Reed Mideke
The Ukraine old thread has gotten so long just opening it lags mastodon badly, so 1000 days seems like a good point to break for a new one
CW: mostly me tracking noteworthy events for myself with a side of ill-informed commentary and a healthy dose of mocking propagandists. Where we left off: https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/113511577733773158
Reed Mideke
Air force denies operators of western SAMs are being transferred en mass ("There was one such case, but it was due to specific circumstances") but basically confirms the rest
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/12/21/7490153/
Reed Mideke
Reed Mideke
As Russia bombards entire Ukrainian cities to rubble and obliterates thousands of smaller towns and villages, the new governor of Kursk says they won't be able to pay to rebuild the small part of Kursk because Ukraine occupied because "…the special military operation is still ongoing and is highly technical — we have land to liberate, and every shell, I’m sorry to say, costs money" https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/20/we-have-land-to-liberate-and-every-shell-costs-money-governor-of-russia-s-kursk-region-says-state-won-t-fully-compensate-residents-for-destroyed-property
Reed Mideke
JFC "Two sources in air defence units told the Guardian the deficit at the front has become so acute that the general staff has ordered already-depleted air defence units to free up more men to send to the front as infantry"
Reed Mideke
Zelensky keeps insisting that there's "no point" lowering the conscription age because they don't have enough weapons*, but that's definitely not what the commanders on the front line say: https://hromadske.ua/en/war/236361-russians-need-to-walk-for-five-days-to-reach-their-positions-burevii-commander-on-what-is-happening-in-the-kupiansk-sector
Reed Mideke
Even if you buy they extremely dubious proposition that they don't have enough weapons for the guys manning trenches, you could rotate the people who have been on the front without a break for 3 years. Obviously there's intense political pressure, and Ukraine desperately needs more equipment too but it's hard to see how this kind of nonsense helps
Reed Mideke
Kadyrov, who recently threatened massive retaliation for Ukrainian drones hitting an OMON base in Grozny, suggests delisting HTS, which ended Russia's Syria project with (minor) help from… Ukrainian drones https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/16/kadyrov-proposes-removing-syrian-group-hts-from-russia-s-list-of-terrorist-organizations
Reed Mideke
Monday: "Ukrainian prosecutors charged Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Armed Forces' radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops, in absentia with the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine"
Tuesday: "Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Armed Forces' radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops, was reportedly killed in an explosion at a residence in Moscow"
🤨
https://kyivindependent.com/russian-general-killed-in-moscow-explosion-local-media-reports/
Reed Mideke
Unsurprisingly, I wasn't the only one to notice* Russia's recently expanded Kamyansky solid propellant plant is in easy Storm Shadow reach 🥳
Reed Mideke
Whether or not they believe their own absurd claims about "bio-labs in Ukraine" it sure looks like the Russia's bio-weapons program is still active https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-biological-weapons-laboratory-sergiyev-posad-shoigu-visit/33236030.html
Reed Mideke
Trump: "I'll solve it in 24 hours"
Trump's designated peace envoy: "…this will be resolved in the next few months … putting together some plans to actually go out and just listen" (and also "The only person who can do this is President Donald Trump", despite apparently not accepting the 24 hours claim)
Reed Mideke
'Alabuga Polytech College is reportedly recruiting schoolchildren and students from Kazakhstan to assemble combat drones for the Russian army … The leaflet openly states that the work involves assembling strike drones for the Russian army and claims that "assembling combat drones that destroy the enemy is cool." The brochure also mentions that the college is willing to hire any teenager from Kazakhstan aged 14 and older.'
Reed Mideke
Well look at that: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Aon risk management firm launched a 110-million-euro ($116 million) guarantee program to help insurers cover some war-related risks in Ukraine
https://kyivindependent.com/ebrd-co-launches-116-million-ukraine-war-insurance-capacity/
* previously https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/113110236461129057
Reed Mideke
Chug: Russian guided bomb attacks fall sharply after ATACMS, Storm Shadow strikes, analysts say.
Reed Mideke
I'm not convinced there's much evidence for causation in the last one, but anyway, while recognizing the Biden admin's obvious shortcomings, I regretfully note that "clear and decisive policy" is not really Donald's thing, except when the policy is naked cruelty and/or racism. Also if you're fighting to be free from corruption and authoritarianism, that's not really his thing either
Reed Mideke
Shot: According to the researchers, the relatively high trust in Trump can be explained by hopes for a "clearer and more decisive policy towards Ukraine from the new U.S. administration"
https://kyivindependent.com/44-of-ukrainians-trust-trump-survey/
Reed Mideke
Chaser: "I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?" Donald Trump told Time.
https://kyivindependent.com/trump-opposes-ukraine-launching-us-missiles-in-russia/
Reed Mideke
Domestic, volunteer funded franken-SAM: R-73 on an Osa. These have been seen before, but backstory is new to me
https://savelife.in.ua/materials/news/povernys-zhyvym-vpershe-v-istoriyi-blaho/
Reed Mideke
Back in July, I wondered* where the high-performance RC-inspired fixed wing interceptor drones were. Welp https://www.forcesnews.com/ukraine/hitchhiker-ukraines-new-game-changing-drone-could-protect-skies
"Game changing" TBD, but if they can produce them at scale and the terminal guidance is good, it should certainly help. Much more reach than a pickup with Maxims, much cheaper than SAMs or crewed aircraft
Reed Mideke
Remember that "25 Oreshnik per month" thing? Yeah, the actual Ukrainian defense intelligence claim was 25 / year. Which as noted, is compatible with the historical deployment rate of Yars, which shares the first two stages. And presumably, with the upgrade from Topol-M to Yars complete (or nearly so) stage production could continued for Oreshnik
Reed Mideke
Ignatius claims "Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 experienced drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones to the rebel headquarters in Idlib, Syria, four to five weeks ago to help [HTS]" which "… played only a modest role in overthrowing" Assad. No reason to doubt, but 🤨
1) Direct support of a US-designated terrorist group (as Turkey clearly did too)
2) Speaking of Turkey, unlikely GUR went to Idlib without at least tacit agreement
https://wapo.st/4iweMLl
Reed Mideke
UP with long, grim report on Russian double-tap strikes, citing an even longer report from Truth Hounds* https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/12/3/7487367/
Reed Mideke
The R-73 effort on Magura 5 (a HUR project, somewhat in competition to the SBU's Sea Baby) hasn't obviously paid off yet, but IMO only a matter of time before they get guided missiles working from these things. Aside from SAMs, something Brimstone or APKWS would be obvious candidates
Reed Mideke
Ah yes, from "I'll solve it in 24 hours before even taking office" to "formulating a concept"
Who could have predicted?! Certainly not anyone who remembers his "plan to give everyone great healthcare" which was going to be released in "two weeks"
Reed Mideke
"Russia is estimated to be able to produce up to 25 Oreshnik missiles monthly, which equates to production of 300 missiles per year"
🤨 The Russians only have ~300 active duty ICBMs total*, and as of 2022 at least hadn't quite finished replacing Topol-Ms with Yars, despite starting deployment in the early 2010s. 25 per year would seem more likely given the deployment rate
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrainian-intel-russia-produce-300-oreshnik-year
* https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/nuclearnotebook-March2022-russia-table2.pdf
Reed Mideke
#Ukraine machine gun equipped Sea Baby #USV engaging and reportedly damaging a helicopter and patrol boat. Doubt they'll get many kills but make the keep more distance and use more expensive assets to counter them https://kyivindependent.com/sbu-video-sea-baby-drones-crimea/
Reed Mideke
"Roskomnadzor also warned on December 7 that it could block eight foreign web service hosting providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), GoDaddy, and HostGator, from operating in Russia due to noncompliance with Russian censorship laws"
Oh yes guys, please go ahead and blackhole AWS, I'm sure absolutely nothing your military industrial complex or front line troops depend on will break
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-7-2024
Reed Mideke
This seems hard to square with other reports (western estimates, "UALosses" open source reporting based on obituaries), and also an extremely risky thing to lie about. Ukraine previously said over in September ~50,000 "mostly military personnel" are missing, which could perhaps account for some of the difference if Zelensky is only referring to officially confirmed KIA https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-43-000-soldiers-lost-since-the-beginning-of-the-war/
Reed Mideke
"Putin's decade-long project in Syria catastrophically collapsed in a couple weeks, so Ukraine should accept a ceasefire at any cost" is exactly the level of strategic thinking one should expect from Trump https://kyivindependent.com/trump-zelensky-ready-to-make-a-deal-on-the-war-in-ukraine/
Reed Mideke
That's quite a lot of small jet powered cruise missiles in the video. Prominently displayed serial numbers go up to at least 69 https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-delivers-first-peklo-drone-missiles/
Reed Mideke
As predicted* #Ukraine is now launching FPV #UAV from #USV https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1133350064971435&ref=sharing
(via https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1865305170642403393)
Reed Mideke
"There were brainstorming sessions about how to respond and put the Americans and the British in their place for allowing Zelensky to use long-range weapons. And how to scare Berlin and other Europeans into submission … Some of those who were in the brainstorming sessions were particularly proud of that stunt" - Did Gerasimov realize it didn't have big effect and went with "actually it was no big deal, we were gonna do it anyway?" 🤔
Reed Mideke
Or are we on the receiving end of a game of telephone and Gerasimov just said they planned to test the *missile* anyway, not launch it at Ukraine?
Given the turnaround time, Russia must have already had plans to launch that payload
Reed Mideke
TFW everything is going according to plan on day 1015 of your three day special military operation: "Coffin prices in Russia have soared by 74% since start of full-scale invasion"
Reed Mideke
"Gerasimov told [chairman of the Joint Chiefs Brown], that the Oreshnik ballistic missile launch had been planned long before the Biden administration agreed to allow Ukraine to use American ATACMS to strike deeper into Russia" 🤨 seems like an odd thing to say, whether or not Gerasimov or Putin was the one lying. By the time of the call (6 days after the strike) it was pretty clear the US wasn't treating it as a huge escalation
Reed Mideke
Also a contrast to today's report from the Moscow Times "Four Russian officials told The Moscow Times that the Oreshnik strike and its ensuing media coverage were carefully crafted with the involvement of officials, military personnel, intelligence agencies and Kremlin PR experts"
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/12/03/exclusive-kremlin-stages-oreshnik-propaganda-blitz-as-nuclear-threats-lose-their-potency-a87206
Reed Mideke
This whole story is just weird and stupid, starting with NYT reporting the that US considered "giving Ukraine nukes back" - Maybe someone somewhere talked about about it for five minutes, but no, the US isn't going to dump the whole NPT and just hand over some nukes, and there's zero chance it was ever under serious consideration https://kyivindependent.com/us-nuclear-ukraine/
Reed Mideke
"The fifth operation took place at a sensitive US military base near the German city of Stuttgart, where Ukrainian soldiers were being trained on how to use the Patriot air defence system … [an IMSI catcher] was to be used to gather the details of the personal phones of Ukrainian troops there … If successfully gathered, this would have allowed the geolocation of the air defence systems once in the field" 😬
Reed Mideke
Trump on the campaign trail "I'll end the war in 24 hours"
Trump nearly a month after the election "…had not yet formed a central working group to draw up the peace plan, according to four advisers who requested anonymity in order to speak about confidential conversations" https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/12/4/7487606/
Reed Mideke
So the deal floated here sounds like Ukraine in NATO, with the 1991 borders recognized but an armistice along the current line of control in some mix of the Korea or East / West Germany scenario, and article 5 applying to the parts under Ukrainian control. Which would be a bitter pill for Ukraine, but also likely a complete non-starter for Putin unless he thinks he's about to lose… which I suspect may be the point
Reed Mideke
To the extent that anything circulating in Trump world resembles a coherent plan, it's to force Russia and Ukraine to make "reasonable" deal or else… where "else" for Ukraine is losing US support, and the "else" for Russia is Ukraine getting more (and Trump being the ultimate judge of "reasonable" 😬 ). So while this might be a deal Zelensky would take, making a show of offering a big sacrifice so Putin gets the "else" would also be a possible explanation
Reed Mideke
One thing any serious "freeze and ceasefire" plan will need to address: "The Kremlin has in the past ignored ceasefires and pursued its territorial objectives - often blankly denying that it is"
What happens when the Russians inevitable violate the ceasefire and then deny it? Or stage obvious false flags, as they did in the lead up to the invasion?
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/europe/trump-new-ukraine-envoy-analysis-intl/index.html
Reed Mideke
Tuberville's number is obviously wrong* but oddly specific. So where did he get it? Possibly, as the note suggests, this reuters article from February, which said the *Russians* had spent $211 billion by that point https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-operations-ukraine-have-probably-cost-up-211-billion-us-official-2024-02-16/
* It depends how you count, but direct US aid to Ukraine is more like half that, and the total of other contributions is larger https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
Reed Mideke
👨🏻🍳🤌
(via https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/11/28/meet-erudite-the-fsb-handler-running-italys-pro-russia-plays/
previously https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/113138124227796110)
Reed Mideke
Sanctions aren't going to stop Russian and DPRK from buying $5 microcontrollers, but… we can make it a pain in the ass "One manufacturer was able to provide NAKO with evidence that a low-value electronic component found in a North Korean missile was counterfeit"
(and one hopes HUR, CIA etc are working on getting the Russians a *great deal* on some "special" compontents)
Reed Mideke
An analysis of 870 Ukrainian FPV interceptions of fixed wing drones https://tochnyi.info/2024/11/fpv-interceptors-2024/
Reed Mideke
Jeffrey Lewis and Aaron Stein Arms Control Wonk podcast on the RS-26 /Oreshnik thing https://www.patreon.com/posts/116541733
Reed Mideke
"We need to restore deterrence, restore peace, and get ahead of this escalation ladder, rather than responding to it" - WTF is "get ahead of this escalation ladder" even supposed mean? 🤔 https://kyivindependent.com/trumps-top-security-pick-calls-for-end-to-escalation-in-ukraine/
Reed Mideke
"nothing" maybe underselling slightly, but this seems about right: "Russia was already attacking Ukraine with other potential nuclear warhead carriers — missiles like the “Kinzhal,” “Zircon,” X-55, and X-101 — and now they’ve done it with a ballistic missile. Yes, it looks menacing, but it changes nothing" https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/11/23/menacing-but-it-changes-nothing
Reed Mideke
US and various other sources have suggested Russia doesn't have many. Putin says he "ordered them to be put into production" but assuming they're new build (not recycling retired Topol-Ms or something) rate will likely be low https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx28dzvxjyjo
Reed Mideke
Incidentally, one of Russia's recently-expanded solid fuel rocket facilities is apparently the Kamensky Plant at 48°18'01.6"N 40°10'44.4"E, just across the border from occupied Luhansk, within easy ATACMS or Storm Shadow reach 🤨
Reed Mideke
Signaling wise, Putin has proven the people who insisted there was no way he could escalate wrong, without doing anything that is likely to trigger an immediate major escalation in response.
Perhaps bumps up the implicit threat that any of these could be aimed at Ukraine's allies or carry a nuke, though the same was true for the Iskanders and various cruise missiles so it's not clear that means much.
Reed Mideke
Using something that looks like a strategic system raises the pucker factor a bit, but as long as they stick to launching small numbers from Kapustin Yar with notice, probably not a lot
Reed Mideke
RS-26 / Oreshnik backstory, with comments from knowledgeable people like Jeffery Lewis, Fabian Hoffmann, Pavel Podvig https://www.twz.com/land/the-story-of-russias-secretive-rs-26-intermediate-range-ballistic-missile
Reed Mideke
'According to Peskov, Moscow sent Washington an “automatic notification” 30 minutes before launching an “Oreshnik” missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday morning'
https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/11/21/russia-pre-notified-washington-about-missile-strike-on-dnipro-through-nuclear-risk-reduction-channels
Reed Mideke
So what does this mean practically? Very hard / impossible for Ukraine to intercept, but probably too expensive and low production rate for Russia to use a lot. As long as US is sharing intel, Ukraine should have decent warning when they're launched.
Not great, not terrible 😬
Reed Mideke
RS-26 post boost vehicle? 🤔 https://bsky.app/profile/specialkhersoncat.bsky.social/post/3lbiayo3g7c2a
Reed Mideke
Or Iranian? US sensors should have no trouble spotting launches in that class
Reed Mideke
Explanation from @georgewherbert seems to fit all the contradictory statements:
US "not an ICBM" technically true based on range, but RS-26 is nominally an ICBM. Putin's "new type of weapon" probably an exaggeration, but a previously unacknowledged role or variant
Notably there were rumors RS-26 would be used in the days before, and the US embassy closure for an unspecified "specific information of a potential significant air attack" was likely related
Reed Mideke
The US claims we knew it was coming: 'The White House has confirmed that the US is aware of Russia launching an intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine. “We briefed Ukraine and our close allies and partners in recent days to help them prepare”''
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c20726y20kvt?post=asset%3A48885831-32b4-4f22-b2ff-11a0d6907034#post
Reed Mideke
As expected, SCALP/Storm Shadow quickly followed ATACMS. Notable
1) Target (reported command post in Marino) was < 50km from the Ukrainian border, well within GMLRS range. Presumably, Ukraine decided they needed the bigger warhead
2) ~12 missiles appear to have hit, implying few if any intercepted, given limited number of launch aircraft
3) Ukraine had a recon drone orbiting over the target
Reed Mideke
The target was also adjacent to or on the grounds of this fancy estate https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8C%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE_(%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%8C%D0%B1%D0%B0_%D0%91%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%85)
Reed Mideke
"In particular, an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Astrakhan region of the Russian Federation" 🤨
Astrakhan is only like 1,000km from Dnipro so unless a very lofted trajectory more like an MRBM, but what? Something North Korean?
https://t.me/kpszsu/23380
Reed Mideke
Putin will obviously want to (re) establish deterrence, but the suggestion that escalation wouldn't interfere with "Trump's argument for dialog" seems far fetched. Putin faces a dilemma similar to what the West faces responding to Russian hybrid attacks: How to inflict enough pain to deter, without starting a shooting war or prompting significant escalation in response. The scope for that seems quite limited, and almost certainly doesn't extend to direct attacks on NATO or nukes
Reed Mideke
Trump may well want to make a deal, but his room to do so would be severely constrained if Russia carried out a high impact attack on the US or allies, and no amount of loudly blaming Biden is likely to change that. "Oh that's BIden's fault, let's make deal anyway" isn't going to cut it for anything big
So what does Putin have left? My bet is ramping up hybrid attacks and supplying weapons to various malign actors, plus some high profile attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure
Reed Mideke
Ukrainska Pravda with a long, depressing read on the Krynky operation. A recurring pattern of throwing people and materiel into an operation long after it became clear the original goals were unachievable
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/11/18/7484985/
Reed Mideke
Odd take from (knowledgeable and often insightful) Tatiana Stanovaya
"…offers Putin a significant temptation to escalate. With Trump not yet in office, such a move would not interfere with any immediate peace initiatives but could instead reinforce Trump’s argument for direct dialogue with Putin. Simultaneously, it would expose Biden to criticism for being the catalyst of the escalation while potentially discouraging Ukraine from further using long-range missiles"
https://x.com/Stanovaya/status/1858838585576735178
Reed Mideke
Seems pretty clear this is aimed at stringing Trump and Witkoff along and trying to shift blame for failure to Ukraine, but Ukraine will have to play along
Reed Mideke
Unnamed Russian academic is not wrong IMO: "the Russian leadership understood they need to make some kind of gesture to throw the ball onto the other side’s court. A propaganda battle is going on between Moscow and Kyiv, with both sides trying to accuse each other of being responsible for the continuation of the conflict. It is a theater for an audience of one — Donald Trump" https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/19/ukraine-easter-truce-russia-putin/
Reed Mideke
Witkoff sounds like it would be a word for someone who's a few cans shy of a sixpack, and by the time he's done, it might well be:
1) …appeared surprised on Fox News that Russia wanted "so much more" than just a ceasefire "I mean, it’s just a lot of detail attached to it … It’s a complicated situation from, you know – rooted in some real problematic things happening between the two countries"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/18/ukraine-russia-ceasefire-talks-trump-administration
Reed Mideke
2) "When you begin to look at those five regions, Russia, that you care about them, and by the way, you care about them too, Ukraine, if some of them are more Russian speaking, do you care less about that?"
How fucking hard is it to grasp that people might speak Russian as their first language and yet not want to be part of Putin's authoritarian kleptocratic hellhole, especially after widespread bombing, torture, enforced disappearances and summary executions?
Reed Mideke
A ceasefire designed by the most incompetent people imaginable, or cynically set up to fail? Between Witkoff and Putin, probably both. Even if both sides were operating in more-or-less good faith, there's going to be people in the middle of operations and communication gaps, which will inevitably lead to violations
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c934nprkqz3t?post=asset%3Ae7300845-6eb6-48e3-96ce-346c68d22cdd#post
Reed Mideke
Do they really think Russia is gonna say "oh, the US voted with us, they're really our friends now" and substantive concessions will follow? Or is it actually just a middle finger to the old order?
