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Ukraine has massively eroded the political and economic influence Russia built across Central Asia by disrupting the supply networks that made Moscow an indispensable regional partner. Russian analysts are warning that Ukrainian long-range strikes have damaged the refineries and transport infrastructure supporting exports, leaving Russia less capable of guaranteeing the fuel deliveries neighboring economies once treated as secure. Those deliveries kept regional economies dependent on Russian supplies and infrastructure, allowing the Kremlin to turn economic reliability into political leverage. After the ban on gasoline, kerosene, and diesel exports, Russia is rapidly losing control over one of its main sources of regional pressure, while every disrupted delivery gives neighboring governments another reason to reduce their exposure to Russia.

In the most extreme cases, Kyrgyzstan imports more than ninety percent of its gasoline from Russia, while Tajikistan obtains virtually all of its petroleum products and remains heavily dependent on Russian supplies. In June, Russian rail shipments of aviation fuel to Central Asia fell by more than ninety-two percent from the previous month, while gasoline deliveries declined by thirty-four percent. Some exports continued under pre-existing agreements, but those exceptions did not make Russian supply reliable again, as these countries have begun sharing in the Russian fuel crisis. Countries facing shortages are now buying fuel from Kazakhstan and other regional producers that are self-sufficient in their fuel production, creating contracts and transport networks that will remain in place even after Russian production recovers.

As a result, the damage will be difficult for Russia to reverse because Central Asian governments cannot base their economies on a supplier whose refineries remain vulnerable and whose own shortages come before deliveries abroad. Once another supplier has proven that it can keep vehicles moving and businesses operating, governments have little reason to return to the same level of dependence on Russia. The shift became clear when Russia began seeking roughly fifty thousand tons of gasoline from Kazakhstan. As such, it has become incredibly clear that a country that once supplied all of Central Asia and used this to its advantage was now asking to help cover shortages at home, weakening Moscow’s standing as the main energy provider.

Russia will lose far more than fuel sales as competing countries take over the commercial relationships and transport links that once carried Russian influence deeper into Asia. The oil-rich countries of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan gain leverage when their fuel keeps neighboring markets supplied, while more regional trade crosses the Caspian Sea instead of moving north through Russia. The trade impact is already visible on the route between the Kazakh port of Aktau and the Azerbaijani port of Alat near Baku, where container traffic reached seven thousand four hundred fifty-one units in May, more than double the volume recorded during the same month one year earlier. Every shipment and every new purchase of oil gives Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan more income, attracts investment, and increases the capacity of a trade system that Moscow does not control. These connections also make regional governments harder for Russia to pressure because they no longer depend on a single route or supplier. Moscow must now compete for markets that once had few alternatives while spending more resources protecting the refineries and transport infrastructure required to keep its remaining exports moving.

Overall, Central Asia is moving toward a regional order in which Russia can no longer rely on fuel dependence and geographic isolation to preserve its dominance. Fuel contracts and Caspian trade routes are shifting steadily toward Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, giving both countries a larger role in regional commerce. Even if Russia repairs its refineries, it will return to markets where trade, investment, and supply networks increasingly operate without it. Ukraine’s strikes are therefore turning Russia from Central Asia’s dominant economic partner into one competitor among several.

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Today, there is important news from the Russian Federation.

Here, Russia’s technology sector has suffered a major blow after drones struck Yandex’s biggest data center in Sasovo, in the Ryazan Region, triggering a fire and forcing the facility to shut down completely. Located on the former premises of the Sasta machine-tool plant, which supplies Russia’s engineering industry and was also targeted in the attack, the complex hosts tens of thousands of servers and represents Yandex’s most important computing facilities.

The Ukrainian attack immediately disrupted cloud infrastructure, as Yandex acknowledged electricity problems affecting one availability zone and advised customers to switch to alternatives. Although the company maintained that its principal consumer services remained operational, the complete shutdown demonstrated how quickly a physical strike can interrupt digital infrastructure supporting thousands of businesses, as problems were reported throughout various internet services in Russia within minutes after the attack.

Financial markets reacted immediately in panic as well, with Yandex shares falling approximately four percent during early Moscow trading, as investors were suddenly confronting a new risk: Russia’s most important technology companies could become increasingly vulnerable to the same type of disruption already affecting its energy and logistics sectors.

The timing is particularly significant because Russian strikes have recently targeted Ukrainian data centers, and now Russia is experiencing the consequences of attacks against its own digital infrastructure, while the economic implications could extend far beyond Yandex. Earlier attacks on Wildberries and Ozon facilities demonstrated how physical destruction can disrupt online commerce. Data centers represent an even more complicated challenge because they support the software systems that allow businesses to function.

What makes it even more dangerous, warehouses can often be replaced through smaller storage facilities, alternative distribution routes, and dispersed inventories. Large data centers are harder to replicate quickly, as they require enormous electrical capacity, cooling equipment, specialized servers, high-speed connections, and carefully coordinated software environments. Although workloads can be transferred between facilities, relocating massive datasets and computing capacity requires substantial investment and technical preparation. Consequently, repeated disruptions could create mounting costs even when companies successfully restore their services.

Russia’s digital economy depends upon these systems for cloud storage, financial transactions, corporate databases, telecommunications and government administration. Yandex itself operates search, navigation, transportation, storage and artificial-intelligence services, including YandexGPT. Disruption across several independent providers could therefore produce cascading problems: slower applications, interrupted online payments, unavailable business records, delayed administrative services and increasingly unreliable commercial platforms.

The next potential biggest target could be the Udomlya data center in Tver Oblast, processing nuclear-reactor simulations and storing state video archives from across Russia, the destruction of which could disrupt the work of the Russian government. The second major target could become Moscow’s M-Nine data center, which is a hub that, if taken offline, could cause a large part of the Russian internet to suffer immediate disruption, potentially affecting banking transactions, mobile connectivity, and government portals. Despite Russia possessing a geographically distributed data-center industry, most of the operational facilities are located inside or near Moscow.

After such a campaign, Russian companies will have to restore data access, redirect workloads, investigate interrupted transactions, and reassure customers. Some may need additional backup capacity, while others could reconsider relying exclusively on domestic infrastructure. For the Russian government, repeated incidents would create another expensive challenge alongside protecting refineries, transportation networks and industrial facilities.

Overall, the scale of the risk for Russia makes the Sasovo attack fundamentally different from previous attacks on warehouses. The immediate damage concerns physical equipment, but the secondary consequences can spread through businesses that never experienced the attack directly, demonstrating a vulnerability that Moscow can no longer ignore but can’t fix quickly enough as well. After years of Russian attacks against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, the consequences are increasingly reaching Russia’s own digital economy.

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Finland is in danger as Russia rebuilds old garrisons and expands nineteen military locations across its northwestern region, creating facilities capable of receiving tens of thousands of soldiers once the war in Ukraine ends. The most significant developments near Finland include Pechenga on the Kola Peninsula, Kandalaksha in the Murmansk region, and Petrozavodsk in Karelia, giving Russia more space to house and support forces close to Finland. Finnish Army Commander Pasi Valimaki estimates that facilities in the immediate area facing Finland could eventually accommodate around eighty thousand troops, up from approximately twenty thousand previously. Across Russia’s wider northwestern military region facing Nato’s Nordic and Baltic frontier, that potential force could rise to as many as one hundred fifteen thousand soldiers. Pechenga is expected to gain capacity for as many as seventeen thousand troops, while the reactivated Petrozavodsk garrison is being developed to support units of the Forty Fourth Army Corps operating near Finland. The country therefore faces the emergence of a large and permanent Russian military force along its eastern frontier.

