“Putin’s War is Droning on, But for How Much Longer?”
Without minimizing the loss of human lives and civilian infrastructure that Putin has chosen to destroy, Russia continues to lose its war of choice on the battlefield, in the international community, and even in the drone-filled skies.
In June, Iran showed Russian officials the Shahed drones at Kashan Airfield south of Tehran (Kennedy, Mahmoodi, Kottasová, Raine, 2022). This led to Russia’s purchase of drones, including 2,400 Shahed-136 drones, from Iran in August 2022 (Kennedy, Mahmoodi, Kottasová, Raine, 2022). The Mohajer-6, Shahed-129, and Shahed-191 drones began being transported to Russia on August 19, 2022 (Nakashima & Warrick, 2022).
This week, on October 17, 2022, 43 drones were launched at Ukraine, including 28 in Kyiv, with five successfully hit targets (Adams & Thomas). Ukraine claims to have shot down 37 drones between October 16–17, 2022, with an interception rate of 85% of the 43 total drones launched at Ukraine (Reuters, 2022c). Losing 85% of the single-use drones is wreaking havoc on Russia’s supplies.
On October 18, 2022, Reuters reported that Iran has agreed to a second arms package including more drones as well as surface-to-surface missiles (Reuters, 2022a). These sales constitute a violation of sanctions (BBC, 2022). The impending sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia (which is also a violation of the military transfer bans in the Iran Nuclear Agreement) is why China has avoided arming Russia (Nakashima & Warrick, 2022) and why Iran publicly denies arming Russia (Kennedy, Mahmoodi, Kottasová, Raine, 2022). It is also worth noting that news of the second Iranian drone sale comes the same day that Russia has denied using Iranian drones in Ukraine (Reuters. (2022b). Perhaps Iranian leaders are warning Russia that there may be limits on future sales if Iran is sanctioned by the EU, NATO, and other members of the international community.
However, it is the timing and the contents of the second weapons package to Russia that is more interesting. As noted in “No Soul”: Putin, Ukraine, and Biden, Russia is running out of missiles and has lost 19% of its fixed wing air force (Keefe, 2022, pp.61–62). Russia has also quickly depleted the Iranian drones it purchased in August.
For the sake of argument, let’s estimate that Russia has launched 40 so-called “kamikaze” one-use-only Shahed drones per day. It has been reported that Russia purchased 2400 drones. If Russia used the drones at the same rate as was used on October 17th, then the supply would last for 60 days. Russia began receiving the drone shipments on August 16, 2022, which was 63 days ago today, October 18, 2022. Russia is already running out of both Iranian drones and Russian missiles.
The Russian currency reserves are already dwindling because of economic sanctions. Russia has also had to purchase weapons from both North Korea and Iran because Russia can not build weapons due to the inability to import microchips (Nakashima & Warrick, 2022; Schwartz & Davies, 2022).
In addition to “scouring” the world for weapons to purchase, Russia is recalling its military hardware from Syria (Nardelli, Wickham, & Jacobs, 2022). A Russian withdrawal from Syria has ramifications for the decade-long Syrian Civil War and, a Russian withdrawal may not just weaken the Assad regime, but it may also dissuade him from purchasing more stolen Ukrainian grain. [Syria purchased stolen Ukrainian grain from Russia in July 2022 (Al-Jazeera, 2022).]
The 50 member Ukrainian Contact Group continues to coordinate the transfer of high-tech offensive and defensive weapons to Ukraine (Garamone, 2022) including a patchwork of top tier air defenses systems from around the world (Gould, 2022), while Putin pulls Cold War weapons out of mothballs (Shinkman, 2022), shoe-string parts together for domestic production (Mizokami, 2022), and waste limited hard currencies and gold reserves (Tan, 2022), purchasing antiquated North Korean supplies (Schwartz & Davies 2022), and mechanically-challenged Iranian drones (Bickerton, 2022; Nakashima & Warrick, 2022).
