Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 1100 of 1104
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 28, 2026
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-august-28-2026/
Russian budgetary challenges resulting from its costly war effort, Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign, international sanctions, and economic mismanagement are manifesting in concrete operational problems. Bloomberg reported on August 28, citing insider sources, that Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov warned Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in April 2026 about a negative budget balance in the Russian Federal Treasury budget account, prompting immediate spending restrictions.[4] The Russian Federal Treasury budget account reportedly ran a 5.5 trillion-ruble (roughly $63.8 billion) shortfall in April 2026, causing a temporary operational problem for Russian authorities. Bloomberg reported that authorities imposed austerity measures in April 2026 that required 35 percent cuts in funding for spending other than for the war effort and that the Russian government instructed federal agencies to prepare for a 15 percent reduction in staffing. Bloomberg had previously reported that Russian authorities unsuccessfully petitioned Russian President Vladimir Putin to cut defense spending amidst Russia’s growing budgetary crisis.[5] ISW has observed numerous indicators that these issues — which reportedly came to a head in April 2026 — continue to trouble Russian officials, prominent Russian economists, and ordinary Russians.[6]
This operational problem was reportedly short-term and apparently manageable, but it indicates that structural flaws and chronic economic mismanagement are requiring Russian authorities to engage in more complex and challenging fiscal management than is necessary under normal economic circumstances. The economic and fiscal challenges resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, compounded by the effects of Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign, are imposing significant economic hardship on Russian society, including in the major urban centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg that Russian President Vladimir Putin has traditionally sought to protect from the effects of the war.[7] Putin continues to renege on his tacit social contract with Russians in which he would shield them from the impacts of the war in return for their continued support. That such reports are emerging less than a month before the September 20 State Duma elections that Putin has turned into a high-stakes referendum on his war in Ukraine emphasizes the magnitude of the fiscal challenges that the war is presenting to the Kremlin.[8] Putin’s choice to prioritize the war effort is generating avoidable operational problems for Russian officials who will have to continue to react dynamically and with painful mitigations to increasingly adverse economic conditions. Russian officials will likely remain able to respond such that Russia will be able to continue its war effort even as the economy struggles for a considerable time, and there is no near-term or imminent likelihood that the Russian economy will collapse.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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THGR, you've been posting about Russian fuel collapse for quite a while now.
So. When is it going to happen, really?
Any day now?
Tick tock on your predictions.
******
SECOND, "Understanding War" used to be at least closer to the truth, but the worse things go for Ukraine the further it goes off the rails. Russian people aren't suffering. What a crock.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Oh boy! Russia is COLLAPSING!!!!!! AGAIN!!!!!!!
TED'S CLICKBAIT BRAINROT SAYS SO!!!!!!
You are a fucking joke, Ted.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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"Quantity has a quality all its own." The underlying concept—that a large enough accumulation of quantitative change creates a qualitative difference—comes from Marxist dialectical materialism and Hegel’s logic.
Zelensky calls for Ukraine to launch 1,000 drones at Russia daily
By Anna Fratsyvir | August 29, 2026 12:51 am
https://kyivindependent.com/there-must-be-more-zelensky-calls-for-ukra
ine-to-launch-1-000-drones-at-russia-daily/
President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Ukraine to increase the frequency of its long-range drone strikes against Russia on Aug. 28, setting a goal of launching 1,000 drones a day.
Zelensky said in his daily evening address that Ukraine currently launches more than 300 long-range drones on average each day, but needs to significantly increase that number as Russia intensifies its aerial attacks against Ukrainian cities.
"The main priority is to strengthen our defense against jet-powered Shaheds and to step up the frequency of our deep strikes against Russia," Zelensky said. "The task is a thousand drones for long-range strikes against Russia every day. Right now, the average is over 300 of our long-range strikes; there must be more. We have a very specific goal, and we will achieve it."
Zelensky's comments came as Ukrainian forces have stepped up attacks on Russian energy and military infrastructure.
He also pointed to growing pressure on Russia's fuel and export sectors, saying Moscow was already experiencing economic consequences from the war.
"They (Russia) already have less gasoline, fewer exports, and fewer logistics," Zelensky said. "For the first time in its history, Russia is importing gasoline and is in fact using budget funds to support its oil companies."
Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian oil infrastructure as part of its long-range strike campaign. Ukrainian forces launched a strike on Aug. 28 targeting one of Russia's largest oil refineries in the Yaroslavl region. Ukrainian officials also said a Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber was damaged at Engels air base in the Saratov region.
The General Staff confirmed the target of the attack on Yaroslavl was the Slavneft-YANOS refinery, one of Russia's largest oil-processing facilities.
On Aug. 26, Ukrainian forces struck production facilities at the Lukoil-Nizhegorodorgsintez oil refinery, also known as NORSI, in Kstovo in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region. Ukraine's General Staff said the strike hit its target and caused a fire.
The overnight attack damaged several processing units, inter-unit infrastructure, and other plant facilities. The refinery subsequently halted crude oil processing.
Zelensky said Ukraine would continue expanding its long-range strikes if Russia refused to negotiate an end to the war.
"There will be even more such losses for them if Russia does not want to talk rationally about ending this war," he said.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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If he's got money for 1,000 drones a day, he doesn't need to always whore himself out for more.
Fuck Zelensky. He is a dead man walking.
Fuck Ukraine. Nobody cares.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Ukraine has five ways to stop Russia’s Iskanders. Only one arrives before the strikes on the grid begin
It means finding a launcher in a forest during the twenty minutes it spends above ground.
By David Axe | 29/08/2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/08/29/stop-iskanders/
Desperately short of missiles for its roughly 10 Patriot air defense batteries, Ukraine has just a few options as colder weather looms—and the Russians prepare to fire even more hard-to-intercept Iskander ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities and power plants.
The Iskander is a unique threat, and Ukraine is uniquely vulnerable. The Patriot is one of just a few systems that stands any chance of hitting an incoming Iskander as the Russian missile barrels in at six or seven times the speed of sound. And the Patriot is, or was, the most plentiful anti-ballistic interceptor. It usually takes two or three of them to bring down one Iskander.
Then came Iran. Coalition forces fired an average of 225 interceptors a day during the first four days of the war against Lockheed Martin's production rate of 1.7 a day, the Foreign Policy Research Institute calculated—a 132-to-one gap between use and manufacture. Lockheed built 620 Patriots in all of 2025. And every Patriot the Americans fire at an Iranian missile is a Patriot Ukraine won't be able to fire at a Russian missile.
Ukrainian batteries have so few missiles that air defenders can do little more than watch as the 3.8-ton Iskanders and other heavy Russian missiles barrel in. "This is a really heartbreaking sight when you have equipment but you're not able to intercept any missile," Dmytro, the chief engineer of Ukraine's Patriot fleet, told CNN. "Ballistic missiles are flying over your head and you are not able to do anything with it, and behind you, there are civilians." He first ran out of interceptors in December 2025.
Across the 39-day campaign, CSIS estimates 1,060 to 1,430 Patriots were expended—more than half the US prewar inventory. At Lockheed's rate, replacing them takes three years.
And a Patriot cannot be conjured. A single PAC-3 MSE takes about 24 months to build, its solid rocket motor 30. In January the Pentagon signed a seven-year deal for Lockheed to reach 2,000 Patriots a year—by 2030, by which point the Russo-Ukrainian war will be eight years old. Far too late to save Ukraine from the coming hard winter.
The Ukrainian air force has two other batteries that can intercept ballistic missiles, both French-Italian SAMP/Ts, and they are short of missiles too. France agreed in November to send eight next-generation SAMP/Ts over two years—a schedule, not a stockpile.
Winter looms
The interceptor crisis will only worsen as winter looms and the supply of electricity for residential heating once again becomes a matter of life and death for millions of Ukrainians. Iskanders "could hit all significant non-nuclear electricity generation," explained Jakub Janovsky, a Czech military analyst. The Kremlin has cut production of several other missile types—including, as Euromaidan Press reported this month, the Kinzhal—to pour more into the Iskander.
"I wanted to secure 300 missiles for the Patriot systems as part of the winter package. The request from our Air Force is for 360," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists on 23 August, in remarks posted to X. "But when only 600 are produced a year, 360 is not easy to obtain." He has asked Washington for 5% or 10% of the US stockpile, and says Ukraine will pay. By his own account it holds about 1%.
What are Ukraine's non-Patriot options?
