Ukraine Smokescreens Failures With Meaningless Deep-strikes

SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER

More of the same this week: Ukraine has intensified its drone campaign to carry out some headline-grabbing strike or terror stunt to manage media perceptions and keep themselves looking viable and relevant.

A new strike on Russia’s Kresti airfield near Pskov last night was the latest in these efforts, not to mention continual attacks on Bryansk, Donetsk, attempted landings on Crimea, and many other such stunts which have no military value whatsoever.

But let’s talk about the Pskov strike briefly, as it has generated a lot of the usual gnashing of teeth and ‘patriot’ outrage. The airfield houses Russia’s Il-76 transport planes. The most up to date report claims upwards of 4 total were damaged in the strikes, with 2 of them potentially destroyed, as the following videos show:

 

 
However, new Western satellite photos from today appear to show little to no damage:

 
First let’s dispense with the fact that wikipedia gives the number of Russian Il-76s as 120 in active service, another 120 in reserve, with 20 on order and presumably being manufactured. So, while losing 2 or 4 may be a fairly bad hit, it’s not catastrophic. That’s not to even mention that these planes are not really even used in the SMO, as they’re transport planes and Russia does most of its logistics transport via rail and truck as most know. The Il-76s are mostly in Pskov as that’s where Russia’s famed 76th Pskov Paratroopers Airborne unit is stationed, and they use the planes to train with and jump out of.

The latest reports indicate that this operation was planned with British Mi6 for many months. Of course something that took months to coordinate will do some damage, particularly since the attack utilized a mass drone swarm of at least 21+ drones, according to some reports. They were said to possibly be the new Australian “card board” drones which have been in headlines recently:

 

 

 
These drones are nearly invisible to radar because cardboard is basically porous to radar waves. It shows that Ukraine and their Western controllers are constantly innovating and finding new ways to bypass Russia’s defenses. But Russia subsequently innovates and adapts as well, which is why you likely won’t see such a “successful” strike again for several more months.

There are big questions also about how these drones made it all the way to Pskov, 600km+ from the Ukrainian border. Some are claiming they came from Estonia. Many people have asked me recently, in general, how Ukraine conducts drone strikes on Russian territory. So allow me to use this circumstance to elucidate slightly on this matter.

Firstly, it must be known that it was already confirmed by Western media several times that Ukraine is sending saboteurs into Russia armed with drones which are launched from within Russian territory:

This is extremely easy to do. All you have to have is a sleeper agent or someone who crosses over into Russia legally under false pretenses and buys any number of legal-to-own off-the-shelf drones, like Chinese Mavics, etc. These drones can be fitted with explosives and flown right from the perimeter of the target. If you’re next to an airbase for instance, you can fly an FPV drone from the fence outside of the base right onto a plane and blow it up then leave by car long before authorities have figured out what even happened.

In fact, this exact thing has been confirmed in several of the cases, not only in strikes on Crimean air bases long ago but also on the attempted strike on the Russian A-50 AWACS plane in Belarus. The perpetrator flew an FPV drone from right outside the base but was then caught.

So we know for a fact that at least this one style of drone strike is confirmed as being actively used. The other more difficult tactic is sending larger drones like Ukrainian ‘Beaver’ drones over long distances from Ukrainian territory. How can they travel through hundreds of kilometers of Russian territory without being detected?

Two ways:

1. Firstly, they are made out of carbon fiber / light composite materials which are very difficult for radar waves to reflect from.
2. They fly relatively low which means, by virtue of the hard science of radar horizon, they simply cannot be detected until they’re only a few kilometers away from a radar installation.

For those who’ve followed my writings, you may recall several times that I’ve posted satellite photos showing how American SIGINT satellites can detect Russian radar installation positions simply based on their particular band emissions:

 
After that, all they have to do is a simple mathematical calculation: radar can only see an object of x size at y distance if the object is traveling at n altitude. Thus, they immediately know what the perimeters of the radar horizons are and where the drones need to travel in order to “skirt” the non-detection zones. They plan out a detailed pathway that’s programmed into the drone’s satellite navigation, and the drone follows a unique, serpentine path through the various radar edges.