Alongside this expanding military belt, Moscow is increasingly portraying Finland as an active participant in Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. In April, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu claimed that Ukrainian drones were approaching Russia through Finland and the Baltic states, warning that Moscow could invoke self defense if those countries deliberately allowed their airspace to be used. Russian military commentators have also alleged that drones attacking the Leningrad region used less protected coastal routes through the Baltic area, although these flight paths have not been independently established and regional governments reject claims of deliberate assistance. These accusations intensified after Finland temporarily restricted aviation and maritime traffic over the eastern Gulf of Finland to protect its territory from stray drones, although Finnish authorities reported that no drones entered its airspace. Moscow nevertheless portrays these precautions as evidence of a Ukrainian air corridor, framing its military expansion as a response to supposed Finnish aggression.

These accusations could give Moscow a justification for redirecting its forces from Ukraine toward Finland once the current war ends. Russian units returning from Ukraine would already have years of recent battlefield experience, allowing Moscow to shift a combat tested force toward Finland without having to build and train a new army from scratch. By transferring these formations northwest, the Kremlin could preserve their combat readiness and accumulated battlefield experience for another confrontation.

The danger grows if Moscow believes this experienced force could exploit a weakness exposed during the Iran war, where sustained drone and missile attacks placed severe pressure on Western air defenses. Cheap drones forced defenders to expend scarce and expensive interceptors, exposing how quickly Europe could struggle to replace its missile stocks during a prolonged conflict. A Baltic Defense Initiative assessment examines a hypothetical Nato conflict in which Russian drone saturation and long range strikes rapidly weaken regional air defenses before larger allied forces arrive. This is a stress test rather than evidence of an approved Russian invasion plan, yet it shows why Moscow may view Nato’s northern defenses as vulnerable to an intense opening attack. Moscow may also believe Nato’s ground forces could be exploited during the same period, because the alliance is still assembling some of the permanent forces intended to defend its eastern members. One supporting example is Germany’s permanent Forty Fifth Armoured Brigade in Lithuania, which is intended to strengthen the country’s defense against a potential Russian attack but will not reach full operational capability until the end of twenty twenty seven. Combined with limited interceptor stocks, that delay could encourage Russian commanders to gamble on overwhelming local defenses before Nato can reinforce the region and respond effectively.

Overall, Russia’s preparations could turn the Finnish border into a permanently militarized frontier even without an immediate invasion. Finland shares Nato’s longest direct border with Russia, so defending it would require permanently deploying air defenses, surveillance systems, ground forces, and logistics across the northern frontier. Over time, this could lock Nato into an expensive buildup and allow Moscow to drain alliance resources simply by keeping the threat alive. Meanwhile, Russia is preparing the forces needed to raise the pressure while developing the argument it could later use to justify escalation.

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Today, the biggest news is coming from the Russian net. 

Here, the Russian bot farms have just gone completely silent, as Russia’s massive disinformation and manipulation network online was reduced to zero. Zelensky recently stated that following Ukrainian strikes on three of Russia’s nine largest data centers, a noticeable drop in bot activity was recorded across social media. These claims are confirmed by Cloudflare, one of the largest companies providing internet services. They have released statistics showing that known Russian bot traffic coming from the Russian side of the internet dropped to zero point four percent after the Ukrainian strikes, from a staggering eighty-four and a half percent before. This means that essentially, Russia’s information warfare in the online space has ground to a halt. 

The impact of this is visibly noticeable. Online activity relating to political parties in the West has experienced a notable drop. Statistics from independent factcheckers in Germany for example, show an across-the-board drop in mentions of all political parties online by between twenty and thirty-seven percent. Countries across the West are experiencing similar trends, while wider claims on certain extremist parties’ online activity experiencing extreme drops of up to eighty-six percent remain unconfirmed. 

The main thing that the confirmed and fact-checked statistics show is that Russia has an intense and ongoing campaign across the world to influence political debate. How this frequently works is that certain bots make extremist posts and false claims online in order to invoke a response and spread misinformation on important subjects. Other bots pretending to be voters from both sides of the political spectrum then pretend to argue with each other, hoping to bait real people into interacting with the false premise, which in turn boosts its visibility to other real people. This is how Russia creates extreme political and social divide in the countries that oppose it fundamentally. It is no wonder, therefore that when Zelensky stated that there was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations in the online space following the Ukrainian strikes, he spoke the truth. 

Importantly, Russia does not only use its disinformation bot network against the West, but Ukraine has become a massive target as well. Ukraine’s new commander in chief Mykhailo Drapatyi recently stated that coordinated information attacks against him began from his first days in office, as has been the case against the Ukrainian army and government since the start of the war. Through this, Russia attempts to sow social distrust and unrest in Ukraine, as the determination of Ukrainians against the Russian invasion is what allowed the country to hold on against Russia for so long. 

Overall, Russia actively seeks to break the will of Ukrainians and their Western allies at a massive scale. That scale however, has been reduced by an equally massive scale after Ukraine hit and destroyed three of Russia’s nine largest data centers that allow the bot networks to run day and night. With the information space having been much cleared up in recent days, it is important to remember how Russia’s game of dividing and conquering must not be allowed to succeed, as Russia’s crimes against humanity in Ukraine are something that all people truly oppose.

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Today, the biggest development is coming from inside Russia itself. 

Here, Russian partisans fighting on the side of Ukraine conducted a large-scale operation deep into enemy-held territory that paralyzed the Russian railway logistics.  

The main Ukrainian intelligence Directorate or GUR, recently released footage of this truly historic covert operation. Russian citizens fighting for Ukraine in the Freedom of Russia Legion were sent to infiltrate all across Russian-controlled Ukraine in one unified operation. Speaking Russian and pretending to be citizens of the Russian proxy states in Donbas, they remained undetected as they moved toward their target, the most critical component of the Russian army’s entire logistics network: their railway lines. 

Simultaneously setting explosive charges onto the fuel carts in the middle of the night, all the major Russian railway hubs were targeted. Ukrainians blew up trains in the major cities of Donbas and Luhansk, which form the capitals of Russia’s LPR and DPR puppet states. They set fire to locomotives and rail relay stations in Mariupol and Melitopol, where all of Russia’s logistics in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions flow through. The undercover operatives even penetrated as deep as Rostov-on-Don, where the main headquarters of Russian high command overseeing the war in Ukraine is operating from. Nowhere was safe, as the footage shows scores of trains and crucial railway infrastructure exploding and going up in flames. 

Russians themselves responded with outrage. They complain that too many Russians inside of the country are increasingly showing support and favoritism toward Ukraine. They say that these people are responsible for regular partisan attacks inside of Russia and the Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine. This is not surprising however, as the Ukrainian intelligence directorate is actively advertising to people in these territories and opponents of Putin’s regime to get in contact with them to become a part of the resistance movement, including training, intelligence gathering, and even direct sabotage attacks. 

