Eric Zuesse
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
13 June 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
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https://weapons.substack.com/p/the-struggle-against-the-drones
“The Struggle Against the Drones: Counter Drone Technology is Gaining Traction”
13 June 2026, STEPHEN BRYEN
Drones have not only become a potent battlefield weapon but they also have deep strike capability. Ukraine has used them to stymie Russia on the battlefield and to destroy high value targets on Russian territory, including critical infrastructure and important military installations. The Ukrainians have scored victories against Russian strategic bombers and AWACS aircraft, destroyed long range radars that are part of Russia’s nuclear defense force, and blown up oil installations and port facilities as well as significant parts of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Ukraine’s use of uncrewed surface vehicles at sea has allowed Ukraine to strike Russian ships, port infrastructure, and Russian bases, such as Sevastopol.
Destroyed Tu-95MS Bombers at Belayaa
Typically Ukraine launches drone attacks in waves and swarms. To draw off enemy fire, mixed into the lethal drones are decoy drones that are mainly glued together plywood and plastic machines. The Russians do the same thing, although Russian attacks deep in Ukraine also include long range ballistic and cruise missiles.
Drone war is not confined to Russia and Ukraine. Iran has launched large numbers of drones, many of them aimed at US military operations and the US fleet operating in the Gulf Region. Between February and March, 2026 Iran fired around 1,000 to 1,500 drones at US and allied facilities and infrastructure, including political targets, and at US Navy and Marine ships at sea. Iran has claimed it hit the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72 aircraft carrier)—with dense salvos of drones and missiles, fiercely denied by CENTCOM. The Houthis in Yemen have repeatedly claimed to have hit and forced the retreat of the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea using long-range kamikaze drones. The Houthis have also used drones, including uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) against commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and have repeatedly
Hezbollah also is using drones in unprecedented numbers, particularly in the northern Israel and southern Lebanon areas. Hezbollah utilizes sophisticated tactics, gets lots of operational help from Iran, and increasingly deploys fiber optic drones. Hezbollah’s drone supply chain is a highly decentralized, multi-tiered network. While Iran is the absolute strategic architect, the actual acquisition of parts relies on global dual-use procurement pipelines, front companies, and domestic workshops hidden inside Lebanon.
Drone interception rates, claimed and real, are insufficient to balance the damage that can be caused by a drone. Russia, for example, is able to stop around 70% to 85% of attacking drones, facing around 150 to 300 drones over its territory every night. The US and Israel probably do better statistically, but the drones that get through are proving to be very costly and, in Israel’s case, damaging to citizens and soldier’s morale.
Meanwhile, the US has failed to shut down Russia’s, Iran’s and proxy’s supply networks (and in fact has hardly tried to do so). Russian and Iranian weapons often are found stuffed with US components along with myriad parts from Asia (particularly but not exclusively) China. Instead the US and its allies and friends are focusing on counter-drone systems as a solution to the drone challenge.
Counter Drone Technology
Counter drone technology is evolving very quickly, but there are significant hurdles countering both long range and short range threats.
Drone Killers
Both Ukraine and Russia have developed drone killers which are in fact specialized drones that hit incoming lethal drones and destroy them. The Ukrainian system that is locally produced has shown considerable promise and Ukraine is now marketing the product in the Middle East and to NATO.
Credit Covert Shores
The Ukrainian solution that has gained the most attention is called Sting. It was developed in Ukraine by a volunteer engineering group called Wild Hornets. It is a bullet-shaped 3-D printed aerodynamic frame featuring a pursuit speed of 213 mph (343 km/h) and a service ceiling of around 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). Its operational radius is about 20 km (12.4 miles). It is equipped with a home-built thermal imaging camera so it can take down enemy drones at night. The Sting interceptor costs $2,100. Ukraine has developed a number of specialized interceptor brigades (e.g., the 412th Nemesis Brigade), claiming a 95% success rate. The system is operated by a pilot but the latest versions feature autonomous interception using an automation layer in the Sting software. The AI computer vision module can lock onto the silhouette of an enemy drone, such as the Geran 2, and navigate autonomously relieving the pilot of target responsibility.
