The Sutyagin House

According to some guy on Reddit:

The house was built by the local crime lord Nikolai Petrovich Sutyagin and his family. It was considered to be the tallest wooden house not only in Russia, but in the world. The house was 13 stories and 44 meters tall (144 feet). Nikolai was eventually arrested for a few years because of racketeering and the house deteriorated harshly because of that. In 2008 the local goverment deemed it a fire hazard and started to dismantle the building. On December 26th 2008 the top tower was pulled down and in February 1st 2009 it was ordered to be completely demolished. The rest of the remains were dismantled manually over the course of the next few months.

Most of the photographs online seem to come from the demolition phase.

Wikipedia adds:

Constructed by Mr. Sutyagin (a sawmill owner) and his family over 15 years (starting in 1992), without formal plans or a building permit, the structure deteriorated while Sutyagin spent a number of years in prison for racketeering.

Of course he was a crooked sawmill owner. Who else would build this?

The Lonely Soldier

In one of the saddest videos of the war, a lone Russian soldier is sent on a solo march across a kilometer of open, treeless, snow-covered ground toward Ukrainian positions, without any winter camouflage. He doesn't even try to hurry, but just trudges along, knowing he is doomed. 

The Ukrainian observation drone has plenty of time to study his progress, tracking him until an attack drone can fly in to kill him.

One supposes this was some kind of punishment, but given how the Russians are operating, who knows? The whole scene summarizes for me the awful waste and inhumanity of Putin's terrible war.

There is another awful video going around these days that shows a Russian soldier sitting in a shell crater, surrounded by the corpses of seven or eight other Russians. He doesn't dodge or flinch or show any emotion as the drone flies at him, just sits there, staring straight at it, perhaps stunned by whatever killed his comrades, but perhaps welcoming an end to his nightmare.

A Russian Mil-blogger Confronts his Stuation

Russian Z-Blogger Maxim Kalashnikov contemplates the recent anniversary. Via Illia Ponomarenko:

“WE CAN DO IT AGAIN” HAS FAILED

So, the Ukrainian war has now lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War. One can say with confidence: the long-standing propaganda slogan “We can do it again!” has confidently failed. We can’t. In the fifth year of positional slaughter in Ukraine, both the leadership and the top-level command nodes (civilian and military) remain intact. The bridges across the Dnipro and major railway hubs are intact. And our infantry is forced to pay with bodies (people versus drones) for turtle-paced advances. All of this is already leading to irreversible perturbations inside the Russian Federation after the war. My soul feels extremely heavy. I am restraining my emotions as much as possible.

It is already clear that all the benefits of this war will be reaped by the USA and the PRC, while Russians are left with blood, ruins, and losses. This is, without a doubt, a case of “we have outsmarted everyone” and a triumph of foreign policy.

After 1,418 days of war, our military reputation has been severely undermined. The United States is openly mocking us. And it’s not just about what happened in Venezuela. The point is that American military analysts say: the Russian Federation failed to achieve full air supremacy, as a developed country is supposed to do, and therefore slid into a losing war of attrition.

…It is obvious that the Russian Federation is being steered toward a forced end to the war and toward further stagnation in the role of a poor and weak “junior partner” of Washington in the confrontation with the PRC.

At the same time, Kyiv receives security guarantees from Washington, NATO troops on its territory, and investments of 800 billion dollars in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

An entire era is coming to an end: when the authorities of the Russian Federation were engaged exclusively in imitating great-power status rather than creating it in reality. When PR and propaganda triumphed over real life…

In 2026, this war will be forcibly brought to an end.

After it, the Russian Federation will face the harshest hangover and “withdrawal.” A Transition is inevitable, along with shifting responsibility for what happened onto a specific individual and an analogue of the “debunking of the cult of personality at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” [When Kruschev denounced Stalin.]

This will be followed by painful attempts to reform the failed political and economic models. A new attempt at perestroika awaits us.

I reject the version according to which, after the "special military operation," an extremely harsh regime with an “electronic concentration camp” and ruthless repression will be established in the Russian Federation.

Because our “elite” is mortally afraid of such a scenario. Because it understands that repression would begin grinding it up first, launching a bloody redistribution of property and control over financial flows. Any attempt to “tighten the screws to the limit” would be extremely short-lived. The scenario of “withdrawal due to fatigue” is far more realistic.

I call on all true Russian patriots (let the pro-Western traitors go to hell) to think about how to live on. How to act in the most difficult and dangerous post-war period. 

This war has been one of the saddest events of my lifetime. It has inflicted losses on the whole world and helped nobody but arms manufacturers.

The Ukraine War in Context

As of today, the Russian attack on Ukraine has lasted as long as the German attack on the Soviet Union in WW II, from 22 June 1941 to the fall of Berlin.

A Russian Report from the Front Lines

Via Andrew Perpetua:

December 2025 , Kramatorsk District, Donetsk People's Republic, Russia.

24 hours of war.

We're advancing, but the cost of these advances is only increasing.

Bringing fighters into the area has become even more difficult—the enemy controls the entire sky to a significant depth.

