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THE UKRAINE WAR UKRAINE'S IMPRESSIVE DRONE STRATEGY The Military Show: Even Russians Don’t Know HOW Ukraine Pulled Off This Deep Strike PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJqdV1a5FCk
Even Russians Don’t Know HOW Ukraine Pulled Off This Deep Strike The Military Show Aug 12, 2025 1.82M subscribers ... 411,695 views ... 9.8K likes #militarydevelopments #militarystrategy #militaryanalysis Ukraine has struck deep inside Russia, hitting a key defense industry facility in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. The target was a plant critical to producing components for some of Russia’s most advanced missiles. This precision drone strike is part of Ukraine’s wider strategy to degrade Russia’s military capabilities at their source, disrupting production lines far from the front. Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: / @themilitaryshow #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/CNgPtQSQ How this content was made Auto-dubbed Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I am impressed by Ukraine's strategic thinking ... arguably better than anything ever in military history. I was very young during WWII and living with my parents in Surbiton, a near suburb of London. There was no glass in any of our windows, and there were holes in our roof from all sorts of spent munitions. Back then, I was too young to be scared ... but now, 80 years later I have some understanding of the hell that Ukraine is going through. I am also more aware than most of the huge importance to the 'free world' that Ukraine wins and Putin's Russia loses. Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 About 470 miles away from Ukraine’s border with Russia lies Arzamas (ahr-zah-MAHS). Nestled in the Nizhny Novgorod (NEEZH-nee NOHV-guh-rahd) oblast, Arzamas is home to a component manufacturing plant that produces systems used in some of Russia’s most powerful missiles. No components mean no missiles, making the plant an obvious target for Ukraine. Distance isn’t an issue. How do we know? Ukraine has just obliterated one of Russia’s most important strategic factories with a deep strike blast. Even the Russians don’t know how Ukraine managed to pull this off. But they do know that they’ll have far fewer missiles with which to hit Ukraine in the future. Euromaidan Press was among the first media outlets to report on the strike, writing on August 11 that Ukrainian drones managed to score direct hits on the Arzamas Instrument-Making plant the night before. Ukraine made sure it launched the attack in the dead of night, with NewsSky reporting that the first reports of incoming drones were made at around 1:30 a.m. There are two purposes behind such late-night strikes. First, moving under the cover of darkness makes Ukraine’s drones much harder to detect. They can still be spotted by radar, assuming they fly within a radar system’s coverage 1:02 area. However, people on the ground struggle to see the drones until it’s far too late, eliminating a potential early warning system that would allow Russia to prepare for Ukraine’s drone attacks. As for the second reason, that’s far more devastating to the collective Russian psyche: Ukraine hits hard during the early hours to make sure civilians have to wake up and see the war Vladimir Putin started landing on their doorstep. Of course, Ukraine isn’t hitting civilian locations directly. That’s a distinctly Russian tactic that Putin has used to create terror in Ukraine’s cities since he launched his invasion. Rather, Ukraine hits legitimate military targets that just happen to be close enough to Russian cities to force air raid sirens to blare and warnings to be delivered. Every strike like the one we’ve just seen in Arzamas is a reminder to Russia’s people that their country is not only at war, but fighting against a nation that has the ability to strike deep inside Russia. NewsSky reports that the first loud sounds resembling explosions came from the Arzamas factory at about 2 am, with most seeming to come from the direction of the facility’s warehouses. Flashes of fire. Heavy smoke. The telltale hum of 2:02 incoming drones. All were reported by the Arzamas residents who were awoken by the strike. Local air defenses activated to try to take Ukraine’s drones down. They may have succeeded a handful of times, but NewsSky says that at least two of the drones broke through Russia’s defenses to deliver their explosive payloads to the components factory. The strike will leave Russia questioning just how Ukraine managed to pull it off. The Arzamas plant was supposed to be safe. Around 470 miles behind the border, it was meant to be far enough away for Russian air defenses to respond early to any incoming threat. But, as has been so often the case over the last few months, Ukraine’s drones found their way through and hit their targets. NewsSky speculates that Ukraine used at least two types of drones in the strike. The first appears to be a UJ-22 Airborne model, which is capable of carrying up to 44 pounds of explosives and can travel over 500 miles according to the manufacturer. Enough range to hit the Arzamas plant. The second drone is believed to be a “moped-style” first-person view, or