The Low-Down

Russian Drone Attacks Decline After Ukraine Cruise Missile Hits Factory

2026-06-25T08:54:07.403-04:00

The number of Russian Shahed drones launched against Ukrainian targets has declined for two months in a row. This is due to a attack on a factory that makes crucial Shahed components, which inflicted significant damage on the facility.

The attack was not by Ukrainian drones, but by Ukraine's own domestically manufactured cruise missiles. If this trend holds for yet another month, it may signal another important turning point in the degradation of Russia's war-making capabilities. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

Between Between June 9 and 10, Ukrainian forces launched five Fire Point FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles at the VNIIR-Progress electronics plant in Cheboksary, in western Russia 550 miles from the front line in Ukraine. Two of the six-ton, $500,000 missiles struck the plant with their 2,500-pound warheads, punching right through anti-drone protections and inflicting major blast and fire damage that was apparent in photos and videos from the following days. In May, the Russians launched more than 8,000 Shaheds. And in both March and April they launched 6,500. One month doesn’t make a trend. But two just might. If Shahed launches are down in July, too, we may be able to look back at June as a turning point.
Between June 9 and 10, Ukrainian forces launched five Fire Point FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles at the VNIIR-Progress electronics plant in Cheboksary, in western Russia 550 miles from the front line in Ukraine.
Two of the six-ton, $500,000 missiles struck the plant with their 2,500-pound warheads, punching right through anti-drone protections and inflicting major blast and fire damage that was apparent in photos and videos from the following days. (See below.)
“I thank the Armed Forces of Ukraine for their precision!” Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky crowed.
Finally, after multiple attempts, the Ukrainians have degraded if not halted production at VNIIR-Progress. The Ukrainian army’s 19th Missile Brigade previously fired FP-5s at the Cheboksary plant on May 4, but those missiles apparently narrowly missed. Earlier drone strikes on the plant inflicted only minor damage.
VNIIR-Progress makes antennae and other components for navigation systems that are critical for the production of drones and missiles. The factory is a critical link in the chain of enterprises that sustains Russia’s campaign of deep strikes on Ukrainian cities.

Russian forces are on track to launch around 6,000 Shahed one-way attack drones at Ukrainian cities in June, according to analyst Vitaly. (Observe a Ukrainian drone strike on a Shahed launch truck, above.)
Ukrainian air-defenses typically shoot down 90% of incoming Shaheds, but the 600 that should get through still amount to … a lot of drones. Each packs a 200-pound warhead.
But 6,000 drones is actually good news. Because in May, the Russians launched more than 8,000 Shaheds. And in both March and April they launched 6,500. One month doesn’t make a trend. But two just might. If Shahed launches are down in July, too, we may be able to look back at June as a turning point.
Ukraine’s own deep strike munitions—one-way attack drones and cruise missiles—are pummeling the industries supporting Shahed production in Russia.

Well Paid Foreign Volunteers Expected To Comprise 50% of Ukraine Infantry

2026-06-25T08:40:29.404-04:00

With dramatically increased pay and greater flexibility about choosing with which unit they wish to serve - part of a broader set of reforms for military service - Ukraine expects that as many as 50% of front line troops will eventually be foreign volunteers.

Unlike the Russians who have tricked and bullied unsuspecting foreign workers lured to Russia by promise of jobs that didnt exist and then pressed into service, Ukraine is openly recruiting volunteers with military experience from other countries. South Americans have been particularly eager to fill the ranks, but Europeans, Asians and even some Americans have joined as well. JL

Alona Mazurenko reports in Ukraine Pravda:

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry aims to have up to 50% of assault and infantry positions in the Ukrainian Armed Forces filled by foreign nationals. "There are going to be dozens of companies that will bring in thousands of people every month to serve in Ukraine – because salaries on the front line are becoming competitive, the companies will earn UAH 300,000 (around US$6,600) per foreign recruit. Secondly, a market is emerging for companies that will bring people in transparently, with no corruption and no schemes. We've introduced a new services procurement procedure in order to launch this project."

Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov believes that dozens of companies will emerge in Ukraine that will bring in thousands of foreign nationals from abroad to serve in Ukraine.
Source: Fedorov in an interview with the YouTube channel PRESSING
Quote: "This is already a tested mechanism. There are already several institutions [recruitment centres] in Ukraine that bring in foreign nationals. They bring them in by the hundreds and have brought in thousands already…
And we are confident that there are going to be dozens of companies that will bring in thousands of people every month to serve in Ukraine – because, again, salaries on the front line are becoming extremely competitive.
Secondly, a market is emerging for companies that will bring people in transparently, with no corruption and no schemes. Essentially, we've introduced a new services procurement procedure in order to launch this project.
A government resolution on this will be adopted soon. It's a complex mechanism, but one that will definitely produce a good result for us."
Details: Fedorov explained that Ukraine already has a working system in place that determines how foreign nationals go through basic military training, how they join Ukraine's Armed Forces, issues relating to interpreters, logistics costs, training costs and so on.
He noted that Ukraine recently opened a private air defence market where around 30 companies are already operating, and the Ministry of Defence has decided to create a similar market for foreign recruits, allowing the companies involved to obtain a licence: "Quickly and transparently, and they will earn UAH 300,000 (around US$6,600) per foreign recruit."
Quote: "Payments will be made incrementally so that quality and training are factors in how effectively a company performs this task."
Background: The Defence Ministry aims to have up to 50% of assault and infantry positions in the Ukrainian Armed Forces filled by foreign nationals.

Russian Students Recruited As Drone Pilots Reassigned As Frontline Infantry

2026-06-24T08:45:28.978-04:00

The only surprising thing about this news is that it appears to be surprising. The Russian military has repeatedly promised 'safe' rear area jobs to students, immigrants, older men and others, only to then send them to the front as infantry in exposed positions.

The estimated survival time for a Russian private at the front is two weeks. This brings to mind a line from the movie, Animal House: "You fucked up, you trusted us." JL

Katherina Popilnichenko reports in Untied 24:

Young Russian students who signed specialized military contracts to serve as drone operators are being reclassified as regular infantrymen and deployed into direct frontline assaults. Recruiters targeted university and technical students, promising them technical training and safe positions away from active combat zones. he first known casualty from this specific recruitment practice in May. Valeriy Averin, a 23-year-old student from Buryatia, signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense in January during his final year at the Buryat Republican Technical School of Construction and Industrial Technologies. After completing drone pilot training, he was sent to the front and died in the Luhansk region on April 6, just days after deployment.
Young Russian students who signed specialized military contracts to serve as drone operators are being reclassified as regular infantrymen and deployed into direct frontline assaults.
Recruiters have targets among university and technical students, promising them technical training and safe positions away from active combat zones, based on data from Militarnyi on June 22.

The Ukrainian project “I Want to Live” has already identified and published tracking lists containing 1,059 and 262 contracted students. According to Russian legal specialist Sergey Mamontov, these recruits are kept in the dark about how their contracts legally convert them into standard service personnel subject to any commander's reassignment.
"But the UAV operator service is a dangerous high-tech assignment. According to available data, around one thousand UAV operators have already died since the beginning of the war. And the mortality rate of UAV operators is comparable to that of artillerymen," Mamontov stated.
He noted that multiple families have reached out after their children were promised drone specialist training but were sent directly to training grounds and subsequent frontline assault units instead.

Journalists verified the first known casualty from this specific recruitment practice in May. Valeriy Averin, a 23-year-old student from Buryatia, signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense in January during his final year at the Buryat Republican Technical School of Construction and Industrial Technologies. After completing drone pilot training, he was sent to the front and died in the Luhansk region on April 6, just days after deployment.
His adoptive mother, Afanasyeva, stated that her son called her for the last time on April 2 to inform her he was moving to an area without communication options. Six days later, she received official notification of his death during a mortar strike.
"The child studied for three months to be a UAV operator, and they put him in an assault, in the very meat grinder. Someone who had not served in the army," Afanasyeva said.
Previously, a Russian lawmaker proposed mandatory military training for children starting in the fifth grade to prepare eleven-year-olds for a potential confrontation with NATO and the European Union by 2030.

Ukraine's 118th Brigade Shoots Down 61 Russian Drones In 1 Day, Setting Record

2026-06-24T08:43:46.861-04:00

Starting at 4am and continuing for almost 18 hours, the Ukrainian drone pilots took down a Russian drone approximately every 17 minutes.

This tops the previous Ukrainian army record, which was 44 Russian drones shot down in one day. JL

Valentyna Romanenko reports in Ukraine Pravda:

Drone pilots from the Sirius Unmanned Systems Battalion of Ukraine's 118th Mechanised Brigade have set a national record by destroying 61 Russian Molniya drones in a single day. With this result, the team not only more than doubled its previous achievement but has also raised the bar for all of Ukraine's defence forces. Until now, the highest number recorded in the country stood at 44 drones. The hunt began at dawn. The drone hunters brought down their first aerial asset at 04:10 and the last – the 61st – at 21:47. On average, the Russians lost one drone every 17.5 minutes. The crew remained continuously at their positions for almost 18 hours.
Drone pilots from the Sirius Unmanned Systems Battalion of Ukraine's 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade have set a national record by destroying 61 Russian Molniya drones in a single day.
Quote: "Pilots from the Sirius Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade have set an absolute national record for intercepting enemy UAVs. A single interceptor drone crew destroyed 61 Russian Molniya drones during one daylight period.
With this result, the team not only more than doubled its previous achievement but has also raised the bar for all of Ukraine's defence forces. Until now, the highest number recorded in the country stood at 44 drones."

Details: According to the brigade, the hunt began at dawn. The drone hunters brought down their first aerial asset at 04:10 and the last – the 61st – at 21:47. On average, the Russians lost one drone every 17.5 minutes.
The crew remained continuously at their positions for almost 18 hours. Despite the enormous strain and the length of the operation, the soldiers said they felt no fatigue. Adrenaline and the constant search for new targets kept them focused until the very last minute.
The servicemen added that Russian forces use these drones not only against military positions, but also to strike civilians in frontline towns and villages.
"That is why securing the skies and protecting our brothers-in-arms and civilians is the most important task," the pilots said.
The brigade thanked the crew for this historic achievement and also extended their thanks to General Cherry FPV for providing effective interceptor drones.

Anthropic No Longer A National Security Threat According To Trump

2026-06-24T08:42:32.400-04:00

Who knows how long it will last - or how much it cost - but Anthropic appears to be back in the Trump administration's good graces. According to President Trump.

The White House's export control shut down of Anthropic's latest and most powerful model was clearly more of a problem for the company than was the previous 'security threat' designation. But it is also possible that it dawned on the administration that by denying themselves access to this AI, they were only hurting their standing with the tech community and, oh by the way, the Pentagon and the country. JL

Cris Tolomia reports in Quartz:

President Donald Trump said he no longer views Anthropic or its chief executive, Dario Amodei, as a national security threat, walking back a position he held as recently as a week before. Talks between Anthropic and the administration advanced when the company's senior technical staff held meetings with government officials to work toward resolving the dispute. A framework for assessing AI jailbreaks is among the outcomes the two sides are pursuing together. Trump said Amodei responded to the administration's export control directive "very quickly" and described the CEO as "nice" and "smart" after the two met at the Group of Seven summit in France.
President Donald Trump said he no longer views Anthropic or its chief executive, Dario Amodei, as a national security threat, walking back a position he held as recently as a week before.

"Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe," Trump told Axios in a White House interview published late last week. He said Amodei responded to the administration's export control directive "very quickly" and described the CEO as "nice" and "smart" after the two met at the Group of Seven summit in France. "He responded to us very responsibly, I thought," Trump said.

Trump also declined to rule out invoking emergency powers under the Defense Production Act if Anthropic did not comply with the administration's demands. "I have the power to use a lot of things," he said of the DPA. "But I'm not sure I have to do that."

The latest dispute between the Claude maker and the Trump administration centers on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. The Commerce Department issued a directive prohibiting foreign nationals from accessing the models, prompting Anthropic to shut off access entirely for all customers, including its own foreign-born employees. The directive stemmed from concerns about a jailbreak vulnerability flagged in a report from Amazon $AMZN +2.90%, a partial owner of Anthropic.
Trump said a competitor and partial owner brought the concerns to the administration. "It was a competitor and a part owner that turned Anthropic in," he said. "They were very concerned."
Talks between Anthropic and the administration advanced this week when the company's senior technical staff held meetings with government officials to work toward resolving the dispute. A framework for assessing AI jailbreaks is among the outcomes the two sides are pursuing together. Trump said at the G7 summit that talks were proceeding well.

Keeping Anthropic operational was preferable to shutting it down, Trump suggested, pointing to what he described as U.S. dominance over China in artificial intelligence. "I was with President Xi. We talked about it. We're beating China by a lot," he said. "The good far outweighs the bad."
Anthropic said in a statement that it remains committed to working with the administration. "We are grateful to the administration for their ongoing partnership in working to get this matter resolved as quickly as possible," the company said. "We remain committed to working alongside them towards our shared goals of protecting critical infrastructure and making sure the U.S. leads in AI."
The standoff is one of several points of tension that have built between Anthropic and the federal government. After negotiations over a military contract collapsed, the Pentagon placed Anthropic on a supply-chain risk list — a designation that has historically been reserved for foreign adversaries rather than domestic companies.

Data Reveal Russia's Spring Offensive And War Are Close To Breaking Down

2026-06-23T09:10:34.325-04:00

For the past three months, Ukraine has netted more territory retaken than Russian has gained. One month is a data point; three months are a trend.

