A dramatic video, captured by the Ukrainian 225th Assault Regiment’s Black Swans drone unit and translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated, depicts an increasingly common phenomenon: Russian soldiers exploding after a nearby drone strike cooks off the ammunition the soldiers are carrying.

The blast apparently took place somewhere in Sumy Oblast in northeastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian brigades have been slowly pushing back an incursion by Russian infantry.

Infantry self-immolation is one of the second-order effects of the accelerating “de-mechanization” of the Russian armed forces as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 42nd month. The Russians have written off more than 20,000 combat vehicles and other heavy equipment—far more than they can immediately replace through new production and the reactivation of increasingly scarce stored vehicles.

With only a few exceptions, Russian troops now march into battle in Ukraine—or ride on motorcycles. Even cargo trucks are in short supply, meaning the troops themselves are the supply line. But in carrying bullets, grenades and mines on their persons, they risk self-destruction from drone near-misses.

American analyst Andrew Perpetua noted Russia’s human supply lines while scrutinizing the battlefield just south of the eastern city of Pokrovsk earlier this year. 

Perpetua recently identified, in one shocking video, around 150 destroyed Russian trucks on a two-mile stretch of one of the several roads threading west from the Russian stronghold of Selydove toward the village of Shevchenko, a few miles south of Pokrovsk. That’s a wrecked Russian truck every 70 feet.

Roads of death

That “road of death,” which the Russians persist in using—with predictably bloody results—was patrolled by the drone team supporting one particularly aggressive Ukrainian battalion that held the line around Shevchenko and, in December, waged a successful campaign against a Russian force 20 times its size. The Ukrainian campaign halted the grinding, yearlong Russian advance on Pokrovsk—although temporarily.

The Ukrainians “moved these drone units down to this area and that’s when they started setting up their kind of drone superiority, where they took complete control of the sky,” Perpetua recalled.

“The Russians basically couldn’t fly drones,” he added. “Their drone would take off, Ukraine would shoot it down and then attack the drone pilots—and they couldn’t fly drones. The Russians were complaining of, like, a 10-to-one or worse drone ratio.”

“That drone advantage is what eventually led to this stopping the Russian attack through shutting down all of these roads,” Perpetua said. The Ukrainian drone pilots “had this policy, where they wanted to first take out the Russian drones and then—once those drones were taken out—go for the supply routes.”

Heavy hexacopter “vampire” drones fitted with night-vision gear and carrying loads of grenades or mines, many of them flown by the famed Ukrainian Birds of Magyar drone group, inflicted the most damage on the roads to Shevchenko.

The Russians are adept at downing the 50-pound vampires with two-pound first-person-view drones that blow up on contact. But having suppressed the Russian drone teams around Shevchenko, the Ukrainian drone teams could fly their vampires with impunity.

Smaller FPV drones joined the vampires, including some fiber-optic models. After blasting every Russian supply truck in sight, the drones ranged farther south and east—and located the depots where the Russian regiments were storing the trucks and other vehicles that remained.

“They went to every vehicle depot and just blew them all up so they had, like, no tanks, no BMPs,” Perpetua mused. “They took out all their MRAP [armored trucks] and then they just shut down every single road, so they starved out the Russians.”

To reinforce Shevchenko, the Russians had to walk … for kilometers. “Their engineers were saying, ‘We have to build a minefield, but we can’t bring any trucks up. So everyone has to carry two mines,’” Perpetua laughed. “So there’s these videos of infantry marching up and, you know, they’re being told that you have to march 20 kilometers. You have to bring all of the food and ammo to last two weeks and you have to carry two landmines.”

The practice is now widespread in the de-mechanized Russian military. Already harried by Ukrainian drones, artillery and mines, Russian infantry now have another problem: their own explosive baggage. 

Explore further

Russia’s last tank yards go dark as every inch in Ukraine demands more sacrifice

A bulky, lumbering Russian vehicle that recently appeared along the 1,100-km front line of Russia’s 42-month wider war on Ukraine boasts the qualities of Russia’s “turtle tanks” as well as the qualities of its more recent “porcupine tanks.” That is: layers of shell-like metal sheeting and, atop that, metal quills that project outward. 

The quills help to detonate incoming first-person-view drones before they strike the tank itself. The plating blunts the impact of any drones that get through.

As ugly and ungainly as the hybrid turtle-porcupine tank is, it might actually work under the right circumstances. Examples abound of up-armored vehicles absorbing dozens or even scores of FPVs, which normally weigh just a few pounds and lack explosive power.

If there’s a downside to all this add-on armor, it’s that it almost certainly impedes the vehicle’s mobility by heaping weight onto its original 40- or 50-ton chassis. The extra protection surely also obstructs the driver’s visibility—and probably makes it extremely difficult for the three crew and any infantry passengers to climb onto and off of the vehicle.

This dismount speed can be a matter of life and death when an up-armored tank comes under attack—and any passengers need to get off the vehicle and spread out.

One Russian “porcupine tank”—one of two involved in an assault on Ukrainian defenses outside the ruins of Toretsk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, on or before 9 July—survived more than 70 drone strikes before finally succumbing. “It was very difficult to find a weak spot,” the Ukrainian Deep State analysis group noted.

And yes, the infantry riding on that tank and other vehicles struggled to dismount as Ukrainian drones rained down. “After several hits, the tanks tried to disperse along the forest belts to safely land the infantry among the greenery,” the Ukrainian army’s 28th Mechanized Brigade reported. “In the end, there was almost no one to land. And those who still managed to escape … were eliminated.”

The rubber Stryker

Ukrainian forces have deployed their own super-armored vehicles, albeit with a different armor mix. Open-source analyst Andrew Perpetua recently noted the latest example of a drone-proof Ukrainian vehicle—potentially an American-made Stryker wheeled fighting vehicle.

“There was a Russian video attacking a Ukrainian Stryker that Ukraine turned into an invincible tank,” Perpetua observed. “This Stryker ate every single … drone Russia sent at it without even taking a scratch.”

“The armor plan was this,” Perpetua added. “You take a Stryker with the slat armor on top. On top of the slat armor you apply a thick layer of rubber. All over. Whole vehicle is now rubber. Then, take slat armor and put that over the rubber.”

“It went: Stryker, slat, rubber, slat.”

The downside, as always, is all the extra weight on top of the 19-ton basic vehicle. “This had to be the heaviest … Stryker to ever stryke,” Perpetua quipped.

To be clear, the base vehicle may not have been an 11-person Stryker, Perpetua conceded. It may have been a Soviet-style BTR weighing 18 tons and accommodating 10. In any event, “that little porker probably weighs as much as a [69-ton, four-person M-1] Abrams [tank]. But it ate drones like no tomorrow.”

Of course, add-on armor is no panacea. Yes, the most heavily up-armored vehicles stand a decent chance of surviving a few—or even a lot—of drone strikes. Most vehicles remain extremely vulnerable not just to drones, but to all the myriad dangers along the front line. Mines. Artillery. Missiles.

It’s not for no reason that the Russians have parked most of their surviving vehicles—and now mostly attack on foot or on motorcycles. Under the cover of drones, of course. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians usually defend with infantry sheltering in trenches. Also under the cover of drones.

Explore further

The Russians creep toward Siversk, losing tanks on the way

Thanks to your incredible support, we’ve raised 70% of our funding goal to launch a platform connecting Ukraine’s defense tech with the world – David vs. Goliath defense blog. It will support Ukrainian engineers who are creating innovative battlefield solutions and we are inviting you to join us on the journey.

Our platform will showcase the Ukrainian defense tech underdogs who are Ukraine’s hope to win in the war against Russia, giving them the much-needed visibility to connect them with crucial expertise, funding, and international support.

We’re one final push away from making this platform a reality.

Join us in building this platform on Patreon

In the span of two weeks starting in early July, the German government signaled separate investments in Ukraine’s best attack drone—the Ukroboronprom An-196 Liutyi—as well as its first mass-producible cruise missile, apparently the Bars.

With substantial stocks of the new drones and missiles, Ukrainian forces should be capable of striking Russian targets as far away as 800 km. The drones would fly slower and may carry lighter, 50kg warheads. The missiles should fly faster and hit harder with heavier warheads weighing perhaps twice as much.

