For Those Who Might Be Wondering Why We Might Be In Ukraine

[ChloeTzang]

For those doubting the Ukrainian casualty counts and the Ukraine / Russia ratio

Most of the estimates I've seen indicated a 10-1 ratio for Russians to Ukrainian soldiers. In *****, the Ukraininans have achieved an incredible 66 Russian to 1 Ukrainian ratio. THAT's a war winning LOL count, given there just aren't that many surviving Russian WIA's any more. They shoot them themselves, and good on them.

And now, TRUMP of all people is saying it's 14 to 1. Yep, Trump claims that since the start of 2025, Russia has lost over 112,500 soldiers, while Ukraine has suffered around 8,000 military casualties. That'll be US estimates, not Ukrainian, amd it's higher than the Ukrainians are claiming. The Ukrainians are notably conservative on their kill count. Their drone units require video evidence, as they get bonus equipment based on Russian takeouts.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/08...-14-times-more-soldiers-than-ukraine-in-2025/

 

[ChloeTzang]

Systemic failure within Russia.........

Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin is waking up to more bad news:
- Russia’s Elite naval marines – trained in advanced amphibious landings - are now stranded in the forests of Ukraine’s Sumy, over 1100 kilometers/700 miles from the nearest coastline and they are surrounded by Ukrainian troops - signaling another dramatic failure of Kremlin strategy.

Globally, things are not looking any better: India’s top oil refiners have halted Russian crude imports, slashing a vital revenue stream for Moscow just as economic pressures mount.

How about in Russia’s Far East? A catastrophic 8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami have crippled Russia’s only Pacific nuclear submarine base at Vilyuchinsk, threatening the backbone of its strategic deterrent.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Russia? July alone saw over 2,000 internet shutdowns across Russia as the regime cracks down on the free flow of information and the actual digital infrastructure of Russia cracks.

Even worse for Moscow but good for Kyiv? Putin’s frozen billions are now being converted into ammunition for Ukraine. If Pres. Donald Trump supports the initiative, Trump will have served a significant blow to Putin.

 

[Pad_Foot]

Now?? The Ukraine is a cash cow for defense thanks to Europe. Why ever end the war??

 

[ChloeTzang]

Now?? The Ukraine is a cash cow for defense thanks to Europe. Why ever end the war??

Any war is a cash cow for the defense industry. Doesn't make any difference to the war, but the EU can outspend Russia, crash their economy teh way Reagan did, and destroy the Russian Federation

 

[ChloeTzang]

Updates Deom Denys
- Russia canceling their own commanders.....local commanders who speak up and are popular with their soldiers are being eliminated....by the Russians
- Trump is beginning to do what's right....sanctions on Putin to be applied....India been told to stop buying Russian oil and state refineries have halted buying Russian oil.
- US Senate backs $1 billion Pentagon spending for Ukraine

 

[ChloeTzang]

 

[ChloeTzang]

Russian oil refineries hit again.....

Overnight, Ukrainian drones hammered six Russian regions - destroying oil refineries in Samara, Ryazan, and Feodosia. Military communications in Penza were knocked out. Airports shut down. Fuel depots ablaze. Over 112 drones overwhelmed Russian defenses in the largest deep strike to date.

Russia’s energy backbone was shattered. Command centers were blinded. And now, as internet blackouts and refinery fires spread, Putin’s war machine is paralyzed.

 

[Lazaran]

Russian oil refineries hit again.....

Overnight, Ukrainian drones hammered six Russian regions - destroying oil refineries in Samara, Ryazan, and Feodosia. Military communications in Penza were knocked out. Airports shut down. Fuel depots ablaze. Over 112 drones overwhelmed Russian defenses in the largest deep strike to date.

Russia’s energy backbone was shattered. Command centers were blinded. And now, as internet blackouts and refinery fires spread, Putin’s war machine is paralyzed.

The second video talks about Putin hiding the real economic numbers from the Russian public.

Does THAT ^ sound familiar???



