Ukraine War
Drone Attack
Ukraine attacks on Russian Soil
___
By Weblogs
Ukraine does not seem to restrict itself to only defensive ops. The crowd funding and building of an arsenal of drones commenced during early stages of the war. The project was spearheaded by United24. Apart from equipping the Army with crowd funded drones, Ukraine has also utilised various drones it has been handed (gifted) over by its allies including the USA.
February Assault
A-50 Damaged in Minsk
Large Drone Wave
A multi dimensional and massive drone attack was launched by Ukraine over many days from 26 February. The Details can be checked on this site. A pictorial representation is below
This is a one of its kind operation involving coordinated drone assault in the history of modern warfare. The Fallouts are clear
-
Ingress
Clear ingress into Russian territory, while retaining the ability to deny the same. Deny Ukraine did and has officially stated that Ukraine has nothing to do with the drone attack. However, official posturing notwithstanding, this novel method of ingress into enemy territory has resulted in exponential gains for Ukraine.
-
Width and Depth
The attack has been launched across the width and depth of Russia. This action has displayed the capability of Ukraine to swarm Russian Air Defense with drones and saturate their response mechanism. They have reached key cities of St Petersburg, the capital Moscow itself, and logistics installations along Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula. This spans the 180deg area from North to South of Russia and covers the complete area.
-
Change the Narrative
Narrative weaved carefully by the Putin administration for the masses has been shattered. For the natives, the war was somewhere far away till the recent drone attacks. But now the civilians have a sense of fear and caution. Defensive preparations against future drone attacks are now mandatory. Preparations must cover all vital logistics infra and key civil establishments apart from the populated areas.
-
Moral Ascendency
From being the defender to now also aggressively targeting deep inside Russian territory, all the while maintaining deniability, gives moral ascendency to Ukraine, forcing Russians to take defensive measures against the drones. In panic, the airspace over St Petersburg was closed and fighters scrambled by Russia. Drones from Ukraine flew for more than 550 Km inside Russia to reach a military installation near St Petersburg!
More to Come
Having tasted success and spread panic across the length and breadth, causing damage to strategic assets and key logistics installations, Ukraine will surely embark upon more such missions in future. They have already forced Russia to deploy some anti drone resources for defence of key assets in the hinterland. The next drone swarm will probably not take Russia by so much surprise, but likewise, Ukraine will also come better prepared with the lessons learnt from this drone attack.
India may also need to raise assets for conduct of offensive and defensive drone ops. This will involve procurement of drones, which can well be produced indigenously, creation of infrastructure for command and control, training of troops and integration of drone operation in the overall scheme of things. One thing is for sure that all three services will have to be equipped with drones as per their operational requirement. This implies decentralisation for better functioning and exponential payoffs.