There’s some evidence the German spend is already making a difference. The An-196 and Bars “are being deployed on the front line with increasing frequency,” the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team noted. On July 26, drones slammed into the Signal plant in Stavropol, in southwestern Russia 500 km from the front line in Ukraine. The plant manufactures radar and electronic warfare systems.

Explore further

Ukraine has a secret jet drone that Russia still can’t see—and it’s back

A photo that circulated on Russian social media the same day may depict, for the first time in public, wreckage of one of the Bars missiles. 

In funding Ukraine’s expanding deep-strike complex, Germany is helping Ukraine do to Russia what Russia has been doing to Ukraine throughout its 42-month wider war on the country: disrupt Russian command, logistics and production where the Russians are most vulnerable—at home.

Major Gen. Christian Freuding, the head of the German defense ministry’s Situation Center Ukraine, announced the missile deal in early July. The weapons, apparently Bars, would begin arriving in Ukraine within weeks—meaning now.

Drones galore

Just days prior, Welt broke the news that Germany would also finance as many as 500 of the An-196 drones. The propeller-driven, satellite-guided Liutyi carries a 50-kg warhead farther than 800 kg. The $200,000 drone can follow a complex flight path and change altitude in order to dodge Russian defenses.

The An-196 already had German connections. The 3.5-m drone sports a German-made Hirth F-23 aviation engine producing 50 horsepower.

The Liutyis have been responsible for some of the most damaging strikes on targets deep inside Russia. Before Ukraine largely paused strikes on Russian oil facilities this spring, possibly bowing to pressure from the United States, the An-196s accounted for up to 80% of hits on refineries.

The turbojet Bars ranges around as far as the propeller-driven Liutyi does, but should hit harder thanks to a bigger warhead. And it should be more survivable owing to its likely higher speed. An An-196 motors along at slower than 320 km/hr; most cruise missiles travel twice as fast. 

The Bars is reportedly capable of ground and aerial launch. The Ukrainian air force has modified its Sukhoi Su-24 bombers to carry British-made Storm Shadow and French-made SCALP cruise missiles that are 5 m long and weigh nearly 1,400 kg. The Bars should be smaller and lighter, and may also be compatible with the Su-24s.

We don’t know how much a Bars costs, but it’s almost certainly less than the millions of dollars a Western-made cruise missile can cost. “Its main advantage is reportedly its potential for mass production within Ukraine,” CIT explained.

“The extent to which the new Bars missile will affect the front line will depend entirely on how many are made available to the Ukrainian military,” CIT wrote. Considering that Russia produces 600 or so of its best Kh-101 cruise missiles every year, the hundreds of Bars the Germans may be financing should help the Ukrainians chip away at the Russians’ missile advantage.

Explore further

Ukraine just solved the hardest math problem in modern air defense – with a 1970s German gun

A surprising Russian armored assault ended in disaster for the Russians as they tried, and failed, to break through Ukrainian defenses outside Siversk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

But that doesn’t mean the Russians aren’t creeping toward front-line settlements including Siversk. Trading a few vehicles and a lot of bodies for every meter, Russian regiments are moving toward the city—and “may begin an assault … in the near future,” according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies.

The doomed Russian armored assault outside Siversk, a relative rarity as Russia’s vehicle losses exceed 20,000 and the Kremlin holds back most of its surviving tanks and fighting vehicles for future use, involved six tanks, nine armored personnel carriers, an armored recovery vehicle, 12 Lada compact cars, two all-terrain vehicles and a staggering 41 motorcycles from the 3rd Combined Arms Army.

The Ukrainian 54th Mechanized Brigade and 81st Air Mobile Brigade struck back with the first-person-view drones, bomber drones and—presumably—artillery. “Most of the equipment was destroyed or damaged,” Special Kherson Cat noted after they and other Ukrainian observers scrutinized drone videos of the assault. 

“Russian infantry losses are estimated at around a company killed and wounded,” Special Kherson Cat reported. That’s potentially more than 100 casualties. 

The horrific losses belie very gradual Russian gains around Siversk, however. “Tactical gains by the enemy northeast of Siversk indicate that Russian troops have reached a line several kilometers from Siversk,” CDS wrote.

Bike tactics

It’s unclear how much the belated deployment of increasingly precious armored vehicles is helping the Russian war effort. As Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 42nd month, the Russians tend to attack with infantry riding on motorcycles—or even marching on foot. 

The growing proportion of the 46-ton, three-person T-72Bs in the Russian inventory is the latest sign that Russian regiments are “de-mechanizing.” That is, evolving—or devolving—into infantry-first formations.

It’s a costly approach. But it can work. Russian infantry have exploited Ukrainian brigades’ desperate manpower shortage—Kyiv’s army is short 100,000 trained infantry—and recently marched through gaps in Ukrainian lines northeast of Pokrovsk, further closing a pincer around that city 90 km southwest of Siversk.

Russian commanders tried to hasten Pokrovsk’s fall by pulling their dwindling reserves of tanks out of the vehicles’ protective hideouts and rolling them into action on the city’s southern flank, where small Russian sabotage groups have lately enjoyed some limited success infiltrating Ukrainian lines.

The problem, for the Russians, is where the tanks went. They traveled along a notorious “road of death” for Russian vehicles threading from the Russian stronghold of Selydove through the village of Shevchenko, a few miles south of Pokrovsk.

The 155th Mechanized Brigade’s drones spotted the Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles—a dozen or so?—coming on Saturday. “Coordinated actions of artillery and unmanned systems forces of the 155th Mechanized Brigade thwarted another assault on the Pokrovsk direction,” the brigade reported. “The entire enemy column was destroyed.”

“Tanks have become a second priority in war,” a Ukrainian tanker named Bohdan told David Kirichenko, an analyst for the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C. “It’s now a war of artillery, drones and infantry.”

Ukraine may have the edge in drones, but Russia has a lot more troops and artillery. So the wholesale destruction of rare Russian armored columns might not mean much in the end. Russia can lose more of its dwindling stocks of tanks … and still advance.

CDS announced it expects more aggressive Russian action around Siversk in the coming weeks. “The 3rd Combined Arms Army will try to break through to the northern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River between Yampil and Hryhorivka, and from the southeast—toward Siversk.”

Explore further

Russia’s last tank yards go dark as every inch in Ukraine demands more sacrifice

The Ukrainian government will spend $172 million buying vehicles, parts, training, maintenance and  other services for the Ukrainian air force’s US-made Hawk air-defense batteries. 

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the ability of Ukraine to provide for its own defense,” the State Department noted.

The Hawk is becoming one of the most important air-defense weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal. Not because it’s particularly new: the Homing All the Way Killer missile dates from the late 1950s, making it a full generation older than Ukraine’s best air-defenses, its US-made Patriots.

No, the Hawk best attributes are its simplicity, reliability and—most importantly—abundance. A new facility in the US state of Oklahoma has been refurbishing thousands of the Hawk system’s 5-m missiles. 

The Hawk is a medium-range surface-to-air missile. Each missile, fired by a three-round launcher, ranges around 48 km. The missile homes in on energy from a ground-based radar reflecting from the airborne target. The Ukrainian air force cited “experts” claiming the Hawk is 85% accurate, which is consistent with much newer missiles.

As a bonus, newer versions of the Hawk could be compatible with another, more modern missile system that Ukraine also uses: the US-Norwegian National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS. 

Norwegian firm Kongsberg—builder of the NASAMS—has developed a new digital command post for Hawk batteries that borrows its main components from NASAMS. That raises the possibility that the Ukrainian air force might, with some effort, be able to combine its NASAMS and Hawk batteries into a single force using the same radars and command posts.

Medium-range stalwart

The Hawk was NATO’s standard medium-range SAM for decades until the advent—in the 1980s—of the Patriot, which ranges three times as far and boasts a much more sophisticated seeker. Raytheon manufactured many thousands of Hawk missiles. Decades later, many of those missiles are still sitting around in various military warehouses all over the world.

Given the dire shortage of Patriot missiles—Lockheed Martin produces no more than 600 a year for all the dozens of countries that use them—those old Hawk missiles have become a priceless commodity. So far, Spain, The Netherlands and the United States, possibly with a little help from Taiwan, have donated enough radars and launchers for Ukraine to deploy maybe four batteries, each with multiple radars and launchers.

But a new US Army facility in Oklahoma, officially opened in February, is gathering up, reconditioning and possibly upgrading thousands of old missiles for those four batteries. 

