Drones have reshaped warfare in the Ukraine conflict. As noted recently by Gillian Tett there are a few key features of this:
Asymmetric attacks: low-cost platforms striking high-value targets.
Domestic drone supply chains in Ukraine, with rapid innovation cycles reminiscent of Shenzhen’s hardware clusters and Silicon Valley software development. Ukraine is increasingly insourcing its supply chains.
Rapid iterations of guidance systems against counter drone measures and electronic warfare
This post focuses on the last development — sensor fusion and guidance — because it marks a shift from short-range saturation attacks toward long-range, precision strikes. As you may have seen elsewhere Ukraine’s efforts to hurt Russia’s core economic infrastructure of oil refining has become radically more effective very quickly over the past few months. Much of the improvement stems from sensor fusion — combining multiple navigation inputs (inertial measurement units, visual odometry, GNSS where available, etc.) to provide redundancy and bound drift — together with aerodynamic and propulsion advances that extend range and enable better accuracy. A teardown of the Liutyi drone can be found here and the accuracy improvement is material:
This technology significantly enhances the drone’s ability to execute complex flight paths, effectively avoiding radar detection and electronic warfare countermeasures. The implementation of Skynode S has reportedly increased mission success rates from 20% to over 90%, underscoring its critical role in modern drone operations.
A key feature is robust inertial navigation: accelerometers and gyroscopes measure motion independently of external radio signals, and when fused with vision systems (cameras) they provide accurate navigation even when GPS is denied. Jamming GPS forces an adversary either to rely on wide-area EW （which risks civilian disruption) or to deploy more sophisticated sensing and weapons. The result is a much higher bar to defend critical infrastructure at scale.
The bar to respond to this threat is very high indeed. Defences are limited: either drones must be intercepted in flight (aircraft, air defences) or their guidance degraded. Visual guidance can be defeated by obscurants or environmental modification at the target, while inertial systems are robust but not perfect (they drift over time). The result is that effective countermeasures require a mix of kinetic interception, directed-energy systems, and active counter-sensing. Ukraine now has ranged weapons that have high effectiveness and that will only increase as the Flamingo cruise missile program expands. As someone who invests in hardware in this area both public and private it is very hard for me or those with whom I have spoken to work out how Russia’s refining system does not become severely degraded on an ongoing basis from here.
Russia can repair installations but only up to a point as much of their key inputs and equipment come from European suppliers especially so for more recently refurbished or built refineries. Russia was struggling in late 2024 according to S&P and it has only gotten worse since. If Ukraine can now selectively hit key equipment that is provided by Siemens or others there is no clear path to recovery. Oil refineries are complex and costly to build at the best of times but especially so under persistent precision air assault. The destruction of the Leuna synthetic fuel and chemicals plant of IG Farben led to the collapse of the German military’s mechanized units and air force in World War II and with any luck this similar approach by the Ukrainians will hasten the end of Russia’s capacity to fund itself and fight.
Warfare and all strategic interactions are evolving and ecological in nature. Just as strategies in financial markets engage in predator-prey like interactions that evolve against one another this development of cheap, supply chain secure precision guided munitions will lead to responses in defence. While this is speculative in nature a few key developments are coming into view.
The first is directed energy weapons which can provide low-cost precision counter drone defines. Israel’s Rafael has the Iron Beam program which has now shot down drones and one of Australia’s developers made the New York Times along with other programs at Leonardo and Honeywell. The fundamental problem of rocket attacks is that rockets like the Qassem are fuelled by sugar and fertilizer - things that are very hard to restrict the upstream supply of. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on interceptors to knock out rockets that cost a few thousand dollars is far from ideal. For higher quality drones with guidance the math is little better. By having a platform that converts a few dollars of electricity into a downed rocked or drone it is far easier to withstand persistent attacks — so long as your power grid does not go down.
The second is a radical rethinking of what resilient critical infrastructure looks like and following from the above what a resilient power grid looks like especially as interceptions and defence depend on it. In an emerging literature (here, here and here) coming out of Ukraine’s efforts to keep its grid online and covered here in the Times the key property of this resilience is distributed power which can only be done with renewables and storage. Nuclear plants to date in the Ukraine conflict have been off limits - it appears that even in this war nobody wants radioactive fallout over the land they are fighting over despite some early fighting around one plant. Fossil fuel infrastructure with critical nodes and large point sources of power generation are fat targets in this world, and fat targets get hit first. The IEA has come to similar conclusions that hardening Ukraine’s grid against attack and decarbonization have almost exactly the same engineering and policy implications as has NATO’s Energy Security Centre of Excellence here.
The engineering and economics here is simple enough. Defence using directed energy combined with distributed infrastructure to power it to provide security within line of sight of your borders. This is satisfactory for countries that want their borders to remain unchanged and to mind their own business. To me what is really fascinating is the aesthetics and politics of this change. We are watching live how an irredentist petrostate with a fossil heavy grid may be formidable, but it has a glass jaw and is getting repeatedly hit on the chin. The current fossil macho aesthetics in the US make for satisfying dunks on X but extremely poor strategy in a world of drones and directed energy weapons that run on electricity. It will be interesting to see if these fundamental changes to physical realities can turn into good politics. The left and green side of politics is anti-war and usually winces at the discussions of the finer points of closing with and defeating the enemy. I sincerely hope this changes as defending your homeland and the environment converge to a point.
Really interesting, thanks.
So, lithium batteries are immune to drone strikes? Ever seen a lithium battery fire?