As Ukraine has intensified its strikes on Russian infrastructure, including the Russian retail giant Wildberries in July, debate over the effectiveness of the campaign has spread across both social and traditional media, often with nearly as much frequency as the strikes themselves. Commentators have offered differing assessments of their significance, some even arguing that it’s simply performative.

Much of the public discussion has focused on the immediate retail consequences, including the loss of warehouse capacity, destroyed goods, and the financial damage suffered by Wildberries itself. The broader consequences, however, have received far less attention.

To examine this wider picture, we invited Vladimir Milov, a Russian economist, former Deputy Minister of Energy of Russia, and Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation in Washington, D.C.

We discussed what Wildberries actually is, how it is integrated into the Russian economy, what its main vulnerabilities are, and why its problems matter beyond the loss of warehouses and goods. We also looked at how the situation could affect Russia’s wider financial system, and why Wildberries’ connection to VTB, one of Russia’s largest and most Kremlin-linked banks, is especially important.

Vladimir argues that the impact extends well beyond warehouse losses or disruptions to military logistics, reaching into Russia’s wider financial system, which has become closely connected to Wildberries and is now directly exposed to the company’s growing difficulties.

Below is the transcript of our interview.

Frontelligence Insight (further: FI):

Wildberries is often described in English-language media as Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, while others portray it more narrowly as a marketplace or warehouse-based retailer. How would you define Wildberries, and how important is it to the Russian economy overall?

Vladimir Milov: First, I understand that all these comparisons with Amazon make for a flashy headline, but this is where the similarities end. Amazon operates in the United States, which is the world’s largest economy and market. Amazon is also a US company that is not under sanctions and has the best access to financial and capital markets. Wildberries is an online retailer operating in a relatively small economy that is under great pressure from sanctions and international isolation, with serious constraints on access to capital. It is the equivalent of Amazon, but on a much smaller, dwarf-planet scale. I think these comparisons miss the mark.

Importantly, if you recall Amazon’s history, it is an interesting comparison because that history is often discussed today in connection with the AI boom. Amazon did not make a significant profit despite being a major online retailer. It did not generate meaningful profits for about 15 years, and it only began to do so after becoming a major technology, services, and financial conglomerate.

“What Wildberries probably is, is a Russian version of an earlier Amazon, when Amazon was not worth much and was struggling to find its way to become a major business, but in a much smaller, sanctions-plagued market like Russia.”

Here is where the main issue with Wildberries lies, if you look at what the Russian media has been writing about it over the years. One major problem that plagued Wildberries was that it could not find a way to become profitable. It was not profitable. Only recently, in 2024 and 2025, did it begin to show some profit.

It also does not disclose its full financial results, which is very telling, although it does disclose enough information to show that its reach in online retail sales is enormous. But it still cannot turn that reach into a highly profitable business. The first meaningful profits came in 2024 and 2025, in the range of 100 to 200 billion rubles. The best result was in 2025, at 175 billion rubles, which represents a net profit margin of around two or three percent, given retail turnover of 6 trillion rubles. This is not a highly profitable business. Wildberries was only able to produce these relatively modest profits over the past couple of years because of its integration with the advertising company Russ Outdoor. They created some sort of synergy.

“What’s the value in Wildberries? The key value is that it has an outreach to around 80 million people. It is estimated that Wildberries has 80 million clients, which is two-thirds of the adult population of Russia.”

This is why there is so much attention around the company: it has built an enormous reach. It became the retailer next door. That is its key advantage.

Before I left Russia, I lived in a residential area in Moscow, and nobody had that level of penetration when Wildberries began to expand. That expansion happened largely with VTB’s money (VTB, “Foreign Trade Bank,” one of Russia’s largest banks), which is why VTB later came back and said, “Listen, now we want you, after we helped you expand.”

A few years ago, we saw this network of retail pickup points developing rapidly. In almost every residential building, or at least in the next building, you could find a Wildberries location. You could order anything online and walk for barely a minute to collect it. That was convenient, and the company’s reach expanded rapidly. So did its turnover.

In 2025, Wildberries reported turnover of more than 6 trillion rubles. But it shows much less in its accounts - this is accounting trickery. If you count it that way, it would place Wildberries among Russia’s five largest businesses.

The company has built this enormous reach. There is also a large cash turnover, which makes it a very interesting business for the FSB, because it is very interested in areas where a lot of cash moves around. Cash enables it to finance shady, illicit activities, and the parallel governmental and business system that effectively runs the country depends heavily on cash.

Wildberries was also thinking about its future business model because its existing model was not generating large profits.

This is also where the vulnerability comes from. Unlike other online retailers, including Ozon, Wildberries was betting on the development of major logistics hubs: huge warehouses that it would invest in, build, own, and operate. These facilities became distribution centers and formed a major part of its business model, solidifying its dominant position in retail sales.

That made them a vulnerable target for Ukrainian strikes because previously Russian warehouse capacity was significantly more dispersed, so you could not inflict a lot of damage on the economy by attacking some standalone warehouses. When Wildberries made this multibillion-dollar bet on building a narrow series of big logistical centers, that decision was made before the invasion of Ukraine. But ultimately, against the background of war, that made them targets and very vulnerable to these attacks.

I see a great deal of speculation in the Ukrainian, international, and Russian media about Wildberries’ importance to the Russian economy. Because Wildberries is still a relatively recent business phenomenon, it is also replaceable. I think the factor that makes it dominant and such a leading retailer is largely its brand.

Throughout my life, over all these decades since the Soviet era, I have seen many kaleidoscopic changes in the way the Russian retail sector operates. I would not describe any retailer as such a fundamental pillar of the Russian economy that the economy would collapse if that retailer disappeared. Retail is an extremely fluid and flexible sector. Whenever one model collapses, it is immediately replaced by another. Retail commerce would continue uninterrupted even after a nuclear war.

If you recall the mayhem and destruction following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was essentially no normal system of trade. Yet one emerged very quickly, almost overnight. That is one example showing that destroying a retailer does not, by itself, create a major impediment to the wider economy.

“Wildberries is a relatively new phenomenon. Many people will very quickly remember the pre-Wildberries times and how they traded, and it was all okay. I think looking in that direction, thinking that if you take down Wildberries all Russian retail trade will collapse, is wrong. No, it will not. That is the wrong direction to look.”

Retail is one of the fastest-recovering, most flexible, and most fluid industries. It does not depend on one particular structure, and it will try to adapt to Ukrainian strikes. What I mean is that all this talk suggesting that Russia cannot live without Wildberries because it is so large is wrong. Yes, Russia can live without it. It did so only a few years ago.

FI: One underreported aspect is the relationship between Wildberries and VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank. How are they connected, and how could the current situation at Wildberries affect VTB?

Vladimir: The right direction to look is this partnership with VTB. VTB is one of the biggest Russian players. Also in terms of profits, according to the RBK 500 ranking of the biggest Russian businesses, it is in the top five. It is the second-biggest bank after Sberbank.

The partnership with Wildberries had been rumored for some time, and VTB has not hidden what it wants from the company. It does not need the retail business itself. It does not consider that business particularly lucrative, profitable, or worthwhile. What it wants is to use Wildberries as a way of reaching its 80 million retail clients.

Over the past year or so, there has been a major conflict in Russia between traditional banks, including Sber, VTB, and others, and marketplaces such as Wildberries and Ozon. These marketplaces suddenly gained new market power through their reach among millions of Russians who had become accustomed to dealing with online retailers. They began offering discounts and favorable conditions for their own financial and banking products, particularly through Wildberries Bank, while offering discriminatory conditions to everyone else.

This was not adequately covered by existing financial-services and Central Bank regulations. It largely slipped beneath the radar. I think VTB recognized the opportunity and thought: why do we not jump in, become leaders of this process, and outplay all the other banks? Some banks, such as Sber, had been calling for heavy regulation of the marketplaces. VTB instead chose to enter the market and use the market power of an online retailer to become a champion of discriminatory practices in financial services. That is what it wanted to do.

When everybody is accustomed to using Wildberries, and when there is a pickup point next door in regions across the country, that network can be used to VTB’s advantage. The model makes sense, except for one thing: VTB committed itself by signing this partnership with Wildberries in June. It committed itself to working with Wildberries and taking responsibility for what happened, while remaining very far from reaping the benefits because the partnership was still in its earliest stages.

For this model to materialize, for VTB to derive profits from access to Wildberries’ 80 million retail clients, that will take time, and the synergy will take time to materialize. But the commitment to Wildberries is already here. It was solidified by their partnership signed in June, and then came the strikes.

What we’re seeing right now is that the market sees VTB as a body responsible for taking Wildberries out of that pit. The damage will also affect it, and the damage is substantial, I think. Today, Forbes Russia published an estimate that it is in the range of 250 billion rubles, which is probably an underestimate. But that is a significant number, a quarter of a trillion, and like four or five billion dollars. That’s a lot of money, a lot of damage for VTB.

“The quarterly profit of VTB in the second quarter of 2026 was less than 100 billion rubles, ninety-something. The damage to Wildberries is roughly equal to the annual profit of VTB or something. Plus, on top of that, VTB already has a lot of financial difficulties itself.”

It was a much less conservative and much more aggressive bank in terms of credit expansion than Sber in the previous years. They provided credit to a lot of ventures in the past few years, a lot of risky, corrupt projects which are toxic.

One of the most important things going on in the Russian financial market right now is this bickering between VTB and the Central Bank regarding Basel requirements, because the Central Bank strongly wants to avoid a full, head-on banking crisis, which is looming and which we will see very soon in Russia. It wants to avoid it through a steady tightening of requirements and a build-up of reserves. The Central Bank demands that the banks beef up financial reserves as a buffer to protect them against bad loans, which are mounting because of the deteriorating Russian economy.

But while Sber was relatively prudent and cautious in its policy and did not lend that aggressively, as VTB did, Sber has a relatively good position vis-a-vis reserves. VTB now has an estimated hole in its capital. It is probably much bigger, but a couple of months ago it was rumored to be 700 billion rubles, which VTB’s top management themselves officially mentioned as a shortfall in meeting Central Bank requirements for reserve build-up.

What does it mean? It means that this is the amount of bad loans they have for which, under Central Bank criteria, they should be building a buffer of reserves. But they can’t because they don’t have enough capital. The shortfall in VTB’s capital relative to Central Bank requirements for bad, toxic loans was 700 billion rubles.

That was only a couple of months ago. I think the figure is probably larger now, and the market was troubled by it. There were many negative headlines. The Wildberries crisis has therefore caught VTB at probably the worst possible moment.

VTB was already in trouble and engaged in a serious standoff with the Central Bank. It did not have enough capital to cover all the toxic loans it had issued, while the Central Bank was insisting on a buildup of reserves. VTB did not have the money. That was the central issue.

“The big hole in VTB’s balance sheet is, I think, the number one troubling factor in the Russian banking sector right now.”

Then comes Wildberries. VTB does not have a formal obligation to compensate Wildberries for all the damage. But there are several important considerations. There are not many other potential sources of money, and the government itself does not have the money.

If we created a line of people, businesses, military manufacturers, and others waiting to receive more government subsidies because they cannot continue operating without injections of financial aid, it would be an enormous line stretching across the Atlantic from Paris to New York. Wildberries would be at the back of that line. Many others are already waiting: aviation, agriculture, the coal industry, steelmakers, and more. It is a very long line.

If Wildberries arrives with a request saying, “Please give us 200 or 300 billion rubles to compensate for the damage,” it will be met with a hard look and the question: “Where were you last month? We already have all these other people waiting.” The government does not have the money. Nobody else wants to take responsibility because everybody sees this as VTB’s problem now. VTB took responsibility for Wildberries. It is theirs. Let VTB save it.

VTB had recently been promoting the following story: there is a silver lining and a way out of all our mounting troubles. We now have Wildberries in our pocket. We are going to reach its 80 million clients, create a great deal of synergy, make a lot of profit, and get out of the woods. That was the story VTB was selling. It is largely over now.

It is also very clear that Wildberries does not generate sufficient profit. Its total profit for last year, 175 billion rubles, is nowhere near enough to compensate for the direct physical damage to its warehouses and logistics infrastructure. I am not talking about the sellers. Let us leave them aside and focus on the direct material damage to Wildberries itself. The company does not have enough profit to cover that damage, so all eyes are now on VTB.

Only a month ago, VTB was boasting that it could significantly improve its financial position through the synergy created by reaching Wildberries’ 80 million clients. Wildberries has now suddenly turned from a major asset into a major problem. There is no obvious way out because the vulnerability remains. The strikes can continue, and there is little the company can do.

“The whole business model of Wildberries was built on building these ultra-super-concentrated, big, heavy logistical centers. Without them, they have no advantage. If they now shift their business towards more dispersed infrastructure, using warehouses and renting smaller warehouses from private owners, that completely destroys the whole business model that they’ve been advertising, which was based on concentration, building these super-big, super-concentrated logistical centers.”

I think the most important thing is not that all Russians are trading through Wildberries. Russians will shift to something else. It’s not a big deal. Our retail commerce is very flexible.

What is important is that Wildberries is taking down one of the biggest players in the Russian economy with it, VTB. VTB finances a lot of riskier, more adventuristic government-sponsored import-substitution projects with questionable economic viability. Sber stayed out of many of them because of its prudent, cautious, conservative policy. VTB was willing to more aggressively take on all these industrial, import-substitution and infrastructure projects that Putin was promoting. These projects generated questionable returns, which is why Sber always decided to stay out, but VTB jumped in because its policy was more aggressive.

This is why they have this big hole in their balance sheet. I think it’s worth saying that VTB is not just one of the biggest players in the Russian economy, but it is arguably the biggest creditor of a lot of fringe, marginal, adventuristic projects associated with developing Putin’s economic infrastructure and industrial import substitution, as well as some of the military industries.

“One of the biggest creditors of the new Putin economy, the wartime economy, is now under additional major financial stress because of the Wildberries story. I think that is the biggest impact, not the fact that all Russians trade through Wildberries.”

They can switch tomorrow to something else. Wildberries is a big retailer, but that is not as important as the damage done to VTB’s business, from which VTB has hardly any way out.

Amid all this mounting trouble, the Wildberries story was a lifeline for VTB. They advertised that we’re gonna save ourselves by expanding our market share through synergy with Wildberries and reaching out to their 80 million retail clients.

FI: Some commentators argue that the strikes on Wildberries facilities are little more than a publicity stunt, creating dramatic images of smoke over cities while causing only limited material damage. How would you respond to that claim, and what are the real short- and long-term consequences of the strikes?

Vladimir: No. According to today’s Forbes article, the material damage is significant. It’s measured in the hundreds of billions of rubles.

The more important story than even the direct material damage is the way the damage is dragging down VTB’s business, which is the real big beast. VTB is a big, important creditor and player. Nobody else compares to VTB in terms of aggressively financing a lot of adventuristic industrial and infrastructure projects in Putin’s new wartime economy.

It’s not just that it is a big bank, second only to Sber. It’s not just that it is one of the big Russian businesses overall. It’s that Wildberries was the best hope to revive VTB, which was the major aggressive creditor of a lot of fringe projects in this new Putin wartime economy. Now all things have reversed. Instead of the best hope, Wildberries has turned out to be a major liability.

I think the claim that the strikes on Wildberries make no difference is wishful thinking. That’s not connected to reality.

(FI): Given those consequences, what could Wildberries and the state do to mitigate the damage? So far, much of the cost appears to be falling on vendors and customers, leading to complaints but no clear solution. Is that a fair assessment?

Vladimir: A lot of focus is on the damage to sellers and customers. I think most of that will be written off. I think there are two direct sources of damage for Wildberries.

First is the material damage to their infrastructure, which would cost hundreds of billions. Take a look back at how much money Wildberries spent on all these logistical centers.

They were boasting, “We invest this hundred billion rubles there, a hundred billion rubles there.” You can easily track this and see how much these logistical centers cost to build. What we’re talking about is a full recovery value.

Forget about the sellers. What will happen to the sellers is that their stuff will be written off and forgotten. There is no question about it. Yes, that’s damage as well, but Wildberries did invest a lot in building all that stuff, and it needs to be nearly fully rebuilt now. We’re talking about a full recovery value. That’s point number one.

Point number two: their business model is being ruined because they advertised this as their major competitive advantage: unlike the traditional dispersed warehouse infrastructure, with a lot of transactional and logistical costs involved, they built a compact, concentrated infrastructure of their own and might now take advantage of scale. This is gone. Their main competitive advantage is gone.

Now they can continue by simply leasing warehouse space from others, which is available. In Russia, it is an illusion that strikes can lead to a shortage of warehouse capacity. Russia has a significant excess of warehouse capacity. You can look across the Russian business media. There is no question about that. They have a lot of warehouse stock which is not in use.

Also, different investors across the board have been heavily building a lot of warehouses because people literally believed in Putin’s promises that we were gonna have a thriving domestic economy decoupled from the West. A lot of people recently have been building a lot of retail warehouse space, counting on that growth.

This is not materializing, which is why not only do warehouses stay empty, but the situation has been worsening over the past year. More and more new warehouse space was introduced, while economic activity was shrinking. The excess of warehouse capacity was increasing.

That is why Wildberries can, in principle, lease this space from private warehouse owners. There are two problems here. First, I see that many of them are trying to refrain from working with Wildberries because they’re afraid that they might become targets in the next strikes. I’ve heard these reports, but they need to be verified.

The second thing is that this opens the way for Wildberries to survive as a business, but it significantly diminishes the advantages of scale and concentration of logistics and warehouse capacity. They become just another retailer using private warehouses, which everybody else can do. Their main competitive advantage turns out to be gone. That’s the key problem.

The impact on vendors and consumers, that’s a secondary issue. Wildberries can continue its operations. There is warehouse space to lease. But can they now build a different business model based on leasing private warehouses instead of building their own concentrated centers? I don’t know. That’s a big question.

In terms of Ukrainian strikes, the drones themselves, the strikes, are cheap. Any strike that destroys something of greater value than the drone itself and the cost of launching it makes sense. Technically speaking, it’s as simple as that. It is very cheap to strike worthwhile infrastructure.

FI: Many commentators expect that a similar campaign could eventually target Ozon, another of Russia’s largest e-commerce companies. Given its multibillion-dollar pre-war valuation and tens of thousands of employees, what impact could such a campaign have on the company and the wider Russian economy?

Vladimir: Ozon shares were falling sharply last week when rumors circulated that they might be one of the next targets. Ozon is in a slightly better position because they have much more dispersed warehouse capacity, not as concentrated. It is going to be a bit more difficult to inflict damage on Ozon than on Wildberries. But striking it is also worthwhile because there is some degree of concentration, and everybody else is looking at Ozon now as a potential second target after Wildberries.

If Ozon is targeted, that will completely destroy the hope that Russia can build a modern retail logistics business founded on concentrated warehouse capacity. Russia would have to go dispersed, like mini-refineries, mini-power stations. That is possible in response to strikes on big, concentrated infrastructure, but it is also less economically efficient and more costly.

That means that if Russia moves in that direction, it will increase costs in the economy, complicate logistics and shrink profits further. Shrinking profits is arguably the number one problem in the Russian economy because they deprive businesses of resources for development and investment.

Further strikes against both Wildberries and Ozon will eventually lead to a further decline in the profits of Russian business overall, which means less space for investment and less hope for economic recovery. The market is panicking because Ozon is a big corporate player. It’s a logical next target, so everybody is freaking out even more.

Think about the systemic effect of Ukraine going after big businesses one by one, not just picking one and stopping there. The big question is, who’s going to be next? After Ozon, it could be anything: export terminals, manufacturers of critical machinery, machine-building plants. There are plenty of these bottlenecks in the Russian economy where, when you strike, you might inflict a lot of indirect damage on others.

The big issue with Ozon is that everybody is looking at who is going to be next. Strikes on Ozon may also create this effect, apart from increasing costs, complicating logistics and shrinking profits. They also prove that Ukraine is always looking for the next target, and you might be next.

That will also significantly diminish business confidence and economic activity, which means shrinking investment. Economic activity is currently the major number one problem.

FI: Ukraine’s campaign has hit Russia’s energy and defense sectors, while labor shortages, high interest rates, budget deficits, and rising security spending add further pressure. Putin still treats these as temporary problems. How close is Kremlin to the point where it can no longer dismiss them without causing a serious backlash?

Vladimir: We have to keep all eyes focused on the September-October discussion of next year’s federal budget for 2027. It is already impossible to see how the government makes ends meet.

Now, going back to this discussion of the previous years, about when the money for Putin’s war machine would run out, it has already run out. But he was only able to continue the war for two more years by significantly raising taxes on the Russian economy: the corporate profit tax from 20 to 25 percent two years ago, and VAT last year. The damage inflicted on the Russian economy through these tax increases is huge.

The costs are rising. Everybody is talking about mobilization. Mobilization will not be cost-free. It’s an extremely costly exercise for the economy. Plus, Chemezov, the CEO of Rostec, met with Prime Minister Mishustin in mid-July. That meeting is available on YouTube, and he was saying, “We’re out of money. We don’t have money for new investment projects, so please help us with subsidies.”

There are many other examples: the big hole of at least 700 billion rubles in VTB, and so on and so forth. The continuation of the war requires a significant increase in spending. By all criteria, the current level of military and military-industry spending is not enough. The budget just doesn’t seem to be working.

The finance minister already said that the budget for next year is going to be extremely difficult. I believe that they will have to debate, as one of the scenarios for next year and beyond, the option of a ceasefire along the current lines, without preconditions, without demanding that Ukraine leave Donbas. This will be just one of the scenarios.

Putin is a stubborn guy. I’m not sure he will yield to these demands. When you see these mounting troubles, you don’t see a good way out because, apart from increasing taxes, they were getting by with increased domestic borrowing through OFZ. But it is getting more and more difficult.

The Ministry of Finance has now suspended the auctions because yields have been rising, and that increases budget spending on servicing the debt. How to finance all these mounting demands for spending is not clear, and the economy is tanking.

The windfall from the Middle Eastern war, the extra revenue, is largely over. We have some outbursts here and there, but we can clearly see that it is not preventing either a record budget deficit or GDP decline.

There will be a very difficult discussion on the budget this September-October. And on the other side of the table, you see this option where, for everybody, life becomes so much easier with just one click of a finger, by stopping the hostilities along the current lines.

That will be a test moment for Putin: he can face mounting trouble and increasing pressure, which is growing by the day economically and will be so much worse by September, or he can jump out of it. Let’s see what Putin decides.

But I think the main conclusion from Ukrainian strikes and sanctions and all these enormous sources of pressure is that the pressure is working. The cracks are there. We can see them. What Ukrainian strikes are doing is adding fuel to the fire, significantly and visibly exacerbating the Russian crisis.

It comes to some sort of inflection point. Let’s look at September-October, and hopefully we will finally see Putin changing his mind. If not, let’s increase the pressure. That’s the point.

Kyiv has been gripped by political crisis in recent days, with protests erupting in the wake of Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko’s resignation and the Cabinet’s subsequent dismissal.

The trigger was the departure of Mykhailo Fedorov, the Minister of Defense whose name had become synonymous with digital transformation and procurement reform. His removal alone was enough to bring people onto the streets — but the situation escalated once it emerged that Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi had opposed several of Fedorov’s initiatives and was among those pushing for his exit. Fedorov himself lent credence to this account at a subsequent press conference. Protesters’ demands shifted accordingly: what began as a call to reinstate Fedorov broadened into demands for a wider shake-up of military leadership, with Syrskyi’s own position now in question. As calls for changes in the military leadership gained momentum, Mykhailo Drapatyi's name repeatedly surfaced among protesters as a preferred candidate to replace General Oleksandr Syrskyi. Yesterday, following several days of deliberations, President Zelensky appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The political calculus behind this appointment and Fedorov’s dismissal: the rival factions, the competing interests, the internal political maneuvering around the President is not the scope of this report. The focus here is General Mykhailo Drapatyi. Whatever the politics behind his elevation, Drapatyi is widely considered one of Ukraine’s most capable and respected wartime commanders. This report examines his military record, his approach to command, his operational experience, and what his appointment is likely to mean

Table of Contents:

I. The Rise of Mykhailo Drapatyi

II. What Does the New Commander-in-Chief Bring to the Role?

III. Managing Expectations and Realities

I. The Rise of Mykhailo Drapatyi

Mykhailo Drapatyi, 43, is the youngest officer ever appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Forces in 2004 and began his military career in the 72nd Mechanized Brigade.

Mykhailo Drapatyi started his path as a combat officer during the opening phase of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014. One of the episodes that first brought Drapatyi national recognition was the fighting for Mariupol in 2014, where he commanded an armored unit involved in restoring Ukrainian control over the city after it had been seized by Russian-backed forces. The operation became widely associated with a video showing Drapatyi's column departing the city after completing its mission. In the footage, his BMP is seen pushing through a barricade to clear the route for the vehicles following behind.

Yet the operation that arguably tells us more about Drapatyi as a commander took place several months later during the fighting in Sector D along the Ukrainian-Russian border.

By early August 2014, Ukrainian forces near Voznesenivka, Dovzhanskyi and Diakove had spent more than three weeks under constant artillery fire from Russian territory and repeated attacks by Russian-backed formations. Supply routes had largely collapsed, ammunition was running low, casualties were mounting, and several Ukrainian units found themselves effectively encircled. The situation had become one of the first major operational crises of the war.

At the time, Drapatyi, then a major and commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, led one of the assault groups tasked with breaking out of the encirclement. Over three days of fighting, his force pushed through minefields, artillery fire, and enemy ambushes before linking up with Ukrainian forces outside the pocket. In doing so, it not only opened an escape route for elements of the 72nd Brigade, but also for personnel from the 24th, 51st, and 79th Brigades, as well as several smaller units trapped in the area.

The breakout preserved a substantial portion of the group’s combat power. Tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery systems were successfully brought out of the encirclement, while equipment that could not be evacuated was destroyed to prevent its capture. More importantly, hundreds of Ukrainian servicemen who had spent weeks under constant fire and isolation were able to return home.

In August 2016, Drapatyi was appointed commander of the 58th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, which was then operating in the Avdiivka and Yasynuvata sectors of Donetsk Oblast.

At the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Drapatyi was serving in a senior training and staff position. However, as the situation in southern Ukraine deteriorated in the first weeks of the war, in March 2022, he was appointed Deputy Commander of Operational Command South.

With Drapatyi playing an operational role, Ukrainian forces halted the Russian offensive toward Kryvyi Rih before launching a series of counterattacks that pushed Russian forces back and liberated a number of settlements in the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions

The operational grouping in which he served at the time, subsequently participated in the Kherson counteroffensive between August and November 2022.

In early May 2024, Russia launched a surprise offensive north of Kharkiv toward Vovchansk and Lyptsi. Ukrainian defenses in the sector proved insufficiently prepared, allowing Russian forces to achieve rapid initial gains and create a situation that threatened to destabilize the entire Kharkiv direction. As the crisis unfolded, the commander of Operational-Tactical Grouping “Kharkiv” was removed and Mykhailo Drapatyi was appointed to take charge of the direction, while simultaneously retaining his position as Deputy Chief of the General Staff.

Essentially, Drapatyi was handed a near-total disaster: a poorly organized defense, units retreating without coordination or cohesion, and a rapidly deteriorating situation just two days into the crisis. Following Drapatyi's appointment, the Russian offensive was contained and largely confined to two areas, Vovchansk and Hlyboke. Despite continued fighting, Russia failed to significantly expand its gains there by 2026. Following the stabilization of the Kharkiv direction, Drapatyi was soon reassigned to another troubled sector, taking command of Operational-Tactical Group “Luhansk” - another challenging area of the front at the time.

On 29 November 2024, President Zelensky appointed Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi as Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. In 2025, he was additionally appointed commander of Operational-Strategic Grouping of Forces “Khortytsia”.

Khortytsia, arguably the most active and challenging sector of the front at the time, was in an extremely difficult situation when Drapatyi took command. While conditions on the ground remained critical, several sources told us that many officers reacted to his appointment with a sense of relief and renewed optimism.

Under his leadership, the situation improved noticeably. The front gradually stabilized, Russian advances slowed, and the cost of further offensive operations increased. Although Russian forces were not completely halted, they were unable to achieve the pace of progress seen before his appointment.

Of course, it would be unfair to attribute these improvements to Drapatyi alone. Any improvement was the result of a broader team effort involving operational commanders and the units fighting on the ground. Nevertheless, there was a correlation between his appointment and the subsequent improvement in the situation, which is why our team believes it is reasonable to highlight his contribution.

On 1 June 2025, Drapatyi submitted his resignation as Commander of the Ground Forces following a Russian missile strike on a training ground that killed 12 servicemen. He described the decision as an act of personal accountability, arguing that commanders must take responsibility for failures under their authority. Drapatyi stated that he had been unable to ensure the proper implementation of his orders and criticized a military culture that is often reluctant to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.

President Zelensky accepted his resignation from the Ground Forces command and appointed him Commander of the Joint Forces. At the same time, Drapatyi retained command of OSUV “Khortytsia”

II. What Does the New Commander-in-Chief Bring to the Role?

1. Receptive Leadership

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Drapatyi’s reputation is not his combat record alone, but a different approach to personnel and accepting the information

Multiple officers and sergeants we spoke with who served under Drapatyi described a leadership style that differed from the traditional top-down culture often associated with post-Soviet militaries. Unlike many senior officers of the older generation, Drapatyi reportedly sought input from subordinate commanders, encouraged honest feedback, and was willing to adjust decisions based on information from the field.

2. Personnel-Conscious Leadership

One officer who served alongside him and has been involved in the war since 2014 described Drapatyi as a “humane officer”, meaning that he consistently weighed the human cost of military decisions and placed a high value on the lives of his soldiers.

