SITREP 5/26/25: Russia Unleashes Saved-Up Fury as Ukrainian Air Defense Woes Come to Light
Two days ago Russia unleashed another of the war’s most withering strikes on Ukraine, which was followed up the very next day by a secondary wave to finish off whatever was hit after an obligatory BDA (Battle Damage Assessment) period.
Being the largest series of strikes in some time, they revealed a heaping of new information about the state of things in Ukraine, particularly vis-a-vis Ukraine’s air defenses and upgrades to Russia’s own strike systems.
For instance spokesman for Ukraine’s airforce Yuri Ignat noted that Iskanders have been upgraded and now use a variety of countermeasures:
First he says Iskanders now fire off radar decoys and execute terminal maneuvers that make them impervious to Patriot systems. We know Iskanders have always had these abilities, but they may not have been programmed to use them in the beginning of the war, perhaps because Ukraine initially lacked the ability to shoot them down anyway, until being pumped up with Western arms.
What’s interesting is, on the previous strikes a month or so ago, the Iskander was seen to be possibly dispensing one of these radar decoy countermeasures. This was the infamous strike where a Patriot can be seen going up and missing the Iskander missile:
But if you look very closely at the top of the screen at exactly the 0:01 mark, you can see something ejecting from the back of the Iskander:
Interestingly the object falls left in precisely the direction the Patriot is heading when it misses—perhaps it locked onto the decoy as designed.
In the strike two nights ago, we again saw Kh-101 missiles with their upgraded decoy-heat traps as well:
A different Iskander landing on Chernigov during the strikes:
In fact, Washington Post admitted Kiev was unable to shoot down a single Iskander in the attacks:
They did manage to down a Kh-101 with what is claimed to be a MIM-23 Hawk:
All in all, the scale of the attack was huge, with Western publications noting the massive uptick in Russian drone and missile production:
The Economist writes:
A YEAR AGO, for 30 drones to strike Ukraine in a single night was considered exceptional. Now Russia is saturating Ukraine’s air defences with hundreds of them. On May 25th the Kremlin pummelled the country, with what it called a “massive strike” against its military-industrial sites, featuring 298 drones, probably a record.
The Economist paints a grim picture, noting that only Kiev’s “dwindling stocks” of Patriots even ‘stand a chance’ at hitting Russia’s ballistic missiles, while Russian Geran drones have seen all kinds of upgrades including ‘machine learning’ that allows them to hit targets in Kiev effortlessly.
The article heroically claims, though, that Ukraine still manages to shoot down “95%” of the Geran drones—a laughable lie given video from yesterday’s strikes which shows a parade of twenty unanswered hits on and around the Antonov plant by the very same drones:
Russian experts note that new Gerans are now acting more as EW ‘snoopers’ to feel out Ukrainian EW and AD zones for the real strike packages to then get mapped around those corridors. Kh-101s have also reportedly been upgraded with more sensitive optics that allow them to conform to the terrain better in navigating these ‘safe’ corridors toward their targets.
Economist notes that America virtually has the monopoly on anti-ballistic missile systems in the West, which Ukraine must rely on, despite the fact many of their systems are taken out of action by Russian strikes:
Rubio had just stated that America has “no more Patriots” left to give, as its own supply is at this point critically low.
Video emerged of the Patriot system stationed in Kiev likely being hit in the strikes as well, after sending out volley after desperate volley into the sky to no avail.
A new Le Monde article making the rounds further contradicts some of the Economist’s reporting:
This is particularly the claim of ‘95%’ shoot down of Geran drones, where Le Monde corrects the record:
In 2024, the rate of destroyed or disoriented Shahed often exceeded 90%. This is no longer the case today, where the rate sometimes drops to 30%.
