#504 – Russia-Ukraine War: Putin, Zelenskyy, Drones and the Future of Warfare

Michael Kaufman says 2026 is Ukraine’s best year of battlefield performance since its summer 2023 offensive, while Russia is having its worst combat performance since winter 2023. Russia’s broad, grinding offensive has reached diminishing returns and is beginning to face manpower problems. Ukraine has mounted localized offensives and regained more ground in some areas than during the much-hyped 2023 counteroffensive. However, Russia is compensating with an expansive strike campaign against energy, heating, warehouses, data centers, schools, hospitals, malls, and trains. Kaufman expects Ukraine to survive the winter but says the cumulative damage to its economy and civilian infrastructure remains uncertain.

Kaufman explains that Russia’s 2023 winter offensive largely failed, apart from the grinding fight for Bakhmut. Ukraine’s Western-trained and equipped summer offensive ran from roughly June through November but also failed to achieve the expected breakthrough; Russia then regained the initiative with the fall 2023 battle for Avdiivka. In 2024 and 2025, Russia generally advanced through a broad, attritional offensive. By 2026, it had shifted more heavily toward strategic bombardment: cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and increasingly large waves of one-way attack drones. Kaufman warns that strategic bombing rarely achieves maximalist political goals when the ground campaign is failing, although leaders repeatedly believe it might work.

Preston Stewart maps the main fighting from Sumy and Kharkiv in the north through the Donbas, Zaporizhia, and Kherson. Kaufman says the front is not a clean line but a gray zone extending roughly 15 kilometers on either side, with small infantry pickets, minefields, artillery, and dense drone coverage. Drones inflict about 80% of losses, but neither speaker treats this as a drone-only war: artillery disperses and suppresses troops, mines block mechanized assaults, and poor weather in spring, fall, and winter reduces drone effectiveness. Ukraine’s layered defense lets it hold terrain with relatively few troops; Russia tries to penetrate the gaps between Ukrainian positions.

Stewart describes reconnaissance drones, low-cost fixed-wing systems, and small FPV quadcopters carrying interchangeable munitions against people, vehicles, and fortifications. One side may use roughly 8,000–10,000 FPV drones per day, meaning hundreds of thousands per month across both sides. Kaufman emphasizes that these systems are not generally autonomous: a drone team may require a pilot, navigator, technician, and other support personnel, making the supposedly futuristic battlefield highly manpower-intensive. Batteries fail, jamming interrupts control, and some drones hit without detonating. The publicly released videos show successes, not misses, so they create the misleading impression that one cheap drone routinely destroys one tank.

The speakers estimate that killing a person may take around five drones in practice, while a tank often requires 30–40 FPV drones; one exceptionally protected Russian tank reportedly absorbed 79 attempts. An infantry fighting vehicle may require 15–20. A mechanized company attacking now may expect nearly 300 drone hits, with vehicles surviving many of them. Russia has therefore favored infiltration: individual soldiers, motorcycles, ATVs, pickup trucks, and even Ladas move through gaps rather than presenting a large column to long-range drones. Stewart cites a Marine fighting with Ukraine’s Azov formation who called the tactic effective only if Russia accepts losing 90–95% of the men sent forward.

Kaufman describes the war as a contest for superiority inside the drone “kill zone.” Before a successful Ukrainian assault, units suppress Russian drone teams, interdict their logistics, channel Russian forces into predictable areas, and coordinate fires to keep enemy drones away during the attack. Some Ukrainian formations combine drones with mechanized units to restore mobility; others use three-person fire teams and drone support to clear tree lines slowly while minimizing casualties. Russia increasingly uses mechanized attacks as distractions, drawing Ukrainian drone operators toward vehicles while light assault groups infiltrate elsewhere. If several infiltrators survive, they can locate gaps and guide successive groups toward Ukrainian drone units and supply lines.

Stewart explains that fiber-optic drones carry a thin cable on a spool back to their operator, so their control signal does not travel by radio and cannot be stopped by conventional electronic warfare. The cable limits range, payload, speed, and maneuverability and can snag on trees or roads, but the systems have reportedly reached about 50 kilometers. Kaufman says Russia adopted them heavily after using them in Kursk, and Ukraine followed. They remain perhaps 15% or less of tactical strike drones but are especially dangerous because common detectors cannot intercept their video feed. Both sides copy effective technologies quickly, with Ukraine innovating faster and Russia generally better at scaling a solution once adopted.

Stewart rejects treating the war like a football game with a decisive mid-game score: Russia and Ukraine have different objectives, and Ukraine’s continued existence can count as success even as it has lost territory it is unlikely to recover soon. Kaufman says Ukraine currently has the battlefield initiative, while Russia faces reversals and diminishing returns, but the advantage may be temporary rather than a lasting trend. Russia’s strike campaign could weaken Ukraine’s cities and economy over the winter, and outside events—including the U.S.–Iran war, foreign elections, and changing Western support—can alter the balance. Neither side appears close to sudden collapse.