FPV, drone that followed up on the initial drone strike. So, it seems like the UJ-22s had the job of destroying the walls of the Arzamas facility, 3:03 with the FPV drones that followed being directed to the specific targets inside the facility that Ukraine wanted to hit. Those drones were successful, NewsSky says, because Ukraine carried out the strike from multiple directions. That made tracking all of the incoming drones difficult for Russia’s already stretched air defenses, in addition to giving Ukraine a failsafe. If one drone horde was shot down, which appears to be the case, then the other could still hit the factory. That’s exactly what happened. And the results are devastating for Russia’s war effort. Ukraine has confirmed that the strike took place and that its drones hit their targets. Speaking to the Ukrainian outlet Hromadske (hroh-MAHD-skeh), an SBU source has confirmed that it was in fact four, not two, drones that hit their targets in Arzamas during the early hours of August 11. “The enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which are working for the war against Ukraine, are absolutely legitimate military targets,” the source told Hromadske. “The SBU continues to work on the demilitarization of facilities that produce weapons for terror in peaceful Ukrainian cities.” And we don’t need to take that source's word for it, as video has already surfaced of Ukraine’s drones doing their damage. Published by 4:03 the Euromaidan Press X account, several videos showcase both the strike in progress and its aftermath. One of the videos shows smoke pouring out of a window of the Arzamas facility. At least, for a few seconds. Suddenly, a massive explosion rocks the building, setting off car alarms in the process while engulfing the side of the factory in a massive fireball. Perhaps this was one of the follow-up FPV drones hitting its target after a gap had been created. We don’t know for sure. Other videos shared by Euromaidan Press show one of Ukraine’s drones descending on the factory, and the aftermath of the strike, as fires blaze inside and on top of the component manufacturing facility. The evidence is in, and it’s undeniable – Ukraine scored several direct hits on one of Russia’s most vital factories. Of course, evidence being “undeniable” doesn’t mean that Russia is going to admit that one of its factories has gone up in flames. The only comment provided by Russia so far is provided by the Arzamas regional governor, Gleb Nikitin (glehb nee-KEE-tin), who has confirmed that a strike took place. Nikitin stopped very short of stating that Ukraine had scored direct hits, however. “Last night, an attack by the enemy was carried out on two 5:03 industrial zones in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. Their targets were our industrial enterprises.” Nikitin said. “Specialists are currently working on site; the mayor of Arzamas, Alexander Shchelokov (shcheh-LO-kov), is coordinating the situation, and necessary work is being organized together with the plant management.” That’s a little more than we usually get from Russia. It has at least acknowledged that Ukraine tried to hit an industrial facility. But rather than confirming the success of Ukraine’s drone assault, Nikitin instead claimed that one worker was killed and two more were injured in the attack. That’s an admission in its own right, even if Nikitin didn’t intend it to be. After all, how could these workers have been killed if Ukraine’s drones hadn’t penetrated the factory in which they were working? They couldn’t. This leads us to the obvious question of why, out of all of the factories that enable Russia’s brutal war, was the Arzamas plant chosen in the first place? One of the reasons is that the plant is among the most innovative and impressive in all of Russia. Euromaidan Press says that Astra has revealed that the plant is among “the leading enterprises of [Russia’s] defense-industrial complex. And it has been for a while. About 20% of the facility is owned by the Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern, 6:03 which is a Russian company that is under sanctions from the U.S. and Europe. So, there’s a clear and direct link to Putin’s war effort. As for innovation, the plant received Russia’s “Golden Idea” award in 2020 in recognition of the equipment it was building and its willingness to cooperate with Russia’s military. A pat on the head from Putin tells us that Russia’s leader places a great deal of value on this factory. Why wouldn’t he? The Arzamas plant makes a whole bunch of components that are vital to Russia’s war effort, ranging from gyroscopic instruments and onboard computers to control systems and steering mechanisms. You might recognize some of those components as being vital parts of the missiles that Russia is launching at Ukraine regularly. And wouldn’t you just know it… The SBU says that its drones specifically targeted the parts of the Arzamas facility that are responsible for making and storing components used in Russia’s X-32 and X-101 cruise missiles. That’s according to the SBU source who spoke to Hromadske at least, but that’s far from all that the plant makes. NewsSky says that components from the plant are also used in Russia’s air defense systems and the