The publication quotes a deputy commander of a Ukrainian mobile AD unit:
“The trend is bad,” admits Yakout, deputy commander of a DAU unit comprising 23 mobile groups and protecting the skies over the Odessa region. This pudgy man with Asian features, aged 44, explains that Shahed-type drones have been perfected since they first appeared in autumn 2022. “Since January, their machines have been flying at altitudes of between 2,000 and 3,000 meters, instead of 200 meters. We can no longer hit them with our guns. When they dive-attack at over 500 km/hour, it's very difficult to hit them,” explains the officer.
But the biggest revelation of the Le Monde piece is that Ukraine has completely run out of missile stocks for its SAMP/T batteries, and virtually so for its Crotales:
But to meet the growing challenge, “we need a lot more long-range systems, such as the [American] Patriot, the [German] Iris-T and the [Franco-Italian] SAMP/T. We don't have anything today. We have nothing today to protect southern Ukraine from ballistic missiles”, confides the officer. According to a Le Monde source, Ukraine no longer has any missiles for its two SAMP/T batteries, and it has “not received a single missile for a year and a half” for the Crotale short-range anti-aircraft system.
Increasingly the theme of discussions has turned toward Russia’s growing advantage in the drone field. For a long time Ukraine held the claimed advantage, but now a growing number of sources in both Ukraine and the West contend that Russia has finally broken through the parity and has taken the lead in everything from surveillance to FPV drones. The Times’ latest makes a shocking statement:
Russia has taken the lead in the drone race, outproducing Kyiv in the manufacture and use of medium-range FPV drones and fibre optic variants that have changed the shape of the entire 1,200 km front line.
The article goes on to state Russian FPV strikes are now regularly destroying Ukraine’s ‘rear’ logistics at 20km+ behind the FLOT.
The article notes how the drone scourge has changed rotations:
Until late 2023, infantrymen of both sides on standard rotation deployment were usually carried to a position near the front in armoured personnel carriers, walking the last few hundred metres on foot.
Now, under drone-filled skies, infantrymen are dropped off by 4×4 pick-ups, and walk between five kilometres and eight kilometres at night, in meandering routes through trees to avoid detection, just to take up their positions at the front line, known as the “zero point”.
Once there, rather than be rotated out of the front a week or two later, as was common in early 2024, Ukrainian troops now spend months in foxholes, often devoid of almost any other human contact, resupplied with water, rations and ammunition by agricultural drones.
They say even media reporters on the Ukrainian side now refuse to go within 15km of the frontline because the drones are simply too pervasive and strike anything that moves.
Ukraine’s top drone expert concurs, explaining there’s no EW to cover the ‘rear’, since drones were not expected to go that deep:
Ukrainian reserve officer Tatarigami also enlarged on this rising issue in a thread:
Over the past few months, Russians have focused on disrupting Ukrainian logistics, using a mix of drones, including fiber-optic. Once EW is neutralized or forced to withdraw by fiber-optic drones, it clears the way for drones like the Molniya, which can fly over 20 km. Thread:
2/ Cutting off supply lines has made vehicle transport nearly impossible. In some cases, individual soldiers must walk more than 10 km at night to deliver basic supplies: an unsustainable way for supporting any sizable unit, or even rotating troops.
3/ Despite growing logistical problems, Ukrainian command has made bad choices to launch Russian-modelled assaults. The attempt to capture positions while already struggling to hold current ones, with fewer troops and less equipment, lead to predictably poor outcome
4/ At the same time, Russia has sharply increased production of Geran drones (upgraded Shahed variants), with daily output likely exceeding 100 units. Our Satellite imagery analysis shows a clear rise in drone deployment - not from stockpiling, but from steady manufacturing.
5/ Russia’s position has improved thanks to successful efforts to disrupt Ukrainian supply lines across several frontline areas, including near Kostyantynopil and Pokrovsk. Still, their reliance on small-unit tactics allows for grinding advances but falls short of breakthroughs.
6/ Russian forces appear confident in their chances of making substantial gains in the summer of 2025. Meanwhile, despite clear fatigue, Ukrainian forces also remain firm and confident in their ability to hold the line and prevent Russia from achieving a strategic shift.
