Uncle Sam assembles another big stick for Iran, the radical leftwing networks in Minnesota continue to get exposed, silver shatters, two state Democrats get clipped in separate forgery cases, the rise of the Amelia memes, Microsoft update breaks everything (again), and are malls actually reviving?
And Neville Roy Singham’s fingerprints are visible everywhere.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
As of right this moment, America hasn’t gone kinetic on the Mullahs yet, but we’re assembling an awful big stick.
USS Abraham Lincoln has gone dark, with no transponder or communication, signaling possible preparation for action against Iran.
A third US carrier strike group, USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), is moving into the Middle East theater.
Snip.
Some very interesting developments in the last 48 hours indicate something big is about to happen.
The EU all of a sudden has decided the next thing on their agenda is to declare the IRGC a terrorist group. Curious timing, that.
Minnesota agitators, including elected officials, have been organizing efforts to stalk, harass, and even hunt ICE agents in a Signal group chat that was infiltrated by Cam Higby and others.
It has been insane looking at the messages and the actual people involved.
And now DataRepublican has the donor list … you know, the people actually paying to make sure this all happens.
DataRepublican has also helpfully linked to their social media profiles.
You can download he data yourself. And DataRepublican has already turned in all the captured information to the Feds…
This is the story of how Minnesota became a political laboratory—first for the 2020 George Floyd protests, then for a sustained campaign against federal immigration enforcement. The players are the same. The money flows through familiar channels. And the strategy, according to those who designed it, was always meant to be replicated.
Snip.
Understanding how The People’s Forum operates requires following the money. And the money leads to Shanghai.
Neville Roy Singham is an American tech entrepreneur who sold his software company, ThoughtWorks, for approximately $785 million in 2017. He now lives in Shanghai, where, according to a 2023 New York Times investigation, he “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and finances propaganda worldwide.”
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a Rutgers University-affiliated research organization, published a comprehensive report in May 2024 documenting what it calls the “Singham Network”—a web of nonprofits, fiscal sponsors, and alternative media outlets that share funding, personnel, and messaging.
According to NCRI, The People’s Forum received over $20 million from Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans (co-founder of the anti-war group CODEPINK), between 2017 and 2022. The money moved through a complex network of donor-advised funds and shell companies, including the Justice and Education Fund, the United Community Fund, and the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund.
The People’s Forum has acknowledged receiving Singham funding. In a December 21, 2021 post on X (then Twitter), the organization defended its financial relationship with Singham against critics.
Congressional investigators have taken notice. On September 4, 2025, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith sent a formal letter to [People’s Forum Executive Director Manolo] De Los Santos demanding records and alleging that The People’s Forum had “acted as a foreign agent of the Chinese Communist Party” while enjoying tax-exempt status.
“Public reporting suggests that The People’s Forum has received over $20 million from Mr. Singham and his wife,” Smith wrote. “Multiple reports have found that The People’s Forum is part of Mr. Singham’s network of non-profit organizations that serve as his conduits to spread pro-CCP narratives.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee separately requested that the Department of Justice investigate whether The People’s Forum should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
De Los Santos himself has deep ties to Cuba. According to his biography at the Black Alliance for Peace, he “was based out of Cuba for many years” and “worked toward building international networks of people’s movements and organizations.” The New York Post reported that De Los Santos first traveled to Cuba in 2006 and was there as recently as March 2024. He has been photographed meeting with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Footnotes excised. Snip.
What makes Minnesota different from other immigration flashpoints is the degree to which organizers have been explicit about their strategy.
The NCRI report notes that activists in the Singham network view the 2020 protests as proof that “the ability for mass struggle now exists inside the United States.” This framing treats George Floyd’s death not as a singular tragedy but as a tactical validation—evidence that the right combination of outrage, infrastructure, and outside support can produce transformational results.
De Los Santos’s April 2024 call to recreate “the violent protests of the summer of 2020” was not a slip of the tongue. It was a statement of doctrine.
The IDN’s establishment before Operation Metro Surge began—funded by nearly $1 million from the Bush Foundation—demonstrates pre-positioning rather than organic response. The explicit training of thousands in “rapid response” and “legal observation” tactics, the encrypted communication networks, the coordinated media strategies: none of this materialized spontaneously after Good’s death.
It was waiting.
The evidence assembled here—from congressional investigations, foundation records, tax filings, academic research, and organizers’ own statements—establishes that what is happening in Minnesota is neither spontaneous nor accidental.
The same network that helped turn George Floyd’s death into a national uprising has spent five years building the capacity to do it again. They have studied what worked in 2020, professionalized their operations, secured substantial funding, and pre-positioned infrastructure across Minnesota.
When Renée Good was killed on a Minneapolis street, that infrastructure activated precisely as designed.
Minnesota was chosen—first as the place where 2020 proved the model, then as the laboratory where that model would be refined and redeployed. The current crisis is not an accident of geography or politics.
A collection of far-left groups — led by a Communist activist network tied to CCP-linked millionaire Marxist Neville Roy Singham — is attempting to organize a nationwide anti-ICE school and business shutdown, with anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour declaring that “we will bring this country to a halt.”
The general strike effort, scheduled for this Friday, is an attempt to replicate a Minnesota-wide anti-ICE shutdown which occurred last Friday and which was organized by many of the same far-left groups — but now with designs to do so on a national scale. The planned “National Shutdown” announced early this week includes plans for large-scale marches and a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” around the country.
The Manhattan-based Marxist revolutionary People’s Forum, the left-wing BreakThrough News media outlet, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the far-left Code Pink anti-war group, and the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition are all involved in either promoting or organizing the nationwide shutdown effort.
Just the News recently reported on how the forum, its propaganda machine, and the PSL were key players in pushing last week’s Minnesota-focused shutdown effort. Just the News also previously reported on how these and other radical activist groups have leadership links or financial ties to the funding network backed by Singham, whom others in his network call “Comrade.”
Social media used as organizing platform
The plans for Friday allegedly started with calls by a number of student groups at the University of Minnesota — the Somali Student Association, the Liberian Student Association, the Ethiopian Student Association, and the Black Student Union — who called for “Justice for Alex Pretti & Renee Nicole Good — NATIONWIDE SHUTDOWN” on Instagram on Sunday.
An investigation by Just the News shows that the forum was likely involved in creating the “National Shutdown” website which is now serving as an organizational hub for the coming Friday strike.
Did anyone notice a “nationwide shutdown” today? Mother Nature did a 100,000% better job shutting things down with Winter Storm Fern…
You gotta hand it to those Soros-sponsored district attorneys across the nation because when it comes to playing with fire, they play like they’ve never been burned.
The latest example is Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner. Not exactly a household name across the country,
But one that should be well-known to BattleSwarm readers.
Soros-linked groups have been his single largest financial backing source — helping him bypass traditional party fundraising and local contribution limits.