Now, we can only bring them in one at a time, and only on foot—it's not a guarantee, but the only solution. Going in two at a time means zero chance.

The approach is divided into several stages and stretches over two days of walking for one attacker.

From the moment the attacker begins his advance toward the front line, he is accompanied by our drone, which monitors the air situation and provides direction if the fighter starts to wander.

The concentration of enemy drone operators in the area is off the charts.

Last night, the enemy simultaneously launched seventeen FPVs against one fighter. Every one reached the objective.

After the first FPV arrived, the fighter began providing self-help with his first aid kit. But then sixteen more arrived immediately. This happened as the fighter was crossing a small river—he'll likely never be found.

The neighbors [adjacent Russian unit] are lying. They entered the first house on the outskirts of the village, but claimed that they had occupied the entire first street in the village.

Our troops advanced along this street, and as early as the third house from the edge, the houses came under enemy fire. The price of lies has once again become a reality in the fighters' lives.

This morning, another fighter tried to move into position. But the enemy spotted him, too. First, two FPVs, and then a Vampire with mines.

The unit has only one Mavic. We can't ram the enemy—there are no more birds, and we won't be able to guide fighters, track the enemy, or generally manage the battle. We also don't have fiber optic FPV.

Yes, the unit that's first on the ground has no birds. . . .

The soldiers are wondering: why does the Ministry of Defense prefer to pay colossal sums of compensation for the deaths of soldiers, when saturating the sector with fiber optics (on the ground, not in reports) could save soldiers' lives and colossal budgetary sums?

The answers will probably come later—in new high-profile corruption cases. But the soldiers' lives will never be brought back.

Perpetua recently reported video evidence for 369 Russians being killed in one day, with an average of 174/day during December.

Marco Rubio's Comments on Ukraine

Interesting:

And again, I mean, it’s – every time you see this in the headlines and people die, it reminds you of why the President wants this war to end. As he has said from the beginning, his number one interest here is to stop people from dying and the destruction that’s ongoing every single day. They’re going to be having a conference – maybe it starts today, if I’m not mistaken – about reconstruction and the rebuilding of Ukraine. Every time one of these strikes is launched, the price of reconstruction goes up, right? There’s also the destruction of the country’s capabilities, the country’s economic capabilities, that has to be added to this.

But obviously the loss of life is something of grave interest – of great interest to the President. It’s important to note that since January of this year, as an example just to give you, on the Russian side, they’ve lost 100,000 soldiers – dead – not injured – dead. And on the Ukrainian side, the numbers are less but still very significant. And so that’s – the President doesn’t like wars. He thinks wars are a waste of money and a waste of lives, and he wants them to end. And he’s going to do everything he can within his power to end this war and any other war he has a chance to end, as you’ve seen in the past.

And so, we’re going to continue to work at it. We understand that these things take time and patience, but obviously we’re also frustrated that more progress has not been made. And hopefully, based on today and in the days to come, we’ll have more clarity about what exactly the Russian position and priorities are in this regard, and can begin to make some progress. But it’s been difficult, as you’ve seen.

Let's give Trump and Rubio the benefit of the doubt here and say they really want to end this war. Maybe they're worried about loss of life, maybe they're worried about lost opportunities to make money in Russia. I don't really care.

But I do believe, as I have written here many times, that it will be very hard to get Putin to give up his maximal goals in Ukraine. He considers Ukraine a rebellious province and wants to conquer it, plain and simple. Apparently Trump has signaled that he may well accept the latest sanctions bill to come from the Senate, so long as there is a clause allowing him to suspend it. Perhaps he hopes to threaten Putin with this.

But more sanctions will not move Putin. The deaths of a few hundred thousand more soldiers will not matter to him. The only things that might, I think, would be serious battlefield defeats or a real collapse of the Russian economy. I think both are unlikely to happen this year.

So I think Trump is wasting his time trying to reach a deal.

A Russian General's Death and a Shift in the Narrative

Multiple Russian news sources have confirmed that Major General Mikhail Gudkov was killed in a Himars strike on a headquarters where he was meeting with about 20 other officers; sources speak of at least ten deaths. Gudkov was the former commander of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, which has been heavily committed to fighting in Ukraine since the invasion began. He has lately been serving as the deputy commander of the Russian Navy, which I imagine means that Putin wanted to reward a hard fighting combat officer over the sailors whose main accomplishments in the war have been getting chased out of Crimea and boosting Ukranian morale by losing several valuable ships.

Early in the war, the deaths of senior Russian officers were covered up, and we learned about them via dodgy posts on Telegram. The quick confirmation of Gudkov's death represents, I think, a change in the Russian narrative. The war began as a "special operation" that was supposed to go quickly and with minimal losses. That narrative was sustained domestically by never talking officially about casualties. But as the war went on and the losses mounted that narrative broke down. After all the Russian military, like most major forces, has traditions of funerals and military monuments that are very important to soldiers and their families. So the funerals had to be held, and new names had to be added to the monuments, and it became impossible to ignore the size of the losses.