7/ Whether Russia sees major gains - or fails to advance - this summer and early fall could heavily influence its broader decision-making. A stalled offensive might force a reassessment of the war’s overall cost-benefit outlook.
Innovations come so fast it’s nearly hard to keep up, as the Ukrainian soldier in the article implies. Recall recently I showed Russians would park their fiber optics drones inside the ‘net tunnels’ now pullulating throughout the front, waiting for Ukrainian cars to drive by. Ukrainian drones now hunt these quiet ‘ambushers’:
At the same time, one of the most common themes in recent frontline revelations discussed in detail in the last premium article is how much Russia has begun specifically targeting and hunting Ukrainian drone units. Ukrainians now complain their drone teams are being triangulated and taken out, with Russian units specializing in cleansing the LoC of hard-to-find Ukrainian drone teams.
Many new videos in the past few weeks have emerged showing this accelerating campaign. Another example:
A strike by a helicopter-based Kh-39 LMUR missile on a discovered enemy UAV crew located in one of the houses.
Paid subscribers will recall recent rumors I’ve written on of a new class of completely autonomous Russian AI drones. Now Ukraine’s leading drone expert fills in more details on these developments:
I continue to study the use of Russian UAVs with AI.
I will say right away: representatives from all departments are already working on this problem. We are looking for a countermeasure and we will find it.
Yesterday, the enemy attacked the village of Velykyi Burluk with a swarm of seven UAVs. Apparently, the drones, flying by, noticed a cluster of cars near Novaya Poshta and a cluster of people in the market below. The AI made the decision to attack the target, the UAVs stood in a circle and then dived down. Miraculously, everyone is alive and well. That is, for such UAVs, there is no difference who to attack.
The unique color markings on the wings allow the swarm to stay in a flock. They walk like birds one above the other to see the markings
P.S. One completely intact UAV attacked a toilet and drowned in this city toilet in the village of Velykyi Burluk. If anyone needs a trophy, you know where to find it. There were no willing people to get it.
So, firstly he says these drone swarms are able to identify and track each other via different color-coded symbols on their wings, allowing them to network together in integrated fashion, choosing and coordinating targets to hit. He claims as of now they do not discriminate between military and civilian targets—who knows if that part is just an added pinch of provocation to churn some urgency or whether it’s true.
Either way, one thing is certain: Russia has taken the lead, for now at least, in the drone war.
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Things continue going badly for Ukraine on the front, with Russian territorial captures again spiking today at what one source had as nearly ~50km2 taken.
Financial Times’ latest describes Ukrainian soldiers as weary and demoralized, with no hope on the horizon:
Summary:
‼️‘Feeling of exhaustion and frustration’ spreading in Ukrainian Armed Forces over lack of prospects for ending war — Financial Times
▪️Morale is weakening among both experienced officers and newly mobilized soldiers.
▪️They feel no prospect of ending the fighting and "fear that their lives are being sacrificed in vain."
➖"We are exhausted," complains one of the Ukrainian Armed Forces commanders, whose unit is fighting near Pokrovsk.
▪️Trump's inaction after his statement about his intention to end the Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours has enraged the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
▪️At the same time, Ukrainian politicians say that the country must prepare for a long war.
➖"The mobilization campaign remains riddled with corruption and forced conscription, with men being grabbed off the streets and shoved into vans, and a program to recruit young people aged 18 to 24 has failed," the publication writes.
RVvoenkor
This excerpt interestingly echoes our recent descriptions of Russia’s harrying assault tactics:
Ukrainian troops on the eastern front said that Russian infantry are darting around on motorcycles, buggies and electric scooters. Said Ismahilov, a soldier who was once Ukraine’s senior Muslim cleric, compared them to a “swarm of locusts . . . not one great wave, but an endless stream.