Because of this, recent partisan attacks have spread to railway logistics in cities as far as Kemerovo, Tyumen, and Yekaterinburg. Here, three locomotives in dual-use by the Russian armed forces were burned down, paralyzing Russian transport capacity across the most important transport lines connecting Siberia with Russia-proper across the Ural mountains. Most often however, sabotage occurs much closer to the frontlines in Ukraine, where all disruptions are felt immediately on the front. Partizans set fire to railway cabinets in Luhansk, which ground transport to a temporary halt long enough for follow-up strike drones to take full advantage of the stationary trains. Vehicles used by Russian soldiers in the rear are also common targets for lower-level sabotage by resistance members, preventing transport of supplies, ammunition, and reinforcements to the front. While the impact of a single vehicle may seem small, this results in one less vehicle that Ukrainians have to deal with on the front, one Russian sector that starts running low on supplies, and fewer potential infiltrators causing a headache for Ukrainian forces in the rear. 

Overall, if every minor action adds up to a consequential effect, Ukrainians just unleashed a tidal wave of frontline impact. The coordinated operation executed by volunteers of the Freedom of Russia Legion not only destroyed over ten thousand tons of fuel supplies, but the carriers and locomotives that cart supplies around as well. As the railway continues to form the backbone of the Russian army’s logistics, the disruptions and delays that this destruction has caused are significant. With Russian officials seemingly unable to stem the wave of resistance fighters operating not only within the Ukrainian territories they control, but throughout mainland Russia as well, the pressure is building up, and continued resistance becomes a more accessible option with every operation that passes.

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Today, there is interesting news from the Pokrovsk direction. 

Here, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is expanding, with Ukrainian forces opening a second axis between Dobropillia and Druzhkivka to clear the remnants of the Russian troops trying to entrench themselves in the area. The Skala Assault Regiment, operating alongside the Twelfth Azov Brigade, launched clearing operations around Hruzke and Novomykolaivka, establishing a blocking line designed to stop Russian infiltration toward Druzhkivka.

The operation relied heavily on infantry because Russian troops had dispersed through interconnected forest belts. Ukrainian commanders divided the assault force across three routes, carefully bypassing mines before moving toward the predetermined Russian positions. Every Ukrainian group received specific objectives, including where to attack and approximately how many Russian soldiers were expected there.

Crossing open ground was particularly dangerous because Russian FPV drones were constantly searching for Ukrainian troops in an attempt to help Russians on the ground dig in the forest. However, due to their own drone reconnaissance, Ukrainian soldiers were informed that everyone ahead of them could be treated as hostile, while a commander monitored their movement through a drone’s live feed, warning assault groups whenever threats appeared.

After reaching their designated positions, Ukrainian soldiers concentrated inside the forest belts before beginning successive assaults. Close-range fighting followed, with some Ukrainian soldiers wounded, but the advance continued while other troops remained behind on the flanks. This became crucial when some Russian forces attempted to move behind the advancing Ukrainians and cut them off, but the Ukrainian soldiers waiting in ambush intercepted them instead.

The Ukrainians then captured Russian radios, creating an immediate advantage because they could hear Russian movements and learned that enemy soldiers intended to deploy anti-personnel mines ahead of the Ukrainian advance. Instead, the Russian groups were located and eliminated before completing their task.

Russian drone operators eventually identified the previous Ukrainian ambush position and attacked it with six drones, but the Ukrainians had already relocated and advanced another one hundred meters, discovering another Russian position and eliminating it through coordinated action. After each position was cleared, Ukrainian soldiers consolidated while fresh groups moved through them to continue the attack.

Where Russian resistance became stronger, Skala requested support from Azov drone operators, who struck Russian positions before infantry advanced. This created a repeating cycle: locate, strike, assault, consolidate, and introduce another group to build on the success so far. Eventually, Skala cleared the new Russian attempt to resurrect the pincer, allowing the Azov Brigade to introduce consolidation forces.

The broader context makes this operation particularly important, as Ukrainian forces were already attacking from the Dobropillia direction after clearing Russian infiltrators south of Hruzke, so Russia subsequently attempted to shift infiltration farther east toward Novomykolaivka. Capturing positions there could have reopened a vector toward Druzhkivka and ultimately increased pressure against the wider Kramatorsk defensive area. Instead, the First Azov Corps, reinforced by Skala, continued systematically searching the forests and eliminating Russian infiltration groups, which effectively creates a second Ukrainian counteroffensive axis alongside the continuing operations around Dobropillia. Rather than merely reacting to individual Russian infiltrations, Ukrainian forces are attempting to construct a continuous protective belt south of Druzhkivka, denying Russia the ability to transform scattered infiltration groups into a sustainable breakthrough.

Overall, the Ukrainian Pokrovsk counteroffensive is therefore becoming more than simply eliminating the original Russian penetration. Ukraine is expanding sideways, securing the approaches toward Druzhkivka and constructing another defensive barrier. If this continues, Russia’s attempt to exploit the area toward Druzhkivka and threaten Kramatorsk risks being dismantled before it can develop into something significant.

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Today, there are dangerous updates from the Russian Federation.

Here, Russia’s technology sector has suffered another major blow, as Ukrainian drones struck a second Yandex data center in just two days. This turns the initial attack into a broader campaign against Russian digital infrastructure, with President Volodymyr Zelensky confirming that Ukraine is responding to Moscow’s strikes against Ukrainian data centers.

In the morning hours today, drones struck Yandex’s facility in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow. Russian air defenses reportedly operated throughout the night, with regional authorities claiming twenty-six Ukrainian drones were intercepted. However, the facility suffered damage, as seen in footage published by locals, and later Yandex confirmed that several data-center modules were completely disabled, halting the operation of the data center.

The complex accommodates more than three-thousand-eight-hundred server racks, making it another significant component of Russia’s digital economy, as Yandex warned its customers that some services will experience interruptions while company engineers started assessing the damage.

And this was the second successful attack in just forty-eight hours, as Ukrainian drones struck Yandex’s largest data center in Sasovo yesterday, triggering a major fire and forcing operations to stop. The consequences are particularly serious because the facility houses two of the three supercomputers used to develop Yandex’s artificial-intelligence models, and Yandex subsequently acknowledged that the destruction was so extensive that it could not determine whether the damaged equipment could even be restored. Together, the attacks have affected two of Yandex’s five major data centers, representing forty percent of its principal facilities, eliminating this computing capacity and crippling critical infrastructure.

Yandex itself described data centers as the technological heart of its operations, as millions of Russians depend upon its services for navigation, transportation, entertainment, cloud storage, and everyday information. Hundreds of thousands of businesses also rely on its infrastructure for commercial operations. Normally, Yandex could compensate for damaged equipment by transferring workloads to unaffected facilities. However, that solution becomes increasingly difficult when multiple centers experience simultaneous outages, and with forty percent of the capacity gone, while the Ukrainian campaign is just starting, it may soon become impossible rather than just difficult.

Russian analysts warned that continued attacks could eventually exhaust the company’s ability to redistribute computing loads, creating substantially more serious consequences. This resembles the pressure Ukraine previously applied against Russian e-commerce infrastructure, including Wildberries and Ozon warehouses. Repeated attacks against different facilities imposed mounting repair costs and complicated efforts to maintain uninterrupted operations.

