‘Drones made at home, cost $300-400’: Ian Bremmer says Ukraine can do serious damage to Russia’s military, nuclear capabilities

Russian President Vladimir Putin might have believed that time and might is on his side, but the Ukrainians with their strategic drone strike showed that that’s a miscalculated assumption, said American geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer. This comes after Ukraine launched a strike on 41 Russian aircraft, deep within its territory, taking down nuclear-capable long-range bombers. 

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a “brilliant operation” and said it took more than a year and half to prepare. Bremmer elaborated on that to say how cost-effective the strike was for Ukraine who built the drones at home to take down the really expensive Russian aircraft. 

Bremmer, speaking to India Today TV, said, "The last time I was this surprised by an attack was when Israel went after Hezbollah, the most powerful non-state armed forces in the world. Within a matter of days Israel had destroyed their military capabilities, their infrastructure, the communications and decapitated their leadership. Shocking! This is easily as big of a deal. Ukraine has not just shown that they can hit back across all of Russian territory, they can do serious damage to Russia's military capabilities to fight the war, but also they can undermine Russia's nuclear capabilities, their strategic deterrence capabilities, their second strike capabilities, the balance of power between Russia and the United States, Russia and NATO. That’s a very big deal and I think it deserves real attention from all of us as to what the implications for this could be.”

The geopolitical expert said that the Russians are refusing to believe that they have fewer cards than they thought they had. “My biggest concern is if the Russians decided that this was the reason to engage in a tactical nuclear strike. That would be the worst possible near-term scenario. I don’t think it is likely but I think it is certainly more likely than it was two days ago.” 

Explaining how things have got this worse between the two nations, Bremmer said, “Part of the reason this war has gotten much worse over the last three years is because the Russians are engaged in criminal activities with impunity and no one is prepared to stop them. Part of the reason the war has gotten much worse is because the West does not believe that Russian deterrents and threats are credible. So they are willing to provide more and more military capacity to Ukraine.”

“Some of the strikes that we saw this weekend were at the Russian border with Mongolia... literally thousands of miles away from the Ukrainian front line. Some of these strategic bombers that Ukraine has destroyed, Russia has no means to replace them, by the way. Moreover, these Ukrainian drones are built in Ukraine…costing some $300-400. If you think of one drone taking out a strategic bomber that’s 100,000 to one return on investments in terms of asymmetrical warfare,” he added.

"A big part of the reason that Putin has felt that he can continue this war for three years with 1 million Russian casualties is that he doesn't value the lives of his own civilians and he hasn't felt like there have been serious consequences for him domestically by pursuing this war. Maybe he believes that he can continue to pursue this war because time is on his side. Ukrainians have just shown him that that was a miscalculation,” said Bremmer. 

He said if Russia keeps pursuing the war it possibly won’t remain a military superpower. They could become vulnerable to the Americans as well as the Chinese who claim to be the Russians’ friends today. Bremmer said it is also possible that Putin’s close aides could see it for what it is – that he is the one responsible. 

"If Putin is prepared to see things clearly, this should be an incentive for him to engage more seriously. But, Russians and Ukrainians are very far from an agreement. There's no common language right now. They are talking about prisoners' exchange, but that was done earlier and should not be a cause for sudden optimism…The fact that the Russians are willing to persist with that discussion in Istanbul, which the Americans, the Europeans, China, India-everyone wants... even just 24 hours after Russia's massive strategic defeat at the hands of Ukraine, is a reason to believe that this is an opportunity,” he said.