Hope: This Week in Ukraine
Hope: This Week in Ukraine
Azov's aid, airliner's Armageddon, Abrams' arrogance, ATACMS' annunciation, annoying alliteration, and more!
1. No Aid for You! Come Back in One Year, or When You Get a PR Plan
The week’s biggest story is that Biden signed the foreign aid bill that will provide Ukraine with $60 billion in aid. This brings the total US aid to Ukraine to around $160 billion since the start of the full-scale invasion (the total European contribution is around $180 billion). This bill includes giving Ukraine more Bradley IFVs, artillery rounds, ATACMS, and missile defense. It does not include Abrams tanks (see below). Ukraine needs all this, and more. But you know who won’t be getting much-needed US military support? The Azov Brigade.
Azov is one of the most storied brigades in modern Ukraine. The unit began as a regiment during the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in 2014, successfully defending the city of Mariupol against the original Russian invasion of Ukraine. Again in 2022, Azov fought the Russians in Mariupol, and many of their soldiers were taken captive or executed. The problem with Azov is they are associated, rightly or wrongly, with neo-Nazism. Many of their founding members seemed to have neo-Nazi and far-right ideologies. Putin named Azov as “proof” that Ukraine was in dire need of denazification. In 2018, the US passed a law specifically denying US aid to Azov, and that prohibition continues with the current aid package.
A lot of military organizations have a PR problem, just look at the US Space Force. And, I’m not saying members of Azov are clandestinely neo-Nazis or ultra-nationalists. I’m simply saying that the Azov brigade seems to have done a poor job of convincing the West that they are not. So, why doesn’t the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) simply disband Azov?
Although the Ukrainian military has a massive recruiting problem, Azov seems to be very popular. With over 5,000 troops in the brigade, they have a waiting list to join. As I traveled throughout unoccupied Ukraine, especially in Kyiv, it was hard to go anywhere that didn’t have a large “A3OB” recruiting billboard or poster. It’s not just an Azov issue; the brigade seems to be a recruiting tool for the entire AFU. Also, the brigade is currently one of the more tactically successful in the AFU. In Ukraine, there are military-proficient brigades and some not-so-effective brigades. Azov fought hard at Mariupol, and they are still fighting against the Russians.
There is a tenet of land warfare that says commanders should reinforce success. Whatever Azov is doing, they seem to be doing it well. They could do it better with US weapons. Right now, the Ukrainians need every advantage they can get, and arming one of their most militarily proficient brigades with Western weapons could help solidify a large portion of the northeastern front. Unfortunately for Azov, it is reprehensible for the US to provide support to a military unit that can’t seem to shake its extremist past. Until it can sufficiently convince the world that it’s not secretly neo-Nazi ultra-right-wing nationalists, the Azov brigade is on its own.
2. As If Commercial Air Travel Doesn’t Suck Enough
Technological advances that occur during large-scale wars tend to change society—sometimes for the better (microwave ovens), sometimes for the worse (nuclear weapons). This week, a small story that went unnoticed may presage a major change in our society. Over the weekend, London hosted the Defence Tech Hackathon, with the theme being drones in Ukraine. One such project was “High-Speed Interceptor for Orlan Drones.”
The Russian Orlan reconnaissance drone is a much smaller, garbage version of a US Grey Eagle drone (actually, an Iranian Shahed might be a better comparison). The idea behind the hackathon project is simple: A small FPV-like drone will fly up at high speeds and hit the Orlan. This is great for the Ukrainians, but bad for anyone who flies in an airplane.
This could be the end of civilian air travel as we know it. If a civilian-made drone can hit an Orlan, there’s not much more technology needed to hit a civilian airliner. I spoke with a pilot who flies cargo airplanes for the military about the possibility of taking down a large, two-engine passenger plane with a couple of drones. His response was, “you could easily take out an airliner by a few drones getting sucked into both engines. Your best chance of taking down any airplane is the critical phase of takeoff at 50-200 feet [above the ground]. If you lost both engines, there’s no runway left in front of you to put it down, and you don’t have enough energy to time to turn around or find a suitable area to safely land.” And what about drone speed? Currently, the quadcopter drone speed-record is held by a Swedish company called the Gods of Drones. Their drone can accelerate to 217 mph in 4 seconds. I contacted these Swedish gods for comment, but they politely refused because of the military-application nature of my inquiry.
