Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Thursday, September 17, 2026 09:21
VIEWED: 571014
PAGE 104 of 111
Ending Russia's war before winter is realistic, Budanov says
By Kateryna Denisova | June 1, 2026 7:13 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/ending-russias-war-before-winter-is-realis
tic-budanov-says/
It is a realistic goal to end Russia's war against Ukraine before winter 2026, President's Office Head Kyrylo Budanov said on June 1, responding to a question from the Kyiv Independent.
Budanov's position aligns with recent remarks by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said in a May 31 interview that as Moscow loses the initiative on the battlefield and Kyiv steps up long-range strikes inside Russian territory, the window for effective peace talks with Moscow will remain open until the winter.
When asked, Budanov agreed with that assessment.
"The president has tasked us with trying to end this war as quickly as possible. I can confirm that this is indeed his goal — to bring hostilities to an end as soon as possible, preferably before winter," Budanov said, speaking at the Architecture of Security Forum in Kyiv.
"As head of the President's Office, I certainly do everything I can to achieve the objective set by Ukraine's president."
Budanov described the aim as "absolutely right, timely, and well considered." According to him, a range of factors suggests there is hope that Russia could agree to a "certain proposal" to halt hostilities.
As a former spy chief, Budanov has often made bold forecasts about the war's outcome, not all of which have come true.
Speaking about the battlefield situation, Zelensky said earlier that Russia's territorial gains over the past month hadn't exceeded its losses, adding that "we need to find a diplomatic way to sit and to speak" before winter.
"But it depends (on) the pressure on (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, the pressure in his society, and I think that is increasing, the pressure by sanctions — not to lift them, to put more," the Ukrainian president said in an interview with CBS News.
The latest trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. took place in mid-February. A follow-up meeting, first planned for late February and later pushed to early March, was canceled shortly before U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran shifted Washington's focus to the Middle East.
Russia's territorial demands remain the main obstacle to progress.
Ukraine maintains that freezing the current front line is the most realistic basis for a ceasefire. Russia, meanwhile, continues to insist that Ukrainian forces withdraw from parts of Donbas region as a precondition for any settlement — a demand Kyiv has rejected.
In a rare acknowledgment from Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in late May that the U.S.-mediated peace talks have effectively stalled.
Still, Budanov does not think the negotiations are at a deadlock.
"Certain processes are ongoing, though they are not fully public," he added.
According to the President's Office chief, U.S. President Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, confirmed plans to visit Kyiv and Moscow "in the near future."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Formula developed by long-dead British polymath shows one side nearing defeat in Ukraine
The iron law of warfighting mathematics shows the Ukraine war is only a few months away from a tipping point beyond which the losses of one side will snowball, leading inexorably to defeat.
Multipolarity | May 26, 2026
https://multipolaritypod.substack.com/p/the-formula-developed-by-a-lon
g-dead
Conclusion
Dr Powell’s model suggests that the war is rapidly nearing a tipping point. Ukraine is approaching the fulcrum beyond which the weight of the war tips its forces into rapid depletion, allowing the Russian military to start achieving much more significant territorial gains. In turn, this would lead to accelerated Ukrainian losses through the ruthless reality of the square law. This road heads toward an eventual Ukrainian collapse.
Ukraine’s effective combat power (a composite of manpower, machinery and munitions) is depleting, the model shows, at a net rate that outpaces its replenishment, while Russia’s holds steady or grows marginally. This imbalance, compounded by recent reductions in Western support, suggests a tipping point where Ukrainian force density thins below viability, triggering rapid territorial losses and operational collapse.
Based on his integrated projections from an updated model (as of 15 May), Dr Powell estimates window for this tipping point is 3-6 months from now (July-September 2026), followed by a 3-4 month cascade to functional exhaustion. Overall, this yields a 6-9 month horizon to “floodgates opening,” where advances accelerate from the current 0.3-1 km/day to 5-10 km/day, as seen in historical breakthroughs like the 2022 Kherson retreat. This non-linear result is the manifestation of the pitiless square law which Frederick Lanchester first codified into a usable model for military operations in 1916. But it boils down to this: Dr Powell’s model estimates Ukrainian collapse by early Spring next year (nine months from mid-May 2026) at the outside.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Signym, comrade, what's with this?
T
Russia's Last Defensive Line Just BROKE — 200km of Open Terrain Ahead | Ben Hodges
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Yeah. Really, Sigs...
What's with dude using AI to make his fake battle scenes instead of paying a real artist to make his fake battle scenes?
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Russia’s monthly ballistic-missile production now exceeds Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 production. And it takes 2 interceptors to stop one Iskander, says expert
Russia builds 70 ballistic missiles a month. Lockheed Martin builds 56 PAC-3 interceptors.
By Olena Mukhina | June 2, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/02/russias-monthly-ballistic-missi
le-production-now-exceeds-lockheed-martins-pac-3-production-and-it-takes-2-3-interceptors-to-stop-one-iskander/
Lockheed Martin delivered 620 PAC-3 MSE interceptors across all of 2025, which is about 56 per month. And in practice, the gap is wider than the production ratio suggests, because a single Iskander interception typically requires two to three PAC-3 missiles fired in salvo.
Ukraine consumes approximately 60 Patriot interceptors per month, and its Air Force describes the supply position as a "starvation ration."
The Iran war has drawn further from US Patriot stocks, with Trump administration officials reportedly warning allies that US weapons supplies to Ukraine could be interrupted in the coming months.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russia's Military Collapse Is Now Irreversible
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NATO chief arrives in Kyiv the day after a mass Russian strike
By Martin Fornusek | June 3, 2026 10:59 am
https://kyivindependent.com/nato-chief-arrives-in-kyiv-day-after-mass-
russian-strike/
"What I want to achieve is that the burden is more evenly spread, that there is more burden sharing here. Because at the moment, it is only six or seven allies who are doing the heavy lifting," Rutte said at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
After U.S. President Donald Trump rolled back military aid for Ukraine, Kyiv's European allies have largely footed the bill to support Ukraine.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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THGR, I'm sure you'll never respond to this.
I listened to the first few minutes of your latest video, and it's just chock-full of unsupported statements.
Here's an example: Ukraine has the technological edge.
Really? Like?
Ok, Ukraine has drones.
So does Russia.
Ukraine supposedly has drones that talk to each other.
Russia appears to have that too.
Ukraine has a "flamingo" missile, which is a subsonic cruise missile or a big drone.
Russia has that, and supersonic and hypersonic versions as well.
Ukraine doesn't have artillery, or planes, or air dedenses.
Russia does.
IDK what this guy is talking about. But he doesn't explain.
Listen critically and ask yourself if you're hearing specifics or just blah blah blah.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Really, Signym? Do you want to revise that first sentence? Or is it the whole truth in your opinion?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine doesn't have artillery, or planes, or air dedenses.
Russia does.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ukraine races to build a decentralized energy grid to withstand Russia’s winter attacks
“Our task is to build a system that is harder to destroy and easier to restore.”
By Alex Stezhensky | June 3, 2026, 06:56 AM
https://english.nv.ua/business/ukraine-builds-harder-to-destroy-energy
-system-after-russian-strikes-shmyhal-says-50613076.html
Shmyhal said the key metric is now recovery speed. That is why Ukraine is preparing a reserve stock of critical energy-system components ahead of next winter.
On Feb. 3, Russian troops launched their most powerful attack on Ukraine’s energy system since the start of the year. Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said Russian forces attacked eight Ukrainian oblasts, using several types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones to strike apartment buildings, combined heat and power plants, as well as CHP and thermal power plants that were operating solely to heat districts in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
Ukraine needs at least EUR 5.4 billion ($6.3 billion) to prepare for the 2026–2027 heating season, Shmyhal said during a meeting of the Ukraine Energy Coordinating Group, known as Energy Ramstein, on April 26.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Their winter attacks?
I thought Ukraine had this all buttoned up and the war was going to be over next week?
Ted said the guy with the AI thumbnails said so.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Zelenskyy sets hard deadline on Patriot deliveries and warns of shake-up
The president is expecting responses from officials this week
By Liliana Oleniak | Wed, June 03, 2026 - 14:12
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/zelenskyy-sets-hard-deadline-on-patrio
t-deliveries-1780485120.html
Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of missiles for Patriot, NASAMS, and IRIS-T air defense systems. In many units, launchers are nearly out of ammunition, and Air Force representatives are forced to urgently request even 5–10 missiles.
Russian forces have increased the use of Zircon missiles during strikes against Ukraine. Last night alone, Russia launched eight such missiles; however, Ukrainian air defense was unable to intercept them because there wasn't any ammo in the right locations to shoot down the missiles.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine present: "How to say hello to St. Petersburg Economic Forum (i.e., Russian propaganda event) with nice fireworks."
Two videos are here: https://imgur.com/gallery/unmanned-systems-forces-of-armed-forces-of-u
kraine-present-how-to-say-hello-to-st-petersburg-economic-forum-i-e-russian-propaganda-event-with-nice-fireworks-WT9DXvz
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Really, Signym? Do you want to revise that first sentence? Or is it the whole truth in your opinion?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine doesn't have artillery, or planes, or air dedenses.
Russia does.
You're right. I should correct the fat- finger.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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To summarize the current situation:
Ukraine is busy attacking civilians. They targeted a school dormitory at night with at least 7 drones, killing 21 students and wounding 41.
In retaliation, Russia struck Kiev with about a dozen missiles.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is targeting a road between Mariupol and Crimea. The road mostly carries civilian traffic, and as a result of remote mining managed to kill more civilians. Ukraine is causing a shortage of gasoline in Crimea, but not apparently affecting the southern front at all.
Yesterday Ukraine targeted Saint Petersburg, where the economic forum is being held, a civilian train, and a civilian bus.
In the Donbas, Russia occupies about half of the city of Konstantinovka and has Ukrainian troops in a deep pocket in the southern end of the city. Konstantinovka is the southernmost city of the Slaviansk- Kramatorsk- Konstantinovka agglomeration. This agglomeration is also being approached from the east. Russia is within 9 kilometers of Kramatorsk.
In Zaparozhye region, Russia, is within a kilometer of Orekhov, which is a strongly fortfied village protecting the city of Zaparozhye.
In the north, Kupiansk is occupied, and Russia is advancing all along the northern border.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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The Russian ultranationalist community presented scenarios for Russia’s military and geopolitical future at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that likely somewhat differ from the Kremlin’s positions.
Russian business newspaper Kommersant reported on June 3 that Kremlin-affiliated Russian oligarch and Orthodox nationalist Konstantin Malofeev and Russian ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin presented several “future scenarios” for Russia at SPIEF.[1] The presentation slides outlined “good,” “inertial” (continuing), and “bad” scenarios for 2036 and 2050 . . .
The “good” scenario includes the Russian occupation of Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and other Ukrainian cities and the collapse of the European Union (EU) by 2036 and other Russian narratives about alleged imminent victory in Ukraine.
The presentation’s “bad” scenario included a Russian military defeat in Ukraine, Ukraine joining NATO, the loss of Russian influence over post-Soviet countries by 2036, and the “colonization of Russia” by 2050.
The presentation’s “continuing” 2036 scenario speculated that Russia would use nuclear weapons if the military situation in Ukraine remained the same, effectively threatening that Russia would use nuclear weapons against Ukraine if the war continued on its current path.
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-june-3-2026/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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From the Wall Street Journal
Russia’s elite is souring on the war. Putin doesn’t seem to care.
By Yaroslav Trofimov
Jun 03, 2026
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-elite-is-souring-on-the-
war-putin-doesn-t-seem-to-care/ar-AA24Mz5r
. . . Another hard-liner, historian and former Kremlin official Aleksey Chadaev, who runs the Ushkuynik drone-warfare research center, noted that pursuing the current course of war “is not just a path to ‘non-victory’, but to a full-scale defeat.” He has called for a pause so that Russia can reorganize itself for the next round.
Vasily Kashin, director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, last month published a widely discussed piece in Russia’s foremost foreign-policy journal. He argued that Ukraine will inevitably remain an anti-Russian, pro-Western country, especially after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed or maimed in the war. He said the goal of installing a friendly regime in Kyiv—one of Putin’s original war objectives—is no longer realistic.
Pointing to the example of the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran, Kashin said that even a major escalation, such as assassinating President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s military and civilian leadership, would likely bring to power a “more active, ambitious and radical” generation of Ukrainian leaders. . . .
. . . “It seems that in the fifth year of the war, some people are starting to realize that continuing the war for another year or two doesn’t seriously improve Russia’s negotiating position. It is becoming clearer and clearer to them that it’s time to wrap it up,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “Elite discussion on the matter is starting to be normalized, with all the loyalty caveats. But does Putin realize that he is in a dead end, and that the war now has diminishing returns? This we don’t know. Nothing shows that he has changed his mind.”
The nature of the heavily militarized Russian state makes it unlikely that Putin will listen to voices of reason, said Pavlo Klimkin, a former Ukrainian foreign minister. “War is the modus vivendi of this regime; it’s like riding a bicycle—if they stop, they fall,” he said. . . .