The broader implication is that Russia's spring-summer offensive is close to culminating - military jargon for coming to an end - with summer having only arrived three days ago. This suggests that the Kremlin's ability to seize more territory of any significance is waning. The next question is to what extent Ukraine can pick up the momentum. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Russian may have lost as much as 57 square miles of Ukrainian territory last month. Any advances reported are minor. Russia has struggled to convert its gains into a wider breakthrough. The best that might be said of Russia’s spring offensive on the ground is that it has stalled, and without a major injection of resources, appears close to culminating. Ukraine has seized the strategic initiative in this war, and it is using its current momentum to shape both the battlespace and the negotiating table. Each strike that reaches the Russian capital, sets a refinery alight or grounds traffic at Moscow’s airports, widens the gap between the Kremlin’s narrative of inevitable victory and the lived reality of Russia under Ukrainian drone and missile attacks.
Drawing on DeepState’s mapping and ISW reporting, the Russia Matters War Report Card this week recorded that Russia either gained 10 square miles of Ukrainian territory in the past month – or lost 57 square miles. The range of claims is more indicative of a front line that is not a line but a kilometres deep grey zone where control of ground changes rapidly and is continuously contested.
Graph: Russia Matters
Russian advances were reported near or in eight settlements clustered around Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, including Rodynske, Illinivka and Sofiivka. These are minor gains. Russia captured Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad earlier this year but has struggled to convert these gains into a wider breakthrough. The best that might be said of Russia’s spring offensive on the ground is that it has almost stalled, and without any major injection of resources, appears close to culminating.

Ukraine has seized the strategic initiative in this war, and that it is using its current momentum to shape both the battlespace and the negotiating table. The strike on Moscow was not a war-winning blow, and it will not halt the Russian ground operations in Donetsk attempting to seize more territory.
The significance of the Moscow strike is instead cumulative and political. Each deep strike that reaches the Russian capital, sets a refinery alight or grounds traffic at Moscow’s airports, widens the gap between the Kremlin’s narrative of inevitable victory and the lived reality of Russia under Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. This only strengthens Ukraine’s hand in any conversation about war termination.

Failed Russian Armored Assault On Sloviansk Leaves Burning Vehicles Behind

2026-06-23T09:04:55.483-04:00

Feeling increasing pressure - and desperation - from the Kremlin, Russian units attempted to force a breakthrough at Sloviansk with an armored attack. To no one's surprise, it failed, leaving burning tanks and vehicles on the approach routes before they could even reach the Ukrainian defenses.

Given the widely-known strength of Ukraine's Fortress Belt defensive positions, as well as the increasing lethality of their drone units, it is not clear why the Russian command thought this might work. But then that refusal to acknowledge reality has characterized Russian tactics since the day they invaded. JL

RFU News reports:

At Sloviansk Russian forces launched one of their largest mechanized assaults in months in an attempt to force a breakthrough through the outer layer of the defenses in a single push. What followed left burning vehicles scattered across the battlefield. The main weakness of this Russian assault was that both attack groups had to cross exposed approach routes. That allowed Ukrainian defenders to track the advancing elements early, slow them on the route in, and then strike isolated groups as the assault began to break apart. Instead of arriving as a concentrated force, the Russian assault was reduced to smaller fragments that could be destroyed separately. A loss of momentum before the attackers ever reached the line caused burning wrecks to accumulate along the approach because Ukrainian defenses had turned the routes into a kill zone.

We will analyze Russia’s recent mechanized assault on Sloviansk.
Here, Russian forces launched one of their largest mechanized assaults in months in an attempt to force movement on the Sloviansk axis. What followed left burning vehicles scattered across the battlefield and turned this attack into one of the clearest examples of how much was at stake in this push.
Russia’s goal here was to break through the Ukrainian forward positions covering the northeastern approaches to Sloviansk, especially in the Zakitne and Kryva Luka direction. These settlements matter because they form part of the outer defensive area shielding Sloviansk, so losing them would weaken the defense and open more favorable routes toward positions farther back. That is why Russia launched a larger mechanized assault here rather than relying solely on smaller infantry probes, as it was trying to force a breakthrough through the outer layer of the defense in a single push.
Russia tried to do that by sending two assault groups forward at the same time on separate routes, one toward Zakitne and the other toward Kryva Luka, in order to pressure the Ukrainian defense from multiple directions. This gave the attack a better chance of splitting Ukrainian attention and stretching drone coverage, preventing the defenders from focusing all their fire on one approach.
This attack plan was meant to give the Russians several advantages during the advance. Russians also committed motorcycles to reduce dependence on roads and tight formations, allowing the Russians to cross exposed ground faster without bunching into an easy target. The Russians also sent several tanks and BMP to their assault, meant to suppress Ukrainian positions and absorb fire while lighter elements pushed forward. In theory, that made the assault more resilient than a single dense column, because even if one vehicle was hit, other elements could still keep moving, giving the Russians a better chance of achieving their goal.
However, the main weakness of this Russian assault was that both groups still had to cross exposed approach routes into a defended sector. That allowed Ukrainian defenders to track the advancing elements early, slow them on the route in, and then strike vehicles and isolated groups as the assault began to break apart. Instead of arriving as one concentrated force, the Russian assault was reduced to smaller fragments that could be destroyed separately.
The footage shows exactly how that breakdown happened in practice, as Russian motorcycles, transport vehicles, and BMP move along roads and tree lines, but instead of building into one continuous assault, those elements appear increasingly separated as they come under fire. FPV drones strike BMP and other vehicles while they are still moving, catching them before they can reach cover or support the rest of the advance. In several moments, the assault appears to lose tempo completely, with individual vehicles destroyed on the route while other elements are forced to keep moving past wrecks or stop in exposed positions. Abandoned motorcycles and vehicles were hit after parts of the assault had already stalled, suggesting a loss of momentum before the attackers ever reached the line. By the time burning wrecks begin to accumulate along the approach, the footage shows that the real battle was no longer at the point of breakthrough, because Ukrainian defenses had already turned the route into a kill zone and broken the assault apart in motion.
Overall, the failed Russian assault shows that the Russian command is still trying to break the approaches to Sloviansk through larger mechanized attacks rather than relying only on small infantry group infiltrations. At the same time, Ukraine has shown that it still has the reconnaissance and strike coordination needed to respond to large-scale assaults in this sector. That means Russia may continue launching attacks of this kind, but each failure will make this method harder to sustain. If these assaults keep failing after detection, Russia will likely shift toward smaller and less visible attacks, because once Ukrainian reconnaissance spots a larger mechanized force, Ukraine can hit it quickly before it achieves anything meaningful.

SpaceX Stock Drops 16% In 3rd Day of Decline, Now Below IPO

2026-06-23T09:03:41.691-04:00

Welcome back to 'the glorious days of yesteryear,' when stocks shot up like rockets, then quickly descended to the level reflected in their financials - assuming they had such a thing.

What has happened to SpaceX over the past week will be familiar to anyone who endured - or read about - the dotcom boom, when companies with no real business but with .net in their title could go public on a story and a prayer. Or, as some used to say, 'buy the story, sell the news.' The reality is that projected sales and profits never supported SpaceX's hyped up valuation, which is now below a 'mere' $2 trillion. Reversion to the mean comes for us all and, in SpaceX's case, is now getting - somewhat - closer to actual potential. JL

William Gavin reports in Marketwatch and Alexander Osipovich reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Elon Musk’s company is falling ahead of the opening bell, putting its market cap on track to fall below $2 trillion for the first time since its blockbuster IPO. SpaceX shares are down more than 4% premarket, to about $148—below the $150 level where they began trading on June 12. Yesterday, SpaceX shares just had their worst day yet — carrying them below their closing price from their first day of trading less than two weeks ago. The stock finished Monday’s session at $154.60, with declines escalating toward the end of the trading day. SpaceX shares closed well below the $160.95 at the finish on June 12, when the company went public. That means that anyone who bought the stock after its first day of trading has lost money — at least on paper.
Elon Musk’s rocket company is falling ahead of the opening bell, putting its market cap on track to fall below $2 trillion for the first time since its blockbuster IPO.
SpaceX shares are down more than 4% premarket, to about $148—below the $150 level where they began trading on June 12.

Yesterday, SpaceX shares just had their worst day yet — carrying them below their closing price from their first day of trading less than two weeks ago.
The stock
SPCX
-16.43%
finished Monday’s session at $154.60, with declines escalating toward the end of the trading day.
SpaceX shares closed well below the $160.95 level sustained at the finish on June 12, when the company went public. That means that anyone who bought the stock after its first day of trading has lost money — at least on paper.

The heavy selling pressure has taken a toll on SpaceX’s valuation. The company finished with a $2.04 trillion market capitalization at Monday’s close, just behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s
TSM
+1.20%
$2.06 trillion, according to Dow Jones Market Data. As such, SpaceX slipped to No. 7 in the ranks of the world’s largest companies.
SpaceX erased $400.8 billion from its market cap on Monday, which made for the second-largest one-day wipeout on record for any U.S. company, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The company on Monday confirmed plans to offer senior unsecured notes to raise cash and help pay off its existing debt. The proceeds of that raise would go toward a $20 billion bridge loan, which SpaceX originally took out to pay off debt accrued by CEO Elon Musk’s xAI.
That offering comes despite SpaceX confirming on Monday that it has $100.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Most of that comes from the more than $85 billion it raised through its initial public offering.
It also has a new deal to provide compute to Reflection AI, a startup developing open-source artificial-intelligence models, through the end of 2029. The deal will give SpaceX $150 million per month in revenue beginning in July, according to the Wall Street Journal. Like SpaceX’s other AI-compute deals, it could be ended with 90 days’ notice after the first three months

Ukraine's "e-Points" Are Steering Drone Teams Towards Higher Value Targets

2026-06-22T11:17:28.041-04:00

One of the most impressive aspects of the evolving Ukrainian way of war is the degree to which they have adapted lessons from private sector managerial theory and market mechanisms to lead and incentivize their forces in order to execute the strategies to achieve the outcomes they want.

One such example is the 'e-points' system which rewards units for hitting and eliminating important targets. New analyses show that the high command's ability to identify shifting priorities is to increase or decrease the number of points awarded. In addition, the troops at the front are able to communicate what they deem important by spending more or fewer points on weapons or other equipment based on their experience and assessment of manufacturers' products. It is, as the Defense Minister has stated, 'about rapid scaling of effective solutions.' JL

Sinead Baker reports in Business Insider:

Ukraine's "e-Points" system, which rewards soldiers for hitting prized targets, is steering soldiers toward higher-value Russian assets. The rewards have worked to "incentivize units along the front line to go after challenging targets - and that's having effects." Previously, soldiers focused on "things in front of you," like infantry and tanks. Now, soldiers are incentivized to "go after more complex targets," including rear-areas more than 100 kms from the front. The point system is one of the factors contributing to Ukraine's momentum, as Kyiv uses new drones and planning to hit 'safe' targets. Points gives Ukraine's command a way to shift battlefield behavior quickly. If the military decides it needs more of a certain target destroyed, it can raise the reward. Units then have a direct reason to adjust because points help them get equipment they need. It helps Ukraine innovate quickly, knowing what weapons front-line soldiers want. "This is about rapid scaling of effective solutions."

Ukraine's "e-Points" system, which rewards soldiers for hitting prized targets, is doing more than rewarding battlefield kills. It is helping steer soldiers toward higher-value Russian targets.
The system rewards units that eliminate Russian soldiers or destroy military equipment and upload video confirmation to the military, which awards them points they can use to buy drones, ground robots, electronic warfare systems, and other gear from the government's Brave1 Marketplace.
Officials have said it works "like Amazon," but for military technology.
Updates to what the system rewards have worked to "incentivize all of the units along the entire front line to strive to go after targets that are more challenging to pursue. And I think that's having effects," Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russian warfare expert at the US-based Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider.
Ukraine unveiled the system last year, initially offering the largest rewards for strikes on valuable equipment such as tanks and launchers. It was later widened to reward reconnaissance missions and operations that involved ground robotic systems, as well as actions by snipers and mobile air-defense teams shooting down Shahed attack drones.
Previously, soldiers could easily focus on "things that are really in front of you," like infantry and tanks, Stepanenko said. Now, soldiers are incentivized to "go after these very complex and more challenging targets," including rear-area infrastructure, barracks, and trucks more than 100 kilometers from the front.

She characterized the point system as one of several factors contributing to Ukraine's newfound momentum on the battlefield, as Kyiv uses new drones and better planning to hit Russian logistics and other targets in areas that were once safer for Moscow.
Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone pilot who is now a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that the system was "absolutely" encouraging Ukrainian soldiers to go after different types of targets than they were before.
"That's the whole point of the system," he said.

It's not perfect, but it "really creates the incentive for more strategically viable targets" identified by Ukraine's general staff, Zhluktenko said. Rather than hitting what's readily available, soldiers are pursuing targets that better align with Ukraine's overall strategy and work together more cohesively.
The points system gives Ukraine's command a way to shift battlefield behavior quickly. If the military decides it needs more of a certain target destroyed, it can raise the reward. Units then have a direct reason to adjust because the points help them get the equipment they need.
"It's like a lifeline for us," Zhluktenko said.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's defense minister, said in March that the system had "changed the approach to warfare."
"This is about clear incentives, fair rewards, and the rapid scaling of effective solutions," he explained. "Military units receive resources based on results: the more targets they destroy, the more points they earn. This is a direct incentive that enables units to strengthen their capabilities with new technologies."
Ukraine's defense ministry said in late April that more than 181,000 drones, ground robots, electronic warfare systems, and other equipment had been supplied to the front via the e-Points system since the start of the year.
At the command level, the points system is part of a broader Ukrainian effort to hit deeper, plan better, and coordinate more of its forces around bigger battlefield goals.
Ukraine has been leveraging new types of drones to strike Russian logistics and other targets farther from the front, while its Delta battlefield-management system fuses intelligence from satellites, combat units, and drone feeds so commanders can look beyond immediate targets and plan more deliberately.

For troops, Zhluktenko said, the system lets units use points to buy the gear they actually want, rather than take what the military assigns them. If they take out a Russian soldier, for example, "we would be able to buy a drone for that money, but this specific drone that we like and need that our operators are used to, it's not something that would be pushed onto us from the Ministry of Defense."
Ukraine's military has worked in a way that is far more decentralized than its Western counterparts. Units often work directly with weapons makers, buying, testing, and helping develop their technology instead of waiting for the central military to decide what they get. Soldiers and arms makers say that is one reason Ukraine has been able to develop and field new weapons so quickly.
Scott Boston, a land warfare expert at RAND Corporation, said last month at a drone summit in Latvia that the marketplace that soldiers use with their points also helps Ukraine innovate quickly and know what weapons front-line soldiers actually want.
Commanders can "bring something in, they can experiment with it, they can see how it works." It also sends a "marketplace signal," he said, telling the military and industry what gear there's demand for and what is unnecessary.