The difference is that digital infrastructure supports numerous economic activities simultaneously. Russia’s telecommunications providers, banking institutions, government agencies, and technology companies depend upon extensive data-center networks. The main Russian data centers are located in Samara, Yaroslavl, Krasnodar, Yekaterinburg, and Moscow, and are obviously lacking any protection, as confirmed by Yandex’s panicked decision in the aftermath of the first strike to censor the buildings on its own satellite map service.

For ordinary Russians, the consequences would probably appear gradually rather than through one nationwide internet blackout, as navigation applications would slowly become unreliable, online purchases would start failing, payment processing would slow down before stopping completely, and businesses would lose access to essential software and customer databases.

For Yandex and other data center operators, the financial consequences extend beyond immediate repairs, as repeated service interruptions threaten customer confidence, business contracts, and revenue while forcing additional investment into redundancy and physical protection against Ukrainian drones that have proven themselves highly effective.

Overall, the two Ukrainian strikes within forty-eight hours that damaged two key Yandex facilities are significant, as they exposed another major weakness in Russia’s protection of key infrastructure, this time essential to its digital economy. As the Ukrainian leadership announced the start of the campaign, the speed of this escalation also suggests that Moscow must now prepare for another sustained Ukrainian campaign.

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Today, the biggest news comes from the Lyman direction.

Although the frontline around Lyman has barely moved, the intensity of the fighting has reached extraordinary levels. Russian forces are committing thousands of soldiers to repeated counterattacks in an effort to halt Ukrainian advances and restore their positions, but these assaults are coming at a tremendous cost. In Zarichne, Russian troops are attempting to push back Ukrainian infiltrators who are trying to cross the Zherebets River and advance into the centre of Torske. Meanwhile, in the forests east of Lyman, Ukrainian forces are clearing the remaining Russian positions north of Yampil. Russian troops are still present in the area, but their positions have become increasingly scattered, leaving them struggling to maintain a coherent bridgehead. Russia is also counterattacking inside Yampil itself, attempting to regain control of positions in the grey zone. Their objective is to reopen access to the vast forested areas beyond these positions, where Ukrainian forces could otherwise exploit gaps in Russian defences. These repeated attacks and counterattacks have gradually pushed the frontline towards a more stable position along the river, but that stability has come at a staggering human cost for the Russians.

At the end of September and the beginning of October, Russian forces suffered daily personnel losses exceeding two thousand on three separate occasions. On one of those days, reported losses reached two thousand and ninety, the highest daily figure since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. These losses reflect the intensity of Russia’s efforts to contain the Ukrainian counterattacks, as commanders continue sending troops into contested areas to prevent further advances and recover lost positions. 

This is largely because Ukrainian forces eliminated Russia’s drone operators and specialist personnel during Operation Vivaldi. A notable part of the operation involved Ukrainian drone operators using unmanned ground vehicles to reach Russian positions in the rear. These ground drones were used to strike concealed Russian shelters, command posts, and locations where Russian forces were concentrating and launching drones. The third Assault Brigade said these strikes destroyed a large number of such positions, along with the personnel operating from them. With fewer experienced drone operators and other specialized personnel available to support the frontline, Russia has increasingly had to compensate by committing large numbers of conventional troops to plug gaps, reinforce threatened positions, and launch repeated counterattacks. As a result, Russia is committing a significant portion of its available reserves simply to slow the Ukrainian advance and temporarily stabilize the frontline. This may prevent a total collapse of the Russian line, but it also means that large numbers of troops are being consumed just to maintain the current defensive line rather than being preserved for future operations.

This could be exactly what Ukraine was planning from the beginning, as proven by the commander of the Third Army Corps. Andriy Biletsky said that the Russian prisoners of war were lucky to have surrendered early, because the next stage of the operation will make the situation a lot worse for Russians. Based on his remarks, it is highly likely that the Ukrainian commanders anticipated that the Russians would launch massive meat wave attacks once the scope of Ukraine's counterattack became clear. As a result of these preparation, the Russians were walking straight into a trap, leading to their massive losses. 

Overall, the key issue is that Russia may be stabilizing the frontline while simultaneously exhausting the forces needed to hold it. By forcing Russia to commit more troops just to contain a limited area, Ukraine can turn every counterattack into a drain on Russia’s remaining combat power rather than simply fighting for territory. If Ukrainian commanders anticipated this response, the objective may have been not only to advance, but to provoke Russia into spending its reserves under increasingly unfavorable conditions. In that case, the real significance of the operation will be measured not by how far the frontline moves today, but by how much weaker Russia becomes when Ukraine launches its next phase.

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Today, the biggest news comes from the Kostiantynivka direction. 

Here, on the western flank of the city, Russian forces just launched a massive offensive trying to break through Ukrainian lines and envelop the defenders from the west. Doing so would place Ukrainian ground lines of communication into the city under complete Russian fire control, and starting the battle for the city of Druzhkivka to the north. Unfortunately for the Russians however, the  Ukrainian ninety-third mechanized brigade defending this crucial sector just released brand new footage that shattered any Russian hope of their offensive succeeding. 

Geolocated footage shows how their drones are detecting Russian infiltrators moving toward their lines in massive numbers. Immediately struck by FPV kamikaze drones, these Russian soldiers stand very little chance in the wide open fields. Russians next tried armored assaults in the sector, moving large numbers of infantry rapidly inside of massive cages mounted onto the tanks. Ukrainians showed how they made quick work of these assaults, burning the vehicles and stopping Russians in their tracks. Russian infantry that managed to dismount found themselves in the middle of a massive kill zone, and heavy bomber drones carpet-bombed the tree lines with mortar rounds to ensure that no one remained to attack Ukrainian positions. Additionally, these heavy bomber drones were also equipped with singular but much more heavy explosive devices, able to penetrate through the roofs of buildings where Russians were sheltering in and turning them into ruins. Russians quickly shifted to a lower-visibility approach, filling pickup trucks with infantry and bags of supplies to allow Russian infiltrators to stay on position for as long as possible. Striking them in the open fields, Russian infantry once again had nowhere to run to as they were left stranded without any cover. Russian motorbike assaults soon followed, but intense Russian shelling of the fields here meant that the motorbikes had to stay on the asphalt to maintain any speed during their attack. This made them even more easy to strike, as FPV drones and artillery worked together to shell the unprotected assaults with shrapnel and blast waves. Even at night Russians tried to break through, but made a critical mistake by leaving their headlights on to evade obstacles on the road. 

However, no defense remained impregnable, and a few Russian soldiers inevitably managed to evade detection and slip past the Ukrainian kill zone. Fortunately for Ukrainians, the ninety-third brigade houses skilled assault troops that conducted regular clearing operations of the settlements in the grey zone where Russian infiltrators could accumulate. Through this, Ukrainians were even able to push deeper into no-man's land, and repeatedly clear Russian underground positions and dugouts, preventing Russians from advancing through gradual consolidation. This critical component in modern warfare also resulted in a steady supply of surrendering Russian soldiers and important intel that Ukrainians were able to act on. This intelligence exposed unknown Russian infiltration routes, and allowed gaps in the line to be closed as soon as Russians found one. Russian electronic warfare also became increasingly countered, as the brigade is fielding a large number of fiber-optic-controlled FPV drones that do not need a wireless signal to the pilot, as can be seen from the coils of fiber optic wire exploding away from impacts. . This allowed Ukrainians to even strike in areas where signal strength had been exceptionally low due to terrain factors or damaged antennas. In the end, Russians have been completely unable for months to advance in the brigade’s sector of responsibility, and the western flank of Kostiantynivka continues to hold because of them. 