This aspect of his leadership may prove particularly important given Ukraine’s current circumstances. After years of war, manpower has become one of the country’s most constrained resources, and there is little indication that those challenges will disappear in the foreseeable future. In such an environment, commanders who can balance military necessity with the preservation of personnel are likely to have a positive impact on the long-term effectiveness of the force.

3. Understanding War at Every Level

Another of Drapatyi’s strengths is that he has advanced through every level of command during wartime. His experience spans the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, a progression that remains relatively rare even within today’s Ukrainian military.

While many officers have gained valuable combat experience since 2022, most have done so primarily at the tactical or operational level. Far fewer have progressed from tactical-level command to positions such as commander of a major operational grouping, Commander of the Ground Forces, or Commander of the Joint Forces, roles that require a very different set of skills from those needed to lead a company, battalion, or brigade.

Drapatyi’s career therefore offers a unique set of experiences. He is a commander who personally led soldiers in combat, while later assuming responsibility for large-scale operational formations and strategic-level decision-making. Few officers have accumulated such a broad range of wartime command experience across all levels of military leadership.

4. A Vision for Military Reform

Mykhailo Drapatyi appears to have a clear understanding of the problems requiring attention within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Many of these issues have also been highlighted by Ukrainian and Western analysts in recent years. According to our trusted source, Drapatyi’s priorities include improving training and adaptation processes to reduce AWOL rates, a serious issue that has affected the Ukrainian military throughout the war. He has also emphasized the need for more effective force and resource allocation, including moving away from the continued creation of new brigades and toward a more rational consolidation of existing forces. Other areas of concern include reducing Soviet-style top-down leadership practices and addressing inefficient force management, such as the repeated attachment of fragmented units to other formations

Overall, Drapatyi appears to be focused on addressing fundamental institutional challenges, including force organization, resource management, and improvement of the mission command principles. If successfully implemented, it could help resolve a wide range of persistent problems within the Armed Forces of Ukraine

III. Managing Expectations and Realities

1. Command Beyond the Battlefield

The role of Commander-in-Chief extends far beyond military decision-making and requires navigating a highly political environment. Drapatyi assumes the position amid crisis with significant expectations that he will address some of the Armed Forces’ most persistent problems, but doing so will likely require challenging established practices, interests, and internal power structures. As seen with other reform-oriented officials, including Mykhailo Fedorov, the main difficulty may not be identifying the necessary reforms, but overcoming resistance from those who are invested in preserving the existing system.

Unlike Zaluzhnyi and Syrskyi, both of whom spent years building influence within Ukraine’s military establishment before the full-scale invasion, Drapatyi enters the role without the same depth of established networks at the highest levels of command. While he enjoys considerable respect among personnel across the Armed Forces, he does not appear to have a similarly developed team of trusted allies within the senior command structure, while other internal groups have had years to build their own networks. This may become a significant challenge, as Drapatyi has limited time to consolidate support while pursuing potentially disruptive changes.

According to multiple officers within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, resistance to some of these changes is a realistic possibility. Whether Drapatyi can translate his vision into meaningful reforms will depend not only on the quality of his decisions, but also on his ability to navigate institutional opposition and maintain support within the military hierarchy. Given the visible tensions and political infighting surrounding recent events, it remains unclear whether he will be able to establish the necessary authority and backing, or whether he will become drawn into broader power struggles within Kyiv and the Armed Forces.

2. Reforming the Mobilization System

One of the most pressing challenges facing both the Armed Forces and Ukrainian society is mobilization. Many hope that the appointment of a new Commander-in-Chief, together with changes in the Ministry of Defense, will help to resolve the problem. Such expectations, however, should be viewed with caution.

First, it remains unclear who will ultimately assume the position of Minister of Defense on a permanent basis, or whether the current political crisis will conclude with such an appointment. Second, and more importantly, neither Drapatyi nor the Minister of Defense can resolve the mobilization problem on their own.

The critical questions surrounding mobilization extend beyond military command and the MoD. Addressing them will require legislative changes, revisions to internal regulations, and political decisions on a number of sensitive issues. Among them is the question of enforcement: whether the Armed Forces should continue to play a role in identifying individuals who evade mobilization, or whether that responsibility should be transferred entirely to law enforcement agencies, whose mandate is to investigate and enforce violations of the law.

Ultimately, mobilization is not a problem that can be solved through personnel changes alone. Any meaningful reform will require coordinated action by the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Verkhovna Rada, and the political leadership. Even if work on such reforms begins immediately, tangible results are unlikely to emerge in the short term and will likely require at least 6-12 months to implement.

3. The Limits of Leadership

Ukraine is now in its fifth year of full-scale war, not the first or second. The war has already taken on a well-defined shape, and many of its underlying trends are difficult to reverse. As a result, expectations should remain realistic. Competent leadership matters, and good decisions can improve the army’s performance. Even exceptional decisions can significantly improve the situation, but no Commander-in-Chief can, by himself, overcome the broader constraints imposed by manpower, resources, and the overall trajectory of a prolonged war, especially without the sustained support of the President and the Ministry of Defense, which has yet to fully materialize.

Summary

We think that Drapatyi’s selection was perhaps the best option available to the President under the circumstances. However, expectations should remain realistic, as the outcome of the war will continue to be shaped by numerous factors - and he is just one of them. The challenges and risks facing Mykhailo Drapatyi are substantial, and the path ahead will be exceptionally difficult. Nevertheless, his extensive combat experience, leadership record, and understanding of the military’s challenges provide reason to believe that meaningful progress remains possible.

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The war has increasingly become a war of drones, but this does not mean that other means of warfare have lost their relevance. This is evident from personnel loss data we analyzed across multiple Russian units, as well as from feedback provided by Ukrainian units. Based on this large dataset, we conclude that as of 2025 roughly one quarter to one third of battlefield losses are still caused by artillery and mortar fire. While drones have become the leading cause of losses, artillery continues to play a critical role, and this is unlikely to change in the near future. Instead, what we observe is a process of tactical adaptation and a rethinking of how artillery is employed.

Unsurprisingly, despite the growing prominence of drones, Russia has not abandoned efforts to expand the production of artillery ammunition, propellant, and gun barrels. After Russian forces began experiencing serious ammunition shortages as early as 2023, Moscow turned to imported ammunition from Iran and North Korea as a stopgap measure. However, this approach proved to be only a short- to medium-term solution. Over time, Russian units encountered persistent quality, compatibility, and reliability issues with imported ammunition, reinforcing the need for a long-term domestic solution.

In response, the Russian military-industrial complex accelerated its modernization and expansion efforts, urgently seeking additional human, technological, and financial resources to meet frontline demand. This required scaling the entire production chain, from propellant manufacturing and shell casting to final assembly and precision machining.

In a recent analytical report published by the Ukrainian military-focused outlet Militarnyi, citing Russian internal documents, specific production figures were disclosed. According to the report, in 2024 the Russian army received 1.428 million 120 mm mortar rounds. In 2025, deliveries increased to 1.961 million, a year-on-year rise of 37.3 percent.

In total, the Russian defense industry received orders for 1.558 million 152 mm artillery shells of all types in 2024. In 2025, this figure rose to 1.717 million, an increase of 10.2 percent.

Taken together, these figures point that to sustain this level of output, Russia must increasingly rely on domestic production capacity rather than external suppliers. Moreover, as artillery barrels wear out or are destroyed, maintaining firepower requires not only a steady supply of shells but also the continuous replacement of barrels.

Our team, in cooperation with another analytical company Dallas, obtained and analyzed unique Russian procurement documents related to Plant No. 9, a key manufacturer of artillery barrels for the Koalitsiya and Msta self-propelled howitzers, tank guns for the T-90 and T-14 Armata, as well as for modernized T-62 and T-72 tanks. The plant also produces naval rocket depth-charge launchers RBU-1000 and RBU-6000 and is the original developer of the Soviet D-30 howitzer, which remains in use by the Russian army in its war against Ukraine.

Despite international sanctions imposed by the EU, the United States, Ukraine, Japan, and Switzerland, the plant has been undergoing continuous modernization since at least 2016. As of April 2025, the contractor ZAO “Zenit-Investprom” had prepared and delivered updated design documentation to the plant, which we were able to obtain. We concluded that Russia has been expanding production facilities and modernizing equipment at the site, a process that would be impossible without access to Western-origin machinery and technology.

I. Facility Modernization and Capacity Expansion

Plant No. 9 is located within the Uralmash industrial zone, a major center of heavy industry that has historically included both civilian and military production facilities in Yekaterinburg, Russia. By comparing satellite imagery with technical schematics from 2025, we identified the facilities designated for reconstruction and technical re-equipment and marked them in dark red on the map.

In total, six facilities were identified, including two metalworking workshops and a galvanic production facility. One of the metalworking buildings (called MSK) houses production for several products, including the Armata platform and the Koalitsiya self-propelled howitzer.

The reconstruction of this building is aimed at establishing an integrated production facility for the serial manufacture of components and assemblies for the 152 mm 2A88 artillery system used in the 2S35 Koalitsiya self-propelled howitzer. The facility consists of two workshops: Workshop No. 23, designated for the machining and final manual finishing of components and assemblies for the Koalitsiya system, and Workshop No. 25, where the assembly of components and finished products takes place, along with commissioning, painting, preservation, packaging, assembly of spare parts kits, and shipment to the warehouse.

Notably, the word Armata, often associated with the so-called “ghost tank,” also appears in the documentation, with an entire section of the MSK facility dedicated to it. We assess that references to “Armata” in this context most likely concern the production of fire control systems or guns/barrels, originally created for Armata, and later repurposed for other vehicles.

The full project documentation, including floor plans, technical details, and specifications, is provided for download at the end.

II. Sanctions and Imports

The key finding of our analysis is that this expansion, as well as its earlier iterations, would have been impossible without Western machinery. Nearly all critical elements of production and reconstruction rely on modern, high-precision industrial equipment sourced almost exclusively from Europe and Taiwan.

Importantly, this is not a case of small components or dual-use consumer electronics being repurposed for military use. Instead, the expansion depends on large-scale industrial machinery that is inherently easier to track and regulate. Below, we present this equipment broken down by country of origin and manufacturer:

1. Taiwan

Company: KAFO

• Vertical milling machining center VMC-21100+
  

Company: Glory

• CNC centerless grinding machine Glory APC 24S NC

2. Italy

Company: TACCHI

• Multifunctional CNC turning machining center for rough machining TACCHI HD/3 450×4000

• Multifunctional CNC turning machining center TACCHI HD/3 450×10000

Company: PARPAS

• Horizontal milling machining center OMV Electra

3. Germany

Company: DMG MORI

• 3-axis vertical CNC milling machine DMC 650V

• 3-axis vertical CNC milling machine DMC 650V MillTap 700

• CNC turret lathe DMG Beta 800

• CNC bar-fed turret lathe DMG Alpha 500

Company: LIEBHERR

• CNC gear hobbing machine LC500

• Vertical CNC gear shaping machine LFS 1200

• Vertical CNC gear shaping machine LFS 300

• CNC turret lathe DMG Gamma 1250

Company: HERMLE AG

• 5-axis machining center C42U

4. Britain

Company: JONES & SHIPMAN

• Surface grinding machine PROGRIND 1045 EASY
  

Overall, Russia plans to supply and install at least 22 large industrial machines at the modernized facility, including gear-shaping, milling, and other multifunctional production equipment.

The documents also show that this is not a one-time upgrade or modernization effort, but part of a decade-long process to expand and improve production, with the current phase accelerated by the war. For example, in a series of letters sent in 2014 to the Director of the Department of Basic Industries at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, the CEO of Plant No. 9 requested an expert review to confirm that certain production equipment could not be manufactured domestically and therefore had to be imported.

In these letters, the requests concerned the procurement of APC 24S-NC equipment from the Taiwanese company Glory, as well as the German LFS 1200 system.

III. Implications

Despite a decade-long import-substitution strategy, Russia has not achieved independence from foreign machinery imports. Nearly all critical stages of manufacturing at Plant No. 9, not just auxiliary processes, still rely on high-precision industrial equipment from Europe and East Asia. The purchase and export of such large machinery is inherently easier to monitor and control than smaller appliances, which are more difficult to track and enforce, particularly on secondary markets.

Rising numbers and increased production efficiency strongly indicate that Russia is circumventing sanctions not just on paper, but in practice. While sanctions undoubtedly complicate procurement, the documents reviewed do not reveal any significant concerns or a lack of confidence on the Russian side regarding their ability to acquire this equipment - a rather troubling signal in the fourth year of the war.

Thank you for reading. We are pleased to announce that in the coming weeks, after nearly three months of work, we will be completing a comprehensive report covering internal data, systemic challenges within the Russian military, insights into Russia’s senior decision-making circles and their views on the war, as well as a range of exclusive information not available elsewhere. The full report will be made available to our paid subscribers as a thank you for the financial support they have provided. We have also included a link below to a shared drive containing the referenced files.

We would also like to note that our partners, the Dallas analytical company, provide a significant amount of leaked Russian data to journalists and other researchers through their own platform.

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Ongoing debates about Russia’s economic outlook, defense spending, production capacity and security posture often lean on speculation because reliable data is limited. Last month, our team released new information on Russia’s tank production plans. It helped clarify part of the picture, but only one part. Today we add another, with fresh data on Mi-8 helicopter production for military use, giving a clearer view of Russia’s industrial output and its broader effort to rebuild its forces.

Since the Mi-8 program began in the Soviet era, over 12,000 Mi-8 helicopters of various modifications, including export variants, have been produced. The Mi-8 is built at two Russian facilities: the Kazan Helicopter Plant and the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant, both part of the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec. The number of operational Mi-8s in service with the Russian Air Force is estimated at roughly 300. However, the overall total is higher, as other militarized agencies, including the FSB, the FSB Border Service, the National Guard and several federal ministries, also operate Mi-8 variants.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Role of the Mi-8

II. Production Figures

III. State of the Mi-8 Fleet

IV. Conclusions

Sources

I. Role of the Mi-8

The Mi-8 is a family of multirole helicopter used across both military and civilian sectors. In military service, its roles range from transport and medical evacuation to reconnaissance, attack missions, airborne workshop or hospital, electronic warfare and counter-drone missions.

The specific Mi-8MTV-5-1 at the center of this investigation is a military transport variant of the Mi-8/17 family. It can be configured for cargo missions, troop transport for up to 36 personnel, and direct attack roles. The helicopter is capable of carrying and deploying unguided rockets, providing fire support missions and aerial bombs with 100, 250 or 500 kilogram payloads.

When it comes to the use of Mi-8 helicopters in Ukraine, their roles have shifted throughout the war. In the opening phase, they delivered troops in air assault operations, including the battles for Kyiv and Hostomel. After heavy losses in the first weeks, this frontline role was largely dropped, and their use for medical evacuation also decreased. Mi-8s have continued to appear in search and rescue missions, often deployed to retrieve crews after Russian aircraft were downed.

Eventually, Mi-8s, like other helicopters such as the Ka-52, Mi-24 and Mi-28, began operating in an indirect-fire role. In this mode, the helicopter fires at an upward angle so the rockets follow a parabolic trajectory, similar to MLRS fire, allowing the aircraft to strike from a safer distance.

Starting in 2024, and even more actively in 2025, Russia has been using Mi-8 helicopters to counter aerial drones and unmanned surface vessels.

II. Production Figures

Mi-8 helicopters are built at two main factories, one in Kazan and one in Ulan-Ude. Procurement files obtained by our team show that the Russian company Aviafarm submitted at least two requests for parts it needed to complete contracts from helicopter plants.

A leaked document shows Aviafarm asking another company, ZOMZ (Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Plant), to supply a part under a codename BSH2.820.159TU (БШ2.820.159ТУ). The request states that 20 units are needed to fulfill orders from the Kazan Helicopter Plant and another 20 for the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant, for a total of 40 parts.

BSH2.820.159TU, according to the contract, is the internal code for the IS-264A resistance thermometer. Based on technical manuals for Mi-8 variants, 2 of these thermometers are installed per helicopter. This suggests that 2 units likely corresponds to one Mi-8 airframe in production.

Since the request was made in April 2025 with 40 parts due for delivery by the second quarter to meet that year’s order, Russia’s approximate annual Mi-8 output can be estimated at about 20 units, equally split between the Ulan-Ude and Kazan plants.

Notably, these figures refer only to Mi-8 helicopters built for the Defense Ministry, not those supplied to emergency services or other federal agencies. This suggests overall production capacity is likely higher, unless all available output is allocated exclusively to military orders.

While we do not have data on MoD contracts for 2024, we do know that according to Rostec, in 2024, State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK) was supplied with 40 Mi-8MTV-1 utility helicopters. If GTLK received 40 helicopters in 2024 alone, we can conclude that Russian helicopter plants are capable of producing AT Least 40 helicopters annually, with the total number actually likely be higher.

III. The State of the Mi-8 Fleet

Since the beginning of war, Russia has lost as destroyed or damaged 48 Mi-8 helicopters and 6 Mi-8MTPR-1 electronic warfare helicopters, totaling about 54 Mi-8 helicopters in a course of 45 months.

This is not the full picture. Airframe fatigue, undocumented incidents inside Russia and helicopters nearing the end of their service life, which require retirement or major overhauls, also contribute to the overall attrition.

Even after accounting for those factors, the numbers still suggest that losses have been fully replaced, with a possible net increase. Taking the confirmed 54 losses and, for illustration, adding 20 percent to cover unknown incidents and wear from overuse produces roughly 65 total losses. Over two years, 2024 and 2025, even a conservative output of 20 helicopters a year would cover over half of losses sustained during the war

This estimate is not definitive, since production figures for 2022 and 2023 are unclear. Still, even if Russia produced Mi-8s for the Defense Ministry only in 2025, that single year would cover for roughly 37% percent of all wartime losses.

IV. Conclusions:

While this investigation focuses on Mi-8 production, our team is trying to piece together a broader picture, namely what Russia’s military could look like over the next two to five years. Based on earlier findings, including tank output and the latest Mi-8 data, an early pattern is emerging: Russia’s defense industry is unlikely to ease its pace even if a peace agreement is reached. The main takeaways are:

• Russia’s Defense Ministry appears to be targeting high output levels, potentially enough to replace a full year’s wartime helicopter losses in a single production cycle.

• The armed forces continue to modernize. Older tanks and early Mi-8 variants are being replaced by newer models, and with Soviet-era reserves dwindling, Russia is refilling its inventory with fresh equipment.

• Mi-8 helicopters have limited battlefield impact due to dense air defenses, yet Moscow still dedicates substantial resources to their production.

Overall, current evidence indicates Russia is unlikely to slow defense manufacturing in 2026, even if diplomatic negotiations advance.

The original files are available at the link provided at the end of this article for our paid subscribers

Sources

1. Frontelligence Insight. (2025, October 11). Exclusive: Inside Russia’s 2026–2036 tank fleet modernization and buildup plans. Frontelligence.
2. https://www.kr-media.ru/news/vertoletostroenie/kazanskiy-vertoletnyy-zavod-vypustil-7500-y-vertolet-semeystva-mi-8-17/
3. Книга 1 Летная эксплуатация. Вертолет Ми-8МТВ-5-1
4. Приложение к свидетельству № 46106. (2012). ГЦИ СИ ФБУ ГМЦ Минобороны России.
5. Rostec. (2025, January 20). Rostec has supplied 14 new helicopters to Russian airlines. Rostec. https://rostec.ru/en/media/news/rostec-has-supplied-14-new-helicopters-to-russian-airlines/
6. Janovsky, J., Naalsio, A., Aloha, D., Dan, Kemal & Black, A. (2022, February 24). Attack on Europe: Documenting Russian equipment losses during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Oryx. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

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Debate about Ukrainian soldiers who go absent without leave and about desertion has intensified, but the scale of the problem is still widely misunderstood. Public discussion leans on speculation because no reliable, unified reporting system exists. How many troops actually desert, how authorities respond, and what happens after they are caught remains unclear even among many Ukrainians.

This report examines one of Ukraine’s most difficult military issues. Desertion and long-term absence have become serious strategic risk, influencing the performance of units across sectors and shaping the course of the war to Ukraine’s disadvantage. Addressing the problem could bring wide improvements, but first requires a clear understanding of the crisis.

Table of Contents:

I. Legal Definitions
1.1 AWOL Under Ukrainian Law
1.2 Desertion vs. AWOL

II. Navigating the AWOL System
2.1 Transfers Through AWOL

III. The Numbers: Scale and Trend

IV. Who Goes AWOL - and Why

V. Why Enforcement Fails

VI. Stricter Penalties or Pragmatic Flexibility?

VII. Band-Aid Fixes vs. Structural Problems

VIII. The Bottom Line

I. Legal Definitions

Understanding Ukraine’s AWOL and desertion problem begins with defining the terms. Under Ukrainian law, Absence Without Leave (AWOL) and desertion are distinct offenses, yet public discourse often blurs the line. Some explanations dismiss AWOL as a minor disciplinary lapse, while others mislabel desertion, creating confusion or exaggerating the scale of the problem. The result is a distorted picture, leaving the public unsure how widespread unauthorized absences actually are and how they affect the war

1.1 AWOL Under Ukrainian Law

Under Article 407 of the Criminal Code, AWOL occurs when a servicemember leaves their unit or duty post without permission for more than three days. Shorter absences are still unauthorized, but they count as disciplinary violations rather than criminal offences and do not enter AWOL statistics.

In practice, most AWOL cases fall into two common scenarios. The first is leaving a unit or duty post without approval. The second is failing to return from leave, medical treatment or official travel on time.

1.2 Desertion vs. AWOL

The legal difference between the two offences is narrow. AWOL, covered by Article 407, and desertion, covered by Article 408, share the same basic act: leaving a unit or duty post without permission. The dividing line is intent. A servicemember commits desertion when the absence is taken with the intention of not returning and of abandoning military service for good. That intent, rather than the duration of the absence or the circumstances in which it happened, is what separates the two crimes in the eyes of Ukrainian law.

For this reason, throughout this report we use the terms “deserter” and “AWOL” largely interchangeably, due to how closely the two offences overlap in practice.

II. Navigating the AWOL System

What does the process look like in practice? Once a soldier is marked as absent without leave, units typically give them several days to return on their own. Most who come back within that window receive only basic disciplinary measures or guidance and are restored to duty. If the soldier does not return, the unit conducts an internal inquiry before sending the case to the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). The SBI then opens a formal file and prepares it for court, which is the point at which the case enters official statistics.

Soldiers listed as deserters are removed from unit rosters, lose pay and benefits, and cannot receive combat orders.

If police or military law enforcement detain a deserter, the individual is transferred to a reserve battalion, where they remain while their case awaits a court ruling, leaving them stuck in administrative limbo.

From late 2024 through August 2025, Ukraine’s rules for returning to service after going AWOL under wartime changed several times. On November 29, 2024, legislation took effect that allowed certain first-time AWOL servicemembers a simplified “return to duty” path with restored pay, benefits, and social guarantees.

Under this mechanism, soldiers could file a request to return through the Army+ app. If they reported in person within the required window, they were assigned to a reserve unit, where their contracts were typically reinstated. Pay, rations, clothing and other entitlements were restored, after which they were transferred to an active unit.

The simplified return and transfer option, returning to service and potentially moving to another unit, was formally extended until August 30, 2025. During that period, over 29,000 servicemembers returned under the scheme.

2.1 Transfers Through AWOL

AWOL increasingly became an informal channel for transferring between units. A soldier typically first applied for an official transfer, only to be denied. They would then go AWOL, secure a written recommendation from the receiving unit, and report back to the military. With that document, instead of returning to their original unit, they were reassigned to the new one, effectively completing the transfer. Each of these cases, however, generated a criminal file under Article 407.

Even after a soldier transferred to a new unit, the process was not complete. Criminal cases remained open until a court reviewed them, leaving servicemembers with an unresolved case on the books. While the simplified return mechanism was in effect, commanders could reinstate soldiers even if criminal proceedings were pending, so long as they met the program’s criteria.

In practice, this means that reinstated soldiers who transferred to other units or had already returned to combat after reinstatement still had their cases pending in the system and were counted in general AWOL statistics.

III. The Numbers: Scale and Trend

Between January 2022 and September 2024, the SBI opened 59,606 AWOL cases and 29,521 desertion cases. By September 2025, AWOL cases had reached 235,646 and desertion cases 53,954.

This means roughly 200,000 new cases were added in the twelve months after September 2024 alone. The trend points at a sharply worsening situation that accelerated over the past year and, if left unaddressed, could lead to an eventual frontline collapse. At the same time, we should keep in mind that the number of cases is not the same as the number of people involved.

That assumption produces an exaggerated and often catastrophic picture. In reality, the number of servicemembers who went absent without leave is almost certainly about half the commonly cited case totals.

The distortion stems from how cases are recorded and counted, a point explained in detail in the following section.

Although no high-confidence nationwide figure exists, interviews and the limited unit-level data available point to a more realistic estimate of roughly 150,000 deserters combined. The number remains serious, but it is far below the raw case count frequently and incorrectly used as a proxy for the total number of missing servicemembers.

4. Who Goes AWOL - and Why

We determined that the overall case count is an unreliable measure of the number of soldiers who went AWOL, due to the following distortions:

• repeated AWOL by the same individuals
• returnees still waiting for courts to close cases
• returnees held in reserve battalions
• mistaken entries

Officers handling AWOL cases who spoke on the condition of anonymity identified three main categories of servicemembers who go absent: long-serving frontline soldiers, newly mobilized personnel, and a small group affected by administrative errors. Each has their own distinct problems and need tailored approaches to fix:

- Veteran Frontline Soldiers

This group includes troops with more than 18 months on the frontlines, many of whom joined the Ukrainian military in 2022. Their desertions are particularly consequential, as they bring experience, stabilize units, and mentor new recruits. While not the largest category of AWOL or desertion cases, numbers among these soldiers have steadily risen over the past year.

Common reasons include:

• Blocked transfers: Soldiers may go AWOL to force a transfer when commanders refuse their official transfer requests.

• Family and personal pressures: Years away amplify childcare burdens, spousal issues, and care for elderly parents. Limited rotations or rare visits cannot replace meaningful leave.

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As recently as November, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs reported identifying 44 Indian nationals serving in the Russian armed forces. However, data from the
I Want to Live project suggests the true number is considerably higher. At least 146 Indian citizens have been confirmed by name as having signed contracts, and at least 22 have been killed in action in Ukraine.

Our review of the records indicates that Russia, working through local recruiters in India, is actively targeting Indian nationals, drawing them into military service despite the Indian government’s efforts to curb such cases. In May 2024, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation arrested four individuals involved in trafficking citizens to fight for the Russian army. The suspects were based across multiple Indian cities and had collaborators in Dubai and Russia.

The issue drew national attention after reports surfaced that young Indians were being misled into joining the Russian military under the pretense of work or study visas. Families in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Telangana said their relatives were pressured or deceived into enlisting as “support staff,” only to be deployed to the front lines.

Earlier this month, relatives from more than ten states, including families of two men killed in the war, staged a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. They carried signs urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin to intervene.

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Luring the Recruits
II. Deployment and Casualties
III. Assessment and Summary
Sources

I. Luring the Recruits

One of the major differences compared to our earlier investigation into Cuban recruitment is that the path into the Russian army is far less straightforward. Unlike Cuban mercenaries, who generally know they are signing up to serve in the Russian military, India-focused recruitment offers much less transparency. Our team has verified that, despite requests to halt such activity, the recruitment of Indian nationals remained active as of November 2025, with numerous advertisements promising hassle-free Russian visas, employment, and good pay in civilian sector.

We identified more than a dozen ongoing or recently concluded advertising campaigns targeting Indian citizens. In the compilation image below, you can see examples from Facebook, YouTube, and other social-media platforms promoting lucrative job opportunities. Notably, some advertisements even mention Alabuga, the economic zone where Russians mass-produce drones including Shaheds, while others are more vague about the actual employer.

These offers are especially attractive, promising salaries of $700 to $1,000 per month in Russia, which is roughly double or even triple the average income in India. This makes them particularly appealing to individuals from poorer or rural areas.

Once in Russia, recruits typically face two main paths to enlistment. Some encounter pressure from law enforcement, immigration authorities, or other agencies, and in certain cases are presented with the choice of joining the military or facing legal consequences. Others are lured with promises of visa or citizenship assistance, often with assurances of non-combat roles. Sign-up bonuses can reach tens of thousands of dollars, roughly equivalent to a decade of earnings for an average worker in India.

An analysis of 145 verified records shows that in 2023 only nine contracts were signed.
That number rose to 76 in 2024, and by September 2025, 60 contracts had been recorded. This suggests that recruitment levels have remained largely consistent with 2024 despite measures taken by the Indian government. Unlike trends observed in several African countries, there is no clear surge in enlistment.

A source in India, speaking to us on the condition of anonymity, explained that the Indian government is trying to combat this recruitment, but new ads and offers appear quickly through messaging apps, social networks, or even word of mouth, making it difficult to fully stop.

While this list is not exhaustive and the true number of Indian mercenaries fighting for Russia is likely higher, our team concludes that these figures are still far too small to suggest a state-backed mercenary program. By comparison, Cuba, despite having a population more than 120 times smaller than India, has directly supplied thousands of mercenaries to Russia’s armed forces.

II. Deployment and Casualties

Details about those killed in action help reveal where these mercenaries actually serve. Despite promises of rear-area or logistics duties, they are sent straight to the front. The list of 22 Indian nationals killed in Ukraine shows most losses came from the 7th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 3rd Army, formed from residents of occupied Luhansk Oblast and long marked by heavy casualties. The brigade has been operating around Bilohorivka for some time.

