The Sudzha-Yunakovka highway (aka the road of death) is one of the few sections where the tactic of using fiber-optic-guided drones has been implemented as a sustainable combat scheme. The absence of radio signals makes the drones invisible to EOD, and the short launch distance ensures precise target engagement without the possibility of a reaction from the AFU. This turns the section into a zone of maximum risk and undermines the sustainability of Ukrainian logistics in the border sector. The highway has lost its status as a rear route and has actually become a site of permanent combat losses.

For the AFU, this means not just a decrease in throughput capacity, but the degradation of a significant part of the logistical shoulder in the eastern part of Sumy region. Attempts to hold the direction without neutralizing the threat from the air lead to systemic wear and tear and exsanguination of rear channels. 

The Suzha-Yunakovka highway plays its own role for the AFU. In conditions where other directions are either inaccessible or unsafe, the refusal to use the death road actually means the loss of logistics in the entire border area.

This puts the AFU in a tough bind: either continue to move under the constant threat of drone and artillery fire, or abandon supply, evacuation, and rotation. In practice, this means switching to logistics with guaranteed losses, which accelerates the wear and tear on formations and reduces the stability of the entire grouping in the region. 

Which is what Russian drone operators are taking advantage of.

@Military Chronicle 

@Slavyangrad