The Army had already inspected 2,751 missiles from US stockpiles by the time the new Theater Readiness Monitoring Facility opened, “a monumental achievement that underscores the scale of the operation,” according to the ground combat branch.

Hundreds more missiles were inbound from Ukraine’s foreign allies. “In addition to servicing missiles from the US, the new facility has also received 825 missiles and other equipment donations from six countries, further demonstrating the global importance of the Hawk system in air defense,” the Army stated.

It’s possible, even likely, that most of those missiles have made their way to Ukraine. The recent US sale of Hawk equipment to Ukraine is just the latest in a series of US-Ukrainian deals associated with the missile system.

Of all the many diverse American and European air-defense systems Ukraine uses to defend its cities, the Hawk batteries might have the most ammunition. How many more missiles the Oklahoma facility can find for Ukrainian batteries is unclear. But it’s worth noting Raytheon built 40,000 of the missiles—and only a few countries have ever used them in anger. Ukraine being the latest.

Explore further

Ukraine just solved the hardest math problem in modern air defense – with a 1970s German gun

The growing proportion of the 46-ton, three-person T-72Bs in the Russian inventory is the latest sign that Russian regiments are “de-mechanizing.” That is, evolving—or devolving—into infantry-first formations that mostly ride into battle on motorcycles or other unarmored vehicles. Or simply walk.

The ongoing de-mechanization of the Russian military doesn’t mean Russia is losing its 42-month wider war on Ukraine. It does mean the Russian military will struggle to exploit its battlefield victories against manpower-starved Ukrainian brigades. Russian infantry may find gaps in Ukrainian defenses. But there are precious few Russian armored vehicles on hand to rush through the gaps—and drive deep behind Ukrainian lines.

Open-source intelligence analyst Jompy, who scrutinizes satellite imagery to survey Russia’s once-vast vehicle storage yards, was first to notice workers fetching more rusty T-72Bs from the 1311th Central Tank Storage and Repair Base, 850 miles east of Moscow.

Explore further

Ukraine just got 49 new Abrams tanks—but the tank war is already over

As recently as a year ago, there were several hundred T-72Bs in various states of repair at the various store yards. Now the Russians are fetching them at a rate of around 20 a month, according to Jompy. “Once the few hundreds [of] T-72B hulls are gone,” the Russians will be “in real trouble with regard to their modern MBT fleet,” Jompy wrote, using the acronym for “main battle tank.”

The T-72 has the same flaws all Soviet-style tanks have: most notably, ammunition stowage under the turret that’s prone to catastrophically exploding when hit. But compared to newer Russian tank models, the T-72B’s biggest problem might be its utterly antiquated optics, which can render the crew essentially blind under battlefield conditions.

There are worse tanks in the Russian arsenal, including 1960s-vintage T-62s and T-55s from the 1950s. But the Russians have already recovered most of the older tanks that were in reasonably good condition after decades of open storage—and then upgraded them and sent them to Ukraine, where many of them suffered the same fate that thousands of Russian tanks have suffered. Blown up by mines, artillery, missiles and drones.

Begging for upgrade

An old T-72B hull can be upgraded with new optics and layers of add-on anti-drone armor, albeit with great effort. The bigger problem for the Kremlin is supply. The several hundred T-72Bs that were extant a couple of years ago, and which are currently depleting at a rate of 20 per month, represented one of the last sizable tank reserves in Russia. 

Once the reserves are finally gone—something that might happen this year—the Russian armed forces will only have as many tanks as Russian tank-makers can build new. 

The good news for the Kremlin is that, despite successive rounds of sanctions on Russia’s arms industry, the Uralvagonzavod factory just north of the 1311th Central Tank Storage and Repair Base has managed to expand production of the latest T-90M tank. 

That’s the conclusion of a recent study from the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team. “According to our estimates, Uralvagonzavod produced 60 to 70 T-90M tanks in 2022. In 2023, amid efforts to mobilize the defense industry, output may have increased to 140 to 180 tanks, and by 2024, it may have surpassed 200 units annually, possibly approaching a production rate of 250 to 300 tanks per year.”

Three hundred tanks a year isn’t a lot of tanks, however—not for an army that’s struggling to break through along the 1,100-km front in Ukraine while also trying to preserve some mechanized forces for possible future conflicts.

More good news for the Kremlin: Ukraine’s manpower shortage is so dire—its brigades urgently need 100,000 trained infantry—that the manpower-rich Russian military can continue to advance in Ukraine without deploying a lot of tanks. 

But increasingly de-mechanized, it can’t advance fast—or at low risk to its exposed infantry.

Explore further

One river stands between Russia and Ukraine’s fortress city Pokrovsk

Technology is Ukraine’s chance to win the war. This is why we’re launching the David vs. Goliath defense blog to support Ukrainian engineers who are creating innovative battlefield solutions and are inviting you to join us on the journey.

Our platform will showcase the Ukrainian defense tech underdogs who are Ukraine’s hope to win in the war against Russia, giving them the much-needed visibility to connect them with crucial expertise, funding, and international support. Together, we can give David the best fighting chance he has.

Join us in building this platform—become a Euromaidan Press Patron. As little as $5 monthly will boost strategic innovations that could succeed where traditional approaches have failed.

One of Ukraine’s stealth attack drones has made another fleeting appearance somewhere over the 1,100-km front line of Russia’s 42-month wider war on Ukraine. A video that circulated online in recent days may mark only the second appearance of the mysterious drone.

This black-painted UAV is special. 

Most of Ukraine’s long-range attack drones feature the same basic design elements: long straight wings, narrow booms connecting the fuselage and engine to the trail and propeller propulsion. By contrast, the mystery drone is a flying wing with no separate fuselage—and it’s propelled by a jet engine. Reportedly a $2,000, US-made SW140B turbine.

ukrainian jet drone in action https://t.co/y2yQozc2Jl pic.twitter.com/v3CyptmJTE

— imi (m) (@moklasen) July 23, 2025

The flying wing planform, which lacks highly reflective right angles, scatters radar waves in all directions instead of bouncing them straight back at the emitting dish.

All that is to say, the black drone could be highly stealthy. And that should help it slip past Russian air-defenses on its way to strike targets deep inside Russia. There’s no official information about the mystery drone—we don’t even know its name—so we can’t say for sure how far it ranges. 

Explore further

One Ukrainian drone keeps smashing Russia’s top war factories—so Germany’s paying for 500 more

But one of the black drones that crashed in Russia in June 2024 appears to be around 10 feet long. If the Ukrainian drone carries as much fuel as a Russian Shahed attack drone, which is roughly as long, it might be capable of traveling hundreds of miles. 

The mystery drone has company. There’s a slightly bigger Ukrainian jet drone, also with a flying wing planform, that has made a couple of appearances on social media since last year. The main difference between the two stealth drones, besides their size, is that the bigger model has a single vertical stabilizer; the smaller model has twin vertical stabilizers. The bigger drone is powered by a German-made JetCat P400-PRO turbojet costing $14,000.

It’s clear both stealth drones exist in small numbers, likely owing to their higher cost and complexity compared to other drone types. The Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces’ main attack drone is the straight-wing, propeller-driven An-196. Ukrainian firm Ukroboronprom builds the An-196 by the hundreds: Germany recently ponied up $100 million to pay for 500 of the drones. 

The stealth drones’ rarity may imply the USF deploys them only for the most difficult missions requiring the attacking drones to penetrate dense air-defenses. 

Russia’s got stealth drones, too

The Russians possess a similar but much bigger drone—the 46-foot-long Okhotnik. One of the few copies of the Okhotnik came to a bad end over the front line in eastern Ukraine in October when it lost contact with its operators—and began flying toward free Ukraine.

An escorting Russian Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter shot down the Okhotnik, and the wreckage fell on the Ukrainian side of the front line. Ukrainian police recovered the drone’s remains, and the precision glide bomb the drone carried, right before a Russian Iskander missile streaked down—clearly intended to destroy what was left of the Okhotnik.

It’s not clear what, if anything, the Ukrainians have done with the information they gleaned from the Okhotnik’s crash. To be fair, the Russians have also recovered the remains of several Ukrainian stealth drones. If there’s anything either side can learn from the other when it comes to radar-evading drones, they’ve both learned it by now.

