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Exclusive: Putin, unfazed by Trump, will fight on and could take more of Ukraine -

Reuters Link

Spoiler

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin intends to keep fighting in Ukraine until the West engages on his terms for peace, unfazed by Donald Trump's threats of tougher sanctions, and his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance, three sources close to the Kremlin said.

Putin, who ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in country's east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops, believes Russia's economy and its military are strong enough to weather any additional Western measures, the sources said.

Trump on Monday expressed frustration with Putin's refusal to agree a ceasefire and announced a wave of weapons supplies to Ukraine, including Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. He also threatened further sanctions on Russia unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days.

The three Russian sources, familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking, said Putin will not stop the war under pressure from the West and believes Russia - which has survived the toughest sanctions imposed by the West- can endure further economic hardship, including threatened U.S. tariffs targeting buyers of Russian oil.

"Putin thinks no one has seriously engaged with him on the details of peace in Ukraine - including the Americans - so he will continue until he gets what he wants," one of the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

Despite several telephone calls between Trump and Putin, and visits to Russia by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, the Russian leader believes there have not been detailed discussions of the basis for a peace plan, the source said.

"Putin values the relationship with Trump and had good discussions with Witkoff, but the interests of Russia come above all else," the person added.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Putin's conditions for peace include a legally binding pledge that NATO will not expand eastwards, Ukrainian neutrality and limits on its armed forces, protection for Russian speakers who live there, and acceptance of Russia's territorial gains, the sources said.

He is also willing to discuss a security guarantee for Ukraine involving major powers, though it is far from clear how this would work, the sources said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine will never recognise Russia's sovereignty over its conquered regions and that Kyiv retains the sovereign right to decide whether it wants to join NATO. His office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

However, a second source familiar with Kremlin thinking said that Putin considered Moscow's goals far more important than any potential economic losses from Western pressure, and he was not concerned by U.S. threats to impose tariffs on China and India for buying Russian oil.

Two of the sources said that Russia has the upper hand on the battlefield and its economy, geared towards war, is exceeding the production of the U.S.-led NATO alliance in key munitions, like artillery shells.

Screenshot_20250715_100029_Reuters.thumb.jpg.58a9c21efb8fc76643758ac55a1482dc.jpg

Russia, which already controls nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, has advanced some 1,415 square km (546 square miles) in the past three months, according to data from the DeepStateMap, an open-source intelligence map of the conflict.

"Appetite comes with eating", the first source said, meaning that Putin could seek more territory unless the war was stopped. The two other sources independently confirmed the same.

Russia currently controls Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, plus all of the eastern region of Luhansk, more than 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and fragments of Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Putin's public position is that those first five regions – Crimea and the four regions of eastern Ukraine - are now part of Russia and Kyiv must withdraw before there can be peace.

Putin could fight on until Ukraine's defences collapse and widen his territorial ambitions to include more of Ukraine, the sources said.

"Russia will act based on Ukraine's weakness," the third source said, adding that Moscow might halt its offensive after conquering the four eastern regions of Ukraine if it encounters stiff resistance. "But if it falls, there will be an even greater conquest of Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Kharkiv."

Zelenskiy has said Russia's summer offensive is not going as successfully as Moscow had hoped. His top brass, who acknowledge that Russian forces outnumber Ukraine's, say Kyiv's troops are holding the line and forcing Russia to pay a heavy price for its gains.

TRUMP AND PUTIN

The United States says 1.2 million people have been injured or killed in the war, Europe's deadliest conflict since the Second World War. Neither Russia nor Ukraine give full figures for their losses, and Moscow dismisses Western estimates as propaganda.

...

The second person said that Trump had little leverage over Putin and suggested that even if Washington imposed tariffs on the purchasers of Russian crude then Moscow would still find a way to sell it to world markets.

Putin understands that Trump is an unpredictable person who may do unpleasant things but he is maneuvering to avoid irritating him too much," the source said.

Looking ahead, one of the sources said there was likely to be an escalation of the crisis in coming months, and unscored the dangers of tensions between the world's two largest nuclear powers. And, he predicted, the war would continue.

I underlined and bolded some salient points but they aren't particularly surprising. Rather, they are pretty much what most predicted. 

