The front
The front, in the short term, remains largely unchanged. Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the Kupiansk and Borova sectors, while Russian pressure continues to build around Kostiantynivka and Dobropillya. Reports from the 1st Corps Azov indicate that Ukrainian defenses are holding well, but positions inside Kostiantynivka are thinning. Both sides report that getting water to frontline troops is difficult, and rotating frontline troops has been nearly impossible for several weeks.
The most important frontline news last week came Wednesday evening (Aug. 12), when the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) lifted a two-month ban on reporting on Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive. Close readers of this blog may recall seeing hints of this. Now it’s official: for the last three months, Ukrainian forces have been systematically capturing villages and fighting positions in the Oleksandrivka-Hulyaipole sector, in a campaign of slow-paced infiltration followed by focused assaults. Casualties have been moderate on both sides but very real.
The Ukrainians claimed that since June their forces have recaptured about 240 square kilometers (92.7 square miles) and 19 villages in territory between Hulyaipole and Pokrovsk.
The next day, Thursday (Aug. 13), Ukraine’s General Staff formally announced the liberation of 26 villages and 352 square kilometers (135.9 square miles) across Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, over roughly three months of fighting. This is effectively the AFU’s official tally for its southern offensive, underway since late spring – and it covers most of the area reported on Wednesday.
The spearpoint units named for this are the airborne units, meaning mostly the 7th Rapid Response Corps and possibly the 8th Air Assault Corps, but above all the Assault Infantry Regiments raised by the now-sacked AFU Commander-in-Chief Oleksander Syrsky. Later on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky held a televised meeting with some senior generals – according to them, since April, Ukraine has liberated 750+ square kilometers (290+ square miles) of territory and, in counteroffensives, killed about 6,000 Russian soldiers and wounded about 9,000.
According to the General Staff statement, the gains were achieved by detailed planning and combined arms. At the same time, the AFU announced record numbers of Russian soldier casualties and automotive casualties for July.
Putting aside fake claims that are just goofy, but broadcast on Russian TV because it makes the Kremlin happy, independent sources, over the same period, say Russian forces probably captured about 65-75 square kilometers (25-29 square miles) of Ukraine, at very heavy cost.
This is the opposite of Russia winning. But of course, there will be those who will say Russia is big and mighty and can’t lose and must prevail. Still, it’s harder to say that when Ukrainian attacks seem to be about three times more effective than Russian attacks, not in relative terms, but in actual terms.
Since this is all the formal acknowledgement of a process that’s been taking place for months, this isn’t news, meaning a Stalingrad-type defeat of Russian forces. But what it does mean is that the AFU has held the ground initiative over the Russian army since spring 2026, and the evidence is that the edge is widening. At this pace of advance, it will take months, but if the progress continues – a point where the Kremlin can no longer claim it is gaining territory in Ukraine is coming. That is a key trigger point at which the Kremlin would have to choose between negotiating a ceasefire or risking a military mutiny.
Russia bombards Ukraine
Overnight Friday-Saturday (Aug. 7-8), Russia hit Kyiv with six ballistic missiles; there was no return fire. There was a major fire in the north of the city with four dead. Another wave of drones headed towards Odesa. Of this raid, one drone entered Bulgarian airspace on Saturday and exploded close to an international gas pipeline. This was near the border with Romania. So now the war has seen Russian drones violate NATO airspace in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Lithuania. Later in the week, the Germans reported the police had spotted 2,500+ unexplained drone violations flying near airspace they shouldn’t, but these were civilian drones.
Per AP, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the drone exploded just after 5 a.m. about 100 meters (330 feet) inside Bulgarian territory, and that it was not detected or identified while flying through either Romanian or Bulgarian airspace. So once again, hardly a brilliant example of NATO air defenses maintaining an impenetrable cordon against potential aggressors.
Continuing on my hobby horse about NATO incompetence probably on the level of negligence, I think it’s worth pointing out that where the drones don’t meet air defenses, they go next time. Remember the first day of Barbarossa, when the Germans caught the entire Red Air Force on the ground and destroyed something like 1,500 aircraft in a day? Those strikes had been preceded by nearly a month of German reconnaissance flights into Soviet airspace that Stalin had ordered not interfered with.