The basic principles of stealth aircraft design are well-known by now, however. The challenge for both Ukraine and Russia isn’t to build a few radar-evading drones—it’s to build lots of radar-evading drones.

Until either side can scale up production, both will continue relying on non-stealthy drones for most of their attacks. The Shaheds in Russia’s case. The An-196s in Ukraine’s.

Explore further

Ukraine just solved the hardest math problem in modern air defense – with a 1970s German gun

Nine months after pledging 49 surplus M-1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine’s war efforts, the first batch of the American-made tanks has arrived by sea and rail in Ukraine.

Imagery the Australian defense ministry posted online on Saturday depict the 69-ton, 2000s-vintage tanks loading onto a ship. Separate imagery depicts some of the heavy combat vehicles on train cars, apparently bound for Ukraine after landing in Germany.

The tanks are a welcome addition to Ukraine’s arsenal. The country’s first consignment of 31 M-1A1s, pledged by the United States in 2023, is running low after Russian forces destroyed, captured or damaged no fewer than 22 of the vehicles.

Forty-nine fresh M-1s, supplemented by the survivors of the 31 US-donated tanks, should be enough for two battalions, which would notionally possess 31 tanks apiece. But the Aussie Abrams, which are being replaced in the Australian army by a new model of the classic tank, are arriving at a tumultuous time for Ukraine’s armor corps.

Explore further

Ukraine cuts back on tanks—and creates a deadlier kind of brigade

As recently as nine months ago, the Ukrainian army had five full tank brigades in its order of battle: the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 17th Tank Brigades. On paper, each brigade had three battalions of 31 tanks for a total of 93 tanks per brigade.

That made the brigades among the most powerful formations in the Ukrainian military. In reality, the 5th Tank Brigade didn’t fully form until this year. And the 1st Tank Brigade may have been the only one of the units to fight as a brigade, with all of its battalions and tanks.

When the Russian 41st Combined Arms Army barreled south from its staging areas around the Belarus-Russia border during the early days of the wider Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it quickly approached the city of Chernihiv, 60 km south of the border. 

It ran into the 1st Tank Brigade lying in wait in the fields and forests surrounding Chernihiv. On paper, the 41st CAA with its 20,000 troops and hundreds of T-72 tanks vastly outmatched the 1st Tank Brigade, with its several thousand troopers and—on paper—93 T-64 tanks.

Fleeting tank edge

In reality, the 1st Tank Brigade held key advantages, analysts Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds revealed in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London. The fast autoloader in the three-person T-64 and the Ukrainian army’s superior training made the most difference in the chaotic early fights around Chernihiv. 

“Better crew training combined with short-ranged engagements where their armament was competitive, and the faster autoloader on the T-64, allowed Ukrainian tank crews to achieve significant damage against surprised Russian units,” Zabrodskyi, Watling, Danylyuk and Reynolds wrote.

Stymied by the 1st Tank Brigade, the Russians were never able to capture Chernihiv, even briefly. Defeated around Kyiv, the invaders retreated from north-central Ukraine a few weeks later. That may have been the last time in the current wider war that a Ukrainian tank brigade fought with its full might.

Since then, “tank brigades have never operated as full brigade-level formations,” according to Militaryland, which tracks changes in the Ukrainian force structure. Not only has Ukraine struggled to maintain a large tank inventory after losing nearly 1,200 to Russian action, the tanks are also losing their relevance on a battlefield patrolled by tiny drones.

“The reduced time between detection and engagement, driven by real-time drone surveillance and the high velocity of [first-person-view] attack drones, has created a hostile environment for traditional armored platforms on the battlefield,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained.

Since late last year, the Ukrainian defense ministry has been gradually reorganizing its five tank brigades, reducing their tank inventories by ⅔, adding infantry fighting vehicles and transforming the units into “heavy mechanized brigades.”

Only the 4th Tank Brigade is officially still a tank brigade. But according to Militaryland, it’s already shedding tanks and adding mechanized infantry as it prepares to announce its new designation. 

With every day that passes, there are fewer active tanks in the Ukrainian inventory. Between the reorganization of the tank brigades and the reshuffling of tank battalions in other brigades, Ukraine’s tank force structure could shrink by half this year—to potentially fewer than 1,000.

The tanks that remain—up-armored to give them some chance of surviving aerial attacks—now spend most of their time indoors or underground, hiding from the FPV drones that are everywhere all the time over the front line. The giant armored vehicles normally emerge only briefly to fire a few rounds at distant targets before retreating back into hiding.

Just one brigade, the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, ever operated the US-donated M-1s. It’s possible that brigade will replenish its armor battalion with ex-Aussie tanks. That would leave a second Abrams battalion that could join a different brigade or align under one of Ukraine’s new army corps. 

Wherever they land, don’t expect them to play a leading role in the fighting. It’s a new “era of the cautious tank,” to quote Ukrainian-American war correspondent David Kirichenko. And that applies to those fresh Aussie Abrams.

Technology is Ukraine’s chance to win the war. This is why we’re launching the David vs. Goliath defense blog to support Ukrainian engineers who are creating innovative battlefield solutions and are inviting you to join us on the journey.

Our platform will showcase the Ukrainian defense tech underdogs who are Ukraine’s hope to win in the war against Russia, giving them the much-needed visibility to connect them with crucial expertise, funding, and international support. Together, we can give David the best fighting chance he has.

Join us in building this platform—become a Euromaidan Press Patron. As little as $5 monthly will boost strategic innovations that could succeed where traditional approaches have failed.

Explore further

Ukraine’s new M-1 Abrams tanks are ready—but their brigade might not be

An anti-aircraft vehicle from the Cold War is enjoying a dramatic second career in Ukraine—as a top killer of Russia’s Shaheds.

As the barrages of Shahed drones get bigger, more frequent and more destructive in Ukraine, it’s becoming clear which Ukrainian-operated weapons work best against the 200-kg drones, each hauling a 90-kg warhead thousands of km under satellite guidance.

German-made Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, or SPAAGs—each armed with a pair of radar-cued 35-mm Oerlikon autocannons—are some of the most efficient defenses against the Shaheds. “Automated 35-mm gun systems produce dense projectile clouds,” pointed out a Ukrainian air-defense developer who goes by their nom de guerre “Alchemist.” 

Ukraine’s scores of Gepards, along with a much smaller number of more modern Skynex guns, “provide critical mid-range defense” against the devastating Shahed raids, swatting down the drones from a few kilometers away. “A German Gepard with twin 35-mm Oerlikon cannons once shot down multiple drones with a single burst,” Alchemist recalled.

Russia’s Shahed attack drones are relentlessly striking Ukrainian cities. Defeating the normally propeller-driven drones is “the highest priority” in Kyiv, according to Taras Tymochko, a representative of the Come Back Alive foundation.

Since launching the first Shahed at Ukraine nearly three years ago, Russia has launched tens of thousands of the explosive drones: around 29,000 in all so far, according to Ukrainian analysts. A single Shahed may cost between $50,000 and $150,000.

The pace of the drone attacks is increasing. The scale, too. An attack on July 4 involved 539 Shaheds and decoy Shaheds, according to the Ukrainian air force. The air force claimed it shot down 268 of the drones, while another 208 flew off course, likely owing to Ukrainian jamming systems, which can interfere with the radio signals connecting the drones to their navigation satellites.

Despite the defensive effort, 63 Shaheds struck, damaging buildings and killing and wounding civilians. Six days later on July 10, 397 Shaheds swarmed in. Twenty-nine got through that time. Two days after that on July 12, an incredible 597 Shaheds and decoys droned toward Ukraine. The Ukrainians shot down or misdirected 577 of them. Twenty hit.

Draining Ukrainian defenses

The low hit rate doesn’t worry Russian planners. “The Kremlin is willing to lose many Shaheds—about 75% of attacks fail—because mass waves are designed to exhaust air-defense systems,” Alchemist noted. 

If Ukrainian forces engaged every Shahed with a surface-to-air missile, Ukraine’s entire stock of missiles could run out in weeks or months. 

US missile-maker Lockheed Martin assembles around 600 multi-million-dollar Patriot missiles a year; Ukraine wages an intensive diplomatic campaign to ensure its six or seven Patriot batteries always have access to a few of the one-ton, 145-km-range missiles. 