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "Donald Trump will walk away from trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless there are clear signs that a deal can be done"
Reed Mideke
Obvious Zelensky is correct here, less obvious what he expects to gain by saying it out loud in public
https://kyivindependent.com/witkoff-spreads-kremlin-narratives-has-no-mandate-to-discuss-ukrainian-territory-zelensky-says/
Reed Mideke
US again sides with Russia, DPRK, Belarus and a handful of others because a UN resolution "repeats statements as to the Russia-Ukraine war that the United States considers unhelpful in advancing the cause of peace" - Which seems idiotic even if it weren't a disgrace. If Russia actually wanted it make a good faith deal, it seems very unlikely US voting for a symbolic resolution like this would matter. US could abstain like China, India etc if it wanted to make a gesture
Reed Mideke
RIA Novosti posted (and later deleted) a video with a Russian unit bragging about how they can carry out FPV drone strikes from a swanky, easily geolocatable high rise complex in Moscow 🤨
Reed Mideke
Uh… "Svyrydenko noted that work needs to be done to finalize the text of the minerals agreement, followed by the signing of the agreement, adding that, afterwards, the agreement needs to be ratified by the parliaments of both countries"
"parliaments" might just be a sloppy translation, but a Senate-ratified treaty on the US side would seem like big news
https://kyivindependent.com/us-ukraine-sign-memorandum-on-minerals-deals-deputy-pm-says/
Reed Mideke
Andreas Umland on the absurdity of Trumpists pushing for early elections in #Ukraine
(paywalled, so definitely don't go searching for the URL on archive.ph)
Reed Mideke
"We've always been at war with Eurasia"
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/04/14/it-s-all-about-raw-exaggerated-emotion
Reed Mideke
"A Chinese national captured by Ukrainian forces said he paid 300,000 rubles (roughly $3,500) to a middleman in China to join the Russian military in exchange for the promise of citizenship" 🤨 that seems like a poor decision on a lot of different levels https://kyivindependent.com/captured-chinese-national-fighting-for-russia-says-he-joined-army-via-recruiter-sought-citizenship/
Reed Mideke
Also "The training covered basic military skills and was conducted without an interpreter, relying on gestures and a mobile translator for communication"
Reed Mideke
As expected* fixed wing drones are increasingly being used in the interceptor role. Unknown if they're still hand flown, but automating terminal guidance seems like it should be comparatively straightforward for airborne targets https://dev.ua/news/v-ukraini-stvoryly-dron-perekhopliuvach-shakhediv-vin-vzhe-znyshchyv-20-povitrianykh-tsilei-1744179880
Reed Mideke
"The administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has directed the security services to find the leakers, the Financial Times reports" 🤨 I had assumed the leak was a deliberate strategy with at least tacit approval at the highest levels to show the world what a burning bag of dogshit the Trump admin had handed them and gain leverage against it… and TBH, making a big show of announcing an investigation does not persuade me otherwise
https://kyivindependent.com/kyiv-is-hunting-for-whoever-leaked-the-u-s-minerals-deal-ft-reports/
Reed Mideke
Good news for tankie "anti-imperialists" pearl clutching about "nazis in Ukraine"… The Guardian found some!
Bad news… they're on the Russian side, again
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/05/the-base-neo-nazi-russia-ukraine
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to discussing "the likelihood that the U.S. will be unable to secure a Ukraine peace deal in the next few months"
Reed Mideke
Nice UP roundup of the state of #UGV development https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/04/3/7505903/
Reed Mideke
HUR thanked the "Come back alive" foundation for their "significant contribution" on one of the earlier videos https://t.me/DIUkraine/5522
Reed Mideke
Also noteworthy we have AFAIK only seen this kind of FPV > 100 km from Ukrainian territory footage from Crimea. The most recent one was geolocated to Lake Donuzlav https://x.com/Dmojavensis/status/1907176078940213660
Reed Mideke
A whole lot of previously unreported behind the scenes stuff in this NYT piece
Reed Mideke
More #Ukraine HUR long range FPV #UAV footage over Crimea. Notably, we see some other UAVs traveling the same direction around 0:26 and 0:45, which resemble a type described as a decoy in a CNN piece on the HUR drone program last year*. Unclear whether the ones in the video are the same type used for strikes, or are accompanying decoys
Reed Mideke
Also resembles the "Hunter Killer 20" or "Хаки-20" seen in https://fakty.ua/ru/421618-v-rossijskih-gorodah-i-selah-budut-regulyarno-zvuchat-vozdushnye-trevogi-dzidzo-i-ponomarev-prisoedinilis-k-proektu-krylya-mesti and https://gagadget.com/en/uav/312061-the-ukrainian-company-kort-presented-the-hunter-killer-20-attack-drone-with-a-range-of-up-to-1000-km-and-a-15kg-warhe/
Reed Mideke
Scenario 2*: "Make noises about accepting, but then dick around indefinitely with absurd and ever changing demands on the exact terms"
Karasin: "But then, in my opinion… they realized that a team of civilized, reasoned interlocutors was sitting in front of them" and "he expects U.S.-Russian negotiations on Ukraine to continue at least until the end of 2025 or beyond"
Reed Mideke
Hegseth, Manly Military Man*: "I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles"
Nataliia Hrabarchuk, former kindergarten teacher: *shoots down cruise missile with 80s vintage Igla*
(she also got the "it's not a women's job" thing, from her parents no less)
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The team which said Europe should have no role in the negotiations because they f-d up on the Minsk agreements* delivers an incredible "ceasefire" where none of the parties agree what is covered or when (or if) the various parts come into force https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/03/usa-russia-ukraine-deal?lang=en¢er=russia-eurasia
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I think the article is correct Russia is happy either way. Ukraine doesn't get much, certainly not anything that remotely justifies easing sanctions, but not hitting Russian oil refineries is probably an OK trade for keeping US aid rolling for another month. Mostly both sides will be trying to convince Trump the other guy broke the deal… which is probably harder for Ukraine given how unclear the agreement is and how much of Trump world guzzles Russian propaganda
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Zelensky: "The Constitution of Ukraine makes it clear that our course is towards the EU … Nothing that could threaten Ukraine’s accession to the EU can be accepted"
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-wont-sign-minerals-deal-with-us-if-it-threatens-eu-membership-zelensky-says/
Reed Mideke
Despite their public ticketing system being crippled by a Russian cyber attack "over the past four days, 96% of Ukrainian railway trains still arrived on time"
Amtrak meanwhile struggles to hit 75%, despite the lack of nightly missile strikes or nation-state cyber attacks (https://data.bts.gov/Research-and-Statistics/Amtrak-On-Time-Performance/98fi-ujit)
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"…demanding that Ukraine and the US set up a supervisory board to oversee a joint investment fund to split the income from Ukraine’s oil, gas and mineral projects between the two countries. The US would appoint three of the five board members, giving … full veto power over the fund. Funds generated under the latest proposal would be converted directly into foreign currency and routed abroad, and Ukraine would be liable for compensation in the event of delays or disputes" https://archive.is/Wrd3N
Reed Mideke
One tiny silver lining to the earlier aid cutoff is it made very clear that the US is unreliable and extortionate and Ukraine need to use any temporary reprieve to de-risk as much as possible
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"…stipulates that Washington is given first rights to purchase extracted resources and recoup all the money it has given Ukraine since 2022, plus interest at a 4% annual rate, before Ukraine begins to gain access to the fund's profits" - Utterly nuts to retroactively demand aid appropriated by congress as direct assistance be treated as a loan. Unclear if it's designed to be rejected, or US side think #Ukraine are so desperate they'll accept anything (they won't)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-suggests-temporary-administration-ukraine-end-war-2025-03-28/
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, the Trump admin has replaced the framework mineral deal that was more-or-less agreed before the White House meeting with what appears to be straight up extortion
'It would apply to all mineral resources, including oil and gas, and major energy assets … also says that “the contributions of the United States following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022” would be “deemed as contributions to the partnership”"
https://www.ft.com/content/896da2e5-daa5-4b4e-a51c-0aef4de95d36
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"But Moscow is preparing to milk Trump for as much and as long as it can. The Kremlin hopes it can secure a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Trump in which they hammer out a deal that stops the war in Ukraine for now—exactly what Trump wants—in exchange for provisions that leave Ukraine permanently weakened"
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/putins-theories-victory
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Lavrov: "There is talk about Nord Stream. It will probably be interesting if the Americans use their influence on Europe and force it not to give up Russian gas" - OK, I don't think that's likely (Trump would probably rather Europe buy US LNG and keep the energy blackmail option for himself) but fact he's floating ideas for Trump to bully Europe in his favor seems indicative of how he thinks relations with the US are going
https://kyivindependent.com/nord-stream-lavrov/
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Long UP report on the retreat from Kursk https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/03/21/7503853/
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On Sergei Beseda, who as head of the FSB Fifth Service played a significant role in selling Putin on "Kyiv in 3 days" representing Russia in the recent Riyadh talks
https://cepa.org/article/you-broke-it-you-fix-it-the-kremlins-spooky-ukraine-negotiator/
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"But there is a fundamental flaw in Putin’s project: There is perhaps no group of people on the planet that despises being told what to do and who to be more than, well, teenagers" https://www.politico.eu/article/save-ukraine-children-russia-war-camps-return-home/
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In other #Ukraine #UAV news, Frontelligence Insight and RFE/RL did a massive analysis of the impact of Ukraine's long range strikes. tl;dr seems like the oil industry strikes are an incremental cost but not yet a significant logistical or economic disruption, though more significant impacts may be within reach https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/melting-the-steel-and-black-gold
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Corresponding RFE/RL article (which judging from machine translation mostly covers the same ground) https://www.svoboda.org/a/voda-kamenj-tochit-uron-ot-udarov-vsu-po-energetike-i-armii-rossii/33357589.html
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As expected, Russia is enthusiastic about a Black Sea ceasefire https://kyivindependent.com/black-sea-initiative-central-to-us-russia-talks-in-riyadh-kremlin-says/ while Ukraine and neighbors are markedly less so https://kyivindependent.com/romania-bulgaria-concerned-about-possible-us-russia-black-sea-deal-ft-reports/ though Ukraine is more positive if it covers ports https://kyivindependent.com/us-ukraine-talks-in-riyadh-concerned-ceasefire-on-strikes-against-port-infrastructure-official-says/
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Updated #Ukraine FPV interceptor analysis from Tochnyi, adding ~1700 from their November count
https://tochnyi.info/2025/03/fpv-interceptors-2025/
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Yes, the meeting was obviously a disaster, but to anyone who wasn't a Trump sycophant, it was surely pretty obvious Trump and Vance were being huge, unreasonable assholes. One might argue Zelensky should have tried harder finesse it, but given how wildly unreasonable and disproportionate the response was, how confident would you be of a better outcome? People backing Zelensky for standing his ground in those circumstances doesn't really seem like it should be surprise…
Reed Mideke
… especially for Ukrainians, who after all have been at war for 11 years since kicking out a guy for rolling over to an abusive foreign power. But in much of the media, Trump acting like a petulant toddler is baked in, even when millions of real lives are at stake, and so the blame implicitly shifts from Trump having a tantrum to whoever ostensibly didn't do enough to avoid the tantrum
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Some reporter should really play Witkoff a supercut of high ranking Russian diplomats saying how all the invasion talk was just "western hysteria" and "warmongering" in the days leading up to the invasion
https://kyivindependent.com/putin-doesnt-want-to-take-all-of-europe-says-witkoff/
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In this excellent time interview with Zelensky, on his approval going up after the WH debacle, Simon Shuster writes "This struck me as strange. Given how much he put at risk by arguing with Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, it seemed reasonable for his citizens to blame him for the failure of diplomacy" which itself strikes me as strange, and emblematic of how the US media has internally normalized Trumpism…
https://time.com/7270880/zelensky-trump-putin-ukraine-endgame-interview/
Reed Mideke
Russia reviving the grain deal as a "concession" seems like exactly the kind of thing Witkoff and his band of bumbling halfwits would fall for. Under the deal, a small number of Ukrainian ships were able to pass, carrying grain only, subject to arbitrary delays by the Russians for "inspection"
After Russia killed the original deal, Ukraine adopted a "fuck you, we'll blow up any ships that interfere" policy, which has allowed for all kinds of trade at much higher volume
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/03/23/ukraine-found-a-way-around-the-grain-deal-now-the-us-and-russia-want-to-revive-it/
Reed Mideke
The Russians have hit some civilian cargo ships since the deal ended, but they were hitting Ukrainian ports and grain infrastructure while it was supposedly in effect too, so it's hard to see what Ukraine has to gain going back to anything like the original deal. Especially if it allows the Russians to operate more freely
Reed Mideke
A lot of people ask "why are France, UK etc talking about peace keepers when Putin obviously won't accept NATO troops in Ukraine" but of course that's the point! They're showing Trump they're willing to do their part and making a "reasonable" offer Putin will definitely refuse, so that Putin will be the guy who refuses.
(they may also be planning for scenarios where troops could actually be deployed, but those are definitely not the betting odds)
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Witkoff: "They're Russian-speaking, there have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule. I think that's the key issue in the conflict." 😬
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/03/22/7504040/index.amp
Reed Mideke
Witkoff, very serious diplomat who is definitely not getting played: "When [Trump] was shot, [Putin] went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the president ... [Putin] had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend"
Just to prove it, Putin also "had a “beautiful portrait” commissioned of Trump by a top Russian artist, which he had gifted to Trump"
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Well informed OSINT group Tochnyi suggests the white structure was for cruise missile preparation https://tochnyi.info/2025/03/engels-2-air-base-attack/
Reed Mideke
Attempted strike on a parked Mi-8 in that recent HUR FPV compilation from Crimea* geolocated to Veseloye airbase, which is smack in the middle of the peninsula, roughly 70km from the Black Sea coast. Definitely not regular rotor FPVs or line of sight radio control https://x.com/therawe2/status/1902890882262560852
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.@markmackinnon nails this "there’s still nothing like real peace anywhere on the horizon – only a battle to convince U.S. President Donald Trump that it’s the other side that’s the obstacle to a peace deal"
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-putin-zelensky-ukraine-ceasefire-talks-trump/
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TWZ has a wider view. Looks like there was also a fire around the fuel depot (which Russian telegram channels reported before the ammo started cooking off) though unclear if it was damaged or just surrounding grass https://www.twz.com/news-features/russian-bomber-base-suffered-major-damage-to-munitions-area-in-ukrainian-drone-attack
Reed Mideke
Judging by the shattered windows for miles around and the secondary explosions continuing for hours afterward, what was hit was munitions storage https://www.twz.com/air/massive-explosion-rocks-key-bomber-base-deep-inside-russia
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UP with another excellent long read on the development of the range drone program https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/03/17/7503165/
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Not sure why the Russians insist on storing massive quantities of munitions outdoors in demonstrably inadequate revetments, but I for one encourage them to keep it up https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/03/21/7503998/
Reed Mideke
Engels, home to a significant part of the Russian strategic bomber fleet
(unclear exactly what was hit at this point)
Reed Mideke
Additional footage showing SAMs attempting to engage https://bsky.app/profile/specialkhersoncat.bsky.social/post/3lkq5zemntk2z
I'm inclined to agree these are probably fixed wing rather than rotor FPVs, given the speed and maneuvering, though IMO that doesn't exclude launch and or data relay from USVs (or larger UAVs, for that matter) https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1902345096806203711
Reed Mideke
In other drone news, a Russian Shahed has landed in… Kazakhstan 🤨
Something like 1000km from Ukraine controlled territory
Reed Mideke
Also, as an unnamed GOP foreign policy expert notes "I think that much of the Trump world, or at least some of the Trump world, is delusional in thinking they can anoint someone in Ukraine to be their partner and to electorally succeed in the short-to-medium term whenever elections take place … It’s very much a lack of understanding of Ukraine" https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-phone-call-war-in-ukraine-ceasefire-talks/
Reed Mideke
Two part response from Ukraine on the "energy ceasefire" idea
1) Zelensky: "What is the real proposal, what did the parties agree on? ... After we get the details from the American president, from the American side, we will prepare our answer and the team will be ready for technical talks"
https://kyivindependent.com/kyiv-supports-energy-sector-ceasefire-expects-military-aid-to-continue-zelensky-says/
Reed Mideke
Remarkable collection of #Ukraine HUR FPV strikes on air defense and other hardware in occupied Crimea. Suggested but not confirmed these were launched from #USV. Timeframe unclear, but HUR statement of "several days" suggests it isn't a highlight compilation covering a long period
Reed Mideke
"During the conversation [Trump] proposed a mutual refusal of the parties to the conflict to strike for 30 days on energy infrastructure facilities … [Putin] responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the appropriate command to the Russian military"
Russia claimed the US proposed this previously and responded that they don't strike civilian energy infrastructure*, though this statement isn't qualified with "civilian"
Reed Mideke
Open question how they define "energy infrastructure" but seems like for reasonable definitions it could be neutral to positive for Ukraine. They've been hitting Russian petro infrastructure hard, but there's plenty of other targets they can aim those drones at, and a respite for their one power grid would be quite positive.
Overall it seems like this is mostly kicking the can down the road (option #2) which for Ukraine is certainly not the worst outcome https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/114146704677860349
Reed Mideke
Politico's Jamie Dettmer also concludes it's option 2, and as a bonus, names the people previously reported as shopping a Zelensky replacement in the Ukrainian opposition "according to three Ukrainian lawmakers and a Republican foreign policy expert … the back-channeling involved Trump’s son Don Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, controversial conservative talk-show host Tucker Carlson and Witkoff"
(nb to Ukrainians: Those people are not your friends)
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"Plan A is, get the shooting to stop so that we can move to Plan B, phase two, which is have everybody at a table…" - Secretary of State Rubio, apparently unfamiliar with the concept of a Plan B
(probably a verbal stumble but man they sure are good at looking like clueless buffoons)
Reed Mideke
Watch Trump use his call with Putin tomorrow to trade recognizing Crimea for Putin "sparing" the (nonexistent) thousands of Ukrainian troops Putin claims are surrounded in Kursk 😬
(also notable the call is on the anniversary of the 2014 annexation)
Reed Mideke
"a European intelligence official, citing intelligence gathered within the past month, said officials in Moscow believe that Trump is weak, lacks a core set of principles and may be open to manipulation" - European officials should probably be saying this on Fox
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that I would. What I really meant is I would like to get it settled, and I think I will be successful."
(no that's not how sarcasm works, but someone should probably ask which other repeated campaign promises were "sarcasm")
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/03/14/7502987/
Reed Mideke
"There’s nothing Trump could plausibly offer that would make Russia give up on its objectives in Ukraine. But if you don’t have to say ‘absolutely not’ when there might be consequences for doing so, why would you?" - anyone who's not an idiot could see this from miles away, but unfortunately, the primary audience for this performance is, in fact, an idiot
https://www.ft.com/content/532ea690-0940-4155-ae85-6decc170849d?shareType=nongift
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Another Trump accomplishment: Making John f-ing Bolton sound reasonable (Bolton also correctly called the ceasefire outcome: 'I don't think he will outright reject the ceasefire. He may accept it, or I think most likely he'll say something like, “I think a ceasefire idea is absolutely worthwhile and I'm ready to proceed. In principle, I agree with it.”') https://kyivindependent.com/putin-thinks-trump-is-an-easy-mark-john-bolton-says-in-interview/
Reed Mideke
You'll no doubt be shocked to learn the Russians prefer to negotiate with realestate-bro-cosplaying-diplomat Witkoff over Kellogg https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-urkaine-war-kremlin-keith-kellogg-special-envoy-barred-talks-rcna195981
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Also, LOL "China has limited itself to exports, with most investment projects remaining on hold. This could be due to the reluctance to cross red lines imposed by US sanctions, although Chinese companies cite Russia’s complex administrative framework and the absence of the rule of law as major obstacles to investment"
Reed Mideke
So yeah, we're on option #2*, likely with Putin holding out the option of getting Trump on the phone to sell him an "amazing" deal that gives him 95% of what he wants, so that Trump will turn on Ukraine when they reject it https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cgj5w6veqw6t?post=asset%3A1e2ff37e-cc2c-476e-bfc8-de3919df3ebc#post
Reed Mideke
Unsurprisingly, Aleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament's foreign affairs committee nailed it "On the other hand, he is afraid of Trump. So, he will try to formulate his response to Trump's proposal as a sort of agreement but with unacceptable demands"
(I wouldn't agree Putin is "afraid" but assume that's a sop to Trump's ego, rather than coming out and saying "he's playing you")
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FT piece by Elina Ribakova shares my skepticism* that Western money will be in a hurry to get back into Russia if there's a settlement
https://www.ft.com/content/2cb2b6e7-b545-4dee-8e86-ab899857b204?shareType=nongift
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#2 would allow them to try to clear Kursk, leaving them in a more advantageous position to move to #3
Ukraine was obviously worried about #3, which is why they proposed sea and air only, but unlocking intel sharing and remaining aid for a while longer was probably seen as worth the risk
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Rubio on what they got from the Russians "They expressed a willingness under the right circumstances, which they did not define, to bring an end to this conflict"
(Russia has always expressed the willingness to "end the conflict" on the simple condition they get everything they want)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/us/politics/rubio-canada-trump.html
Reed Mideke
Russia's claimed 337 downed would make the not only Ukraine's largest drone attack of the war, but AFAIK the largest overall
Reed Mideke
So, what will Putin do with the ball?
1) Reject outright
2) Make noises about accepting, but then dick around indefinitely with absurd and ever changing demands on the exact terms
3) Accept and immediately violate and blame it on Ukraine
4) Accept and actually negotiate
Reed Mideke
I'd say #2 and #3 are most likely, in roughly equal odds, followed by #1
He doesn't *need* a ceasefire and probably isn't that worried about more sanctions, but rejecting outright might jeopardize his ability to keep stringing Trump along about rapprochement and possible trade deals. So obvious course is act interested, sabotage, and try to blame the failure on Ukraine
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"One of the Russian companies, Elesar-Grupp, sent a full list of the chips it currently had in its warehouse, indicating their quantity" - (seems like those companies offices and warehouses could use a visit from the Lyutyys and Beavers) https://kyivindependent.com/investigation-we-tried-to-buy-american-chips-as-a-russian-defense-manufacturer-heres-why-its-possible/
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Ukraine appears to have launched its largest drone attack on Moscow while Witkoff is there 😬 🤣 (edit: maybe he's not there yet, but supposedly meeting Putin this week https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-envoy-witkoff-plans-moscow-visit-meet-putin-2025-03-10/)
Reed Mideke
Rubio confirming that while they turn the screws on Ukraine, they have gotten no concession from Russia, or indeed any indication of what might potentially be on offer: "He also stressed the need to determine what Moscow is willing to concede in future negotiations" (spoiler: It will be nothing remotely acceptable to Ukraine or any decent human being) https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/03/10/nyt-rubio-says-ukraine-cannot-reclaim-all-territory-would-have-to-make-concessions-with-russia/?swcfpc=1
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, Trump's idea of pressure on Putin is more sanctions and… tariffs? Tariffs on what? Total imports from Russia in 2024 was around $3 billion*
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36wkpy3497o
* https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia-and-eurasia/russia
Reed Mideke
US trades more *in a day* with the EU than than it does with Russia in a year: "According to the latest E.U. figures, trade in goods and services between the 27-nation European Union and the United States reached $1.7 trillion in 2023. Every day, some $4.8 billion worth of goods and services crosses the Atlantic Ocean"
Russia's entire GDP is around $2 trillion. But somehow, mending relations with Putin and starting a trade war with Europe is America First™
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Generally skeptical of the idea AI can replace human jobs, but I'm starting to come around to the possibility POTUS could be replaced with a Markov chain text generator "Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump. Nobody. And they know that… The pipeline, I stopped it. Nord Stream 2. Nobody ever heard of it until I came along. They were building it happily… And I stopped it. Biden got in, on the second day he approved it!"
