Russia turns to laptops to sharpen its firepower on the front line

Russian forces are using battlefield computers known as Strelets to drastically improve the accuracy of their artillery fire, according to a report from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) on how Moscow’s army has adapted over more than a year of war.

The systems, which resemble laptops in protective casings, were sent with Russian troops at the beginning of the invasion, but were often discarded or left unused.

According to Rusi, Wagner’s soldiers and specialist Russian infantry are now relying on the Strelets, which help them to detect and fire on Ukrainian positions, before quickly moving out of the way of missiles coming in retaliation.

The systems allow information from several feeds, including sensors on the battlefield or reconnaissance troops, to be fed back promptly to artillery units.

“Responsive Russian fires represent the greatest challenge to Ukrainian offensive operation,” the report said.

The improvement in artillery is also driven by the increasing use of Orlan-10 drones, according to Rusi, with each gunnery unit having their own fleet, as well as the commander of the overall axis of advance.

Ukrainian units are therefore often under observation from two different drone fleets, “each able to call down their different effects”, the report said.

The amount of time that Ukrainian soldiers have to get out of the way of incoming fire once it has been spotted remains minimal – between three and five minutes.

Ukraine is losing some 10,000 drones a month, including single-use loitering munitions, according to Rusi, partly because of improved Russian electronic warfare techniques. Unmanned aerial vehicles are now considered expendable pieces of kit by both sides on the conflict.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Nick Reynolds, a land warfare expert and author of the report, said the greater co-ordination within Russia’s artillery could be used to fend off initial waves of Ukraine’s anticipated counter-offensive.

Using the Strelets system, Russian reconnaissance units have been able to quickly identify early build-ups of Ukrainian troops before passing the information on to artillery forces to call in a long-range barrage.

“It’s very difficult to launch those kinds of offensive operations if your assembly areas – your forming-up points – are coming under heavy artillery fire,” Mr Reynolds said.

Strelets were designed to potentially send battlefield information from an individual soldier all the way up to national command.

It is considered similar to the Android Team Awareness Kit situational awareness app, used by the US military and available commercially to emergency services.

“Few Russian units were found to have Strelets during the initial invasion, and even among those that had it, it was often not set up properly or left in baggage,” the Rusi report noted.

But now Russian reconnaissance and artillery units are inputting the information in the system to report Ukrainian positions and correct long-range fire, it was reported.

In a sign of a more effective long-range fire strategy, a senior Ukrainian intelligence officer has said Russia was now increasingly targeting military facilities and logistical hubs.

Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of the defence ministry’s main intelligence directorate, said: “Previously, they failed to knock out our energy system and now they have completely different priorities – to disrupt our plans and preparations for active (military) action during the spring-summer campaign.” 

He said the Russians were striking command centres, supply routes, and ammunition and fuel depots, as well as air defence systems in recent barrages.

Use of the Strelets system is just one area of evolution for the Russian armed forces since its botched invasion began in February 2022

Moscow has most notably tweaked its use of infantry since the start of the war, when it lost tens of thousands of troops in unorganised, poorly co-ordinated attempts to capture vast swathes of Ukraine.

Smaller, better-trained units have been used for defensive operations, while poorly equipped, disposable troops are used to probe weaknesses in the Ukrainian line.

Thermal camouflage is now used to hide armoured vehicles, and reduce the effectiveness of Ukraine’s anti-tank weapons and spotter drones.

Given the reported shortage of long-range weapons and lack of air superiority, Russia’s air force had used glide bombs to increase their range of attack while keeping out of the range of Kyiv’s growing network of air-defence systems.  

The munitions, often fitted with makeshift wings to increase their range, pose a “serious threat”, according to Rusi.

Russia has also reacted to the devastating force of US-gifted Himars by moving its command and control centres out of the rocket launcher’s range.

Meanwhile, the time spent waiting for Ukraine’s counter-offensive has given Russian forces time to “put themselves on a more rational posture and get their forces organised”, Mr Reynolds said.

Russian engineers have been constructing a complex array of obstacles and fortifications along the entire front, especially in the south of Ukraine, which Kyiv is believed to be targeting as part of its upcoming push to expel the invaders.

These defensive positions, according to Rusi, are made up of “two to three lines”.

The first lines are composed of positions occupied by infantry fighters. Behind those are properly constructed trenches, often four metres deep by six metres wide to prevent tank crossings, followed by so-called fall-back positions.