Something Italy Just Gave Ukraine Could END the Entire War & Other War Stories

Name: Something Italy Just Gave Ukraine Could END the Entire War & Other War Stories
Uploaded: 2026-09-26T04:26:08+00:00
Duration: 1 h 14 min 5 s
Channel: The Military Show
Description: Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow

00:00:01Russia's ballistic missiles keep flying. Ukraine is struggling to do anything about them as it

00:00:06grapples with a shortage of Patriot missile interceptors. A solution is needed, and fast,

00:00:11to ensure that Ukraine can protect itself during the winter while continuing to do war-ending

00:00:16damage to Russia. That solution is coming. Italy is riding into the rescue. In a top-secret deal,

00:00:23Italy has just agreed to give something to Ukraine that Russia will hate. The air defense

00:00:27gap is being filled, and it's happening just in time to stop the Kremlin's winter assault.

00:00:32On August 27th, the Kyiv Independent reported that Italy has assembled a new military aid package for

00:00:38Ukraine. As part of that package, Ukraine will be receiving four next-generation Samp-T-NG air

00:00:45defense batteries, which are a massive upgrade over the Samp-Ts that Ukraine currently operates,

00:00:51along with a stockpile of the Patriot-like Asta-30 interceptor missiles to go with it.

00:00:56And to ensure those missiles can find their targets, Italy will also be providing seven

00:01:01long-range radars to Ukraine, allowing Ukraine to pick off Russia's ballistic missiles from a distance

00:01:06and offering vital protection to its cities and infrastructure. All told, the aid package,

00:01:11which is valued at $3.5 billion, is the 13th that Italy has delivered to Ukraine, and it's all going

00:01:17to be funded using loans from the European Union. We're about to dig deeper, but before we do, this channel

00:01:23is built by real people, who care about getting the story right. Subscribe, join the conversation

00:01:29below, and consider becoming a member to support human-made military reporting and unlock exclusive

00:01:35content. Better yet for Ukraine, this isn't a case of a promise being made for weapons that will be

00:01:40arriving so far in the future that Ukraine can't use them when it needs them most. At least some of

00:01:45the missiles Italy is providing will be delivered to Ukraine by October, just in time for Ukraine to

00:01:51replenish its stockpiles ahead of an anticipated winter assault against its cities and energy

00:01:55infrastructure. As for when the rest of the package will arrive, nothing has been confirmed yet, but

00:02:01it seems likely that it will be some point after the first batch of missiles are delivered, and likely

00:02:05sometime in 2027. But there's something that we mentioned in the intro that we haven't covered yet.

00:02:10We told you this package was a secret. How could that be when we're telling you what the package contains?

00:02:16The answer is that the package isn't a secret to the public now that it's been announced.

00:02:20The secrecy came before anybody knew that Italy was going to make this decision.

00:02:24That's according to Italian outlet La Republica, which says that the Italian government made the

00:02:29decision to send air defenses to Ukraine behind closed doors as a way to sidestep any internal

00:02:35political conflicts that might have led to a delay in the announcement. Officially, and right up until

00:02:40the announcement was made, Italy was only going to transfer civilian power generators to Ukraine.

00:02:45It wasn't until August 26th that those within Italy's government who might have opposed the aid

00:02:50package learn that they have been cut out of the decision. A sneaky move perhaps, but one that seems

00:02:55to be needed if the Italian government is going to be able to continue supporting Ukraine the way it

00:03:00needs to be supported. As Politico pointed out in an August 4th article, there is division within both

00:03:06Italy and the country's political circles as to whether more aid should be provided to Ukraine.

00:03:11The former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who now leads the Five Star Movement, suggested that

00:03:17Italy may cease military aid if his party wins Italy's next election. Italians are also less invested

00:03:23in Ukraine's success than people in other European countries. A February YouGov poll found that just

00:03:2832% of Italian people care whether Ukraine wins against Russia. Up until now, Italy has also been one of

00:03:35the smallest contributors to Ukraine, handing over support equivalent to 0.17% of its gross domestic

00:03:40product. So the reason for the subterfuge becomes clear. Ukraine will be happy to learn that Italy's

00:03:46current leaders are more supportive of its cause than many others in the country seem to be. So supportive

00:03:51in fact that this military aid package isn't the only thing that Rome is doing to help Ukraine with its

00:03:55air defense challenges. As RBC Ukraine points out, Italy seems to be on the verge of joining France

00:04:01in licensing the production of Aster-30 air defense missiles so they can be built in Ukraine.

