The Low-Down

The Myth of the Drone-Only Battlefield Put To Rest By Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi

2026-10-20T10:54:32.705-04:00

For those willing to see, the most successful technological template has been evident years. There is no real plug and play which magically replaces humans.

Instead, the most effective implementation of technology in business has been among organizations that recognize a completely disruptive and expensive approach ultimately works best: reorganize roles and reporting lines, rethink tactics and strategies, encouraging highly skilled staff to embrace and enhance tech's impact. And if you look closely at the success of Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi, that is what the Ukrainian 3rd Corps did to make drones, ground robots and electronic warfare the devastating combination it became. JL

The World Strategist reports:

Over the past two years a narrative gained traction: the conflict in Ukraine has morphed into a “drone war” and the future lies with unmanned systems. Tanks are old school. Soldiers are merely targets. (But) Operation Vivaldi proved drones, robots, electronic warfare, armor, artillery and infantry need to be integrated into one coordinated system. Phase 1 was a shaping and deception operation. And then, the infantry was not replaced by robots, but preceded and accompanied by them. In two nights robots cleared 30 kilometers of routes, which would have taken two engineer companies a week. They laid 400 meters of mine barriers. They also delivered supplies, evacuated wounded and captured positions. Drones have proven to be essential, but not sufficient. Robots are revolutionary, but not a substitute for soldiers. It’s not just drones on the battlefield. It’s combined arms — human led and machine enabled
Over the past two years, a seductive narrative has gained traction in Western defense circles: the conflict in Ukraine has morphed into a “drone war” and the future of warfare lies with unmanned systems. Tanks are old school. Infantry is a drag, though. The field of battle is clear and anything that moves is dead.
Then Operation Vivaldi began.
In September 2026, the Third Army Corps of Ukraine leaked top secret information about a months-long counteroffensive in the Lyman sector. The operation liberated 176 square kilometers of territory, caused an estimated 8,000 Russian casualties and netted more than 250 prisoners, including entire units of officers, pilots and artillerymen. Veteran Yevhen Dykyi said: “Ukrainian assault units lost ten times fewer people than the Russians defending.
The operation was a great success. But it wasn’t just a drone triumph. It was a victory for something far more complex, and far more important for the future of warfare: combined arms in an age of transparency.
Operation Vivaldi did not show that the drone is the only weapon that matters. It was the opposite. It proved that drones, robots, electronic warfare, armor, artillery and most of all infantry need to be integrated into one well coordinated system. The drone-only battlefield is a myth Vivaldi interred it.
Myth: There Are No Soldiers in the Battlefield
There is some rationale to the “drone-only” narrative. It was born out of a real, observable phenomenon: the transparency of the modern battlefield.
This is what the Austrian military analyst Colonel Markus Reisner calls the “glass battlefield” — a killing zone of about 50 kilometers where large formations struggle to operate. Cheap drones, ubiquitous surveillance and precision strike have made movement extraordinarily perilous. FPV drones destroy tanks. Mid-range UAVs are going after supply trucks. Attacking infantry across open ground is suicide.
Many came to a simple conclusion: if drones can see and kill everything, then the only thing that matters is drones. Soldiers are merely targets.
Vivaldi dismissed that conclusion.
The Truth: It’s a System, Not a Silver Bullet
Operation Vivaldi phase one was not an assault. It was shaping operations, a months-long campaign of blinding, deafening, and paralyzing the Russian troops holding the Lyman sector.
Ukrainian forces hit Russian air defense, electronic warfare, artillery and logistics. They disrupted Russian drone operations and disguised their purpose. Drone teams and other units joined forces to hit enemy systems before the infantry moved forward. Electronic warfare provided a “blind spot” through which armored vehicles could drive through Russian positions, deliver troops and evacuate wounded soldiers.
The objective was not to substitute infantry with drones. The goal, of course, was to create a window — a temporary, localized condition under which infantry and armor could move again.
And that meant every arm of the military working in concert.
The Modern War Institute at West Point described Vivaldi as using “a combined arms approach that incorporated not only infantry, armor and artillery, but drones as well” — effectively taking Russian drone capacity “almost entirely out of the fight at key moments to open windows of opportunity on the ground”.
That’s the opposite of a drone-only battlefield. It is a battlefield in which drones are one instrument in an orchestra, not a soloist.
The Robots: Tools (Not Replacement) for a Purpose
The most visually striking element of Operation Vivaldi was the use of ground robots” And it is here that the myth of the ‘drone-only’ is most directly challenged.
The Third Army Corps of Ukraine used unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) for mine clearance, logistics, casualty evacuation, and, in the first ever use in warfare history, aerial delivery of kamikaze robots behind enemy lines. NC13 strike UGVs airlifted with heavy bomber drones over 10 kilometers behind Russian lines. They attacked from an unexpected angle.
But the infantry was not replaced by the robots. They kept watch over them.“Infantry wins wars, but we protect our infantry so the robots go toward the enemy first,” said the Third Army Corps. Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the Third Army Corps, said even more directly: “In assault operations, UAVs and UGVs always advance ahead of the infantry.”
In two nites the robots cleared 30 kilometers of routes, a job that would have taken two engineer companies a week, and no sappers killed or injured. They laid 400 meters of mine barriers in two nights. The supplies delivered, wounded soldiers evacuated and in some cases captured Russian positions on their own.
But when the robots finished their work — when the mines were cleared, the fortifications destroyed and the enemy demoralized — it was still Ukrainian soldiers who held the ground.
The BBC reported from the front line: “Beneath the battle for aerial superiority, unmanned ground vehicles scurry back and forth delivering supplies, evacuating the wounded or, increasingly, leading the charge against the enemy… But at the bottom of this stack, it is still human beings in trenches who are holding the ground.”
The infantry was not replaced by machines. They made the infantry able to survive.
The Deception. The Weapon That Wasn’t a Weapon
Perhaps the most important element of Operation Vivaldi wasn’t a piece of technology. That was a lie.
Ukrainian forces persuaded the Russian command that the main axis of attack was toward Shandryholove and Zelena Dolyna. Russian commanders threw reserves into counterattacks in that sector, wasting manpower and equipment on a non-existent threat. The real blow was to be directed at Nove, an important town on the heights which dominated the bridgehead.“The enemy thought that the main direction of the attack was Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna,” Biletskyi said. This made them expend their reserves for counterattacks, in that particular direction, for no reason. The Russians missed the real punch.
The deception was so successful that Russian commanders were still calling for counterattacks in the wrong sector even as Ukrainian troops were advancing toward the real objective. The reserves that should have been holding Nove had been squandered on a phantom threat.
A drone cannot carry out a deception operation. You can’t fool an enemy commander with a robot. Deception demands human intelligence, human judgment, human creativity. It is the final proof that war is still a human enterprise.
The Infantry: Still the Queen of Battle
The biggest takeaway of Operation Vivaldi is the one that runs counter to the whole “drone-only” narrative: infantry is still key.
The operation failed because Ukraine learned how to win without troops. It worked because Ukraine figured out how to keep its soldiers alive long enough to do their job. The drones and robots made the conditions. The infantry used them.
“Infantry is the most important element of warfare — advances after drones, not ahead of them or alongside them,” explained Yevhen Dykyi, a veteran of the operation. Drones and robots lead, smother the enemy, clear the obstacles, make the opening. Then the infantry comes in to hold what has been won.
This is not new. It is combined arms at its best, evolved for the age of transparency. In the First World War armies learned to use artillery, tanks and aircraft to punch holes for infantry to push through. In 2026 Ukraine is using drones, robots and electronic war to do the same thing. The tools are different. The logic hasn’t.
The Results: A Blueprint, Not a Miracle Operation Vivaldi’s results speak for themselves. In three “seasons” the operation liberated 176 square kilometers of territory, thwarted Russia’s plan to encircle the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk fortress belt from the north, and inflicted losses at a 10-to-1 ratio. It forced the elite Rubicon drone unit of Russia to withdraw from the sector.
But the most important result is not territorial. That is a question of dogma.
“Vivaldi has provided a blueprint for how a modern military can fight and win on a transparent battlefield. That plan is not “swap soldiers for drones.” It’s:
Electronic warfare and counter-drone activity to suppress enemy reconnaissance and strike systems.
Shape the battlefield through deep strikes against logistics, command posts and air defenses.
Make the enemy believe the real axis of attack is different.
Deploy robots and drones to remove obstacles and demolish fortifications.
Follow with infantry and armor to maintain the ground.
As the Italian newspaper La Repubblica put it, Vivaldi was not the triumph of technology but of the human ability to handle it creatively and to incorporate it into armies.
That’s the lesson the world’s militaries need to be learning.
Conclusion: The Myth Is Dead
The “drone-only” battlefield was always a fantasy. It was a useful reminder to complaisant armies that had ignored the threat of unmanned systems. It was a sign of the end of the age of massed armor and close-order infantry. But that was never the whole story of war.
Operation Vivaldi has given us the complete picture. Drones have proven to be essential, but not sufficient. Robots are revolutionary, but not a substitute for soldiers. That technology alters the nature of war but not its fundamental nature.
It’s not just drones on the battlefield. It’s combined arms — human led and machine enabled. And the side that gets it — that integrates drones, robots, electronic warfare, armor, artillery and infantry into one system — will be the side that wins.
Which is what Ukraine got. Russia didn’t.” And in the fields north of Lyman, that difference had been 176 square kilometers and a casualty ratio of ten to one.
The myth of the drone-only is dead. Long live the combined-arms reality!

Russia Is Losing the Land War As Death Gap Rises To 10 Russians For 1 Ukrainian

2026-10-20T10:18:56.557-04:00

Vladimir Putin has become as dependent on Donald Trump as Trump has on him, but for different reasons.

Trump is frightened of losing his majorities in the US Senate and Congress from midterm elections in two weeks. His poll ratings continue to sink and a number of his recent positions, including his obvious favoritism for Russia, are deeply unpopular. But he is embracing that stance because he thinks Putin can help him in the midterms, in addition to offering him wealth-enhancing deals in Russia. Putin, on the other hand, appears to know he is losing the land war in Ukraine - and that there is little chance his corrupt, ineffective military can turn the situation around. With a death rate disparity of ten Russians for every Ukrainian and replacement dependent on impoverished, poorly trained Africans and South Americans, Trump's undermining of Ukraine may be his only hope for a somewhat positive negotiated settlement. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

Today, relative casualty rates have changed dramatically in Ukraine's favor. The Russians' casualty rate averages one to six, and if you count the killed, it's one to 10 or more (which is contributing) to a continuing degradation in the relative quality and manpower differential between Russia and Ukraine. This helps explain the flailing Russian offensives and confirms why Trump might be desperate to help Putin. The land war, which was always seen as the greatest Russian strength (the mythical steamroller, remember), was transitioning to a Russian weakness. The evidence points more and more to that happening.

One thing that needs to be understood about Trump’s increased public support for Russia and his desire to hurt Ukraine is that it is being motivated by Russian failure not Russian success. Trump has spent years assuring the world that Russia is a great power, destined to win the war. However, as he is assuredly being told, that is not the case with the ground in this war. In fact, the last week confirmed that Russian struggles are not ending.
There was an interesting update this week about what is going on in relation to Operation Vivaldi. According to Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, of the Third Army Corps which is spearheading the operation, the Ukrainians have liberated more villages and inflicted steadily higher casualties on the Russians. In terms of the land taken, Biletskyi said that Vivaldi (which recently entered what the Ukrainians are calling its fourth phase) has liberated an additional 101 square kilometers recently, and inflicted 8,000 Russian casualties.
The Institute for the Study of War has put together this quite helpful graphic (with a distance marker) showing the extent of Ukrainian advances as part of Vivaldi as of four days ago.
Note—there are reports of some local Ukrainian advances in other parts of the line, from the Sumy and Kharkiv directions around to the Donbas. However, I am waiting for better information on these before commenting.
On the other hand, Russian offensives, which continue along the line, have yielded nothing similar. They seem to have, if anything, advanced even more slowly than they were earlier in the summer. One of the problems might be a continuing degradation in the relative quality and even the manpower differential between Russia and Ukraine. A very interesting interview that you might have missed was given by General Syrskyi, the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, to BBC Ukraine. You might need to translate it to English to read it.
It is a very detailed interview which covers many parts of the war. Syrskyi started by giving a solid overview of how the war had changed between 2022 and 2026. I will quote it here for people who do not have time to go to the interview itself.
O.S.: War has changed a lot. If we compare 2022 with 2026, its technological component has changed a lot. The role of modern means of destruction has increased significantly, primarily drones, which dominate the battlefield.
In fact, this has happened in all areas of combat operations: this applies to reconnaissance, aerial strikes, kamikaze drones, medium strikes deep into the enemy’s territory up to 200-250 kilometers. And, of course, drones have acquired strategic importance, striking strategic objects of the Russian economy deep into Russia to a depth of 2-3 thousand, even up to 4 thousand kilometers.
Then, in the midst of his discussion of the war, he makes a most remarkable claim about how relative casualty rates had changed dramatically in Ukraine’s favor.
Today, the enemy's casualty rate averages one to six, and if you count the killed, it's one to 10 or more.
Btw, Syrskyi is the first Ukrainian figure I have seen go on record publicly with such a claim, but I have heard it privately in other places.
If the reality is close to this, it helps explain the flailing Russian offensives and confirms why Trump might be desperate to help Putin. The land war, which was always seen as the greatest Russian strength (the mythical steamroller, remember), was transitioning to a Russian weakness. The evidence points more and more to that happening.

After Vivaldi, Russia's 144th Motor Rifle Division Ceased To Exist As Combat Unit

2026-10-20T09:54:11.580-04:00

Russia's 144th Motorized Rifle Division, a key element of the Kremlin's 20th Combined Arms Army on the Lyman front, has ceased to exist as an effective fighting force following the casualties and destruction of equipment it suffered at the hands of Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi.

The 144th was stationed in the Lyman salient bridgehead across the Siverskyi Donets River. That salient was a primary focus of Operation Vivaldi and has now been eliminated. As a result, the 144th bore the full brunt of the Ukrainian assault and has been decimated, rendering it operationally ineffective. Its latest dispositions suggest it has been placed in a defensive posture as it awaits rebuilding. JL

Andrii Sukharov reports in Miiitarnyi:

The 144th Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian 20th Combined Arms Army effectively ceased to operate as an organized military force following Operation Vivaldi. The 144th Division was part of a Russian force operating from a bridgehead on the Chornyi Zherebets River. The Russian plan called for an advance through Svyatogorsk toward Barvinkove. Together with an offensive through Dobropillia, this was intended to encircle the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk area and Ukrainian forces in the north of Donetsk region. During Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian troops eliminated the bridgehead and inflicted significant losses on the Russian offensive group. The division’s current actions are an attempt to establish a defensive position rather than organized offensive operations.
The 144th Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian 20th Combined Arms Army effectively ceased to operate as an organized military force following Operation Vivaldi.
Andriy Biletskyi made this assessment during a meeting dedicated to the results of the 3rd Army Corps’ operation.
The 144th Division was part of a Russian force operating from a bridgehead on the Chornyi Zherebets River.

According to Biletskyi, the Russian plan called for an advance through Svyatogorsk toward Barvinkove. Together with an offensive through Dobropillia, this was intended to create conditions for encircling the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk metropolitan area and Ukrainian forces in the north of Donetsk region.
During Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian troops eliminated the bridgehead and inflicted significant losses on the Russian offensive group.
“In effect, the 144th Division of the 20th Army has ceased to exist as an organized military force,” Biletskyi stated.
In his assessment, the division’s current actions resemble an attempt to establish a defensive position rather than organized, systematic operations by the unit.

Biletskyi also stated that the rout of the group forced the Russian command to temporarily abandon its attempt to bypass Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north.

Stock Market Reminds AI Hypesters: No, This Time Is Not Different

2026-10-20T08:52:13.107-04:00

The standard response of tech boosters - including the latest devotees of AI - to those expressing doubts is that they 'just don't get it.' Eg, the rationalists don't have the imagination or courage to see the future. This is generally accompanied by what the boosters believe is their clinching argument: "this time is different."

Unfortunately, it almost never is. And the latest stock market performance of AI stocks as well as the mid to long term economic forecasts suggest that is a structural reality, not a blip. There are a hundred reasons why the latest irrational exuberance is exactly that - and it does no mean AI is not an important development. It just means that the numbers don't add up and cannot support the gauzy projections driving current valuations. JL

James Mackintosh reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Legendary financier John Templeton said the four most dangerous words in investing are: “This time it’s different.” From the canal mania of 1790s, the railway bubble of the 1840s, electrification, radio, television and up to the fiber build-out of the dot-com bubble, investors were disappointed. It took too long for the benefits to be realized, profits were smaller and came later than hoped or competition meant excess profits flowed to the users of the new technology, not its owners. With AI, while prices have gone up, valuations, measured as the price-to-forecast-earnings ratio, have gone down. Investors are paying less per dollar of the earnings in the next year, because they know it won’t last. The valuation of Nvidia, the most valuable U.S. company, has dropped from 23 times predicted earnings to 15 times, even as its shares rose 15%. The AI build-out hasn’t yet shown it can avoid the problems of past massive capital projects. At least so far, this time isn’t different.

AI stocks have had a terrible few days as hot inflation raises the cost of finance and threatens the debt-fueled investment in data centers. Investors showed they are alive to one of the big risks in AI, that hopes for trillions of dollars of capital spending might be derailed. An even bigger risk: construction continues at full speed.
Extraordinary profits help obscure both risks and reassure many of those buying stocks.
The profits aren’t a mirage. But they should only reassure us if we can rely on what legendary financier John Templeton said were the four most dangerous words in investing: “This time it’s different.”
The AI build-out hasn’t yet shown it can avoid the problems of past massive capital projects, such as railways and the internet. At least so far, this time isn’t different.
Start with the profits. Capital expenditure, or capex, by one company generates revenue for other companies. The data-center boom is creating massive revenue elsewhere. Makers of everything AI needs have been able to jack up prices for chips, cooling equipment, cables, backup generators, turbines and a host of other supplies, boosting profit margins as sales soar.

