Aye, drones are the mosquitoes of the battlefield. And disgustingly used for bio-attacks as we have seen (and can’t unsee, may their relatives find peace). Hopefully this Russian drone-dropping device is the answer to the Ukies’s mosquito pestilence.
Recent Ugledar debacle is more due to mines rather than drones. Surely Marines regardless of what Putin proudly spoken about are used in this conflict as cannon fodder. Ugledar posses serious geographical challenges. Why aren't they using proper army to deal with it instead of light armour elite unit?
That's good point, you're right. However it's still problematic that they had seemingly dozens of drones freely hovering all about, filming the marines from every conceivable angle which points to a lack of suppression. On one hand Marines appear to have a tradition of being under-supplied by countries. In the U.S. the Marines are infamous for getting hand-me-down and lower tier gear compared to the Army, so maybe Russian marines operate in the same tradition and aren't as well-equipped with EW, or just band commanders in that sector--hard to say with certainty for now.
As for why they aren't using proper army, it all boils down ultimately to what I outlined in Part 1: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-coming-russian-offensive-2023 which is that Russia is using far fewer troops (less than 100k for most of the SMO) than most people think, which means most frontlines are greatly understaffed. With that said, supposedly according to some sources (though I haven't seen much evidence myself) there are some army units, like elements of eastern military district's 36th, 37th, and 39th MRD's, but it's difficult to tell what role they play if they're there, perhaps rear heavy weapons & recon support. For instance it may just be small intelligence/recon/signals detachments of those brigades that are assisting with the drone surveillance / ISR and a detachment of artillery.
Which by the way would make sense because I just read yesterday from one source, that claimed the total Russian operating forces in Ugledar are something like 3-5 BTG's". So this would make sense if the BTG's are comprised of random elements of the above-mentioned brigades, and further, this would be in line with my thesis from Part 1 of how little force Russia is using there. There I estimated Ugledar direction to have maybe 10-15k Russian forces max, but in actuality it may be even less actual Russian forces, as the rest are augmented by several DPR elements like Vostok and Kaskad battalions.
Maybe their elite leaders are proud and stubborn and won't listen to some rebel civilians in DPR who tell them how to fight. They might have a doctrine and they follow the doctrine until someone changes it.
Cannon fodder? The total sum of KIA's for the marines of the 155th brigade from January 21st to February 12th (covering the duration of the attack Ugledar) was 19. NINETEEN. That's not even one percent, maybe half a percent of their strength. Please explain to me how that's 'being used as cannon fodder'.
That number comes from Mediazone by the way, that's a notoriously anti-Putin and pro-western outlet in Russia (the Pussy Riot group). Unlike the made-up casualty numbers western media and the Ukrainians publish, Mediazone actually has to verify the information they put out. Their audience is Russian, and if they want to be taken seriously by their audience, they have to provide verifiable information (and they're well funded from the west, so money's not a problem).
So no, they are not being used as cannon fodder.
You're other claims are dubious too. Ugledar does not pose any particular geographical challenges. So please specify what those alleged challenges are according to you.
The naval marines are very much part of the 'proper army', thank you very much. And if you have been paying attention to all the clips of them in action, you'd have seen that they have been well supported with armour, artillery and other systems. They operated as a heavy mech formation, just as the 'proper army', and not as a light armour unit as you claim.
Yea most of the videos of the Ugledar debacle were heavily mischaracterized and deliberately, by way of clever editing, propagandized. No where in the videos do you even see mass casualties. There are a few shots of 2-3 dead guys, others are wounded. There are disabled armor units but that too was greatly exaggerated as a longer video proved that most of the armor wasn't even disabled but made it back to Russian lines and Ukrop supporters simply used freeze frame images of sitting tanks to pretend they were out of action.
And yes 19 is actually 0.01% of the total Russian naval infantry which is 12,000, most of which seems to be operating there as we have confirmation of the 155th Marines, the 40th, the 810th, etc. Meanwhile AFU has lost probably 1000++ in that same time period in Ugledar, as they're dying in huge swaths to thermobaric hell and nonstop artillery bombardment.
19 is hard to believe, like that could happen in a training exercise by accidents.
Maybe the brigade you mention is being held in reserve, and some other brigades took higher casualties?
I read Ugledar is a literal fortress, not a village with a bunch of little houses, but a few big reinforced concrete complexes that were likely designed to serve dual-purpose as a defensive fortress in war.