An example of how that would look. Let’s say in the image below the red circles are all coverage zones of S-300 radars for objects that are flying at 500ft altitude or below. The yellow circles are coverage for anything flying from about 500ft to 5000ft altitude. And the purple circles cover 5000ft and upward:

 
This is a simplified version just to illustrate the idea. But as you can see, the layered defense is in fact overlapping, but only in the purple regions. Most air defense doctrine was created for cold war era tactics and combating high flying aircraft strike groups. If any normal plane flying at normal altitudes were to enter that zone, it would be detected as there are no gaps at all, if the plane is above 5000ft.

But since the drone is flying at a hypothetical 100ft, the only circle above that would detect it would be the red one. Or even if it’s flying at 1000ft, the yellow circle would detect it, but those have slight gaps in between. By studying the placement of the radars from signal intercepting satellites, Western partners can plot a route for Ukraine’s drones as seen by the blue lines, which snuggle in between the yellow circles and circuitously get to Moscow in the north.

Further, no matter how tightly you organize the radars there are many natural geographical, topographical, and simply urban features which limit radar detection in areas with higher city density. If the drone is flying at 100-200ft, but in the general region there are tons of hills, mountains, and buildings which are all anywhere from 200-1000ft high, then guess what? There will be obstructions to the radar waves everywhere, and limits to the coverage.

You can make up for this by placing many more systems everywhere but of course this is limited by how many systems and trained personnel you have available. Also you can get coverage from the air with a constant 24/7 overwatch of AWACS style planes with look-down radars, but it’s difficult to know how stretched Russia’s limited AWACS fleet is. They supposedly have only about ~15 A-50 planes, and recall that standard “mission readiness” rates for aircraft around the world is anywhere from 30-70%. This is defined as what percentage of aircraft are usable or flyable at any given time. The remainder is in a constant state of maintenance. For more advanced planes like F-22/F-35, the U.S. readiness rate has been as low as 30%, which means only 30% of the fleet can fly and operate.

So, with only around 15 AWACS it’s possible that only half that number, give or take, can really fly at any given time, and they have to be not only spread around the entire Ukrainian front, but some of them are required for the defense of the northern and eastern borders of Russia, to watch NATO around the Sea of Japan, Okhotsk, Bering Sea, etc. So theoretically Russia could have as little as 3-5 AWACS for Ukraine at any given time.

Keep in mind the mighty U.S. only has around ~30 official E-3 Sentry AWACS itself, so countries don’t typically have massive amounts of these. However, the U.S. also has some more RC-135s, E-8s, P-8 Orions, etc., which can help fill the gaps with somewhat similar capabilities. Russia fills the gaps by having Mig-31s patrol, which have powerful look-down mode Zaslon-M radars.

Lastly, I’d like to point out two important things. First of all, the Pskov airfield as I said has almost no military utility and is not even connected to the SMO. Thus it was targeted specifically due to this weakness, knowing that it’s not as well-defended because there’s nothing critical there. Notice Ukraine has hardly been able to scratch any of Russia’s actual important airfields like Engels, Dyagilevo, Olenya, or the ones near the frontline like Berdiansk, which houses dozens of frontline attack choppers. That’s because these are actually well-protected. So of course Ukraine chooses an obscure target it might stand a chance of hitting, and it still cost them “months” of preparation to do something militarily insignificant.

The second point is this. Many ignorant people have whined something along these lines: “Russian air defense is weak, if cheap Ukrainian drones managed to bypass them imagine what NATO would do if Russia ends up in a full-scale war with NATO in the near future! Russia wouldn’t last more than a hour/day/week/etc.”

But here’s the catch they miss: Ukraine actually has a major advantage which NATO would never enjoy in such a hypothetical conflict. You see, Ukraine gets to enjoy the luxury of NATO’s full satellite dominance without Russia’s ability to take those assets out due to not wanting to start WW3. That means Ukraine gets a “cheat code” where they can see all Russian assets and plan everything around that, bypassing Russian defenses, etc.