Instead a new narrative has emerged that yes, men are dying, but it is justified because Russia is involved in a struggle for its survival against the united forces of the west. This is how the creators of the Russian Officers Killed in Ukraine website put it:

It also seems to me that society has shifted over the past 3 years—the tendency to hide the dead has disappeared. It’s hard to justify when propaganda claims that they are dying to protect Russia and are heroes...

I think this narrative has been successful with many Russians, which is one reason why there has been no real opposition to the war.

A Russian Bemoans the State of Russian Power

This, via Natalka on Twitter/X, is supposed to be an essay by a Russian named Igor Dimitriev. I have not been able to find the source, since there seem to be about a thousand people named Igor Dimitriev, but this is certainly interesting despite the machine translation. Dimitriev notes that in January 2022 Russia seemed to be rising in power and influence, using the CTSO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) to dominate much of the old Soviet Union. Now, not so much:

Even the memory of that brief euphoria that accompanied the entry of the CSTO [forces] into Kazakhstan in January 2022 is gradually fading. Then it seemed that Russia was the guarantor of stability, the arbitrator, the center of power. Now there is nothing left of that feeling.

Kazakhstan is confidently following its own path, forming its own security strategy. It signed a military cooperation plan with Great Britain, including the training of officers in British military academies. It is building a plant with its Singapore partners to produce 155 mm ammunition, NATO standard. It is introducing a territorial reserve system based on Western models. (There was even a scandal there recently with the local analogue of the Territorial Center of Recruitment). All this in a paradigm where Russia is seen not as an ally, but as a potential threat.

Azerbaijan has finally liquidated Armenian Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] without regard for the CSTO and killed Russian peacekeepers. After the downed plane in December 2024, it publicly demanded an apology and compensation from Moscow, closed the offices of Russian government agencies. Aliyev acts openly - he is increasing cooperation with Ukraine, supplying humanitarian aid, and avoiding even formal neutrality.

Armenia - in the past, the main ally in the Caucasus - has effectively left the Russian orbit. Pashinyan has repeatedly announced his withdrawal from the CSTO, the country recalled its permanent representative to the organization, and closed Russian propaganda channels.

Uzbekistan has ignored the CSTO since 2012 and is actively developing partnership with Europe through summits and sectoral agreements.

Last year, there was tension between Moscow and Tashkent in connection with the assassination attempt on one of the government officials and the alleged "Chechen trace".

Instead of neutral Finland, there is now a 1,300 km border with NATO. Sweden, which remained neutral even during the Second World War, participates in NATO military exercises and supplies weapons to Ukraine. The entire north of Europe is reorganizing its armed forces for joint exercises in the Arctic and the Baltic.

All of Europe is turning into a single anti-Russian coalition. Germany is reorienting its production capacities to military orders. The EU's defense spending is aimed at 5% of GDP. For the first time, a single European military budget has appeared.

Syria, which recently played the role of a showcase for Russian geopolitical influence, is now a platform for the mass execution of pro-Russian elements. The Russian bases in Syria are the most vulnerable issue for [Russia’s] African initiatives.

Over the past three years, the security architecture in Eurasia has changed radically. Russia is no longer a regional leader, a political center, or a guarantor of stability. Geopolitical weight is not just decreasing — it is being reset. In fact, the entire scale of Russia's foreign policy today is tactical battles in the Donetsk and Sumy regions.

What was intended as a quick regime change in Kyiv has turned into a protracted meat grinder, devouring the country's geopolitical capital. The entire military machine is focused on storming Ukrainian villages. All resources are squeezed out for the sake of a front that is barely moving.

Where everything is heading was clear back in 2022. Nevertheless, the leadership of the Russian Federation has been hammering away at the Ukrainian defense with maniacal persistence.

Apparently, the Kremlin believes that if they manage to destroy Ukraine, all the problems will dissolve on their own and 2021 will return. However, by the time Ukraine collapses - if it collapses at all - the world around will be completely different. Well, yes, we haven't even touched on the issue of sanctions, loss of markets, total dependence on China.

What does Russia get in return? Compliments from an inadequate American president and visits from African leaders. Oh, and regular calls and visits from world leaders with an offer to... end the war.

Previously, Russia was surrounded by a buffer zone of formal neutrality; now it is surrounded by a system of defensive alliances, where Moscow often has neither allies nor intermediaries.

Such tectonic shifts are irreversible. This very fact suggests that the geopolitical “special operation” has led to the exact opposite of its goals.

A Russian Has a Suggestion for Elon

 

Mass Ukrainian Drone Strike on Airfields Hosting Russian Long-Range Bombers

While Russia continues to attack Ukrainian civilians night after night, Ukraine has responded with a massive coordinated attack on four airfields where Russian long-range strategic bombers are based.

In Russia, 41 aircraft were damaged, including an A-50, Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160, according to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine. . . . The estimated value of the damaged strategic aviation is over $7 billion.

One of the airfields struck was in Siberia, 4,000 km from Ukraine, and Ukraine claimed that this attack was mounted by smuggling the drones into Russia and launching them from trucks. Some links:

Story at the Kyiv Independent.