Kaufman had correctly assessed that Russia was preparing a full-scale invasion, but he and other analysts failed to predict how Russia would execute it. Russian leaders assumed intelligence operations had prepared Ukraine for a rapid political takeover, that troops might be welcomed as liberators, and that Ukrainian leaders could be isolated or removed before a prolonged war began. Russia therefore had no workable Plan B when its columns stalled around Kyiv. Ukrainian forces performed better than expected, while analysts knew far less about their military and underestimated the initiative of Ukrainian units and volunteers. Kaufman’s central lesson is that military power cannot be judged abstractly: geography, political aims, force employment, culture, and chance determine how two militaries interact.

Kaufman describes Bakhmut as both an urban battle and a siege, with Russia trying to cut Ukrainian roads while Wagner assault groups pushed through the city. Artillery, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and later drones progressively destroyed the city. Wagner used convict assault groups to exhaust Ukrainian defenders, while Russian airborne forces protected the flanks. Kaufman argues that Bakhmut’s military value was overstated: Russia took roughly a year to advance from there to nearby Chasiv Yar. Ukraine nevertheless declared “Fortress Bakhmut,” fearing that withdrawal would undermine Western confidence after its successful 2022 offensives. The fight may have consumed experienced Ukrainian troops needed for the 2023 offensive, illustrating the danger of holding a symbolic city too long.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin built a powerful force by recruiting Russian prisoners and competing publicly with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. After Russia ordered Wagner personnel to sign military contracts, Prigozhin marched on Rostov, occupied the military headquarters, and sent mechanized columns toward Moscow; Wagner also shot down Russian aircraft. Kaufman says the move was a mutiny and bargaining attempt, not a realistic regime-change plan, because Russian elites did not see Prigozhin as an alternative to Putin. Prigozhin and senior Wagner commanders were killed when his plane exploded in August 2023. Russia dismantled Wagner but copied its assault-group and convict-recruitment tactics across the regular military.

Stewart contrasts Western mission command—where junior leaders understand the objective and adapt locally—with Russia’s more centralized, top-down system. Kaufman says Russian units sometimes report holding ground after merely planting a flag or briefly infiltrating, and maps can place Russian lines 10–15 kilometers ahead of reality. The resulting false information misdirects artillery, air support, logistics, and replacement units; Russian troops may be ordered to attack terrain their own side does not control. Both militaries have experienced falsification, but Russia’s coercive culture, fear of punishment, lack of trust, and centralized authority create stronger incentives to lie. Political leaders also resist information that contradicts their preferred narrative.

Kaufman says Zelensky generally leaves tactical and operational decisions to Ukraine’s military and receives a more realistic picture of the war. Putin is involved strategically but does not appear to micromanage tactical operations; his larger problem is the mismatch between maximalist political goals and Russia’s deteriorating military performance. Russia seeks the rest of Donbas, potentially more of Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, and Dnipro, restrictions on Ukraine’s military and strategic orientation, limits on NATO or Western forces, and recognition of annexed territory. Kaufman argues that Russia cannot achieve these aims on a reasonable timeline, while Ukraine’s objectives—survival, a ceasefire along the line of control, and recovery of people and children—are more closely tied to its actual capabilities.

Both guests believe Russia still has the resources and will to fight into 2027, while Ukraine depends heavily on continued Western military, intelligence, and financial support. Kaufman sees possible incremental agreements, such as halting strikes on energy infrastructure or Black Sea shipping, but says Russia currently prefers fighting to a ceasefire that leaves its demands unresolved. He warns that a ceasefire without credible security guarantees could let Russia rearm while Ukraine demobilizes, creating a more dangerous second phase. The earlier Minsk agreements failed to produce a settlement, so a signed ceasefire alone is not enough. A durable agreement requires both sides to see negotiation as better than continued fighting.

Stewart calls war a depressing way for humans to resolve disputes, but says it also brings out extraordinary courage and solidarity. He describes Ukrainian unit Code 9-2 using a drone with a capsule to evacuate wounded soldiers roughly 30 kilometers, maintaining voice contact with them throughout the flight. Kaufman recounts a commander racing in an unarmored pickup to rescue two wounded soldiers after their ground robot was disabled by a Russian drone. Both say dark humor, affection, and small acts of courage preserve people’s humanity at the front. Stewart also found hope in strangers becoming friends during a television prison-experiment project, while Kaufman sees the rescuers’ ingenuity as evidence that war does not erase compassion.