2023–2024: Ukraine use of drones to disrupt logistics & impact on doctrine.
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2023–2024: Ukraine use of drones to disrupt logistics & impact on doctrine.
Overview
Between 2023 and 2024 Ukraine expanded its use of long-range, one-way attack drones and small tactical quadcopters to disrupt Russian logistics, rear-area infrastructure, and operational sustainment. These systems enabled Ukraine to strike oil depots, rail nodes, ammunition stores, and command sites far beyond the forward line of troops. Their employment demonstrated how low-cost, high-endurance unmanned systems could inflict cumulative disruption on an adversary’s depth, prompting doctrinal reconsideration of force protection, logistics resilience, air defence distribution, and the integration of massed uncrewed systems in offensive and defensive planning.
Glossary of terms
• One-way attack drone: An expendable unmanned system designed to travel long distances and strike targets with its onboard warhead.
• Deep battle / deep strike: Engagement of an adversary’s rear-area logistics, sustainment nodes, and command infrastructure.
• Distributed logistics: Dispersed storage and transport arrangements designed to mitigate vulnerability to drone attack.
• Low-cost attritable systems: Unmanned platforms inexpensive enough to be accepted as expendable within a campaign.
• Counter-UAS layer: Integrated defensive measures including jamming, guns, missiles, and sensors that protect key nodes.
• Cumulative disruption: Operational degradation achieved not through single decisive strikes but through repeated lower-intensity attacks.
• Operational reach: The distance and duration a force can sustain operations, influenced heavily by logistics protection.
• Precision at scale: Ability to conduct frequent, accurate strikes using numerous inexpensive systems rather than a few exquisite munitions.
• Doctrinal adaptation cycle: Process through which armed forces update concepts and procedures based on battlefield experience.
• Autonomous navigation: Drone ability to reach objectives using pre-programmed routes and non-GPS guidance to resist jamming.
Key points
• Drones enabled Ukraine to strike depth targets previously beyond reach: Ukraine leveraged domestically produced long-range drones to attack Russian oil refineries, fuel depots, and transport infrastructure up to hundreds of kilometres from the front. These attacks imposed practical and psychological costs, demonstrating that even a state without strategic bombers can impose depth pressure through uncrewed systems.
• Cumulative disruption proved more important than individual strike effects: While many attacks inflicted limited physical damage, persistently targeting logistics nodes forced Russia to divert air defences, alter distribution patterns, and increase resource expenditure on protection. Uploaded air-power analysis stresses that repeated disruption to logistics can erode operational tempo even without dramatic single-event destruction.
• Low-cost mass compensated for limited warhead size: Small warheads limited tactical effect per strike, but Ukraine’s ability to generate large numbers of drones created meaningful aggregate impact. This aligns with contemporary thinking that numerical mass of inexpensive systems can offset limits in payload and survivability.
• Drone attacks complicated Russian ground logistics directly: Front-line supply convoys, ammunition dumps, and rail transfer points were frequent targets. This forced Russia to disperse stocks, relocate hubs, and rely more heavily on night movement. Such adaptations reduce efficiency and increase friction across the supply chain.
• Russian air defences struggled to adapt to distributed low-altitude threats: Traditional GBAD systems optimised for fast jets and missiles proved less efficient against small, slow, low-flying drones. Russia was compelled to allocate large quantities of short-range air defences and electronic-warfare units to protect rear areas, diluting coverage along the front.
• Ukrainian small drones enhanced interdiction at the tactical level: At the brigade and battalion levels, first-person-view drones enabled units to destroy logistics vehicles, bridging equipment, and supply dumps with unprecedented tactical precision. This increased the vulnerability of previously routine military activities such as resupply and casualty evacuation.
• Drones allowed Ukraine to conduct deep strikes without risking crewed aircraft: With Russian airspace heavily defended, crewed deep-strike missions were impractical. Uncrewed systems circumvented this limitation, reflecting broader doctrinal trends that favour uncrewed assets for high-risk missions in contested environments.
• Logistics doctrine is shifting toward distributed and concealed sustainment: Both Russia and Ukraine are adapting by dispersing supply hubs, increasing camouflage discipline, and reducing the predictability of supply routes. These changes reflect enduring doctrinal principles on survivability under air threat now applied to persistent uncrewed surveillance and attack.
• The conflict illustrates a doctrinal shift toward drone-centred interdiction: The ability to impose logistical friction with uncrewed systems suggests future doctrine will treat drones not merely as enablers but as primary interdiction tools. This is consistent with broader trends in air-power thought stressing the importance of precision disruption rather than mass destruction.
• Experiences from 2023–2024 will shape future integration of drones into operational design: The war underscores the need for comprehensive counter-UAS layers, resilient logistics networks, flexible C2 arrangements, and the integration of uncrewed strike capabilities into joint planning. These implications parallel insights from uploaded literature on how air-power evolution repeatedly forces doctrinal revision.
Official Sources and Records
• UK Ministry of Defence – Defence Intelligence Updates: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-defence
• NATO – Public Communications on Ukraine and Air/Missile Threats: https://www.nato.int
• US Department of Defense – Briefings on Ukraine Conflict and UAS Threats: https://www.defense.gov
Further reading
• Gray, CS 2012, Airpower for Strategic Effect, Air University Press, Maxwell AFB.
• Hallion, RP 2011, ‘U.S. Air Power’, in Olsen, JA (ed.), Global Air Power, Potomac Books, Washington, DC.
• Olsen, JA (ed.) 2017, Airpower Applied: U.S., NATO, and Israeli Combat Experience, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.
• Burke, R, Fowler, M & Matisek, J (eds) 2022, Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower: An Introduction, Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.
• Evidence on the detailed employment patterns of Ukrainian drones in rear-area strikes lies beyond the uploaded sources.