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Vladimir Putin’s Second-Biggest Headache
With his war in Ukraine going badly, he may soon face another quagmire in Chechnya.
By Christian Caryl, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a former Moscow bureau chief for Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report.
June 4, 2026, 5:36 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/04/russia-putin-chechnya-kadyrov-suc
cession-war-ukraine-unrest/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a lot to worry about these days. What he originally planned as a quick regime-change operation in Ukraine has now gone on longer than the Soviet Union’s fight against Nazi Germany, and Kyiv is increasingly bringing the war to the Russian heartland. (On June 3, guests at Putin’s showcase international forum in St. Petersburg awoke to the sight of blazing fires from Ukrainian drones.) The Russian economy is showing serious signs of strain. And even China, Putin’s most important friend and patron, has shown that it’s not willing to give Moscow unlimited support.
But there’s another problem brewing in the background—one that could produce serious instability at a time when Putin can least afford it. The Kremlin is confronting a potentially explosive succession crisis in Chechnya, the North Caucasus republic that has a long history of generating turmoil entirely out of proportion to its tiny size. The problem: Chechnya’s all-powerful leader, President Ramzan Kadyrov, 49, is suffering from a serious illness, probably terminal, that could remove him from the scene at any moment.
Kadyrov’s favored successor, his 18-year-old son Adam, is too young to assume the throne. Putin could try to keep the Kadyrov family in power by allowing Adam to exercise nominal control under the guidance of a trusted ally or even a regent from Moscow. But such a solution could turn out to be harder than it looks. Ramzan’s harsh rule over the past 22 years—prompting some to dub him the Kim Jong Il of the Caucasus—has left behind countless grievances in a clan-based culture with deeply ingrained blood feud traditions. He has also driven many of his rivals into exile, where they have been patiently waiting to even the score.
And over the past four years, another complicating factor has joined the mix: the war in Ukraine, where Chechens are fighting on both sides. The Ukrainians, who officially recognized Chechen independence from Russia in 2022, have been doing everything in their power to embolden the opposition to Kadyrov—knowing full well that sparking a new war in the republic would cause a massive drain on Russian resources at a time when Putin is already facing a dangerous new phase in his war on Kyiv.
The Ukrainians remember something that many Westerners have forgotten. Putin rose to the presidency on the back of his reputation as a ruthless suppressor of Chechen rebels in the late 1990s. The ex-KGB man boosted his popularity with Russian voters by promising to pursue Chechen separatists without mercy—“if we catch them in the toilet, excuse me, we will wipe them out in the shithouse,” as he once famously put it. In reality, he combined that tough-guy approach with pragmatic outreach to one of the leaders of the resistance movement: Akhmad Kadyrov, who served for six years as the republic’s top Muslim religious official.
Kadyrov had fought on the rebel side during the first Chechen revolt from 1991 to 1994, when Chechen nationalists took advantage of the weakness of the central government under then-President Boris Yeltsin. Chechen insurgents fought the Russian army to a standstill in a brutal conflict and declared de facto independence that lasted until 1999, when the Second Chechen War broke out.
Then-Prime Minister Putin took a hard-line course against the rebels on the battlefield. The Russians’ indiscriminate tactics, which killed countless civilians, previewed their brutality in their war on Ukraine. At the same time, Putin made overtures to Kadyrov, who had come to oppose the radical jihadis who were coming to dominate the independence movemen
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Nobody cares. Nobody has ever cared.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Has the Tide Turned Against Russia in the Ukraine War?
By Moscow Times Reporter and Bashir Kitachayev
June 4, 2026
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/06/04/has-the-tide-turned-against-
russia-in-the-ukraine-war-a92933
Ukraine last released official casualty figures in February, acknowledging that 55,000 of its servicemen had been killed.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/ukraine-55000-troops-killed-russ
ia-talks-zelenskyy-rcna257529
The website Ukraine Losses, which tracks military deaths using open-source information, estimates the number at more than 97,850. https://ualosses.org/en/soldiers/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine
And Putin seems to be the last person not to know it.
By Cathy Young
Jun 03, 2026
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/yes-russia-is-losing-the-war-in-ukraine-p
utin-drones-trump
Virtually everyone now acknowledges that the Russian ground offensive in Ukraine is stalled.
A notable exception, of course, is Putin, who asserted only last week that “this situation” (a delicate euphemism for the war) is “nearing its conclusion” and then explained that his claim was based on “an analysis of what is happening on the battlefield”: “Our troops are advancing in every direction. Everyone can see it, every blessed day.”
Even many of Russia’s hawkish “milbloggers” reacted with extreme skepticism. Expatriate Russian journalist and YouTuber Michael Nacke says that there is now “a whole constellation of fairly popular [pro-war bloggers] who explain at some length why Russia isn’t winning, no matter what Putin may say.” Putin, in fact, may be genuinely deluded. The Institute for the Study of War suggests, on the basis of leaked documents from the Russian Ministry of Defense, that his optimism likely stems from “a false perception of the Russian military’s successes in Ukraine based on heavily exaggerated maps from the Russian high military command.” It’s Potemkin villages all over again.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Heard that before.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Source: Zelenskyy's open letter to Putin, published on the Office of the President's website on 4 June
Quote: "We have seen intelligence reports showing that you are now considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope ballistic missiles will achieve for you what everything else has failed to achieve. You want to draw Belarus even deeper into this war, and we are now forced to prepare for that as well.
We see that you are trying to orchestrate something around Transnistria. Your propagandists threaten, in one way or another, every country neighboring Russia. Do you really want to go through all of this?"
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/04/8037819/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Who's funding that big mouth? He ain't.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:From your very own spinmeisters?
Originally posted by second:
Source: Zelenskyy's open letter to Putin, published on the Office of the President's website on 4 June
Quote: "We have seen intelligence reports
Quote:
showing that you are now considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope ballistic missiles will achieve for you what everything else has failed to achieve. You want to draw Belarus even deeper into this war, and we are now forced to prepare for that as well.
We see that you are trying to orchestrate something around Transnistria. Your propagandists threaten, in one way or another, every country neighboring Russia. Do you really want to go through all of this?"
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/04/8037819/
This is classic SECOND: Misrepresenting, and trying to give it credibility by referencing anonymous "them".
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:June 2, 2026
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is classic SECOND: Misrepresenting, and trying to give it credibility by referencing anonymous "them".
Changing fortunes
To understand how dramatically Ukraine’s prospects have changed, consider that in March, then-ODNI director Tulsi Gabbard, testified that the U.S. intelligence community believed that Russia had the “upper hand” in the conflict.
Now Ukrainian officials and other observers have begun to worry about a premature sense of victory among Ukraine’s foreign backers.
More at https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/06/ukraine-robots-winning/4
13902/?oref=d1-featured-river-secondary
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Now Ukrainian officials and other observers have begun to worry about a premature sense of victory among Ukraine’s foreign backers.
OOPS!
Sold the bullshit too hard, didja?
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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We're winning, but we're not really winning all that much.
Please give us more money.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:Fundamentally, Trumptards don't understand how a group of people can function effectively toward a common goal, unless there is a constant exchange of money and threats. The words "common goal" and "effective" and a whole bunch of higher concepts are meaningless to a Trumptard. It is why Trumptard families, even if there are only two people in the group, tend to self-destruct when placed under slight stress, unless there is cash flowing from one member to the next to grease the relationships.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Who's funding that big mouth? He ain't.
Ukraine strips 8 military units of right to conduct basic training after inspections, Syrskyi says
By Jared Goyette | June 4, 2026 8:14 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/8-ukrainian-military-units-lose-right-to-c
onduct-basic-training-after-inspections-syrskyi-says/
Eight Ukrainian military units have lost the right to independently conduct basic training for new recruits following inspections in May, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on June 4.
The inspections were conducted at 72 military units authorized to provide basic combined arms training at their own bases, Syrskyi said. Separate brigades and regiments were also instructed to review their capabilities and improve conditions and the curriculum for training.
"There are no untouchables," Syrskyi said. "The quality of military training must meet uniform high standards."
Syrskyi said Ukraine's military is continuing to update its basic training program to reflect the realities of the modern battlefield. The program now includes practical group exercises in detecting and destroying small drones, including copters and first-person-view (FPV) drones.
The changes follow previous efforts to overhaul military training as Ukraine faces a persistent manpower shortage and a battlefield increasingly dominated by drones.
Ukraine previously extended its basic combat course to 51 days and added modules on drone warfare, trench survival, and engineering. The military has also sought to move training underground as much as possible following a series of deadly Russian strikes on training grounds.
An April 2025 Kyiv Independent report detailed long-standing shortcomings in Ukraine's training system, with front-line commanders reporting that some new recruits arrived without basic survival skills needed for combat in a drone-heavy environment.
Syrskyi said professionalism and quality training were key to allowing Ukrainian forces to maintain an advantage over Russia despite Moscow's greater manpower resources.
He also linked training quality to commanders' treatment of troops.
"Where commanders care for their subordinates, improve living conditions, develop training facilities, and where instructors guide recruits and maintain constant feedback, the quality of training is higher and there are fewer cases of unauthorized absence from units," Syrskyi said.
Cases of soldiers going absent without leave (AWOL) have become a major challenge for Ukraine's military as it struggles to replenish infantry units after more than four years of full-scale war.
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Jan. 14 that around 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers were AWOL. Conflicts with commanders, exhaustion, psychological strain, resource shortages, and bureaucratic obstacles to transferring between units have contributed to Ukraine's growing AWOL and desertion crisis, according to soldiers, commanders, and other sources interviewed by the Kyiv Independent.
Syrskyi said Ukraine's military would continue to improve its basic training system, strengthen psychological training, as well as introduce additional measures aimed at preventing AWOL cases.
"Today, the lives of our soldiers and the effectiveness of combat missions depend on the quality of training," Syrskyi said.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafi
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America, the Inessential Nation
It turns out that Trump doesn’t have the cards
By Paul Krugman | Jun 05, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/america-the-inessential-nation
On Feb. 28, 2025 Donald Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, for what he claimed was failure to show sufficient respect. “You’re not in a good position,” Trump declared. “You don’t have the cards right now.”
It was a spectacle that shamed America — Trump engaging in petty bullying of the leader of a nation fighting for its life against tyranny. If you have time, read the transcript or watch the video to see just how sickening it was. But worse was to come. Trump and his minions proceeded to cut off all financial aid to Ukraine:
They also began blocking shipments of U.S. weapons, even when other nations were willing to pay for them. And in August Trump held a meeting with Vladimir Putin in which, as the Russians see it, he offered to broker a deal that would give Russia control of a crucial fortress belt on Ukrainian soil.
It was a shocking betrayal of a democracy fighting for its freedom — and, in so doing, fighting for the freedom of Europe as a whole. Even some Republicans are ashamed. Yesterday 18 Republican members of the House broke ranks with their leadership and voted for a bill that would restore aid to Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia. But the bill has no chance of becoming law, because Trump is siding ever closely more with Putin in a war that is now well into its fifth year.
But a funny thing happened to Trump’s attempt to hand Ukraine over to his comrade in thuggery: the war has turned in Ukraine’s favor. The fighting remains a gruesome slugfest, but Ukraine’s superior flexibility and capacity for innovation have gradually given it the upper hand in the drone warfare that increasingly shapes combat. In fact, Ukraine is so proficient at drone warfare that the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — which are facing drone attacks as a consequence of Trump’s disastrous Iran war — have signed agreements to draw on Ukrainian technology and expertise.
Zelenskyy, it turns out, does have quite a few cards, while Trump has far fewer cards than he imagined.
Before Trump, we were also a nation almost universally regarded as essential: Nations believed that they needed access to U.S. banks to do business, access to U.S. markets to prosper, access to U.S. weapons to defend themselves. But by breaking decades’ worth of international agreements — not to mention threatening allies and betraying Ukraine — Trump quickly forfeited the world’s trust. By failing so spectacularly against Iran, a far weaker military power, Trump has dispelled much of the world’s fear.
And now the fact that the world is managing economically despite Trump’s tariffs, while Ukraine is surviving despite Trump’s attempt to cut it off at the knees, has revealed that we are much less essential than everyone assumed.
________________
June 5, 1944 — back when we were a reliable and essential ally of nations fighting for freedom.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Putin Still Believes He’ll Win in Ukraine. The People Closest to Him Have Quietly Concluded He Can’t
By Steve Balestrieri | June 4, 2026
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/putin-still-believes-hell-win-in-u
kraine-the-people-closest-to-him-have-quietly-concluded-he-cant/
Summary and Key Points: Vladimir Putin still tells his country that victory in Ukraine is coming. But the war has now lasted longer than World War II did for Russia, and the people best positioned to know — including one of Russia’s own top academics — have quietly reached the opposite conclusion: this war cannot be won, not without an occupation that is simply impossible.
The Ukraine War and a Look to History
The current war in Ukraine has lasted longer than World War II did for Russia, but they have not yet achieved one of their primary goals of the war. The Ukrainians have been turning the tide of the war, but may not have the military forces to drive Russia out of its territory.
