How did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turn into a war of attrition that now sees drones striking Moscow itself? In this video, we examine the strategic miscalculations, doctrinal failures, sanctions, and technological shifts that transformed the conflict. From the failed push on Kyiv to Ukraine’s drone revolution, discover why many analysts believe Russia’s greatest mistake was made long before the first shots were fired—and why its consequences continue to shape the war today.
00:00 - Drones Over Moscow
02:48 - The Failed Blitzkrieg Plan
05:06 - A Catastrophic Intelligence Failure
06:55 - Rigid Doctrine vs. Mission Command
12:39 - Failing to Take the Skies
15:27 - The Tech Sanctions Trap
17:24 - Turning to Outdated Stockpiles
19:07 - The Frontline Tactical Drone Gap
24:40 - Degrading the Supply Chains
27:48 - Deep Strikes Inside Russia
32:18 - Flipping the Cost-Exchange Ratio
35:47 - Why Russia Can't Adapt
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/mhjhUzc7
00:00 - Drones Over Moscow
02:48 - The Failed Blitzkrieg Plan
05:06 - A Catastrophic Intelligence Failure
06:55 - Rigid Doctrine vs. Mission Command
12:39 - Failing to Take the Skies
15:27 - The Tech Sanctions Trap
17:24 - Turning to Outdated Stockpiles
19:07 - The Frontline Tactical Drone Gap
24:40 - Degrading the Supply Chains
27:48 - Deep Strikes Inside Russia
32:18 - Flipping the Cost-Exchange Ratio
35:47 - Why Russia Can't Adapt
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/mhjhUzc7
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NewsTranscript
00:00Compared to previous spectacles, the 2026 annual Victory Day Parade in Moscow was remarkably subdued.
00:07While the public did get to see the usual columns of tanks rumbling through Red Square,
00:12they did it from a unique vantage point, a video screen.
00:16The reason? Drones.
00:17Ukrainian drones are threading through the Russian capital's layered air defense network,
00:22and Russia was worried they would strike during the parade itself.
00:25In mid-May, the drones reached the Solnitsynagorsk oil-loading station,
00:30causing black smoke to curl over a city that Russian President Vladimir Putin
00:34had spent four years assuring his citizens were safely out of reach.
00:39The Moscow refinery, one of the most defended industrial facilities in all of Russia, has been struck.
00:45Moscow's airports have grounded every commercial flight within hundreds of kilometers for what feels like the hundredth time.
00:51Robert Brovdy, commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, posted six words to social media that morning.
00:58Moscow, from now on, never sleeps.
01:01Let that sink in.
01:02Ukraine, a country that Russia invaded expecting to conquer in a weekend,
01:07is now striking the Russian capital at will,
01:09and is not even using sophisticated missile systems that the West provides.
01:14No, it's doing so with drones that in many cases cost a few thousand dollars,
01:19while they slip past air defense systems that cost tens of millions.
01:23The Russian government, in response, has placed Pantsir S-1 air defense missile launchers
01:29on the roof of the defense ministry itself.
01:31The seat of Russian military power is now wearing its own air defense system like a helmet,
01:36in plain sight, because it has no other choice.
01:39It has some speculating that Russia will never win in Ukraine.
01:43So, how did it come to this?
01:46The easy answer is drones.
01:48And yes, we're going to talk about drones a lot.
01:50But drones are not the whole story.
01:52The real reason Russia cannot win in Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO,
01:57or sanctions, or Western weapons, or Ukrainian courage,
02:00though all of those things matter.
02:02The real reason is far simpler.
02:05Russia lost this war in the planning room,
02:07before a single soldier crossed the border on February 24, 2022.
02:12It lost because of one catastrophic, irreversible mistake.
02:17Russia was overconfident, and by the time it realized just how badly wrong things had gotten,
02:22the window to fix it had already closed.
02:25So, today, we're going to walk through exactly how that happened.
02:29Starting with the war Russia thought it was fighting,
02:32going through the doctrine it brought to a fight it fundamentally misunderstood,
02:36and then tracing the chain of consequences,
02:38all the way to those drone strikes over Moscow,
02:41that flowed directly from that original sin of arrogance.
02:44To understand what went wrong,
02:46you have to understand what Russia's leadership actually believed would happen
02:50when it crossed the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022.
02:55They believed it would be over in days.
02:57This was the operational foundation of the entire campaign.
03:01Russian logistics planners, this is documented,
03:03prepared resupply chains based on occupying Kiev within 10 days.
03:07Note that this didn't mean capturing Ukraine entirely.
03:11The assumption was that once Russian forces reached the capital
03:14and the Ukrainian government collapsed or fled,
03:17resistance would evaporate,
03:18and the rest would be similar to what had happened in Crimea in 2014.
03:22As a result, tanks ran out of fuel, and soldiers ran out of food.
03:27Not because Russian logistics were uniquely incompetent,
03:30but because the entire system had been built around a sprint, not a marathon.
03:35Think about what that actually means.
03:37The Russian military planned meticulously just for the wrong war,
03:41and the plan exposed everything, the overconfidence,
03:44the contempt for Ukrainian resolve,
03:46and most fatally, the decision to send a force that was large enough to make noise,
03:50but not nearly large enough to actually win.
03:53On paper, Russia had one of the most formidable militaries on the planet when it invaded.
03:58Hundreds of thousands of active-duty soldiers,
04:01thousands of tanks and armored vehicles,
04:03an aerospace force with more aircraft than almost any other nation on Earth.
04:07Hypersonic missiles, nuclear weapons,
04:10one of the world's largest military budgets for years running.
04:13By pure numbers, Ukraine had no business competing with any of that.
04:17And Russia didn't use it.
04:19The initial evasion force was somewhere between 150,000 and 190,000 troops.
04:25This was a significant number,
04:27but not the overwhelming, all-consuming wave you deploy
04:30when you're serious about conquering a country of more than 40 million people.
04:34For context, the United States coalition deployed roughly 700,000 troops
04:39to liberate Kuwait from Iraq in 1991,
04:42a country with a fraction of Ukraine's size, population, and military capability.
04:47Russia's planners apparently looked at those numbers,
04:50looked at Ukraine, and decided they could do it with a quarter of that,
04:54on the assumption that Kyiv would fall before serious resistance could organize.
04:58Looking back, it's not fair to say Russia was completely out of its mind
05:02in thinking it could pull it off.
05:04In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea in a matter of days,
05:08with almost no military resistance.
05:10And in the eastern Donbass that same year,
05:12Russian-backed separatists carved out two breakaway republics,
05:15with a combination of local proxies, covert military support,
05:19and political chaos in Kyiv.
05:21None of that required an overwhelming commitment of force,
05:25only the fact that Ukraine was caught unaware
05:27and reeling from its own economic issues.
05:29There was also a significant intelligence failure
05:32layered beneath the doctrinal one.
05:34Russian military intelligence, GRU, and the FSB,
05:38both reportedly assessed Ukraine's will to resist his low.
05:41Part of this was simply because Russian intelligence networks in Ukraine
05:45were optimized for political infiltration and economic leverage,
05:49not for accurately assessing military morale and combat readiness.
05:53Part of it may have been deliberate distortion by analysts who understood
05:56that delivering bad news to Putin was professionally dangerous.
05:59Whatever the cause, the assessment was that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy would flee,
06:05that Ukrainian military units would stand down,
06:08and that the population would welcome Russia like there was still a Soviet nation.
06:12All of it proved catastrophically wrong within the first 72 hours.
06:16Ukrainian territorial defense units flooded recruiting offices.
06:20Civilians made Molotov cocktails.
06:23Zelenskyy famously declined an evacuation offer.
06:25The psychological collapse that Russia had planned its entire operation around
06:30simply didn't happen.
06:31No plan survives first contact with an enemy,
06:34especially one that's decided collectively and defiantly not to comply with it.
06:39With plan A going nowhere and there being no plan B,
06:42the war becoming one of attrition was practically a foregone conclusion.
06:46The exact reason why Russian intelligence failed to capture that vital titbit of information
06:51and arguably start the war was that Ukraine changed massively,
06:55and it has no one but Russia to thank for that.
06:58After 2014, Ukraine started moving closer to the West in terms of ideology,
07:03but it also approached NATO to train its forces.
07:06That meant eight years of world-class training,
07:09Western equipment donations,
07:10and experienced veterans from the Donbass fighting.
07:13The result was a campaign built on a fantasy.
07:16Russian forces advanced in multiple directions simultaneously,
07:19toward Kiev from the north,
07:21toward Kharkiv in the northeast,
07:23and toward Kherson in the south.
07:25This spread the already insufficient force across an enormous front,
07:29on the assumption that none of these axes would face serious resistance,
07:32and that the Ukrainian resistance would collapse once the capital was threatened.
07:36When Ukrainian forces stopped them cold at Hostomel Airport,
07:40which was the planned gateway for an airborne seizure of Kiev
07:43for the very first day of the invasion,
07:45the entire logic of the operation began to unravel.
07:48This directly led to the famous 40-mile tank convoys,
07:52which were now stuck because the first operation in the war went terribly,
07:56and Russia couldn't back out since it never planned to.
07:58By April 1st, 2022,
08:01barely five weeks into what was supposed to be a three-to-ten-day operation,
08:05Russia was retreating from the entire Kiev oblast.
08:08It had revealed to the entire watching world
08:11that its military was a paper tiger built on corruption,
08:14inadequate training, and decades of institutional mythology
08:17about its own invincibility.
08:19But here's the critical point,
08:21and this is what the rest of this video is about.
08:24The retreat from Kiev was not the end of Russia's overconfidence problem,
08:28it was just the first and most visible consequence of it.
08:31The deeper ones were still working their way through the system.
08:34And for that, we need to dig again into Russia's military doctrine,
08:38or rather, how it planned to wage wars in general.
08:41Russian military doctrine, in its modern form,
08:44is a direct descendant of Soviet deep battle theory,
08:48a concept developed in the late 1920s and 1930s.
08:52The core idea was elegant and hinged on the idea
08:54that rather than grinding through enemy lines from front to back,
08:58you attack simultaneously along the enemy's entire military.
09:01This included the front line, reserves, logistics, and even command centers,
09:06creating simultaneous crises everywhere
09:08so that the enemy can't respond to all at once.
09:11In practice, this requires immense coordination
09:14between air and ground troops, command and logistics.
09:17Vitally, it posits that all the orders come from above
09:20and are distributed down the chain of command without modifications.
09:24But this method has one catastrophic vulnerability.
09:27It only works if your command and control are functioning.
09:30If orders don't get through,
09:32commanders can't talk to each other,
09:34or tactical units lose contact with their operational headquarters,
09:37the whole synchronized machine grinds to a halt.
09:40And here's where one of the most overlooked advantages
09:43Ukraine brought to this fight comes into play.
09:45Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until 1991.
09:49Its military officers grew up inside Soviet doctrine,
09:52and they attended Soviet military academies.
09:55When Russia launched its invasion,
09:57Ukraine was fighting an enemy that it intimately knew,
10:00particularly since the enemy was playing by the same rulebook
10:02it used just eight years before.
10:04And Ukraine adapted to the fullest.
10:07Beginning after 2014,
10:09and accelerating under direct NATO guidance from 2016 onward,
10:13Ukraine deliberately retrained its officer corps
10:16away from Soviet-style command structures
10:18and toward a NATO mission command philosophy.
10:21In the old Soviet model, which Russia still uses,
10:24orders flowed downward rigidly,
10:26and subordinate commanders need to execute those orders
10:29with minimal deviation.
10:30The system is designed to be controlled from the top.
10:34Ukraine deliberately broke that model.
10:36It trained its company and battalion commanders
10:38to make independent decisions based on the enemy's intent
10:41and the most advantageous position at the time,
10:44without waiting for permission from above.
10:47It focused on units that could work in isolation,
10:50precisely because they would be forced to
10:52when pitted against a larger enemy.
10:54This mattered enormously for two reasons.
10:56First, it made Ukrainian forces far more resilient
10:59under Russian electronic warfare
11:01and signals intelligence operations.
11:04Russia's jamming capabilities were designed to target
11:06the centralized communication architecture
11:09of a Soviet-style military,
11:11where you had a single brigade network,
11:13a few key nodes, and predictable radio frequencies.
11:16Against a decentralized force
11:18communicating over short distances
11:20through many small nodes,
11:22those tools became far less effective.
11:24Case in point, Ukrainian small unit commanders
11:27organized ambushes using anti-tank weapons
11:30and operated with irregular tactics
11:32that consistently surprised Russian forces,
11:35expecting a structured, predictable opponent.
11:37Second, and more directly relevant
11:39to the opening months of the war,
11:41Ukrainian commanders at every level
11:43understood exactly how a Russian unit
11:45would behave under pressure,
11:46because they'd been trained in the same system
11:48and knew precisely where the pressure points were.
11:51And the most visible pressure point
11:53was the Russian chain of command itself.
11:55As mentioned, Russian military doctrine
11:57concentrates authority at the top
11:59and expects senior officers
12:01to manage tactical situations personally.
12:04This also means they move forward
12:05to supervise operations directly.
12:08Ukraine recognized this pattern
12:09and systematically targeted Russian command vehicles,
12:13communications equipment,
12:14and the commanders themselves.
12:16The kill rate among senior Russian officers
12:18in the early months of the war
12:20was staggering by any historical comparison.
12:23Russia lost five generals
12:24to Ukrainian artillery and precision strikes
12:26in the first weeks of the conflict.
12:28This showcased just how fragile the system was
12:31when you needed high-ranking officers
12:33near the front line
12:34and had an enemy that could take advantage of that.
