Russia has lengthy used harsh climate as a defensive best friend. Right through Napoleon’s 1812 invasion, his Grand Military was once defeated as wintry weather closed in – the bottom become impassable and logistical strengthen to his military collapsed. In a similar way, Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa in 1941-42 was once halted through heavy rains and deep dust adopted through freezing temperatures.
Nowadays, in a distinct roughly battle, Russia is once more turning to its outdated best friend, harsh climate – however this time to assist in its offensive in opposition to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s intensive use of small, cheap drones has reworked assault and defence methods around the entrance traces. The Fashionable Struggle Institute stories that drones are liable for round 70% of Russia’s battlefield casualties, even though it’s unclear which roughly drones are killing in higher numbers: loitering one-way assault drones (referred to as “kamikaze drones”) or quadcopter first-person view (FPV) drones, armed with small explosives.
Past direct moves, small drones play a very important function in intelligence collecting, surveillance and reconnaissance. They enable Ukrainian gadgets to spot goals and coordinate floor operations with a ways higher precision. Actual-time aerial imagery permits artillery crews to all of a sudden modify fireplace, making bombardments extra correct – and extra deadly.
Drones have turn into the eyes and, an increasing number of, the fingers of Ukraine’s floor forces, expanding their defensive effectiveness in opposition to the bigger and steadily better-equipped Russian floor forces. Mass Ukrainian use of FPV and one-way-attack drones has considerably advanced defensive effectiveness, blunting greater Russian floor pressure attacks through the usage of real-time focused on knowledge and exact moves.
Each side within the battle additionally frequently deploy digital jamming, rendering radio-controlled FPV drones inoperable. Russia has, of necessity, turn into an international chief on this space.
The jamming disrupts the radio hyperlinks and video feeds that pilots depend on for navigation and focused on. This puts Ukraine’s forces, which depend closely on drones to offset Russia’s benefits, at a substantial drawback.
Dangerous climate and drones
When unhealthy climate combines with digital interference, the impact is much more harmful. Snow, fog, wind and chilly already restrict drone staying power and visibility – sharply lowering Ukraine’s technological edge in aerial reconnaissance and precision battlefield drone moves.
Russia, by contrast, beneficial properties relative merit in such stipulations. Its older, heavier ground-based programs – tanks, artillery and armoured cars – are extra resilient in opposition to deficient climate. The battlefield turns into a spot the place Russia’s attritional method to battle grinds out bloody advances.
Small quadcopter drones are gentle, have restricted staying power and are simply influenced through climate. Take the DJI Mavic 3 collection, utilized by many Ukrainian gadgets for frontline reconnaissance. It is just efficient in temperatures between –10°C and +40 °C and winds beneath about 12 metres consistent with 2d. Robust gusts or freezing climate can briefly push this small drone off direction.
Extra complex Ukrainian programs, such because the winged Shark uncrewed aerial gadget, can perform from –15 °C to +45 °C and resist winds as much as 20 metres consistent with 2d. But even those are limited to dry stipulations: rain or snow can floor them.
Rain and snow can scale back drones’ skill to navigate or floor them altogether.
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In chilly stipulations, batteries drain extra briefly, slicing each flight time and operational vary. Icing can floor huge numbers of drones if it adjustments the traits of the quadcopter propellers – ice makes propeller blades thicker, heavier and not more aerodynamic, lowering efficiency.
Winged drones can be afflicted by wing-tip icing, which adjustments their flight traits – lowering elevate, expanding drag and the risk of stalling, and degrading keep watch over. Fog and snow additionally scale back visibility, restricting the facility to spot or monitor goals.
Russian offensive
In October 2025, Russia timed a number of huge floor attacks to coincide with deficient climate. This method exploited stipulations that considerably diminished Ukraine’s skill to shield itself with drones. Fog, rain and cloud duvet made small reconnaissance drones unreliable and even unflyable. Visibility dropped so low that assaults on particular person squaddies turn into a ways much less efficient.
In principle, Ukraine’s allies can offset a few of this loss via satellite tv for pc intelligence. US reconnaissance satellites can nonetheless acquire treasured data on cloudy days through the usage of artificial aperture radar to come across floor actions. But even those complex programs can not see visually via thick cloud banks or heavy rainstorms.
Traditionally, Russia’s serious climate served a defensive objective, turning again invading armies from Napoleon to Hitler. Within the provide battle, on the other hand, Russia is the usage of the similar harsh local weather offensively, turning herbal concealment right into a tactical merit because it advances throughout Ukrainian floor.
Wintry weather has no longer but arrived, however Ukrainian and Russian army planners might be staring at the elements. Ukraine’s vaunted skill to innovate and reply to Russian ways might be examined even additional within the months forward.