But this is temporary. Once the build-out is complete in a few years, capital spending will drop drastically, as maintenance, repair and upgrades are cheaper than a whole new building.
Investors understand this, and the debate is primarily over how long profits can stay high, not whether they can stay high. This can be seen in the share prices. Yes, they’ve gone up, but the gains have been modest when you consider the huge surge in profits. Investors know much of the profit is temporary.
The result is that while prices have gone up, valuations, measured as the price-to-forecast-earnings ratio, have gone down. Investors are paying less per dollar of the earnings coming up in the next year, because they know it won’t last.

The valuation of Nvidia, the most valuable U.S. company, has dropped from 23 times predicted earnings to 15 times, even as its shares rose 15%, and memory-chip stock Micron trades at a forward PE ratio of just under five times after its shares tripled.
“To me the market doesn’t have a P problem, it has an E problem,” says Rob Almeida, global investment strategist at MFS Investment Management.
Some think this is so extreme it is a bubble in earnings, the E part of the PE ratio. If earnings deflate, elevated valuations will become obvious.

Gerard Minack of Minack Advisors points out that forecast earnings for the eight biggest AI stocks—Amazon, Alphabet, Broadcom, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and Palantir—plus what he calls the “next 11” AI players, have increased by $700 billion this year, against an increase of less than $500 billion for the rest of the S&P 500.
Bulls can take comfort that investors understand that amazing earnings won’t last. Bears can say froth in earnings explains why PE ratios haven’t soared the way they usually do in a bubble, and look at measures that try to smooth cyclical highs and lows, such as the Shiller price-to-10-years’-earnings ratio. There’s also a parallel to 2007, when the bubble in bank stocks (usually valued by comparison to balance sheet, rather than earnings) was hidden by overstated book values.

This past week the threat to capex-related profits became obvious, as higher-than-expected inflation drove up financing costs and so threatened the AI construction boom. Shares in CoreWeave, an independent data-center operator, plunged 24% to wipe out all gains this year, those in memory-chip maker Micron dropped 11% and its South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix tumbled twice as much. Other AI suppliers also fell hard.
The moves show just how much it will hurt if the AI capex doesn’t materialize.
Yet, if the falls prove merely another brief interlude in the raging AI bull market and construction continues as expected, it will be just as risky—in a different way. Spending $9 trillion on AI by 2032, as Columbia Business School professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh estimated in a Brookings paper recently, would make it the biggest U.S. capital project ever, at 3.2% of GDP a year.
For this to work out for investors, we have to get past the temporary capex-related profits to generate sustainable AI profits. That means finding worthwhile uses that increase productivity enough that customers are willing to pay the full cost of developing and using the technology. If it disappoints, much of that $9 trillion will have been wasted.
The lessons from historical capital-spending booms offer both good and bad news. The good news is that mostly they delivered as much as or more than expected, with huge benefits for society. The bad news is that, from the canal mania of 1790s England, the British railway bubble of the 1840s, its American equivalent in the 1880s, electrification, radio, television and up to the fiber build-out of the dot-com bubble, investors were sorely disappointed.
It took too long for the benefits to be realized, profits were smaller and came later than hoped or competition meant excess profits flowed to the users of the new technology, not its owners. AI is vulnerable to each of these. Investors really need this time to be different.

This Time At Orikhiv, Ukraine Cuts Off Another Russian Attack Salient

2026-10-19T11:12:33.134-04:00

If it works, do it again. Operation Vivaldi proved out the Ukrainian strategy of allowing Russians forces to think they were advancing, creating a salient and then Ukraine's troops quickly move to slash into their flanks and cut them off.

It worked in Lyman, it is working in Kharkhiv - and now it is working in Zaporizhzhia. The Russians have not been able to protect their flanks effectively because they don't have enough troops to deliver the gains the Kremlin demands and also afford themselves protection. Eventually that might change. But for now, the Ukrainians are taking advantage. JL

Decimus reports in Daily Kos:

Ukraine is doing what it now does best … allow Russia to massively commit to an offensive, then start scissoring it apart, locking in the force that is already committed, close off their access such as bridges, then interdict their logistics in the rear as far away from the committed formations as possible: Recent reports indicate that this is in motion in the Orikhiv sector of Zaporizhzhia oblast where Ukrainian Forces destroyed bridges in the Huliaipole sector, disrupting Russian supply lines and hindering offensive aimed toward Orikhiv. The Russians have boxed themselves into this failing battle strategy because they are aware that they dare not create a single massive overwhelming thrust … for fear of the Ukrainians in turn executing a flanking maneuver. Again.
Operation Vivaldi put the kibosh on their Northern pincer towards the Ukrainian Fortress Belt. The Southern pincer at Kostiantynivka has stalled and the attempted end run of Dobropiliya 2.0 has also been stymied. And Winter on the flat open Eastern and Southern Ukrainian steppe is fast on its way.

So what is a frazzled invader army to do? Why, throw more mobiki at another sector … one which it had tried earlier and failed. Perhaps the second time will be the charm? Not if ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE has anything to say about it.
It’s a marvel seeing how Ukraine has learned to fight and defeat Russia’s scattered massed offensives intended to stretch Ukraine’s relatively limited man power on the 1,600km long battle trace. The Russian infiltrators get in. The Ukrainians seal and lock them in, cutting off their re-supply and reinforcements. Then dedicated “wolf squads” go in to hunt and eliminate/capture the “infils”. To ensure the isolation of the “infils’ and prevent their ability to mass and connect to other Russian units nearby, the Ukrainians send in their interdicting drone forces … to keep away and destroy supplies and reinforcements … several kilometers away in the Russian rear. Attempted encirclements of Ukrainian units by the Russians are thus quashed. The battles for Pokrovsk and Kupiansk provided Ukraine with valuable battlefield anti-infil lessons which are now being put to good use in places like Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast:
Ukraine Clears 10 Sq Km Near Vovchansk, Eliminating Three Russian Infiltration Groups, ISW Says
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-clears-10-sq-km-near-vovchansk-eliminating-three-russian-infiltration-groups-isw-says-23144

Another key tactic in how Ukrainian forces are countering Russia’s massed offensives is to station sufficiently strong units a bit farther away in protected areas but close enough to jump into the fray and stymie the Russians until more robust forces can come in to strengthen and lock down the front. No need to congregate large Ukrainian formations on the line where a Russian FAB/KAB guided bomb can wipe them out. Spread out then when needed concentrate up close to the enemy where lobbing in a FAB/KAB would eliminate Russia’s own troops, too. We are about to see this play out on a larger tableau as Russia attempts another massed offensive in Zaporizhia.
Recent reports indicate that Russian forces have concentrated approximately 150,000 troops in roughly 120 assault groups near Orikhiv, primarily drawn from the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army for an intensified offensive in Zaporizhia Oblast. As has been the case lately, Russia is already claiming encirclement and even capture of the town but by all indications Orikhiv remains under Ukrainian control, with Ukrainian military officials denying Russian claims of street fighting inside the city:

Russia Sets Eye on Zaporizhzhia’s Orikhiv With 150,000-Troop Formations
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/84217
More here:

Russia forms around 120 assault groups near Orikhiv – military
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4162717-russia-forms-around-120-assault-groups-near-orikhiv-military.html
But Ukraine is doing what it now does best … allow Russia to massively commit to an offensive, then steadily start scissoring it apart, starting with locking in the force that is already committed, close off their accesses such as bridges and then massively interdict their logistics and supply lines in the rear … as far and farther away from the committed formations as possible:
Recent reports indicate that this is already in motion in the Orikhiv sector. Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed bridges near Polohy in the Huliaipole sector, significantly disrupting Russian military logistics and hindering offensive operations toward Orikhiv. It is important to note that Polohy has long been Russia’s primary logistics hub in central Zaporizhia(hello RO37!). The 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces confirmed that airstrikes on September 21, 2026, targeted infrastructure used to transport Russian personnel and heavy equipment. The destruction of these crossings forced Russian units to rely on more vulnerable motorized vehicles where Ukrainian drones can attack and limit their ability to redeploy forces.

The formation of the rapid response corps is likely one of the innovations Syrskyi might be remembered for. They obviate the need, as mentioned earlier, for Ukraine to concentrate large formations on the line, thereby saving lives from Russian guided bombs and artillery saturation:

Ukrainian forces destroy bridges near Polohy used by Russia for advance on Orikhiv
https://english.nv.ua/nation/defense-forces-conduct-airstrikes-against-russian-logistics-infrastructure-bridges-near-huliaypole-50643287.html
Knocking down the bridges funnels the Russian logistics and troop reinforcements into areas where they are more exposed in the flat open Zaporizhian landscape. Ukraine has now proven that this war is no longer just a matter of how many bodies Russia can throw at the Ukrainian defenses. Technological imperatives have now vitiated that once upon a time Russian advantage.
And so it is that Ukrinform reports today(October 17, 2026) that the Russians are pretty much sticking to their true and tested formula which is yet to yield much success since Pokrovsk … infiltrate, try to concentrate … only to be hammered by Ukrainian forces. Rinse repeat. Except now the Russian commanders have received orders that they have till the end of October 2026 to capture Orikhiv … the same place they already say they have captured. We shall see. How many rinse repeat cycles can Russia get out of a horde of 150,000 barely trained, déshabillé, and mal-nourished mobiki cut off from their supply lines? They will, as usual, just make it up as they go and claim successes where none exist.

Anyone noticed lately the steady upward climb in the daily tally of Russians eliminated? Steadily getting closer and closer to exceeding Mykhailo Federov’s forecast of 50,000 per month:
Russian forces aim to capture Orikhiv by end of October, Ukrainian military says
Russian commanders have ordered their troops to capture Orikhiv, Preobrazhenka and Tavriiske in the Zaporizhzhia region by the end of October. However, Russian forces have been unable to establish a foothold in Orikhiv, and their reports claiming to have cleared the city of Ukrainian defenders are false.
“However, they are failing to do so because units of the Operation Task Force South detect them in time, track their movements and strike them both in the outskirts and within the city itself,”
“These are fabricated reports. The shelling of the settlement by Russian forces is one indication of this. Just yesterday evening, October 16, the Russians dropped 16 guided aerial bombs on the city. It takes only critical thinking to understand that if the Russian claims about control of Orikhiv were accurate, their aircraft would not be dropping so many bombs on the city,” Shevchenko stressed.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4175480-russian-forces-aim-to-capture-orikhiv-by-end-of-october-ukrainian-military-says.html
Putin may have called in his chips with Krasnov and Elon to get them to monkey around with Starlink and Starshield in the hopes of saving Russia’s petro-chemical industry(and its war-making money bin) but on the ground, along the battle trace, ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE has now taken the measure of the Russian war machine. So far, just halfway into the month of October, on the Orikhiv front alone, this is the result:
… since the beginning of October, units of the Operation Task Force South have eliminated 2,760 Russian troops and destroyed 1,150 pieces of weapons and military equipment.
As reported by Ukrinform, on October 16, Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled seven Russian attempts to advance in the Orikhiv sector near Novoiakivlivka, Mala Tokmachka, Pavlivka, Stepnohirsk and Plavni.
Steady as she goes. The Russians have somehow boxed themselves into this failing drips and drabs battle strategy because they are keenly aware that they dare not greatly thin out any area on their side of the battle trace to create a single massive overwhelming thrust … for fear of the Ukrainians in turn executing a Schwarzkopf-style massive flanking maneuver(famously known as the “Left Hook” during Operation Desert Storm) … to get in their rear … and rout them. That would be a huge propaganda and political trouble for Putin.

As Vivaldi Ends, Putin's Donbas Dream Is Further Away Than Ever

2026-10-19T10:10:33.646-04:00

Try as he might to position himself as one of the world's three great dictators (beside his superiors, Xi and Trump), Putin's military continues to expose the growing weakness of Russian power.

Yes, he can bombard civilian targets in Ukraine, spike riots in France, threaten NATO bases in Europe with occasional drones and otherwise remain a global pest, but on the Ukrainian battlefield, where it counts, his army has been conclusively defeated again, in the Lyman as Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi has again derailed his so far unattainable dream of taking the Donbas despite almost five years of trying. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Putin's goal of seizing the Donbas appears further away than ever as Vivaldi collapsed the Russian salient north of Lyman. The Russians are having their second-worst period of the war for territorial losses. No wonder he is investing so much in getting Trump on side. But, ever the loyal vassal, Russian General Gerasimov sought to cheer up his president this week with entirely fanciful figures about captured territory. “With no significant successes on the battlefield, the Russian military leadership continues to create an illusion of major victories for its political leadership and domestic audience.”

Vivaldi’s Fourth Season. Ukraine’s Third Army Corps announced on 14 October that the fourth stage of Operation Vivaldi retook 101 square kilometres in the Lyman sector, including the villages of Zelena Dolyna, Lypove and Kolodiazi, and cost Russia about 3,000 soldiers, according to the Kyiv Independent. The corps now claims to have liberated 16 settlements and 277 square kilometres during the execution of Operation Vivaldi.
Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi said that “The enemy was unable to cut the key logistics artery of our group in the Donbas” and closed with “Four seasons of ‘Vivaldi’ are over, but the music continues.”
ISW reports that Russia has seized about 100 square kilometres since 1 January and has lost net territory since 1 September, and its 15 October assessment says Vivaldi “collapsed the Russian salient north of Lyman”. Russia Mattersshows a Russian net gain of 16 square miles in the four weeks to 13 October, down from 57 in the previous four weeks.
Putin’s goal of seizing the Donbas appears further away than ever. No wonder he is investing so much in getting Trump on side.
But, ever the loyal vassal, Russian General Gerasimov sought to cheer up his president this week with entirely fanciful figures about captured territory. Gerasimov claimed that Russian forces seized over 1,800 square kilometres and 92 settlements since 1 September 2026. The Ukrainian military officially rejected the Russian Chief of the General Staff’s exaggerated battlefield claims. Ukrainian General Staff spokesperson Major Andriy Kovalev stated on 17 October that, “With no significant successes on the battlefield, the Russian military leadership continues to create an illusion of major victories for its political leadership and domestic audience.”
Graph: Russia Matters
The graph above shows what is more likely to be the truth about Russian gains and losses recently. It shows that the Russians are having their second-worst period of the war for territorial losses.

Operation Vivaldi Phase 4 Finalized Russia's Complete Lyman Defeat

2026-10-19T09:35:36.996-04:00

Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi ended as quietly as it began, with the capture of the key, former Russian logistics hub, of Kolodiazi. Like many of the areas retaken by the Ukrainians' 3rd Corps, the village was largely deserted, underscoring the fact that many of the Russians' initial, highly touted 'victories' in this sector were really empty areas of little strategic importance.

The larger lesson of the Vivaldi operation is that Ukraine's strict operational security, thorough planning and precise execution of their battle plan led to a stinging defeat of Russian forces which had hoped to use this territory as a springboard for further Donbas gains. That hope is now in tatters. JL

Yuri Zoria reports in the Euromaidan Press:

During the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi. Ukrainian infantry encircled and retook the village of Kolodiazi north of Lyman without getting drawn into street fighting. The Ist Mechanized drone battalion killed or wounded about 500 Russian troops during the fourth phase and struck "more than two hundred pieces of equipment: Grad and Uragan rocket launchers, armored vehicles, tanks, armored combat vehicles. Most of all motorbikes and quad bikes, there the count runs into the hundreds. This is our enemy’s main logistics tool.” Vivaldi’s four phases retook 277 km² and 16 settlements, and Russian forces suffered more than ten times more casualties than Ukrainians forces.
Ukrainian infantry encircled and retook the village of Kolodiazi north of Lyman without getting drawn into street fighting, while a drone battalion kept the sky above them shut, the battalion’s chief of staff told Suspilne on 18 October. The village fell during the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast.
For years now, Russia has aimed to seize Lyman and cross the Siverskyi Donets River. It needs this area to encircle Ukraine’s fortress belt of Donetsk Oblast cities from the northwest, ISW assesses. Vivaldi’s four phases retook 277 km² and 16 settlements on that approach, and a veteran of the operation has said Ukraine’s assault troops suffered more than ten times fewer casualties than Russian forces doing it.
Drones over the infantry
The 60th Mechanized Brigade fought in all four phases of Vivaldi and took Kolodiazi in the last one, said the chief of staff of the brigade’s Fatum unmanned systems battalion, callsign Krash.
“Our task, as an unmanned systems battalion, was to escort and ‘close’ the air in front of our infantry to make it impossible for the enemy to hit it. To suppress all the firing assets possible,” he said.

The brigade’s 3rd Mechanized Battalion, the main striking force, encircled Kolodiazi and retook it without getting drawn into street fighting, Krash said. The 1st Mechanized Battalion kept Russian reinforcements out of the area, while drone crews suppressed artillery, hit supply runs, and worked against Russian drone operators.

500 troops and 200-plus vehicles
The drone battalion killed or wounded about 500 Russian troops during the fourth phase and struck Russian armored vehicles, trucks, and motorbikes, its chief of staff said.
“More than two hundred pieces of various equipment: Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers, various armored vehicles, tanks, armored combat vehicles. Most of all motorbikes and quad bikes, there the count runs into the hundreds. This is our enemy’s main logistics tool,” he said.
Lyman sector now. Map: ISW
Ghost villages
The villages retaken in northern Donetsk Oblast are nearly empty of civilians, Krash said.

“It’s very typical for de-occupied settlements: these are ghost towns. You can see right away where the occupier stepped. All the settlements are under the control of the Third Army Corps, our forces stand there and prevent enemy infiltration. But civilian life in these towns is either absent or very scarce,” he said.
Third Army Corps commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi reported Kolodiazi’s liberation, along with Zelena Dolyna and Lypove, when he summed up Vivaldi’s fourth phase, which secured 101 km².