12:37The Russian military doctrine
12:38also makes extreme use of air power,
12:41which is another vital breaking point
12:43that led to the war becoming as is.
12:45For one, Russian ground combat mechanics
12:48practically assume air superiority.
12:50The entire theory of combined arms deep battle
12:53requires that Russian aviation
12:54is free to operate in support of ground forces.
12:57This includes suppressing enemy defenses,
13:00striking logistics,
13:01and even providing close air support
13:03to advancing infantry and armor.
13:05As such, Russian ground formations
13:07are not designed to fight
13:08without that overhead cover.
13:10Their tactics, formations,
13:12and the tempo of combat
13:13they were designed to sustain
13:14or presuppose that the skies would be bears
13:17and there'd be someone to back them up.
13:19But the skies over Ukraine
13:20didn't belong to Russia
13:22for a single day of this war.
13:23This can also be traced directly back
13:25to Russia's opening overconfidence.
13:28To achieve air superiority,
13:30you must first suppress enemy air defenses.
13:32So, Russia launched over 1,100 missiles
13:35at Ukrainian targets
13:36in the first three weeks of the war,
13:39striking, or attempting to,
13:40at about 75% of Ukraine's anti-air defenses.
13:44But Ukraine had dispersed its mobile
13:46surface-to-air missile systems
13:48before the invasion began,
13:50saving most of them from the initial strikes.
13:53From that point,
13:54the Russian Aerospace Forces, or VKS,
13:56were operating in a contested environment
13:58they hadn't planned for
14:00against an air defense network
14:01they had failed to destroy,
14:03with a stockpile of precision munitions
14:05already depleting rapidly.
14:06By early April 2022,
14:09barely six weeks into the war,
14:11the VKS had effectively stopped
14:13attempting to penetrate
14:14Ukrainian airspace in any sustained way.
14:17It retreated to launch standoff strikes
14:19from Russian territory
14:20well outside of the range
14:22of Ukrainian air defenses.
14:23But without close air support
14:25on the scale originally envisioned,
14:27Russian armor and infantry
14:29often had to advance
14:30with limited overhead protection.
14:32And without effective air interdiction
14:34of Ukrainian supply lines,
14:36Western weapons kept flowing to the front.
14:38Without fully suppressing Ukrainian artillery,
14:41those artillery systems continued to operate
14:43and inflict heavy losses.
14:45Every ground offensive Russia has conducted
14:47since April 2022
14:48has been shaped by its inability
14:50to establish the kind of air dominance
14:53that most modern militaries
14:54would consider essential.
14:56Rather than acknowledging
14:57that their doctrine had failed
14:58and rebuilding around a new reality,
15:01Russian military theorists largely concluded
15:03that their concepts were correct all along,
15:05and that the failures were due to poor execution
15:08and unforeseen Western support for Ukraine,
15:10not fundamental flaws in their doctrine.
15:13So, Russia was overconfident to the point
15:15where their system couldn't admit its own failure,
15:18playing the same tune for months on end
15:20while its soldiers died.
15:21And once those opening months ended
15:24and the siege of Kyiv was a part of military history,
15:27Russia itself started to decline.
15:29By that point,
15:30most analysts were starting to realize
15:32it was going to be a long war.
15:34But a long war meant Russia needed to mobilize
15:37its actual military power,
15:39the kind it hadn't deployed in February
15:40because it hadn't thought it would need to.
15:43Most importantly,
15:44Russia would need more modern equipment
15:45and access to technology.
15:47But by that time,
15:49the window to acquire it had already closed.
15:51Just hours after the invasion began,
15:54the United States,
15:55the European Union,
15:56the United Kingdom,
15:57and dozens of allied nations
15:59imposed the most comprehensive package
16:01of economic sanctions in modern history.
16:04Over the following weeks and months,
16:05those sanctions were specifically
16:07and deliberately targeted
16:08at the technology inputs
16:10that Russian military production depends on.
16:12They stripped Russia
16:13of accessing microelectronics,
16:15semiconductors,
16:16advanced machine tools,
16:18and precision manufacturing equipment.
16:20It meant Russia couldn't build
16:21new guidance chips,
16:23communications hardware,
16:24or even advanced drone control systems.
16:27The reason why the sanctions
16:28were particularly devastating
16:30was that Russia is a big hypocrite.
16:32Russia's military industrial base
16:34had been dependent on Western
16:35and Western-aligned technology
16:37supply chains for decades.
16:39Its modern missiles
16:40use Western microelectronics.
16:42Its tanks use Western-made machine tools
16:44in their manufacturing process.
16:46Its electronic warfare systems
16:48required advanced chipsets
16:50that Russia's own semiconductor industry
16:52couldn't produce domestically.
16:54This all comes from
16:55the Royal United Services Institute,
16:57which documented this dependency,
16:59suggesting that anything
17:00that Russia needed for the military,
17:02it was the Western supply chain
17:04that provided it.
17:05Of course,
17:06sanctions never have immediate consequences.
17:09Russia had some of the largest
17:10stockpiles of Soviet-era equipment,
17:12and a lot of that equipment
17:13was simply shelved
17:14rather than dismantled.
17:15So,
17:16it could feasibly throw it back into the war.
17:18But Russia couldn't replace
17:20those stockpiles
17:20with modern equivalents.
17:22The scramble that followed
17:23tells you everything
17:24about how badly
17:25Russia had miscalculated.
17:27Russia quickly turned to Iran
17:28for Shaheed attack drones.
17:30These are loitering munitions
17:32that Tehran
17:33had been developing for years,
17:34and that Russia,
17:35in its overconfidence
17:36about its own capabilities,
17:38had never bothered
17:39to invest in seriously
17:40before the war.
17:41Then,
17:42it turned to North Korea
17:43for artillery ammunition,
17:44reportedly importing
17:45millions of shells
17:46on par with its domestic production.
17:49When that failed,
17:50it was time for the stockpiles.
17:51So out came the T-62 tanks
17:54that were built
17:54in the 1960s and 1970s.
17:57After that,
17:58there were reports
17:59of T-55s
18:00and even T-34s,
18:02equipment that was actually
18:03used in World War II.
18:05The latter efforts
18:06were laughable,
18:07and Western news outlets
18:08and our own videos
18:09showed just how pointless
18:11it is to bring
18:11a World War II tank
18:13to a modern battlefield.
18:14But they were numbers,
18:15and they managed
18:16to give Russia
18:17just a bit more time
18:18to sustain its war effort.
18:19But this was meant
18:20to be fighting a war
18:21at a dramatically
18:22lower technological level.
18:24And the critical point here
18:25is the timing.
18:27If Russia had entered the war
18:28with its full military weight
18:30from day one,
18:31the sanctions
18:31still would have come,
18:32but they would have arrived
18:33in a Russia
18:34that had already achieved
18:35its core objectives
18:36and occupied
18:37the territory it wanted.
18:38The sanctions
18:39would have been applied
18:39to a Russia
18:40that was consolidating
18:41a victory,
18:42not one that was scrambling
18:43to survive a war
18:44it had fumbled
18:45the opening of.
