Aurora26 – very hurt pride, 25 May 2026

YOU CAN SEE THE VIDEOS IN THE SUBSTACK POST

Last Friday I wrote the war’s most positive post about Ukraine’s spring offensive, felt good. More good news is coming and according to earlier – areas that are tough can quickly turn when the strategic offensive reserve regroups, so we don’t try to hide that, just that it’s not critical.

Now it’s Aurora and the Baltics again over two posts that are like a tragic Greek tragedy but further down in the post I present the solution to everything so we win the war – the defense forces can steal my battle plan as long as I get royalties in euros.

Here you have a Ukrainian “storm brigade” doing the heavy lifting, well described around the entire support function behind the spearhead where the drone weapon is critical – the drone and anti-drone weapons we don’t have (yet). This is where we must reach to be able to conduct mobile combat against an enemy who themselves have it today in 2026. Until we have it, Putin also understands that he holds an advantage which, just like throughout the whole war, always has an expiration date which he assumes his opponents are frantically striving towards. Throughout the war both RU and Ukraine have tried to take advantage when they manage to build themselves an attractive edge before it turns – so it’s not made up at all.

At the beginning of the war, Ukraine ran some Polish cavalry attacks (you get the analogy), courage and duty above all. They stopped that quickly, today they are street-smart survivors who take the fight another day if they meet resistance – no method is too cowardly to kill a Russian bastard with.

Small twenty-year-old computer nerds blow away professional soldiers who have a black belt in cohabitation and can shoot a hummingbird at two kilometers with two hip shots. The Ukrainian snipers are unemployed and eating sausage in the rear.

The Russians absolutely hate the Magyars’ drone units who have introduced a point system a bit like the Swedish police with their tickets but for real where a dead Russian gives one point, not writing up a traffic violation as seven different crimes. – business management in war where a dead Russian becomes a tick and not lots of crimes.

The Swedish defense is significantly better than many defense forces around Europe so Aurora26 gave us an indication of how much Europe has learned, Finland is a bit further ahead and has probably quietly tried a bit more hands-on to learn from Ukraine but they keep half quiet.

For several years I have advocated that we should partly support voluntary recruitment, advertising campaigns, leave of absence, pay that we cover and also pension but we did zero – but also learn from those who have learned themselves. In Sweden, they didn’t like returning volunteers who fought in Azov and the other volunteer units, instead of learning from them they distanced themselves because they could be Nazis – better safe than sorry. Many of the returnees are disappointed but rarely are you king in your own country.

Has anyone of you heard of Yohio?

A Swede who has hit like the Beatles but in Japan roughly, completely unknown in Sweden – at least he has that in common with the returnees even if they dress a bit differently.

Aurora 2026 gave us a lot of wounded pride and humiliated elan to a point where the only answer to attempts at reasoning and criticism becomes “go to hell amateur bastard”. I got tired pretty quickly of trying to discuss with them because “you don’t know me” and “a couple of YouTube videos are not real you id1ot”. Then they themselves in the next breath criticize the frigates for example – no clear straight line there at all as far as I could find.

Their tail of other defense employees immediately pats backs and starts suggesting that criticism is doing Putin’s bidding – the whole old scratched record, “at least you’re entertaining” they probably don’t say when the drone swarms come but now it’s apparently a praised final retort.

These are the ones who have a paid workplace (and tweet like crazy during work hours) to in times of war defend us and our friends but they have consistently refused to embrace changed warfare from the Ukraine war.

I belong to those who have been glued to the computer since that fatal morning in February 2022 and seen the war develop up to today, all of Ukraine’s mistakes, how they have improved the constant whack-a-mole where they try to get the bars balanced. We first sat on Cornucopia and today johanno1.se where interested parties debate everything – we reason about what is to come and what doesn’t work where we have often guessed right.

Ukraine has been extremely adaptive and constantly tests new things, they paid for their mistakes in blood and they own their own successes – they have generously for several years offered that they want to teach us what works.

Why we haven’t embedded our own specialists in rotation since sometime in 2023 is beyond my understanding, Finland has been a bit better at that but it’s low hundreds.

But now the final payment day for the invoice came and the knee-jerk reaction to a large exercise in humiliation was that everyone else is wrong – now we must show strength and stick together because anything else is doing Putin’s bidding. Learning fast as hell suddenly became secondary and one should probably not underestimate what backward-looking wounded pride can result in.

It took Ukraine several years to root out this nuisance from their defense forces where power struggles and old truths cost lives. They got through it in the end and today competent personnel who run the world’s best defense force forward at all levels are in place.

