The Russian army in Ukraine rarely deploys armored vehicles for direct assaults anymore. One pre-emptive Ukrainian drone raid is a healthy reminder why the Russians have mostly held back their armor despite effectively rebuilding the active vehicle inventory following disastrous losses between 2022 and 2024.

Just before June 10, first-person-view drones from the Ukrainian 414th Separate Unmanned Systems Forces Brigade detected the Russian Center Group of Forces staging up-armored MT-LB infantry carriers in a disused coal mine for an apparent planned assault north of the ruins of Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

The Russians are trying to push out of Myrnohrad and neighboring Pokrovsk in order to march on the twin free cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, 30 miles to the north.

The Russian vehicles apparently assigned to that assault toward Kramatorsk never left the warehouses where they were stored. “A pre-emptive inspection of the industrial zone at Stakhanov Mine by fiber-optic FPV pilots of the 4th Battalion, 414th Separate USF Brigade ‘Magyar’s Birds’ ensured that nobody would be going anywhere,” wrote Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

Read more

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

On June 3, at least one attack drone from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces flew more than 1,100 km to strike a Russian navy missile corvette drydocked in Kronstadt, in the Baltic Sea just offshore from St. Petersburg. It was the first hit on Russia’s Baltic Fleet of the wider war.

The Fire Point FP-1 drone hit the corvette Boikiy. Overhead satellite imagery confirmed the strike, and a video from the adjacent pier made clear how bad the damage is. The 105-m corvette, one of the Baltic Fleet’s frontline warships, “burned for hours,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Mark Krutov noted.

The FP-1’s design explains the heavy damage. “It seems that drone was carrying quite a substantial payload,” Krutov mused.

It’s true. Ukrainian drone-maker Fire Point has been tweaking the propeller-driven FP-1 to increase its explosive firepower, finally addressing a longstanding problem with Ukraine’s deep strike drones. Fire Point claimed it produces 300 of the $50,000 FP-1s and similar FP-2s every day.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

One-way attack drones from Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces struck five Russian cargo ships on the Sea of Azov on June 5.

The strikes, which left at least one ship a burned-out hulk, are a kind of corollary to Ukraine’s escalating campaign of middle-distance strikes on Russian supply lines on land in occupied territories. Aiming to weaken Russian regiments before they can attack across the disputed gray zone, Kyiv’s drone units aren’t only hitting trucks and vans on land—they’re also hitting ships at sea.

“There’s a method to the madness here,” Ukraine Control Map explained. “Take out the ships, force Russia to use more trucks, more logistic bottlenecks.” Then hammer the bottlenecks with drones.

The ultimate goal is to make it more difficult for the Kremlin to resupply and reinforce its 700,000 troops in occupied Ukraine. It’s cheaper and easier to defeat an attack before it even begins by starving the attacking troops of food, fuel, batteries, ammunition and other vital supplies.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

It took a year of hard work, but Trench Art just climbed past 600 paid subscribers! Celebrate with me and keep the momentum going with a 20% discount on paid subscriptions. Just $36 a year for daily war news and analysis.

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

Russian logisticians are desperately scrambling to save their truck convoys from Ukrainian drones. Besides rerouting convoys away from the most vulnerable highways, some commanders are also deploying mobile gun teams to escort the cargo trucks.

Whether those gun teams can shoot down enough drones to turn the tide of the escalating logistics war remains to be seen. How high the drones fly before they strike could make all the difference.

This spring, Ukrainian drone units launched an intensive campaign of strikes targeting the thousands of Russian trucks that, every day, shuttle supplies and reinforcements from depots deep in the rear area to front-line field armies. The aim: to weaken Russian regiments before they can launch an assault across the gray zone.

“We are launching a ‘logistics lockdown’ for the Russian army,” Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced. “We are scaling middle-strike operations to systematically destroy enemy logistics and supply lines, stripping them of their capacity to mount offensive actions.”

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

The city of Lyman, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, stands between Russian forces and their main objectives as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 52nd month: the twin cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

To attack Sloviansk and adjacent Kramatorsk from the north, the Russians must first march through or around Lyman and then travel another 13 km along the T0514 road. But the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps is doing its best to spoil the Russian attack—by counterattacking behind the lead Russian elements.

It’s been a successful strategy for the Ukrainians. Since late May, mappers and analysts have noted evidence of Ukrainian troops marching through the villages of Nove and nearby Katerynivka, 16 km northeast of Lyman. The villages buttressed the northern edge of a Russian-held salient just north of Lyman.