Smaller air-defense missiles are cheaper and more numerous, but not by much: The United Kingdom has loaned Ukraine $3.4 billion to buy 5,000 Lightweight Multimission Missiles, each weighing 13 kg and ranging 8 km. That’s more than half a million dollars per missile. A Shahed is far cheaper than even an LMM.

By contrast, Ukraine’s roughly 80 Gepards and nearly identical, ex-Jordanian Cheetah SPAAGs—all German-built but some sent by the United States—are cheap. The vehicles are decades-old, surplus to their original operators’ needs and simple and reliable by today’s standards. 

<!– wp:html {“canvasClassName”:”cnvs-block-core-html-1745003537315″} –><center> <a href=”https://www.patreon.com/c/euromaidanpress” class=”custom-patreon-button” style=”display: inline-flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; gap: 10px; padding: 15px 40px; font-family: ‘Inter’, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; color: white; text-decoration: none; background-color: #FF6B6B; border: none; border-radius: 8px; box-shadow: 0 4px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); transition: background-color 0.3s, transform 0.2s; cursor: pointer;”> <span style=”color: white;”>Become one of our 700+ patrons!</span> </a></center><!– /wp:html –>

The main cost of operating a Gepard is the cost of its 35-mm ammunition. After sending Ukraine all of its Cold War stocks of Gepard ammo in 2023, Germany paid munitions-maker Rheinmetall $181 million to restart production of the 1.5-kg and produce a fresh batch of 300,000. A handful of rounds is enough to down a drone.

A subsequent German contract paid for another 180,000 rounds that should arrive in Ukraine next year. Ukraine’s Gepards should have enough ammo to blast away every time Shaheds motor across the border. 

For a Gepard crew, the cost of shooting down a Shahed might amount to a few thousand dollars. That, and the mobile gun’s accuracy, is why the Gepard is on the front line of Ukraine’s defensive campaign against the Shaheds.

Explore further

Gepard flak tank praised as most reliable German weapon in Ukraine

A video Ukrainian forces circulated online recently graphically depicts how little time a vehicle can linger along the front before it attracts the lethal attention of tiny, explosive first-person-view drones. 

A Ukrainian mine-resistant, ambush-protected armored truck—an MRAP—speeds up to the front to drop off fresh troops and supplies and pick up troops whose rotation is over. 

The MRAP idles for literally seconds before the first Russian drone barrels in. The vehicle suffers at least one drone impact as it speeds away. Fortunately for the Ukrainian crew and passengers, the MRAP’s thick armor absorbs the worst of the blast.

That harrowing experience is now ubiquitous. And it’s getting worse as both sides deploy more and better FPVs, including unjammable fiber-optic models and FPVs fitted with artificial intelligence that can steer them toward their targets.

“Bing on the front line is not good, and it’s mostly because of drones,” explained Andrew Perpetua, an independent open-source intelligence analyst in the United States. 

“Artillery and air strikes don’t help, but I would imagine the drones are doing the bulk of the damage right now, especially with regards to doing troop rotations, [delivering] supplies—like, any sort of driving a vehicle,” Perpetua added. “It’s not great. Especially if you’re going along a highway or any sort of major road, you’re getting hit.”

David Kirichenko, a Ukrainian-American war correspondent, has experienced dangerous rotations firsthand during his many trips to the front line since Russia widened its war on Ukraine 41 months ago.  “If you go too slow trying to avoid a mine, you can more easily get hit by a drone or any other Russian weapon system such as artillery,” Kirichenko said.

“Or if you drive too fast” to avoid the drones, he added, “you’d more easily drive over a mine. So it’s just a very dangerous game of kind of randomness of how you might die when you’re driving out.”

The peril doesn’t end when the road does. Braking to drop off and load troops and materiel, a truck might halt for mere seconds—or never fully stop at all. “The vehicle drives up and I mean, it’s: the doors open and it all happens just in a flash. Like all the supplies pop out, you hop out and you just got to run for cover,” Kirichenko said.

He recalled one drop-off where the drones were already overhead and waiting as the vehicle’s doors opened. “It’s just an extremely dangerous mission that I’ve witnessed firsthand.”

Drones as thick as flies

The sheer number of FPVs all along the front—both sides now build millions of the tiny drones every year—means it’s never safe anywhere within the roughly 30-km range of the best FPVs (which might benefit from other drones relaying their radio signals) or the bigger hexacopter bomber drones. 

Ominously, the drone kill zone is expanding as the drones improve—and fast. “At first, it was like, you know, the last 5 km were kind of the issue,” Perpetua said. “And then it became, like, the last 10, the last 15. And now it’s like the last 30. And it’s just going to keep going up.”

“I think over the course of the next few months, probably like six to eight months, we’re going to see it [the drone kill zone] go out to like 50 or 60 km” in either direction from the line of contact, Perpetua predicted.

He claimed Ukraine would benefit more from the extended drone kill zone. “The farther out you go, I think Ukraine will have the advantage because Ukraine has just simply better drones,” Perpetua said. “Russia is mostly relying on their fiber-optic drones” which range just 10 km or so. “I think Ukraine has much better long-range drones that don’t rely on fiber-optics—and that use more advanced connectivity” via wireless radio.

But Ukrainian commanders aren’t assuming better drones and a wider kill zone will definitely favor Ukraine. Kirichenko noted more Ukrainian units deploying more ground robots for more different tanks inside the kill zone—all in an effort to safeguard Ukraine’s most precious resource: its infantry.

“The more that you can get ground robots through those very dangerous missions of getting resupplies, handling your logistics,” Kirichenko said, “the more that you can save your human soldiers.”

Explore further

A Russian drone found the toughest armor on the battlefield—and lost

The Russian air force recently dropped 250 glide bombs on a single treeline near Andriivka in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, potentially making that roughly 3-km-long copse the most bombed place on Earth at the time.

It didn’t help. The Russian regiments and brigades the air force was supporting with its intensive—some might say “insane”—aerial bombardment have been defeated and forced to withdraw from the area.

The Russian KAB glide bombs, which range 25 miles or farther under pop-out wings and satellite guidance, rained down as a trio of Russian units—the 22nd and 30th Motor Rifle Regiments and 40th Marine Brigade—were “really struggling near Kindrativka,” just outside Andriivka three miles south of the border with Russia, according to analyst Moklasen.

A week ago, the Russians were in danger of being surrounded and cut off from their supply lines and reinforcements. Instead, they retreated last weekend, marking the latest setback for the 50,000-strong Russian force in Sumy.

Shortly after drone-harried Ukrainian forces retreated from western Russia’s Kursk Oblast in mid-March, bringing to an abrupt end a controversial seven-month Ukrainian incursion, Russian units including the 22nd and 30th Motor Rifle Regiments and 40th Marine Brigade counterattacked—and crossed into Sumy.

But they counterattacked on foot, bringing with them virtually zero combat vehicles. While far from unusual as the Russians hold back their surviving armor, the Sumy operation underscored the risks that accompany infantry-first tactics. 

Having lost more than 20,000 armored vehicles and other heavy equipment, the Russians made a deliberate decision in recent months to pull back their surviving armor—and send regiments and brigades into battle on foot or on motorcycles.

The shift to infantry and bike tactics preserves a vanishing resource (armored vehicles) by replacing it with an abundant resource (infantry and bikes). With generous cash bonuses sometimes equaling three years of pay, the Kremlin has managed to recruit 30,000 fresh troops a month—enough to replace the roughly 30,000 troops who are killed or wounded in Ukraine every month.

The downside is apparent in Sumy. “It certainly becomes much harder to achieve any sort of … call it a big and beautiful breakthrough,” explained Ukrainian-American war correspondent David Kirichenko.

Worse for the Russians, heavier Ukrainian units have been able to defeat lighter Russian units in some sectors, even though the Ukrainian formations are desperately short of trained infantry—and the Russian formations have infantry in abundance. 

Sumy face-off

The Ukrainian 79th and 95th Air Assault Brigades and the 225th Assault Regiment, equipped with German-made Marder and US-made Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles, faced off against the vehicle-less 22nd and 30th Motor Rifle Regiments and 40th Marine Brigade in Sumy.

If the Russians had an advantage, it was in the air. Despite heavy losses in the 41 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, the Russian air force still has 10 times as many warplanes as the Ukrainian air force has—and many more glide bombs. 