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Maxar reportedly cut off Ukraine. IIRC allies were paying for some imagery, unclear if that's affected too, but presumably we'll hear about shortly if so https://mil.in.ua/uk/news/maxar-vidklyuchyv-ukrayini-dostup-do-svoyih-suputnykovyh-znimkiv/
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Trump "I also think that Russia wants to make a deal because in a certain different way — a different way that only I know, only I know — they have no choice" - Hmm, not sure I'd bet on "bluster" over Putin or one of the many Russian propaganda connoisseurs in Trump's orbit feeding him some absurd "secret" bullshit to string him along
https://kyivindependent.com/trumps-cryptic-russia-comment-probably-just-bluster-experts-say/
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Kellogg likening Ukraine to a mule (deservedly, in his view) getting hit in the face by a two by four is rightly getting a lot of attention, but this also seems like bullshit 'US needs to "reset relations with Russia" in order to secure US national security. "The continued isolation and lack of engagement with the Russians as the war in Ukraine continues is no longer a viable strategy."' - What exactly did the US lose by shunning Russia?
Reed Mideke
Some halfhearted, if not outright sabotaging cooperation on DPRK and Iran and various terrorists? Some arms control agreements the Russians broke when they felt like it anyway?
Reed Mideke
Zelensky's speech to the EU also doesn't read like someone who's about to roll over for Trump
https://kyivindependent.com/zelenskys-full-speech-at-european-council/
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I have my doubts, but it should be noted Turkey wasn't afraid to shoot down a Russian jet* that strayed (according to them) into their airspace from Syria… and also, the Russians were big mad but didn't start WWIII over it https://www.reuters.com/world/turkey-ready-send-troops-ukraine-if-necessary-source-says-2025-03-06/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown
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This doesn't seem totally absurd but "They will fly over friendly territory in coordination with the UAF" kinda glosses over the issue of coordinating with Ukraine's many and varied SAM operators. Ukraine does manage it with their own aircraft, but friendly fire incidents do happen and one involving allied planes would likely be a major problem for everyone involved
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He's running 😉
He ain't wrong of course, but it's an interesting thing for an ambassador to say while Starmer tries to salvage something with Trump. Fairly sure Starmer sees the writing on the wall too, but believes (correctly) even a low chance of keeping the US on side for a bit longer is worth pursing
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"The official line from the U.S. administration is that Trump is not interfering in Ukraine’s domestic politics. This week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick denied his boss was “weighing into Ukrainian politics,” adding all that Trump wants is a partner for peace" 🤥
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Former senior CIA officer: "It’s a signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. is not a dependable ally" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pause-us-intelligence-help-ukraine-will-hurt-not-cripple-kyivs-war-eff-rcna194915
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Man my expectations for Rubio were extremely low, but somehow, also way too high https://kyivindependent.com/rubio-labels-russias-all-out-war-against-ukraine-proxy-war-between-washington-moscow/
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Also very strongly signaling to (erstwhile) allies that they should absolutely not put the US in the critical path of any of their defense needs
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"80% of the bodies brought back to us from pre-trial detention centres, prisons and so on, show signs of torture. Torture is the use of physical force, the use of certain tools that, for example, conduct electric current, and even deprive a person of basic vital needs, such as food and medical care"
(Similar percentages of surviving returned POWs report torture)
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"In addition to the targeting information, the pause also affected some intelligence about advance warning of drone and missile strikes that Russia has been carrying out against military and civilian targets" ah yes, reducing their ability defend or warn against the daily missile and drone attacks on civilian infrastructure is definitely about "stopping the killing"
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Russia supposedly suggested resuming direct flights* as early sanctions relief… which might sound relative innocuous on it's own, but would also presumably require easing sanctions on aircraft parts, so they can meet maintenance standards, and of course those freshly maintained airframes could also fly domestically and transport things for the SMO https://kyivindependent.com/russias-airlines-face-growing-crisis-as-sanctions-strangle-aircraft-maintenance/
* https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-lauds-substantive-talks-with-us-istanbul-2025-02-28/
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Guy who claims to want to "stop the killing" doing everything he can to make it easier for Russia to kill Ukrainians short of actively joining on the Russian side https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cly28qvp83pt?post=asset%3A64e4ec60-66b1-4646-a2f8-debb7c77a89b
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Oleksandra Matviichuk "Russia does not care whether there is war or peace — it seeks the destruction of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It will gleefully pocket every concession from the Trump administration and then continue fighting. There is a long record of Russia breaching ceasefire agreements with a new aggression. But a hybrid strategy is equally likely…"
https://www.ft.com/content/f4a1f8a7-2567-4fd7-bbaf-921a0559307c?shareType=nongift
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JFC, the gaslighting "The officials said the directive would be in effect until Mr. Trump determined that Ukraine had demonstrated a good-faith commitment to peace negotiations with Russia"
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Russian fascist ideologue Dugin is bullish on the Trump admin "Firewall between the U.S. and Russia is abolished. New America starts to reestablish relations with Russia. The new concert of two great powers with very similar anti-globalist illiberal ideologies is quite possible, but not certain"
https://kyivindependent.com/trumps-pivot-toward-moscow-met-with-joy-in-russia/
Reed Mideke
So it turns out that bizarre 3rd person Trump rant about the fight with Zelensky that's going around is in the 3rd person because … Trump was quoting some complete rando Tucson wedding DJ
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-truth-social-zelensky-michael-mccune-b2707614.html
Reed Mideke
I'd pay good money to travel back in time and show that stat to Reagan "Most Americans (66%) view Russia as unfriendly or an enemy, but 41% of Republicans consider it friendly or an ally, compared to 26% of Democrats who share that view" https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/03/2/7500931/
Reed Mideke
"How I Stopped Worrying and Crowdfunded the Bomb"
https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainians-raised-hr-22-mln-for-nukes-in-hours-after-the-white-house-clash/
Reed Mideke
Where we're at: US officials go on about how they can't talk to Zelensky because he was supposedly undiplomatic about Russia invading his country, occupying 20% of it, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and committing widespread atrocities
Same US officials are totally happy to talk up improving relations with the Russians who did all those things though!
Reed Mideke
Quote from Oleksandr Merezhko in @timkmak's latest, showing how Russia's *basic negotiating position* in the Minsk agreements was an obvious lie: "It is a paradox: how can you negotiate with someone who says: I am not a party to your negotiations? It was complicated to defend Ukraine's interests: to constantly insist that we are negotiating with Russia. There are no others. We are not negotiating with the Luhansk or Donetsk People's Republics or other terrorist groups"
https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/why-zelenskyy-stood-up-to-trump-vance
Reed Mideke
And the West's approach was, essentially "ok, we agree to disagree over your claim the sun rises in the west for the sake of moving the negotiation forward"
Which could be viable with a party that actually wanted an offramp, but there was never any evidence the Russian position was anything but gaslighting
Reed Mideke
"According to customs statistics, in 2023, Kyrgyzstan imported $2.7 billion worth of vehicles — nearly 12 times more than between 2019 and 2021, marking a 1,100-percent increase" - as far as sanctions go, this stuff seems mostly symbolic anyway. Hard to imagine oligarch princelings being able to the buy the latest BMW or not seems having much impact on the course of the war
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/02/27/hot-rods-cold-trails
Reed Mideke
Seems like it would be improved if there was a mechanism by which each time one of these schemes was caught, assets were seized and used to directly to fund Ukrainian defense. Sure, keep buying those BMWs at inflated prices…
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "…the next step is to meet with them again at some point, with the right group of people in the room, and begin to outline what would it take for Russia to stop a war"
Also confirming they've received nothing yet for all the preemptive concessions
Reed Mideke
Remarkably positive reading of the revised Ukraine agreement from Mustafa Nayyem (ex Ukrainian MP, ex head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development and significant player in the Euromaidan protests), with the caveat "key aspects of the Fund’s management will be outlined in a separate document—the Fund Agreement. Clearly, this allowed the parties to avoid delays in signing the main agreement while still working on the detailed mechanisms"
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ukraine-us-agreement-recovery-fund-key-updates-mustafa-nayyem-kkafe
Reed Mideke
More on the Toloka #UUV
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukrainian-underwater-drone-toloka-is-being-updated-what-s-new-in-the-tlk-150-model/
Reed Mideke
👀 Don't think I've seen this UUV before
https://mastodon.social/@noelreports@mstdn.social/114065266216630559
Reed Mideke
More of the hull. Could maybe be related to the "Marichka" prototype we saw tested way back https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/111128602793991877
Reed Mideke
Fascinating read on one of the alleged planners of the Nord Stream attack
(like many right-thinking publications, the New Yorker appears to paywall javascript users)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/03/the-adventures-of-a-ukrainian-intelligence-officer
Reed Mideke
If the US were getting major concessions from Russia on substantive issues, it would be one thing to support some ugly compromises on wording, but at least form the publicly available evidence, they've gotten jack shit
Reed Mideke
"The whole concept is a mirage — or worse, a head fake. It is reminiscent of what Trump said in 2019 during his first term about why he was keeping American troops in Syria: “I like oil, we’re keeping the oil.” Observers were left wondering how he planned to seize Syria’s oil production, which in any case was not significant. Of course, nothing came of it"
https://kyivindependent.com/trumps-ukraine-rare-earths-deal-the-art-of-the-steal/
Reed Mideke
Insane. What a fucking disgrace. US and Israel join Russia, DPRK, Belarus, voting against a resolution condemning #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine. Even China and Iran abstained. A least nice to see a bunch of erstwhile close US allies stood their ground https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/politics/us-joins-russia-ukraine-un-vote
Reed Mideke
For comparison, the first resolution against the invasion was 141 to 5, with 35 abstentions. Notably Syria has flipped from reliable Russia vote to abstention, and Niger and Burkina Faso came under Russian-back coup regimes. Hungary flipped from a Yes on the first to No, but somewhat surprisingly, Slovakia stayed in the Yes column for this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_ES-11/1
Reed Mideke
Top notch diplomacy there, assholes "The US ended up abstaining on the vote for its own resolution at the General Assembly after several amendments were passed ahead of the vote to strengthen the language against Russia and reaffirm Ukraine’s territorial integrity" https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/politics/us-joins-russia-ukraine-un-vote
Reed Mideke
Economist reporter Shashank Joshi "US is playing hardball on the issue. It has issued bellicose démarches to a wide range of states, including allies, which, I am told, are full of reference to Trump, highly aggressive & threatening—"like something one would have expected from the Nazis or Soviets in the 1930s", one person told me"
https://bsky.app/profile/shashj.bsky.social/post/3liujhan2sc2x
Reed Mideke
Jeremy Bowen reflects on three years and the state of things https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2xngznyego
Reed Mideke
"the new proposal, which is dated Feb. 21 … call for Ukraine to relinquish to the United States half of its revenues from natural resources, including minerals, gas and oil, as well as earnings from ports and other infrastructure … states that revenues from Ukraine’s resources will be directed to a fund in which the United States holds 100 percent financial interest, and that Ukraine should contribute to the fund until it reaches $500 billion"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/world/europe/ukraine-trump-minerals.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zE4.ygFL.MkG48Z1_Vh4V&smid=url-share
Reed Mideke
Bessent: Deal would include "high standards of transparency, accountability, corporate governance, and legal frameworks necessary to attract the robust private investment for postwar growth in Ukraine … would leave no room for corruption and insider deals”
Buddy this is the Trump administration we're talking about
(paywalled, probably)
https://www.ft.com/content/b4a64be0-7ca6-43f8-b402-af6193576e32?shareType=nongift
Reed Mideke
JFC 'The U.S. is lobbying hard to win backing for its draft, diplomats said, while European states are also still pushing for support for their effort in the General Assembly. The U.S. text does not mention Ukraine's sovereignty or territorial integrity … Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia described the U.S. draft as a "good move."'
Reed Mideke
The scale of Russia's war in Ukraine: Luke Harding interviews a local in a tiny village near potential lithium mine in central Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the front line. Of course she has video she personally shot of Russian cruise missiles flying low over head in the last few months
Reed Mideke
Also "One source with knowledge of the discussions in Moscow said that Russia could accept up to two-thirds of the reserves going to the restoration of Ukraine under a peace deal, provided there were accountability guarantees" - Based on past performance, it probably safe to assume those "guarantees" would be a mechanism for interference and blackmail. It's the kind of thing that dumbfuck real estate guys who don't know anything about the history might think was a generous offer though
Reed Mideke
ISW issues a whole ass fact sheet debunking various Trump claims* but studiously avoids mentioning he and other high-ranking officials in the administration made them: "Russian state media and Kremlin officials appear to be leveraging select statements from US officials … US officials continue to reiterate their support for Ukraine and a lasting and just resolution of the war" [followed by positive quotes from Rubio and Kellogg]
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-21-2025
* https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-fact-sheet-february-21-2025
Reed Mideke
"And that is good for Ukraine. What better could you have for Ukraine than to be in an economic partnership with the United States?" - Waltz, presumably unaware that Ukrainians can read the headlines about Trump blowing up his own previous agreements Canada and Mexico for more blackmail https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-to-sign-us-minerals-deal-in-very-short-term-waltz-says/
Reed Mideke
I know there's plenty of ghoulish capitalists out there, but just from a risk perspective, who are these western businesses they expect to be jumping to get back to the Russian market? Hard to imagine it quickly returning to pre-war levels
Reed Mideke
Russia, which explicitly stated that EU has no place at the negotiating table, reportedly suggests assets mostly frozen in the EU could be use re-build Ukraine and the occupied territories 🤔 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-could-concede-300-bln-frozen-assets-part-ukraine-war-settlement-sources-2025-02-21/
Reed Mideke
Also not sure "POTUS was frustrated he didn't get the mineral deal so he started spewing absurd lies about victim of an invasion" has the exculpatory value he was looking for outside of MAGA land
Reed Mideke
Trump confirms* that it's all a shakedown attempt "I think I’m gonna resurrect that deal, you know, we'll see what happens, but I’m gonna resurrect it, or things are gonna not make him (President Volodymyr Zelensky) too happy. And look, it’s time for elections"
* as unreliably as anything else he says
Reed Mideke
Non-zero possibility Trump just wants to be able to brag about how great and amazing his deal is and doesn't really care about the content: "A revised, simplified approach would help the United States sidestep numerous legal and logistical hurdles and give it time to negotiate the details of the development, including revenue sharing, at a later date"
Reed Mideke
BoJo also tries to have it both ways: "Of course a country undergoing a violent invasion should not be staging elections. There was no general election in the UK from 1935 to 1945. Of course Zelenskyy’s ratings are not 4%. They are actually about the same as Trump’s"
but also "believes Trump's statements are not meant to be historically accurate but to 'shock Europeans into action'."
Reed Mideke
How Waltz characterizes Zelensky declining to hand over 50% of Ukraine's mineral wealth, with nothing promised in return "I think the frustration has really stemmed just in the last week from this bizarre pushback and escalation of rhetoric over a presentation of what we see as an absolute opportunity – and that’s to have the United States invest in Ukrainian infrastructure, to have them grow both their minerals, their natural resources, their oil and gas" https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/19/7499169/
Reed Mideke
Boris Bondarev spells out the obvious idiocy of Team Trump's "Make nice with Russia to pivot against china" plan: "Russia will stay with China regardless because China is reliable and doesn’t demand anything from Putin. In America, a new president could come in tomorrow and once again declare that Putin isn’t democratic enough"
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/02/19/the-strong-versus-the-weak
Reed Mideke
Grim kicker on that piece "When they were attacked from both sides in 1939, the Poles decided to fight until they were completely broken. They could have surrendered immediately, and the end result would have been exactly the same. But at least this way, they could look themselves in the mirror. Right now, I think Ukrainians can feel the same way"
(I think Ukraine still has a decent chance to do a lot better than Poland in 1939)
Reed Mideke
Kellogg arrives in Kyiv, comment's how it's "nice" to be there around the 3rd anniversary of the invasion (which, in contradiction to his boss, he blames on Russia) and repeats the usual "war wouldn't have started if Trump were POTUS" line
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/19/7499046/
Reed Mideke
Zelensky had to give it his best shot, but betting odds have always been that reality would eventually force him to publicly contradict Trump, with the predictable result
Reed Mideke
Lindsey Graham tries to have it both ways
Reed Mideke
Hard to overstate how nuts this is, and also how nuts it is that it won't be more than a blip in the US news cycle
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/18/trump-criticizes-zelensky-putin
Reed Mideke
And again, how do you have a meaningful negotiation with people who say shit like this: 'When Lavrov met the Russian media, he told them the US had proposed a moratorium on attacking energy infrastructure.
"We explained that we have never endangered the civilian energy supply and only target what directly serves Ukraine's military," was the minister's reply'
(as BBC reporter Sarah Rainsford notes, this is very obviously untrue)
Reed Mideke
Lavrov apparently has credibility problems even with Trump's clown posse "Lavrov isn’t taken seriously there, but according to his status, he should be present" https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/02/19/trusted-people
Reed Mideke
"If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/17/revealed-trump-confidential-plan-ukraine-stranglehold/
Reed Mideke
British MOD video on the Gravehawk R-73 based frankensam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-I8CjhcrA8
Reed Mideke
Good piece from Francis Farrell on the absurd "lower conscription age" vs "we need more equipment" back and forth
https://kyivindependent.com/kyiv-and-washingtons-mobilization-age-blame-game-misses-the-point/
Reed Mideke
What if mob boss, but also buffoon "… the deal proposed by Trump and delivered by Bessent only referenced the US getting Ukrainian resources in exchange for past military assistance, and did not contain any proposals for similar future assistance … A person close to Zelenskyy said that US ambassador Bridget Brink presented him with the document containing the proposal shortly before Bessent’s arrival in Kyiv, without prior warning"
https://www.ft.com/content/b08b7258-7ae0-4bae-9499-e6d3183d5894
Reed Mideke
An interesting thing about Kellog's insistence that Europe isn't a party to the negotiations is that (aside form contributing more overall than the US and obviously have a large stake in the outcome) they hold almost all of the frozen Russian assets. Trump could lean on Orban and Fico to try to unfreeze them at the EU level, but success would be far from assured https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/15/7498501/
Reed Mideke
Ah yes, I'm sure Central Asian countries will find this very convincing and sincere…
https://www.ft.com/content/2bb87769-805a-4270-bab2-2382e0b84cec?shareType=nongift
Reed Mideke
Guy who likes to claim he's concerned about all the killing has moved on to "hand over $500 billion and hope I don't get a better offer from Putin" https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-may-be-russian-someday-trump-suggests-while-announcing-500-billion-rare-earth-agreement/
Reed Mideke
Thousands of civilians disappeared, tortured and held without charge or trial: "Civilians, international norms say, can be detained only “in accordance with the laws and regulations of the occupying power,” with a guarantee of a fair trial and basic rights. None of those rules is being observed by Russian authorities"
Reed Mideke
Kazakhstan "… had never exported a single sheet of birch plywood to the EU before July 2022. Yet by October 2022, some 230 large truck-loads of birch ply claiming to have been made in Kazakhstan were arriving at the EU border every month." https://www.earthsight.org.uk/blood-stained-birch#article
Reed Mideke
This may hinge on Trump not understanding that "rare earths" aren't particularly rare… which probably puts the odds in Ukraine's favor
(yeah, economically exploitable is a somewhat different story)
https://kyivindependent.com/trump-seeking-ukrainian-rare-earths-in-exchange-for-aid/
Reed Mideke
I've been wondering how long it would take for this obvious problem with Team Trump's "flood the market with cheap oil to make Russia negotiate on Ukraine" to surface: US producers lose money if oil gets too cheap, even if they're selling more, and obviously, they will come crying to Trump, who isn't going to throw big donors under the bus for some abstract geopolitical goal https://kyivindependent.com/trump-calls-for-lower-oil-prices-to-end-ukraine-war-us-producers-reject-expansion-wsj-reports/
Reed Mideke
For the next time Peskov or some other Kremlin stooge claims they can't negotiate with Zelensky because of "concerns" about "legitimacy", it's worth noting they support all three of the coup regimes mentioned in @andrewstroehlein's post here (among many others) https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2025/02/05?story=paragraph-10152
Reed Mideke
Seems like pretty good confirmation Budanov said it, despite the denial
(also, yes, the war continuing indefinitely on the current trajectory obviously risks "serious consequences for Ukraine’s existence" and anyone who finds that a shocking revelation is seriously out of touch)
https://kyivindependent.com/sbu-probes-alleged-leak-of-budanovs-statement-on-threat-to-ukraines-existence/
Reed Mideke
I guess I'll screenshot this before some idiot bans Ukraine's most famous bomb sniffing dog
Reed Mideke
"International humanitarian law obliges all states to report every detainee during an armed conflict, and provide access, but Russia simply ignores that" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74m1l2y7lko
Reed Mideke
The thing about this "Trump doesn't want to look like a loser" argument is that Trump absolutely does not give a single shit about whether objective evidence supports his self proclaimed evaluation of how much he's winning. Even if he acknowledges something went bad, it's always someone else's fault
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/27/europe-optimistic-trump-ukraine-00200652
Reed Mideke
"A spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the Patriot system had been returned to the U.S. but said they had no knowledge of whether the interceptors had been sent to Ukraine" 😉
90 missiles will definitely help, but if Ukraine ends up with a significant number of the launchers and radars as rumored, that would be a big step up. Maybe enough to use some for SAM-bushes again?
