The Low-Down

Russia Has Suffered Reverses in Donbas - But Doing Even Worse Everywhere Else

2026-09-28T11:23:13.656-04:00

The success of Operation Vivaldi is notable, but it would not have been possible without earlier Ukrainian victories in Zaporizhzhia, Oleksandrivka and Huiliapole which forced the Kremlin to redeploy troops from the Donbas to the south.

In addition, the Ukrainian virtual neutralization of Crimea, the degradation of the Black Sea fleet and the systematic assault on Russian economic targets in the center of the country have strategically, with patience over time, repframed the war. JL

The World Strategist reports:

The eyes of the world are still on the Donbas. But while the world looks east, Ukraine is winning its war elsewhere. It is winning in the south, where its troops have taken more territory in one season than Russia has in the Donbas all year. The operation along the Oleksandrivka and Huliaipole axs in Zaporizhzhia Oblast regained more than 400 square kilometers since the operation began. (And) the counteroffensive compelled Russia to divert forces from the Donbas. It is also winning in Crimea, which drone strikes have turned into a beleaguered outpost; in the Black Sea, where Russia’s fleet has been driven to the east and crippled its “shadow fleet.” And it is winning in the deep rear, where strikes on refineries, logistics hubs and command posts are eating away at Russia’s ability to keep its war machine going.

The eyes of the world are still on the Donbas. The headlines tell the story every day of the slow, grinding Russian advance on Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka. Analysts are poring over the map, counting square kilometers of gains. The “Fortress Belt” has become the decisive front of the war, where Russia’s offensive is likely to succeed or fail.
But while the world looks east, Ukraine is winning its war elsewhere.
It is winning in the south, where its troops have taken more territory in one season than Russia has in the Donbas all year. It is winning in Crimea, where a systematic campaign of drone strikes has turned a Russian military hub into a beleaguered outpost. It is winning in the Black Sea, where Ukrainian naval drones have driven Russia’s fleet from the western waters and crippled its “shadow fleet.” And it is winning in the deep rear, where strikes on refineries, logistics hubs and command posts are slowly eating away at Russia’s ability to keep its war machine going.
The Donbas is a sideshow. The real war is being fought (and won) elsewhere.
The Donbas Stalemate: A Russian Graveyard of Ambitions
The Donbas was to be the site of Russia’s decisive victory. In early 2026, the Kremlin’s deadline was to capture all of Donetsk Oblast by the end of the year. Russian commanders were preparing their forces for a spring-summer offensive that would finally breach Ukraine’s “Fortress Belt” and break Ukrainian defenses.
This did not happen.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed that Russian forces have made virtually no progress since March 2026. Russian forces in Donetsk Oblast averaged 2.36 square kilometers per day in August, down from 15 square kilometers per day in 2025 and 5.5 square kilometers per day in the first quarter of 2026. “Russia’s average pace of advance in 2026 slowed to 3.5 times lower than last year’s pace, and Russian forces captured less than 0.2% of additional Ukrainian territory this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said.
The human toll has been staggering. Russian casualties in August alone had reached 42,000 killed or wounded — “one of the highest monthly casualty rates of the war”, Sybiha said. Almost 25,000 soldiers are dying each month on a front line which has moved very little, the Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the UN Security Council.
The Donbas is a cemetery of Russian ambitions. But that’s not where the war will be won.
Southern Counteroffensive: Where Ukraine Is Winning
Russia’s been bleeding out in the Donbas, Ukraine has been making gains in the south
In late January 2026 Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive on the southern front catching Russian forces off guard. The operation along the Oleksandrivka and Huliaipole axs in Zaporizhzhia Oblast was intended to exploit weak points in Russia’s overextended defenses and reclaim land occupied for years.
And the results were stunning. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said Ukrainian forces had regained control of 285.6 square kilometers in one month on the Oleksandrivka axis alone, and more than 400 square kilometers since the operation began. ISW confirmed Ukrainian forces recaptured over 400 square km in southern Ukraine over the winter and spring of 2026.
The counteroffensive did something more important than territory: It compelled Russia to divert forces from the Donbas to withstand the Ukrainian advance. ISW assessed that the Ukrainian counterattacks “created cascading operational and strategic effects for Russia’s ongoing Spring-Summer 2026 offensive against the Fortress Belt,” forcing Russia to choose between “defending against Ukrainian counterattacks or allocating manpower and resources to priority sectors.”
The southern counteroffensive is more than just a tactical victory. It’s a tactical one. Ukraine has shown it can seize the initiative and force Russia to react, while Russia’s own offensive in Donbas is stalled.
Crimea’s Isolation: From Fort to Siege
The most significant development in the war in 2026 is not taking place in the Donbas. In the Crimea it is happening.
Since April 2026, Ukraine has been systematically cutting off the occupied peninsula with a multipronged campaign of drone strikes. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has described the strategy as severing Russian supply lines to Crimea and destroying key infrastructure until the occupation “withers on the vine.”
The results have been disastrous.
Ukraine has been using its medium-range drones to systematically strike Russian traffic on the R-280 highway — the so-called “Novorossiya highway” — Russia’s main land supply route to Crimea. Ukrainian forces have also struck the ferries used by Russia to transport oil and military equipment across the Kerch Strait, the bridges connecting the peninsula to occupied Kherson Oblast, and fuel depots, gas storage facilities and electrical infrastructure inside Crimea.
The impact on the peninsula has been widespread. Russian occupation authorities banned fuel sales to civilians altogether after the oil terminal in Kerch was hit on June 21. The Russian-appointed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev ordered supermarkets, bars and restaurants to close at 8 p.m. to save fuel. Power outages have swept across the peninsula.
Russia also shut the Don-Azov Shipping Canal, a vital channel for Russian shipping, on July 11, effectively isolating Crimea by sea as well as by land. Within two weeks 75% of all shipping through Kerch was gone.
The strategic ramifications are profound. Once hailed by Putin as a “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” Crimea is becoming a military liability: a besieged outpost that Russia must defend but cannot supply. Ukraine is “creating the conditions for the effective isolation of the occupied peninsula — without a ground military operation,” said Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.
The Black Sea Campaign: Getting Russia’s Fleet Out of the Water
f the Crimea is the keystone of Russia’s southern strategy, the Black Sea Fleet is its shield. And Ukraine has broken that shield.
In a stunning 11-week operation under the code name “MoLoChKa” (“Moscow Will Fall Through Crimea”), the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine struck 300 ships of Russia’s shadow fleet, 134 in the Sea of Azov and 166 in the Black Sea. The campaign was intended to disrupt Russian maritime logistics, cut off oil exports and sever supply lines that sustain Russian forces in occupied southern Ukraine.
The operation was part of a broader campaign that has transformed the Black Sea from a Russian lake to a contested zone. Ukrainian forces attacked Russia’s naval base in the city of Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, on September 9, destroying several ships, including missile carriers. Ukrainian drones also hit a Su-33 carrier-based fighter, a Mi-8 helicopter and two radar systems near Gelendzhik.
Damage to the economy has been severe. In late September, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region declared a state of emergency after Ukrainian air strikes disrupted grain exports. “Massive attacks” on logistics infrastructure have stopped port operations and maritime traffic in the Black Sea. A vital source of revenue, Russia’s grain exports, came to a standstill.
Ukraine has done something remarkable: it has pushed the Russian Navy out of the western Black Sea, reestablished its own grain corridors and turned Russia’s maritime logistics from an asset into a vulnerability.
Degrading the War Machine: The Deep Strike Campaign
Ukraine is not only winning on the fronts of south and Crimea. Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign is gradually eating away at Russia’s ability to fight across the entire theater.
Ukraine has conducted more than 1,000 long-range strike missions since the start of 2026. Targets include oil refineries, logistics hubs, military sites and command posts. In February 2026 alone, Ukrainian forces hit 85 targets by means of DeepStrike, which resulted in a 24.8% drop in the overall volume of oil refining in Russia.
The campaign has grown in scope and effectiveness. Ukrainian drones are now striking targets more than 2,500 kilometers inside Russia, including the Omsk Oil Refinery, the longest confirmed drone strike in history. And these strikes are not just symbolic. They are draining Russia’s war economy, interrupting fuel supplies and compelling the Kremlin to pull air defense assets away from the front lines to defend critical infrastructure.
ISW assessed that Ukraine’s intensified mid-range strike campaign against Russian logistics, military equipment, and manpower since early 2026 has “degraded Russian forces’ ability to conduct offensive operations across the theater.” This is not just a supporting campaign. It is a strategy to win the war.
Strategic Logic: Why the South Matters More
Russia has decided to fight in the Donbas. Ukraine has decided to win in the south.
Straightforward logic. Russia has massed its forces in the Donbas, built extensive fortifications and committed to a grinding war of attrition that plays to its numerical advantages. Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition with a bigger enemy. But it can escape one.
The terrain is open, Russian defenses thinner and the strategic stakes higher in the south. Crimea is the foundation of Russia’s southern strategy. If Ukraine can isolate Crimea, it can threaten the entire Russian position in southern Ukraine: the land bridge to Crimea, the occupation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and the naval base at Sevastopol.
Ukraine’s strategy is not territorial grab. The point is to make Russia’s position untenable. Ukraine is laying the groundwork for a Russian collapse, not through one decisive battle, but through the slow, inexorable degradation of Russia’s capacity to sustain its forces. Ukraine is winning the war of attrition by cutting supply lines, destroying infrastructure, and isolating key nodes.
This is systems war-fare. And Ukraine is winning.
The War Outside the Donbas: The End
Donbas is important. Each kilometer of Ukrainian land counts. Every village Russia occupies is a village Ukrainians have lost.
But the war is not going to be settled in the Donbas. It is where Russia has chosen to draw blood. And Ukraine is willing to let it happen.
The real war is in the south, where Ukraine is taking territory back and forcing Russia to react. It is being fought in Crimea, where a systematic campaign of drone strikes is turning a fortress into a siege. The fighting is happening in the Black Sea, where Ukrainian naval drones have driven the Russian fleet out of the waters. And it is being fought in the deep rear, where strikes on refineries and logistics hubs are degrading Russia’s war machine.
The world is watching Donbas. But elsewhere, Ukraine is winning the war.
And that may be the most important development of the whole conflict.

3rd Ukrainian Corps' Lyman Counteroffensive Has 'Operational Momentum'

2026-09-28T11:04:21.255-04:00

Operational momentum means that the success of Ukraine's counteroffensive north, east and now south of the Lyman sector and into Luhansk, means that Ukrainian commanders can use the gains they have made to expand both the scale of their attacks and the scope of the overall assault because the Russians are struggling to respond to the multiple threats they now face on various points of the front.

This is making it harder for the Russians to redeploy troops from one threatened sector to another because there are simply too many problems for them to address at one time. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Operation Vivaldi is a large, real-time proving ground for integration of UGVs into land formations, and the development of new tactical and operational methods to break out of defensive and positions. The counteroffensive has built not just tactical but operational momentum. These victories liberate Ukrainian areas from occupation, provide a morale boost for Ukrainians, and demonstrate that offensive manoeuvre is possible in eastern Ukraine. The 3^rd Corps reorganised its command systems before the offensive began, used drones to execute deep operations by striking Russian fuel pipelines and supply depots, used uncrewed ground vehicles extensively to support the infantry, and deployed ground-based radio beacons to keep its drones flying through heavy GPS jamming. This dimension of the Ukrainian counteroffensive – the return of offensive manoeuvre – matters perhaps even more than the amount of Ukrainian territory liberated over the last couple of months.
The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps used its media releases this week to show that its counteroffensive north of Lyman has built not just tactical but operational momentum. On 20 September, the commander of the 3^rd Corps, Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, announced the liberation of Shandryholove, Derylove and Drobysheve in the second phase of Operation Vivaldi. “As promised, I am reporting good news,” he said, claiming a further 40 square kilometres retaken.
His corps now claims about 125 square kilometres regained across both phases and more than 3,000 Russian casualties, including 800 in the latest phase, figures that remain unverified. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed during the week that the second phase demonstrated a limited capacity for tactical mechanised manoeuvre, supported by drones and uncrewed ground vehicles, and by 25 September was reporting that Ukrainian advances north of Lyman were continuing and prompting Russian disinformation efforts. These victories liberate Ukrainian areas from Russian occupation, provide a morale boost for Ukrainians going into a tough, cold winter, and demonstrate that offensive manoeuvre is possible in eastern Ukraine.
This dimension of the Ukrainian counteroffensive – the return of offensive manoeuvre – matters perhaps even more than the amount of Ukrainian territory liberated over the last couple of months. Howard Altman has provided a detailed account in The War Zone, describing how the 3^rd Corps reorganised its command systems before the offensive began, used drones to execute deep operations by striking Russian fuel pipelines and supply depots in depth, used uncrewed ground vehicles extensively to support the infantry, and deployed ground-based radio beacons to keep its drones flying through heavy GPS jamming.
Image: @ab3army
The Kyiv Independent reported that Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit to be withdrawn from the sector after heavy losses. This is a significant pointer to the conduct of future drone operations, and how they are employed to shape and support offensive operations on the ground.
The 3^rd Corps during the week also released information on three important aspects of UGV integration into ground operations from its ongoing Operation Vivaldi:
First, it described how it re-roled heavy bomber drones as motherships to carry UGVs to the flanks and into the rear of Russian positions to blind enemy drones as part of the recon battle.
Second, it released a synopsis of how it employed UGVs to support infantry operations as well as provide logistic support.
Third, a video about the employment of breaching UGVs and their integration into offensive operations was released by the 3^rd Corps.
Remotely controlled breaching by UGV. Image: @ab3army
The deputy commander of 3rd Corps also provided an update on the planning and conduct of the counteroffensive, which you can read here.
This is a large, real-time experiment and proving ground for integration of UGVs into traditional land formations, and the development of new tactical and operational methods to break out of defensive and positional concepts of operation. I expect every Western military will be watching these developments closely – or at least I hope they are.
While there is speculation about just how far Ukrainian forces have penetrated into Russian-occupied territory, Meduza found no visual confirmation that Ukrainian forces had reached or crossed the Chornyi Zherebets River. And the 3^rdCorps offensive is far from the only fight at present. Both Ukraine and Russia are massing forces farther south, where Russia is pressing towards Druzhkivka, Dobropillia and Orikhiv.
Operation Vivaldi has seized the initiative on the ground in one sector of the frontline. There is clearly more occurring that we will hear about in due course. But Russia is still conducting its slow-rolling offensive, albeit with minimal gains, across other parts of the east and south of Ukraine. It is also not clear whether Ukraine has sufficient manpower to be able to build momentum with similar sized offensives in different parts of the frontline over the coming months or into 2027.

Soviet-Era APC's Used By Ukraine Donbas Attack As Huge Kamikaze Drones

2026-09-28T10:46:33.807-04:00

Ukraine unveiled two new technological innovations in its latest, Operation Vivaldi Phase 3 counteroffensive success in Donetsk.

The first was the conversion of Soviet-era BTR 60 armored personnel carriers into massive ground drones which were deployed to attack the strongest Russian fortifications around Nove, the primary objective of the assault. The converted BTRs obliterated the Russian positions they struck. The second innovation was the use of new ground drones armed with grenade launchers which also successfully attacked Russian strong points without human infantry in support. JL

Daryna Vialko reports in RBC Ukraine:

Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps turned Soviet-era BTR-60 armored personnel carriers into giant robotic kamikaze drones that were used to destroy Russia's strongest fortifications. The improvised strike unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) helped break through Russian defenses in the most heavily fortified areas. The BTR 60 was mass-produced from 1960 to 1976. The 3rd Corps used another a new tactic during Operation Vivaldi, deploying upgraded ground robots equipped with grenade launchers to attack Russian positions without direct infantry involvement.
Ukraine’s Third Army Corps has turned Soviet-era BTR-60 armored personnel carriers into giant kamikaze drones that were used to destroy Russian fortifications, according to the Third Army Corps.
"To break through the enemy's defenses, the Third Army Corps used its own invention — Soviet BTR-60s converted into robotic kamikaze systems. They were used to blow up the enemy's strongest fortifications," said Corps Commander Andrii Biletskyi.
According to him, the improvised strike unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) helped break through Russian defenses in the most heavily fortified areas.

What is known about the BTR-60
The BTR-60 is a Soviet wheeled armored personnel carrier developed in 1956-1959 to equip motorized rifle units and replace the outdated BTR-152.
The armored personnel carrier was mass-produced from 1960 to 1976 at the Gorky Automobile Plant, and later at the Kurgan Wheel Tractor Plant until 1987. According to various estimates, between 10,000 and 25,000 vehicles were produced.
Operation Vivaldi
In September, the Third Army Corps launched the Vivaldi offensive operation in the northern Donetsk region. Ukrainian forces have been gradually clearing and liberating settlements.
In particular, Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces out of the settlement of Serednie without suffering any losses, completely clearing the area and taking control of the settlement.
It was also previously reported that Ukrainian forces had managed to liberate an area larger than Zhytomyr. During the fighting, Ukrainian troops eliminated concealed Russian forces and established a bridgehead for a further offensive in the region.
We also reported that the Third Army Corps used a new tactic during Operation Vivaldi, deploying upgraded ground robots equipped with grenade launchers to attack Russian positions without direct infantry involvement.