How Attacking Kyiv's Cathedral Exposes Putin's Desperation, Diminished Options

2026-06-22T09:34:48.586-04:00

After all the Ukrainians have been through over the past four years, this is the best the Kremlin can do? Attack a world historical religious landmark? As if that is going to change the calculus of the war that Russia is losing on the battlefield, on the seas, in the air and on its economy.

What the attack on the Lavra Cathedral complex reveals is Putin's desperation and his diminishing options. It was a pathetic lashing out of rage and frustration, which simply reflects his impotence. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

The Russians could have attacked Kyiv's Lavra Cathedral complex any time since 2022. Until this week they did not do so, realizing that attacking such a building of historic, religious and cultural value to Ukrainians held out no strategic benefit but did hold great risk of enraging Ukrainians even more and appalling European opinion. What the attack revealed is that the Russians have little new to add to their terror and threats. Faced with an ongoing Ukrainian long-range assault on their strategic industries, the Russians could not escalate strategically and have no way to do more to the Ukrainian economy or war machine. All they could do to show their desperation was attack a great historical monument. Their way of escalating is now limited to going after soft targets of cultural and emotional value.
I have never been to Moscow but I have, thankfully, had the opportunity to visit Kyiv a number of times over the last few years. As a historian it was a particular pleasure as it has a rich history stretching back to its foundation in the early medieval period, to today. Of its early buildings that survive, two complexes stand out. First is the monastery and cathedral of Saint Sophia, which dominates the center of the city and has some amazing early mosaics. Then there is the extensive Lavra monastery complex which lies on the banks of the Dnipro River a few miles from the center of Kyiv.
Lavra has played an important and controversial part in this war. When I first visited it in 2023, it was still half under the occupation of forces of the Moscow patriarchy—a Putinist outpost in the heart of Kyiv. However the beauty of the place was what stood out, and of all the buildings in Lavra, the Dormition Cathedral was the grandest. You can read about it here.
When the news of the Russian attack on Lavra came out this week, I went back and discovered I took many pictures of the Dormition Cathedral—here are three. It is important to see it in its full grandeur.
Note the red brick at the bottom—this is the exposed medieval brickwork that has survived It was a very advanced structure for the time.
The front exterior—you will see this again in the shot of the cathedral burning.
The interior made my Baroque-loving heart very happy.
Now the Russians could have attacked Lavra at any time since 2022, and the Dormition Cathedral would have been the easiest building in the whole complex to target—being the largest and central. However until this week they did not do so, maybe realizing that attacking such a building of historic, religious and cultural value to Ukrainians held out no strategic benefit but did hold out great risk (of enraging Ukrainians even more and appalling European opinion).
This week, however, the Russians lost their self-control. They targeted the Dormition Cathedral and set it ablaze.
Here is a shot of it burning. Think of it as attacking Westminster Abbey in London or St Peters Basilica in Rome.
What the attack revealed is that the Russians have little new at this point to add to their long-range mix, except terror and threats. Faced with an ongoing Ukrainian long-range assault on their strategic industries, the Russians could not escalate strategically and have no way to do more to the Ukrainian economy or war machine than they have been doing. All they could do to show their desperation was attack a great historical monument. The message to Ukrainians was clear; we have no restraints and are happy to wipe out the key repositories of your identity and history. As such, wiping out you is something we are willing to do.
However the Ukrainians already know that. They have been fighting since 2022 knowing that the Russians would be willing to wipe them out. So attacking this cathedral reinforced only a message that the Ukrainians have already received, just in a particularly brutal, grandiose and stupid way.
In other words, the Russians can only do what they have been doing—and their way of escalating is now limited to going after soft targets of cultural and emotional value.

Two Russian Battalions Decimated In One Month's Kostiantynivka Fighting

2026-06-22T09:20:26.902-04:00

The severity of Russian losses in this crucial sector, the key to Russia's desire to take Ukraine's Fortress Belt cities beyond it, has led to a change in tactics which reflects the Russian desperation.

Instead of mass meat assaults or infiltration attempts by small teams, the Russians are now sending individual soldiers, accompanies by drones, to attack. The problem is that Ukraine's drone and intelligence superiority make even these efforts unable to succeed. But the broader implication is that if the best the Kremlin can do is send one soldier with a few drones as his 'comrades,' they have little chance of creating a distraction, let alone a breakthrough. JL

Yevhelia Mazur reports in Liga.net:

During the past month of fighting against Ukraine's 100th Mechanized Brigade on the Kostiantynivka front, Russian forces lost the equivalent in strength of two battalions, with 910 soldiers killed or wounded. The 100th and Ukraine's 24th Mechanized Brigade report Russian army has changed its assault tactics and is increasingly sending not groups of several soldiers but individual infantrymen—escorted by drones—toward Ukrainian positions.
During a month of fighting on the Kostiantynivka front, Russian forces lost 910 soldiers, either killed or wounded. This is equivalent to the strength of approximately two battalions, as reported to analysis LIGA.net Serhiy Khominsky, press officer for the 100th Separate Mechanized Brigade.

Why Is This Important?. Russia is stepping up pressure on Kostiantynivka, which it views as Gateway to the Kramatorsk-Kostiantynivka metropolitan area. The occupiers are infiltrating the city in small groups under the cover of drones.

Home. According to a military official, from May 16 to June 16, the Russians lost 395 soldiers killed and 515 wounded in the 100th Mechanized Brigade’s defense sector alone.

"In total, there were 910 occupiers—that is, two battalions that were completely wiped out," said Khominsky.

The 100th Mechanized Brigade also reported a sharp increase in Russian drone activity in the Kostiantynivka sector. According to Khominsky, the occupiers have significantly increased their use of reconnaissance drones, FPVs, attack UAVs, and drones for remote mining. In this way, they are attempting to secure air superiority.
Previously in the 24th Mechanized Brigade reported LIGA.net...that the Russian army has changed its assault tactics and is increasingly sending not groups of several soldiers but individual infantrymen—escorted by drones—toward Ukrainian positions.
Military experts they told LIGA.net...that Russian guided bombs remain one of the main factors driving the advance of Russian occupiers in the Donetsk region.

US Companies Increasingly Turn To Cheaper Chinese AI

2026-06-22T09:02:32.889-04:00

Despite the continuing claims that 'this time is different,' it turns out that AI is still subject to Economics 1: if something becomes too expensive, the market will seek a cheaper alternative.

This is especially true for corporate clients concerned about the returns they still cannot quantify, as well as smaller enterprises that just can't afford extraordinary AI costs. Some larger companies want to retain relationships with Anthropic and OpenAI because of strategic partnership interests and the brand umbrella, but even Microsoft is reportedly testing Chinese models. The reality is that token-based revenue models have altered the affordability equation. The result will thus inevitably be that less expensive options will have to be embraced for AI use to continue growing. JL

Viola Zhou reports in Rest of World:

While an hourlong coding session costs $10 on Claude, the same work cost less than 50 cents on DeepSeek. U.S.-based developers and small companies are turning to Chinese AI to cut costs. Although Chinese models still lag behind the best US ones in performance, they can handle most tasks at a fraction of the price. DeepSeek’s share of token usage jumped from under 1% to 17% in May. The affordability is especially attractive to independents and startups as well as "medium-sized businesses starting to get into AI but are wary of the costs.” Large companies, especially those in highly regulated industries, are still wary about Chinese models due to concerns about data security, censorship, and geopolitical risk. “Chinese models are becoming part of the global AI infrastructure layer. But usage is only the first step. The next test is whether the Chinese can convert usage into revenue, enterprise trust, and durable distribution.”
Stu Clott, an operations manager and part-time developer in San Diego, used to code with Claude. But he recently found a cheaper alternative: DeepSeek.
While an hourlong coding session would cost about $10 on Claude, the same work cost less than 50 cents on DeepSeek, Clott said. Over the past few weeks, he has used the Chinese model for everything from coding to personal counseling and building software to manage his family’s bank accounts.
“I laugh every time I go see [the costs],” Clott told Rest of World. “The output quality, to be honest, I can’t tell the difference.”
U.S.-based developers and small companies are turning to Chinese models to cut costs. Although Chinese models still lag behind the best American ones in performance, they can handle most tasks at a fraction of the price. Microsoft is also exploring using DeepSeek, or another open-source model, as a lower-cost alternative for Copilot Cowork, which is currently powered by Anthropic and OpenAI systems. But under political scrutiny, Chinese companies still face the challenge of turning that popularity into significant revenue.
Chinese companies have kept prices low thanks to lower salaries and infrastructure expenses at home. Many have also released open models and offered subsidized plans to attract early adopters. Models from DeepSeek, Xiaomii MiMo, and Minimax are now among the most cost-efficient available, according to an Artificial Analysis index that measures models’ performance against cost.

The affordability is especially attractive to independent developers and startups. Lindy, a San Francisco-based company that builds AI work assistants, recently made a switch from Anthropic models to DeepSeek, according to its founder Flo Crivello, who announced the move on X in June. Crivello said the switch saved the firm millions of dollars. “You don’t need God to write your email,” he said on tech news show MTS. “If you can get those lower tiers of intelligence for a tenth of the price, it would be foolish not to do it.”
Ruben Garcia Jr., a Dallas-based developer who builds websites and mobile apps for businesses, told Rest of World he uses both U.S. and Chinese models to run the AI agents that fulfill client requests automatically.
He pays $500 a month for Claude and ChatGPT for the most complex planning and reviewing tasks, and another $200 a month for Minimax, Moonshot’s Kimi, and Xiaomi MiMo — models that handle 90% of the tasks, such as coding and voice recognition.
On OpenRouter, a platform that helps developers direct tasks to different AI models, those from DeepSeek, Tencent, Minimax, and Xiaomi are now the four most popular. Vercel, another AI service provider, said DeepSeek’s share of token usage jumped from under 1% to 17% in May, although its share of revenue stayed near 1%. Tokens are the units of text or data that AI models process.

“[AI] adoption at large companies is fairly saturated,” Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Rest of World. “The growth market for Chinese companies would be medium-sized businesses that are starting to get into AI but are wary of the costs.”
In the U.S. market, however, Chinese model developers still face an uphill battle turning their popularity into revenue.
Companies that use Chinese models have come under political scrutiny. Lawmakers launched investigations into Airbnb and Anysphere, owner of coding platform Cursor, after the companies disclosed they had used Chinese open models like Qwen and Kimi to build their AI infrastructure. Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky later clarified that the company was not sending any data to the model developers.
If the Chinese models come out and they are frontier and cheaper, I’m going that direction.”Ruben Garcia Jr., Dallas-based developer
Large companies, especially those in highly regulated industries, will be reluctant to use Chinese models due to concerns about data security, censorship, and geopolitical risks, Poe Zhao, Beijing-based founder of China tech newsletter Hello China Tech, told Rest of World.
Businesses that do use Chinese models are trying to have their data processed in the U.S. Some run open-source models on their own servers, and others have accessed them through American cloud companies rather than paying Chinese developers directly. Lindy’s founder Crivello said on X that his company accessed DeepSeek through an American provider, after a commenter questioned if user data was being sent to China.
These cloud providers may share revenue with Chinese AI companies, but this arrangement prevents the companies from building long-term relationships with American clients, Zhao said. “Chinese models are becoming part of the global AI infrastructure layer,” he said. “But usage is only the first step. The next test is whether Chinese model developers can convert that usage into revenue, enterprise trust, and durable distribution.”
Chinese companies could also lose some competitive edge as U.S. rivals join the price war. OpenAI is now considering significant price cuts as it competes with Anthropic for enterprise users, The Wall Street Journal reported.
For now, developers say Chinese models still provide the best value for what they are paying. Clott and Garcia said they didn’t believe U.S. companies would do any better at protecting user privacy than Chinese companies.
“I don’t mind Chinese [companies] looking at my data: Hey, have fun with it. Learn and get better,” Garcia said. “If the Chinese models come out and they are frontier and cheaper, I’m going that direction.”

Ukrainian Attacks Cause Russians To Halt All Fuel Sales In Crimea

2026-06-21T11:22:14.190-04:00

Not rationed gas for occupied Crimea: No gas. How long can it survive in the modern era without fuel? JL

NPR reports:

Officials in Russia-occupied Crimea suspended civilian gasoline sales Sunday as Ukraine ramped up attacks on fuel supplies on the Black Sea peninsula. Ukrainian forces have repeatedly targeted fuel supplies to Crimea in recent weeks, triggering the worst energy crisis in the region since it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. A Crimean oil depot, as well as an oil transport facility in Russia's southern Krasnodar region were among the targets. He described the attacks as part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" against Russia's energy infrastructure.
Officials in Russia-occupied Crimea suspended civilian gasoline sales Sunday as Ukraine ramped up attacks on fuel supplies on the Black Sea peninsula.
Gov. Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, said that overnight Ukrainian strikes killed four people and wounded 28 others. He did not specify the target of the attack.
He later wrote on social media that local gas stations would halt all sales to non-state companies and individuals for an undefined period.
State of the World from NPR
A Ukrainian drone team hitting targets deep inside Russia
"Fuel will be sold only to government agencies that ensure the functioning and security of the Republic of Crimea," Aksyonov said. "I ask everyone to remain calm and to only trust official sources of information."
Ukrainian forces have repeatedly targeted fuel supplies to Crimea in recent weeks, triggering the worst energy crisis in the region since it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement Sunday that a Crimean oil depot, as well as an oil transport facility in Russia's southern Krasnodar region were among the targets. He described the attacks as part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" against Russia's energy infrastructure.

