Nothing, but for totally unrelated reasons NATO bases might come under more drone attacks in the future by parties that's not Russia.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
IMO this is very much an internal surveillance problem, Russia did beef up border control after Crimea bridge bombing, but in this case drones are imported for Russian use all the time, and sold for retail inside Russia for that matter, so it's not something you can properly control, and the small explosives they used can be manufactured locally.
Ultimately this is like a state backed car ramming attack, the reason it's not done more frequently everywhere is not the difficulty of execution but expectation of consequence on the attacker.
The simple answer is, Russia is ethnically diverse and the degree of ethnic profiling required - to basically round up ethnic Ukrainians - is an extreme step and politically unfeasible.
Russia also has more than enough ISR sats. If they need more, they can and are probably buying from Chinese satellite companies and even from western commercial sat companies covertly.
US drones no matter whether stealth or high altitude will be target practice for Ukrainian s-300 or patriot systems. These drones have to get close to actually use their sensors and cameras. Radar from s-300 will always be longer range in terms of detecting these drones before they can ever get close.
Russia has used plenty of suicide drones to use as decoys and detect AD missile radars.
Russia also has long range anti-radiation missiles. But those missiles are useless if the sam radar is turned off, which is exactly how ukraine operates.
Finally, Russia also has plenty of Jamming pods so they don't need a dedicated EW aircraft if pods can be used.
Overall there is nothing that US has that Russia does not have in terms of SEAD tech.
Until Putin stance changes like I somewhat posted earlier. It will be the same slow grind towards an end of the attritional war that Ukraine is slowly losing. Because losing strategic bombers isn’t going to magically solve Ukraine severe manpower and munitions crisis. The confirmation is only important for us plebs to argue. Since the Russians are well aware who is pulling the strings and that any major moves must first be approved by NATO.
Based on the few accounts of the trucks involved so far, the truck drivers didn't even know what was going on. It was basically hey, please move this cargo container from point A to B, and point B is a gas station outside of a airbase and the container has a hidden compartment on top with a layer of drones.
You don't need too many ethnic Ukrainians in country to assemble an op like this. Moving containers around the country is an exceedingly common task which basically cannot be policed, it will be exceedingly expensive and not really feasible for the Russian state to suddenly install x-ray stations all over the country.
Izyum and Liman are no longer that far from Russian lines. Russians are already on the outskirts of Kupyansk. Chasiv Yar is about to fall. Ukrainians just lost a massive pocket south of Konstantinovka in the Kleban Byk area. The highway connecting Pokrovsk and Konstantinovka has not only been cut but is overrun.
You realize that Ukraine no longer has any chance on taking back Crimea and the rest of Kherson, Zaporozhye and South Donetsk. This area is the one area that's most important to NATO because securing the naval bases opens Russia's southern flank and control of the Black Sea. It's the reason why the Summer Offensive was at this areas. All the gains taken in the Summer Counteroffensive of 2023 has not only been rolled back, but the Russians are now on a huge net positive in South Donetsk, and are nearly in the Dnipetrovosk border area, with DRGs already reaching the border.
Major fortress cities have fallen, which presented a massive defensive line, starting with Mariupol, Popasnya, Severodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut, Klesheevka, Avdiivka, Novomikhailovka, Toretsk, Niu York, Ugledar, Velika Novoselka and so on. What happened to Zelensky's pledge to take back all these cities, towns and settlements?
Since the beginning of 2024, Ukraine has lost every major battle involving a city or a town, and every battle involving a settlement, except on the Kursk region. But the Kursk region has been completely retaken, and the material and human cost to Ukraine is much greater than Bakhmut or the Summer Counteroffensive.
The West did not come out unscathed. The Russians were able to test their AD and obtain valuable information on systems as ATACMS, HIMARS, Storm Shadows, SCALP, Patriot, JDAMs, SAMP, and so on. That information is likely to have been passed to the Chinese. In response, none of the Western AD has any adequate response to the Iskander, which itself is at the bottom of Russia's ballistic missile chain. Western AD has shown to be completely inadequate against glide bombs and drones. The Chinese would be happy to know their entire ballistic missile approach is validated. Not to mention, the Western AD missile inventory ended up being severely depleted. For the US, missile inventory that was being saved in event for a war against China ended up being depleted. We also seen how many Western land systems failed to turn the tide, leading to embarrassment and loss of image. The inventory of M777 artillery for example got pretty much wiped.
Economically, Europe is devastated. The loss of cheap energy and resources from Russia meant the looming end of Europe's manufacturing base especially the car industry. The German car industry is on the brink. Trying to ramp up defense spending while being welfare states is going to put severe strain on deficits and inflation. On top of this, Europe as a financial industry has been heavily tarnished, and we have seen the rest of the world has moved their wealth away. In a few short years, the EU's trajectory as a major economic power has been reversed.
I think we all know this attack won't change the ground war however NATO can care less. This was a huge win for NATO since those bombers would have likely been used to attack NATO and US bases with cruise missiles likely carrying tactical nukes in a conflict.
Russian pride is something else. This whole war is the death rattle of a dying empire that isn't coming back. What a needless waste of human life.
High altitude drones were easy to take out using mobile systems like Buks, Houthis had no problem taking them out. Thanks to Buks, the entire Ukrainian Bayraktar fleet was nearly depleted in two weeks. The reason why the Orion wasn't deployed in large numbers is because it was vulnerable and had a high cost.
ISR systems don't work very well against targets hidden in forests. Trees and leaves have a bad effect against radar.
Mobile defense systems also practice a shoot and scoot strategy.
AD systems also make extensive use of decoys.
Instead what wiped out and driven Ukrainian AD from the front was getting hit by Lancets, radars included. Light UAVs like Orlans were also an easy expenditure, you can shoot them down but each costs far less than a missile. When Gerans appeared on the scene, Ukrainian AD became depleted shooting them down, each for a staggering lower cost than a missile, and that's already after getting depleted shooting down Orlans. While the Russians kept building more Gerans and Orlans.
Decoy cruise missiles? Shoot them down too. Each of these missiles are at a much higher cost than a Soviet missile. Good luck building enough of them as fast, for the required quantities and at the right cost.
Anti radiation systems can end up striking decoys and deployed EW systems which are at a much lower cost. Also AD systems can practice a blink strategy, where you light, then shut down and scoot while another lights, then shuts down and scoots, doing it alternatively. AESA radars with LPI are also going to be very difficult to trace by ARMs because of constantly changing frequencies, phase modulation and low power. ARMs can also be shot down by missiles though, so it's back to being a numbers game.
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