On johanno1.se, there is a group of dedicated posters in the thread who convey information. We concluded there that the UA offensive started around May 12 just from the statistics, and since OPSEC prevailed, not many others believed it at that time.

These days, we are absolutely being hard-drenched with encouraging news on johanno1.se, a selection:

Brovid says that 20,000 Russians are cut off and hungry, easy to understand that it refers to the Dnipro front.

In RU’s latest drone attack on Ukraine, the defense shot down 98% of the drones, there you go.

The Belarus EXILE GOVERNMENT commented that Ukraine has drone-struck targets in Belarus. These are relay stations for drones. Lukashenko was probably forced to turn them on by Putin for this operation.

This speaks volumes – the first targets in Belarus and the opposition leader, whatever her name is, recently visited Ukraine. Now it is a full exile government that comments and stands firm.

One must not forget that the citizens of Belarus largely want to free themselves from the dictatorship and interrogations that end in torture-death, to instead move closer to the EU just like Ukraine did.

Besides that, Crimea is soon blacked out and dried up, the refineries continue to burn, and if the heat moves over Ukraine seriously from continental Europe, which it seems to do, Russian soldiers will become very thirsty.

They currently have poor supply deliveries from the logistics due to all the drone attacks on road transports, and in the areas they defend, corpses lie close together, so when they try to drink from puddles, they get sick. The choices are to die of thirst or cholera.

“It is not over until it’s over,” as they say, and a Russian saving grace is to hope that Ukraine is forced to a ceasefire if Putin agrees to it. We are not there yet, but that card will of course be played with Trump’s and China’s eager encouragement for world peace if it gets tight.

Now we are entering the realm of rumors, so don’t take this completely at face value, but the elite are getting tired of the war and have given Putin an ultimatum – do as Russia has always done and increase the level of violence if the current level of violence doesn’t work so that we get an end to this.

It is easy to see that Putin is painted into a corner without a clear way out right now, and when Ukraine increases the pressure, his only option is to also increase it. He has a good grip on the FSB, so the above is probably a compromise, “okay, we understand you can’t admit defeat, so increase instead until you find a way out that is viable for you.”

Putin has a few options to choose from – mobilization and increasing pressure in Ukraine, tactical nuclear weapons, bringing Belarus into the war, or attacking the Baltics.

Svalbard is probably also on the list, but that wouldn’t resonate with the masses the same way as teaching NATO a lesson would.

Putin needs an off-ramp, and Ukraine does not offer that at all, which is starting to make Putin really cornered – that is when dictators are most dangerous.

From what we can see today, all options are bad except possibly the Baltics, which admittedly is not good either, but this is a dictator fighting for his physical survival right now, so anything is better than dangling on the gallows, deeply marinated in diesel, praying to idols that the rabble has Russian matches that don’t work.

The elite naturally have a plan B if needed – blame everything on Putin, expose him, and end the war. However, there is probably no shortage of hawks in the Russian administration, and especially the FSB stands on Putin’s side, so Plan B comes with the highest risk for those involved.

Recently, a gentleman who was previously proposed as Putin’s successor suddenly died but had also recently criticized the war – Putin’s claws still scratch is probably the only conclusion one can draw from this?

China has built up RU’s digital battlefield and fairly soon they will probably have to start delivering anti-drone technology that works to protect Russia against the aggressor Ukraine. China likes the war because everyone weakens except them; probably they are not fully supportive of a big win for Ukraine and will support with what they think they can get away with.

If you accept the position that the USA-Russia-China have planned escalation in seven steps already, it becomes a bit easier to understand all of Trump’s antics, I think. JD Vance was in Munich provoking us, Zelensky was humiliated in the White House, and when Trump closed Hormuz, he accused Europe of doing nothing at all, only actively opposing his quest for world peace. It became a bit extra delicate when Iran wanted Hormuz open and Trump immediately promised to close it – it was hard to navigate who did what there for a while.

For example, China has recently trained Russian soldiers in ABC warfare, feels like a couple of steps forward they are planning for, right?

The actions then become deliberate provocations and then immediately a highly planned counter-reaction to our reasonable and proportionate responses like “you huge bullies, you are not our friends,” often from Trump himself. This enormous grievance against the USA and Trump “justifies” then a lot of military cutbacks, punitive tariffs, or export bans for us in Europe.

Everything is then chopped up seemingly without any logic at all, but if you sit in Putin’s chair, it is instead a surgical scalpel that cuts away everything he does not like – the offensive units in NE Europe and LNG that will leave us powerless this winter.

Canada currently runs the most offensive unit in the entire Baltics, so the connection back to that and that Trump has gone hard on Canada is not entirely far-fetched actually if you have your new glasses on your nose.

Since it was Spain and Italy that did not want overflights and the Baltics instead are the USA’s biggest fanboys, it is hard to explain why everything was left in Spain and Italy but removed from the Baltics.

However, only until the point that one accepts that everything is a game with seven planned moves where Trump, Putin, and Xi hold the strings and card numbers on WhatsApp.

For example, this – the Baltics offer to cover exactly all costs for US units in their countries, and also to buy only American weapons at an overprice. Exactly what Trump claims to want to achieve, but the units still disappear from the area faster than you can say Monday.

Everything is always relative – if Russia does not have enough to open a conflict front in the Baltics today, maybe they will when the USA has withdrawn all its defense from the area?

Then we have the “95% ocean difference” on this with Operation Baltic according to a unanimous readership. Now at least the Baltics are starting to sweat seriously and summer has only just begun even though it is warm, so that is probably why they are sweating when I think about it.

Since no one even dares to think the unthinkable, Putin can still fiddle with this as best he can between his sleep apnea attacks – there is no tripwire at all in the eastern Baltics to stumble over, so as far as Russia is concerned, it is almost impossible to keep oneself in check. That’s actually how much I think we have learned since 2022?

We know with some certainty that RU intends to mobilize early autumn and in 2022 it made a difference of a few months. Today the entire skeleton is in place and all that is needed are new soldiers in the trenches, it will go faster.

Lukashenko is under great pressure to project a threat to his neighborhood, war has probably never been seriously intended for Belarus and the meeting with Putin was to avoid shutting down the relay stations for the drones if I may guess.

Putin probably threatened invasion for that audacity so Luka went over to Xi to cry it out, and China tried to be the adult in the room which is a positive in the context as it shows some friction on the away team.

Exactly what will happen lies with Putin but you can safely assume that RU will escalate it – it is ingrained in the Russian DNA strand.

Everything is always relative as I said.

“Russia has not built up any capability at all against the Baltics” vs “there is not a single international soldier between Rezekne and Tartu” are two examples. There are no Balts there either because they have to mobilize first. Probably the border protection is in the hundreds and the area is completely open for infiltration that can reach the mob depots in Rezekne and Võru where the Estonians’ and Latvians’ defense for the neighborhood will try to mobilize. Their mobile brigades will defend Daugavpils/Riga and the Tallinn area. They must also have coup defense, mobile reserve and all that which taxes their few units.

The Balts’ Maginot line has not been built yet – tougher fieldwork is hard to find. It is drawn up and they have finished arguing about the thickness of the bunker walls, but it is not built. North of Tartu there is some but the area between Tartu – Rezekne is completely undefended. Clement Mohlin has actually gone through this and shown with satellite photos that nothing exists even though I based my assumption on a couple of articles on the subject so now I have full support from physical evidence.

There is also enormous subversive activity in the countries already which they try to fend off as best they can, so if RU intends to attack they already have access to saboteurs inside the country for a twilight scenario.

This will be an interesting year, some things you just have to accept you will never understand I guess – why the USA let Shiite militias from surrounding countries into Tehran for example and above all why we REFUSE to send in defensive defense into the Baltics who spend the summer mining the border area in SE Estonia and NE Latvia.

Finland survived its Winter War 1939 by doing exactly that, the summer before everything that could be mobilized was mobilized and then it was hard work in the forest until the war started – they did not take chances and you should never do that with Russia.

Almost a dereliction of duty this, at least a written reprimand should be given to those responsible that will follow them through life like a bad bitcoin purchase.

We should probably put a bit of a warning on this but I have guessed that it roughly fits that the USA deviated from Israel’s plan. Recently Trump and Netanyahu mostly argue when they talk.

Now that we got such a nice picture of JD Vance, we almost have to squeeze in that movie where he embarrasses himself during negotiations with Iran, a lightweight trying to fight heavyweight against an early Tyson.

The sanctions against the shadow fleet also seem to be going really well I must say.

A ship that the entire West has full sanctions against sails past Denmark with Russian dirty oil and the only ones trying to follow the ship are Greenpeace. Fun that Greenpeace is involved though – good good.

The aluminum transports from Ireland to Russia via either sanctioned ships or our ships are also still going on completely unhindered to this day. Huge amounts have been exported to RU throughout the war.

Here you have a readable article that has done its homework – very good and in line with how we have discussed over time I think how things have gone?

Probably they stole everything from the thread without swishing MXT.

The better things go for Ukraine, the greater the risk that Russia will strike out against us – that correlation cannot be changed and the only thing our leaders must do now is do nothing at all. Let Ukraine be, reinforce the Baltics and let time work against Putin because he is the one who feels it is overtime now, no one else.

Probably the most critical phase of the war now at the beginning of the end but if Ukraine loses momentum anything can happen.

Now Zalizhny apparently intends to run in the presidential election if it takes place, he is good and we like him a lot but that also means there are many divisions in Ukraine that RU can capitalize on. If we go against Ukraine now the damage could be incalculable.

Paid subscription has been hard to sell unfortunately, I hope as always that 8USD/month can be worth it to keep the writing going and I also don’t want to lock texts and all that – but more subscribers are needed, it’s hard to get around. Thanks also to all the loyal ones who have subscribed through this.

Inlägget Ukraine perseveres relentlessly, June 3, 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

Life was more in the passing lane when, alone in the biting wind, one saw the potential in the world’s best shooting while everyone else thought Russia would be in Kiev in three days – headwinds strengthen, everyone who lives in Norrland north of Uppsala in the mosquito ghetto knows that. The number of bunglers who have said over the years that it would be trench warfare à la WW1 and a “Korean peace” wouldn’t even fit in the Globe Arena.

Now it is no longer possible to find any angles in the Ukraine war that a thousand other analysts haven’t already covered six lanes wide – in the end, everyone seems to have understood what separates the world’s best shooting from the Red Storm’s crutch shooting mixed with crawling shooting. They have shifted their position quietly and have always believed in the Ukrainian miracle. No one bothers to check what they wrote earlier, so they got their fresh start and can draw a divine salary.

It’s also no use getting bogged down in domestic politics before the election because eight parliamentary parties are currently lying through their teeth about everything they will do better than everyone else if we just choose them – making the first 250,000 SEK tax-free is something no one likes even though it does more for low-paid workers and is a tax cut, so something both sides of the fence should like. That probably tells you something about politicians in general more than that they haven’t figured it out yet because when it comes to raising their own salaries and raking in various benefits, they never miss an opening – all politicians in all parties. I can somewhat think that when a capitalist lives as he teaches, it’s less lousy than when the defenders of the weak also do it as soon as they get the chance, but it’s just nuances on a pitch-black canvas.

Trump’s rampages and the Iran war are also not worth getting into because everything is just constant disinformation. I sympathize with the people of Iran and wonder a bit if Israel is starting to be in a bad position but have also grown tired of it. Usually, the carousel during a week is; threat, peace, bombings, eternal peace, and then fighting everything.

Complaining about Trump, Biden, Sullivan, Scholz, and Europe’s general betrayal until 2026 is also getting tiresome – we live in a world where no one is ever held accountable for this gang, and Ukraine has for some unfathomable reason managed to navigate all those mines and come out on top – it should have been impossible but they have shown time and again that it’s just a door waiting to be opened, and it is never locked. With some exceptions, ourselves in Sweden for example, many countries that out of pure self-preservation should have wholeheartedly supported Ukraine have dragged their feet and constantly looked for the best return on the blood sacrifices.

It’s hysterically funny that Putin, despite all cheating, is going to lose his special operation. Kursk was really slippery – Trump didn’t mention it with a word, Putin refused to receive his negotiators in Moscow, Zelensky hesitates when he says it became unsustainable and UA retreated from all areas a few days before the negotiations between the USA and Russia were to begin. Then Putin goes to Kursk in uniform and struts around with a broad grin – he couldn’t manage to retake lost Russian land and had to cheat his way through it, very Russian.

Don’t forget the paid subscription – I’ll probably come up with something to write about again soon that will blow your socks off.

Was named a financial genius in the thread on johanno1.se so there will be a post about what you should put all your savings in now in July – a real rocket promised just in time for retirement, as long as the stock markets keep heading for new highs.

I’ve squeezed everything out of the Russian escalation into the Baltics – the marker I am waiting for is if the US heavy battalion in Estonia is withdrawn, then the Russians will follow.

Ukraine is trying to topple Belarus, we’ve also run that on repeat with the whole process as the Russian empire where the sun never sets implodes to the tunes of Swan Lake in black and white. There will certainly be a post about that plan which may need to be reviewed a few more times since all analysts seem content with peace and ceasefire – I can guarantee it won’t stop there as soon as the opportunity arises.

Maybe I should start with model building, I’m getting tired of Rise of Nations.

From my seat in the stands, I really only see one threat to a Ukrainian smashing victory – that Putin agrees to a ceasefire and Europe is talked down so Ukraine is forced into it – the only remaining leverage is the EU membership, so Europe must not let itself be talked out of it. Then everything goes back to square one but I think Meloni and Macron are holding their style right now, especially Meloni is more than we thought.

The Nordics have no thought of anything like that – we want to see Russian blood in the water as many liters as we can get. The fact is that the country Sweden with its 10 million inhabitants is at the absolute top in all kinds of support and signal politics, I think we will gain a lot more respect in the EU and internationally after this. The next government, whoever it may be, should be careful not to tarnish this newly bought reputation which is extremely good for the country in every way. I have lived through the humanitarian great power, the negotiations with Palestine – Israel where our negotiator became persona non grata with both parties. Not to mention all possible major international projects that would have put us on the map but ended with us having to buy the highly coveted position in the UN with cash. The support for our blood brothers in Ukraine is considerably more low-key but the world sees what we do without laughing out loud – Sweden as a country is definitely on the rise in reputation and we must nurture it like a newly bought kebab with extra white sauce.

Putin’s cautious peace overtures have already started to be mixed with claims that he is at war with Europe and NATO to underpin the upcoming conflict with the Baltics.

Trump has just started up again about immediate peace and that everything is Ukraine’s fault as usual, pretty soon Ukraine will probably be the aggressor and Russia wants peace in our time to protect the children.

Soon RU will probably also be sitting in the UN crying about all of Ukraine’s war crimes but if Europe does nothing beyond doing absolutely nothing, it won’t slow Ukraine’s path to a smashing victory. Doing nothing is usually our politicians’ specialty so we should be able to soft-land this runaway express train just before the station if Ukraine is allowed to manage themselves without us disturbing them.

One must not forget that Ukraine is still paying for this in blood and that every meter is dearly bought. 3rd AC and their extent up in Lyman have had a couple of attempts that were brutally smashed.

UA is supposed to lose 1:3 to 1:5 of RU losses but it is still several thousand per month – we must not forget this in the euphoria.

It has probably dawned on quite a few that Ukraine has created this war’s “wunderwaffen”. WWII with its “blitzkrieg” is the closest in time, but all major conflicts usually have a party that is quick to find something that works, and then they dominate geographically for quite a while.

Swedish Caroleans, the feared Spanish infantry, Macedonians, Roman legions who took everything they met on the battlefields and made it their own, and many more.

The USA is just trying to steal Ukrainian technology and sell it themselves, but Europe seems to be fair, offering joint projects and buying in?

I believe Ukraine has done the following – a completely decentralized arms industry solely focused on functionality (dead Russian bastard) with a simple track to field test and deliver. They are open to everything, no lobbying from old weapons giants holding things back, and they pay their way.

Probably the companies have a deal where they must sell in Ukraine first and at “Ukraine prices” and then, as a thank you, they get permission to try to sell their products internationally with the state’s help.

A fully competitive market economy and doing like the Romans – if you meet a weapon on the battlefield, retreat and immediately build your own copy which you improve to deliver a counterstrike 10 times worse.

The only thing Ukraine really hasn’t managed to build is the advanced aircraft, which for a long time was the US ace up the sleeve to hold them back. Putin has completely shifted from artillery to FAB (fuel-air bombs) which are still protected.

Now Ukraine has at least built its own FAB – we know this weapon is terrible and a bunker killer. All Russian equipment is buried today, so welcome buried in boiling earth, Russian bastards.

They are also working on everything else – ICBMs, nuclear weapons technology, Patriot copies, and literally every type of missile and drone that has existed on the drawing board.

Their drones are increasingly AI-controlled and one operator can now control thousands of drones – gone are the days when it was a quadcopter with a strapped-on hand grenade dropped through an open turret hatch by an operator.

This is how it feels on the receiving side now.

You also remember how it then became RPG grenades and direct hits, on a few occasions I suggested 155mm shells taped onto drones and was laughed at, but they have passed that and left several miles behind.

Late 2022 or early 2023 I also once declared that the drone weapon would not become the new black – how wrong I was.

So what is this new black drone weapon that I have always believed in so strongly?

It is a completely new branch of weapons with the following functions –

– information gathering and target acquisition, today Ukraine has its own satellites and everything that looks down on the ground CAN have IR and direct coordinate acquisition on the screen. You no longer need to squint to find contours and guess approximate coordinates. You see a large bright red figure hobbling forward on crutches and the coordinates come up directly on the screen.

– a kill-chain which we probably call the digital battlefield in Sweden? The information goes from detection where it is now sorted automatically and then to the appropriate weapon platform which is often the drone weapon. Ukraine started early with its “Uber for artillery”. Russia couldn’t manage to use its own platform before China stepped in to handle it for them, now today it is unfortunately serviceable. Ukraine has apparently cut its kill-chain to “seconds” according to themselves which probably means rapid fire on target, I guess under minutes?

Zelensky tried to give Trump an iPad where they get all information in real time but he didn’t want it, it’s just the summaries, but when twelve-gauge shotgun users visited Ukraine and saw their digital battlefield centers, it blew their socks off.

“It’s better than what we have in the USA,” was said wide-eyed several times.

When Russia has tested us in Europe, we sometimes discover the drones by chance and then we can’t shoot them down, so pretty sure that “it’s better than what we have in Europe” also applies here.

– the drones. Today Ukraine has everything, FPV drones that create a fire control zone between 0km-50km operated by the brigades themselves and drone groups. Independent drone units that can quickly pool capabilities to a prioritized area where they bring everything on a bunch of pickups.

Then came the “mid-range” a few months ago between 50km-250km and since it was rolled out as a new capability, it hit the Russian logistics hard. Exactly like when HIMARS came in 2022 and the US provided longer-range ammunition in stages so just as Russia, sweating profusely, moved all depots backward, they were knocked out again with new ammunition. This capability seems to be with the special forces and drone units?

Back then it was the US making the target acquisitions and if you remember, many higher staffs were knocked out despite being constantly relocated. Today everything is buried in underground “cities” so it’s a bit harder but from time to time they get a hit on some slow CAA staff who wanted a sea view. Welcome homemade FAB, I say.

The long-range drones and first missiles were in the air already in 2023 but Ukraine was constantly stopped. Quietly, they have built a whole palette of drones and missiles from old V1s to advanced cruise missiles that completely replace Tomahawks, Storm Shadow, and Taurus.

All this costs pesetas instead of our “50 million missiles”.

Sometimes Zelensky used to say “we are building 10 million FPV drones this year and 2500 long-range ones per year” – what the numbers are today I don’t know but we see several times a week that they have enough

UA has now passed a tipping point in several drone types where they have double or better than RU, and are still increasing.

EW – electronic warfare. It was long a joke when you saw some Russian standing with a futuristic rifle aiming at a drone flying into him unhindered, and Ukraine long chose kinetic countermeasures.

Now they have systems that work on all frequencies and are so effective that they have jammed many Zircon missiles which are Russia’s latest in the arsenal.

The Ukrainian EW weapon works.

They were also early with acoustic warning systems that the USA now seems to be trying to copy besides many other systems so they basically have full control over incoming drone threats. Compare that with us in Europe, that Belgian or German army base where

We wrote about it when it happened even though everyone got upset that I praised Russian weapons – small drones that fit in a cassette on a handheld “rifle” we thought aloud would come, and we are probably almost there?

Dirt-cheap fire-and-forget drones that have now surpassed 70% of shot down threats and can also combat incoming missiles, and absolutely slow Geran drones. The anti-drone drones seem to be effective little helpers.

-Radar in all its forms, small and large, where part of the chain is to log Russian drone groups and combat them lightning fast. For both Ukraine and Russia, the enemy’s drone groups are the highest priority to target, and Ukraine comes out on top.

Since Ukraine has all these capabilities fully integrated, they could quickly send drone groups down to MENA when Iran started bombing surrounding countries. They made such a big difference that the entire MENA immediately signed contracts at any price.

Ukraine tried to quickly train local operators but it did not go very well – half the success lies in the person controlling the system, they understood quickly.

It is easy to see that AI-controlled drone swarms are one of the ways forward along with the anti-drone drones.

Ukraine is also experimenting with battlefield lasers and the new German LV akan is very effective, but they are large targets so everything handheld, cheap, and functional is preferable.

