The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Strikes.

A reminder, I'm not going to go through the entire list of strikes by both sides that have occurred. I'm instead going to focus on those I found interesting, or on trends and patterns. If someone is interested, I direct them to the sources I've used for a while now.

Russia's campaign against Ukrainian rail transport is continuing. Even though we have over 200 confirmed strikes on locomotives so far, there are thousands of locomotives in Ukraine. It will take probably over a year of strikes at the current pace to really put Ukraine's rail network out of service.


Russia's strikes on gas stations also continue with the total hit creeping up on 200. While Ukraine has thousands of gas stations nation-wide, the strikes are mostly in areas closer to the front line, and along roads that feed front line logistics. The biggest impact has been the Kharkov-Dnepropetrovsk highway where there's ~150kms of road without a single gas station left standing. We're likely going to see this impact Ukrainian truck traffic, but I don't think this will be drastic, rather we will likely see a marginal effect. Ukraine is returning the favor somewhat, but it's far less of a directed campaign.


The road war continues with strikes on trucks, but we have a reduction in strikes by both sides, and the geography of Ukrainian strikes appears to have become less focused on the roads to Crimea. It's unclear if this is because they're now well patrolled by drone defense teams or if traffic there is reduced and deemed not significant. I suspect the former.


Russia hit a factory that refurbishes SAMs in Vishnevoe. The factory is called Vizar and apparently accumulated giant stockpiles of various munitions there, stored in an unsafe manner next to residential areas. The result is that much of the town of Vishnevoe is destroyed by the massive explosions and fires. There are also unconfirmed reports of munitions containing depleted uranium being stored there.


Ukraine hit a disabled Mig-29 at an airbase in Kursk. The jet had been hit before and was parked for over a year. They also hit either a Pantsyr or a decoy nearby.


Ukraine hit a Mi-8 helo in a field somewhere.


At least one Russian Tu-95 has been destroyed in an attack Ukraine launched on July 16th.


We have two videos, one of a Ukrainian Hornet attacking a Russian drone defense team, the other of a Ukrainian drone firing S-5 rockets at Russian drone defense teams. This suggests a couple of things. First off, the evolution of drone warfare is continuing and Russia will likely have to adjust drone defense team tactics. Armored vehicles could provide some protection, but I don't think Russia can equip all of them that way. The other thing is that Russian drone defense teams are likely having an effect, leading Ukraine to make an effort to attack them.


A Ukrainian Darts drone being launched by an aerostat presumably to extend range.


Russian drone defense BARS units are now using light aircraft like Ukraine, here we have a Yak-52 and an An-2. Rich and vast is that Soviet inheritance... Of interesting note is the interceptor drones being mounted under the wings.


Another Russian drone defense unit with DPM (upgraded DP-27s). Those YakB-12.7s are looking really good now.


Another Russian drone defense team, with one with Aklav anti-drone turrets, equipped with multi-barrel GShG-7.62 MMGs.


It appears Ukraine is completely out of Patriot interceptors.


Ukrainian Yak-52s also do drone defense work.


Upgraded Russian Gerber drones have winglets and extra fuel tanks.


Yet another new variant of the Kometa satellite navigation system on Iskander missiles was found by Ukrainians.

 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Interesting bits.

Russia lost an Su-35S trying to enagage F-16s but being brought down by a Patriot SAM. The pilot reportedly catapulted successfully. Russian sources claim 2 F-16s baited the Su-35S into Patriot range.


Ukraine lost an Mi-8 in Poltava region while trying to intercept a Russian drone. The entire crew of 4 is KIA.


A Ukrainian drone attempts to hit an Mi-28 but appears to get hit by the rotor. The fate of the helicopter is unclear.


Russia took out a Ukrainian Rapid Ranger SAM. Despite all their efforts, Russia's SEAD/DEAD campaign yields sporadic and inconsistent results. Occasionally they take something out but they have not been able to systematically destroy Ukraine's GBAD.


An interesting video of a Ukrainian Baba Yaga drone dropping off a UGV with a mine presumably in the Russian rear.


