Ukraine Rains The ‘Wrath of Man’ Upon Russia

www.americanthinker.com

The movie “Wrath of Man” was released in 2021. The plot involved an armoured car security guard who, to would-be robbers, appeared to be an easy target. However, as they would discover, they were deadly wrong.

That plot, in a nutshell, sums up how Ukraine initially appeared to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 when he decided to invade the country. Eight years earlier, in 2014, Putin annexed the Crimean peninsula, taking it away from Ukraine in a matter of weeks.

Timing was everything back then as Putin acted just after a revolution had left Ukraine somewhat discombobulated. Undoubtedly, it was the relative ease with which Moscow annexed Crimea that led Putin to believe a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 would also be quick. Like the would-be robbers above, however, he was deadly wrong.

With the Russia-Ukraine war now in its fourth year, Kyiv has been raining down the Wrath of God upon Russian invasion forces. It has resulted in the Russians suffering casualties at least two to three times greater than the Ukrainians. It has led as well, most recently, to an even more shocking development for the Russians.

While Ukraine’s success is attributed to a number of things, such as Russian tactics (massive human wave assaults and inferior training), costly offensive operations, and Ukrainian defensive advantages, Ukraine has demonstrated a phenomenal capability to raise the technological bar in warfare. In fact, it has caused the U.S. to start reassessing its military prowess as its status as the world’s greatest superpower might be in danger. The need to do so is reflected by the fact that possibly 60%–80% of Russian casualties have been inflicted by drones.

As early as 2010, Ukraine recognized a need for drones—i.e., unmanned aerial vehicles. While that need was met mostly by importing from foreign manufacturers, it was in 2014 as the threat posed by Russia and separatists became clear that Ukraine realized the need for major domestic production was critical to its defense.

When Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia was one of the top drone producers in the world while Ukraine was nowhere to be found. But, by 2025, Ukraine was the 6th largest drone manufacturer in the world—one notch above Russia. Its innovation enabled Ukraine to produce low-cost drones that provide it with both battlefield surveillance and offensive capabilities as it explores a logistical capability as well. With virtually no navy, Kyiv has been able to sink Russian ships and shoot down its aircraft. Ukraine has established a reputation too for rapid re-design cycles driven by battlefield feedback to designers to counter possible flaws.

Russian recognition of Ukraine’s drone capabilities was evident by its Victory Day parade in Red Square last May, as no military hardware was put on display.

With its own drone capability, Moscow hit Ukraine recently with one of its largest such attacks of the war. Ukraine responded in similar fashion, launching approximately 200 drones. Implementing a strategy focused on overwhelming Russian defenses, Ukraine has launched attacks of up to 660 drones. While Russia plays games claiming all were destroyed, evidence on the ground suggests otherwise.

Kyiv’s strategy seems to be bearing fruit, and the Russian response often reflects a seemingly uncoordinated scramble to counter it. By the end of 2024, Ukrainian technology had accomplished a first in warfare, conducting a fully-automated attack against a Russian position in which no Ukrainians were physically put at risk. This was done by using a combination of drones and ground robots.

In warfare, the underdog often becomes extremely innovative.

During the Vietnam war, the Soviets gave the North surface-to-air heat-seeking missiles to defend against U.S. aircraft—a ground radar was turned on to provide a beam to guide the missile to its airborne target. U.S. pilots successfully countered the missiles by detecting the ground radar beam immediately after coming on and then releasing chaff (thin strips of materials to disrupt heat-seeking missiles) behind the aircraft to confuse the missile and redirect its flight away from the aircraft and towards the chaff.

But, to counter this U.S. counter-measure, the Vietnamese made a simple change to the firing process the Soviets never considered. The Vietnamese fired the missile without immediately illuminating the radar beam to guide it to the enemy plane. Thus the missile gained significant altitude before the beam was activated at the last moment, greatly reducing a pilot’s reaction time. For the Vietnamese, as with the Ukrainians, survival was the mother of innovation.

Just recently, Ukraine introduced a new military technology—continuing to add to its arsenal of “wonder weapons” and further lifting the warfare bar a level.

This new weapon is a missile neither fired nor manually operated towards the target but rather, “drifted” there via the existing winds. It is a balloon‑borne missile designed to bypass Russian jamming and air defenses. Riding the high-altitude winds at the edge of the stratosphere into Russia and thus avoiding its electronic jamming defenses that usually misdirect it, the missile drops and its solid-fuel engine directs it to the fixed target. Testing of the system has already enabled such missiles successfully to penetrate deep into Russia.

The toll of Ukraine’s innovative successes have possibly led to the most shocking development of the war for Russia—one including what had to be a painful admission by Putin acknowledging the drone’s devastatingly effective reign of terror.

A highly-decorated former commander of a Russian reconnaissance unit, Alexander Mikhailovich Lunin, posted an Instagram video request to meet with Putin to explain the realities of what is going on on the battlefield and the brutality being inflicted upon Russian soldiers by their own leaders. Other posts from Russian veterans support Lunin, threatening to turn their weapons against the Kremlin if he is not granted an audience to discuss ending the war.

The Lunin video has been viewed more than ten million times, encouraging other Russian soldiers to post their own videos. The messages posted echo an end to the Ukraine war—or else. And, as pro-Lunin support has rallied, Lunin’s demands for a meeting with Putin grow.

Lunin must be given credit for his courage. He obviously must remember the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of a private Russian military company known as the Wagner Group. When Prigozhin became too independently active—leading a short-lived mutiny against the Russian military leadership—he suddenly died in a plane crash under suspicious circumstances.

Plane crashes and falling off of tall buildings in Russia seem to be a consistent pattern for the fates of Putin opponents. Lunin would be wise not to fly, and favor only one-story buildings for a while.

But the bottom line is that there seems to be no limit to Ukrainian innovation. We can only wonder if a future Ukrainian technology holds the capability of a mini-drone, provided with eye recognition software, to seek out and target specific individuals. It may be a possibility Putin should think about.

While Russia’s military may not believe in God’s wrath, it is learning Ukraine can come close to delivering it.

James Zumwalt is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War, Panama, and Operation Desert Storm. He is the author of three books and hundreds of opinion pieces in online and print publications. He speaks frequently on foreign policy and defense issues as well as on the leadership of his famous father, after whom the world’s first stealth destroyer is named.

ChatGPT

Image generated by ChatGPT.