My editorialized Cliff Notes:

1) Putin says "fuck your tarrifs Trump"

2) Putin adds, "But I still like you, bfff!"

3) Putin "I ain't skaret"

4) Putin "all your base are belong to us"

5) Putin "Donny you so cray cray"

6) Putin - "Just gimme what I want and we can all relax"

7) Putin under his breath "Then imma take all dey shit"

8- Putin's team - "He's nuts, just like Donny. This could end poorly"

Serious net - I've said prior a few times and admit I'm repeating myself. This ends in a coup or assassination of Putin. The two egomaniacal personalities in this dictate it won't go any other way, imo. Frankly, I'm okay with it. I think Russian oligarchs and specific military folks are probably already hatching a plan. This is bad for business, both to Russia's standing Military industrial complex strength and vodka sales. 

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Posted (edited)

Enter the kill zone: Ukraine's drone-infested front slows Russian advance -

Reuters Link

Spoiler

KYIV/BERLIN - "Drones, drones, drones. Only drones. A lot of drones."

A weary Ukrainian platoon commander speaks to the transformed nature of modern warfare as he's medically evacuated from the front lines.

Kamikaze drones. Surveillance drones. Bomber drones. Drones that kill other drones.

...

Ukrainian soldiers describe the drone-infested corridor covering about 10 km either side of the line of contact as the "kill zone" because remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deployed by both sides can swiftly spot and neutralise targets.

The war's evolution into the most drone-intensive conflict ever seen has eaten away at Russia's ability to exploit its traditional advantages in troop numbers, artillery and tanks, according to two Ukrainian battlefield commanders interviewed.

Any large vehicle operating near the front is now an obvious target, meaning Russian forces can no longer make the kind of rapid advances they did in 2022 with columns of armoured vehicles, according to the commanders as well as the founder of OCHI, a system which centralizes video feeds from over 15,000 Ukrainian military drone crews on the front lines.

"The enemy sees you completely," OCHI's Oleksandr Dmitriev added. "No matter where you go or what you are driving."

Russia has consequently adapted its tactics, the Ukrainian battlefield commanders said; its forces now typically attack in small groups of five or six - on foot or on motorbikes or quad bikes - in an attempt expose Ukrainian positions by drawing their fire and then launching drone strikes at them, they added.

Despite the changes in warfare, Russian forces retain the ascendancy and are making slow but steady advances in the east and north of Ukraine. Russia has also caught up in UAV technology after falling behind early in the war, according to military analysts, and like its enemy is churning out drones domestically at a rate of millions a year.

Meanwhile, European leaders are trying to parse President Donald Trump's announcement this week that America would supply arms to Ukraine via NATO, with Europe picking up the bill. Many details remain unclear, including the types and quantity of weapons, how quickly they would be sent and precisely how they would be paid for, U.S. and European officials said this week.

The White House didn't respond to queries on the supply plan. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the war had gone on too long and Trump wanted to end the killing, and so is selling U.S. arms to NATO for Ukraine and threatening hefty sanctions on Russia.

The people interviewed for this article, who were speaking before Trump's weapons announcement, said they believed Ukraine could fight on and resist Russia even if no more U.S. aid was forthcoming, though they didn't give precise timelines.

Many cited the primacy of drones as having levelled the field to some degree and made Ukraine more self-sufficient, and also pointed to growing military supplies from European allies.

"We can hold out for months," said Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's arms expert and strategic adviser, when asked about what would happen if U.S. weapons supplies ceased. "In 2023 or 2024, it would have been a lot worse – we would be talking about days or weeks."

Polish military analyst Konrad Muzyka, who has made numerous visits to the front lines, said Ukraine's focus was to sap the strength of Russian attacks, adding that Kyiv didn't currently have the capability to launch offensives of its own.

...

According to internal Ukrainian estimates seen by Reuters, drones accounted for 69% of strikes on Russian troops and 75% of strikes on vehicles and equipment in 2024. About 18% of strikes on Russian infantry and 15% of strikes on vehicles and equipment were conducted with artillery, and even less with mortars, according to the same estimates.

The wartime UAV arms race has spawned many innovations; both sides are deploying short-range, fibre-optic drones that cannot be electronically jammed, as well as "interceptors" that hunt down and destroy enemy reconnaissance and attack drones.

