Speaker A
to the present, when the front, due to the efforts of the Russian command, became completely stalled, and from that moment success became possible almost exclusively through military-technical solutions. At the first stage, the most effective and fastest way to achieve victory in this war on Russia's side was a strike through the Sumy region toward the Dnipro, aiming to cut Ukraine's territory in two. Unlike Donbas, where since 2014 the Armed Forces of Ukraine had built a line of fortifications, the border in the Sumy region was not fortified at the start of the war. In case of an advance through the Sumy region, Ukrainian units would be encircled, and the defense line in Donbas would become a trap for them. At the second stage of the war, Russia could have struck from Belarus toward the Carpathians to completely cut off western Ukraine from possible NATO supplies. The war would most likely have ended there. The actual plan of the Russian command was completely opposite. Instead of one or at most two concentrated strikes, the offensive was divided into eight parts, so that on none of the directions did the Russian military have any advantage over the defenders. The plan to advance on Kyiv was suicidal and unfeasible from the start. However, things only got worse. In April 2022, the command made one of the most despicable decisions of this war, predetermining its protracted and bloody nature. While the withdrawal of troops from Kyiv was a justified decision, the withdrawal from the Sumy and Chernihiv regions was catastrophically bad. Moreover, they withdrew to Donbas, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine had built a very strong defense since 2014. Let me explain it so that even the most gifted understand. Imagine a fortress that lacks one wall. If you are going to storm it, it makes sense to strike where it has no protection. You wouldn’t bash your head against the most well-defended wall when there is no wall at all on the other side. So, the Russian leadership chose to bash against that wall, and after 4 years, nothing has changed. I don’t know a single historical example of such shameless and open work for the enemy by a country’s leadership. Meanwhile, the Russian command had a whole year and a half to fix this situation and still strike through the Sumy region. However, instead, they rigidly stuck to the plan of the meat grinder in Donbas, occasionally making gestures of goodwill by leaving positions in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions. The Sumy direction was completely ignored. The Russian command completely exposed this direction until the Armed Forces of Ukraine themselves struck from there into the Kursk region. But even before this invasion, the maneuver phase of the war had ended. The battlefield saw the emergence of the most deadly and revolutionary weapon of modern times: FPV drones. Their revolutionary nature lies in the fact that, first, they are incredibly cheap; second, they have deadly high accuracy; and third, there are no effective countermeasures against them. Extreme cheapness allows them to be produced by the millions, and the lack of effective defense measures makes any potential advance of armored vehicles and infantry impossible. From this moment, the outcome of the war depended much more on military-technical solutions, qualitative superiority in weapons, communications, reconnaissance, and target designation. For this, there was no need to reinvent the wheel; it was enough to adopt technical solutions from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and create analogs of high-precision weapons from other countries. In the current realities, this is needed not only to achieve superiority on the battlefield in the special operation zone but also to deter threats from the USA and NATO. First, let’s look at how the UAV system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is arranged. One of the most important elements of their superiority in drones are quadcopters carrying airborne repeaters for FPV drones. Thanks to them, the controlled flight range radically increases from 5-7 km to 25 km or more. If you watch video footage, you will see that ground-level radio-controlled FPV drones fly without interference precisely because of the airborne repeaters. In addition, their FPVs are equipped with various radio frequency modules of the widest range and use many communication protocols. Creating an RP station capable of jamming all the frequencies they use is extremely difficult. Various quadcopters are used not only for signal relay but also for radio-technical reconnaissance. The mothership UAVs in the Armed Forces of Ukraine deploy FPV drones up to 60 km deep from the front line. There are also heavy agricultural drones of two types: Babayaga and Vampire. Babayaga is equipped with a Starlink antenna and is almost impossible to jam. Vampire is controlled by a regular ground antenna. Both types of drones carry heavy charges and mines capable of precisely destroying almost any fortification: dugouts, occupied houses, or basements. These quadcopters are a real scourge for the Russian Armed Forces. Also, with the help of such heavy quadcopters, Ukrainian soldiers supply their forward units without risking personnel. They also have many anti-aircraft FPV drones, which they use massively to intercept Russian reconnaissance wings and strike drones. Plus, they have full control over ground drones and unmanned boats. In total, the Armed Forces of Ukraine produce up to 3 million FPV drones, both fiber-optic and radio-controlled, just through state procurement. Almost 1.5 million more are purchased through various volunteers. Babayagas and Vampires are produced in quantities exceeding 100,000 units per year. Another advantage on the Ukrainian side is automated control systems like Delta or Krapiva, which give their military an accurate picture of the current situation on the ground and in the air. Information for these systems comes not only from drones, ground radars, and radio-technical reconnaissance stations but also from spy satellites and NATO drones. But the main advantage on the Ukrainian side is, of course, the low-orbit broadband satellite communication system Starlink. Thanks to it, not only is communication super protected from interference and hacking, but also the control of high-precision weapons is ensured. Equipping reconnaissance wings with Starlink completely removes the limitation on flight control range. Now, the wing flies as far as its fuel or battery lasts, allowing reconnaissance deep in the enemy’s rear. But installing a Starlink antenna on kamikaze drones takes this type of weapon to a completely different level. Imagine high-precision weapons that an operator can control from anywhere, even on the other side of the planet. Moreover, guidance is carried out until the last second, ensuring phenomenal accuracy. And the cost of a drone with a Starlink antenna is 50 times less than a cruise missile, meaning the number of targets destroyed with such weapons is limited only by the number of kamikaze drones produced. Air defense shows absolutely zero effectiveness in countering UAVs with Starlink. In these frames, hundreds of destroyed...
