Theater-first intel feed with the current analysis and latest brief cards for the selected hotspot.
◈ Theater Assessment
Russia's expendable-strike campaign remains operationally mature, sustaining dual-vector penetration through turbofan-propelled Shahed variants and agent-assisted terminal guidance with no disruption reported in the current window. The single new development of theater relevance is a Ukrainian USV-on-USV engagement in the Black Sea that destroyed a Russian unmanned surface vessel — confirming Ukraine's capacity to contest Russian naval drone assets and adding a new attrition pressure on Russia's maritime unmanned layer. Core structural fragilities — Chinese turbofan engine dependency, Engels basing exposure, and vulnerable forward EW nodes — remain unresolved.
◈ Key Developments
Current brief cards for this theater.
In 2025, a NATO exercise in Estonia revealed the structural vulnerability that modern mechanized forces can no longer afford to ignore. During the Hedgehog 2025 exercise, a Ukrainian team of […] The post Drone Warfare and the Future of Korean Armor first appeared on Modern War Institute .
Russia launched more than 130 drones overnight, hitting Odesa, striking the SBU directorate in Lviv, and damaging energy infrastructure near Novovolynsk, officials said.
A Russian drone struck a Territorial Recruitment Center building in Sumy, wounding a passerby, one day after Ukraine marked Mobilization Workers’ Day on March 17.
In an exclusive interview, a logistics coordinator of Ukraine’s 423rd UAS Battalion speaks about drone warfare, shifting battlefield tactics, and why he believes Russia’s war goes far beyond Ukraine.
◈ Operational Trend
Russia's established multi-vector drone strike doctrine shows no signs of disruption or acceleration, but the confirmed loss of a Russian USV to a Ukrainian unmanned surface platform signals an emergent attrition risk in the Black Sea maritime domain that Russia has yet to visibly counter. Monitoring priority should shift incrementally toward Russian naval drone survivability and any doctrinal or posture response to USV-on-USV engagement.
The military is turning the aging drone into an effective system, extending its life with new weapons, boosting its range and electronic warfare capabilities. The post The Reaper just won’t quit: Try as they might, the military can’t ditch the MQ-9 appeared first on Task & Purpose .
Following their success in Ukraine, Arctic nations are assessing whether first-person-view drones could be deployed on Arctic battlefields.
Ukraine spent years perfecting cheap drone killers. After burning through billions in missiles in three days, the U.S. and its allies are asking for help.