18:46By that point,
18:47Russia could overturn
18:48the sanctions
18:49by having a new
18:50swathe of territory,
18:51rich with resources,
18:53and China
18:53as an ever-willing buyer
18:55for them.
18:56But by choosing
18:56overconfidence
18:57over overwhelming force,
18:59Russia ensured
19:00that the sanctions
19:01arrived while it was
19:02still fighting
19:02and before it had achieved
19:04anything that would have
19:05given it leverage
19:05to negotiate
19:06their removal.
19:07With all of that
19:08context established,
19:09we can now look
19:10at the drone war.
19:11Remember,
19:12this isn't a separate
19:13phenomenon from what
19:13we've seen so far.
19:15Even here,
19:16Russia's overconfidence
19:17is arguably the deciding
19:18factor in how Ukraine
19:20has managed to defend
19:21itself for so long.
19:22Here,
19:23we can separate the war
19:24into three different fronts.
19:25The close fight
19:27at the front line,
19:28the middle strike campaign
19:29around the occupied regions
19:30of Ukraine and neighbouring
19:32Russian oblasts
19:33and the deep strike campaign
19:34targeting Russian territory
19:35itself,
19:36and Ukraine
19:37is winning all three.
19:39On the front line,
19:40the numbers are brutal.
19:41By mid-2026,
19:43small FPV drones,
19:45which are drones
19:45carrying explosive warheads,
19:47often costing just a few
19:48hundred dollars to manufacture,
19:50accounted for around 80%
19:52of all casualties
19:53on the battlefield.
19:54Both sides use them,
19:55but Ukraine has pulled
19:57decisively ahead.
19:58Russia made some progress
19:59in closing the tactical
20:00drone gap in 2025,
20:03which was partly responsible
20:04for the battlefield gains
20:05it made that year.
20:07But that progress has stalled,
20:09and for a simple reason,
20:10Russia can't recruit
20:11the people it needs
20:12to operate its drone
20:13forces effectively.
20:14Russia's unmanned
20:16systems forces
20:17set ambitious targets
20:18for recruiting
20:19tech-savvy young graduates.
20:21These were exactly
20:21the kind of people
20:22who have the reflexes
20:23and spatial awareness
20:24to operate FPV drones
20:26effectively
20:27in a fast-paced,
20:28high-pressure combat environment.
20:30In four months
20:31of active recruiting,
20:32they hit only 16%
20:34of their target.
20:35The underlying reason
20:36is not complicated,
20:37as joining the Russian military
20:39is simply not attractive
20:40to educated young Russians.
20:42They're well aware
20:43of what happens
20:44at the front,
20:44and they don't even have
20:45any enforceable guarantee
20:47that they won't be reassigned
20:48from a drone-control station
20:50to an assault infantry unit
20:52the moment a commander
20:53needs bodies for an attack.
20:54Then there was Russia's
20:56attempt to expand
20:57its premier Rubicon drone unit.
20:59This was once
21:00the most capable formation
21:01on the Russian side
21:02and was responsible
21:03for Ukraine steadily losing
21:05access to drone infrastructure.
21:07But as entry standards dropped
21:09and Russia tried to scale it
21:10to fill the entire front line,
21:12the resulting force
21:13was much larger
21:14but dramatically less capable.
21:16Finally,
21:17Russia stumbled
21:18under the curse
21:18of its own military doctrine again.
21:21Instead of letting
21:21the unmanned forces
21:22be relatively independent
21:24from the rest
21:25of the front line efforts,
21:26Russia tried to centralize
21:27their operations
21:28to be in line
21:29with major assaults.
21:30This ultimately meant
21:31Russia was throwing drones
21:32at Ukraine
21:33where they were actually expected,
21:35and Ukraine could use
21:36its most sophisticated defenses
21:37to counter them.
21:39The result was that
21:40some of Russia's
21:40most capable drone operating units
21:43had fewer drones
21:44and fewer operators.
21:45A big reason why
21:46Ukraine has managed
21:47to do this
21:48is precisely that
21:49it doesn't have
21:50a rigid command structure,
21:51and its innovation mechanism
21:52follows suit.
21:54On the Russian side,
21:55the drones might be
21:56innovated upon quickly,
21:57but they still succumb
21:58to Russia's lack of independence
22:00when it comes to testing
22:01and using them.
22:02But when Ukrainian drone operators
22:04identify a Russian countermeasure,
22:06they immediately start
22:07designing a response
22:08to test in the field
22:09within days.
22:10A new variant of the drone
22:12can reach front line units
22:13within weeks.
22:14This feedback loop
22:15from the front line
22:16to the factory
22:17is short,
22:18fast,
22:18and supported by Ukraine,
22:20having all manufacturers
22:21endlessly testing
22:22and working with
22:23pooled resources,
22:25primarily through
22:25the Brave One cluster.
22:27Russia's equivalent loop
22:28needs to run through
22:29layers of command approval,
22:31procurement bureaucracy,
22:32and a military culture
22:33that historically punishes
22:35tactical initiative
22:36rather than rewarding it.
22:38The result is
22:38a technological gap
22:40that widens
22:40not because Ukraine
22:41has more resources,
22:43but because it iterates faster.
22:45And given that drones
22:45have become practically ubiquitous,
22:47that speed of evolution
22:48is all that matters.
22:50And when Russia tried to innovate,
22:52it got hit by the sanctions again.
22:54Russia invested heavily
22:55in fiber-optic guided FPV drones.
22:58This is a genuinely novel
23:00tactical option
23:01because fiber-optic control
23:02is immune to electronic jamming.
23:04In fact,
23:05in early reports,
23:06Ukraine was more afraid
23:07of fiber-optic drones
23:09than anything else
23:10in the short-range portion
23:11of the front line.
23:12Russia was the first country
23:13to use the drones this way,
23:15and arguably the reason
23:16why Ukraine followed suit.
23:18The drones were simply
23:19that effective
23:20when there was hardly
23:21a way to disable them.
23:22But a 50-kilometer spool
23:24of fiber-optic cable
23:25that cost around $300 in 2022
23:28costs around $2,500 in 2026,
23:32all because the global supply chain
23:34for this material
23:35has tightened dramatically
23:36as demand from both sides
23:37of the war has surged.
23:39Surprisingly,
23:40both Ukraine and Russia
23:41import most of their cable
23:43from the same Chinese suppliers,
23:44showing how China
23:46is actually playing both sides
23:47of the conflict
23:48for economic advantages.
23:50Ukraine is far less reliant
23:52on cable-guided drones,
23:53already having hedged
23:54into radio-controlled systems
23:56that can be mass-produced
23:57far more cheaply.
23:58Russia made a significant
24:00technological bet
24:01and is now paying a premium
24:02for it that compounds
24:03with every passing month.
24:05Ukraine also has the advantage
24:07of having the motivation
24:08and the innovation culture
24:10that a grinding attritional war
24:11forces on the defending side.