For years, the Russians have been dropping around 100 KABs a day all along the 1,100-km front line. In recent weeks, many of those KABs fell on that isolated treeline in Sumy. It’s possible the Ukrainian 79th and 95th Air Assault Brigades and the 225th Assault Regiment had positioned infantry or artillery in the treeline. It’s also possible the Russians simply believed the Ukrainians had placed forces under those trees.

In any event, the Russians bombed and bombed with what Moklasen described as an “insane” number of KABs. How many, if any, hit anything of value is unclear. Ukrainian jamming can throw the KABs off course.

Shrugging off the bombardment, mechanized Ukrainian troops flanked the de-mechanized Russians near Kindrativka last week. The Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted Ukrainian counterattacks in Sumy that could “complicate the enemy’s advance and threaten the encirclement of Russian troops operating in Andriivka.”

But the Russians escaped just in time, fleeing northeast and straightening the Russian line in Sumy. The end result, however, is that the Russians control less of Sumy now compared to a week ago. Even a record number of glide bombs pummeling a tiny fragment of forest hasn’t been able to reverse the Russians’ declining fortunes in the oblast.

Explore further

Russians pounded one tiny spot in Ukraine with 250 bombs—still lost

The latest update from the Ukrainian Deep State analysis group is an “emergency call,” according to one mapper. Russian troops may be close to securing a lodgement on the western side of the Kazennyi Torets River near the village of Razyne, just east of the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

If significant Russian forces can cross the river and march west from Razyne, they could put pressure on the supply lines into Pokrovsk, the southernmost chain in a belt of fortified cities stretching north toward the border with Russia. 

The Ukrainian troops in and around Pokrovsk—some or all of no fewer than 10 brigades—would surely evacuate the ruined city rather than risk starvation and encirclement. But that would hand Russia its biggest victory in months, albeit an extremely costly one.

Russian field armies have been fighting their way toward Pokrovsk ever since the fall of Avdiivka, 40 km to the west, back in the spring of 2024. Tens of thousands of Russians have been killed or wounded, but strong recruitment in Russia means fresh troops keep coming. 

Pokrovsk is a hard target, however—and stiff Ukrainian defenses halted the Russian advance directly on the city as long ago as February. Instead of directly attacking Pokrovsk, the Russians pivoted. Attacking east and west of the city, they’ve slowly closed a territorial pincer around it. Today, Russian troops are just a few miles east of the main north-south road into Pokrovsk—and also a few miles south of the main west-east road into the city.

Now the Russian Center Operational Grouping is at a literal and proverbial crossroads. The grouping’s commanders face a choice. They can attempt to surround Pokrovsk from the northeast—or from the west.

Neither is easy, but both are possible. “Envelopment of Pokrovsk from the northeast would require the enemy to advance significantly toward Rodynske”—4 km to the north—“seize it, and establish a strong defensive area there to enable attacks on Pokrovsk,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted.

“Other possible courses of action for the enemy could include an advance north of Udachne or Kotlyne to sever the [west-east] M30 highway,” CDS added.

Attacking from the east

It’s in the east where the Russians are making the most progress—and where they may choose to concentrate forces for further gains. The main obstacle, besides the Ukrainian 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade, 38th Marine Brigade and 142nd Mechanized Brigade, is the narrow Kazennyi Torets River. “In order to advance west of Razyne, Russian forces would need to force the Kazennyi Torets River at several locations, which could present an obstacle to their advance,” CDS explained. 

Deep State’s update indicates the Russians may soon cross the river, if they haven’t already done so. Their success “directly depends on the combat capability of the involved units,” CDS stated. Those units include the 39th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, the 150th Motorized Rifle Division and the 110th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade.

The 39th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade has led several of the most successful Russian assaults along this axis since the fall of Avdiivka.

For Ukraine, the consequences of a Russian march west of Razyne could be serious as Russia’s wider war on the country grinds into its 41st month and the Kremlin continues to enjoy a huge manpower advantage. “If the command of Ukrainian defense forces fail to stabilize the situation on this direction in the near future, then Ukraine’s military-political leadership should prepare for the opening of the Pavlohrad operational direction,” according to CDS. 

The city of Pavlohrad lies 60 km west of Pokrovsk. It’s safe right now, but that could change fast if and when Pokrovsk falls.

Explore further

Ukraine cuts back on tanks—and creates a deadlier kind of brigade

When Russia pivoted to motorcycle-based offense, Ukraine began shifting to anti-motorcycle defense. There were delays, but new bike-beating tools are proliferating across the 1,100-km front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine. 

It’s possible these new tools are already slowing Russia’s summer offensive.

Some Ukrainian drones are dropping traffic spikes—unfolding ribbons with tire-popping metal spikes—in order to block roads ahead of Russian motorcycle assaults.

The traffic spikes work. A video montage posted online by the Ukrainian 82nd Air Assault Brigade recently depicts drones dropping the spikes by night near Pokrovsk—and causing Russian bike troops to crash by day. The brigade apparently sends grenade-dropping bomber drones and explosive first-person-view drones to strike the ejected riders after they crash.

For at least a year now, Ukrainian drone teams including the famed Birds of Magyar have been seeding roads behind the Russian line with pointy chunks of metal called “caltrops” that, like the traffic spikes, can pop tires and stop traffic. 

The caltrops, along with the traffic spikes and other simple countermeasures are taking on greater importance now that Russian regiments have largely shifted to infantry and motorcycle assaults. 

Having written off more than 20,000 tanks, fighting vehicles and other heavy equipment to Ukrainian mines, artillery, missiles and drones since widening its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia is mostly holding back the few combat vehicles it has left. Perhaps saving them for a future war somewhere else in Europe.

There’s a cold logic to the tactical shift. “Motorcycles give them a higher chance of success in their operations,” Ukrainian-American war correspondent David Kirichenko said of the Russians. “Just as long as you can drive fast and maneuver through the mines, then you’re able to more quickly assault the Ukrainian positions.”

“The Russians hope that with enough charges, enough soldiers over a few weeks can maybe gather into the bunker of a building—and when they get there, they start digging in really, really deep and try to build trenches,” Kirichenko added. 

“Over time, once they have enough soldiers that aggregate in that area and they’re ready to assault the neighboring street, the Russians will launch glide bombs, launch artillery fire, everything that they have—and allow their soldiers to conduct these meat-grinder assaults, street by street.”

But the speedy Russian bike assaults work only as long as the Ukrainians are still basing their defensive plans around slower mechanized assaults. It’s evident that some simple countermeasures could stop the bikes in their tracks. Recall that, back in May, one Russian motorcycle soldier came to a bad end when he tried and failed to jump his bike across a wide Ukrainian trench. He crashed into the earthworks, apparently dying in the impact. 

Classic tools

“Ukraine can adapt with, like, classical tools of anti-infantry defense—everything from anti-personnel mines, caltrops against, like, light vehicles so that they puncture their tires and they crash somewhere, barbed wire or modern-day concertina wire,” explained Jakub Janovksy, an analyst with the Oryx intelligence collective. 

“If Ukraine manages to scale these defenses sufficiently to make light infantry, and what I would call ‘motorized cavalry assaults,’ non-viable—or at least much less useful than they currently are—Russia would be in quite significant bind,” Janovsky said.

While the Russians could pivot back to mechanized assaults, they’d still have to contend with the same mines, artillery, missiles and drones that rendered mechanized assaults unacceptably costly. Moreover, they’d have fewer vehicles to devote to a fresh round of mechanized attacks. 

“This war has already chewed through a very significant percentage of what Russia had,” Janovsky explained, “and it’s a question of how much they intend to preserve beyond this war for potential future use in other conflicts.” 

“So I think this is a potential weakness of the current Russian approach,” Janovsky said. Russia deployed bike troops to speed up the pace of its assaults and preserve its remaining armor. That helped them accelerate their advances in Ukraine this spring. Russian regiments captured around 13 square km a day in May and June—double the rate in June.

But the Ukrainians may be able to slow the advance, or even reverse it, with cheap, simple tricks for crashing motorcycles. There’s already some evidence it’s working. After capturing more than 150 square km of Sumy Oblast this spring with an all-infantry force almost completely lacking heavy armored vehicles, the Russians are now pulling back in Sumy.

Russian hopes for a big northern penetration, perhaps all the way to Sumy city, appear to be fading. Attacking on foot or on bike along spiked roads against dug-in Ukrainian troops, the Russians may be preserving their last remaining tanks. 

