The Low-Down

Four new breakthroughs by Ukrainian forces east of Lyman and the Fortress Belt, including crossings of the Siverskyi Donets River reveal that counteroffensive operations continue to gain ground against Russian units. In keeping with recent Ukrainian military operational security doctrine, they have not confirmed these attacks, nor have they released any other information about units involved or whether this is the fourth phase of Operation Vivaldi. JL Brendan Cole reports in Newsweek: > Ukrainian forces made notable battlefield advances (including) four breakthroughs along the front line in the Donbas region, east of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. "Ukrainian forces have crossed the Siverskyi Donets River, a significant natural obstacle." Russian sources fear Ukrainian counterattacks in the Slovyansk and Kramatorsk directions "may have cascading effects and implications for Russian efforts to seize the Fortress Belt." It would mean that Russian troops advancing towards the cities would be difficult. Any push by Moscow towards Slovyansk may be "doomed" due to failure or high casualties if Russian forces cannot recapture forests south of the city of Lyman. > > Pro-Kremlin military bloggers have acknowledged Ukrainian forces made notable battlefield advances as a map by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows four breakthroughs along the front line in the eastern Donbas region. > > The so-called Z-bloggers have admitted what the Kremlin cannot, namely Ukrainian advances east of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, two fortress belt cities whose capture are key to Vladimir Putin’s ambitions of taking Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. > Despite battlefield realities, Putin continues to claim gains. Last week, he saidthat his forces had captured 500 square miles in September. This is a figure that the ISW described as bordering on "hallucinations," given its estimate of a Russian net loss of 30 square miles. > But Russian Telegram channels have admitted Ukraine had liberated settlements and made advances near Lyman, an area which has been the focus of Operation Vivaldi, a counteroffensive touted by Ukrainian Third Army Corps commander, Andriy Biletski. > > "Operation Vivaldi significantly improved Ukraine’s positions north of Lyman, denying Russian forces the opportunity to cut the Kharkiv-Sloviansk and Izium-Sloviansk highways, which are critical to Ukrainian logistics," military analyst Giorgi Revishvili told Newsweek. He is a former senior adviser to the National Security Council of Georgia. > > > A monument honoring Ukraine's fallen soldiers in Sloviansk, Ukraine, is seen on August 24, 2025. | Pierre Crom/Getty Images. > > ## Where Has Ukraine Made Breakthroughs? > Russian military bloggers whose messaging is not controlled by the Kremlin have acknowledged that Ukraine had made advances east of Kramatorsk, as the ISW map shows. > > These included liberating the settlement of Ozerne and making advances further south around Malynivka and Holubivka. > The two other major gains the Z-bloggers noted were advances in the fields east of Pyskunivka and into southern Minkivka. > "Russian milblogger claims that Ukrainian forces have crossed the Siverskyi Donets River are notable, as the river is a significant natural obstacle," the ISW said in its latest update on Thursday. > > The Washington, D.C., think tank said that the Russian sources feared that Ukrainian counterattacks in the Slovyansk and Kramatorsk directions "may have cascading effects and implications for Russian efforts to seize the Fortress Belt." > > It would mean that Russian troops gathering towards the cities would be difficult. Any push by Moscow towards Slovyansk may be "doomed" due to failure or high casualties if Russian forces cannot recapture forests south of the city of Lyman. > > > > This map by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) from October 8, 2026, shows four areas where Ukrainian forces have made breakthroughs in the Donb...Read More > > | Institute for the Study of War (ISW) > While Operation Vivaldi had significantly improved Ukraine’s positions north of Lyman and disrupted Russia’s efforts to establish a northern pincer around the Fortress Belt, Revishvili said that Putin is likely to continue with his attempt to seize the Donbas in full and pursue grinding advances into the cold months. > He said that Putin is betting on intensifying attacks on critical infrastructure and residential areas with combined missile and drone strikes, "could become a breaking point for Ukrainian society, freezing it into submission and compelling Kyiv to surrender." > > On Thursday, a Russian strike on a bus in Kramatorsk killed at least 33 people and injured 22 according to Ukraine's emergency service (DSNS). > > "Russia comes to the Ukrainian land with death. She hits our cities, kills our people and multiplies her crimes every day," Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.