If the Russians had succeeded in extending the salient farther to the west, they may have succeeded in partially surrounding Lyman, potentially putting pressure on Ukrainian supply lines into the city. The Ukrainian counterattacks along the northern edge of the salient around Nove and Katerynivka did to the Russians north of Lyman what the Russians were trying to do to the Ukrainians in Lyman: threaten their supply lines.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

Ukrainian forces are determined to cut Russian forces’ supply lines into occupied Crimea in southern Ukraine. Striking trucks, trains, bridges, ships and port infrastructure in an escalating campaign beginning this spring, Ukrainian drones have throttled the flow of supplies into Crimea.

But they haven’t halted the flow of supplies. Curiously, Ukrainian drone units blew up a key bridge into Crimea, but didn’t blow up the backup pontoon bridge Russian engineers built to keep trucks rolling into the occupied peninsula.

That oversight “shows a failure in the midstrikes to stopping [sic] logistics from Crimea,” Ukraine Control Map noted. “Pontoon has been up for a while. We truly expected it to have gone down already.”

“Not sure what's gone wrong here, to be honest,” Ukraine Control Map added.

Read more

Overnight and into the morning between June 9 and 10, Ukrainian forces launched five Fire Point FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles at the VNIIR-Progress electronics plant in Cheboksary, in western Russia 550 miles from the front line in Ukraine.

Two of the six-ton, $500,000 missiles struck the plant with their 2,500-pound warheads, punching right through anti-drone protections and inflicting major blast and fire damage that was apparent in photos and videos from the following days. (See below.)

“I thank the Armed Forces of Ukraine for their precision!” Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky crowed.

Finally, after multiple attempts, the Ukrainians have degraded if not halted production at VNIIR-Progress. The Ukrainian army’s 19th Missile Brigade previously fired FP-5s at the Cheboksary plant on May 4, but those missiles apparently narrowly missed. Earlier drone strikes on the plant inflicted only minor damage.

VNIIR-Progress makes antennae and other components for navigation systems that are critical for the production of drones and missiles. The factory is a critical link in the chain of enterprises that sustains Russia’s campaign of deep strikes on Ukrainian cities.

Read more

Military snipers aren’t the only ones being forced into retirement by drones. As The Wall Street Journal explained in a recent story, Vyacheslav Kovalskiy, a Ukrainian sniper who set a world record by hitting a target 2.5 miles away, is now out of a job. Instead of taking carefully aimed shots at Russian troops, he’s now supporting drone operators. The same operators whose tiny, accurate first-person-view drones have rendered Kovalskiy’s former role obsolete.

Kovalskiy and his fellow snipers aren’t alone. A wide swathe of military jobs is fading away as increasingly capable and affordable unmanned systems prove they handle the same tasks, but without exposing a human being to enemy fire.

Some of the displaced military practitioners welcome their obsolescence. Others refuse to go quietly into the night, instead arguing for their continuing relevance in this robotic age.

Read more

As more of Ukraine’s A.I.-assisted drone fill the sky over the Russian logistical zone in occupied Ukraine, a Russian commander has ordered military truckers to keep off the main highway connecting Russia proper to Russian field armies in southern Ukraine.

That’s according to Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. “From now on, the occupier’s logistics death marches to Crimea are authorized exclusively via back roads,” Brovdi reported. “Official admission of helplessness—noted.”

According to Brovdi, the order came from the commander of the Vostok Operational Grouping on June 7. Military cargo traffic has been banned from using the E-58 highway, Brovdi claimed. “Specifically the Mariupol–Berdiansk–Melitopol–Simferopol section running through temporarily occupied territory.”

The order came several months after Ukrainian drone units began systematically targeting Russian supply lines in the logistical zone stretching around 150 miles behind the disputed gray zone. By late May, Ukrainian drone units claimed they were hitting around 500 Russian trucks every day, a nearly tenfold increase in truck strikes.

The Ukrainians’ goal is to hit the Russians where they’re most vulnerable: their logistics. The counterlogistics campaign is actually the second phase of a wider campaign of deep strikes. First, Ukrainian drones targeted Russian air defenses, hitting more than 400 of them between June 2025 and March.

Read more

No, Russia hasn’t run out of tanks. Not even after losing more than 4,000 T-90s, T-80s, T-72s and other tanks in 52 months of hard fighting in Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

Yes, Russia has lost so many tanks that it can no longer fight the way it fought in the first year of the wider war. Reactivating older stored tanks to help offset losses, the Russians have depleted stockpiles that took decades to build up.