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ukraine has launched another devastating deep strike inside Russia, targeting the key military electronics plant in Penza. Drones overwhelmed Russian defenses, igniting a massive fire and crippling a major supplier of battlefield systems used across Russia’s armed forces. Footage confirms the precision and success of the operation, exposing growing vulnerabilities in Russia’s interior. As Ukraine’s long-range drone strategy intensifies, critical infrastructure burns and the illusion of Putin’s control continues to unravel.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ukraine strike causes THIRTY explosions at Russian oil depot close to airport used by Putin​

Russia sucessfully intercepts Ukainian drones using oil refineries as air defence again, it’s a bold strategy but I don’t think it’s paying off, most countries use actual air defence weapons to defend their airspace.

 

[ChloeTzang]

 

[rachaelwillguideyou]

We're in the Ukraine because we're tired of hearing the queefing on here from Mother Russia's rancid, potato filled pussy.

 

[ChloeTzang]

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ukraine hits Russian Invaders airbase in Temproarily Occupied Crimea

During the night of 4 August, Ukrainian drones launched a powerful strike on a Russian-occupied airbase in Crimea. One of Russia’s most advanced Su-30 tactical fighter jets was completely destroyed, and four more aircraft were hit, the Security Service (SBU) reports. The target of the operation was one of Russia’s main airbases in temporarily occupied Crimea, the Saky military airfield, from which enemy planes take off to strike southern Ukraine and ships in the Black Sea. The base hosts strategic bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. The airfield lies nearly 70-80 kilometers from Ukraine-controlled territory.

The SBU’s “Alpha” Special Center used drones to deliver precision strikes on Russian equipment. As a result of the special operation:

• One Su-30SM fighter jet was completely destroyed - These fighters can carry up to 8 tons of bombs and missiles and have a combat radius of up to 1,500 km.
• One more Su-30SM was damaged
• Three Su-24 strike aircraft were hit

A warehouse containing aviation munitions was incinerated.

Ukrainian defense forces also struck a fuel and refueling facility at Sochi airport in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, the General Staff reported on Telegram on Aug. 4. Ukraine’s Defense Forces carried out a drone strike on a Russian fuel facility near Sochi airport on Aug. 3, sparking a large fire, according to the General Staff. The operation was conducted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Drone Systems Unit in coordination with other elements of the Defense Forces. The targeted facility reportedly housed Russian military aviation assets.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/08...million-su-30-jet-in-crimea-and-damages-more/

 

[ChloeTzang]

French automotive manufacturer Arquus Defense handed over the first ACMAT Bastion armored vehicles to Ukraine. This is reported by La Tribune. According to the publication, the French automaker has supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Bastion armored vehicles on VLRA chassis, which have passed a full cycle of tests. First of all, the cars were tested by the Ukrainian side. After three years of using several low-cost models, an official appeal was made to Arquus and a corresponding order was placed.

Recall that plans to supply Ukraine with 11 Bastion armored vehicles were announced in April 2023. Since then, the implementation of this order has been frozen. The company explained the delay by the lack of a corresponding French-Ukrainian intergovernmental agreement. Subsequently, in May 2024, Arquus CEO Emmanuel Levacher confirmed that the company is currently producing 11 armored vehicles of the Bastion series. According to the plan, they were supposed to be handed over in July 2024. Representatives of the company also noted that at the request of Ukraine, Arquus can produce up to a hundred additional cars.

At the same time, during the period when Ukraine needed these armored vehicles, the company sold equipment to Armenia. The cars themselves were spotted during transportation through Georgia in November 2023. Shortly before that, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said during a visit to Armenia that Paris had agreed to sign an agreement with Yerevan on the supply of military equipment for the needs of Armenia's defense. Earlier, Militarnyi reported that France does not support the purchase of American weapons to support Ukraine, as it advocates the development of a European independent military-industrial complex.

https://militarnyi.com/uk/news/arqu...li-vlra-bastion-pislya-troh-rokiv-vyprobuvan/

 

[ChloeTzang]

This guy is classic..... just a lovely report LOL. Had me alughing most of the way thru. HIs enthusiasm is contagious

 

[ChloeTzang]

Putin just suffered another staggering humiliation - on Russian soil. In a single night, Ukraine launched its largest drone strike of the war, slamming targets across Russia’s heartland.Confirmed: the oil depot at Sochi Airport - used by both civilians and the military - is on fire.But it gets worse for Moscow: The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced it attacked the Saky Airbase in Crimea. According to initial reports, five Russian military aircraft were damaged or destroyed:

• 1 Su-30SM destroyed
• 1 Su-30SM damaged
• 3 Su-24s damaged

This was a coordinated, multi-domain attack - targeting Russia’s oil, air, rail, nuclear, and psychological defenses.

