Ukraine’s military has carried out all-drone attacks on Russian positions going back to at least December, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday from Kharkiv. One such attack two months ago occurred over the course of about five hours, and involved “about 50” of these drones, reportedly “coordinat[ing] unmanned land and aerial vehicles on a scale that hadn’t previously been done.”
“The attack served as a proof of concept,” the Journal writes. And while “it had its problems, other Ukrainian units are now planning similar missions.”
Reminder: Ukraine has already witnessed aerial drone-on-drone warfare. But linking aerial drones with land robots and smaller, first-person-view drones is a novel application in modern warfare. One big obstacle to this approach, however, was terrain—mud, in particular, bogged down some of the ground robots, the Journal reports.
But Russian FPV drones then attacked the ground robots. “While it is unclear from the footage how successful the attack was, the spokesman said Ukrainian troops found Russian corpses when they moved in to take over the position.” Read on (gift link), here.
New: Russian secret service agents carried out arson and sabotage attacks in Lithuania and Poland last year, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced Monday on social media following an investigation across the two eastern European countries.
“The investigation of the Lithuanian prosecutor’s office has confirmed our suspicions that responsible for setting fires to shopping centres in Vilnius and Warsaw are the Russian secret services,” Tusk wrote, and noted ahead of U.S.-Russia talks on the future of Ukraine, “Good to know before negotiations. Such is the nature of this state.”
Bigger picture: “Russia is conducting an escalating and violent campaign of sabotage and subversion against European and U.S. targets in Europe led by Russian military intelligence,” according to a new report published Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington. “Despite the increase in Russian attacks, Western countries have not developed an effective strategy to counter these attacks,” the authors warn.
What’s going on: “The number of Russian attacks nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024,” Seth Jones of CSIS writes. The targets of these attacks have included “transportation, government, critical infrastructure, and industry, and its main weapons and tactics have included explosives, blunt or edged instruments (such as anchors), and electronic attack,” Jones said.
Notable: “The new study found no recorded attacks in European countries friendly to Russia, such as Serbia and Hungary,” the New York Times reports. “On the other hand, Poland, which has been the hub of Western aid flowing to Ukraine, has been repeatedly targeted.”
Update: U.S. support for Ukraine has jumped 16%, with nearly five in 10 people (46%) saying they believe the U.S. should do more to support the country that’s been fending off a Russian military invasion for the past three years. The numbers were recorded during the first two weeks of March by researchers at Gallup, which reported Tuesday that in the same poll, “the proportions thinking the U.S. is doing too much (30%) or the right amount (23%) for Ukraine have shrunk.”
The rising support for Ukraine marks “a new high in the trend that dates back to 2022,” Gallup writes. “Until now, the highest percentage of Americans who believed the U.S. was not doing enough to help Ukraine was 38%, recorded in Gallup’s initial measurement of this question in August 2022.” These latest numbers show “a 31-point increase among Democrats, to 79%, and a 14-point jump among independents, to 46%, since December, marking new highs for both groups.”
About the detractors: “Republicans have consistently been the most likely to assert that the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine, a sentiment that remains prevalent among them,” Gallup notes. “However, the latest figure—56%—marks an 11-point decline over the past three months.”
U.S. attitudes are also changing in terms of giving Russia invaded land inside Ukraine in exchange for peace: 53% want to preserve Ukrainian territory even if it means more conflict compared to 45% who want the war to end even if that means ceding invaded land to Russia.
Other notable observations:
- “Solid majorities of Democrats (95%) and Republicans (69%) express concern that Russia would violate the terms of any agreement,” Gallup writes;
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And if Russia violates an agreement, just 30% of Democrats would support sending U.S. ground troops to help Ukraine versus 16% of Republicans. Read more, here.
Status check: “Russia's aim of destroying Ukrainian sovereignty remains unchanged since before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote in its latest daily analysis of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. As far as Trump-Putin negotiations are concerned, “A strong Ukrainian military backed by security guarantees remains the most important component of a sustainable peace in Ukraine and deterrence of future Russian aggression,” ISW advises. More, here.
