SITREP 6/29/25: Russia Launches Largest Drone Swarm of Entire War as Ukraine Gets Forgotten
We turn back to the Ukrainian war for updates.
This week saw the NATO summit which again amounted to nothing more than lip-service for various failed initiatives.
The only thing to come out of the summit was entertainment in the form of ‘Daddy-Gate’. In reality, the ostensible ‘achievement’ hailed by Rutte for bringing member countries onboard the 5% defense spending racket likewise appeared an illusion:
Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles:
“It is absolutely impossible for any NATO country to reach the 5% of GDP target for military spending. Spain has become the most honest.”
Apart from that, Ukraine has mostly been forgotten under the shadow of the Israeli conflict.
But the war has not abated, and the Russian summer offensives roll on. Ukrainian channels have reported a large surge of military equipment coming to the Zaporozhye direction:
The Russian army will be making a powerful offensive in the Zaporizhia direction in the coming days: a large movement of equipment and ammunition is recorded, - the enemy publishes footage
▪️Enemy agents are recording the transfer of Russian troops and publishing pictures on the channels of propagandists, claiming that a major offensive of the Russian Armed Forces is being prepared.
▪️"In the direction of Rostov-Novoazovsk-Mariupol-Pology / Berdyansk direction: about 7 platforms with armored vehicles, including tanks, went there. More than 40 trucks with manpower and ammunition," writes the adviser to the fake Ukrainian "mayor of Mariupol".
▪️"In the direction of Crimea / Kherson - Mariupol - Novoazovsk - Taganrog / Rostov - Sumy: a column of more than 20 trucks with manpower, about 5 tractors with armored vehicles of the BMP / BMD class also went," Andryushchenko adds.
RVvoenkor
And like clockwork, days after those initial reports, there are now Russian breakthroughs ongoing as of today. The most notable happened in Kamyansk, right on the Dnieper, where Russian Airborne forces of the 247th Regiment stormed the center of the town and put up the flag:
🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦247th Airborne Regiment broke through to the center of Kamenskoye, tore down the Ukrainian flag and raised the Russian flag!
▪️Stavropol paratroopers broke through to the very center of an important settlement on the left flank of the Zaporizhzhya direction.
▪️Demonstrating confident control over the area, they tore down the Ukrainian flag on the Yanchekrak River sign and raised the Russian flag.
Geolocation:
Just east of there Russian forces have also begun moving into Mala Tokmachka, from whence the 2023 Ukrainian summer ‘counter-offensive’ once was launched.
By far the largest advances since our last update happened a bit further east from there, north of the previous Velyka Novosilka line.
Last time we left off with Russian forces having just liberated Komar and Perebudova. Now they have captured several settlements north of that, from Zaporozhye, Yalta, to Zirka along the Mokry Yaly river.
On the Seversk front, Russian forces pushed past Gregorovka, which they captured last time, as well as pushing on the center salient toward Seversk city itself:
In Sumy, General Syrsky had announced the total halting of the Russian offensive after new Ukrainian reinforcements were brought in and launched counterattacks there. It’s true, as of now the Russians have not advanced much farther in Sumy. It’s a common push-and-pull tactic, where Russians will dig in to grind down the counterattacking Ukrainian reserves for a while, before resuming the advances once they feel the AFU is sufficiently depleted.
Russian advances update as of 6/27:
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Ukrainian officers have issued dire new calls of alarm about the front. Aidar platoon commander Stanislav Bunyatov writes that in almost all combat directions, assault operations are exclusively carried out by ‘busified’ people—that is, Ukrainians who have been press-ganged by the mobilizers, rather than motivated volunteers:
Meanwhile, a commander of the Azov brigade corroborates the above with an even more damning description of the AFU’s current circumstances on the front:
He mentions destroyed battalions, low staffing, and that only 10 men hold stretches of ground 5km in length.
Last night, Russia also launched one of the largest strikes of the war, when you count total assets used. The missile count was relatively low, but the drones numbered nearly 500 Shaheds and other decoys in total, which is likely a record for single day usage:
Counting missiles, it was well over 500+ units launched in one night. The attacks wreaked havoc on various sites, from Ukrainian airports, to energy infrastructure in Poltava, the Drohobich refinery in Lvov, and Kremenchug oil refinery as well.
One report from Legitimny:
The Russians began to clear all industrial facilities associated with the army.
1. Fuel/oil
2. Metallurgy
3. Cement factories
4. Railway infrastructure and mobile transport
5. Any industrial facilities that can be used as large rembases.
6. Airfields and facilities related to the production of drones.
7. Ports
8. Energy infrastructure (so far only next to LBS).
9. Other business/industrial facilities, as a blow to certain monetary assets characters in Ukraine.
For the first time in the war, the Russians began to destroy cement factories, which means the Russians are not particularly counting on peace negotiations.
Another F-16 was even downed trying to intercept the drones.
