Lyman Front Returned To May 2025 Lines By Ukraine, Disrupts Kremlin Donbas Plan

Ukrainian counterattacks on the Lyman front have now mostly eliminated what was left of the Russian salient in that sector. This has pushed the front line back to where it was over a year ago, in May 2025. 

In addition to stabilizing that portion of the front, the Ukrainian attacks - and Russian retreats - have disrupted the Kremlin plan to assault Ukraine's Fortress Belt this year. JL

Nasa Niva Media reports:

Ukrainian  troops have eliminated a significant part of the Russian salient north of Lyman. From May 22 to September 5. 2026, Ukrainian troops gradually attacked the flanks of the Russian salient, after which they pushed the enemy back towards the Zherebets River, Nevske, and Makiivka. According to analysts, the front has returned approximately to its May 2025 configuration. The results of an entire year of Russian offensive operations in the sector have been lost. According to pro-Russian military channels, tactical failures could escalate into more serious problems due to "incorrect assessment of the situation and systemic lies in reports to superiors."

Despite Putin's Demands, Army Command Requests More Time In Donbas

Russia's military command has requested that the Kremlin deadline for taking Ukraine's Donbas region be pushed back - for approximately the 15th time - to March 2027. This would be exactly four years after Putin's first deadline to his forces. 

Ukrainian and independent experts believe that even the latest deadline is probably unattainable due to the Russian's degraded capabilities. JL

Tim Zadorozhnyy reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Russia has again postponed its deadline to fully capture Ukraine's Donbas, now setting March 31, 2027, as the target date. The new deadline comes as Moscow continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas, which includes the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as part of the U.S.-led peace process, rejecting a ceasefire without such concessions. "Russians have failed to achieve any operational success in Donetsk Oblast. They have already postponed the deadlines for reaching the oblast's administrative borders 15 times." Ukraine still controls 21% to 22% of Donetsk Oblast. Moscow is demanding Kyiv surrender territory in a peace deal that Russian forces have failed to capture militarily. Putin first ordered his troops to seize the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by March 2023.

Ukraine's Success Vs Russia Has Disrupted China's Designs On Asia

Russia has been forced by its own brutality and incompetence to become increasingly dependent on China, altering their relationship to one of Beijing's dominance. 

But ironically, this support has driven Ukraine to become ever more innovative, which has resulted in China's designs on Taiwan, as well as Japan, the Phillipines and other Asian countries, more challenging. The reason is that these much smaller countries now have access to defense technologies pioneered by Ukraine that effectively increase their ability to offset China's numerical advantage - just as Ukraine has done to Russia, despite China's fulsome support for the Kremlin's aggression. JL

Raj K reports in Medium:

Ukraine has shown that cheap, fast, and large-scale use of drones can challenge traditional military power. Tanks, artillery, and large platforms are no longer as safe as before. Taiwan is an island. China has to cross the sea to reach there. If Taiwan uses thousands of “sea drones” in the style of Ukraine, China’s naval fleet can be sunk before it even reaches the coast. The use of AI-powered drones on the battlefield is also challenging China’s electronic warfare capabilities. Ukraine has shown how a small army can entangle a large army through satellite networks like Starlink and real-time data sharing. The Philippines and Vietnam are now adopting Ukraine’s strategy and the policy of small, agile ships to counter China’s “coast guard” aggression in the South China Sea.

Russia's Kupiansk Bridgehead Cut By Ukraine, Kremlin Troops Encircled

It took the Russians almost two years to establish their Dvorichna bridgehead on the Kupiansk front. But this summer, it took the Ukrainians a few weeks to dismantle it and come close to encircling the Kremlin's troops remaining in it. 

