Instead, the Russian Army could fall apart before our eyes. Moreover, the supposedly helpless Ukrainians are holding as the Russian offensive collapses.
Interesting Ukraine War News includes:
Mass Desertions from the Russian Army
Multiple media outlets are reporting mass desertions from the Russian Army in Ukraine. Ukrainian military intelligence claims 18,000 Russian soldiers have deserted from the Southern Military District, Newsweek reports.
Around 12,000 soldiers have deserted from Russia's 8th Combined Arms Army which is fighting in Eastern Ukraine. Prosecutors have filed 7,300 cases of Absence Without Leave (AWOL) or desertion against soldiers in Russian courts since September 2022, Mediazona, a Russian media outlet, estimates. The deserters include some highly experienced professional soldiers, The Associated Press reports.
Mass desertions often precede the collapse of armies and governments. For example, mass desertions of Confederate soldiers in 1865 preceded Confederate generals' decision to surrender, and the Confederacy's collapse, ending the American Civil War. Similarly, mass desertions from the Russian Army in 1917 preceded the Bolshevik Revolution.
Interestingly, the Confederate generals ignored their leader, President Jefferson Davis (D-Mississippi), when they surrendered. As generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston were surrendering the principal Confederate armies. Davis was wandering around the South, looking for Confederate forces to continue the war. A troop of Union cavalry captured Davis in Georgia as he searched for his imaginary armies. I wonder if a similar fate awaits Vladimir Putin.
Many Russian soldiers are deserting because they don't want to be at war. Defense Intelligence of Ukraine notes that most of the deserters are conscripts (draftees). Others are "contract soldiers" mostly Russian convicts promised freedom in exchange for military service.
I think Russian generals' adoption of meat grinder tactics drives desertions. To explain, Ukrainian drones and other precision weapons destroy most of the Russians' armored vehicles. Consequently, all Russian commanders can do is to order mass infantry attacks against Ukrainian positions, which leads to enormous body counts. Predictably, many soldiers don't want to join the human waves and charge into the meat grinder.
Mercenaries are Deserting the Russian Army
Even some mercenaries the Kremlin has imported for the Ukraine War are deserting. Nepalese mercenaries are deserting Russian units en masse, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) claims.
Many Nepalese deserted Unit 29328 of the Russian Army because of meat grinder attacks and brutal treatment by Russian officers. The GUR alleges Russian officers were executing Nepalese in the field for refusing to join meat grinder attacks.
Other Nepalese were angry about the nonpayment of salaries. Thus, the Russian Army could violate the first rule of mercenary warfare, pay the mercenaries. Not paying men with guns sounds dumb.
The Russian Army has recruited around 2,000 men from the Kingdom of Nepal to fight in Ukraine, Sky News reports. The Russians are recruiting in Nepal because many Nepalese men get military training and experience in the Indian and British armies. Two of the world's best fighting forces.
However, Garesh, a Nepalese man and Indian Army veteran who returned home after fighting in Ukraine, reports hellish conditions. He tells Sky News Russians "treated Nepalis like dogs," and threw them into combat with no support. Moreover, Russian officers were using mercenaries as cannon fodder while refusing to send Russians into combat. Garesh also alleges that many Nepalese men in Russia were young and untrained.
He also claims there are Indian soldiers fighting with the Russian Army in Ukraine. Finally, Garesh says his unit had no defense against drone attacks. Which contradicts media claims Russian jamming is stopping drones.
Nepal's government has banned soldiers from traveling to Russia and Ukraine and is arresting men who try to go to the war. It is illegal for Nepalese citizens to serve in any foreign military except for the Indian or British armies. For example, they recruit the famous British Gurkha units in Nepal. However, Russian offers of £1,675 ($2,099.17) a month for mercenaries are tempting in a country with an average salary of £150 ($188.03) a month.
Interestingly, US media has ignored the Russian Army's dependence on nonwhite mercenaries and Russia's reliance on nonwhite countries like North Korea and Iran for technology and supplies. Skeptics will wonder if journalists' racism prevents them from considering that "white" Russia cannot fight its war without those countries "help."
For example, the Russian government is copying Iranian drones. The Russian government even paid the Iranian government $1.75 billion in gold bullion for 6,000 Shahed-136 long range drones, The Daily Telegraph claims. The Iranians also helped the Russians open a Shahed 136 factory in Tatarstan.
My guess is their worldview just doesn't include the possibility that Russia is now a second, or third-rate power, incapable of sustaining its war effort. I have to wonder if the Russian Army can sustain its war effort in Ukraine if the mercenaries desert, or cross the lines and join the Ukrainian Army.
Ukrainian Drones Target Russian Air Force
One of the strangest aspects of the Ukraine War has been the small role played by planes. Air power has played a small role on Ukraine's battlefield until the past few months.
