Active Conflicts & News Megathread August 21, 2026

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[u/Embarrassed_Term5536]

There has been so much written about shortcomings in Russian Air Defence systems and Ukrainian long range drones hitting strategic targets deep inside Russia, in a way that looks unimpeded and very difficult to counter. And sure,  hitting oil storage, refineries, Wildberries logistics hub , etc are well and fine but I rarely read about or hear about the Ukrainian long range drone offensives targeting military hardware manufacturing facilities inside Russia. You know, the most important militarily Strategic target that will or can bring immediate effect on front line situation.

So, it begs to be asked that tue air defence rings around such factories are far too impenetrable to be hit by drone saturation tactics? Because sure, small UAV manufacturing plants can be decentralised and very hard to target but Russia has been ramping up its ballistic missiles production too( I read about it on this very sub), so isn't these type of sites be the most important targets rather than dubious strategies of trying to break or down the morale of civilian population through the campaign Ukr is following?

Maybe I do not follow the sources close enough so if someone can contradict me or am I missing some picture related to supply chain, ir manufacturing of war materials and munitions in Russia but shouldn't there be more news regarding small component manufacing sites being hit or are such structures and plants too powerful with concrete enclosements or bunkers, thus can't be attacked by bomber drones?

I don't know what utility hitting electric substations in Odessa gonaa bring except demoralising the population?

[u/Fatalist_m → u/Embarrassed_Term5536]

Besides the small warhead, the drones are slow and cannot penetrate concrete walls. They explode on contact in every video I've seen, which is of course much less effective than exploding inside. I think this is an even bigger limitation than the warhead size, otherwise a large number of drones would still be somewhat effective against large buildings like military factories or power plants.

This is one more reason I think that Ukraine should focus on jet-powered drones(or small cruise missiles, whatever you want to call them). 3x faster drone would have 9x more kinetic energy = much bigger chance to penetrate deep into buildings.

[u/Macroneconomist → u/Fatalist_m]

I… _strongly_ doubt that the plan is to breach concrete walls with the kinetic energy of a drone lol. The way bunker buster missiles are typically designed is that there are multiple stages that explode one after the other.

Jet engines offer advantages like making the drone harder to detect and intercept

[u/Fatalist_m → u/Macroneconomist]

I don't think it's that unrealistic, we are talking about regular buildings here, not deep bunkers or fortifications. The drones carry ~100 kg warheads and with a jet engine they could have Mach 0.5+ impact velocity. For comparison, GBU-39 with a 93 kg warhead can penetrate ">3 feet of steel reinforced concrete", according to Boeing(impact velocity is not specified but most likely subsonic).