Tech Stocks Erased $1 Trillion In Value Friday As Investors' AI Doubts Surge

2026-10-19T08:58:16.518-04:00

The negative pressure on tech stocks, which caused a $1 Trillion value loss on Friday, is coming from several directions.

Externally, a rise in interest rates, fueled, in part, by the cost of oil and gas, is raising borrowing costs for AI companies who evidently thought it was sorta like free money because it wasn't equity. But the reality is that it is making their debt much more expensive just at a point when a plurality - and possibly a solid majority - of investors are beginning to ask very serious questions about how and when it can be paid back, let alone generate a return. And this is coming just as investors are also raising concerns about the rising cost and numbers of data centers, or even whether they are really necessary. All of which is putting additional pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates further, which will exacerbate the problem. And, for the first time, the specter is being raised of a pre-midterm election October surprise being a market crash. JL

Steve Kopack reports in NBC:

Tech stocks shed more than $1 trillion in value Friday. The sharp drop in tech shares came as worries about ballooning debt, high interest rates and rising oil prices resurfaced. At the same time that inflation pushes interest rates higher around the world, trillion-dollar tech companies are borrowing and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to develop AI and build their vast data centers. Fresh cracks began to show in the AI business model, as investors raised questions about when their massive injections of cash into AI companies would pay off. The two worst performing stocks in the Nasdaq 100 on Friday were both data center companies: Nebuius and CoreWeave. The latter’s shares plunged more than 25% over the past month. These companies are just two of the dozens that have borrowed billions of dollars at high interest rates to expand at a breakneck pace.
Tech stocks shed more than $1 trillion in value Friday, as the price of oil soared to its highest levels in five months.
The Nasdaq 100 index, which tracks most of the country’s largest tech and AI-linked companies, sold off by 2.5% and now sits about 7% below its most recent all-time high — a record it had only notched last week.

The S&P 500 dropped 1% and the Russell 2000 index fell 1.6%. The Philadelphia semiconductor index dropped 3.8% for its eight straight day of losses, the longest such streak since 2008.
The sharp drop in tech shares came as worries about ballooning debt, high interest rates and rising oil prices all resurfaced.
Brent crude oil, widely considered to be among the most important prices in global energy, surpassed $110 per barrel shortly after 2:30 p.m. ET, its highest level since May. It ended the week at $109.86 per barrel, still its highest closing level since May 19.
U.S. crude oil, which also steers gas prices, jumped 3.5% Friday to close at $101.41 per barrel. It was the first time West Texas Intermediate crude had crossed the $100 threshold, closely watched by both traders and the public, since September.
The continued upward trend in energy prices increases the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again this year. The Fed already boosted rates by 0.25% in September to tame inflation that had risen as a result of higher oil and gas prices.
Diesel futures also jumped Friday by more than 1%. The cost of this commercial fuel critical for farming and other industrial sectors has risen even faster than regular gasoline in recent months.
The steady rise in the price of fuel around the world began this spring, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February and triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
But an escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war in recent months has caused an even more dramatic price spike for diesel.
Russia has traditionally been one of the world’s largest diesel exporters. But attacks by Ukrainian forces on its energy infrastructure has taken much of its refining capacity offline.
On Friday, another Russian refiner suspended some crude oil operations. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine had “attempted a massive attack on the Ryazan oil refinery.”
Energy assets in Ukraine have also been targeted by Russian strikes.
As the world seeks alternative sources for diesel, there are few clear opportunities to expand diesel production. Refineries in the U.S. and Europe are already running at nearly maximum capacity to churn out as much diesel fuel as possible.
President Donald Trump is intensely focused on the high cost of diesel fuel because of its key role in driving up inflation — a top issue for American voters in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Trump has tried multiple actions to lower prices, but those have not resulted in a significant step-down for diesel prices.

The president has also touted a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a way to lower prices, but as of Friday, no actual Russian diesel had been identified as having reached the global market.
Additionally, a group of American lawmakers introduced a bill that would block Trump’s Russian diesel deal. It has little chance of passing the Republican-controlled House.
But polling indicates that Republicans are unlikely to maintain a majority in the House after November’s elections. The Russian diesel-blocking bill offers a preview of the kind of legislation that could advance under Democratic control.
Yet even now, the legislation adds to “growing doubts that a U.S.-Russia diesel deal will come to fruition,” said Mason Mendez, global real assets analyst at Wells Fargo.
“Investors also remain concerned about further military escalation in the Middle East, as attacks on commercial shipping and regional infrastructure have increased in recent weeks,” he said.
“Looking into 2027, the need to rebuild depleted global inventories could create an additional source of demand and keep energy prices elevated for longer.”
At the same time that inflation pushes interest rates higher around the world, trillion-dollar tech companies are borrowing and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to develop AI and build their vast data centers.
This week, fresh cracks began to show in the AI business model, as investors raised questions about when their massive injections of cash into AI companies would pay off.
The two worst performing stocks in the Nasdaq 100 on Friday were both data center companies: Nebuius and CoreWeave.
The value of CoreWeave’s shares has plunged more than 25% over the past month.
But these companies are just two of the dozens that have borrowed billions of dollars at high interest rates to expand at a breakneck pace.
Just a day before Friday’s sell-off, Ed Yardeni, a highly regarded market analyst, cut his year-end S&P 500 target to 7,900, down from 8,400, over what he said was rising investor caution about the artificial intelligence trade and lingering doubts about inflation and higher interest rates.

Starlink Reliability As Brand Irreparably Damaged By Trump-Musk Ukraine Cutoff

2026-10-18T10:47:48.052-04:00

After the Trump-Musk mafia-style reduction of Starlink capabilities this week to suit their own personal interests, no government - whether

dictatorship or democracy - nor any business wanting to protect its own operational and financial interests is going to allow itself to become dependent on a system controlled by the whims of self-serving oligarchs and politicians.

The result will be a dramatic increase in new offerings which offer the same service with less political risk. Musk suggested this bullying to protect his own dependence on US government contracts which have increased under Trump. Trump is trying to buy Putin's illicit support for his own future, at least partially threatened by the Democrats' midterm election results. But whoever gave the order - and reports indicate it was collaborative between the two, it has signalled the beginning of the end of Starlink's dominance. JL

Mark Urban reports in The Times of London:

The slowdown of the Starlink system has underlined the degree to which Ukrainian military forces depend on American satellites. It also highlighted that other western militaries are similarly at risk. Whoever the order came from, the biggest lesson for both Ukraine and western countries trying to modernise their armed forces is that Musk’s SpaceX has capabilities giving the US, for now, unique leverage. The experience has left militaries wondering how to reduce their dependence on this American technology. The UK made an investment of £374m seven years ago in a system called OneWeb, which is independent of Trump and Musk, and the UK can now make use of its 650 satellites. The French firm Eutelsat (also) invested in it, so it provides a European alternative to Starlink. Ukraine will now make increased use of OneWeb.
The slowdown of the Starlink system has underlined the degree to which Ukrainian military forces depend on American satellites. It also highlighted that other western militaries are similarly at risk.
On Tuesday the military element of Elon Musk’s orbital communications system, Starshield, started limiting the connection speed of its Ukrainian subscribers. Both the tech boss and the US president understood the depth of Volodymyr Zelensky’s dependence on it.
It brought the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president spectacularly into the open, but nobody wanted to take responsibility on the US side. Musk publicly insisted that it wasn’t his doing, noting that Starshield was a Pentagon-controlled system, though The Daily Telegraph reported he was indeed responsible, while the Reuters news agency, citing two unnamed sources, stated that the order had come from the White House.

On Saturday, Zelensky said speed restrictions were still causing problems for Ukrainian drones, and his team had concluded that this was part of a “planned operation” aimed at undermining the country’s defences.
Whoever the order came from, the biggest lesson of the past few days for both Ukraine and western countries trying to modernise their own armed forces is that the system created by Musk’s SpaceX has capabilities that are very hard to match, giving the US, for now at least, unique leverage.

Air Marshal Edward Stringer, a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank, said: “This has shown yet again that if you’re serious about warfare, you really have to have capacity in space, so it’s a big wake-up call for Europe.”
The move to limit connections to antennae moving at more than 100mph left many of Ukraine’s communication or video surveillance links unaffected. But it had a debilitating effect on much of their weaponry.
Defensively, it meant the Ukrainians couldn’t send control signals to the interceptors used to shoot down jet-powered Russian drones like the Geran-5, which travels at 250mph. Offensively, it limited strikes by Ukrainian weapons exceeding that new speed limit.
Damage from a Russian Geran-5 jet-powered drone in Kyiv last week
Shutterstock Editorial
Technical experts have been quick to point out that strikes deep inside Russia — for example, against its oil refineries — cannot be controlled from the Starlink antennae on drones because the system already limits access over Russia. But Musk’s constellation is vital to Ukrainian attempts to hit targets in the “middle zone”, a band inside Russia ranging from 50km to 200km from the front line.
In Brussels on Friday, Zelensky confirmed “we’re using it for middle-range strikes against military targets”. On Wednesday in London, he had said that such targets included Russian ballistic missile launchers firing into his country. He also alleged last week that the Starshield restriction had cost lives.

The experience has left both him and other western militaries wondering how they might reduce their dependence on this American technology.
Musk’s SpaceX corporation gained some formidable first-mover advantages when it began launching its Starlink satellites in 2018. Early models were small enough, at 260kg, for dozens to go up on a single rocket, and they’ve been growing in number and sophistication ever since.
With about 11,000 of them now aloft, the system forms a mesh of overlapping orbital connections. That creates sufficient capacity for millions of users, from wifi on aeroplanes to people in remote regions beyond the range of cellular phone networks.
One industry insider says this gives it a key advantage for military operations, because “it’s a mesh network, that makes it really hard to jam, and really hard to destroy the satellites”.
For Starlink it is a matter of numbers, because with thousands of satellites in orbit, it would be very hard to shoot enough down to undermine its performance. Users’ terminals are constantly switching between these connections in space.

This attribute is critical for military users because it makes it far harder to jam electronically than ground-based radio systems. Ukrainian drones, from those on speedboats in the Black Sea to aerial ones resupplying frontline positions, are equipped with Starshield antennae for that reason.
Tensions between presidents Zelensky and Trump, clear at the United Nations last month, have been heightened
AFP
Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth, head of the Royal Air Force, told a conference in London last month that the RAF “will never fulfil its capabilities without space”. That applied particularly to drones, Smyth said: “an uncrewed force is a broadly space-dependent force”.
British forces have been using Starshield, but they do also have another option. They made an investment of £374m seven years ago in a system called OneWeb, which is independent of Trump and Musk, and the UK can now make use of its 650 satellites.
It is a footnote of past Whitehall power struggles that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was reluctant to invest in OneWeb, but did so at the insistence of Dominic Cummings when he worked for Boris Johnson. The French firm Eutelsat subsequently invested in it, so it is not a sovereign UK system, but it does provide a European (albeit lower-capacity) alternative to Starlink.
On Friday Zelensky implied that Ukraine, too, might make increased use of OneWeb. But his troops’ dependence on Starshield has grown for a reason and extends well beyond the fast-moving weaponry affected last week. Its centrality to the entire Ukrainian military command and control system gives Trump an obvious pressure point should he want to turn the screw on Zelensky again.

Space industry experts argue that Starshield retains many advantages over OneWeb, ranging from its sheer capacity to “low latency”, the faster connections needed for drone operations.
The UK now faces some decisions about whether to invest in European or American space systems. The immediate one involves an imminent choice on a new generation of Skynet communications satellites, managed by Babcock International, a British company, for theMoD. But that’s quite different from the sort of “mesh network” — effectively a space-based internet service provider — that many in the military now think is essential.
“We have to leverage civilian technology,” said Air Marshal Stringer. That means piggybacking on commercial systems like OneWeb and Starlink.

How Ukrainian Soldiers Fight and Survive in the Kill Zone

2026-10-18T10:09:12.986-04:00

The front has become an outmoded concept. There is now a miles wide gray zone, loosely held by small groups of infantry supplied by drones. It is also a kill zone, where to move is to die, spotted and then dispatched by ever watchful drones.

Living conditions are primitive. Lengths of deployment are mind-numbingly long due to the threat of detection and the difficulty of insertion and extraction. But still the Ukrainian troops hold. JL

Constant Meheut and colleagues report in the New York Times:

Six months in the kill zone: holed up in a half-destroyed house. They could hear drones buzzing overhead nonstop. To avoid detection, they relieved themselves in bags rather than step outside; slept pressed together in winter rather than light a fire; and dragged the bodies of Russian soldiers they killed into their house, so drones would not detect signs of With vehicles unable to reach the front, food and water were dropped by drones. The drops sometimes failed, leaving them hungry and thirsty. Units could only fly in medicine. For soldiers badly wounded and in need of evacuation, the only option was a robotic ground vehicle.. Moving is the most dangerous thing a soldier can do in the kill zone. The front has blurred into a miles wide wasteland and has become so fuzzy that opposing troops sometimes shelter in the same building.
All along the 750-mile front line in Ukraine, armies of drones watch, hunt and strike anything that dares to move.
Whatever the drones can reach is a target: Soldiers fighting from ruined houses. Medics racing to the wounded in armored vehicles. Commanders plotting attacks from distant bunkers. Trucks hauling ammunition down far-off roads.
Henadii and Mykhailo spent more than six months in this so-called kill zone, holed up in a half-destroyed house. They could hear drones buzzing overhead nonstop, like traffic on a busy highway. To avoid detection, they relieved themselves in bags rather than step outside; slept pressed together in winter rather than light a fire; and dragged the bodies of Russian soldiers they had killed into their house, so drones overhead would not detect signs of fighting.
The drones force soldiers to scatter and hide — sometimes, unknowingly, only yards from the enemy. One day, Henadii turned on his phone and it offered to connect to a Russian Wi-Fi router. “I immediately turned the phone off,” he said during an interview in early May, about a month after he had left the kill zone. Like all Ukrainian soldiers interviewed for this article, he asked to be identified by only his first name or call sign, for security reasons.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, the war looked markedly different. The battlefield had clear boundaries, similar to what generations of soldiers had known in wars past. The Russian and Ukrainian Armies massed troops and fought from trenches separated by a no-man’s land. Combat was confined to a narrow area, with troops resting safely a few miles behind the front.
Then came the drones, with their constant surveillance, pinpoint strike precision and a reach that keeps expanding with technological improvements. As a result, the front has blurred into a miles-wide wasteland where neither side holds firm control. tree lines, and drones still find them.
Sources: Videos from Ukraine’s 47th, 65th and 128th brigades.
The kill zone has also transformed life at the front. Missions that once lasted a few days stretch into months because rotating troops under a drone-filled sky is too dangerous.
Henadii, 52, and Mykhailo, 51, described those months as hell. With vehicles unable to reach the front, food and water were dropped by drones. The drops sometimes failed, leaving them hungry and thirsty. Each lost 40 pounds. No medic could treat Mykhailo’s injured heel; his unit could only fly in medicine. For fellow soldiers badly wounded and in need of evacuation, the only option was often a robotic ground vehicle sent to carry them out.
As technology advances, experts say, the kill zone will grow only wider and deadlier. Drones flying farther will push the fighting into cities once considered safe. Artificial intelligence will sharpen targeting systems, shortening the time between detection and strike. The biggest cost, commanders say, will be borne by the soldiers on the ground, whose presence in the kill zone remains as crucial as ever to capture and hold land.
“The modern concept of war did not foresee this,” Mykhailo said.
Entering the Kill Zone
Henadii and Mykhailo’s journey into the kill zone began on an infantry training ground last fall, when an instructor gathered troops and said he needed two men to replace soldiers injured at the front.
“Any volunteers,” the commander asked. Mykhailo, a warehouse loader who had volunteered to fight on the first day of the war and later suffered a shrapnel wound to his heel, knew what it meant to be left injured on the battlefield. He stepped forward, then turned to Henadii: “Are you coming?”
Henadii, a service member since before the full-scale war began, took it as a matter of pride. He stepped forward, too. The other soldiers sighed with relief that they would not be the ones heading into the kill zone that day. They boarded a vehicle toward the front.
They headed to Primorske, a town under assault in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, where their unit, Ukraine’s 128th Heavy Mechanized Brigade, has been deployed for more than two years.
In that time, both sides have raced to extend the range of their drones. Henadii and Mykhailo knew they had reached the edge of the kill zone when the vehicle carrying them stopped a mile short of their assigned position. Going farther would make the vehicle easy prey for drones. They would have to cover the rest on foot.
Moving is the most dangerous thing a soldier can do in the kill zone. When reconnaissance drones spot movement, they relay coordinates to attack drones that race to strike, said a drone battalion commander in Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.
The mission of the commander, whose call sign is Stepanych, is to create a lethal cordon, impassable for Russian troops in an area near Henadii’s and Mykhailo’s position in Primorske. He has deployed attack drone crews roughly every two miles along the 10-mile stretch of front that is under his command. Together, they launch about 100 drones a day, keeping several in the air at any given time so they can be redirected to new targets within minutes.
The Russian Army, Stepanych said, “does the same thing.” Russian battlefield reports reviewed by The New York Times show that, on a single day in May, Russia had 199 reconnaissance drones ready to be launched near Primorske, with at least 62 Russian crews operating short-range attack drones in support.
“We call it the hunting mode,” Stepanych said on a May morning in his battalion’s command post, the nerve center of the kill zone. It looked like an air traffic control center. Banks of screens lined the walls, streaming live feeds from drones stalking targets over shattered villages, as well as intercepted Russian drone video that allowed the unit to watch the enemy watching them.
Eyes fixed on the screens, Stepanych coordinated strikes. Every so often, a colored box flashed across a video feed, signaling that enemy movement had been detected. Minutes later, a plume of smoke rose on the screen — a drone had hit.
For Henadii and Mykhailo, survival meant staying off Russian screens.
To reach their position, they followed a route mapped in advance that kept them off paths more visible from the sky. Overhead, a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone tracked their progress, streaming live video to officers in the rear who guided them by radio. Intercepted Russian drone feeds helped the officers warn them when enemy drones approached.
Whenever that happened, “we were told to camouflage ourselves, hide under trees or inside buildings,” Henadii said. “We waited until the enemy drones passed. Then we kept moving.”
It took the two men five hours to cover on foot the last mile to their outpost in southern Primorske. At the time, some civilians still lived in the town. They are now all gone. While Russian troops have not advanced in the area since the fall, their drones have, turning once-safe villages behind the front into part of the battlefield. Over that time, the Ukrainian authorities have evacuated at least 10 villages north of Primorske.
Olena Lubian, 61, and her mother, Valentyna Shevchenko, 92, were caught in the latest evacuation wave this spring. Their village, Komyshuvakha, about 11 miles from the front, had long escaped the fighting. Then Russian drones came and turned it into a shooting gallery. “They simply started wiping us out,” Ms. Lubian said, recalling how not a single roof in her neighborhood was left intact because of the strikes. On May 5, an armored vehicle from the Relief Coordination Center, a Ukrainian charity, finally evacuated Ms. Lubian and her mother. They took only a few bags of belongings with them.
“We built this life. We built this house,” Ms. Lubian said, her eyes swollen with tears as she showed pictures on her phone of her clay-and-straw home. “And we left it all behind.”
Fighting in the Kill Zone
After five hours, Henadii and Mykhailo reached their position: a 200-square-foot house with blown-out windows and a partly collapsed roof.
Inside were two wounded soldiers they had come to relieve. The men spent a few hours together so Henadii and Mykhailo could be briefed on their assignment: Hold the house and watch for Russian movements. Dozens of ruined houses ringed their outpost. Russian troops were believed to be hiding in at least one of them. Beyond that, little was certain. The enemy could be anywhere.
Soldiers no longer cluster in trenches — an easy target for drones. Instead, they spread out in small groups, hiding in underground shelters. A position is often held by only two soldiers, as shown in the Russian battlefield reports reviewed by The Times, which detail Russian troop deployments near Kamianske, a village south of Primorske.
The front has become so fuzzy that opposing troops sometimes shelter in the same building.
Nick, a Brazilian volunteer with Ukraine’s military intelligence forces, recalled fighting in a high-rise in Stepnohirsk, near Primorske, where “friendly troops were in the basement while the Russians were in the floors just above.” Because drones could not navigate the maze of rooms and stairwells, Nick’s unit had to engage in close combat to dislodge the Russian troops.
Soldiers call this the “gray zone." From their hideout, Henadii and Mykhailo repeatedly watched Russian troops advancing in small assault groups of only a few soldiers to minimize detection. Not long ago, they would have opened fire. But in the kill zone, using your rifle can be a deadly mistake, revealing your position to drones overhead.
So they operated as reconnaissance troops, watching for Russian soldiers and radioing their movements. Drones would do the killing.
“Neither side wants their infantry doing too much of the fighting,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who studies the war in Ukraine. “They want drones to do the fighting.”
The drone’s leading role in combat showed itself in real time on a May afternoon inside a command post of Ukraine’s 5th Center of the International Legion, part of the country’s military intelligence forces, which fought alongside Henadii’s and Mykhailo’s unit near Primorske.
Several men watched a screen streaming feeds from reconnaissance drones over a settlement just south of Primorske. Suddenly, a Russian soldier appeared, sprinting down a dirt road before diving into bushes. Too late — Ukrainian drones had spotted him.
“You will see what the kill zone means,” said a commander, whose call sign is Sour.
Minutes later, two drones arrived and struck near where the soldier had taken cover. A surveillance drone captured the attack, which Times reporters watched live from the command post. A final strike tore away the sheet of metal, exposing the soldier’s body amid the ruins.
“It’s very difficult to survive in such conditions — 99 percent chance of dying,” Sour said.
The Ukrainian military provided the videos in this article, based on requests from The Times to illustrate on-the-ground reporting and battlefield developments described by commanders.
The rise of drones has fueled a debate in Ukraine over whether they could one day replace infantry altogether.
Dmytro Putiata, a former Ukrainian drone operator, said drones were a formidable force multiplier but would never fully replace infantry. Drones can destroy positions, he said, but cannot seize them. Only soldiers can dislodge troops from entrenched dugouts. As for land drones armed with machine guns that have joined some assaults, he asked: “What happens when the battery dies?”
“Infantry was the most crucial thing without drones,” he said, “and it’s still crucial with them." Henadii and Mykhailo learned that lesson the hard way on Oct. 10, a month into their deployment. They had spotted Russian soldiers in nearby buildings and radioed their position. Ukrainian drones had struck, but two soldiers survived and were now running toward Henadii and Mykhailo’s house.
The drones had failed. Now it was the two men's turn.
As the first soldier burst into the yard, Henadii said he shot him dead through a window. The second soldier, running just behind, dropped out of sight. Henadii fired a long burst in his direction and waited three minutes. When he looked again, he said, the soldier’s body was slumped against a fence, dead.
Hours later, another pair of Russian soldiers ran into the yard, having just survived a drone strike. Henadii fired, but missed this time. The Russians took cover behind a wall. Instead of firing at Henadii and Mykhailo, they shouted that they were friendly forces.
It was a familiar case of confusion in the muddled kill zone. Mykhailo, who, like most Ukrainians, can speak Russian, saw a chance to buy time. He answered in Russian, pretending to be a stranded fellow soldier. The exchange lasted less than a minute, until one of the Russians asked for the name of Mykhailo’s commander. The ruse was over.
By then, Henadii had moved to a better firing position. He opened fire. So did Mykhailo. They said they killed the two Russian soldiers.
More deadly firefights followed. “Jan. 20. Jan. 24. Jan. 30. March 3 and 21,” Mykhailo said, reciting the dates from memory. In total, the two men said they had killed nine Russian soldiers, which The Times could not independently confirm.
Living in the Kill Zone
Each Russian soldier they killed posed the same issue: What to do with the body?
Earlier in the war, their unit would have retrieved the corpse and traded it for that of a fallen Ukrainian soldier. Now, few units will risk sending troops into the kill zone to recover the dead.
But in today’s kill zone, a body left in the open is a telltale sign of combat that can reveal a position to drones watching overhead. To avoid being detected, Henadii and Mykhailo dragged most of the bodies inside their house. Rather than live beside corpses, they piled them into one room and stayed in the kitchen. It was winter, and the bodies froze before they could rot, making the smell bearable. Troops who fight through the summer are less fortunate.
To survive, soldiers must leave no trace of their presence. Henadii and Mykhailo said they never fed stray dogs — animals gathering around a house could tip off Russian forces that someone was inside. Nor did they step outside to relieve themselves. They urinated into plastic bottles and defecated into trash bags, which they stowed in the attic. Russia’s Army also appears to have made the shift. On a single day in mid-May, drones made 678 flights across a large section of the southern front, delivering roughly 4,500 pounds of cargo — mostly food, water and ammunition — according to the battlefield reports obtained by The Times.
A Ukrainian company commander, whose call sign is Tor, spends much of his day packing supplies for drones to fly out. His unit stopped delivering food to the front in vehicles. Since November, they are only delivered by drones. On a May morning at his unit’s supply depot, an inconspicuous house north of Primorske, he and fellow officers worked through requests soldiers had radioed in: porridge, bread, canned meat, sausages, even an orthopedic belt for a soldier with back pain. Not every parcel arrives.
Drones are sometimes jammed or shot down, leaving troops without food and water for days. Ukrainian commanders say soldiers often lose significant weight, 20 pounds or more, in the kill zone.
On New Year’s Eve, subzero temperatures drained the batteries of the drones trying to deliver food to Henadii and Mykhailo. That night, they celebrated with two cans of food they still had left.
Drones also brought Mykhailo medicine. The shrapnel wound to his heel that he had sustained earlier in the war left him dependent on painkillers dropped along with his food.
The kill zone makes it nearly impossible to send a medic to check on the wounded or evacuate them. So units send drugs and bandages instead, and talk soldiers through treatment over the radio. Ukrainian soldiers call this “telemedicine.”
Gone is the “golden hour” — the first 60 minutes after a traumatic injury, when prompt treatment offers the best chance of survival. Now, a soldier can lie for days with a tourniquet cinched around a wounded limb, waiting for a vehicle that may never come, according to Ros, a medic serving in Henadii’s and Mykhailo’s brigade. Survival rates for the severely wounded are very low, he said.
It is an experience unlike anything that U.S. troops faced in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said Mr. Lee, the military expert, who served as a Marine in Afghanistan. “It’s way more intense, way more difficult and far more psychologically straining,” he said.
In the end, Henadii and Mykhailo, who were initially told that they would spend about a month at the front, stayed more than six. The Ukrainian Army cannot afford frequent rotations because that would mean more men crossing the kill zone. It also lacks enough replacements.
As weeks turned into months, Henadii and Mykhailo began wondering if they would make it out. A study by Ukraine’s military ombudsman found that the psychological breaking point often comes after 30 to 60 days at the front. Beyond that, many soldiers succumb to anxiety and apathy as they become convinced that they will not survive, the ombudsman’s office said in a written comment.
Henadii and Mykhailo held on to small moments of joy. Homemade sweet pies dropped by drone. Voice messages from their wives, played over the radio.
“Our task was to survive at any cost,” Mykhailo said.
Exiting the Kill Zone
Finally, on March 22, an officer radioed Henadii and Mykhailo: Two soldiers were on the way to replace them.
An hour later, the soldiers reached the house. “We were overjoyed, though we could hardly believe it,” Henadii recalled. The four men spent the night together, sharing survival tips and mapping enemy positions. At first light, Henadii and Mykhailo set out.
The journey home would be the most dangerous part of their deployment. The kill zone had expanded so much in six months that a mile-long walk in had transformed into a six-mile trek out. It would take them days.
To improve their chances, Maksym, their commander, had planned the route meticulously. He had identified roads poorly visible from the sky and marked houses every 150 yards where they could take cover. Supply packages were dropped in advance at each overnight stop.
As the two men walked, Maksym guided them by radio, correcting their paths by watching a live feed from a reconnaissance drone following them overhead. “Move left. Move right,” Mykhailo recalled the orders. “We zigzagged like hares.”
When they had gone to the front, they said, 90 percent of Primorske’s buildings still stood. Now, nearly all were gone. They moved slowly, worn down by more than 200 days in the kill zone and Mykhailo’s injured heel.
One morning, Henadii and Mykhailo narrowly escaped a Russian drone attack. Ten minutes after they left a house they had slept in, a drone destroyed it, said their commander, Maksym.
Eventually, after four days of walking, they reached the spot where a car would pick them up. They waited another day and a half. Then, on March 27, they were pulled out.
When they arrived at their unit’s command post later that day, they were barely recognizable. Both were much thinner. Mykhailo had grown a thick beard. Henadii, a heavy mustache.

For 2nd Time In 2 Weeks, Ukraine Tanks Attack, Are Hit - and Survive

2026-10-18T09:45:35.931-04:00

Call it proof of concept: for the second time in two weeks, Ukrainian tanks attacked Russian positions and survived the ensuing encounter with mines and drones.

The key to this development is the contemporary version of combined arms warfare. The tanks and armored personnel carriers are equipped with electronic warfare defenses, hedgehog anti-drone protections and, most importantly, are accompanies by a variety of FPV, bomber and surveillance drones to fight off Russian drones as well as suppress Russian defenders. Both sides are learning from this, but Ukraine's first mover advantage provides additional benefits in the context of its continued success across multiple sectors. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

For the second time in two weeks, Ukraine's 475th Assault Regiment has demonstrated how armored vehicles can fight and survive on a battlefield buzzing with enemy drones. The regiment encased a tank and an American-made M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle in metal frames and welded hundreds of metal spines onto those frames, transforming them into "hedgehog" vehicles. They fought in mixed ground-air "combined arms" formations. The tank and fighting vehicle provided the firepower. Escorting drones provided the aerial protection and lend the hedgehogs situational awareness. Vampire drones drop grenades to suppress Russian positions, clear mines and Russian drones. FPV drones intercept the Russians' own FPV drones as they zoom in to strike. The vehicles repeatedly came under attack from Russian FPVs but their armor held—and both vehicles survived.

For the second time in two weeks, Ukraine's 475th Assault Regiment has demonstrated how armored vehicles can fight and survive on a battlefield buzzing with enemy drones.
The regiment encased a tank and an American-made M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle in metal frames and welded hundreds of metal spines onto those frames, transforming them into "hedgehog" vehicles. The cage makes the tank impossible to identify from the footage, and the regiment hasn't said what model it is. The frames support the spines, which trigger incoming drones' warheads a safe distance from the vehicles' hulls.
But that's not all. To shepherd the two-vehicle formation across the disputed gray zone for a close engagement with a Russian position, presumably somewhere in northeastern Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast, the 475th Assault Regiment deployed drones: both single-use first-person-view models and grenade-dropping, reusable Vampire models.
The vehicles and their crews didn't fight alone. They fought in mixed ground-air "combined arms" formations. The tank and fighting vehicle provided the firepower. The escorting drones provided the aerial protection. Vampire drones drop grenades to suppress Russian positions and clear mines and loitering Russian drones. FPV drones dive down to intercept the Russians' own FPV drones as they zoom in to strike the vehicles.
The 475th Assault Regiment cut together a video montage of the most recent assault. The video depicts the tank and the Bradley rolling along a well-traveled route as at least one friendly FPV and at least one friendly Vampire drone flew overhead and an additional drone watched from a short distance away.
The vehicles repeatedly came under attack from Russian FPVs and heavier loitering munitions. An escorting Ukrainian FPV moved to intercept, with unclear results. A couple of Russian drones managed to score hits on the vehicles, but their hedgehog armor held—and both vehicles appear to have survived the there-and-back daytime trip into battle.

A way forward for vehicles
It's at least the second time the 475th Assault Regiment has deployed vehicle-drone teams. The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps used a related approach in its months-long counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast, which began this spring: it sent in ground robots first, suppressing Russian strongpoints, fraying Russian supply lines, and clearing routes for manned vehicles to follow.
The unmanned aerial escorts lend the 475th Assault Regiment's hedgehog vehicles situational awarenes they might not have on their own. It's well known that hedgehog armor can obscure a vehicle crew's view of the surrounding terrain. But friendly drones flying directly overhead can act as eyes in the sky for the crews on the ground.

The drones also help the vehicle crews compensate for a lack of mobility. The metal cages that support the metal spines that make up hedgehog armor tend to prevent a vehicle's turret from fully rotating. In order to aim its gun, a hedgehog vehicle has to meticulously point its whole self—turret and hull—at the enemy.

That takes trial and error, and time. The longer it takes, the more vulnerable a vehicle is to enemy drones. Friendly drones, running interference for the vehicles, can reduce that exposure long enough for the vehicle to fire a few shots.
The 475th Assault Regiment and 3rd Army Corps, among other units in Russia's wider war on Ukraine, are pointing the way forward for traditional armored vehicles in this new drone age. Yes, vehicles are more vulnerable to aerial attack than they were just a few years ago.
But no, armored vehicles aren't obsolete or useless. They just need a little help—or a lot of it—from the same kinds of drones that also make their existence so perilous.

As ,com Revealed, Adding .ai To Brand Name Is Not Long Term Benefit

2026-10-18T09:21:07.811-04:00

Just as in the dotcom era, adding .ai to your brand can produce some short term financial benefits, but long term gains will prove elusive as some companies who made that move are already seeing their stock value and market share disappearing. JL

Anthony Lopopolo reports in Quartz:

At least 27 companies have renamed themselves or announced an AI focus since 2023, and their combined stock market value more than doubled at the peak. Small companies made the same move with ".com" in the late 1990s, and their shares jumped. (But) shareholders who held those stocks afterward watched most of their money disappear, and anyone who owns an AI renamer today risks the same loss. 95 companies that took internet names between June 1998 and July 1999, saw their stocks rise 72% more than those of similar small companies without .com. Then, the Nasdaq fell 77% from its March 2000 peak to October 2002 and didn't set a new record until April 2015. Today's AI rebrands are getting the same quick reward, and some are already giving it back. By the end of September, the 27 .ai companies had lost more than half of their peak value, and seven were worth less. Shareholders fared even worse in an earlier rush to rename companies after blockchain.
Allbirds, the wool-sneaker maker turned cloud infrastructure company, was losing money fast before it ever mentioned AI. It lost $77 million last year as its revenue fell 20%, and its annual report warned of "substantial doubt" that it could stay in business. In late March, it agreed to sell its shoe brand to American Exchange Group for $39 million, and in April, it announced that the company left on the Nasdaq $NDAQ +0.50% would become NewBird AI and rent out the computer chips that run AI programs. Its shares rose as much as 435%.

University of Pennsylvania Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions Gad Allon said the new name says less about AI than about money. "The bet here isn't really, 'We're going to become an A.I. company,'" Allon told Observer. "The bet is, 'We can use this public shell and the current market appetite for anything A.I.-related to raise capital and acquire our way into relevance.'"
Allbirds isn't alone. A day after its announcement, the social media company Myseum added ".AI" to its name, and its shares jumped, too. At least 27 companies have renamed themselves or announced an AI focus since 2023, and their combined stock market value more than doubled at the peak. Small companies made the same move with ".com" in the late 1990s, and their shares jumped just as fast. Shareholders who held those stocks for years afterward watched most of their money disappear, and anyone who owns an AI renamer today risks the same loss.

