Europe daily update September 15, 2025

Then NATO responded to the Russian drone attack, something RU must have anticipated?

There is a lot to read into, and the level of ambition is crucial, and if one wants to be picky, the window for IF Russia intends to attempt something in the Baltics became a bit tighter.

Below is a long and sour post mostly about Poland, but later this week there will be violent deaths of Russian bastards again.

The overall situation for ground combat as we know it –

Russia has sustained an offensive since the fall of 2023, and they have more to give in Ukraine.

Trump wanted a ceasefire, and Europe + Ukraine supported it, but Putin refused until this summer because he believed he didn’t need it.

China has ramped up their war material production, annually capable of building – 1500 tanks, several thousand IFVs/APCs, +1000 robots, and they claim they can build 79,000 Geran drones per year.

RU has started using autonomous attack drones on a large scale in Ukraine, and they have received laser weapons from China to shoot down aerial targets, the exact number of which we do not know, but we know they are with China.

I have speculated that China has provided high-value targets in Russia with their latest LV against drones, but we haven’t seen much results of that so far, it’s still booming 😀

Russia has 700,000 troops in Ukraine, they still have the initiative at the fronts, and there will be a major showdown at Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka soon. Both RU and UA have rushed in mechanized forces, and in today’s drone environment, this will be a very bloody series of battles.

Russia’s indirect capabilities are DAILY – 5000 FPV drones, 140 FAB, 5000 artillery, and then +50 air raids. You can read that list as a comment in the thread every day from MXT at johanno1.se.

We know that Russia has a strategic offensive reserve, but we don’t know exactly how large it is – at least an AC and 2-3 divisions. We also know that the Russian troop movement before their offensive is from existing fronts and existing units.

North Korea’s 11th AC is also supposed to arrive at the northern front or is already there, totaling 30,000.

We also know that much of the new equipment is not in large quantities at the fronts.

Ukraine has adapted its warfare and is saving lives today, thinning out the Russian ranks effectively. Ukraine also has its own strategic offensive reserves. I guess they must keep an eye on Transnistria and Belarus now, so the units are a bit scattered over the area.

They lose 1:3 in KWIA, but the number of casualties on the RU side is significantly higher.

For some months now, Ukraine has been engaging in a more aggressive and dynamic defense, but somewhat in the shadows, things don’t look good in northern Luhansk. Ukraine is slowly losing ground, conducting local counterattacks where it is most critical, and they have their main defense line outside the areas Putin wants to conquer – but they are not planning to retreat to it without a fight, that’s clear.

The overall situation for strategic bombing warfare as we know it –

Russia can conduct a mission with 500 Geran drones at most, and they now have missions about twice a week where they also incorporate robots?

China has ramped up all production lines, and even the launch pads are cheap cars.

We know that RU has good accuracy and target acquisition if they want, and they have now launched their older equipment, so even if we don’t discuss it, they hit UA where it hurts.

Ukraine is shooting down fewer targets than before, at best +90% now around 80% or lower, and they rarely bring down enough of the robots.

Geran jet engines are apparently difficult to shoot down, and RU is transitioning to them.

Ukraine has at times stated that Western LVs are not sufficient.

Ukraine initiated full asymmetric warfare in early August and is now (not for the USA but for Europe) targeting the goals they deem necessary in Russia.

They target the entire fuel, LNG, and oil chain – depots, pipelines, refineries, and export terminals for all three products.

For a month now, their focus has been to create fuel shortages in southern Russia and have succeeded quite well.

They also target ammunition, staffs, and bases, and Crimea now looks more like a pre-emptive strike than strategic bombing 🧐

Both Ukraine and Russia are preparing to target the power infrastructure in the fall/winter, and Ukraine has experience in solving it during crises, but Russia does not have it in the same way.

Overall, Ukraine has the advantage of being able to hold out longer than Russia, and if this continues undisturbed, there is a chance that Russia will collapse under the external pressure.

