The Low-Down

History Reveals That 'Fortress Crimea's' Defenders Have Almost Always Lost

2026-07-08T10:49:05.548-04:00

As Ukraine tightens the noose around Russian-occupied Crimea, history reveals that this is only the latest siege of that peninsula which has ended badly for its defenders.

From the Mongols in the13th century to the Nazis in World War II, Crimea has served as a last stand for Russians, Soviets and now, their successors. It's problem remains the same: there are few ways of getting supplies to the defenders and most of those, whether ships or bridges, are vulnerable to attackers. The result is that it becomes a logistical sinkhole. Ukrainian forces are now applying the same pressure as their predecessors: cutting off access, destroying defensive systems and waiting for the occupiers to starve or die. The Ukrainians don't even need to attack it with an army, just slowly strangle it. JL

Peter Suciu reports in The National Interest:

Vladimir Putin has shown little awareness that Crimea’s defenders over the centuries have almost always lost. Last stands are popular on Crimea. In the 13th century, The Mongols forced the Genoese to abandon Crimea. The Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, lasted until its fall. In 1920, it became the final redoubt for the anti-Bolshevik Army during the Russian Civil War only to be defeated by the Red Army. The city was besieged again during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union and was forced into surrender. The Soviet Union later recaptured the city with relatively little effort. The Kremlin said Crimea is an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier', but history has shown it relies on a few, vulnerable supply lines which Kyiv continues to cut. Ukrainian forces have also neutralized Crimea’s air defenses and forced the Black Sea Fleet to flee from Sevastopol. This has turned the fortress into a logistical pit

For a student of history, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has shown remarkably little awareness that Crimea’s defenders over the centuries have almost always lost.
Crimea is home to several historical strongholds and fortresses that span centuries—a reminder that the peninsula on the Black Sea has faced numerous sieges throughout its long history.
Since the peninsula’s illegal seizure and annexation by Russia in 2014, the Kremlin has been the latest nation to invest in preparing it for attack. This has included dense networks for S-400 Triumf air defense systems, coastal batteries, and early warning radar sites. Moscow has also attempted to present Crimea as an impenetrable bastion that could endure an all-out assault. However, throughout the ongoing war, Ukraine has conducted long-range missile and drone strikes that have steadily dismantled and weakened the defensive perimeter. Each of these attacks serves both as a personal blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has staked his reputation on the acquisition of the peninsula for Russia, and a reminder that “Fortress Crimea” could fall yet again.
Putin once called Crimea an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” and Russia continues to base and operate tactical combat aircraft and drones from several key military facilities across the occupied peninsula. However, strikes conducted over the weekend may have damaged as many as seven Russian warplanes on the ground. Crimea was also plunged into darkness by the weekend’s strikes—serving as a reminder to residents that it is far from outside Ukraine’s grasp.
These attacks may not be enough to liberate Crimea on their own, but the peninsula will become increasingly difficult for Russia to hold. Still, they are far from the first time that Crimea has been subjected to war, famine, and disease as part of a struggle between two great powers elsewhere.

The “Black Death” Started in Crimea
Crimea’s strategic location has made it a frequent battleground over the eons. The earliest recorded invasion of the peninsula was in 513 BCE, when the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire under Darius I plundered the region. Over the millennia that followed, the peninsula passed to Greek control and later to the Roman and Byzantine Empires, who typically ruled it through local clients.
The first great siege on the peninsula took place in the middle of the 14th century, when Mongol forces of the Golden Horde, led by Jani Beg, encircled the Genoese-controlled port city of Caffa (modern-day Feodosia). The city held out for nearly three years between 1343 and 1346, until the attacking Mongol army was devastated by an outbreak of bubonic plague.
Instead of lifting the siege and forcing the Golden Horde to retreat, in a desperate move, the attackers used their siege engines to catapult plague-infected corpses into the city in one of the first modern examples of biological warfare. It forced the Genoese to abandon the city and flee; in so doing, it spread the Black Death into the Mediterranean and then across the world, with profound consequences for the history of Europe and the globe.
Last Stands Are Popular in Crimea
Several more times in just the past 200 years, the defenses on the peninsula have come under attack from outside invaders. In the West, this most prominently included the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, which lasted 11 months from October 1854 until September 1855. Its fall in September 1855 led to the end of the Crimean War, which killed an estimated 500,000 soldiers and civilians on both sides for relatively little political importance.

In 1920, the peninsula became the final major redoubt for the anti-Bolshevik White Army in European Russia during the Russian Civil War. White General Pyotr Wrangel gathered the remaining, fractured remnants of the White forces and retreated into Crimea, where they fortified the Perekop Isthmus—the narrow strip of land connecting the peninsula to the mainland—to make a last stand against the advancing Red Army. Facing certain defeat, Wrangel held the line long enough to see nearly 150,000 soldiers and civilian refugees escape by sea to Istanbul.
The city, home to the Russian Navy’s and later the Soviet Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, was besieged again during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. It held out for 250 days, from October 1941 until July 1942, but was ultimately forced into surrender by the Nazis.
The Soviet Union recaptured the city in mid-1944 with relatively little effort—a reminder that fortifications don’t always slow an attacker.
Can Russia Hold Crimea Against Ukraine? History Suggests Otherwise
The Kremlin has crafted a narrative that Crimea will serve as an impregnable fortress, but as history has shown, there are likely several factors that will shatter such an illusion.

The first is that it relies heavily on just a handful of vulnerable supply lines. Kyiv continues to cut those lines, which will make supplying the peninsula all the more challenging. Ukrainian forces have also successfully neutralized much of Crimea’s air defenses and forced the Black Sea Fleet to flee from Sevastopol. This has turned the fortress into a logistical pit—impossible to hold onto and equally impossible to retreat from.
Putin has been described as a student of history, yet he shows no realization that Crimea’s defenders have almost always lost throughout history. Perhaps the Russian leader expected a Red Army-style campaign that swept over all of Ukraine. Instead, the Black Sea Fleet has been effectively destroyed as a capable fighting force, and soon the jewel in the crown of Putin’s imperial ambitions could soon be out of reach.

Ukraine's Fortress Belt Kill Zone Becomes Giant Russian Meat Grinder

2026-07-08T09:57:51.905-04:00

Putin desperately wants to take Ukraine's Donbas Fortress Belt and is willing to sacrifice thousands of Russian soldiers to do so. But the reality is that the sacrifice is proving a lot easier than the capture.

Ukraine has had twelve years to fortify the Belt area since Russia took Crimea and other Ukrainian territory in 2014. Since then, the Fortress Belt has become even more diabolically 'optimized for defense,' now including drones and electronic warfare assets. Russian forces which consider infiltration of one or two soldiers a 'victory' are considered unlikely to have the wherewithal to take the Belt this year - or anytime soon after. JL

Peter Beaumont reports in The Guardian:

Ukraine's Fortress Belt is “optimized for defense across every possible topographical characteristic” giving Ukraine a significant advantage. “The high costs that Russia paid in Bakhmut or Pokrovsk will pale in comparison to those necessary to seize the Belt, assuming that Russian forces can even succeed.” Russian troops have made little by way of concrete gains, while ever more lives have been fed into the Kremlin’s “meat grinder”. Every effort to advance is visible and lethally perilous. “We created kill zones: tank ditches, tangled barbed wire, bollards, obstacles with trees, antenna to spot drones and electronic countermeasures to knock them out. Over the last six months we haven’t given the Russians a single metre.”

A vast cobweb of spent fibre-optic cable is draped over the buildings in the small Ukrainian city of Lyman. Used to control the deadly drones deployed by both Russia and Ukraine, it has accumulated so densely after the years of fighting here that fresh drones struggle to fly through it, rotors tangling in the mass. Birds pluck it out to make their nests.
Beneath the glistening strands, residential blocks are shattered from shellfire as Moscow’s forces still push daily to take a city they briefly occupied until the Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2022, when they were driven out.
The 1,000 or so civilians who remain live in cellars without electricity, gas or running water.
Lyman is the northern outpost of the “fortress belt”, a string of towns and cities crucial to Ukraine’s defence in the Donbas region. It has come to epitomise Kyiv’s years-long but at times controversial strategy to tie down and exhaust Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in an urban landscape ringed by trees and rivers. Oleksandr Pavlovych, a vegetable seller, fled Lyman the day before the Guardian met him in the evacuation centre in nearby Sloviansk. His 78-year-old mother had been hit in the stomach by shrapnel. Over the course of a long day, she died slowly and without help.
He buried her in the garden and then took a bicycle to ride the 19 miles (30km) to relative safety, surviving an encounter with a Russian first-person-view drone (FPV) which exploded on an anti-drone net covering the road, the battery striking his ankle.
“The city is so badly damaged,” he said as he packed his handful of belongings to move to a nearby apartment. “You have to go to the central park for the chance of mobile phone signal. And outside the drones are everywhere. We were afraid to leave. But when my mother died I was scared to stay on my own.”
Oleksandr Pavlovych with the few belongings he managed to escape with from Lyman. Photograph: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian
Some Donbas towns and cities, including Pokrovsk and Bakhmut, have already fallen amid bloody sieges that have wiped them from the map. Others have teetered perilously on the brink.
But in May, for the first time since another Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023, Kyiv took back more territory than Russia captured. There are signs that the tide of the war may at last be tipping – for now – in its favour.
Ukrainian drone attacks have increasingly decimated Moscow’s long supply lines in the Donbas and to Crimea, and a tenacious defence of the fortress belt has absorbed vast amounts of Russian lives and efforts. It is part of the 10% of the Donbas not under Russian control, and which Russia has demanded as part of any peace deal – a scenario that Ukraine fears would leave the cities to its west, including Dnipro and Kyiv, vulnerable to a future invasion.

The fortress belt was identified for its potential strengths in the event of a full-scale Russian invasion under Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, in 2015 – the year after Russia seized Crimea and fighting began in Ukraine’s east, events which Ukrainians regard as the start of the war. The strategy foresaw a defensive line based around four large cities in Donetsk oblast and their satellite settlements running 30 miles north to south along the H-20 Kostyantynivka-Sloviansk main road.

The area consists of a concentration of dense urban centres, often with sprawling industrial facilities in close proximity, and a complex geography of rivers, woods and rising terrain that favours its defenders.
In an April paper on the importance of the belt, the US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War described it as “optimised for defence across nearly every possible topographical and geographical characteristic” and said it gave Ukraine a significant advantage. “The high costs that Russia paid in the Battle of Bakhmut or the campaign for Pokrovsk will pale in comparison to those necessary to seize the fortress belt, assuming that Russian forces can even succeed,” it added.
The tempo of Russian assaults has increased sharply in recent weeks, but – for now at least – Russian troops have made little by way of concrete gains, while ever more lives have been fed into Kremlin’s “meat grinder”. The conduct of warfare has been utterly transformed over the course of the conflict, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2022 and has lasted longer than the first world war.
The brigades that came to fight in this region for the counteroffensive of 2023 travelled in convoys of hastily camouflaged civilian cars. They now traverse the cities and the front in vehicles that evoke the dystopian Mad Max films, bristling like hedgehogs with spikes constructed from heavy metal cable designed to pre-detonate the hunting Russian drones, or caged-in with wire grilles.
In the woods and fields, defences that were once rudimentary have been transformed into layers of deep obstacles: tank ditches and bollards, tangled with barbed wire.
Ukrainian military vehicles, decked in anti-drone cages and wire, now resemble cars from Mad Max films. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images
Beside the physical deterrents are antenna to spot drones and electronic countermeasures to knock them out, while the streets and vast sections of highway are cloaked in anti-drone net tunnels.
“The war has changed since [the full-scale invasion in] 2022,” said Lt Col Shamil Krutkov, a commander in Ukraine’s 93rd brigade and veteran of battles across the Donbas, whom the Guardian met in Kramatorsk.
He conceded that the defence of the fortress belt and outlying towns was viewed with scepticism over the years by many of those doing the fighting, but that it was a strategy that had bought time for Ukraine to adapt to a new kind of war dominated by drones, battlefield robots and remote sensing.
Ukrainian servicemen install anti-drone nets along a road near Sloviansk. Photograph: Tommaso Fumagalli/EPA
The Ukrainian soldiers you meet have changed too. Where once infantry would talk about the experience of close combat in the woods and cities, now they are as likely to be drone operators fighting remotely on a frontline that has become a heavily surveilled “kill zone”, where every effort to advance is visible and lethally perilous.
“Technology has turned everything upside down. We have had very tough fights in the Donbas, but those hard times forced us to think and be creative,” Krutkov said, adding that there was now little opportunity for manoeuvre warfare with massed forces. “We both have same technologies,” he said. “I’m not sure either side has the chance for a big offensive.” That is a problem for Russia’s generals as they promise imminent fresh victories along this front, but less of an issue for the defenders. “The situation over the years,” added Krutkov, “has gone from where we might be facing a Russian regiment to two Russians trying to infiltrate. I joke that since the beginning of the war, we have gone from fighting hard for villages and cities and districts, and then for forests, to fighting for foxholes where the Russian soldiers want to hide.”
His best guess for the coming months is the expansion of the deadly “grey zone” separating the forces, consolidating Russian forces in their quagmire.
Vadym, an officer in the 63rd brigade, which is fighting in and around Lyman, credited the fortress belt successes to military reforms instigated in 2024 that improved the Ukrainian armed forces’ ability to coordinate on a larger scale.
“Before, a single brigade would stand its ground and try and hold its position, and then be outflanked [by the Russians] on the right and left. There was no coordination and the enemy is always looking for the gap between brigades. Now you can feel the difference. It is better,” he said.
“We started creating proper kill zones. Clearing the forests and digging tank ditches, and laying wire and obstacles with trees. When the enemy moves it’s all right there in plain sight … Over the last six months in our sector we haven’t given the Russians a single metre.” None of which means that Russian troops have not advanced in places. In Kostyantynivka, the southern-most point of the belt, Russian forces now occupy the east side of the city, while the western side across the Kryvyi Torets river has become a kill zone as Russian groups try to infiltrate the city centre. The advance has come at a huge cost in lives to Russian forces.
For the Ukrainian military and civilians, the cost has also been heavy. In Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, factories and apartment buildings display the evidence of the daily strikes by drones and rockets. Petrol stations are netted, fuel pumps sandbagged, with concrete duck-and-cover shelters for staff and customers.
When the FPV drones appear as they do multiple times each day, a continuous siren reverberates, distinct in its length from the conventional air raid warnings.

In Kramatorsk, on leaving the basement meeting with Krutkov, the Guardian encounters the recent aftermath of a strike on an apartment building a block away by a delta-winged Shahed drone that has injured four people.
Yulia Melnyk, 46, who lives in the building, is fatalistic as she tidies up her flat, the stairwell outside charred and acrid with the smoke of the fire set by the explosion. “Sometimes the noise scares me. But if I’m hearing the explosion, I’m alive and life goes on. It exploded somewhere else,” she said. “I’ll think sometimes – I need to do something and move. But two hours later I will have changed my mind. And look, my building is still standing.”
Other buildings in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk have been less lucky, but recently installed drone nets and shelters allow residents to shop, including at open markets. However, the nets are effective only against smaller drones and offer no protection from the much larger Shaheds and glide bombs.
Yulia Melnyk in her drone-damaged apartment in Kramatorsk. Photograph: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian
But overall, Ukraine feels that the fortress belt is largely holding up against Russian attacks and that it can resist Moscow’s demands to surrender territory in exchange for an uncertain cessation of hostilities that Kyiv believes would allow Russia to use the Donbas as a springboard to attack again in the future. The defence has given Kyiv time to implement other strategies, most notably the drone attacks on supply lines to occupied Crimea and the Donbas that are degrading Moscow’s ability to sustain its operations.
Vadym, whose brigade is fighting in and around Lyman, said: “The enemy is not giving up on trying to storm Lyman and establish a foothold there. Their task last year was to take Lyman by October. Then it was by the end of the new year. Then March. Now, by the end of summer.”
Defending one town also helps to defend the others, though Vadym observed that the interconnectedness of the fortress belt’s urban centres and industrial facilities could be a vulnerability as well as a strength if logistics routes are cut. “Obviously if we lose Lyman, then it’s a problem for Sloviansk. But that’s if …”
He noted a change in the way the strategy is viewed more widely in Ukraine, where previously there were sharp questions over the cost of the defence.
“I do remember from two years ago that there were all these questions about why are we holding [in certain places], although it was obvious anyway,” he said. “But now it’s completely different. Back then they said: ‘Why hold on to this?’ What do they say now? It’s the opposite. We need to build up our strength so that we can somehow gain a tactical advantage.”
Civilians carry away their belongings during an evacuation of Druzhkivka. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The human cost – often forgotten as the war has continued to drag on with success and failure measured in metres – remains.
At the evacuation centre in Sloviansk, Lyudmilla, 68, and her friend Tatiana have just escaped from a village two miles from the Russian lines.
Lyudmilla is exhausted and traumatised. The day before, a Russian glide bomb had hit her house, killing her husband and two other men, and amputating the hand of a neighbour. “I had just gone into the yard. It was a miracle I wasn’t hurt. For the last two years we have been living in the cellar.
“The soldiers came to help and look for my husband. But he’d vanished. I don’t feel safe in Sloviansk,” she added. “We could hear explosions last night and couldn’t sleep. I’ll go to the west of the country where my son and his wife and my grandchildren are. But I need to know what happened to my husband. I can’t rest until I know.”

Russia's Kostiantynivka Slog Slowest 'By Any Army In Any War of Last 100 Years'

2026-07-08T09:08:31.658-04:00

The Russian attempt to take Kostiantynivka - which the Kremlin has already claimed accomplished several times - has now been deemed the slowest rate of advance by any army in any war of the past century. And in military terms, that is not considered a compliment.

