Is this why Russia is winning the war?
We have long seen that much of “serious” Western analysis has been based on posts from Twitter. It started as far back as the highly classified ‘Pentagon leaks’ from a now-jailed Massachusetts National Guard airman, which listed loss figures for both Russia and Ukraine based on shoddy OSINT and laughable official Ukrainian numbers.
It gave us our first ever glimpse into how the Western establishment is misjudging the war based on a total lack of information hygiene. Another ‘amateur OSINT’ source widely used as standard by Western think tanks, armed forces, and leaders alike was ORYX, whose legendarily tainted data pool gave false and misleading hopes of a coming Ukrainian victory for years.
Now there has been another interesting addition to this corpus of embarrassing Western info fidelity.
The most prominent one occurred during the recent CIA director’s visit to Moscow, wherein John Ratcliffe allegedly relayed to Putin that the life expectancy of the average Russian soldier on the front is 35 minutes. The problems begin in the NYT piece that broke the story:
Mark Ames explains that following the article’s hyperlinks shows the CIA’s claim of 35 minute life expectancies in fact came from an obscure Telegram channel, which spawned an entire disingenuous info-narrative campaign:
The claim seems to originate from a Russian Telegram channel with 5000 followers. The channel cites an unnamed article, which states that the average lifespan of a soldier in an assault is 20–35 minutes – surviving that means that he has found cover or has taken up a position. 2/
Read the highlighted above from the original TG post. A random Telegram blogger “once read a (random, unsourced) article” that told him a soldier lasts 35 minutes on the front. This claim gets picked up and carried throughout the entire Western analytical ecosystem as “proof” that Russia is losing—no substance required.
A total sham.
A claim like this shouldn’t find its way into a serious text. A few critical questions reveal its flimsiness. Who clocks the time reliably throughout the sectors? How can data be consistently collected with a sufficient sample size? Why would such sensitive data be published? 4/
The claim was amplified by CIA Director Ratcliffe who said their intelligence is consistent with “some” open-source reporting: “The average life expectancy of a Russian recruit right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes.” 5/
How could the once-formidable CIA have declined into such an amateurish circus?
If you listen to the above, you’ll note his statement is even more egregious than might appear at first glance. Not only does he give the absurd 35-minute canard, but he claims the reason Russians are dying so fast is because of “AI-powered drones”.
This is disgracefully unprofessional from a man in a position meant to know “everything”. Even armchair casuals following the war know that “AI drones” are not currently taking out swaths of infantry soldiers—at least not directly—barring one or two claimed incidents, let alone in such mass and scale that they are producing an average life expectancy of 35 minutes across the entire front on the Russian side. AI-powered drones for now are mostly limited to hitting certain static targets and vehicles, but the way Ratcliffe makes it sound is that they are hunting the actual troops themselves out on the field and in fortifications, which is not nearly the case.
This only makes us more certain that the Russians must have laughed in Ratcliffe’s gullible and credulous face, which likely explains why his visit was considered bizarrely “short”, given that he flew back out mere hours after landing in Moscow.
The second is a smaller, yet no less elucidating, example.
The AMK Mapping account has pointed out that the famed Austrian Colonel Marcus Reisner’s recent broadcast featured an analysis utilizing AMK’s OSINT maps:
In the comments section, another popular French OSINT mapper reveals that the second map on Colonel Reisner’s screen is his own:
Not to take anything away from them, as they both do tremendous work, but these are 19-year old teenage amateur mappers:
The fact that their OSINT work is now essentially the standardized analytical template for Western militaries should probably tell us something.
Of course, the lady below is correct: it says more about the West’s own inhouse capabilities—or lack thereof—than the clearly superior work of such teenage mappers.
The broader point is to illustrate how the West’s entire conception of the war has been framed as relying on some sophisticated “insider knowledge” to assure us that Russia is infact losing because some arcanely “superior” Western analytical doctrine has deduced this from raw, unfiltered, first principle facts. In reality, the West’s entire flimsy narrative-procurement machine rests hopelessly on a bunch of drip-fed, hand-me-down dregs carelessly zooted up from some dank corner of Twitter or Telegram, then simply ‘dressed-up’ with the frills of “official” pronouncement.
It is a total lack of information hygiene, most recently evidenced by the Western establishment’s inability to even parse the obvious smoking gun of Budanov’s revelation that the AFU requires 30,000 men per month “just to maintain what [they] have.”