I’m not saying the Russians are planning air strikes against NATO tomorrow, but detected gaps in NATO defenses increase the odds Russia will consider a strike worthwhile. Remember, to fly to Bulgaria, a Russian drone must fly over southern Romania first. The biggest NATO airfield south of Rhein-Main is Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base by Constanța. That drone that flew to Bulgaria came close enough to Mihail Kogălniceanu that it might as well have overflown the base – and NATO never detected it.
Overnight Saturday-Sunday (Aug. 8-9), it was Odesa’s turn. A large-scale combined Russian missile and drone attack left at least 14 people injured, with 11 hospitalized and one in critical condition, according to Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper – the toll climbed through the day from an initial count of 8. It was one of the biggest combined attacks against Odesa in years with 202 drones and 17 missiles. The Ukrainians knocked down 174 of the drones and six of the missiles, and five were slow-flying Banderole drones that can be hit with ground fire and in the right circumstances even interceptor drones. Eleven ballistic/hypersonic missiles weren’t intercepted and detonated. Infrastructure was damaged, but the greatest destruction was to residential buildings, some in the Old Quarter in the center of the city.
On Tuesday (Aug. 11), the Ukrainian Air Force decided it would no longer publish numbers of Russian missiles detected and intercepted, according to them, so as not to give free information to the enemy. Sure. An equally compelling reason, not mentioned but real, is that even if it’s because there are no interceptor missiles, failure is failure, and unintercepted Russian ballistic missiles are pretty damaging to civilian morale, trust me on this.
However, the AFU solution – just not report on ballistic missiles – is not especially bright in my book, because the AFU is far from the only source of information about where Russian ballistic missiles are flying and where they are hitting. The natural outcome will be that the Ukrainian internet will start counting ballistic missiles on its own and confirming the air defenses can’t stop them, and then it will be up to the Air Force to explain why the Hell that is and why nothing more can be done. Which is far from an Air Force conversation because once authorities are cornered into admitting the reality that the US isn’t going to send enough interceptor missiles, ever, not even at a markup, then the authorities are going to have to answer why something else isn’t being done.
It’s patently obvious there aren’t enough PAC-3 missiles in the world for Ukraine to fend off all the ballistic missiles Russia will shoot this winter, and it is only the truly Romantic who believe that a Ukraine-developed interceptor would be developed in time for winter. This is absolutely clear right now.
So where are the mass shipments of generators? Where is the evidence of critical production and infrastructure moving underground? Where is the evidence, in Kyiv above all, that defenses to the power grid are being reinforced? I’ll tell you where: there is none. What we are seeing is report after report of Russian strikes hitting Ukrainian infrastructure. In August. Now is the time to act, but right now the action being taken by the Ukrainian state – looking at you, Zelensky – is to gripe that the Americans won’t cough up PAC-3 missiles. This is a war; sometimes you don’t get what you want.
The Russian campaign to convince NATO that it’s unsafe to send air defense weaponry to Ukraine because Russian attack aircraft are already flying into NATO continued on Thursday (Aug. 13) with a drone reaching Latvia before being shot down by an Italian Eurofighter. Not sure of the missile used, but for Russia it was a great deal: Spend about $50,000 on a drone that forced NATO to spend at least half a million dollars to shoot it down and give weight to arguments in both Riga and Rome that supporting Ukraine with air defense weaponry is a bad idea because Russian drones are already attacking NATO directly. The obvious solution is to concentrate NATO air defense capacity to stop the Russian drones over Ukraine – this is deemed politically impossible.
This is appallingly bad security policy by the West. It is appeasement, exactly as reprehensible as French and British blindness to what Germany did in the Rhineland and Czechoslovakia in 1936-1938. Name me a European leader opposed to erecting an air defense zone over Ukraine right now, and I’ll show you the modern version of Neville Chamberlain.
Ukraine bombards Russia – Long strike
The most spectacular Ukrainian strike was the backup base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, in Novorossiysk. Overnight Tuesday-Wednesday (Aug. 11-12) the Ukrainians launched 400+ drones at targets deep inside Russia, and the main effort headed towards the Kuban and Novorossiysk. But there were also strike packages attacking air defenses around Kerch and elsewhere in Crimea.
