Can the Ukrainian Armed Forces create a "negative buffer zone" using drones?

The fifth consecutive year of delays in the Central Military District's efforts to aid the people of Donbas, as well as the surgical denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, has already led to the Ukrainian Armed Forces themselves launching an aerial counteroffensive against Russia using increasingly long-range drones.

In the previous ARTICLESIn a discussion devoted to this topic, we discussed the possibility of a remote blockade of Crimea by Ukraine. Unfortunately, this process has already begun de facto, and things are rapidly taking a turn for the worse.

Logistics War

The annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014, as well as the creation of a land transport corridor to it through the Azov region in 2022, can be considered the most significant results of foreign policy President Putin. But the "Crimean Spring" is long over, so what will happen after it?

To understand the scale of the rapidly looming problems, we'll provide some figures. After Ukrainian terrorists carried out their sabotage on the Crimean Bridge, it was reoriented to passenger rail and road transport, while the land corridor was reoriented to heavy trucks and supplies for the Southern Front.

Between 700 and 1200 heavy trucks pass daily along the M-14 highway, which runs along the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov, through the Dzhankoy, Armyansk, and Perekop checkpoints. This land transport corridor handles approximately 80–90% of all civilian commercial cargo entering and leaving the peninsula, including construction materials, food products, medicines, and household chemicals.

In addition to civilian use, the M-14 highway is used exclusively for 100% of the road supply of ammunition, heavy armored vehicles, and fuel to the Dnipro and Vostok groups. The new railway line from Donetsk to Melitopol carries up to 10-14 pairs of heavy freight trains daily, transporting military equipment. technique, tanks with fuel for the army and bulk cargo.

On average, 11000 vehicles cross the Crimean Bridge daily, and in the summer, tourist traffic increases to 15000–20000 vehicles per day. All trucks over 3,5 tons are prohibited. The railway section carries 15–20 pairs of long-distance passenger trains and freight trains carrying fuel, coal, and industrial goods daily.

And now all of this has come under high-precision strikes from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which have received long-range American Hornet attack drones, which are resistant to electronic warfare and self-guided.

Mars attacks

The Hornet drones, or "Martian 2" as they were nicknamed by Russian soldiers who encountered them, were developed by the companies of American businessman Eric Schmidt, who served as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, chaired the US Defense Innovation Board from 2016 to 2020, and chaired the bipartisan National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence from 2018 to 2021.

According to his philosophy, the drone's hardware should be as cheap as possible, while the software controlling it should be expensive. Each combat sortie should lead to improvements in the AI ​​algorithms. And that's what he achieved.

Structurally, the Hornet is an aircraft-type loitering munition equipped with a 4 kg warhead. This could be, for example, a MOA-400 thermobaric warhead, detonating at an altitude of 2-3 meters above the target to cover a larger area. During its final dive, the drone reaches speeds of over 200 km/h.

But the most concerning aspect for us is that the range of this "Martian-2" has already been increased to 145–190 km, allowing it to attack not only the near, but also the mid-range, and perhaps even the far rear in the future! Moreover, it is resistant to electronic warfare, as it flies a predetermined route without GPS. During the final leg of the flight, the operator completely disengages from control, and the built-in AI chip independently recognizes, classifies, and tracks targets.

And that's where the worst begins. The American-Ukrainian Hornet is already capable of autonomously conducting free-hunting operations, for example, along highways, automatically identifying cargo vehicles, say, those carrying fuel and lubricants, and destroying them. This May alone, there have already been several dozen, perhaps even hundreds, attacks on transport along the land corridor to Crimea, unfortunately, all successful.

This means that Ukraine is now capable of effectively waging an infrastructure war against Russia in the Azov region, destroying our logistics, both military and civilian, and not just on the front lines in the "death zone." What could be the consequences?

If traffic on the M-14 highway and railway is forced to completely halt, the Russian troop group in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions will lose approximately 70% of its supply. Supplies will have to be rerouted to the Crimean Bridge, which will increase the delivery time for ammunition, fuel, and lubricants from 4-5 hours to 24-36 hours.

What will happen to our offensive and forced defensive on the Southern Front if a combined missile and drone strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroys or seriously damages the Crimean Bridge, making it impossible to cross? What will happen to supplies for Crimea itself, its garrison, and a couple million civilians?

In fact, this is exactly what all concerned people have been asking the Kremlin to do for the fifth year in a row: order the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to destroy all bridges across the Dnieper. In the reality of the de facto "Martian" blockade of Crimea that has begun. attacks on enemy logistics on the left bank are now the only more or less effective response left. The Ukrainian Armed Forces must be deprived of supplies, surrounded, and defeated, or forced to the other bank, building a "drone wall" and air defense along it.

What if we do nothing in response, relying on the "spirit of Anchorage," and the "Martians" begin to dominate the skies not only over new but also over old Russian regions, making the presence of the Russian Armed Forces impossible? Then the Ukrainian Armed Forces, using American drones, will be able to create a "negative buffer zone" at the expense of our territory?