Russian forces' attacks have been reduced from mechanized assaults, to small team infiltrations to, recently, individual soldiers burrowing into collapsed buildings in hopes of claiming 'gains' - before being discovered by Ukrainian units and then eliminated. Zhukov defeating the Nazi panzers at Kursk this is not. JL

Giorgio Provinciali reports in Medium:

The Russian advance on Kostiantynivka averages fifty meters a day — the slowest rate recorded by any army in any war of the past century. Hence, a paradox worth fixing on paper: an army that assaults a city eleven times, which its own supreme commander has declared conquered, produces, with every attack, an official denial. Since January, Russia’s leadership has claimed advances along the entire front at least once a month, in high-visibility briefings under the heading of cognitive warfare. The eleven assaults (reveal) at the operational level the truth is known, otherwise no one would order the taking of what is already possessed. The system manufactures the lie the leader demands, and the leader consumes the lie the system manufactures.
Late in the evening of July 3, Vladimir Putin appeared in uniform at a command post of the occupation forces. Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported to him that the Southern grouping had «liberated» Kostiantynivka, one of the principal defensive hubs of the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk–Kostiantynivka fortified belt, and in the same briefing certified full control of Luhansk oblast’. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov sealed the package: the city has been «completely taken». Putin spoke of a victory of «major strategic importance» and claimed 133 settlements captured since the start of 2026. The Defense Ministry circulated Telegram footage of soldiers waving flags among the ruins, and went so far as to offer a «humanitarian action» to return the bodies of Ukrainian defenders fallen in the «liberated» city.
The staging is complete: briefing, map, flag, crocodile mercy.
Ukraine’s General Staff denied the claim within hours. The operational picture at the Dzvin joint command center — the lines of contact returned by the integrated Delta system, the platform that fuses aerial, satellite, and human reconnaissance into a single real-time photograph of the battlefield — matches what we have been documenting for days: the town of Kostiantynivka remains under the full control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, units of the 19th Army Corps hold the city and its approaches, and counter-sabotage operations continue against the small infantry groups that have slipped inside.
To be precise: in these first days of July, the Russian army has mounted eleven assault attempts along the axis. All of them failed.
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A scarecrow used by Ukrainians in Dobropillia, just above Pokrovsk, Donetsk, Ukraine.
The independent numbers agree. The Institute for the Study of War called the announcement inconsistent with every piece of available evidence: in mid-June the Russian presence in the city ranged between 100 and 250 men, scattered in sabotage groups among Ukrainian positions, and as of June 23 the defenders outnumbered the infiltrators. In our most recent reports, we showed how those infiltrators were — up to one week ago — in the southern sector of Kostiantynivka, proving that the main logistic route (mainly one, plus other secondary workarounds) to the city was still running. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has calculated that the Russian advance on Kostiantynivka averages fifty meters a day — the slowest rate recorded by any army in any war of the past century. Hence, a paradox worth fixing on paper: an army that assaults a city eleven times, which its own supreme commander has declared conquered, produces, with every attack, an official denial signed by the sender.
History, for its part, prepared one detail with particular care. It was the Avtosteklo glassworks of Kostiantynivka that smelted, in the 1930s, the ruby glass of the stars still burning atop the Kremlin’s towers. The city that lit Moscow’s stars is now «conquered» by Moscow on a map that exists only in television studios.
Anyone who has worked in the Donbas has crossed Kostiantynivka a thousand times: the rail lines, the smokestacks, the road to Druzhkivka that smells of coal in winter. It holds — gutted, and Ukrainian.
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Our chevrons and flags are still here, in Donetsk. Road to Pokrovsk.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s answer to the Russian dictator’s claims therefore rests on solid ground. After his call with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the Ukrainian president replied on X that Putin, on the eve of America’s Independence Day, «chose to lie to the world and to the President of the United States», and issued a challenge of disarming simplicity: if Kostiantynivka were truly in Russian hands, Putin would have no difficulty meeting him there to negotiate, at last, an end to this war. He will never cross the front line, Zelensky added, because reality differs sharply from his words. This is geography used as a polygraph — a test that costs nothing to whoever tells the truth and cannot be taken by whoever lies. The Kremlin passed it in its own fashion. Peskov countered by inviting Zelensky to present himself in Moscow instead, «because the capital of Russia is Moscow, not Kostiantynivka».
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Alla at the “star” before entering the Donetsk oblast’, Pokrovsk side — copyrighted photo
Giorgio Provinciali
To this picture we add what reaches us from our contacts inside the territories of Ukraine that the Russian Federation illegally occupies. Another bridge on the Mariupol’–Donetsk route has been destroyed near the village of Kremenivka; a second has been hit, again in Donetsk oblast’, over the Malyi Kalchyk river in the Hranitne district; a third — a railway bridge — has collapsed under Ukrainian strikes over the Teple river near Nyzhnoteple, in Luhansk; a fourth transit node has been severed at Novoocheretuvate, in Donetsk once more. Additional Russian fuel depots have gone up at Melitopol’ and in the Kharkiv region, and at least three inside Russia’s Kursk oblast’. Between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, in the last hours, at least five Russian drone-control centers have burned.
Conditions along the self-styled “Novorossiya highway” — the M14 running from Mariupol’ toward Melitopol’ — are terrifying enough that the occupiers themselves have renamed it the “road of death”.
History enjoys its symmetries. Novorossiya was Prince Grigory Potemkin’s invention, and his name survives in every European language as shorthand for painted facades erected to please a passing sovereign. Two and a half centuries later, the facades have migrated from the roadside to the map room. The sequence must be read alongside the televised announcement, because it passes judgment on it.
A real conquest presupposes arteries capable of feeding it: ammunition, fuel, rotations, evacuations. In the verifiable world, those arteries are giving way one by one. This war, as we have been writing for weeks, will be decided by Russia’s capacity to regenerate what it loses — and that capacity currently travels over bridges dangling into rivers.
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Alla reporting from Dobropillia, Donetsk, Ukraine
The first reading is the most linear: Putin knows the situation and lies, feeding with his own voice a propaganda the battlefield contradicts. The fingerprints of authorship are everywhere. The calendar, first: the late-evening meeting of July 3 was staged, in ISW’s assessment, to shape Western media coverage over the weekend, on the eve of America’s Fourth of July; four days later, on July 7–8 in Ankara, NATO members are due to ratify a $140 billion military-aid package covering 2026 and 2027. The cadence, next: since January, Russia’s military leadership has claimed advances along the entire front at least once a month, in high-visibility briefings that ISW files under the heading of cognitive warfare. The precedents, finally: in October, Putin insisted that Pokrovsk and Kupiansk were encircled, and the following weeks dismantled the claim; a few weeks ago, Kostiantynivka itself had already been pronounced doomed. The personal pedigree completes the record: «there are no Russian soldiers in Crimea» (2014, later admitted), «we have no intention of invading» (February 2022).
Gogol — a son of the Poltava region, as it happens — wrote the manual two centuries ago. Chichikov toured the provinces buying up serfs who existed only in the census registers, dead souls still listed as living assets, and leveraged the paper into credit and social standing. The Kremlin’s July ledger runs on the same accounting: settlements that figure as Russian conquests only in a briefing transcript, leveraged into negotiating credit in Washington and Ankara. The paper conquest has a precise function — to obtain at the table what the field denies, to convert fifty meters a day into an aura of inevitability for sale to weary Western capitals.
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The remains of a building along the road from Kostiantynivka to Dobropillia, Ukraine — copyrighted photo
Giorgio Provinciali
The second reading is the more unsettling one: Putin lives inside a bubble of disinformation deep enough to have severed his contact with reality, and moves imaginary troops across maps the battlefield ignores. Here, too, the evidence exists, and it is recent. In late May, ISW analyzed a Russian Defense Ministry map dated April 9 that surfaced online thanks to Ukrainian cartographers: entire villages west of Orikhiv marked as taken, an imaginary front pushed kilometers beyond the real one.
The analysts’ conclusion was: the military command regularly shows Putin inflated maps to mask the slowdown of the offensive, and that falsified picture drives him toward ever more unrealistic negotiating demands. In recent days, overlays of the front “according to Putin” against the real one have begun circulating again, with results that are embarrassing to say the least — two geographies claiming to describe the same war and diverging by entire cities.
This is the vertical of the lie that Russian administrative culture has cultivated for centuries — vranyo, pokazukha, every link in the chain coloring the map for the benefit of the link above — the same machinery that in 2022 produced the FSB’s masterpiece of a Kyiv to be taken in three days. In this reading, Putin genuinely believes, and moves phantom battalions with an index finger on the map: an image European history keeps filed in a Berlin bunker in April 1945, where an army group that existed mostly on paper was forever about to counterattack.
The two hypotheses coexist and feed each other: the system manufactures the lie the leader demands, and the leader consumes the lie the system manufactures. The decisive question is who signs the production order. Our answer: Putin, knowingly.
First, the Kremlin’s blindness runs on a strategic timer. When reality presents the bill, Moscow reads it fluently — the withdrawal from Kyiv in 2022, the flight from Kharkiv, the “partial” mobilization, the Black Sea Fleet’s removal from Sevastopol’. A man capable of ordering real retreats distinguishes perfectly between true maps and painted ones; he selects which to exhibit according to the audience.
Second, the July 3 lie has a return address and a delivery date — Washington on the eve of its national holiday, Ankara four days later — and calendar coincidences, by the twelfth monthly repetition, stop being coincidences.
Third, the eleven assaults: at the operational level the truth is known, otherwise no one would order the taking of what is already possessed — and the map leaked in the spring proves that accurate cartography circulates in Russia, if someone was able to measure its distance from the truth precisely enough to release it.
The bubble, then, exists. And Putin is its architect, its first customer, and its most committed salesman: he consumes the merchandise he ordered and resells it to the West under the brand of inevitability.
On one point, for once, Peskov told the truth: the capital of Russia is Moscow. It is the capital of the lie as well. In Kostiantynivka, meanwhile, the Ukrainian flag flies.
The road to verify it exists. We’ve been showing it here for so long.

China's Deepseek Plan To Make Own AI Chips Causes Nasdaq Sell-Off

2026-07-08T08:47:01.880-04:00

As if the US AI industry weren't already nervous enough as skepticism about the overhype grow, the NASDAQ fell sharply yesterday after Chinese AI leader Deepseek announced it would be making its own AI inference chips. This is - correctly - perceived as a direct threat to Nvidia's dominance and, by extension, to US AI hegemony.

Deepseek's Chinese frenemies, Alibaba and Baidu, are contemplating similar moves. They are being driven, in part, by US chip export controls, but also by a desire to capture more of the AI stack margins for themselves. This is yet another example of how, between token costs and chip hoarding, getting too greedy could cost the AI industry and the US. JL

Samuel Axon reports in ars technica and Shashwat Chauhan reports in Reuters:

Deepseek, the Chinese startup developing large language models competitive with those from OpenAI and Anthropic, is planning to enter the silicon business. The focus is on data center chips for inference, not training, and the goal is to reduce reliance on both Huawei and Nvidia. The Nasdaq fell more than 1% ⁠Tuesday, pressured by a selloff in semiconductor stocks ⁠including Nvidia amid mounting doubts about the sustainability of the AI-driven rally, while DeepSeek making an AI chip also soured sentiment. Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu have been making such moves, too. While chip export controls in the US are a major reason this is an urgent concern for DeepSeek, US-based AI companies are making similar chip plans. OpenAI’s is a play to reduce its reliance on Nvidia, but also to have Apple-like control over the entire tech stack for its products.

DeepSeek, the Chinese startup developing large language models that are competitive with those from US companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, is planning to enter the silicon business.
Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters writes that DeepSeek has been working on a move into silicon for about a year. It has been meeting with potential partners in the hardware and silicon space and has been hiring engineers for the project.
The focus is on data center chips for inference, not training, and the goal is likely to reduce reliance on both Huawei and Nvidia.

The Nasdaq fell more than 1% ⁠on ⁠Tuesday, pressured by a selloff in semiconductor stocks ⁠including Nvidia amid mounting doubts about the sustainability of the AI-driven rally, while a report on China's DeepSeek making an AI chip also soured sentiment.
Nvidia shed 0.7% after Reuters reported Chinese startup DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip, a push ‌that could reduce its dependence on Nvidia and ‌Huawei chips.
Chip stocks tumbled across the world despite memory chip giant Samsung Electronics reporting a 19-fold jump in second-quarter operating profit and surpassing ⁠its combined earnings ⁠over the past three years.
Nvidia is the chipmaker for most AI companies in North America and Europe, but a United States export ban has prevented the company from achieving a similar presence in China. Huawei controls about half of the data center chip market there, and DeepSeek isn’t the only one trying to enter; Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Baidu have been making moves, too.
While chip export controls in the US are a major reason this is an urgent concern for DeepSeek, US-based AI companies are making similar chip plans.
For example, OpenAI and Broadcom jointly announced Jalapeño, the former’s first chip designed for inference at scale, just a couple of weeks ago. Anthropic, too, has been exploring custom chip design, though there have not been any publicly visible milestones yet.

In OpenAI’s case, it’s partly a play to reduce its reliance on Nvidia, but it’s also a desire to have Apple-like control over the entire tech stack for its products. Further, getting in at the silicon and data center levels can be an advantage in a market where data center access is likely to remain constrained, with multiple companies competing for compute as they scale up their AI models and services.

Russia's 2026 Offensive Failed, War's Balance Tilted, Ukraine 'Strongest In Years'

2026-07-07T11:24:03.638-04:00

The consensus among informed observers is that the war's balance has shifted in Ukraine's favor. this does not mean that it is over - nor that it has been won. But it may well mean that, to paraphrase Churchill's famous line, Ukraine is well past 'the end of the beginning,' and that it has far more leverage to control the timing, location and pace of the fighting than it ever has. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Putin's appearance in military uniform at a military briefing (described as “a forward command post” but in reality, it looked like a room in the Kremlin lined with camouflage nets) is attempting to sell a story of Russian success when the reality is quite different. Russia’s 2026 Spring Offensive has failed. Its long-range strike campaign is not bending the will of Ukraine’s citizens. And even the US President appears to have lost interest in Russia’s case. Russia continues to employ infiltration by small groups moving through the kill zone rather than massed assault. This might avoid catastrophic losses in a single stroke but produces a steady stream of casualties as those groups are detected and struck. Set against the wider picture, these are marginal gains bought at extraordinary cost. The balance of the war has tilted (giving) Ukraine the strongest position it has held in years.

On Friday 3 July, during a visit to what was described as “a forward command post” but in reality, looked like a room somewhere in the Kremlin lined with camouflage nets, Putin told his commanders that Russian forces had fully captured Kostiantynivka and the entirety of Luhansk region. The following day Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian General Staff rejected the claim:
Of course, that is not true. It is just another Russian lie, an attempt to generate some kind of a news story. If Kostiantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war. But the fact is, he won’t cross the front line – reality is very different from Putin’s words.
The General Staff confirmed on 3 July that Ukrainian units continue defensive operations within the town and on its approaches.
The city matters because Kostiantynivka is the southernmost of the four fortified cities of the fortress belt that anchors Ukraine’s defence of Donetsk. Alongside the Kostiantynivka claim, Russia’s defence ministry reported taking five villages, Shyikivka, Novyi Myr, Cherneshchyna and Druzhelyubivka in Kharkiv region and Vasylivka in Donetsk, though these could not be independently verified.
Source: ISW
Russia continues to employ infiltration by small groups moving through the kill zone rather than massed assault. This might avoid catastrophic losses in a single stroke but produces a steady stream of casualties as those groups are detected and struck. By some estimates, more than ninety percent of Russian casualties now come from drones rather than direct fire. Ukraine’s defence in depth, including trench lines, mines and the saturated aerial and ground drone deployments, has made rapid maneuver extraordinarily challenging.
Source: Russia Matters
Set against the wider picture, these are marginal gains bought at extraordinary cost. Russia has gained minimal ground over the past six months but paid a high cost to do so. New data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies puts Russian losses at roughly 1.4 million casualties and as many as 450,000 dead since February 2022, with the exchange ratio widening to nearly eight to one in the first half of this year, largely because of Ukrainian drones.
Russian forces are advancing at about fifty metres per day around Kostiantynivka, seventy around Pokrovsk and ninety around Sloviansk, among the slowest rates of any major offensive since the Somme. Russia lost more ground than it took in April and May, a net loss of roughly four hundred square kilometres and its first monthly net losses since 2024.
This provides further context for Putin’s appearance in military uniform at a military briefing. He is attempting to sell a story of Russian success when the reality is quite different. Russia’s 2026 Spring Offensive has failed. Its long-range strike campaign is not bending the will of Ukraine’s citizens or politicians. And even the US President appears to have lost interest in any advocacy for Russia’s case.

The balance of the war has tilted. Ukraine now holds an advantage in the air-interdiction fight, and its 40-day campaign has done damage to the industry that funds the Russian war effort, brought the war home to Russians and imposed costs on Moscow that have no modern precedent. The St Petersburg raid, and its preceding Moscow attacks, demonstrates that no target in western Russia is now beyond Ukraine’s reach. This is the strongest position Ukraine has held for some years, and it has translated into leverage over Belarus.

"Industrial Scale" Damage: Eight Russian Shadow Oil Tankers Hit By Ukraine Drones

2026-07-07T10:47:33.324-04:00

It's not just that Ukraine can now hit Russian targets almost anywhere in that vast country, but that it can do so at scale.

Destruction of crucial economic and military assets in such numbers cannot be sustained, even by a willfully stubborn autocrat. JL

Asami Terajima reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Ukrainian long-range drone strikes hit eight Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov. The overnight aerial naval battle reached "industrial-scale results." The Ukrainian drones also hit a dry cargo ship and a ferry, alongside a convoy of eight fuel tankers. The tankers Ukraine identified include Venera-3, Sanar-1, Sanar-17, Climene, Teti, Aleksey Savrasov, and Penelope. The fuel tankers were "badly damaged and on fire." The Ukrainian drone strikes on a convoy of Russian tankers come as Ukraine ramps up its long-range attacks across the Russian-occupied territories and inside Russia in recent weeks, inflicting a domestic fuel supply crisis on Russia. Russia still seems to lack a good answer."