"Russia understands only strength, and our long-range strength is certainly working for peace," he wrote.
Russian officials in Krasnodar reported earlier Sunday that a drone strike sparked a fire at a Black Sea oil terminal in the village of Chushka. They said that Ukrainian attacks struck a ferry, killing one person.
Motorists struggle to find fuel
The Crimean peninsula has had periodic fuel shortages from Ukrainian strikes before, but the current crisis is the worst since its 2014 annexation.
At the end of May, authorities restricted the sale of gas to 20 liters (5 1/3 gallons) per vehicle owner per week, using prepaid coupons. Those were snapped up immediately following their release on an official messaging app channel, and motorists lined up for hours, waiting to refuel.
Social networks have been abuzz with requests and advice on where to find fuel, and authorities launched a hotline for tourists in the area who have found themselves trapped.
Some motorists bring their own gas from Krasnodar and elsewhere via the Kerch bridge, but they are restricted to carrying 100 liters (about 26 1/2 gallons) per vehicle. Some speculators are selling gas at double the market price.
In a rare public acknowledgment, the Kremlin has recognized the scope of the problem and promised to address the issue quickly.

However, Ukraine's successes have highlighted its ability to inflict painful damage on Russia and change the course of the conflict while Moscow's advances recently have ground to a near halt. On June 11, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine reached its 1,569th day, surpassing the duration of World War I.

How Ukraine's Drones Broke Through Moscow's Air Defenses

2026-06-21T11:03:56.835-04:00

Moscow is surrounded by a dense ring of air defenses and the oil refinery just outside the city - in which the top of a storage tank blew off after being struck (likely by a misfiring Russian anti-air missile) - is arguably the most heavily defended such facility in the world. And yet, Ukrainian drones found their way through with relative ease.

The reason is that the Ukrainians have been systematically and relentlessly targeting Russian air defense systems since the invasion over four years ago, degrading their capabilities. In addition, the Russian systems are aging and were not designed to hit drones which are smalled and more maneuverable than planes or missiles. And finally, there is the Russian penchant for internal competition, incompetence and corruption, which further limits their effectiveness. The combined weight of those problems is why Ukraine's drones will continue to get through to Moscow. JL

Lauren Kent and colleagues report in CNN:

Thursday's attack on Moscow – the biggest since the start of the full-scale war – was another example of how Ukraine’s strategy to overwhelm Russian air defenses with drones found success. Ukraine has destroyed 166 Russian “anti-air elements” since the start of this year, and 1,432 since 2022. Plus, Russia’s air defenses were not designed to combat drone. Video of firing man portable air defense rockets on a busy highway is indicative of a hasty, ad-hoc and unprofessional response to the attack. One defense missile missed its target, hitting an oil storage tank, “a Russian own-goal,” ending in a cloud of smoke and the top of the tank blasting into the air. “Russia has a track record of old systems not being 100% reliable.” Modern drones break through because they are more difficult to track than missiles or aircraft. Hundreds of drones coming from multiple directions requires coordination from Russia’s integrated air defense systems, which “is not happening”

As a barrage of Ukrainian drones descended on Moscow in the early hours of Thursday, Russia’s response appeared more like a scramble, and less like a well-planned strategic defense. Videos from the streets of the capital showed glimpses of the ensuing chaos.
Footage verified by CNN and analyzed by experts shows soldiers firing portable, shoulder-mounted air-defense systems from a busy highway, as traffic cautiously passes by. People run for safety as a drone, probably downed by Russian air defenses, plummets into a building in a sprawling marketplace.
In another video, what appears to be a Russian defense missile likely misses its target and instead hits an oil storage tank on the outskirts of Moscow. One weapons expert from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute told CNN that it was “a Russian own-goal,” ending in a mushroom cloud of smoke and the huge top of the tank blasting into the air.
Thursday’s attack on Moscow – the biggest since the start of the full-scale war – was yet another example of how Ukraine’s strategy to overwhelm Russian air defenses with drones appears to have found success.
“Russia has a track record of old systems not being 100% reliable,” Markus Schiller, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said of the scrambled response in Moscow. Ukraine, meanwhile, has been continuously improving its attack capabilities “for years.”

Ukraine has been stepping up long-range attacks on Russian oil refineries and military sites since 2024. It recently broke through Russian defenses in St. Petersburg and has repeatedly hit Moscow, bringing the war home to Russia’s two largest cities.
“The video capturing the firing of man portable air defense systems (MANPADS) on a busy highway is indicative of a hasty, ad-hoc and frankly unprofessional response to the attack. The complete lack of traffic control and the utilization of military hardware incredibly proximate to civilian vehicles and individuals reinforces this assessment,” said Stu Ray, a senior analyst at McKenzie Intelligence Services.
Earlier in the conflict, Russia concentrated its air defense systems at the border with Ukraine and at the frontline, Ukrainian military sources previously told CNN. But Kyiv’s strategy has been to target many different locations inside occupied areas of eastern Ukraine and Russia, forcing Russia to spread out air defense systems into a more threadbare tapestry.

Kyiv has also targeted the air-defense launchers themselves for years, as well as radar detection systems, in an effort to diminish Russia’s defense capabilities. Ukraine’s Armed Forces claims it has destroyed 166 Russian “anti-air elements” since the start of this year, and more than 1,432 since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
Moreover, Russia’s air defense systems were not designed to combat drone attacks. They were designed to shoot down conventional military aircraft, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, according to Thomas Withington, a military sciences fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
“Russia’s air defenses are simply not fit for purpose, that’s very clear,” Withington told CNN. “They are not equipped to detect, track and engage this kind of attack, and barring some massive redesign of the Russian air defense system, that will remain the case.”
Withington noted that international sanctions have hampered Moscow’s ability to access the technology needed to develop new systems capable of engaging these Ukrainian attacks. “Even if you could ramp up production, you will just ramp up production on missile systems that aren’t even doing the job,” he said.

The mounting drone threat forced the Kremlin to scale back its Victory Day parade in Red Square in May, with no military hardware on display – unlike at previous events – due to what the Russian Defense Ministry called the “current operational situation.” Moscow also pushed for a temporary ceasefire during the festivities.

Still, experts say Russian air defenses are likely shooting down a large percentage of Ukrainian drones. On Friday morning, the Russian military claimed it downed 216 Ukrainian drones across the country.
Ukraine’s commander of Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, said in an assessment of the city of Moscow’s air defenses that the Russian capital still had more than 100 air defense launchers and more than 50 “Pantsir” mobile air defense systems as of mid-May.
But with Ukraine launching more than 100 drones in a single attack, at least some of them are likely to make it past defenses, even if they are well stocked.
Modern drones can also break through because they are more difficult to track than larger missiles or aircraft.

“They may appear on radar, but there is a world of difference between detecting something on radar and then getting what we call a ‘quality track,’” Withington said.
And hundreds of drones coming from multiple directions requires a huge amount of coordination from Russia’s integrated air defense systems, which “is not happening properly,” he said.
Repeated, mass long-range attacks by Ukraine have led to speculation that Russia could also be running low on defense munitions. Experts caution that it’s difficult to know what the country’s defense missile stockpiles look like as that information is closely guarded. But inventories are bound to wear down if Ukraine’s salvos remain large and frequent.

“In terms of the frequency and the severity of the attacks by Ukraine against Russia, all of the options for Russia are bad,” Withington added. “I think it’s probably a case of the military thinking, what’s the least bad option in trying to counter what we’re facing from Ukraine.”

Moscow Is Burning Because Ukraine Stopped Depending On Others

2026-06-21T10:41:32.039-04:00

Early on after Russia's invasion, the Ukrainians realized that even under Biden, the US and EU would constrain the Ukrainian military's ability to hurt Russia. In a way, Trump's election has been freeing, because his evident respect and liking for Putin - and disdain for Ukraine - made it easier to stop being dependent and start developing their own weapons and strategy.

The result has been miraculous: Russia is now considered to be losing on the battlefield, while Ukraine's drones have disabled as much as 20% of Russia's refining capacity, further degrading its economic as well as its military capability. The Ukrainians effectively answer to no one but themselves - and have no interest in or need to go back. JL

Anne Applebaum reports in The Atlantic:

By targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry, the Ukrainians have been applying sanctions of their own. As they grew to understand drone technology, the commanders and teams deploying battlefield drones and sea drones, concluded that they needed their own drones, as well as their own drone research and development, with a constant feedback loop between the operators on the front lines and the industrial engineers. No one wants to wait for Trump or the EU to impose new sanctions on Russia either. “The most effective sanctions—the ones that work the fastest—are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots.”

In one section of a sprawling warehouse in central Ukraine, workers have stacked what appear to be small airplane wings in neat rows. In another section, a group of men is huddled around what looks like the body of an aircraft, adjusting an electronic panel. In makeshift locations elsewhere in Ukraine, workers are producing these electronic panels from scratch: This company wants to use as few imported parts as possible, avoiding anything American, anything Chinese. Jewelers, I was told, have turned out to be well suited for this kind of finicky manufacturing. Ukraine’s justly celebrated manicurists are good at it too.

They are not alone in being new to the job. Everyone in this factory had a different profession three years ago, because this factory did not exist three years ago. Nor did the Ukrainian drone industry, of which it forms part. Whatever their job description before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, everyone at this production site is now part of a major shift in the politics and economics of the war, one that hasn’t been fully understood by all of Ukraine’s allies.
Once almost entirely dependent on imports of weapons from abroad, the Ukrainians are now producing millions of drones, large and small, as well as other kinds of weapons, every year. They are using them most famously on the front line, where they have prevented the Russians from making large-scale gains this year, despite dire headlines, and where they have ensured that any territory occupied by the Russians comes at a terrible price, in equipment and lives. The Ukrainians have also used sea drones to clear their Black Sea coast of Russian ships, an accomplishment that seemed impossible even to imagine at the start of the war.
Finally, they are using drones to hit distant targets, deep inside Russia, and lately they are hitting so many military objects, refineries, and pipelines that some Ukrainians believe they can do enough damage to force the Russians to end the war. On Monday, they once again struck Gazprom’s fuel-processing plant in Astrakhan, for example, one of the largest gas-chemical complexes in the world and an important source of both gasoline and diesel. Yesterday, they hit a key part of an oil pipeline in Bryansk. Presumably President Volodymyr Zelensky transmitted this optimism to President Donald Trump, who again upended his administration’s previous policies yesterday and declared that Ukraine is “in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”

The company that I visited, Fire Point, specializes in weaponry for these long-range attacks, producing large drones that can travel up to 1,400 kilometers and stay in the air for seven hours. Fire Point recently attracted attention for its newest product, the Flamingo cruise missile, which can hit targets at 3,000 kilometers, and the company is testing ballistic missiles, too. These capabilities have put Fire Point at the cutting edge of Ukraine’s most ambitious strategy: the campaign to damage Russian refineries, pipeline stations, and other economic assets, especially oil-related assets. Trump has still never applied any real pressure on Russia, and is slowly lifting the Biden administration’s sanctions by refusing to update them. By targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry, the Ukrainians have been applying “sanctions” on their own.
Read: Ukraine’s most lethal soldiers
This campaign is not new. I spoke with a Ukrainian officer responsible for helping coordinate the long-range-bombing campaign, and he told me that “sporadic” attempts to hit targets deep in Russia began immediately after the start of the invasion. After the Ukrainians received some American drones under the aegis of a program called Phoenix Ghost, their efforts became more serious. Made for different kinds of wars, the American drones were susceptible to Russian jamming, and the U.S. imposed restrictions on their use. One former soldier now involved in drone manufacturing told me that the Ukrainians weren’t necessarily prepared to use them either. He and some colleagues found boxes of drones in a warehouse along with some other U.S. equipment in the first year of the war, and figured out how to use them from videos they found on the internet. Only later did they receive real instruction. (I agreed not to identify the officer or the former soldier, who fear for their security.)

Whatever their faults, these American donations did inspire the creation of long-range-drone units. Some are part of the military; others are connected to Ukrainian intelligence. As they grew to understand the technology, the commanders of these units, just like the teams deploying battlefield drones and sea drones, concluded that they needed their own drones, as well as their own drone research and development, with a constant feedback loop between the operators on the front lines and the industrial engineers. As the officer told me, “Everything interesting started a year ago, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine started to receive mass numbers of Ukrainian-made drones.” Once their own production lines were in place, they were not trapped by technology invented somewhere else, and they could continually update it to counter advances in Russian tactics and electronic-warfare technology: “What we had two years ago or a year ago,” the officer said, “it’s dramatically different from what we are operating right now.” A weapon that worked last winter might no longer have been useful over the summer.
As a result of both new technology and expanded capacity, the numbers of attacks inside Russia have increased. The officer told me that Ukraine’s long-range-drone units now launch several dozen strikes on Russia every night.
Until recently, the impact of the long-range-drone campaign was hard to measure. The Ukrainians do not always admit to hitting targets deep inside Russia, and many of the targets are in obscure places, where no one is around to record the strike on a cellphone. Russian authorities also make a major effort to hide these strikes and the damage they do, both from their own population and from the rest of the world. On one occasion, Ukrainians learned from satellite pictures that their drones had successfully struck a military airport. They could see debris, oil spills, and other evidence of a successful attack. Just three hours later, all of that evidence was gone: The Russians had cleared the airfield and cleaned the tarmac.

Sometimes evidence emerges anyway, usually via a home video, posted to Telegram, made by a Russian who happens to be near a burning factory or exploding refinery and is shouting for his wife to come and look. But even so, it can be hard to know whether these dramatic fires are caused by drones or by Ukraine’s even more clandestine sabotage campaign inside Russia, alleged to have both Russian and Ukrainian participants. The vacuum has left the field open for what the officer called “fake experts,” and sometimes false claims from those who want to steal credit.
But the Ukrainian military does keep careful track of the damage being done, and has thought carefully about how to prioritize certain targets. It has disrupted airports and hit weapons factories and depots. The Ukrainian officer told me that, early on in the war, his colleagues realized that the Russians are not deterred by the deaths of their soldiers: “Russia can sustain extremely high levels of casualties and losses in human lives. They don’t care about people’s lives.” However, “it is painful for them to lose money.” They need money to fund their oligarchy, as well as to bribe their soldiers to fight: “So naturally, we need to reduce the amount of money available for them.” Oil and oil products provide the majority of Russia’s state income. This is how the oil industry became the Ukrainians’ most important target.
The campaign against the oil industry has been helped by the degradation of Russian air defenses, which had been moved closer to the border of Ukraine and at the moment aren’t numerous enough to cover every possible economic target across a very large country. Since August, 16 of 38 Russian refineries have been hit, some multiple times. Among them are facilities in Samara, Krasnodar, Volgograd, Novokuibyshevsk, and Ryazan, among others, as well as oil depots in Sochi; an oil terminal at Primorsk, in the Baltic; and pumping stations along another pipeline that supplies crude oil in Ust -Luga, in the northern part of the Baltic. In August, the Ukrainians also hit the Unecha pumping station, a crucial part of the Druzhba pipeline that links Russia and Europe and still supplies oil to Hungary and Slovakia, the two European countries that have sought to block or undermine sanctions (and the only two European NATO states who, alongside Turkey, import Russian oil at all).

