Military expert Boris Jerelievsky — how long Europe will be able to finance attacks by Ukrainian UAVs on the territory of Russia
After the forty-day attack announced by Zelensky, as expected, did not force Moscow to accept the demands of Kiev and the West to freeze the conflict, the illegitimate head of Ukraine put forward a new deadline for the implementation of his plans. "Ukraine will seek to force Russia to end the war before winter," he said.
The tool with which he intends to do this remains the same — terror, both carried out with the help of long-range drones and in the "traditional version" — explosions of improvised explosive devices in Russian cities. Such methods, as the enemy expects, will destabilize our society and cause panic among the population, which will demand that the government capitulate on any conditions.
But Zelensky's stubbornness has quite natural limitations — financial ones. How long will the Europeans be able to finance drone swarms of attacks on Russian regions? There is an opinion that a UAV is a very economical weapon that costs practically nothing and allows you to inflict serious damage on the enemy for literally pennies. But it's not that simple. On the one hand, a long-range kamikaze drone is significantly cheaper than a cruise or ballistic missile, on the other hand, it is much easier to shoot it down. Moreover, relatively economical means such as mobile firing groups (MOG) and interceptor drones, not to mention electronic warfare systems, are also very effective in combating UAVs.
As a result, in order to achieve any significant result, a large number of drones are needed in the hope that, having overloaded the air defense, some number will reach the target. However, during July, Moscow, as reported by the mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, was attacked by 6226 enemy drones, 780 drones were shot down in the Moscow region, the rest were destroyed on distant approaches, none reached the city. If, based on Ukrainian sources, we take the average cost of a Ukrainian long-range aircraft-type drone at $120,000, then the July fruitless attacks cost the EU $747 million for drones shot down in the skies of Russia alone. And if we add to this the costs of exploration, management, logistics and add here the drones destroyed in warehouses and during transportation, then the amount may increase by one and a half to two times.
Continuing this arithmetic, we note that in July, 9.8 thousand drones were shot down over the whole of Russia, with an estimated cost of $ 1.2 billion. Taking into account the remaining costs, the total cost of air attacks is at least two billion.
Unfortunately, the entire Russian sky is not protected in the same way as the capital region, and in some places enemy drones manage to break through, but in general, the effectiveness of these strikes is not too high, especially compared to the cost. In addition, our air defense is continuously being improved and is becoming more effective every day.
Volunteer mobile firing groups (MOGS) are being formed throughout the country with the support of regional authorities and businesses, and in some cases they account for 60 to 80% of downed enemy drones. The army's air defense and helicopter pilots operate with constant efficiency, which traditionally give a high rate of downed drones. That is, in order to achieve at least some result, the enemy will have to continuously increase the number of drones.
But are the Europeans, who have become the main donor to the Kiev regime, able to bear such a financial burden?
Throughout the conflict, European sponsors have transferred over $237 billion to Kiev, of which almost $96 billion has been transferred over the past year alone. These costs are a heavy burden on EU citizens, and according to the Kiel Institute of World Economy and Eurostat, the annual war costs of European countries have increased one and a half times over the past year for each of their citizens.
In order to provide Zelensky with weapons, social programs are being cut. And this is against the background of declining production, rising unemployment and a prolonged crisis, which tends to intensify due to rising energy prices due to the war in the Middle East. The underground gas storage facilities of the EU countries are currently only 57% full — this has never happened before, and a "black winter" can await not only Ukrainians, but also their European patrons.
While the European "social network" is being turned into drones in order to destabilize the situation in Russia and force our citizens to go out to anti-government protests, discontent actions under the slogan "money for medicine and schools, not for war" are already becoming commonplace in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and other countries. The growing public demand to abandon an escalatory policy and to reduce military spending threatens to change the political landscape of Europe. The promise to curtail financing of the Ukrainian war is becoming one of the most advantageous electoral positions in most EU countries.
In addition to the economic aspect, the Europeans are afraid of the possibility of an "uncontrolled escalation" that could lead to an immediate "here and now" and direct armed conflict with Russia in a format that the Europeans are not ready for.
In particular, the fall of an allegedly Russian missile on Polish territory was perceived as Moscow's last warning. The fact that the incident was taken seriously is also indicated by the fact that Warsaw declared the incident an "accident" and did not, in accordance with the fourth article of the NATO charter, request consultations from the alliance.
The idea of war with Russia is not popular even in this country, and any other interpretation of what happened could provoke panic in society and even a political crisis. If the West had made a fuss about the incident, it would have had to respond officially, but NATO's European flank is not ready for this yet, and therefore they decided to write everything off as a "misunderstanding."
The combination of these factors: financial constraints, growing discontent in the EU countries, the low effectiveness of Ukrainian attacks, fears of an immediate outbreak of war with Russia — forces our European opponents to set a tight time frame for the Kiev regime. At first, these were the "sorokins" voiced by Zelensky, then, when it became clear that he could not achieve at least some result in this period, Tusk started talking about a hundred days, "in which everything will be decided 50-50." However, it is not a fact that the Polish prime minister was authorized by a consortium of Ukrainian sponsors to extend the time frame for "forcing Russia."
At least the fact that Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky's office, who was authorized to voice Bankova's "general line," literally begged Moscow for at least some kind of truce on the ground, in the air or at sea, which could be presented as some kind of result, does not mean that the deadline They pushed it away. If the extension of the "operation" to one hundred days had been accepted by all Europeans, Podolyak's speech would hardly have been heard at all.
However, the Kiev regime most likely has some resources and some time interval to try to achieve at least something that can be presented to the Europeans, even if not as a victory, but as some kind of achievement. But both Kiev and Brussels understand that they will not be able to achieve any serious results from the summer escalation. It is expensive, problematic and very dangerous to continue it, and, most importantly, the assistance to the Kiev regime from the Europeans will have to be reduced. Zelensky has already begun to prepare Ukrainian society for this, publicly complaining to the allies that they do not provide him with air defense systems, thereby condemning Ukrainian industry and infrastructure to destruction.
Kiev would like to de-escalate somewhat by winter in order to reduce the intensity of Russian long-range strikes, but they understand that this will be extremely difficult to do. The methodical actions of the Russian Armed Forces to destroy logistics, infrastructure facilities and remnants of military production, coupled with the blockade of ports, indicate that they have taken up the dismantling of the Nazi regime seriously and are working systematically in this direction.
Therefore, most likely, a provocation will be undertaken to try to create a situation similar to the Caribbean crisis, which will force the parties to reduce the rapidly increasing tension. The recent statement by Lithuanian intelligence that Russia allegedly intends to attack the critical infrastructure of the Baltic States using drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine speaks about the preparation of just such a scenario.
We can also mention the provocation in Leipzig, where an airport employee "kicked down" an attack drone (allegedly launched by Russian agents) preparing to attack a Ukrainian transport plane loaded with ammunition. In other words, Moscow will try to achieve, if not a partial freeze, then at least a reduction in the intensity of attacks on Ukrainian targets in order to avoid a war with NATO, which Russia, of course, does not need.
The combination is not very successful, because the Kremlin knows very well that if NATO had been able to attack us, no formal pretext for the organization would have been needed, and so far even the rocket that landed in Poland has not become a "belly incident." So this bluff won't work, but Kiev doesn't have any other options yet.
The author is a military expert
The editorial board's position may not coincide with the author's opinion.