According to the Ukrainians, this was one of the most ambitious naval/port facility strikes in a while, containing Palianytsia jet-powered drones, Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles, and unmanned naval systems, a/k/a kamikaze motorboats. Supposedly, the Russians had strong defenses like anti-torpedo nets, machine gun emplacements on the shore, the mountain ridges above the port studded with Pantsir anti-drone systems, and so on. Reports are of chaotic and very heavy volume of fire that was overwhelmed by Ukrainian drones attacking from medium altitude, Neptunes at low altitude, and Magura drones from the sea.
Russian authorities said the situation was under control and aside from some small fires from falling debris, there was no damage.
According to the Ukrainians, there were hits on air defense positions, piers, and seaport infrastructure. A NASA FIRMS satellite overflight less than six hours later showed heavy fires at the Sheskharis oil terminal, the actual (temporary) Russian Navy base, the grain elevator complex, and the maritime transport terminal – there was a time when only an actual superpower had access to this kind of Battle Damage Assessment (BDA); now anyone with an internet connection can check. Subsequent industry reports said that for all intents and purposes Novorossiysk was no longer capable of handling seagoing ship traffic, although repairs were in progress.
By evening, there was new satellite footage: Two Russian Black Sea Fleet Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates had been tied up when the strike came in and both suffered damage. Ukraine’s General Staff and Security Service (SBU) identified them as the Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov – both have been hit before, in March. These are warships that pretty much only put to sea to launch Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian homes and businesses. Also hit was the small missile ship Buyan-M and the patrol vessel Vasily Bykov. Satellite imagery and OSINT analysis showed damage concentrated near the ships’ Kalibr missile launch cells and aft superstructure, where radar and communications systems are mounted – which makes sense, without that you can’t aim a missile.
Confirmed shore installations destroyed were a 30N6E radar station that finds targets for an S-300 air defense system. Follow-up reports coming on Thursday (Aug. 13) specified serious damage to piers №3, 6, and 7. Also, a “mobile fire group stationed at pier №2 was eliminated.” In other words, as the attacks came in, some Ukrainian aircraft had the job of attacking Russians in pickup trucks, shooting back with machine guns.
Aside from a pro forma report of all drones shot down, not a peep about the strike in Russian media.
Strikes against Wildberries warehouses continued, and the count of warehouse attacks topped 20 this week, and the count of warehouses credibly burned by my count reached 14. The most recent effective strike, on Tuesday (Aug. 11), was in Vladimir. The flood of sellers crying and complaining about having lost product in the attacks — some probably authentic and some certainly generated by Ukrainian hybrid war content creators — continued, but now with a new wrinkle. Now a common gripe is that product supposedly burnt in the WB warehouse at a total loss to the sellers is appearing on Alibaba (very roughly, Chinese Amazon) at a discount, sometimes with matching serial numbers. On Thursday (Aug. 13), there was news that Wildberries as a company was about to collapse, because its business model depended on small-scale traders placing their own product in Wildberries’ warehouses and then paying for storage and delivery, and if the product is burnt then Wildberries, unlike Amazon, has basically nothing of its own to sell. The potential loss if the company goes belly up is $15-16 billion – yes, billion.
The allegation is that dishonest WB managers are pretending products they were housing but had no responsibility for keeping intact were burnt, when in fact they’re fine, and so they’re now cashing in by selling other people’s products on Alibaba. It’s all pretty cynical and “typical for Russia” – sounding, so perhaps it’s just creative Ukrainian messaging. But there are a lot of reports like that.
Also, I have been reading among the pundits and the milbloggers that somehow Ukraine is committing an error because it is blowing up warehouses and not attacking Russian energy infrastructure. This is simply not true, and any superficial look at things the Ukrainians hit will confirm this. However, if one judges just from the Russian internet, it seems like the oil refineries are being forgotten because of the hue and cry about the Wildberries warehouses. But the data backed by geo-located drone footage is pretty conclusive: The Ukrainians are still burning oil refineries and energy infrastructure.