Earlier, when we examined Egyptian citizens fighting for Russia, we noted similarly high casualty rates in this same sector.

The second largest - 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment, which is advancing towards Orikhiv, near Robotyne area - same area, where Ukrainian counter-offensive commenced in the spring-summer of 2023. The next after that is another unit from the 58th army - 71st motor rifle regiment, which operates in the same axis as 291st regiment - towards Orikhiv.

Notably, just as in case with most of other mercenaries, the median age is lower - whether Russian soldier median age is around 38, the median age of mercenaries from India is 27. Overall, younger personnel are naturally better suited for assault units, where physical demands are far higher. It is therefore unsurprising that they are sent directly to the front lines, not only to preserve Russian troops by using foreign recruits in the most dangerous roles, but also because their physical condition makes them more capable of enduring such assignments.

A common question when foreign fighters are killed is what happens to them afterward. The case of Sonu Kumar, from Hisar, offers a good example. He was among several Indians who travelled to Russia on student visas. According to a report by Firstpost, recruiting agents convinced him to extend his stay with promises of steady, well-paid work.

“Sonu was told he would work as a security guard and be kept far from the war zone,” his brother Vikas said. “He trusted them because they assured him he would earn well and remain safe.”

The family last heard from Kumar on Sept. 3, when he said he was being sent to the front line and that his phone would soon be confiscated.

On Sept. 19, the family received a Telegram message from Russian authorities saying Kumar had gone missing on Sept. 6 and that his body had been found. They were told his remains could be moved to Moscow airport for repatriation, but only if the family covered the costs.

III. Assessment and Summary

When recruits from India, Iraq, China and several other Asian countries are added together, they amount to enough personnel to fill the ranks of an entire motor rifle regiment. The figure is far from decisive in a war of this scale, but it matters for the small, incremental gains Russia continues to make by ensuring it always has enough manpower to keep pushing forward, something Ukraine, unlike Russia, struggles to match.

This approach comes with caveats and costs. Many of the countries involved do not encourage such recruitment, creating diplomatic friction, especially when their citizens are captured by Ukrainian forces. This is an uncomfortable situation for governments trying to maintain neutrality or balance ties with both Kyiv and Moscow. Communication is also a challenge, because foreign volunteers from different linguistic backgrounds often struggle to interact with Russian commanders.

So, while using foreign nationals may reduce Russian casualties at the margins, it carries clear trade-offs. And despite the number of Indian citizens fighting for Russia, our team concluded that, relative to India’s population of more than 1.4 billion, the figures are negligible. This makes state involvement in any such scheme unlikely.

Thank you for reading. A link to the full list of names in English, along with dates of birth, is available to paid subscribers below.

Sources

1. Hochu Zhit (2025). https://hochuzhit.com/en/

2. Al Jazeera. (2024, May 8). India arrests four for duping young men into fighting for Russia in Ukraine. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/8/india-arrests-four-for-duping-young-men-into-fighting-for-russia-in-ukraine

3. Times of India. 44 Indians in Russian army: MEA in touch with Kremlin after identification; warns citizens against joining. The Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/125160882.cms

4. Outsourced war (2025). Frontelligence https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/outsourced-war

5. Firstpost. (2024, February 22). Were Indians duped by agents to fight for Russia in Ukraine war? Firstpost. https://www.firstpost.com/world/indian-men-at-ukraine-war-front-duped-by-agents-fighting-for-russia-moscow-mea-pm-modi-putin-luped-for-jobs-familty-seek-help-13947616.html

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As recently as November, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs reported identifying 44 Indian nationals serving in the Russian armed forces. However, data from the
I Want to Live project suggests the true number is considerably higher. At least 146 Indian citizens have been confirmed by name as having signed contracts, and at least 22 have been killed in action in Ukraine.

Our review of the records indicates that Russia, working through local recruiters in India, is actively targeting Indian nationals, drawing them into military service despite the Indian government’s efforts to curb such cases. In May 2024, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation arrested four individuals involved in trafficking citizens to fight for the Russian army. The suspects were based across multiple Indian cities and had collaborators in Dubai and Russia.

The issue drew national attention after reports surfaced that young Indians were being misled into joining the Russian military under the pretense of work or study visas. Families in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Telangana said their relatives were pressured or deceived into enlisting as “support staff,” only to be deployed to the front lines.

Earlier this month, relatives from more than ten states, including families of two men killed in the war, staged a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. They carried signs urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin to intervene.

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Luring the Recruits
II. Deployment and Casualties
III. Assessment and Summary
Sources

I. Luring the Recruits

One of the major differences compared to our earlier investigation into Cuban recruitment is that the path into the Russian army is far less straightforward. Unlike Cuban mercenaries, who generally know they are signing up to serve in the Russian military, India-focused recruitment offers much less transparency. Our team has verified that, despite requests to halt such activity, the recruitment of Indian nationals remained active as of November 2025, with numerous advertisements promising hassle-free Russian visas, employment, and good pay in civilian sector.

We identified more than a dozen ongoing or recently concluded advertising campaigns targeting Indian citizens. In the compilation image below, you can see examples from Facebook, YouTube, and other social-media platforms promoting lucrative job opportunities. Notably, some advertisements even mention Alabuga, the economic zone where Russians mass-produce drones including Shaheds, while others are more vague about the actual employer.

These offers are especially attractive, promising salaries of $700 to $1,000 per month in Russia, which is roughly double or even triple the average income in India. This makes them particularly appealing to individuals from poorer or rural areas.

Once in Russia, recruits typically face two main paths to enlistment. Some encounter pressure from law enforcement, immigration authorities, or other agencies, and in certain cases are presented with the choice of joining the military or facing legal consequences. Others are lured with promises of visa or citizenship assistance, often with assurances of non-combat roles. Sign-up bonuses can reach tens of thousands of dollars, roughly equivalent to a decade of earnings for an average worker in India.

An analysis of 145 verified records shows that in 2023 only nine contracts were signed.
That number rose to 76 in 2024, and by September 2025, 60 contracts had been recorded. This suggests that recruitment levels have remained largely consistent with 2024 despite measures taken by the Indian government. Unlike trends observed in several African countries, there is no clear surge in enlistment.

A source in India, speaking to us on the condition of anonymity, explained that the Indian government is trying to combat this recruitment, but new ads and offers appear quickly through messaging apps, social networks, or even word of mouth, making it difficult to fully stop.

While this list is not exhaustive and the true number of Indian mercenaries fighting for Russia is likely higher, our team concludes that these figures are still far too small to suggest a state-backed mercenary program. By comparison, Cuba, despite having a population more than 120 times smaller than India, has directly supplied thousands of mercenaries to Russia’s armed forces.

II. Deployment and Casualties

Details about those killed in action help reveal where these mercenaries actually serve. Despite promises of rear-area or logistics duties, they are sent straight to the front. The list of 22 Indian nationals killed in Ukraine shows most losses came from the 7th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 3rd Army, formed from residents of occupied Luhansk Oblast and long marked by heavy casualties. The brigade has been operating around Bilohorivka for some time.

Earlier, when we examined Egyptian citizens fighting for Russia, we noted similarly high casualty rates in this same sector.

The second largest - 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment, which is advancing towards Orikhiv, near Robotyne area - same area, where Ukrainian counter-offensive commenced in the spring-summer of 2023. The next after that is another unit from the 58th army - 71st motor rifle regiment, which operates in the same axis as 291st regiment - towards Orikhiv.

Notably, just as in case with most of other mercenaries, the median age is lower - whether Russian soldier median age is around 38, the median age of mercenaries from India is 27. Overall, younger personnel are naturally better suited for assault units, where physical demands are far higher. It is therefore unsurprising that they are sent directly to the front lines, not only to preserve Russian troops by using foreign recruits in the most dangerous roles, but also because their physical condition makes them more capable of enduring such assignments.

A common question when foreign fighters are killed is what happens to them afterward. The case of Sonu Kumar, from Hisar, offers a good example. He was among several Indians who travelled to Russia on student visas. According to a report by Firstpost, recruiting agents convinced him to extend his stay with promises of steady, well-paid work.

“Sonu was told he would work as a security guard and be kept far from the war zone,” his brother Vikas said. “He trusted them because they assured him he would earn well and remain safe.”

The family last heard from Kumar on Sept. 3, when he said he was being sent to the front line and that his phone would soon be confiscated.

On Sept. 19, the family received a Telegram message from Russian authorities saying Kumar had gone missing on Sept. 6 and that his body had been found. They were told his remains could be moved to Moscow airport for repatriation, but only if the family covered the costs.

III. Assessment and Summary

When recruits from India, Iraq, China and several other Asian countries are added together, they amount to enough personnel to fill the ranks of an entire motor rifle regiment. The figure is far from decisive in a war of this scale, but it matters for the small, incremental gains Russia continues to make by ensuring it always has enough manpower to keep pushing forward, something Ukraine, unlike Russia, struggles to match.

This approach comes with caveats and costs. Many of the countries involved do not encourage such recruitment, creating diplomatic friction, especially when their citizens are captured by Ukrainian forces. This is an uncomfortable situation for governments trying to maintain neutrality or balance ties with both Kyiv and Moscow. Communication is also a challenge, because foreign volunteers from different linguistic backgrounds often struggle to interact with Russian commanders.

So, while using foreign nationals may reduce Russian casualties at the margins, it carries clear trade-offs. And despite the number of Indian citizens fighting for Russia, our team concluded that, relative to India’s population of more than 1.4 billion, the figures are negligible. This makes state involvement in any such scheme unlikely.

Thank you for reading. A link to the full list of names in English, along with dates of birth, is available to paid subscribers below.

Sources

1. Hochu Zhit (2025). https://hochuzhit.com/en/

2. Al Jazeera. (2024, May 8). India arrests four for duping young men into fighting for Russia in Ukraine. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/8/india-arrests-four-for-duping-young-men-into-fighting-for-russia-in-ukraine

3. Times of India. 44 Indians in Russian army: MEA in touch with Kremlin after identification; warns citizens against joining. The Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/125160882.cms

4. Outsourced war (2025). Frontelligence https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/outsourced-war

5. Firstpost. (2024, February 22). Were Indians duped by agents to fight for Russia in Ukraine war? Firstpost. https://www.firstpost.com/world/indian-men-at-ukraine-war-front-duped-by-agents-fighting-for-russia-moscow-mea-pm-modi-putin-luped-for-jobs-familty-seek-help-13947616.html

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Russia’s faltering early phase of the invasion of Ukraine has put the Kremlin in a difficult position: it faced a choice between accepting the outcomes and attempting to backtrack, or continuing the fight despite mounting international sanctions, economic strain, demographic pressures, and other risks. The Kremlin chose to press ahead with mobilization and continue the war despite the costs, believing it could turn the battlefield in its favor. As Ukraine received increasingly sophisticated Western weaponry, from Javelin anti-tank missiles to modern MLRS and artillery systems in growing numbers, Moscow sought new partners to support its military efforts.

North Korea - a heavily sanctioned, cash-strapped state with a shared border and large stockpiles of compatible 152-millimeter artillery ammunition, emerged as a natural partner for Moscow. As North Korea increased shell deliveries to Russia, both countries started to face constraints: such as weak infrastructure which limited the efficiency of military shipments, and, more critically, remained inadequate for expanding economic cooperation.

At present, Russia has no direct road connections with North Korea. The only existing land link is the Korea–Russia Friendship Railroad Bridge, opened in the late 1950s, which remains the sole fixed crossing between the two countries. Beyond that, bilateral transport relies on limited air connections, via Pyongyang International Airport, and maritime routes such as the North Korean port of Rajin. The port has gained renewed importance in recent years, serving as a logistics hub for shipments of artillery, mortars, and other ammunition supplied to Russia.

On June 19, 2024, the Kremlin announced an agreement with North Korea to build a road bridge across the Tumen River, a project long entertained since Soviet times but never brought to fruition, in part due to Chinese objections. Our team at Frontelligence Insight has analyzed project documentation, satellite imagery, and related materials to assess the potential impacts and strategic significance of the new bridge. This report presents the key findings and essential figures derived from our analysis.


Table of Contents:
Intro
I. Khasan–Tumangang Bridge Construction
II. Capacity and Volume
III. Summary and Broader Implications
Sources and references

I. Khasan–Tumangang Bridge Construction

The road bridge construction over the Tumen River is being managed by the construction firm TunnelYuzhStroy and carries an estimated price tag of nearly 9 billion rubles (roughly $110 million) funded through Russia’s federal budget.

The entire new bridge crossing, including new access roads, spans 4.7 kilometers, with the bridge itself expected to measure about one kilometer in length. According to official figures, the Russian section extends 424 meters and the North Korean side 581 meters. Our own measurements, however, indicate the bridge’s current length is closer to 835 meters, though it could reach the claimed one kilometer once bridge ramps are completed.

Construction began in early 2025 with preparatory work, including the development of logistics routes and access roads to the site. By October 14, 2025, satellite imagery shows steady progress on the new road bridge over the Tumen River. On the North Korean side, crews have advanced well into the middle of the river, constructing earthen cofferdams to install support piles. On the Russian side, at least two cofferdams are also visible, though progress there appears to be somewhat slower.

Both Russia and North Korea are simultaneously constructing special zones to house border control and customs authorities, effectively serving as entry points to their respective countries. The large building complex on the North Korean side has multiple structures, suggesting a mix of functions, including administrative offices and possibly inspection or support facilities.

At the current pace, barring severe weather-related delays, the bridge and its supporting infrastructure are expected to be completed by mid-2026, indicating that the project remains on schedule.

II. Capacity and Volume

Khasan, a new automobile entry point on Russia’s side, will initially feature five lanes: two for cargo trucks, one for oversized vehicles, one for buses, and one for passenger cars. Its planned capacity is roughly 300 vehicles per day, or about 109,500 annually. With additional infrastructure and staffing, the crossing could eventually handle up to 800 vehicles daily, or nearly 292,000 a year.

Of the 300 vehicles the checkpoint can accommodate daily, cargo trucks are clearly prioritized, accounting for roughly 200 of the total. Annually, this could translate to a throughput of up to 73,000 trucks. Passenger traffic is expected to reach as many as 2,850 people per day

For context, we compared the projected capacity to another international road crossing, Zabaikalsk, which connects China and Russia. According to public statements, as of 2024, the checkpoint handled roughly 440 vehicles per day. While smaller, Khasan’s capacity remains notable given North Korea’s much smaller size and trade volumes

III. Summary and Broader Implications

Although attention often focuses on military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, their relationship extends well beyond arms sales, technology transfers, and direct combat support. Pyongyang seeks to strengthen bilateral ties to address its domestic socio-economic issues and to maintain leverage in its often fraught relationship with Beijing - a strategy it has pursued for decades. In this context, the regime’s top priority is survival, which also requires a degree of economic stability, including access to food, energy, and other essential resources that Russia can provide. Additionally, both countries, heavily sanctioned by the international community, assist each other in mitigating the impact of restrictions by finding alternative routes, bypassing controls, and improving sanctions resilience.

This dynamic is evident not only in joint initiatives, such as the bridge construction, but also in recent developments, including Russia’s agreement to deploy large numbers of North Korean engineers and workers to the Kursk and Vladivostok regions.

Constructing a road bridge would significantly improve logistics by overcoming the constraints created by the differing rail gauges of Russia and North Korea. Russia and North Korea use different rail gauges, requiring trains to operate on specialized dual-gauge tracks, which decreases overall efficiency. A functioning road crossing could lower per-unit transport costs, enabling Russian exporters to ship goods directly to the Rason special zone by truck, rather than relying on rail or detouring through alternative routes such as China. We expect to see increased trade in gasoline, grain, flour, other food products, chemicals, machinery and spare parts, construction materials, and timber.

That said, North Korea’s trade with Russia is unlikely to see a sharp increase in the near term, whether measured against either country’s GDP or their respective shares in overall exports, given the limited range of goods of mutual interest, the country’s modest purchasing power, and Korea’s relatively small population. Nor is Russia expected to come close to replacing China as Pyongyang’s principal trading partner. While the new bridge and related initiatives are likely to strengthen economic ties, it would be premature to describe the bridge construction as transformative - or as something that could overnight shift the geopolitical balance, either regionally or on the Korean Peninsula.

Sources and references

1. Supplement 6154. Kremlin. http://kremlin.ru/supplement/6154

2. Mishustin, M. (2025, February 1). Распоряжение №157-р. Official Internet Portal of Legal Information. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202502010001

3. Всеостройке (2025, September 21)Строительство автомобильного моста между Россией и КНДР: детали и перспективы. https://xn--b1agapfwapgcl.xn--p1ai/stroitelstvo-avtomobilnogo-mosta-mezhdu-rossiej-i-kndr-detali-i-perspektivy

4. Borovskaya, E. (2024, April 19). МАПП «Забайкальск» ждет глобальная реконструкция. ZAB.RU. https://zab.ru/news/173077

5. Jeong, T. (2025, July 7). Russia turns to N. Korean workers amid Western sanctions. Daily NK. https://www.dailynk.com/english/russia-turns-to-north-korean-workers-amid-western-sanctions

6. ASIAPRESS. 2025.09. 北朝鮮 超望遠動画

In the spring and summer of 2025, as part of our own operation, our team obtained exclusive documents that provide new insight into Russia’s tank-production plans and confirm the existence of a little-known variant of the latest Russian tank. The records indicate that by 2028, output of the T-90M and its new variant, the T-90M2, is expected to increase nearly 80% compared with 2024 levels.

The T-90M2, also known as “Ryvok-1”, is scheduled to begin modestly, with just 10 units planned for 2026. However, Russia’s long-term production plan points to far more ambitious goals: between 2026 and 2036, Moscow intends to build at least 1783 T-90M and T-90M2 tanks, with 1118 of them slated for completion in the three-year period from 2027 to 2029.


Table of Contents

I. Product “188М2”
II. Counting T-90s
III. T-72: Old but Modernized
IV. Terminated?

One of the most pressing questions for analysts, military planners, intelligence agencies, and policymakers is whether Russia intends to refit, expand, or even downsize its forces in the coming years. Often, the clearest insight into an adversary’s intentions comes not from official statements but from the way it allocates resources.

The invasion of Ukraine, the largest war Russia has undertaken since World War II, has compelled Moscow to reevaluate many of its recent military ideas, particularly after confronting a peer adversary supported by Western technology and economic resources. Drawing on these lessons, Russia is adjusting where necessary while simultaneously reinforcing and scaling its most successful practices.

Despite widespread skepticism about the relevance of tanks on a battlefield increasingly shaped by drones, Russian T-90 production remained robust in 2024, reaching roughly 240 units, including both overhauled and modernized vehicles, according to a well-placed analyst. This report not only indirectly confirms his words, but also shows that Moscow does not intend to scale back; on the contrary, it plans to expand modern tank production - a development that may provide a clear answer to the question of its future military posture.

I. Product “188М2”

Our investigation began with what appeared to be a routine document in our hands: a letter from Uralvagonzavod, Russia’s largest tank manufacturer, to the Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Plant (ZOMZ) and a Defense Ministry representative. The company requested parts designated IS-445 for a project identified only as “Product 188M2.” At first, the document seemed unremarkable. But a closer look revealed it as a doorway to a much larger story.

A quick check against public sources helped connect the dots. A 2019 article by the Russian outlet Lenta mentioned “188M” as the codename for the T-90M “Proryv-3.” While not definitive, this suggests that the “2” in “188M2” likely indicates a successor or upgraded modification of the T-90M.

That theory gained traction when we found a reference in the Russian Union of Scientific and Engineering Public Associations listing a lead design engineer as one of the developers of the T-90M2 “Ryvok-1,” which translates as “Dash-1.” While the evidence was indirect and somewhat unconventional, it nonetheless offered credible confirmation of the T-90M2’s existence.

At that point, the trail went cold. Further open-source investigation produced little beyond speculation and unreliable chatter. To move forward, we returned to documents, which revealed more than expected.

II. Counting T-90s

The breakthrough came from the IS-445 part itself. We followed up on the reference in the first document, which listed a supply of IS-445 units for “Product 188M2.” That detail suggested the number of sensors ordered could, in fact, correspond to the number of vehicles being produced. To test this assumption, we consulted both military vehicle specialists and manuals for the T-72 and T-90. Each confirmed that IS-445 is an engine RPM sensor - and that only one such sensor is installed per tank engine.

This finding turned what seemed like a small procurement request into a potential tool for estimating tank production and overhaul volumes. Russian military textbooks, including Armored Weapons and Equipment of the Airborne Troops: Fundamentals of Design Theory, reinforced this conclusion (screenshot below).

Another document proved decisive. In a request from Uralvagonzavod’s commercial director to ZOMZ, the company outlined long-term procurement plans running from 2027 through 2036. The letter, available in full at the end of this report, contained detailed annual projections not only for new production but also for capital overhauls (CO) and modernization (M). Crucially, the numbers covered both T-72 and T-90 variants, including the new T-90M2.

The table below shows aggregated numbers from the same document, breaking down annual production, overhauls, and modernization per vehicle type. Not all tanks listed are new builds; the totals include capital overhaul (CO), modernization (M), and production (P), which we have marked accordingly. The presence of capital overhauls in the list also indicates that when restoration work is carried out on tanks, new parts are ordered rather than using existing spares. This suggests that even if the order invoice includes some spare components, their number is minimal and statistically insignificant in the overall picture.

The figures reveal a sharp ramp-up beginning in 2027, with peak output in 2028, when 428 T-90M and T-90M2 tanks are scheduled - a nearly 80% increase compared to 2024 levels. Between 2027 and 2029 alone, Russia plans to produce, overhaul, or modernize 1,118 T-90M and M2 tanks.

Even if production falls 30% short of target, that still equates to more than 780 modern tanks in just three years. Over the entire decade, Moscow’s target is at least 1,783 T-90M and T-90M2 units.

There are a few unusual details in the schedule. Most notably, the year 2030 is entirely absent - not only for new production, but also for overhauls and modernization. Equally striking, 2029 is the last year with any “P” (production) entries.

After that, orders appear to cover only parts for overhauls and upgrades, with no new production listed. The reason for this gap is unclear. Our team has speculated that 2030 may be reserved for factory reorganization, expansion, or modernization, which could explain the missing year. Once such changes are complete, production could resume under an updated schedule. We see little reason to assume that Russia will halt new tank production, thus it is more likely that the plan after 2029 represents a minimal projection rather than a full production schedule. For now, however, these interpretations remain speculative.

Another plausible explanation came from one of the experts we consulted. He suggested that the absence of production beyond 2029 could reflect plans for a new variant or update of the T-90 around that time, making it unnecessary to reserve production capacity so far in advance. It is also possible that the broader armament program has not yet been finalized, so committing to a decade-long production contract could be impractical.

III. T-72: Old but Modernized

The document also includes procurement data for T-72 parts, though our confidence in these figures is lower than for the T-90. The parts differ from those used in T-90 models, specifically, T-72 modernization program requires the supply of the cold-bore sighting tube TKHP-12-150, making it harder to determine whether each ordered unit corresponds to a single tank, and how many spares they might order. We interviewed several Ukrainian tank crew members, who confirmed that each tank and other armored vehicles carries one of cold-bore tubes. While this small, anecdotal sample is not definitive, it provides a reasonable basis for preliminary estimates. Thus, if we assume one part per tank, the resulting picture would be as follows:

Essentially, the data indicate that Russia plans to overhaul and modernize a total of 828 vehicles into the T-72B3M configuration by 2036. As with the T-90M and T-90M2, peak activity is scheduled around 2028, with 498 T-72B3M units expected to be produced or upgraded between 2027 and 2029. If we combine these figures with projected T-90 variants, the total rises to 2,611 tanks as a baseline for the 2026–2036 period - enough to fully modernize and update Russia’s tank fleet. However, because we are less confident in the methodology for calculating the T-72 figures, we have chosen not to include this number in our final summary.

IV. Terminated?

The BMPT “Terminator” is an armored fighting vehicle built on the chassis of the T-72 main battle tank. Designed to support tanks and other armored vehicles both in field and urban combat, it is easily recognizable by its twin 30mm 2A42 autocannons. Yet after more than three years of full-scale war, the vehicle has seen only limited use, with just a handful of recorded deployments and at least one confirmed destruction.

Scarce information about the program has fueled speculation about its future. These newly obtained documents suggest the skepticism was justified: compared with other platforms, BMPT production appears extremely limited, with only 86 vehicles slated for overhaul and production between 2027 and 2036.

Summary

The documents provide a useful baseline for understanding how Russia’s military and political leadership envisions the coming years. They also suggest that Moscow has no plans to seriously downsize its current, already expanded army

Russia is estimated to have produced roughly 240 T-90M tanks in 2024 and believed is on track for a similar figure in 2025. Even accounting for battlefield losses, the net effect appears to leave Moscow with more operational T-90M tanks than before. Combined with more restrained use of armor on the battlefield this year, the buildup suggests the Russian army may require far less time to replenish its tank park than many analysts assumed. It also underscores that Russia retains the capacity to sustain a war of aggression, despite the mounting costs of its campaign in Ukraine.

Beyond the T-90 program, Russia is pursuing a range of additional projects, including the development of projects such as the “Shturm,” an unmanned tank designed for urban combat, and other robotic ground vehicles capable of carrying weapons. These systems may not play a decisive role in the current war, but they signal a broader trend: Moscow’s shift toward expanding the role of unmanned systems - on land, at sea, and in the air.

Of course, plans are not guarantees. Production targets can slip, resources can fall short, and some programs may never reach scale. But dismissing Russia’s rearmament efforts outright would be a mistake. The scale of the planned programs implies major financial commitments as well as significant imports of both components and industrial equipment. As Moscow continues to adapt to sanctions, the West faces an urgent task: tightening pressure on Russia’s economic, technological, and financial choke points. Slowing down Russia’s military-industrial machine may not end the war, but it could delay the refitting of Moscow’s arsenal, limiting its ability to threaten Europe and the broader West, while buying time to prepare for a potential conflict.



Thank you for reading. Access to the repository containing the exclusive files used in this research is available below for all paid subscribers:

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Over 15 thousand mercenaries have joined Russia’s ranks to fight against Ukraine . Their geography is wide and covers almost all continents, except for Antarctica. Russia is actively and constantly increasing its recruiting efforts - only in Africa, for the first 6 months of 2025, Russia has recruited more people than for the entire 2023 and 2024. We reviewed thousands of mercenary lists and even individual cases provided by the I Want to Live project, concluding that Russia’s use of mercenaries is rising worldwide. This points to a broader trend within the Russian military in 2025, as it increasingly looks beyond traditional contractor recruitment in Russia’s economically depressed regions.

Considering that some entities were missing key details such as full names or country of origin, to ensure accuracy, we included only cases with complete information, allowing us to eliminate duplicates and assign individuals to specific countries. As a result, the true number of mercenaries is likely higher than the figures presented here.

Table of Contents:

I. Geography of Recruitment
II. Fate of Mercenaries
III. Trends and Implications

I. Geography of Recruitment

The composition of Russia’s mercenaries in Africa and the Middle East is geographically diverse, but Egypt stands out as the leading contributor. Of more than 1,200 reviewed records - 291, roughly 25%, are identified as Egyptian. Although the roster is still incomplete, the data indicates that Egyptians make up the largest share of volunteers

This is not surprising. As Africa’s third most populous country, Egypt has longstanding ties to Russia dating back to the Soviet era. Over time, these connections have been reinforced through mutual economic interests, including tourism and the construction of a Russian-backed nuclear power plant.

While Egyptians dominate the list, two West African countries, Cameroon and Ghana, follow with 199 and 180 documented cases, respectively. Neither has deep political or military ties with Moscow, unlike Mali or the Central African Republic, where Wagner and now the Russian Africa Corps have operated for years. Instead, recruitment there appears to be driven by Russia’s aggressive campaigns, offering sign-up bonuses worth the equivalent of a decade’s salary for the average worker.

Our team has also confirmed earlier reports of Yemeni participation, identifying at least 49 citizens. As in other cases, many were drawn in not only through direct military recruitment but also through misleading promises of civilian jobs.

Another notable finding is the disparity between Iraq and Iran: 85 Iraqis compared with just 6 Iranians. Despite Moscow’s close partnership with Tehran, the data suggests Iran has been far less tolerant of recruitment efforts than Iraq.

We were also struck by the limited number of cases from the Central African Republic, despite Russia’s long-standing presence and influence there. In Mali, where the African Corps is also active, only 38 individuals were documented as joining Russia’s army - just two fewer than in Algeria.

Relative to its size, The Gambia is an outlier: 42 confirmed cases in a country of only 2.7 million people. By contrast, Egypt provides the largest number overall, but with a population exceeding 115 million, its proportional share is far smaller.

II. Fate of Mercenaries

We consulted with the I Want to Live project, which tracks POWs from all countries fighting for Russia, to see if there were matching records. Their data confirmed several individuals listed in Russia as missing in action - mercenaries who had joined in hopes of earning money but ultimately went missing

a) Case 1: Russian MIA records list Egyptian citizen Al-Hudi Amr Ashraf Abdelbari, born July 8, 1989. He signed a contract with the Russian army and served in the 2nd Separate Motor Rifle Brigade. According to the record, he went missing near Verkhnokamianka during an assault against Ukrainian forces. Combat details suggest he was on foot during the attack and disappeared following a UAV-dropped munition strike on July 11, 2024, around 03:45.

b) Case 2: Egyptian citizen Salama Abdu Attiya Abdu Hamad, born May 2, 1988, also served in the 2nd Separate Motor Rifle Brigade. According to records, he went missing near Belohorivka while on foot during an assault. Combat details indicate he came under artillery fire and disappeared at 19:00 on February 17, 2024.

