I want to start by saying I don’t have access to official documents or meetings, so I’m piecing together their motivations based on what I observe and logical reasoning. Keep that in mind as you read on.

This year, Russia's goals are threefold. First, to capture the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. Second, to capture Kostyantynivka. Third, to capture Slovyansk.

Each of these goals has necessary steps. To capture the bank in Zaporizhzhia, you must first capture Orikhiv. To capture Slovyansk, you must first capture Lyman. You could argue that to capture Kostyantynivka, you must first capture Chasiv Yar.

These goals are very ambitious and, honestly, impossible to fully achieve. So let’s think of them as aspirations and focus instead on how close Russia might get to reaching them.

Ukraine launched several counterattacks in the Verbove and Ternove areas of Zaporizhzhia. They were quite successful, pushing Russia out of several settlements and possibly capturing some. This also threatened Russia’s main supply route to the west. Because of this, Russia has to do two things: divert resources from their main attack to stabilize the area and try to recapture this ground to keep pushing west toward Orikhiv. Meanwhile, Ukraine gains time to strengthen defenses, plan their strategy, and prepare for more counterattacks, something Russia worries about given their timeline.

This has already delayed Russia’s offensive by months, and it will take many more weeks for them to regain their previous position.

The military analysis of Iran has been the absolute worst military analysis I have ever seen in my entire life. There have been times where I listen to some "expert" where almost every word they say in the entire interview is factually wrong. Some of these people are so wrong that I feel like you could have a big box of words and reach in and draw them randomly and it be more factual.

The main thing that any educated person needs to keep in mind at all times is that realpolitik is fake and everyone who believes in it is typically universally wrong on every single word they ever say. It is especially funny because realpolitik people are almost never experts in any domain, and they get their info from aggregators. And those aggregators know the realpolitik people use them, and as such present info in a way most likely to influence the realpolitik.

Frankly I think the fastest way to end the war in Ukraine is not by sending tanks or by idiotic peace proposals. The fastest way is to set up factories across europe to produce 1000-2000 long range strike drones per day, and launch hundreds if not thousands of drones into Russia every single day until the country collapses. If they think sending 500 drones into Ukraine is a threat, see how they respond when 3000 drones fly into Russia. With this many drones you can hammer every single factory, powerplant, substation, oil refinery, and mine in russia relentlessly.

The "stupid westerners, sanctions do not work, we smuggle goods in illegally. muahaha, Russia unstoppable" people tickle me. Sanctions are not for stopping goods entirely, they are for increasing friction because the resources you spend smuggling are resources not spent growing People fundamentally don't understand the purpose of a sanction. Sanctions are not to stop the war now, although they do damage Russia, the real goal of a sanction is long term economic damage to permanently shrink their economic growth on the timescale of decades.

The Russians claim they shoot down Ukrainian aircraft the moment the missile leaves the tube, but we're supposed to believe they shot down two Black Hawks on Tuesday and only announced it after Ukraine leaked Black Hawk footage on Friday. These Black Hawks join the 650 F-16s and 450,000 M777s Russia has 'destroyed.' GUYS. I AM GOING TO POST A VIDEO WHERE I WILL BLUR THE UNIT LOGOS TO SHIT SO NOBODY CAN TELL I STOLE THE VIDEOS FROM THE ARCHIVE AND THEN POST IT TO THE INTERNET SAYING I KILLED ALL THE SPECIAL FORCES

Guys I took my division and charged them into combat and while we lost 50% of our armored vehicles and 45% of our infantry are dead, and several of our HQs were destroyed and most of our best officers are dead, we captured a village where 200 once lived so we’re winning the war. Tomorrow we will send our next division to assault the next village. That one had a population of 1200. Its actually considered a huge city, when you think about it. If we can capture that, we will send our third division to capture the hamlet behind it.

This is what Russia does. A country that only exports oil, gas, and war. This is the city of Marinka.

I wrote 2 years ago about why I was worried about Molniya drones. They are long range and capable of very large warheads. For whatever reason they were oddly scarce for a while, but they have become very common items on the battlefield and exactly everything I feared. They can destroy a house in a single hit. Even small concrete buildings. They can dive straight down into dugouts, fly along trenches and fly into bunkers. They are being used to target infantry now, too. Russia clearly has a lot of them and are using them to destroy things that used to require helicopters.

The United States government is built on the concept that Congressmen will have the swagger to take pride in their station. The government hinges on congress enforcing their will upon others. They are supposed to be arrogant sons of bitches who look down on others. The moment you have a congress that is unwilling or incapable of being arrogant, condescending assholes and you instead have weak placating losers, the whole foundation of the government crumbles. The supreme arrogance of congress is what lets them reign in power of president.