Overall, the Ukrainian ninety-third brigade has shown itself exceptionally capable in the defense of Kostiantynivka. Preventing the encirclement of the city’s defenders, they have countered each and every one of the different tactics and assaults that Russians have thrown at them. Through their active defense and clearing operations, they have worked with their Azov brigade neighbors to fully clear over one hundred kilometers of Russian infiltrators. As the Russians cannot seem to break through their lines, their plans to reach and capture Druzhkivka by the end of the year is falling apart at the seams.

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The Russians have now started to panic over the rapidly increasing threat to their enclave of Kaliningrad. This panic was caused by severely ramped up reconnaissance missions against Kaliningrad. Over the past year, Nato has intensified surveillance over Kaliningrad so much that it has trumped Nato satellite and aerial reconnaissance over Crimea, which is actively used to guide Ukrainian strikes. Nato Awacs aircraft fly along Kaliningrad practically every day, while satellite reconnaissance is conducted continuously. An entire US military satellite constellation now monitors Russian military facilities here on a daily basis, including the base in Baltisk, airfields, air defense positions, and other Russian Armed Forces facilities. Given how unprecedented the change of focus from Crimea to Kaliningrad is, these are preparations for the worst-case scenario to map out Russian military positions for targeting in the event of war.

This intensified reconnaissance has led Russian military analysts to believe Nato and Ukraine are preparing for a strike against Kaliningrad already in the near future. They quoted a German Air Force Commander Holger Neumann, who claimed that in the event of a Russian attack, Germany is ready to fight as early as tonight, and that Nato’s first targets would be strikes on Kaliningrad, the Kola Peninsula, Saint Petersburg, and the Black Sea. Kaliningrad is especially difficult for the Russians to defend as the semi-exclave is surrounded by Nato states that are actively reinforcing their borders with both troops and forward bases. This would make it convenient for Nato to blockade the region from the Baltic Sea, which is also completely surrounded by Nato countries, as since the addition of Sweden and Finland to the alliance it has effectively been nicknamed the Nato Sea.

What makes it even worse for Russia, Europe has already imposed an aerial blockade above Kaliningrad, and Russia can only resupply it by flying from Saint Petersburg through international waters. Because of how geographically exposed Kaliningrad is, in the event of a conflict, every land, sea and air corridor would be completely shut by Nato forces. This would force Russia to try to seize the Suwalki Corridor, which is the only land route connecting the region with Russian-allied Belarus. However, this corridor is located between two Nato countries, Poland and Lithuania, which is why such an operation would result in the outbreak of full-scale war.

Knowing the vulnerabilities of Kaliningrad, Putin resorted to threats and announced that attempts to cut off access to Kaliningrad from Russia’s mainland will lead to an unprecedented escalation, stating that any threat to the semi-exclave would be neutralized. To prove his point, he stressed the importance of the deployment of Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missiles in Belarus. The missile carries multiple warheads, including nuclear ones, and the flight to Lithuania and Poland would be covered in only two to four minutes, giving Nato a very short time window to intercept them. With this, Russia intends to dissuade Nato from blockading Kaliningrad.

However, Russia’s reaction to ramped-up Nato reconnaissance is ungrounded, suffering from logical fallacies and skewering of the truth. Russia has been building up its forces in Kaliningrad for years. Approximately ten thousand Russian troops are stationed there, along with nuclear-capable short-range Iskander ballistic missiles, able to hit multiple European capitals at a range of five hundred kilometers, including Berlin and Warsaw. Moreover, Russia has been using Kaliningrad for years to jam aerial and maritime GPS signals and force civilian aircraft to rely on on-board navigation systems, endangering them during their flight, as has even happened to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen’s aircraft. Given these Russian hybrid escalations, Nato has only begun more active surveillance of the Russian threats that cause this, while repeatedly and openly refraining itself from more direct action. Despite the by all measures constrained reaction of Nato, Russians are choosing to play the victim, despite triggering mass surveillance through their own actions, panicking and complaining that they will soon be attacked by Nato, even before Nato can begin lifting an actual finger.

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Today, there is important news from the Russian Federation.

Here, Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s oil industry intensified, with explosions and fires reported at Lukoil’s massive Volgograd refinery. Processing roughly fifteen million tons annually, the facility produces gasoline, diesel and aviation kerosene essential to Russia’s economy and military. During the same attack wave, Ukraine also struck the Samara oil-distribution station, an important node involved in producing Russia’s oil export blend. These attacks followed an extraordinary week in which Ukraine reported strikes against six Russian refineries, demonstrating that individual raids can easily be turned into a systematic campaign with dangerous results for Russia.

As a result, the scale is becoming economically significant, as Ukraine’s Defense Ministry stated that more than fifty-one percent of Russia’s refining capacity has now been put out of operation, describing the objective as bleeding Russia’s military-economic system. Despite Putin acknowledging that attacks on energy infrastructure are affecting economic performance, his tactic is to translate this into a percentage change in gross domestic product only to hide the real economic effect and mislead the Russian public. Putin openly admitted a decrease of only about one percent of a roughly two-point-seven-trillion US dollar economy, which is approximately twenty-seven billion dollars. The broader cumulative consequences of the Ukrainian strikes, however, extend far beyond direct refinery damage through disrupted production, transportation, exports, repairs, and military fuel supplies, making опенUkrainian strikes deal even more harm due to their repetitive nature.

At Ilsky, Ukrainian drones damaged all three primary processing units, destroying almost the whole refining capacity. With the tank farm also damaged, production reportedly stopped at the key refinery supplying southern Russia and military logistics.

Novoshakhtinsk, capable of processing approximately five-point-six million tons annually, was also attacked by Ukrainian drones. Its connections to major rail and oil terminals make disruption there particularly damaging to fuel transportation across southern Russia.

Then Ukraine reached Perm, approximately one-thousand-and-five-hundred kilometers away. Fires were reported around several sections of the thirteen-million-ton Lukoil refinery, including the Avt-Five unit, responsible for roughly one-third of primary processing.

The next Ukrainian strike in Ufa also demonstrated that even distance no longer guarantees protection. Ukrainian drones attacked Bashneft’s enormous refining cluster more than one-thousand-three-hundred kilometers from Ukraine on consecutive days, damaging facilities producing diesel, gasoline, and aviation fuel.

At Kuibyshev in Samara, large fires were reported around the primary distillation infrastructure after incoming drone strikes. The refinery can process approximately seven million tons annually and produces substantial quantities of diesel, gasoline, and fuel oil, with the process now halted.

The Saratov refinery was hit again as well after previous strikes earlier this year. The Rosneft refinery processes up to seven million tons annually and produces fuels used by both civilian consumers and Russia’s military-industrial system.

The Ryazan refinery represents an even larger target, as it can process approximately seventeen million tons annually, and Ukrainian strikes ignited its primary-processing units, threatening an important source of motor fuel around Moscow.

