The Low-Down

Ukraine Sea Drones Hit Putin-Favorite Sochi Resort For 1st Time

2026-09-04T08:53:43.216-04:00

Ukraine hit the exclusive Black Sea resort of Sochi with sea drones for the first time, striking and damaging a Russian ship in the harbor.

Since Tsarist times Sochi has been a favored vacation spot for Russian elites and current President Putin is a regular visitor. That the Ukrainians launched the attack in broad daylight rather than at night as they usually do for sea drone attacks was clearly intended for it to be seen and to send a message to the Russian oligarchy that nowhere they may want to travel in their country is now safe from Ukrainian attack. JL

Howard Altman reports in The War Zone:

Ukraine carried out one of its farthest uncrewed surface vessel (USV) attacks from Ukrainian shores, striking the Nefrit, a multipurpose offshore vessel, in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi. The seaside getaway is located about 350 miles on a direct line from the nearest Ukrainian-held territory, but the trip is a lot longer if originating from Ukrainian-held shores. This marks the first known USV attack on this city that Russian President Vladimir Putin often visits. That the attack occurring during broad daylight is also interesting, as Ukraine has often taken advantage of the cover of darkness for USV strike operations on port facilities. There was no immediate response from the Kremlin.
Ukraine carried out one of its farthest uncrewed surface vessel (USV) attacks from Ukrainian shores, striking the Nefrit, a multipurpose offshore vessel, in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi. The seaside getaway is located about 350 miles on a direct line from the nearest Ukrainian-held territory, but the trip is a lot longer if originating from Ukrainian-held shores.
This marks the first known USV attack on this city that Russian President Vladimir Putin often visits. As we have reported in the past, it has been attacked several times by Ukrainian aerial drones.

The Russian Black Sea port of Sochi came under attack on Thursday. (Google Earth)
The Ukrainian Navy said it carried out the attack as part of the country’s campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure. The Nefrit supported that infrastructure, the Ukrainian Navy claimed.
“The multipurpose support vessel, flying the Russian flag, was hit by an unmanned naval vessel of the Ukrainian Navy,” the service said on Telegram. “A powerful explosion and smoke were observed in the area of the vessel.”
“The NEFRIT is part of Russia’s maritime and energy infrastructure, providing support for oil and gas operations, servicing offshore facilities, transporting cargo and personnel, and carrying out underwater technical work,” the Ukrainian Navy explained. “Its activities directly supported the enemy’s war economy and financed the criminal aggression against Ukraine.”
“The damage to the NEFRIT is a blow to the enemy’s logistics, special capabilities, and military-economic infrastructure,” the Ukrainian Navy added. “The Ukrainian Navy continues to deprive the enemy of resources and capabilities for waging war, and once again demonstrates that even Russian territory is not a safe haven.”
While the Ukrainian Navy claimed the Nefrit was damaged, the extent of that is hard to determine from imagery emerging on social media.

Some video, shot from inside the city, shows a large explosion at the port.

A still picture shows smoke wafting from the Nefrit; however, the quality of the image makes it hard to determine the vessel’s condition.

Starting at about 6 a.m. local time, Sochi Mayor Andrey Proshunin declared an emergency.

“ATTENTION! THREAT OF A USV ATTACK IN SOCHI,” he warned on Telegram. “All forces and resources are working to defend the city. Take shelter in a safe place, remain calm.”

About a half hour later, Proshunin issued an all-clear notice, but did not provide any details about what happened.

There was no immediate response from the Kremlin.
Ukraine has carried out long-distance USV attacks on Russian Black Sea targets in the past, including one in 2023 on the Ropucha class vessel Olenegorsky Gornyak, located in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. A major Russian port on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, it sits roughly 420 miles from Ukrainian-held shores. Sochi is about 110 miles southeast of Novorossiysk, meaning the USVs in today’s attack would have had to travel an even longer distance if launched from Ukrainian-held shores. However, the launch point of the Sochi USV strike is not publicly known and there is always the possibility that a mothership could have been used.
The attack occurring during broad daylight is also interesting, as Ukraine has often taken advantage of the cover of darkness for USV strike operations on port facilities.

The strike on the Nefrit is the latest in Ukraine’s long-running drone boat campaign in the Black Sea. This onslaught has already kept Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (BSF) at bay, forcing it to retreat from Crimea to Novorossiysk. Ukrainian USVs have also damaged enemy military facilities in occupied Crimea and the Kerch Bridge.

Moscow Airports Cancel Flights 2nd Night After Ukraine Drone Attack Warning

2026-09-04T08:28:52.621-04:00

The point here is to further impress upon the Russian people, especially the elites who value their ability to travel, that Putin's war is now threatening their lives, to say nothing of their way of life.

Ukraine is making it clear that it can and will follow through on its threats. JL

Chris York reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Flights in and out of Moscow's Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo airports were restricted for the second night in a row on Sept. 2, after Ukraine warned of a new campaign to "close" Russian skies. "Temporary restrictions on the arrival and departure of aircraft have been introduced," Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) said. President Zelensky on Sept. 1 warned airlines, insurers, and foreign governments that Russian airspace "will be de facto closed" because of Ukrainian drones. Live tracking of arrivals at Sheremetyevo Airport showed almost every flight scheduled for the afternoon of Sept. 3 either delayed or canceled. A similar situation was reported at Vnukovo Airport.
Flights in and out of Moscow's Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo airports were restricted for the second night in a row on Sept. 2, after Ukraine warned of a new campaign to "close" Russian skies.
"Temporary restrictions on the arrival and departure of aircraft have been introduced," Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sept. 1 warned airlines, insurers, and foreign governments that Russian airspace "will be de facto closed" because of Ukrainian drones.
Zelensky gave few details about what the new campaign would entail, other than making clear it would involve lots of drones.

"There will simply be drones in Russia's skies on a scale that has to be taken into account," he said, as he warned "every airline that uses Russian airspace" against flying over the country.
Most Western airlines stopped flying to Russia after the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One exception is Turkey's Pegasus Airlines, which on Sept. 2 announced that "flights to Russia scheduled overnight from 1 to 2 September were canceled due to technical and operational reasons."
It added that flights from "Sept. 2 onwards are operating as scheduled."
But FlightRadar24 live tracking of arrivals at Sheremetyevo Airport showed almost every flight scheduled for the afternoon of Sept. 3 either delayed or canceled. A similar situation was reported at Vnukovo Airport.

FlightRadar24 also reported that overnight on Sept. 2, 21 flights were canceled and 235 delayed at Sheremetyevo, while 22 flights were canceled and 94 delayed at Vnukovo.
Zelensky's announcement comes at a time when, in the absence of meaningful changes on the front lines, both Ukraine and Russia are looking for other ways to increase pressure on each other.
For Russia, this has meant a drastic escalation in drone and missile strikes, particularly on Kyiv.
For Ukraine, lacking the long-range missile firepower of Russia, it means becoming more creative with long-range drones.

Forcing the closure of Russian airspace using drones is not a new idea, and Ukraine has been employing the tactic for nearly a year and a half.
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) began Operation Carpet in the spring of last year, with the aim of disrupting Russian airport operations by deliberately flying drones over them, people familiar with the matter, who did not want to be named for security reasons

Four Sectors, One Signal: Russian Vulnerability Along the Front

2026-09-04T08:19:43.347-04:00

A series of recent Ukrainian successes in four distinct sectors - Donetsk, Zaporizhhia, Sumy and Kharkiv - signal that the combination of these tactical operations could combine and add up to a strategic advantage for Kyiv's forces.

That this is happening not just in one sector but in what are arguably the four most heavily contested areas of the entire front suggest that Russia does not have the current mass to defend its extended deployment, let alone advance in any significant way in even one of them. JL

Giorgio Provinciali reports:

Ukrainian forces are achieving a series of tactical successes that could significantly alter the geometry of the front. Recent Ukrainian advances between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia — iand in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions mark the beginning of an operation distorting the front along the pivots where the Russians seemed to be aiming their summer offensive. At this stage Ukraine has no need to pursue a breakthrough: it simply needs to build depth, move drones and artillery closer to Russian supply lines, and make every enemy rotation slower, more visible, and more costly. Every Russian salient transformed from an offensive springboard into a logistical problem deprives Moscow of a choice and gives Kyiv one back. The war will be decided when one side loses freedom of maneuver, the adversary’s logistics are constrained, when salient points become traps, and when offensives no longer create panic but create opportunity.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are achieving a series of tactical and operational successes that, if consolidated, could significantly alter the geometry of the front. Recent Ukrainian advances between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia — in Mala Tokmachka, Bilohiria, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka — and then in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions mark the beginning of a complex operational phase that is distorting the front precisely along the pivots where the Russians seemed to be aiming to base their summer offensive maneuvers.

Let’s be clear: we are not yet facing a Ukrainian strategic breakthrough. Talking today about a “march on Tokmak” or “broken Russian salients in Donbas” would be premature; however, ignoring their importance would be equally wrong.
On the southern front, the value of the Ukrainian successes at Mala Tokmachka and Bilohiria is measured not only by the square kilometers retaken but also by the direction in which they are moving: Orikhiv, Robotyne, Verbove, Tokmak. Anyone who has observed this war closely, or read the reports we have compiled for years, including those from those places, knows that Tokmak is no ordinary name: it is one of the Russian logistical and defensive fulcrums of occupied Zaporizhzhia, the hub protecting access to Melitopol’ and thus the deepest point of the Russian corridor to Crimea. It is the reality against which the largest Ukrainian counteroffensive operation of 2023 was shattered. It is the waking nightmare we lived through between the end of that year and the beginning of the next, when the young men you see in our videos died alongside us defending Ukraine. “Токмак це Україна” (Tokmak is Ukraine) — the inscription that stood out for four years on the flagpole at the entrance to Orikhiv, before a Russian drone destroyed it and other flags, including ours.
Held for over 1,500 days under heavy artillery, drones, guided glide bombs, and constant mechanized assaults, Mala Tokmachka — which translates as “little Tokmak” — has become a vivid demonstration of Russia’s inability to turn mass action into decisive action.

On the easternmost hinge, Bilohiria completes the picture: it now forces Moscow to defend not only the frontal axis at Orikhiv but also the lateral connection to Huliaipole.
For months, the Kremlin has built its narrative on relentless pressure, marked by small advances, destroyed villages, and flags filmed among the rubble. Today, that propaganda is silent: an offensive system that cannot close Mala Tokmachka continues to consume men and resources for a few pulverized blocks and sees the threat of interdiction toward Tokmak reopening.
It is not advancing. It is paying extremely high interest rates on an operational debt it can no longer repay. Unlike 2023, at this stage Ukraine has no need to pursue a spectacular breakthrough: it simply needs to rebuild depth, improve observation, move drones and artillery closer to Russian supply lines, and make every enemy rotation slower, more visible, and more costly.

Even more interesting is what is happening on the Lyman salient. Large as they are, Ridkodub and Katerynivka are not important for their size but because they flank a Russian bridgehead that has been trying for months to turn Zherebets into an offensive platform against the northern sector of the Ukrainian Donbas: a salient built by the Russians, leaving tens of thousands of men there. If Ukrainian forces manage to compress enemy positions between Ridkodub, Nove, Katerynivka, and the river crossings, the pressure Moscow intended to exert on Lyman ceases to be a linear problem and becomes a logistical one: who supplies, from where, through which forest strips, under what electronic coverage, and at what risk of being detected by drones before even reaching the position.
In those areas, we documented rapid mechanized assaults, protected vehicles such as the Cobra II and BTR-4E, infantry landing under cover of electronic warfare, jamming or delaying Russian FPVs, and the enemy’s use of fiber-optic drones that are immune to jamming but less readily deployable en masse.
This is where we spent endless nights during relentless bombing. The entrance to this basement collapsed as soon as we entered. We left much later, digging through the rubble in a direction different from the entrance. There was a little mouse that occasionally came to visit us between the mattresses: we named her Larissa :) — copyrighted photo Giorgio Provinciali
It’s the war we’ve been describing for months: a front no longer linear but volumetric, with rear areas that blur into risk gradients dominated by sensors, radio nodes, jamming, and kill zones. Small assault units and the ability to rapidly consolidate a strip of ground have been our home for 1,557 days.
The strategic significance is clear. Lyman is one of the northern gateways to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian defensive backbone in the Donbas. If Moscow loses momentum on this flank or is forced to shift reserves to prevent its bridgehead from collapsing, pressure on the Ukrainian fortress belt will diminish, and with it any possibility of an outflanking from the northeast.
Every Russian salient transformed from an offensive springboard into a logistical problem deprives Moscow of a choice and gives Kyiv one back.

The same pattern is unfolding further north, in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. The Russians’ stated goal was to create a buffer zone for infiltration, observation, drone launches, psychological pressure, and political constraint, transforming the international border into a second permanent line of contact and forcing Ukraine to immobilize reserves that would be needed elsewhere.
The liberation of a growing number of villages in Kharkiv, the Ukrainian pressure toward the border in the Velykyi Burluk direction, and the loss of Russian momentum in Sumy should be interpreted precisely as such: they are the negation of an operational plan, because a buffer zone — or «sanitary zone», as Vladimir Putin chose to call it — only works if it becomes stable.

Four sectors sending a single signal: the Russian front is crumbling.
We are not facing the end of the war or a general counteroffensive. Russia retains mass, depth, artillery, bombs, missiles, and a brutal capacity to consume men. But the war is decided when one side loses freedom of maneuver, when the adversary’s logistics are constrained, when salient points become traps, and when offensives no longer create panic but instead create operational debt.
For months, Moscow has tried to convince the world that Ukraine could only resist. The camp explains that Kyiv is once again choosing where to strike. Not yet enough to break the Russian front, but enough to prevent it from remaining unchanged.

Ukraine Advances At Kupiansk As Trapped Russians Forced To Get Water By Drone

2026-09-04T08:02:46.511-04:00

Ukrainian forces are having success continuing their strategy of identifying weaker segments of the Russian front line and then opportunistically striking them. This has been particularly true in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts, as well as around Lyman.

On the Kupiansk sector, Ukrainian troops have pushed the Russians back four square kilometers, adding to the Kremlin's string of losses in that area. As much as the Russians want Kupiansk and continue trying to take it, they have not been able to muster the mass to do so and the Ukrainians have made them pay for trying. JL

Olena Mukhina reports in the Euromaidan Press and RBC-Ukraine reports:

Ukraine's National Guard says its assault units have cleared four square kilometers of ground near Kupiansk. The Khartiia corps have pushed Russian forces out of territory between the settlements of Dvorichna and Zapadne, working with the 35th Marine Brigade. Russian forces in the area had been effectively paralyzed by a fuel shortage, with even water being delivered exclusively by drones. Ukraine's Defense Forces continue to make gains in several sectors of the front line. Independent observers have reported Ukrainian advances on multiple fronts in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
Ukraine's National Guard says its assault units have cleared four square kilometers of ground near Kupiansk. According to the military, fighters of the 23rd R.U.G. Assault Regiment of the Khartiia corps have pushed Russian forces out of territory between the settlements of Dvorichna and Zapadne, working with the 35th Separate Marine Brigade on one stretch.
Russia wants Kupiansk as a logistics node and a springboard for pushing deeper into Kharkiv Oblast. Just outside the city sits the Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi station, a key rail hub whose capture would let Russian forces move supplies and equipment far more easily.
“Overall, another 4 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory have been liberated. As long as the enemy remains on our land, the work continues,” the National Guard said.

A city fought over from both banks

The clearing north of the city is only one part of a contested picture. Kupiansk straddles the Oskil River: Ukraine holds the left, eastern bank, while Russian forces have pushed onto the right, western bank closer to Ukraine's rear.
On 2 September, Viktor Tregubov, head of communications for Ukraine's Joint Forces Group, said Russian troops had infiltrated part of northern Kupiansk on that right bank.
"On the right bank, the Russians are trying to hold the northern parts of the city, where they've already infiltrated some of their fighters," he told Suspilne, adding that Ukrainian forces are making trouble for them there.
The infiltrators are trying to reach the city through the village of Holubivka, he said.

