Russian Defense Forum 
- Jan 26, 2024
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Russia wins first-ever drone war
byKirill Strelnikov
The special military operation in Ukraine will inevitably go down in history as the first large-scale, high-tech military conflict that will forever change the military doctrines of all the world's leading powers.
The centuries-old strategy of land grabbing has turned before our eyes into a fierce competition for dominance of the skies over the battlefield – a historic turning point for all leading experts.
The first-ever large-scale use of drones in Ukraine already allows us to draw several important conclusions.
Conclusion one. The battlefield becomes "transparent" — with the existing density of drones per square kilometer, it is impossible to covertly accumulate reserves at a certain point and perform an unexpected maneuver, for example, a mass attack. We saw examples of this during the failed counteroffensive MAT in the summer of 2023, when the Russian Armed Forces, working proactively, smashed and destroyed the concentrating enemy forces.
Conclusion two. The speed of decision-making has increased by an order of magnitude. According to some reports, the chain of "target detection – decision to hit – target engagement" now does not exceed one or two minutes, and this time is decreasing. This means that the decades-old algorithms for the passage of information and the final receipt of a combat order are not only outdated but directly play into the hands of the enemy, which highlights the need for urgent updating and democratization of decision-making algorithms by commanders in the field and the transfer of decision-making authority down to a single soldier.
Conclusion three. Drones have democratized warfare. This means that the operator of a combat drone can be any person - not only a combat service member but also a volunteer and a civilian. This also means that drone operators can no longer be in the trenches but can effectively carry out combat missions tens of kilometers from the front line.
Conclusion four. Drones can neutralize numerical and fire superiority. Simple in design and control, cheap drones are ideal for "bartering," where a drone worth a thousand dollars can hit a target worth several tens of millions of dollars.
Conclusion five. Drones minimize their losses and increase those of others. As already mentioned, the drone operator can often be far away and in relative safety, while his "pet" brings death and destruction. According to some sources, at the moment, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Russian Armed Forces (people and equipment) are already 75 percent on the conscience of drones.
Ukraine began to prepare for a "drone war" with Russia in advance and had an advantage in this area in the initial period of the conflict. But, according to Western sources, since November 2023, the number of Russian drone strikes on enemy troops has exceeded the corresponding figures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Learning quickly from its own mistakes and individual successes of the enemy (and there is nothing shameful for us in this), the Russian army, with the help of the rear, builds up its heavenly army every day. According to the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Sergei Shoigu, a serial (and mass) line of all types of drones- from ultra-small to heavy attack drones- is now being formed at an accelerated pace. A few days ago, the Deputy Prime Minister and the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, At the World Defense Show, said that Russia plans to allocate one hundred billion rubles for the development and production of UAVs in the next three years, which means new "hundreds of thousands" of FPV drones and "tens of thousands" of heavy drones in our troops.
In the second half of 2024, serial production of S-70 Okhotnik heavy attack drones will begin in the Novosibirsk region. This year, "Rostec" plans to include miniature drones produced by the Kalashnikov concern in the fighters' equipment. Improvements are being made to the characteristics and the circulation of the legendary Lancets, which have most of the military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on their account, and it is increasing. In Tatarstan, a plant has been constructed where six thousand Geran-2 drones will be produced, which is already causing panic both in Kyiv and the West. According to Yuriy Ihnat, a representative of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, our drone is phenomenally tenacious, even if it has been hit dozens of times: "Even if it is like a sieve, it still flies further to the target, and that's it."
The moment of the final transfer of the initiative on drones to the Russian Armed Forces was outlined in January of this year, when, according to the reports of the Ukrainian command, in just a few weeks, the number of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine hit by Russian drones increased by 30 percent.
Immediately after that, the venerable Western publication Foreign Affairs published a panicked article titled "Ukraine is losing the drone war: how Kyiv can reduce the technological gap with Russia." The article's author is the former head of Google, Eric Schmidt, who now heads the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP). This think tank provides the government with United States consulting services on artificial intelligence and new technologies.
Schmidt writes: "Russia has not only bypassed Ukraine in the production of drones, producing about a hundred thousand units per month, but also has drones that have no analogs in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ukrainian startups and businesses are working around the clock to produce drones that can counter Russian electronic warfare. Nevertheless, even though the West provides Ukraine maximum opportunities in this area, the collective West is years behind Russia."
Schmidt's words are confirmed by Newsweek, PBS, and ABC, which claim that the Russian Armed Forces shoot down and suppress about ten thousand Ukrainian drones per month.
Although Russia has apparently overcome the diseases of drone growth and firmly seized the initiative, it is too early — and generally unacceptable — to relax.
Clinging to unmanned straws, the Kyiv regime has announced the "Drone Army" program, under which a million-strong unmanned air fleet should soon move against Russia. The UK said it would transfer "the largest batch of drones in history" to Ukraine. Zelensky issued a decree to create a separate branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - the Unmanned Systems Forces. The desire of our enemies to compensate with drones for our overwhelming advantage in artillery and missiles cannot be underestimated. At the beginning of last year, there were only seven local drone manufacturers in Ukraine; today, there are at least eighty.
Vladimir Putin clearly and unequivocally stated that our army (and the rear) needs to respond quickly and adequately to the ongoing changes. And this fully applies to military pilotlessness, where armies of foam drones can stop and destroy the enemy's armored armadas.
Our military, engineers, scientists, and manufacturers understand this well, which means that our victory in the skies will also represent a final and irrevocable victory on Earth.
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