Russia's Yandex is the equivalent of Google, Amazon and Uber. It is that country's largest provider of tech services: internet, cloud, AI development, etc. Ukrainian drone and missile strikcs have now badly damaged or destroyed its primary data centers and AI training facilities. The result is not just that Russian consumers are frustrated by the disruption - but so is the Russian military, which also depends on them. And, in a particularly helpful side effect for western democracy, Russian bot traffic aimed at the US midterm elections, European concerns about Russian threats (and ancillary interference like inflaming passions in northern Ireland over attempts to revive Orange Order parades) as well as spewing hate and division across the civilized world, has virtually disappeared. JL Mike Pearl reports in Gizmodo and Jowi Morales reports in Tom's Hardware: > A big chunk of Russia’s cloud and AI infrastructure has been blown up. Services are disrupted, or completely shut down as one of the focal points for Ukraine’s strikes has been Yandex, “a (Russian) version of Google, Amazon and Uber in one.” The third attack, Sunday morning, was devastating, “resulting in the complete shutdown of its data centre." Russian bot traffic has dropped to 0.4% of the maximum number of HTTP requests recorded in the past two weeks. It initially dropped to 57% on Oct. 8, when Ukraine hit a Yandex data center. A second, bigger Yandex campus was then knocked offline. Yandex’s network traffic has dropped to 30% for Yandex Cloud and 63% for Yandex LLC, resulting in slower services or complete disruption for Russians, who cant use high-speed satellite internet, as Starlink does not work in Russia, while the new Rassvet system had a good number of its satellites fall back to earth after launch. > > The big story out of the Ukraine War for 2026 has been Ukraine’s ability to strike oil infrastructure deep inside Russia. These are new capabilities that stem from the maturing of specialist divisions in the Ukrainian military like its 1st Separate Center of Unmanned Systems. With purpose-built fixed-wing drones like the AN-196 RS and FP-6—basically just exploding airplanes—Ukraine has spent this year turning up the volume on this war for Russia and the wider world through the power of blowing important things up. > But it’s not just oil. Today, a big chunk of Russia’s cloud and AI infrastructure has been blown up. Services are disrupted, or completely shut down. > > Over the past few days, one of the focal points for Ukraine’s onslaught has been Yandex, a company the New York Times once called, “a version of Google, Amazon and Uber rolled into one.” As explained by Reuters, the third attack on Yandex, which occurred Sunday morning, was pretty devastating, “resulting in the complete shutdown of its data centre in the Vladimir region.” > Per Reuters, this comes within days of attacks on another data center facility in Kalugg, and one in Sasovo near Moscow, where it sounds like Yandex performs most of its training runs. (Reuters describes it as “where two ⁠of the three supercomputers used to develop the company’s AI model are housed.”) > If you take the Kyiv Post at its word, it sounds almost like a switch has been flipped, and a ton of important services are just off in much of Russia, along with Russian services across the wider world. Perhaps most notably, the Alice voice assistant—Yandex’s answer to Siri or Alexa—is reportedly down. That would mean users with Yandex’s Station line of smart speaker devices can’t interact with them properly. > The Kyiv Post says Yandex Music, and Telemost, its version of Google Meet, were also disabled at the time it was writing on Sunday. > And since Yandex’s data centers are also critical cloud infrastructure for other services, the tendrils of the outage are widely dispersed—again, according to the Kyiv Post. Yandex Compute Cloud, a provider of virtual machines, is one of the services experiencing what the Kyiv Post calls “extensive outages.” > > Things get a bit darker if you dig into just how important Yandex Cloud is across Russia. Yandex offers, for instance, specialized cloud solutions for healthcare. It also provides at least some of the cloud storage used, in theory, to safeguard Russian citizen’s private data for government use. > > And, much like the attacks you may remember from earlier this year, in which it struck distribution centers belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s answer to Amazon, these attacks are creating chaos for consumers. The Kyiv Post writes that users have complained on Sunday about banking and rideshare app failures. Apps for major retail companies like the food sales colossus Magnit, and Fix Price, which is a little like Dollar General, are also apparently being interrupted. > The world is getting a break from Russian bots thanks to Kyiv. > Russian bot traffic has dropped dramatically in the past few days after Ukraine knocked