Ukrainian long-range drone strikes hit eight Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov, Ukraine's top drone warfare commander, Robert Brovdi, better known by his callsign "Madyar," said on July 7.
Claiming that the overnight aerial naval battle reached "industrial-scale results," Brovdi reported that the Ukrainian drones also hit a dry cargo ship and a ferry, alongside a convoy of eight fuel tankers. He claimed that the fuel tankers were "badly damaged and on fire."
"The shadow fleet is leaving the area," Brovdi said in his Telegram post. "The battle for fuel for Crimea in the Sea of Azov continues."
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify Brovdi's claim. Moscow had not commented at the publication time.
"These strikes are part of Ukraine's campaign to strangle Russian logistics, including fuel supplies, to Crimea," John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Kyiv Independent. "Russia still seems to lack a good answer."
The reported Ukrainian drone strikes on a convoy of Russian tankers come as Ukraine ramps up its long-range attacks across the Russian-occupied territories and inside Russia in recent weeks, inflicting a domestic fuel supply crisis on Russia.
Brovdi says that the power in occupied Crimea was disrupted during the Ukrainian attack, with power plants allegedly burning along with logistics. Following a series of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting oil facilities in Crimea and the attacks on the land corridor connecting the occupied peninsula and Russia, which disrupted supplies, the Russian-installed authorities introduced fuel rationing measures in late May.
As part of the gradual efforts to grind down Russia's war machine from afar, Ukraine has targeted the Russian shadow fleet to intensify "pressure on sanctions-busting shippers and insurers at a time when Russian oil exports are already under strain," according to the London-based defense and security think-tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Russia relies on a vast shadow fleet of aging tankers operating under opaque ownership structures and flags of convenience to export oil and petroleum products despite Western sanctions.
Ukraine has argued that Russia's shadow fleet vessels may no longer qualify as ordinary civilian shipping under international law, according to a June 26 letter sent by Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and first reported by Lloyd's List.
Brovdi claimed that "all tankers" hit in the Ukrainian July 7 overnight strike had been identified. He said they are all subject to international sanctions, have a deadweight of 7,000 metric tons each with a length of 140 meters, and were built between 2006 and 2012.
The tankers Brovdi claims Ukraine identified include Venera-3, Sanar-1, Sanar-17, Climene, Teti, Aleksey Savrasov, and Penelope.
"Sanctions from the skies by the Freedom-Loving Ukrainian Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces are in effect," Brovdi said.

Russia Launched 11 Attacks On Kostiantynivka In One Day. None Succeeded

2026-07-07T10:32:52.237-04:00

Those Kremlin claims that its troops have captured Kostiantynivka are proving to be somewhat exaggerated, if not entirely delusional.

Russian forces are reported to be suffering such 'staggering' casualties that they are infiltrating soldiers - not in small groups as at Pokrovsk - but literally individuals, one at a time. Approximately100 of them are believed to have survived so far, mostly holed up in damaged buildings where they await Ukrainian troops finding and eliminating them. And when the Russians attempt actual assaults, as they did 11 times on Friday, they are decimated. JL

Carlotta Gall and Stanislav Kozliuk report in the New York Times:

Russian forces have targeted Kostiantynivka for months although independent analysts say Russian troops are largely stalled in their advance, and at the cost of staggering casualties. Ukrainian troops are holding designated lines and repelled 11 separate Russian assaults on Friday. "There is no specific area under the enemy’s control. There are individual buildings controlled by the enemy, and we are fighting that.” Russian soldiers were not infiltrating in units or even in pairs, but one at a time. “The situation remains under the control of the Defense Forces of Ukraine”
Even as Russia and Ukraine intensified missile and drone strikes on each other’s major cities in recent days, their forces fought relentlessly along hundreds of miles of the frontline.
In the sprawling industrial city of Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian and Russian forces have been battling for months. In recent days, officials on each side have disputed who had control.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian military on Saturday denied an earlier Kremlin claim that Russian troops had taken the city, and said Ukraine was still holding it. The Ukrainian military also published a string of video messages from soldiers on Saturday, standing amid damaged buildings, saying they were defending the city. The messages could not be immediately verified.
Russian forces have targeted it for months, seeing it as the gateway to Kramatorsk, the last stronghold of Donetsk Province coveted by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but still held by Ukraine. In what the Kremlin said was a visit to troops on Friday, Mr. Putin reiterated his determination to keep fighting in Ukraine and even to expand his sights to a wider area, although independent analysts say Russian troops are largely stalled in their advance, and at the cost of staggering casualties.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on social media that he spoke by phone with President Trump on Saturday and agreed to continue talking in person during the NATO summit on Wednesday. Mr. Trump also spoke with Mr. Putin by telephone for nearly 90 minutes, Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin aide, said in comments made public early on Sunday.

The fighting for Kostiantynivka has been slow and crushing. Russian forces have taken the area south of a river that dissects the town, and made advances along two prongs into the city.
As in previous eastern battles, like those for the cities of Bakhmut and Pokrovsk, the Russian bombardment has steadily destroyed buildings and positions. Ukrainian troops were holding designated lines and had repelled 11 separate Russian assaults on Friday, Maj. Andriy Kovalov, spokesman for the Ukrainian General Staff, said in a statement on Saturday. “The situation remains difficult but is under the control of the Defense Forces of Ukraine,” he said.

Russian troops have been spotted in some parts of the city, including the city center, according to Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Bakulin, commander of the 19th Army corps, which is defending Kostiantynivka. More than 100 Russian soldiers had entered the city, he told a national news channel two weeks ago; some Ukrainian reporters have placed that figure closer to 250.

“At the moment, there is no specific area under the enemy’s control,” General Bakulin said. “There are individual buildings controlled by the enemy, and we are fighting that.”

The widespread use of attack drones by both sides has made movement in and around the city perilous. Unlike in previous battles, Russian soldiers were not infiltrating in units or even in pairs, but one at a time, General Bakulin said.

Ukraine did not have the troops to prevent Russian forces from reaching the city, and in places, had made tactical retreats. “We did not try to hold every position at any cost by sacrificing large numbers of people,” he said. The situation in Kostiantynivka is mirrored in many places along the frontline in Donetsk. Despite Ukraine’s recent success with midrange drone attacks that have struck Russian supply lines in rear positions in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk still complain of a lack of manpower, ammunition and drones. And Ukraine has still been unable to stem devastating Russian raids using aerial-guided bombs, which have smashed towns and cities in the path of the Russian advance. A band of cities — Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka — have been badly damaged by the aerial bombing in recent months, causing thousands of civilians to flee.

Russian planes unleashed six guided bombs on the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine on Friday, local officials said. One killed four people in the city center, including a 5-year-old girl and her mother.

Internal US Treasury Report Compares "Overinflated" AI To Dotcom Bubble

2026-07-07T10:03:53.516-04:00

No, the sky is not falling. Yet. And because a number of the larger AI companies are much bigger, profitable and with healthier balance sheets, if there is an eventual collapse in the market, it may have less impact than did the dotcom bubble bursting 25 years ago.

But, to be realistic, the report - which has not yet been released, at least in part because it contradicts the otherwise enthusiastic Trump administration's AI boosterism - does make an explicit comparison with the dotcom experience. The key point is that investors are so heavily committed to AI expectations, which many believe are overinflated, that any failure to achieve those goals could have a negative impact on the broader economy. The flip side of the AI companies size (which makes them less vulnerable than the dotcoms) is that they are much more deeply entrenched in the global financial system. The positive implication is that there are, finally, growing, realistic and influential assessments of the risks associated with AI, which may serve to make that market stronger in the long run. JL

Eric Katz reports in NOTUS:

A leaked report from the Treasury Department warns of risks posed by the AI market, likening aspects of it to the dotcom bubble. AI investors are taking risks so significant that much of the financial system now rests upon AI meeting expectations for productivity gains and profitability. Treasury analysts found AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the U.S. economy than their dotcom predecessors and pose significant risk to the entire system if financial conditions change, productivity goals are missed or choke points stymie growth. The report concluded that the AI bubble’s popping would lead to less of an immediate crash than the U.S. economy experienced with dotcoms. Many of the top AI companies are more mature, profitable and maintain healthier balance sheets, which could blunt the impacts of the “bubble” bursting, if it bursts. Fears of an AI bubble have grown over the last year on Capitol Hill, among Wall Street executives and even within the ranks of top AI principals.

A draft report inside the Treasury Department is set to warn of the risks posed by the artificial intelligence market, likening key aspects of it to the dotcom bubble that upended the U.S. economy when it burst in the early 2000s.
The document, the existence and contents of which have not been previously reported but was obtained by NOTUS, is a significant departure from the Trump administration’s public tone, which has focused on encouraging unrelenting investment to unlock exponential growth.

Career Treasury analysts found that AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the U.S. economy than their dotcom predecessors and pose significant risk to the entire system if financial conditions change, productivity goals are missed or various choke points stymie growth.
A downturn in the AI market would send shockwaves throughout the entire economic ecosystem, the analysts wrote.

The report concluded that the AI bubble’s popping would lead to less of an immediate crash than the U.S. economy experienced with dotcoms in the early 2000s. But the analysts predicted that companies would cut back, investors would lose confidence, and the economy would grow more slowly should the industry falter. Stock markets, private credit markets, companies financing data center buildouts, cloud providers, chip manufacturers and utilities would all feel the effect, according to the report.
Trump administration officials have never voiced similar unease, and a Treasury Department spokesperson dismissed the report’s findings as unvetted and not representative of the agency’s policies or views.
“The official position of the Secretary and the U.S. Treasury is that Artificial intelligence will be a key driver of America’s new Golden Age,” the spokesperson said. “AI has the potential to deliver unprecedented productivity gains, expand economic opportunity, and empower American workers and businesses.”
The report was prepared by Treasury analysts for Secretary Scott Bessent, Federal Reserve Board Chair Kevin Warsh and various federal financial regulators and offers a rare glimpse of how the Trump administration is examining the risks posed by AI. It has been completed for weeks and is awaiting formal approval before reaching its intended audience, which is eventually expected to include the public.

The report stresses that AI companies maintain some fundamental differences from the businesses that dominated the dotcom boom of the late 1990s, which was defined by speculative excess and an overreliance on debt financing. Many of the top AI companies, by contrast, are more mature, profitable and maintain healthier balance sheets, which could blunt the impacts of the “bubble” bursting — or if it bursts at all.
Still, the analysts said, AI investors are taking risks so significant that much of the financial system now rests upon AI meeting expectations for productivity gains and profitability.
The Trump administration has publicly shown nothing but bullishness toward the AI industry. Bessent in a June 25 address in New York praised the largest technology firms for investing $750 billion in AI buildout this year. He favorably compared the current environment to the dotcom boom, saying AI should model its productivity goals against that era.
“Could we do at least that?” Bessent asked. “Can we do maybe more?”
Bessent has stressed that the primary risk posed by AI is failing to keep pace with competitor nations, and the administration has largely sought to unwind any regulatory effort that could hold the industry back.
President Donald Trump has floated procuring U.S. government stakes in AI companies so the American public could benefit from their growth, and the White House recently began meddling in the products that AI firms like Anthropic can release.

Fears of an AI bubble have grown over the last year, including on Capitol Hill, among some Wall Street observers and executives, inside think tanks and even within the ranks of top AI principals. Prominent economists and institutions, including the Bank of England — the central bank of the United Kingdom — and the head of the International Monetary Fund have also raised concerns about overvaluation of AI firms and the risks they pose to the broader economic system.
The AI sector is vulnerable to funding for data centers and other infrastructure projects drying up and sustained growth expectations not being met, the analysts found in the report, saying that was reminiscent of the dotcom crash.
That’s because the industry is increasingly concentrated within a small number of firms, heavily reliant on private-market financing and significantly invested in infrastructure — data centers — to support its future.
Supply chain issues, geopolitical tensions, electricity bottlenecks, utilities shortfalls and other concerns could all block AI’s momentum.
While AI companies’ valuations are less speculative and generate more revenue than those in the dotcom era, the analysts said, the industry is at risk if it fails to grow as fast as it says it can, or if companies can’t monetize their products.
If AI companies fall short, the effects would ripple throughout the financial system as a whole, from big banks and hedge funds to private creditors, the analysts note. The largest AI firms are also all interconnected with each other and across different markets, which also points to widespread impacts if investment dries up or demand slows. In fact, fewer retail investors are backing AI than did dotcom ventures, so a sustained AI dip would have a greater impact on institutional investors fundamental to economic stability, the draft report indicates.

Prominent politicians have repeatedly requested a similar type of analysis from the Treasury Department. Earlier this year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, and other Senate Democrats requested the Treasury Department demand non-public data to conduct a report on the risks of an AI debt bubble. Last month, proposed a bill requiring financial firms to disclose that information to Treasury and for the agency to report the various ways the financial world is exposed to AI companies’ buildouts.
The report would detail how a downturn in AI could hurt the U.S. economy and suggest regulatory action to mitigate the effects.
“AI and Big Tech companies are increasingly reliant on shadowy forms of debt and balance sheet magic to fund their multi-trillion dollar AI buildouts,” Warren said, stating that her bill would “give regulators and Congress the information they need to identify risks early and protect our economy from another preventable financial crisis.”
The Treasury spokesperson said “Treasury will continue working with regulators and the private sector to ensure our regulatory framework keeps pace with innovation and supports the responsible adoption of AI in ways that strengthen the U.S. financial system.”
In his recent New York address, Bessent noted that at a recent G7 meeting, he disagreed with other leaders who suggested risks of AI surrounded safety and job loss.
“I think they were slightly stunned when I said the biggest risk to AI is China getting ahead of us,” he said. “We have to stay ahead.”

Ukraine Destroys Russian Rubikon Drone Base In Pokrovsk

2026-07-06T12:25:01.813-04:00

Drone operators from Ukraine's 7th Corps, deployed in the Pokrovsk sector, identified and destroyed a Russian drone base, killing a number of Russian crews and some instructors from the Kremlin's most effective 'Rubikon' unit.

The successful targeting of such facilities is a significant loss to the Russians, whose drone resources and capabilities trail those of Ukraine. JL

Ukrinform reports:

Ukrainian drone operators from the 7th Corps, deployed in the Pokrovsk sector, destroyed high-rise building in the ‘Lazurnyi’ neighborhood, which the Russians had long used as a base for pilots. Additionally, there were also instructors from the ‘Rubicon’ center present, who were training UAV crews. "This was confirmed among enemy units stationed in this neighborhood.” The Russians were storing ammunition—including toxic chemicals—in one of the buildings. “As a result of the strike, the enemy two UAV crew operating posts, a communications node, ammunition stocks, and up to 10–15 personnel,”
Defense forces carried out an airstrike on a neighborhood in Pokrovsk, where Russian instructors from the “Rubicon” center were observed training UAV crews.
According to Ukrinform, the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Airborne Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported this on Facebook and released a video of the operation.
“A destroyed high-rise building in the ‘Lazurnyi’ neighborhood, which the Russian Federation had long used as a base for pilots. Additionally, the presence of instructors from the ‘Rubicon’ center, who were training UAV crews, was confirmed among enemy units stationed in this neighborhood,” the statement reads.
In addition, the Air Force noted that, according to available information, the enemy was storing ammunition—including toxic chemicals—in one of the buildings.
“As a result of the strike, the enemy lost up to two UAV crew operating posts, a communications node, ammunition stocks, and up to 10–15 personnel,” the 7th Corps of the Airborne Forces stated.
Prior to striking the target, the reconnaissance unit of the 25th Sicheslav Airborne Brigade of the 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of the Airborne Forces conducted a detailed survey of the area where Russian forces were concentrated. Analysis of the location, in particular, revealed round-the-clock activity: the continuous operation of aerial reconnaissance units. It also revealed the use of Wi-Fi bridges, routers, antennas, and Starlink terminals to coordinate and control drones.
As noted by the Airborne Forces, for quite some time the enemy has been choosing the southern part of the city as one of its priority locations for concentrating personnel, particularly UAV pilots.
Read also: Russia's war casualty toll in Ukraine up by 1,290 over past day
“In this way, the enemy hopes to reduce the risk of FPV drone strikes by the Ukrainian military in the 7th Corps’ area of responsibility, as well as to simplify logistics. These areas are adjacent to roads connecting Pokrovsk with other major settlements behind enemy lines,” the Airborne Forces commented.
As reported by Ukrinform, in June 2026, the Defense Forces struck more than 200,000 Russian targets, and the intensity of strikes on targets in the temporarily occupied Crimea increased.

New Pocket-Sized Ukrainian Launcher Takes Down FPV Drones

2026-07-06T11:05:21.432-04:00

In the constant battle for innovation dominance, Ukraine has introduced a new pocket-sized portable anti-drone defensive weapon for frontline troops.

It fires a net at an approaching FPV or reconnaissance drone, disabling the attacking object. JL

Ivan Khomenko reports in United 24:

A Ukrainian defense company has developed a new lightweight, single-use anti-drone device designed to counter enemy FPV drones and reconnaissance quadcopters. It provides short-range drone interception using a rapidly deploying entanglement net. Weighing just 365 grams, the MITLA launcher measures 200 mm in height and 40 mm in diameter, allowing for easy storage in a pouch, backpack, or uniform pocket. The system operates manually and requires no external power or setup. To activate it, the user aims and fires, releasing a net that entangles the drone’s rotors mid-flight.

Ukrainian defense company TENETA has developed a new lightweight, single-use anti-drone device designed to counter enemy FPV drones and reconnaissance quadcopters.
According to the company’s official announcement, the MITLA net launcher is intended for frontline use and provides short-range drone interception using a rapidly deploying entanglement net.
Weighing just 365 grams, the MITLA launcher measures 200 mm in height and 40 mm in diameter, allowing for easy storage in a pouch, backpack, or uniform pocket.
The system operates manually and requires no external power or setup. To activate it, the user aims and fires, releasing a net that entangles the drone’s rotors mid-flight.
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TENETA reports that MITLA is effective in both high and low temperatures, maintaining consistent performance across a range of environmental conditions. The launcher is equipped with a 7.62 mm pyrotechnic cartridge, which provides the propulsion for the net. Due to the force of the recoil, operators are advised to use both hands during deployment.
The net itself measures 3.5 by 3.5 meters, with an effective range of up to 25 meters. According to the developers, these specifications allow the device to disrupt drone flight paths during close-range combat or while defending fortified positions.
Earlier, Ukraine’s Brave1 defense cluster introduced specialized anti-drone ammunition for standard infantry rifles. The rounds, which resemble regular 5.45 mm cartridges, are designed to fragment mid-air, increasing the chances of hitting fast-moving FPV drones. Already codified for use, the ammo is being distributed to frontline soldiers as part of a broader layered defense strategy.