The result: Russian overall oil exports are now at their lowest point since the start of the war, and the Russians are running out of oil at home. The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces has said that more than a fifth of Russian refining capacity has been destroyed. The regime has banned the export of refined oil products, because there isn’t enough for the domestic market. Gas stations are closed or badly supplied in areas across the country, including the suburbs of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Telegram accounts post videos of cars waiting in enormous lines. Earlier this month, Izvestiya, a state-owned newspaper, actually admitted to its readers that severe fuel shortages are spreading across central and eastern Russia, as well as in Crimea, a problem it attributed, laughably, to “the seasonal increase in fuel demand and the growth of tourism activity.”
Quietly, Europeans are backing Ukraine’s strategy. The Germans will invest $10.5 billion in support for Ukraine this year and next, a large chunk of which will be spent building drones. Sweden has pledged $7.4 billion. The European Union’s decision to invest $6 billion in a “Drone Alliance” with Ukraine is mostly designed to build anti-drone defenses along Europe’s eastern border, but that money will also accelerate production and benefit Ukraine as well.
Both the Ukrainians and their European allies are also looking harder at the so-called shadow fleet, the oil tankers now traveling around the world under flags of convenience, fraudulent flags, or no flags at all, carrying illicit Russian oil. Many are old, dangerous boats, with inexperienced crew and little or no insurance. Some have been involved in accidents already, and they could do real environmental damage in the Baltic Sea. Sweden, Germany, and Denmark have all announced that they will check the papers of these shadow tankers and sanction those that aren’t insured, adding them to a growing list of sanctioned ships. The point, for the moment, is not just to protect the environment but to raise the costs of Russian oil exports and thus to reduce the amount of money flowing into Russia and back up Ukraine’s air campaign. More extreme measures, including banning these unmarked, uninsured ships from the Baltic altogether, are under consideration too.

But that will take time, which no one in Ukraine wants to waste. No one wants to wait for Trump to impose new sanctions on Russia either. Drones, which can defend the front line and take the battle deep into Russia, can do more. In an address to the nation on September 14, Zelensky put it very clearly: “The most effective sanctions—the ones that work the fastest—are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots.” In the absence of an American policy that offers something other than rhetoric, the Ukrainians, backed by Europe, will pursue their own solution.

Brezhnev's Adopted Russian Soldier Great-Grandson Captured By Ukraine Troops

2026-06-20T11:37:32.484-04:00

Awkward, but also interesting that a middle-aged descendent of a former Soviet Supreme Leader would volunteer in the fall of 2025 to serve in the Russian army in Ukraine.

That was a period when it was already apparent that the Russian invasion was failing and the military service in Ukraine was a bloodbath for Russian men. Did he need the money? Was his family under political pressure? It is odd that a member of the elite would agree to serve given that the entire Russian system is designed to protect such people from such obligations. JL

Vladislav V reports in Militarnyi:

Anton Milaev, the 45-year-old adopted great-grandson of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, was captured by Ukrainian forces while fighting for the Russian army in the war against Ukraine. In the fall of 2025, he signed a contract with the Russian army and went to war as a combat engineer (sapper). By November, he had stopped communicating with his family. The family later received information that Milaev was being held as a prisoner of war in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Kherson region.
Anton Milaev, the 45-year-old adopted great-grandson of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, was captured by Ukrainian forces while fighting for the Russian army in the war against Ukraine.
The Ukrainian news outlet Babel reported the development.
The story was initially published by the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Baza and was later confirmed to Babel by sources in Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

According to the publication, Milaev is the adopted grandson of Galina Brezhneva, the daughter of Leonid Brezhnev. In the fall of 2025, he signed a contract with the Russian army and went to war as a combat engineer (sapper). By November, he had stopped communicating with his family.
The family later received information that Milaev was being held as a prisoner of war in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Kherson region.
As previously reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine had approved a new procedure for payments related to the capture and elimination of Russian servicemen.

A reward of 100,000 hryvnias is offered for the capture of an enemy serviceman. The amount will be divided proportionally among the soldiers who directly took part in the capture.

The measure is expected to increase the number of prisoners of war captured, who could later be exchanged for Ukrainian troops. Eligibility for the payment requires proper verification of the capture, including video documentation of the prisoner being taken into custody.

Ukraine's Drones Are Destroying Russian Jammers Designed To Stop Them

2026-06-20T11:04:13.393-04:00

Among the Russian military's many problems is that when it comes to jamming Ukrainian drones, they are not just fighting the last war, they are fighting last year's technology.

The Russians have deployed massive, six trailer, eight dish jamming complexes costing millions. But the Ukrainians are now using advanced, AI-driven drones that don't depend on the signals the Russians are trying to jam and, in fact, can target the vast amount of heat those Russian systems give off. The result is that the jammers have become a prized and easily identifiable target for Ukrainian drone operators. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

The Russians are trying to even the aerial balance of power by jamming Ukraine's Starlink terminals. There are just two problems. The jammers aren't foolproof defenses. And they're also big, expensive targets for the same drones they're trying to defeat. A single Volna Kupol Garant complex includes six trailers, each with eight dishes, each tuned to one Starlink channel in the 14–14.5 GHz band, costs $1.5 million. Each could jam Starlink signals over 20 square kilometers. But There's no hiding when you're beaming 62.5 MHz jamming signals into the air from a cluster of six dishes. (And as if that weren't bad enough) a growing share of Ukrainian strike drones carry onboard AI that locks onto targets without a live connection to a pilot—so a $1.5 million jammer built to break that connection has nothing left to break.

Without warning back in February, trillionaire Elon Musk's Starlink firm bricked thousands of stolen and smuggled satellite terminals used by Russian forces in Ukraine. But Ukraine's own Starlink terminals kept working just fine.
The move abruptly handed Ukraine a major communications advantage. Ukrainian drones can navigate and communicate; Russian drones are struggling. It's no coincidence that, in the months following the Russian Starlink shutdown, Ukraine was able to massively scale up its medium-range drone strikes on Russian supply lines in occupied territories. Hamstrung in the electromagnetic spectrum, Russia hasn't been able to match these counterlogistics strikes.
The catch is that the link Russia is paying to sever is one Ukraine's most advanced drones no longer need. A growing share of Ukrainian strike drones carry onboard AI that locks onto targets without a live connection to a pilot—so a $1.5 million jammer built to break that connection has nothing left to break.
Nevertheless, the Russians are trying to even the aerial balance of power by jamming Ukraine's Starlink terminals. There are just two problems. The jammers aren't foolproof defenses. And they're also big, expensive targets for the same drones they're trying to defeat.
According to Drone Brotherhood, the three-year-old Volna Kupol Garant electronic warfare complex is a "Starlink countermeasure." A single Volna Kupol Garant complex includes six trailers, each with dish that broadcasts a 62.5 MHz signal tuned to disrupt Starlink channels.
Ukrainian drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov estimated a single Volna Kupol Garant system with eight dishes, each tuned to one Starlink channel in the 14–14.5 GHz band, costs $1.5 million. Each could potentially jam Starlink signals over an area of 20 square kilometers. In theory, any Starlink-equipped drone that flies within the effective range of a Volna Kupol Garant complex would lose its connection to its remote operator, possibly sending it careening into the ground.

It's not for no reason the Russians have reportedly deployed Volna Kupol Garants along some of the main supply routes where Ukrainian drones are thickest in the sky. Striking hundreds of Russian trucks a day, day after day, Ukraine's drone units have forced Russian logisticians to switch to longer, less efficient secondary routes.

The Russians have also responded by deploying more mobile air-defense teams and more jammers such as the Volna Kupol Garant. While an air-defense team has some chance of shooting down any drone it can draw a bead on, a jammer only works against a drone that requires a radio connection to a remote operator.

Ukraine's AI assistance
One problem for the Russians is that many of the Ukrainian drones prowling the Russian logistical zone have built-in AI for targeting. Far better AI than the Russians themselves posses. Such drones, including the American-designed Swift Beat Hornet, can spot and home in on targets all on their own.
Yes, a Hornet has a human operator, but their job is just to approve the targets the Hornet designates. All that is to say, Hornets and other AI drones don't depend on uninterrupted, low-lag communications by Starlink or any other method. They're not impossible to jam but they are very hard to jam.
Worse for the crews of the Volna Kupol Garant complexes, it takes a lot of power to disrupt a Starlink signal. The Volna Kupol Garant emits so much electromagnetic energy that it's easy to detect. There's no hiding when you're beaming 62.5 MHz jamming signals straight into the air from a cluster of six dishes.
"In the future this problem will be corrected," Drone Brotherhood predicted, although it's not clear how. Jamming requires power. Jamming a signal from space requires lots of power. Even if the Volna Kupol Garant can be redesigned to be less obvious, that will take time. For now, each complex emits like a beacon, practically begging for Ukrainian intelligence to locate them, and for unjammable Ukrainian drones to strike them.
Indeed, Ukraine's 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment recently hit two separate Volna Kupol Garant complexes. It's yet another case of Russia's drone jammers getting droned. And further evidence that Russia is still struggling to close the gap between Ukraine's expanding and improving drone force (with strong Starlink connectivity and effective AI assistance) and its own hobbled drone force (with no Starlink and worse AI).

Hating AI Data Centers Has Become A Winning Political Issue

2026-06-20T10:44:11.332-04:00

In a politically fractured society, opposition to data centers may now be the only issue on which those diametrically opposed to each other agree. The tech and AI industry just don't get it. They appear to believe that Americans can be overawed by their wealth and power. That AI and the data centers that power them are inevitable and everyone will have to buckle under. But just as 'the experts' believed Putin's takeover of Ukraine was inevitable and that Donald Trump's ability to get anything he wants is inevitable, people are stepping up to oppose the inevitability cabal.

Graduating university students walking out or demonstrating against graduation speakers have become the headline this spring but their motives are being inaccurately ascribed to fear about jobs. It is clearly far larger than that. It is about frustration with corruption, greed, unbridled corporate power and returns from a potentially society-altering technology being delivered to a miniscule few. Those in tech and finance may believe that their lobbying dollars will win the day, but they are not changing the underlying socio-economic resentment and frustration which will - inevitably - boil over. JL

Tressie Cottom comments in the New York Times:

Americans hate data centers. 71% of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area. More than half of all Americans support a national ban on them. In our virulently partisan country, this constitutes a rare show of consensus. The imminent risk of living next to a data center may be why they show up for a meeting, but they’re committing to the issue for bigger, deeper reasons (like) political corruption and corporate malfeasance. CEOs, financiers and developers present AI as an inevitability Americans must adopt, lest they be left behind, that data centers are necessary and public dissent is naïve or, un-American in contempt for the people who dare to do it. (But) people experience data centers locally, in dirty water and overtaxed electrical grids. The voters showing up to fight data centers demonstrate that a lot want something different.
Americans hate data centers. They really, really hate them.
A Gallup poll from May found that 71 percent of Americans would oppose a data center being built in their area. In rural communities in Utah and North Carolina, regular people are organizing to stop data center construction, speaking out at public hearings and pressuring politicians for bans. They are passionate enough to attend political education sessions about water rights, land use and thermodynamics. Cities like Tulsa, Okla.; Birmingham, Ala.; and New Orleans have recently passed temporary moratoriums on data center construction. Last week, lawmakers in New York passed a statewide pause on large-scale data centers; other states, including Maryland and Michigan, could be next.
According to polling by Heatmap News, more than half of all Americans support a national ban on data centers. The public seems to agree that data centers are giant, ugly, noisy, smelly altars to industrial-scale hostile architecture. In our virulently partisan country, this constitutes a rare show of consensus.
I have been watching this new groundswell of dissent firsthand in community meetings, organizing sessions and civic trainings here in North Carolina. The resistance has lifelong joiners, alumni from environmental and housing movements and young organizers. There are also a lot of people who have never dreamed of being disagreeable in public, much less considered joining a raucous social movement. The imminent risk of living next to a data center may be why they show up for a meeting, but they’re committing to the issue for bigger, deeper reasons. Political corruption and corporate malfeasance make them feel politically impotent. Voicing their objections, sharing their anxieties with others, recalling politicians who override them and in some cases beating the opposition is giving them something few politicians are offering — a taste of political power.
Their energy has the potential to distill the diffuse political dissatisfaction and ambient anti-establishment sentiment of the moment into a political movement that wins elections. That’s a mix so potent that it makes strange bedfellows of me and Steve Bannon. I loathe his politics, but he also sees what I see in the populist impulse of resisting artificial intelligence. MAGA hates data centers, too. But really, it is a political opportunity that could go to any party that seizes it. Democrats need organized voters. The political mobilization that the civil rights movement built and that has propelled Democrats to victories across the country is aging. The G.O.P. is racing to disorganize and dilute Black electoral power across the South, and the Voting Rights Act is all but dead. Your guess about the Democratic Party’s plan to fill the gaps is as good as mine. The party seems to want some kind of economic populist message without embracing the demographic reality that a member of the working class is just as likely to be Black or a woman as a white dude in a Carhartt. Whether the data center resistance is a blip or a beginning of a new political imagination, it refutes the idea that you cannot have it all: populist energy, an economic message and a multiracial coalition that crosses class divides, in the South and beyond. Why aren’t Democrats jumping at the chance to get into the fight?
Money is the most obvious explanation. Data center infrastructure is a marriage of the technology and energy sectors. Separately, the two industries are economic powerhouses; united, they are a behemoth. A.I. interests are well on their way to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on state and federal elections in this midterm cycle, when there are far too few competitive races to influence. The A.I. industry’s deep pockets are making candidates on the left and the right cagey. Important, too, is the seductive cultural narrative that flows from the pro-data-center camp. A powerful bench of celebrity chief executives, exuberant financiers, developers and futurists consistently present artificial intelligence as an inevitable technology Americans must adopt, lest they be left behind. If you accept the inevitability thesis, you are likely to believe that data centers are necessary and public dissent is naïve or, worse, un-American.
It’s not just contempt for dissent; it’s contempt for the people who dare to do it. Scott Furgeson, the mayor of Shelbyville, Ind., was caught on tape describing local data center opposition as poor people who live in “shitty houses.” The phrasing is crude, but his comments make the class politics — shared by plenty of wealthy Democrats — clear: Winners get rich, losers don’t, and questioning how winners win is why losers are poor.
Centrist Democrats’ penchant for technocratic tweaks over big ideas is another factor. Abigail Spanberger, Virginia’s governor, is taking the third-way approach to data center resistance in her state. She campaigned on the idea that data centers should pay their fair share of the electricity costs they generate. But the governor recently refused to end the tax incentives for their construction, even though two-thirds of Virginia voters would support such a move. Savvy voters surely view Spanberger’s approach as a political concession to corporate interests. I find centrism to be uninspired political messaging under the best of circumstances, but when the powerful are radically restructuring our politics, economy, relationships and environment, technocratic tinkering is political malpractice. Even a brave candidate willing to propose big ideas will have to solve data centers’ geography problem. For the last decade, U.S. electoral politics has been preoccupied with national political posturing, so much so that even state or local races can hinge on a candidate’s opinion on the president or a war halfway around the world. This shows no signs of waning, while the populist energy of the data center resistance is hyperlocal. People experience data centers locally, in dirty water and overtaxed electrical grids. Organizing and political education are also local affairs. Running on data center resistance may at first appear too local to attract national interest and the funding that comes with it.
Despite the challenges localism presents, it is also what makes this issue Democrats’ greatest untapped opportunity. Data centers evoke strong emotions because they are tangible. Voters can hear them, smell them and see them. Because of this, they are a balm to typical, national political partisanship that keeps communities divided. The more people think of politics through a national framework, the more they obsess over political rhetoric that plays on tribal concerns. But when political problems become local, people can be persuaded to look beyond their party affiliation or even their own social class to help one another. That is to say, it may be harder to find a national message that converts the local rage against data centers, but that is also why such a message could be a powerful antidote to partisan nihilism.
A few of the usual suspects are trying to craft that message.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has made a proposal that focuses on taxation of A.I. firms and mandating transparency about how the A.I. boom is shaping companies’ financial risks. All of these are good-faith attempts to respond to voters’ anger, but Warren’s message is too wonky to match the moment.
Senator Bernie Sanders has gone further, floating a big idea that’s consistent with his brand of democratic socialism. He called for a national data center moratorium and labor protections for workers displaced by A.I., and he is proposing the “American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act” to give the American public shared ownership, and therefore control, over A.I.’s expansion and its profits. But Alex Hanna, the director of the Distributed A.I. Research Institute, told me that a wealth fund act would enshrine the tech sector’s as-yet-unproven claims of its importance. This is the risk of treating A.I. as something that is as important as humans discovering fire and inventing the wheel. That’s zealotry. It has no place at a tent revival.
Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ro Khanna of California are going after data centers with an organizer’s flair for spectacle and an anti-oligarchy message. Khanna has called data centers extractive and uses them as justification for his proposed wealth tax. Ocasio-Cortez visited Georgia and spoke to families who claim to be adversely affected by the presence of data centers, including a Meta-owned hyperscale campus a one-and-a-half-hour drive east of Atlanta. She returned to Capitol Hill with two Mason jars of dirty water that she blamed on the data center. (A Meta spokesperson told CBS News that its operations were unlikely to have polluted the area’s water.) State and local politicians, many of them younger and more to the left than the party’s leaders, are taking a similar tack.
The voters showing up to fight data centers demonstrate that a lot of us want something different.

Ukraine's Siege of Russian-Occupied Crimea Has Begun

2026-06-19T10:55:18.798-04:00

By air and sea, Ukraine's increasing volume of attacks on Russian military targets in occupied Crimea have isolated the peninsula. This has made the occupation more difficult and less beneficial economically, militarily - and diplomatically.

The one asset most of the world -including the Russian people - thought would be forever under Putin's control is now threatened. JL

Ilya Timtchenko reports in the Center for European Policy Analysis:

This is very much a siege in the modern sense, with serious effects resulting from militarily enforced isolation. Russia has reduced Crimean train services, vacationers are canceling their bookings, and drivers are forced to line up for fuel. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted military logistics routes, including the bridge linking Kherson Oblast with Crimea, causing a sharp fall-off in traffic. It has also hit oil refineries, Russian vessels, and air defenses. Kyiv is increasingly confident that it can build a kill zone over occupied territories to push the Russians out. As reunification of Crimea with Ukraine becomes a realistic possibility in the eyes of Western skeptics, Ukraine can expect more diplomatic and military support for de-occupation. The prospect of losing Crimea increases Putin’s troubles, since the one victory Russians were certain his regime could guarantee is now being questioned.
Ukraine has been forcefully striking strategic routes that act as a lifeline for Russia’s military occupation of Crimea. At the same time, the Kremlin talks tough and is in denial about the possibility of losing territory it has illegally occupied since 2014.
Predominantly using drones, Ukraine has repeatedly targeted military logistics route R-280, which connects Simferopol and Mariupol, including the bridge linking Kherson Oblast with Crimea. The results can be spectacular (see here) and have caused a sharp fall-off in truck traffic. It has also hit oil refineries, Russian vessels, and air defense systems on the peninsula.
This is very much a siege in the modern sense of the term, with serious effects resulting from militarily enforced isolation. It is making the occupation harder. Russian authorities have suspended and reduced passenger train services in Crimea, potential vacationers are canceling their summer hotel bookings, and hundreds of drivers are forced to line up for fuel.
“We will… make it extremely difficult for any military personnel or those working in the defense industry to remain in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories, or use the access routes to them,” Ukraine drone commander “Magyar” Brovdi told Reuters on June 11.
Just the thought of Russia losing control over Crimea is humiliating for the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin’s regime has heavily invested in propaganda to persuade the West to accept its annexation as a done deal and the peninsula as truly Russian.
The narrative was so heavily pushed that it was repeated by senior Western policymakers, including Croatian President Zoran Milanovic in 2023 and Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto in October, drawing criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (Crimea is in fact more like a crime scene after more than 200 years of ethnic cleansing, as any Crimean Tartar will explain.)
Kyiv has insisted Crimea is only “temporarily occupied” ever since it was annexed in 2014, and the tide is changing in its favor as it pushes the limits of defense innovation. It is increasingly confident that it can build a kill zone over all the occupied territories to push the Russians out.
The evolution and expansion of drone production have increased Kyiv’s ability to strike targets throughout the occupied territories and beyond, undermining Moscow’s claims that Crimea has been permanently lost to Russia. Igor Girkin, a former FSB colonel and Russian nationalist who played a key role in the annexation of the peninsula, is one of several who have sounded the alarm about Russia’s vulnerabilities there.

As the reunification of Crimea with Ukraine becomes a realistic possibility in the eyes of Western skeptics, Ukraine can expect more diplomatic and military support for de-occupation. And the prospect of Russia losing control of such prized Ukrainian territory carries massive symbolic weight.
The peninsula’s cities, such as Yalta and Sevastopol, were heavily integrated into Soviet mythology due to their military significance in World War II and the Cold War. “In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia,” Putin said at the time of the annexation in March 2014. He has repeatedly said the issue of Crimea is “closed.”
But each Ukrainian drone strike shakes Russian confidence.
When Putin annexed Crimea, he could not have imagined the possibility of swarms of drones and an innovative Ukrainian military-industrial complex threatening his grip. Indeed, eight years later, he believed he would be able to take Kyiv in three days with little damage to his forces.
Russian hubris has meant strategic assets and routes remain exposed and poorly defended, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack them drone by drone. Russia is failing to replenish resources and shore up defenses, and, if the Kerch Bridge is destroyed or made unusable, the outlook for Moscow will be even tougher.
The strategic advantage of Ukraine regaining control over Crimea cannot be overestimated. It would give it a much stronger posture to protect its trade routes and interests on all sides of the peninsula, including the Azov Sea and the Black Sea trade and military corridors.
The Russian narrative would also shatter, resulting in a shift of momentum that could help drive the liberation of other occupied areas.
The prospect of losing Crimea increases Putin’s troubles at home, since the one victory Russians were certain his regime could guarantee is now being questioned. This pressure will have significant implications at the negotiating table, and Putin’s demands that Ukraine cede the Donbas will further weaken.
Growing pressure is rebalancing leverage in Ukraine’s favor and helping Kyiv get closer to the prospect of discussions centered on the pre-2014 territorial settlement.
The outcome is still far from certain, but Putin’s options are being narrowed, pushing him closer to the reality that coming to the negotiating table and ending the war is his only choice.

"If Ukraine Burns, So Will Moscow:" Russian Capitol Chaos From Huge Drone Strike

2026-06-19T10:32:51.479-04:00

The massive Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow, following by a few days Russia's intentional strike on a World Heritage site cathedral in Kyiv has, by now, received extensive coverage. Which was, arguably, the primary point.

The Kremlin's unwritten social contract with the Russian people was that Putin be allowed to pursue his increasingly ineffective invasion of Ukraine so long as the elites in Moscow and St Petersburg were not affected. That is clearly no longer the case. In addition to the economic dislocations, Muscovites and St Petersburgers must now face the reality that their lives could be in danger in their homes, on the way to work, shopping at malls or in otherwise random situations due to Ukraine's drone attacks. This despite the Kremlin bolstering air defenses around the Russian capitol. These attacks not only reduce gasoline availability (plus raising prices) and reduced air quality as well as creating a physical hazard, but they serve to undermine a key tenet of Putin's rule, which was that he was a master strategist and manager. That reputation is in doubt. along with its implication of weakness, which, in Russia, does not usually bode well for longevity of rule or life. JL -

Abbey Fenbert and Tania Myronyshena report in the Kyiv Independent:

Ukrainian forces struck the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Russian capitol on June 18, the second attack on the facility in a week. (It) is one of the largest in Russia, supplying 40% of Moscow's fuel and the majority of the region's gasoline. It provides aviation fuel to all four of Moscow's major airports. The attack caused major disruptions to air travel, with Aeroflot canceling 170 flights. Footage from residents show fires at the oil refinery, the top floors of a high-rise building, and damage to a building at the Sadovod shopping center. Drone debris also damaged a fitness center, a shopping center and an industrial site in Lyubertsy, while fires and damage were reported on houses in Chekhov and Pavlovsky Posad. Russia bolstered air defenses in the capital, deploying new Pantsir-SMD-E s on rooftops but these have not stopped Ukrainian drones from striking the city twice in the past week.

Ukrainian forces struck the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Russian capital's Kapotnya district overnight on June 18, marking the second attack on the facility in a week, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on X.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said around 8 a.m. local time that approximately 180 Ukrainian drones had been shot down on the outskirts of the capital. With the attack still ongoing at the time of his statement, Russian air defenses intercepted another 14 drones over the following hour, bringing the total to 194 — the largest reported Ukrainian attack on Moscow to date.
Russian air defenses also downed 555 drones nationwide overnight, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Ukraine does not typically disclose the number of drones used in strikes on Russia.
"This is an entirely justified response to Russian strikes on our cities and communities and another important result of our warriors' work against facilities that support Russia's war machine," Zelensky said, adding that "it is time to end this war."
At least 17 people, including two children, were injured in Moscow Oblast in the attack, Russian authorities claimed.
The attack caused major disruptions to air travel, with state-owned airline Aeroflot and its subsidiary Rossiya canceling more than 170 flights to and from Moscow and delaying over 110 others, according to company statements.
Ukraine's General Staff confirmed the strike on the Moscow Oil Refinery, adding that at least five fires were recorded at the facility.

Preliminary data indicated that a combined oil processing unit, secondary refining units and a storage tank farm were burning, the General Staff said.
Industry sources told Reuters that the attack damaged the Euro+ combined oil refining unit, as well as secondary units, at the refinery.
Speaking to journalists on June 18, Zelensky warned that Ukraine would continue to respond if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to end the war.
"If Putin does not want to end this war, we will not sit quietly. We will respond, and the response must be strong. If Ukraine burns, so will Moscow," he said, describing the recent strike as a response to Russia's attack on the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra on June 15.
The president also called for increased pressure on Russia, arguing that sanctions should target the country's energy sector, shadow fleet, oil and gas revenues, banking system, weapons production, and defense industry.
"We have to make Russia feel that there is no point in continuing this war. Most importantly, the Russian people should begin to feel that one man, Putin, is waging this war, while ordinary people are paying the price," Zelensky said.
Zelensky added that pressure on the Kremlin should come from "all sides."
"Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans must all put pressure on Putin. Russians also need to wake up and put pressure on their leader," the president said.
Reacting to the strike on Moscow, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X that Russians asking "What is going on?" should direct the question to Putin.
"I can answer. Your country started a war of aggression against ours. For years, it has been killing our people. Now that you know what's going on, ask Putin when he is planning to end it," Sybiha wrote.
Photos and videos posted by residents to social media depicted fires and explosions in multiple locations across the city, including the refinery in the Kapotnya district. The Telegram monitoring channel Exilenova-Plus published footage from local residents showing fires at the oil refinery, the top floors of a high-rise building in flames, and smoke Sobyanin reported "minor damage" to a building at the Sadovod shopping center in the southeastern part of the city, while Moscow Oblast Governor Andrey Vorobyov said residential buildings in the Moscow suburbs were also damaged.
In the Zhukovsky district, a multi-story apartment building was damaged and residents evacuated, according to Vorobyov. Drone debris also damaged a fitness center, a shopping center and an industrial site in Lyubertsy, while fires and damage were reported on houses in Chekhov and Pavlovsky Posad.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify these reports at the time of publication.
The strike comes two days after Ukraine hit the Moscow Oil Refinery with long-range drones on June 16, in an operation President Volodymyr Zelensky called "a just response to Russian strikes."
The refinery is one of the largest in Russia, supplying about 40% of the Moscow fuel market and the majority of the region's gasoline. It also provides aviation fuel to all four of Moscow's major airports and has a processing capacity of more than 12 million tons of crude oil per year, according to Ukraine's General Staff.
The June 16 strike reportedly shut down operations at the Moscow Oil Refinery, according to Russian industry sources cited by Reuters. A previous Ukrainian attack on May 17 also halted production at the facility.
Reacting to the attack, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov promised fresh attacks on "targets upon which the combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian armed forces directly depends."
The threat does not represent any change in Moscow's policy of regular, often indiscriminate attacks on Ukrainian cities, including numerous mass missile and drone barrages against Kyiv over recent month.
"I believe that all the right words were said, but I have long been convinced that words are not enough," Lavrov told journalists on the sidelines of the Russia-ASEAN
A separate Ukrainian drone attack on Russian oil facilities was reported in Rostov Oblast, in the town of Gukovo.
Residents reported a massive fire in the area following a Ukrainian drone strike, according to images and footage circulated on social media. Astra reported that an oil depot in Gukovo was hit, according to an analysis of open-source data.
Later in the day, Ukraine's Special Operations Forces confirmed the strike on the Rostovnefteprodukt oil facility, adding that it was carried out in cooperation with a resistance movement on Russian territory known as Red Spark.

