For Those Who Might Be Wondering Why We Might Be In Ukraine

[Lazaran]

If you live in Russia, this is that "oh fuck" sound.....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1902648002331775105

Some U.S. companies (and maybe some European / Ukrainian) have largely defeated Russian jamming with AI autonomous drones for the attack phase of their mission where they are most likely to be subjected to intense jamming.



Side note:

President Musk (and DonOld) can’t really interfere with Ukraine’s drone warfare operations, and Europe has been assisting with intelligence, etc.



Also:

How sick and sad is it that we have to worry about "the U.S." (President Musk and DonOld) undermining Ukraine’s military efforts???



Ultimately:

If the Russians do not quickly develop a counter to these autonomous drones, then they are completely fucked. Especially with the swarm tactic and the decoys.





Slava Ukraini!!!

 

[HumpDayHoratio]

A new batch of F-16 fighter jets has been delivered to Ukraine,

President Zelenskyy: “The good news is that additional F-16s have arrived in Ukraine." No details on how many or from who, just that another batch have arrived and there were "several." The first 10 F-16 jets arrived in Ukraine in August 2024. On December 7, Ukraine further received a number of F-16s from Denmark. If another batch has been received, it's likely these are either the ex-Norwegian aircraft or some from the Netherlands.

Several countries have contributed F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine's defense efforts, with the Netherlands — who announced the continued deployment of F-16s to Ukraine — playing a significant role by committing 24 F-16s. Denmark has pledged 19 F-16s, with initial deliveries made in 2024, while Norway has promised 6 aircraft. Belgium has also announced its intention to supply F-16s, though the exact number remains undisclosed and the handover date has been delayed until they receive their replacement F35's.

https://english.nv.ua/nation/zelens...-as-russia-spreads-downing-lies-50499334.html
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This is where they’re coming from. The AZ Air Guard is training them. Not an easy jet to master, the article says a 9 month spool up.

 

[ll74]

A new batch of F-16 fighter jets has been delivered to Ukraine,

President Zelenskyy: “The good news is that additional F-16s have arrived in Ukraine." No details on how many or from who, just that another batch have arrived and there were "several." The first 10 F-16 jets arrived in Ukraine in August 2024. On December 7, Ukraine further received a number of F-16s from Denmark. If another batch has been received, it's likely these are either the ex-Norwegian aircraft or some from the Netherlands.

Several countries have contributed F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine's defense efforts, with the Netherlands — who announced the continued deployment of F-16s to Ukraine — playing a significant role by committing 24 F-16s. Denmark has pledged 19 F-16s, with initial deliveries made in 2024, while Norway has promised 6 aircraft. Belgium has also announced its intention to supply F-16s, though the exact number remains undisclosed and the handover date has been delayed until they receive their replacement F35's.

https://english.nv.ua/nation/zelens...-as-russia-spreads-downing-lies-50499334.html
View attachment 2515984

Let's fucking go!

 

[ChloeTzang]

This is where they’re coming from. The AZ Air Guard is training them. Not an easy jet to master, the article says a 9 month spool up.

Good article on the training. Still hasn't identofied where this latest bathc came from but I'd guess the Netherlands. They had quite a few they were sending to Ukraine and they've been pretty aggressive about deliveries from their own stocks. Anyhow, whoever it was, bless them.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ultimately:

If the Russians do not quickly develop a counter to these autonomous drones, then they are completely fucked. Especially with the swarm tactic and the decoys.

And the other nice thing is, Russian air defences seem to have more or less disintegrated. Crimea is now apparently wide open, with almost all the air defences eliminated, and with this latest attack on Engles, they didn't stop that drone getting through. That and they simply don't have enough air defense systems to protect against all the targets.

That, and 2025 Ukraining production targets - 9000 cruise missiles and 4.5 million drones. That's Russia's oil infrastructure and a lot of everything else completely gone and another million Russian casualties by the end of 2025. No wonder Trump is working overtime to try and get a ceasefire signed.

 

[ChloeTzang]

This has been an ongoiung Russian grift. Take all the brand new Russian equipment and sell it to western collectors. Apparently really popular with western teenagers for airsoft - available from Minsk army surplus stores for $150. LOL. The Russian soldiers get issued cheap chinese crap, or they have to buy it themselves.

THe West still cannot grasp the unsung hero of the Ukraine-Russian War - Colonel Kleptovsky - the one and only. Faking inventory reports since Stalin's days. The good Colonel is the the reason why only 10 out of 100 tanks wre running at the start of the war and the rest had been striped to bare metal, although the inventory says 120 out of 100 are operational. Kelptovsky is the reason those explosive armor plates are made of wood. The reason why cans of rations are....water. The reason why Russian soldiers go to the front line with plastic airsoft helmets. LOL. For 70 years, Kleptovsky and his friends have stolen everything and where they haven't outright stolen, they've substitiued imitations.

They should all get Ukrainian medals after the war.

 

[Lazaran]

And the other nice thing is, Russian air defences seem to have more or less disintegrated. Crimea is now apparently wide open, with almost all the air defences eliminated, and with this latest attack on Engles, they didn't stop that drone getting through. That and they simply don't have enough air defense systems to protect against all the targets.

That, and 2025 Ukraining production targets - 9000 cruise missiles and 4.5 million drones. That's Russia's oil infrastructure and a lot of everything else completely gone and another million Russian casualties by the end of 2025. No wonder Trump is working overtime to try and get a ceasefire signed.

Those autonomous AI drones are obviously responsible for taking out Russian air defense systems as well as larger targets.

It’s part of a comprehensive drone warfare strategy that Ukraine has mastered / is mastering, and that the U.S. is opportunistically gleaning for critical tactical information based on the Ukrainians’ successes and failures so it can be utilized in any future military engagement involving drones.

Win-win.





Slava Ukraini!!

 

[ChloeTzang]

France WILL be supplying additional Mirage 2000's to Ukraine.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Well, it won't win the war, but a nice sentiment to share....as for that King, wow! He's in shape!

