The early weeks of the war in Ukraine were dominated by social media posts showing Russian tanks decimated by small, cheap drones that helped level the playing field and largely negated Moscow’s massive advantage in manpower and equipment.
Drones, military analysts said, were a key reason Kyiv was able to turn back a planned Russian lightning attack and force the Kremlin to junk its original battle plan.
But that edge is rapidly evaporating, researchers and military observers say, as fresh Russian anti-drone systems arriving on the front lines of the bloody slog in the eastern Donbas region are making the unmanned craft far less effective and depriving Ukrainian troops of a once-potent tool.