Then the Russian Air Force started using "cheap and nasty" glide bombs. A glide bomb is an explosive device attached to a glider. To deploy such devices, a plane flies to a high altitude and lets them go.
The hope is that the bombs will glide down onto enemy forces. The advantage of glide bombs is that expensive planes can launch them without getting hit by antiaircraft fire from the ground. Some observers think glide bombs blew a hole in Ukrainian defenses, allowing Russian forces to capture the city of Avdiivka.
Ukrainian forces had no defense against glide bombs. However, Ukrainian strategists found a solution to the glide bomb threat. Long-range Ukrainian drones are hunting and destroying the SU-34 and SU-35 fighter jets that launch the glide bombs.
For example, drones hit the Kushchyovskaya airfield in southwest Russia and destroyed a storage area for glide bombs on 27 April 2024, Business Insider reports. British intelligence identifies Kushchyovskaya as one of the principal glide bomber bases. Plus, drones destroyed six Russian planes at the Morozovsk airbase on 5 April 2024, the BBC claims.
The Ukrainians could disrupt the glide bomb attacks if they can destroy or damage many planes on the ground. To disrupt the air offensive, the Ukrainians will need to mount continuous drone attacks on airfields. That will require hundreds of expensive long-range kamikaze drones.
I estimate each UKRJET UJ-22 kamikaze drone costs Ukraine's HUR intelligence agency $100,000-$130,000. They create UJ-22s by putting bombs and processors on A-22 small planes that cost around $90,000 apiece, Forbes reports. The Iranian Shahed 136 kamikaze drones the Russians use are even more expensive. Iranian suppliers charge the Russian government $193,000 for each Shahed 136, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz claims. Consequently, I estimate a 22 March 2024 drone attack on the Ukrainian power grid cost the Kremlin $11.58 million.
Today, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) can fly a drone to a target with no human help. That means there are no radio signals to jam. Making drones hard to stop.
Kamikaze drones can disrupt glide bomb attacks in three ways. First, they can destroy or damage glide bombs and fighters on the ground. Second, Russian air commanders will have to divert fighters from glide bomb attacks to patrolling for kamikaze drones.
During World War II, British and American fighters shot down most of the V-1s. Such patrols will take pilots and planes away from the front where Russian soldiers need their support. An interesting possibility is that Ukrainian fighter pilots could start following kamikaze drones and attack Russian jets while they are attacking the drones. Leading to air battles similar to the World War II combat around bomber squadrons over Britain and Germany.
Third, Russian commanders may have to disperse ground crews and planes to smaller bases. This will take time and waste resources.
Thus, I think the next stage of the drone war will be Russian kamikaze drone attacks on the Ukrainian drone factories. Ukrainian UJ-22 drones have already hit a Russian Shahed 136 factory in Tatarstan 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) east of Ukraine, The Associated Press reports.
Fire From the Sky
Strangely, a range ecologist at the University of Nebraska could have developed the next horror awaiting infantrymen in Ukraine.
Dirac Twidwell uses fireball ignitors known as "Dragon Eggs," National Geographic reports. Each dragon egg is a plastic sphere similar to a ping-pong ball. A two-pound drone lobs the Dragon Eggs onto the ground, where they start intense fires.
SEI Industries of Vancouver, British Columbia, makes Dragon Eggs for fire fighting and other purposes. However, the military uses for Dragon Eggs are obvious.
Twidwell's hope is that Dragon Eggs will make it easy to start fires to clear brush and prevent wildfires on America's Great Plains. Interestingly, Twidwell thinks most controlled burns lack the intensity needed to clear brush. Hence, he uses Dragon Eggs to make hotter and more destructive fires.
I predict some drone builder in Russia or Ukraine will notice the drones dropping Dragon Eggs and start copying them. Drones will literally drop fire from the sky on soldiers, vehicles, and artillery. For example, dozens of drones flying over an airfield, dropping Dragon Eggs on tanks full of aviation fuel and jets.
Thus, an invention created to help control wildfires will make war more horrific. This is not the first time something built to help became a terrible weapon of war. In the 1930s, German scientists led by Wernher von Braun started building rockets to begin space exploration. Nazi leaders soon converted von Braun's dreams of space into the V-2 rockets fired at London.
Thus, drones are now the principal weapon of war. I predict the side with the most effective drones will win the Ukraine War.
*https://www.newsweek.com/russian-soldiers-deserting-army-ukraine-war-1895196
*https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-putin-deserter-asylum-5c7642cd14431d9af65076df2df4b861
*https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3856146-desertions-skyrocket-in-russia-british-intel.html
*https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/04/11/russias-ferocious-glide-bomb-campaign
*https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68740094
*https://www.kyivpost.com/post/27997
*https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/drones-shoot-fireballs-help-control-wildfires/
*https://www.ukrspecexport.com/uploads/redactor/3%20USE_UMEX_Airborne_PRINT.pdf