 

[ChloeTzang]

The Ukraine Ceasefire Tango of 2025
Andrew Tanner, March 20th

Talking about a ceasefire in Ukraine is part of a strange diplomatic dance. The main goal is to wait out Trump's short attention span. Even if one begins, it won't bring peace to Ukraine. It’s best to see the recent diplomatic wrangling about hypothetical ceasefires in Ukraine as part of a grand ritualistic performance. The thing is an endless loop that gives the impression of progress without achieving anything of lasting value. Zelensky offers a truce in the sky and sea, then Trump ups that to a full 30-day ceasefire. Putin says okay - but only if he gets to dictate additional terms that hand him for free what he has been unable to achieve through force of arms.

At the moment, Putin has effectively punted back to Team Trump, which faces a no-win situation of its own making. Give in to Putin even a little, and the USA will have caved to a weaker party. Don’t, and so much for Trump’s pretend peacemaker act. The entire situation could have been avoided had Trump simply made the smart and popular choice and stuck it to Putin from day one, flooding Ukraine with military support. That’s how you be the anti-Biden. Meanwhile, European leaders now get to sit back and point to the US being blatantly played by Putin and use that as justification for massive increases in military spending that US companies are unlikely to ever profit from now. A selection also get to talk up the near-impossibility of a viable peacekeeping force somehow deploying to stand between Ukrainian and orc forces indefinitely. Both serve the same strategic: putting D.C. in its place. The peacekeeper idea is an obvious first step to direct integration of Ukrainian forces with NATO, which is why Putin hates it.

If you want to permanently dismantle the American federal government - and ultimately the USA - the route that Trump, Vance, Musk, and co. are taking will get you there quicker than any other that I’m aware of. The authorities in Beijing are naturally staring in utter shock as their biggest enemy doesn’t just step, but leaps full-on into a minefield. From these ingredients are Great Wars brewed. Normally, diplomacy is an important tool for communicating with an adversary, a way to transmit vital signals. It can range from manipulative - nearly always the case with Moscow and usually D.C. - to highly constructive, a means of limiting or even ending violent struggles. When two sides don’t want to be at war but lack sufficient trust to lay down arms for fear of giving the enemy an advantage, a ceasefire followed by peace talks can establish a framework for materially proving that each side is trustworthy and will honor the deal. But when one side in a war denies the other’s right to exist, diplomacy becomes a farce. The enemy is alien and therefore not considered to be fully human, deserving of niceties like honor and honesty. That’s why Moscow has long insisted that what it’s doing is “de-Nazification” - nobody feels sympathy for Nazis. Of which there are many more in Putin’s empire and army than fight for or even live in Ukraine. There are no real prospects of lasting peace when the Ukraine War is fundamentally about whether Ukraine gets to exist. Any step that brings closer Ukraine’s extermination is progress in Putin’s eyes, and if he can win ground with bluff and deception better than he can force of arms for a spell, that’s the choice he’ll happily make.

One important lesson among many that Ukraine’s occupation of Kursk taught to the world was that Putin doesn’t even respect the rules that supposedly govern his own country. He chose to continue advancing in occupied Ukraine instead of fighting for his own home territory, the populated portion of which Ukraine chose to withdraw from just as I predicted in my last forecast. What other scientific evidence is needed to prove that borders mean nothing to Putin, save where he wants them to be at the time? And now that Ukrainian troops are mostly back across their side of the border in Sumy, guess what? Putin’s orcs are trying to break across the Ukrainian side even before bothering to clear the area Ukraine appears set to hold as a buffer. Yet here Zelensky, Putin, Trump, and European leaders all are, talking about ceasefires and peace talks and who might commit how many peacekeepers to safeguard a hypothetical agreemend. All part of a diplomatic dance intended to last just long enough for Trump to declare he’s brought peace in our time - or wash his hands of the situation and move on to bombing Iran.

When Zelensky agreed last week to the USA’s proposal for a thirty day ceasefire on all fronts, not only air, sea, and strike as Ukraine had already offered, he cemented the strategic triumph that was his Oval Office showdown with Trump and Vance. Repelling the crude attempt to goad Zelensky into saying something Trump could construe as a license to force Ukraine into a bad deal with the aggressor came at a cost: in addition to cutting military aid, Trump also severed intelligence sharing. But once his leverage over Zelensky had been expended, Trump found himself in a disastrous double bind. Not only would any deal he tried to do with Putin now invariably look like craven surrender, but American allies across the world have happily responded with a fury magnificent to behold. Team Trump is apparently so delusional that the fools really believed European leaders wouldn’t jump at an excuse to leverage their latent economic strength at America’s expense. Narcissistic cults of personality usually start to get high on their own supply sooner or later. Losing touch with material reality, their actions grow increasingly erratic until they self-destruct, taking anyone too close down with them.

By cutting off aid to Ukraine, Team Trump unwittingly demonstrated to each and every one of America’s partners the dangerously high cost of depending on such a fickle ally. European defense spending is likely to double in the next few years, something Trump might call a win. But the impact on American security and interests will be the exact opposite of what Trump, Vance, and Musk expected. Fear of Trump or someday Vance being able to switch off essential functions required to operate already over-priced, functionally obsolete F-35 jets nearly everyone has been sucked into buying, for example, is finally making countries like Canada and Portugal reconsider the thing at long last. Given that a combination of stealthy drones and cheaper crewed aircraft equipped with the latest sensors and weapons can do the same job for less cost and aircrew risk, why get stuck in Lockheed’s monopolistic service contract trap? Stealth isn’t what people think anyway. Distributed but integrated sensor networks will counter it. Crewed aircraft no longer belong over hostile territory. On the plus side, in moments when old assumptions just keep on crumbling, radical changes in trajectory become possible - sometimes positive ones. Already Japan, and probably soon Australia and South Korea too, will find it both convenient and a matter of necessity to align closely with Europe. Trapped between a self-immolating Trump, malevolent Putin, and Xi sitting back and wondering when it’s time to join the kinetic action club are about a billion people in democratic countries that would very much like a viable alternative, thank you very much.

(Cont...)

