The Low-Down

Putin - and Putinism - Have No Good Way Out of His War

2026-06-02T10:31:24.801-04:00

There is a delicious irony in watching

Vladimir Putin, the ultimate authoritarian, hoisted on his own hubris. In the fifth year of a war he started, assured - at least in his own mind - of a quick victory, he now finds not only his own rule, but the system he installed and runs with an iron fist threatened by the failure of the military he thought would enforce his will.

While there appears to be no imminent downfall in the offing, seeing what happened to his putative allies in Syria and Venezuela suggests that, like a burning building, regimes may take years to weaken, then collapse all at once. He has no good options for exiting Ukraine that do not result in his own demise. JL

Michael Kimmidge comments in the New York Times:

Perpetuating a war is not the same as winning one. Mr. Putin has few escalatory tools left to change the dynamic. Nor can he simply withdraw from Ukraine. Were Russia to accept a settlement along the current line of contact, he would have little to show for his efforts. As a political survivor he understands that if he were to present such a small prize to Russians, it would be an admission of the war’s senselessness. The poor quality of his strategic thinking and his hubris could become a political factor. Russia’s president has shown himself to be a mediocre head of state. With each Ukrainian strike on Russian territory, the war is eroding the well-being of Russian citizens.
“No Exit,” Jean-Paul Sartre’s one-act existential play on the hell of non-endings, was first performed in Paris in May 1944. World War II was about to enter its fifth year. In the play, three people, recently deceased and apparently locked in a drawing room of hell, face the bad choices of their lives, from which, in death, there is no escape.
If the Russian authorities would allow Sartre’s play to be put on in Moscow in 2026, one wonders what President Vladimir Putin and ordinary Russians, more than four years into Mr. Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, would make of it.
Since the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putinism — the hyperpersonalist system of rule that Mr. Putin has imposed on Russia for around a quarter century — has arrived at what might seem an eerie equilibrium, but on a closer reading is a trap for all involved. Mr. Putin has subordinated his state and his society to a war that is slowly sapping Russia’s strength, depleting the nation’s wealth and consuming the lives of its young people.
On the surface, calm prevails. Mr. Putin has found a way to fund his expensive war, staving off economic collapse and continuing to generate considerable numbers of military recruits, mostly through large cash bonuses. Russia, far from being isolated, interacts diplomatically and commercially with much of the world. Despite some recent signs of domestic discontent — as ordinary citizens have increasingly found themselves poorer, less insulated from the war and increasingly blocked on the internet — Mr. Putin can be confident that he remains in complete control. But perpetuating a war is not the same as winning one. As his army ekes out gains on the front line, Mr. Putin has few escalatory tools left to change the dynamic. Involuntary mobilization would give Russia an advantage, but it would be acutely unpopular among Russians. Nuclear weapons, of any kind, would be a terrible option. Employing them would not guarantee victory, and would risk provoking a harsh military response from the United States and Europe or a rupture in Russia’s relationship with China, its most important ally.
Nor can Mr. Putin simply withdraw from Ukraine. Were Russia to accept a settlement along the current line of contact, Mr. Putin would have little to show for his efforts other than a narrow strip of territory in southern Ukraine. Apart from the injury to his vanity, as a consummate political survivor he understands that if he were to present such a small prize to Russians who have lost family members, it would be an admission of the war’s fundamental senselessness. The poor quality of his strategic thinking and his hubris could then become a pressing political factor within Russia.
Mr. Putin has maneuvered himself into a trap. But, beyond himself, he has burdened the whole project of Putinism, should it outlast his tenure, with some version of this war in perpetuity. Any future leader in Mr. Putin’s mold would not be able to watch passively as a heavily armed and battle-hardened Ukraine integrates into Western security structures and a militarizing Europe.
If Mr. Putin does not have a way out of his war, ordinary Russians do not yet have a way out of Putinism. The recent public dissent in Russia has been misinterpreted. The discontent is absolutely real, but its essence is a frustration with the fact that Putinism, despite its failures, seems interminable.
Today, the president faces no antiwar movement and no opposition party. He can repress Russian citizens at will. Even to go about their daily business is to enable and at times to administer the system that prosecutes the war and fosters repression. Most Russians work for the state in one way or another — the private sector being subordinate to the government — and yet have no say in how the state is run. Finding a collective exit from this system is psychologically and politically impossible for the time being. There are no individuals or institutions that can unseat the president; there is no visible path toward terminating his rule or replacing it with something better. In these circumstances, we might see flickers of verbal opposition — like in response to the throttling of the internet — but with nowhere to go, they are easily extinguished.
Theorists of 18th- and 19th-century revolutions emphasized the importance of rising expectations as a catalyst. When people sense that a better future is possible, they act to expedite the process — as in the Eastern European revolutions of 1989, which followed Gorbachev’s promises of glasnost and perestroika.
Mr. Putin has been assiduous about ensuring Russians’ low expectations. The promise of a modern Russia, prosperous and open to the world, has faded into complacency and numb acceptance of dictatorship and forever wars. This uncomfortable equilibrium cannot last forever. The early promise of Mr. Putin and Putinism, after what he saw as the catastrophe of the collapse of the Soviet Union, was a comfortable predictability and an improved standard of living, efficient governance, if not freedom as such. But Russia’s president, who has become a superlative authoritarian over time, has shown himself to be a mediocre head of state, a poor caretaker of the Russian economy and the agent of a regional disorder that is boomeranging back into Russia. With each Ukrainian strike on Russian territory, the war is eroding the well-being of Russian citizens.
The path to competent Russian leadership now appears to require an unraveling of Putinism, and the less legitimate and effective the current system becomes, the fiercer the post-Putin battle for position will be. When it comes, his exit could well shatter the stability he sought to impose when he became Russia’s president more than 20 years ago.

Kremlin's Forces Lost Ground Again In May As Ukraine Gains More Than Russians

2026-06-02T10:05:06.182-04:00

For the first time in three years, Ukrainian forces gained more territory than did the Russians in May. This is significant because the amount of Russian advance has been decreasing for several months, but for the Ukrainians to now surpass the Russians suggests that the trend is systemic, not just episodic, and may reveal a long-term change in the countries' relative military capabilities and strategic fortunes.

The implication is that Ukraine's three-pronged effort to target Kremlin assets at the front, in the mid-range just behind it and at longer ranges inside Russia are having a cascading, and perhaps irreversible, military and economic impact. JL

Jimmy Rushton and Asami Terajima report in the Kyiv Independent:

Ukraine has gained more territory than Russia occupied over the same period in May, pushing overall Russian advances into the negative for the first time since 2023. "This is the first month in recent years after the 'Counteroffensive 2023' when the increase in the occupied territory for the Russians became negative. Russia typically advances faster in the late spring-fall, but we aren't seeing an increase in the rate of advance. It is important because the seasons have already changed and Russian advances have not increased." The reverses Russia suffered came despite a significant increase in Russian assault actions, which jumped up by 37.5% in May.
Ukraine has gained more territory than Russia occupied over the same period in May, pushing overall Russian advances into the negative for the first time since 2023, Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState reported on June 1.
This is despite the group's public map showing a Russian advance of 14 square kilometers (5.4 square miles) in May, due to the delay in publicly acknowledging advances by the Ukrainian military amid security concerns, according to DeepState.
"According to our map, in May the enemy occupied only 14 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory," DeepState posted on Telegram, adding that "for security reasons, we show the advance of the Defense Forces of Ukraine with a delay."
Due to this lag in updating their map, DeepState claimed that "this is the first month in recent years after the 'Counteroffensive 2023' when the increase in the occupied territory for the Russians became negative."
"Russia typically advances faster in the late spring-fall, but we aren't seeing an increase in the rate of advance," Rob Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on the Russian military, told the Kyiv Independent.
"It is important because the seasons have already changed and Russian advances have not increased."
DeepState said in the same Telegram post that the reverses Russia suffered came despite a significant increase in Russian assault actions, which jumped up by 37.5% in May.
Considering the majority of Russian assault troopers are killed or severely wounded during assaults, Russian casualties likely increased as well.

The first non-government report on the Russian advances underperforming Ukraine's battlefield gains in a month since 2023 comes as Kyiv slowly begins to create conditions to turn the tide in its favor, launching counterattacks over the past half a year and honing its deep-strike capabilities inside Russia.
Tracking battlefield gains, however, has become an immense challenge for both government and independent observers, with estimates of liberated and occupied territory varying across sources.

DeepState's report clashes with earlier claims made by Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, who claimed that Ukraine liberated more territories in February than Russia had occupied over the same period.
Syrskyi's claim came as Ukraine launched a surprise counterattack on the border of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts in the southeast at the end of January. Ukrainian units fighting there told the Kyiv Independent that they were able to advance further in the first weeks in the high-stakes operation that caught the Russian military off guard, but making progress in later months has become much more difficult since Russia reinforced the area with more effective drone units.
With the "gray zone" — the contested forefront part of the battlefield that neither side controls — constantly expanding and shrinking, tracking advances and territorial losses has become more difficult than ever in the current drone-dominated phase of the war. Infiltrations from both sides are constant, obscuring front line boundaries.
Russia hasn't been able to gain "any real momentum" in its spring offensive and has failed to capture similar amounts of territory in recent months to what it occupied over the same period in previous years, retired Australian Army Major-General Mick Ryan said.
But he stressed that the second half of the year, particularly the fall months, would show how much Ukraine has improved its military effectiveness in 2026, as that period tends to see the fiercest fighting.
"I would say that there's a glimmer that a turning point might be coming because the most deadly parts of the year in the ground war are generally in the second half of the year, not in the first half," Ryan told the Kyiv Independent last month.
Russia's reverses in May come as Ukraine has launched a concerted effort to cut Russian supply lines. Ukraine's "Logistical Lockdown" campaign has seen hundreds of Russian supply trucks targeted and destroyed by units using Kyiv's growing arsenal of medium-range drones.
"Dynamics show that Ukraine has significantly slowed the enemy's advance and is gradually regaining the initiative," Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told journalists at a May closed-door briefing.
"At the same time, we are increasing active operations and liberating territory."

Russian Forces Cleared From Positions By Ukrainian Ground Drone

2026-06-02T09:30:09.247-04:00

Russian troops who infiltrated the Kharkiv oblast village of Novoplatonivka were driven out - and the village cleared - by Ukraine's 115th Mechanized Brigade, which used a ground drone for the task.

Such UGVs have now assaulted entrenched Russian units, captured Russian soldiers and defended Ukrainian positions - all without infantry being exposed. There have not, so far, been any reports of the Russians having similar success. JL

Vlad Litnaroych reports in Untied 24 and Valentyna Romanenko reports in Ukraine Pravda:

Ukrainian troops from the 115th Mechanized Brigade used a ground drone to clear Russian troops from Novoplatonivka in Kharkiv oblast. The operation came after Russian sources had claimed the “capture” of Novoplatonivka. Those reports collapsed once again under battlefield reality and new military technology. To clear the area of infiltrated Russian forces, a strike-and-search group from the 115th Brigade first tested the combat module of the ground-based robotic system at a training ground. "The mopping-up of the settlement was carried out in a precise, coordinated manner. The ground-based robotic system provided reliable fire support, allowing the group to successfully complete the mission."
Ukrainian troops used a ground robotic system to help clear Russian infantry from Novoplatonivka in the Kharkiv region after Moscow’s forces had claimed they had captured the village, according to the 115th Mechanized Brigade, part of Ukraine’s 10th Army Corps.
The brigade released footage of the operation on June 1. According to the brigade, Russian infantry had infiltrated the settlement and was later eliminated by a Ukrainian assault-and-search group.

To clear the area of infiltrated Russian forces, a strike-and-search group from the 115th Brigade set out on the mission after first testing the combat module of the ground-based robotic system at a training ground.
The mopping-up of the settlement was carried out in a precise and coordinated manner. The ground-based robotic system provided reliable fire support, allowing the group to successfully complete the mission.

The operation came after Russian sources had loudly claimed the “capture” of Novoplatonivka. Ukraine said those reports collapsed once again under battlefield reality and new military technology.
Before the mission, the 115th Brigade tested the combat module of the ground robotic system at a training range. The system was then deployed to support the assault group during the clearing operation.
“The clearing of the settlement was carried out clearly and smoothly. The ground robotic system provided reliable fire cover, allowing the group to successfully complete the task,” the 115th Brigade said.
“Novoplatonivka is under the control of the Defense Forces of Ukraine,” the brigade added.
The use of a ground robotic platform highlights Ukraine’s expanding battlefield use of unmanned systems not only in the air and at sea, but also in direct infantry operations. In this case, the robot served as mobile fire support, helping Ukrainian troops reduce risk while clearing Russian forces from the village.
Ukraine plans to roughly double its procurement of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in 2026, with the machines now carrying electronic warfare suites, radar, missiles, and mortars in addition to traditional logistics and demining roles.

AI Powers Historic Stock Rally Even As AI Math Becomes "Hallucinatory"

2026-06-02T08:43:57.227-04:00

These are the good old days. The only question is how long they will last. AI is powering an historic rally in stocks. And AI skeptics appear to have largely surrendered to the conventional wisdom: don't fight the tape, the trend is your friend.

But, to the extent there are lingering concerns, they are not if money will be made, about how. Because some of the math underpinning the rally doesn't make sense from an historical perspective: competition lowers prices, such as those for AI usage tokens, whose cost has become so exorbitant that even very deep-pocketed companies like Microsoft are rationing them. The prudent course seems to be: enjoy the ride, but keep an eye for inevitable changes to the underlying economics. JL

Jack Pitcher and Andy Kessler report in the Wall Street Journal:

AI chip stocks powered the S&P 500 up 16% across April and May, a surge matched only four times since 1950. This is driving an historic stock rally, sending shares of tech companies soaring that recalls the dot-com boom. Wall Street—and history—suggest the gains could keep coming: fund managers have reduced their cash levels by the most in a month since 2024, holding significantly more stocks than their benchmarks. Skeptics note there may be 47 million programmers in the world but very few have a budget of $100,000 to spend on AI tokens. Token prices have risen 65% since February. But shortages don’t last, meaning over the next five years we’ll see token costs decline another 90%, maybe 99%. The future AI math is more like 470 million coders with $1,000 of tokens. Even $100. The rosiest AI demand forecasts will be exceeded, but at much lower prices.
The growing frenzy over memory chips is driving a historic stock rally, sending shares of technology companies soaring in ways that recall the heights of the dot-com boom. Wall Street—and history—suggest the gains could keep coming.
Chip stocks powered the S&P 500 up 16% across April and May, a two-month surge matched only four other times since 1950, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The index was higher six months later each time, by a median 17%.
Skeptics remain, with some troubled by the sheer scale of the moves, which span from Seoul to Boise, Idaho. Micron Technology, an Idaho-based memory-chip maker, has increased roughly 10-fold in value over the past 12 months to a market capitalization above $1 trillion. Samsung is up around 465% in South Korea over that period. The PHLX Semiconductor Index just posted its strongest performance through the first 100 trading days of any year on record.
Even some of the companies involved recall the tech-bubble era: Intel has tripled in 2026 to its first record since 2000. Cisco Systems and Qualcomm have both surged around 50%.
Yet many on Wall Street are riding the wave, lifting their year-end targets for the S&P 500 in defiance of the Middle East conflict and rising inflation. Analysts at Goldman Sachs just raised their year-end target for the index to 8000 from 7600, implying a 5.5% rise over the rest of the year on top of the 11% gain since the end of December.
Some analysts said the moves are justified by the blockbuster profits that chip makers have posted in recent weeks and expect the spectacular spending on chips to grow as the artificial-intelligence build-out progresses.
“The AI train is moving forward,” said Joe Tanious, chief investment strategist for North America at Northern Trust Asset Management. “You don’t necessarily want to try to stop it or sit on the sidelines.”

Even doubters have grown reluctant to bet against an index that has just posted nine consecutive weekly gains. In late 1996, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously warned of “irrational exuberance” in the stock market. Over the following three years, the Nasdaq Composite Index tripled.
George Vanderheiden, once a Fidelity portfolio manager with one of Wall Street’s best performance records, shunned tech stocks in the late 1990s in a bet that the bubble would soon burst, loading up on Treasurys instead, hoping to protect his investors. Instead, performance slumped and he retired in February 2000, scribbling a message on his office whiteboard: “Tulip bulbs for sale”—a reminder of 17th-century speculation in the Dutch flower market.
“You try to manage the portfolio for risk,” he told The Wall Street Journal at the time. “But the market hasn’t rewarded you for it. The market has no fear.”
AI fervor has been powering broad market gains since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, but this year, the trade has gained even more steam. Advances in AI models’ ability to write code have wowed software engineers and convinced companies and investors that the technology will be useful and transformative.
Concern around whether AI companies with enormous expenses could eventually turn big profits has eased accordingly. Anthropic, which is expected to go public this year, defied skeptics by posting explosive sales growth and its first operating profit in the second quarter—powered by coding tools that have become popular with corporate clients. Anthropic just closed a funding round at a $965 billion valuation. “We are squarely in the acceleration phase of the AI era,” said Kevin Shea, senior equity strategist at BNY Wealth. “You take a look at the revenue growth from some of these large language models, it’s faster than anything we’ve seen before.”
Indeed, strong corporate earnings and upbeat forecasts for the year ahead are underpinning the advance. Companies in the S&P 500 traded Friday at around 22.5 times their projected earnings over the next 12 months, a slightly lower valuation than at the start of the year, because earnings projections have grown significantly.
Micron Technology is up roughly 10-fold over 12 months to a market capitalization above $1 trillion. Todd Meier for WSJ
Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy and research at the wealth-management firm Glenmede, estimated that 75% to 80% of the rally over the past two months “has been fundamental in nature,” fueled by legitimate hopes for a resolution to the Iran conflict and excellent earnings, particularly among the tech companies that have led the market gains.
It is only over the past week or so, he said, that the rally has become a little bit stretched, with investors trying to chase returns. Going forward, he added, there is every reason to think that stocks can keep on rising, if not at their recent breakneck pace.
The biggest threat to the market rally might be inflation, said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global strategist at Edward Jones.
Consumer prices have climbed much faster than expected this year, largely because of energy-supply disruption caused by the war with Iran but also the overwhelming demand for AI-related hardware including memory chips.
If the Fed moves toward raising interest rates, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note could potentially climb back up toward 5%. That, in turn, could “create some more indigestion or volatility,” Kourkafas said.
For now, investors appear more concerned with how they can get as much stock exposure as possible than they are with bracing for a bursting bubble. Recent Bank of America surveys show that fund managers just reduced their cash levels by the most in a month since 2024 and are holding significantly more stocks than their benchmarks.
“Who knows what’s going to happen in three, four, five years from now with these data centers, but at least in the immediate term…it doesn’t seem like it’s going to slow down anytime soon,” Northern Trust’s Tanious said.