We have our first confirmation of Russian MBTs with Arena-M deployed to Ukraine. Here we have one T-72B3A providing indirect fires. The vehicle has K-5 on the turret but Relikt on the hull. Another example of the same has a mine trawl, suggesting it might be seeing more front-line action.


Russian security forces claim they have foiled another spiderweb type attack by Ukrainian agents. Targets reportedly included objects in Moscow region and the Far East.


An interesting adaption on a Russian Molniya drone with a compass installed, and a camera set up to be able to look at it.


We have a rare look at Russian UCAVs, including an Orion-S with the new Banderol' cruise missile, as well as one with Kornet ATGMs, and a Forpost-RU which apparently remain active too.


Russia drone manufacturing facilities in Alabuga continue to expand.


A look at an underground tunnel built by Ukrainian forces. Both Russia and Ukraine have started building underground facilities to avoid drones.


Another look at Ukraine's Neptune coastal AShM.


Ukraine has resumed the formation of new brigades, forming the 50th and 76th Mech Bdes. There are unconfirmed reports of the 55th and 167th Mech, and 38th Arty Bdes.


Reportedly the US company Forterra has supplied over 100 Lancer UGVs to Ukraine.


Ukraine has reportedly ordered 4 SAMP/T NG SAMs from France, and will get temporary use of two SAMP/T systems in the meantime.


There are reports Ukraine will license produce SCALP-EG and Aster-30 missiles, and Hammer gliding bombs. Personally I'm skeptical this will happen any time soon.


Zelenskiy is replacing General Syrski with General Drapatiy as Chief of the Armed Forces for the UAF.


Reportedly Germany will manufacture Bars drones for Ukraine. The Bars is another long range strike drone.


Another exchange of bodies took place between Russia and Ukraine with Russia handing over 501 and Ukraine handing over 31. The reduced totals for Russia are likely tied to slower rates of advance for Russian forces.

 

KipPotapych

Well-Known Member
Russia lost an Su-35S trying to enagage F-16s but being brought down by a Patriot SAM. The pilot reportedly catapulted successfully. Russian sources claim 2 F-16s baited the Su-35S into Patriot range.

The other side’s claim is that it was an engagement by the F—16 itself that brought down the Su, citing General Cain:


While I think it means very little (if anything at all as opposed to “very significant!”) in the current environment, I thought I should point it out.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
The other side’s claim is that it was an engagement by the F—16 itself that brought down the Su, citing General Cain:


While I think it means very little (if anything at all as opposed to “very significant!”) in the current environment, I thought I should point it out.
It certainly might be the case. The pilot catapulting successfully indirectly suggests that, since patriot interceptors are quite large and are more likely to kill the pilot than a AAM.
 

KipPotapych

Well-Known Member
One has to love this kind of stuff:

IMG_6055.jpeg

I like the responses too, most of which celebrate, while some express the disgust. Some, of course, reflect the regular programming:

IMG_6056.jpeg

I mean, at the end of the day, why not just use… some kind of gas, you know… to the cheering of people too.

I also see plenty of people saying that the smoke is crazy looking and it must be some military shit burning. Newsflash for this mentally-challenged crowd must be that plastic and its derivatives, like polyester, burn like hell.

At the same time, everyone and their grandparents understand very well that the warehouses attacked store China-made knock-offs:

IMG_6062.jpeg

I used to consider Timothy Ash a reasonable economist prior to 2022, by the way.

And I am still missing the thought process behind calling it “Russian logistics”.

IMG_6050.jpeg
 

rsemmes

Active Member
(and 2)
They are not simply misconceptions, but artefacts of fragmented experience, uneven learning, and cognitive bias.
-Not only about drones...