And now, even Moscow insiders are signaling what they once denied:The liberation of Crimea may be underway.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ukraine Army kit...

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ukraine’s elite special forces have just executed a devastating blow to Russia’s summer offensive in Sumy. With pinpoint coordination, overwhelming firepower, and a strategy shrouded in secrecy, this bold operation not only crippled logistics but also shattered morale across the Sumy front, killig hundreds of Russians.

And a report on the same attack from the UK's The Sun

 

[ChloeTzang]

A Summary - Overview of the Fronts:

Moscow’s summer push is already showing signs of grinding to a near-halt without meeting core objectives. It’s still a dangerous situation for Ukraine, but even where the Muscovites have managed to produce a crisis it remains manageable - so far. The main danger areas are the same as last week, with trends not really shifting. Ukraine’s defense has stiffened a bit everywhere, but no counterattacks of the scale required to restore the front have been observed outside of Sumy.

To explain why Ukraine never seems to be able to stop every orc attack, keep in mind that on the average day Russian Sukhoi jets drop around two hundred glide bombs. Though highly inaccurate thanks to Ukrainian jamming, the lethal radius - even for someone hiding in a bunker - is dozens of meters. The warheads on the things are hundreds of kilograms - 250 on the low end, 1500 on the higher. Shoot enough at an area, and the majority of the ground will be affected. Moscow retains the ability to plaster a roughly five square mile area with so many glide bombs that Ukrainian positions simply stop being viable. To avoid pointlessly losing people, the Ukrainians have to not only disperse their front line positions but also evacuate before a major Russian strike hits. Drones and artillery will work on the Russians advancing to claim the area, eliminating over 90% of the attackers, on average, but waves keep coming, and eventually the sector is occupied.

Glide bombs aren’t the only weapon in the Russian arsenal, of course: traditional rocket and cannon artillery and a whole lot of drones usually join in. But like a raging wildfire, there’s just no way to stop a given area from being pulverized if the conditions are right. Defenders have to get out of the way and set up new lines. Thankfully, Moscow lacks the firepower to do this everywhere all at once. But the method still leaves Ukrainians forced to give up ground amid relentless attempts to infiltrate through the line at any cost - sometimes very important places that lead to operational crises like the ones slowly unfolding in Pokrovsk and Kupiansk.

It is because of the inevitability of having to cede some ground in the process of cutting apart orc advances that Ukraine has to be able to execute effective operational-level counterattacks to reverse enemy progress in focused bursts of effort. To minimize risks, these have to happen when the Ukrainians can achieve temporary drone superiority at a moment when the Russians are disorganized after advancing and not yet well dug in. Ideally the vanguard is surrounded and slowly annihilated, at which point Ukrainian fighters can consolidate new lines or reclaim old ones.

Is there the potential for Ukraine attempting an alternative style of counteroffensive, something hyper-opportunistic that doesn’t take the same shape as traditional major ground operations. Given modern surveillance capabilities, it might well be that individual corps have to begin advancing where they are able roughly in parallel. Instead of concentrating on one geographic area, this style of campaign would aim to swiftly overstretch the enemy in multiple distinct sectors, generating chaos that unseats the entire orc line. However, one expects something much more focused, either another attempt to sever overland logistics to Crimea or a direct counterpunch in Donbas. Whatever is planned, something big is in the works, of that wecan have little to no doubt. The signs are all there, and the timing makes sense.

Moscow is presently at its lowest ebb in terms of available and effective combat power since partial mobilization began in late 2022 thanks to depleted Soviet reserves and the rapid expansion of Ukrainian drone operations. That’s why the terror campaign against Ukrainian civilians is escalating again. The Russians are the ones engaged in a grand bluff from top to bottom, pretending that this isn’t 1917 all over again, lives being callously discarded by Moscow despite precious little evidence that the fighting is remotely worth it.

Putin is waging a bureaucrat’s war: he oversees a machine that got switched on and is now on autopilot, economic and social impacts are bound to escalate no matter what happens in Ukraine. He’s a guy who went all-in on a middling hand and now has to rely on bluffing his opponents into folding before he loses everything. Trump would not be starting to act towards Moscow as he should have all along if he wasn’t getting new intelligence suggesting the conventional wisdom is getting the Ukraine War all wrong. Just like in 2022.

