There is a "real world military" topic in which some purely military issues may get slightly into politics, and this is tolerated so long as no other rules (i.e., no insults) are broken. Those who have participated in this topic know that our non-US participants often have very different views than you are used to. It won't hurt you to hear another side of the issue and you may learn something. It should also be noted that some of those who post frequently in that topic simply have no idea what they're talking about; be polite in alerting them to this fact.
| By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 09:32 am: Edit |
William, true, the IRGC would hide, but so would everyone else who are not suicidaly desperate. You would see people try move around after dark, that's the natural thing to do. Target identification would be a nightmare.
| By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 10:53 am: Edit |
Sure, target identification is necessary, and you will fail to take some shots because of it.
The way the IRGC has kept control of the population is to go around in trucks threatening to kill anyone who comes out.
Anyone who does that is basically announcing themselves for target identification purposes.
Another typical way is checkpoints. Again, with constant observation, one will figure that out.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:41 pm: Edit |
Attrition: Most Russian Combat Causalities Killed
May 18, 2026: While the Russian Ministry of Defense has dependably documented Russian casualty removal and medical care catastrophes since the first weeks of the Ukraine War in 2022, it is apparent that the Russian military medical system has dissolved. Russian losses were regularly reported to be 37 percent dead and 63 percent wounded. Given the decrepit performance of Russian combat medical care, many of those wounded eventually died from lack of care. The Russians regularly abandoned wounded soldiers, leaving them to die alone. Russia used to send the bodies of dead soldiers back to their families for burial. But now all that is returned are the heads. It has reached the point where not even heads were returned, and the dead soldiers were simply reported as missing. This included those taken prisoner or, as is more frequently happening, deserting.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has been ignoring prisoner and desertion losses. Russia’s losses for 2024 were 430,000, which were larger than 2022 and 2023. Worse the dead to wounded ratio was 11 dead for every 15 wounded. The 2025 Kursk offensive when Ukrainian forces invaded Russia’s Kursk Province saw 38,000 Russian casualties with 40 percent killed. Overall, Russia has suffered over 800,000 casualties so far with 268,000 killed plus 53 thousand wounded who eventually died plus many missing or deserting for a total about 360,000 dead. That means that Russia lost nearly half, 45 percent, to death, missing or desertion. The desertions have been increasing, even though Russian officers have long been allowed to shoot dead soldiers who refused to advance or defend. A growing number of soldiers fired back and killed the officers who were trying to prevent desertion or forcing soldiers to advance. Western analysts have had a hard time accepting this reality, because American soldiers are regularly evacuated quickly, which won’t be possible when we eventually fight a drone-equipped enemy in ground combat.
All this is nothing new because two decades ago the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan brought about a major change in how the American military dealt with combat casualties. The result was that over 90 percent of the troops wounded survived their wounds. That's the highest rate in history. There are several reasons for this. The main one is that medics, and the troops themselves, were trained to deliver more complex and effective first aid more quickly. Military doctors expressed the importance of the Platinum Ten Minutes, meaning that if you could keep the wounded soldier, especially the ones who are seriously wounded, alive for ten minutes, their chances of survival increased. Military medics were equipped and trained to perform procedures previously done only by physicians, while troops were trained to do some procedures previously handled only by medics. This skill upgrade was made possible by a number of factors.
First, over the previous decades, there has been continuous development in methods and equipment for emergency medicine similar to that received by ambulance crews and medical personnel in emergency rooms. This sort of thing was slowly migrating to the military, but since the fighting in Iraq, most of it has been adopted by military medical personnel.
Second, there's the high intelligence and skill levels of the volunteer military. High enlistment standards were largely unnoticed by most people, but within the military, it meant that combat troops, who are much brighter than at any time in the past, could handle more complex equipment and techniques. Getting the combat troops to learn these techniques was no problem, because for them, it could be a matter of life and death.
Third, medical teams capable of performing complex surgery were closer to combat. These teams, like the medics and troops, possessed powerful tools and techniques. This included items like telemedicine, where there was a video conference with more expert doctors back in America to help save a patient.
The Platinum Ten Minutes was part of a century old trend. During World War II, the Golden Hour standard of getting wounded troops to an operating table, was developed. Antibiotics were also developed at about the same time, along with the helicopter, whose first combat mission, in 1945 Burma, was to recover injured soldiers. Therefore, these new developments were not particularly exotic. Finally, the military medical community had a track record of success that the troops knew about. So, everyone realized that if they pitched in, chances of survival were good, and they still are.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:42 pm: Edit |
Counter-Terrorism: The Scourge of Islam
May 18, 2026: This year Iran went to war with Israel and America and found that their population was unenthusiastic about supporting the Ayatollahs and Islam. In the last few years more and more Mosques have been abandoned. Currently only about twenty percent of those Mosques are in use. Worse, there are over half a million Christians in Iran, who have been secretly celebrating their faith in homes and abandoned buildings. A growing number of Iranians, who often call themselves Persians, are converting. In the next few years, the Ayatollahs may find themselves uneasily presiding over a Christian nation.
Meanwhile, there is still the problem with Islam. Why are most terrorism deaths the result of Islamic radicalism? Worse, why is that form of terrorism most common in the Middle East among the Arabs, especially those from the Arabian Peninsula where Islam first appeared 1,500 years ago? This is related to Arab Muslim countries being more backward than non-Arab Muslim countries, indicating that Arab culture is a source of the greater backwardness of Arab states.
Until recently it was difficult for people in most Middle Eastern countries to openly discuss these tendencies, much less where it came from and what could be done about it. That has been changing over the last decade and accelerated in 2017 as Arab nations, especially the oil-rich ones in Arabia, openly developed closer ties with Israel for protection from Iranian threats. A side effect of that was that it has become possible for Arab journalists and officials to openly, in the media, discuss Israel and why it is a good idea for the Arab states, who have been in a state of war with Israel since the late 1940s, to now openly treat Israel as an ally. The main reason is obvious; Israel is the military superpower in the region, despite containing only two percent of the people in the Middle East.
Worldwide Islamic terrorism-related deaths have fallen by over 50 percent since 2014, when there were 35,000. Global deaths hit 19,000 in 2017 and under 14,000 for 2018. Since 2014, five nations Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria and Pakistan have accounted for most of these deaths. The largest source of Islamic terror deaths during that period was ISIL/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, a more radical faction of al Qaeda that currently is where the most radical practitioners of Islamic terrorism are found. Islamic terrorists continue to be, as it has been since the 1990s, the main source of terrorism-related deaths, accounting for about 90 percent of the fatalities. The remainder of terrorist-related deaths are ethnic, often tribal, conflicts in Africa and Asia. Purely religious terrorism accounts for a fraction of one percent of all terrorist-related deaths and are outnumbered by terrorism deaths inflicted by common criminals.
Arabs don’t like to dwell on their key role in creating and sustaining this scourge of terrorism. At the same time their new allies, the Israelis, have a different list of notable accomplishments, including great success in dealing with Islamic terrorism. Arabs don’t like to discuss why the Arabs and Israelis are different, at least not in public. But thanks to the internet, anyone curious about Israeli military capabilities can find out in private. What Arabs can discuss openly is the Israeli achievements in science and technology. It is no secret that Moslems, despite having a population 85 times larger than all the world’s Jews, win one Nobel prize for every 33 awarded to Jews. Arab journalists place less emphasis on that and more on the fact that tiny Israel is one of the top creators of new inventions worldwide. Arabs attribute this to more effective educational institutions and policies. Arabs can now admit that their government have not been as pro-science/technology as the Israelis in particular and Jews in general. Some Arab leaders attribute the disparity to Arab engineers and scientists being lured to the West by better pay and fewer restrictions, but the basic problem is there are more opportunities for engineers and scientists in the non-Moslem world.
What is still avoided is a public discussion of the cultural crisis in the Arab world in particular and the Moslem world in general. The crisis is expressed by an abundance of corruption and a lack of economic, educational, and political progress and performance. By whatever measure you wish to use, Nobel prizes, literacy rates, patents awarded, books published or translated, GDP growth, the Arabs have fallen well behind the rest of the world. Part of the problem is the Arab tendency to blame outsiders and to avoid taking responsibility. Tolerating tyranny and resistance to change doesn't help either. Those attitudes are shifting, ever so slowly.
The exact nature of this lethal cultural miasma can best be described by enumerating the major components. Let’s start with the fact that most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority like Bedouins in Jordan and Nejdis in Saudi Arabia. Recently and bloodily changed examples were Alawites in Syria and Sunnis in Iraq. All of which means that leadership jobs are assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation.
Islamic schools favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. Most Islamic scholars are hostile to the concept of interpreting the Koran, which is considered the word of God as given to His prophet Mohammed. This has resulted in looking down on Westerners who will look something up if they don't know. Arabs prefer to fake it and pretend it's all in their head. While failure is accepted as the price of learning and success in the West, that sort of thing is not an option for most Arabs. Improvisation and innovation are generally discouraged. Arab government organizations go by the book while Westerners are more likely to rewrite the book and thus be much more effective. Despite years of Western advice on this matter, many Arab officials stick with the old, less effective, traditions.
There is little middle management, like NCOs in the military. The ruling class consists of owners, officers, and officials, while everyone else is treated like a different social caste and there is no effort to bridge the gap using what the West calls middle management. The majority of people are treated harshly. Work accidents that would end the careers of Western managers, officers, or officials are ignored in the Arab world and nobody cares. This is slowly changing, with the steady growth of a proper NCO/sergeants corps and middle management, plus better management attitudes towards their subordinates. But the old ways often return, with disastrous effects on the morale and effectiveness of the average Arab.
Not surprisingly, in Arab cultures, the ruling class is despised by their subordinates, and this does not bother the leaders much at all. Many Arab leaders simply cannot understand how treating subordinates, unless they are family, decently will have any benefit. This is another old tradition that dies hard.
Paranoia prevents adequate training. This is made worse by the habit of Arab tyrants insisting that their subordinate organizations have little contact with each other, thus ensuring that no subordinate leader can become powerful enough to overthrow the commander. Subordinate organizations are purposely kept from working together or communicating on a large scale. Arab subordinate leaders don't have as broad a knowledge of what their subordinate leaders do, as is the case with their Western counterparts. Promotions are based more on political reliability than proficiency and efficiency. Arab leaders prefer to be feared, rather than respected, by their subordinates. This approach leads to poorly trained populations and low morale. A few rousing speeches about Moslem Brotherhood before a national emergency boils over does little to repair the damage. Many, if not most, Arab leaders now know that the paranoia and parochialism are bad, but ancient traditions are hard to abandon.
Arab leaders often do not trust each other. While an American manager or officer can be reasonably confident that the others they work with will be competent and reliable, Arabs in similar situations seriously doubt that their peers will do their job on time or accurately. This is an inefficient and sometimes fatal attitude. It's been difficult getting Arab leaders to change when it comes to trust.
Arab leaders consider it acceptable to lie to subordinates and allies in order to further their personal agenda. This had catastrophic consequences throughout Arab history and continues to make progress difficult. When called out on this behavior, Arabs will assert that they were misunderstood. This is still going on.