About a decade ago, Soros contributed about $1.7 million to the Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC while Krasner was still a relative unknown in a seven-candidate race for district attorney. The Philly PAC is part of Soros’s nationwide Justice and Public Safety groups that fund “progressive” DAs in blue city contests.
According to public sources, in 2017, Soros’s donation to just one candidate accounted for nearly 30% of all campaign spending in the seven-person race. For his 2021 reelection, Soros groups gave Krasner another $1.2 million, including $259,000 for Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC to run ads on Krasner’s behalf. Soros supported Krasner again last year, although I wasn’t able to find the dollar amounts before going to press.
Prior to getting all that Soros money to run for D.A., Krasner defended Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia members in court — and let’s just say Soros got his money’s worth. Or maybe it’s our money, given how intermingled Soros’s private funds are with taxpayer-funded NGOs purpose-tuned to push his causes.
Snip.
Here’s the quick and dirty transcript of Krasner talking about ICE officers: “This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis — that’s what they are — in a country of 350 million. We outnumber them… If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities, we will find you, we will achieve justice.”
What have I been repeating since the first attempt on President Donald Trump’s life last summer?
The left paints its enemies — we are no longer mere political rivals — as enemies, over and over, until some crazy decides to take justice into his own hands.
The FBI raided a Fulton County election office, evidently looking for evidence of the elction fraud carried out against president Trump in 2020. And it might be connected to…Nicolas Maduro?
Silver prices just plunged plunged over $30 an ounce today after a huge run-up. This means I’m either a genius when I sold a small amount of it last week (when prices were above where they are now), or an idiot for not selling all of it…
For three years, the world has waited for the Russian economy to implode. Instead, we watched a “Kalashnikov economy” defy gravity, fueled by high oil prices and a “friendship without limits” with Beijing. But as of January 2026, the gravity of basic math has finally caught up with Vladimir Putin.
The catalyst isn’t just the stalemate on the front lines; it’s a legislative “kill shot” from Washington and a quiet betrayal from the East. Between the new Graham-Trump Sanctioning Russia Act and a mounting domestic liquidity crisis, the Kremlin isn’t just running out of options—it’s running out of time.
The most significant development of 2026 isn’t a new missile system; it’s a tariff. The Graham-Trump Bill, greenlit by the White House on January 7, has fundamentally rewritten the rules of economic warfare. By threatening a mandatory 500% tariff on any country—including China and India—that continues to purchase Russian petroleum or uranium, the U.S. has finally weaponized the one thing Russia’s allies value more than cheap crude: access to the American consumer.
The shockwaves were instantaneous. On January 15, reports emerged that China’s largest state banks, including ICBC and Bank of China, began halting Ruble-denominated settlements. They aren’t waiting for the bill to be signed into law; they are pre-emptively cutting Russia loose to save their own export margins. When Beijing chooses its $500 billion trade surplus with the U.S. over its “strategic partner” in Moscow, the Russian war machine loses its primary life support system.
While the external walls are closing in, the internal floor is rotting. On New Year’s Day, Russia’s VAT officially jumped to 22%. This isn’t a sign of strength; it’s an act of desperation. The Kremlin is cannibalizing its own middle class to plug a federal budget revenue gap that fell 20% short of targets in 2025.
We are now seeing the first signs of a systemic banking fracture. In cities like Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk, reports of ATM shortages are no longer fringe rumors—they are the physical manifestation of a “liquidity trap.” When the state raises taxes while inflation remains double-digit and interest rates hover near 20%, the result is a “medically induced coma” for the civilian economy.
Federal officials have charged two contractors with conspiring to disrupt Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Knoxville earlier this month.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee unsealed a multi-count indictment on Friday against Tyler Shane Wells, 33, of Morristown, and 18-year-old Alexander Bonilla Servin of Smyrna.
They are charged with conspiracy to conceal and harbor illegal aliens, conspiracy to forcibly impede federal agents while engaged in performance of official duties, and conspiracy to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, federal agents from discharging their official duties from January 5 through January 13.
Bonilla-Servin is also charged with forcibly impeding federal agents engaged in the performance of their official duties.
Wells appeared in court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to the charges and a detention hearing is set for Monday. A trial date has been set for March 31, 2026.
Federal authorities accuse the two of plotting to block the entrance to a Hardin Valley construction site with Bonilla-Servin’s pickup truck in an effort to impede ICE agents. According to a Department of Justice release, the vehicle was put in position after federal agents were seen surveilling the site. Servin is also accused of hitting agents’ vehicle with the truck as it attempted to enter the site on January 13.
After more than a year of digging, Statehouse candidate Bailey Templeton’s most public records collection shows 1,085 Illinois children under 18 without SSNs had Medicaid bills of $66 million in 2025. That’s up 725% from $8 million for 450 children in 2021.
“It’s roughly $40 million spent on inpatient treatment, that’s a lot of time for children to be in hospitals,” Templeton told The Center Square Friday.
The data only generates more questions for Templeton.
“It raises questions about what would be called medical trafficking, where things are conducted on to children when they’re too young to be able to consent to these things,” she said.
Why, it’s almost like Democrats imported millions of illegal aliens and put them on welfare rolls…
Man tries to kill mayor in the Philippines with an RPG. (Never mind that The Sun calls it a bazooka.)
Idiot Hawaiian Democrat Senator Brian Schatz asks Marco Rubio a really stupid question, and Rubio hands him his ass:
“That’s statutory. The Helms Burton Act, the US embargo on Cuba, is codified. It was codified in law and it requires regime change in order for us to lift the embargo.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just dropped what I’ve been calling the nuclear option.
In an appearance on Katie Pavlich Tonight Thursday, Duffy made clear that withholding $200 million in federal funding isn’t the end of this fight. If California doesn’t come into compliance on the non-domiciled CDL issue, Duffy said, “we will eventually pull their ability to issue commercial driver’s licenses to anybody in California.”
Not just the 17,000 non-domiciled CDLs at the center of this fight. Every single CDL in the state.
I’ve written extensively about this standoff since the FMCSA released its audit findings last September, which showed that roughly 25% of California’s non-domiciled CDLs were improperly issued. I’ve covered the $160 million funding hit. I’ve warned about the decertification authority in 49 U.S.C. 31312 and 49 CFR 384.405, which most people in this industry didn’t even know existed.
This didn’t start with the Trump administration’s September 2025 emergency rule restricting non-domiciled CDLs to certain visa categories. That rule, which limited eligibility to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa holders, has been stayed by the D.C. Circuit since November. The court found that petitioners were “likely to succeed” on their claims that the FMCSA violated federal law in its rulemaking.
The California problem predates all of that.
FMCSA’s August 2025 Annual Program Review found California had been violating federal regulations that existed long before Duffy took office. The state was issuing CDLs with expiration dates extending years beyond drivers’ lawful presence documentation. In one case that still makes my blood boil, California issued a driver from Brazil a CDL with passenger and school bus endorsements that remained valid months after his legal presence expired.
