170 Russian Artillery Destroyed By Ukraine Warhead Drone-Dropped Into Gun Barrels

A Ukrainian drone unit destroyed 170 Russian howitzers, with a further 60 damaged in two days by dropping a new munition directly into the artillery gun barrels. For most of the past century, artillery has been considered, as the Russians call it, 'the hammer of god.'

This another example of how Ukrainian technological innovation is changing how war is fought. JL

Matthew Loh reports in Business Insider:

The Lasar Group, an elite Ukrainian drone unit used a new anti-howitzer munition to destroy 170 pieces of Russian artillery within two days. The special operation in early June involved over 800 drones deployed along the war's eastern and southern fronts. The missions were planned by its analysts who worked with other units to sift through large tranches of intelligence collected on gun locations. A "special munition" also created for these strikes. "Engineers developed this warhead specifically to destroy howitzers by targeting their gun barrels, making the weapons inoperable. As a result, 231 enemy artillery pieces were hit, 171 of them destroyed. This is equivalent to 10 to 14 artillery battalions, or three artillery brigades."

Ukraine's Adaptive Strategic Pressure On Russia Redefines Modern Warfare

Ukraine is not merely defending its front line. Instead, it has launched an adaptive campaign of persistent, cumulative, strategic pressure on Russia's troops at the front, their logistics in the rear, economic targets deep inside Russia. 

This forces the Russians to constantly have to respond, forcing the dispersion resources which could be more effectively deployed at one single location. The Kremlin is constantly recovering rather than building the concentrated power to attack. JL 

David Petraeus and Clara Kaluderovic report in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine is conducting a campaign with few precedents in military history. It is imposing persistent strategic pressure on a much larger adversary by attacking Russia’s front lines, air defenses, fuel depots, logistics and military infrastructure and by trying to isolate occupied Crimea. It doesn’t have fleets of heavy bombers or a blue-water navy. It is using drones, missiles, commercial communications technology, intelligence networks, special operations, software adaptation and operational ingenuity. Ukraine's objective isn't a single, decisive blow. It is cumulative disruption. A refinery today. A radar tomorrow. A fuel depot

the next night. Together, these strikes have a strategic effect. They force Russia to defend everywhere, repair constantly, disperse assets, reroute logistics and explain increasing shortages to its population. The outcome turns on whether one side can impose persistent pressure faster than the other side can recover. This is adaptation warfare. 

Russian Infiltration Troops Systematically Eliminated By Ukraine's Assault Forces

Russia can no longer accumulate the forces necessary to launch large scale offensives. Instead, they are attempting to infiltrate small groups of soldiers through the drone dominated gray zone in order to establish defensible outposts. 

But the problem for these isolated Russians is that Ukraine has developed a counterstrike strategy which relies on an electronic surveillance connected to quick-response assault forces who can be deployed to root out and eliminate the relatively defenseless Russians, who lack sufficient firepower, supplies or access to reinforcement. The result is that the Russians are usually detected and destroyed before they can establish a significant presence. JL

RFU News reports:

Ukrainian forces are clearing Russia’s infiltrations, eliminating them before they can establish meaningful footholds. Russia suffers from the same Ukrainian resource shortage it is trying to exploit: it lacks enough manpower, armor and logistics to launch a high-intensity offensive. Its small groups may enter territory, but they struggle to hold it because once detected, they have little firepower or reinforcements. Ukraine does not attempt to fill every gap with soldiers. Instead, recon drones observe approaches. Once infiltrators are detected, FPV drones, artillery, and assault teams engage them, with quick-response units ready to deploy across a wider front, holding the entire border with far fewer men. Ukraine has replaced a physical defensive line with a surveillance-and-strike network, which makes it an observable kill zone.

Apple Closing In On Nvidia As World's Largest Company By Market Cap

The issue, according to financial analysts, is that growing doubts about AI infrastructure spending are starting to negatively effect some Big Tech companies, like Nvidia. 

Apple, by contrast, appears relatively unburdened because it has, so far, refused to indulge in the sort of exorbitant capital expenditures that the hyperscalers have embraced. Its product lineup is believed to have a more realistic chance of continuing to attract consumers and delivering financial results than do the AI-dependent companies' increasingly questionable projections. JL

Colleen Cabili reports in Quartz:

The market cap gap between Apple and Nvidia stood at $190 billion on Wednesday, or about 4%. Reports of an expanded iPhone lineup sent Apple shares up almost 5%, while Nvidia stock fell as selling pressure swept through the broader chip sector. Analysts have been quick to point out that the pressure on chip stocks reflects a sentiment shift rather than any fundamental problem at Nvidia — the central worry being whether major cloud providers can keep absorbing the enormous price tag of expanding AI infrastructure. Investors are also treating Apple's comparatively lower capital expenditure on AI as an advantage.

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.