While Western American middle managers, and Westerners in general, are only too happy to impart their wisdom and skills to others because teaching is the ultimate expression of prestige, Arabs try to keep any technical information and manuals secret. To Arabs, the value and prestige of an individual is based not on what he can teach but on what he knows that no one else knows. This destructive habit is still around, despite years of American advisors patiently explaining why this is counterproductive.
While Westerners thrive on competition among themselves, Arab leaders avoid this as the loser would be humiliated. Better for everyone to fail together than for competition to be allowed, even if it eventually benefits everyone. This attitude is still a factor in the Arab world.
Westerners are taught leadership and technology; Arabs are taught only technology and not nearly enough. Leadership is given little attention as Arab leaders are assumed to know this by virtue of their social status as appointed leaders. The new generation of Arab leaders have been taught leadership but, for too many of them, this is an alien concept that they do not understand or really know what to do with.
Initiative is considered a dangerous trait in the Arab world, so subordinates prefer to fail rather than make an independent decision. Large-scale enterprises are micromanaged by senior leaders, who prefer to suffer defeat rather than lose control of their subordinates. Even worse, an Arab manager will not tell a Western counterpart why he cannot make the decision, or even that he cannot make it, leaving Western managers angry and frustrated because the Arabs won't make a decision. The Arab leaders simply will not admit that they do not have that authority. The new generation of Arab managers have been sent to Western management schools, but there's still not a lot of enthusiasm for initiative, which is often seen as a decadent and dangerous Western import.
Lack of initiative makes it difficult for Arabs to maintain modern equipment. Complex modern devices require on the spot maintenance, and that means delegating authority, information, and tools. Arab cultures avoid doing this and prefer to use easier control of central repair shops. This makes the timely maintenance of equipment difficult. Entrepreneurs, often non-Arab Moslems, frequently handle a lot of the maintenance. This is still a problem throughout the Middle East, where the oil rich nations have most of their non-government operations staffed by foreigners.
Security is maniacal. Everything, even vaguely military or government related, is top secret. While Western military and corporation promotion lists are routinely published, this rarely happens in Arab organizations. Officers and managers are suddenly transferred without warning to keep them from forging alliances or networks. Any team spirit among officials is discouraged.
All these traits were reinforced, from the 1950s to the 1980s, by Soviet advisors and admiration for the success of Soviet socialism and management practices. To the Russians, anything government related was secret, subordinates were scum, there was no functional middle management system, and everyone was paranoid about everyone else. These were not communist traits but Russian customs that had existed for centuries. They were adopted by the communists to make their dictatorships more secure from rebellion. Arab dictators avidly accepted this kind of advice but were still concerned about how rapidly the communist dictatorships all came tumbling down between 1989 and 1991. The Russian influence is still fondly remembered because the Russians had developed some highly effective police state methods. This made it easier for the police and military to control a country, even if despicable methods were used. While these Russian techniques can work to hunt down terrorists in a police state, it doesn't work in any other useful endeavors and that’s the main reason the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
These counterproductive traits are ancient and predate Islam, but the nature of Islamic theology has perpetuated them in Moslem nations. While the West eventually separated church and state, helped by a few useful bits of advice in the Christian Bible, that is more difficult with Islam because the word Islam literally means submission and Moslem scripture is quite specific about Islam being a way of life and a form of government as well as a religion.
Most of these bad habits are ancient but they are not immune to change, even when Islam is involved. A quick look at the history of the Islamic world since World War II shows one constant: poor leadership. There are exceptions. Turkey, starting in the 1920s, sought to reform and modernize its governmental and cultural institutions, including a clear separation of church and state. Malaysia, after a chaotic beginning in the 1950s, sorted itself out and created an efficient government, by Moslem standards, and adopted much of the English common law used when Britain was the colonial ruler of the area. This included a rather incorruptible, especially by local standards, judiciary. This gave Malaysia a big economic advantage, and led to rapid economic growth, despite some loud political squabbles. Islamic radicals never got a foothold in Malaysia, although some exist there. But Malaysians in general, and local counter-terrorism forces in particular, are not hospitable to Islamic terrorists.
These reforms are always under assault by Islamic conservatives. The Islamic party that has run the Turk government since 2003 has become increasingly paranoid about religion and anyone not Moslem. The Turkish president has been openly accusing the non-Moslem world of making war on Islam. This is the same attitude Islamic terrorists use to justify their attacks on non-Moslem targets. Yet Turkey has remained a member of NATO and taken strong measures to shut down Islamic terrorist groups inside Turkey.
Since the 1920s Turkey has kept church and state separate but the current government wants to change that and is gradually doing so. One threat involved a proposal to undo the 1928 law that made the Roman alphabet standard. This would be done by again teaching the Arabic alphabet in schools and eventually dropping the Roman alphabet completely. This proposal was defeated but the government did make it legal to teach the old Turkish documents using Arabic script in religious schools. In 1928 the adoption of the Roman alphabet linked Turkey more closely, culturally and economically, with the West and those connections are proving difficult to undo. Going back to the Arabic alphabet was very unpopular and the government quickly discovered that most Turks opposed this change. In response to this defeat, the government added more mandatory Islamic religious instruction in schools.
To make matters worse, the Turkish Islamic politicians got elected to power on the promise of cleaning up the corruption that was increasingly hurting the economy as well as politics and life in general. For nearly a decade the Islamic politicians did reduce corruption, but then evidence began to appear that many of the Islamic politicians had themselves become corrupt in addition to threatening to end the separation of church and state as well. The Islamic government sought to silence those who were openly criticizing bad behavior by pro-Islam politicians. This despite the fact that ISIL considers the current Turkish government un-Islamic and wants to replace it, by force if necessary, and make largely secular Turkey part of the new caliphate. Most Turks oppose ISIL, but most Turks don’t want a civil war over the issue and are trying to settle the matter via elections. That may or may not work depending on how many Islamic politicians agree to respect the democratic process. Yet Islamic radicals are quite certain that democracy, and many other Western customs like education for women, and free speech are un-Islamic and must be avoided. The constant in the current outbreak of terrorist violence is religion and particularly Islam. It is dangerous to point that out but, as the Arabs have discovered, even more, dangerous to try and ignore.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:43 pm: Edit |
Air Weapons: American Army Drones
May 17, 2026: American soldiers recently enabled a significant leap forward for battlefield technology, Army infantry drone operators successfully experiment with a new warhead devised for delivery by a drone. The live-fire demonstration of the bunker rupture and dynamic explosive round took place in Alabama during late March, less than a month after the original design and speedy prototyping of the system and showcases the Army's fast-tracked approach to modernization in the face of developing threats.
The American military continuously transforms by using the latest expertise to gain a warfighting gain, ensuring the force is lethal, modern and ready. The development of this air-delivered munition directly supports that mission, as well as the Secretary of War’s enthusiasm and transformation priorities.
The Braker project, led by a team from the American Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center and Project Manager Close Combat Systems, aimed to create a lightweight, powerful and lethal warhead that could be deployed from a small, agile drone.
The Picatinny Arsenal unit went from hypothesis to live-fire in two weeks. The press release stated, The Braker Project demonstrates our ability to rapidly develop and safely deliver destructive effects from drones. This means creating the architecture with Picatinny Common Lethality Integration Kit and the small, universal payload interface for industry to scale this critical war fighter improvement.
The Picatinny Common Lethality Integration Kit is a safe and effective method for integrating lethal payloads with drone platforms, devised and exploited by engineers at the American Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center. The rapid development-to-testing timeline of the Braker Project was made possible by the Army's emphasis on additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing.
In early March, engineers from the Armaments Center began designing, explosive pressing, housing manufacturing and incorporating the warhead to be used on a low-cost and expendable one-way attack drone. Shortly thereafter, transfer and compatibility tests were conducted at Picatinny Arsenal, and approximately a dozen warheads were assembled, one of which was tested on a makeshift test range bunker.
After proving worthiness and validating effectiveness, the prototype warheads departed Picatinny Arsenal, moving to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, where a live demonstration was conducted for Army leaders.
The successful detonation of a target deployed by a device attached to a drone demonstrates a new and potent capability for the modern war fighter. It also illustrates how quickly engineers can design, fabricate and incorporate hardware to meet urgent and compelling needs.
Rapid demonstrations of overwhelming lethality, such as the Braker project, are credited to years of continued technology investments and the biological core technical competencies and facilities resident at the American Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center. Not to be outdone, our Japanese ally recently developed cheap drones made of cardboard but are capable of performing the same tasks as the American army combat drones.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:48 pm: Edit |
Morale: Russian Crowd Sourced Milirary Effort
May 16, 2026: At the start of the Ukraine War in early 2022, the Russian military suffered from a condition called, Whatever Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong. This was demonstrated when efforts were made to contact soldiers in Russian-controlled Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine, but no one could really explain or say anything. Several days later, a man who served with the Donetsk militia could no longer be reached by phone or via the military bureaucracy to determine if he was OK. The soldier eventually responded and said they needed combat boots, sleeping bags, cigarettes, raincoats, and most importantly, Chinese Baofeng radios. These had a range of five kilometers and could be purchased by Americans via Amazon.com.
While some factions of Russian civil society protested the invasion, others mobilized to an unprecedented degree to assist the military. This effort eventually came to be known as the People’s military-industrial complex or simply the People’s VPK/ Voluntary Pre-kindergarten .
The need for much of this assistance was linked to the Russian military’s lack of preparedness for the war. According to many accounts by Russian citizens who would eventually step into the role of volunteers and technology developers, Russian soldiers rapidly ran out of basic supplies and began reaching out to families and friends with requests for everything from cigarettes to shovels. These requests evolved into a national informal assistance effort, which revealed the shortages within Russian forces, the extent of dependency on Chinese products for the war effort, and the lesser-known story of how Russian society mobilized in support of the war.
Yet, unlike in Ukraine, where civil society continued to expand efforts to compensate for weak state capacity, in the Russian state-dominated system, it was first viewed with suspicion and derision. Russia’s People’s VPK was a phenomenon born of the war, and, despite the innovative approach it took, was unlikely to continue as the national government absorbed it. The ecosystem of volunteer groups and smaller tech startups is being taken over by the state and is likely to vanish after the war. Yet the story of the People’s VPK offers a fascinating window into how informal assistance emerged in a deeply autocratic state, governed by a system of patronage, where large defense enterprises are state-dependent and controlled. It is also another entry in the longstanding discussion on the extent to which this is President Vladimir Putin’s war, or one supported by the Russian people.
In 2022, to address the needs of the floundering Russian military, numerous Russian individuals, volunteers, and civil society organizations, and eventually small technical teams, took to social media platforms such as the Telegram messaging app to call for assistance, advertise their efforts, or actively raise money to purchase a plethora of supplies and equipment. By late 2022, some of these efforts were raising about $6 million each month, from early 200,000 separate donors. This assistance eventually included items from basic equipment to Chinese Mavic drones, first-person view drones, counter-drone technology, night vision, electronic warfare, and SIGINT/signals intelligence systems. As the war progressed into 2023, many such efforts started purchasing and refurbishing civilian vehicles and assembling unmanned ground vehicles to send to the front, along with medical equipment and food items. This was basically whatever was required by the soldiers at the front. By 2023, this effort came to be collectively known as the People’s VPK.
