Ukraine Drones Are Razing Russia's Black Sea Oil Port Tuapse

The strategy of repeatedly hitting important economic and military targets is designed to make any attempts at repair futile - and even more expensive by wasting limited reconstruction resources which will themselves be destroyed in turn. 

The ultimate goal is to create double jeopardy by denying Russia both revenue and military supplies. JL

RFU News reports:

Tuapse has become one of the most repeatedly struck Russian cities of the war, and the pace of attacks shows how determined Ukraine is to keep pressure on this location and its oil infrastructure. Ukrainian forces have hit the city five times in a short period. The Tuapse refinery is one of the largest in southern Russia and plays a major role in supplying fuel to both civilian markets and the Russian military. 52% of the tanks have been destroyed and 9% damaged. With the Tuapse shipping terminal repeatedly attacked, Russian oil export options are decreasing dramatically.

Russia's War Unease Grows Due To Ukraine's Stepped Up Long Range Strikes

Angry verbal or written attacks from Russia's intensely patriotic mil blogger community about how the Kremlin s conducting - and increasingly perceived as losing - the war are bad enough, but when the criticism becomes sarcastic and mocking, Putin's regime should really start to get nervous. JL

Catherine Belton and Natalia Abbakumova report in the Washington Post:

Vladimir Putin’s government held an emergency meeting earlier this week on the escalating fuel crisis after gasoline production plummeted 25% across Russia during the week of June 15-21 and pushed dozens of regions to impose rations. As nervousness mounts over Russia’s weakening position and a shift in tone against Moscow by President Trump, Russian stocks have fallen 13% since the beginning of June — the biggest market drop since September 2022, when a Ukrainian counteroffensive forced Russia to retreat from a large chunk of territory. Questions are mounting about the Russian military’s failure to foresee the improvement in Ukraine’s drone capabilities and to develop countermeasures. In Crimea, panic is setting in. "There are problems with food supply. There is a feeling that there is no good end to this in sight.”

Ukraine's 1,500 Day Defense of One Village Exemplifies It's Success, Russia's Failure

The village of Mala Tomachka has now held out against Russian assaults for over 1,500 days - more than four years. It's defense - almost entirely borne by Ukraine's 118th Mechanized Brigade - exemplifies how the Ukrainian military has endured and adapted, while the Russians attacks continue to present variations on a theme to which the Brigade has long since crafted an answer.

Starting with the conventional military equipment and doctrine familiar to Cold War and even World War II armies, the Ukrainians have evolved into a force fighting 'a war of algorithms,' led by AI and fiber optic drones. That the settlement remains in Ukrainian hands is a testament to the ingenuity, innovativeness and, ultimately, determination, that has resulted in Putin's failed ambitions. JL

Antonia Langford reports in The Independent:

The tiny settlement is one snapshot of a front line where Russia's lofty ambitions have collapsed into stalemate. First Russia sent in the tanks. Then came the shelling. Then the drones. Through all of it, the Ukrainian defenders of Mala Tokmachka have held their ground, preventing the village from falling into Russian hands for more than 1,500 days. They have fended off columns of tanks and fighting vehicles, endured motorcycle-borne attacks in "Mad Max"-style convoys, and obliterated hundreds of Russian infiltrators. The 118th Mechanized Brigade attributes the achievement to "round the clock" drone operations, continuous artillery fire, extensive mining, constant adaptation and advantageous use of the terrain. "This is a war of algorithms." The brigade's defense of the settlement is the "technological shield of Europe".

The Five Most Dangerous Warning Signs For Putin In Ukraine

It almost doesn't matter what rare successes Russia may occasionally glean anymore. Because the invasion that was supposed to subdue a smaller, weaker, corrupt neighbor has now lasted longer than World War I. 

Putin's army has stopped gaining ground and started losing it. Ukraine's drones and missiles can hit almost anywhere in Russia. And his hold on Crimea has become the world's largest kill zone death trap. Whatever he can salvage, if anything, will never be enough to offset all of that. JL

Newsweek reports:

1. The war clock has become an indictment. The humiliation is strategic as much as symbolic. Every extra year makes the story less about Russia correcting history, and more about its failure to defeat a smaller neighbor fast enough to preserve the myth of inevitability. 2.The map has stopped paying Putin. He can still kill and destroy, but the war's map is no longer rewarding him for it. 3. Russia's rear is becoming the front thanks to Ukraine's deep strike campaign. 4. The land bridge is turning into a drone trap. 5. Putin is recycling men, not generating momentum. The Russian military is going backwards on the battlefield.  

