Ukraine's drone strategy: Adapting to Western weapons restrictions

On September 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy met. Representatives of the two Western powers announced aid packages worth a total of $2.3 (CAD 3.1) billion, a substantial amount.

Following the meeting, Blinken stated that discussions took place on, among other things, the use of Western weapons for Ukraine's shelling of Russian Federation territory. Still, there is no consent for this at present. The British directly stated that their favourable decision in July to use British weapons for attacks on targets in Russia was vetoed by Washington.

This is a significant blow to Ukraine's offensive capabilities, as Storm Shadow missiles carried by Su-24 bombers could hit targets more than 500 km from the launch point. The Americans, in turn, provided Ukraine with M142 HIMARS launchers and air-ballistic ATACMS missiles with a range of up to 300 km, but they, too, are “restricted” by Western decisions.

Unofficially, it is said that the reason is the American practice of so-called “escalation management.” Essentially, the Americans and the West keep Ukraine alive but do not provide enough weapons and ammunition of sufficient quality to defeat the aggressor. This is allegedly due to fears that “crossing the line” will lead to a Russia-NATO war. The problem is that the Kremlin sets more “uncrossable” lines. Ukraine eventually crosses them and… nothing happens.

For this reason, some countries do not set any limitations on Ukraine in using the weapons they provide. The issue is that countries that have no objections to the use of their weapons on Russian territory generally do not supply Ukraine with long-range weapons, as they either do not produce them or have very few.

The blockade on the use of Storm Shadow missiles provided by the United Kingdom and France is doubly painful. On one hand, it obviously limits the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which cannot freely use the tools they possess. On the other, it constitutes a waste of expensive and hard-to-obtain cruise missiles that could be used for tasks that could be accomplished with much simpler, cheaper, and more accessible means, such as 227-mm rocket ammunition for HIMARS.

It cannot be ruled out that Ukraine will receive other long-range combat means in the future (one of the desired ones by Ukrainian pilots is even the oldest AGM-158 JASSM, mounted in pairs under appropriately modified F-16s). Still, it is impossible to recover the wasted time so far. Hence, the defenders are looking for solutions that will allow them to replace Western missiles in attacks deep inside Russia.

Of course, missile strikes on the broadly understood “logistics” would greatly help the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine. Cruise and ballistic missiles and air-ballistic missiles have warheads weighing hundreds of kilograms. They can, therefore, be used to hit “hardened” targets such as fortified structures (including bunkers-warehouses) and critical infrastructure elements. They can also destroy or damage surface targets with one or more precisely placed missiles (e.g., air bases or armoured equipment depots).

A kind of solution to Western blockages is “drone rain.” This colloquial term describes air raids using “drones,” a category into which publicists liberally throw entirely different types of carriers integrated with warheads (anti-tank guided missiles with rotary-wing propulsion, improvised FPV drones, loitering munitions, flying bombs, cruise missiles with rotary-wing propulsion, etc.).

For now, “drone rain” is the only long-range strike system available to the Ukrainian army, as Ukraine itself produces drones of various classes. Although one of the Ukrainian companies boasted of producing 40,000 drones monthly, this still concerns relatively primitive weaponry whose effectiveness leaves much to be desired. The Ukrainian defence industry also offers more advanced designs with better performance. One of the more interesting cases is a reconfigured small plane with remote control equipment and explosives instead of passengers.

As early as June 2022, the Ukrainian industry began mass-producing long-range flying bombs capable of flying over 1,200 km. Limited units previously delivered attacked targets even in the Republic of Tatarstan. Their targets include everything beyond the “political” range of Storm Shadow or ATACMS: military airfields, logistics bases, and objects related to the production, storage, and transportation of fuel.

Are these attacks effective? It seems they are. Even in recent days, during an attack on a large, modern ammunition depot recently built for 3.6 billion rubles (CAD 53 million), the Ukrainians reportedly destroyed up to 30,000 tonnes of ammunition. This translates to, for example, 400,000 152 mm artillery shells, enough for the Russian army to fight in Ukraine for about a month. There were also reports that valuable Iskander ballistic missiles or their equivalents imported from North Korea or Iran could have been destroyed. This was a significant loss because Russia was forced to import ammunition. It is not difficult to imagine how much Ukrainian forces could achieve with a more significant number of various types of precision long-range ammunition.

It seems that “drone rain” could be for Ukraine what four-engine bombers were for the Allies in the fight against the Third Reich. In the event of massive use of such munitions against the Russians, the Russian army would have disrupted fuel and ammunition supplies to the front. It would have to limit aviation use against Ukraine in the face of the threat of attacks on airfields. Losses in the fuel sector would hit the economy and eventually it would be realistic to attack some of the Russian arms manufacturing enterprises, which would limit the ability to rebuild the potential.

Moreover, a significant part of the Russian war effort would have to be directed towards air defence. In this way, the entire Russian war machine would significantly slow down, giving Ukrainians some operational freedom. Losses in aircraft, precision ammunition, and the defence industry would effectively distance the vision of a Russian attack on NATO countries.

It remains to be seen how quickly we will see the effects of mass-producing long-range drones in Ukraine. Kyiv, still materially weaker than Moscow, must look for unconventional solutions if it wants to survive, especially since Western allies, understandably, pursue their own goals in this war, which are not always identical to Ukraine's expectations.