24:13Ukrainian drone operators
24:15are fighting for their homes
24:16and it has Starlink.
24:18The near-total removal
24:19of Russia's access
24:20to Elon Musk's
24:22satellite communications network
24:23was genuinely game-changing.
24:25There is no Russian equivalent
24:26to Starlink,
24:27no cheap, near-unjammable,
24:29high-speed satellite
24:30communications system
24:31available to frontline units.
24:34That asymmetry shows up
24:35in every single
24:36tactical drone engagement.
24:38Moving up to the middle strike domain,
24:40Ukraine, the 13-130 mile band
24:42between the frontline
24:43and Russia's rear areas.
24:45In here, Ukraine has transformed
24:47this space into a systematic
24:49degradation campaign.
24:51President Zelenskyy announced
24:52in early May 2026
24:54that missile strikes
24:55had doubled since March
24:56and quadrupled since February.
24:58So Ukraine moved
24:59from defending itself
25:00to actively aiming to cut
25:02Russia's access to the frontline
25:03or through drone warfare.
25:05The Center for Information Resilience
25:07tracked a 300% increase
25:09in Ukrainian attacks
25:11on Russian air defense
25:12and electronic warfare assets
25:14in just March and April of 2026.
25:17That was nearly 80 systems
25:18targeted in eight weeks.
25:20Air defense systems are expensive,
25:22slow to manufacture,
25:23and the cumulative loss
25:24creates a feedback loop.
25:26Each system destroyed
25:27makes the next drone raid
25:29more effective,
25:30which makes it easier
25:30to destroy more systems,
25:32which enables deeper
25:33and heavier strikes,
25:34and so on.
25:35For the middle range,
25:36Ukraine has been increasingly
25:37relying on domestic production,
25:39peaking with the FP-2 drone.
25:41It carries a 220-pound warhead
25:44capable of destroying
25:45or at least disabling
25:46any Russian armored vehicle,
25:48and it's been used
25:48to devastating effect
25:50against Russian air defense systems
25:51in particular.
25:52When German defense minister
25:54Boris Pistorius
25:55visited Ukrainian frontline
25:57command centers in May 2026,
26:00Ukrainian commanders
26:01showed in footage
26:02of FP-2 drones
26:03demolishing Russian air defense systems,
26:05one by one.
26:06The symbolism was that
26:08Ukraine already had drones
26:09that were on par
26:10with anything the West could design,
26:12and these drones
26:13were now finding targets.
26:15For Russia,
26:16this meant it had to reorganize
26:17the campaign again.
26:18Before,
26:19Russian ammunition dumps
26:21and command posts
26:22could sit 40 to 50 miles
26:23out of the front lines.
26:25This was close enough
26:26to supply units quickly
26:27and for commanders
26:28to maintain effective oversight,
26:30but out of Ukraine's
26:31artillery range
26:32and short-range drones.
26:34By mid-2026,
26:36the ammunition depots
26:37had to be moved further back
26:38and into Russia's territory,
26:39and that wasn't really enough.
26:41Courtesy of long-range drone warfare,
26:43we'll discuss a bit later.
26:45But when the logistics chain
26:46has to run twice as far
26:48under constant threat
26:49of drone attack,
26:50the rest of the structure
26:51starts falling apart.
26:52Some Russian units
26:54have reportedly cut diesel consumption
26:56by 20%,
26:57simply because they can't reliably
26:59get fuel forward anymore.
27:01Command and control
27:02have become fractured.
27:03Russian commanders,
27:04who are supposed to be managing
27:05an active battlefield,
27:07are instead coordinating supply lines
27:09from increasingly remote positions.
27:11This was showcased
27:12by Azov Core Footage,
27:14published on May 8, 2026.
27:17It detailed Hornet drones,
27:18costing around $5,000 each,
27:20compared to the roughly
27:21$68,000 Russian Lancet X-51
27:24with a similar profile.
27:26The Hornets were flying uncontested
27:28at low altitude
27:29over the Russian-occupied cities
27:31of Donetsk and Maripol,
27:32hunting logistic vehicles
27:34along major highways
27:35100 miles behind the front line.
27:37The presence of drones
27:39over territory
27:39that Russia had fought
27:41for four years to occupy
27:42is a good indicator
27:43that it's no longer
27:44the top dog
27:45in the mid-range field.
27:46Finally,
27:47there's the deep-strike portion
27:49of the war,
27:49where Ukraine has made strides
27:51in creating campaigns
27:52to target Russia's
27:53most important infrastructure,
27:55and this is perhaps
27:56the biggest reason
27:57Russia has been so worried
27:58at the victory parade in 2026.
28:00When the war started,
28:02Ukraine essentially
28:03had no domestic
28:04long-range strike capability.
28:06Four years later,
28:07it launches more than
28:08100,000 drone sorties
28:09per month.
28:10The strike campaign
28:11has targeted
28:12Russian oil infrastructure
28:13with systematic cumulative intent.
28:16Refineries in Krasnodar-Krai,
28:18Ryazan,
28:19Perm,
28:20Stavropol,
28:21and near the Baltic ports
28:22at Primorsk and Utsluga
28:24have all been hit.
28:25The Perm strike
28:26in late April 2026
28:28is notable
28:29because the facility
28:30sits more than 1,000 miles
28:31from the Ukrainian border,
28:33deep inside
28:34the Ural Mountain zone,
28:35where Russian planners
28:36had arguably considered it
28:37beyond practical reach.
28:39The pace of strikes
28:40on oil infrastructure
28:41forced Russia
28:42to cut crude production
28:43by an estimated
28:44300,000 to 400,000 barrels
28:47per day
28:48in April 2026 alone.
28:50This was the sharpest
28:51monthly decline
28:52since the COVID pandemic.
28:54Yes,
28:54its accounts
28:55were a single-digit percentage
28:56of the entire production pipeline,
28:58but it shows
28:59that Ukraine has systems
29:00that can meaningfully endanger
29:02Russia's economic foundation,
29:04since oil and gas
29:05historically accounted
29:06for almost 40%
29:07of the government's revenue.
29:09But industrial
29:10and military targets
29:11have also been
29:12a major part
29:13of its campaign.
29:14Ukrainian drones
29:15struck the radar,
29:16scientific,
29:16and technical center
29:17in Rostov,
29:18a major fertilized plant
29:20in Stavropol Krai,
29:21producing chemical used
29:23in explosives manufacturing,
29:24and a Shahid and Iskander
29:26component facility
29:27in Cheboksari,
29:28using Flamingo cruise missiles
29:30in May 2026.
29:32The last point is critical
29:33because it means
29:34Ukraine is using drone warfare
29:36to disable Russia's own
29:37drone warfare capabilities.
29:39Behind this lies
29:40one of the largest overhauls
29:42in military industrial history,
29:44Firepoint.
29:45This startup
29:46was founded by engineers,
29:47architects,
29:48and game designers
29:49in makeshift workshops
29:50in 2022.