Satellite image of the Belaya airfield in Siberia here, with at least three destroyed aircraft, likely Tu-22 bombers. More here.

A deputy in the Russian Duma went on a rant about the lack of preparations for such an attack, and the intelligence failure involved.

Satirist Darth Putin on negotiations in Istanbul:

Russia: "you have no cards"
Ukraine: "you have no bombers"

Video posted by a Russian citizen: "Here's a plane burning down, and seven more like it."

Thread from Evergreen Intel, which she is updating as new images and video come in.

Update 6/2: thread listing confirmed losses, which are up to 16 aircraft destroyed or "damaged," meaning damaged in a way that you can see from space.

Summary of the overall military situation from Ukrainian reserve officer Tatarigami. He notes that although Ukraine is holding the front line, that is not enough to induce Russia to make peace:

To truly shift the calculus in Ukraine’s favor, there must be a combination of a stalled frontline and mounting costs for Russia - not just in monetary terms, but in strategic capacity. These costs include Russia’s diminishing ability to project power globally, compete economically with the West and China, and maintain its status as a relevant geopolitical force.

Today's attack is a clear example of a strike that, while not directly influencing the battlefield, significantly erodes Russia’s long-term strategic assets - many of which are Soviet-era legacies that Russia cannot replace in the near term. The loss of AWACS aircraft, a quarter of the Black Sea Fleet, much of its Soviet-era armored inventory, a substantial portion of its attack helicopter fleet, its positions in Syria, and now a major blow to its strategic aviation - all cumulatively weaken Russia’s global military reach.

If Ukraine can continue to hold the line, even if that means gradual tactical withdrawals from small settlements while stalling Russian forces at the operational-strategic level, then the ever-increasing cost of war may eventually compel the Kremlin to acknowledge a sobering reality: that continuing the war not only worsens the situation in Ukraine, but accelerates Russia’s own strategic decline.

Trump, Putin, and Ukraine

Many in the pro-Ukraine community, including some of my friends, have been worried for quite a while that Trump would do some kind of deal with Putin that would sell Ukraine out. I have never been very nervous on this score. As I keep saying, Putin's goals in Ukraine are simply not compatible with any kind of deal or any peace short of total victory. Trump wants to make a deal, and over Ukraine there is just no deal to be made. I have long considered it at least as likely that Trump would try to sell Ukraine out but find, as everyone else has found, that on this issue Putin is intractable, and end up getting mad about it. Like this:

"I'm not happy with what Putin is doing. He's killing a lot of people and I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time ... we're in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities. I don't like it at all. I'm surprised."

I feel for Trump here. He is trying to make a deal, because that is one of the things he most prides himself on, and because, he says, he really wants to bring the slaughter to a halt. A Ukraine peace deal would be a real achievement, something that might get smart people across the world to think of him as more than a corrupt blowhard. But in the middle of his deal-making blitz Putin ramps up his missile war against Ukraine, striking Kyiv, killing twelve civilians in one night. He is probably thinking, I really tried to give Putin something, put myself out on a limb here when all the European leaders were saying it was a mistake, and Putin can't even help me out by not launching missiles for a few days. 

What comes of this, I don't know; I will not attempt to predict Donald Trump's behavior. But a deal made behind the backs of Ukrainians and other Europeans seem even more unlikely to me.

Teaching History in Russia/The Ukraine War

JSTOR daily called my attention to a fascinating article on the teaching of history in Russian schools. It begins like this:

In May 2016, a few hundred teachers and education officials took part in a conference hosted by the Moscow regional parliament. The theme was ‘history teaching as a national security issue’, and the conference was part of a larger cycle of events devoted to the patriotic education of the young — how to make people love and be proud of their country and its history. The main speaker, a professor of history at one of Moscow’s universities, painted a picture of Russia as being the target of a US-directed information war with the ultimate aim of breaking up and destroying the Russian Federation. His core message was that the current official Russian ban on state ideology makes it impossible to use history as a defensive weapon in this information war. Not being able to defend Russian historical science against the enemy onslaught would lead to the disintegration of historical consciousness and, ultimately, ‘the death of Russia’.

Here's another good bit:

A 2015 paper published by a Kremlin-affiliated think tank warned that “if the current state of history teaching in schools continues, Russia will run the risk, in the next 10–15 years, of losing her sovereignty and being split up into several dozens or hundreds of territories that will inevitably fight each other.” 

Russia is a multi-ethnic state; or, if you prefer, an empire. Ethnic Russians are a clear majority, making up around 72% of the total. But there are plenty of areas where some other group outnumbers them, e.g. Chechnya and parts of central Asia. Russian nationalists therefore focus a lot of attention on convincing all those minorty groups that they are really Russians. There is nothing particularly unique about this; many modern nations have regions or ethnic groups not sure they belong in the larger state.

To get back to education, the strategy Russian education authorities have hit on to encourage Russian nationalism is to emphasize World War II:

The history on which the government focuses its energy is almost exclusively military, with a very heavy emphasis on the “Great Patriotic War”—not precisely what we would call World War II, but, specifically, the 1941–1945 fight between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Putin has argued that the war is a topic that unites Russians across ideological, and generational lines. . . .

