“…almost everywhere, and their task is to make our offensive as difficult, bloody, and resource-intensive as possible. And this is not just about the ‘drone line’ anymore.
2/
“For example, we are now seeing tactical techniques like this: their artillery is positioned deep in their battle lines, beyond the reach of our main drones, and they keep their own forward positions and key objects on it well-fortified with well-positioned fire.
3/
“Accordingly, as soon as our forces start moving, they knock out an enemy stronghold with drones and go to capture it. The enemy then waits for our forces to enter and eliminates them along with the incoming troops.
4/
“Their drone operators, in turn, not only habitually scavenge on supply and reinforcement routes, but also catch our forces engaged in any activity near ‘formerly ours’ objects.
5/
“Add to this constant mining, including remote detonation, and the active use of ‘ambushers’ on the few (and well-monitored) logistical lines.
6/
“If our forces try to quickly deploy a second echelon - for example, drone operators - the enemy immediately launches a local tactical ‘offensive’ and, even at the cost of losing equipment and personnel, achieves its goal: …
7/
“…preserving the ‘kill zone’ between our forward positions and the nearest rear areas. In Kupiansk, for example, they successfully applied this tactic several times - which led to the current situation there.
8/
“Since this situation repeats itself not once or twice, our forces, at all levels, are increasingly less willing to advance at all, and they can be easily understood - it's an inevitable trade-off of kilometers covered for lives, and very valuable lives of soldiers: …
9/
“…those who actually know and are able to act in this very kill zone (the untrained ones will simply die without any result). Therefore, the problem of ‘map coloring’ is not just about headquarters' lies.
10/
“It's also about the difficult moral choice that commanders make: if I really go all out in an unprepared offensive now, I'll lose many people, but if I just send a few teams forward to plant flags and report on the drone footage about the physical presence at the necessary…
11/
“…positions - I'll save lives and equipment.
However, as a result, this leads to situations where it's impossible to request strikes on already ‘colored’ (i.e., ‘our own’ on the headquarters' maps) positions - …
12/
“…neither by artillery, nor by the Aerospace Forces, nor even by drones. Everything there is already ours! And as a result, we still have to pay with lives.”
13/13
The Russians have failed to develop an equivalent of Ukraine’s successful Sky Fortress acoustic system that detects and tracks Shahed UAVs
Russian bloggers are angry that a recent 1,800 km Ukrainian UAV strike past the Ural Mountains went undetected by Russian air defenses. 1/
Sky Fortress is a system of microphones mounted on cellular towers connected to central processing nodes.
AI algorithms detect the distinctive sound of Geran-2 (Shahed) engines, enabling mobile ground fire teams to be dispatched and stationed ahead of the UAV's flight path. 2/
“We have been proposing this [acoustic] option constantly since 2023. But the Aerospace Forces command has also ignored this option. As a result - the current situation.
3/
Russian blogger “Military Manager” has described the tactics of Russian “Molniya” strike UAVs used to minimize the heavy losses occurring to Ukrainian interceptor FPVs.
“1. Your target is in a forest belt in the enemy's notional rear area. 10-15km from the front line. 1/
“Several villages behind the LBS [Line of Contact] are directly on the route. How will you fly? The answer is obvious. Of course, we will bypass all NP [settlements] and the forest strips that are part of it.
2/
“Air-defense positions are always placed next to the enemy’s key assets.
For reference: the target is only 17 km away from us in a straight line, but we are taking a detour route 27 km long.
3/
I just reread Adam Tooze's magisterial The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, and the parallels with Russia's deteriorating wartime economy are striking.
By the late 1930s, Hitler's massive rearmament program consumed 20% of national income.
1/
The result was a civilian sector starved of labor, materials, and capital.
Consumer goods production was squeezed, infrastructure lagged, and bottlenecks spread across the country.
Despite headline armaments growth, overall productivity was undermined. 2/
This imbalance drove hidden deficits, liquidity strain, and chronic shortages.
With domestic consumption suppressed and foreign exchange limited, the German system became increasingly unstable.
This perversely supported the Nazi ideology of the necessity of conquest.
3/
“The population is being lured with free food – a mixture of flour and rice (4,000 kits were distributed at the opening), and the authorities with bribes.
✨As a result, Ukraine plans to obtain a logistics and production center for all of West Africa.
2/
“Under the guise of a humanitarian program, the hub will become a distribution center for Ukrainian agricultural products, reducing logistics costs for other countries in the region, which is aimed at long-term consolidation in the African market.
3/
“The army fights, while the rest could pretend it didn’t concern them. The regrouping on the Kharkiv direction gave an impulse for change, but that impulse quickly faded.
2/
“After repelling the 2023 counteroffensive, we convinced ourselves that victory would simply fall into our hands. We just needed to wait.
It didn’t.
3/
Ukrainian “Vampire” heavy bomber drones are switching to Starlink communications, allowing operators to stay hundreds of kilometers from the deadly grey zone.
Previously, Vampires relied on radio and GPS for control and navigation—both highly vulnerable to jamming. 1/
GPS jamming or spoofing from Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) systems, targeting incoming Russian “Geran-2” drones, can also down nearby Vampires.
Starlink provides immunity to EW, and its expanding use magnifies Russia’s loss of Starlink since its disconnection by Elon Musk. 2/