Fortune-telling in Russia and Ukraine in 2022 _ Present situation in Russia

[Reported at the end of 2022] The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has brought four inspirations.

weapon

Drones that have changed the war situation many times.

Although various weapons have been put into the Russian-Ukrainian conflict one after another, global military experts generally believe that various drones used by both sides have had a great impact on the trend of the war situation many times.

The US "Defense News" admits that the traditional American military view holds that it is difficult for conventional drones to survive in high-intensity modern wars. Therefore, the requirements of the United States for the next generation of drones are to further strengthen advanced performance indicators such as high speed and stealth. Therefore, the cost of drones is becoming more and more expensive. However, the experience of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has completely subverted this view.

In the early days of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, faced with Russia's all-round air defense system, the Ukrainian army achieved a series of remarkable results with the "flag bearer" TB-2 UAV developed by Turkey, and its performance was not outstanding. Especially in the battle for snake island, TB-2 drones destroyed Russian positions and military facilities on the island one after another and sank Russian transport ships and patrol boats. According to the western intelligence community, the sinking of the flagship cruiser "Moscow" of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was also an opportunity for the Ukrainian army to first attract the attention of Russian ship air defense radar with TB-2 drones, thus raiding the Ukrainian "Neptune" anti-ship missile. It is widely believed that TB-2 drones launched frequent attacks on Russian troops stationed in Snake Island, which is one of the important reasons why Russian troops finally gave up the island. On the land battlefield, a large number of videos of Russian armored vehicles and anti-aircraft missiles being destroyed by TB-2 drones were circulated on social media.

In the second stage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, with the gradual loss of Ukrainian TB-2 UAV in the war, patrol missiles, as an alternative UAV, also appeared one after another. Both American "Spring Knife" and "Phoenix Ghost" used by Ukrainian army and The Lancet UAV used by Russian army are widely used to track and kill opponents' tanks, self-propelled artillery and other high-value targets. At this stage, these drones are used as battlefield consumables.

10 June 17, Kiev police are shooting at Russian drones in the air.

After entering 10 months, the suicide attacks launched by Russian and Ukrainian drones entered a new mode. The Russian army began to use a large number of "geranium -2" suicide drones to launch fierce air strikes on the infrastructure behind Ukraine. Western intelligence circles believe that the plane is actually Iran's "Witness-136" drone. It is powered by a motorcycle engine and equipped with a simple navigation system. The cost is as low as several thousand dollars, but it can attack targets thousands of kilometers away. Due to the low cost and large number of launches, even if some of them are intercepted, it is difficult to prevent other drones from causing serious damage to the target, which poses a great challenge to the limited air defense force of the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian army then used long-range drones to launch retaliatory attacks. On February 5, 65438, the Russian strategic bomber base hundreds of kilometers away from the front line was attacked by Ukrainian long-range drones, and at least two strategic bombers were damaged. Russian intelligence agencies revealed that the Ukrainian army was a suicide drone modified from the Soviet era Tu-14 1 jet drone. On February 26th, 65438, the Russian strategic bomber base was attacked by Ukrainian drones again.

An impossible air defense line

With the wonderful display of drones in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the outside world generally raises questions: Why can't the air defense system implement effective interception? Especially in the early days of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russian ground forces were equipped with quite complete air defense systems-both S-300 and S-400 long-range air defense systems, beech series medium-range air defense missiles and Doyle series short-range air defense missiles, and equipped with field troops. At that time, even western observers generally believed that the TB-2 UAV was difficult to survive in the face of such an air defense system. However, to the surprise of the outside world, the TB-2 UAV has successfully destroyed Russia's "Doyle" and "Beech" air defense systems many times. The US "Power" website believes that the air defense system cannot be turned on 24 hours a day, and Ukrainian drones may have taken advantage of the opportunity of Russian air defense systems to shut down. After the Russian strategic bomber airport was successively attacked in deep areas, some analysts believe that the success of the Ukrainian drone raid is related to NATO's exploration of Russian air defense network vulnerabilities through electronic reconnaissance.