communications equipment built 7:02 into its drones and aircraft. All told, up to 30% of what the Arzamas plant builds serves the needs of Russia’s military, making the factory key to Russia’s attempts to modernize its fighting force to deal with the far more technologically savvy Ukrainians. What we have here is a case of Ukraine being very careful about how it chooses its targets. Any strike on the Arzamas plant would have represented an impressive victory for Ukraine. There is almost an embarrassment of riches to choose from when it comes to what the plant makes and the impact the facility has on the Ukraine war. But Ukraine also knew that only a few of its drones were going to make it through Russia’s defenses. So, it chose carefully. And we now know that Ukraine specifically hit the part of the plant that makes components for some of Russia’s most dangerous missiles. The X-32, also known as the Kh-32, is a dangerous enough missile in its own right. An upgrade over Russia’s older Kh-22 missiles, according to Army Recognition, the missile has a range of up to 621 miles. That means Russia has been able to launch it from well behind the front lines without risking its aircraft in Ukrainian territory. Russia was planning to start equipping this missile with cluster munitions back 8:02 in January 2024, Army Recognition says, and it’s likely that work has been completed by now. We also know the X-32 is a supersonic missile, meaning it’s fast enough to exceed the speed of sound. As for the X-101, also known as the Kh-101, that’s one of the most dangerous missiles in Russia’s arsenal. The X-101 variant holds a conventional warhead weighing up to 992 pounds, Missile Threat reports, though there’s also a version of the same missile – named the Kh-102 – that can carry a nuclear warhead. Throw a 1,739-mile range into the mix, and that missile would be almost impossible for Ukraine to hit directly, even with its best long-range drones. So, Ukraine didn’t target the missiles directly. It hit the factory that is responsible for ensuring those missiles have the components they need to reach their targets. That’s the genius of Ukraine’s strategy. Russia’s goal is to make as many of these missiles as possible before spreading them out far and wide across its own territory. That creates obvious problems for Ukraine. Rather than hitting a centralized storage unit, it would have to locate and strike potentially dozens of facilities and air bases across Russia to take out its stockpiles 9:04 of these dangerous missiles. An almost impossible task. It’s much smarter to take out the one major facility that builds the navigational components these missiles need. Russia will still be able to build its X-32s and X-101s. But without the vital components being made at the Arzamas plant, those missiles are functionally useless. They become explosive duds that Russia can’t use to attack Ukraine. And that brings us to what the Arzamas plant strike means in the wider context of the Ukraine war. You see, this is far from the first example of Ukraine taking an indirect approach to tackling the problem of Putin trying to expand his war machine. Ukraine long ago realized that it would be onto a losing idea if it solely attacked Russia’s ammunition stockpiles. Russia could always make more. Instead, Ukraine is now engaged in a campaign of systematic degradation of what can best be described as the behind-the-scenes workings of Russia’s military. The goal is still to weaken Russia’s forces on the front lines. That will never change. But now, Ukraine is doing that weakening by depriving Russia of the ability to build and fund the weapons the country’s military needs to do significant damage to Ukraine. As Euromaidan Press puts it, “Ukraine conducts drone attacks against Russia to systematically degrade Russian military 10:07 capabilities and disrupt the war effort through targeted strikes on strategic infrastructure.” Air bases. Oil refineries. Factories. They’re all targets in this systematic degradation because they all help to fuel Russia’s operations in the air and on the frontlines. The Arzamas strike is just the latest example of that degradation theory being put into devastating practice by Ukraine. We’ve also seen plenty of evidence that Ukraine’s approach is working. Back on March 29, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL, published an article that revealed that analysis of over 100 satellite images gathered from September 2024 to February 2025 showed that Ukraine had hit dozens of Russian military facilities during that period. All told, the damage caused was estimated at $714 million. But it’s not the economic aspect that is Ukraine’s main concern. Ukraine wants to hurt Russia’s military. Up to 160,000 tons of Russian ammunition were destroyed during the 11:00 six-month period that RFE/RL tracked. Oil and gas facilities were hit 27 times, causing 97 storage tanks to be destroyed or damaged. And with Ukraine’s factory attacks, we see a clear effort to destroy Russia’s ability to build the weapons that are doing the most damage to Ukraine. Bear in mind that RFE/RL’s figures come from a single six-month period. About the same amount of time has passed since those figures were published, so it’s safe to assume that