00:04:06France made that decision back in mid-July, along with giving Ukraine licenses to build

00:04:11scalp cruise missiles and Assam-Hammer guided bomb kits. Italy, which is also involved in the

00:04:16production of Aster-30, appears not to have given the go-ahead yet, though this latest aid package

00:04:21suggests that it will be giving the thumbs up sooner rather than later. That's another huge win for

00:04:25Ukraine. The country has two Samp-T batteries ready, and will soon be adding to that number.

00:04:31However, the issue, since the summer of 2025, is that Ukraine has been running low on the Aster-30

00:04:36missiles it needs to use those batteries effectively. Now it's getting more Samp-T

00:04:41systems and Aster-30 missiles to go with them, and soon it will be in control of its own destiny,

00:04:46as it will be able to build as many Aster-30s as it needs. With the intrigue behind Italy's aid

00:04:51package uncovered, let's take a closer look at what Ukraine is going to be getting.

00:04:55We'll start with the Samp-Ts, or more accurately, the Samp-T-NGs. Ukraine already has Samp-Ts

00:05:01operating on its territory, but the batteries it's going to be receiving from Italy are the

00:05:05upgraded versions of this air defense system, that are even more effective against Russia's

00:05:10ballistic missile threat. Manufacturer MBDA Systems makes that clear right off the bat in its

00:05:16description of the Samp-T-NG, noting that it has even greater anti-tactical ballistic missile

00:05:21capabilities than its predecessor. On top of that, this next-generation system has a higher rate of

00:05:26fire, a new multi-function radar for threat detection, and it streamlines crew requirements

00:05:31while still enabling a rapid response time to incoming missile threats. What all of this amounts

00:05:36to, according to Army Technology, is an air defense system that has a surveillance range of about 400

00:05:42kilometers and a strike range of more than 150 kilometers. The upgraded Samp-T-NG can also operate

00:05:48both autonomously and as part of a wider network of air defenses, and it's designed to deal with

00:05:53ballistic missiles that have ranges of over 600 kilometers, making it ideally suited to taking out

00:05:59the Iskander ballistic missiles that form the majority of Russia's aerial strike package. However,

00:06:04as impressive as the Samp-T-NG may be, it's the Aster-30 that is the real highlight of the

00:06:09aid that

00:06:09Italy is going to be sending to Ukraine. After all, it doesn't matter how good an air defense system is,

00:06:15if the missile it fires isn't capable of doing what Ukraine needs it to do.

00:06:19The Aster-30 is very capable. Sometimes referred to as Europe's version of the Patriot Interceptor,

00:06:24and we'll be conducting a closer comparison later, the Aster-30 is a special missile.

00:06:29The missile story begins with, who else? Russia.

00:06:32Toward the end of the Cold War, Europe was dealing with the fact that the Soviet Union had built an

00:06:36enormous military that was centered on the idea of overwhelming enemies with aerial firepower,

00:06:41including massive numbers of aircraft and mass missile strikes. We're seeing the latter portion

00:06:46of that strategy being implemented by Russia against Ukraine over 30 years later.

00:06:50At the time, Europe's air defenses weren't up to snuff. The UK had the Rapier system,

00:06:56and France had its Crotales, but they were only good for dealing with threats up close.

00:07:00Both systems were fine for defending small bases, but they wouldn't do the job for entire cities.

00:07:05Europe needed something bigger and better, and it was France and Italy who combined to provide it.

00:07:11A joint venture between MBDA and the Thales Group led to the creation of a family of air defense

00:07:16missiles that would give Europe something that it could use to counter Russia's ballistic and

00:07:20cruise missile threat. The Aster-30 was one of the products of this collaboration.

00:07:25And it's a special kind of missile. So special that the Defense Post calls the missile

00:07:29Europe's shield against modern air threats in a July 30 article. The outlet has a point.

00:07:35The Aster-30 is a surface-to-air missile that can be launched from land-based platforms,

00:07:39such as the Samp-T, along with several naval platforms. It weighs 992 pounds, can reach a

00:07:46top speed of Mach 4.5, and has a range of more than 150 kilometers. It's capable of taking down

00:07:52aircraft, choppers, drones, and both cruise and ballistic missiles. And its newer variants,

00:07:57the Aster-30 Block 1 and Block NT, have enhanced sensors and stronger guidance systems,

00:08:03making them even more lethal against ballistic missiles.

00:08:06Speaking of guidance, the Aster-30 uses the Pilotage en Force, Pilotage Aerodynamique Fort,

00:08:11or PIF-PATH control system. PIF-PATH allows the missile to use lateral thrusters to execute

00:08:17extremely sharp turns, allowing the Aster-30 to quickly adjust its course to stay locked onto a target.

00:08:24It's one of the most maneuverable air defense missiles in the world. But rather than going on the

00:08:28chase, the missile's guidance system typically allows it to intercept the target where it's going to be,

00:08:33rather than where it is. That guidance comes in the form of external radars, which you'll remember

00:08:38Italy is providing to Ukraine for its Samp-TNG batteries, and an internal active radar homing

00:08:44sensor built into the missile itself. And so far, the Aster-30s that have been deployed in Ukraine

00:08:49have done precisely what they're designed to do. Ukraine needs this missile, desperately.

00:08:54But before we explain why, and discuss why Italy's secret package is such bad news for Russia,

00:08:59Russia, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show. If you haven't subscribed yet,

00:09:04now's the perfect time to hit the button and enable notifications.

00:09:08Italy's air defense package is arriving at the perfect time for Ukraine,

00:09:12because Russia has been ramping up its missile threat as we head closer to the fall and winter.

00:09:17July alone offers the perfect example. That month saw Ukraine record its highest number of civilian

00:09:22casualties since the first month of the Russian invasion, with at least 437 civilians killed and

00:09:292,610 injured during the course of the month. That makes July the deadliest month since April,

00:09:35with casualties 70% higher than those in July 2025 and 30% higher than those in June 2026.

00:09:42These casualties are happening because of a combination of Russia's ballistic missiles

00:09:46missiles and Putin's willingness to commit war crimes by purposefully targeting civilians.

00:09:51It's no coincidence that a July that saw so much death is also the month when Russia broke its own

00:09:56record for the number of missiles it launched at Ukraine in a single month. France 24 reports that

00:10:02Ukraine recorded 376 missiles launched at its territory in July, which is about twice the number

00:10:08launched in June. And it's not as though Russia has been slowing down in August. On August 27th,

00:10:13Russia unleashed one of the many aerial assaults against Ukraine we've seen as the summer draws

00:10:17to a close. This one included seven ballistic missiles and two Onyx missiles. Russia is leaning

00:10:23so heavily into its ballistic missile strategy that it's even started configuring platforms intended for

00:10:28air defense so that they can be used to launch strikes against Ukraine. In an August 27th report,

00:10:34the New Voice of Ukraine revealed that Russia has modified up to 17 of its S-400 air defense

00:10:39platforms so that they can launch RM-48U guided missiles. Ukraine's intelligence agency says that

00:10:46these modifications are the reason why more RM-48U missile attacks have been recorded in 2026,

00:10:51and it claims that Russia has split these modified S-400s between Bryansk and Rostov oblasts.

00:10:56In the first 20 days of July, Russia used these S-400s to unleash 46 missiles against Ukraine,

00:11:03having previously stuck to an average of 15 missiles per month.

00:11:06Long story short, Ukraine has a Russian missile problem. But that's nothing new,

00:11:11even though it's an escalating issue. What is new, and what compounds this problem to the point of

00:11:16serious danger for Ukraine, is that Russia is escalating its missile launches because it knows

00:11:21that Ukraine is running out of Patriot missile interceptors. In an August 17th report, CNN called

00:11:27Ukraine's diminishing supply of Patriot missiles the country's big Achilles heel. It notes that some of

00:11:32the country's Patriot batteries have sat empty for at least 10 weeks. Ukraine's President Volodymyr

00:11:37Zelensky says that Ukraine needs 5% of America's stockpile of Patriot missiles to get through the

00:11:43winter, but it only has 1%. The US and Ukraine's allies either aren't providing more or they're

00:11:49promising Patriots that will come too late. For instance, the BBC reports that the US is planning

00:11:54to increase its annual production of Patriot interceptors from 600 to 2000, likely prompted

00:12:00as much by the US using hundreds of these missiles during Operation Epic Fury in Iran as by Ukraine's

00:12:05needs. But this production scaling will take several years to complete, which isn't quick enough for

00:12:10Ukraine as it prepares for Russia's inevitable winter assault. Against this backdrop, it's much easier to