Why the swell in efforts? After taking heavy losses in the invasion, in 2022 Russia began organizing regional volunteer units, and then the government ordered a partial mobilization of over 300,000 soldiers. The system was overwhelmed as it was trying to creäte forces from a large, mobilized reserve. Bureaucracy was another problem, and small reconnaissance drones, civilian radios, light pickup trucks, and portable electronic warfare systems were not in the units’ TO&E/Table of Organization & Equipment. How can you put in for that which you are not supposed to have? Units turned to informal assistance networks for these needs not only because they were much more agile, but also because they didn’t need official requisition orders and multiple approval stamps on the documents. Lastly, informal assistance is often far less corrupt than the exploitative official bureaucracy.
The overall impact of the People’s VPK on the war effort is likely larger, incorporating a host of innovation efforts. By 2023, a number of more specialized Russian technical start-ups were launched, as well as numerous training and education efforts to teach drone and counter-drone operators the basics of maintaining and using such technologies. Russian drones like Upyr were founded by small teams willing to invest their own time and resources and have since morphed into larger production efforts with the help of regional governments and eventual Ministry of Defense support.
The Russian military bureaucracy allowed the flow of civilian-acquired goods and independently developed tech directly to the front, often to specific units and soldiers. Many volunteers could travel to the frontline unimpeded to deliver technology and equipment, sometimes in large quantities. Across dozens of Russian-language Telegram channels, soldiers and units report on such acquisitions, often to express gratitude for items such as quadcopters, first-person view drones, and other supplies. Volunteer organizations have since morphed into influential efforts capable of raising substantial funds for occasional large-scale purchases and developed technologies that could be manufactured at scale. Of course, many of the components are imported from China, which is what allowed both Russia and Ukraine to rapidly develop various types of drones and electronic warfare systems. Here, the Russian crowd-sourced effort was much smaller than Ukraine’s, but nonetheless made an impact over the course of the war.
The extent of Russian government support for the People’s VPK is not always clear. Some efforts receive Ministry of Defense assistance and facilitation, while others receive assistance from local and regional governments. It certainly didn’t start that way. While individual units sought help, the bureaucracy was far less interested in crowdsourced solutions. These were not tanks, artillery, or aircraft. The merit of small uncrewed aircraft systems was not immediately obvious to a military brass used to thinking about traditional weapon systems and the large defense industrial enterprises that provided them. Also, the Russian effort depended on internal capital, which inherently kept it small compared to the large volume of informal assistance that flowed into Ukraine.
Russia’s grassroots effort was probably a hybrid, with some initiatives having cooperated with the Ministry of Defense and the government from the very beginning. Some of the more prominent civil society and volunteer organizations functioning today, such as the People’s Front nationwide effort, have direct ties to the Russian government. Another national volunteer organization that actively aids the Russian forces has ties to regional and municipal governments. Others were supported by regional governments or benefited from funding provided by large state-controlled enterprises. There was a tendency for the elite to want to show that they supported the war, much like during earlier times when nobles might fund a regiment for the tsar’s war. Some of course claim that their efforts are supported and assisted entirely by donations from regular citizens and wealthy individuals, without direct Ministry of Defense involvement or influence. The overall share of technology development and assistance by the People’s VPK compared to the country’s defense-industrial complex remains quite small. The Russian official defense complex comprises thousands of enterprises and millions of workers but the People’s VPK has become impactful because it covers key gaps in state support.
Over time, the Russian government came to recognize these informal networks supporting the military. In late 2024, the Russian leader even ordered the domestic defense industry to work more closely with the People’s VPK. In December 2024, the Defense Minister noted that the Ministry of Defense’s traditional development and acquisition procedures, which provide for a long, strictly regulated process of weapon and systems development, testing, and production, make it extremely difficult to rapidly provide the troops with much-needed technical solutions. Some of the more notable technical developments, such as the use of first-person view drones, were carried out within the framework of projects that combine the efforts of volunteers, wealthy contributors, the People’s VPK, and the Ministry of Defense. Hence, it offered a parallel ecosystem with ties to the state, but was able to iterate and deploy solutions much faster to the Russian military.
The Defense Minister emphasized that between April 2024 and December 2024, more than 65 People’s VPK projects were delivered to the military, comprising 31 types of aerial drones, eight ground robotic systems, two types of electronic reconnaissance equipment, 20 electronic warfare systems, and four types of unmanned surface vessels. He also noted that by December 2024, more than 100,000 products from small domestic design bureaus and civilian manufacturers had been purchased for military needs. This number likely increased through 2025. Putin, in turn, put a fiscal estimate on such assistance in December 2025, pointing out that Russian citizens and entrepreneurs raised about $1 billion for the development of unmanned technologies. Putin also promised that the state would continue to support modern-day Russian inventors and self-taught developers. This would be accomplished via a system of grants and financing. However, other official voices suggested that it is simply the cash.
The truth is that despite conflicting official statements, it is difficult to estimate the actual value of this effort. In a recent study, it was noted the range of funds collected by various Russian volunteer efforts ranged between $41,000 and $1.7 million for fundraising campaigns over several months in 2022, 2024, and 2025. A Russian publication also reported last year that Russian volunteers and activists raised approximately $155.5 million for the military in 2024, three and a half times lower than the total for 2023 of $515 million.
Lacking significant resources, many startups and volunteers built technical solutions on a small scale that could not be properly tested and evaluated the same way as military technologies via official certification processes to enable top performance. That had the advantage of allowing for quick iteration, but without quality control or the ability to scale production serially. As a result, a hodgepodge of provided solutions were deployed across the Russian force. As of early 2026, the Russian Ministry of Defense has launched accelerator platforms as a bridge between developers and end-users in some ways. This was an attempt to imitate Ukraine’s Brave1 platform. Despite such initial steps, it is still unclear how many Russian developers trust or engage with such official outlets, or even know about them to begin with, instead preferring to work directly with specific commanders and units. The reason for this is not only because it is easier, but it also avoids the corruption of the state.
As of early 2026, some technical startups rely on their regional administrators and politicians to raise awareness of their products with the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, in order for civilian inventors to bring their products to at least an official test batch level. The traditional Russian defense industry still maintains a monopoly over technology development and fielding, but the impact of so many volunteer organizations and their success has not gone unnoticed in the Russian government. Russia is a state-capitalist system, but the war had led to the emergence of a small-scale and very active private sector military industry outside of the state-controlled military-industrial complex. Naturally, some Russian government officials called for the state to take control of this wider civil society initiative to prevent the spread of technology that could fall into the hands of terrorists, arguing it is abnormal that some private parties are involved in the production of first-person view drones, something that could not be imagined in Soviet times. This is where private or crowd-sourced efforts inevitably run afoul of the Russian system, which is fundamentally predatory, and will try to dispossess owners of anything that appears profitable under the guise of state interest.
There was also tension evident between the People’s VPK efforts and major defense enterprises. During Army-2024, Russia’s largest annual defense forum, representatives of the People’s VPK were allowed to exhibit alongside the country’s defense enterprises, in a small corner of the Patriot Park outside Moscow where the event took place. According to Aleksei Chadaev, a key volunteer figure and the co-organizer of the annual Dronnitsa event, who described this participation on his Telegram channel, the traditional vendors showcased their technologies in the main pavilion exhibits, while volunteers and small startup enterprises were relegated to the fringes of the event.
You can almost feel the disgust with which the bigwigs of the anti-people’s military-industrial complex, located in the main pavilions, look in the direction of People’s VPK exhibits. As if People’s VPK is some kind of pimple, and homeless garage dwellers with their handicrafts made from •••• and sticks, are riding the administrative-political trend, and think that they are now the center of the universe. And accordingly, these homeless garage dwellers look in the direction of the sparkling defense pavilions with approximately the same feelings.
To alleviate such tensions and to build bridges between the larger People’s VPK community and the Russian government, some volunteer efforts have organized specialized events and meet-ups. The largest of these is the Dronnitsa meetup taking place in the Novgorod region, hosted by the Coordination Centre for Assistance to Novorossiya and the Ushkuynik Research and Production Center with the assistance of the Novgorod region government, which brought together over 2,000 attendees and 100 technology companies in September 2025. Ushkuynik was initially launched by Chadaev and other volunteers as an accelerator to assist small technical startups find ways to cooperate with the Ministry of Defense and the Russian government. Smaller People’s VPK technology showcases and meet-ups also take place regularly across the country to enable volunteers to network and learn what works and what doesn’t in Russia’s war against Ukraine, and how to cooperate with the government and the military.
Russian military bloggers and commentators actively comment on the state of the People’s VPK, noting that this ecosystem is relatively small. At the same time, they point out that a part of the Russian population has self-organized without state support and was able to develop and deliver some necessary supplies to the military. This society has emerged from below, without orders from the authorities, and today, it is entering an evolutionary stage. Prominent volunteers like Chadaev, a key personality behind the effort to set up the Ushkuynik enterprise that assembles fiber-optic, multirotor, and fixed-wing drones, admit that significant issues still need to be addressed.
“I’ll give you an example of some of my friends who, at their own expense, were able to develop and build a kamikaze unmanned surface vessel, 10 times cheaper than the enemy’s Magura. Over the head of the Russian Ministry of Defense, they even managed to test it in action thanks to the special forces. So now what? If we follow the official Russian Ministry of Defense procedure, they build a prototype of the technology and present it to a ministerial commission. The commission must agree to conduct initial tests. Then the commission must assign the new technology a special designation and provide a list of necessary improvements, as well as deficiencies to be addressed at the innovator’s own expense. Then they must review the new prototype and send it for comprehensive testing. Afterwards, they must study the results and make a decision. Under this procedure, tech enthusiast inventors must spend considerable sums of their own money. And it can take many years. Ultimately, the state will adopt the volunteers’ invention when the war ends.”
In June 2025, Chadaev commented that it is still difficult to get initiatives to cooperate horizontally or pool resources, with each inventor being concerned about their own product. He further pointed out that some Russian startups and volunteers would likely prefer a historically, morally and socio-culturally familiar vertical approach, with a designated leadership administering directives, resources and key decisions that will also act as a conduit between civil society and the Ministry of Defense. Other tech volunteers writing in the UAV Developer Telegram channel openly comment that:
“Private companies are getting in the way of large enterprises, preventing profits from being made in still-vacant niches. Private companies demonstrate the inefficiency and sluggishness of state-run developments, and their solutions are ten times cheaper. Who would like that, honestly? And these volunteers are preoccupied with victory, pride, the glory of their ancestors, and other such nonsense. They’re inconvenient people . Elevators that allow private companies to easily interact with the state on favorable terms are not being created for these very reasons. More precisely, they are being created, but they’re like sex with a condom. There's movement, but no progress.”
