Can Ukraine Bomb Russia Into Submission?

By Olexandr @ Adobe Stock

Can Ukraine bomb Russia into submission? The idea seems comical, but the Ukrainians are working on ways to strike deeper into Russia in hopes of shortening the war. Isabel Coles reports in The Wall Street Journal:

Inside a hangar tucked away in western Ukraine, dozens of workers in protective clothing mold fiberglass mesh and assemble the pieces into potent weapons: long-range drones.

With a range of up to 500 miles, the drones made here are designed to meet surging demand as Ukraine ramps up a campaign of strikes deep inside Russian territory in the third year of the war.

“There’s a lot of orders we still can’t fulfill,” said the owner of the plant, who declined to be named because of concerns about being targeted by Russia.

Facing setbacks on the battlefield, Ukraine is using long-range drones to reach far behind the front line with Russian forces, hitting oil refineries, airfields and logistics. The strikes aim to squeeze fuel supplies to the Russian military and deprive Moscow of export revenues to fund the war. By bringing the war home to Russia, Kyiv could also compel Moscow to redeploy air-defense systems away from the front lines.

Cheaper and more available than cruise missiles, domestically produced drones enable Kyiv to get around political constraints on using weapons supplied by Western allies in attacks on Russian territory. Startup drone makers have cropped up to meet demand with products ranging from the sleek UJ-25 Skyline to an unnamed model with a fuselage made from a length of plumbing pipe.

Ukrainian officials said drones struck two oil refineries and an airfield in the Krasnodar region overnight into Saturday in the latest attack.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air-defense systems shot down 50 drones on a single day last weekend, including over the Moscow region. Falling debris ignited fires at energy infrastructure facilities in two regions, officials said. Earlier this month, drones struck an oil refinery and drone factory in Russia’s Tatarstan region some 930 miles from the border with Ukraine, demonstrating the growing range of Ukraine’s capabilities.

The strikes are a bright spot for Ukraine at a time when its battlefield prospects have darkened. The campaign, however, has emerged as a fault line between Kyiv and the Biden administration, which is concerned about the impact on energy prices.

“Ukraine is better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month.

Ukrainian officials say they must use all available means to resist Russia after a lengthy delay in the delivery of aid from the U.S. revealed the limits of Western support. A $60 billion package of aid for Kyiv was recently unblocked, but the infusion of arms and ammunition is unlikely to dramatically reverse Kyiv’s fortunes.

Ukrainian officials say they plan to make thousands of long-range drones this year.

In the early days of the war, Ukraine adapted commercially available drones such as the Chinese-built Mugin-5, which defense analyst H I Sutton said was used in one of the first attacks on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the occupied Crimean Peninsula in August 2022.

That and other similar drones have gradually been supplanted by Ukraine’s own designs—though they remain heavily reliant on commercially available Chinese components.

Read more here.