History Reveals That 'Fortress Crimea's' Defenders Have Almost Always Lost

As Ukraine tightens the noose around Russian-occupied Crimea, history reveals that this is only the latest siege of that peninsula which has ended badly for its defenders. 

From the Mongols in the13th century to the Nazis in World War II, Crimea has served as a last stand for Russians, Soviets and now, their successors. It's problem remains the same: there are few ways of getting supplies to the defenders and most of those, whether ships or bridges, are vulnerable to attackers. The result is that it becomes a logistical sinkhole. Ukrainian forces are now applying the same pressure as their predecessors: cutting off access, destroying defensive systems and waiting for the occupiers to starve or die. The Ukrainians don't even need to attack it with an army, just slowly strangle it. JL

Peter Suciu reports in The National Interest:

Vladimir Putin has shown little awareness that Crimea’s defenders over the centuries have almost always lost. Last stands are popular on Crimea. In the 13th century, The Mongols forced the Genoese to abandon Crimea. The Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, lasted until its fall. In 1920, it became the final redoubt for the anti-Bolshevik Army during the Russian Civil War only to be defeated by the Red Army. The city was besieged again during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union and was forced into surrender. The Soviet Union later recaptured the city with relatively little effort. The Kremlin said Crimea is an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier', but history has shown it relies on a few, vulnerable supply lines which Kyiv continues to cut. Ukrainian forces have also neutralized Crimea’s air defenses and forced the Black Sea Fleet to flee from Sevastopol. This has turned the fortress into a logistical pit

Ukraine's Fortress Belt Kill Zone Becomes Giant Russian Meat Grinder

Putin desperately wants to take Ukraine's Donbas Fortress Belt and is willing to sacrifice thousands of Russian soldiers to do so. But the reality is that the sacrifice is proving a lot easier than the capture. 

Ukraine has had twelve years to fortify the Belt area since Russia took Crimea and other Ukrainian territory in 2014. Since then, the Fortress Belt has become even more diabolically 'optimized for defense,' now including drones and electronic warfare assets. Russian forces which consider infiltration of one or two soldiers a 'victory' are considered unlikely to have the wherewithal to take the Belt this year - or anytime soon after. JL

Peter Beaumont reports in The Guardian:

Ukraine's Fortress Belt is “optimized for defense across every possible topographical characteristic” giving Ukraine a significant advantage. “The high costs that Russia paid in Bakhmut or Pokrovsk will pale in comparison to those necessary to seize the Belt, assuming that Russian forces can even succeed.” Russian troops have made little by way of concrete gains, while ever more lives have been fed into the Kremlin’s “meat grinder”. Every effort to advance is visible and lethally perilous. “We created kill zones: tank ditches, tangled barbed wire, bollards, obstacles with trees, antenna to spot drones and electronic countermeasures to knock them out. Over the last six months we haven’t given the Russians a single metre.”

Russia's Kostiantynivka Slog Slowest 'By Any Army In Any War of Last 100 Years'

The Russian attempt to take Kostiantynivka - which the Kremlin has already claimed accomplished several times - has now been deemed the slowest rate of advance by any army in any war of the past century. And in military terms, that is not considered a compliment.

Russian forces' attacks have been reduced from mechanized assaults, to small team infiltrations to, recently, individual soldiers burrowing into collapsed buildings in hopes of claiming 'gains' - before being discovered by Ukrainian units and then eliminated. Zhukov defeating the Nazi panzers at Kursk this is not. JL

Giorgio Provinciali reports in Medium:

The Russian advance on Kostiantynivka averages fifty meters a day — the slowest rate recorded by any army in any war of the past century. Hence, a paradox worth fixing on paper: an army that assaults a city eleven times, which its own supreme commander has declared conquered, produces, with every attack, an official denial. Since January, Russia’s leadership has claimed advances along the entire front at least once a month, in high-visibility briefings under the heading of cognitive warfare. The eleven assaults (reveal) at the operational level the truth is known, otherwise no one would order the taking of what is already possessed. The system manufactures the lie the leader demands, and the leader consumes the lie the system manufactures.

China's Deepseek Plan To Make Own AI Chips Causes Nasdaq Sell-Off

As if the US AI industry weren't already nervous enough as skepticism about the overhype grow, the NASDAQ fell sharply yesterday after Chinese AI leader Deepseek announced it would be making its own AI inference chips. This is - correctly - perceived as a direct threat to Nvidia's dominance and, by extension, to US AI hegemony. 