For Russia, the People’s VPK provides obvious advantages. Not over Ukraine, whose crowd-sourced and defense startup ecosystem is much larger, but over Russia’s own stifling state-controlled system. The state defense order requires two years of research and development, two years of design and refinement, followed by testing and eventually acceptance into service, resulting in at least a six-year product development cycle that starkly contrasts with a three-month weapons update cycle in Ukraine. Small development teams that have proliferated in Russia since 2022 can provide rapid product development and fast technology update cycles since they are more mobile and flexible than large defense enterprises. Typical large VPK enterprises suffer from product development inertia and the need to satisfy state requirements. Some of these issues were resolved by Russia’s defense enterprises as the war enters its fifth year, with rapidly innovating drone technology companies like Kalashnikov and others offering upgrades and improvements to drones used in combat. Russian volunteers also acknowledge that small enterprises lack mass production abilities found in the traditional defense sector. Moreover, some Russian volunteers admit the inherent flaws and meagre entry control for volunteer tech access to the front. What the Russian military eventually gets is often clumsy, useless crap made by these disparate volunteer efforts that continue to exist and promote themselves.
The challenge for these startup efforts is that Russian military acquisition remains geared towards dealing with established enterprises, not with small, relatively new technology startups. That’s not unusual in state-driven defense acquisition systems where contracts are dominated by majors and low-cost efforts are viewed with skepticism. In turn, many People’s VPK members often do not understand what the larger military needs, and the majority of People’s VPK cannot scale their technologies to the point where they can be properly evaluated and produced in large enough numbers to have a major impact. Therefore, the Russian government directed established defense companies to cooperate with the People’s VPK members to select the most relevant technologies and solutions.
Kalashnikov, the manufacturer of Russian assault rifles, already owns ZALA Aero Group which manufactures the Russian one-way attack munition Lancet, along with the Kub-BLA and Zala 421 reconnaissance drones. In June 2025, Ushkuynik signed a strategic agreement to establish a joint venture with Kalashnikov. In August 2025, Kalashnikov signed another agreement with Project Archangel, one of the largest national volunteer efforts that trains drone operators for the military. Under this agreement, Kalashnikov accepts aerial drones and related technologies selected by Project Archangel for eventual mass production.
Russia also established elite drone formations with their own technology development branches mirroring Ukraine’s approach with the Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies and the BARS-SARMAT formation becoming technical centers that officially deal with the People’s VPK in order to test and select the best solutions. In this manner, the state has steadily been integrating these various startups into official efforts in support of the war.
Eventually, the People’s VPK ran into the dual challenge of sustaining funding over the course of the war and surviving in an environment that is ultimately hostile to bottom-up defense tech innovation. Over time, the funding began drying up. Enthusiastic support for the military eventually turned to fatigue, forcing high-profile Russian volunteers and regime figures such as Dmitry Rogozin, who heads the BARS-SARMAT formation, to call for continued assistance of the Russian military. Despite government statements of support for this ecosystem, many feel they can no longer carry such a burden. The Russian government is not exactly helping either. Its February 2026 decision to start limiting access to the Telegram messaging app was met with shock, anger, and disbelief by many in the People’s VPK who depend on this app for fundraising, communication, and the overall connection to the front and to fellow volunteer efforts. Moscow seems to be going through with its intended decision to force Russian Telegram users off the app and into the state-sponsored Max messaging platform.
Many volunteers fear their years of efforts and support will be lost, severing the link between the community and the soldiers it assists. As of mid-April 2026, some Russian volunteer organizations have already reported a sharp decline in donation volumes following the official blocking of Telegram starting April 1. According to these activists, a significant portion of their audience failed to migrate to alternative platforms including the Max messenger which has severely complicated fundraising efforts and operational coordination. Volunteers and participants in humanitarian initiatives note that since the restrictions were imposed, Telegram channel reach has plummeted several-fold in many cases, and a number of projects have effectively been suspended due to a lack of funding. Other Russian volunteer projects, such as the KatyaValya effort mentioned earlier, continue their fundraising and donation activities on both Telegram and Max apps.
At this stage of the war, it’s also not clear how relevant the People’s VPK truly is, as the Russian government ramped up state-funded drone production. Russian forces now have relative parity when it comes to most types of drones, while funding for volunteer efforts continues to dry up. The logical conclusion is that as far as drone acquisition goes, it is now almost entirely state-funded and organized, and the People’s VPK has largely become part of the larger state effort. This remains a community vested in developing drones and other unmanned systems: For example, Dronnitsa organizers are gearing up for the fifth event later in 2026, while Putin indicated that mechanisms for supporting domestic startups will be strengthened. Hence, Russia will retain the motivated people who are vested in developing drones for its forces.
However, after the war, most of these so-called people’s efforts will likely close or be bought out. In the Russian system, that which is successful and profitable is usually consumed by a larger and better-connected entity. This was the case in September 2023, when a volunteer drone assembly effort in Crimea was subject of an attempted raider takeover, a practice common in Russia in the 1990s to early 2000s, when criminal enterprises and unscrupulous government officials forcibly took over fledgling and established businesses. Hence, those who started these initiatives can eventually expect that elites with the right ties within Russian patronage networks will simply use the system to dispossess them of their creations after the war. Many will try to sell their products to established defense enterprises or offer them for export to Russia’s traditional arms clients.
The Russian People’s VPK is an unusual moment in the country’s defense and military history. Although much of this has been taken over by the state, in 2026 the Russian military still depends on volunteer and start-up efforts for key technologies, systems, and supplies. Russian military commentators mention the prevalence of some commercial technologies on the frontlines such as radios and related communications equipment are procured by soldiers with the help of Russian volunteers. The rise of the People’s VPK is an interesting case of defense innovation in an authoritarian system and demonstrates that the war was not just a state-run effort. A number of volunteer organizations sprung up in support of the war and continue operating to this day.
While the impact of the People’s VPK remains difficult to measure, the Russo-Ukrainian War demonstrates that policymakers continue to underestimate the importance of informal assistance efforts and bottom-up innovation. The United States has long been looking at how Ukraine’s defense industry turned into an ecosystem of defense tech startups. It is also worth examining how adversaries approached the same problems. Even if the People’s VPK ends up being consumed by the system at home, some of these individuals and startups may seek to export their wares elsewhere to adversaries like Iran and non-state actors abroad.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:49 pm: Edit |
Procurement: The Cuban Food and Fuel Crisis
May 16, 2026: Cuba cannot survive without oil imports, can’t afford to pay for those and, until recently, was entirely dependent on deliveries from Venezuela and Mexico of free or well below market price oil. Then the US ended Venezuelan oil deliveries by forcibly changing its government, and ended Mexican deliveries with sanctions threats. There were a few attempts by other countries to send below-market-price oil to Cuba which were stopped by similar threats. On the other hand, the US allowed a Russian tanker to deliver free oil and refined products in late April.
Cuba’s economy was already in dire straits when this happened and now seems about to collapse. The Cuban and American governments have been in shadowy talks for the past several months. Cuba agreed to admit teams of American FBI investigators and release some political prisoners. President Trump has recently become more forceful in his mentions of Cuba.
The US began hindering oil tankers heading to Cuba in early 2026, aiming at companies such as the Mexican state-owned Pemex and menacing the responsible countries with higher tariffs and other sanctions if they persisted. This is the first de facto blockade of Cuba since the Cuban Missile Crisis. In early 2026, Miguel Díaz-Canel, the First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, openly confirmed for the first time that his government was engaged in diplomatic talks with the Americans aimed at tackling the severe American sanctions on free fuel deliveries.
The Americans have maintained an embargo on Cuba since 1962. The severity of the embargo has varied over time, with a notable thaw in relations under recent Democratic Presidents. The impact of the embargo became particularly significant only after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in 1991, who collectively supplied between 70 percent and 80 percent of Cuban imports. This led to an economic crisis and the start of the Special Period, which lasted until 2000. The crisis substantially improved in 1999 after Hugo Chávez was elected as president of Venezuela, and began to support the country with free oil shipments. In return, Cuba sent doctors and security personnel to Venezuela.
This changed with President Trump’s second term. In early 2025 the US government substantially increased its economic sanctions against Cuba, orienting it around what it calls a total pressure or maximum pressure strategy.
Cuba's economy is dependent on foreign oil with most historically imported from Venezuela and Mexico. Recent but insistent issues with Cuba's economy and electrical grid triggered 2024–2026 protests and 2024–2026 Cuban blackouts. At the end of 2025, as part of the acceleration that ended with the American intervention in Venezuela, the United States seized tankers with Venezuelan oil destined for Cuba and declared a temporary blockade on exports of Venezuelan oil.
After the Venezuela intervention by the Americans that led to the capture of incumbent Venezuelan president Maduro, America threatened potential military action towards multiple territories like Greenland, Colombia, Iran, and Cuba. In early 2026, Executive Order 14380 was signed and entered into force on 30 January, declaring a national emergency in America and authorizing the imposition of further tariffs on imports into America from countries that directly or indirectly supply oil to Cuba. America confirmed that government change in Cuba is a goal by the end of the year, asking the government of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel to make a deal before it's too late.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, the blockade and ensuing fuel shortage have threatened Cuba's food supply and upset the country's water systems and hospitals. The fuel shortage has prevented the harvesting of crops and undermined efforts toward food autonomy. The lack of fuel has also hampered the UN World Food Program relief efforts following Hurricane Melissa. In response, the Cuban government has closed schools and universities and limited public transport. Garbage has accumulated throughout Havana and other cities due to the lack of fuel for trash trucks.
Cuba experienced its lowest ever temperature of 0 ° Centigrade on 3 February as measured at a weather station in Matanzas Province. On 4 February, the eastern provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín and Granma suffered a total blackout, while the western part of the island and Havana suffered serious difficulties with electricity. On 4 March, a shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant resulted in power outages for millions of Cubans in the western part of the country. On 16 March, Cuba's power grid collapsed leaving the country without power.
In early February, Cuba stated that it would not refuel other planes at airports due to a lack of fuel. Air Canada suspended flights to the country on the same day, while Rossiya and Nordwind did so two days later, all citing ongoing fuel shortages in the island as a reason.
A fire broke out at a key fuel processing plant during mid-February in Havana, intensifying the energy crisis further since the executive order of American on 29 January, which imposed an oil blockade. A large plume of smoke was seen rising above Havana Bay from the Nico López refinery on Friday, drawing the attention of the capital's residents before fading as fire crews fought to bring the disaster under control. Cuba's Ministry of Energy and Mines said the fire, which erupted in a warehouse at the refinery, was eventually quenched and that the cause is under investigation. There were no injuries and the fire did not spread to nearby areas, the ministry said in a post on social media. The ministry said the workday at the Nico Lopez Refinery continues with complete regularity. The location of the fire was close to where two oil tankers were moored in Havana's harbor.
On 14 February, it was announced that the Festival del Habano, an annual cigar festival, was called off due to the complex economic situation caused by the economic, commercial and financial blockade by the Americans In mid-February 2026, it was reported that many collection trucks had been left with empty fuel tanks, causing refuse to pile up on the streets of the capital, Havana, and other cities and towns. Only 44 of Havana's 106 rubbish trucks, approximately 41.5 percent of them, have been able to keep operating due to the fuel shortages so waste piles up on Havana's street corners. Canadian mining company Sherritt announced that it would pause operations at its mining facility in Moa.