NATO doctrine is obsolete in 2026 if you don’t have your own drone weapon and knowledge to operate in a drone-saturated battlefield 2026 together with telewarfare and anti-drone weapons – it’s not harder than that if you face an opponent who masters the drone weapon.

There are many examples in history but 1939 and 1940 are two in relatively recent times that should give chills.

I never understood Alexander’s Macedonians, they had long spears, a small shield and no short sword as equipment in their “phalanx” even if they had flank protection where the soldiers had swords – it should have been easy to punch a hole with archers or throwing spears and then when the formation was broken it stands there defenseless but apparently that didn’t happen because he made it all the way to India after the Persians threw in the towel.

Here is a NATO film on training exercises against drones – we who have sat for four years and seen the drone weapon emerge, when does it look like this?

https://www.nato.int/en/multimedia/multimedia/videos/2026/04/28/nato-troops-take-part-in-counter-drone-training-in-latvia

You have three FPV drones buzzing around you in circles precisely so you don’t get that second you need when the drone hovers in the air. When you’re completely spun around they put the combat part into you – they are hunters and just as you try to land a hit they work for their kill.

The most likely scenario is that panicked shooting starts firing in all directions and eventually does the job for the drones. Better not to conduct a realistic live-fire exercise because then there might be too many accidental shots.

This is what it looks like right now with the FPV drones, they hunt in groups.

(I don’t think the video is fake AI but you can never be sure, however it looks roughly like that so if so it can be considered representative).

We should not head in the direction of China at all and all the videos I find are propaganda videos but already in 2023 they had “Drone Swarm -2” vehicles that look like a small MLRS and fire 48 loitering drones in a salvo and they surely share that technology with the Russians. The drones are moving fast in that direction, saturating targets with large numbers of drones so you cannot manage to combat them all.

So there will not be a drone standing completely still that one second you need to have time to shoot.

Or the commercials for Aurora 26, all I see are large targets moving clumsily, no drone cages, no camouflage and so on.

They got really angry when I commented that our CV90 with GRK can only shoot straight under the Russian drone umbrella because they have too short a range – coffins. Not in the film which is more a comprehensive approach with lots of unprotected training moments, no lookout, no drone cages and so on.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/7aVTcfC-IMs?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Since we mastered mechanized combat and war pre-2022, the only thing we need to practice is combat in 2026 and integrate it into existing doctrine but apparently we are not doing that. We have a drone center that experiments a bit comfortably so far but nothing is widespread in the units, by the way they were the only ones who smiled broadly after the exercise where they were the B-force.

Yes, over the past year we have started inviting Ukrainian drone groups to demonstrate and then be OPFOR but when they crush us we restart the exercise and remove the drone element because otherwise it won’t be much of an exercise.

This is how badly it went – straight from UA mouth and we trust them more than a humiliated defense force that has taken a defensive position on social media instead of in the Baltics.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/76224

The Supreme Commander and the Minister of Defense say the right things but the entire organization must take it seriously for anything to happen – we should already today have demonstrated drone and anti-drone capability integrated into our maneuver units at Aurora 26 because after all, we are the ones trying to show strength against Russia, right?

Now the Russian bastards are sitting and studying YouTube deeply and come to the same conclusion – oh, they haven’t managed to learn yet.

We also seem to prioritize Gotland in case of war besides the commitment in Finnish Lapland which is needed – for my part, Aurora26 should have taken place in the eastern Baltics and then everyone should have stayed until late autumn when the mud season begins.

We can handle Gotland with the submarines, corvettes hidden in the archipelago, coastal rangers with anti-ship missiles, coastal missile batteries, the Home Guard and maybe one more battalion max. You can’t cross the Baltic Sea with a drone weapon without having vulnerable platforms in the Baltic Sea – that’s where our traditional capabilities still come fully into their own.

Everything that crosses the territorial waters boundary at sea or in the air is shot down, run a Fälldin – here we have enough traditional capability and Russia can never deploy its comprehensive drone umbrella that far, old-style is good enough for that island.

Even easier with Bornholm, Åland is presumably handled by Finland with the Nyland Brigade one would assume? Even if the consulate probably now only consists of operators for something, they should at least have the big weapons cache in the basement.

This is how the developments have gone –

2014 – we do absolutely nothing and by then Russia already had their Orlan drones integrated into artillery which were probably fully developed in 2010?

2022 – 2024 – the volunteers who went to Ukraine are not appreciated in the Armed Forces when they return, knowledge is not absorbed because Azov are Nazis, that is known – maybe they are not even suitable for our defense so HR is probably somewhat diabolical with them.