I don't see how you can advance to contact without taking casualties. That's the contact, when they shoot at you. And if they're hiding to the last second drones won't spot them until they start firing. And they can call some indirect fires on you, without even exposing themselves. They use remote cameras where possible. And there could be minefields.
That said... I don't know what I don't know. They said the same thing about Gulf War 1, 12 Americans died. Was closer to 200, but still a blowout. So crazy lopsided victories do happen.
Well the 19 was the absolutely confirmed KIA via literal/actual social media obituary posts and such. There could be an additional amount unconfirmed plus another additional amount that's alive but an 'irrecoverable casualty' nonetheless, i.e. permanently taken out of combat such as lost limb or disabled in some major
way.
With that said, I do believe the casualties are low because I follow it closely and there is no indication whatsoever, outside of the very transparent propaganda / edited videos, that they actually took heavy casualties of any sort whatsoever. THere was one or two incidents at most where there's a small handful of bodies.
As for how can they approach, well firstly you're right Ugledar itself is a fortress but right at its SE edge are the 'dachas' section that is a sort of low village/suburb of the city proper. And there's a deadly no man's land between the Marines' previous forward base of Pavlovka to the Dachas, but once you reach the dachas you can securely fortify within the many defensive obstructions there and use that as the forward base to begin attacking the outskirts of Ugledar, which is what the Marines have been doing. And from the last update I heard are now succeeding at because apparently they've retaken the dacha positions. Not necessarily the entire dachas but the southern half of them, since they're a large stretch of land/buildings.
The reason for the low casualties is very simple, the Russians have never pushed their advances here when faced with any kind of serious opposition. That's not their objective. People still fall the idea that the combat actions are about taking 'land'. They rarely are, at least for the Russians. And Ugledar is a great example.
They fainted a serious attack and threatened to take the town initially, when it was defended by a territorial force short of just about everything, and who quickly (and wisely) retreated. The Ukrainians were forced to send in mobile reserves (a mech and a 'tank' brigade) or lose the town. Once those reserves started showing up in and close to town, the Russians pulled back.
They did that because they had achieved their objective, to draw off some of the few mobile reserve brigades the Ukraine had left, and who were now right on the frontline, well in range of all that Russian artillery (plus drones, long range anti-tank units, etc), and who are since then getting slaughtered by constant strikes.
That was the point of the Russian action against Ugledar, and that's why their losses are so low. They don't do direct combat with enemy field units if they can help it (not just here either, but as a general strategy). They'd rather pull back before taking casualties, and hit the enemy again and again with artillery, and other long range strike elements, as they try to close the distance. As a result the Ukrainians keep taking heavy casualties, while the Russians suffer very little in return. This has happened again, and again, and again, throughout this conflict. There is surprisingly little actual ground combat between line units of both sides.
Back in the summer when the Ukrainians threatened to lose Severodonetsk, they send in a bunch of mercenaries to try and hold the city (their infamous 'counterattack'). Afterwards there was an interview with one of the Polish mercenaries who was part of that force. He said that he spent three weeks on the frontline, amongst the ones closest to the Russian positions. During those three weeks he was constantly losing comrades, dead or injured, all around him. And yet, during all that time, they never saw a single Russian soldier. All that death and carnage was delivered from long range, beyond their ability to spot individual soldiers. That's how this war is being fought by the Russians. And that's why the loss ratio is so disproportionately in Russia's favour.
As to Ugledar being a fortress, it isn't. It's a deathtrap for those in it. One reason why it is referred to as a 'fortress' is because of what I alluded to above, people don't get that the Russians often withdraw voluntarily, without being forced to do so, and so they look for reasons to explain what they see happening. That's why the ridiculous claims appear like in Politico, who suggested the whole brigade might have been effectively wiped out. Or they think that there's something special about the place which makes it somehow hard to take, or easy for defend.
Ugledar itself consists almost entirely of large apartment blocks of six or so floors. They are from Soviet times and largely made from concrete. The terrain around is flat, so these buildings are the 'high ground' of the area. That may sound impressive, but it really isn't.
When outflanking Soledar to the north recently, the Wagner forces were forced with a similar situation, as the northern part of the town consisted of similar apartment blocks which gave the same kind of advantages to the defenders (unobstructed view of the terrain north of it). They took the outer buildings without much difficulty in one night and day, thereby covering their flanking advance.