out Yandex’s biggest data centers, with a third attack happening last night. Cloudflare reports that bot traffic from the Yandex network has dropped to just 0.4% of the maximum number of HTTP requests recorded in the past two weeks. It initially dropped to around 57% on Oct. 8, which happened when Ukraine hit a Yandex data center housing two supercomputers in Sasovo, Russia, located around 195 miles to the southeast of the Kremlin. A second, bigger Yandex campus in Kaluga, about 220 miles to the west of Sasovo, was knocked offline yesterday. > > These attacks are apparently Ukraine’s response to Moscow’s strikes on its own data centers, some of which resulted in the outage of some of the most popular piracy websites. > > > > (Image credit: CloudFlare) > > Yandex is Russia’s equivalent to Google, and its Yandex Cloud service status reports that at least 84 services are currently offline. Global internet monitoring firm NetBlocks said that Yandex’s network traffic has dropped to just 30% for Yandex Cloud and 63% for Yandex LLC, most likely resulting in slower internet services or complete disruption for the average Russian. Unfortunately, the ordinary Russian wouldn’t be able to use high-speed satellite internet as a backup, as Starlink does not work in Russia, while the competing Rassvet constellation has had a good number of its existing satellites fall back to the surface after launch. > These incidents are a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which escalated dramatically in 2022 after Russia’s failed attempt to capture Kyiv. However, many observers say that the war actually started in 2014 when Russian forces seized Crimea and occupied parts of eastern Ukraine after the fall of the pro-Russian government that year. > The hostilities, which have dragged on for years, saw the introduction of new technologies and strategies, specifically in drone warfare. It began with the wide deployment of commercially available drones on the front lines, typically for reconnaissance, dropping explosives, and kamikaze-style attacks. However, it has since evolved into long-range warfare, with specially built drones able to reach distances of over 1,500 miles and destroy Tu-95 strategic bombers situated well behind the front lines. > > The drone strikes on data centers are relatively new developments. While data centers on bases are often considered valid targets, Russia’s justification for the attacks on civilian data centers was that Ukrainian military intelligence used them. This isn’t the first time that civilian data centers have also been hit by drones and missiles. AWS sites in Bahrain and the UAE have been hit multiple times since Washington started its bombing campaign against Iran, with the company telling its clients to move their data to sites outside the region, as it doesn’t have a recovery timeline.

Among the more fascinating - and instructive - lessons from Operation Vivaldi so far, is the fact that it demonstrated the Ukrainians ability to combine hard-won experience with innovative experiments. First, Ukraine learned from the failed 2024 counteroffensive and imposed strict operational security: no one was really aware of Vivaldi until four months after it started. This helped first in giving Ukraine's 3rd Corps time to adapt and take advantage of Russia's exposed flanks towards Lyman. But it also played on Russian officers' tendency to lie to their superiors, especially when they are in trouble, which then allowed Ukraine to take further advantage of the Russians' confusion about real conditions and perception that reinforcements weren't needed. The Ukrainians then built on this experiential wisdom by using drones, robots and up-armored vehicles with hardened infantry to exploit the opportunity. The results of this are now clear. JL David Axe reports in The Center For European Policy Analysis: > By the time Ukraine's 3rd Corps announced Operation Vivaldi in late September, it had liberated 176 sq. km. of occupied land. By pushing them back across the Zherebets River, the 3rd Corps eliminated 18 months of Russian progress. Which comes down to an age-old truism: every rapid advance risks turning into defeat if the attacker overextends, exposing their flanks to counter-attack. The 3rd Corps understood that it needed to do so quietly because Russian commanders lie to their superiors: a Russian officer won’t admit his unit is losing ground. By not posting evidence of wins, the Russians claim all was well, so no need for Moscow to send reinforcements. (Plus) robots can lead. “Drones, robots and motivated infantry, that’s what the first season of Vivaldi sounds like” The Ukrainians found weaknesses and attacked, first with drones, then with infantry and armor. All in secret. Four months later, the Russians were in retreat. And Vivaldi hasn’t finished. > > In May, under a veil of secrecy, the 3rd Ukrainian Army Corps counter-attacked in northern Donetsk Oblast, the focal point