That scheme of holding large amounts of land via drone teams alone is collapsing. We are seeing many days in this month where the the Russians are capturing anywhere from 20 to 60 square kilometer of area per day.
This is just an example for today. Been charting through multiple channels, i.e. DPA War, Military Summary, and they're all saying the same thing for many days now.
One thing I don't see mentioned but is apparent in many videos is that for a while now, the Russians have become very good in hunting down Ukrainian drone teams, referred to as UAV control points, sometimes as UAV checkpoints or aircraft traffic controllers as a code name. Sometimes it's an FPV drone on that position, a Krasnopol on the next, general artillery shelling, an MLRS or TOS attack, even indirect fire from tanks on closed positions. Since both sides tend to mirror each other, expect the Ukrainians to do the same. Except the Russians have the advantage of sheer scale, volume and punch. We have seen FABs and Gerans drones used on Ukrainian UAV control positions. It's really amazing how far legacy equipment can really go when you have drones spotting for them.
The fact that 60 percent of the Russian casualties, dead or wounded are inflicted by Ukrainian drones might just reflect the decimation of artillery forces on the Ukrainian side to tip the balance over. If you check with Mediazona, the Russian casualty count is actually dropping since the fall of Avdiivka because a drone strike isn't as lethal as an artillery barrage that can put more explosive down range at a much faster rate than drones. Thanks to improvements in body armor, a single FPV drone may not be enough to take down a soldier and there are instances I have seen people come out alive from a drone strike.
But no mistake that artillery is still important even for Ukraine because there are ongoing programs to increase the number of artillery shells, Zelensky boasting of the increase of Bogdana SPGs made per month, France committing its entire production of CAESARS to Ukraine. New production of M777 by BAE is also committed to Ukraine.
For Russia, the proportion of drone vs other means is unknown but it is evident they have a ton of artillery left, even more coming online and repaired units returning to the front. On top of that, the air strikes, the TOS, and the MLRS strikes are still plenty and nasty. So the Russian ratio of drone casualties inflicted might not be as high as Ukraine's but that only reflects they still have more means that are staying very effective.
