Kupiansk Still A Kill Zone For Russia Due To Troop Fuel Shortages, Ukr Drones

Russian forces keep attacking Ukrainian positions at Kupiansk and, as a result, keep dying in droves. 

The high concentration of Ukrainian drones in addition to Russian troop and fuel shortages make it difficult for the Kremlin's units to do anything much beyond getting killed. JL

Kateryna Danishevka reports in RBC Ukraine and Ukranews reports:

Russian forces in the Kupiansk sector  are unable to conduct active offensive operations due to a lack of trained personnel. These units have also encountered severe fuel shortages, preventing them from making active use of motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, and passenger vehicles. he high density of Ukrainian drone activity in this section of the front is preventing the Russian military from deploying a large number of its drones, including Lancet and Molniya.

The Ukraine and Iran Wars Are Merging - To Ukraine's Advantage

Iran has been supplying Russia with Shahed drones which have killed or severely wounded hundreds, if not thousands, of Ukrainians. And since the US and Israel attacked Iran (again) a few months ago, Russia has been providing Iran with satellite imagery and intelligence on US installations as well as air force and naval force locations and deployments. 

That Ukraine has now attacked an Iranian ship in the Sea of Azov, which connects Russia and Iran, signals that the two wars are now becoming more directly intertwined. This will work to Ukraine's advantage because it more securely ties Ukrainian interests with those of the US as the latter becomes increasingly frustrated with Iran's refusal to back down (even as the US president remains devoted to Putin and said he 'would ask Putin if the Russian help to Iran was true...'. It also reinforces Ukrainian relationships with the Gulf States to which it is already providing anti-drone weaponry. The merger, as it were, of the two wars makes Ukraine an even more important and uniquely qualified ally of those opposing Iran, while further undermining what Russian support remains in the US. Expect more Ukrainian attacks on Iranian assets to follow. JL

Eliana Silver reports in the DailyMailonline:

Russia's  war in Ukraine and the war in Iran could merge into one conflict after a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian ship heightened tensions between the two regions. Tehran condemned Ukraine for carrying out the strike on what it claims was a commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, adding that the explosion killed one sailor and injured another. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the attack, adding that the Iranian vessel was being used to transport Russian 'military cargo.' He added  'Since the beginning of July, we have recorded active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and U.S. military facilities. There is a clear correlation between Russia's satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes - both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterward, to assess the damage inflicted.'

Corporate America Has Suddenly Decided To Stop Blowing Money On AI

It was fun while it lasted, but who realistically believed that corporate customers for AI were going to blow their entire budgets on a new technology whose efficacy remained largely aspirational? 

Many AI company executives and venture investors may have embraced the Silicon Valley hype - 'breathing one's own exhaust' - as they say, but reality began to intrude earlier this spring as the costs went up and returns...remained elusive. What has emerged is the realization that some high end AI are good for specific tasks, but not necessarily for making your back office in Omaha a tad more productive. Different AI strokes - at different price points - for different folks is now becoming the norm. The looming question is, how are all those data center investments and related costs going to produce returns under this more prudent corporate spending scenario? JL

Angel Au-Yeung and colleagues report in the Wall Street Journal:

Companies across the country are coming around to a radical idea upending the industry powering the global economy: They don’t have to blow their budgets on AI. Fed up with ballooning costs, companies are using lower-priced models, including some built in China. In many cases, they are adding the new, cheaper models alongside OpenAI and Anthropic’s products, shopping a la carte for AI. Investors and executives say the era of cheaper AI is here to stay. Companies in Silicon Valley were the first to treat AI like any other product and shop for the best deal. The approach began spreading across industries in recent weeks. “There’s zero loyalty.” Strategies to lower AI costs include limiting access to top models for new hires and using the most advanced AI systems to plan how tasks will be completed before turning to cheaper models for the execution. “We work with all of them, figuring out solutions to improve performance and get much better cost.”

Fearing Ukraine Drones, Putin Cancels Naval Day Parade For 2nd Year In Row

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but when you are trying to project military power, posing in front of a picture of a nuclear submarine doesn't quite convey the same menace after you've cancelled a parade of 200 ships because you're afraid of Ukrainian drones which you know you cannot defend against. JL

Wiktoria Gucia reports in The Daily Beast:

Vladimir Putin scrapped Russia's Navy Day parade over fears of Ukrainian strikes and then raged to a group of sailors about a revenge fantasy and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. After canceling the parade—which was set to feature 200 warships sailing along the Neva River in St. Petersburg—the president opted for a televised meeting with Navy personnel. In place of reviewing actual warships, Russian sailors poised in front of a large photo of a submarine. 

Russian Battlefield Losses, Crimean Threat, Deepen Putin's Strategic Risk

Ukraine has exposed Putin's failings as a military strategist by simultaneously destroying his troops and armor at the front, degrading his logistics behind them and attacking the military-economic infrastructure inside Russia itself.

