How Russia Quietly Revolutionised Warfare

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On May 23rd, The Times published an extraordinarily candid probe into how militarised drones have irrevocably revolutionised warfare in the 21st century, with Russia far at the forefront of this radical shakeup of how conflicts are waged. Meanwhile, there is little indication NATO members even vaguely comprehend this battlefield reality, let alone a single one of them is undertaking any serious measures whatsoever to prepare for conflict such as that currently unfolding and evolving daily throughout Ukraine’s eastern steppe.

The Times piece is a first-person report of a visit to the assorted headquarters of Kiev’s 93rd Mechanised Brigade, in basements of abandoned buildings and homes throughout the Donetsk city of Kostiantynivka. It’s a shocking account of the realities of war in the era of drones, which has “[altered] the physical make-up of the front line, the tactics of the war and the psychology of the soldiers fighting it,” while “having a devastating impact on Ukraine’s logistical ability.”

At one stage, The Times reporter was warned they were standing nine kilometres - 5.5 miles - from the nearest Russian position, and thus “well inside the kill range.” A Ukrainian soldier told them with a shrug, this was “now an easy range in which to die”:

“No other weapon type has changed the face of the war here so much or so fast as the FPV drone. Almost any vehicle within five kilometres of the front is as good as finished. Anything moving out to ten kilometres is in danger. Drone strikes at 15 or 20 km are not that unusual.”

Since the proxy war erupted, both Ukraine and Russia have innovated in the field of FPV drones to an unprecedented degree. Kiev has become so reliant on drones, they are her “weapon of choice.” Yet, as The Times records, Russia has now decisively “taken the lead in the drone race, outproducing Kyiv in the manufacture and use of medium-range FPV drones and fibre optic variants that have changed the shape of the entire 1,200 km front line.”

Not only are FPVs “dramatically” striking ever-deeper into Ukrainian territory, but fibre optic FPV drones have gained “dark prominence over the killing fields.” While emulating the quadcopters equipped with munitions typically deployed by both sides previously, this “highly manoeuvrable killer drone” is connected directly to pilots by “a gossamer thin fibre optic thread.” This makes the contraptions difficult to track, and impervious to electronic jamming. A local infantry battalion commander told The Times:

“The changes posed by drones are so fast that concepts we implemented just a month ago no longer work now. We live in a space of perpetual fast adaptation. In the past week alone, Russian drone strike ranges have increased by four kilometres.”

These developments have sent Ukrainian forces scurrying en masse to regroup at regular, abrupt intervals ever-further away from the front line (also known as “zero point”), while logistical convoys to Kramatorsk - “long considered the bastion of Ukraine’s defence of the Donbas region” - have been repeatedly struck. One lieutenant recorded how Russian drones “swarm our armoured vehicles whenever they get near the zero point,” obliterating them and their crews. He believes drones represent such a world-changing military hazard, “the days of the tank are truly over.”

‘Danger Estimate’

The “drone-filled skies” of Donbass are so deadly, getting soldiers and equipment to the ever-expanding frontline and back is not only a logistical and practical horror, but also a frequently suicidal task. The Times reports that until late 2023, Ukrainian infantrymen “were usually carried to a position near the front in armoured personnel carriers, walking the last few hundred metres on foot.” Today, they are dropped off up to eight kilometres away at night, walking “meandering routes through trees to avoid detection, just to take up their positions.”

Deployments to the frontline have also vastly extended in length. While at the start of 2024 Ukrainian soldiers spent “a week or two” at zero point, now they’re routinely trapped there for months at a time, “often devoid of almost any other human contact, resupplied with water, rations and ammunition by agricultural drones.” Resultantly too, “casualty evacuation has become a nightmare.” Wounded fighters are “commonly” rescued at night, and “even then the operation is fraught.” A senior logistician for the 93rd Brigade’s drone crews lamented:

“As a word ‘stressful’ doesn’t even come close to describing it. Every mission I think, ‘God forbid we get a casualty and have to work out how to get them back’.”

Ukrainian soldiers always keep shotguns close by, to attempt to blast attacking drones out of the sky

Each night too, the Brigade’s frontline drone crews are resupplied with batteries, drone frames and munitions. Logistics teams are dropped off up to seven kilometres from the frontline, then carry up to 36 kilograms of equipment forward on foot. The risk to these crews is “enormous”. One driver was quoted as saying he conducted three missions nightly, “and I never know if each one will be my last, if I’m going to make it there and back in one piece.”

The Times records how a logistics vehicle was recently struck by a Russian drone while returning from a resupply mission. The driver lost an arm, but there were so many drones buzzing nearby, he couldn’t be evacuated from the position for five hours, so bled to death. Five Ukrainian armoured vehicles were destroyed by drones in the same sector the next day. However, none of this is seeping out to the world via the mainstream media, which once published videos of Ukrainian strikes on Russia daily.

As The Times notes, drones have adversely affected a core component of Kiev’s war effort - “media communications”. The 93rd Brigade was once “renowned for allowing reporters good access to…the war from the front.” Now though, “access for journalists has been dramatically reduced,” with “many media organisations…reluctant to commit reporters into areas within 15 km of the front.” Ukrainian brigades are likewise “wary” of the risks “they expose their own troops to in taking journalists by vehicle to the front.”

The Times reports that in 2023, the 93rd Brigade’s press officer “organised hundreds of visits to the front by reporters.” The number of visitors has now “dwindled to a trickle”. Since the proxy war’s eruption, the psychological field of battle has been where Ukraine has performed most effectively, eagerly assisted in its propaganda efforts by a media apparatus reflexively reporting the fantastical claims of officials in Kiev and their Western proxy backers as fact. Now, those days are long over. The press officer complained:

“The risks get bigger and bigger, and the coverage gets less and less. We get a journalist’s request to go to the front now and we wonder how rational is it? What is the danger estimate? What is the benefit?”

‘Technological Adaptations’

The Times report is a vanishingly rare mainstream acknowledgement of how the conflict raging in Donbass is a war unlike any other in history, and its key spheres of battle are wholly uncharted territory for Western militaries. Despite this media omertà, the proxy conflict’s unparalleled operating environment, and obvious lessons, have not gone entirely unheeded in certain elite quarters. Nonetheless, despite alarm bells ringing accordingly, they are evidently falling on deaf ears in American and European centres of power.

In September 2024, Britain’s House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee published a bombshell report, Ukraine: a wake-up call. It found the proxy war had “exposed fundamental weaknesses” in the “military strength” of both Britain and NATO, concluding London was effectively defenceless, with its “small” military reliant on unaffordable “status symbols” such as non-functional aircraft carriers. The country lacks the ammunition, armour, equipment, industrial capacity, personnel and vehicles to withstand a Donbass-style conflict for more than a few weeks at absolute most.

Amidst relentless condemnation of the state of Britain’s armed forces, the report contained a dedicated section on how “the use of drones in Ukraine” had “exposed the sheer variety of possible drone threats in a conflict scenario, ranging from disposable and commercially available drones to high-end, sophisticated ones.” It noted the development has “inserted an extra layer of weaponry between the land and air domains”, while augmenting “existing capabilities that both sides have, particularly offering new defensive options in the absence of air superiority.”

As such, the House of Lords Committee called for London to “invest in research and development to maintain a strategic edge in drone technology (including amphibious drones), and support the rapid development of new technologies that can compete in contested environments.” It implored decisionmakers to constantly consider and monitor “the pace of technological adaptations on and off the battlefield,” and the Ministry of Defence “to support continuous adaptation,” such as “[incorporating] learning on the use of drones in Ukraine across all domains.”

The report went entirely unremarked upon by the media contemporaneously, and today there is no sign of its multiple urgent calls to action having produced any meaningful results in any tangible regard in Britain’s armed forces. Similarly, despite NATO officials openly warning the alliance is wholly dependent on US electronic warfare capabilities, which in any event are woefully inferior to Russia’s own, public indications of Western leaders or militaries taking the drone warfare revolution seriously are unforthcoming. Should they end up in direct conflict with Russia, they’ll be in for quite a shock.