Executive Summary
- Battlefield assessment: Russia poured airborne troops into Pokrovsk, where heavy fog helped Russian forces penetrate Ukraine’s defensive lines. Kupiansk also saw heavy combat.
- Drone warfare update: Ukraine’s indigenous STING drone-hunting loitering munitions have now intercepted more than 1,500 Shahed drones.
- New operational concepts for unmanned systems: A Ukrainian long-range drone intercepted a Russian Mi-8 helicopter in Russian-controlled territory.
1. Battlefield Assessment
Last week Russian forces stressed Ukrainian defenses, from the Russia-Ukraine border to the approaches of the Dnipro River, with high-tempo operations. Russian units coupled ground assaults with missile fire, air strikes, glide bomb attacks, and overwhelming waves of drones, seeking once again to test Ukraine’s resilience.
Visual evidence from the battlefield suggests that heavy snow and rain weakened Ukraine’s counter-drone defenses, exposing its trenches to first-person-view drone attacks. Dense fog also allowed small Russian infantry assault groups to penetrate Ukraine’s defensive lines.
In northern Ukraine, Ukrainian units absorbed multiple Russian assaults involving sustained fire and intermittent air activity—an effort clearly designed to pin down Ukrainian formations and prevent their redeployment to more critical areas of the fight. To the south, Ukrainian defenders contained several attacks near Vovchansk, where Russian units continue to probe for weaknesses but have yet to find an opening. Urban warfare also flared up on the outskirts of Kharkiv.
The heaviest combat activity once again centered on Pokrovsk. Ukrainian sources report that the 76th Division of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VDV) has recently transferred there, complicating Ukraine’s defensive efforts. Russian units have focused on enveloping Ukraine’s defenses and cutting its supply routes around the city. To that end, Russia increased its troop concentrations near neighboring Kostyantynivka and Toretsk, where heavy clashes raged.
Farther south, in the Orikhiv sector, smaller Russian attacks failed to shift the front lines. Russian units once again attempted to close in on Ukrainian positions near the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnipro River, but were decisively repelled.
Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) also conducted long-range strikes against Russian radar sites in occupied Crimea, opening operational windows for follow-on attacks. Additionally, Ukraine persistently targeted Russian hydrocarbon refineries and railways, demonstrating an expanding operational reach and affecting Russian logistics and infrastructure.
Ukraine continued to use the STING drone-hunting loitering munition, an indigenous product of the Wild Hornets military technology company, to combat Russian-operated Shahed drones. As of late November, the drone-hunting STING system had intercepted more than 1,500 Shaheds. Between November 5 and November 20, STINGs accounted for almost 17 percent of Ukrainian Shahed kills Videos from the battle space demonstrated the Ukrainian drone’s kinetic advantages. The drone’s success is a promising trend for Kyiv and is likely to have significant effects on the battlefield
2. Ukrainian Long-Range Drone Intercepts Russian Helicopter
Ukrainian forces conducted a successful long-range interception of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter positioned deep in the rear in Rostov Oblast. To accomplish this feat, Ukraine employed a deep-strike unmanned aerial system, the FP-1.
Produced by Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense technology company headquartered in Kyiv responsible for Ukraine’s famous Flamingo cruise missile, the FP-1 has a range of over 900 miles and is cheaper to produce than Iran-designed Shahed drones. The low-cost and highly flexible munition can strike a variety of targets, from oil depots to air defense sites and strategic air bases. Moreover, Fire Point can manufacture up to 100 FP-1 systems per day.
This air-to-air kill suggests Ukraine can now reach even more targets, including high-value rotary-wing assets well behind the front lines. The Mi-8, routinely used for troop transport, logistics, and battlefield command-and-control, is a critical enabler of Russian mobility along the eastern axis of combat in Ukraine.
3. What to Monitor in the Coming Weeks
- The weather in Pokrovsk: Heavy fog allows Russian assault detachments to penetrate Ukraine’s lines of defense and further infiltrate its security zones. Follow-on VDV deployments to Pokrovsk could further worsen the force-on-force and force-to-terrain ratios for Ukrainian defenses.
- The fight for Kupiansk: Last week’s edition of this report highlighted unconfirmed reports of Russian troop sightings in the Kupiansk area. While high-tempo tactical engagements are more difficult to track and authenticate, the situation in Kupiansk will be worth monitoring in the coming weeks.
- The success of Ukraine’s STING drone: The mounting volume of Russian Shahed drone attacks means that Kyiv’s drone-hunting STING loitering munition will likely mark its two-thousandth kill in the coming weeks, a significant development in a rapidly evolving battle space.