Combat plans of the parties

Ukraine aims to destabilize Russia so that the country turns inward and internal conflicts begin, then they can help partial republics gain their freedom, eliminate new criminal-clan candidates early, and in various ways minimize the Russian threat. Breaking away Belarus that turns west, for example.

They will then regain their country when the war ends and the Russian army leaves, and there will be permanent peace in their vicinity as oblasts bordering them want to be friends with Ukraine, and a future threat will be very small when surrounded by allies.

Europe and the USA have tried to avoid this for three years, Europe has probably accepted it now, but the USA still opposes it.

GUR, Atesh, liberation fronts in Russia, political opposition, freedom-seeking partial republics, and Belarus opposition are all UA tools to achieve this.

Ukraine holds out at the fronts, they carry out some spectacular offensives like the Azov thrust, they bomb Russia to pieces, and use all the above tools to bring down the country – if we maintain support, they will succeed.

They should have won the war already in 2022 and then 2023, but they were not allowed by the USA and Europe.

Russia aims to bring down Ukraine, but they are in a mess right now and still map with oblasts. They tried to get a free lunch politically, but Trump failed to deliver on that.

At a minimum, they have planned roughly the terrain up to the Dnieper and along the Black Sea coast because they need to connect with Transnistria.

The next target is beyond all of Ukraine, of course, the Baltics, which they know they can never politically bring down, but they don’t want a full NATO conflict on their hands because they can’t handle it.

An escalation in Ukraine would be to attack from Belarus and northward from Transnistria – Ukraine would have problems.

They have a very large organization for sabotage and subversive activities in Europe and plan to bring down the countries in the Balkans one by one.

They have also tied Spain, Slovakia, Serbia, and Hungary at present, and the Czech Republic risks a pro-Russian leadership.

In Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, are there pro-Russian parties on the rise at least?

To me, it looks like the goal is to establish the western border of the Soviet Union roughly with the buffer zone against Muscovite Russia, if possible?

At the very least, they probably want a foothold in Europe through the Baltic states like an open wound, and then engage in full subversive activities against the whole of Europe, which they are good at.

They are good at it because it is a state-prioritized function, and we do not engage in such activities.

They intend to pursue this permanently as a new cold war, but they must first gain a foothold. They like this because then the criminal clan, which happens to have a country, has all of Europe as its workplace again and can enrich itself.

This is what Europe has to try to handle, and we had a first test a few days ago when Putin fired a warning shot at us to test our response.

We have had 3.5 years to prepare, and Ukraine has repeatedly offered to train us, manufacture weapons for us, and provide us with technology and know-how, but we seem not to have been very interested in it.

We should already have UA instructors throughout Europe, but we do not.

Russia can wage war in 2025 together with Ukraine because they have learned the hard way.

China has also embraced this early, as we have seen in various movies, which of course do not represent the entire defense forces but prioritized units.

How did the beta test go for us?

I give Poland an IG in handling the drone attack, using very expensive robots and shooting down only 20% – 47% of a very limited drone operation was terrible.

Naturally, all 19-23 should have been shot down 100m from the border with cheap ammunition as a clear signal to Russia that we are ready for their nonsense.

How on earth could Poland not have that readiness after +3 years of full-scale war on its border, and after a total of 50 drones and robots made their way from Ukraine to Poland, the Baltics, and Romania since 2022 is beyond me, but evidently, they did not.

And no, they did not hold back that capability because precisely 19-23 were chosen to trigger a full air defense – Poland did what they could, and top fighter jets from 3-4 countries participated in the operation.

I find it hard to believe that more aircraft could have been squeezed into Polish airspace, actually.

Furthermore, Poland is now complaining and seeking help from all of Europe, which is downright embarrassing – first, they openly say “we do not have the ability to defend ourselves, help,” and then their respect for Ukraine is poor; they had about 400 drones over them when Poland had 20, and now Poland wants us to help them.

Like little daycare prima donnas who want to be first in line 😡

I am also very surprised; we have heard strong words from Poland before, but in the first test, they performed poorly. I did not expect that, and this was in line with my most pessimistic posts last spring and early summer.