Major Russian Defeat As Vivaldi Phase 3 Shocks: Land Gains, 250 Prisoners

2026-09-28T10:10:39.321-04:00

In a significant Russian defeat in Donetsk, Ukraine's 3rd Brigade launched the third 'season' of its Operation Vivaldi counteroffensive. In taking Nove, a key regional hub, the Ukrainians executed a 'feint' attack for which the Russians fell, drawing them away from the real target. And to take the most heavily defended positions, the Ukrainians employed old Soviet-era BTR armored personnel carriers converted into kamikaze ground robots which advanced on the Russian defenses and then detonated with massive impact.

The Ukrainian attack so surprised the Russians that over 250 Kremlin troops were captured, some entire units which included drone operators and artillerymen who are usually a relatively substantial distance behind the front line. This is a crushing blow for the Russians as it reveals the Kremlin's forces susceptibility to Ukraine's enhanced technological and strategic strength. JL

Olena Mukhina reports in Euromaidan Press:

Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps defeated Russia at the key settlement of Nove in Donetsk by pointing it the wrong way. Russia had poured its reserves into counterattacks on a feint axis and "slept through" the real strike, in the decisive third season of the Vivaldi offensive. To break the strongest fortifications, it used Soviet BTR-60 armored carriers converted into remote-controlled kamikaze robots, driven into Russia's toughest positions and detonated. Over its first two "seasons," the 3rd Army Corps and attached units retook more than 176 square kilometers and inflicted more than 3,000 casualties on Russian forces. The assault in Nove was its "third season," the turning point of the whole operation. The corps added 51 square kilometers to that taken since the offensive began. Ukrainian forces also took 250 Russians captive as entire units including drone operators, surrendered.

Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps has defeated Russia at the key settlement of Nove in Donetsk Oblast by pointing it the wrong way. Russia has poured its reserves into counterattacks on a feint axis and "slept through" the real strike, which took the important hub in the village and closed the decisive third season of the Vivaldi offensive, commander Andrii Biletskyi said.

Vivaldi is Ukraine's counteroffensive aimed at disrupting Russian forces' plans to encircle the fortress-belt cities in Donetsk Oblast from the north and south. Among them are Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka. These cities have helped hold back Russian forces since 2014.
Over its first two "seasons," the 3rd Army Corps and attached units have retaken more than 125 square kilometers, half of it de-occupied outright, and inflicted more than 3,000 casualties on Russian forces.
The operation in Nove was its "third season," Biletskyi said, the turning point of the whole operation. The corps liberated Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and restored control of Karpivka and Novomykhailivka, adding 51 square kilometers to the 176 that had been liberated since the offensive began. Ukrainian forces have taken 250 Russians captive.
The feint drew Russia's reserves
The victory, by Biletskyi's account, was won by deception.
"The enemy was convinced the main direction of the strike was Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna," he revealed, and it burned its reserves counterattacking there.
He added that the Russians slept through the real strike, which was concentrated on taking Nove. The village was the prize, a key Russian hub on the bridgehead, ringed by heights that command the surrounding ground.
"Who controls the heights holds the initiative," Biletskyi said.
By spending its reserves on the wrong axis, he suggested, Russia had little left to hold Nove when the real assault arrived.
Old APCs crack the defense
To break the strongest fortifications, the corps said, it used a homemade weapon: Soviet BTR-60 armored carriers converted into remote-controlled kamikaze robots, driven into Russia's toughest positions and detonated.
In 2024, the Ukrainian forces received another local upgrade of the post-Soviet BTR-60 wheeled armored personnel carrier. This time it was fitted with the BM-7 "Parus" turret, known from the BTR-4 "Bucephalus" The main armament consisted of a 30 mm ZTM-1 automatic cannon paired with a 7.62 mm KT-7.62 universal machine gun.
Additional armament might include a set of four anti-tank guided missile launchers mounted on the sides, or two launchers and a 30 mm KBA-117 automatic grenade launcher. As a result, this upgraded BTR-60 saw a significant improvement in firepower, although the vehicle still has very weak armor and less-than-optimal access to the troop compartment.
It was the latest of the corps' robotic improvisations in Vivaldi, which have included air-dropped ground drones and Bullspike grenade-launcher-armed UGVs. They are Bulgarian hand-held, rocket-propelled anti-tank grenade launchers based on the Soviet RPG-22, which the Bulgarian defense industry previously produced under license.
The corps has leaned on such machines throughout the operation to keep its infantry out of the deadliest fights.
Whole units surrender
As the defense broke down, Russians gave up in groups, including officers, pilots, and artillery soldiers, the corps said. The 3rd Assault Brigade carried much of the fighting, while the 3rd Border Guard Detachment, named for the fallen Colonel Yevhen Pikus, retook Ridkodub and dug in on the new line, with the 10th Mobile Border Guard Detachment "DOZOR" taking an active part in the assault.

OpenAI Pauses Training Models After Rogue Agents Attack Government Websites

2026-09-28T09:15:19.714-04:00

"Going off-task" is the soft euphemism OpenAI has chosen to describe the latest incident of its AI agents attacking government, corporate and academic websites. The increasingly angry victims of these hacks are less inclined to be so forgiving.

While the company does seem to recognize the public relations cost of these rogue actions, it does not seem terribly troubled by them, evidently believing that this is the justifiable price humanity must and should pay to have access to the brilliance of its product. 'Pausing' training in hopes that this behavior can be curbed, if not eliminated, is the first attempt of uncertain effectiveness the company will take in what is expected to be a lengthy spate of iterative half measures in order to forestall the growing negative public reaction to AI and to AI companies' relative insouciance about it. Whether this will be sufficient to calm an impatient public is as unpredictable as the behavior of AI itself. JL

Isabella Ward reports in Wired:

OpenAI paused training its most powerful AI models as incidents of agents breaching websites’ security controls or posting to third-party sites continue to pile up. On Friday, OpenAI said it had notified “dozens” of bodies, including governments, universities, and public agencies, who might have been impacted by its models during training and evaluation. The company identified cases of OpenAI agents breaching security controls and impairing the availability of websites and online services. OpenAI is also concerned by models posting information to third party sites. It found 53 incidents where its AI models had posted images input by ChatGPT users to other image-hosting sites. “This is not the first time we have hit pause, nor do we expect it will be the last."
OpenAI said it has paused training its most powerful artificial intelligence models as incidents of agents breaching websites’ security controls or posting to third-party sites continue to pile up. On Friday, OpenAI said it had notified “dozens” of bodies, including governments, universities, and public agencies, who might have been impacted by its models’ activities on the internet during training and evaluation.
The company has identified cases of OpenAI agents breaching security controls and impairing the availability—or otherwise negatively impacting—websites and online services. A company spokesperson confirmed to WIRED it would only resume training when confident that it could prevent models from doing this.
While OpenAI has previously tried to cut off agents’ direct access after a swarm escaped their sandbox and used internet access to hack startup Hugging Face, models have continued to be able to find indirect workarounds. “We have not been as fast as we would have liked,” chief executive Sam Altman wrote on X on Friday about the company’s “extensive” review into its agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation.

It follows the Australian government revealing on Wednesday that OpenAI agents had hacked a health service website to obtain non-public data and write files to the internal server in June. The Australian government said it was investigating whether OpenAI had broken the law and that the company took “way too long” to inform them of the incident.
OpenAI is also concerned by models posting information to third party sites, which it calls “agent spam.” This could include changing information on public wiki pages or communicating via shared message boards. Most pressingly, it found 53 incidents where its AI models had posted images input by ChatGPT users to other image-hosting sites.
Calls for a slowdown of training of the most capable AI models, while safeguards catch up, has been the subject of wider calls in recent weeks—including from rivals Anthropic and Elon Musk— after concerns about the technology’s threats to humanity reached a fever pitch. “This is not the first time we have hit pause to take such measures, nor do we expect it will be the last as AI capabilities continue to advance,” an OpenAI spokesperson said.

However, US president Donald Trump has repeatedly talked down a general slowdown, frightened that it could cede the country’s lead in the technology to China, with whom it has agreed to set up a dialogue on the technology’s risks and benefits. In an interview with Fox News ahead of his dinner with Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei on Sunday night, he again brushed off concerns about AI agents going rogue: “I don’t worry about it,” he said.

The Secret Ukrainian Robot Offensive That Killed 3,000 Russians

2026-09-27T12:16:10.560-04:00

New reports reveal that the operation in which converted Ukrainian aerial bomber drones dropped ground drones behind Russian lines to attack the Russians' positions was even more effective than first believed.

The Russians did not believe 'the attackers' were Ukrainian and were even more surprised when they turned out to be machines. The consternation caused by the surprise robot attack distracted and then panicked the defending Russians who were then faced with Ukrainian infantry advancing towards them as the robots assaulted their rear. The result was a Russian retreat in a sector they had held for over a year. JL

Verity Bowman reports in The Telegraph:

In the dead of night, a Ukrainian drone crossed the front line in northern Donetsk, one of a hundred to pass overhead that day. But this was no ordinary drone: a second machine was hanging beneath it, a small robot on wheels, packed full of explosives. The carrier drone flew on past the last Ukrainian positions, 10 miles into Russian-held territory, before dropping its cargo to the ground. Electronic warfare jammed Russian drones, so its crews could not see. Ukrainian drones and artillery struck Russian infantry positions, forcing them into cover. There, the remote-controlled vehicle sprang into action, tracking down Russian soldiers before detonating its payload. Not one pair of 3rd Army Corps boots touched the ground. The feat – part of Operation Vivaldi – helped Ukraine kill 3,000 Russians in months, while recovering 48 square miles of occupied Ukraine.

In the dead of night, a Ukrainian drone crossed the front line in northern Donetsk, one of a hundred or so to pass overhead that day.
But this was no ordinary drone: a second machine was hanging beneath it, a small robot on wheels, packed full of explosives.
The carrier drone flew on past the last Ukrainian positions, at least 10 miles into Russian-held territory, before dropping its cargo to the ground.

There, the remote-controlled vehicle sprang into action, tracking down Russian soldiers lying in wait to attack Ukraine, before detonating its payload.
The 3rd Army Corps had eliminated a deadly trap, but not one pair of boots had touched the ground.
The unit's commander told The Telegraph that no other army had air-dropped ground robots behind enemy lines until now.
The feat – part of a top secret offensive known as Operation Vivaldi – had helped Ukraine kill 3,000 Russians in a matter of months, recovering 48 square miles of occupied Ukraine, the 3rd Army Corps said.
But the drop was the easy part: getting one machine over the line took jamming, artillery and darkness, a glimpse of how far Ukraine will go to keep its infantry off the ground.

"This drone, it has no fear, and unlike men, we are not afraid to lose it," said Darwin, commander of the 2nd Mechanised Battalion of the 3rd Army Corps. "It makes the war safer for our soldiers."
Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are remote-controlled robots on wheels or tracks.

Most are unglamorous: small flatbed machines that carry ammunition, food, batteries and wounded men along routes too dangerous for people.
Others – such as the ones deployed by the 3rd Army Corps – are fitted with heavy machine guns, or packed with explosives and driven into Russian positions.
Getting the UGV – known as Gryphon to Ukrainian soldiers – over the line in Donetsk was the difficult part, Darwin explained.

A drone big enough to lift a robot is large enough for Russian troops to see, and a machine gun is enough to bring it down.
So Darwin's team set about making it invisible.
Electronic warfare was used to jam Russian reconnaissance drones, so the crews watching that stretch of front could not see what was moving across it.
Ukrainian drones and artillery struck Russian infantry positions to force the men there into cover, where they could not shoot upwards. The flights went in under the cover of night.
"The most difficult part is to reach the point where you should lift the drone," Darwin said. "We use radio electronic warfare to blind their drones, and they cannot see what we are doing any second."

The difficulty is that almost nothing on this front moves unobserved.
"A man cannot disappear from the battlefield in any situation," said Darwin.
Three or four Russian drones hang over Darwin's positions at any given second, he added. Across a day, up to 100 pass over his battalion alone.
Some are shot down, but Russia replaces them immediately.
Ukraine fights back with electronic warfare, with drones and artillery hunting the Russian crews flying them, and with soldiers simply shooting upwards. "You can use your automatic weapon to fire at this drone, and it really works," Darwin said.
When it works, the reward is not just territory but ordinary life.
"If there are no enemy drones over them, our soldiers can move," he said. "They can move safely. They can hide. They can eat, even sleep, a rarity in this war."
The robots went as far as 12 miles beyond the front line, deep enough that Russian commanders struggled to believe what had hit them, according to Darwin.
In one intercepted exchange, a Russian officer dismissed the idea that a Ukrainian machine could have reached his men at all.
"The distance was such that the commander did not believe it could have been our little machine," said Mykola Zinkevych, another commander in the unit. "He said: 'I'd sooner believe that our own guys drove up and hit you than that it was the khokhols'" – a slur for Ukrainians.
Once the robots had done their work, his men went forward on foot.
They took the position, dug in, and waited while artillery, drones and more robots worked over the next stretch of ground.
"We go forward, making a defence line, then waiting until artillery, flying drones and robots do their work, and then go in again," Darwin said.

It is slow work, and it is not how the fighting looked when he first became a soldier.
Darwin joined the army in 2017, age 19, during what was then called the Anti-Terrorist Operation in eastern Ukraine.
He served three years on contract in what he called "the small war, the war before the big war started", then signed up again when Russia invaded in 2022. He has been fighting for seven and a half years.
In that time, Ukraine has defined the future of modern warfare. Artillery can no longer fire as freely as it did, because the guns are watched, while battalions no longer move as battalions.
"If before we moved with big battalion groups with mechanised forces, now we should use only small groups because of drones," he said.
The hardest part of the job, he said, is ordering men into something that may kill them.
"Sometimes you don't know: is it worth the cost? Is it too risky to do, and should you just try?" he said. "When I was a soldier, I did the same. My commanders decided to do risky things for me, and I did it."
He described one day when Russian forces counter-attacked across his sector at once, 10 to 20 separate engagements running at the same time, with not enough drones or artillery to cover them all.
"You cannot control every point of the battlefield at one moment," he said. "And you never have enough forces to do it."
Afterwards, he said: "You start to feel exhausted."
Darwin believed the tactic of airdropping UGVs could be used anywhere along the front, and said his corps was already teaching it to other brigades.
But the conditions he set out for this to work are not trivial: money for the large carrier drones, trained operators, and a command structure "qualified enough as we are" to run an operation with that many moving parts.
Despite the odds, Darwin is resolute.
"I remember where we started, and I can see what we have now," he said. "Maybe we will spend many years in this war, maybe not, maybe some months, but the victory is inevitable for Ukraine."

The Army of Drones' Success Leads Ukraine To A Growing Army of Robots

2026-09-27T11:58:18.029-04:00

From an Army of Drones to an Army of Robots is not just a leap of technology, it is a leap of scale - as well as of innovation and imagination.

What it means is that the success of the drone war against Russia has led Ukrainian military leaders and tech innovators to conceive of a re-imagined military in which a growing number of tasks can realistically be repurposed for machines, many of which will be autonomous. The implication is that Ukrainian commanders are increasingly confident they can beat the Russians on the battlefield by utilizing their technological superiority and adaptability. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

"In 2022 we launched the Army of Drones. Today they account for 95% of battlefield strikes and Ukraine has over 700 UAV manufacturers. Now, (we are initiating) the roboticization of warfare." This week, the the Ukrainians combined Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to help retake land. They used UAVs (drones) to drop UGVs (think small, cheap, robotic vehicles) behind Russian lines. the air-dropped UGVs tracked down Russian soldiers behind the line of contact, which led to faster Ukrainian advances from the front. Credible reports are circulating that the Russians have been pushed entirely out of Lyman. Vivaldi's success (and the overall Russian failure on the front line) has been greatly aided by the ongoing Ukrainian mid-range strike campaign on Russian logistics.
Mykhailo Fedorov reappeared in the last few days. It was not about some return to his position as minister of defense, but it was to put stress on what he called the transition to an “Army of Robots”. Yesterday he gave an overview of what this means and why it is important—complete with a slick video.
Btw, there has been some nonsense online about how tanks are now mastering FPV drones and that the latter are losing their utility. This is nonsense, there will be a piece on this later.
What Fedorov was talking about was as much the future as the present—there were visions of humanoid robots operating in trenches—but the present is enough for now. This week we had stories of maybe the most striking example of machines being used to fight human beings, when it turned out that the Ukrainians had combined two of the most dynamically developing unmanned vehicles, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to help retake land.
What the Ukrainians did was use UAVs (drones) to drop UGVs (think small, cheap, robotic vehicles) behind Russian lines to cause chaos. Third Corps disclosed that the operation took place on September 20, and that it was a remarkable success. The commander of Third Corps, to make the life saving part of the process central, claimed:
“Infantry wins wars, but we protect our infantry, so robots go to the enemy first,”
What the air-dropped UGVs did was track down Russian soldiers behind the front, which led to faster Ukrainian advances from the front. The Telegraph is the only outlet that provided a narrative of these operations in English, and you can access a free version through Yahoo at this link. Here is a Ukrainian picture of an offensive UGV of the type that might have been used.
Of course, this is just one thing that is being increasingly mechanized on the battlefield. We hear of the Ukrainians mechanizing mine-clearing, the evacuation of the wounded, and the forward movement of supplies. When it comes to de-mining, for example, the Ukrainians this week also claimed that UGV units cleared a noticeably long distance of roads/tracks, 30 kms, in two days without loss.
Once you add fighting to the list, you can see where this is going.
While it is difficult to judge exactly how this has all worked within Vivaldi, it is clear that the Ukrainians see this as a key part of their success. They claim, and it seems plausible, that in going forward they have caused a large number of casualties to the Russians, and have lost relatively fewer themselves.
That would be notable in the context of this war, where advancing has been increasingly expensive in human lives.
As for Vivaldi, the Ukrainians are still not being too revealing about their advances. Deep State has only a relatively small area changing hands from Russia to Ukraine around Lyman in the last week. Here was the situation on 18 September (see the blue area to the north of Lyman).
Here is the situation at their most recent update (September 25).
However, quite credible reports are being circulated that the Russians have been pushed entirely out of Lyman. Actually, one of the most interesting sources we have for this is Russian milbloggers, who are getting a little panicky at what is happening. The well-known Russian “Rybar” account has a much more optimistic map for the Ukrainians, which has them retaking a great deal more land to the north of Lyman reaching to and even over the body of water north of Zarichne.
I actually reached out to a Ukrainian whom I trust and who has excellent knowledge of these things. I specifically asked about the differences between the Russian and Ukrainian maps of this area, and whether the Russian ones with deeper Ukrainian advances might be the reality. I was told, in response, that this was “highly likely”.
That does not mean definite, mind you, but this person does not exaggerate. Believe me.
Btw, as a comparison, the Institute for the Study of War, in its update from yesterday, has significantly greater advances than Deep State but perhaps less than Rybar.
So Vivaldi is ongoing, the Ukrainians are being open about how they are fighting it and what they want to do going forward, and they seem to be making advances. Still, we need to damp down talk of Ukrainian breakthroughs or fast advances. This is not the war we are in (at present). However, in moving forward in this way, the Ukrainians are innovating at a much faster pace than the Russians, and that is notable.
The only other thing I want to say about this campaign is that its success (and the overall Russian failure on the front line) has been greatly aided by the ongoing Ukrainian mid-range strike campaign on Russian logistics. This has receded from the news in the last few weeks, but it is ongoing and taking a real toll on Russian supply and movement behind the lines. What it means is that the Russians are struggling in their reaction speed to Ukrainian moves. That extra time is vital.