All weapon systems on an expensive slow platform are mostly large targets unless they have very long range. For example, our CV90 GRK version certainly shoots fast but stands directly under the Russians’ FPV drone range and probably won’t last long in combat. Goodness, what a fuss there was on defense Twitter when I happened to say that to them.

Probably eventually there will also be very small AI drones with a warhead the size of a cartridge, it has been in the works for a while. They probably sit on “mother drones” and then release a cloud over a coordinate that buzzes into all openings and searches for targets.

The charm of the drone weapon is that it partly prevents traditional mobile warfare entirely but at the same time allows the fighting party that has the advantage in drone weapons to fight fully mechanized and mobile – somewhat of a paradox that we in Europe have not yet fully understood, I think. It is quite common to invest in a capability that has proven successful and then deprioritize everything else – I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Europe does exactly that going forward and thinks it can manage without mechanized forces as long as it has drones.

The drone groups Ukraine has sent to our exercises where the most infamous was Aurora 2026 are just some platoon with FPV drones so quite far from the most advanced they have if I understand this correctly.

For two years we have been completely outmatched – during Aurora 2026 the exercise leadership finally had to remove the pesky Ukrainians so we could show how well prepared we are for war, just not against a scaled-down drone weapon.

Ukraine is also doing this of course – they are building up all traditional capabilities and today basically have an entire defense force that is mechanized in some form, a mosaic of armored vehicles, artillery, infantry, LV, and air force. A brigade probably has a dozen different types of fragmentation protection but everything is good and they work with what they have. Solve the task, they said in the military service, and that eternal feeling that you never had enough.

You should not be fooled – any enemy that does not have a well-developed drone weapon is a fool, and we in Europe seem to be a few years away from having it.

If there is a conflict, we will have to solve it with infantry and mines – it works but losses will be higher.

The best Europe can do is to temporarily pause large cost items like Spain’s aircraft carrier or Italy’s NATO expenses which also include bridges, or our huge surface combatant purchase from France.

Then we build up the drone weapon from scratch with Ukrainian help and keep the air force and all ground combat capabilities – it is probably attractive not to have any ground combat capability at all and just invest in the drone weapon but we must do like Ukraine.

Then we are safe and can over time start building expeditionary capabilities for other conflict zones if we need to help our friends around the world when Trump, Putin, and Xi have divided the world into geographic slices among themselves.

If we seriously follow Ukraine’s lead and stop listening to lobbyists in the defense industry, we have probably reached the goal in two years – it is a ready and well-tested concept so we only need to buy, train, and deploy.

Apparently, there is bubbling in the Russian army, it is not psyops but it is the OSINT sources we have learned to trust over time posting from Russian forums where different units have started threatening Putin with revolution. History repeats itself, maybe…

I will circle back to this when we have a bit more information to go on and then a post about Ukraine’s real plan – the whole “negotiate peace” is probably just for show, they intend to topple the country Russia before this is over. They have repeatedly told us this if you have listened and now Zelensky has managed to reveal that they have a plan for Belarus.

The ball is rolling, we are definitely at the beginning of the end now, that is indisputable but can we give Putin a cheat victory again?

Yes, if Europe lets itself be talked out of it because the US is holding back all LNG this fall. To protect ourselves, we threaten Ukraine with withdrawal of EU membership if they do not accept a necessary ceasefire and peace in our time to save the children.

But the EU and Europe will not stand united at all on that issue so probably that attempt will fail which has now been paved the way for if you have read previous posts.

The hardest thing is to penetrate the fog and understand how we in the West really think and act. Ukraine has been refreshingly honest and open since 2022 and I feel that our government over 4 years has been clear even though the US betrayals were long concealed. For example, when we were not allowed to send our Gripen a few years ago, it was easy to see through the excuses.

Around Iran, the Kurds have started fighting the IRGC, Iraq has had a purge of pro-Iranian elements in the country and the US is building up enormous new capabilities – not everything is signed peace treaties and world peace there, but you have to try to guess as best you can.

Xi Jinping has also said interesting things recently, since it is Putin who is putting pressure on Lukashenko it can only be him who is meant – have we got trouble in paradise?

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/belarus-lukashenko-meets-chinas-xi-beijing-talks-2026-06-29

Inlägget Ukraine and the drone weapon, 1 July 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

A mood picture from a previous RU attempt at Siversky Donets and not from this year.

So standing outdoors in bright sunshine all day monitoring a geotech with SPT and drilling – sunburn like a fried lobster roughly and gulping bottled water like a midsummer binge, hence the silence.

Last week there were meetings ahead of contract signing with the Chinese marine contractor and I have seen something new. The client is an Italian company so they start at 09:00 plus or minus half an hour and push on until 19:00 plus or minus an hour with some short breaks, then straight out for dinner until 22:00 – repeat for five days.

No structure, no program and often everyone just sits and shouts over each other only to then dive into individual discussions in Italian and Chinese – when you think everything is lost “yes we agree to that”.

Since we are not basing on FIDIC or any other framework it becomes “sky is the limit”, I sat quietly for a whole week just studying the chaos. The lunches were divine, Italian finger food lunch, and the dinners Spanish “steakhouse” where you get a few kilos of imported Spanish beef to stuff yourself per person so my diet is ruined.

An experience. Older Italian managers who have flown in are quite sophisticated and interesting to talk to – a class you rarely see nowadays, old school.

I thought about starting with Iran but I can’t be bothered, a cycle of disinformation and constantly new messages. I honestly feel sorry for the Iranian citizens who were thrown under the bus by Trump. Supported a regime change, do not support this at all. Israel has brought on a significantly worsened security situation but the laws of war also apply to them now that they chose full war with Iran.

3rd AC is responsible for the area north of Lyman which is among the tougher front sections, plus they are undermanned as all reserves were taken for Kupiansk.

Despite that they have managed to reach Zherebets NE of the town of Lyman and are trying to attack further north to cut off the Russian attack vector towards Sviatlohirsk and the town of Oskil (not the watercourse).

They are probing Yampolivka and from the NW the 3rd Assault brigade is attacking towards SE.

What I think we have seen in recent weeks are RU infiltration attempts into Lyman through the forest area east of the town but they die drone deaths.

Now the Russians have shown themselves to be experts at slipping out of encirclements but Putin is behind in the chain of events here, we guessed that and now we have proof of it.

Recently we received the two maps below from Stepnohirsk and they are grossly misleading, the Russian one thinks things are going much better than they are and is a staff map.

During a recent front visit by one of Putin’s clones, enthusiastic soldiers answered that they were attacking everywhere.

Since bad news is punished with dismissal or underwear jumps from windows, the selection of bad news up the tree is guaranteed to be tough because no one wants to get a wedgie before tumbling down from the tenth floor straight onto the asphalt. That punishment now seems to be meted out for a bit of everything so the will to survive probably makes people fudge the truth as much as they can.

Moreover, Russian army commanders still have orders for offensive and to start retreating from entire front sections is very un-Russian, you don’t live long doing that.

If 3rd AC reaches Akiivka and the southern part of the pincer works its way up towards Ivanivka, which is a few km for both, without orders for RU retreat given, it can get tight over the few bridges left when the Russian retreat (panic flight) begins.

Ukraine then knows exactly where on the map traffic jams will occur in the drone-saturated battlefield of 2026.

RU has about 12 units in the area, not all regiments, so it would cause serious negative publicity if they were shot off on the highway and a beautiful drone flyover post-massacre was done.

Not to mention what a deep hole would open in the Russian front in northern Luhansk if that plays out.

Northern Luhansk is low priority for RU and there are not many task forces behind the fronts – those units have been used first when the whip has been on for RU’s own spring offensive Putin has given clear orders about.

Just one of many dangerous situations for RU along the fronts now – good good.

It’s probably up to Sirsky if he wants to add anything from the strategic offensive reserve but 3rd AC is quite known for pushing on with what they have and making the impossible possible. They always seem to fight at a 1:5 numerical disadvantage during their own offensive operations and have clawed their way to their own excellent drone weapon.

Ukraine already smells Russian hepatitis blood in the water – very unlike them to miss something like this.

For those of you who immediately start dreaming of a greater Luhansk, this area is closest to Russia and reinforcements from the north but forcing RU back over Zherebets is already underway.

If Sirsky decides to release resources from the strategic offensive reserve and add drone capability, anything can happen.

In this context, I can really only see positive angles to getting Russia into the Baltics for Ukraine. It would relieve the pressure on them. Right now it’s the opposite – the Belarusian threat means UA has to pull units from the northern front to cover over there and you know what RU can do then – free up units for the Baltics.

Slovyansk/Kramatorsk is the target for this year’s Russian attack vectors and they are working their way forward, a bit like a flytrap and Bakhmut over that area, I guess they’ll keep at it?

Since it is a focus point, FAB bombs are raining down and it is not a fun area at all to try to defend for UA.

Something I missed when Ukraine gained fire control over all access roads to Dnepr and Crimea was that fuel shortage is more important than the water shortage which was what I highlighted.

Apparently almost all brigades get all their electricity supply from generators and if they have no fuel calm settles – no communication, no drones, no mobiles and finally no vehicles that can drive. Stril simply goes silent and indirect capabilities have no targets.

My chain was no trucks – no water – camel thirst. But gasoline and diesel might be more important anyway.

If you look at RU offensive operations posted daily on johanno1.se it looks like they have already peaked.

Zelensky has recently gone hard against Belarus who immediately backed down.

After he “destroyed” Moscow which the Russians did not like at all – they have started claiming they are fighting against the entire NATO now to soften that blow.

We are probably close to the point where Russia must act outwards and escalate, they are seriously on the defensive in Ukraine and have started importing fuel from China.

I guess escalation will come before collapse in the country so now it’s probably high risk for the Baltics in the coming months.

Hegseth has just fired the top European chief, Donahue, he probably protested all the cutbacks. He is kind of the US Rommel – an absolute legend who has been everywhere there has been fighting the last 20-25 years. The right man in the right place he absolutely was so easy to see why he was made to retire.

There is one heavy American unit left in the Baltics, a battalion in SE Estonia – if it disappears we can probably assume things will get lively so I’m keeping an eye on it.

That thing about “Russian buildup does not exist” – everything is always relative, right, and if a lot of heavy units leave the Baltics, RU needs less until those gaps are filled.

Ukraine seems to have plans for Belarus and if there is unrest in that country, there is a chance RU will have to use its strategic offensive reserve for that instead – which would be very good.

This year the risk of Russian escalation against Europe is at its highest, especially before the rainy season sometime in October.

In Ukraine, the situation is at least precarious for RU and before October Crimea is probably lost. Already now the bridge is packed with civilians leaving – the rumor is spreading like wildfire.

Don’t know if the picture is genuine, had a verified video but lost it carelessly…

This video is interesting, there is no structure at all just a flowing movement but I feel they have total control over the situation. We never reached this level in the military service, not even close. We fought according to doctrine and the unknown was the attack target, either we ran over it or died on the way.

This fight is constantly adapting to the threat in a quite interesting way – probably their suppressive fire is so accurate that it does all the work instead of, like when we just fired in the enemy’s direction with bursts and alternated advances.

They are standing right in the middle of a field in front of a Russian fortification system, a single group, and take the attack target without own losses – you hardly believe it’s true.

Rumor has it that a couple of different European countries are starting to get worried about UA’s strength and what they will do when they have beaten Russia in a fair war.

Europe never ceases to disappoint us, never fails.

The only thing we should fear is if UA loses the war or is forced to peace – then the million soldiers will take what they consider their right in Europe’s underworld.

As it looks now, they are just Europe’s most important ally whom we must get into the EU as fast as possible before they change their minds.

I usually sulk over old sins but now it’s hard to manage to stay interested when we have now reached the beginning of the end. Already in 2023 Ukraine tried this combat against oil infrastructure, then the USA and Europe slowed them down in rounds by cutting support as soon as they went too far.

They actually had everything in the toolbox already then and RU considerably less LV so the result would probably have been the same anyway, operators on the ground or one of the liberation fronts inside Russia handled it from afar.

Many dead three years later Ukraine now has sufficient own production giving them the possibility to completely ignore our good advice and honorable intentions.

One should perhaps remember that now when we cheer all successes that Ukraine probably does not forget the first four years in the near term. We owe them everything really and a bit more for all our sabotage – post-war we really must treat them well and not revert to our condescending attitude.

Don’t forget paid subscription in this summer heat – it cools you down.

Inlägget We aimed for Oskil but it was only Zherebets, June 26, 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

There are 55,000 women in the Ukrainian Armed Forces spread everywhere – including combat elite units.

Yesterday we summarized the fronts and it is my opinion that we have reached the beginning of the end. This period will have two pillars – one where Ukraine continuously advances and we are showered with good news, then a second where Putin presumably has no intention of crawling back into his hole and crying quietly. I see escalation as a given.

I recently deep-dived into the Leningrad military district because I believe that this old-new military district would be tasked with entering the Baltics – if it happens.

In 2024, the Western MD was scrapped and became the Moscow and Leningrad military districts instead.

There was something about this reshuffle that has been bothering me – they were supposed to set up new divisions, for example, and then they split the spearhead aimed at us in Europe into two.

Moscow’s military district roughly covers from the Belarus border down along Ukraine’s northern border – so Leningrad’s military district is from the Belarus border and northward, simplified.

Unfortunately, almost everything discussed about the new military district concerns what they are doing along the Finnish border, but they have built the same bases, depots, and barracks toward the Baltics in the Pskov area. In addition, train stations, tracks, and roads have been improved and newly built parallel to these new bases and depots.

For a couple of years, the Baltics have warned that they covered the train station in Pskov with camouflage nets and that artillery units passing through the town then do not appear in Ukraine. We are thus +2 years into an active preparation phase.

Since we in Europe after the Cold War understood that the Russians had parked all heavy equipment in barns and other buildings along the border so that the warning we thought we would get instead would have been much shorter, it is not unreasonable to believe that RU is trying to do it again.

In the past year, I haven’t really heard anything – my sources in the Kremlin were probably oversold as I didn’t get enough paid subscriptions here and couldn’t pay them.

To begin with, the entire cluster of units belonging to Leningrad MD is along the northern front against Ukraine except for the 14th AC which is down in northern Luhansk – but the 71st MRD included in it is at the northern front.

Then we have the 76th GAAD of course which fought at Pokrovsk but they are no longer at the front dying down there.

For everyone looking at the unit maps, you can see that RU has a lot of capability along the northern front, significantly more than the buffer zone they intend to seize.

My thought has been that Ukraine with its 6 ACs in the area is preparing something fun that RU is watching, but of course there is the possibility that RU units are there to mask their buildup toward the Baltics – that would be smart and has demonstrably worked if so.

The units belonging to Leningrad MD –

With this, I just want to shout out that absolutely everyone is completely wrong when they say “Russia has not built up any capability against the Baltics.”

1st CAA and 3 ACs are exactly 9 hours driving time by road from the eastern border of the Baltics. They are fully mobilized, trained, have combat experience, and have been in some kind of half-rest since around 2025 when it calmed down at the northern front, I don’t know exact dates and am too lazy to google it.

The command structure is fully staffed up to the MD commander.

The commander of Leningrad MD, Colonel General Yevgeny Nikiforov, is an old fox who started already in 2014 when they attacked Ukraine, has led the operation in Syria and most recently survived all purges of senior officers in Ukraine since 2022. Career in VDV where he commanded battalions and regiments.

He is probably considered competent by Russian standards, previously it was Lapin who is Ukraine’s best friend but since the turn of 2025/2026 this gentleman took over.

Besides the units we have listed, RU will latch onto the drone weapon from Rubicon whatever might be needed for a “special operation” which absolutely should not be confused with a war.

A bit about the units,

6th CAA.

Has fought in Ukraine since 2022 and actually has a Ukrainian as commander, Lieutenant General Sergei Storozhenko.

Built around two motorized divisions with army artillery.

44th AC

Built around a motorized division and corps artillery. The unit took heavy losses in the UA Kharkiv offensive 2022.

Newly established AC with a newly established motorized division and a commander who previously had a military base in Dagestan and then Ossetia – Major General Roman Vyazovsky.

Does not give a competent impression at all and the bar is set very low.

11th AC

Based in Kaliningrad and presumably a prioritized unit. Competent corps commander Lieutenant General Renat Chaliko.

14th AC

Built around their Arctic motorized regiments and presumably competent.

The commander is Major General Boris Fomichev and it is hard to find good information on him but he has previously led the Arctic brigades.

—

Since there are more units at the northern front than Leningrad MD, and also the North Koreans’ 11th AC which has now been heavily reinforced as secretly as RU could, you can probably pull units from the northern front without it collapsing.

Seems like there is a bit more connected to Leningrad in case of conflict – the 336th marine infantry has become the 120th marine division and is gone at Donetsk.

Marine Spetsnaz and combat divers at the Baltic Fleet, Northern Fleet, and Kaliningrad – don’t know where they are stationed.

Besides that, as previously said, there is a variety of special units for FSB, GRU, and SVR which fall under the early infiltration group and can be deployed if needed.

For example SOF Zenesh (which seems to belong to Leningrad MD) and Kubinka-2 at the northern front which falls under Russian SSO modeled after the West with operators.

2nd Spetsnaz brigade belongs to Leningrad MD, but the 45th Spetsnaz brigade is also at the northern front.

Going through the fronts, RU has pooled VDV, marines, reconnaissance, and Spetsnaz at focal points. The northern front should not be a focal point but has quite a lot of special units in the broader area.

Releasing units of course assumes that Ukraine is not putting everything on one card against Moscow at the same time which by definition makes E3’s desire for a ceasefire absolutely high risk.

Moving away the special units all else equal works perfectly fine already now.

If NK 11th AC has been reinforced now, you can also move away the equivalent of their numbers without the total decreasing. It is their “special forces corps” and the Ukrainians respect them even if I made it a thing to mock the tape worms.

Then UA has other focus areas and may pull away units needed for offensive operations elsewhere, it can become critical or there can be violent breakthroughs – who knows?

RU can also place training of new units in the area to be able to pull away others – we thought Ukraine would do that at the border with Belarus and have Europe’s armed forces as instructors but no one bit.

Ukraine absolutely must move capabilities over to Belarus to meet the threat that is not a threat but one never takes chances.

Overall, there are units under Leningrad MD that today can travel 9 hours under their own power up to the border with the Baltics without creating a vacuum.

We can assume that the chain of command has reconnoitered the terrain.

Ukraine is not all-seeing; if they see units being supplied with vehicles or starting to move at the northern front, it could be preparation for an attack southwards, movement down into Ukraine, Belarus, or towards the Baltics. If Russia keeps it somewhat secret, Ukraine can basically only say “a movement is underway.”

Europe will not start jumping up and down over troop movements at the northern front until we see them on the road passing Smolensk or Vitebsk – only then is it indisputable where they are heading a few hours before they reach the border with the Baltics.

I think this is very important and still do not understand how the common perception can still be that Russia has not built up any threat against the Baltics. I almost get the feeling that we believe we will get a week’s warning or longer, preferably the same as in 2022 where everything is staged for months, so that we can be reactive in the way we have prepared for.

Considering how well Russia has managed to sneak in the capabilities they have brought into the overall Pskov area today, and the reinforcement of NK 11th AC, I don’t think there will be more warning than the Balts starting to scream about little green men and simultaneously the units from the northern front are on the move the same day or the day after.

Whether we manage to reinforce the Baltics before they have dug in along the Daugava remains to be seen. The Poles and Germans will have to get through a drone-saturated battlefield from Suwalki and northwards after they have mobilized.

They will have refugee flows, roads mined at distance, and clouds of drones to work through before finally trying to cross the Daugava. There will be no 9-hour driving time there when they have mobilized late.

If this now plays out, where the risk is probably over this fall when the mud season begins, I think the decision Europe’s leaders then need to handle is to retake all terrain north of the Daugava up to Tallinn but you know that from previous posts on the subject.

It could very well happen that the Poles simply roll over Kaliningrad and that our heavy attack quickly deals with the Baltic Fleet, but that does not change the fact that we still have to retake the area by force – Putin has shown great willingness to sacrifice lives and not give up terrain except when he loses it in a fair war so far.

How would such a war of aggression affect Putin – if he gets a good start it would absolutely be positive for him and take focus away from his upcoming crushing defeat in Ukraine.

Ukraine is lost to him anyway and his alternatives are escalation elsewhere or to leave Ukraine and take the full consequences of a crushing defeat without being able to dangle a single victory anywhere.

I know I keep drifting back to the Baltics but it is only because we are not preparing for peace.

Now the US is going to pull even more capability out of Europe. The total numbers are irrelevant because they are removing the spearhead and having thousands in the logistics tail left does not win any wars.

I don’t know exactly what the markers are here but if the American battalion from Estonia disappears without replacements showing up, it’s probably a serious situation.

Russia has apparently started bringing in capabilities into Belarus again.

https://tsn.ua/en/ukrayina/moscow-deploys-military-helicopters-to-belarus-what-it-means-for-kyiv-3104774.html

If Russia can force Ukraine to stretch its defense out to the Belarus border, it naturally becomes easier for them to pull units from the northern front – everything is always relative.

The most relative thing is a paid subscription on Substack – don’t miss this great offer.

That Sweden has now, belatedly, spoken out is hailed as a great success – what we are actually doing is finishing a report this fall.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/avslojar-har-upprustar-ryssland-bara-kilometer-fran-natos-grans

If the Russians have not already dug in north of the Daugava, this has value; otherwise, it’s just a world record in paper shuffling.

