Ukraine

I read a news item about how the recent surge of drone aggression is stressing Ukrainians and affecting moral. It wasn't clear whether that was a propaganda piece meant to imply Ukraine is weakening, but I have noticed far fewer Zelenskyy updates in the past couple of months, and the feeling I get from even the pro-Ukrainian media that the invasion is wearing Ukraine down.

I just want Ukrainians to know that you're not forgotten. Even if you feel as if American attention has shifted to other concerns (we have our own crises and fascists now to occupy us), many of us are still staunchly supportive of the Ukrainian cause, and think about you, and donate to causes which we hope help.

Russia seems like a vast, unending well of cannon fodder. Your allies are fickle, at best. You just want to go back to normal lives, regular prosperity; you want your children back. I can't have any idea what you're going through is really like. For what it's worth, know that you have people around the world who sympathize and grieve with you, who are rooting for you, and most of all, who admire what you've achieved: David resisting a brutish and imperialistic Goliath for years, showing the world just how much how a strong and innovative people can accomplish.

I look forward to seeing what a peaceful, prosperous Ukraine makes of itself after the invaders have been defeated and pushed out. This invasion started with prognostications that Ukraine wouldn't last weeks; three years later, and you continue to defy the invaders. I do not doubt that you can persevere; I just want you to know that, despite the media attention on other struggles, you're not forgotten: we stand with Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini. Heroiam slava.

Загальні бойові втрати противника з 24.02.22 по 11.07.25 (орієнтовно)

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[UK] will provide for the delivery of more than 5,000 air defence missiles from Thales, which will not only significantly strengthen the UK's defence capabilities but also help Ukraine continue its resistance in the war launched by Russia.

The UK also confirms the provision of up to £283 million in bilateral assistance to Ukraine over the coming year.

"This announcement underlines our continued support for Ukraine – boosting their air defences against devastating drone and missile attacks and supporting the critical work to reconstruct this nation and provide the hope that they need," the government press service quoted UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner as saying.

The United Kingdom will allocate up to £10.5 million for the Governance Reform Programme and up to £1 million to support Ukraine's Green Transition Office in the 2025–2026 financial year.

The deal concerns the FZ275 LGR, a 70mm guided missile developed by Thales. Originally an unguided aviation rocket, the FZ275 LGR has been upgraded with a semi-active laser guidance system, giving it a strike range of up to 3,000 meters.

The missile is capable of intercepting drones, including those used in Russian attacks, and is compatible with the Vampire air defense systems currently deployed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This compatibility will allow mobile fire teams to supplement machine guns with guided munitions, providing a cost-effective alternative to more expensive air defense missiles.

https://united24media.com/latest-news/uk-to-send-5000-laser-guided-missiles-to-ukraine-in-landmark-defense-deal-9785

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2FECb2L45t8

I imagine the idea is to use a tried and true high quality but ultimately basic 70mm tube missile and aim it really smart which is a good cost effective way to deal with swarms.

EMONTS: That’s the main external difference between the two weapons. The guided rocket – or missile – does not need to spin, like their unguided counterparts which have ‘curved clams’ on the rear end. It needs to maintain a flat flight path. Therefore, we put canards behind the front. The canards maintain the flight trajectory after the engine is spent which takes around one second.

After the engine is spent, it becomes a ballistic munition and utilises gravitational forces to glide onto the target which has been established by the launching-platform via its Wescam sensor or by an external source such as a single soldier or UAV.

The gliding mechanism is what distinguishes the system from traditional missiles. However, the main benefit is that the FZ275 LGR is compatible with all current launchers that we have delivered to our customers. There are over 2,000 launch pods in use all over the world, and for each one a guided solution is feasible.