But if Russia was in a ‘full out war’ against NATO, guess which asset would be the first thing to come down? That’s right—NATO’s satellites wouldn’t exist. NATO would be blind and have no ability whatsoever to see Russia’s AD or other assets from afar, which means that even Ukraine’s puny drone strikes to Russia’s “deep rear” are far more than what NATO would be capable of in many ways.

Some argue: “But NATO has thousands of satellites, Russia can’t shoot them all down.” They conflate things like GPS and Starlink, which are small mass-produceable modules that dot the earth’s orbit. But in terms of actual enterprise level optoelectrical or E/O satellites, they have very few. The U.S. has a grand total of 5 giant optoelectrical satellites it relies on, each costing over $5 billion dollars. Those would come down in flaming wrecks to Russian A-235 Nudol missiles and U.S. would be blind. Sure, Russian satellites would likely come down too, but Russia is the only one that’s proven to know how to wage non-hightech war. NATO relies on both artillery and MLRS (HIMARS etc.) that can only shoot with satellite guided munitions. Russia has been accurately hitting Ukrainian targets with pencil-paper and sextant since the start of the war—they don’t need satellites.

And lastly, with all these comparisons to NATO lately, it’s funny that this clip from the documentary film Restrepo has hit the channels. It shows what the mighty American armed forces really look like in combat situations, from the Afghan war. After watching the heroism of Russian troops in Ukraine, you really think this army here would stand a chance? And this was before the army turned snowflake in the modern era—imagine how bad it is now:

 
As another general point, it’s clear that Russia is a highly adaptable armed forces. They learn from every mistake and continually implement changes to finetune operations. The enemy never sleeps either and is always innovating as well, so it’s a continuous power creep game of battlefield innovation.

As an example, Russia has already implemented several tricks to stop future Ukrainian naval drones from hitting the Kerch bridge:

Along the Crimean bridge, 7 barges were immediately placed to form a protective barrier against unmanned kamikaze boats of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

It is assumed that cables and chains will also be stretched between the barges, thereby creating a barrier for enemy BECs, which should fall into this trap in the event of another attempt to strike the bridge.

The design may seem strange and primitive, but being at night and under dense small arms fire, the drone operator may simply not notice where he is swimming or maneuver unsuccessfully in the process of evasion.

Reportedly not only has Russia stationed barges all along the bridge at exact intervals, to both watch for drones and possibly even suspend some kind of anti-drone netting between them. But also there’s word that Russia has begun sinking large old ships in the shallow bay there at strategic points to create a cheap natural barrier, funneling any potential drones into narrow, easily controlled chokepoints.

As further example, there’s been recent discussion I’ve written about in the realm of Russian counter-battery warfare and the complaints from certain frontlines that Russia needs to do more to improve its counter-battery capabilities as Russian troops complain that the only real, intractable threat they’re facing is incessant artillery barrages from the AFU. They can handle the AFU’s assaults but the artillery is wearing them thin.

So what does Shoigu do? The so-called “hated” defense minister visits the top manufacturers of Russian counter-battery systems and demands for them to increase production rates:

 

 
Remind me why “schizopatriots” claim he’s so terrible again? He’s clearly doing his job, converting battlefield demands into immediate actionable results through the chains of the MIC.

Lastly, while Ukraine achieved one quarterly strike with moderate damage against assets that don’t even have any bearing on the SMO, Russia in the same span of time has devastated the AFU’s actual military targets. Last night Kiev was struck a devastating blow with missiles and drones:

 
Some sources say a railroad yard in Kiev was hit. Many other targets throughout the country were likewise hit, in Cherkasy, Odessa, and Zhytomir.

And a day prior, Russian strikes blew away a train carrying Ukrainian gear to the front in Metsalovo station west of Donetsk city.

 
This is in addition to countless other strikes in the past week which continue goring Ukrainian infrastructure.

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