00:12:16see why Italy's military aid package is so important to Ukraine. New SAMP TNG batteries will allow Ukraine

00:12:22to protect more of its territory, though we don't know if those batteries will arrive in Ukraine in

00:12:26time for winter. We do know that Aster 30s should land in Ukraine at some point in October, and they'll

00:12:32arrive just in time to fill the gap left by the US-made Patriot interceptors. Is this a like-for

00:12:37-like

00:12:37replacement? Not exactly. But the Aster 30 is a great alternative to the Patriot. When comparing the two,

00:12:44the national interest says that the European interceptor missile actually combines the best

00:12:48of both worlds of the Patriot interceptor. The Aster 30 combines the anti-aircraft capabilities of

00:12:54the Pac-2 with the anti-missile features of the Pac-3, and it does it all at a comparable

00:12:59cost.

00:13:00The SAMP T batteries used to fire the missiles cost about half as much as a Patriot battery,

00:13:04though it isn't clear if that's the case for the upgraded SAMP TNGs that Ukraine will be receiving.

00:13:09The only downside is that the SAMP T's radars don't see as far as the Patriot's radars.

00:13:14But again that might change with the new generation of SAMP T. For Ukraine, a little

00:13:19less range is a compromise it will be more than willing to make to get its hands on air

00:13:23defense missiles that could save civilians and energy infrastructure from Russia's ballistic

00:13:27missile threat. What we're seeing here is that Italy just threw Ukraine a winter lifeline,

00:13:32and the fact that the Italian government did it all in secret is a massive signal to Ukraine

00:13:36that this government isn't going to succumb to the war weariness that seems to be spreading in

00:13:40some quarters of Italy. The Kremlin will be furious about all of this, and not just because it's being

00:13:45forced to watch as Italy offers a level of support that nobody, even those inside Italy, saw coming.

00:13:51That fury stems from something that Putin doesn't want anybody to know. Russia isn't relying so heavily

00:13:56on its missile attacks because of the damage they do. It's relying on missiles because Russian forces are

00:14:01utterly failing on the ground. Italy has handed Ukraine the keys to a potential war-ender,

00:14:07especially if it goes the extra mile and clears the path for Ukraine to start its own Aster-30

00:14:11production. Putin needs his ballistic missiles to strike their targets. They are the only options

00:14:17Russia has for doing serious damage to Ukraine's defenses right now. We can see that in the crawling

00:14:22advance of Russia's soldiers on the ground. Well, we say advance. As of August 22nd, Russia has actually

00:14:28lost ground against Ukraine in August. When taking infiltration units out of the equation,

00:14:33Russia is 27.1 square kilometers in the red. If that trend continues to the end of the month,

00:14:38this will mark the third month in 2026, when Russia has actively lost ground against Ukraine,

00:14:45the Institute for the Study of War reports. So while Ukraine's lack of Patriot interceptors has

00:14:50provided Russia with an opportunity to make its missile advantage count, the reason the Kremlin now

00:14:55leans so heavily into that strategy is that it has run out of other options. Ukraine's main

00:15:00directorate of intelligence reports that Russia currently has about 1,900 missiles intended for

00:15:05strikes against Ukraine, suggesting that further escalation is coming. But rather than the showcase

00:15:10of strength that Russia wants it to be, what we're really looking at is the last roll of the dice

00:15:14for

00:15:15the Kremlin. For Russia, Ukraine getting more air defense missiles is and a themer because it's the

00:15:20counter to the last advantage Russia has. Even more dangerous for Russia, Al Jazeera reports,

00:15:26is that Putin is trapped in a missile illusion. Russia's leader doesn't see that he'll have run

00:15:30out of options once the ballistic missiles are made less effective. At least that's according to the head

00:15:35of Ukraine-based think tank Penta. Volodymyr Fesenko tells Al Jazeera,

00:15:39Russia has an advantage, and Russia is using this advantage, using it cynically, violently. It creates a

00:15:46disbalance, and the situation is keeping us far from any real peace talks. These days,

00:15:51Putin has an illusion that he can win this war because Ukraine has a huge deficit of interceptor

00:15:55missiles. That illusion shatters if Ukraine gets a steady supply of interceptors. And that's why

00:16:01Italy's secret aid package is so important. No, this package won't nullify Russia's missile

00:16:06advantage completely, but it gives Ukraine breathing room. And with the Asta 30 licensing deal in the works,

00:16:11along with a similar licensing deal for Patriot missiles that is up in the air,

00:16:14Ukraine is on the precipice of being able to build as well as buy and receive,

00:16:19the one weapon that Russia needs to keep out of Ukraine. Ukraine will wait for the licenses,

00:16:24but come October, it will receive an Italian superpower that it can use to mitigate Russia

00:16:29in the winter and set up for a 2027 where it does more damage to Putin's forces than ever before.

