Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones that were shot down by air defences in what Russian officials called one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
The war, largely a grinding artillery and drone battle across the fields, forests and villages of eastern Ukraine, escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia’s western Kursk region.
For months, Ukraine has also fought an increasingly damaging drone war against the refineries and airfields of Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter, though major drone attacks on the Moscow region - with a population of over 21 million - have been rarer.
Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences destroyed a total of 45 drones over Russian territory, including 11 over the Moscow region, 23 over the border region of Bryansk, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region.
With all this drone usage, why aren’t we seeing more smaller drone operations deeper into Russia? This seems like the perfect opportunity for a movie-like secret mission with a bag full of consumer drones strapped with explosives. A low flying drone swam can’t be that difficult to execute. Heck, they do it at Disneyland.
Problem is distance and autonomy.
You can’t really command drones that far, they are programed with the coordinates, then launched. And to go far, you need to have more fuel, thus a heavier drone, which in turn will be easier to detect and target for AA systems.
It can’t be that hard to get into Russia.
Depends on who you bribe.
I think you’re vastly overestimating the damage possible from the explosive payload a tiny quadcopter can carry, unless your goal is strictly terrorism i.e. intentionally targeting civilians.
Civilians dying as collateral damage during an attack/assignation of a legitimate military target is one thing, targeting civilians is another.
And before you say Russia does, don’t forget that Ukraine is dependent upon continued Western support, which is already fragile. It’s doubtful that support would survive them explicitly targeting civilians with suicide drones deep inside Russia.
I did not mean civilian deaths.
I think you’re vastly overestimating the damage possible from the explosive payload a tiny quadcopter can carry
Um, actually YOU are the one that doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
Those ‘tiny quadcopters’ can drop much bigger payloads these days than just a grenade, and even then, the Ukrainians use far more than just quads.
This is from June 2023: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/16/europe/ukraine-drone-night-strike-russia-intl-cmd/index.html
On site they prepare the drone – a large, Ukrainian-made quadcopter — and the explosive they are dropping on the Russian position. The device can carry a payload of up to 45 pounds, but this evening they’re making an improvised explosive – using a shell left behind by Russian forces when they pulled out of Kherson.
This is from December 2023: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/12/03/baba-yaga-is-a-giant-ukrainian-drone-that-drops-bombs-at-night/
Baba Yaga is a large Ukrainian hexacopter drone with an infrared camera and capacity for a 33-pound rocket warhead. The drone’s name is a reference to a mythical witch.
There are many such examples, many of them not so tiny.
Especially when they drop thermobaric payloads (April 2024): https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-kamikaze-drone-thermobaric-warhead-russia-video-1886910
You put so much effort into that post, that I almost feel bad pointing out that you probably should have read the comment I was replying to… you know, the one above my comment.
But, if you’re having a hard time locating it, I pasted the relevant quote that I was responding to:
“…opportunity for a movie-like secret mission with a bag full of consumer drones…”
But yeah, I guess if you completely ignore the actual text I was responding to, you might of had a fair point.
An artillery shell stapped drone in a substation, a railway control centre etc etc etc, no need to blow up the whole Kremlin or target civilians.
Again, I think you’re vastly overestimating the capability of a quadcopter drone to inflict serious damage on hard infrastructure.
But hey, maybe I’m not only wrong, but so are all of the Ukrainian sabotage teams and they’ll stumble across your advice here and realize what a great idea it is.
Moving the goalposts, no one said you had to hit a bridge or something.
But I guess you knows what kind of Ukrainian sabotage is done in Russia lol. Hint: it’s not like russia is acknowledging it.
I didn’t move any goal posts, I’ve been pretty clear about my views on the general ineffectiveness of using quadcopters to target infrastructure.
But like I said, maybe I’m wrong, and the Ukrainian MoD will have a “Eureka!” moment after reading your comments.
A small quad could blow out windows, doors, and other small structures. You don’t have to blow up all of the Kremlin for it to be effective. I postulate that a dozen grenade carrying quads could do a fairly significant amount of damage, or at least put those locations in higher alert. It could have a psychological impact as well even if there was little more than scuff marks. Now scale that up to say 100 drones and it could be a wild scene. However, my exposure to military quads is from the videos posted here on Lemmy, so I don’t know if a large scale quad swarm would even be doable, or what the limitations would be.