Repeated strikes matter because repaired units can be damaged again, forcing Russia into an expensive cycle of restoration while simultaneously protecting an enormous network of refineries, pipelines and pumping stations. The consequences therefore extend far beyond destroyed equipment, as Russia requires petroleum products to move tanks, trucks and aircraft, while energy exports and taxation remain crucial sources of state revenue. Refinery disruption creates repair expenses, logistical bottlenecks, and pressure on domestic fuel availability while forcing additional resources into air defense.

Overall, Ukraine’s strategy is methodical, repeatedly attacking the infrastructure that converts Russian crude oil into economically and militarily valuable products. If Ukrainian estimates of more than half of refining capacity being disabled even temporarily are sustained, the pressure will increasingly reach Russia’s war machine itself. Putin must simultaneously finance the war, replace military losses, repair energy infrastructure, and protect facilities scattered across an enormous territory, while Ukrainian drones are demonstrating that increasingly little of that territory remains safely beyond their reach.

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In this video, we will analyze how Russia’s decision to shift responsibility for defense backfired.

Here, unable to defend their own sky, the Russian authorities have told private companies to fend for themselves and protect their own facilities from Ukrainian strikes instead. However, the flawed nature of the plan and the organizational limitations have led to a complete defense failure, with cities burning.

The new policy immediately exposes several major weaknesses, as modern air defense depends on integrated command networks for rapid decision-making and coordinated engagement procedures by trained operators. Large corporations may have the money to buy equipment, but they generally lack the expertise necessary to operate military-grade systems effectively. More importantly, creating dozens or hundreds of separate defensive networks risks producing fragmented coverage across Russia. Wealthier companies may indeed succeed in protecting themselves, while less profitable facilities will remain exposed. Rather than strengthening national air defense, the policy risks creating a patchwork system full of exploitable gaps.

Officially, the measure of the Russian government was intended to increase the number of mobile air-defense groups and strengthen protection of strategic infrastructure. The idea was to allow private companies to purchase anti-aircraft artillery systems, radars, electronic-warfare equipment, and interceptor systems themselves. Unofficially, it reflects the much harsher reality in which the Russian military can no longer adequately defend the growing number of targets threatened by Ukrainian long-range drones.

However, due to the Russian officials fearing any future unrest, any military equipment used in this manner will not formally belong to the companies themselves. Instead, it will remain under military control and be operated through reservist formations attached to regional defense units.

The flaws in the plan became particularly visible during Ukraine's massive drone assault on Moscow, when waves of long-range drones penetrated even the heavily defended airspace around the capital. Russian authorities claimed hundreds of drones were intercepted, yet multiple still reached their targets. The Gazprom Neft refinery in Kapotnya, targeted already just days before, is the most important fuel-producing facility serving the Moscow region, supplying half of the capital's fuel consumption.

Videos recorded by residents showed drones flying at low altitude over Moscow before powerful explosions erupted around the refinery. Witnesses captured enormous fires, thick columns of black smoke, and huge secondary explosions, forcing temporary airport closures and damaging nearby infrastructure.

The attack highlighted how, when air defenses become saturated by large drone swarms and are used by inexperienced operators, mistakes become more likely. Failed interceptions, mistimed engagements, and falling debris caused damage of their own in Moscow. Defensive systems attempting to destroy incoming drones created additional hazards for the very infrastructure they are meant to protect, as clearly visible in the last attack when an air defense rocket hit a large oil storage tank and blew up its roof into the air.

What makes this development especially interesting is that Russia appears to be adapting a concept Ukraine introduced at the end of two thousand twenty five, when Ukrainian authorities authorized enterprises and licensed security organizations to participate in air defense. Companies were allowed to purchase remotely operated weapon stations, interceptor systems, and supporting equipment while integrating directly into a centralized Air Force command structure. By May this year, dozens of Ukrainian companies had reportedly joined the program, contributing to successful interceptions of eight five percent of Russian drones they targeted.

However, the crucial difference lies in implementation, as Ukraine grants participants meaningful operational flexibility while maintaining centralized coordination. Russia, by contrast, remains reluctant to provide private organizations with real control, with the hesitation stemming largely from political concerns and fear of mutiny. The stigma of providing companies and oligarchs with military-grade weapons is a heavy one in Russia, the last time this happened, a fifty-thousand strong Wagner army marched on Moscow. As a result, the Kremlin seeks additional defensive capacity while simultaneously ensuring that private entities never possess real independent military power capable of rivalling state control.

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Russians have now officially started to dismantle their own air defense, leaving even more gaps for Ukraine to exploit. All of this was done solely to increase the number of strikes on Ukraine, as Russia has begun converting its existing air defense missiles into ground-attack ballistic missiles. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia converted around two-hundred missiles in two-thousand-and-twenty-five and plans to convert an additional four-hundred-and-eighty by the end of this year. However, as these missiles were never designed for such ground-attack purposes, their accuracy is horribly ineffective. Additionally, using air defense interceptors as strike weapons creates a serious long-term vulnerability for Russian air defense as a whole, as production capabilities is refocused and repurposed, while Russians already suffer from a serious air defense problem.

Russian air defenses are already placed under significant strain, with Russian military analysts stating that Russia is experiencing a true air defense shortage. Ukrainian saturation tactics using waves of drones and missiles force Russian systems to already expend valuable interceptors, with some units already reporting a shortage. Instead of addressing this shortage, the Russian leadership has decided to prioritize offensive strikes against Ukraine. This decision may exploit Ukraine’s own shortage of ballistic missile interceptors, but it leaves Russia with a thinner and less capable defensive shield of its own, while Ukraine works to strengthen theirs instead. Despite this obvious misalignment of priorities, Russia is now focusing massively on launching as many of them as possible to strike targets across Kyiv.

The latest Russian strike involved twenty-four ballistic missiles, four Zircon missiles, and more than one hundred drones. Russians deployed ballistic missiles with cluster warheads to target warehouses within the city. As a result of the attacks, seventeen people were killed, more than forty were injured, and fire raging for hours.

Simultaneously, Russia is importing additional offensive capacity while prioritizing missiles that weaken or fail to replenish its homeland defense. A North Korean missile unit has recently been deployed to the Voronezh region to support missile strikes against Ukraine. The contingent includes approximately six individual ballistic missile launchers and more than one-hundred-and-twenty ballistic missiles. These North Korean missiles and launchers will soon enable Russia to conduct even larger salvos and more frequent attacks on Ukraine, putting Ukraine’s air defense network under increasing strain.

However, destroying the launchers before firing may be more realistic than attempting to intercept every missile after launch. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has declared that North Korean missile installations or systems deployed to attack Ukraine are legitimate military targets. President Volodymyr Zelensky has additionally made a decree to prioritize the destruction of Russian ballistic missile launchers to reduce the number of strikes against Ukraine. Zelensky stressed that Ukrainian forces already know how to track the locations of the launchers with the help of Western intelligence support. At the same time, Ukraine is working together with European partners to produce an anti-ballistic missile air-defense system as a long-term solution. The interceptor missiles of the Freya system will be manufactured domestically by Fire Point, while its radar and sensors would be supplied by Europe. This would help to reduce Ukraine’s dependence on the US-made Patriot system with a domestic alternative. If this new air defense system is successfully developed and mass-produced, while Ukraine strikes Russia’s launchers, Ukraine could significantly reduce the number of successful ballistic missile strikes. Moscow is now exploiting Ukraine’s temporary shortage, but it is encouraging Ukraine to destroy Russian launchers and accelerate a European replacement for Patriot.