The immediate benefits of switching to a .com name
In 1998 and 1999, investors bid up a company’s stock as soon as it added .com to its name. Three Purdue University finance researchers, Michael Cooper, Orlin Dimitrov and P. Raghavendra Rau, studied 95 companies that took internet names between June 1998 and July 1999, and in the 11 days around each announcement, those stocks rose 72% more than the stocks of similar small companies that switched to ordinary names. "A mere association with the Internet seems enough to provide a firm with a large and permanent value increase," the researchers wrote.
It didn’t matter what a company actually did. One with no internet business at all got about the same lift from its new name as one that did all its business online, and over the next six months, the companies with no internet business did best of all, rising 243% more than an index of internet stocks such as Amazon $AMZN -1.87%, Yahoo and eBay. The researchers called it "a degree of investor mania."
The rush was strongest in tiny stocks that few investors followed. Almost all of the companies the Purdue researchers found traded on the OTC Bulletin Board, a market for very small companies whose shares rarely traded, and the cheaper a company’s stock, the more it jumped. In the month around the day each company took its .com name, the cheapest stocks in the study went from an average of 41 cents a share to $1.11. The most expensive rose only slightly.

Take MIS International, which had never turned a profit or run any business before 1999. The Atlantic reported that the company's shares cost well under 50 cents apiece. After MIS moved to rename itself Cosmoz.com, its stock climbed to as high as $5. It later settled back at $2, still more than four times its price before the switch. An official in the Securities and Exchange Commission's investor-education office worried that stocks like Cosmoz.com could tempt investors, and she warned against buying a stock just because of what it was called.
What became of companies that took .com names
Zap.com is another example of what what a .com business looked like without actually having one. Its parent, Zapata, was a Rochester, N.Y., holding company whose main business was turning menhaden, a herring-like fish, into fish meal. Zapata formed Zap.com to build a network of websites, handed 2% of its shares to Zapata's own stockholders in November 1999, and listed it on the OTC Bulletin Board. By early 2000, Zap.com had no revenue, not one website owner had signed up, and its ad banner ran only on Zapata's own sites. On Dec. 15, 2000, Zap.Com's board shut down all of its internet operations and fired its salaried staff. Zapata's stock lost more than four-fifths of its value before shutting Zap.com down.
Egghead shut every computer store it had and bet the company on its website, and three years later it was bankrupt. The software chain closed the last of its stores in 1998, cut 80% of its staff, and sold only through Egghead.com. At one point, the company was worth more than $430 million. "What did we gain? The biggest gain was survival," chairman George Orban said. Egghead survived about 18 more months. It eventually sold its domain name to Amazon in December 2001.

Investors who held internet stocks through the crash watched most of their money disappear. The whole Nasdaq fell 77% from its March 2000 peak to October 2002 and didn't set a new record until April 2015. Bev Hess, a real-estate agent in Nebraska, paid $39,900 for 350 shares of InfoSpace, which traded as Infospace.com before it dropped the suffix. She held on when the stock fell in March 2000, and by 2005 her shares were worth $1,450, less than 4% of what she paid. At 65, she had too little money left to stop working. "I'm working my butt off," Hess told The Seattle Times.
The risks for AI companies chasing the same payday
Once internet stocks crashed, investors rewarded companies for taking .com back out of their names, and most of those companies changed nothing else. Cooper, Rau, and three co-authors studied 61 companies that dropped .com after February 2000, and their stocks rose 47.5% over the roughly three months around the announcement. Only six of the 67 companies that dropped it appear to have actually left the internet business. In 2001, Internet.com renamed itself INT Media Group, and its stock jumped from about $3 a share to $4.50, though chairman Alan Meckler told the Associated Press the new name was just for show.
Today's AI rebrands are getting the same quick reward, and some are already giving it back. By the end of September, the 27 companies in the Financial Times' count had lost more than half of their combined peak value, and seven were worth less than before they announced anything. Shareholders fared even worse in an earlier rush to rename companies after blockchain. In 2017, Long Island Iced Tea became Long Blockchain, and its stock rose more than 380% the day after the announcement. In 2021, the SEC pulled the registration of its stock, and the agency says three men bought or sold its shares knowing about the name change before the public did.

Allbirds shareholders who kept their shares are betting on a company that has never rented out a computer chip. Fortune reported that Allbirds had no AI expertise, no team to buy chips, and no experience running a data center. The company's own proxy told shareholders that anyone who held on would own a newly started AI computing business, and warned that turning new loans into stock could shrink their stake materially. "The execution gap is enormous. Running a footwear supply chain and building A.I. infrastructure have nothing in common," Allon, the University of Pennsylvania professor, told Observer. "No shared talent, no shared technology, no shared customer relationships."

Ukraine's Most Underrated Military Advantage Is Leadership

2026-10-17T10:55:44.889-04:00

Much has been written about Ukraine's capacity for innovation and the results it has produced from drones to missiles to electronic warfare.

But Ukraine's key strategic advantage over Russia may be the quality of its leadership, from the office of the presidency to the officers in staffs and on the ground who have learned the hard way how to assess the right troops and weapons, then apply them at the right time, in the right place and in the right way. JL

David Deptula reports in Forbes:

Military effectiveness is determined not simply by weapons, but by the quality of the decisions governing their employment. Ukraine has found ways to outthink, out plan, and outperform its opponent. Equally important is the integration of military capabilities: airpower, land and maritime forces, intelligence, space, cyber, electronic warfare, and logistics contribute to using the right force at the right place at the right time. The measure of success is not how many targets are destroyed or how much ground changes hands but that military actions achieve operational and strategic objectives. Operation Vivaldi, conducted by Ukraine’s 3rd Corps, offers is instructive. The emphasis was on creating favorable conditions before committing forces, reducing the delay between recognizing a problem and acting on it. The results validated the importance of focusing military operations on achieving strategic effects rather than destruction for its own sake.
Spending time with senior Ukrainian military officers who are directing their country’s war for survival is a reminder of how much lies behind the daily reports from the battlefield. Maps tell us where forces are positioned. Intelligence can identify capabilities and vulnerabilities. Neither fully captures the judgments, institutional constraints, or accumulated experience of commanders who must make decisions while lives hang in the balance.

The most revealing discussions do not always take place at a podium. They occur when people with different military experiences have enough time and trust to challenge assumptions, acknowledge mistakes, and ask difficult questions. For Americans, those exchanges offer valuable insights into many aspects of this war. For Ukrainians, they provide an opportunity to examine Western approaches to joint or integrated military operations, campaign planning, and military leadership. Both sides have something substantial to learn.

One conclusion stands out: military effectiveness is determined not simply by the weapons a nation possesses, but by the quality of the decisions governing their employment. For Ukraine, facing an adversary with greater manpower and industrial capacity, that distinction is not academic. Russia can sustain a war of attrition on terms Ukraine cannot afford to match. Ukraine must instead find ways to outthink, out plan, and outperform its opponent.
The Value of Candor
The Ukrainian commanders I met last weekend in a discrete, private location in the U.S. are dealing with challenges that should command the attention of every Western military professional: integrating uninhabited air, sea, and ground vehicles with conventional forces, operating under electronic attack, sustaining forces under attack, defending against missile and drone strikes, and conducting strategic attacks inside Russia to undermine its ability to continue their aggression. They must also adapt to a Russian military that is learning, in part because delays by Ukraine’s partners in providing critical capabilities have given Moscow time to adjust—the gift of time.
A weekend of discussion cannot resolve these problems. What it can do is illuminate the assumptions that govern how commanders confront them. Why does a headquarters require an additional approval before acting? Why are information and capabilities divided among commands that ought to be working toward the same operational effect? Which practices are dictated by necessity, and which survive merely because they have always been done that way?

Such questions are most productive when raised among people who understand the weight of command. Candid exchange builds professional trust; trust creates the space for disagreement; and disagreement, handled constructively, produces learning. The relationships also endure. A connection forged in person can become a channel for rapid consultation when circumstances change on the battlefield.
Moving Beyond the Soviet Inheritance
One of Ukraine’s enduring military challenges is not technological. It is institutional: replacing remnants of Soviet command culture with a system that better enables initiative, operational integration, and accountability. This should not be confused with any lack of courage or ingenuity among Ukrainian forces, which have repeatedly demonstrated both.

The traditional Soviet approach emphasized centralized decisions, rigid hierarchy, and detailed instructions from higher headquarters. That can produce uniformity, but it can also suppress initiative and slow action. On a battlefield saturated by surveillance and precision weapons, the time between identifying an opportunity and exploiting it can determine success or failure.

Western doctrine instead places greater emphasis on mission command. Senior leaders communicate the desired objective, the reasons it matters, and the resources available; subordinate commanders are expected to apply judgment in determining how to accomplish the mission. This is not freedom to ignore orders. It is disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent.
Equally important is the integration of military capabilities. Modern joint warfare demands that airpower, land and maritime forces, intelligence, space, cyber, electronic warfare, and logistics contribute to a coherent campaign using the right force at the right place at the right time. The measure of success is not simply how many targets are destroyed or how much ground changes hands. It is whether military actions produce the effects required to achieve operational and strategic objectives.
The practical importance of this distinction was demonstrated in the planning and execution of the air campaign for Operation Desert Storm. The objective was not simply to destroy enemy forces and infrastructure, but to systematically disrupt the enemy’s ability to function as an integrated whole. The results validated the importance of focusing military operations on achieving strategic effects rather than destruction for its own sake. That principle remains equally relevant in the Russia-Ukraine war, where expending scarce personnel and ammunition on disconnected tactical successes can become a costly substitute for meaningful operational progress.

Ukraine should not attempt to copy an American model wholesale. Its combat experience has produced innovations that Western forces would be foolish to disregard. But making decentralized execution, integrated planning, and an effects-based approach routine throughout a large military organization takes more than a new field manual. It takes education, repetition, institutional reinforcement, and a change in command culture.
What Better Command Practices Look Like
Operation Vivaldi, conducted by Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, offers an instructive illustration. According to a September 30, 2026, statement from Ukraine’s presidential office, the operation disrupted a Russian drive toward the Slovyansk–Kramatorsk area and helped recover control over approximately 176 square kilometers of territory.
More revealing than the map is the preparation behind that result. In a September 23 account, the corps’ deputy commander, Colonel Rodion Kudriashov, described months spent reorganizing headquarters, improving command relationships and logistical coordination, and better integrating intelligence and uninhabited vehicles. The emphasis was on creating favorable conditions before committing forces and reducing the delay between recognizing a problem and acting on it.

That is operational art in practice: arranging capabilities, decisions, and timing to achieve an objective, rather than assuming additional troops or weapons alone will suffice. It does not eliminate friction, uncertainty, or casualties. It can, however, increase the effect achieved with the resources available.
One of the corps’ deputy chiefs of staff, spoke publicly about the value of leadership education, supported in this instance by the Ukrainian Freedom Fund, in strengthening planning, leadership, and decision-making. His observations underscore the practical value of professional military education at the operational level, where the ability to think critically, anticipate enemy actions, integrate capabilities, and make timely decisions can determine success or failure.
Operation Vivaldi’s accomplishments belong to the Ukrainian commanders and service members who planned and executed it. But their experience also illustrates why investing in the intellectual development of military leaders is so important: superior leadership and decision-making are essential ingredients of battlefield success.

Military Education Is Not a Substitute for Military Power
Assistance to Ukraine is usually counted in dollars, ammunition, and warfighting material. All are necessary. Yet the combat value of any delivery depends heavily on whether commanders know how to integrate it into operations. Poor coordination can squander precision weapons; weak planning can expose forces unnecessarily; excessive centralization can allow a fleeting opportunity to disappear.
Professional military education is therefore an important complement to materiel assistance, not an alternative to it. Since 2023, the Ukrainian Freedom Fund has supported Ukrainian leaders through over 150 professional-development activities. The significance of that number is not the amount of certificates earned. It is whether officers take better staff processes, stronger command relationships, and more effective methods of decision-making back to their units—and whether those practices endure after the instructors leave.
The practical value of this education is increasingly evident to Ukrainian commanders. A senior training officer on Ukraine’s general staff told our group that demand for Ukrainian Freedom Fund leadership and operational planning courses has grown as unit commanders recognize the benefits of applying NATO planning processes to improve coordination and combat effectiveness. Senior Ukrainian and former senior U.S. military officers reinforced this point, emphasizing that more sophisticated air campaign planning and integration are essential to realizing the full combat potential of Ukraine’s F-16s. The broader lesson is that advanced military capabilities deliver their greatest value when matched by the knowledge, planning expertise, and command structures necessary to employ them effectively.

Americans Have as Much Reason to Listen as to Teach
These exchanges are not simply one-directional. Ukrainians have accumulated a depth of recent combat experience using uninhabited vehicles, electronic attack, dispersed operations, contested logistics, and rapid adaptation. Their practical lessons should be examined seriously as the U.S. military reassesses its doctrine, training, force design, and readiness.
But we must also be discriminating about which lessons to adopt. Ukraine’s ingenious employment of small, attritable drones reflects both innovation and the constraints imposed by shortages of artillery, aircraft, and other capabilities. We would be learning the wrong lesson if we concluded that America should prepare to fight China primarily through a grinding contest of attrition. Our objective must be to prevent such a war by being able to rapidly achieve air and space superiority, integrate multi-domain capabilities, field sufficient capable capacity, and generate decisive effects at scale. Perhaps the most important lessons to come out of this war that the U.S. must incorporate are do not allow the enemy sanctuary, and do not provide them the gift of time.
One of the greatest benefits of interactions with Ukrainian commanders is the opportunity to distinguish what is universal about warfare from what is contingent on Ukraine’s circumstances. They can challenge Western assumptions just as Western experience can help them question inherited practices. That is what makes the dialogue consequential.

The Return That Lasts
Institutional transformation is neither quick nor linear. Some units will adapt faster than others; changing a headquarters chart is easier than changing its habits. Nevertheless, officers developing judgment and professional competence today will later command larger formations, teach successors, and influence the design of Ukraine’s military institutions. Their experience will help determine whether wartime ingenuity becomes enduring capability—and whether Ukraine’s armed forces continue moving toward NATO-compatible methods without losing what they have learned in combat.
That is the lasting value of engagement with senior Ukrainian military leaders. The immediate benefit is insight; the more important result may be relationships and ideas that outlast any meetings. This work will never be as photogenic as delivering a new aircraft or missile. But neither that aircraft nor that missile can compensate for poor operational decisions.
Helping Ukraine defeat Russian aggression means more than providing the means to continue fighting—although that is critical. It also means helping Ukraine fight more effectively, conserve the lives of its people, and secure its independence. The most important capability is not always the weapon in a commander’s hands. It is the judgment that determines how, when, and why that weapon is used.

Russians Surrender En Masse as Ukraine Applies Lyman Tactics To Kharkhiv Salient

2026-10-17T10:26:37.179-04:00

Applying the same strategy and tactics that worked in the Lyman sector during Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces in Kharkhiv oblast cut off a Russian salient and then either eliminated or accepted the surrender of the Russian troops trapped therein.

This template now seems broadly applicable to other Russian advances, in large measure because the Russians prefer to get credit for gains, so are not careful about protecting their flanks and thus create new vulnerabilities. JL

RFU News reports:

Russian troops attempting to complete the encirclement of Ukrainian defenses north of Kharkiv increasingly found themselves stranded inside Ukrainian-controlled or contested territory as Ukrainian drone operators concentrated on disrupting Russian logistics. Without reinforcements, an infiltration remains an isolated position rather than a sustainable breakthrough. Realizing they were surrounded by Ukrainian observation and facing further attacks, the Russians surrendered. Russia’s strategy depends upon establishing positions faster than Ukraine can eliminate them, but systematic Ukrainian interdiction is reversing that calculation and trapping the Russian infiltrators

Today, there is important news from the Kharkiv direction.
Here, Russia’s attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces near the border north of Kharkiv is running into serious trouble, as the Ukrainian troops have exposed a critical weakness in the Russian offensive, isolating the enemy infiltration groups that cannot survive without continuous reinforcements.
The situation became particularly dangerous around Zakharkivka, near Vovchansk, where small Russian groups infiltrated Ukrainian defensive positions. Their objective was to establish footholds that could eventually connect with other Russian advances to the east, creating an encirclement, as only a twelve-kilometer corridor would have remained available for Ukrainian forces to avoid being surrounded. Losing that corridor could threaten withdrawal routes, complicate resupply, and expose Ukrainian soldiers to attacks from multiple directions. As a result, Ukraine needed to eliminate the infiltrators before they could consolidate and threaten the western flank of the corridor.
As you may remember from a previous report, the Ukrainian response began well behind the immediate frontline, as Ukrainian drone operators concentrated on disrupting Russian logistics. Supply vehicles, reinforcement routes, and troop movements became targets, preventing infiltrating groups from receiving ammunition, food, replacements, and rotations, exploiting the fundamental weakness of Russia’s infiltration tactics. Small groups can slip through gaps in defensive lines, but controlling territory requires continuous support. Without reinforcements, an infiltration remains an isolated position rather than a sustainable breakthrough. Consequently, Russian troops attempting to complete the encirclement increasingly found themselves stranded inside Ukrainian-controlled or contested territory.
One particularly revealing operation unfolded around Zakharkivka, after Russian soldiers infiltrated it and prepared to move further forward, but Ukrainian reconnaissance identified their movement. Drone crews from the Achilles Brigade immediately launched unmanned aircraft to locate and track the group. The Russians attempted to conceal themselves inside a shelter, hoping to avoid detection and wait for an opportunity to continue their mission.
Instead, Ukrainian Achilles heavy bomber drones, supported by operators from the Astur Unmanned Systems Regiment, attacked their hiding position. The coordinated pressure forced the Russians to abandon their shelter and retreat, but escaping the building did not mean escaping Ukrainian surveillance. Ukrainian drones continued tracking the soldiers as they moved through the area, leaving them exposed and unable to reestablish a concealed position.
Realizing they were surrounded by Ukrainian observation and facing further attacks, the Russians raised their hands to signal surrender.
At that moment, the Ukrainian mission changed from eliminating the assault group to capturing its surviving members. Drone operators maintained surveillance while soldiers from the Ukrainian Rangers Special Operations Forces Regiment approached on foot. The Ukrainian infantry completed the clearing operation and took the Russians prisoner. The coordinated action of three Ukrainian formations therefore prevented another infiltration group from attacking Ukrainian positions while securing additional prisoners for future exchanges. More importantly, this engagement illustrates how Ukraine is dismantling the Russian encirclement attempt, with the contested grey zone becoming increasingly difficult for Russia to hold.
Overall, the stabilization around Zakharkivka weakens the western pincer of the attempted encirclement, protecting Ukrainian movement routes and reducing pressure on the remaining corridor. Combined with stabilization of the eastern flank, this denies Russian forces the opportunity to connect their advances and trap Ukrainian troops near the border. The broader significance extends toward Vovchansk and the northern approaches to Kharkiv, where preventing Russian footholds from developing into permanent positions remains crucial. Russia’s infiltration strategy depends upon establishing positions faster than Ukraine can eliminate them, but systematic Ukrainian interdiction is reversing that calculation and trapping the Russian infiltrators, so they have no choice but to surrender in groups.