IPO mania has begun, and nothing kickstarts initial public offerings like spreadsheets flashing green to incite the crowd. SpaceX’s recent S-1 filing promoted an “actionable total addressable market” of $28.5 trillion, which includes $23 trillion from enterprise artificial-intelligence applications. Woo-hoo! You can hear the gears in investors’ brains grinding: With just 5% of the market, they’ll be a trillion-dollar company! The entire U.S. economy produces $31 trillion a year.
This is on the back of AI chip maker Cerebras’s May IPO, with the stock almost doubling on opening day. Andrew Feldman, Cerebras’s CEO, did more flimsy AI math. “There are 47 million software engineers in the world. If each one uses $100,000 of tokens a year, that’s nearly $5 trillion from just a single use case. Do that bottoms-up and you go, ‘Holy crap.’ ”
Anthropic projects $11 billion in revenue in the June quarter, more than double from March. That’s a $44 billion run rate. If (more brain-gear grinding) sales keep doubling quarter to quarter, even my old HP 12c calculator tells me that Anthropic will have a trillion-dollar run rate by September 2027. Of course, that’s another hallucination.
Still, this kind of thinking is driving investment in AI data centers, some $700 billion this year and $7 trillion (so says McKinsey) by 2030. Many are circular deals, with debt and off-balance-sheet funny accounting. Even that “Shark Tank” guy from the ping-pong movie who got $15 million from Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX is building data centers.
Don’t get me wrong, AI is really the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I’ll repeat, we don’t need 100 gigawatts of toasters.
Does history rhyme? Here’s a story filled with ghosts of Wall Street’s past. In 1997, Gary Winnick’s Global Crossing invested a few hundred million dollars to lay fiber optic cable under the Atlantic. At the time, undersea T-1 lines (which transmit data at 1.5 million bits per second) cost between $10,000 and $20,000 a month. Their AC-1 undersea fiber could handle 40 gigabits per second, or more than 10,000 T-1 lines, which could easily generate more than $100 million a month. Spreadsheets flashed green!
Salomon Brothers and Merrill Lynch took Global Crossing public in 1998, raising $400 million. The stock peaked at $55 billion in value. Global Crossing borrowed heavily to build out 100,000 miles of fiber. Mr. Winnick paid more than $60 million for a home in Bel Air. Heady times.
But it worked only with $10,000-a-month pricing. The world isn’t static. AT&T and MCI created a joint venture to lay their own undersea cables. Prices plummeted. By 2002 the cost of undersea T-1 lines dropped to $1,000 a month, down more than 90%. Spreadsheets flashed red. After reporting fake revenue that Arthur Andersen blessed, Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy.
As for AI, there may be 47 million programmers in the world, but very few have a budget of $100,000 to spend on tokens. Microsoft recently canceled Anthropic Claude licenses, and Uber has already blown through its 2026 AI budget.
Meanwhile, Nvidia chips are hard to find. Memory prices, which Moore’s Law says should drop 30% a year, have instead exploded upward. Last week Micron and SK Hynix joined Samsung in the $1 trillion stock gang. Token prices—meaning what it costs to use AI models—have risen 65% since February, after dropping 90% since ChatGPT was released.
But shortages don’t last. Competition plus new technology means that token price declines will return as the norm. My gut says over the next five years (the length of Global Crossing’s existence), and likely sooner, we’ll see token costs decline another 90%, maybe 99%. The future AI math is more like 470 million coders with $1,000 of tokens. Even $100.
Watch prices. Everything Global Crossing forecast in undersea demand—per bit—happened and more, but at way lower prices. Same for the overall internet, which grew and grew in demand, but not at 1999 prices that caused flashing green spreadsheets.
It’s starting. New training algorithms show up almost daily that promise to use less memory and less compute and have AI models learn 10 times as fast. This is the natural evolution of technology, not price increases. DeepSeek out of China recently cut prices of the company’s open-source AI model by 75%. Running certain benchmarks, OpenAI costs 12 times as much and Anthropic 19 times.
There were no recessions in bits, only in price per bit. With tokens, the rosiest AI demand forecasts will be exceeded, but at much lower prices. Today, investors are enjoying the ride. This AI rocket ship is flying high. Why get off? But be warned that many spreadsheets go from green to red in a hurry when prices drop.

Putin Has "Air of Desperation" As Ebbing Willpower, Strategic Defeat Loom

2026-06-01T10:59:41.613-04:00

A tenet of military lore holds that ground doesn't matter - it's the enemy's will to fight. By that measure, Ukraine has already demonstrated its strength.

But recent developments suggest that Russia's will to battle, which has not wavered for four years despite historically horrific losses, may have begun to ebb as Ukraine's successes on the ground, in the air and on the sea begin to tell. That multiple observers note 'an air of desperation around Putin' suggests this is systemic, not temporary. JL

Thomas Harding reports in The National:

Russia's minor operations to seize Ukrainian territory are “at best tactical victories leading effectively to strategic defeat. The amount of kit and humans they have expended on very small gains is unsustainable even for a country that has willing manpower." The Ukrainians “have largely replaced trench warfare with “zonal defence." If the Russians attack, they're not being repelled by humans but by air and ground drones collectively. "Ukraine isn't losing so many people, and Russia is losing vast numbers.” Ultimately ground doesn't matter, it’s the enemy's will to fight matters and that willpower could be ebbing on the Russian side. "There's an air of desperation about Putin at the moment.”

Four years into a grinding conflict, the outcome of the Ukraine-Russia war might now rest on the race for which side can develop at speed an army of ground robots to dominate the human battlefield.
Currently, Ukraine is in the lead, using unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) alongside aerial drones to help it take back up to 600 square kilometres of territory this year.
By contrast, Russia continues to rely on thousands of troops to take villages or small towns with an attrition rate that is now far outstripping its ability to recruit replacements. It has, according to one western estimate, lost just under 500,000 soldiers from more than 1.2 million casualties.

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Russia’s huge armoured arsenal has also been depleted to the point that no tanks were on display for its annual Second World War victory parade this month. That humiliation was compounded by President Vladimir Putin essentially requesting his foe President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s permission not to strike the Moscow event with drones.
Diplomatic experts also believe that Russia’s reversals might hint at the first steps to a peace deal.

However, Ukraine has suffered heavily, too, with more than 55,000 soldiers killed, and the fallback to robots is probably because “they are absolutely desperate” to make up for a lack of manpower, a defence source in the eastern city of Kharkiv told The National. He also pointed out the city’s cemetery was crammed full of fresh graves as an indication of Ukraine’s losses in a country where, by law, conscription for men begins at 25.
Ukraine advance
Despite the losses, there has been a vast turnaround for Mr Zelenskyy in 2026, from his humiliation in the White House early last year to the end of US military aid and a miserable winter of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
But it has survived, in part due to its ability to innovate, largely enforced by America’s withdrawal of hardware and by having a population of less than 40 million, about 100 million fewer than Russia's.
Ukrainian ingenuity has seen it fight off Moscow’s near-daily missile and drone attacks with a system of drones, machine guns and western interceptors.
The war also extended into Romania on Friday, when Moscow’s drones that were allegedly targeting Ukraine struck a block of flats in Romania, injuring two people. The UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned “the violation of Nato airspace” as “extremely dangerous and reckless”.
But it is Ukraine’s development of UGVs that has helped take it on to the offensive, pushing back Moscow’s troops in several areas.
The moment robots debuted in human warfare came last month when President Zelenskyy announced that a Russian position had been taken using only ground and aerial drones.
“The occupiers surrendered, and the operation was carried out without infantry and without losses on our side,” he posted on April 14.
In parts of the front line, Ukraine has been able to withdraw its troops beyond the 20km striking distance of Russia’s own sophisticated aerial drones, largely abandoning trench warfare.
They have also deployed Hornet loitering drones that use their AI to avoid Russian jamming and can act autonomously, striking at logistic targets up to 100km behind the front line.
That has seen supplies along the vital M14 motorway that connects the once besieged city of Mariupol to Crimea nearly cut off, with the Hornets taking out more than 125 ammunition, fuel and personnel lorries this month.
Ukraine’s interceptor drones have also become so effective that they have been exported in large numbers to Gulf states to meet the threat from Iran’s Shahed-136 UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).
Drone tactics from the war have also been copied by Iran, as well as Hezbollah, which has used the difficult-to-jam fibre-optic drones against Israeli targets.
Robot army
But could the country’s ground robot developments also become its next major export?
Much of their operational effectiveness remains secret, yet it is known that a tracked robot mounted with a heavy 12.7mm Browning machinegun called the Droid TW-12.7 has reportedly been very effective. Built by Ukraine firm Devdroid, it has a night vision capability and is currently remotely operated rather than fully autonomous.
The company has also deployed the Droid NW 40 robot, which has a belt-fed grenade launcher that fires 40mm rounds with 1.5km range that can take out lightly armoured vehicles or enemy sheltering in trenches.
“What is really interesting is the impact that we're now seeing of track or tractor-wheeled killer robots,” said former military intelligence officer Dr Lynette Nusbacher.
“If Ukraine were able to deploy them at range, operating autonomously in large numbers, then they could unleash swarms of drones, and that could break the stalemate.”
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Former British soldier, Conservative MP and Russia specialist Bob Seely, who has visited Ukraine several times, said that while the Ukrainians “haven't quite given up on trench warfare”, they had largely replaced it with “zonal defence”.
“If the Russians attack, they're not being repelled by humans but by air and ground drones collectively and this form of warfare is really beginning to take off this year,” added the author of The New Total War.
Indeed, Kyiv’s generals plan to replace 30 per cent of manpower in the most kinetic frontline zones with drones by purchasing 25,000 UGVs this year, for both attack, logistics and evacuating the wounded.
Developments have now got to the point, argued veteran former diplomat Tim Wilsey, where “Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the 20 to 40 kilometres behind the front line killing zone” saving them precious personnel.
“A year ago we used to say the reason why Russia is probably going to overall win this war is because they've got more people to throw into the meat grinder. Well, Ukraine isn't throwing people into the meat grinder any more,” he added. “They're not losing so many people, and Russia is losing vast numbers.”
Former tank commander Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon suggested this could soon go one step further with a single crewed main battle tank controlling five autonomous mini-tanks “who, unlike soldiers, don’t have to be trained for a year; you just load up the software”.
He contested that it was now “a truly autonomous war” for Ukraine and that although they might lose thousands of unmanned weapons, “you can replace a drone and train a drone very much more quickly than you can a soldier”.
Fading manpower
Russian losses over more than four years of war have been huge but still, using big financial incentives, the authorities are just about finding new recruits. But for how much longer is this sustainable?
The minor operations to seize Ukrainian territory are “at best tactical victories leading effectively to strategic defeat,” said Mr Seely. “The amount of kit and humans that they have expended on very small gains is unsustainable even for a country that has, to a certain extent, willing manpower.”
This was now becoming a “real problem for Russia”, said Col de Bretton-Gordon. “Russia's got a serious challenge ahead and there's real concern in Moscow that their children are going to be conscripted.”
But Dr Nusbacher did not believe that “Russia is getting anxious about this” or that “bracing themselves for an imminent collapse in army manpower”. Indeed, she argued Russia could, as they have shown before, adapt to Ukraine’s use of “automation”.
Waiver parade
But she also repeated that military tenet that “ultimately ground doesn't matter, it’s the enemy's will to fight matters” and that willpower could well be ebbing on the Russian side.
Mr Wilsey, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, pointed to “a fascinating series of events, which makes one wonder whether for the first time Putin is beginning to waver a bit”.
Alongside other commentators, he highlighted Mr Putin’s humiliation of indirectly asking Mr Zelenskyy not to strike the victory show. “Zelenskyy very cleverly sent out a message saying, ‘Yes, it's OK, I permit the parade to go ahead’, so that's a terrible look for the Russian people.”
Perhaps to reassert Russia’s dominance, the Kremlin launched its biggest missile and drone assault on Ukraine over the last weekend, but only a few days later asked Europe to offer some form of mediation in the war.
“I'm wondering whether 2026 might be the year negotiations started to be serious,” said Mr Wilsey. “There's an air of desperation about Putin at the moment.”

Unjammable Ukraine 'Vampire' Drones Now Destroy $200 Million Russian Jammers

2026-06-01T10:19:31.289-04:00

Russia's Borisoglebsk-2 has been a very effective, electronic warfare jammer. But at $200 million each, the Kremlin has only produced a few dozen of them. Ukraine has now knocked out six of them.

It has been able to do this because of upgrades to its large Vampire "Baba Yaga" drones which make them not only unjammable, but able to locate and destroy the systems designed to jam them. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

Ukrainian iconic Vampire bomber drones have been upgraded to resist Russian electronic warfare. Now the six-rotor drone can not only fly through Russian jamming. It can attack the jammers themselves. The “Vampire” has been upgraded with terrain-following navigation, radio frequency hopping, and an improved jam-resistant CRPA satellite navigation system. A Vampire recently found and bombed a rare Russian Borisoglebsk-2 tracked jamming vehicle, destroying it with several grenades that punched through it's thin top armor. A Borisoglebsk-2 complex is estimated to cost $200 million. Russia has built only a few dozen of them since 2015, and Ukrainian forces have knocked out at least six since 2023.

Ukrainian drone-maker Skyfall has upgraded its iconic Vampire bomber drone to resist Russian electronic warfare. Now the six-rotor drone can not only fly through Russian jamming. It can also attack the jammers themselves.
That matters now because the jammers are some of the last things standing between Ukraine's drones and the Russian air defenses they hunt. Ukrainian forces have destroyed more Russian air defense systems this spring than at any point in the war—81 confirmed since 1 March, by the General Staff's count, with April running roughly double the previous autumn's pace. A drone that shrugs off jamming can go after the jammers that were protecting everything else. Kill the jammer, and the next target gets easier.
Following the upgrades, a Vampire recently found and bombed a rare Russian Borisoglebsk-2 tracked jamming vehicle, likely destroying it with several grenades that punched right through the Borisoglebsk-2's thin top armor.

A complete Borisoglebsk-2 complex is estimated to cost as much as $200 million. Russia has built only a few dozen of them since 2015, and Ukrainian forces have knocked out at least six since 2023. "I think this is the most painful operation carried out against the Russians in a single instance," a Skyfall spokesperson said, somewhat exaggerating.

More strikes on rare and expensive Russian jammers could be coming, now that the Vampires are resistant to the effects of their electronic noise broadcasts. Blowing up more Russian jammers would hasten the wider collapse of Russian air defenses resulting from Ukraine's intensive campaign of drone strikes that began around a year ago.
The standard Vampire is a heavy hexacopter with a payload of around 15 kg and a thermal camera that allows it to operate at night. Also known as "Baba Yagas" by the Russians, a reference to a mythical night witch, the Vampires have been hounding Russian forces since the first year of Russia's wider war on Ukraine.
With their payload of multiple grenades and enough endurance to patiently hunt Russian troops for hours at a time, the Vampires are among the most efficient killers over the disputed gray zone. With better batteries and satellite communications, they've been able to range 45 km to bombard troops before they even reach the gray zone.
Vulnerable to jamming
but the oldest Vampires are vulnerable to Russian jamming. These Vampires are directly controlled by human pilots who connect to their drones via line-of-sight radio. It's a fairly simple matter to interrupt that radio signal with radio noise.
To mitigate the effects of this jamming, Skyfall has added redundant navigation and communication systems to the latest Vampires. The firm replaced the old radio receiver with a Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna that has multiple receivers. It's not impossible to jam all of the receivers, but it's hard.
And in the event the Russians do fully jam the CRPA, cutting off a Vampire from its distant human operator, the drone can switch to a self-contained terrain-matching navigation system that scans the landscape passing beneath it and matches it to a pre-loaded flight path. Terrain-matching navigation might not be as precise as direct human control, but it's jam-proof.

Now the new Vampire "is completely resistant to Russian electronic warfare," the Skyfall spokesperson said, again exaggerating somewhat.
Resistance to jamming doesn't just help a Vampire bomb Russian jammers, it also safeguards the drone during other mission profiles. As the spokesperson noted, Vampires aren't solely bombers anymore. They also drop mines along Russian assault lanes and, increasingly, fly supply missions where they drop food, water, ammunition, batteries and medical supplies on Ukrainian positions instead of dropping live grenades on Russian positions.
As a supply drone, the Vampire keeps human logisticians off the dangerous roads and "helps ensure greater safety for personnel." It's not alone, of course. More unmanned ground vehicles are also plying Ukraine's riskiest supply routes.

"Highway To Hell:" Ukraine's "Logistics Lockdown" Of Kremlin Routes

2026-06-01T09:16:47.090-04:00

Ukraine's interdiction of Russian supplies, fuel, reinforcements - and the vehicles they travel in - plus ancillary targets like air defenses, command centers, warehouses, ammunition dumps and ports has now become legendary, almost overnight.