Ukraine bombards Russia and occupied Ukraine – Middle strike
According to Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) commander, Robert Brovdi, the campaign is going well, and it will get worse for the Russians.
The first effort, as always, is against Russian air defenses that are potentially able to hit the Ukrainian drones, and then the follow-up strikes go where the air defenses have been taken down.
On Saturday, Aug. 8, the USF released some amazing-even-for-this-war footage of drones boring in on the Russian port city of Gelendzhik, Krasnodar coast, and either dodging or ECMing (using electronic countermeasures) against multiple Pantsir missiles that were supposed to shoot them down. The action took was last Friday. How video like this is deemed not newsworthy – and video of Donald Trump sleeping at a White House function is – just mystifies me, how can live video of an air battle from the POV of the attacking aircraft be more interesting to viewers than a man sitting in a chair asleep?
According to Brovdi, the Ukrainian drones can move relatively freely over the Sea of Azov and the Krasnodar coast, and in rough numbers, one Russian ship a day is being found and hit by Ukrainian drones. The total count of ships hit that were not sunk; these are primarily detonations in the bridge area; from July 6-Aug. 8, 2026: 218 vessels hit, of which 134 were in the Azov Sea and 84 in the Black Sea. There are reports that some ships are getting through the drone blockade; Brovdi, in Sunday comments, was adamant that isn’t happening. The Kerch Strait is now closed to shipping and the waters to the north and south of it are, his words, “a ship killing ground.”
Some might see that as bravado, but we who have been watching the war for some time know that a characteristic of Russian military operations is a readiness to feed more resources into a trap that has already been proved a trap, because the higher echelons of the military prefer to accept some more losses rather than admit to THEIR bosses that some part of a plan has failed.
Obviously, if Russia is unable to export from the Volga basin or indeed receive goods via the Black Sea, this is a strategic disaster for Russia, and a naval victory for Ukraine, on the order of the October 2023 Russian loss of capacity to project naval force west of Crimea, or even maintain naval forces in that area. I can recall back then when this review spotted the victory, and some called it Ukrainian fan-boy reporting. I could be wrong now, but it will take dozens of Russian ships passing through the eastern Black Sea and Sea of Azov unmolested, daily, for the error to be real, and that ain’t happening right now.
A good indicator came on Saturday with a Russian security service (FSB) coast guard cutter hit in the Kerch Strait by sea drones. This is supposedly one of the best-defended stretches of water in the Russian Federation, yet there it was, on video, some kind of watercraft operated by the Ukrainians sailing underneath the Kerch Bridge seemingly unimpeded. It might have been a civilian motorboat with a concealed camera. The important thing is these are two pieces of evidence pointing to decreasing Russian ability to protect the Kerch bridge.
In grain industry news this week, thanks to the Ukrainian strikes, 90% of Russian grain exports via the Sea of Azov and Black Sea are stopped. By Thursday (Aug. 13), traders announced that all three grain outloading terminals at Novorossiysk were shut down. Ukraine announced it had offered Russia a maritime ceasefire on civilian ship traffic in the Black Sea; this is textbook negotiation with Russia from a position of strength. The interesting thing will be the Russian reaction because even to reject the offer means acknowledging the Ukrainians have shut down Russian trade between the Volga Basin and Black Sea, and the rest of the world.
On land, occupation authorities claimed the Mariupol-Crimea highway is open and carrying about 7,000 vehicles a day – 3,000 of them trucks – and that the bridges the Ukrainians blew up have either been fixed or dealt with, with efficient detours. At the same time, reports, video, and accounts of trucks getting burnt on the highway are still flowing in from the Ukrainian side.
On the power grid front, the latest USF figures say that since kicking off attacks in early July, 260 power substations and/or transmission hubs have been hit in Crimea, and 29 in the past week. Power appears to be rationed in major cities, ruthlessly rationed in towns, and in outlying locations just off. I’m seeing reports of homes and even apartment buildings without power for more than two weeks. This is bad in the Crimean summer, but in the winter, this kind of power shortage will make those places basically unlivable. An early indicator of how the population views it will come in about two weeks as families decide whether to attempt sending children to school in Crimea or somewhere else.