29:52Four years later,
29:53it produces a signature
29:54100 FP-1 drones per day
29:56at a unit cost
29:57of around $55,000.
29:59The FP-1
30:00has a range
30:01of 1,000 miles
30:02and is primarily used
30:03for surveillance
30:04and single-target
30:05precision strikes.
30:06Another hallmark
30:07is the FP-5
30:08Flamingo cruise missile
30:10with a stated range
30:11of 1,800 miles
30:13and a 2,200-pound warhead.
30:15President Zelensky
30:16described it as
30:17Ukraine's most successful missile.
30:20But Firepoint
30:21has not stopped
30:21at the Flamingo.
30:23In February 2026,
30:25the company conducted
30:25the first test launch
30:26of the FP-7
30:27medium-range ballistic missile
30:29with a supposed range
30:30of around 130 miles,
30:32just enough to match
30:33the aforementioned
30:34mid-strike target.
30:35And in March,
30:37Firepoint chief designer
30:38Denis Stiloman
30:39announced the FP-9,
30:41a longer-range,
30:41heavier ballistic missile
30:43that the company claims
30:44would reach Moscow
30:45by summer 2026.
30:47The key for the FP-9
30:48is speed.
30:50While Russia's
30:50Iskander ballistic missile
30:52impacts at around
30:53800 meters per second,
30:55Stiloman says
30:55that the FP-9
30:56will hit at over 1,200,
30:58fast enough
30:59to outpace interceptor missiles
31:01that surround
31:02Russia's most vital targets.
31:04It's estimated
31:05that one in four FP-9s
31:06could feasibly reach
31:08their intended targets.
31:09For a country
31:10that couldn't build
31:11a drone four years ago,
31:12that's something
31:13that Russia needs to rethink.
31:15This is the compounding problem
31:16Russia faces
31:17on the deep-strike front.
31:19Each new drone
31:20that Ukraine designs
31:21and lobs at Russian forces
31:22forces Russia
31:24to invest in more air defense
31:25and push more strategic assets
31:27farther from the front.
31:29Even more importantly,
31:30the Kremlin then
31:31has to create more propaganda,
31:32explaining to its citizens
31:34why the war,
31:35they were told,
31:35was under control,
31:36keeps arriving
31:37in their refineries,
31:38their airports,
31:39and possibly
31:40even in the capital city.
31:42Taken together,
31:43the three fronts
31:44of the drone war
31:44paint a single coherent picture.
31:47A country
31:47that entered this conflict
31:48with every conventional advantage
31:50is now being systematically dismantled
31:52by a smaller adversary
31:54that had no choice
31:55but to innovate,
31:56and that's been doing so
31:57in a live fire testing environment
31:59for four years straight.
32:00Now,
32:01if you want to learn more
32:02about any particular type of drone
32:04that Ukraine uses,
32:05make sure to subscribe
32:06to the military show.
32:08We post daily videos
32:09that detail exactly
32:10how drones are used,
32:12where they're used,
32:13and how effective they are
32:14at any given day.
32:15One of the most elegant aspects
32:17of Ukraine's technological evolution
32:19is the way it's inverted
32:21what defense analysts call
32:22the cost exchange problem.
32:24In conventional warfare,
32:26this problem is central
32:27to any attacker's calculus.
32:29It costs far more
32:30to shoot down a weapon
32:31than to launch it,
32:32which means an attacker
32:33can eventually exhaust
32:34a defender's interceptor stockpile
32:36by flooding the zone
32:37with cheap munitions.
32:39Russia has been attempting
32:40this strategy
32:41with its Shahid-type attack drones,
32:43mass-producing them
32:44at the Al-Abuga Special Economic Zone
32:46in Tatarstan
32:47and launching them
32:48in waves of hundreds at a time.
32:50Ukraine has flipped this equation
32:52and done so in a way
32:53that compounds in its favor.
32:55Ukraine's Sting FPV interceptor drone
32:58cost approximately $2,100.
33:00The cheapest Russian Shahid-type drone
33:03cost a minimum of $35,000 per unit,
33:06nearly 15 times as much.
33:08During Russia's massive drone assault
33:10in mid-May 2026,
33:12it used 1,567 attack drones
33:15launched in a single coordinated strike.
33:18Ukraine intercepted 1,473 of them,
33:22meaning it managed a 94% interception rate.
33:25The Sting alone accounted
33:26for over 100 kills.
33:27Interceptor drones overall accounted
33:29for roughly 30% of all the drones brought down.
33:32That's a cost exchange that favors Ukraine
33:35by an order of magnitude
33:36in every single engagement.
33:38More importantly,
33:40the Sting is built
33:41from commercially available components
33:42using 3D printing.
33:44It requires no specialized manufacturing infrastructure.
33:47It doesn't even depend
33:48on high-end microelectronics
33:50that might be restricted by sanctions
33:52or disrupted by supply chain shocks.
33:55Ukraine can build more of them
33:56quickly and cheaply
33:58in distributed manufacturing facilities
34:00that are themselves difficult to target.
34:02Russia's Shahid program,
34:04conversely,
34:05is still a sustained production effort
34:06conducted at centralized facilities.
34:09It also heavily depends
34:10on cooperating with Iranian suppliers,
34:12and Iran itself isn't faring so well
34:15considering it has its own conflict
34:16to fight in the Middle East.
34:18Ukraine's success in the drone war
34:20has not gone unnoticed
34:21by the rest of the world.
34:23By March 2026,
34:25over 200 Ukrainian drone pilots
34:27had deployed to the Persian Gulf
34:28to help US and Gulf state forces
34:30counter Iranian drone attacks.
34:33Ukraine's SkyMap
34:34Anti-Drone Command and Control Platform
34:36was operating at the Prince Sultan Air Base
34:39in Saudi Arabia
34:40after Iranian Shahid drones
34:42caused more than $1 billion in damage
34:44to US facilities in the region.
34:46Defense agreements were signed
34:48with Saudi Arabia,
34:49the UAE and Qatar.
34:51A drone cooperation deal
34:52with the United States
34:53was described as currently being reviewed
34:55at different institutional levels.
34:58The country that Russia invaded,
35:00expecting to eliminate
35:01as a geopolitical entity in a weekend,
35:04has become a recognized global leader
35:06in unmanned warfare
35:07with paying clients.
35:09Russia, meanwhile,
35:10is running in the opposite direction
35:12on every metric.
35:13Its electronic warfare capability
35:15is degrading
35:16because the microelectronics
35:17it requires
35:18are increasingly difficult to source.
35:20Its drone operator recruiting
35:22is falling dramatically short
35:24of its own targets.
35:25Its fiber optic FPV program
35:27is being kneecapped
35:29by a supply chain cost surge
35:30of its own making.
35:32Every direction it turns
35:33to solve its technological problems
35:35leads back to sanctions
35:36it invited
35:37by making the strategic choice
35:39of overconfidence
35:40in February 2022.