The Ukrainian defense minister's catchy phraseology - 'logistics lockdown' has a nice alliterative ring - is helpful, but it is the comprehensive and relentless nature of the Ukrainian long range drone attacks, as well as their impact, that is justifiably garnering most of the attention. Not only is much of the Kremlin's occupied southern Ukraine land-bridge under Ukrainian fire control, but Crimea is now isolated and supplies to the faltering offensives in Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are in danger. Hundreds of Russian trucks have been confirmed destroyed. But again, it is the systematic nature of the Ukrainian effort that impresses most: data reveal that as destruction of Russian logistics increases, their assaults decrease. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack and Mick Ryan reports :

Ukraine this week announced its ‘Logistics Lockdown' campaign has been going on - and planned - for months. It targets the M-14 road from Rostov-on-Don in Russia, through occupied Mariupol, Berdyansk, and Melitopol, and into Crimea. Headquarters, training camps, air defence, ammunition, fuel storage and other military assets up to 100 kilometres behind the front are also targets. By three weeks ending May 30, 86 burned trucks and tankers were confirmed on the M-14. 125 destroyed trucks were seen far away. "Ukraine has increased fourfold the destruction of enemy logistics, warehouses, equipment, vehicles, command posts, and supply routes at operational depth. Data points to a clear trend: as the destruction of Russian logistics increases, assault operations along the front decreases." This will lead to a constant degradation of Russian fighting power. Supplies will decrease, command will be chaotic, losses will rise and replacements will be inadequate.

Ukrainian claims of losses of Russian material and soldiers have been surprisingly accurate since the start of the Russian full scale invasion. Their claims of losses of Russian soldiers, for instance, seem to be widely confirmed by western intelligence agencies. Just two examples. In May, Dutch intelligence released an estimate of at least 1.2 million Russian casualties (approximately 500k killed). At the end of April a UK source claimed this figure was around 1.3 million. The Ukrainian tally released a few hours ago was just over 1.3 million (see below).
Interestingly, recent claims might even be more accurate because so many of the losses are being filmed by UAV. This makes this war not only the most transparent, it makes it gorily the most “trackable” conflict in human history. The deaths of Russian soldiers and the destruction of Russian equipment are now being filmed regularly.
When it comes to the collapsing of the Russian military from behind, the most immediate thing to pay attention to, as I discussed last week, is the mid-range strike campaign. Looking for evidence from that can be seen in Ukrainian claims. Take a look at this chart of Russian losses from yesterday and see what stands out.
The figure of 1430 personnel is shocking though that is actually not the one I am talking about (more on personnel losses below). No, the one that is even more shocking is the 483 “vehicles and fuel tanks”. That is a daily record for the Ukrainians
And this week the focus on transport attacks has been made much more public by Ukraine. The Ukrainian MOD announced its ‘Logistics Lockdown’ program with an additional UAH 5 billion devoted for middle-strike capabilities. This was how they summarized it—and note how they said that this campaign has been going on (let alone planned for) for many months now.
Over the past several months, Ukraine has increased fourfold the destruction of enemy logistics, warehouses, equipment, vehicles, command posts, and supply routes at operational depth.
Data points to a clear trend: as the destruction of russian logistics increases, the number of assault operations along the line of contact decreases.
The data points that they mention are the interesting ones to track. See if the destruction of Russian trucks remains elevated in this way. You will also see reports (though often not comparative data) the destruction of warehouses and Russian command and control (C2) posts. Two days ago, the Ukrainians released statements about hitting both (see bolded text below).
In the occupied territories, an enemy Tor-M2 anti-aircraft missile system was hit in the area of the village of Berdianske, Zaporizhia region; an enemy command and observation post in the area of the village of Lyman Pershyi, Kharkiv region; an enemy logistics warehouse in the village of Aidar, Luhansk region; as well as enemy UAV command posts in the areas of the village of Tyotkino, Kursk region of Russia, the village of Komar, Donetsk region, and Nesterianka, Zaporizhia region.
Once again the Ukrainians are saying what they are doing. The Ukrainians are going for the trucks, warehouses and C2 posts—and add to that keeping the personnel losses for the Russians above replacement levels. That figure of 1430 personnel losses the other day, along with the truck losses is exactly what the Ukrainians want to see happen. The most important moment in this calculation, however will happen sometime next week when the Ukrainians release their monthly estimate of Russian losses for May and whether these are above new recruitment figures.
If it is, the trend is exactly what the Ukrainians are planning for. It will lead to a constant degradation of the Russian army and fighting power. Supplies will be decreasing, command will be chaotic, losses will be rising and replacements arriving in inadequate numbers. The remaining troops will be in worse shape and be asked to continue attacking. Along the line it will be the Russian military that will be increasingly closer to failure.
This, at least, is what the Ukrainians are saying. Take a Russian army that has to attack and collapse it from behind. The Ukrainians are not hiding their plans—hopefully the western press will not be so slow to understand it this time.

The most significant development of the past week in Ukraine has not taken place along the front line. It has unfolded 100 to 200 kilometres behind it, along the highways that connect Russia’s occupied south to Crimea and, through that peninsula, to Russia. What has brought this issue to the fore was Ukrainian Defence Minister Fedorov on 27 May formalising what had previously been a covert campaign into a declared strategic programme, announcing a $113 million initiative he called the “Logistical Lockdown.” The programme is designed to massively scale up mid-range drone strikes against Russian supply networks deep behind the front line, with the stated objective of depriving Russian forces of the ability to conduct active assault operations.
This approach is hardly new. In western doctrine it is known as Interdiction. The concept of destroying second and third echelon forces, their logistics and C2, was a key aspect of the Cold War era Air-Land Battle developed by the U.S. military. Then, long-range ground fires (such as MLRS) and air force aircraft were central capabilities. Now, drones – for ISR, strike and battle damage assessment – are the key effector for interdiction, or as it is now known, mid-range strike.
The campaign is targeting the R-280 highway, also known as the M-14 and renamed by Russian occupation authorities as the “Novorossiya” route. This road runs from Rostov-on-Don in Russia, through occupied Mariupol, Berdyansk, and Melitopol, and into Crimea. It is Russia’s primary land line of communication to the peninsula. It has only grown in importance since the Kerch Bridge has been progressively degraded by Ukrainian strikes. As the Centre for European Policy Analysis has noted, Russia has invested around $11.8 billion between 2024 and 2026 on roads, railways, ports, and industrial projects across occupied southern Ukraine because it sought geographical dispersion and redundancy to protect its logistics from Ukrainian interdiction. The current Ukrainian mid-range strike campaign is slowly degrading that concept.
But it is not only logistics routes that are the targets of this campaign. Russian headquarters, training camps, air defence, ammunition and fuel storage and other military infrastructure up to 100 kilometres behind the front line are targets. The strikes this week on Russia’s 3^rd Army training ground in occupied Luhansk, and 36^th Army training ground in occupied Zaporizhzhia, are examples of the broader scope of this campaign.
A soon-to-be former Russia oil tanker. Source: 412^th Nemesis Brigade
The Ukrainian instrument that is central to this campaign is a growing family of Ukrainian middle-strike drones. This includes fixed-wing systems designed to bridge the gap between short-range first-person-view strike drones and the deep-strike platforms used to hit targets inside Russia itself. On 26 May, Ukraine’s 412th Nemesis Brigade of the Unmanned Systems Forces disclosed details of a domestically produced drone called the MORRIGAN, which it described as having operated repeatedly in Crimea and against Russian air defence and logistics assets along the Mariupol-to-Crimea corridor. The AI-assisted Hornet drone, reported previously to be capable of autonomous strikes up to 100 miles or more behind the front line, has also been central to the campaign.
The scale of destruction documented by open-source analysts is considerable. , most destroyed during May. The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine reported that its drone operators had established fire control over sections of the highway linking Berdiansk, Melitopol, and Dzhankoi, using RAM-type UAVs (a loitering precision munition) and other domestically produced strike systems to hit fuel tankers, military vehicles, and logistics hubs up to 150 kilometres behind the front.
For an in-depth review of this campaign, see the long thread posted on 30 May by Clement Molin here.
The strategic logic of this campaign is simple. Almost all Russian logistics for the southern front and Crimea are land-based. Russia’s investment in the Azov Ring was intended to provide redundancy, but that network’s very success at concentrating supply flows has created chokepoints. Ukraine, by directing this campaign at the highways themselves, is seeking a form of operational-level interdiction that previous attempts were not able to achieve.
The middle-strike campaign fills an operational gap between tactical defensive and counter-attack operations and the long-range, deep strike activities of the Ukrainian military. By conducting all three forms of operations concurrently, they place increasing pressure on Russian forces, degrade their offensive capabilities, and shape the battlespace for future Ukrainian offensive operations in later 2026 and in 2027.

AI Has Made Memory Chips More Valuable Than Oil

2026-06-01T09:00:14.265-04:00

The combined market capitalization of the world's

three largest memory chip makers is now greater than that of the three largest oil companies. And this calculation does not even include Nvidia.

That valuation disparity appears secure because the AI hyperscalers are increasingly signing long term contracts to lock in the already diminished supply, which will make it harder for others to compete and will enhance the valuations of Big Tech by providing greater predictability. In AI, the rich are most emphatically getting richer. JL

Dan Gallagher reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Memory is now worth more than oil. AI is driving demand for memory chips far beyond what suppliers can produce, driving up prices to previously unseen levels. Memory makers are using their leverage to get customers to sign long-term agreements. The world’s three largest memory-chip makers - Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology - now carry market capitalizations of more than $1 trillion each. That puts them 22% above the combined market cap of the world’s three most valuable oil companies, even with Saudi Aramco at $1.8 trillion. The spending power of AI’s largest investors means future memory production will be covered by multiyear contracts with more stable pricing terms. Such contracts will cover 30% of shipments of DRAM, next year. Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon have already secured 66% of global production for DRAM used in servers, exchanging pricing for multiyear supply and greater predictability”

increase; green up pointin SK Hynix 000660 1.92%increase; green up pointing triangle and Micron Technology MU 5.14%increase; green up pointing trianglnow carry market capitalizations of more than $1 trillion each. That puts them about 22% above the combined market cap of the world’s three most valuable oil companies, even with Saudi Aramco weighing in on its own at nearly $1.8 trillion.
Memory is now worth more than oil. Staying that way will depend on how much the notoriously volatile industry can make recent changes stick.
The world’s three largest memory-chip makers—Samsung Electronics 005930 5.84%increase; green up pointing triangle, SK Hynix 000660 1.92%increase; green up pointing triangle and Micron Technology MU 5.14%increase; green up pointing triangle—now carry market capitalizations of more than $1 trillion each. That puts them about 22% above the combined market cap of the world’s three most valuable oil companies, even with Saudi Aramco weighing in on its own at nearly $1.8 trillion.
Values have soared even further down the memory chain. Flash-memory maker Sandisk SNDK 3.25%increase; green up pointing triangle has seen its market cap nearly triple since March and is now worth nearly as much as PetroChina—Asia’s largest oil producer.

Gains like that make memory stocks seem ripe for a fall, especially given how highly cyclical the industry has been historically. But recent changes in business practices make projected earnings far more certain. And against those future earnings, even trillion-dollar memory companies still look cheap.
Like oil, memory chips are widely seen as a commodity prone to violent price swings. But artificial intelligence is now driving demand for memory chips far beyond what existing suppliers can produce, which is driving up prices to previously unseen levels. Memory makers in turn are using their newfound leverage to get customers to sign long-term agreements.
Enough of those deals will recast the industry’s business model in a way that will tame price volatility. The early signs of that effort are good. Micron announced the signing of its first five-year supply agreement in its last earnings report in March, and the company said at an investment conference last week that it has made “meaningful progress” on similar deals with other customers.
In its own report last month, Sandisk said five customers had signed long-term agreements—enough to cover more than a third of the company’s production capacity for the next fiscal year.
SK Hynix hasn’t detailed how many of its customers have signed long-term agreements. But it has clearly talked with those customers about their future needs, given the disclosure in its last earnings call that demand “far exceeds” the company’s supply capacity for the next three years. “Memory today has become so critical that customers now see memory price and supply uncertainties as key business risks,” SK Hynix Chief Financial Officer Kim Woo-hyun said on the call.
The spending power of artificial intelligence’s largest investors means a significant percentage of future memory production will be covered by multiyear contracts with more stable pricing terms. UBS analyst Tim Arcuri estimates that such contracts will cover as much as 30% of shipments of total dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, next year. He thinks hyperscalers—huge tech companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com—have already secured around two-thirds of global production for the type of DRAM used in servers.
“Said differently, hyperscalers appear increasingly willing to exchange pricing for multiyear supply visibility and greater predictability around future deployment economics,” Arcuri wrote in a report earlier this week.

Long-term contracts make future earnings from memory companies far more predictable. And those earnings are substantial. Micron’s adjusted per-share earnings in the February-ended quarter exploded to $12.20 from $1.56 in the year-ago period. Wall Street expects earnings per share to top $60 for the fiscal year ending in August—and to come in around $106 for the next fiscal year, according to estimates from Visible Alpha.
So at its current market cap of just over $1 trillion, Micron trades at less than 10 times projected earnings for the next four quarters. That puts its multiple in the bottom 10% of the S&P 500, with Sandisk not far above at around 10.5 times forward earnings.
The Korean players are even cheaper, with Samsung and SK Hynix in the six- to seven-times range, per FactSet data. The 30 stocks on the PHLX Semiconductor Index average a forward earnings multiple of around 26 times.

Memory may be the new oil, but memory investors aren’t getting gouged at the pump yet.

Ukraine Deploys "100s" of Decoys With Long Range Strikes, Confusing Russians

2026-05-31T11:37:04.256-04:00

Some of the credit for Ukraine's long range drone attack success is due to the fact that it now routinely deploys hundreds of decoy drones engineered to mimic the radar signatures of ballistic missiles along with its live ammunition-carrying drones.

This confuses Russian air defenses, causing them to waste munitions on fakes while inadvertently giving away their radar and anti-missile battery locations which can then be destroyed in follow-up attacks. JL

The Kyiv Post reports:

By deploying hundreds of specialized decoy drones alongside live munitions, Ukraine is blinding, exhausting, and physically dismantling Russia’s air defense network. It is a calculated system where only a specific percentage of the launched fleet is fitted with explosive payloads, while a parallel wave of decoys is deployed simultaneously to oversaturate Russian radar systems. Advanced, jet-powered decoy drones in its strike packages are engineered to mirror the radar signatures of cruise or ballistic missiles. When Russian anti-aircraft crews engage what their radar indicate is a missile threat, they exhaust interceptors on decoys while revealing the geographic coordinates of their radar and missile batteries. Armed drones then neutralize those exposed assets. Ukraine's deep-strikes are distributed and managed through laptops. “It is difficult for Russia to destroy this program; we don’t have single centers, we use dozens of locations."
The Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) has unveiled the core tactical strategy powering its highly effective long-range aerial campaign deep inside Russia. By deploying hundreds of specialized decoy drones alongside live combat munitions, Ukrainian intelligence is successfully blinding, exhausting, and physically dismantling Russia’s domestic air defense networks.
The operational mechanics were detailed by a HUR Deep Strike commander with the callsign “Vector” during a report by CNN on Sunday, May 31.
Tricking Russian radars with jet-powered illusions
During the media briefing, journalists captured the field preparation and launch sequences of Ukraine’s long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The footage exposed a highly calculated system where only a specific percentage of the launched fleet is fitted with heavy explosive payloads, while a parallel wave of specialized decoys is deployed simultaneously to oversaturate Russian radar systems.

“These are decoys,” Vector explained during the broadcast. “We have sent hundreds of them. Some are empty, some carry a combat load. The combat payload is small, but it is enough to destroy air defense systems.”
To further manipulate the Kremlin’s defensive reactions, the HUR has introduced advanced, jet-powered decoy drones into its strike packages. According to Ukrainian operators, these high-velocity assets are explicitly engineered to mirror the precise radar signatures of standard cruise or ballistic missiles.

When Russian anti-aircraft crews scramble to engage what their radar screens indicate is a high-priority missile threat, they inadvertently exhaust their expensive interceptor ammunition on empty decoys while simultaneously revealing the exact geographic coordinates of their radar and missile batteries. The armed decoys are then able to strike and neutralize those newly exposed positions.
The laptop advantage: total decentralization
Vector also shed light on the sophisticated command-and-control software enabling these massive swarms to penetrate Russian airspace. Rather than operating out of a centralized military headquarters or a highly visible command bunker, Ukrainian deep-strike operations are entirely distributed across the country and managed through standard laptops.

“Laptops are our biggest advantage and the reason why it is so difficult for Russia to destroy this program, because we are scattered,” the HUR commander stated. “We don’t have single centers, and we use dozens of locations. Furthermore, this software gives us the opportunity to work with thousands of UAVs.”
The custom-built software allows field teams to seamlessly coordinate the trajectories, flight times, and electronic warfare countermeasures of thousands of distinct drones simultaneously. This ensures that when a massive swarm approaches a Russian target, the drones converge from multiple vectors at once, completely overwhelming the localized processing capabilities of Russian tracking radars.
A strategy of total asymmetric attrition
This calculated use of high-tech decoys and decentralized control provides the tactical foundation for Ukraine’s expanding deep-strike operations. Just hours prior, the Armed Forces of Ukraine executed a massive, multi-regional offensive that systematically crippled vital components of Russia’s domestic energy infrastructure.

Using long-range strike networks, Ukrainian planners delivered a severe economic blow to the Rosneft-owned Saratov Oil Refinery along the Volga River, igniting a massive structural fire at a facility responsible for processing 7 million tons of crude oil annually to supply Russia’s occupying forces.
Parallel waves successfully struck the critical Lazarevo oil pumping station along the Surgut-Gorky-Polotsk trunk pipeline in the remote Kirov region, alongside a major fuel storage terminal in Rostov and retroactively confirmed strikes in occupied Crimea and Donetsk.
At the same time, precision units leveraged this saturation strategy to bypass regional defense nets and wipe out active Russian military command posts in Kursk, drone assembly workshops in Donetsk, and localized radar positions in Belgorod.

Kremlin Can No Longer Assemble Needed Mass As Ukraine Strikes Dominate

2026-05-31T11:05:48.699-04:00

The Kremlin's forces can no longer assemble the mass needed to effect breakthroughs as Ukraine systematic dismantling of air defenses blinds the Russians to threats which Ukrainian troops capitalize on with aerial and ground drones.