of the most intensive fighting in the blood-soaked Donbas region. > > Exploiting weak points along the flanks of a pair of Russian field armies, which were advancing around the town of Lyman toward Sloviansk, the Ukrainian force under Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky marched through the village of Nove. Then it pushed south, cutting behind the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies (each tens of thousands strong, at least on paper), so compelling them to retreat rather than risk encirclement. > > By the time the 3rd Army Corps officially announced Operation Vivaldi in late September, its troops had liberated at least 176 sq. km. (68 sq. miles) of occupied land. And it was especially important territory. > > By pushing the CAAs back across the Zherebets River, the 3rd Army Corps eliminated 18 months of Russian progress toward Sloviansk, one of the key fortress cities in the Donbas. In the worst case, the city’s defenders now have more time to prepare for the coming siege. > > It didn’t happen quickly or easily. That it happened at all comes down to the 3rd Army Corps’ nearly airtight operational security, its aggressive adoption of aerial and ground robots for practically all conceivable roles, and an age-old truism of ground warfare: every rapid advance risks turning into defeat if the attacker overextends and exposes their flanks to counter-attack. > > 1. Secrecy still matters. While messaging is important in a war where national morale is a strategic resource, Biletsky and the 3rd Army Corps understood that if it was to succeed, it needed to develop quietly. > > The reason is rooted in the tendency for face-saving Russian commanders to lie to their superiors about the real disposition of their forces on the battlefield. As a rule, a Russian colonel won’t admit his battalion is losing ground unless there’s undeniable public evidence his battalion is losing ground. > > If the 3rd Army Corps could avoid providing that evidence, by not posting the customary lavish video montages of tactical wins, its leaders knew it would help the Russian commanders plausibly claim all was well, and that there was no need for Moscow to send more air support or reinforcements. > > And the strategy worked. While a few videos leaked of Ukrainian advances across the Lyman salient, enough for the most attentive open-source intelligence analysts to conclude something big was happening east of Sloviansk, the mainstream media never caught on. And the Russians never made a serious effort to reinforce the combined arms armies. > > By the time the 3rd Army Corps announced its counteroffensive, four months after it began, it was too late for the senior Russian command to do anything about it. > 2. Robots can lead. The manpower-starved Ukrainian armed forces are adopting robots at a breakneck pace. And the 3rd Army Corps is doing it even faster. “Drones, robots and motivated infantry, that’s what the first season of Vivaldi sounds like,” Biletsky said. > > To preserve its infantry and combat engineers for the close combat role for which they’re indispensable, the corps deployed robots first. And under the blanket of explosive aerial drones, it rolled out some novel unmanned capabilities. > > Mine-clearing ground robots raked up dense Russian minefields, and old BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, fitted with remote control and packed with dozens of anti-tank mines, sped across the disputed gray zone and blasted apart Russian fortifications. > > Under cover of darkness, Vampire heavy bomber drones airlifted small-wheeled ground robots, each rigged to explode on command, alongside Russian positions. Like inexpensive precision bombs, the robots were driven into enemy bunkers and detonated. > > In terms of human soldiers, the Russian CAAs almost certainly outnumbered the 3rd Army Corps, probably by a lot. But the Ukrainian force more than made up for this shortfall with robots, lots and lots of robots. > > 3. Breakthroughs give, and they take. The reason the Russians were vulnerable to counter-attack is that they’d achieved a breakthrough in the direction of Sloviansk. But in more than a year of attacks, they had advanced too far, too fast, extending a 100 sq. km salient toward the city. > > This bulge in the otherwise straight front line threatened to deposit Russian troops on Sloviansk’s doorstep, which in the worst period was just a few miles west of the salient. The bulge was a danger to Ukraine, but also an opportunity. By elongating their flanks, the Russians practically invited the Ukrainians to probe for weakness in their defenses. > > The Ukrainians found these weaknesses around Nove and attacked, first with drones and then with infantry and armored vehicles. All under a veil of secrecy. Four months later, the Russians were in retreat, and the Ukrainians could claim a rare decisive victory in the war. And one last thing: Vivaldi hasn’t finished yet.