Kyiv's planned production this year of 30,000 long-range UAVs, designed to attack targets deep inside Russia such as arms depots and energy facilities, gives Ukraine an increased offensive threat, according to Vadym Sukharevskyi, commander of the country's drone forces until early June.

The average cost of a long-range strike drone ranges from $50,000 to $300,000, about 10 times less than a missile of similar range, although a drone's warhead is smaller, Sukharevskyi said in an interview while still in the post.

This is our asymmetrical answer," he said, adding that Ukraine started developing such drones "precisely because we lack missiles".

...

Ukraine's military-industrial base is expanding rapidly, and now accounts for around 40% of the weapons and equipment used, including drones, according to Zelenskiy, who on Wednesday set out a target to reach 50% in six months.

Kyiv has also sought to diversify its supplies and its European allies are providing growing amounts of munitions, potentially making the country more resilient to geopolitical shocks.

The Kiel Institute, a German-based economic research group, estimated in a report last month that Europe had surpassed the U.S. in total military aid provided over the course of the war for the first time since June 2022, reaching 72 billion euros compared with 65 billion euros from Washington.

The institute said aid flows to Ukraine shifted significantly in March and April as no new U.S. aid was allocated and European countries upped support.

While the U.S. has been - and remains - the largest sole supplier of artillery shells to Ukraine during the war, Europe is expanding capacity and has purchased hundreds of thousands of munitions from within and outside the continent.

Of around 420,000 artillery shells received by Ukraine from the start of this year until around mid-May, only 160,000 were from the United States, according to a European security source who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters.

Ukraine is nonetheless particularly reliant on the U.S. in the areas of air defences and intelligence sharing, military analysts said.

Kyiv particularly covets U.S. Patriot air defence systems, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles that Russia is firing with increasing frequency. As of April this year, Ukraine had seven fully operational systems, well short of the 25 that Zelenskiy has requested, according to analysts at Ukrainian publication Defence Express.

Long-range drone and missile attacks often rely on U.S. satellite intelligence. European countries can only go a small way to replacing were the United States to stop sharing it, the European Union Institute for Security Studies said.

Long article but it dives deeply into the specifics of drones, drone strategy,  results and changes of drones, US engagement, what has and has not changed in US engagement/support, and finally what Ukraine is hoping to get from the US. Not a lot of new info but good in depth information and pretty even keel.

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted
50 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Enter the kill zone: Ukraine's drone-infested front slows Russian advance -

Reuters Link

  Reveal hidden contents

KYIV/BERLIN - "Drones, drones, drones. Only drones. A lot of drones."

A weary Ukrainian platoon commander speaks to the transformed nature of modern warfare as he's medically evacuated from the front lines.

Kamikaze drones. Surveillance drones. Bomber drones. Drones that kill other drones.

...

Ukrainian soldiers describe the drone-infested corridor covering about 10 km either side of the line of contact as the "kill zone" because remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deployed by both sides can swiftly spot and neutralise targets.

The war's evolution into the most drone-intensive conflict ever seen has eaten away at Russia's ability to exploit its traditional advantages in troop numbers, artillery and tanks, according to two Ukrainian battlefield commanders interviewed.

Any large vehicle operating near the front is now an obvious target, meaning Russian forces can no longer make the kind of rapid advances they did in 2022 with columns of armoured vehicles, according to the commanders as well as the founder of OCHI, a system which centralizes video feeds from over 15,000 Ukrainian military drone crews on the front lines.

"The enemy sees you completely," OCHI's Oleksandr Dmitriev added. "No matter where you go or what you are driving."

Russia has consequently adapted its tactics, the Ukrainian battlefield commanders said; its forces now typically attack in small groups of five or six - on foot or on motorbikes or quad bikes - in an attempt expose Ukrainian positions by drawing their fire and then launching drone strikes at them, they added.

Despite the changes in warfare, Russian forces retain the ascendancy and are making slow but steady advances in the east and north of Ukraine. Russia has also caught up in UAV technology after falling behind early in the war, according to military analysts, and like its enemy is churning out drones domestically at a rate of millions a year.