Like the Korean War before it, this nearly four-and-a-half-year war may end up in a negotiated settlement, with a country divided by a heavily militarized line of control between the two warring factions.
In a bizarre twist of fate, thousands of North Korean “volunteers” are fighting for Russia in the same brutal, bloody, meatgrinder that their forefathers fought in the 1950s.
Many of the Same Factors Face Each Side in Ukraine
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is facing increasing pressure both at the front and within the country. The Russian army’s offensive is slowing down, resources are being depleted, and Ukrainian drone strikes are hitting the logistics and economy of the Russian Federation increasingly hard.
Military analysts are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Putin’s war aims, despite his insistence, are becoming increasingly unattainable.
Putin’s growing frustration has led many analysts to believe that Putin will once again resort to nuclear blackmail in an attempt to win strategic concessions from the West.
There were the same threats that both sides used in Korea.
Other Similarities To The Korean War
Neither side is able to gain much territory. Just as the Korean War transitioned from rapid territorial swings to a grueling war of attrition along a static front, the conflict in Ukraine has frequently settled into a defensive deadlock.
A reluctant armistice could freeze the front lines with a heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) stretching across ruined territories.
CIRSD wrote that “just as the Korean War came as a consequence of the division of Korea, the war in Ukraine came as a consequence of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Modern world history shows that, when a unitary state splits or disintegrates, violent conflicts can ensue.”
Also, like the Korean War, the war of attrition has been dragging on, with an appalling number of casualties on both sides, but mainly suffered by Russia.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as of late May 2026, Russia has suffered more than 1.3 million casualties (killed and wounded) in Ukraine since the February 2022 invasion. More than 352,000 of these are believed to be fatalities.
Despite very positive combat assessments by his generals, Putin’s forces are making very minimal gains (15 to 70 meters per day) but at casualty rates of up to 1,000 troops per day.
Ukraine Was Offered The “Korean Option” In 2023
In January 2023, Oleksii Danilov, the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security Council, warned that the stalemate may result in the same armistice. “We are being offered the Korean option. ‘Here there will be some Ukrainians, here there will be other Ukrainians, and here there shall be no Ukrainians.’ I’m convinced that one of the options they will offer us is this 38th parallel.”
Oleksii Arestovich, a well-known Ukrainian political commentator and former advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated that the situation was similar to Korea as well, saying the country could e
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The campaign of AI drone strikes is intensifying. And now the Russians are losing potentially hundreds of trucks every day. Far more than they can immediately replace with new production. While Russian ground forces possess tens of thousands of cargo vehicles and buy thousands of new ones every year, they're currently on track to lose thousands per month.
If truck losses continue at the current rate, or get worse, the Russians may have no choice but to begin doing for trucks what they've long done for tanks: pull very old vehicles out of long-term storage and do their best to refurbish them for continued use.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/02/old-russian-trucks/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
By failing so spectacularly against Iran, a far weaker military power, Trump has dispelled much of the world’s fear.
Krugman said the quiet part out loud: We've been running the world on fear. He probably didn't even realize what he just admitted.
What will "the world" do when it no longer fears us?
I don't know, but payback's a bitch.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, I'm sure you'll never respond to this.
I listened to the first few minutes of your latest video, and it's just chock-full of unsupported statements.
Here's an example: Ukraine has the technological edge.
Really? Like?
Ok, Ukraine has drones.
So does Russia.
Ukraine supposedly has drones that talk to each other.
Russia appears to have that too.
Ukraine has a "flamingo" missile, which is a subsonic cruise missile or a big drone.
Russia has that, and supersonic and hypersonic versions as well.
Ukraine doesn't have artillery, or planes, or air dedenses.
Russia does.
IDK what this guy is talking about. But he doesn't explain.
Listen critically and ask yourself if you're hearing specifics or just blah blah blah.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
No comrade, it is not full of unsupported comments. He is reporting in real time based on all available information. And I can show in video after video, and have been, that all the worlds’ experts are saying Ukraine has a technological edge. That they are in fact, winning.
That Ukraine now has the technological advantage in fighting this kind of warfare over the rest of the world. They are leading the world in having the capability of fighting a war that must include drones. Where’ as the Russians are nowhere near as capable.
Your list of comparisons is in no way accurate comrade because Russia does not know how to fight. And because Russia is out of gas in more ways than one. Your post that I am quoting shows you are ignorant to anything that doesn't support Putin lies.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
By failing so spectacularly against Iran, a far weaker military power, Trump has dispelled much of the world’s fear.
Krugman said the quiet part out loud: We've been running the world on fear. He probably didn't even realize what he just admitted.
What will "the world" do when it no longer fears us?
I don't know, but payback's a bitch.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
No, it’s just that trump is too stupid to realize Iran is a stones throw away from much of the world’s energy resources. And that Iran has a lot of stones. Trump essentially chose to override the experts. The world still knows what we can do. War is not just bombs; it is also strategic. And Trump, like Putin, is a moron.
And as I’ve said to you before comrade, as far as payback goes, Trump breaks everything he touches. Not just Iran but also trade, NATO, and all our relationships with our friends; i.e. tariffs and on and on and on. If you are a democracy Trump doesn’t treat you with respect. Trump only befriends autocracies.
I warned you of this before his first and current term. But all you did was attack everyone but Trump during the elections. Which makes you an idiot.
T
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Quote:Krugman worked in the Reagan White House. Krugman also travels extensively outside the US. Krugman wrote a series of college economics textbooks that are the best sellers in the world. He knows exactly how the US got where it is. Military/Cultural/Financial/Scientific Superiority did it. He has said that the Republican Party has been a catastrophe for the prosperity of its citizens because it has damaged everything that made America Great.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
By failing so spectacularly against Iran, a far weaker military power, Trump has dispelled much of the world’s fear.
Krugman said the quiet part out loud: We've been running the world on fear. He probably didn't even realize what he just admitted.
What will "the world" do when it no longer fears us?
I don't know, but payback's a bitch.
Learning from a Mentally Ill President
We need to deal with the powers and system that put him in power and keep him there
Paul Krugman
May 31, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/learning-from-a-mentally-ill-presid
ent
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Sigmym, with your every post, you come across as a Russian propagandist. A propagandist that is not very bright.
T
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It is NOT just Trump who is an evil nitwit among Republican Presidents.
Bush was as bad:
Paul Krugman was a prominent and vocal opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As a Nobel Prize-winning economist and opinion columnist, he criticized the conflict along two primary lines: the political deception used to justify the invasion and the long-term economic damage it caused.
A "Crime" of Deception
Krugman strongly rejected the idea that the invasion was an innocent mistake or a venture undertaken merely on flawed intelligence. He argued that the Bush administration wanted a war from the beginning and that the public justifications—particularly the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)—were falsified pretexts. In his view, pushing America into a war of choice based on fabricated evidence made the invasion not just a mistake, but a grotesque violation of public trust and a political crime.
Economic and Social Costs
On the economic front, Krugman highlighted the immense financial burden of the conflict. He frequently pointed out that the war was funded almost entirely through deficit spending rather than being paid for by the taxpayer base at the time. He emphasized how the trillions of dollars spent in Iraq directly crowded out domestic priorities, noting that those same funds could have been used to avoid cuts in social programs like food stamps and Medicaid, or to expand healthcare subsidies.
Paul Krugman on the 'Cartoon Physics' of the 2008 Crash
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Belgium has a Russian steel addiction — and doesn't want to fix it
By Chris Powers | June 5, 2026 4:37 PM
https://kyivindependent.com/belgium-blocks-eu-action-against-russian-s
teel-addiction/
More than four years after the EU began sanctioning Russian steel, Belgium remains a loyal importer — thanks to a sanctions exemption that allows a Russia-based steel giant to continue supplying its Belgian factories with low-cost slabs.
Despite sweeping EU sanctions against the Kremlin for its war in Ukraine, Belgium has opposed attempts to sanction the company, NLMK, and its Kremlin-connected billionaire owner, Vladimir Lisin. Belgian officials fear that taking action could hurt employment in an already economically deprived region. Critics say the arrangement is more money for one of Russia's richest oligarchs.
NLMK in Russia is supplying its European mills with slabs, according to the European steel association Eurometal. An industry slide deck seen by the Kyiv Independent says those slabs are sold at "ultra low prices," giving EU-based re-rollers "an artificial cost advantage."
While most forms of steel from Russia were sanctioned in the first weeks of the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was one exception: semi-finished steel slabs.
When steel is made, it can be cast into a basic "semi-finished" shape, which can then be "re-rolled" elsewhere into a final product, or finished steel. Slabs are one of these semi-finished shapes.
The EU agreed to a gradual phase-out of Russian slabs as part of its 12th sanctions package in December 2023, with an end date of Sept. 30, 2028.
Moscow currently supplies 58% of the EU's slab imports from third countries. A third of those slabs go to Belgium alone, with Italy, Czechia, France, and Denmark rounding out the top five importers.
While there are several steel manufacturers in Belgium, most are not using slabs at all, and ArcelorMittal Belgium, the largest entity in the country, "is not importing any Russian slabs or other semi-finished steel products to Belgium since at least 5 years," its CEO, Frederik Van De Velde, told the Kyiv Independent in a written comment.
But the same cannot be said of two plants owned by the Russian Novolipetskiy metallurgicheskiy kombinat, or NLMK, the nearest of which lies a mere 22 kilometers from the EU's capital, Brussels.
NLMK is one of Russia's four largest steel companies. It owns 49% of NLMK Belgium, and an additional 2% via a connected entity called Tube De Haren et Nimy. The remaining 49% is owned by Belgium's French-speaking region via its investment vehicle Wallonie Entreprendre.
As of June 2026, NLMK's owner, oligarch Vladimir Lisin, was listed in Bloomberg's Billionaires Index as the world's 110th richest man, with a net worth of $23.5 billion.
Lisin has been sanctioned by Ukraine, Australia, and Canada. The Canadians describe Lisin as a "Kremlin-linked billionaire" among those who support Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and who have benefited from the war.
He has not been sanctioned by the EU, something the EU's Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius questioned when he was a member of the European Parliament.
When asked if Kubilius still holds his former view, a European Commission spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent that EU sanctions policy is decided by unanimity, and that "sanctions discussions are confidential."
However, the Kyiv Independent was told by EU and national diplomats on the condition of anonymity that Lisin's name had been floated in earlier discussions, only to be removed from consideration.
A spokesperson for Belgium's foreign ministry said that "on the proposal to list Mr Lisin individually, Belgium has indeed expressed reservations, and that position has not changed."
But "sanctions must hurt the Russian war machine more than they hurt our own economies," the spokesperson
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Ukraine’s Bullet interceptor gets speed upgrade. It now has chemical accelerator to chase down Russian 500 km/h Geran-4
The accelerator burns chemical fuel rather than using jet propulsion.
By Olena Mukhina | June 5, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/05/ukraines-bullet-interceptor-get
s-speed-upgrade-it-now-has-chemical-accelerator-to-chase-down-russian-500-km-h-geran-4/
The booster gives a rapid launch profile and conserves the Bullet's main battery for the pursuit and terminal phases of the intercept.
The Geran-4, first deployed in May 2026, runs on a Chinese-supplied Telefly turbojet engine rated at 160 kgf of thrust, reaching speeds of around 500 km/h.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
By failing so spectacularly against Iran, a far weaker military power, Trump has dispelled much of the world’s fear.
Krugman said the quiet part out loud: We've been running the world on fear. He probably didn't even realize what he just admitted.
What will "the world" do when it no longer fears us?
I don't know, but payback's a bitch.
SECOND:
Krugman worked in the Reagan White House. Krugman also travels extensively outside the US. Krugman wrote a series of college economics textbooks that are the best sellers in the world.
Appeal to authority. Not a valid argument.
Quote:
He knows exactly how the US got where it is.
And, "where" are we, exactly? Still trying to make the world safe for financialists??
Quote:
Military/Cultural/Financial/Scientific Superiority did it. He has said that the Republican Party has been a catastrophe for the prosperity of its citizens because it has damaged everything that made America Great.
Well, finally something I agree with.
But here's the thing: What is “great“? Does it mean secure and prosperous? Or does it mean being a world- dominating power and stomping the globe?
We became a world power for two reasons: production and geography.
Our military, cultural, and financial power are based on economic power.
Economic power is based on production.
Production was based on abundant resources, protectionist policies, and investment in production and infrastructure (canals, oil, steel, railroads, telegraphs, electrcity, etc).
The second major factor was geographic accident. Bc altho we were involved in two world wars, they didn't take place on our soil.
Our economic power was diminished with our turn towards financialism, and for THAT we can thank BILL CLINTON, a DEMOCRAT, who willingly bought into the globalist plan to divide the world into interlocked specializations:
commodities
cheap labor
finance/ debt issuance
locked down by "free trade" agreements, to benefit transnational corporations. NOWHERE does it benefit the people of each nation.
******
Quote:
THUGR:
Sigmym, with your every post, you come across as a Russian propagandist. A propagandist that is not very bright.
