EPTAnd like you point out their strategy involves hitting civilians. As Ukraine has upped its logistics and economic hits, Russia has upped its residential hits. June was the highest mont for confirmed civilian casualties of the war. (Likely early was higher but it is unknown how many civilians were killed in some of the early cities Russia took.)
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 942
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Billyboy
2029 Posts
And like you point out their strategy involves hitting civilians. As Ukraine has upped its logistics and economic hits, Russia has upped its residential hits. June was the highest mont for confirmed civilian casualties of the war. (Likely early was higher but it is unknown how many civilians were killed in some of the early cities Russia took.) | ||
KwarK
United States44199 Posts
On July 21 2026 03:01 Billyboy wrote: Part of that is that Russia doesn’t have the tech to hit the moving targets at distance. Most of the big hits you see in Ukraine are their ballistics , which is where Russia is ahead. And they are great at hitting stationary targets. Another thing is that with their top down approach the targets are picked days or even weeks in advance. And like you point out their strategy involves hitting civilians. As Ukraine has upped its logistics and economic hits, Russia has upped its residential hits. June was the highest mont for confirmed civilian casualties of the war. (Likely early was higher but it is unknown how many civilians were killed in some of the early cities Russia took.) Russia absolutely has that tech. It’s substantially more advanced than Ukrainian tech in that area. It’s called an Air Force. Bomber jets are higher tech than one way drones. Russia could match Ukraine in ranged strike drones but they don’t need to because they’ve already surpassed Ukraine, they use air launched missiles all the time. | ||
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Billyboy
2029 Posts
On July 21 2026 05:51 KwarK wrote: Russia absolutely has that tech. It’s substantially more advanced than Ukrainian tech in that area. It’s called an Air Force. Bomber jets are higher tech than one way drones. Russia could match Ukraine in ranged strike drones but they don’t need to because they’ve already surpassed Ukraine, they use air launched missiles all the time. Sure if they wanted to crash their multimillion dollar jets into fuel trucks they could do it. But they don’t want them shot down so they keep them far back to lob glide bombs The whole advantage of drones is that they can be sent for such little cost to do so much damage. And because of long range internet and machine learning their drones can evade much of the air defence. Russia has the advantage in gliding bombs, which is getting smaller. Cruise missles, which is pretty close and Ukraine has OK success knocking them down. And the. Their massive lead in ballistics, which is why you hear the constant ask for patriots. That being said firepoint released a video of the Ukrainian made ballistic today, so perhaps that gap will be closer soon as well. The other big part, is how many can you produce. Ukraine launched 400 drones to Russias 90 last night. For a while it’s been 300 to 100. From Russian usage it looks like they can make about 10 a day of the missiles, I have no clue and have read nothing about how long it will take Ukraine to scale up to that amount or past, maybe they won’t. But when it comes to drones they are absolutely crushing them in amount, cost, range, machine targeting and internet range. This is not my opinion, it’s simply fact. | ||
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Artesimo
Germany599 Posts
On July 21 2026 03:01 Billyboy wrote: Part of that is that Russia doesn’t have the tech to hit the moving targets at distance. Most of the big hits you see in Ukraine are their ballistics , which is where Russia is ahead. And they are great at hitting stationary targets. Another thing is that with their top down approach the targets are picked days or even weeks in advance. And like you point out their strategy involves hitting civilians. As Ukraine has upped its logistics and economic hits, Russia has upped its residential hits. June was the highest mont for confirmed civilian casualties of the war. (Likely early was higher but it is unknown how many civilians were killed in some of the early cities Russia took.) The kill chain one is a horribly outdated one from the start of the war, and wasn't even universally true back then, often being a result of the incomplete battle groups lacking signalling platoons due to them not having mobilised. No clue who is faster at that right now, but the kill chain being this long is definitely false right now. Unless you are talking about the big missile campaigns which yeah, those take time to organise, just like the big scale drone operations from ukraine. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18379 Posts
On July 21 2026 06:09 Billyboy wrote: Sure if they wanted to crash their multimillion dollar jets into fuel trucks they could do it. But they don’t want them shot down so they keep them far back to lob glide bombs The whole advantage of drones is that they can be sent for such little cost to do so much damage. And because of long range internet and machine learning their drones can evade much of the air defence. Russia has the advantage in gliding bombs, which is getting smaller. Cruise missles, which is pretty close and Ukraine has OK success knocking them down. And the. Their massive lead in ballistics, which is why you hear the constant ask for patriots. That being said firepoint released a video of the Ukrainian made ballistic today, so perhaps that gap will be closer soon as well. The other big part, is how many can you produce. Ukraine launched 400 drones to Russias 90 last night. For a while it’s been 300 to 100. From Russian usage it looks like they can make about 10 a day of the missiles, I have no clue and have read nothing about how long it will take Ukraine to scale up to that amount or past, maybe they won’t. But when it comes to drones they are absolutely crushing them in amount, cost, range, machine targeting and internet range. This is not my opinion, it’s simply fact. Eh, strapping a bomb to a drone propelled by a lawnmower engine isn't high tech. Russia can do it too. It's a remarkably low tech high kludge war. Whoever is best at finding low cost and fast answers to the other side's low cost and fast countermeasures. | ||