 

[Rebel5soul]

Reports of rampant 'fragging' on the Russian side are emerging and if true is indicative of the pool of recruits they're pulling and their training.

Then there's the economy on the home front.

Repeating myself, Putin's most dangerous enemy is to the East, not the West.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Northern Theater

Muscovite progress across the north has been blocked all week, with the only noted advance coming near Tetkino early in the week. There, Ukraine’s probable diversion has accomplished its likely purpose: Russian attempts to save the beleaguered companies there have committed combat power needed to avert disaster closer to Sumy. Neither the Russian cross-border incursion near Milove down in Kharkiv, nor closer to Ukraine’s second city up in Vovchansk, nor in the Sumy direction, have relentless enemy attacks gained significant ground. The most intense fighting continues to be seen in Sumy, where the Ukrainians have shifted posture and are now actively counterattacking across the western half of the Muscovite incursion. Numerous enemy attacks have been repelled in the Yablunivka and Yunakivka sectors, and Ukrainian forces are reportedly threatening to break through on the eastern edge of the main ruscist push. Enveloping the advance echelon of the Russians would be a wonderful operational coup. Ukraine is reportedly using special forces backed by assault units to slip behind Russian concentrations near the front and sever their logistics. This tactic could prove very potent on any front boasting substantial forest cover.

Moscow has kept some of its most experienced troops fighting in Sumy, so to have them directly challenged and destroyed like this is a real blow. While down in Pokrovsk the quality of Russian command appears to be much improved relative to the earlier years of the war, it has fortunately never been paired with the top-performing Russian line units, save the Rubicon drone group. In Sumy stupid command decisions have neutered what could have been a much more dangerous Russian campaign. Overall, the fighting in Kursk and Sumy has been largely responsible for keeping the Russians from laying siege to urban Donbas. One of Ukraine’s airborne corps, on the other hand, appears to be in the operational reserve, I expect preparing to re-enter the fight full-on in a big way soon.

Eastern Theater

Kupiansk remains a crisis because Russian teams have crept dangerously close to the highway leading back to Kharkiv. Their success seems to come down to having plenty of cover to send small infantry groups of 2-3 creeping through. They come in an endless wave, most wiped out, just enough finding gaps between Ukrainian positions to build up over time and extend the Russian zone of control a bit farther. Strictly speaking, it’s almost ideal to have First (ex-Guards) “Tank” Army fighting so hard to ferry infantry and supplies across the Oskil in rubber boats to sustain operations north of Kupiansk. Ukrainian drone operators must be enjoying quite the turkey shoot (wild pig hunt is a better metaphor in continental Europe, I presume?) However, it’s the survival rate, no matter how small, that becomes an insurmountable problem in every zombie apocalypse scenario. If the incoming number of targets exceeds capacity to engage, eventually you’ve got to abandon your position.

I can explain forever how this eternal flesh wave approach is self-destructive for Moscow. But the effects take time to add up, and in the meantime Ukrainians on the ground have to figure out how to survive to enjoy watching Putin’s house of cards crumble at last. At some point, the integrity of the long and remarkably effective defense of Kupiansk will come down to Ukraine’s ability to properly secure the western bank. There is a way of looking at this front which suggests a plan to lure the Russians into a trap, but I have no evidence that Ukraine’s corps here actually has the resources for that.

Fortunately Third Corps is holding mostly firm on the Borova and ***** fronts, if claims made by members about their assigned frontage are accurate. That’s good, because the situation in *****, though not yet a crisis, could soon turn into one if a few things break the Russian’s way. Third Corps really needs to launch a counteroffensive to restore the line of the Zherebets so that the enemy can’t focus on kicking Ukrainian troops out of the forest plantations along the Siverskyi Donets.

The Muscovites managed one lunge on the ***** front that wasn’t summarily repelled, a push of around two kilometers between the forest plantation and frontline town of Torske. All they really accomplished here was securing a portion of the gray zone, putting additional pressure on Ukrainian troops in the forest plantation to the south. This does, however, create new concerns, especially if pressure is maintained. The more Ukrainian fighters are wedged out of the forests on the bank of the Siverskyi Donets, the worse the situation gets in Siversk, to the south. And some registered gains at the start of this week suggest that’s beginning to happen.