Rostov Oblast Governor Yury Slyusar claimed the drone strike killed one person and injured two others, who were hospitalized.

Slyusar also reported damage to a locomotive and fires at "two commercial facilities." He did not mention on oil depot or specify which facilities came under attack.
Gukovo lies near the Ukrainian border, only a few kilometers from occupied Luhansk Oblast.
Located near the Azov Sea and bordering Ukraine, Rostov Oblast plays a crucial logistical role for Russia's war effort due to its proximity to front-line operations. Oil depots, refineries, and other infrastructure in the region have repeatedly been targeted by Ukrainian strikes.
Ukraine has intensified its long-range strike campaign against military, industrial, and energy targets inside Russia in recent months, with drones repeatedly reaching Moscow and other regions hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
In response, Russia has bolstered air defenses in the capital, deploying new Pantsir-SMD-E air defense systems on the rooftops of civilian buildings in Moscow.
These measures have not stopped Ukrainian drones from striking the city twice in the past week.

Ukraine's Lyman Pincer Attacks Trap Russians With Zherebets Under Fire Control

2026-06-19T09:52:29.557-04:00

As they have done in other sectors at other times, the Ukrainians lured the Russians into a trap, allowing the Lyman salient to grow before launching pincer attacks from north and south while also establishing fire control over the Zherebets River crossings the Russians use to attempt resupply and reinforcement.

The result has created the makings of a cauldron in which Russian forces are trapped, increasing casualties and limiting their ability to defend against the Ukrainian breakthroughs. JL

RFU News reports:

North of Lyman, Ukraine launched a deep breakthrough into the northern part of the Russian salient, placing Russian soldiers inside in an operational encirclement. To the south, Ukraine conducted a similar pincer maneuver on Russian forces in Shandriholove. While Russian forces in these pockets are not fully encircled, Ukrainian pressure on their rear means Russian reinforcements are immediately tied down between the Ukrainian pincers. As Ukrainian forces expanded their breakthrough, attempts to rush reinforcements across the Zherebets River turned into another series of disasters. The Ukrainians have established firm FPV fire control over the crossings with even single Russian soldiers being targeted trying to cross the river, while the vehicles used to transport them to the crossing points further in the rear are hunted down by Ukrainian drone operators.
North of Lyman, after months of costly assaults, Russian attempts to advance were stopped dramatically by the Ukrainians. However, the Ukrainians did not simply sit behind their defensive lines waiting for the enemy to attack again, and prepared a plan to break the Russian lines wide open.
As Russian combat power and offensive capability drained, the Ukrainians maintained an active defense. The Ukrainian Third Army Corps conducted repeated local counterattacks, supported by artillery strikes and drone operations, which continuously drained Russian manpower and resources, preventing them from launching larger assaults. However, Ukraine was quietly preparing something larger.
The timing reflects months of preparation, as once Russian advances stalled, Ukrainian commanders gained the opportunity to rotate forces, improve logistics, accumulate reserves, and conduct extensive reconnaissance efforts. At the same time, Ukrainian strikes continued to degrade Russian supply routes over the Zherebets River by targeting pontoon bridges. As a result, by the time Ukrainian forces launched their offensive, Russian formations had already suffered heavy attrition while being stretched across an increasingly vulnerable salient.
As you remember, Ukrainians had jump-started their counterattacks by launching a deep breakthrough into the northern part of the Russian salient. Now, Ukrainians built on that momentum and quickly retook control of a forest strip to the west of here. This pincer attack cuts off consolidated Russian control over Ridkodub and places Russian soldiers inside in an operational encirclement.
However, the assaults did not end there; to the south, Ukrainians conducted a similar pincer maneuver on Russian forces in Shandriholove, cutting off Russian control of Serednie. While Russian forces in these pockets are not fully encircled, Ukrainian pressure on their rear means that any and all Russian reinforcements sent in are immediately tied down between the Ukrainian pincers. This then allows continuous FPV drone strikes to degrade Russian positions before Ukrainians move in and clear the full area without taking any friendly casualties.
Importantly, the Ukrainian Third Army Corps is extensively using ground attack drones to achieve its successes, as seen in various footage from the area. These ground drones allow Ukrainian soldiers at the tip of the pincers to maintain stable supply lines, with these robots being extremely resistant to Russian artillery and mortar fire, and even Russian FPV strikes.
Additionally, ground attack drones play a major role in their ground assault operations. Smaller vehicles akin to remote-controlled toy cars are strapped with explosives and driven straight into Russian bunkers or buildings, detonating and collapsing entire structures and strongpoints full of Russian soldiers at barely any cost.
Then, on the larger drones, Ukrainians mount heavy machine guns to engage Russian soldiers directly or suppress enemy positions, allowing Ukrainian assault troops to close the distance safely. These machine-gun ground drones excel at their task, as on the Ukrainian battlefield, staying light and mobile during an assault can mean the difference between life and death for soldiers under heavy enemy drone observation and strikes, as well as drawing enemy fire onto the way more heavily armored ground drone.
As Ukrainian forces expanded their breakthrough, Russian commanders attempted to rush reinforcements across the Zherebets River to stabilize the front. Understanding the importance of preventing this, the Ukrainians took countermeasures, and these efforts quickly turned into another series of disasters. The Ukrainians have established firm FPV fire control over the crossings, preventing the enemy from reinforcing the areas under Ukrainian attack. Released footage shows even single Russian soldiers being targeted while trying to cross the river, while the vehicles used to transport them to the crossing points are also hunted down by Ukrainian drone operators.
Overall, the Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russian salient near Li-man is steadily producing results by combining sustained attritional pressure with carefully prepared offensive operations. The Ukrainian forces have expanded their breakthrough and placed the entire salient under increasing risk of collapse, while the extensive use of ground drones continues to preserve Ukrainian lives while improving their battlefield effectiveness, allowing Ukrainian commanders to maintain relentless pressure on increasingly strained Russian forces. Through these developments, the Ukrainian battle to eliminate the Russian salient north of Li-man is showcasing how Ukraine transforms active defense into an offensive opportunity.

Why AI Chip Demand May Push iPhone Prices Above $1,299

2026-06-19T09:11:37.455-04:00

Apple's iPhone and other mobile manufacturers are about to raise their prices on the newest models as increasing demand versus limited supplies for DRAM memory chips from AI manufacturers drive up costs.

This is another example in a growing list of reasons why AI is likely to be inflationary. In this case, chip makers garner greater profit margins from enterprise chips relative to those made for consumer products. The interesting question is to what degree this may depress demand for mobile devices, which is already sparking a search for new sources, such as those in China. JL

Nicole Nguyen and Rolf Winkler report in the Wall Street Journal:

The global memory chip shortage is coming for the iPhone. Based on the current markup of memory and storage chips, projections show the price of the base model could rise by $200 or more. AI demand has created an unprecedented run on two types of memory chips, DRAM and NAND flash storage. Only a few companies, including Samsung and Micron, supply the market. Data centers training and running large language models are willing to pay a premium for these chips, so manufacturers are shifting production toward enterprise-scale components and away from the consumer business. The iPhone 17 Pro contains 12 gigabytes of DRAM and flash storage starting at 256 gigabytes. Prices for these components are projected to quadruple. The gross profit margin on the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro was 47%. To maintain that margin for the iPhone 18 Pro, Apple would have to charge $1,371. The starting price tag would more likely be $1,299, yielding a 44% gross profit.
The global memory-chip shortage is coming for the iPhone.
Apple AAPL 0.70%increase; up pointing triangle isn’t immune to soaring chip prices, Chief Executive Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal. When asked which devices would be getting price increases and when, Cook responded, “We’re still working through that.”
We’re likely to find out more this September, when the next iPhone and other devices are expected to arrive.
So for now, we decided to make an educated guess at how much more Apple hardware will cost, using the anticipated but as yet unannounced iPhone 18 Pro. Our analysis—based on the current markup of memory and storage chips and projections from research firm TechInsights—shows why the price of the base model could rise by $200 or more.
Sticker Shock
Apple must pay more for two memory-chip components, so the price it charges iPhone buyers also goes up
Bill of materials for iPhone 17 Pro
iPhone 17 Pro
base model cost
Estimated cost of
iPhone 18 Pro
Display
Main enclosure
Rear cameras
Rear camera
array
$125
$93
Processor
Processor
A19 Pro
$42
Display
Main enclosure
Memory
12 GB
DRAM
5G cellular
modem
Battery
$229
Storage
256 GB
Other
components*
5G cellular
modem
Memory
$39
Storage
$13
$145
Battery
$51
$582
$726
Apple’s cost
$1,299
$1,099
Retail price
(estimated)
*Includes conversion cost
Note: Processor and memory are stacked on same chip.
Source: TechInsights (component cost estimates); iFixit (hardware teardown)
Andrew Mollica/WSJ
Chip math
AI demand has created an unprecedented run on two types of memory chips, DRAM (aka dynamic random access memory) and NAND flash storage. Only a few companies, including Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology, supply the market.

Data centers used to train and run large language models are willing to pay a premium for these chips, so manufacturers are shifting production toward enterprise-scale components and away from the consumer business. That’s a problem for lots of electronics we might be shopping for, including new iPhones.
The iPhone 17 Pro contains 12 gigabytes of DRAM and flash storage starting at 256 gigabytes. Prices for these components are projected to quadruple by this fall, compared with last year, according to Mike Howard, director of memory markets at TechInsights.
He estimates that Apple paid about $39 for the 12GB of DRAM in the 17 Pro, but in the 18 Pro, the cost could reach $145. For the much cheaper flash storage, Howard says Apple paid around $13 for 256GB, and that price could rise to $51.
Wayne Lam, service director of wireless components at TechInsights, estimates that, besides DRAM and flash storage, Apple’s cost for iPhone 17 Pro parts and manufacturing is roughly $530. So when you add in the DRAM and flash storage, a base iPhone 17 Pro costs the company about $582, while its estimated cost for a starting iPhone 18 Pro will jump 25% to $726.

While Apple doesn’t report the gross profit margins on individual products, the TechInsights research suggests the margin on the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro was a tidy 47%. To maintain that profit margin for the iPhone 18 Pro, based on estimated costs, the company would have to charge $1,371. Because the company likes standardized pricing, the starting price tag would more likely be $1,299, yielding a 44% gross profit.
And this calculation doesn’t account for a potential new camera system that will also cost Apple about 50% more than previous models, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
In that case, following the same math, Apple could set the starting price of the iPhone 18 Pro at $1,399—or higher.

Putin Is Losing His War Against Ukraine Across Every Measurable Dimension

2026-06-18T10:34:20.145-04:00

Militarily, economically, strategically, reputationally...by every relevant measure of success, Putin and Russia are now losing the war with Ukraine.

Trump's admiration for him remains a strategic asset - perhaps his only other being Xi's belief that China must support Russia to further its own ambitions. But even Trump and Xi see the current failure and looming exposure. The only question now is whether Putin can devise an end to the war that does not also entail an end to his power and, probably, his life. JL

Mick Ryan reports in the Lowy Institute:

Putin, a leader who expected to take Kyiv in days, and who four years on is losing troops he cannot replace while his economy stalls and his standing erodes, is managing a slow defeat. On the battlefield, the momentum as moved in Ukraine's favor. In an age of open-source transparency, where anyone can follow the front line as well as nightly drone exchanges, it is hard to sell a story of advance when the data shows stagnation and constant long-range strikes by Ukraine. Russia’s disinformation machine is still busy, but it finds less purchase. Mass is not strength. Russia brought more people and more tanks but could not learn and adapt as fast as Ukraine, while Ukraine’s edge has come from bottom-up innovation and the speed with which a good idea reaches the front. Institutional adaptability has been the decisive military quality of this war.