There are occasions when The Phantom walks the city streets as an ordinary man, right?

The ONLY thing of value right now is to reinforce the Baltics so the Russian analysis group stamps a bright red no on the battle plan out of pure self-preservation.

That Putin will quietly accept total humiliation in Ukraine, which has now reached the beginning of the end, is incredible. Europe must prepare for the death throes; anything else is irresponsible and incompetent.

You know very well what I think about our elected officials, employees in key positions, and experts after 4.5 years, but right now it is a critical situation so we no longer have time on our side; Ukraine cannot buy us more time with its rivers of children’s blood.

Probably 2026 is the most important year for Europe after 2022; wrong decisions could have consequences for us for the next 70 years – good or bad.

The biggest threat right now – G7 where Russian media eagerly discuss that Trump will try to get Zelensky and Europe to agree to a ceasefire.

I want to argue that a preschool class just before lunch would easily come to the conclusion that a ceasefire in Ukraine catapults the probability of direct conflict with Russia in the near term to almost 1.

Even without a ceasefire, Russia has redundancy to open a conflict front against us, but it would naturally help if Ukraine were forced to sit on its hands when they start.

Inlägget Leningrad Military District, 16 June 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

Apparently intercepted yesterday from the Kremlin, it is said to be 100% true.

Something else that is also 100% true is that every UA OSINT analyst on Twitter, down to those barely read, has just said in their own ways (poorly disguised) that they have been asked to respect OPSEC until otherwise indicated.

Those of you who have been around for a while know that this means violent and burning things are underway from Ukraine’s side.

The fact that this coincides with the summer period, which is perfect for offensive operations, and that the pre-combat has been grandiose in recent months makes it difficult to arrive at any other assumption than that Ukraine plans to grill the Russian fish over an open fire this year.

If you have read Johan No.1, you knew well over a year ago that UA had a strategic offensive reserve, and you also know that we have good reason to assume that there are maneuver brigades fully equipped in the past year/years with all the new materiel that has poured in.

As usual – “Russia can never lose,” “it will end in trench warfare,” “this will be a Korean-style peace” – those lying and incompetent analysts I want to grill, the ones I’ve argued with for 4.5 years.

Since I worked with my Peruvian colleague since April 2023 and he was, for good reasons, a USA hater as they are in South America, he was also quite positive towards Russia automatically. The discussions were long, and every time Ukraine started something beautiful and violent that Europe and the USA destroyed, you had to sit there and mutter with a broadly grinning colleague across the table who said, “What did I tell you, no one can beat Russia, right,” even though the cheating was obvious.

Clement Molin has the same problem as I do. I write what I see and make my own analyses on raw data, which is rarely mainstream, and then you have at least half against you sometimes everyone. Then as soon as it becomes mainstream, everyone talks about it as news and you have to sit there alone forgotten and take another snus. I have very little patience for most and believe that those in Europe who should make decisions are limited partly by their professional roles but also generally influenced by the environment around them.

That sharp analyses that have such impact that something directly happens still do not come today, I find very hard to accept but understandable. Then there is “if you want peace, you must prepare for war” with some lead time on the second part of that phrase – foresight is smart.

When established media have managed to tie the threads together and serve a finished analysis, it is already far advanced and rarely correct anyway because the conclusion is wrong.

Those of you who have read for a long time may remember Kuwait Highway 2.0?

Here you have a good start, UA has knocked out all the bridges down to Crimea from the north, leaving only one road open farthest west.

An enterprising Russian brigade commander arranged the logistics for transport over open communication channels and it looked like this, apparently 50 vehicles in total but not all appear to be burning.

Unrelated mood film

The Azov thrust is thus already given – there is nothing RU can do on the battlefield that can change this now.

We described it already in 2022, I believe, when the USA urgently had to intervene to close the open goal back in autumn 2022.

The 2023 spring offensive should have gone better than it did but the USA, Ukrainian parliamentarians, Europe, and their own commanders at various levels leaked everything to the Russians. Then we forced Ukraine to fight in the way we thought would work and they paid for it in blood – what I think we saw there was that NATO commanders were involved a bit like Sirsky usually is and decided too much at the micro level.

They wanted inexperienced brigade commanders whom they had trained to do as they wanted – the entire command cadre from our NATO should naturally have been fired but we don’t get to have that much fun.

August 2024, you probably heard from Johan No.1 first that it would happen then as the amount of UA troops at the northern border gave it away but then Trump totally crushed that gain and gave a freebie to Putin he did not deserve.

All the time we have slowed down and delayed Ukraine when things went too well – I don’t understand how they have managed to endure this with a good face, they are simply built differently.

The difference this year is that Ukraine keeps the battle plans qualified secret – which they seem to be doing.

And then they turn a deaf ear when E3 and Trump start babbling – which I believe they do.

Then this will play out as it should have already in 2022, unfortunately my Peruvian colleague is retired and I am not in Lagos when the big win comes so there won’t be an opportunity to mock him for a week.

The single most important thing this year is the water supply for RU – a soldier needs to drink every day. If the trucks don’t get through, there will be no supply and water becomes critical first.

The Russians have always slurped from puddles but since there is so much death around them, there will be some extra diseases in those puddles this year.

The burning snake above was apparently supply for a brigade according to the Twitter kings, that tells you something about what they need in maintenance.

Already after a few weeks, transports to Crimea, the Southern front, and Dnipro dropped by 71% according to our Brovdi, as we mentioned the other day.

The pieces are starting to fall into place Senhores, this will be Ukraine’s summer and early autumn.

It is not practically possible to predict the broader outcome – Putin can at any time be wearing the wrong underwear and happen to drink a cup of tea. That he is already weakened we can assume but it is impossible to know who will come out on top.

All the generals who are blown up in their cars by accidents – it is certainly also the FSB trying to keep things clean in addition to Ukraine stealing a page from Mossad’s judiciary.

Window jumps are Putin’s right of execution, hard to see anything else.

Ukraine is preparing for a lot – subversive activities are not exclusive to Putin. Belarus, republics within Russia, Russian political opposition, and lots of other fun stuff so we have only seen the beginning.

Just like Hungary and Belarus would join the war when Kiev fell, which never happened, many different constellations in Russia are waiting for the right moment – they are as cowardly as Europe but will move when it is safe.

Brovdi – no idea about the truthfulness of that statement but one thing I know, LPR and DPR fighters have already been in contact with Budanov and will get immunity if they switch sides when the question arises. The day that happens, irreparable deep holes will appear in the Russian defense and it is game over.

Legends, absolute legends – the world’s best shooters you know if you have read Johan No.1.

More is happening, up in Lyman Azov has started cutting off the head of the snake – it’s happening somewhat quietly but it’s also a biggie.

In Kostyantynivka, UA has retreated from part of the city and units from the strategic offensive reserve arrived to ensure an organized retreat – very neat and there are always new fortified positions behind the old ones for the Russian troop commanders to bang their heads against.

Here are actually UA drone pods – you know, the ones I usually talk about but Russian. This is what they look like nowadays, the ones we in Europe still cannot shoot down.

Here you have a Ukrainian EW platform that works, unlike the Russians’.

Ukraine has sacrificed everything, they had many easy ways out but chose the hardest one which has benefited us enormously. We are simply legally, morally, and spiritually obligated to give everything back to them.

Also spiritually positive to open a paid subscription on Substack.

Inlägget Ukraine War, 15 June 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

Apparently not even AI (or…), Putin made a big faceplant at some appearance and was totally laughed at.

Back to the rest of the threats I intended to discuss before I got sidetracked into the Baltics (again).

The Iran war is strange – I think it’s clear that Israel intervened with the motivation that they wanted regime change and now they are absolutely screaming. We went through earlier that it was important for Israel that Iran’s regime fell and Pasha was flown in.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-02-24/ty-article/.premium/israel-backs-reza-pahlavi-to-rule-iran-thats-a-dangerous-gamble/0000019c-9043-dab1-adbe-ba6b9f570000

For the US, that was not an original goal of Operation Epic Fury at all, good to include that even though it was “laser-focus” – which indisputably is the highest level in warfare.

“The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons.”

https://www.war.gov/Spotlights/Operation-Epic-Fury/#:~:text=%22The%20mission%20of%20Operation%20Epic,will%20never%20have%20nuclear%20weapons.%22

I understand why Israel is starting to get nervous – the laws of war apply to them as well and Iran will never forget this.

For Iran, and according to the laws of war, Israel is now a fully legitimate target where they have the right to retaliate proportionally. Israel with the US has fought thousands of targets in the country so the last thing Israel is eager for is a proportional response from Iran, I would imagine. But they own this now because this is the real world.

Iran has also shown great willingness for “mutual destruction” so Israel can probably be sure that as soon as the Iranians have nuclear weapons, they will steal their Samson option, a last all-in when needed.

Netanyahu – Trump seems to have quarrels before meetings these days, good tone is not followed at all.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-said-to-yell-at-netanyahu-youre-fking-crazy-youd-be-in-prison-if-not-for-me

Just to sabotage, Israel has renewed hostilities in Lebanon so Iran immediately rejected the entire peace plan, then they went in and fought targets in Iran just to be sure there would be no more peace talks about the failed peace plan.

It doesn’t end there and the Trump administration promises a day of eternal peace only to immediately start bombing all over the area – I can no longer navigate this mess.

Neither can the markets so the oil price is bobbing around a hundred dollars a barrel – as soon as speculators try to short or bet on up/down movements, a statement from Trump blows them up and the levers act like a catapult straight up into the stratosphere. I don’t know if it’s a strategy but it works anyway – the oil price barely moves.

Israel has not fought the army leadership but gone after higher commanders in the IRGC, Bashjir and the mullah regime. The picture is a bit older but representative.

Israel has also armed the Kurds, has “boots on the ground” in Iran and it was they who pushed for Pasha’s takeover, as already mentioned.

The US with Trump at the helm, who knows what hidden agenda they had but it really benefits no one in the region, least of all Israel – for a while Trump was going to block Hormuz when Iran wanted it open, a bit hard to figure out who is doing what in that war.

Pretty sure a hidden agenda was that MENA would buy American security at five times the market price for the next 70 years but Ukraine totally crashed that pre-party when they went in and sold their anti-drone and anti-robot weapons at bargain prices to everyone with gold in stock.

The US has thus gone so far as to try to threaten MENA not to buy Ukrainian – completely shameless. Can’t find that statement now so this will have to do.

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-donald-trump-snubs-ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskyy-drone-help-middle-east

Possibly Trump has revealed the US plan with Iran – a common criminal smash-and-grab like any Swedish gang, but with tomahawks and planes…

Impressive from the defenders of the free world, not so much.

I stood behind a liberation of Iran’s oppressed people – this is not even close.

After that detour – further escalation in MENA is not excluded either, no one likes Israel after the latest genius move to start bombing oil installations in Iran so everyone in the area got the backlash of the decade. Regardless of what is said, there are many who don’t like each other who could consider forgetting blood feuds and cooperate to run over Israel, and preferably leave zero survivors. We have already seen Iron Dome start to falter considerably and they have seen that too.

Turkey’s Erdogan recently said this about a “Greater Israel” by the way, if Turkey starts to pull back their ears they have a quite formidable defense force that has been waging a low-key war in Syria and against the Kurds for quite a few years – it can be considered to have had some training.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/byf4y6lbfe

Other places that could start blinking red are a demilitarized Svalbard which must be defended militarily by Russia against *(insert any made-up threat)*. The US would then naturally feel compelled to preserve peace in Greenland against the Russian threat.

There’s always some silver lining – after that Iceland will be ready to cross the water to join the EU and Canada will probably submit a sharp application on the day promising us all the oil we want to bathe in at cost price.

I do not exclude that the US would send troops to Crimea just before Ukraine has retaken the peninsula – “no one has managed to hold it since 2014” so “the US must save world peace in the Black Sea” says Trump. Then it will naturally be decided that Ukraine and Russia can coexist on the peninsula with a nice agreement where the US stands in the middle. Then Trump wants the Nobel Prize again, of course. There are defense exercises in the Black Sea in July one could piggyback on if one wants.

Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are also countries Putin wants to revive in the Russian red Empire if he can. Preferably before the Georgian government falls. Now the cheeky Armenians have also elected a pro-EU government which he probably sees as a direct declaration of war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/08/armenia-europe-party-wins-election-russia-nikol-pashinyan

Three out of four down there have taken a clear stance against Putin, and in Georgia there are constant street protests against the pro-Russian regime.

That is not entirely risk-free because if everyone goes to war with Russia and Kazakhstan gets sour, Putin has an even bigger problem to handle than today straight into the country’s undefended soft parts.

Japan complains that Russia is cruising around with its fleet in the Sea of Japan and recently felt compelled to quickly send troops to Hokkaido. A bit like when our defense forces had an unannounced defense exercise on Gotland 2013-2014 sometime that never left.

So it’s full speed everywhere but soon the Trump administration will meet the Russian counterpart for a tunnel under the Bering Strait between the countries, not everything is darkness and violence.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/04/8037791

Highly interesting just that they have agreed on this at the highest level.

What Russia needs to do immediately is to push the Ukraine war into becoming secondary since they “have bigger threats to our fantastic way of life.” The key is to do as in Sweden and send all embarrassing matters to a top-secret archive for national security, so then you can legally tell the media that it never happened or doesn’t exist – that must be the job description for the top-secret archive? Quite a clever setup actually to formalize the right to total lies and keep the door open for all sorts of sins to disappear, big or small. What a jackpot for SÄPO to hold all the dirt on everyone if they ever need to twist someone’s arm. The archive itself is actually a threat to national security by its mere existence, especially since our elected officials always seem to be the worst in class.

In Ukraine, Putin’s room for maneuver is minimal, yes they can cause a meltdown in Enerhodar, drop some tactical nuclear weapons and continue their strategic drone war for a while longer but none of that can change the outcome which spells Russian panic flight at some point.

The fastest way to lose Belarus is to ask them to attack into Ukraine – that country is a feint to tie up troops in Poland and Lithuania as well as an anchor on the Russian flank.

Hungary was not fun for Putin at all, in 2022 the Hungarians were ready to attack into Ukraine as soon as the Russians took Kiev, and when that didn’t happen they fell asleep again. But they have been a reliable partner who now, in something as cheeky as a democratic election, disappeared overnight. Putin misses all the decisions they have delayed or blocked in the EU since 2022, a better Trojan horse than Orban is hard to find.

Orban has caused so much damage that the EU is now considering not giving new countries voting rights for several years upon accession – he ruined it for everyone.

Transnistria sits where it sits, Moldova also managed to have democratic elections that went completely wrong for Putin just like in Romania.

His grip on the Balkans is starting to loosen but since the government in Latvia fell over something as trivial as a couple of drones crashing in the country, he has now for the second time sent drones with warheads into Romania and is keeping his fingers crossed, maybe it will work again.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/29/russian-drone-romanian-apartments-wounding-two-people-and-starting-fire

“The sea drone was Ukrainian,” you say in unison – yes it was but UA says it was hijacked.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/drone-explodes-in-romanian-port-as-ukraine-says-russia-jammed-it/vi-AA24VDCq?cvid=0d553fd793364515cb6fc321416385dd

Besides Spain’s government coalition parties being completely infiltrated by Russia and Kier Starmer in the UK almost making it too easy for Putin, his grip on Europe is significantly weaker today than in 2022.

He is urgently trying to trigger a migration crisis again but every country except Spain has active border control and does not let any of the boats through.

Spain was the weak link, the discussion is ongoing there, and after that Europe’s perimeter defense is functioning.

Turkey and Cyprus are at least up for discussion since Macron had to go out and warn that “someone” might get a feeling. You hardly need to know that conflict to understand that “someone” is named Recep.

https://www.france24.com/en/this-is-all-about-defence-macron-addresses-european-security-in-cyprus

Something I am waiting for is an escalation against Australia and New Zealand, they lie there completely isolated and to me it is incomprehensible how Australia cannot be one big European naval base but it is not.

I have poor political knowledge of them, they are too far away.

Europe has recently put its foot down against China and wants to try to impose punitive tariffs, we probably stole that from Trump’s playbook maybe?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/28/eu-discuss-restrictions-chinese-imports-fears-overreliance

I like this kind of thing and think we should claw back our manufacturing and ban the sale of everything made in China because it has too large a CO2 footprint for us – being environmentally friendly is important as we have learned and I hold that banner high as you know.

But there will be a backlash from that – the easiest for China is to stop exporting critical components or raw materials for our own manufacturing so our products only become 99% finished. Then when we fail to manufacture ourselves, they ask with a broad grin if we don’t want to buy from them instead, and cheaper too.

China probably has plans A, B, and C where the last two are how much land they will steal in Russia when it is at its weakest. This infiltration has already begun and is an economic takeover so far.

If they do that, we will just replace Russia with the great Chinese threat instead unfortunately and get a round two sometime with China. But since Russia is its own worst enemy, there is not much we can do about it. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, when senior officers made bad decisions in East Germany, we tried to welcome Russia into the fold – that brought us to today and a devastated Ukraine.

In the 90s, Swedish officers from MekB10 went on a tourist trip to Grozny when I was there for reserve officer training. I never understood why but they had been to a military firing range and test-fired an anti-aircraft gun and were completely ecstatic.

Now we have gone far beyond what is a threat to Russia’s imminent collapse.

The escalation in the world has gone in steps where October 7, 2023, which Russia was behind, took us to full war in MENA in 2.5 years, with Trump’s help admittedly.

The world is full of many doubters who never believe it will escalate further when just this chain that began with many Russian-speaking people on cameras when Hamas swarmed over the border into Israel and murdered everything they could find drove an entire continent into full war.

Europe is a failed attempt by Putin to avoid being at war as well. China will make its move in the not too distant future because Trump – Putin – Xi have already agreed on what China can use violence against without them intervening. Over in Asia, Europe has no possibility to get involved now that we have not built up capability in Australia.

By the way, Xi Jinping has just been over to North Korea and visited Kim who is said to have 60 tactical nuclear weapons for personal use.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqdnpzv45po

The entire evil team has met in person for over a month – not common at all.

At some point, world trade will be disrupted again when critical waterways are closed – the Malacca Strait is one, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the Öresund, the Bosporus, and the Panama Canal. Hormuz seems to be closed in rounds by either Trump or Iran.

Different countries may also start attacking civilian cargo ships here and there just as Ukraine strikes the shadow fleet in all sorts of places. If nothing else, Putin has access to an entire fleet of civilian ships where he has parked operators with Geran warheads he can use.

The Houthis shot down over 300 civilian cargo ships in the Red Sea when they were active a few years ago. I think that got too little coverage in the media.

Not sure if you have been following, but besides us in Europe now boarding and seizing ships from the Russian shadow fleet, the US is doing the same in the Gulf of Mexico, and China has some form of modern piracy ongoing in the South China Sea.

Since Russia’s shadow fleet is sailing around unhindered mostly everywhere, sunken ships in the channels leading to our major ports are probably not impossible either.

Various sabotage attempts against our electricity production and transmission – if we are heading into a very cold El Niño winter, it is a very low-hanging fruit, and Russia definitely practiced that throughout 2025.

We are heading into a period of escalation again and it seems like different events are coming closer together now. Ensuring that Ukraine wins its war against Russia is Europe’s task, which right now we mostly seem to think Chamberlain would have solved in the best way if you listen to the clowns in E3.

I have gone through the Leningrad military district and will post something about that.

Then the positive news at the fronts never ends – Ukraine is well on its way to winning its war.

If you think these were gloomy news, something that will cheer you up is a paid subscription on Substack or sharing the post – it will feel like a glass of ice-cold Oboy in the summer heat.

Inlägget The Threats to Russia’s Imminent Fall Part Two, June 12, 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

The image above is not AI but taken from the latest staff meeting.

The day before yesterday we addressed one of the threats to Ukraine’s smashing victory, which is E3. Since the three musketeers met Zelensky on Sunday and I have been browsing Google a bit, this will not be another post on the subject but four links for you to delve into.

“The leaders called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree “an immediate and complete ceasefire” with the current line of contact as a starting point for any negotiations, Downing Street said”.

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/06/07/european-allies-and-zelenskiy-urge-immediate-ceasefire-with-ukraine-after-meeting

Now E3 has put this in front of Putin so the moment Ukraine gets its breakthrough this summer and the Russian bastards flee, Putin can agree to this and slip out of this year’s crushing defeat. Provided Ukraine answers the phone, but that’s the underlying idea that counts.

We can safely assume that Ukraine very well understands the hidden agenda here, but whether they can hold out – we shall see, and I sincerely hope so.

Apparently, LNG deliveries from the USA to Europe dropped in May 2026 from the normal curve, which is a problem for everyone in E3 since winter reserves were already 25% below the level they should be for the year.

Since we usually have 30% left in reserves when winter ends, and winter 2025/2026 only had 28% left, minus 25% is right on the edge of needing to ration this winter. Since this was not a deficit from full reserves but a quarter less than the level it should be at this date during the replenishment period, further delivery disruptions could still drag us below the critical level if we’re unlucky. Then there will be rationing this winter, and no political party in the world wants freezing citizens because then they will vote for anything but the incumbent party as soon as they can out of pure self-preservation.

I amused myself by digging a little deeper and Merz said as recently as the end of April 2026 that “Ukraine should give up some land for peace.”