Kostiantynivka Is Becoming Another Kill Zone Trap For Russian Troops

This keeps happening. So often, in fact, that you'd think the Kremlin-influenced western media would have learned by now: the Kremlin claims its troops have won 'a major victory' by capturing the smoldering rubble of some Ukrainian town, only to discover that Ukraine's forces withdrew purposely and that Russian units are now trapped in a kill zone. Thanks to electronic and drone warfare, there is little happening in the war that is not anticipated or even planned.

So the news that Kostiantynivka may have been infiltrated by Russian forces may well be no more momentous than the ostensible 'fall' of other cities which were believed to be serious setbacks for Ukraine. Until it was discovered that they weren't. JL

Decimus reports in Daily Kos and David Axe reports in Trench Art:

 
It never fails. The Russians make a big to-do about having captured a major Ukrainian city. Soon thereafter, all hell breaks loose on the Russians. Recent examples? the Feigned Retreat from Pokrovsk last fall leaving them stuck inside the city, still unable to break through the Ukrainian defenses. After months of Russian infiltration into Kupiansk, the Ukrainians routed them and have pushed them across the Oskil River. Huiliapole. Lyman. Luhansk. Zaporizhzhia. Siversk. For months after nearby Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka complicated Russian efforts to march on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Now ruined Kostiantynivka no longer fulfills that purpose. But it may not need to. Cities are good for infantry-based defense, but open fields (where there's nowhere to hide) are good for drone-based defenses. Now that Ukraine has pivoted to a drone-centric defensive strategy, commanders actually prefer to fight out in the open rather than inside cities.

Ukraine's Most Potent Weapon: Hardened Troops Who Refuse To Retire

As the global consensus increasingly supports the battlefield, long range bombing and economic shift in Ukraine's favor, one of its largely unheralded assets is its army's core of hardened, experienced veterans have been through the worst and are now in position to help take advantage of the momentum swing. 

Soldiers who volunteered in 2022 - and some as far back as 2014 - are now leading the counteroffensive operations that have caused Russia to lose territory for months in a row. JL

Alistair MacDonald and Nikita Nikolaienko report in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine's army has maintained a core of hardened soldiers who have continued to fight throughout the war, surprising even Ukraine’s foreign critics with their tenacity. Ukrainian troops have proved resilient—and that is starting to pay off amid signs the tide of the war is beginning to turn against Moscow. In recent months, Russia’s territorial gains have vanished, and its casualties have mounted. The shift in the conflict hasn’t gone unnoticed on the front line. “We feel the difference.” They are using higher numbers of drones, to deadly effect on Russian soldiers. “This is only the beginning of a hellish summer for the Russians—one they’ll remember”

Americans Historically Embraced New Tech. So Why Do So Many Hate AI?

It bears repeating: Americans dont just dislike AI, they hate it. Which is odd, because the US rise to wealth and power was fueled by new technologies - water power, the steam engine, power looms, railroads, electricity, the auto, telephones, even the internet - all of which were embraced fairly quickly.  

But in the 26 or so years since the dotcom era, we've learned a few things about digital tech, which has raised the popular degree of skepticism. Wall Street and corporate execs may have been thrilled to hear AI would eliminate lots of jobs - but most people were not. And the degree of tech driven wealth concentration followed by tech bro arrogance and cluelessness - we're looking at you, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreesen, et al - has only added to the public loss of trust and rise in hostility, which has been exacerbated by the mortgaging of the economy and political system to their insatiable demands for more money, electricity and water, all at the expense of that selfsame public. So to paraphrase a TV ad from the 80s, 'tech generated public enmity the old-fashioned way, they earned it.' JL

Paul Krugman reports in his substack:

In 2015, Pew found 71% of the public said tech companies “have a positive impact on the way things are going in this country.” In the past Americans greeted emerging technologies with optimism. So what accounts for the current hostility against AI? First, we fear AI will do terrible things because the companies selling it told us it would do terrible things. Anthropic's CEO declared AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs and drive unemployment up to 20%. Second, people feel AI is being forced on them. Third, datacenters occupy huge tracts of land, guzzle electricity, water and create pollution. 57% of Americans - 66% of Democrats, 50o% of Republicans - oppose datacenters in their neighborhood. Finally, AI is linked in the public mind with the tech oligarchs who are pushing it. There is widespread awareness of the growing concentration of wealth and power at the top. Tech has lost the public's trust.