Lions
What I don’t quite have clear is RU’s plans for the coming months, actually.
We know they have a strategic reserve, so if things go badly in Ukraine, they will probably have to deploy it there, right?
At least that’s the logic when I talk about them attacking the Baltics if they have the Ukraine war under control.
Recently, RU has started moving at the southern front – a highly expected attack if so.
RU must be completely exhausted and at a low point after this marathon offensive, anything else would be unreasonable.
If you watch the video below, you’ll see just like me that there are no RU drones.
It’s different on different fronts, and my previous opinion has been that UA has complete drone superiority where they pool their resources.
Those of you who have read the predictions in these posts know that we would come to this point – in an area where UA intends to carry out an offensive, they paralyze everything with drone weapons, FAB destroys fortifications, and then when the defense is supposed to take position, cluster ammunition rains down on them.
Something for our military to consider is probably the following – historically, artillery has accounted for perhaps 70% of losses when fighting against artillery-heavy opponents.
The USA solved this with CAS and Ahkp, which Israel also seems to prefer – JDAMs in their case.
Then, robots were supposed to be the new black “scud rain” and “Iskander rain,” but they are too expensive. However, their accuracy is good.
I would now argue that tomorrow’s artillery, which is already here, requires much less ammunition and is accurate.
But expensive – the USA, Russia, and Israel either have very expensive weapon carriers like top fighters, launch ramps, ships, and then in the case of robots – ammunition that costs millions each.
The Ukraine war has brought us to the point where we achieve the same effect for a fraction of the cost – and the development has only just begun.
UA causes 70% of Russian losses with drone weapons – exactly the figure we previously had for the damage caused by artillery. But then we don’t need to attack a target with 100 shells and then have worn-out barrels and weapon platforms that are very expensive and also get knocked out.
A handful of FPV drones at the group level is enough.
First of all, now any defense force in the world can have Soviet artillery – Hamas and Hezbollah have tried, but Israel was too clever, and the Houthis have managed to combat expensive fighters with cheap drones.
Secondly, it seems like the US dominance on the world’s seas is no more (very soon).
Thirdly, countries’ infrastructure is now seriously vulnerable deep down because everyone will have the Ukrainian concept within two years.
Means and countermeasures – Israel has now deployed laser platforms that can eliminate multiple drone threats at a cost of 5EUR per shot.
The problem here is that the platform itself costs exorbitant sums, and we have seen in the Ukraine war how Ukraine constantly uses the entire range of tools for combat – for example, using reconnaissance to guide in inaccurate artillery.
Expensive platforms are also not useful on the new battlefield.
We are back to infantry that is field-ready – and then high-tech with drone weapons.
Of course, tomorrow’s tanks and IFVs will be a veritable porcupine with lots of countermeasures 360 degrees because they are absolutely necessary but not in huge mechanized formations.
AI drones are probably not even a year away, and then autonomous drone swarms where the smallest are 100mm hornets released in swarms from mothership drones.
And the countermeasures will be cheaper autonomous AI drone hunters where a firing platform, for example, is a rifle with a drum of anti-drone drones at the group level.
They are here to stay.
We have seen in Kursk how the North Koreans did not know how to conduct themselves in field operations in the 2025 war and suffered enormous losses.
Field operations in 2025 are something all of Europe must immediately take seriously, or else we will face the same problems.
Personally, I believe that Israel will increasingly struggle, and their attempts to remove Palestinian areas that are going completely wrong are probably a way to counteract this?
Instead of suicide bombers and all IEDs, terrorists will release drone swarms over Israel that they have built in basements.
Russia and China provide them with the technology and supply them with the equipment.
The possibility of Israel being wiped out in the future is on my list as not unlikely.
Trump seems to be considering starting a war against Iran, and then it will be lively in the MENA region, I can promise you, when the USA once again tries to create eternal peace through war.
Then drones will probably become increasingly a favorite weapon for terrorists in Europe in the future.