Though perhaps cracks are beginning to form, as seen in this latest MSM rag’s piece:
It condemns Western sugarcoating which is leading Ukraine on the path of doom, and in its finale even brings up the Budanov-Zelensky “official” KIA disparity.
Ukraine is “gradually, slowly losing” the war. Those are not the words of a Kremlin propagandist but Ukraine’s own Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s recently dismissed defence minister, speaking to Reuters last week. In the days after he made that grim prediction, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine to near-apocalyptic levels.
In a fiendishly effective move, the Kremlin switched from mass drone and missile strikes to continuous, 60-hour-long waves of bombardments which saw nineteen air-raids on Kyiv in a single day, exhausting defenders and dwindling stocks of air-defence missiles alike.
The piece compares Ukraine destroying 20% of Russia’s Wildberries warehouse space to Russia’s 90% destruction—as per Ukraine’s own officials—of Ukrainian retail warehouse space. It ends on a sour note, with no balms of hopeful rhetoric or the usual MSM bromides and platitudes about Ukrainian “victory”:
Instead, Putin clearly intends to use all his resources to destroy Ukraine’s energy, transport and logistics infrastructure this winter in a final push to bring the country to its knees. The challenge for Ukraine – and its allies – is to marshal resources, interceptors and counter-blows that will allow it to survive the Kremlin’s rising storm.
Earlier in the piece the authors touched on another newly common theme amongst MSM reportage: that Russian manufacturing and offensive capacities are growing beyond all previous estimates:
But Russia’s offensive capacities are rising much faster than Ukraine’s, according to recent Nato reports.
In a similar spate of honest reporting, a new FT piece tackles this:
The author declares that Russia is slowly reforming itself into the West’s worst nightmare—a juggernaut which combines all the strengths of Soviet-era industry with 21st century ingenuity:
Despite Ukraine’s recent battlefield successes, it is far too early to write off Russia, which is rebuilding its military in ways that many in the west have underestimated. Instead of simply replacing battlefield losses, it is creating a defence industry that combines Soviet-era industrial capacity with the demands of 21st-century warfare. The goal is not just to produce more tanks, but to reshape its military around the “asymmetric” advantages revealed by the war in Ukraine: drones, compact electronic warfare systems and other low-cost technologies that can be fielded at scale.
The long-term challenge may be even greater for Europe than for Ukraine, whose military has spent more than a decade adapting to old Russian tactics and capabilities.
But these aren’t just quaint talking points, the author argues. The revitalization revolves around major structural reforms in the Russian industrial base, which includes the dreaded decentralized innovation that the West for so long boasted would be elusive to the ‘backwards’ and backwater Russian nation:
Today’s system selectively incorporates market incentives, private companies and decentralised innovation. A good example is the Ushkuynik, a technology accelerator that bridges domestic start-up and technical volunteer efforts with larger defence-industrial enterprises and the state acquisition system. This set-up enables small-scale efforts that would normally remain outside the ministry’s orbit to respond to frontline needs. This model also makes sanctions evasion easier. Instead of solely relying on state procurement, private firms and intermediary networks employ shell companies, third-country distributors and ecommerce platforms such as Alibaba to buy dual-use western components while circumventing export controls.
Even more surprisingly, the author notes, Soviet-era industrial giants have proven themselves flexible and adaptable to modern demands:
Contrary to expectations, Soviet-era defence giants have proved adaptable, prioritising scalable, low-cost capabilities — such as drones and compact electronic warfare. Legacy manufacturers are increasingly investing in unmanned systems, AI-enabled targeting and autonomous technologies. Kalashnikov’s partnerships with grassroots initiatives such as Ushkuynik and Project Archangel illustrate how wartime innovation is consolidated under major state defence contractors. Russia’s Geran long-range drones have evolved from the original Iranian propeller-driven design to jet-powered versions, as well as newer variants operating on mesh networks (a self-organising wireless network allowing drones to communicate directly and relay data through one another). Electronic warfare has undergone a similar transformation: rather than relying on large, strategic systems, Russia has started fielding thousands of compact counter-drone systems to jam communications and disrupt navigation.
This is all very true: much of Russia’s current innovation on the battlefield comes by way of a surprisingly free and loose treatment of homegrown garage “start-ups” by the Russian MOD, which allows them to incorporate their innovation into the wider official MIC framework.
