Drones inflict nearly 80% losses of personnel and equipment – Zaluzhny
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny has said that he expects the situation on the battlefield to worsen due to the development of artificial intelligence systems, in particular, in unmanned systems, and that states the need to urgently invent means that will increase the survivability of personnel.
“As of today, the use of strike UAVs leads to almost 80% of losses among personnel and equipment. This indicates that the means of protection of the previous period, such as fortification equipment, armor of combat vehicles, even individual armor protection, are leveled by the scale of use, lethality and accuracy of modern UAVs,” Zaluzhny wrote in an article for the the Kyiv-based ZN.UA (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia) ezine, published on Wednesday morning.
According to him, this encourages us to look for ways to counter tactical-level UAVs in order to preserve the lives and health of servicemen performing tasks both on the front line and beyond.
“Through the transparent battlefield, thousands of drones and sensors have already formed a more than 20-kilometer kill zone with a high probability of damage, where every heat trace, radio signal or unnecessary movement causes an immediate reaction aimed at destruction. In fact, death, injury or mental breakdown are inevitable consequences of a long stay on the front line in modern conditions… The worst thing is that we are waiting for further complication of the situation. This is possible due to the development of artificial intelligence technologies, which will lead to the appearance of first semi- and later fully autonomous strike systems that will bring a higher, qualitatively new level of threat to humans on the battlefield,” he said.
According to Zaluzhny, the reaction to such a challenge could be to remove humans from the line of combat contact and replace them with robotic systems, but currently the lack of technology and the current level of development of unmanned and autonomous systems do not yet allow replacing humans on any scale on the battlefield.
“In addition, the ‘storming’ tactic imposed on us (by the Russian occupiers - IF-U) will still require the presence of trained personnel in positions, although, of course, not in large numbers. Therefore, the only way out today is to invent means or systems as soon as possible that will increase the survivability of personnel… It is necessary to create a system to counter a new threat in a new type of war - drones. After all, they have become the main factor that leads to personnel losses and, accordingly, affects the outcome of hostilities,” he pointed out.
The former commander-in-chief also noted that today the general picture of hostilities is based on the fact that a large concentration of people is impossible even in defense, and any increase in the number of personnel in positions leads to their destruction by FPV or artillery strikes. “Therefore, the defense is built by dispersing positions and occupying them by relatively small groups, which are forced to act autonomously for a certain time in truly extremely difficult conditions. Another fact is that the zone of impact of both strike UAVs and artillery, acting together, is constantly expanding… This leads not only to the destruction of logistics routes, but also to the gradual disappearance of such a concept as the rear,” Zaluzhny said.