On 3 June, as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared to open his flagship economic forum in St Petersburg, Ukrainian drones sent black smoke climbing over his home city(Opens in new window) and halted flights at its airport. A state that cannot protect the skies above its second city, during its premier investment showcase, in the president’s own birthplace, is not winning its war. The manner in which Russia is losing carries lessons for Australia.
The St Petersburg raid captures Russia’s trajectory in this war. Putin is losing in Ukraine – not in one or two dimensions but in every dimension by which strategic progress can honestly be measured: military, cognitive, moral, industrial and economic. His only remaining advantage is the disposition of the American president.
Begin with the battlefield. For the first time since the invasion began, Russia is losing more soldiers than it can recruit, with more than 160,000 killed or seriously wounded since January 2026 and a single-month record of 35,000 in March. (Opens in new window), according to the Ukrainian General Staff (Opens in new window). The price of taking Ukrainian territory has soared. According to figures from Russia Matters and the Ukrainian General Staff, Russia suffered 200 casualties for each square mile taken in 2025. In the first five months of 2026, with a net gain of 17 square miles, it suffered over 9,600 casualties for each square mile. In the past three months, the capture of ground believes momentum has moved in Ukraine’s favour(Opens in new window).
Authoritarian states are not ten feet tall and bulletproof.
The cognitive contest, long Moscow’s strong suit, is slipping. In an age of open-source transparency, where anyone can follow the front line and nightly drone exchanges, it is hard to sell a story of advance when the data shows stagnation and constant long-range strikes by Ukraine. Russia’s disinformation machine is still busy, but it finds less purchase in European capitals than it did in 2022.
Morally, Russia’s position is weakest of all. The documented record of how it fights, from the executions at Bucha to the deportation of close to 20,000 Ukrainian children(Opens in new window), which is the basis of an International Criminal Court warrant for Putin (Opens in new window), has demolished any claim to a just cause. Ukraine has registered more than 210,000 criminal proceedings arising from the invasion. Russian influence is shrinking even in its own neighbourhood. Pro-European governments have held or won power in Moldova, Hungary and Armenia(Opens in new window) despite heavy interference, while the Gulf states once thought to lean Moscow’s way now sign defence deals with Kyiv.
Industrially and economically, the trajectories diverge. Russia’s defence output is hitting its ceiling(Opens in new window) as sanctions and lost components bite, while Ukraine’s industry, backed by European money, now meets more than half its needs and can build millions of drones a year. Russia’s wartime growth has slumped (Opens in new window) towards 1% and the Kremlin is raising taxes and cutting spending. Higher oil prices (Opens in new window) from the Iran war offer a reprieve, but Ukraine is busy striking the terminals and refineries(Opens in new window) that convert that revenue before it reaches the Kremlin.
None of this means Russia is beaten. It holds significant ground, strikes Ukrainian cities, and has a strained but unbroken pool of personnel. And Putin’s relationship with Donald Trump is an asset no battlefield metric can capture. But a leader who expected to take Kyiv in days, and who four years on is losing troops he cannot replace while his economy stalls and his standing erodes, is managing a slow defeat.

Russia’s failure offers lessons for democracies, including Australia, that may one day have to deter or fight a larger authoritarian neighbour. As I argued in my recent Lowy Institute Analysis
(Opens in new window), nations like Australia are engaged in a global adaptation war against authoritarians – and must learn and adapt their systems accordingly.
The first lesson is that mass is not strength. Russia brought more people and more tanks but could not learn and adapt as fast as its enemy, while Ukraine’s edge has come from bottom-up innovation and the speed with which a good idea reaches the front. Institutional adaptability has been the decisive military quality of this war, and it must be built deliberately in peacetime, not discovered under fire.
The second lesson is that long wars are won in factories and budgets, as part of a mobilisation process that takes years to mature. Australia has kept its defence spending low, hollowed out its defence industries, holds shallow stockpiles, and studiously avoided the topic of national mobilisation in the 2026 National Defence Strategy. As the strategist Tom Mahnken puts it(Opens in new window), nations must prepare for a marathon, not a sprint, and Australia is built for neither.
The third lesson is that openness and legitimacy are strategic assets. Russia’s information dominance crumbled against transparency, its war crimes(Opens in new window) have stripped it of any moral claim, and its aggression only hardened the resolve of Ukraine’s supporters and drove once-neutral states such as Sweden and Finland into NATO(Opens in new window) Our democratic scrutiny, our allies and the legitimacy of a just cause are advantages to be pressed. But these must be defended and strengthened in peacetime to withstand the pressures and resist temptations of wartime, including censorship.
Authoritarian states are not ten feet tall and bulletproof. As history shows, and as Russia has demonstrated in Ukraine, they make catastrophic errors. They can be beaten, but only when democracies are clear-eyed about the threats, invest for the long haul, and sustain pressure long enough that an adversary’s losing becomes irreversible. Russia’s war has tested that proposition. Given the ongoing assertiveness from China, Australia’s politicians are being given a priceless education in what the defence of democracy looks like. Whether they learn from it is up to them.

AI Is Making Ukraine Anti-Drone Systems Faster, More Accurate and Deadlier

2026-06-18T10:15:14.901-04:00

The goal in deploying autonomous systems is to identify and destroy Russian drones (or vehicles and soldiers) faster and with greater accuracy while reducing the risk to Ukraine's human soldiers.

Ukraine's military, with the help of its buoyant tech sector, is now deploying drones that can do that at scale. As a result, Ukraine has eliminated dozens of Russian drones with AI-driven systems and expects that number to increase exponentially. JL

Maria Varenikova reports in the New York Times:

Earlier in the war, Ukraine relied on heavy machine guns, electronic warfare and missiles to bring down Shaheds. Last August, the Ukrainian military began to deploy interceptor drones piloted by humans. Now, Ukrainian interceptors have made dozens of A.I.-assisted strikes on Shahed-type drones since November. A.I. is used in terminal guidance systems, in which a weapon locks onto a target and completes its strike without further human intervention. A.I. systems can autonomously identify enemy vehicles. Some can single out enemy soldiers. The goal of the A.I.-driven system is to significantly shorten the time needed to detect and track enemy drones. With even more autonomy, interceptors could launch automatically after radar detects an attack.
At a launch site deep in a pine forest in central Ukraine, five men in balaclavas removed a camouflage cover from a lightweight replica of a Russian-made Shahed drone. “Pull!” one man shouted, and the winged, triangular drone flew up over the trees.
Standing nearby was a miniature black rocket with four propellers. This was the P1-Sun Long, one of Ukraine’s first interceptor drones powered by artificial intelligence. Trained to find and knock down Shahed-type aircraft, it, too, took off.
The P1-Sun reflects both the Ukrainian military’s embrace of A.I. and the rapid evolution of its defenses against Shaheds. Russia fires the drones — essentially flying bombs — into Ukrainian cities in relentless daily waves, destroying infrastructure, killing civilians and sowing terror.
Earlier in the war, Ukraine relied mostly on heavy machine guns, electronic warfare and occasionally missiles to bring down Shaheds. Last August, the Ukrainian military began to widely deploy interceptor drones piloted by humans, without A.I. Now, a major Ukrainian drone manufacturer, SkyFall, which conducted the recent test in the forest, says its interceptors have made dozens of A.I.-assisted strikes on Shahed-type drones since November, among thousands of interceptions overall.

The interceptor drones are among a range of A.I.-powered weapons that have been deployed in recent months after being trained on the immense troves of data that the war has produced.

These weapons include unmanned ground vehicles equipped with machine guns that use A.I. to help them quickly identify small quadcopters known as F.P.V. drones, because of the first-person view they offer to remote pilots. A.I. is also used in so-called terminal guidance systems, in which a weapon locks onto a target in its final approach and completes its strike without further human intervention.

Many A.I. systems under development can autonomously identify objects like enemy vehicles. Some, in a more sensitive potential application, can single out people, like enemy soldiers. SkyFall is among those quietly testing people-targeting capabilities in Ukraine. A.I. developers and Ukrainian leaders say they are aware of the risks as the war spawns a technological revolution. As an era of fully autonomous lethal weapons approaches, human rights groups say that reducing life-or-death decisions to an algorithmic calculation is a threat to humanity.At the same time, Ukraine is eager to use any technology that can increase its interception rate against Shaheds, and that means turning to highly automated air defenses.

As of now, A.I. does only part of the work. Humans remain involved in critical aspects.

SkyFall’s A.I. system has been trained on more than 10,000 videos of interceptions of Shaheds. According to Brave1, a Ukrainian government defense technology hub, dozens of companies are using the videos to train A.I. systems to recognize Shaheds.

SkyFall also regularly conducts exercises using replica targets, but it could not possibly fly enough decoys to fully train the system. During the recent demonstration in a small forest clearing, the pilot of the SkyFall interceptor, holding a remote control, guided it into the sky. The A.I. system was first to detect the Shahed decoy, long before the pilot could have. It marked the target with a green square on the pilot’s screen.

The pilot flew the interceptor drone toward the decoy until its shape was clear on his screen. Then he gave the auto-targeting system an order to follow it, and he let go of the controls. Once the interceptor had steered itself close enough to hit the Shahed, the pilot gave a final order, pressing the button to go in for the kill.

The goal of the A.I.-driven system is to significantly shorten the time needed to detect and track enemy drones. Recently, the Ukrainian defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said that a company participating in the Brave1 program had created a technology that automated 95 percent of the interception process.

This system cannot yet initiate a launch automatically. It takes over, Mr. Fedorov said, after an operator selects a target and authorizes engagement. From there, it independently guides the interceptor toward the Shahed, autonomously identifies it and homes in. The company is MaXon, a defense technology start-up founded early last year.

With even more autonomy, interceptors could stand ready to launch automatically after radar detects an attack. SkyFall says it is testing such a system.

The advances may eventually allow one pilot to oversee several missions, instead of just one at a time, as is the case now, helping Ukraine’s outmanned military.

In part because of its personnel shortages, Ukraine is producing a wide range of aerial, sea and land drones. The hundreds of companies producing the drones aim to make them as inexpensive and as automated as possible. According to the head of autonomy and computer vision for SkyFall, who asked not to be named for security reasons, his company alone can make 50,000 interceptors a month. A bigger challenge is training enough skilled pilots; they remain on duty around the clock.

Ukraine and other countries require highly autonomous systems to be able to operate at scale. Such development is important to Ukraine not just for its own defense, but also for its hopes of becoming a major defense exporter.

After the United States and Israel began their war against Iran this year, those two countries and Persian Gulf nations used hundreds of costly interceptor missiles to shoot down inexpensive Iranian-made Shaheds. Ukraine quickly offered its cheap interceptor drones, without A.I. systems, as an alternative.

Several Ukrainian companies have introduced remote-control technologies that allow missions to be piloted from Kyiv. Such offerings have helped Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, cut security deals with Gulf states. In return, Mr. Zelensky has hoped to receive U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, which Ukraine needs to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian leader has acknowledged the perils of A.I.-powered weapons, saying, “It’s only a matter of time — not much time — before drones are fighting drones, attacking critical infrastructure and targeting people all by themselves.” Weapons are evolving faster than humanity’s ability to protect itself, Mr. Zelensky said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September. As A.I.-enhanced drones got cheaper and proliferated, even small terrorist groups and cartels would use them in attacks, he said.

Officials at companies like SkyFall and military commanders continue to stress the need for human confirmation before completing a kill. But at this point it is clearly an ethical, rather than a technological, limitation, though discerning between friendly forces and enemy combatants remains a major challenge. The forest tests also involved applying A.I. to help F.P.V. drones find targets — both equipment and personnel — on the ground.

As a dark green minivan drove in and out of the trees, a pilot designated points near it as a target. The A.I. automatically adjusted its aim onto the vehicle.

In addition, the exercise involved identifying potential human targets: Members of the team walked around the clearing pretending to be Russians.

Developers from SkyFall, eating sandwiches and cookies, watched on a monitor while a drone’s A.I.-assisted targeting system located a colleague whose call sign was Forest. The system locked in on him and waited for the pilot’s order to strike or stand down.

Russian Mala Tomachka Motorbike Attack Smashed Before Ukraine Lines Reached

2026-06-18T09:44:51.322-04:00

Mala Tomachka has become the latest addition to the honor roll of legendary Ukrainian battles: Kyiv, Mariupol, Bakhmut, Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk et al.

A small settlement in Zaporizhzhia oblast, it has held out against Russian attacks for 1,500 days,; essentially since the Russians invaded.

This latest defeated Russian assault is significant primarily - or perhaps only - because it is emblematic of the way the war is going. The Kremlin orders a fruitless assault which is annihilated before the troops even reach Ukrainian defensive positions. A waste of Russian men and resources. JL

Valentyna Romanenko reports in Ukraine Pravda:

Ukraine's 118th Mechanised Brigade repelled a mechanised assault by Russian forces on Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Despite changing tactics and employing technical innovations, the Russians were defeated before they reached the settlement. The Russians deployed more than 30 motorcycles along three separate routes. The assault featured several innovations: some of the motorcycles were fitted with plough-like devices designed to clear minefields and several were equipped with mobile electronic warfare systems. (But), neither the timing nor the modifications helped. 26 Russian troops were killed, 10 were wounded and left behind, with Russian forces making no attempt to evacuate them. The Ukrainians destroyed 20 motorcycles and 10 all-terrain vehicles. The brigade reported no casualties among its own personnel. Mala Tokmachka has held out for 1,500 days.
Fighters of Ukraine's 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade, together with adjacent units, have repelled a mechanised assault by Russian forces on the village of Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Source: 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade
Details: The brigade reported that the Russian forces launched an unsuccessful assault on Mala Tokmachka using a composite motorcycle platoon. Despite changing tactics and employing technical innovations, the Russians were defeated before they reached the settlement, which Russian propaganda has claimed for the past year and a half to be under Russian control.
According to the Ukrainian military, several Russian motorised rifle regiments and brigades sent their troops into the assault at an unusual time. Instead of attacking at dawn or dusk, the assault began at 18:00 on 16 June, in broad daylight and with full visibility.
In an effort to maximise their chances of breaking into Mala Tokmachka, the Russian forces deployed more than 30 motorcycles advancing along three separate routes. The assault also featured several innovations:
some of the motorcycles were fitted with special plough-like devices designed to clear minefields;
several motorcycles were equipped with mobile electronic warfare systems.
However, neither the change in timing nor the technical modifications helped the Russians.
Over the course of several hours, soldiers of the 118th Brigade and attached units reportedly killed 26 Russian assault troops. More than 10 others were wounded and left behind, with Russian forces making no attempt to evacuate them, the brigade said. The Ukrainian troops also destroyed over 20 motorcycles and up to 10 all-terrain vehicles.
All of this occurred before the Russian forces reached the settlement itself.
The brigade reported no casualties among its own personnel.
For reference: The Romans' siege of Carthage lasted approximately 1,100 days. The Siege of Leningrad during World War II lasted 872 days, while the Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade lasted about 700 days.
Mala Tokmachka has been holding out for more than 1,500 days.