What unites these two cases, and the rest of dataset with 3,081 mercenary records from around the world, is that the vast majority of recruits are assigned to infantry, assault, or other frontline combat roles. This suggests that, despite Russian promises of non-combat positions during recruitment, such assurances are rarely honored. Mercenaries are almost certain to end up on the frontlines, often on foot, participating in assaults against Ukrainian positions.

III. Trends and Conclusions

The most important part of our investigation points not to individual cases, but to overarching trends that we were able to identify. Specifically, the data indicate that recruitment in Africa and the Middle East is accelerating rapidly.

Thanks to 1,045 records containing sign-up dates, we identified the following: in 2023, 146 contracts were signed; in 2024, 248 contracts; and in just the first six months of 2025, we identified 651 cases - more than the total for 2023 and 2024 combined.

Our team is observing this trend not only in Russian recruitment efforts abroad, but also domestically, including in pre-trial detention centers and among illegal immigrants. This supports our earlier findings of growing issues with traditional domestic recruitment in the Russian army.

At this stage, we cannot provide a precise number of mercenaries, but estimates exceed 15,000, with recruitment continuing to expand in 2025. In addition to thousands of North Koreans and Cubans, Russia increasingly targets vulnerable populations in the “Global South”, offering promises of easy money, romantic relationships, Russian citizenship, and other incentives to meet recruitment quotas set by the General Staff. Our team thinks that these targets are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, pointing at a broader issue similar to Ukraine last year, when recruitment shortfalls created manpower gaps. For Russia, consistent recruitment is essential to sustain operations - a metric our team will continue to monitor closely


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Our research, based on tens of thousands of personal records, shows that the typical deserter in the Russian army is a 37-year-old male under contract, and that his chance of desertion in 2025 doubled compared with 2024. If the desertion trend continues, we estimate at least 70,000 deserters in the Russian army this year - roughly 10% of the entire force deployed in Ukraine. In some units heavily engaged in combat operations in Donetsk Oblast, the monthly rate of battlefield desertions rose nearly tenfold in the first half of 2025.

Despite the rising numbers, Russia has so far built a relatively effective system for tracking down and returning deserters. However, this system will be severely tested as cases continue to grow, and bringing back such large numbers will become increasingly difficult.

Table of Contents:

Intro
I. Understanding the Terms
II. Data and Trends, 2022 - 2025
III. Profile of the deserter: demographics and recruitment
IV. Paths of Desertion
V. Enforcement and Returns
VI. Lessons from Past Wars
a) Vietnam War
b) World War I: Eastern Front


To identify trends and draw conclusions, we analyzed tens of thousands of Russian records provided by the Ukrainian project I Want to Live, as well as internal documents from various Russian units, including, but not limited to, the 2nd Motor Rifle Division, 30th Motor Rifle Brigade, 291st Motor Rifle Regiment, 144th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, 1st Tank Army, and elements of the 58th Army.

While we place considerable trust in the I Want to Live project, we conducted our own verification. Our team randomly selected 21 cases from the spreadsheet and cross-checked each soldier’s name, date of birth, and address using third-party services. Nineteen cases matched perfectly; the two discrepancies involved addresses, likely reflecting pre-war records that had not been updated. Overall, the spreadsheet appears authentic.

I. Understanding the Terms

Before looking at desertion and AWOL figures, it’s important to clarify how the terms are defined, as they differ across countries. Under Russian law, the distinction depends on both duration and intent. Short absences are usually treated as disciplinary matters. Absences of more than two days but less than ten can still lead to disciplinary action, such as arrest or reprimand. Once an absence lasts more than ten days, it falls under Article 337 of the Russian Criminal Code and becomes a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment.

Desertion is closely related to AWOL but is defined by intent. If a soldier leaves with the purpose of evading service altogether, the case is classified as desertion under Article 338, which carries harsher penalties.

For this analysis, we focus only on cases that amount to criminal liability, not minor disciplinary violations such as being late by a day after leave. Throughout the report, the terms AWOL and desertion are used interchangeably, since they differ mainly in intent - a distinction that matters in court but less so when analyzing the broader dynamics of the war.

II. Data and Trends, 2022 - 2025

One document, listing 13,807 AWOL cases by name and unit from 2022 through July 2025, shows that by summer 2025, monthly cases were nearly six times higher than in January 2024. AWOL and desertion rose steadily through 2024, and although there was a brief slowdown in early 2025, the numbers soon climbed again. The apparent drop in July 2025 reflects incomplete data, as the file covered only part of the month and cases are often recorded as AWOL only after a delay.

More strikingly, the annual AWOL and desertion rate appears to have doubled. In 2024, there were 3,196 cases out of 13,807 records, while from January through the partial month of July 2025, 3,408 cases were already recorded.

Internal records from individual units also confirm the doubling of desertion rates. One example comes from the 30th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade of the 2nd Combined Arms Army. A unit document, covering 1,988 individual cases between April 2023 and March 2025, tracks desertions in detail and sheds light on the circumstances. The overall trend mirrors the broader combined dataset - average monthly cases rose about sixfold between early 2024 and 2025. Annual trend look even more severe: in 2024, there were 1,189 AWOL and desertion cases, while in just the first three months of 2025 more than 756 had already been recorded.

To put the scale in perspective at the level of an individual brigade: a Russian motor rifle brigade currently has between 3,000 and 3,800 personnel, depending on how fully staffed it is. Over 23 months, AWOL cases amounted to roughly half the strength of a full brigade. As noted, in just the first three months of 2025, 756 servicemembers had already deserted - equivalent to about 20% of a fully staffed brigade.

Based on the records, we grouped desertions into several categories: leaving the battlefield, leaving the unit’s grounds, failing to return from leave, failing to return from a medical facility, and other causes. The graph shows that while most desertions initially occurred from military bases, by 2025 an increasing number of servicemembers were leaving the battlefield or failing to return from medical facilities. This trend in battlefield desertions is a significant development, which we will revisit later.

III. Profile of the deserter: demographics and recruitment

Of the 13,807 AWOL cases recorded in the first document, 11,341 involved contract soldiers, 2,457 involved mobilised personnel, and 9 fell into other categories, such as conscripts. Because contract soldiers make up a far larger share of the force, it is unsurprising that most desertions occurred among them.

At the unit level, the pattern is similar. In the 30th Separate Brigade, 1,988 desertions were recorded, with contract soldiers making up the majority at 73.6%. The main difference from other units is the unusually high share of former convicts recruited from prisons: 22.1%, meaning roughly one in five deserters came from this group.

Demographically, the average age of a deserter is 37. The largest age group is 35–44, followed by 25–34. This likely reflects the overall makeup of the Russian army, consistent with our previous findings.

IV. Paths of Desertion

While our team has identified the most common methods of desertion, specific details remain limited. Drawing on hundreds of anecdotes and prior reports, including one from Mediazona, we have categorised the main methods as follows:

1. Leaving the military base before deployment to Ukraine. This is a common method, as it allows soldiers to escape within Russian territory without crossing borders or bypassing multiple checkpoints. It can occur during rotation, training, or the pre-deployment period.

2. Failing to return from leave. One of the easiest methods, this allows a soldier to leave their the war zone legally and cross the border. However, it does not work for everyone: certain groups, such as former prisoners, often do not receive official leave.

3. Leaving the hospital. Soldiers evacuated to hospitals in Russia, such as those in Rostov or Belgorod, sometimes use this opportunity to desert. This method is less viable when soldiers are sent to hospitals in occupied territories. Security measures vary: some hospitals actively prevent desertions, while others make little effort.

4. Escaping from the combat zone. This method has grown more common in 2025, despite being difficult. To reach the Russian border, soldiers must bypass multiple checkpoints and avoid drawing attention from units performing military-police or administrative duties in the occupied area. After reaching the border, they still need to cross from occupied territory into Russia. In some regions that crossing is relatively easy; in others it requires local knowledge of weak points in the border.

5. Using forged leave papers or bribery near the front. Some soldiers desert from temporary bases or positions close to the front not by crossing the border on their own, but by making fake leave documents or paying off people on checkpoints. We lack hard statistics on these cases, but multiple anecdotes describe soldiers presenting forged papers that border guards or checkpoint personnel either fail to check closely or cannot quickly verify.

V. Enforcement and Returns

To address the growing problem, Russian forces have been developing and expanding various methods to prevent desertion, minimize its impact, and return deserters.

Russian forces use a range of measures to prevent desertion, combining legal and administrative controls with harsher extrajudicial punishments. In rear areas, checkpoints, and border zones, authorities increase policing and oversight, while some units reportedly employ physical torture, maiming, and both mock and real executions. In several cases, soldiers who deserted from the battlefield were captured and executed by their own units, yet officially remained listed as deserters. This ensures that their families cannot receive state benefits and serves as a warning that desertion carries consequences for both the individual and their relatives.

Despite these severe measures, the number of soldiers successfully escaping has continued to grow. To counter this, military units work closely with law enforcement to locate deserters at their last known addresses and return them. Depending on the situation, soldiers may be sent back to their original units, usually to high-risk assault units, where survival chances are low.

The effectiveness of returning deserters varies across units, but some have been notably successful. Internal documents from the 144th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, for example, show that out of 1,430 desertions recorded between March 2022 and March 2025, 1,174 servicemembers had been detained and returned, while 256 were still being actively searched for, representing an 82% success rate.

VI. Lessons from Past Wars

For military analysts, the challenge isn’t just gathering and analyzing data, it’s interpreting what the numbers actually mean. In practical terms, the question is simple: what do these figures tell us about the Russian army? Are its forces on the brink of collapse, or is this within the range of normal operational strain?

There’s no single threshold at which an army automatically falls apart. But by comparing current trends with historical cases, analysts can gain a clearer sense of the broader picture and assess how serious the situation might be.

a) Vietnam War

A September 1974 Ford Foundation study on veterans, deserters, and draft evaders reports that between fiscal 1965 and 1973, 495,689 servicemembers deserted the U.S. armed forces. The Army’s desertion rate peaked in 1971 at 73.5 per 1,000 personnel, or 7.35%. Anti-war sentiment in the U.S. was strongest between 1968 and 1971 and gradually declined alongside the withdrawal of troops.

Notably, as with Russia, most AWOL and desertion cases did not occur on the battlefield but in non-combat settings. During the Vietnam War, for example, desertions rarely took place inside Vietnam itself, instead happening mostly outside the combat zone - though recent trends in Russia suggest battlefield departures are becoming more common.

b) World War I: Eastern Front

“Looking further back, but closer geographically, the Russian army during World War I provides an interesting point of view. In 1917, desertions occurred directly on the Eastern Front, with frontline units losing thousands of soldiers daily at peak periods. In 2025, battlefield desertions have risen sharply compared with 2024, though most departures still occur outside active combat zones.

Exact figures for Russian army desertions in World War I are unknown, but available records provide conservative estimates. By March 1, 1917, authorities had detained 195,130 soldiers attempting to leave the front for Russia’s interior. Five months later, that number had climbed to 365,137 - an increase of 170,007 in just half a year.

These figures don’t capture the full scale of desertion, only those who were actually detained. Estimates of the uncaught vary, but even assuming half of deserters were apprehended, Russia’s army shed roughly 340,000 men in just five months, or nearly 5% of its seven-million-strong force. By year’s end, the share had climbed into double digits - more than 14%.

If we take Vladimir Putin’s own figure of roughly 700,000 Russian troops deployed in Ukraine, the scale of desertion becomes clearer. Our team estimates that the number of AWOL cases in the first half of 2025 likely reached about 30000 - 35,000. If the pace holds, the total could climb to 70,000 by year’s end - roughly 10% of the entire deployed force, a double-digit rate. If we include the entire force, those in rear bases, logistics inside of Russia, administrative, and other roles, the annual desertion rate could be closer to 6%, rather than 10%.

The projection is based on a straightforward calculation: across multiple units, the AWOL and desertion rate in 2025 has roughly doubled compared with 2024. Assuming the trend continues at this pace, the first half of the year could see around 35,000 desertions, bringing the total for 2025 to approximately 70,000.

While historical comparisons offer some context, our team does not view past wars as precise predictors. Differences in society, the nature of conflict, geopolitical circumstances, and frontline conditions are too great. Still, these comparisons provide a general sense of how desertion trends can evolve in armies under sustained fatigue and declining morale.

In Ukraine, high AWOL and desertion rates are a serious concern, though they sometimes provide a backdoor for soldiers to transfer to another unit. In Russia, the situation is different: desertion almost always means leaving service entirely, with no intention of voluntary returning.

There are no signs yet of an outright collapse, but the strain is clear. Moscow still manages to meet recruitment quotas, though increasingly by drawing on coerced pools: detainees, pre-trial arrestees, and others with scant freedom to refuse. Add in mounting battlefield fatigue, and the quality of Russia’s ranks is slipping. The longer a war drags on, the more fatigued soldiers become - and the more they seek ways to reclaim their lives. Concerns about family, children, and the simple desire for normalcy often drive AWOL and desertion, a factor frequently overlooked when analyzing the numbers. War may dominate the battlefield, but it doesn’t pause life at home.

The numbers remain short of crisis levels. Still, the surge in desertions, even under threats of severe punishment, including reports of extrajudicial executions, underscores a larger problem. What appears contained today could soon grow into a more serious fracture within the army.

North Korea’s direct involvement in the war with Ukraine on Russia side was never about charity or ideological solidarity - it was a calculated move. Beyond the political and economic gains, Pyongyang appears to have extracted practical military lessons, so vital for a force whose training, equipment, and doctrine have lagged far behind modern standards for decades. State-supervised drone trials and public directives to mass-produce attack drones signal that the regime is actively translating these lessons into tangible modernization efforts.

A recent 19-minute propaganda video from Pyongyang hints at the possible direction the military might be heading. While filled with typical propagandist tropes, the combat and training footage reveals some interesting details. It shows multi-layered drone deployments at both tactical and operational levels, mobile ATGMs adapted to light vehicles, and, most notably, expanded ISR and communications capabilities. These moments, captured in the video, form the core of Frontelligence Insight’s analysis breakdown today.

Table of Contents

I. Drone Warfare
II. North Korea’s Anti-Tank Capabilities
III. Battlefield Communications and C2
IV. Infantry Fire Support
V. Looking Past the Propaganda
VI. Summary

I. Drone Warfare

By 2025, drones had become the defining weapon of the Russo-Ukrainian war, responsible for more than three-quarters of battlefield casualties. When North Korean forces arrived in Kursk in the latter half of 2024, they entered a war already deep into its “drone phase.” For Pyongyang’s troops, this was uncharted territory: a type of warfare unlike anything they had faced before, and one unfolding on a scale unprecedented in modern combat.

Adapting to this reality required three urgent adjustments. First, North Korean units had to master countermeasures against drones. Second, they needed to learn how to employ drones offensively and defensively - striking equipment and personnel. Finally, they needed to learn how to conduct drone-based surveillance: gathering intelligence from constant aerial observation, processing that data, and integrating it into command-and-control systems

Less than three minutes into the propaganda video, North Korean soldiers are shown practicing anti-drone drills - firing at targets in the sky and countering one drone with another. This is not especially revealing; captured handwritten notes from the battlefield had already confirmed that Pyongyang’s infantry was being trained to shoot down drones.

What stands out, however, is what comes next. The footage eventually shifts to offensive drone operations, with FPV drones striking Ukrainian vehicles and buildings in Kursk Oblast.

One particular scene is especially telling: an FPV pilot wearing goggles is supported by a second operator monitoring the video feed on a nearby device. The wiring setup suggests that a reconnaissance team equipped with quadcopters was likely operating from the same building, feeding real-time surveillance to a local command post.

This detail is significant. It offers concrete evidence that North Korean forces are not only experimenting with drones but integrated tactical UAVs into their combat operations in Kursk. They appear to have trained specialists, and have an understanding of how to link surveillance assets with UAV strike platforms, as well as how to provide ISR support to command.

II. North Korea’s Anti-Tank Capabilities

The propaganda video also offered a rare look at North Korea’s little-known anti-tank system, which could be the Bulsae-4. However, we do not have high confidence in this identification. We also see slightly older Bulsae-2 (or possibly Bulsae-3) variant. Of particular interest was the adaptation of the Bulsae-4(?) launch platform for use on light SUVs.

Traditionally, these missiles are fired from the M-2010 armored personnel carrier, North Korea’s local version of the Soviet BTR-80A. In the footage, however, the system has been mounted on a pickup truck. This adaptation suggests that Pyongyang could deploy a larger number of mobile ATGM units at lower cost, bypassing reliance on fewer, more resource-intensive armored vehicles.

The missile itself is designed for precision strikes, featuring large stabilizers and ability to use top-attack trajectory that targets the most vulnerable areas of armored vehicles. An optical seeker allows an operator to guide the missile in real time.

The video also featured a demonstration of the better-known Bulsae-2 (or possibly Bulsae-3), North Korea’s adaptation of the Soviet 9K111 ATGM. In the footage, the missile is fired at a small building, likely part of a controlled training exercise or staged propaganda display. Unlike the newer Bulsae-4, which has a reach of roughly 10 to 25 kilometers, the Bulsae-2’s effective range is far more limited, around 2.5 kilometers.

III. Battlefield Communications and C2

Drones can provide powerful ISR capabilities, but their effectiveness depends on established communication between the command post and ground units that can act on real-time intelligence. In the propaganda video, North Korean forces are seen using the Russian-made Azart tactical radio - a sixth-generation handheld system featuring digital modes, frequency hopping, and GPS/GLONASS synchronization.

This does not imply that North Korea is unfamiliar with modern communication devices, as many are produced by North Korean company Glocom or Chinese manufacturers, but it does suggest that Pyongyang might have a better idea of practical role played by communications in modern warfare, as well as the battlefield impact of electronic warfare on communications.

The footage also shows command posts employing mapping software alongside interfaces for live drone streaming, creating a makeshift but functional battlefield awareness system.

For analysts and specialists monitoring North Korea, our team recommends keeping an eye on the country’s communications and battlefield awareness systems, as these areas are likely to undergo changes.

IV. Infantry Fire Support

On the conventional battlefield, North Korean units deployed in Kursk appeared largely familiar with standard infantry tactics, following a “by-the-book” approach.

While the footage offers limited insight into infantry units tactics, other combat recordings suggest that North Korean forces have gradually shifted away from the traditional Soviet-style “infantry company in assault” model, instead organizing into smaller tactical teams - a method widely adopted by Russian units in the war.

The propaganda video offered a glimpse of North Korea’s fire support capabilities, showing assets such as Type-75 107mm multiple rocket launchers and light mortars deployed to back infantry operations.

The Type-75 is a North Korean copy of China’s Type-63 multiple rocket launcher and can fire both Korean and Chinese-produced ammunition. It features 12 tubes, capable of launching a salvo up to 8.5 kilometers, though its effective range is considerably shorter. The system’s main advantages are its light weight and ease of deployment, allowing flexible positioning. Its drawbacks, however, are significant: the Type-75 is relatively inaccurate and outdated by modern standards, which keeps it a somewhat exotic weapon on today’s battlefield.

Interestingly, North Korean forces were not the only users of these weapons. Light 60mm mortars and Type-75 rocket launchers of North Korean origin have appeared in Russian units as well. Facing increasing equipment shortages due to attrition, Russian forces have been relying on these systems, which Ukrainian troops have regularly documented since 2024.

V. Looking Past the Propaganda

While this report focuses on the specific propaganda video, it is worth noting several known cases that demonstrate Russia’s impact on North Korean military. The partnership seems to be boosting Pyongyang’s capabilities, with potential consequences not just for the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula, but also more broadly. As a frequent supplier of weapons to sanctioned states and non-state actors, including groups such as Hamas, North Korea’s improvements could have implications well beyond the region.

In 2024, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally attended a test of new drones, declaring that the country had the “full possibility and potentiality to produce and introduce various types of drones.”

Among presented systems, the first was a loitering munition with X-shaped wings. Footage suggests the system is operator-controlled via an optical channel with radio signal transmission, and launched from tubes in a manner reminiscent of U.S. Switchblade drones.

The second drone had a delta-shaped airframe that visually resembled Israeli Harop . Like the Harop, it is launched with a rocket booster before switching to a propeller engine for sustained flight.

Although it’s unclear whether North Korea’s new drone designs stem primarily from indigenous reverse engineering or direct assistance from Russia, we know that Russia is directly aiding with multiple drone programs. In February 2025, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that Moscow and Pyongyang had struck an agreement under which Russia would provide technical assistance for the development and mass production of multiple drone types. By June, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov publicly stated that Russia was helping North Korea manufacture the Garpiya and Geran: long-range kamikaze drones modeled after Iran’s Shahed-136. That same year, Pyongyang also dispatched specialists to Moscow’s Technopark for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

According to an MSMT report, Russia’s support for North Korea has extended well beyond drones. Moscow has reportedly transferred at least one Pantsir air-defense system to the DPRK, while also providing data feedback from North Korean ballistic missile launches - assistance that appears to have improved Pyongyang’s missile accuracy and overall performance. The same report notes that Russia has delivered advanced electronic warfare equipment, including jamming systems, along with operational expertise on how to employ them effectively.

VI. Summary

What began as limited exposure to Russia’s war in Ukraine has grown into a conduit for technology transfer, operational experience, and doctrinal adaptation. The evidence now ranges from loitering munitions and mobile ATGMs to air-defense systems, electronic warfare capabilities, and ballistic missile technologies. For the Korean Peninsula, this trajectory points to the emergence of a more capable, modernized North Korean force, one no longer confined to the outdated playbooks of the mid-20th century. Globally, the risk extends further: Pyongyang has long been a supplier to sanctioned states and non-state actors, and the spread of these tools could amplify instability well beyond Northeast Asia. While it remains uncertain how far North Korea can scale and replicate these lessons across its armed forces, given its severe financial constraints, it is clear that this experience will not be buried.

Links and Sources

1. Frontelligence Insight [@frontel_asia]. (2025, August 25). Video footage from the Korean Central Television. https://x.com/frontel_asia/status/1959896855279759448
2. Min Seok, K. (2017, March 2). What the Glocom scandal tells us about the N. Korean military’s new capabilities. NK News. https://www.nknews.org/2017/03/what-the-glocom-scandal-tells-us-about-the-n-korean-militarys-new-capabilities/
3. Schroeder, M. (2023). North Korean small arms and light weapons: Recognition guide. Small Arms Survey. https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/sites/default/files/resources/North-Korean-Small-Arms-and-Light-Weapons_Recognition-Guide_EN.pdf
4. Marine Corps Intelligence Activity. (1997, May). North Korea country handbook (MCIA-2630-NK-016-97). United States Department of Defense. https://nuke.fas.org/guide/dprk/nkor.pdf
5. Moss, M. (2025, July 13). Russia deploys Type 75s in Ukraine. The Armourer's Bench. https://armourersbench.com/2025/07/13/russia-deploys-type-75s-in-ukraine/
6. Militarnyi. (2025, June 5). Russian military starts arming with 60mm mortars from North Korea. https://militarnyi.com/en/news/russian-military-starts-arming-with-60mm-mortars-from-north-korea/
7. mag_vodogray. (2025). Telegram. https://t.me/mag_vodogray/12946
8. Park, B. (2024, November 15). N. Korea's Kim orders mass production of suicide attack drones: KCNA. Yonhap News Agency. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20241115001052315
9. Kang, T. (2025, February 10). North Korea likely to produce drones with Russian support this year. Radio Free Asia. https://www.rfa.org/english/korea/2025/02/10/north-korea-russia-drone-support
10. Altman, H. (2025, June 9). Russia giving North Korea Shahed-136 attack drone production capability: Budanov. The War Zone. https://www.twz.com/news-features/russia-giving-shahed-136-attack-drone-production-capabilities-to-north-korea-budanov
11. Sokolin, A. (2025, February 13). North Korean aviation officials tour leading Russian drone training center. NK News. https://www.nknews.org/2025/02/north-korean-aviation-officials-tour-leading-russian-drone-training-center/
12. Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT). (2025). https://msmt.info/Publications/detail/MSMT%20Report/4195

Introduction

Alabuga, the heart of Russia’s Shahed production, sits inside the Alabuga Special Economic Zone near Yelabuga, Tatarstan. Inside its vast halls, assembly lines have scaled up to transform Iranian-designed Shahed-136 loitering munitions (produced locally as Geran-2), newer Geran-3 variants and other drones into domestically manufactured, high-volume output.

After Iran handed over drawings, software and production technology for Shahed-136 drones, Russia built a large-scale logistics network to support the program. At first, the focus was on importing finished drones and machine sets. Later, Moscow moved to full domestic production.

Since then, Iran’s role has decreased, limited mostly to certain supplies and consultations. Instead, China has emerged as the main external supplier, providing critical components such as engines and navigation systems. After production began in Russia, the share of Chinese parts rose sharply. At least 41 components are of Chinese origin, many of which can be found on the Ukrainian website WarSanctions, which catalogs parts with photos, manufacturer details and a searchable database.

Due the report’s size, we’ve split it into two parts: a Brief Summary with key highlights, and a full edition - Main Findings, that includes deeper detail, links, and data

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Brief Summary
II. Main Findings
1) Key Chinese Companies Supplying UAVs and Components
a) Beijing Micropilot UAV Control System Ltd.
b) Limbach Aircraft Engine Co
c) Redlepus (Redlepus TSK Vector Industrial Shenzhen Co Ltd.)
d) Juhang Aviation Technology Co., Ltd (Shenzhen)
e) Jinhua Hairun Power Technology Company Ltd.
f) Shandong Xinyilu International Trade Co., Ltd.
g) Fujian Jingke Technology Co., Ltd.
h) Mile Hao Xiang Technology Co., Ltd.
i) Suzhou Ecod Precision Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
j) Shenzhen Jinduobang Technology Co., Ltd.
2) Russian Customers and Intermediaries
a) Drake LLC
b) Morgan LLC
c) Sollers Alabuga LLC
d) Alabuga Machinery LLC
e) Alabuga-Volokno LLC
III. Sanctions and Export Controls
IV. Summary
Sources and references

I. Brief Summary

• Russia has sharply ramped up its use of Shahed (Geran), Garpia, and Gerbera UAVs, from dozens of launches in 2022 to tens of thousands per month by 2025. While Iran played a key role early on, it became clear that the only country that could scale the production was China.

• One of the biggest production bottlenecks was engines and electronics, without which large-scale Shahed production would be impossible. To address this, Russia set up multiple LLCs and intermediaries to streamline industrial-scale purchases and deliveries from China

• In 2024-2025, Alabuga Machinery LLC imported from China a production line for manufacturing UAV hulls, along with equipment for producing the Iranian Nasir navigation system, modules of which were later recovered from intercepted Shaheds.

• In 2024 alone, Drake LLC, a Russian intermediary company purchased by Alabuga Machinery, imported aircraft engine components from China valued at $972,144. The main suppliers were Jinhua Hairun Power Technology Co. Ltd. and Shandong Xinyilu International Trade Co.

• In 2024-2025, another Russian intermediary, Morgan LLC, imported goods from China for drone production, totalling $4.83 million into the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. The largest suppliers were Suzhou ECOD Precision Manufacturing and Suzhou Shunxinge Import and Export Trade

• Between 2022 and 2025, Alabuga-Volokno LLC, part of Rosatom, imported roughly 3,000 tonnes of carbon fiber yarn from China. The shipments, sourced from Jilin Tangu Carbon Fiber Co. and Jilin Chemical Fiber Friend Textile Co., were valued at $21,387,850.

• Based on insider data, we also discovered that Beijing Micropilot UAV Control System is not the actual manufacturer of the MD550 and MDR208 engines, serving only as a seller, while the engines are produced by Limbach Aircraft Engine Co. These engines are used in Geran-2 UAV's.

• Limbach Aircraft is a key supplier of engines, parts, and technologies for Russian and Iranian UAVs, even as Russia gradually shifts to local production. The company is owned by China’s Fujian Delong Aviation Technology, which also controls Germany’s Limbach Flugmotoren GmbH.

• China’s Redlepus TSK Vektor and Russia’s TSK Vektor LLC supplied Harpy UAV components totaling $32.8 million. From 2022 to 2024, Juhang Aviation Technology and TSK Vektor LLC imported $58.4 million in products, with engines like the L550e occupying roughly 40% of deliveries.

• Chinese engine maker Mile Hao Xiang Technology Co., whose products are used the Gerbera UAV, shipped over $1.5 million in goods to Russia in 2022-2023, directly or via intermediaries. The main importers were Russian companies Sequoia JSC and Unikom LLC.

• Shandong Xinyilu International Trade Co., Ltd, a Chinese trading company based in Shandong province, exported $6.4 million in industrial products to Russia between April 2024 and January 2025, including carbon fiber, engine parts, batteries, and electronic components.

• In August 2024, Shandong Xinyilu International shipped carburetors made by Fujian Jingke Technology to Drake LLC, valued at $85,452. The shipment weighed 1,050 kilograms, which, if taken into consideration average weight of carburetor, could equip up to 1,000 UAV engines

• Whether entire engines or the parts to build them, Russia’s Shahed program depends almost entirely on China. What Moscow calls 100% localized production is often just an assembly of Chinese parts.

• When it comes to sanctions, the picture is murky. Many of these firms are sanctioned, but rarely in unison. Some are sanctioned by the U.S. but not the EU, others by Ukraine and the EU but not Washington. The gaps leave plenty of room for business to operate

• Beijing could tighten oversight of dual-use exports such as aircraft engines by requiring export licenses, imposing stricter end-user checks, tracking products more closely and raising penalties for violations.

II. Main Findings

1. Key Chinese Companies Supplying UAVs and Components

a) Beijing Micropilot UAV Control System Ltd.

