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Ukrainian drones flew all the way to Siberia to strike Russia's largest oil refinery
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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Im a little out of the loop, why are they suddenly able to do this now? What changed in their capabilities?
Ukraine has developed very impressive drone technology in a very short time. It is expected that multiple nations will actually try to make deals to acquire Ukrainian drones at the current NATO summit because they are so good now. So Ukraine is no longer dependent on others to sell them drones. They‘re selling them now.
For example, these drones can use terrain as guidance, so GPS isn’t required for navigation. This also allows them to fly at a very low altitude, avoiding Russian air defense. They’re also very resistant to jamming and have advanced autonomous capabilities, so they can “finish the job” on their own if the link to their operator is severed. Also, they’re very cheap, so it’s possible to overwhelm Russian defenses by swarming them.
In summary, they‘ve developed incredible killing machines that are able to act autonomously, which is very good for them right now but probably not very good for humanity in the long run.
It's possible that this becomes the new "mutually assured destruction" we had back in the 20th. Basically, a cold war brought on by drones instead of nukes. It could mean a near-future of peace, however uneasy. I can't say that living with the looming propagandized threat of the USSR was good, but I think it was a far sight better than being in an active shooting war with them.
I think that is a crazily optimistic take. Even if countries were to stop outright drone warfare and keep things to cyber attacks and economic warfare there would be nothing to stop them from using the tech to attack their own citizens.
US constitution has already proven to be worth about as much as Lloyd and Harry's I.O.Us.
The difference is nobody ever felt comfortable nuking their own civilians. I think chemical weapons are a better comparison. Autonomous drones will become illegal and unacceptable in warfare, but for riot control less lethal ones will be common and occasionally an authoritarian leader will use the military grade ones on minority groups or dissidents.
Oh great now I am worried about drones carrying dirty bombs.
That's exactly what people are worried about happening.
Dirty bombs are a meme weapon, they’re not really effective except for scaring people who don’t know that they’re not effective
Yeah no because all we will have in response to that is the excuse for the psychos to deploy AI fueled "defense" anti-drone "security" drones flying nonstop 24/7 everywhere. Mechanized mafioso anyone?
It's much harder to control their production, though. They don't need enriched uranium and huge facilities, you can put them together in your bedroom (not at scale, obv.)
Smart countries are scrambling to buy Ukraine cheap effective next-generation drone warfare weapons. This is developing into a very lucrative market for them.
Eh. C'est la vie. We had a good run.
There was a Black Mirror episode featuring the Boston Dynamics "Dog" robot thing with a machine gun on it, and hunting people down, they are terrifying. It's like being hunted by a zombie tbag doesn't eat or sleep or get tired and won't stop.
Flying drones are a whole new level of scary beyond that.
zombie tbag sounds pretty horrifying
Screams in British
That was a great episode, scary foreshadowing of the future, but still a great episode.
And for all of this goodness we had Vlad the Invader to thank. Just think where we all be without Vlad!
From what I read a few days ago one of the conditions for US aid under biden was that Ukraine make no strikes on russian soil. When trump pulled all the aid to Ukraine it was a huge blow, but also took the leash off.
After that all they had in their way was developing the actual drones and techniques to make the strikes, as well as planning them.
As far as I know, the condition was that US (nor NATO) weapons can't be used on attacks to Russian soil. That's one part why Ukraine has basically done a world record speedrun on native drone production. No one has (nor can) deny them from using their own weapons how they see fit.
Removing stupid limitations on how they can hit back has helped, but that was mostly for short(ish) range missiles.
They basically reinvented the Nazi V1 with their Flamingo, and although only small % get through, it's devastatingly accurate against refineries.
Meanwhile, Russia uses the old Nazi strategy of launching very expensive rockets at apartments with civilians in cities, doing 0 strategic damage to Ukraine war capabilities, just like the Nazi V1 and later V2 was used and was relatively useless despite its high price.
Oh, and Ukraine can shoot at almost all Russia's refineries and weapons factories, but Russia can't do it back because Ukrainian can always import from refineries and factories in France, Germany, etc, beyond the NATO border...
Why are all your call backs to nazis?
Look at the v1. Then look at the flamingo. It's almost like they pulled an 80 year old drawing out of a drawer for their design! And the Russian tactic of causing panic and terror is exactly what Nazi's did with bombing London! I do it because it makes sense. This special military operation got so out of hand the world wars are almost the only historic wars worth comparing it too. Just hope he gets hanged by a mob like Mussolini or shoots himself in his bunker soon...
Maybe just try mixing it up a bit, most jet powered cruse missiles end up looking like a V1 (that itself was not a new layout) for one example. You can vary your references by pointing to non nazi examples, not all the time but throw in an alternative at least some time. It is not like the nazi's even invented much, like the terror strikes to London where tried in ww1 for another example. They where kinda shit after all and its just weird to use them like a measuring stick to everything.
Where I'm from, they are the measuring stick for "authoritarian state goes total war over ideology and fucks up" in a modern/mechanised way.
And that's a fine use, but to also use them in measuring Ukrainian technical development is still odd.
I just really found the flamingo resembles it. I'm no current rocketry expert, so in my brain seeing pictures of a Flamingo referenced to something historical I do know and which I think is very widely known. There's nothing more to it than that.
Its not the rocket part that makes it take that shape, its the long range turbofan jet engine that causes it to look like that. The V1 used a pulse engine but really the same issue in design. You have an engine that requires an intake (unlike most rockets) and ether you slap it on top (like the Flamingo or V1 or Tu-141) or build the body around it, causing cost increases and issues with warhead placement (like the Tomahawk)
Comparing fascist Russia with fascist Germany seems pretty par for the course.
"If the boot fits" ~ Woody the Cowboy
I mean sure? But why also talk about Ukraine in the nazi context? Its not even really wrong, just weird.
Yeah that's literally just that guy.
He's trying to stir up shit.
They've been specifically targeting Russian Air defenses for awhile now forcing them to spread what little they do have even more. Since NATO have been pussies about providing them long range precision munitions they've had to spend time to develop their own cruise missiles like the Neptune and Flamingo the latter of which has entered regular production and has a range of 3000km.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-5_Flamingo
Ukraine is now the premier world class developer of advanced drone warfare equipment and counter electronic jamming systems.
Wanna know too
The article says that they’re jet launched.
That makes sense, they're flying sorties over Siberia to launch drones in the last mile.
Its called adapting to new situation