Previously, only Putin and Trump had said that – Europe’s position has been to fully support Ukraine until they have reclaimed their land, but apparently you still can’t trust a German…

https://english.nv.ua/nation/merz-tells-zelenskyy-to-link-possible-territorial-losses-to-eu-accession-50603494.html

Then the Germans have just been caught selling huge amounts of equipment to the Russian arms industry. Whose side they are on is not always crystal clear.

Recently, many European bigwigs met in Montenegro to decide who we will welcome into the warmth of the EU going forward. Albania is very welcome, but France and Germany absolutely do not want Ukraine to be welcomed into our warmth too quickly at all.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/05/eu-summit-montenegro-western-balkan-countries-membership-enlargement

Zelensky has relatively recently expressed dissatisfaction with Merz wanting to slow down Ukraine’s path to the EU because he thinks Ukraine deserves full membership. I also think they should get it – immediately.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/05/23/zelenskyy-rebuffs-merz-proposal-says-ukraine-deserves-full-eu-membership

Why Europe is acting like this today in 2026 is actually hard to explain; I would guess that the Nordics (Northern Europe), the Baltics, and Poland do not agree with E3 at all, so maybe we are about to form our own unified voice within the EU with a bit of luck, just as we have done with JEF.

If there were to be a ceasefire, Putin would just bring out the next Surovikin who plants a 10 km deep minefield along the then frozen front line. After that, the land east of that minefield is practically lost forever, no matter how many agreements are signed to the contrary, because all momentum disappears in Skype meetings and long email chains. Just that knowledge alone allows Putin to accelerate dangerously when collapse is imminent instead of having to work with generous margins of error – the day he wants a ceasefire he just calls E3.

Enough about E3,

USA, led by Trump, and China are the other two most acute obstacles to eternal peace because they escalate separately in their own ways.

If anyone thought China is the country where peace grows, they have actually built up Russia’s arms industry since 2023 to function quite well, unfortunately. The drones that Russia shoots into the rest of Europe are made in China, and the newly built Russian threat against us is also thanks to the Chinese.

The Russians have already burned through their emergency reserves, and what they can now threaten us with is new equipment from Chinese-built production lines.

Japan put it nicely the other day when China accused the Japanese of rearming for a new war of aggression in Asia – “it is China that has a huge arsenal of weapons and threatens everyone in the neighborhood, not us.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8p4ejy8ppo

We have gone through the lie that China never starts wars, but post WW2 they amused themselves with mass murder and ethnic cleansing of their own citizens instead of interstate wars.

Right now, it is the Uyghurs who are in the genocide firing line; either they are made pregnant with Han Chinese or sterilized to eventually wipe out the ethnic group.

A slow ethnic cleansing through forced infertility or rape.

https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-weekend-reads-china-health-269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c

Then we have China’s fishing fleet of 200,000 vessels (estimates range from 50,000 to 800,000…) that bottom trawl enormous amounts of protected and endangered ecosystems inside other countries’ territorial waters – some kind of modern fishing pirates doing this just because they can.

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/fishing-and-force-china-s-dark-fleets-and-maritime-militias

In the South China Sea, China discovers a small islet just barely sticking above the water surface, or even better, an underwater reef, and immediately comes with lots of dredgers to create land. Then they claim it has always looked like that, and that it has always been theirs, and expand their territorial waters or economic zone in a circle around this newly “engaged” land that “has always been there.” A bit like Columbus but with lots of rusty dredgers.

Then, to not take any chances in their diligent pursuit of world peace and happy trade, they immediately move air defenses, anti-ship missiles, surface combatants, and advanced aircraft there so the island, which has always been there, becomes a spiky violent hedgehog to promote world trade.

In May, China had over 100 ships from its fleet around Taiwan in various exercises also for world peace and trade – that record is starting to get a bit scratched, soon they will probably conquer Taiwan for world peace and trade.

https://thediplomat.com/2026/05/chinas-navy-is-shifting-pressure-beyond-the-taiwan-strait

Recently, Trump went to China for a personal meeting with Xi, and the week after Putin went there. From China, you can probably guess what you heard: “peace and trade are better than war.” Of course, Trump couldn’t help himself and after a day went on camera saying Taiwan must fend for itself, not his problem. Before that, he had said Taiwan was not mentioned with a word at the meeting, but it’s not very hard to see what was the most important topic for China to discuss at that meeting, a big point in Arial font 24 on the meeting minutes.

That Putin – Trump have agreed on a whole chain of events is indisputable to me; Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Ukraine, and Iran all in 2026. This is not common, and normally one starts some conflict, sees how it goes, adjusts, and then presses on. In 2026, the US has pressed all the keys on the keyboard at once.

The US has not been idle at all, and the agreement seems to have been that Trump would do what he can to get the feisty Ukrainians to choose peace, which he really tried, and then look away from the Baltics and Svalbard no matter what happens in the Baltics and Svalbard.

The US took its payment immediately, but Russia continued to fail in Ukraine, which one cannot blame Trump for. Trump then has a reality to relate to where he also must balance the rest of the US administration and us in Europe – he cannot go too far.

What Trump’s administration has done recently after the meeting with Xi is to start withdrawing capabilities from Eastern Europe. We have gone through this a couple of times already; it is probably the two offensive units: the Stryker Brigade in Germany and the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, which were to rotate into Poland but are now disappearing.

In addition, an artillery unit was slowed down and “staff functions shall be withdrawn.” The timelines were of course accelerated immediately, but then Trump promised new units directly, which he can hold back for as long as he wants.

If you read Johan No.1’s earlier post on the subject, we guessed there would be more – and naturally, there was more.

Now it seems the timeline has accelerated further to the immediate near future.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-planning-faster-troop-withdrawal-europe-newspaper-says-2026-05-30

Then the 1,000 soldiers currently in Lithuania will rotate out as planned, and their replacements have naturally been delayed, so the capability unfortunately disappears.

https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2948222/more-than-1-000-us-troops-leave-lithuania-after-rotation-ends?srsltid=AfmBOoqSxDyDnK5P0Q2V28-w_j-Tpn3brByZG_Ej4rp3_Xhu8eLWUmFf

As far as I can see, the US has now withdrawn most of the units from the spearhead in Eastern Europe.

Artillery, you might think, no big deal that their deployment to Europe was canceled – it was the 3rd battalion from the 12th artillery regiment, which is of course a HIMARS battalion perfect for operating beyond drone range on the 2026 battlefield. We know from the Ukraine war that a HIMARS battalion with good intelligence can cause enormous damage.

The staff functions – that is at least a nothing burger, Johan No.1 screams in several posts without reason,

“Long-Range Fires Command: The US is removing a command from Europe that specializes in firing long-range rockets and missiles, in conjunction with the cancellation of a planned long-range fires battalion deployment to Germany.

Intelligence and Special Operations Positions: The US is eliminating roughly 200 staff positions within allied intelligence and special operations, specifically affecting the UK-based NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre and the Allied Special Operations Forces Command in Brussels”.

The US has just cut off the head of the staff functions for long-range capabilities, joint intelligence gathering, and SOF – now we have to fill those functions.

Do you think they took all the login passwords and changed the SIM cards for WhatsApp?

You can interpret this as you wish, but since it comes directly after Trump-Xi-Putin met in 2026, and after the US has been allowed to invade somewhat freely in countries within Russia’s and China’s spheres of interest, we should probably fear the worst – this is what Putin asked Trump for.

Why he did it remains, of course, to be seen.

At a minimum, it leaves a gap of two offensive brigades, 1,000 in Lithuania, critical staff functions, and a long-range artillery battalion with HIMARS, all of which would have fought in the Baltics in the event of war.

If I manage to read correctly below, this is then everything that was in Lithuania, the only brigade that was to be in Poland, and the only brigade in Germany besides the extra capability the artillery battalion would have added?

There remains an American heavy battalion in SE Estonia besides 250 soldiers in Latvia, which I do not know what unit they belong to.

“One reason for the caution of the Baltic states when it comes to Trump is linked to the need to retain a U.S. military presence. Estonia has said it hosts about 600 U.S. service members; Latvia has a continuous rotational U.S. contingent; and Lithuania has rotating U.S. heavy battalions and an additional artillery unit”.

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2026/05/baltics-nato-defense-russia

Estonia is worried that the US will withdraw the heavy battalion that is with them at least.

https://news.err.ee/1610045902/estonia-has-no-clarity-on-rotating-us-unit-minister-says

The American battalion in SE Estonia is scheduled to rotate out at the end of summer (and another rotate in) according to Google AI.

“The U.S. Army unit at Camp Reedo (near Võru, Estonia) belongs to the 1st Cavalry Division. While exact handover dates can shift, recent rotations have historically occurred in late summer/early fall, with previous handovers taking place in mid-to-late September”.

Who will pick up this baton so quickly that no gaps arise in our violent stumble thread in the Baltics?

Already now before the holidays, do you think, or will we in Europe start discussing it at the school start in August by trying to find meeting dates for early September?

It is soon Midsummer and then everyone will go on vacation with their families – no one wants to miss a sunny summer in the archipelago.

Sometimes one almost suspects that Trump does not trust his troop commanders in Europe because it costs a lot of pesetas to cancel scheduled movements when equipment has already arrived.

Trump has expressed reluctance to defend the Baltics occasionally but has of course also promised many times to defend the Baltics to the last bullet – a lot of smoke there, so nothing concrete to go on. How he will defend the Baltics without any artillery remains to be clarified.

The posts about Operation Baltic assume, as said, that the US remains passive. Now there is only one battalion left in the area in case of conflict when 90% of the spearhead leaves the area, so by definition, I would say that equates to passivity on the part of the US.

Right now BALTOPS is ongoing in the Baltic Sea but it ends days before Midsummer, after which the NATO calendar is empty, and I find nothing else with anyone else.

https://shape.nato.int/exercises/allied-national-exercises

https://www.grosswald.org/nato-exercises-2026

Are we taking summer break this critical summer?

Anyone who has done military service knows well that on Midsummer Day the Soviets would attack Sweden, either then or on Christmas Day since both dates guarantee hangovers or sleeping in. Then the end of July/beginning of August is completely dead – everyone is sitting in the sun eating ice cream all over Europe.

What standing violent capabilities do we in Europe have in the Baltics that do not take summer break?

–Estonia; 900-1,500 British-led force based 70 km east of Tallinn for defense in the NE part of the country.

–Latvia; our Swedish BaltBat of 600 (?) based in the Riga area just north of the Daugava and the Canadian-led brigade of 3,500 in the same area which is full brigade strength in a mosaic of several nations – defense area as below.

Comment;

-Spain has a mechanized battalion in the Canadian-led brigade. Their government is a coalition where the largest party is helped by the far left and far right, and these can be suspected to be influenced by RU. If there is anything RU seems to want, it is to remove as many international units as possible from the Baltics.

Spain intends to reinforce the area, but the battalion is also to be rotated out now in June; it’s a good time to keep an eye on the replacements so there isn’t a gap over the holidays?

https://www.democrata.es/en/politics/robles-recognizes-the-work-of-the-military-in-latvia-before-their-relief

– it also seems that the brigade commander is to be rotated out this summer?

The rotation of the NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia Commander position takes place every 12 months. From June 26 2025 Colonel Kristopher Reeves is the Commander of the NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia.

https://www.mod.gov.lv/en/nato/nato-capabilities/nato-multinational-brigade-latvia

-I’m beginning to understand why Trump has been so hard on Canada since he took office; Putin wants to get rid of that brigade. Besides what Trump directly controls, the Canadian-led brigade is the largest armored fist north of the magical Daugava line. They are simply in the way, and the risk is quite imminent that additional units will be attached to that structure over time.

–Lithuania; Poland has promised to keep the Suwalki Gap open if Lithuania is attacked, which there is no reason to doubt; Poland is ready for war.

Germany has 40% of its 45th armored brigade in place in Lithuania. It seems to be one armored battalion and one mechanized infantry battalion plus some miscellaneous units from other countries subordinated to them. By 2027 the entire brigade should be in place. Wikipedia suggests that the second armored battalion will arrive already this year, which would mean all combat units are in place.

I think I have pieced it together; below is Wikipedia on the numbers of NATO forward presence including the USA, so it seems roughly correct.

If we stick to the area north of the Daugava and assume that the American heavy battalion in Estonia will rotate out during the summer as scheduled, we then have up to 1500 British-led forces in the Tallinn area and 600 + 3500 in Latvia consisting of various nationalities. Provided that the Spanish battalion to be rotated in June appears as scheduled.

I am really trying to understand exactly where the Canadian-led brigade intends to defend so I can leak it to Putin, but it was harder than I thought.

At least they have grouped themselves for defense at four locations in eastern Latvia.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/05/15/canada-led-brigade-in-latvia-moves-beyond-tripwire-role-commander-says

One of the locations is Daugavpils, which borders Belarus; a low probability is that they are also in the area around Rezekne, but not at battalion strength.

https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/defence/05.06.2026-allied-troops-stationed-in-daugavpils-latvia.a650247

Digression begins.

Estonia and Latvia have armed forces of just over 6000 each and can mobilize perhaps 40,000 each according to their own claims within 24 hours. All their brigades must undergo mobilization to reach full strength. Without knowing, I guess they have spread out mobilization depots in their base areas located west of the operational areas.

According to the Swedish model – upon mobilization or heightened alert, personnel go to their mobilization depots, equip themselves, and companies that reach full strength move out to staging areas in the field. What we expected during the Cold War was that Spetsnaz (everything was apparently Spetsnaz to us then, but in reality, it’s probably a mosaic of them, reconnaissance, local assets + FSB, GRU, and SVR?) stood in our police and military uniforms along the access roads and after stopping cars simply shot unarmed personnel.

They would blow up culverts, bridges, and railway tracks, bombs against crowded train stations, and outright ambushes against vehicles. In addition, they would blow up mobilization depots entirely and then stand at the mobilization depots in our uniforms to receive the arriving personnel.

We intended to counter this by mobilizing in time but also having home guard personnel, emergency police, and operators in place at protected objects even earlier than they could get there to meet them.

Today in 2026, there are also missiles against fixed targets and, of course, drone weapons; these were not the major threat in the early 90s when I was supposed to fight the Russian bastards with support from MekB10.

End of digression.

This is what the numbers look like, and if the USA pulls its heavy battalion from Estonia, there will be no international presence at all south of Tartu in Estonia.

In Lithuania, the international defense is probably between Daugavpils – Rezekne of a brigade + battalion. Between Rezekne and Tartu, there is thus no international soldier in a defensive position at all. The tripwire simply hasn’t been drawn yet in this 200 km wide area that Johan No.1 desperately wants.

Since the Canadians and Swedes are not complete idiots, they will try to avoid putting everything in Rezekne to also defend south of there – one needs to have an open retreat route over the Daugava if one intends to conduct an active delaying battle; that’s old news.

There are no bridges between Daugavpils – Jekapils, which of course does not prevent us from laying our own pontoon bridges, but these crossings must be defended.

One also needs to account for infiltrating units and airborne landings trying to cut off the defense – a deep defense that further drains the spearhead at strategic locations between Rezekne and Daugava crossings.

Previous analysis thus stands that NE Latvia and SE Estonia lie wide open to the type of attack where RU can infiltrate deep to delay mobilization and slow reinforcements from Poland. What they have in the area today that is tangible advances from the border westward in 4-5 attack groups not necessarily on roads as the ground bearing capacity is good – the warning time is very short where it is already underway as soon as we receive the information about “little green men” which Putin flatly denies and threatens full nuclear war over if we do not immediately apologize for the cheeky claim.

Then follows a second echelon (I guess that’s what it’s called in fine military terms?) that itself bands up from the northern front and rolls through TOLOs on the way; it’s 9 hours driving time + TOLO, so within a day they are staged after Ukraine has alerted that units have begun leaving the northern front.

The claim “we see no buildup of forces against the Baltics” still echoes between the walls among analysts and is more than naively optimistic because RU has two army corps and two divisions along the northern front in addition to North Korea’s 11th Army Corps which is sized for 80,000 strong.

The following units are tied to the new Leningrad military district; the larger formations are found at the northern front and northern Luhansk.

The 11th NK AC has flown in soldiers over several months now whom they try to mask in overalls or suits of all kinds of clothing.

That the 11th NK AC takes over border surveillance from divisions or army corps that are relocated is rock solid – this buildup of forces no one can see is sitting and eating sausages 9 hours driving time from the Baltic border, and is already part of the Leningrad military district.

The Latvians’ own (light) mechanized brigade seems to have the same operational area as the Canadian-led brigade. The urban areas of Daugavpils/Rezekne are to be defended by home guard brigades. These usually live nearby, but Rezekne is not a large enough town, so the soldiers reasonably need to get there first to be able to go on defense.

It is easy to see that Belarus’s early “force-posture” and mobilization aim to tie up as much of the defense as possible in their immediate area around Daugavpils and Vilnius. Which is not the area RU would try to conquer if they get a feeling – since autumn 2025 Johan No.1 has circled the area that European units categorically refuse to be in. You have, just like me, noticed that Belarus is “preparing for war” (a theater show), but you hear nothing at all from the Pskov area.

If Belarus had been preparing to go to war, Russia would have needed to strengthen the flank against the Baltics, and then they would have done the opposite – sneaked with Belarus and been open about the defense against the Baltics to try to act as a deterrent.

The Estonians have two light brigades, one defends up towards the NE and one shall defend down in the SE. The SE brigade is based in Võru, which means they must get there upon mobilization as it is not a standing unit.

Now I slipped back into the Baltics again, which was not the intention at all – there are many potential escalations but the Baltics are only our problem in Europe, so something we ourselves must ensure to solve if things go badly. No other country in the world will lift a finger for us – it is up to us to show sufficient strength against Putin so he refrains,

We have not done nearly enough despite everyone’s constant “we are well prepared, stop with your defeatism Johan No.1”.

We are not even prepared for the first wave of mobile units under our own drone umbrella that will just bypass towns like Rezekne where the defenders then get indirect capabilities over them and the dubious pleasure of going into hedgehog defense when the second echelon appears.

The fact is that our commitment in the Baltics today, summer 2026, is significantly weaker than it was in autumn 2025 when I thought it was urgent – it has gone backwards which can be considered somewhat of a world record even for us in Europe.

A clear practical action plan is conspicuously absent and Putin sees that best of all. Not to be confused with all the promises and agreements we have made about the units that shall be in the Baltics at increased threat level – a level we have already reached but units are disappearing from the area instead.

The least we should do is immediately replace the withdrawn American units with our own standing brigades. Today, June 9, I have not read anything about that – hopefully they are on their way (hope is the last thing to leave a person) but the most urgent dates are Midsummer’s Day and then the turn of July/August so they need to start moving now.

So I only got this far and got caught up in the Baltics again after my previous closing words, so the rest of the threats to world peace will have to wait until tomorrow – there is no need for a huge discussion about the Baltics from my side since I have only posted facts about numbers really which cannot be questioned as numbers are numbers. Everything else was just a tiresome repetition from my side.

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Inlägget The Threats to Russia’s Imminent Fall, June 10, 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

Jag blev rejält förvånad över hur fort den stora soppatorsken bredde ut sig över Krim, inom en månad efter att Ukraina inlett operation ”medeldistans” och skaffat sig full eldkontroll över tillfartsvägarna mellan Krim – Taganrog blev det akut bränslebrist.

Den bästa förklaring jag kan komma fram till är att dom ”kört en Japan” där 90% av alla varor antingen är på butikshyllorna eller i transit?

Ukraina har under mycket lång tid bekämpat mål på Krim och rätt situationsanpassning från ryssjävlarna vore då naturligtvis att lägga förråden i Taganrog, Rostov och Krasnodarområdet istället och ha en försörjningslina ned till Krim med tåg och vägtransport.

Denna livets väg har legat bortom det 50km breda FPV hotet och varit någorlunda skyddad så känslan av att ha kommit på ett genidrag som verkligen fungerade har väl infunnit sig hos den ryska staben.

Igår kom en bit information som borde få varenda kompetent analytiker att hjula på gräsmattan. Jag gjorde det men brakade rakt in i ungarnas trampolin, både min rygg och trampolinen är krökta nu.

Det är ATESH som rapporterat och skall tydligen vara VDV regementet i området som lämnar Kinburn Spit på grund av akut försörjningsbrist?

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/russian-troops-abandon-positions-on-kinburn-spit-following-ukrainian-supply-line-cuts-19592

Som tidigare sagt – eldkontroll med mediumdrönare +50km till vadå, +150km djup är bara ett ben, de andra två är det långtflygande strategiska drönarvapnet men också FPV drönarvapnet.

FPV drönarna kör precis samma eldkontroll från 0km – 50km och det vi nu sett är ett första förband vid Dneprfronten som lämnar sin position för att dom är hungriga.

Eftersom det är Ukraina vi har att göra med är deras amfibieförband inte långt efter och kommer omgående ta upp positioner på Kinburn Spit.

Om RU försöker återta området – väldigt mycket död när dom exponerar sig ifrån sina jordgryt då det är rakt under FPV förbudszon.

Kan UA etablera sig där har dom flyttat fram positionerna rejält österut och kan börja genomföra räder mot hela kustremsan bort till Krim, och Krim. Allt dom behöver är att få bort den framskjutna spaningen därifrån.

Kinburn Spit må vara ett område som är lite svårare att försörja än de positioner som ligger närmare bebyggelse lite längre norrut där man kan gömma förråd, men norr om Khakovka har RU precis samma problem.

