Vanir Ausf B

Chief of GUR Kyrylo Budanov told in own comment to BBC Ukraine, that AD and GUR have been waiting Russian Tu-22M during a week in the ambush. The bomber was shot down on the range 308 km.
Budanov told some thing was used, deeply upgraded by Ukrainian enginners. Some OSINTers on the GUR video recognized interiror of S-200, but with complete changed equipment.
If true, looks like we could extend the range of missiles much more than 180-240 km of Soviet S-200V/M variants
PS. Ukraine hadn't latest S-200D system with range 300 km. USSR had a time to produce and deploy only several complexes of this type in the late 80th, and they were only in Russia and were withdrawn from service in the mid of 90th. 
Ukraine had S-200V with 180 km range and S-200M with 240 km range (255 km on AWACS planes). They were withdrawn from service in 2011-2013


https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/articles/c3g58qn2jvgo?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2AfBzV1Eh_3H9H3O2ycqZbVOnB3WvjlLJhYLm5Fh4_3lVpdQphJ-pBTRU_aem_AdlSS5xReobUX09lrT-tHx8agDHkU2b3y0ncsvUX982bv2sWMivU_F_W5V7t4OaV4MVejUFjlmfwVQc283wuhDYP
 

Russian HE and cluster submunitions strike (likely Tornado-S MLRS/ Iskander-M ballistic missiles) on Dnipro city airport and 5 km out of it. It's theoretically possible to reach airport with Tornado-S from Enerhodar area.
It's claimed three MiG-29 got damages (it's unknown about their operational conditions before strike) , hangars with aviation ordnance was hit and some S-300 complex equipmemt destroyed. The time of strike is unknown, but more likely during last week.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

Heard about this tactics before, but don't recall the clips from it:
This war provides never-ending stream of challanges as how to siumlate it for potentiall future Combat Mission games.

Mick Ryan's take on the war after returning from Ukraine.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/ukraine-war-how-check-russia-s-momentum
Russia is now a more dangerous adversary than it was two years ago. This calls for change in how the war is fought.
There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a “defend Ukraine” policy to one of “defeat Russia in Ukraine”. At the same time, Ukraine needs to develop and share with its supporters its theory of victory. One official in Kyiv told me there is no clear vision of how Ukraine will win. A new Ukrainian theory of victory must be a foundational element of any revised Western strategy.

Mick Ryan's take on the war after returning from Ukraine.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/ukraine-war-how-check-russia-s-momentum
Russia is now a more dangerous adversary than it was two years ago. This calls for change in how the war is fought.
There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a “defend Ukraine” policy to one of “defeat Russia in Ukraine”. At the same time, Ukraine needs to develop and share with its supporters its theory of victory. One official in Kyiv told me there is no clear vision of how Ukraine will win. A new Ukrainian theory of victory must be a foundational element of any revised Western strategy.

Mick Ryan's take on the war after returning from Ukraine.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/ukraine-war-how-check-russia-s-momentum
Russia is now a more dangerous adversary than it was two years ago. This calls for change in how the war is fought.
There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a “defend Ukraine” policy to one of “defeat Russia in Ukraine”. At the same time, Ukraine needs to develop and share with its supporters its theory of victory. One official in Kyiv told me there is no clear vision of how Ukraine will win. A new Ukrainian theory of victory must be a foundational element of any revised Western strategy.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

Mick Ryan's take on the war after returning from Ukraine.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/ukraine-war-how-check-russia-s-momentum
Russia is now a more dangerous adversary than it was two years ago. This calls for change in how the war is fought.
There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a “defend Ukraine” policy to one of “defeat Russia in Ukraine”. At the same time, Ukraine needs to develop and share with its supporters its theory of victory. One official in Kyiv told me there is no clear vision of how Ukraine will win. A new Ukrainian theory of victory must be a foundational element of any revised Western strategy.

New update from General Oleksandr Syrskyi:
https://t.me/osirskiy/650
 
 

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but  RUSI just published a paper on the present and near future state of drone warfare.
Mass Precision Strike: Designing UAV Complexes for Land Forces
by Justin Bronk and Jack Watling
Excerpt:
Swarming capabilities are commonly touted as the most significant area of capability development in the small UAV defence sector. However, the requirement to swarm introduces significant hardware and software complexity, which in turn drives cost growth and reduces the number of individual assets that can be fielded for any given budget. Massed UAV groupings, as seen regularly in light shows at civilian displays, rely on a ground control station tracking the position of all UAVs in a formation at all times and a central mission computer sending commands to each one to coordinate their movements. This allows large numbers of very simple small UAVs to fly in a coordinated fashion, but it is not a practical approach for military UAVs and weapons in a contested battlespace, due to terrain masking, EW, signal range and emissions control challenges – the ground control station would be struck, decapitating the whole swarm. Instead, for a mass precision strike complex to be capable of swarming tactics, the individual assets involved must have onboard sensors and low-latency datalinks that are resistant to hostile EW disruption. In addition, each asset must carry a mission computer powerful enough, and software complex enough, to fuse the information about terrain, threats and targets received from its own  sensors and those of other UAVs in the formation through datalinks, and to react to that information dynamically in real time. These capabilities are not inherently new, nor are they reliant on advances in AI or complex machine learning models. However, what the requirements for sensors, datalinks and advanced software do is raise component costs, even if used with an inherently cheap airframe/engine combination.
Furthermore, if a mass precision strike system is premised on swarming tactics for its effectiveness against its core target sets, then the number of assets required to use it in a sustained fashion will be increased, due to the need to consistently project sufficient assets into the target area to swarm. In conjunction with the increased hardware and software complexity required, this requirement to sustainably field swarming UAVs in large quantities over time means that fielding this sort of system as more than a ‘Night One’ theatre entry tool is likely to be uneconomical.
In terms of where swarming capabilities are likely to add value commensurate with the additional cost implied by their inclusion as part of a precision strike complex, the primary application will be to improve the capability to overwhelm air defence systems... Other advantages of swarming capabilities are that they can help reduce wasted warheads by deconflicting target selection so that multiple assets do not hit the same target. However, doing so in a way that can differentiate between a target having been hit and successfully disabled versus a target having been hit ineffectively and thus requiring a repeat strike with another asset requires significantly more advanced sensor and processing capabilities than simple deconfliction. Ultimately, for target deconfliction and strike optimisation, the value added question will come down to whether the additional efficiency against defended and undefended target sets gained from functional swarming capabilities outweighs the strike weight foregone by the increase in individual asset cost and the resultant reduction in quantity.