Russia Has Lost the Initiative Against Ukraine. Is Unlikely to Regain It

2026-07-06T10:53:44.010-04:00

Media headlines tell the story: Ukraine is systematically destroying Russia's military capabilities and broader, oil-based economy, while Russia responds with terror attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

The former reflects strategic thinking aimed at achieving an analytically-driven outcome. The latter is simply an expression of impotent rage. Russian battlefield tactics, such as they are, amount to the infiltration of small groups of soldiers, many of whom are almost immediately eliminated by drones. The Kremlin is no longer capable of mounting offensives in the traditional sense of the word. The result is that Ukraine has achieved momentum, choosing when and where to fight, while Russia responds, hoping the world will lose interest before the Russian economy collapses. JL

Seth Jones and colleagues report in the Center For Strategic and International Studies:

Ukrainian forces, after more than two years on the defensive, began clawing back ground that reversed the front’s direction in some areas for the first time since 2023. Even where Russia concentrates its resources, it has not been able punch through Ukraine’s defensive lines and advance quickly. Russian battlefield fatalities in Ukraine are more than 28 times greater than Soviet fatalities in Afghanistan during the 1980s, more than 18 times greater than during Russia’s First and Second Chechen Wars. (And) Russian battlefield casualties are significantly greater than Ukraine's. Russia’s territorial control in Ukraine shrank in the spring of 2026. The war in Ukraine heavily favors the defender, a dynamic that has frustrated Russian offensives. It’s progress on the battlefield has been historically poor, with Russian casualties, fatalities, and average rates of advance among the worst of any major power in any war since World War II.

Putin’s primary objectives remain bringing Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence and subjugating Ukraine, either directly by militarily conquering and annexing Ukraine (as Russia has done in Crimea and some areas of eastern and southern Ukraine) or indirectly by installing a Russian ally in Kyiv. Putin also likely seeks to destroy the credibility of NATO, prevent further NATO expansion eastward, undermine the European Union, and expand Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Putin sees Ukraine as part of Russia’s historical empire under such czars as Peter the Great, Alexander III, and Catherine the Great, bound together by one language, economy, culture, and religion. As Putin argued in his essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Russians and Ukrainians are “one people—a single whole.” This myth of Russia and Ukraine as one is, of course, false. Ukraine has a distinct culture, a deeply rooted history, and a different language. The war has only strengthened Ukrainian identity and further distanced its people from Russia. Russia’s military campaign has focused on several axes, as noted in Figure 1: northern Sumy Oblast, eastern Kharkiv Oblast, northwestern Donetsk Oblast, and northern portions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts. Russia has also aggressively targeted Ukrainian civilian and military targets with drones and ballistic, cruise, and occasionally hypersonic missiles. Russia has exploited a notable Ukrainian vulnerability: a limited supply of air defense interceptors, such as PAC-3 missiles. As Colonel Yurii Ihnat, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman, noted using a sports reference, “A goalkeeper is standing in the goal, and suddenly 10 balls are flying at him at once. He cannot catch all of them. He can catch as many as he has hands and feet, right?” In addition, Russian forces continue to make improvements in such areas as electronic and drone warfare, creating operational and tactical challenges for Ukrainian forces. For example, Russia’s Rubikon Center for Advanced Unmanned Systems, a Russian military unit that specializes in drone warfare, has been effective at striking Ukrainian drone operators, destroying rear units, and severing supply lines.

Ukraine has also conducted offensive operations in 2026 in such areas as Oleksandrivka in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. In addition, Ukraine has dramatically taken the war to Russian territory in 2026 by orchestrating a series of short-, medium-, and long-range strikes to disrupt and destroy Russian logistics and supplies. This is classic air interdiction, though with drones and missiles—not airplanes. According to CSIS analysis, Ukraine has struck several types of Russian targets:

Energy infrastructure, such as oil refineries, pumping stations, and fuel storage facilities and tankers
Industrial base targets, such as missile and drone production facilities, microelectronics plants, and semiconductor plants
Logistics targets, such as rail lines, roads, bridges, and munitions storage facilities, as well as vehicles and freight trains transporting military supplies
Military bases and other military targets, such as headquarters, command and control facilities, ships, aircraft, radar, air defense systems, drone launch positions, and electronic warfare systems

Ukraine has conducted long-range strikes (greater than 300 kilometers from Ukrainian territory) against such cities as St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as against such locations as Ukrainka Air Base—over 6,000 kilometers from Kyiv. Ukraine has also orchestrated medium-range strikes (30–300 kilometers) against targets in Kursk, Kaluga, Belgorod, and other oblasts. Finally, Ukrainian forces have carried out short-range strikes (less than 30 kilometers) against thousands of targets just across the border in Russia and in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, such as Crimea. These strikes have caused operational challenges for Russia, including decreasing Russia’s energy refining capacity, causing gasoline shortages in some areas, largely knocking out Russia’s navy from the war, disrupting logistics and supply lines, pummeling Russian-controlled Crimea, and attritting some industrial production. Nevertheless, the strikes have not crippled Russia’s war machine and have not fully destroyed—or denied—Russia’s military capacity to wage war.

In conducting its air interdiction campaign, Ukraine has used a combination of drones and missiles—including a major increase in AI that is changing the character of warfare. One recent development is the Ukrainian fielding of the Hornet, a one-way, autonomous attack drone that costs roughly $6,000 and has a range of up to 150 kilometers. It is part of a drone partnership between Ukrainian and U.S. companies. The Hornet uses AI to analyze live video feeds during the day and night; identify legitimate Russian targets with its target detection and algorithms; detect Russian decoys based on the platform’s geometry, surface texture, and thermal signature; and strike Russian targets using AI during the final phase of the flight with a built-in warhead. The Hornet and other types of AI-assisted drones decrease the threat from Russian electronic warfare systems by relying on onboard AI that does not need a satellite connection, which can be jammed. In addition, Ukraine has also used AI-assisted systems produced by such companies as SkyFall for counter-drone operations, including to help identify and destroy Russian first-person-view (FPV) drones. According to CSIS estimates, Russian forces suffered approximately 1.4 million battlefield casualties—including killed, wounded, and missing soldiers—between February 2022 and June 2026, as highlighted in Figure 3. Russian forces suffered between 400,000 and 450,000 fatalities during this same period. These casualty numbers have increasingly become a problem for Russian recruitment. In 2026, Russia’s monthly casualty rates of between 30,000 and 34,000 casualties per month likely exceeded its recruitment rates of approximately 27,000 new recruits per month.

The number of Russian casualties and fatalities are astonishing. Since World War II, no major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war, leaving Russia with a grim and unparalleled recent historical record. Compared to the United States, for example, Russia has suffered roughly four times as many fatalities in Ukraine as the United States has in all its wars combined since World War II, as shown in Figure 4. The United States suffered 36,574 battle deaths during the Korean War, 58,220 deaths during the Vietnam War, 383 deaths during the Persian Gulf War, 2,581 deaths in Afghanistan, and 4,492 deaths in Iraq—in addition to smaller numbers in Grenada, Panama, and other wars, such as Operation Epic Fury in 2026. Russian casualties and fatalities are also remarkable from a historical Russian and Soviet perspective. Russian battlefield fatalities in Ukraine are more than 28 times greater than Soviet fatalities in Afghanistan during the 1980s, more than 18 times greater than during Russia’s First and Second Chechen Wars in the 1990s and 2000s, and more than nine times greater than all Russian and Soviet wars combined since World War II.

Russian battlefield casualties and fatalities are significantly greater than Ukrainian casualties and fatalities. For much of the war, the Russia-Ukraine casualty ratio was between 2:1 and 3:1 (between two and three Russian casualties for every one Ukrainian casualty), though the rate has likely risen to nearly 8:1 in the first half of 2026. Ukrainian forces have suffered somewhere between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties (killed, wounded, and missing) and between 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities between February 2022 and June 2026. Combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties have exceeded 2 million. Why are Russian casualties and fatalities so high? There are several plausible explanations: Russia’s attrition strategy, its failure to effectively conduct combined arms and joint warfare, its poor tactics and training, corruption, and low morale. In addition, Ukraine’s defense-in-depth strategy has been effective in killing and wounding Russian soldiers, as well as limiting Russian maneuver.

On the battlefield, Russia has utilized dismounted infantry, along with FPV drones, artillery, glide bombs, and other stand-off weapons, to wear down and attrit Ukrainian lines. Russian units have routinely conducted advances using small squads of troops, often poorly trained, that are supported by armored vehicles.

Higher Russian headquarters frequently order these forces to advance toward Ukrainian positions and conduct reconnaissance by drawing fire. If Ukrainian positions are positively identified, Russian soldiers may be sent forward to attack positions, which are further mapped and then targeted with artillery, FPV drones, and glide bombs. These tactics have led to high fatalities and casualties. SpaceX’s decision to limit Russia’s access to Starlink in early 2026 likely exacerbated Russian command and control problems and further enabled Ukrainian counterattacks.

Ukrainian forces have also imposed significant costs with their defense-in-depth strategy in a war that has largely favored the defender. Ukraine has used trenches, dragon’s teeth (antitank obstacles), mines, and other barriers—along with artillery and drones—to attrit advancing Russian soldiers and vehicles. The eastern front line, for instance, continues to be saturated with drones. As a result, movement is difficult within a “kill zone” of approximately 20–40 kilometers. According to some estimates, over 90 percent of Russian casualties are from drone attacks rather than a result of human-to-human engagements. Casualty rates are extremely high for soldiers that enter the kill zone. Advancing Russian forces may send as many as a half dozen soldiers into the area at a time, while Ukrainian forces typically do not send dismounted infantry into the kill zone.

Rates of Advance

Russian and Ukrainian troops advanced remarkably slowly in their most prominent offensives in the first half of 2026, at average rates of between 50 and 90 meters per day. Russian forces remained largely on the offensive, but Ukrainian forces, after more than two years mostly on the defensive, began clawing back ground in small gains that reversed the front’s direction in some areas for the first time since 2023. This analysis measures the straight-line distance that the front line has shifted during specific military offensives.

After capturing Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast in February 2024, Russian forces moved westward toward Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub supporting Ukrainian operations across the eastern front. Russian forces took control of the city in late January 2026 after nearly two years of fighting. From late February 2024 to late January 2026, they advanced approximately 50 kilometers, an average rate of about 70 meters per day.

In the first half of 2026, Russia concentrated much of its offensive efforts on the “fortress belt,” the band of heavily fortified cities anchoring Ukraine’s defense of Donetsk Oblast. From early August 2025 to early June 2026, Russian forces pressed toward Kostiantynivka, advancing roughly 16 kilometers to the outskirts of the city, an average rate of about 50 meters per day. Nearby to the north, Russian forces pushed toward Sloviansk, covering approximately 15 kilometers from late December 2025 to early June 2026, an average rate of about 90 meters per day. Russian forces remained more than 20 kilometers east of the Sloviansk in early June 2026.

Ukrainian forces also went on the offensive in some areas in the first half of 2026, pushing forward at a similarly slow pace. Ukraine’s most significant counterattack cleared a cluster of settlements along the Oleksandrivka axis on the Dnipropetrovsk-Zaporizhzhia border, advancing roughly 12 kilometers between late January and early June 2026, an average rate of about 90 meters per day.

Measured against historical benchmarks, these rates are slow. The average rates of advance for the war’s most prominent recent offensives alongside benchmarks from earlier conflicts. The most prominent Russian and Ukrainian offensives of the past year advanced at roughly the pace of the Battle of the Somme, among the most grinding offensives of World War I. By contrast, the opening maneuver phases of the war in Ukraine in 2022 ran from roughly 3,000 to more than 7,000 meters per day—on the order of 30–100 times faster than today’s offensive. These slow rates reflect the defensive advantages that have shaped the war since 2023. Dense minefields, layered fortifications, heavy shelling, and the saturation of drones across a zone more than 20 kilometers wide around the front line make it extremely dangerous to mass the personnel and armor to generate a large breakthrough. As noted in the previous section, Russian forces have instead leaned on infiltration tactics, moving forward in small groups to attempt to slip between Ukrainian positions rather than assault them head-on. This avoids the catastrophic losses of massed assault but is lethal in its own way. Many of these soldiers are detected and struck while crossing the ground of the kill zone, and the relentless volume of small attacks produces the casualties described earlier in this analysis.

When successful, such tactics take ground only in small pockets rather than collapsing defensive lines. Even where Russia concentrates its resources, as in the two-year campaign that eventually took Pokrovsk, it has not been able punch through Ukraine’s defensive lines and advance quickly. The result is a grinding war of attrition fought in countless small engagements along a front more than 1,000 kilometers long, in which even the side holding the initiative advances at historically slow rates.

Territorial Gains

Russia’s territorial control in Ukraine shrank in the spring of 2026, with Russian forces losing more ground than they captured in both April and May, a net loss of roughly 400 square kilometers. Russian forces currently control about 118,000 square kilometers of Ukraine (approximately 20 percent of the country, an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania), including Crimea and the parts of Donbas held before 2022. Within that area, roughly 75,000 square kilometers (about 12 percent of Ukraine) has been taken since the February 2022 invasion. But Russia’s footprint stopped growing for the first time in years in the spring of 2026.

Between January and mid-March 2026, Ukraine went on the offensive in the south, retaking around 400 square kilometers near Oleksandrivka and Huliaipole. Throughout April and May, Ukrainian counterattacks extended across the front, from Kharkiv Oblast in the north through Donetsk and into Zaporizhzhia Oblast in the south.

The territorial shifts in the first half of 2026 in both directions were marginal compared with the vast exchanges of territory in the war’s first year. At the peak of its initial invasion in March 2022, Russia seized roughly 115,000 square kilometers in less than five weeks. Ukraine retook more than 35,000 square kilometers by that April and roughly 75,000 square kilometers by November. Today, the defensive advantages that characterize the fighting make rapid, sweeping gains such as those of the war’s opening months extremely difficult.

Implications for Ending the War

The war in Ukraine heavily favors the defender, a dynamic that has frustrated Russian offensives but also constrained Ukrainian counterattacks. As the data in this analysis shows, Russia’s progress on the battlefield has been historically poor, with Russian casualties, fatalities, and average rates of advance among the worst of any major power in any war since World War II.

Despite high losses, however, Russia continues to fight—a decision that rests firmly with Putin, who has given no public indication he intends to slow down even as the war’s costs grow harder to hide from a Russian public showing some signs of fatigue. So long as Putin remains willing to pay the steep price, Russia can continue to tap into a deep manpower pool and a war economy that, while strained, has not yet buckled.

Ukraine also shows no sign of collapsing, even after years of relentless Russian strikes. But the overall advantage for the defender poses a challenge for Ukraine in retaking territory that Russia has seized since 2014 (such as Crimea and parts of the Donbas) and following the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine’s best hope may be a stalemate that leads to a peace agreement or ceasefire.

Since World War II, interstate wars have ended in one of several ways: 30 percent following a ceasefire, 21 percent because of a battlefield victory by one side, 16 percent through a peace agreement, and the rest for a variety of other reasons. For Europe and the United States, the goal should be to obtain a peace agreement or, at worst, a ceasefire by raising the blood and treasure costs for Moscow of a prolonged war. This means continuing to provide military and economic assistance to Ukraine—and even expanding the quantity and quality of military aid, such as air defense systems—and increasing economic sanctions against Russia.

Russia’s economy is in distress, and Russia’s wartime spending may be increasingly untenable. The moment is ripe for a pressure campaign that pushes the Russian economy toward exhaustion. The United States and Europe should increase pressure on Russia’s oil revenues through stricter enforcement of sanctions that target Russia’s shadow fleet, the clandestine network of hundreds of oil tankers acquired or chartered by Russia to evade Western economic sanctions. Such enforcement could include secondary sanctions on banks in China, Hong Kong, and other countries that facilitate these transactions.

The bitter irony of the Ukraine war is that despite Russia’s battlefield challenges and economic vulnerabilities, the United States and Europe have failed to fully wield economic or military pressure. Without greater costs in blood and treasure, Putin is likely to keep fighting—even as he keeps pushing his country towards the abyss.

60% of C-Suite Execs Worry AI Is Causing 'De-Skilling,' Critical Thinking Atrophy

2026-07-06T10:27:59.476-04:00

As if AI wasn't facing enough challenges to its financial and operational efficacy, a growing body of research is finding that it may be leading to what, in the bone-dry jargon of managerial performance, is being called de-skilling.

Put more simply, there is concern, backed up by data, that over-reliance on AI may be making users lazy. They are more willing to take at face value whatever AI tells them, and less willing to debate, think critically, challenge assumptions and collaborate on finding original solutions. Consequently, they are less willing to take ownership - after all, AI said it was so - and become advocates for their ideas. The result could be a homogenization of strategies. While probably not an immediate threat to the growth of AI, what this could, interestingly, lead to is a change in the way AI is applied, eg, as a supplement and complement rather than replacement for human input, in order to achieve optimized outcomes. JL

Sagar Goel and colleagues report in Boston Consulting Group:

60% of C-Suite executives believe de-skilling will pose a threat within the next three to five years. A growing body of research points to the erosion of critical thinking, judgment, curiosity, and originality among frequent AI users; the skills most important to organizational performance. The larger danger is when skill erosion across hundreds or thousands of people in an organization - distributed de-skilling -undermines organizational intelligence. Because AI produces acceptable ideas efficiently enough, employees’ ideation abilities can atrophy; and because its strength in pattern recognition creates the illusion of analytical rigor, workers’ causal reasoning and assumption testing can erode. This starts with overreliance on AI outputs without stress testing or challenge, cited by 90% of surveyed leaders. Reduced ownership and accountability, fewer debates, less diversity of thinking, and reduced collaboration and teaming follow.

Humans have offloaded cognition to tools since ancient times, from the first tally mark to calculators and GPS devices. What makes generative AI (GenAI) different is the nature of the work it performs. Unlike previous tools, GenAI doesn’t merely support human thinking; increasingly, it substitutes for it, with consequences for a specific set of human skills. A growing body of research points to cognitive debt—the gradual erosion of critical thinking, judgment, curiosity, and originality among frequent AI users.

But the larger danger is not what happens to an individual employee; it is what happens when skill erosion occurs simultaneously across hundreds or thousands of people in an organization. We call this distributed de-skilling—a collective erosion of human skills that undermines organizational intelligence and resilience over time. This phenomenon is not a talent problem, but a system design problem rooted in how the organization builds governance, workflows, and culture around AI.

In a global study of 70 C-suite leaders and senior executives across multiple industries, we found that half are already observing de-skilling in their organizations, and more than 60% believe that de-skilling will pose a material threat within the next three to five years. On the basis of these leaders’ firsthand accounts, as well as interviews that we conducted with a dozen other company leaders, we’ve identified the organizational implications of distributed de-skilling, the skills that are most vulnerable to it, and some of the mitigation strategies that leaders are deploying to combat it.