Deepseek's Chinese frenemies, Alibaba and Baidu, are contemplating similar moves. They are being driven, in part, by US chip export controls, but also by a desire to capture more of the AI stack margins for themselves. This is yet another example of how, between token costs and chip hoarding, getting too greedy could cost the AI industry and the US. JL

Samuel Axon reports in ars technica and Shashwat Chauhan reports in Reuters:

Deepseek, the Chinese startup developing large language models competitive with those from OpenAI and Anthropic, is planning to enter the silicon business. The focus is on data center chips for inference, not training, and the goal is to reduce reliance on both Huawei and Nvidia.  The Nasdaq fell more than 1%  ⁠Tuesday, pressured by a selloff in semiconductor stocks ⁠including Nvidia amid mounting doubts about the sustainability of the AI-driven rally, while ​DeepSeek making an AI chip also soured sentiment. Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu have been making such moves, too. While chip export controls in the US are a major reason this is an urgent concern for DeepSeek, US-based AI companies are making similar chip plans. OpenAI’s is a play to reduce its reliance on Nvidia, but also to have Apple-like control over the entire tech stack for its products.

Russia's 2026 Offensive Failed, War's Balance Tilted, Ukraine 'Strongest In Years'

The consensus among informed observers is that the war's balance has shifted in Ukraine's favor. this does not mean that it is over - nor that it has been won. But it may well mean that, to paraphrase Churchill's famous line, Ukraine is well past 'the end of the beginning,' and that it has far more leverage to control the timing, location and pace of the fighting than it ever has. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Putin's appearance in military uniform at a military briefing (described as “a forward command post” but in reality, it looked like a room in the Kremlin lined with camouflage nets) is attempting to sell a story of Russian success when the reality is quite different. Russia’s 2026 Spring Offensive has failed. Its long-range strike campaign is not bending the will of Ukraine’s citizens. And even the US President appears to have lost interest in Russia’s case. Russia continues to employ infiltration by small groups moving through the kill zone rather than massed assault. This might avoid catastrophic losses in a single stroke but produces a steady stream of casualties as those groups are detected and struck. Set against the wider picture, these are marginal gains bought at extraordinary cost. The balance of the war has tilted (giving) Ukraine the strongest position it has held in years. 

"Industrial Scale" Damage: Eight Russian Shadow Oil Tankers Hit By Ukraine Drones

It's not just that Ukraine can now hit Russian targets almost anywhere in that vast country, but that it can do so at scale.

Destruction of crucial economic and military assets in such numbers cannot be sustained, even by a willfully stubborn autocrat. JL

Asami Terajima reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Ukrainian long-range drone strikes hit eight Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov. The overnight aerial naval battle reached "industrial-scale results." The Ukrainian drones also hit a dry cargo ship and a ferry, alongside a convoy of eight fuel tankers. The tankers Ukraine identified include Venera-3, Sanar-1, Sanar-17, Climene, Teti, Aleksey Savrasov, and Penelope. The fuel tankers were "badly damaged and on fire." The Ukrainian drone strikes on a convoy of Russian tankers come as Ukraine ramps up its long-range attacks across the Russian-occupied territories and inside Russia in recent weeks, inflicting a domestic fuel supply crisis on Russia. Russia still seems to lack a good answer."

Russia Launched 11 Attacks On Kostiantynivka In One Day. None Succeeded

Those Kremlin claims that its troops have captured Kostiantynivka are proving to be somewhat exaggerated, if not entirely delusional. 

Russian forces are reported to be suffering such 'staggering' casualties that they are infiltrating soldiers - not in small groups as at Pokrovsk - but literally individuals, one at a time. Approximately100 of them are believed to have survived so far, mostly holed up in damaged  buildings where they await Ukrainian troops finding and eliminating them. And when the Russians attempt actual assaults, as they did 11 times on Friday, they are decimated. JL

 
Carlotta Gall and Stanislav Kozliuk report in the New York Times:

Russian forces have targeted Kostiantynivka for months although independent analysts say Russian troops are largely stalled in their advance, and at the cost of staggering casualties. Ukrainian troops are holding designated lines and repelled 11 separate Russian assaults on Friday. "There is no specific area under the enemy’s control. There are individual buildings controlled by the enemy, and we are fighting that.” Russian soldiers were not infiltrating in units or even in pairs, but one at a time. “The situation remains under the control of the Defense Forces of Ukraine”