news as it gets. It means that Russia is most likely losing as many men as it recruits, without taking into account desertions, which has risen drastically this year.
As recruitment continues to fall, and Ukraine kills more with drones, it could mean that Russia is stalemated without a forced mobilization (which would put Russia in an awful position).
So sad to think that the pro-Ukrainian people in these border areas have been cleansed to the extent Ukraine army is now basically dealing with an insurgency on their own territory.
Most people fled the front line villages awhile ago, and the remaining civilians have all been droned if they weren’t pro Russia. It’s mostly Soviet boomers who have been brainwashed by Russian propaganda. I don’t think there’s many but they are scattered all over.
I get that it’s mostly true and good that the ‘good’ innocents have retreated to safety (I mean being displaced by war is in no way good but better than the alternative), but we also had all the stories of citizens taken hostage, tortured, and their children shipped off to eastern somewhere to de-culturize them and reprogram them as Russians.
For Ukraine the front line is held by a series of 2-3 Ukrainians holding several hundred meters with a flag. Here is the story of a guy who has been nominated for Hero of Ukraine:
A sergeant with the call sign “Rus” defended two bridges near Dobropillya for 50 days. He personally destroyed 27 Russian soldiers. For this, the brigade nominated him for the title of Hero of Ukraine, writes The Times. Together with “Artist”, they entered the village in late July with supplies for two weeks. Their task was simple: to hold the two bridges. Instead of 14 days, they held out for 7 weeks under Russian drones, artillery and infantry attacks. They divided into small groups, cleared houses, prepared ambushes. A captured Russian radio helped, which allowed them to hear the enemy’s movements. Ukrainian drones watched from above and coordinated them. The Russians advanced in small groups. “Rus” waited until they were within 30 meters, and only then did he open fire. He and his comrades again and again set up ambushes, forcing the enemy to retreat and disappear from the battlefield. In 50 days, “Rus” personally destroyed 27 enemies. This was confirmed by drone operators. “He really destroyed them, just with small arms,” said his commander. The conditions were inhuman. They lived in ruins, which were constantly hit by Russian guns. They washed themselves only with wet wipes. The greatest rest was to take off their helmet or body armor for half an hour. On the 30th day, a mortar round collapsed their shelter. “Rus” hid in the basement at that time, while “Artist” received a concussion and shrapnel wounds, later crawled out through the dust and reached the hospital himself. “Rus” stayed and continued the fight. After 50 days, he and four other infantrymen were finally replaced. They went out for two days under fire and attacks by kamikaze drones. “Rus” returned with a reputation as a warrior who single-handedly stopped the Russian breakthrough through patience and ambushes.
Here is a Russian talking about what their infiltration entails on Romanov’s (a Russian millblogger) tg channel, the fact that Romanov highlights it suggests it’s pretty accurate:
For the most part infantry on both sides is instructed not to engage anyone they see. Ukrainians are supposed to hide and relay information to drone teams. Russians walk or crawl 50m, then wait an hour, then repeat, hoping they’re never seen because they’ll be droned. If they make it far enough they will hide at a staging area until 5-6 other Russians have made it through, then they will either attack from behind or continue going until they’re droned.
That’s probably the closest comparison. The big difference is that the trenches made it clear who was in control of what, with a no man’s land in the middle.
Now it’s a gigantic no man’s land (overlapping areas where each side’s drones can hit the other side’s infantry) with 2-3 man teams staggered throughout claiming “control”.
Not really related, but I think the war is heading toward’s a WW1 style air confrontations as well where larger drones release smaller drones that engage in dog fights while trying to down the more important drones.
I don’t think anyone wants to go drone for drone, the only one who wins that is the propeller manufacturers. The first side that can figure out how to kill multiple drones cheaply, whether a killer drone or throwing lots of shit into the air very rapidly, is going to win the drone wars.
Supposedly, Ukraine is doing “rotating barbed wire” fences to take out optical fiber controlled drones. I don’t see a cheap solution but this could at least get them back to a point where electronic warfare is more effective.
Magyar claims he was able to take out 75% of drones when he in Krynky. That was an extremely favorable position for him though: he had a very small area of the front line, and a lot of resources from the marines which enabled him to scout very efficiently and begin jamming quickly. Outside of small, favorable positions, I don’t think this is possible and drone vs drone is going to be the default.
Right now there’s two main areas where drone vs drone happens: shaheds and creating a window of dominance for drone strikes.
Ukraine’s first anti-shahed measures consisted of mobile ground teams which would shoot down shaheds. Russia countered this by having shaheds fly higher than the mobile ground teams could shoot, and then dive bombing when they reached a city. Ukraine is now in the process of countering by scaling up interceptor drones and mobile radars. Russia is now placing rear cameras on the shaheds so they can dive if they see an interceptor drone coming.
I think that the next step will be having the shaheds carry their own interceptor drones to attempt to take out the Ukrainian interceptor drones and radars.
The front line is increasingly becoming UAV team vs UAV team. The places where Russia has had the most success is mostly due to their elite UAV team, Rubicon. They are sent to an area and tasked with taking out the Ukrainian UAV teams there and then Ukrainian logistics. This typically begins with taking out the other side’s ability to see the battle field by using drones to attack recon drones.
Once again, I think the next evolution here is to give the recon drones more maneuverability and have them launch interceptor drones to take out the drones which are attacking them.
I also assume there’s going to be AI automation of these drones. And they are going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper to make, so the numbers will climb exponentially.
It only takes a little extrapolation of trends to foresee a vastly different war system 5 or even 2 years from now.
What use is an aircraft carrier if someone (?) can launch a million drone automated unjammable attack.
Yeah AI Automation is already starting, I posted a video above where you can see the auto targeting on boats.
I think it’s difficult to predict where this is all going. Last year China launched what I think is the largest carrier in the world (mostly for drones), so I guess militaries still expect these things to be important.
Right now the only unjammable drones are fiber optics, which can’t work over water. If they want to go over a river then they have to lay the cable across trees or something like that or they lose connection.
I guess for big swarms they are counting on defenses which can deal with that, although if a ship has a lot of high tech defenses then it becomes a big target for a hypersonic missile which can’t really be stopped.
Or they try to never get close enough to something which can actually launch that many drones.