You could probably just fly unarmed drones all over there and scare some people.
Yes, and that’s what Ukraine is doing at the moment. But they’re doing it in the cities like Moscow that actually matter to Putin, and the Russian elites.
The comment I was responding to was talking about taking a lot small drones deeper into Russia, which are places that Putin couldn’t give a shit about.
So, if they aren’t useful for destroying critical infrastructure, and Putin and the Russian elite don’t care about any psychological impact on those civilians, what is the point? Which is why I covered using them to target civilians, and why that would be a bad idea.
Saboteurs and Ukrainian assets inside of Russia are not an unlimited resource. Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to use their time doing things that actually politically harm Putin, or impact the wider Russian war effort?
While I agree with your opinion, you could certainly have been a lot less of a jerk when saying it
I’m surprised at how little we’re hearing about any covert actions by either side, since there are significant numbers of Ukrainians in Russia and vice versa. When the war started, I expected that there would be fairly frequent acts of sabotage in both countries. There is periodically news of saboteurs caught in Ukraine before accomplishing anything dramatic, and I don’t follow Russian news closely enough to know whether they have made credible claims of catching Ukrainian saboteurs. The truck bomb on the Kerch bridge is the major exception.
Acts of sabotage have been happening this entire time, whether or not they’re getting covered.
Ukraine has also been running a covert targeted assassination program, which unfortunately got some press coverage some months back due to their legally and morally questionable approach to target selection.
But, it’s an existential war for their survival, so I’m not going to moralize about it.
Didn’t you read any of the news of fire breaking out in munitions factories and manufacturing plants all over Russia? Or the memes about Ivan carelessly smoking at work?
Most of the smoking memes were about ammo depots hit by HIMARS, not sabotage. The fires at factories may have been sabotage (although I expect that the base rate of fires at Russian factories is fairly high) but they seem like the sort of thing a Ukrainian sympathizer acting alone might do rather than something coordinated by Ukraine. I suppose I was expecting bigger explosions, so to speak.
So probably either Russia hasn’t caught any yet, or they think that admitting Ukraine was able to sabotage or come close to sabotaging anything makes Russia look too “weak” so they just blame it on their own incompetence again
The most high value targets are probably close to the actual battle lines. The oil refineries are also decently high value, but they don’t need to go deep into Russia to disrupt that.
Wendover productions video about drone warfare: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kFSR6OuWVQ4
With all this drone usage, why aren’t we seeing more smaller drone operations deeper into Russia?
They need fuel, they need support, and they need skilled operators to navigate them to a target.
Getting those behind enemy lines is difficult.
Drones are fast as fuck. Is it possible to make a bullet dodging drone? Seems like a software issue/solution.
It’s probably not possible to detect and avoid a bullet, but if it had a randomized flight path it ought to be really difficult to shoot down.
A couple of things.
“Drone” doesn’t mean anything about speed. A drone is no faster or slower than than any other weapon with the same propulsion system.
And “shot down” doesn’t mean bullets. Air defense systems generally use extremely fast missiles.
A helpful note to consider: Some of the longer range drones Ukraine has deployed are in fact civilian aircraft that have been modified to fly remotely. These are fairly slow and not highly maneuverable. Certainly not enough to dodge bullets or missiles.
Also, if you have a dozen tiny drones flying fast and low towards a target, there’s really no time to be shooting at the sky.
Do it again. And again. And again.
Wear down the population
Strategic bombing of a civilian population has only ever hardened that population’s resolve.
Bombing Moscow or any other city would only increase support for the regime.
Now, industrial targets that Putin’s cronies make their rubles running? Much more likely to have an impact.
Are they bombing civilian targets in Moscow or strategic targets?
That’s only when the bad guys do it. It’s different when we do it.
Honest question, how does this mesh with sieges of cities in earlier periods of history? When cities would surrender because of sieges. What are the differences?
Also, to add to the other poster’s point, in a medieval siege, the defenders have every reason to believe the attackers will happily let every man, woman, and child behind the walls die gruesome deaths to starvatiom or disease. That’s why, when it came down to the wire, cities would submit.