2022 – 2025 – we train Ukraine until they stop training with us because we can’t teach them anything, we are not interested in Zelensky’s constant proposals that Ukraine should train us. We also do not seem to take in the spring offensive 2023 at all which was our doing.

Second half of 2025 – today – we now have UA drone groups at exercises that crush us, the Armed Forces don’t like that and have now gone on the defensive.

Different countries have set up some drone center and train with their special forces to understand what this new thing is – nothing is widespread in our armed forces and certainly not the entire branch which consists of many different parts working together.

Meanwhile, the arms industry lobbies for upgrades and they want to sell their ridiculously expensive established platforms. Going bankrupt from a small startup drone company in the basement is their biggest fear so most likely they have for a couple of years fought this as much as they could.

Rheinmetall’s CEO spoke condescendingly about UA drone weapons as recently as this year, “housewives playing with Lego” – so that is the highest level in what is our flagship in the European arms industry, it can’t get much worse than that, can it?

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-hits-back-against-rheinmetall-ceos-housewives-drones-comments-2026-03-30

Now we are going to buy frigates which is absolutely needed but before we allocate budget for them we must have – digital battlefield, electronic warfare, drone weapons, anti-drone weapons.

Now in 2026 the Moderates of all parties have proposed a drone defense – yes, they include interceptor drones as one of the options but it’s a bit too late and it also implies that we have nothing today when Russia can send off 500 Geran drones every other day.

Yes, we have started the journey towards warfare 2026 but are completely outpaced in production by China, and in capability by Russia.

If now, against all odds, the worst possible happens this year, what should we do – market Johan No.1 defeatism in his old age because he has finally found the Russian money tap?

We know from Ukraine that mechanized combat today UA can only use when they have drone superiority through anti-drone weapons, EW and their own drone units on site. Then calm can settle and one fights traditionally.

Otherwise it’s dispersed shooting over a large area in dugouts under own drone umbrella that applies, all vehicles are at 30km-50km distance because Russian FAB absolutely rains down 250-300 together with 9000 FPV drones PER DAY.

Since we don’t have our own drone weapons, unfortunately we cannot be as dispersed as Ukraine but we can do what works, follow along because here comes a defense plan that WORKS.

Bornholm or Gotland are not threatened but the eastern Baltics are.

Belarus will not participate in the war; they are a guarantee that UA or Poland won’t get any ideas, so the status quo is important there – but Putin is preparing them for DEFENSE in case things go badly. In the case of Belarus, if you want peace, you prepare for war, Putin has probably thought.

Ukraine is preparing as always for the worst and does not rule out an offensive from Belarus against Lviv, but they say what Lukashenko surely knows – a quick suicide, Senhor.

https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-warns-consequences-belarus

From the Belarus border up to roughly Tartu, the Baltics have no defense; the Estonians defend the area around Tallinn and eastward, the Latvians south of the Daugava.

Unfortunately, the Baltics have been arguing for four years about the thickness of bunker walls and, to my knowledge, have only built 400 km of ditches that look like drainage ditches you can jump over – maybe it’s a bit better now, but the border should already be re-mined Surovikin-style and all fieldwork completed.

Clement Molin shares the same opinion; he is sitting with his satellite photos looking for fieldworks, he has it under control.

I believe we can assume there is very little fieldwork in the said area, unfortunately.

South of the Belarus border, we enter the area the Germans and Poles intended to defend, and I find it hard to believe Poland will sit on its hands again – their defense forces are formidable. But that is the area south of the Daugava, so a small part of Latvia and then Lithuania. Try to cross the Daugava in the middle of a drone cloud, by the way.

The Canadian-led brigade that just grouped in the field in eastern Ukraine is probably also there?

How do we win the war IF it comes?

We immediately send everything we can to the Baltics together with Denmark, Finland, Norway, France, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Italy – I think these are the ones who could consider participating, much or little.

At the border or 1-2 km in, we draw suitable map lines along dominant terrain, wetlands, waterways, forest edges with fields in front, or just forest.

The units get a healthy working summer together with every construction company in the countries in question and build defenses according to the UA model but a bit upgraded Johan No.1 style –

For a platoon, you have 4-5 camouflaged earth “bunkers” with logs for roofs – then you cover the trenches and communication trenches with fabric or dense camouflage netting.

All openings must have a heavy fabric; then FPV drones cannot fly in but explode at the opening.