We have also developed lock-on-before-launch functionality, greatly reducing potential waste and unwanted collateral damage. This, in turn, improves survivability, since a helicopter can remain lethal outside of effective MANPADS range.

https://www.defenceiq.com/air-forces-military-aircraft/news/turning-dumb-rockets-into-smart-missiles-1

Mirror

https://t.me/wunderfpv/494

I don't necessarily agree with the author's worldview and politics, as a USian while I am wary of China the obsessive fear mongering over China as a distraction from talking about basic things like say getting people in the US good quality affordable healthcare is obnoxious and self defeating even if it is your job to analyze such things. My whole life US warhawks have been writing nonstop about war with China.. yeah it could happen but these kinds of people are monotone and exhausting... If you aren't from the US you don't probably have any idea how repeatedly this narrative is beat over USians heads. Even during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the US military industrial complex was loudly repeating to the US populace that this wasn't the actual war they were going to fight and we needed to remember that China was the real enemy.....

That being said, the analysis about the Russian war here is spot on. The thing was, the military veterans that were part of the US military industrial complex were right, years later we ended up in a near peer conflict with Russia fighting much more traditional fullscale combined arms armored warfare, but growing up during that time was being stuck between two different kinds of warhawks one right and one wrong...

ANYWAYS, despite all that Small Wars Journal has been consistently one of the more lucid and clear eyed publications on the kinds of wars the US was actually fighting and what the implications and consequences would therein be.

For Russia, 2024 brought another year of Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine. Russian personnel and equipment losses have been enormous, and territory gained in 2024 was trivial (Russia captured 0.67% of Ukraine in 2024), but the worst part for Russia was that it became even less competitive with the West. Two decades ago, when Putin came to power in Russia, it seemed obvious that Russia needed to shift away from the old Soviet mistakes of ruthless information control and an economy over-reliant on defense spending and oil and gas exports. However, instead of improving the education system, opening information flows, and building a modern and diversified economy, Putin followed the familiar, and doomed, Soviet path. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine radically accelerated these negative trends for Russia, and each day the war continues puts Russia further behind.

As was pointed out in last year’s assessment, Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine proved that thirty years of post-Soviet Russian Irregular Warfare against Ukraine failed, forcing Putin to choose between watching Ukraine join the West or launching the largest and most expensive war in Europe since World War II. Russia’s expensive war effort left it with no resources in 2024 to retain its former position in the Caucasus, where former ally Armenia is pulling out of Russia’s orbit, or in Syria, where Russia failed to save the Assad regime. Russia is receiving useful assistance from Iran and North Korea, but these partners will demand payment for their assistance.'

To give people some perspective on how someone watching from the US might see this war in a broader political context, the US militaries' involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan was in some ways a boon for the US military industrial complex, but it also was an existential threat. US forces using equipment they were trained to use to fight against a Russian cold war invasion (i.e. war in Ukraine) were being asked to do patrol missions and essentially function as a police force.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars became essentially a militarized police occupation. Initially this resulted in a very high lethality rate to US soldiers driving unarmored humvees around to conduct these patrols (the basic humvee is NOT armored, stock it is a utility vehicle not a combat vehicle). Mine Resistant Armored Personnel vehicles or MRAPs were developed quickly and fielded to save the lives of soldiers but this made the U.S. military industrial complex utterly freak out because it directly implied a future for the formerly glorious Soviet Union crushing US Military, the most powerful entity on earth!!! where it primarily functioned as a glorified police force.

Thus, even as MRAPs were being fielded and saving lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military was quickly moving to reject these armored vehicles in favor of more traditional lower profile armored vehicles optimized to survive against highly sophisticated and lethal direct fire anti-tank weapons, not a homemade bomb blast from below. The "obsolete" MRAPs actively saving soldiers lives needed to go somewhere however, so they were given to US police departments.

-good thing the U.S. military realized all those years ago that MRAPs would be needed in an extended conventional conflict too.... oh wait...