You STILL don't get it, do you???
Wow.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Who's funding that big mouth? He ain't.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Fuck. We are. Again...
House passes Ukraine aid over objections of GOP leaders
https://www.ms.now/news/house-passes-ukraine-aid
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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“Ukraine might have won” if NATO had acted in 2022, ex-top chief says
Admiral Rob Bauer says the West armed Ukraine too slowly to win—and never had a strategy for victory at all
By Alya Shandra | June 6, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/ukraine-could-have-won-in-2022-
natos-former-military-chief-admits/
Ukraine could have won the war in 2022 had the West delivered the weapons it eventually sent much later, Admiral Rob Bauer, who chaired NATO's Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, told Euromaidan Press at the GLOBSEC 2026 forum in Prague.
"If we had done something else in 2022 with regard to the weapons that we gave, you might have won," Bauer said—the most direct concession yet from a senior NATO figure that the alliance's incremental approach to arming Ukraine was a strategic mistake.
It carries weight because it comes from the officer who oversaw NATO's military response during the war's opening phase. His account confirms what Kyiv has argued since 2022: that Western caution, not Ukrainian capacity, set the ceiling on what Ukraine could achieve.
No strategy to win
Bauer was blunt that victory was never the stated goal. "It was never formulated as, 'We're doing this so that Ukraine can win the war,'" he said. Nor was it framed around Russia losing. What emerged instead was a promise to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes"—endurance, not victory.
He traced the gap to how the alliance decides. "You need one nation that says 'no' and it's 'no,'" he said, explaining why NATO never deployed troops, never admitted Ukraine, and never did more than it did.
The cost of waiting
The delay had a price Ukrainians paid on the battlefield. Had the tanks, HIMARS, ATACMS, and F-16s arrived in the spring or summer of 2022, when Ukraine was retaking ground, Russia "would be in a much more difficult spot," Bauer said. Instead, the long Western debate gave Moscow time to build the defensive works that stalled Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive.
He did not spare his own side: "I think we should have done more."
Bauer now argues Ukraine must be admitted to NATO, warning that excluding "the biggest nation with the latest experience in war with the Russians" would compound the original error. He made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview that also covered Russia's 2022 nuclear threats.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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NATO had no plan for Ukraine to win—and isn’t likely to make one, former chief says
Admiral Rob Bauer says Ukraine “might have won” in 2022—if the weapons had come in time
By Alya Shandra | June 6, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/natos-former-military-chief-adm
its-there-was-never-a-plan-for-ukraine-to-win/
In an interview with Euromaidan Press during the GLOBSEC 2026 Forum in Prague, Admiral Rob Bauer—who chaired NATO's Military Committee from 2021 to 2025—told us that if Ukraine had received in early summer 2022 the weapons it eventually received much later, "you might have won" the war. The admission, from the senior officer who oversaw NATO's military response during the war's first phase, is among the most direct concessions from a NATO authority that the West's incremental approach to arming Ukraine was a strategic mistake.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Bauer described an alliance that operated without a strategy for Ukrainian victory—"It was never formulated as, 'We're doing this so that Ukraine can win the war'"—confirmed on the record that Russia's nuclear threats to Paris, London, and Washington in 2022 were met with a US promise of conventional destruction of Russian forces in Ukraine, and argued that Ukraine must now be admitted to NATO because excluding "the biggest nation with the latest experience in war with the Russians" would compound the original mistake.
The conversation that follows has been edited for length and clarity. Bauer's framings and corrections — including where he pushed back on our questions — are preserved.
Russia's red lines go up in smoke one by one. Putin said every time there is a red line: with the HIMARS, then tanks, and then F-16s and ATACMS and missiles. And every time we found out later that it wasn't a red line—after we took too long to say "yes" to the additional capability for Ukraine.
Now, again, you say they [Russia] had a veto. I agree with you that it's not smart that we, as an Alliance, started to say from the start what we were not going to do. That doesn't help with deterrence. If you say, "Oh, by the way, we're not going to get militarily involved," that helps the enemy greatly. But this was new territory: Afghanistan and Iraq were different because they weren't a near-peer fight like in Ukraine. And a lot of politicians tread cautiously because it was new territory and not part of the "normal" plans for NATO. Maybe too cautiously.
EP: Ukraine has a 20-billion-euro state budget gap for 2026, and is now fully dependent on European support since US financial assistance ended. Meanwhile, the EU rearm plan is 800 billion euros for European rearmament, and Europe is still buying over 1 billion euros of Russian fossil fuels every month. From the Military Committee seat, is the funding architecture telling the strategy? European future readiness prioritized over Ukrainian present survival?
Admiral Bauer: A lot of questions in one. Of course there's a connection between funding Ukraine and our own ability to defend ourselves in the long run. If Ukraine goes sour, if Ukraine is no longer a sovereign state, we're in much more shit than we are now. So yes, there's a connection. . . .
But for me it's clear: we have to make sure you remain a sovereign state. And I'm more and more convinced you need to be part not only of the EU architecture but of NATO. Because if we don't allow Ukraine into the Alliance, we make a big mistake—leaving out the biggest nation with the latest experience in war with the Russians.
Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/natos-former-military-chief-adm
its-there-was-never-a-plan-for-ukraine-to-win/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Ukraine might have won” if NATO had acted in 2022, ex-top chief says
Admiral Rob Bauer says the West armed Ukraine too slowly to win—and never had a strategy for victory at all
By Alya Shandra | June 6, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/ukraine-could-have-won-in-2022-
natos-former-military-chief-admits/
Ukraine could have won the war in 2022 had the West delivered the weapons it eventually sent much later, Admiral Rob Bauer, who chaired NATO's Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, told Euromaidan Press at the GLOBSEC 2026 forum in Prague.
"If we had done something else in 2022 with regard to the weapons that we gave, you might have won," Bauer said—the most direct concession yet from a senior NATO figure that the alliance's incremental approach to arming Ukraine was a strategic mistake.
It carries weight because it comes from the officer who oversaw NATO's military response during the war's opening phase. His account confirms what Kyiv has argued since 2022: that Western caution, not Ukrainian capacity, set the ceiling on what Ukraine could achieve.
No strategy to win
Bauer was blunt that victory was never the stated goal. "It was never formulated as, 'We're doing this so that Ukraine can win the war,'" he said. Nor was it framed around Russia losing. What emerged instead was a promise to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes"—endurance, not victory.
He traced the gap to how the alliance decides. "You need one nation that says 'no' and it's 'no,'" he said, explaining why NATO never deployed troops, never admitted Ukraine, and never did more than it did.
The cost of waiting
The delay had a price Ukrainians paid on the battlefield. Had the tanks, HIMARS, ATACMS, and F-16s arrived in the spring or summer of 2022, when Ukraine was retaking ground, Russia "would be in a much more difficult spot," Bauer said. Instead, the long Western debate gave Moscow time to build the defensive works that stalled Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive.
He did not spare his own side: "I think we should have done more."
Bauer now argues Ukraine must be admitted to NATO, warning that excluding "the biggest nation with the latest experience in war with the Russians" would compound the original error. He made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview that also covered Russia's 2022 nuclear threats.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
He doesn't fucking know.
He's a liberal dipshit douchebag who never faced any real adversity in his life. Even now. No matter how bad he fucks up anything, he will always be protected and continue to live out his charmed life.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
Fuck you dude. Get the fuck out of here with that bitch ass shit.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:6ix, you know this how? 6ix is a lying sack of shit who knows nothing about this guy, other than 6ix vehemently disagreeing with the military expert who was there when the civilian politicians from NATO countries were making decisions that would kill a million Russians and Ukrainians.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
He doesn't fucking know.
He's a liberal dipshit douchebag who never faced any real adversity in his life. Even now. No matter how bad he fucks up anything, he will always be protected and continue to live out his charmed life.
From Wikipedia: Robert Peter Bauer (born 11 November 1962) is a Dutch retired military officer of the Royal Netherlands Navy who served as Chair of the NATO Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, after succeeding Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach. Bauer formerly served as the Chief of Defence (Dutch: Commandant der Strijdkrachten) from October 2017 to April 2021, and as the Vice Chief of Defence of the Netherlands of the from 1 September 2015 to 13 July 2017. Bauer was also involved in counter-terrorist and anti-piracy operations in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the Horn of Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Bauer
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, you know this how? 6ix is a lying sack of shit who knows nothing about this guy, other than 6ix vehemently disagreeing with the military expert who was there when the civilian politicians from NATO countries were making decisions that would kill a million Russians and Ukrainians.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
He doesn't fucking know.
He's a liberal dipshit douchebag who never faced any real adversity in his life. Even now. No matter how bad he fucks up anything, he will always be protected and continue to live out his charmed life.
From Wikipedia: Robert Peter Bauer (born 11 November 1962) is a Dutch retired military officer of the Royal Netherlands Navy who served as Chair of the NATO Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, after succeeding Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach. Bauer formerly served as the Chief of Defence (Dutch: Commandant der Strijdkrachten) from October 2017 to April 2021, and as the Vice Chief of Defence of the Netherlands of the from 1 September 2015 to 13 July 2017. Bauer was also involved in counter-terrorist and anti-piracy operations in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the Horn of Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Bauer
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
He served NOTHING.
As long as Big Daddy America was throwing all their money around everywhere and coming to the aid of any dipshit nobody, he's never had to do a single fucking day of work in his life.
Go fuck yourself, Second.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Ukraine might have won” if NATO had acted in 2022, ex-top chief says
Admiral Rob Bauer says the West armed Ukraine too slowly to win—and never had a strategy for victory at all
By Alya Shandra | June 6, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/ukraine-could-have-won-in-2022-
natos-former-military-chief-admits/
Ukraine could have won the war in 2022 had the West delivered the weapons it eventually sent much later, Admiral Rob Bauer, who chaired NATO's Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, told Euromaidan Press at the GLOBSEC 2026 forum in Prague.
"If we had done something else in 2022 with regard to the weapons that we gave, you might have won," Bauer said—the most direct concession yet from a senior NATO figure that ....
... NATO lost.
Bc “not winning“ is another way of saying “losing“.
Interesting idea tho.
I don't know who would have won a full-on war of NATO v Russia in Ukraine. I know that Russia felt threatened enough to bring up nukes if it was attacked directly. But the West was so certain that booting Russia off SWIFT and sanctioning its major exports and blowing up Nordstream would collapse the Russian economy that they never came up with a military Plan B. Bc picking a fight with Russia over Ukraine was never about Ukraine anyway, it was about taking over Russia.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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What’s Eating Aleksandr Dugin, ‘Putin’s Brain’?
Even Russia’s leading warmonger has run out of ways to justify the Ukraine invasion.
By Simon Shuster | June 6, 2026, 7 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/06/putin-russia-eli
te-ukraine-war/687446/
No Russian thinker has worked harder than Aleksandr Dugin to rationalize the invasion of Ukraine. Long before it started, Dugin came up with a whole philosophical system, known as “neo-Eurasianism,” to explain why Russia, the country with the largest landmass in the world, would need to steal land from its neighbors and kill many thousands of people in the process. His books and lectures on the subject earned him the nickname “Putin’s brain.” That overstates his closeness to the Russian president. But his views reflect the mood among the war’s cheerleaders in Moscow, how firmly they support the conflict, and how they try to justify it to themselves (and everyone else).
Judging by Dugin’s most recent pronouncements, they have run out of cogent stories to tell. When Dugin attempted to explain the war’s rationale last week to Ksenia Sobchak, a Russian social-media influencer with millions of followers, he could not make any sense of it. Even a softball question—“What is worth fighting for today?”—led the philosopher down a spiral of inanity so bizarre that Sobchak, long rumored to be the goddaughter of Vladimir Putin, could not listen with a straight face.
Dugin’s description of Russia after the war sounded postapocalyptic. “First of all, it’s an image of life on the land,” he said. “It is an enormous exodus from the cities, an almost religious exodus, like the Jews from Egypt.” The cities of Russia, he continued, would turn into “neo-ancient ruins,” and the people would return to living in the countryside, communicating with one another through “an internet of Russian villages, closed off and guarded from the toxic incursions of the enemy.”
The Russian state has often forced its people into strange contortions of the mind. By law, Russians are prohibited from publicly calling the war a war rather than a “special military operation,” and Putin has urged them to believe that Ukraine started it. Still, the national capacity for self-deception has its limits, and recent developments suggest that Putin has found them.
Ukrainian drones now pummel industrial targets across Russia nightly, shutting down oil refineries, snarling logistics, and forcing airports to close for days at a time. More than 1 million Russians have been killed or badly wounded in the war, a toll too great to hide—almost every family has been affected. The gap between what Russians know to be true about the war and what the Kremlin says about it has grown so wide that even warmongers like Dugin struggle to bridge it. Instead, the ideologues of Russian imperialism have turned to random musings and belligerent hate speech, which seems intended to confuse rather than convince.