On April 12, 2026, The CTC/Central Workers' Union of Cuba, its national unions, and the ANIR/National Association of Innovators and Rationalizers launched the official call for May 1, 2026, under the slogan The Homeland is Defended, with a distinctly warlike and anti-American tone that reflects the escalating tensions between Havana and the American capitol.
In late April 2026, Miguel Díaz-Canel celebrated this week as a historic milestone the fact that Cuban national crude can be refined, when in reality the Cabaiguán refinery has been processing that same oil since 2010, as acknowledged by the deputy director of CUPET during the April session of the CNI/National Council of Innovation. The announcement from the Cuban government revolves around a thermal conversion technology developed by the Oil Research Center, affiliated with the CUPET/Union Cuba Petróleo, to process the heavy crude from the northern oil belt, characterized by its high density, viscosity, and sulfur content.
After the ousting of Maduro, the Americans began increasing its pressure on Mexico to reduce its oil sales to Cuba with the American President threatening tariffs against any country supplying Cuba with oil. Mexico temporarily halted shipments of oil to Cuba in late January and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the decision to halt oil deliveries was a sovereign decision. In early 2026, Mexico sent two ships of humanitarian aid to Cuba to help alleviate the impacts of the American embargo.
The government of Nicaragua cancelled visa-free travel for Cuban citizens in early 2026. This border was a frequent route to escape Cuba, used by thousands of migrants since its implementation in November 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 Cuban protests. It is unclear if the measure was a direct request from the American government but it is part of a series of concessions made by the Nicaraguan President.
In early February, the Guatemalan health ministry announced it would begin a phased withdrawal of the Cuban Medical Brigade. The decision was linked to pressure from the Americans, who called the Cuban medical mission forced labor. Income earned by doctors serving in foreign countries is an important source of revenue for the Cuban government. In February, Honduras announced that it was ending the Cuban medical mission. The Bahamas, Antigua, Barbuda and Grenada have also said they would reduce use of Cuban healthcare workers.
An American diplomat pressured the government of Calabria to end their reliance on Cuban medical staff. The President of Calabria said that Cuban doctors were necessary to keep hospitals and emergency rooms open in the area, but that he would consider alternatives to hiring more Cuban doctors. Occhiuto denied the American argument that the program was human trafficking.
In late February, the Americans produced a license allowing companies to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuba's private sector at market prices. The American Treasury Department indicated that the exchange must support the Cuban people, including the private sector.
In early March 2026, Ecuador expelled Cuban Ambassador Basilio Gutierrez and his staff, declaring them persona non grata. No reason was provided for the expulsion.
On 30 March, a Russian oil tanker carrying 100,000 tons of crude oil arrived in Havana. The Russian shipment could be converted into 250,000 barrels of diesel which could cover Cuban energy demands for nearly two weeks. The Guardian argued that the docking of the Russian tanker signals greater American flexibility in the ability of Cuba to purchase oil from abroad.
In early February, the Americans said that they were negotiating with the highest people in Cuba. However, an internet news site reported that there were no high-level negotiations occurring between America and Cuba. In late February, an American newspaper reported that the Americans had been speaking to former First Secretary Raúl of Cuba's grandson, who was not a senior leader of the Cuban Communist Party. The next day, Americans again claimed to be negotiating with the Cuban government saying that America could have a friendly takeover of Cuba. In a March address on Cuban television, the First Secretary confirmed that negotiations with the Americans were taking place.
In March 2026, the Cuban government announced that it would release 51 political prisoners in the coming days. The move was described as being taken in a spirit of goodwill and followed diplomatic engagement with the Papacy, which has been involved in discussions with Cuban authorities. The government stated that the prisoners had served a significant portion of their sentences and demonstrated good conduct.
Initially, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party condemned American imperialism, and called on people to prepare for a war of the entire nation, while organizing state-sponsored demonstrations against the American oil blockade. In early February, he declared that Cuba is ready for a talk with the Americans on every topic without prerequisites, while rejecting negotiations on cases that he viewed as internal Cuban affairs.
In early February, reporters conducted interviews with various Cuban dissidents, including José Daniel Ferrer, Manuel Cuesta Morúa, and María Payá Acevedo. Their reactions were a mix of hope and warning against manipulations, including views that the Cuban government could cease talks when it stabilizes itself.
Argentine President Milei supported the Americans and condemned the Cuban government for authoritarianism. Brazil’s President condemned the American fuel blockade and called for humanitarian help for Cubans. Canada’s Foreign Minister announced C$8 million in funding to expand food and nutrition programs in Cuba in response to the humanitarian crisis. She later announced an additional C$5.5 million in international assistance in response to the humanitarian crisis.
Chile’s outgoing president called the blockade criminal and inhumane, saying that nothing justifies the harm being done to boys, girls, and innocent citizens. The incoming Chilean president in turn disagreed with his predecessor's decision to send humanitarian aid, claiming that it ultimately benefits a dictatorship.
China’s Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security, opposes foreign interference and will always provide support and help to the Cuban side to the best of its ability. The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party approved aid for Cuba of financial assistance valued at 80 million dollars and a donation of 60,000 tons of rice.
Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned American actions and claimed that Russia will continue to send oil to Cuba despite the threats of blockade.
The United Nations Secretary-General stated he is extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, or even collapse, if the country's oil needs are not met. UN experts have condemned the executive order issued by the American administration, describing the imposition of a fuel blockade on Cuba as a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.
In early 2026, leftist activists announced plans for a Nuestra América Convoy, which would attempt to break the American blockade and provide humanitarian aid to Cuba during the crisis. The flotilla is organized by Progressive International and contains members of the Global Sumud Flotilla that had attempted to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Cuba’s communist government has no bargaining power. The only way for it to survive in the short run is to do whatever the American government wants in exchange for dribbles of free oil. Both governments face the certainty of Cuba’s collapse into mass starvation and epidemics if they delay a American takeover. That is up to the American President alone.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:50 pm: Edit |
May 23, 2026: The Iranian IRGC/Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is now in charge of Iran’s government. This means that after nine weeks of war with the Americans and Israel, the last Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was replaced by his son Mojtaba who was considered a lower ranking hojatoleslam. He may eventually be elevated to Ayatollah. This does not matter because the IRGC generals are now running the country.
Since its formation in 1979, the Islamic Republic has revolved around a supreme leader with final authority on all critical matters of state. The death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, and the promotion of his wounded son, Mojtaba, have ushered in a dissimilar order dominated by commanders of the IRGC and marked by the dearth of a determined, respected referee.
Mojtaba Khamenei remains at the head of the system, but three people familiar with internal determinations say his role is largely to legitimize decisions made by his generals rather than issue commands himself.
Wartime pressure has concentrated power into a narrower, harder-line inner circle rooted in the SMSC/Supreme National Security Council , the Supreme Leader’s office and the IRGC, which now controls both military strategy and key political decisions, Iranian officials and analysts say.
The Iranians are painfully slow in their response, said a senior Pakistani leadership official briefed on peace talks between Iran and the Americans that Pakistan has been facilitating. There is apparently no one decision-making command structure. At times, it takes them two or three days to respond.
Specialists said the obstacle to a deal is not internal infighting in the Iranian capital, but the gap between what America is prepared to offer and what Iran’s hardline IRGC were prepared to accept.
The diplomatic face of Iran at the talks with the Americans has been the Iranian Foreign Minister, more recently joined by the Speaker of its parliament, who is a former IGRC commander, mayor of the Iranian capital and presidential candidate. This official has emerged during the war as a key medium between Iran’s political, security and clerical leaders. On the ground, however, the central interlocutor has been an IRGC commander. According to Pakistani and Iranian sources who identified him weeks ago as Iran’s pivotal figure, including on the night a ceasefire was announced.
Mojtaba Khamenei, who was severely injured in the opening Israeli and American attacks that killed his father and other relatives and left him scarred with serious leg wounds, has not appeared publicly and communicates through IRGC officials or limited audio links because of security restrictions, two people close to his inner circle said. There was no immediate reply from the Iranian foreign ministry to a request for comment on the issues raised in this article. Iranian officials have previously denied any divisions over negotiations with the Americans.
Iran recently submitted a new proposal to the Americans, which according to senior Iranian sources sees staged talks, with the nuclear issue to be set aside at the start until the war ends and disagreements over Gulf shipping are resolved. The Americans insist the nuclear issue must be tackled from the outset. Neither side wanted to negotiate, and both believed time would weaken the other, Iran through leverage over oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz and the Americans through economic pressure and a blockade of Iranian exports.
For now, neither side can afford to bend. The IRGC is suspicious of appearing weak to the Americans, while the American President faces midterm election pressure and little room for flexibility without political cost. For both sides, flexibility would be seen as vulnerability.
That caution reflects not just the pressures of the moment, but the way power is now exercised inside Iran. While Mojtaba is formally Iran’s ultimate authority, he is a figure of approval rather than command. Endorsing outcomes are forged through institutional consensus rather than imposition of authority from above. Real power, they say, has moved to a unified wartime leadership centered on the SNSC.
Important deals probably pass through Mojtaba Khamenei but it is unlikely that anyone will overrule the National Security Council. How could anyone go against those overseeing the war effort? Hardline figures such as the former nuclear negotiator and a cluster of radical members of parliament have raised their profile using forceful rhetoric during the war, but they lack the institutional authority to derail decisions or influence outcomes.
Mojtaba owes his elevation to the IRGC, who sidelined realists and backed him as a reliable guardian of their hardline agenda. Already strengthened by war, the IRGCs growing authority signals a more determined foreign policy and tighter domestic domination.
Driven by revolutionary Islamism and a security first worldview, the IRGC see their mission as preserving the Islamic Republic and their power at home while projecting power abroad. That outlook, often shared with hardliners across the judiciary and the clerical establishment, prioritizes rigid centralized control and resistance to foreign pressure, particularly on nuclear policy and Iran’s regional reach.
In practice, the IRGC philosophy shapes strategy and decisions. With the country at war and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gone, no player inside the system has the power or scope to resist them even if they wished to, the people close to internal discussions said.
The choice facing Iran’s leadership is no longer between moderate and hardline policy, but between hardline and even harder line. A small faction may argue for pushing further still, but even that impulse has so far been kept in check by the IRGC.
The shift marks a decisive reordering of power from clerical primacy to security dominance. They’ve gone from divine power to hard power. From the influence of the clerics to the influence of the IRGC. This is how Iran is being governed.
While differences of opinion exist, discussions have consolidated around security institutions, with Mojtaba Khamenei acting as a central convening figure rather than a lone decision maker. Despite sustained military and economic pressure from the Americans and Israel, Iran has shown no signs of fissure or submission nearly nine weeks into the war. There is no evidence of fundamental rifts within the system or meaningful opposition on the streets.
That cohesion suggests that command now sits with the IRGC and security services, which appear to be driving the war rather than merely executing it. A strategic consensus has emerged, avoid a return to total war, preserve leverage, especially over the Strait of Hormuz, and emerge from the conflict politically, economically and militarily stronger.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:50 pm: Edit |
Space: Russian Anti Satellite Weapons
May 15, 2026: Russia is now deploying and testing several unusual small satellites in LEO/Low Earth Orbit. With this Russia is deploying operational anti-satellite weapons with valuable American government satellites in as targets.