Dneprfronten är försvagad redan idag 9 Juni och sommaren har bara börjat.

Eftersom vi nu läser kartornas gråzoner som att det är där UA står, vilket också bekräftas av sporadiska tweets så har Ukraina nått Konka-floden och strider i närheten av Oleshkybron nu.

Faktum är att RU fått sätta in hela sin VDV insatsstyrka där nu, finns inget i reserv längre vid Dneprfronten.

Den stora ön söder om staden Kherson har väl UA också rensat?

Hela detta område norr om Khakovka är idag inte en stor bred djup reservoar utan istället ett grenverk av olika små strömfåror som förmodligen sommartid blir lätta att ta sig över.

Dessutom så är hela ”Khakovka-bassängen” idag täckt i nyvuxna små träd så skyl finns i området.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/22/in-a-bombed-out-reservoir-ukraine-huge-forest-grown-a-return-to-life-or-toxic-timebomb

Har försökt få fram bredden och jämföra med Oskil och Siversky Donets – bästa gissning är att vid lågt vattenstånd finns det platser man kan brolägga över utan större konstruktioner, alltså med den typ av bromateriel ingenjörstrupperna har.

Att få över skytte är busenkelt, skyl och snabb passage.

Man kan säkerligen gömma mindre pråmar och få över lättare splitterskydd.

RU har glest med försvar där och bara andra klassens medborgare

Norrut vid Stepnohirsk har UA arbetat sig fram till Kamyanske.

Dom har tagit sig fram österifrån och det är två VDV divisioner som har stått i spetsen i det området.

UA låg tidigare i Kamyanske bakom ”Yanchekrak”-vattendraget (heter det tydligen) men fick retirera vilket då var oroande, men innan den strategiska offensiva reserven kom dit. RU hade precis nått konkafloden/ån vid Prymorske och börjat förgrena sig österut med vattendraget i vänstra flanken när motanfallen kom – vilket väl var exakt rätt tidpunkt.

Orihiv och Mala Tochmaka är en veritabel Maginotlinje-befästning som RU aldrig kommit i närheten av så det finns ett mycket starkt flankskydd/ankare för denna UA offensiv.

Vid Huilapole verkar RU ha halvt slut på gas?

Dom försöker sin version av offensiv men det händer inte mycket och förbanden är inte spjutets spets direkt.

Längre norrut vid Ivanivka har 90th TD stridit länge – dom är ett prioriterat förband men enligt David D har dom börjat förflyttas därifrån då dom är förbrukade, är bara han som säger det än så länge.

Mellan Huilapole – Ivanivka är 90th TD det enda större förband som skall vara bättre. De två marininfanteridivisionerna finns söderdärom men dom verkar ha fått ge bort de flesta av sina brigader till andra fronter?

Pokrovsk är fortsatt ett fokusområde och RU sitter nu i dominerande terräng där.

Vid Kostiantynivka har UA snart förlorat hela orten men tittar man på höjdkartorna är det inte akut.

UA har dock anfallit in i Chasiv Yar lite i det tysta och fått fotfäste där.

Nästa skräll är Lyman-området där ryssjävlarna dragit sig tillbaka över Zherebets – deras offensiv går bakåt.

Utöver det har UA 6st armékårer vid norra fronten – är det någonstans man har förmåga så är det vid norra fronten faktiskt, lite Kursk 2024 varning på den nästan.

RU har mött upp med ganska mycket förmåga och Putin verkar fortfarande kräva sin buffertzon längs med norra fronten men i termer av att ha flexibilitet så ligger nog norra fronten bra till för UA.

Stört omöjligt att svälta ut förbanden däruppe eftersom Kursk och Belgorod ligger nästgårds och dom inte kan dröna sönder två stora städer russian style. Dessutom så vill dom ha goda relationer med alla oblasterna däruppe post-kriget och att jämna dom med marken befrämjar inte vänskap

Så där ser det ut – första sprickan är nere vid Dnepr och Södra fronten, bollen är i rullning därnere och går inte att stoppa för RU det tror jag alla med rudimentär analytisk förmåga kan se.

Uppe i norr har Ukraina absolut mer förmåga än dom skulle behöva för sina gränsstrider. RU försvarar inte heller hela norra fronten – deras fokus är på Kursk och Belgorod tätorter + deras offensiv vid Vovchansk och SÖ från Urazove.

Med det drönarvapen UA har idag samt sin minröjningsförmåga är en till ”kurskoffensiv” mer än möjlig men på annan plats än 2024.

Jag får väl kolla kartorna kanske men vägar är bara streck på kartan så länge marken ute i terrängen bär tills gyttjesäsongen kommer i Oktober nångång. Höjdkartorna är naturligtvis intressanta i sammanhanget också.

I norra Luhansk har RU börjat backa på sina håll och i övrigt får väl deras offensiva operationer i området anses ha misslyckats fullständigt?

Ryskt fokus mellan Pokrovsk + de anfallsvektorer som går mot Kramatorsk/Slovyansk.

Här har ni en till bit information att glädjas över, det verkar som det nya ”mellanräckviddiga” drönarvapnet med sin eldkontroll faktiskt är frontbrett enligt MXT på johanno1.se?

Rybizhne är alltså uppe i norra Luhansk som är ett lågprioriterat område för UA.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/08/russia-food-shortage-occupied-rubizhne-luhansk-shelves-empty

Vi vet att dom börjat med sin eldkontroll i LPR och DPR kärnområden redan utöver bakom Södra fronten och Krim, men har det nu nått norra Luhansk är det alltså ALLA OCKUPERADE OMRÅDEN som har fått akut utstörda försörjningskedjor.

Detta är 2022 och HIMARS all over again, kan Ukraina bara navigera bort från E3 skamliga förslag om eldupphör så har ryska ockupationsmakten alltså redan nu börjat få brist på försörjning och sommaren har bara börjat.

Det som kommer slå hårdast är vattnet när det blir högsommar – man kan klara sig utan mycket men inte vatten. Bra bra.

Ryssarna befinner sig dessutom alltid i områden med många lik på marken så alla vattenpölar dom försöker dricka ur gör dom ännu sjukare än normalkurvan med tuberkulos och vägglöss.

Hursomhelst, vatten eller inte, det är svalkande med en betald prenumeration på denna Substack eller att ni delar inläggen så det ryker.

Inlägget Ukraine front review, 9 June 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

As said – read the maps as if the gray zone is where UA currently stands since they are on the offensive.

There are some geographical problem areas, but they are only a visit away from the strategic offensive reserve to no longer be so.

Today we discuss possible counterfire from the USA/China, what Russia might come up with in its death throes, but also what we are undertaking from the EU.

Stuff like this makes me tearful – they are apparently called the E3 now, Merz, Starmer, and Macron. They want to try to negotiate with Putin to avoid “another winter full of terror bombings against Ukraine”.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/04/germany-france-and-uk-sketch-plan-to-bring-putin-to-the-negotiating-table

It sounds commendable, but considering that Ukraine has already had 4.5 years of this and wants to fight – why this concern for the children right now?

Merz and Starmer have no history, but Macron managed to fool Zelensky before the war started that Putin would not attack because he “personally talked to Putin who gave me personal rock-solid guarantees.” His greatest achievement on his CV is thus being totally fooled by Putin in broad daylight.

No one likes Kier Starmer, a weak leader who has given bad times in the UK – his domestic political problems are worse than he can handle, so no Eisenhower directly.

Merz sometimes says the right things, but besides his CEO for Rheinmetall trash-talking Ukraine’s drone weapons earlier this year, Merz recently stated that Ukraine should not become a full member of the EU – he thinks they do not deserve it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-rejects-friedrich-merz-proposal-associate-eu-membership

Despite this, apparently it is at the top of these world leaders’ agenda to protect Ukrainian children this winter. That there is a whole underground lake of various hidden agendas we can assume.

This gives us a timeline and what they want – a stop to hostilities until winter, why exactly until winter I think I have figured out below.

(Interjecting again that the EU gave just under 500,000 Russians Schengen visas in 2025 – our borders are not closed at all. Russia was in fourth place in visas after China, Turkey, and India. A quick Google confirms this if you lack a source).

A bit further down in the article it gets considerably brighter, not everyone in the EU agrees, there are shining white lights who understand the situation too, I think they read Johan No.1

“Some officials from within the E3 nations themselves argue it is not the time for talks with Moscow, as Putin has shown no sign of being serious about negotiations and continues to harbor maximalist demands, including that Ukraine cede unoccupied territory.

Those same people said Kyiv’s allies should instead exploit this moment to provide Zelenskyy with the weapons he needs and further ramp up pressure on the Kremlin by tightening and toughening sanctions. The E3 should be working with the US to get Russia to the table, the Bloomberg sources stressed, as the problem is in Moscow, not Kyiv. European nations should not be the side petitioning Putin to talk — it should be the other way round, given Russia’s increasing economic struggles and staggering monthly casualty rates”.

Since Ukraine will now inexorably advance like an exponentially rising moon rocket, there is nothing on the Russian battlefield that can stop them anymore, the balance is shifted and Russia is hopelessly behind in the strategic drone war, the drone weapon, and ground battles.

Previously Europe and the USA could steer development with arms deliveries as a gas and brake, unfortunately we no longer have that.

After that it was cold cash, but funds have now been added so it is enough. Then Ukraine has probably received piles of gold bars from various countries in MENA as thanks for their drone interceptor packages including personnel delivered. On top of that many want to do business with Ua’s arms industry today – something that can no longer be politically controlled that the Ukrainian bastards have found new ways to snatch money in some kind of market economy.

There is only one big threat left to the development that otherwise exponentially goes in the right direction – ceasefire.

Putin is tricky – I cannot determine whether he understands the situation or not, probably the information flow is filtered quite heavily up the chain and as of May 9 he got his damn ceasefire again which is proof for him that Ukraine does as they are told by his buddies in the West. But he should also understand where this is heading.

At least Putin has left the point that he wants Donetsk, Zaporizha, and Kherson in their entirety, now it seems it is only the rest of Donetsk that Ukraine must abandon to get world peace?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-russia-will-defeat-ukraine-2026-06-04

This is something Putin-Trump agreed on in August 2025 when they met in Anchorage, but Ukraine has so far refused.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-tells-zelenskiy-that-putin-wants-more-ukraine-urges-kyiv-make-deal-2025-08-16

Since the E3 have already opened the negotiation book for Putin and pointed out what they want to achieve, he knows very well what he can do, the practical idiots make it easy for him.

The E3 also have the only negotiation card worth its name left to play against Ukraine – EU membership.

The concern is therefore the following – at some point Putin has completed his puzzle and understands that he is on the way to getting beaten in a fair war in Ukraine, period. Exactly when we get there cannot be said, but Ukraine will increase the pressure from now on so that at some point something breaks somewhere.

What Budanov and Zelensky really want is the following –

– Take back Ukraine from the barbarian horde.

– Let Belarus have its statutory international freedom.

– Make the six provinces bordering Ukraine friends with trade.

– Get -stan on the right side (in progress).

– Get many sub-republics to proclaim themselves as new internationally recognized countries.

Voila – the future Russian threat is considerably more toothless. Unless we reach this point, the Russian threat is not eliminated, and this opportunity that Ukraine has paid for in children’s blood will never come again in our lifetime.

Johan No.1 dreams of Operation Rostov but then Ukraine, as one man, woman, or other established gender identity, must be ready for a Finnish continuation war after 4.5 years of high-intensity war where they must get Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan on board.

What Putin will first try is to personally go to the E3 and promise to start serious negotiations – but that it must begin with a full ceasefire in the war.

There Ukraine’s momentum is lost – the mosaic where everyone pulls in the same direction will become significantly looser, power struggles will start, stab-in-the-back legends will be written, and in the middle of it all stand the FSB, SVR, GRU with their subversive activities and totally tear everything apart.

Ukraine will naturally refuse – what will the E3 do then, the only thing they have left is probably EU membership and when it starts being written in the media that Zelensky does not want peace, then the Ukrainians will have to wait for their EU membership – good luck being Zelensky then.

How can Putin further pressure the E3 – unfortunately, there are many ways, but the gas weapon is probably the one with the most explosive power. After the Iran war, we are apparently behind in our stockpiling of LNG, 25% below average storage now in May. I usually get pushback on johanno1.se when I throw around numbers I get from AI, we’ll see if this holds true or if it turns into a public backlash.

Since I am interested in everything, it seems we are going to have an “El Nino” winter this year, which will bring a very cold January – February in Europe.

Our gas is supplied 60%-65% by the USA, which so far has shown it does everything Putin asks.

The Middle East accounts for 9%-14%, which is probably zero now?

Azerbaijan’s gas, which has been heavily publicized recently, is under 4%, and then some from Nigeria and Algeria, 15%-20%.

If Putin manages to get the USA not to sell us LNG at the pace we need and then we have some accidents in our LNG tank farms, this could become a good means of pressure – especially if both the USA and Russia promise to deliver everything we need as long as Ukraine agrees to a trivial ceasefire that everyone benefits from. Putin will surely promise a “peace discount for five years”.

The entire E3 seems, as far as I can see, to be dependent on gas imports and have too little domestic production. All self-inflicted through suicidal politics over the last 30 years, but if you have the chance to sacrifice Ukraine because you have pursued foolish policies, it is an attractive way out.

The UK seems to have domestic production for over 60%, and 85% of households are heated with gas.

Germany is 100% import-dependent, 56% of households use gas for heating.

France is like Germany in imports but only 35% use it for heating.

France is an electricity exporter; in winter, the UK and Germany import less than 10% of their electricity needs – I think it seems like gas is our Achilles’ heel?

Why the E3 is striving to save the Ukrainian children right now until winter is easy to see – a not-so-well-hidden agenda.

Putin has also planted all the explosives he thinks he needs around Europe’s subsea cables for electricity transmission now, but as far as I can see, it is not as big a threat to continental Europe as gas is?

However, the Baltics import 40%-50% of their electricity, where subsea cables dominate totally from Sweden and Finland. They also have direct electric heating for their heating just like us in Sweden, along with district heating and some other heat sources.

Since, for example, Poland recently asked Ukraine not to bomb targets in the Baltic Sea area, there are good reasons to believe that several countries in Europe would be affected by interruptions in gas imports in the coming months. Pushing for peace in Ukraine, which is preferable anyway, becomes politically attractive.

What Poland has done well, however, is to de-escalate the dispute with Ukraine over that unit that got an inappropriate name.

https://ua.news/en/world/u-polshchi-zaklikali-ne-zagostriuvati-superechki-z-ukrayinoiu

Since we absolutely seem to be heading towards a “2008-type financial crisis” this autumn, it adds another layer of acute war fatigue on our politicians who will have to handle the “wave of layoffs”, “bank crisis”, “crisis interest rates”. All those things that appear on newspaper front pages against a dark gray background, a red downward-pointing stock chart in the middle, and then “-35%” in pitch-black Arial font size 24.

Ukraine has been subjected to these high treasons for 4.5 years already and knows exactly what we morally superior in the West are capable of, but if the pressure is applied correctly, it will sting for them this year too – EU membership was why the country got into this war in the first place.

It doesn’t seem to stop there; the EU is throwing in an “800 billion USD” bribe as well but is clear that both EU membership and lots of pesetas entirely depend on whether there will be peace in our time or not.

“While Brussels and Washington are lining up hundreds of billions of dollars in long-term funding and pitching Ukraine as a future EU member and investment destination, the strategy hinges on a ceasefire that remains elusive — leaving the prosperity plan vulnerable as long as the fighting continues”.

https://www.politico.eu/article/document-eu-us-pitch-800b-post-war-prosperity-plan-for-ukraine

Chatham House understands this, I think they stole it straight from Johan No.1.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/how-russia-ukraine-ceasefire-could-imperil-ukrainian-and-european-security/02-ukraine

As far as I can see, this is the single biggest threat we have to peace in our time – the E3 who want to protect the Ukrainian children now this winter. Unfortunately, the carrot and stick seem already well advanced, but we can hope that Ukraine manages to hold out.

What Trump failed at seems to have been better formulated by the E3 and EU – an orange carrot so big that the citizens of Ukraine want it instead of war. If it were even leaked that the offer would end if Ukraine chooses war, then it’s probably game over for the home opinion’s will to kill Russians.

Inlägget E3 and ceasefire in Ukraine, June 8, 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

I will cover the fronts in the next post, a lot is happening and now that UA has taken the initiative, the gray zone should be read as where UA is instead of RU – if you haven’t made that correction on your own maps, do so.

My old idol David D, who became that because he had an enormous wall map he moved brigades around on early in the war before all the digital maps came, is perhaps a notch above me in optimism but he also has a good grasp of the situation at the fronts – for example, he has been persistent about the 90th TD and the situation for the VDV at the southern front.

The situation is basically the same as it was in 2022 when the USA and Europe had to jump in and stop the party so that Putin wouldn’t be humiliated and become dangerous (they thought so or at least blamed it on that).

2022 was an absolute low point for Russia before RU mobilized in panic. With the help of HIMARS and American target acquisition, UA began hunting corps staffs that were wiped out when they had staff meetings for a few hours in one place in constant movement. That center in Poland or Germany (the rumor was Lviv at the time) probably had excellent intelligence.

Ammunition depots were targeted, soldiers drank from puddles, you surely remember Kherson airport which became a fireball about once a month.

There and then the war should have ended but history goes that Putin threatened the USA with nuclear weapons so to preserve peace they reshuffled a bit and allowed the VDV to retreat over the Dnieper so they wouldn’t have to surrender.

2023 was a study in megalomania – after a successful 2022, Ukraine was determined to try to reclaim their country by force, so Europe and the USA basically demanded the following, where some even hinted that if they just burned a little energy maybe they would be ready to negotiate later –

– Ukraine would first send newly formed army corps with inexperienced brigade commanders because they were not tainted by the old corps spirit but instead trained by us in Europe and the USA – if you want to be a winner, you do that.

– The requirement was that they would attack at the best fortified area on all fronts after Surovikin had built a 10 km deep minefield. We absolutely screamed when it happened on the northern front but they were not allowed to because it could be seen as unnecessary escalation.

– NATO doctrine naturally applied even though Ukraine did not have air superiority, so RU ground attacks with alligators and SU27s flew like clouds of gnats.

Despite that, they did not give up and quite quickly experienced units like the marine corps and airborne took over the spearhead and fought until sometime in the autumn when they ran out of gas.

After that and until today, Russia has had the initiative where they have conducted a new type of low-intensity offensive warfare that suits them well except for the Kursk offensive which was supposed to help UA in negotiations. The USA refused to mention it by name.

It took Ukraine three years to lift themselves out of the hole we dug for them and beyond that, the USA has actively undermined them politically and cut support at critical times to help Putin.

(note that I write USA where it should first have been Biden and then Trump).

After the Kursk offensive in summer 2024, the artillery barrels went completely silent for a while due to acute ammunition shortage, UA did not get much advanced aircraft so FAB bombs could replace artillery for the Russians and now finally we are holding back defense against missiles which is probably the only thing Ukraine cannot yet manufacture themselves on a large scale. It is important that it does not go too well, that seems to have been the shameless common thread.

We who guessed that Sweden tried to give Ukraine Gripen a few years ago but was stopped by the USA, where we were then shot down by all sorts of people for our conspiracy theories – do you think we were right or wrong?

This requires its man, no one wants Ukraine as an enemy directly. The number of occasions where it simply would have been the logical easy way to give up ground and join the EU is countless but they refused to give up – you don’t see that very often.

The combination Zelensky – Budanov is probably what has won the war together with the Ukrainian people’s spirit. Everyone is afraid of a trigger-happy security service that chose the right side immediately. Zelensky was not exactly tipped as our time’s Churchill, he has probably with the help of his acting experience found an image that has worked outwardly. When he won the presidential election he was quite skinny so many hours at the gym with supplements to fit the role as a leader in war. But he has also managed to balance an entire war on a very thin line where setbacks have been significantly more than successes so the occasions to resign equally many.

The number of assassination attempts, political attacks, hostile takeovers and other from the Russians with Europe’s help for a good while and the whole war with the USA’s help is staggering. Budanov has been targeted by RU assassination attempts more than 10 times. The assassination attempts were of course carried out by the Russians, FSB, GRU, SVR and someone else all doing the same activities around the world instead of sticking to their job descriptions. It’s probably too lucrative to manage to stay away.

I will return to that in another post but did you know that we gave +450,000 Russians Schengen visas during 2025?

Full war in Ukraine but we in Europe with few exceptions apparently try to have a normal relationship. Even Poland has recently asked Ukraine to stop lingering in the Baltic Sea area so as not to “make our situation unsafe”.

There are many important pieces of information in the text above,

Since the Russian army has conducted its version of offensive operations since autumn 2023, it has now for three years been permeated by that type of warfare. The corps commander gives orders on paper which the brigades then solve in the same way they have done throughout the war but now slower forward so even more comfortable. No one needs to make split-second decisions and there is no decision cycle to get inside. All higher commanders sit in their air-conditioned bunkers with gourmet food and a lot of running around by non-soldiers at night. Apparently female doctors and nurses have been forced into other types of full-time jobs so no one wants to work in the war zone anymore.

Since mechanized combat led to acute losses, they reshuffled doctrine to swarm forward with dispersed infantry instead.

Ukraine has gradually increased its drone zone so changes had to be made there as well, artillery went down from 60,000 shells/day to today 4,000-5,000. FAB bombs delivered by air had to replace artillery together with the drone weapon.