When advancing on Mariupol in the early stages of the SMO, the DPR forces coming from the east also faced this problem, as the city blocks in the east of Mariupol also consisted mostly of these kinds of apartment blocks, and the land was equally flat. And yet these DPR forces forced their way in, and took block of apartment buildings after block, even though they were actually outnumbered by the Ukrainian defenders!
So no, these apartment blocks are nothing special. On the contrary, they seem to give the defenders a false sense of security. There are many problems with using these as defensive positions. The first is obvious, they stick out and up into the air making them, and anyone in it, easy targets. You just park a couple of tanks (with thermals and drone surveillance) some distance away and start firing at every enemy firing point or spotter or hideout. It takes some time, but is extremely one-sided.
If you look at world war two, one of the things the Germans did when defending cities (and why they were so effective at it), was to construct the defensive positions INSIDE the city, and not along the edges. That's because any defensive position on the edge is also in the line of fire of the enemy in the distance! And typically, the attacker will have a superiority in long range direct fire assets. The defenders are usually infantry-heavy, and need the attacker to come close to effectively engage them. So it makes no sense to put yourself where you're in open view of the enemy, and unable to strike back at them.
These Ugledar type apartment blocks offer no opportunity at all to construct such "inside" urban defences, as there are very wide and completely flat, open areas between these apartments blocks. Movement between blocks is very risky, which effectively isolates defenders in one block from supporting those in another. And many of the weapons infantry does have to deal with enemy heavy units, like tanks, are unsuitable for use in these blocks. Try firing an ATGM from inside one of those apartments. You're not going to want to do that twice.
These apartment blocks do have some advantages, but these are greatly outweighed by their disadvantages, especially in Ugledar, which has no lower buildings next to or between them to mitigate some of these drawbacks. And because there is nothing else in the wide area to give meaningful cover to the Ukrainians now deployed there, they are effectively pinned in place, even without Russian fire. And worse, the Russians don't have to go out and look for them. They know exactly where they are, as it's a small town, with not that many apartment blocks to begin with.
Feb 13, 2023·edited Feb 13, 2023Liked by Simplicius
The great thing about using commercial drones is russia can just buy the same drone and zoom it around all day at a test range while smart people in lab coats figure out how to detect it. No top secret mechanisms to decode. And a country like Ukraine with no smart people in lab coats will take a very long time to counter the counter measures. Eventually There will be drone anti air with missiles the size of a carrot that are fully autonomous that you just carry in your back pack and unfold at the new position. Although i like this passive system, it cant run out of ammo.
Poor LPR DPR, 8 years they're fighting, and big Army won't listen to them. They said from day 1 if your drone isn't tied to a string it will fly away (gps spoofing or hacking control). They use fishing line. Wagner listened, & they're killing it. The DPR and LPR got some aid from Russia before the first peace, but the Russian gov't took that treaty seriously and stopped aiding them, while Ukraine did the opposite to their forces in the Donbass. Everything really was provided by the Russian people, while Russian gov't agents hunted and tried to stop the crowd-funding organizers and block things. Iirc the Dji MAvick became the de facto military standard drone, on both sides. But the DPR had to survive on supplies smuggled out of Russia by civilians payign for them out of their pockets so they couldn't afford to lose a drone, while professional militaries you just fill out a form and get another.
2 other interesting drone techs - look up the Donbass miltary leader Givi, he started the war as a commander of some rank, remember when they were fighting over that airport? That was him. You can watch all the videos, at the beginning he's teaching one lone guy, on the job, to man and shoot an artillery gun in direct fire mode, at that airport's big building. Normally this thing would have a ful crew. It's crazy the guy has to run way over there (Givi seemed to think it important the ammo pile be far from the gun), get a shell, carry it back to the gun, aim and fire the gun, and repeat. One guy. He took a smattering of men and held off and pushed back a trained and prepared professional military. Then he's later walking the streets, completely unaffected by mortars going off around him, you can hear the shrapnel tinkling on the pavement, it's scary. By end he's grey haired, chain smoking, constant hand tremor, from age 30 to 60 in a few years. During the peace lull he retired, but we now know it wasn't peace. Sorry to ramble but he's very interesting. The way he died, was another drone tech. AiUI, some group figured out who he was (those videos are seen by both sides), and they found where he lived, and they followed him and saw he goes to this little grocery store often. So they planted a bomb there, an autonomous bomb, that was detonated by FACIAL RECOGNITION. Thats scary shit.
