Ukraine’s Air War: Tests of Long-Range U.S.-Machine Drones and Counterattack on Russian Defense Forces

It’s drone testing day at a farm field outside Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, where several Ukrainian drone makers are demonstrating their latest models for Ukraine’s military.

In many cases, Ukrainian attack drones are helping to stop, or at least limit, Russian gains. The drones, which can drop grenades and other explosives with precision, target Russian troops as they attempt to push across the no-man’s land separating the two armies on the frontline.

Russian fighter jets rarely enter Ukrainian air space because of the risk that they will be shot down.

“Most of the companies here are the companies that were created a couple of years ago, or even a couple of months ago,” Lokotkov said of those at the testing ground.

Earlier this week, Ukraine fired a series of U.S.-made longer-range missiles, known as ATACMS, into Russia for the first time, following long-sought approval from the Biden administration.

“It is amazing how quickly the technology and the tactics have changed,” said Kelly Grieco with the Stimson Center. She closely covers the air war in Ukraine and recently briefed the Pentagon.

The U.S. flew its drones in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan. The Ukrainians don’t use them, as they would be easy targets in the country.

She said that the small drones were flying through trees and attacking the enemy. “And of course, these long-range, one-way attack drones that are allowing Ukraine to strike in Russian territory.”

“Russia’s Black Sea fleet was disabled or sunk by a country without a navy, which forced it to pull it out further back in Russia,” said Grieco. “That is an amazing accomplishment.”

The U.S. approach to warfare in Ukraine is alien to the American way, according to a Washington Post-Newtonian analysis of a Russian missile attack

Multiple media reports say that drones have attacked military bases in Murmansk, more than 1000 miles away from the Ukraine’s border.

He says the U.S. approach has been invest in very high performance, expensive weapons that you won’t be able to purchase in large numbers. Is it really a good idea to have a small number of very high-tech weapons?

Stephen Biddle, professor at Columbia university and advisor to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that the approach of relatively inexpensive experimentation that cycles fast in Ukraine is alien to the American way of doing defense policy.

The missile was launched from the southern Russian region of the Astrakhan, according to the Air Force. The Ukrainian government said it was one of nine rockets fired at Dnipro, damaging an industrial facility, a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities and residential buildings. Officials said two people were injured, according to The Associated Press.

Ukrainian energy worker Serhii Nikolaienko, 24, said he wishes Ukraine’s partners had allowed Ukrainian troops to use long-range weapons far earlier in the war.

“If we had kicked the war in the teeth two years or two and a half years ago, I think there would have not have been such destruction” in Ukraine, he told NPR.