Tabs in a post about the fronts,
Since Ukraine now respects full OPSEC and that includes the OSINTers, we get very little official information.
Deepstatemap, which has generally been considered credible, was threatened with mobilization if they continued posting front updates, so they have pretty much frozen the map.
The OSINTers we have followed throughout the war largely respect this, but sometimes someone posts their own map and they absolutely post Russian maps of Ukrainian successes with the information they themselves have received from the fronts as supporting information, slightly disguised.
UA Official also does not intend to tell anyone this year what offensive plans they have, and rightly so – we in the West leaked like sieves to Putin for three years.
Russia is still attacking on all fronts and the Ukrainian army corps are conducting mobile combat within their assigned areas where the 3rd AC clawed back a huge area to defend up in northern Luhansk, which has been one of the hardest places to defend.
It is easy to see that the more freedom the corps commanders have been given, the better it has gone locally and tactically.
Strategic operations require coordination and contributed capabilities at a minimum, and that must then be provided by the defense leadership – which has just been replaced.
Don’t know if it could have affected any operations, probably, but now it’s done.
The corps surely have horizontal communication and can themselves go to special functions like GUR or cooperate with neighboring corps to get some help.
The Scale regiment was the previous Chief of Defense’s “go-to” unit for difficult tasks and has today grown to division size. It is apparently being reviewed so this external resource may not be available?
They are also reviewing poorly functioning brigades and presumably there have been some voluntary departures or dismissals after the Chief of Defense change just like in 2024 when it was last changed.
I have a separate post about the big technological leap but for this post Ukraine today has the technological advantage and Russia is trying to catch up.
Locally, Ukraine can pool EW, anti-drone and their own drone capabilities so they can fight mechanized if they want. RU cannot fight mechanized anywhere.
This window has an end date which is probably sometime in 2027 as the cycles in this war have been 6-8 months before the other side caught up. It’s not very hard to catch up, equip the mobile fire groups that today have tube artillery with fire-and-forget interceptor drones and get your own medium-range AI loitering drones out and the scales will be balanced. Both capabilities are wearing RU out over time.
It is also generally accepted that RU intends to mobilize this autumn, exactly when and how many is still debated by experts but half a million or more is almost certain.
The window for Ukrainian offensive operations is thus now and forward until the ground sometime in October no longer bears, so there will be a forced combat pause until it freezes.
We know that Ukraine has been running REMO on lots of old vehicles that now have new weapon stations and that they have received mine-clearing equipment, thousands of fragmentation shields, amphibious vehicles for amphibious combat and all other offensive gear they have pointed out, so absolutely the level of ambition is high.
A few months ago the Russians complained that Ukraine trains landings under smoke over at the Dnipro every day and they think it is a threat to world peace. Moreover, the Dnipro north of Khakovka is a trickle with forest all over the area today – shield.
The condition of Russian units over at the Dnipro is terrible, hungry, thirsty and no diesel for the generators. Their entire staff, combat command and drone weapons are powered by portable generators.
The North Koreans are currently being flown in to the northern front but if you ask me it is to free up Russian units for the Baltics so the northern front is probably a no-go as 30,000 fierce North Koreans are stationed there.
By the way, cargo planes are now flying between Belarus and China, Russia-Africa as well – there are definitely things going on but you already knew that.
What we have heard about recently is up north of Lyman where Ukraine has now reached Makiivka so they have encircled 12 Russian units west of the watercourse Zherebets, there are only a few crossings on the stretch of the watercourse RU controls.
It is the 3rd AC fighting there but RU has close access to reinforcements from the northern front.
In Kupiansk RU is back inside the town but the situation is significantly better than before.
There are divided opinions about Kostyantynivka but RU does not control the whole town at least, UA attacked in the area with their offensive strategic reserve and cleared it out a while ago.
The map below is however a bit optimistic, RU seems to be in a good part of the contested area.
You probably always have to read the contested area as the attacking party being in it but not consolidated yet, and there it is RU.
The other area is Kamyanske where two VDV divisions under their own offensive have retreated 20 km, which I have been overjoyed about and accidentally broke the kids’ trampoline.
The amount of fighting, drones used, FAB bombs and artillery remains at a high level.
You can see RU losses in manpower here, high level.
This is a high-intensity war.
I don’t know how the discussions are going between us in Europe and UA right now.
We know that the USA is doing its best to torpedo Ukraine and Ukraine has probably given up on the USA really. Trump is Krasnov.
