It should be obvious that the Russians’ kill-chain—networked drones and artillery—is getting better, fast.
www.forbes.com
The Russians have greatly improved their ISTAR. The big news here is that the Russians are increasingly trying to provide information for attacks in real time, something they were not able to do, especially because they did not train this type of thing in a realistic way. They are great at attacking fixed targets, but they have always been deficient when attacking mobile targets that are vulnerable. The Russians are adapting and if the Ukrainians want to avoid more losses like these they will have to adapt again to try to nullify this capacity. Neither side is sleeping on the spot.
What's new is that the Russians are acting against time-critical targets, something that they didn't seem to have a doctrine for or if they did, they weren't adequately equipped. The other new thing is that dumb submunitions explode in the air, probably with a proximity fuse. Dumb submunitions explode on contact.
Wherever you look, wherever you research, you will see that the Russians simply did not have that capability. The Su-34's own target designator was very limited. They didn't train that kind of thing. If you look at military actions in Syria, they only attacked fixed targets, defensive positions, etc. They always had equipment and weapons that were capable of doing the job, but they never trained like that because it probably wasn't included in the doctrine, and if it was, it was very neglected. Their training rarely involved coordination with personnel on the ground or even from other air units, unless they were controllers, following a pre-defined script. But as you can see, they are adapting and looking for solutions to carry out the task.
In the case of planes or helicopters, the aircraft itself does the work of searching, detecting, selecting and tracking targets and promotes their neutralization (acquisition and engagement) and damage assessment. The actions in Syria and initially in Ukraine were that a target was marked and the pilots took off towards that specific target. Generally something fixed, without mobility. But when they arrived and the target was no longer there, the mission was aborted or diverted to some secondary objective. The Russians did not have the ability to simply change plans if a target of greater military value had emerged or if the original target had left the area.
What we are seeing now is the ability of the Russians to signal and track targets in real time and employ the most appropriate weapons according to the critical time to reach that particular target.
And the interesting thing is what I reiterate. The Russians have always had equipment capable of doing this kind of thing, but they have never actually trained in the use of this equipment within a realistic training environment.
And in fact, I think everyone expected it to be like this from the beginning.
www.lemonde.fr
