Katrin Bennhold, Philip P. Pan
The war in Ukraine can be tough to follow, and President Trump’s pronouncements don’t help. One month, he dismisses Ukraine’s chances, saying it has “no cards.” The next, he declares it can retake all its territory from Russia, and “maybe even go further.”
To understand what’s actually happening, I visited Ukraine last week and worked alongside Times reporters there. The team — led by our bureau chief, Andrew Kramer — has covered the war closely, often at great risk on the front lines.
In our conversations with soldiers, officials, entrepreneurs and activists, I was struck by how Russia and Ukraine are engaged in two separate contests beyond the battlefield: a sprint for technological innovation that is redefining the future of warfare, and an endurance race to maintain political stability at home.
The drone war
Artillery, missiles, tanks and trench warfare dominated the first years of the war, but no longer, our Ukraine correspondent Marc Santora and his colleagues have reported.
These aren’t the big, expensive Predators and Reapers the U.S. has used. The Russian and Ukrainian drones are mostly small, mass-produced quadcopters, and inexpensive aircraft the size of a kayak. Both sides are rushing to produce them faster and more cheaply, and make them deadlier. Russia’s industrial might has lately given it an edge: It has flown more than 34,000 drones into Ukraine this year, almost nine times as many as a year ago. My colleagues Paul Sonne and Kim Barker built a data set using numbers from the Ukrainian Air Force to figure that out.
And it’s not just aerial drones. Kim took me to an abandoned factory known as Killhouse Academy, where Ukrainian recruits learn to steer unmanned ground vehicles that deliver supplies and evacuate the wounded — tasks that have become too dangerous for humans. In the Black Sea, drones resembling speedboats and torpedoes have kept Russia’s fleet at bay.
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