On the left bank, Russian units are trying to reach the railway station.

"The Russians are pushing very hard toward it. They want to narrow our bridgehead," Tregubov reported.
No confirmed Russian advance
Back in July, Trehubov mentioned the Russian forces’ logistical problems in this direction, according to ArmyInform.
He explained that logistics for Russian forces in the area had been effectively paralyzed by a fuel shortage, with even water being delivered exclusively by drones.
Ukraine's Defense Forces continue to make gains in several sectors of the front line. In particular, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have reported Ukrainian advances on multiple fronts in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

There Are Many Investors With Shares In Both Anthropic, OpenAI. They'll Cash In

2026-09-04T07:47:48.873-04:00

It used to be in tech investing, that you picked one company in a competitive market and bet on (invested in it). Not with AI. Analysis reveals that many investors have put their money on both. This is both because it is expected that both will do well - and, frankly - because the AI firms need so much money that a small group of VCs and others is insufficient to provide that much capital.

And as Anthropic and OpenAI maneuver to lan their IPOs, those 'both and' investors are positioned to cash in. The only downside is that even as AI becomes an ever narrower but ever more powerful driver of the economy, the additional concentration of investment means that those firms and individuals are not just going to get immeasurably wealthier if it all works out, but that they will be irretrievably exposed if it doesn't. JL

Erin Griffith reports in the New York Times:

As Anthropic and OpenAI prepare to go public, the question around Silicon Valley is which investors will win big. The answer, it turns out, is just about everyone. Anthropic has raised more than $130 billion from 300 investors, according, including venture capital firms, hedge funds, big tech companies and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. OpenAI has raised more than $180 billion from 230 investors. As Anthropic and OpenAI grew, their need for capital outpaced backing from venture firms. Menlo Ventures created a “special purpose vehicle” that rounded up many small investors into one $750 million entity. Thrive Capital created a similar vehicle to invest in OpenAI. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia also took stakes in both Anthropic and OpenAI. Other investment firms obtained shares of Anthropic and OpenAI when the A.I. companies bought smaller firms with stock. Some of these giants are now the biggest shareholders of the start-ups.

As the artificial intelligence companies Anthropic and OpenAI prepare to go public, the question around Silicon Valley is which investors will win big.
The answer, it turns out, is just about everyone.
At least 95 investors have put money into both Anthropic and OpenAI, according to a tally on PitchBook, which tracks private investment. Sequoia Capital, a marquee venture capital firm, invested in both start-ups. So did Founders Fund, Coatue Management and Altimeter Capital Management.
That’s highly unusual. In the past, venture capital firms that invest in young start-ups typically backed just one company in a fast-growing new technology category. Putting money into direct competitors was considered a conflict of interest.
But the A.I. boom has changed nearly everything around Silicon Valley, and the way that investors nurture start-ups is no exception. Top firms on Sand Hill Road — the famous stretch in Menlo Park, Calif., that remains the nexus of venture capital firms — have shifted their norms and adapted their strategies so that they do not miss out on investing in the A.I. companies that could be the next $2 trillion winner. Few large investment funds want to say, “We missed both” OpenAI and Anthropic, said Karan Mehandru, an investor at Madrona Venture Group.
Just how much of Silicon Valley is tied up in the success or failure of Anthropic and OpenAI is evident from the amount of money that the two privately held companies have accumulated.
Anthropic has raised more than $130 billion from roughly 300 investors, according to PitchBook, including venture capital firms, hedge funds, big tech companies and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. OpenAI has raised more than $180 billion from roughly 230 investors, such as big tech companies and Joshua Kushner’s investment firm, Thrive Capital.
In contrast, Facebook (before it became Meta) raised just $2.4 billion ahead of going public in 2012 and Uber raised roughly $20 billion before reaching the stock market in 2019. Not all of the investors named as Anthropic and OpenAI shareholders by PitchBook got their shares through traditional venture funding rounds; the list includes some who bought indirectly via private share sales on the “secondary market,” which is when investors obtain stock from existing shareholders like employees or early investor.

SpaceX’s successful $1.7 trillion initial public offering in June has further fueled investor excitement for Anthropic and OpenAI. Anthropic is heading toward a public offering this year that could value it at $2 trillion and become the biggest listing ever. OpenAI may go public next year, and its offering is also expected to be enormous. For investors, that means “all the numbers are bigger, including the entry price and the exit price,” said Sohail Prasad, chief executive of Destiny100, a firm that bought shares of OpenAI and Anthropic on the secondary market.

Anthropic and OpenAI declined to comment. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.) For years, venture capital investors followed similar rules. Their idea was to take a big stake in a young company and help it with advice. The investor would take a seat on the start-up’s board.

When Facebook went public, the venture firm Accel Partners owned 11.4 percent of the company’s stock. Jim Breyer, a partner at the firm, sat on Facebook’s board alongside Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel, two other venture capital investors.

And when Uber went public, the venture firm Benchmark Capital Partners owned 11 percent of the company. One of Benchmark’s investors, Matt Cohler, sat on the board.

But Anthropic, which was founded five years ago, looks very different. That’s partly because venture firms initially dismissed the company as a science project. More than 20 firms rejected the start-up’s pitch, Anjney Midha, an Anthropic investor, said on a recent podcast. Instead, people in effective altruism circles, the philanthropic movement that prioritizes data and analysis for social causes, first invested in Anthropic.

Spark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, eventually led a round of funding in Anthropic in 2023. Yasmin Razavi, a Spark Capital investor, joined Anthropic’s board. Around that time, Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, and Neerav Kingsland, an Anthropic executive, visited the home of Guy Oseary, a Hollywood talent manager who invests in tech through his firm, Sound Ventures. Mr. Oseary was impressed by Anthropic’s pitch, said a person familiar with the matter who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. But Sound Ventures had already invested in OpenAI.

So the firm got permission from Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, and Dr. Amodei to invest in both companies, the person familiar with the matter said. That made Sound Ventures one of the first firms to put money into both competitors.Soon after, Mr. Oseary raised a new fund dedicated to A.I. “We believed this would be the most important technology of our lifetime,” he said in a statement.

As Anthropic and OpenAI grew, their need for capital outpaced backing from many venture firms, which were not set up to write checks that big. Menlo Ventures, a Silicon Valley firm known for backing Uber, engineered a workaround. To further invest in Anthropic, the firm in 2024 created a “special purpose vehicle,” a fund that rounded up many small investors into one $750 million entity controlled by Menlo. Thrive Capital created a similar vehicle to invest in OpenAI in 2024.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia also took stakes in both Anthropic and OpenAI and have signed large contracts to provide cloud computing services or chips to them. Some of these giants are now the biggest shareholders of the start-ups.

Lightspeed Venture Partners and Iconiq Capital, two large investment firms in Silicon Valley, later led funding rounds in Anthropic. Menlo, Lightspeed and Iconiq now own 1 percent to 2 percent of Anthropic, said three people familiar with the investments. The financial backing ranks them among the A.I. start-up’s largest outside investors. (Menlo and Lightspeed do not own stakes in OpenAI; Iconiq has a small stake in it.)

Venture capital firms usually aim to own more than 1 percent or 2 percent of a start-up, but the potential for Anthropic to go public at a $2 trillion value means the investors will still see an enormous windfall. Ms. Razavi of Spark Capital is the only investor with a seat on Anthropic’s board.

After Anthropic’s coding and business automation tools took off last year, investing in the company became “consensus,” a term that venture investors use to denote a success that’s obvious to the whole industry. Investors worldwide fought to get shares, despite the lack of detailed information about the company’s performance or board seats. Sequoia Capital had previously declined to invest in Anthropic, partly because it had backed Elon Musk’s xAI, a competitor, and was also a significant investor in OpenAI, a person familiar with the firm said. But this year, Sequoia Capital contributed to two financing rounds for Anthropic, including as a co-leader of one in May that valued the company at $900 billion. Other investment firms obtained shares of Anthropic and OpenAI when the A.I. companies bought smaller firms with stock. Anthropic has acquired at least four companies and OpenAI roughly a dozen, according to PitchBook.

Madrona got shares in OpenAI last year after the San Francisco company bought Statsig, a provider of A.I. software, for $1.1 billion. Madrona owned a piece of Statsig, which meant its shares converted into shares of OpenAI.

Statsig was doing well, Mr. Mehandru said, but his firm was happy to trade that stock for shares in OpenAI. “If it had been stock from someone else,” he said, “maybe the answer would have been different.”

In February, Madrona also obtained shares in Anthropic when the A.I. start-up acquired Vercept, a company that makes agents that can remotely operate computers. Madrona had been an investor in Vercept.

Jamming-Proof Fiber Optic Drones Deployed By Ukraine In Deceptively Lethal Ways

2026-09-03T14:09:49.971-04:00

Fiber optic drones are increasingly being used like land mines. They lie in wait for troops or vehicles to come near and are then activated to explode.

It is one of the ways that creativity and innovation are being applied to increase lethal effectiveness. JL

Sinead Baker reports in Business Insider:

Ukrainian operators are increasingly using fiber-optic drones in atypical ways — such as deception and ambush — to "create tons of chaos," relying on their resistance to electronic warfare and close-range video feeds to scout Russian positions, study bunkers and dugouts, and create unusual openings for attacks. Some operators have their drones play dead or purposefully lie in wait on the battlefield, exploding at just the right time to kill approaching soldiers. "The drones hide on roads and at intersections. They're often placed on forest trails, waiting for a target. When they spot a vehicle, they take off and strike quickly, leaving little time to react."

Ukraine is using fiber-optic drones in increasingly deceptive ways, relying on their resistance to electronic warfare and close-range video feeds to scout Russian positions, study bunkers and dugouts, and create unusual openings for attacks, a soldier said.
These jamming-resistant drones have been on the battlefield for over two years, and they have become an important tool for both sides, allowing troops to surveil and attack without their drones being brought down by electronic warfare.
Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who is now an analyst in Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that Ukrainian operators are increasingly using fiber-optic drones in atypical ways — such as deception and ambush — to "create tons of chaos."

He said that some operators have their drones play dead or purposefully lie in wait on the battlefield, exploding at just the right time to kill an approaching soldier or expose a protected enemy position rather than simply flying directly into a target and detonating on impact.
He said fiber-optic drones are also helpful for studying Russian bunkers and dugouts because they can capture high-quality video of "all of the entrances, because you get the perfect footage, you could literally figure out what type of cover that they have on their entry to their dugout, and what you should do to open it."

Close-range reconnaissance is one of the drone's best uses, Zhluktenko said. Before hitting Russian dugouts and bunkers, drone operators can gather "very good intel" and "very precise intelligence at very, very close range."
While they can be used to chase and attack, he said, there are limitations that make them less than ideal for those missions. These drones, which are connected to the operator by a thin data cable, are slower than the untethered FPV drones, and the fiber-optic cables can "break quite easily when you just give it a full throttle."
For fiber-optic drones, pilot commands and video feeds are transmitted through a physical cable instead of over radio frequency connections, which can be jammed by electronic warfare. The cable is delicate and can snap if caught on trees or obstacles. Some soldiers carry scissors to cut through any cables they come across.

Fiber-optic drones are relatively new to the battlefield but have changed tactics. Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A US veteran who has fought for Ukraine told Business Insider on the condition of anonymity that there are "very simple ways to bring them down," including by cutting their wires.
"In the wintertime," he said, "the cold will break them half the time." Still, these systems are considered necessary given the prolific electronic warfare threat.
Zhluktenko said the cable was becoming more expensive, which has limited how often the drones are used. He said Ukraine was finding other ways to try to get the same stable connection, including by using masses of signal repeaters to keep radio connections online, but fiber-optic drones remain in play.

The deception and ambush tactics Zhluktenko described are part of a growing trend on both sides of this war.
A British medic working in Ukraine who spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity said that Russia places drones in positions for ambushes.
Russian drones, she said, will "actually sit within the grass or the verges, and a group of soldiers will either go past or drive past, and these things will literally activate and just almost jump out of nowhere and hit. "

"We have this image of drones flying, making a great noise and making a great presence, but that is not the case," she said. "They can be quiet, insidious, and the one minute you'll be, shall I say, walking along a tree line, the next thing, you hear the noise, and then we see an explosion, and it's just so incredibly rapid. And because they're so fast, it's often way beyond your reflexes to actually react."
Another US veteran who fought in Ukraine told Business Insider that Russian soldiers will use "land mine tactics," where they put the drone next to a road and leave it there, waiting for a vehicle or another target to approach.
Ukrainians have called attention to these tactics as well. Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, then serving as a drone warfare advisor to Ukraine's defense ministry, said last year that Russia was using fiber-optic drones for "ambush" tactics, including lying in wait for targets along roadways.

"This is one of the tactics involving fiber-optic drones," he said. "It's effective and causes us a lot of problems." Russia is also using solar-powered drones that can lie dormant for this tactic.
"The drones hide on roads and at intersections," Beskrestnov said. "They're often placed on forest trails, waiting for a target. When they spot a vehicle, they take off and strike quickly, leaving little time to react."

Russia Suffers 2nd Month of 40,000+ Casualties, 'Fails To Collapse Ukrainian Lines'

2026-09-03T11:35:55.457-04:00

For the second month in a row, Ukrainian forces have inflicted more

than 40,000 casualties - killed and severely wounded - on Russian troops in Ukraine.

This means that not only is Russia unable to replace its battlefield losses with replacements of the same amount by several thousand, but the Ukrainians are getting closer to their stated goal of 50,000 Russian casualties per month, which their analysis suggests is unsustainable for the Kremlin's conduct of the war. JL

The Institute for the Study of War reports:

Russia's Spring-Summer 2026 offensive has failed to achieve operational maneuver or rapidly collapse Ukrainian lines. Russian gains remain slow and limited. Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to suffer a high casualty rate in August 2026 for the second month in a row, paying an increasingly high price for limited battlefield gains. Russia’s current force generation system based on volunteer recruitment continues to struggle to recruit enough soldiers to replace current losses

Russia’s Spring-Summer 2026 offensive has failed to achieve operational maneuver or rapidly collapse Ukrainian lines. Russian gains remain slow and limited. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces consolidated positions in or seized about 90.35 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine in August 2026, averaging 2.91 square kilometers seized per day. Including Russian infiltrations, Russian forces advanced or infiltrated into about 123.53 square kilometers — an average pace of 3.98 square kilometers per day. Russian forces’ main territorial gains in August 2026 have been in the Fortress Belt area, Donetsk Oblast. Even there, Russian forces managed to achieve only marginal tactical gains and have thus far failed to complete the seizure of Kostyantynivka. Russian forces maintain a presence (either through advances or infiltrations) in 72.23 percent of Kostyantynivka and have failed to completely seize the settlement, even after months of increased infiltrations and urban fighting.[1] Russian advances in August 2026 remain a fraction of Russia’s gains during the same period in 2025, even when including infiltrations. Russian forces seized 505.55 square kilometers in August 2025, for example, highlighting how Russian forces’ rate of advance continues to slow. Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations across the theater in August 2026, notably in the Lyman and Oleksandrivka directions, and ISW has observed evidence to assess that Ukrainian forces liberated at least 129.81 square kilometers in August 2026.[2] This figure is very likely conservative, as ISW’s methodology underestimates the extent of likely Ukrainian gains in the ongoing counteroffensive in the Lyman direction, and additional collection will likely reveal the full extent of Ukrainian gains in the Lyman direction in Fall 2026. ISW will continue to update its assessment as more evidence becomes available.