Third Corps restoring the line of the Zherebets looks to be the best way to ensure that Siversk doesn’t fall, as it almost certainly will if Moscow can secure both banks of the Siverskyi Donets. Slowly, after a years-long fight the orcs are nearing Siversk despite brutal losses. While the vast majority of the Muscovite gear and troops sent towards Siversk from the east the past few weeks have met with a grim fate, a few teams are slipping through and trying to entrench on the outskirts of the town. As much as assaults, armed ground drones are needed for security behind the front.

Ukrainians were taken as POWs in this area at some point in the past few days, which is always a worrying sign. It means that an officer didn’t plan for every contingency. At least they weren’t murdered outright. Hopefully they’re exchanged and brought home soon without the usual orc torture. Incidentally, the number of former Russian POWs caught by Ukraine a second time is on the rise. A fair number of the Muscovites sent home are simply sent right back to the front. Many had no training to begin with, and certainly didn’t get any after, because the Russians treat their own POWs as if their status is their fault. Incidents of Muscovites targeting their own as they walk to surrender are not rare - no cultist likes seeing another member escape.

Anyway, as has been noted many times, Siversk has held out a lot longer than anyone in Kyiv had a right to expect. Its fall, though not at all imminent, would have serious consequences for the adjacent ***** front now, because a major highway connects Siversk to ***** over the Siverskyi Donets. That’s the sort of logistics connection the orcs will always find a way to exploit if allowed, and if combined with pushing Ukraine out of the forest plantations would empower a march on *****. Hopefully the enemy can be held in the eastern suburbs.

Heading south, the Kostyantynivka front has deteriorated slightly in several areas, but not seriously. The Ukrainians really met force with force on this front over the past year, and what’s more, it looks like their fatality rates were about an order of magnitude lower than the enemy’s. Still, Muscovite troops are firming up control over a broad section of grey zone on the northern outskirts of Toretsk and trying to wedge Ukraine’s First Corps out of the western suburbs near the Kleban-Byk reservoir.

Contrary to Russian propaganda this past week, Chasiv Yar has not fallen - though a key portion did after sitting in the grey zone for a long time. Muscovite forces were able to seize the ruins of the high rise district and an adjacent forest tract, and that does mark the fall of the heart of Chasiv Yar - about a year and thousands of fatalities after the Russians first broke into the outlying districts along the canal that passes through the area. As a fortress, it has more than served its purpose. Another town sacrificed for the sake of the ones behind.

Ukraine is in the process of conducting a fighting retreat to a semi-circle set about ten kilometers from Kostyantynivka. I expect this line will hold pretty well, forcing Moscow to commit to an extensive effort to outflank the city’s defense by advancing west to the north and south. This will soon run into a problem: Ukrainian cities form a chain in the area along the valley of the Kryvyi Torets river. You can never entirely surround any one urban area. This is why Moscow’s original battle plan for securing Donbas in 2022 relied on surrounding the region, pushing through Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia/Dnipro. In part because of this, the adjacent Pokrovsk front is still Moscow’s priority, and the biggest crisis Ukraine is having to cope with right now.

The situation hasn’t substantially worsened over the past week, but it also hasn’t improved and still tends to slowly worsen. The Russians have further solidified their bridgehead over the Kazenyi Torets and are entrenching on the eastern outskirts of Rodynske. The T-05-15 highway and a major rail line are now both in range of any tanks the orcs manage to bring up to shell them. If the southern rail line into Pokrovsk is further compromised by the loss of Kotlyne or Udachne, to the west, the situation in Pokrovsk will become an outright emergency.

 

[ChloeTzang]

There have been no signs yet of any substantial Ukrainian counteroffensive starting up on this front. Unfortunately the longer the orcs retain control of an area, the deeper they dig in. While there is a lot of sense in using a vulnerable bridgehead as an opportunity to set up a shooting gallery, this is not appropriate in the case of Pokrovsk, given the danger of just one tactical mistake leading to the town and several brigades being surrounded.

At this stage, Ukrainian command is at a decision point where the choices are:

• Prepare to abandon Pokrovsk,
• Launch a counteroffensive to restore the flanks,
• Be forced to launch a rescue operation to extract multiple brigades at the last moment, with high casualties as a consequence.