Another interesting thing was that the EU managed to bypass Hungary in the decision on support for UA.
One must be careful, but it seems, according to Lynx at johanno1.se, that they have made addendums to an already decided something and managed it without Hungary.
We shouldn’t set too attractive precedents here for overriding countries’ sovereignty on major issues.
There’s a good chance that Orban will fall this year, by the way.
I feel that the EU should now include –
Iceland, Switzerland (maybe not possible), UK, Norway, Moldova, Serbia, Canada, and Belarus.
(and turn Kaliningrad into an amusement park for vacations).
Turkey can get trade agreements.
Then they should try to reduce the “supremacy” and allow countries to form coalitions where they want to solve issues important to them in the region.
For example, as we have done in the Baltic Sea region.
Then, at the EU level, they need to discuss financing – for example, the EU must fund our defense shield in the future, even if it is we around the Baltic Sea, Belarus, and Ukraine who manage it.
Instead of an EU army, they have cooperation where countries contribute brigades away from the defense shield.
Something like that.
We don’t need more bureaucracy for this – we need open discussion, forums, understanding, and sheer determination only.
There you have my vision for the future of the EU, preferably just free movement and the opportunity to work across borders instead of moving where the benefits are because after all, it’s someone else’s tax money that you’re then taking – money that could have been kept and used for their own children.
We should try to include all countries, and we must straighten out the defense shield to the east.
Then, Iceland, Canada, Norway, and the UK are countries we WANT to have on board 😀
Then turn your gaze south and start finding strategic partners in Africa and give them fair, honest trade agreements, and you will see a prosperous EU in the future. One country at a time in Africa.
As other countries understand that approaching the EU means a huge boost for the country as a whole and that the path to a prosperous large middle class has begun, the queue will be long, and we can break today’s negative spirals.
If I were Putin, by now I would have realized that there are no low-hanging fruits in Ukraine and looked around.
Moldova and Romania have de facto failed.
Serbia and Hungary seem to be slowly moving away from RU.
And Trump’s peace negotiations may well be considered a failure, McDonald’s Gandhi was just that – no Nobel Prize this year either.
China is also not likely to get much more actively involved in the war than they are today, reasonably.
Ukraine’s strategic capabilities are increasing significantly, and RU is declining.
Ukraine’s drone warfare as well, and UA now has top-notch aircraft so FAB are eliminated – or they already were with cyber warfare.
Yes, RU also has wire-guided drones but that is not enough to replace all other indirect capabilities.
All else being equal, Putin should now start to understand that time is running out here?
Trump did not bring Europe along.
Trump did not stop Ukraine.
Europe will provide resources to Ukraine on a scale far beyond what RU can manage.
This will be a slow bleed-out until 2025.
So, the remaining option is to try to get the EU to back down or get distracted by something else – more likely to see further escalations.
Yes, they recruited beyond the targets BUT… it was because no one believed they would have to fight – they just wanted the bonuses.
This also tells us that in RU, they believed in this peace deal from McDonald’s Gandhi – they are tired of war.
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Update from 08:00 on 22.03.2025 regarding the Russian invasion
A total of 142 combat actions were recorded during the past day.
#Kharkiv 6
#Kupyansk 6
#Lyman 22💥
#Siverskyi 5
#Kramatorsk 4
#Toretsk 19💥
#Pokrovsk 37💥💥
#Novopavlivka 11💥
#Huliaipil 2
#Prydniprovsky 1
#Kursk 23💥
Yesterday, AFRF🇷🇺 carried out a missile attack on AFU🇺🇦 positions and settlements with one missile, as well as 85 air strikes and released 134 glide bombs. Additionally, AFRF🇷🇺 conducted 6407 attacks, including 199 from MLRS, and used approximately 3,000 kamikaze drones for the attacks.
In the past 24 hours, AFU🇺🇦’s aviation, robotic forces, and artillery hit 26 areas with a concentration of personnel, weapons, and military equipment, an air defense facility, five artillery pieces, and a command post belonging to AFRF🇷🇺.