 

[ChloeTzang]

Part 2

Essential elements are already forming up, if you peer closely at the essential trends. Self-organization is a powerful thing once provoked.

D.C. of course remains clueless, Team Trump pivoting back to talking nice with Ukraine and restoring military and intelligence support last week simply because Zelensky said yes to a deal Putin either wouldn’t agree to or would soon blow up. In what amounts to another classic Trump retreat once confronted with hard consequences, the net effect of his whole diplomatic misadventure in the Ukraine War has been a simple restoration of the status quo - except for America, which has lost nearly all leverage over anyone short of open war. Putin, interestingly enough, doesn’t even fear Trump enough to make what would probably have been his best choice: agree to a ceasefire, then accuse Ukraine of violating it when the time was right. Instead, his response effectively punted the whole issue back to Trump. Ever the lawyer, Putin chose to say that he’d like to say yes, but there are issues to be resolved. His hope is that Trump’s desire for a ceasefire at any cost will make him pressure Ukraine into accepting restrictive conditions - or refuse, drawing Trump’s ire.

The problem for Putin here is that where a straight-up no would have been justified were his repeated claims to be advancing on all fronts true, and a yes would imply confidence in his future prospects a yes, but reply suggests that he fears giving Ukraine any space to recover. On the one hand, Putin wants everyone to believe that Ukraine is doomed, but on the other he won’t accept a ceasefire that would only delay the inevitable (he thinks). This is the logic break that reveals his true position. Offering to not attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a month is a hardly a concession. Despite a supposed agreement by both sides to refrain from hitting energy sites, ceasefire talks are at an effective impasse, just as any realistic peace negotiations would soon be. While a full ceasefire of some duration might maybe happen this spring, it almost certainly can’t last long into summer. In point of fact - and Putin appears to understand this - a short truce stands to benefit Ukraine more than the orcs.

The reboot of how Ukraine’s ground forces fight is now well advanced, with the formal establishment of the first new corps suggesting that early tests are complete and it’s time to scale up and out. Ukraine is set to produce enough small drones to wipe out half a million orcs this year - and that’s assuming a 10% success rate. Image recognition software that allows a drone to strike a target selected by the user seconds before impact stands to boost the hit rate above 50%. If you are an orc, this is unpleasant math. Everything continues to click into place as it needs to for Ukraine to launch a serious counteroffensive later this year. The fact that Ukrainian leaders are talking about a possible end to the war in 2025 suggests that necessary shaping operations have already begun. Whether the many dedicated anonymous professionals working inside NATO and the EU who have moved mountains of material to Ukraine despite every roadblock the politicians have thrown in their way are allowed to escalate their efforts remains the key unknown.

 

[ChloeTzang]

The Fronts: An Overview
Andrew Tanner, March 20th

The intensity of Moscow’s attacks across the fronts in occupied Ukraine picked up this past week, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at open source maps alone. Not the fault of mappers and georeferencers - different kinds of data shed light on different dynamics. Location and direction of big attacks - and even smaller ones - can be easily derived from open source maps, but assessing intensity depends on a combination of official reports and georeferenced footage. A lot can be happening without giving a clear outward sign if drones are down because of weather or jamming. Centre for Defence Studies is Ukraine-based and compiles translations of Ukraine’s general staff reports, which breaks down the number of attacks each day on distinct fronts. Ukrinform translates them as well. You have to read these regularly to get a sense of how the essential patterns evolve, but rate of reported attacks is another useful indicator to monitor. Over the past few months, despite attacks staying about as frequent as they were last fall, it has become increasingly tough for Russian forces to quickly advance anywhere Ukraine doesn’t choose to withdraw. And lately, the only place that’s happened is Kursk, where the Ukrainian retreat from populated areas to a strip along the border went pretty much as expected. Elsewhere, the orcs have continued trying to advance in most of the usual places, but with almost no success.

Northern Theater

Ukraine's withdrawal to a strip along the international border between Sumy and Kursk went pretty much according to my last forecast. As expected, there was no bloody last stand in Sudzha, and most of the rear guard appears to have made it out intact, even if some members had to hike up to twenty kilometers because of all the drones the orcs were using to target vehicles. There were never thousands of Ukrainians surrounded and at the mercy of Putin’s orcs, as a certain American president falsely claimed. You’d already see a torrent of geolocated POW videos - and summary executions. They don’t exist. Now, up to a dozen Ukrainian brigades can rest ahead of their next mission. That’s a pretty big reserve, especially with another four brigades probably freed up by the shortening of the Donbas-South front. About three corps’s worth - the number I’d want for a big counteroffensive in occupied Ukraine. Several brigades will have to cover the border area, but not ten or a dozen.


Northern Theater. Note the similarity in size of the orc controlled part of Kharkiv and the portion of Kursk still held by Ukraine. If Putin wanted a ceasefire, a straight-up swap would be a simple first move.

It was once again irritating to observe the media's insatiable need to cover every story about the fighting in Ukraine as if it's sports. If you give up ground, the media will insist that you’re losing, even if it makes perfect military sense to do exactly that. And journalists always find the most weary and disillusioned soldiers to interview after a retreat, just like their counterparts on the sports beat when getting some comments from the defeated team. Speaking of rituals…And then there are the writers who conflate events that happen over a series of days or weeks and act like they happened all at once for dramatic effect. Case in point are a fair few who latched on to some drone footage of numerous destroyed vehicles along the main road into Sudzha then talked about Ukraine’s supply lines being totally severed. Never mind that one wreck a day for a couple weeks will look bad yet represent only a fraction of total vehicle transits. But who cares about science when reporting the news? Small wonder Trump bought into orc propaganda about thousands of surrounded Ukrainians.