The skills that leaders identify as most important to long-term organizational performance—judgment and decision making, problem understanding and framing, creative thinking, analysis and causal reasoning, and solution generation and evaluation—are precisely the ones that they consider most at risk of de-skilling due to AI. These capabilities lie at the core of what it means to think strategically, and they are the skills that GenAI most directly replaces when used without guardrails. Problem understanding and framing stands out as the skill that leaders rate as most critical to organizational performance, while judgment and decision making carries the highest de-skilling risk score of all skills. They are the two key components of strategic thinking—which involves defining the right problem and making the right call—and both are deeply exposed.

Problem understanding and framing is upstream of everything else: an organization that loses the ability to define the right problem cannot compensate for that deficiency by using AI to generate better analysis or faster execution. Judgment and decision making, meanwhile, entails a sequence: attempting to solve a problem with incomplete information, making a call, observing what happens, and updating the mental model accordingly. One leader noted, “I’ve seen AI used as the wise man in the room but with insufficient input, short prompts, and not grounded to company strategy or company values. This produces fine high-level but generic outcomes, and it causes people to have differing expectations.”

Creative thinking, analysis and causal reasoning, and solution generation and evaluation are at risk in related ways. Because AI produces seemingly acceptable ideas efficiently enough, employees’ independent ideation abilities can atrophy; and because its strength in pattern recognition creates the illusion of analytical rigor, workers’ ability to perform deeper causal reasoning and assumption testing can erode. For example, several leaders flagged a growing tendency for teams to accept AI-generated analyses without interrogating the underlying logic.

By contrast, the skills sitting in the relatively protected area—empathy and active listening; motivation and self-awareness; curiosity and lifelong learning; resilience, flexibility, and agility; and leadership and social influence—are those that depend most heavily on human relationships, embodied experience, and emotional attunement. AI can assist around the edges of these skills, but it cannot substitute for them. They are, for now, more durable.

Crucially, these less exposed skills do not just constitute reassuring data points. They can actively defend skills that are at greater risk. For instance, empathy and active listening can sustain the mentoring relationships that AI is quietly displacing; leadership and social influence can make structured debate possible in situations where convergent AI thinking would otherwise go unchallenged; and motivation and self-awareness can drive employees to interrogate AI outputs rather than simply accept them. Leaders would do well to invest in these skills with that purpose explicitly in mind.

What happens when entire teams, business units, or organizations experience de-skilling? Already, the organizational symptoms that leaders associate with capability decline are visible and mutually reinforcing. The downward trend starts with overreliance on AI outputs without stress testing or challenge, a factor cited by almost 90% of surveyed leaders. As one leader observed, “Teams start treating AI-generated work as ‘good enough’ and skip the critical thinking step entirely. Over time, nobody is poking holes in the analysis, which means errors and blind spots slip through unchecked.” Uncritical acceptance is not just a quality problem, but also the gateway to a deeper erosion of judgment.

That erosion shows up most visibly in an environment of reduced ownership and accountability, cited by more than 50% of leaders. Once employees stop interrogating AI outputs, they find it easier to stop owning them. “The AI suggested it” becomes a shield and nobody feels fully on the hook. One leader described it bluntly: “I can see employees’ sense of ownership going down. If the outcome is not positive, the responsibility is laid on AI.” Leaders expect this pattern of deflecting blame onto algorithmic systems to accelerate.

As individual judgment weakens, the collective suffers. Fewer constructive debates (cited by 43% of leaders), less diversity of thinking (cited by 49% of leaders), and reduced collaboration and teaming by employees (cited by 34% of leaders) follow from the same dynamic. When everyone uses the same AI tools trained on the same data, outputs and thinking converge, draining the impetus to consult, challenge, or build on a colleague’s perspective. “Everyone will have similar answers, similar formats, similar data points,” one leader said. “Logically, every problem will have a set solution.” Speed compounds this problem: “There is less discussion because everything needs to be done immediately. Winning at speed eliminates good debate.”

Underlying these trends is a deeper structural problem: the slower development of junior talent, cited by 53% of leaders. When AI handles the analytical grunt work—such as research, drafting, debugging, and problem decomposition—that junior employees have traditionally performed and learned from, they miss out on the formative repetitions that build judgment. Several leaders noted that a person cannot develop discernment without first doing the work. The reinforcing cycle of de-skilling is already visible, as one leader described, “Less hands-on practice feeds into less ownership, which feeds into less scrutiny of AI outputs.” In turn, this means fewer opportunities to exercise judgment and engage in hands-on practice.

But the risk runs even deeper. As AI absorbs entry-level tasks, organizations expect new hires to perform without the traditional on-ramp that builds seniority and clarifies expectations. As one leader put it, “Our traditional entry-level employee will need to perform tasks that a five- to ten-year employee would do.” Organizations are restructuring the career ladder faster than they are redesigning the learning paths that made the old system work. Experienced professionals are equally vulnerable to what one leader called the “autopilot trap”—substituting AI judgment for their own out of habit and in response to time pressure. Senior employees can retain the appearance of high performance while gradually losing the depth of judgment that made them valuable.

The decline in mentoring, coaching, and knowledge sharing (cited by 33% of leaders) is a particular concern for long-term organizational learning. Several leaders noted that employees now bypass peer knowledge exchange entirely, going directly to large-language models (LLMs) for insight rather than engaging colleagues. One leader described training days that are “no longer used to learn but to generate content with AI tools”—a sign that the rituals designed to build capability are eroding. Although they are aware of the threat, most organizations remain in the early stages of responding to it. In our research, only one in ten companies has an organization-wide strategy or has launched targeted initiatives to address de-skilling, and a third have not explicitly discussed it at all. That said, some companies have begun experimenting with interventions. Through our research and conversations, we’ve identified six strategies that leaders can implement today.

1. Set the Organizational Conditions
Effective AI governance does more than define what not to do: it actively shapes how employees can use AI in ways that strengthen human skills. This involves defining which AI systems are approved for use, how output verification should be conducted, and when human review is mandatory. It also means codifying clear right-use patterns with concrete guidance detailing how to use AI in specific contexts and defining AI-off zones that apply to tasks where originality, ethical judgment, or synthesis is most critical.

The organization should embed these conditions in a practical AI code of conduct that addresses how to manage hallucinations, how to interrogate model reasoning, and how to escalate issues appropriately. Employees should receive consistent reminders (through policy and company communication) that they own the outcome regardless of the tool they use. At the same time, leaders must actively manage the internal narrative, avoiding the trap of incentivizing the use of AI tools for its own sake rather than for genuine value creation.

For example, at a leading multinational materials science company, the center of excellence within the enterprise data and analytics department includes a dedicated change management function whose explicit purpose is to ensure preservation of the human element as the company adopts AI tools. It works directly with business and functional stakeholders to coach people away from old habits and toward new ones, clarifying what the new way of working looks like and what its benefits are, and deploying digital literacy programs in parallel to close skill gaps.

2. Redesign How Work Gets Done
The core design question is work allocation: what tasks should be delegated to AI, what tasks should remain human, and where should humans and AI adopt an ensemble approach (working on a problem independently, and then combining their outputs)? As organizations redesign their workflows, resistance to skill erosion needs to sit alongside efficiency and effectiveness as an explicit design criterion, with leaders asking, “What work should we keep humans involved in, and why?”

Several leaders noted that an organization’s most consequential decisions are not about individual tasks but about sequences of work that build judgment or require contextual reasoning. These must remain human-led even as surrounding tasks are automated. Control of sequencing is critical, especially now that AI agents can handle multistep workflows end-to-end, compressing the cognitive loops that build capability. In practice, this means that humans need to retain ownership of final judgments and accountability for outcomes.

Another key dimension involves preserving the senior-junior mentoring dynamic through which organizations transmit tacit knowledge, professional judgment, and craft across generations. An organization must protect or rebuild this relationship through structured apprenticeships, coaching relationships, and team designs that require human-to-human knowledge transfer.

For example, Shell has adjusted the workflows of its teams so that humans explicitly own interpretation, validation, and final decisions, with peer review expected for material outputs. Human-in-the-loop decision checkpoints require employees to challenge AI outputs and assumptions before approving them. The company has also fundamentally redesigned junior learning paths: juniors must first independently frame the problem, test assumptions, and produce a baseline analysis, and only afterward use AI to refine their analysis. Early results show improved question quality, clearer rationales for decisions, and faster progress toward independent work.

To preserve the mentoring dynamic, teams at Salesforce draw on the concept of pair programming from software development, creating small team structures that mix high-agency AI adopters with others who are less comfortable with the tools. The approach relies on positive peer pressure and direct observation: employees learn more effectively by watching a skilled colleague than by undergoing formal training alone, and having a partner is invaluable for employees who have access to the tools but don’t know where to start with them.

3. Make Human Skill Development Visible in Performance Systems
Embedding human skill development in performance systems is the hardest and least implemented intervention, but it is also one of the most structurally consequential. As AI compresses the distribution of visible performance, leaders find it increasingly difficult to differentiate talent and to reward genuine capability. The same problem arises in the context of learning and development: certification rates go up while actual capability may not. Performance systems need to see through this fog.

The response is to make how an employee achieves outcomes as visible as what they deliver, by assessing the skills deployed and built. Human capabilities required for long-term organizational performance should be explicitly identified in reviews, promotion criteria, and development pathways, as a core signal of what the organization values and intends to protect.

At CNIL, France’s data protection authority, managers are responsible for assessing employees’ ability to challenge AI outputs—not just to use them—making critical engagement with AI a visible and evaluated dimension of performance. This shift in assessment procedure has reinforced accountability and helped sustain critical thinking that governance alone cannot guarantee.

In implementing changes in performance systems, leaders at Salesforce found that introducing revised evaluation frameworks alongside new technology created anxiety among employees and distorted their performance. To mitigate this effect, the organization kept its evaluation cadences stable but shifted the incentive structure to reward employees who generate insights that go beyond their immediate job requirements and who foster a culture of sharing rather than hoarding knowledge.

4. Build Skill-Replenishment Rituals into Everyday Work
Leaders must actively establish routines that will help employees rebuild cognitive and creative muscle. Just as organizations have norms for different meeting types, they need norms that exercise different human capabilities: cognitive warm-ups, AI-free problem-solving sessions, structured debate moments, and reflection prompts (“What reasoning step did we strengthen today?”).

For a replicable recurring format, one leading Indian bank runs a structured AI-free session on the first Friday of each month across all business and support functions, combining case study discussions, design thinking assignments, team retrospectives, and sector briefings. The structure rotates among analytical, creative, and reflective modes to exercise the full range of human capabilities. A US-based B2B telecommunications company is introducing yearly no-AI hackathons that give teams three days to build executable proofs of concept, thereby exercising problem-solving, creativity, and a growth mindset.

To embed deliberation in existing workflows, teams at a leading industrial technology company use the planning phases for new activities as structured moments for human judgment. Teams are required to formulate different scenarios, defend specific positions, and challenge one another’s reasoning before the company chooses a particular path. AI can help generate the scenarios, but humans must provide the critical judgment.

5. Train Employees to Work with AI in Nonlinear Ways
Most people use AI linearly: describe the task, ask for an answer, tidy the output. This pattern can reinforce cognitive offloading and produce homogeneous thinking because skipping straight to a generated answer omits the cognitive work that builds judgment. The alternative is to use AI not as an answer machine but as a tool for provoking better questions, and to work backward from opposition and failure modes (such as, “How could this go wrong?”) rather than forward from assumptions.

Several powerful nonlinear techniques are already in use across industries. In design education, there is a practice of prompting for the opposite. The idea is to instruct AI, “Give me a solution that does not work,” rather than “Give me a better solution.” This approach forces the tool to surface ways in which the solution could break, unexpected edge cases, and unconventional approaches that normal prompts overlook—all of which generate raw material for more original thinking.

In legal and policy work, adversarial red teaming uses AI as a skeptic rather than as an answer machine, working backward from worst-case scenarios to uncover vulnerabilities before they become problems. And in product development, Amazon’s PR/FAQ “working backwards” method flips the workflow entirely: teams write the press release and customer FAQ for a product before any development begins, forcing clarity on vision and constraints upfront.

These techniques share a common operational logic: use AI to provoke better questions, not just faster answers. Leaders who teach employees to work with AI in this way will find that the quality of AI-augmented thinking improves because the human doing the prompting has done the hard cognitive work first.

6. Embed Reflective Prompts and Cognitive Nudges in AI Tools
The design question that every leader should ask about AI tooling is “Does this keep our people thinking?” The most direct way to answer that question is to build reflective prompts into tools at the point of use so that instead of simply delivering an answer, the tool requires the user to think first. Several leaders called for AI models that actively surface levels of certainty, present counterarguments before a conclusion is accepted, and embed prompts such as “What assumptions are you making?" or require a brief human rationale before generating a recommendation.

These nudges serve a dual purpose. In the short term, they improve output quality by slowing down the unchallenged acceptance of AI-generated conclusions. Over time, they build employees’ meta-cognitive capacity—the ability to monitor their own thinking, recognize when they are offloading too readily, and deliberately re-engage their own judgment. The goal is that employees eventually internalize the prompt, asking “what am I missing?” before the tool asks it for them.

For example, a global information services tech company has deliberately designed in-house LLM-based tools to point users toward areas where they should apply their own judgment, rather than providing the solution directly. The prompt architecture itself is structured to provoke thinking, not replace it.

AI failure drills extend this logic further. Rather than simply teaching employees how to use AI well, some organizations are deliberately exposing them to AI behaving badly—introducing hallucinations, unexpected answers, and curveball questions into training modules to test how employees respond when AI behaves unpredictably.

As Russian Advances Collapse, Its Casualties Exceed Stalingrad

2026-07-05T08:32:34.921-04:00

The battle of Stalingrad between the Russians and Nazis in WWII is considered the bloodiest in human history. But it has now been surpassed by Russian casualties in Ukraine.

That is an interesting factoid, but the broader implication is that because Russian casualty rates are significantly higher than those of Ukraine, it is becoming harder for Russia to sustain its war. JL

Ivana Kottasova reports in CNN:

Russia has suffered 1.4 million casualties, including killed, wounded and missing soldiers – 1% of the country’s population. The losses are not spread evenly across Russia, with poorer areas and ethnic minorities suffering significantly higher casualty rates. Stories of male populations of small remote villages being virtually wiped out are becoming more common in Russian media. Russia is unable to recruit new troops at the same rate as it is losing them. In terms of casualties, the war is becoming much more costly for Russia than it is for Ukraine. For every Ukrainian soldier killed, wounded or missing, there are eight Russians casualties.
Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now cost the country some 450,000 lives, according to a new study that estimates the war’s total casualty numbers to have surpassed 2 million.
The research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates Russia has suffered 1.4 million casualties, including killed, wounded and missing soldiers – a stunning number that amounts to roughly 1% of the country’s population.
The losses are not spread evenly across Russia, with poorer areas and ethnic minorities suffering significantly higher casualty rates. Stories of male populations of small remote villages being virtually wiped out are becoming more common in Russian opposition media. And according to the study, Russia is currently unable to recruit new troops at the same rate as it is losing them.
“These rates are astounding,” Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe, the authors of the study, said. “Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all US fatalities in all wars combined since World War II, and more than nine times greater than all Soviet and Russian fatalities in all wars combined since World War II.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine is estimated to have endured between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties, including 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine release official casualty data, but the latest CSIS figures are broadly in line with western estimates.
Jones and McCabe said that in terms of casualties, the war is becoming much more costly for Russia than it is for Ukraine. They said the casualty rate has likely risen to nearly eight to one in the first half of this year, meaning that for every Ukrainian soldier killed, wounded or missing, there are eight Russians casualties.
A dead Russian soldier lies on the side of the road after a Russian vehicle was destroyed by Ukrainian forces along the main road near Sytnyaky, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022.
Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
For much of the war, the rate stood at between two to three Russian casualties to one Ukrainian loss. Jones and McCabe said that the recent increase is down to Kyiv’s advances in its drone program, especially its ability to greatly extend the “kill zone” – the area around the frontlines that is so saturated with drones that it makes it almost impossible for Russian troops to enter.
“Ukraine’s defense-in-depth strategy has been effective in killing and wounding Russian soldiers, as well as limiting Russian maneuver,” the said.

However, they said there are other reasons why Russia is suffering so much, including “Russia’s attrition strategy, its failure to effectively conduct combined arms and joint warfare, its poor tactics and training, corruption, and low morale.”
Whatever the reasons, the data paints a horrendous picture: with 2 million total casualties, the war in Ukraine has now likely surpassed the battle of Stalingrad, widely considered to be the bloodiest conflict in history.

Putin Knows He's Losing - And Needs An Exit Strategy

2026-07-04T13:14:31.097-04:00

Even as Putin's statements of defiance and his wanton attacks on Ukrainian civilians become more horrific, the reality is that he is losing - and knows it. He desperately needs an exit strategy, but it has to be one that does not result in him being thrown out of a high-rise building window.

A negotiated peace cleverly disguised as a victory of some sort may be his only option. But his options are narrowing and Ukrainian advances on the ground his time is short.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon reports in The Telegraph:

Putin needs an exit strategy. His difficulties are mounting. Ukraine has regained the strategic initiative. The governor of annexed Crimea has declared a state of emergency after fuel shortages and power outages hit Sevastopol. This amounts to a public admission that Russia's military can no longer guarantee the security of Crimea, a territory Putin has long portrayed as untouchable. If he can present any agreement to the Russian people as something short of a complete defeat, he may yet secure a managed retirement from power and thus may just be able to leave via the stairs rather than the window! There may still be room for a negotiated settlement, but for the Kremlin this prospect is narrowing rapidly, and killing more civilians in Ukraine is unlikely to help.

President Putin has publicly acknowledged for the first time that Ukraine's deep-strike drone and missile campaign is causing significant concern across Russia. In another notable departure, he referred to the conflict as a "war" rather than the Kremlin's preferred term, the "Special Military Operation" – a telling admission for a campaign that has now dragged on longer than the First World War.
Now he has set Kyiv on fire in a cowardly attack killing at least 13 people, including two children.
I witnessed Putin's "scorched earth" policy in my 10 years in Syria, hunting for evidence of his and Assad's war crimes. It did not work there and nor will it in Ukraine.
Although, the Russian president may take some solace from the UK's paltry defence investment plan, which appears to give him another four years before we once again have a credible conventional military deterrence.
But however weak Britain may be, Putin's difficulties are mounting. The governor of illegally annexed Crimea has declared a state of emergency after fuel shortages and power outages hit Sevastopol. This extraordinary development amounts to a public admission that Russia's military can no longer guarantee the security of Crimea, a territory Putin has long portrayed as untouchable.
The declaration follows weeks in which Ukrainian drones have appeared to operate with near impunity across western Russia, including over Moscow and St Petersburg. Despite re-deploying some of Russia's most advanced air defence systems away from the front lines to protect the capital, the Kremlin continues to struggle against Ukrainian innovation and adaptability.
Most damaging of all, however, is Ukraine's systematic campaign against Russia's oil infrastructure. For years, oil revenues have funded Putin's war machine. Now those revenues are under increasing pressure, and ordinary Russians are beginning to feel the consequences.
Fuel shortages, soaring prices, and growing economic uncertainty are bringing the reality of the war home to a population that has largely been shielded from its costs.