Up again?
– What I don’t really have clear is RU’s plan for the coming months actually.
You are not alone in that thought, Russia also doesn’t have a clear idea of what they should do other than bombing, destroying, and raping, and that can’t be considered a plan… the Russians are going Lorrystyle.
– didn’t think about that
😂😂😂
>Of course, tomorrow’s tank and IFV will be a veritable hedgehog with a lot of countermeasures 360 degrees around because they are absolutely needed but not in huge mechanized formations.<
We’ll see how it turns out in the next war from Moscow. The only thing we can be sure of is that it will be different, again!
Yes, exactly, every war is unique in its execution
”As other countries begin to understand that approaching the EU means a huge boost for the country as a whole …” One country at a time, I also believe. And that it happens at grassroots level, with companies investing. Of course, with support from the EU, equivalent to the Export Council. Which also acts as coordinating/communicative. No brakes but straight into countries where Chinese influence prevails or where Wagner has established itself. Which constitutes many countries. India is also a major player in the eastern parts of Africa. But trade is trade and hard currency is something in whatever is happening in the country. The Chinese know that. Instead of feeling guilty about past colonial relationships with the country, use what has been to rebuild relationships. Despite Wagner, few Africans speak Russian. Or want to. There, for example, French-speaking companies have an advantage to exploit. If Wagner threatens the business, try security solutions for the company in question, backed nationally or from a European level. As long as it is possible in the country where one establishes oneself. And as mentioned, a lucrative trade can outweigh the sense of control that a collaboration with Wagner can provide. Perhaps.
@MatsExtrude an observation is that with advanced editor you lose formatting such as line breaks when editing a reply. The first unedited version works.
Should be an easy choice – forced to eat Beijing duck constantly and be axed by Wagner or get a prosperous country with the EU
Hello J,
Just the thought of drone terrorist attacks, you are definitely right. Imagine a number of drones flying into a sports event or outdoor concert. Total panic like the mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Peace is far away in Ukraine. In a war of attrition, it is the will and capacity to continue the war. Both sides still possess them. A possible outcome would be for the US to increase support, but I find that hard to see. Trump and MAGA are completely against spending on anyone other than themselves, regardless of whether it actually serves their purposes. Possibly, confiscating Russia’s assets would be the solution. I wrote about this on Lw’s page a month into the war. Then it is important to target Russia’s locomotives. Their ability to rebuild is limited and it will have devastating consequences for the logistics in Russia and its economy, greater than targeting refineries. I already read today that the industry is having a lot of trouble with lead times in Russia as the railway network is completely disrupted due to military transport.
It is enough for a single drone to explode at a stadium to be able to cause panic with any hobby drone. Scary future.
Yes, drones open up for completely new nightmare scenarios.
Imagine if, for example, a seemingly civilian cargo ship from Russia passes any coastal city around the Baltic Sea, opens a cargo hatch, and out comes a swarm of autonomous drones, perhaps 1000 units, targeting the infrastructure around the city – substations, power plants, oil depots, bridges, and roads. Another wave of a thousand drones flies into the city center to target ground-level heat sources.
Check out how they’ve started using shaheds and as CB500four writes – any city on the west coast has zero defense.
The West has completely stopped Ukraine in its tracks when things are going too well – we’ll see how spring unfolds.
Russian losses per 22/03/25 reported by Ukraine’s General Staff.
+1210 men
+9 tanks
+20 AFVs
+96 artillery systems
+3 MLRS
+258 UAVs
That’s usually what it looks like when Ukraine makes progress somewhere, they come within drone range and can take out units that are otherwise slightly too far away.
A report on par with the master’s, MTX.