35:42There is a fourth dimension
35:43to this conflict
35:44that receives less attention
35:46than the tactical one
35:47but may ultimately matter
35:48just as much.
35:49The psychological
35:50and informational war
35:52being waged
35:53against Russian society itself.
35:55Putin's original bargain
35:56with Russian citizens
35:58was that the war in Ukraine
35:59was a special military operation
36:01where they didn't have
36:02to worry about anything.
36:04In fact,
36:04Muscovites didn't even need
36:06to support the war
36:07as most of the conscripts
36:08weren't from there
36:09and the idea was
36:10that the fighting
36:10would be long over
36:11before the repercussions
36:13reached large cities.
36:14But four years later
36:16there is an increasing number
36:17of Russian citizens
36:18who live within drone range
36:20of the Ukrainian border
36:21up to and including
36:22Moscow itself.
36:23These people have spent
36:25four years watching
36:26Ukrainian drones
36:27fly over their cities,
36:29strike at Russia's oil
36:30infrastructure,
36:31light refineries on fire
36:32and ground their airports.
36:34Russia even imposed
36:35mobile internet restrictions
36:37in multiple cities
36:38in an attempt
36:39to prevent drones
36:40from using network signals
36:41for navigation,
36:43showing just how low
36:44it could stoop
36:44to try to defend its effort.
36:46The question you might
36:47be asking at this point is,
36:49can't Russia just adapt?
36:51Can't it acknowledge
36:52the failure,
36:53commit the resources
36:54it should have committed
36:55in the first place
36:56and grind its way
36:57to some kind of victory
36:58through sheer mass
36:59and persistence?
37:00The answer is no
37:02and understanding why
37:03requires holding
37:04all four threads
37:05of this analysis
37:06together simultaneously.
37:08The first reason
37:09is the sanctions trap
37:10and it deepens with time.
37:12Every month that passes,
37:13Russia's military industrial base
37:15drifts further behind
37:16the technological frontier
37:17it needs to compete.
37:19The most consequential
37:20weapon systems
37:21of the modern battlefield,
37:22such as drones,
37:23AI guidance
37:24and electronic jamming systems,
37:26all require the kind
37:27of advanced semiconductors
37:29and microelectronics
37:30that Russia can't easily
37:31produce domestically
37:32or even reliably import.
37:34Yes,
37:35it has a lot of sanction
37:36evasion schemes,
37:37mainly from Central Asia
37:39and surrounding China.
37:40But these only add
37:41to the cost
37:42as Russia has the decisive
37:43disadvantage
37:44in negotiations.
37:45And they can even
37:46be disrupted
37:47as Western governments
37:48refine their
37:49enforcement mechanisms.
37:51The second reason
37:52is manpower mathematics
37:53that are now moving
37:54in Ukraine's favor.
37:56Russia's theory of victory
37:57has always depended
37:58on a manpower advantage.
38:00You send more people,
38:01accept more losses,
38:03grind the defender down
38:04through sheer weight
38:05of numbers.
38:06For three years,
38:07that model held.
38:08Russia's casualty rate
38:09was brutal,
38:10but its recruitment rate
38:11kept pace.
38:12Then in January 2026,
38:14that shifted.
38:15For the first time
38:16since the full-scale
38:17invasion began,
38:18Russia's casualty rate
38:19surpassed its recruitment rate,
38:21according to the Institute
38:22for the Study of War.
38:24In March 2026,
38:26Zelensky estimated
38:27that Russia lost
38:28approximately 89,000 troops
38:30while recruiting
38:31only 80,000
38:32over the previous
38:33three months.
38:34The cost per square kilometer
38:35has also become catastrophic.
38:38Ukrainian estimates
38:39suggest Russian forces
38:40lost around 120 personnel
38:42per square kilometer
38:43of captured territory
38:44in 2025.
38:46By 2026,
38:48as drones came
38:49to dominate the battlefield,
38:51that figure had risen
38:51to approximately
38:52313.16 killed
38:54and wounded
38:55per square kilometer,
38:56more than double
38:57in a single year.
38:58Russia is paying more
38:59and receiving less.
39:01Recruitment is collapsing
39:03in parallel.
39:04Daily recruitment figures
39:05for the first quarter
39:06of 2026
39:07fell between 800
39:08and 1,000 individuals,
39:10a 20% decrease
39:11from the 1,000
39:13to 1,200 per day
39:14seen in 2025,
39:16according to an analysis
39:17from Russian finance
39:18ministry data.
39:20Sign-on bonuses
39:21reached a new
39:21all-time high
39:22of 1.47 million rubles,
39:25when the average yearly wage
39:26is 1.29 million rubles.
39:28Yet the numbers
39:29kept falling.
39:30When you have to keep
39:31raising the price
39:32and fewer people
39:33are still showing up,
39:34the market is telling
39:35you something.
39:36Then there's another
39:37demographic trap
39:38behind the manpower numbers.
39:40The population
39:40Russia most needs,
39:41that being educated,
39:43technically capable,
39:44young people,
39:45is the exact population
39:46most determined
39:47not to serve.
39:48Instead,
39:49around 40% of recruits
39:50are now drawn
39:51from what are
39:52vulnerable population groups,
39:53prisoners, debtors,
39:55and those with few
39:56other options.
39:57The soldiers Russia
39:58is sending to face
39:5921st century drone warfare
40:01are increasingly being
40:02sourced from the margins
40:03of its society,
40:04while the people
40:05who could actually
40:05operate those systems
40:06are leaving the country,
40:08avoiding conscription,
40:09or hiding from
40:10the recruitment officers
40:11showing up
40:12at their workplaces.
40:13Third,
40:14we have the technological
40:15and innovation aspect
40:16that we covered.
40:17Ukraine has had
40:18four years of live
40:19combat experience,
40:20developing,
40:21iterating,
40:22and refining
40:22every aspect
40:23of unmanned warfare.
40:25Its engineers
40:26have been testing
40:26designs in actual
40:28combat conditions
40:29with real-time feedback
40:30loops measured in days.
40:32Its operators
40:33have developed
40:33tactics that evolve
40:34weakly in response
40:36to Russian countermeasures.
40:37Its commanders
40:38have integrated
40:39drone intelligence
40:40into decision-making
40:41at every echelon
40:42of the battlefield.
40:43This is not knowledge
40:44you can acquire
40:45by simply throwing money
40:46at a problem,
40:47and it's vastly different
40:48from even the traditional
40:49Western model
40:50of military procurement
40:51and development.
40:52And Russia
40:53doesn't even have
40:54that much more money
40:55or people
40:55to throw at the problem.
40:57GDP growth
40:58for 2025
40:58came in at approximately
41:001%.
41:01For 2026,
41:03Russia's own government
41:03has revised
41:04its growth forecast
41:05down to just 0.4%,
41:07and the economy
41:08contracted by 0.3%
41:09in the first quarter,
41:11its first quarterly
41:12contraction
41:12since early 2023.