Ukraine is doing the right thing and offers to organize Poland’s air defense – a good initiative 👍

The counter-demand is, of course, a no-fly zone in western Ukraine, which they will not get as thanks for saving Poland 😀

But…

It does not signal strength at all, and Poland is “Europe’s strongest military power,” according to those who are not prepared at all for the strategic drone warfare of 2025.

We have previously expressed concern about this, and now we have received confirmation that we were right… again.

That was the strategic drone warfare.

In the 2025 war, ground troops will also face 4500 FPV drones and 150 FABs daily, and 80% of your losses will be from drone weapons.

“We have air defense roaring now,” someone with a red face shouts about Johan No.1’s audacity and defiance.

No, they do not get close enough to the front to shoot out the FAB traps anymore due to the drone weapons.

“Maybe so, it doesn’t matter, but we have the aircraft that will shoot down everything.”

Yes, we do, but Russian top fighter jets are behind the FAB traps as protection, so there might be losses on both sides perhaps – is there a reason why UA F-16s are not dominating in Ukraine?

Also, we are currently using up our missiles on Geran; imagine if it turns into three weeks of Geran to deplete our missile stockpiles before everything else kicks off?

Furthermore, in ground warfare – as soon as your firing position or command post is located, a FAB is there within minutes, and surveillance drones hover above you around the clock. Russia has now sorted out its digital battlefield, which we have ridiculed before, but now we have seen proof of it many times.

All you will see of the enemy is scattered shooters moving forward, and if you try to dig in, a FAB arrives as soon as you finish your hole.

If you try to advance instead, you will have an FPV drone cloud over you, and if you retreat, you will be chased by FPV drones.

Your maintenance is constantly disrupted, and your counter-weapon is your own drone weapon, but Europe does not have it yet – why we do not have it after +3 years of war, historians will have to figure out, but we do not.

Looking at how Ukraine fights, they hold back the armor, with less mobile groups on the front line and mobile task forces extinguishing fires. They endure absolutely biblical plagues but maintain a good posture year after year.

Always mobility and full 3D, an eye on the sky 24/7.

No artillery, no 20 tents, no armor, move every 20 minutes, and so on.

“Adapt or die,” isn’t that what they say?

Considering how the Poles handled this drone operation, one wonders if they have adapted to the rest?

I can already tell you that they have not, for the videos we see from their exercises show armor moving – large snakes that are only FPV targets.

Or the Germans, the Balts, the UK, France?

The Foreign Legion, slightly larger than SOF, is probably the unit that may have embraced the warfare of 2025 as they are quite unconventional, and Finland.

Armor and tank brigades across Europe – no chance.

And those are the units we will send to the Baltics in an increased conflict.

Considering the limited number of armor and tank brigades we have, a discovery that we could not handle the warfare of 2025 could mean a significant reduction in Europe’s combat power in one fell swoop.

Perhaps that’s why they are not in the Baltics 🧐

What we do have in place now are our SOF, at least – something.

I maintain that Russia intends to open a wound in the Baltics and try to escalate it into a full conflict, somewhat like the droning of Poland, where it festers, but we do nothing – the capitals in Europe get nervous and start seeking safe havens, and politicians begin to waver.

Best done with “Estonian partisans” and green men in the eastern part of the country.

But if they were to pull our pants down completely, they would unleash the warfare of 2025 and the strategic drone weapon to see how we can handle it.

If we assume that we find our inner Viking and then go to war with Russia, which I think we will do in that case – even a European has a limit.

The Baltic Fleet will be severely punished with heavy attacks and various targets in Russia.

The Baltics will be retaken.

Kaliningrad will be lost immediately.

Does anyone believe that we would declare full war against Russia and take Moscow?

Or would the worst thing that could happen to Russia be if they had to retreat from the Baltics and lose 100,000 people?

During this time, all our focus is on the Baltics, right? So if Russia has the gas to continue in Ukraine, they can do it.