+1
We miss MXT today
A new rising reporting star 👍
Are the incredible amounts of artillery that UA eliminates daily a new desperate tactic from ru to try to get away and hopefully gain access to juicy targets against UA? Or has ru just desperately gathered artillery to try to support their attacks with cannon fodder. I don’t understand how they can let UA slaughter their artillery as they do.
I believe that RU is currently looking very short-sightedly at the war and desperately trying to achieve some breakthrough before an upcoming ceasefire. Shoigu is currently in NK and we can assume that he is negotiating for more artillery and meat.
Slaughter is the right word 👍
Nah, I’m not convinced. Russia is running on a full war economy now. It’s hard to stop without the economy collapsing. They have three years until the next presidential election. They know that the US will not fully defend the Baltics. They will recover in one to two years and then launch a new round in Ukraine and possibly in Latvia.
However, one or two years of recovery after three to four years of bleeding out in terms of both flesh, economy, and material will not work against the qualified NATO and EU opponent.
Talking to an old friend about this. He is a lieutenant colonel. Russia is holding back on the most qualified. He was convinced that there was the capacity to handle an incursion into the Baltic sphere. I don’t want to comment on what level he is at in terms of planning, but I take his information as correct.
He is likely to have infinitely more insight than I do, but my guess is that if the EU/NATO (even without the USA) responds to such an attack as one should respond to an attack on common ground (and not as an attack on a peripheral Baltic country up in the north), then we should be able to push back the Russians within a relatively short recovery period.
I read the comments here the other day and I have to say that Johan has created a good blog (who could have guessed that?).
Good commentators, nice atmosphere.
Thumbs up 👍
And a good analysis today Johan.
Agreed. No.1 delivers as usual in world class. 🥳
Now we’re just waiting for Budanov to show up and then the team is complete 👍🏻!
Nooo not Budanov, I must be safe somewhere 😳
I agree, he does write good posts👍
Fan 😐
I like it too, though a bit short on time to comment but I read (mostly) everything! 👍
Regarding the discussions about the development of drones. I believe that in the future, the best countermeasure against them is autonomous drones that independently seek out and destroy drones. And the countermeasure against these hunting drones is arming the drones and hunting drones that protect the bomb drones.
Does anyone recognize this development?
I think it feels familiar so it doesn’t seem completely out of thin air.
There was probably some discussion about this with countermeasures, I think it was on cornucopia a few days ago, it was about fiber-optic drones.
When it comes to autonomous drones, the first thing is to detect them in time, and then to disrupt/destroy them.
Guard drones could probably be effective, what armament they should have is another question, should they be able to shoot down, or is it enough to blind, disrupt the positioning system in some way, or something else.
First World War and beyond maybe 😀
Then I predict that we will soon see the JAS 39 Gripen.
Waiting eagerly for the new shot down ryzka jet 🛩️. Thinking 890 can fix it. But still missing 💫 meteor. Or does Mirage have them?
No, not publicly in any case. Mirage takes the same generation of Amram as the JAS 39 Gripen had in the end. The F16 can probably take the latest with the right upgrade (unfortunately, I don’t think Ukraine has it either).
Ukraine has, for understandable reasons, chosen to target objectives that directly have negative results for Russia’s warfare. I would like to see, if possible, to also strike targets that will have long-term effects on Russia’s rebuilding capacity. Examples could be research or industry for the maintenance of the Russian society.
Russia should have problems for a long time to come!
An Echo 2 in the Kremlin
“This will be a slow phase-out by 2025.
So, the remaining task is to try to get the EU to back down or get preoccupied with other matters – probably more thoughts on the escalation steps, therefore.”
This one was thought-provoking. If troops start gathering along the border with the Baltics, the EU will probably quickly start focusing on supporting the Baltics and/or prioritizing the reinforcement of its own defense capabilities, which will likely disrupt the deliveries to UA. It may not even be necessary to actually cross the border, just assembling troops and some weapon rattling should be enough.
“Someone” is driving the Baltics by September 2025 quite hard, and that’s because it’s part of the planning 😀
Did you survive the Friday night drinking?