Beijing MicroPilot founded in 2001, officially specializes in UAV research, manufacturing and technical services. The company first advertised its MD550 aircraft engine in 2013. The MD550 is almost identical in appearance and technical specifications to the German Limbach L550.

In 2023, Captain Andriy Rudyak of the Ukrainian General Staff’s Center for Research on Captured and Advanced Weapons reported that, instead of the Iranian-made Mado MD550, Russian forces had begun using the MicroPilot UAV Flight Control Systems MD550 engine in Geran-2 (Shahed-136) loitering munitions produced in Russia.

This wasn’t the only time this company appeared on the radar: according to the Iran Watch project by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, the company has supplied Iran with complete UAVs, along with autopilot systems and engines.

Our insider information indicates that Beijing Micropilot UAV Control System is not the actual manufacturer of the MD550 and MDR208 engines but serves solely as a reseller. The engines are produced by Limbach Aircraft Engine Co. This is further supported by the fact that, since its inception, Beijing Micropilot has presented itself as a dealer for American and Russian autopilot developers. Furthermore, in 2015, the company began advertising engines as Limbach 550 instead of MD550, likely because Xiamen Limbach Aviation Engine Co. started producing them in China in 2012. Since then, Beijing Micropilot’s website has alternated between listing the engines as Limbach 550 and MD550.

b) Limbach Aircraft Engine Co. (also known as Xiamen Limbach Aviation Engine Co.)

The company was founded on 23 June 2012. Its main specialisation is the production of aircraft engines. Thanks to the data from the US OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control), we know that Limbach Aircraft supplied engines through Chinese intermediaries such as Redlepus TSK Vektor Industrial and Shenzhen Juhang Aviation Technology to the Russian enterprise JSC IEMZ Kupol, which produces Harpy (Garpia) drones. According to the treasury report, the imports to Russia were carried out through the company TSK Vektor LLC. Limbach Aircraft is wholly owned by Fujian Delong Aviation Technology Co., Ltd, which also owns the German company Limbach Flugmotoren GmbH, one of the world's leading manufacturers of aircraft piston engines, which is engaged in both their development and maintenance

In 2014, Limbach Aircraft patented the design of a small two-stroke four-cylinder aircraft engine. Although the patent itself does not specify a specific model, the drawings in the document are identical to those used in the descriptions of the L550e engine:

Data from the Chinese analytics platform Qizhidao shows that the company has received 17 government subsidies, including in 2025. More notably, it plans a major production expansion: designing of the Limbach Aviation Technology Park began in June 2025. The facility, covering roughly 108,000 square meters, is set to expand the company’s production of aircraft engines.

c) Redlepus (Redlepus TSK Vector Industrial Shenzhen Co Ltd.)

As mentioned earlier, a Russian company with very similar name - TSK vector has been used as intermediary between Russian JSC IEMZ Kupol and Limbach Aircraft to supply drone engines. Further investigation has shown that there is one company with very similar name, albeit registered in China, exports to Russia.

According to the US treasury report, , TSK Vektor has imported numerous shipments from Redlepus into Russia since the beginning of 2024, including electronic and mechanical components with UAV applications such as aircraft engines, parts of automatic data processing machines, and electrical components. The open-source data confirms that Redlepus has exported over 5.53 million worth of goods in 2024 - and 100% of its exports went to Russia only

d) Juhang Aviation Technology Co., Ltd (Shenzhen)

This Chinese company specializing in aviation spare parts, materials, and components exported $58.4 million worth of products to Russia between 2022 and 2024. One of its main customers, TSK Vektor LLC, is linked to supplying equipment for the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant Kupol, a manufacturer of Harpy (Garpia) drones.

During this period, TSK Vektor imported $51.1 million in products, including aircraft engines, engine components, and electrical equipment such as control systems, electric motors, telecommunications gear, and video systems. Engines accounted for nearly 40% of all deliveries from Juhang Aviation Technology to TSK Vektor. In 2023 and 2024, the company supplied engines, particularly the L550e model, and components valued at roughly $22 million.

As of August 2025, the company’s job postings show an active search for Russian-speaking candidates.

e) Jinhua Hairun Power Technology Company Ltd.

The company was incorporated in February 2014 in China. Between June and August 2024, it exported 685,609 engine parts, cylinders and piston kits to Drake LLC, a Russian firm that will be examined later in this investigation. All of these parts are used in reciprocating engines, the type commonly found in Geran/Shahed drones and similar models.

f) Shandong Xinyilu International Trade Co., Ltd.

A Chinese trading company registered in Shandong province, it began exporting to Russia in April 2024. Its only Russian buyers are Drake LLC and Morgan LLC, both based in the Alabuga Economic Zone.

According to a closed report detailing exports, between April 2024 and January 2025 the company shipped $6.4 million in industrial goods, including carbon fiber, engine parts, batteries and electronic components. Customs records show that some items, such as lithium-polymer batteries, were explicitly labeled for use in the “special military operation.”

One of the export codes used was 852910, covering GNSS antennas from Harxon Corporation, an item listed on the Common High Priority Items List.

g) Fujian Jingke Technology Co., Ltd.

This Chinese firm makes motorcycle carburetors, and appears in non-public customs report as a supplier to Russia. The records show that in August 2024 Shandong Xinyilu International shipped carburetors manufactured by Fujian Jingke to Drake LLC, the Russian company mentioned earlier, valued at $85,452. The shipment weighed 1,050 kilograms. Given that a single carburetor weighs less than 1 kilogram, that volume could equip as many as 1,000 UAV engines.

h) Mile Hao Xiang Technology Co., Ltd.

The company specializes in developing and producing aircraft engines for UAV’s under its DLE brand. These are two-stroke gasoline engines with displacements ranging from 20 to 222 cm³. Mile Hao Xiang holds “high-tech” status in China and benefits from local tax incentives and grants.

Engines from the company have been identified in Gerbera-type UAVs. Customs data show that between December 2022 and November 2023, Russia imported more than $1.5 million worth of aircraft engines from this manufacturer, including $151,256 directly from Mile Hao Xiang. The largest channel for DLE shipments was Yiwu City Duniang Trading, which supplied Russia with more than $960,000 in products.

In July 2025, the Ukrainian military released images of a two-stroke DLE-60 gasoline engine with serial number YB00170, recovered from an intercepted Gerbera drone. The manufacturer was identified as Mile Haoxiang Technology.

i) Suzhou Ecod Precision Manufacturing Co. Ltd.

Suzhou Ecod specializes in high-precision manufacturing of metal and plastic parts made to customer specifications. The company provides online services in CNC machining, EDM, laser cutting and flat grinding, and is certified under ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 standards.

Ecod began supplying Russia in August 2024. Since then, it has shipped $1.4 million worth of products, primarily aluminium parts delivered under a state defense order. Nearly all of the shipments - 99.8%, went to Morgan LLC, a Russian firm in Alabuga, that supplies components for UAVs.

On 4 July 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine reported the discovery of parts with ECOD markings in the downed UAV.

j) Shenzhen Jinduobang Technology Co., Ltd

According to its official website, Shenzhen Jinduobang Technology specializes in the production and sale of high-tech electronic components and equipment. The company supplies chips, sensors, interface devices, and other components from well-known manufacturers including Microchip, Realtek, STMicroelectronics, and Xilinx.

Customs data show that in January 2025, the company shipped two batches of lithium-polymer batteries totaling 7,800 units, valued at $91,171. The shipments were labeled as “for the needs of a special military operation,” with Morgan LLC listed as the buyer.

Although Shenzhen Jinduobang positions itself primarily as a chip supplier, the company’s certificates (like ISO 9001, patents, product testing reports, and material conformity certificates) indicate it also produces bushings, bearings, and other metal components.

A photo on its exhibitions page shows a booth with Russian-language signage promoting UAV products. The image, uploaded in September 2024, coincides with the company’s participation in RADEL, a specialized Russian electronics trade event.

2. Russian customers and intermediaries

The Alabuga Special Economic Zone is an industrial and military hub that benefits from tax and customs breaks. It hosts key facilities for the production and assembly of Shahed drones and other UAVs in Russia. Yet, as shown earlier, this output would be impossible without a steady flow of Chinese parts, large and small, used both to set up production and to keep it running. To secure deliveries to Alabuga, Russia relies on a network of intermediaries and exporters that procure the components needed for mass production. Below is a list of Russian companies central to this supply chain.

a) Drake LLC

Drake LLC was founded by a group of recently graduated students and largely remained under the radar. Its profile changed after a shift in ownership: the company changed ownership to ALABUGA Development and ALABUGA Machinery, both based in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, a hub known for Russia’s Shahed program and other UAV production.

Since then, Drake LLC has shifted its focus to supplying components used in the production of Shahed drones. According to customs records, between June and November 2024, the company imported piston aircraft engine parts, fuel pumps, carburetors, rubber seals, hardware, and other components from China, with a total declared value of $972,144. While the declarations do not specify exact engine models, the parts are described as fitting pistons of two-stroke engines with a capacity of 50 hp - a clear match for the MD550 engines used in Shahed drones.

In December 2024, Drake LLC also imported 55 tons of carbon fiber fabric from Yixing Huaheng High-Performance Fiber Weaving Co., Ltd., valued at $3,423,223. The shipment was handled by Shandong Xinyilu International Trade Co.

b) Morgan LLC

The company was registered in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone in March 2024. Its official activity is listed as “Other auxiliary activities related to transportation,” suggesting a possible logistics or transport support role. The actual scope of its operations, however, remains unclear. Ukrainian intelligence reports that Morgan LLC is involved in supplying components for UAVs.

Export-import records show that between August 2024 and January 2025, the company imported goods from China into the Alabuga Economic Zone totalling $4.83 million.

Key imports:

• Aluminum products — $1.28 million, the largest share. Supplied by Suzhou ECOD Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd. One shipment, arriving November 27, 2024, was declared as defense-related under the state defense order;

• Lithium-polymer batteries — 7,800 units valued at $980,270, labeled for use in a “special military operation,” as Russia describes its war in Ukraine;

• Manufacturer: Jiangxi Shengxin Energy Technology Co., Ltd.; supplier: Shenzhen Jinduobang Technology Co., Ltd. Additionally, 140,000 batteries from Taiwan, worth $890,000 and manufactured by E-One Moli Energy Corp., were sent to Suzhou Shunxinge Import and Export Trade Co;

• GNSS antennas for GPS and GLONASS navigation, suitable for UAV control systems, valued at $635,733;

• Insulated electrical conductors worth $625,402, listed in customs documents as intended for a “special military operation“;

• Galvanic equipment and mechanical components, including transmission parts, gears, couplings, and gearboxes.

In September 2024, Morgan LLC filed a declaration of conformity with the Eurasian Economic Union for MIMXRT1052CVL5B and AD9361BBCZ chips manufactured by Shandong Xinyilu International Trade Co. These chips, originally produced by NXP Semiconductors and Analog Devices, have been identified in Shahed-136 and Shahed-238 drones. With no official import records in Russia, it is likely that the components were brought into the country through “grey” channels.

c) Sollers Alabuga LLC

Sollers Alabuga LLC, an automotive manufacturer based in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone and part of the Sollers Group, specializes in the full cycle of light commercial vehicle production. The company also operates an engine assembly facility acquired from Ford in 2021.

In the first quarter of 2023, it began supplying products to Alabuga Machinery LLC. These deliveries totaled approximately $370,000. With its production capabilities and technical infrastructure, the company is able to manufacture and supply engine components, including pistons, piston rings, crankshafts, aluminum crankcases, and other housing elements. It is likely that these components were among those delivered to Alabuga Machinery LLC.

d) Alabuga Machinery LLC

Alabuga Machinery LLC, an industrial enterprise registered in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in October 2022, is owned by Alabuga Development LLC, a subsidiary of Alabuga SEZ PPT JSC, and GEA LLC.

Between 2024 and 2025, the company systematically registered declarations of conformity for its production equipment. These documents are required under Eurasian Economic Union regulations, including Russian law, to legally import and operate industrial goods. Under Russian law, such declarations can be transferred to another company via power of attorney, allowing Alabuga Machinery to potentially source foreign components through intermediaries or partner structures.

The list of executed declarations includes several pieces of foreign technological equipment for industrial production:

• A heat treatment line, model BQ-RJH-75, and a low-pressure casting line, model BQ-J452-2PWSG, both manufactured by Nanjing Boqiao Machinery Co., Ltd. (18 October 2024).

• A set of equipment for producing the Nasir high-precision navigation system, an Iranian satellite navigation system capable of autonomous geospatial positioning with meter-level accuracy. Nasir modules have been recovered from Shahed-136 (Geran-2) drones shot down in Ukraine.
  

e) Alabuga-Volokno LLC

Alabuga-Volokno LLC, a carbon-fiber plant in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, is a subsidiary of Yumatex JSC, part of Rosatom and Russia’s largest carbon-fiber producer.

According to Sahara Thunder documents, it is the main supplier of raw materials for the Shahed project. From March 2022 to January 2025, the company imported about 3,000 tonnes of synthetic yarn from Chinese producers Jilin Tangu Carbon Fiber Co. and Jilin Chemical Fiber Friend Textile Co., worth $21.4 million. Roughly 12% came directly from manufacturers, with the rest routed through intermediaries including Hebei Jigao Trading, Jilin Hongsheng Trading, Shijiazhuang Dingwei Trading, and Yongji Rongdu Commercial & Trading.

III. Sanctions and Export Controls

Sanctions against Russian drone production have been fragmented, resulting in drop of their effectivness. The patchwork of restrictions has allowed companies to adapt, continuing to develop critical components and supply UAV manufacturers. Russian firms, with the backing of intelligence services, have also employed creative methods to disguise drone production- sometimes successfully. In one notable case, the U.S. sanctioned a company in December 2023 that did not actually exist.

Andrey Sapozhnikov case is a good example of how these workarounds operate in practice. He was appointed CEO of Drake LLC while also heading GEA LLC, a founding firm of Alabuga Machinery. After sanctions were imposed, he was formally dismissed in September 2024 but stayed on as Drake’s “project manager,” continuing to sign import contracts.

China’s Export Control Law, in effect since October 2020, established a unified framework for regulating the export of sensitive goods and technologies, including dual-use products and military equipment. As part of this framework, on July 31, 2024, China’s Ministry of Commerce, General Administration of Customs, and the Central Military Commission’s Department of Armaments Development jointly issued Notice No. 31 (2024), tightening controls on unmanned aerial vehicles. The notice, which took effect on September 1, 2024, banned exports of aircraft engines with more than 16 kW of continuous power specifically designed for certain UAVs. For comparison, the MD550 (Limbach L550) engines used in Shahed drones produce 37 kW.

The list of prohibited goods cites HS codes 8407101010 and 8407102010 for internal combustion engines with spark ignition, yet it does not cover all potential UAV engine categories. TSK Vektor LLC, for instance, imported Limbach L550 engines from Juhang Aviation Technology for the Harpy drone under HS code 8407100003, which is not on the banned list.

This exposes gaps in China’s export controls, whether deliberate or not. Despite tighter regulations, incomplete HS code coverage creates loopholes that allow Russian manufacturers to continue obtaining critical UAV technologies, even under formal bans.

IV. Summary

Iran’s transfer of Shahed loitering munition (drones) to Russia has influenced the course of the war in Ukraine. These drones represent a new model of warfare: inexpensive, asymmetric, and deployable at scale. Without full air superiority, Shaheds have allowed Russia to carry out sustained strikes, targeting Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure. By 2025 launches had grown from dozens in 2022 to tens of thousands per month, yet engines and flight electronics remained the principal bottleneck - something that only Chinese firms could resolve.

Experience with Shaheds paved the way for a domestically produced drone, the Harpy (Garpia). Externally similar to the Shahed, it features Russian and Chinese electronics and navigation systems, including the Chinese L550e engine from Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Co. The Harpy (Garpia) is manufactured by the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant Kupol, part of the Almaz-Antey state corporation.

China plays a decisive role in this program, supplying critical components despite its official neutrality. Redlepus Vector Industry in Shenzhen provides engines, avionics, and electronics.

Russia’s collaboration with Iran and China is both a sanction-evasion strategy and a critical enabler of its aerial operations. Simple to produce yet deployable at scale, these drones have become a bigger part of attritional war. While not directly involved in the war, China remains a vital supplier, providing parts without which this model of warfare would be impossible.

To address this problem, The West needs to coordinate its targeting efforts, and act as a unified front, targeting both Russian UAV manufacturers and the Chinese companies supplying components. Measures should include tighter export controls on dual-use technologies, multilateral targeted sanctions, and diplomatic pressure on Beijing. Secondary sanctions should also be considered against Chinese manufacturers and owners who facilitate the transfer of Western technology, enabling the production of weapons that threaten not only Ukraine but potentially NATO countries, and East Asian region in general.

Thank you for reading. If you found this report valuable, consider supporting us as a paid subscriber. We are funded solely by public subscribers and donors, which allows us to produce high-quality investigative reporting without any external agenda. Every subscription counts and helps us create more reports like this.

Sources and references:

1. Army TV. (09.2023). Briefing of the Center for Research on Captured and Prospective Weapons and Military Equipment. YouTube.

2. UAVStar. Limbach L550e two-cycle engine. Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://www.uavstar.com/Products/Engine/Engine_e.htm

3. Iran Watch. (2023, February 23). Beijing MicroPilot UAV Flight Control Systems. Retrieved August 21, 2025, from https://www.iranwatch.org/suppliers/beijing-micropilot-uav-flight-control-systems

4. U.S. Department of the Treasury. (2025, August 18). XIAMEN LIMBACH AIRCRAFT ENGINE CO., LTD. [Entity Listing]. Office of Foreign Assets Control. Retrieved August 19, 2025, from https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=51298

5. U.S. Department of the Treasury. (2024, October 17). Treasury targets actors involved in drone production for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Retrieved August 11, 2025, from https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2651

6. Military Drones. Limbach L550E engine. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://www.militarydrones.org.cn/limbach-l550e-p00788p1.html

7. Qiye Zhidao. Beijing MicroPilot UAV flight control systems. Retrieved August 01, 2025, from https://qiye.qizhidao.com/subsidy/acaa719f7260aa8ec3e7dc7b69f66092.html

8. Trademo. Redlepus TSK Vector Industrial Shenzhen Co Ltd. Retrieved July 03, 2025, from https://www.trademo.com/companies/redlepus-tsk-vector-industrial-shenzhen-co-ltd/44638381

9. Trademo. Juhang Aviation Technology Co Ltd. Retrieved July 03, 2025, from https://www.trademo.com/companies/redlepus-tsk-vector-industrial-shenzhen-co-ltd/44638381

10. Zhihu. (2023, February 19). 巨航航空科技(深圳)有限公司招聘信息. Retrieved August 10, 2025, from https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/634130598

11. DLE. DLE60 RC model engine. Retrieved August 02, 2025, from https://www.dlengine.com/en/rcengine/dle60/

12. Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. (2025, July 21). Two-stroke gasoline engine DLE-60 YB00170. Retrieved July 22, 2025, from https://war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua/en/components/6365

13. Security Service of Ukraine. (2025, July 4) From https://www.facebook.com/SecurSerUkraine/posts/pfbid02JEYAqWjxDhdtF2jLC1twpnmD528mn38pjN7WadHaKfdtDu1CdZWPC8EkZWAnGwjbl

14. Shenzhen HY Tech Co., Ltd. (2024). Exhibitor profile. Radelexpo. Retrieved August 19, 2025, from https://radelexpo.ru/exhibitors2024/85495/

15. Shenzhen Jinduobang Technology Co., Ltd. (2024, September 18). Exhibition participation announcement. Retrieved August 12, 2025, from https://en.jdbcomponents.com/news/76.html

16. Drake LLC. Company profile. Checko. Retrieved August 10, 2025, from https://checko.ru/company/dreyk-1191690040519

17. ООО "Морган". Checko. Retrieved July 16, 2025, from https://checko.ru/company/morgan-1241600010970

18. Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. (2024, September 5). Microcontroller MIMXRT1052 CVL5B 1N04V CTDR2138B. Retrieved July 14, 2025, from https://war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua/components/5084

19. Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. (2024, June 1). AD9361BBCZ dual-channel receiver. Retrieved July 14, 2025, from https://war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua/ru/components/4411

20. China National Machinery Industry Corporation. (2025, June 10). China United Engineering Co., Ltd. undertakes the design of the Limbach aircraft engine technology industrial park project. Retrieved August 20, 2025, from https://www.sinomach.com.cn/xwzx/zgsdt/2025_qydt/202506/t20250610_550259.html

21. Kostrinsky, G. (2023, June 7). Соллерс перезапустит производство двигателей в Алабуге. Ведомости. https://www.vedomosti.ru/auto/articles/2023/06/07/979141-sollers-perezapustit-dvigatelei

22. Iran.ru (2012, May 31). В Иране состоялась презентация отечественной навигационной спутниковой системы. Retrieved July 10, 2025, from https://www.iran.ru/news/politics/80934/V_Irane_sostoyalas_prezentaciya_otechestvennoy_navigacionnoy_sputnikovoy_sistemy

23. OpenSanctions. (2024, February 28). Dolphin Alabuga LLC. Retrieved July 28, 2025, from https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/NK-JcaSHk5xUvZSWyjEf9Tqhm/

Additional Resources:

1. Albright, D., Anokhin, I., & Faragasso, S. (2024, September 26). Update: Alabuga’s production rate of Shahed 136 drones. Institute for Science and International Security. https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/update-alabugas-production-rate-of-shahed-136-drones

2. Albright, D., & Faragasso, S. (2024, July 15). Russian company Drake LLC’s procurements for JSC Alabuga’s military drone projects. Institute for Science and International Security. https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/russian-company-drake-procurements-for-jsc-alabuga

3. Russia Customs Import Statistics and Data

4. Dreyk LLC. (2022, February 28). Бухгалтерский отчет за 2021 год. Audit-it.ru. https://www.audit-it.ru/buh_otchet/1646047020_ooo-dreyk

5. Woźniak, M., & Falkowski, K. (2024, November 17). EU-China Affairs Review November 2024. Institute of New Europe. https://ine.org.pl/en/eu-china-affairs-review-november-2024-2

6. Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. (2020, October 17). Export Control Law of the People's Republic of China [中华人民共和国出口管制法]. Retrieved from https://exportcontrol.mofcom.gov.cn/article/zcfg/gnzcfg/flfg/202111/226.html

Su-57 is often showcased by Moscow as Russia’s most advanced fighter jet in in inventory. In 2023, the U.K. Ministry of Defence confirmed that the aircraft had been used in combat since at least June 2022. Yet despite the war raging for over 3 years, sightings of the jet remain exceptionally rare.

There may be a reason. The U.K. MOD has assessed that Russia is likely holding back the Su-57 to avoid reputational damage, a blow to export prospects, or the loss of sensitive technology that could follow if the aircraft were downed over Ukraine.

But what else do we know beyond the reported damage to at least one Su-57 in 2024, the result of a successful Ukraine's Defense Intelligence operation in Akhtubinsk?

Newly obtained classified documents, accessed by our team, Frontelligence Insight, through a Ukrainian analytics firm “Dallas”, show that Russian Ministry of Defence purchased its fifth-generation Su-57 fighters from Sukhoi for more than 3 billion rubles each. More interestingly, at the outset of the war, these jets were delivered without certain targeting subsystems, leaving them short of advertised operational capabilities.

In September 2024, our team examined the Mikropribor plant, which produces the module (MPPU-50) for the Su-57. The investigation revealed that Western sanctions had cut off supplies of key microchips, disrupting contracts and delaying production.

Now we know the problems extend beyond MPPU-50 modules supplied by Mikropribor. The fresh batch of obtained documents show that in 2021, a year before the war, the Russian Defense Ministry formally accepted Su-57 aircraft without the 101KS-N system, an important electro-optical targeting subsystem. This was made possible through Additional Agreement No. 8 and Decision No. 4, which allowed the military to accept the aircraft and retrofit later. In practice, the jets were delivered in stripped-down form - still airworthy, but lacking capabilities advertised by Moscow.

The 101KS complex is an electro-optical targeting system that provides the Su-57 with all-weather surveillance and passive infrared detection. The “N” designation stands for Nazemnyi, or ground targeting, enabling the jet to identify and target surface objects.

The Ural Optical-Mechanical Plant valued a single 101KS-N targeting pod at more than 300 million rubles, or roughly $4 million in 2021. That figure included equipment costs, projected expenses through 2028, inflated overhead, and unrelated expenditures. Defense Ministry negotiators pushed back, lowering the final price to 264.9 million rubles.

But this was far from the only problem that plagued the program.. Audits conducted in 2025 of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant, Russia’s largest aircraft manufacturer - part of Sukhoi corporation, found that accounting practices routinely blurred costs between military and commercial contracts. Oversight remained largely formal, leaving room for inflated pricing and hidden subsidies.

The discrepancies are significant. The price gap on the 101KS-N alone exceeded 35 million rubles, about 13 percent. Suppliers routinely inserted unrelated costs, while the Defense Ministry approved prices “by agreement,” without effective price control.

Procurement practices compounded the issue. Su-57 deliveries were accounted separately from the shipments of targeting systems, creating the risk that the state paid twice: once for aircraft listed as fully equipped, and again for individual components such as the 101KS-N.

Conclusion:

Frontelligence Insight concludes that these practices have left the Su-57 program plagued by inflated costs. More significant, however, is the evidence that production delays, and aircraft delivered in incomplete form were caused by Western sanctions, which deprived the Su-57 of electronic components that can directly influence its combat effectiveness. This is the second major finding of its kind, suggesting that beyond concerns over interception or technology capture, the program might face deeper structural problems worsened by sanctions. That said, the absence of targeting pods is unlikely to explain the jets’ limited use in this war, since these are ground-targeting subsystems, and monitoring surface targets is not central to Russia’s intended role or operational concept for its fifth-generation fighters.

While the full impact can only be speculated upon, it is clear that Western technology continues to exert powerful leverage over the development of Russia’s most advanced fighter jets, creating procurement bottlenecks for their electronic components.

Thank you for reading. The full set of documents, including internal audits, contracts, and related files, is available for download below to our paid subscribers. We encourage readers to sign up for a subscription, as in the coming days we will release a comprehensive, data-driven report on recent developments in the war in Ukraine, with several significant, and perhaps shocking findings.

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There’s an old saying that all roads lead to Rome. These days, for a young Cuban with limited options and a taste for risk, many of those roads lead to Tula, the hometown of Russia’s 106th Guards Airborne Division. There, recruits trade island heat for assault trooper life, and ruble-denominated contracts. They’re not alone: from Havana to Kathmandu to Accra, foreigners are enlisting in the Russian military, often with little understanding of the language - or the war they’re about to enter.

In 2023, a massive data leak facilitated by Ukrainian cyber activists exposed hundreds of Cuban mercenaries who had joined Russian forces. The revelations were first examined in detail by Inform Napalm, an open-source intelligence group from Ukraine. After obtaining access to the leak through the platform called “Dallas-Park”, which contains breached Russian emails and internal documents, we reviewed recruitment records, contracts, and personal data related to Cuban fighters and others. Using these materials, along with additional sources and open investigations, our team set out to answer a broader question: how many foreign nationals are serving in the Russian military and what do we know about them. The answers are not always precise, but the overall picture is beginning to emerge

Table of Contents

Intro
I. The Island Soldiers
i) Tracked and Mapped
II. Signed and Sealed
III. Recruits without Borders

I. The Island Soldiers

The story begins in 2023, not in warm and sunlit Cuba, but in the colder and less sunny Tula region, a few hundred kilometers south of Moscow. Inside a typical Soviet-era building, Major Anton Perevozchikov of the Russian Armed Forces, chief of the Contract Military Recruitment Office in Tula, was reviewing translated Cuban passports and studying the latest recruits hoping to serve in Russia’s military. While it is tempting to speculate about what drew these Cubans to a distant war, perhaps even inspiration from Tolstoy’s War and Peace, the contracts and addenda written in Spanish-language suggested a different story. The generous payments pointed at far more practical motives.

Unbeknown to the major, Ukrainian hacktivists had infiltrated his network and accessed sensitive materials, including passports, contracts, and personal information of the mercenaries. They quietly copied the data and correspondence. Using details from the leak, Frontelligence Insight was able to identify and track several of the mercenaries through their digital footprint, including activity on social media.

After manually reviewing over 199 Cuban mercenaries, we compiled a brief demographic profile. Our dataset analysis was based on 176 verified records. This group likely represents at least a third of all Cubans fighting alongside Russian forces, making it a highly representative sample.

As we expected, the largest share of Cuban mercenaries came from Havana, Cuba’s capital and most populous city. The largest age group was 30 to 39, followed by those aged 40 to 49. This was somewhat unexpected, as our team had anticipated a younger overall profile among the recruits.

The youngest recruit was 18 years old, while the oldest was over 60. We cannot confirm whether the oldest individual passed all required examinations, and we were unable to track him in Russia. However, we did identify several recruits over the age of 40 who were taken into the Russian armed forces.

This was not the last group of Cubans to arrive in Russia, and recruitment operations were likely coordinated with the Cuban government. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, co-founder of the U.S.-based Cuban Democratic Directorate, an NGO that advocates for democratic change in communist Cuba, told Ukrainian investigators from Schemes: “We can estimate that around 5,000 Cuban soldiers are fighting for Russia. This network could not function without the Cuban regime’s approval.”

While our team concurs with that assessment of the regime’s involvement, we remain somewhat skeptical about the estimated number of Cuban fighters. More on that shortly.

i) Tracked and Mapped

With their full names in hand, it was not difficult to trace their locations and identify their digital footprints on Russian social media platforms.