Starting with President Boris Yeltsin in the late 1990s, and intensifying with his successor, Vladimir Putin, the nation’s leaders attempted to reclaim “the Russian idea” with manifestations including Victory Day military parades and the revival of Soviet-era “patriotic education.” Other methods for spreading the orthodox view of history include military-style youth organizations and government-approved talk shows, cartoons, and documentaries. Meanwhile, a 2014 law made it a crime to spread historical narratives deemed contrary to patriotic values.

Which I find fascinating in an academic sort of way.

What makes this urgently relevant is how it relates to the Putin regime's desperate determination to subdue Ukraine. Yes, Putin is a grasping, greedy thug. But I think he seriously believes in Russia as a multi-ethnic but powerfully united state. He believes that Chechens and Buryats are just special kinds of Russians who should love Russia as much as ethnic Russians do, and he believes that this is vital to Russia remaining a great and powerful state.

He believes the same about Ukraine. To him, Ukrainian nationalism is a mistake, just like Chechen or Buryat nationalism would be. 

So to Putin, subduing Ukraine is not an external war; it is about the unity and power of Russia.

Ukraine War Update

Russian donkey carrying a drone jammer

I haven't posted much about the Ukraine war here lately, because it seemed like all the important action was in Washington. But the war has raged on, and I have spent several hours this week catching up.

First, the tone of the top Ukrainian posters is upbeat and defiant. They say, and western governments generally agree, that since October Russia has suffered its worst losses of the war for its smallest gains. The comic book evil of some Russian actions – for example, drone operators hunting random civilians in the city of Kherson – has only fed Ukrainian determination, and that of their European friends. I have seen no signs of fear or even nervousness about what Russia might achieve. It is widely asserted that Russia keeps making outrageous demands in peace talks because they have no chance of achieving those goals on the battlefield. (For example, control of all of Kherson.) I have seen several posts saying some version of, "For the defending side to win a war, all they have to do is keep defending." Ukrainian bloggers widely shared a Forbes estimate that at current rates of advance it would take Russia several centuries and tens of millions of casualties to conquer Ukraine. Ukrainians believe they can keep defending for years, with or without US help.

Ukraine set a goal of manufacturing one million military drones in 2024, and exceeded that target by November. Their goal for 2025 is 4.5 million. This is mostly cheap quadcopters but it includes new variants with ranges of more than a 800 miles and warheads weighing up to 250 pounds. They have also launched a massive program for drones controlled by fiber optic lines with ranges of up to 30 km. Operators fly these fiber optic drones into buildings and underground bunkers before detonating them. Ukrainian drones recent clobbered a large Russian ammunition storage facility near Moscow (51st GRAU Arsenal), leading to massive explosions that went on for hours and the evacuation of four nearby villages (above). Ukrainians pass around photographs of these ammunition dump explosions to use as backgrounds on their phones. On May 1 there was a massive drone attack on Russian air defense installations across Crimea, with video showing several hits on radars. Attacks on airbases are routine, focusing on fuel and weapons storage structures, steadily degrading Russia's ability to keep planes in the air.

Meanwhile, Ukraine claimed, and Osint folks have confirmed, that a Ukrainian drone boat shot down a Russian Su-30 fighter-bomber with repurposed air to air missiles. (Newsweek, Twitter/X ) Russia had found that the best defense against drone boats was aircraft, especially helicopters, so boats that can shoot back at aircraft are a major problem for them. When you consider that Ukraine launched its first drone boat attack less than two years ago, this is astonishing progress. Plus, aircraft losses matter. Russia has been very conservative in using its air force because they simply do not have that many good planes or combat-ready pilots and cannot easily summon up hundreds more. So they are now facing a dilemma: whether to risk valuable aircraft and pilots protecting their fleet, or risk losing more ships to drone boat attacks.

Ukraine has also released video of new drone boats that carry aerial drones.

The vast array of drones makes the battlefield increasingly deadly. Russia has continued to make some mechanized assaults, but they generally fail, and half the armor is knocked out by drones before it has advanced half a mile. So most Russian attacks are now made by infantry, either on foot or mounted on dunebuggies, atvs, and small motorcycles. Ukraine has reponded to this tactic by stringing hundreds of miles of barbed wire all along the front. Wire isn't much use against tanks, but it is deadly to men on motorcycles. Incidentally, both sides now generally use land drones to lay both barbed wire and minefields.

The guys who count equipment losses in the war are still at it. The lastest update on Russian equipment losses shows at least 100 more tanks and 300 other armored vehicles destroyed in April, bringing the total losses to 3947 tanks and 8550 other armored vehicles, plus 139 jet aircraft, 155 helicopters, 322 SAM systems, more than 2,000 artillery pieces, etc., to a total of more than 21,000 systems. People who study Russia's vast array of military equipment storage bases say that almost all the good armored vehicles have already been withdrawn for refurbishment, and that what remains is increasingly outdated and rusted out. Those old vehicle hulls are still useful, but the cost of making them combat ready is rising, and the end result is probably less effective. Russia is not "running out" of armored vehicles, since they continue to manufacture hundreds every year, but they really are facing a shortage and this shows up in their pathetic offensive progress. 

