Ukraine daily update December 8, 2025

This is really starting to take shape except for the fact that Belgium finally found its inner pro-Russian traitor and went all-in, but they couldn’t bring me down from a positive-positive with that little rope trick.

Europe’s leaders have openly told Zelensky that they do not trust Trump or the USA and that they will be there for Ukraine – as hoped, it turned out to be the best possible outcome 😍😍

Europe has really managed to deliver a whole battery of hits right in the middle in recent weeks – a true joy to follow this now.

I also went back and thought about our previous predictions where we have said that Ukraine has an offensive strategic reserve and many doubted it, but now you see it in action, and it’s just as good as we guessed.

The other thing is that the longer time goes on, the higher the risk of an unfavorable outcome becomes, and we have now seen that with Trump, the USA, Belgium, and a few others, but so far Europe is remarkably parrying it elegantly.

Or the national big shots who talked about a deep-frozen trench warfare – they were wrong again, of course, just like they have been throughout the whole war. When do they admit that they are complete fools and give up their fat analyst salary?

Or not to mention my previous sensational thoughts about Trump/USA trying to get Europe under the Russian boot and a new cold war where they can sell us security at five times the market price.

Or the celebrated statement – “The USA is just like the bank, not your friend”.

We present to you the US National Security Strategy, which is a direct threat to us and aims to try to push us back under the Russian boot in a new cold war so they can sell us security at five times the market price.

To hit so many bull’s-eyes when so few have managed to do so is of course worth retiring on, but I will continue my journey for a while longer to make the world a better place to live in.

I can’t let go of Ukraine’s tactical adaptation in recent months, so here comes another long rant – don’t forget to subscribe to Substack if you read these rants, which the pros call analyses and are very expensive, except for the best ones that are a hundred a month.

In basic training, the mechanized assault was the most difficult moment we barely managed during the day. Johan No.1 was the acting platoon leader as a war-placed conscript but ended up commanding quite a bit during the exercises anyway, which he liked – power corrupts, and I didn’t want to give up the position to a reservist during the final exercise and was probably consciously the worst acting platoon leader a reservist could have that year.

Ideally, one would want to secure the terrain before the enemy arrives, ambushes and mines were also liked – and of course indirect fire.

During the exercises, the artillery was a blue/yellow with a modified Mauser that fired some kind of expensive fireworks – I had the honor at some point and spent a whole morning shooting it at a tree for strictly experimental purposes. I missed most of the fire commands I received over the radio because I had turned down the volume, but the tree was fiercely attacked by the end of the day, which I was very pleased with.

Once I was supposed to provide service support for the professional officers’ full-day outing, which included clay pigeon shooting. I naturally tested all the weapons, and shooting with a semi-automatic shotgun is exciting. The captain had probably guessed it and explicitly told me not to test the weapons at all – of course, I hadn’t unloaded when all the officers arrived and started loading the weapons.

Russia has taken indirect fire to the next level because they can’t handle anything else – they crush the enemy with “combat kilometer route” and then drive in among the burning bodies.

Before a mechanized assault, you have received your assault objective, and the platoon leader (me) gives orders while with a bit of luck you have received indirect fire that you can control through the radio – a direct line to the artillery. From what I see in Ukraine, they have more of it than we thought we would have.

We drove very far forward before dismounting, and I have long wondered if we expected RU to have self-protection mines in front of the firing positions, which everyone seems to have in the UA war, or if we stopped right in front of them?

That detail is quite important, but I don’t have the answer to that question.

Until dismounting, it was (possible) tank combat, and after dismounting, it was very violent moving forward, those who made it, made it – there is blood and death all around you after such an assault, and they just as often went completely to hell as they did well.

Quite often, it turned into a “Russian counterattack” from our violent attempts where the whole field was full of blinking orange juice mixers and a battalion commander standing and crying in a grove because the battalion had been knocked out a kilometer before the assault objective.

Everything is chaotic, deadly, complicated, and really damn difficult – even after full conscription on the final exercise, it was still difficult.

In 2023, we discussed at times that the 3rd Assault or 12th NG (can’t remember which) cleared Russian positions with a platoon in defense and where they themselves attacked with a group.

They had drone guidance all the way, some indirect fire, and rarely took more than a few wounded. I was shocked when the command said, “Russian counterattack incoming from the east, take up firing positions in the defense to your right.” Absolutely incredible how good their situational awareness was.

The absolute hardest thing is to initiate the mechanized assault because you unload straight into cleared fields of fire and pre-registered artillery targets, but where the terrified Russian bastard of course confuses letters and screams “B” instead of “A” and the artillery strike misses by a wide margin.

We solved it with suppressive fire from the vehicles, 20mm autocannon from the PBV302, a quickly formed firing line, an assault, and then a lot of fire and movement – but if you get stuck, you get stuck in the worst possible place, and your life ends there.

The Russian army has not managed to learn this, their constant burning and bleeding mechanized assaults are quite similar to our spring exercises down in Skåne when we drove into black holes.

Ukraine 2023 “hold my Samovar” – they have no pre-battle preparation, no suppressive fire from the combat vehicle, but just start working their way forward immediately after unloading in a numerical disadvantage until they have defeated the defending force. How, wonder generations of Swedish armored infantry in amazement.

