Russia Studies Program

Samuel Bendett says, “It is interesting that we don’t have any follow-up details, you indicated that the reaction was muted and has remained muted. There has not been a lot of public discussion about this, the government has tried to downplay this as much as possible.”

Samuel Bendett says, "The general assessment of drones like TB2 is that they work well without sophisticated air and electronic warfare defenses arrayed against them.”

Michael Kofman says, "It may require multiple offensives on multiple fronts and will likely be conducted over the period of several months rather than days or weeks."

Michael Kofman says, “The battle for Bakhmut is less important in terms of territory and more in its impact on both forces and what it reveals about them.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Volunteers are still the main source of quadcopters for the Russian forces. It looks like the MoD would like its soldiers to think they can request a quadcopter via official channels, but it’s not clear how many are using such channels.”

Michael Kofman says that the Ukrainians will only have enough weaponry and ammunition, and time, to launch one major offensive this year, using their newly arrived Western supplies and employing thousands of troops trained by the U.S. and UK among others.

Samuel Bendett says, “Russia claims to have a multilayered drone defence in Crimea, with nets, buoys, planes, helicopters, ship-based and shore-based batteries. This is a lot of resources dedicated to catching a small and relatively inexpensive surface vessel.”