We have discussed the FAB plague many times but it is so acute that Zelensky in his thank you speech to Sweden for our Gripen planes mentioned that now they can finally reduce FAB usage. Easy to understand since a FAB bomb buries everyone in the bunker, no survivors.

The new Russian doctrine was to use infantry as ammunition to spot positions where drones can operate and place FABs, and once they were eliminated, to work their way forward to the next defensive position.

It worked so well that UA now only has a sparse line of infantry in trenches on the front lines under strong drone protection.

The Russian armed forces have comfortably parked themselves in some kind of World War I environment, completely without historical awareness but very Russian.

The brigades at the fronts lack heavy vehicles, indirect fire comes from drone groups and strike aircraft, they have gotten used to grinding forward about a kilometer a week, and have absolutely not prepared for defensive warfare.

We already know that they have not expanded the fieldworks to the new areas they have conquered – Clement Molin confirmed this recently but we have suspected it for a long time.

The logistics are all stocked beyond the 50km line where the brigades have what they have in their fortifications, deliveries by drones are quite common for them as well.

Larger depots are surely beyond the old HIMARS range of +100km. At a safe distance, they run it very Russian – huge gigantic depots.

Yes, Ukraine has used drones quite a bit but not with the intensity that triggers a full behavioral change yet inside occupied Donetsk or beyond.

On the Russian side of the border, they certainly still have those large bases Ukraine was never allowed to touch before they had their own long-range weapons – 10 to 15 army bases where everything is neatly lined up, about a dozen air bases, and then their 45 to 50 Iskander platforms.

As the US and Europe kept doing and destroying – geographical restrictions on various weapons, the US had to approve every target and if it was too high-value, they leaked it to the Russians and delayed approval.

Ukraine followed the rules all the time, which were constantly changed if, against expectations, things went too well anyway.

Russia is a creature of habit that has adapted to moving forward slowly with infantry and does not expect any direct counteroffensives because none have come since summer 2023 on all fronts in Ukraine.

The Russian staff has also prepared their own spring and summer offensive which we see playing out in parallel with Ukraine increasing the temperature.

Our guess has been the following – orders have been given for attack objectives to the CAA commanders who probably cooperate intermittently but largely have a siloed organization.

They have then distributed the task to the divisions which use the brigades as expendable goods.

The chain of command is slow and absolutely no one likes to convey bad news up the chain. Throughout the war, they have only said “more, more, more” as medicine against every setback.

This year’s focus points are –

– a buffer zone along the northern front.

– Slovyansk/Kramatorsk.

– an offensive on the southern front towards Dnipro and at Huliapole where after Pokrovsk they have dominating terrain. All roads lead to Dnipro so it is easy to see that Putin intends to take the Dnipro area and up to Pavlohrad and then stand behind dominating terrain in the form of rivers.

– a sideshow was to reach Oskil up in northern Luhansk.

Pokrovsk was for a long time the focus and they have had a high ambition level this year as the VDV has been fully expended, at Pokrovsk it was the 76th GAAD and Stepnohirsk 104th AAD + 7th MAAD.

The idea is probably to try to reach Oskil in the north and then the Dnipro – Pavlohrad area. In the middle they stand in Kramatorsk – Slovyansk and now have a sufficiently attractive position to propose a ceasefire and negotiations. Then in a few years, they will run round two to try to conquer the entire area east of Kiev.

Things are shifting in Europe, Ukraine is fighting back, Russia is being mocked – no one higher up in the chain likes it so “more, more, more” probably echoes between the walls at staff meetings.

The CAA commanders sit in their bunkers and use the brigades as expendable ammunition where they rather sacrifice them than be forced into humiliating farewells – they try until it no longer works, then try a little more just to be on the safe side.

This is what it looks like on the Russian side, broadly painted but important points to take with you –

– they have gotten used to low-intensity grinding

– orders for spring/summer offensive are given

– the command chain is, if possible, even slower, the big shots are under great pressure to maintain their image

– maintenance is at a great distance

– units in the combat area have no vehicles

– the task forces are already expended to varying degrees at the fronts.

This is actually fact but no one dares to believe the situation is this bad. Ukraine knows very well how things stand.

Ukraine has worked a bit differently but suffered greatly from the West’s constant betrayals until we reached 2026 when the stars began to align in the right constellation.

They have bridged all material shortages through domestic production except interceptors against Russian missiles.

For a long time Sirsky ran around micromanaging down to battalion level which did not help at all. He is probably most harmful as Chief of Defense but with the introduction of corps, competent troop commanders have gained enough freedom of action for it to show.

Personnel shortages were at one point acute and brigades were down to 300 at worst because they received no replacement personnel. The 72nd fighting at Vuhledar broke down in October 2024 and defended themselves on social media – that was the first time we got it confirmed from a first-hand source.

Frontline service was a death sentence as 80% of the wounded returned to service – the number of personnel who found reasons not to be at the fronts far exceeded those who sat in the trenches at the spearhead. The armed forces swelled to +1.2 million but brigades in defense had an area dimensioned for 5,000 but down to 300.

At Bakhmut we saw the 3rd assault brigade fight excellently, the marines took the spearhead of the spring offensive 2024 and all special forces seemed to run their own race but there were many units in radio shadow that were low priority.

Early 2025 Ukraine began introducing the corps and the foremost troop commanders managed to grab a corps and immediately started clawing for the best brigades.

Since then, the army, territorial defense, and national guard have acted in parallel throughout the war where the army has had the former volunteer brigades, army brigades, airborne, and marines.

Some units like the Skala regiment are now about the size of a division and have been a prioritized unit.

Besides that, Ukraine has had a strategic offensive reserve of elite units that are deployed where needed, we first saw them at Pokrovsk a bit too early before it became critical in autumn 2025 and then everything changed – critical areas were just that until the reserve rushed in. I sat and counted it to maybe 60,000 strong at some point but they exist partly in reserve and then spread out among various ACs.

What I believe the reorganization into corps has done is that they now have a decentralized chain of command where corps commanders have great freedom of action and cooperate with each other + a direct line to the strategic offensive reserve to present their proposals on where it is needed most in various operations.

Sirksy has less to say and everything is going much better.

On the southern front, the 17th AC has several elite units subordinated, for example, and the Skala regiment is apparently Sirksy’s go-to unit for firefighting.

The series of small counteroffensives we now see are corps commanders acting on their mandates within their respective areas,

The 1st Azov corps apparently all wanted to participate because they only have elite units, and the 12th AC is like a larger European defense force.

Apparently, the 3rd AC, which was built around the 3rd Assault, asked to have its area expanded and also took responsibility for a problem area – easy to see that they wanted maximum freedom of action within the framework of the orders given.

This is what they themselves say about the restructuring –

“A very accurate article «We are fighting against Russia and know why they will lose» by the commander of the 1st Corps in the NSU «Azov», Brigadier General Denis Prokopenko. I recommend reading it in full, but want to highlight some key theses.

Prokopenko starts with the most important — the fundamental mistake the West made in 2022:

«On the threshold of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Western analytical centers and intelligence communities made a fundamental mistake in assessing Russia’s military strength. Their forecasts, which predicted Kyiv’s fall within a few days, were based on quantitative indicators: an army of millions, thousands of aircraft, tanks, and artillery systems. This approach scared ordinary readers but ignored intangible yet crucial factors: command culture, morale, social cohesion, and adaptability.»

«This analytical blindness partly remains today. Many in the West continue to view this conflict solely through the prism of a war of attrition, where victory is determined exclusively by resource volume and the ability to mobilize more people. This is a dangerous mistake.»

This is a fundamentally important point. The West still thinks in 20th-century categories — tanks, guns, troop size. But the war is already different. And precisely for this reason, Western analysts could not foresee either our resilience in 2022, or our technological breakthroughs in 2024–2026, or the failure of the Russian military machine.

«This war is not just a collision between armies but the ultimate test of two diametrically opposed systems that arose in the post-Soviet space. One system, the Ukrainian, is a network model built on trust, which unleashes human potential. Much of the changes have been initiated and developed here by ordinary citizens, soldiers, sergeants, and junior officers.»

«Ukraine’s defense forces, especially units that emerged from the volunteer movement, such as “Azov”, have cultivated a command philosophy based on the principles of decentralization and extended authority. This model is a modern interpretation of the German concept Auftragstaktik (Mission Command), developed to conduct combat on a dynamic, non-linear battlefield.»

Auftragstaktik is a doctrine that gave the Wehrmacht an advantage in World War II over all opponents. Its essence is simple: the commander sets the task and explains the purpose, and the executor on site decides how to carry it out. This fundamentally differs from the Soviet-Russian model, where every step is detailed from above and initiative is punished.

The Ukrainian army, which grew out of the volunteer movement, naturally built a system that German general staffs in the 1800s developed over decades. And precisely because of this, we defeat an enemy that numerically surpasses us.

«The Russian system of troop control is the exact opposite. It is a rigid, vertically integrated hierarchy of the Soviet model, where every step is regulated from above. This system was not created for maximum combat effectiveness but to ensure political control over the army, where loyalty to the regime has always been more important than competence.»

«A key situation for this system failure is the chronic underdevelopment of the junior command staff and the madness of senior officers, who are ready to sacrifice an enormous amount of personnel (all the way to the last soldier), to please leadership, without deviating an inch from the higher commander’s intent, even if it was doomed to fail from the start.»

The Russian system is not built for victory but for generals to steal undisturbed. This is a systemic feature of the empire — loyalty is more important than competence. And this very feature is destroying the Russian army from within today, slowly but inevitably.

While the West looks at the numbers, the real war is won by the minds of younger officers and sergeants who make decisions on site. This is our main advantage, and it must be preserved at all costs.

Moreover, I personally am pleased by the thesis that:

«Western partners learn from us and gladly adopt combat experience.»

I hope this is true. Because the Ukrainian army is today the world’s best school in modern warfare. The Azov corps, SSO, SBS, GUR, SBU — each unit independently surpasses most NATO armies in real combat capability. This is a fact we see every day in the results from the battlefield.”

—

We know that RU uses around 10,000 FPV drones per day in the daily summary on johanno1.se that MXT provides us.

What doesn’t quite fill social media is that Ukraine uses the same or even more drones than RU; Russian soldiers often describe how 7 to 10 drones per Russian soldier is their everyday reality.

Ukraine has gained FPV drone superiority partly through its EW, own drones, anti-drone measures, but also through a persistent fight against Russian drone groups. I don’t know exactly when this was in time.

Yes, different at different fronts, but where UA decides on offensive operations, they can both fight mechanized under their own protection and also have drone dominance to deny movement and conduct pre-emptive strikes.

Drones are tricky because they get into every opening, big or small.

For a long time, Ukraine has been using drones to eliminate high-value targets in the strategic drone war best described as a backlash.

At times they have been banned from this, and during 2025 the USA held them back, but since August 2025 the intensity has been high and has also started to include more and more target types.

It is indisputable that Ukraine has already won the strategic drone/missile war as their air defense manages to combat 90% of targets on average, on good days nearly 100%.

They have developed EW against the Zircon missiles, which are supposed to be the hardest to counter, and have already shot down 28 during approach.

Russia manages to counter very few, not even in Moscow where they have gathered hundreds of air defense platforms of all types, they remain vulnerable.

For a couple of months now, Ukraine has started with the “mid-range,” which seems to be from 50 km depth, as FPV drones manage up to 250 km.

This is HIMARS all over again; Russian logistics have adapted, and suddenly Ukraine rolls out a new no-go zone over which they have full fire control.

Social media likes this kind of thing, so you probably haven’t missed it.

Different army corps are actively working to claw in the capability under their umbrellas and compete to reach the furthest right now, besides the pure drone units where Robert Brovdi certainly stands out somewhat.

First came fire control over the access roads to the Southern front and Crimea from Taganrog/Rostov. Vehicles are burning all the way on the Russian side.

It is summer and the soldiers need to drink water.

A brigade needs something like a hundred vehicles per day to manage in combat, I believe we calculated this in 2022 when this was last discussed.

Ukraine has in recent days had over 500 vehicles knocked out per day – posted by MXT on johanno1.se.

This causes direct cascade effects, first lost deliveries, then disruptions, fear, transport stops – all resulting in the spearhead at the Dnipro and Southern front not getting their ammunition, food, fuel for generators, water, and other necessities.

Remember the post about the Azov push on May 22, this fire control also applies when the special forces try to advance to the breakthroughs.

And during the Russian retreat.

Already in 2023, the special forces suffered enormous losses when they tried to move forward and plug the gaps, you can probably guess how it will look this year.

What you see is thus pre-battle preparation ahead of the Ukrainian offensive at the Dnipro and Southern front.

But the fire control has now extended all the way to the DPR and LPR core areas in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Medium-range drones hunting everything moving on the roads.

Already in 2022, they easily found ammunition depots by simply following the trucks in – this year they have so many eyes from the air, had time to log all targets, and Atesh that very little remains hidden.

The number of drones Ukraine manufactures is in the millions per year in all different versions – still an upward curve on this pre-battle preparation.

They started softly but now the fire control over the roads to the southern front has reached hurricane strength and they are likely following up with northern Luhansk, northern front, LPR, and DPR.

The same with the FPV swarm at the fronts – waiting for it to reach storm strength at the Dnipro.

Now that we were right about the strategic offensive reserve we discussed early 2025 that joined the chat in autumn 2025, we have the next big reveal.

The amount of hard vehicles, mine-clearing equipment, amphibious combat vehicles, artillery, and tanks that Ukraine has received is extremely high since 2025.

Here you have what Bulgaria has provided.

Almost nothing is used at the fronts, Ukraine has shown it can get wrecks running, REMO where weapon stations have been replaced is standard, and half of Europe has workshops for UA equipment.

It is highly likely that there is a substantial armored fist of army brigades fully equipped with all traditional capabilities we have not yet seen.

How large, I do not know, but it is many thousands of hard vehicles delivered that we barely see.

Since Ukraine can fight mechanized under the protection of its own drone umbrella, it is this group that will decide the war (soon).

The offensive strategic reserve is currently used at critical points and to break up stalemates so the army corps can continue on their own.

In autumn 2025, they went in and cleared lost territory and then the brigade responsible for the area went in to take over and continue enduring the FAB rain. They came and went.

Since they are light-footed and just want to fight, they do the job for five or so, they move around different fronts and multiply their own strength fivefold.

At some point there will be a breakthrough which higher staffs have different plans for and want to exploit – then this second armored fist in reserve still exists.

Russian entrenched infantry softened by FPV drones and not receiving maintenance.

When the attacks start, there will be direct fire and artillery on top of the drone weapon, and Ukraine has already shown that they master mine clearance and fortification clearing like gods.

At breakthroughs, they have light mobile units and heavy mechanized brigades that can exploit them.

You will see this this year – these “medium-range drones” that UA has unleashed are a technological advantage that Russia will be able to counter within half a year.

Then there is the presumed Russian mobilization this autumn.

The opportunity is now this summer – the ground holds, fire control is fought for, reserves are fully equipped, and Ukraine has all capabilities.

I would not be surprised if Gripen flies already this summer.

Waiting only gives Russia time, and with China’s help, they will eventually also have an anti-drone weapon worth the name.

Or even worse – build a new Surovikin line.

Since the flow of information upward in the chain is manipulated, bad news comes with delay but sooner or later reaches the decision makers.

Window and opportunity, as they say, is now this year.

I have another post where I reason about what the USA, Europe, Russia, and China will try to do to counter this even though Europe has now, belatedly, started to get it right.

Then a review of the fronts this week, up in Lyman the Russians have now retreated behind Zherebets so their offensive is going backward instead of forward.

The big question – how much freedom of action do the corps commanders have?

The broad strokes are easy to see but, for example, will 3rd AC be allowed to take all terrain to the UA eastern border if they can?

Will 2nd AC be allowed to take Belgorod?

When UA attacked at Stepnohirsk, it was only known by a few dozen within the organization, they kept total silence.

They have kept completely quiet about various offensive operations so far, everything started with Russian accounts that our OSINT analysts jumped on, and Deepstate has been far behind.

I myself hope they take the opportunity to topple Russia so it is divided into maybe a dozen new countries, Belarus gains its freedom, and Kaliningrad is demilitarized.

Only then will the centuries-old Russian threat be over but Europe will surely slow down, the USA and China will definitely slow down, and the country’s population will choose a Finnish continuation war instead of peace after 4.5 years of war.

We shall see – that they fully intend to retake their entire country by force and will succeed in doing so is now beyond all reasonable doubt. When the Southern front is rolled up, Taganrog, Krasnodar, and Rostov are exposed where Putin has zero defense. If he tries to reinforce down there, Ukraine already has fire control over all access roads from the north, and he must take troops from somewhere else.

Putin’s last play is tactical nuclear weapons, meltdown in Enerhodar, and an offer of ceasefire during the day – nothing changes the war in Ukraine.

We have reached the beginning of the end.

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Inlägget Southern Front – Broken Arrow, June 5, 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

It was also true that RU is behind on the curve in that area, someone got hold of a RU staff map and it shows RU positions further north than our maps – very good that Ukraine is inside their decision circle and jumping.

Then Sweden has now decided to give Gripen aircraft to Ukraine, they will first get 16 and then purchase more – Ukraine has already said the magic words “no more FAB”.

I say it again – in the previous post and this one my assumption is that the USA is conceding. If they bring their 11 CAGs into the Baltic Sea the situation is completely different.

The two posts should also be read together.

Now came a piece of information which admittedly is some way off before it is in place but when it arrives Europe will have a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force sent to the Baltics “within hours” where the entire decision chain has been reviewed – when it is in place in a year or two it will be game over for Putin’s plans this time.

This further strengthens my assumption from autumn 2025 that Putin has a window and it is now.

So what does Europe have to counter a drone-saturated battlefield in 2026, and what exactly is a drone-saturated battlefield – has Johan No.1 made up that word?

Ukraine has confirmed that instead of RU losses caused by 12% snipers and 75% artillery, losses are now caused by over 80% from drone weapons alone.

Russia loses somewhere around 30,000 verifiable soldiers per month, 0.8X30k = 24,000 Russians who partly have their own drone weapons and anti-drone defense for close protection but also experience trying to hide from drones (personal skill through practical experience).

When they try to attack mechanized and expose themselves it becomes a veritable drone massacre every time. So much so that RU has completely changed its doctrine and tries to swarm with dispersed shooting instead.

Lithuania recently had a simulated exercise to defend against a full Russian invasion – at first it did not go well but when they added a drone weapon in the form of drone swarms in the exercise they won.

This also applies the other way around, right, and right now it is Russia that has the drone swarms and Europe does not have the drone swarms.

In addition, Russia has increased the use of FAB to 250-300 per day (and wants to increase significantly) which proved absolutely devastating for UA units in defense. The USA assisted by delaying precision aircraft to Ukraine so they cannot practically prevent these today. They can also release these at significantly longer distances than 60 km today, up to 100 km has been suggested but take that with a grain of salt.

The drone weapon as it has developed today and can be used is comparable to the Germans’ blitzkrieg doctrine during WW2 – if you haven’t kept up with the development it is a major negative.

Now the blitzkrieg doctrine was paired with a decentralized decision chain and great room for initiative from lower commands so it is wrong to say it was only a technical advantage – I will return to that next week because Ukraine has stolen some pages from that handbook now with its transition to corps.

Russia learned the hard way that their air defense developed throughout the Cold War against hostile missiles and aircraft cannot handle drone swarms – they are still trying to find countermeasures.

Ukraine today has the world’s best air defense and on a good day can shoot down 90% (100% in exceptional cases) of incoming strategic drone threats.

FPV drones I do not know, have not seen any figures but RU uses 10,000 per day.

UA has acute problems with missiles where RU (previously) managed to launch 100 because Trump delayed deliveries of Patriot missiles to Ukraine even though they now seem to have their own systems that work – Zircon should also be able to be jammed with advanced EW systems (28 in total have been forced to crash) and they have a brand new battlefield laser.

Ukraine has also developed interceptor drones which have proven effective but in MENA they quickly saw that giving them a complete system after some training caused chaos – it is an integrated system where the operators must understand the whole, which a quick introduction was not enough for. We covered that yesterday.

Countermeasures are thus definitely increasing but you must have enough, be able to handle the package and then understand the whole chain.

When the Houthis had their firing spree in the Red Sea they attacked over 300 ships in total including several surface combatants – some countries in Europe were forced to leave because the close protection systems on their surface combatants were inadequate.

In the Iran war they have certainly hit several US ships as the US has moved around its naval resources, and Trump is also trying to get Europe to take over the monitoring of Hormuz which he caused to be closed.

Besides that Israel has had problems with its Iron Dome against drone swarms mixed with missiles where quite a few got through.

The drone weapon is thus fully tested in two wars and is a threat to all traditional capabilities including surface combatants for the simple reason that close protection has not yet kept up with the development – it is underway but we do not have it yet.

Not to mention the sea drones that have decimated the Russian Black Sea Fleet – if I were the commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet I would also try to acquire these capabilities after China surely built the production lines for them in Russia sometime since 2023. Anything else would be malpractice.

EU/Europe

The naval capabilities we have in the Baltic Sea largely lack advanced air defense – our corvettes do not have it.

But we have the multi-purpose cannon and it works well against drones, but it is a cannon that can be saturated – a bit of a mixed bag.

