Putin announced that he will begin spending less on the war due to economic difficulties.
During the war, Ukraine has taken out 16 generals in total; however, in the last week, they have taken out 3 generals, 1 admiral, and 1 colonel. With the last general, his entire brigade staff was also killed in a multiple HIMARS/drone attack.
The colonel was in charge of Russia's main offensive in Pokrovsk. He was considered their last commander to take significant ground. Somehow, Ukraine knows exactly where these generals are now. The leadership of the 3 main summer offensives has all been killed with each offensive stalled for the last few weeks.
Both side can not stop either's drone. About a year ago, Russia would send around 100 drones a night, with 90% stopped. We are now seeing every few days 500+ drones being sent, with about 70% to 80% stopped, with mostly nominal civilian casualties.
Ukraine is destroying factories, oil storage, munitions storage, tech companies, trains, air bases, radars, etc on a daily basis. It looks like Ukraine is beginning to have air superiority in strategic locations, with more glide bombs from France hitting command posts and troop concentrations near the front lines. It's pretty clear that with a 2-year focus on taking out Russia's radar installations and the handful of airborne radar planes, they can't cover their entire front lines.
Last week, at least 4 fighters and 3 choppers were destroyed, I believe on the ground by drones. One training fighter crashed due to failing landing gear.
It is rumored that North Korea has sent 1,000 combat engineers and 5,000 construction workers to Kursk to help with demining. CNN has NK sending an additional 30,000 troops to Russia.
Ukraine just beta-tested its own version of the glide bomb.
Both sides are using nets to protect the road from drones. Netting has become a critical component of the war effort.
Ukraine's tactics are to force Russia to make large reactive troop movements and then hit those concentrations with drones, or to retreat so they can lure Russia into kill zones.
Artillery was responsible for the most kills at the start of the war; however, now 75% of the kills are by drones, 20% are by artillery, and 5% is by small arms. To encourage drone kills, the Ukrainian command has gamified the war.
They have an Amazon-like website where drone teams can spend points given to them by video-proven kills to order drone resupply. Where tanks used to be the priority, killing one Russian drone team is now worth 25 points, whereas killing a tank is only worth 10 points. Ukraine's leaders said that their teams will naturally kill what threatens them the most, but when they are on the hunt, they want to prioritize human drone assets. By giving point totals to targets, they can quickly change targeting priorities all over the front.
Ukraine has failed at instituting successful protocols and training. While Russia has a strong top-down philosophy in everything, while they are rigid and slow to react, successful strategies are implemented throughout the frontlines. Ukraine was trained much like NATO forces to take the initiative, often times best practices were unknown battalion to battalion. Hopefully, this gamification will get the Ukraine army on the same page quicker.
In terms of training, many battalions have recruited directly themselves. While Ukraine has a poor reputation for training, certain battalions are more well-regarded than others, so those that have the best training/success will self-recruit more men. The issue of poor training nationally seems to be mitigated by the survival of the fittest strategy amongst battalions.
Ukraine has listening devices throughout the country to triangulate drones. They are now sending hunter drones to take out Shaheed drones. About 10% of the Shaheed drones are taken out by the hunter drones.
Drone technology is evolving so fast that within 3 months, a drone is considered obsolete.
Ukraine said, what will be groundbreaking is when they have perfected their ground drones. They are currently using drones to clear mines, resupply the front, and bring back wounded. They are talking about creating terminators on wheels.
They currently have mothership drones that are dropping off suicide drones deep into Russian territory, submarine drones, and boat drones that have shot down a fighter/choppers and sunk ships. Over the Black Sea there is a fierce fight over random oil platforms to act as drone relay stations, refueling stations, and radar stations.
Transnistria, a Russia-funded breakoff region from Moldova, is starting to lean more toward Moldova again. One of the reasons for the war was to create a land bridge from Crimea to Transnistria. That would kill off Ukraine economically because Russia would have landlocked Ukraine, making Moldova an easy target.
Perhaps seeing that Ukraine may start winning, Hegseth has unilaterally stopped munitions shipments to Ukraine on the grounds of dwindling US stockpiles, something that the Pentagon and the Armed Services Committee have directly said is false. This is the 3rd time he has halted munitions.
When asked, Trump said he did not know munitions had been stopped.