The Russian dictator's problem is that he cannot defend all of them simultaneously, especially as Ukraine continues to strike air defense assets which are difficult to replace. The result is that whichever of his resources or forces he tries to protect exposes the vulnerability of the others, reducing the impact of all and miring his war in a reactive, defensive crunch. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Russia is facing a deepening strategic dilemma It's gains for 2026 have tapered off to a handful of kilometres, significantly less than the preceding two years. Ukraine’s deep strike campaign is forcing Russian air defences to disperse across a vast arc from occupied Ukraine through the Caucasus into the Russian interior. The destruction of Russian air defence assets compounds this. The Crimea and Azov campaigns are degrading occupied Crimea’s logistics, power grid and support to Russian operations against Ukraine. Russia cannot protect Crimea, secure Azov shipping and shield its interior energy and industrial base simultaneously. Ukraine’s strategy compounds Russia’s problems by choosing targets that are cheap to strike and expensive to defend, forcing Russia into a permanently reactive posture. Every resource Putin commits to defending Crimea or Russia's infrastructure from Ukrainian strikes is not available to sustain offensive operations at the front.

Ukraine Is Converting Drone Dominant Attrition Into Regained Territory

Ukrainian forces are in the process of redefining the meaning of combined arms warfare, and as they do so, are demonstrating that attritional attacks on logistics can be converted into territorial gains. 

Russia's losses this spring and summer on various fronts - Kupiansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kostiantynivka, Dobropillia, et al - are evidence of how this strategy is working. The effective application of technology, from a multitude of aerial drones designed for specific tasks, and even the introduction of ground drones which are becoming autonomous 'small tanks' are forcing the Russians to cede ground as they are unable to defend what they have, let alone concentrate the necessary strength to attack. JL

Brian Wang reports in Next Big Future and Rojoef Manuel reports in The Defense Post:

Ukraine's drone campaign is systematically degrading Russian logistics at operational depth. The next qualitative jump - from high-volume semi-autonomous strikes to coordinated packs and true swarms - force Russian routing or collapse of sustainment on a decisive axis. Coordinated packs or  swarms hold throughput on a critical corridor (R-280 and approaches to Crimea) below the sustainment threshold for several weeks. Russian units on that axis experience acute shortages of fuel, ammunition, and replacements. Ukrainian forces exploit the resulting weakness with artillery, drones, and mechanized pushes, including mounting weapons on unmanned ground vehicles to create mobile “small tanks.” The sector begins to unravel, forcing Russian redeployments that open further opportunities. It is the conversion of drone logistics dominance into regained territory and a shift from pure attrition to limited maneuver.

On Opposing Chinese AI In US, It's Anthropic and OpenAI Vs Everyone Else

Let's be clear: this is not about philosophy or information wanting to be free. This is about money. Primarily, who gets to control profits from AI. 

After struggling to get uptake from business customers, the market finally began to demonstrate more acceptance of AI, so OpenAI and Anthropic then did what Silicon Valley has usually done, which is to overcharge customers, in this case, through the token payment system. The market then did what markets do, which is to seek similar performance for lower cost (Econ 1), including from Chinese tech companies for whom this is a financial model they have perfected over decades of experience. The big AI companies then cried foul, as if excess profits were somehow guaranteed them in the Constitution and tried to get the current US administration - upon whom they have been lavishing extraordinary gifts for two years (the Melania documentary biopic paid for by Amazon...among other obvious bribes) and screeching about national security, as if they wouldn't sell their mothers for another quarterly uptick - to go along. But a funny thing happened on the way to AI oligarchy: the markets have become skeptical of the incessant and probably unsustainable financial demands for more data centers, etc, so have pulled back, forcing OpenAI, for instance, to go to Nvidia - an open source champion - to provide a backstop. Which means that open source, which will lead to an expanding market not totally controlled by a few companies, will likely prevail. JL

Mike Isaac and colleagues report in the New York Times:

OpenAI and Anthropic have lobbied Washington about Chinese open-source A.I. models. The fight stems from China’s rapid progress in open-source A.I, which are free. In recent weeks, Chinese A.I. start-ups, Z.ai and Moonshot AI, released models that rival those from Anthropic and other US labs. Anthropic and OpenAI claim some A.I. models are too dangerous and must be tightly controlled - by themselves. The rest of the tech industry, including Microsoft and Nvidia, contend that open-source A.I. models must remain open to further develop the technology. The tide is turning in open source's favor. On Friday, Elon Musk, Meta’s Zuckerberg, OpenAI's Altman and others lined up behind Nvidia's Huang and Microsoft's Nadella to throw the weight of their companies behind open source, followed by Google's Pichai on Saturday. “There’s the people who want OpenAI and Anthropic to own everything, and there’s everybody else, including customers.”