All that is to say, the Russians can’t just hurl armor at enemy defenses anymore—neither in Ukraine nor in some future conflict. The next time Russia loses thousands of tanks in a short period of time, the way it did in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, those losses will be more or less impossible to make good.

Those are the nuanced conclusions of a new study by one of the closest observers of Russian tank losses and replacements in Ukraine: the analyst Jompy.

Read more

This story first appeared in Trench Art when it was known as War Is Boring back in 2017.

by MATTHEW MOSS

In early December 1918, Winchester engineer Edwin Pugsley filed a patent for a bolt-action, .50-caliber anti-tank rifle with a rotary locking bolt.

The Winchester anti-tank rifle—chambered for the company’s .50 BMG cartridge—could, in theory, perforate 22 millimeters of face-hardened armor steel plate at 91 meters, and 19 millimeters at 500 meters. Enough to punch through most contemporary tanks.

The gun was way ahead of its time. And also too late to serve in World War I.

Pugsley’s patent explained that, despite the size of the cartridge, the .50-caliber rifle’s bolt had limited longitudinal and rotary movement. The bolt appears to have had a 90-degree counterclockwise throw.

The idea was to help the shooter cycle the weapon between shots without losing his grasp of the grip and trigger, thus increasing the rate of aimed fire.

The rifle had a gravity-assisted, top-loading magazine, aligned slightly off-center. The prototype featured an unusual butt-stock profile resembling that of a Schuetzen target rifle.

The Winchester tank-killer had a tubular receiver that was reminiscent of that on the Winchester-Burton Machine Rifle. Pugsley’s rifle made use of a M1911-style pistol grip complete with grip panels, which also acted as the weapon’s bolt.

It had the same, standard M1917 Enfield flip-up rear sight that also appeared on the Winchester-Burton Machine Rifle prototype. One photograph, reproduced above, depicts the weapon with what appears to be a recoil-mitigating test mount and a long, high-mounted optic—the latter suggesting Pugsley intended the rifle for longer-range sniping or perhaps an anti-materiel role.

The rifle boasted an extremely large coil spring surrounding the barrel near the trunion. The example pictured at top, currently held by the Cody Firearms Museum, has a cracked receiver—which may have been the result of testing.

Pugsley’s design was certainly more ambitious than was the German T-Gewehr. The .50 BMG round would later debut along with the John Browning-designed M1921, which later evolved into the legendary Browning M2 heavy machine gun.

Arguably, the Winchester anti-tank rifle was well ahead of time. But it seems the war ended before Pugsley could complete development.

Pugsley, who had joined Winchester in 1911 as an apprentice engineer, ultimately became the director and vice president of research at Olin Industries before retiring in 1950. He died in November 1975 at the age of 90.

This story first appeared in Trench Art when it was known as War Is Boring back in 2017.

by TOM COOPER

For much of the last 30 years, there was one air-to-air missile that captivated professionals and enthusiasts alike—the big, expensive Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix. The long-range armament of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

It’s generally accepted that the famed missile was only ever used in anger twice—in 1999 over Iraq, toward the end of its active service with the U.S. Navy. Although Iran is known to have purchased AIM-54s together with a fleet of F-14s in the mid-1970s, legend has it that Iranians never used any Phoenixes in combat.

As is so often the case, the actual story is entirely different—and remains largely unknown to the Western public.

In late 1973, Iran—then ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a close ally of the USA—placed the first of two orders for a total of 80 F-14s and 714 Phoenixes. The first two Tomcats were delivered in January 1976, and all the others followed over the next two years, together with about 240 Phoenixes.

By early 1979, around 120 Iranian pilots and slightly fewer than 100 radar-intercept officers, or RIOs, had completed their training on F-14s. Then the so-called “Islamic Revolution” swept the Shah from power.

The air force—officially re-designated the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force ever since—was essentially grounded for months. This changed in August 1980, as tensions increased with Iraq.

“We had started to check the F-14 pilots who had not flown in any sort of capacity for over 18 months back into service once again,” recalled Maj. Gen. Mohammed-Reza Ataayee, a retired IRIAF F-14-pilot. “We also brought back a number of ground technical crews into service, so we could bring back a number of grounded F-14s into combat ready status after a long layoff.”

The technical staff started to get the Tomcats ready and we checked a number of pilots and they started their combat duties … flying [combat air patrols] along the border with Iraq.

