🚨 RUSSIA IS NOT JUST FIRING MISSILES AT KYIV. IT IS BUILDING ATTACK WAVES DESIGNED TO BREAK THE DEFENSE.
The real story is the combination.
Russia can send drones first to expose and exhaust Ukrainian defenses.
Then cruise missiles.
Then ballistic and hypersonic weapons arriving at extreme speed with dramatically shorter reaction times.
Iskander M.
Kinzhal.
Zircon.
Kh 101.
Kalibr.
Shahed type attack drones.
And Russia has added another weapon to the equation: repurposed RM48U missiles fired from S 400 systems. Reuters reports these weapons accounted for more than half of 228 confirmed Russian ballistic and hypersonic strikes during July and early August.
The pressure is increasing.
In the first three weeks of September alone, Russia launched about 2,100 jet powered attack drones and 136 missiles across Ukraine, according to Ukrainian government figures reported by Reuters.
A September 8 attack on Kyiv combined drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, killing five people and damaging residential buildings, a school, clinic, warehouses and other sites. Russia said it was targeting military and logistics infrastructure.
Decode Conflict Assessment
Russia's most dangerous weapon may not be one missile.
It is saturation.
Cheap drones consume attention and interceptors while increasingly difficult ballistic and hypersonic threats compress reaction time.
This is becoming a contest between Russia's ability to generate mass and Ukraine's ability to keep enough interceptors in the fight.
Decode Conflict | Military & Geopolitical Analysis