One Ukrainian soldier describes the spirit at the front:
The article trots out the age old cope about mass ‘Russian losses’ while focusing on the Konstantinovka front. Funny, given that it’s videos like this from the Ukrainian side in Konstantinovka continue to appear:
In fact, Julian Roepcke has again sounded the alarm over this front’s collapse:
He’s referring to Russia finally closing the cauldron on Zorya, which has been developing over the past week or so:
It now looks like this, with some sources claiming a total collapse with remaining AFU fleeing north:
Ukraine’s top military channel Deep State even posted an angry rant about how Russian troops liberating Zorya (circled in red above) were greeted with warm hugs by locals:
The settlement of Zorya. Pro-Moscow freaks and hugs with the katsaps.
The "population" came out to meet the Katsap soldiers, who had previously leveled their village and neighboring ones. This is what happens when cotton wool and shit are present in a sick head, but it's okay, soon they will feel the full taste of "uskai life."
Reportedly it is the 68th Guards Tank Regiment of the 150th Motor Rifle Division which is storming here:
Here the enemy has an unpleasant situation, threatening a cauldron. After taking Romanovka a few days ago, the soldiers of the 68th Guards Tank Regiment began to advance not only to the north, but also towards Zarya . And our soldiers, coming from the direction of Alexandropol, are already trying to storm Zarya itself .
Other reports state the 68th are merely doing the final combing operation of this cauldron, which is already virtually free of AFU:
Today we say goodbye to a large pocket south of Konstantinovka. We took a lot of territory without a fight, the enemy withdrew its main forces to the north before the pocket closed. Now our troops are clearing the territory and continue to press in the direction of Konstantinovka.
On the western flank of this area Russia has continued making mass gains—everything around recently seized Novopoltavka has been enlarged in every direction:
Top Ukrainian analyst Myroshnykov writes of this direction:
Konstantinovka direction
The enemy regrouped and resumed the previous intensity of assaults in the direction of Rusyn Yar.
From Novoolenivka and Alexandropol, the enemy's advance was up to 2.5 km, depending on the area. The general vector is the southwestern approaches to Kostyantynivka.
In fact, fighting is already underway on the western outskirts of Yablunivka...
Fighting is still ongoing for Hnativka and Stara Mykolaivka. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so in a semi-encirclement.
From the area east of Malynivka, the occupier is advancing perpendicular to the T0504 highway (Pokrovsk-Konstakha) with a vector to the north and northwest.
This is bearing fruit - there is significant progress towards Popovy Yar, Nova Poltavka has finally been captured, and conditions are being created for reaching the Sofiivka-Shakhove-Volodymyrivka line.
This line is a bridgehead towards Druzhkivka and the H20 highway on the section between Druzhkivka and Konstakha.
I believe that in that area the enemy will be more likely to tie up our reserves in order to carry out the main operation - the Kostyantynivka operation.
There, in principle, the area is convenient for also holding demonstration actions in the vicinity of Myrnograd or Dobropillya.
But we should still be careful, because the enemy clearly wants to capture the entire Donetsk region.
The occupier in the Donetsk region has full initiative, and unfortunately, our troops are forced to react to the enemy's "moves." Seizing the initiative there is currently something like flying to Mars. But of course, the situation can change.
It's too early and premature to "bury" Konstakh. Nothing is clear there yet.
The enemy is still busy approaching the city to capture more advantageous positions.
Of course, stopping the occupier 2-3 km from Konstaha is not a good idea, but for now, this is the maximum that can be expected.
In short, with the recent flurry of gains around Novopoltavka toward Rusyn Yar, Russian forces have essentially created the western pincer forming around the main objective of the fortress city of Konstantinovka:
As you can see, Konstantinovka is increasingly sitting in a ‘bowl’ as it is slowly enveloped on both sides.
To the southwest of the Pokrovsk axis, Russian forces also expanded territory. Last time they had just captured Bogatyr, now they are clearing areas all around it, including the total capture of neighboring settlement Oradnoye, not to mention large swaths to its north:
The front there now looks unrecognizable as it has been leveled completely flat from down near Gulyaipole to Pokrovsk, making it favorable for the support of new salients to inevitably burst forth into Dnipro oblast:
Who remembers when Marinka, Vugledar, and Avdeevka—circled in green above—were the most hotly contested battle fronts?
