Ukraine’s attack on Sevastopol on 29 October 2022 will go down in history as the first major example of what many believe is a new era of drone warfare.

It's been sixteen months since the USV attack on Sevastopol -- they knew that Ukraine had USVs in the works -- and Russian warships continue to be taken out.

[–] ghostdoggtv 25 points 1 year ago (9 children)

The Russian war economy is too tight to support military R&D on top of the existing war effort. GDP per capita is way too low and military brass aren't willing to discuss the subject of their own vulnerabilities to Putin. Their use of oil money to buy Iranian drones is a necessary kink in their supply chain since they don't have the means to build their own drones at scale and they can't develop industrial capacity for the same without jumping face first into the woodchipper of sanctions.

Remember when Putin said the invasion would take 3 days? Deception can be tactically useful but not when you're the one lying to yourself.

[–] bouh 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not about the economy. It's the soviet era again, the dictatorship, which is extremely antagonist to research and innovation.

For innovation to happen, you need many people, and especially high ranked ones, to admit that something can improve. And then you need the system to highlight true solutions rather than favour your friends and family.

USSR was plagued by these kind of problems. Russia seems somehow even worse.

[–] ghostdoggtv 2 points 1 year ago

Russia, USSR and the Russian empire are basically the same geopolitical entity.

They've never not been a dictatorship and you don't need admissions or highlights to innovate. And even if they did, i addressed failures of leadership in my last comment.

I guess you could argue that the dual problem of having a tight war economy and an idiot dictator are like twin dragons, one can't resolve the other without undermining itself.

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