Meanwhile, European leaders are trying to parse President Donald Trump's announcement this week that America would supply arms to Ukraine via NATO, with Europe picking up the bill. Many details remain unclear, including the types and quantity of weapons, how quickly they would be sent and precisely how they would be paid for, U.S. and European officials said this week.

The White House didn't respond to queries on the supply plan. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the war had gone on too long and Trump wanted to end the killing, and so is selling U.S. arms to NATO for Ukraine and threatening hefty sanctions on Russia.

The people interviewed for this article, who were speaking before Trump's weapons announcement, said they believed Ukraine could fight on and resist Russia even if no more U.S. aid was forthcoming, though they didn't give precise timelines.

Many cited the primacy of drones as having levelled the field to some degree and made Ukraine more self-sufficient, and also pointed to growing military supplies from European allies.

"We can hold out for months," said Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's arms expert and strategic adviser, when asked about what would happen if U.S. weapons supplies ceased. "In 2023 or 2024, it would have been a lot worse – we would be talking about days or weeks."

Polish military analyst Konrad Muzyka, who has made numerous visits to the front lines, said Ukraine's focus was to sap the strength of Russian attacks, adding that Kyiv didn't currently have the capability to launch offensives of its own.

...

According to internal Ukrainian estimates seen by Reuters, drones accounted for 69% of strikes on Russian troops and 75% of strikes on vehicles and equipment in 2024. About 18% of strikes on Russian infantry and 15% of strikes on vehicles and equipment were conducted with artillery, and even less with mortars, according to the same estimates.

The wartime UAV arms race has spawned many innovations; both sides are deploying short-range, fibre-optic drones that cannot be electronically jammed, as well as "interceptors" that hunt down and destroy enemy reconnaissance and attack drones.

Kyiv's planned production this year of 30,000 long-range UAVs, designed to attack targets deep inside Russia such as arms depots and energy facilities, gives Ukraine an increased offensive threat, according to Vadym Sukharevskyi, commander of the country's drone forces until early June.

The average cost of a long-range strike drone ranges from $50,000 to $300,000, about 10 times less than a missile of similar range, although a drone's warhead is smaller, Sukharevskyi said in an interview while still in the post.

This is our asymmetrical answer," he said, adding that Ukraine started developing such drones "precisely because we lack missiles".

...

Ukraine's military-industrial base is expanding rapidly, and now accounts for around 40% of the weapons and equipment used, including drones, according to Zelenskiy, who on Wednesday set out a target to reach 50% in six months.

Kyiv has also sought to diversify its supplies and its European allies are providing growing amounts of munitions, potentially making the country more resilient to geopolitical shocks.

The Kiel Institute, a German-based economic research group, estimated in a report last month that Europe had surpassed the U.S. in total military aid provided over the course of the war for the first time since June 2022, reaching 72 billion euros compared with 65 billion euros from Washington.

The institute said aid flows to Ukraine shifted significantly in March and April as no new U.S. aid was allocated and European countries upped support.

While the U.S. has been - and remains - the largest sole supplier of artillery shells to Ukraine during the war, Europe is expanding capacity and has purchased hundreds of thousands of munitions from within and outside the continent.

Of around 420,000 artillery shells received by Ukraine from the start of this year until around mid-May, only 160,000 were from the United States, according to a European security source who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters.

Ukraine is nonetheless particularly reliant on the U.S. in the areas of air defences and intelligence sharing, military analysts said.

Kyiv particularly covets U.S. Patriot air defence systems, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles that Russia is firing with increasing frequency. As of April this year, Ukraine had seven fully operational systems, well short of the 25 that Zelenskiy has requested, according to analysts at Ukrainian publication Defence Express.

Long-range drone and missile attacks often rely on U.S. satellite intelligence. European countries can only go a small way to replacing were the United States to stop sharing it, the European Union Institute for Security Studies said.

Long article but it dives deeply into the specifics of drones, drone strategy,  results and changes of drones, US engagement, what has and has not changed in US engagement/support, and finally what Ukraine is hoping to get from the US. Not a lot of new info but good in depth information and pretty even keel.

This is actually terrifying.

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Posted
3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

This is actually terrifying.

I agree. Largely, in here, with limited exception, I try to post the articles without a lot of interpretations or opinions. Sometimes I can't help myself but.. usually I do okay.

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