AI Companies Face Growing Product Damage Legal Liability With No Insurance

2026-10-17T10:09:14.331-04:00

The potential legal liability risk from lawsuits generated by creation or use of AI that results in damages - or worse - is growing at the same pace as the ostensible AI market.

Which is frightening enough, but unlike the protections afforded by section 230 to an earlier generation of tech companies, AI firms and users face a much larger risk because they admittedly do contribute to content. And even if you could find AI insurance, it tends to max out in the millions while the risk is easily in the billions. This is becoming a board-level concern for both AI generators and their customers put the AI models to use. While some in Silicon Valley are calling for a government-funded solution, the public antipathy to AI is such that this seems increasingly unlikely. JL

Jen Eaglesham reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Rogue AI have hacked websites. AI chatbots have been encouraging suicides and murders. An agent submitted fake unsolved murder tips. The latest episodes add to existing lawsuits AI companies face alleging chatbot harm and copyright violations from models' training. The limitless possibilities of AI to change the world also include a wide-ranging capacity for harm that could leave companies that produce or use AI legally vulnerable. The biggest AI companies are racking up potential legal liabilities running into the tens—if not hundreds—of billions of dollars for AI companies because they materially contribute to content. A few insurers sell coverage for AI risks. But the policy limits are small compared with the potential exposure of the AI giants. “There’s too little capacity in every aspect of the risk being created by the AI boom.”

A string of artificial-intelligence safety incidents is exposing a gaping hole for the fast-growing industry: the lack of available insurance.
Rogue agents have hacked into websites. AI chatbots have been accused of encouraging suicides and murders. An agent submitted fake unsolved murder tips. The latest episodes add to existing lawsuits AI companies face alleging chatbot harm and copyright violations when models are trained.
The seemingly limitless possibilities of AI to change the world also include a wide-ranging capacity for harm that could leave companies that produce or use AI legally vulnerable.
The biggest AI companies are racking up potential legal liabilities running into the tens—if not hundreds—of billions of dollars, as AI adoption spreads through the economy, according to insurers specializing in AI risks. Some industry officials have even called for the U.S. government to provide a liability backstop.
AI companies have the usual corporate suite of traditional insurance policies, such as general liability and cyber-insurance, brokers said. But the industry’s phenomenal rate of growth means AI-related claims have the potential to outpace the limits on that coverage, according to AI and insurance industry insiders.
“There’s too little capacity in every aspect of the risk that is being created by the AI capital boom,” said Nick Studer, chief executive of Marsh Risk, the insurance brokerage arm of professional-services firm Marsh. “But that is changing.”
A few insurers sell coverage specifically for AI risks, including from agents. But the policy limits are small compared with the potential exposure of the AI giants. Reinsurer Munich Re offers a policy to cover errors by AI models with limits of up to $50 million, according to a spokesman.
Startups are hoping to fill the gap, and insurance companies more broadly see AI down the road as a new opportunity for offering specialty products.
Rune Kvist, a former Anthropic employee, is a co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, which has backing from Lloyd’s of London’s insurance marketplace.
The planned IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI are adding to the focus on the “gaps in the insurance and other safety nets for those risks,” says Kvist.
The biggest AI companies are willing to buy billions of dollars of coverage and have the balance sheet and cash to afford it, said George Lewin-Smith, CEO of Testudo, a U.K.-based AI insurer also affiliated with Lloyd’s. He added that coverage at that scale for such liabilities isn’t available. “The reality is—it just doesn’t exist on planet Earth,” he said.
AI startups might be exposed to liabilities in ways previous generations of tech companies weren’t. Web portals and social-media companies were largely shielded from being held liable for content on their platforms by a provision of federal law passed in 1996 known as Section 230.
The protection might not be as useful for AI companies because they materially contribute to the content, according to a report by Moody’s Analytics.
The biggest AI developers have deep-enough pockets to cover many liabilities. But a major incident that causes widespread economic or human harm could swamp a company’s financial buffers.
Insurance firms are selling specialty policies to the major AI companies as a way to reassure nervous regulators and investors.
A policy, even for far less than the potential loss, demonstrates that an outside party has assessed and is willing to cover a risk. Policies for AI risks are often underwritten on the basis of simulation testing of the likelihood of errors, creating a de facto audit of the underlying tech.
Insurance—or the inability to acquire it at an affordable price—has the potential to help police AI by imposing guardrails on both developers and users as a condition of coverage, brokers and insurers say.
Venture capitalist David Sacks, part of a new White House task force on AI, suggested insurance could add teeth to a voluntary industry agreement on controls. In a social-media post, he said a safety issue reported internally under the agreement could in some circumstances be used by an insurer to deny directors-and-officers coverage—protection designed to shield executives from personal liability.
Insurers are divided over how best to respond to the spiraling risks—and opportunities—from AI. The industry is racing to profit from AI data centers, described by broker Aon as “the insurance market’s biggest ever opportunity.”
But the industry is increasingly worried about what is called silent risk, where mainstream policies for businesses using AI neither affirmatively cover nor exclude losses caused by the technology. More than 90% of AI risks covered by insurance fall into this silent category, according to Aon.
AI losses don’t fit neatly into existing insurance categories, creating scope for disputes about what is and isn’t covered, according to a report this year by Rand, a U.S.-based think tank. The report flagged an “emerging mismatch between rapid enterprise adoption of AI and the fragmented market for insuring (or not insuring) AI use, particularly in the United States.”
The different types of AI-inspired losses range from bodily injury and property damage—caused by, say, an error-prone factory robot—to copyright infringement, unauthorized data disclosures, hallucinated errors and regulatory penalties.
An option to exclude AI from companies’ general liability and other policies is spreading through the industry.
Verisk’s Insurance Services Office, which provides widely used standardized insurance-policy forms, this year introduced optional exclusions for generative AI. It is weighing additional optional exclusions for other AI-related exposures, including agentic AI, according to a Verisk spokeswoman.
American International Group and Chubb are among a growing band of insurers with the option to use the existing Verisk exclusions, should they want to do so in the future. An AIG spokesman said the insurer automatically adopts the standardized forms, which is a “common practice across the industry.”
Marsh, the biggest global insurance broker, which acts on behalf of companies negotiating with insurers, this month sounded the alarm on exclusions. Studer, the head of its insurance brokerage, said in a letter to leading insurers that excluding AI risks would be a “backward step” for the industry.
“It will increase coverage uncertainty and increase disputes,” Studer wrote, according to a copy of the letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Marsh will recommend that clients seek cover elsewhere if an insurer imposes AI exclusions, the letter said. But it added that brokers, insurers and clients will need to work together to manage “genuinely novel exposures…around agentic AI and autonomous decision-making.”

The Backstairs Kremlin Maneuvering To Succeed Putin Has Already Begun

2026-10-16T10:42:21.264-04:00

Putin is 74 years old. He shows no signs of fading or of giving up power. But like most dictators, he is surrounded by a cadre of largely faceless men - and they are all men. This is intentional both on his part and theirs.

He will brook no rivals or pretenders to the throne. And his courtiers are well aware that promoting themselves through public recognition will quickly lead to an 'accidental' fall from a high window. But behind the scenes they are maneuvering so as to be in the best position when he either dies, falters due to age or his misadventures in Ukraine and elsewhere finally catch up with him. All, though, are acutely aware of Kremlin history, particularly after Stalin's death, when the subordinate considered least capable and least likely to succeed Stalin actually won. His name was Nikita Kruschchev. JL

Raj K reports in Medium:

In dictatorial systems, the dictator behaves as if he is immortal, while the courtiers around him constantly look to fill the power vacuum. Putin' inner courtiers are already preparing for the world after him and the battle of succession. Stalin sowed distrust among his companions, leveled accusations of conspiracies against them, and tested their loyalty so no one could build power around himself. Putin is on the same path today. As he turns 74, his body weakens and his contact with the real world fades, he will resort even more to fear, cruelty, and war to maintain his power. The model for the system after Putin is drawn from the power struggle that took place after Stalin’s death in March 1953 when a fierce battle took place among Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikita Khrushchev, in which Khrushchev, regarded as ordinary, surprised Russians by having Beria killed, and then pushed the remaining rivals to the margins and seized supreme power.

The biggest contradiction of dictatorial systems is that the dictator behaves as if he is immortal, while the courtiers around him constantly look to fill the possible power vacuum.
Putin is approaching 74. As this dictator's time at the top grows, the number of people in the corridors of the Kremlin who believe in the claims of any magical “elixir” or eternal youth keeps shrinking.
On the surface, it may look like complete peace and unbroken loyalty, but Putin’s inner courtier system is already preparing for the world after him, that is, for the battle of succession.
But Putin is neither preparing a successor nor does he currently intend to. He runs a system in which the moment a successor's name is mentioned, the ruler loses relevance.
Many people ask: in which direction will power turn after Putin, and which players are currently at the forefront of this hidden race?
— — — — —
To understand Putin’s current political behavior, it becomes essential to look at Soviet history, especially the final phase of Joseph Stalin’s rule.
Putin sees himself as a great historical hero who, like Stalin, wants to show that he is the only alternative.
In his final years, Stalin did not declare anyone his successor. Stalin deliberately diminished the stature of his colleagues, such as Vyacheslav Molotov.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
stalin-molotov-kremlin-meeting Credit: AI-generated image
Molotov was considered the natural successor, but Stalin first arrested his wife, then publicly humiliated him and pushed him out of the Politburo.
Stalin often sowed distrust among his companions, leveled accusations of secret conspiracies against them, and tested their loyalty so no one in the corridors of power could build a center of power around himself.
There is no doubt that Putin is on the same path today. In 2008, Putin experimented with a power swap with Dmitry Medvedev, which, in his experience, was enough once.
Dmitry Medvedev, Putin Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
He does not want to weaken his position again by formally making anyone his “number 2”.
Putin does distribute administrative and financial resources to those close to him, but he keeps the most important tool of power — the siloviki (security agencies) and the legitimate monopoly on violence — completely concentrated in his own hands.
He is building a system that can run by itself, but with the steering wheel remaining only in his hands. In Putin’s Russia, there is an unwritten but strict rule: no official will promote his own “politics”.
In Russian bureaucratic terms, “politics” means personal PR or the display of future ambitions.
Whether it is a powerful federal minister or the governor of a vast region, if the media even starts discussing anyone’s personal political rise or his possible succession to Putin, the official’s PR team immediately gets busy suppressing it.
Officials have to repeat on every public platform that they are only the President’s soldiers, that their work is only to fulfill assigned responsibilities, and that they have no independent ambition.
The main reason is the FSB's (Federal Security Service) extensive surveillance.
Every high official of the Kremlin knows very well that his phone is being tapped and that every meeting of his is being monitored.
Detailed “dossiers” or files on the financial scandals, benami (proxy-held) properties, and secret transactions of every top official are already prepared.
The system tolerates an official having a file of black money. Still, if even the slightest clue of mobilization or political coordination as “an alternative to Putin” is found in any file, then his political and personal downfall is certain.
The blow that fell on military commanders after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion has multiplied this fear many times over.
According to the Russian Constitution, if the presidency becomes vacant for any reason, the Prime Minister assumes the role of acting President.
This is why, in this future race, the Prime Minister by default has the strongest starting position. At present, Mikhail Mishustin holds this post.
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Acting Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin Image by Kremlin ru
However, for Putin, Mishustin is not part of his inner circle; he is a temporary manager.
Putin can replace the Prime Minister with a single signature, without dissolving the entire government.
The 2020 constitutional amendments have given the President the freedom to remove the Prime Minister whenever he wants.
We should also note that when Mishustin turned 60 in March, Putin did not give him any state medal, whereas industrialist Suleiman Kerimov was immediately awarded a medal on his 60th birthday.
Putin did not even publicly congratulate Mishustin. Despite this, Mishustin continues to show complete discipline and repeatedly affirms unwavering loyalty to the President.
But as far as I believe, Mishustin can never take Putin’s post. If there are any other contenders, they could be Sergei Sobyanin and Sergei Kiriyenko.
Sobyanin is the powerful mayor of Moscow and has been associated with Putin since the 2000s. If something happens to Putin in the near future, a coalition of large financial and administrative stakeholders can form around Sobyanin. But his age, 68, goes against him.
On the other hand, Kiriyenko has built an administrative machinery for Putin’s authoritarian structure that is almost impossible to change.
He has created a system that trains hundreds of thousands of civil servants and controls ideology, media, and culture.
But in the traditional tug-of-war going on between the Kremlin administration and the security agencies (FSB), Kiriyenko often finds himself in the crosshairs.
Security officials believe that Kiriyenko’s people make paper plans, while the real work of control is possible only through fear and repression.
The children and supporters of Putin’s old companions—known as the “Cooperative Ozero” group—have now taken top positions in the government and state companies.
Dmitry Patrushev: the son of Putin’s most hardline and powerful companion, Nikolai Patrushev (age 75).
He rose to Deputy Prime Minister after stints at the FSB Academy, VTB Bank, Gazprom, and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Boris Kovalchuk: the son of Putin’s closest friend Yuri Kovalchuk, and now the head of the Accounts Chamber.
Denis Manturov: close to Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov (who had worked with Putin in Dresden) and controls the country’s entire industry.
As a dictator grows old, the influence of those who control “access to the body” increases disproportionately compared to the major ministers of the state.
Those who decide when he sleeps, wakes, travels, and meets become the real centers of power.
In this category, the most powerful person is 54-year-old Alexei Dyumin. Dyumin was once Putin’s personal bodyguard and chief adjutant.
He led the special military operation to extract Viktor Yanukovych from Ukraine in 2014 and played an active role in the annexation of Crimea.
Putin can remain in power for another 10 years as well, but the biological reality of aging cannot be avoided.
In Leonid Brezhnev's final years, the Soviet people had grown accustomed to his faltering steps, unclear speeches, and fascination with medals.
The people had become emotionally cut off from power, and the entire society had begun living in an era of political jokes (anekdoty). Putin does not want to look ridiculous like Brezhnev; he wants people to fear him.
Therefore, as his body weakens and his contact with the real world fades, he will resort even more aggressively to fear, cruelty, and a frenzy of war to maintain his power.
The model for the system after Putin is often drawn from the power struggle that took place after Stalin’s death in March 1953.
After Stalin’s death, a fierce struggle took place among Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikita Khrushchev, in which Khrushchev, who was regarded as ordinary, first brought everyone together, had Beria killed, and then, in the next 2 years, pushed the remaining rivals to the margins and seized supreme power.
But among Putin’s courtiers, there is no Khrushchev-like aggression or Beria-like cruel courage; therefore, it is unlikely that, as soon as Putin goes, someone like Khrushchev will have his rivals shot and seize power.

Aerial Drone To Evacuate Wounded Now Being Used By Ukrainians

2026-10-16T09:56:45.770-04:00

This could literally be a life-saver on the Ukrainian battlefield where drones have made evacuation of wounded soldiers supremely risky and the notion of the 'golden hour' (the time in which evacuating wounded soldiers increases the likelihood of survival) is but a dream.

This drone is equipped to avoid jamming, can carry up to 300 pounds, can fly in rain or snow and can continue to operate if it loses one of its rotors. JL

Cyril Barabaltchouk reports in United 24:

StarGate is Ukraine's first aerial drone designed to evacuate wounded soldiers from areas too dangerous for conventional vehicles or evacuation teams. In some sectors, the battlefield “kill zone” under constant drone and artillery threat extends 10 to 15 kilometers or farther. StarGate has a one-way range of 15 kilometers and is designed to reach wounded troops inside those areas. “Covering 10 kilometers in minutes would be a drastic change on the front line.” StarGate can carry up to 150 kilograms (over 300 pounds), enough for a wounded soldier wearing body armor and combat equipment. Its evacuation compartment is built around a medical-grade stretcher. The drone cruises at 65 kilometers per hour and can reach 105 kilometers per hour. Tt can be prepared for flight in 10 minutes.

Ukraine has begun front-line testing of StarGate, its first aerial drone designed to evacuate wounded soldiers from areas too dangerous for conventional vehicles or evacuation teams, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Octobe 16.
Ukraine is increasingly using unmanned ground vehicles to evacuate wounded troops from areas where Russian FPV drones make conventional rescue missions too dangerous. In April, the First Separate Medical Battalion completed six casualty evacuations with ground robots in a single day under constant drone threat.

AP received exclusive access to a field demonstration of the system before StarGate was handed to a Ukrainian combat brigade for testing under front-line conditions.

“The idea came directly from the front line, from the trenches,” a SkyFall spokesperson told AP.
The drone was developed over the past year by Ukrainian defense technology company SkyFall after a request from the commander of the 475th Separate Assault Regiment, known as Code 9.2.
In some sectors, the battlefield “kill zone” under constant drone and artillery threat extends 10 to 15 kilometers or farther, AP reported. StarGate has a one-way range of 15 kilometers and is designed to reach wounded troops inside those areas without exposing an evacuation crew.
“Covering 10 kilometers in minutes would be a drastic change on the front line,” KVN, a commander with Code 9.2, told AP.

