China Wouldn't Sell Ukraine A Strike Drone - So Kyiv Stole the Blueprints

Whatever it takes. JL

Wes O'Donnell reports in Medium:

On July 16, Ukrainian drones traveled 800 kilometers inside Russia and reached Engels-2 air base, one of the country’s most important strategic bomber facilities. Satellite imagery showed a Tu-95MS strategic bomber with its tail section completely torn away. n the summer of 2023, China tightened its export controls on civilian drones. The Ukrainians accepted an offer for pilot training instead and used their time on the factory floor to quietly document everything they could see. “In parallel with the training, we photographed everything that was there,”. They flew home with eight actual drones and a phone full of pictures of the Chinese production line. China wouldn’t sell them the recipe, so the Ukrainians spent their training time photographing every shelf and cabinet in the kitchen. Once home, Ukraine took the eight aircraft apart and started building its own version. It's now building and firing 6,000 a year

Ukraine's Plan To Shut Down Moscow's Airports With AI Drone Swarms

It hasn't happened yet, but appears feasible. It is presumably being refined and held in reserve for the most opportune impact. JL

Simon Shuster reports in The Atlantic:

Ukrainian officials want to launch waves of AI-enabled drones at Moscow’s airports, hoping to stop international carriers from flying in and out of the Russian capital. Ukraine would warn civilian airlines to avoid Russian airports and evacuate their planes before the swarm of Ukrainian drones arrived. “If they say to themselves, You know what, it’s getting too risky. Why even continue flying there?” the source said. “That would already have quite an impact on the Russian elites. Those are their main connections to the outside world." world.” Airports across the country were forced to close 114 times from June 28 to July 28, usually due to the threat of Ukrainian drones. Moscow was affected by the highest number of shutdowns—17 in total at its four main airports. The Russian association of travel agents reported more than 290 of these incidents nationwide in the first quarter of this year.

As Russian Losses Rise, Ukraine Is Increasing Putin's "Strategic Pain"

The Ukrainians are sensing that Putin is feeling increased strategic pain, both economically and militarily. They are determined to enhance that level of discomfort as much as they can not so much that Putin will do anything new as his survival is now tied to continuing the war but so that the intended target of the pain is the oligarch class and the mass of Russians who will go along until they sense vulnerability in the Kremlin. JL

Mick Ryan reports in the Lowy Institute:

The Russians suffered 43,000 casualties in July, the highest since January. This is a major increase on the average of 30,000 Russian casualties per month over the last year. The southern offensive appears to have had a dual focus of liberating territory and causing as much destruction to Russian ground forces as possible. The Ukrainians need to increase the strategic pain felt by Putin, and they might do this by mounting more offensive campaigns to take back significant amounts of Ukrainian territory over the next year. This might form part of a one-two punch (in combination with mid and long-range strikes) against Putin.

Russian Collapse at Dnipropetrovsk Due To Lack of Reinforcements

Relentless Ukrainian pressure has driven Russian forces from Dnipropetrovsk as the Kremlin was unable to provide reinforcements to its troops there. 

The Ukrainian strategy appears to be to undermine the Russian concentration on Donbas by attacking other sectors where Russian defenses are weaker, thereby threatening the entire front so that the Kremlin must rush troops from place to place to address each crisis. JL

RFU News reports:

Russian forces have retreated from the last section of the Dnipropetrovsk region that they had managed to take under their control. The fact that even typically pro-war Russian sources are admitting this is particularly revealing. Rather than blaming overwhelming Ukrainian superiority alone, several Russian analysts angrily point to failures within Russia’s own command structure, which failed to provide the reserves that could have stabilized the sector, leaving the Russian group of forces East without enough manpower to hold its positions. The withdrawal comes after weeks of relentless Ukrainian pressure.

Anti-Data Center Voter Sentiment Threatens 'Crisis' For AI Growth

Silicon Valley oversold the 'benefits' of AI to investors in ways that not only exaggerated the potential economic impact, but did so in ways that alienated a growing majority of American voters, who are headed into mid-term elections in just over two months.

Even before the elections, state and local governments are rejecting data center construction permits and some are even passing ordinances prohibiting their construction. The impact of such opposition could stall the building of the centers the tech industry claims it has to have to meet growth targets which were already fanciful. A cascading effect would then take place due to the amount of debt issued by tech companies which they may then be unable to pay off. Without the expected computing capacity, stalled due to local opposition across the US, AI projections appear even further out of reach and the industry only recently has begun to wake up to the seriousness of the threat, but has not yet proven able to cogently address voters' concerns, in large measure because it never occurred to them that they might be held accountable for the financial, environmental and social affect as well as the fact that a significant majority of Americans believe AI will enrich billionaires while impoverishing everyone else. That is not a winning platform for Big Tech. JL

Amrith Ramkumar and Sabrina Rodriguez report in the Wall Street Journal:

A growing voter outcry over data centers that strain resources and fuel a technology capable of putting Americans out of work is becoming a mounting liability for Republicans and some Democrats in this fall’s elections. More than 60% of Americans now oppose new data centers in their area, up from 49% in March. The backlash is a crisis for AI companies, which are facing bans or pauses on new projects in dozens of states and localities. They pose a risk to investors heading into the 2028 presidential election due to the volume of such proposals. The opposition has the potential to slash 2% to 3% off annual economic growth if it metastasizes.

To Get Through the Kill Zone, Ground Drones Drive, Soldiers Walk

Whatever it takes to get to the front. But increasingly, ground drones are the only vehicles that can roll. And men walk. JL

Taiisa Vivdych reports in the Euromaidan Press:

The war has become a contest over who can pull people off the battlefield fastest, as cheap drones make any human movement near the front a target. Ukraine keeps out-inventing Russia at the front, but Russia copies each advance and floods the line with it at state scale. The kill zone—the drone-ruled strip around the contact line—now runs 15 to 20 kilometers deep. Some positions take three days to reach on foot. Where troops once drove most of the way and walked the last stretch, they now walk it all.

The Strategy Driving Posts of Russians About To Be Killed By Ukraine Drones

The goal is to show Ukrainians that their military is hitting back hard and to show the Russians that they face a formidable enemy. 

Psychological warfare matters, especially as Putin hits more civilian targets with missiles. JL

Luke Harding reports in The Guardian:

To many observers they will appear dehumanising and offensive. To many Ukrainians, however, they are a brutal reminder of the fate that awaits Russian soldiers who take part in Vladimir Putin’s invasion, as well as a potent propaganda weapon. Over the past year and a half, videos of kamikaze drones chasing Russian service personnel to their deaths have become a distinctive genre on social media. They are the brainchild of Robert Brovdi, the head of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces and founder of “Magyar’s Birds”. The black humor is essential during wartime. “It’s important for our own people to say we are not just surviving. We need to show we are flourishing and hitting back hard against the enemy.”