One individual, Enriquez Linares Livan Michel, born in 1999, proved particularly helpful. His social media profile included not only photographs but also geolocation data, which revealed his whereabouts.

Although the location on his photo was labeled “Krym”, the Russian word for Crimea, it was not in Crimea at all, but near Tula - the same city where recruitment was taking place. When clicked, the VK platform redirects to Yandex Maps, showing not only the specific location but also other uploaded photos from the surrounding area. The frequent appearance of Russian paratroopers in distinctive striped shirts and blue berets, along with parachutes visible in images spanning from the early 2010s to the present, suggests that the facility remains actively used by Russian airborne forces.

This location was not unfamiliar to our team. It is a training area used by the 106th Guards Airborne Division, near a parachute landing zone known as Slobodka, which is famous for hosting the first manned airborne vehicle landing tests in the Soviet Union.

To verify our findings, we tracked another identified Cuban recruit who posted photos on VK under the name Luis Darien and geolocated him directly within the training grounds, specifically on territory officially used by the 1060th Separate Logistics Support Battalion of the 106th Airborne Division. These findings corroborate information published earlier this year by Schemes (We recommend reading their investigations for more details).

As of June 2025, the Slobodka training grounds remain actively in use. Although we cannot definitively determine whether they are used exclusively by Russian forces or also by Cuban recruits, imagery posted by Cubans themselves confirms they underwent training there at least in 2024.

As seen on the medium-resolution satellite imagery, dated May 2025, both the shooting range and the vehicle training area, typically used by BMDs here, show visible vehicle tracks and signs of grass fires, a typical pattern observed during live-fire training exercises.

Across the road from the main base, a tent camp is clearly visible - likely set up for recruits of the 106th Airborne Division.

Cubans, however, are not the only foreign recruits to have trained there. In 2023 and 2024, we also documented isolated cases of Serbian nationals being processed through Tula and the facilities of the 106th Airborne Division. Some of them ended up serving in 119th airborne regiment of the 106th division.

II. Signed and Sealed

According to the contract in Spanish, which matches standard agreements issued in 2023, the mercenaries from Cuba were offered the following terms:

A one-time signing bonus of 195,000 rubles (approximately $2,500 as of July 2025) for agreeing to serve for one year or more.

Monthly pay starting at 204,000 rubles (roughly $2,600 as of July 2025) while deployed in the so-called "special military operation zone."

Compensation for injuries sustained during deployment included:

• 1,000,000 rubles for severe injuries

• 500,000 rubles for moderate injuries

• 200,000 rubles for minor injuries

In the event of death or being declared missing in action, the contract promised a payout of 2,000,000 rubles, to be divided equally among the recruit’s family members.

By the standards of many developing countries, these are very lucrative salaries. It’s also worth noting that the contracts explicitly mention service in the special military operation zone, along with provisions for injury and death compensation. This indicates that while Russian recruiters may deceive some foreigners by downplaying or misrepresenting their potential involvement in combat, they do not completely omit references to the special military operation.

Depending on the case, individuals arrive in Russia through different channels. Some purchase tickets independently and travel on their own to Moscow, while others receive direct logistical support from the Russian side. In such cases, their arrival is organized in groups under the guise of construction workers or similar labor-related projects. In a few anecdotal instances, we documented direct government-level cooperation, where mercenaries were transported on regular commercial flights without any additional cover.

There are also numerous reported accounts of Russia using deceptive tactics, such as inviting foreigners for non-military jobs and then pressuring them to join the armed forces. These efforts often exploit the recruits’ limited knowledge of the Russian language and legal system. However, we have not been able to independently verify these claims.

III. Recruits Without Borders

Even as our team cautiously estimates that slightly more than 500 Cubans and a similar number of Serbs have either travelled to Russia or attempted to enlist, determining exact figures for each nationality remains difficult. That being said, based on two primary data points, we are able to offer a realistic range.

One key reference comes from an investigation by iStories, a Russian investigative outlet known for its credible and high-quality reporting. In April 2025, using data from a hacked Unified Medical Information and Analytical System (EMIAS) database, iStories analyzed the number of foreigners processed through the Moscow recruitment center for contract military service, including a breakdown by nationality. We regard this as a reliable source, which we will discuss further below.

A second source consists of internal personnel documents from several Russian brigades and divisions, including lists of foreign fighters. While these records provide only a partial picture, since we do not know how many foreign recruits are assigned to each unit across Russia or how evenly they are distributed, they help us approximate the overall scale.

Thanks to the iStories investigation, we know that at least 603 Nepalese citizens visited the recruitment center in Moscow. The first Nepalese appeared in the Russian military no later than May 2023. After this becoming public in 2023, Nepalese government has taken steps to curb the flow of its citizens enlisting in Russia, but iStories notes that four Nepalese recruits still passed the selection process for contract service in January and February 2024. Yet, this number is significantly lower than in 2023, and the trend to its decrease likely has remained in 2024 and 2025.

iStories also reported that eight Cuban and eight Serbian citizens visited the Moscow recruitment center over the course of the year. While this figure is much lower than our estimates and the number of confirmed cases, it is likely explained by the fact that many Cubans were processed through the recruitment center in Tula rather than in Moscow.

Estimating the number of recruits from Sub-Saharan African countries is more difficult. The sources of these recruits vary significantly. Some arrived in Russia on temporary visas or as students and later chose to enlist. Others requested Wagner Group or the African Corps assist them while still in their home countries. In some cases, individuals were lured with misleading job offers unrelated to military service. While we were unable to fully systematize this data, we assess that the total number of Sub-Saharan African mercenaries remains relatively small and is unlikely to exceed a battalion.

Upon reviewing Russian military documents related to enlisted soldiers in various brigades and regiments, we found relatively few foreign personnel - sometimes fewer than a single platoon, and in other cases around two platoons. This suggests that the overall number of foreign fighters is likely much smaller than some media reports imply. For instance, if there were truly 5,000 Cubans or 15,000 Nepalese involved, as reported by CNN, we would expect to see a much more substantial presence across these units - not just a few sections or platoons of mercenary soldiers in total. Another indicator is the number of prisoner-of-war (POW) videos. When comparing interviews with captured soldiers, foreigners represent a tiny fraction -disproportionately smaller than the number of regular Russian citizens.

Based on this, our team estimates the total number of foreign mercenaries to be between 4,660 and 8,000. Taking into account desertions, casualties, and injuries, the actual number of foreign fighters consistently present on the front lines is likely even lower. The figure may appear significantly lower than media reports from the past few years suggest. Yet, after examining the total number of brigades and regiments, multiplying by the average number of foreign fighters per unit, factoring in higher concentrations within airborne divisions, and subtracting those who have ended their contracts or been killed since 2023, we believe our estimate offers a more realistic and accurate range.

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In this special interview, Artem Karyakin traces the origins of the Russian occupation in Donbas, weighs the prospects for reintegration of lost regions, and recounts what the battle for Kursk truly looked like on the ground. To continue our efforts to document this war and the experiences and opinions of participants at this historic moment, we are publishing the full interview

1. Frontelligence Insight (hereafter FI): You are originally from Donbas and witnessed the unfolding of Russian aggression in the region. How exactly did it happen, and what were you doing in 2014?

Artem “Skhidnyi” Karyakin (hereafter - A): It’s important to note that the Russians began preparing for the seizure of Donbas well before 2014. This was especially evident to us—the residents of the region. For example, in my hometown of Kadiivka (formerly Stakhanov) in Luhansk Oblast, a certain “Don Cossack” organization appeared in the early 2000s. It consisted of marginal figures dressed in red Cossack hats and carrying whips. It looked strange, as our city had always been known for its mining industry and had no historical connection to the Don Cossacks.

This organization attracted people with chauvinistic views, fanatically devoted to the idea of reviving the USSR and uniting the "Slavic peoples." For instance, in 2012, a march commemorating the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was held in our city, in which I also participated. The march was disrupted when we were attacked by the same Don Cossack group, along with paid activists from the “Party of Regions.” Even back then, these “Cossacks” were confiscating our Ukrainian flags. That moment was very telling.

By 2014, the same “Cossacks” in red hats were seizing government buildings in our city - only now they were armed and operating under Russian flags. Many of them weren’t even born in our city - they came from the Russian Federation, as did some of those who helped them seize power by force in the spring of 2014.

We — the pro-Ukrainian residents of the city — were organizing events in support of Ukrainian unity at that time. Our first event was a memorial rally honoring the “Heavenly Hundred” (Editor’s note: The "Heavenly Hundred" refers to those who were killed during the 2014 protests against the Yanukovych regime in Ukraine). That was in late February 2014. Later, we held car rallies for Ukrainian unity, events on the birthday of Taras Shevchenko, and actively distributed pro-Ukrainian leaflets and stickers around the city, and painted Ukrainian flags.

All our activities in the spring of 2014 were dangerous, as there were already armed Russians and local pro-Russian militants in the city.

The point of no return came in late spring 2014, when two young guys — still in school — put up a Ukrainian flag on a slag heap in the center of town. They were fired upon with a handgun for doing so. After that, many pro-Ukrainian residents began leaving the city, as it had become clear that they could simply be killed for their love of Ukraine.

2. FI: What happened to the pro-Ukrainian activists? Are there still people who maintain a pro-Ukrainian stance under occupation?

A: I remained in my occupied city until the end of 2021, as did many others who loved Ukraine but, for obvious reasons, could not express it publicly. Today, the situation has worsened for those who support Ukraine in the Russian-occupied cities.

There are still many such people, but they are forced to live in fear, expecting to be arrested at any moment. Russian security services have dedicated significant resources to identifying and detaining pro-Ukrainian residents in the occupied territories. There are constant filtration procedures and ongoing inspections. Special attention is given to public sector workers and even to children. For example, in schools, there are mandatory checks of students’ mobile phones to look for subscriptions to Ukrainian media or messages expressing pro-Ukrainian views.

To love Ukraine under Russian occupation is already an act of courage.

Nevertheless, even today, a large number of true Ukrainians remain in the occupied territories: people who, risking their lives daily, help us in the fight against Russia by sharing intelligence, carrying out sabotage, and participating in other acts of resistance against the Russian army. This is true heroism and further proof that this land is rightfully Ukrainian.

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3. FI: You continued to support Ukraine even when your city was already under occupation. What exactly did your activities involve?

A: In July 2014, while already living under occupation, I created my first Twitter account. The goal was to shed light on the situation in the occupied territories from the perspective of a pro-Ukrainian resident who hadn’t left their home. At the time, neither people in Ukraine nor the rest of the world fully understood what was actually happening. Many believed that all the locals who had stayed supported Russia. I wanted to show the world that our city was occupied by Russia, and that there were still Ukrainians there who were not happy about it and were waiting for the Ukrainian army.

In addition to general updates, I also posted information about the locations of Russian troops in my city. These were public tweets, sometimes with maps marking where Russian military equipment was stationed. In the fall of 2014, I was contacted via direct message on Twitter by representatives of Ukrainian intelligence services as well as acquaintances from the Ukrainian army. They explained to me that it was better to share intelligence privately rather than posting it publicly on Twitter.

Since then, I began secretly passing on various types of information to the Ukrainian army and intelligence services - details about the movements, positions, and firing points of Russian forces in my city and surrounding occupied areas. Over the years, this also came to include information about factories and enterprises operating under Russian control, the socio-political climate under occupation, local sentiment, and data on collaborators - those who had joined the Russian side in combat or taken positions in the Russian-controlled security services.

4. FI: In 2021, you moved to Ukrainian-controlled territory, and the full-scale invasion began the following year. How did you join the Armed Forces, and what was your first battle?

A: From the very first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, I began looking for a unit where I could fight against Russia. The early days of the big war were chaotic—there was disorganization and confusion everywhere. I was living in Kyiv, and in one of the first days of March, I simply approached some guys with rifles and offered my help. That very same day, I was already standing night watch with Kalashnikov's hand-held machine gun in my hands.

It was one of the Territorial Defense Force units. We took up a defensive position on the outskirts of Kyiv, on the Bucha-Irpin side. In the summer of 2022, I joined the fighters of the 8th Regiment of the Special Operations Forces, where my friend was already serving and had invited me to join his group.

My first combat deployment was in August 2022 in Bakhmut, which at that point was already under assault by Russian forces, including Wagner PMC fighters. Shortly after Bakhmut, we took part in the liberation and clearing of the city of Lyman, in Donetsk Oblast. For me and many of my fellow soldiers, it was our first experience liberating our native land - a moment we will remember forever.

5. FI: You’ve taken part in important operations - both in Ukraine and on Russian territory, specifically in the Kursk region. Did you notice any significant differences between combat operations in Ukraine and in Kursk?

A: The Kursk operation was unique in every sense and differed from my past experiences in Ukraine in many ways. It was in the Kursk region that I first encountered the concept of maneuver warfare, and I can say that, personally, combat along a clear front line is easier for me.

It was also in Kursk where we first faced FPV drones connected via fiber optics and a new Russian tactic—using specialized FPV drone teams to strike our logistics routes from as far as 10–15 km deep. This tactic is now widely used by Russian forces along nearly every front.

In this operation, we also faced the enemy’s best FPV crews, all concentrated in one relatively small sector. These teams had been withdrawn from other areas and redeployed to Kursk specifically.

Another major difference was that, for the first time, we were acting as a “foreign army” in populated areas. Each soldier had their own reaction to that: for some, it felt like justified revenge; others felt a strong pull back toward our own land and a kind of inner resistance to advancing on foreign soil.

I count myself among the former. For me, it was an act of rightful retribution and a way to shift the war onto the aggressor’s territory. Yet I constantly reminded myself that I didn’t want to behave like the Russians did in my hometown. On Russian territory, I acted very differently than they had in ours. To every civilian I encountered in the Kursk region, I explained why we were there, how it all began, and that we simply want to liberate our own cities - not seize theirs.

The Kursk operation was very well planned and executed at the outset, but unfortunately was marred by a series of key mistakes and issues at various levels. These mistakes must be carefully analyzed so they are never repeated. I sincerely hope this experience proves useful in the future—it was unique in many respects.

Regardless, everyone who took part in that operation became part of history. We shattered the myth of the invincibility of a nuclear power and the so-called greatness of the Russian army. We drew significant enemy forces away, slowing their advance on our territory. And we were also the ones who fought against the armies of two different totalitarian states. The experience of facing North Korean forces is also something that sets this apart from the war in Ukraine—even though their tactics in Kursk didn’t differ much from what Wagner used in Bakhmut.

6. FI: Assuming that Russia eventually loses control over Donbas - how do you envision the process of reintegrating these territories? How deeply has Russian propaganda taken root there over the years?

A: The most important thing is to drive the Russians out of our land. And with Ukrainians, just like us, we’ll quickly find common ground.

The main issue with those who fell under the influence of Russian propaganda during the occupation is that they know very little about the rest of Ukraine. Many have never been to other regions and know nothing about them. Everything they do know about Ukraine comes from what they’ve seen on Russian TV channels.

Another problem is that Russia created conditions in which every second family in occupied Donbas has lost a relative in the war. This is a direct result of the forced mobilization of men from the occupied territories into the Russian army.

But you have to understand — Donbas, especially the part that’s been under occupation since 2014, is a region where people generally lack any strong civic engagement or passion. Their opinions and actions are shaped entirely by the environment they live in.

If Ukraine returns to these territories, people will quickly adapt to new rules and new flags flying over their homes. And soon, they will realize that life under Ukraine is freer and more breathable. Without the presence of Russian troops, these people would never have fought for the Russian flag. I know them — I lived among them for most of my life.

Even now, many of them no longer see Russia as something positive. After living under the Russian flag long enough, they’ve come to realize that there’s little good there, and that the sacrifices they were forced to make for that flag were not worth it.

7. FI: When the war ends, what do you see your life looking like? Do you have any dreams or plans for peacetime?

A: The most important thing is for the war to end with our victory. We must preserve Ukraine and bring back our land and our people. I’m turning 28 this year, and I’ve spent 11 of those years living through war — it’s hard to imagine myself without it now.

But of course, I have a personal dream as well: to start a family of my own. During the years of occupation, I lost my parents and my grandmother, and since then, the feeling of loneliness has never left me. My dream is a family… my children, who will never know what war is.

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Artem “Skhidnyi” Karyakin, in an exclusive interview with Frontelligence Insight. You can follow him on the X platform for firsthand updates from the front.

The reduced time between detection and engagement, driven by real-time drone surveillance and the high velocity of FPV attack drones, has created a hostile environment for traditional armored platforms on the battlefield. As a result, both sides in the war have been forced to adapt.

One such adaptation emerged in 2024, when Russian motorcycle assault groups began appearing with increasing frequency along the frontlines. Their presence quickly caught public attention, and their use has since become a common feature of frontline engagements. More recently, Ukrainian forces have also announced the formation of their own motorcycle units.

Considering the growing speculation about the effectiveness of motorcycle assault groups, particularly in a battlefield that remains relatively static but is saturated with artillery and drone activity, our team undertook a focused investigation to better understand this evolving tactic.

This report offers a detailed, though generalized, assessment of motorcycle assault group composition, tactics, and equipment as of June 2025. It draws primarily on intercepted Russian tactical-level documentation, testimony from frontline infantry and drone operators, publicly available interviews of Russian motorcycle crews and publicly available reports issued by the Ukrainian military. That said, it is important to note that the details of training, organization, and combat performance of these units can vary significantly between formations - and we do not have unified data across the entire frontline to offer a definitive, entirely data-backed conclusion.

Table of Contents:

Intro
I. Conditions for Adoption
II. Force Structure, Missions, and Tactics
III. Training and Field Drills
IV. Motorcycle Inventory
V. Combat Feedback: Ukrainian Perspective
VI. Summary and Outlook

I. Conditions for Adoption

One of the key conclusions of our research is that before extrapolating the experience of Russian motorcycle assault groups to other theaters or advocating for their adoption by Ukrainian forces, we should first understand the underlying challenges and battlefield conditions that drove Russia to pursue this adaptation in the first place.

In a battlefield where neither side holds air supremacy and large-scale combined-arms operations remain difficult to execute, combat has shifted to smaller tactical formations - usually at the squad or company level, backed by armored vehicles. In this environment, traditional platforms like tanks and IFVs face growing challenges, especially amid constant artillery fire and the widespread use of cheap, fast drones.

In response to these challenges and the accelerating depletion of armored vehicle reserves, Russian forces have increasingly relied on small tactical units using concealed movement to reduce the risk of detection. However, this comes at the cost of mobility and operational flexibility. Once discovered, such groups are often quickly eliminated by drone or artillery strikes. Even when they achieve tactical success, their ability to exploit defense breakthroughs are seriously limited when operating on foot.

So what are the factors that have created fertile ground for the growing use of motorcycles on the battlefield - and what can they tell us about the conditions that make their use viable?

• The first is the Russian military’s persistent inability to conduct large-scale, coordinated combined-arms operations capable of breaching Ukrainian defenses. Even when Russia manages to amass significant formations, including hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery systems, missile units, and air defense assets, it continues to struggle with the integration and synchronization required for effective combined-arms assaults. As a result, Russians have shifted toward deploying small, low-quality assault groups in frequent, attritional attacks. This approach is focused on gradually wearing down Ukrainian forces and identifying weak points that can later be exploited
  

• The second factor is the lethality of well-prepared defensive positions, particularly those enabled by real-time reconnaissance and precision-guided munitions. On today's battlefield, advanced surveillance tools allow defenders to identify high-value targets quickly, while massed precision fires make it possible to neutralize them.
  

• Limited manpower and thinly held frontlines in Ukraine make it feasible for small, mobile units to slip through defenses. Unlike conventional infantry groups, successful motorcycle infiltrations can penetrate deeper into rear areas while remaining harder to target with artillery and more capable of suppressing FPV drones using larger electronic warfare (EW) systems mounted on motorcycles.
  

• High loss tolerance in assault operations. As will be discussed further in this report, motorcycle assault tactics depend on mass deployment. The concept accepts heavy losses among assaulting units, as long as a small fraction succeeds in breaching enemy lines and completing the objective.
  

• Lack of better-armored troop transport options. While Soviet-era BMPs and BTRs are vulnerable to FPV drones, more modern Western vehicles like the Bradley IFV’s offer better protection and have demonstrated greater survivability for transported personnel during artillery or drone strikes. Russia’s current armored fleet lacks a viable mass-produced alternative to provide a better protection
  

• Geography and seasonal conditions favor mobility. Dry, flat steppe terrain significantly enhances the effectiveness of motorcycle assaults. In contrast, heavy snow, mountainous areas, or dense forests and jungles are much less suitable for this kind of maneuvering.

Once the advantages of motorcycle assault groups became clear, we assessed whether their benefits could justify the risks. At roughly $2,000–$4,000 apiece (depending on model and condition), these bikes are far cheaper to replace than infantry fighting vehicles, with minimal maintenance costs. Their mobility and low silhouette allow them to slip past obstacles and evade detection more easily than larger platforms - especially when paired with on-board electronic-warfare gear. Concealable even in small buildings, and nearly silent at night in electric variants, they preserve the element of surprise. A motorcycle can reach a position in minutes, outpacing a noisy, slower BMP or tank and narrowing the window for enemy FPV-drone response. Finally, they let teams carry heavier weapons - ATGMs, grenade launchers, or other support arms - along flanks, delivering fast, flexible fire support where it’s needed most.

II. Force Structure, Missions, and Tactics

Despite the term “assault” in their name, these units are not solely used for direct assault attacks. In practice, their roles are more diverse - ranging from diversionary maneuvers and reconnaissance to behind-the-line infiltration, logistics and flanking support during larger assaults.

More importantly, the motorcycle serves primarily as a means of rapid transport, delivering troops to their objectives rather than serving as a combat platform itself. As leading military analyst Michael Kofman and B.A. Friedman have noted, a more accurate historical analogy might be “dragoons”— mounted infantry who rode into battle but dismounted to fight on foot. Dragoons were used for skirmishing, reconnaissance, flanking, and screening operations - tactical roles that closely resemble how Russian motorcycle units are now being employed.

The structure of a motorcycle assault group can vary depending on the unit, its assigned tasks, and available resources to the parent unit. However, in general, such a group typically consists of 6 to 8 motorcycles, with 1 to 2 riders per vehicle, resulting in a total personnel count ranging from 6 to 16 individuals on average.

At least one motorcycle in the group is usually equipped with a drone detection system, which scans the area for the presence of FPV drones. Additionally, these groups are expected to carry 2 to 3 electronic warfare (EW) stations, either mounted directly on motorcycles or carried in backpack on a rider, to disrupt communications between drones and drone operators during assault.

Motorcycles with two riders optionally have the passenger as the primary combatant, ready to engage both ground targets and aerial threats, such as drones while on the move. In some cases, motorcycles are equipped with gun mounts for the driver, enabling limited fire capability. However, the driver mounted gun appears to be quite uncommon in practice.

Common Tactical Maneuvers for Motorcycle Assault Groups:

• Single Flanking: A maneuver where motorcycles circle the enemy position from one side to attack from an unexpected direction.

• Pincer Movement: Simultaneous flanking from both sides to overwhelm or encircle the enemy.

  

• Deep Penetration: Rapid advance beyond the first line of defense to disrupt rear-area logistics, rotations etc.

• Diversionary Maneuver: Aimed at drawing enemy attention and fire away from the main assault force.

  

• Reconnaissance-in-Force: Probing enemy positions while remaining mobile, often testing defensive response and locating weaknesses.
  
  Beyond direct combat, motorcycle assault units fulfill other support roles. They conduct limited medical evacuation - extracting wounded personnel one at a time due to space and weight constraints, and carry critical supplies such as food, water, or ammunition within their load limits. In offensive operations, these teams have even moved troops into urban objectives: during the capture of Kurakhove, columns of three to four motorcycles, shuttled small groups of soldiers rapidly into the city. Finally, they rotate individual fighters in and out of frontline positions, again limited by the bike’s capacity but offering a faster alternative to foot or vehicle movement.
  

III. Training and Field Drills

While there were no systematic efforts to implement a unified training program across Russia’s ground forces in early 2024, a number of localized, unit-driven initiatives emerged from the bottom up. These early efforts lacked coordination and consistency. By the summer of 2024, however, the Russian Ministry of Defense began taking steps to formalize motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle (ATV) training programs across military training centers inside Russia.

In July 2024, during a visit to a training facility in the Leningrad Military District, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov emphasized the need for dedicated courses on ATVs, buggies, and motorcycles. He cited their growing role in the rapid delivery of ammunition, food, and the evacuation of the wounded from frontline positions.

As of spring 2025, motorcycle and ATV training is underway both within Russia and across the occupied territories of Ukraine, integrated into force groupings at the operational level.

The training typically takes place on improvised or semi-permanent motocross-style tracks, designed for motorcycles and other light off-road vehicles. While the quality of these facilities varies, they tend to share key features: obstacle courses simulating minefields, uneven terrain, sharp ascents and descents. Training exercises often culminate with soldiers dismounting to engage targets from firing positions or to storm simulated trenches and dugouts.

More advanced training centers include drone-supported observation, where instructors imitate FPV attacks and monitor assault groups from above to provide feedback. However, there is limited information on how rigorous these after-action reviews are, or how much time is devoted to correcting mistakes.

The duration of training varies widely. Basic riding instruction typically spans at least 16 hours, while more advanced tactical courses — including combat maneuvers and vehicle-based assault techniques — can take up to two months. In combat conditions, however, where personnel turnover is high, the full course is rarely feasible. As a result, most trainees likely undergo compressed programs reportedly lasting between two and four weeks.

IV. Motorcycle Inventory

Given the scale of the war and the demands on Russia’s military, a question naturally emerges: where are the motorcycles coming from, what models are used, and can Russia meet its needs with domestic production?

The short answer to the last question is no. Most motorcycles deployed at the front are foreign-made, primarily sourced from China. This comes down to two basic factors: cost and production scale. While Russia’s defense sector had been developing motorcycles even before the war, and even ramped up efforts once demand surged, it still falls short of meeting frontline needs.

Equally important, it appears the Russian state is not the only supplier yet. As with drones, motorcycles often reach units through volunteers, local authorities from the unit’s home region, personal purchases by servicemembers, and state procurement.

Given the decentralized sourcing of motorcycles, the fleet in Russian units is notably diverse. Still, as previously noted, Chinese-made off-road models, particularly enduro-style bikes, dominate. As of June 2025, one of the most common models observed by our team was produced by Sharmax Motors, a Dubai-based company with manufacturing facilities in China. Among the most frequently used is the Sharmax Sport 280 from the Enduro line, with prices ranging from 180,000 to 300,000 rubles (approximately $1900 to $3,200).

Another emerging alternative, though still less common, is the use of electric motorcycles. These are gaining traction due to several advantages over gasoline-powered models: they’re significantly quieter and harder to detect with thermal imaging.

V. Combat Feedback: Ukrainian Perspective

Battlefield theories and expectations from tactical experimentation often diverge from reality. Many Ukrainian interviewees expressed skepticism about the growing "hype" surrounding motorcycles as a battlefield wunderwaffe, emphasizing that while motorcycles can be useful under specific conditions, they remain just a platform - far from a transformative innovation.

As an assault platform, motorcycles are generally seen as weak and unreliable, rarely delivering decisive results. However, when used in a proper role - alongside fire support, electronic warfare support, drones, and armored vehicles - they can be highly effective. The challenge, of course, is execution: Russian forces have struggled to coordinate such combined-arms operations even at the company or battalion level, limiting their ability to use motorcycles as efficient force multipliers.

While more maneuverable than traditional armored vehicles and better at avoiding artillery fire, motorcycles leave riders exposed and vulnerable to shrapnel from the same artillery. They also offer little protection against FPV drones, which often outpace riders with ease.

Finally, casualty rates remain a major concern. Feedback from across the front reveals two consistent patterns: either motorcycle assaults fail to deliver meaningful results, or success comes at a steep cost, with only one in several groups surviving to complete the mission. This raises serious questions about whether such losses would be considered acceptable by commanders in Western militaries.

VI. Summary and Outlook

In summary, motorcycle dragoon tactics have their place on the battlefield, but they are unlikely to be a game changer on the scale of drones. Still, their use is likely to grow as a response to current battlefield dynamics. When properly coordinated with other assault elements, these units can enhance operational success and serve as a force multiplier. However, Russia continues to struggle with synchronized operations, significantly limiting their effectiveness.

Internal Russian Defense Ministry documents, currently unavailable for public release, suggest that motorcycles, ATVs, and buggies will become a standard part of assault unit structure. These papers indicate that more than half of the infantry in certain formations will be outfitted with such vehicles to boost mobility. If accurate, this signals a sustained Russian focus on tactical mobility, a shift that NATO may have to confront in the event of direct conflict. As such, this evolving Russian approach warrants further scrutiny.

Since the outset of the war, the battlefield has undergone several notable transformations. Among the most widely cited examples is the deployment of drones, which have not only played critical role in this war but are likely to shape warfare in its own way for years to come. Yet beyond such high-profile innovations, there have been smaller, less visible technological shifts and upgrades - changes that often escape public attention either due to their classified nature or the scarcity of concrete data.

Much of this quiet evolution is tied to emerging technologies and, more crucially, the ability to scale them for mass production at relatively low cost. In Russia, hundreds of defense factories and research institutions have been working under consolidated state-run conglomerate known as Rostec. Components such as intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance - collectively known as ISTAR, have become almost synonymous with modern combat and would be impossible without advanced electronics and optical-electronic systems.

Understanding where Rostec is focusing its development efforts: what its needs are and which projects are underway- can offer a window into the future of the Russian military, both in the context of the current war and over the next five to ten years.