Another technology to watch - Libya, around last year, civil war. One side is approaching this city, important city the other side holds. Out of this city fly drones, but they're not piloted by anyone. They're like you take a quadcopter, and put a claymore mine on it. They fly autonomously, you can't jam them or detect them coming because they're radio silent. They seek the targets, then swarm in. The attack profile is like that spawn from the movie Aliens, that latch on the guy's face and lays eggs in him. Except it's a claymore mine. Boom boom boom the attackers fled from the city. Probably easier on the conscience to send autonomous hunter-killer bombs out of the city than into one, because of target discrimination, so a great test and proof of the technology. But some people don't have consciences so I expect to see HK's being sent into cities too. Maybe they'll have facial or some other target recognition software, maybe they won't or it doesn't work, and they target a schoolyard or something.
I fully expect both technologies to be put together, for VIP targets. In face there's something to be said about fame and glory, they are motivating factors, but Fame will be deadly. I get it they're doing it because they're going to die, and this immortalizes them, but I'm already seeing videos where one day a guy will post a video of himself kiling prisoners, then the next day a vid comes out of him explaining himself, and the third day he's captured in custody, begging and bleeding. This is a very fast cycle. The facebook concept of posting about everything you've done in a war will probably come to an end, as peers notice those doing it get themselves and those around them in more danger.
That's true and all those points are being corrected as we speak as Russian forces already have advanced and retaken forward positions, and are hammering it with TOS systems https://www.bitchute.com/video/AKJAVDBA0oFl/
So really it was a minor setback for now, we'll see how it unfolds
Aye, drones are the mosquitoes of the battlefield. And disgustingly used for bio-attacks as we have seen (and can’t unsee, may their relatives find peace). Hopefully this Russian drone-dropping device is the answer to the Ukies’s mosquito pestilence.
Recent Ugledar debacle is more due to mines rather than drones. Surely Marines regardless of what Putin proudly spoken about are used in this conflict as cannon fodder. Ugledar posses serious geographical challenges. Why aren't they using proper army to deal with it instead of light armour elite unit?
That's good point, you're right. However it's still problematic that they had seemingly dozens of drones freely hovering all about, filming the marines from every conceivable angle which points to a lack of suppression. On one hand Marines appear to have a tradition of being under-supplied by countries. In the U.S. the Marines are infamous for getting hand-me-down and lower tier gear compared to the Army, so maybe Russian marines operate in the same tradition and aren't as well-equipped with EW, or just band commanders in that sector--hard to say with certainty for now.
As for why they aren't using proper army, it all boils down ultimately to what I outlined in Part 1: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-coming-russian-offensive-2023 which is that Russia is using far fewer troops (less than 100k for most of the SMO) than most people think, which means most frontlines are greatly understaffed. With that said, supposedly according to some sources (though I haven't seen much evidence myself) there are some army units, like elements of eastern military district's 36th, 37th, and 39th MRD's, but it's difficult to tell what role they play if they're there, perhaps rear heavy weapons & recon support. For instance it may just be small intelligence/recon/signals detachments of those brigades that are assisting with the drone surveillance / ISR and a detachment of artillery.
Which by the way would make sense because I just read yesterday from one source, that claimed the total Russian operating forces in Ugledar are something like 3-5 BTG's". So this would make sense if the BTG's are comprised of random elements of the above-mentioned brigades, and further, this would be in line with my thesis from Part 1 of how little force Russia is using there. There I estimated Ugledar direction to have maybe 10-15k Russian forces max, but in actuality it may be even less actual Russian forces, as the rest are augmented by several DPR elements like Vostok and Kaskad battalions.
Maybe their elite leaders are proud and stubborn and won't listen to some rebel civilians in DPR who tell them how to fight. They might have a doctrine and they follow the doctrine until someone changes it.
Cannon fodder? The total sum of KIA's for the marines of the 155th brigade from January 21st to February 12th (covering the duration of the attack Ugledar) was 19. NINETEEN. That's not even one percent, maybe half a percent of their strength. Please explain to me how that's 'being used as cannon fodder'.