Druzhkivka Salient Elimination Disrupts Another Kremlin Donbas Plan

2026-09-27T10:49:32.771-04:00

Ukraine's elimination of the Russian salient at Druzhkivkva, aimed at Dobropillia, has further disrupted and delayed the Kremlin plan to attack and take the Fortress Belt in 2026.

With two of its pincers decimated and largely destroyed, the Russian military is considered to be in no position to make further gains in Donbas this year - and possibly well into next year. JL

RFU News reports:

From Druzhkivka, northeast of Dobropillia, Ukraine's First Azov Corps deployed its Tuman special-ops unit alongside the Skala Assault Regiment. Participating formations planned the operation together. Their first objective isolated Russian concentrations, restricting movement and preventing expansion before assault groups advanced. That coordination allowed Ukraine to squeeze the penetration from multiple directions rather than simply pushing against its strongest point. Ukraine simultaneously attacked Russia’s fire support. More importantly than the losses, Russia failed to transform its infiltration into the breakthrough it needed as the reinforced Russian formations around Dobropillia failed to generate advances despite substantial redeployments during the summer, causing another delay for the Russian command’s objective: breaking Ukraine’s Donetsk defenses.

From the Druzhkivka direction, a dangerous Russian penetration formed northeast of Dobropillia, as Russian forces had spent time accumulating troops around the Shahove area, attempting to expand in several directions around Hruzke and Novomykolaivka. Elements of Russia’s Ninetieth Tank Division and the Eighth Combined Arms Army sought Ukrainian logistical routes that could support an operational encirclement of Druzhkivka while opening another route toward Dobropillia. Had that worked, Russia could have threatened communications supporting the wider Ukrainian defense of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration. Instead of waiting for that to develop, Ukraine attacked the penetration systematically from multiple directions.
Once Ukrainian commanders concluded Russia was establishing a staging area rather than conducting isolated infiltrations, reinforcements were called in. The First Azov Corps deployed its Tuman special-purpose detachment alongside elements of the recently subordinated Skala Assault Regiment. The operation also involved Azov reconnaissance battalions with experienced drone operators. Crucially, representatives from participating formations planned the operation together rather than operating independently.
Their first objective was not immediately storming Russian positions. Ukraine instead isolated the concentration area with firepower, restricting Russian movement and preventing additional expansion before assault groups advanced. The Ukrainian soldiers attacked the Russian positions on the ground while FPV drones, bomber drones, and artillery worked around them. When Russian soldiers entrenched themselves in shelters that would have been expensive to storm directly, Ukrainian troops stopped, transmitted their locations, and requested drone strikes. Once those positions were suppressed or destroyed, assault troops moved forward and cleared them.
That coordination allowed Ukraine to squeeze the penetration from multiple directions rather than simply pushing against its strongest point. Ukraine simultaneously attacked Russia’s fire support by conducting a specialized operation against Russian artillery, employing drone-delivered munitions designed to damage howitzer barrels. Destroying those guns reduced Russia’s ability to suppress Ukrainian assault groups while they advanced, while Ukrainian artillery provided another layer of support, creating a combined reconnaissance-strike system around infantry moving through extremely difficult terrain.
This was particularly important because evacuation was dangerous, as open terrain and dense Russian drone activity meant a seriously wounded Ukrainian soldier could be difficult to extract. Commanders therefore emphasized destroying detected Russian positions remotely whenever a direct assault created unnecessary risk.
To achieve the essential real-time coordination, a liaison officer from the Twelfth Azov Brigade remained at the command-and-observation post, allowing assault troops, drones, and supporting formations to exchange information immediately. Skala’s participation was particularly significant because this became its first operation under Azov’s operational command. The result was the dismantling of the Russian concentration and the complete elimination of the breakthrough that had taken months to establish. Azov reported two-hundred-thirty-seven Russian soldiers killed, forty-four wounded, and three captured during the operation.
Overall, more importantly than the number of losses, Russia failed to transform its infiltration into the logistical breakthrough it needed. As a result, the reinforced Russian formations around Dobropillia failed to generate major advances despite substantial redeployments during the summer. At the same time, Ukraine has now bought additional time around Druzhkivka and Dobropillia while forcing Russia to absorb another round of losses. Instead of becoming the staging ground for a wider breakthrough, the penetration became an isolated concentration attacked by Ukrainian infantry, artillery, and drones from multiple directions. That means another delay for the Russian command’s broader objective: breaking Ukraine’s Donetsk defenses and capturing the remaining Ukrainian-held part of the region.

Inside the Bunker Where the Lethality of Ukraine's Drone War Is Perfected

2026-09-27T10:31:28.804-04:00

The leadership, coordination and technological sophistication of Ukraine's battle management system, put together by successful former businessmen who are now army officers, is responsible for the effectiveness of its overall military strategy, especially its use of drones.

This, in turn, has led to Ukraine's recent successes across most of the front line - and to Russia's failures. JL

Jillian Melchior reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine's Drone Forces are to 2.5% of Ukraine’s army, but account for a third of Russian casualties in the past year. “By injecting civilians into the army,” Ukraine made its military nimbler. Maj. Robert 'Magyar' Brovdi, a global grain trader before the war, has taken a “business approach. The war is “about math, planning, using forces well” and spending “the smallest budget possible.” Today’s best drone will be obsolete by the time it's ready. ready. The task is to build a system” in which cheap, good-enough drones are effective, Ukraine’s Delta battle system, “integrates every drone, sensor, and shooting platform into a single network.” This unified data is used from the strategic level to the tactical. Drone pilots record pins on a Google-like map of anything they see. That triggers an alert to those nearby, who respond like Uber drivers. Brovdi delegates 90% of combat decisions. After each mission it generates a digital report of 10 key parameters, including the location, conditions, time, target, drone, explosive and pilot. Metrics record which drones best take out specific targets at the most favorable cost ratio.
Deep in a bunker, a device resembling an alarm clock sits on the desk of Maj. Robert “Magyar” Brovdi. It shows the number of Russians his troops have killed that day: 302 when our conversation begins in the afternoon. “When you are leaving the number will be higher,” he says. The Unmanned Systems Forces, which he has commanded since June 2025, amounts to 2.5% of Ukraine’s armed forces, but it’s responsible for approximately a third of all Russian casualties in the past year.
The Russians have more men, a stronger economy and a defense-production advantage. Yet “a small modern Ukrainian army is winning over the old Soviet system that was in Ukraine,” Maj. Brovdi, 51, says. “By injecting civilians into the army structure,” Ukraine has made its military nimbler. Maj. Brovdi, a successful global grain trader before the war, has taken a “business-oriented approach” as he beats plowshares into swords. He argues the war is “about math, proper planning, using forces well” and spending “the smallest amount of budget possible.”
Western militaries aren’t as sclerotic as the Soviet army was, but bureaucratic entrenchment hinders speed, efficiency, flexibility and innovation. How’s that working out? Iran is fighting asymmetrically, and a mighty show of U.S. force hasn’t been enough to restore free passage in the Strait of Hormuz. Europe can’t seem to stop suspicious drones from loitering near sensitive military sites and critical infrastructure. Last month Germany failed to detect an explosives-laden drone at the airport in Leipzig but got lucky when the detonator failed. Ukrainian drone operators have repeatedly trounced North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, including Americans, in military exercises.
Something fundamental has changed about the threat, and that requires institutional changes to Western militaries. “In Ukraine a symphony is being perfected, and to our partners we’re teaching the notes,” Maj. Brovdi says. “We could give them the symphony, but they couldn’t appreciate it because they’re looking for the best drone.” Today’s best drone will be obsolete by the time it rolls off torpid Western production lines.
Instead, he advises, “the task at hand is to build an ecosystem” in which cheap and good-enough drones, among other tools, can be put to effective use. He showed me what this ecosystem looks like by allowing me to visit the command center for Magyar’s Birds, a unit that under his leadership grew from a small territorial defense group to the 414th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade.
Because of their outsize lethality, Maj. Brovdi and his men have a Russian target on their backs. The Unmanned Systems Forces says the Kremlin has put out the word through post-Soviet criminal networks of a $20 million reward for information about Maj. Brovdi’s whereabouts. Russian courts have convicted him in absentia on terrorism charges related to Ukrainian military operations and sentenced him to decades in prison. So the logistics of my visit are complex.
I was required to turn off location services on my phone and place it in airplane mode. Then it went into a Faraday bag, which obstructs Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth and GPS signals. Maj. Brovdi’s team drove me to the meeting points in a vehicle with the windows blacked out to obscure any glimpse of the route to secret locations somewhere in southeastern Ukraine. Members of his Unmanned Systems Forces take similar cloak-and-dagger precautions when moving around the country.
The Russians have killed 79 men and women from Magyar’s Birds since the start of the war, and their names are etched on the wall at the entrance of the command center. Maj. Brovdi tallies his revenge by calculator: By the day of our interview, the Unmanned Systems Forces had killed or wounded 656 Russians for every one of their own fallen, and he says “I don’t think this exchange rate is good enough.” Pass through that somber corridor, and you enter a complex that resembles a cross between a NASA mission-control room and a cosmopolitan art gallery, the walls adorned with works from Maj. Brovdi’s private collection, including paintings by Ukrainian artists Anatoly Kryvolap and Maria Prymachenko.
Here, you get the God’s-eye view of the front, which is no longer a single line but a 30- to 35-mile band known as the kill zone, where small clusters of Russian and Ukrainian troops are interspersed, fighting each other with drones, taking and defending positions. Reconnaissance and strike models alike provide real-time video footage. Citing Ukrainian military intelligence, the Times of London reported this month that the average life expectancy of a Russian soldier arriving on the Ukrainian battlefield is 20 to 30 minutes. I’m about to see why.
Ukraine’s battlefield-management system, known as Delta, “fully integrates every single drone, every sensor, and every shooting platform into just one single network,” then-U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May. Across Ukraine this unified combat workspace is used from the strategic level down to the tactical level, sometimes even the company level. In contrast, Mr. Driscoll warned lawmakers, “our software systems are compartmentalized, isolated and ineffective against modern threats.”

Among myriad functions, Delta allows drone pilots to record pins on a Google-like map of anything noteworthy they see on their route, including enemy soldiers or vehicles. That triggers an alert to those nearby, who can respond like Uber drivers when a request for a ride pings through the system. Maj. Brovdi sets guidelines but estimates he delegates 90% of combat decisions, which frees his troops to act on information quickly without seeking permission.
“When we detect the enemy, it’s actually the end of the enemy,” my command-center guide says. We hover briefly by one cluster of screens. On one monitor, a high-flying drone transmits the view of a field. Movement: a solitary Russian soldier. Another screen shows the perspective of a low-flying drone closing in on him. The Russian runs around a tree, then into deep grass, but he can’t hide. From the aerial view, I see a puff of smoke. No more movement.
The first unit to respond and successfully eliminate a target earns e-points that can be redeemed for weapons on a government-run market—but without video footage to prove the strike, the operation doesn’t count as successful. Regardless of the outcome, after each mission the Unmanned System Forces generates a digital report looking at 10 key parameters, including the location, conditions, date, time and result of the operation; the target; the drone, explosive or other tools used in the strike; and the pilot and any other soldiers involved.
Ukrainians also use Delta and complementary applications to improve situational awareness and protect their own troops. At the command center, operational officers monitor what’s happening in real time, remain in constant communication with those at the front, and alert them to any enemy movements or changes in nearby conditions. There’s also granular historical data about the battlefield. Need to evacuate a wounded Ukrainian soldier or infiltrate an enemy position? You may discover that even though it is a relentlessly clear-skied summer week, there’s a small area near a pond that is reliably shrouded in dense fog between 5 and 8 a.m., providing some cover from enemy reconnaissance.
Militaries worldwide have long struggled with perverse incentives to falsify what’s actually happening on the battlefield. Exaggerate the enemy threat, and you may get more resources; obscure your failures, and you evade accountability. But video, audio, sensor and radar data and more are recorded in Delta in a decentralized way—and from top to bottom in the military chain, users can see the underlying proof. That ensures an honest battlefield picture.
“Data is a strategic resource of the war,” Maj. Brovdi says. He began meticulously collecting it in 2022 as a territorial-defense unit commander. Today Magyar’s Birds alone records 10 to 12 terabytes a day—the equivalent of nearly 20 years of recorded sound, or more than three million songs. Nationwide, Delta records petabytes (quadrillions of bytes) each day. In corporate speak, all this information is actionable, and Unmanned Systems Forces uses tools, including an internally developed, closed artificial-intelligence system, to crunch through it quickly.
I saw business-style metrics for which makes and models of drones can best take out specific Russian targets at the most favorable cost ratio. The Unmanned Systems Forces and other parts of the Ukrainian military are putting battlefield information to use for research and development, linking weapons makers with the front line. Fast, accurate feedback accelerates innovation by quantifying what does and doesn’t work. “Whoever is capable to reach the next Rubicon first has the upper hand,” Maj. Brovdi says.
As our interview concludes, the digital ticker on Mr. Brovdi’s desk reports 343 dead Russians—41 killed since we started speaking.
Other parts of the Ukrainian armed forces are using a similar approach to strike logistics and isolate Russian soldiers at the front, reduce Ukrainian casualties, thwart Russian advances and intercept drones, among other key functions. Smart use of Delta and related platforms, the ability to analyze and act quickly on data, personal initiative and decentralized decision-making, the ability to invent or improve weapons fast, quick and accurate feedback from the front—these are some of the characteristics of the ecosystem enabling successes disproportionate to Ukraine’s size.
Maj. Brovdi says matching enemy capacity is “the bare minimum” required to stay competitive with an adversary. “If you really want to diminish even the possibility of the attack, you need to greatly overcome their capabilities.” The bad news is that “what is known to Russia is known in full to their partners,” including China, Iran and North Korea. Terrorists and school-shooter types are also paying attention, and commercial drones can be bought off the shelf and home-rigged to kill. But the purchase of a commercial drone “will not even ring bells in the head of a police officer” or “cause the same kind of reaction as a firearm,” Mr. Brovdi observes.
Our interview happens the same week as the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which were an early example of asymmetrical warfare. “America already knows how one incident can turn everything upside down,” Maj. Brovdi says. “I don’t wish for something like this to happen involving drones, but it’s unavoidable. We need to prepare for that.”
The Unmanned Systems Forces can serve as a template as the U.S. and Europe catch up. “To retrain old military personnel is much harder than to recruit this new 2.5% of the army from civilians,” Maj. Brovdi says. He suggests bringing in people who have creativity and initiative and lack the baggage of conventional military thinking. These special forces can serve as “a quick reaction force to any challenges that are coming their way during the times while the general army is still being trained.”

Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi Phase 2 Just Ended. The Offensive Is Far From Over

2026-09-26T12:58:06.832-04:00

As the Ukrainian command keeps reminding everyone, Vivaldi had four movements. They have acknowledged that Phases 1 and 2 are now completed. In keeping with the operating security doctrine that contributed to the counteroffensive's success, Ukraine has not yet announced whether Phase 3 has started - or where it might be.