In London, general/ambassador Valery Zaluzhny weighed in; according to him, the Ukrainians are indeed strangling Crimea, and what’s more, this is an operation the Ukrainians proposed to their allies back in 2023. At that time, he said, they didn’t believe it was possible and held off on giving Ukraine long-range strike hardware, preferring instead to transfer ground weaponry like tanks and artillery. The Western thinking was that Ukraine would push Russia back in a ground offensive, which failed pretty spectacularly because it turned out the Russians were expecting it and had prepared strong defenses exactly where the Ukrainians launched the attack.
At the time, there was more than a little complaining in the West that Zaluzhny somehow didn’t seem all-in committed to the ground offensive towards Crimea plan. So now, we have to guess if this is an interesting bit of history which explains something confusing three years ago, or, it’s Valery Zaluzhny burnishing his reputation preparatory to an election campaign for president. A recent poll named Zaluzhny the second-most popular official in Ukraine after Zelensky, which is pretty impressive considering Zelensky exiled Zaluzhny to soggy Britain in early 2024.
AFU Reform
This may become a continuous section, but for now this is carry-on and fallout from the switch of top command of the AFU from General Syrsky to General Mykhailo Drapaty. This week, there were more reports that the assault regiments are no longer the AFU’s favored children and that 2,000 soldiers assigned to the 425th Assault Infantry had been transferred to other line units. Two of the assault regiments, 210th and 425th, issued public statements saying, yes, changes are in progress, but the fight is still on, and the enemy will still be fought and defeated. This was followed by a wave of rumors that the Syrsky assault regiments would get parceled out, one to each fighting Corps.
This would definitely increase offensive capacity in the line/regular army corps that are mostly mech brigades, because they are chronically short of trained infantry. By Thursday evening, one of the rumors appeared confirmed: 425th Assault, the darling of Syrsky, will be assigned to 1st National Guard Corps “Azov,” the epitome of a volunteer unit with high standards and high morale that isn’t overly impressed with the big army and looks up to no unit. My sources say that in Azov, they were really, really irate that Syrsky turned the supply/replacement hose towards 425th Assault and away from them, because in their minds, 425th Assault attacks because the soldiers are heavily disciplined and beat down, while Azov attacks because they have serious patriotic motivation and seriously institutionalized battle skills.
It will be interesting because 425th Skelia built itself on the strength of tough disciple and sacrifice, and it has more than a fair share of former felons and men that didn’t want to fight but were convinced that they could find redemption with Azov. As it happens, I’ve seen both units in the field. My read: Azov is head and shoulders stronger and more professional. My guess is the very skilled Azov HQ and the famously friendly and understanding Azov training sergeants will succeed in incorporating 425th officers and soldiers into the 1st Corps fold.
Outside army organization discussions, on Saturday, the SBU and other investigative agencies announced they had broken up a ring of corrupt officials and criminals that had facilitated draft-dodging in Kharkiv, Kirovohrad and Vinnytsia regions. Operators — some uniformed and some civilians — helped men avoid conscription through fake medical reports, fictitious employment and fake training. Some organizers smuggled their “clients” abroad, bypassing checkpoints. In Kharkiv, for $8,000 you could get hired by a fictitious construction company performing war-critical work, and that would make you immune to the draft; even better, with that chit in hand you could leave Ukraine whenever you wished. There was even a psychiatrist advising men on how to simulate mental disorders and mental retardation during medical examinations.
In Kirovohrad, the SBU and the National Police detained the head of the department of a local university, who, for bribes, enrolled draft-dodgers for fake postgraduate studies which gave deferment, for $5,000 each. The Vinnytsia operation smuggled evaders outside Ukraine by bypassing checkpoints. The drill was that the potential conscript would drive his car to the international border accompanied by the smugglers and then he would abandon the vehicle and swim a river to Europe, almost certainly the Tisza separating Ukraine and both Romania and Hungary, but technically it could be the Pruth (Romania/Moldova), Danube (Romania) or Dniester (Moldova). It was $12,000 for the service and the smugglers get your car. Reportedly, the SBU shut down the ring by convincing the smugglers that some SBU agents were draft dodgers.
