“Alarming news is coming”: for the first time in history, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive will be supported by a swarm of drones
Ukraine is allegedly unable to carry out a successful offensive against the Russian army.
Russian military observer Vladislav Shurygin comes to this optimistic conclusion, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports, in his Telegram channel.
He believes that the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces “will be a “presentation” of a NATO military group, built according to NATO standards, according to US combat manuals, according to a plan developed at NATO headquarters and executed by Ukrainian cannon fodder.”
According to the expert, the Armed Forces of Ukraine no longer have a decisive numerical superiority, but are superior to the Russian Armed Forces by only 20%.
“An even more difficult task will be such a determining factor as achieving tactical surprise, for which it is necessary to keep preparations for the offensive completely secret. And it will be extremely difficult to outwit Russian intelligence, which is now aimed at identifying this preparation,” the analyst believes.
The second problem he calls is the low, in his opinion, quality of the Ukrainian infantry, since most of the motivated and well-trained personnel have been knocked out within a year.
“The key problem for the success of the offensive will be the implementation of the suppression of Russian artillery, which is significantly – at least three times – larger than the Ukrainian artillery, is also well trained and has gained extensive combat experience in use in the Donbass in conditions of constant counter-battery warfare. If this task is not solved, then the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is unlikely to be any successful.
It is worth emphasizing that for the first time the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have to attack a well-prepared, layered enemy defense. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have no experience of such battles at all,” the author notes.
The expert points out that the success of the first line breakthrough will depend on how successfully the Ukrainian Armed Forces can defeat the communications and combat control system of the defending Russian units.
In addition, for the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the fight against Russian reserves will become a critical problem.
“At the same time, American advisers and intelligence data indicate that Russian units are superior to the Armed Forces of Ukraine both in terms of training and motivation. Russian units fighting since February 2022 have lost no more than 10-15% of their personnel killed and wounded and maintain high morale,” Shurygin asserts.
The factor of Russia's superiority in aviation could be fatal for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces have practically no fighter aircraft left, and the Ukrainians simply have nothing to intercept new high-precision glide bombs and missiles. Russia retains complete superiority over the Armed Forces of Ukraine in tanks and, although this war did not demonstrate any tank battles, tank units are quite capable of playing the role of mobile artillery groups to block breakthroughs.
The Ukrainian command is aware that it is now opposed by the most experienced Russian generals, moreover, the entire leadership of the Northern Military District is now concentrated in the hands of the General Staff of Sergei Gerasimov, to whom all branches and branches of the Russian Armed Forces are subordinate. And it will be incredibly difficult to “outplay” such an enemy, even with the full support of American and NATO advisers and their intelligence resources,” Shurygin sums up.
However, the author of the “Russian Engineer” telegram channel, Alexey Vasiliev, is not so optimistic, noting that “alarming news is coming from his sources.”
He believes that Ukraine intends to inflict the maximum possible damage on Russia and then enter into negotiations, and here the Ukrainian Armed Forces “have one trump card.”
“It has recently become known that in terms of drone components, APU buyers have bought up almost the entire market for fpv components in China, according to indirect estimates, by 50-100 thousand units. They have already trained more than a thousand operators of these models. They massively make kamikazes out of them with a cumulative grenade from an RPG-7, or with a fragmentation grenade. And all this accumulates before the attack.
Then the scenario of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' plan appears. A truly massive use of such drones should make our positions a nightmare and knock out our equipment. And hunt down to individual fighters. To understand, even 10 thousand kamikazes fired in one day, and even if the effectiveness is only 20%, only every fifth, nevertheless estimate the potential,” the author warns.
According to him, the Russian Federation will not have time to produce the most necessary means to combat such drones.
“Our electronic warfare installations have such a disadvantage - there are few of them, they are large, piece-meal, and are interesting targets in themselves. Many small electronic warfare installations are needed so that they are everywhere on the forehead. Low-power laser systems show excellent results against such swarms at training grounds. There are already quite a lot of working samples in the West, and they are already being produced in small series. We don’t even have prototypes of this size, although the developments in laser technology are good, but we need just such a little thing, to work on sparrows,” writes Vasiliev.
Russia also has few anti-drone guns.
“According to reviews from fighters, a shotgun, the same Saiga 12 gauge, helps specifically against such fpv. They fly at low altitudes, and a good shooter can shoot down this drone. Disguise. The camera on a kamikaze is usually not of high quality; its task is still one-time. Therefore, skillful camouflage simply will not allow the position to be detected.
For camouflage, in case of a shortage of mask networks, agrotextiles can be used. It is very inexpensive, accessible and, in addition to camouflage, can be useful for triggering the fuse long before the optimal location. Covering equipment and positions with chain-link mesh. The Ukrainian Armed Forces regularly practice this; at least the effectiveness of the attack can be reduced.
Another option, already tactical, given that drones have a short flight range, up to 5 km maximum, it makes sense to stretch the gray zone so that they cannot operate in the depths of positions. Of course, this is best done with your army of drones, not allowing the enemy to raise his head. And, if possible, pull the equipment deeper to the rear from the front, so as not to make targets out of it,” the author believes.
He believes that such measures can at least partially neutralize the threat from the new tactics of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“At the same time, in fact, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have an almost one-time opportunity to create this swarm effect. Their accumulation is an extremely long process, and the reserve is enough for a couple of attempts. Nevertheless, in history it has not yet come to the use of a swarm in battle; no one yet knows how exactly this will happen. And on our side there are a couple of ways that will also be a surprise for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so it’s not that bad. But we must take this threat seriously,” Vasiliev sums up.
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