May 5, 2025:
Ukrainian innovation and encouragement of entrepreneurship has regularly overwhelmed Russian forces. The eventual response was slow but soon had an enormous impact. Perplexed by the Ukrainian methods, the Russians persisted and that kept the war going.
Drones were an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles were fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable. Modifications and upgrades could be implemented quickly and inexpensively Both Russian and Ukrainian forces were soon using cheap quadcopter drones controlled by soldiers a few kilometers distant using First Person Viewing/FPV goggles to see what the video camera on the drone could see. These drones cost a few hundred dollars each with the most complex models going for about a thousand dollars. Most of these drones carry a small amount of explosives, so that it can instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. Some drones carry more explosives depending on what is needed to deal with a target.
These drones are awesome and debilitating weapons when used in large numbers. A major limitation to the expansion of drone operations is the need for trained drone operators. Ukraine found that many soldiers played video games a lot and were quick to adapt to drone operation, especially because they could use commercial game controllers.
The war has led to massive losses for Russian forces. So far, over nearly a million Russian troops have died, deserted or avoided military service because of Ukraine. Russia has lost most of their modern tanks along with many other armed vehicles and artillery systems. Aircraft losses have also been heavy, even though Russia sent few warplanes or helicopters into Ukraine because of the formidable Ukrainian air defense systems. The Ukrainian Russian era air defense systems have been augmented by more reliable and effective Western systems. Another reminder of this was the Russian friendly fire incident where one of their S-300 systems shot down a Su-35 fighter, one of the most modern Russian jet fighters.
The more reliable and capable Western air defense systems made it clear how backward the older Russian systems were. The S-300 was designed in the 1980s and wasn’t updated much by the time Russia invaded in 2022. The short range S-125 system was designed in the 1960s and performed poorly against aircraft with modern electronic and decoy defenses against Russian anti-aircraft missiles.
Russian air defense forces have found it difficult to obtain replacement parts for older components used by S-300. Without that kind of maintenance, S-300 missiles are less reliable and accurate. Ukrainian forces still have some of these S-300 systems in use but these missiles were more recent models. Then Ukraine obtained modern and better maintained Western systems missile systems that were far superior.
Russia also lost tanks faster than Ukraine and was unable to replace their tank losses as efficiently as the Ukrainians. Russia has limited tank production capability while Ukraine is receiving more tanks from NATO countries than Russia can match in numbers of capabilities. Ukraine also has its own tank production and repair facilities. These have been subject to Russian missile attacks but have been repaired and are again producing and repairing tanks, including some sent by NATO countries. Those nations are also involved in the operation of the Ukrainian tank repair operations.
The 9,000 Russian tanks lost since early 2022 were considerably more than what Ukraine lost. By 2025 Ukraine had more operational tanks than the Russian, who were forced to bring some 1960s vintage T-62 tanks out of storage, refurbished and sent them to Ukraine to be quickly destroyed.
Against the growing number of Ukrainian tanks are the U.S. M1, German Leopard 1 and 2 and British Challengers. Russia had T-72s, T-90s and T-80s, which were all basically the same design with each modified or upgraded in some way. Ukraine found the Western tanks much more effective in combat. The man-portable anti-tank missiles supplied by NATO are also superior to similar Russian weapons and have accounted for about half the Russian tanks losses in Ukraine.
Russia tried to cope and ordered mass production of its T-80VM tank to replace the many T-72B3M and T-90M tanks lost in Ukraine. While the T-80 was designed to be a successor to the T-72 line, including the T-90, that did not happen because the T-80 was more expensive to build and operate. The latest version, the T-80VM, purportedly solved most of those problems, especially if it was mass produced. That is why Uralvagonzavod, the largest Russian tank manufacturing plant, has been ordered to retool and start mass production of the T-80VM. This will not be easy because it is expensive and the Uralvagonzavod plant has its own problems, especially bankruptcy. The government has supplied loans, to keep the Uralvagonzavod from going out of business. Uralvagonzavod has been bankrupt since 2016 and survived because of state-owned Rostec, a holding company that takes over failing, but essential defense firms, to keep them operating. Uralvagonzavod has produced tanks and other armored combat vehicles since World War II and continued after the war. After 1991, most of those military orders stopped but Russia has learned the hard way that, once a lot of these skilled workers are out of work, they use their skills to find new careers or even emigrate, and are virtually impossible to get back later. UVZ obtained enough orders for new armored vehicles or upgrading existing ones in an effort to maintain the workforce that, once lost, is extremely difficult and time-consuming to rebuild. This tank production revival eventually faded away and amounted to very little.