The Ukrainian unit Asgard, part of the 412th Battalion. Photo credits: Unmanned Systems Forces
Ukraine uses a system called Hornet Vision, a remote control architecture, meaning the pilot/operators can be far away from the front line, so the Russians cannot target them easily.
Ukraine has a number of advantages over the Russians. It has remote operators/pilots who are good at what they do. It can locally source important drone components, especially thermal imagers. It has talented software engineers with high motivation. And it has considerable battlefield experience.
Sting is an explosive drone, so handling it carries some risk. The drone apparently has a kill switch that blows up the Sting if it misses its target.
Sting is best at going after major long range threats such as the Geran 2 (Russia’s variant of the Iranian Shahed 136). It may not be effective against short range systems since the timeline for intercept is too long, especially for fiber optic drones. Likewise, Sting may not be capable against the jet powered version of the Geran because it is too slow, but it is unlikely Russia can deploy many Gerans with jet engines.
Russia’s Sting is called Yolka (Fir Tree)
Yolka is a man-portable kinetic interceptor drone that costs around $500 to manufacture. It weighs a mere 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs.) and has a pistol-gripped launcher. Yolka has optical sensors and an AI processing module that eliminates the need for a continuous radio link. It flies at around 300 km/h (186 mp/h) and it is designed to destroy the rotors/propellers of quadcopters and small drones. As far as is known, Yolka is not integrated with other counter-drone systems, or even with radars or other sensors.
Russia faces three problems with Yolka. The Russians are having problems producing Yolkas in sufficient quantities which may indicate supply chain problems. Russia is also short on pilots and faces difficulty training qualified operators. The system is most effective in daylight where an operator can see the incoming threat. It does not work at night (unless the threat is illuminated), and it depends on good weather for operator visibility. Unlike the Ukrainian Sting, Yolka can’t be remotely operated at present so the operators are vulnerable if they are located on the front lines (where they must be outside, not in bunkers).
Yolkas could be deployed around sensitive locations such as military bases and critical infrastructure installations. Whether Yolka without an explosive warhead can knock out a drone larger than a plastic quadcopter isn’t clear. However, future versions of Yolka could be adapted with blast fragmentation warheads to help protect fixed sites.
Russia is mostly depending on other far more expensive ground based systems such as Pantsir. Pantsir units are, however, in short supply, and there are thousands of high value targets in Russia Ukraine can attack. Pantsir also is less and less a battlefield weapon, mainly due to the fact that its radar is a beacon for Ukrainian weapons.
Pantsir-S2 system, combat vehicle 72V6-E4
Sensors and Integration
A key factor in counter drone operations is detection and target management. Stand alone systems are hunt and peck, and can be overcome by mass attacks. Sophisticated sensors and target management, meaning integration of counter drone systems into a coherent defense cluster, is a critical ingredient in reducing drone threat effectiveness.
Counter Drone sensors come in different flavors. The classical model was electronic detection and jamming. Today’s battlefield is loaded with various electronic countermeasures that can block data links, spoof or block GPS, or derail operator/pilot communications. Modern drones use various techniques to fight against jamming operations such as frequency hopping radios sometimes with encryption, specialized hard to jam modem antennas, and software that can detect spoofing attempts. More recently, drones are using autonomous operating software with pattern recognition and terrain following, automatic evasive maneuvering, and artificial intelligence to improve capability. Starlink terminals and mesh networks also have significantly reduced the effectiveness of jamming and, in the case of Starlink, improved operational range.
A Ukrainian soldier shows an example of a fiber-optic FPV drone. (АрміяІнформ photo)
At the level of the battlefield, drones operated using fiber optic “wires” or cables provide operators with very high bandwidth imaging that can’t be jammed. The main limitation is range.
