How Russia is Responding to New Ukrainian ‘Drone Threat’ to Cut Crimean Corridor

The following is [part of ] a hefty ~4,400 word premium article on the current “drone scare” being manufactured by Ukraine to push the narrative that Crimea is being cut off. In it we explore what Ukraine has been achieving, with a detailed deep dive into how Russia has begun to counteract it, and why the hype will soon die out.

The first ~1,000 or so words are presented free to the public.

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Major commotion is currently centered around Ukraine’s campaign to purportedly “isolate Crimea” via long range drone strikes. This campaign is merely the latest in a recycled toolbag of Ukrainian info-warfare and psyop initiatives which spring up annually, usually in conjunction with Russian summer-time offensive campaigns for the purpose of controlling the narrative favorably for Ukraine.

The purpose is always to create a diversionary groundswell of “crisis dooming” which deflects from Ukraine’s own ongoing battlefield losses, which now mainly center on the collapsing Konstantinovka front, where Russian forces are set to capture their next large ‘Donbass fortress-town’.

That’s not to say Ukraine’s recent campaign has not had any effect at all, but simply rather that the effects are vastly exaggerated by the Western propaganda organs.

But first, to contextualize how it all developed, let us briefly delve into the reasons behind the changes which allowed Ukraine to leverage these long-range strikes in the way it’s currently doing.

The first and most important change which gave Ukraine a newfound advantage was the removal of Biden-era restrictions on the US providing targeting and authorizations for long-range strikes deep into Russia. The second, was the likewise apparent lifting of restrictions on Ukrainian Starlinks operating on Russian territory. Recall that in the beginning of the war, Elon Musk had famously said that Starlink would not be allowed to be used in an “offensive” manner. This was later swept under the rug when Ukraine desperately needed some new advantage to save its collapsing war effort—and so, Starlink was allowed to operate offensively, but was still restricted to Ukrainian territory only.

Now many reports claim that Starlink is used on Ukrainian FP-1/2 and other drones even outside Ukrainian territory.

 

Much of the current campaign against Crimea is also powered via Starlink. One of the newly emerging top drones for hitting Russian logistics along the ‘Crimean corridor’ is the US-made “Hornet”, which is variously seen with a Starlink panel on its back.

Here is a video of a Russian specialist disassembling the Hornet and commenting on the quality American construction of the drone, as compared to the usual ‘ad hoc’ drone designs slapped together in frontline workshops by volunteer engineering groups and such:

 

The Hornet drone in question is manufactured in California by a company backed by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and there is an increasing number of “partnerships” between Ukraine and Western nations for drone and missile production constantly being announced.

 

The latest video out of Ukraine of a series of strikes utilizing this very Hornet drone along Russia’s southern corridor (beware of nasty music background): 

You can see the drones clearly have terminal AI guidance which allows them to hit targets even if jammed. How do we know they use Starlink? You’ll see soon in the next part.

That said, these Hornet drones are not infallible as this next Russian video shows: