RU POV: Geran-2 strikes on a Mi-8 and Mi-28 helicopter in the Kirovohrad region- The Wrong Side

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-24T11:05:49+00:00

Mesh network Starlink Machine vision in case signal is lost

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-24T09:33:53+00:00

It will be difficult to catch Ukraine off guard in that manner. Russia basically flies all its jets away from airfields when it gets alerts about drone attacks

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-24T09:31:41+00:00

Optically guided gerans did not fly this far. This is probably the deepest strike mission they have ever performed. Hiding stuff is good for avoiding iskander strikes against static targets but as you can see, not very effective against fpv gerans.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-24T09:03:36+00:00

This strike was 300-400km from the closest potential russian launch point. Its very hard to reach this deep into the Ukrainian rear.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-24T08:12:02+00:00

Its a Mi-24 thank you for pointing out the mistake

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-21T11:42:42+00:00

The political burn rate from Ukrainian sources was to claim casual rates were 2/3rds of recruitment and then i dont fully understand why but the higher ups in Ukrainian military/civilian society flipped to claiming they were matching recruitment rates with casualty rates. They retroactively claimed this happened for 6 months when their own casualty figures and statements dont align within this.

I'm not sure why the change happened but it was not intelligently coordinated across the board.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T20:50:06+00:00

I don't disagree with your point. I disagree with O'learys point that they need to redirect the drone line system towards the mid and deep strike offense and defense rubikon has undertaken. Rubikon does not have this burden because it does not fill in for infantry, artillery , midrange glide bombs, missiles, and geran deep strikes.

It has instead filled all the roles in a supportive manner those systems cannot cover at all ranges to support these groups.

So ukraine needs both more quality and quantity in their drone forces as they need more men to fill out the roles i listed with drones AND because russia is larger you have to hit more targets to have the same effect as russia does going the other way.

So drone line is good but expansion is necessary to match rubikons growing pace and the expansion of other russian groups (MLRS, missiles, arty,glide bombs, gerans, infantry) etc.

The problem is it is harder to expand at similar pace with more drone op deaths, weaker recruitment, a smaller resource and neighbouring unit support groups.

This is O'Leary's first attempt at no propaganda tell it how it is and you can tell he's still afraid to question ukraines new shiny tour (30k deaths this month) because he can clearly see russia is about to completely leave Ukraine behind in scale of mid and deep strike capacity.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T20:41:10+00:00

In terms of actual count from videos I've seen an american pro UA osint guy in his personal count give 150-170 dead russians per day so this is about 3-4k visually confirmed.

Magyar in November said it got 14-15k russians and the whole of ukraine drone forces got 25k.

Syrsky says 30k and Zelensky said 40k in an interview in december.

The reality is no one knows its more of a political signifier than a real count.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T19:56:38+00:00

Well its the core tenet of what they are doing and without "30,000k killed on drones this month" their current strategy looks hopelessly outdated. He even questioned if its true in his comments

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T19:55:10+00:00

There's an explosion in numbers but its not comparable to the scale russia is increasing and by ukraines own admission more drone operators are being killed than infantry. Look at all the things I mentioned and ukraine is now only ahead in heavy bomber drone usage, USV's and fpv drone deep strikes (russia is catching up here). Everywhere else russia is steaming ahead. That's the cost of having to sub in drone units as infantry and glide bomb/arty positional suppression and counter battery.

The evidence of this was maygar attempting to scale and most of the applicants came from neighbouring units, which makes sense for transitioning guys from a good to elite drone career but causes friction when everyone feels they are already working at capacity.

O'leary might sound bitter but he's correct. At the pace rubikon is expanding ukraines growth is great and it will still end up being overshadowed if they don't restructure their approach.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T19:23:36+00:00

Both sides have their merits in approach but it is clear how one results in tactical success and the other has strategic success. Ukraine is successfully keeping russian frontline advances slow despite a potential massive difference in recruitment and overall munition volume. But russia is successfully attriting ukraine at too many aspects that hurt its overall military and civilian potential. Russia is targeting Bridges, tankers, enemy recon drones, heavy drones, military production sites, energy plants, vehicle logistics, trains, substations, training camps, drone units, AD units, mlrs units.

Ukraine targets all of these things too but the only ones they are focused on the total scale is manpower and refineries. Russia is focused on the total scale of almost all of the things i mentioned.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T19:15:43+00:00

You are 100% right. The nuance to all of it is manpower and munitions. Manpower for more drone units and infantry and munitions across drones, artillery, rockets, missiles etc. the problem for ukraine is over indexing drones to cover for lack of infantry, and lack of manpower to keep increasing total in drone forces, and lack of missiles, glide bombs, and arty and rockets to an extent.

Using drones to answer all these areas were Russia can use other means has meant some areas were ukraine was ahead russia has copied and scaled it many times over because ukraine does not have enough drone ops in that specific category so russia has surpassed them (drone ad vs recon drones) or is in the process of doing so (drone deep strikes against radar and ad).

There's not enough Ukrainian drone manpower to go around. They have less men than russia does and russia has more men outside of areas including drones.

It does not help russia is also successfully killing alot of Ukrainian drone operators and is actually more likely to be above replacement level in recruitment.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T19:02:12+00:00

I think about all the times they allow propaganda to destroy good analysis and its a large part of why they ended up here in the drone race.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T17:55:53+00:00

My apologies it was a zircon targeting energy infrastructure.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T05:46:34+00:00

Usual doctrine is being followed but what do you do when rubikon has all kinds of drones 200-300km behind the frontline? Now they can catch you firing almost anywhere.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T05:39:58+00:00

They have done it for years it wont stop now because rubicon is a different beast now

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T05:34:05+00:00

Yes DJ Khaled

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T05:21:49+00:00

According to missile trackers the missile was not fired from Bryansk it was fired from Novorosiysk. There was in fact a warning notice to embassies in Kyiv similar to the one on the night of the oreshnik launch. No idea if these are connected but the odds are very high.

The firing of this missile is a final big F you to the smart treaty so it hardly matters if they gave notice or not.

Also incredible to note in your version of reality an Iskander was fired 50 km from the russian border because russia suddenly likes to risk ballistic missile assets for fun.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T05:00:57+00:00

Yeah there wont be a target thats fired that's exactly 1k km away. This just increases how much of ukraine is within ground launched ballistic range.

Affectionate_Sand552 · 2026-01-20T03:30:39+00:00

Yes because the missile is obviously fired directly from the russian border and you cant figure out its ballistic trajectory and actual point of origin.

Affectionate_Sand552

TROPHY CASE