To properly evaluate Kursk, keep in mind that all operations are meant to achieve a set of defined objectives in pursuit of a broader strategic plan. Kursk diverted ruscist attention from occupied Ukraine and forced Moscow to fight a series of pitched battles where they kept coming off worse time and again. Ukrainian troops slowly traded away territory they seized with relative ease at a very steep cost to the orcs and their North Korean stooges. This is attrition done right. Yes, up to several thousand Ukrainians may have died in Kursk, but the tragedy of warfare is that some number of people are going to wind up dead regardless. Where they die and whether their sacrifice depletes a proportionally larger amount of the enemy's strength is all that matters in the vicious calculus of the thing. Generally speaking, exactly because of the horrendous cost, it's best to take territory that's weakly defended then slowly give it up to counterattacks - especially poorly run ones - than throw additional resources right in front of an enemy steamroller. The balance that must be struck is fraught, as there are critical locations that one cannot lose, but historically asymmetry is key to victory in war. This is the antithesis of sports, which is about tests of skill as much as anything else. When survival is at stake, wasted effort is potentially lethal, so rules and codes of conduct either serve a functional purpose or are ignored. Often both.

As a military operation, Kursk made sense and achieved its purpose. Of course, good operations are pointless if not part of an effective strategy, a chain of actions that lead to a desired end state. The core strategic objective of the Kursk Campaign was to demonstrate the hollow bluffs behind Putin's nuclear rhetoric that allies have used to justify withholding aid from Ukraine for too long. This was achieved within a few weeks of the operation beginning; after, the purpose of fighting on became more political, in the sense that Ukraine’s ongoing presence in Sudzha made it politically impossible for Putin to declare a ceasefire he’d break and blame on Ukraine as soon as the US seemed foolish enough to start putting pressure on Ukraine. The ceasefire tango began long ago. Eventually, Moscow was going to get its act together in Kursk. That Ukrainian troops would pull out of the populated areas of Kursk at some point was equally inevitable. Timing the withdrawal to look like a concession that might get Putin to accept the ceasefire proposal Trump wanted Ukraine to offer was a happy accident. In truth, a new major orc offensive was brewing, and the proximity of enemy position to Ukraine’s supply lines made the military situation tenuous. With both the strategic and operational logic of holding populated parts of Kursk gone, retreat was the best choice.

Moscow will be coping with the long-term consequences of the Kursk Campaign for many years. The dictator's prestige was seriously diminished, which is why he had to show up in Kursk wearing fatigues once it was clear the Ukrainians were leaving. And Ukraine is likely to hold on to portions of Kursk along the border where its troops occupy high ground. Interestingly, this zone is about the same size as the portions of Kharkiv that Moscow has controlled since last spring. Moscow will no doubt try to remove the last vestiges of Ukrainian control, but the cost stands to be high, Ukraine's supply lines no longer nearly as vulnerable as they were. Pulling out of Kursk should also be seen as a conciliatory diplomatic gesture of the ideal kind: one that costs little because it happened to be something you were planning anyway. Now a longstanding impediment to Putin accepting any variety of ceasefire is removed - but in such a way that Ukraine can credibly portray Putin as the only barrier to the peace process.

It will be interesting to see where the brigades pulled from Kursk wind up. Frankly, I suspect the drawdown has been underway for weeks, so some may show up elsewhere very soon. The otherwise stagnant Kharkiv front might see an influx of forces, but with spring breaking across Ukraine I expect the south is where the ground will dry out and leaves bloom soonest.

 

[ChloeTzang]

The Fronts: An Overview
Andrew Tanner, March 20th

Eastern Theater

Kupiansk has seen continued orc attempts to expand the bridgehead over the Oskil, with reports of armored vehicles massing on the east bank or even crossing suggesting that Moscow sees hope of success here. I suspect that’s a delusion, especially with numerous brigades now free to move away from Kursk. But the orcs want to expand the bridgehead, that much is certain. The limited Ukrainian reinforcements dispatched so far have already contained the enemy and started to push them back. A full brigade can probably wipe out the bridgehead completely. The trouble is that the orcs may scatter and go to ground, the task of hunting them down exposing Ukrainian troops to drone attack. So perhaps it is better to let them wither on the vine, in a way.

In what I usually call the Donbas-North front, encompassing the Borova, *****, and Siversk sectors, Muscovite operations have been slowly intensifying, the objective being to accomplish along the Zherebets what Moscow is trying on the Oskil further north. Near Terny a bridgehead keeps trying to expand, with Ukrainian forces keeping enemy progress to about a tree line every week or so. Moscow would dearly love to make progress on this front, as that would complement the push on urban Donbas that aims to break into Kostyantynivka. However, an uptick in fighting east and south of Siversk the past few weeks suggests that even a few Ukrainian brigades of sufficient quality can savage any orc attempts to advance. Here 10th Mountain Assault, 81st Airmobile, 54th Mechanized, 4th Offensive Guard, and 118th Territorial have been acting like their own corps for about two years now. A big quarry at Bilohorivka, reclaimed from the orcs in late 2022, still stands as an unbreakable fortress despite sitting just ten kilometers from Lysychansk, a fairly large town on the west bank of the Siversky Donets river.

Further south, on the Kostyantynivka front, the Chasiv Yar sector remains fairly static but also tense. Both sides continue to fight in the Toretsk ruins, the northern fringes under Ukrainian control, the center a contested gray zone. If the Russians do commit to a march on Kostyantynivka, as is reasonable to expect, it will not only need to clear the space between Chasiv Yar and Toretsk but also a large chunk of territory between Toretsk and Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s 109th Territorial Defense Brigade has been posting footage of destroyed orc stuff south of Oleksandropil, near the road to Avdiivka, so it’s very possible that operation is beginning. But I thought this would happen almost a year ago, so either Putin’s generals perceive the 109th to be too tough to bother with or lack the map reading ability to notice that so long as Ukraine holds between Kalynove and Oleksandropil, drones can range all the way down to occupied Avdiivka.