https://kyivindependent.com/us-transfers-90-patriot-missiles-from-israel-to-ukraine-axios-reports/
Reed Mideke
This: "It is true that it is not feasible to block every dual-use item from reaching Russia in such ever-evolving networks designed to bypass sanctions. However, it is possible to continuously increase the costs of circumvention" https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/tantalum-in-limbo-the-role-of-sanctions
Reed Mideke
Seen a few variations of this: "Trump’s camp is cautious about avoiding comparisons with Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which they do not want to see replicated in Ukraine" which brings to mind perhaps the most honest statement of his first term: "I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, 'Hey I was wrong,' … I don't know that I'll ever admit that, but I'll find some kind of an excuse" https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-kim-jong-un-meeting-summit#h_97ccc50308b493e9f22e108ef7402249
Reed Mideke
Long UP writeup on the state of fiber guided FPV drones, noting that machine vision has under-delivered so far. One thing I'm surprised we haven't seen is home-on-jam drones. It seems like a lot of the DIY EW has got to be a big, loud, mostly continuous source
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/01/13/7493257/
Reed Mideke
shocked face 😑 "Two Trump associates, who have discussed the war in Ukraine with the president-elect, told Reuters they were looking at a timeline of months to resolve the conflict, describing the Day One promises as a combination of campaign bluster and a lack of appreciation of the intractability of the conflict and the time it takes to staff up a new administration" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-advisers-concede-ukraine-peace-deal-is-months-away-2025-01-15/
Reed Mideke
Things are undeniably pretty bad for Ukraine and the risk of serious collapse on the front line is real, but also… in the worst year since the initial invasion, Russia has managed to occupy 0.5% more of Ukraine, at the cost of probably over 50,000 Russians KIA https://mastodon.social/@warmapper@mstdn.social/113793219729321422
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "Two European officials told the Financial Times that discussions with Trump’s incoming team in recent weeks revealed they had not yet decided on how to solve the conflict"
(paywalled unless you have a magic referral from the hellsite)
https://www.ft.com/content/989dc02e-2a13-4c21-8ad0-0b32e098c410
Reed Mideke
As predicted* #USV's acting as a mothership for FPVs again. Attacking near shore SAM sites seems like it could be a very nice force multiplier for larger UAV / cruise missile strikes. Also raises the possibility of re-using the relatively expensive USV for multiple sorties, especially for cases like this where the targets are fairly close to Ukrainian controlled territory
Reed Mideke
Some time back there was testing footage of a #UUV submersible drone* . Unclear what happened to that project, but a platform that could sneak up close, surface and launch a bunch of FPVs seems like it could be quite useful. Control is a question for UUV, but even if ran with a mast / snorkel profile could be quite a bit lower than the current USVs. Or use battery + IMU dead reckoning to get close to the target area
Reed Mideke
Come Back Alive foundation video on the R-73 / Osa frankensam project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x579t82Qmw8
Reed Mideke
Starting to look like Master Strategist Vladimir Vladimirovich's little 3 day operation may end up tanking his relationships with BOTH Armenia and Azerbaijan https://kyivindependent.com/absurd-versions-azerbaijans-president-accuses-russia-condemns-putins-denial-in-crash-case/
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "A deal may emerge by Easter, but it depends on other people" and yet this will not have even the slightest effect on any of his fuckwit supporters belief the he's the greatest deal-maker of all time https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-putin-zelenskyy-moscow-kremlin-frontline-live-sky-news-latest-12541713?postid=8886774#liveblog-body
Reed Mideke
Long piece on the underlying issues
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/01/03/why-is-ukraine-losing-ground-deep-analysis-of-military-problems-in-2025/
Reed Mideke
For all the bad news, not many would have predicted that 3 years in, not only would the Russian's would have completely failed to gain air superiority, but Ukrainian Su-27s would be flying regular sorties with JDAMs an HARMs
https://www.twz.com/air/ukrainian-su-27-flanker-pilots-rare-account-of-the-changing-air-war
Reed Mideke
#Ukraine HUR claims an Mi-8 kill with an R-73 from a #MaguraV5 #USV
Reed Mideke
This story on the French-trained and equipped 155th brigade make it clear Ukraine's force generation problems go much deeper than lack of western aid or conscription age https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-investigating-french-trained-brigade/
Reed Mideke
"At every level, it’s common practice to report up the chain that everything’s fine, the positions are holding and everything is under control, when in reality that isn’t the case" - One might think Ukraine, having watched Russia repeatedly suffer catastrophic losses from exactly this practice, would strive at every level to root it out, but here we are https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/12/24/7490436/
Reed Mideke
Putin tried to thread the needle by apologizing for the "tragic incident" without taking responsibly, but Aliyev ain't buying "We can clearly say today that the plane was shot down by Russia. This is a fact. Again, we are not saying that this was done intentionally, but it was done … The fact that the fuselage is riddled with holes indicates that the theory of the plane hitting a flock of birds… is completely removed from the agenda"
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/29/asia/azerbaijan-airlines-crash-russia-intl/index.html
Reed Mideke
Unsurprisingly*, Russian propagandists welcome Trump's comments about taking over various countries as an endorsement of the Special Military Operation
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-insiders-reveal-how-trump-is-already-secretly-helping-putin/
Reed Mideke
"The Kyiv Independent hasn’t been able to find evidence that any Syrians who were recruited and fought in Ukraine managed to return home to Syria" 😬 - Also, "end of Assad’s rule in Syria means that Moscow will not be able to recruit Syrians" may be optimistic, wouldn't be hard to imagine Russia offering MOD contracts as an escape route to Assad supporters who are afraid of retribution under the new regime
https://kyivindependent.com/fall-of-assads-regime-disrupts-russian-recruitment-in-syria/
Reed Mideke
A conundrum for Russia's cover-up: If they continue to deny they shot the plane down, it may be pretty hard to convince airlines even from nominally friendly countries that they've made changes to prevent it happening again https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/27/three-more-airlines-suspend-flights-to-some-russian-cities-after-azerbaijan-airlines-crash
Reed Mideke
Given the US obviously does conduct espionage against Russia, it's sometimes hard to tell whether the people the Russians charge are actually spies or just random hostages. Batshit charges like developing a "genetic screening system for Russians" kinda tip things pretty hard in the hostage direction though https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/27/fbs-claims-u-s-citizen-imprisoned-on-espionage-charges-helped-pentagon-gather-data-to-develop-genetic-screening-system-for-russians
Reed Mideke
Unclear how directly involved the Ukrainian government is, but conning vulnerable people into long prison sentences for extremely ineffectual vandalism seems not great
Reed Mideke
Still boggles my mind that this apparently works, after widely reported prosecutions for similar incidents "According to the FSB, these scammers “operate from Ukraine” and often pose as bank employees or law enforcement, convincing victims to transfer money and then forcing them to carry out arson attacks to supposedly recover their stolen funds"
Reed Mideke
Ukrainian Mi-24 with kill marks for two Shaheds on Nov 20, 2024, and three on Nov 24. I assumed that getting several per sortie wasn't unlikely but haven't seen direct evidence before
https://xcancel.com/poltavazmist/status/1973664077248708609
Reed Mideke
Ukraine claims to have hit a Russian navy missile ship transiting the Volga-Baltic waterway¹ in Lake Onega, ~1000 km from Ukrainian territory. Range isn't surprising, but hitting a moving or briefly anchored target? 🤨
Brings to mind the sinking by "drone debris" of Port Olya-4² in the Caspian sea also claimed by SOF
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-struck-russias-missile-ship-grad-in-karelia-military-says/
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga%E2%80%93Baltic_Waterway
Reed Mideke
Kremlin acknowledges the "There's no gasoline shortage, everything is fine, just some seasonal supply glitches" story is now longer viable. Now: Subsidized imports from Asia, imports from Belarus, and allowing previously banned additives
Reed Mideke
One might think the SBU would have more important things to do than this 😬
Reed Mideke
Deeply sourced UP piece on the Dobropillia debacle, once again highlighting the cost of overly-optimistic reports going up the chain of command
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/09/24/7532211/
Reed Mideke
1,314 days into Putin's 3-day special military operation, Moscow Times reports "As of September 28, 38% of primary oil refining capacity, or 338,000 tons per day, was idle at refineries across the country … approximately 70% of the downtime was the result of drone attacks"
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/30/vrossii-ostanovilis-pochti-40-moschnostei-neftezavodov-a175881
Reed Mideke
Gas rationing in Crimea checks off another material impact* "starting September 29, fuel sales on the peninsula will be limited to no more than 30 liters per purchase"
Reed Mideke
Also "One market participant estimates the gasoline shortage in Russia in September at 400,000 tons, out of a standard monthly supply of 2 million tons, or approximately 20%. Kommersant's source attributes this to unscheduled maintenance at primary oil refining units at several large refineries. A Kommersant source estimates that diesel fuel production fell by 1 million tons in September"
Reed Mideke
IMO it seems rather likely the suspects Germany identified were involved in the Nord Stream bombing, but if so, WTF are they doing hanging out in EU countries? Especially this guy who reportedly already dodged one arrest in Poland?
Reed Mideke
Ukraine's first confirmed FPV helicopter kill: "We noticed … a certain pattern in the way enemy aircraft operate … we conducted surveillance, analyzed and roughly determined the point from which the aircraft operated and the approximate time. Then, at the time when enemy aircraft usually operated, I would fly out on patrol and wait for the aircraft. When there were no helicopters, I simply flew further along the logistics routes in search of enemy vehicles"
Reed Mideke
This was notably a standard, 10" FPV with an RPG warhead, which requires a lot of luck (and planning) to be in the right place at the right time. One would think the higher performance models being developed as Shahed interceptors would have a significantly better engagement envelope against helicopters, and some of them can be re-used if they don't find a target https://militarnyi.com/en/articles/downing-of-russian-mi-8-by-predators-of-the-heights-details-from-the-unit-and-the-pilot/
Reed Mideke
Overall, I suspect the Russian government approach of doing little to address the problem while saying "everything is fine, there are just some seasonal disruptions" is going to blow up in their face quite soon. You can't really propaganda your way out of widespread gasoline shortages. I don't expect major near term impact on the course of the war, but it could be one of the biggest domestic challenges so far
Reed Mideke
Something described as "a missile element or a small-caliber rocket" in Kyiv seems almost certain to be a SAM or AAM part. Awkward, but not unexpected and still ultimately Russia's fault, of course
https://kyivindependent.com/russias-large-scale-overnight-attack-struck-polish-embassy-in-kyiv/
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, admin officials also blabbed to WSJ about how "U.S. officials have briefed Trump about current battlefield conditions and a planned Ukrainian offensive that would require American intelligence support" https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-battlefield-briefings-may-have-shifted-trumps-view-of-russias-war-wsj-reports/
Reed Mideke
Back in late August, it seemed like there was a general consensus* that Ukraine's refinery campaign was unlikely to have a major impact on diesel, because domestic demand only amounts to ~50% of production (vs ~80% for gasoline). But despite export restrictions, shortages and price hikes are showing up https://ura.news/news/1053001835
* e.g. https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/08/russia-war-gasoline-problem?lang=en
Reed Mideke
Presumably, there's enough impact that even if overall production is sufficient, redirecting it to the cover lost capacity has become difficult.
It's also been suggested that because military vehicles mostly use diesel, they would be less impacted, but it should be noted they use a lot of civilian vehicles and generators these days, and likely get some of that fuel outside of official logistics
Reed Mideke
KP has a helpful explainer, which studiously avoids any mention of the "Special Military Operation", drones, fires, or even unscheduled maintenance https://www.kp.ru/daily/27754.5/5145912/
Reed Mideke
…and here we go, right on schedule*, NYPost (trash, but a favorite place for admin insiders to blab) reports "Trump’s insistence in the same statement that Ukraine can regain all the land currently occupied by Russia is the president’s latest “strategic move” to try and bring Russia to the negotiating table" and quotes anon official "It doesn’t signal any substantive policy change … It’s a clear and obvious negotiating tactic to push Russia"
Reed Mideke
Of course, retconning grand strategy onto Trump's random flailing is also standard practice, so that's hardly final word, but it does sound like something Trump would think was a clever negotiating tactic
Reed Mideke
Russian response is about as expected, Peskov dismissive with some gentle mocking, typical ranting from Medvedev. No signs yet they're trying to reel him back in, but I'd expect any outreach to be done quietly
Russians, Ukrainians and Europeans all make reference to how much Trump flip flops (the latter two mostly on background, for obvious reasons)
Reed Mideke
The view from Ukraine:
Holos MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak "What is new in Trump’s statements made today or what do they mean for us? Absolutely nothing, … And what should we expect next? Also nothing."
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko "Let’s not rush to conclusions just yet. Trump is Trump, and we have seen his mood swings and shifts in political positions more than once."
https://www.ft.com/content/1830eeb3-a49f-4c50-b74f-a2783b47821a
Reed Mideke
"The Russian Ministry of Energy has commented on fake news and false information about an alleged fuel shortage in Russia. The ministry noted that fuel reserves for the next billing period have been accumulated. At the same time, all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the timely and uninterrupted supply of all necessary fuel grades to the country" - Ah yes, all necessary measures to deal alleged shortage which we just declared fake news!
Reed Mideke
My first guess is Trump is actually somewhat pissed at Putin for not making a deal, because it makes Trump look powerless. Unlike everyone who knew anything about the conflict, he probably believed Putin would be happy to do a quick, transactional deal if Ukraine was pressured to make big concessions. Putin going "nah I'm winning*, give me everything or no deal" makes Trump not the main character
* IMO he's not, but he claims and possibly believes he is
Reed Mideke
IMO a lot of the Trump / Witkoff approach is explained by a mistaken belief that Putin must see the war as a massive, damaging clusterfuck (like the US in Afghanistan or Vietnam, or USSR in Afghanistan) and so should be happy to take a face-saving exit with some territory to boot. In that view, it should just be a matter of finding the right sweeteners to get to yes. Putin OTOH likely sees all those as catastrophic failures, and looks to the second Chechnya war instead
Reed Mideke
On #1, large parts of the MAGA-verse are deep into Russia propaganda. On the one hand, Dear Leader cannot be wrong, but on the other, accusing enemies of giving Dear Leader bad advice is a great way to settle scores. In any case, past performance suggests further flip-flopping is more likely than not
Reed Mideke
For #2, I've observed previously* that threats from Trump have been the only thing that got the Russians to pretend to be interested in negotiations, so we can probably expect something, but it's unclear what kind of bait they can offer after the Alaska summit.
Meanwhile propagandists will be tasked with putting out the message that Ukraine can't possibly win, backed up by (claimed) military successes
Reed Mideke
If this pivot is a deliberate strategy to get Putin to the table, I'd expect someone to blab about it to the press within 72 hours
Reed Mideke
Also substituting parts in refurbs "some of the structural elements are being simplified, and cheaper and easier-to-produce alternatives are being used instead of titanium parts that are resistant to wear" and "building a plant under the license of a Ukrainian manufacturer to produce this engine ourselves from the beginning of next year"
https://militarnyi.com/en/news/fire-point-localizes-production-of-jet-engines-for-cruise-missiles/
Reed Mideke
Longer article in Ukrainian also discusses the FP-1 and FP-2 drones. FP-2 is shorter range / larger payload FP-1, which "… already has three different variants. Some of them work as FPV, others are completely autonomous"
Reed Mideke
I don't put much stock in Trump's "Ukraine can win" pivot, but some things to watch:
1) Does he reverse course next time some influential Putin-loving MAGA bends his ear?
2) Does Putin try reel him back in with talks or concessions, or respond with hostile actions that reinforce the break?
3) Does it result in any substantive change in US support to Ukraine?
4) What happens N months down the road, if Ukraine is still slowly losing ground or worse?
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option"
Is this just "last person he talked to" syndrome? Or intended as a threat to get Putin to negotiate? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Reed Mideke
New drone panic dropped! Absolutely possible Russia is behind some of these incidents, but it seems very likely a bunch of people are going to start noticing random drones (and things they mistakenly believe drones) that aren't doing anything new
https://kyivindependent.com/denmarks-copenhagen-airport-shut-down-after-drone-sightings/
Reed Mideke
As expected*, Fire Point scooped up near-EOL engines for Flamingo: "Before the start of mass production, Fire Point bought a large stock of old aircraft engines with a residual life of up to 10 hours. They can no longer be used on aircraft, but their operating time is sufficient for the necessary tests after repair and the real flight phase – 3.5 hours"
https://militarnyi.com/en/news/fire-point-localizes-production-of-jet-engines-for-cruise-missiles/
Reed Mideke
Claimed details of Ukraine's Toloka #UUV family, which has been reported in development as far back as 2023* but not yet confirmed in action.
Smallest version is all electric, larger two hybrid (presumably with a snorkel fed ICE engine, though no snorkel is visible in mockups). Roles include "provision of radio relay communication system, reconnaissance, strike missions, mining" as well as mine clearing
* https://militarnyi.com/en/news/unmanned-underwater-vehicles-are-being-developed-in-ukraine/
Reed Mideke
"Russian Telegram channels run by the perpetrators themselves, or by persons close to the Russian drone units involved, have disseminated hundreds of videos of civilians being killed or injured" https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/un-commission-says-russian-drones-target-civilians-and-destroy?sub-site=HRC
Reed Mideke
There's a lot of talk about the Russian economy slowing down, but one market is seeing record growth: "The drone insurance market in 2025 is expected to grow several-fold from a low base, reaching 25-40 billion rubles" https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/8058239
Reed Mideke
"The decline in gasoline exchange sales is directly related to unscheduled shutdowns at some major refineries… According to the source, some refineries are declaring force majeure and not shipping gasoline, resulting in local reserves quickly running out" - What might have caused the force majeure?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Reed Mideke
Meduza reports that, amidst widespread complaints about mobile data blackouts intended to counter drones, Russia has started whitelisting some services… which raises the obvious solution of back-channeling drone telemetry through a Wildberries shopping cart 🤣
(actually, voice calls are reportedly not blocked and would probably be a better option, though IIRC the bandwidth you can get modeming over cell audio is not great)
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/09/18/it-feels-like-surveillance
Reed Mideke
UP on the Russia's "Human safari" in Kherson:
"For example, our hospital was recently attacked by a kamikaze drone. Four people had gathered near the morgue for a burial. They heard a drone above them and ran to the hospital reception. The drone flew in after them. As a result, four people sustained injuries … This is in answer to the question of whether they deliberately target civilians"
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/09/17/7531182/
Reed Mideke
Useful datapoint for those who like to scold Poland, Romania etc for not being more trigger happy about shooting down drones: "Polish media publication Rzeczpospolita reported on Sept. 16 that the damage caused to a home in the village of Wyryki, initially believed to have been a Russian drone, may have been caused by an AIM-120…" which reportedly did not detonate.
The damage certainly seemed extreme for a Gerbera decoy, and low for a Shahed
https://kyivindependent.com/immediately-clarify-the-incident-home-damaged-during-russian-drone-incursion-may-have-been-caused-by-polish-missile-media-report/
Reed Mideke
"Western foreign policy analysts speculate that Trump may be trying to peel Belarus away from Russia, a strategy widely viewed as unlikely to succeed, or to exploit its close ties with Moscow to promote a deal to end the war in Ukraine" - Ah yes, I'm sure the guy who negotiated the end of the Wagner revolt can do at least as well for Ukraine as he did for Prigozhin!
Reed Mideke
TASS is silent on what may have caused this downward trend in gasoline available to independent market participants, but anyway, on a totally different topic, Reuters reports the Kinef refinery in Leningrad has lost at least 25% capacity due to a "fire sparked by falling debris" https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-kirishi-oil-refinery-halts-key-unit-after-ukrainian-drone-attack-sources-2025-09-15/
Reed Mideke
The Insider reports that (as expected* given confirmed losses) Spiderweb didn't reduce the tempo of Russian ALCM strikes: On the contrary, they're launching more than ever. But, presumably helped by repeated long range drone strikes on closer bases like Engels-2, the Russians have been putting a whole lot more miles on the bomber fleet
Reed Mideke
I doubt the increased wear and tear will end up constraining the number of launches, but it does add costs and increase the odds of accidental losses. Flying from the far east also makes them much less responsive, though Russia has plenty of other options for time-sensitive missions
Reed Mideke
#Antonov reportedly* evacuated an An-70 prototype (hex id 5082CF) from Ukraine to Deblin, Poland
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/02-blue#3c375f55
* https://xcancel.com/PolishMilRadar/status/1967557747752530007
Reed Mideke
Reuters breakdown of what the US and EU are still buying from Russia
Reed Mideke
Continuing impacts* of the refinery campaign: "According to [TASS analysis], the daily supply volume for next week includes 100 tons of diesel fuel from an oil depot in the Nizhny Novgorod region, 50 tons from a site in the Zabaikalsky region and 30 tons from the Irkutsk region. At the same time, there is no supply of AI-92 and AI-95 motor gasoline from independent traders for the upcoming five-day period" (IOW, no gasoline to sell)
Reed Mideke
IMO this is mostly right, but the "security guarantee" theater is almost entirely about convincing Trump that Europe is ready to step up in the event of a ceasefire, knowing Putin will never agree to anything that's been proposed. There's also important differences between "we're going to war on Ukraine's side" and "If Russia shoots at peacekeepers we deploy after a ceasefire, we'll shoot back." The domestic political reaction to the second case would likely be much different
Reed Mideke
On the one hand, a transparent attempt to deflect blame for not following through on previous threats to sanction Russia, but also, an attempt to use Ukraine to blackmail Europe into joining his incoherent tariff war with India and China.
Europe should of course do more to cut purchases of Russian hydrocarbons, but as noted many of the worst offenders are Trump's pals
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/13/politics/trump-nato-russia-tariffs-ultimatum
Reed Mideke
While people question NATO only shooting down 3 or 4 of the 19 mostly small styrofoam and plywood Russian drones that entered Polish airspace, Ukraine flies a Piper Cub sized Aeroprakt A-22 drone through 1,400 km of Russian airspace, right into the middle of an oil refinery https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/09/13/7530727/
Reed Mideke
Polish FM Sikorski "Security guarantees are meant to deter a potential adversary … So what we are saying is that if there is some kind of peace, the next time Russia tries anything against Ukraine, we might go to war with Russia. Now I find that not very credible. Because if you want to go war with Russia, you can do it today and I see no volunteers. And there is nothing more dangerous in international relations than giving a guarantee that is not credible"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/14/russian-drone-incursion-poland-nato-ukraine-europe
Reed Mideke
Russia now going with options* 1-3
Peskov: "EU and NATO leaders accuse Russia of provocation on a daily basis, most often without even attempting to present any arguments"
RU MOD: "The maximum flight range of the Russian drones used in the attack, which allegedly crossed into Polish territory, does not exceed 700 kilometers (430 miles) … Nevertheless, we are ready to hold consultations on this matter with the Polish Defense Ministry"
https://kyivindependent.com/moscow-says-no-evidence-drones-downed-over-poland-were-russian/
Reed Mideke
Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, never one to worry about credibility, goes with #1: "The maximum range of the drones used in this strike did not exceed 700 kilometers, which makes it physically impossible for them to have reached Polish territory"
Reed Mideke
Though probably more helpful for missiles than Shaheds: no one is going to want to burn through expensive missiles to down drones, and flying crew in Ukrainian airspace would be a much bigger step then firing across the border
Reed Mideke
Russia opens with a #1* from their temporary chargé d'affaires in Poland Andrey Ordash "We believe that the claims are groundless. There has been no evidence that these drones are of Russian provenance"
(Polish media have published multiple pictures of what are very clearly known Russian drone types crashed at multiple locations)
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c2enwk1l9e1t?post=asset%3A14f8b2f6-8fb2-4981-8f94-7da9f510a202#post
Reed Mideke
#1 won't be credible if Poland has wreckage (which reports suggest they already do), but there's very little evidence the Russians care about credibility.