I was looking through the new German frigates and they were a bit the same – I had a post in the works about why but it never materialized. You know how it would have gone – we build advanced surface combatants without adequate air defense at a time when close protection air defense is critical otherwise they are just big floating bathtubs – who pushed that in politics.

I seem to recall Finland had a bit the same but they are trying to solve it with land-based protection, Poland and Denmark I do not know.

No other countries will have surface combatants in the Baltic Sea when they are needed if we are reactive – which we have so far shown a very strong willingness to be. A few sunk ships in the channel outside Denmark if you read yesterday’s post.

Our ground forces cannot fight in a drone-saturated combat environment at all. Since sometime in 2025 Ukraine always sends a couple of drone groups and they paralyze the blue team – it became a whole post about that the other day, Aurora26

Now defense Twitter is absolutely damn angry at Ukraine who gave us IG during Aurora but it is true, 28 of 32 vehicles were knocked out and they got through the perimeter defense of an airbase in 20 minutes where they engaged targets without own losses.

The exercise leadership had to pause three times and eventually remove OPFOR for there to be any exercise at all – they showed they were world-leading in warfare, but they had to remove the enemy to be able to fight.

If there is a conflict zone in the Baltics where our brigades face Russian counterparts it will look like this –

RU now has the drone troops branch set up after the Ukrainian model with years of practical experience – about 100,000 strong today and rapidly increasing with the ambition to reach +160,000. It is called Rubicon and gets everything they point at.

https://kyivindependent.com/russias-expanding-drone-forces-passes-100-000-personnel-copies-ukrainian-example-magyar-says

This branch uses around 10,000 FPV drones daily in Ukraine.

About every other day RU can launch 500 Geran drones and the launch ramps are Toyota pickup-type vehicles.

They have a few thousand missiles in stock and if they want, they can launch 100 in one day; they use them sparingly in Ukraine but Ukraine has targeted a couple of missile depots, more on that below.

In addition, RU drops between 250-300 FAB bombs (on a good day) over fixed defenses in Ukraine which has been such a big problem that Ukraine has completely changed its defensive warfare.

Can the FAB bombs be taken down by Geran drones?

UA now has groups on the front line and then an FPV drone cover that handles the defensive fight – the drone capability we do not yet have.

We still need to defend ourselves with personnel since we lack the drone weapon.

UA artillery, IFV, tank, and all other types of vehicles could initially fight according to our doctrine but with constant movements. Today that is no longer possible – they simply have to be kept beyond 30km-50km (not sure if 50km might be UA range and RU a bit shorter) otherwise they get knocked out. Ukraine has now fully learned this and uses artillery less because of it but their drone weapon has replaced it instead. Just as RU has replaced its artillery with FAB and the drone weapon.

Yes, RU artillery is still used but to an extremely lesser extent than at the start of the war – then RU fired 50,000 – 60,000 shells per day, today 5,000-6,000 shells per day.

The drone weapon has longer range so our IFV and artillery cannot get far enough forward to operate – that’s just how it is.

Against us, however, the Russians’ artillery and IFV can operate according to previous doctrine since we do not yet have any drone weapon.

But we have an air force.

Our air force can also drop missiles or JDAMS beyond the RU air defense umbrella – they will not steal that capability from us.

RU has its own air force so there it will still be traditional warfare – we come out winning from such a fight.

We have about 1700 supersonic planes in Europe’s various air forces and RU has 800 – 1300 so it looks promising.

However, the big weakness of our air force is something completely different – only Sweden uses road bases so all aircraft in Europe stand on large airbases.

Missiles and JDAMS are stored in large central depots.

Yes, in case of war there are more airbases but unless we are proactive, all our capability will be neatly lined up on a couple of large airbases per country when it kicks off.

During 2025 so many drones flew over Europe that it should be accepted that RU has logged all targets already.

In 2025 Germany logged 1000 drone overflights at its bases and other high-value targets – one single country in Europe and what they have disclosed.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-registers-over-1000-suspicious-drone-flights-in-2025/a-75261162

These targets can be reached with larger efforts with Gerans and missiles which are also present on the shadow fleet’s ships around all of Europe – they can reach any target they want in all of Europe.

In addition, Russia and Iran pay for gang murders and criminal clan services to expand the pool of their own operators and recruited spies – if they want, they can carry out direct sabotage, fly FPV drones close to airbases or wait with MANPADS on planes at takeoff.

The Russian electronic warfare also works and during the war several of our GPS-guided weapons have had problems in Ukraine, SAAB’s GLSDB had problems, right?

GPS jamming from Kaliningrad and St Petersburg is in full swing and increasing by the way.

Recently, aircraft and ships have seen on their systems that they are located somewhere else than where they actually are. Feels like something China has provided and since everything we have is GPS-based, it will be interesting to see what our sharp countermeasure is.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-can-falsify-gps-signals-deep-into-europe-lithuania-says-2026-05-26

When the USA attacked Iran, their specially equipped F-16 for EW performed excellently, whatever they are called now, and then their SEAD – since the USA no longer seems to want to know about Europe, do we have this capability?

Not enough would probably be the answer but we have it, and RU knows exactly where those airframes are.

A bit off topic but then the USA used that “Cuba embassy sonic weapon” in Venezuela? It paralyzed the soldiers who were supposed to protect Maduro according to rumors – it was probably a Russian weapon originally that the USA immediately started developing themselves?

Ukraine has during the war carried out several spectacular drone operations against RU airbases, the best was probably when they knocked out 30% of the Russians’ strategic bombers in one strike.

Besides that, Magyar, who is the world’s best at this, has explained that he could knock out the entire European air force – if you don’t believe me and are getting angry about defeatism maybe you will be calmer now that you have his confirmation?

“I answered the following, that four of my battle crews standing only 10km away from this base can destroy it fully in 15 minutes, it would look like Pearl Harbor during the second World War,”

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/16/politics/ukrainian-military-leaders-drones

RU today has missiles in stock. Ukraine usually targets Russian GRAU from time to time but these are the latest figures a year old, they shoot less – China assists – UA targets GRAU. Could not find a good source for this year but maybe around 2000?

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/russia-s-weapons-stockpile-revealed-how-many-1750496990.html

China has built up the Russian armaments industry including missile production.

https://www.uawire.org/center-for-strategic-and-international-studies-china-helped-russia-triple-iskander-missile-production-skirting-sanctions

The laws of war apply so if Russia targets goals in Europe we can target goals at them – how many missiles do we have?

Not so many unfortunately because we counted on the USA’s Tomahawks, called “the long range gap”.

Taurus, which is an attractive weapon, I think Germany long delayed – the company wanted early in the war to produce “large volumes much cheaper” but they never got any orders.

Since 2025 there have apparently been orders and the production rate is 50-60 per year.

Storm Shadow is manufactured and according to Google production started seriously in summer 2025 – they should be able to reach 600 per year.

This is how it looks – we have a full war in Ukraine and now the Iran war so we are not very far from the truth.

Europe actually has three conflict zones/threats to handle –

1. The Baltic Sea

2. The Baltics

3. indirect long-range capabilities and hybrid threats.

I want to argue, and will return to this at the end, that the only thing we could now manage is to defend the Baltics, but then we must be prepared for heavy losses and difficult decisions.

Our navies are vulnerable and will quite quickly disappear into the archipelagos.

The strategic drone threat – we cannot even retaliate proportionally.

We are extremely vulnerable to hybrid threats inside Europe.

Here I interject my answers to the two questions even though the post went far beyond them, it almost became a completely different post.

1. NATO Article 5

This must be a consensus of all members including the pro-Russian government in Bulgaria, Donald Trump, Turkey, and pro-Russian Fico in Slovakia – you can forget about Article 5 being activated without delay. It might become a decision but absolutely not within the critical week needed to avoid wading across the Daugava.

The countries whose governments can make decisions on certain capabilities directly are Sweden, France, the UK, and a few others.

Finland, Denmark, Germany, Norway, and Poland all need parliamentary decisions, and many have coalition governments.

Countries without governments or with elections this year – Denmark, probably soon the UK, Sweden, Latvia, Czech Republic.

In Sweden, if it is a government decision, 24 ministers from three parties vote – unclear if it is a simple majority and the Prime Minister presumably has the deciding vote.

Since this whole chain is reactive, I find it incredible that we will manage within a reasonable time – when all decisions are made, the question to consider is, are we prepared to retake terrain in the Baltics from a buried Russian behind the Daugava comfortably under its drone umbrella.

That will not happen, so countries need to start acting preventively now, which is the point I have tried to hammer in since autumn 2025 – if you talk about a DEFENSE it must be in place before the violence breaks out.

2. Europe’s violent response

“We don’t need to retake the Baltics, we knock out the Baltic Sea fleet and invade Kaliningrad instead” is a recurring suggestion for a desirable way forward when I worry about the Baltics.

Kaliningrad will have tactical nuclear weapons “that can self-ignite from boot stomps” and some very scared Chinese colonels there this summer – no one will invade Kaliningrad.

Or we do, and Russia then has territorial claims on us for an enclave they have already written off – since it is the world that judges in such matters and surprisingly many stand on Russia’s side, it is not insignificant.

The Russian Baltic Fleet is a good target, Ukraine will probably get to it after the Russian fleet in the Caspian Sea but we should absolutely knock it out.

Russia has already accounted for this so either it leaves for Murmansk or is sacrificed – and if it is sacrificed they probably want to strike first. Since we are reactive by definition, they have the opportunity to do so.

The Baltic Fleet’s task is to block reinforcements by sea to the Baltics and be a step on the escalation ladder – when that is achieved they probably expect to lose it in exchange for getting the Baltics.

Warning

Warning signs, is a new Zapad 25 underway someone asked on johanno1.se because that could suggest that Russia does as we are used to, a huge exercise to under the cover of it bring forward the units they need for an invasion.

Already in autumn 2025 when I reviewed available information, the Baltic Fleet had for two years (now three years) trained more than the normal curve.

Now it looked like this.

https://united24media.com/latest-news/russia-simulates-strikes-on-nato-ships-in-baltic-drill-using-oniks-and-kh-35-missiles-17148

First – Belarus will not join the war, they are flank protection and project a threat against Poland.

Belarus has had 42 military exercises just in May and Lukashenko talks about war (again). Recently they closed off 19 large forest areas at the borders with Ukraine, the Baltics, and Poland.

They have mobilized and trained reserves in shifts and carried out the preparations required for general mobilization.

In addition, they have started building defenses against Ukraine and it was recently confirmed that they have nuclear weapons in Belarus after the larger exercise recently conducted.

The Belarusian armed forces have been trained by old Wagner since 2023 and in Russian drone warfare, both to operate under it and also as their own drone weapon.

In 2022 we laughed heartily at them, today they are probably a factor with just under 100,000, fully mobilized half a million strong.

They have received new Russian equipment.

I guess Lukashenko has a very tightrope to walk here – when too large a portion of the citizens are fingering a Kalashnikov they take over the country. He needs to have a defense against Ukraine and project a threat against Poland as Putin demanded but absolutely not upset the Ukrainians and especially not lose control of his country.

Russia cut off Starlink and Telegram a few months ago so the ground troops in Ukraine became blind – the proposal was unrest in Russia or mobilization, and we hear more and more about preparations for mobilization. 300,000 has been circulating as the number Russia is to mobilize this autumn.

What is happening on the Russian side of the Baltics

In February 2024 Russia began setting up a “Leningrad military district” which included the Baltics and also Finland?

Up near the Finnish border they are building many depots and bases that are currently empty – a good way to keep Finland locked is to station all training of new units they mobilize this autumn up there.

https://bisi.org.uk/reports/near-the-finnish-border-russia-is-quietly-building-its-military

Russia has also built bases and depots in the Pskov area. In previous posts we have discussed how Russia has strived to hide its activity in Pskov, camouflage nets over the train station, artillery units moving in the area but not appearing in Ukraine, and large depot facilities closer to the border with the Baltic states.

From memory, they set up some new Army Corps and two divisions in this new military district.

In the latest weeks, various ships from the Baltic Fleet have begun positioning themselves in the Baltic Sea, it is generally accepted that this is to protect the shadow fleet and not an indication of full war, but they are increasing all the time.

https://www.balkanweb.com/en/Germany-warns-Russia%27s-naval-presence-is-growing-in-the-Baltic-Sea/#gsc.tab=0

During 2025 Russia conducted extensive intelligence gathering on our defense installations in Europe – air bases, central depots, military bases, radar, infrastructure bottlenecks like bridges, railways, and other things that would complicate the movement of units eastward.

In addition, they rehearsed attacks on our electrical infrastructure, for example opening our hydropower plants wide open for several days through IT attacks.

Their shadow fleet is now publicly known to have special forces onboard and they regularly fly drones from the ships over Europe.

Most recently, GUGI reconned the sea cables outside the UK so they have already spied on all our sea cables and power lines – a total of 13 sabotage incidents against cables in the Baltic Sea were there in 2025, right?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cre13qn9z7do

Russia is absolutely preparing for a war against us, that is indisputable – and they are putting very large resources into it.

What then would be the warning sign before an immediate start of war?

Europe’s entire analytical corps are idiots because they unanimously say “we see no buildup”.

For alternative “little green men,” the only warning will be when they stand a couple of miles into the forests in eastern Baltics.

Level between medium and high – we barely get any warning when units from the northern front leave and Ukraine calls us. They go directly to pre-calculated UFA where the staffs have already been on site. The entire command structure in the new military district is well in place in their buried staffs.

Equipment is already today in newly built depots in the Pskov area, so the only thing they need to bring for medium/high level is the vehicles and then roll through a prepared TOLO. During conscription, it took a few hours for a company.

Artillery, air defense, and probably drone capability should already be partly in place.

Possibly also if they start reinforcing Kaliningrad, the Baltic Fleet leaves via Denmark with its protected ships, or if they manage to trick China into sending higher-ranking officers to some “exercise” in Belarus or Kaliningrad.

A very sure sign we have actually already seen is the North Koreans; the entire staff structure for the 11AC is now in place in Kursk Oblast and is dimensioned for 80,000 troops.

North Korea marched in the parade on May 9, and recently another contingent of short-haired young men who were “civilian technicians” arrived. The source is what it is, but the film is correct.

https://www.azernews.az/region/257228.html

When Ukraine starts calling us that NK presence at the northern front is beginning to strengthen significantly – then it is medium/high level that applies because they will take over the guard duty at the northern front so RU can free up their units.

Probably those who profile themselves on the issue like Breuer will until the last moment claim that they see no “buildup for an offensive against the Baltics” only to then forget it and continue giving poor advice for high pay.

If they move air defense gathered around Moscow westward, that would also be a good signal – the move to Moscow has already been made under the pretense that Ukraine is the threat, which it might be, but they have amassed enormous air defense a few hundred kilometers away.

Little green men on the islands in the Baltic Sea are probably also a given signal?

What should we then do?

I have been reasoning about this since Zapad 25 and the only play we have left now is to immediately bury deployable light units in SE Estonia and NE Latvia.

Belarus will not go to war; they are the anchor on the flank preparing defense against Ukraine and are there to project a threat against Poland to lock up their units there.

The same with Finland – they place exercise units up there to lock them in.

The Lithuanian border with Belarus is to be handled by Germany and Poland; they have far-reaching plans for that and Poland can spare capability.

Unfortunately, what the Baltics have not yet done is to completely mine the border – they argued for two years about the thickness of bunker walls, recently left the Ottawa Treaty, and the tank ditches were by early 2025 only 400 km of drainage ditches that could be jumped over. Considering that Latvia’s government just fell, it is easy to understand that Russian subversive activity has focused on this and that they have been politically too weak.

This is how the Soviets cleared minefields during World War II, by the way.

I brought up how we should proceed in the Aurora26 post the other day, please read it if you missed it.

Decisions about defense must be made immediately and what we have in place today is far too little in the wrong geographical area as the Swedish battalion and the Canada-led brigade stand in western Latvia just north of the Daugava.

If we do not do this, Russia can use its escalation ladder to preempt us and then we must try to agree on whether to retake lost terrain in the Baltics or not – as long as we do not do that, we have a worry in Europe that will topple governments and shake the financial markets.

If at the same time we enter a 2008-type financial crisis and Russia – USA – China coordinate measures against us, retaking ground in the Baltics quickly will become secondary. Russia gets the open wound in our side they are very comfortable with.

The USA slams tariffs and refuses to deliver oil, gas, and other things because we *(insert any insult against Trump)*.

Constant sabotage against our LNG-oil infrastructure, pressure on countries to stop exporting to us, and attacks on our electricity production.

All this has been practiced by Russia during 2025, we know that.

Our new friends – Canada, India, Japan, Australia, and everywhere – are beginning to feel that we will not come to their aid, the Evil Troika can pick them off one by one.

China holds back our imports of critical products or natural resources so we only get 97% finished with what we manufacture.

Somewhere around here we are back to the Cold War – a divided Europe that cannot unite and is afraid.

When Churchill realized just three days after becoming prime minister that France was done for, it was the biggest shock of his life according to his memoirs – Europe’s by far strongest defense force was overrun.

Swedish defense Twitter has just had its Churchill moment and is furious, but we should thank Ukraine for shaking us up before Russia does.

We have only one play left – your guess is as good as mine but Sweden has so far dared to go further than most countries in Europe, with JEF help maybe these decisions can be made now within the coming months before it is too late.

Yes, I have indicated that the Russian window would close sometime this fall when we have built enough interceptor drones to neutralize the Russian drone threat, but the snail’s pace we currently see might make that too optimistic?

Aurora 2026 became a drone massacre on the blue team – we are simply not ready five minutes to midnight.

Then we have Razpuzitza at the end of October sometime, which usually dampens the desire for large troop movements.

What is then a likely scenario from RU?

Today there is a somewhat agitated atmosphere so there is no absolute guarantee that little green men will manage to come under a will to make difficult decisions for Europe’s leaders. It could be exactly the opposite and sufficiently attractive for Europe to go directly into the Baltics since “little green men” are probably manageable.

The assumption is made that the USA will leave a walkover – if they do not and are prepared to fully defend and retake the entire Baltics, the equation changes immediately.

Eastern Baltics north of the Daugava and south of Tartu is extremely poorly defended – no fieldworks and no real units in a very large area.

If something happens, it will probably be this –

-RU locks Suwalki with remotely placed mines and drone weapons. Quite soon after the conflict starts, refugee trains move through Lithuania towards Poland, making movements north even more difficult.

-They infiltrate specialists deep into the Baltics for sabotage aimed at delaying mobilization and movements. In Sweden, we expected spetsnaz in the police and our military uniforms standing by the roads to the mobilization depots, murdering us. Blown-up mobilization depots, booby-trapped mobilization depots, blown-up railway tracks and bridges – all to buy time.

-Landing units with anti-ship missiles and air defense on Saaremaa and islands in the Gulf of Finland.

-The Baltic Sea fleet goes to sea to prevent reinforcements arriving by air or boat; they declare a large NOTAM over the entire area.

-Large demonstrations in major cities in the Baltics and “popular uprising” (you know what I mean).

-Geran and missiles over all targets north of the Daugava + blow up all crossings over the river.

-An initial mobile attacking force simply drives westward along 3-5 attack vectors. It takes less than four hours to reach the Baltic coast by car; they can drive through terrain until sometime in October, so key points are passed. This force already exists in the larger area today; there will be no direct warning at all.

-All targets passed are logged and receive drones, missiles, artillery, and FAB (free-fall bombs) on them.

-Units from the northern front regroup and pass through a TOLO on the way to then immediately take up defensive positions north of the Daugava and attack from Tartu towards Tallinn. I imagine this takes about three days from when they start moving from the northern front since Bryansk – Rezekne is a 9-hour drive.

The gaps on the northern front are covered by North Korea’s 11th Army Corps, which is sized for 80,000 troops and has been reinforced in the past six months.

Since there were never any troop movements, Europe received no warning despite Ukraine constantly warning us.

Bridges and railway tracks are blown up in Poland and Lithuania, complicating movements.

Suwalki is locked; when the Poles and Germans have worked their way through with losses, RU is already in dug-in defense along the Daugava under their drone shield.

Belarus never joined the war and is thus still neutral in the gray zone we have unfortunately accepted.

Poland overruns Kaliningrad as revenge. Or maybe they don’t because of the nuclear threat, as there are tactical nuclear weapons in the enclave that could “self-detonate.” I don’t know how they reason behind closed doors.

Poland has recently expressed that they think Ukraine should stop drone attacks on oil installations.

-Putin says that the area north of the Daugava is now Russian but he solemnly promises never to set foot south of it, PEACE IN OUR TIME.

-Russia mobilizes during the autumn.

-Estonia immediately throws in the towel, and since the mobilized RU units are training at the border with Finland in all newly built bases, the Finns cannot spare anything.

Step by step until it works, RU ends the war in Ukraine – if needed, they leave the whole of Ukraine just so the Ukrainian threat disappears. China and the USA will push hard for peace between UA-Russia quite soon. Politically, it becomes impossible for Zelensky and Budanov to wage a Finnish continuation war; they feel Europe can handle the Baltics as we have betrayed them throughout the war.

Since Belarus has prepared for a defense against Ukraine, there is no way into the Baltics for Ukraine anyway.

I have half-started to wonder if the USA will enter Crimea to “secure the vital peninsula since no one manages to hold it” – it is unreasonable until it is no longer so, but it must happen before Ukraine is standing eating sausages on the peninsula, because then it will be too late.