Russian forces continued to suffer a high casualty rate in August 2026 for the second month in a row, paying an increasingly high price for limited battlefield gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on September 1 that Russian forces suffered 42,020 casualties in August 2026 — the second month in a row that Russian forces suffered over 40,000 casualties in a single month.[3] Russian forces suffered an average of 340 casualties per square kilometer of territory seized or infiltrated and 465 casualties per square kilometer seized in August 2026. Russia’s current force generation system based on volunteer recruitment continues to struggle to recruit enough soldiers to replace current losses, and it remains unclear how long Russian forces will be able to sustain their current footpace offensive tempo at their current loss rate without some form of mobilization

Russian General Who Ordered Ukraine Children's Hospital Bombing Shot in Russia

2026-09-03T11:13:05.977-04:00

The Air Force squadrons of long range bombers under the general's command have been firing cruise missiles at civilian Ukrainian targets since the start of the invasion.

Their arguably most heinous crime was hitting a children's hospital in Kyiv in 2024. It took two years, but the Ukrainians have neither forgotten nor forgiven. JL

Sonia Kozatskyi reports in Militarnyi:

Major General Nikolai Varpakhovich, commander of the 22nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Division of the Long-Range Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, was seriously wounded in Russia. The assailant rode up to a private home on a motorcycle while wearing a helmet and shot the high-ranking Russian military officer. One bullet struck the officer in the torso and another in the face. Varpakhovich was hospitalized in critical condition. Aircraft aircraft commanded by the general have been firing cruise missiles at Ukraine since the start of the invasion. In particular, they attacked the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv with a Kh-101 missile in the summer of 2024.
Major General Nikolai Varpakhovich, commander of the 22nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Division of the Long-Range Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, was seriously wounded in Russia.
The Russian Telegram channel Mash reported the attack on the military officer.
The attack took place around 7 a.m. on September 3 in the village of Probuzhdenie near Engels in the Saratov region.
It is currently reported that the assailant rode up to a private home on a motorcycle while wearing a helmet and shot the high-ranking Russian military officer.
According to the Dossier of the Spy Telegram channel, one bullet struck the officer in the torso and another in the face. Varpakhovich was hospitalized in critical condition.
The major general’s driver was also wounded but managed to escape and hide; he later returned and called an ambulance.
At the hospital, the bullets were removed from the wounded Varpakhovich, and he is being prepared for transport by plane to Moscow. The assailant has not yet been apprehended.
The aircraft commanded by the wounded major general have been firing cruise missiles at Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion. In particular, they attacked the Okhmatdyt specialized children’s hospital in Kyiv with a Kh-101 missile in the summer of 2024.

In late August, the SSU and the Prosecutor General’s Office formally notified Varpakhovich, among others, in absentia that he was suspected of this crime.
The 22nd Division includes the 121st Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment in Engels, which is equipped with Tu-160s, and the 184th Heavy Bomber Regiment, which operates Tu-95MS aircraft.

The village of Shaykovka is home to the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment, which operates Tu-22M3 aircraft.
The 22nd Aviation Division also includes the 40th Mixed Aviation Regiment in the village of Vysokiy, which operates An-26 aircraft and Mi-26 and Mi-8/17 helicopters.

Ukraine's Lyman Cauldron Shows "Systematic Russian Defensive Failure"

2026-09-03T11:01:19.959-04:00

Ukraine's local counterattacks around Lyman have succeeded beyond expectation and have become a strategic, not just tactical, success.

The counterattacks have become a counteroffensive which risks trapping several thousand Russians in a cauldron encirclement and has disrupted Kremlin plans to take Ukraine's Fortress Belt. Ukraine's 3rd Corps, which is leading the assault, is also demonstrating a drone, light armor and infantry combined arms approach which could be the key to renewed offensive success in Ukraine's drone dominated battlefields. JL

Stefan Korshak reports in the Kyiv Post:

The Ukrainian ground gains and battle successes north of Lyman have been the result of months of small-scale infantry assaults covered drones to rout Russian defenders from positions. Ukraine's 3rd Corps, leading the attack, is a proponent of drone-led tactics preceding, covering and providing fire support to small infantry units advancing in light armored vehicles to Russian positions to disembark and mop up resistance on foot. Non-Ukrainian sources point to hard AFU ground gains in rough, wooded and swampy terrain northeast of Lyman. Ukrainian advances have bitten too deeply into formerly Russian-controlled territory for Russian forces to take them back without prohibitive losses. "This is a systematic failure of the Russian defense. The AFU has seized the initiative and can thus launch a comprehensive strategic offensive from local successes."

A low-profile, patient counteroffensive led by a crack Ukrainian combat corps has pushed back Kremlin forces up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) in an eastern sector of the fighting front and potentially cutting off hundreds of Russian troops from supply and support.
The Ukrainian ground gains and battle successes to the north of the fortress city Lyman have been step-by-step and incremental, the result of months of small-scale infantry assaults densely covered by strike and observation drones to route Russian defenders from positions, field reports and analysts say.
The 3rd Army Corps, a major Ukrainian army formation with roots in a single, untrained volunteer civilian infantry battalion raised in Kyiv to help defend the capital in February 2022, is reportedly at the center of the offensive.

Ukraine’s army has kept a tight lid on ongoing operations in the Lyman sector for months, practically banning media visits to front lines and only reporting the fact of heavy fighting, while confirming neither terrain gains nor losses. The sector – located between the Siverskyi Donets River, a major waterway, and the Zherebets River, a local barrier waterway – is covered with thick woods or swamp, intermixed with rolling hills, farmland and agricultural villages
News and information feeds of formations assigned to the 3rd Corps and reviewed by Kyiv Post painted a consistent picture of successful offensive operations accompanied by heavy Russian casualties due to drone strikes, but as per Ukrainian Armed Forces’ (AFU) OPSEC rules, the information was presented without identifying geographical locations. Civilian rescue information networks monitored by Kyiv Post confirm continuing but limited Ukrainian losses in the sector.

In comments to Ukrainian media in July and August, Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky, the 3rd Corps commander, acknowledged his troops were carrying out limited counterattacks to expand Ukrainian control of territory north and east of Lyman, and that the operations were generally successful. Biletsky is a proponent of drone-led tactics with unmanned aircraft preceding, covering and providing fire support to small infantry units advancing in light armored vehicles to Russian positions to disembark and carefully mop up resistance on foot.

Multiple sources outside Ukraine are pointing to hard AFU ground gains in rough, wooded and swampy terrain northeast of Lyman, near the village Drobysheve, that had carved a 5 km x 10 km (3 x 6 mile) salient into Russian defenses and cut a key Russian supply road, potentially threatening Russian army units in the area with isolation. Kyiv Post researchers confirmed the presence of at least four Ukrainian combat brigades in action in the sector but did not publish identities for security reasons. All reports said the pocket now nearly encircled by the Ukrainians contained Russian troops, with estimates ranging from a few dozen to several hundred.
The Ukrainian drone unit Phoenix, a veteran air strike outfit drawn from Ukraine’s border troops forces, on Sept. 1 published imagery it said was from operations in air space above the Lyman sector. The footage shows first person view (FPV) and bomber drones attacking Russian motorcycles and trucks, individual infantrymen, and fortifications thought to hold Russian troops. Accompanying text states camouflage and shelters did not protect the targets.

Footage published by the unit on Aug. 31 showed strike drones hitting Russian artillery (including a 2A36 Giatsint-B gun, a D-20 howitzer, and a BM-21 Grad MLRS), along with more trucks, motorcycles, transport vans and fighting positions. Ukrainian military media reported the actions depicted were authentic, but Kyiv Post could not confirm each engagement independently.

Graphics in a situation assessment published on Aug. 31 by the US-based Institute for the Study of War showed Ukrainian forces to have reached the outskirts of Zarichne, a large village, which, if captured by Kyiv’s forces, would create a full-on encirclement of potentially hundreds more Russian troops in a 15 km x 45 km “kessel” (or “cauldron,” to use the German military term for encirclement).
For both sides in the Russo-Ukrainian War, ground gains by attacks since 2023 have been orders of magnitude slower and punishingly expensive. Russian forces in 2024 spent almost a year and lost at least one half of an estimated 80,000 men army sent to conquer a similar-sized space of ground between the Ukrainian cities of Adviivka and Pokrovsk. Neither side has reported heavy or even continuing Ukrainian casualties in actions around Lyman.

German OSINT researcher Andy Schneider in an Aug. 25 X comment on the Lyman battles said that contrary to Russian claims the city Lyman is fully under Ukrainian control, and that the Ukrainian advance to the east of the city cutting supply roads had formed “pockets of tactically enclosed units.”
Schneider wrote: “This is a systematic failure of the Russian defensive lines. The AFU has seized the initiative and can thus, as desired, launch a comprehensive strategic offensive from local successes. We will see if this happens.”
The widely read pro-Moscow milblogger Rybar (Mikhail Zvinchuk, a former Russian army officer and high-profile propagandist) in an Aug. 23 situation estimate passed on to his more than 1.5 million followers imagery that effectively matched Western reports of Ukrainian progress around Lyman but downplayed the importance of the success, saying: “Ukrainian formations are undertaking counterattacks in the area of Korovii Yar. Judging by objective control footage, the AFU managed to restore part of the positions on the approaches to the C051020 highway.”
French military analyst Clément Molin in an Aug. 30 confirmation of Ukrainian progress around Lyman city praised the AFU for maintaining tight OPSEC around the operation and that in his view “it is now too late” for Russia to salvage the situation, because Ukrainian advances have bitten too deeply into formerly Russian-controlled territory for Russian forces to take them back without prohibitive losses. Fighting was continuing over a 200 km-squared (124 square mile) battle area, he said, but already the Kremlin has suffered “a significant blow.”

The Ukrainian success will undermine Russian chances of carrying out its latest attack plans: an offensive to the south that Moscow hopes will capture the fortress cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk they have been trying to control for more than 12 years.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, has insisted its forces under the command of 25th Combined Arms Army have made continual ground gains over August, and acknowledged no successful Ukrainian counterattacks. In May, the Russian Defense Ministry announced, falsely, that its troops had captured Lyman entirely. Subsequent statements by that agency have tacitly acknowledged Ukrainian forces actually still control the town by reporting continued Russian attacks against Ukrainian defenses there.
A key plank of the Russian state narrative about its invasion of Ukraine is that Russian progress is slow but relentless and that Moscow’s current main war aims – the total conquest of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions – will inevitably be reached.

According to Ukraine’s government, its forces had brought net Russian ground gains to a total halt in May 2026 and that since then Ukrainian forces have, each month, liberated more Ukrainian territory than Russia has taken.

Russia Faces 'Geopolitically Strategic Asymmetry' As Ukraine, Europe Strengthen Ties

2026-09-03T10:25:54.593-04:00

'Geopolitically strategic asymmetry' is a polite way of saying Russia is increasingly screwed. And the Kremlin has no one to blame but itself. By invading, then failing over almost five years of brutal warfare to subdue its smaller target and then compounding that failure by committing horrific war crimes on the ground and from the air - as well as subjecting itself to aerial drone and missile retribution - the Russians have not only become a global pariah, but have exposed their own vulnerabilities while Ukraine's support grows.

Putin's two closest allies, Iran and North Korea, are bankrupt and the former is, itself, under attack. China faces economic challenges of its own so is using Russia's even greater weakness to demand bigger discounts on what oil and other resources Russia can still manage to deliver. Ukraine, meanwhile is getting stronger both on the battlefield and economically, while its European partners, as well as those from the rest of the civilized world, instead of querulously backing down as Putin expected, have increased their Ukrainian support. Europe, it should be added, is doing quite well economically, especially when compared to Russia's erstwhile 'allies.' Outraged that it is now suffering while Europe refuses to back down, the Kremlin is amping up its attacks on NATO countries, but at this stage, those are more likely to backfire into even more support than not. JL

Yaroslav Trofimov reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Russia faces a fundamental asymmetry as it seeks to beat Ukraine into submission. Kyiv can rely on a secure hinterland beyond its borders—Europe—for economic resilience and military logistics. Ukraine’s military uses hubs in countries like Poland, Germany and Romania, while Ukrainian defense companies have established production lines across Europe. The Kremlin, whose industries are under attack by Ukrainian missiles and drones, has no such backup. None of Russia's allies are openly supporting its war. Hits to Russia’s economy translate more directly into damage to it’s ability to keep the war going. Russia, has to pay for its war at a time when its economy is weak. Moscow’s closest allies, Iran and North Korea, are broke. China faces economic headwinds. Many in Russia are calling for escalation against Europe but that could massively backfire. Ukraine’s Western supporters, and Ukraine itself, have ways of inflicting more pain on Russia if the conflict escalates.

Russia faces a fundamental asymmetry as it seeks to beat Ukraine into submission with intensifying airstrikes on shopping malls, power stations, ports and other infrastructure. Kyiv can rely on a secure hinterland beyond its borders—its European neighbors—for economic resilience and for military logistics.
The Kremlin, whose refineries, ports and defense industries are also under attack by Ukrainian missiles and drones, has no such backup. Hits to Russia’s militarized economy translate more directly into damage to the country’s ability to keep the war going.
This lopsided geopolitical setup offsets, to a significant degree, Russia’s advantage in firepower. It has also become the key reason driving what Western officials say is a widening Russian campaign of sabotage, hacking and other hybrid operations aimed at intimidating European leaders and voters.
Warning Russia against taking hostilities to North Atlantic Treaty Organization members in Europe was a key message delivered by Central Intelligence Agency director John Ratcliffe on his recent trip to Moscow, according to people familiar with the matter.
Russian officials have long described their war as one against the “collective West,” and not just Ukraine. Russian threats have become increasingly strident this summer, including warnings of military strikes against the Baltic states and even the U.K.
Ukraine’s economy and military effort were funded by $105 billion in new European assistance approved this year, money that came on top of vast amounts of aid and arms received from the U.S. and other NATO members since the 2022 full-scale invasion. European officials are already talking about another package of comparable size, perhaps to be funded with frozen Russian assets.
Russia, however, has to pay for its own war at a time when its economy is under pressure from Ukrainian strikes and Western sanctions. Two of Moscow’s closest allies, Iran and North Korea, are broke. China is taking advantage of Russia’s predicament to negotiate lower oil and gas prices, and is facing its own economic headwinds.

Russian leaders believe that they need to reverse this imbalance, fast, said Sergey Lagodinsky, a German member of the European Parliament and a Russian native. “They see that Ukraine can survive and can continue to fight because it has access to outside resources and outside solidarity, and that is what they want to cut or damage,” he said.
Much of Russia, up to the middle of Siberia, is now within range of Ukrainian drones, and Ukrainian attacks on energy installations and logistics warehouses occur nightly—as do Russian strikes on Ukraine. In one illustration of the disparity in consequences, Russia is struggling with a full-blown fuel crisis because Ukrainian drones have disabled more than one-third of the nation’s refining capacity. By contrast, gas stations are functioning normally in Ukraine because of fuel imports from Europe—even though Ukraine’s own refineries were heavily bombed as far back as 2022.
Ukraine’s military uses logistics hubs in countries like Poland, Germany and Romania, while Ukrainian defense companies have established production lines across Europe, including a plant making ballistic-missile fuel that is under construction in Denmark.
With the exception of Belarus and North Korea, none of Russia’s neighbors, including its formal defense allies in Central Asia, are openly helping its war effort. Even Belarus is careful these days not to provoke more sanctions from the West or a military response from Ukraine.

Seen from the Kremlin, the situation is intolerable: NATO countries are inflicting strategic blows on Russia’s economy and military capacity, including its space program, ballistic-missile industry and strategic bomber fleet, with Ukrainian hands—and without paying much of a price.
“There is an asymmetry in terms of the ability to inflict pain and extract costs by Russia from the West for its support of Ukraine,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. Ukraine, he said, has eagerly taken “the war to enemy territory—and it gets a lot of training, advice and material support for these operations behind enemy lines.”
Russia, meanwhile, is constrained by the fact that Moscow doesn’t have a Ukraine of its own, an ally that could strike NATO and absorb the retaliatory blows, Gabuev said. Iran and Yemen’s Houthis are the closest approximations—but they have their own priorities focused on the Middle East that are only partially aligned with Moscow’s, and they possess little capacity to affect European calculations.
This has left Moscow with hybrid warfare—a loose term that includes a recent drone incident involving a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle airport, cyberattacks that disrupted Polish rail services and a series of explosions that struck European defense plants—as a key lever to reshape European attitudes.