At various points during his interview with Sobchak, Dugin called the sport of surfing evil and said that its practitioners should be purged. He did not provide a coherent reason. He expressed similar hatred toward Russia’s favorite cartoon character, the jug-eared Cheburashka, who has repeatedly served as the mascot for the Russian Olympic Team. No political constituency exists for such views in Russia or elsewhere. They only allow Dugin to distract from the fact that he has nothing else to say, no way to spin the war he has championed for much of his career.
“It shows that everyone is beyond exhausted,” Mikhail Zygar, the author of several books about the Russian elite, most recently The Dark Side of the Earth, told me. “There is no one left who wants the war to continue, with the possible exception of Putin and Dugin.” A year or two ago, wealthy and powerful Russians tended to support the war, even in their private conversations, because they knew the dangers of losing it. “They would say things like: Yes, maybe it’s bad we started all this, but now we have no choice but to win,” Zygar said. “No
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Anniversary: Three years after Russia destroyed Kakhovka Dam, real death toll is still unknown
On 6 June 2023, Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant while occupying the dam, flooding 80 settlements, forcing nearly 4,000 people to evacuate, and killing at least 34.
By Olena Mukhina | 06/06/2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/the-worst-environmental-catastr
ophe-since-chornobyl-disaster-three-years-after-russia-destroyed-kakhovka-dam-real-death-toll-is-still-unknown/
Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister for Reconstruction Oleksii Kuleba calls the destruction "one of the largest war crimes of Russia against people and the environment."
Who blew up Kakhovka dam?
Russian forces occupied the dam complex at the moment of the explosion. According to the investigation by The New York Times, the destruction required substantial quantities of explosives placed inside the dam structure — access that only Russian forces had. Ukraine's Prosecutor General referred the case to the International Criminal Court within days, but no ICC determination has been issued specifically on the Kakhovka HPP.
The downstream effects of the destruction — flooded villages, lost Black Sea ecosystems, drinking-water crises across Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts, and the disappearance of the Kakhovka Reservoir itself — continue to shape life across southern Ukraine.
$14 billion in damage and Black Sea consequences
The Kakhovka Reservoir was the largest on the Dnipro River, holding 18 cubic kilometers of water, which was released over 3 to 4 days through the breach. A Post-Disaster Needs Assessment jointly prepared by Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers and the United Nations originally estimated total losses at over $11 billion.
Former Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Melnyk called the destruction "the worst environmental catastrophe in Europe since the Chornobyl disaster," per CBC News.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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T
The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes
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Maybe gay boy will get lucky and he'll be right on this one. The only thing he's been right about in the last 5 years is that your stupid EVs weren't going to become a thing.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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NATO allies weigh new €70B military aid pledge for Ukraine
Allies are currently discussing the new funding target, which would be announced as part of NATO’s Ankara summit next month.
https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-allies-weigh-new-e70b-military-ai
d-pledge-for-ukraine/
Allies are scrambling to shore up support for Ukraine more than four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion. The debate has gained fresh urgency as many experts say Kyiv is tilting the balance of the war in its favor.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Weekend Update #188: Ukraine Reaches Out And Touches Putin--Twice
Trump Is Helping Putin As Much As He Can
Phillips P. OBrien
Jun 07, 2026
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-188-ukraine-reac
hes
The other major story of the week revolves around the ever closer relationship between the US government and Russia. Though there was a great deal of comment about the vote in the US House on aid to Ukraine, this sadly is a non-event for now. The real story is how the Trump administration is reaching out to Putin more and more.
. . . Now this year’s forum [St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF)] was shaping up to be a truly weird one. On the one hand, world leaders were shunning the event. Only two eventually joined Putin on stage, the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania. On the other hand, the Trump administration in its continuing efforts to reach out to Putin, sent a delegation led by Rodney Mims Cook Jr. who serves as the Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and might best be described as a cut-price Albert Speer. He is one of the leading supporters of Trump’s hideous architectural plans which are threatening to deface Washington DC. This included the ludicrously grandiose new Ballroom and the proposed new victory arch, a favored memorial of empires throughout history.
There were other Americans at the SPIEF as well this year, such as fruitcake Candace Owens and alleged rapist Andrew Tate, so Trump was indeed represented officially and unofficially.
. . . Final point that needs to be understood by looking at the effectiveness of these Ukrainian long-range strike attacks is that the Ukrainians could have hit the Victory Day Parade, or at least major strategic targets in Moscow, on May 9. They have that ability now and Putin was wise to have Trump beg the Ukrainians not to attack. If the war is on next year the odds against any parade happening are rather high.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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“We consider it a good one”: Russian report outlines nuclear option if Ukraine conflict continues unchanged
By Jens Asbjørn Bøgen • June 4, 2026
https://www.dagens.com/war/we-consider-it-a-good-one-russian-report-ou
tlines-nuclear-option-if-ukraine-conflict-continues-unchanged
The report outlined a good, a bad, and a continued path for Russia’s future.
Two prominent Russian hardliners presented several future paths for the country at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, also known as “Putin’s Davos.”
According to the Russian business newspaper Kommersant, the presentation was made by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, known for his affiliation with the Kremlin, and Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist philosopher and ideologue known as “Putin’s brain” because of his influence on the Russian leader.
Before starting the presentation, Malofeev stated that “this is a scientific report prepared by a whole group of experts.” He then started the slideshow, which outlined a good, a bad, and a continued path for Russia’s future.
And one of the paths included a nuclear strike within the next decade.
A dangerous trajectory
The continuing path focused on what happens if the war in Ukraine simply keeps going at its current pace until 2036.
The outlook for this continuing track is explosive. According to the presentation slides, if the battlefield situation remains stuck in its current rut, Russia will ultimately use nuclear weapons.
“We don’t consider the use of nuclear weapons a ‘slow-fire’ scenario; we consider it a good one,” Malofeev declared.
The “good” and the “bad” scenarios
In the good scenario outlined in the presentation, Russia will have occupied most of Ukraine, including Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv, by 2036.
This scenario also includes the collapse of the European Union.
The “bad” scenario outlined a Russian military defeat in Ukraine, which, according to the presentation, would lead to the “colonization of Russia” by 2050.
Walking a tightrope
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) suggests in its June 3 update on the war that these extreme ideas may actually serve a political purpose for the current government.
By allowing hardliners to voice such radical outcomes, the Kremlin can make President Vladimir Putin appear calm and moderate by comparison.
However, the think tank also suggests that the Russian government must walk a fine line. Putin relies heavily on the backing of these passionate hardliners to sustain the war effort. He cannot simply dismiss their radical demands without risking their crucial support.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes
There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.
Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.
Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:The FP-1 is NOT a missile. It is an airplane, with wings and a propeller and an internal combustion engine which breathes air, but is still long-range:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes
There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.
Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.
Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,
Ukraine’s drones got bigger warheads. A Russian corvette in the Baltic just found out.
The Fire Point FP-1 that struck Boikiy at Kronstadt on 3 June crossed 1,100 km to get there — and arrived with a heavier warhead than the model that started Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign.
By David Axe
06/06/2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/fp-1-anti-ship/
The Fire Point FP-1 drone hit the corvette Boikiy. Overhead satellite imagery confirmed the strike, and a video from the adjacent pier made clear how bad the damage is. The 105-m corvette, one of the Baltic Fleet's frontline warships, "burned for hours," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Mark Krutov noted.
The FP-1's design explains the heavy damage. "It seems that drone was carrying quite a substantial payload," Krutov mused.
It's true. Ukrainian drone-maker Fire Point has been tweaking the propeller-driven FP-1 to increase its explosive firepower, finally addressing a longstanding problem with Ukraine's deep strike drones. Fire Point claimed it produces 300 of the $50,000 FP-1s and similar FP-2s every day.
The first version of the FP-1 flew 1,000 km but, like many Ukrainian drones, carried a fairly small warhead weighing just 60 kg. The earliest FP-2s traded away fuel for explosive payload and thus struck with a 105-kg warhead, albeit at much shorter range.
It wasn't enough firepower to destroy the toughest targets. Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight blamed the "relatively small warhead size of certain Ukrainian drones" for the limited damage Ukrainian strikes inflicted on Russian refineries in 2024.
It was a serious problem but an understandable one. Ukrainian drone developers were focused on boosting the range of their drones in order to inflict some damage, even if modest, on the most distant Russian targets. "Given the long distances these drones must travel, increasing their warhead size would require adjustments to weight, fuel capacity and overall design," Frontelligence Insight explained.
With time, developers found a way to add firepower without sacrificing range. In March, Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilerman told Army TV that the company had redesigned the FP-1 and FP-2, adding fuel tanks inside the wings in order to free up space for bigger warheads.
Now the FP-1 can strike with a 105-kg warhead. The short-range FP-2 now packs an impressive 158-kg warhead. It's not clear which variant hit Boikiy, but the heavier payload is consistent with the damage.
The FP-1 and FP-2 carry an OFB-60-type blast-fragmentation warhead, with a TNT main charge boosted by the more powerful OKFOL explosive. The combination delivers heavy fragmentation and blast effects on impact — designed to start fires and damage internal systems rather than punch cleanly through armor.
That's well-suited to anti-ship strikes. Modern warships aren't normally heavily armored above the waterline, and a blast-fragmentation warhead that ignites cable routes, ventilation channels, and the spaces between decks can do as much damage through the fire it starts as through the initial explosion.
Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express, analyzing the strike, argued that the post-strike fire likely did more damage to the corvette than the warhead itself. Naval fires spread through cable runs, ventilation shafts, and the spaces be
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Maybe gay boy will get lucky and he'll be right on this one. The only thing he's been right about in the last 5 years is that your stupid EVs weren't going to become a thing.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
No reply to that one by either of you fags, huh?
C'mon, Second.
You spent two years insulting me over this issue.
How's that piece of shit Ford 150 Lightning treating you these days? I don't hear you talking much about it anymore.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Angry poor white trash and Russians don't buy EVs because trash mechanics can't reliably troubleshoot fuel injection. They barely understand carburetors. And certainly not EVs. But the car industry, except in the US and Russia, has adapted to change.
Global electric vehicle (EV) sales, which include both battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), exceeded 20 million units in 2025, representing roughly 25% of all new cars sold worldwide.
Industry trackers report the full-year totals as follows:
• Total Sales: Ranged between 20.7 million and 21.6 million units, representing a 20% growth over 2024.
• China: The dominant market with roughly 12.9 to 13 million units sold, accounting for over 60% of global volume.
• Europe: Approximately 4.3 million units sold, driven by a 33% increase in the market.
• North America: North American sales were sluggish at 1.8 million (down roughly 4%).
• Rest of World: While other emerging markets surged by over 40%.
How stupid are Russians? Electric vehicle (EV) sales in Russia are relatively small, totaling roughly 11,200 units across the year 2025, experiencing a slowdown of about 31% compared to the previous year. Overall, EVs make up less than 1% of the total Russian auto market, with the segment heavily dominated by domestic brands and Chinese imports.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Don't care about your numbers dude. Whether or not they're fake, they don't even begin to tell the whole picture.
They sold a bunch of shitty, underperforming cars that cost twice as much to insure as a regular car does. Nobody ever bothered building any new charging stations across the nation even though billions were spent on it. When the battery goes, that'll be $25,000 or more to replace.
And there's soon to be ZERO secondhand market. Zero.
Once the people who are left holding the bag when the car dies and is barely a decade old realize how badly they fucked themselves over, they will tell everyone they know about that. And nobody is going to be buying used EVs again once that starts to happen.
People are stupid. People are trendy. Buying EVs for most of these people wasn't any different than women buying ridiculously large Stanley cups because some dipshit influencers on the internet told them to buy it.
For everybody else NOT getting paid to shill all this shit, there's nothing but a lot of regrets over their vehicle purchase.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Ukraine Is Not Losing. Russia Is Not Winning.
A momentum shift that changes everything
By Anne Applebaum | June 7, 2026, 8 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/ukraine-war-momentum-shift/6
87444/
In a field outside of Kyiv last weekend, a van was parked discreetly behind some trees. Inside the van there were no passenger seats, just a long desk, two office chairs, two laptops, extra screens. Outside appearances to the contrary, this was a mobile drone-interceptor base, one of hundreds of similar vehicles now scattered around Ukraine. It’s also part of something much bigger: a set of technological advances that have changed the war with Russia, and maybe all wars, forever.
On one of the laptops, a soldier showed me a bird’s-eye view of a part of the Ukrainian countryside more than 100 miles away. His job is to identify the objects flying above it, to distinguish birds and bats from lethal Russian drones. When he sees the latter, the soldier on the laptop beside him can then direct an interceptor—a small drone that looks like a miniature rocket ship—to track and destroy the incoming Russian aerial vehicles before they hit their targets.
At first glance, the images on the screens look simple, like a video game. But this is not a low-tech operation. The AI-powered drone interceptors are made possible by a complicated network of radar systems, acoustic sensors, and other tools that hundreds of large and small Ukrainian tech companies are creating and updating every day, using data they get directly from soldiers like the ones I met. Almost none of these companies existed four years ago. They have emerged from a tech-literate civil society whose members changed their professions or their focus to help defend their country. I have met Ukrainian defense-company CEOs who come from financial services, architecture, politics. I met another one last weekend who had returned just that day from the front line. He told me he finds it useful to learn how soldiers are using his products, and how they might be improved.