If a drone can’t be detected through radio frequency sensors, then detection must rely on radar, optical systems and sound sensors.
There are many different types of radars for drone detection. Some of them are millimeter wave (MM wave), FMCW or Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave radars, X and Ku-band pulse doppler radar and Passive Coherent Location radar. Especially interesting is Micro-Doppler radar. Micro Doppler radars can detect the blade signatures of drones, meaning that it can be 100% certain it has sensed a drone and not a bird or other object.
Automated optical systems also are increasingly playing an important role, especially against “silent” (i.e. fiber optic) drones. The best of these fuse multiple bands of the electromagnetic spectrum into a single Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) gimbal to handle variable atmospheric conditions. These include Short Wave Infrared systems (SWIR). Unlike visible light, SWIR can penetrate heavy fog, smoke, battlefield haze, and marine glare. It relies on reflected light (rather than thermal emissions), providing sharp, high-contrast imagery that allows AI classifiers to discriminate drone materials (like carbon fiber or specialized plastics) from natural clutter. There also are medium and longer range systems that require sensor cooling. Such thermal sensors detect the friction heat generated by a drone’s electric motors, spinning rotor hubs, or internal battery packs.
Audible sensors listen for the sound of drones. Using microphone arrays Instead of a single microphone, audio systems deploy specialized geometric configurations of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) or high-sensitivity condenser microphones. By calculating the microsecond differences in time-of-arrival across the array, the system executes digital beamforming to determine the exact azimuth (bearing) and elevation of the sound source.
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https://stranaua.media/news/507081-vsu-nachali-chashche-bit-po-lohistike-v-krymu.html
“The southern front is again the most important. What are the strikes on logistics in Krym about?”
17:51, 11 June 2026
Recently, attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on logistics in Crimea have become more frequent. First of all, on roads and bridges on the land corridor. Both Ukraine and Russia state that the main task is “isolation of the peninsula”. What is the purpose and what is next?
To answer this question, you need to go back three years – to 2023.
On February 5, 2023 – four months before the start of the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we published an article in which we assumed that the direction of the main attack would be the Southern Front – then a 150-kilometer stretch from Ugledar to the Kakhov reservoir. We also indicated the goal of this offensive: the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to Crimea, the cutting of the land corridor, after which the “isolation” operation was to begin: strikes on the Crimean bridge and sea communications of the peninsula, which would turn the defense of Crimea into an extremely difficult task for the Russians and could prompt them to withdraw, just as earlier strikes on the bridges prompted the Russian army to withdraw from the right bank of the Dnieper.
Later, the Western mass media wrote that the ultimate goal of the operation with access to Crimea was not a further offensive on the peninsula, but an incentive for Moscow to negotiate on the terms of Kiev: consent to Ukraine joining NATO in return for the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not attack Crimea. This version, however, was refuted by Bankova at the time, but it had the right to exist – the threat of losing Crimea could prompt the Russian Federation to use nuclear weapons, therefore, it is quite possible that Kyiv and its Western partners wanted to use the exit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to Perekop not to prepare for an offensive on the peninsula, but as a lever to put pressure on Moscow.
But, as is known, in 2023 the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not lead to success, and therefore, what plan Bankova really had if Ukrainian troops reached Crimea, no one ever found out.
However, the topic of “isolation of Crimea”, as we can see from the current strikes on the land corridor, continues to rule the minds of the military-political leadership of Ukraine, for which the role model of “super success” in the war remains the operation on the right bank of the Kherson region, from where a group of Russian troops was forced to leave, after the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to carry out regular strikes on bridges and crossings, and launched a campaign “all supplies will soon be cut off”.
However, it is worth noting here that since then, the Russians have not demonstrated a similar behavior (willingness to make a large-scale retreat due to a logistical threat) anywhere. A typical example is the situation in the Kursk region, where the Russians held their positions south of the Seim River in the Glushkovsky district, despite the constant strikes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the crossings.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.