Ukrainian military learn to fly drones with bombs attached at a special school on May 12, 2023 in Lviv region Ukraine.
Paula Bronstein
Russia is struggling to break through Ukraine’s defensive lines. When troops gather for a large assault they’re targeted by drones, analysts said. The use of drones has been a central part of the war in Ukraine.
Russia is struggling to break through Ukraine’s defensive lines because when its troops gather to attack, they’re targeted by Ukrainian drones, a think tank said.
An influential Russian milliblogger noted that Russian forces were struggling to work out how to break out of the current stalemate, according to US think tank, The Institute for the Study of War.
The ISW, citing the source, said that “Russian forces are unable to concentrate in numbers sufficient to break through Ukrainian lines because Ukrainian forces strike all force concentrations larger than a battalion.”
It added that even forces gathering far behind the front line are vulnerable to attack.
According to the ISW, Ukraine is targeting gatherings of Russian troops and armored vehicles with drone strikes, “preventing Russian forces from even reaching Ukrainian forward defensive lines.”
Russian milibloggers often have extensive military contacts and have been an important source of independent information about the Russian military during the nearly two-year conflict in Ukraine.
Ukraine is on the back foot and is running low on ammunition with large aid packages blocked by Republicans in the US Congress and by Hungary in the European Union.
Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian positions in areas including Bakhmut and Avdiivka as it seeks to take advantage of the situation and break the stalemate.
But drones have changed the nature of warfare in Ukraine, preventing large numbers of troops from gathering and taking the enemy by surprise.
Ukraine has excelled in the use of cheap hobby drones on the battlefield, using them to surveil Russian positions and fitting them with explosives.
“The more abundant, smaller drones are proving to be serious game changers in that they have given Ukraine better battlespace awareness and more capability to hit targets,” said the European Council for Foreign Relations in a recent study.
A US military expert told Business Insider last year that Ukraine had suffered a similar problem when it gathered large units during its summer counteroffensive, with drones allowing Russia to surveil and target them.
In a bid to break the stalemate, Russia has resorted to so-called “meat grinder” assaults, in which large numbers of troops suffer steep casualties as they attempt head-on attacks on Ukrainian positions.
