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.”

Putin Learns the Hard Way His Subversion Of Global Rules Damage Russia

Putin is outraged that the contempt for international laws and norms that he has embraced is now being applied by others towards Russia. 

Turnabout is fair play, like it or not. JL

Raj K reports in Medium:

European countries are stopping and seizing Russian ships (‘shadow fleet’) that are accused of carrying oil or grain in violation of sanctions. Under new European rules, there is talk of selling these seized goods and giving the grain to Ukraine. Putin said, “We can see that officials of some countries, breaking international maritime law have even considered seizing our ships and selling the property stolen from us.” They are setting a precedent where the rule of ‘might is right’ (Law of the Jungle) will apply.

Ukraine Springs Trap At Lyman, Encircles Advancing Russian Force

The Russian salient at Lyman has become a trap, risking the Russian troops already there and causing the Kremlin to have to decide whether to commit more troops to save the advance but with the understanding that could mean having the additional forces cut off as well. JL

RFU News reports:

The Russian advance north of Lyman is now developing into a trap, with the troops at the front increasingly dependent on a corridor that Ukrainian forces are attacking from both sides. Ukrainian forces tightened the Russian salient northwest of Lyman by attacking the positions that protect its connection to the rest of the front. A major Ukrainian breakthrough developed around Novoselivka, placing the Russian positions around Yarova under direct threat from the flank. The Russian response has failed to secure the forward positions it was trying to reinforce, while Ukraine continues attacking the access that keeps the salient viable. The Ukrainian pincer around Lyman is increasingly forcing Russia toward a choice between abandoning the salient or risking more troops inside an increasingly vulnerable position.

The Reason AI Companies Are Buying, Scanning, Shredding Old Books

Knowledge for AI's sake. Nothing quite captures the arrogant disregard for the rest of humanity like buying books, scanning their contents to train AI and then destroying the books (because that's cheaper than saving them). 

But then that's how the AI industry seems to regard anything not AI, especially humanity. JL

Josh Marshall reports in Talking Points Memo:

A rapidly growing percentage of online content is produced by AI. If you try to train AI on the product of AI it’s a bit like locking a person in a sealed room and watching them slowly suffocate as they breath in the product of their cellular respiration. This has made the creators of AI increasingly desperate in their search for new artifacts of human intellect. The solution? Physical books published before 2022. Whatever their quality, their merits, whatever they’re about, they are the product of human minds. If you're scan a book at scale the costs of scanning and digitizing a book’s contents without damaging it are vastly higher. So what AI companies are doing is buying books, cutting off the spines, feeding them into industrial scale scanners and then throwing away.

Chief Russian Bank Economist Fired For Warning Of 'Economic Defeat' By West

Not what the dictator wanted to hear. Especially in a public forum. But the experienced economist said what he believed, which is that Russia is falling behind economically and technologically, not just to the US, China and Europe but -get this -to Ukraine. He went on to say that Russia cannot win a war of attrition in the long run. 

Comrade Klepach would be well advised to stay away from windows in tall buildings for the foreseeable future. JL

Olena Goncharova reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Andrei Klepach, the chief economist at Russian state development corporation VEB.RF, was fired on Aug. 16, a day after Russian media widely circulated his warnings that Russia was losing its economic and technological competition with the West. Speaking at an event organized by the Moscow Exchange’s Nikitsky Club, Klepach said Russia would be unable to sustain competition with the West in a prolonged confrontation and predicted that the country would eventually face a social crisis. "We are falling behind. We are losing both the technological and economic competition in the world. And, we are losing it not only to China and the US — in some respects, we are losing it to Ukraine whose economy has been partly destroyed. But despite everything, the Ukrainian economy is surviving. We will not win this competition in a war of attrition," 

What Happens When Putin's New Mobilization Fails?

Putin's ground war has stalled and shows no signs of correcting the inefficiencies and incompetences of the past four-plus years. There are rumors he is beginning to implement a quiet 'soft' mobilization so as not to spark further popular resentment, but given Ukraine's success to date in thwarting increased Russian and North Korean troop deployments with drones, mines and counterattacks, there is little reason to believe the corrupt Russian system is capable of - or interested in - change to correct that.

The question then is, what will Putin do when his latest mobilization fails? China has reportedly nixed the nuclear option so further sabotage and provocation to keep Europe off balance look like the most probable tactics. But if the US midterm elections this fall return the Congress and Senate to Democratic control, his options will be further limited by their support for Ukraine. Either way, the war's evident failure means he has to continue it or risk being overthrown and eliminated himself. JL

Mick Ryan reports in Futura Doctrina:

Putin is rapidly running out of options for achieving even his minimalist goals for Ukraine, which would be the capture of all of the Donbas. But even that appears increasingly unlikely for the Russian ground forces. Putin will hope that the injection of a few hundred thousand extra troops might get him over the line, but even that is a doubtful proposition given the increases in effectiveness we have seen the Ukrainians demonstrate in 2026. He could double down, do more mobilization and step up the use of chemical weapons or even i`ndicate his willingness to employ nuclear weapons. However, his nuclear sabre rattling in the past has not shifted Ukrainian determination to hold on to their territory. And NATO has now moved beyond being deterred by these kinds of threats.