Russian soldiers deployed in Ukraine sleep very restlessly. In fact, the only quiet moment of the day also proves to be the most dangerous, as silent and invisible enemies increasingly descend from the sky. Sometimes it’s USsupplied kamikaze planes, more often it’s Turkishmade drones: they’re the new, deadly small arms that David uses against Goliath.
Trained technicians
The launch of the drones is entrusted to a special unit called Aerorozvidka, based in Kyiv. Technicians trained by the Americans and British in recent years have been divided into about 50 teams to attack with precision surgical tanks, Russian command posts, armored vehicles and transporters housing the enemy’s electronic equipment. The night attacks not only cause great damage, but also undermine what little remains of the morale of the troops in Moscow: According to the Ukrainians, cases of desertion and selfharm are increasing, while Russian casualties are already 8,000 and the wounded 21,000. The results of the new defense strategy have been described as “surprising” by Western intelligence, which is monitoring everything thanks to satellites in orbit. But it is often the drones themselves that film the attacks and document their success. “We’re beating the Russians while they’re sleeping Yaroslav Honchar, the commander of Aerorozvidka, told the Times” so they can never really be sure”. Another officer added: “At night it’s impossible to see our drones. We target the most important vehicle in the convoy and then hit it spot on.” Justin Bronk, a defense systems researcher at the Royal United Service Institute, confirmed to the Spectator the extremely negative impact that the idea of dying in their sleep has on soldiers “It is very likely he wrote that a silent and potentially invisible threat will have enormous psychological consequences for the morale and tactics of Russian troops.”
The deadliest drones deployed by the Ukrainians are the Turkishmade Bayraktar TB2: they carry 150 kilos of armament under their wings and can fire up to 150 laserguided bombs, 70mm rockets and longrange antitank missiles on missions from kilometers away. At the end of the attack, they return to base to replenish. The American drones, the switchblades, on the other hand, are less sophisticated: they call them “kamikaze” precisely because they explode on contact with what they have to destroy, but hitting only one target and obviously not coming back. To avoid further casualties, the Russians began hiding tanks between village houses at night, but the accuracy of the launches made this measure partially ineffective.
However, it is very unlikely that drones will allow Ukraine to win the war. Much of the success of the past few days has been due to the inefficiency of the Russian high command, who continue to advance troops in single file down narrow streets with no infantry protection to the sides, making ambushes very easy.
The disorder of the advance
The disorder in which the advance progresses has already caused the destruction of 430 tanks and 1,375 armored vehicles. The 8,000 casualties recorded so far among the unprepared, poor boys who make up the Moscow army are already double what NATO suffered during the twentyyear war in Afghanistan.
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