1 Drones will completely replace people on the battlefield
Drones are displacing the role of some soldiers on the battlefield, not replacing them. It remains the soldier who is ultimately responsible for taking and holding the ground.
2 Learning to fly – even complex drones – is very difficult
The initial learning curve for drone piloting is comparatively easy, but employing a drone effectively in combat conditions is a different matter. This includes whether the platform should be physically modified, the communications links changed, the employment concepts adjusted, or the procedures revised. These roles must be professionalised through military training systems, rather than improvised using the expertise of civilian hobbyists. Up to 60 per cent of (Ukrainian) drone losses early in the war were due to poor pilot training.
-Just to remain us than better crews can defeat better tanks...
3 You can just bolt drones on small, roaming ‘drone groups’ or volunteer teams without changing the core military structure
The sustainment overhead of using drones further undermines the notion that they are a low-cost. Ukraine has shown that mass drone employment entails industrial-scale sustainment pipelines comparable in complexity —if not in unit cost— to conventional munitions supply. Volunteer teams operating outside formal logistics systems cannot support this scale.
If you don’t structurally integrate drones into your force design and C2, you haven’t actually learned the drone lessons from Ukraine at all. The decisive shift in drone warfare is not evidenced only in the proliferation of platforms. It is also reflected in efforts to restructure military forces to accommodate them. Drones must be treated as integral elements of the combined arms system, resourced, commanded, and sustained as such.
-Basically, just another kind of munition... That we are still learning how to use.
Electronic Warfare (EW) produces localised, temporary, and system-specific effects, rather than comprehensive denial. The contest between drones and countermeasures is dynamic.
-Tanks, anti-tanks...
4 EW ‘dome bubble’/ C-UAS stops all drones everywhere
Fibre-optic, autonomous or pre-programmed drones, their small radar cross-sections, low acoustic signatures, and terrain-masking flight profiles shift the contest from signal denial to physical interception.
What changed was not the invention of the technology, but its operationalisation under battlefield conditions. EW remains essential but insufficient to achieve battlefield supremacy. Effective C-UAS must be treated as a layered and adaptive system-of-systems, integrating EW, kinetic interception, physical barriers, camouflage and deception, and procedural controls.
-Lessons already "learned" about air warfare...
5 Drones are simple, plug-and-play tools – just show the target and the quadcopter will do the rest
Drone operations depend on a layered technical architecture: reliable communications links, frequency management, navigation aids (often under Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) denial), power supply, software modification, and payload integration. Ukrainian and Russian forces alike have had to constantly re-engineer control systems, antennas, and guidance methods to overcome jamming and interception.
-Like the Kometa-12, now aiming at Kometa-16...
Finally, the need for sustainment reveals the hidden complexity of drone warfare. High sortie rates and short platform lifespans generate continuous demand for batteries, motors, frames, optics, explosives, and replacement parts. It requires careful planning (terrain, radio horizon, weather, EW threat); engineering (firmware, frequencies, payload integration, batteries); multi-person teams for ground robots and more complex missions; continuous adaptation to enemy EW and tactics. To make one strike, you have to ‘fill in a whole bunch of boxes’ so everything works – link, reception, horizon, planning. Flying skills might be 20 per cent of the result. The other 80 per cent is technical work: planning, communications, radio horizon, setting up the links, the payload. You have to do a huge amount of invisible work for one strike.
6 Advanced military drone systems must be slow, highly bureaucratic, fully codified, and built only through traditional defence-industry cycles, otherwise they cannot be reliable or effective
Platforms with exquisite design but long development timelines have proven less relevant than systems that can be modified, replaced, and tactically reconfigured in weeks rather than years. Modern warfare rewards rapid adaptation, short design loops, and decentralised problem-solving. On the other, sustained combat effectiveness requires standardisation, training pipelines, and doctrinal integration. In this Western (peacetime) paradigm, achieving quality is a slow process and standardisation is essential before fielding a platform, a situation which makes rapid adaptation almost impossible.
-Like in WW2, long series without improvements or short series with the latest updates...
7 Drones have killed manoeuvre warfare; tanks and large formations are obsolete
The proliferation of drones – especially intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) drones and first-person view (FPV) kamikaze systems – has ended manoeuvre warfare. Some insist that tanks can no longer operate, large movements are impossible, and that the battlefield has become permanently static. Drones have made manoeuvre more difficult, but not impossible. The battlefield is in an evolutionary – not revolutionary – phase, and smart people are finding ways to negate drone effects. In reality, manoeuvre warfare will evolve and return.
-And, "everyone" will be surprised again...
Drone warfare has strengthened the find-and-fix functions of the kill chain. Armoured and mechanised forces remain essential for breaching, exploitation, and control of terrain. What has changed is the requirement for dispersion, deception, and integration of armoured capabilities with counter-UAS and electronic warfare (EW). Ukrainian and Russian forces have both adapted by reducing formation density, improving camouflage and concealment, and synchronising manoeuvre with EW and fires to disrupt enemy drone reconnaissance.
Battlefield dominance fluctuates with the balance between sensors and countermeasures. Periods in which drones have appeared decisive on the battlefield have often been followed by phases in which jamming, physical obstacles, and air defence have reduced their effectiveness, enabling renewed manoeuvre.
Armoured warfare has adapted rather than disappeared. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles continue to play critical roles in assault and defence, but with modified tactics: operating in smaller packets, using extensive engineer support, and coordinating closely with ISR and fires.
-Even if we haven't see brigade level attacks...
Machine guns, precision-guided munitions, and airpower – were each declared the ‘end’ of manoeuvre warfare. Yet all were ultimately absorbed into evolving combined arms concepts. Drone-enabled surveillance represents a further increase in battlefield lethality, but it does not negate the enduring requirement for manoeuvre to dislocate the enemy, seize ground, and impose operational dilemmas.
Manoeuvre warfare is not obsolete. Instead, it is being reshaped by a new balance between detection and denial. The contest is shifting toward who can better integrate drones, EW, deception, and armour within combined arms formations. Events on the battlefield in Ukraine suggest that advantage will accrue to forces capable of suppressing enemy sensors long enough to enable movement and mass effects at decisive points. While drones have raised the cost of manoeuvre, they have not eliminated its necessity.
-As I said in a lot less elaborate manner... (It doesn't mean that we are right.)
Now what we are seeing is large scale operations with a massive front line. I think that's a big learning curve that we haven’t quite got to yet.
 

