In The News

Samuel Bendett says, “Many Russian companies answered the call from volunteers for cheap, readily available UAV solutions, especially in the FPV-kamikaze class, and the MoD is now looking at a range of options, including drones like Privet.”

Michael Kofman says, “It’s too early to tell. The disaster, “ultimately benefits nobody.”

Michael Kofman says, “Unfortunately, this breach is an ecological and a humanitarian disaster. It actually results in a lose-lose proposition for both sides. The flooding is going to substantially affect the Ukrainian-controlled right side of the riverbank it is probably going to damage even more on the current Russian side.”

Samuel Bendett says in a Tweet, pointed out that an operator says, "Let's test on this." That's not the sort of thing any warfighter would likely say about targeting a top-tier tank thought to rival Russia's best.

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.”

Michael Kofman says that with Wagner fighters withdrawing, Russian forces are “going to be increasingly fixed to Bakhmut ... and will find it difficult to defend.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Ukraine already demonstrated that it can reach deep inside Russia with UAV strikes that targeted military bases which are supposed to be well protected and are located far away from the Ukrainian boarders.”

Jonathan Schroden says, “The Iranians have military jets, drones, and anti-armor weapons and the Taliban have little to nothing to stop those capabilities. Which means the surest way for the Taliban to lose what few tanks they have is to employ them operationally against the Iranians.”

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.”

Ken Gause says, “When Rodman was there, he visited Kim Jong Un in Wonsan … there were a lot of Kim relatives, including Kim Sol Song [his half-sister], but there was no son there.”

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.”

Jonathan Schroden says, “We ran a bunch of different calculations, scenarios, etc. One of the common themes in terms of force structure requirements that emerged from those is in almost every scenario we looked at, there was a higher demand for PSYOP forces, for civil affairs forces, for undersea warfare and maritime capabilities, than what the force has today.”

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.”