The USA and China say that we in Europe must handle the Baltics as best we can, but since we took Kaliningrad, it is no longer black and white in the eyes of the world.

Russia moves much capability from Ukraine into the Baltics as soon as a ceasefire occurs.

What do you think we in Europe will do – the Baltic Sea fleet is knocked out and Kaliningrad overrun.

Putin now promises the same kind of retaliation as in Ukraine – if you shoot at us, you will get 500 Geran drones + missiles over you every other day in continental Europe.

Or if you want peace – then you get all the LNG and oil you can buy at the five-year discount I just promised.

Russia must do something; exactly what they do we will see, but for me, Europe gambling on something like this is incomprehensible – fortify all terrain north of the Daugava now.

Anyway, those of you who feel a paid subscription on Substack was too expensive – please share the posts instead.

It takes time to write these posts – I have worked on these two for a long time since it was supposed to be a concluding word.

And if you now feel the post is completely unreasonable – this is how the latest sandbox war game for the Baltics went in winter 2026

Inlägget Operation Baltikum (2 of 2), 29 May 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.

Last week, Ukraine sent 600 drones and other devices of various sizes towards Russia in response to their attack, which was a “thank you for the ceasefire on May 9.” Zelensky made a promise of proportional retaliation, also called a comeback.

Around Moscow, RU has built several layers of air defense with exactly EVERYTHING they have in their arsenal + what they are trying to develop, a couple of hundred different systems or more protecting a small geographic area.

Moscow’s refinery was hit several times for the first time in the war.

The total number of drone attacks on refineries since the start of the war is now up to 146 by the way; I have a small list I update every time a refinery burns, an Easter list of joy.

I don’t think Russia can handle another year of this – the strategic drone war combined with their own offensive losing steam and Ukraine’s offensive operations increasing sharply also make the situation on the ground in Ukraine more than worrying for the staff, even though there is probably some delay in understanding. No one wants to deliver bad news up the chain, a natural filter.

The conclusion I want to reach – if Russia intends to do as they always have and try to increase the level of violence when the current level does not give the desired result, this needs to be done this year because by 2027 it may be too late. An escalation also needs to come before the mud season rolls in sometime in October, unless one wants to wait until winter, then Europe gets another half year to prepare.

The other leg of this assumption is that Europe has now, albeit late, probably understood that we should learn from Ukraine after seeing how MENA was devastated by Iran and a platoon of Ukrainian anti-drone operators suddenly was more valuable than a ton of gold, revered by a unanimous MENA. Within a couple of years max, we will have the same level as Ukraine on our digital battlefield, telewarfare, drone weapons and anti-drone weapons – I discussed this a bit the other day and why the old zoo of dinosaurs has slowed things down so far. We have had a great discussion with Swedish defense Twitter now after Aurora 2026.

All else equal, over time Belarus will turn to the EU, a people’s revolution Ukraine is working against by the way – guess where the presidential candidate has just been…

Hungary was just lost to RU and Transnistria is not far away.

Kaliningrad will become demilitarized/autonomous – there is a strong movement in the enclave for that.

And when Ukraine is done with RU’s fleet in the Caspian Sea, they will go after the Baltic Sea fleet.

After the recent posts about Operation Baltics, which apparently will become recurring from my side, there have been some discussions in the thread on johanno1.se and especially two comments have been put forward that I now intend to take a whole post to reason about to better support my argument.

First, the calibration – will Ukraine get there first and win its war or will we fortify the today undefended area in the Baltics enough, probably nothing will happen because that threshold is too high for Russia.

Undefended vast forests can get you far without alarms ringing, and if we don’t show our fangs there is always the risk that RU gets a feeling.

I want to introduce one more level – all terrain north of the Daugava. Need to check the post from 2025 but I recall it was included, it has slipped into black and white to become exactly the whole Baltics or little green men.

Daugava is a very attractive natural barrier.

Suwalki is an artificial barrier that is worthless if Kaliningrad falls, and in Lithuania there is no corresponding natural undefended obstacle.

The Lithuanians have their capital near the Belarus border and such places tend to be defended.

So everyone who thinks “a few miles of forest in eastern Baltics, why bother” must not forget that the drive time Daugavpils – Riga is under three hours.

The risk for a conflict zone in the Baltics SHOULD be over when the mud season rolls in PROVIDED we don’t dawdle with preparations.

A Russian DNA seems to be drawn so that at the slightest sign of weakness they just throw themselves over the victim but that they refrain from strength they feel is not a hot air balloon.

1. If Russia in any form attacks the Baltics, NATO will immediately, at the request of one or several Baltic states, activate Article 5 which in the long run will neutralize the threat to the Baltics. Individual states will also be ready to act outside NATO if needed.

2. If Russia in any form attacks the Baltics, NATO/EU/Europe will immediately go over Kaliningrad and neutralize the Baltic Sea fleet – that battle will be devastating for Russia which in the long run neutralizes the threat to the Baltics.

This will be a very long post, perhaps my longest, which will go off in different directions which you have hopefully started to get used to, but try to get through it – it is well supported partly with information but we also have various events since early 2025 to fall back on, things that were incredible until they no longer were – the probability of various reversals has been adjusted upwards.

We have a rather strange discussion right now where the Supreme Commander and MUST warn that Russia will try to occupy islands in the Baltic Sea soon but the Baltics I am quite alone in promoting.

I don’t understand why.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/ob-varnar-ryssland-kan-testa-nato-inom-kort

The Baltics are starting to get a bit worried though

https://www.svd.se/a/d4v96J/putin-kan-testa-natos-artikel-5-redan-under-sommaren

The most important thing, if you want peace you must prepare for war, before the war comes. I added the last part myself because it seems necessary if you are to follow defense Twitter’s screams right now when their exercise just became an exercise in humiliation and degradation as they made the mistake of letting the Ukrainians be OPFOR – they probably won’t do that again.

When the US declared war on Iran by not declaring war at all and just bombing the country to pieces, the discussion immediately split into two camps. I myself believe the Iranian regime should be replaced for more peace in the world and that it is far from over yet. For example, it is rumored that the Iranian army has started fighting with the IRGC in some places and we know that Israel/USA have not directly fought any of the higher army commanders, only the IRGC, the mullah regime and Basij.

But there are worrying details in this that possibly point to a hidden agenda – the US/Israel let militias from surrounding countries in and tricked Iran into fighting oil infrastructure in MENA by first starting to bomb it in Iran. We have gone through this and you all read everything.

The other camp is those who feel the US has completely failed, it won’t work because everything is harder, Iran fights back and similar reasoning. One can at least go so far as to say that the US absolutely has not succeeded to date in neutralizing Iran so that they still pose a major threat in the region. At least Israel is starting to get worried but the laws of war apply to them too and now they chose to join forces with Trump who in three months totally wrecked what looked promising – that the rest of MENA saw Israel as a stabilizing force in the region and wanted cooperation.

There is no point in trying to guess if this was Trump’s plan all along with Putin and Xi because it is far too speculative.

The blue team USA (or red team depending on which country you are in) which according to the collective expertise is supposed to have the world’s strongest military attacked a country of 90 million that has indeed engaged in terror and military buildup but has not been involved in high-intensity warfare since the 1980s, and certainly not against a high-tech opponent before. However, one can assume they tried to learn from the Iraq wars?

My guess was that the US engaged in some military deception during the negotiations so that Iran would not deliver a first strike against their naval forces in the area – the fact is they did not, the Iranians themselves have said that the negotiations would have continued on March 6 but the war intervened. If you add an Iranian first strike all else being equal, it would have been preferable for the bad side, with a high probability that they were faked out.

But as soon as Russia – Europe comes up, the conviction is rock solid that we will first have a decision chain that works like a well-oiled bicycle wheel and then through the right decisions and appropriate use of force relatively quickly decimate the Russian threat so we can restore the Baltics their statutory international right to freedom and eternal happiness.

Russia is if not a high-tech opponent at least a technological opponent but above all they have gained intimate practical work experience over four years, China has also tried to bridge their technological blind spots since 2023 and we have seen improvements.

We saw Russia’s digital battlefield go from being unusable at all to working very well from 2024 onwards – their kill-chain is fully operational with all indirect capabilities even though we have guessed that they will have problems in mobile combat, which we hope to see this summer.

I think it was first during the Kursk offensive where an MRAP from UA rolling on a country road barely survived a salvo from artillery – that was the turning point because before that the salvo came at best a few minutes after the vehicles had passed and preferably 200m to the side.

The question we cannot answer yet – is Europe an equal opponent or alternatively better than Russia?

When countries go to war both sides believe they hold the best hand, then it hits and you get a receipt – if you are a bit lucky it is enough to fine-tune.

The most important thing, is Europe mentally ready to go to war with Russia?

Russia is under heavy pressure in Ukraine but they are fighting against the world’s best defense force today – recently various high-ranking US military officials have praised the Ukrainian miracle, for example their Delta which “is better than what we have in the US”.

Hit to target from detection is now so short that it is almost ridiculous.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/05/13/ukraines-battlefield-integration-surpasses-us-militarys-army-secretary-says

Ukraine has a defense force of perhaps +1.2 million and has, as you know since 2022, the world’s best shooting according to Johan No.1 – we have seen it countless times. They have a strong will to defend their potato fields and a very large untapped goose with Russia. The number of dead, wounded, and psychologically incapacitated is staggering but Russia has met its superior man/woman/other gender identity in its brotherly people in Ukraine.

There are two sides to that coin where the other side is the Russian defense force which now has a well-functioning drone weapon, painful practical work experience, a digital battlefield and in addition has begun building a strategic reserve which they equip with newly manufactured materiel. We can assume that this reserve has been trained by veterans from Ukraine.

This offensive strategic reserve has all the traditional branches of weapons to then be topped off with the drone weapon which we partly do not have ourselves but also get absolutely crushed by when it is tested as OPFOR during exercises since 2025 as we have not yet figured out how to defend ourselves against it.

So what is the Baltics?

According to Russia it belongs to them – the explanatory models are of course completely off the wall but what is interesting is what motives the attacking party has.

Russia is also trying just like us to find the most advantageous geographically dominant terrain they preferably want to stand in when this war is finally over – Johan No.1 wants a demilitarized Kaliningrad, a disintegrating Russia into ten new countries and a free Belarus joining the EU. The Belarusians almost managed to gain their freedom but Europe chose to turn away so Russia could send in the FSB and Rosgvardia for some disciplining – the first missed opportunity for us not to end up at war again.

By the way, exciting that Ukraine has met the real “presidential candidate” in exile.

https://ukranews.com/en/news/1153761-belarusian-opposition-leader-sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-arrives-in-kyiv

Russia knows they cannot get Poland because Germany is on the wrong side of history today according to them.

It is enough to look at the map to understand that the Baltics are a geographical big win for Russia – if they succeed in reincorporating the Baltics into the Russian empire their influence over the Baltic Sea will suddenly be heavenly, they will have a much more pleasant land border against what they perceive as a united Europe on the rise that is starting to become seriously troublesome.

Kaliningrad is vulnerable and the Baltic states have already cut the land route, now that we are starting to board the shadow fleet the step to a full naval blockade of Kaliningrad is not very big – if Russia loses Kaliningrad all else being equal they lose the little dominance they have in the Baltic Sea and they will have to run the Finnish gauntlet again if there is war – this has historically rarely led to great empire victories, mostly burning sinking ships.

This is their reality regardless of what we think about the issue – now it is not us and our reality that will start this war, if it comes.

According to previous posts, we have two developments running in parallel – Ukraine is slowly starting to win its war and Russia is preparing for an escalation in some form against us. Which one comes first we do not know and Ukraine cannot be expected to take more responsibility than they do today, they are pushing at the pace they can handle. We keep our fingers crossed that they get there first but we must prepare for war – anything else is negligence even for the dinosaurs in the defense forces who have had a salary all these years precisely for a scenario like this.

Threat and escalation steps

Since we by definition have chosen to be reactive we will have to run along the entire Russian escalation ladder.

This is one of the absolutely most important parts of Russian warfare where they constantly try to get below the level that forces the opponent to make a decision, they spread disinformation, their allies in the opposing team slow down all attempts to make decisions and then above all the threats – constantly threatening with overwhelming force if the opponent by any chance would think to meet proportionally.

2022 – 2024 this worked excellently in Ukraine, after having worked even better in 2014. Europe consistently did too little too late which prolonged the war by several years – this is a reality we have to relate to but it is also some indication of how we will act under pressure for Russia who make their analyses based on history.

The Germans’ “we don’t even send standing helmets” was downright tragic.

For Russia, this subversive weapon is still functionally operational and has a probability of working that is probably sufficiently attractive.

Now today in 2026, we at johanno1.se were right that Hormuz would be closed in case of conflict, with the difference that they did not sink any ship in the middle of the channel – it is Pearson’s book that turned out to be correct again, which is what I base my entire analysis on. Many have argued in the past year that Hormuz would never be closed, but now here we are with cut oil supplies. It was a bit messy, for a while it was Trump who was supposed to close the strait – that Pearson had not predicted.

The Iran war, some minor conflicts Thailand – Cambodia, India – Pakistan, the Ukraine war in its fourth year, enormous subversive activities and sabotage against Europe with a new axis Russia – China – USA beginning to form after both Trump and now Putin have visited/are visiting Xi in China.

In the post about Xi-Trump a few weeks ago, we assumed that Taiwan would be up, and it didn’t take many days before Trump couldn’t hold back, so we have almost a receipt that China-USA are reasoning in terms of dividing spheres of interest between themselves now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyp9mk3mrgo

Trump has his full focus directed against us – they are pulling their spearhead away from Europe along with critical (one might guess) staff functions, besides that Trump and Xi only visit the “wrong” countries in Europe – Russia, Belarus, Hungary, Bosnia, Slovakia.

It’s not just the artillery battalion below that won’t come, probably also the Stryker brigade from Germany besides the brigade that was to go to Poland for rotation but was canceled, then staff functions are to be removed – which ones I don’t know.

If you ask me, there will be more that Trump soon urgently needs elsewhere, and I think Trump’s promise of more troops in Poland is evasive – of course, I could be wrong.

After all the above, it becomes a bit easier for me to build a credible escalation ladder;

1. Blocking the Baltic Sea is an early measure, sink 2 ships from the shadow fleet in the middle of the Denmark channel so no ship enters the Baltic Sea that is not already in the Baltic Sea. Russia immediately accuses us of being guilty and points out that Sweden has previously boarded many ships – this is a bold act of war that Russia will consider for a while before responding proportionally.

They also mention in passing that the ships unfortunately transported *(insert any unstable explosive, today’s nitroglycerin)* so it is absolutely impossible to salvage them – whatever you do, don’t touch them, buying time.

Since Ukraine has bombed Russian port installations for export and especially Sweden now boards shadow fleet ships increasingly, they don’t have much to lose. Suitable Russian ships pass this channel daily.

2. Russian media announces that there are tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad which they cannot guarantee won’t accidentally explode if a Polish boot happens to cross that border – media floods with maps showing fallout and blast radius where they cheat all the way to Berlin.

By the way, Belarus now has nuclear weapons.

China announces exercises in Belarus, a company of SOF with some dozen officers from the general staff lands under full military honors – the purpose is to prevent anyone from conducting acts of war against Belarus as that would draw China into the war.

Putin really tried but the only thing he got over to Kaliningrad was a regular rifle platoon of Chinese with two colonels Xi still intended to dismiss – it is widely reported in Russian media networks that China is in Kaliningrad in a peaceful joint exercise for great world peace.

3. Russia floods the media with its nuclear threats as usual and that it is proportional retaliation if Europe conducts acts of war against the Russian motherland – for example in the Baltics which everyone knows is Russian but absolutely across the borders into today’s Russia – then it will explode immediately. Satan 2 will this time not explode in the silo or crash during flight, promises Putin, they will all hit their targets. Exactly how many Putin is vague about because he knows he soon only has one left unless the engineers work weekends and nothing burns down.

4. Information about how many Geran drones Russia could fly over Europe starts appearing in the media and the range is exaggerated so not even Lisbon is safe. Overflights with +20 drones are carried out a couple of times where after the second time we decide to shoot them down with our top fighters, and manage to bring down seven.

Now Russia has proof that we will sacrifice our ground and airborne missiles during large drone operations, and thanks us for the confirmation. They had guessed that because that was how Ukraine acted in the first years where every troop commander had orders to show maximum strength until they realized it was a good way to run out of ammunition.

Or MENA where the Gulf states fired up to 8 Patriots at one drone or missile in the first days.

https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/air-defense-news/eight-missile-for-one-drone-ukrainian-instructors-shocked-by-us-drone-defense-tactics

(During the first major Geran operation in Europe when air defense plotted the routes and saw that our major cities were the targets, there was as expected a highly trigger-happy defensive fire, and then immediate screaming about ammunition shortage).

Russia explains from time to time that indirect attacks from Europe against Russian targets including the Baltic fleet and their motherland in the Baltics will be met with proportional 500 Geran drones/2 days – they cite Ukraine as evidence in the matter.

5. Along with this, Putin pushes for peace in our time together with Trump and Xi where he dearly and honorably promises to de-escalate all the above as soon as Ukraine is made to take a pause – the children have suffered for too long now. Putin also promises to release LNG and oil at half price, he calls it a peace discount for Europe that will last over five years. Since our LNG stocks have started burning and the leadership from Azerbaijan has been subjected to sabotage, Germany is beginning to air that they will have big problems this winter without LNG, especially since it seems to be an El Nino year giving a brutally cold winter in January-February. Bad timing there, even the weather is against us, the German energy minister feels, is this God’s punishment for our attempt at a better world in 1939 that no one liked, he thinks gloomily.

Trump leaks that it is important for his midterm elections, and China that world trade and peace must prevail.

There are several alternatives here in an increasing scale that are adapted to the situation –

-RU withdraws to the old ATO line and declares a ceasefire as a first attempt. If that doesn’t work, they leave all of Ukraine and proclaim Peace in Our Time where the USA and China immediately start negotiations with Ukraine with binding demands that Ukraine lets the weapons rest.

The purpose of point 5 is to remove Ukraine from the equation by giving the citizens enough so that they choose peace, making it politically locked to try to resume hostilities for Zelensky and Budanov.

6. When Estonia and Latvia (which are without government) start calling their allies about infiltration deep into the Baltics, Putin flatly denies and claims that these are local resistance movements, on the same day there are many demonstrations with Russian citizens around the Baltics who are tired of all the oppression, hatred, and threats.

“We want freedom” it says on the placards and Putin threatens military intervention if a hair is bent on their heads.

All films are clipped so social media is flooded with older protesters who are bloodied and hit in the head – the Balts’ attempt to explain that it was not their riot police delivering the blows is drowned in the Russian film storm.

6. In larger ports in Europe, ships sink or misnavigate and block harbor entrances, shipping companies come up with a flood of excuses.

7. After the most valuable soft resources in the Baltic Fleet have left for Murmansk, and a couple of surface combatants have arrived in the Baltic Sea from the Northern Fleet, the fleet leaves the quay and positions itself around the Baltic Sea

(a classic from the Cold War – a smaller submarine surfaces in the current and announces that if the Swedish government does not surrender, a couple of tactical nuclear charges will self-detonate in two hours).

They remain under radio silence with open missile hatches that reach all European capitals, Putin is clear that they are only there to protect the shadow fleet.

8. On Åland, Fårö, the large islands off Estonia and on Russian islands in the Gulf of Finland, activity is reported which the Russians flatly deny. MUST says it is coastal missiles, LV missiles, MANPADS and drone groups that have landed with naval spetsnaz as close protection delivered by the shadow fleet and fishing boats.

Apparently the Russians had hidden lots of weapons at their Åland consulate, and the entire embassy staff was replaced with operators.

The Swedes had played it safe and reinforced Gotland, and the Danes Bornholm, but the other islands were undefended since Åland is demilitarized and the Balts themselves are responsible for their islands.

After a quick analysis, it is concluded that together with the Russian Baltic Fleet, the Baltic Sea is to be considered impassable for anything other than surface combatants for the time being.

9. Ships from the shadow fleet position themselves around all of Europe in international waters with a surface combatant or submarine from the Northern Fleet as company, Ukraine contacts us confirming that these ships probably have Geran warheads onboard.

10. Putin threatens that “all internet traffic and electricity transmission you have under the water surface around all of Europe we can cut whenever we want.” During 2026 the British shadowed several GUGI ships over their cables, and in the Baltic Sea we have already had 13 cable breaks since 2022 so no sensible analyst believes it is an empty threat.

https://www.tv4.se/artikel/6a0m91n4CNddTrpJP3VP8a/sammanstaellning-kabelbrotten-kopplas-till-fyra-fartyg

12. Putin threatens that “your nuclear power plants, hydroelectric plants and electrical infrastructure really look vulnerable, hope you don’t have any accidents this autumn now that it’s going to be a bitterly cold winter.”

13. In several countries in Europe, the opposition demands new elections and demonstrations against incumbent governments reach storm strength.

Left, right and Islamists all simultaneously take to the streets to shout out their core issues.

The gangs go to war with each other, and the criminal clans want more of everything.

I have surely forgotten something but roughly these are the escalation steps before full conflict where in the twilight phase it increases to direct sabotage and actual acts of war but which are still somewhat in a gray zone.

Post two will come on Friday.

Inlägget Operation Baltikum (1 of 2), 28 May 2026 dök först upp på Johan No.1.