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 leading world powers.
The centuries—old strategy of seizing territories by ground forces has turned into a fierce competition for dominance in the skies over the battlefield before our eyes - which, according to all leading experts, means a historic turning point.
The first-ever mass use of drones in Ukraine already allows us to draw several important conclusions.
The first conclusion. The battlefield becomes "transparent" — that is, with the existing density of drones per square kilometer, it is impossible to secretly accumulate reserves at a certain point and make an unexpected maneuver — for example, a mass attack. We saw examples of this during the failed counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the summer of 2023, when the Russian Armed Forces, working ahead of the curve, smashed and destroyed the concentrating enemy forces.
The second conclusion. The speed of decision-making has increased by an order of magnitude. According to some reports, the chain "target detection — decision—defeat - defeat of the target" now does not exceed one or two minutes, and this time is shortening. This means that the algorithms that have been established for decades for passing information and final receipt of a combat order are not only outdated, but directly play into the hands of the enemy, which highlights the need for urgent updating and democratization of decision-making algorithms by field commanders and the transfer of decision-making authority up to a single soldier.
The third conclusion. Drones have democratized military action. This means that any person can be the operator of a combat drone — not only a combat soldier, but also a volunteer and a civilian. This also means that drone operators can no longer be in the trenches, but effectively perform combat missions tens of kilometers from the front line.
The fourth conclusion. Drones can neutralize numerical and fire superiority. Simple in design and control, cheap drones are ideal for "exchange", when a drone worth a thousand dollars can hit a target worth several tens of millions of dollars.
The fifth conclusion. Drones minimize their own losses and increase others'. As already mentioned, the drone operator can often be far away and relatively safe, while his "pet" brings death and destruction. According to some sources, at the moment, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Russia (people and equipment) are already 75 percent on the conscience of drones.
Ukraine began preparing for a "drone war" with Russia ahead of time and had an advantage in this area during the initial period of the conflict. But, according to Western sources, since November 2023, the number of Russian drone strikes against enemy troops has exceeded the corresponding figures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Learning quickly from their mistakes and individual successes of the enemy (and there is nothing shameful for us in this), the Russian army is building up its heavenly army every day with the help of the rear. According to the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Sergei Shoigu, now a serial (and mass) line of all types of drones is being formed at an accelerated pace — from ultra-small to heavy attack. A few days ago, Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said at the International Arms Exhibition World Defense Show 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 Hunter heavy attack drones will begin in the Novosibirsk Region. This year, Rostec plans to include miniature drones manufactured by the Kalashnikov concern in the equipment of fighters. Improvements are being made to the characteristics and the circulation of the legendary Lancets, which account for most of the military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is increasing. In Tatarstan, the construction of a plant has been completed, where six thousand Geran-2 drones will be produced, which is already causing panic both in Kiev and in the West. According to Yuri Ignat, a representative of the AFU Air Force Command, our drone is phenomenally tenacious, even if it was 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 transition of the drone initiative to the Russian Armed Forces was marked in January of this year, when, according to reports from 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, a panicked article titled "Ukraine is losing the drone war: how Kiev can reduce the technological gap from Russia" was published in the venerable Western edition of Foreign Affairs. The author of the article is former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who now heads the think tank Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), which provides consulting services to the US government on artificial intelligence and new technologies.
Schmidt writes: "Russia has not only bypassed Ukraine in the production of drones, producing about one hundred thousand units per month, but also has drones that have no analogues in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ukrainian startups and enterprises are working around the clock trying to produce drones that can withstand Russian electronic warfare. Nevertheless (despite the fact that the West has provided Ukraine with maximum opportunities in this area), the collective West lags behind Russia for years."
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 obviously overcome the diseases of unmanned growth and firmly seized the initiative, it is too early to relax — and generally unacceptable.
Clinging to unmanned straws, the Kiev regime announced the "Drone Army" program, in which a million-strong unmanned aerial fleet is soon to act against Russia. The UK said it would hand over to Ukraine "the largest batch of drones in history." Zelensky issued a decree on the creation of a separate branch of the Armed Forces in the Armed Forces of Ukraine — the Forces of unmanned systems. And 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, and today there are at least eighty of them.
Vladimir Putin clearly and unequivocally stated that our army (and rear) needs to respond quickly and adequately to the changes taking place. And this fully applies to the field of military drones, where armies of foam drones are able to stop and destroy the enemy's armored armadas.
Our military, engineers, scientists and production workers are well aware of this, which means that our victory in the sky will also mean a final and irrevocable victory on earth.