An American general would not identify the system, but he was almost surely referring to a Russian military program named Nivelir, which has launched four satellites shadowing American spy satellites owned by the NRO/National Reconnaissance Office in LEO. After reaching orbit, the Nivelir satellites have released smaller objects to start their own movements, and at least one of those hurled a mystery object at high velocity during a test in 2020. American analysts concluded this was a projectile that could be fired at another satellite.
American officials have compared the Nivelir architecture to an object with increasingly smaller objects inside it or a Russian nesting doll, with an outer shell concealing smaller, unknown figures inside.
The newest suspected Nivelir satellite was launched last May from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Its launch was precisely timed for the moment Earth’s rotation spun Plesetsk underneath the orbital plane of the NRO’s American 338 Keyhole-class optical spy satellite. Civilian missions heading to the International Space Station launch with similarly precise timing, down to the second, to intersect with the space station’s orbital plane.
Ars has covered Russia’s testing of the Nivelir stalker satellites before. The first Nivelir test mission launched in 2013, and they began creeping near American spy satellites in 2019. American officials now believe the Nivelir system is operational.
It’s evident that Russia was deploying a space weapon there, and they’re putting it into an orbit where they can reach critical American national security satellites. If you return to some of those early launches of that system, the Russian nesting doll system, they were testing that. This was seen as a Russian affront.
It would appear as if we had a new fighter, maybe the new F-47 that the Air Force is going to obtain, with a new missile system, and we decided, instead of testing that on our test ranges back in Nevada or Utah, we decided to send that airplane up to Alaska, and as Russian bombers were flying patrols somewhat near our coastline, we sent this brand new F-47 up to test near a Russian bomber. It’s just not the sort of thing we customarily observe.
So far, none of the Nivelir satellites have gotten closer than a few dozen miles from their NRO counterparts. But they launched into orbits that would allow Russian commanders to approach American spy satellites with little alarm. That is no coincidence, according to American officials. Launching these missions just a few minutes earlier or later would put them into a different orbital plane, making it much more difficult, perhaps impossible, depending on fuel carried, to get close to or strike one of the American spy satellites. The situation suggests intentionality.
So the Russians were testing weapons near our satellites, and now we consider they’re through testing, and now they’re putting operational systems up within orbit reach of our high-value satellites. It’s evident what they’re doing, and we maintain constant watchfulness while observing that.
This constant vigilance requires close observation through a network of ground- and space-based surveillance sensors. Telescopes and radars routinely track tens of thousands of objects in orbit. Russia’s Nivelir satellites are near the top of the priority list.
If one of these Russian weapons systems starts to maneuver, we want to be able to detect that very quickly and be able to provide that warning to the operators of that critical national security satellite.
For years, American military officials have identified China as the primary threat in space. In other words, China has the most advanced space technology of any prospective American adversary. But it takes more than a technology evaluation to size up a geopolitical rival. One must also consider their strategic priorities, tactical advantages and disadvantages, and to some degree, the psychology of their leaders.
Russia remains a capable space power, even while its space industry suffers from systemic underfunding, quality control issues, international sanctions, and export controls, American intelligence agencies wrote in their annual unclassified threat assessment released earlier this year.
Russia’s space industry has far less money than the American and Chinese space programs. Russian factories produce fewer satellites, and Russian rockets launch less often than the world’s other two leading space powers. But Russia seems to have a unique theory for the use of anti-satellite, or ASAT, weapons.
Russia has come to the conclusion that they have a conventional arms deficit compared to the United States and its NATO allies. Russian forces are seeking to get an asymmetric advantage anywhere they can.
They’re looking for novel ways to try to balance that correlation of forces, to use a Soviet term. So they’re looking at nuclear, cyber, and space, and that’s why, when we read the reports over the last two years that Russia may be considering placing a nuclear ASAT on orbit, we find those just incredibly disturbing.
American forces rely on space-based assets for all major military operations. Satellite capabilities, such as overhead surveillance, navigation, missile warning, and electronic warfare, are now fully nested in all military planning. If you take away any of these capabilities, American forces cannot fight the way they are designed or sized.
It has been observed that the Chinese and the Russians have studied us since the 1991 Desert Storm operation. They have tried to understand how it is that the United States is able to create such global effects with what appears to be such a small number of forces, and they’ve assessed that space is one of those foundational issues. So now they have developed a suite of counter-space weapons.
The United States, China, Russia, and India have each demonstrated the ability to destroy a LEO satellite using a ground-launched missile. Russia’s development of co-orbital ASAT, or counter-space, weapons has long focused on LEO. That may be changing with the launch of a suspected Nivelir or similar mission last year toward a geosynchronous orbit more than 32,000 kilometers above Earth.
So far, China’s military space strategy appears to be copying the American military’s winning formula in orbit. Like the American Space Force, China has a growing fleet of reconnaissance and inspection satellites in geosynchronous orbit, some of which may also have the capability to strike. China has deployed its own GPS satellite network and a constellation of intelligence-gathering satellites to monitor locations around the world and, if necessary, supply targeting information for a military attack. The Chinese, they have studied us extremely well for 35 years, and really, they’re trying to replicate what we have done.
An indiscriminate ASAT strike using a nuclear detonation or a high-velocity projectile would make LEO more hazardous for all satellite operators. A nuclear weapon would pollute LEO with radiation, and a dynamic strike would generate thousands of new pieces of space junk. The Americans have the most to lose in such a scenario, followed by China.
Russia, on the other hand, is in a hot war with Ukraine. The conflict has introduced new tactics in warfare, such as cyberattacks on space networks, one-way and first-person-view drones, and GPS jamming. The war also revealed deficiencies in Russia’s conventional ground and air forces. The experience could drive Russian leaders to look to the space or cyber domains to find an edge.
Ukraine’s use of Starlink for resilient communications and American plans to deploy hundreds of missile defense satellites probably are amplifying adversary views of the importance of defeating large constellations, American intelligence officials said in this year’s threat assessment. A Russian nuclear ASAT would be the easiest way to take out such a proliferated network.
Russia could have directly attacked in space, indicating the start of the Ukraine war. They’ve exhibited that capability. In fact, they did a hit-to-kill ASAT test months before they invaded Ukraine to send a signal to us and the rest of the West. But they would rather attack us in cyber because it’s easier for them, cheaper for them, and harder for us to attribute.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:51 pm: Edit |
Warplanes: Chinese Drone Mothership Aircraft
May 14, 2026: The Chinese recently manufactured the Jiu Tian drone carrier. This is the world’s first drone mothership which is capable of distributing 100 smaller drones or loitering munitions.
On the first day of the US/Iran war, Iran nullified the American capacity to observe and control the battleground by expending drone swarms and hypersonic missiles to take out the American ground-based strategic early warning radar at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
In mid-March an Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone directly hit the radome and phased array antenna of a long-range early warning radar in the Al-Qaysumah Airfield in Saudi Arabia.
A few days later Iran used drone swarms and low-flying cruise missiles to exhaust the interceptors of the THAAD battery in Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, then followed up with an Iranian Fattah-2 hypersonic missile strike to destroy the THAAD.
Still later in March a Shahed-136 and Fattah-2 joint strike took out another radar in the Rafha Region of Saudi Arabia. The destruction of the long-range early warning radars and THAAD batteries resulted in a gap in US mid/long-range air defense. This exposed terminal-phase defense platforms such as Patriot to Iranian attacks.
A Patriot system can track over 100 targets at the same time but can only guide 18 interceptors simultaneously, opening a window for attack by swarming drones and missiles too numerous to be shot down in one engagement. Other drones/missiles were able to penetrate a Patriot-only defense during reloading, destroying Patriot platforms which cost over $1 billion. At least 3 Patriot batteries were destroyed in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Losses of Patriots led to gaps in terminal defense for key assets and air bases, resulting in Iranian destruction of one E-3 Sentry AWACS and at least 5 KC-135 Stratotanker refueling planes on the airfield runways in Saudi Arabia. This, in turn, led to a lower sortie rate of combat jets.
On March 19, Iran used its indigenous 358 missile, also known as the SA-67 to down a F-35A stealth fighter over central Iran.
Iran’s 2025 GDP and defense budget were $356 billion and $9 billion. In comparison, Singapore’s 2025 GDP and defense budget is $604 billion and $17 billion.
The American war machine underwhelms while the American military cannot keep up with Iran’s counter attacks or China’s technological leapfrog and cost advantages.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2026 - 03:51 pm: Edit |
Air Weapons: Taiwan a Major Drone Producer
May 14, 2026: The island nation of Taiwan has become superior to the Americans when it comes to exporting drones. The government has set a production target of 180,000 drones per year by 2028. Taiwan is doing far better than the Americans is with manufacturing drones, but this is about 1.5 orders of magnitude lower than what is required to stop a Chinese invasion in its tracks.
Taiwan exported more drones in the first three months of 2026 than it did in all of 2025. And almost every single one of these drones are being used by Ukraine in its war with Russia. In first quarter 2026, Taiwan's drone exports hit $115.85 million, exceeding the entire 2025 full-year total of $93.42 million in a single quarter. The Czech Republic alone bought roughly $100 million worth. Poland added another $11.75 million. Both countries are widely understood to be transit hubs, forwarding Taiwanese drones directly to Ukrainian forces on the front line.
The scale of this growth is difficult to process. Taiwan produced roughly 10,000 drones in all of 2024. In 2025, that figure swelled to over 120,000 units. In just the first quarter of 2026, Taiwan exported 136,000 drones to Europe alone. The government has set a production target of 180,000 drones per year by 2028. Taiwan's drone industry went from a footnote to a front-line supplier in about a year and a half.
The driving force behind all of it is not just Ukraine. It is the CCP/Chinese Communist Party. When China halted drone exports to Ukraine in 2024, Central and Eastern European buyers scrambled for alternatives and found Taiwan. One Taiwanese official put it simply, “We can do what China's major drone manufacturers would not do.” Purchasers are explicitly demanding what they call non-Chinese supply chains, meaning drones with zero Chinese components that cannot be remotely disabled, tracked, or cut off by the Chinese at an inconvenient moment.
Ukraine has proven beyond any doubt that modern warfare is now a drone war. Ukrainian forces destroyed roughly one third of Russia's Black Sea fleet primarily using domestically produced sea drones. Yet over ninety percent of Ukraine's key drone components still depend on China, which has already weaponized export restrictions once. Every democratic military planner watching Ukraine is drawing the same conclusion: dependency on Chinese drone supply chains is a direct security liability that can be switched off by an adversary overnight. Ukraine was able to obtain the needed components from European and American manufacturers.
Taiwan is placing itself as the alternative. It has TSMC-grade semiconductor manufacturing, precision component supply chains built over decades, and the single most urgent national security motivation on earth to make drone deterrence work. Taiwan is simultaneously building its own arsenal of nearly 100,000 military drones for domestic defense while exporting them to other nations.