“What we see is that, even as the Russians are facing very substantial resistance from Ukraine, they are stepping up hybrid acts in Europe—and their risk appetite is going up,” warned a senior NATO official.
Bomb-disposal specialists deployed a robot after an explosive-laden drone was discovered recently at Germany's Leipzig/Halle airport. Axel Schmidt/Reuters
The notion that Russia must hit military and logistics targets in European nations to win the war is gaining currency in Moscow, said Hanna Notte, Eurasia director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and author of a recent book on Russia’s foreign and security policy, “We Shall Outlast Them.”
“There are hawks on the Russian side who have been saying for a long time that Russia is fighting with one hand behind its back. These voices are becoming louder and will become louder,” she said. “The key question is: How far will Russia go? How much will they step up the game to deal with this problem?”
Moscow’s next step on the escalation ladder could be a limited one-off attack—possibly using captured Ukrainian drones, but also missiles—on one or two logistics targets involved in assisting Ukraine on European territory, some officials warn. Semiofficial commentators on Russian TV have been clamoring for just that for months.

“I am increasingly worried that we may see one single strike somewhere, as messaging to see what the populations will be doing, at the time when European societies are growing very tired of the war,” said Daniel Szeligowski, head of the Eastern Europe program at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. “In that situation, I would be much more worried about the social response. To what extent are our populations prepared for this psychologically, I do not know.”
Such a gamble, of course, could also massively backfire, increasing European determination against Russia just at the time when parties favorable to Moscow are gaining ground ahead of elections in France, Germany and Italy.
In Germany’s case, the intensification of Russia’s hybrid warfare has already shown itself to be counterproductive, said Norbert Röttgen, a prominent lawmaker from the governing CDU party. “It is becoming increasingly clear to Germans that Russia is also a threat to them, and thus strengthening German political resolve,” he said. “Admittedly, a third of the population is against strong support for Ukraine. However, the other two thirds are reinforced in their support.”
Ukraine’s Western supporters, and Ukraine itself, have ways of inflicting more pain on Russia if the conflict escalates. The U.S. could dramatically increase Ukraine’s ability to target Russian ballistic missile batteries by allowing the use of the Starlink satellite network to guide drones over Russian territory. Kyiv, meanwhile, has so far refrained from targeting Russian airports—even though Ukraine’s own civil aviation has been grounded since 2022.

“Ukraine has already started to strike in a way that ordinary Russians can see that the war is real, it is in their homes and not something on television,” said Hanna Shelest, security studies director at the Ukrainian Prism think tank in Kyiv. “Yet, Ukraine is still showing a fair bit of restraint. The question is, ‘how much longer for?”’
Despite the mounting problems of the Russian economy—industrial production flatlined in the first half of 2026, with zero growth despite huge spending on new weapons—few Western officials expect that Vladimir Putin will seek peace because of the pain inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
“One way or another, the Russians will expand the war because in their grand strategy, Ukraine is an obstacle and not the prize. Their goal is greater influence over Europe and beyond. NATO has failed in deterring Russian aggression against Ukraine, and the question arising now is whether NATO can really deter Russian aggression against NATO,” argued Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, chairman of the Center for Defense Reforms in Kyiv and a former military and intelligence official.
By stepping up the destruction of Ukrainian cities, Moscow is signaling to the rest of Europe that any defiance is so painful that it would be preferable to accommodate the Kremlin’s will, Danylyuk added: “A fortress that resists must be razed as a warning to others—this is an old principle, from the Assyrians and from the Mongols, and one that Russia follows today. The message is that if NATO cannot protect you and if you don’t want to be destroyed like Ukraine, then your only source of security guarantees is Russia.” rko Mihkelson, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Estonian parliament, said he agreed that Moscow’s strategic goal remains unchanged: conquest of Ukraine and the destruction of European collective security. Yet, he added, there has been no change of Russian military posture along borders from Finland to the Baltic states to Poland—and no indication of preparations for an invasion.
“The picture behind our borders is that all their focus is on Ukraine,” he said. “I don’t think that militarily they are right now both ready and willing to do something here.”
But some worry that could change. Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in a recent essay published by the Economist, warned that Russia’s hybrid attacks on European nations represent a “razvedka boyem”—reconnaissance by combat that tests reactions and precedes a larger offensive.

To deter that offensive, he added, Europe must convince Russia “that we are willing to sacrifice more than money to stand up for ourselves.”

Spetznaz Block Suggests Putin Prefers Lyman Pocket Death Fight To Retreat

2026-09-02T09:56:20.141-04:00

Units of Russia's 144th Motor Rifle Division trapped in the Lyman salient are in growing danger of being encircled by Ukrainian forces. There is one bridge which would allow either reinforcements in or escape out. But the Kremlin evidently sees there is no point in sending any more of its depleted army into the pocket - and a Spetsnaz blocking company is not letting anyone out.

This suggests that Putin prefers to have the trapped soldiers continue fighting to the death, rather than suffer the humiliation of a major retreat. Ukraine appears happy to oblige. JL

Shankar Narayan reports in Medium:

Ukraine is now methodically eating away at the Lyman salient, which Putin’s forces took more than a year to build. A number of Russian units are caught in the Ukrainian sweep. A significant share belongs to the 144th Motor Rifle Division. The Terny crossing is the only vehicle exit across the Zherebets River. There is one usable bridge, and the 29th Spetsnaz Company is positioned at its eastern exit. Ukraine could have destroyed the bridge but has not. That suggests Ukraine wants to preserve it. Why is Russian spetsnaz company guarding the exit when no reinforcements are crossing the bridge in the other direction? The depleted regiments inside remain where they are. Stalin would understand this immediately. There has been no reinforcement of this pocket. If Russian commanders have refused to reinforce this sector even as Ukrainian forces move deeper into it, Moscow has given up on holding the salient. It looks as though Putin has abandoned the 144th Motor Rifle Division.

The precise size of the Ukrainian-held territory was always fluid, but it remained around the 700-square-kilometre mark for a very long time. Do you also remember the breathtaking American media coverage when Ukraine began withdrawing from Kursk? Donald Trump — Putin’s phone-a-friend — milked that withdrawal for everything it was worth. He told the world that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were trapped, that he would ask his friend to show them mercy, and that perhaps Putin would allow them to live if only Trump personally intervened.
Putin has repaid that friendship by destroying plenty of American-owned facilities in Ukraine.
Whatever.
Ukraine is now methodically eating away at the Lyman salient, which Putin’s ground forces took more than a year to build. This was the northern arm of the pincer Russia was constructing to compress Ukrainian positions around the three fortress-belt cities.
The Lyman salient covers close to 300 square kilometres, and, as of writing, the following Russian formations appear to be caught in the Ukrainian sweep: the 1428th Motor Rifle Regiment, 1st Motor Rifle Regiment, 488th Motor Rifle Regiment, 254th Motor Rifle Regiment, 29th Spetsnaz Company, 856th Artillery Regiment, 148th Reconnaissance Battalion, 59th Tank Regiment, 283rd Motor Rifle Regiment, 1220th Motor Rifle Regiment, 237th Tank Regiment and 252nd Motor Rifle Regiment.
A significant share of this force consists of subunits belonging to the 144th Motor Rifle Division.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
For the Russian force inside the Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna pocket, the Terny crossing appears to be the only direct, mapped vehicle exit across the Zherebets River. There is one usable bridge, and the 29th Spetsnaz Company is positioned at its eastern exit. Ukraine could have destroyed the bridge but has not. That strongly suggests Ukraine wants to preserve an avenue through which the Russians can abandon the pocket rather than forcing them to fight to the last man.
But then we arrive at the obvious question: why is an elite Russian spetsnaz company guarding the exit when no reinforcements are crossing the bridge in the other direction? What exactly is it protecting the bridge from? Nothing is coming in. The depleted regiments inside remain where they are. Yet one of the more reliable formations available to the Russian command is sitting on the safe bank, precisely where every soldier attempting to leave the pocket would emerge.
Stalin would understand the arrangement immediately.
It increasingly looks as though Putin has abandoned much of the 144th Motor Rifle Division to the gods beneath the ground. Perhaps his phone-a-friend should now call Zelenskyy, ask for mercy for the Russian troops and bring back those magnificent Kursk diplomacy skills. Trump posed as humanitarian when Putin stood to benefit from the spectacle. Here is his opportunity to prove that his concern extends to the soldiers of his friend.
We have been watching this pocket closely over the past several days, and so far there has been no visible movement of reinforcements into it. Ukraine could have destroyed the bridge and then slammed the pocket shut from both directions. It has not done that either. Ukrainian forces may still be following their slow-corrosion model, using limited counterattacks to steadily remove Russian positions. Or they may have chosen a deliberate clearance operation that leaves the Russians an opportunity to withdraw.
We do not yet know which approach they are taking.
But one conclusion is becoming harder to avoid. If Russian commanders have refused to reinforce this sector even as Ukrainian forces move deeper into it — particularly when the formations inside have only one proper exit — the odds are rising that Moscow has already given up on holding the salient. It may simply expect the 144th Motor Rifle Division and the other units inside to keep fighting for as long as they can. But this increasingly looks like a dead end.
We will be following this pocket closely. It covers nearly 300 square kilometres, although a significant part of that territory has already returned to Ukrainian control. Its importance, however, is not merely its size.
The collapse of this salient would dismantle Russia’s northern approach for closing the gap to the fortress belt — an approach Putin’s ground forces took more than a year to construct. That would be a major battlefield setback for Russia and a material loss of leverage if and when negotiations finally begin.

Russia's Desperate Race To Replace Starlink Is Faltering

2026-09-02T09:37:03.055-04:00

The Kremlin is desperate to replace the Starlink system it is no longer able to use with one of its own. but that effort is faltering due to two sets of problems.

The first is that the Russians have not been able to achieve the necessary operational altitudes for the Rassvet satellites. These are problems which may, in the future, be corrected with additional development work, but Kremlin pressure to produce a working system immediately appears to be undermining the process in the long term. This challenge has been compounded by Ukrainian drone and missile attacks on the Russian factories that produce the electronic components and rockets necessary to launch and guide the system, adding to the expected delays in deployment. JL

Brendan Cole reports in Newsweek:

Russia is rushing to launch satellites called "Rassvet" to replace Starlink after it lost access to the SpaceX-owned network but Moscow’s version continues to hit snags, with none of the 16 Rassvet satellites launched on July 19 reaching an altitude of 340 miles, short of the intended 540-mile operational altitude, with many only reaching180 miles; some are experiencing orbital decay, and two are heading for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. “It seems the rate of malfunction has been higher than Starlink’s first gen rate of failure.” The failure of all 16 satellites from its second launch to reach operational altitudes suggests Moscow was not ready to roll out the constellation. "Russia may have been unprepared to deploy at this pace and will likely face additional delays." Adding to Russia's woes, on August 15, Ukraine struck the Space Center in Samara with cruise missiles, targeting the only factory to assemble the Soyuz-2.1b rockets used to launch Rassvet satellites.
Russia’s attempts to develop its own version of the Starlink satellite network have failed to reach the right altitude to work properly, it has been reported.
Moscow is rushing to launch satellites called "Rassvet" to replace Starlink connectivity over Ukraine after Russia lost access to the SpaceX-owned communications network.

Musk’s decision to deny Russian forces access to his service immediately affected the battlefield, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded SpaceX CEO Elon Musk his country’s Order of Liberty on August 26.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s version continues to hit snags, with none of the 16 Rassvet satellites from a second batch launched on July 19 reaching an altitude of 340 miles as of August 31, according to data from live satellite tracker N2YO.
These altitudes are short of the intended 540-mile operational altitude, with many only reaching as low as 180 miles; some are experiencing orbital decay, and at least two are heading for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, according to the latest update from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
“It does seem safe to say that so far the rate of malfunction or failure has been higher than what I understand to be Starlink’s first gen rate of failure,” John Hardie, the deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a U.S. think tank, told Newsweek.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
The antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system is seen in the snow in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on February 16, 2023. | YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images.
What Is Russia’s Rassvet Network?
Russia learned the hard lesson that relying on Musk’s Starlink network for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine left its military vulnerable when the SpaceX founder turned it off.

This has focused Moscow on creating its own variant, Rassvet, which means “dawn or daybreak” in Russian, backed by billions of dollars in private and government investment.

Since launching the experimental Rassvet-1 and Rassvet-2 in 2023 and 2024, the aerospace company Bureau 1440 behind it has begun Rassvet-3 launches ahead of an expected commercial service in 2027. But the apparent failure of all 16 satellites from its second launch to reach operational altitudes suggests Moscow was not ready to roll out the constellation as planned, the ISW said.
"Russia may have been unprepared to accelerate constellation deployment at this pace and will likely face additional delays," the Washington, D.C.-based think tank said in its Monday update.

Hardie from the FDD said Russia's Rassvet launch rate is behind the schedule it set for itself. “Maybe it’s a little too early to say for sure what's going on with them," he told Newsweek.

Ukraine's presidential adviser on defense technologies, Serhiy Beskrestnov, said in a Telegram post on May 31 that Moscow needs to successfully launch at least 200 to 300 satellites to achieve stable connectivity over Ukraine, but this is likely to be beyond Russia’s capability in the short term.
However, the ISW said that the existing Rassvet satellite constellation was still a threat to Ukraine, as it may allow Russian forces to conduct more precise strikes using remotely controlled unmanned systems.
"Even partially successful Rassvet launches could allow Russian forces to increasingly use satellite communications on the battlefield and in their strikes against Ukraine," the ISW said.
Hardie said deadlines in most Russian R&D and weapons development programs are almost always missed, but the capability is often fielded and may be successful.

“I think you need to find the right balance of ‘Chicken Little, the sky is falling’ versus just writing this off —I think the truth is somewhere in the middle," he said.
“Overall though this will eventually be a useful capability for Russia, the question is when they will come online and will that be soon enough to really impact the war," he said.
Illustration of the Starlink logo and satellite antenna on the ground in front of a military camouflage net in France on March 1, 2025. | Vincent Feuray / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images)
Ukraine Strikes Also Hamper Russia’s Plans
Adding to Russia’s plans for its satellite network is the threat posed by Ukraine.

On August 15, Ukrainian forces said they struck the Progress Space Center in Samara with Flamingo cruise missiles. This targeted the only factory to mass-assemble the Soyuz-2.1b rockets—the only launchers used to launch Rassvet satellites.
Ukraine also tried to strike the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on August 23, two days before Russian forces launched a Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle that may have been carrying a GLONASS-K1 satellite for Russia’s GPS alternative.
The ISW said that Russia cannot launch satellites at the required tempo and scale partly because it remains dependent on the Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle.
Hardie said that Starlink has been critical to Ukrainian military communications, especially for so-called “middle strike” drones to target supply trucks in the occupied territories.

But SpaceX restricts the system’s use inside Russia’s internationally recognized borders, which makes it difficult for Ukraine to find and strike mobile ballistic-missile launchers, typically located inside Russia.
Ahead of a fifth winter of the war, Ukraine is looking to get permission to use Starlink to target ballistic missile launchers on Russian territory, according to the Associated Press, which said that Zelensky asked U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on July 28 to make the case to Musk. This could lessen the need for U.S. Patriot air defense systems against Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian territory.

“I think it's probably the best option the United States has at the moment, given air defense interceptor capacity shortages,” Hardie said. “If you're not going to eliminate the threat, you can at least reduce it and extending that Starlink coverage into Russia would be a good way to help do that.”