The larger point is that Operation Vivaldi, which has already achieved strategic success by disrupting and postponing the Kremlin' attack on the Fortress Belt, still maintains both momentum and the initiative as the crossing of the Zherebets River by Ukrainian forces means they now have a much wider area in which to operate. JL

Ryder Blackthorn reports in The Frontline Signal:

On September 23, the 3rd Army Corps said Operation Vivaldi was still underway, and Russian military-linked sources are now reporting Ukrainian counterattacks farther southeast around Lyman. Russian forces are disorganized, trying to hold important defensive areas, and being forced to find additional reserves. Russian forces apparently believed the wet terrain made heavy vehicle movement unlikely. Ukraine adapted its vehicles for those conditions and moved through terrain where Russian forces weren’t expecting armor, apparently achieving tactical surprise. The initiative remains with the 3rd Army Corps. Phase Two may be finished, but the fighting clearly isn’t.

When I wrote about Operation Vivaldi last week, Ukraine had only just publicly acknowledged what had been happening north of Lyman. At that point, Ukrainian forces said they had cleared or liberated around 85 square kilometers. Serednie had been liberated, while Novoselivka, Oleksandrivka, Yarova, and the outskirts of Korovii Yar had been cleared of Russian infiltration.
Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, also made something clear: the first phase wasn’t supposed to be the end of the operation.
The 3rd Army Corps says Phase Two brought Shandryholove and Derylove back under Ukrainian control and established full control over Drobysheve. In total, the corps says 125 square kilometers have now been restored to Ukrainian control during the operation, including about 50 square kilometers described as deoccupied territory.
But the territorial number isn’t actually the most interesting part anymore. On September 23, a deputy commander from the 3rd Army Corps said Operation Vivaldi was still underway, and Russian military-linked sources are now reporting Ukrainian counterattacks farther southeast around Lyman. Phase Two may be finished, but the fighting clearly isn’t.

The Fight Is Moving Beyond Phase Two
The latest gains matter because of where they happened. Shandryholove, Derylove, and Drobysheve sit north and northwest of Lyman, in an area Russia had spent months trying to use to build pressure toward the city.
That pressure was part of a much larger Russian objective. ISW assesses that Russian forces have been trying to seize Lyman and cross the Siverskyi Donets River as part of a wider effort to threaten Ukraine’s defensive belt around Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka from the north. Ukraine’s gains north of Lyman have disrupted that part of the Russian plan, but they haven’t ended the battle.
Ukraine’s September 24 morning frontline report recorded 15 Russian attacks in the Lyman sector during the previous day, including toward Novoselivka, Drobysheve, Lyman, Maslyakivka, Dibrova, and Shyikivka. Another six assaults were recorded in the neighboring Sloviansk sector, including around Yampil, Starodubivka, and Mykolaivka. This isn’t a neat counteroffensive story where Ukraine retook several villages and everybody conveniently stopped moving. Russia is still attacking, Ukraine is still counterattacking, and both sides appear to be fighting over where the new line settles.
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Ukrainian flag over Shandryholove, | Credit: Screenshot from a video by the 3rd Army Corps / Source: Operation Vivaldi: Ukrainian Forces Liberate 2 More Settlements in Lyman Sector
Now Yampil Is Starting to Matter
This is the part I’m watching most closely. ISW reported on September 22 and 23 that Ukrainian forces were continuing counterattacks in the Lyman direction, including southeast of the city. More importantly, those reports are coming in part from Russian sources themselves.
A source reporting on Russia’s Western Grouping of Forces claimed Ukrainian troops were counterattacking toward Yampil and the Zherebets River. The same source claimed the Russian command was redeploying additional reserves toward Lyman to stabilize the situation and establish defensive positions along the Zherebets. Then on September 23, another Russian source again reported Ukrainian counterattacks toward Yampil and the river. A Russian military blogger separately claimed Ukrainian forces were regularly counterattacking from Ozerne toward Kryva Luka.
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Credit: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, Sept. 22, 2026 | ISW
These are Russian frontline reports of Ukrainian counterattacks, not a map of confirmed territorial gains. But they do indicate that fighting is continuing beyond the settlements highlighted at the end of Phase Two. Ukraine still appears to be testing Russian positions southeast of Lyman, and the Zherebets River could matter again if Ukraine can keep pushing Russian forces toward it.
ISW has previously assessed that pushing Russian troops back toward the Zherebets could help Ukraine establish a more stable defensive line, using the terrain itself to complicate Russian movement. A river isn’t some magical wall, especially on a battlefield dominated by drones, artillery, and long-range strikes. But terrain still matters. For now, the exact Ukrainian line remains harder to establish than the direction of the pressure.
The 3rd Army Corps Says It Holds the Initiative
The 3rd Army Corps isn’t describing Vivaldi as finished either. On September 23, a deputy corps commander using the callsign Rollo told Censor.NET that only the interim effects of the operation could currently be assessed. He said Russian forces were partially disorganized, trying to hold important defensive areas, and being forced to find additional reserves. He also claimed the initiative remained with the 3rd Army Corps.
That’s the Ukrainian military describing its own operation, so it needs to be treated as exactly that. Still, the Russian-source reports of reserve movements toward Lyman give part of that claim some outside context.
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Ukrainian servicemen in Drobysheve | Credit: Screenshot from a video by the 3rd Army Corps / Source: Operation Vivaldi: Ukrainian Forces Liberate 2 More Settlements in Lyman Sector
The Map Was the Result, Not the Operation
According to the 3rd Army Corps, its unmanned systems units carried out roughly 36,000 strike missions against Russian logistics during Vivaldi. The corps says drones initially worked across an area extending as far as 50 kilometers behind the line before the strike zone expanded to as much as 120 kilometers. Targets included ammunition depots, communications nodes, command posts, vehicles, and fuel infrastructure.
Those figures come from the Ukrainian military and can’t all be independently verified, but they tell us how the corps says it approached the operation: don’t begin with the trench; begin with everything feeding the trench.
One of the more interesting examples involved a fuel pipeline into occupied Luhansk Oblast. The 3rd Army Corps says it struck the beginning and end points of a pipeline running from Voronezh Oblast and forced the system to shut down. A corps spokesperson told Militarnyi that the pipeline had supplied roughly half of the daily diesel requirement of Russian forces in occupied Luhansk Oblast.
That 50% figure is a Ukrainian military claim and hasn’t been independently verified, but ISW also reported that the pipeline shutdown was disrupting Russian logistics and forcing fuel to move over a roughly 400-kilometer route from Russia. The corps separately says repeated strikes extended one Russian division’s equipment-evacuation route by around 250 kilometers. Make everything behind the Russian soldier farther away, then attack the soldier.
Serednie Shows How the Ground Fight Followed
ISW’s September 23 assessment gives us a better picture of how that shaping campaign connected to the actual advance. A Ukrainian battalion deputy commander said Ukrainian forces operated in three groups, established a bridgehead, and liberated Serednie before launching subsequent counterattacks toward Shandryholove. That sequence matters; Serednie became a starting point for what came next.
Ukraine also appears to have put significant effort into keeping Russia from seeing that movement early. The 3rd Army Corps says Ukrainian electronic-warfare and air-defense systems were used to suppress Russian reconnaissance drones and prevent them from uncovering the plan for the offensive.
On this battlefield, that’s not a small detail. With many roads under persistent drone observation, offensive actions have become slower and less cinematic. Vivaldi appears to have been built partly around disrupting that chain long enough for Ukrainian units to move. ISW assessed that Ukrainian tactics during the operation allowed Ukraine to reintroduce limited elements of mechanized maneuver at the tactical level. Limited is the important word, but creating temporary windows for mechanized movement matters.
Sometimes the Weather Helped Too
One small detail from Serednie probably explains the operation better than another giant number. A Ukrainian battalion commander said troops entered the settlement with armored vehicles after heavy rain. According to the commander, Russian forces apparently believed the wet terrain made heavy vehicle movement unlikely. Ukraine had adapted its vehicles for those conditions and moved through terrain where Russian forces weren’t expecting armor, apparently achieving tactical surprise.
That’s the sort of thing that disappears when we only stare at arrows on a battlefield map. Vivaldi wasn’t one clever weapon or one giant breakthrough; it was logistics strikes, drones, electronic warfare, air defense, terrain, deception, and ground forces working together.
Ukraine Sent Robots in First
During Phase Two, the 3rd Army Corps says heavy bomber drones carried kamikaze unmanned ground vehicles more than 10 kilometers behind Russian positions. The drones carried the ground robots across the frontline and dropped them into the Russian rear, allowing the UGVs to continue toward their targets without Ukrainian soldiers crossing the same ground. Biletskyi described it as the first such operation in the world.
Proving nobody anywhere has ever attempted something similar is a much larger task than confirming Ukraine used the system during Vivaldi. What we can say is that the 3rd Army Corps released imagery of the operation and said the air-dropped UGVs were used during the fighting that preceded the liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove and the clearing of Drobysheve. The important part is what Ukraine was trying to do: put machines into some of the most dangerous spaces before sending people.
Russia Hasn’t Stabilized the Sector Yet
None of this means Russia has been driven out of the Lyman area. Today’s frontline reporting makes that obvious. Russian forces are still attacking toward Lyman and surrounding settlements, while fighting is also continuing around Yampil in the neighboring Sloviansk sector.
The 3rd Army Corps says the operation remains underway, while Russian sources continue reporting Ukrainian counterattacks farther southeast and additional reserves moving toward Lyman. That doesn’t mean Phase Three has officially begun, nor does it guarantee another sudden push. It tells us something simpler: Vivaldi hasn’t settled into history yet.
Ukraine says Phase Two is finished. Around Lyman, the next season may already be starting.

Speaker, Microphone Ground Drones Gather Intel, Urge Russians To Surrender

2026-09-26T12:45:16.390-04:00

Increasingly sophisticated ground drones are being used by Ukrainian forces to gather intelligence by listening in on Russian communications at the front. Data which is then transferred to strike units for targeting.

Similarly equipped drones are also being used to broadcast surrender messages and instructions to Russian troops. Some of these can be dropped behind Russian lines by larger aerial drones (photo at right) and can cause confusion, as they have done, most famously during Operation Vivaldi in Lyman. JL

Sinead Baker reports in Business Insider:

Robots in Ukraine's rapidly growing fleet include microphones, which can be used to detect Russian troops and weapon systems nearby. Increasingly, the robots are also equipped with speakers that can talk to soldiers, allowing Ukrainians in dispersed fighting positions to communicate, ask for help, and even to try to persuade Russian soldiers to give up their fight. Russian soldiers have surrendered to Ukrainian war robots. The robots broadcast surrender messages to Russian soldiers. Some Ukrainian units also say they have successfully played audio telling Russian soldiers to surrender from speakers on the aerial drones.
Ukraine is increasingly using uncrewed ground vehicles to launch attacks, transport equipment, pick up wounded troops, and lay mines, while operators control them remotely from protected positions farther from danger.
They're also being used more and more for front-line communication and intelligence gathering.
Robots in Ukraine's rapidly growing fleet often include microphones, which can be used to detect Russian troops and weapon systems nearby.

Increasingly, the robots are also equipped with speakers that can talk to soldiers, allowing Ukrainians in dispersedfighting positions to communicatea nd ask for help, and even to try to persuade Russian soldiers to give up their fight.
DevDroid, a Ukrainian developer, recently started putting speakers on its robots that can play live and pre-recorded audio because sometimes "we need to say something to the enemy or maybe to our soldiers," Oleg Fedoryshyn, its director of R&D, told Business Insider.
Russian soldiers have been filmed surrendering to Ukrainian war robots, including some made by DevDroid. Other Ukrainian companies, like Roboneers, have also shared examples of their robots broadcasting surrender messages to Russian soldiers. Some Ukrainian units also say they have successfully played audio telling Russian soldiers to surrender from speakers on the aerial drones.
Ukraine's robots can go forward where it's too dangerous for soldiers and listen.Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Fedoryshyn said the speakers also allow Ukrainian soldiers to request ammo or relay critical status updates to their comrades. Robots, he said, can serve as a communication bridge when radios aren't an option. Tools like these have been used to communicate with trapped soldiers and wounded troops being transported out.

Microphones are a more established feature that Devdroid puts on all of its UGVs, Fedoryshyn said. He said they're "very useful," turning ground robots into combat tools that can listen as well as watch for the enemy and giving Ukrainian units better intel to inform their actions.
DevDroid says its tech streams audio from the robot's onboard microphones back to the operator, giving them "valuable situational awareness by hearing the environment around the platform," providing more than they can learn from the onboard cameras alone. Cameras can monitor areas and be used to assess the health of a wounded soldier, but terrain, like tall grass, can impact visibility.
DevDroid says that "ambient sound can reveal the movement of personnel or vehicles and other activity that may remain outside the cameras' field of view."
This kind of intelligence gathering is a newer role for Ukraine's ground robots. The fight evolves so quickly that tactics and weapons can become outdated within weeks, forcing constant updates. Ukraine's defense industry is always adding new features.
Ukrainian weapons makers like DevDroid work closely with soldiers and units to ensure systems are relevant. Fedoryshyn said that the company has 24/7 support chats with every unit that uses its systems. He said units can ask for help at 3:30 a.m. and get a response, including remote fixes to some issues within minutes.

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 in a way that allows it to be updated as easily as possible, "like mobile phones or operating systems."
As a result, troops get robots with improved intelligence-gathering capabilities or the ability to fire weapons like anti-tank RPGs. Such capabilities were added in response to soldiers' requests.
Ukraine is growing its fleet of war robots while increasingly reassigning missions once carried out by humans to machines. Kyiv, for instance, has said it wants front-line logistics performed entirely by robots.
Western allies are boosting their ground robot capabilities in response to what they're seeing in Ukraine's conflict. Fedoryshyn mentioned that these vehicles might be essential in future wars. While advanced tanks and armored vehicles offer more power, they are costly and take longer to replace. In contrast, robots are "quite cheap" and much easier to produce.

In Drone Strategy Battle, Dispersed Ukraine Is Beating Centralized Rubikon

2026-09-26T11:35:52.877-04:00

Ukrainian and Russian drone strategies mirror their military organizational philosophies. Ukraine's is dispersed, adaptive, flexible and innovative while Russia's is centralized, controlled and top-down.

So far - and especially in the latest successes driven by the Operation Vivaldi counteroffensive - the Ukrainian strategy has been beating the Russian. But war has demonstrated the power of iterative, cat and mouse, tactical advances, so to maintain its lead, Ukrainian drone forces have to avoid complacency and stay innovative. JL

Decimus reports in Daily Kos:

The success of Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi owes much to the the drone units of the Ukrainian 3rd corps. They went after and defeated their Russian counterparts, the elite Rubikon drone units in the area, forcing the Russian command to withdraw it from the Lyman front. Rubikon is an elite Russian military group with 5,000 personnel which integrates research, development, training, and combat operations into a unified feedback loop. Ukraine has countered Rubikon through decentralized adaptation, precision strikes on Rubikon’s command nodes and logistics, and the use of agile, digitized “mission control” systems. Ukraine’s strategy leverages fast-paced innovation, tactical flexibility and precision counter-strikes as drone warfare is fast moving toward greater autonomy, AI integration, and contested electronic warfare.
By now the news about the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps and its “Vivaldi” Four Seasons campaign currently pushing the Russians out of the Lyman-Borova sector and cutting off the vaunted Russian Northern pincer towards the Ukrainian “Fortress Belt” is everywhere.
The success of the campaign reportedly owes much to the operations mounted by the drone units of the corps. They went after and defeated their Russian counterparts, the so-called elite Rubikon(Rubicon) drone units in the area:

Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps says it has crippled Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit
Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps has said that in the course of the Operation Vivaldi offensive in northern Donetsk Oblast, it has inflicted losses on Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit that have forced the Russian command to withdraw it from the Lyman-Borova front.
Soldiers from the 3rd Army Corps have disabled Rubicon’s command-and-control system, destroying its logistics, ammunition depots, drone launch sites and newly formed units and killing their experienced drone operators. The Russians are now no longer able to quickly replenish the unit with equipment and trained personnel.
Losing personnel and equipment and being unable to deploy because of Ukrainian electronic warfare and air defence systems, the enemy began to abandon its positions, leaving equipment behind. To preserve what remained of the unit, the Russian command has decided to redeploy Rubicon to another sector.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/09/18/8054081
More here:

Russia pulls elite drone unit from northern Donetsk Oblast after losses from Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s military says
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-pulls-elite-drone-unit-from-northern-donetsk-oblast-after-losses-from-operation-vivaldi-military-says
What does this victory for the Ukrainian 3rd Corps drone units signify or portend? When the war started it was Ukrainian units who on their own hook, often self-funded, took to using drones, mostly amateur ones, as part of their operations. Notably newly mobilized civilians such as the now famous commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems, Major Robert “Magyar” Brovdi and his “Magyar’s Birds” as well as the now retired Colonel Pavlo Yelizarov and his “Lazar’s Group” who financed and led what became the genesis of Ukraine’s lethal drone campaign and burgeoning international reputation for cutting edge drone technology.
Russia soon caught up and using its much larger industrial base and economy purse, went all in on drones, transitioning from an early disadvantage to dominating, for a while at least, the battlefield through mass production and doctrinal integration. Russia was the first nation to deploy fiber optic drones in combat, fielding them in Spring 2024. Ukraine was suddenly the one playing catch up. So much so that as recently as December, 2025 news outlets like the Kyiv Independent would write:
Deadly, elite, and scaling — inside Russia’s Rubikon front-line drone system
New Russian drone initiatives have eroded Ukraine’s early edge in UAV warfare, reshaping the battle for the skies
https://kyivindependent.com/russians-really-scale-how-moscow-built-a-drone-system-that-now-threatens-to-tilt-the-balance-on-the-battlefield-in-ukraine
Other analysts and observers believed that Russia was winning the drone war.
And who can blame them for ignoring Ukraine’s amazing ability to systematically use drones to degrade Russia’s once feared air defenses and steadily destroying Russia’s economy. Also, seemingly forgotten, is Ukraine using drones[“Mid-strike Campaign”] to effectively cut and sever Russia’s logistics theater-wide thereby hobbling their ability to project their forces. But what with Russia making screaming news headlines by daily blasting Ukrainian civilians and cities with its new fangled jet powered Shahed drones while simultaneously menacing European capitals with their barely disguised drone based “hybrid war”?. But ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE will soon have an answer for that, too:
Zelenskyy Confirms Breakthrough as Native Interceptor Downs Jet-Powered Shahed
The milestone marks another successful interceptor test aimed at countering advanced aerial threats deployed during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Writing on social media, Zelenskyy shared details from the military leadership, stating: “There was a report from Commander-in-Chief of the AFU Mykhailo Drapatyi. It is important that there is another positive result of testing interceptors against reactive ‘Shaheds’: there was a downing. I thank all the developers and our warriors. We will scale up.”
Russia has centralized all of its military drone units into one organization … Rubikon. Formally the Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies, it is an elite Russian military group specializing in drone warfare with approximately 5,000 personnel. Established in 2024, it integrates research, development, training, and combat operations into a unified feedback loop.
The war is now characterized by a clash between Russia’s centralized Rubikon and Ukraine’s decentralized, agile drone units. Rubikon functions as a state-controlled hub designed to standardize doctrine, scale elite drone capabilities, and systematically target Ukrainian logistics and operators up to 40 kilometers behind the front lines.
However, this centralized model faces significant limitations and vulnerabilities. Ukraine has successfully countered Rubikon’s effectiveness through decentralized adaptation, precision strikes on Rubikon’s command nodes and logistics, and the use of agile, digitized “mission control” systems:

Rubicon Reveals Limits of Russia’s Drone Centralization
https://jamestown.org/rubicon-reveals-limits-of-russias-drone-centralization
Recent reports from the field indicate that Ukrainian forces have inflicted heavy losses on Rubikon, forcing its withdrawal from certain sectors due to an inability to quickly replenish personnel and equipment. Prime example being the recent exploits of the 3rd Army Corps drone units. But Ukraine has been at it longer than that. Ukraine has conducted multiple strikes against Rubikon since its formation in 2024, targeting command posts, logistics hubs, and operator concentrations to degrade its operational capacities. To wit: Avdiivka inNovember 2025 destroyed Rubikon headquarters as well as a Rubikon UAV warehouse. Vysoke, Zaporizhia in February 2026 destroyed remote piloting post. Donetsk city unit headquarters in March 2026. Starobilsk Luhansk headquarters. Manhush Donetsk Rubikon unit station, May 2026. To mention just a few.
It is now quite clear that the Russian regime can mobilize massive resources quickly but struggles to sustain innovation and adaptability over time.

It is also clear that drone warfare is fast moving toward greater autonomy, AI integration, and contested electronic warfare environment, the central question facing both countries is whether Ukraine’s choice of organizational adaptability can overcome Russia’s choice of massed industrial capacity. Can Russia’s highly centralized system sustain the pace of innovation required in a prolonged technological competition?. Russia seeks to win the drone war through industrial scale and centralized control … the old Stalinist doctrine of “quantity has a quality all its own” still lives. Ukraine’s strategy leverages fast-paced innovation, tactical flexibility and precision counter-strikes.
Ultimately, we shall see which strategy triumphs … the Russian Rubikon bear’s massive organizational bulk versus ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE’s Muhammad Ali style “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” way of fighting which combines on-the-fly adaptation and graceful agility backed by devastating power.

'Decapitation' Strike On Commanders Collapsed Russia's Kostiantynivka Assault

2026-09-26T11:10:10.318-04:00

Last spring, Russia appeared to be on the verge of taking Kostiantynivka. Five months later, they are still on that 'verge' and showing no signs of getting any closer to success.

The reason is that Ukrainian drone units have decimated Russian reinforcements attempting to move up to the front. In one of those targeted strikes, Ukraine also eliminated the commander of the lead Russian brigade spearheading the attack. His 'decapitation' has created confusion on the ground while also leading to falsely optimistic reporting which has caused additional Russian casualties as Kremlin units are inappropriately redeployed or ordered to attack directly into drone wall kill zones. The result has been a hard lesson in the lethal utility of Ukrainian drones for urban fighting. JL

RFU News reports:

At Kostiantynivka, Russia’s most successful offensive this year was collapsed by a Ukrainian strike - and Kremlin incompetence - decapitating Russian forces as one of their best generals, whose brigade spearheaded the Russian advance into Kostiantynivka, was killed by a Ukrainian mid-range drone strike. As a result, Russian soldiers are being ordered to abandon their positions in Kostiantynivka to push forward a frontline that only exists on commanders’ maps. Russian forces repeatedly attempt deeper infiltrations without fully consolidating their rear. Consolidation is undermined by their own commanders, as soldiers are ordered to attack in the open. Ukrainian drone battalions detect and track Russian infantry as they move through the suburbs. Once they enter a hideout, bomber drones drop high explosives on top of them, eliminating them before they can engage. The Russians have failed for the entire summer to cut off the Ukrainians and capture the town.

In the Kostiantynivka direction, Russia’s most successful offensive this year was just collapsed by a single Ukrainian strike and immense Russian incompetence, decapitating Russian forces. Recently, Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces led by Robert Magyar Brovdi released footage of a drone strike on a Russian command post in the Donetsk rear. Immediately, a follow-up strike confirmed the damage, showing the command post going up in flames, as the second hit ensured that the Russian site was destroyed completely. Shortly thereafter, a Russian statement confirmed that one of their best generals had just been killed in action due to a Ukrainian mid-range drone strike.
With this, Russians confirmed that Ukrainians had successfully killed Major General Anton Grunis, commander of the Russian fourth motorized rifle brigade. His brigade spearheaded the Russian advance into the city of Kostiantynivka, which Russians claim they had already captured in early July. He himself even reported directly to Putin that the city was fully in Russian hands, and was awarded the Hero of Russia title for his success. However, unfortunately for the Russians, Ukrainians are not only maintaining a presence in the city, but are actively denying Russians the ability to consolidate it at all. This is proven by constant streams of geolocated footage, which shows intense fighting throughout the entire city, as well as Russian shelling of Ukrainian positions still as far as the southeastern outskirts.
This major disconnect between the real situation on the ground and what Russian high command believes is already causing major problems for Russian forces in Kostiantynivka. As high-ranking Russian generals believe that the city has been captured, they are increasingly ordering infiltration efforts toward the next Ukrainian city of Oleksievo-Druzhkivka. However, with no solid staging ground to launch these infiltration efforts from, Russian soldiers are forced to abandon their positions in Kostiantynivka to push forward a frontline that only exists on commanders’ maps. As the main Russian commander who was aware that the city still needed to be captured has now been killed, an even larger disconnect is now forming.
While Russian shelling focuses on the north, it is not helping Russian soldiers on the ground moving through Kostiantynivka, who are being ambushed and killed by Ukrainian soldiers still active in the area. Ukrainians in turn are not holding back, as geolocated footage shows Ukrainian F-sixteen jet fighters dropping bombs on Russian drone operators’ launching points throughout the city. Footage released by Ukrainian special police units shows FPV drone strikes on buildings where Russian soldiers are gathering in the west. Dedicated Ukrainian drone battalions show them detecting and tracking Russian infantry as they move through the suburbs. Once they enter a building, Vampire heavy bomber drones drop handfuls of high explosive shells on top of them, leveling their hideouts completely and eliminating them before they can even engage a Ukrainian soldier.
While the situation in the city itself remains difficult, with Russians intensely striking and shelling the main Ukrainian logistical artery into the north, Ukrainians here are using ground robotics systems at a massive scale to deliver a constant stream of supplies into the city, and evacuate wounded soldiers out. The main thing allowing Ukrainians to maintain a foothold is that Russian forces are repeatedly overplaying their hand, using the grey zone to attempt deeper infiltrations without fully consolidating their rear first. Additionally, any consolidation efforts are immediately undermined by their own commanders, as these soldiers are ordered out of their hiding spots and directly out into the open. While Russian drone units are intensely trying to force Ukrainians out by targeting the ground drones delivering Ukrainians their supplies, they have failed for the entire summer now to fully cut off the Ukrainians and capture the town.
Overall, the Ukrainian decapitation strike just killed the only Russian commander who best knew that the city he was awarded for capturing was not in Russian hands at all. As he was also in the best position to redirect resources to actually capturing the city, his liquidation only further spells disaster for Russian efforts here. With Russian reserves being redirected or deployed far outside of real Russian control, more Russian drone operators and support units are being forced to operate inside of the grey zone as well. As these are much easier to track and eliminate close to Ukrainian positions, Russians are not only suffering heavy casualties among their disposable infantry, but among their high-tier elite as well.

AI Has Not (Yet) Shown "Significant Reduction In Recent Hiring Of College Grads"

2026-09-26T10:44:53.931-04:00

The media have been rife with warnings about a 'jobpocalypse' for recent university grads due to AI. But a new study using US census data and comparing other age cohorts as well as occupations deemed most likely to be AI sensitive shows, at least so far, that that has not happened.

The explanation appears to be that, in many cases, AI is just not good enough or considered reliable enough to replace recent grads. It may also be that employers are hedging their bets until AI's superiority in completing many tasks becomes clearer. And it is conceivable that this will change over time. But for now, the unemployment rate for recent grads is within the range seen in previous years. JL

Kyle Orland reports in ars technica:

Economics researchers found “no evidence of any significant, widespread displacement or reduction in hiring of recent college graduates in absolute or relative levels.” The summer unemployment rate for young college graduates in 2026 (7.3%) was well within the range seen in previous years (from 6.3% in 2022 to 7.8% in 2024). The 2026 numbers were similarly unremarkable when expanded to include graduates who “want a job” even though they weren’t actively looking. The researchers compared recent college graduates both with non-college graduates in the same age range and with older college graduates (aged 30 to 49). They also broke down employment by potential “AI exposure” based on a 2023 study of which job roles AI systems were best equipped for. In almost all comparisons,
differences were not statistically significant. (But) current trends do not imply future performance, of course.
Last month, we shared word of a Stanford University study that found entry-level employment in so-called “AI-impacted” occupations lagging well behind that in other fields. Now, a new working paper from economics researchers at Munich’s CESifo finds the opposite, arguing point blank that “there is no evidence of any significant, widespread displacement or reduction in hiring of recent college graduates in absolute or relative levels.”
In “The Early Impacts of AI on Employment Among Recent College Graduates,” researchers Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu said they decided to focus on recent graduates “because changes in labor demand may first appear through reductions in hiring.” As AI gets good enough to at least perform the “relatively standardized tasks” in many entry-level office jobs, they argue, firms could reduce new hiring for simpler roles rather than laying off more experienced long-term employees.

There’s some reason to believe 2026’s graduating job seekers might be more at risk of AI displacement than those graduating just a year or two prior. The CESifo researchers point to a recent sharp increase in the number of firms “replacing a large number of employee tasks with AI” in a Census survey, as well as broad increases in AI spending per employee and ChatGPT Enterprise token use in the last 12 months.
Anecdotally, some major names also think that this is the year AI is finally capable enough to start replacing the jobs of some recent graduates. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said earlier this year that “AI literally until December [2025] was not actually good enough to do any of the jobs that they’re actually cutting.” And BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in March that “the speed at which AI is changing” led him to worry that “when this year’s college graduates enter the workforce, we could see the highest unemployment rate among them in years—even without a recession.”

Nothing to see here (yet)
To determine if those kinds of worries were valid, the CESifo researchers looked at detailed microdata from the US Census’ Current Population Survey to determine unemployment trends among recent college graduates (i.e., Bachelor’s degree recipients 22 to 25 years old who aren’t pursuing higher degrees). Since these unemployment numbers predictably spike as fresh graduates enter the job market in the summer months, the researchers looked at year-over-year and seasonal trends going back to 2022 (which is both the year employment returned to pre-pandemic levels and the year ChatGPT was released).

The 2026 jobs market looks incredibly normal for recent graduates. Credit: CESifo
At a base level, the summer unemployment rate for those young college graduates in 2026 (7.3 percent) was well within the range seen in previous years (from 6.3 percent in 2022 to 7.8 percent in 2024). The 2026 numbers were similarly unremarkable when expanded to include graduates who told the CPS survey they “want a job” even though they weren’t actively looking for one (and thus don’t officially count as part of the official “unemployed” labor force).
To test the robustness of these findings, the researchers created statistical tests to compare the recent college graduates both with non-college graduates in the same age range and with older college graduates (aged 30 to 49). They also broke down employment by potential “AI exposure” based on a 2023 study of which job roles AI systems were best equipped for.
In almost all of the comparisons, any trend differences between the groups in the 2022 to 2026 time frame studied were not statistically significant. Overall, the data “tell a consistent story in which unemployment among recent college graduates in summer 2026 was not unusually high relative to earlier summers” across comparison groups, the researchers wrote.
So how does this analysis square with the recent Stanford study that found an almost completely opposite result? Well, Stanford’s study was based on payroll data from HR firm ADP, which covers a decent cross-section of the economy but might miss some elements of a wider Census survey. The ADP data also looks at the total supply of jobs in various fields, while the unemployment rate being studied here also takes into account the aggregate demand for those jobs. That demand could easily shift even if the supply of jobs in certain fields starts contracting due to AI.
Overall, the CESifo researchers conclude that the Summer 2026 unemployment data serves as a “useful first test” of how accelerating AI usage is—or, as the data show, is not—impacting the current US job market. But current trends do not imply future performance, of course, and the researchers warn that “if the intensity of AI use in the workplace continues to increase, the graduating classes of 2027 and later might be more affected than the class of 2026, and additional years of data will be needed to hone in on whether effects emerge as workplace use of AI deepens.”

Putin's "Inevitable Victory" Has Become A Mathematical Impossibility

2026-09-25T11:37:34.296-04:00

The numbers don't lie. Across recruitment, battlefield failure, economic malaise and energy infrastructure destroyed, the paint a picture of inevitability - not of success - but rather of incompetence, poor leadership and failure.

This does not mean Putin's reign will collapse or that Russia will 'lose,' but simply that, in the context of Putin's demands, it cannot win. JL

The World Strategist reports:

Russia's “inevitable victory,” from the mathematical point of view, is impossible. The territorial math: Russia has captured only 147.7 square kilometers in 2026 — while losing a net 20 settlements. Ukraine has freed 972.56 square kilometers. Russia’s manpower math: Russia is losing 6,000 more troops a month than it can recruit. More than 1.4 million people killed. The economics: Oil and gas revenues dropped 45.4% in the first quarter of 2026. The deficit is exploding. Energy math: 45% of Russia’s oil refining capacity destroyed. Equipment Math 23,000 units of military equipment confirmed lost. These ar not the statistics of an army marching to victory. These are the numbers of an army bleeding to death
One story is gathering force in the Western capitals, and Moscow too: that Russia cannot but win in Ukraine. It’s a story of sheer bulk, of limitless reserves of men and material, of a war machine that can plod on at any cost.
It is a narrative that has persuaded some of Kyiv’s allies to push Ukraine into a negotiated settlement on unfavorable terms, and it has convinced the Kremlin that time is on its side.
But the data does not support the narrative of inevitability. It is, indeed, contradicted by it.
If you look at the arithmetic of this war, the territorial arithmetic, the manpower arithmetic, the economic arithmetic, the energy arithmetic, you get a different picture. Russia is not on the inevitable path to victory. It is trapped in a mathematical trap of its own making, one in which every gain on the map is purchased at a cost that is becoming increasingly impossible to bear.
The data leads to one conclusion alone: Russia’s “inevitable victory” constitutes a mathematical impossibility.
Territorial Math: Losing More Than It Makes
The most important metric in any war is territory. By that measure, Russia’s offensive isn’t just slowing down, it’s falling apart.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces had taken over more than 5,300 square kilometers and more than 220 settlements in Ukraine since the beginning of the year, on September 19, 2026. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed that Russian forces had only gained 147.7 square kilometers and 40 settlements with a net loss of 20 settlements. The total, including areas where Russian forces had infiltrated but not taken control, came to just 718.8 square kilometers — a figure that was even then far below the Kremlin’s assertions.
Compared to earlier periods, it is damning. From December 2025 to May 2026, Russian forces gained control of or entered just 40.64 square kilometers of Ukraine. During the period, they lost control of an estimated 281.1 km2. Territory lost totaled more than 240 square kilometers.
Russian forces advanced 515.84 square kilometers from December 2024 to May 2025, compared to a year earlier over the same period. In 2025–2026 they only advanced or infiltrated 40.64 square kilometers, only 7.87% of the previous year’s total .
The ISW assessment was stark: Ukrainian forces had “successfully contested both the strategic and the operational initiative since late 2025,” forcing Russian forces to near-zero gains since March 2026 and conducting successful counterattacks that liberated large swaths of territory in the Kupyansk, Oleksandrivka, and Lyman directions. By 2026 Ukrainian forces had liberate at least 972.56 square kilometers and 60 settlements, nearly seven times the land Russia had actually seized.
Russia is not progressing. It’s claiming victory but losing ground.
The Manpower Math: Losing 6,000 Soldiers Per Month
The math on the ground is harsh. The manpower math is a train wreck.
Western officials say Russia is losing some 6,000 more troops a month than it can recruit. A Western official said: “We estimate at the moment the difference between the number of people Russia is losing in casualties and the number they are able to recruit is about 6,000 a month. Russia is estimated to be recruiting 1,000 people a day — about 30,000 a month — but that has not been enough to replace those killed or wounded in the past two months .
The recruitment crisis is worsening. Army recruitment fell 20% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to 2025. Personnel losses of Russia from January to July 2026, amounted to about 240 thousand people, of which irrecoverable losses at least 140 thousand. At the same time, only 232,000 people signed contracts during this period — a net deficit of 8,000 soldiers in just seven months.
The price per square kilometer is huge. Russian forces had an average of 340 casualties per square kilometer of territory taken or infiltrated and 465 casualties per square kilometer of confirmed taken territory in August 2026. Ukraine’s armed forces said on September 2, 2026, that Russian personnel losses totaled 1,491,030 . As of July 2026, CSIS estimated total Russian casualties at more than 1.4 million killed and wounded .
For context, at the current exchange rate, taking the rest of the territory in the Donetsk oblast would cost Russia some 6.5 million soldiers. Russia can’t afford to waste 6.5 million soldiers.
The Kremlin knows it. Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russia is preparing for a new wave of mobilization in 2026–2027, with 300,000 recruits planned for this year and another 300,000 next year, or 600,000 in total. But mobilizing more would be a “big risk both politically and economically.” The last such episode in autumn 2022 led to some one million Russians — often highly skilled — fleeing the country, with less than half coming back.
Russia is losing a war of attrition. It’s losing one.
The Math of the Economy: A Deficit That Can’t Be Closed
The financial math of Russia’s war effort is just as grim.
Russia’s federal budget deficit stood at 4.58 trillion rubles ($58.3 billion) or 1.9% of GDP in the first quarter of 2026. This is 2.62 trillion rubles higher than in the same period a year ago. Revenues from oil and gas, the lifeblood of the Russian state, fell 45.4% to 1.44 trillion rubles. Oil and gas revenues in January 2026 alone were 393 billion rubles ($5.1 billion) — 50.2% less than in the same period last year . Oil and gas revenues suffered their worst first quarter since 2022.
The Bank of Russia’s own forecast admits the pressure. The average key rate for 2026 is revised up to 14.0–14.5%. GDP growth is expected to be only 0.5–1.5%. Indeed, the government itself forecasts GDP growth of only 0.4% in 2026 . Analysts have cut their forecasts again, to growth of 0.5% with inflation expected to rise to 6.6%.
Putin’s rainy-day reserve, the National Wealth Fund, has been run down from 6.5% of GDP before the invasion to only 1.8%. The Kremlin is selling gold to fill the holes. And the war economy that used to fuel growth is a dead weight. Russia will not go bankrupt tomorrow, as one analysis put it. But it’s already running on fumes.”
Energy Math: 45% of Refining Capacity Destroyed
As Russia advances on the map, Ukraine has been methodically dismantling the systems supporting Russia’s war effort. And the data on that campaign is damning.
As of 21 September 2026 Ukrainian strikes had destroyed more than 45% of Russia’s designed oil refining capacity. The strike on the Moscow Oil Refinery alone, a facility with a capacity of 12.15 million tons of oil per year, paralyzed a further 4% of Russia’s refining capacity. At the same time, 14% of Russia’s refining capacity was paralyzed in the first 20 days of September 2026.
According to the Financial Times, Ukrainian strikes have taken out over 30% of Russia’s operational refining capacity and some 45% of its nominal capacity. “They are critically short of diesel fuel now — we destroyed 45% of their total capacity,” President Zelensky confirmed.
The results can be seen all over Russia. Dozens of areas have been hit by fuel shortages. Rationing is in effect. And the world’s third-biggest oil exporter has had to import gasoline. Even Putin saw the trouble. “We were wrong,” he said, acknowledging that Russia had counted on its refineries being secure from attack.
The Math Of Equipment: 23,000 Units Down
The material cost of Russia’s war is equally devastating.
The open-source intelligence project Oryx, which only counts losses that have been visually confirmed, says Russia’s total confirmed equipment losses have now passed 23,000 units. The armored forces suffered the heaviest losses, losing 4,390 tanks and 6,429 infantry fighting vehicles for good. To this list add 730 armored personnel carriers and almost 2,400 other armored fighting vehicles .
Lost air defense systems — 416 complexes. 130 radars were lost in reconnaissance. The Russian army lost 184 planes and 175 helicopters. The navy lost 33 ships and submarines, too.
These are just the confirmed losses from photo or video evidence. The real figures are higher. And Russia’s ability to make up for those losses is hampered by sanctions and the loss of access to Western components. Each tank that is knocked out is a tank that can not be replaced.
The Ukrainian Factor: 200–300 Drones a Day
If Russia’s math is bleak, Ukraine’s is the reverse.
Ukraine can currently produce some 200–300 long-range strike drones per day, with weapons with a range of between about 350 and 3,000 kilometers. Ukraine’s biggest long-range drone maker, Fire Point, plans to produce 300 FP-1 units a day — about eight times last year’s output. The FP-1 drone now has a 105kg warhead at a range of 1,000km.
Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign has hit targets over 2,500 kilometers inside Russia, including the Omsk Oil Refinery, the longest confirmed drone strike in history. The campaign has compelled Russia to shift air defense assets from the front lines to defend Moscow and other strategic targets. And it has taken a toll on Russia’s war economy that no amount of territorial gain can make up for.
The economics of drone warfare are on Ukraine’s side. A Ukrainian long range drone can cost a fraction of a Russian air defense missile. Even if Russia can shoot down 90 percent of incoming drones, the 10 percent that make it through can still cause catastrophic damage. The defensive side has to be perfect every time. The offensive side has to be right some of the time.
Conclusion: The numbers don’t add up
The story of Russia’s inevitable victory is built around one assumption: that Russia can outlast Ukraine. That its mass, its resources, its willingness to absorb losses will one day grind Ukraine to submission.
But the numbers tell a different tale.
The territorial math: Russia has captured only 147.7 square kilometers in 2026 — while losing a net 20 settlements. Ukraine has freed 972.56 square kilometers .
Russia’s manpower math: Russia is losing 6,000 more troops a month than it can recruit. More than 1.4 million people killed .
The economics: Oil and gas revenues dropped 45.4% in the first quarter of 2026. The deficit is exploding.
Energy math: 45% of Russia’s oil refining capacity destroyed.
Equipment Math 23,000 units of military equipment confirmed lost.
This is not the statistics of an army marching to victory. These are the numbers of an army bleeding to death — slowly, inevitably, at a price no nation can bear forever.
The Kremlin can claim a win. It can puff up its profits, inflate its accomplishments, and mask the real cost of its war. But it cannot lie to arithmetic. And the math says Russia cannot win.
The “inevitable victory” of Russia is not inevitable. From the mathematical point of view it is impossible.

Patriot Licenses For Ukraine Reportedly Approved By Trump At UN Meeting

2026-09-25T11:12:31.972-04:00

Ukrainian President Zelensky said today that President Trump told him in their meeting at the UN this week that "I have made the final decision. Ukraine will receive licenses for the production of Patriot missiles.

It must be noted that Trump has made such promises only to walk them back, especially after making them verbally in a meeting where his top defense aids are not present. It is not yet known how 'final' this final decision really is. JL

Nathan Rennolds reports in EuroNews:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that US President Donald Trump told him he would allow Ukraine to produce advanced Patriot air defence missiles, after a series of reversals on the issue. Kyiv is facing a shortage of the missiles, needed to counter Russia's increasing drone and missile attacks on the country, the latest of which killed a 14-year-old boy in the capital on Friday. "At our meeting, President Trump emphasised to me that yes, I have made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licences for the production of Patriot missiles," Zelenskyy said in a voice note to journalists.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that US President Donald Trump told him he would allow Ukraine to produce advanced Patriot air defence missiles, after a series of reversals on the issue.
Kyiv is facing a shortage of the missiles, needed to counter Russia's increasing drone and missile attacks on the country, the latest of which killed a 14-year-old boy in the capital on Friday.
During his latest visit to the United States this week, Zelenskyy renewed calls for air defence support, and for the Patriots, which remain the only system reliably able to counter Russia's powerful ballistic missiles.

"At our last meeting, President Trump emphasised to me that yes, I have made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licences for the production of Patriot missiles," Zelenskyy said in a voice note to journalists.
In July, Trump said it would be "pretty cool" to grant Ukraine the licences, before backtracking, saying the United States should be "very careful" before granting Ukraine authorisation.

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February, diverting supplies of the advanced systems.
Even if the licences are granted, establishing industrial capacity would require more than a year and would not meet Kyiv's immediate needs.
And Kyiv, preparing for winter, has renewed calls for urgent support.
It needs 5% of the United States' Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10% to destroy all of Russia's ballistic projectiles, Zelenskyy said last month.

New Advances Around Kupiansk Solidify Ukraine Gains As Russians Falter

2026-09-25T10:52:44.317-04:00

Ukraine has continued to push Russian forces in the Kupiansk sector further back, solidifying gains by the Ukrainian Khartia Corps and weakening the potential Russian threat in that sector.

This is, again, evidence of multiple setbacks for the Kremlin's troops along the front. JL

Gwara Media and Censor.net report:

Ukrainian forces advanced in the area near the village of Zapadne in the Kupiansk district. Foreign volunteers from the Ukrainian Defence Forces, supported by strike drone operators, were among those who cleared Russian occupiers in the district. Russian troops had set up defensive positions in Zapadne and Dvorichna. Zapadne is located 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Kupiansk — an important logistics hub in eastern Kharkiv oblast that connects the region with Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The 23rd RUG assault unit, part of the 2nd Khartiia Corps, retook Zapadne and the wooded areas south and east of the village.
On Sep. 22, Ukrainian forces advanced in the area near the village of Zapadne in the Kupiansk district, DeepState, an OSINT war monitoring group said.

Foreign volunteers from the Ukrainian Defence Forces, supported by strike drone operators, were among those who cleared a position held by Russian occupiers in the Kupiansk district. Following the battle, the Ukrainian defenders also collected war trophies left behind by the enemy.
According to Censor.NET, a video showing footage of the combat operations has been published online.
The battle took place near Zapadne and Dvorichna. Russian troops had set up defensive positions there, which were attacked by a group of five foreign assault troops from the Defence Forces.

The assault group’s operations were supported from the air by operators of RUBPAK strike UAVs from the National Guard’s ‘Khartiia’ Brigade. The drone operators identified the enemy and struck at Russian troops, helping the assault troops to advance and clear the position.
The released footage shows individual scenes of the attack drones in action, as well as the result of the mop-up operation. After the battle ended, the soldiers displayed the spoils they had managed to seize from the positions abandoned by the occupiers. Source: https://censor.net/en/n4024804
Zapadne is a village located 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Kupiansk — an important logistics hub in eastern Kharkiv oblast that connects the region with Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Earlier, Ukrainian forces reported counterattacks east of the village.
According to DeepState, the 23rd RUG assault unit, part of the 2nd Khartiia Corps, retook Zapadne and the wooded areas south and east of the village.
In early September, the press service of the RUG unit said that they had cleared the territory between the settlements of Zapadne and Dvorichna, 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the village.

Russians Suffer Multiple Separate Battlefield Setbacks In One Month

2026-09-25T10:28:50.794-04:00

In the space of the past month, Russian forces have suffered multiple battlefield defeats, in separate sectors - and the Ukrainian advances that led to them continue.

The first, and best known, is the Operation Vivaldi counteroffensive in the Lyman sector which has now broken through across the Zherebets River into Luhansk. The second is around Druzhkivka, in the Dobropillia sector, where Russian attacks were not just thwarted but further undermined by Ukrainian counterattacks. The third is at Huliapole, in the country's south, Ukrainian forces have also initiated counterattacks in Kharkiv oblast, near Sumy and in the Kherson area. Ukrainian successes at Kupiansk have also continued. The individual gains are noteworthy, but it is the combined effect across multiple sectors that adds up to an evolving picture of strategic Ukrainian momentum. JL

Howard Altman reports in The War Zone and Anatolii Kuranda reports:

Near Lyman, Ukraine’s 3rd Corps Operation Vivaldi, continues retaking ground and disrupting Russia’s northern push toward the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk “fortress belt.” Near Dobropillia, Russia’s southern approach toward the same strategic objective has also (suffered) Ukrainian counterattacks and heavy resistance. Farther south, Ukrainian forces have also made substantial gains across the Oleksandrivka–Huliaipole sectors, forcing Russia to divert manpower and resources. At Kupiansk, in Kharkiv oblast, in Kherson and Sumy, the Russians have also been stymied. No premature talk of a turning point. But Russia’s plans have been disrupted on multiple important axes
Near Lyman, Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps launched Operation Vivaldi, retaking ground and disrupting Russia’s northern push toward the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk “fortress belt.” ISW says the operation thwarted Russia’s plan for a northern pincer through Lyman and Sviatohirsk.
Near Dobropillia, Russia’s southern approach toward the same strategic objective has also faced Ukrainian counterattacks and heavy resistance. Together, these axes were intended to threaten the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area from north and south rather than storm it head-on.
Farther south, Ukrainian forces have also made substantial gains across the Oleksandrivka–Huliaipole sectors this year, forcing Russia to divert manpower and resources.
No premature talk of a turning point. But Russia’s plans have been disrupted on multiple important axes — and Ukraine is counterattacking rather than simply absorbing the pressure.

On the battlefield, in addition to the gains Ukraine has made near Lyman, it has also largely been able to hold off Russian advances across the front lines. Here are some key takeaways from the latest Institute for the Study of War assessment of frontline operations:
Sumy: Russian forces recently conducted an infiltration mission east of Sumy City, and they continue to conduct glide bomb strikes against frontline settlements in northern Sumy Oblast to set conditions for future offensives.
Kharkiv: Russian forces continued offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast and in the Borova, Kupyansk and Velykyi Burluk directions on Sept. 21 and 22 but did not advance.
Donetsk: Ukrainian forces reportedly continue counterattacks in the Lyman direction, including southeast of Lyman, as Russian forces are attempting to use redeployments to stabilize the area. Russian forces continued offensive operations east and southeast of Slovyansk near Rai-Oleksandrivka and toward Mykolaivka and Fedorivka Druha on Sept. 21 and 22 but did not advance. During this period, they also tried to advance in the Novopavlivka and Oleksandrivka directions but made no gains, as Ukrainian forces counterattacked in both areas.
Zaporizhia: Ukrainian forces recently advanced or maintained positions in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
Kherson: Neither Russian nor Ukrainian forces reported ground activity in the Kherson direction on September 22.
In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly this afternoon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Russia to end its war and said it was paying a heavy price — and exacting a terrible toll — for little territorial gain.
“This ridiculous and never-ending war with Ukraine must be ended,” the Ukrainian leader urged. “I do not know a single world leader who would say otherwise. I do not know anyone who is openly for this war, except one man.”
He was referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Ladies and gentlemen, for almost five years now, Russian generals have been trying to carry out Putin’s crazy order to seize our eastern land, the Donetsk region,” Zelensky continued. “And just this year, from January through August, the Russian army lost 248,964 people on the battlefield in Ukraine in eight months. Twenty-one countries in the world have smaller populations… than the number of Russian troops lost in just eight months.”
“It’s madness, but they still keep going there to die because that is what Putin wants,” Zelensky suggested. “After losing so many people, Russia managed to capture just over 1,000 square kilometers of our land this year, and we have already liberated a significant part of it. Russia is a country that already has 17 million square kilometers of its own land without any Ukrainian territory, by the way. So to add another 1,000 square kilometers, Putin is paying with 248 people for every kilometer. Does anyone still think that he is reasonable? And moderate?”
“Russia’s leader, Patient Zero, the man from whom this war began and spread into the world, becoming the largest war in Europe since World War II, will inevitably leave this war,” Zelensky proffered. “But the longer Putin is able to wage war, the more evil he will leave behind in this world. Today, nothing in war works the same way it did, by the way, in 2022, except the courage of people.”

AI Build-Out Is the Biggest Economic Bet - and Risk - In American History

2026-09-25T09:21:48.901-04:00

When your economic boom is being compared, not to railroads, automobiles or the internet, but to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, it might be time to reflect.