From the official Ukrainian Air Force account:
This now makes multiple F-16s shot down by Geran drones. The problem appears to be they are incapable of locking onto the drone as it has a very small IR signature, so they are being forced to engage the drone at extremely close ranges, which peppers the F-16 with shrapnel after the drone explodes.
But most eye-opening was the new statement from top Ukrainian radio-electronics expert Serhiy ‘Flash’ Beskrestnov. He is rarely alarmist, so the urgent tone raised quite a few eyebrows in Ukraine:
What he’s referring to are the predictions that Russian production capabilities for Shahed drones would soon reach levels allowing Russia to launch upwards of 500-700 of these drones per night, as they did last night.
One of Ukraine’s other top military analysts, Myroshnykov, disagrees that Russia will reach such numbers any time soon:
Let's go through the material again.
If the enemy's current production rate of Shaheeds is ~170 units per day, how will he launch "500/800/1000 shaheeds daily"?
They have about 3.5 thousand units in stock. But I think they will not completely "go to zero".
Therefore, as I have repeatedly said before, there will be "weak Shaheed" days (80-100 launched mopeds) and "strong Shaheed" days (250+ launched mopeds).
Relatively speaking, 1-2 days a week there will be a lot (or a lot) of Shaheeds, and another 5-6 days - less.
The numbers may vary, but in general it can be something like this.
Days without mopeds will either be extremely rare (several times a year) or there will be none at all.
Currently, the enemy is building several new workshops in "Alabuz". This will increase the production rate to ~300 units per day in total.
Even if we add the potential production of Shahed in the DPRK, it will not be that fast.
But from the "pluses" for the enemy - engines will go to the DPRK from China directly. Currently, this is limited to Iranian copies, the production of which has recently suffered greatly.
So these are the things. I definitely do not see any reasons for loud headlines.
His information is that Russia produces 170 per day, and can scale up to 300 in the future. Recent reports claim North Korea may be sending up to 25,000 workers to Russia’s giant Alabuga drone factory where the Geran drones are made:
As Myroshnykov indicated, Russia has upwards of 3,000 of these drones in stock, and will sometimes launch larger 500+ per day strikes, while other times smaller ones. Even ~300 daily drones hitting Ukraine will create an insoluble nightmare for the AFU.
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As evidence of Russia’s growing drone dominance, an absolutely awe-inspiring video was released by the Russian Sudoplatov drone battalion which shows a huge FPV drone swarm chasing down a Swedish Pbv 302 APC full of Ukrainian troops:
This video represents one of those inflection points where we get to tangibly see the world changing before our eyes. In this case, it truly forebodes that combat will never be the same again.
On the topic, here are recent statistics from a Ukrainian unit in the Pokrovsk direction about their “300” injuries broken down by munition type:
FPVs represent 49%, artillery only 13.6%, with Russian Kab/Fab bombs only 3.7%, according to them. More specifically, they distinguish that 35% of FPV hits are on troops in positions, such as trenches and foxholes, while 65% are hits on roads, i.e. vehicles or troops in transit. For the record, the full list in the left column is: FPV, artillery, infantry, drone-dropped mines, mortars, Kab/Fab, and Lancets.
Russian channels write:
Thus, according to these figures, by far the largest losses Ukrainian troops are experiencing are in the operational zone 3-20km behind the contact line; in essence, this is the logistics zone, highlighting that logistics is the most vulnerable segment of the armed forces because it has to constantly stay mobile, running back and forth from the contact line—whether it be rotations, resupplies, etc.
For Russian troops, losses from FPVs would be proportionally even much higher due to Ukraine’s comparative lack of artillery and aerial assets.
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While Ukraine continues to bleed men, Zelensky has given us an update on Russian manpower, now claiming there are roughly 700k Russian troops in Ukraine, with an additional 50k just over the Sumy and Kharkov borders:
Note the above: just months ago Russia was said to have 575k men in Ukraine. According to Ukraine, Russia’s Schrodinger Army continues to both massively lose and gain men at the same time.
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Zelensky also made another quite interesting statement: that the reason he refuses to evacuate Sumy is because the civilians there prevent Russia from fully striking the city with missiles:
So, he’s basically admitting that keeping civilians trapped in a besieged city as human shields has military benefits.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian commander appeared to admit on camera that it was the AFU that blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam:
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An interesting look at the current state of armored warfare on the front:
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Serhiy Flash writes that Russian soldiers are now using watches that notify them of incoming FPV drones, as well as their operating frequencies:
The adversary came up with the idea of extracting data from the drone detector at a special time. It is definitely convenient for a soldier.
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Lastly, I had forgotten to post this two weeks ago when I first saw it, but it is quite telling. Congressman Thomas Massie writes of the classified congressional meetings he’s attended:
So much for US ‘secret intelligence’. It gives quite a perspective on Western reporting of Russian-Ukrainian casualties.
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Who would have thought the Russian military machine would be able to continue the fight after recently having "basically its entire air force" destroyed by a clever theatrical production?
Thank you for the article.