#2 would be more plausible, but would require admitting Ukrainian EW actually works, and also isn't very exculpatory
Of course, consistency isn't really the Russian's thing either, so there's a pretty good chance we get everything but #5 at different times to different audiences
Reed Mideke
"[Ukrainian FM] Sybiha also said the case underscores why neighboring partner countries should intercept Russian projectiles already in Ukrainian airspace" - Would be one way to impose an actual cost on the Russians: Because you got too sloppy with drones, Ukraine's border regions get better air defense!
Reed Mideke
But it seems like this went beyond a one or two drones failing or getting lost due to jamming. Possibly a deliberate Russian tactic of dodging into Polish airspace where Ukraine would be reluctant to target them and then attacking from the west. Or causing disruption as an intentional but plausibly deniable grey zone tactic
Reed Mideke
How will Russia respond to the inevitable public and diplomatic backlash?
1) Deny there were any Russian drones
2) Blame Ukraine for diverting them with EW
3) Deflect with irrelevant bullshit
4) Admit the drones were there, threaten Poland for interfering with their SMO
5) Take responsibility and apologize
Reed Mideke
"Much has been made of a proposal by the US Senate to levy 500 per cent tariffs on those importing Russian energy and commodities, But this is impracticable, as it would destabilize global markets" https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/09/fortress-russia-economy-has-adapted-well-pressure-stagflation-presents-opportunity-west
Reed Mideke
WSJ interview with a Ukrainian drone-hunting Yak-52 crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkDpFaVeZLA
Reed Mideke
Welp, there's a milestone: "Poland’s military said early Wednesday that it had shot down drones that violated its airspace during a Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine" - People have been critical of Poland (and other NATO states) for not doing this earlier, but there's a lot of practical reasons to set a pretty high bar. The history of mistaken shoot-downs is not small, and falling debris and stray munitions have their own hazards
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/09/europe/poland-scramble-jets-russian-drone-reports-intl-hnk-ml
Reed Mideke
"Another consideration is that sanctions can reverberate in unexpected ways. An administration official pointed to India as a cautionary example" - anything can reverberate in unexpected ways if you're oblivious enough! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pessimistic-russia-ukraine-wa-rcna229085
Reed Mideke
"The reasons for the supply crisis, according to experts, are associated with a seasonal increase in demand for fuel" - specifically, the demand from raging infernos engulfing expensive refinery equipment
Reed Mideke
A reminder what Russia's "liberation" of Donbas looks like in reality: Bombing cities until they're uninhabitable
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-donetsk-evacuation-2fc2e75e6e74f5206ca8b52d7ca0d0b0
Reed Mideke
Trump admin (especially Colby) claimed they would make nice with Russia to peel them away from China. Not only have they utterly and predictably¹ failed to do that, their ham-fisted "secondary tariffs" have predictably² pushed India closer to the Russian camp too
https://kyivindependent.com/weve-lost-russia-to-deepest-darkest-china-trump-says/
¹ https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/114032723996374014
² https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/114435122370566449
Reed Mideke
"Industry sources said increased processing at working refineries would help mitigate the impact of drone damage and maintenance, estimating a production decline of 5% this month" - which sounds rather positive, but most of the attacks didn't happen at the start of the month
Reed Mideke
"Given Russia’s flagrant violation of its commitments under the Convention, the immediate consequences of the withdrawal may not be especially visible. The withdrawal does, however, seem like a statement, one that confirms the conclusions of, for example, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, that Russia’s use of torture against Ukrainians is widespread, systematic and part of Russian state-endorsed policy" https://khpg.org/en/1608814930
Reed Mideke
Nice mafia gas station you got there, be a real shame if anything were to happen to it
Reed Mideke
More glowing reviews of Master Negotiator Steve: "The thing is, Witkoff isn’t consistently engaged. He will pop in for a visit to Vladimir Putin, say a bunch of stuff, not tell anyone what really happened and then just fuck off to his life again. Meanwhile, the Russians are talking to you about how ‘Witkoff says…’ and you don’t know whether they’re right or not, but you can’t get a readout from the Russians" https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/29/steve-witkoff-russia-ukraine-00533390
Reed Mideke
This has Erik Prince' stench all over it, and it makes very little sense: The main point of having foreign troops is to make Russia believe they risk a hot war with NATO, and a main point of using mercs is to limit the geopolitical risk if they end up dead (see Wagner's ill-advised attack on a US base in Syria, for example). Plus, of the many things a hypothetical post-ceasefire Ukraine might need, expensive foreign contractors to "rebuild defenses" is far down the list
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, reporting on possible Chinese peacekeepers keeps mentioning that it was suggested by Russia, but I suspect even that is another Witkoff screwup. Russia is pushing their Istanbul 2022 proposal, which includes the P5 as "guarantors", but it clearly doesn't imply all the guarantors have troops on the ground, given 3/5 of the P5 are NATO and Russia completely rejects the idea of NATO forces in Ukraine
Reed Mideke
In USV news, Russia managed to sneak a USV and accompanying ISR UAV into the Danube delta channels, and sink (or at least heavily damage) Ukrainian navy ship Simferopol
Reed Mideke
"According to the sources, the attack damaged both primary oil refining units at the refinery: CDU (crude distillation unit)-4 and CDU-5, each with a capacity of 70,000 barrels per day (bpd) … According to the sources, the Kuibyshevsk refinery resumed oil refining on August 21, having completed a major overhaul that had been underway since July 1"
Reed Mideke
"Ukrainian attacks on 10 plants disrupted at least 17% of Russia's refinery capacity, or 1.1 million barrels per day, according to Reuters calculations"
Reed Mideke
Reuters confirms that, as widely rumored that the time, Witkoff's Moscow "breakthrough" was due to his misunderstanding. Danger for Ukraine is that these buffoons are completely incapable of admitting error, as evidenced by the fact they went ahead with the Alaska summit after it was clear there was no real breakthrough https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/land-swap-that-wasnt-inside-trumps-frantic-dash-ukraine-peace-2025-08-28/
Reed Mideke
A relatively pessimistic (or optimistic, for Russia) take on Ukraine's current refinery campaign. OTOH, since it was written, Ukraine has hit Kuibyshev and Afipsky which together account for another ~5% Russia's capacity, and Kuibyshev at least seems like it may have a long road to recovery. IMO a big question will if and how successfully Ukraine re-targets them after repairs
https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/08/russia-war-gasoline-problem?lang=en
Reed Mideke
According to (Ukrainian foreign minister at the time) Dmytro Kuleba, one of Russia's demands in the 2022 Istanbul talks was that, beyond limiting the size of the Ukrainian army, Ukrainian heavy weapons like howitzers would be stored in warehouse controlled by the Russians, and Ukraine would have to ask permission to access them. So yeah, he's not on board with "there was almost a deal, until BoJo blew it up" take that gets thrown around by Putin apologists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWDm7oqok60
Reed Mideke
"…visitors have included Ukrainian MPs, civil society activists, representatives of wealthy businesspeople and even the disgraced former Trump adviser Paul Manafort, who visited Zaluzhnyi to pitch his services as a political consultant in any future election campaign. Zaluzhnyi turned down the offer" - Gotta think if Zaluzhnyi runs, a convicted felon connected to Yanukovych and a bunch of pro-Russian oligarchs and other dirty money would be pretty far down the list! https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/25/general-envoy-future-ukraine-president-valerii-zaluzhnyi-london-waiting-game
Reed Mideke
"The new review process applies to the British long-range Storm Shadow missiles due to its reliance on U.S. targetting data, a British offical and two U.S. officials said" - Does this also apply to SCALP-EG (which as far as we know is the same missile, for all practical purposes) 🤨
I'd kinda expect the French to insist on fully independent operation, though no doubt the administration to still pressure them
Reed Mideke
Weirdly, the same WSJ article says "The administration this past week approved the sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition air-launched missiles, or ERAMs … Several U.S. officials said use of the ERAM, with a range between 150-280 miles, would require Ukraine to seek approval from the Pentagon"
(paywalled, to avoid sullying your eyes with forbidden content, definitely don't search that URL on archive.ph)
Reed Mideke
Thousands of ERAMs (not to be confused with the RIM-174 Standard ERAM) seems like kind of a big deal, even if they are mostly restricted to the occupied territories
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Apropos of nothing, I wonder how many MiG-21s Ukraine and friendly neighbors have lying around in kinda-close-to-flyable condition? 🤔
Reed Mideke
LOL "Donald Trump intends to leave Russia and Ukraine to organize a meeting between their leaders without directly playing a role for now" - Chances of Putin agreeing to meet Zelensky were extremely slim even if the US pushed hard for it, this guarantees indefinite dicking around
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/21/trump-ukraine-russia-peace-talks
Reed Mideke
Trump, this week: Ukraine can't win if they don't go on offense
Also Trump admin: Colby and Hegseth block use of ATACMS and Storm Shadow in Russia https://kyivindependent.com/pentagon-has-quietly-barred-ukrainian-long-range-strikes-in-russia-with-us-missiles-wsj-reports/
Reed Mideke
Have concerns about the opsec 😬 but AP got a tour of the Fire Point, which makes the FP-5 "Flamingo" and the FP-1 drone. Safe to assume the "Milanion FP-5" is indeed the same thing. Fire Point claim to produce one a day now and expect to ramp up to 7 in October, while Zelensky suggested* "mass production" would start in December or January
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-drones-weapons-industry-russia-7201ab851544c394ee454407058b10ba
Reed Mideke
Fabian Hinz suggests the engine is the AI-25TL used in the L-39, manufactured by Ukraine's Motor Sich, while others suggest the warhead is a re-purposed air-dropped bomb. New AI-25TLs might be pricey, but ones hitting the end of their service lives should be pretty common, and producing cheaper expendable variants of engines isn't unheard of
Reed Mideke
Not entirely convinced of the wisdom of directly antagonizing Orban (as much as the POS richly deserves it), but the Ukrainian military's most prominent ethnic Hungarian announcing strikes on the pipeline Hungary gets Russian oil from sure seems like a deliberate message: ""Ruszkik haza!" Brovdi wrote on Telegram, referring to a historical slogan from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, which translates to "Russians, go home," alongside the release of the video"
Reed Mideke
One other reason for striking these pipelines pointed out: They also feed refineries in Belarus, which in turn supply fuel to Russia https://bsky.app/profile/specialkhersoncat.bsky.social/post/3lwwwwmqhic2e
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"Much of what unfolded at the White House looked less like serious planning to end the conflict than a performance for an audience of one: persuading Trump that Russia was the obstacle to peace" - Could blow up in their faces if it filters into certain parts of the MAGA-sphere (where the Russians will certainly be pushing), but OTOH, Trump is bad at recognizing insincere flattery, and Putin and his cronies are bad at pretending not to be the real obstacle to peace https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/19/white-house-meeting-european-leaders-russia-putin-trump-analysis
Reed Mideke
Turns out there were predictions of possible gasoline shortages in Russia on Aug 1, before the current round of strikes: "This year private retail networks have not created sufficient fuel reserves to meet high demand in the summer, due to a spike in interest rates to 20% which made borrowing money from banks to buy fuel in advance too expensive, according to market participants"
(high interest rate is also war related, of course)
Reed Mideke
"The intentions (of the West and Ukraine) are essentially about providing guarantees through foreign military intervention on some part of Ukrainian territory" says foreign minister of country with over half a million troops currently invading Ukraine, without a hint of shame or irony https://kyivindependent.com/russia-opposes-european-troops-in-ukraine-under-trump-backed-security-guarantees-lavrov-says/
Reed Mideke
"Putin and his advisers keep coming out of these meetings with U.S. interlocutors, who then highlight what seem to be misunderstandings, frankly, about what the Russian demands are" - Trump may yet get Russia and Ukraine to agree on one thing: Steve Witkoff is an idiot. (though for obvious reasons, neither side will say it on the record)
Reed Mideke
This seems like a promising interceptor concept: Shotgun FPVs have been demonstrated somewhat successfully before, and it doesn't seem like there's any fundamental reason computerized tracking and targeting can't be made to work rather well
Reed Mideke
Euro diplomats now basically confirming the theater hypothesis* on background: "European leaders don’t believe Vladimir Putin is sincere about a peace deal — so their strategy is to humor and praise Donald Trump until he finally reaches the same conclusion and realizes he will need to get tougher on the Kremlin"
Reed Mideke
Of course, flattering Trump has a cost and they may be overoptimistic about turning him fully against Putin, but maintaining the current status quo for a while is better than most of the other alternatives
Reed Mideke
Politico also looks at the "security guarantee" situation through the "take it at face value" lens and finds, as many others have, that it doesn't really add up
(but one may note that it adds up a lot better if everyone involved has concluded Russia isn't about to agree to a ceasefire or any credible peacekeeping force)
Reed Mideke
Complete mystery how someone with such a thorough grasp of the finer details keeps getting bamboozled by Putin's bullshit https://kyivindependent.com/trump-calls-occupied-crimea-size-of-texas-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/
Reed Mideke
In a sense, this is good for Ukraine. If Russia actually pretended to offer some real compromise rather than just bamboozling Witkoff and Trump, Ukraine might have to agree to stuff that would be extremely divisive internally or problematic later. But in this case they can just say "LOL, no" and hope Kellogg and the Europeans manage to explain why it's garbage
(of course, an actual agreement that ended the war end left Ukraine secure and independent would be better, but that's not on offer)
Reed Mideke
Material impacts* "These surging prices are a direct result of the war in Ukraine … Reuters sources have warned that Russia could face a physical gasoline shortage in August–September (some regions already have)"
Really seems like a good time for Ukraine to make a concerted effort to burn down every refinery within range
Reed Mideke
Surprise! "Russia has said it will only agree to security guarantees for Ukraine that give Moscow an effective veto over any future effort to defend Kyiv"
One more Witkoff "breakthrough" based entirely on his ignorance of Russia's long-standing absurd demands
https://www.ft.com/content/3851eefa-48f7-4bd0-8ac1-6ef241c38714
Reed Mideke
and as predicted*, the dicking around has begun for the supposedly "agreed" Putin-Zelensky meeting: "gradually... starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps"
Reed Mideke
As much as it pains me to agree with any of these assholes, not much I'd argue with in this: "There are no guarantees that personal negotiations will shift the parties’ positions — neither side currently faces near-defeat, so there’s no incentive for radical concessions. Zelensky and Putin keep feeding Trump their peace ideas, and he takes it all at face value. Bottom line, all the noise aside, there’s no deal ready to go, so the fighting goes on"
Reed Mideke
Flamingo is described as a "cruise missile" but using the same airframe with realtime control like the FPVs and USVs harassing Crimea could raise interesting possibilities 🤔
Reed Mideke
In Shahed hunting news, Syrskyi claims Ukraine downed over 3,200 drones with helicopters in the past year. Suggests the one we saw with 47 kill marks* isn't an outlier https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-shot-down-3-200-shahed-type-drones-from-helicopters-in-past-year-chief-commander-says/
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, first hints of material impacts* from the latest round of refinery strikes:
https://kyivindependent.com/russian-gasoline-prices-hit-record-highs-after-drone-strikes-shut-refineries/
https://t.me/istrebin/24723
Reed Mideke
TWZ (among others) notes that while the exact relationship is unclear, Ukraine's "new" Flamingo cruise missile bears a *striking* resemblance to a missile marketed by UAE company Milanion called FP-5. Whatever the origin, if the specs are to be believed it should open up a bunch of targets that Ukraine's drone fleet weren't suitable for, though large size and lack of stealth probably means the intercept rate will likely be high
Reed Mideke
Back in May, Germany stated they would provide Ukraine with money for other "long-range fires" while deflecting on Taurus 🤨 https://kyivindependent.com/germany-to-help-finance-ukrainian-made-long-range-systems-merz-says/
Reed Mideke
Overall though Ukraine and Europe seem to have waived off option #3* for a #1. Gotta think so many European leaders showing up together on short notice and laying on the flattery has stoked someone's ego https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yp4jggrj2o
Reed Mideke
There seems to be a split among FP reporters/pundits between those who take the substance at face value (and so, argue minutia of what each statement implies or what each side could offer or accept), and those who believe it's all theater to keep Trump more aligned to each party's respective interests, with no expectation of a deal. I tend to the latter, though there may be an outside chance the theater takes on a life of it's own
Reed Mideke
Wondered about this when the "drone carrying e-bike" story* came out: "Ukraine is testing out aerial platforms for the evacuation of wounded soldiers"
The step from existing heavy drones to carrying a human on a stretcher isn't *that* big, and when the alternative is "riding an e-bike or UGV through minefields while being hunted by FPVs", the risk might be quite favorable
Reed Mideke
Did Putin really agree to meet Zelensky within two weeks? Or "agree" with "nuances" (like Ukraine surrendering) which must be resolved first? 🤨
I still don't see a face to face meeting resolving anything, but it would offer each side an opportunity to convince Trump the other is the real obstacle to peace. Might slightly dent the Kremlin propaganda about Zelensky not being a legitimate party to negotiate with, but it's not as if they care much about consistency
Reed Mideke
"Mr. Trump said that Mr. Putin agreed that Ukraine should have strong security guarantees after a settlement, but not under NATO" - Suspect this is a re-run of the original Istanbul "security guarantee" in which Russia would have been one of the "guarantors", with veto power
Reed Mideke
There's a myth that goes around in RU-friendly / tankie circles that Istanbul was "almost there" and the west sabotaged it, but in reality, it was "almost there" in the sense that maybe 80% was things Ukraine could agree to, and the rest was insane Russian poison pills like that
Reed Mideke
A thing that stands out in this shit-show: Trump admin spent the last 6 months claiming they can't apply any public pressure or do anything that would offend Russia because otherwise Russia might walk away from talks, and yet… for both this round and the previous Saudi/Istanbul rounds, it sure looks like the thing that got Putin to even pretend to be interested in talks was threats
https://kyivindependent.com/everything-that-has-happened-following-trumps-meeting-with-putin/
Reed Mideke
OK, that's more than a whiff of #3: "Trump told European leaders after his meeting with [Putin] on Friday in Alaska that he supported a plan to end the war in Ukraine by ceding unconquered territory to the Russian invaders… [Trump] believes a rapid peace treaty can be negotiated, so long as [Zelensky] agrees to cede the rest of the Donbas region to Russia, even those areas not occupied by Russian troops…"
Reed Mideke
"In return, Mr. Putin offered a cease-fire in the rest of Ukraine at current battle lines and a written promise not to attack Ukraine or any European country again" - Ah yes, a written promise from Mr "those little green men in Crimea aren't Russian soldiers", "Russia doesn't control the Donbas republics", "Ukraine shot down MH17", "Wagner doesn't exist" and of course, "we have no plans to invade Ukraine, it's just western hysteria"
Reed Mideke
Nothingburger #1* with a whiff of option #3. And of course "Because of what happened today, I don't think we have to think about that [severe consequences] now. I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now"
Now Macron, Starmer and Merz get to try to lead him back to the obvious fact he's being played, while avoiding the equally obvious fact that he's a gullible idiot
Reed Mideke
'A Ukrainian presidential aide said that the US had not yet been in touch with Zelenskyy, who was huddled with his team in Kyiv. The aide described the outcome of the meeting as “very strange”. But an early read from the Ukrainian president’s team was that little progress had been made, with another aide to the president describing the meeting as a “nothing burger”.'
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://www.ft.com/content/c36899cc-7a15-4f6e-9b7e-531ddaed1dc5
Reed Mideke
"The main point is dialogue with the U.S. for the sake of dialogue. Putin and Trump are working on an agreement, and it’s Putin who sets the terms of that agreement" https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/08/15/dialogue-for-the-sake-of-dialogue
Reed Mideke
Sinking a 4,900 cargo ship with a UAV that carries maybe a ~50kg warhead seems like pretty impressive, lucky or both
Reed Mideke
Lavrov rocking the CCCP sweater to really drive home the point that Russia has no desire to re-subjugate former soviet territories! https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/08/15/7526282/
Reed Mideke
Seems like a nothingburger, unclear whether option #1 or #2*. Reading between the lines, I bet the "probably the most significant" unresolved issue is the one where Russia demands Ukraine withdraws from vast swaths of territory not currently controlled by Russia
Reed Mideke
How many refineries does Ukraine have to hit for before it starts having material impacts on the wider Russian economy, rather than just being an expensive nuisance? I think we're gonna find out fairly soon if Putin doesn't sign up for a ceasefire that includes long range drone strikes. AFAIK this is the 6th in August, though significant impact on production is only reported for some
Reed Mideke
Material impacts: major price hikes, shortages and/or rationing for general public or commercial customers. Presumably, the military will get priority and is unlikely to be directly affected much
Reed Mideke
Astrakhan governor: all drones were “suppressed by electronic warfare or destroyed [and] no damage was caused to the port infrastructure… [but] a ship was damaged by debris from a downed UAV” (https://www.twz.com/air/ukraine-sinks-russian-cargo-ship-in-caspian-sea)
The ship:
Reed Mideke
Would also depend on how you define it, which could be quite tricky. A certain distance from the front line (which itself is fuzzy by 10s of km)? Certain classes of weapons, regardless of where they're targeted? Certain kinds of targets?
Reed Mideke
The push for a Putin / Zelensky meeting strikes me as a weird performance. Trump might actually believe if they all sat down they could Make A Deal, but does anyone else?