Its own ballistic interceptor
Frantic for air defenses, Ukraine is developing its own. In May, Kyiv munitions-maker Fire Point unveiled Freya, a pan-European anti-ballistic project built around the FP-7.x—a 7.25-m composite interceptor derived from the company's FP-7 surface-to-surface missile. Cued by European radars and guided in the final moments by an infrared seeker from Germany's D
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Weekend Update #200: Summer Is Ending, The Russian Offensive Is A Failure So Far
Why Fuel Attacks Need To Be Prioritized, An Update;
Phillips P. OBrien
Aug 30, 2026
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-200-summer-is-en
ding
From Update #1: And the political section was a warning that if the GOP captured both houses of congress in the upcoming midterm elections, it would be bad for Ukraine as the Republicans had a growing anti-Ukraine wing. It is worth noting that I did not mention Trump by name in the piece, but did mention that there was a “pro-Russian” wing in the Republican Party that looked to be growing in influence.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Speaking just the other day to faculty and students at a Moscow University, Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine with a truly wild analogy.
“There are killer whales living nearby. They eat these bears up like small fry. Yes, they just attack as a pack – boom! – and tear them to pieces. It’s all very interesting. Yes, that’s the food chain.
Children need to be told about this too, so they understand what kind of world we’re living in and why we are carrying out the special military operation.”
First of all, this is wrong. Orcas do not kill polar bears (at least according to an internet search). However what is even worse is that it makes no sense. Is Russia the polar bear and NATO the orcas? Or is Ukraine the polar bear and Russia (with China and Iran perhaps) a pack of orcas.
And you know the great tragedy of international relations? It is that there are serious scholars, or at least those who some take seriously, who articulate this kind of a “realist” framework as automatic when it is far from it. If there is one thing we can say that has been shown, it is that states do not behave like this by nature. The US actually put together a brilliant alliance system that for 75 years was the exact opposite of a pack of killer whales attacking a polar bear. If it had wanted to, it could have crushed Russia. It did not.
Today’s Europe is also based on the reality that states do not have to do this to each other.
One of the reasons that Ukraine must win this war is to undermine this way of thinking. If Putin wins, with the help of Donald Trump, the orcas might actually start ripping the polar bears to pieces.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-200-summer-is-en
ding
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Unrealistic optimism isn’t helping Ukraine
Kyiv said it needs to mobilise at least 30,000 people a month to maintain troop levels, suggesting losses higher than officially admitted
By Owen Matthews | 30 August 2026 6:29pm BST
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/30/unrealistic-optimism-isnt-
helping-ukraine/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/unrealistic-optimism-isn-t-helpin
g-ukraine/ar-AA2bdYmw
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.
A strike on an ammunition warehouse in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha – the site of some of the war’s most notorious massacres of Ukrainian civilians in April 2022 – killed at least 38 civilians, including most of the inhabitants of an old people’s home. Russia has also targeted food warehouses, hypermarkets, postal terminals, warehouses storing books and other businesses around the capital. “Russia aims to make Kyiv a dead city,” says Sergej Sumlenny, a Ukrainian soldier and activist.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian claims that they are turning the tide of the war in their favour with deep strikes on refineries and logistics warehouses deep inside Russia are being hollowed out by Russia’s massively larger campaigns of retaliation and revenge.
Ukrainian long-range drones burned an estimated 20 per cent of Wildberries – Russia’s equivalent of Amazon – to the ground. But according to Taras Vysotskyi, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian policy and food, Russian counter-strikes have eliminated some 90 per cent of Ukraine’s modern warehousing stock. This comes after earlier waves of concentrated Russian strikes on Odesa and other ports which have crippled Ukraine’s capacity to export grain and other agricultural goods by sea.
At the same time the Kremlin’s strategy of making Ukrainian cities unliveable seems to have claimed its first terrible success. In August Russian ballistic missiles destroyed the main power station serving the front-line city of Kherson, on the mouth of the Dnipro river. As a result local authorities have warned the remaining residents that they should evacuate large swathes of the city, which can now not be heated in winter.
The cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, both just a few miles from Russian lines, are also getting it in the neck from a barrage of “aerial bombs, Shaheds, first-person-view drones, drones on fibre optic cables, Vampires, GRAD multiple rocket launchers, cluster munitions, artillery, sabotage groups. Everything,” reports Piotr Kaszuwara Dziennikarz, a Polish correspondent.