 At least 5921 Russian officers have been killed in the war, based on memorials and funeral announcements. Mediazona and the BBC have counted 106,745 Russian dead overall and estimate the actual total is 164,000 to 237,000. The higher figure is about how many Americans died in Europe during World War II. Russia is a nation of 144 million, with 800,000 Russian boys turning 18 every year, so they can obviously endure such losses, especially since many of the men in the assault squads are older volunteers and quite a few are criminals. Still, these losses hurt. Plus, on paper Russia has a fairly generous system for taking care of elderly combat veterans and especially disabled veterans, and that is going to impose huge costs going forward.

The Trump administration's attempts to broker a cease-fire foundered on Russian intransigience, although, to be fair, the Ukrainians were probably only pretending to go along because they knew Russia would balk; they don't want a cease-fire either.

So the tragedy goes on, with Russia's losses mounting and Ukrainian resolve unshaken, no end in sight, Russia unable to give up but equally unable to win.

Soviet Cybernetics

From Tyler Cowen's interview with Stephen Kotkin:

COWEN: Why were the Soviets so obsessed with cybernetics and AI, say, in the 1960s? Is it that they understood where things were going? Or it just was a big stupid mistake?

KOTKIN: You can never rule out big stupid mistakes if we’re honest, certainly about our own lives and analogizing from them. The Soviets were interested in cybernetics because it was about more efficient ways of gathering and using information — the planned economy at core, which was a fantasy, never a reality.

In practice, the planned economy was central control over some scarce commodities, resources, products so that you could prioritize. And you could therefore supply those privileged factories in your supply chains with the scarce resources to produce predominantly military-industrial products, but not exclusively, and the rest of the stuff come what may. That was black market, including black market factory of factory.

Cybernetics was a solution whereby you could make planning work better. You could optimize the information you were getting from the localities, and then you could optimize the way that you organize things. It was a fantasy in a different light, and it’s the same one that the Chinese Communist Party has today, which is to say if your authoritarian politics and your productive economy don’t mesh very well, turn to technology, turn to technological solutions to get beyond the fact that you refuse to do the structural reforms on the institutional side to ensure that the productivity, the dynamism continues.

It’s this eternal fantasy that science and tech will enable you not to have to give up central control, power, Communist Party monopoly. From the scientific point of view, it was fascinating because that’s who they were. They were exceptional world-class mathematicians, world-class physicists, world-class computer scientists, and so for them, it was the same thing it would be for scientists anywhere.

The whole interview is very interesting, especially on life in Magnitogorsk. 

Russia will not Accept Peace with Ukraine

Chatham House report:

Many Ukrainians fear not just a long war, but a potentially ‘endless’ war. As the Russian historian Sergei Medvedev has observed, Russia finally found its ultimate national idea after a search lasting three decades – since the collapse of the USSR – and that idea is war.

For today’s Russian authorities, war is a tool for preserving the cohesion of society and ensuring the legitimacy of their rule even if this requires increased repression. However, although the Putin regime is brittle like most personal autocracies that lack reliable mechanisms for succession, the country appears far from a situation comparable to 1917 when war weakened Tsar Nicolas II’s grip on power and made revolution unstoppable. On the surface, Russia appears both equipped and motivated to continue the war for several years if necessary. . . .

While Vladimir Putin controls the levers of power, it is difficult to see a recalibration of Moscow’s strategic goals in Ukraine. He has committed Russia to expanding its territorial gains in Donbas, ‘demilitarizing’ Ukraine, changing the country’s leadership (denazification) and forcing it to accept neutrality. The goal is the full abolition of Ukrainian sovereignty.

Ukraine is not Finland in 1939. On the contrary, it is viewed by wide sections of Russian society as an inalienable part of the country’s identity as a European power and, therefore, as synonymous with Russia. For the Russian elites as well as the public, settling for less than Ukraine’s surrender would not amount to victory and could call into question the huge price paid by the country in terms of human and economic losses and the damage to its reputation.

I share this outlook. It is difficult to imagine any peace amounting to more than a cease fire as long as Putin is in power. He has committed everything – his personal power and prestige, and the resources and even the identity of Russia – to conquering Ukraine. All we can do is surrender to this evil or help Ukraine fight.

Ukrainian Offensive Update

The main thing to say is that the situation is very confusing and nobody really knows much. The Ukrainians have kept very quiet and issued no statements of their own, so all our sources are Russian. We are getting information from Russian bloggers, including geolocated images of fighting, but they keep squabbling with each other about what is happening, accusing each other of "alarmism" or "foolish optimism."

As of Monday morning, Ukraine seems to be in full control of Sudzha, a town of about 5,000. Ukrainian forces have been spotted in many villages across 700 square kilometers of Kursk oblast, but some of them are far-ranging commando or reconnaissance groups, and nobody knows how much of the area is really under Ukrainian control. However, there are significant main line forces involved as well, including battalions from Ukraine's best mechanized and air assault brigades. [Update 12 August: Ukraine's chief of staff says Ukraine "controls" 1,000 square kilometers of Kurst oblast.]