Overall, diverting air defense interceptors into ground-attack missiles is Russia’s biggest mistake, because they are trading long-term homeland protection for short-term strike capacity against Ukraine. Every gap in Russian protection, which they voluntarily make, creates additional opportunities for Ukraine, which they can exploit. Additionally, importing North Korean missiles increases short-term attack volume but does nothing to repair the growing defensive vulnerability inside Russia. Russia is trying to exploit Ukraine’s temporary shortage by creating a potentially longer-term shortage in its own defensive system.

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Today, there are important updates from the Liman direction.

Here, Ukrainian forces have finally managed to cut off the Russian salient west of the Zherbets River by advancing from two sides. As a result, Russian forces are now pinned down in an area without being able to move in reinforcements or evacuate to the east.

Ukrainian counterattacks against both flanks of the Russian salient have narrowed the corridor connecting the Russian spearhead with its rear, leaving it dangerously exposed. Satellite imagery indicates Russian forces are already withdrawing from parts of the western salient around Shandryholove, as elements of Russia’s Second and One-Hundred-Forty-Fourth Motor Rifle Divisions now face a difficult choice: retreat east with limited chance of success or risk losing additional forces as Ukraine tightens its pressure.

The northern flank has deteriorated particularly rapidly, as Ukrainian units have gradually consolidated strongpoints between Nove and Katerynivka. Recent assaults expanded this foothold, with subsequent Russian strike footage itself indicating Ukrainian activity in areas previously under enemy control. Ukraine’s Third Corps then pushed south toward Kolodiazi, and Ukrainian troops captured an important tactical strongpoint in the forest belt north of the settlement, opening approaches toward northwestern Kolodiazi and western Ivanivka. Crucially, this advance allowed Ukrainian forces to cut the Kolodiazi-Ivanivka road completely, while simultaneously Russian forces inside Kolodiazi came under pressure from the south, creating multi-vector threats against the Russian bridgehead.

The southern flank, where Kolodiazi is located, is collapsing under similar pressure, as Ukrainian units counterattacked north of Stavky, and even Russian sources have acknowledged the increasingly dangerous situation, complaining that the entire bridgehead west of the Zherebets has become extremely difficult to sustain and is effectively cut off from the Russian mainland.

As a result, Ukraine has effectively cut the area around Shandryholove off from reliable logistical support. In an attempt to relieve the situation, Russian forces continue striking Ukrainian supply routes, but artillery and drones cannot solve Russia’s fundamental problem: its forward troops need ammunition, food, reinforcements, and casualty evacuation routes of their own.

Footage from the area illustrates what Russian logistics now face, as Russian soldiers attempting to recover wounded troops and bodies must travel along a route repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drones. What should be a supply road has effectively become a road of death, as everyone moving toward the salient risks detection and destruction, making reinforcement increasingly expensive and evacuation equally dangerous.

However, Ukraine faces its own danger, as the advances forming the pincer are relatively narrow, meaning commanders cannot simply race forward chasing retreating Russians. Narrow penetrations can themselves become vulnerable to counterattacks against their flanks. Ukrainian forces therefore need to widen their gains, consolidate captured strongpoints, and establish secure logistics before attempting deeper exploitation or starting to systematically eliminate isolated Russian groups in the cut-off western part of the salient.

Overall, after Russia consequently risked watching its most important breakthrough in this sector dissolve, Ukrainian pressure from two sides has transformed the Russian offensive spearhead into a liability that is about to turn catastrophic. Eliminating that salient would push Russian forces back toward the river and destroy months of accumulated progress. However, this development also has strategic importance for Liman itself, because if Ukraine consolidates these gains, Russia’s northern pincer to encircle the city will effectively be broken, freeing Ukrainian resources to reinforce the city and concentrate increasingly on pushing back the Russian pincer approaching from the south.

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Today, there are important updates from the Russian Federation. 

Russian military channels are reacting with anger to the Russian retreat around Liman, where Ukrainian counterattacks have erased Russian gains west of the Zherebets River. Kremlin-affiliated commentators acknowledge in panic the Ukrainian initiative around the sector while criticizing exaggerated Russian reporting, demanding that Russian commanders be hanged. The embarrassment became particularly visible at Sviatohirsk, claimed captured by Putin, based on AI-fabricated videos of Russian soldiers inside the town, only for the Third Army Corps commander Andriy Biletskyi to subsequently film himself walking there openly, demonstrating continued Ukrainian control and the relative safety inside that allowed him not to wear a helmet. For Russian analysts, the deeper problem is that fabricated victories eventually corrupt battlefield decision-making. Once one Russian commander reports an imaginary advance, neighboring units and higher headquarters begin planning around territory that Russia does not actually control. A Russian analyst explicitly warned that falsely declaring settlements captured can prevent Russian forces from striking them because headquarters believes friendly troops are present there, which gives the Ukrainians more freedom to operate.

The consequences multiply, as artillery may withhold fire from Ukrainian positions incorrectly marked as Russian. Reinforcements can be ordered toward supposedly friendly strongpoints only to encounter Ukrainian ambushes. Supply vehicles can follow routes assumed to be secured but actually covered by Ukrainian drones. Russian assault groups can also receive objectives based on imaginary starting lines, while reserves are committed to rescuing positions that were never held. Eventually, commanders must conduct emergency crisis management, consuming several times the manpower that an accurate assessment might have required.

Russian commentators therefore increasingly demand punishment and accountability for officers responsible for these beautiful fake reports that make their way up to the Kremlin. The Sviatohirsk episode made the absurdity especially obvious and catalyzed Russian discontent, as the fabricated footage purporting to demonstrate Russian presence was torn to pieces by Biletsky’s appearance.

The pattern resembles earlier Russian information failures around Kupiansk, when Russian sources repeatedly presented infiltrations and flag-raising footage as evidence of much deeper control, including material that analysts assessed as AI-generated. Yet Ukrainian clearing operations continued, contradicting the picture of secure Russian control. Similar paradoxes have appeared in the Dnipropetrovsk Region, as Ukrainian counteroffensives during the previous months reversed significant Russian gains, while geolocated evidence showed Ukrainian troops operating where Russian sources had previously claimed advances. Around Stepnohirsk in Zaporizhzhia, a Kremlin-affiliated military analyst admitted that false reporting had actually prevented Russian forces from properly establishing logistics and clearing territory they supposedly controlled. Ukrainian forces subsequently continued contesting positions around the area.

This is why Liman potentially represents something larger than another tactical setback. Russia’s leadership has placed enormous pressure on commanders to demonstrate constant progress. Putin continues publicly portraying Russia as winning, even as independent battlefield assessments show much slower advances and repeated Ukrainian counterattacks and successes. When genuine Russian advances become increasingly expensive, producing impressive reports is easier than producing territorial gains. But once AI-generated videos, manipulated flag-raisings, and fictitious captures enter the operational reporting chain, propaganda begins damaging the army producing it.