The transfer of MRAPs to police forces all over the US supercharged the process of the militarization of US police. Military types largely ignored this aspect however in favor of discussing how it was a good thing the US military could now focus on building an army to destroy China. Well... you have seen the impact of flooding US police forces with MRAPs has had... and paradoxically MRAPs are actually very useful for conventional warfare as logistics, resupply, troop ferrying and ambulance vehicles as Ukraine has demonstrated exhaustively.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/54646

This underlines that the reason the US military didn't want the MRAPs is the same reason the US military never bothered to develop MRAPs until US soldiers started getting blown up left and right in unprotected humvees patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is a good question, why isn't the US military taking back all the MRAPs it pawned off to police departments in the US and shipping them off to Ukraine after the police quietly admitted they didn't need that warlike of a vehicle to keep the communities they were part of safe???.......???

Trashing the blind self-destructive militarism of my society aside... the way Russia has evolved it's use of armored vehicles by comparison is shocking, it is blatantly obvious they haven't basically at all beyond innovating improvised drone defenses and it is catastrophic for them in this moment that they are trying to conduct a mind-bendingly massive infantry offensive without ANY effective armored personnel carriers. If you watch recent combat footage of Russians manuevering infantry with armor, the infantry is almost always ON TOP of the armored vehicle which is a direct admission those vehicles don't actually function as armored vehicles for the infantry or the armor crews.

You can say this is a difference in doctrine and yeah sure it is, the difference in doctrine is Russia doesn't protect its soldiers because it clearly does not care about their lives. This is especially true now that Ukraine is beginning to have a steady supply of artillery which Russia has not had to contend with up until this point.

Russian soldiers yell from the ditch nearby "Stalker are you gonna use that?"

Stalker laughs and says "no of course, take it just make sure to go back the same precise way I went in and you will be safe!"

On a serious note, this is a concrete example of how serious Russia's logistical issues are do to a logistics vehicle (especially lightly armored transportation vehicles/APCs) shortage.

Do a quick google search for "wars that were lost because a numerically superior army on the offensive overstressed and outran its logistics capability", it might be almost all of them.

Honestly this is a terrible strategy as how can Russia ensure that enroute that the carts don't become traps for the Russias meeting up to resupply from them? Either literally Ukraine could intercept and place explosives on the cart or an intelligence drone just follows the cart until the soldiers come out of the bushes to get their food and water and then the drone calls in an artillery strike.. end of story.. Humans driving a lightly armored logistics vehicle or an unmanned small ground vehicle driving erratically as it moves to an unknown destination would be much harder to predict. Really, in the day in age that FPV fiber optic drones can loiter and wait on the ground next to the tracks, this is the kind of solution you try when all of your good solutions are no longer available for you to choose. Russians are fools to continue this war.

Загальні бойові втрати противника з 24.02.22 по 10.07.25 (орієнтовно)

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The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 155 mm artillery shells and GMLRS (mobile rocket artillery) missiles were now being provided to Ukraine. The officials did not say how many weapons were being sent and whether the shipment was complete. It was also unclear why the latest shipments only included shells and artillery missiles and whether any decision had been made to resume shipments of other weapons.

The reduction in Patriot missiles is definitely a backhanded insult, but what matters is the 155mm shells, the fact that for now that delivery isn't disturbed means that Trump is at some level unwilling to really help Putin win the war at the pace he needs too. That is the answer to the question the article asks as well, the reason only the 155mm artillery shells are being delivered is because clearly that is what the relevant military people involved insisted on being necessary for aid to Ukraine, everything else could be cut even though it still hurt badly but the 155mm shells were a red line, if you don't listen to any of my ranting about artillery at least notice that.

In order for Putin to win, Ukraine needs to be desperately running out of 155mm artillery needed to hold back the Russian infantry advances across open terrain right now or else Putin will just break the Russian army upon the shores of devastating defensive artillery fire.

If you see Trump stop the 155mm shell deliveries than take this more as an existential threat, but even then European powers have already seen that they can't rely on the US to provide the bulk of Ukrane's 155mm artillery production and are taking steps to close that vulnerability.

I think the window for Putin to strike decisively has closed, from a logistics standpoint Russia can no longer assume the kind of dominance it would need to sustain this massively costly of an offensive for any serious length of time without being crushed. I think they are just counting on the rest of the world not realizing it long enough to accomplish their objectives.