Its a strange list.  Some of the battles listed are explicitly included, some listed are really parts of larger battles/operations, some are dead links in wiki, and at least 1 or 2 are air battles.  Not a great deal of due diligence might be why no one cares.
 
edit:  Several of them don't really translate to a good CM battle.  There were Allies meeting a little resistance and then pulling back and shelling a town into rubble.  A few are really operations that were more about organizational changes to support other units.

So the way I think through this is that the country with the biggest drone budget wins. Whoever can field the most UAV and C-UAV will control the battlespace and everyone else is toast. Therefore if you aren't the largest economy in the world you need to figure something else out. So the natural response will be nuclear proliferation as that is the only trump card left in the deck at that point and if you don't have nukes you are defenseless. 
I guess this is a good thing for defense budgets as all other systems can be scrapped and most countries will only have to maintain a few ICBMs. I reckon we can all look forward to a unprecedented period of peace among mankind or nuclear annihilation. 

Interesting post from Russian telegrammer:
https://t.me/rogozin_do/5657
 
 

UKR troops could push back Russians (11th air-assault brigade) from the forest on eastern outskirts of Chasiv Yar. Reportedly, Russians yesterday managed to seize several houses in the eastern part of the town, but were thrown back by counter-attack. Despite this Russians continue assault actions and increased number of airstrikes and artillery shellings of Chasiv Yar.

Kostianntyn Mashovets believes, the same "Russian summer offensive" more likely will took place on Donbas, not on Kharkiv ot somewhere else. Russians long time have been claiming a coming on administrtative borders of Donbas as one of SMO goals. 
For success Russians need to capture Sloviansk and Kramatorsk agglomeration. In own turn for this they have to capture (or at least come to Kostiantynivka town) on the south and elimynate Siversk bulge on the north. Current Russian assaults on Chasiv Yar direction are obvious intentions to approach Kostiantynivka to take initial positions for Sloviansk offensive. On Siversk direction Russians also began more intese assaults not only in Bilohorivka area, but on more wide section of the front. Though, these assaults look more like probes.

Northern outskirt of Kharkiv. Crews of two UKR "Bureviy" MLRSs (UKR modernized BM-27 "Uragan" on "Tatra" chassis) made a stop to rest and buy a coffee on refueling station nearby. Russian drone spotted them and targeted with Isander-M both launchers and security car, standing too close each other. Again a carelessness cost valuavle equipment and, alas, maybe servicemen lives. 
 

This is something I am really interested to see and have been thinking about a lot.
I think the strategic level games will remain fairly similar, although the fun challenge remains. For instance something like Afghanistan '11 incorporated a hearts and minds mechanic, but we now know how successful that wasn't in reality. If we see "Ukraine '24" as a proxy war between Russia and "the west", then the strategic-level elements are going to need to be even more macro, with additional "undermining democracy and eroding support" mechanics that target people in a whole nother hemisphere. This might make for a good grand strategy game but it feels a little depressing as a wargame, because it's a random factor whose outcome can't be linked to the decisions the player is making as a general in the theater.
On the tactical level you could argue that real-world technology is finally catching up to what gamers have been privilege to since the beginning - a magical eye-in-the-sky view of the battlefield, a perfect memory of every unit that allowed themselves to be seen, an ability to target specific "squares" with indirect fire even when there isn't a spotter on the ground... But right now with the relatively static front lines it seems like there isn't really any "fun" stuff to sim. Even if it was a drone-based sim, having a scenario where your start and end positions are exactly the same but one side just lost a bit less hardware than the other doesn't really feel like a win, regardless of what impact it might have in the longer arc of the war.
Perhaps a more interesting tactical level sim at the current level of drone warfare would be deep strike ops. Something structured like Phantom Doctrine but with drones sinking ships or bombing oil refineries instead of human spies infiltrating buildings. I guess it's easier to come up with a game-like structure when there is a clear success condition. We might have to wait till the end of this war to understand what that could look like in a CM-style infantry/ground tactics sim.

I'm not sure this is the way for China to take back Siberia.
 
https://www.ft.com/content/ba524406-ee6c-4c39-9ac2-110a2549569a
 

An update for Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi:
https://t.me/osirskiy/645
 
 

On-map self propelled guns and howitzers are not allowed indirect fire in CM. IIRC the rationale is that ranges for on-map fire would typically be too short for their trajectory to hit.