Other kinds of teams across the country are connected to this constantly improving information system too, and not just in vans. Last year I was in an underground room in Ukraine where dozens of people were monitoring hundreds of miles of the front line on a series of screens. The Ukrainian defense analyst Andriy Zagorodnyuk calls this system of drones, monitors, AI-powered navigation, battle-tested robots, and interconnected soldiers “networked situational awareness,” and it explains why perceptions of this war have suddenly changed.
Ukrainian military technology has been evolving rapidly since the first years of the war. But only now are outsiders—in Europe, the United States, the Persian Gulf, and of course Russia—beginning to understand what that evolution means. Since 2022, many public arguments about the war, even in Europe and the U.S., have adopted the narrative put out by Russian propaganda, tacitly assuming that Ukraine, outmanned and outgunned, would eventually lose. Helping Ukraine was a way to stave off disaster, nothing more. When the Trump administration stopped sending military and financial aid to Kyiv in 2025, some in Washington expected (and maybe wanted) the end to come quickly.
Instead, Europeans have provided money. Ukrainian society produced networked situational awareness. And when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toured the Gulf states in late March and signed a series of security agreements, something changed in the international narrative. The leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia were talking to Ukraine, not because they felt sorry for a war victim, but because they wanted to acquire drone interceptors like the ones I saw in action last weekend. Iranians use the same drone technology as the Russians, and the Ukrainians know better than anyone how to fight it.
The Gulf leaders are not alone: Suddenly, many people have understood that the Russian narrative is wrong: The Ukrainians are not losing. The Russians are not winning, an
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ANALYSIS: Russia’s Air Defense Problems Are Growing
Moscow did not expect such a war at the start of the full-scale invasion. Now many Russians have gone into panic mode as they watch Ukrainian drones hit targets in Russia almost at will. It seems the tables have turned and Moscow is now on the back foot, forced to adapt to how Ukrainians have managed to scale up quantities of relatively cheap drones to inflict heavy damage on Russia’s air defense capabilities.
By David Kirichenko
June 8, 2026, 1:38 pm
https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/77743
The roads to Crimea are beginning to tell the story of Russia’s defensive dilemma. Burned trucks, stranded convoys and air defense systems hit while being transported suggest that Ukraine’s drone war is reaching deeper into the logistical arteries that sustain Russia’s occupation.
. . . while Moscow focused on offense, Ukraine was forced into defensive adaptation, building layered drone defenses that gradually evolved into an offensive drone campaign of its own. Russia, by contrast, invested far less in cheap drone interception, continuing to rely heavily on expensive surface-to-air missiles that Russian milbloggers increasingly warn are in short supply.
“With its dwindling stocks of these expensive assets, Russia has little choice but to develop and rush new interceptors into service,” said open-source analyst Roy Gardiner . . .
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The long-time leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has rejected the idea of sending his soldiers into Ukraine. “Should we go fight in Ukraine according to [Putin's] someone else’s will? Do we want to be cannon fodder there? No, we do not want that,” Lukashenko said.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/77671
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes
There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.
Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.
Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
What's going on in Ukraine comrade? Check out the video around the last 6 minutes. Before that it's about Iran.
T
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Have you noticed, SECOND, that you've resorted to posting "Kiev says" and notorious neocons like ISW/Kagan- Neuland and Anne Applebaum?
You're digging the bottom of the barrel.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Have you noticed, SECOND, that you've resorted to posting "Kiev says" and notorious neocons like ISW/Kagan- Neuland and Anne Applebaum?
You're digging the bottom of the barrel.
Putin's War Comes Home
Even Muscovites feel it
May 11, 2026
Four years ago, President Vladimir Putin offered Moscow and its business elite a de facto deal: support my war in Ukraine, and in exchange you won’t have to think about it. In the past week, that deal was broken.
https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/putins-war-comes-home
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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More muck from the bottom of the barrel.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes
There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.
Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.
Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Long-range drone: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) that can operate at extended distances from its launch point. It may be remotely piloted or semi-autonomous, carrying sensors for surveillance, reconnaissance, or weapons for strikes united24media.com+1.
Missile: A guided or unguided projectile designed to travel a long distance at high speed to deliver a payload (explosive, kinetic, or other) to a specific target thisvsthat.io. Missiles are typically launched from fixed platforms, aircraft, or ships.
2. Size, Speed, and Maneuverability
Drones: Generally smaller, more maneuverable, and slower than missiles. Long-range drones can still be agile for evading threats or adjusting course mid-flight thisvsthat.io.
Missiles: Larger, faster, and often supersonic or hypersonic. They are less maneuverable once launched, relying on pre-programmed or mid-course guidance thisvsthat.io.
3. Guidance and Control
Drones: Can be remote-controlled or autonomous, with real-time operator input for complex missions Wikipedia.
Missiles: Usually pre-programmed or mid-course guided, with final guidance often from terminal seekers or command updates.
4. Payload and Role
Drones: May carry surveillance sensors, electronic warfare gear, or weapons like bombs or missiles. Long-range drones can loiter over targets for extended periods Wikipedia.
Missiles: Primarily designed for precision strike delivery of explosives or other payloads over long distances thisvsthat.io.
5. Range and Cost
Drones: Long-range UAVs can cover thousands of kilometers, but they are generally more cost-effective and reusable thisvsthat.io.
Missiles: Designed for one-time use and often more expensive per unit thisvsthat.io.
6. Strategic Use
Drones: Versatile for reconnaissance, surveillance, and precision strikes; can be reused for multiple missions.
Missiles: Specialized for high-speed, long-range attacks, often in strategic or tactical strike roles.
In summary: A long-range drone is an unmanned aircraft optimized for extended surveillance or strike missions with flexibility in control and reuse, while a missile is a guided projectile focused on delivering a payload quickly and precisely over long distances thisvsthat.io+2.
There are a lot of differences comrade. Another name for a long range drone is not a missile.
T
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First of all THGR, your article is about long- range STRIKES.
Not surveillance.
So, what is the best vehicle for a long-range STRIKE, given the trade-off between payload and distance?
I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. The advantage of drones is that they're relatively CHEAP. Once you start configuring them for longer distances and higher payloads, they start approaching cruise missiles and getting $$. In fact, the Flamingo "missile" looks more like a long distance drone. Or maybe drones look like the Flamingo.
Or you wind up with something like the Reaper drone. The Reaper is $$, it fires missiles, so it's more like an unmanned turboprop.
Anyway, in the end, they're both airborne modes of munitions delivery.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Don't care about your numbers dude. Whether or not they're fake, they don't even begin to tell the whole picture.
They sold a bunch of shitty, underperforming cars that cost twice as much to insure as a regular car does. Nobody ever bothered building any new charging stations across the nation even though billions were spent on it. When the battery goes, that'll be $25,000 or more to replace.
And there's soon to be ZERO secondhand market. Zero.
Once the people who are left holding the bag when the car dies and is barely a decade old realize how badly they fucked themselves over, they will tell everyone they know about that. And nobody is going to be buying used EVs again once that starts to happen.
People are stupid. People are trendy. Buying EVs for most of these people wasn't any different than women buying ridiculously large Stanley cups because some dipshit influencers on the internet told them to buy it.
For everybody else NOT getting paid to shill all this shit, there's nothing but a lot of regrets over their vehicle purchase.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
I guess I won this one, huh Second?
What a rarity for you not to either post easily debunked stats and/or quote me and reply with something completely unrelated and/or remind me that I dropped out of college 4 times and/or call me a redneck Nazi who you want to see dead.
I guess we'll consider the topic of EVs forever closed in this forum now.
You were wrong. You were wrong from the beginning.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Ukraine Tests Tomahawk Style Drone Navigation Module Across 3000 Kilometers of Trial Flights
By Ivan Khomenko | Jun 08, 2026 18:05
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-tests-tomahawk-style-
drone-navigation-module-across-3000-kilometers-of-trial-flights-19617
A European-made navigation module designed to guide drones without relying solely on satellite signals has completed more than 3,000 kilometers of flight testing in Ukraine, including autonomous missions exceeding 50 kilometers.
According to information published by Defense Express on June 8, citing Delian Alliance Industries representative Mark Melhorn, the company’s Osiris navigation module is being developed as a low-cost visual guidance system for drones. https://defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/rozkrito_detali_jak_v_ukrajini_
na_midlstrajk_dronah_testuvali_analog_dsmac_jak_u_tomahawk_chi_storm_shadow-23241.html
The technology is designed to provide capabilities similar to the terrain- and image-matching navigation systems used by long-range weapons such as the US Tomahawk and the Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
Melhorn said the company initially conducted 15 test flights in Europe before deploying a team of specialists to Ukraine in March to evaluate the system under operational conditions. According to Defense Express, Ukrainian military personnel provided technical feedback during the trials, helping accelerate development of the navigation module.
The company reported that Osiris-equipped drones carried out dozens of autonomous flights at distances exceeding 50 kilometers. Flight altitudes ranged from 70 to 2,000 meters, while the system demonstrated an average positioning error of less than 20 meters compared with civilian GPS references, according to the report.
According to Defense Express, Delian used the Ukrainian testing campaign to advance the system from a prototype stage toward full operational maturity. The outlet reported that the company has since expanded the Osiris development team, established a Ukrainian subsidiary, and launched cooperation with a local manufacturing partner.
Ukraine has increasingly become a testing ground for next-generation defense technologies. According to Business Insider on May 27, hundreds of international defense companies have applied to evaluate new systems through Ukraine’s state-backed “Test in Ukraine” program, using battlefield conditions to accelerate development of drones, AI software, navigation systems, and other military technologies.
Companies participating in the program receive operational feedback from Ukrainian military personnel, allowing products to be refined at a pace rarely possible in peacetime environments.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Zelenskyy Urges UK, France, and Germany to Build European Alternative to US Patriot System
By Ivan Khomenko | Jun 09, 2026 11:50
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/zelenskyy-urges-uk-france-and
-germany-to-build-european-alternative-to-us-patriot-system-19639
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United Kingdom, France, and Germany had agreed to help Ukraine strengthen its defenses against ballistic missile threats following talks in London on June 7 with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Patriot system remains one of the few Western air defense platforms able to intercept ballistic missiles, particularly when equipped with PAC-3 MSE interceptors. According to The Guardian, Zelenskyy said each Patriot interceptor costs approximately $4 million, while Ukrainian stockpiles have come under increasing pressure amid continued Russian missile strikes.
Europe currently fields one air defense system with anti-ballistic missile capability, the Franco-Italian SAMP/T system equipped with Aster 30 interceptors. Ukraine received a SAMP/T battery in 2023 and has used the system operationally, although production volumes remain limited compared with demand.
At the same time, Ukrainian defense companies are pursuing domestic alternatives. Ukrainian manufacturer Fire Point recently released footage of tests involving its FP-7.X interceptor missile. Fire Point aims to develop a complete air defense system capable of engaging ballistic targets by 2027.
Fire Point co-founder and chief designer Denis Shtilyerman said the company is targeting a cost below $1 million per interceptor. He noted that defeating a single ballistic missile often requires multiple Patriot interceptors, significantly increasing the cost of each engagement.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ukrainians under occupation don't have a real choice whether to stay or to leave
By Dinara Khalilova | June 8, 2026 6:04 PM
https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainians-under-occupation-dont-have-a-re
al-choice-whether-to-stay-or-to-leave/
Some names have been changed to protect the identities of those featured in the story
As a war crimes researcher at the Reckoning Project, my job was to listen to Ukrainians who had fled the occupation. What they had to say reshaped how I understand life in Russian-occupied territories.
Simplistic outside judgments about people living under occupation often feel deeply unfair to Ukrainians who escaped it. From a safe distance, it is easy to say, "Why didn't they stay and resist?" or "Why didn't they leave earlier? That must mean they are pro-Russian." But neither one of these options is easy or safe.
Ihor Serdiuk, a 60-something educational worker from occupied Kherson Oblast, refused to switch the college he directed to the Russian curriculum. For that, he spent two weeks in prison.
In the same facility, there was a young man brutally beaten by occupation forces for throwing a grenade at military personnel, though no one was injured, and a woman who had refused to give a haircut to a Russian soldier. Serdiuk was released only after agreeing to apply for Russian citizenship, which he did, and immediately fled abroad.
"If you disagree with them (Russian forces), you'll simply die in prison — that's it… Either you leave, or you'll rot here, or they'll make sure you rot here. Because you can't live like this for long," Serdiuk says when asked if he had a real choice whether to stay or to leave.
Staying often means either openly supporting the occupation authorities or giving up your freedom of speech and expression to increase your chances of survival.
"You mimic the majority because you never know what might trigger an unwanted reaction — when all you're trying to do is live normally, to exist," says Vadym from Crimea, who was 13 when Russia annexed the peninsula.
"My inability to remain silent and my clear position could lead to problems for me personally, for my wife, and for my relatives."
For those who are trying to escape occupation, the journey out is long, complicated, and often dangerous.