If Ukraine’s armed forces in Sumy are able to stove in the Russian vanguard and advance to throw it back, that can’t be the only place they’re capable of accomplishing the same feat. Something like it had better happen in Pokrovsk soon. So far the Ukrainian lines south of Pokrovsk have held despite numerous vicious orc attempts to break through. Sabotage teams continue to infiltrate as far into Pokrovsk from the southwest, and Ukraine still hasn’t completely solved the problem they pose, but the enemy hasn’t yet seized substantial ground in their wake. Along the Kazenyi Torets south of the orc bridgehead Ukrainian lines are holding firm. So if the flanks can be protected, Pokrovsk should still stand.

The Russian tactic of launching frontal assaults that can’t be ignored while fighting hardest to make progress on the flanks shouldn’t be discounted, though. Breaching into Pokrovsk proper would make its ongoing defense questionable, making a major counteroffensive moot. Luring the enemy into a city before cutting them off probably isn’t going to work, because some orcs will hide out in basements for weeks reporting on Ukrainian movements until their radio batteries die.

The Novopavlivka front this week is little changed: orc troops are still filling in areas abandoned by Ukrainian fighters now sitting behind a defensive wall build along the Dnipro oblast border. But that there is a wall in place is evidenced by zero enemy progress west beyond positions reached by advanced spearheads a week or so ago. In the Zelene Pole area Moscow is trying to turn the flank of the Dnipro line and reach Berezove, but should also run into a strong defense line presently.

In the near future, enemy progress here should largely cease. All in all, I still see Moscow opening itself up to exactly the counteroffensive I’ve previously described. Even if a push all the way to Volnovakha is deemed too ambitious, a smaller effort that aims to reclaim Velyka Novosilka and throw the orcs back some ways along the Vovcha should absolutely be tried.

While it may sound appealing to hold the enemy along a fixed line indefinitely, this usually does great harm to the integrity of the defense in the long run. Fallback positions are meant to be natural jumping off points, not shelters you hide behind forever. The enemy always finds a way around.

Second World War battles in North Africa are not a perfect analogy, but many illustrate how logistics and reinforcements can theoretically turn the tide of a campaign with shocking speed. Rommel may have surprised the British and forced headlong retreats across all of Libya on several occasions, but he also overstretched himself and paid the price in his own turn. Incidentally, I lost a lot of respect for Rommel after reading him rail at length in his memoir about logistics officers telling him things he didn’t want to hear. Dude, if the panzerkampfwagon has no gas or bullets, bluffing otherwise only gets you so far.

I suspect Putin’s officers don’t like to think much about how quickly the front would crumble if their disposable soldiers were all cut off, leaving officers and those orcs who can bribe their way out of assault units to face the wrath of Ukrainian fighters. Making this happen on as many fronts as possible as frequently as possible is key to victory.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Southern Theater

Moscow is still trying to creep forward north from Kamianske on the Orikihiv front. Advance forces have reached a block of reinforced high-rises south of Stepnohirsk, and though most were promptly destroyed it appears some more have filtered through.

The Russian advance here is extremely limited in scope and potential. I get the sense that the Ukrainian corps covering this area has decided to make the five kilometer stretch of flat, mostly open ground between Kamianske and Stepnohirsk a convenient killing field. Proximity to a lot of Ukrainian territory across the shrunken Dnipro means that Ukrainian air support intervenes regularly.

Down towards the mouth of the Dnipro, in addition to the usual skirmishes, Kherson has seen the orcs take their terror campaign against local civilians to what is perhaps the next logical level. A bridge connecting part of the city situated on one of the larger islands in the river delta was hit by an intense orc air raid. Not much point in Ukraine using that region to stage attacks, because the river is much too wide. This was just another bit of collective punishment.

There are constant rumors about Moscow trying to secure a foothold on the Ukrainian-held side of the Dnipro, but they’re never verified. Some sabotage and recon groups do try to sneak around, sure, but a landing in force would be a bit too suicidal even for orc officers to order without risking open mutiny.