Ukraine's "Massive" Dobropillia Counterattacks Stop Russian Fortress Belt Advance

2026-09-02T09:00:08.109-04:00

As reports grow about Russia's attempted assault on Ukraine's Fortress Belt having stalled, the reasons are becoming clearer. Ukrainian forces have launched 'massive' counterattacks in several sectors, including Dobropillia, which have disrupted the Russian plans.

Already suffering from war-high casualties and faltering recruitment of new replacements, the Russian units on the front are unable to defend effectively against the aggressive and opportunistic Ukrainian efforts. The result is that Russia cannot muster sufficient mass to hold off the Ukrainian attacks while also attempting to advance on a heavily fortified and defended series of strong points. This series of combined obstacles has resulted in the summer's failed offensive plan. JL

RFU News reports:

On the Pokrovsk front, the Ukrainians have launched a massive counterattack. Russian sources report they are facing a wave of Ukrainian counterattacks along the frontline in the Dobropillia sector. Ukrainian assault groups are clearing out Russian infiltrators in the northeastern and eastern parts of the city. If Russian infiltrators cannot consolidate and their logistics are disrupted, Ukraine can push them away from the city. (And) if Russian advances stall here, they cannot encircle Sloviansk and Kramatorsk

Today, the biggest news comes from the Pokrovsk direction.
Here, in one of the most difficult sectors of the front, Ukrainians have started turning the tide and finally launched a massive counterattack. Now, the Skala regiment was sent as a reinforcement and placed under Azov’s command to help them relieve pressure on Dobropillia.
Previously, the situation was much more difficult here than in other sectors, because Russia had made this axis its highest priority in entire Ukraine, proven by the number of Russian troops deployed here. According to the commander of the National Guard, Oleksandr Pivnenko, Russian forces outnumbered the Ukrainians as much as six to one in some sectors. Despite this disadvantage, the National Guard’s first Azov Corps continues to hold its assigned positions, repel surprise assaults, and inflict significant personnel and equipment losses on Russian forces. Russia advances here with small infiltration groups supported by a heavy use of drones, and tries to exploit gaps in the Ukrainian defense. Additionally, Russia has been conducting glide bomb and artillery strikes for more than six months that have gradually worn down Ukrainian defenses in towns such as Bilytske. Bilytske is particularly important because it is a key part of the defenses protecting Dobropillia, and without capturing it, the Russian forces would find it difficult to advance toward the town from the east.
Russia wants to break through around Dobropillia because bypassing the town would allow its forces to advance farther north and threaten the most fortified cities in Donbas with encirclement. Notably, if they can bypass Dobropillia, Russia could move around the main Ukrainian defenses and get behind Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. This would let them besiege the cities without assaulting them head on from the east and south, which would be slow and costly based on their current pace of advance.
In order to create the threat of encirclement in Donbas, Russia tried to send individual Russian reconnaissance and assault groups to reach the southeastern outskirts of Dobropillia, but they have so far failed to establish a lasting foothold. Heavy fighting also continues south and southwest of Dobropillia, where Russian forces are trying to advance from Hryshyne, using small assault groups to move through a chain of villages. Ukrainian forces have turned these settlements into defensive strongpoints, although many have been heavily damaged by months of shelling. At the same time, Russian forces are applying pressure from the east as well, trying to capture Bilytske and push towards Dobropillia from multiple directions. This is when the Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Drapatyi, placed the Skala regiment under Azov’s operational command, giving them a massive reinforcement. Skala is not becoming part of Azov’s organizational structure, but the change gives Azov operational control over the regiment’s missions in this sector, while Skala’s dispersed battalions and combined detachments are being consolidated to operate more effectively along a single front. This would enable better coordination between adjacent units and their commanders, allowing them to prevent the Russians from finding and exploiting a gap in Ukraine’s defense.
After this change in command, Russian sources started reporting that they are facing a wave of Ukrainian counterattacks along the frontline in the Dobropillia sector. Ukrainian assault groups are attempting to clear out Russian infiltrators in the northeastern and eastern parts of the city, and unblock key logistical routes that are currently under Russian fire control. If Russian infiltrators cannot consolidate and their logistics are disrupted, Ukraine can clear them out and push them away from Dobropillia and deny them an opportunity to build up forces inside the city. If Russian advances stall here and they cannot encircle Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Russia will be forced to continue its costly assaults east and south of the cities and sustain heavy casualties attacking them head on.
Overall, the battle for Dobropillia could ultimately become less about capturing one city and more about determining whether Russia can break into Ukraine’s remaining defenses in Donbas. The reinforcement by Skala will help to stabilize the situation and push the Russians away from Dobropillia. If Ukrainian forces can disrupt Russian supply lines and stop infiltrating units, Moscow may lose the opportunity to turn a local advance into a strategic encirclement of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. This would force Russia back into slower, far more expensive frontal attacks against heavily fortified positions.

Russian Troops Increasingly Surrender To Ukrainian Aerial and Ground Drones

2026-09-02T08:51:21.643-04:00

Ukrainian forces capitalizing on Russian troops' fear of drones by guiding attack drones towards groups of Russian soldiers, then, at the last minute, sending another drone with a loud speaker to offer them the chance to surrender, which increasing numbers do.

Ukraine's drone operators see the fear and exhaustion on the faces of the frequently under-supplied Russian troops and so play on that psychological disadvantage. They have even dropped leaflets and posted videos on social media channels popular with Russian troops, explaining to them how to surrender to a drone. Hundreds have reportedly done so. JL

Harry Thompson reports in The Daily Beast:

Putin's troops are surrendering to drones. Ukraine has become a world leader in drone warfare, and is now using that expertise against Russian troops in an effort to force them to surrender. Last winter, some 100 Russians surrendered to drones, according to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. "We see their anxiety, because the camera captures a lot. We see their faces. You see how they tremble, how they worry, how scared they are." said a Ukrainian drone operator. Ukraine has capitalized on that fear. After observation drones spot troops and guide attack drones onto them, the final stage is to break the will of the exhausted troops and get them to lay down their arms. To do this, another drone fitted with a loudspeaker offer troops—many of whom are injured or have watched their comrades die—the opportunity to surrender. "Establish eye contact with the drone," and then "Lay down your weapon. Raise your hands. Show that you want to surrender."

Vladimir Putin's troops are surrendering to drones.
The 73-year-old autocrat's forces have been suffering in a meat grinder of his making since 2022, as they try to take ground in a 30-mile-wide kill zone jam-packed with mines and drones that runs the length of the front line.

Ukraine has become a world leader in drone warfare, and is now using that expertise against Russian troops in an effort to force them to surrender.

Last winter, some 100 Russians surrendered to drones, according to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Kyiv has deployed drones on land, at sea, and in the air. Long-range missiles strike deep into Russian territory, while smaller first-person quadcopters watch, harass, and attack troops on the front line.
"We see their anxiety, because the camera captures a lot. We see their faces. We see how they breathe," Mayak, the codename of a Ukrainian drone operator in eastern Ukraine, told NBC News.
Much of the fighting falls to what are often believed to be minimally trained troops, sent to break through Ukrainian lines at whatever personal cost before more elite forces follow behind them.

"Maybe some of them, they walk forward and they don't care. They just go. Walk, walk, crouch, smoke, and keep walking," said Mayak. "Others, you see how they tremble, how they worry, how scared they are."

Ukraine has capitalized on that fear. After observation drones spot troops and guide attack drones onto them, the final stage is to break the will of the exhausted troops and get them to lay down their arms.

To do this, another drone fitted with a loudspeaker has been used to offer troops—many of whom are injured or have watched their comrades die—the opportunity to surrender.

Ukraine has even started a program called "I Want to Live," which is aimed at educating Russians on how to surrender to a drone.
The project published a video in Russian that advises soldiers to "Establish eye contact with the drone," and then "Lay down your weapon. Raise your hands. Show that you want to surrender."

The battlefield pressure comes as Putin also faces growing calls to end the war from a surprising quarter. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Putin on Monday that the war in Ukraine "must end," saying there should be a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Modi made the comments during a meeting with Putin in China, where the two leaders were attending a regional summit.

Big Tech's Profits Inflated By Billions In One-Time AI Company Investments

2026-09-02T08:29:37.152-04:00

Let's be clear: Silicon Valley and Wall Street are both having a very good year. But merely historically high operating earnings don't seem to be enough. So in addition to those results, they are adding 'other income' which is primarily the run-up in equity stakes they hold in AI companies like Anthropic and SpaceX.

There is nothing illegal about this, but without explanation, it is misleading for the simple reason that such gains are non-recurring. That means they are one-time which cannot be assumed to happen again. The problem here is that as the economy becomes more dependent on AI despite all of the warning signs that the soaring bull market is approaching overvaluation - if it has not already passed that mark - it is crucial that investors and policy makers have an accurate sense of what the actual financial picture is. Conflating operating results with one time gains in a narrowing and possibly overinflated segment of the global economy is a recipe for an unpleasant surprise. JL

Jonathan Weil reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Last quarter, "other income" at Amazon and Alphabet totaled $121 billion combined after taxes, almost all of it from investment gains. Other income was 71% of Alphabet’s quarterly profits and 66% of Amazon’s from revaluing equity holdings, which include SpaceX and Anthropic. Amazon’s primarily arose from its stake in Anthropic. Alphabet’s portion is on track to represent about 10% of second-quarter earnings for the S&P 500, and Amazon’s share another 5%. These are unrealized paper profits, and they are inherently nonrecurring. Even including these gains, the S&P 500 looks expensive at about 27 times trailing earnings. The historical average is about 16 times. Counting gains in volatile equities when they go up while subtracting everyday operating costs isn’t analysis. It’s marketing, which of course is what Wall Street is all about. Investors beware.

Corporate profits are soaring, but they aren’t all created equal. Wall Street’s earnings game is making it needlessly hard for investors to tell real growth from one-time gains.
S&P 500 companies reported $2.64 trillion of combined net income over the last four quarters, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. However, a big chunk of the earnings consisted of paper gains from marking up equity investments in other companies.
Last quarter, “other income” at Amazon.com AMZN -1.75%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Alphabet GOOGL -1.41%decrease; red down pointing triangle, Google’s parent company, totaled roughly $121 billion combined after taxes, almost all of it from investment gains. Alphabet’s portion is on track to represent about 10% of second-quarter earnings for the S&P 500, and Amazon’s share another 5%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Other income was 71% of Alphabet’s quarterly profits and 66% of Amazon’s. Alphabet’s mark-to-market gains came from revaluing equity holdings, which include SpaceX and Anthropic, the artificial-intelligence developer behind Claude. Amazon’s markups primarily arose from its stake in Anthropic.

Those investment gains are part of net income under GAAP, or generally accepted accounting principles. But nobody trying to assess the valuations at Alphabet or Amazon should be placing a market multiple on them. These are unrealized paper profits, and they are inherently nonrecurring. Even including these gains, the S&P 500 looks expensive at about 27 times trailing earnings. The historical average is about 16 times.
The confusion for investors stems from Wall Street’s chaotic methods for tracking earnings beats and misses. Analysts routinely play along with the companies they cover, stripping out recurring costs like stock-based pay. Yet, when a convenient windfall materializes, analysts eagerly wave it through to boost the bottom line.
The problem isn’t just financial cosmetics. It’s utter inconsistency. Wall Street lacks a unified approach for investment markups. Last quarter, Nvidia NVDA -1.36%decrease; red down pointing triangle steered analysts to exclude them, so they did. Alphabet and Amazon didn’t, so analysts fell right in line.
For all the flaws in GAAP, at least it provides an agreed-upon rulebook. The consensus profits tallied by Wall Street analysts, often called “Street earnings,” typically exist to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Street earnings are whatever earnings metric a majority of analysts covering a company adopt, whether non-GAAP or GAAP. These in turn make their way into the most widely collected earnings data for the S&P 500 and other indexes.
For most S&P 500 companies, non-GAAP earnings are the analysts’ profit metric of choice. Broadcom last quarter reported $9.3 billion of net income, but $12.1 billion of non-GAAP earnings. Management excluded stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets. These are recurring operating expenses that analysts covering Broadcom dutifully ignored, and they were hardly alone. Street earnings exclude stock-based pay for at least 65 companies in the S&P 500, according to FactSet data.
The distortions also extend to forward estimates. For example, the S&P 500 is priced at 19 times FactSet’s 2027 consensus earnings estimate. But the “E” in the P/E ratio is skewed because the estimates are for Street earnings. On a trailing basis, the index trades for 24 times Street earnings. That is lower than the P/E ratio using GAAP net income, but the analysts chose not to exclude the big markups at Alphabet and Amazon from Street earnings.

Last quarter, Nvidia reported $58.3 billion of net income and pointed analysts to a lower adjusted number of $45.5 billion that excluded unrealized investment gains. The move signaled these aren’t core items that belong in a recurring earnings stream. It also makes analysts’ willingness to include similar gains for Alphabet and Amazon look all the more arbitrary.
Nvidia’s non-GAAP adjustment marked a rare instance of conservatism. The norm at U.S. companies is for management to gild the lily, knowing the analysts at big Wall Street brokers will relay the spin as their own.
On a trailing four-quarter basis, S&P 500 earnings are up 31% versus the year-earlier period, according to S&P data. That is based on GAAP net income. If Amazon and Alphabet are excluded, they’re up 24%, which is still spectacular growth.
That strength makes accounting numerology all the more absurd. When markets trade near historical highs, investors need clear signals about operating strength, not bespoke metrics designed to help management beat consensus estimates.

Counting gains in volatile equities when they go up while subtracting everyday operating costs isn’t analysis. It’s marketing, which of course is what Wall Street is all about. Investors beware.

"They Will Hang Me:" Cornered, Putin Fears Ending Ukraine War Without Victory

2026-09-01T12:16:18.901-04:00

Putin has always been a high stakes gambler. At this point, he must know that his military is incapable of delivering a battlefield victory. But negotiating without having achieved even his minimum possible goal - taking all of Ukraine's Donbas - is probably a death sentence for him.

So one option is to escalate or, as he has done in the past, to threaten escalation by taking more aggressive and provocative actions like sabotaging European manufacturing sites. The problem he faces is that his military's failure to subdue Ukraine makes it less believable that he can take on NATO successfully. Thus, destabilizing acts and tough talk, remain his best card for now, if only to help stifle rising Russian public discontent. JL

The Economist reports:

Putin's key objective has always been preserving his own power, and ultimately his life. One concern for the Kremlin is the evaporation of the public’s silent assent for the war. Deep strikes by Ukrainian drones on refineries and e-retailers, along with internet restrictions, have shattered the veneer of normal life. Public trust in television propaganda is falling, and young people post calls to end the war on social media. Mr Putin’s approval rating is sliding. The mood among elites is even more sour. The biggest issue is not so much the economy or the lack of military success but whatever the outcome, nearly five years is a failure. He believes ending the war without achieving even his minimum goal, taking all of Ukraine’s Donbas, would put him physically at risk. (“They will hang me”). All this might make escalation seem attractive.
On August 29th, meeting with staff and students at a university in Moscow, Vladimir Putin observed that orcas feed on polar bears. “That’s the food chain,” Russia’s president stated. “Children should be taught about this, so that they understand what kind of world we live in and why we are conducting the special military operation”—his term for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The claim was fanciful: there is no known case of an orca eating a polar bear. But it provided some insight into Mr Putin’s predatory worldview. Recently NATO countries have become increasingly concerned about the direction his thoughts might be taking. Russia’s army has been largely stalemated for years, suffering tens of thousands of men killed or severely wounded each month. The war has become a ruinous contest of drone and missile attacks that, while devastating to Ukraine, are inflicting visible damage on Russia too. But Mr Putin shows no sign of backing off. The worry is that he may try to escape from what Russians call a tupik (dead-end) as he has in the past: by finding some new way to escalate the conflict.