On Wednesday, the AFU announced that the commander of the notorious Transcarpathian territorial draft committee had been suspended because the army ombudsman reported human rights violations and corruption in the region’s draft bureaucracy. A commission is investigating. On Thursday, the head of the Mykolaiv Regional draft committee was detained for a bribe of $15,000.
Turkey and Ukraine cut a deal on M270 and ATACMS
This was one of those small stories which, if you look behind the story, you can find some pretty interesting implications. That being said, this section is a speculative look-ahead, so if you are just here for last week’s news, skip on.
On Sunday-Monday (Aug. 9-10), news came out that Ukraine had purchased M39 ATACMS ballistic missiles, M270 multiple launch rocket systems using GMLRS and ATACMS missiles, and tens of thousands of cluster munitions and artillery shells from Turkey. US Department of State records confirmed the plan, and according to the terms under which the Americans sold the weapons to Turkey, once Turkey announces intent to resell the weapons, the US Congress has 15 days to object or the sale goes through automatically, and Congress is out of session. No doubt the deal for some $280 million was timed that way intentionally.
Specifically, the hardware is:
- 12 x M270 MLRS launchers (a tracked armored vehicle launching rockets in salvos)
- 70 M39 ATACMS ballistic missiles (big short-range ballistic missiles launched from the M270 one or two at a time)
- 2,524 unguided 227mm M26 rockets with DPICM cluster warheads launched up to 16 at a time from the M270, pretty much always in salvos
- 7,000 M509A1 203mm cluster artillery shells for 2S7 “Pion” and M110 self-propelled guns, these are mucking big heavy howitzers
The M39 ATACMS is an early variant with a 165-kilometer (103-mile) range, so well less than a lot of Ukrainian drones, but a big warhead packed with cluster munitions. Its best target is an airfield stuffed with aircraft and munitions, followed by clumps of vehicles that are high-value targets for one reason or another.
What may have been missed in this news, I think, is the “Why” Ukraine decided to buy this stuff in the first place. For one thing, Ukraine, even after losses, probably has around 20 M270s and 40 HIMARS launchers, which fire the same munitions: salvos of 227mm unguided rockets or single shots of 165-kilometer cluster munitions ATACMS ballistic missiles. So why buy 20 more launchers?
I think it comes down to the ATACMS, which are highly accurate and can be ready to fire in a minute; i.e., if the crew has no idea where to shoot and then gets told, but the crew is ready to shoot, the ATACMS can be airborne in about a minute. More about that in a few paragraphs.
The 227mm rockets can be pointed and fired with the same speed, but because they aren’t so accurate, the drill is to fire several at once and cover a large area. The older versions that the Turks are selling the Ukrainians fly 45 kilometers (28 miles); it is possible they were upgraded to 70 but that is not for sure.
Then there are the artillery shells, 203mm. This is the longest-ranged tube artillery piece in the Ukrainian inventory but still short-ranged by modern war standards (20-30 kilometers / 12.4-18.6 miles typically), but the shell is the heaviest, around 90 kilograms (198.4 pounds). The best use of the shell is blowing up something resistant to smaller shells, like a bunker.
So, once they have this stuff in hand, we can say that the Ukrainians, at minimum, intend to make the “buzz saw” defense more lethal; that’s what the 227mm rockets are for. It’s also possible the Ukrainians have an offensive plan whereby they intend to just saturate a section or area with rockets and then move in fast behind it. What is clear is that the Ukrainians have the capacity to lay down a huge number of rockets very quickly; they could probably fire off every single rocket bought from Turkey in about two days. So, this acquisition is a certain indicator of increased Ukrainian capacity to make a major attack, and a possible indicator of Ukrainian intent.
But also, there are ATACMS. This is a very precise, area-effect weapon that is quick to put on a target and that flies so fast targets usually are surprised. If Ukraine has roughly 70 launch platforms before, now they will have about 90. This means that along the entire front, the Ukrainians will be pretty dense in launch platforms for ATACMS and 227mm rockets. The question is how might the Ukrainians try to exploit that density? Both munitions Ukraine has trouble getting in quantity. So somewhat it’s a one-shot opportunity for the Ukrainians. What is it that the Russians have that is hard to hit, yet if it is hit, it is pretty easy to destroy because it’s not armored or especially flammable or just not really resilient?