The result is that, for the first time in this war, military analysts are consistently declaring that it is Ukraine which has the momentum to break the stalemate of the past few years. And when influential political publications like The Hill (referring to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC), which is read by elected officials and their staffs, declare Ukraine has the advantage, it has a significant impact. JL

Ellen Mitchell reports in The Hill:

Defense analysts this week said the war had entered a new phase, with Kyiv poised to break a stalemate that has been in place since late 2023. Ukraine is gaining momentum on the battlefield, regaining territory for the first time in years as it outflanks Moscow’s forces through its domination of drone warfare. “Only a few months ago, the majority of analysts were saying that by now Russia would have captured the whole of the Donbas. But the Russians simply cannot accumulate the kind of mass and armor needed for breakthroughs.” The shift dates back to late 2025, when the Ukrainians began striking Russian ground-based radars, electronic warfare stations, surface-to-air missiles and drone capabilities, blinding Moscow’s forces from incoming threats.
Ukraine appears to be gaining momentum on the battlefield in its grinding fight with Russia, regaining territory for the first time in years as it outflanks Moscow’s forces through its domination of drone warfare.
Defense analysts this week said the war had entered a new phase, with Kyiv poised to break a stalemate that has been in place since late 2023, with neither side able to make significant gains along a nearly 700-mile front line.

Kyiv is now calling the next six months “crucial” for it to seize the battlefield initiative, as Moscow has responded to the momentum with threats of escalation and stepped up aerial strikes.
“For the very first time since 2023, the Ukrainians have actually managed to take back more terrain than the Russians did,” said George Barros, a longtime analyst on Russia now with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In a report this week, ISW said the Ukrainian gains show the war is shifting in favor of its forces, at least for the time being, thanks to Kremlin troops stagnating in battlefield advances and Kyiv’s forces effectively using drones and innovative tactics to break out of old positions.

Drones have proven to be the most effective tool for the Ukrainians, who have used them to extend the so-called kill zone — the space around the front line where troops are most vulnerable to attack — more than 10 miles in both directions, according to Anatol Lieven, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“The Russians simply cannot accumulate the kind of mass and armor needed for a breakthrough,” Lieven told The Hill.
“Only a few months ago, but certainly a year ago, the majority of analysts were saying that by now Russia would have captured the whole of the Donbas,” he added, referring to the region that Russia sees as a “priority goal” to take. “In fact, Russia is still far, far from achieving that objective.”

That has allowed Ukraine to transition from a positional war — in which battle lines barely move, with neither side able to amass the forces necessary to make any serious push into the other’s held territory — to now begin to take more terrain than the Russians did beginning in April.
“That’s because the Ukrainians have gotten more effective at denying the Russians their advances,” Barros told The Hill.
Barros said the shift has been months in the making, dating all the way back to late 2025, when the Ukrainians began striking Russian ground-based radars, electronic warfare stations, surface-to-air missiles and drone capabilities, effectively blinding Moscow’s forces from incoming air threats.

Peter Rough, a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute who returned from Ukraine earlier this month, said the Ukrainians have shown remarkable innovation when it comes to drone warfare.
He relayed a conversation he had with a military medic, in which the man told him he hadn’t treated a gunshot wound in six months because of all the action around drones.
“There are snipers who have been retrained, sometimes begrudgingly, for drone systems,” Rough noted.

The progress has allowed Kyiv to land more long-range strikes further into Russia on oil and military facilities, dealing blows to the country’s economy and war efforts. Case in point, Ukraine early Wednesday morning struck a Russian air base in Voronezh, a military aircraft repair plant in Taganrog, and an oil refinery in Tuapse.
It has also empowered Ukraine to begin new mechanized assaults that have slowly pried back land from Russian control faster than Moscow could take it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week declared Ukraine had retaken nearly 230 square miles of territory since the start of the year. Moscow currently controls nearly 20 percent of the country’s territory.

Russia is “going backwards on the battlefield,” Anne Keast-Butler, director of the U.K. communications intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters, said in an annual public address Wednesday.
She added that nearly 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
Russia has responded to the changing atmosphere by escalating attacks on Ukraine and expanding its threats to surrounding European countries.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday threatened a fresh wave of “systematic strikes” targeting “decision-making centers and command posts” in Kyiv, warning foreign nationals and diplomats they should leave.
An overnight drone attack on Ukraine went astray, slamming into an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people in the NATO member country, officials said.
As NATO members responded with promises to protect every inch of the alliance’s member countries, Dmitry Medvedev, a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, warned Europe’s “peaceful sleep is over.”

Russia said the new strikes were a response to an alleged Ukrainian drone attack last week that Moscow claims hit a student dormitory in the Luhansk region and killed at least 21 individuals.
Last weekend, Russia launched one of its heaviest strikes on Kyiv since the fighting began, firing 90 missiles and more than 600 drones, which killed at least four people and injured another 87.
Ukraine is seeking to rally global support during what it says is a pivotal time in the conflict. Zelensky wrote a letter to President Trump and the U.S. Congress this week appealing for more Patriot air defense munitions, given signs that Russia is preparing to “intensify its campaign of terror.”
Andriy Biletsky, a senior Ukrainian commander, told Reuters on Wednesday “the next six to nine months are a turning point.”
Biletsky, who commands Ukraine’s revered Third Army Corps, told the outlet he believes Moscow’s forces are exhausted and unable to make any significant battle wins.
“The lack of personnel no longer allows them to advance the way they did, for example, a year ago,” Biletsky told Reuters.
That advantage gives Kyiv the chance to make enough gains to strengthen its position in peace negotiations — which are stalled for the time being, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged last week.
“We just sort of sensed that there wasn’t a lot of progress being made,” Rubio said. “We’re also not interested in getting involved in an endless cycle of meetings that lead to nothing.”
He added that Washington remains open to mediating future talks, stressing that a negotiated settlement — not a military victory — is the only way to end the war.
But Barros argued outside countries should seize on Ukraine’s current advantages and help it exploit the gains, warning that they’re not going to be permanent.
“What the United States and international partners supporting Ukraine are looking at is an extremely rare, ephemeral opportunity to lean into helping Ukraine exploit this advantage that they have while they still have it,” he said.
“I’m not prepared to argue that it’s going to be here nine months from now. So we really have to look at this window for what it is.”

Putin's "Inevitable Victory In History's Dustbin" As Ukraine takes 100 Sq Miles In May

2026-05-31T10:12:00.560-04:00

In the four week period ending May 28th, Ukrainian forces took over 100 square miles from the reeling Russians, confirming the growing sense that Ukraine has changed the war on the ground and the narrative on the airwaves. This followed a net Russian loss of 26 square miles in April.

The combined effect of Ukraine's frontline advances, devastating mid-range logistics destruction campaign and long range economic targeting appear to be too much for the Kremlin's overmatched military. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

The broader picture shows a deterioration for Russian forces. Their progress for the last month has taken small parcels in different areas, but has not been significant and has come at a massive cost in manpower and resources. In the four weeks ending 26 May 2026, Russian forces suffered a net loss of 100 square miles of Ukrainian territory, with a net loss of 26 square miles in the preceding month. In the week of 19-26 May, Russia lost 38 square miles. Ukraine’s mid-range drone campaign appears to be exerting effects on Russian operational capacity in the south. Russia’s Spring offensive, as a cohesive campaign, has not generated the tempo to change the situation on the ground. Putin’s ’inevitable victory’ narrative seems to now be firmly in the dustbin of history.
Along the front line, the picture remains one of grinding pressure. In the north, Russian forces have continued offensive operations in Sumy Oblast, probing and advancing incrementally through forested terrain using infiltration tactics. Russian offensive operations also continue in northern Kharkiv Oblast, where Ukrainian forces were conducting counterattacks.
The capture of Ukraine’s fortress belt remains the Russian main effort on the ground. While the Russian plan continues to seek an operational double envelopment, Russian ground forces are also attacking from the east to draw Ukrainian forces east and fix them in place. As the maps below demonstrate, Russia has made some progress on this axis since January 2026, but it is not significant and has come at a massive cost in manpower and resources.
Russian 'progress' against the Fortress Belt, 1 January - 30 May 2026. Source: DeepState Live
The broader picture for the past month, as analysed by the Russia Matters newsletter, shows a deterioration for Russian forces. In the four weeks ending 26 May 2026, Russian forces registered a net loss of 100 square miles of Ukrainian territory, with a net loss of 26 square miles in the preceding four-week period. In the week of 19-26 May, Russia lost 38 square miles. Ukraine’s mid-range drone campaign appears to be exerting effects on Russian operational capacity in the south.
Russia’s Spring Campaign may be taking small parcels of land in different parts of the frontline, but as a cohesive major campaign, it has not generated the tempo or momentum necessary to change the situation on the ground. Further, the Ukrainian resistance on the eastern and southern fronts, and Putin’s pathetic ‘please don’t attack my Victory Day parade’ plea, have had an impact on Russian strategic influence operations. It is probably obvious by now, but Putin’s ’inevitable victory’ narrative seems to now be firmly in the dustbin of history.
President Zelenskyy held a staff meeting in mid-May to analyse intelligence on Russian planning in the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction, stating that Ukraine was “preparing responses to every possible course of enemy action” and that forces in the northern sector would be increased. He also directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prepare additional diplomatic measures regarding Belarus, which Russia might use as a staging ground to expand the war. The concern about a northern axis is not new, but the formal intelligence assessment and public communication of preparations signals Kyiv’s seriousness about the threat.

Russia's 64th Motor Rife Brigade of Bucha Massacre Infamy, Struck By Ukraine

2026-05-30T14:35:29.130-04:00

Ukraine has a long memory. One of the Russian units most responsible for the massacre of Ukrainian civilians at Bucha, Irpin and other Kyiv suburbs during the first days of the Russian invasion was the 64th Motor Rifle Regiment. The unit is based near Khabarovsk, in Siberia. It's officers are white, ethnic Russians but many of its soldiers are ethnic Buryats or Yakuts, indigenous people who are discriminated against in Russia's society.

Because of the 64th notoriety, they have been targeted by Ukrainian forces whenever they have subsequently appeared at or near the front. Most recently, last night, the unit was struck again, this time by aerial drones, in reserve positions in Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. They will never be accorded mercy. JL

Kateryna Tyshchenko reports in Ukraine Pravda and Mark Krutov reports in RFE/RL:

The Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine struck Russia's 64th Motor Rifle Brigade, which committed crimes in Bucha in 2022. Operational data confirm losses among the 64th Brigade of 31 personnel, including 9 killed, 9 wounded and 13 missing. Actual figures are likely to be significantly higher. The unit gained global notoriety at Bucha, the site of mass killings of civilians and other alleged war crimes. Ukraine's Defense Ministry accused the brigade, which was deployed to Bucha and nearby locations, of atrocities. The (vengeance) operation was carried out by the 414th Magyar's Birds Brigade and the 413th Regiment on the night of 29-30 May, coordinated by the newly created Deep Strike Centre of the Unmanned Systems Forces 70 and 100 km from the front line.

The Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have struck positions of Russia's 64th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, which committed crimes in Bucha in 2022 during the occupation of Kyiv Oblast.
Source: Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, on Facebook
Quote: "[The unit Magyar's] Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces worked on training grounds and a military camp of the enemy's 3rd and 36th armies in operational depth.
The lowest of the low, the 64th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade of the 35th Army, which ran riot in Bucha in 2022, was hit." The unit gained global notoriety after Russian units withdrew from districts north of Kyiv in late March, repelled in their offensive toward the Ukrainian capital.

Several districts, including the town of Bucha, were the sites of mass killings of civilians and other alleged war crimes, according to Ukrainian investigators, rights groups, journalists, and open-source researchers. Ukraine's Defense Ministry accused the brigade, which was deployed to Bucha and nearby locations, of atrocities.

On August 8, Bucha authorities said they had tallied 458 bodies recovered in the town, of which 419 appeared to have been shot, tortured, or suffered blunt-force injuries.
The bodies of Bucha residents, all dressed in civilian clothes, some with their hands tied behind their backs, lie on the ground on April 3.
Weeks after reports of the massacres first appeared, on April 18, Putin honored the 64th for defending the "motherland and the interests of the state." He praised it for "mass heroism and valor, tenacity, and courage."

According to the dates listed on the memorial wall at the 64th Brigade camp, about 20 minutes outside of Khabarovsk, at least 44 soldiers from the unit died in late February and March -- a period coinciding with the first phase of the Russian invasion, when Russian forces sought to seize Kyiv.
Details: The operation was carried out by drone operators from the 414th Magyar's Birds Separate Brigade and the 413th Raid Separate Regiment on the night of 29-30 May, coordinated by the newly created Deep Strike Centre of the Unmanned Systems Forces at distances of 70 and 100 km from the front line. A total of 21 confirmed effective hits were recorded, 13 and 8 respectively.
Information on the Russian personnel losses are being confirmed. For now, operational data confirm losses among the 64th Brigade in Prymorskyi Posad: 31 personnel, including 9 killed, 9 wounded and 13 missing. Magyar said that the actual figures are highly likely to be significantly higher.
Information on the losses at Russia's Triokhizbenka training ground of the 3rd Army is being gathered.
Ukrainian forces hit following targets:
The 3rd Army's Triokhizbenka training ground near the settlement of Kriakivka in temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk Oblast, struck by drone operators from the 9th Kairos Battalion of the 414th Magyar's Birds Separate Brigade of the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine, 70 km from the front line.
The 36th Army training ground used by Russia's 64th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade of the 35th Army at Prymorskyi Posad in the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, struck by drone operators from the 413th Raid Separate Regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine, 100 km from the front line.

US Embassy In Kyiv To Remain Open Despite Russian Bombing Threats

2026-05-30T11:47:27.648-04:00

The US has vowed to keep its embassy in Kyiv open despite increasingly desperate threats from the Kremlin, claiming that it intends to escalate its missile and drone attacks on the city meaning that citizens and diplomats could be at risk.

As Russia's performance on the battlefield deteriorates, it has tried to increase its attacks on civilian targets. The global war narrative has turned against Russia and Putin suggesting his options are bleak. In response, he has demanded more terror bombing of non-military targets which, so far, appear to have only further motivated European and other civilized countries to oppose Russia. JL

Ferdinand Knapp reports in Politico:

The United States said its embassy in Ukraine will remain open despite Russian warnings that diplomats who remain in Kyiv risk getting bombed. Russia's foreign ministry urged foreign citizens and diplomats to leave Kyiv “as soon as possible,” warning they risked being hit by missile strikes. Washington’s decision to keep its embassy open mirrors that of EU countries dismissing the Kremlin’s calls to leave the capital city. "We are staying in Kyiv."
TThe United States said its embassy in Ukraine will remain open despite Russian warnings that diplomats who remain in Kyiv risk getting bombed. “There are no changes to our operations and reports otherwise are false,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement on X. “The State Department has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans and regularly reviews the security posture of Embassy Kyiv.”
Russia’s foreign ministry on Monday urged foreign citizens and diplomats to leave Kyiv “as soon as possible,” warning they risked being hit by missile strikes on the capital city. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had warned him Kyiv was “going to be a very dangerous place.” Rubio told reporters U.S. diplomatic staff has been notified on the heightened risk, however he did not say whether evacuations had been ordered or not. Washington’s decision to keep its embassy open mirrors that of a plethora of EU countries that are dismissing the Kremlin’s calls to leave the capital city.
“The EU is not going anywhere,” Katarína Mathernová, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said on Monday. “We are staying in Kyiv.”
The EU on Tuesday summoned Moscow’s chargé d’affaires to the bloc, Karen Malayan, to demand the Kremlin “stop hitting civilians” and “engage in genuine peace talks starting with a full and unconditional ceasefire.”
Over the weekend, Moscow fired more than 80 missiles at the capital, killing at least two people and injuring and additional 87, according to Ukrainian officials.

Surprise Ukraine Counterattack Near Lyman Collapses Russian Salient

2026-05-30T11:22:38.877-04:00

Russia's already tenuous foothold west of the Zherebets River, in the Lyman sector, has been thrown into further doubt by a surprise Ukrainian counterattack from the north, which is threatening the Russian salient with cutoff and collapse.

Ukrainian forces combined arms tactics with complementary drone, artillery, armor and infantry has exposed the Kremlin's logistical lifeline, leaving trapped Russian troops with one option: retreat. JL

RFU News reports:

Ukrainian forces launched a major mechanized assault north of Lyman. After the Russians had spent over a year trying to outflank the Ukrainian town, the Ukrainians are threatening to collapse the entire salient in less than a month. Ukraine achieved tactical surprise and penetrated deep into Russia's northern flank. Russia's delay in effective response proved critical, as Ukrainian forces advanced three to five kilometers before Russian drones reached the assault groups. The Russians are experiencing growing logistical difficulties, remaining in increasingly unsustainable positions. The future of Russia's long contested foothold west of the Zherebets River is in doubt.