Samsung Electronics is the world's largest chip manufacturer - but even so, it is defying the law of large numbers with recent demand due to the AI boom. Memory supply is projected to be tight for the next few years, so Samsung will continue to benefit. It is on track to earn a quarterly operating profit of $80 billion - which is twice what it made in all of 2025. Let that sink in. JL Kwanwoo Jun reports in the Wall Street Journal: > Samsung Electronics expects quarterly operating profit to exceed $80 billion for the first time, putting the world’s largest memory-chip maker on track to extend its run of record earnings. The staggering preliminary estimate—more than twice what Samsung made for the whole of 2025—comes as it remains a key beneficiary of global demand for advanced chips as companies invest heavily in AI infrastructure and applications. Shares have tripled over the past year, though concerns about the sustainability of the AI investment boom have recently damped investor sentiment. Most analysts and semiconductor executives expect tight memory supply to persist over the next few years, keeping chip prices elevated. > > Samsung Electronics expects quarterly operating profit to exceed $80 billion for the first time, putting the world’s largest memory-chip maker on track to extend its run of record earnings. > > The staggering preliminary estimate—more than twice what Samsung made for the whole of 2025—comes as it remains a key beneficiary of global demand for advanced chips as companies invest heavily in AI infrastructure and applications. > > Samsung’s shares ended Thursday 2.4% lower at 262,000 won as the projections, though stellar, failed to meet the market’s lofty expectations. > > Still, shares have tripled over the past year, though concerns about the sustainability of the AI investment boom have recently damped investor sentiment. > > Most analysts and semiconductor executives expect tight memory supply to persist over the next few years, keeping chip prices elevated. Samsung’s preliminary results Thursday reinforced the upbeat industry outlook. > > Operating profit for the three months ended September likely surged nearly ninefold from a year earlier to 107.4 trillion won, equivalent to $80.18 billion, the company said. > > The feat would make Samsung the first South Korean company to top 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit. Samsung said it was the first major global technology company to cross the mark. > > The projected figure surpassed Samsung’s previous record of about 89 trillion won set in the second quarter and largely met market expectations for the third quarter. > > Quarterly revenue was also expected to hit a record, with the company projecting a more than doubling of the top line to 195 trillion won. Analysts’ estimates were for 206.810 trillion won, according to a FactSet-compiled consensus. > > The company doesn’t typically provide segment breakdowns for preliminary results, but most analysts expect its semiconductor division to have driven strong quarterly earnings, offsetting weakness in home appliances, mobile devices and other nonchip businesses. > > The memory boom is a double-edged sword for Samsung: Higher chip prices benefit its semiconductor business but squeeze margins in other electronics businesses by raising component costs. > > The South Korean tech titan, like many other local exporters whose overseas earnings are converted into won, is also exposed to foreign-exchange volatility. > > Analysts at Nomura said Samsung’s operating profit would have been even higher without the won’s sharp appreciation against the dollar. Nomura estimates a 10% won gain could reduce Korean chip makers’ profits by 12%. The won has strengthened about 12% against the dollar over the past three months, FactSet data showed. > > Samsung has said it expects memory-chip shortages to worsen in 2027 and persist into 2028. KB Securities analysts led by Jeff Kim said Samsung’s rapid shift to high-bandwidth memory, a specialized type of advanced memory needed for AI chips, could squeeze supplies of general-purpose memory chips. They expect the company’s most advanced HBM4 products to account for about 80% of Samsung’s revenue next year, up from 40% this year. > > As profit surges, investors are turning their attention to Samsung’s shareholder-return policy. The company has already approved 30 trillion won in third-quarter dividends and a 15 trillion won share buyback for employee compensation, with further details on shareholder returns to come. Samsung estimates its 2026 shareholder returns at 90 trillion won to 110 trillion won.