StarGate can carry up to 150 kilograms, enough for a wounded soldier wearing body armor and combat equipment. Its evacuation compartment is built around a medical-grade stretcher.
According to AP, the drone cruises at 65 kilometers per hour and can reach 105 kilometers per hour. SkyFall states that it can be prepared for flight in about 10 minutes.
The system uses Starlink and SkyFall’s proprietary L-Link communications system, alongside AI-assisted navigation designed for environments where GPS is unavailable, spoofed, or jammed.
During the demonstration observed by AP, FPV drones simulated attacks on StarGate while electronic jamming was active. The evacuation drone deployed a net against one approaching FPV, knocking it off course.

SkyFall also states that StarGate can return toward a safe area if communications are completely lost. The drone is equipped with thermal cameras for night operations and is designed to fly in rain and snow.
The company has demonstrated that the aircraft can continue flying after losing one of its arms, although AP noted that SkyFall has not released data showing how reliably it can survive damage under combat conditions.
Each system is expected to cost at least $50,000, depending on its configuration. SkyFall aims to produce up to 1,000 StarGate drones per month by the end of 2026.

“It’s a completely new method of evacuation,” KVN told AP. “It’s difficult to talk in depth about the pros and cons right now. We need to work with it more.”
Unmanned systems already play an expanding role in Ukrainian casualty evacuation, particularly where ground vehicles face mines, craters, destroyed roads, rivers, and drone attacks. AP reported that ground robots can take two to three hours to reach some positions, while StarGate is designed to cover comparable distances in minutes.
The StarGate tests build on Ukraine’s growing use of unmanned systems for casualty evacuation. In June, the Third Army Corps reported that its ground robots had evacuated more than 600 wounded soldiers during their first year of operations, while completing more than 18,000 missions overall.

Vivaldi Reveals Ukraine Knows How To Beat Russians - And Can Repeat It

2026-10-16T09:32:14.439-04:00

The Ukrainians' success in Operation Vivaldi has created the template for beating Russia in the drone era: advance degradation of enemy force and logistical capabilities, use of ground and aerial drones both to precede and accompany attacking infantry and armor, and electronic warfare neutering of Russian intelligence. It is also worth noting that keeping objectives simple and then adding to them incrementally is more effective than grand Napoleonic maneuvers.

What is most important now is the opportunity to replicate that success along other sectors of the front, which may already be happening. JL

David Axe reports in Euromaidan Press:

Five months after launching Operation Vivaldi, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps has eliminated the Russian bridgehead on its most important objective: the Zherebets River, which forms a natural defensive barrier east of the last big free cities in Donetsk: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. The Ukrainians dodged traps as they flanked the 20th and 25th CAAs. They didn't get stuck in the Russians' minefields. They didn't expose themselves to air attack. (And) they didn't set their sights on distant objectives, instead stacking small gains on top of small gains until those amounted to a big victory. Aerial and electronic preparation was a prerequisite for each of the 3rd Army Corps' incremental advances. The lesson is that "higher headquarters must degrade key enemy capabilities" before a smaller force can gain ground and keep it. There's some evidence the Ukrainians are repeating Operation Vivaldi's success in the southeast
Five months after launching Operation Vivaldi, a local counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps has eliminated the Russian bridgehead on its most important long-term objective: the Zherebets River, which flows south through eastern Ukraine and forms a natural defensive barrier east of the last big free cities in Donetsk: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Attacking methodically under strict secrecy, the 3rd Army Corps has pushed back the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies and returned 176 sq km of northern Donetsk to Ukrainian control as of 30 September, according to Ukraine's presidential office. The figure could not be independently verified. Operation Vivaldi netted the Ukrainians hundreds of Russian prisoners and erased 18 months of Russian advances toward Sloviansk.
"Ukrainian forces have defeated the 2026 Russian campaign to seize Donetsk Oblast," the Institute for the Study of War in Washington concluded.
It's a remarkable feat for the overall outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces. Equally remarkably, the Ukrainians deftly dodged several potentially fatal traps as they flanked the 20th and 25th CAAs. They didn't get stuck in the Russians' dense minefields. They didn't expose themselves to devastating air attack. Perhaps most importantly, they didn't set their sights on distant objectives. They thought small instead of big, stacking small gains on top of small gains until those wins amounted to a big victory.

A trio of US Army officers—Col. Timothy Price, Capt. Patrick Visser, and Capt. Andrew Carter—described this achievement in academic terms. The corps' defeat of the Russian bridgehead on the Zherebets "had little to do with maneuver warfare," the officers wrote for the Modern War Institute at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York.
In military parlance, "maneuver" generally involves heavy ground forces supported by air strikes and artillery decisively breaking through enemy lines and then rushing vehicles and troops into the panicking enemy's unguarded rear area to quickly inflict maximal destruction and achieve maximal territorial gains.

That's not what the 3rd Army Corps did in its five-month—and ongoing—counteroffensive. No, the Ukrainians "won through systematic, geometric interdiction and positional pressure," Price, Visser, and Carter wrote. Put plainly, the corps carefully probed for tree-covered assault lanes toward key settlements, deployed unmanned ground vehicles to clear mines and explode the most important nearby Russian strongpoints, and then rushed in armored vehicles carrying infantry.
Settlements Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps says it liberated during Operation Vivaldi north of Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, as of 28 September 2026. Map: ISW
They marched step by step, incrementally liberating a kilometer at a time instead of running a marathon toward a major objective tens of kilometers away. In that way, Operation Vivaldi is the very opposite of Ukraine's failed 2023 summer counteroffensive, which massed tanks for what commanders hoped would be a decisive breakthrough around the village of Mala Tokmachka in southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The objective at that time was to break into the Russian rear and speed tanks 80 km to the occupied city of Melitopol near the Sea of Azov. That never happened. The Ukrainians got mired in minefields around Mala Tokmachka, suffered badly from Russian air attacks, and, after a grueling season of costly attacks, lost momentum just 10 km south of Mala Tokmachka. Later Russian counterattacks erased even those modest Ukrainian gains.

Old thinking versus new
The planners of the failed 2023 counteroffensive were stuck in an old way of thinking about maneuver warfare. The planners of the successful 2026 counteroffensive shrugged off obsolete ideas. They thought smaller—and, ironically, achieved much more as a result.

The 3rd Army Corps couldn't, and didn't, do it alone. Indeed, the corps depended on the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces to fray the Russians' supply lines, electronic warfare teams to jam Russian drones, and the Ukrainian air force to bomb Russian drone operators the EW teams couldn't suppress. By contrast, the Ukrainian forces attacking south from Mala Tokmachka in 2023 did so without much aerial support.
The aerial and electronic preparation was a prerequisite for each of the 3rd Army Corps' incremental advances this spring and summer. The lesson, the officers argue, is that "higher headquarters must degrade key enemy capabilities" before a smaller ground formation can expect to gain ground and keep it. If the support falters, the ground forces won't be able to hold.
Think small. Prepare hard. Now that the Ukrainians know this is how to win on the ground, can they repeat Operation Vivaldi's success?
There's some evidence they're already doing so in the southeast, where a clutch of Ukrainian air assault brigades has been pushing back the Russian 29th Combined Arms Army.

Canceled, Delayed AI and Data Center IPOs Reveal Growing Investor Caution

2026-10-16T09:03:59.567-04:00

The combined effect of multiple negative influences is causing investors to become increasingly cautious about the prospects for AI and related company IPOs.

These factors include the poor performance of recent IPOs, rising interest rates, growing political opposition to data centers, competition from cheaper Chinese models, concerns about AI risk and the fear that the AI funding market is beginning to tighten. As a result, some offerings are being delayed, a few even canceled. But the larger implication is that while this does not necessarily mean the AI boom has peaked, it does reveal a growing investor uncertainty about how long it can continue. JL

Corrie Driebusch and colleagues report in the Wall Street Journal:

Rising interest rates, a jumpy stock market and heightened political uncertainty are creating a dicey outlook for tech companies that had been aiming for a fourth-quarter public offering, causing some to reconsider their timing. A selloff in memory chip makers on Tuesday spurred by concerns about competitive threats from China was a reminder of how sensitive investors are to adverse developments. Shares in CoreWeave and Nebius also traded down, continuing a weeklong slide. The latest signs of cooling interest came when two data-center companies, Airtrunk and Firmus Grid, pumped the brakes on their public offerings within a few days. market conditions and local backlash to AI data centers could cause the funding market to tighten. Investors are being choosier about new stock offerings, reserving capital for Anthropic’s planned offering later this year. Poor performance by recent IPOs is also deterring investors.

Just a few months ago, companies connected to the AI business couldn’t go public fast enough, as far as investors were concerned. Suddenly, the IPO waters are looking a lot less inviting.
Rising interest rates, a jumpy stock market and heightened political uncertainty are creating a dicey outlook for tech companies that had been aiming for a fourth-quarter public offering, causing some to reconsider their timing.
The planned IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI have both been subject to that uncertainty and a driver of it, with other firms shifting their plans around what are expected to be among the largest public debuts in market history. Anthropic plans to host an investor day at its San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday after pushing its timeline back by several weeks.
The latest signs of cooling interest came when two Australian data-center companies, Airtrunk and Firmus Grid, pumped their brakes on their public offerings within the span of a few days.
Firmus cited “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions” in canceling what would have been the country’s largest IPO in 30 years, with a planned raise of almost $5 billion. The company, which has a close relationship with Nvidia and is backed by Coatue and Blackstone, plans to raise funds privately and go public on a U.S. exchange next year, a person familiar with the matter said.
Airtrunk, which was preparing to list in Singapore, now hopes to go public in the first half of next year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company, which is also backed by Blackstone, was concerned about market volatility and interest rates.
The artificial-intelligence trade has powered the market to records, but some pockets of the industry are giving investors anxiety. A selloff in memory chip makers from Micron to Samsung on Tuesday spurred by concerns about fresh competitive threats from China was a reminder of how sensitive investors are to adverse developments. Shares in CoreWeave and Nebius, two so-called neocloud firms, also traded down, continuing a weeklong slide.
Those factors, along with a domestic political environment that is increasingly hostile to data centers and wary of AI’s impact, are weighing on companies across the AI infrastructure landscape.
In Las Vegas last week, data-center operators, investors and bankers gathered at the Wynn hotel to discuss the state of the industry.
A number of attendees voiced concerns that market conditions and local backlash to AI data centers could cause the funding market to tighten, slowing down projects and derailing deals. The topic of one discussion panel: “Are We Screwed? Power, Capital, Compute and Billions of Dollars at Risk.”
Bankers advising data-center developers on sales and capital raises said the backlash is causing some buyers to view infrastructure companies as a risky investment.
That means sellers are getting less credit for projects that are in their pipeline—or not yet built—as buyers increasingly question whether those projects will be completed on time and on budget, bankers and investors said. Public and private investors are also getting more wary about new AI data-center developers with little experience completing projects.
When SoftBank’s SB Energy made its IPO paperwork public in late August, it revealed that the firm doesn’t have any data centers in operation. SB Energy is behind a 10-gigawatt project in Ohio for OpenAI and says that it has more than $400 billion in its backlog, a figure representing estimated future revenue based on binding customer contracts.
The Journal reported that SB Energy delayed its IPO date after getting pushback on its potential valuation. People working on the deal also cited adverse market conditions.
In addition to volatility and interest rates, investors are being choosier about participating in new stock offerings, with some saying they are reserving capital for Anthropic’s planned offering later this year. Poor performance by recent IPOs is also deterring investors.
Despite the market jitters, there are still several data-center startups that are pressing ahead toward public offerings. Nscale, a cloud company based in London that counts former Meta executives Nick Clegg, Sheryl Sandberg and Fidji Simo among its board members, is aiming for a public debut in the coming weeks. People with knowledge of the company’s thinking acknowledged that the timing wasn’t ideal.

Another cloud company planning to go public is Lambda, which is also backed by Nvidia, Blackstone and Coatue and just opened up its final, $4 billion pre-IPO funding round, the Journal reported last week. Lambda hasn’t yet filed a prospectus, but plans to go public next year, people familiar with the matter said.

Russian Troops Attempting Dnipro Crossing Wiped Out By Ukrainian Marines

2026-10-15T12:10:13.779-04:00

Russian forces across the front keep trying to demonstrate to the Kremlin that they are being aggressive, but the price, as in this case on the Dnipro River near Kherson, is almost always failure and new casualties. JL

Taras Safronov reports in Militarnyi:

In the Kherson region, Russian soldiers were killed by troops from the 34th Marine Brigade while attempting to cross the Dnipro River in inflatable boats. The deceased served in the 215th Separate Guards Reconnaissance Battalion, which is part of Russia's 98th Guards Airborne Division. The river has become the line of demarcation between the positions of the opposing sides in this sector. The river complicates offensive operations because crossing it requires boats or other watercraft, proper coordination, as well as the organization of supply lines and the evacuation of wounded. During the crossing, soldiers risk coming under fire from artillery, aircraft, and attack drones.
In the Kherson region, a group of Russian soldiers was killed while attempting to cross the Dnipro River in inflatable boats.
The boats were struck by members of the 34th Separate Marine Brigade.
The group consisted of four Russians traveling in two inflatable boats.

According to the Ukrainian military, the deceased served in the 215th Separate Guards Reconnaissance Battalion, which is part of the 98th Guards Airborne Division.

After Russian troops withdrew from Kherson to the left bank of the Dnipro, the river effectively became the line of demarcation between the main positions of the opposing sides in this sector of the front.
The river complicates offensive operations for both sides. Crossing it requires boats or other watercraft, proper coordination, as well as the organization of supply lines and the evacuation of the wounded.

During the crossing, soldiers risk coming under fire from artillery, aircraft, and attack drones.

RPGs Being Mounted On Ground Drones By Ukraine With "Great Success"

2026-10-15T10:41:31.643-04:00

When the Russians first invaded Ukraine almost five years ago, one of the major contributions to the Russian failure was Ukrainian soldiers armed with rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) which took out innumerable Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers.

But with the advent of drones, it has become too dangerous for RPG-armed infantry to get close enough to Russian armor. They will almost always be spotted and eliminated before they can fire. So the Ukrainians have started mounting RPGs on ground drones, an innovative solution which is reportedly being implemented with 'great success.' JL

Sinead Baker reports in Business Insider:

Ukrainian soldiers in the kill zone have been putting anti-tank RPGs on ground robots because the battlefield has become too dangerous for troops to use the weapons the way infantry did earlier in the war to defeat armored vehicles and weaken fortified positions. Ground robotic fire support platform can carry two RPG-7 launchers, along with other weapons and mine-laying capabilities. Soldiers started putting the RPGs on robots already armed with machine guns. The robots can drive close enough to targets and fire shorter-range weapons while keeping their operators much farther from danger. They have had 'great success' using them.

Ukrainian soldiers conducting operations in the kill zone have been putting anti-tank RPGs on ground robots, a robotic systems manufacturer told Business Insider, explaining that the battlefield has become too dangerous for troops to use the weapons the way they did earlier in the war.
Rocket-propelled grenades are often used by infantry to defeat armored vehicles and weaken fortified positions, but the battlefield has changed, forcing new innovations.

In the kill zone, "nobody knew how to use" an RPG "while staying safe himself," Oleg Fedoryshyn, the R&D director of Ukrainian robot maker DevDroid, told Business Insider.
The kill zone along Ukraine's front is a perilous area, as deep as 50 kilometers in some areas, where drones are so heavily concentrated alongside other weaponry that any movement represents a significant risk. For many soldiers, simply getting within RPG range can be extremely difficult.
The decision to move RPGs onto robots reflects a broader shift in the war. Early in Russia's full-scale invasion, RPGs were a common infantry weapon, used against Russian tanks and vehicles and to support infantry during fights in towns and cities.
But cheap drones, in both surveillance and strike roles, have transformed ground combat, reducing the use of armored vehicles and changing infantry engagements.

DevDroid's ground robots aren't the only ones getting RPGs as the war evolves. Ukrainian UGV maker Temerland says its Gnom-VP ground robotic fire support platform carries two RPG-7 launchers, along with other weapons and mine-laying capabilities.
Fedoryshyn said soldiers working with DevDroid started putting the RPGs on robots that were already armed with machine guns. The robots can drive close enough to targets and fire shorter-range weapons while keeping their operators much farther from danger.
Fedoryshyn said a brigade came to the company and said they wanted to try putting RPGs on a robot, and they had "great" success using it. Now, the company is exploring "how to add support for this for everyone in the future," he said.

Devdroid makes ground robots and a remote-controlled weapons station that allows operators to fire from safe distances, as well as electric triggers that allow operators to activate a weapon remotely.
Requests from soldiers are often how Ukraine's new capabilities emerge. Arms makers work directly with front-line units, gathering feedback and rapidly modifying equipment.
Fedoryshyn said DevDroid has 24/7 chat support available for every unit that uses its systems. He said that the company can design a new update, test it with a brigade, and roll it out across all deployed systems within a week.
It designs its gear for easy updates, "like mobile phones or operating systems," he added.

The war is one of rapid innovation to field new capabilities and preserve the utility of older ones as the war changes. Mounting RPGs on ground robots is another sign of that evolution. Instead of discarding a weapon designed for a kind of fighting that is less common now, Ukrainian troops are changing who carries it to keep it in the fight. Other weapons, such as flamethrowers, grenade launchers, and machine guns, have also been mounted on robots.
Fedoryshyn said his company is often surprised by how soldiers use its robots, including cases in which Russian soldiers have surrendered to them. Ukraine's experience, he said, shows Western militaries preparing for protracted wars should invest in large numbers of inexpensive, easily replaceable robots rather than relying solely on costly tanks and armored vehicles.

Russian Men Are Fleeing Before Putin's New Mobilization Grabs Them

2026-10-15T10:23:36.707-04:00

In Russia, the word is out: the Kremlin is planning another stealth mobilization and the odds of returning alive are not good for thus who are conscripted.

