The last post was about the Ukrainian miracle at the front lines – the warriors of light fighting the pitch-black Russian hydra, and it’s going well – very well. So well that I’m starting to wonder where it will break first.
The 3rd Assault Corps is experimenting with EW to suppress Russian drones, their own ground-launched missiles they release behind Russian lines, SOF deep behind enemy lines, and then full mechanized combat because they have drone superiority.
That thing about mechanized combat has been a mantra for a long time – if you have the advantage, you fight mechanized, and now it’s proven by the 3rd AC.
The Russians, who do not have drone superiority, have to keep swarming with infantry or suffer the wrath of drones if they try to move convoys on highways – which probably doesn’t stop them from trying, but that’s how Russian mechanized combat has looked for almost two years now, and it will look the same now too, even if more and more drones are needed to combat a tank with new countermeasures.
Zherebets has been passed in the form of small bridgeheads, the two Russian army corps behind are shaken, and a UA official says “we have only just begun.”
There are no special forces behind, and to bring up reserves they need to convoy on highways, which is a death sentence on today’s drone-saturated battlefield that now fully operates 150km-180km behind the front lines for UA.
The videos are still hard to watch, the soldiers are exhausted and have been at war for several years too long – a whole generation will have been sacrificed, if not physically then irreparably, but future generations will live in a free country.
They roll out a fire control zone which isolates all units in a geographic area and prevents reinforcements – then they wear them down over time and finally attack and clean up. Rinse and repeat in the next geographic area, and the 3rd AC with 1st Azov are at the forefront of this warfare, probably the best in the world.
Now it’s only half the cake as we wrote in the previous post, and the wheels are turning faster now, I believe most can see that.
If you remember earlier posts during autumn 2025 – until this summer it looked roughly like this;
-Since April 2026, Russia has completed all infrastructure up to the Baltic border, road bridges, railway tracks, train stations, roads – everything is reinforced for heavy transport.
-A month ago we saw footage of riverbanks at the Narva River where RU on their side of the border dumped crushed stone and leveled it for a hard ramp down into the water.
-Belarus has cordoned off 16 forest areas near the border with Poland and Lithuania, they have trained their defense forces all through 2026, prepared schools for mobilization (billeting) and hospitals.
-Russia has recently prepared 20,000 hospital beds in the area bordering the Baltics.
-The North Koreans have in waves reinforced their 11th AC in Kursk and today your guess is as good as mine but I believe they have a significant number on site now. The corps is sized for 80,000 and 50,000 has been communicated on several occasions by UA. Whether all have arrived we don’t know, but transport planes have been flying shuttle flights all spring and summer.
-RU has at least 2 army corps at the northern border that they can pull back on short notice and replace with the North Koreans, a couple of movements have been made to the Klintsy area which UA interprets as RU preparing an offensive against Chernihiv. That is naturally the westernmost area on the northern front that does not raise attention if Russian troops gather there.
-Rosgvardia has several regimental formations equipped with BMP-3, T90M, artillery and light vehicles which are motorized regiments that are part of the Russian offensive strategic reserve. In addition, they have FSB, GRU and Rosgvardia units available numbering maybe 400,000 or more now probably.
-For two years, the Baltics have seen various formations moving through Pskov, mostly artillery and light vehicles that then did not appear in Ukraine. Many depots have been built near the Baltic border and a reasonable assumption is that heavy equipment has been stockpiled there. The train station in Pskov, which is a transshipment hub, has been covered with camouflage nets so RU has made efforts to hide movements in that area for a long time.
-The Baltic Fleet has been at sea more than normal in 2026 and larger ships from the Arctic Fleet have been in the Baltic Sea, I don’t know the current status. RU also pulled back a Ropucha and moved it out of the Baltic Sea.
-Russian ships suitable for seabed operations have patrolled virtually all underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, off the UK and Norway throughout 2026.
-Our reconnaissance aircraft have been up 24/7 since last summer and have been scouting the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad, the Russian side of the Baltics and north of Chernihiv – I have posted this continuously.
-First NATO (USA) and then a Europe-led large demonstration around Kaliningrad a few weeks ago, first strike packages and reconnaissance capabilities we rarely see.
-The USA has fired several high-ranking NATO commanders in Europe, the latest general recently, and in waves withdrawn all their offensive units from the Baltics, Poland and Germany. They also withdrew hundreds of staff positions during 2026 which were probably key personnel for coordination and reconnaissance. A HIMARS battalion that was supposed to arrive was also paused, as well as long-range indirect fire.
-The USA has let us buy their equipment against prepayment but now it will not be delivered to Ukraine or us for at least a year, Tomahawks, Patriot and other things we really need. The USA blames the Iran war of course but this damages their arms industry tremendously so it’s a decision they have made that is not logical at all.
What has happened in the last week is that Poland, Germany, the Baltics, Sweden and probably Finland have moved mechanized units on heavy transport in various “exercises” which are not really announced, mixed with “reinforcements”, and in some cases openly admitted troop movements like when Poland moved a few hundred tanks to the Kaliningrad area.
We moved coastal missiles to Gotland under tight protection with the navy and air force supported by the Germans and practiced coup defense against ports and airports, right?
I have posted the videos on johanno1.se and my substack.
My interpretation is that the eastern part of Europe is now preparing for war and moving ground forces – you don’t do that if you are preparing for drone threats by the way.