The signs of Western anxiety are all around. On August 25th John Ratcliffe, the director of America’s CIA, unexpectedly flew to Moscow. Accounts differ on whether he went to warn Mr Putin not to attack NATO countries, or to deliver a bleak assessment of Russia’s prospects and persuade him to negotiate. Three days later Finland requested the help of Swedish aircraft and warships in monitoring its border with Russia for incursions. Germany is preparing to openly blame Russia for a drone attack at Leipzig’s airport on August 4th, and will probably impose further sanctions. On August 20th Romania says it destroyed a Russian naval drone that targeted a drilling platform in its waters. On August 25th Slovakia foiled an arson attack on a drone factory.
Meanwhile Mr Putin has ended his long silence over Ukraine’s increasingly successful drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and logistics centres, including warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-retailer. In an address on August 22nd he accused Ukraine of opening a “Pandora’s box” and promised “blowback on the most sensitive sectors of your economy”. Earlier that day, speaking to United Russia, the Kremlin’s political party, he dismissed any notion of ending the war. “The special military operation continues,” he vowed. “We will move only forward.”
Sources close to the Kremlin say that, after several weeks of consideration over the summer, he seems to have chosen to escalate. Indeed, a longtime associate of Mr Putin says he is likely to have seen Mr Ratcliffe’s visit as a sign of American weakness. That, the source said, was the president’s interpretation of the visit to Moscow in November 2021 by Bill Burns, Joe Biden’s CIA director, to warn him against invading Ukraine. He went ahead three months later.

No one can know what is inside Mr Putin’s head. But his reasons for escalating the war, like the decision to invade in the first place, are internal. His key objective has always been preserving his own power, and ultimately his life.
One concern for the Kremlin is the evaporation of the public’s silent assent for the war. Deep strikes by Ukrainian drones on refineries and e-retailers, along with internet restrictions imposed by security services, have shattered the veneer of normal life. The Levada Centre, an independent pollster, says 57% of Russians describe the situation as “tense”; respondents cite the war, the death toll, mobilisation, drone attacks and the lack of a sense of the future. Public trust in television propaganda is falling, and young people post calls to end the war on social media. Mr Putin’s approval rating is sliding.
The mood among elites is even more sour. The biggest issue, one insider says, is not so much the economy or the lack of military success, but the time the war has wasted: whatever the outcome, nearly five years is a failure. There is a growing feeling that the tsar is naked, says another member of the elite. None of Russia’s economic or political problems is fatal to Mr Putin: he has the economic resources and the repressive apparatus to carry on. But perception matters.
Mr Putin may express his aims using the language of geopolitics, but in fact he is guided by the criminal logic of his regime: never show weakness. Russia’s system has a high tolerance for violence, but is unforgiving of failure. He probably believes that ending the war without achieving even his minimum goal, taking all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, would put him physically at risk. (“They will hang me,” he told some of his cronies at one point during the war, according to an insider.)
Carrying on the war in its current form, meanwhile, is no solution. “Inertia-driven scenarios are disadvantageous to the Kremlin,” one member of the Russian elite says: they simply consume economic resources and waste political capital.
All this might make escalation seem attractive. But it is not clear what it would entail. Russia is likely to intensify hybrid warfare and sabotage against Ukraine’s allies and target supply routes from Europe to Ukraine. Western intelligence agencies worry that Russia might target factories in Europe that make materiel for Ukraine’s war effort. But they think Mr Putin does not want a direct military confrontation with NATO.
Within Ukraine, escalation largely means scaling up things Russia is already doing. On August 30th Russia’s ministry of defence said it was preparing a massive strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. But Ukraine already expects such attacks as part of Russia’s all-out offensive to break its will this winter. As for the ground war, Russian sources say Mr Putin is committed to throwing an additional 300,000-400,000 men into the meat grinder. He does not need to announce a new wave of mobilisation: he never suspended his initial mobilisation order. Extra men will probably be recruited using coercion by regional governments to keep any political discontent localised. The authorities are already testing the new recruitment system in Penza, a region 750km south-east of Moscow.
Mr Putin might also intensify repression of supposed “internal enemies”, not because they pose any threat to his power but because he needs to demonstrate strength. None of this will solve any of Russia’s problems. It is only likely to increase popular suffering and contribute to instability, both inside and outside the country.

Russia's 51st Army Donetsk Military HQ Destroyed By Ukraine Cruise Missiles

2026-09-01T11:49:49.720-04:00

This story is significant for two reasons. First, that Ukrainian intelligence identified the presence of Russia's 51st Combined Arms Army, the formation that is running the Kremlin's fighting in the Donbas area and may have killed him along with several of his top officers.

But second, that Ukraine deployed a number of cruise missiles - as many as six by some accounts - to accomplish the mission, and that they were probably a combination of French and US munitions, suggesting that supplies of those weapons from NATO sources are continuing and making an impact. JL

Stefan Korshak reports in the Kyiv Post:

The main and reserve Russian command posts in the Donetsk area were struck in a decapitation strike against the commander and senior staff of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army, the major Russian formation for the war in eastern Ukraine. Images of debris pointed to French-made SCALP cruise missiles, while a second target had been hit with a new US-made JDAM-LR precision weapon. The strikes came without air raid warnings and detonated within several minutes of each other. Lt. Gen. Sergei Milchakov, commander of the 51st Combined Arms Army, was holding a meeting at the site and was reported killed along with several deputies, though that has not been confirmed.

Ukraine’s armed forces struck two Russian command posts in occupied Donetsk with a concentrated wave of air-launched missiles, in what appeared to be an attempted decapitation strike against the commander and senior staff of a major Russian formation.
Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed that the main and reserve Russian command posts in the Donetsk area had been hit but did not identify the weapons used. Images of debris pointed to French-made SCALP cruise missiles, while a Ukrainian defense publication said a second target might have been hit with a newly developed US-made JDAM-LR precision weapon.
Neither the reported use of the JDAM-LR nor claims that the commander of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army was killed have been confirmed.

Residents of Donetsk reported seeing or hearing between six and 13 heavy explosions late Wednesday and early Thursday. The strikes reportedly came without air raid warnings and detonated within several minutes of each other, according to local accounts.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed head of the occupied Donetsk region, said Ukrainian aircraft had struck an industrial section of the city with “several” SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles. He said eight civilians were wounded, including two girls. Kyiv Post could not independently verify the claim.
Suspected 51st Army headquarters hit beneath apartment complex
The first target was an unfinished apartment complex near the Donetsk City shopping center. Images published by the Ukrainian OSINT group CyberBoroshno showed that its reinforced-concrete ground floor and two underground parking levels had been completed.

Ukrainian military information channel Exilenova said the parking garage had been converted into the main headquarters of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army, one of the principal formations involved in Moscow’s offensive in Donetsk Oblast.
CyberBoroshno said six missiles appeared to have penetrated the structure and detonated inside it.
“Six missiles definitely penetrated into the parking lot. It was completely f*cked up,” the group said.

Photographs circulated by media in occupied Donetsk showed a metal fragment marked “MBDA France,” consistent with the French SCALP EG. The provenance of the fragment has not been independently verified.
Storm Shadow and SCALP EG are the British and French versions of an Anglo-French air-launched cruise missile manufactured by MBDA. Designed to penetrate hardened, high-value targets, the missile has been used by Ukraine against Russian command posts, ammunition depots and other military facilities since deliveries began in 2023.
Ukraine has also used SCALP missiles against Russian military targets near Donetsk, including an April strike on a drone storage and launch site near the city’s occupied airport.
Britain said in August that it would allow MBDA to share classified technical information on British components with Ukraine and France to support plans for the production of SCALP missiles in Ukraine.
Some Ukrainian platforms suggested that FP-5 Flamingo missiles, rather than European cruise missiles, had struck the parking complex. The Ukrainian-made Flamingo carries a much larger warhead and is designed to detonate at or near the surface, making it less suited than SCALP to penetrating a hardened underground target. Ukraine has used the Flamingo in increasingly frequent strikes against targets inside Russia and Russian-occupied territory.

Images from Donetsk showed fires and smoke rising through the roof of the parking structure, consistent with weapons penetrating the structure before detonating. They did not conclusively establish which missiles were used.
Reports of Russian commander’s death remain unconfirmed
Some Ukrainian news platforms reported that Lt. Gen. Sergei Milchakov, identified in open sources as commander of the 51st Combined Arms Army, was holding a meeting at the site and was killed along with several deputies.
No official Ukrainian or Russian source has confirmed those reports.
Russian news platforms said no military facility had been hit and reported civilian casualties. Pushilin said eight civilians were wounded but did not report any deaths.
The Institute for the Study of War said the Russian newspaper Izvestia initially reported that Russian military personnel might have been killed before deleting the claim. The independent Russian outlet Astra reported that the strike hit abandoned buildings near parked Russian military vehicles rather than the nearby shopping center.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a Thursday statement that its air forces had successfully struck “the main and reserve command posts” of Russian forces in the Donetsk area with air-launched missiles.

The scale of Russian losses was still being assessed, the statement said.
Second suspected command post heavily damaged
A second wave struck the grounds of a former Soviet research institute about two kilometers from the parking garage.
The site, consisting of several university-style buildings, has reportedly been used by Russian forces since the Kremlin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian OSINT reports said the complex contained troop accommodation, communications equipment, storage facilities and command centers. Some reports linked it to Russia’s 2nd Combined Arms Army.
Six or seven munitions reportedly hit the complex. Photographs published by Russia’s state-controlled TASS news agency and Reuters showed buildings leveled or with exterior walls blown out. Other images showed extensive structural collapse in the main above-ground building.
Was the new JDAM-LR used?
Ukrainian defense publication Defense Express said the damage at the former research institute might have been caused by a newly developed US-made weapon called the JDAM-LR, or Joint Direct Attack Munition–Long Range.
The report cited an image of a metal fragment marked “6F8W7.” Based on its shape and markings, Defense Express linked it to Ferra Aerospace, an Australian company that manufactures components for Boeing’s JDAM-ER and JDAM-LR weapons.
The fragment does not establish that a JDAM-LR was used, because Ferra supplies parts for both systems and the provenance of the image has not been independently verified.

The JDAM-LR is a powered precision munition that combines a JDAM guidance system and wing kit with a compact turbojet. Boeing says it can carry a 500-pound payload more than 300 nautical miles, or about 555 kilometers. The US Air Force cleared the weapon for initial production for the US Navy in August after a series of tests.
There has been no public announcement that the United States supplied JDAM-LR weapons to Ukraine, and neither Kyiv nor Washington has confirmed their use in Donetsk.
Ukraine has operated the earlier JDAM-ER, or Joint Direct Attack Munition–Extended Range, since 2023. In May, the US approved a potential $373.6 million sale of 1,532 JDAM-ER guidance kits to Ukraine.
The JDAM-ER has a reported range of more than 70 kilometers. Donetsk’s distance from safer Ukrainian aircraft launch areas would make its use difficult, although not impossible, and would expose the launching aircraft to Russian air defenses.
That range problem is the main basis for speculation that the longer-range JDAM-LR might have been used. At present, however, the available evidence supports only a hypothesis.

One-In-Three 'Russian' POWs Captured By Ukraine Now Foreigners

2026-09-01T10:47:18.240-04:00

That approximately one-third of soldiers fighting for Russia who are captured as POWs by Ukrainian forces are now citizens of foreign countries in Africa, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East and Latin America confirms reports that the Kremlin is struggling to replace casualties with Russian citizens.

Many of the foreigners claim to have been tricked or lied to about jobs for which they were recruited, but others appear to have taken a calculated risk to get a Russian residency permit or passport which would enable them to eventually emigrate to western Europe. Whatever the reason, the reported death or injury rates for foreigners surpasses those of native Russians and the foreigners are never accepted for prisoner swaps. JL

Interfax Ukraine reports:

A third of prisoners of war in the Russian military are foreign citizens whom Russia has recruited to fight in the war against Ukraine, stated Andriy Biletsky, commander of the 3rd Army Corps of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. Among the foreigners fighting on the Russian
side are citizens of equatorial Africa, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, and Latin America. "This includes equatorial Africa, India and Pakistan and the Middle East. Latin America is the least represented, mainly Colombia, sometimes Venezuela. "Mostly, they’re either (former) cartel members or, conversely, former police officers." The main reason foreigners join the Russian army is financial incentives, and promises of Russian citizenship.
About a third of prisoners of war in the Russian military are foreign citizens whom Russia has recruited to fight in the war against Ukraine, stated Andriy Biletsky, commander of the 3rd Army Corps of the Operational Command Skhid (East) of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, in an interview with American MAGA blogger Laura Loomer.
"Currently, approximately one in three prisoners is a foreigner," Biletsky said, responding to a question about Russia’s recruitment of foreign citizens into combat operations.
According to him, among the foreigners fighting on the Russian side are citizens of equatorial Africa, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, and Latin America.
"This includes equatorial Africa, to a lesser extent India and Pakistan, the Middle East, a wide variety of countries, and also Latin America. Latin America is perhaps the least represented. It’s mainly Colombia, sometimes Venezuela," the corps commander noted.
Biletsky explained that among the foreigners captured, there are representatives of various categories—in particular, people associated with criminal groups, as well as former law enforcement officers.
"Mostly, they’re either cartels or, conversely, former police officers," he said.
According to the 3rd Army Corps commander, the main reason foreigners join the Russian army is financial incentives, and for some citizens of certain countries, promises of relocation to Russia and Russian citizenship are also a factor.
He also noted that Russia is recruiting foreign citizens to fight in the war amid significant losses and the need to bolster its troops.

2,500 Russians Trapped On Kinburn Spit Panicking As Ukraine Tightens Control

2026-09-01T10:22:04.434-04:00

The Russian occupying force of 2,500 men deployed on the strategically important Kinburn Spit at the mouth of the Dnipro River as it enters the Black Sea appear trapped as Ukrainian artillery and drone-dropped mines have cut their supply lines. Russian artillery can no longer support their troops effectively as they have been pushed too far away.

This is a significant development not just because isolating or capturing that many troops is notable, but because it may help ease pressure on Ukrainian grain exporting routes. It also demonstrates that the Ukrainian command is identifying and acting against any Russian troop concentration it thinks vulnerable. JL

Olena Mukhina reports in Euromaidan Press:

Ukrainian forces have trapped 2,500 Russian soldiers on the Kinburn Spit, a narrow sandy peninsula about 40 kilometers long, between the Dnipro-Buh Estuary and the Black Sea, which controls the sea exit from Russian and Ukrainian ports. Systematic drone strikes and remote mining have cut Russian supply lines and destroyed almost all of Russia's artillery on the spit. Russian artillery support can now reach the coast of Mykolaiv Oblast only with long-range guns from occupied Kherson Oblast. The Russian force has one way in — a single land route Ukrainian troops keep under fire, from Zaliznyi Port through Heroiske. Intercepts show panic among the Russian units, "they're screaming that they can't do logistics, that they don't want to go in, because it's death. The road is cut, and they have very little ammunition. The spit is a trap for them."

Ukrainian troops say they have trapped about 2,500 Russian soldiers on the Kinburn Spit. Systematic drone strikes and remote mining have let them cut the Russian supply lines and destroy almost all of Russia's artillery on the spit, scouts told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's "Crimea.Realities" project.
The Kinburn Spit is a narrow sandy peninsula about 40 kilometers long, between the Dnipro-Buh Estuary and the Black Sea, the last part of Mykolaiv Oblast that Russia has held since 2022. Whoever controls the spit controls the sea exit from the ports, which is why Moscow kept artillery there to shell the southern coast, said former Head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration Vitali Kim.
Now, the troops say, Russia can reach the coastal zone of Mykolaiv Oblast only with long-range guns from occupied Kherson Oblast.
Supply runs through a single corridor

The Russian force has one way in — a single land route Ukrainian troops keep under fire, from Zaliznyi Port through Heroiske.
"Our task here is to neutralize everything that drives onto the Kinburn Spit. Since we started destroying Russian troops at a rapid pace, they cannot bring in anything effective," reconnaissance unit commander with the call sign "Yava" explained.
A scout calls the spit a trap

Intercepts show panic among the Russian units, the troops say.