Thanks in part to those wide-ranging commando units, Russian forces rushing to the combat zone have been ambushed or attacked with missiles, leading to hundreds of casualities. (here, here)

It is reported that Ukraine got a lot of intelligence about Russian troop movements by hacking cctv cameras along Russian roads.

Ukraine is also probing the Russian border in other places, but so far there are no reports of any other real breakthroughs, so this may be just to keep the Russians off-balance.

Russia has ordered the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from border zones. We saw video of the governor of Belgorod going door to door, persuading babushkas to leave.

Ukrainian forces have taken Russian prisoners, with numbers flying around that range from 300 to 2,000. Some of the prisoners are 19-year-old conscripts; Russia has tried to keep young conscripts out of the fighting, and when they had to throw them into the breach to stem Ukraine's major attack of September, 2022 there was a lot of grumbling in Russia. It seems that they were "defending" this segment of the front line because Russia did not think anything would happen there.

Russia is using aircraft to attack the Ukrainian forces, but the pilots are being very cautious, apparently because Ukraine brought up a lot of anti-aircrat units; we've seen video of Russian helicopters flying 10 feet off the ground, which you only do when you are very nervous about being shot down. Plus Ukraine now has F-16s with long-range air-to-air missiles, and presumably some of them are hovering around, looking for opportunities to dash in and launch a missile at any Russian plane that lingers too long over this area. It has been confirmed by Russian sources that two jet fighters and one attack helicopter have been lost in the past few days, likely here.

Nobody knows what Ukraine's military goals are, so we don't know how likely they are to achieve them. But politically this is, so far, a big win for Ukraine. Ukraine's friends are pumped up, and Russia's are some combination of angry and despondent. I haven't sensed so much energy in the pro-Ukraine community since their last major offensive petered out in the summer of 2023.

Some random tweets:

Zelenskyy "pressured Ukrainian generals to carry out the operation to counter the narrative that Ukraine has lost the war, accepting the risk of escalating conflict and potential severe repercussions."

Ukrainian reserve officer Tatarigami: "One of the arguments used by Russian propaganda during the occupation of Crimea was that the local population didn’t resist the invasion. Following that same logic, it seems that Kursk has been waiting for years to join Ukraine."

Supposed video from a Russian man in Sudzha who says he asked a Ukrainian soldier what he should do. The reply was, "Learn the Ukrainian anthem and prepare for a referendum."

Russians keep claiming to have spotted western special forces in Kursk, especially Brits and Poles, leading to lots of jokes like this and this.

Military Analyst Jan Kallberg: "The Russians' massive officer losses in Bachmut and along the front are now playing out in Kursk. With no experienced junior officers that can lead, the Russian units become just a mass of individuals, and they will take massive losses."

11 AM Eastern time Monday:

Yesterday the Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian armor had reached the settlements of Tolpino, Zhuravli and Obshchii Kolodez, but were repelled. We often see the Russians exaggerate the success of the Ukrainians only to claim that they have been repelled back to the positions that they actually occupy. However in the case of Zhuravli, Ukrainian MRAPs have been geolocated to the eastern edge of the settlement. The question now becomes, did the Russians actually repel the attacks? . . .  If Ukrainian forces have in fact successfully advanced to Tolpino as well, then Korenevo is in danger of being enveloped. This is a key position that would allow Ukraine to continue the attack on towards the strategically important town of Rylsk.

Tweet dated August 11 from Marcus Faber, chairman of the defense committee in the German parliament:

Dear Friends,

The Ukrainian attack on the invasion force near Kursk is going better than expected. It forces the aggressor to withdraw large forces from the front in the east, easing the situation there. A reason to talk more about [sending] Leopard2.

The attack shows the Russian population that their dictator has lost control and that the military leadership is overwhelmed. A good basis for peace negotiations with Putin's successor. And negotiating with Putin at the International Criminal Court.

Thread on the organization Russia has set up to deal with the Kursk crisis, and the potential problems. It's a "counter-terrorist operation," which means the FSB and other security services have a role as well as the military. The military forces involved are drawn from multiple military districts. So who is in charge? We don't know.

13 August

The heaviest fighting is on the eastern and western edges of the offensive, around Korenevo and Martynovka; also fighting around Giri, at the end of the easternmost pseudopod. Some Russian units are fighting hard and some Ukrainian thrusts have been halted. But, again, since we don't know where Ukraine is trying to go, we have no idea how hard they are trying to take the positions that the Russians are defending.

This source says arriving Russian forces are massing as Martynovka, where there may be 10,000 troops blocking the road to Kursk city.

More Ukrainian videos are starting to come out: Ukrainian special forces attack a small Russian position, Ukrainian airstrike.

I doubt this guy's maps are really accurate, but note that the units marked on these maps are all companies, meaning only 150 or so men even if they were at full strength, which most are not.

