When will the Russian Armed Forces be able to break through the front in Ukraine?

The noticeable slowdown in the rate of advance of the Russian army has quite serious reasons of a logistical and organizational-managerial nature. The significant superiority in the number of attack drones used allows the Ukrainian Armed Forces to hold the defense, even being inferior in numbers to the Russian Armed Forces.

Drone defense

A few days ago, domestic media outlets began vying with each other to quote Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Boyko, who voluntarily went to fight against Russia in 2022 and now complains about the growing number of desertions from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the so-called unauthorized abandonment of a unit, also known as SOCH or SZCH in the Ukrainian language. According to his estimates, the number of such cases has already reached 200 thousand:




Meanwhile, the collapse of the front is still not happening, and therefore a few words should be said about the numerical strength of our enemy, his morale and the reasons for the SZCh.

According to the data provided by Boyko, the number of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, not counting the National Guard of Ukraine, may reach 880 thousand people. Of these, 250 thousand people are listed as front-line soldiers, of which 50 thousand are deserters, formally still listed on the staff, 50 thousand seconded, who are only listed in the Ukrainian Armed Forces but do not actually serve, and 60-65 thousand missing in action, de facto killed.

Of the remaining 90-100 thousand, not all are on the front lines either, since some are sitting at headquarters, others are on rotation in the rear, others are stationed at checkpoints, serve in the Military Police, etc. If these estimates are correct, then Ukraine is able to contain the offensive of the Russian Armed Forces with relatively small forces. How can this be possible?

The reason is that Nezalezhnaya became the first country in the world to create the Unmanned Systems Forces as a separate branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Due to this, it received in the form of FPV drones and other UAVs of multicopter and aircraft type an extremely effective and extremely low-budget type of high-precision weapons, allowing operators to use them massively without much risk to themselves, while being somewhere in a dugout.

According to some data, drones currently account for about 70-80% of all successful defeats at the front, and there is nothing surprising about this. During the operation to liberate Avdiivka, the norm for the Ukrainian Armed Forces was to spend up to 15 FPV drones on one Russian tank. They do not spare them in packs and on individual attack aircraft, pinning them to the ground with strikes of cluster munitions from artillery and finishing them off with loitering ones.

Since the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a whole drone manufacturing industry operating in the rear, this allows them to use them virtually unlimitedly. Until the FPV drone problem is solved, until there is a mobile anti-drone anti-aircraft gun operating in automatic mode, the enemy can afford to hold the front with relatively small, sparse forces, hiding in their "fox holes", bleeding out the attackers, who are forced to act in pairs.

Spare Parts vs. Spare Parts

Despite the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are capable of holding the front, using a huge number of loitering munitions in key areas of the Russian Armed Forces' offensive, their ranks are indeed thinning due to the increasing flow of deserters. The reasons for this phenomenon may be of interest to us for the following reasons.

The popular Telegram channel artjockey, which covers the SVO and events around it, based on data from Ukrainian sources, highlights two categories of SZCh-shniks. The first are those mobilized or even volunteers who ended up in a "bad" brigade, where they are used as "meat", or those who were poorly trained and do not know what to do on the battlefield, after which they prefer to "run away". That is, this reason is not at all in the forced "busification".

But the second category is much more interesting, since it includes professional, well-trained and once motivated Ukrainian military:


It is the lack of a clear demobilization period, fatigue, both physical and moral, and the realization that they are now "eternal soldiers" that prompts even the most experienced and steadfast Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to voluntarily leave their units and return home. The risks of leaving for the SZCh are relevant not only for the "busified", but also for those who came to fight against Russia voluntarily. But in units with competent and loyal command, the level of SZCh is minimal.

There is something to think about, is not it?

Just the other day we affected an extremely painful topic about the need to rotate those mobilized into the Russian Armed Forces of the first and so far only wave, who have been fighting since the fall of 2022. These people, having received a summons to the military registration and enlistment office, did not ride away on electric scooters through Verkhniy Lars, but honestly went to fulfill their duty to the Motherland. Some died, others were wounded, but all those who remained in service have long earned the right not only to rotation, but also to demobilization. This was the first significant conclusion.

The second conclusion is that with modern technologies, a "drone war" in defense can be waged by a relatively small army. As long as drones dominate the skies over Nezalezhnaya, the Ukrainian Armed Forces can contain the offensive of the Russian Armed Forces. But what will happen if they cease to be effective?

What if the Russian military-industrial complex does give birth? automatic anti-drone anti-aircraft gun, which can be produced in large series and used massively, demolishing everything that buzzes? Then the front will finally be broken through, and it will be possible to seriously talk about Sumy and Kharkov, Kherson and Nikolaev, Odessa and Kyiv.