Initially, the conflict was limited to cross-border skirmishes. Iraq would bomb our border guards and vice versa, and when our F-4s went for cross-border sorties, we usually provided top cover for them and that’s how we in the end we provided refresher training for the majority of our F-14 pilots.

On Sept. 8, 1980, the IRIAF was ordered to launch its F-4E Phantom IIs for attacks on Iraqi tanks and artillery attacking Iranian border posts. One Phantom was shot down by Iraqi air defenses. The crew ejected inside Iraq and evaded several parties sent to capture it, but was not recovered by Iranians until several days later.

Concerned by the sudden activity of the IRIAF, the Iraqi chief of staff ordered the Iraqi air force to conduct reconnaissance sorties deep inside Iran in order to find out if the Iranian army was preparing for a war. The recon planes included MiG-21Rs of No. 70 Squadron based at Rashid air base in Baghdad and also Su-22s from No. 44 Squadron at Firas air base in Mosul.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 left the IRIAF in possession of an incomplete network of early-warning radar stations. Furthermore, a number of Iranian defectors revealed secrets of this system to Baghdad in mid-1980. Therefore, Iraqi aircraft were able to fly deep into Iranian airspace entirely unobserved.

On Sept. 9, 1980, it was Ataayee’s turn to fly top cover for another formation of F-4Es that targeted the Iraqi army’s positions near the border. “My back-seater was 1st Lt. Sultan Pasha-Pour. Back then, I was a major and the second Tomcat was piloted by Maj. Shahram Rostami … The ground radar announced to us one target that was approaching the border and closing fast, and asked us if it is possible for us to engage it.”

“At the time the government had given us strict orders to never stray over the border or engage in cross-border combats, in order to give Saddam Hussein no excuse for an invasion. We were to engage only if they violated our airspace. Then we had the right to engage and destroy them.”

I told the radar I will head toward TFB.4 [Tactical Fighter Base 4, near Dezful] to land and refuel. After refueling, we took off from Dezful and I was immediately alerted that there was an aircraft roughly 50 or so miles away, in a northern direction.

I saw that this target was coming from direction of Hamedan, meaning from north to south. I asked the radar are you sure it is a foe and not a friend. They said stand by so they could check the status of the target, but after a short delay the radar said, ‘No, this is definitely an enemy.’ For us it was hard to imagine an Iraqi pilot would be as brazen as to enter our airspace. Until then, the Iraqis never had the guts to do so.

I told my RIO Pasha-Pour to launch a missile at this target. After a quick pause I repeated my order. He told me to do it. I told him to do it. Finally, he pushed the button.

Because I flew F-5s earlier, I was used to seeing the missile going off the wingtip rails and accelerate really fast. I never fired an AIM-54 before and did not know what a Phoenix launch actually felt like. Once Pasha-Pour pushed the button, I could see nothing. I only heard the sound of something detaching from the belly of my aircraft. I told Pasha-Pour that I think that, unfortunately, the missile malfunctioned and fell to the earth.

Thus I inverted my aircraft to see what was going on below and saw the missile falling away. But then I saw it releasing a smoke trail … only then did I recall that the launch sequence took several seconds.

I rolled out and got back to checking the radar, and saw the countdown until the missile would hit. This was counting down—five, four, three, two, one then zero. And then I saw the target disappear from my radar. The ground radar called to congratulate—that poor guy nearly fainted in excitement!’

The IRIAF officially credited Ataayee with a kill of the Sukhoi Su-20M flown by pilot named Faysal Abdul-Fattah Abdul Rahman. This conclusion has been confirmed by captured Iraqi documents.

However, Iraq never bought any Su-20Ms and, as of September 1980, the Iraqi air force’s No. 1 Squadron was still equipped with 16 out of 18 Su-20s Iraq acquired in 1973.

Indeed, none of the Su-20s were operational for most of September 1980, according to an Iraqi air force document entitled “Engine-Related Problems with Su-20s, 4 September-24 October 1980” and dated May 29, 1981. The entire fleet had developed engine-related problems and was grounded pending investigation by a team of Soviet experts.

Finally, no available Iraqi documentation shows a loss on Sept. 9, 1980. According to “Analytical Study of Iraqi Aircraft Attrition During the Iran-Iraq War,” prepared by the Iraqi air force’s intelligence directorate in 1992, the first Iraqi loss in the war with Iran was an Su-22 flown by No. 44 squadron commander Maj. Noubar Abdel-Hamid Al Hamadani, shot down on Sept. 14, 1980.