Hard to imagine Zelensky has any illusions about a face to face meeting changing Putin's position. But I guess he knows Trump likes the idea, and Putin is unlikely to agree since it would implicitly acknowledge Zelensky as a peer
Reed Mideke
I think roughly in order of probability. #3 could be higher if the Putin could even pretend to think about offering any real concessions, but there's no signs of that
Reed Mideke
What about a ceasefire? No chance Putin will agree to a complete, unconditional, ceasefire, but short term or partial in service of #1 seems reasonably likely. The Russians are master of deliberate, weaponized ceasefire violations, and they can offer Trump a chance to brag that he's at least temporarily secured a deal to "stop the killing"
Reed Mideke
ISW claims a suspension of long range strikes would primarily benefit Russia, but I'm not sure I'm convinced. Yes, it would allow Russia to build up a big stockpile of missiles and drones, and they'd no doubt like their oil refineries to stop blowing up, but Ukrainian infrastructure, DIB and rear bases getting a break could be a pretty big deal. Yet Russia might assess that it wouldn't affect the front line much and go for it anyway if it staves off sanctions
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-ready-to-discuss-aerial-truce-with-russia-zelenskys-aide-says/
Reed Mideke
What a clown show "Trump suggested that Russia would be ready to withdraw from … Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for full control of Donetsk" Witkoff walked back, then "European officials demanded a third call … to clarify the confusion about what Putin had proposed. In that call, Witkoff said that the only offer on the table was for Ukraine to withdraw unilaterally from Donetsk in exchange for a cease-fire" https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-and-europe-counter-putins-cease-fire-proposal-6a16133c?st=2Y427Z&reflink=article_copyURL_share
(as ever, don't search archive.ph for the url)
Reed Mideke
🤡 🎬 "Bild’s sources say this could have been the result of Witkoff misinterpreting what Putin said about a "peaceful withdrawal" from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts: Russia is demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from these oblasts, but Witkoff thought the proposal was for Russian troops to withdraw from there"
Reed Mideke
WAG Anchorage summit outcomes:
1) Nothingburger, Putin convinces Trump he really wants peace and staves of sanctions for more meaningless dicking around
2) Nothingburger, Trump sees Putin isn't serious, sanctions follow
3) Putin convinces Trump to "accept" Ukraine surrendering Donbas or similar non-starter. Shitshow with Ukraine / Europe ensues
4) Trump misunderstands Putin's demands, "agrees" to "amazing" deal that is not on offer
5) Putin offers major concessions, serious negotiations ensue
Reed Mideke
A story on the drone-hunting Yak-52s and helicopters. Notes the Yak operations were pioneered by Colonel Konstantin Oborin (recently lost "on a combat mission") who was chairman of a flying club and formalized in July / August of '24
https://glavcom.ua/publications/aviatsiina-mobilizatsiia-yak-sportyvni-litachky-zbyvaiut-shakhedy-1071184.html
Reed Mideke
BBC reports claims the deal on offer is Russia giving up all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia for Donbas, which would certainly be a more serious concession and a real dilemma for Ukraine. That sounds more like a Witkoff fantasy than anything Putin would seriously entertain though
Reed Mideke
Another Shahed hunter* appears: Zlin Z-137T Agro Turbo. Or given the R-73 missiles, maybe more aggro than agro. Crop dusters seems like decent choice: Widely available, rugged, good payload and power, designed for lots of hours and spartan fields. OTOH, maybe a bit a slow.
Two R-73s per flight seems rather limiting, but as noted in the article, unclear whether that's the final loadout
https://www.twz.com/air/crop-duster-armed-with-air-to-air-missiles-appears-in-ukraine
Reed Mideke
So it seems like Putin's big offer is dropping the claim to the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia he's unable to occupy any time soon (or maybe just "agreeing" not to keep attacking them), in return for Ukraine handing over ~6,500 km² of Donetsk, including multiple >100k population cities and retreating to a new, undefended border. And Trump characterizes this as "some swapping of territories"
Reed Mideke
"The first phase would entail Ukrainian forces withdrawing from Donetsk" yeah and then the second phase would entail Russia inventing some pretext to resume hostilities, pocketing a gain that would otherwise have taken them years and hundreds of thousands of KIA
Reed Mideke
Also, while there are reports of abuses in Ukraine "Ukraine, however, has allowed me to visit its prisoner-of-war camps, and during an unannounced inspection of one in Lviv, I found that there were sincere efforts to treat the more than 300 detainees decently … My own requests to visit and inspect Russian-controlled facilities have been repeatedly declined"
Reed Mideke
I have no idea what prospects of this working out are, but Armenia and Azerbaijan having a summit in DC mediated by Trump seems like a hell of a comment on how badly Putin has trashed his own influence in the region
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Reuters Russian source: "The current talks process … was an attempt by Moscow to convince Trump that Putin was not rejecting peace … adding that the talks were devoid of real substance apart from discussions on humanitarian exchange" - Which was obvious to everyone except Witkoff and Trump.
Also "Russia's military General Staff has told Putin that the Ukrainian front will crumble in two or three months" - Wonder how many months have have been saying that?
Reed Mideke
UN special rapporteur on torture Alice Edwards: "Though Russia has denied that it employs torture, the consistent and widespread nature of witness accounts while in Russian custody — along with Moscow’s failure to address the issue — have led me to the conclusion that it can only be a systemic, state-endorsed practice approved at the highest levels"
Reed Mideke
Another one for the Putin-apologist "anti-imperialists" https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/08/06/a-justified-perception-of-russian-interests
Reed Mideke
Will the Russians try offer Witkoff something to convince Trump they're really interested in negotiating for reals now? My guess is yes, given they asked for the meeting, but probably as a low cost long shot than a serious effort. Will they succeed? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://kyivindependent.com/witkoffs-plane-reportedly-lands-in-moscow-ahead-of-key-talks-on-avoiding-trumps-sanctions/
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "I don't know if it’s gonna affect Russia, because [Putin] wants to obviously probably keep the war going"
https://kyivindependent.com/it-may-or-may-not-affect-them-trump-says-russia-tariffs-to-be-imposed-in-10-days/
Reed Mideke
"It looks like a very complicated scheme, and nobody was ever able to explain how it's supposed to work. They are essentially talking about a full-scale trade embargo on major U.S. partners like China and India" - Yep. OTOH, Trump is really a "how it works guy", so that's not a great indication he won't try it in some form (and likely chicken out when the consequences appear)
Reed Mideke
Things that people would call you mad for suggesting pre-2022: A Ukrainian Mi-24 with (if I managed to count correctly) at least 47 air-to-air kills. OK, zapping pre-programmed drones with a chaingun isn't exactly top gun, but still, that's a lot… https://t.me/YT29JTacRomeo/266
Reed Mideke
Another story on how Russia holds thousands of Ukrainian civilians, many unacknowledged, often held without trial or "convicted" by sham courts of the post-2014 invasion puppet governments
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From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "by the end of his term would be an achievement" https://censor.net/en/news/3565528/witkoff-made-a-statement-about-the-end-of-the-war-in-ukraine
Reed Mideke
… the one party that is absolutely guaranteed to love this whole shitshow is Russia. Anything that weakens Ukraine's relationship with the EU benefits them. Corruption in Ukraine benefits them, both by draining resources and providing opportunities for influence. Internal strife and distractions from the war benefit them. In fact, Putin singled out NABU and SAPO just before the invasion https://censor.net/en/videonews/3564711/before-the-start-of-the-full-scale-invasion-he-criticised-the-anti-corruption-bodies-in-ukraine
(transcript https://web.archive.org/web/20250704173622/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828)
Reed Mideke
In better news, the Iran war doesn't seemed to have helped prop up Russian oil revenue much https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-oil-gas-revenue-may-fall-july-by-more-than-third-reuters-calculations-2025-07-22/
Reed Mideke
Costs them basically nothing to make positive noises about negotiations and stir the pot against Zelensky (and he just handed them some free ammo) so why not?
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Kyiv Independent breaks down an obvious problem with Zelensky's explanation: It doesn't make any fucking sense. There's no evidence that neutering the independence of NABU and SAPO is necessary to go after Russian influence, and even if some changes were needed to support counterintelligence, a person interested in maintaining public trust would do it in a limited, transparent way, not as an amendment rushed through on an unrelated bill. And on top of that…
Reed Mideke
Bookmark this for the next time Ukraine hits Alabuga and the Russian propagandists scream about how it's a "terrorist attack" on a "civilian vocational school" https://meduza.io/en/news/2025/07/21/russian-state-tv-touts-boys-and-girls-assembling-attack-drones-bound-for-ukraine
Reed Mideke
JFC, how stupid and short sighted. Zelensky's government (reasonably) got a lot of slack due to the invasion, and now they're just gonna set all that goodwill on fire for what? https://kyivindependent.com/point-of-no-return-politicians-activists-soldiers-experts-raise-dire-warnings-for-ukraines-democracy-as-new-bill-guts-anti-corruption-efforts/
Reed Mideke
Guardian's sources seem to agree Putin isn't too bothered about Trump's deadline "a sign, analysts and Kremlin insiders say, that the Russian leader had long anticipated a deterioration in relations from the apparent improvement at the beginning of Trump’s second term" but "A lot can happen in 50 days … Putin sees Trump as emotional and susceptible to influence … Moscow will keep making overtures toward Washington. They don’t see this rift as irreversible"
Reed Mideke
Suspect they always viewed getting Trump to force Ukraine to surrender as a long shot and have now decided it isn't going to happen. They got their 6 months of dicking around, and aren't particularly afraid of anything Trump threatened, so not much reason to keep pretending.
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, Aliyev referencing MH17 seems like a not-so-subtle signal to the Kremlin that he's not gonna buy their bullshit
Reed Mideke
One big question was whether Putin would try to reel Trump back in for more "negotiations" in the 50 day window, and the answer seems to be "not really". Quite a contrast from May when he personally went on TV to propose "direct talks" in response the EU (and briefly, US) "ceasefire or sanctions" threat https://kyivindependent.com/our-goals-are-clear-kremlin-unwilling-to-compromise-on-demands-ahead-of-proposed-3rd-round-of-peace-talks/
Reed Mideke
There's never been any indication they're interested in anything that would be remotely acceptable to Ukraine or Europe (and many indications they aren't), but the fact they didn't even throw some shit at the wall to try to convince Trump they're still totes negotiating in good faith seems significant.
Reed Mideke
Anonymous Putin associate: "[Putin] might give the children back as part of some humanitarian exchange. He’s not Stalin. But honestly it’s just not a high priority" - yeah that's pretty telling how they all think about war crimes
Reed Mideke
HUR fixed wing FPVs that puzzlingly* were only seemed active around Crimea finally appear in the east, hitting their usual targets like S-300 launchers and high end radars in Donetsk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-T9Ar20e6s
Reed Mideke
Aside from the obvious risk they'll side more overtly with Russia, the economic cost of an extended tariff war with China would quickly exceed everything sent to Ukraine to date
Reed Mideke
Impunity selects for people like this
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/in-the-russian-penal-colony-they-called-him-dr-evil
Reed Mideke
Antonov released video of the flight of UR-82073 "Be Brave Like Irpin" https://www.facebook.com/antonov.company/videos/%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%96%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D0%BB%D1%96%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BD-%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%96%D1%88%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%B7-%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D0%B8-%D0%B4%D0%BE-%D0%BD%D1%96%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%87%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B0%D1%82-%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2-/756611630217707/?mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=FaPbU7NQlr3SZUjY
Reed Mideke
A good breakdown of the incoherence of the "secondary tariffs" threat. Of course, incoherence won't necessarily stop this administration from trying it, but it's very hard to see it getting turned into a workable policy if China or India calls the bluff. Is Trump really going to blow up all trade with China indefinitely if one refiner buys one shipment of Russian oil?
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/07/16/no-real-alternatives
Reed Mideke
IIRC UR-82009 (50801D) was also there, reportedly damaged
Reed Mideke
Bit easier to see in false color. I think the aircraft that was parked at the south end moved to middle and from the size, must also be an An-124 (edit: google earth image from April 2022 suggests that was an An-22, likely UR-09307)
Reed Mideke
TWZ quotes the Ukrainian General Staff saying "An-124-100 reg UR-82073 is being evacuated from Svyatoshino, where it has been standing since the beginning of the full scale war" so whatever those airframes being moved around Hostomel are, aren't that
Reed Mideke
Re that last boost from @noelreports*, #Antonov appears to have reactivated #AN124 #UR82073, stranded at Hostomel (edit: Svyatoshino, per TWZ, see below) since the start of the war and flown it to Antonov wartime home port in Leipzig https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=508020&lat=48.050&lon=18.510&zoom=5.5&showTrace=2025-07-11
* https://mastodon.social/@noelreports@mstdn.social/114834175269350271
Reed Mideke
A large, white aircraft appears parked outside in Sentinel imagery between June 16 and 21, 2023 and stays there until it disappears between May 3 and 21 this year
Reed Mideke
Man if I were building grid-scale batteries in Ukraine right now, I think I'd disperse the individual batteries a bit more than what's in that photo (unclear if it's the actual site or stock photo) 😬
Sure your real estate and interconnect costs go up but your batteries-destroyed-per-Shahed could go way down, to the point it would be an unattractive target
Reed Mideke
Funny thing about this is that while no amount of war crimes or obviously bad faith faux "negotiations" could turn the MAGA-verse against Putin, bad mouthing the Dear Leader just might… (though I wouldn't give it high odds unless it comes from Putin himself and breaks into the US right wing media ecosystems)
Reed Mideke
I can believe genuine, non-frivolous concerns about Patriot missile stocks, but that doesn't explain freezing AIM-7 and AT4 supplies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/us-pentagon-military-plans-patriot-missile-interceptor2
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "I don’t know. I can’t tell you whether or not that’s going to happen" https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/05/trump-russia-ukraine-war-00440027
Reed Mideke
TFW a supplier fails to deliver due to sanctions and your lawsuit against them reveals everyone involved in the sanctions evasion scheme
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "didn't make any progress" and "very disappointed"
Who could have predicted? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(to the extent there's any surprise here, it's that Trump recognized he's getting nowhere and admitted it)
https://kyivindependent.com/im-very-disappointed-trump-says-after-phone-call-with-putin-06-2025/
Reed Mideke
Really not trying to hide their complete disinterest in any meaningful compromise: "Putin reiterated that we are interested in achieving our goals during the special operation, and preferably doing so through political and diplomatic means"
Reed Mideke
"Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union’s top diplomat on Wednesday that Beijing cannot afford a Russian loss in Ukraine because it fears the United States would then shift its whole focus to Beijing, according to several people familiar with the exchange" - Always been safe to assume China sees the West taking an L in Ukraine as the preferred outcome, even if they aren't thrilled with Russia starting it, but saying it out loud is something 🤨
Reed Mideke
More of the predictable* #USV mothership evolution, this time launching large multi-rotor #UAV bombers.
Other things still to come IMO:
* Guided missiles for surface targets
* (semi-) submersible motherships
Reed Mideke
Master strategist Vladimir Vladimirovich on track to get Russian propagandists banned from both Armenia and Azerbaijan https://kyivindependent.com/armenian-speaker-urges-ban-on-russian-tv-broadcast/
Reed Mideke
"The number of hacker attacks on [Russian] fuel and energy companies has increased by 40% year-on-year in six months. Most incidents are related to espionage rather than theft of financial data, which indicates a change in trend, BI.ZONE experts report" - Well ain't karma a bitch
Reed Mideke
HRW's Belkis Wille, on the Russian "human safari" in Kherson: "Remarkably, a lot of perpetrators don’t seem to have any concerns about documenting and posting themselves committing war crimes" https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/07/01/hunted-in-kherson
Reed Mideke
In less good news, Elbridge Colby (previously known for advocating the insane "give Putin Ukraine so he'll join us against China" approach) has halted shipments of weapons committed under Biden https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/01/pentagon-munitions-ukraine-halt-00436048
Reed Mideke
Russia not only tortures virtually every Ukrainian POW they hold, but also sends their own people who are returned straight back to the front
(article says "neither Russia nor Ukraine is upholding the rule" prohibiting returning POWs to combat, but AFAIK Ukraine only allows those who volunteer to go back, otherwise, its one of the very few ways people can get discharged)
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/07/01/i-don-t-want-this-exchange-anymore
Reed Mideke
HUR reveals that some of the fixed wing FPVs wreaking havoc on expensive hardware in Crimea are UJ-26 Bobers, not the flying wing type seen previously*
Still not explained why most if not all the footage we see from these is in Crimea, there should be lots of juicy targets within similar range in Russia and the occupied east. Something unique about Crimea enables real time control?
Reed Mideke
It's been widely suggested they use satellite uplink (which certainly seems like the obvious choice), but it's not clear why it would be restricted to Crimea. Starlink is (or was) blocked in Crimea, though they clearly got a carve out or an alternate provider for USVs at some point, and it's hard to see why a similar solution wouldn't be available in occupied Donbas, if not Russia proper
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In a predicted development*, both the Bobers and the Lyutyis used to hit the Kupol plant in Izhevsk lack landing gear
https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-drones-target-russian-city-of-izhevsk-occupied-crimea-in-overnight-attack/
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Putin's Russia in a nutshell: "Wherever our soldier sets foot is ours" but fighting back is "terrorism"
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Rubio: if we sanction Russia more "we probably lose our ability to talk to them about the ceasefire"
Also Rubio: ceasefire progress is stalled because "Our sense of it is that the Russians are going to try to achieve in the battlefield what they’ve demanded in the negotiating table"
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/trump-rubio-sanctions-russia-nato-00422668
Reed Mideke
Claims this includes an EW-only Shark.Aero Shark* ultralight / LSA 🤨
I dunno, it seems like if you're gonna go to the trouble to chase them down, the extra effort to add some kind of kinetic capability would probably be worth it
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark.Aero_Shark not to be confused with the Ukrainian Shark UAVs
Reed Mideke
Just like Satoshi intended: "A new cryptocurrency token designed to allow cross-border payments in spite of western sanctions on Russia, launched by a fugitive Moldovan oligarch and a Russian defence sector bank, has moved some $9.3bn on a dedicated crypto exchange in just four months since it was launched" https://www.ft.com/content/1c71cac0-b86b-4361-8f54-ee5d3bb5a489
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Also, the Moldovan oligarch is Ilan Șor who "fled from house arrest in Moldova in 2019 after he was convicted of stealing $1bn in the largest bank fraud in the country’s history," founded a pro-Russian political party and "was accused by Moldovan police of running a vast vote-buying operation in Moldovan elections"
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One for those "anti-imperialists" who continue to insist this is all about NATO expansion or similar nonsense https://meduza.io/en/news/2025/06/20/wherever-a-russian-soldier-sets-foot-that-s-ours-vladimir-putin-declares
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"Earlier this year, Serhiy Serdiuk was deported from Russia [from his home in occupied Ukraine], along with his wife and daughter. He was given a 40-year ban from re-entering the country"
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"We are receiving modern light aircraft, which have modern weapons and navigation, which will increase the effectiveness in countering Russian strike drones" 🤨
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"Kellogg in private has portrayed the trip as a step that could help jump-start peace talks aimed at ending Russia's war against Ukraine" 🤨
Notable Kellogg, not Witkoff, who has been the one talking to the Russian side up to now. Hard to imagine Lukashenko has the influence to significantly change Putin's position even if he wanted to.
Reed Mideke
Ukraine air force team using electric fixed wing interceptor drones
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"Sure we invaded you twice and broke every previous ceasefire under the cover of absurd lies and pretexts, but if you disarm, we pinky swear we don't do it again!" 🙄
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In a similar vein:
"How dare you suggest we're abducting children, we're just evacuating orphaned or abandoned kids from the war zone!
Oh and by the way, we'll ship them back to you in exchange for POWs"
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From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "The final blow for the working group came roughly three weeks ago, when most members of the White House National Security Council - including the entire team dealing directly with the Ukraine war - were dismissed as part of a broad purge" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/trump-administration-disbands-group-focused-pressuring-russia-sources-say-2025-06-17/
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Shahed hunting Mi-24 🎯
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Succinct illustration of how completely unserious Russian "negotiation" with Ukraine is: "Moscow will insist that Ukraine dismantle and destroy all Western-supplied weapons as part of any ceasefire deal"
If Ukraine is going to have any non-negotiable red lines at all, not being less capable of defending themselves than they are now is obviously going to be very near the top of the list
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-demands-ukraine-destroy-western-weapons-to-end-war/
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"You asked me whether we are considering [sending Taurus], and my answer is no" - could *technically* mean they've already decided, without specifying the decision 😉
(I don't think this is the case, but the US did play somewhat similar word games with ATACMS)
Reed Mideke
Ukraine formalizing use of private aircraft for drone defense (contra headline, doesn't seem limited to jets). Yak-52s have been used in Odesa for a while*, but this really seems like an area where modest investment could provide useful capability, especially with the Russians recent move to flying Shaheds higher to avoid mobile fire teams
Reed Mideke
What would the ideal low cost crewed UAV hunter be 🤔
Shaheds reportedly cruise ~185 km/h, altitude up to 4000 m. Operating from minimally prepared fields would be a plus. Shaheds mainly fly at night. Ukraine is known to use Mi-24, Mi-8, Yak-52, and fast jets. Mi-8 door gunners seem to be effective. Yaks appear rely on a passenger with small arms, but most of their kills seem to be smaller, slower recon UAVs
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1805509978658165154
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Budanov claims the Magura V7 #USV carry AIM-9X, rather than older variants are as previously suggested. Would explain the otherwise puzzling switch from R-73 if true. Also might suggest fairly active involvement from a western partner in development
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If allies are fine with having a modern Western AAM on these things (and it's hard to believe Ukraine would jeopardize their supply doing it without approval), again raises the question of other standoff weapons 🤔
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Not at all surprising the Russians did this given the vast majority of POWs and civilian detainees report torture, but notable they're so confident of their impunity they don't care about maintaining even the slightest shred of plausible deniability (and perhaps lucky for this guy, since the obvious way to cover it up would be to return a heavily decayed corpse)
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Zelensky: "They even told our delegation: we know that our memorandum is an ultimatum, and you will not accept it" - That would explain not wanting the Americans present, I guess (under any non-Trump admin, it would hardly matter, but with people like Witkoff there's obviously value in being able to gaslight Ukraine and then deny it to the Americans)
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… Ukraine doesn't own the satellites, and can't afford to piss the people who do off too badly. Japan and ROK might also be unhappy with having that go down in their back yard
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Ukraine testing fixed-wing UAV carrying interceptors. Seems extremely useful if they can make it work reliably at scale
1) Hunting recon drones, can cover a wide area, without requiring someone on the front line to break cover
2) Similar for hunting Shaheds, plus launch from altitude to hit high flying ones
3) Hunt recon drones, helicopters or ground targets tens of km behind enemy lines
4) Self defense against other interceptor drones
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2) "sources said the SBU weighed sending sea drones hidden in cargo containers to attack ships of Russia and its allies in the North Pacific. But, so far, they apparently have yet to launch these operations" - Presumably meaning targeting those Russian ships carrying North Korean ammunition, which would certainly be a high value target, but perhaps diplomatically touchy to organize
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/05/ukraine-covert-war-russia-espionage/
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Doubt folks who kept Spiderweb secret for 18 months blabbed that 2nd one to Ignatius on accident. Does that mean they decided not to? Or want to be sure the Russians think they might?