Actually reaching Kostyantynivka, much less taking it, will be a very difficult task if Moscow can’t take Pokrovsk. So long as it holds, any orc attempt to outflank Kostyantynivka risks being cut off and destroyed just as the spearhead that tried to cut west of Pokrovsk is now. Geography is a pain like that. And speaking of Pokrovsk, despite an uptick in orc attacks they’ve made almost no visible progress this week. Ukrainian counterattacks have supposedly cleared most of Shevchenko, putting the orcs across the Solona near Kotlyne in an extremely exposed position.
The Ukrainian counterattack southeast of Pokrovsk that liberated a couple towns along the outer defensive perimeter that fell to the orcs last year is coming under pressure. Whether Moscow will turn the tide here is difficult to say, but reports from the sector suggest that Drapatyi, the experienced new generation leader tasked by Syrskyi with stabilizing the sector, is getting the job done. In accordance with my broad forecast for how the fighting near Pokrovsk would likely unfold over the past half year or so, Ukraine is finding it easier to systematically destroy orc combat power as ruscist troops move further west.

If the necessary ultimate objective in a fight is the destruction of a committed enemy’s ability to make war, the exchange ratio is the fundamental variable at play. Once Ukrainian forces are able to reliably dominate all essential battlefield domains at some scale, this capability when properly employed will allow Ukraine to steadily “unpeel” orc defenses in a target sector. A relentless advance towards key strategic objectives can begin that Moscow will struggle mightily to ever halt for long. In Pokrovsk, Moscow’s advance has almost fully culminated, insufficient resources reaching the front to allow it to move fast or far enough to defeat the Ukrainian defense. It is vulnerable to counterattacks, which can be expected to slowly escalate through spring as the return of foliage enables tactical movements which should manifest in Ukraine suddenly controlling a new salient several kilometers deep along some front.

Ukraine might eventually seek to push the enemy back across the Vovcha to give the logistics routes into Pokrovsk some breathing room. The longer Moscow tries to supply its troops across forty kilometers using a few routes, the more painful the resource burn will become. Ukraine might not even want to push the enemy back too far for some time to come. Despite the advantages offered by fighting close to your own supply base, had Moscow not been forced to divert tens of thousands of troops to Kursk - despite trying to pretend that Ukraine’s operation here was no big deal while also pulling in North Korean support - Pokrovsk might well have fallen. In that scenario, a successful orc march into Kostyantynivka would have been a natural consequence. Perhaps more Ukrainian troops would have stabilized the line along the Vovcha, but the cost would have been high and benefits unclear.

Now that it appears that Ukraine has an electromagnetic solution to orc glide bomb attacks, one of Moscow’s key advantages has diminished to the point that it may soon be far less risky for Ukrainian soldiers to hold on to fortified positions than at any point over the past year and a half. This could lead to a sudden and violent shift in the effective balance of power along the line of contact wherever Ukraine decides the time is right.

 

[ChloeTzang]

The Fronts: An Overview
Andrew Tanner, March 20th

The Donbas-South Front

On the Donbas-South front, there’s been a notable stabilization pretty much across the board. Ukraine’s slow retreat towards Novopavlivka has all but ceased, though I still anticipate the loss of some vulnerable ground along the line of contact in the coming weeks. I’ve been keeping an eye on an area near Kostyantynopil where I sketched out a general company and battalion scale defense plan for some weeks back, and it’s been neat to see that whoever has been responsible for holding the line here has held firm ever since. At one point I think it was 37th Marine, but 71st Jager seems to have relieved them. The orcs made it into Kostyantynopil, but haven’t reached Rozlyv. Something else interesting to note about this front is that Ukraine’s Marine Corps brigades appear to be coming together again. As a distinct corps is supposed to coordinate them all, I expect the 36th to rotate from the Kursk front down to Donbas too now that the line in the former is much shorter. These brigades were together in the 2023 summer counteroffensive on the Mokri Yali front, and did pretty well. I have a feeling they’ll be back in Velyka Novosilka before the year is out.

Moscow’s objectives in this area appear to be straightforward: take as much territory as possible to feign that it’s “advancing on all fronts” as Moscow’s propagandists like to say. But the need for reserves on higher priority fronts should limit what Moscow is able to accomplish. I consider this front a prime target for a counterattack in late spring or early summer, possibly in conjunction with a big push out of Pokrovsk.

Southern Theater

As Ukraine heads into spring, the south tends to get warmer sooner than other parts of the country. It will also dry out, at least in places, making wheeled movement easier. That enables offensive operations, while weather-imposed limits in other parts of the country mean that resources are sometimes more available. The orcs seem to be trying to make the most of the moment by increasing the pace of attacks along the Dnipro, both near Kherson and by Zaporizhzhia. Though the fighting for islands in the Dnipro delta is very difficult to track through open sources and is rarely conclusive for long, something between a probe and a small sustained offensive is definitely underway in Zaporizhzhia. 128th Mountain Assault and 128th Territorial Guard seem to be fending off an effort that could aim to push towards Zaporizhzhia proper or instead try something far more achievable like reach Orihiv. But at present the move doesn’t appear to pose a serious danger, and it is difficult to imagine a substantial enemy breakthrough in this area. Ukraine should be able to move in reinforcements much faster than Moscow, and the latter doesn’t have many to spare.

Air, Sea, & Strike

With the mud of spring already hindering large-scale ground operations, an intensification of fighting on supporting fronts seems very likely. Each side no doubt hopes to demonstrate its strength ahead of any hypothetical partial truce, like the ban on attacks against energy infrastructure that is all Trump seems to be able to wrangle from Putin. Of course, even as Putin claims to be all for an energy facility ceasefire, he shoots at Ukraine’s with drones and a few missiles. This begs the question of what actually counts as a protected site, and who gets to decide what constitutes a ceasefire breach. Ukraine has been doing an excellent job of reminding the orcs why the war isn’t going as well for them as the international media likes to pretend, launching huge strikes on the Moscow area and beyond. This also transmits the right message about why Putin really should accept a limited ceasefire covering the strike and sea domains. Though even if energy targets are off-limits to Ukraine, that only means more drones will hit warehouses full of ammunition, as apparently just happened at a major airbase deep in Mordor. Putin has no apparent answer to the problem of too few air defense launchers and probably missiles to cover too many targets.