Since late 2022, the only viable route has been through Russia. A ticket with a private carrier can cost several hundred dollars, and volunteer evacuation capacity is limited. Travelers pass through multiple checkpoints where Russian forces search, interrogate, and sometimes detain people on fabricated charges.
Crossing from occupied Kherson Oblast to Crimea, Serdiuk recalls 500–800 people standing for hours in the heat waiting for inspection by border officers. The only relief was a nearby bucket of water.
"Right in front of your eyes, they turn someone's suitcase inside out and kick it with their feet. Younger men are taken away — where to, nobody knows. Sometimes soldiers simply come and take people," he says.
Those who make it out and find safety must now deal with the trauma of occupation and start over from nothing.
"If you try to run, we’ll shoot you."
Their homes and former lives are gone. Some lost loved ones, and many lost their communities, which are now scattered across the world. It is almost impossible to plan for the future because of the constant fear of losing everything again. Immigration feels temporary, but at the same time, no one can promise you will ever be able to return home.
"In my 35 years, I've already seen everything. What kind of plans for the future can there even be?" says Maryna from a village in Kharkiv Oblast near the Russian border, occupied within hours of the full-scale invasion.
When Russian soldiers discovered her mother served in the Ukrainian army, they abducted Maryna and held her in captivity for days in a completely dark room with an empty bottle instead of a toilet. During int
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Not so long ago, the American far right celebrated Putin’s macho posturing and his supposed military invincibility.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/far-right-idealized-russian-milit
ary-ukraine-exposes-all-ways-theyre-wrong
For years now, Russian President Vladimir Putin has learned how to court the far right and tap into their shared disdain of democracy and liberalism. To that end, Russia has made common cause with right-wing political movements in the United States and Europe, as well as through “indirect” support to Western extremist groups. Putin is now in search of fault lines to challenge the cohesion and resolve of the international response to his actions in Ukraine.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
First of all THGR, your article is about long- range STRIKES.
Not surveillance.
So, what is the best vehicle for a long-range STRIKE, given the trade-off between payload and distance?
I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. The advantage of drones is that they're relatively CHEAP. Once you start configuring them for longer distances and higher payloads, they start approaching cruise missiles and getting $$. In fact, the Flamingo "missile" looks more like a long distance drone. Or maybe drones look like the Flamingo.
Or you wind up with something like the Reaper drone. The Reaper is $$, it fires missiles, so it's more like an unmanned turboprop.
Anyway, in the end, they're both airborne modes of munitions delivery.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes
No, it's not about long range strikes. It's about the future of Drone Technology. Long range Drones are a part of that discussion because technology is advancing. He discusses what that means. How the Middle Eastern countries are putting money into Ukrainian development of Drone tech.
He suggests by mid-summer we should be seeing daily strikes into the hundreds across Russia. I don't recall him speaking about Missile's. Only about how much trouble the Russian energy infrastructure is in. How in order for Russia to stop them from being blown up, Russia will have to shut down much of its oil producing wells and how it will take years to get them functioning again. I'll add to that that Ukrainian Drones are killing anything that moves as Russia tries unsuccessfully to resupply everything to everyone.
You tried to spin it into something else; Drones' vs Missiles. You're still trying to spin it into nothing more than long range strikes and what kind of munition you should use. Obviously, you didn't watch the video, or you did, and are trying to deflect away from its content. How the future looks dim for, and the fact that Russia is getting its ass kicked. How Ukraine has the edge. And that soon, Russia will not be an oil producing country. That's the point made in the video, and the point of my post. I told you a long time ago, Russia's fucked.
The other thing you guys never seem to realize is that you aren't arguing with me. You're arguing with the experts' opinions that I post. And you always lose.
T
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Quote:You know who else is always calling himself a winner, despite being a loser?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I guess I won this one, huh Second?
What a rarity for you not to either post easily debunked stats and/or quote me and reply with something completely unrelated and/or remind me that I dropped out of college 4 times and/or call me a redneck Nazi who you want to see dead.
I guess we'll consider the topic of EVs forever closed in this forum now.
You were wrong. You were wrong from the beginning.
You know who else claims to NOT be a Nazi, despite using Nazi political techniques?
Hitler had his Lügenpresse; Trump has “Fake News Media.”
"Lying press" (German: Lügenpresse, literally 'press of lies') is a pejorative and disparaging political epithet used to refer to the mass media at large.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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EU’s 21st sanctions package would ban Russia’s soldiers from European soil
Latest package targets banks, oil traders, shadow fleet, third-country evaders.
By Benjamin Murdoch | June 9, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/09/eus-21st-sanctions-package/
Sanctions already cost Russia up to $1.5 trillion, EU says
The same day, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
/ Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas told journalists that existing sanctions continue to intensify pressure on Moscow’s economy. Kallas noted that Western sanctions have already cost Russia an estimated $1.2 to $1.5 trillion, adding that “brick by brick, we are collapsing the foundations of Russia’s war economy.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Don't care about your numbers dude. Whether or not they're fake, they don't even begin to tell the whole picture.
They sold a bunch of shitty, underperforming cars that cost twice as much to insure as a regular car does. Nobody ever bothered building any new charging stations across the nation even though billions were spent on it. When the battery goes, that'll be $25,000 or more to replace.
And there's soon to be ZERO secondhand market. Zero.
Once the people who are left holding the bag when the car dies and is barely a decade old realize how badly they fucked themselves over, they will tell everyone they know about that. And nobody is going to be buying used EVs again once that starts to happen.
People are stupid. People are trendy. Buying EVs for most of these people wasn't any different than women buying ridiculously large Stanley cups because some dipshit influencers on the internet told them to buy it.
For everybody else NOT getting paid to shill all this shit, there's nothing but a lot of regrets over their vehicle purchase.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
I guess I won this one, huh Second?
What a rarity for you not to either post easily debunked stats and/or quote me and reply with something completely unrelated and/or remind me that I dropped out of college 4 times and/or call me a redneck Nazi who you want to see dead.
I guess we'll consider the topic of EVs forever closed in this forum now.
You were wrong. You were wrong from the beginning.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
T
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T
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
Until rates for electricity go up.
AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...
• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.
• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.
It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out.
----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Flamingo missile used rarely and with limited success despite ‘aggressive’ promotion – MP Rakhmanin
June 9, 2026, 05:31 AM
https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-rarely-uses-fp-5-flamingo-missile
-says-mp-50614650.html
The FP-5 Flamingo missile is being used only rarely and not very successfully, despite the “very aggressive promotion” around the weapon, Serhii Rakhmanin, a member of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said in a Radio NV interview on June 8.
“They (the Fire Point company — ed.) are also the creators of a project that, at least for now, has not been very successful, one called FP-5,” Rakhmanin said.
“It is better known to the public as Flamingo. If I’m not mistaken, they also made a lot of promises to us — both about the number of these missiles and the quality of their use. The statements and the real-world use differ significantly.”
Commenting on Fire Point’s statement that it plans to create ballistic missiles capable of striking Russia as early as this summer, the lawmaker said a cruise missile is theoretically easier to develop than a ballistic one. He added that he would be “the first to applaud” if the company managed, “while making it into the Guinness Book of Records,” to create a ballistic missile from scratch.
“But for now, apart from statements, we have nothing else,” Rakhmanin added.
“If it happens — great, we’ll discuss it. For now, there is only a statement. A statement must be backed by concrete things, concrete steps. So far, even the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile is used extremely rarely and not very successfully. They explain this with objective reasons, they explain why it is so, and what they plan to do to make it more successful, more widespread, more effective. But for now, we state the fact: there is a product called FP-5 that received crazy, very aggressive promotion, but the practical results differ significantly from what was promised.”
Strikes using Flamingo missiles:
On May 5, the OSINT project CyberBoroshno reported that an FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile struck the front section of the main building of the VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary, Russia, at an angle. JSC VNIIR-Progress produces Kometa anti-jamming navigation modules, which Russia uses in drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
On March 28, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed that Ukraine’s Defense Forces had struck the Promsintez plant in Russia’s Samara Oblast with FP-5 Flamingo missiles.
On Feb. 21, the General Staff said Ukraine’s Defense Forces had hit the Votkinsk plant in Russia’s Udmurt Republic with FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles. The plant manufactures Iskander-M, Topol-M, Kinzhal, and Yars missiles. It is located more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukraine’s border.
On Feb. 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a previous Russian strike on the manufacturing plant had caused a delay in scaling up production of Ukrainian Flamingo missiles.
Overnight into Feb. 12, a series of powerful explosions was reported in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast. Reports said a missile strike and fire hit a military arsenal in the settlement of Kotluban. The same day, Fire Point co-owner and chief designer Denys Shtilerman showed the launch of FP-5 Flamingo missiles toward the arsenal in Kotluban.
On Feb. 5, Ukraine’s General Staff said the Defense Forces had carried out a series of strikes during January 2026 on a hangar-type building complex at the Kapustin Yar test range in Russia’s Astrakhan Oblast, where medium-range intercontinental ballistic missiles undergo pre-launch preparation. The attack used long-range strike systems of Ukrainian production, including the FP-5 Flamingo.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Two articles by same author on same subject, written a year apart:
[2026] Russia’s Greatest Defense Has Always Been Its Sheer Size. Ukraine’s New Drones Just Took It Away
By Harrison Kass | June 9, 2026
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/russias-greatest-defense-has-alway
s-been-its-sheer-size-ukraines-new-drones-just-took-it-away/
Ukraine has reportedly established what some observers describe as a “logistics lockdown” across occupied territories using domestically produced mid-range strike drones capable of hitting ships, bridges, fuel depots, airfields, and refineries.
The Ukrainian strategy has shifted, in part, from trying to destroy Russian units at the front to focusing on destroying the systems that supply them.
And increasingly, the drone war is evolving from tactical support for ground forces into something like a strategic air campaign designed to affect Russia’s war economy.
_______________________________________________________
Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in City Journal, The Hill, Quillette, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at https://harrisonkass.com
_______________________________________________________
[2025] Russian and Ukrainian Drones Have Changed Warfare Forever
By Harrison Kass | June 29, 2025
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-ukrainian-drones-change
d-warfare-forever-hk
The proliferation of drone warfare has had an immense psychological and strategic impact on both Russian and Ukrainian troops.
The ongoing war in Ukraine has highlighted the evolving application of weaponized drones in warfare. Both sides have become increasingly dependent upon drones, the tactics of which have evolved over the course of the four-year conflict.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
Until rates for electricity go up.
Right?
Good luck feeding your little pussy pseudo-car when AI has a killer appetite.
California can't even keep the fucking lights on during A/C season half the time. I don't even understand how any fools like Ted and Second think for a moment that this technology is even viable unless we put nuclear power everywhere.
They still think that electric coming from their sockets is Hogwarts Magic.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Ukrainian Flamingo missiles strike military plant in large-scale attack on Russia, Zelensky confirms
By Volodymyr Ivanyshyn, Tania Myronyshenaune | June 10, 2026 1:45 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/russian-oil-refinery-nearly-800-kilometers
-from-border-reportedly-struck-by-ukrainian-drones/
Ukraine's General Staff later identified the target as the VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary and confirmed a fire at the facility.
The VNIIR-Progress plant, which has been sanctioned by Ukraine, the U.S., and the European Union, produces satellite navigation receivers and Kometa antennas used in Shahed-type attack drones, Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and guided aerial bombs.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
Until rates for electricity go up.
AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...
• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.
• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.
It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out.
----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.
As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
Until rates for electricity go up.
AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...
• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.
• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.
It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out.
----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.
As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.
T
Maybe we can make ALL the big companies generate their own power.
Maybe we can make pigs fly.
Maybe we can make you less of a worthless, brainfucked faggot.
--------------------------------------------------
Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
Until rates for electricity go up.
AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...
• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.
• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.
It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out
Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.
As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.
The way I understand it, THGR, is that Russian military staff and policy planners view the SMO as a series of related probabilistic differential equations. Everything happens at a rate, each with its error band:
Russia marches forward at a certain rate.
Russian loses military and economic capability at a certain rate.
Ukraine loses at a certain rate.
EU economies decline at a certain rate.
USA weapons stockpiles are used up at a certain rate, and produced at a (lower) rate.
Popular opinion changes at a certain rate.
Some rates are linear, some are higher order, occasionally they experience a step change, like the introduction of new technology like drones or the change of a particular government or the opening of a new front.
I don't have information needed to make accurate predictions. But this is war, and losses are inevitable on both sides. The question is, who is losing more faster? AFAIK it's Ukraine and the EU.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Moscow’s latest car bombing shows Putin’s generals who the real target is
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't have information needed to make accurate predictions. But this is war, and losses are inevitable on both sides. The question is, who is losing more faster? AFAIK it's Ukraine and the EU.
Ukraine has combined assassinations with bombings in a bid to break the logistical spine of Russia’s war effort, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley
Wednesday 10 June 2026 10:43 EDT
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-assas
sination-car-bomb-moscow-kremlin-b2993149.html
General Davydov, head of the Kremlin’s missile and artillery wing in the ministry of defence, was a prized trophy for Kyiv’s covert operators.