2-3 alternative firing positions, and the platoon is never more than one group per trench and constantly moves between the different rear spaces and different firing positions – this makes it impossible for RU to see where personnel are and also reduces losses from FAB hits.

The mining will be close-protection mining since I assume we do not yet have enough mines for deep minefields along the entire border – completely incomprehensible since it has proven to be the only thing that really worked well throughout the war and RU is bad at mine clearance.

Unfortunately, we still need full staffing since we do not have our own drone umbrella to fall back on; we are today in the situation Ukraine was in 2024 and into 2025 where FAB decimated them badly. Russia is so keen on FAB that they are trying to increase their use significantly and have already today managed to drop them from longer distances than before +60 km.

We build a second line a few kilometers further back; the Baltics’ mobilizable reserve will build and man it with infantry after their 24-hour mobilization.

We prepare for ambushes at a myriad of locations along all attack routes westward for an active delaying battle if pushed out of the fortified line. I tried that as a scrap force from armored infantry in the military service a few times when you got a platoon of those left over. Ambush and then straight away to hidden soft vehicles and circle back to the next point; you could keep that up for days, and if well prepared, the attacking force gets stuck in the mines long enough for you to slip away. For the attacking force, it becomes just a thick wall of mines and sizzling belly shots that never end – very frustrating and time-consuming.

When the international mosaic then retreats through the Baltics’ second line, those not assigned to ambushes retreat to strongpoints further in that must be defended, bridges, cities, major road junctions, and there they go into fixed defense – hopefully, the second line holds long enough for them to get organized.

Somewhere there, Europe should have gotten organized, and now there stands a bunch of tired Russians 30-40 km inside the Baltics banging their heads against the wall. Since they have been offensive all along, they have not dug in yet, which gives us our opportunity for a counteroffensive so we can get the war mobile – that’s what they did in Ukraine, so a reasonable guess.

It worked in 1939 and in Ukraine, so it works today for us as well.

No indirect capabilities or depots within 30-50 km but more long-range platforms in depth like HIMARS and a couple of drone groups we begged from Ukraine.

Our reconnaissance, SOF, and rangers must have dense mobile patrol activity in front of the first defense line, hopefully catching infiltration attempts by RU special forces.

Regular infantry will always be vulnerable to infiltrating SOF; they are simply not hunters and warriors.

The mechanized and indirect capabilities we have in the rear must constantly regroup, and you use barns, depots, grocery store magazines, and so on according to the Swedish model we trained on in the military service in the 90s – it works well.

It works well in depth but does not go under the Russian FPV umbrella because there are too many drones, so you simply cannot regroup.

We have to go back to basics – dug-in infantry in defense with Javelins and MANPADS.

Sufficient for defense but not for offense, so we place them preventively where there is the greatest risk that RU will try to grab a piece of ground in our vicinity to mess with us.

If we do this, we have bought the time we need to get organized and introduced a significantly high threshold for RU – it might even act as a deterrent with some luck.

If we only place infantry in the east and have all vehicles beyond 50 km, not even the Russians can claim that we are preparing to invade them – then we drive back and forth between the logistics and the front with golf carts, which are not an offensive resource either.

If we do not do this now and try to teach the Russian bastards a lesson with traditional warfare when they stand 40 km inside the Baltics while we are reactive, we will get a very costly experience. In the worst case, it leads to us giving up on the Baltics when each country’s Chief of Defense announces that to retake the area, losses will be measured in tens of thousands, “just give the word and we will go, the first attempt was annihilated in a cloud of drones but shame on those who give up” – a difficult decision for any career politician to make.

Doing the right thing now will be today’s slogan – the Canadian-led brigade showed the way, it’s time for everyone to follow them and dig in in eastern Baltics because defense must be in the right place to be able to defend, the frog-eaters learned that, Lex Maginot Line.

What is really the difference – a Canadian brigade moves to the terrain they will fight in if war breaks out vs. us sending more?

We will never have a higher risk than this for the Baltics, in a few years the border will be mined 10 km deep with bunker systems, we have acquired a drone weapon, our own capabilities to fight at depth (enough of them) and an anti-drone weapon.

If we can deter RU from trying – good.

My view of RU is that the only thing that deters them is realistic promises of violence, we have not yet projected that in a credible way – Aurora26 projected the opposite but it seems the defense forces have not understood that yet.

I continue my persistent campaign for paid subscription or alternatively that you share in your channels so it spreads, the posts take time to put together now that one has to try to anchor them in reality and be realistic.

Not everyone is enthusiastically positive but either you try to keep up and counter or you do as we did last time it happened, a warm summer in 1940.