That’s not a new rule problem. That’s a California screwed-up problem.
California agreed in November to revoke all 17,000 improperly issued licenses by January 5, 2026. Then, on December 30, the California DMV unilaterally announced a 60-day extension to March 6, citing the need to ensure it doesn’t wrongfully terminate licenses for drivers who actually qualify.
Duffy’s response on X was blunt: “Gavin Newsom is lying.”
FMCSA never agreed to the extension. California proceeded anyway. On January 7, DOT made good on its threat and withheld approximately $160 million in National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Block Grant funds. That’s on top of the $40 million already withheld over California’s refusal to enforce English language proficiency requirements.
California has more than 700,000 CDL holders. The state is home to the nation’s largest trucking workforce, with over 138,000 truck drivers moving freight through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the agricultural heartland of the Central Valley, and every retail distribution center feeding the country’s largest consumer market.
Under full decertification, California would be prohibited from issuing, renewing, transferring, or upgrading any commercial learner’s permits or commercial driver’s licenses until FMCSA determines the state has corrected its deficiencies. Previously issued CDLs would technically remain valid until their stated expiration dates, but here’s where it gets ugly.
Other states could refuse to recognize California credentials during the noncompliance period. FMCSA could issue guidance declaring CDLs issued by a noncompliant state invalid for interstate commerce. The Commercial Driver’s License Information System, which enables interstate verification, could flag every California license.
For the 700,000 CDL holders in the Golden State, decertification wouldn’t just be an administrative headache.
It would effectively ground them from operating in interstate commerce.
Blue state governors should stop trying to protect their precious illegal aliens and start following federal law.
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years on the platform now used by more than 200 million Americans.
The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.
Tesla North America announced the completion of a major lithium refinery in Robstown, Texas, with Elon Musk calling it “the most advanced lithium refinery in the world.”
Robstown is just west of Corpus Christi.
In the promotion video, Jason Bevon, the site manager at the Gulf Coast lithium refinery, explains that the refining process used in Robstown is “inherently much more environmentally friendly.” The company claims that the process used by the refinery eliminates hazardous byproducts of the refining process and is more sustainable than traditional methods.
Bevon explained that the refinery “enables us to have access to the critical minerals for energy storage, for battery manufacturing, and ultimately for [electric vehicle (EV)] growth.”
“It enables us to accelerate Tesla’s mission by regionalizing supply chains for battery minerals and materials, by providing jobs, by cutting emissions from the transportation network that is required for these supply chains.”
“It really allows us to usher in energy independence for North America.”
Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy explains that raw lithium needs to be processed into a “chemical in the form of lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, before being used in batteries,” which is done through refining. Currently, China dominates the global trade and production of key minerals, and leads the world in lithium refinement capabilities.
The need for lithium batteries has grown exponentially in recent years, with lithium batteries being required for EVs, smartphones, laptops, and renewable energy receptacles such as solar panels.
Also, you’re partially paying for it:
This political shift and the operation of the refinery are complemented by recent grants through the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund (TSIF), which was established when the Texas CHIPS Act, House Bill 5174, was signed into law in 2023. The TSIF totals “approximately $948 million in total appropriations” and is used for “semiconductor manufacturing and design,” according to the Texas Economic Development and Tourism Office.
Webb County’s sheriff and his assistant chief are facing federal charges for allegedly using office resources to create and profit from a disinfecting business during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sheriff Martin Cuellar Jr., 67, and Assistant Chief Alejandro Gutierrez, 47, have both appeared before a federal grand jury after turning themselves in. Their indictments have now been unsealed, revealing that they both are accused of misappropriating Webb County Sheriff’s Office funds between 2020 and 2022.
Cuellar is the brother of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo).
According to the indictment, around April 2020 Cuellar opened a for-profit business called Disinfectant Pro Master (DPM), which used resources belonging to the WCSO. He reportedly enlisted Gutierrez and Ricardo Rodriguez, an assistant chief, to assist in the start of the venture that provided disinfecting services to local businesses, residents, and the local school district.
Federal prosecutors allege none of the three made any personal investments in the startup company but used county resources, vehicles, and equipment. DPM also reportedly used county funds on multiple occasions to purchase supplies for the company. Staff from the sheriff’s office were often utilized to conduct the company’s operations during their regularly scheduled shifts according to the indictment.
The indictment also claims records show that payroll was not ever issued from the company to compensate the staff that was utilized to carry out its business.
During its operation, DPM received multiple contracts with local businesses, including a $500,000 contract with the United Independent School District, where Rodriguez served on the school board.
The company eventually closed in August 2022 after UISD did not renew its contract following media coverage and public scrutiny at a school board meeting over the contract being awarded to a board member’s company.
During the duration of the company’s operation, Cuellar, Gutierrez, and Rodriguez each reportedly received over $175,000. It is alleged in the indictment that Cuellar used his revenue to purchase a 10-acre property in Laredo.
As you might expect, Martin Cuellar is a Democrat.
Dwight documents not one but two of state-level Democrat congresscritters (state rep Ayshia “Ajay” Pittman in Oklahoma and former state senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis in Colorado) being involved in forgery scandals.
Nose-ringed leftist “Grace Carol Brown is charged with arson and burglary, and is ‘accused of smashing an exterior window, unlawfully entering the Comal County (TX) Republican Party headquarters, and starting a deliberate fire inside the building’ overnight on January 13/14.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake! “Parents say their trans son killed himself because his church employer wouldn’t let him wear French maid outfit, cat ears.”
Simon Whistler on Every Saudi Gigaproject in Vision 2030. Neom is still a ridiculous pipe dream, and Whistler is far too easily impressed with “zero carbon” claims, but some of these projects are actually worth doing and on-track.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government created the character of Amelia, a purple-haired nationalist Goth girl, for a lame Flash-style game to “combat far right extremism” (i.e., anyone who objects to importing illegal alien Islamist rapists into the UK), but now that she’s been adopted and memed by the right, that move backfired big time.
Louis Rossmann reports that downgrading to an earlier operating system bricks the latest OnePlus Android phone. I’d never heard of OnePlus, but it turns out it’s a Chinese brand, so you shouldn’t be buying it in the first place…
Surprise! American shopping malls aren’t dying off.
Shopping malls, long an economic and cultural fixture of American life, are facing sustained pressure but are not disappearing altogether.
Instead, the sector is undergoing creative destruction, as traditional mall formats give way to new concepts that reflect shifting consumer behavior and market conditions, according to recent industry data.
A research report by Capital One Shopping (COS) outlines the magnitude of the challenge facing the mall sector, citing rising mall closures that remain vacant for an average of nearly four years, as well as vacancy rates that are 112 percent higher than the overall retail vacancy rate.