“Hard-targeting” the Russian general is also a triumph of psychological operations – reinforcing the already well-understood feeling that none of the Kremlin’s nomenklatura are safe.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Today, 10 June 2026, marks the 1,568th day of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine — the same number of days that World War I lasted.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/10/russias-full-scale-war-against-
ukraine-has-now-lasted-exactly-as-long-as-world-war-i-1568-days/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.
Until rates for electricity go up.
AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...
• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.
• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.
It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out
Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.
As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.
The way I understand it, THGR, is that Russian military staff and policy planners view the SMO as a series of related probabilistic differential equations. Everything happens at a rate, each with its error band:
Russia marches forward at a certain rate.
Russian loses military and economic capability at a certain rate.
Ukraine loses at a certain rate.
EU economies decline at a certain rate.
USA weapons stockpiles are used up at a certain rate, and produced at a (lower) rate.
Popular opinion changes at a certain rate.
Some rates are linear, some are higher order, occasionally they experience a step change, like the introduction of new technology like drones or the change of a particular government or the opening of a new front.
I don't have information needed to make accurate predictions. But this is war, and losses are inevitable on both sides. The question is, who is losing more faster? AFAIK it's Ukraine and the EU.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Are you for real?
T
Russian Forces PANIC Amid Being Cut off From Crimea; Putin’s Frontline COLLAPSE Begins
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Quote:New footage shows Russian defense plant in Cheboksary after Ukraine's strike
Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian Flamingo missiles strike military plant in large-scale attack on Russia, Zelensky confirms
By Volodymyr Ivanyshyn, Tania Myronyshenaune | June 10, 2026 1:45 pm
Russian defenses failed to stop the Ukrainian attack
By Daryna Vialko | Wed, June 10, 2026 - 21:58
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/new-footage-shows-russian-defense-plan
t-in-1781116909.html
The missiles traveled more than 1,500 kilometers before striking workshops producing navigation and automation systems for the Russian military.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Vladimir Solovyov complains about his shrinking stature and elections in Armenia
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A Twist in Ukraine’s Drone Campaign Is ‘Really Hurting the Russians’
Midrange attacks, using upgraded drones that Ukraine produces in huge numbers, are causing fuel shortages and complicating troop rotations.
By Marc Santora Reporting from Dnipro, Kyiv and eastern Ukraine
June 10, 2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/world/europe/ukraine-midrange-logis
tics-strikes.html
First Ukraine assembled an arsenal of millions of drones that, along with Russia’s own buildup, turned a 25-mile-wide strip along the front line into a killing ground. Then Kyiv expanded its reach deep into the Russian heartland as it targeted oil infrastructure and military factories, making long-range violence in the war a two-way street.
Now, Ukraine is focusing on the middle ground — the critical roads and railways, in some cases more than 100 miles from the front, that feed Russian troops and matériel into battle. Kyiv is calling the effort a “logistics lockdown,” and it is systematically reshaping the battlefield, at least until Russian forces find a way to adapt.
Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.
May was the first month since 2023 in which Russia suffered a net loss of territory, according to the Ukrainian research group DeepState. On Monday, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the top Ukrainian military commander, said Ukraine had reclaimed in May nearly 40 square miles more than it lost.
The attacks on Russian logistics are part of a synchronized, multilayered campaign that covers the close-in “kill zone,” the midrange resupply zone in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, and the territory far inside Russia where Ukraine has hit sites producing crucial weapon technology.
“That’s what’s new, and that’s what is really hurting the Russians,” said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general who is a fellow at the Lowy Institute, a research group in Sydney.
The coordinated campaign has made it hard for Moscow to generate momentum, with its spring and summer offensives so far failing to achieve notable results.
Ukraine produces so many drones from its own factories that it can now launch more than 5,000 mid- and deep-range strikes every month, according to Ukrainian officials. Late last week, Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said that Ukrainian forces last month carried out twice as many strikes at least 30 miles from the front line as they did in April.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, found in a recent assessment that such strikes were helping to push the conflict into a new phase.
As the forces operate systems “capable of disrupting Russian forces throughout their operational depth,” according to researchers at the think tank, Ukraine has a “unique and time-constrained opportunity” to mount the sort of mechanized offensives that have become very difficult because of the threat of drones.
Jack Watling, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a research group in London, wrote in Foreign Affairs that the war had reached a turning point, arguing that as Russia’s battlefield performance worsened, Ukraine had a chance to push Moscow toward a cease-fire.
In a field in Ukraine late last month, the commander of the Second Battalion of the First Separate Unmanned Aerial Systems Center said it was critical to seize the moment because the Ukrainian military’s advantage might not last.
As long as it does, “the main idea is for Russia to truly feel war, to know that distance does not provide safety,” said the commander, who under Ukrainian military protocol gave only his call sign, Whale.
As he spoke, soldiers scrawled messages of retribution on the wings of a dozen drones, each packed with thermobaric explosives.
The next day, Ukraine’s General Sta
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THGR, "The Enforcer“?
Really?
Quote:
The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.
Not that anyone can notice. In fact Russians seem to be going faster in the past couple of weeks.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, "The Enforcer“?
Really?Quote:
The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.
Not that anyone can notice. In fact Russians seem to be going faster in the past couple of weeks.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Agreed, backwards...
T
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Quote:In fact, Russia must be losing if it passes a law that confiscates the property of Russians who say that Russia is losing:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
In fact Russians seem to be going faster in the past couple of weeks.
Russians abroad who criticize Kremlin risk losing their homes under Putin's new law
What could Russians do that would cost them their homes and savings?
By Kateryna Shkarlat | Wed, June 10, 2026 - 21:33
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/new-footage-shows-russian-defense-plan
t-in-1781116909.html
Criticism of the war, calls for sanctions, or other actions that the Kremlin considers a threat to its interests could cost Russians their apartments, bank accounts, and other property, according to The Moscow Times. https://ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/06/10/putin-podpisal-zakon-ob-arest
e-imuschestva-relokantov-za-kritiku-rezhima-a197870
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing the seizure of property belonging to Russian citizens living abroad for so-called administrative offenses against Russia’s interests.
The document is set to come into force on September 1, 2026.
Under the law, grounds for property seizure may include "discrediting" the Russian army, calling for sanctions against Russia, distributing "extremist materials," "promoting Nazi symbols," as well as failing to pay fines imposed for such actions.
At the same time, the seizure may apply not only to real estate but also to funds held in bank accounts. The value of the property subject to restrictions is not limited by the amount of the fine.
The law also stipulates that if a citizen residing abroad cannot be notified about the initiation of proceedings, the court must appoint a defense lawyer. If the case is later dismissed, the lawyer’s fees will be reimbursed from the federal budget.
According to the explanatory note accompanying the document, the law is aimed at Russians who, after leaving the country, engage in activities allegedly contrary to Russia’s interests. The authors of the initiative argue that such measures will help suppress calls to violate Russia’s territorial integrity and constitutional order.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Putin and Trump are both trapped in losing battles against reality
The Ukraine and Iran wars are very different, but a common authoritarian delusion unites the men who started them
By Rafael Behr | Wed 10 Jun 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/10/putin-trump-ukra
ine-iran-wars-authoritarian
A strongman president, self-styled redeemer of national glory, is trapped in a conflict he can’t win but doesn’t know how to end without looking like a loser. A cult of infallibility prevents the leader admitting a strategic blunder even to himself. It could be Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin; Iran or Ukraine.
The conflicts and the regimes involved are also dissimilar in important ways. Russia’s campaign to eradicate a neighbouring democracy is nastier in conception and bloodier in execution than the bungled US effort to dislodge a dictatorship in Tehran. It has also gone on much longer. The first world war was shorter than a “special military operation” that was supposed to capture Kyiv within weeks. The Soviet Red Army repelled Nazi invasion and marched on Berlin in less time than it has taken Putin’s forces to occupy a tranche of eastern Ukraine, and they are not making any significant advances. The war has burned trillions of roubles and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives for no discernible dividend in national greatness.
The failure is too big for the Kremlin’s propaganda machinery to hide. Civilians hundreds of miles from the frontline see the plumes of black smoke from the oil refineries struck by long-range Ukrainian drones. They feel the depletion of their wages by inflation. They noticed how last month’s Victory Day parade, the high holy day of Russian militarism, was strangely modest. The traditional convoy of tanks and missiles couldn’t go ahead when the skies above Red Square were vulnerable to Ukrainian aerial mischief.
Official opinion polls have shown a drop in support for Putin, albeit from impossible heights to improbable ones. Since the data-collecting agencies are under state control, the blip is best interpreted as a symptom of factional jostling for influence within the regime. Pragmatists in the civilian administration might have flashed a glimpse of presidential vulnerability as a warning to hardliners in the security apparatus that their approach isn’t working. Polls tracked back towards the adulatory norm after a pause for “methodological” revision.
Any internal Russian lobby for ending the war runs into the problem that Putin sees the conflict as an existential struggle to avenge national honour against the perfidious west. He casts himself as the incarnation of national destiny, reaffirming Russian civilisational supremacy over borderlands to which it is historically entitled. Such a man doesn’t easily accept the prospect of dealing with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on equal terms as legitimate president of an independent country.
Trump’s worldview is less cluttered with antique mythology, more pumped with celebrity narcissism, but the effect is the same. He shares Putin’s concept of alpha powers whose interests override any sovereignty claims of lesser nations in their neighbourhoods. He was easily persuaded that Ukraine’s cause was hopeless and that Putin held all “the cards” because it would have offended his own sense of majesty to believe that someone in Zelenskyy’s geopolitical class could be a winner.
If the US president had been interested in the reality of Ukraine’s defensive campaign he might have observed the levelling effect of drones, allowing a smaller force to thwart an apparently overwhelming onslaught. He might even have considered the relevance of that asymmetry when judging whether Iran could be bombed into unconditional surrender. He might then have taken advice from people in the state department and CIA who had war-gamed an all-out campaign against the Islamic Republic under previous administrations. They concluded that regime change couldn’t be achieved from the air and that closure of the strait of Hormuz was a viable Iranian countermea
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Europe Plans to Crack Down on Russia—but for Real This Time
Trump and the Iran war gave Russia a boost. Brussels is fed up.
By Keith Johnson, a staff writer at Foreign Policy covering geoeconomics and energy.
June 10, 2026, 12:45 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/10/europe-russia-sanctions-package-t
rump-putin/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921
The European Union has proposed its 21st package of sanctions on Russia, a bid to finally bring the Russian war economy to heel, in a war that has now lasted as long as World War I.
The latest sanctions package is especially important because Moscow has received a shot of relief this spring, thanks to the Iran war and the Trump administration’s easing of sanctions. Russian energy revenues are now at more than two-year highs.
That explains why the European Commission is targeting energy this time, with measures meant to curtail Russian oil earnings; sanction more “shadow fleet” tankers; take aim at ports and refineries that allow Russia to do business even still; and limit the future sale of specialized gas tankers to Moscow. The latest proposed package also sanctions several more Russian banks, seeks to limit trade in items that can aid Russia’s defense industry, and will ban from Europe any Russian who has participated in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, as the Kremlin refers to it.
“Brick by brick, we are collapsing the foundations of Russia’s war economy,” European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday on X.
The latest EU sanctions are just a proposal and still need to be refined into final form and then passed by unanimous consent among the 27 EU states. The last 20 times, that was challenging because Hungary, previously Russia’s handmaiden inside Europe, sought to water down almost every attempt by Brussels to increase pressure on Moscow or offer relief to Kyiv. But Hungary has come in from the cold, leaving only a handful of possible objectors, such as Slovakia.
The package is timely because Russia is raking in money due to the fallout from the U.S.-Iran war, which drove up oil and natural gas prices. Additionally, the Trump administration has repeatedly offered Russia relief from previously levied sanctions to keep oil prices from exploding. The result has been a windfall for Moscow.
“The conflict in the Middle East and disruptions to global energy supply chains have eased some pressure on Russia,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “So, the objective of our package could not be clearer. We want to maintain the full intensity of our sanctions.”
In May, Russia’s energy export revenues climbed another 2 percent over the already-high levels of April to 726 million euros per day, according to the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which tracks Russian energy earnings during the war. Crude oil loadings at the key Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, which Ukraine hammered in March and April with drone strikes, were up almost 50 percent in May.
“Russia is sailing in terms of earnings from oil and natural gas,” said Isaac Levi, the head of Russia research at CREA.
“The sanctions were having a big impact before February of this year,” he said, but then the gulf between the price of discounted Russian crude oil and global benchmarks closed, as countries everywhere scrambled to replace missing barrels of oil due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. waivers in particular cleared up a backlog of stranded Russian tankers and allowed Russia to ramp up production at its oilfields.
“The Trump administration has basically dealt [Russian President Vladimir] Putin a blank check,” Levi said.
That sudden premium for Russian oil is one reason that one of the proposed EU measures—a tweak to the system it uses to try to cap the price at which Russia can sell its oil—is unlikely to do much, according to Levi. “The oil price cap is basically dead in the water,” he
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