In Israel and UKRaine, Mix of Drones and Brute Force Shows Warfare’s Future; UKR Repels RUssian Attacks in 5 Areas; UKR Forces Hit New Railway Line to Mariupol Being Built by RU; UKR Kill Another 880 RU Soldiers, Destroy 8 Tanks in 1 Day, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

WSJ: In Israel and Ukraine, Mix of Drones and Brute Force Shows Warfare’s Future:

The fusion of inexpensive, high-tech weapons and low-tech brute force that Palestinian militant group Hamas used to attack Israel on Oct. 7 echoed tactics used on the battlefields of Ukraine that could transform the future of warfare.

Hamas blasted holes in border fencing using explosives and at least one commandeered construction vehicle. But before smashing its way into Israeli territory, Hamas used pinpoint drone attacks in an effort to blind sophisticated surveillance systems and cripple local military command-and-control capabilities.

Israel has spent years and billions of dollars building border barriers, monitored by guard towers bristling with electronic sensors and weaponry. These automated sentries can identify and shoot at land and air threats, including helicopters and large drones, people familiar with the systems said.

Hamas boasted in videos posted on social media that it used small and relatively slow commercially available drones, modified to carry explosives, to knock out Israel’s security systems.

The strikes, using off-the-shelf equipment, are similar to those by Ukrainian forces who use improvised drone-bombers to hit Russian troops. The inexpensive makeshift weaponry has defeated advanced air-defense systems and destroyed costly tanks and other equipment.

Ukraine’s hybrid devices, which Russian forces have since copied, built on developments in other conflicts. Most of those fights involved what strategists call asymmetric warfare, where one side has much greater firepower than the other.

Islamic State is widely considered to have been the first group to drop explosives from commercial drones in a conflict, in Syria around 2016. The innovation, which evolved from improvised explosive devices used on the ground, was soon replicated by other nonstate actors, from antigovernment rebels in Myanmar and the Philippines to Mexican drug cartels.

“With each conflict you see iterations of the technology,” said Mike Monnik, chief executive of DroneSec, an advisory firm specialized in drone-threat intelligence. He said Hamas’s attack showed greater sophistication and operational capability than its past use of drones had.

The war in Ukraine has also seen commercial and consumer technologies mix with traditional military explosives. Ukrainian troops, and more recently Russian forces, have used off-the-shelf drones to improve the targeting of decades-old artillery. Drones have dropped grenades and other weapons on trenches, depots and even individual soldiers. —>READ MORE HERE

Ukraine repels Russian attacks in five areas – General Staff:

Ukraine’s defense forces repelled the assaults of the Russian troops in the Kupiansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka, and Shakhtarske directions, while a total of 57 combat clashes took place along the front line in the past day.

That’s according to an update by the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Ukrinform reports.

“Ukraine’s defense forces continue offensive operations in the Melitopol direction and assault efforts in the Bakhmut direction, inflicting losses on enemy manpower and equipment, exhausting the enemy along the entire front line,” the statement reads.

Over the past day, Ukraine’s Air Force has carried out 15 strikes on enemy manpower and equipment clusters, as well as a strike targeting a Russian anti-aircraft missile system. Missile forces hit a Russian manpower and weapons cluster, a radar, and four artillery systems.

At the same time, the enemy launched seven missile strikes and 54 air strikes, as well as 22 attacks involving MLR systems, on the positions of Ukrainian troops and populated areas. As a result of Russian terrorist attacks, civilian casualties were reported, as well as damage to residential buildings and civil infrastructure.

According to the General Staff, the operational situation in the east and south of Ukraine remains difficult.

On the Volyn and Polissia axes, the situation has not changed significantly as no signs of enemy offensive groupings being formed were spotted.

In the Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna directions, the enemy maintains its presence in the border areas, shelling populated areas from Russian territory. More than 15 settlements, including Popivka and Shalyhine in Sumy region, were hit by artillery and mortars, as were Udy, Vovchanski Khutory, Hatyshche, and Budarky. —>READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:

+++++Russia-Ukraine News LATEST UPDATES: (REUTERS) (AP) (NY POST) and (WSJ)+++++

+++++Ukrainian forces able to hit new railway line to Mariupol being built by Russia – UK intelligence+++++

+++++Ukrainian defenders kill another 880 Russian soldiers and destroy 8 tanks in one day+++++

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