COS also estimates that as many as 87 percent of large shopping malls could close over the next decade.
At the same time, COS data indicate a reversal of earlier trends. From 2021 through 2025, mall openings exceeded mall closures, suggesting adaptation rather than terminal decline. In 2025 alone, 9,410 new mall stores opened, nearly double the number that closed.
Additional evidence of revival appears in a recent article published by Growth Factor. Author Clyde Christian Anderson reported that indoor mall foot traffic in March 2024 rose 9.7 percent year over year, open-air shopping center traffic increased 10.1 percent, and outlet mall traffic climbed 10.7 percent—each exceeding pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.
Every book I bought in 2025, most from early in the year when I still had a contract job and money in the bank…
Here’s a tab-clearing roundup of longer videos on the Russo-Ukrainian War, drones, tanks, etc. I’m not going to go point-by-point on everything covered here, just pull out a few of the more important bits.
First up: Perun does one of those “tier rankings” so popular on YouTube, this one about supposed “game changing” weapons in the war.
He ranks glide bombs, used heavily by the Russians, as one of 2025’s most effective weapons. “In 2025 there has been no month where the Ukrainians claim the Russians dropped fewer than 3,000 of these things, roughly 100 per day. In April that number was north of 5,000, getting close to the likes of 170 per day.” I had no idea the numbers were that high.
Also top tier: Drones. “Far from drones fading away as people found ways to counter them over time, I’d argue that drones have just become more dominant with every month that passes. Drone performance improved, their payloads became more dangerous, their operators more expert, the tactics of their use evolved, and the relevant production figures added progressively more zeros. To the point where, while in 2022 drones were a significant enabling element on the battlefield, in 2025 they are one of the most definitive elements. Back in February, RUSI assessed that Ukrainian drones now account for about 2/3 of Russian losses. But if you factor in their contributions to the use of other systems, providing reconnaissance for the infantry, spotting for the artillery and the air force, resupply for forward elements, and all the tasks the Ukrainians leverage UAS to do, I’d argue it goes well beyond even just that. And at the core of the military challenge here is the fact that drones are just very effective, very accessible, and hard to counter.” “So far I’d argue in Ukraine for example, small drones have evolved faster than the defenses intended to counter them.” He also covers the rise of fiber-optic drones. More on drones in another video below.
Also ranked very high: Ukraine’s passive acoustic drone detection systems, which are cheap and widely dispersed, and are key to guiding anti-drone kill teams deep behind the front lines to the right spots to take out drones.
Ukraine is also having a lot of success designing and manufacturing cheap interceptors to take out drones. “During one recent Russian attack, about 20% of all the incoming Russian UAVs were brought down by interceptor drones.”
Just about all the Russian wunderwaffen (like the Oreshnik missile) gets ranked pretty low. (He also wants to see more of Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missle, as he had only one confirmed strike on that. See below for more on that topic.)
Combat shotguns are making a return as anti-drone weapons, but they’re last-ditch options and not ideal.
Russia is still using turtle tanks (AKA “assault sheds”) as the leads for mechanized assault columns. They can soak up a lot of punishment and mount a lot of drone-jamming equipment, but are still getting taken out by skilled drone operators or artillery. “A lot of Russian shed-equipped vehicles now appear to dispense with the main gun.” They also look even more Mad Max now, with arrays of spikes and branches to further tangle drones. “This isn’t just an approach being used by armored vehicles, and also it is not just the Russians. Drones are a survivability problem for everyone.”
Next up: Nicholas Moran talks about what armies can do to counter the drone threat without shiny new anti-drone weapons. “Getting away from the M is US Army speak for talking about something other than equipment. The M stands for material and is one of the factors in DOTMLPF.” (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Material, Leader Development and Education, Personnel, Facilities.)
“Drones have been around since World War II, but it’s only been ten years since the US military officially declared the small UAS as a significant threat. We are still very much in the early phases of integrating such drones into warfare. And nobody knows exactly where the chips are going to lie down when they complete their fall.”
“We’re now some five years on from what quite a few would consider the first war in which drones were highly influential and three years into a major large power conflict. So, I think we can at least have a couple of trends observed by now, which are forming.”
“We see lots of videos of drones killing things which are selectively released often from equipment which inherently has inbuilt cameras. The 60 to 80% of drone strikes which don’t kill their target normally aren’t released as there’s not much propaganda benefit to doing so. Artillery shells don’t have cameras and an ISR drone footage of an artillery strike is not really particularly dramatic anymore.”
“The whole truth does not come from videos. The big killers in war today are the same that they’ve always been. Mines, then artillery. Not for nothing are we seeing the largest minefields in history, or a shortage of artillery ammunition and tubes.”
“Now, to be fair, in early 2025, drones were being estimated to have caused more Russian casualties than artillery, but that was also during a period of shortage of indirect fire assets in Ukraine. At the same time, both armies on the front lines of Ukraine have dispersed to incredible amounts by 20th century standards. Not for fear of a small drone with an explosive charge, which frankly really doesn’t care if you dispersed or not, but because they don’t want to be a tempting clustered target for artillery or SRBMS.”
“Infantry is still king or queen. Ultimately, to take and hold ground, someone with hand grenades and a rifle, maybe with a stabby thing on the end, is going to have to close with and destroy the enemy supported by everything else in the inventory. And it’s going to be someone in the dugout with their own grenades and rifles, supported by everything else in the inventory, trying to stop them.”
“Drones are also not great at killing tanks. As one general put it, the only place more dangerous than being in a tank in the Ukraine battle area is not being in a tank in the Ukraine battle area.” More on this below as well.
“There there are always exceptions, but the vast majority of tanks which have been destroyed by drones have first been immobilized by something else, such as mines, artillery, ATGM, cannon fire, whatever. The response times for kinetic drones right now are just too long to have practical effect unless they happen to be in the right place and they don’t show up in mass. Then when the tank is immobilized by these other assets, the drone can come at its leisure and try to hit the stationary or abandoned tank which likely has the hatch still open as nobody bailing out after a hit is going to be standing on the top of the tank trying to close the hatch in an ongoing battle. And if something happens to that drone, which historically is quite likely, another drone can be sent and another and another.”
“Some disabled tanks have had a score of drones try to destroy them. Still didn’t work until finally one drone might show up, which actually does the job. Now, yes, an argument can be made that this is still beneficial on a pure dollar value basis, but it also comes with a slew of caveats related to anything from the availability of recovery assets through to the lack of anything more important for those drone operators to be doing that particular moment in time.”
“Some Ukrainian crews have simply given up counting how many times their tanks have been hit by drones. The best Ukrainian units are reporting a 40% hit rate with their FPVs. Typical units won’t be that good, and that’s flying one drone at a time over the course of hours. Hardly something suitable when a major battle starts, but perfectly suited for the current static warfare environment that we see. Now, that’s the hit rate, not the kill rate.”