A few areas where I have been focusing on geoing strikes on Russians positions lately have been interesting in that only a very tiny number of Russians are defending. In one area in particular, the video showed a drone scan a series of trenches where only four Russians were spotted. Two killed and two forced to flee. I wonder what is behind those Russians, and whether it is similarly a skeleton crew on defense. Also, these Russians were quite far from Ukrainian positions, so they were not some extremely advanced forward position, they seem to me to be the second and/or third line of defense, which are typically more heavily manned. When I see video like this, from an area very far from offensive actions, where Russia is purely defending, it makes me wonder how different the war would be if Ukraine had the capacity to attack this location. I feel like if Ukraine were to attack and capture it, many people online would say the area doesn't matter because it is only advancing 1km or blah blah. But advancing 1km is important, because it forces Russians to divert resources away from attacking to defending. Or you will advance a second k, or a third km until such a point that the Russians are forced to defend.

Ukraine does not have an adequate air force, but it can create the effects of an air force using other methods and tools. For example, long-range drones can be deployed in a series of nested concentric circles to mine and harass supply roads, effectively cutting them off.

One layer of drones could strike targets 100 km out, the next at 80 km, then 60 km, 40 km, and finally, the remaining drones could dominate the last 20–30 km leading to the front.

With sufficient drone coverage density, the impact on enemy logistics can closely mirror that of a conventional air force—cutting off supplies and limiting troop movements.

Furthermore, the development of heavier strike drones, with payloads between 100 and 500 kg, can replicate the effects of traditional airstrikes. In conjunction with attack drones, this combination becomes a deadly one-two punch: attack drones locate and relay target positions, and heavier strike drones follow up with rapid and destructive precision.

Once the enemy's rear positions are degraded to this extent, the front becomes unsustainable. The opposing force will be forced to withdraw, regardless of intent.

Ukraine does not need large offensive pushes to defeat Russia. It needs extremely high-density drone coverage to deny Russian sustainment. Land can be taken back piece by piece, without committing to large and costly ground assaults. All but the heavy strike drones can be done with the technology that Ukraine has available today, right now. The strike drones could be developed in short order. This is a realistic path to victory using the tools and resources available. And one which Europe could help using financing alone.

After Trump put Fedex guys in charge of USPS, the democrats should issue an official warning that any aspect of USPS that might get “privatized” under trump will be immediately seized, without compensation, by the following administration and congress. There should be an open air understanding that any aspect of the government privatized by Trump will be seized back without compensation. We will eminent domain your ass, and change any law (or court makeup) to make it legal.

The US saw Russia using nothing but golf carts and ladas in Ukraine and said fuck it, we're going on all in. We're cancelling all armor procurement. Battle golf carts are the future. Who needs firepower when you have bags of meat strapped to a go-cart? Many Americans will die, and that is a sacrifice the Army is willing to make. Drive the golf cart full steam into a drone swarm. The guys in the back will have tons of ability to shoot back before they die, since there will be no walls or doors to get in the way.

Interesting uptick in Russian dive bomber drones recently. I've wondered why they were developed then suddenly disappeared. They always seemed the most effective type of drone. Russians are using dive bombers to destroy vehicles. Much more efficient than suiciding the drone and deals the same damage.

Sitting here listening to a news report from the 1970s where the police broke into the wrong house in a police raid, where every American was... normal. They were outraged, they wanted immediate accountability and changes to the law. And then congress... changed the law. Apparently the US had a functional society at some point. Literally in 4 days there will be a major supreme court case in the US about this. That law from the 70s, the federal government has basically declared the law doesn't count. On Tuesday, four days from now, there is a Supreme Court case where the courts will decide whether that law written by congress is going to be followed or whether the judiciary gets to invent their own laws and ignore congress.

I see several things happening in Ukraine right now:

1: Ukraine has pivoted to a drone based defense. Most of the gains you see Russia making right now are coming as a result of one of two things. A: Inferior Ukrainian drone units or B: Overwhelming Numerical Superiority. When I say an inferior drone unit, I do not mean the pilots are bad, or even necessarily that their construction is bad. It could be as simple as not having access to enough drones, or not having enough pilots. I simply mean the unit isn’t strong enough for the task.

I started the weekend with like 40 days of backlog. Ugh. I did 19 days. Meh. Here are the days.

Here are losses for February.

First, the total losses by category. You see significantly more losses for Russia than for Ukraine. This is the first month where Rubicon played a significant part of the Ukrainian losses. Roughly 17% of Ukraine's losses in the month of February were from Rubicon (328 out of 1965). Primarily in Kursk.

While Trump’s team spreads defeatism and tries to blackmail Ukraine into surrender, Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield remain unimpressed by the proclamations coming out of Washington Oblast.

Their actions speak louder than words. In recent days, Ukraine has:

Recaptured Kotlyne
Liberated Pischane
Pushed into Shevchenko

These gains prove two critical points.

Europe could have invested 1-2 hundred billion dollars over the past 3 years, but instead they will have to invest 3-5 trillion over the next 20. I’ve talked about this many times in the past. The politicians made very unwise decisions because they were afraid. Should have gone 100% all in on making Ukraine win from day 1. Full on everything. It would have fixed every problem. Countries still aren’t even doing this. Every single day you delay will cost you 100 or 1000 times more over the next few years.