A new study by the respected Brookings Institution reveals that the AI boom is on track to exceed every other technology-driven expansion in American history. It may also be the riskiest because the combination of uncertain revenue and profit forecasts along with increasingly complex as well as legally and financially murky debt placements is, to be polite, Panglossian. The projections underpinning these funding arrangements are based on assumptions that require 80% annual growth rates, which implies that all the residents of Mars, Venus and Saturn in addition to everyone on earth, will be buying nothing but AI for the foreseeable future. But other than that, what could go wrong? JL

Cris Tolomia reports in Quartz:

The U.S. AI buildout is on pace to consume a larger share of economic output than any prior technology in US history, including railroads, interstate highways and the internet — while the financing underpinning it carry systemic financial risks. Total spending on data centers and related AI infrastructure will be $10.3 trillion between 2025 and 2032, 3.6% of gross domestic product each year. That tops the 2.2% the railroad boom - the previous record - three times higher than GDP devoted to building the interstate highways or the telecom/internet. AI' scale, combined with still-unproven revenue streams and complex debt arrangements, is also driving inflation. Spending has outpaced what major tech companies can fund from their own cash flows. A growing share of that is financed through debt, often routed off-balance-sheet with little public disclosure. Achieving return targets implies annual growth of 80%. "This is reminiscent of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis."

A new Brookings Institution study finds that the U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout is on pace to consume a larger share of economic output than any prior technology rollout in American history, including railroads, the interstate highway system, and the internet — while the financing structures underpinning it carry systemic financial risks.

The study — authored by Columbia Business School finance and real estate professor Stijn van Nieuwerburgh — puts total spending on data centers and related AI infrastructure at $10.3 trillion between 2025 and 2032, equivalent to roughly 3.6% of gross domestic product each year. That figure tops the 2.2% of annual GDP that the railroad boom of the late 1800s absorbed — the previous record — and runs more than three times higher than the GDP share devoted to building the interstate highway network from the 1950s onward or to the telecom expansion that got underway in the mid-1990s, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Van Nieuwerburgh's paper, presented Thursday at a Brookings conference, warns that the scale of the buildout, combined with still-unproven revenue streams and increasingly complex debt arrangements, has created conditions for a potential downturn. "This is freaking complicated," van Nieuwerburgh said of the financial arrangements linking AI firms, major tech companies, banks, private credit lenders, and real estate firms.

The investment has already outpaced what major technology companies can fund from their own cash flows. According to the Wall Street Journal, FactSet data show the combined capital expenditure of five major cloud and tech players — Alphabet $GOOGL +1.34%, Amazon $AMZN +0.04%, Meta $META +4.50% Platforms, Microsoft $MSFT -0.53%, and Oracle $ORCL -3.47% — is on pace to total $4.2 trillion across the four-year span through 2029. A growing share of that spending is financed through debt, often routed through off-balance-sheet entities with limited public disclosure.
Van Nieuwerburgh drew a direct comparison to the 2007-2009 financial crisis. "This opacity of all these special purpose vehicles is somewhat reminiscent of what happened in the subprime mortgage crisis," he said. Hitting that return target would require the AI industry to reach roughly $3.7 trillion in annual revenue by 2032 — a pace that, starting from an estimated combined revenue base of about $100 billion at OpenAI and Anthropic today, implies annual growth of around 80%.
The buildout is also generating broader economic effects. The pattern has been consistent: data center construction produces temporary employment spikes during building, but the facilities themselves operate with minimal permanent staff. LinkedIn data cited by the Wall Street Journal credit AI with generating upward of 750,000 U.S. jobs between 2023 and 2026, even as economists continue to debate what the technology means for the workforce overall.

The buildout is also driving inflation. Import price data show that computers, peripherals, and semiconductors cost 20% more in August compared with the same month a year prior, according to the Wall Street Journal. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee has warned that data center investment is bidding up wages in related sectors, while Fed Chair Kevin Warsh pointed to hyperscaler borrowing as a factor lifting long-term rates — a dynamic that has rippled into mortgage costs for ordinary homebuyers.
Van Nieuwerburgh said the risks do not necessarily point to imminent financial distress. "Strong growth in AI applications, high utilization, and continued improvements in model capability could support the projected infrastructure and generate stable cash flows," he wrote. "But the combination of uncertain demand, rapid technological change, execution bottlenecks, and high leverage creates meaningful downside risk if expectations are revised."

Russians Pushed Back 6.8 Kms At Toretske on Pokrovsk Front

2026-09-24T11:07:58.198-04:00

The implication of this within the context of broader Ukrainian advances is arguably more important than this local success itself because it indicates that Ukrainian forces have seized the initiative in a number of sectors and that the Russians are struggling to contain the Ukrainian attacks. JL

New Voice of Ukraine reports:

Ukrainian forces cleared Russian troops from near Toretske in the Shakhove district's Donetsk Oblast’s Pokrovsk sector. “The map has been updated. Ukraine’s Defense Forces cleared the area near Toretske.” DeepState's maps show that the area of the penetration zone (the gray zone) decreased by 6.79 square kilometres over the day – from 235.93 square kilometres to 229.14 square kilometres.
Ukrainian forces cleared Russian troops from an area near Toretske in Donetsk Oblast’s Pokrovsk district, battlefield monitoring group DeepState reported on Sept. 23.
“The map has been updated. Ukraine’s Defense Forces cleared the area near Toretske,” the statement said, referring to a village in the Shakhove rural community of Pokrovsk district in Donetsk Oblast.
Operation Vivaldi
On Sept. 15, 3rd Army Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi publicly confirmed for the first time that Ukrainian forces were conducting an offensive in northern Donetsk Oblast. The operation was named Vivaldi. Officials confirmed that Ukrainian forces had cleared 75 square kilometers (29 square miles) and liberated 10 square kilometers (4 square miles).

Russian losses at that stage of the operation totaled about 1,500 troops, more than 12,000 drones and hundreds of armored vehicles, artillery systems and other vehicles, according to Ukraine’s Defense Forces. Ukrainian units cut Russian logistics routes and forced Russian forces to move fuel supplies outside Ukraine.
Read also:
Ukrainian forces retake two more villages near Lyman
In addition to the officially confirmed liberation of Serednie and the clearing of the villages of Korovii Yar, Novoselivka, Yarova and Oleksandrivka, Ukrainian forces also cleared Rai-Oleksandrivka and several other settlements. Horbatenko said much of the information must remain “secret” for now.
On Sept. 20, 3rd Army Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi confirmed the liberation of the villages of Shandryholove and Derylove and the establishment of full control over Drobysheve as part of Operation Vivaldi.

At Current Rates, Russia Needs 14 Years To Take Donetsk. As If...

2026-09-24T10:37:00.052-04:00

As if, after four and a half years of war and now, the embarrassing defeat it is suffering from Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi, Russia has demonstrated the capability to hold on to what it has taken, let alone the ability to take more. JL

Reuben Johnson reports in National Security Journal:

The war is no longer trending in Putin’s favor. Up to the end of June 2026, Russian forces gained only 241 square miles of territory but at a price of horrendous losses. In the month of June alone, Russia suffered 39,500 casualties to take control of just 12 square miles. Putin has declared that his military will capture the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in Donetsk by the end of 2026. But at the current rate of advance, pushing Ukraine out of all this region would take another 14 years, and at the current casualty rates this would cost the lives of millions more Russians.
Four years ago, almost to the day, the Journal of Democracy published an essay on how the economic and social conditions in Russia were already being turned upside down due to the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022.
Setbacks to Russia’s international relations and its image in the eyes of the world were equally catastrophic for the future of the nation.
Putin and Russian Military Creative Commons Image
The first two months of war alone, writes the author of the essay, “turned the Russian clock back decades, undoing thirty years of post-Soviet economic gains and reducing the country to an international pariah state.
Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet empire, Russians are being dragged back in time to when Soviet citizens lived isolated from the rest of the world, in a bubble of failed ideology and misinformation.”

Ironically, as the article points out, that old Soviet system “fell apart under just the kind of autarky and autocracy that Putin hopes to reimpose. Just as the Soviet system collapsed, Putin is also failing Russia, erasing the gains of the post-communist period in a feckless attempt to rebuild a doomed empire.”
Today in 2026, those words seem prescient, to say the least. One cannot click on a single Russian social media site now without seeing a cavalcade of videos of angry citizenry – all documenting the current chaos that is resulting from fuel shortages and other fallout from Ukraine’s escalating drone campaign.
Tensions are high all over Russia, and there are increasing calls for Putin’s resignation.
Gutting the Country
Commentators in Kyiv also outline the numbers from the war – numbers that detail just how Vladimir Putin is gutting Russia’s military, industrial, and financial foundations.
But unfortunately for the former JGB Lt. Col., these are the same foundations he needs to sustain his war effort.
Meanwhile on the frontlines, the war is no longer trending in Putin’s favor.

Up to the end of June 2026, Russian forces gained only 241 square miles of territory but at a price of horrendous losses. In the month of June alone, Russia suffered 39,500 casualties to take control of just 12 square miles.
Now Putin has declared this week that his military will capture the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in Donetsk by the end of 2026.
But at the current rate of advance, pushing Ukraine out of all this region would take another 14 years, and at the current casualty rates this would also cost the lives of millions more Russians.

Some observers point out that in past years, when the battlefield situation deteriorates, Russia has shown the ability to regroup, rebuild its forces and then consolidate them to mount a new offensive thrust.
Fallback Structures Are Being Destroyed
But the problem for Putin today is that rebuilding combat power after a Ukrainian advance requires calling on resources his military has been reusing to keep reconstituting one new attack after another.
But soon those resources may no longer be there.
Across all of Russia, Ukraine’s long-range and mid-range drone strikes are removing the systems and facilities that his military would fall back on after each battlefield loss.
In recent months, these long-range attacks have hit 25 refineries that are responsible for 82 percent of Russia’s petrol production capacity.

The early July attack on the mammoth Omsk refinery has shut down the largest supplier of fuel in Russia, and now Ukraine is hitting the transit stations that supply oil being transported from the oil fields to those same refineries.
Ukraine is thus attacking the industry from the petrol production centers first and then back down the entire “food chain” of the oil industry.
Last month, in June, refinery output collapsed. Crimea’s rail traffic collapsed from a high of 94 trains daily to 4 per day.
At the same time, ferry boats, tankers, power grids, and supporting road routes came under attack. Fuel shortages are now being seen in 88 of Russia’s 89 regions.
This has forced not just the Russian military, but also farms, freight networks, factories, and emergency services to compete for the same shrinking supply of petrol and diesel.
As fuel, transport, and other infrastructure wobble, financial pressure is mounting in Russia. Banks, businesses, public services, and Putin’s own ruling circle are feeling the system is under duress.

War-directed loans have created $30 billion in annual interest, corporate debt has reached $98 billion, and the Kremlin has also expropriated more than $58 billion from private owners. “Russia’s economy is an ‘illusion’ built on debt, and a banking crisis is ready to explode,” reads a European intelligence agency assessment that was reported by Fortune magazine.
The act of mobilizing more soldiers to increase military gains only adds inexperienced personnel to depleted units and generates only minimal results.
But with the numbers of those already killed in this war, additional conscription means stripping more workers from their positions at factories, farms, railways, and essential services.
As more analysts are concluding, Putin is no longer spending in order for Russia to win. He is down to spending so that Russia can survive – and that survival is by no means guaranteed for long.

69% of Russian Troops on Zaporizhzhia Front Have Criminal Records

2026-09-24T10:14:57.493-04:00

The size of this number - and 69% of one's army having criminal records is unusually high by modern standards - reveals that Russia really is scraping the bottom of the demographic barrel to get soldiers for its war in Ukraine.

This may also suggests that in Zaporizhzhia and other 'secondary' fronts (eg, those other than Donetsk), the use of less well trained or capable troops has become the Russian norm. JL

Francis Farrell reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Of the Russian force fighting near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, 69% of servicemen have criminal records. The figure reflects both the overrepresentation of those from poor and disadvantaged parts of Russian society among voluntary recruits, and the widely reported practice of offering men contracts to avoid prison time, often under coercive circumstances. The current inflow of new Russian soldiers — often used in one-way infiltration assaults across the front line — has not been enough to produce major Russian battlefield gains in 2026.
Of the Russian force fighting near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, 69% of servicemen have criminal records, Anastasiia Shevchenko, a spokesperson for Operational Task Force South, said on Sept. 21.
The figure likely reflects both the overrepresentation of those from poor and disadvantaged parts of Russian society among voluntary recruits, and the widely reported practice of offering men contracts to avoid prison time, often under coercive circumstances.
According to internal analysis conducted by the Ukrainian military, 31% of the overall Russian force had signed up to avoid criminal charges, and 24% were in the military to improve their financial situation, Shevchenko said in comments to Ukrinform.
Since holding an unpopular "partial mobilization" in fall 2022 — conducted in response to a successfull Ukrainian offensive — Moscow has deliberately avoided a forced draft and has instead mostly relied on luring in volunteer recruits with substantial sign-up bonuses.

These voluntary incentives work best in the most economically and socially depressed regions of Russia, where military service is often perceived as a quick pathway to financial stability for entire families, or as a way out of crippling debt.
This recruitment is complemented by foreign fighters from countries primarily in the Global South, as well as by prisoners, who were first recruited en masse by the Wagner mercenary group in 2022.
While Russia still fields special units in its regiments and brigades made up of those taken straight from the penal system with promises of amnesty, many of the regular recruits have also had some form of criminal past.
Although Kyiv has said recruitment rates remain stable, the current inflow of new Russian soldiers — often used in one-way infiltration assaults across the front line — has not been enough to produce major Russian battlefield gains in 2026.

Having concluded a three-day parliamentary election choreographed to reaffirm the wartime legitimacy of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his "party of power," the Kremlin is preparing to conduct a new round of forced mobilization to boost the military's stagnant offensive efforts, Kyiv has warned.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia plans to mobilize 300,000 troops to complement existing inflows of recruits into the Russian army, and to either boost Moscow's main offensive effort on the "fortress belt" cities of Donetsk Oblast, or to create new threats in other areas, including Ukraine's northern border.

Targeting, Timing, Tech and Sabotage Destroyed Russia's Lyman Defense

2026-09-24T10:00:53.782-04:00

As Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi continues to punish Russian forces in the Lyman and Luhansk areas while further exposing the Kremlin's military vulnerabilities, reports on the degree of planning and coordination make the accomplishments that much more impressive.

Among those efforts were the precise targeting of Russian command centers, drone launch sites and logistics - some as far as 250 kms in the rear - and the coordination of timing so that key positions and units were hit just before infantry and light armor began attacking. A textbook operation. JL

Yuri Zoria and Olena Mukhina report in Euromaidan Press:

In Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian troops gathered for an assault the Russians never saw coming. They take ground not by force but by concealment, timing, and technology. Constant coordination with neighboring units, sharing information and lending aid helped. Kamikaze ground robots were dropped on Russian command nodes where they disrupted coordination, created panic and forced Russia to divert combat troops to guard its own headquarters, while a parallel campaign destroyed a diesel pipeline feeding half the daily fuel needs of Russia's entire West army. Ukrainian partisans disabled four relay cabinets on a rail line that carries military cargo to Russian forces, delaying ammunition to three regiments. Also, the Rubikon drone unit suffered such heavy losses in equipment and personnel, that a commander pulled the unit to the rear just as Ukraine's assault began. Those assaults were at set times so infantry could then advance unexposed.

Ukraine's Third Army Corps dropped kamikaze ground robots on Russian command nodes identified by reconnaissance during Operation Vivaldi, a corps intelligence officer told Radio NV. The strikes aimed to break command coordination and force Russia to divert combat troops to guard its own headquarters, while a parallel campaign destroyed a diesel pipeline that fed about half the daily fuel needs of Russia's entire West grouping. Ukrainian troops gathered for an assault on two Russian-held villages, and the Russians never saw them coming. A captain of the 60th Mechanized Brigade, with the callsign Akhmet, says the concealed buildup near Derylove and Drobysheve was what allowed his units to take the villages once Operation Vivaldi began, Suspilne reports.
The account fills in how Vivaldi actually takes ground: not by overwhelming force but by concealment, timing, and technology. Only the first phase of the "Operation Vivaldi" counteroffensive, which the Third Army Corps is running near Lyman in northern Donetsk Oblast, has cleared 75 square kilometers of Russian infiltrators and liberated another 10 square kilometers of territory.
Concealment set up the assault
The brigade's task was to free Derylove and take control of Drobysheve. The key, Akhmet says, was accumulating forces as covertly as possible in Drobysheve and on the outskirts of Derylove, so the units could begin exactly on schedule.

The Russians, he believes, failed to spot the buildup because Ukraine had done its reconnaissance well during the planning and preparation. Constant coordination with neighboring units, sharing information, and lending help mattered too. The point was to keep the movement and massing hidden until the appointed hour, so nothing tipped the Russians off before the assault opened.

As a battle captain, Akhmet oversaw the tasks set by brigade command and the work of several strands at once: reconnaissance, drones, electronic warfare, and air defense.
"We determine where the enemy sits, we inflict fire damage on Russian soldiers, and we cover our groups on the ground," he said.