“They are also not capable of all weather operations, at least the flying ones. Many are just too small. And when it gets to nighttime, for obvious reasons, the drones used are a little bit more expensive. If an enemy attacks in a storm, you want to have something other than quadcopters to rely upon for your defense. What drones have also failed to do is change the nature of war. The principles of war have not changed. The fundamentals of the offense or the defense have not changed.”
“Drones come and kill things, hardware. Then jammers come to get them to lose control, hardware. Then fiber optic cables come to reduce the vulnerability to jamming hardware. Then kill systems like cannons come. Hardware.”
But we don’t fight with things, we fight with formations that use things.
“A drone may not be able to easily kill a tank but it certainly has a reasonable effect on a bunker, on somebody riding an ATV, or on a supply truck for that tank.”
“I believe the claim is that DJI are making a drone a second and they are being used by both sides in Ukraine. The leader being the Mavic 3.” For more information on that, see here.
“As of early last year, 10,000 drones a month were being expended. And the chances are that that figure is well higher now. The things are being expended like ammunition and a low proportion of them are self-exploding. Most are being shot down, forced down, or crash.”
“Currently, the pendulum is swung in favor of the offensive use of drones. And well, defense is playing catch-up. As it currently stands, the dollar exchange is pretty much in favor of the drone.”
“Using a $200,000 stinger to drop a $10,000 surveillance drone is economically questionable, even if it has to be done. Because if you don’t do that, that $10,000 surveillance drone is going to call in a target for a $400,000 ballistic missile, which will then drop on your $2 million brigade headquarters if you don’t expend a $3 million Patriot missile to kill it. As a result, kill mechanisms need to get cheaper, and the drones need to be forced to become more expensive. And both are happening again.”
“Things like DJIs are civilian grade. They’re not equipped to handle electronic attack. The change and counter change in EM spectrum right now is its own battle which is apparently going on four-week cycles. But if you want to equip the drone so that loss of signal doesn’t immediately result in loss of drone or worse that the drone doesn’t just get hijacked, other measures need to be taken. Be it some form of self-targeting, the use of fiber optics, which leads to its own set of limitations and expense.”
“Then there is resistance to hard kill electronic systems. Currently, microwave weapons are the leading contenders. A single microwave can quickly and efficiently fry the electronics of a whole bunch of drones at once for not much cost.”
“Systems have been demonstrated that are in effect remote weapon stations such as you’ll find on top of a Stryker, or you can put in the back of a pickup truck. They are capable of autonomously detecting, identifying, tracking, and engaging small UAS with a short burst.”
“The reality is the drone swarms don’t work for the simple reason that they take up too much jammable bandwidth talking to each other or controllers. And there aren’t enough operators with enough magazine depth to make a go of it by coordinating conventional operations.”
“Drones may end up flying in packages. Bandwidth concerns may limit the feasibility of true automated swarming.” Better AI may help solve that problem.
“One of the organizational problems or doctrinal problems that the army needs to work on, and this will apply to all armies, is how do you set up the layered network so that the most efficient system is used to engage the best target. So, just because you can shoot down a bomber drone with a Coyote doesn’t mean it’s the best move. Maybe it’s worth letting him get a lot closer to be shot down with a caliber 50 or a microwave.”
“The intent is that ground troops will always make first contact with the enemy by use of a drone or UGV. Now, there are advantages to both. I still haven’t seen the front line of robots in official doctrine, but I still think it’s coming.”
The army is already experimenting with self-driving road vehicles for logistics.
Some of the lessons the Ukrainians have learned may not be appropriate for the more modern and well-equipped U.S. armed forces. ” To kill Orlan and the like at altitude, the Ukrainians have been resorting to things like mothership drones and balloon lifted drones. The US has an air force capable of dominating at 15,000 ft and an F-35 or F-15 with a couple of APKWs hydropods would be a reasonably cost-effective and more responsive way of dealing with the problem. The US has satellite or airborne recon abilities which may take care of tasks that other nations may need drones for. Just how good is an F-35’s radar? Can it detect a number of drones and then hand off to a cheaper system to engage? Or maybe it can illuminate for passive radar purposes without being at risk itself.”
“If we are dramatically reducing our command post sizes, increasing dispersion, massively increasing our air defense EW components, reintroducing air guards, or telling people to break out their ET tools like in the old days, then it’s very obviously demonstrating the case that the US has understood that we need to change things.”
“Remember the [Hans] von Seeckt appraisals after World War I? Nearly four years of terrible trench warfare followed the German attempt at maneuver warfare. After chewing on the matter a bit, the German response about 1921 was the key is still maneuver warfare. And they were right.”
“The trend appears to be that we’re going to use automation to further enable what we’re doing, not change what we’re doing. Is the how, not the what.”
“The characteristics of the offense remain concentration, audacity, tempo, and surprise.”
LazerPig takes aim at what he calls Hurr Durr Drone Syndrome (HDDS), including the idea that drones have made tanks obsolete. He goes into more detail about how the ability of drones to take out tanks is considerably overstated, noting that “cheap” drones capable of taking out tanks aren’t really cheap any more.
(Note: LazerPig had to reupload this video due to a copyright strike, so there’s a chance some of the below is no longer in this version.)
“Symptoms of HDDS include flashy clickbait titles that proclaim any new technology from tanks to jets is doomed, because why spend billions of dollars on a weapon system if a 20 buck drone can take it out?”
“It makes casual references to the ever-increasing loss of Western tanks on the Ukrainian front. Makes grandiose gestures that inflate the actual capability of small FPV drones and surreptitiously, usually just by not knowing any better, parrot Russian propaganda that all Western tanks are too big and too heavy.”
“It ignores the actual opinions of Ukrainian tank crews and fails to take into account that of the 95 Western tanks that have been lost on the Ukrainian front, very few of those were actually taken out by drones. And of that 95, 73 were highly outdated models that have either since been replaced or are in the process of being replaced. Out of those 73, 71 were models built before 1990, and 21 of those were tanks designed in the 1960s.”
“Even under the less than ideal conditions Ukraine fights in, with a comedic list of tanks from various periods and in various states of repair, at the time of recording, for every one Western tank they have lost, 43.7 Russian tanks have been destroyed.”
He says those $20 commercial drones are useless for combat. “The simplest of drones currently on the Ukrainian front cost in excess of $400 to make each. And that is with volunteers, 3D printers, and importing the cheapest made parts from TEMU. And these factories don’t run at a profit. They absorb the full cost through donations, not selling the drones to the military.”
“In the UK, a vast number of drone factories were set up in the hopes of cashing in on the drone military craze. And most of them have failed to expand beyond a single office, 3D printers, small teams of eager 20somes, and a dream. simply because, well…
“Firstly, the actual cost of setting up mass production is far greater than first anticipated, especially when one realizes that it’s not just drone parts they’d need, but camera equipment, night vision, thermals, long-range battery packs, and radio equipment capable of resisting interference, triangulation, and interception, most of which is beyond the capability of these companies.”