UAV data map

Compared with the poor performance of Russian air defense system, the air defense system provided by NATO also performed poorly in front of drones. In March this year, an old Tu-14 1 UAV suspected of being a Ukrainian army took off from Ukraine, passed through several NATO countries along the way, flew more than 500 kilometers, and finally crashed near the Croatian capital without the knowledge of NATO air defense network. After the Russian army used the geranium -2 suicide drone to launch air strikes on the infrastructure behind Ukraine, although the United States and Europe successively provided Ukraine with a variety of air defense missiles, the actual effect was not satisfactory. In particular, the value of air defense missiles far exceeds the intercepted cheap drones and falls into a "cost quagmire". Experts interviewed by the Global Times reporter said that the penetration and attack of drones have the characteristics of small targets, difficult detection and uncertain time, which makes the defense of traditional air defense systems full of loopholes. Recently, South Korea dispatched a variety of fighters, helicopters and anti-aircraft guns, which failed to stop North Korean drones, once again proving that drones are difficult to intercept.

The US "National Interests" website concluded that in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the innovative operational use of drones by both sides shocked the global military community. How to deal with low-cost, large-scale drone cluster attacks has become a new issue facing military powers. In an interview with Zhuhai Air Show this year, Global Times reporter learned that there is still a lack of "one-off" effective weapons for large-scale UAV cluster attacks, which need to be combined with a variety of detection and strike means to respond with a systematic combat mode.

The "army uselessness theory" was reconsidered.

Before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States used overwhelming air power to "clear the way" in previous local conflicts, which made many observers advocate the "useless theory of the army" and thought that the status of the army would be reduced to secondary roles such as position occupation and battlefield reconnaissance.

Russian military data map

However, in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the two sides launched a large-scale ground conflict. Whether it was the deep penetration of Russian armored clusters in the early stage or the large-scale artillery battle in the middle and late stage, traditional land equipment played a major role. Western military observers believe that most countries do not have the ability to rely on overwhelming air power to gain battlefield advantage like the US military, not to mention that the US military's opponents in local conflicts are relatively weak, and whether the US military can rely on the Air Force to "open the way" in the face of "equal opponents" is still unknown. Therefore, the traditional army, especially the army's main battle equipment, has been re-valued by all countries.

The weakness of Russian tanks exposed in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has also attracted the attention of all countries. Almost at the same time, the United States and Europe successively launched their own new generation of main battle tanks: American M 1X main battle tank and German Panther main battle tank, which obviously improved the tank weakness exposed in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The emergence of a new generation of tanks in the United States and Europe also proves from another aspect that the West is rethinking the "army uselessness".

Local conflicts also compete for war potential.

Judging from the duration and scale of the war, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict can indeed be called "the best in decades." Compared with the previous local conflicts, the main competition is the existing technical equipment. After the long-term conflict between Russia and Ukraine, they began to compete for the war potential of both sides. It is worth noting that as the conflict continues, not only Russia and Ukraine are exhausted, but also the United States and Europe, which strongly support Ukraine, are involved in the quagmire of this war.

The main battle equipment of the Ukrainian army is limited. After the Russian army aimed at Ukrainian heavy industry facilities, the equipment of the Ukrainian army has almost completely relied on Western aid. The US "Stars and Stripes" newspaper said that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict just lasted for more than a month, and the huge war consumption almost hollowed out the western ammunition depot. Ukraine clearly hopes that the United States will provide 500 stingers and 500 javelin missiles every day, which is almost equivalent to the monthly output of the United States. In the high-intensity artillery battle, the Ukrainian army fired thousands of large-caliber shells every day. In order to supplement the battlefield consumption, "the ammunition reserve of the US Army has fallen to a dangerous situation." The conflict also exposed the military weakness of European countries. Due to the limited number of heavy weapons actually equipped, even traditional military powers such as Germany and France can only provide single-digit large-caliber artillery at a time. However, according to The New York Times, more than 1/3 of all kinds of guns aided by the west have been lost.

Russia has almost exhausted its existing war reserves, requiring the defense industry to produce at full speed to meet the needs of the military. At the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, after the Russian army failed to raid Kiev and Kharkov, the Russian army lost a lot of main battle equipment and had to reuse Soviet tanks and artillery. Due to severe western sanctions, the supply of electronic equipment required for advanced missiles in Russia has also been greatly affected, which directly restricts the production of related weapons.