As hard as Moscow was hit last week, the trajectory of recent events bodes poorly for Putin’s empire. With a couple hundred small drone-cruise missiles hybrids and an unknown number, though I’d guess no more than a dozen, full-sized Neptune land-attack cruise missiles coming of the production lines every month, expect lots of stuff in ruscist territory to burn. Then add in the two thousand or so propeller driven small drones with a thousand-plus kilometer range that are planned. Now imagine how to defend against them all.

Ukraine’s shortages of Patriot and Aster interceptors capable of shooting down orc ballistic missiles are a serious problem, but Moscow doesn’t have things much easier. No one was prepared for the sheer number of aerial targets that cheap drones force combatants to cope with, or else everyone in NATO but Germany wouldn’t have scrapped all of their old-school gun-based air defense systems. Speaking of air defenses, Ukraine’s naval drones keep sporting new upgrades. More and more, they launch small first-person aerial drones to hunt down enemy air defense systems. The orcs in Crimea have yet another problem to deal with, one lacking easy solutions. Drones have made Crimea less a fortress and more of a trap. Once Ukraine can maintain constant drone patrols capable of hitting any aircraft or air defenses that come too close to the coast, strike corridors will open, enabling more intensive attacks. It’s highly indicative of how confident Ukraine is becoming in the sky that a video emerged of an F-16 flying low over Sumy, just 45km from Sudzha and less than 200km from Kursk. That should be well within the engagement range of orc air defenses and interceptors defending a city where Putin recently landed to do a photo op. Steady deterioration of enemy air defense systems and forcing them to scatter behind the lines helps make this possible.

When Ukraine began its first Viper patrols last summer, Ukraine’s Air Force was clear that they were taking a crawl, walk, run approach to building capabilities. I think it’s safe to say that after nine months the Ukrainians are running, a full NATO-size squadron of F-16s in country and a second forming, suggesting the Ukrainians are definitely running. A squadron of Mirage 2000s is building up too. Though the latter don’t have long range air-to-air missiles, the ones they do carry are effective against cruise missiles and drones and are widely available. If Germany’s new government allows Ukraine to have Taurus cruise missiles, I expect Mirage 2000s can be made into working launchers. The Kerch Strait bridge may soon fall. Talk of Ukraine receiving a dozen Swedish Gripens remains just that, but I continue to hold out hope that the Swedes have worked out an arrangement with the Czechs, Thais, Brazilians, South Africans, or some other Gripen user to covertly train at least half a dozen Ukrainian Gripen pilots. The UK actually has a couple it uses for training - maybe they’ve been up to something interesting lately.

Part of the reason that I link the air, sea, and strike domains in these updates is that air defense systems are a major limiting resource impacting all three. Drones stand a real chance of giving Ukraine a potent advantage through sheer numbers that makes ground operations extremely difficult for Moscow to sustain. Much as tactical airpower powered the rapid Allied liberation of France in 1944, the Germans unable to establish a lasting defense until almost back to their own border, strike drones hitting between twenty and two hundred kilometers behind the front may induce fatal paralysis among the orcs on the frontline. And the key to an effective strike campaign is suppression of enemy air defenses. Allied fighter-bombers could rove freely with heavy loads of rockets thanks to the negation of German fighter cover, making it impossible for a convoy on the ground to predict when they could safely move. If drones prove capable of breaking orc defenses down in a systematic way, the situation on the ground will change in a hurry. Enhanced freedom in the sky resulting from air defense depletion will allow Ukraine’s expanding air arm to reach its full potential even it never crosses into hostile territory. Similarly, if Moscow’s glide bombs can be reliably neutralized by jamming the orcs lose their single most potent weapon over the past year and a half. If the Ukrainians can draw even with Moscow in the upper airs and dominate the lower, they win.

 

[ChloeTzang]

The Fronts: An Overview
Andrew Tanner, March 20th

Leadership & Personnel

Ukraine’s transition to the new corps-brigade structure is moving along, reports of the first set of high-performing brigades taking over coordination of four to five hitting the media the past couple weeks. My expectation is that this will be accelerated to the degree possible, the reformation complete by summer - just in time for a general offensive. Monitoring these sorts of changes isn’t easy from a distance, and you have to sift through a lot of information to find clues. Militarylandnet is always a great source. And a fantastic post by the ever-excellent History Does You blog this past week was a bit of a gold mine in this regard. They’ve been in touch with a skilled Ukrainian battalion level officer who was able to share some of his experiences developing an effective fighting force. And as only solid interview data can, it revealed how much the battlefield of today still resembles those of the last century, despite cosmetic changes.

The challenge of organizing and leading people in the most awful circumstances imaginable has also remained the same. Innovation and adaptation have to be baked into the culture, enabling whoever has a need to get in touch with someone with the means to take advantage of those fleeting opportunities that determine whether the outcome is mission accomplished without casualties or a bloody debacle and buried comrades. As the diplomats pretend they can win peace with words, Ukraine’s military is preparing for the push that might just force Moscow to seek terms. If Europe matches its newfound determination to fight alone with the proper immediate transfer of material to Ukraine, 2025 could yet end in triumph for democracy.

Geopolitical Developments

North America

It has been amusing watching Team Trump take the first opportunity to flip from punishing Ukraine to more or less trying to act like the interruption in aid never happened. Whenever Trump runs into real opposition, he backtracks and shifts focus. It's noteworthy how he latched on to a rather non-apologetic statement by Zelensky that the outcome of the Oval Office meeting was regrettable to say Zelensky apologized. Some well-timed social media campaigns showing Ukrainian personnel thanking the American people for equipment and Europe mostly waking up to the reality of American support being as reliable as the weather rather made the point to Team Trump that America can't actually dictate terms to the rest of the world. Trump is already back to his self-defeating tariff crusade and bombing the Houthis in likely preparation for going after Iran, so Putin's effective non-answer to his ceasefire proposal may simply pass, especially with the prospect of an agreement to end targeting of energy sites possibly filling Trump’s need to play peacemaker. In another typical turn, Trump has started insisting that his earlier promise of ending the Ukraine War in 24 hours was just sarcasm.

Ah yes, the old "oh, you just don't understand my sense of humor" play. A classic bid to avoid being held accountable when you shift your position or assert something silly.