A joker was just thrown into the poker game – the Baltics have confirmed that a heavy mechanized American battalion is on the move (i.e., on the way) to Lithuania. If that is the case, my entire narrative built over almost two years falls apart, so it’s an absolute earthquake if true, but we’ll see. However, it possibly strengthens my suspicions that they are leaving the area north of the Daugava but we’ll simply have to wait and see.
The Russian side is now broadly going out on their channels saying that Europe will start, or has already started, a war against Russia. One angle is that Ukraine used our missiles against Moscow during the Duma election, which of course they did not.
Ukraine heavily droned Moscow right during the Duma election which probably made the Russians furious, they only do that if we in Europe stand behind them. Previously we have asked them not to provoke Russia so a significant shift from us in Europe.
Trump is going to meet Xi very soon.
Belarus is conducting a large military exercise on its side of Suwalki and has upgraded an old railway that goes up to the Lithuanian border, in addition to just activating relay towers so Russia can fly drones against Kiev.
It’s easy to see that Ukraine will fight them and then Russia can soon claim Ukrainian escalation against Belarus.
Our “reinforcement operation” on Gotland can really be interpreted in any way.
Always watch what Finland does is my best guess for 4.5 years now, so we’ll see, but they are keeping quiet which is good.
The Baltics are at least currently trying to pour oil on the waves while the rest of Europe is jumping up and down – this is also the opposite of how it has been so far because before it was the Baltics who screamed loudly and we who dragged our feet.
At least to me, this signals that the Baltics are trying to balance their slack line and that they know they are first in line if any mistake is made.
At the same time as politicians are now out in the media with an elevated tone, a lot is happening militarily that we don’t talk about at all – that was the case during the Cold War and it’s good.
My great concern during the Operation Baltic posts was that Europe would enter this like Ukraine in 2022, un-mobilized and believing Putin’s lies so he gets a direct advantage.
Russia is trying but has made perhaps the biggest mistake of this war – they started a hybrid war last summer, a high-intensity one, so Europe had time to get used to it.
The forest fires were not the climate crisis; in Portugal, France, Spain, and Italy thousands have been arrested for setting fires.
We have now entered direct war preparations where railway tracks are being sabotaged widely across Europe; in the Netherlands there were about thirty sabotage acts over a few days.
What will happen?
First, there will be attacks on our LNG storage and electricity supply – a low-odds event.
Drones will continue and increase, missiles are also not entirely unlikely but aimed at the Baltics so they can blame technical faults and other nonsense.
We might even see a false flag from Russia, not unlikely.
The timeline, I have guessed that Trump needs calm over the midterm elections but I actually don’t know.
What Putin does we also do not know but you can be absolutely sure that all different plans and contingencies up to a full invasion north of the Daugava River are on the table.
Europe has not been this close to a war since the 1980s when the Soviet Union misinterpreted Operation Ryan.
We are also very close to a 2008-type financial crisis we are reactive to – we will be hit quite hard.
In the posts about Operation Baltic, we suggested that a financial crisis could be combined with a Russian black swan and then capital flees Europe – no one wants a strong EUR at all, if the world chooses to park in safety in EUR instead of US government bonds during the coming crisis, the US will have a hard time so they act according to what is best for them which maybe you can’t blame them too harshly for.
The US chose not to support Saudi against the Houthis and I guess that is to force Saudi to support-buy US government bonds when they panic – true or not we will probably see.
This fall this will roll over us – my concern from the posts about Operation Baltic was unfounded which is perfect because Europe has had time to gradually escalate which our elected officials seem able to handle.
But we will have a tough year to manage, of course.
With a bit of luck, the EU will emerge strengthened from this and then we will have good times when competent leaders have come into place and navigated us through this.
That’s how I see this developing, of course we should have prepared a year ago, a deep mine line along the Baltics’ eastern border and enough shooters in the trenches would have been preferable but I understand that you have to navigate this politically as well.
Now at least the die is cast – either Russia collapses under the pressure and splits into about ten new countries, which Ukraine strives for and we now apparently do not oppose, or they escalate against us.
China will at some point make its move which seems to be Taiwan.
Since 2022 you have daily followed the posts about the road to the great war of our time and it is now actually hanging in the balance. Moreover, the man who then sends us into war is an absolute madman who has completely lost his footing in Russia.
What we do in Europe will have very little bearing on what happens but if we don’t show our claws in time it will be even worse.
If the worst happens, the US will first withdraw embassy staff from the Baltics and the Baltic Fleet will go to sea, we know there is a direct US-Russia hotline that we are not part of. If that is followed by Russian troop movements at the northern border against Ukraine then it will be escalation but we are naturally not there yet.
The blood bank will probably also be revealed to be in place, maybe?
You have also seen coordinated anti-migration protests in several countries in Europe recently along with some Islamist terrorist attacks. Besides that, of course, hybrid war trafficking against the only countries that have not closed yet – Spain, UK, and Ireland.
Almost the entire list of hybrid war tactics we have discussed over 1-2 years has now been checked off and the only thing left is a sharp escalation against Europe from Russia in some form where a full invasion north of the Daugava would be the highest level.
Little green men might be what Putin chooses, who knows, but that would then only be a step in an escalation we can handle so Putin is increasingly cornered now and there he can sit and sulk.
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