Most importantly, the people in the factories are receiving direct feedback from the front on an ongoing basis, creating a synergistic relationship which promotes immediate positive alterations and upgrades to ongoing weapons developments:
Finally, the war has created a feedback loop between the front lines and factories, allowing Russian companies to test, refine and field new systems rapidly. These battlefield-tested systems are generating international interest. Russian companies have marketed combat-proven equipment at international arms exhibitions, leading to export deals. In 2026, Kalashnikov signed an agreement to supply civilian UAVs to an Indian partner. This demand is likely to grow, particularly across the global south.
The piece ends with pessimism, noting that NATO has yet to even begin trying to catch up:
While Russia has spent years adapting to counter western weapons and tactics on the battlefield, Nato has had far fewer opportunities to develop comparable experience. It is time to start closing that gap.
As a bonus to underscore some of the above points, this new piece from the Spanish El Mundo explains that the “euphoria” surrounding Ukrainian deep strike campaigns has ended, given that Russia’s new anti-Starlink jammer is beginning to herald the end of Starlink’s dominance:
Russia’s official state-operated TASS outlet reports that the feared new Starlink jammer called Volna Kupol Garant has been launched into mass production:
MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. Serial production of Russia’s latest electronic warfare system, the Volna Kupol Garant, which is capable of effectively countering the Starlink satellite system, has been started, a Russian defense industry source told TASS.
“The Volna Kupol Garant system has proven effective, and we have begun to produce and deploy it on a larger scale. Now quantity has transformed into quality, and we have essentially blocked the skies from Starlink wherever we need to. The enemy has been dealt a crushing blow.
How Volna Kupol Garant EW system works
The Russian defense industry source emphasized that Volna Kupol Garant does not interfere with ground terminals. “It operates from above and disrupts the operation of the satellites themselves in orbit. Using a narrow, powerful, directional radio signal, it blinds the satellites’ receiving antennas, causing the spacecraft’s onboard systems to fail and ground terminals to stop functioning. Right before our eyes, the Volna system was conceived, developed, produced as prototypes, and underwent several modifications and improvements. And today, we can safely say that it has entered mass production,” the source stated.
According to him, the system’s signal is so powerful that a single Volna Kupol Garant device can shut down Starlink across a vast area. “Several devices can shut down an entire region. Dozens of devices activated simultaneously could cause a temporary disruption in Starlink’s operations. But the most interesting thing is that Russia reserves the right to distribute this technology to all interested countries around the world. Tools with similar capabilities and power have already appeared in China. This is just the beginning. Elon Musk has gotten himself into the wrong game. If Starlink does not stop aiding and abetting terrorism, it will be up to Russia to decide whether to shut down Starlink only over our territory or worldwide,” the source said.
In the El Mundo piece, a Ukrainian unit commander told journalists that upon destroying one of the new Volno Kupol Garant systems with drones, their Starlink feeds immediately began to function normally again in the area. Coupled with Russia’s launching of its own new Rassvet system—which is a Starlink analogue—the future bodes to be increasingly dim for Ukraine.
The El Mundo piece ends in a fitting manner:
Mykola Kolesnyk, however, says he never shared in that “euphoria.” “I like to be realistic. The Russians are very serious enemies,” he says.
Both Koloesnyk and Anton Zemlianyi agree that with Ukraine having become a military testing ground, the only ones failing to take advantage of this reality are Western nations.
“NATO doctrine is obsolete. They won’t be able to stand up to the Russians,” concludes Zemlianyi.
It’s not so much that Russia is exceptionally powerful as a nation, but rather that NATO and the EU—mired in historic corruption and cultural decay—are extraordinarily defunct as functional civilizations.
It is precisely why the Ukrainian war was necessary to provoke: to make sure that sovereign Russia does not become disproportionately powerful in comparison to the neutered slave-states of Europe and the West, which must be kept degraded and destabilized at all times for the propped-up idol of “globalism” to continue being a credible ‘beacon’ of humanity’s salvation.
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Thoughtful and interesting piece. Why I subscribe. One does not read it elsewhere. Warfare has not only changed but war industry as well. Also depressing to consider the possibility that the head of our intelligence agency travelled all that way, with all that drama to deliver a message taken apparently out of a comic book.