Two targets fit this definition almost perfectly: Russian Iskander-M launchers and Russian Shahed drone launchers. Both of those attack systems try to stay well out of the range of everything the Ukrainians have, and when they do launch, they try to do it quickly and then leave the launch site as fast as they can. Neither is armored against cluster munitions; both usually have lots of people and light vehicles in the area, both have a distinctive electronic signature, and both depend on quick retreat protecting them from Ukrainian counterstrikes to the location of the signature.
So, the really critical bit is, after a launch, how fast can an Iskander-M crew or a Shahed crew get packed up and moving? The answer to that is almost certainly not as fast as an on-the-ball M270/HIMARS crew could put an ATACMS missile on that location, provided the Ukrainians were prepared for the launch in general and cued and waiting for the specific grid to fire on.
Earlier, this review points out that shooting down Russian ballistic missiles isn’t an option for Ukraine in the near to medium term. Given that, in other words, if we are wondering how Ukraine intends to deal with the Russian ballistic missiles it can’t shoot down, or drone launchers it can’t hunt down. The answer is staring at us in the face.
Admittedly, strict journalism rules mean one can’t say that any of this is for sure. All we know is what the Turks are selling, the capacities of the stuff sold, and the Ukrainians’ priorities and the Russians’ priorities. The thing is, keeping civilians alive and nullifying Russia’s sole effective means of terrorizing Ukraine’s population at long range is such a top-level Ukrainian national security priority; almost nothing short of assassinating Putin would be more important.
So, I’m confident that once those ATACMS get to Ukraine from Turkey, their target is going to be Iskander-M launchers. If the Ukrainians can get close enough, the launchers depend on Russian Shahed launch sites coming under an “erase this square kilometer” 227mm rocket salvo. Especially launch sites in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, my guess is they are going to get pounded.
The Senate passed the “tough” Russia sanctions bill
Yawn. First, this has been in the works so long that even if the bill does become law, the targets have literally had years to get ready. At this point, all this is, is political posturing. Second, the Senate ain’t the House. And even if the House supports it in theory, they have to agree politically. Could happen, but no guarantee.
And in Crimea
- Ban on Small Watercraft Imposed in Western Crimea
Occupation authorities have imposed a ban on the use of small watercraft – including catamarans, kayaks, and canoes – and on the harvesting of marine biological resources (a/k/a fishing) along the coast in Crimea’s Chernomorsky District. This also applies to jet skis and sailboats. Further, there are no water activities of any kind when the sun is down. This is basically Tarkhankut point. Almost certainly, this is so the Russians can have a free fire zone for anything headed west. Sounds reasonable, but NATO reconnaissance planes sometimes come within 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) of those waters, so if you are looking for a place for WWIII to start, there you go.
- Another assassination, I’m telling you, this is going to continue for decades
This time, the explosion occurred around 10 a.m. local time on a street in western Sevastopol, on Wednesday. The FSB decided the weapon was an explosive device that was placed in a trash can and detonated when the officer walked by. The officer was Robert Shageyev, a former Ukrainian navy officer who, before Russia’s first invasion, commanded Ukraine’s only submarine. He went over to the Russians and had risen to a mid-level staff job in the Black Sea Fleet. The explosion blew his legs off, and he died.The FSB arrested a 32-year-old Russian woman who, it seems, told them she was acting on the instructions of Ukrainian special services. Unverified reports identified her as Margarita Reutt, a resident of Sochi, who had in her adulthood run several businesses including a service to clean up oil from beaches, a travel agency, and a guide service. The British Sun suggested she had at one time been a paid escort and “traveled extensively in Egypt and Turkey.”
In 2025, a Sochi court fined Reutt for “discrediting” the Russian military with some fellow train passengers; she apparently learned of a Ukrainian drone strike, reacted positively, and one of her fellow travelers ratted her out to the authorities. FSB reports said she had been paid in cryptocurrency for the attack. Which may be true. Or it may be that the FSB decided this woman was a plausible guilty person to present to the public.
Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can read his blog here.