The two key railway marshalling yards for the Russian Army in occupied Ukraine are in Belgorod and Rostov on Don.
And Belgorod railway marshalling yard just got cut off from the north.
Rerouting train traffic like this hasn't happened in Russia since 1941.
2/
This Reddit map of AFU advances indicates the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), upper right, may soon be isolated from the Russian power grid to points south.
Given the Rostov on Don NPP lost one of two reactors to a maintenance casualty.
Given the number of confirmed AFU brigades involved in the Kursk operation, and the complete lack of a Russian strategic ground forces reserve anywhere.
It is looking far more like @secretsqrl123 idea strategic envelopment of Belgorod than mine of a strategic raid.
7/
The much reported AFU woes in the Donbas were the result of mostly 2nd line units being put into the front lines behind a "Ghost Army" strategic deception while the elite units were being quietly prepared for the Kursk/Belgorod axis envelopment.
Meanwhile, AFU ground forces are making amphibious raid demonstrations at the Kinburn Spit to try and freeze RuAF ground units in Kherson from redeployment.
I don't doubt that Ukraine cyber hacked in Russian digital terrain elevation maps that the Russians compiled for themselves. Up to date digital terrain elevation maps are a good thing to have.
Plus NASA also had a huge archive of digital terrain elevation data.
War with Iran has kicked off and both the Trump Adm. and Israel have gone for Iranian Regime change with oil export, leadership decapitation, air defense & Iranian missile site strikes.
"The U.S. strikes are focused on Iran’s missile program and missile launchers. The Israeli strikes are focused on eliminating senior Iranian officials and on the missile program"
Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al-Salem Base in Kuwait, Al-Dhafra Air Base in the Emirates, and the US Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain were all reportedly hit by IRGC Ballistic missiles.
"Preliminary reports suggest the UAV was likely launched from an Iranian naval vessel — a move that would significantly extend its operational range and time over target."
This means the world has changed so radically that any US Army officer higher than Captain is negative value added on a drone battlefield because their professional military education is as obsolete 1930's US Horse cavalrymen Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures were in 1944.
The problem for an independent EU nuclear deterrence force is sheer numbers, the EU lack of them.
What the Putinists have proven is that Western deterrence assumptions about "acceptable losses" were naive mirrored thinking, attributing Western values to Russia.
The assumption of credible "deterrent effect" has to be shifted into the loss band of annihilation of threat forces - anything less than that, as the Ukraine war proves, is an acceptable loss for the Putinists.
We are at over a million Russian casualties to date.
That means a 200 kiloton nuke in either St. Petersburg or Moscow, or dozens of tactical nukes into airfields & missile fields across Western Russia as an EU nuclear response to a Russian first strike are acceptable at a minimum.
It looks like my 4th Gen nukes posts here on X shook out data from US three letter agencies. Who belatedly realized that classifying physics was both self-defeating & stupid.
The bad news is the FYEO web site is now reporting a _NINTH_ 4th Gen. nuclear tech approach by China with metal nitrogen/nitrogen anion salt.
Specifically, this new Chinese approach to 4th generation nukes that create fusion device without a HEU/PU fission trigger can be packaged as small as 100 to 200 grams and can fit into a group two size class drone.
My worst-case 4th Generation nuclear scenario was based on explosively pumped flux compression generator fusion primaries with U-238 jackets in something sized to fit into an ATACMS warhead.