(GMLRS are usually referred to as HIMARS)

https://english.nv.ua/amp/fighting-in-sumy-oblast-ukrainian-troops-launch-series-of-counterattacks-and-advance-50528377.html

edit here is an article

Unconfirmed but notice how this reality does not fit western media coverage at all.

The best Russia can hope for now is to scare Ukraine out of fighting any longer or conversely baiting Ukraine into a counterattack that they overcommit too.

The current Russian offensive is catastrophically unsustainable for the Russian warmachine, it won't work when they have fooled themselves into thinking demechanization was a good idea against artillery and that APCs are obsolete (no, Russia's APCs are obsolete, even their newest armor is still obsolete).

Ukraine will gain the operational freedom to f&$# up Russia bad soon, Ukraine needs to understand there is no more critical moment to retain poise and situational awareness, the rush of being able to decisively fight back easily overwhelms the war saturated defender's caution.

No let these coming counterattacks be calmly executed with precision to make Russia pay and not leave them a single inch to exploit in the associated manuevers.

As military analyst Stephen D. Biddle asserts, “Force em­ployment had played a more important role than either technology or prepon­derance for twentieth century war­fare.” Therefore, although military hardware matters, doctrine will have a greater role in enabling success on the battlefield.

...

Therefore, rather than narrowly apply­ing synchronization to direct and indi­rect fires, leaders must consider the synchronization of all friendly warfight­ing functions (WfFs), consisting of command and control, movement and maneuver, fires, intelligence, sustain­ment, and protection, as well as the desynchronizing of enemy WfFs.

In­telligence is its own breaching tenet, but degrading the enemy’s intelligence capability serves an equally important role. As another example, sustainment has a critical role in ensuring resources are available to the support, breach, and assault forces during all phases of the operation.

Additionally, vehicle re­covery plans are critical to prevent breach lanes from being blocked by im­mobilized vehicles. Shaping operations near Rivnopil which targeted RAF sus­tainment had both physical and moral effects on the defending company, and enabled 31st Mechanized Brigade’s assault. Thus, commanders and staffs must look beyond synchronizing friendly action and aggressively tear apart the enemy’s system.

https://www.army.mil/article-amp/286857/blocked_and_bloodied_lessons_from_the_combined_arms_breach_during_the_2023_ukranian_counter_offensive

The city of Lutsk, home to airfields used by the Ukrainian army, was the hardest hit, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It lies in western Ukraine near the border with Poland, a region that is a crucial hub for receiving foreign military aid.

The attack comes at a time of increased uncertainty over the supply of crucial American weapons and as U.S.-led peace efforts have stalled. Zelenskyy said that the Kremlin was “making a point” with it.

Another report from Frontelligence team

Full details in the linked article. Key takeaways below taken from https://xcancel.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1941169819581296938

For many in developing countries, Russia offers a chance to earn blood money they might never otherwise see. Hundreds of Cubans have taken that path, and our team Frontelligence Insight used them as a case study to find out how many foreigners are now fighting for Russia.🧵Thread

2/ In 2023, a major data leak exposed records of hundreds of Cuban mercenaries, later investigated by @InformNapalm. We analyzed 176 personal files and found that most recruits were between 30 and 39 years old, followed by those aged 40 to 49 - with a few even over 60.

3/ With their full names in hand, tracing their whereabouts on Russian social media was relatively easy. One mercenary in particular, Enriquez Linares Livan Michel, proved especially useful. His social media profile contained both photographs and geodata.

4/ Several of the geotagged images labeled “Krym” actually led us to the Slobodka training grounds near Tula, used by the 106th Guards Airborne Division. The presence of Cuban recruits at this location had previously been confirmed by another investigative group - @cxemu

5/ For verification, we tracked another Cuban mercenary who posted photos in 2024 under the name Luis Darien and geolocated him in the same spot as well - on the premises used by the 1060th Separate Logistics Support Battalion of the 106th Airborne Division.

