The resounding success of Donald Trump’s bleeding ear as the ‘wound of liberty’ has sped up Trump-proofing in Europe. Meanwhile, NATO and Europe’s support for Ukraine remains a race against time with genuine uncertainties. However, this oft-discussed theme has overshadowed a series of crucial developments in the maritime theatre of the Ukraine war, which have end-game implications.
Defying expectations and fighting a systemic shortage of ammunition, Ukraine made the last Russian naval patrol ship retreat from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, most likely toward the Sea of Azov. Moscow has been re-basing its maritime deployments, especially all of its combat-ready warships, away from Crimea to safer zones to ensure the safety of its rapidly depleting maritime capabilities in the Black Sea region, downed and damaged by a combination of Ukrainian naval drones and missiles. According to most Western sources, Russia has lost about 40 per cent of its Black Sea Fleet. This could be an opportunity for Moscow to modernise its fleets provided there is a window for such an undertaking in the middle of a war.
The communitisation of the war effort that a smaller country has exemplified against a mighty neighbour is best reflected in the production and deployment of drones—Kyiv’s total annual capacity will soon reach a million drones. By comparison, Russia has also upped its drone manufacturing, and is likely to produce around 32,000 drones by 2030.
Andrey Belousov was picked as Russia’s new defence minister because of his ambitious drone modernisation programme.
Integrated defence-tech warfare
The Ukraine war is a live laboratory for future wars. The prevalent and ubiquitous use of drones has rendered battlefields transparent. Ardent observes are taking snapshots of futuristic trends in integrated defence-tech warfare and sewing them coherently to generate a discernible picture.
From India’s perspective, the development, deployment, and performance of different types of multirole FPVs (first-person view drones) and first-ever AI-enabled drones, in combination with ingeniously upgraded missiles, remain among the most interesting facets to take cues from.
But first, why exactly is Russia retreating from its undisputed maritime dominance in the Black Sea and what does it imply?
Three fronts of war
The long-standing war between Russia and Ukraine is being fought along three fronts—land, sea and critical infrastructure. In New Delhi, deliberations are mostly focused on the land domain and its three main battle axes: in Donetsk around Chasiv Yar, in the south near Zaporizhzhia, and in the north in Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region. However, little attention is given to the decisive maritime theatre. It is left to scholarly and technical military analyses in journals and books, rather than public debates.
There is also a third front—Ukraine’s increasing attacks on Russia’s reserves and critical infrastructure, and Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s power grids and civilian targets. This front has received almost zilch analysis in New Delhi.
The overarching war of grinding attrition remains unfathomable unless the developments in the maritime theatre and their implications are understood. First, what makes this theatre so critical for analysis is the factor of Crimea, the famous peninsula located in the Black Sea region, jutting out of southern Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 in a swift victory, deploying Little Green Men, some of whom later became the Wagner Group, the brainchild of the slain war-lord, criminal, and chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Soon after the victory, President Vladimir Putin linked the peninsula to mainland Russia with the Kerch Bridge, a sea bridge on the lucent waters of the Black Sea. It became symbolic of Putin’s power and vision of a resurgent Russia. When Ukraine was able to stave off Russia from a quick victory in 2022 (which the US intelligence didn’t expect), experts started assessing the utility of making Crimea untenable.
I too had argued that it is implausible for Ukraine to expel every single Russian soldier from its territory in the face of existing asymmetries and mounting ammunition delays. Making Crimea untenable seemed merely aspirational at the time.
One of the first experts to advocate for a strategy focussed on Crimea was Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the United States Army Europe. Advances by both Ukraine and Russia have indeed remained sluggish along the front lines. After the scintillating success of Ukraine’s first counteroffensive in Kharkiv and Kherson in 2022, successive counteroffensives amid an intriguing war of narratives in a sharply divided world, couldn’t yield any significant results for either side. While the Ukrainian counteroffensive could only liberate a dozen or so villages, the Russians have taken about a year to capture a single town. Remember the ‘meat-grinder’ battles for Bakhmut and Avdiivka?
Even when Ukrainian forces were stretched thin from east to north, the recent Russian attack in Kharkiv couldn’t take the city or even the embattled town of Vovchansk in its outskirts. This remains true of other regions, where the Russian advance remains painfully slow. However, Moscow undoubtedly has the upper hand in the land battle.
In the maritime theatre though, Ukraine has established astonishing superiority even without an operational navy. It all began with the downing of Moskva, a guided missile cruiser of the Russian navy, by Neptune missiles. Soon after, Ukraine received US and British Harpoon anti-ship missiles and ingeniously adapted them for land launch since it did not possess warships.
One of the reasons behind Ukraine’s success in destroying Russian boats of varying sizes and capabilities is their familiarity with these ships. Prominent Russian cruisers, including Moskva and the most notable aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, were built at the Mykolaiv shipyard in the Soviet Union, which is now in Ukraine.
Second, the optimal combination of ingeniously adapted missiles with sea drones, often paired with Western long-range weapons, has worked unexpectedly well for Ukraine at sea. Ukraine has used a cheaper and innovative fleet of sea drones to achieve dominance, effectively subverting Russia’s full blockade of Ukrainian ports in 2022. Notably, the Magura V5 drone, with a range of 800 km and low heat emission, makes it difficult for the thermal cameras to detect.
Third, Ukraine’s success in destroying the prized S-400 air defence systems in Crimea has also dealt a huge blow to Russian efforts to hold onto the peninsula.
These victories are not isolated incidents but pose significant challenges for the resupply of Russian troops in southern Ukraine by disrupting logistics. Equally crucial is the resumption of Ukraine’s exports, almost reaching pre-war levels, through the three major ports of Greater Odessa—Odessa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny.
At a logistical level, Ukraine’s innovative drone programme has been the most potent solution to make up for the systemic artillery shortage. Those wondering why Ukraine hasn’t lost the war, being undersupplied with ammunition for the last one and a half years, part of the answer lies in the effective development and deployment of drones. These drones are cheaper and yet more precise than artillery shells.
Also read: As another Trump era looms, NATO’s Ukraine challenge and India’s diplomatic dance
Drone Vimarsh
The rapid proliferation of lethal flying objects in swarms will revolutionise established dominance of large contractors in government defence deals. Traditional weapons programmes, developed under different strategic partnership models, have taken years or even decades to develop. In contrast, drones are cost-effective and soon will be AI-enabled.
As a result, defence bureaucracies globally will need to fundamentally change procurement pathways to keep pace with the evolving world of AI and rapid software development.
India must prepare for the wars of tomorrow with well-planned design, procurement, production and integration of these multirole flying saucers into its Armed forces at a structural level.
Getting the right military-technical cooperation on multirole drones could implement the best “kadi ninda” to avenge the lives of our soldiers in cowardly attacks from across the LOC.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)