Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones that were shot down by air defences in what Russian officials called one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
The war, largely a grinding artillery and drone battle across the fields, forests and villages of eastern Ukraine, escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia's western Kursk region.
For months, Ukraine has also fought an increasingly damaging drone war against the refineries and airfields of Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, though major drone attacks on the Moscow region - with a population of over 21 million - have been rarer.
Russia's defence ministry said its air defences destroyed a total of 45 drones over Russian territory, including 11 over the Moscow region, 23 over the border region of Bryansk, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region.
"The war, ... , escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia's western Kursk region."
Victim blaming? Sounds like the old "if Ukraine would stop fighting the war could be over"
It seems like a pretty neutral phrasing to me. Like, the allies landing in Normandy was also an escalation. Doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad thing
With all this drone usage, why aren’t we seeing more smaller drone operations deeper into Russia? This seems like the perfect opportunity for a movie-like secret mission with a bag full of consumer drones strapped with explosives. A low flying drone swam can’t be that difficult to execute. Heck, they do it at Disneyland.
You can't really command drones that far, they are programed with the coordinates, then launched.
And to go far, you need to have more fuel, thus a heavier drone, which in turn will be easier to detect and target for AA systems.
I think you're vastly overestimating the damage possible from the explosive payload a tiny quadcopter can carry, unless your goal is strictly terrorism i.e. intentionally targeting civilians.
Civilians dying as collateral damage during an attack/assignation of a legitimate military target is one thing, targeting civilians is another.
And before you say Russia does, don't forget that Ukraine is dependent upon continued Western support, which is already fragile. It's doubtful that support would survive them explicitly targeting civilians with suicide drones deep inside Russia.
On site they prepare the drone – a large, Ukrainian-made quadcopter — and the explosive they are dropping on the Russian position. The device can carry a payload of up to 45 pounds, but this evening they’re making an improvised explosive – using a shell left behind by Russian forces when they pulled out of Kherson.
Baba Yaga is a large Ukrainian hexacopter drone with an infrared camera and capacity for a 33-pound rocket warhead. The drone’s name is a reference to a mythical witch.
There are many such examples, many of them not so tiny.
That's an impressive strawman you pull there, you said targeting civilians not the person you replied to.
There is plenty of valid military (adjacent) targets that can be damaged beyond use with a quadcopter and some explosives. Just think back to the partisans that landed that explosive drone on the A50.
I would expect Ukraine to have gotten some sabotage groups into Russia during the Kursk offensive. Or maybe Ukraine estimates their sabotage units can do more harm and run less risks in Syria, Mali or any other place where the Russians have less defended high value targets.
I'm surprised at how little we're hearing about any covert actions by either side, since there are significant numbers of Ukrainians in Russia and vice versa. When the war started, I expected that there would be fairly frequent acts of sabotage in both countries. There is periodically news of saboteurs caught in Ukraine before accomplishing anything dramatic, and I don't follow Russian news closely enough to know whether they have made credible claims of catching Ukrainian saboteurs. The truck bomb on the Kerch bridge is the major exception.
Acts of sabotage have been happening this entire time, whether or not they're getting covered.
Ukraine has also been running a covert targeted assassination program, which unfortunately got some press coverage some months back due to their legally and morally questionable approach to target selection.
But, it's an existential war for their survival, so I'm not going to moralize about it.
Didn't you read any of the news of fire breaking out in munitions factories and manufacturing plants all over Russia? Or the memes about Ivan carelessly smoking at work?
So probably either Russia hasn't caught any yet, or they think that admitting Ukraine was able to sabotage or come close to sabotaging anything makes Russia look too "weak" so they just blame it on their own incompetence again
The most high value targets are probably close to the actual battle lines. The oil refineries are also decently high value, but they don't need to go deep into Russia to disrupt that.
That is what they are doing. I should have structured my post better. Keep striking military targets and the oil and gas infrastructure. Keep the pressure on the regime and bleed the oligarchs pocketbooks dry.
Honest question, how does this mesh with sieges of cities in earlier periods of history? When cities would surrender because of sieges. What are the differences?
There are valid military targets in Moscow. However the more important part is to instill fear in the populace. People who are afraid of being killed are far more useful a tool to Ukraine than actually killing them. It's that feeling of impending doom, that this time they might come for you. Them those scared people are a problem for the Russian government, but without pissing them off enough to override their fear.
Not if you’re Russia, the UK, the US, etc. You’re used to getting away with what you want and nobody can do anything about it. When something like that happens, the populace goes into a state of crisis.
Because the drones are made in China and China wants Russia to genocide so that they can get away with their genocides. It would be nice if we started manufacturing again, but we seem to have trouble getting anything done.
It does seem odd that we aren't making more drones. Given how big a roll they are playing, it seems like we wouldn't want China to have access to so many more than we do.
Organisers of the Army of Drones campaign say they have built or purchased an extra 3,300 drones. Some 400 people have even sent their own hobby drones in the mail.
Drones aren't the be-all and end-all, especially at this stage in the war. They can cause a lot of damage but countermeasures are being used more and more and you can't win a war with just drones.
Yeah, that why I mean government scale. Send a million of them. If Ukraine can send them in the hundreds, the defenses will be overwhelmed.
But they do need to be able to autonomously avoid humans in my opinion. Targeting is probably the hardest part right now.
Ukraine is doing fine building their own drones. They seem to have a fast iteration cycle with their growing drone industry. Their priority for foreign aid is artillery shells, missile systems, and vehicles/planes which is harder for them to produce en mass
Especially when these drones are basically kamikazes. Last think we need is to be shipping over million-dollar Lockheed quadcopters to be met with that kind of fate.
Getting objective information is difficult, but not impossible. If, for example, an oil refinery is burning then it probably wasn't just hit by debris.