Elvira Bary

In this episode, Elvira Bary explains why Russia cannot stop Ukrainian drones from reaching refineries, fuel depots, airfields, and military infrastructure deep inside the country. Russia has powerful air-defense systems, but it does not have a cheap, dense, flexible, trusted anti-drone network across its enormous territory. Ukraine’s drone campaign exposes not only gaps in Russian radar, missiles, electronic warfare, and mobile fire groups, but also the deeper weakness of Putin’s system: fear, hesitation, bureaucracy, bad reporting, and officials who protect themselves before they protect the country. A real fortress needs working systems. Russia has slogans, budgets, and burning refineries.