“All of this is how a $400 drone becomes a $10,000 drone. Even then, those $400 drones carry about enough munitions to kill a person or knock out light vehicles or generally unarmored targets.”
“In some of these interviews, they have talked about how tanks generally survive multiple hits from drones because the Russians don’t always have access to the heavier munitions required to take them out. Those are considerably more expensive, harder to produce, and considerably more rare, allowing those tanks to race into drone hotspots, take out their target, and withdraw before those munitions arrive.”
“A good example of one of those munitions is the famous Russian Lancet. In a full-time war economy, one of these costs around $20,000 to manufacture, or to put that in perspective, the cost of five artillery shells. This is of course assuming Russia is telling the truth when it gives these numbers up and aren’t just calculating the cost of materials and not including labor setup or the cost of the launcher.”
“The thing about the Lancet is it’s a drone in name only. It’s technically a loitering munition which have been around for quite some time. Every country has been developing them for the past 10 years and some of those were given to Ukraine.”
Just about every country that produces tanks is working on loitering munitions versions for tanks to launch.
“The Switchblade, currently in use by both the US and Ukrainian Army, costs around $60,000 per unit, with the more dedicated anti-tank version costing somewhere in the region of $100,000 per
unit.”
He says he had to delete a long rant about the difference between the Lancet and the Switchblade. “What you need to know is the Switchblade can be carried by one soldier in a backpack, thrown on the ground, and then fired like a mortar within seconds. It’s got infrared as standard. It can do a whole bunch of really clever things like guide other Switchblades onto targets or coordinate with other drones and have multiple Switchblades hit multiple different targets simultaneously, you know, to lower the chances of your enemy going, ‘Oh no, a drone.’ And then doing something really wild like taking cover.”
“The Lancet does none of that. It’s basically just a TV missile on a catapult.”
Cheap drones started out effective until units adapted. “As they develop new systems or techniques or tactics against this cheap weapon, then that system is going to gradually become less effective over time and therefore must evolve to remain potent. The Lancet has gone through multiple versions, each time trying to increase its lethality or counter the defenses Ukraine has developed specifically against it.”
“The Lancet, though it is estimated at costing roughly $20,000 to manufacture via various Russian reports. It was offered at export at $32,000 back when it was only seeing use in Syria. And now it’s no longer offered for export. And that $20,000 number has never been updated as the weapon has grown in complexity…the reality is we don’t know how much it actually costs.”
“It has more than likely now matched the Switchblade in terms of cost.”
We don’t know how effective Lancet is because our information comes from Russian propaganda websites, and Russia has claimed Lancet tank kills on western tanks that were clearly taken out by other means.
“In the later stages of 2022, in response to Ukraine’s increased counterbattery effectiveness, the Russians began pulling hordes of towed artillery out of storage, some of which dated as far back as the Second World War. Yet with the limited ability to retain these units in service due to excessive barrel wear or move them around after they had been fired through the loss of transport vehicles, Russia’s artillery dominance has finally began to wane. And as a result, systems like the Lancet have been forced into this role. The irony here being that a $20,000 drone system, is now doing the work of an artillery shell, which the Russians once bragged they could make for under $1,500.”
“Both sides are potentially lacking the equipment that would have traditionally performed that job and are falling back onto cheaply-made drones to fill the gap.”
HDDS also ignores all the anti-drone technology developed in the last three years.
“In spite of the existence of heavy drone-based munitions that can take out tanks, Ukraine still uses tanks quite a lot.”
One correction: LazerPig says the cope cage were deployed in response to Ukraine’s use of drones, but mentions actually date to the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022.
“In the first days, Lancets were being used on mass, the Russians would be forced to stop jamming the frequency that the Lancet was being used in. The Ukrainians would simply cycle through frequencies, find the one that wasn’t being jammed, and then jam it themselves, causing the lancets to just fall out of the sky.” The technical difficulties involved here make me wonder if this is a “just so” story.
“In a response, the Russians are now forced to turn off their jamming systems when firing a Lancet to prevent the Ukrainians from figuring out the frequency.”
Counter-jammer technology is not something you find on a $400 drone.
“You might think the best defense against [jamming] is to simply have the drone change frequencies, and you’d be right. But changing frequencies isn’t as easy as pressing a button or changing a dial. In fact, in many cases, the aerial assembly has to be completely ripped off and replaced with one with a newer frequency. Hence why a lot of drones [are] shipped without an aerial, allowing the receiving unit to add their own as needed.”
“Sometimes the drone automatically picking one that is not actively being jammed is quite expensive. And another reason why things like the Switchblade are more expensive than the Lancet. But that’s the old idiom, you get what you pay for.”
“Putting soldiers lives at risk with cheaper equipment that might not always work is the lesson the US military has learned the hard way. Ask any US veteran and they will happily bitch to you about any number of equipment problems based entirely on that topic, often for several hours without ever stopping for breath. It’s quite impressive.”
The response to drone jamming has been the advent of fiber-optic drones. “These drones have caused all kinds of hell for both sides, to the point where parts of the front lines are littered in webs of fiber optic.”
The response to fiber optics has been barbed wire and more cages. “In the front lines of both sides, supply routes are now covered in large arc structures, a cope cage supreme, if you will, that prevent drones attacking convoys and supply trucks. And both sides will typically spend days or often weeks trying to find holes or discreetly make holes in these nets and then have several drones lie in weight across the road ambushing any vehicles they find.”
“This has led to Ukraine up armoring everything from medevac to supply trucks in order to minimize the damage caused by these ambush drones. In much the same way US and British forces in Iraq were forced to up armor their patrol vehicles owing to the threat of IEDs.”
“Ukraine’s best counter to drones remains, and has surprisingly remained, old radar-guided anti-air systems from the Cold War.” Most drones are not remotely stealthy.
“Mobile anti-air systems like the Gepard have proven exceedingly effective at taking them down. Meaning to avoid systems like this, drones have to fly low to the ground, which makes finding targets considerably harder.”
Countries are also developing electronic warfare and laser systems to take out drones. “Where these systems fit into our current doctrine is still being written. And where these things are now technologically will be considerably different in a few years time. Ultimately, these weapons will need mounting onto something. And why can’t that something be a tank? Laser tanks are finally here.”
“It is not the biggest army that wins. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
A lot of this is true, but I’m wondering if the atomized nature of the Ukrainian front isn’t a big factor against cheap drones here. I imagine smaller, cheaper drones with only a few pounds of explosives might be considerably more useful in an urban combat environment that limits jamming and countermeasures. There’s also, I think, a drone class heavier than the lightest drones but lighter than Lancet or Switchblades that could still be racking up mobility kills against tanks and other armored vehicles in such an environment.
Next up: Megaprojects Simon Whistler breaks down Ukraine’s new Flamingo cruise missile.
