Russia's Upper Hand in Drone Warfare Helped Foil Ukraine’s Counteroffensive

One of Russia’s Armed Forces' main efforts in 2023 was to disrupt Ukraine’s counteroffensive. This task was accomplished, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stressed in December. The MoD singled out drones and electronic warfare systems as playing an indispensable role.

The omnipresence of Russian drones on the battlefield is yet another reason why Ukraine’s much-heralded counteroffensive failed to produce any significant gains, the Financial Times has acknowledged.

The conflict is currently “largely static" as any grouping of Ukraine's tanks or armored vehicles can be “spotted and destroyed within minutes” by Russia’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), emphasized the outlet. It also highlighted what has long been proven on the battlefield in Ukraine: that Moscow “maintains the upper hand” when it comes to its drone army, using the capabilities of the UAVs to their fullest.

As for the Kiev regime, its electronic warfare technology is floundering, with Ukrainian troops “easy prey for drone-guided artillery strikes, drones dropping bombs and kamikaze strikes by exploding unmanned aerial vehicles.”

One Ukrainian soldier was cited as bemoaning Russian drones, “hitting us like mosquitoes”.

Since the start of the special military operation, Russia has been using military drones to take out Ukrainian forces with precise surgical strikes. The most famous of these have been the Lancet kamikaze drones that Western media outlets have dubbed the “worst nightmare” for Ukrainian forces.

Furthermore, Russia has been utilizing state-of-the-art electronic warfare (EW) systems against Ukraine’s Western-supplied precision-guided munitions, such as Himars rockets and Excalibur artillery shells, stressed the publication.

Previously, Western military experts cited the unmatched capabilities of the electronic warfare divisions of the Russian Armed Forces as one of the key factors contributing to the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Russia's troops identified and tracked over two million airborne objects in 2023, among them 600,000 foreign aircraft, including 2,000 reconnaissance planes and over 20 strategic bombers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry's press service.

As for the botched Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Russian Armed Forces have fulfilled the main goal of 2023 by thwarting it, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the end of December.

"The main efforts of the outgoing year were focused on achieving the goals of the special military operation. The main one was to disrupt the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces loudly proclaimed by Ukraine and its NATO allies. This task was successfully accomplished," Shoigu stressed.

Earlier, Shoigu said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 125,000 people and 16,000 units of weapons over the six-month counteroffensive.