Late at night on September 20, Russian ballistic missiles and swarms of drones made covert raids in the night, targeting infrastructure and military strongholds in many Ukrainian states. According to past war conditions, such large-scale raids can often cause effective strikes. However, this time the Ukrainian army not only blocked most of the incoming weapons, but also turned around and used drones to attack energy facilities in the hinterland of Russia.

First of all, we must understand how the Ukrainian army achieved efficient interception? When the Russian missile just took off, the NATO early warning aircraft deployed in Eastern Europe had actually captured the signal. The long-range radar monitored the flight trajectories of these targets 24 hours a day, and the electronic reconnaissance center was still simultaneously tracking the Russian military's communication signals. This intelligence passed through The high-speed data link was transmitted to the Ukrainian military command system almost in real time.

After receiving the information, the Ukrainian army moved quickly. Air Force fighter jets quickly took off under the guidance of early warning aircraft. The German-made air defense system on the ground entered the position in advance, and paired with mobile units carrying heavy machine guns, it formed a multi-level defense line of air interception and ground supplementary defense.

More importantly, the Ukrainian army has also built a drone front-line system. Reconnaissance drones deployed along the defense line explore the path in advance, while interceptor drones are on standby in the air for a long time. Once a Russian drone is discovered, It is this kind of intelligence that arrives in advance, the linkage of multiple arms, and the cooperation of drones to fill the position that greatly improves the interception efficiency.

But intelligence support is only a prerequisite for the Ukrainian army to truly transform intelligence into combat force, a combination of external support and local tactics.

NATO provides air intelligence, funds and partial equipment, but the Ukrainian military did not simply transport, but according to their own needs made local transformation, they set up the German high-end air defense system with traditional weapons, with expensive air defense missiles interceptor missiles, with low-cost drones and high-speed guns interceptor drones, both avoided waste of resources, and formed a low-cost consumption tactic, after all, the Russian military drone number is large, if all with high-end missiles interceptor, the cost can not be borne.

The Russian Defense Minister has publicly stated that the Russian Army has updated the electronic warfare equipment such as armor vests, can interfere with drone communication, the number of drone equipment is also increasing, but in the real war, the synergy problems of these equipment are exposed, electronic warfare equipment is mostly portable, suitable for small-scale operations, in the face of the Ukrainian army wide range, multi-wave interception system, can not form a global interference, drone cluster although many, but lack of coordination with the pace of the missile strike, the missile flooded in the front, the drone could not follow up in time, but was intercepted by the Ukrainian army.

It can be seen that NATO does not dare to directly conflict with Russia, so using the model of the offshore control agency, relying on intelligence and technical support to empower the Ukrainian army, let the Ukrainian army rise to the frontline, the Ukrainian army to use this external empowerment, transform into the ability of domestic sustainable operations, build its own drone production line, can produce thousands of low-cost drones per month, to ensure interception and counterattack sustainability.

This mode of not directly participating in the war but deeply involved, external support and local transformation has changed the conflict from a single equipment competition to a system collaborative competition. Whoever can combine intelligence, equipment, and tactics into a whole faster will be able to take the initiative.

For the Ukrainian army, the next step to deal with is possible countermeasures by the Russian army. The Russian army may upgrade the large-scale application of electronic warfare equipment, or adjust air strike routes to avoid interception areas. Therefore, the Ukrainian army needs to strengthen air defense at the same time, balance long-range strike capabilities and avoid focusing on one thing and losing another.

For the Russian army, this setback may force it to optimize the coordinated tactics of missile drone electronic warfare, rather than simply increasing the number of equipment.