“If the missile you’re launching at the enemy is easy to take down because it’s not very fast or stealthy, the least you can do is pack it with so many explosives, you basically guarantee complete destruction if just one of them breaks through the enemy lines. And this at least is the basic logic behind the FP5 Flamingo, Ukraine’s new heavy hitter missile.”
“Experts, both domestic and foreign, hailed its arrival. But they warn against obsessive optimism. Because while the Flamingo packs a hell of a punch, it also leaves a lot to be desired.”
“The missile “is constructed mostly of recycled ordinance and aircraft parts.”
“The Flamingo excels in two key areas: warhead capacity and range. The missile is armed with a 1.15 ton or 2500lb warhead, which is just a comically large amount of explosive material for a single missile. For comparison, the BGM 109 Tomahawk land attack missile, which is a reliable American long-range missile, packs about 450 kilos or 1,000 lb of explosives, and the Flamingo comes with 2.5 times that.”
“The engine used with the Flamingo is believed to be the AI-25. This engine is comparably much larger than engines on similar missiles, and it’s used with several aircraft, including Turkey’s combat drone, the Bayraktar. The use of a large engine, one that measures 3.3 m in length and 62 cm in diameter with a weight of over 350 kilos or 770 lb, allows the engineers to skip miniature turbo jets and turbo fans. These propulsion systems are usually preferred for long-range cruise missiles, but they’re really expensive, unlike the AI-25.”
“The AI-25 was incredibly available for Fire Point to purchase in huge numbers from stockpiles. Officials said that they found thousands of these engines at dumps and landfills around Ukraine, in a very practical and literal showcase of the adage, ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’ Fire Point did not restore these engines to full usage, which would allow them a maximum flight time of 10 hours, but only enough power for the Flamingo to go for 4 hours. They replaced the titanium parts with cheaper materials to save both time and money, and engines that were deemed too damaged were used for spare parts.”
“The biggest advantage of such a powerful engine, which is usually used with much heavier aircraft, is the incredible range of this missile, which is reported to be 3,000 km or about 1,850 miles. This is almost double the range of the block five Tomahawk missile mentioned earlier, and it’s more than enough to strike Russia anywhere in the European part of the country.” Though he notes that claim hasn’t been verified yet.
“The missile travels at speeds about 900 km or 560 mph, which is comparable to the speeds of western missiles.”
“The Flamingo does not have a complex visual guidance system, such as terrain contour matching systems or digital scene matching area correlation systems, which are very common with Western missiles, which are also, of course, a lot more expensive. It does, however, use satellite navigation to guide itself toward the target.”
“The Flamingo uses a jamming resistant controller reception pattern antenna layout, which kind of feels like word salad, doesn’t it? But what it means is that the antenna layout is designed to resist radio jamming and spoofing, keeping the missile on its course.”
“However, the Flamingo lacks any technology to hide from radar, which makes it extremely unstealthy.” But it’s fiberglass construction is less visible on radar than metal.
“Similar to how the A-10 Warthog is an aircraft built around a 30mm rotary cannon, the FP5’s airframe is built around its massive warhead.”
“At first glance, it might remind you of the V1, but the Flamingo is much larger at a length of between 12 and 14m and a wingspan of six.”
He notes the missile’s vulnerability to Russian fighter aircraft, but given how heavily those are overtaxed, I wonder how much they can “fly cap” over the vast distances of Russian airspace, especially after the further dispersion away from Ukraine following successful drone attacks on Russian airbases.
Skipping the history of Ukraine development/acquisition of long range strike platforms.
“After the official unveiling on August the 17th, 2025, production rolled out at a rate of about 50 missiles a month, and Fire Point announced that they plan to increase production to seven missiles a day by the end of the year.”
“The majority of the missile is created from already existing components that can be put together in a factory that’s relatively safe. Even if the factory were to be destroyed, the Flamingo is so easy to put together, the entire manufacturing process can be moved as long as the warheads and the engines are kept safe.”
“And Ukraine’s not alone in this task either. To help streamline production, Denmark announced that a Fire Point subsidiary would start solid fuel production in Denmark by the end of the year.”
“At the time of recording, there is only a single documented use of Flamingo missiles by Ukraine. And their effectiveness is, to quote the Chernobyl TV show, not great, not terrible. Three missiles is a nice reference. Not great, not terrible.”
“Three missiles were launched in a poorly defended target in northern Crimea, and yet only two arrived on site, proving the Flamingo is fairly easy to shoot down. One of the missiles that actually arrived missed the target by about 100-200 meters. The second missile, however, caused significant damage to the building, also damaging six hovercraft despite landing between 15 and 40 meters away from the target.”
“This shows that there are still a lot of kinks for Fire Point to work through to perfect these missiles. The claimed accuracy of the Flamingo is 14 meters, but neither of the two missiles hit within that mark. However, the missile that hit the closest still managed to cause enough damage to deem it a successful strike, showing that the massive warhead can compensate for the lack of accuracy.”
Skipping over his analysis of which Russian air defense systems can shoot it down, since there’s ample evidence of numerous Russian systems letting a wide range of drones and missiles through without shooting them down.
Also skipping over his analysis of the Ukraine campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, as that’s been well documented here. But: “To add insult to injury, the FB5 Flamingo makes the drones used in those attacks look like firecrackers.”
“With this in mind, it’s almost guaranteed that Ukraine won’t be mindlessly launching flamingos at Russia, but will instead carefully plan the flight routes to maximize their effectiveness.”
The Flamingo currently takes a lengthy 20 minutes to set up and launch.
“Valerie Romanenko, a leading aviation expert and researcher with the Ukrainian State Museum of Aviation, says that upon exploding, the Flamingo will destroy any production plant. The facility will be impossible to rebuild because the explosion will result in complete destruction, leaving behind itself a 20 meter crater.”
Large Russian oil facilities are, naturally, likely to be targets.
“It’s interesting how all of the news outlets used Novosibirsk as the designation point of the Flamingo’s range capabilities, because Novosibirsk just happens to be close to Biysk, the home of the Biysk Oleum plant. The Biysk Oleum plant is Russia’s largest producer of military grade explosives and artillery shells. Every month, Russia supplies its forces with about 120,000 artillery shells. And normally, these shells are produced in Nizhny Novagrod, which is about 1,300 km away by road from Ukrainian borders, which means that the shipments are well within the reach of Ukrainian weapon systems. Because of this, Moscow decided to move their production to the Biysk Oleum plant, thinking that production there would be safe.”
“Cue the Flamingo: A huge missile that could in theory destroy the entire plant with one strike and a 3,000 km range. The is just outside of the Flamingo’s range by a few hundred km. But both Ukrainian and Russian forces are well aware that the Flamingo is a huge threat for this production plant.”