The job was to find the Russians, strike them, and shield the assault teams as they moved up.
Timing cleared the infantry's path
The brigade also located where Russian drones were taking off and hit those launch points at set times, to keep enemy operators from scouting and firing on the Ukrainian troops working below. Getting the timing right was the whole point, Akhmet explains, so the infantry could move to its positions and reach cover without being caught in the open.
The two villages were a piece of a larger aim: the Institute for the Study of War has assessed that Vivaldi disrupted Russia's plan to encircle the fortified belt of Donetsk cities.
Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine is now in its fifth year, with Moscow pushing simultaneously along the front and striking cities behind it with drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, and glide bombs. The Vivaldi operation is the first time Ukraine has publicly shown how a reconnaissance-to-robot strike chain works against command nodes without risking infantry, a method that could be replicated across other sectors where Russia's coordination depends on forward headquarters within drone range.
Reconnaissance identified command nodes, robots hit them
One of the tasks set by corps commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi was to disrupt command and communications in the Russian chain of command, the officer said. Brigade and corps reconnaissance identified areas where a strike could break Russian control.
"Reconnaissance of the brigades and the corps identified such areas that could affect the disruption of enemy command. It was into these areas that robots were dropped to create panic, disrupt command, and prevent the enemy from being effective," the officer told Radio NV.
To protect their command posts from the robots, Russian forces had to pull in additional personnel—troops that could not then be used to resist the Third Corps' ground assault.
Map: ISW
The Third Corps announced on 20 September that heavy bomber drones delivered kamikaze ground robots more than 10 km behind Russian lines, calling it a world first.

The same intel operation identified a frontline diesel pipeline
The same intelligence operation uncovered a pipeline running from Voronezh Oblast to temporarily occupied Luhansk Oblast. The pipeline carried finished diesel, not crude oil, and supplied about 50% of the daily fuel needs of Russia's forces on the direction, the officer said.
The corps struck both the intake point where fuel entered the pipeline and the output point where it was loaded onto tankers. The strikes forced Russia to dismantle the pipeline entirely. Russian forces now truck fuel from Voronezh Oblast, a 400 km supply run.

The pipeline's destruction affected not just the Lyman direction but the entire West grouping, including the Kupiansk and Borova directions, the officer said. The logistical disruption left frontline Russian drone units unable to refuel generators to charge batteries, and electronic warfare systems had to operate in a reduced mode.

Ukrainian partisans sabotaged the railway signaling that keeps Russian troops supplied on the Lyman front. The ATESH movement reports that its agents disabled four relay cabinets on a line through Voronezh Oblast that carries military cargo to Russian forces there, delaying ammunition to three regiments.
The strike was timed to help Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi, the counteroffensive the Third Army Corps is running near Lyman in northern Donetsk. In its first phase, the operation cleared 75 square kilometers of Russian infiltrators and de-occupied another 10.
Cutting the rail line that feeds the Russian units facing that offensive is, by ATESH's account, part of the same fight, targeting the supply line rather than the front.

The sabotage hit a rail corridor running through the Voronezh, Novovoronezh, Liski, and Ostrogozhsk areas of Voronezh Oblast, a route ATESH says Russia uses to move military cargo toward the Lyman axis.
Relay cabinets house the switching gear that runs a line's automatic signals. Knocking them out can freeze traffic on a stretch of track without a single explosion, and ATESH says its agents disabled four of them. As with the movement's other claims, the account could not be independently verified.

Ammunition backs up
The signaling failure delayed shipments of ammunition and engineering materiel to the 1st and 15th Guards regiments and the 254th Motor Rifle Regiment. Russian commanders, it said, had to rush in repair crews and divert resources to guard the infrastructure. A delayed shipment, far behind the front, can be felt at it, where an assaulted position waits for the ammunition that does not arrive.
Repair bases struck, 250 km logistics detour
Third Corps intelligence also located the repair base of Russia's 20th Army and its 144th Division. Ukrainian strikes during the preparatory phase forced Russia to relocate the base to Voronezh Oblast, increasing the repair route to 250 km.
Russia's 20th Army and its 144th Division, reinforced by assault detachments from the First Tank Army, remain the main strike force on the Oskil-Sviatohirsk direction, the officer said. The First Tank Army has been sending additional assault units to stabilize the Russian defensive line after Vivaldi, but these reinforcements are taking critical losses on logistics routes before reaching the combat zone.

Rubikon pulled out, Russian drone units at 70–90% strength
The officer said the corps headquarters specifically targeted Russia's most effective drone formations. During the preparatory phase, the elite Russian drone unit Rubikon was identified as a critical threat that could isolate the area of operations and obstruct Ukrainian maneuver.
Ukrainian reconnaissance located and passed targeting data to strike assets. Rubikon suffered heavy losses in equipment and personnel, and a senior Russian commander—misjudging the Third Corps' offensive potential—pulled the unit to rear areas for recovery at what turned out to be the worst possible moment, just as Ukraine's assault began.

Russian drone units on the direction are now staffed at 70–90%, the officer said. The corps is working to degrade their capability through targeted strikes on launch sites, pilot positions, and logistics in the second and third echelons.
Four seasons, two public
The officer said Russia's current task is to stabilize its defensive line, restore its observation network, and bring in additional reserves for counterattacks. Russia does not have enough personnel and will have to pull troops from training grounds before they finish their courses, shortening training cycles.

Operation Vivaldi has at least four "seasons," of which only the first two have been made public. The operation's name refers to Italian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi, and The Four Seasons is his best-known set of four violin concerti.
Biletskyi confirmed the liberation of Shandryholove, Derylove, and full control over Drobysheve on 20 September, bringing the total to 40 km² of freed territory in the second season alone. Russian losses have reached an estimated 3,000 personnel overall, over 12,000 drones in the first season, and hundreds of vehicles, according to the Third Corps. ISW assessed that the operation disrupted Russia's plan to encircle the fortress belt of Donetsk cities—Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka.

AI and Its Leaders Are Standing On A Legal Liability Landmine

2026-09-24T09:19:03.593-04:00

OK, sure, human extinction could be a real bummer. But let's talk about a near-term financial risk closer to most tech execs' true nightmare vision: AI product liability. The field is nascent and few cases have been decided, but the potential financial impact is economically ruinous for AI companies and their investors.

Silicon Valley, naturally, wants the federal government to make it go away. But surprisingly, many in politics are pushing back despite the extraordinary tech 'contributions' being loaded into their coffers. Although the AI industry still refuses to acknowledge that they should be responsible for any cost they don't want to bear, here is going to have to be some sort of accommodation because if there is one US professional group greedier and more ruthless than those in tech, it is US plaintiffs attorneys. JL

Asa Fitch reports in the Wall Street Journal and Josh Marshall reports in Talking Points Memo:

As AI developers imbue their chatbots with more agent-like abilities—allowing them to do things autonomously on users’ behalf—questions about legal liability are becoming increasingly urgent. Liability is a legal and economic framework for properly assigning the gains and risks/costs associated with economic activity. They could lead to limits on what agents can do and, if AI-caused harms become widespread, drain the pocketbooks of top AI labs. The CEO of Palantir, suggested the liability problem was so dire that U.S. AI labs should be nationalized to protect themselves. AI labs (increase their liability risk) when their agents replace jobs and maximize profits for their owners. Laws which properly and securely assigned liability for AI would go a way to solving some of the problems caused by Silicon Valley and its concentrated wealth pushing all its downsides onto the public

What happens when an AI agent buys an unwanted product on someone’s behalf? What if an agent launches a cyberattack to obtain private information at the behest of a user?
As AI developers imbue their chatbots with more agent-like abilities—allowing them to do things autonomously on users’ behalf—questions about legal liability are becoming increasingly urgent.
The answers could be consequential, too. They could lead to limits on what agents can do and, if agent-caused harms become widespread, drain the pocketbooks of top AI labs.
Alex Karp, the chief executive of Palantir Technologies, suggested on CNBC last week that the liability problem was so dire that U.S. AI labs should ask to be nationalized to protect themselves from it.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent jumped into the debate Monday, saying it was the companies, not the government, that should be concerned about liability. OpenAI’s management should be held liable for its agents’ recent hack of Hugging Face, he said. The AI labs “need to take responsibility for themselves.”
Liability for the actions of AI agents is largely untested. There have been a smattering of cases that hint at possible outcomes, like the 2024 case involving an Air Canada chatbot that hallucinated that a discount was available for bereavement tickets. A Canadian tribunal decided the airline was responsible there.
More cases are sure to arrive soon. The rollout of agents like Meta’s Muse, which can send emails, make purchases and take a raft of other actions on users’ behalf, makes them all but inevitable.
AI developers can to some extent shield themselves from liability through disclaimers and user agreements. But such agreements offer no protection in many instances where AI developers are held negligent, or where they cause harm because of flaws in their products. Users, of course, could also be held liable for using AI agents to harm others.
The scale of the financial impact depends to some degree on whether civil courts treat AI agents like hot air balloons or trains.
When hot air balloons emerged in the 19th century, courts attached a strict liability standard. That meant operators could be held liable for harms they caused no matter how much effort went into making their balloons safer.
Trains, as a recent academic paper lays out, came around about the same time but were given a negligence standard. That meant operators could shield themselves from much liability as long as they took steps to make them as safe as possible.
The AI industry would prefer to be treated like the railroads. But a guiding factor for courts in determining which standard applies is how useful the industry is to society.
As University of Washington professor and robot law specialist Ryan Calo points out, getting the negligence standard hinges on AI’s leaders showing courts that they—much like railroads—are too crucial to let liability concerns slow them down.
“The courts were saying, ‘Who is using hot air balloons?’ These eccentric wealthy people,” Calo said. “Trains were critical because they were thought to be crucial to American infrastructure catching up to Europe, which was already industrialized.”
Calo believes AI labs help themselves when their tools reduce people’s busywork—filling out routine forms autonomously, for example, saving time and effort. They do themselves fewer favors when their agents replace jobs and maximize profits for their owners, he argues.
It seems unlikely that AI labs will take a path that reduces their liability exposure, though. Replacing human work is an attraction for corporate customers.
Either way, the period ahead will be an active one for lawyers and the courts.
Anthropic Pushes Back Its IPO
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
It’s a November listing for Anthropic. That, at least, is the plan for now.
The much-anticipated IPO was initially planned for next month, but the company wanted to be able to put its third-quarter financial results on display for investors. Anthropic is also, of course, at the center of a debate about slowing the pace of AI development to deal with potentially catastrophic risks.
That debate shouldn’t put much of a dent in Anthropic’s revenue trajectory, given its rise is being fueled by corporate customers that aren’t likely to press pause on AI soon. Anthropic is already expected to reach a $110 billion annual revenue run rate by the beginning of next year.
I wanted to step back for a moment and talk more generally about the question of "externalities" which has always been the problem lurking in the background of Big Tech's road to national and global domination.
Before getting into that, a subsidiary point. When you starting digging into debates about AI you realize there's just a wild cast of characters, groups, movements all arrayed around this technology, some boosters, others critics. A lot of AI critics point to the fact that a number of the leaders, particularly at Anthropic, are part of the so-called "rationalist" community, adjacent to "effective altruism." And these folks have kind of a cottage industry or cottage subculture which is rife with predicted future extinction events. Is this part of the driver of all these claims about being in a race with AI to make sure it doesn't decide to exterminate us? I'm really not sure. But it does seem to play some role. (This "rationalist" world — no I'm not totally sure how they got possession of this word — are big in the Valley.) Meanwhile, you've got another faction in the tech world, which thinks all that talk of extinction events is a bunch of culty nonsense and/or basically a ruse to allow companies like Anthropic to lock in their dominance as a kind government cartel.
And the interesting thing is that it's ... well, the evil guys, who are on that side of the argument. Particularly David Sacks, who is now Trump's AI advisor and before that and probably continuing is a like a professional Elon Musk fanboy and courtier. So in response to this proposed slowdown, Sacks put a post on Twitter which basically says, 'Great, you're pausing. But don't pretend you need to suspend anti-trust laws or that all these dangers you whine about can't be handled by normal market and liability mechanisms.'
"Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability," to use his words.
Now, I'm certainly not taking the side of David Sacks here, who might best be described as Elon Musk without the charm or the money. But this issue of liability actually is a key one. Indeed it's not too much to say that the story of Big Tech over the last quarter century has been one of improperly accounted for externalities. We discussed this in an Ed Blog post ("Feral AI and the Question of Externalities") back in 2023 ...
One of the central dynamics of the Internet/digital technology age has been the issue of externalities. Facebook makes billions but leaves a path of destruction and dislocation in its wake that society has to grapple with and pay for. Some of this is just Schumpeterian creative destruction. New technologies and new businesses based on them make old ones obsolete and drive their ruin. We’ve broadly accepted this as a fact and a feature, albeit a disruptive one, of living in a capitalist, free society. But many are more like nuclear power plants that dump their used fuel rods in a local river. The issue isn’t capitalist disruption, it’s the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk.
The rush to bring these tools to market is partly simple profit motive but, even more, something beyond that: the need to be first. Google at least sees the risk that its empire of search, which still drives most of its billions in profit, could be ripped from beneath it by Microsoft — which has the OpenAI franchise and is working to incorporate it into what has always been its sad-sack also-ran search engine, Bing. That’s existential. Hundreds of billions are potentially at stake for both companies. Being first can mean everything — as it did for Google a generation ago. But for society at large, there are other equities in the balance. And there are flashing warning signs here about the need to slow down.

From: Feral AI and the Question of Externalities by Josh Marshall
Liability is a legal and economic framework for properly assigning, properly tethering together, the gains and risks/costs associated with economic activity. It's true that at the extreme end, liability can become so onerous that society loses through lost innovation and economic growth. In practice that's seldom the problem. A huge, huge amount of the economic powerhouse of Silicon Valley and its concentrated wealth creation has been a matter of pushing off all its downsides onto the public, either collectively or individually. Nuclear power is super, super lucrative if you just fire up a reactor in your backyard with zero containment and throw away the spent fuel rods in the municipal garbage or the local lake./
With AI, laws which properly and securely assigned liability would go at least a decent way to solving some of these problems. The same investors pouring hundreds of billions into frontier AI labs would more clearly see how a few catastrophes could sweep away all that wealth in a moment. Needless to say, markets are not always rational. I would never claim otherwise. But the proper assignment of liability is certainly part of the equation.

Operation Vivaldi's Phase 2 Liberates More Land As Russian Casualties Grow

2026-09-23T12:15:18.416-04:00

Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi counter offensive in the Lyman sector continues to add recaptured territory while reports indicate that Russian casualties are increasing at a faster rate than in phase one.

With elements of Ukraine's 3rd Corps now crossing the Zherebets River and advancing in Luhansk oblast, the looming question is how Ukraine further disrupt and degrade Russian forces. JL

Dmytro Shumlianskyi reports in Militarnyi:

During the second phase of Operation Vivaldi in Donetsk, Ukraine’s forces liberated Shandryholove and Derylove and took full control of Drobysheve. The 3rd Army Corps and attached units have already returned 125 square kms to Ukrainian control, including 50 square kms of deoccupied territory and 40 square kms of which were liberated. More than 800 Russian servicemen, including wounded and captured, have been eliminated in the second phase while total Russian Vivaldi losses amount to more than 3,000. 3rd Corps drone units carried out 36,000 strikes targeting Russian logistics: first, strike drones isolated up to 50 kilometers from the line of contact, after which the strike zone was expanded to 120 kms. Hits on fuel depots in Luhansk forced the shut down of a pipeline supplying fuel from Russia. Ammunition depots, communications and command post strikes increased the equipment evacuation distance for enemy units by 250 kilometers.
During the second phase of Operation Vivaldi in the Lyman sector of the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s Defense Forces liberated the Shandryholove and Derylove settlements and took full control of Drobysheve.
Third Army Corps Commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi reported this.
Overall, the 3rd Army Corps and attached units have already returned 125 square kilometers of territory to Ukrainian control, including 50 square kilometers of territory that had been deoccupied, 40 square kilometers of which were liberated during the second phase of the offensive.
The offensive is being carried out by units of the 60th and 66th Separate Mechanized Brigades and the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade; a battalion tactical group of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade; the 3rd Separate Reconnaissance and 25th Separate Anti-Tank Battalions of the 3rd Army Corps; the 21st Separate KRAKEN Unmanned Systems Regiment; the 85th Tactical Group of the 8th Separate SOF Regiment; the Artan active operations unit of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence; and the 10th Mobile Border Detachment Dozor of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. They are opposed by units from three Russian armies — the 1st Guards Tank Army and the 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies.

Biletskyi noted that during the second phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s Defense Forces destroyed more than 800 enemy servicemen. Including the wounded and captured, the occupiers’ total losses amounted to more than 3,000 personnel.
General Andrii Biletskyi said the 3rd Army Corps was the first in the world to deploy unmanned ground vehicles by air.
“Our heavy bombers deliver kamikaze UGVs more than 10 kilometers behind enemy lines,” he said.

Rocket and artillery strikes and drone strikes against enemy command posts, logistics, crossings and reserves played a critical role in the success of the operation.

Representatives of the 3rd Army Corps previously shared with Militarnyi that during Operation Vivaldi, the corps’ unmanned systems units carried out 36,000 strike missions targeting the logistics of Russian invading forces.
The destruction of the logistics network took place in two stages: first, strike drones isolated an area extending up to 50 kilometers from the line of contact, after which the strike zone was expanded to 120 kilometers.

Systematic strikes on field fuel and lubricant depots in the Luhansk region forced the enemy to shut down a pipeline used to supply fuel from Russia. As a result, the enemy shifted supplies to the Voronezh region, forcing fuel trucks to cross into Ukraine. Regular strikes on ammunition depots, communications nodes, command posts, and vehicles increased the equipment evacuation distance for enemy units by approximately 250 kilometers.
Air defense and electronic warfare units also played a key role in the operation’s success, effectively suppressing enemy UAVs in the air.

As a result, the enemy could not detect Ukrainian assault groups in time or identify the operation’s objectives.