If there is a weapon that has so far marked the course of the war in Ukraine, especially since part of the military operations have moved to the territory of Russia, then it is drones, reports "N1".

On Monday night, Ukrainian forces launched one of the largest drone strikes against Russia. As many as 144 drones were sent deep into its territory, as many as a dozen regions, and some even reached the suburbs of Moscow, hitting several buildings. Last weekend, the Ukrainians also hit an ammunition depot in the Voronezh region with drones.

In the first year of this war, news of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia attracted attention because there were not many of them. Much has been written about Russian kamikaze drone attacks on targets in Ukraine, especially those carried out by Iran's heavy and deadly long-range Shahed-136 drones that can carry up to 45 kilograms of explosives.

Now the news of Ukrainian drone attacks on targets in Russia is gaining attention as they escalate and have effectively brought the war back to where it started. Ukraine has significantly increased the production of drones. At the beginning of the war, only ten companies were engaged in their production, and now there are as many as eighty. Despite the fact that air defenses shoot them down en masse, drones still prove to be effective and deadly, and also a cheaper substitute for, for example, medium-range missiles.

Military analyst Marinko Ogorec notes that the war in Ukraine brought drones to war.

"Drones have shown their exceptional effectiveness in this war. But the question is whether they would show that in another war," he says, "N1" reports.

The fact that some Ukrainian drone strikes were carried out more than 1.200 kilometers deep inside Russian territory means that they are suitable for warfare over large expanses like Ukraine, and Russia even more so. Although they are somewhat easy targets for air defenses to identify, drones can slip under the radar and hit background targets quite accurately. Smaller drones with a shorter range are mainly used for reconnaissance and fighting on the front lines of the battlefield.

"Every war has its dominant weapon"

Ogorec points out that they are currently the dominant weapon in the war, which does not mean that they will be so in the future.

"Let's not forget that any weapon that was dominant at one time was no longer so dominant in subsequent wars. For example, in the First World War, the machine gun was the absolute most dominant weapon that literally determined the form of stationary warfare as it was fought there. In World War II, the tank was the most dominant weapon, and now in the war in Ukraine, we see that the tank is not proving to be such a powerful combat tool, even though it has its place and role," explains Ogorets.

Drones, he adds, have somehow contributed to the static nature of warfare in Ukraine.

"With the help of drones, literally every movement of the enemy is monitored in real time, they are used to attack from both sides. Because of this, the movements of military forces were kept to a minimum. An opponent who launches an attack must expect to be covered by air. These are all situations where drones prove to be exceptional, but that doesn't mean they will be in any future wars. It's hard to judge right now. But here, if I may say so, are the stars of the war," says military analyst Ogorec.