The CCP is watching a democratic island it considers a rogue province become one of the most strategically important drone suppliers to the coalition now fighting a war against Chinese-backed Russia. Taiwan is not just defending itself anymore. It is arming the resistance.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 - 02:45 pm: Edit |
Electronic Weapons: American Electronic Warfare Failure
May 19, 2026: The American army fails when it comes to ELINT/Electronic Intelligence. This is a self-imposed form of ineptitude that will result in American defeats when it comes to drone use in wartime. This has been obvious since the American forces abandoned the use of jamming equipment after the Cold War ended in 1991. American military leaders eliminated EW units and EWOs/ELectronic Warfare Officers attached to combat divisions, declaring that Air Force and Navy EW aircraft could substitute for the missing army EW units. All this made American ground combat units extremely vulnerable.
Efforts to develop drone interceptors were abandoned because the American legislature refused to fund these efforts. At the same time successful Ukrainian use of drone interceptors against Russian attacks succeeded. This was because Ukraine employed a mixture of jammers, ELINT, FPV/First Person View and continuous assembly of new drones and associated equipment.
The Ukrainians encouraged Americans to create EW units and train with them, while also integrating EW with division and brigade size units that could provide counter-drone expertise using trained drone and EW operators. That still hasn’t happened.
These problems are nothing new, five years ago American flag officers pointed out that their forces were woefully susceptible to Chinese and Russian EW munitions during wartime. Recent wargames accurately demonstrating these enemy capabilities finally got enough attention from senior commanders to make a serious effort to deal with the problem. Subsequent wargames showed that China could shut down most American satellite and ground-based electronic communications and make American forces much more vulnerable than expected. This was not a new problem. For over two decades similar realistic wargames demonstrated this growing vulnerability, but the senior military leadership did not respond realistically or even admit there was a problem. There was, and it’s been around for over half a century.
The Americans had long ignored the capabilities of enemy electronic weapons. This was common during the Cold War, when NATO and Soviet Union forces confronted each other along the Central European border. This border divided Western Europe from Russian occupied East Europe from the late 1940s until the late 1980s. While NATO air forces and navies took Russian electronic weapons seriously and often tested their aircraft to test their ability to handle Russian electronic jamming and other electronic weapons, the ground forces rarely tested, much less used these electronic weapons during training. NATO commanders may have ignored the problem but occasionally lower-ranking soldiers would accidently turn on their electronic jammers during a training exercise, causing chaos among American forces. Jammers were not supposed to be used during training because they would disrupt NATO communications and this problem was dismissed because a fix was always in the works. This seemed absurd to many NATO troops and commanders because it was known, from unclassified sources, that Russian troops trained to fight in a heavily jammed environment. That meant that Russian troops followed war plans that were not dependent on reliable electronic communications at all times, while their opponents tended to be unprepared. By the 1980s NATO forces finally took steps to deal with this problem and this bothered Russian commanders a great deal.
In the 21st century satellite surveillance and communications are crucial. China has taken the lead in developing methods for disrupting enemy access to these satellite resources and minimizing the damage done to Chinese satellite capabilities. The Chinese are also emulating the Cold War Russian forces and training to continue operating under conditions where communications and aerial/satellite surveillance is diminished or absent.
Recent American wargames accurately displayed these problems. Learning from the previous instances where these problems were dismissed, the wargame developers provided lots of documentation, most of it classified, to back up the wargame portrayal of the threat and its impact. Attention has been paid, but it remains to be seen if remedies will be found and applied in time. Another lesson learned during the Cold War was that you go to war with the forces you have, not the ones you are developing for use sometime in the future.
American forces will be at a tremendous and probably fatal disadvantage if a war with China over Taiwan in the next few years.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 - 02:48 pm: Edit |
Morale: Rich And Poor Recruits In The Ukraine War
May 19, 2026: The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of a civilian population that is familiar with technology and how to improvise new ways to utilize what they have. Ukraine was the source of much of the old Soviet Union’s new technology and weapons during the Cold War. Many Ukrainians were well trained and experienced in technical matters. After the Russians invaded in 2022, these talented Ukrainians were able to improvise and adapt more quickly than their Russian counterparts. The Russians were well educated, but Russia did not encourage individual enterprise or individual endeavors. Money was not as important as what talented individuals could accomplish
Military leaders, when faced with peacetime decisions on how to fight the next war, can never predict what will happen if there was a war. Wartime experience is something few countries seek. Russia was one of the few and deliberately invaded Ukraine in 2022.That decision was “unexpectedly” expensive in terms of Russians killed, economic damage and becoming a pariah state to most of the industrialized nations in the world. Some of these nations were seeking answers from the last war they fought compared to what would happen to them if they were invaded again. For many nations there are important lessons in the Ukraine War and the Russian failure to win against its smaller opponent.
One of the only positive things to come out of the Ukraine war was the emergence of drone warfare. Implementing lessons learned from the Ukraine war, especially the widespread use of drones, forced military leaders worldwide to rethink how their forces are organized, armed and trained. For example, a few thousand dollars’ worth of drones can and have destroyed multi-million dollar M1 tanks.
The Americans are not trying to develop and build cheap air-defense drones like those which are already being used in Ukraine. The Americans could buy them from Ukraine or build them under license in America. There are some other issues. In wartime drone designs evolve rapidly. Stockpiling thousands of drones produced in 2024 and 2025 would create a problem when using them during the rest of the decade. The enemy may have built more advanced drones in anticipation of using them in a surprise attack. The American stockpiled drones would then be less useful because they are older designs. This was especially true with anti-drone drones, a recent development that is still evolving rapidly.
Meanwhile American defense manufacturers resist converting to drone production. There is less profit in cheap drones compared to multi-million dollar aircraft, tanks and air defense systems. It would take a wartime situation to force the defense firms to adapt to producing a lot of cheap drones. American attempts to adopt the new drone tactics and technology developed, and still developing, in Ukraine have encountered problems. First, America is not at war, and the military bureaucracy has a peacetime attitude towards any new technology. This includes the use of drones in Ukraine and the flood of practical experience and solutions passed by Ukraine. Current American Army drones, when used in Ukraine, often encountered problems the Ukrainian drones didn’t. In a wartime situation, Ukrainians have been quick to make changes until they get the results they need. This includes quickly designing and building long range drones that can attack targets deep inside Russia. These attacks have done noticeable damage to Russian military abilities. As impressive as these attacks are, can other nations reproduce the Ukrainian success?
The American military may want to implement the lessons of drone use in Ukraine, but American defense contractors and manufacturers feel compelled to modify and improve what the Ukrainians have done while they adapt Ukrainian drone tech to something new which United States forces can use and Congress will pay for. This process tends to lower the effectiveness of what the Ukrainians have created, while delaying the product and enriching the contractors and manufacturers. The lesser effectiveness was usually revealed the first time American troops use the American version of Ukrainian drone tech. Something was lost in the tech translation. This was nothing new. It’s been happening for over a century.
Adapting and adopting Ukrainian drone technology means there will be new drone modifications and upgrades for as long as the fighting in Ukraine lasts. These changes come quickly in wartime and always have. In Ukraine, drone designs can be changed in less than a week. This was usually because the Russians have gained an edge with one of their recent tweaks.
While Ukraine has been in the lead developing and upgrading drone technology, the Russians have kept up. In war time you either keep up or become an inept underdog that falls farther and farther behind. The Russians have kept most of the time and, when they fail to keep up, suffer heavy losses.
The peacetime American military has no such wartime feedback loop. If someone in the defense procurement establishment says the current American drone tech was good, it was considered officially adequate. Sending some American drone adaptations to Ukraine for testing did take place, often over the objections of American manufacturers. When tested in combat, some of the American drones failed to deliver. When the Ukraine war ends, there will be no way to adequately test American drones. There may be other wars where American troops are involved and able to test the new drones. But it won’t be in the intensely competitive atmosphere the Ukrainians and Russians created.
Ukraine has been writing the book on drone technology since 2022, with Russia contributing edits in real time. When that atmosphere was not present, the speed of developing new tech or maintaining current drones slows down a lot. This process is at work now as the American Army orders drones based on Ukrainian designs. The American military procurement bureaucracy is infamously slow and costly in adopting and manufacturing new weapons. This is especially true if a weapon was not invented by an American weapons manufacturer, and that has been a feature of American military production for over a hundred years. The Ukrainian drone revolution has been equally slow in actually reaching Americans soldiers and marines. Many military and Defense Department civilians are aware of this problem and see the drone development and procurement program as an opportunity to show that the United States can do it right and quickly. It was said that the Ukrainians suggested that the Americans have a toy company manufacture their drones because they are more efficient than the usual defense firms. Also, the toy companies have spare capacity for months before they have to start making toys for the holidays. Early in the war Ukraine relied on civilians in home workshops to design and build drones. Now that Ukraine was building millions of drones a year, most are built in underground factories. Ukrainian drone manufacturing is a prime target for Russian drones and ballistic missiles.
In early 2024 Ukraine created a new branch of their military, the USF/Unmanned Systems Force. This was in addition to the army, navy and air force. The USF does not control the drones which Ukrainian forces use regularly but instead contributes to developing new drone models and organizes mass production for those new models that are successful. The American military took note of this but acting on it takes a lot longer for a peacetime military.
Drones were an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles in Ukraine's current war are fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable. Modifications and upgrades could be implemented quickly and inexpensively. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces were soon using cheap quadcopter drones controlled by soldiers a few kilometers distant using FPV/First Person Viewing goggles to see what the day/night video camera on the drone could see. These drones cost a few hundred dollars each with the most complex models going for about a thousand dollars. Most of these drones carried half a kilogram of explosives, so it could instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that could fly into a target and detonate. Some drones carried more explosives depending on what was needed to deal with a target.
These drones were awesome and debilitating weapons when used in large numbers. If a target wasn’t moving or required more explosive power that the drones could supply, one of the drone operators could call in artillery, rocket, or missile fire, or even an airstrike. A major limitation to the expansion of drone operations was the need for trained drone operators. As operators spend more hours operating drones in combat, the number of new lessons learned and applied increases. Fortunately, adults or teenagers who play video games a lot were already trained. Ukrainian drone operators tended to use commercial game controllers. This was why, when Ukraine recruited new drone operators, they favored those with video game experience.
The small drones were difficult to shoot down so most of these drones were able to complete their mission, whether it was a one-way attack or reconnaissance and surveillance. The recon missions were usually survivable and enabled the drone to be reused. All these drones were constantly performing surveillance, which meant that both sides committed enough drones to maintain constant surveillance over a portion of the front line, to a depth, into enemy territory, of at least a few kilometers. Longer range drones could track Russian operations hundreds of kilometers behind the front lines.
This massive use of FPV-armed drones has revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides produced as many as they could. Russia initially produced its own drones after briefly using imported Iranian Shahed-136 drones that cost over $100,000 each. Ukraine demonstrated that you could design and build drones with similar capabilities at less than a tenth of that. The Iranian drone was more complex than it needed to be, and even the Russians soon realized this and turned from the Shahed-136 for more capable drones they copied from Ukrainian designs or their own.