In modern times, cultivating a believable military posture of, “Surrender, or we will personally execute every last motherfucking one of you” is politically dicey. Look at the news stories coming out of Gaza about supplies running low thanks to Israeli interference. Right, wrong , or indifferent, the international community (as well as your domestic community, if those that disagree with these sorts of tactics are allowed to make their voices heard) tends to look down their noses at targeting noncombatants populations. So, due to these complications (which were largely absent or less impactful from warfare in the time of Genghis Khan) wholesale slaughter of civilian life isn’t really openly used. In fact, guidelines like “proportionality” are invented which dictate the level of response you can give certain provocations and what not.
So, if you’re a modern day commander being tasked with taking an urban center, the closest way to approximate a medieval siege would be to absolutely carpet bomb everything. Make it known that you will happily let every single person in Moscow die, if not send them to the afterlife yourself. While you’re bombing the suburbs, you’ll also need to encirce the whole city to prevent supplies from being delivered, since you can’t guarantee every bomb will hit it’s target and need starvation to provide additional assurance to the population that, if they maintain their current course, they are doomed.
Unfortunately, the world isn’t going to allow that, and you know it, so you commit to the level of bombing deemed acceptable by the world at large. At best, you wind up in a situation like London during the Blitz. Your bombing runs are effective, in that they disrupt the daily life of citizenry, and cause some infrastructure damage and loss of life. However, you’re never going to be allowed to scale up to the point where your victims feel they have no way out but to submit. There’s enough plausible deniability that, even when a bomb hits close to home (literally or figuratively), the victim is more pissed at the bomber than their government.
Interesting! Just a question, are you saying that the Germans were holding back during their bombing runs of London? I’m no history expert, but that doesn’t sound right to me, and if it is, I’d love to know more about it.
No, it was not my intention to suggest that. I’m sure the Germans threw everything they could afford into the Battle of Britain.
Though, I am most definitely not an expert in the field and should be treated as I am, a dude on the internet lol.
However, even Germany in early WW2 (arguably at the height of their power) was unable to throw enough explosives into London to make that switch flip in the civilian population from “we shall fight them on the beaches” to “okay, in light of recent events, we are reevaluating our ‘Never Surrender’ policy…”.
In fact, I might even suggest that the scale of bombing necessary to make it a viable tactic was impossible at that time, as the nuclear bomb hadn’t yet been invented. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can fact check this assertion, but I think the only time intentionally targeting civilians has successfully cowed a belligerent was when the US nuked Japan. And even then, it took two.
And even that is debatable. Japanese surrender came shortly after a quick succession of several events - the first bomb at Hiroshima, Soviet Union declaring war and invading continental Japanese land, the second bomb at Nagasaki, allies completely obliterating Japanese navy, and preparing to invade their home islands, etc.
Many argue that Japan would surrender even without the two nuclear bombs.
I don’t they were holding back. Hitler isn’t particularly known for his restraint. It was just more rudimentary technology. There were only around 2000ish planes on either side, and they weren’t committing everything every day. The planes were smaller, the bombs weren’t as destructive, and targeting was pretty basic. They absolutely did tons of damage, but it took months.
Carrying out a similar engagement today would level a city in hours, maybe days.
Right, I was just misunderstanding your statement, then. Thanks for the interesting read!
War is already the escalation.
But were the drones shot down or “shot down”?
It’s whatever you want to believe. For folks on the opposite side of the world, this conflict is purely about vibes.
Getting objective information is difficult, but not impossible. If, for example, an oil refinery is burning then it probably wasn’t just hit by debris.
Sure. But it has no impact on any of us. It’s just headlines to boo or cheer.
People are clapping like seals at the latest reported horror of war. But they don’t really suffer or benefit in any way.
I’m fairly confident that ensuring countries remain sovereign is a net benefit for the world, even if I never step foot in Ukraine. We are lucky to live in this time of relative global peace, and strongmen countries invading others just because they can is something we need to put behind us.
Слава Україні!
Presumably, the small numbers were a tactic to locate Moscows air defences.
“The war, … , escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia’s western Kursk region.” Victim blaming? Sounds like the old “if Ukraine would stop fighting the war could be over”
It seems like a pretty neutral phrasing to me. Like, the allies landing in Normandy was also an escalation. Doesn’t necessarily mean it was a bad thing
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