What the orcs love to do here and a lot of other places is send some poor fools with a flag to a place where a drone can snap a shot that gets broadcast to Moscow. Putin gets to feel like his boys are advancing, when in reality right after unfurling their rags they wind up blown to bits, Ukrainians posing with their own flag standing over a corpse. Some war machine you’ve got there, Vlad. Stalin is laughing in his grave.

Aviation Duel

Another Ukrainian drone strike on an orc airfield in Crimea took out up to five enemy strike jets, but aside from that the battle for the skies has remained the same this past week. Ukrainian jets routinely fly ground support missions, but the majority of sorties right now are to stop inbound Shahed strike drones. Cruise missiles are the other prime target for combat jets, and one of the necessary solutions to Moscow’s employment of Iskander cruise missiles fired from near the border and set to fly at ultra-low altitudes has to be Ukrainian jets patrolling closer to the border. The key to this is expanded AWACS support: two Saab aircraft allow Ukraine to cover only part of its airspace a portion of the time.

Ukraine’s air force needs at least six AWACS platforms to maintain two 24/7 patrols while retaining a surge capacity to cope with mass raids that reach the country’s interior. Only this will give the Ukrainians adequate visibility far enough over the orc side of the front to start destroying inbound drones and cruise missiles before they even reach friendly territory. This should also improve the efficiency of efforts to jam incoming glide bombs.

If allies will finally get serious about protecting Ukraine’s airspace, it is possible to boost interception rates for even Moscow’s best weapons through a combination of forward defense and actively hunting launchers with drones. Mothership drones carrying two to four smaller first-person strike models and acting as a signal relay ought to be able to penetrate orc airspace and start catching Iskander launchers when they prep to fire. Have problem, engineer will find a solution.

Strike Campaigns

Killing Iskanders needs to be a priority, as this week the Muscovites once again decided to show the world why it’s entirely appropriate to call them orcs. The Iskander cruise missile strike on an apartment complex in Kyiv last week killed thirty-one civilians, several of them children. Another crime demanding appropriate vengeance; since there’s manifestly no international law to speak of these days, that’s the only justice possible.

Multi-million dollar projectiles generally don’t hit a structure hard enough to collapse it by accident. There have been a few times during orc bombardments where it was totally plausible that a planner didn’t realize that the trajectory of a missile falling onto a target from a given direction would intersect with a high-rise. Still criminal, but at least intent to inflict wanton harm is lacking. But the latest attacks on Kyiv have featured drone and missile warheads packed with tungsten balls - not something you fire at a protected target like a bunker, or even a structure. Only - maybe - soft targets, like air defense systems… or people caught out in the open, like first responders. Inflicting harm on large numbers of civilians and interfering with medical services was a main objective.

Putin’s orcs are targeting Ukrainian morale without being able to correctly define it or work out how it is sustained. Instead, they’re operating under the disproved theory that rendering areas uninhabitable will progressively erode the target’s will to fight on. Israel has tried the same approach in Gaza, yet despite the near-annihilation of the place, Hamas still holds captives and fights on as it can. Ukrainians know they’re in a corner and have been since this all started. The depth of their will to resist hasn’t been so much as scratched. The question Ukrainians doing the fighting keep asking is how to win while losing fewer people in the process. Many outlets have already covered why so few of the Iskanders targeting heavily-defended Kyiv were intercepted despite being cruise, not faster ballistic variants - the orcs are always trying devious routes and altering the intensity of attacks. Sometimes they get lucky. Again, more aerial surveillance assets will do a lot to compensate. So will being able to hunt launchers.

Ukraine’s own strike campaign sharply escalated in revenge for the murderous hit on Kyiv, the moratorium on hitting energy sites literally going up in smoke. A couple refineries and storage facilities have again been set on fire by Ukrainian drones. Be a real shame for Moscow if sanctions and Ukrainian attacks came together to put a stranglehold on oil exports. Right when the economy is hitting hyperinflation mode, too.

Ukrainian drone flights a hundred strong now break into orc airspace almost nightly, inflicting a steady toll on factories, depots, and increasingly railway infrastructure. In particular, the Ukrainians are focusing on rail junctions in the Muscovite southwest. The emerging pattern suggests a deliberate effort to stall the movement of military supplies to the southern half of the orc-occupied parts of Ukraine. Sabotage operations in occupied southern Ukraine have also intensified lately, also often going after railroads - further signs that the Ukrainians are either planning something, or making it look like they are.