Hamadani had led a pair of Sukhois on a visual reconnaissance sortie inside Iranian airspace. The wingman later reported he came under small-arms fire, but nothing happened initially. A minute later, Hamadani’s aircraft “just blew up” without any warning. The pilot was declared missing in action and was never heard from again.

Despite multiple Iranian claims, the only other aircraft the Iraqi air force confirmed as lost during the weeks of border skirmishing with Iran in September 1980 was a MiG-21R from No. 70 Squadron flown by 1st Lt. Jassim Dayekh. The date and circumstances of this loss remain unknown, while the area over which he was shot down is described as “north of Abadan.”

While the IRIAF F-14 crew certainly had good reason to claim its first kill on Sept. 9, 1980, currently it remains unknown if Ataayee and Pasha-Pour really scored the first-ever kill by an AIM-54. It’s possible that this honor belongs to 1st Lt. Fereydoon-Ali Mazandarani and 1st Lt. Qassem Soltani, who claimed to have shot down a MiG-23 with an AIM-54 on Sept. 17, 1980.

This much is certain—the IRIAF’s F-14s were not only operational, but began using their Phoenix missiles in combat days before Iraq invaded Iran on Sept. 22, 1980.

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

The Russian military keeps thousands of old trucks in storage. And it might need them soon. This spring, Ukrainian forces launched a drone strike campaign targeting Russian trucks, vans and other cargo vehicles across the logistical zone stretching 200 km behind the disputed gray zone.

The campaign is intensifying. And now the Russians are losing potentially hundreds of trucks every day. Far more than they can immediately replace with new production. While Russian ground forces possess tens of thousands of cargo vehicles, and buy thousands of new ones every year, they’re currently on track to lose thousands per month.

If truck losses continue at the current rate, or get worse, the Russians may have no choice but to begin doing for trucks what they’ve long done for tanks: pull very old vehicles out of long-term storage and do their best to refurbish them for continued use.

It could be tough. “Russia has an immense number of stored trucks,” analyst Jompy noted. They placed the number of old Cold War cargo vehicles in storage in Russia at 40,000 or 50,000. That’s more trucks than most armies have in their entire inventories, but it’s also just 100 days’ worth of trucks at the current rate of loss across the logistical zone.

Worse for Russian logisticians, most of the stored trucks have been parked “for decades without proper maintenance,” according to Jompy. “Most are junk.”

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

On Wednesday, Fire Point FP-1 one-way attack drones from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces’ 1st Center motored more than 500 miles to attack the Russian Baltic Fleet’s base on the island of Kronstadt, offshore from St. Petersburg in western Russia.

The first-person-view drones hit the corvette Boykiy in her drydock, reportedly killing one sailor and likely destroying the vessel.

It was the first destruction of a Baltic Fleet ship by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s 52-month wider war on Ukraine—and it occurred as officials were hosting business leaders in St. Petersburg. “Birds of the 1st USF Separate Center sent their greetings to the economic forum in St. Petersburg,” USF leader Robert Brovdi quipped.

The hit on the 343-foot Boikiy comes just two weeks after Ukrainian drones hit, or nearly hit, a Krivak frigate belonging to the Black Sea Fleet, currently hunkering in the port of Novorossiysk in southern Russia.

Read more

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

On May 30, Ukrainian forces circulated nighttime imagery of a crew launching Fire Point FP-1/2 one-way attack drones from a civilian-style tractor-trailer truck modified to haul at least three of the fixed-wing, rocket-assisted drones.

Four days later on June 3, Russian forces released daytime imagery of a drone strike on one of these Ukrainian truck launchers. The Russian drone scored a direct hit. The Ukrainian truck burned.

It’s not totally clear when the Russian strike took place. That is to say, it’s not clear the Russians knew to look for the Ukrainian truck launcher because of the May imagery. But the apparent sequence of events, a revealing image of a special Ukrainian capability followed by a Russian attack on the same capability, is sure to raise eyebrows.

Did Ukrainian troops unnecessarily give away the details of their truck launcher?

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

Russia’s main objective in Ukraine this year is to capture Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two big free cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

The Russians have two options. One, to attack toward Kramatorsk—the southernmost of the twin cities—from the south, from the direction of occupied Pokrovsk. Or two, to drive on Sloviansk from the north.

But the northern approach first means marching through Lyman, 10 miles north of Sloviansk. And the Ukrainians aren’t just sitting around waiting for the Russians to move. At least twice since late May, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps has counterattacked north of Lyman.