A noteworthy feature of this achievement is that it once again demonstrates the effectiveness of Ukraine's new drone-infantry assault tactics and of the units employing it. Reports indicate that Russian drone activity was suppressed by Ukraine prior to the counterattack, limiting both command communications and defensive capabilities, which contributed to the success of the attack. JL

RFU News reports:

Ukraine's 23rd Assault Regiment has cut the Russian Dvorichna bridgehead on the Kupiansk front in half. Spearheaded by elite Colombian fighters fighting for Ukraine, Russians are not only threatening to lose control of over a year of progress, but are close to becoming completely encircled as well. The Ukrainians launched the largest counterattacks in the center. Moving rapidly, the Colombians cleared one Russian dugout after the other with grenades. Under close overwatch and in constant communication with commanders, they outmaneuvered each Russian position. The much larger forest to the north was then cleared. This forced Russian commanders to divert reserves to contain the direct threat on their command posts, instead of addressing the larger Ukrainian breakthrough to the south. The Ukrainian freedom of movement indicates that Ukrainian units suppressed Russian drone activity preceding their assaults. 

AI Firms Know How To Build Less Obnoxious Data Centers - If They Wanted To

The technology to build and operate data centers that are less polluting, noisy, water-and-electricity hogging, as well as less obnoxiously obtrusive. And the industry could choose to take the less  publicly offensive route...if it wanted to. 

But AI is currently addicted to its 

own financial promise, economic dominance and moral superiority. It is, less us recall, convinced that everyone else's intellectual property is theirs for the taking - with little or, preferably, no compensation. So asking them to take on more of the burden of rising electrical and water usage costs is unlikely to gain much traction. Jeff Bezos, still a major Amazon shareholder, expressed, in a public interview, that data centers' water use should be considered 'in context' compared to other needs like agriculture or drinking. So the AI industry is not currently inclined to share, nor believes it needs to do so. Which means the defeats it is suffering in state and local politics will have to be amplified before data center economics change happens. JL

Christopher Mims reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Companies  know how to build data centers that won’t alienate communities, make contributions to their tax base and have little to fear in terms of noise, air pollution or rising utility rates. New technologies are viable alternatives to outdated systems for cooling and power. Data centers that blend into their communities and don’t overtax local resources actually exist. But tech's desire to build AI-processing plants faster than ever has resulted in sprawling, polluting, noisy, thirsty complexes more reminiscent of the industrial revolution than the era of AI. These companies could solve a majority of their issues by spending extra to build more modern, less noxious data centers.

AI Tool For Wounded Troops With No Nearby Medic Being Built By Ukraine, US

If there is no medic around, take a photo of the wound with the app and get AI-provided advice on how to treat it. JL

Kelsey Baker reports in Business Insider:

For years, troops relied on handwritten cards and bulky manuals for battlefield medical guidance. Now, Ukrainian and US developers are building and testing AI tools to help when there isn't a medic nearby and evacuation isn't an option. "As the tactical environment limits the ability to move, then we have to provide care wherever we are." The app uses Google's Gemini platform to guide a user through a trauma response. A soldier can photograph an injury, answer follow-up questions, and immediately receive relevant tactical combat casualty care protocol. 

Why Russia's Bombing of Kyiv Is Not Breaking Ukraine

Among the most enduring images of WWII are photos of Londoners enduring the Blitz on subway platforms. Post-war analyses reveal that bombing of civilians in the UK, Germany and Japan tended to harden attitudes, not weaken them. The same occurred in US bombing of Vietnam.

As Russia's failures on the battlefield are compounded by rising casualties and declining advances, the Kremlin's targeting of civilians is also having an effect the reverse of that intended. In part, because of innate human stubbornness and resentment of bullying, but also because Russia does not have the resources to effectively bomb into submission a country the size of Ukraine. JL

Bogdan Maftei reports in The Erudite Elders:

Russia is elevating attacks on civilians into the central strategy of the war. The intent is to drag the eyes of the world onto these strikes and divert them from its failure in over four years of fighting. Ukraine is now taking more ground than Russia as the Kremlin's forces absorb the highest casualty rates of the war for a shrinking return. And, Ukraine is hitting Russia's economy at scale. Moscow cannot win this war in the conventional sense. Russia wants the world to read its fury as strength. The honest reading is the reverse. Bombing civilians failed in Britain, Germany and Japan in WWII, and in Vietnam. In a country the size of Ukraine, on an average day, more people are killed in road accidents than by Russian bombs.  When a power resorting to a military strategy that has never once succeeded, at the very moment its every other effort is breaking down, you are looking at a country lashing out to grab whatever it can before the window closes.