Today, there are interesting updates from the Li-man direction.
Here, Ukrainian forces launched a major mechanized assault against the Russian bridgehead north of Li-man. After the Russians had spent over a year trying to outflank the Ukrainian town, the Ukrainians are threatening to starve out and collapse the entire salient in less than a month.
Russia’s lack of advance in this sector is due to it being defended by the Ukrainian Third Army Corps, so the Ukrainian command has recognized that the Russian bridgehead had become strategically vulnerable, and the Ukrainian plan switched from mere containment to cutting it off entirely.
The Russian bridgehead is supplied mainly through its northern section, where the Zherebets River is narrower, but Russian logistics are still under constant pressure from Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes. Additionally, Russian armored vehicles cannot reliably cross the river, while Russian artillery support has been degraded by persistent Ukrainian reconnaissance and counterbattery operations. Ukrainian planners identified these weaknesses and designed an operation specifically aimed at exploiting them.
The Ukrainian attack itself was meant to be launched from the north through the area around Ridkodub, where superior road infrastructure would offer Ukrainian mechanized forces an opportunity to move rapidly before Russian defenders could react. The plan called for armored vehicles to penetrate through the outskirts of the village and then advance along two tree lines that provided partial cover from Russian observation to deploy forces in the larger forested areas between Nove and Katerynivka, which can be used concealed infiltration routes into both settlements with the support of FPV, artillery fire and reconnaissance drones.
If we take a look at the topographic map, we will see that capturing this zone would place Ukrainian forces on the central high ground of the bridgehead. From that position, they could threaten Russian forces in multiple directions while simultaneously controlling the primary supply corridor feeding the entire bridgehead. If successful, the operation would place all Russian troops west of the river in a highly vulnerable position, forcing them to rely increasingly on supplies through aerial drone deliveries for sustainment. However, even that would be problematic given the fact that the Third Army Corps possesses some of Ukraine’s most capable anti-drone and electronic warfare units integrated directly into the corps structure.
Geolocated footage released by Russian units defending the sector showed how the Ukrainian assault unfolded, with Ukrainian armored columns advancing with Cobra-Two mine-resistant vehicles and Ukrainian-produced BTR-Four-E armored personnel carriers. Russian forces initially struggled to respond, with their standard FPV drones proving largely ineffective against the intense Ukrainian electronic warfare coverage shielding the attacking force. This forced Russian operators to switch to less-widely available fiber-optic drones, which are immune to radio jamming but require additional preparation and deployment time.
That delay in effective response proved critical, as the geolocated Russian footage confirms that Ukrainian forces managed to advance between three and five kilometers before the first Russian drones reached the assault groups. One video shows a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier being struck by a drone only after it had already completed its mission and was returning toward Ukrainian positions, notably after having successfully deployed its infantry dismounts.
Additional footage shows Ukrainian soldiers moving through the tree lines and establishing positions inside the contested area while Russian drones attempt to engage them. With Ukrainian releases delayed for operational security reasons, we have to rely on Russian reporting that fighting in the area remains ongoing, adding that Ukrainian troops succeeded in reaching and capturing territory that directly threatens Russian supply routes. As a result, the bridgehead is already experiencing growing logistical difficulties, and isolated Russian units may soon face a difficult choice between retreating closer to the river crossings or remaining in increasingly unsustainable positions.
Yet, official Russian sources attempted to portray the battle very differently, claiming that eighty Ukrainian soldiers had been killed within thirty minutes and that numerous Western-supplied vehicles had been destroyed. However, more reliable Russian military analysts were notably a lot less optimistic, and it was quickly revealed that some of the footage used to illustrate the supposed Russian defensive success originated from battles fought last summer over a year ago, creating a sharp contrast between the official Russian narrative and battlefield realities that even Russian sources have to concede to.
Overall, Ukraine’s combination of favorable terrain, strong electronic warfare capabilities, and rapid mechanized maneuver allowed it to achieve tactical surprise and penetrate deep into the northern flank of the Russian bridgehead. While Ukrainian forces undoubtedly suffered casualties during the assault, Russia’s delayed response allowed them to establish positions that now threaten the entire logistics network supporting the bridgehead. With Ukrainian troops continuing counterattacks and Russian supply routes increasingly endangered, the future of Russia's long contested foothold west of the Zherebets River is in doubt.

AI Is Minting Billionaires. The Global Workforce Wants Their Share

2026-05-30T10:52:15.298-04:00

Samsung Electronics reported record profits due to the AI-driven demand for its chips. It's workforce threatened to strike if it was not given a greater share, to which Samsung agreed. Now, Korean politicians are insisting that the entire populace share in the benefits of a technology their work and taxes helped fund - and they may be only first of a global wave.

Polls show that Americans literally hate AI, and part of the reason is that they know an infinitesimally small group of tech billionaires and investors will grab almost all of the profits. The Koreans may have acted first, but when even MAGA Republicans in the US are starting to question AI's wealth distribution, especially since so much of the research was paid for by taxpayers, that is a harbinger of broad societal anger. The tech industry is responding vehemently, branding everyone opposed to unfettered AI a communist, terrorist or worse. But the demands are not going to go away, particularly as so many jobs are being cut in AI's name. JL

Rina Chandran and John Popko report in Rest of World:

The money the AI boom has created for a select few “border on unthinkable.” Last year, 29 AI founders minted a collective $71 billion. Over the past year, U.S. startups have created 19 billionaires worth a combined $59 billion while, big tech companies including Meta, Amazon, and Oracle have announced tens of thousands of job, saying they are redirecting investment into AI. Of 130,000 layoffs since the start of the year, 77,000 are linked to AI adoption or investment - 60% of the total. AI gains rest on publicly funded research, government infrastructure, decades of scientific work, and the labor of people throughout the supply chain. Yet the rewards are “concentrating in a small number of firms and their investors, while the costs and risks are being distributed much more broadly. “Globally, workers are beginning to make the same claim: a rightful share, grounded in contribution.”
Samsung Electronics narrowly averted a walkout by nearly 48,000 workers this week, after executives agreed to a tentative deal over bonus payments. But the labor union’s demand for a bigger share of profits from the company’s semiconductor business has sparked questions — in South Korea and elsewhere — about who benefits from the AI industry, and whether its rewards should be shared more equitably.
Samsung, the world’s biggest memory chip maker, has reported record profits in recent months amid a global shortage of memory chips. The labor union had demanded the company allocate 15% of operating profit to bonuses for all workers, not just those at the memory chip division that supplies Tesla, Nvidia, and other big tech companies.
“As the AI industry drives record operating profits, union members are in a structure where they cannot receive the performance-based rewards they deserve,” Choi Seung-ho, head of Samsung’s union, told Rest of World. “We want to change that.”
Their demand struck a chord in the country, with a top policymaker proposing a “citizen’s dividend,” or a portion of the excess profits from the AI boom to be distributed among its 52 million people. That would ensure social stability, and help mitigate the cost of the economic transition being brought about by AI, Kim Yong-beom said in a Facebook post before the deal was reached.
Profits “border on the unthinkable”
For economists, labor analysts, and policymakers studying AI’s effects on the economy, the Samsung dispute is not a conventional wage negotiation, but “one of the most significant labor actions we have seen,” Adrian Brown, chief executive of Windfall Trust think tank which aims to develop responses to AI’s disruption, told Rest of World.
Globally, workers are beginning to make the same claim: a rightful share, grounded in contribution.”Adrian Brown, chief executive of Windfall Trust
The workers “know their labor is part of the AI value chain, and they are asking a straightforward question: If this technology is generating record profits, who has a legitimate claim on a share of them?” Brown said.
The sums of money that the AI boom has created for a select few “border on unthinkable,” according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Last year, 29 founders minted fortunes worth a collective $71 billion, it showed. Over the past year, U.S. startups alone have created 19 billionaires worth a combined $59 billion, the report said. The new AI rich “are proliferating at a mind-boggling pace.”

That pace is picking up. SpaceX this week filed for an initial public offering that values the company at over $2 trillion, and could make founder Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. OpenAI and Anthropic are also expected to file for IPOs this year, which would make several of their senior executives billionaires.
Meanwhile, big tech companies including Meta, Amazon, and Oracle have announced tens of thousands of job cuts this year, with several executives saying they are redirecting investment into AI. Of the nearly 130,000 layoffs announced since the start of the year, about 77,000 are linked to AI adoption or investment — 60% of the total, according to estimates by TradingPlatforms, a financial services firm.
$59 billionWorth of 19 new AI founders created in the U.S. in the last year.
AI gains rest on publicly funded research, government-backed infrastructure, decades of scientific work, and the labor of people throughout the supply chain — from chip fabrication to data labeling to content moderation, Brown said. Yet the rewards are “concentrating in a small number of firms and their investors, while the costs and risks are being distributed much more broadly,” he said.
From Kenya to San Francisco
Under the terms of the proposal at Samsung, the company abolished a cap on bonuses, and will link bonuses to operating profits. It will also set aside about 10.5% of operating profit for special bonuses for the chip division. Rival SK Hynix similarly agreed, last year, to allocate 10% of annual operating profit to a performance bonus pool.
“This is likely an early signal of a much broader politics,” Brown said. “Globally, workers are beginning to make the same claim: a rightful share, grounded in contribution.”
Elsewhere, Kenyan data annotation workers formed an association last year to demand fair pay and conditions. Voice actors worldwide are forming unions to press for compensation for the use of their data to train AI models, and Hollywood actors are calling for a “Tilly tax” — named for the AI actor Tilly Norwood — a levy on AI-generated performers that will go toward benefits for real actors.
Outside a courthouse near San Francisco, during the OpenAI v. Elon Musk trial, campaigners lobbying for better wages for workers gathered with a large banner that said, “Workers demand a piece of the pie.”
In his Facebook post, presidential policy chief Kim said that South Korea has a rare opportunity to transform from being a mere provider of AI infrastructure to becoming the first nation “to return the excess profits of the AI era to the enrichment of human life.”
At Samsung, the unequal bonuses had led to deep divisions between workers at the different units, and caused several employees to quit, the union said. The agreement does not give workers everything they demanded, but the bonus is now institutionalized, locked in for a decade, and built on a transparent formula, leader Choi said.
“If the results that we worked hard to create together are taken only by the company, we think that is unreasonable” he said. “We want Samsung Electronics to do well, we want South Korea to do well, and we want ourselves to do well.”

Ukraine Takes 46 Square Kms In Zaporizhzhia Near Oleksandrivka

2026-05-29T12:27:27.981-04:00

Ukrainian air assault forces counterattacking in Zaporizhzhia oblast have pushed the Russian units there back 46 kilometers, liberating at least seven villages in that sector.

This represents another success in Ukraine's ongoing offensive operations this spring. JL

Deep State reports:

Ukraine's forces liberated territory near Novoselivka on the Oleksandrivka front. Ukrainian defenders launched a new offensive on this front in early May. "Ukraine has liberated territory near Novoselivka and are also clearing the enemy from areas near Voronne, Sichneve, Piddubne, Tovste, Novokhatske and Zelenyi Hai," which means the Russians have lost at least 46 sq km of territory.

DeepState, a Ukrainian group of military analysts, has reported that Ukraine's defence forces liberated territory near the settlement of Novoselivka on the Oleksandrivka front. Ukrainska Pravda sources confirm that Ukrainian defenders launched a new offensive on this front in early May.
Source: UP sources; General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook; DeepState
Quote from DeepState: "The defence forces of Ukraine have liberated territory near Novoselivka and are also clearing the enemy from areas near Voronne, Sichneve, Piddubne, Tovste, Novokhatske and Zelenyi Hai."
Details: The analysts pointed out that the Russians have therefore lost at least 46 sq km of territory.
DeepState reported the Ukrainian defenders' success on the Oleksandrivka front as confirmation of information from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Ukrainska Pravda learned that the new offensive by Ukraine's defence forces on the Oleksandrivka front began in early May.
It is still too early to assess how successful it has been, but UP sources confirm the advance outlined by DeepState analysts.
The General Staff has not officially reported an operation by the Ukrainian forces on this section of the front.
On 29 May, the General Staff reported as of 16:00 that on the Oleksandrivka front, "the enemy has not conducted active offensive operations since the start of the day".
Meanwhile, in its report for the previous day, part of the territory on this section was marked on the map released by the General Staff as being under Ukrainian control, although just a few days earlier DeepState's map had marked these areas as occupied by Russian forces.

95% of Russians Attacking Kupiansk By River or Pipeline Killed By Ukrainians

2026-05-29T11:50:10.093-04:00

Ukrainian troops defending Kupiansk can now determine with "100%" accuracy where Russians will attempt to infiltrate, either through a network of Soviet-era pipelines or over the Oskil River. As a result, 95% of the Russians are killed within 10 minutes to an hour of emerging.

The Russians keep trying because they think their numbers will eventually overwhelm the Ukrainians. The problem for the Russians is, they are running out of numbers. JL

Asami Terajima reports in the Kyiv Independent:

The longest a Russian soldier can hope to survive for after emerging from underground pipelines is, according to those hunting them, one hour. "But it's usually 10 minutes, and that's it." (It's) an endless "whack-a-mole" fight: monitoring the pipes for exit holes, taking out the Russians that emerge, filling in the holes, then searching for the next exit point. Despite huge losses and horrific conditions in the pipes - "dozens of soldiers suffocated, committed suicide, or died in panic and delirium" - Russia continues to push men through them. It also keeps sending troops across the Oskil River either by boats or on foot. (But) 95% of the Russian troops who try to cross the river, including through the pipelines, are killed or wounded.

The longest a Russian soldier can hope to survive for after emerging from the underground pipeline is, according to those hunting them, one single hour.
"But it's usually 10 minutes, and that's it," "Tovsty," chief sergeant of a company in Ukraine's Khartiia Brigade, says at a command post in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.
Tovsty is watching live drone footage showing a scene which has been repeating itself over and over again for months now — Russian soldiers emerging from disused pipelines in an effort to infiltrate Ukrainian lines.
In the new era of a drone-dominated battlefield, the Russian army is taking advantage of an extensive system of underground Soviet-era infrastructure, using it as a drone-proof route to push troops forward.
"You can't really walk on the ground now in the war of drones, so everything is done underground," Tovsty tells the Kyiv Independent.
"Tovsty," chief sergeant of a company in Khartiia Brigade, at a command post near Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, April 1, 2026. (Patryk Jaracz / The Kyiv Independent)
But the safety of the pipelines can only take them so far.
For months, Khartiia Brigade has been engaged in what commanders describe as an endless "whack-a-mole" style fight — monitoring the pipes for exit holes, taking out the Russians that emerge, filling in the holes, then searching for the next and newest exit point.
Despite huge losses and horrific conditions in the pipes themselves, Russia continues to push men through them.

'People die in there'
The Russian soldiers Tovsty is watching are headed for Kupiansk, a strategically important town in Kharkiv Oblast just 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border. Home to a highway and railway intersection, it was occupied by Russian forces during the opening days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, before being liberated in September of the same year.
Russia has been trying to take it back ever since.
For the last year, Russian soldiers have been taking advantage of four abandoned gas pipelines that merge into two across the Oskil River. The Shebelinka-Ostrogozhsk gas pipeline, originally built under Soviet efforts to pump gas from Kharkiv Oblast to Russia, connects the Russian-occupied territory on the eastern bank to the Ukrainian rear in the Kupiansk area.
Battle of Kupiansk as of May 2026. (Nizar al-Rifai / The Kyiv Independent)
Russian troops have deployed the pipeline infiltration tactic across the front wherever it can, from Avdiivka in eastern Donetsk Oblast to northeastern Sumy Oblast, as well as in Russia's Kursk Oblast, where Ukraine launched a cross-border incursion in August 2024.
"(The pipelines) can be an effective strategy locally to cause confusion," Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, which closely follows the war through open-source footage, told the Kyiv Independent.
The pipes leading to Kupiansk are only 1 to 1.2 meters in diameter. Those inside must crawl 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) to reach the Ukrainian lines. According to Khartiia Brigade commanders, some spend months just waiting inside while they accumulate men and materiel inside.
"dozens of soldiers suffocated, committed suicide, or died in panic and delirium."
"People die in there," the brigade's deputy commander, who goes by his callsign "Abat," tells the Kyiv Independent. Officers interviewed only shared their callsigns due to security concerns amid the ongoing war.
"They are just thrown out there, their weapons stuck to their backs (with duct tape) so they don't lose them."
Reports of the Russian tactic emerged last year when Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState reported Moscow's soldiers were using specially designed wheeled benches and electric scooters to maneuver inside the pipelines.
Russian independent media outlet Astra published a video of a soldier describing the chaos inside a pipe in Russia's Kursk Oblast, claiming "dozens of soldiers suffocated, committed suicide, or died in panic and delirium."
"People were going crazy there. One shot himself. One… pointed a machine gun at himself. The second one smashed his head in," he says in the video.
A gas pipeline near Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, April 1, 2026. (Patryk Jaracz / The Kyiv Independent)
A gas pipeline exit near Kupiansk and remains of a Russian soldier depicted in a photograph at a Khartiia Brigade command post in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, April 1, 2026. (Patryk Jaracz / The Kyiv Independent)
Despite this, the tactic worked at the time.
Russian troops managed to infiltrate the northern outskirts of Kupiansk in September 2025 through the pipelines and threatened the town, breaching it from the north.
A Ukrainian counterattack operation followed, pushing Russian forces back from parts of Kupiansk and liberating the villages on its northern outskirts. President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the contested town in December 2025, denying Moscow's earlier claims to have captured it.
Since then, Ukraine has learned to largely stabilize the pipeline threat, a small part of the wider Ukrainian successes in recent months that have begun to tip the scales in Kyiv's favor.
The threat from Russian infiltration through pipelines in the Kupiansk sector was "in fact uncontrollable," but Ukraine has since sealed off certain sections and better understands the routes, the commander of an unmanned systems company in Khartiia Brigade, who goes by his callsign "Druid," tells the Kyiv Independent.
"Druid," UAV company commander of the operational assignment battalion of Khartiia Brigade, at a command post near Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, April 1, 2026. (Patryk Jaracz / The Kyiv Independent)
Meanwhile, Russia has not changed its strategy and tries to do "the same old things," according to retired Australian Army Major-General Mick Ryan. Using an infantry-heavy tactic, including on the Kupiansk front, the Russian army has continued to rely on a costly strategy in an attempt to gradually exhaust the Ukrainian defense.
"Ukraine has developed more effective solutions to Russia's key advantages, which are greater manpower and greater industrial production, and that is starting to hurt Russia," Ryan, who has been analyzing the war in Ukraine since its start, told the Kyiv Independent.
"These are all little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that indicate to me that we might be approaching a turning point if (Ukraine) keeps moving in this direction."
But retaining the advantage in the ongoing whack-a-mole battle is an intensive process.
'Moving randomly'
Crawling out one by one from small openings, often without gear or equipment, Russian soldiers often appear intoxicated from inhaling chemical residues inside the pipelines, Tovsty says.
After emerging from their 15-kilometer crawl from the Russian rear on the other side of the Oskil River, the Russian soldiers "just move randomly" without any specific destination in mind, with only a Russian drone trying to guide them, he adds.
"For some reason, they keep trying to crawl forward again and again."
The time at which Russia sends troops through the pipelines varies each day, as does the number that crawl in. How many surface depends on the number accumulating inside and the weather conditions, making any accurate estimates difficult, according to Tovsty.
Russian soldiers could spend half a year or as short as a month or a day, depending on whether they are troops designated for pipeline work or assault soldiers, Abat said.
(Editor's note: the parts of the photos were blurred for security reasons.) Ukrainian servicemen of the Khartiia Brigade at a command post near Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, April 1, 2026. (Patryk Jaracz / The Kyiv Independent)
He adds that Russia is using specialized troops, known as "Veterans," likely from a mining background, for the pipeline operations to infiltrate Kupiansk and elsewhere.
After more than half a year of countering Russia's tactic, Tovsty says he and his men now know "100%" where to wait for the Russian soldiers to crawl out of the pipelines.
"The enemy knows this too, but for some reason, they keep trying to crawl forward again and again."
'A bone in my throat'
Russia also keeps sending troops across the narrow Oskil River either by boats or on foot via stretchable cables, an improvised version of pontoon bridges, according to Abat, Khartiia's deputy brigade commander. He said the ratio of Russian soldiers crawling through the pipes or crossing the river by other means is around 1:1.
About 95% of the Russian troops who try to cross the river, including through the pipelines, are killed or wounded, Abat claimed.
"No matter how many troops they lose, they will keep hitting head-on to the end for Kupiansk," he added, describing the situation as "a bone in my throat."
The main issue is that the pipeline is "almost impossible" to destroy, Abat says, despite previous Ukrainian claims of doing so.
He explains that even if a Ukrainian aerial bomb attack leaves a 5-square-meter hole in the pipeline, Russian troops just dig around it to avoid crawling through the opening.
"Abat," deputy commander of Khartiia Brigade, at a command post near Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, April 1, 2026. (Patryk Jaracz / The Kyiv Independent)
Artillery is not an option either because Ukrainian infantry positions are too close to the pipelines, leaving the job to lighter but more precise drones that lack the firepower to inflict damage beyond temporarily blocking some parts, according to Khartiia commanders.
"There is a hole — it is closed, filled in (with earth), and blown up. A hundred meters from it, another hole may appear, and after that, another one ten meters away," Druid, the commander of Khartiia's unmanned systems company, says.
"So we don't have the possibility to close (holes in the pipelines) permanently," he says, though Russian logistics appear to have more issues since the spring weather partially flooded the pipes.
With signs of the initiative in the war tilting in Ukraine's favor, there is now at least a possibility that Russia may be running out of steam, but it's also possible for Moscow's troops to rapidly advance through weak points in Ukrainian defenses on the battlefield, Paroinen, the Black Bird Group expert, said.
But Austria-based warfare expert Tom Cooper disputed the optimistic outlook, saying that the Ukrainian military should have long resolved the pipeline issue, taking measures such as installing sensors inside them to detect movement.
"(Ukrainian troops) have to watch over all the possible pipelines (despite the manpower shortage), also behind the front line, they need additional troops which they don't have to cover at depth as well," Cooper told the Kyiv Independent.
"I mean, it's a nightmare from their point of view."