Overall, the Russian retreat from Liman and the claimed capture of Sviatohirsk that never materialized are the latest examples of how political leaders can announce victories, headquarters can draw optimistic maps, and commanders can report settlements captured, but Ukrainian soldiers remain there. The resulting outrage among Russian military commentators reflects recognition that somebody must eventually pay for the fiction. When reality finally catches up with the reports, Russian commanders rarely admit that previous victories never happened, as they fear paying the price with their heads, so they sacrifice additional soldiers, trying desperately to make the false map real.

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Russia has finally been forced to suspend transit through the Azov Sea, effectively shutting down one of its most important commercial and military shipping corridors. Following devastating Ukrainian attacks on over a hundred Russian vessels off the coast, Russian ports have now officially surrendered to the Ukrainian Crimea-campaign, and stopped accepting new applications for passage through the Kerch Strait. However not just this, as navigation through the canal linking the Don River with the Sea of Azov was also suspended, effectively shutting down all maritime transport into Crimea.

The immediate trigger for this measure was Ukraine’s extraordinary maritime campaign, with Russian authorities suspending transit after Ukraine destroyed and disabled one hundred and six Russian vessels, most of them tankers, within only eight days. The consequences extend far beyond the waterways themselves, as ports throughout the region have been forced to halt new loading operations because ships can no longer enter or leave. As a result, trucks carrying export goods have begun backing up for miles outside terminals, unable to unload their cargo.

With Ukrainian drones beginning to target the ports and their storage infrastructure, Ukrainians are forcing Russians’ own security measures to quickly contribute to the major paralysis affecting one of Russia’s most important export regions. Up to thirty percent of Russian oil shipments and ninety percent of grain exports move through the Black Sea system, so the Ukrainian strikes are depriving Moscow of valuable revenue of fifty to sixty billion US dollars.

However, sinking ships represented only the second phase of a much broader Ukrainian operation. Once Russian vessels operating throughout the Sea of Azov suffered heavy losses, Ukrainian planners shifted their attention toward the ports expected to shelter the surviving fleet. This strategic logic proved highly effective, as Ukrainian long-range drones began striking the supporting infrastructure inside the ports themselves.

Footage confirmed attacks against facilities in Azov and Taganrog, demonstrating that terminals, fuel infrastructure, and logistics areas had become the next priority after the surface vessels had withdrawn. Russian authorities suddenly were left without options, as allowing ships to gather inside ports would simply transform them into stationary targets alongside fuel depots, warehouses, and loading equipment. Closing the ports became the only practical option, but it didn't help to minimize the danger, as this solution merely prevented ships from concentrating together. It could not protect cranes, terminals, storage tanks, repair facilities, and supporting logistics infrastructure, all of which remain vulnerable to continued Ukrainian strikes. Due to this, even if the ban on maritime traffic is eventually lifted, damaged port infrastructure will continue limiting Russian exports and naval operations for an extended period.

It is important to understand that the Ukrainian maritime campaign follows an equally devastating first phase directed against Crimea’s ground logistics. In this first phase, Ukrainian forces systematically targeted bridges connecting Crimea with Russian-controlled territories in southern Ukraine, repeating the strikes once the Russians started repairing them or establishing improvised crossings, leaving the Kerch Bridge as Russia’s primary remaining connection. At the same time, Ukrainian drones devastated traffic along the Mariupol-Crimea highway, turning it into a junkyard for military trucks, fuel convoys, and repair equipment, blocking all Russian road-based transport. Recent reports show that cargo traffic collapsed by seventy-one percent, falling from almost four thousand vehicles daily to around one thousand one hundred.

Combined with strikes on energy and fuel infrastructure in Crimea, Russian fuel shortages only worsened, electricity blackouts sometimes lasting over twenty-four hours became commonplace, and collapsing tourism throughout the peninsula crippled the local economy that so depends on it. Now, Ukraine is applying precisely the same sudden, concentrated pressure at sea, extending the isolation from land to maritime logistics, showcasing how Russia's control over Crimea turns symbolic with each passing day.

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In this video, we will analyze why politicians in Russia started begging to end the war.

Here, Russia’s economy can barely sustain the cost of the war for much longer, which is a looming disaster as pressure from the elite is rising and state control is weakening. Now, even Russian politicians are aware of the severity of the problem, begging Putin to stop the war before it breaks Russia.

Recently, a Russian State Duma deputy, Renat Suleymanov, said that the war needs to end now because Russia’s economy cannot sustain the current tempo. He also stressed that forty percent of the federal budget already goes to defense and security, which is crowding out normal spending. Defense spending is also driving inflation, which is officially five percent, and forcing cuts in civilian spending. Suleymanov warned that even after the war ends, Russia will face problems reintegrating hundreds of thousands of returning troops who experienced extreme violence, and that Russia will still carry these costs after peace.

Because of the combined budget, manpower, and infrastructure problems, the Russian economy can barely sustain the war at this intensity. Notably, Russian losses have exceeded one point four million casualties in the war, including dead and wounded, according to the Ukrainian general staff. This is critical because this year, Russia was unable to recruit as many soldiers as it lost from month to month, which means that the size of its army is now decreasing. At the home front, Russia's layered air defense system can no longer defend all critical infrastructure, because from the start of this year, Russia has lost almost two hundred air defense systems. This leaves Russia’s refineries and export infrastructure undefended against Ukrainian strikes. Ukraine exploited this and reduced Russia’s export capacity and even forced it to import finished oil products. Because of these strikes, Russia’s oil revenue is collapsing, which is why Russian officials are warning that the current tempo is unsustainable.

Against this backdrop, Zelensky sent an open letter to Putin, but the message was aimed at the war weary Russian elite, who have money, networks, and institutional access, making them dangerous for Putin. The proposal for a meeting was part of Kyiv’s attempt to highlight Moscow’s economic weaknesses and prove that Russia is not invincible, as also shown by the emergence of harsh criticism from Russian officials. The letter was intended to draw the attention of Russia’s elite to the fact that they are losing billions of dollars because of asset seizures and sanctions and to make them see the war as a personal financial threat, not just a national burden.

As a result of the economic and war related problems, Putin is slowly losing his control over the narrative and the expectations of the elite, not necessarily control over the state. Officials and business leaders are increasingly seeing events unfolding independently of Putin’s decisions, which suggests that the Kremlin has lost its control over defining the country's future and that pressure is growing among the elites. This shift is being driven by the mounting costs of a war that was originally planned as a quick victory but has become impossible to ignore for the Russians. Russia's business elite are demanding greater predictability because Western sanctions forced them to bring their assets back to Russia, and they had to watch five trillion rubles worth of private assets be confiscated over the past three years. Because of this, they increasingly want clear rules, stronger property rights, and confidence in the country's economic future, which is deteriorating because of the war. At the same time, the informal social contract between the Russian state and society has collapsed because, previously, the government largely stayed out of citizens' private lives in exchange for political passivity. Today, that arrangement has been replaced by expanding repression, mobilization, and increasing state control, with widespread internet restrictions serving as one of the clearest examples. As a result, the Kremlin finds itself in a self-defeating cycle, and the current system can endure only as long as Putin remains in power, yet every measure he takes to preserve and strengthen it ultimately accelerates its long term decline.

Overall, the pressures facing Russia are no longer confined to the battlefield but have expanded to the home front as well. The economic decline, combined with increasing elite dissatisfaction, is reinforcing itself, making the problem even worse for Putin. The longer Putin continues the war, the more the war itself becomes the force weakening Russia from within.