I have found Leyende, a rum that is so good that all problems here became secondary – unclear if I will ever leave the Caribbean 😍
Hot tip for other beginners like me on rum – easy to drink too much 😶
Took it easy last Friday, will have some morale boosters today. Heading to the USA on Monday to the MAGA stronghold. Need to calm down before a week of misinformation from my Catholic white colleagues.
Survived, but one link promised a funny cat video but led to a child who whined after having to pay taxes.
Oops, yeah, it wasn’t meant to post videos of crying children. I think I remember that he learned early what treasure is 😄
(Must have confused cat with treasure, blaming Leyende)
https://kyivindependent.com/investigation-we-tried-to-buy-american-chips-as-a-russian-defense-manufacturer-heres-why-its-possible/
If anyone thought that China wasn’t Russia’s friend…
Analysis of the attack on the ammunition storage at Engels Air Base. 61.7% was destroyed, 12.8% damaged, and 25.5% remained intact.
Herrejösses 😳
Much fiber just in certain places.
Spiders as protection against drones?
China may send peacekeepers to Ukraine, Beijing is discussing this option with the EU, — Welt am Sonntag
Has the EU declared which side of the front the Chinese should be on?
The interesting thing is that it goes against RU and is in consultation with the EU 🧐
If there is a ceasefire a’la Korea, it is excellent from a Chinese perspective to be in the buffer zone where there are probably mines. And it would be extremely boring if the mines just stood there and filled with water, so China is surely helpful in emptying them of all sorts of things. Without harming either Ukraine or Russia, but only itself.
Trump: We’ll sell our allies toned down military planes, because someday, maybe they’re not our allies.
https://bsky.app/profile/maxbrockbank.com/post/3lkvqekm6dc24
I don’t know if Principles of Marketing by Kotler is still used in education, but I am completely convinced that there is not a word about telling customers that they can buy a mediocre product. 🤡🤡🤡
Trump stands above Kotler 🤡!
Yes, the industry leaders probably cry themselves to sleep quite often now.
Ha! He continues to saw on the branch that the US economy depends on. I believe and hope that his friends become fewer and fewer in the White House court.
Leyende is my grandpa’s bodega – only took 9 weeks
Shouldn’t such a statement be grounds for breaking a contract? Or does the contract state that it is a secondary product that will be delivered.
It is an export version that one buys, and in many military contexts it is a secondary product, and the buyer is aware of that.
Interesting read about drone development.
https://theukrainianreview.info/drone-and-technology-warfare-how-ukraine-is-changing-the-rules-of-war
Coubertin is turning in his grave, the IOC is competing with FIFA for who is the most corrupt.
https://kyivindependent.com/incoming-ioc-president-plans-talks-on-russias-possible-olympic-reinstatement-media-reports/
The head of MUST is cool, I think. He doesn’t believe in any invasion attempt from RU in the coming years. However, like Johan, he thinks they might test Article 5 in 2-5 years. It all depends on how preoccupied they are with UA.
Interesting that Juan believes it could happen as early as this year.
Be prepared for the best but plan for the worst.
Thomas Nilsson, Must: An attack on Sweden cannot be ruled out – Ekot’s Saturday interview https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/thomas-nilsson-must-ett-anfall-mot-sverige-kan-inte-uteslutas
In his defense, he has only read johanno1.se and is following the same line we have here, but he didn’t get it completely right.
That the USA’s global naval dominance will soon be gone as you wrote in the introduction is probably true. The gloomy bird Malcom Kyeyune claims that the fleet is already decimated and that the trophy goes to the Chinese.
The question is what it means in different scenarios.
You also wrote, “That Israel will be wiped out in the future is on my list as not unlikely.” There the coffee got stuck halfway. Was it an attempt to open a new front in the discussions? I didn’t see anyone pick up the gauntlet.
We are approaching Easter and true to the concept, Dengamle has rolled away the stone. That pleases me.