But they’re also handing the Ukrainians a golden opportunity to stiffen the front line with spikes, wire and trenches—making a major Russian breakthrough even less likely than it was before most of Russia’s tanks went home. 

Explore further

Russian troops can’t hide from Ukraine’s killer night drones

The United Kingdom is buying 5,000 Lightweight Multirole Missiles from arms firm Thales—and plans to donate them to Ukraine. The 13-kg LMM, fired one at a time from a shoulder launcher, ranges as far as 8 km under infrared guidance.

The 5,000 missiles, built at Thales’ Belfast factory, could cost as much as $3.4 billion. The UK government announced it will loan the money to the Ukrainian government—with generous repayment terms spread over 19 years.

The LMM buy, first floated in March, “is not only a major boost to the UK’s defense capabilities but will also keep Ukraine in the fight, boosting their defense against Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion,” the government in London stated. 

But 5,000 missiles alone can’t keep Ukraine in the fight for very long. Russia is already overwhelming Ukraine’s air-defenses with vast numbers of explosive drones.

The LMM is just the thing to shoot down a relatively low- and slow-flying target such as Russia’s 200-kg Shahed attack drones, which range thousands of miles with 90-kg warheads. 

In three years, Russia has launched around 29,000 Shaheds—also known as Gerans—at Ukrainian positions and cities. 

Ukrainian forces shot down or jammed most of them. But Ukraine’s air-defenses are running low—and new models of the 440-pound, propeller-driven drone have additional satellite navigation receivers, making them jam-resistant.

Meanwhile, the pace of Shahed launches is increasing—meaning more and more of the drones are striking their targets … and killing or maiming Ukrainians. 

Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight crunched the numbers. “The 2,736 drones launched in June, many targeting Kyiv, make up nearly 10% of the total” number of Shaheds launched since Russia widened its war on Ukraine. 

This proves “growing production,” explained the Frontelligence Insight’s founder, Tatarigami.

“This aligns with earlier warnings from Ukrainian intelligence, which estimated Russia’s monthly output at around 2,700 Shahed-type UAVs and roughly 2,500 decoys,” Tatarigami noted. The decoys distract Ukrainian defenses, helping the armed Shaheds reach their targets.

Become one of our 200 defense patrons!

Swarms of drones

In August 2024, Ukrainian officials said Russia was producing about 500 Shaheds a month. “Since then, output has multiplied, and the drones have become deadlier: the warhead weight has increased from 50 kg to 90 kg, and maneuverability has improved,” Tatarigami wrote.

Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, warned that Shahed production could soon exceed 1,000 per day. “I’m not intimidating anyone,” Brovdi wrote. His warning is based on “analysis of the intelligence,” he said. 

“The growing scale is a serious problem for Ukraine,” Tatarigami intoned. 

Ukraine is shooting down the drones with mobile gun teams, surface-to-air missile batteries, fighter jets, gunship helicopters and interceptor drones. It’s also sending them off course with electronic warfare systems.

But the sheer number of drones overwhelms Ukraine’s defenses. Part of the problem is that many of the munitions the Ukrainians use to down the Shaheds are more expensive than the drones are. 

An LMM costs more than $500,000. A Shahed costs $200,000. 5,000 LMMs costing $3.4 billion, if they struck 100% of the time, would be enough to destroy a few weeks worth of Shaheds costing $1 billion.

For the Ukrainians, “it’s not just about increasing production” of anti-drone systems, “but also about reducing the cost per interception—making it much cheaper to intercept drones than to manufacture them,” Tatarigami explained.

The cheapest defense is jamming. It costs roughly $8 million to surround a city with jammers such as the Night Watch electronic warfare team’s Lima. The few cities that have enjoyed Night Watch’s protection have suffered almost no Shahed strikes for months at a time.

The Russians can jam-proof a drone by adding more antennas for satellite navigation, compelling the Ukrainians to add more channels to their jammers—or risk the electronic defenses failing. Right now, the Russians are evolving their drones faster than the Ukrainians are evolving their jammers, the Night Watch rep admitted.

Asked if Ukraine was losing the war on the Shaheds, a representative of Ukraine’s Night Watch electronic warfare team responded simply. “Yes, it is.”

5,000 missiles that cost slightly too much for anti-Shahed duty may not change that.

Explore further

Ukraine’s perfect German missiles never miss—but Russia’s drone factories never sleep

The Russian military knows it has a nighttime camouflage problem. It’s begun circulating a field manual instructing befuddled troops on the proper fit for their thermal blankets. 

The main point, according to the manual, is to make sure the blanket isn’t warmer than the nighttime landscape. “Before putting on the anti-heat-vision cape, it should be taken outside in advance and cooled by hanging it in the shade for at least one hour,” the manual advises, according to a translation posted online by Canadian drone expert “Roy.” “It is necessary in order for the cape to reach ambient temperature.”

By the same token, soldiers should make sure their thermal camo isn’t cooler than the landscape. That advice is a matter of life and death. 

Consider what happened to a trio of Russian troops that tried to sneak across open terrain toward the front line presumably somewhere around Novomykolaivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast in late June.

The Russians did the smart thing and moved at night, under thermal camouflage that should—in theory—hide them from surveillance drones with infrared sensors. But the Russians hid under thermal blankets that were cooler than the surrounding summertime terrain was.

Instead of disappearing from Ukrainian drones’ heat sensors, they stood out. A bomber drone from the Ukrainian army’s 59th Assault Brigade spotted them—and approached with a clutch of grenades. 

The Russians knew they were in trouble. They apparently heard the drone coming, crouched in place and pulled their blankets tightly over them. But it didn’t help.

It wasn’t some exposed limb sticking out from under a blanket that gave them away—it was the blankets themselves. The temperature differential between the ground and the outside of the blankets was so great that that blankets appeared as black shapes amid the gray and white landscape on the bomber drones’ infrared sensor.

The drone operator took their time aiming their grenades. The first round hit within meters of the crouching Russians. Arterial blood spray from one badly wounded Russian glowed hot on the drone’s camera. The ammunition the Russians were carrying, which cooked off following the second grenade impact, glowed even hotter.

The blasts left the landscape painted with blood, body parts and hot fragments.

How not to hide

Drones are everywhere all the time as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 41st month. Even on a quieter stretch of the 1,100-km front line such as that held by the 59th Assault Brigade. Even at night.

Both sides urge their troops to conceal themselves from the ever-present drones. “Use thermal blankets, similar to those that are often placed in … first-aid kits,” the Ukrainian government advised its forces in its own counterdrone field manual. “If possible, take care and use mylar capes, blankets, cloth. They effectively reflect infrared radiation.”

But the thermal camo can work poorly—or too well. Cheaper mylar blankets tend to trap too much heat or too little. When the ground is warmer than the outside of the blanket is, the wearer will appear as a solid dark square on any infrared sensor. When the ground is cooler, the wearer will appear as a solid white square.

A thermal blanket must be the same temperature as its surroundings. Placing the blanket outdoors in the shade in order to cool it is one necessary step, according to the Russian manual. A proper fit—loose but totally covering the wearer—is another necessity. “Do not allow the cape to be pressed against your body,” the manual warns. “It will warm up the cape quickly in places of pressing and begin to ‘glow’ in the thermal imager.”

Given the many instances of Russian troops getting spotted and droned while wearing badly fitting, too-hot or too-cold thermal camo, the Kremlin surely hopes its surviving forces heed the manual. Ukrainian drone teams, hunting by night with infrared sensors, surely hope the Russians don’t heed it.

Explore further

Ukraine just declared open season on Russia’s drone nests in urgent strategy shift

The famed 1st Tank Brigade is the third of Ukraine’s five tank brigades to undergo the transformation. After its reorganization, the brigade now has just two ostensibly 31-tank battalions instead of three—but has added a second mechanized battalion with, on paper, 31 infantry fighting vehicles.

Big, cumbersome, easy-to-spot tanks are just too vulnerable to the tiny first-person-view drones that are everywhere all the time all along the front line. “The reduced time between detection and engagement, driven by real-time drone surveillance and the high velocity of FPV attack drones, has created a hostile environment for traditional armored platforms on the battlefield,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained.

Prior to the reorganization, the brigade operated T-64 and T-72 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles. Its equipment may change as its structure changes.

