Russian elections are frequently driven by violence. This one was no exception.
When I was part of a small team of American consultants that secretly advised then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s reelection campaign in 1996, I remember a news report of a campaign worker on the St. Petersburg mayor’s race having acid thrown in his face, not a campaign tactic frequently used in U.S. campaigns. What I did not know at the time was that Vladimir Putin was a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg.
The violence in Putin’s campaigns escalated in 1999. His rise to power was driven by “Chechen terrorist attacks” that blew up multiple apartment buildings across Russia and killed some 300 Russian civilians. Subsequent investigations showed that Putin, a former KGB officer-turned-Russian prime minister, likely authorized these false flag operations to rally support for his presidential bid.
As I watched this most recent Russian election campaign from Ukraine, violence once again came into play. But this time, violence worked against Putin.
In a U.S. campaign, the last few weeks before the election are the “get out the vote” period, an effort to drive supporters to the polls. Ukraine used this period as the “get out the drones” strategy in the 2024 Russian election campaign.
Two days before the elections, Ukraine sent scores of drones deep into Russian territory and crippled several Russian oil refineries hundreds of miles from Kyiv. Eleven refineries have been attacked in 2024, leading to a six-month ban on gasoline exports, curtailing funding for Russia’s war effort.
Ukraine has a navy smaller than that of the almost landlocked desert country of Jordan. Yet Ukrainian marine drones have sunk three Russian ships since January. Ukraine has taken out about a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet since the beginning of the war. The fleet is now hiding in Turkish territorial waters.
Ukraine is almost out of artillery rounds, thanks to congressional dysfunction. My friends at the front report as much as a 20-1 ratio of Russian artillery rounds fired to Ukrainian rounds fired. The only thing keeping the Russians from rolling through the defensive lines and giving Putin a military and campaign victory is Ukrainian drones. Hundreds of Ukrainians are literally making thousands of weaponized drones at their kitchen tables that are enabling Ukraine to respond to Russian artillery.
What Ukrainians are not doing is buying U.S. drones. Much of our weaponry was designed to be used against men in caves in Afghanistan and is less effective against an adversary with a sophisticated electronic warfare capability. In some cases, they are not effective at all. Soldiers in Kherson report that the tiny explosives on the Switchblade 300 drones are best suited for New Year’s Eve celebrations. An American I know fighting in Ukraine carried around two Teal Golden Eagle drones that he simply could not make work.
Despite the courage and innovation of the Ukrainian military, Putin won in a landslide, in part because he has graduated from throwing acid in the faces of his political opponents to killing them outright.
But here is how Ukraine’s efforts to influence the Russian election will affect ours.
The Ukrainians are now the most innovative military drone-makers in the world, and we are beneficiaries of that technology. The Ukrainians are demonstrating how to use a $250,000 marine drone to take out a $150 million Russian corvette. We are learning about this because our ally is doing it to an adversary, not because one of our adversaries is taking out a $2.2 billion U.S. destroyer. This is a cheap lesson.
The Pentagon will spend $145 billion on research and development in 2024. Probably none of it will be as game-changing as the lessons we are learning from the $42 billion we have invested in Ukraine.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Right now, Ukrainians are willing to fight and die using our weapons and their own innovations to defend their freedom and degrade the war-fighting capability of an expansionist Russia that believes its borders know no bounds.
Members of Congress who are concerned about supporting Ukraine ahead of the 2024 elections should make the tough choice to send relatively inexpensive weapons to Ukraine now or face being left without a choice to send the very dear lives of American men and women as soon as 2028.
Steven Moore is the founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project. He served as chief of staff to former House Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-IL).