One of Rostec’s key holdings, Shvabe, specializes in optical-electronic technologies for military and dual use, producing items such as scopes, circuit boards, cameras, fire-control systems, and laser devices. Thanks to a trove of hundreds of leaked documents and tens of thousands of internal records spanning multiple years provided to us by 256 Cyber Assault Division, our team has been able to examine the state of Shvabe’s operations in detail. In this special investigation, we present a series of findings that shed light on the holding`s product lines, current projects, expansion efforts, and the technical bottlenecks it continues to face.

A link to download the referenced leaked documents will be available at the end of this article. Additional materials—including a comprehensive list of all Rostec-affiliated companies, effectively covering much of the Russian military-industrial complex—will be accessible to our paid subscribers, whose financial support makes these investigations possible.

Table of Contents:

Intro
I. Shvabe Holding — Thermal Scopes, Lasers, and Other Trials
II. Import Substitution and Chinese Print
III. Production Expansion, Problems, and Prospects

I. Shvabe Holding — Thermal Scopes, Lasers, and Other Trials

Shvabe Holding manufactures a wide range of optical and targeting systems for military and aerospace applications. Its portfolio includes sights and thermal imaging devices, fire control systems for armored vehicles, targeting and navigation equipment for aircraft and UAVs. The company also develops space-based and aerial surveillance systems, night vision devices, and laser rangefinders for both artillery and aviation use. While Shvabe also produces various dual-use and civilian technologies—such as medical equipment—its primary focus, as part of the Rostec conglomerate, remains military research and production.

Thanks to a set of investment documents detailing ongoing projects, we have obtained a list of companies and corresponding initiatives that Shvabe Holding was involved with as of 2024. This is just a short list highlighting some of the most interesting projects:

1. Public Joint Stock Company "Krasnogorsky Zavod, shortly KMZ:

- Development of airborne equipment for laser signature detection for helicopters.

- Development of a version of the precision seeker head TShU-1-11 and the coarse seeker head. Part of electro-optical active protection system in tanks and IFVs

- Control and Testing Equipment for OPS-28M : an electro-optical surveillance or targeting system used on the Mi-28NM attack helicopter

- Technical modernization of serial production and high quality of thermal imaging products.

- Reconstruction and technical modernization of circuit board productions

2. Joint Stock Company "Lytkarino Optical Glass Factory:

- Night Vision Devices TVN-5M and TVN-5ML: Driver’s night vision systems designed for tanks such as the T-62, T-64, T-72, and T-80, as well as infantry fighting vehicles like the BMP-1, BMP-2, and BMP-3.

- Thermal Vision Module TTM-5

3. Orion Scientific Production Association

- Developing the engineering documentation and building prototypes of laser target designators and a collimator sight.

- SWIR Camera 640

4. Joint Stock Company "POLYUS Research Institute”

- Establishment of industrial-scale production of bismuth-based optical fibers and optical amplifiers for the next generation of high-speed fiber-optic communication systems

5. Joint Stock Company "State Institute of Applied Optics'"

- Import Substitution of the 'Catherine-XP-PCS' Thermal Imaging Camera in the Fire Control System of the T-90M Main Battle Tank," Code Name: 'Osnova'

6. Joint Stock Company "Shvabe - Technological Laboratory"

- Development and production launch of high-resolution video camera modules for use in electro-optical systems

Shvabe Holding, of course, is a much larger enterprise involved in a wide range of projects, which we explore further in this investigation. Notably, however, internal email correspondence between Shvabe Holding companies reveals that not all production processes are running smoothly.

According to a confidential meeting document, one of the key issues discussed in August 2024 was the unsatisfactory quality of the OPS-28M systems, an optical surveillance and targeting system used on Mi-28MN attack helicopters.

This isn’t the last problem we identified, but we will revisit them later, as there were also a number of interesting findings among the tasked Shvabe projects.

In February 2024, “Polyus,” part of Shvabe Holding, was assigned to develop proposals to advance laser technologies aimed at countering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This effort includes creating materials like active elements as part of a laser technology development program extending to 2033, focusing on high-power lasers.

Similarly, in 2022, both JSC “High-Precision Systems” and JSC “Research Institute "Polyus" were tasked to prepare proposals for the development of a laser system for counter-UAV activities with a possible integration with the Pantsir-S1

In may of 2024, Joint Stock Company "VOMZ", in collaboration with enterprises of JSC "Shvabe" was tasked with exploring the feasibility of integrating UAVs into the tank fire control system. The objective is to enhance reconnaissance and target engagement capabilities at extended firing ranges (up to 15 km), including operations from concealed firing positions.

Concealed or Closed‐position firing allows a tank to engage targets without a direct line of sight by using its main gun much like an artillery piece, relying on calculated settings rather than aiming directly at the target. This technique allows tanks to provide fire support at ranges and trajectories that would otherwise be impossible with direct fire, and stay out of the sight and range of traditional anti-tank means. It’s a widely used tactics initially used by Ukrainian side since 2014 but now utilized by both, especially with the mass use of drones which can be used for fire correction.

Our team assumes that Russia will continue attempts to integrate various UAV systems in fire control systems across various platforms – not just tanks in future modernization efforts aiming to increase both the range and accuracy.

In addition, Shvabe is actively involved in the upgrade and modernization of a wide range of optical systems. This includes II+ generation night vision scopes for RPGs, as well as the integration of thermal imaging technology into existing platforms - such as the Agat-MP fire control system used on the BMPT.

II. Import substitution and the Chinese footprint

Modern equipment, especially systems reliant on electronics, is nearly impossible to produce entirely with domestically sourced parts and technology. Shvabe is no exception. Last month, the investigative group InformNapalm published a detailed report outlining how companies within the Shvabe holding have been circumventing international sanctions to acquire critical components for production.

One such scheme involved the supply of IRCOL Collimators from the French firm HGH Infrared Systems to the Indian company PCC Pvt. Ltd. According to the investigation, PCC allegedly misled the French supplier and redirected the equipment through a Russian intermediary, LLC “EMT,” which ultimately delivered the components to Zenit-Investprom - a part of the Shvabe Holding ecosystem.

That said, Russia has never stopped its efforts to pursue import substitution. As part of preparations for an expanded meeting on import substitution scheduled for June 2024, chaired by A.E. Tyulin, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Military-Industrial Commission of Russia—the company Astron was instructed to submit the following documents to “JSC Shvabe”:

• Development and Production Plan for Uncooled Microbolometric Arrays

• Technological Scheme for the Production of Microbolometric Arrays

Microbolometers are a critical component in thermal imaging cameras, enabling the detection. In addition to this directive, there are dozens of other meeting records and progress report requests related to import substitution originating from various levels of the Russian government.

China, of course, plays a role in helping Russia to sustain production and even expand its production amidst parts shortages caused by Western sanctions

According to data from the 256th Cyber Assault Unit, which provided its data in Informnapalm investigation, a company called “YUMAK” supplied CNC machines from Chinese company Push Ningjiang Machine Tool Co, as well as from Tianjin No.1 Machine Tool Works—to “Zenit-Investprom” (a Russian company that works directly with KMZ, a key manufacturer of optoelectronic equipment used in combat vehicles and helicopters)

One internal company document, which included a detailed task list, also contained a roster of various firms within the holding, along with their assigned task. Among them, one name stood out: Shvabe Opto-Electronics, based in Shenzhen, China.

According to trade data monitored by Trademo, the company has consistently supplied components to the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant and JSC Novosibirsk Instrument-Making Plant—both sanctioned entities due to their roles in Russia’s military-industrial complex and direct involvement in the war against Ukraine. Shvabe’s Shenzhen-based subsidiary, also known as UOMZ Meizhou, is itself under U.S. sanctions.

According to available records in China, the company has operated there without interruption since 2009. As in our previous investigations into other Rostec-affiliated firms, we have repeatedly found Chinese industrial equipment playing a key role in supporting Russia’s import substitution efforts and modernizing its military production capabilities. Much of this progress would be difficult to imagine without access to China’s industrial capacity and technological resources.

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III. Production Expansion, Problems, and Prospects

Last but not least is the issue of production expansion. As previously mentioned, the company from Shvabe Holding called “Zenit-Investprom” has acquired Chinese industrial equipment to support manufacturing efforts of Rostec.

Further investigation into Zenit-Investprom revealed extensive correspondence with Zavod No. 9—which can be translated as “Factory No. 9” — a facility known for producing towed artillery pieces such as the D-30 howitzers, as well as tank guns, including the newer T-90 models.

According to one of documents, Zenit-Investprom and Zavod No. 9 signed an agreement under which Zenit-Investprom would be responsible for updating project documentation related to the “Reconstruction and Technical Modernization of the Production Base of Zavod No. 9.”

The deadline was set for December 31, 2023, and the total cost was estimated at 29.418 million rubles, or over $365,000 at the current USD-to-ruble exchange rate for updating project documentation.

The factory expansion and modernization goes through 3 phases. Each phase includes different details, like construction of new facilities and infrastructure to support them. But the most interesting part is installation of new machinery, which can give a better idea on the scale of productional line expansion

The full list of needed equipment:

• Lifting equipment: 21

• Laser heat-strengthening system: 1

• Chemical-heat treatment equipment: 4

• Electroplating equipment: 1

• Painting and drying equipment: 1

• Machining equipment: 32

• Control and measuring equipment: 6

Given that some of this equipment - such as the laser heat-strengthening system—is designed for working with metals, and considering that the factory is involved in producing barrels for tanks and artillery, our team assumes that Russia is actively working to expand its barrel production capabilities. This area has long been a bottleneck, not only due to the demand for new equipment but also because of the heavy wear and frequent replacement required during wartime. In a war as intense as this one, barrel lifespans are short, making reliable production capacity critical.

While detailed information remains limited, available correspondence indicates that the companies faced serious issues. In April 2024, Zavod No. 9 sent a letter to Zenit-Investprom stating that it had not received a single document confirming any completed work and demanded that the company take comprehensive measures within three days to fulfill its contractual obligations.

Another document, dated 8^th of November 2024 from Zavod#9 to Zenit-Investprom, states that issues listed in another submitted letter in October of 2024 were not fixed and they even never received an answer

Overall, given that the project documentation was originally scheduled for completion by the end of 2023, the Frontelligence Insight team believes the expansion and modernization effort is likely facing significant delays. This appears to be part of a broader pattern—many projects within the Shvabe holding routinely miss deadlines, undergo repeated revisions, or are postponed altogether.

It is clear that while Russia continues to grapple with production delays, quality control issues, and the challenges of sourcing components under sanctions, it is also making tangible progress in both manufacturing and the deployment of new technologies. Perhaps the most significant shift since the pre-war period is Russia’s effort to integrate battlefield experience not just into limited, showcase upgrades, but into broader mass production— leveraging machinery and components sourced from both Western and Chinese suppliers.

Barring a severe economic collapse or a major military defeat, if Russia would be able to spend several years building up and stockpiling equipment, our team believes that any future war involving Russia is likely to feature a significantly more modern and technologically integrated military than the force that launched the full-scale invasion in 2022.

The link below provides access to the original files referenced in this investigation:

https://we.tl/t-dgUZNrdOag

Additional documents—available through the paid subscription button—offer significantly more information, including a comprehensive list of Russian companies within the military-industrial conglomerate Rostec.

Thank you for taking the time to read. In times when independent reporting faces increasing challenges, we especially need your support. We invite you to become a monthly paid subscriber to support our work in producing more materials. Honest discussions like these depend on independence, which can only be sustained through crowdfunding and the subscribers like you.

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Oil prices have slipped below $60 per barrel, adding pressure to a strained Russian economy. At the same time, China—Moscow’s largest trading partner—is locked in a high-stakes tariff war with the United States, triggered by the new U.S. administration. These converging disruptions are unlikely to leave Russia's economic footing - and by extension, its capacity to fund the war in Ukraine—unaffected.

To better understand the current landscape, we once again spoke with Vladimir Milov, former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy and a prominent critic of the Putin regime. An economist and energy expert, Milov was a close ally of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and currently serves as Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation. Our previous conversation with him took place in December 2024. In this latest interview, we revisit his earlier forecasts and examine how recent developments have altered Russia’s economic trajectory.

Question (Q): There’s increasing talk about a potential easing of economic sanctions on Russia—at least from the U.S. While a full rollback seems unlikely, some form of relief may be on the horizon. In your view, could this act as a lifeline for the Kremlin, enabling it to sustain the war effort?

Answer (A): I have written about it in much detail in a recent op-ed for The Insider - please have a look. Long story short - Trump won't be able to reverse Western sanctions policy, and European actions matter more than those of the U.S. Before the 2022 full-scale invasion, Europe was Russia's key investor and trade partner - over 67% of accumulated FDI stock came from Europe and around 50% of Russian exports went to Europe. The U.S. - 1% and 4% respectively. Russia needs markets and investment, and the U.S. won't provide that - even in better times, American investors didn't particularly like Russia.

However, Russia may get some benefits from U.S. sanctions being lifted, which will help to keep Putin's ailing economy afloat for a bit longer. Crucial thing is access to the U.S. technology which may boost the Russian military production - this assessment is shared in a brilliant recent report by the Kyiv School of Economics on the status of the Russian military industries - quite worth a read, I strongly recommend

Another problem is that Europe doesn't have anything comparable to the U.S. global sanctions enforcement mechanism - experienced agencies like the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control and Bureau of Industry and Security. If the U.S. lifts sanctions against Russia - or simply continues the crackdown on its own Government institutions like that executed by DOGE - the EU, Britain, and other Western democracies simply don't have its own institutional capacities to secure proper sanctions enforcement on a global scale, as currently provided by the U.S. There will be a major sanctions enforcement vacuum which Putin will inevitably use for his own benefit, boosting sanctions circumvention.

(Q): The U.S.-China tariff war has dominated headlines in recent weeks, signaling historic geopolitical and economic shifts. While Russia isn't directly involved, key trade partners like China are heavily impacted. Beyond oil, should we expect any spillover effects on the Russian economy?

(A): Yes, there's so much more than just oil. China's economic slowdown closed their market for many Russian products, due to which major Russian industries suffer badly. For once, China-oriented Russian coal industry is collapsing right in front of our eyes. Fisheries suffer from contraction of Chinese imports of Russian fish. Russian steelmakers face output contraction and sharply falling profits because cheap Chinese steel is flooding global markets - Chinese economic slowdown turned China from being a major importer to a net exporter of steel. And so on. Russian non-energy and non-commodity exports are down by about a quarter compared to pre-2022 levels, and are not rebounding - China doesn't allow Russia to access its market, and it won't change once Chinese economic growth slows down.

Tariff war will obviously exacerbate Chinese slowdown. The slower Chinese growth - the less market for Russian goods. Share of China in the total Russian exports is as high as a third now - we're heavily dependent on this market and its well-being.

(Q): In a recent interview, you mentioned that further declines in oil prices might actually benefit Russia more than if prices remain stagnant just below a certain threshold—an idea that might seem counterintuitive to many. Could you explain how that works?

(A): Biggest loser from the falling oil prices is not Russia, and not OPEC - its the American shale oil industry. Oil production costs in the U.S. are significantly higher than in Russia or OPEC. This means that, if global oil prices fall below $50, large part of the U.S. oil production will be wiped off the market, and prices will quickly rebound. We already saw these effects after 2014 and 2020 oil price crashes.

Russians know that, which is why they weren't too scared with Trump's threats to "radically bring down the oil prices". Their strategy is to wait out for mass extinction of the U.S. oil production under $50/bbl, and to wait for prices to rebound thereafter. Russian oil producing companies are OK under $30-40 prices - it is the state budget which will suffer, but Putin and his people believe they can last for some time under low oil prices, given that they will be rebounding later.

In these circumstances, I'd say the best scenario if the international oil prices will stay somewhere around $60. Given the sanctions-driven discounts, that means Russian oil cheaper than $50. These are the prices which will significantly hurt Russia (Russian budget is drafted under $70/bbl oil price assumption), but will prevent the collapse of the U.S. shale oil industry and further rebounding of prices. Oil at $50 or cheaper is a much worse scenario, as it will most likely mean that low oil prices will be short-lived, which will make Putin happy.

(Q): During our last conversation, there was an expectation that Russia’s central bank would raise interest rates, yet it held steady at around 21%. What factors led to that unexpected decision?

(A): After their February Board meeting, Central Bank has admitted that "consequences of further raising rates will be worse than keeping the rates steady" - meaning that it would exacerbate economic slowdown or probably lead to a recession. To avoid that, they partially sacrificed the goal of bringing down inflation - which still remains high, preventing the Central Bank from much-anticipated easing of monetary policies. At the recent March meeting of the Central Bank board, only two signals were discussed - neutral and tough (further increasing the rate).

Central Bank faces tough dilemma now - interest rate of 21% is still very high (Russia has 12th highest Central Bank rate in the world), rapidly cooling the economy, but inflation is not really receding. The root causes of inflation - heavy budgetary spending on the war, output gap created by output not catching up with demand due to Western sanctions against Russian manufacturing sector - are not going away. At the same time, Russian industrial output has zeroed out in February (0,2% year-on-year growth and 0,4% seasonally adjusted growth compared to January), and March figures may be even worse - soon we'll see the statistics. So, Central Bank has managed to rapidly cause stagnation with its tight monetary policies - risking further slipping into recession - but it failed to bring inflation under control.

(Q): Your latest FRF Think Tank report points to high inflation and near-zero output growth in Russia—classic signs of stagflation. However, some economists argue that high unemployment is a necessary component. Given that unemployment remains relatively low, does this mean Russia hasn’t yet entered stagflation, or is this just a statistical distortion due to the mass recruitment of the male population?

(A): True, Russian situation is unique. The term "stagflation" was coined in the 1960s and 1970s in the Western economies none of which experienced such a mass diversion of the workforce to the war as Russia today. If the current war is suddenly over, Russia will indeed experience high unemployment - masses of soldiers returning to civilian life won't easily find jobs.

Russia also continues to experience very high hidden unemployment - workforce which is nominally employed, but in reality is either on unpaid leave, part-time workweek, or downtime. Rosstat estimated hidden unemployment to be as high as 4,7 million people in Q4 2024, or over 6% of the total workforce. Together with official unemployment, that would make about 9% of the workforce.

These workers would have significantly eased the pressure on labor market should they have left their enterprises, but Russian labor market traditionally features low mobility (remember how people in the 1990s preferred to continue working for years at enterprises which haven't paid them salaries, instead of leaving them looking for new jobs). So, companies nominally keep the workers, but effectively don't pay them - hoping for recovery, which is not coming (nearly three quarters of hidden unemployment are people on unpaid leave).

So, if we're into a macroeconomic debate by the book here, Russia does have high unemployment - but in hidden or delayed forms. And stagflation is real. If the current situation lingers on, even nominal unemployment will rise quite soon.

(Q): What is the current situation with Russia's National Wealth Fund — the main financial reserve that has supported Putin's economy through years of war? What are the implications for the Kremlin and the ongoing war?

(A): As of April 1st, the liquidity portion of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) stood at $39 billion, or just over RUR 3 trillion. That's lower than the federal budget deficit recorded in 2024 (RUR 3,5 trillion). As it goes, 2025 budget deficit will likely be much higher - costs are rising (over 20% federal expenditure growth in Q1 2025), while revenues will be depressed by both the falling oil prices, as well as economic slowdown. Already now, non-oil revenue in Q1 2025 grew only by 11% year-on-year, against 26% growth in 2024, and 18% planned growth for 2025. Of which VAT - by just 9%, as opposed to 22% in 2024 and 17% planned for 2025. Slowing economy generates less taxes, which will undermine budget revenues to an extent not lesser than falling oil prices, and lead to further depletion of the NWF. As it looks from today, there's no other way but for the liquidity portion of the NWF to be fully depleted by the end of 2025 (usually they draw the funds from NWF in December to close the fiscal year).

There's also a non-liquidity portion of the NWF, but it largely exists only on paper, with money invested in various securities and not being easily recoverable. For those interested in details, I have analyzed this in my February brief on the Russian economy. The liquidity portion of the NWF has shrank from $116,5 billion in February 2022 to just $39 billion now as a result of heavy war-related spending. Essentially, this was the model of much-praised Putin's "economic resilience": heavily draw the available cash reserves to compensate for the negative effects of sanctions. But this "economic miracle" appears to be over, disappearing along with cash being spent.

What next after the liquidity part of the NWF is fully spent? I also analyze this in one of my recent reports in detail. Bottom line: nothing is working except monetary emission, printing the money. Government can't borrow - they are cut off from international financial markets, and domestically, with yields as high as over 16% for OFZ government bonds, Russia spends more on repaying and servicing the debt than it actually raises from the domestic debt market. Net debt raising was just around zero in 2024 and negative in Q1 2025. They can raise taxes, but that would further undermine economic growth and curb tax base - they'll lose more in the end. Hypothetically, they can try to privatize state assets, but there's not really much to sell if they don't opt to privatize control equity shares in major state companies - and they don't seem to even consider that for strategic reasons. As far as smaller-scale privatization is concerned, it won't solve their fiscal problems on a large scale, and there won't be much demand given the rapid deterioration of investment climate, ongoing rampant nationalization, etc.

So printing the money seems to be the only viable option left. Russian authorities seem to increasingly tolerate high inflation - "we're not Turkey or Argentina yet, so what difference does it make if inflation is 12-13% instead of 10% - let's print a couple of trillion rubles, no one will notice" (that was literally said by some State Duma deputies during Nabiullina's report debate on April 9th). Central Bank clearly shifted to limited emission schemes in the past few months through repo auctions - banks buy government bonds, and are immediately allowed to use them as collateral while borrowing cash from the Central Bank through repo auctions. Central Bank promised to use repo auctions as temporary mechanism in November 2024, but keeps rolling them over - switching from monthly to weekly repo auctions. Effectively, it is little different from Central Bank's credit to the government, or, in simple words, printing the money.

No question that filling the budgetary gap with printed money will lead to even higher inflation, which will destroy any prospect for economic recovery. So, basically, the Western sanctions are working - albeit not as fast as we hoped, but still.

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Radio Liberty, together with the Ukrainian project Frontelligence Insight and a group of volunteers, analyzed more than a hundred satellite images and found out that the damage from Ukrainian strikes on the Russian energy sector over the past six months amounted to at least 60 billion rubles or $658 million (according to less conservative estimates - almost 80 billion). In addition, dozens of Russian military facilities were damaged or completely destroyed during the same period.

Table of Contents:

I. General Overview
II. Melting the Steel. Estimated damage to military targets and infrastructure
III. Burning black gold; Assessing the damage to the Russian energy sector
IV. Summary

I. General Overview

The real damage to the Russian energy sector and the economy as a whole may be higher. Experts note the $658 million number is a minimum estimate based on data that can be verified — mainly satellite images — but also video from the sites of strikes and cases where the Russian side itself confirmed the damage.

In assessing the damage caused by Ukrainian strikes on military installations, the Frontelligence Insight team analyzed the attacks in terms of their impact on the course of war, rather than the value of equipment or ammunition destroyed.

Based on data provided by the GeoConfirmed project (which geolocates various incidents in the Russian-Ukrainian war), we compiled our database, which includes attacks on Russian or occupied territories from September 1, 2024 to February 12, 2025.

In at least 67 out of 100 cases, Ukrainian strikes were successful, while in another 33 cases the result of the attacks remains unknown or it is impossible to prove Ukraine's involvement. The "Unknown" category also includes videos of Ukrainian drones flying over Russian territory with an unknown destination (it is also unknown whether they reached their target or were shot down).

The analysis is almost entirely based on the impacts verified by the GeoConfirmed service. The actual number of impacts for the specified period may be higher.

The highest number of successful strikes against targets inside Russia was recorded in November 2024.

While at the beginning of the researched period, Ukrainian strikes were more often directed at military facilities on Russian territory (mainly ammunition depots), the strikes gradually shifted to oil or gas storage facilities and oil and gas refineries. In January, two-thirds of all verified strikes were directed at them.

The most frequent distance traveled by Ukrainian drones or missiles to conduct strikes was 100-150 kilometers. Slightly fewer strikes were carried out in the ranges of 150-200 and 50-100 kilometers. This indicates that strikes are most often carried out against targets located relatively close to the Russian-Ukrainian border or front line. Strikes in the range of 450-500 kilometers are less common (there are quite a few active Russian oil refineries and military depots in this zone).

There is a clear correlation between distance and the success rate of drone strikes. The farther a drone must travel, the higher the likelihood it will be intercepted, as it encounters more air defense systems along the way. At the same time, within 650 kilometers of the Ukrainian border, numerous active targets remain, making it more practical to prioritize strikes within this range rather than routinely targeting more distant sites.

II. Melting the Steel. Estimated damage to military targets and infrastructure

Between September of 2024 and February of 2025, Ukraine has shown growing consistency in both the scale and effectiveness of its strikes deep inside Russia, employing a wider range of weaponry, including various types of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

September 2024 stands out as the most successful month, marked by direct hits on some of Russia’s largest ammunition depots in its western regions: key stockpiles that had sustained frontline operations since 2022. Notably, strategic depots in Toropets and Tikhoretsk played a key role in supplying Russian forces with 120mm and 82mm mortar rounds, 122mm rockets, small arms ammunition, various missiles, and explosive materials.The destruction of the Toropets depot alone is estimated to have resulted in the loss of 30,000 to 160,000 tons of munitions, dealing a tangible blow to Russian logistics and frontline supply chains.

Tikhoretsk Ammunition Depot, in particular, became a key storage hub for North Korean artillery ammunition deliveries starting in 2023. Its infrastructure, like most major Soviet-era ammunition depots, was specifically designed with a rail connection and loading/unloading platforms equipped for more efficient transfer. Before these deliveries began, the facility was even expanded to accommodate shipments from North Korea.

When the Tikhoretsk ammo depot was completely destroyed by a Ukrainian long-range strike, the impact extended beyond the ammunition loss, also damaging the railroad infrastructure.

The ability and time required to repair or replace a damaged target directly influence the key metrics used in this analysis - Target Significance. In cases like the Toropets and Tikhoretsk ammunition depots, Target Significance was not determined solely by the tonnage of ammunition stored but also by how quickly the site could be restored or replicated - if at all.

The complete destruction of major ammunition depots, forces the rerouting of supplies to other depots, adding distance, increasing delivery times, and further straining an already overstretched logistical network.

While estimating ammunition losses in tonnage can help gauge how long a unit might be deprived of supplies and the broader impact on the war effort, assessing the effects of Ukrainian drone strikes, and later missiles strikes on diverse targets: factories, warehouses, airbases, command posts, and training facilities is far more complicated and can’t be measured in ammo tonnage.

To evaluate the effectiveness of long-range strikes, we developed and tested a straightforward assessment model based on two key metrics: Damage Rating and Target Significance.

The Damage Rating ranges from 0 to 4, where 0 indicates no impact and 4 signifies complete destruction. For example, a strike on a warehouse that leaves minor structural damage - such as blown-out windows and small holes, without affecting its functionality would be rated 1, while the total destruction of the same facility would be rated 4.

The Target Significance scale follows a similar logic: 0 means the target holds no real importance, while 4 represents a critical asset whose loss could influence the war at an operational or even strategic level. For instance, if the previously mentioned warehouse stored non-essential supplies such as belts, socks, and hats for a company-sized unit, its significance would be rated 1. However, if the same warehouse contained a six-month stockpile of artillery ammunition for an army group, its significance would be rated 4.

By multiplying these values, we derive the Strike Impact Score: a single figure that reflects both the effectiveness and importance of a strike. Additionally, we use the Adjusted Strike Impact Score for large or complex structures where damage to a single component can either cripple an entire operation or, conversely, leave overall functionality intact despite multiple destroyed elements. Take, for example, the strike on the Karachev GRAU depot in Bryansk Oblast in October 2024. This was a high-profile target due to its stored ammunition and logistical infrastructure. The strike successfully destroyed two buildings, eliminating their contents. However, the broader ammunition depot and its critical infrastructure remained intact.

In such cases, we apply an adjusted formula that evaluates the impact on the entire complex rather than just the affected structures. While the destruction of two buildings was a direct loss, it did not significantly degrade the depot’s overall functionality. As a result, the strike received a low impact score, which was further supported by satellite imagery showing continued activity at the depot, indicating no operational disruptions.

By applying our evaluation model, we determined that more than half of the recorded strikes between September and February had limited impact. This assessment does not account for interceptions, debris falling on non-military or non-industrial sites, or drones that failed to reach their targets. As a result, the actual number of low-impact, ineffective, and failed strikes is likely higher than displayed on the graph.

The high concentration of successful strikes on military targets in September - November, followed by a noticeable drop in later months, does not necessarily suggest a lapse in consistency or a sudden degradation of capabilities. More likely, it’s a result of a deliberate shift in targeting priorities, with increased emphasis on oil and energy infrastructure.

Intelligence capabilities and response times have notably improved in stark contrast to previous years. A case in point is the Shahed drone storage and launch site in Oryol Oblast, which began construction in August 2024 and was completed by December of the same year.

Timelapse footage of the facility’s construction, shared by Mark Krutov:

Remarkably, as soon as the facility was operational, Ukrainian forces carried out a precise strike, targeting one of the reinforced bunkers likely used for storing loitering munitions. The site was assessed with a Target Significance of 3 and a Damage Rating of 2, placing it at the lower end of the moderate Strike Impact Score scale. A precise strike disabled one of 15 bunker structures, which remains under reconstruction. However, the facility continues to operate and has not been destroyed or abandoned.

Despite modest results of the strike, the fact that Ukraine was not only aware of the site’s construction in this remote and unconventional location but also knew its purpose, and precisely when it was completed and put to use, demonstrates the effectiveness of intelligence gathering and reaction time, whether through its own resources or those of Western partners.

