Ukrainian success.

Spend now save later.

Ukrainian success.

Spend now save later.

There have been several significant Ukrainian advances in Zaporizhzhia and Donbas in the past week, yet corporate media appear to be blind to Ukrainian success. One might be led to believe they are disappointed. After all they have shown huge enthusiasm when reporting minimal Russian advances this winter. In the past two weeks Ukrainian troops have recovered almost all the ground acquired by Russia in the past six months and yet no one seems to care to report it.

There is a creaking in Russian defences not just on the front line but all the way back to Moscow. The public need to know support given to Ukraine is producing positive results. We need to see evidence of our treasure working towards a Ukrainian victory.

Although the mad king of the USA is a concern and controls the airwaves, the real war is going on in Eastern Europe not in the USA and not in Iran. Trump’s priorities are no longer ours. We have realised as Europeans we must defend ourselves and act.

Recent military exercises including operation Winter Camp in Estonia have proved NATO has a poor understanding of how war has changed in the past four years. Led by current Ukrainian experts the exercises were designed to identify and rectify those failings. European nations must retrain and change all their operational procedures. The old methods of war no longer work. In Estonia, Ukrainian drone operators held back a combined battle group, (on paper).

Tanks have lost their power to penetrate infantry defences.

Ships have lost their power to move freely at sea.

Fast jets must work from increased range to launch missiles. The days of the dogfight are over.

Tanks, jets, ships; operations on land air and sea all must change. Infantry can no longer concentrate forces to make assaults. Armoured infantry are too vulnerable packed into vehicles in convoys. The exercise in Estonia was the first step towards change. Current advances have increased the defensive powers of armies in the face of Russian aggression. Robots now rule the battle space. Eyes in the sky are everywhere, nothing moves for fear of being seen, identified, and destroyed.

What hasn’t changed is the need for numbers, for men to hold ground with small arms and light anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. Robots stand guard for weeks, loitering drones shut down and watch for movement, ready to take off and attack at a moment’s notice. The drone operator sits miles away watching a screen but there is still a need for boots on the ground. All the technology in the world cannot occupy the land when the firefight is over.

The drone war advances daily. Wounded men are being transported back on robot stretchers; food, water and ammunition are flown into forward areas. The loss of Starlink has been a real blow for Russian front-line troops, compounded by the Russian government cutting access to Telegram. The battlefield radio has also had its day. Signals are sent and received by cell phones on secure systems. Radio is too easy to trace and strike with Hamar missiles.

Headquarter groups and communication centres must be sealed inside electronically secure rooms. The battlefield has changed. There is a constant battle in electronic warfare countermeasures. Every new defence produces a counter-countermeasure. Ukraine is leading the race with constant innovations and updates this battle goes on. The two nations who understand the new systems best are Ukraine and Russia. Europe needs to catch up fast. All our officers and men need to be retrained in drone warfare tactics. All systems taught must be swept aside and rethought. Soldiers cannot rely on darkness, they cannot simply hide in holes in the ground, they can be seen night and day. Uniforms must develop to include infra-red defences. Bunkers need heat detection defences. Precision guided artillery and drones that can fly through windows are making trench warfare increasingly dangerous.

With expensive ships and jets made redundant this war is being increasingly fought from a distance, but what hasn’t changed is the need for fighting soldiers on front lines. All the weapons in the world are still not sufficient to completely halt an army of millions when casualties are considered irrelevant. A method used to great effect by Russia against Germany in WW2 with ten million soldiers against a technologically superior Wehrmacht. Russia tried to achieve the same in Ukraine with only half a million and failed. They have lost 20% with no success. With a bigger army at the start results might have been very different.

Ukraine is producing a surplus of attack drones and can now deploy them across the whole battle front, but in the same light as Russia they will struggle to produce an offensive of any size if Russia chooses to adopt the same defensive process.

Russia’s ability to maintain its war effort are reduced every day. Increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Russia is rising as they become more desperate to find answers. ‘Serious consequences’ no longer carries the weight of fear from the past. Russia is becoming a spent force. Russia still hopes to manipulate Trump, but those efforts are proving less and less fruitful as Trump weakens domestically. Russian success in manipulating the USA and public opinion has had a significant effect on the extended duration of the war.

Russia will try to create another serious and destabilising distraction just as they did when they promoted the Iranian/Hamas attack on Israel. The US navy in the Arabian sea might be just such a distraction but that is most likely another Trumpian distraction away from the Epstein investigation. However, it redirects world media attention. Real estate magnate and Trump ‘Peace negotiator’ Steve Witkoff declared yesterday ‘Iran might have a nuclear weapon within two weeks.’ Utter drivel, designed to frighten uneducated Americans and affect public opinion.

Now is not the time for weak European leaders to save money and decrease the pressure or to sit back and assume Russia can’t recover and start again. The Ukraine war is a lesson in failed deterrence. Ukraine as a nation has given us all a chance to catch up. We must take that chance and continue to spend on defence.

Ukraine’s constant and determined defence of its homeland combined with updates in technology has given them the advantage in this war. Russia has failed to find any answers and is running out of everything, especially money.

Technology has changed modern warfare. If western powers are to have a defence for the next war they must update and enlarge their armies rapidly to deal with the possibility of a much larger Russian army in the future which drones alone cannot defeat. Spend now save later!

Slava Ukraini!

I write to fight.

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