Ukraine's Drones Are Breaking Russia's Defenses. The Kremlin Has No Answers

2026-05-29T11:10:43.335-04:00

Gone are the days when Ukraine's drone forces consisted of amateurs with commercially sourced Chinese hobbyist drones. Now, thousands of expert operators aim tens of thousands of aerial and ground drones - many designed and built in Ukraine - at targets ranging from hapless Russian troops in the kill zone to industrial targets hundreds to thousands of kilometers deep within Russia.

The effect has been devastating. At the front, Russian advances have all but ceased. In the rear, logistics and reinforcements have been forced back beyond their ability to respond to Ukrainian counterattacks for fear of drone strikes. And in Russia, 70% of the population and most of the country's industrial and energy capacity is now vulnerable, if not already damaged. The results of these developments are, quite literally, war changing. And the Kremlin has no answers. JL

Steve Hendrix and Serhii Korolchuk report in the Washington Post:

As a fifth summer's fighting begins, dozens of Ukrainian operators fly thousands of drones from underground command centers that looks more like a tech start-up than a forward bunker. High-definition monitors line insulated walls, showing a drone’s-eye view of a doomed Russian soldier in a foxhole, an enemy supply truck, or a ground robot delivering food and ammo to a forward unit. After a year in which Ukraine resisted White House pressure to cave to Russian demands, tens of thousands of drones now blanket 200 miles behind the front, targeting supply lines, command centers and air defense batteries. Along the front, aerial drones attack anything moving, a gauntlet Russians cross at tremendous cost. The deep-strike drones Ukraine launches each month grew 20 to 30 times. Mid-strike drones have expanded 1,000%. Ukraine is starting the summer with mounting confidence. "They will be in very big s---. We are going to increase the quantity of hits even more.”
As a fifth summer fighting season begins in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Vladyslav Tovstyi directs dozens of operators flying thousands of drones from an underground command center that looks more like a tech start-up than a forward bunker.

High-definition monitors lined the insulated walls, each showing a drone’s-eye view of a doomed Russian soldier in a foxhole, an enemy supply truck, countryside striped with trenches and razor wire. On one, a ground robot was delivering food and ammo to a forward unit — a Ukrainian soldier gave a thumbs-up to the camera.

From his ergonomic Secretlab gaming chair, Tovstyi monitored his team’s efforts along the front lines. His laptop connects him with other units sending drones further into Russia, some disrupting rear supply lines, and others striking oil refineries closer to the Arctic Circle than to the front lines.
It’s a remarkable evolution from the day Tovstyi experimented with one of Ukraine’s first drones, an off-the-shelf quadcopter with a one-mile range and a half-hour battery.
The new three-range strategy he is part of and this setup, at a secret location in the Donetsk region that Russia is desperately trying to conquer, helps explain why Russia’s war, predicted to last mere days, has now continued for more than four years — and how Ukraine suddenly seems to have the stronger hand.
For his first drone, in the conflict’s early weeks, Tovstyi was squatting in the dirt and thunder of the front lines, his platoon about to be surrounded by Russian soldiers. Desperate, they unpacked a store-bought Chinese drone and joy-sticked it into the sky.
“We were blind like kittens,” Tovstyi said. “Then we sent the Mavic up, and we could see 50 pieces of enemy equipment. We directed the artillery fire at them.”
Tovstiy sits in the command post. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
A tally of successful recent drone strikes against Russian targets hangs in the command post. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
Now, Tovstyi is among the high-tech soldiers directing an ever-evolving drone strategy. And after a year in which Ukraine lost territory, resisted White House pressure to cave to Russian demands and endured months of blackout, the latest drone warfare has set the stage for something few predicted during the bitter winter — a summer that begins, for once, with something resembling an edge.
Russia’s progress at the front has ground almost to a halt. The Kremlin is losing tens of thousands of soldiers a month while suppressing growing public anger at home. And with European funding, Ukraine has become an increasingly formidable arms manufacturer in its own right.

Ukraine’s comeback flows mostly, military experts say, from how it continues to rewrite the capabilities of its remote-controlled air force.
A homegrown approach to warfare that started with a few hobby shop quadcopters has evolved into a sustained, three-tier strategy of short-, medium- and long-range drone programs.
At the far end, a new generation of Ukrainian strategic long-range UAVs is reaching deeper into Russia than ever, rattling civilians and forcing a military superpower to defend territory it never imagined would be at risk.
In February, one drone slammed into an oil refinery located in Russia’s far northern Komi Republic after a flight of 1,100 miles — setting a record that is not likely to stand for long.
More critically, tens of thousands of operational drones are now blanketing the middle ground — up to 200 miles behind the front — scrambling supply lines, targeting rear command centers and hunting the air defense batteries Russia needs to protect everything else.
And along the 750-mile front, Ukraine is shrinking the number of human soldiers in the kill zone using remote-controlled combatants. Tactical aerial drones spot and attack Russians, while ground robots resupply Ukraine’s own troops and evacuate the wounded, turning what was once a brutal exchange of infantry and artillery into a technological gantlet that Russian forces cross only at tremendous cost.

Russia, which was capturing an average of 150 square miles a month at its peak last year, has slowed to a fraction of that pace. In April, for the first time in nearly two years, it lost more ground than it gained, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Yevgen Karas, who commanded some of the first experimental longer-range drone missions in 2022, has watched the number of deep-strike drones Ukraine launches each month grow 20 to 30 times since then. Even more critically, the monthly number of mid-strike drones has expanded by more than 1,000 percent, Karas estimates.
“I think they will be in very big s--- this half of the year because we are going to increase the quantity of hits even more,” Karas said in an interview at his operations center in Dnipro. “For Russian officers, it will be hard times.”
Maj. Yevhen Karas commands the "Raid" regiment of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
Karas launched one of Ukraine’s first behind-the-lines strikes in September 2022, hitting a Russian fuel depot 50 miles away with a drone that had to take off and be guided so close to the front lines that its operators were stationed amid machine gun fire alongside teams firing mortar shells.
Now, they hit hundreds of targets a month from secret control centers all over Ukraine, access to the grid more important than proximity to the front. On Wednesday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced a new $112 million “logistical lockdown” program to fund even more midrange strikes.

“There is a serious slowdown in the Russian offensive,” Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin Russian political analyst, told The Washington Post.
The midrange attacks in particular have disrupted the delivery of supplies and fighters to the front, Markov said. “They are forced now to keep more than 150 kilometers [93 miles] away from Ukrainian positions. This is reducing the capability of Russian forces to maneuver operatively.”
Ukraine still faces constraints that have hampered it from the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Kyiv is short on soldiers, short on air defense interceptors that it gets from the United States and heavily dependent on European funding.
The European Union finalized a loan worth 90 billion euros (about $105 billion) last month, funds that had been blocked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban before he was voted out of office in March — but that still leaves a reported $60 billion gap.
Marines set up a drone for transport at a training site May 7. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
Marines attach training bomblets to the drone. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
But in a way that seemed unlikely a year ago, conditions now seem to favor Ukraine. Moscow wants to seize more of Ukraine, and Kyiv wants to hold the Russians off. Russia needs to be dominant; Ukraine needs to be durable.
“This is a war of exhaustion,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Come Back Alive, a nonprofit organization that raises money for the Ukrainian military. “It’s like a boxing match with unlimited rounds,” Bielieskov said. “We just need to stay on our feet until the last one.”

The past year in some ways was the worst yet for Ukraine.
President Donald Trump, after berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, had been pressuring Kyiv to make a deal on Russian terms, including surrendering territory.

Russian and North Korean units were advancing. Relentless attacks on Ukraine’s power grid left millions freezing through the coldest winter in years. Moscow had the momentum.
Now, the Russians are still advancing in places, but only by yards and at a shocking cost of fatalities, up to 25,000 a month (about as many as the Soviets lost in their entire 10-year war in Afghanistan).
The new dimension of war that Ukraine has opened with its deep-strike drone campaign is rattling Russia’s public, dinting its oil economy and forcing commanders to defend assets far from the front.
Ukrainian drones and missiles have logged more than 1,500 verified strikes in Russian territory since last summer. Attacks on midrange logistics networks and air defenses are opening the skies for ever-deeper strikes on petroleum facilities and other strategic assets from occupied Crimea to Russia’s sub-Arctic, according to open-source intelligence analyzed by the Kyiv Independent newspaper.
Ukraine launched 7,000 in March alone, the first month in which the country fired more drones into Russia than Russia sent into Ukraine, according to data reviewed by ABC News.
Barricades against potential Russian offensives this month. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
Anti-drone nets cover a road in a Ukrainian village. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
The attacks have both material and psychological impact, bringing the war closer to Russians who for most of the past four years had watched only a sanitized version of the fighting on state TV.
This month, Russian President Vladimir Putin curtailed the country’s annual Victory Day commemorations, acknowledging that the central-Moscow parade route was well within range of Ukrainian strikes.

Both countries cut down on air attacks for an informal three-day ceasefire during the commemoration of Soviet losses in World War II. But days later, Ukrainian drones struck Moscow in the largest attack on the Russian capital yet, killing at least three.
Putin, seeking to tamp down mounting bad news, has restricted internet access, including the ubiquitous use of the Telegram messaging platform, drawing anger from an increasingly skeptical public.
Russian analysts say grumbling about the war is growing in the populace and among the president’s elite supporters alike. The country’s general happiness index fell to a 15-year low in April, as measured by state-controlled surveys.
“You begin to wonder whether Putin’s aura of omnipotence isn’t just beginning to waver slightly,” said Tim Willasey-Wilsey, senior fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a security think tank based in London. “If Ukraine suffered its worst moment over the winter, I think Russia is suffering its worst moment just about now.”

Ukraine’s show of strength does not mean it is on the verge of prevailing, analysts say. The front line, if largely unmoving, remains white-hot. Ukrainian officials recorded 233 combat engagements on a single day last week.
Russia also launched one of its biggest aerial assaults of the war Saturday, pounding Kyiv with attack drones as well as ballistic and cruise missiles, including an Oreshnik hypersonic missile. Russian forces still occupy roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, and neither side is anywhere close to a decisive military victory.
The tools Ukraine is using to stay on its feet have evolved almost beyond recognition since the war’s first weeks, particularly its drones.
With strategic, long-distance strikes ever farther into Russia, Ukraine is trying to force Moscow to divert resources from its frontline invasion to defending refineries, weapons factories, airfields and oil-export terminals across its huge territory.
Russian bombers have been pushed thousands of miles from the front. Black Sea Fleet vessels relocated from Crimea to Novorossiysk after systematic drone strikes. Air defense batteries have been redeployed to ring Moscow, pulled from the front to protect the capital.
“We are using Russia’s vastness against Russia,” said Bielieskov.
A monument to soldiers killed in World War II is seen through anti-drone netting in a Ukrainian village. (Brendan Hoffman/For The Washington Post)
The drones fly both ways, of course. Russia continues to pound Ukraine’s energy grid, and in April killed at least 238 civilians and injured 1,404 injured, according to United Nations monitors.
Zelensky, in virtually every public statement, hammers on the need for more air defense help. Ukraine is bracing for shortages of U.S.-supplied Patriot interceptors amid the Iran war and the need to replenish batteries across the Middle East.
Still, Ukraine is starting the summer with mounting confidence.
“It’s very cautious,” said retired Gen. Gordon B. Davis Jr., a former deputy assistant secretary general of NATO and senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “But yes, there is optimism.”

Anthropic's Latest Valuation at $900 Billion Surpasses OpenAI

2026-05-29T10:04:18.671-04:00

Anthropic, until quite recently seen as the runner-up to OpenAI in the race for AI dominance, surpassed its rival in value as a new $65 billion financing round drove it up to $900 billion, well ahead of OpenAI's $730 billion. This comes after Anthropic's annualized run rate jumped to $45 billion, besting OpenAI's $30 billion, on the strength of its coding capabilities. This not only establishes Anthropic's superior future prospects in the eyes of investors, but suggests that the company's technology is now the best on the market.

This will come as a shock to all those 'experts' who predicted the Pentagon's labelling Anthropic a supply chain risk would limit its prospects, especially after OpenAI then cravenly agreed to all of the Pentagon's demands. Truth will out, even in tech. JL

Mike Isaac and Cade Metz report in the New York Times:

On Thursday (yesterday) Anthropic officially passed OpenAI as the world’s most valuable A.I. start-up. Anthropic raised $65 billion in financing that values it at $900 billion before the inclusion of the new capital, a deal that puts it ahead of OpenAI’s last valuation of $730 billion. The new round boosted Anthropic’s value two and a half times its previous valuation of $380 billion three months ago. Since Anthropic improved its A.I. coding technology in November, hundreds of businesses have signed up for the software. The company's “revenue run rate” - expected revenue for the year based on its current performance - crossed $47 billion this month. The company’s momentum has (grown) even as Dario Amodei, it’s CEO, has spoken out about the potential dangers of A.I. and called for regulation of the technology. That led to a bitter fight with the Pentagon.

Anthropic, once the lesser-known artificial intelligence competitor to OpenAI, has been on an inexorable rise over the past few months.
The San Francisco company recently dueled with the Pentagon over the use of A.I. in warfare. It released a powerful A.I. model, Mythos, that it said was uncannily capable of finding and exploiting hidden flaws in software. And the company advised Pope Leo XIV on his papal encyclical delivered on Monday, in which he warned about safeguarding humanity from A.I.’s most disruptive effects.
On Thursday, Anthropic punctuated its ascent by officially passing OpenAI as the world’s highest-flying A.I. start-up. Anthropic said it had raised $65 billion in financing that values it at $900 billion before the inclusion of the new capital, a deal that puts it ahead of OpenAI’s last valuation of $730 billion. The company also unveiled a new flagship A.I. model, Claude Opus 4.8, which is significantly better than its predecessor at generating computer code.
The new investment, which was led by investors including Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, Altimeter Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group, boosted Anthropic’s value to nearly two and a half times its previous valuation of $380 billion about three months ago. The funding underlined the company’s success in developing A.I. technology that excels in writing software code, which has turned into a robust business. Since Anthropic improved its A.I. coding technology in November, hundreds of businesses have signed up to pay for the software. The company said its “revenue run rate,” which is its expected revenue for the year based on its current performance, crossed $47 billion this month.
“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens,” said Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer.
Anthropic’s trajectory stands out, even amid a heated frenzy over A.I. Just 62 days ago, OpenAI — which had kicked off the A.I. boom with its release of the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022 — announced it had raised $122 billion in a funding round that put its value at $730 billion, a number that it took roughly a decade to achieve. Anthropic, which was founded in 2021, has surpassed that in half the time.
The company’s momentum has gathered steam in recent months as Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, has spoken out about the potential dangers of A.I. and called for regulation of the technology. That led to a bitter fight with the Pentagon over how A.I. should be used in warfare, among other public imbroglios. Last week, SpaceX revealed its public offering prospectus and is expected to reach the stock market as soon as next month. OpenAI also plans to file confidentially for an initial public offering in the coming weeks. Anthropic insiders have said the company was also considering an I.P.O. that could come as soon as this year, though the company has declined to comment.
The battle is far from over. Facing pressure from Anthropic, OpenAI has trimmed side projects in favor of prioritizing work on its own coding software, called Codex. SpaceX recently entered an agreement to buy Cursor, a software coding interface popular with developers, and has agreed to sell some computing power to Anthropic.
A spokesman for OpenAI declined to comment. Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
In its latest funding, Anthropic brought in new strategic investors including Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix, companies that build storage, memory and logic chips that are crucial to the development of A.I. In a blog post, Anthropic said these strategic partners would help boost the company’s computing power as demand for Claude Code grew.
Anthropic has now raised more than $130 billion since it was established, according to PitchBook, which tracks start-ups. Its roster of investors includes Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Iconiq Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as tech giants like Amazon and Google. Anthropic’s new Claude Opus 4.8 outperforms all other publicly available A.I. technologies on vibecoding, which is when A.I. technologies create software in response to prompts written in conversational English. Opus 4.8 scored 10 percent higher on the vibecoding benchmark test from Vals AI, a company that tracks the performance of the latest A.I. technologies, compared with the previous Anthropic model, said Rayan Krishnan, the chief executive of Vals AI.
The new model also outperformed its predecessor in mathematics, another area where the leading A.I. technologies continue to improve by leaps and bounds.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)

Russian Restricts Traffic On Vital Mariupol-Crimea Highway As Drone Damage Rises

2026-05-28T11:29:08.716-04:00

Ukrainian drones are now hitting Russian trucks on the crucial Donetsk-Mariupol and Rostov-Crimea highways with such frequency that dozens of burned out vehicles line the roads and Russian authorities are restricting civilian travel on those routes. JL

Stefan Korshak reports in the Kyiv Post:

Long-range drone attacks on a key Kremlin military logistical route in southern Ukraine have demolished dozens of trucks and military vehicles, forced Russian authorities to issue travel advisories, and infuriated locals, angry that Russian air defenses seem unable to protect them. The remains of at least 30 burnt heavy trucks were visible on the side of the road along the Donetsk-Mariupol H20 highway, and 15 were seen on the Rostov-Crimea M-14 highway. The density of heavy vehicles is so high that tourist traffic will be at risk from drone attack no matter how much distance a civilian driver tries to keep from the vehicles Ukrainian drone pilots are hitting.
Long-range drone attacks concentrating on a key Kremlin military logistical route in southern Ukraine have demolished dozens of trucks and military vehicles, forced Russian authorities to issue travel advisories, and infuriated locals, angry that Russian air defenses seem unable to protect them, weekend news and social media reports from occupied areas of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions showed.
According to data compiled by the Ukrainian drone operations news platform Shraik News, as of Saturday evening, the remains of at least 30 burnt heavy trucks were visible on the side of the road along the Donetsk-Mariupol H20 highway, and 15 were seen by motorists on the Rostov-Crimea M-14 highway. Kyiv Post geolocation confirmed 28 of the attack sites, and others were highly probable, researchers found.