many more tons of ammo, components, and oil have gone up in flames since. The Carnegie Endowment introduced an interesting concept that could provide Ukraine with a path to victory in a June 2025 article. Dubbed “Strategic Neutralization,” the idea is that Ukraine avoids trying to bring Russia to the negotiating table or force its military into an attritional battle that slowly grinds away at Russia’s resources. Instead, Ukraine should make the war functionally unwinnable from a Russian perspective. “It aims to paralyze Russia’s ability to achieve any military success, not by defeating it in full but by making the pursuit of its goals unworkable and futile in practice,” The Carnegie Endowment says. “The 12:02 strategy recognizes that functional defeat—where a military capability is not completely destroyed but rendered irrelevant—is both a repeatable and scalable outcome that Ukraine has already achieved in multiple cases.” Denying function rather than depleting volume lies at the core of this theory. The Arzamas strike fits right into the “Strategic Neutralization” idea. Just as Ukraine managed to neutralize Russia’s Black Sea threat by taking out a third of the Black Sea Fleet with missiles and drones, it’s now trying to do the same to Russia’s missiles. Simply absorbing those missiles while Russia runs out isn’t going to cut it. Making it harder and harder for Russia to build those missiles to the point where it’s disadvantageous for Russia to even try could be the end goal. And achieving that goal can’t come soon enough from the Ukrainian perspective. Hitting the Arzamas plant serves a more immediate strategic function than the long-term plan of neutralization. Ukraine needs to stop Russia from launching as many missiles as it has been launching, ideally as soon as possible. While it’s difficult to find figures on how many missiles Russia has fired against Ukraine in recent months, we do have a figure from earlier in the year courtesy of The Kyiv 13:03 Independent. It quoted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha (An-Dree Sy-Bi-Ha) on April 11, who said, “From March 11 to April 11, Russia shot at Ukraine almost 70 missiles of various types, over 2,200 Shahed drones, and more than 6,000 guided aerial bombs.” 70 missiles in a month works out to between two and three missiles per day. It’s relatively safe to assume Russia has been keeping up these numbers ever since, and that’s a massive concern for Ukraine. Drones are one thing. Packed with explosives, a drone can punch a hole in a building or kill small groups of civilians. However, missiles are far more powerful, packing a punch so massive they can take out multiple buildings if they hit home. The X-32 and X-101s that the Arzamas factory played a key role in making functional are also among Russia’s most damaging. Taking out the plant means slowing down Russia’s production of those missiles. We may not see the effects for another couple of months. But when Russia runs low on its existing stockpiles, Ukraine will get a breather from these particular missiles because its August 11 drone strike took out the components needed to make them. Creating 14:02 that situation is especially important for Ukraine because it still doesn’t have enough of the modern air defense systems that it needs to fully protect its largest cities from Russia’s missiles. Calls for more of these systems are common, and are often led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As far back as April 2024, Politico reported that Zelenskyy was claiming that at least 25 more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems were needed to make Ukraine’s skies as safe as possible from Russian missiles. Fast-forward a little over a year, and Zelenskyy was still calling for more air defenses. “Patriots and their missiles are real defenders of life,' Zelensky said in the wake of a July missile attack on Kyiv that left 23 Ukrainians injured and at least 1 killed. “It is very important to maintain the support of partners in ballistic missile defense.” Clearly, air defense is an area of the war in which Ukraine is still struggling. And though Ukraine now has a promise from U.S. President Donald Trump to help it source more modern systems, we don’t know precisely what that means yet. All the more reason for strikes like the August 11 attack on the Arzamas factory. That drone assault isn’t going to destroy Russia’s missile stockpile. But, as we’ve 15:01 already mentioned, it will limit Russia’s ability to build at least a couple of types of missiles that have devastated Ukraine in the past. It’s all about buying time. Time for more air defenses to arrive. And time for Ukraine’s cities and troops as the country continues its strategy of deep strikes designed to disable Russia’s war machine once and for all. The Arzamas facility is far from the only key Russian factory Ukraine has taken out in recent days. In Tatarstan (TAH-tahr-stahn), Ukraine just obliterated a Russian factory of terror responsible for pumping out thousands of Russia’s long-range Shahed drones. Find out more in our video, and remember to subscribe to The Military Show for more coverage of Ukraine’s latest deep strikes against Russia.

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