After more than eight years of watching the media and American politicians feed and enable Trump at every turn, it's nice to see folks finally show some spine with him. The more leaders who stand up to him and tell him to do his worst, the weaker what bite he has left will get. The fatal paradox at the heart of Trump's appeal is that his backers believe both that America is weak and also unbeatable. All this really amounts to is a partisan attempt to blame others for everything that goes wrong. Tariff threats and seeming to side with Putin have together done a real number on America’s closest relationships. I didn't really think I'd ever live to see the day when Canadians started looking at their American neighbors as a possible threats, but here we are, courtesy of the distorted incentives that control American partisan politics.

Domestically, that Team Trump actually appears to believe that they have the Constitutional power to unilaterally dismantle agencies and programs authorized by Congress suggests zero functional comprehension of the Constitution - or they just don’t care any more. Trump can play off everything he does as a joke after the fact, but when the postmodern delusion cracks, it can shatter in the blink of an eye. Ukraine before and after the orc assault is a living testament to that. Those who cling to it won’t give up the fight easily, however. Witness Chuck Schumer, one of the last of the old generation of Democrats still in power, this past week giving up his one bit of leverage over Trump by refusing to block the most partisan budget proposal in modern American history. Even though a majority of Americans would have blamed the Republicans for not passing a funding bill that could at least get 60 senate votes, Schumer has adopted the Carville strategy of rolling over and letting the other side win in hopes that the blowback elects Democrats by default in 2026 and 2028. It’s the exact same defeatist postmodern thinking that led to Obama letting Putin have Crimea in 2014, Trump ignoring Ukraine for four years except to try and mess with Biden’s electoral prospects, and Biden basically handing Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter when threatened with World War Three. Watching people who spent 2024 annoying non-partisan voters into staying home by calling Trump the next Hitler flip around and play the role of Germany’s doomed SDP party in 1933 is definitely rich.

Thank goodness the only significant structural similarity between Weimar Germany and the American federation is the potential for unrestrained used of executive power in defiance of the Constitution. Executive Orders have always been a serious unresolved problem, one that could - along with the ridiculous and frankly unconstitutional Insurrection Act - cause another civil war. But beyond that rather easily defied claim to a level of power the Founders never intended for the office, Weimar and the USA couldn’t be more different. Hence Trump’s actions once back in power being totally unlike Hitler’s. It isn’t often remembered that Hitler’s first move was not oppression of Jewish, Roma, or even disabled people, but throwing his political opponents into prison camps. Anybody seen Trump try that? Even if he were the chubbier, less intelligent reincarnation of old Adolf, it just doesn’t work like that in the USA. States have rights, and woe unto the federal government if it tries to take them. Unless they have partisan governors who choose to cede their authority in hopes of seeking federal office or favors…

(cont)

 

[ChloeTzang]

Part 2

Europe

Across the pond (and for Pacific Americans, a whole continent as well), Team Trump does not appear to comprehend just how big of a mistake it was to inspire Germany to finally embrace re-armament. This week, incoming chancellor Merz did a deal with not only the properly humbled SPD (still apparently as spineless as ever), but the Greens too, allowing Germany to take on massive new debt to fund security projects, immediately doubling military spending. Germany's economy is twice the size of Moscow's, and while it might be the biggest economy in Europe, GDP-wise it’s to the EU what Pacific America is to the rest of the USA. And the EU looks to be altering laws to allow foreign investment in security projects, presaging continent-wide military spending boosts. Guess who is already interested in cooperation on projects? Japan and Australia. That's a whole lot of economic firepower connected by broadly common underlying concerns and interests.

The path to an international alliance replacing the USA as guarantor of security across the democratic world is clearing up faster than I’d have ever imagined. I suppose that’s because, truth be told, it's never been all that good at the job. The country just sort of fell into it after the Second World War, partly out of good intentions, but as much because a clique of rich and influential people decided this would benefit their interests. And it did - still does, in some cases, hence the bitter hatred of Trump felt by people like Liz and Dick Cheney, whose views on correct social policy are more or less the same as his own. Europe's own history wouldn’t seem to render it a more reliable defender of democracy, but the necessary inclusion of Pacific and eventually other democracies is what can prevent the project from turning into another colonial misadventure. The goal of any democratic security alliance will be to prevent Moscow, Beijing, and their pet dictators from tearing the world apart. And D.C. too, if it goes completely nuts. Which isn’t likely, but no longer out of the realm of possibility, either.

Pacific

The international political situation on this side of the planet is deteriorating quickly, America's attitude towards European allies especially discomfiting to Japan and South Korea because of the scarcely hidden racial component. In Tokyo and Seoul, no one has ever pretended that American leaders see them as equals, but the mutual benefit of alliance has always been clear. Australians get strung along by America time and again in foreign affairs because of a shared sense of racial (really ethnic) identity, but plenty of Australians - and New Zealanders too - understand that they’re not seen as true equals when it really counts. Yet for the most part both have gone along with American wishes most of the time because of the perception that their alliance is seen as sacrosanct in D.C. Now, all are aware that they face the threat of future American administrations acting like Trump’s does now with the vocal support of around 40% of the American people. International relationships are bound to change as a result.

Because of that, I can’t see much not to like in greater European-Pacific security cooperation, though I’d rather European military assets focus on the Atlantic. In the Pacific, we need our own, improved version of NATO, something like a Northwest Pacific Alliance, with an autonomous Pacific American Forces at its core. It’s badly needed now, because from Beijing, there's bound to be a lot to like about how Trump is handling his second term in office. With American politicians on both sides of the partisan divide happy to blame China for all that ails America these days, maximum chaos is in Beijing's interest. Meanwhile, amphibious capabilities of the sort needed to establish and supply a beachhead in Taiwan are being built up by the People's Army. While it would be a disastrous and immensely bloody error on Xi's part to try and take Taiwan by force against determined opposition, Putin's example pretty clearly demonstrates that people with too much power often do stupid things.