6/ Satellite imagery from May 2025 shows visible vehicle tracks and signs of grass fires at both the shooting range and vehicle training area - typical indicators of training exercises. That said, we cannot confirm whether any Cubans remain there in 2025

7/ Under standard contracts, Cubans were promised a 195,000‑ruble signing bonus, monthly pay of 204,000 rubles in the active combat zone, injury compensation up to 1,000,000 rubles, and 2,000,000 rubles for death benefits. Contracts explicitly mention "special military operation"

8/ While our team cautiously estimates that just over 500 Cubans and a similar number of Serbs have attempted to enlist in 2023 and 2024, pinpointing exact figures for each nationality is difficult. That said, drawing on two key data points, we can offer a range

9/ One key reference comes from an investigation by iStories. In April 2025, using data from a hacked Unified Medical (EMIAS) database, iStories analyzed and identified more than 1,500 foreign citizens who went through Moscow recruitment center for contract military service

10/ A second reference comes from internal personnel documents from several Russian brigades and regiments. Although these records give only a partial view, given the unknown distribution of mercenaries across units, they still help approximate the overall scale

11/ Documents showed only a small number of foreign fighters, often less than a platoon. This suggests the overall count is far lower than some media claims. If there were truly 5,000 Cubans or 15,000 Nepalese, as CNN reported, their presence would be far more visible

12/ After approximating the total number of brigades and regiments, estimating the average number of foreign fighters per unit, accounting for higher concentrations in airborne divisions, and subtracting losses since 2023, we arrived at a range of 4660 - 8000 foreign mercenaries

Загальні бойові втрати противника з 24.02.22 по 09.07.25 (орієнтовно)

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Paywall Bypass Link https://archive.is/gvHhw

Ukrainian defense officials have stated that monthly output reached 20 units, with optimal conditions allowing for up to 36. By mid-2025, more than 85% of components were sourced domestically, with a target of reaching 95% by the end of the year. Manufacturing operations are distributed across facilities in Ukraine and EU member states to reduce exposure to missile attacks.

...

Earlier, in April 2025, Ukraine nearly doubled the monthly production rate of its Bohdana self-propelled howitzers to as many as 36 units. The increase followed efforts to decentralize manufacturing across domestic and international facilities, with over 85% of components produced within Ukraine.

The patent news was already posted, but the details in this article are good and look at that production increase. It could not come at a more crucial time either. This is one of the largest shifts in power in the war so far, I know people think I am weird for emphasizing artillery but I don't see this shift in power being delineated by the media and it is a crime especially for the morale of Ukrainians. These cannons are saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers over and over again as we speak.

Here is info on production of towed Bohdanas.

In an interview with Channel 5 published the day before, Major General (Ret.) Ivan Lisovyi stated that five batches of Bohdana-BG howitzers had already been delivered in 2025. This suggests a high production tempo, likely in the range of 10 to 20 units per month, comparable to the self-propelled version

https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/how_many_domestically_produced_bohdana_bg_towed_howitzers_have_ukrainian_forces_received_in_2025-15070.html

For an example of why this kind of artillery is more relevant than ever see the details of this successful artillery strike from a great distance in coordination with drone spotters.

https://en.defence-ua.com/video/ukrainian_zuzana_2_system_delivers_scores_deep_strike_with_nato_howitzer-50.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/155_mm_SpGH_Zuzana

The strike targeted russian 152 mm artillery system at a reported distance of over 25 kilometers.

A total of eight rounds were fired from the Zuzana 2 system, reportedly achieving a high concentration of impacts on the identified position. The strike was carried out beyond visual range and is described as the unit's current record for precision engagement at extended distance.