Since June, Ukraine has been inflicting serious but not fatal damage on the Russian economy using swarms of low-tech drones, plus Flamingo cruise missiles. A Ukrainian-made ballistic missile is due to come soon. Last week Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, delivered blueprints for local production of Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
But Russia’s offensive capacities are rising much faster than Ukraine’s, according to recent Nato reports. Jet engines have been fitted to an air-launched version of the workhorse Geran drone (modelled on the Iranian Shahed) which doubles its range to nearly 620 miles and triples its speed. Realising that mass is more important than accuracy, Russia claims it is ready to produce 10,000 of its new cheap Dan-T missiles next year, which have a similar warhead and range to a Storm Shadow but cost a sixth of the price.
Another cheap and effective new Russian weapon is the air-launched Banderol cru
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From the Wall Street Journal
The geopolitical mismatch driving Russia to threaten the West
By Yaroslav Trofimov | August 30, 2026
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/the-geopolitical-mismatch-driv
ing-russia-to-threaten-the-west/ar-AA2bfiuE
Russia faces a fundamental asymmetry as it seeks to beat Ukraine into submission with intensifying airstrikes on shopping malls, power stations, ports and other infrastructure. Kyiv can rely on a secure hinterland beyond its borders—its European neighbors—for economic resilience and for military logistics.
The Kremlin, whose refineries, ports and defense industries are also under attack by Ukrainian missiles and drones, has no such backup. Hits to Russia’s militarized economy translate more directly into damage to the country’s ability to keep the war going.
This lopsided geopolitical setup offsets, to a significant degree, Russia’s advantage in firepower. It has also become the key reason driving what Western officials say is a widening Russian campaign of sabotage, hacking and other hybrid operations aimed at intimidating European leaders and voters.
Warning Russia against taking hostilities to North Atlantic Treaty Organization members in Europe was a key message delivered by Central Intelligence Agency director John Ratcliffe on his recent trip to Moscow, according to people familiar with the matter.
Russian officials have long described their war as one against the “collective West,” and not just Ukraine. Russian threats have become increasingly strident this summer, including warnings of military strikes against the Baltic states and even the U.K.
Ukraine’s economy and military effort were funded by $105 billion in new European assistance approved this year, money that came on top of vast amounts of aid and arms received from the U.S. and other NATO members since the 2022 full-scale invasion. European officials are already talking about another package of comparable size, perhaps to be funded with frozen Russian assets.
Russia, however, has to pay for its own war at a time when its economy is under pressure from Ukrainian strikes and Western sanctions. Two of Moscow’s closest allies, Iran and North Korea, are broke. China is taking advantage of Russia’s predicament to negotiate lower oil and gas prices, and is facing its own economic headwinds.
Russian leaders believe that they need to reverse this imbalance, fast, said Sergey Lagodinsky, a German member of the European Parliament and a Russian native. “They see that Ukraine can survive and can continue to fight because it has access to outside resources and outside solidarity, and that is what they want to cut or damage,” he said.
Much of Russia, up to the middle of Siberia, is now within range of Ukrainian drones, and Ukrainian attacks on energy installations and logistics warehouses occur nightly—as do Russian strikes on Ukraine.
In one illustration of the disparity in consequences, Russia is struggling with a full-blown fuel crisis because Ukrainian drones have disabled more than one-third of the nation’s refining capacity. By contrast, gas stations are functioning normally in Ukraine because of fuel imports from Europe—even though Ukraine’s own refineries were heavily bombed as far back as 2022.
Ukraine’s military uses logistics hubs in countries like Poland, Germany and Romania, while Ukrainian defense companies have established production lines across Europe, including a plant making ballistic-missile fuel that is under construction in Denmark.
With the exception of Belarus and North Korea, none of Russia’s neighbors, including its formal defense allies in Central Asia, are openly helping its war effort. Even Belarus is careful these days not to provoke more sanctions from the West or a military response from Ukraine.
Seen from the Kremlin, the situation is intolerable: NATO countries are inflicting strategic blows on Russia’s economy and military capacity, including its space program, ballistic-missile industry and strategic bomber fleet, with Ukrainian hands—and without
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