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Billyboy
2029 Posts
On July 21 2026 08:25 Acrofales wrote: Eh, strapping a bomb to a drone propelled by a lawnmower engines I have no idea what you are going for here? Clearly not Ukrainian drones. | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1340 Posts
On July 21 2026 08:33 Billyboy wrote: I have no idea what you are going for here? Clearly not Ukrainian drones. That's a remarkably close description of a Shahed, or I guess a Geran. Simple google search says that Ukraine is actually outproducing Russia on drones atm. Though it seems 'bombs strapped to lawnmower engines' are a tad too expensive for the types of drones that Ukraine overwhelmingly makes. Gerans are basically a bespoke drone in this war, they are low end military drones designed more to be used against expensive military targets. Whereas Ukraine produces what are mostly consumer/hobbyiest drones with bombs or cameras strapped to them. I guess in the war of more/cheaper Gerans are a little too proper military, whereas Russia can't match the Western funds pouring into Ukraine to purchase cheap Chinese drone parts for even lower end drones. | ||
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Billyboy
2029 Posts
On July 21 2026 09:19 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: That's a remarkably close description of a Shahed, or I guess a Geran. Simple google search says that Ukraine is actually outproducing Russia on drones atm. Though it seems 'bombs strapped to lawnmower engines' are a tad too expensive for the types of drones that Ukraine overwhelmingly makes. Gerans are basically a bespoke drone in this war, they are low end military drones designed more to be used against expensive military targets. Whereas Ukraine produces what are mostly consumer/hobbyiest drones with bombs or cameras strapped to them. I guess in the war of more/cheaper Gerans are a little too proper military, whereas Russia can't match the Western funds pouring into Ukraine to purchase cheap Chinese drone parts for even lower end drones. It depends what the purpose is. There is the domes used at the front line and they come in all shapes and sizes. Like to take out some infantry it doesn’t take much. Then they have small ones with low payloads but “ai” that basically act like mines and activate when soldiers walk by. They have ones that drop grenades and most have speakers to give Russians an opportunity to surrender if they follow the drone and drop weapons. Those, outside of the AI ones are pretty similar on both sides other than volume and that Ukraine can use internet and Russia has to use fiber optics (UA uses both). The big difference is in the medium and long range drones. Because of internet and AI they can adjust their path, dodge attacks, hit moving targets, strike things they see along the way. These tend to be bigger (especially the long range ones). Russias basically have to be programmed to hit a target and fly straight and same speed making them way easier to take down. If you want to watch a lot of the actual videos of the strikes, without the gore, Magyar YouTube is awesome you can watch all 183 ships hit for example. | ||
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KwarK
United States44199 Posts
Let's use the example of sea drones. Sea drones are an impressive Ukrainian adaptation to answer the problem of "how do I put holes in a box floating on the water far from my soil". But they are not a higher tech solution than nuclear powered submarines. Russia doesn't need to higher tech sea drones than Ukraine because they've already gone way past that point. Ukraine are coming up with new and innovative solutions but that is not the same as an objective technological superiority over Russia. The contexts are different, Ukraine is presented with different challenges to Russia. Let's use another example. Imagine you're the US looking at this war and trying to come up with the best way to interdict shipping. You're not going to buy a bunch of Ukrainian drones and over a period of years slowly degrade Russian detection and interception infrastructure until you start to create gaps which you can use to guide drones through the air defence. You're going to yeet HARMs from stealth platforms on day 1 and tomahawk all the anti air batteries. Then you're going to bomb the shit out of them. It's cute that Ukraine found a way to do what they're doing without any F-35s but the USAF has F-35s. Ukraine has relative tech advantages in a number of areas but that is not the same as absolute technological superiority. Russia is getting punished for errors Ukraine never had the luxury of making in the first place. There's a clear example of this from yesterday. Russia decided to punish Ukraine for the attacks on Russian grain shipping by striking a grain carrier. It was hugging the Ukrainian coast but Russia just flew a jet across the Black Sea and fired a missile at it. Ukraine's "we have Su-57 at home" is impressive, but not as impressive as a Su-57. | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1340 Posts
Ukraine might be more cost efficient (though honestly, Geran/Shaheds are pretty cost efficient for medium/long range), maybe they can blow up those expensive ships/planes/buildings for cheaper with smaller drones, but they are definitely not ahead technologically of actual military grade missiles. The Russian side is just more target rich on those expensive targets. They can't stop all the drones Ukraine are sending. Ukraine can barely stop any missiles the Russians send anymore. The Russians just don't have that many good targets, and have trouble locating them. | ||
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