Let me put this in perspective cus y'all must think I am crazy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artillery_by_country

The wikipedia entry for artillery by country doesn't even have an entry for Ukraine and yet by many metrics Ukraine is now producing sophisticated 155mm artillery systems with world class barrels at a rate that rivals any other country on earth, whether we are talking towed artillery or armored self propelled artillery, especially given the sophistication of the bohdana's fire control systems.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2A36_Giatsint-B

^ A side note, the carriage for the towed Bohdana version is currently a repurposed one originally designed for the Soviet Union's Giatsint-B "Hyacinth" towed 152mm artillery. This is a smart move as it repurposes as much as possible from Ukraine's inventory of 152mm artillery of this type along with the relevant logistics and supply chain elements specific to just the carriage of the artillery piece and creates a natural strategic flexibility for Ukraine that Russia is poorly situated to rival especially given the incredible increase in 155mm artillery ammunition production globally, Russia is going to be left out in the cold rain with an artillery caliber (152mm) that is vastly underproduced compared to 155mm while Ukraine simultaneously will retain a powerful capacity to repurpose any Russian artillery or ammunition it gets its hands on even very late into a war of attrition as it is actively fielding artillery pieces of both calibers with as much shared mechanical aspects between the two as possible.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8pu6WiEICc&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD

In the peculiar way power is projected in war, the simple capacity to place a sophisticated 155mm cannon onto a soviet era 152mm artillery carriage in a simple, effective, and expedient manner at an industrial scale has an immediate impact in the threat of burst potential it creates strategically. Russia knows it is losing the artillery war bad, but if they can't even count on it at least taking some time to arrange mass production of artillery carriages for the towed guns to mate them too and iron out all the problems... suddenly forecasting out the strategic outlook becomes much harder for Russia.

In particular the threat of a counter offensive, even if remote and unlikely, becomes much more serious if a large amount of your towed artillery is recovered by the enemy before you can destroy it... well now you just delivered the enemy a new set of artillery carriages for their factories.... Remember, no matter what the media says, these artillery pieces are too integral especially for attrition warfare to NOT use. Russia HAS to have at least some of them to conduct even basic aspects of modern warfare manuevers.

Consider that Russian generals, if they aren't idiots, are looking at all their currently in use 152mm artillery that have similar carriages and thinking "Ukraine can do far more damage with these than we can by ripping the shitty cannon off and replacing it with their vastly superior 155mm bohdanas they are producing at a stunning rate.."

That is not the kind of thing that generals who are winning think about when they stare blankly at a truck trailer on their smoke break.

Edit Also consider the strategic advantage inherent to simplifying decoy artillery production which is a simple age old strategy to protect your valuable artillery crew, and the flexibility to obscure important gaps in logistics, that come from Ukraine's seperate artillery calibers 152mm and 155mm mostly being mounted on very similar looking carriages as far as towed artillery is concerned. Now consider the perspective of Ukranian intelligence being able to glean the dizzying array of Russian artillery sizes needed to keep up their artillery fire pace, yes they just received a large number of North Korean Koksan artillery which have impressive performance from a purely hardware standpoint, but that is another seperate caliber fielded by an extremely distinctive looking artillery piece. If you are trying to design a counteroffensive or hit the enemy back at places that are already logistical bottlenecks to maximally increase the strength of your limited ammunition, then this kind of difference adds up every time battle occurs... but also it makes it that much harder for decoys to be effective and believable enough to fool Ukranian drones and intelligence because Russia needs more of them with more shapes to match the greater variety of distinctive artillery pieces in order to sufficiently confuse Ukraine and give Russia the space to make decisive operational maneuvers. You can say that well.. trained personnel know the difference between similar looking military equipment, but remember military intelligence often doesn't come from the military especially in wars where there is an occupying force that is generally unwanted by the population......

The Czech government has confirmed it will continue supplying artillery ammunition to Ukraine through 2026 as part of its international initiative, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said in an interview with Bloomberg on June 17.

....

He noted that while exact delivery figures for 2026 have not been disclosed, shipments for 2025 are expected to reach 1.8 million rounds, backed by 11 countries and frozen Russian assets.

Lipavský described the Czech-led initiative as a turning point on the battlefield, stating that it helped reduce the firepower disparity between Ukrainian and Russian artillery from a 1-to-10 ratio in early 2022 to 1-to-2 in 2025.

https://united24media.com/latest-news/18-million-shells-for-ukraine-czech-led-ammo-surge-marks-war-turning-point-9219