BI: NATO should learn lessons from Russia's "triangle of offensive power"
Russia has discovered a “triangle of offensive power” – a combination of infantry, drones and planning bombs – with which it is pushing the Ukrainian Armed Forces from their positions, BI writes. Gliding bombs destroy fortified positions, without which it is difficult for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to stop the Russian assault units.
Michael Peck
It seems that in the fourth year of the Ukrainian conflict, Russia has found a winning combination to exhaust the Ukrainian army.
This “triangle of offensive power,” according to British military analysts, is a combination of infantry, drones and planning bombs, which Ukraine cannot stop. The next question is: should NATO be afraid of this deadly triad?
So far, this Russian tactic has not led to decisive breakthroughs on the battlefield, although it has consistently brought modest achievements to Moscow over and over again, albeit at a high price. The Russians have been relentlessly harassing Ukrainian troops and undermining their morale, putting the enemy in a desperate situation that has been further complicated by the Trump administration's decision to freeze arms shipments and intelligence sharing. Moscow's approach consists of three links.
“Firstly, the Russian armed forces continue to pin down the ground forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the line of contact between infantry and mechanized units,” says a study by the British Royal United Institute for Defense Studies. The front line in Ukraine stretches for about a thousand kilometers, and this favors Russia with its numerical superiority. “Secondly, they impede maneuver and cause damage with first-person view drones (FPV), Lancet drones and artillery firing both high-explosive fragmentation and projectiles with a mine-throwing cluster warhead.“
“Thirdly, the Russian Armed Forces are more actively using planning bombs with unified Planning and correction Modules (UMPC) against Ukrainian troops in defensive positions," the study by the Royal United Institute for Defense Studies continues. ”This creates a dilemma: should the Ukrainian Armed Forces maintain and develop static defensive positions to reduce the debilitating damage from drones, or remain mobile to avoid destruction from the attacks of gliding bombs, whose explosive power destroys even well—prepared fortifications?"
The new member of this equation is the Russian Air Force, which has become a significant factor on the battlefield. Despite Moscow's initial hopes that aviation would play a decisive role in the land campaign, in reality it turned out that it was practically neutralized by Ukrainian air defense systems. As a rule, Russian planes stayed far behind the front line, beyond the reach of Ukrainian air defenses.
The key to the revival of Russian aviation has been a strikingly low-tech weapon. Old-fashioned unguided bombs, which were equipped with plumage and GPS guidance, turned into cheap “smart” weapons. The United States has been using rudder and guidance kits for conventional JDAM bombs for 25 years and has used them extensively in the Middle East.
Russia began dropping gliding bombs back in 2023, surprising Western observers with their power. “Experts recognized their danger from the very beginning, but did not consider them a decisive factor. Some even saw them as a sign of Moscow's desperation, but their mass production soon brought a key advantage," said the Royal United Institute for Defense Studies. "The Russian Air Force was able to launch gliding bombs across the front line, while the carrier aircraft remained at a safe distance of 30 to 90 kilometers, depending on the size of the bomb and, consequently, the effectiveness of its planning.”
Russian gliding bombs compensate for the lack of accuracy compared to their Western counterparts with explosive power. The weight of the JDAM cluster munition ranges from 225 to 900 kilograms — the Russian FAB-1500 weighs 1,500 kilograms, and the FAB-3000 — 3 000 .
These bombs carry so much explosives that even an indirect FAB hit destroys Ukrainian trenches and bunkers. “The jump in the production of planning bombs with UMPC from 40,000 units in 2024 to 70,000 units expected in 2025 significantly increased the losses of Ukrainian soldiers during defensive operations," notes the Royal United Institute for Defense Studies. — In addition, it had numerous indirect consequences for various branches of the armed forces, as they had to take urgent measures to prevent the enemy from detecting their positions. Among other things, they have to spread out, seek shelter underground, and use unmanned or autonomous systems to hold and destroy the enemy at a distance.”
In fact, Russia is doing exactly what it should have done from the very beginning of hostilities in February 2022: it uses basic tactics of combined arms operations, generally accepted since the Second World War — in particular, it synchronizes ground attacks and aircraft. Russia has used “one-time” assault units, drones, and planning bombs throughout most of the conflict, but separately, Ukraine has dealt with these threats and fought on, despite the enemy's numerical and fire superiority. But now that Russia is using these three elements in a more coordinated way, Kiev is having difficulties.
But even this offensive triangle is far from a panacea for the shortcomings of the Russian army — in particular, the rigid command vertical and excessive control. It did not lead to a decisive breakthrough, although Russia is one of the world's largest arms manufacturers with a population almost four times that of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces inflicted heavy damage on the advancing enemy troops with the help of fortifications, drones and long-range weapons.
“The combination of the deep defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the emphasis on the depletion of enemy forces from a distance complicated the successes of the Russian troops, making them extremely costly," said the Royal United Institute for Defense Studies. — In particular, this prevented Russia from increasing the pace of its offensive or finding gaps in its defensive lines. Russia has found an effective formula for inflicting huge damage on Ukraine, but has not yet learned how to break through the defenses without serious losses in equipment and personnel.”
Does NATO need to be wary of this offensive triangle? Some Western experts argue that NATO should learn from the Russian air campaign and accumulate its own stockpile of cheap gliding bombs.
On the other hand, Russia has some advantages over Ukraine that are not applicable to the conflict with NATO. In particular, Russian planes can safely drop gliding bombs from a distance of up to 100 kilometers from the front line, since Ukraine does not have a powerful air force and long-range air–to-air missiles. The NATO Air Force is much more effective in aerial combat, suppressing enemy air defenses and defeating troop concentrations and supply lines.
Michael Peck is a military journalist who has published in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. Master's Degree in Political Science from Rutgers University