Reportedly, dozens more destroyed vehicles have been towed along those routes since early April. The most common targets in that content were fuel carriers, closed-trailer semis, and military trucks. All but a few were destroyed by fire.

“The road to Crimea, the Donetsk-Novoazovsk and Donetsk-Mariupol highways, the Donetsk outskirts, etc. – all roads in the DPR are now under daily massive attacks by Hornet [unmanned aerial vehicles] UAVs, also known as Martian-2. These attacks are escalating daily… They are especially fond of fuel tankers,” complained the Donetsk-based military blogger 1.infantry on Sunday. “Hornets patrol freely over the DPR’s [the unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic] highways… Simply leaving your home has become unsafe.”

Most Russian military and summer vacation traffic moving between the Russian Federation mainland and the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea moves through the cities of Mariupol and Melitopol along the M-14 highway. The four-lane highway is on average about 70-80 kilometers (44-50 miles) distant from probable Ukrainian drone launch sites.

Ukraine’s General Staff in March announced it would soon field new types of drones and more drone units that would extend the reach of persistent drone observation and attacks in Russian-controlled regions from a belt reaching to approximately 20-25 kilometers (12-16 miles) from front lines, to as much as 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the front lines.
Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), in an April 27 announcement, said the deep attack campaign was running well and that “there will be enough birds” for the expanded attacks.
Developed by the US company Swift Beat, Hornet (called “Martian-2” in Russian sources) is a fixed-wing, one-way attack drone costing about $5,000-10,000 dollars, with a rated range of 150 kilometers (93 miles). Ukraine’s USF first flew experimental Hornets in late 2025, with mass production kicking off and combat debut performances in spring 2026.
Ukrainian UAV pilots in mid-May interviews told Kyiv Post the aircraft is easy to fly, resistant to jamming, and reliably able to stop and set afire any vehicle operated by Russia smaller than a tank.

Local Russian officials have downplayed the effects of the Hornet-tipped deep attack campaign in occupied southern Ukraine while Russia’s national media and the Kremlin have effectively ignored it.

On May 22, Volodymyr Saldo, a Ukrainian official transferring loyalties to Russia in 2022 and currently heading the occupation government in part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, was the first to issue a formal travel advisory to Russian motorists considering driving into territories overflown by Ukrainian drones, banning civilian vehicle use of some highway stretches and civilian automobile travel at night.
A chorus of non-official Russian sources has criticized Saldo’s order, with some pointing out that an order banning civilian vehicles from certain highways would make it easier for Ukrainian drone pilots to find real targets. Some veteran motorists have dismissed such warnings, accusing occupation authorities of pretending Ukrainian drones aren’t that dangerous and issuing useless travel advisories.
Oleg Volodin, administrator of the Russian-language motorist-focused Telegram Channel Land Route to Crimea, in a Sunday comment, said that Ukrainian drones are systematically targeting military vehicles and large cargo- and fuel-hauling trucks, and not attacking automobiles and buses.
Volodin warned that the density of heavy vehicles is so high that tourist traffic will be at risk from drone attack no matter how much distance a civilian driver tries to keep from the vehicles Ukrainian drone pilots are hitting.

“Stay away from fuel trucks, trucks, and military personnel? At the end of the day, they travel by the land route in huge numbers. More than half of all transport is made up of them. This is nonsense, self-deception, and burying one’s head in the sand.” Volodin warned prospective travelers.
“This instruction was drawn up by an idiot. Someone who’s never even been on this highway. Let him drive by and try to stay away from the trucks and fuel tankers, and not tailgate anyone. When it’s just an endless train of trucks and military vehicles,” he said.
Fresh Russian dash cam video published by Petro Andriushchenko, a former mayor of the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Melitopol, showed, Russian S-400 (NATO: SA-21 “Growler”) anti-aircraft systems, trucks pulling low-boy trailers loaded with T-72 tanks, and Russian army Kamaz flatbeds carrying construction materials on regional highways, side-by-side with heavy trucks and private automobiles.
The popular pro-Kremlin military blogger Voenniy Osvedomitel (600,000+ followers) in a Sunday write-up on security and military logistics along highways connecting the Russian mainland with the Crimea peninsula via highways crossing Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions said that traffic moving along those routes was no longer safe from attacks by Ukrainian drones.
This warning to motorists published on Sunday by the Moscow-loyal occupation authority in the southern Ukrainian city Bedyansk informs travelers heading to or from Crimea for a summer vacation, or to other destinations, that their trip might be interrupted by a Ukrainian drone attack. (Image published by the Berdyansk city government)
“Thousands of vehicles move along this route… The cost of movement along the land corridor will increase due to destroyed vehicles, drivers will have to be paid much more, and some may refuse to use such a dangerous route altogether,” the article said in part.
“It will be necessary to install anti-drone nets on the roads, organize safe night stops for vehicles, and deploy fire teams along the routes to cover the movement. An additional problem may be the need to transfer extra air defense systems, which are already needed everywhere and are in short supply.”

Ukrainian military analyst Evhen Istrebin, in a Saturday YouTube analysis of Russian military supply in occupied southern Ukraine aid offered the same conclusions, saying:
“Ukraine has taken control of the key highway in the south… This highway is a lifeline for supplies to occupied territories, Donetsk, Kherson and occupied Crimea… You can see how seriously the Ukrainian drones are cutting the occupier’s [Russian Federation] logistics.”
Voenniy Osvedomitel issued a downbeat summary of future prospects for road users in southern Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia:
“Ukraine already has the resources to complicate logistics to Crimea and the new territories. In the future, this pressure will only increase and will require more and more financial and military resources to contain the problems, which will inevitably affect other areas as well.”

Russia Is Stumbling On the Battlefield As Ukraine Turns the Tables

2026-05-28T11:08:46.699-04:00

It is almost impossible to find an article written in the last month which doesn't characterize Russia's Ukraine war effort as weak, stalled or fumbling.

The implication is that Russia is not only no longer capable of beating Ukraine but may be in danger of losing. Rumors that Putin is contemplating attacking one or all of the EU 's Baltic countries are based on the theory that NATO is now weaker than Ukraine. JL

The Economist reports:

Moscow's diminished 'victory' parade was an accurate reflection of Russia’s battlefield setbacks, and of Russia’s fear of the growing effectiveness of Ukraine’s long-range strikes. For the first time in three years the initiative has shifted in favor of Ukraine. Having got through a harsh winter, Ukraine is now turning the tide. It is imposing increasing costs on Russia by almost every measure. Not only has Russia’s spring offensive been a flop, but it lost control of 113 square kilometres over the past 30 days. The Russian dead to wounded ratio is rising due to drones. Russia has been forced to impose restrictions on the size of convoys in Donetsk to make them harder to detect. Russia’s size and Ukraine's systematic campaign to degrade air-defences makes protecting valuable assets impossible. “It’s hard to see how things can improve for Russia. If you’re briefing Putin, it’s a pretty bleak picture.”
THIS YEAR’S Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9th involved nothing triumphal. For the first time in two decades tanks and other military vehicles did not rumble through Red Square in celebration of the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany. Russia’s authorities deemed it too great a risk to cram armoured vehicles and missile-carriers into nearby staging areas—they would have made far too juicy a target for Ukraine’s increasingly effective drones. In the run-up to the big day, mobile internet services in Moscow and St Petersburg were cut off for security reasons. Large numbers of air-defence systems were redeployed from remote parts of the country.
Rubbing in the insult Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, issued a decree to “permit” the parade to proceed, saying that Red Square would not be attacked. This came shortly after Ukraine and Russia agreed to a three-day ceasefire brokered by America, though by May 10th both sides were accusing the other of having violated it. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, speaking after the parade, said he thought the war was “coming to an end”.

The symbolism of the diminished parade is hard to overstate. A day that was meant to epitomise the military might of Mr Putin’s Russia instead signalled its vulnerability and weakness. In this, at least, it was an accurate reflection of Russia’s battlefield setbacks, and of Russia’s fear of the growing effectiveness of Ukraine’s long-range strikes. For the first time in nearly three years the initiative in the war appears to have shifted in favour of Ukraine. Having got through a harsh winter, when its cities and energy grid were pummelled almost nightly by massed Russian drones and missiles, Ukraine is now turning the tide. It is imposing increasing costs on Russia by almost every measure.

Not only has Russia’s expected spring offensive been a flop, but in April Russian forces suffered a net loss of territory for the first time since August 2024 (when Ukraine seized territory in Russia’s Kursk oblast). The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think-tank in Washington, recently listed contributing factors to Ukraine’s successes: ground counter-attacks and mid-range strikes by Ukraine’s forces; the end of Russia’s illicit use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine; and the Kremlin’s paranoid throttling of the Telegram messaging app at home. By our calculations, based on ISW maps, Russia has lost control of 113 square kilometres over the past 30 days.
Map: The Economist
“Overall, it feels like an inflection point in the war,” says Sir Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London. “If the Russians have nothing to show for their efforts I would not be surprised if in some places things start crumbling.” Losses of soldiers, running at 35,000 a month, exceed the pace at which Russia can recruit replacements. And behind the raw numbers—nearly 1.4m killed and seriously wounded since Russia’s invasion—is a grimmer new development. Until last year, the ratio of killed to wounded Russian soldiers may have been between 1:2 and 1:3, poor by modern standards but roughly in line with past conflicts. In March Mr Zelensky said that Russia was suffering almost two dead soldiers for every one wounded. “The stoicism and fatalism of Russian soldiers must be wearing thin,” says Sir Lawrence.

The dead-to-wounded ratio appears to be rising because so many casualties—perhaps as many as 80%—are now caused by so-called first-person view (FPV) drones. Loaded with explosives, these drones hunt enemy soldiers and imperil attempts at medical evacuation, which in any case has never been a high priority for the Russians. “They simply leave their wounded on the battlefield,” says Seth Jones, a senior military analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Russian soldiers complain that Ukraine’s new autonomous drones are inaudible until they dive. They use artificial intelligence and are controlled with fibre-optic cables to thwart jammers. Alexy Chadayev, the director of a drone-development and testing facility in the Russian city of Veliky Novgorod, wrote on April 7th that Russia had “lost leadership” over the past six months to Ukraine and was struggling to move units close to the front. “We have enormous problems with last-mile logistics,” he said. “Up to 90% of our [drone-team] losses are currently occurring there.” Russia has been forced to impose restrictions on the size of convoys in Donetsk to make them harder to detect. Only two lorries are allowed to move together.
A drone “kill zone” of some 20km between the front lines is being extended far to the Russian rear, Sir Lawrence argues. This has a greater impact on Russian operations than Ukrainian ones because the Russians are trying to advance. For Ukraine it is far more effective to take out the supporting infrastructure for an offensive than it is to kill the few troops who now lead attacks.
The Ukrainians face similar problems in the drone-saturated killing zone, but they place a much higher value on the lives of their soldiers, and so make greater use of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) for evacuation and carrying supplies close to the front. And in most places they are not trying to advance.
Farther back from the front line, Russia is suffering mounting losses to Ukraine’s mid-range drones (with ranges of 50km to 300km). Mr Zelensky recently claimed that procurement of such systems so far this year is five times greater than in all of 2025. Targets include ammunition depots, drone warehouses, command-and-control posts, surface-to-air-missile launchers, radars and deployment points where armoured vehicles and troops are concentrated.
Added to the battlefield setbacks is the increase in the scale, range and intensity of Ukraine’s deep-strike operations in Russia. In March, for the first time, Ukraine surpassed Russia in the number of long-range drone attacks it launched. Economic and military targets almost 2,000km from the Ukrainian border are regularly being hit. That brings 70% of Russia’s population within range of Ukrainian drones. “The attacks have caused psychological damage to Russia,” says Mr Jones.
On April 25th four of Russia’s best combat aircraft were damaged in a strike on Shagol airfield deep in the southern Urals. An oil refinery and pumping station at Perm, in the Urals, was set ablaze in early May. Oil infrastructure across multiple regions and oil-export hubs are being hit with increasing frequency. In April attacks on ports and refineries forced Russia to cut production by as much as 400,000 barrels a day, Reuters reports. On April 29th Mr Zelensky claimed that internal Russian reports indicated that the ports of Novorossiysk and Ust-Luga were operating at respectively 38% and 43% below capacity. However, overall Russian oil exports only fell by 7% in April and its revenues nearly doubled thanks to the Iran war.

Russia’s size and the systematic year-long Ukrainian campaign to degrade its air-defence systems makes protecting even valuable assets almost impossible. “They can’t defend against drone attacks with area defence,” says Mr Jones. “And they don’t have point defence at many of the locations where they need it.” Whereas Ukraine has developed several types of interceptor-drones that are now shooting down about 95% of Russia’s Shahed-type attack drones, Russia has been slow to produce its own versions.
The crucial question is whether Russia’s various setbacks—on the battlefield or through the destruction of economic infrastructure—are indicators that Mr Putin’s opportunities in Ukraine are shrinking. Sir Lawrence says much depends on the next few months, and in particular on whether Russia can counter Ukraine’s advances in drones. Another concern is whether Russia is husbanding its forces for a big offensive in the summer. “The reality is that they are struggling at the front and not much is going right for them,” he says. Mr Jones agrees: “It’s hard to see how things can improve for Russia. If you’re briefing Putin, it’s a pretty bleak picture.”

"We Are Fighting Russia and We Know Why It Is Losing"

2026-05-28T10:08:18.498-04:00

It is almost midway through 2026 and the dominant narrative of this war has become Russia's - and Putin's - weakness. There are many factors contributing to the supplanting of the Kremlin's now widely discredited 'inevitability' line including Ukraine's superior drone warfare and Russia's reduced access to soldiers.

But the most decisive may be the emergence of a cadre of experienced, rational Ukrainian combat leaders who know how to use information and motivate troops. The writing of a brigadier general from most militaries could understandably be written off as mere bloviating, but this one happens to be 34 years old, with four years of brutal combat to guide him. It is the the development of such commanders who are now implementing Ukraine's increasingly successful strategy. JL

Brigadier General Denys Prokopenko reports Ukraine Pravda:

The Russian military command is a rigid, vertical Soviet-style hierarchy, where every step is regulated from above. This system was created not for combat effectiveness, but to ensure political control over the army. Loyalty has always been more important than competence. Such a structure leads to operational paralysis in modern war. Ukrainian forces cultivate a command philosophy based on decentralization and empowerment developed for combat on a dynamic, non-linear battlefield. This war is not just a clash of armies, but the test of two diametrically opposed systems. Ukraine's is a network model built on trust, command culture, morale, social cohesion and the ability to adapt. (The result): a kill zone up to 20 km from the front, ambushes, search and strike operations, fire raids, pinpoint surgical counterattacks, encirclement of Russian units, hundreds of enemy prisoners, Russian equipment, warehouses, etc. burning up to 250 km.