"In the intercepts, they're screaming that they can't do logistics, that they don't want to go in, because it's death. The road is cut, and they have very little ammunition. The spit is a trap for them," the scout said.
Mining the supply routes is the main method
The problem, the troops say, is that the occupiers disguise themselves as civilians, changing into civilian clothes, which places limits on when Ukrainian soldiers can strike. The main method is catching the Russians on logistics by mining their routes.
"A vehicle hit a mine that was dropped maybe a week ago, maybe yesterday. The first thing is cutting Russia's logistics — the vehicles, the resupply by quad bikes and motorcycles," deputy reconnaissance company commander with the call sign "Holova" explained.

Tech Blinded Itself To the Massive Popular Anti-AI, Data Center Revolt

2026-09-01T09:36:32.133-04:00

As previously unimaginable billions confirm more tech leaders and investors in their arrogant, preening self-regard, an even nastier edge emerged: that of utter contempt for the 'little people' who buy and use their products. Tech's embrace of Donald Trump reflected the belief of Silicon Valley's nobles that they were too rich and too important to pay attention to the AI concerns of mere voters and that should the troublesome hoi polloi foolishly attempt to get in their way, Trump would either win them over or work them over.

But that was almost two years ago, a lifetime in tech. Now, the revolt against data centers and against AI generally has become the most popular campaign theme of this mid-term election cycle, along with the issue of affordability to which it is inextricably tied. Promoting AI's job killing potential as a benefit may have been one of tech's major miscues, but it was only the first. Refusal to support any oversight, siting electricity and water hogging data centers wherever they felt like despite the cost impact and touting their yachts, mansions and botoxed sex doll partners merely added to the rising public frustration. It is worth noting that initial support for Trump was driven by resentment of 'elites' who were contemptuous of working people. Well guess who now fits that bill to a T? As prices rise, food and fuel are increasingly unaffordable and tech oligarchs appear to be able to buy whatever and whoever they want, the popular anger has found a focus. Google's original "Don't be evil" mantra appears quaint in light of Google Maps immediately switching Lake Ontario to Lake America on one damaged ego's whim. The local government stalling or cancelling of data center construction could be the first economic hurdle which causes AI to slow and challenges its financial projections. And tech's leaders have only their cluelessness to blame. JL

Tim Higgins reports in the Wall Street Journal:

The messier things around AI become, the more out of touch tech leaders appear. The Silicon Valley playbook is failing AI. The rise of AI coincided with a more inward-looking technorati spurning major institutions - government, regulators, media or any group perceived as slowing their innovation. Thanks to social media, many in tech have been talking to each other in an echo chamber of their own creation. They were reaching Sand Hill Road, Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, not Main Street. Concerns about AI are becoming part of the fabric of pop culture. Country music star Zach Bryan sings “The robot killed the working man.” It turns out tech guys ranting on X don’t have the same influence. “After the Tylenol crisis, this is the next great case study of what not to do.”

The Silicon Valley playbook is failing AI.
And the messier things around artificial intelligence become, as they did again in the past two weeks, the more out of touch many tech leaders appear. That suggests that even if Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs live up to Wall Street’s lofty expectations, these companies will be long dealing with risky political and regulatory headaches atypical for nascent industries.
More bluntly, for many outside the tech world, these companies will be birthed as the bad guys, a remarkable swing from the early 2010s when founders were venerated as cultural heroes.
“After the Tylenol crisis, this is the next great comms case study but in this instance it’s what not to do,” Rachael Horwitz, a longtime tech PR pro, posted on X this past week as AI data-center agita stirred the nation’s politics.
In something of a mea culpa, OpenAI’s Sam Altman in a recent podcast acknowledged missteps. “We have not, as a field, done a very good job of explaining to people what the benefits are and how the downsides can be mitigated,” the CEO said.
But why has it gone so badly?
It is probably no coincidence that the rise of the current AI excitement coincided with a more inward-looking technorati spurning major institutions—whether that be government, regulators, media or any group perceived as slowing their innovation.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks with members of the media between meetings in Washington, D.C., in July. Nathan Howard/Reuters
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter-turned-X in 2022 ushered in a “go-direct” movement among founders and venture capitalists who felt like they could talk directly to their stakeholders.
Travis Kalanick, the ousted founder of Uber, resurfaced publicly this year, crediting that very dynamic as he pushed his newest AI-focused startup. “Elon buying Twitter is the beginning of us being able to speak our minds and for disagreeing to not be illegal,” he said on a podcast this month.
The powerful sweep of social media has made reaching new audiences infinitely easier and cheaper for savvy founders. Wild ideas—maybe even outlandish ones—became in vogue.
But it also meant many in tech also have just been talking to each other in an echo chamber of their own creation. They were reaching Sand Hill Road, Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, not Main Street.
In turn, they were developing blind spots that are now glaring hazards as everyday folks fuel a bipartisan populist revolt against them.
“We have lost the muscle memory around actually what it takes to get out of Silicon Valley and get people—real human beings—engaged locally,” Horwitz told me about the tech industry a few days after her Tylenol post.
She cut her teeth first in politics then working for the likes of Google, which early on ran sophisticated public-relations operations to build support for its disruptive business model. Others, such as Uber and Tesla, would rely on similar tactics as they pushed new ways of doing things that threatened entrenched rivals.
For generations, tech startups, especially those involving consumers, have relied on a rather simple strategy of using the perception of momentum to help lift them.
Growth was the key metric. Build a user base as quickly as possible, which in turn signals to investors there is a market fit, justifying more funding. Rinse and repeat, ideally until the company is so well positioned it scares off potential rivals. Go public or get sold.
A swashbuckling swagger was all part of the culture as well. Steve Jobs’s pirate flag celebrated a certain rebellious esprit de corps. Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook on a “move fast and break things” motto that allowed for course corrections after missteps. Kalanick succeeded with Uber with what many saw as a win-at-all-costs strategy epitomized in his staff instructions: “Cheat codes. Find them. Use them.”
And AI had a similar vibe with predictions of curing cancer, disrupting entire industries, robot servants plus spicy warnings of what could go wrong from the creation of godlike superintelligence if these tech titans weren’t listened to. All of which helped fuel investor enthusiasm as consumers and businesses rushed to experiment with ChatGPT, Claude and others.

Yet, just as quickly, blowback followed: generative AI flooded social media with confusing slop and copyright threats; AI efficiencies were blamed—fairly or not—for job cuts. AI data centers and Flock cameras became political hot potatoes ahead of midterm elections; Pennsylvania recently became the latest state to limit AI data-center construction.
More than just politics, concerns around AI are becoming part of the fabric of pop culture. Former NFL player Jason Kelce, a co-owner of Garage Beer, featured in a now-viral online video encouraging viewers to bottle up their urine to send to data centers. “We want your pee to cool these data centers,” he said.
And, as if to punctuate things, social media was trending this past week with fan-filmed videos of what’s likely going to be a new banger from country music star Zach Bryan that captures the wistful feelings that many in towns across America are having. “The robot killed the working man,” he sang while belting out the yet-to-be released song to a crowd near Dallas.
Those lyrics could very well become the anthem of the fall.
In turn, the technorati are sputtering, trying to regroup for their counteroffensive while laying blame for why the dreams of AI aren’t being embraced. AI doomers’ predictions of “Terminator”-like movie outcomes are often on top of the list. Flyover-states’ lack of sophistication has been implied. Foreign influence campaigns is another theory.
Some are parsing polling data, arguing people aren’t against AI. They are just against wrongheaded perceptions about the effects on their electricity bills or local water consumption.
Unlike, say, Uber a decade ago. It showed it could turn to a powerful user base to lobby on its behalf when opposing political forces tried to hinder its business.
AI labs haven’t yet shown they have such muscles. It turns out tech guys ranting on X don’t have the same influence.

Russian Command Asks Kremlin For More Time As Fortress Belt Attacks Fail

2026-08-31T10:55:32.037-04:00

For months, ostensibly 'knowledgeable' observers have been predicting the imminent demise of Kostiantynivka, and with it, the eventual collapse of Ukraine's Fortress Belt. Yet here we are, one day from September and, whaddya know, it remains in Ukrainian hands.

In fact, the Russian high command has now reportedly asked the Kremlin for more time - measured in months - as its attempts to take all of Donbas remain unrealistic. JL

Illia Kabachynskyi reports in United 24:

Russia's political leadership expects the entire Donetsk region to be occupied by December 31, 2026, while the military is asking for more time—until the end of March 2027. (But even) “that is unrealistic." For months, Kostiantynivka has remained one of the most difficult sectors of the front. Neighboring Dobropillia and Druzhkivka also face Russian pressure. Kostiantynivka is one of four major cities in the Donetsk region that together form the region’s defensive “fortress belt”: Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk. But despite months of assaults, Kostiantynivka remains under Ukrainian control. Russia did not carry out a single successful mechanized assault.

March 2026 was supposed to mark the beginning of a major offensive, expected to deliver results at least on par with those of 2024-2025. The Russian army had made gains in previous years and planned to build on that momentum, with a specific objective: to capture the entire Donetsk region and gain leverage over Kyiv.
Instead, the first three days of active operations cost the Russian army more than 5,000 troops killed and wounded. By mid-March, it had become clear that there would be no significant advance.
Chart of personnel losses of Russian army from March to May 2026. (Illustration: UNITED24 Media)
Russia’s battlefield losses mount
The pace of losses continued. By the end of March, Russia had lost around 1.3 million troops since the start of the invasion, said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By the end of August, that figure had risen to 1.48 million killed and wounded. The Russian army is losing soldiers at a record pace: more than 100,000 in the spring and another 100,000 in the summer of 2026.

July 2026 was the bloodiest month of the year for Russian troop losses: 42,860 casualties, the Russian army’s highest monthly toll since January 2025. Overall, Russia lost 238,650 personnel in the first seven months of 2026. At the same time, equipment losses also reached a record high, at nearly 14,000 units in a single month.
Yet Russia did not carry out a single successful mechanized assault. Ukrainian forces have managed to repel every such attack by using drones and organizing effective defenses across different sectors of the front.
But the clearest measure of the campaign’s failure is not simply the scale of Russia’s losses, but how little territory those losses have gained for the Kremlin.
Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, says the Russian army is advancing extremely slowly, with virtually no territorial gains.
“We are seeing a trend toward a slowdown in the enemy’s rate of advance,” he said.
In some months, the area captured by Russian forces may amount to only a few dozen square kilometers, according to open-source data, including from Ukrainian open-source intelligence (OSINT) project DeepState.
Map of Russian military advances in Ukraine as of May 30, 2026. (Source: Open-source intelligence (OSINT) project DeepState)
Map of Russian military advances in Ukraine as of August 30, 2026. (Source: Open-source intelligence (OSINT) project DeepState)
Ukrainian forces, by contrast, have achieved tangible results. By the end of 2025, they had liberated territory around Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region. In the first half of 2026, the Ukrainian army conducted offensive operations in the south, liberating 745 square kilometers of territory and 26 settlements in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Ukrainian drones strike at Russia’s plans
One reason for the failure of Russia’s offensive campaign is a shift in the battlefield balance brought about by the saturation of the skies with drones. Ukrainian defenses are now capable of stopping infantry assaults as they approach, before they can develop into mass attacks. Attacks by columns of armored vehicles, which only a few years ago were a primary means of breaking through defensive lines, are now rarely attempted because of their extreme vulnerability to drones.

Another factor is Middle Strike drone operations, which systematically disrupt Russian logistics in the operational rear, 50 to 200 kilometers from the front line. In March 2026 alone, such drones struck around 350 targets. In May, similar strikes brought Russian logistics in the Luhansk region and supply routes toward occupied Crimea under fire control, with fuel tankers, trucks, and other vehicles regularly hit along supply routes. By the summer, Middle Strike operations had effectively enabled the isolation of Crimea.
People wait for the ferry in their cars after a truck exploded and heavily damaged the Kerch bridge that links Crimea to Russia, near Kerch, on October 8, 2022. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
As a result, Russia cannot reliably supply its assault forces with the necessary quantities of ammunition, fuel, and equipment at the right time. Its logistics have been disrupted, while significant forces have been diverted to air defense and rebuilding supply routes, further stretching Russian resources.
Russia fails to break the Donetsk region’s “fortress belt”
For months, Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region has remained one of the most difficult sectors of the front. Neighboring sectors around Dobropillia and Druzhkivka are also facing mounting Russian pressure. But despite months of assaults, Kostiantynivka remains under Ukrainian control.
Kostiantynivka is one of four major cities in the Donetsk region that together form the region’s defensive “fortress belt”: Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk. Russia seeks to capture these cities, which would open the way for an offensive against the rest of the region that remains under Ukrainian control.
Palisa reports that Russia’s political leadership expects the entire Donetsk region to be occupied by December 31, 2026, while the military is asking for slightly more time—until the end of March 2027. “That is unrealistic,” Palisa adds. This sector has been under constant pressure for months, but Ukrainian forces have managed to hold the Russian army back.

Ukraine's Military Advantage Lies In Its Ability To Adapt Faster Than Russia

2026-08-31T10:49:37.158-04:00

Ukraine's primary military technology advantage is not any particular weapons system or drone, but

its 'adaptive velocity' - the speed with which it learns from experience, finds available components to improve its advantage and then keep learning faster than can the Russians. JL

Ukrinform reports:

Ukraine's main long-term military advantage lies in its ability to quickly adapt to changes on the battlefield, accumulate combat experience, and translate that experience into new solutions. First is adaptive velocity. Eight months after the invasion, a USV struck the Black Sea Fleet. Nothing was military-grade: commercial satellite comms, a jet-ski power pack that one can buy online, and a workshop-built hull. The same drove the FPV revolution - recombining components faster than the enemy adapts.” Ukraine’s information architecture is the second key advantage and its combat data has become a strategic asset. “Ukraine’s enduring advantage is not any single drone, but the ecosystem that learns faster than its adversaries,”
Ukraine’s main long-term advantage in the field of defense technology lies not in individual weapons systems, but in its ability to quickly adapt to changes on the battlefield, accumulate combat experience, and translate that experience into new technological solutions.
This view was expressed by Can Kasapoğlu, a senior research fellow at the Hudson Institute, in an interview with Ukrinform.
“Three features of Ukraine’s defense technological and industrial base have impressed me. First is adaptive velocity. At occupied Ukrainian Sevastopol, Russia reinforced Soviet-inherited marine-mammal defenses against divers yet failed to anticipate robotic naval attack. Eight months after the full-scale invasion, an early USV struck the heart of the Black Sea Fleet. Apart from its warhead, nothing was military-grade: commercial satellite communications, a jet-ski power pack that one can find and buy online, and a simply workshop-built hull. The same logic drove the FPV revolution—recombining components faster than the enemy adapts,” Kasapoğlu noted.
The expert cited Ukraine’s information architecture as the second key advantage, particularly the Delta system, which, he said, was developed directly in the context of war.
“Fusing commercial LEO imagery, tens of thousands of air, land, and maritime sensors, and acoustic warning networks converts data into information superiority. Russia retains advantages in manpower, industry, and authoritarian partners; Ukraine compensates through a higher-quality picture of the battlespace,” Kasapoğlu emphasized.
The expert identified combat data as the third distinctive feature of the Ukrainian defense sector, noting that it has become a strategic asset.
“Secure data rooms and AI infrastructure turn battlefield experience into military-grade datasets and data into defense diplomacy,” the expert stressed.
Read also: Can Kasapoğlu, Senior Fellow and Defense Analyst at Hudson Institute
In his view, after the war, Ukraine must maintain the mechanism of interaction between the front lines and the defense industry, protect the accumulated combat data sets, diversify the supply of components, and develop long-term joint ventures with allies.
“Ukraine’s enduring advantage is not any single drone, but the ecosystem that learns faster than its adversaries,” Kasapoğlu concluded.
As reported by Ukrinform, Can Kasapoğlu believes that Ukraine is providing NATO countries with invaluable lessons—ranging from the effective use of low-cost technologies on the battlefield to building national resilience and preparing for protracted wars.