It’s not yet apparent the Ukrainians have gained much ground along this axis. But it’s telling that they’re trying—and that they’re able to try. Russia no longer has the initiative in its 52-month wider war on Ukraine. Incredibly, the Russians are losing the momentum at the time of year they usually have the most momentum: springtime.

On or just before Wednesday, Russian troops continued what mapper and analyst AMK Mapping described as “limited assault operations” around Hrekivka, 17 miles north of Lyman, while Ukrainian troops launched their own counterattack toward Nove, 10 miles north of Lyman.

Read more

• Russia went to war in February 2022 with potentially just seven Beriev A-50U radar early warning planes

• The A-50Us use fuselage-mounted radars to watch for Ukrainian warplanes and drones

• In a series of attacks going back more than three years, the Ukrainians may have knocked out nearly half of the A-50Us

• The recent refurbishment of one A-50U doesn’t alter the overall math as Russia gradually loses its eyes in the sky

On or just before May 31, the Russian air force took delivery of a refurbished Beriev A-50U radar early warning plane. The A-50U may have undergone rework at the Beriev plant in Taganrog or the 123rd Aircraft Repair Plant in Staraya Russa.

The delivery of a refreshed A-50U doesn’t actually reverse the decline of the Russian early warning fleet, however. The overhauled A-50U the air force accepted last month—serial number RF-92957, it seems—was already an active airframe in the slowly shrinking A-50U fleet.

In a series of actions beginning in February 2023, Ukrainian drones and missiles have destroyed two, and damaged another one or two, of the seven A-50Us in the pre-war active fleet. It’s possible one older, formerly grounded A-50 has re-entered the flyable inventory in the meantime.

Sustaining one of the seven pre-war A-50Us by way of regular overhaul preserves but doesn’t grow the depleted force, which is now down to no more than six A-50Us, assuming all the damaged planes have been repaired. In the unlikely worst case for the Russians, they possess just three active and undamaged A-50Us as well as two damaged ones.

Read more

Ukrainian drone-maker Fire Point reportedly churns out thousands of its $50,000 FP-1 and FP-2 one-way attack drones every month. And every month, Ukrainian drone units launch the propeller-driven, first-person-view drones at Russian air defenses, headquarters, drone bases and warships as far as 600 miles from the disputed gray zone.

And now, in a possible breach of operational security, we’ve seen how Ukrainian drone units launch their FP-1s and big-boom FP-2s. The FP-2 trades away fuel in order to carry a 350-pound warhead, up from 230 pounds, and as a consequence ranges just 130 miles.

The Ukrainians launch at least some of the FP-1s and FP-2s from modified civilian-style tractor trailers that presumably travel along Ukraine’s highways. The trailers open along the side, revealing at least three FP-1/2s on cradles. New nighttime imagery depicts the trailers.

To launch a Fire Point drone, usually under the cover of darkness, operators first spin up the drone’s two-cylinder engine. Then they trigger an underslung rocket that boosts the drone to cruising speed. The drone jettisons the spent rocket booster a few seconds later.

It was obvious Ukrainian FP-1/2 launch teams traveled in trucks: most drone launch teams on both sides of Russia’s 52-month wider war on Ukraine travel in trucks. In that sense, the new imagery of the Fire Point trailer launcher revealed nothing new.

The new information is the trailer’s exact appearance. That’s a possible security breach because both sides in the wider war are deploying more and more A.I.-assisted drones that can be trained to autonomously spot and strike certain targets.

Read more

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

Ukrainian drone-maker Skyfall has upgraded its iconic Vampire bomber drone to fly right through Russian electronic warfare. Now the hexacopters can attack the jammers themselves.

That matters now because the jammers are some of the last things standing between Ukraine’s drones and the Russian air defenses they hunt. Ukrainian forces have destroyed more Russian air defense systems this spring than at any point in the war—81 confirmed since March 1.

A drone that shrugs off jamming can go after the jammers that were protecting everything else. Kill the jammer, and the next target gets easier.

Following the upgrades, a Vampire recently found and bombed a rare Russian Borisoglebsk-2 tracked jamming vehicle, likely destroying it with several grenades that punched right through the Borisoglebsk-2’s thin top armor.

A complete Borisoglebsk-2 complex is estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars. Russia has built only a few dozen of them since 2015, and Ukrainian forces have knocked out at least six since 2023. “I think this is the most painful operation carried out against the Russians in a single instance,” a Skyfall spokesperson said, only somewhat exaggerating.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.