On the eve of a full-scale invasion in 2022, Western think tanks and intelligence communities made a fundamental error in assessing Russian military power.
Their predictions, predicting the fall of Kyiv in a matter of days, were based on quantitative indicators: an army of a million, thousands of aircraft, tanks and artillery systems. This approach frightened ordinary readers, but ignored intangible but crucial factors: command culture, morale, social cohesion and the ability to adapt.
Analysts have misinterpreted both Putin's tolerance for risk and the isolation of the Kremlin's decision-making process, leading to erroneous predictions about possible escalation and Russia's response to NATO's support for Ukraine.
This analytical blindness persists to some extent. Many in the West continue to view the conflict purely through the lens of a war of attrition, where victory is determined solely by the amount of resources and the ability to mobilize more people. This is a dangerous mistake.
This war is not just a clash of armies, but the ultimate test of two diametrically opposed systems that emerged in the post-Soviet space. One system, the Ukrainian one, is a network model built on trust that unleashes human potential. Most of the changes here have been initiated and developed by ordinary citizens, soldiers, sergeants and junior officers. In particular, the transition of the Defense Forces of Ukraine to a corps system, which was promoted by Azov as a necessary step.
The Ukrainian Defense Forces, especially in units that grew out of the volunteer movement, such as Azov, have cultivated a command philosophy based on the principles of decentralization and empowerment.
This model is a modern interpretation of the German concept of Auftragstaktik (Mission Command), which was developed for conducting combat operations on a dynamic, non-linear battlefield.
The essence of this approach is that the higher command determines the purpose of the operation and the final result ("what" and "why"), that is, formulates the "commander's intention". Subsequently, the commanders of subordinate units work out the decision for approval (in cooperation with the commander, or independently). That is, "how" to achieve this goal is left to the discretion of the commanders on the ground, who have the most current situation on the battlefield.
After further adjustments or final approval of the decision, the action/operation begins. This approach requires a high level of trust and interaction between all levels of command. This creates an environment with a high level of trust, where initiative is not just encouraged, but is the basis of combat effectiveness. The unit turns into a single organism, a "family" or "team", where everyone feels their involvement and responsibility for completing the task.
This principle is not an informal practice; it is embedded in combat charters that emphasize decisiveness, suddenness of action, and demonstrated initiative to accomplish a combat mission in difficult conditions against superior enemy forces.
A vivid example of this is what the Defense Forces did in the Dobropol direction in the second half of 2025 - it is essentially a rethinking of the concept of mobile defense in the conditions of modern warfare. A giant trench, a kill zone up to 20 km from the line of combat contact, mixed battle formations, ambushes, search and strike operations, fire raids, pinpoint surgical counterattacks, encirclement of Russian units, hundreds of enemy prisoners.
The Russian military command system is the exact opposite. It is a rigid, vertically integrated Soviet-style hierarchy, where every step is regulated from above. This system was created not for maximum combat effectiveness, but to ensure political control over the army, where loyalty to the regime has always been more important than competence. As a result, such a structure leads to operational paralysis on the modern battlefield.
The key evidence of this systemic flaw is the chronic underdevelopment of junior command staff and the madness of senior officers, who are ready to commit a huge number of personnel (right down to the last soldier) to please the leadership, without departing even a step from the senior commander's plan, even if it was doomed to failure from the very beginning. This indicates a lack of flexibility in decision-making and a fear of the system to take responsibility, lest it become even worse.
In March, we celebrated the first anniversary of the creation of the 1st Corps of the Azov Naval Academy. In a short period of time, the corps' management and headquarters were formed from a list of combat officers with many years of military experience, who had participated in battles in 2014-2015, holding private and sergeant positions.
The vast majority of them have gone through all levels of management: having held command and staff positions, they have taken on responsibility, and they know trench warfare well.
1. With the assistance of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Syrsky, a full complement of corps troops has been assembled, which made it possible to fully conduct a defensive operation. All brigades are holding defense in the designated corps strip and side by side are performing combat missions at the proper level.
The problem of interaction between brigades at the junctions has disappeared, which prevents the enemy from breaking through the main line of defense in weak spots and developing success with access to the operational space.
Conducting combat and special training by instructors according to "Azov standards" is bearing fruit:
the level of training increased during the implementation of the BZVP;
conducting instructional and methodological sessions with junior team members and specialists;
conducting command and staff exercises with officers of the department/staff.
This is clearly reflected in the desire of those who are training and in the quality of their performance in the assigned combat missions.
2. Attached units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, and the National Police perform combat missions on a par with regular units and have become an integral part of the corps. They gain combat experience, receive appropriate support, and conduct joint classes and training.
3. In the summer of 2025, the main enemy effort was concentrated in the Dobropil direction, which managed to break through a front 15 km wide and up to 20 km deep.
In cooperation with the Defense Forces, the enemy's advance was stopped, counteroffensive actions were successfully carried out to restore the lost position, and the stability of the defense was ensured.
4. On my initiative, the corps' strip is gradually increasing in order to strengthen the flanks, cover the attacked sections of the front, and increase the stability of the defense where necessary, which makes it possible to release units of neighboring corps and restore them.
5. With a clearly structured management work at the corps level, there are no problems in interacting with the SBS, DShV and attack aircraft units.
6. New staff units have been created:
8th JSC "Harmash";
41st Regiment of Unmanned Systems "Pilum";
OZSP "Tuman";
logistics support units (BMTZ, AB, RVB);
14th Assault Regiment (in the process of formation);
Support Forces Regiment (in the process of formation);
Medical battalion (in the process of formation).
7. Closed tactical-operational and operational depth: reconnaissance, destruction, mining. Enemy equipment, warehouses, PDD, etc. are burning at a depth of up to 250 km.
8. Medical Service and Support:
a procedure for delivering blood to the front lines by drones has been implemented;
conducting evacuation from the battlefield to the NRC;
cooperation with leading medical institutions of Ukraine is carried out throughout the year;
full compliance with international protocols;
Work is underway on a large-scale project to rehabilitate and support those released from captivity.
9. We are developing building infrastructure: training grounds, schools, laboratories, workshops, production, warehouses, etc.
10. Corps intelligence, international cooperation, training units, a school of corinthians, and many other initiatives are aimed at scaling the values of "Azov", strengthening the state's defense capabilities, and effective management methods.

White House Forced To Pivot As Putin's War Failure Becomes Embarrassment

2026-05-27T11:58:51.307-04:00

To be clear, the Trump administration would still prefer that Putin prevailed in Ukraine.

But what's a declining superpower to do about its treasured image of invincibility when the side it has so obviously backed is getting annihilated despite everyone's best efforts? Allies can be useful, but reputation is more important. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

Over the past week, the Trump administration made a number of pivots in its public stance towards Ukraine: trying to start de-Putinizing themselves. Both JD Vance and Marco Rubio were part of this. Vance might be the most pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine member of the administration, boasting his “proudest achievement” was cutting aid to Ukraine - and now he claims Trump, who publicly sneered Ukraine "has no cards," is pro-Ukraine? Rubio lied outright, saying the US has not been bullying Ukraine into taking a bad deal. They are trying to convince the American public the administration is more pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin because the intelligence they are receiving is that Russia is struggling and Ukraine is doing much better, as they now understand everything they said in 2025 was wrong.
Over the past week, the Trump administration made a number of noticeable pivots when it came towards its policy and public stance towards Ukraine. Basically, they tried to start de-Putinizing themselves. Both JD Vance and Marco Rubio, Trump’s two most likely successors, were part of this pivot and what they said was in many ways less important than why they said it.
Vice President JD Vance on May 21, decided he needed to stress how helpful Trump had been for Ukaine. He claimed that “No US president has done more to save Ukraine than Trump.” Now, remember, Vance might be the most pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine member of the administration, and man who boasted that one of his “proudest achievements” was cutting all aid to Ukraine. He has previously been viscerally anti-Ukraine, talking down Ukrainian prospects and saying how the US has no interest in the war—and now he wants to convince people that Trump was actually pro-Ukraine?
Btw, what Vance was referring to was the Trump Administration’s first term decision to send anti-tank weaponry to Ukraine. It conveniently overlooks the entirety of the end of aid in the second term, all the help for Putin, etc.
Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, a day later, said something arguably more revealing, though on the surface it was rather bland. He basically said that US efforts to negotiate the end of the Russo-Ukraine War were coming to an end for now, and then added a series of strange points.
Amongst these was that the parties in the talks (the Russians and Ukrainians) were not doing what the administration wanted.
“So, we’re more than happy to do that if the opportunity presents itself to have constructive and productive talks. We’re also not interested in getting involved in an endless cycle of meetings that lead to nothing.”
However maybe more interesting, was that Rubio lied outright and said that the US had not been trying to bully the Ukrainians before into taking a bad deal.
“Despite leaks that are not true, despite stories out there about us forcing the Ukrainians to take this position or that position, which are not true. If we see an opportunity to pull together talks that are productive, not counterproductive, and that have the chance to be fruitful, we’re prepared to play that role.”
This is an outright lie by Rubio as I said. The claim is not based on “leaks” as he tries to say. Zelensky in November 2025 came out and in a televised address said that Ukraine was being pressured by the USA (the “major partner” to take a terrible deal. Here is Zelensky’s exact quote.
“Now is one of the most difficult moments of our history. Now, the pressure on Ukraine is one of the heaviest….Ukraine can face a very difficult choice – either losing dignity or risk losing a major partner.”
So both Vance and Rubio are being dishonest in their own way, which in and of itself is no shock. However the interesting thing is that they are being dishonest to try and convince the American public that the administration was and is more pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin than in reality it has been.
The reason why can only be because the intelligence that the administration is receiving is that Russia is struggling and Ukraine is doing much better than the administration both publicly and privately was saying. Remember this is the administration that not only said Ukraine had “no cards” it also built into its national security estimates that Russia had the upper hand in the war and was going to get a peace deal on its terms. The place to see this best is the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on March 25, 2025. The report argued that ending the war on Putin’s terms was also in US interest. Here is the start of the section on the war (page 18).
And now the administration is boasting about helping Ukraine? That does not happen by accident—it is because they are understanding that everything they said in 2025 was wrong. They would not do it otherwise. You know why? Because Trump himself remains wedded enough to Putin not to join the chorus. The administration does not want Ukraine to do well. Its fundamental outlook remains unchanged.
However it is being forced to try and pretend it is more pro-Ukraine than it has been, and that is important.

Ukraine Lyman Counterattack Shocks Kremlin As Fake Win Claims Exposed

2026-05-27T10:57:21.109-04:00

It's come to this: the Russians are so desperate to claim any sort of victory that they are staging "assaults" in towns they have occupied for a long time, then claiming them as new successes.

The problem, in the internet era, is that everything can be time-stamped and geo-located. So when the Russian command claimed to have 'taken' Borova, near Lyman, the Kremlin was then shocked to learn that the Ukrainians were attacking from there because the reported Russian effort had been staged to given their superiors the good news they craved. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art and RFU News reports:

On Friday, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps counterattacked north of Lyman (after) Russian sources claimed to have achieved a major advance near Borova, on the Oskil River in Kharkiv oblast. According to Russia, it had broken through Ukrainian defenses, cleared a chain of strongpoints, and entered Borova. (But) open-source intelligence quickly geolocated the footage and discovered the Russian soldiers shown storming houses were not in Borova but 25 kilometers away in long-ago captured Kolomyichykha in Luhansk oblast.
Russia’s main objective in Ukraine this year is to capture Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two big free cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. The Russians’ main effort is from the south. But they could also drive on Sloviansk from the north.
But the northern approach first means marching through Lyman, 10 miles north of Sloviansk. And the Ukrainians aren’t just sitting around waiting for the Russians to move. On Friday, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps counterattacked north of Lyman.
The aim of that counterattack was to cut across a five-mile-by-five-mile salient jutting into the battleground north of Lyman.

Russia’s biggest victory of the year rapidly turned into one of the most embarrassing disinformation attempts of the entire war. All Russian claims hung in the air, forcing the Russian command into a hopeless situation.
Initially, Russian sources claimed to have achieved a major advance near the town of Borova, a strategically important settlement along the Oskil River in Kharkiv Region. According to Russian military analysts, units of the Russian West group of forces had broken through Ukrainian defenses around the small settlement of Borivska Andriivka, cleared a chain of Ukrainian strongpoints, and entered Borova itself. Russian sources described and praised a methodical operation involving Russian drone reconnaissance, extensive artillery preparation, followed by Russian infiltration groups in a series of coordinated assaults.
The story only grew larger with each passing hour, as Russian analysts claimed that troops of the Fourth tank division of the First Russian Tank Army had seized the settlement after intense fighting and were already conducting clearing operations. Reports described Russian soldiers searching houses, basements, and forest belts while eliminating isolated Ukrainian troops that were supposedly left behind without a chance of survival. Other Russian sources claimed the settlement had been heavily mined and that demining operations were already underway, mocking those within the Russian media who questioned the reports, insisting that the capture of Borova had already been officially confirmed at the highest levels.
Borova occupies a key position on the Oskil River axis, and if Russian forces actually captured it, they could have improved fire control over nearby Ukrainian supply routes, effectively taking out the central point of the Ukrainian defense on the Oskil River. This could have threatened Ukrainian positions across much of the riverbank and opened opportunities for larger operational maneuvers and future advances towards Izium. After months of costly fighting and limited territorial gains, it would have been Russia’s most significant success of two thousand twenty six.
However, the problem was that none of it was true, and the entire story began unraveling almost immediately after the videos supposedly proving the capture appeared online. Open-source intelligence analysts quickly geolocated the footage and discovered that the Russian soldiers shown storming houses were not in Borova at all. Instead, the video shows them operating roughly twenty-five kilometers away in the already long-ago captured settlement of Kolomyichykha in Luhansk Region.
Russian troops simply filmed infantry movements in one location, combined them with drone footage taken over Borova by a reconnaissance drone, edited everything together, and presented the result as evidence of a successful penetration of the frontline. The report then moved up the Russian chain of command until it reached the highest levels. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, publicly hurried to announce the liberation of Borova without verifying the claims of his subordinates properly. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian General Staff did not even report active fighting for the settlement, which remained firmly under Ukrainian control. Within hours, the supposedly historic Russian victory had collapsed under the weight of basic geolocation analysis.
This event highlights a much deeper problem inside the Russian military, with false reporting repeatedly emerging throughout the war because commanders face intense pressure to demonstrate progress. As battlefield information moves upward through the hierarchy, achievements are often exaggerated while failures are minimized. Over time, these accumulated false reports mean that Russian headquarters end up planning operations based on a battlefield picture that does not actually exist.
The consequences are serious, as if senior Russian commanders believe a settlement has already been captured, artillery support may be redirected elsewhere, reconnaissance assets reassigned, and follow-on attacks ordered under false assumptions. Russian units advancing over supposedly secured roads often instead encounter Ukrainian ambushes and suffer huge losses. In other cases, reserves, ammunition, and armored vehicles can be rushed toward fabricated breakthroughs, depriving sectors facing genuine pressure of critical resources at the worst possible moment.
Overall, another supposed Russian victory spectacularly collapsed within hours as simple geolocation exposed the deception. While staged successes may help officers temporarily save face before their superiors, they ultimately create even greater embarrassment when the truth emerges. More importantly, such fabrications distort battlefield awareness and undermine Russian military decision-making. After losing more than thirty thousand soldiers every month while achieving almost no gains, some Russian commanders appear increasingly tempted to manufacture victories on paper when they cannot achieve them on the battlefield.

After Kremlin's Spring Offensive Flop, Russians Struggle To Hold and Fall Back

2026-05-27T10:47:25.396-04:00

Ukrainian forces are now in the third stage of their 2026 success. In the first, they stopped the Russian late winter and then spring-summer offensives before they even began by destroying troop concentrations and vital logistics, preventing them from getting to the front. Then, the Ukrainians began counterattacking - in Orikhiv, Barova and other sectors.

Now, Russian troops are not just failing to advance, but are being pushed out of previously held positions, some of which they have held for years, as the combination of Ukrainian battleground advances with medium and long range drone or missile attacks further degrades their ability to defend what they have occupied. JL

Vlad Litnarovych reports in United24:

Russian forces are no longer struggling only to advance, but are having trouble holding some existing positions, falling back in parts of southern and eastern Ukraine. “In Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, they are already retreating." That is why Moscow is trying to intensify the psychological and information pressure now (because) the Kremlin understands it cannot sustain the current intensity of missile strikes for long, operating near the peak of its missile capacity. Russia is trying to achieve through fear, hysteria, and intimidation what it has failed to achieve on the battlefield. (But) each new wave of attacks becomes less effective than the previous one, exposing the limits of Russia’s military capacity.

Russian forces are no longer struggling only to advance, but are also having trouble holding some of their existing positions, Ivan Tymochko, head of the Council of Reservists of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine on May 26.
According to Tymochko, Russian troops are already falling back in parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, despite Moscow’s attempts to present the battlefield situation as a growing offensive threat.
“In Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, they are already retreating, not advancing,” Tymochko said.

He argued that the Kremlin understands it cannot sustain the current intensity of missile strikes for long. Each new wave of attacks, he said, may become less effective than the previous one, exposing the limits of Russia’s military capacity.
That is why Moscow is trying to intensify the psychological and information pressure now, Tymochko said, before it becomes clear that Russia cannot continue expanding the scale of its attacks.
He compared the current messaging campaign to previous Russian claims about a supposedly massive offensive in 2026.
“They were saying that Putin was going all-in, that the Donetsk region had to be surrendered because the Russians would break through the defense and be near Kyiv. And what do we have now? A failed spring campaign,” Tymochko said.

According to him, Russia is currently operating near the peak of its missile strike capacity. To build up new missile stockpiles, the Kremlin needs time, resources, money, and production capacity.
“They cannot deliver more at once than they are delivering now,” he said.
Tymochko believes Russia’s main goal is to create panic and increase pressure not only on Ukraine, but also on Kyiv’s European partners. He said Kremlin threats about new strikes and calls to evacuate diplomats and foreign missions from Kyiv point to the possibility of attacks on civilian areas rather than purely military targets.
“They are deliberately threatening strikes on civilian facilities and residential buildings,” Tymochko said.

He added that such rhetoric once again exposes the real nature of Russia’s war against Ukraine’s civilian population. Moscow, Tymochko argued, is trying to achieve through fear, hysteria, and intimidation what it has failed to achieve on the battlefield.
Earlier, the 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade was officially recognized in the National Register of Records of Ukraine for its extraordinary 1500-Day defense of Mala Tokmachka.
Mala Tokmachka is a frontline village, located in the Zaporizhzhia region, that has become one of the longest-held defensive positions in the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Low-Down

Putin - and Putinism - Have No Good Way Out of His War

Kremlin's Forces Lost Ground Again In May As Ukraine Gains More Than Russians

Russian Forces Cleared From Positions By Ukrainian Ground Drone

AI Powers Historic Stock Rally Even As AI Math Becomes "Hallucinatory"

Putin Has "Air of Desperation" As Ebbing Willpower, Strategic Defeat Loom

Ukraine advance

Robot army

Fading manpower

Waiver parade

Unjammable Ukraine 'Vampire' Drones Now Destroy $200 Million Russian Jammers

Vulnerable to jamming

but the oldest Vampires are vulnerable to Russian jamming. These Vampires are directly controlled by human pilots who connect to their drones via line-of-sight radio. It's a fairly simple matter to interrupt that radio signal with radio noise.