Innovation in war time moves fast. From the first fantastical reporting a few weeks ago of all-robot airborne assaults led by Ukrainian ground drones delivered by aerial bomber drones, this tactic is now becoming a standard tactic in Ukraine's assault operations. It both shocks and confuses the enemy while also saving Ukrainian infantry lives. JL Jake Epstein reports in Business Insider: > Traditional airborne assaults have been very rare in this conflict as dense air-defense networks threaten air operations. Operation Vivaldi, though, has demonstrated the potential for entirely uncrewed airborne assaults. Rather than risking helicopters, transport aircraft, or paratroopers, drones can drop robots behind enemy lines, and Ukraine's defense industry is working on solutions to advance this concept, as are military units. From Ukraine's robot combat experience, UGVs must balance mobility, range, and payload, while maintaining resilient communications with operators. They are turning the prototype into serial production. "During assault operations, ahead of the infantry, UAVs and loitering munitions always go first" > > Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of Ukraine's Third Army Corps, made a highly unusual disclosure late last month, revealing that his forces had become the "first in the world" to air-drop ground robots from drones in combat. > > Heavy bomber drones had carried the armed robots roughly six miles deep into Russian territory and dropped them there as part of Operation Vivaldi, an assault that is still unfolding in eastern Ukraine and has already seen Kyiv reclaim large swaths of territory from Moscow. > > The tactic is called "Gryphon" and is named after a soldier who went missing in action near Andriivka, said Mykola Zinkevych, commander of NC13, the world's first strike uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) unit. Rather than driving explosive-laden robots across the front line, heavy drones dropped the bots in the Russian rear, creating an unexpected new direction of attack. > NC13, a unit within the Third Assault Brigade of the Third Army Corps, has played a leading role in Operation Vivaldi. Zinkevych, who goes by the call sign "Makar," spoke to Business Insider through a translator this week to discuss his unit's participation. > > Traditional airborne assaults have been very rare in this conflict as dense air-defense networks threaten air operations. > Operation Vivaldi, however, has demonstrated the potential for entirely uncrewed airborne assaults. Rather than risking helicopters, transport aircraft, or paratroopers, drones can drop robots behind enemy lines, and Ukraine's booming defense industry is working on solutions to advance this concept, as are military units. > > Brave1, Ukraine's state-backed innovation platform, said several days after the Third Army Corps' airborne assault reveal that another combat unit, the "Alter Ego" robot battalion of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, had developed and deployed similar technology. > > > > The view from a heavy bomber drone as it drops a UGV. Courtesy of NC13 > > The unit engineered a specialized robot called "Desantnyk," as well as a mechanism that allows its heavy bomber drones to carry and drop the robot deep behind the front lines. It has already been used to attack Russian positions, Brave1 said, adding that the entire process, from initial concept to combat deployment, took just 10 days. > Without an off-the-shelf robot on the market that bomber drones could readily carry and drop, especially at long ranges, the Alter Ego unit could only develop one itself, a Brave1 representative told Business Insider, relaying information from the unit. > > "This is an asymmetrical solution that the enemy does not expect — delivering mobility and the capability to conduct operations far behind enemy lines," the representative said. > > From the robot's combat experience, Alter Ego now understands that the UGVs must balance mobility, range, and payload, while also maintaining resilient communications with operators. Brave1 said it helped the unit find a manufacturer so they could turn the prototype into serial production. > Other Ukrainian defense companies, likewise, see value in these systems. > > Volodymyr Zinovskyi, the CEO of the Ukrainian defense firm TAF Industries, told Business Insider in London recently that his company has developed both robots and heavy bomber drones and could easily combine the two for a mission. > > The concept of using robotic systems to carry each other into battle is not necessarily new. Earlier this year, for instance, Business Insider reported that a Ukrainian defense manufacturer said soldiers surprised them by dropping one of its robots from a drone. > > > A heavy bomber drone carries a UGV in this system engineered by Alter Ego. Courtesy of Brave1/Screengrab > > And motherships have become increasingly popular. Ukrainian firms have engineered new ways to launch drones from autonomous platforms, such as uncrewed boats and ground robots, significantly increasing their operational range. > > Using drones to air-drop robots into battle — a tactic Brave1 said is unique to Ukraine and that only a few units are able to pull off right now — is Kyiv's latest homemade mothership concept. > > The development comes amid broader efforts by Ukraine to replace soldiers with robotic systems for dangerous front-line missions, especially logistics runs and casualty evacuation. > "During assault operations, ahead of the infantry, UAVs and loitering munitions always go first," Biletskyi, the Third Army Corps commander, said on September 20 while sharing Operation Vivaldi details on social media. > > Ukrainian defense companies and soldiers told Business Insider that mothership ideas like air-dropped robots — combining technologies in creative and effective ways — underscore the direction that war is headed. > > Zinovskyi, the TAF Industries CEO, said that defense companies were previously focused primarily on producing drones. The next challenge is systems integration, where mixed systems work together to complete missions. > Zinkevych, the NC13 commander, said that he's pleased to see multiple firms developing bomber drones capable of carrying UGVs and described these efforts as a key example of industry scaling a system that has already proven effective on the battlefield.