That number comes from Mediazone by the way, that's a notoriously anti-Putin and pro-western outlet in Russia (the Pussy Riot group). Unlike the made-up casualty numbers western media and the Ukrainians publish, Mediazone actually has to verify the information they put out. Their audience is Russian, and if they want to be taken seriously by their audience, they have to provide verifiable information (and they're well funded from the west, so money's not a problem).
So no, they are not being used as cannon fodder.
You're other claims are dubious too. Ugledar does not pose any particular geographical challenges. So please specify what those alleged challenges are according to you.
The naval marines are very much part of the 'proper army', thank you very much. And if you have been paying attention to all the clips of them in action, you'd have seen that they have been well supported with armour, artillery and other systems. They operated as a heavy mech formation, just as the 'proper army', and not as a light armour unit as you claim.
Yea most of the videos of the Ugledar debacle were heavily mischaracterized and deliberately, by way of clever editing, propagandized. No where in the videos do you even see mass casualties. There are a few shots of 2-3 dead guys, others are wounded. There are disabled armor units but that too was greatly exaggerated as a longer video proved that most of the armor wasn't even disabled but made it back to Russian lines and Ukrop supporters simply used freeze frame images of sitting tanks to pretend they were out of action.
And yes 19 is actually 0.01% of the total Russian naval infantry which is 12,000, most of which seems to be operating there as we have confirmation of the 155th Marines, the 40th, the 810th, etc. Meanwhile AFU has lost probably 1000++ in that same time period in Ugledar, as they're dying in huge swaths to thermobaric hell and nonstop artillery bombardment.
What channel has the Pro ukr videos?
19 is hard to believe, like that could happen in a training exercise by accidents.
Maybe the brigade you mention is being held in reserve, and some other brigades took higher casualties?
I read Ugledar is a literal fortress, not a village with a bunch of little houses, but a few big reinforced concrete complexes that were likely designed to serve dual-purpose as a defensive fortress in war.
I don't see how you can advance to contact without taking casualties. That's the contact, when they shoot at you. And if they're hiding to the last second drones won't spot them until they start firing. And they can call some indirect fires on you, without even exposing themselves. They use remote cameras where possible. And there could be minefields.
That said... I don't know what I don't know. They said the same thing about Gulf War 1, 12 Americans died. Was closer to 200, but still a blowout. So crazy lopsided victories do happen.
Well the 19 was the absolutely confirmed KIA via literal/actual social media obituary posts and such. There could be an additional amount unconfirmed plus another additional amount that's alive but an 'irrecoverable casualty' nonetheless, i.e. permanently taken out of combat such as lost limb or disabled in some major
way.
With that said, I do believe the casualties are low because I follow it closely and there is no indication whatsoever, outside of the very transparent propaganda / edited videos, that they actually took heavy casualties of any sort whatsoever. THere was one or two incidents at most where there's a small handful of bodies.
As for how can they approach, well firstly you're right Ugledar itself is a fortress but right at its SE edge are the 'dachas' section that is a sort of low village/suburb of the city proper. And there's a deadly no man's land between the Marines' previous forward base of Pavlovka to the Dachas, but once you reach the dachas you can securely fortify within the many defensive obstructions there and use that as the forward base to begin attacking the outskirts of Ugledar, which is what the Marines have been doing. And from the last update I heard are now succeeding at because apparently they've retaken the dacha positions. Not necessarily the entire dachas but the southern half of them, since they're a large stretch of land/buildings.
The reason for the low casualties is very simple, the Russians have never pushed their advances here when faced with any kind of serious opposition. That's not their objective. People still fall the idea that the combat actions are about taking 'land'. They rarely are, at least for the Russians. And Ugledar is a great example.
They fainted a serious attack and threatened to take the town initially, when it was defended by a territorial force short of just about everything, and who quickly (and wisely) retreated. The Ukrainians were forced to send in mobile reserves (a mech and a 'tank' brigade) or lose the town. Once those reserves started showing up in and close to town, the Russians pulled back.
They did that because they had achieved their objective, to draw off some of the few mobile reserve brigades the Ukraine had left, and who were now right on the frontline, well in range of all that Russian artillery (plus drones, long range anti-tank units, etc), and who are since then getting slaughtered by constant strikes.