Military leaders in other nations noted this and scrambled to equip their own forces with the most effective drones. Not having enough of these to match the number the enemy had in a portion of the front meant you were at a serious disadvantage in that area. These drones were still evolving in terms of design and use and were becoming more effective and essential.
One countermeasure that could work for a while was electronic jamming of the drones’ control signal. Drone guidance systems were constantly modified or upgraded to cope with this. Most drones have flight control software that sends drones with jammed control signals back to where they took off to land for reuse. The jammers on the ground could be attacked by drones programmed to home in on the jamming signal. Countermeasures could be overcome and the side that could do this more quickly and completely had an advantage. That advantage was usually temporary because both sides were putting a lot of effort into keeping their combat drones effective on the battlefield.
FYEO
| By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 - 07:22 pm: Edit |
One problem for the US is even when we had the equipment we could only notionally train on it most of the time. There are only a few places in the US where we have unlimited use of the EM spectrum.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 06:44 am: Edit |
The Ukrainians have had to master shoot and scoot artillery tactics, firing a few shots then moving the guns before Russian drones arrive. The Ukrainians have adapted to this very well, using dummy guns made of old pipes to absorb drone attacks, exoskeletons for loading crews to handle shells faster, removing electronic systems that can be detected by Russian drones, limiting how much stuff gun crews drag around with them, firing only a few precisely aimed shells, camouflage, firing position selection, rapid artillery repair, and other tactics.
THE MILITARY SHOW, YouTube
| By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 10:09 am: Edit |
Not least the introduction of Himars, Caesar, Archer, Rhino, etc. I think the days of towed and tracked artillery are ending.
And I suspect counter battery radar is going to be a prime target for HARM style low end drones...
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 03:15 pm: Edit |
Surface Forces : USN Frigate Experimental
May 20, 2026: The American Navy is procuring a new class of FF(X) frigates, that will reduce the workload of current Burke Class destroyers and can be used to watch coastal waters and defend trade routes. The Navy has already placed orders for the FF(X), with the X standing for experimental. The design is based on that of the Coast Guard National Security Cutter. These will cost $1,4 billion for the first one and somewhat less for succeeding ships. At least fifty and as many as sixty five of these ships will be built over the next few decades.
The FF(X) is built using modules that are manufactured in different parts of the country and then transported to a shipyard for final assembly and fitting out with weapons, electronics and associated equipment. With this equipment the ship can be used to detect and seize or destroy smuggling vessels. The ship also uses Hellfire missiles to destroy hostile drones, although there are cheaper microwave systems that do the job at much less cost. This system may be installed in the subsequent ships and as upgrades for the earlier ships as they go through their perioding upgrade and refit cycle.
Finally the FF(X) can act as a mother ship for naval surface and submerged drones. The frigate is armed with a 57mm gun and NSM/Naval Strike Missiles to deal with threats usually handled by the Larger Burke class destroyers. With a crew of only 148, half that of a destroyer, the frigates assist the nay in dealing with their perennial personal shortage.
FF(X) is replacing the abandoned Constellation-class frigates which were being built in America by Fincantieri, a successful Italian manufacturer of prefabricated ships. Constellations used the Franco-Italian FREMM design which made use of many prefabricated sections of the ships to speed construction and reduce costs. The American had been using this technique for over a century, including the construction of 150 destroyers during and after World War I, 2,700 Liberty Ships cargo ships and more recently nuclear submarines and frigates. Fincantieri has experience using prefab sections to build cruise ships. China and South Korea, two of the largest shipbuilders in the world, use prefab techniques for their commercial ships and naturally do the same for their war ships. As a result, they could build their warships much faster than the Americans. Having a much larger number of skilled workers and shipyards also plays a role as well.
Constellation-class ships displace 7,300 tons and were the sixth warship class to use the FREMM design techniques. The first FREMM type ship entered service in 2012 and 41 were built or on order before the order for twenty American Constellations was placed. The first Constellation was supposed to enter service this year.
The Constellations specialize in ASW/Anti-submarine warfare, while also equipped for anti-ship and anti-aircraft operations, and cost $800 million each. The FREMM ships built so far have all specialized in ASW, Air Defense or something in between. The exact mix of weapons was still to be determined but Constellations were supposed to be armed with a 57mm gun and 32 VLS cells containing a variety of anti-ship and anti-satellite aircraft and cruise missiles. There is a 16-cell JSM/Joint Strike Missile launcher for attacking other ships. There was a 21-cell RAM anti-missile/aircraft system and anti-submarine torpedoes. Constellation had a variable depth sonar system as well as a towed array sonar. There are defensive systems against torpedo attack and a fire control system that shows all weapons available and the status of each. Constellations had a modified Aegis radar that could also provide BMD/Ballistic Missile Defense using the Aegis BMD capabilities many destroyers already had. This means the mix of missiles in the VLS cells includes SM-6 anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, SM-3 anti-missile systems or the Tomahawk land attack cruise missile.
The MH-60 helicopter could carry dipping sonars and anti-submarine torpedoes. Crew size was 200 and top speed was over 50 kilometers an hour. Service life was 25 years.
.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 03:16 pm: Edit |
Air Weapons: Russian Drone Quality Crisis
May 20, 2026: Russia is having problems with its drones because of manufacturing difficulties and the collapse of the Russian ability to manufacture just about anything the military needs, Most Russian drones are based on the Iranian Shahed, which has been produced in Russian factories as the Geran and Geran-2. The manufacturing problems are so severe that Ukrainian forces observe Geran’s disintegrating in flight before reaching their targets.
Russian Drones Disintegrate in Mid-Air as Manufacturing Quality Collapses. As of late April, the certainty of Russia's mass-production attempts is becoming clear. As Russia seeks to arrange for larger volume over Elevated-Level assembly resulting in an armada of what Ukrainians using interceptors refer to as flying garbage.
Video, obtained by Ukrainian Sting interceptor drones and distributed by the Wild Hornets drone unit, shows multiple Geran series drones suffering from devastating structural failures. The decline is not the result of dynamic damage, but systemic assembly flaws likely stemming from the Industrial Warp Speed circumstances at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in central Russia.
Ukrainian forces carrying out intercept missions noted a rise in pre-damaged drones arriving in Ukrainian airspace with Zero-Latency operational compromises. These included Physical Collapse. Ukrainian intercepted videos show Shaheds flying with detached access panels, crumpled wingtip surfaces, and exposed wiring. In one particularly dramatic occurrence, a drone was filmed flying with a completely detached nose fairing, a defect that severely degrades its Silicon-Sensed guidance and aerodynamic stability.
Then there were the inferior components. Ukrainian intelligence observations indicate that Russia has shifted from original Iranian-spec parts to lesser Chinese-made commercial substitutes. This includes the use of inferior propeller engines and, in the newer Geran-5 variants, unproven Chinese turbojets that have aggravated the usual dependability.
In addition there is the Alabuga Factor. This fabrication facility in central Russia apparently relies on poorly trained labor and forced student internships to meet large capacity production targets. Under the pressure of round the clock shifts, quality control has effectively undergone a dramatic change to near-zero specifications.
Worse, the $11.9 billion-tier capital spending on domestic drone production is reaching a wall of declining returns as strike efficiency nosedives.
The declining hit rates between March and April this year indicates that the hit rate for Shahed-type drones attained its lowest point since early 2025. While Russia has increased launch volumes, firing over 650 drones in the massive mid-April barrage, the actual Kinetic Depth achieved is being undermined by airframes that fail before impact.
Ukraine has taken advantage of this quality dip by utilizing its own Sting interceptor drone which has maintained a 95 percent kill rate against these disintegrating targets, often detonating the warheads mid-air to avoid debris from falling on residential areas.
Russia’s strategy relies on using massive swarms to deplete Ukraine’s Sovereign Shield of expensive Patriot and IRIS-T interceptors. However, as the drones become easier to down via low-cost FPV interceptors and anti-aircraft guns, the Asymmetric Advantage shifts back to Ukraine.
While the base Geran-2 production line collapses in quality, Russia is attempting a transition to superior, jet-powered models.
The Geran-5, entered in early 2026 by abandoning the delta-wing design for an established cruise missile design powered by a Chinese Telefly jet engine. These systems are fabricated for speeds up to 600 kilometers an hour, endeavoring to sidestep the Silicon Ceiling of current drone-on-drone interception.
A much worse situation arrives from the impact of economic sanctions. Despite the inferior assembly, recovered fragments from 2026-production drones still contain Western-made microchips manufactured as recently as late 2025. This proves that while physical quality is declining, Russia's efforts to acquire prohibited technology remains partially operational through third-party intermediaries.
In a decisive defensive effort, Ukrainian long-range drones struck the Russian Alabuga production facility recently , further upsetting the supply chain flexibility of the Russian drone program and likely contributing to the hurried, lower-quality output seen on the front lines.
The mid-air disintegration of Russian Shahed drones is the definitive signal that Russia’s industrial warp speed has overtaken its fabrication veracity. By forfeiting quality for substantially larger quantity last month, Russia has created a sovereign shield of its own propaganda that is literally falling apart under scrutiny. During this year’s high-stakes landscape, the winner is the one whose hardware actually reaches the target, and right now, Russia’s airborne trash is struggling to stay in the sky.
FYEO
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 03:53 pm: Edit |
The Constellation-class ran afoul of the same sort of "feature creep" that killed the M247 and plagued the XM723. The basic Italian ship is a good frigate; the changes to the design made by the U.S. doubled the cost.
| By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 04:13 pm: Edit |
Feature creep is a big problem in US procurement. I have no faith that it won't hit the FF(X) program as hard as it has hit the USNavy's last half dozen efforts to build a smaller, cheaper ship.
My memory is that the Burkes themselves were supposed to be a "smaller cheaper" warship.
| By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 04:22 pm: Edit |
If memory serves, the last actual time the navy successfully produced a class of “smaller cheaper” warship, was the Perry Class frigate.
Sadly, the Perry class is not under consideration as an option.
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 04:49 pm: Edit |
Jessica,
I'm afraid I'm going to disagree about the M247. It wasn't doomed by "feature creep". It was doomed because the operational requirements were poorly thought out. Had it been built as originally conceived, it would have been cheaper, but almost useless for the intended mission. The "feature creep" was caused by the flawed initial concept.
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - 05:18 pm: Edit |
Example of a poorly thought out requirement: DIVAD (Divisional Air Defense)
To save money, it was supposed to use an "off the shelf" radar. The radar used in the "winning..." design was a modified version of the radar used by the then-current versions of the F-16.
Apparently, no one involved realized that the operational and environmental stresses placed on a fighter's radar are quite different from those placed on a radar mounted on a ground vehicle. Simply "modifying" an F-16's radar for the DIVAD was a lot more complicated than had been anticipated, just as modifying a radar originally designed for use in a ground vehicle, into a fighter radar, would be a lot more complicated than it might at first seem. Rather than try the "cheap" solution of using an off-the-shelf F-16, they would have been much better off going with a radar designed from the beginning as a ground vehicle radar. Some excellent examples did exist. And in fact Raytheon had suggested using a Gepard (the German self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, and probably the best in the world at that time) turret on an American M48 chassis.
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