Western intelligence assessments suggest Russia is suffering casualties of around 30,000 personnel each month while replacing only a fraction of those losses. As a result, the prospect of wider mobilisation and forced conscription is becoming a genuine concern in Moscow.
Russia's elite have been content thus far to see ethnic minorities, prisoners, and contract soldiers bear the burden of the fighting. It is an entirely different proposition if their own sons and daughters are required to serve. Should Putin lose the support of Russia's urban middle class and influential elites, his position could rapidly become untenable.
The Kremlin may now be approaching what military strategists call a culminating point, the stage at which an offensive force can no longer sustain its momentum and risks strategic failure unless conditions change dramatically.
Putin effectively has two choices: escalation or negotiation. The overnight attacks on Kyiv residential areas may herald the beginning of this escalation.

Many of his most vocal supporters on Telegram continue to demand the use of nuclear weapons. They have been making the same argument for years. Putin, however, understands the reality.
The use of even a single nuclear weapon would almost certainly provoke a massive Western response. Nato's conventional military power alone could inflict devastating consequences on Russia's already-overstretched armed forces. This prospect will no doubt be discussed at the Nato summit next week in Turkey.
That leaves negotiation.

Peace may now represent Putin's best opportunity to preserve both his regime and his personal security. However, his bargaining position is considerably weaker than it was a year ago when President Zelensky was under immense pressure and Ukraine's future support appeared uncertain.
Today, Ukraine has regained the strategic initiative. Crimea itself can no longer be assumed secure, and Kyiv may see little reason to accept a settlement that leaves large parts of Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation. Putin's preferred formula of freezing the conflict along current lines becomes increasingly difficult to achieve if Ukrainian forces continue advancing and Russian capabilities erode in turn.
Some commentators argue that because Ukraine has inflicted such severe damage on Russia's military that Western defence spending can now be reduced. Such thinking fundamentally misunderstands deterrence. It was precisely the failure to deter aggression that helped create the conditions for this war. Europe and the United Kingdom should be drawing the opposite lesson: credible military capability remains the foundation of peace.
President Trump could still play a decisive role, and perhaps he will at the summit next week?
If Moscow becomes convinced that Washington's support for Ukraine is unwavering and that any expectation of favourable treatment from a future US administration towards Russia is misplaced, the pressure on Putin to negotiate seriously would increase dramatically.
Ultimately, Putin needs an exit strategy. If he can present any agreement to the Russian people as something short of a complete defeat, he may yet secure a managed retirement from power and thus may just be able to leave via the stairs rather than the window!
There may still be room for a negotiated settlement, but for the Kremlin this prospect is narrowing rapidly, and killing more civilians in Ukraine is unlikely to help.

Russia Suffered Net Loss of Ukrainian Territory Again In June

2026-07-04T08:21:40.599-04:00

Russian forces suffered a net loss of Ukrainian territory for the second month in a row as Ukrainian forces' counterattacks

are pushing the Russians back across a number of sectors along the front.

The Ukrainians' impact on Russian casualties as well as the medium and long range effect on logistics and reinforcements is giving Ukraine momentum that the Russians have now lost. JL

Euromaidan Press reports:

Russian forces fell back in June. In key sectors south and north of Kostiantynivka, the Russians lost ground. Russia advanced 30 sq km across the front in June, but once Ukrainian counterattacks are subtracted, Russian forces ended June with a net loss of around 40 sq km of Ukrainian soil. The reasons are: Ukrainian drones are better and more numerous than ever. Ukrainian fortifications are deeper and denser than ever. And Ukrainian forces are hitting Russian logistics in the middle zone between the disputed gray zone and Russia proper with greater intensity than ever, weakening Russian regiments before they can even organize an assault.

Russian forces fell back in June.
Yes, the Russians drove deep into the city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, their biggest gain of the year. Russian forces are "beginning to take control of several districts in eastern Kostiantynivka," logging Moscow's "first strategic victory of the year," according to mapper and analyst Clément Molin—though fighting is sure to continue.
But in other key sectors south and north of Kostiantynivka, the Russians lost ground. Russia advanced into some 30 sq km across the front in June, ISW calculated—but once Ukrainian counterattacks are subtracted, the month came out negative. Russian forces ended June with a net loss of around 40 sq km of Ukrainian soil, according to analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting.
The Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState framed the same trend a different way. Russia's occupied area grew by 84 sq km in June, the group assessed—but set against what Ukrainian forces clawed back over the month, the balance tipped negative for the Russians. "In May, we took two steps forward. In June, it's one step forward and one step back," DeepState wrote. Russian assault actions actually rose 4.4% over the month, the group noted, even as those assaults bought less ground. The Russians did log gains in the second half of June around Kostiantynivka, Dobropillia, and Huliaipole.
The reasons are myriad. Ukrainian drones are better and more numerous than ever. Ukrainian fortifications are deeper and denser than ever. And Ukrainian forces are hitting Russian logistics in the middle zone between the disputed gray zone and Russia proper with greater intensity than ever, weakening Russian regiments before they can even organize an assault.
The Ukrainian advantages now outweigh the Russian advantages in traditional firepower and, most notably, manpower. Russian troops have outnumbered Ukrainian troops by as much as 8:1 in the Pokrovsk sector, Zelenskyy has said. Yet Ukraine is inflicting far heavier losses than it takes: Russian casualties are running roughly eight times Ukrainian ones, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Russia has lost the military initiative in Ukraine as costs continue to mount," the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded.
May points the same way. Russia advanced into around 40 sq km that month but lost control of some 280 sq km, the Institute for the Study of War calculated—a net loss. Ukraine's own Militarnyi, citing defense sources, put the gap even wider, and a source tied to Ukrainian military intelligence called May the first month since 2023 in which Russia lost more ground than it took. DeepState is the outlier, scoring a small May gain. Muzyka logged roughly 25 sq km for Russia but cautioned the real figure may have been negative.
But most sources agree the Russians lost ground in April and March after registering a modest overall advance in February. Russia has probably fallen back in three of the last five months.

Narrowing the frame changes the outlook. "Russian forces took control of some neighborhoods inside Kostiantynivka and advanced near Sloviansk," 34 km north of Kostiantynivka, Molin noted. But "this initial victory—achieved in the summer—does not appear to offer any prospect of a second victory within the year," he added.
That's because it takes maximal effort over many months by the 700,000-strong Russian army of occupation to achieve a single meaningful gain.
Map: Euromaidan Press

Having ground into the ruins of some small city at the cost of potentially tens of thousands of lives, the Russians are exhausted in victory. And they sit in the ruins of Pokrovsk or Myrnohrad or Kostiantynivka eyeing tens of kilometers of mined, fortified, drone-patrolled open terrain stretching between them and the next major objective.
In the case of the Russian survivors in the east, the objective is the free twin cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. There are two approaches: one from the south through Kostiantynivka. Another from the east through Lyman, 14 km northeast of Sloviansk.

If the Russians in Kostiantynivka are spent, could the Russians laying siege to Lyman break through and march on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk?
Probably not. Sensing weakness along the flanks of the Russian force just north of Lyman, Ukrainian forces counterattacked this spring. The counterattacks are "preventing Russian forces from establishing staging positions for attacks against Ukrainian [supply lines] between Lyman and Sloviansk," Muzyka wrote, "and thereby disrupting efforts to envelop the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk agglomeration from the north."
Meanwhile in the southeast, counterattacking Ukrainian forces have stabilized the front line after a period of rapid Russian advances last year.
The Russians aim to capture Zaporizhzhia city, 69 km west of the southeastern front line, but "it is evident they have failed to maintain the same rate of progress seen in the latter half of 2025," Molin observed. "Frequent and precise Ukrainian drone strikes on access roads are complicating their logistics."
The war is freezing in place. But that doesn't mean it's ending. "Russia continues to fight—a decision that rests firmly with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who has given no public indication he intends to slow down," CSIS warned.
Likewise, "Ukraine also shows no sign of collapsing."

AI Talent Is Fleeing US Due To H1-B Chaos. China, EU, UK, Canada Benefit

2026-07-04T07:53:09.181-04:00

In truth, the exodus of AI talent is not just about H1-B visas. A virulent anti-immigration campaign by the Trump administration has made the once immigrant-welcoming US an increasingly hostile destination, at least for now.

The beneficiaries of this small-minded policy are the EU, Canada, China and any other country where money is encouraging research and development opportunities. The US will be the poorer for this as the creation of effective but less expensive AI models will burgeon elsewhere. JL

Evelyn Chang and Anniek Bao report in CNBC and Ananya Bhattacharya reports in Rest of World:

A former OpenAI researcher is now chief AI scientist for Tencent in China, and wants to build artificial general intelligence. It’s a sign of a shift in the U.S.-China tech race. Highly skilled immigrant tech workers in the U.S. are eyeing relocation to Canada, the U.K., or the Gulf as H-1B visa uncertainty continues to haunt them. Foreign workers, immigration experts, and recruiters say that uncertainty itself is becoming a deterrent to AI work in the US. Tech workers are finding alternatives to the U.S., where they can find lucrative jobs with stable immigration laws. Canada, the European Union, the U.K., and the UAE, among other places, are “competing aggressively” for talent that U.S. companies and universities have historically attracted.
A former OpenAI researcher is now chief AI scientist for Tencent in China, and wants to build artificial general intelligence.
It’s a sign of a shift in the U.S.-China tech race. Highly skilled immigrant tech workers in the U.S. are eyeing relocation to Canada, the U.K., or the Gulf as H-1B visa uncertainty continues to haunt them.
AI with human-level or above capabilities (AGI) has long been the goal of U.S. companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet, which acquired British startup DeepMind.
Chinese companies rushing to catch up on AI and facing U.S. chip controls have instead focused on ways to use the technology in applications from factories to consumer electronics. Baidu CEO Robin Li previously predicted it would take until at least 2034 to achieve AGI, in contrast to Elon Musk’s 2026 forecast at the time.
But as Chinese companies grab talent from Silicon Valley, they’re increasingly bringing the U.S. vision with them.
“My personal goal is that in China we should establish a long-term AGI organization,” said Tencent Chief AI Scientist Yao Shunyu, who joined the company in the last year after leaving his OpenAI role, in remarks CNBC translated from Mandarin.
Yao was discussing the next stage of AI development on-stage Friday with Tencent’s Cloud executive Dowson Tong at the company’s event in Beijing co-organized with local authorities. A senior Beijing official gave opening remarks.

Yao said Friday his vision for AGI will require foundational knowledge, products and frontier exploration.
“I don’t think ChatGPT or Claude will be the only super-app,” Yao said, saying untapped potential is in the “trillions of dollars.” Performance of an AI tool is most important, followed by cost, he said, adding that the path forward in China is with smaller AI models and more consistent performance on basic tasks.
His optimism contrasted with growing caution on AI in the U.S.
Anthropic on Thursday warned that frontier models are nearing the point where they can improve themselves without human oversight. The company called for an industry slowdown or pause in new model development to stave off disruption to society.
The San Francisco-based startup earlier this year urged Washington to maintain the U.S. lead over Chinese models. Anthropic has emphasized AI safety from its founding and drawn criticism from rivals that its safety warnings are designed to hobble competition.
Talent competition
Uncertainty over U.S. immigration policies has also encouraged Chinese nationals to find work in their home country, even if the pay may be lower. China is also ramping up investment to attract talent and spend more on “basic research” as the country pursues scientific breakthroughs over the next five years.
Companies compete for talent, whether based in the same country or elsewhere. But among recent high-profile moves, Alibaba reportedly hired Google DeepMind researcher Hao Zhou to support Qwen AI development. Zhou and Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wu Yonghui, vice president of research at Google DeepMind, left to head research at ByteDance Seed from California in February 2025. Startup Moonshot, behind the Kimi AI model, was founded by former Meta AI and Google Brain employee Yang Zhilin.

On June 8, a U.S. judge ruled Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas unenforceable, citing that the government lacked the authority to impose it. The ruling should have offered relief to thousands of immigrant tech workers. However, for many, the fee was only the latest reminder of how quickly the rules governing their lives can change.

Foreign workers, immigration experts, and recruiters say that uncertainty itself is becoming a deterrent. Tech workers are finding alternatives to the U.S., where they can find lucrative jobs with stable immigration laws. Companies have devised ways to move staff to other countries to bypass U.S. immigration bottlenecks.
H-1B visa registrations for fiscal year 2027, applications for which closed on March 19, fell 38.5% from a year earlier.
“Global talent does not wait for the U.S. to get its policy house in order,” Danielle Goldman, co-founder and CEO of immigration advisory Build Talent Labs, told Rest of World. “Even though the fee has now been struck down, the damage is not just legal, it is psychological and strategic … The policy created confusion, and confusion is enough to stop hiring.”

Canada, the European Union, the U.K., and the UAE, among other places, are “competing aggressively” for talent that U.S. companies and universities have historically attracted, Goldman said.
“They are building immigration products around certainty, speed, and welcome,” she said. “If the U.S. restores predictability, it can remain the top destination. If not, we should expect talent to move — because talent always has options.”
H-1B talent is leaving the U.S.
A 35-year-old artificial intelligence researcher told Rest of World that she is relocating to the UAE after spending 13 years in the U.S. to gain greater stability in both her professional and personal life. She asked to remain anonymous, fearing backlash from U.S. authorities.
Her spouse – also a researcher — moved to the UAE in January to pursue a promising grant. She wanted to take a one-year sabbatical from her role at a university to spend time with her partner. However, her employer did not immediately agree because it would have to pay the $100,000 fee when she returned.
“This fee has been voided, but the sentiment remains that immigration uncertainty makes such arrangements for researchers difficult,” she said.
On the anonymous employee review app Blind, employees of five U.S. Big Tech companies — Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia — discussed the June 8 court ruling over 90% less than the September 2025 fee announcement, the company told Rest of World.
The few posts about the ruling that did appear were sarcastic or skeptical, saying things like ‘it’ll get appealed,’ and ‘don’t celebrate yet.’
When a group that reacted so intensely against bad news can’t muster a reaction to good news, that’s a trust signal you won’t find in hiring statistics or court filings.”Sunguk Moon, CEO at TeamBlind
“When a group that reacted so intensely against bad news can’t muster a reaction to good news, that’s a trust signal you won’t find in hiring statistics or court filings,” Sunguk Moon, CEO at TeamBlind, told Rest of World in an e-mail interview.
On Blind, discussions about Microsoft’s Project Move — which temporarily transfers staff to Vancouver, Canada, and later brings them back to the U.S. on L-1 visas — held steady for 18 months straight, Moon said.
“People are still leaving, or still planning to,” Moon said. “People don’t give up their current visa [H-1B] for a complicated multi-year workaround [L-1] casually. And the fact that they’re doing it steadily for a year and a half says they’ve stopped waiting for U.S. policy to improve and started building around it. That kind of behavior doesn’t reverse fast.”
Research from 2020 warned that legal restrictions on high-skilled immigration can lead companies to offshore skilled jobs. American Big Tech firms added 32,000 jobs in India, clocking a three-year record high.
American innovation and immigrants
The U.S. has long been the top destination for international students, with most of them coming from India and China. But restrictive U.S. policies have begun to hit enrollments.
International students continue to value the U.S. for its advanced technology education and robust job market, but immigration policies are increasingly seen as hostile.
“For most Indian tech professionals, a U.S. tech job had always been a dream. It was not just about the paycheck — it was a pathway to overall success. Now that dream no longer exists or has diminished,” Neeti Sharma, CEO of talent solutions firm TeamLease Digital, told Rest of World.
Between 2022 and 2024, over 80,000 Indian H-1B holders lost U.S. tech jobs, each facing a 60-day countdown to leave the country, Sharma added. “The administration’s tightening of immigration stance has also added major uncertainty. Hence, for many new STEM graduates, the American dream does not seem as viable as before,” she said.
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After the announcement of the $100,000 H-1B visa fee, most Indian students in a survey said they were reconsidering their plans to study in the U.S. because of policy-related insecurity. The students did not feel confident in studying in the country despite a clarification that the fee did not apply to them, according to Keystone Education Group
Foreign-born workers make up a significant share of the U.S. STEM workforce. This is why universities, research labs, and advanced tech employers are often pro-skilled-worker immigration.
Since 1990, immigrants have accounted for one-third of U.S. Nobel Prize winners in science and economics and have filed more than a quarter of the roughly 110,000 patents granted annually in the country.
Goldman rejects the idea that immigrant talent and Americans compete against one another. Rather than shutting out foreign talent, America could use it to strengthen its own innovation ecosystem, she said.
“America won the last era of innovation because the world’s best people could come here, study here, stay here, and build here. If we break the ‘stay and build’ part, we should not be surprised when the next generation of companies is built somewhere else,” she said.

Kyiv Drone-Maker: Too Much Automation Inefficient For Rapidly Changing War

2026-07-03T09:14:48.538-04:00

Ukrainian drones are still largely made by hand - but not because Ukraine is unable to apply automation to manufacturing.

The issue is that drones are being updated in as little as weeks and usually no more than two months, which means that automated manufacturing is less efficient than humans because of the constant changes in design. Also, because of the threat of attack, which can destroy expensive industrial equipment, it is safer to rely on people. And at the rate Ukraine is producing drones, it makes sense for them. JL

Sinead Baker reports in Business Insider:

A Ukrainian drone maker said keeping up with the rapidly changing battlefield requires manual assembly for some of its work instead of relying only on big machines. we found quite a good balance between automation and flexible manual assembly in order to deliver the upgraded product constantly every month,". There's another advantage, too. Ukraine's arms makers work under the constant threat of attacks, and a big machine being destroyed would be devastating to production. "The big machinery, you can not rely on it if you can lose it anytime," The battlefield in Ukraine changes so fast that soldiers and arms makers say weaponry can go out of date in weeks. It is a war in which "what seems to be cutting-edge technology will be completely outdated after one, maximum two, months."
A Ukrainian drone maker said keeping up with the rapidly changing battlefield requires manual assembly for some of its work instead of relying only on big machines.
Ukraine needs large quantities of weaponry as quickly as possible, a demand that typically pushes companies toward automation. But Ukraine also needs those weapons to be up-to-date as the war changes, something that too much automation can make difficult.
Frontline Robotics, which makes drones and weaponry used by more than 60 Ukrainian units, has to make small changes to its products up to 20 times a month and make major updates around every six months to keep its edge.

