Yet Another Drone Joins Ukraine's Counterlogistics Campaign
The Zozulia is a welcome addition, but it too lacks hitting power
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.
Yet another medium-range attack drone has joined Ukraine’s escalating campaign targeting Russian logistics in the critical zone stretching from the contested gray zone as far back as 200 km.
Outnumbered Ukrainian forces use the middle-strike drones to degrade Russian regiments before they reach the front—hitting trains, fuel, and air defense up to 200 km deep. The Zozulia middle-strike drone pushes that reach to 1,100 km, but its 50-kg warhead is the ceiling on what the whole campaign can achieve: the drones lack explosive firepower.
The Zozulia isn’t exactly new: it first broke cover last fall. But its role in the counterlogistics campaign might be new. The 422nd Luftwaffe Regiment, part of the Ukrainian ground forces’ 17th Corps, recently circulated images of its Zozulias in action.
In just the last week or so, Zozulias have ranged across southern Ukraine, striking Russian bases, trains rocket launchers and even a tugboat and a cargo ship. Together with Ukraine’s FP-1, FP-2 and B-2 drones, the Zozulias are fraying Russian supply lines and the air defenses protecting them, and thus degrading front-line regiments before they can roll or march into battle.
But there are limits to what the drones can achieve.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.