Topic intelligence
Drones
Coverage connected by published editorial metadata.
Analysis
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Ukraine's Drone Industry: From Seven Companies to Five Hundred
Seven drone makers in 2022. Around 500 now. Four million units produced in 2025, seven million targeted for 2026 — the fastest defence-industrial scale-up on record.
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Ukraine's Air Defence: The Interception Arithmetic
Ukraine intercepts 87% of drones and 15% of ballistic missiles. The Patriots ran out on 1 July. The interceptor drone is now the load-bearing pillar.
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Deep Strike: Ukraine's Long-Range Campaign Inside Russia
Ukraine has hit every one of Russia's largest refineries. Estimates of capacity disabled range from 20% to 43% — and the range itself is the story.
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Shahed-136: The Drone That Broke Air Defence Budgets
A $20,000-$50,000 drone against a $4 million interceptor. 57,000 launched at Ukraine. Now the engine changed — and the cost exchange is being contested back.
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Fibre-Optic Drones: The Unjammable Weapon
A glass thread thinner than a hair defeated the most extensive tactical EW in the world. Spools now reach 65 km. The limitations nobody mentions.
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Drone Swarms and Autonomy: Where the Line Actually Is
Most "AI swarm" claims describe automation, not autonomy. CSIS found no verifiable evidence Russian swarming has been fielded. What has been, and what hasn't.
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Russian Electronic Warfare: The Counter-Drone Race
Russia entered 2022 with the most extensive tactical EW of any military. Fibre-optic drones made it irrelevant in one mission set — and spoofing crossed into NATO airspace.
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The $400 Drone Economy: How Cost Exchange Replaced Firepower
A $400 drone kills a $4.5 million tank. Russia plans 7.3 million FPVs in 2026. The full cost-exchange arithmetic that now governs every defence budget.
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Counter-Drone Warfare: Why Nobody Has Solved It
Jammers, guns, missiles, lasers, nets. Every counter-drone layer fails somewhere, and the ones that work lose the cost exchange. The honest scorecard.
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Is the Tank Dead? The Honest Answer
No Leopard 2 has ever been destroyed by frontal penetration. Yet 57% of the 2A6 tranche was lost. The tank is not dead — it has been demoted. Here is why.
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The Swedish 40 mm Bofors L/70: A Retrospective on an Anti-Aircraft Pioneer
A 1940s autocannon is shooting down Shahed-type drones over Ukraine in 2026. Why the Bofors L/70 survived the missile age — and what 3P ammunition changed.
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Affordable Mass and the Replicator Initiative: Lessons from Scaling Attritable Autonomy
The Replicator initiative and the affordable mass problem — what worked, what didn't, and what scaling attritable autonomous systems actually requires.