As a results, tens of thousands of Russian men are emigrating to Georgia and Armenia, countries which do not require a visa for Russians to enter. JL

The Economist reports:

When Putin declared a mobilisation in September 2022, six months after invading Ukraine, 400,000 Russian men fled the country. This time people are leaving before the announcement. On August 18th 20,000 people crossed the land border between Russia and Georgia, triple the normal daily number. Russian customs officials reported similar numbers on preceding days. In Armenia, another country that lets Russians in without a visa, high demand for rental properties has pushed up prices by 30-50%. A group that helps Russians opposed to war to emigrate, says enquiries have gone up eight-fold since July. At the moment Russia’s army attracts mainly low-skilled men with few prospects. Soldiers are paid an unimpressive 200,000 rubles a month, much of which is often stolen by their superiors.
On september 18th Dmitry, a 35-year old Muscovite working in advertising, cast his vote in Russia’s sham parliamentary elections. He wrote the word “criminal” on his ballot, slid it into the box and headed straight to the airport, where he boarded a flight to Istanbul. He was one of thousands who have left in recent weeks, fearing that the “special electoral procedure”, as some Russians have taken to calling their elections, would pave the way for a new wave of military mobilisation.
When Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation in September 2022, six months after invading Ukraine, 400,000 Russian men fled the country. This time people are leaving even without any announcement, albeit in smaller numbers. On August 18th 20,000 people crossed the land border between Russia and Georgia, about triple the normal daily number. Russian customs officials reported similar numbers on preceding days. In Armenia, another country that lets Russians in without a visa, high demand for rental accommodation has pushed up prices by 30-50% since the spring. “It wasn’t just because of the mobilisation that I left. I’d had enough of putting up with it, of staying in that atmosphere,” says Yuri, who worked for a tourism firm in St Petersburg.

Grigory Sverdlin of Idite Lesom (Get Lost), a volunteer organisation that helps people avoid forced mobilisation, says the number of requests for help it has received this autumn has risen by half compared with spring this year. Anastasia Burakova of Kovcheg (Arc), a group that helps Russians who are opposed to war to emigrate, says enquiries have gone up eight-fold since July. Compared with 2022, “we are now seeing a smaller but better-prepared wave of emigration,” she says.
Rumours of a new wave of mobilisation have circulated for months. Ukrainian officials have predicted a call-up of at least 100,000 men; on September 24th Emmanuel Macron, the French president, put the number at 300,000. Russia’s own military bloggers think it likely too. Officially, the Kremlin says nothing of the sort is being prepared. “That’s utter rubbish. It’s an information attack on Russia,” Mr Putin said shortly before the elections last month.

Yet Russians, hardened by experience, tend to think that the more emphatically authorities deny planning something unpleasant, the more likely it is to happen. In 2022 the Kremlin denied mobilisation was in the works just a week before it was announced. In any case, no official declaration is needed, since the previous order has never been repealed.
The administrative system has been improved over the years, and includes electronic summonses and communication between recruiters and border officers. This summer there were protests in Penza, 600km east of Moscow, after plain-clothed recruiters grabbed people off the streets. To avoid more unrest, the next wave is likely to be covert. Debtors, the unemployed and failing students may be coerced to enlist. Some believe it is already under way. A military lawyer says DNA samples are being collected from every inmate in a prison in Ryazan, the better to identify their corpses at the front.
Recruitment quotas are being sent to regional governors and bosses at large firms, who will have to take responsibility for any discontent, a practice of “decentralisation” that the Kremlin tested during covid. Nikolai Mitrokhin of Bremen University, a sociologist and analyst of the war, says rich regions are, in effect, buying recruits from poorer ones. The sign-up bonus in the wealthy Sverdlovsk region is 3.1m roubles ($37,000), nearly four times that in poorer Syktyvkar, near the Ural mountains. Recruits travel from poorer regions to sign up in richer ones.
Military bloggers and nationalists are eager. On July 30th Rusich, an ultra-nationalist outfit, called for “the mobilisation of half a million men” to achieve Mr Putin’s war aims. Western analysts have long thought a new wave of mobilisation would be risky and might provoke protests, as it did in Penza. Yet in fact mobilisation can be useful to Mr Putin, allowing him to demonstrate control over the system and to bolster his narrative of national sacrifice, which depends on comparing his war to the epochal struggle against Nazi Germany.

There are important military questions to be answered before additional men are sent to the front. The first is whom to mobilise. Younger, fitter and better-educated soldiers would achieve more than the old, poor and desperate ones Russia recruited in previous drives. The North Korean troops who have fought for Russia proved this: Ukrainian soldiers reported them to be markedly more tenacious and capable than Russian infantry. But the North Koreans first had to learn how to fight the new sort of war that has developed in Ukraine. A second question is how much training and equipment Russia’s new soldiers would get.
If Russia treats mobilised soldiers as cannon fodder, as it has in the past, Mr Putin will get little more than caskets. But if the new recruits are up to North Korean standards, the Ukrainians will have more to fear. A big, well-trained new cohort could make a difference to battles in urban terrain, where drones are less effective. Ukraine has recently pioneered innovative tactics, including use of mine-clearing drones and attacks on drone operators’ bunkers, that have helped it take back Russian-held territory. If Russia copies these, then numerical superiority in troops could recover its relevance. The thin screens of drone-supported soldiers that Ukraine uses to hold parts of the front might no longer be enough.
At the moment Russia’s army attracts mainly low-skilled men with few prospects, argues Vladislav Inozemtsev, a Russian economist. It is even more attractive to those who have little desire to live and want to leave something to their families. Soldiers are paid an unimpressive 200,000 roubles a month, much of which is often stolen by their superiors. But there are large sign-up bonuses and a death benefit of 15m roubles for next of kin, more than ten times the average annual income in Russia. To attract recruits more interested in staying alive, the Kremlin might increase monthly payments and reduce the death benefit.
Dmitry does not want to be part of that calculus. He is looking for a job in Istanbul and hoping his wife and child can join him when he is settled. “I want to live in Russia, but without these kinds of risks,” he says. “It’s hard to believe your own state can just suddenly send you off to be slaughtered, but we’ve already seen it happen.”

Pokrovsk, Southeast Being Cleared Of Demoralized Russian Forces By Ukraine

2026-10-15T10:06:59.069-04:00

Ukrainian Marines and Assault Brigades have been clearing demoralized Russian units around Pokrovsk and the areas to its south near Velyka Novosilka (about an hour's drive in normal times), both key defensive and logistics hubs.

The Ukrainians have done so largely without suffering casualties of their own and are reporting that the Russians they encounter, many of whom surrender rather than fight, are demoralized and hungry from lack of supplies. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art and Taisiia Vidvych reports in Euromaidan Press:

Ukraine's 40th Marine Brigade planned a clearing operation near Pokrovsk for a month. They cleared 5 km and suffered no casualties. The brigade stopped the flow of Russian infiltration on that stretch of the Pokrovsk direction. (Meanwhile, an hour's drive to the south), Ukrainian forces—including the 79th and 80th Air Assault Brigades—have been probing for gaps in Russian defenses in and around Komar. If Ukrainian forces can capture Komar they can squeeze the supply lines through Velyka Novosilka—and the Russian brigades (of the 29th Combined Arms Army) all along the southeastern front line. The Russian infantry captured are barely trained and hungry. If drones or Ukrainian ground groups don’t kill them first, they surrender because they no longer want to fight. They get one parcel a week with a can of stewed meat, and water drunk from the ground underfoot. That is why the Russians facing the marines are demoralized

The town of Velyka Novosilka, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, is a major hub for supplies flowing east to west to Russian forces fighting in southeastern Ukraine. The village of Komar, 11 miles to the north, anchors Russian defenses along the road threading south toward Velyka Novosilka.
All that is to say, if Ukrainian forces can capture Komar and neighboring settlements such as Fedorivka and Vesele, they can squeeze the supply lines through Velyka Novosilka—and by extension squeeze Russian regiments and brigades (many under the command of the 29th Combined Arms Army) all along the southeastern front line.
And that’s why, since this spring, Ukrainian forces—including the 79th and 80th Air Assault Brigades—have been probing for gaps in Russian defenses in and around Komar.
Ukrainian marines planned a clearing operation near Pokrovsk for about a month, their deputy commander said in remarks relayed by Army Inform. The Defense Ministry’s news agency published them on 12 October. He also described the Russian infantry the marines captured as barely trained, hungry, and unwilling to fight.
Russia seized Pokrovsk by seeping small infantry groups into the city a few at a time. Beyond the city, Russian advances stayed limited. ISW assessed on 25 February that the capture brought no further operationally significant gains. Small advances continued, and DeepState mapped one near Bilytske in Donetsk Oblast on 7 October. Every stretch where Ukrainian units stop that infiltration closes the route Russia used to take the city.
What the operation produced
Karyi, the 40th Separate Marine Brigade’s deputy commander, said that Operation Audit cleared about 6 km². The marines suffered no losses while inflicting them on the Russians, he said, and gathered a lot of intelligence. He promised the enemy many more surprises.
The brigade had announced an operation by the same name on 26 September. It said then that the marines had cleared 5 km² and captured two Russian soldiers. The brigade also said they had stopped the flow of Russian infiltration on that stretch of the Pokrovsk direction.
Two weeks of training, then the front
Karyi called the two prisoners typical of the Russian infantry now sent against the marines, with all of two weeks’ training behind them. He said Russian recruits spend a month on transfers and paperwork before going into battle. They then walk to their positions for one or two weeks.
If drones or Ukrainian ground groups don’t kill them first, he said, they surrender because they no longer want to fight. They are not fed or given water. He described one parcel a week with a can of stewed meat, and water drunk from the ground underfoot. That, Karyi said, is why the Russian troops facing the marines are demoralized and untrained.

Operation Vivaldi's Phase 4 Has Added Another 101 KMs To Ukraine Advance

2026-10-14T10:17:11.931-04:00

The fourth phase of Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi, which is now under way, has added another 101 kilometers of recaptured territory to Ukraine.

The Ukrainians have also inflicted another 3,000 casualties on the Russians while Ukraine's drone and missile strikes have forced the Russians to move much of their logistics operations in that sector back across the Russian border. JL

Jonas Heins reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps, together with its attached units, has retaken another 101 square kilometers during the fourth stage of Operation Vivaldi on the Lyman sector in Donetsk Oblast, on Oct. 14. Ukraine liberated the villages of Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi, while Russia has lost about 3,000 of its soldiers in the fourth stage of the operation to date. In total, Operation Vivaldi saw the liberation and return of 16 settlements and 277 square kilometers (106 square miles) to Ukraine.
Ukraine's Third Army Corps, together with its attached units, has retaken another 101 square kilometers during the fourth stage of Operation Vivaldi on the Lyman sector in Donetsk Oblast, the corps announced on Oct. 14.
Ukraine liberated the villages of Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi, while Russia lost about 3,000 of its soldiers in the fourth stage of the operation, the corps reported on Telegram.
"The enemy was unable to cut the key logistics artery of our group in the Donbas. We thwarted the offensive of the group 'Zapad' and forced it to transfer part of the units of the 1st Tank Army, which weakened the pressure on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi," corps commander Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi said.
In total, Operation Vivaldi saw the liberation and return of 16 settlements and 277 square kilometers (106 square miles) to Ukraine, the corps said. "Four seasons of 'Vivaldi' are over, but the music continues."

On Sept. 15, Biletskyi confirmed that Ukrainian forces under the command of the 3rd Army Corps were conducting a series of counterattacks north of the front-line city of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast.
The operation dealt "a heavy blow to the combat capabilities of Russia's 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies," Biletskyi said then, adding that Ukrainian drone strikes had pushed Russian supply hubs across the state border.
The fight for the heart of the so-called Donbas fortress belt — Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka — is crucial going into the winter months, when Russia will look to maximize its foothold in urban areas to prepare for a 2027 offensive campaign.

Trump-Musk Intel, Starlink Cuts to Ukraine Are Likely Quid Pro Quo For Putin Midterm Election Help

2026-10-14T09:55:04.965-04:00

As an increasingly desperate Trump White House faces the prospect of midterm Congressional and Senatorial defeat, the president is becoming more reliant on Putin for help in several ways.

First, because rising oil, and especially diesel price rises have caused much of his polling collapse with working Americans, Trump agreed to a deal with Putin to relax sanctions and pay Russia for fuel (even though almost all experts and markets quickly revealed that the amounts being provided would make no difference in the price at the pump). This also enables Trump to avoid personal blame for the financial impact on energy prices caused by his failed attacks on Iran. Trump is also desperate to be able to claim some sort of diplomatic success, so is now pressuring Ukraine through denial of intelligence (which led to 600,000 Ukrainians losing power due to Russian missile attacks) and, as of today, high speed Starlink access, which has limited the ability of Ukrainian military to continue its dominance on the battlefield. Though these moves are unlikely to sway either Ukraine or American voters (early voting has already started in many states), it is reflective of Trump's affinity for Putin's dictatorship and, of his perception of the benefits of Russian assistance, which also benefits Putin if Trump maintains his legislative majorities. JL

Anastasiia Malenko and colleagues report in the Wall Street Journal:

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has imposed new limits on military-grade Starlink terminals without warning, hobbling Kyiv’s ability to conduct midrange drone attacks and intercept Russia’s jet-powered drones. The limits on Starlink, which restrict the speed at which some of Ukraine’s weapons can travel and still connect to the internet, come as President Trump piles pressure on Ukraine, demanding that it stop hitting Russian oil refineries. SpaceX implemented a speed limit for Starlink terminals last night. Our defense forces received no warning about this restriction, and it has led to the disruption of missions.”

Ukraine said Elon Musk’s SpaceX has imposed new limits on military-grade Starlink terminals without warning, hobbling Kyiv’s ability to conduct midrange drone attacks and intercept Russia’s new-generation jet-powered drones.
The limits on Starlink, which restrict the speed at which some of Ukraine’s weapons can travel and still connect to the internet, come as President Trump piles pressure on Ukraine, demanding that it stop hitting Russian oil refineries, blaming President Volodymyr Zelensky for continuing the war and calling for his removal.
“I confirm that SpaceX implemented a speed limit for Starlink terminals operating in motion last night,” Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelensky, wrote on the Telegram messaging platform. “Our defense forces received no warning about this restriction, and it has led to the disruption of a number of missions.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what had caused the disruption. SpaceX, which produces Starlink, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense is in contact with the U.S., SpaceX and its NATO partners about the StarShield issue as it gathers data from units and tests and deploys backup communication channels, said a ministry official.
Trump’s demands have raised questions among allies about whether support the U.S. provides to Ukraine, such as intelligence warning Kyiv of incoming ballistic missile attacks, would continue. On Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. was continuing to share intelligence with Kyiv, after Zelensky said Kyiv hadn’t received a warning from allies ahead of a Russian missile attack.
Ukraine’s access to StarShield is provided under a contract handled by the Defense Department. Asked about the new limits Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman referred to the president’s comments on intelligence sharing the previous day.
Ukraine relies on SpaceX’s StarShield, a Starlink subscription designed for government and military use, for its battlefield operations. Ukraine has become relatively self-sufficient in holding the front line against Russia thanks to drones and other automated weaponry developed by Ukrainian forces.
But some of these systems depend on StarShield for connectivity. Reductions in the speed at which they can travel, and still connect to the terminal, make operations more difficult, Ukrainian military officials and analysts said.
The limits also reduce Ukraine’s ability to organize frontline logistics, reconnaissance and relay communications, the Defense Ministry official said.
The speed restriction has complicated Ukrainian operations. Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters
While drones can still fly, live video feeds aren’t as reliable, especially when going after moving targets, for instance. The unmanned aerial vehicles must also fly slower to stay connected to StarShield, making them more vulnerable to attack.
Ukrainian drones flying over Russia were already barred from using StarShield, meaning that long-range attacks on Russian diesel production, which President Trump is trying to stop, are unlikely to be affected by any new limits, officials and defense executives say. These drones have been using other satellite providers, inertial navigation, terrain recognition and other ways to guide themselves.
Earlier this year, SpaceX disabled unauthorized Russian access to its satellite internet terminals, disrupting Russian troops’ battlefield communication and defanging their efforts to attack Ukrainian military logistics.
Starlink had already imposed in-motion speed limits on its civilian terminals in Ukraine, but StarShield military accounts continued to offer connections at high-speeds.
The latest shift means Ukrainian ground drones, which don’t travel at high speeds, can still use Starlink but unmanned aerial vehicles, which operate best at speeds over 100 miles an hour, are more constrained.
On Wednesday morning, servicemen in several Ukrainian units reported problems related to the speed limits on terminals. Ukraine’s 7th Corps of the Air Assault Forces said they started experiencing connectivity issues with StarShield overnight and had to cancel some missions due to unreliable connectivity.
The speed limit of 100 miles an hour complicated Ukrainian logistics, middle-range missions and the work of its drone crews, according to an official in Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.
“Although the drones continued to fly, these interruptions made it difficult to control them,” the 7th Corps said in a statement on Telegram, adding that slower drones were also more vulnerable to Russian fire. The connectivity issues presented challenges for launching middle-range drones due to the high speeds required at takeoff, the Corps said in the message, which has since been deleted.
Accounts varied on specifics of the new limit, as the forces scrambled to figure out the impact of the change, with some officers saying it was as high as 100 miles an hour and some saying they lost signal even at speeds as low as 44 miles an hour.
Starlink connectivity had also recently enabled Ukraine to start intercepting Russia’s high-speed jet-powered drones that have attacked cities far from the front line, according to several Ukrainian air-defense officials and Beskrestnov, the Ukrainian presidential adviser.
In recent months, Kyiv asked American officials to switch on Starlink connectivity for Ukraine over Russia to enable it to strike ballistic missile launchers. Zelensky reiterated this plea last week at the site of the deadly missile attack in the northern town of Pryluky.