Targeting logistics at strategic and operational depths is rarely, if ever, about totally cutting an area off. The goal is to reduce total throughput over time, leading to resource competition between enemy forces on the front. Combined with an operational approach that emphasizes almost randomly applying pressure in various tactical areas, Ukrainian corps should be able to map out the weaker points along the enemy line and hopefully exploit this knowledge in a series of focused attacks.

Side bonus: the orcs are having to move short-range air defense systems away from Ukraine to cover hundreds of targets deeper in the empire. Sucks when a fight turns even, don’t it, orcs?

 

[ChloeTzang]

Naval Matters

The naval side of the war is still muted right now, but there are warning signs that portend a change. Moscow is reported to be investing a lot in naval strike drones of its own, possibly holding back from using them in order to try overwhelming Ukrainian defenses around Odesa at the right time. That’s the smart way to play it - maybe being forced to hide in port so much has forced the orc navy to innovate?

Regardless, sooner or later layered anti-drone protection has got to be set up to protect ports around the world. So many could be disabled by a single container ship being hit by a drone launched from offshore - same goes for the Malacca strait, Panama canal, and Suez canal. Helicopters sound like a great idea for anti-drone patrols until you recall that they’re dangerously vulnerable to SAMs unless properly equipped. I don’t know if the defense systems used on US helicopters to avert a lot of losses in Afghanistan are good enough to work in Ukraine, but might be able to spoof the first generation of SAMs married to naval drones.

Aerial drones are a great option for hunting naval drones, according to Ukrainian sources probably familiar with applied tests. Boats of all sizes have the disadvantage of being relatively easy to cripple, especially if they need intact antennae. The vulnerability of even gigantic US aircraft carriers can pretty much be summed up by the equation y=(however many intercepts the carrier group can achieve) + 1. Meaning that even a single hit by even a tiny drone is liable to be crippling. Floating military airfields are highly susceptible to fire. Something about lots of fuel and explosives in close proximity that just begs for incidents.

Submarines have their own vulnerabilities, of course, but compared to surface ships can at least hide from satellites without needing to find a storm - for now. I expect that they are bound to become drone hubs in the future, but for now, Cold War rules still apply to submarine ops. So it’s probably a very bad thing for Moscow that Ukraine’s intelligence services obtained and published detailed documentation about the operation and capabilities of Moscow’s latest ballistic missile submarines. If someone were ever to, say, use the information hunt down and simultaneously bushwhack every piece of the naval leg of the orc nuclear triad, that would do an order of magnitude more damage than hitting Moscow’s bomber fleet with drones hidden in shipments on trucks.

Incidentally, keeping track of Soviet submarines was my late father’s job in the Navy almost sixty years ago. He was a signalman, and wound up not getting assigned to river boats in Vietnam solely because he kept landing higher level security clearances. Ultimately he wound up doing what was then top secret work tracking Soviet submarines using their radio broadcasts. By today’s standards, electronic intelligence was in its infancy, and my dad’s job wasn’t much more sophisticated than what open source researchers do all of the time these days.

But it worked: Soviet submarines would routinely go to periscope depth or even surface to transmit status reports back to Moscow. My dad’s job was to watch a status panel corresponding to frequencies and plug in a headset to monitor any that lit up. He separated the junk signals out from ones corresponding to sub transmissions, part of a bigger team that also performed direction-finding and decryption. The best days were those when the submarine’s encryption partially failed, with portions broadcast in ordinary Russian.

He often jogged upstairs to talk to the direction-finding teams. Most Americans didn’t know it, but by the late 1960s the Soviets routinely kept nuclear-powered subs armed with short-range nukes near every major US port in the Pacific - maybe Atlantic too. My dad’s shop was just one piece of a bigger effort to figure out everything the Navy could about Soviet sub operations, and information was siloed, so he only knew about the Pacific. Technically he wasn’t supposed to talk about it even into the 2000s, but by that point anything sensitive he could tell had long since been revealed in Tom Clancy novels - and relegated obsolete by advancing technology.

Anyway, my point is that submarines get around. Naval versions of those Ukrainian missile-drones launched by submarines could probably overwhelm most port defenses around the world and hit more targets than one of Moscow’s fancy hypersonic weapons. Another threat to keep an eye on.