Operationally, it seems doable. There's a lot of Ukrainians in the maritime industry, getting a container to the sea of Japan and dumping the contents overboard within ~1000 km of the target should not be that hard. The USVs are normally controlled by satellite, so no need for operators in the area, but…
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Ignatius claims (in an opinion piece)
1) "just two days before the SBU drone attack on air bases, GUR operatives launched an attack on an army base at Desantnaya Bay, near Vladivostok … The Vladivostok attack involved a combination of truck bombs and drones, intelligence sources told me, with the drones mostly used for diversion"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/05/ukraine-covert-war-russia-espionage/
* also reported by the Kyiv Independent https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-behind-explosions-in-vladivostok-causing-damage-to-russian-military-source-claims/
Reed Mideke
For front line cities like Kherson, Kharkiv and Sumy it's a bit different because Russia has plenty of glide bombs, so dropping a handful on city hall or whatever doesn't affect their ability to hit tactically meaningful targets much
Reed Mideke
Hit by hit analysis with similar conclusions to the one from Emil Kastehelmi / Blackbird
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1930263724494913877.html
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, Putin's "retaliation" appears to be in full swing, predictably involving leveling a historic but not militarily significant government building in Kherson and an extra large drone and missile attack on Kyiv, among other things https://hromadske.ua/en/war/245971-rosiiany-vdruhe-za-den-vdaryly-po-budivli-ova-u-khersoni-tsyoho-razu-yiyi-znyshchyly
Reed Mideke
The thing is, for long range missile and drone strikes, Russia is mostly limited by production, meaning an extra big showy "retaliation" strike doesn't change how much Ukraine is hit overall. The targets are probably *less* militarily relevant than normal strikes and there will be a longer lull or reduced volume of attacks later. OTOH, air defense may be more stretched allowing more to get through
Reed Mideke
Good, probably near complete roundup of the operation Spider Web results. Definitely not 41 aircraft destroyed, but likely one of the largest and most costly single-day losses of since WWII for Soviet / Russian air force
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1930674747014062181.html?utm_campaign=topunroll
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Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov: "Russian warplanes were damaged but not destroyed in a June 1 attack by Ukraine, and they will be restored" https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-says-it-will-repair-bombers-damaged-by-ukraines-drones-2025-06-05/
(a few of) The aircraft:
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Reportedly the drones used to hit Russian bombers: "the Osa FPV drone has the ability to lift up to 3.3 kg of payload and stay in the air for up to 15 minutes. The drone also can accelerate to 42 m/s (up to 150 km/h), allowing it to reach the target despite stormy winds, which also speaks to the reasons for choosing this particular model"
No word on cost but I imagine 117 of them go for substantially less than one cruise missile
https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/first_contact_osa_were_the_ukrainian_fpv_drones_that_destroyed_russian_tu_95ms_tu_22m3_and_tu_160_strategic_bombers-14721.html
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WSJ, on the origins of the mission: "…began with a daunting request from Ukraine’s president to his spy chief in late fall 2023.
The Russian Air Force was pummeling Ukraine’s power stations and cities with missiles, overwhelming meager air defenses, and Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to know: How can we fight back"
What are the odds HUR got the same assignment? 🤨
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Loaded missiles were also visible in the SBU video, but a reminder for the people claiming this attack was somehow escalation: "According to that same neighbor, four of the planes had been fully fueled and loaded with munitions, scheduled to fly to the “special military operation zone” — in other words, to Ukraine — on Monday, June 2"
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/06/05/we-re-right-at-the-epicenter
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Not even the SBU can escape the allure of the AI hype train: "In particular, part of the UAVs due to the loss of the signal went to the mission using artificial intelligence along a pre-planned route. And after approaching and contacting a specific target, the warhead was automatically triggered" (google translated)
Reed Mideke
brrrt alert https://t.me/YT29JTacRomeo/136
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Finally, a serious analysis of "minerals deal" which appears to be sketchy AF after all: "Under Ukrainian law, for the Framework Agreement to be concluded, it had to be ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament since it pertained to the use of Ukraine’s natural resources and necessitated amendments to Ukrainian legislation … However, the parliament did not have access to the LP Agreement with the partnership’s detailed commercial terms"
Reed Mideke
The public "Framework agreement" seems very good, almost too good to be true, but leaves many details to the "limited partnership" which was apparently not made available to the Ukrainian parliament, but effectively ratified sight unseen 😬 https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-ukraine-u.s.-minerals-deal--impossible-choice-for-a-nation-at-war
Reed Mideke
SBU video confirms they did get ~40 drones to target as claimed. Only a dozen or so have been confirmed to have burned to the point where it can seen from orbit, but that shouldn't be a surprise. Payload on these drones is maybe a bit bigger than a hand grenade, so a plane is unlikely to burn down unless hit near a loaded fuel tank. Some drones probably failed to detonate. Many planes that didn't burn can probably be repaired, but damage could be significant
Reed Mideke
I'm no TNTologist, but I feel like that plume isn't anything close to a 1 ton explosion. There were reportedly multiple blasts, maybe that was the total. We can tell this view is of the shipping channel from whatever those circular structures are (bollards?). The smaller one that gets blasted appears to be about 12-13 meters across. I think we're looking south east under the road span, but not 100% sure
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TWZ bridge story agrees on the location https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-strikes-at-the-heart-of-russias-highly-defended-kerch-bridge
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SBU, fresh off blowing up a significant portion of the Russian strategic bomber fleet with aerial drones, takes a little seaside break in Kerch, presumably involving submarine drones https://t.me/SBUkr/14960
Reed Mideke
Damage in the video is unclear, but the claimed 1,100 kg TNT equivalent seems like it should at least raise structural concerns. The fact they were able to sneak that much explosive into one of the most heavily defended points in the Black Sea probably also won't help the occupation authorities sleep either
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I have a soft spot in my heart for ISS, but yeah. Also, TIL current crewmember Alexey Zubritsky "was born in Ukraine in 1992 and last month RFE/RL's Current Time reported that he was wanted in the land of his birth for treason … In 2014, Zubritsky was a Ukrainian Air Force pilot stationed in Crimea. When Russian troops arrived, he disobeyed orders to report to a Ukrainian base outside the peninsula, opting instead to stay there and switch sides"
https://www.rferl.org/a/iss-space-station-russia-war-ukraine-nazis/33427470.html
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No way they would have told the US about this under Biden or Trump, but
LOL "Ukraine has always been protective of its operational security; even more so in recent months since senior Trump administration national security officials inadvertently disclosed operational American strike plans in Signal group chats"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/us/politics/ukraine-russia-drone-attack.html
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2) Economist reports "The source described the operation as a multi-stage chess move, with the Russians first encouraged to move more of their planes to particular bases by Ukrainian strikes on other ones. Three days before the attack, dozens of planes had moved to the Olenya airfield in Murmansk province, according to reports published at the time. It was precisely here that the most damage was done"
(as usual, don't search for the URL on archive dot ph)
Reed Mideke
Seen a few articles suggesting a connection between the FPV raid and talks, but given it took 18 month to set up, seems like has to be mostly coincidental. Not clear what the window was between having everything ready, committing, and impact was, but seems like it would have been really awkward for Zelensky if Putin had taken the ceasefire deal in May
Zelensky previously got burned waving of a high risk op with Wagnergate
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/01/europe/ukraine-drones-russia-airbases-intl
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Related CNN article says "A source briefed on the matter confirmed the attack was carried out via Russian telecommunications networks"
I wonder if each drone had it's own modem, or they had some kind of relay box on the trucks or another drone?
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* This won't change Putin's war aims or willingness to negotiate. The chance he was gonna make a good faith deal acceptable to Ukraine was 0 before, and it's still 0
* He will of course try to use it to convince Trump that Ukraine is the obstacle to peace, if the opportunity arises
* If you work for the FSB in counterintelligence… I dunno, maybe brush up the resume and stay away from windows for a while?
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Don't share these memes comparing Putin to Hitler or baby Putler will cry (and have his wannabe gestapo goons throw you in prison if they get the chance) https://khpg.org/en/1608814710
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1) Article from May 29 on Russia moving its bomber fleet around, noting "According to images published on May 26 by the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) team AviVector, the Olenya airbase in Russia’s Murmansk region was hosting an unusually high concentration of strategic aircraft: 40 Tu-22M3 bombers, 11 Tu-95MS bombers, and five An-12 transport aircraft" …
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* Russia will undoubtedly "retaliate", probably with some big missile strikes on high visibility civilian targets. Maybe fire off some more Oreshniks?
* But fundamentally they've been trying as hard as they can to defeat Ukraine for the last 3 years, so the pro-RU / MAGA trolls going around saying "UKRAINE IS ABOUT TO BE WIPED OFF THE MAP" will probably be disappointed. Nukes seem unlikely, and short of that, Putin really doesn't have much beyond bombing hospitals
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* This was an SBU operation. Which means that if the past is any guide, HUR probably has something in the pipeline to try to one-up them
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* This is only the beginning. While Ukraine probably won't be able to replicate this exact scenario, there are a lot of possible variations on the general theme of getting a bunch of internet (or satellite, perhaps with a base station to relay) connected drones within range of a target. Smaller scale variants could be extremely effective for assassination, outdoor ammunition storage, air defense sites…
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* If the Ukrainian claim of ~40 planes damaged is true, it could have some direct impact on Russia's large scale ALCM strikes, though probably not a big one. They still have lots of planes, but it's significant chunk of the fleet
* OTOH, if the handful that have been visually confirmed so far are about it, the direct impact will probably be negligible
* How Russian fear of repeats might affect operations in unclear
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🫡 "On April 18, a Russian court sentenced 19-year-old activist Darya Kozyreva to two years and eight months in prison for repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army. This week, a St. Petersburg court registered a new case against Kozyreva based on her closing statement at her previous trial. In that statement, she quoted a poem in Ukrainian by Taras Shevchenko, condemned centuries-long attempts by Russian authorities to subjugate Ukraine…"
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Another wild story from The Insider on GRU unit 29155, this time focusing on their hacking team and their somewhat… mixed tradecraft
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FPV raid thoughts:
* Every air force in the world should have been thinking about hardened shelters yesterday, but they should REALLY be thinking about them now
* FPVs are cheap, but this was NOT a "low end" attack. Getting all the stuff to Russia, setting up front companies, arranging for all the trucks to be in the right place on the same day, all with flawless OPSEC vs the FSB (and apparently Ukraine's allies) over 18 months is something few nations could pull off https://www.twz.com/news-features/russian-strategic-bombers-destroyed-in-unprecedented-wide-scale-drone-attack
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Notable shift in Ukrainian UAV strikes in the last few days, apparently making direct hits on multiple Russian defense industry sites 100s of km from the front. Damage seems more likely to be nuisance than major disruption but that could change if they can keep the tempo up
https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-drones-shot-down-over-moscow-mayor-claims/
Reed Mideke
Per Oryx, Russia is visually confirmed to have lost over 4,000 tanks. Meaning that if "Russian tanks lost in Ukraine" were a country, it would rank 6th on Global Firepower's list*, just below India
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
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UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry finds Russia's "human safari" in Kherson is about as textbook a war crime as one can imagine, based on evidence filmed and promoted by the perpetrators themselves
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For all the hype about Taurus, this could be a bigger deal than a small number of very high end cruise missiles: "The expectation is that Berlin will supply Ukraine with the technical components to build and maintain its own long-range weaponry, including rockets and cruise missiles, with a range of up to 2,500km" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/28/zelenskyy-merz-germany-ukraine-sumy
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Ah yes, this is exactly the sort of top tier analytical insight one expects from a thinktank called America First Policy Institute: Fred Fleitz 'praised Trump for “do[ing] his best to solve it,” but asserted that “if for some reason they can’t solve it, that failure is Biden’s.”'
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/27/trump-putin-sanctions-patience-00371571
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Crimean dissident (starting in the Soviet era) Mustafa Dzhemilev on Trump "To say the things he says, to say Ukraine shouldn’t have started this war. Have they been keeping this man in the dark for the last years? Does he know anything? Has he read anything?" and Witkoff "That’s a diplomat from the United States of America? I’ve seen a lot of stupid diplomats in my life, but one like him, that’s a first"
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Merz: Germany will "do everything to ensure that Nord Stream 2 cannot be put back into operation" - I believe there's some Ukrainian SCUBA enthusiasts who would be happy to help him with that 😉
https://kyivindependent.com/germany-to-do-everything-to-prevent-nord-stream-2-restart-merz-says/
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UP interviews people with relatives who stayed in occupied Mariupol
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/05/27/7514184/
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Oh hey who could have predicted this (once again begging people to understand that if a major policy change seems to be implied by an off-hand comment, you should probably follow up before writing a story about the major policy change!) https://kyivindependent.com/merz-long-range-strikes-restrictions/
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"A 2024 U.N. report* found that 95% of released Ukrainian POWs had endured “systematic” torture. Prisoners described beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, sexual violence, prolonged stress positions, mock executions, and sleep deprivation"
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-pows-torture-autopsies-0615fd4fd7a2c5ce5b395e45f9bc372e
* https://ukraine.un.org/en/280096-treatment-prisoners-war-and-update-human-rights-situation-ukraine
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And speaking of lost in translation, I'm not convinced Merz actually described a recent (post Biden) policy change here, though the implication Taurus would also not be limited is probably an intentional signal
https://kyivindependent.com/restrictions-on-long-range-strikes-by-ukraine-merz-says/
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You'd think even a completely amoral money man could do the math here "In 2021, as Russian troops amassed at Ukraine’s borders, the U.S. was on the cusp of receiving $30 billion in imports from Russia, the highest figure since Moscow’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. American trade with the EU last year was valued at close to a trillion dollars"
https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/trumps-incredible-shrinking-peace-plan/
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From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "I don't know what the hell happened to Putin" - Obviously it wasn't him that was wrong, it's Putin that changed! Anyway, baby steps I guess, until some Putin loving sycophant whispers in his ear again
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Economist story about Shaheds controlled through telegram smells off to me. There has been reports of Russian drones trying to use the Ukrainian cell network, and maybe there's a grain of truth, but I strongly suspect something was lost in translation / retelling. I guess telegram would be an inconspicuous way to connect back to Russian C&C 🤨 https://kyivindependent.com/russia-using-telegram-bots-to-control-drones-attacking-ukraine-economist-reports/
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From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "It’s our understanding that the Russians are going to write up terms for what they would require in order to reach a ceasefire that then would allow broader negotiations … We await those terms and then we’ll have a much better understanding about Mr. Putin’s calculation once we see what those terms look like"
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/20/us-waiting-for-russian-peace-proposal-rubio-says-00360137
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"Once back in the White House, he told advisers to plan for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the hope of creating a made-for-TV spectacle during which he could formally announce a resolution to the war, two administration officials and an outside adviser told me" - Sure "I'll solve it in 24 hours" was a lie, but also, he's an idiot surrounded by sycophants
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/05/trump-russia-ukraine-putin-zelensky/682873/
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CSIS with a nice breakdown of the various forms and potential impacts of Trump "walking away" from the Ukraine war. tl;dr; not so bad if it just means no new aid packages, worse if it involves blocking already paid for stuff in the pipeline or 3rd party transfers. Also a nice chart illustrating how much is still in the pipeline (primarily USAI, AFAIK)
https://www.csis.org/analysis/can-ukraine-fight-without-us-aid-seven-questions-ask
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Also a good illustration of why Ukraine and Europe are still trying not to piss Trump off too much, despite his obviously inept attempts to make a deal and the apparent unlikelihood of him supporting additional direct US aid
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Art of the Deal™ in action: "Trump told the leaders that Putin agreed to start direct negotiations on a ceasefire immediately. A source on the call said there were a few seconds of puzzled silence. Zelensky then pointed out that Putin had previously agreed to negotiate, and the first round of ceasefire talks took place on Friday in Istanbul. Trump didn't directly respond"
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/20/trump-putin-call-european-leaders-zelensky
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Reuters got what they claim is the list of who the US wants in the 9 for 9 prisoner exchange, and wow, aside from Hubbard it seems like they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Wonder who Russia will get in return?
https://www.reuters.com/world/who-are-americans-imprisoned-russia-2025-04-10/
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And then both Trump and Vance keep threatening to walk way if there is no progress… which is a threat to Ukraine and Europe and not at all a threat to Putin
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"Putin is confident that his forces can break through Ukraine’s defences by the end of the year to take full control of four regions that he has claimed for Russia" - I suspect that was put out as propaganda, but if he actually believes it, he's an idiot. Taking the rest of Donetsk by the end of the year would require a massive increase in tempo and/or collapse of Ukrainian forces, and a contested crossing of the Dnipro or taking Zaporizhzhia city would even harder
Reed Mideke
Trump appears to have "agreed" for Ukraine that ceasefire talks would not include a mediator? "The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of"
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/19/ukraine-russia-us-walk-away-00356773
Reed Mideke
Seems heavily in favor of Russia. Possible Zelensky's team signed off on that condition, but Ukrainian MP Iryna Gerashchenko says "Direct negotiations without a mediator and guarantors of the implementation of agreements — this is the Kremlin’s dream, to endlessly shift responsibility to Ukraine, stall for time and continue killing" https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/19/ukraine-russia-us-walk-away-00356773
Reed Mideke
Surprise! It's #2 "Vladimir Putin also suggested that Russia is prepared to discuss “compromises” – but there’s no clarity on what they may be" but of course per Trump the "tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent"
It costs Putin nothing to agree to keep talking, so of course he agreed to that
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to, five months later, getting Putin to agree that "Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum concerning a possible future peace treaty" https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/05/19/we-re-moving-in-the-right-direction
Reed Mideke
I'd say Putin played him like a fiddle, but that implies some requirement for skill on the players part. Played him like dollar store kazoo? https://kyivindependent.com/trump-says-he-will-not-impose-new-sanctions-on-russia/
Reed Mideke
Witkoff predicts tomorrow's Trump / Putin call will be "very successful"
So what does "success" look like?