41:15Meanwhile,
41:15Russia's 2025 military spending
41:18was $190 billion
41:19or 7.5% of GDP,
41:22the highest share
41:23since the Soviet Union's collapse.
41:25In 2026,
41:26the budget was expected
41:27to account
41:28for approximately 40%
41:29of total federal expenditure,
41:32continuing the trend
41:32of sky-high investments
41:34in the military.
41:35Even then,
41:36it had to lower
41:36the military budget
41:37to compensate,
41:39admitting that
41:39it wasn't enough.
41:40To partially fund this,
41:42Russia raised its VAT rate
41:44from 20% to 22%
41:46at the start of 2026.
41:48Interest rates
41:49that reached 21%
41:50to fight military spending-driven inflation
41:52have come down
41:53to around 16%,
41:54which is basically crippling
41:56for the civilian economy.
41:58And the structural problem
41:59runs deeper
41:59than any single number.
42:01Military-industrial investment
42:02is consuming labor,
42:04capital,
42:04and raw materials
42:05at the expense
42:06of every other sector.
42:07Russia's labor shortage
42:09is illustrated
42:10by the fact
42:10that the official
42:11unemployment rate
42:12is just 2.2%.
42:13This is a figure
42:15that sounds like prosperity,
42:16but actually reflects
42:17the fact
42:18that the country
42:19has run out
42:19of spare workers.
42:21In the civilian economy,
42:22the part that would need
42:23to sustain Russia
42:24through a long war,
42:25only agriculture
42:26and manufacturing
42:27showed sustained growth
42:28in the first half of 2025.
42:30Everything else
42:31stagnated or shrank.
42:33This matters
42:34for the central argument
42:35because it closes a door
42:36Russia might otherwise
42:37have used.
42:38A country
42:39with a healthy,
42:40growing economy
42:40can absorb the cost
42:42of a long war,
42:43retool industries,
42:44invest in new technologies
42:45and recruit the people
42:47it needs.
42:48Russia is doing the opposite.
42:50Its economy is shrinking.
42:52Its military spending
42:53is declining in real terms
42:54even as the war grinds on.
42:56Its civilian industries
42:57are being hollowed out
42:58because the same people
42:59who should be working
43:00in them
43:01are being conscripted
43:02and shipped
43:02to fight in the war.
43:04The fourth reason
43:04is structural
43:05and perhaps
43:06the most fundamental.
43:07Russia's military
43:08is still trying
43:09to fight a deep battle war
43:11using Soviet command structures
43:12against an adversary
43:14that has specifically
43:15optimized itself
43:16to exploit
43:16every weakness
43:17of that model.
43:18The centralization
43:19that Russian doctrine requires
43:21is a vulnerability
43:22Ukraine knows
43:23how to target.
43:24The air superiority
43:25that Russian ground
43:26operations assume
43:27hasn't existed
43:28over Ukraine
43:29for four years
43:30and won't exist
43:31for as long
43:31as Ukraine
43:32has surfaced
43:32to air missiles
43:33and a functioning
43:34industrial base
43:35to replace them.
43:36And while NATO
43:37is responsible
43:38for the sanctions
43:39that stop Russia
43:40from getting access
43:41to some weapons,
43:42Russia is not losing
43:43this war
43:43because of NATO.
43:44It's not losing
43:45because of Western weapons
43:47or Ukrainian courage
43:48or Zelenskyy
43:49or any other of the factors
43:50that dominate
43:51the mainstream conversation
43:52about this conflict.
43:54Those things matter,
43:55but they're not the cause,
43:57just consequences.
43:58Russia is losing
43:59because in February 2022,
44:02the people in charge
44:03of the world's largest country
44:04looked at their military,
44:05looked at Ukraine
44:07and decided
44:07they could take it
44:08with a fraction
44:09of their strength
44:09in a weekend
44:10without triggering
44:11the kind of international response
44:13that would close off
44:14their technological lifelines.
44:16They were wrong
44:17about all three things simultaneously
44:19and the three errors
44:20compounded each other
44:21in ways that were catastrophic
44:23and irreversible.
44:24The force they sent
44:25was definitely not enough
44:26to win quickly.
44:28The adversary they faced
44:29was not the hollow
44:30post-Soviet shell
44:31they remembered from 2014
44:32and the international response
44:34was more comprehensive
44:35and more durable
44:36than they had calculated.
44:38Had they been right
44:39about even one
44:39of those three things,
44:41the strategic outcome
44:42might have been different.
44:43Being wrong about all three
44:44meant they had no way out.
44:46By the time Russia understood
44:48the scale of its error,
44:50it was fighting a war
44:50it needed to commit
44:51its full weight to
44:52under conditions
44:53that prevented it
44:54from accessing
44:55the technology it required.
44:56It was trying to fight
44:57a 21st century drone war
44:59under a 20th century
45:01sanctions regime
45:02with a military doctrine
45:03designed for an adversary
45:04that already moved on
45:06and a command culture
45:07too rigid to adapt
45:08at the speed
45:09the battlefield demanded.
45:10That's not a problem
45:11you can solve
45:12with more manpower.
45:13It's not a problem
45:14you can solve
45:15with more drones
45:15or more missiles
45:16or more of anything
45:17Russia currently produces.
45:19It's not even a problem
45:20you can solve with time
45:22because the more time passes
45:23the more Ukraine
45:25only gets ahead.
45:26Every month
45:26Ukraine's drone industry
45:28gets more capable.
45:29while Russia's access
45:30to the technology it needs
45:32gets harder to maintain.
45:33The attrition mathematics
45:34move further
45:35in Ukraine's direction
45:36and maybe the Russian public
45:38gets a little more accustomed
45:39to drone strikes,
45:40airport closures
45:41and oil fires
45:42and a little less certain
45:43what the war
45:44is actually supposed
45:45to accomplish.
45:46Which brings us back to
45:48Moscow from now on
45:49never sleeps.
45:50Ukraine has demonstrated
45:52that it can strike
45:52the Russian capital at will,
45:54degrade Russian oil
45:55infrastructure at scale,
45:57collapse Russian logistics
45:58trains from 160 kilometers
46:00behind the front line
46:01and shoot down
46:02over 90% of the attack drones
46:04Russia throws at it
46:05for a fraction
46:06of their production cost.
46:07There's a bit of irony
46:08in all of this
46:09where Russia didn't lose
46:11because it was weaker
46:12than Ukraine
46:12but lost because it was
46:14overconfident in its strength.
46:15It had the military
46:16to win quickly
46:17and chose not to use it.
46:19That's the only reason
46:20this war is still happening
46:21and it's the reason
46:22it's not going to end
46:23the way Putin intended.
46:25And for Putin
46:26that can mean a lot more
46:27than just a lost war.
46:29To find out more
46:30check out this video
46:31and make sure to subscribe
46:32to the military show
46:33for daily analyses
46:34and news in global geopolitics.
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