“The Biysk Oleum plant isn’t the only arms manufacturing factory at risk. Shahhead drones, which Russia has adopted from Iran, are produced in Yelabuga and Izhevsk factories which are well within range for the FB5. And the same can be said for the Oreshnik missile factory in Votkinsk.”
“Ukraine, for its part, obtains the capability to destroy virtually any defense industrial facility on the Russian territory. This entails a fundamental change in the balance of power.”
The usual new weapon system caveats apply.
As I’ve stated before, one of the first targets for a long-range drone with a large warhead (assuming they can make the targeting more accurate) should be the Omsk Transiberian railway bridge over the Irtysh river, some 2500km from Ukraine. As far as I can tell, that’s the only rail line in Russia that connects Moscow with Russia’s far eastern territories, and is presumably a key supply gateway to China. Russia could reroute some traffic through Kazakhstan’s rail network (which runs on the same Soviet 1,520 gauge rails), but I imagine there would be considerable pain in rerouting things that way. Plus the sort of floating bridges needed to repair that span seem to be in short supply.
Anyway, I though all of those videos had interesting points to make, even though that’s a lot of video to watch (or texts to read).
Two videos on increasing Russian logistics difficulties in the Russo-Ukrainian War. First up: A video that suggests Ukraine has switched from a territory recapture strategy to an attrition strategy.
“Russia is burning whether it’s oil terminals on the Baltic and the Black Sea, factories in far-flung Siberia, or military bases in Crimea, it seems almost every day something bursts into flames in Putin’s backyard. And Ukraine is thought to be the one behind it.” It’s an open question whether structure hits in places like Siberia are Ukrainian “werewolf” teams operating behind enemy lines, or native anti-Putin/anti-war (or even anti-Russian) partisans, but the effect seems the same: Russia now has to worry about attacks to its military, transport, energy, and manufacturing infrastructure far from the frontlines in Ukraine.
Zelensky warned Putin that if Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate missile attacks again, Ukraine would hit back. When it did, “Ukraine struck back a fire at the electrical substation outside Moscow, plunged three districts of the capital into darkness. Water pipes also burst, leaving people freezing in their homes. The plague of accidents soon spread to the cities of Omsk and Novosibirsk, deep in Siberia, which were left without heating as temperatures fell below -2.” Actually, Omsk and Novosibirsk aren’t “deep” in Siberia, because the place is so vast there another five time zones east of there.
“Soon after attacks began on critical infrastructure, including oil refineries upon which Putin’s economy relies. To date, three refineries have been blown up or set on fire, including two which were hit by long-range Ukrainian drones. One of those the Ust-Luga oil refinery near St. Petersburg, is almost 600 miles from Ukraine.”
“Railways and factories have also been blown up or burned down at the same time the Ukrainians have stepped up their campaign against Crimea.” Naval successes we’ve covered here already skipped.
At this point the video argues that Ukraine’s strategy was to liberate Ukrainian territory, no matter the strategic value. I don’t think that was the case.
Following the “failure” of the summer offensive (I would say “limited gains”), “Ukraine is digging in and refocusing liberation of territory is no longer the main goal hitting Russia where it hurts most.”
“Ukraine knows that victory in a long war depends on two things above all else: The will of people to keep fighting, and the ability of the country to provide weapons for them to fight with, and that’s where these drone missile and sabotage attacks come in.”
It then argues (as many others have) that Crimea is Putin’s main weakness, and that losing it will cripple his prestige and ability to stay in power and continue the war.
I think there has been a shift in Ukrainian strategy, but that shift has mainly been driven by the development and availability of longer-ranged weapons Ukraine lacked earlier in the war, combined with the effects of a long-term campaign to degrade Russia air power, naval assets and SAM systems, opening up avenues for longer range strikes. Ukraine focused on attacking Russia’s logistics systems right after the Battle of Kiev was won, but now they have the capability to hit much deeper into Russia’s logistics infrastructure.
Actually, I’m surprised there haven’t been any reported attacks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, given what a long, slender link that is. A few medium-to-long range drone teams inserted into northern Kazakhstan or Mongolia could wreck real havoc on trains, lines, bridges, etc.
Next, a video from Kanal 13 (very much a pro-Ukrainian source) suggests that the war and sanctions are cratering Russia’s military industrial complex.
“The Russian military industrial complex is being destroyed because of the war against Ukraine.”
Dimitri Fidive, CEO of the Muram Machine Building Plant, wrote in an email intercepted by the activists, that inflation and the shortcomings of Russia’s bureaucratic approach prevents plants that form the country’s military industrial complex from fulfilling government orders.”
“Plants are forced to sell their goods at prices set in 2019, but are at the same time expected to purchase details at market prices and in advance.”
“The money received from the government was not enough to cover the interest on the credit that his firm would need to take out to pay its suppliers.”
“Money is tied up until the completion of the government contracts, which normally last 3 to 5 years, meaning during this time the money is effectively frozen.”
“There is a shortage of staff at the plants due to both mass mobilization and a lack of accommodation [housing] in the area.”
Hell of a way to run a railroad. One wonders how extensive these problems are with other companies in Russia’s military industrial complex
Ukraine’s strategy has shifted more in relation to the way the war developed, and the changing availability of western weapons, than any fundamental shift in strategy. It became apparent that this was going to be a war of attrition in the first year, and the question of which would break first: The west’s willingness to send Ukraine weapons, or Russia’s economy and ability to wage it’s illegal war of territorial aggression?
Nothing about that strategy has changed, only Ukraine’s greater reach to affect the latter.
A sudden explosion at a Siberian virus research center on Monday reportedly left the facility engulfed in flames, according to several Russian news outlets.
Firefighters and other emergency personnel were dispatched to the “Vector Institute” located several miles from Novosibirsk – an emergency which was upgraded “from an ordinary emergency to a major incident,” according to RT, due to the research center for virology and biotechnology housed in the facility – however the mayor of Koltsovo said there were no biologically dangerous substances in the area where the explosion occurred, and that the Vector laboratory was not in use at the time.
The State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector, also known as the Vector Institute, and which is located deep inside Siberia for a reason…… is a biological research center in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia. It is analogous to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command. It has research facilities and capabilities for all levels of Biological Hazard, CDC Levels 1-4.
Of note, Vector is reportedly one of two places worldwide where smallpox is stored.
The laboratory is known for having developed vaccines for Ebola and hepatitis, as well as for studying epidemics and genera issues surrounding immunology. During the Cold War, it was thought to be part of now-defunct Soviet biological weapons program, meaning that some of the most dangerous strains – including that of smallpox, Ebola, anthrax and certain plagues – are still being kept inside the Institute’s building.
With that in mind, a local branch of the Emergencies Ministry swiftly responded to the call, sending in 13 fire engines and 38 firefighters, who entered the six-story building minutes after arrival.
If this ends up destroying the world through an unstoppable pandemic, it’s been nice blogging for you!