Modern Warfare II: Retro

Those of you who know anything about World War I may recall that the first air to air combat was fought with rifles and pistols; before machine guns were mounted on planes, pilots or navigators would sometimes just take shots at enemy planes. Now via YouTuber Perun, we have the tale of how this has returned in the 21st century. One of the biggest problems with fighting drones is that often the weapons you might use to shoot them down cost more than the drones you are shooting at. But Ukraine has found a low-cost solution! Russian bloggers claim that a certain Yakovlev 52 two-seat, propeller-driven training plane has been roving the front around Kherson, attacking Russian reconaissance drones, often with a shotgun wielded by the gunner. They claim this plane is responsible for more than a dozen drone kills.

Modern Warfare: Ukraine's Surprise Attack on Kursk

How did Ukraine launch a successful surprise attack in this age of constant drone surveillance? David Hambling at Forbes:

First, they brought down Russia’s screen of aircraft-type reconnaissance drones, effectively blinding commanders to what was happening. This may have been done by new interceptor FPVs linked to air-defence radar.

There have been several videos lately showing Ukrainian quadcopter drones attacking larger Russian fixed-wing drones, and now we see what that was all about: blinding the Russians along certain segments of the front. 

Secondly, under cover of the temporary observation blackout, short-range jammers were brought forward to the front line. These were programmed with data previously gleaned from electronic warfare reconnaissance.

“They discovered the main frequencies of our border radio communication networks, drone control frequencies, and prepared powerful jammers that crushed our communications,” according to another Russian blogger quoted by WarTranslated.

This was at least partly possible because the area was considered low priority and was not supplied with the latest equipment. In Ukraine, the war of drones versus jammers has been a constant arms race of upgrades as each move to evade jammed frequencies is countered by new jammers. It seems the drones in this sector were not working to the latest standards.

The result was that Russian drones, essential to identify targets and guide artillery, as well as FPVs, were not able to function. According to WarTranslated’s source, even the feared Lancet loitering munitions were partly affected. 

Drones are a major asset for stopping armored assaults. Recent reports suggest that they account for two-thirds or more of the tanks killed, with videos showing entire armored assaults knocked out one-by-one by successive FPV hits long before they reached enemy positions.

By concentrating enough jamming resources in the Kursk sector, Ukraine neutralized Russia’s drones, allowing their armor to cross open territory without being destroyed.

But how did they tackle Russian troops dug deep into defensive lines built over the course of two years?

According to [Russian blogger] Three, Ukraine filled the skies with its own drones, “an incessant barrage of high-precision FPVs, which go in swarms.”

OSINT analyst Roy notes that in recent weeks Ukraine has employed powerful drone bombs to blast openings in the overhead cover of Russian trenches and dugouts. Skilled FPV pilots are able to fly though these openings and clear the trench below.

It may be significant that some videos of the action showed new Ukrainian dive-bomber drones. While quadcopter dive-bombing has been seen before, these look like aircraft-type drones with longer range and greater payload. It is a distinct echo of the original Blitzkrieg concept of dive-bombers in close support of ground troops.

One the trenches are cleared, new Ukrainian ranger units quickly moved in to occupy and secure the empty positions, following close behind the drones (‘Drone rangers’?). Then the radio jammers were brought forward, and the whole process was repeated for the next stage of the advance.

Pro-War Russia, Succinctly

From the website of the Tsargrad TV network, on the latest Russian attack on a Ukrainian hospital:

Such enemies [Ukrainians] cannot be considered human. We must recognize this — simply and terrifyingly: there are no humans on the other side. Not a single person. Our missiles do not kill people. Not a single person. There are no humans out there.

If we do not accept this as a given, if we do not forbid ourselves from considering them as humans, from pitying them, and from saving them — we will weaken ourselves. We will limit our ability to save our children. We will hinder our path to Victory.

Draft Ukraine-Russia Peace Treaty from 2022 Published

Major story and document dump at the NY Times, summary thread on Twitter/X. So far as I can tell the basic stumbling block was that Ukraine wanted to guarantee its independence from Russia within most of its borders, and Putin would not accept that. One interesting theme is that Ukraine's negotiators were never sure if the Russians were serious, or if the negotiators were really empowered to make a deal. Ukrainian diplomats interviewed by the Times disagreed on this point.

Key details:

Russia, stunned by the fierce resistance Ukraine was putting up, seemed open to such a deal, but eventually balked at its critical component: an arrangement binding other countries to come to Ukraine’s defense if it were ever attacked again. . . . Russia inserted a clause saying that all guarantor states, including Russia, had to approve the response if Ukraine were attacked. In effect, Moscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine’s behalf.

Russia wanted to set strict limits on what kinds and number of armaments Ukraine could possess; Zelensky agreed to this in principle but the two sides were far apart on the numbers. This was the clause brandished by the Polish foreign minister in a NATO meeting, saying, "Which of you would sign this?"

You have to love this:

A seven-point list targeted Ukraine’s national identity, including a ban on naming places after Ukrainian independence fighters.

Putin thinks Ukraine is a rebellious province, not a nation, and until that changes there will be no real peace.