An analysis of Damage Rating, or in other words, the extent of destruction inflicted on a target, shows that more than half of recorded strikes on military facilities and infrastructure resulted in moderate to low damage. One contributing factor, as our team has assumed, is the relatively small warhead size of certain Ukrainian drones, such as the Liutyi, which is comparable to the Russian-Iranian Shahed-136 (Geran-2). Given the long distances these drones must travel, increasing their warhead size would require adjustments to weight, fuel capacity, and overall design.

While video footages, particularly captured at night, often show explosions of fire, these visuals can be misleading. The effect is frequently amplified by the drone’s fuel igniting upon impact, but the actual structural damage tends to be limited unless secondary explosions or fires occur. Although our team was unable to conduct interior damage assessments, in many cases, we were able to determine through satellite imagery or open-source materials whether targeted buildings remained operational and how long repairs took.

According to Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who recently returned from a field trip to the Ukrainian frontlines, the reason why the impact of long-range strikes on the battlefield has not always met public expectations, aside from a few exceptions, can be attributed to deeper issues:

"The battlefield impact was most visible in cases where Ukraine went after ammunition, and C2. Unfortunately, strike campaigns using ATACMS and air launched cruise missiles were often out of sequence with combat operations. Decisions on missile availability, numbers provided, and restrictions on use, had a poor relationship to the requirements of major offensive or defensive efforts. Long-range strikes were an important piece of the puzzle, affecting how Russian forces operate, but by themselves were not decisive, and could not solve the challenges observed on the modern battlefield. Both sides struggled to overcome a prepared defense backed by mass precision. Consequently, these weapons had shaping effects on enemy forces, but Ukraine was often not in a position to capitalize on them, and expectations that these would be game changing weapons tended to exceed the impact observed”

In November 2024, Ukraine was granted permission to use ATACMS deeper inside of Russia. As a result, beyond the now-routine drone strikes, new weapons such as ATACMS were introduced in an expanded role, with less geographical restrictions. ATACMS, along with Storm Shadow/SCALP strikes, successfully hit their intended targets, including air defenses at Khalino Air Base, disrupting air operations, as well as a successful strike on a command post in Maryino, eliminating senior officers.

Previously, our team estimated that Ukraine had several dozen ATACMS missiles remaining- insufficient to critically damage Russian forces and their logistics. As Michael Kofman explains, part of the problem is that the salvo sizes Ukraine could generate, relative to Russia’s interception capabilities, made it difficult or costly to achieve some of the desired effects.

This issue is compounded by the Western approach to ATACMS use and deliveries, as well as decisions to employ them against targets in Crimea in 2024 without linking those strikes to a specific follow-up operation that could have fully exploited the window they created. This led to a depletion of ATACMS stocks by fall 2024, a few months before Ukraine received expanded permission on ATACMS strikes.

"There was inconsistency in the Western approach. For example, denying ATACMS missiles ahead of the summer 2023 offensive, then encouraging an ATACMS strike campaign against Russian forces in Crimea in 2024 that spent significant resources, but did not link to any offensive or follow-on operation that year," explains Michael Kofman.

By 2024, Russian forces had become far more familiar with Ukraine’s strike capabilities than in 2022, when they initially operated under the assumption that Ukraine lacked the systematic means to hit beyond artillery range. As a result, they were unprepared for the highly effective introduction of HIMARS, which inflicted devastating losses. As new weaponry was introduced, albeit in relatively small quantities, since 2022, Russian forces continuously adapted. By 2024, the number of easily exploitable targets had been reduced significantly compared to 2022. For example, Khalino Air Base, which was struck by ATACMS in November, had already been undergoing reinforcement upgrades since October 2024.

While large strategic facilities storing hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition cannot be fully hardened without years of preparation, Russia has implemented lower-cost but effective countermeasures to mitigate the impact of strikes on other key targets: such as headquarters and tactical ammunition depots - significantly reducing their vulnerability compared to 2022.

III. Burning black gold; Assessing the damage to the Russian energy sector

According to Radio Liberty's calculations, Ukrainian drones struck oil and gas production facilities and natural resource storage sites at least 25 times in the six months covered by this study.

Will Thiel, a chemical engineer with 32 years of experience in oil and gas refining, exploration and production, spoke to Radio Liberty about the differences between refineries and tank farms.

Oil depots are facilities containing only tank capacity and designed to store or transfer raw materials and products from one mode of transportation to another, while refineries are a complex set of not only different tanks (for crude, intermediate and finished products), but also process units (rectification columns, reactors, separators, cracking units) for chemical or physical refining of crude oil into more valuable products, which are divided into light products (gasoline, kerosene, diesel and jet fuel). Refineries also have rail and road terminals for loading and unloading tankers and other supporting infrastructure such as pipelines, pumps, and power plants.

As recently as 20 years ago, the engineer notes, Russian refineries existed mainly to supply the domestic market and were not oriented toward exporting products. Russian economist Vladimir Milov explains that in Soviet times, refineries mainly produced fuel oil (for heating) and diesel fuel, while production of gasoline and other light petroleum products was low due to the low level of motorization in the country.

After that, deep modernization and expansion of refineries began: a number of refineries were rebuilt, and now they are truly modern refineries with high oil refining depth (up to 100%) and high yields of light petroleum products (around 80% and higher), Milov notes. At the same time, many Russian refineries still do not meet Western standards, says Will Thiel: for example, they do not use huge crude oil storage tanks, as in Western countries, for 60,000 tons, and there are no large storage tanks for finished products, as in foreign refineries, so the vulnerabilities of the Russian oil industry are constantly loaded logistics.

Will Thiel summarizes that Russia has no large refineries in the Western sense, but many small and medium-sized refineries, among which there are both rather outdated (in the south of Russia) and modern (in the European part of Russia and Western Siberia).

Oil transfer complexes or oil pumping stations (OPS) are logistical transshipment points. One such point, the Andreapol pumping station in the Tver region (an important part of the Baltic Pipeline System-2), has been attacked twice recently by Ukrainian drones, in January and February. Despite the fact that the station is not visually damaged on fresh satellite images, and the images from the period after the January strike are of very poor quality, Bloomberg writes that the damage caused the station to stop pumping oil to the Baltic port of Ust-Luga, an important hub for Russian oil product exports, for a period of time.

Gas processing plants (in particular, the Astrakhan gas processing plant attacked in February) are designed to process natural gas and gas condensate, separate valuable hydrocarbon fractions, and produce gas sulfur.

Compared to oil storage facilities, gas storage facilities were attacked less frequently: this is most likely due to the low cost of gas. According to our calculations, the only attack on a gas storage facility - the Kazan LPG cluster base - in January 2025 destroyed three gas holders and damaged two others with a maximum volume of 170 cubic meters each (the tank itself is designed for 200 cubic meters, but the maximum volume of products stored inside usually does not exceed 85%), and the damage caused can be estimated at a maximum of $74,000. The value of potentially destroyed or damaged gas does not exceed $500, most of which is the cost of building the storage facilities themselves or six and a half million rubles. At the same time, the attack on the oil storage facility in Osentsy, Perm Krai, which was similar in its insignificant scale of destroyed or damaged products (465 cubic meters), caused almost four times more damage - it can be estimated at 250 thousand dollars.

Based on satellite imagery, we analyzed the damage to Russian oil and gas plants and storage facilities. The analysis includes only an assessment based on the damage visible from satellite imagery, i.e. destroyed or damaged tanks. Attacks on different oil or gas refineries will be assessed separately because of their specificity: often the damage may not be visible on satellite imagery, although their damage is confirmed by indirect factors.

According to Radio Liberty's calculations, Ukrainian strikes have destroyed a total of 50 reservoirs in the last six months and damaged 47 others. We have formulated three hypotheses: all destroyed tanks were filled with oil or other products completely (i.e. 90% of the total volume), half (45%) or one-sixth (15%).

One cubic meter is 6.29 barrels of oil. Having multiplied the total volume of potentially destroyed reservoirs by this value, we multiplied the resulting number by the price per barrel of URALS oil as of February 12, 2025 - $70.01.

Thus we got the cost of all potentially destroyed oil for the last six months. To it we added the cost of construction of all destroyed tanks, which was provided to us by anonymous Russian specialists: a ton of metal construction in Russia now costs 140 thousand rubles, and the cost of work is 400 thousand rubles per ton. For example, the approximate weight of a vertical steel tank with a volume of 5000 m3 is 125 tons. Thus, the approximate average cost of such a tank (without taking into account logistics and requests of a particular customer) will be 67 million rubles or $747,000.

If the two values are added together, the total damage in monetary terms can be obtained. The calculation error described in the table is due to the inability to always accurately determine the size of the tank from satellite imagery. Some tanks may not differ in diameter (in case of vertical tanks) or length (in case of horizontal tanks), but may have different heights. In this case, we took into account the averaged values, which form a small error that can be added to or subtracted from the total value.

The largest strike on an oil storage facility in terms of total damage occurred on October 7. In Feodosia (annexed Crimea) 11 tanks with a total volume of 69 thousand cubic meters were destroyed. According to our estimates, the maximum monetary damage (the cost of oil and construction of the tanks) could exceed$37,500,000 or 3.3 billion rubles.

In the vast majority of cases, not only the destroyed tanks, but also visually damaged (sometimes slightly) storage facilities were never recovered from the impacts.

The only exception is the tank damaged in the January attack at the port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region. The roof of the RVS-30000, which was slightly damaged, was repaired within a month.

Radio Liberty economic observer Maxim Blunt suggests that Russian companies are in no hurry to restore reservoirs in anticipation of the end of the war in Ukraine.

Oil industry experts interviewed by Radio Liberty confirm that Russian oil companies may fear repeated strikes on facilities. They may also be hampered in their recovery by sanctions, overloaded production facilities and labor shortages, according to the experts interviewed.

Building new tanks can take months (with no guarantees that there will be no repeated strikes), and repairing damaged tanks is a rather labor-intensive process that requires the appropriate qualifications of specialists: the damaged section must be cut out, replaced with a new plate, welded and painted.

In the end there may simply be no need for it, experts say. Russian refineries are deliberately reducing output because of the Ukrainian strikes, and finished products are almost immediately redistributed or sent to oil tankers, so the existing storage tanks for limited production with high throughput capacity are still sufficient.

"In general, if they really wanted to repair, they could do it. But it would be a waste of materials, production facilities and skilled labor. Especially considering that the lack of storage facilities does not seem to be a vulnerability of the Russian oil industry," said an anonymous employee of a European export control organization who worked for several years as an assistant captain on offshore oil ships.

If we consider all damaged storage facilities (except the rebuilt one in Ust-Luga) as destroyed, the damage caused increases significantly, our calculations show.

According to experts, it is not strikes on oil depots that do much more damage to the Russian economy, but attacks on oil and gas refineries. As these are more technically complex and expensive structures, their importance for the Russian oil refining industry and exports of oil products is also higher, and they are more difficult and expensive to restore under the sanctions.

The shift in the direction of AFU strikes towards the oil refineries and gas processing plants can also be traced in our statistics.

New data on the production and revenue of Russian oil refineries is not publicly accessible. The Novoshakhtinsk refinery is an exception - it is adjacent to the occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine. This refinery was repeatedly attacked in the spring and summer of 2024 and suspended operations twice. It was attacked once more in December 2024, when a five thousand cubic meter tank was destroyed.

According to the official website of the refinery, it produces mainly for export: in 2023, out of 4,722,605 tons of finished petroleum products, only 603,000 went to the domestic market. The refinery's revenue for that year amounted to 175 billion rubles.

Data for the full year 2024 are not yet available, but for 9 months the refinery shipped 2,590,335 tons of finished products. Assuming that the remaining 3 months, despite the December strike, the refinery operated at the same pace, the final throughput can be estimated at 3,453,780 tons. Thus, the refinery's productivity fell by 27% compared to 2023, so we can expect a 27% drop in revenue, i.e. by 47 billion rubles.

This drop cannot be fully considered as a consequence of the strikes, as revenue could also have been affected by sanctions and other factors. We were able to estimate the net damage from the strikes using several other refineries and GPPs as examples. Since the damage to refineries may not be visible from satellite images (due to the design of the plants and the copious amounts of smoke emitted by the plants), our estimates were largely based on information published by representatives of the Russian oil and gas industry itself.

For example, on February 3, the Volgograd refinery, which belongs to Lukoil and produces 4% of all gasoline and 7% of diesel fuel in Russia, was attacked by drones. As a result of the attack, the primary oil processing unit and loading rack were damaged, and the refinery itself stopped operations for a week, after which it operated at 60% of its capacity. Full recovery may take a month and a half. The refinery's revenue for 2023 amounted to almost 70 billion rubles or $777 million. Losses from one day of downtime of the plant can be estimated at 192 million rubles or 2 million 130 thousand dollars. Thus, the plant lost approximately 1,344,000,000 rubles ($15 million) per week of downtime. Assuming that for the remaining 23 - 38 days it will operate at only 60% of its original capacity, the Volgograd refinery will lose another 1.8 - 2.9 billion rubles ($20 - $32 million), and the total losses will amount to 3.2 - 4.2 billion rubles ($35 - $47 million).

On January 24, Rosneft's Ryazan refinery was attacked, destroying a RVS-20000 tank and damaging two others, according to satellite imagery. There were also reports of damage to a railroad loading rack located close to these tanks and damage to the jet fuel hydrotreating unit, which provided 100% of the refinery's capacity for this type of fuel. As a result of the attack, the refinery stopped fuel shipments for 18 days.

Experts in the oil industry told Radio Liberty that this actually means a complete loss of revenue for the refinery for this period. Even if Rosneft managed to increase the usually insignificant export of products by automobiles for this period, the revenue still fell by 85%. According to publicly available data, there may be no truck loading racks at this refinery at all, in which case revenue may have fallen by 100%. The Ryazan refinery's revenue for 2020 amounted to 26 and a half billion rubles, or 72 million daily ($794,000). A three-week downtime in this case cost the refinery at least $12.8 to $14.2 million.

The most successful attack, according to our calculations, was the strike on Gazprom's Astrakhan gas processing plant. As a result of the strike, the stable gas condensate processing unit U-1.731 burned down, and its repair will take 3-6 months.

This unit produced gasoline, diesel fuel and fuel oil, and was also involved in the production of gas sulfur - the Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant is the largest supplier in Russia.

According to Reuters, the Astrakhan GPP processed 1.8 million tons of stable gas condensate in 2024 and produced 800,000 tons of gasoline, 600,000 tons of diesel fuel and 300,000 tons of fuel oil. The value of these products, based on average market prices, is 83 billion rubles. The plant's revenue for 2024 amounted to 120.9 billion rubles (almost 6 billion less than in 2023). Thus, the U-1.731 unit supposedly accounted for 69% of the plant's total revenue. Our sources note that the plant could continue to operate even despite the loss of the unit, for example, by selling unprocessed stable gas condensate, thereby reducing the load on the storage facilities, but even in this case the storage facilities will sooner or later fill up and the plant will be forced to shut down or reduce production. According to The Moscow Times, the plant was completely idle as of mid-February.

According to conservative estimates (if the plant continues to operate with a non-functioning gas condensate unit for 3-6 months), the Astrakhan GPP may lose 20.5-40 billion rubles ($228.3 - $456.6 million). If the plant stops operating completely for this period, the losses will amount to 30-60 billion rubles ($331-$662 million).

Russian refineries also lose revenue in cases not directly related to the Ukrainian strikes. For example, Lukoil's refinery in Kstovo (Nizhny Novgorod Region) was subjected to drone attacks in March 2024. Drones also attacked a SIBUR facility adjacent to the refinery in January. Despite the lack of attacks on the refinery in late 2024 and early 2025, one of the two critical catalytic cracking units that process crude oil into finished products with high yields of light petroleum products (gasoline, kerosene, diesel and jet fuel) failed. The reason for the failure was the breakdown of foreign-made compressor equipment, "which cannot be replaced in the near future due to Western sanctions." Earlier, in December 2023, a second, more modern unit failed for a similar reason.

Thus, one of the catalytic cracking units is operating at only half of its original capacity without any shocks, and the Nizhny Novgorod Refinery itself may lose about 20% of its revenue on a daily basis as a result (the cracking units provide, although significant, but not the entire output of light petroleum products at the refinery). It is said that it will not be possible to repair such a unit on its own in the near future.

Based on all calculations, over the last six months the upper limit of direct damage (excluding the losses of the Novoshakhtinsk refinery and assuming that the Astrakhan refinery will still operate, albeit not at full capacity) to the Russian economy from the Ukrainian strikes, according to estimates by Radio Liberty, Frontelligence Insight and a team of volunteers, amounted to 59.4 billion rubles or $658 million . In case of a complete shutdown of the Astrakhan gas processing plant for six months, the total damage would amount to 77.9 billion rubles or $863.4 million. Russia's total revenue from oil exports in 2024, however, was estimated by the International Energy Agency at $189 billion.

Our damage analysis relies only on public data and assesses damage solely on the facilities per se, not the oil and gas industry or the Russian economy as a whole.

It is still difficult to assess the overall decline in productivity of the Russian oil industry as a result of the recent Ukrainian attacks, but three of our experts, who have been analyzing the oil industry for a long time, note that a reduction in the production capacity of Russian refineries by at least 15% hits the Russian economy significantly - they call this figure a "critical mark".

This is evidenced by last year's experience: then, according to Reuters' sources in NATO, a series of Ukrainian attacks reduced the capacity of Russian refineries by 15% (14% according to Bloomberg estimates), as a result of which the Russian authorities imposed a ban on gasoline exports in March 2024 "to protect the domestic market". In fact, as our source notes, this meant that the amount of gasoline produced was only sufficient for domestic consumption, since, according to 2023 data, most Russian gasoline was produced for domestic consumption (87%) and the remaining 13% was exported. Thus, a 14% reduction in production capacity made it impossible to sell fuel abroad. At the same time, as the Financial Times wrote, the US authorities asked Ukraine to stop targeting Russian refineries to avoid a rise in global oil prices and retaliation from Moscow.

An exception to the ban was made for shipments under intergovernmental agreements, including with EAEU countries, for fuel exported by citizens for personal use, as well as motor gasoline intended for international humanitarian aid. After the embargo was temporarily suspended from May 20 until the end of July, the government reintroduced the export ban in August, allowing only producers from December.

Due to the latest attacks, as our source notes, the fuel embargo has been extended until the end of summer 2025.

Experts note that even in case of a 30% reduction in production capacity, the Russian authorities will be able to use "reserve airfields" for oil refining in the form of Belarusian refineries, capable of processing significant volumes of oil: there are two large refineries there - Mozyr and Novopolotsk, capable of processing a total of about 24 million tons of oil.

"Localized fuel shortages are a tactical military effect, but an overall reduction in capacity is a direct hit to the money flow. Both factors could be important. The latter could be especially important if Ukraine intensifies its strikes on logistical oil hubs from which oil is exported. For example, ports," says Will Thiel.

Radio Liberty economic observer Maxim Blunt notes that refining capacity in Russia is interchangeable, and shutting down one or more refineries allows other facilities to be loaded (including Belarusian refineries in the West, which have faced under-utilization as a result of international sanctions). Diverting feedstock for refining increases costs and puts additional pressure on transportation infrastructure (which is already overloaded in Russia), but avoids shortages and sharp price increases.

According to our sources from the oil sector, the interchangeability of enterprises that Maxim Blunt is talking about could be disrupted or at least hindered if at least a few Russian refineries are damaged in the case of damage to catalytic cracking units that produce high-octane gasoline, as well as hydrotreating units that are used to produce low-sulfur fuels, in particular jet fuel, because of their scarcity and high value for the production of petroleum products, as well as the difficulty of repairing them in the future.

An important consequence of the Ukrainian strikes is a reduction in oil storage capacity, notes David Obelz, chief analyst at Badon Hill Group, content director at US publication Malcontent News and author of a podcast on the Russia-Ukraine war. Typically, their overall occupancy rate is 50-70%. Because of excess oil production, Russia is already having trouble storing finished products, and the Ukrainian strikes only exacerbate that, Obelz said. The lack of storage capacity is evidenced by Russia's use of old Soviet single-hull tankers in the Black Sea for this purpose. According to Goldman Sachs, the anchored tankers could hold as much as 17 million barrels of crude oil as other storage tanks are full and production far exceeds demand. Without production cuts, this figure could rise to 50 million barrels, according to analysts at the U.S. publication Malcontent News.

Maxim Blant believes that the Ukrainian strikes have not yet caused significant damage to the Russian economy: we will be able to talk about serious changes if fuel prices rise faster inside Russia and fuel shortages occur in the regions where the Ukrainian drone attacks were most effective. For now, Blunt believes that there is no shortage or price increase beyond seasonal fluctuations. At the same time, he notes that the effect can be fully assessed only after the beginning of the sowing campaign, which is usually accompanied by increased demand for fuel.

As of today, the expert summarizes, even the upper figure of the "fork" of the calculated financial losses - 106 billion rubles - does not look critical on the scale of the Russian oil and gas sector. In 2022, the total revenue amounted to 68 trillion rubles, in 2023 - 65 trillion rubles. Data for 2024 are not yet available.

As Reuters notes, Russian exports of oil products by sea in 2024 fell by 9.1% or $0.8 billion year-on-year as a result of a combination of factors: Ukrainian strikes, sanctions (the Biden administration's "farewell" sanctions package in January 2025 targeting Russia's "shadow fleet" can only reinforce these trends), and a domestic ban on the sale of oil products abroad. At the same time, economist Vladimir Milov calls this drop "at the level of error" and insignificant in macroeconomic terms.

Milov notes that despite the powerful Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, they were erratic in 2024: the peak occurred in winter-spring, after which there was a relative lull until the end of the year.

To enhance the effect of the strikes, Ukrainian troops should conduct regular attacks on large unique cracking units at modern Russian refineries, which simply have nothing to replace under the sanctions, and the high regularity of the strikes would prevent them from being repaired, Milov said.

Milov reminds that by the end of 2024 there was a 2% annualized decrease in output under the item "coke and oil products production" (the information is not published separately for oil products). The decline started together with the Ukrainian strikes at the beginning of 2024.

The greatest damage was inflicted on the production of high-octane gasoline, because the units that produce it are the most difficult to repair - these are unique cracking units produced by UOP or BASF: their products have no analogues either in Russia or in China, so in case of damage to catalytic cracking units, according to Milov, it is impossible to achieve interchangeability by increasing productivity at other refineries that have these modern units, which are already working at maximum capacity.

We are talking primarily about modernized refineries in the European part of Russia and Western Siberia: Lukoil's enterprises in Nizhny Novgorod and Volgograd regions and Perm Krai, Gazprom's in Moscow, Yaroslavl and Omsk, and Rosneft's in Ryazan, Milov explains.

Experts from the oil industry confirmed to RS the information that some parts of catalytic cracking units cannot really be replaced under the sanctions: first of all, it is about special castings produced by Western companies without seams, for example, valve bodies or hemispherical heads.

Milov calls the rise in prices for premium AI-98 gasoline an indirect confirmation of the significant damage to the high-octane gasoline industry: by the end of February 2025, its price was almost 84 rubles per liter. At the beginning of 2024, it cost 15 rubles or 22% cheaper.

Despite the fact that this gasoline is produced much less due to its premium nature (about one million tons per year, when the total output of motor gasoline is 40 million tons), Milov calls the price of AI-98 indicative, as it is not regulated by the so-called "fuel dampener" (a compensation mechanism to prevent price increases through government subsidies). By comparison, the subsidized mass-market brand AI-95 rose by only 11% over the same period. In 2024, the damping subsidies amounted to 2 trillion rubles ($22.5 billion) - it was these subsidies, according to Milov, that prevented a sharp rise in AI-95 prices. Although the main factor here was the rise in global oil prices, Milov notes that this figure shows that Russia is paying substantial money from the budget to curb the prices of petroleum products. Milov cites the Russian government's ban on gasoline exports as another deterrent.

At the same time, Milov calls the consequences of strikes on outdated refineries in southern Russia, which are located near the border with Ukraine and produce mainly bitumen, fuel oil and diesel, insignificant for the Russian economy: in response to the reduction in production capacity, Russian companies may simply start exporting more crude oil, which is what is happening, judging by the latest data from the International Energy Agency. Thus, according to the IEA, Russian crude oil exports in February increased by 90 thousand barrels per day, while exports of oil products fell by 190 thousand barrels per day compared to January figures and by 420 thousand compared to last year's figures for this period.

Milov also notes that for a greater effect from the strikes, in addition to choosing rare and critical targets for oil refining in the form of modern refineries, the geography of Ukrainian strikes should be constantly expanded in order to disrupt the general "interchangeability" of Russian enterprises that Maxim Blunt spoke about, otherwise the macroeconomic effect from Ukrainian strikes will remain imperceptible and manageable from the Russian side.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries became more frequent again in early 2025 and are still continuing: Ukrainian drones are indeed trying to hit the sophisticated installations that Vladimir Milov mentioned. Only in the last few weeks of surveillance, an aviation kerosene hydrotreating unit was damaged at the Ryazan refinery, a primary oil processing unit at the Volgograd refinery was hit, causing a 50-60% reduction in the refinery's productivity, and a stable gas condensate processing unit at the Astrakhan GPP, the damage to which caused a complete or partial shutdown of the refinery until the summer.

Already outside the period of our observations, in mid-February, the Ryazan refinery was attacked again (the primary refining unit was damaged), the Syzran refinery (in February and March, the last strike also damaged the primary refining unit), and the Ufa refinery (the L-24-7 unit for hydrotreating petroleum distillates may have been damaged there, and two main feedstock pipelines and three tanks were destroyed).

Will Thiel notes that the Ukrainian army is now seeking to strike all three main links of the Russian oil refining industry: the refineries themselves, transportation hubs and Russian ports, i.e. the "export link". The Ukrainian strikes, according to the analyst, have two specific goals: to reduce financial flows to Russia and to create local short-term logistical problems that could affect the situation on the front. As of today, it is not yet possible to assess the success of the new ongoing campaign of Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil and gas production in terms of these two objectives, nor is it possible to judge their global impact (or lack thereof) on the Russian economy.

On March 18, following a telephone conversation between U.S. and Russian Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, it became known that the Russian president had agreed to refrain from strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for 30 days. Hours after the conversation, however, Russian soldiers struck critical energy infrastructure in Slavyansk in the Donetsk region, de-energizing half of the city. On the night of March 19, the Russian army also attacked the railroad power grid in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Ukraine, in turn, hit an oil depot near the village of Kavkazskaya in Krasnodar Krai. In its press release, the Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of trying to "disrupt U.S. peace initiatives," but did not mention the Russian strikes on the Ukrainian energy sector. The statement also said that at the time of Putin's order to stop strikes on energy infrastructure, there were 7 drones in the Russian sky, which were allegedly heading towards Ukrainian energy facilities, but they were shot down by Russian air defense systems. There is no independent confirmation of this information.

The next day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after a phone call with Trump, agreed to a 30-day suspension of strikes on energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, on the night of March 20, during a drone raid in the Saratov region, falling debris caused a fire at an oil depot in Engels. It is not known whether the oil depot was targeted or whether the fire was the result of Russian air defense.

Later, the strike also damaged the Sudzha gas metering station in Kursk Region. Russian gas was supplied to Europe through this station until the relevant contract expired on December 31, 2024, and Ukraine did not renew it. Russia and Ukraine exchanged retaliatory accusations of provocation. It is not known who exactly hit the station and with what, but as of March 21, the day of the strike, it was under the control of Ukrainian troops.

Experts from the oil and gas industry note that even if the temporary cessation of strikes on energy facilities is observed for a month, Russian companies will not have time to repair the previous damage during this time. At the same time, our analysts believe that this cease-fire plays more into Russia's hands than into Ukraine's.

"The only upside for the Russian oil and gas industry will be a reduction in the frequency of new damage. Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are, in my opinion, much more effective than Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy supply infrastructure. Oil cash flow is king for Russia, and we can see that attacks on refineries, oil refineries, and gas and crude oil transfer and export hubs have worked from a financial standpoint," Will Thiel explains.

IV. Summary

While the number of Ukrainian strikes in these six months may not be sufficient to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine's favor, the frequency and success rate of strikes is much higher than in 2022 and 2023. Ukraine's ability to strike Russian targets has also increased significantly compared to previous years.

War is a nonlinear process and six months of observations may not be fully representative, but we do not rule out that if the war continues, the number of Ukrainian strikes on Russian military and energy facilities, as well as their effectiveness, may increase. This is due to the fact that Ukraine's development in the production and use of unmanned systems has not yet reached its peak.

At the same time, we have concerns that that the rapid adaptation of the parties to the war and new technologies, tactics, as well as the possible cessation of the transfer of intelligence information from the US, which is especially necessary in the case of long-range strikes deep inside Russia, may hinder the success rates of future strikes.

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Additional Details on the Models Used

The model, while effective, has its limitations. Satellite imagery and available photographic or video evidence often fall short of providing a complete picture, especially when damage is internal. Similarly, open-source information regarding the contents of storage facilities can be outdated or inaccurate—what may have been a depot for 152mm ammunition in 2022 could be repurposed for different munitions by 2025. Despite these issues, the model offers a structured framework that delivers a reliable, high-level overview of the long-range strike campaign. Strikes with significant disruption are typically easier to verify than those with minimal effects. High-impact attacks on critical targets are usually apparent, just as the absence of such strikes is.

Damage Rating (DR)

Target Significance (TS)

Strike Impact Score (SIS) - is a metric used to assess the overall effect of a military strike on a target

Strike Impact Score (SIS) Score Table

Adjusted Strike Impact Score - modified evaluation metric used to assess the overall impact of damage on a complex infrastructure system, taking into account both the severity of the damage, significance and Functional Disruption (F) factor