Even in the far western Zaporozhye zone, Russian forces have advanced, with some sources claiming they are entering the outskirts of Mala Tokmachka, from which the infamous Ukrainian ‘grand summer counteroffensive’ of 2023 was once launched:
There were many other smaller advances, but we’ll focus on one last region for now. In Sumy, Russian forces have begun to make serious strides, with Ukrainian authorities scrambling to now evacuate over 200+ settlements. Volodomyrovka was captured, Vodolahy entered and soon to be captured, Bilovody captured, Loknya captured, and Yunakovka being actively entered from the outskirts:
In fact, Yunakovka is the first true serious larger settlement of the Sumy region which is a major logistical checkpoint for Ukrainian forces. If Russia manages to capture it, it would mark the real beginning of the road toward Sumy city.
Ukrainian military accounts have also sounded the alarm over the Lyman direction, where Russia is making progress:
The enemy began to cry over Kupyansk.
"Kupyansk, like Pokrovsk, is gradually approaching the “logistics abyss”, the biggest problem is the enemy’s FPV."
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A few last disparate notes:
Merz made waves by claiming there are no further ‘limitations’ for weapons to Ukraine, leading everyone to assume the Taurus will now be sent. On the other hand Germany’s Vice Chancellor appeared to immediately refute this:
German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil denied that Berlin had changed course on the range of weapons supplied to the AFU:
"There is no new agreement that goes beyond what the previous government did."⚡️⚡️⚡️
Whether it’s true or not, we previously reported Germany had 400-500 total Taurus missiles, with only 250 of them functional, out of which 150 would allegedly be handed to Ukraine. Such volumes are simply barely relevant, particularly given that Russia just fired almost that many missiles in a single day at Ukraine.
There was one interesting report that claimed the UK would buy the Tauruses from Germany and thus ‘absolve’ Germany from responsibility for the missiles’ programming and use against Russian targets. Either way, this is not expected to have any effect whatsoever.
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Ukraine continues to stoke fears about the Zapad 2025 exercises to be held in Belarus in September of this year:
It is feared Russia will again use the exercises to launch an invasion from Belarus into Kiev, though this is unlikely.
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A Syrian refugee living in Russia’s Khmeimim airbase in Latakia gives a candid tour of the living conditions and general lifestyle for the dislocated Syrians pushed out of their homes by Jolani’s mobs:
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Lastly, mush-brained cereal-man Kellogg imagines himself a brilliant strategist while invoking the Art of War against Russia:
I’m not sure Sun Tzu had in mind needlessly provoking a non-hostile ideological ‘adversary’ into heavily industrializing into a military powerhouse for no reason, all while already engaged in a losing two-front conflict against China. That doesn’t sound like the ‘acme of professionalism’, but more like strategic suicide.
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Go ahead NATO, keep throwing your remaining weapons stocks away in the Ukraine...I suspect that is exactly what Putin wants...
Simplicius laid out the triple chokehold tactic used by the Russian army in the previous article. I call it spot, target, and kill or STK. This merciless tactic involves AFU defenders being surrounded by a small group of Russian troops and forced into compartmentalized static drone and artillery kill zones along the entire lines of contact. AFU forces are being systematically killed like encircled shrimp swallowed upwards by hungry whales, with nowhere to go but get eaten—the Russian predator feasts on AFU prey. Russia is exhausting its enemy to death, slowly, surely and patiently. It's a pragmatic and typical Russian way to brutally grind down the enemy at will. The last place I'd want to be is on an AFU defensive line waiting my turn to kiss my ass goodbye.
I hope Simplicius continues to update us about the theatre of war tactics being used in Ukraine. The tactics can be measured up to a time frame for things to happen. Ukraine still has over 600,000 soldiers. Since Russia lacks the manpower needed for deep penetrations behind enemy lines because it rotates troops, it chose a slower but effective STK way of exhausting the enemy. It's not all-out war, but more of a controlled demolition of enemy forces.