rsemmes

Active Member
...
8 Soon there will be no radio-controlled drones on the frontline, and they will be replaced by fibre-optic drones
Fibre-optic drones move more slowly; they fly at roughly 30-40 km/h they are less manoeuvrable, and their use is significantly more limited than radio-controlled drones. In sectors where assault and offensive actions are underway on new terrain, fibre-optic drones are often used to knock out electronic warfare (EW) systems; After EW is suppressed, radio-controlled drones can then fly more freely. Radio-controlled drones are much cheaper. They are easier to manufacture, easier to operate, and far easier to scale. They also carry a larger explosive payload. Currently, around 25-30 per cent of the total mass of drones in some contexts.
9 Drones are simple because they are cheap and built in Ukraine
Although FPV drones appear low-cost, the entire ecosystem is technologically sophisticated: ISR drones performing autonomous waypoint navigation; onboard processing; target detection; integration of FPV strike drones; multi-layered kill chains. FPVs are just the “last step” in a high-tech process that includes autonomous ISR drones flying pre-planned routes; AI-supported camera feed interpretation; multi-drone coordination; rapid target data transfer. The public sees only the final strike. The underlying architecture is vastly more complex. Before a tank is hit by an FPV, at least one ISR drone has autonomously identified it, tracked it, and passed targeting data.
-There is also the "cheap" (millions of bullets are not cheap) and that components are not built in Ukraine...
10 Drones are a ‘silver bullet’ and all countries should adopt the drone centric warfare
The importance lies in integrating UAS into a broader combined-arms ecosystem, not relying on drones alone. Ukraine is using drones largely out of necessity, rather than simply because they are revolutionary or can do everything on the battlefield.
-They are relatively inexpensive and they have modified the battlefield...
11 Ukraine is using drones largely out of necessity, rather than simply because they are revolutionary or can do everything on the battlefield
A swarm implies decentralised machine decision-making, whereas current practice relies on human-directed mass and timing. Swarming technology is far from being there yet. Autonomy and AI? No, it doesn’t work.
-But we have a sandboxed OpenAI agent hacking Hugging Face...
The swarm technology represents the next frontier for drone warfare because of its potential to allow tens or even thousands of drones –or swarms– to be deployed at once to overwhelm the defences of a target. Both generating and countering future potential drone swarms remains a priority.