That was the point of the Russian action against Ugledar, and that's why their losses are so low. They don't do direct combat with enemy field units if they can help it (not just here either, but as a general strategy). They'd rather pull back before taking casualties, and hit the enemy again and again with artillery, and other long range strike elements, as they try to close the distance. As a result the Ukrainians keep taking heavy casualties, while the Russians suffer very little in return. This has happened again, and again, and again, throughout this conflict. There is surprisingly little actual ground combat between line units of both sides.
Back in the summer when the Ukrainians threatened to lose Severodonetsk, they send in a bunch of mercenaries to try and hold the city (their infamous 'counterattack'). Afterwards there was an interview with one of the Polish mercenaries who was part of that force. He said that he spent three weeks on the frontline, amongst the ones closest to the Russian positions. During those three weeks he was constantly losing comrades, dead or injured, all around him. And yet, during all that time, they never saw a single Russian soldier. All that death and carnage was delivered from long range, beyond their ability to spot individual soldiers. That's how this war is being fought by the Russians. And that's why the loss ratio is so disproportionately in Russia's favour.
As to Ugledar being a fortress, it isn't. It's a deathtrap for those in it. One reason why it is referred to as a 'fortress' is because of what I alluded to above, people don't get that the Russians often withdraw voluntarily, without being forced to do so, and so they look for reasons to explain what they see happening. That's why the ridiculous claims appear like in Politico, who suggested the whole brigade might have been effectively wiped out. Or they think that there's something special about the place which makes it somehow hard to take, or easy for defend.
Ugledar itself consists almost entirely of large apartment blocks of six or so floors. They are from Soviet times and largely made from concrete. The terrain around is flat, so these buildings are the 'high ground' of the area. That may sound impressive, but it really isn't.
When outflanking Soledar to the north recently, the Wagner forces were forced with a similar situation, as the northern part of the town consisted of similar apartment blocks which gave the same kind of advantages to the defenders (unobstructed view of the terrain north of it). They took the outer buildings without much difficulty in one night and day, thereby covering their flanking advance.
When advancing on Mariupol in the early stages of the SMO, the DPR forces coming from the east also faced this problem, as the city blocks in the east of Mariupol also consisted mostly of these kinds of apartment blocks, and the land was equally flat. And yet these DPR forces forced their way in, and took block of apartment buildings after block, even though they were actually outnumbered by the Ukrainian defenders!
So no, these apartment blocks are nothing special. On the contrary, they seem to give the defenders a false sense of security. There are many problems with using these as defensive positions. The first is obvious, they stick out and up into the air making them, and anyone in it, easy targets. You just park a couple of tanks (with thermals and drone surveillance) some distance away and start firing at every enemy firing point or spotter or hideout. It takes some time, but is extremely one-sided.
If you look at world war two, one of the things the Germans did when defending cities (and why they were so effective at it), was to construct the defensive positions INSIDE the city, and not along the edges. That's because any defensive position on the edge is also in the line of fire of the enemy in the distance! And typically, the attacker will have a superiority in long range direct fire assets. The defenders are usually infantry-heavy, and need the attacker to come close to effectively engage them. So it makes no sense to put yourself where you're in open view of the enemy, and unable to strike back at them.
These Ugledar type apartment blocks offer no opportunity at all to construct such "inside" urban defences, as there are very wide and completely flat, open areas between these apartments blocks. Movement between blocks is very risky, which effectively isolates defenders in one block from supporting those in another. And many of the weapons infantry does have to deal with enemy heavy units, like tanks, are unsuitable for use in these blocks. Try firing an ATGM from inside one of those apartments. You're not going to want to do that twice.
These apartment blocks do have some advantages, but these are greatly outweighed by their disadvantages, especially in Ugledar, which has no lower buildings next to or between them to mitigate some of these drawbacks. And because there is nothing else in the wide area to give meaningful cover to the Ukrainians now deployed there, they are effectively pinned in place, even without Russian fire. And worse, the Russians don't have to go out and look for them. They know exactly where they are, as it's a small town, with not that many apartment blocks to begin with.
The great thing about using commercial drones is russia can just buy the same drone and zoom it around all day at a test range while smart people in lab coats figure out how to detect it. No top secret mechanisms to decode. And a country like Ukraine with no smart people in lab coats will take a very long time to counter the counter measures. Eventually There will be drone anti air with missiles the size of a carrot that are fully autonomous that you just carry in your back pack and unfold at the new position. Although i like this passive system, it cant run out of ammo.