1) Putin sells Trump on "amazing" deal which demands Ukraine capitulate in exchange for some meaningless concession
2) Makes no meaningful concession but convinces Trump he's very interested in peace
3) Fails to convince Trump he's serious
4) Shouting match
5) Putin makes substantive concessions
Reed Mideke
Roughly in order of favorability for Putin, and also IMO roughly in order of probability, though I'd probably put #2 first
Of course there's plenty of room for variations, Putin could offer some apparently significant concession tied to a poison pill, or "agree" to something with the intent of dicking around endless about the exact details in later negotiation
Reed Mideke
JFC, what a credulous buffoon "I have a very good relationship with Putin. I think we'll make a deal … Putin is at the table, he wanted this meeting... I think Putin is tired of this whole thing. And he's not looking good, and he wants to look good" (Putin was not at the table, he sent mid level underlings who reiterated demands that Ukraine would be idiotic to accept, and there's zero evidence he's "tired" of the whole thing)
Reed Mideke
Like clockwork, the Russians cue up additional absurd pretexts https://kyivindependent.com/russia-says-ukraines-choice-of-signatory-is-key-to-any-peace-deal/
Reed Mideke
Latest HUR #Magura #USV hype video identifies at least one target audience: Fundraising to build more. Fair enough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqwwpohjy1s
Reed Mideke
As expected, Bridget Brink resigned because she wasn't willing to put up with the shit from the top: "Unfortunately, the policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia"
Reed Mideke
HUR did a public presentation of the #Magura #USV fleet. They seem to be on a bit of a PR push lately, not sure who the target audience is
Reed Mideke
TWZ notes those appear to be live Sidewinders on the one the rolled out for the press 😬
https://www.twz.com/sea/our-best-look-yet-at-ukraines-aim-9-sidewinder-toting-magura-7-drone-boat
Reed Mideke
HUR video including S-200 (SA-5) SAM operations, allegedly used to down high value air targets* and also against ground targets. Nothing obviously connecting it to specific hits, but fairly unique unique footage of a monster early cold war vintage SAM
Reed Mideke
Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador to the US: "The Americans had this simplistic idea — let’s charm Russia, put pressure on Zelenskyy, and we’ll get a deal. It turned out that simply charming Russia is not enough"
https://www.ft.com/content/9a75a55d-21d4-460a-bb50-5b4fe9c000a1
Reed Mideke
Tired: Failing to build a Russian replacement for the An-124
Wired: Failing to build a Russian replacement for the An-2 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/05/14/7512233/
Reed Mideke
Clear what he's doing (flattery, calling Putin's bluff on being ready for "unconditional" talks), but boy could it go sideways fast if it actually ended up the three of them in a room, with Trump "mediating" 😬
Reed Mideke
"But this language of ultimatums is unacceptable to Russia, it is not appropriate. You can't talk to Russia in this language" says spokesman for country currently over three years and nearly a million casualties into the war it started against Ukraine for not acceding to its ultimatums https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/05/12/7511913/
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "The president has issued an ultimatum to both sides that without those direct talks and if they don’t occur quickly, then he believes the United States ought to step back from this conflict whatever that means and just not be involved" https://kyivindependent.com/trump-issued-an-ultimatum-to-ukraine-russia-to-advance-peace-talks-or-face-us-exit-witkoff-says/
Reed Mideke
Unclear whether Putin expected his offer to be accepted (he apparently didn't even discuss it with Turkey beforehand) or intends to show up, but it seems like a safe bet obfuscation, delay and dicking around about format and technicalities and nuances will continue in one form or another, with just enough of a pretense of engagement to keep stringing Trump along
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile, his oh so friendly, sophisticated, Western educated point man is going around quoting the dumbest, vilest conspiracy theorist on the planet
Reed Mideke
Predictably, Trump did take Putin's bait (undermining Kellogg and the Euro leaders who reiterated the "ceasefire first" demand) and demands Ukraine accept the Istanbul 2.0 talks
Reed Mideke
Zelensky accepts, no doubt (correctly) seeing it as the best path to staying on Trump's good side and convincing him Putin is the one who isn't serous. But if the talks happen, it's far from clear how Trump will judge the outcome. Also unclear whether threatened punitive measures will go forward on Monday, given Putin didn't accept the ceasefire
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/05/11/7511794/
Reed Mideke
"Putin's offer of talks may be attempt to divide the US and Europe" - In roughly the sense that the Earth may be round https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4edj818ngo
Reed Mideke
"This project was not designed to handle a death toll on this scale. In the early days of the invasion, we imagined it might include a few thousand names. Instead, it has now passed one hundred thousand" https://en.zona.media/article/2025/04/25/casualties_eng-trl
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "Other U.S. officials have also suggested Trump may consider his job done if he gets the Russians and Ukrainians to engage in serious direct negotiations. What happens after that would be up to them, allowing the U.S. to focus on other priorities, the officials said"
(and as ever, what happens to sanctions and weapons deliveries in that case is left unsaid)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-israel-gaza-russia-ukraine-war-f847b04a
Reed Mideke
UK FrankenSAM: ASRAAM on a truck, using launch rails recycled from retired British jets, reportedly fielded in 4 months
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md4ERPVMOG4
Reed Mideke
I know I have a separate, dedicated dumbrfucks in the White House thread, but anyway… "Over the past few weeks, sources say, Trump has said in private conversations with advisers that Putin does not want to end the war and that both sides are refusing to compromise. Trump has also expressed surprise at some of Russia's military actions, including airstrikes in areas where children are present"
Reed Mideke
From the WSJ article* "If he hadn’t promised [stuff like ending the war in 24 hours] repeatedly throughout the campaign it’d be wildly unfair to criticize him for failing to achieve them. But he did"
https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-israel-gaza-russia-ukraine-war-f847b04a
* definitely don't search the URL on archive dot ph, that would be bad and wrong
Reed Mideke
Anyway, we're still on #2 with a few quick dips into #3 so I'm not gonna have to hand in my crystal ball yet https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/114146704677860349
Reed Mideke
Speaking of dumbfucks in the White House, you may recall the NBC story* about Witkoff using a Russian-provided translator. Well GRU hunting Bellingcat alum Christo Grozev tracked her down…
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1921209811477098570.html?utm_campaign=topunroll
Reed Mideke
On paper, "stay in your current position and don't shoot" sounds simple enough, but what about recon flights? Without a real monitoring force, neither side could agree to go blind, but it's very hard to distinguish a recon quadcopter from a bomber. What about delivering provisions? Evacuating dead and wounded? If one side violates or pushes the limit, what's a proportionate response? And that's all without getting into Russia's long history of deliberate violations
Reed Mideke
Possibly it's intended to be an offer Putin will refuse*. Or if the US is deciding what's a violation, designed to fail when Putin inevitably violates it, but that seems like a major gamble with the current administration, even if the Russians would accept the US as an arbiter, which they surely won't. Or maybe the idea is to lower the intensity and incrementally work to something more sustainable, but that seems to assume far more good faith than exists 🤔
Reed Mideke
AFAIK, this kind of stuff was why the Ukrainians originally rejected a full ceasefire and proposed suspending long range strikes as an initial step, but in the initial round of Saudi talks the US insisted on a full ceasefire. Which kinda smacks of the dumbfucks in the White House going "oh we have the best satellites, we can totally monitor a ceasefire with no one on the ground!"
Reed Mideke
Europeans, with US endorsement: 30 days ceasefire starting the 12th, or else
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87j03x9px2o
Putin: No, but "agrees" to "unconditional" direct talks in Istanbul to discuss the "root causes" (i.e. Ukraine not surrendering) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce821nl3251o
Just classic Putin run-around, but will Trump and Witkoff fall for it?
Reed Mideke
Not obvious how the 30-day proposal is more realistic then the earlier ones. There's a hand-wave to monitoring "oversight provided mainly by [the US], and to which all Europeans will contribute" but without specific, detailed agreement about what constitutes a violation, it seems like it would be set up to fail even if the parties were mostly acting in good faith
Reed Mideke
The Russians reportedly issued an unlimited altitude NOTAM over Kapustin Yar. There are claims one was also issued for the first Oreshnik strike. (Issuing NOTAMs days in advance of a combat launch seems weird…)
Possible the US alert was triggered by activities similar to what preceded the Oreshnik launch, but which are actually for a regular missile test or something
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile the US embassy in Kyiv has issued a warning similar to the one they issued around the first Oreshnik strike
Reed Mideke
Volker: "He (Putin) wants to play games. He wants to see what he can get the Trump administration and the West to give him for free. He wants to try a summer offensive and see if he can grab more territory. He wants to see if his financial situation improves. So, he's going to play this for a while" - Which has been the expert consensus since Trump started this "peace process", but rejection of expertise is a core principle of Trumpism so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Reed Mideke
Reuters claims Iran is now about to send launchers for the Fath-360 missiles that were reportedly* delivered to Russia without them back in September
Reed Mideke
Raises an obvious question: What's the minimum capability and number of drones required to DoS an airport? The real strike drones are rather expensive (figures of several $100K are frequently quoted) but if a handful of cheap decoys arriving in waves every few hours is enough to close a major airport for days on end, the economic impact could vastly outweigh the expense, without having to hit anything at all
Reed Mideke
"As one former high-ranking Russian official recalled, in the spring of 2022, Igor Potapenko, head of the FSIN branch in Saint Petersburg, ordered the commanders of the agency's elite units to be brutal with Ukrainian captives. He assured them that violence would not be restricted in any way and that body cameras, which had previously been mandatory for prison guards in Russia, would be removed"
Reed Mideke
Alexander Gabuev, on the interaction of sanctions and tariffs: "If there are 125 per cent tariffs, they can just tell the US to screw themselves and do whatever they want with Russia" - and even if that doesn't happen at the government level, businesses which are no longer able to sell to the US have far less incentive to stay off the US naughty list
https://www.ft.com/content/9e5366af-ee4a-4771-9138-6ac17b6a06ff
(if you searched archive dot ph for that url you might see an illicit unpaywalled copy, so definitely don't do that)
Reed Mideke
LOL, happy victory day assholes
(fighterbomber claims the air show teams aren't affected https://t.me/fighter_bomber/20967)
Reed Mideke
Good explainer why the US side of the main Ukraine mineral agreement probably doesn't need Senate ratification, although the one defining the details might. Also noteworthy "…the only binding obligations on the United States that we can discern concern non-substantive matters relating to consultation, negotiation, and interpretation"
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-u.s.-ukraine-agreement--legality-and-transparency
Reed Mideke
Relatedly, Ukrainian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee endorsed the agreement with the proviso*
"This Agreement is valid throughout the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders"
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/05/6/7510891/
* Not clear to me where this fits procedurally, Hromadske suggests it's an amendment, which presumably would need to be accepted by the US? https://hromadske.ua/en/economy/244286-uhoda-pro-kopalyny-komitet-rady-pidtrymav-ratyfikatsiiu
Reed Mideke
Might seem redundant to state that an agreement made by a country applies to the whole country if it doesn't specify otherwise, but given the talk about the US potentially recognizing Russian annexation of Crimea and various other chatter from the administration about deals with Russia, that might be a significant issue
Reed Mideke
Rybar apparently claimed Brimstone was used in Crimea, but this doesn't seem terribly convincing https://www.eurasiantimes.com/n-ukraines-high-speed-boat-launched-brimstone-2-missile/
Reed Mideke
As previously noted*, the "drive down the price of oil to make Russia negotiate" idea floated by some in the Trump camp never seemed serious: "Oil production costs in the U.S. are significantly higher than in Russia or OPEC. This means that, if global oil prices fall below $50, large part of the U.S. oil production will be wiped off the market, and prices will quickly rebound"
https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/oil-tariffs-stagflation-and-the-fiscal
Reed Mideke
Claimed photo of the Sidewinder armed Magura V7 #USV. Notably not on a turret like Chaparral family of AIM-9 based SAMs, though elevation might plausibly be controlled https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/05/first-image-of-ukraines-sidewinder-armed-magura-v7-surface-drone/
Reed Mideke
Also, if Ukraine is putting western weapons on these things, it raises the question again* of something like Brimstone or APKWS. Neither is going to sink a warship, but damage and distraction could definitely improve the success rate of ramming, and would also provide capability against near shore targets and slower air targets like helicopters
Reed Mideke
Zelensky obviously not wrong that Putin's "victory day" ceasefire offer is insincere, but interesting he seems confident outright rejection won't blow things up with Trump world
Reed Mideke
Budanov claims their #USV used Sidewinders rather than R-73 for that Su-30. HUD was notably different from the one see previously engaging Mi-8s.
Also claims a second aircraft downed, which doesn't seem to be mentioned by Russian channels which openly reported the first 🤨
Zelensky also claimed a second aircraft "destroyed" but didn't specify whether in the air or on the ground
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "Maybe it's not possible to do… There's tremendous hatred, just so you understand, between these two men, and between, you know, some of the soldiers, frankly. Between generals. They've been fighting hard for three years"
(only just now realizing there's "tremendous hatred" and still wrong, they've been in a shooting war since 2014)
Reed Mideke
👀
(BEK or BEC = USV)
Reed Mideke
"It goes without saying that the Ukrainians saw and controlled the entire rescue process from the BEKs, but for some reason they did not attack the civilian ship. At the moment, there were five BEKs around one of the crew members"
Based on past performance, chances are rather high SBU and/or HUR will release video coincidentally reminiscent of the figment of the author's imagination.
Reed Mideke
As expected, #Ukraine #USV POV from HUR. Interestingly, the Su-30 doesn't seem to be using flares before the hit. Also they don't show the acquisition or launch
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "that is now between the two parties, and now is the time that they need to present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end" https://kyivindependent.com/us-will-step-aside-as-mediator-stay-engaged-in-ukraine-peace-process-state-department-says/
Reed Mideke
Long account of the sinking of Moskva, collected by the father of one of the conscripts lost
part 1: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1918190255271715122.html
part 2: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1918371539558515002.html
part 3: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1918592097138962917.html
part 4: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1918958776779960349.html
part 5: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1919377039674450148.html
part 6: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1919659060137255265.html
Reed Mideke
They really do act like every country other than US, China and Russia is an NPC:
"Zelenskyy had an hour’s notice of the document and saw it ahead of his meeting with Bessent only thanks to the US ambassador in Kyiv, Bridget Brink, who dashed across the capital with a copy. She briefed him on its contents, which had yet to be translated into his native language, warning that Bessent expected him to sign it before he returned to Washington"
https://www.ft.com/content/7dfe3c6d-2ac6-4fcd-a129-8cedd8815f8f
Reed Mideke
It's good the Senate GOP are taking a pro-Ukraine position rather than just acquiescing to whatever drug deal Witkoff cooks up, but this doesn't feel like a serious plan: "It imposes a 500 percent tariff on imported goods from any country that purchases oil, gas, uranium and other goods from Russia" - Is Trump going to sign up for secondary sanctions on Hungary and Slovakia? LOL no. 500% tariffs on India while trying to negotiate a trade deal? Also almost certainly no
Reed Mideke
Secondary sanctions are a delicate balance between imposing costs on Russia, keeping more-or-less neutral countries like India from explicitly aligning with Russia, and not tanking the global economy. Sure, Trump loves tariffs and has shown little concern about how they might damage relations or the economy, but it smells more like messaging to the WH and Russia than something they expect to actually implement
Reed Mideke
In another news, we've moved from "I'll solve it in 24 hours" through "I'll solve it in 100 days" to "going to work very hard over the next 100 days to try to bring these guys together"
(with a side of "IF YOU DON'T MAKE A DEAL I'M TAKING MY TOYS AND GOING HOME")
Reed Mideke
As has long been clear, the disappearance, torture and murder of Viktoriia Roshchyna was not an anomaly or the work of some rogue unit "The Guardian and its reporting partners have identified the systematic use of torture at 29 of these sites – 18 in Russia and 11 in Russian-occupied territories" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/30/inside-taganrog-beatings-electrocution-and-starvation-at-prison-where-ukrainians-were-tortured
Reed Mideke
Fewer than 8% of Ukrainians trust Trump, down from 44% in November 2024 https://neweurope.org.ua/en/analytics/100-dniv-trampa-i-90-ukrayintsiv/
Reed Mideke
If this summary from Ukraine deputy PM Yulia Svyrydenko is accurate and not omitting some massive poison pill, the guy with no cards seems to have come out rather well
Reed Mideke
Uh-oh, censors appear to have let slip a bit of the top secret tech which enabled this NASAMS battery to shoot down 11 cruise missiles in one engagement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQvK3RxMWIE
Reed Mideke
Reed Mideke
https://forbiddenstories.org/russia-detainees-investigation-viktoriia-roshchyna/
Reed Mideke
One big unknown is what the "out" in Rubio's "make a deal now or we're out" threat actually means. Could be:
1) Just stop negotiating and keep the status quo, with intel sharing and no new aid packages
2) Stop existing intel sharing, deliveries of already contracted equipment, deny future weapon sales?
3) Recognize annexation of Crimea anyway, drop sanctions and pursue Witkoff's "amazing" economic opportunities with Russia?
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to "figuratively, said that as an exaggeration, said in jest" - Observant readers may note that those words all mean different things, and those with better memory retention than a goldfish may also recall when people expressed doubt he claimed to have a secret plan that he wouldn't reveal https://kyivindependent.com/trump-was-only-joking-about-ending-russias-war-in-ukraine-in-24-hours-he-says-in-interview-with-time/
Reed Mideke
The Rainbow Gathering to VDV pipeline is apparently larger than I would have predicted https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/04/25/top-cia-official-s-21-year-old-son-killed-in-ukraine-after-joining-russian-army
Reed Mideke
Yeah, aside from rewarding aggression and obvious damage to rule of law, this is a big problem with de jure recognizing Russian annexation of Crimea: "You can only formally accept territorial losses once, you cannot get them back again. But Russia can breach ceasefires as many times as it likes"
Russia can pocket US recognition of Crimea, invent some pretext and continue the war. US might reimpose sanctions but "unrecognizing" Crimea would be tough
Reed Mideke
From "I'll solve it in 24 hours" to posting "Vladimir STOP" on his low rent Mastodon knockoff https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crld4gkk428o
Reed Mideke
"Buynovsky told Russian state media outlet RBK on April 24 that Russian authorities did not send Popov to the battlefield due to a "lack of vacancies" at the frontline" - not to call the man a liar but uh… pretty sure vacancies come up on a regular basis
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-24-2025
Reed Mideke
51st GRAU arsenal update: Earth covered bunkers seem to have come through largely intact, above ground storage… not so much; something over 50% appears to have vaporized. Damage appears centered on the (former) big building next to the rail line
https://bsky.app/profile/specialkhersoncat.bsky.social/post/3lnlb6lw6es2y
(high res "before" images for reference https://bsky.app/profile/mtanderson.bsky.social/post/3lnga7ep33s2w)
Reed Mideke
A painful reminder what Russian occupation in Ukraine actually looks like
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/04/24/7508942/
Reed Mideke
Russia disappears journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, tortures her to death, and then eventually releases the body in such decayed state it takes months to confirm the identity https://hromadske.ua/en/war/243651-tilo-zurnalistky-roshchynoyi-iaku-zakatuvaly-v-poloni-povernuly-v-ukrayinu-zastupnyk-hlavy-mzs
Reed Mideke
Anyway, I must once again* commend the Russians for storing heaps of munitions outdoors between halfassed berms. From this thread on a corruption scandal involving the 51st in 2017, we see what it looks like on the ground. Hard to imagine how anything could go wrong with a setup like this https://bsky.app/profile/chriso-wiki.bsky.social/post/3lngrhbtkvs2l
Reed Mideke
"Some in the U.S. government think that Witkoff has been misled by Russia about the extent of the economic opportunity for the U.S. in restoring business ties with Russia" - Ya think?
Reed Mideke
Meanwhile the big strategy question facing Moscow seems to be "how brazen can our pandering to Trump be before it blows up in our face" - I suspect they've correctly concluded that directly pitching Trump Tower Moscow is over the line, but perhaps an oligarch could hint at the "amazing" potential that could open up once sanctions are lifted https://kyivindependent.com/kremlin-considering-offering-trump-skyscraper-in-moscow/
Reed Mideke
"as a result of a fire on the territory of a military unit in the Vladimir region , ammunition stored in a warehouse detonated. According to preliminary information, there are no casualties, the cause of the fire is a violation of safety requirements when working with explosive materials" https://ria.ru/20250422/chp-2012812509.html
The fire (via https://t.me/supernova_plus/38122):
Reed Mideke
This is the 51st GRAU arsenal near Kirzhach, northeast of Moscow. Unclear whether the "violation of safety requirements when working with explosive materials" involved Ukraine, no footage of drones associated with it and air raid sirens reportedly only started after rockets started cooking off and landing in surrounding villages. Appears to have started in the afternoon, while Ukraine seems to favor night for drone strikes
Reed Mideke
Former Swedish PM Carl Bildt "After many weeks of this, even the most dimwitted of negotiators should have realized that Putin has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire or accepting Trump’s plan or timetable"
https://kyivindependent.com/nearly-100-days-of-trump-and-putin-is-still-calling-the-shots/
Reed Mideke
One day after the FSB declared that gasoline shortages in Sverdlovsk were fake news: "In … Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian pro-government media outlet 66.ru reported similar measures, citing limits on purchases "to a single buyer" and "for stockpiling." Lukoil stations reportedly stopped selling fuel in cans, while Bashneft stations ran out of gasoline entirely, leaving only diesel available. Tamic Energy and Varta gas stations also imposed a 30-liter-per-car limit"
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-expands-gasoline-sale-restrictions-amid-fuel-shortages/
Reed Mideke
FT claims the US has been providing direct intelligence and planning support for Ukraine's refinery campaign: "US intelligence helps Kyiv shape route planning, altitude, timing and mission decisions, enabling Ukraine’s long-range, one-way attack drones to evade Russian air defences … others involved and briefed on the operations said the US had also set out target priorities for the Ukrainians" 🤨
https://www.ft.com/content/f9f42c10-3a30-4ee1-aff7-3368dd831c8c
Reed Mideke
Long interview with Fire Point designer, who claims their FP-1 drones were used in the Tikhoretsk and Toropets ammo depot strikes, among many others. He states what eventually become Flamingo started out as a proposal to clone the Tu-141, which they quickly discarded but apparently re-used the booster system (unclear if directly or just in concept). Also confirms the use of AI-25 engines. Claims development cost was around $50 million
https://zn.ua/ukr/war/tochka-vohnju-rozmova-pro-droni-raketi-ta-mindicha-z-holovnim-konstruktorom-fire-point-denisom-shtilermanom.html
Reed Mideke
Since they would presumably be bought by Europe rather than donated by the US, it also raises the question of whether the money would be better invested in Ukrainian production. There are certainly targets Ukraine could hit much more effectively with Tomahawks, but OTOH, investing hundreds of millions to billions into Neptune, FP-5 etc could buy a lot more hits, and support scaling up for the long term
Reed Mideke
Long interview with commanders of the normally very low profile Lasar's group drone unit, who started in 2022 as couple civilians with a big drone and dream of blowing up one tank and grew to be one of Ukraine's most effective. Includes previously unseen footage of operations from USVs, among other things
(CW war, death in the video)
Reed Mideke
They explain that they normally don't publish much (unlike some other groups) because they don't want to give the enemy information for free, but find they need publicity for recruiting and funding
Reed Mideke
"The FSB has revealed who is behind the fake news about gasoline shortages in the Sverdlovsk region. Ukrainian intelligence services are spreading fake news about fuel shortages in the Sverdlovsk region. Their goal is to spread panic and fear among residents, according to the region's anti-terrorism commission" - I for one can't imagine anything that could go wrong with this strategy, and can only commend the FSB for their brilliance
Reed Mideke
Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center's Sergey Vakulenko pours cold water on the idea Russia has lost 38% of refining capacity, though I'm not sure his point about nominal capacity (327 M tons) vs typical output (270 M tons) necessarily cuts in Russia's favor… it would seem to depend on what was hit
https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/10/russia-refinery-damages?lang=en
Reed Mideke
Trump on Tomahawks: "I think I want to find out what they're doing with them, where they're sending them, I guess. I have to ask that question" - Very weird comment for a lot of reasons, starting with the fact the US could impose pretty much any targeting restriction they want, as they did for other high end systems. The number of things Ukraine would like to hit is undoubtedly far greater than the number of missiles the US would be willing to supply
Reed Mideke
While I'm sure they'd be useful, I'm fairly skeptical of Tomahawks being a game changer. Russia has launched thousands of roughly Tomahawk class missiles at Ukraine, and large US strikes on Syria and Yemen had fairly modest results. It's hard to imagine the US supplying more than a few hundred, which probably translates to tens of targets at most. Could be impactful if well chosen, but unlikely to radically change the situation on the front line or convince to Putin negotiate seriously
Reed Mideke
lol. "I might have to speak to Russia, to be honest, about the Tomahawks. Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so"
Obviously Putin isn't going to make major concessions in direct response to a threat, but as with previous Trump threats, they might make a show of pretending to be interested in talks, and Putin would no doubt take the opportunity to try to convince Trump it's all Ukraine's fault
Reed Mideke
"Russia's seaborne oil product exports fell 17.1% in September from August to 7.58 million metric tons due to less fuel production as various refineries were impacted by drone attacks"
Reed Mideke
20-50 feral Tomahawks 🤨
Given you probably need a salvo to have a reasonable chance of any getting through, that's maybe a handful of targets at best. Thoroughly trashing a couple of the major bases or weapons factories would be valuable, but seems unlikely to change Putin's mind or have a decisive impact on the front line
Reed Mideke
Long story on the history of Laser's group
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinternational/2025/10/14/how-a-former-ukrainian-tv-producer-built-a-drone-unit-that-destroyed-12-billion-of-russian-equipment/
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