Now in 2025, they also have a life-threatening drone cover to deal with and seem to be able to attack in at least company, perhaps battalion strength straight into this drone cover and defeat the defending Russian bastards who then quite often have entrenched themselves in buildings.

Urban warfare – it doesn’t get any harder than that, beyond wizard-level stuff here.

No week-long artillery preparation, no suppressive fire, just troops straight into the objective who, with pure élan, begin the hunt until there isn’t a living Russian bastard left.

Then how do you retreat?

The vehicles must come forward again and you load up and disappear reasonably?

Minefields during the advance?

Drone threat?

Russian defense with machine guns, armor-piercing shots, anti-tank missiles?

It seems that no attacking force is concerned, and for this to even be a tactical adaptation, they must take roughly the same losses as in 2023, i.e., very little because otherwise it’s just a desperate suicide, which it absolutely is not because then we would have seen Russian movies about it.

I have guessed that many of these attacks take place at night and that the attacking force has a high ability for night combat, partly with image intensifiers, good targeting devices on the vehicles, and drones with IR.

In 2023, the spring offensive that was supposed to be under NATO’s shining flag was bloody and went to hell – they got stuck in minefields and NATO did everything wrong, which Ukraine paid dearly for.

Half of 2024 and 2025, thanks to China, RU has found something that works, but it is thanks to China’s digital battlefield that can deliver a huge amount of death in a short time as they have sorted out targeting and kill chains where probably a bottom-of-the-bottle glasses-wearing Chinese person is multitasking everything.

Russian ground troops are in terrible condition and expendable – like ammunition.

I believe that these “raids” are about a company to a battalion that is given an area where the task is to combat defending forces in their various positions.

They initiate the operation at night, and even if they may fight during the day, the withdrawal reasonably also takes place at night, and then there is a longer period where they must hide from the drone weapon, reasonably?

UFA and assembly points are beyond RU’s range for observation and drone weapons.

We have now seen this type of warfare along all fronts, and most types of units we guessed would be part of the offensive strategic reserve have been logged as combatants.

And now for the kicker – RU currently has nothing to counter with, nothing at all, and the time for adjustment is probably about six months if we go by previous cycles.

UA took Bakhmut in 2023 and scaled it up to all fronts, and this is how UA can continue over time.

It may not be very fun to be a defending UA unit overrun by RU with FAB and infiltration before the counterattack of the task force arrives, but unfortunately, that’s how it is in real life.

If Ukraine can now export this fully tested tactical adaptation to Europe’s elite units, for example, to our light battalion and the rangers, then we can also handle the warfare of 2025.

If Europe were to sum up the units we can use for this type of warfare, we would probably have around 50,000 – 70,000 in all of Europe – that would probably be enough.

In fact, Europe has plenty of everything – it’s the will that has been lacking, and that we have been left behind in the warfare of 2025, but now it seems we are catching up.

Our mechanized brigades can be held back, and we fight Ukraine-style instead so we avoid a burning and bleeding mechanized brigade with a guaranteed vote of no confidence for the sitting government that had the misfortune of owning it.

The big shots in the USA who praise their battles in Falluja as great victories did terribly, and that was the Marine Corps against poorly armed militias, where they had all indirect capabilities on speed dial.

This is almost unique and if Europe can only learn this, we too will become immortal VIKINGS.

The Nordic Viking paired with the sangria-drinking laid-back Portuguese will make their way through Russia on this wave of excessive violence and not stop before Vladivostok.

Where we live in Portugal, they have a unit in the Air Force nearby, and sometimes they run through the city in a long line and sing in a language that no sensible person understands at all – they are quite well-trained so the idea that they drink sangria for lunch and then half-sleep through the whole afternoon with zero productivity apparently does not apply to the entire country but one or two have a bit more energy in them than that – I have seen it with my own eyes so you can take it as truth.

I believe Europe is doing the right thing now, and I don’t think Ukraine will collapse in a cloud of American betrayal even if you have to give Trump and the USA an A++ for their boldly half-won mentality they move forward with.

The European lion has slowly begun to awaken from its winter sleep, and one wonders quietly if the troika on the other side is really satisfied with that 🤣🤣🤣

The cat is really out of the bag now – Merz clearly states that “certain” individuals in the US administration personally get rich by sacrificing Ukrainian children, everyone probably knows who “certain” is.

And it is a poorly hidden secret that the USA is trying by all means to get Europe to return the confiscated Russian criminal money to Putin – this peace negotiation with impartial negotiators from the USA is starting to look a bit worn out.

In words, we are almost at the brink of nuclear war in rhetoric now when we openly call Trump a half car salesman who cheats with water in the gasoline.

Action will come, and we hope that Russia does not murder anyone, I think they planned to take out Zelensky in Ireland as it was presented, but they missed that opportunity.

Either attack the plane during landing or an FPV on Zelensky as he walked down the stairs.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ireland-russia-drone-ukraine-zelenskyy

It will probably end with Trump being forced to call a meeting so GRU has time and place for a sniper…

Macron was in China, but I’m not sure how it went – China may soon also tremble just like the USA and Russia as Europe slowly begins to find its well-hidden elan and also enough common questions to unite around to make the threat very large and urgent for everyone else.

Game on – I’m starting to feel really uplifted seeing Europe slowly starting to rise up and make some slow catwalks and axe kicks in the air.

I’ll come back to this deja-vu as we’ve had it before in the next post.