They have their strategic reserve for the Baltics, we know that, so the answer is that they can conduct both a limited campaign in the Baltics and continue in Ukraine.

How are Russia and Ukraine fighting in Ukraine today?

Low on personnel and high on drones, robots, FAB, and artillery.

Does the number of personnel in the Russian armed forces matter, or is it the quantity of drones, robots, FAB, and artillery they can put in the air that is crucial?

If 80% of the losses are taken by these weapons, I would argue that it is the latter.

We need to be pushed into this war as long as Ukraine still stands strong, in my opinion – that’s also why I shouted about a ceasefire.

Additional concern arose after the drone cloud entered Poland, unfortunately – in our scenarios where Russia would attack south through Belarus towards Lviv and cut off Ukraine’s lifeline to Europe, it was always Poland that would crush the Russian bastards in a violent Polish mechanized attack.

We had these discussions often in 2022-2023, and Poland was barely stoppable at the beginning when they dismantled Mig29 into small parts to send as spare parts (they probably flew over them all maybe 😀)

I’m not so sure about that anymore after the signals we’ve received since the drone attack and the weeks before 😐

No other country in Europe will send troops there, it was Poland that was the lifeline.

We are in the most dangerous months of the war –

Right now, RU is at the top in the tech race, but it always swings within a year. Ukraine had the initiative in 2024 until sometime last winter, but Trump stopped them.

Both Europe and Ukraine are developing AI interceptor drones that are dirt cheap and can take down shaheds.

The Baltics have probably finished arguing about the thickness of the bunker walls now and will start a deep Maginot line with troops and vehicle mines in deep fields, drone-safe bunkers, and several layers of extras.

My guess is that by the summer of 2026, the window for Russia to enter the Baltics will be closed.

Things are going badly for Russia in Ukraine, and we have previously guessed that they need to expand – Transnistria, Belarus, or the Baltics are their options.

Just so it’s not forgotten – Russia has moved troops in the area around Pskov and made efforts to conceal it with camouflage nets over train stations, for example.

Units that have moved through the Pskov area have not later appeared in Ukraine.

They have previously built depots in towns like Palkino.

They have upgraded the railway down to Pskov.

All of this has been warned about by the Balts before.

The Balts have also shouted about “force posture” – that we send our units to the Baltics now.

We should all be concerned that Poland has a counter-exercise to Zapad with 40,000 soldiers from 16 NATO countries and nothing in the Baltics – because IF something were to happen, the Baltics are the target.

AND we are to send our brigades to the Baltics in case of increased threat, and that is Zapad and the drone attack into Poland – they meet both those requirements.

Right now, we assume that Russia will not cause any trouble in the Baltics, or we are afraid to expose our brigades to violence – you choose.

We must hope that all our Special Operations Forces in eastern Baltics are enough if something were to happen, most likely it is for “Estonian partisans” and green men.

We will probably find out after the war that it was a high-intensity war in the dark forests between thousands of SOF 😀

Maybe our power struggle with Russia ended in just that – many thousands of SOF cutting each other’s throats in eastern Baltics?

A hidden war simply that everyone chooses to deny – Russia to avoid risking Article 5 and Europe to avoid risking Article 5?

Yes, there are different ideas on how to achieve peace in our time, I think we should stop being cowards and restore wetlands throughout Russia, mine the border again, and lean back and watch their version of the Hunger Games with a bit of biscuit throwing over the border fence.

Russia’s strength is not military power, it is their subversive activities and influence operations, and Europe is on the brink of a financial crisis, I have come to believe.

Russia will not stop unless the Russian soufflé collapses point. I don’t know Europe’s position on that after this summer, but the USA still absolutely doesn’t want it.

The country needs to undergo a violent internal power struggle, and about ten new countries will be formed.

Belarus must orient itself towards Europe and mine the border against Russia again, and Kaliningrad must be demilitarized or fall.

THEN we will have peace in our time, and I think the fastest way to get there is more of this so we are pushed a bit to not learn 2025 warfare after +3 years of war is more than overdue.

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