Some basic technical info on their GPS spoofing from a Russian equipment producer (use google translate if you don't know Russian):
http://xn--h1aannku.xn--p1ai/catalog/bek-i-rpp/osobennosti-postroeniya-bek/
Poor LPR DPR, 8 years they're fighting, and big Army won't listen to them. They said from day 1 if your drone isn't tied to a string it will fly away (gps spoofing or hacking control). They use fishing line. Wagner listened, & they're killing it. The DPR and LPR got some aid from Russia before the first peace, but the Russian gov't took that treaty seriously and stopped aiding them, while Ukraine did the opposite to their forces in the Donbass. Everything really was provided by the Russian people, while Russian gov't agents hunted and tried to stop the crowd-funding organizers and block things. Iirc the Dji MAvick became the de facto military standard drone, on both sides. But the DPR had to survive on supplies smuggled out of Russia by civilians payign for them out of their pockets so they couldn't afford to lose a drone, while professional militaries you just fill out a form and get another.
2 other interesting drone techs - look up the Donbass miltary leader Givi, he started the war as a commander of some rank, remember when they were fighting over that airport? That was him. You can watch all the videos, at the beginning he's teaching one lone guy, on the job, to man and shoot an artillery gun in direct fire mode, at that airport's big building. Normally this thing would have a ful crew. It's crazy the guy has to run way over there (Givi seemed to think it important the ammo pile be far from the gun), get a shell, carry it back to the gun, aim and fire the gun, and repeat. One guy. He took a smattering of men and held off and pushed back a trained and prepared professional military. Then he's later walking the streets, completely unaffected by mortars going off around him, you can hear the shrapnel tinkling on the pavement, it's scary. By end he's grey haired, chain smoking, constant hand tremor, from age 30 to 60 in a few years. During the peace lull he retired, but we now know it wasn't peace. Sorry to ramble but he's very interesting. The way he died, was another drone tech. AiUI, some group figured out who he was (those videos are seen by both sides), and they found where he lived, and they followed him and saw he goes to this little grocery store often. So they planted a bomb there, an autonomous bomb, that was detonated by FACIAL RECOGNITION. Thats scary shit.
Another technology to watch - Libya, around last year, civil war. One side is approaching this city, important city the other side holds. Out of this city fly drones, but they're not piloted by anyone. They're like you take a quadcopter, and put a claymore mine on it. They fly autonomously, you can't jam them or detect them coming because they're radio silent. They seek the targets, then swarm in. The attack profile is like that spawn from the movie Aliens, that latch on the guy's face and lays eggs in him. Except it's a claymore mine. Boom boom boom the attackers fled from the city. Probably easier on the conscience to send autonomous hunter-killer bombs out of the city than into one, because of target discrimination, so a great test and proof of the technology. But some people don't have consciences so I expect to see HK's being sent into cities too. Maybe they'll have facial or some other target recognition software, maybe they won't or it doesn't work, and they target a schoolyard or something.
I fully expect both technologies to be put together, for VIP targets. In face there's something to be said about fame and glory, they are motivating factors, but Fame will be deadly. I get it they're doing it because they're going to die, and this immortalizes them, but I'm already seeing videos where one day a guy will post a video of himself kiling prisoners, then the next day a vid comes out of him explaining himself, and the third day he's captured in custody, begging and bleeding. This is a very fast cycle. The facebook concept of posting about everything you've done in a war will probably come to an end, as peers notice those doing it get themselves and those around them in more danger.
Ulegar failed for the following reasons:
1. Heavy Minefields that stymied even the Ukrainian's own counter-attack.
2. The Russians failed to take the coal mine to the East first and it was a main staging point for the counter-attack by Ukraine.
3. Lack of air support and TOS-1A to suppress the defenders.
4. Ukraine pouring its remaining armored units into the fight.
That's true and all those points are being corrected as we speak as Russian forces already have advanced and retaken forward positions, and are hammering it with TOS systems https://www.bitchute.com/video/AKJAVDBA0oFl/
So really it was a minor setback for now, we'll see how it unfolds
This is beyond superlative.
Dutch:
Mysterieuze Russische systemen schakelen Oekraïense drones uit
https://www.frontnieuws.com/mysterieuze-russische-systemen-schakelen-oekraiense-drones-uit/