Ukraine's success with drones suggests that it will be easier for China to isolate and defeat the better part of the USA's deployed firepower than to actually take Taiwan over by force. But to use drones, you’ve got to have them first, and it remains to be seen whether defense institutions abroad can fill inventories quickly or meet demand during an extended conflict. Ukrainians, however, have proven that it is possible to have a fully domestic drone supply chain that can produce weapons at a fraction of the cost required to train a soldier or build an armored vehicle. But Ukraine is also a geographically large country bordering close allies with a strong technological and industrial base. Still, Taiwan can likely ramp up small drone manufacturing quickly, and may already be. Meanwhile the United States officer corps is trying to figure out how to integrate individual drones with squads and platoons. Never mind Ukraine's experience, which suggests that the workload requirements are too high and that dedicated drone units are ideal. I used to think that low-level integration was the way to go too. But just as you don’t make every squad manage its own tank support, drones are best handled by their own branch thanks to the need for constant software updates.

In any case, greater security cooperation between like-minded countries in the Pacific is becoming an urgent matter. And so far as I’m concerned, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawai’i, and the Pacific Territories should be closely integrated with any pan-Pacific effort. If Trump wants to tear down the federal government, fine. We can fund our own.

Concluding Comments

As far as the situation in Ukraine goes, the ceasefire dance looks set to continue through spring, though with things heating up in the Middle East again they could wind up being shelved sooner. There is a chance that Moscow will throw Iran under the bus in exchange for Trump selling out Ukraine. Fortunately, the energetic global response to Trump seeming to side with Putin has so far forced him to retreat from his brazen attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty. He will likely have to resort to more indirect methods if he wants to do a dirty deal with Moscow.

When Trump pushes, push back. It’s a simple algorithm. With guys like him, you only lose if you actively choose to. Ukraine has shown everyone the way.

https://substack.com/@andrewtanner

 

[ChloeTzang]

Putin’s economic illusion is crumbling – top Russian economist warns of looming collapse​

Worth a read. Russia is on the ropes economically, with a collapse looming. Some key takeaways:

• For years, Russia poured massive amounts of money—about $180–200 billion per year—into the economy, particularly the military-industrial complex. This initially created the appearance of economic growth. But at the same time, it destroyed civilian industries. Russia’s economy is now flooded with money, but there aren’t enough goods to absorb it. Imports are shrinking, and domestic production is failing.
• To slow inflation, the government raised deposit interest rates, which temporarily trapped money in bank accounts. But when rates fall, those savings will flood the market all at once, triggering hyperinflation. Meanwhile, entire industries are collapsing.
• The coal industry is the most affected—virtually the entire sector is unprofitable. In Kuzbass, a region where around 200,000 people rely on coal mining, a social crisis is looming. Many will lose their jobs.
• Steel production is also in trouble. Russia lost its export markets, and domestic construction has slowed because the government stopped subsidizing mortgages. Regional budgets, which used to fund infrastructure repairs, are also struggling. Without government purchases, demand for steel pipes and other materials has plummeted.
• This crisis is spreading across forestry, aviation, transportation, and logistics. Each month, another industry succumbs to the economic metastases of the war.
• The ruble is being artificially propped up. This isn’t the result of market forces, but direct government intervention. Putin and the Finance Ministry are forcing large exporters to sell more foreign currency, which temporarily strengthens the ruble. This helps slow inflation for imported goods. But exporters are suffering. When they convert their foreign earnings, they get fewer rubles per dollar, yet their domestic costs—wages, energy, resources—remain high. Russian companies are begging Putin to let the ruble weaken to at least 100 rubles per dollar. The government will have to comply eventually, and when they do, inflation will return with full force.
• The deficit is out of control - in the first two months of 2024, the deficit hit a record high—double the amount projected for the entire year.
• Military spending remains massive, while tax revenue is falling. The government raised the corporate profit tax from 20% to 25%, expecting higher revenue. But with so many industries now operating at a loss, there’s nothing to tax. The Finance Ministry admitted that in 2023, they collected 500 billion rubles ($5.5 billion) less than expected in profit taxes. Oil and gas revenues are also disappointing.
• To plug the gap, the government is draining its emergency reserves. The National Wealth Fund has shrunk from over 8 trillion rubles ($88 billion) at the start of the war to just 3–4 trillion rubles ($33–44 billion) today. If they used it to cover the deficit, it would be gone in one year.
• The Kremlin is now borrowing heavily, but that creates another problem—rising debt and higher interest payments. Nearly 10% of Russia’s budget is now spent just on servicing existing debt.

Russia’s economy isn’t just slowing down—it’s on the verge of collapse.

https://english.nv.ua/business/exil...ng-financial-crisis-under-putin-50499607.html

 

[ChloeTzang]

They're looking at only 50,000 cars beimg sp;d next montha across the whole of Russia. Automobile industry collapsing....

 

[ChloeTzang]

Another infrastructure hit where it hurts on Russia

 

[ChloeTzang]

The entire Oil Pumping Station NPS "Kavkazka" is on flames. Russian Firefighters have left the facility. They simply gave up

https://twitter.com/x/status/1903018229393420699

 

[ChloeTzang]

 

[ChloeTzang]

Did Ukraine hit Russian nukes at Engels Airbase?

After a successful strike on the russian military airfield Engels-2, fuel tanks and ammunition depots, special troops and equipment with chemical and radiation protection arrived there. The radiation background rose to 0.48 MkZv/h with a norm of 0.12 MkZv/h. Wondering now if the Russians had nukes stored there and they were hit. I can't think of any other reason for background radiation to rise like that and for special troops and equipment with chemical and radiation protection to be sent there.

The Engels airbase was used by some of Russia`s heavy bombers like the T-95 "Bear" as well as T-160 "Blackjack" bombers.It would be expected that there would likely be nuclear munitions stored at the base for rapid deployment. Ergo....Ukraine has hit Russian nukes.....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1903028304896037371

 

[ChloeTzang]

First reported war criminal deaths from Engels strike....at leat two Russian war criminals dead and more coming......

 

[ChloeTzang]

 

[ChloeTzang]

Next target - 1,000,000

ETA. 30 June 2025