12 Lessons from Ukraine cannot be translated into the Australian context because of geography, terrain, and contexts are too different
Ukraine is not a template for the Indo-Pacific, but it remains a critical source of insight provided that lessons are translated rather than replicated. For Australia, the task how to degrade enemy ISR, sustain high-attrition drone ecosystems, integrate UxS into joint kill webs, and institutionalise rapid learning – then tailor solutions to Indo-Pacific conditions of extended lines of communication, maritime logistics, and regional escalation dynamics; what it reveals about the evolving conduct of high-intensity warfare.
- The "translated rather than replicated" still applies, even if we haven't had a war like this in a very long time... Prolonged, high-intensity, land warfare.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
The front line is moving again. There's some dramatic movement in north-eastern Kharkov area though its not clear if Russia has managed to consolidate those rather substantial gains. Also Russia has taken Biletskoe (clearing is still in progress) and begun the fighting for Dobropolye, entering Gannovka.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Yes but that area is less dynamic, it's a skirmish area slowly moving westward. The north-east Kharkov area has bigger changes happening faster.

We also just had a Russian T-72B3A hit by an FPV drone from behind. The context is unclear, and I can't get the video to load, so I can't tell what happened to the column it was a part of. This might indicate that Arena-M isn't effective against FPV drones after all, despite the claims. But it's too early to tell.
 

KipPotapych

Well-Known Member
We also just had a Russian T-72B3A hit by an FPV drone from behind. The context is unclear, and I can't get the video to load, so I can't tell what happened to the column it was a part of. This might indicate that Arena-M isn't effective against FPV drones after all, despite the claims. But it's too early to tell.

There were also some reports yesterday (or today in the morning?) that some column was destroyed near Dobropilia, but no evidence presented. They also mentioned that the Ukrainians were caught off-guard, but managed to destroy the column. All allegedly, of course.
 

rsemmes

Active Member
Ukraine is winning the war against Russia through a strategy of attrition.

Good to know...
Of course, you just need to believe that all those great things ("including its domestic drone industry" based on foreign components) that Ukraine is doing, Russia is not doing them. Because ("the question is whether this can force Putin’s regime to accept defeat") Zelenski will never accept defeat and, the most important part: "the continued support of its partner nations" or is it actual Ukrainian soldiers at the frontline?

I don't think Ukraine is in the same situation as Germany in 1918. Russia, even less.
 

rsemmes

Active Member
Russia's military rigidity is not a military problem. It is a political solution.

That doesn't look good for that "Ukrainian winning strategy". I am not quite sure how rigid it is, but should we compare it to NATO or to UAF? Because we know that Zelenski has his cronies...
At the time of the Robotine offensive, there was a report about one UAF HQ where every NATO officer would find himself at home.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
If he's correct, the situation is what I thought it would be. APS are getting depleted and then drones can take out the targets. A big question is how quickly Russia can deploy Arena-M to units and how many munitions they can produce for it. If many vehicles have it, it will increase the numbers of drones needed. And the bottleneck might become having enough crews to get many drones out there simultaneously.
 

personaldesas

Active Member
If he's correct, the situation is what I thought it would be. APS are getting depleted and then drones can take out the targets. A big question is how quickly Russia can deploy Arena-M to units and how many munitions they can produce for it. If many vehicles have it, it will increase the numbers of drones needed. And the bottleneck might become having enough crews to get many drones out there simultaneously.

How do they get depleted? Is the bottleneck the number of countermeasure cartridges a vehicle carries, or stockpiles/production in general?
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
How do they get depleted? Is the bottleneck the number of countermeasure cartridges a vehicle carries, or stockpiles/production in general?
Presumably the former. In the bigger picture it could also be the latter. Look at Russia struggling to produce filler for ERA tiles. Its not that they don't make it, or don't make much, its that the scale of usage exceeds production. It would be good to get the full footage of what happened, but it appears Ukraine isn't releasing it.
 

crest

Active Member
Presumably the former. In the bigger picture it could also be the latter. Look at Russia struggling to produce filler for ERA tiles. Its not that they don't make it, or don't make much, its that the scale of usage exceeds production. It would be good to get the full footage of what happened, but it appears Ukraine isn't releasing it.
i would presume that fact lends creadibilty to your theory
 
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