Mykyta Rozhkov, the chief business development officer, told Business Insider that one of the keys to innovating at this pace is not relying too much on automated processes.
With the "amount of changes we are doing every month," huge fixed processes don't work. Instead, procedures need to be "lightweight, but still stable in order to sustain 20 changes per month."

That includes some work without machines, which gives the company more built-in agility. "A big part of the assembly lines relies on manual assembly because manual assembly is the most flexible one," Rozhkov said.
"Automation comes with the cost of freezing the product version," he said. A fully automated production system means a company can efficiently produce large quantities, but then "what do you do if you have to change it a lot?"
Ukraine's weapons makers need to change their products frequently to keep up with the changing battlefield, and avoiding too much automation helps with that. Getty Images
He said sustaining that rate of change is "not an easy task, to be honest," because everything still needs to keep working at a high standard, from the supply chain to quality control.

"So it's all constantly moving parts and holding it all together demands a new approach."
"In our case, we found quite a good balance between automation and flexible manual assembly in order to deliver the upgraded product constantly every month," Rozhkov said.
There's another advantage, too. Ukraine's arms makers work under the constant threat of attacks, and a big machine being destroyed would be devastating to production. "The big machinery, you can not rely on it if you can lose it anytime," he said.

The battlefield in Ukraine changes so fast that soldiers and arms makers say weaponry can go out of date in weeks. Taras Berezovets, head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, described it as a war in which "what seems to be cutting-edge technology will be completely outdated after one, maximum two, months."
Frontline and other Ukrainian companies say that constant feedback from soldiers, including over FaceTime, helps them stay up to date.
Rozhkov said the company is in constant contact with the soldiers using its gear, such that "we don't even have to ask them for feedback. It goes directly 24/7 into our inbox."
The need to update products so quickly has pushed other companies working in Ukraine to find new processes too, including designing systems from the start so they can be upgraded quickly.
The rate of change on Ukraine's battlefield is the kind of pace Western leaders worry future wars could have, and they want to learn from how quickly Ukraine is able to build and innovate.
Officials across NATO now see the speed at which they can build and buy weapons as essential, even at times over the quality of certain gear. Western militaries want masses of weaponry as quickly as possible and systems that let them upgrade those weapons more easily as conflicts develop.
Ukraine, Western leaders say, has the military and industry they need to learn speed from.
Ukraine's battlefield evolves rapidly, and it means arms makers need to have processes that make their gear easy to update. Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Tarja Jaakkola, NATO's assistant secretary general for defense industry, innovation, and armaments, said recently that NATO is moving to learn as much as it can from the speed of Ukraine's weapons development, including through Western companies working with Ukrainian counterparts. The goal is "understanding the Ukrainian industrial capacity, the technology they have, and also the innovation that is happening in Ukraine at the moment."
"We are truly kind of thankful and grateful to Ukraine about how they also bring the knowledge they have gained during this awful war to the alliance," she said, speaking at a drone summit in Latvia attended by Business Insider.
Sir John Stringer, NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, said at the same event that the West needs to move much faster and get "comfortable with procurement cycles which are faster than what we have been brought up with." Capability development needs to take place, as it does in Ukraine, "in weeks and months, not just years and decades."
The West is now "in a race," he said.
It means "the what, how, where, and when of production is going to change."
Frontline still wants some automation, and wants that to work as efficiently as possible. It is now working with German unmanned aerial systems company Quantum Systems to manufacture Frontline's Ukrainian-designed drones in Germany for Ukraine, combining Frontline's battlefield experience with Quantum's production expertise.
Rozhkov said that "the core idea is to make a mix of two production cultures in order to have the best out of both worlds."
He described it as "a two-way road, to be honest. We are learning a lot from the German approaches to manufacturing," including its expertise in automation.
He said both sides have a lot to teach each other, with Germany bringing decades of expertise and Ukraine bringing its new insight about moving quickly and at scale in wartime. "The European industrial complex industry is potent, is efficient, but with its own legacy. And in a way, in Ukraine, we have this also freedom to create it from scratch."
Key for Frontline, he said, is "maintaining our core identity of having it as flexible as possible even in Germany."
It's one of many Ukrainian companies now working with Western counterparts, with both sides saying they have a lot to learn from each other, from processes to innovative technology. Other European countries, in particular, say they want their industry to learn through working directly with Ukrainian firms.

Russian Troops Forced To Walk 30 Km To Reach Front Due To Ukraine Drones

2026-07-03T09:00:31.411-04:00

You can't very well attack Ukrainian defenses if you if you can't reach the frontline. And that is a growing problem for Russian forces now that the drone kill zone extends 30 to 50 kilometers behind the front.

Having to advance on foot under drone attack while carrying your own supplies is one of the reasons why the Russians have precipitously declined this year. JL

The Kyiv Post reports:

Ukrainian strikes on Russian military targets in occupied Crimea and southern Ukraine have severely disrupted Moscow’s logistics, forcing some Russian infantry units to walk up to 30 kilometers (19 miles) to reach frontline positions. Russia is also facing growing difficulties transporting troops to the front line, supplying them and delivering fuel for generators used by drone operators. Ukraine’s goal is to reduce the intensity of Russian attacks by disrupting logistics and protecting both frontline troops and civilians in cities. "So far everything is going according to plan"
Ukrainian strikes on Russian military targets in occupied Crimea and southern Ukraine have severely disrupted Moscow’s logistics, forcing some Russian infantry units to walk up to 30 kilometers (19 miles) to reach frontline positions, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Kyiv with Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson, Fedorov said Ukraine’s campaign against Russian logistics was creating mounting problems for Moscow’s forces.
“We already see, for example, in the south, sectors of the front where Russian infantry, because logistics have been destroyed, have to walk 30 kilometers to reach their positions,” Fedorov said, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

He said Russia was facing growing difficulties transporting troops to the front line, supplying them and delivering fuel for generators used by drone operators.

According to Fedorov, those disruptions are creating a range of less visible problems that are reducing the intensity of Russian offensive operations against Ukraine. The minister also said Ukraine continues to see signs of a fuel and critical infrastructure crisis inside Russia.
“We see that in Crimea they announced fuel sales by QR code, then canceled the plan, and now it is impossible to buy fuel at all. A large number of crises are beginning to pile up, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for Russia to deal with one crisis after another,” he said.

Fedorov said Ukraine’s campaign against Russian military infrastructure was continuing as part of the 40-day operation announced by President Volodymyr Zelensky, which aims to increase pressure on Russia and force it toward peace.
“So far, everything is going according to plan,” he said, adding that Ukraine intends to increase the intensity of long-range strikes and accelerate defense procurement with financial support from European partners.
The minister described the arrival of the first tranche of a new European defense loan as “bad news for the Russians,” saying the funding would allow Ukraine to expand military purchases and maintain the initiative on the battlefield.

Fedorov said Ukraine’s goal is to reduce the intensity of Russian attacks by disrupting logistics and protecting both frontline troops and civilians in cities that continue to face Russian strikes, including Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia.
Frontline regions remain under daily Russian fire
Russian forces launched overnight strikes across southeastern Ukraine, killing at least three people and wounding more than a dozen as drones hit gas stations in the Dnipropetrovsk region and guided bombs struck civilian areas in Zaporizhzhia.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, drone strikes hit five gas stations and damaged railway infrastructure, while in Zaporizhzhia seven guided bombs struck civilian areas. Ukraine’s air defenses said they intercepted 130 of 151 drones and a Kh-59 missile.

Chinese AI Models Are Closing the Gap With Anthropic, OpenAI

2026-07-03T08:41:00.043-04:00

Just at the point where US AI companies and their investors are getting pushback about the already stratospheric cost of their models, Chinese rivals are producing 'powerful but inexpensive' AI, which is putting even greater pressure on Silicon Valley.

Jingoists will decry the 'foreign' threat, but this is really Econ101: when your product becomes too popular and too expensive, a competitor is going to enter the market to take advantage. Welcome to reality. JL

Cade Metz and colleagues report in the New York Times:

Chinese start-up, Z.ai, released an A.I. model that is nearly as powerful as Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos. But Z.ai’s costs much less to use, and no one in the US was putting restrictions on it. It quickly landed on a leaderboard of the world’s 10 most popular models. Z.ai is on the cutting edge of a wave of powerful but inexpensive A.I. from China challenging the lock that OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have had on the industry. Six of the models now on the A.I. leaderboard were developed in China. Microsoft and Amazon already offer access to some systems from Z.ai, DeepSeek, MiniMax and other Chinese start-ups. Z.ai’s new model, GLM-5.2, arrived just as U.S. businesses realized that they had to find ways to cut down on how much they were spending on A.I. When performing certain tasks, GLM-5.2 costs about an eighth as much as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8

Two weeks ago, the artificial intelligence company Anthropic shut down its two most powerful A.I. systems after an unexpected demand from the U.S. government to cut access to it.
Days later, a Chinese start-up, Z.ai, released an A.I. model that is nearly as powerful as Anthropic’s models, Fable and Mythos. But Z.ai’s new technology costs much less to use, and no one in the United States was putting restrictions on it. It quickly landed on a closely watched leaderboard of the world’s 10 most popular models.
Z.ai is on the cutting edge of a wave of powerful but inexpensive A.I. from China that is challenging the lock that OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have had on the industry. Six of the models now on the A.I. leaderboard were developed in China.
Z.ai’s new model, GLM-5.2, arrived just as U.S. businesses realized that they had to find ways to cut down on how much they were spending on A.I. It also landed when executives in Silicon Valley were becoming worried that the Trump administration was leaning toward regulating the technology. “With Fable restricted, the gap between the U.S. and China is very slim,” said Rehaan Ahmad, a co-founder of the Silicon Valley start-up alphaXiv, who has been using Z.ai’s new model for more than a week.
The Chinese models still face two big hurdles to widespread use in the United States: concerns about their ties to the Chinese government and complaints that Chinese companies have unfairly used American technology to build these cheaper models. But their low cost is winning converts.
About 18 months ago, the Chinese start-up DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley when it demonstrated that it could build effective A.I. far more affordably than many of its American counterparts. Z.ai is doing something similar. When performing certain tasks, GLM-5.2 costs about an eighth as much as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8, which came out shortly before Fable and Mythos, according to OpenRouter, a start-up that runs the A.I. leaderboard.
Like most top-performing Chinese models, GLM-5.2 is open source software, which means anyone can use and modify it for free. That makes it much cheaper to use, even if it is not quite as powerful as what American companies have created.
“Do you need to drive a Ferrari everywhere?” asked Vivek Ramaswami, a start-up investor at Madrona Venture Group. “Probably not," GLM-5.2 is particularly good at generating computer code and powering A.I. agents, digital assistants that can use other software to perform tasks. Z.ai’s technology is now the third most widely used in the world for A.I. tasks, said Anastasios Angelopoulos, chief executive of ArenaAI, which tracks millions of A.I. users.
The largest cloud computing providers, including Microsoft and Amazon, already offer access to some systems from Z.ai, DeepSeek, MiniMax and other Chinese start-ups. Microsoft has also considered adding the latest DeepSeek model as an option to power one of its own products, which now runs on technology from Anthropic and OpenAI, two people familiar with the deliberations said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
The talks were reported earlier by Axios.
Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI declined to comment.
Some software developers are reluctant to use the A.I. system that Z.ai offers from computers in China, because they worry about sharing data with the company or with the Chinese government. They are also wary of China’s efforts to censor its A.I. systems or running afoul of U.S. export restrictions.
Z.ai was added to the Commerce Department’s trade blacklist in 2025. Corporate filings show that several of the company’s shareholders are controlled by a Chinese government agency that supervises the country’s defense industry. Companies can still use the model without sending data back to China in violation of U.S. export rules, as long as they are careful about how they set up their systems, said Wei Chen, chief legal officer at Infoblox, a network security company.
“The Chinese models do not have the same restrictions if you host them yourself or you go through another provider,” Mr. Ahmad of alphaXiv said. “Right now, there are more restrictions on models from Anthropic.”
After DeepSeek’s release in 2025, governments around the world passed regulations limiting its use because of data security concerns. But so far, GLM-5.2 has not raised similar alarms, Ms. Chen said.
Anthropic and OpenAI have accused Chinese companies of improperly harvesting data from their A.I. systems to accelerate the development of the Chinese technology. On Wednesday, Anthropic sent a letter, viewed by The New York Times, to Senators Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, accusing the Chinese tech giant Alibaba of “brazenly” and “illicitly” trying to copy its technology through 24,000 fraudulent accounts. Alibaba declined to comment.

When Mustafa Suleyman, the head of Microsoft’s A.I. lab, unveiled a suite of new models this month, he emphasized that they had been built from scratch on data that the company had commercially licensed.

“That means that you can put it into production in a very trustworthy way with complete confidence,” he said.

(The Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. They have denied those claims.)

Using data from one system to train another — a process called distillation — is common in A.I. development. But the Anthropic and OpenAI terms of service forbid anyone to surreptitiously harvest data for distillation. It is not clear whether Z.ai used distillation in the development of its technology.

But distillation alone cannot build a top A.I. system. That requires several other complex techniques as well, said Charles O’Neill, head of model training at Baseten, a company that sells access to GLM-5.2. Chinese A.I. start-ups can offer their models as an open-source technology at far lower prices in part because the industry has benefited from years of support from the Chinese government, which views A.I. as a critical engine of economic growth.

Many executives have said U.S. companies should not open-source their technology because it could be used in harmful situations. But other experts argue that if regulators stifle open-source technology in the United States, China will gain a significant edge.

Because China produces most of the top-performing open-source systems, they say, U.S. developers will build their software atop those technologies. In the long run, that could put China at the heart of A.I. development. Some argue that Chinese systems will always trail the top U.S. models because U.S. export controls limit the flow of the specialized computer chips needed to train A.I. technologies. Z.ai and other Chinese start-ups spend millions for access to chips in data centers outside China.

Z.ai’s filings in Hong Kong show that in the first half of 2025, the company spent more than seven times its revenue on expenses that essentially boiled down to fees for such computing services. Still, experts estimate that China is just six months or less behind the American companies.

“There had been this speculation that the export controls would eventually bite and the gap would widen between American frontier models and their Chinese models, but GLM is pushing things in the other direction,” said Jeffrey Ding, an assistant professor at George Washington University who specializes in emerging technology and international relations.

And with Fable and Mythos sidelined, many businesses have realized the importance of having alternatives. “There is a bit of apprehension at large organizations about loyalty,” said Justin Summerville, who runs data analytics at OpenRouter. “Who knows what the top model will be in three weeks?”

Massive Polymarket Bets Waged On Putin's Downfall By End of 2026

2026-07-02T10:14:28.628-04:00

Although Polymarket is notoriously unreliable in some respects, it does have a reputation for reflecting inside information. That anyone would be willing to bet $400,000 on Putin's downfall suggests, at the very least, a growing lack of confidence in his leadership as well as perceptions of his growing vulnerability.

The picture of an open window, at left, reflects the ominous regular - and presumably cynical - Kremlin announcements that an out-of-favor Russian politician or general has died from 'falling out of an open window." JL

Michael Luciano reports in Mediaite:

An unknown bettor on the Polymarket gambling website plunked down $400,000 on Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer being president by the end of 2026. The wager comes as Ukraine has been hitting targets deep inside Russian territory amid the ongoing war. The bettor’s account, which was created in May, is @ZnotluvuiSamez and has a Ukrainian flag as its profile image. That person has also bet that Ukraine will retake Crimea before 2027. The odds on the Putin bet are at 6:1. If the $400,000 bet hits and Putin is out by 2027, the payout will be around $2.5 million.
An unknown bettor on the Polymarket gambling website plunked down $400,000 on Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer being president by the end of 2026. The wager comes as Ukraine has been hitting targets deep inside Russian territory amid the ongoing war, which began with Russia’s invasion of the country in 2022.
NBC News first reported the big wager on Wednesday night.
Ukrainian forces used drones to hit targets in Moscow and have disrupted fuel supplies by bombing oil refineries while stepping up efforts to cleave off Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Russia has responded with a wave of drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

The bettor’s account, which was created in May, is @ZnotluvuiSamez and has a Ukrainian flag as its profile image. That person has also bet that Ukraine will retake Crimea before 2027.
The odds do not seem particularly favorable to the bettor, who is facing slightly better than 6:1 odds. If the $400,000 bet hits and Putin is out by 2027, the payout will be around $2.5 million.
Putin has been Russia’s president since December 1999, save for the years between 2008 and 2012, when he wielded power via then-President Dmitry Medvedev because the Russian constitution bars presidents from serving more than two six-year terms, a provision that Putin has circumvented via political gimmicks.
In April, the Department of Justice charged a U.S. Army soldier who participated in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January. The indictment alleges that Gannon Ken Van Dyke made more than $400,000 on Polymarket by betting on Maduro’s ouster.
“Those bets all took the ‘YES’ position on ‘U.S. Forces in Venezuela . . . by January 31, 2026’; ‘Maduro out by . . . January 31, 2026’; ‘Will the U.S. invade Venezuela by . . . January 31,’; or ‘Trump invokes War Powers against Venezuela by . . . January 31,’” the complaint states. “Van Dyke bet a total of approximately $33,034 on those outcomes while in possession of classified nonpublic information about Operation Absolute Resolve.

Humanoid Robots To Be Developed For Ukrainian Forces

2026-07-02T10:02:25.828-04:00

As part of its ongoing initiative to deploy more ground and aerial drones in order to reduce combat risks to its soldiers, Ukraine is holding a grant competition to develop humanoid robots which can perform like soldiers. Ukraine has received versions of such robots, but found them heavy and prone to breakdown. The new grant will emphasize simplicity and reliability.

