The end is coming soon for the Ukraine.

This means risking airplanes - open cockpit airplanes and their pilots - to take out attack drones.

I fear J.R. Dunn may miss the significance of this; it means the Ukrainians are running out of ABM tech and are going back to absolute basics. That tells me the war hasn't got much longer to go.

Yes, it IS innovative, to simply use hand-held guns to take out the drones, but it's something very easily countered by the Russians. And again, you waste valuable fuel, valuable pilots and equipment. It's the kind of thing the guys who are losing will do. We've seen this in other wars over the years. Just look at Hamas using PAGERS to communicate because the Israelis could target their cell phones. You go primitive when the tech fails you or you are out of it.

The confederacy, for instance, was reduced to smooth bore long guns while the Union had rifled chambers. In WWI the Russians were often sending men into battle without any guns - just with knives and axes and the like. It never got that bad in Germany in WWI but the Germans definitely ran out of a lot of weapons they used earlier in the war. That is what exhaustion looks like.

That's why I would argue this is not an "innovation" so much as a case of military exhaustion. They no longer have the automated stuff to take those drones out.

This war would have long been over had the Europeans not stuck their noses in it. And while it's sad the Ukrainians would have had to taste bitter defeat and give up land the reality is they have lost so many people they will have to import immigrants to keep their economy afloat - and Ukraine will disappear, cease to exist in anything but name. It will become a part of the Middle East, probably. Ditto Russia, albeit to a lesser extent.

If Ukraine wins (and they won't) it will be a pyrrhic victory. In the end the sweetness of victory will be swallowed by the stark reality of a decimated country and the loss of most of their men. It's what happened to Germany, which is why they are such weenies now. The German men were all gone and many Germans are the children of American or British G.I.'s raised by sad mothers who coddled them as the only source of comfort they had.

At any rate I believe this shows they WON'T win without a major infusion of cash (which the U.S. Congress seems willing to do up to a point) but that will only drag this thing on longer. The Russians are losing a lot of men and materials, so it will destroy them too, but the Ukraine is smaller and has fewer resources at their disposal. And this isn't just a war between two former allies; it's a proxy war between two different visions of the future. The Ruling Class in the West want their vision of a world run by the United Nations and with the plutocracy on top to triumph while Russia and China want an alternative, a continuation of the old empire system where powerful nation-states rule an alliance system of smaller nations. It's a war for all the marbles. The Ruling Class decided to make Ukraine the hill on which to die and that is why they are so desperate to see Russia fail; if they don't succeed their power will begin to wane and the Russo-Chinese alliance will strengthen and grow and they know it. BRICS terrifies them because it is outside of their monetary and political power.

Anyway I believe this is not so much an innovation as a necessity for a country reaching exhaustion.