The buzz of drones in the skies will soon be replaced with the continual droning voice of Putin apologist, Dmitry Peskov as he tries to spin losses in wins and aggression into noble victimization.
References
Adams, P., & Thomas, M. (2022). Ukraine war: Russia dive-bombs Kyiv with ‘kamikaze’ drones. BBC. October 17, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63280523
Al-Jazeera. (2022). Syrian ship carrying ‘stolen’ Ukrainian grain docks in Lebanon. Al-Jazeera. July 28, 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/28/syrian-ship-carrying-stolen-ukrainian-grain-docks-in-lebanon
BBC. (2022). Ukraine war: US says Iranian drones breach sanctions. BBC. October 17, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63294698
Bickerton, J. (2022). Russia’s Iran-made drones ‘failing’ and not meeting expectations: Pentagon. Newsweek. October 1, 2022. https://www.newsweek.com/russias-iran-made-drones-failing-not-meeting-expectations-pentagon-1748147
Garamone, J. (2022). Momentum builds for Ukraine Defense Contact Group. U.S. Department of Defense. September 8, 2022. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3152763/momentum-builds-for-ukraine-defense-contact-group/
Gould, J. (2022). US pushes patchwork air defense for Ukraine amid Russian blitz. Defense News. October 12, 2022. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/10/12/us-pushes-patchwork-air-defense-for-ukraine-amid-russian-blitz/
Keefe, T. E. (2022). “No Soul”: Putin, Ukraine, and Biden. KPRI Press: Denver, CO. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w524e1g9IJGVlKDmFkN6KcndAsOTwVxx/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115375581776232944517&rtpof=true&sd=true and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJMDDBS1/
Kennedy, N., Mahmoodi, N., Kottasová, I. Raine, A. (2022). CNN. Iran denies supplying Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine. October 15, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/15/europe/iran-denies-supplying-russia-weapons-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html
Mizokami, K. (2022). Russia’s weapons use old and even Western electronics, report shows. Popular Mechanics. September 23, 2022. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41234073/russias-weapons-use-old-electronics/
Nakashima, E., & Warrick, J. (2022). Iran sends first shipment of drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. Washington Post. August 29, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/29/iran-drones-russia-ukraine-war/
Nardelli, A., Wickham, A., Jacobs, J. (2022). Russia is scouring the globe for weapons to use against Ukraine. Bloomberg. August 9, 2022. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-09/russia-is-shopping-around-the-world-for-military-weapons-for-its-war-in-ukraine?leadSource=uverify%20wall
Reuters. (2022a). Iran agrees to ship missiles, more drones to Russia. Reuters. October 18, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/exclusive-iran-agrees-ship-missiles-more-drones-russia-defying-west-sources-2022-10-18/
Reuters. (2022b). Kremlin denies using Iranian drones in attack on Ukraine. Reuters. October 18, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-denies-using-iranian-drones-attack-ukraine-2022-10-18/
Reuters. (2022c). Ukraine shot down 85–86% of Russian drones involved in latest attacks — air force. Reuters. October 17, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-shot-down-85-86-russian-drones-involved-latest-attacks-air-force-2022-10-17/
Schwartz, F. & Davies, C. (2022). Russia buys millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea. Financial Times. September 6, 2022. https://www.ft.com/content/f614c922-b8ec-4f2b-bf74-a5b22b3fecc5
Shinkman, P. D. (2022). No tanks? Russia dusting off mothballed armored vehicles to send to Ukraine. US News and World Report. May 27, 2022. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-05-27/no-tanks-russia-dusting-off-mothballed-armored-vehicles-to-send-to-ukraine
Tan, H. (2022). Russia’s finance minister has admitted the country can’t use nearly half its $640 billion foreign currency war chest because of Western sanctions. Business Insider. March 13, 2022. https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-admits-it-cant-access-nearly-half-foreign-currency-reserves-2022-3
