The Story of Ukraine’s Attack on the Russian Air Force: How the U.S. is Dodging the Cold War with Drones

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 452 drones overnight as well as 45 missiles, including cruise and ballistic missiles. Apartment buildings, administrative buildings and commercial warehouses were struck by them across the country.

Ukraine’s recent attack on Russian warplanes was audacious, innovative and unprecedented. Ukraine’s stealthy strike was carried out with small drones, hidden in trucks parked near several Russian air bases.

“Now is the moment when America, Europe and everyone in the world together can stop this war by putting pressure on Russia,” Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel. “If someone does not put pressure and allows the war more time to take lives, this is complicity and responsibility.”

The attacks took place after Trump made comments about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine being like a dispute between children.

During a meeting with the German Chancellor in the White House, Trump said that sometimes it would be better if they let them fight for a while.

Trump said during a phone conversation with Putin that the Russian leader had warned him that they would retaliate for the covert Ukrainian attack on Russia.

Yet Operation Spider’s Web, orchestrated by the SBU intelligence service, was also part of a recurring theme: Ukraine keeps inventing new ways to wage war with drones, and regularly catches Russia by surprise.

“The Ukrainians are the ones innovating and trying these daring and creative attacks. Kelly Grieco, who studies the air war at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, said that the Russians were left scrambling to figure out how to defend against it.

Russia has many more troops than Ukraine and is gaining ground incrementally. Kofman says the Ukrainian drones are a critical part of limiting the Russian advantage.

Michael Kofman, with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, often travels to Ukraine and is always struck by the pace of change in drone warfare.

“I think it is overwhelming Ukraine’s defensive systems,” said al-Ghusbi. “If you’re launching hundreds of drones, that requires a lot of people on a lot of different weapons systems monitoring the skies.”

The Russians and the Iranians have a history of collaboration on military items, according to the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. He just wrote a detailed report on the Russia-Iran drone partnership.

Early in the war, the Russians began buying an Iranian drone, the Shahed 136. The Iranian model is considered to be usable but has limitations. It’s fairly loud and slow, and sometimes considered as a lawnmower in the sky.

Iran wasn’t making as many as Russia wanted. Russia paid Iran to use a technology that it began making its own version of, known as the Geran.

The most revolutionary thing about Geran is its mass production capability as well as its ability to hit targets at long ranges, said al-Ghusbi.

UAV production in the next few years will likely remain the same as in the United States, Germany, Italy and Ukraine – an update from the Ukrainian Observatory

Ukraine says it made more than 1 million drones last year and plans to build well over 2 million this year. Russia is catching up fast, and is likely to present a similar number, according to Ukrainian officials.