It’s the latest chapter in the long history of a legendary brigade, which fought in some of the hardest battles of the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and, as the invasion widened eight years later, won a decisive battle in the city of Chernihiv, 100 km north of Kyiv and just 60 km from the border with Russia.

Russian commanders assumed the 1st Tank Brigade would be an easy target on day one of the wider war. In the early morning hours of Feb. 24, Russian missiles and artillery struck the permanent garrisons of many of Ukraine’s ground combat brigades.

But these brigades, including the 1st Tank Brigade, had dispersed. The Russian bombardment mostly destroyed empty buildings. The 1st Tank Brigade’s several thousand troopers and roughly 100 T-64 tanks lay in wait in the fields and forests surrounding Chernihiv.

The Russian 41st Combined Arms Army barreled south from its staging areas around the Belarus-Russia border, quickly arriving at Chernihiv. On paper, the 41st CAA with its 20,000 troops and hundreds of T-72 tanks vastly outmatched the 1st Tank Brigade.

In reality, the 1st Tank Brigade held key advantages, analysts Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds revealed in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The autoloader in the three-person T-64 and the Ukrainian army’s superior training made the most difference in the chaotic early fights around Chernihiv. “The first days of fighting saw numerous meeting engagements in forests at around 100 m to 200 m range, where restricted movement limited the Russian ability to bring their mass to bear against a specific tactical situation,” Zabrodskyi, Watling, Danylyuk and Reynolds wrote.

Become one of our 200 defense patrons!

“Better crew training combined with short-ranged engagements where their armament was competitive, and the faster autoloader on the T-64, allowed Ukrainian tank crews to achieve significant damage against surprised Russian units.”

The 1st Tank Brigade bled the 41st CAA for several days until Russian commanders decided simply to bypass Chernihiv. As Russian battalions rolled past, the 1st Tank Brigade “found itself encircled.” A territorial brigade garrisoned in Chernihiv screened the 1st Tank Brigade’s T-64s as the brigade adopted an all-around defense of the city.

For six weeks the brigade and its supporting territorials held out. “Communication with the 1st Tank Brigade was maintained along a small supply road running northwards on the left bank of the Dnipro [River] that the Russians failed to sever, despite having an overwhelming force presence,” the RUSI analysts wrote. 

The Russian army ultimately failed to capture Kyiv and bring the war to a swift end. In late March, the Kremlin ordered its battered forces around the capital city to retreat. That’s when the 1st Tank Brigade attacked. On March 31, the brigade liberated the M01 highway connecting Chernihiv to Kyiv.

Victory in Chernihiv

The 1st Tank Brigade had won its hardest fight. But wider trends doomed its status as one of Ukraine’s five tanks brigades alongside the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 17th Tank Brigades. 

FPV drones haven’t rendered tanks obsolete. But they have forced tank crews to operate extremely carefully—hiding most of the time in buildings or dugouts and rolling out only occasionally to fire a few shells.

It’s a new “era of the cautious tank,” David Kirichenko, an analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C., announced in September.

Tanks are even more cautious now than they were last fall. “Overall, there is less armor being deployed to the front, especially compared to 2023,” Kirichenko said. “So we are still in the era of the cautious tank, or we could say that it has even gotten more cautious now.”

The Ukrainian army responded to the changing environment. The 17th Tank Brigade reorganized in October or November, reducing its tank inventory to become the first of the Ukrainian army’s new heavy mechanized brigades. The 5th Tank Brigade underwent its reorg in December.

The Ukrainian ground forces are also adopting a new corps structure that places similar brigades fighting in the same sectors under a single command. It’s possible these corps—there should be 13 of them—will each have just one separate tank battalion.

The forces for these battalions—the tanks and crews—could come from the tank brigades, some of which “may be disbanded,” Militaryland reported. Meanwhile, the tank battalions in the mechanized, motorized and mountain brigades “will be reduced in size.”

Today, the Ukrainian military should have 30 or so tank battalions with around a thousand tanks. The possible reorganization could cut that structure in half. Fewer battalions—and many more tanks in reserve to replace losses from drones.

The tanks are assuming a secondary role as infantry—and the armored trucks and tracked vehicles that speed them to and from their trenches—take on the lead role in this new era of ever-present drones and cautious tanks.

Explore further

Ukraine deploys Leopard 1A5 “sniper tanks” with 7 brigades

Desperate to blunt escalating Russian bombardment of its cities, Ukraine contacted Germany with an urgent request four new air-defense systems and as many as 2,000 new missiles for them.

Germany responded with equal urgency—and said yes. Now Ukraine is set to receive four additional launchers for IRIS-T missiles as well as a huge stock of the 130-kg missiles, which range as far as 40 km under infrared and radar guidance. 

The IRIS-T isn’t the kind of missile you’d shoot at an incoming ballistic missile. Ballistic missiles such as Russia’s Iskander move too quickly for smaller air-defense missiles. It takes a heavy missile in the class of the US-made Patriot to kill an Iskander.

What the IRIS-T is, is a drone-killer. In its primary role defending against slower and lower-flying targets—Russian Shahed drones and cruise missiles, for example—the IRIS-T has a nearly 100% success rate, according to Helmut Rauch, the CEO of Germany’s Diehl Defense, the lead manufacturer of the missile. 

The Ukrainian 540th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade corroborated that figure. During one recent Russian cruise missile barrage, the brigade’s IRIS-T launchers shot down all 27 incoming missiles. “The enemy did not accomplish its mission,” a brigade officer said in an official video translated by German Aid to Ukraine and an associate.

Russian industry has ramped up production of the 200-kg Shahed and can now fling hundreds and hundreds of them at Ukrainian cities every day. Ukrainian forces jam their navigation signals, shoot them from the air and the ground and even ram into them with special interceptor drones—and yet, 10% or more of the Shaheds get through.

The devastating air raids targeting Ukrainian cities on 4 July involved 539 Shaheds, according to the Ukrainian air force. 268 Shaheds were shot down, and another 208 flew off course, likely owing to Ukrainian jamming. 63 Shaheds struck, damaging buildings and killing or wounding civilians.

“There must—and there definitely will—be more protection for life,” Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in the aftermath of the raid.

Yesterday, the 540th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade — which has just received the 7th IRIS-T SLM fire unit Germany has delivered to #Ukraine — has shared a video featuring IRIS-T SLM launchers, a TRML-4D air surveillance radar and an IRIS-T SLS launcher.

Thanks to @S1epanS, I'm… pic.twitter.com/GSKu2gt46o

— German Aid to Ukraine (@deaidua) July 4, 2025

No panacea

The new batch of IRIS-Ts will help, but they’re no panacea. 

Reading between the lines of leaked documents that German newspaper Bild obtained, German Aid to Ukraine concluded new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had already signed off on Ukraine’s request for four new IRIS-T launchers and 2,000 missiles. Each launcher costs $140 million. Each missile costs $600,000.

Ukraine already has seven IRIS-T launchers donated or financed by Germany and Norway. It has lost one launcher and one supporting TRML-4D radar to Russian action. Prior to the current request, Germany and Norway had pledged another 13 launchers. 

The IRIS-T is on track to become one of Ukraine’s most important medium-range air-defense systems. It alone can’t fully protect Ukrainian cities, of course. For starters, it might take years for German industry to deliver all the launchers and missiles.

Moreover, even 2,000 missiles is a small number of missiles when Russia can launch many hundreds—potentially 1,000—of its $200,000 Shaheds every day. It’s not for no reason Ukrainian industry is working so hard on jammers that can throw the Russian drones off course—and also building more and more interceptor drones that cost less than a Shahed does.

The jamming might be the most cost-effective defense. “Since the enemy counts Shahed production at 500 to 1,000 per day, jamming is the only economically viable solution,” said “Alchemist,” the head of the Night Watch electronic warfare team in Kyiv.

With newer Shaheds climbing as high as 3,500 meters and flying right through heavy clouds that can obscure them from view, Ukraine’s interceptor drones “can’t keep up,” Alchemist claimed. “Cost, scalability, resources—all prohibit such countermeasures.”

Ideally, IRIS-T would be the final line of defense, plucking the last few Shaheds that make it through the jamming and interceptor drones. 

Explore further

Ukraine learned how to jam Russian bombs. So Russia made them fly beyond the jammers