“You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is ‘never get involved in a land war in Asia,’ but only slightly less well-known is this: Never start a war with a country filled with young engineers who grew up playing first person shooters.”Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate)APPLEBAUM: Ukrainians revolutionized drone industry, rewritten rules of war, and suddenly, perception of Ukraine is different.
Suddenly, Ukraine isn’t victim, it’s provider of security, even despite the fact that U.S. cut off supplies to Ukraine, hoping Ukraine would surrender.
Suddenly, Gulf states want visits from Ukraine and Ukrainian military because they want drone interceptors that Ukraine has to hit Shaheds.
Suddenly, European companies want to do deals with Ukrainian drone companies, and there are several big joint-venture projects now happening all over Europe as well as inside Ukraine.
Ukrainians are enormously helped by Europe, by European money and cooperation with European companies. But a lot of it is coming from Ukrainian society itself.
And this change happened a while ago, like a year ago. But in the last couple of months, it’s suddenly become clear.
And perception is shifting, and that changes also the way Russians see the war. And that changes assumptions that people are making about its outcome.
And certainly, the ability of Russians to move forward has also stopped.
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— https://x.com/BohuslavskaKate/status/2068059427513442671