Though there are concerns about the use of such machines, especially if not controlled by humans, the Ukrainians believe they have no choice given Russia's unwavering refusal to consider a ceasefire. JL

Taras Safronov reports in Militarnyi:

Ukraine will hold a grant competition to develop humanoid robots for the needs of the Armed Forces. Ukrainian developers will initially focus on creating simpler platforms that will gradually gain more complex functionality. Phantom MK-1 humanoid soldier robots from Foundation were delivered to Ukraine to assess their effectiveness. However, such humanoid robots are heavy and expensive, require regular recharging, are prone to breakdowns, and often lose their balance. Approximately 20 motors power the humanoid’s movement, and each of them must operate flawlessly. The key objective of the initiative is to maximize the automation of the front lines and reduce risks to military personnel.

Ukraine will hold a grant competition to develop humanoid robots for the needs of the Armed Forces.
Brave1 CEO Andriy Hrytsenyuk announced this during the Brave1 Advantage event, which a Militarnyi’s correspondent attended.
The key objective of the initiative is to maximize the automation of the front lines and reduce risks to military personnel.

According to Hrytsenyuk, this direction aligns with current global trends, as the field of humanoid robots is actively developing in the U.S. and China.
He emphasized that Ukrainian developers will initially focus on creating simpler platforms that will gradually gain more complex functionality.
Unlike the global civilian sector, the Ukrainian program is geared exclusively toward defense needs and military application scenarios.
It is expected that these new engineering solutions will help the Ukrainian military hold its positions more effectively and carry out missions in combat conditions.

Humanoid robots in Ukraine
Ukraine has become the world’s primary testing ground for weapons manufacturers, particularly Western startups.
Previously, Phantom MK-1 humanoid soldier robots from Foundation were delivered to Ukraine to assess their effectiveness.
However, such humanoid robots are currently heavy and expensive, require regular recharging, are prone to breakdowns, and often lose their balance.

Approximately 20 motors power the humanoid’s movement, and each of them must operate flawlessly.
Deploying humanoids alongside regular troops may also pose additional risks.

In June, Russia Took 16X Less Ground For 19X More Casualties Than 2025

2026-07-02T09:45:34.973-04:00

Russia's spring-summer offensive is now being called a failure. It has failed 'to produce operationally significant gains,' has cost nineteen times more in casualties than its similar effort last year and has been deemed unlikely to achieve a breakthrough into Ukraine's Fortress Belt which was its stated goal.

The implication is that despite amassing as large a force as it can, and deploying that force against Ukraine's defenses, it has been unable to achieve any sort of meaningful gain. In other words, the Russian military cannot win given its current leadership, weaponry, strategy, tactics and logistics. That is a worrisome sign for the Kremlin. JL

Maria Tril reports:

Russian forces' spring-summer 2026 offensive — Moscow's declared main effort of the year — has failed to produce operationally significant gains. Russia's rate of advance has been falling steadily since November 2025 and has not recovered. In June, the Russians suffered a sixteenfold collapse in the rate of advance. And the price Russia is paying for those shrunken gains has risen. Russian forces suffered 39,490 casualties in June 2026, or roughly 1,298 per square kilometer seized. In June 2025, they suffered 68 casualties per kilometer. They are now paying nineteen times more blood for every meter they take. Russian forces are unlikely to achieve a breakthrough into the wider Fortress Belt that was Moscow's stated goal for the offensive. It remains out of operational reach.

Russian forces seized just 30 square kilometers across all of Ukraine in June 2026 — compared to 481 in June 2025, the Institute for the Study of War assessed on 1 July, publishing its monthly battlefield summary.
That is a sixteenfold collapse in the rate of advance. And the price Russia is paying for those shrunken gains has not fallen with them — it has risen. Russian forces suffered 39,490 casualties in June 2026, or roughly 1,298 per square kilometer seized. In June 2025, they suffered 68 casualties per kilometer. They are now paying nineteen times more blood for every meter they take.
The spring-summer 2026 offensive — Moscow's declared main effort of the year — has failed to produce operationally significant gains, ISW concluded. Russia's rate of advance has been falling steadily since November 2025 and has not recovered.
Kostiantynivka: Russia's "main effort" stuck in urban grinding
The bulk of what Russia has managed to take this year lies inside Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast, the southern anchor of Ukraine's Fortress Belt. Russian forces infiltrate or control roughly 37 percent of the city and accounted for 77 percent of all June gains across the entire front. They first entered the city in October 2025 after seizing Chasiv Yar and Toretsk at the cost of roughly 26,000 casualties for Toretsk alone. Progress since has been measured in city blocks.
ISW assesses that Russian forces are unlikely to achieve a rapid operational breakthrough into the wider Fortress Belt. The Fortress Belt — a chain of fortified cities anchoring Donetsk's defense — was Moscow's stated goal for the offensive. It remains out of operational reach.
Russia has massed heavily for the push: at least one combined arms army, one army corps, and elements of at least four additional armies and naval infantry formations are operating in the Kostiantynivka area. The concentration of forces underscores how seriously the Kremlin has prioritized the objective. It also underscores how poorly that concentration has performed.
Ukrainian strikes are compounding Russia's retreat from speed
Behind the front, Ukraine's strike campaigns are doing measurable damage to the machinery that sustains Russian advances. Ukrainian forces conducted at least 303 intermediate-range strikes against targets in occupied Ukraine in June 2026, up from 210 in May.
The toll on Russian logistics has been significant. Russian forces lost 12,867 fuel vehicles and fuel tanks in June 2026 — nearly four times the 3,395 lost in June 2025. Drone losses tell a more dramatic story: 60,849 Russian drones of various types destroyed in June 2026, against 4,581 in June 2025 — a 13-fold increase. Artillery system losses rose more modestly, from 1,243 to 2,053.
ISW attributes the slowing advance in part to this campaign: Ukraine's intermediate-range strikes are increasingly disrupting Russian logistics across occupied territory, particularly in the south and into Crimea, in ways now visible on the front line.
Ukraine has also expanded long-range strikes into Russia proper. In June, Ukrainian forces hit oil infrastructure and military targets across at least 41 Russian federal subjects. Moscow and Chelyabinsk — previously well beyond reach — have now been struck. The strikes are contributing to fuel shortages across Russia, ISW assessed, and Russia has largely failed to adapt its air defenses to counter them.
Can Russia sustain this?
ISW flagged a question the numbers raise directly: Russia is struggling to replace losses under its current recruitment methods, and it remains unclear how long it can maintain its current offensive tempo at its current loss rate.
The offensive is not over. Russian forces will likely continue grinding through Kostiantynivka in the coming months, ISW assessed. But what began as a spring-summer push to crack Ukraine's Fortress Belt has, through June, produced one city in slow attrition — and a casualty rate that makes every meter more expensive than the last

Ukraine's Plan To Unnerve Putin and His Supporters Is Working

2026-07-02T09:19:24.595-04:00

Ukraine's strategy is to demonstrate to Putin's closest aides, to his oligarchs, to the Russian people - and to the rest of the world that he is incapable of stopping the Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil, especially in and around Moscow.

That Putin then responds by hitting civilian targets in Kyiv is merely further evidence of his impotence to achieve anything of significance militarily. Aiming for schools, hospitals and apartment buildings is the best he can do. Duly noted, with all that implies. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in The Atlantic:

The recent focus on Moscow-area targets reveals how the Ukrainian government and military are now taking the war to Putin’s doorstep. They are trying to put political and economic pressure on Putin’s regime and disable his war machine by starving it of money, supplies, and soldiers. Recent attacks typify the Ukrainian strategy to make the war unsustainable. The intended message to the Russian public is that the drone campaign is nowhere near plateauing. Even if Ukraine’s drone strikes do not immediately end Putin’s rule, they have dispelled the idea that Putin can defend Moscow, protect the Russian economy, and look after the Russian military. By revealing the limits of Putin’s power, Ukraine has to be making his allies very nervous.
Over the past two weeks, Ukraine has launched a series of drone attacks on targets deep inside Russian territory—most consequentially in and near Moscow. Last night, near the Russian capital, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian weaponry attacked the Dubna Space Communications Center, which Russia uses to collect intelligence and coordinate operations by its army units in occupied Ukraine. This was Ukraine’s second strike on the Dubna facility in about a week.
Zelensky’s announcement of the latest attacks taunted Vladimir Putin; he declared matter-of-factly that “relevant actions are also being prepared against other similar enemy facilities.” The intended message to the Russian public is that the drone campaign, which Ukraine coyly describes as “long-range sanctions” against the country that invaded its territory, is nowhere near plateauing.

The recent focus on Moscow-area targets reveals how the Ukrainian government and military, in addition to trying to defend their territory from Russian aerial attack, are now taking the war to Putin’s doorstep. They are trying to put political and economic pressure on Putin’s regime and disable his war machine by starving it of money, supplies, and soldiers. Recent attacks on the Dubna facility and on a major Moscow oil refinery typify distinct parts of the Ukrainian strategy to make the war unsustainable for the Russian dictator.
The refinery, which was targeted as part of a mass Ukrainian attack on the Russian capital on June 18, produces about 40 percent of the Moscow region’s fuel market and has reportedly been put out of action for the remainder of 2026. This attack worked on a number of levels to embarrass and undermine Putin.
First, the attack created, almost certainly intentionally, a massive fire that released a thick plume of black smoke that was visible across Moscow. The point was unmistakable: Ukraine is here and can hit even the most important economic targets. Muscovites, your days of pretending the war is far away from your own comfortable existence are over. Indeed, Ukrainian strikes on oil infrastructure have created major gas shortages that are bedeviling much of the Russian hinterland. Similar pain may soon be in store for the capital.
The Moscow-refinery attacks also point to another Ukrainian goal: threatening Putin’s access to the money that he needs to keep fighting. Putin’s war has already burned through much of Russia’s once-large sovereign wealth fund. A fascinating recent report from a German think tank concludes that the Russian economy is approaching its “endgame,” as “growth has come to a standstill and fiscal buffers are largely exhausted.” To fund the country’s armed forces, Russia is almost entirely dependent on selling oil and other petroleum products to the rest of the world.

For the past few months, Donald Trump has been providing Putin with a reprieve—the Iran war drove up world oil prices and created many new consumers for Russian gas, thereby creating a massive surge in income. But as hostilities in the Persian Gulf have somewhat subsided, so has the global oil price—meaning that Russia is earning less per barrel of oil that it exports.
The Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities have presented Putin with a dilemma. The gasoline shortage is plainly creating public discontent. But if Russia limits exports to preserve domestic oil supply, it will also reduce the amount of money it can pour into the war. Less money coming into government coffers also means fewer goodies for the population of Moscow, whose acquiescence Putin desperately needs. ust as the refinery attack sent a warning to Russia’s economic policy makers and the general population, the two strikes on the Dubna facility speak loudly to the Russian military. Since its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has already suffered more than 1.3 million casualties, and Ukrainian mid-range weaponry has badly disrupted Russian military logistics. The invaders’ command-and-control systems were lumbering even before Ukraine began attacking them in earnest. Now the Ukrainians are saying: Not even your most important facilities deep in Russia are safe. Your poor performance in the field is going to get worse.
Perhaps Russia will adapt to Ukraine’s nimble deployment of rapidly advancing drone technology. But its efforts to do so should not inspire much confidence among the Russian public. Putin’s regime has reportedly been shifting air-defense systems to Moscow from elsewhere in Russia. Ukraine has still managed to penetrate those defenses, and may now have an easier time hitting targets outside Moscow.
For the past few days, Ukraine has been insisting that the future will only get worse for Russians. On June 25, Zelensky announced “a 40-day influence operation” meant to compel the “aggressor state” to end the war.
The recent attacks probably won’t force Russia out of the war quickly, and Zelensky surely knows this. But even if Ukraine’s drone strikes do not immediately end Putin’s rule, they have dispelled the idea that Putin can defend Moscow, protect the Russian economy, and look after the Russian military. By revealing the limits of Putin’s power, Ukraine has to be making his allies and flatterers very nervous.

Drones Are Being Launched By Ukraine From Anything, Such As Other Drones

2026-07-01T11:20:23.150-04:00

If it moves, it can probably launch an attack drone. At least, that is the Ukrainian war-making theory. And it's working. JL

Katie Livingstone reports in Defense News:

Ukraine has turned nearly everything it fields into an FPV launcher. Sea drones carrying fiber-optic FPVs struck the Russian ports of Tuapse and Novorossiysk. Kyiv has turned its signature naval drone – the little boat that drove Russia’s fleet out of the western Black Sea – into a launch platform for FPV attack drones. The Sea Baby can now carry six to eight FPV drones in side compartments that open during an attack, alongside thermobaric Shmel rockets

Ukraine has turned its signature naval drone – the little boat that drove Russia’s fleet out of the western Black Sea – into a launch platform for first-person-view attack drones, putting Kyiv’s strike reach beyond the coast.
The Sea Baby, a strike boat built and operated by Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, can now carry six to eight FPV drones in side compartments that open during an attack, alongside thermobaric Shmel rockets, according to Russian accounts of the boats operating around the Kinburn Spit, roughly 40 miles east of Odesa, shared by Forbes.

Ukrainian officials count on the autonomous vessels’ ability to move closer toward Russian military positions than land-based launchers could, with the SBU assuming a range of 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) on a 4,400-pound (2,000-kilogram) payload. Some of the drones in the cargo hold are guided by fiber-optic cable, leaving them immune to the radio jamming that downs ordinary FPVs, according to Forbes.
Ukraine has turned nearly everything it fields into an FPV launcher. Sea drones carrying fiber-optic FPVs struck the Russian ports of Tuapse and Novorossiysk in September. Several companies have rigged ground robots to fire the same drones, and both sides have flown balloons carrying them.
“The SBU became the first in the world to pioneer this new kind of naval warfare,” Brig. Gen. Ivan Lukashevych said at an unveiling of the Sea Baby’s latest generation in October 2025, “and we continue to advance it.”

Ukraine fields two distinct naval drone families.
The Sea Baby is developed and operated by the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security service. The Magura – built by Uforce for the GUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate – is a separate system with its own lineage and export path.
The Sea Baby is primarily remote-piloted from a mobile ground station but carries AI-assisted targeting and navigation systems that allow it to operate autonomously when communications are jammed or degraded – a design imperative born from Russia’s intense electronic warfare environment over the Black Sea.
American forces have begun using the boats themselves.

U.S. special forces sank a target ship with a Ukrainian Magura at the Balikatan 2026 exercise off the Philippines on June 24, the first use of the technology in the Indo-Pacific.
The interest is not one-off. A cheap, expendable boat that can carry a cluster of attack drones to within striking range is exactly the kind of weapon the United States is looking for as it prepares for a possible war with China across the Pacific’s vast distances.
“Magura’s successes on the Ukrainian-Russian front confirm their value for use in the Indo-Pacific region,” Oleg Roginsky, chief executive of Uforce, the London-based startup that makes the Magura, told Bloomberg last week.
Uforce is in talks with Indo-Pacific buyers and weighing at least two production sites in the region, Roginsky said. Ukraine barred weapons exports in 2022 to keep its arms at the front, and only began opening that market in 2025.

Ukrainian naval drones have sunk or damaged roughly a dozen Russian warships since 2022 and forced the Black Sea Fleet to pull its main operations back to Novorossiysk, the U.S. Naval Institute reported in September.
Each boat costs a few hundred thousand dollars, below the price of a single modern torpedo.
The Pentagon is studying the lesson as it shifts focus toward a possible conflict with China.
The U.S. Navy expects to field thousands of small uncrewed surface vessels across the Indo-Pacific by 2030, Capt. Garrett Miller, who leads its Surface Development Group One, said at a Navy symposium on April 20, as reported by USNI News.

In a report last July, the Center for Strategic and International Studies urged the U.S. military to copy Kyiv’s acquisition methods, arguing that “unlike theoretical models or peacetime pilots, Ukraine’s innovations in defense acquisition are battlefield tested.”
And Ukraine has continued to innovate. Its Sub Sea Baby underwater drone struck an Improved Kilo-class submarine at its pier in Novorossiysk on Dec. 15, the first time an unmanned underwater vehicle has hit a submarine in port, the SBU said.
Russia denied any damage, but satellite imagery taken the following day showed a 9-meter crater in the pier, the submarine visibly lower in the water, and the vessel, later identified as the B-271 Kolpino, unmoved at its berth more than a month later. Ukrainian and independent analysts assessed it as a mission kill.
NATO is already training with Kyiv’s tactics, too.
Ukraine’s navy led a NATO red team and beat the alliance’s blue force in all five scenarios at the REPMUS naval-drone exercise in Portugal in September, the first time it had run the opposing force.

Russian Radar Systematically Destroyed, Creating Deep Strike Drone Path

2026-07-01T10:47:07.743-04:00

In yet another example of Ukraine's chillingly strategic planning, it systematically destroyed Russian radar positions between its own drone and missile launch sites tp target areas around Moscow, St Petersburg and various economic objectives, thereby making its attacks on those targets much more successful. JL

Sofiia Syngaivska reports in Defense Express:

Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces' Polyphemus operation systematically destroyed Russian radar sites in Bryansk region, creating a corridor for deep-strike drones. The operation eliminated radar systems responsible for monitoring airspace along the approach to Moscow, creating a gap in coverage as part of a broader effort to weaken Russia's integrated air defense network rather than isolated attacks on individual targets. Recent successful strikes against targets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the port of Ust-Luga were made possible because Ukrainian forces established a viable corridor through Russia's otherwise dense air defense system.
Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces say the Polyphemus operation systematically destroyed russian radar sites in Bryansk region, creating a corridor for deep-strike drones
Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces have released footage from the Polyphemus operation, a campaign targeting russian radar systems in Bryansk region that has reportedly improved the effectiveness of long-range Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside russia.
According to the 1st Center, the operation focused on systematically destroying radar systems responsible for monitoring airspace along the approach to Moscow. The unit described the strikes as part of a broader effort to weaken russia's integrated air defense network rather than isolated attacks on individual targets.
The operators behind the mission belong to the Roni group of the 1st Center, a formation specializing in strategic long-range operations. By disabling key radar assets in Bryansk region, the unit says it created a gap in russia's early-warning coverage that can be exploited by Ukrainian deep-strike drones.
Recent successful strikes against targets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the port of Ust-Luga were made possible not by chance but because Ukrainian forces had established a viable corridor through russia's otherwise dense air defense system. Eliminating radar coverage reduces the enemy's ability to detect and track incoming drones at long range.

"When the enemy loses its eyes, the sky opens for our long-range strikes," the unit said, emphasizing that suppressing surveillance assets is a prerequisite for penetrating heavily defended airspace.