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The war in Ukraine, presented for months as the great laboratory of 21st century combat dominated by dronessensors and electronic warfare, is entering a deeply contradictory phase in which technologies from the last century and tactics from the 19th century are resurfacing, not due to doctrinal choice but due to material exhaustion. There are really videos explosives. The war that looks back. Ukraine has entered a phase in which the narrative of permanent innovation begins to crack, because along with drones and electronic warfare, technologies and practices that they considered themselves surpassednot as isolated oddities but as structural solutions to a conflict that has become a test of industrial and logistical resistance. The battlefield no longer advances at the pace of available technology, but rather at the pace of resources still in stock, which is pushing armies to rescue weapons, doctrines and methods that belong to other timesadapting them to a radically different environment. Soviet mines. The Soviet anti-tank mine TM-62 has become one of the best examples of this functional regression, not because it is especially sophisticated, but because it combines three key virtues in a war of attrition: power, simplicity and abundance. Designed to destroy armored vehicles from underground, today it is also used as an improvised demolition charge and as aerial ammunition. launched from dronestaking advantage of its enormous explosive charge to compensate for the lack of modern ammunition. The result is an artifact from the sixties that has been found a second life in the most monitored and technical war in history, demonstrating that, when supply fails, creativity relies on what already exists. Image capture from a video shared on social media showing the view from a Ukrainian bomber drone as it drops a TM-62 anti-tank mine on a Russian position The war of attrition. The massive reuse of the TM-62 does not respond to a tactical preference, but to an industrial reality that affects both sidesalthough especially harshly on the Russian side, where producing and sustaining advanced weapons is increasingly expensive. In this context, recycling ammunition inherited from the Soviet arsenal reduces logistical pressure and allows the operational pace to be maintained, even if it is at the cost of saturating the terrain with explosives and accept levels of destruction and danger that turn the front into an increasingly more hostile and uncontrollableboth during the war and in the future. TM-62 When the engines disappear. That same exhaustion explains the return of the animals, one more timeto the Russian front, first as a logistical solution and then as combat toolin a process that is reminiscent of the last stages of great industrial wars of the past. The constant loss of armored vehicles, trucks, motorcycles and light vehicles, together with maintenance and supply problems, has led to replacing engines by animal tractionsomething that is not due to any military romanticism, of course, but rather to the need to move men and material when modern media are no longer available in sufficient quantity. A Russian cavalryman seen through the thermal imaging camera of a drone The return of the cavalry. The most extreme step of this logic has been the reappearance of cavalry chargesan image that seemed banished from the war imagination for some time. more than a century and now it reappears in real videos from the front. Far from being an effective tactic, these charges reflect a desperate improvisationin which an attempt is made to cross areas hit by drones with means that do not generate thermal signatures or depend on fuel, but that lack any protection against an enemy that controls the air almost permanently. Horses like white. Thus, in an environment where any movement is detected from kilometers away, horses have become easy targets for FPV drones, with images showing animals and riders jumping through the air hit by direct explosions, a real bleeding illustrating the brutal clash between 19th century tactics and a battlefield dominated by flying robots. Even when operators attempt to minimize damage to mounts, the reality is that the use of cavalry exposes to animals and soldiers to almost certain death, without providing real tactical advantages. Propaganda distortion. While these scenes are repeated, the Russian media sympathetic to the Kremlin have presented as examples of ingenuity and adaptation, wrapping scarcity in an epic discourse that avoids talking about losses and results. How they explained in Forbesthis narrative does not seek to convince the adversary, but rather to sustain internal morale and hide the fact that resorting to cavalry is not a brilliant innovation, but rather an unmistakable sign that modern resources are running out and that the war is being fought with what is left at hand. Go back in time. Thus, the combination of soviet mines recycled and cavalry charges draws a portrait of an army that, under Putin’s command, has gone from promising high-intensity mechanized warfare to relying on solutions from previous conflicts to the First World War. In fact, we had seen it previously with Soviet-era tanks. It is not a victory-oriented adaptation, but rather the symptom of a progressive degradation in which each step back in time reflects a loss of material capacity, and in which the price is paid by both soldiers and animals dragged into a war that can no longer advance without looking to the past. Image | WarGonzo, X, Vitaly V. Kuzmin In Xataka | First it was Finland, now the US has confirmed it: when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia has a plan for Europe In Xataka | If the question is what a drone from Ukraine is doing 2,000 km from your home, the answer is simple: take the war to the Mediterranean