I’m not talking about a sophisticated AI swarm attack taking out an airliner, or using explosive devices. I’m talking about two guys simultaneously flying a couple of drones into both engines of an airplane. If you don’t think humans could pull that off skill-wise, then you’ve not been paying attention to any of the thousands of Ukrainian FPV videos.
It only has to happen one time. Richard Reid decided to try and light his sneaker bombs on fire in 2001, and we are still taking our shoes off in the security line. The Ukraine war has produced a number of technological developments, most of which will go unnoticed. But the airplane-killing drone? It’s like Leon Trotsky said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
3. The Tank is Dead. Still.
What will it take to convince the military strategic intelligentsia to embrace the idea that the tank is dead? This week, the Ukrainians decided to remove all the US Abrams from the battlefield because it was just too dangerous out there for the little 70-ton battle tank. The reason cited by two unnamed US officials was that the Russian FPV drone threat has grown too ubiquitous, and too deadly. Ukraine has lost at least 5 of its 31 Abrams tanks (not all of these losses are to FPVs). I can strongly conclude from this “retrograde deployment” of the Abrams that neither the US nor Ukraine has developed an adequate, portable electronic-warfare counter to FPV drones. For further analysis, see my article I posted last month entitled 8 Things That Will NOT Prevent Your Tank From Exploding in Ukraine.
4. An ATACMS Bridge to Nowhere
It came out this week that the US had secretly given Ukraine around 100 of the long-range version of the ATACMS missiles that are fired from the HIMARS missile launcher. The Biden administration was dragging its feet on giving it to Ukraine because it has a range of over 190 miles and could threaten targets well within Russia. This week, the Ukrainians used ATACMS to destroy four S-400 air defense systems in Crimea. The S-400 is the same air-defense system that Turkey decided to buy from Russia in 2017. The US responded to that purchase by prohibiting the sale of the F-35 fighter to Turkey. Putin and Erdogan had a good little laugh over it in 2019 when Iranian drones attacked Saudi’s Abqaiq–Khurais oil fields. Putin quipped, “They [the Saudis] need to make a clever decision, as Iran did by buying our S-300, and as Mr. Erdogan did by deciding to buy the most advanced S-400 Triumph air defense systems from Russia.”
Who’s laughing now? It looks like Ukraine is systematically reducing Russian air defense in Crimea. The obvious conclusion is that the Ukrainians will continue to use ATACMS to attack Crimea, disable Russian air defense, and prepare to attack with long-range drones and other missiles like the Storm Shadow cruise missile. While the Ukrainians promised not to use ATACMS on the Russian Motherland, the question is, was the Kerch Strait Bridge part of that restriction?
The Kerch Strait Bridge is strategically and financially significant to Putin. It cost $8 billion to build in 2016, in a show of “this is what Russia can do for you. See? Much better.” It connects the Krasnodar area of mainland Russia to Crimea and allows Russia to transport materiel to the front. The bridge is well within the range of ATACMS. Just like hitting refineries inside of Russia, the Ukrainians have no strategic military reason not to destroy the bridge. The only reason why this might not happen is if Biden refuses to allow it. Judging by the Ukrainian’s recent choice to use ATACMS to attack mainland Crimea instead of a massive surprise attack on the bridge, I would say the Kerch is off limits.
5. [Video] Turnabout Is Fly Play
First, I apologize for the above pun. Second, you’ve probably seen many videos of FPV drones flying into and destroying tanks, houses, trenches, and Columbia protesters (what, no?). But, have you ever wondered what it’s like to be on the receiving end? In this week’s video, Ukrainian soldiers are the recipients of the dreaded buzzzzzz sound.
6. Note from the Author
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