But since we have EU membership as leverage, they have to do as we say, that they stopped attacking targets in the Baltic Sea is either a combat pause or we have asked them to stop – time interprets the silence for us.
The Latvian government had to resign because a Ukrainian drone crashed inside their territory and Poland has several times asked Ukraine to stop destabilizing in their neighborhood.
The logical stumble is of course monumental since everyone with a little direct information understands that Russia will go after the Baltics next – not least the Balts themselves understand that.
To then ask Ukraine to stop stirring things up only to start screaming for Ukrainian help when they get attacked because Ukraine refrained is not going to earn you any medal except the cowardice medal in bakelite.
Their 40-day strategic bombing campaign was a resounding miracle and now they continue to attack high-value targets across the entire area in Russia.
It’s barely possible to keep up but Sevastopol has ceased to be a naval base now, LV on Crimea is almost gone, behind the southern front UA air with ground attack, high-value industry is hit daily and they took the war to Moscow.
There have also been some strikes on specialized aircraft at bases about once a week and they attacked ballistic missile launchers yesterday.
There have probably been 10 attacks on refineries since the last update a few weeks ago.
Ukraine is doing damage.
Several high-ranking generals have died in recent months so they have probably activated their Mossad 2.0 now even though some are internal power struggles in Russia.
The Russian “liberation fronts” which were previously six, probably more today, are now working together with Ukraine and ATESH to carry out liberation acts inside Russia.
For example, ATESH is constantly carrying out acts of liberation against the Russian railway network.
Ukraine is conducting asymmetric warfare across the entire area and very few targets remain – Yamal cross, Kerch Bridge, and the Kremlin, for example.
They have contacts with the partial republics waiting for the right moment and opposition in Russia who are also waiting for their chance.
DPR and LPR have been offered that if they lay down their arms at the right time, or turn their weapons against the Russians, old sins will be wiped clean.
But the timing for wizard-level precision must be right – Russia now surely has over half a million well-equipped internal troops they can pool together for areas that become unstable in the empire.
If you remember the posts from 2022 onwards, we described how leaders in the West are afraid of Putin, those who dared to raise their voices faced demonstrations from both left and right edges, political chaos, incriminating information released, and in other ways their lives as politicians became miserable, so many long hesitated to call a spade a spade.
I guessed it was the dark black secret no one wanted to talk about – that everyone understood that if you become the front figure, an enormous massive attack of subversive activity against you and your country would follow, so political survival almost dictated that you leave Putin alone.
The only time we know Russia threatened was when Belgian Euroclear was first going to release all frozen oligarch billions to Ukraine and then suddenly reversed – officials at Euroclear and politicians were said to have been threatened by Russia in the media. Maybe we crossed the line?
Down in the Balkans, RU tried to assassinate reasonable politicians and then blatant election fraud, but they resisted – Russia called them undemocratic and dictatorial.
Now in 2026, it’s all-in, in Russia’s view Europe has gone too far now – Trump is fully activated, sabotage groups have started, and all political influence and paid traitors have received their instructions. Newspapers are showered with incriminating information, fabricated or true. Recently, there were spectacular hacker attacks against, for example, Luxembourg funds, so soon we will probably know which government members have secret savings accounts they are hiding from taxation.
Direct hybrid warfare through trafficking, forest fires, and attempts at attacks on high-value targets has now progressed so far that the Baltics, Poland, and Finland have gone into staff mode to protect high-value targets.
Of course, the goal is to get us to abandon Ukraine, which we probably won’t do, but the urgent matter is the following – If Putin achieves the combat objectives with Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts within a year and then announces that they now want peace, ceasefire, and world peace to protect the children (those who have not been tortured and murdered by Russia).
Will we at that time be able to hold out with empty LNG tanks, full hybrid war, and a half-bad arms industry because China has stopped exporting the key components we need?
There lies the crossroads for Europe that will shape us for the next 100 years.
With a bit of luck, Ukraine will get there first and the house of cards will fall, but if they don’t, this is a decision we in Europe own forever, not just us but our children and their children.
We almost have to reach the level soon where we accept that we are in hybrid warfare and start meeting this threat proportionally.
We should not have to end up in full war unless we fail to defend the Baltics so that Russia feels they cannot miss that chance, and we are probably approaching that point.
Then we also have another decision to make – will we try to assist our islands of friends around the world, those who have now chosen us when that choice needed to be made?
I’m thinking of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, several countries in Africa, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, and Canada?
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