Supplying Troops, Weapons To Russia Earning North Korea $14 Billion

2026-08-31T10:00:31.438-04:00

$14 billion is alot of money for an economy like North Korea's. And though it is unclear whether Russia can actually afford to transfer that amount of cash, given its dire economic condition, even the debt - especially if guaranteed or somehow underwritten by China - is a significant financial boost, making the provision of cannon fodder and missiles quite the export business opportunity. JL

Raj K reports in Medium:

North Korea could earn up to 14.4 billion dollars by providing soldiers and weapons to Russia, making it a major source of income for the country. Soldiers alone could easily earn $560 million per year. The second and largest component of earnings is attributable to the supply of weapons. Russia is also providing North Korea with military technology including satellite systems, and modern military equipment.
A very shocking report has recently come out about the growing military closeness between North Korea and Russia.
In it, South Korea’s National Security Strategy Institute explains in detail how this war has become a major source of income for North Korea.
South Korea’s news agency Yonhap News Agency reported on March 16, quoting a study, that North Korea could earn up to about 14.4 billion dollars by providing soldiers and weapons to Russia.
This study was prepared by South Korea’s research institute, the National Security Strategy Institute.
According to the report, Pyongyang has sent soldiers to Russia in several phases since October 2024. It is estimated that more than 20,000 soldiers have been deployed in four phases to support Russia.
These soldiers are primarily used for training, logistics support, and, in some cases, battlefield tasks.
From the deployment of these soldiers, North Korea could earn up to approximately $ 620 million.
This estimate also includes economic factors such as soldiers’ salaries, potential bonuses, and compensation paid upon death in wartime.
If this process continues in the same way, these soldiers alone could easily earn $560 million per year.
The second and largest component of earnings is attributable to the supply of weapons, and satellite imagery has been used to corroborate this.
Based on these pictures, experts believe that North Korea has provided Russia with large amounts of ammunition and different types of dangerous weapons, which are helping to fill Russia’s decreasing supplies in the Ukraine war.
According to a study by South Korea’s National Security Strategy Institute, from August 2023 to December 2025, North Korea could earn between 7.67 billion and 14.4 billion dollars through military cooperation with Russia.
However, the report also notes that the full estimated earnings may not actually reach North Korea.
Analysts estimate that only about 4% to 19.6% of the total amount may have reached Pyongyang directly in the form of foreign currency.
Nevertheless, the importance of this cooperation for North Korea extends beyond financial support.
According to the report, it could gain one additional significant benefit from this process — access to advanced military technology and equipment.
The Ukraine-based military intelligence service of HUR stated on February 4th that North Korean forces had an active presence in Russia’s Kursk Oblast region until early January 2026.
The region is geographically close to the Russia-Ukraine border and has recently been in the spotlight as a result of various reported military activities.
There is a similarly extremely costly human price for this military alliance that North Korea is being asked to pay; as per reports from Yonhap, approximately $6,000, North Korean soldiers have either died or suffered serious injury while serving as members of the Russian military at some point thus far.
Both Russia and North Korea are countries with highly secretive governments, and no official information about any military or economic agreements between them is publicly available.
But in the last few years, cooperation between the two countries has actually increased.
As far as I believe, the real benefit for North Korea may not be money but military technology. Russia has advanced missile technology, satellite systems, and modern military equipment.
If technical cooperation occurs in these areas, North Korea’s military capability can become quite strong in the future.
Trump says he could meet Kim Jong Un
On March 13, an unexpected meeting took place in Washington during a briefing between US President Donald Trump and the South Korean Prime Minister.
During the meeting, Trump reportedly expressed personal interest in potential talks with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
According to reports, Trump asked during the conversation whether Kim Jong Un “comes forward to talk to America or directly with me.” Even during Trump’s previous term, he had adopted a policy of direct dialogue with North Korea.
At that time, the summit meetings held in Singapore and Vietnam received considerable international attention.
The purpose of these meetings was to open the way for talks on North Korea’s nuclear program and regional security issues.
This recent statement remains significant to our current situation due to North Korea’s recent series of missile and weapon testing events.
The recent testing has caused an increase in talk of increasing the security cooperation among the United States, South Korea, and Japan.
Pyongyang recently conducted a large firepower strike exercise using a nuclear-capable multiple rocket launcher system with a diameter of 600 millimeters.
In this test, rockets were fired over a distance of more than 360 kilometers, and an island area in the eastern sea of Korea was targeted.
This sea area is often known by the name Sea of Japan or “East Sea of Korea.” The test was monitored by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un himself. His daughter, Kim Ju-ae was also present with him.
According to North Korea’s government news agency, the Korean Central News Agency, this exercise included 12 highly precise rocket launcher systems operated by units of the Korean People’s Army.
The timing of this test is also considered important. This exercise happened just one day after North Korea fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the sea.
Japan confirmed that these projectiles fell outside its special economic zone, also known as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in maritime law.
The entire sequence of events presents a broader picture. On one side, tensions are increasing in the Middle East, on the other side, the Russia–Ukraine war continues in Europe, and now military activities are also speeding up in Asia.
Therefore, for this reason, many think that they are separate regional crises, or simply, part of a global competitive struggle for power.
On the other hand, the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un was not officially confirmed; however, there are very strong signs.

Russia's 2026 Offensive "One Of the Most Extraordinary Wastes In Military History"

2026-08-31T09:44:57.165-04:00

To put it succinctly: in 2026 Russia has lost more land than it gained, have hardly advanced anywhere on the front, are losing 6,000 more soldiers monthly than they can replace - and those trends have accelerated during the spring-summer campaign season in which Russia historically posts its biggest gains.

Combined with the economic losses inflicted by Ukraine's long range strikes on oil refiners, storage and military manufacturing, it is little wonder that Putin is trying to change the conversation by threatening Europe, though with what he can actually threaten it given his abject failure in Ukraine is a question yet to be answered. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

What we have seen this summer and spring has been a Russian offensive that will go down as one of the most extraordinary and bloody wastes in military history. The Ukrainians have liberated more territory from Russia than the Russians have seized—during the Russian spring/summer offensive season. At the same time, Russian troop losses have continued to trend upwards. Over the last four weeks, the Russians have lost 36,080 troops in combat. That is a daily number of 1,289, which would work out to almost exactly 40,000 during the month of August. Russia is losing 6000 more troops a month than it can raise. So, the Russians have hardly advanced, have lost more land than they have gained, are losing considerably more soldiers every month than they can generate, and are facing serious internal questions about how to find more soldiers, for a summer of failure.
This week, as there have been no Russian breakthroughs (ho, ho) there has been much less reporting of the Russian summer offensive and, amazingly, hardly any mention of the Ukrainian manpower crisis which the press wrote about constantly in 2025 and which major analysts were claiming was going to lead to a Ukrainian failure that year.
What we have seen this summer and spring has been a Russian offensive that will go down as one of the most extraordinary and bloody wastes in military history. It is worth looking at the Deep State map of the main areas of the fighting on March 21, 2026 (first day of Spring) and today.
The most notable change is the Ukrainian recapturing of land in the middle of the line (the green area to the east of Pokrovske). There are tiny shifts in Russia’s favor in other places, but you do need to look hard to see them.
What this means is that in all probability the Ukrainians have liberated slightly (and I do mean slightly) more territory from Russia than the Russians have seized—during the Russian spring/summer offensive season. The exact amount is impossible to know, but it is worth noting that both Deep State and the Institute for the Study of War are estimating that over the summer Ukraine has taken more land from the Russians than the Russians have from them—while disagreeing slightly over the specific figure over the last four weeks. During that time, Deep State has Ukraine taking a net of 3 square miles from Russia, while ISW has Russia taking 20 square miles from Ukraine. If you want to see both tabulations in a helpful metric, Russia Matters has put them together here.
And at the same time, Russian troop losses have continued to trend upwards. Over the last four weeks, Ukrainian intelligence has estimated that the Russians have lost 36,080 troops in combat. That is a daily number of 1289, which would work out to almost exactly 40,000 during the entire month of August.
Btw, I just checked and the Ukrainian claim of Russian losses for the last 24 hours was exactly 1,400—so the final figure might be over 40,000.
This is an unsustainable loss rate, unless Russia finds a new way to generate large number of manpower. The Guardian, in a piece published on August 28, estimated that Russia is losing 6000 more troops a month than it can raise. Here is a quote from that piece:
“We estimate that the gap between the number of people Russia is losing to casualties and the number they’re being able to recruit is around 6,000 a month at the moment,” one western official said.
To change the trajectory on those losses Russia will either have to greatly increase the number of soldiers they are recruiting from the rest of the world or Putin will have to enforce a greater mobilization across Russian society. When it comes to recruiting from around the world, Shaun Pinner just released a really interesting piece about how many POWs in Ukrainian custody are coming from outside Russia.
When it comes to internal mobilization, the Ukrainians interestingly still say that Putin is hoping to force more soldiers from the periphery into the army, another 300,000 after the upcoming elections. That remains his plan, they say, because he still does not want to enforce a general mobilization on Moscow or St Petersburg.
This “peripheral” mobilization will not be easy as these areas have already been combed through for soldiers—those forced in now will be the lowest of the low in priority list.
So, the Russians have hardly advanced this summer, have probably lost more land than they have gained in the last few months, are losing considerably more soldiers every month than they can generate, and are facing some pretty serious internal questions about how to find more soldiers.
What we are seeing is a summer offensive of failure.

Nvidia Uses Deep Pockets, Investing $50 Billion To Keep AI Booming

2026-08-31T09:26:45.678-04:00

Nvidia vehemently denies the $50 billion in AI companies is circular financing, to say nothing of the other billions it is investing in expanded electrical grid and related schemes.

And as long as its own revenues and profits keep rising, it appears that most investors will keep supporting the company's DIY financing strategy. But Wall Street and tech have a history of going all in - 'the trend is your friend, don't fight the tape' - until they don't. The looming question is whether Nvidia's belief in its customers will be matched by their own performance. The further dependence of a narrowing global GDP on AI has economic policymakers' and wealth managers' attention. But whether they will have the wherewithal and courage to intervene if and when necessary is not clear. JL

Anissa Gardizy and Robbie Whelan report in the Wall Street Journal:

Nvidia has invested nearly $50 billion in frontier AI labs, using its balance sheet to bolster the AI boom and shows no signs of giving ground. On Wednesday, the world’s only $5 trillion company reported its second-quarter earnings, which included that the company expects its revenue to grow much faster than Wall Street analysts had been expecting Nvidia seized on the positive vibes created by the revenue news to offer a full-throated argument for the company’s growing use of financial guarantees, equity investments and other mechanisms to help its customers buy AI chips in ever greater quantities. In electricity, too, Nvidia is deploying its balance sheet to make sure customers have somewhere to plug in servers. Nvidia’s incentive is clear: The more power developers it works with, the more data centers that are specially built for its chips versus its competitors.

Nvidia was closing in on a landmark agreement to help OpenAI secure one of the world’s largest planned data-center projects when Colette Kress, the chips firm’s chief financial officer, pumped the brakes.
Concerned about negative investor reaction to a Wall Street Journal report that Nvidia was in talks to financially guarantee a project expected to cost more than $500 billion, Kress pushed for a scaled-back deal, according to people familiar with the matter. In the end, Nvidia agreed to backstop less than half of the original amount discussed.
It was a tactical retreat—but on the broader strategy of using its balance sheet to bolster the AI boom, Nvidia shows no signs of giving ground.
On Wednesday, the world’s only $5 trillion company reported its second-quarter earnings, which included the blockbuster mic drop that the company expects its revenue to grow much faster than Wall Street analysts had been expecting. Shares climbed in after-hours trading en route to a $442 billion gain Thursday.
Nvidia executives seized on the positive vibes created by the revenue news to offer a full-throated, affirmative argument for the company’s growing use of financial guarantees, equity investments and other mechanisms to help its customers buy artificial-intelligence chips in ever greater quantities.
Kress name-checked some of Nvidia’s biggest recent actions, including the data-center project, located on federal land in Ohio; an initiative with six major Wall Street investment firms to provide $500 billion in financing for chip purchases; a deal to provide “selective credit enhancement” to enable an unnamed AI lab to buy 2 gigawatts of computing power; and credit support for neo-cloud companies that agree to share some revenue with Nvidia. (Some of the revenue-sharing agreements have been paused, the Journal reported.)
Kress also said that Nvidia has invested nearly $50 billion in frontier AI labs.
“We recognize the scale of this support, and we know some will call this circular financing. We see it differently,” she said.
How does Nvidia see it? Kress laid it out.
OpenAI, Anthropic and other so-called frontier labs, she said, are “growing faster than what their balance sheets and credit profiles can support.” They are juicing revenues at unprecedented rates, but the growth can only continue as long as they can secure ever-greater amounts of computing power, which they will have trouble doing on their own as long as they lack the ability to borrow huge sums of money at competitive rates.
Until they can do so, Kress said, “Nvidia is needed to help power this flywheel.”
In contrast to the 5% share-price slide that followed news of Nvidia’s planned Ohio backstop, investors greeted Kress’s Wednesday remarks with an 8.7% jump—good for the second-largest one-day market cap gain in history.

John Belton, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, said the financing initiatives are geared toward accelerating the AI data center build-out and reducing borrowing costs for smaller cloud companies, but called them “polarizing for the stock” because of ongoing market concerns about circular financing. Still, helping customers afford data centers probably makes good sense, he said.
“It is unlikely that this debate will be resolved anytime soon,” Belton said. “But for now, they should support revenue and earnings upside both near- and medium-term.”
The ultimate expression of Nvidia’s flywheel strategy might be the data-center project in Portsmouth, Ohio. At its planned size of 10 gigawatts, it would be the largest such facility in the world—with Nvidia providing financial support to each of the major players involved, in some cases at multiple levels.
To help developer SoftBank’s SB Energy raise debt to build the campus, Nvidia agreed to backstop a portion of the completed value of the site, up to $105 billion. In return, it has the exclusive right to provide chips for the first half of the project. Nvidia is expected to provide financing for the chips OpenAI will need to buy, with purchases expected to total $350 billion for the full build-out.

Breaking down the OpenAI-Nvidia deal
Nvidia
In talks to finance
OpenAI’s chip purchase
$1.5 billion
of equity funding
$30 billion
of equity funding
Nvidia GPUs
SB Energy
OpenAI
Backstopping
$105 billion
for first phase
of the project
SB Energy Ohio Data Center Campus
Sources: staff and news reports
Drew An-Pham/WSJ
The day of that announcement Chief Executive Jensen Huang put it plainly in an X post.
“Is this circular financing?” he wrote, before answering, “No.”
Huang compared the financial guarantee to the same strategy Nvidia applies to managing its supply chain. “We secure critical inputs when we have visibility into customer demand and when doing so enables long-term productive capacity,” he said.
With Anthropic planning an IPO as soon as September and OpenAI expected to follow next year, the need for credit backstops on their chip buys should lessen over time. Immediately after SpaceX went public, it was able to raise $25 billion in a bond sale.
Other bottlenecks remain. Looming large among them is electricity. There, too, Nvidia is deploying its balance sheet to make sure customers have somewhere to plug in servers.
Nvidia has picked up its pace of investment in this area, with up to billions invested across several different firms. Earlier this year, Nvidia invested $2 billion in power developer Lancium, which gives it a 20% stake in the firm. Nvidia has the option to increase its stake with another $1 billion of investment.
Last week, Nvidia also invested in power developer Cloverleaf for an undisclosed amount in the hundreds of millions. Nvidia’s investment with SB Energy, the developer of the Ohio project, starts at $1.5 billion.
Nvidia’s incentive is clear: The more power developers it works with, the more data centers that are specially built for its chips versus its competitors. In its announcement, Cloverleaf said its partnership with Nvidia meant that the firm would tailor its design decisions to Nvidia’s architecture.