Ukraine Just BREACHED a Russian Dam… The Water Did What Bullets COULDN'T | Other War Stories - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00:00In the words of Ron Simmons, damn! That's what Russian troops would have been screaming,

00:00:05only it's a different type of dam that was causing the problems. This dam was preventing

00:00:09water from flooding into a reservoir in Belgorod, which is what a dam is supposed to do. Ukraine

00:00:15saw that and it came up with an idea. Strike the dam and you flush away the Russians.

00:00:21So that's just what Ukraine did. A drone strike turned a Russian dam into a giant weapon,

00:00:27and the flood that resulted has created some brutal problems for Putin and his cronies.

00:00:32On July 20th, the Pepel-Belgorod telegram channel broke the news. Ukraine had just carried out a

00:00:38devastating drone strike that caused serious damage to the dam located in the Shevokinsky district of

00:00:44Belgorod. The dam is located at the main Belgorod reservoir and it appears that Ukraine targeted

00:00:49it on July 19th. And that's not all. As the same channel reported, efforts to fill and restore the

00:00:56dam are further hindered by drones that continue to attack the dam itself, as well as the personnel

00:01:02and machinery approaching it. In other words, Ukraine's attacks haven't stopped. Its drones

00:01:07have done the bulk of the damage that they want to do. Next on the agenda is preventing Russia from

00:01:13making repairs and scoring strikes against any military personnel who get too close. Ukraine wants

00:01:19the water to keep flowing, and as you will soon find out, the water is already becoming a major problem

00:01:24for Russia. But first, the damage. Medusa reports that a spillway section of the dam,

00:01:30roughly 30 meters long, has been damaged by the drone strike, and that water is pouring through at

00:01:35an alarming rate. Spillways are safety structures either built as part of or beside a dam that are

00:01:41used to safely pass flood water away from a reservoir once that reservoir is filled up. The key here is

00:01:47control. The water still passes over, around or through the dam, but it's directed in such a way

00:01:53that it doesn't cause any problems. The Belgorod Dam has, essentially, lost one of its spillways,

00:01:58which means the water it was supposed to control isn't being directed to where it needs to go anymore.

00:02:03On top of that, Ukraine also appears to have scored a direct strike on the road that runs along the

00:02:08crest of the dam. Taking out a road doesn't cause flooding, of course. However, it does make it much

00:02:14harder for Russian repair teams to reach the damaged spillway. They need to navigate around the road to get

00:02:19to where they need to go. It's no easy task given that the dam's crest is pretty narrow.

00:02:24We also mentioned follow-up attacks. A July 21 report by AA reveals that drones launched

00:02:30after the main barrage are further compromising the Belgorod Dam. Hydraulic equipment has also

00:02:35been struck which has caused a further uncontrolled release of water to go along with that caused by

00:02:39the spillway destruction. Warnings are now blaring in Belgorod. Authorities warn that if further

00:02:45attacks happen, a more serious breach of the dam might occur, which could flood several

00:02:49settlements and cause the evacuation of thousands of people. That's already well on its way toward

00:02:54happening. Militanyi offers more details, noting that the initial surge of water has led to the

00:03:00Nezegol River, which flows alongside Shebekino, rapidly filling to the point where it's burst its banks.

00:03:07Infrastructure and buildings on the banks of this river have already started to flood,

00:03:10and the situation may end up getting worse as Ukraine continues the assault. In nearby Bezlyodovka,

00:03:16which is located downstream of that river, we've also seen water levels rise. And on Popedi Street,

00:03:23in this general region, residents are reporting the formation of a lake that is making it incredibly

00:03:27difficult for vehicles and pedestrians to pass through. The residents of Belgorod should be used

00:03:32to this flooding. It's happened to them before. Back in October 2025, Ukraine launched a similar drone

00:03:38strike targeting the same Belgorod dam that it hit on July 19th. We saw a similar strategy back then.

00:03:44An initial drone strike caused a breach, leading to river waters rising. Ukraine then followed up

00:03:50with further strikes to delay repair efforts and force more uncontrolled water into the surrounding

00:03:55regions. The commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, Robert Brovdy, confirmed which

00:04:00Ukrainian unit carried out the strike and mentioned some of the damage done. The Belgorod reservoir

00:04:06cracked today. Since the initial strike, the water level has dropped by 100 centimeters.

00:04:10The hit was carried out by the birds of the first separate center of the unmanned system's forces,

00:04:15Brovdy declared. Satellite photos also emerged in the wake of the October strike,

00:04:20revealing that the scale of the flooding was dramatic. The area around Bezlyodovka ended up being

00:04:25covered in water, meaning the settlement was almost surrounded, Exile Nova Plus reported.

00:04:30The same outlet said that the Belgorod regional governor kept suspiciously quiet about the whole thing,

00:04:35suggesting that as the Telegram channel puts it, the scum is trying to hush up the incident in

00:04:40the best Soviet traditions. That hasn't happened this time. There's no denying the damage that

00:04:45Ukraine has done to the Belgorod dam with its July attack, and warnings about potential evacuations

00:04:50being delivered. Following the October strike against the dam, water levels in the nearby reservoir

00:04:56remained low for more than a month afterward. Ukraine will be hoping for a similar result this time

00:05:00around. At this point, you may have a few concerns rattling around you. What Ukraine appears to have

00:05:06done is strike what many would consider a civilian target. Indeed, it's the settlements around the

00:05:11Belgorod dam that are immediately affected, and Russia is trying to paint this strike as a terrorist

00:05:15attack by Ukraine's drone forces. Ukraine would respond to those concerns with two points.

00:05:20This is revenge, and the Belgorod dam has more military importance than many realize.

00:05:26On the revenge front, Russia is no stranger to destroying dams if it thinks doing so could

00:05:31damage Ukraine in any way. We can head all the way back to the beginning of the invasion to see

00:05:35that, in September 2022, Russian missiles struck the reservoir dam in the southern Ukrainian city

00:05:41of Kriviri. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted the attack as terroristic,

00:05:46noting that this particular dam held no military value whatsoever, meaning Russia had no justification for

00:05:52launching it. That isn't the case with the Belgorod dam, as you'll soon discover.

00:05:56Almost a year later, in June 2023, the Kokovka hydroelectric power plant in Kherson was destroyed.

00:06:03This dam, which is one of six that sits on the Dnipro River, held back a reservoir so massive

00:06:08that residents call it the Kokovka Sea, due to it being so large that you can't see the opposite bank

00:06:14in some places. This attack was a little more complicated than the earlier dam strike.

00:06:18NATO and Ukraine accused Russia of destroying the dam, while Russia claimed that it was a

00:06:23Ukrainian strike that had done the damage, the BBC reported at the time. The latter seems unlikely.

00:06:28Not only would that mean Ukraine launched attacks against its own infrastructure,

00:06:32but it would have also put thousands of its own people at risk to do so. Furthermore,

00:06:36the dam was built specifically to withstand a powerful impact from the outside, the BBC says.

00:06:41As such, its complete destruction was more likely to have been caused by an internal explosion.

00:06:46And given that Russia occupied the region where the dam was located, it seems far more likely

00:06:50that Russia itself blew up the dam, perhaps as an attempt at a false flag operation.

00:06:56The point here is that Russia is no stranger to attacking dams.

00:06:59For Ukraine, the strike against the Belgorod dam on July 19th is a case of tit for tat.

00:07:05If Russia can do it without being punished, then Ukraine can attack dams to bring the war back

00:07:09to the Russian people in return. However, and as is usually the case with Ukraine strikes,

00:07:14this latest attack wasn't just about revenge. Despite Russia's claims, the Belgorod dam does

00:07:20serve a military purpose, making it a legitimate target for Ukraine. Before we explain what that

00:07:25purpose is, this is a quick reminder that you're watching the military show. If you haven't subscribed

00:07:30to the channel yet, then what are you waiting for? We deliver daily videos covering the latest

00:07:34developments in the Ukraine war and other global military events. It's not just civilians who live

00:07:40near the Belgorod dam that have been affected by Ukraine's strike. Russia has brigades stationed

00:07:45in the surrounding area, four of them in fact, most of which are located near the village of Grafovka,

00:07:51which sits downstream from the river that's bursting its banks due to Ukraine's drone attacks.

00:07:56We learned this fact during Ukraine's October 2025 attack against the dam, when RBC Ukraine revealed

00:08:01the resulting flooding had impacted a series of bunkers used by the 68th, 116th,

00:08:07128th and 136th Russian Armed Forces Brigades. That lends an entirely new perspective on Ukraine's

00:08:14latest Belgorod dam assault. Remember, Belgorod is a border region. Its proximity to Ukraine makes it a

00:08:20prime location from which to launch strikes and inject soldiers into the Ukrainian mainland.

00:08:25Four entire brigades downstream of the dam aren't just sitting around in Belgorod for no reason.

00:08:31They are there with a purpose. What that purpose may be isn't 100% clear. However, we do know

00:08:36that Russia has used Belgorod as a launching pad for attacks on Ukraine. Displacing four bridges,

00:08:42even if those brigades haven't been wiped out by the flooding, leads to disorganization and chaos,

00:08:47which is only a good thing from a Ukrainian warfighting perspective. There is another aspect

00:08:52to consider here, and it has something to do with the thing that is now spilling out of the Belgorod

00:08:56dam in massive amounts, water. Now you might think that Ukraine's main aim with its dam attack was the

00:09:02flooding that has resulted. That's certainly part of it, but there is a bigger story at play when it

00:09:06comes to the Russian water that is flooding away from the dam right now. To understand that story,

00:09:12we again go back to the October 2025 strike on the Belgorod dam. At that time, Russia was making a

00:09:18push

00:09:18to try to capture more territory in the Ukrainian region of Vovchansk. By October 26, Putin was claiming

00:09:24that Russia held about 70% of the region. Its task from that point was to cross the Vovcha River.

00:09:30That had been a problem. When that river is flowing, Russia faces a hell of a time making a crossing.

00:09:35However, a very dry summer in Ukraine had caused some issues, as a statement from Ukraine's 16th

00:09:40Army Corps revealed at the time. The enemy tried to fully exploit a window of opportunity. After a dry

00:09:45period and an extremely hot summer, the Sivirsky, Donetsk, and Vovcha rivers had dried up,

00:09:51simplifying logistics for the adversary. At the same time, reserves had been stockpiled and there

00:09:56were still enough leaves on the trees. Altogether, this led to a sharp increase in activity in the

00:10:00Vovchansk direction, the Corps' statement read. In other words, the Vovcha River's waters were

00:10:05running low and that was on the verge of providing Russia with a means to make a much easier and

00:10:09faster

00:10:10crossing. And if that crossing happened, Russia would then be able to push deeper into Vovchansk.

00:10:15Bursting the Belgorod dam sent water careening far enough to fill the rivers that were running dry.

00:10:20Whatever plans Russia had for a crossing were foiled.

00:10:24Fast forward to July 2026 and something similar seems to be on the verge of happening.

00:10:28Ukraine, like much of Europe, has been hit by heat waves for much of the summer.

00:10:32In fact, it was leading much of Europe at the end of May for heat,

00:10:35with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius in many regions.

00:10:39More intense spikes in heat have followed, placing greater demands on Ukraine's struggling

00:10:44energy grid, Euronews reports. But Ukraine's bigger problem is that Russia is still trying

00:10:49to get its troops across the Vovcha River. Putin's soldiers have labeled the waters in that river a

00:10:54death trap. They are still being forced to attempt crossings, often in groups of two or three,

00:10:59in an attempt to approach Ukrainian positions on the other side. Crossing that river is key to any

00:11:04Russian attempt to push deeper, both into Vovchansk and the wider Kharkiv area.

00:11:08With these factors in play, it looks like Ukraine has just run a repeat of its October strike on

00:11:13the Belgorod Dam to ensure that the waters keep flowing into a river that is keeping Russia's

00:11:17soldiers at bay. The flooding that affects four brigades is great, but if Ukraine can

00:11:21keep Russia's troops on the other side of the Vovcha for the rest of the year with this attack,

00:11:25that's an even bigger winner from a long-term perspective of defending Ukrainian territory.

00:11:30So the destruction of the dam at the Belgorod Reservoir isn't the terrorist attack that Russia

00:11:35wants you to think it is. Taking out that dam serves several military purposes. Still, having

00:11:40said all of that, we can't ignore the fact that this strike will impact civilians in Belgorod.

00:11:45And while Ukraine has no intention of attacking those civilians directly, it would also argue that

00:11:50putting pressure on the Russian people is another legitimate military tactic that it's just

00:11:54employed. How so? Well, the psychological impact of attacks in Belgorod on the region's people

00:11:59adds up to more pressure placed on Putin to end his Ukraine invasion.

00:12:03It's fair to say that the people of Belgorod are more tired than most of Putin's seemingly never-ending

00:12:08thirst for war. Living in a border region, they have spent years having the war brought back to their

00:12:13doorsteps by Ukraine. On two occasions, in 2023 and 2024, Ukrainian forces entered the Belgorod

00:12:19village of Kozinka, leading to part of that village being destroyed in fighting. In the city that gives

00:12:25the oblast its name, bomb shelters have been erected, anti-drone nets are draped over important

00:12:29buildings, and there are even barricades at the bus stops. All are supposed to be temporary though

00:12:34increasingly seem to be permanent signs that the war that Putin started isn't as one-sided as he

00:12:40claimed it would be. Even now, the residents of Belgorod are still being forced to suffer because of

00:12:45Putin's war. On July 7th, the New Voice of Ukraine reported that water shortages and blackouts had

00:12:50resulted from an overnight attack that triggered several fires at Belgorod linear production management

00:12:55of main gas pipelines. These sorts of incidents are becoming everyday occurrences for Belgorod's

00:13:01civilians and many will view Ukraine's latest dam-busting attack with a combination of exasperation

00:13:06and outrage. Yet another signal that Putin's war has come home to Russia. You might think that the

00:13:12exasperation and outrage we just mentioned are being directed at Ukraine. After all,

00:13:17they're the ones conducting the attacks against Belgorod. However, that doesn't seem to be the

00:13:21case. Belgorod's war-weary residents are simply tired of the war as a whole, and many are far angrier

00:13:27at Putin than they are at Ukraine. There are signs of this all over. In a January 28th report,

00:13:32The Economist revealed that a local news website named Fonar had run a survey asking Belgorod residents

00:13:38various questions about Putin's war. Around 25% said they were devastated and disappointed

00:13:44that it had happened at all, with a similar number stating that the war had put their lives on hold.

00:13:49But the most eye-opening result came from the question asking whether respondents had given

00:13:53aid to Russian participants in the war. Only 6% said they had, which indicates that many in Belgorod

00:13:59never supported the war to begin with and perhaps even view what Ukraine is doing as a necessary evil

00:14:05to bring an end to the conflict. We can also go back to May 2023 and an interesting Newsweek report.

00:14:11The outlet reported on comments made by Anton Gerashenko, who was then Deputy Minister of

00:14:16Internal Affairs for Ukraine. Gerashenko claimed that members of the Freedom of Russia Legion,

00:14:21which is a paramilitary group made up of Russian citizens who are battling against Putin,

00:14:25had told him that some in Belgorod were making some interesting requests.

00:14:30We were even approached by the people of Belgorod with a request to conduct a peacekeeping

00:14:34operation on the territory of the region because, of course, they are tired of being bombed,

00:14:38the Legion member said. This means that residents were asking a group that is actively pro-Ukrainian

00:14:43to do what they could, up to and including entering Belgorod territory, to try and end the fighting.

00:14:48In essence, a friendly invasion by Ukraine's supporters. It never came to pass, but all of this

00:14:54casts an interesting new light on Ukraine's Belgorod strikes. Russia wants to cast Ukraine as an

00:14:59aggressor. However, it seems that support for the so-called special military operation in Belgorod

00:15:04is far lower than the Kremlin wants to believe. Many in the region feel abandoned by Russia, left to

00:15:10absorb Ukrainian attacks because of Belgorod's clear military importance and its status as a border

00:15:15region, which makes it an easier target than most. Ukraine is very aware of this fact. The Kyiv Post

00:15:20reports that Brovdy himself has alluded to Ukrainian strategies that involve raising the ire of Russian

00:15:26people to put pressure on Putin. Brovdy said that he wants to add to the negative sentiment inside

00:15:31Russia, which could potentially raise tensions to the point that they create a destructive process

00:15:35within the country. That negative sentiment seems to be growing, not just in Belgorod but throughout

00:15:40Russia. In a July 1 report, TVP World said that the Ukraine-based Institute of Conflictology and

00:15:46Analysis of Russia had conducted a telephone poll of 1,600 Russian respondents. 81% of them said they

00:15:54would support an end to the war as early as tomorrow if the option was on the table, and 58

00:15:59% said that

00:15:59ending the war should be Putin's top priority, allowing him to focus on improving Russia's

00:16:04financial situation. As a final note, 73% of respondents said that they would oppose a second

00:16:09wave of mobilization, suggesting that most would rather an end to the war come through peace negotiations

00:16:14than yet more fighting. All of this brings us back to the dam on the Belgorod reservoir. Another attack

00:16:20on that dam serves a clear military purpose. Several, in fact. But perhaps the most important

00:16:25aspect of the strike is that it makes an already war-weary population in Belgorod even angrier at

00:16:31Putin for putting them in the situation they are in and then seemingly leaving them to their fate.

00:16:36Who knows? Belgorod might even end up being the first Russian region to outwardly rise up against

00:16:41Putin in protest. Its residents don't seem to blame Ukraine for their situation. It is their leader who

00:16:46is responsible for everything that is happening. More pressure on that leader is sure to come if

00:16:51these types of attacks continue. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Putin is going to stop until

00:16:56he gets what he wants, no matter how long it takes, how many have to die, and how much of

00:17:01a shambles he

00:17:02creates in Russia. The Crimean chaos continues. As massive fireballs engulfed the Kerch Strait,

00:17:10Russia realized that Ukraine was taking aim at Crimea's power facilities. Russia may have realized,

00:17:17but it could do nothing about it. Occupiers have been plunged into darkness as Kerch goes pitch black.

00:17:24Frankly, those occupiers are getting used to this. Darkness, fuel shortages, and a constant message

00:17:29sent by Ukraine that the only route out of Crimea as a target have become the norm, as Putin can

00:17:35do

00:17:35nothing to protect the peninsula that is supposed to be Russia's stronghold. Get out now is the message

00:17:41that Ukraine is sending to the Russians in Crimea. Something big is coming, and you don't want to be

00:17:46living your illegal life in Crimea when it arrives. As gunfire and explosions rocked the occupied region

00:17:52of Kerch, Russian authorities started to panic. And they should. After days of attacking shipping in the

00:17:59Sea of Azov, and those strikes haven't stopped, Ukraine took aim at power facilities in one region that

00:18:04can serve as an escape route for the hundreds of thousands of Russian occupiers who have made

00:18:09Crimea their home. The Kyiv Post has the basic details in a July 15th report where it says that

00:18:15total blackouts were reported all across Kerch on the day of its report. That isn't based on Ukraine

00:18:21trumpeting its results either. The puppet head of the Kerch administration, Ivan Koschel, was the bearer of

00:18:27bad news for his people as he reported, Unfortunately, as a result of the enemy drone attack,

00:18:32Kerch is completely without power. Life support systems are operating on backup power sources.

00:18:38All city services are involved in emergency recovery operations. Completely without power?

00:18:44If there's one thing the great protector Putin was supposed to be able to do, it was to prevent

00:18:48Ukraine from ever inflicting something like this on the Russians, who he told to move to Crimea.

00:18:54The Crimean Wind Telegram channel documented the panicked Russian response to Ukraine's attack.

00:19:00It's said that subscribers to the channel who were on the ground in Kerch reported that loud blasts

00:19:05could be heard rocking this key region of the peninsula. Russia, having spent months getting

00:19:09its more advanced air defense systems blasted by Ukrainian drones, seemed to be able to do little

00:19:15more than deploy mobile fire groups in a hit-and-hope strategy that failed to stop the attacks on

00:19:21Kerch's power facilities. Amidst it all, Russia also tried to stop a propaganda nightmare from unfolding.

00:19:26The same telegram channel says that Russia halted all traffic across the Kerch Bridge.

00:19:32Why? Did Russia fear that Ukraine would finally take out the Kerch Bridge? Or did Putin want to

00:19:37make sure that no Crimean occupiers could get out and into mainland Russia to tell others what's

00:19:43really happening on a peninsula that is supposed to be a Russian fortress? Whatever Russia was trying

00:19:47to do, none of it helped. In addition to Kerch, power outages were reported in several settlements in

00:19:53Crimea's northwestern and eastern districts, the New Voice of Ukraine reports. Repair crews were

00:19:58already on site, the outlet says, though it's impossible to determine when they'll be able to

00:20:03get their power flowing again. And even if they do, Ukraine always has more drones on hand to take

00:20:08out repaired substations and other infrastructure. And as if all of this wasn't bad enough for the

00:20:14Kerch occupiers, the Russian-controlled water company that services the Crimean peninsula,

00:20:19Voda Krymer reported that the water pressure had been reduced in nine districts, all as a result of

00:20:25the emergency affecting Kerch's power grid. No electricity, no water, no fuel, no hope. That's

00:20:32what Ukraine has transformed life into for many occupiers who bought into Putin's claims that Crimea

00:20:37would become a luxury destination that could never fall out of Russian control. And through it all,

00:20:43Ukraine hasn't attacked civilians directly. It just sends the message, over and over,

00:20:48we will make your life hell until you figure out that it's time to leave Crimea forever.

00:20:53Of course, anybody who gets their Ukraine war updates from Russia's defense ministry wouldn't

00:20:57have a clue about any of this. As the puppet regime in Crimea panicked so much that it actually

00:21:02delivered some semblance of truth to its people, the Russian defense ministry did what it always does,

00:21:08ignore Ukraine's success and act as though Russia's air defenses are doing their jobs.

00:21:12The ministry claimed that Russian air defenses shot down 93 Ukrainian drones on the night when Ukraine

00:21:17crippled Kerch's power supply. The downing of drones was reported over Crimea, as well as both the Black

00:21:23Sea and the Sea of Azov, and several Russian border regions, including Kursk, Bryansk, Rostov,

00:21:30and Belgorod. Head meet sand. Russia claims a successful defense as Ukraine's drones caused chaos in Crimea.

00:21:38The defense ministry may not have wanted to mention the inconvenient truth of blackouts rolling all

00:21:43over one of the most important regions in Crimea, but those living there didn't need the ministry to

00:21:48tell the truth. They need Russia to stop what is happening all over Crimea right now, especially when

00:21:53it comes to Ukraine's targeting of power facilities. You see, what just happened in Kerch isn't a one-off,

00:21:59there's a bigger picture at play here. Ukraine has been targeting the Crimean energy grid for weeks,

00:22:04with the full campaign kicking off in late June and early July at the Kyiv Post reports.

00:22:09Ukraine has followed the same blueprint that it has in place for taking out Russian oil refineries.

00:22:14It strikes once, then follows up a short while later, and then Ukraine repeats the strikes,

00:22:19rendering repair work moot. We saw that at the Simferopol combined cycle-thermal power plant,

00:22:26where Ukraine's strike drones hit their marks in three separate air raids,

00:22:29which is conducted between June 20th and June 25th. Those attacks kicked off a wave of strikes,

00:22:35most of which target power stations that are nodes in a massive network that keeps electricity

00:22:40flowing to the residents of Crimea. Strikes on the energy grid, along with rolling blackouts all

00:22:45over Crimea, have simply become a feature of life for the occupiers who were told that they were

00:22:50moving to the Russian equivalent of the Riviera after Putin's illegal 2014 takeover. Even July 15th

00:22:57brought with it more pain. As Kerch grappled with darkness, Ukraine's drones also attacked the

00:23:02Balaklava thermal power station in Sevastopol, which is another repeat target. Ukraine's special

00:23:08operations forces report that it had help from a resistance movement on the ground for this operation,

00:23:14which took out the plant's machine haul and likely damaged the cooling system used by one of the

00:23:18Siemens SGT5-2000E turbines in that machine haul. Siemens is a German company. Germany is one of many

00:23:27nations that have imposed sanctions on Russia. If a piece of equipment Siemens made that keeps the

00:23:32power flowing in Crimea is destroyed, Russia is going to have a very difficult time sourcing the

00:23:36parts it needs for repairs. The SOF says as much, claiming that this single strike, which impacted a

00:23:43plant that the Kyiv Independent reports supplies as much as 50% of the electricity used in Crimea,

00:23:47has caused enough damage to require between two and five months of repair work. And that's the point.

00:23:54Strike precisely and Russia ends up with major problems on its hands. These strikes have been

00:23:59having the exact effect that Ukraine intends. In the wake of the Simferopol plant strikes,

00:24:04Crimea's puppet government was forced to declare a state of emergency in Sevastopol. Don't underestimate

00:24:10how important this is on both the morale and propaganda fronts. Crimea is supposed to be Russia's

00:24:15fortress, the crown jewel that represents Russian dominance over Ukraine, and if Putin had his way,

00:24:21the first step on the road to complete annexation of Ukraine's territory.

00:24:25Through Crimea, the entire Russian invasion into Ukraine's east and south was meant to flow,

00:24:30and it did for a while. But now there is panic on the peninsula as the power goes out,

00:24:35fuel runs short, and Ukraine's drones just keep on coming. Ukraine can crow about the strikes,

00:24:41but the real damage is being done to Putin and his self-made image as the protector of the Russian

00:24:46people. It's not just Kerch and Sevastopol that are dealing with blackouts and panicked puppet

00:24:51governors either. On July 13th, UKR Inform revealed that blackouts in the Zhankoy district of Crimea

00:24:57have been ongoing for an entire week up till that point. Ukraine's strategy isn't just hurting Russian

00:25:03occupiers. As the chairman of the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Refat Chubarov explains,

00:25:09those who support Ukraine's cause are also being impacted. However, Chubarov said that this is a

00:25:14hardship that must be endured, as the ultimate goal is to liberate Crimea so that life will become

00:25:19better for all those who have lived under Russian oppression since 2014. We sincerely sympathize with

00:25:25all the residents of Crimea who are awaiting the liberation of the peninsula from the Russian

00:25:29barbarians and are forced to endure new hardships caused by the Russian occupation. We thank them for not

00:25:35losing hope and remaining loyal to Ukraine despite all the difficulties and repression,

00:25:40Chubarov said in a message designed to encourage those who support Ukraine to hold the fort.

00:25:45You can get through this, and there is an ever-widening light at the end of the tunnel.

00:25:50In the meantime, the Kerch strikes that have led to yet more blackouts are all designed to undermine

00:25:55Russia. The controlling power in Crimea has lost its control. As the SOF puts it,

00:26:01striking power generation facilities on the Crimean bridgehead significantly undermines the Russian

00:26:06Federation's army's offensive and defensive capabilities, reduces its operational tempo and

00:26:12the resilience of its logistical support. So, as the occupiers fear for their futures in the dark,

00:26:18soldiers on the front lines in mainland Ukraine are being forced into assaults despite not having the

00:26:22support they need. That support won't come. The supplies and soldiers are locked in Crimea and

00:26:28they are disappearing by the day. That's a real problem for Putin. But behind that problem lies

00:26:34another issue. We touched on it earlier. The location of Ukraine's latest power cutting strikes is very

00:26:40important. But before we explain why, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show. If you're

00:26:46getting insight from the channel, hit subscribe and enable notifications so you see what we have coming

00:26:51next. Kerch isn't just any old region in Crimea. It's one of the single most important regions on the

00:26:57peninsula for the simple fact that Kerch, and the bridge that connects Kerch to the Russian mainland,

00:27:02is the only route that most of the occupiers have in or out of the peninsula. Every time that Ukraine

00:27:08launches an attack in Kerch, no matter what is targeted, the nation sends the message that the

00:27:12only bridge out could be a target whenever Ukraine chooses. It has been before, of course. But now,

00:27:19Ukraine has the firepower, and Russia's defenses are so poor that isolated strikes against the bridge

00:27:24would evolve into a campaign that takes the bridge out forever. If that happens, the occupiers will be

00:27:29trapped in the hell that their leader's failure has created. Ukraine is being very purposeful with

00:27:35attacking everything in Kerch except the Kerch bridge. The commander of the unmanned systems forces,

00:27:40Robert Brovdy made that very clear on July 14th, just ahead of the attacks that plunged the illegal

00:27:45residents of Kerch into darkness. There's no fuel in Crimea, and I want to tell you there won't be any,

00:27:52Brovdy exclaimed, adding. We're cutting off the access routes, not the exit routes. We're not

00:27:57touching the Kerch bridge. Let them go through it. Let those millions leave through that little bridge

00:28:02back to their Russia and travel somewhere far beyond the Urals to live in peace.

00:28:07Brovdy and Ukraine know exactly what they're doing here. The warning is one thing. The occupiers in

00:28:12Crimea would do well to heed it. But what Ukraine really wants to create here is the sight of thousands

00:28:18upon thousands of occupiers desperately attempting to escape via the Kerch bridge. We talked about

00:28:23propaganda victories before. This would be a big one. Nothing would damage Putin's casting of himself as

00:28:29the strongman protector of Russia more than his own people running for their lives from Crimea.

00:28:34And don't forget those people have to go somewhere. They will become refugees in a war that was never

00:28:39meant to touch Russia. More damage to Putin's reputation would result. And those running away

00:28:45from Crimea would have all the stories to tell of non-stop drone attacks, fuel shortages, power cuts,

00:28:51and the utter failure of Russia's defenses to protect them. And if that can happen to them,

00:28:56it can happen anywhere in Russia will be the message they bring. It's pressure on Putin. The war is

00:29:02being brought home to Russia. Ukraine is keeping up the pressure. On July 17th, the Kyiv Post reported

00:29:07that Ukraine has scored another successful strike in Kerch, this time against a rail hub in the region

00:29:13that is part of Russia's Crimean logistical network. That strike caused a fire at the rail hub, which is

00:29:18located close to the Kerch bridge. Again, the message is sent. The fires are creeping closer. So are the

00:29:24strikes. Get out now or the bridge itself will become a tug. None of this is going to stop. Some

00:29:30may

00:29:31question the morality of what Ukraine is doing, but it's worth repeating that Ukraine isn't striking

00:29:35civilians directly. That's a move out of Putin's playbook, not Ukraine's. Rather, Ukraine is

00:29:41exposing the fact that Putin's selling of Crimea as a luxury destination to the Russian people is an

00:29:46attempt to hide the fact that Russia has turned Crimea into a massive military base used to attack

00:29:51Ukraine. Nothing more than a veneer of legitimacy wiped over another tool of aggression. Ukraine's now

00:29:58former Defense Minister Mikhailo Fedorov makes that point, noting,

00:30:01Crimea has essentially turned into a military base for the Russians, allowing them to continue

00:30:07occupying the south of our country and transfer forces to the east. This is vital to understand

00:30:12when considering why Ukraine is targeting Crimea as it is right now. The peninsula isn't some innocent

00:30:18territory that is being subjected to fuel shortages and rolling blackouts. Sure, hundreds of thousands of

00:30:24Russian occupiers are feeling the pain, but never forget that Crimea was used as a launching pad for

00:30:29the initial invasion of Ukraine. Russia is still trying to use it as a logistical node to feed supplies

00:30:34into the Ukrainian mainland and there are estimated to be around 50,000 soldiers on the peninsula.

00:30:39There is nothing innocent about Russia's occupation of Crimea. Ukraine has exposed that fact and it's

00:30:45going to keep pushing the advantage that it's carved out for itself. What we've just seen in Kerch is

00:30:49part of a much wider campaign and Ukraine is making it clear that something big is coming for Crimea

00:30:55that Russia can't handle. You can argue that something big has already arrived. Al Jazeera

00:31:00reports that the fruits of Ukraine's multi-month labor to isolate Crimea have already grown.

00:31:06Ukraine essentially has fire control over the peninsula, the outlet says,

00:31:10which allows Ukraine to plunge Crimea deeper and deeper into the power and fuel crises that are already

00:31:15there. The puppet authorities can't do anything about it. Even as Putin tries, and often fails,

00:31:21to send help from Moscow, those authorities can't even guess at a schedule for a return to normality.

00:31:28What Crimea has now is the new normal, and beyond attacks on Crimea itself, Ukraine is exacerbating

00:31:34the issues that it's created by striking ships in the waters around Crimea. The shadow fleet that keeps

00:31:40Crimea alive is sinking. By July 13, a non-stop wave of daily attacks against shadow fleet oil tankers,

00:31:46supply ships, and ferries that Russia is using to transport supplies, had resulted in movement

00:31:51through the Kerch Strait practically stopping, claims Brovdy. By July 16, Ukraine had struck 147

00:31:58tankers in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, 117 of which were feeder tankers that deliver fuel to

00:32:04Crimea.

00:32:05Those attacks add to a logistical lockdown campaign on the Ukrainian mainland against the roads, bridges,

00:32:10and trucks that bring supplies and fuel into Crimea via overland routes. The fuel has run dry at gas

00:32:17stations and the blackouts are getting longer and covering more of Crimea than ever before.

00:32:22And all of this leaves Putin with a two-fold problem. First, the Crimean stronghold has become

00:32:28one of Russia's biggest vulnerabilities. The power cuts in Kerch are just a symptom of a disease that

00:32:33is withering Crimea. Mass militarization and economic integration with the Russian mainland gave the

00:32:38false impression that Crimea was invulnerable. But now it's a money pit for Russia. All that Putin

00:32:44can do is keep trying to send fuels, soldiers, and equipment into the peninsula. Once those supplies

00:32:49arrive, if they arrive at all, they're isolated. Ukraine hits them. Russia spends more money sending

00:32:54supplies over. Ukraine hits them again. Billions are being poured into Crimea, and it's still the

00:33:00single most vulnerable occupied region of Ukraine. A war that started with Crimea is going to end with

00:33:06the peninsula. And for Putin, the second of his problems lies with his credibility. We've touched on

00:33:11this already. Putin is supposed to be the great protector. Since 2014, he has told Russians that they

00:33:17own Crimea and that Ukraine can do nothing about it. He has been proven a liar by everything we're seeing

00:33:23now in Kerch and elsewhere in and around the peninsula. As Jason Corcoran put it in a July 16th opinion

00:33:29piece for

00:33:30the Moscow Times, Ukraine appears to have recognized something that the West initially missed. It doesn't

00:33:35necessarily have to liberate Crimea tomorrow to weaken Putin. If it can steadily increase the

00:33:40military and economic cost of holding the peninsula while destroying its appeal as Russia's showcase resort,

00:33:46Crimea ceases to be an asset and becomes a liability. Every fuel shortage canceled holiday and damaged depot

00:33:53chips away at the image Putin sold to Russians in 2014. And that's the whole point. The occupiers who

00:33:59can do nothing but watch as the blackouts roll over and the pumps run dry have been sold a fake

00:34:04bill

00:34:05of goods. They now see through the lies that Putin told them, even if they wouldn't ever admit it

00:34:09publicly for fear of retaliation, but it can't be denied. Crimea was supposed to be the jewel in

00:34:15Putin's crown. It's now become a noose around the Russian leader's neck and he can't yank that noose

00:34:20off without revealing Russia's true weakness. As for Kerch, the power is out and the strikes keep coming,

00:34:25but the bridge still stands for as long as Ukraine allows it. How long Ukraine will give the occupiers

00:34:32their escape route is now the big question. Putin's symbolism only holds so much power.

00:34:37Blocking the Kerch bridge, as Russia did in the wake of the Kerch strikes,

00:34:41will only create more anger. Chaos is upon Crimea and that chaos is key to liberation.

00:34:48This is the machine that Russian gunners have learned to hate but rarely manage actually to kill. It's a

00:34:54wheeled predator gifted to Ukraine by Poland. It's dangerous, built for speed and hard to put down,

00:35:01but it's not without its struggles. Today, we're going to walk through exactly what it is,

00:35:06how many of them are already in Ukrainian hands and where this partnership between Warsaw and Kyiv is

00:35:11heading next. The vehicle in question is the KTO Rosomak and the name actually fits. Rosomak means

00:35:18Wolverine in Polish and like the animal, this thing is smaller than other apex predators on the

00:35:24battlefield, but built to be tough, fast and virtually unstoppable. In a more technical sense,

00:35:30the Rosomak is an 8x8 wheeled armoured personnel carrier derived from the Finnish Patria AMV,

00:35:37but the design work actually goes back further than most people realise. Poland formulated its original

00:35:43requirements for a new wheeled transporter back in the mid 1990s, finalised them in 1999 and by 2004,

00:35:52the first pre-series vehicles were rolling off the line, featuring a narrowed hull and enlarged

00:35:57propellers compared to the original Finnish prototypes. The first two production vehicles for the Polish army

00:36:03arrived in Gdynia in May of that year, were fitted with their turrets and received their official name

00:36:08at a ceremony that June. Since then, Poland has ordered well over a thousand of these vehicles

00:36:14across 16 different configurations, everything from standard troop carriers to command posts

00:36:20to the RAC self-propelled mortar system, which we'll mention again shortly. It first saw combat with

00:36:26Polish troops in Afghanistan, where one took a direct RPG hit to the frontal armour and the round failed

00:36:32to penetrate. But that wasn't a one-off. Polish Rosomaks absorbed multiple attacks in Afghanistan,

00:36:38over the following years, and while the vehicle wasn't invulnerable, that early combat record helped

00:36:44convince the Polish military the design was sound enough to keep investing in. That combat pedigree

00:36:50matters, because everything Ukrainian troops are now experiencing with it in the Donbas and around

00:36:55Kharkiv builds directly on lessons the Poles already paid for in blood a decade and a half ago.

00:37:01Let's start with the number that gives this episode its title. On paper, the Rosomaks' top road speed

00:37:07is listed at 100 km per hour, a figure that shows up consistently across Polish and Ukrainian sources.

00:37:14That number alone should already put it in a different category than most tracked vehicles

00:37:19on this battlefield, since nothing runs on treads that can touch that space on a paved road.

00:37:25But there's also something interesting straight from the crew operating one of these vehicles,

00:37:29with a 44th separate mechanized brigade. The gunner told us he thought the vehicle could hit

00:37:35something closer to 120 km per hour. While we couldn't verify that figure against any official

00:37:41specification sheet, we're treating it as a soldier's seat of the pants impression rather than a confirmed

00:37:47number. But whether it's 100 or 120, we're talking about a wheeled combat vehicle that can outrun almost

00:37:54anything else on this front, and that speed is precisely why Russian gunners struggled to keep a

00:37:59lock on it before it's already gone. Weight-wise, we're looking at about 22 tons in the base

00:38:05configuration, which goes up to 25 or 26 tons depending on the armor package bolted on. That's

00:38:11powered by a diesel engine putting out somewhere around 480 to 490 horsepower, giving it enough torque

00:38:18to haul that weight up steep inclines and through rough terrain without losing the responsiveness Ukrainian

00:38:24crews keep praising. One driver we spoke with, who used to operate a next-gen T8 Holland tractor back

00:38:30in civilian life, told us the transition surprised him. He'd never served before, never touched an IFV,

00:38:37and yet he said the automatic transmission felt familiar enough that the biggest adjustment was

00:38:41solely with the sheer size of the vehicle and the blind spot on the right side. That might be a

00:38:46small

00:38:46detail, but it said something meaningful about how this platform is designed. It's forgiving enough that

00:38:52troops with no prior armor experience can be brought up to a working level of competence in a matter of

00:38:58weeks rather than months. Range is another strong point. Depending on the source, we're seeing figures

00:39:04between 700 and 800 kilometers on a single tank of gas, which gives Ukrainian units the ability to

00:39:10reposition across long stretches of front without constantly worrying about refueling logistics. Combined with

00:39:17extreme road speed, this is a vehicle built to go fast, hit hard, and relocate again before counter-battery

00:39:24fire or a drone operator can get a fix on it. Now let's talk about how the vehicle actually deals

00:39:30damage.

00:39:30The most common turret fitted to Ukrainian Rosomax is the Italian-designed HitFist 30P, a two-man

00:39:37turret built around a 30mm automatic cannon that Ukrainian crews describe as fast, accurate, and intimidating.

00:39:44A report directly from a gunner suggested he can put out 200 rounds a minute, and that inside the

00:39:50turret it's almost deceptively quiet. Outside, he said, it's a different story entirely. The cannon can

00:39:56fire programmable air burst ammunition, which is particularly effective against infantry in the open,

00:40:02like vehicles, and even low-flying helicopters, and it's backed up by a 7.62mm machine gun for close,

00:40:09fast-moving threats. But there's another interesting addition that doesn't make it to most

00:40:13spreadsheets. The turret feeds ammunition through two separate paths rather than one shared belt.

00:40:19That means the crew can load high-explosive rounds on one side and armor-piercing rounds on the other,

00:40:25and switch between them instantly depending on what target shows up. No waiting for a belt to cycle

00:40:30through, no fumbling to reload mid-engagement. If a Russian squad appears in the open, they hit them with

00:40:36high explosives. If a lightly armored vehicle rolls into view seconds later, they flip to armor-piercing.

00:40:42That kind of flexibility is exactly the sort of thing that turns an ambush into a one-sided

00:40:48engagement. It's also worth noting that this HitFist 30P turret isn't the newest option for the

00:40:54platform. Poland has already developed its own unmanned turret, called the Z-SSW-30, which removes the

00:41:01crew from the turret entirely, and relocates them fully inside the armored hull. This will dramatically

00:41:06improve survivability, and let the cannon be serviced without anyone exposing themselves above

00:41:12the vehicle. That turret pairs the same 30mm cannon with Spike LR anti-tank guided missiles,

00:41:18and is engineered so that if a drone or fragment sets off one of those missiles,

00:41:23the blast is directed outward rather than into the crew compartment.

00:41:27Poland has already signed contracts to fit dozens of standard Rosamaks, and well almost

00:41:32a hundred of the newer Rosamak L variants with this turret. While none of that hardware has shown

00:41:37up in Ukraine yet, at least as far as we can confirm, it's a clear signal where this whole vehicle

00:41:42family is heading, and it wouldn't be surprising to eventually see that same unmanned turret technology

00:41:48find its way east. Protection-wise, the Rosamak isn't trying to be a tank, but that doesn't mean it's

00:41:54completely helpless. The frontal armor is designed to stop 14.5mm heavy machine gun rounds, and the

00:42:01sides are rated against 7.62mm rifle fire. Some configurations add a heavier outer armored package

00:42:08that significantly improves protection against threats like rocket-propelled grenades and improvised

00:42:13explosive devices. Those upgraded kits were originally developed for the vehicles Poland deployed

00:42:18Afghanistan in the 2000s. The vehicle should also be able to survive a 6kg high explosive blast

00:42:25underneath the hull, which matters enormously given how much of this war is now being fought with mines

00:42:31and improvised explosives buried in the road. This is however where some downsides show up. The open

00:42:37source tracking project Oryx has documented several confirmed losses of Ukrainian Rosamaks over the course

00:42:43of this war, and Wikipedia's own tally cites at least six destroyed and one damaged as a recent count.

00:42:50So while this is clearly not a miracle vehicle, and nobody fighting in it treats it as invulnerable,

00:42:56what stands out in nearly every account we found, both from crews and from open source reporting,

00:43:01is how many of these vehicles survive hits that would have been fatal for something less protected.

00:43:06One crew told us they've been targeted by Russian Lancet drones repeatedly, sometimes even while

00:43:11parked in a holding position well behind the front, and that these vehicles have taken damage and kept

00:43:17surviving. Crews walked away, the machines went back to a repair depot, and then they returned to

00:43:23service. That survivability, more than any single spec on paper, may be the single biggest reason

00:43:29Ukrainian units keep asking for more of these. But if there's one weakness that's worth considering,

00:43:34it's mud. Crews have suggested that it performs poorly in deep mud, unless they lower the tire pressure,

00:43:40using the vehicle's central tire inflation system to improve traction. However, if the tires are

00:43:47damaged and the vehicle has to rely on its run-flat inserts, it can only travel around 20 kilometers

00:43:52before repairs become necessary. That means commanders still have to think carefully about

00:43:57routes and recovery options, which can become a significant tactical constraint in a war fought

00:44:02heavily across open fields and river floodplains. Then there's the supposed amphibious capability,

00:44:08which lets the Rosamak swim across water obstacles at around 10 kilometers per hour using rear-mounted

00:44:14propellers and folding bow veins. It sounds impressive on paper, but Ukrainian crews seem to actually

00:44:20advise against using it in combat conditions, and as far as we can tell, Ukrainian forces haven't used

00:44:26that swimming capability operationally in this war at all. By every account, the vehicle should settle into

00:44:32the water up to a marked waterline and float well, but the practical risk of ending up in a river

00:44:37under

00:44:37fire seems to outweigh the benefit. There's also a training curve that's easy to overlook. One crew

00:44:43member told us that simply learning to operate the rear troop doors properly, aligning the locks,

00:44:48undoing the catches in the right order, took several days of dedicated practice before it became second

00:44:54nature, and that only after groundwork was the crew moved on to actually learning the turret systems.

00:44:59If the crew doors jam or get damaged, there are backup roof hatches the eight dismounted troops in

00:45:05the back can climb out through, which is a smart design redundancy, but it underlines that this is

00:45:10still a complex piece of machinery that takes real time to master, even for troops motivated to learn it

00:45:15fast. Remember that civilian from before who suggested that the controls felt familiar? What doesn't feel

00:45:22familiar is the sheer bulk of the hull and the huge blind spots these vehicles can have. In some cases,

00:45:28this can only be overcome with repeated obstacle course runs and parallel parking drills. It's a

00:45:33small window into just how much of this war is being fought by people who were driving tractors and

00:45:39delivery trucks two or three years ago, thrown behind the controls of NATO standard armor and expected to

00:45:45become proficient fast. But before we get into how the vehicles are being used, make sure to subscribe to

00:45:51the military show to get more updates and all things geopolitics. We post daily videos that cover

00:45:57specs, tactics, daily events, and deep analytics of what exactly is going on in the war.

00:46:02Now, on the tactical side, rather than leading frontal assaults, Ukrainian Rosamak crews are seemingly used

00:46:09for standoff strikes and fast ambushes. They receive target coordinates, move into position, unleash that

00:46:15200 rounds a minute cannon on infantry positions or fortified buildings, and then pull out before Russian

00:46:20artillery or drones can respond. One crew described closing to around 400 meters near Vovchanks to help

00:46:27clear a river bridge head so Ukrainian infantry could cross, and another engagement where they came within

00:46:32about 150 meters of a two-story building housing dug-in Russian troops, tearing the structure apart to cover a

00:46:39Ukrainian withdrawal. Beyond direct combat, these vehicles have also been used to support army

00:46:45engineers building river crossings at night by transporting personnel and equipment, and to evacuate

00:46:51wounded soldiers under fire, which speaks to how versatile the platform is once it's actually in theater.

00:46:57Now, there's a question of how many of these are actually in Ukraine to serve that tactical role.

00:47:02Poland's government announced back in April 2023 that it was supplied 200 KTO Rosamaks to Ukraine,

00:47:10and that figure of 200 delivered shows up consistently to suggest that there's at least that many around.

00:47:16Ukraine's 21st Mechanized Brigade was reportedly the first unit to start receiving these vehicles back

00:47:22in the summer of 2023, and the 44 separate Mechanized Brigade, the unit that was interviewed for one

00:47:28outlet, is now operating them as well, which tells us there's a real fleet spread across multiple

00:47:33Ukrainian formations. So where does this partnership go from here? This is where things get genuinely

00:47:40interesting, because Poland and Ukraine aren't just staying in a straightforward donor-recipient

00:47:45relationship anymore. Instead, they're moving toward actually building weapons together. In February

00:47:512026, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Ukrainian President Wladimir Zelenskiy signed a letter of

00:47:57intent in Kyiv committing both countries to joint production of weapons and ammunition at facilities

00:48:03in both Poland and Ukraine, with an early focus on drones. Tusk described it as the culmination of

00:48:09many months of work to remove the barriers that had been slowing down technology transfer between the

00:48:14two countries, and both sides framed it as something backed by concrete follow-up rather than just

00:48:19symbolic language. And we're already seeing that translate into specific programs. Ukraine's own

00:48:25Boudina self-propelled 155mm howitzer, one of the country's genuine homegrown artillery success stories,

00:48:32is set to be produced in Poland through a joint venture between the Polish company Pona Wadowice and

00:48:38Ukraine's Kramators heavy machine tool building plant, with a Polish partner holding a controlling 51%

00:48:45stake. The plan is to mount that Ukrainian artillery system onto chassis tailored to Poland's requirements,

00:48:51allowing Warsaw to replace its aging Czechoslovak design Dana howitzers while giving Ukraine its

00:48:57first genuine foreign customer for a domestically designed weapons system. That's an important shift

00:49:03because it means battlefield-tested Ukrainian engineering is starting to flow back into a

00:49:08NATO country's own arsenal, not just the other way around. This sits inside a broader Polish-Ukrainian

00:49:14framework called Build with Ukraine, launched back in mid-2025, which is specifically designed around

00:49:20joint ventures where Ukraine supplies frontline expertise, particularly around drones, interceptor

00:49:25systems and electronic warfare, while European partners like Poland bring capital, factory space

00:49:31and the certifications needed to sell into EU markets. Under that model, Ukrainian firms get a

00:49:37foothold in European markets that otherwise struggle to enter, while Poland gets access to combat-proven

00:49:43engineering that took three years of full-scale war to develop, without having to run those same

00:49:48battlefield trials itself. Progress on some of the specific intergovernmental agreements has

00:49:53reportedly been slower than hoped. Poland and Ukraine's defense ministers only signed their

00:49:58broader declaration on strengthening the relationship back in September 2025, but the direction of travel

00:50:04is unmistakable and it's backed by real money. Poland is the single largest recipient of the European

00:50:10Union's new Safe Defense Loan Programme, and a notable portion of that funding is explicitly earmarked

00:50:16to support joint projects with Ukraine, alongside drone and counter-drone technology, artificial

00:50:21intelligence and long-range precision munitions. Ukraine, for its part, is also counting on Poland's

00:50:28continued participation in the PEARL Programme, which channels Western-funded weapons purchases through

00:50:33NATO to Ukraine and remains central to keeping Ukrainian air defense stocked. Which brings us to the bigger

00:50:40picture sitting behind all of this. Poland isn't just arming Ukraine because it's a good neighbour.

00:50:45It's simultaneously building what its own leadership openly says they want to become the largest and

00:50:50best-equipped military force in Europe. Poland's defense spending for 2026 is set at roughly 4.8% of GDP,

00:50:58the highest ratio of any NATO member by a wide margin, translating into around $55 billion dedicated to

00:51:05defense in a single year. That's already the largest share of GDP any NATO country is spending on its

00:51:11military, ahead of the Baltic States, ahead of the United States, and well ahead of Germany, France,

00:51:16or the UK. Prime Minister Tusk posted that Poland will have the largest army, the greatest economic growth,

00:51:22and the biggest investment of any country in the region. And its defense minister,

00:51:27Vladislav Koscianak-Kamiz, has said outright that the goal is for Poland to field the best

00:51:32organized and best-equipped military on the continent. That spending isn't only going toward

00:51:37hardware sitting in warehouses either. Poland is simultaneously reworking how many people actually

00:51:43serve. The government has been sending out hundreds of thousands of medical commission notices to men

00:51:48of conscription age, along with women and citizens over 50, registering them into the military system

00:51:54even if they're not immediately called up. This is bolstered by a survey that found that Poles are

00:51:59increasingly pro-conscription in the first place. In 2022, polls showed only 35.7% of people in support

00:52:07of re-establishing mandatory military service for men, while the 2026 poll reported that roughly 52%

00:52:13of respondents were supportive of military service, with 31% strongly supporting it. At the same time,

00:52:20Poland is investing in its own industrial independence in ways that go well beyond just buying foreign

00:52:26hardware. The Polish Armaments Group recently signed a deal to build a domestic facility capable of

00:52:32overhauling the gas turbine engines that power America's Abrams tanks, meaning Poland will become

00:52:38the only country in Europe able to service those engines without needing to ship them back to the

00:52:43United States. Poland has also put its own reconnaissance satellites into orbit and is pushing forward with

00:52:49its first nuclear power plant, aiming for construction to begin in 2028. On the funding side, Poland just

00:52:56became the first country to actually sign its loan agreement under the EU's new Safe Defence Programme,

00:53:02receiving close to €44 billion, approximately $45 billion, by far the largest allocation of any member

00:53:10state ahead of Romania, France and Italy. Roughly two-thirds of the equipment bought with that money

00:53:15is required to come from EU, European Economic Area or Ukrainian suppliers, and Polish officials have

00:53:22been explicit that a significant slice of it will flow directly into joint programmes with Ukraine,

00:53:27on top of investments in drones, counter-drone systems, artificial intelligence and long-range

00:53:33precision munitions. Now, getting there wasn't entirely smooth. Poland's president initially vetoed

00:53:39part of the funding mechanism over sovereignty concerns, and Warsaw had to restructure how the money moved as a

00:53:44result, which is a reminder that even inside a country moving this aggressively on defence,

00:53:49the politics of how to pay for it all remain genuinely contested. Combine that domestic spending

00:53:55surge with the Safe Loan programme, ongoing purchases of F-35 fighters, Abrams tanks and South Korean-made

00:54:01systems that Poland has increasingly turned to for faster delivery timelines than Western suppliers can

00:54:07offer, and a rapidly scaling domestic arms industry that's now co-producing weapons with Ukraine itself,

00:54:13and what we're watching take shape isn't just support for Kyiv, it's the emergence of a genuinely serious

00:54:19military power on NATO's eastern flank, one whose own rearmament and its support for Ukraine have become

00:54:25two sides of the same project. Russia has spent more than 1500 days trying to capture one tiny Ukrainian

00:54:33village. Tanks, artillery, drone swarms, thousands of soldiers, and it still hasn't won. This is just another

00:54:41failed assault. It's one of the clearest examples of why Russia's invasion has become a war of

00:54:46staggering losses and shrinking returns, and despite throwing almost everything at it, the Kremlin still

00:54:52can't take it. The village in question is named Maladokmachka, and it's not the kind of place that stands

00:54:59out on a map. Measuring up at barely three square miles, eight square kilometers, and home to a little

00:55:04over 3,000 people prior to the invasion, it's situated in the Polohi district in central Zaporizhia,

00:55:11about 37 miles or 60 kilometers from Zaporizhia city itself. It has no widely known landmarks or

00:55:18notable attractions. Before the war, it was best known locally for its brick factory, where many residents

00:55:23once worked. In short, it's so much like so many of the countless other Ukrainian settlements dotted

00:55:29across the country, literally hundreds of which have been captured by Russian forces as the years

00:55:34have gone by. Yet this place, which appears so utterly unremarkable at first glance, has been

00:55:40compared to some of the most famous locations in military history, from Carthage to Constantinople,

00:55:46Leningrad, Alexandria, Troy, and Verdun. Why? Because it's proven to be almost impossible for

00:55:52Russia to capture and control. Tanks, shells, assault squads, and armored columns, the Kremlin's

00:55:58forces have thrown everything they've got at this tiny place, all to no avail. To this day,

00:56:04it remains in Ukraine's control. To understand how and why, we have to look back at the village's

00:56:09journey since the invasion began. Because it didn't take long for Malatokmachka to feel the fury of the

00:56:15Russian army. In fact, it's been close to the front lines of the fighting since the opening days of

00:56:20the war, when the Kremlin's forces rampaged into Zaporizhia and swiftly seized dozens of small

00:56:25towns and villages that simply weren't ready for such a large-scale assault. Back then,

00:56:31Malatokmachka was just another name in the ever-increasing list of settlements that fell into

00:56:36Russia's hands, as it looked as though Putin would get exactly what he wanted and his so-called

00:56:40special military operation would prove to be an uncontested success. But in the weeks that followed,

00:56:46Ukraine managed to stabilize the situation. Its military and its citizens rose up and fought back,

00:56:52fending off the invaders, pushing the Russians back, and recapturing many of the settlements that

00:56:57had been brutally stolen from them, Malatokmachka included. But the story didn't end there. By June

00:57:03of 2022, the village came under heavy fire as Russian shells rained down from above. It was already a small,

00:57:10sparse settlement before the war began. But Russia's bombardment left very little standing. Homes and

00:57:15structures that had been there for decades, even withstanding past tragedies like the Ukrainian

00:57:20famine and Nazi occupation during World War II, were reduced to rubble. The Malatokmachka council

00:57:26building was one of them, and the nearby penitentiary, which had been evacuated earlier in the war,

00:57:32also suffered serious damage. Seeing their home under fire, many locals were forced to flee,

00:57:37and the population swiftly dropped from several thousand to just a couple of hundred people. Many of those were

00:57:43either old, in poor health, or simply didn't want to abandon the place they'd grown up in.

00:57:48Many of them, after all, had lifetimes of happy memories in that place, and have since shared stories

00:57:53with news reporters of how the villagers would spend much of their time in the village itself,

00:57:58playing music, singing songs, tending to their gardens, and talking with their neighbours.

00:58:02At the time, it looked like Russia would have little trouble retaking Malatokmachka and putting an end to

00:58:08those peaceful, joyful stories once and for all. And despite being so small and virtually decimated

00:58:14by the shelling, the village still held significant strategic value to the Kremlin's troops, since it

00:58:19was situated right beside the TO815 highway, a key local logistical route connecting Orokiv and Polohi.

00:58:26If Russia could capture Malatokmachka, it could use the ruined settlement as a springboard for further

00:58:32progress into the region, moving onward into the gateway city of Orokiv, with the ultimate goal of

00:58:37taking the regional capital itself. As Dmytro Pelik, head of communications for Ukraine's 118th

00:58:43Separate Mechanized Brigade, the unit that's been defending the area since 2023, puts it,

00:58:50Malatokmachka is the southern gateway to Orokiv. If the bastards manage to enter the village and

00:58:54reinforce it with additional drone units, they'll make life in the town far more of a nightmare than it

00:58:59already is. Yet days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, and still the Russians failed

00:59:05to claim the village. By the spring of 2023, the place was a wreck. Most of the homes had been

00:59:11destroyed. Craters lay where flower gardens and apple trees once stood, and the streets were lined

00:59:16with rubble. Those who chose or had no other choice but to remain in the area had to live with

00:59:21the

00:59:21constant threat of shelling, while also surviving without the bare essentials of clean water or power

00:59:26for their properties. They spent large parts of their days and nights hiding out in basements.

00:59:31However, they at least had soldiers in the area to protect them. Drone crews took shelter in the old

00:59:36prison and nearby apartment buildings, launching their unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, into the air

00:59:42to scan the surroundings and strike at Russian assets and troops that dared to get too close.

00:59:47And on June 7, 2023, Ukraine decided it was time to take things to the next level.

00:59:53Armed with new weapons from their Western allies, Ukraine's 47th Assault Brigade and 33rd Mechanized

00:59:59Brigade began a large-scale counter-offensive effort, aimed at pushing the Russians back away

01:00:04from Mala Tokmachka and out of Zaporizhia altogether. Unfortunately, their tactics didn't

01:00:10quite match their ambition to begin with. The opening effort was a disaster. An entire Ukrainian tank

01:00:15column came under anti-tank missile fire while trying to traverse a minefield just outside the village's

01:00:21limits. Twenty-five vehicles were damaged or destroyed in total, including five Leopard 2

01:00:26tanks, with soldiers forced to abandon their vehicles, desperately dragging themselves and

01:00:30their wounded comrades to safety. For three successive days, Ukraine tried and failed to push the Russians

01:00:37back, coming under heavy fire and being forced to retreat each and every time. And the scale of their

01:00:42loss was so severe that many military experts began to express serious doubts about Ukraine's ability to

01:00:47defend itself, even with Western support. However, as the last few years have proven,

01:00:53Ukraine has a remarkable ability to prove the doubters wrong. After the initial disappointment,

01:00:58its forces regrouped and shifted tactics, which soon led to much more positive results.

01:01:03By the latter stages of the month, Brigadier General Oleksiy Romov stated that Ukrainian forces

01:01:08had regained close to two miles of territory in the area. It wasn't a lot, but it was something,

01:01:14and so began a prolonged period of positional fighting, in which both sides exchanged blows,

01:01:19but neither one made much ground, one way or the other. The situation slipped into a stalemate,

01:01:25with Russian forces poking and prodding towards Mala Tokmachka in various ways, but constantly

01:01:30finding themselves unable to make the kind of sweeping gains that their commanders demanded.

01:01:34They tried a range of tactics, from sending in tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to UAVs

01:01:40and small meat squads of soldiers. Nothing worked, and it was all because Mala Tokmachka had a unique

01:01:46quality that separated it from so many other Ukrainian settlements. A distinctive gift, presented

01:01:51by Mother Nature itself, that made this village drastically easier to defend and more difficult

01:01:57to capture than countless others. But before we explain exactly what that was, if this is the kind

01:02:02of insight you want more of, make sure you're subscribed to The Military Show. We break it down like this

01:02:08every week. Now the reason behind Mala Tokmachka's resilience is geographical, and it ties into one

01:02:14of the oldest and most important military lessons of all time. In times of war, high ground is an

01:02:20invaluable advantage. The village itself sits in a lowland valley, but it's surrounded by elevated

01:02:25terrain. Control of those heights provides commanding views for miles in every direction, making the area

01:02:30strategically important. For the forces holding that high ground, it becomes remarkably easy to spot and

01:02:36track enemy movements. It doesn't matter what Russia does, whether it rolls in tanks or sends in

01:02:41soldiers on motorcycles, Mala Tokmachka's defenders can see them coming. They can track their movements,

01:02:47pinpoint their positions, predict where they're going to be minutes later, and rely on their artillery

01:02:52crews and drone pilots to take them out. Thanks to their elevation, they're always one step ahead,

01:02:57and have almost no risk of being caught off guard. On top of this, the fact that they've been able

01:03:02to

01:03:02defend Mala Tokmachka for so long has allowed them to set up numerous lines of defense within the

01:03:07village, finding the best hideouts and ambush locations, laying mines in the fields that

01:03:11surrounded the settlement, and funneling the Russians along obvious paths that are easy to observe.

01:03:17So, it should come as no surprise, therefore, that the village remained in Ukraine's control

01:03:22throughout 2023, 2024, and deep into 2025 as well. But in the latter stages of 2025, something happened that

01:03:30threatened to send the village's story in a very different direction. It was on October 20,

01:03:36to be exact, that Russia began to ramp up the pressure. The Kremlin had given the order.

01:03:41Frontline forces needed to become more aggressive and capture as much territory as quickly as possible,

01:03:46particularly in the Zaporizhia region. There, Moscow dispatched a vast mechanized column,

01:03:51made up of four tanks, 12 infantry fighting vehicles, eight armored personnel carriers, and two Tiger

01:03:57mobility vehicles, 26 armored vehicles in total, to take Mala Tokmachka once and for all.

01:04:03The effort went about as well as Ukraine's initial counteroffensive in 2023, as almost the entire

01:04:09column was destroyed by drones and artillery. Footage of the aftermath revealed the burned-out

01:04:14husks and smoldering frames of Russian tanks and infantry vehicles. Ukraine also reported that over 30

01:04:20Russian soldiers had been killed in the assault, which, when added to the many other attempts to take the

01:04:25village, means that Russia has spent more than 2,000 lives trying and failing to take this tiny

01:04:31settlement. In many ways, it's a microcosm of the larger conflict. In numerous other locations far

01:04:36and wide along the front lines, Russia has wastefully thrown tanks, vehicles, and vast amounts of troops

01:04:42at its objectives, but time and time again, Ukraine has found ways to stop them in their tracks. As a

01:04:48result,

01:04:48the Kremlin is no closer to victory today than it was back in 2022, and is in fact being pushed

01:04:54back in

01:04:54many areas while also suffering greater numbers of casualties with every passing month. But it

01:05:00never seems to learn its lesson. Even after the failed October attack on Mala Tokmachka, Russia's

01:05:05commanders didn't simply accept that the village was a lost cause and looked for a way around it.

01:05:10They continued to launch one assault after another, relying less on tanks and armor as time went by and

01:05:16more on small assault teams. It didn't work, so Russia stooped lower and resorted to another of its

01:05:22favorite tricks, lying. On November 16, 2025, the Ministry of Defense claimed that the village had

01:05:28been completely liberated. On state-owned TV channels 2, so-called military experts like Boris

01:05:34Rosin claimed that the army was making gains towards Mala Tokmachka. There was just one problem,

01:05:40none of it was true, and Ukraine had the receipts to prove it. In fact, one of the country's leading

01:05:45media

01:05:46agencies, United24, compiled a series of clips showing that same expert making the exact same

01:05:52claim month after month from May 2025 all the way through to April 2026. Over and over, he stated that

01:05:59Russia was days away from taking Mala Tokmachka. Every time, it was a lie. Ukraine continued to control

01:06:06the settlement even through the difficult latter months of 2025 and continues to do so in 2026. In fact,

01:06:13the village recently celebrated the remarkable milestone of more than 1,500 days without being

01:06:18taken by the Russians. As United24 notes, that places it ahead of locations like Carthage and

01:06:24Leningrad in terms of history's longest ever sieges. Those other examples were huge and exceptionally

01:06:30well-defended cities. Yet, despite their size and fortifications, even those legendary sieges were

01:06:36shorter than the battle for this tiny village. And at least for the time being, history is still being

01:06:41written in this tiny pocket of Ukraine. On June 24, 2026, for example, the Ukrainian Southern Defense

01:06:48Forces spokesperson, Vladislav Voloshin, reported that Russia was still carrying out assaults near

01:06:53the village, but it yet again failed to make any notable advances. Last week, for several consecutive

01:06:59days, the enemy tried to push Ukraine's defense forces away from Mala Tokmachka and attempted to enter

01:07:05the settlement. To do so, they even launched a large-scale assault using light motorized vehicles

01:07:10on one occasion. The following day, the enemy again tried to storm the positions of Ukraine's

01:07:14defense forces in the settlement, but failed to capture a single meter. They achieved no advance

01:07:19on this section of the front. Days earlier, in late June, a whole platoon, riding more than 20

01:07:25motorcycles and 10 ATVs equipped with plows, attempted to carve a path through the minefields

01:07:30surrounding the settlement. They also made use of electronic warfare systems in an attempt

01:07:35to cancel out Ukraine's drone swarms. They too failed miserably. Ukrainian defenders wiped out

01:07:40the entire assault squad, killing or wounding an estimated 36 troops without suffering a single

01:07:46casualty. In spite of its countless failures, Voloshin notes, Russia remains fully committed to

01:07:51targeting the village, but the Kremlin is finding increasingly difficult to organize its assaults.

01:07:56In order to even get men close enough to storm the settlement, for example,

01:08:01Russian commanders first had to transport their troops through the so-called kill zones,

01:08:05where Ukrainian strike and bomber drones patrol the skies, seeking and destroying any enemies that

01:08:10enter their fields of view. So, even though the area around Mala Tokmachka remains a very dangerous

01:08:16section of the front, it appears to be far more dangerous for Russia than it is for Ukraine.

01:08:21And that's perhaps the most damning indictment of Moscow's military since the war began.

01:08:25It's supposed to be the second strongest military force on the planet. It's supposed to have world

01:08:30leading tanks, unbeatable artillery and near endless stocks of bombs, munitions, drones and ammo.

01:08:36It's supposed to have some of the toughest soldiers of all, the kinds of hard and grizzled

01:08:40veterans who are more than happy to lay their lives on the line for Mother Russia and pay the ultimate

01:08:45price in the service of their homeland. Yet, it can't take Mala Tokmachka. And this isn't a big city,

01:08:51it's not even a town. It wasn't designed to withstand a siege. It was built to provide a

01:08:56peaceful and pleasant home for a few thousand people. Yet, it's become a veritable stronghold,

01:09:01spoken about in the same breath as Rome and Jerusalem. This shouldn't be happening,

01:09:06it defies all logic and reason, it simply doesn't add up. But the fact remains, one of the world's best

01:09:12funded, best equipped armies has been unable to capture a tiny village. It hasn't merely embarrassed

01:09:17itself. It shattered the long-standing illusion of unbridled power that Putin has spent so many

01:09:22years building up. He painstakingly constructed and spread the narrative that Russia should be feared

01:09:27and that Moscow's mighty war machine would tear apart any opposition that dared stand in its way.

01:09:32It was that same illusion that sent shockwaves around the world when Russia began its invasion

01:09:37in February 2022. The entire world bought into it and believed that the war would be a quick and easy

01:09:43win for the Kremlin's forces. But, bit by bit, the illusion broke down and the humiliating reality

01:09:49of Russia's real vulnerability began to emerge. Nowhere is that vulnerability clearer to see than

01:09:54in Malatokmachka, where Ukraine's 118th separate mechanized brigade continues to dig in, defend its land

01:10:01and deal with one Russian assault after another. Every now and then, Ukraine comes up with a strategy

01:10:08that seems crazy on the surface, but works wonders when executed. Right now we're seeing one of those

01:10:15strategies in action. Ukraine has located the most bizarre weak point in the Russian military machine

01:10:22and it's attacking it with gusto. It's not oil refineries. You'll see no attacks on oil depots,

01:10:29fuel tankers or supply trucks here. Ukraine has taken aim at Russia's postal network. And in doing so,

01:10:36it makes sure that every Russian suffers so badly that they turn against Putin for starting his

01:10:41insane invasion. Everything comes down to a single word, wild berries. Often referred to as Russia's

01:10:47version of Amazon, wild berries is a key cog in Russia's economy and, as you will soon find out,

01:10:52it's military. The company is massive. Now valued at more than 12 billion dollars, wild berries makes

01:10:59about 4 million deliveries every single day, which adds up to 1.46 billion deliveries annually.

01:11:05And it sells practically everything. Scores of Russia's small businesses rely on wild berries

01:11:11being up and running so they can operate. Beyond that, the company is one of the few in Russia that

01:11:16can get its hands on products that are supposed to be sanctioned, including items offered by major

01:11:21brands, drones and certain components that just so happen to have military applications. The average

01:11:28Russian just sees their version of Amazon. Ukraine saw a target. And over the last few days,

01:11:33Ukraine has taken aim at wild berries with repeated drone strikes that have burned the company's

01:11:38warehouses to the ground. Over the weekend, beginning July 18, Ukraine struck the wild berries warehouse

01:11:44in Elektrostal, which is only a handful of kilometers away from Moscow. The warehouse burned. A follow-up

01:11:51strike in Kotovsk, which is in Russia's Tambov region, around 400 kilometers from Ukraine's border,

01:11:56took out a second warehouse. Casualties were recorded. Russia claims more than 80 injured and

01:12:028 dead in these initial strikes, and social media footage showed both of the warehouses

01:12:07practically destroyed, the Washington Post reports. Ukraine didn't stop. On July 22,

01:12:12Euromiden Press reported that Ukraine had also struck the wild berries warehouse in Krasnodar,

01:12:17where up to 30 explosions were heard at a facility that is believed to be the fourth-largest

01:12:22warehouse that the company operates. Footage from the attack shows the same results as those that

01:12:27came before it. Massive fires raging and foreboding black pillars of smoke rising kilometers into the

01:12:32sky. In Nevenomysk, which is in the Stavropol-Krai region, another wild berries facility felt the force of

01:12:38Ukraine's drones. Ranking as the sixth-largest in the company's network, that warehouse is also

01:12:44afloat. The footage proves it. There are others. Just a day or two before these latest strikes,

01:12:50Ukraine had also taken aim at the Yezhnyavrata logistics park in Domododevo. That's another complex

01:12:56that wild berries uses. In Kolodino, a strike was reported at a wild berries sorting center,

01:13:01which Euromiden Press reports partially destroyed a pair of large warehouses. This time, wild berries

01:13:06denied that any serious damage had occurred. That seems to be backed by open-source intelligence,

01:13:11which failed to confirm a fire at the site. There are also rumors that Ukraine has targeted another

01:13:16wild berries facility in Podolsk, which is also in the Moscow region, though these rumors aren't

01:13:21confirmed at the time of making this video. We're not seeing isolated strikes here. This is a campaign

01:13:26to take down the Russian equivalent to Amazon. The scale of the economic damage done is enormous.

01:13:32Right now, the estimates are hovering around the $2 billion mark in terms of the sheer amount of

01:13:36product loss, the Kyiv Post reports. Add another $300 million to that figure for the cost of getting

01:13:41rid of the burning debris at the warehouses and carrying out repairs, and wild berries has a pretty

01:13:46major problem. Over a sixth of the company's entire value burned to cinders by Ukrainian strikes.

01:13:53Wild berries has also announced that it will run a compensation scheme for the families of those

01:13:57killed or injured in the attacks. $12,000 for an injury, $25,000 for a death. That's the value of

01:14:04a

01:14:04human life at wild berries. Russia is absolutely livid about what has just happened all over its

01:14:10territory. Without a trace of irony, Russia is accusing Ukraine of terrorist attacks. In Tambov,

01:14:16regional governor Yevgeny Pavushov said that the destruction of the wild berries warehouse in that

01:14:20territory was the largest and most inhumane terrorist attack on our region. Grigori Karasin,

01:14:26who is the chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Committee on International Affairs, said,

01:14:30Various words and epithets come to mind when evaluating such acts. I will confine myself to one,

01:14:36disgrace. Adding, I am confident that our response will be both prompt and resolute.

01:14:42Perhaps you think that these men have a point. After all, wild berries appears to be a civilian business

01:14:47with a consumer focus. People working in its warehouses aren't soldiers. They're everyday

01:14:51Russians just trying to do their jobs. There is certainly some aspect of a moral gray area in

01:14:57Ukraine's latest strikes. At least that's how it looks on the surface. But the true story of wild

01:15:01berries and the reasons behind why Ukraine carried out its latest series of strikes is much more

01:15:05complicated than it. This isn't a tale of Ukraine striking Russia's version of Amazon. It's a story of

01:15:11revenge, shadowy dealings in military hardware, economic pain and psychological pressure. All of

01:15:17which combine to show us the reality of the wild berries whacking. We'll start with the revenge,

01:15:23and here we see Russia's hypocrisy. As governors and higher ups scream terrorism and act as though

01:15:28what Ukraine has just done is somehow unprecedented in four and a half years of fighting, they all

01:15:32conveniently ignore the fact that Russia has been carrying out attacks just like these almost from

01:15:37the moment that Putin realized that his so-called special military operation wasn't going to be the

01:15:42walk in the park that he'd sold to the Russian people. As the Kyiv Post points out, Russia has

01:15:46made attacking civilian facilities, especially those focused on logistics, a key part of its strategy

01:15:52during the invasion. Hundreds of thousands of square meters of logistics facilities have been

01:15:56destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid, medicines, books, food supplies,

01:16:02and millions of goods and parcels have been lost, the outlet declares. It also points out that Russia

01:16:07has actively tried to cripple Ukraine's private and public postal services. Over 400 Ukrainian

01:16:13postal vehicles have been destroyed, along with several hundred branches of the country's national

01:16:17post service. Private carriers haven't been spared. Novoposhta, which is one of Ukraine's largest

01:16:23private logistics companies, has seen 400 of its sorting depots, terminals and branches destroyed,

01:16:28resulting in 26 deaths. In fact, Russia destroyed the company's largest sorting terminal in Kyiv just

01:16:34a month or so before Ukraine came at wild berries. Russia has also taken aim at shopping and distribution

01:16:40centers run by companies including Epicenter, grocery retailer ATB, the Silpo supermarket chain,

01:16:46and the Fozzy Cash and Carry Company. In the past year alone, over 500,000 square meters of Ukrainian

01:16:53warehouses and postal terminals have been devastated by Russian strikes, the Kyiv post adds.

01:16:58So when Russia cries terrorism, Ukraine's response will be, look in the mirror. It's Russia that set

01:17:04the standard when it comes to attacking privately held logistical facilities. It's Russia that first

01:17:09made claims that it was conducting these strikes to take out military hardware and prevent Ukraine

01:17:13from gaining access to sanctioned goods. Ukraine will simply see what it's doing to wild berries now

01:17:18as long overdue revenge for what Russia has been doing for over four years. As Ruslan Levyev,

01:17:23who is a military analyst at the conflict intelligence team, tells the Washington Post,

01:17:28We see here this is self-sustaining spiral of vengeance. You hit our shadow tankers,

01:17:32we will hit your dry cargo ships in Odessa. You hit our oil refineries, we hit your gas stations.

01:17:38This is just the latest evolution of that tit-for-tat style of warfare. Ukraine has just told Russia that

01:17:43if it wants to start a fight involving domestic logistics, Ukraine is willing to end that fight.

01:17:48But still, this doesn't quite confront the question of the moral gray area that we mentioned.

01:17:53Revenge is deserved, Ukraine will say. But still, wild berries is ostensibly a civilian enterprise.

01:17:59Ukraine choosing to target it could give rise to claims that the country has betrayed its own

01:18:03approach of only taking on military targets. Only we haven't revealed the full story yet.

01:18:08Wild berries is a military target, and a far larger one than Russia wants to admit,

01:18:12as it tries to paint Ukraine as the villain of this piece. What we're about to tell you changes

01:18:17everything. Ukraine has exposed the unexpected weak points in Russia's entire military strategy

01:18:22with these attacks. However, before we go on, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.

01:18:27We bring you the full picture, not just the headlines. If you like what you see,

01:18:31make sure you subscribe and enable notifications so our videos become a regular fixture in your feet.

01:18:37Here's the reality behind wild berries. The company has been a vital cog in the Russian war machine

01:18:42ever since Putin launched his invasion. A quick visit to the company's e-commerce portal is enough

01:18:47to prove that. You're not going to find artillery and missiles being sold by wild berries, of course.

01:18:52But what you will find is a huge selection of what are often called dual-use goods. In other words,

01:18:57products that can feasibly be sold to civilians but have obvious military applications. Drones are all

01:19:03over wild. As the Kyiv Post points out, a quick search for the word drone returns page upon page of

01:19:08Mavic 3 and Mavic 4 drones, among many others that are widely used on the battlefields as the frames for

01:19:14the FPV drones that are flying all over the front. Speaking of these types of drones, Wild Berries

01:19:19actively advertises many of the UAVs on its platform as FPV drones, basically declaring that these drones

01:19:24would be ideal for a soldier who wants to try to kill a Ukrainian enemy on the battlefield. Other components

01:19:30are more sneakily hidden, but they're there if you look hard enough, the Kyiv Post reveals. A search in seemingly

01:19:35benign

01:19:36categories such as electronics or auto parts will reveal payload retention systems and bomb release

01:19:42mechanisms that can be strapped onto drones. There are even drones in the children's section of the online port.

01:19:48And if you head into the clothing section, it won't take you long before you find tactical gear that can

01:19:53be used by soldiers.

01:19:54All of this gear is supposed to be provided by Russia's military force, but it often isn't. There are many

01:19:59stories of

01:20:00Russian soldiers crowdfunding for equipment dating back to a December 2022 CNN report revealing that

01:20:06Russian people were buying body armor and boots for Putin's ill-equipped soldiers. Where do you think

01:20:11these products come from? Companies like Wild Berries. So when Russia tries to claim that Wild Berries is

01:20:16a civilian company that should never be subjected to the types of attacks that Ukraine has just carried out,

01:20:21it's purposefully obscuring the fact that the supposed Amazon of Russia is actually just as much a

01:20:27part of the military supply chain as the defense companies into which the Kremlin is pouring billions.

01:20:32What we're really seeing is a common Russian strategy coming back to bite it on the behind.

01:20:37Russia has made the blurring of the lines between civilian and military logistics an art form,

01:20:41both so that it's harder for Ukraine to pick out targets and so that Russian higher-ups who are

01:20:46fully aware of their country's own attacks against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure can clutch their

01:20:51pearls and claim terrorism. But the reality is that every Wild Berries warehouse that now burns

01:20:56was packed with equipment that could be used by the Russian military. Now that equipment is destroyed.

01:21:02That's the Russian weak point. A shady logistics network that relied on civilians buying dual-use

01:21:07products to be sent to the front had just been destroyed. Or should we say that's one weak point,

01:21:13there is another. The destruction of Wild Berries warehouses has a devastating impact on small Russian

01:21:18businesses that relied on this massive company to provide the stock that they need to sell to their

01:21:23customers. Wild Berries is a company with an annual turnover of up to $35 billion, which means it

01:21:29alone counts for over 10% of all domestic trade in Russia, the Kyiv Post says. Wild Berries alone controls

01:21:36more than 40% of Russia's retail market, and it's a key part of the supply chain for thousands of

01:21:41Russian

01:21:41businesses. Many entrepreneurs use Wild Berries in the same way that small business owners use Amazon's

01:21:47service. They buy stock, store it in Wild Berries warehouses, and then sell that stock via the

01:21:53Wild Berries platform. Many of Russia's business owners have just seen their entire stock go up in

01:21:58flames and they are spiraling, especially after Wild Berries announced that it isn't going to offer

01:22:02compensation to a single customer who has lost stock in Ukraine's attacks. Years of work and millions

01:22:09of dollars of product have just evaporated for many of these small business owners. That's it guys,

01:22:14many people will wake up bankrupt today because the warehouse in Krasnodar has burned down.

01:22:19It's still burning. Friends from Krasnodar say it's completely f***ed. What should we do? We don't

01:22:24know, the Kyiv Post reports one of these business owners are saying. Another, holding back the tears,

01:22:29declared, I already want this special military operation to end. So many people are dying and so

01:22:34many entrepreneurs are suffering. We now need to file reports with the tax authorities. I don't know what

01:22:39to say or what to do. I want this special military operation to end. That's a very important statement

01:22:44when it comes to another goal that Ukraine aims to achieve with the wrecking of Wild Berries warehouses

01:22:49that we'll be getting to. Sticking with the economic impact, now is the absolute worst time

01:22:54for Russia's small business sector to have come under such heavy fire. Small and medium-sized businesses

01:22:59or SMBs in Russia are already struggling as Putin's war sucks up every resource from labor to cash that

01:23:05they need to survive. On May 15th, the Moscow Times reported that 209,000 SMBs had been liquidated in

01:23:12Russia during the first quarter of 2026, which was a 9% increase over the figure from the previous year.

01:23:19Retail was one of the most heavily impacted sectors, which is right where those who used

01:23:23Wild Berries for their business endeavors fall. High interest rates, tax burdens and falling demand

01:23:28from consumers were all credited as reasons for these business failures. Russia's SMB owners were already

01:23:34paying the price for Putin's war. Inflation has skyrocketed in the country and the ruble is one

01:23:39of the world's most volatile currencies, as every decision that Putin makes can send its value up

01:23:44or down. Sanctions are biting down hard on these businesses and many in Russia believe that the

01:23:49civilian economy has been left in the dust as Russia's military spending rises to 8% of the

01:23:55country's gross domestic product. Throw huge Wild Berries facilities being destroyed into this terrible

01:24:00mix and you get more pain heaped onto Russian SMBs and, by extension, a Russian economy that is

01:24:06already collapsing under the weight of the Ukraine invasion. A wave of full bankruptcies is already

01:24:11being projected by the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokin,

01:24:16the new voice of Ukraine, reports as he reacted to news that the central bank was keeping the Russian

01:24:20base rate at 14.25%. That wave of bankruptcies is now practically guaranteed. Untold hundreds, likely

01:24:28even thousands of SMBs have just watched their stock burn in Wild Berries warehouses and were willing to

01:24:34bet that more strikes will be coming. And that brings us to the final reason why Ukraine struck the

01:24:39Wild Berries facilities. Psychological pressure placed on the people that will inevitably be transferred

01:24:44to Putin. Ever since he started his war, Putin has tried to convince the Russian people that they have

01:24:50nothing to worry about. The fighting is taking place hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away, he would

01:24:54tell them. It would be a battle fought on their TVs, not on their land. All they needed to do

01:25:00was hold

01:25:00tight and let the Russian military do what it supposedly does best. We've since found out that what Russia

01:25:05does best is fail to achieve its military goals and Ukraine has become a long-range behemoth over the

01:25:11last four and a half years. The destruction of Wild Berries warehouses may be the most devastating reminder

01:25:16in years to a war-weary Russian people that the fight Putin started has come to their doorsteps.

01:25:21There is no hiding this for the Kremlin. Millions of Russians will be affected by these warehouses

01:25:26being destroyed. People who were fine yesterday will wake up bankrupt today. And all of this is part

01:25:31of Ukraine's plan to create so much anger against Putin among his own people that they will push him

01:25:37to end the war. Do you remember that pained exclamation by the Wild Berries customer who just wants the

01:25:43special military operation to end? That's exactly what Ukraine wants to achieve. That sentiment,

01:25:48that mood, make it all dark and Putin will pay the price. As Andrei Pivovarov, who is a Russian

01:25:54activist living in exile, says, the main effect of these attacks is psychological. When Moscow and the

01:26:00Moscow region see a huge plume of smoke rising over major logistics hubs known to millions of people,

01:26:05it makes a much stronger impression than dry reports, especially when it becomes clear that such

01:26:10attacks cannot be prevented. Putin is already feeling the pressure. In a June 19th piece,

01:26:16Pravda reported that internal opinion polls conducted inside Russia reveal that over 60%

01:26:21of Russians are now tired of Putin's seemingly never-ending war. They don't want it anymore.

01:26:26They just want life to go back to normal. Putin's approval ratings are also plummeting. The same

01:26:31outlet reported on July 17th that Putin's approval rating has dropped to 66% in the fastest decline seen

01:26:37since the beginning of the invasion. Don't be fooled by this being a number that most leaders

01:26:41in democratic nations will be very happy to see. Putin is an autocrat. Public opinion is supposed to

01:26:46be so well controlled in Russia that nobody says a bad word about him. Yet a third of Russians are

01:26:52outwardly claiming to be unhappy with their leader. There are likely many more who feel the same but

01:26:56don't yet have the confidence to express their feelings publicly. The attacks on Wildberry's

01:27:01warehouses feed into this rising tide of anger toward Putin. Russia will blame Ukraine. It will

01:27:06weave its narrative of terrorism but it won't mean much to the business owners going bankrupt or the

01:27:11soldiers on the front lines who no longer receive equipment because it can't be bought for them by

01:27:15the people back home. What we see here is an evolution in Ukraine's deep strike strategy.

01:27:20The oil facilities and military bases will still be hit. Several were on the same days that the

01:27:25Wildberry's warehouses burned. But Ukraine has just added a new type of target to its list. Russia's

01:27:31strategy following the failure of its initial invasion has been to outlast Ukraine while maintaining the

01:27:36domestic stability needed to support Putin's invasion. The latter is now under serious threat

01:27:42and the former is still a long way away, especially as NATO has promised 80 billion dollars to Ukraine

01:27:47over the next couple of years. So Wildberry's is about much more than striking a blow against one of

01:27:52Russia's biggest private businesses. The warehouses on fire affect everything that keeps the war machine

01:27:58ticking and Putin is now feeling the heat from the flames. With these Wildberry's attacks, Ukraine has

01:28:03proven that it constantly evolves its approach to taking on Russia. A very different though equally

01:28:08noteworthy evolution just happened on the shores of Crimea. Ukrainian combat guys just pulled off a

01:28:14strike worthy of a movie and they did it in a way that we've never seen before. If you want

01:28:18to find

01:28:18out more, we have a video covering what we know about the strike and what it could mean for the

01:28:22future

01:28:23of the annexed peninsula. And if you enjoyed this video, remember to hit subscribe so you don't miss

01:28:28our coverage of the next genius move that Ukraine pulls. And thank you for watching.

Ukraine Just BREACHED a Russian Dam… The Water Did What Bullets COULDN'T | Other War Stories

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