00:16:36When the UK's new Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited Ukraine on August 24th, he had something up

00:16:42his sleeve. Something that would infuriate Russia as much as it delighted Ukraine.

00:16:47Burnham wasted no time in revealing what that certain something was. The UK is going to give

00:16:52classified information to Ukraine related to a weapon system powerful enough to cause serious damage

00:16:57to Russia. Putin's forces already know far too well what this weapon brings to the table. Now Ukraine is

00:17:04going to be able to build the weapon itself. Russia is furious. It's already making moves and

00:17:09flinging threats around to try to scare the UK into pulling away from Ukraine.

00:17:14But none of it is working, forcing Putin to face the fact that Ukraine's long-range strategy has just

00:17:19levelled up. Burnham's big announcement is that the UK is going to hand over classified technology

00:17:25and information that will enable Ukraine to build its own storm shadow missiles. These cruise missiles,

00:17:31which are also produced in France under the name SCALP, will allow Ukraine to deliver more firepower

00:17:36against hardened targets hundreds of kilometres beyond the border that it shares with Russia.

00:17:41The UK has made all of this official with an ex-post in the wake of Burnham's announcement,

00:17:45which saw UK Defence Minister Luke Pollard declare,

00:17:48And I said to them in person, as I say to them now, that we will stand with them for

00:17:52as long as it

00:17:53takes. That's a commitment. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because Ukraine's

00:17:57security is our security as well. The announcement comes in the wake of something similar that France

00:18:02did for Ukraine a month prior. On July 14th, the news broke that France had licensed production

00:18:08of several key weapons to Ukraine, including Aster air defence missiles, Assam hammer guided bombs,

00:18:14and SCALP missiles. In the case of the latter, France and Ukraine aimed to set up a production

00:18:19line for SCALP storm shadow missiles in the UK by the end of 2026, allowing Ukraine to invest in and

00:18:25build its own versions of these missiles for use against Russia. The UK's latest move removes the one

00:18:31barrier that stood in the way of this production line's establishment. Before we explain more,

00:18:35if you want to support the military show, subscribe and tell us what you think in the comments below.

00:18:39And if you want even more from the channel, consider becoming a member for access to exclusive content.

00:18:45As the Warzone or TWZ reports, the UK has authorised MBDA, which is the defence

00:18:50contractor behind the storm shadow, to release classified information related to the British-made

00:18:55components that go into the missile. That's the barrier that has just disappeared. Ukraine already

00:19:00had the licence from France, it needed to know what the UK contributes to these missiles and crucially,

00:19:05also needs to set up deals with manufacturers of these components so that it can get its own

00:19:10production lines up and running. Ultimately, Burnham's announcement is about technology transfer.

00:19:16The statement indicates that the UK will be getting something in return for providing this

00:19:19classified information to Ukraine, and you'll soon find out what that is. As for production,

00:19:24the big question now is how long it will take Ukraine to start building its own storm shadow

00:19:29missiles, now the barrier has been eliminated. France and Ukraine want to have production

00:19:33started by the end of 2026, but it isn't as simple as giving the green light and missiles

00:19:38start getting made. This isn't about Ukraine's technical expertise. As Keir Giles, who's an

00:19:44associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank points out, Ukraine's technical experts likely

00:19:49already have the capability to build sophisticated weapons like storm shadow, as long as they have the

00:19:54blueprints. Ukraine, under the force of fighting a war of national survival, has been developing a

00:19:59very agile, highly motivated and distributed defence industry, which is far ahead in terms of adaptation

00:20:04to current needs compared with some of its Western European counterparts, including the UK, Giles points

00:20:09out. So the bottleneck, if there is one, won't be technical expertise. It will be the practical aspect

00:20:15of getting production up and running. Al Jazeera reports that the 2026 ambition for production to begin

00:20:21may not be realistic. It points to estimates that suggest building a new batch of storm shadow

00:20:26missiles could take about two years, both because of the missile's complexity and the fact that

00:20:31facilities may have to be built and contracts for development have to be awarded. Supply chain

00:20:35challenges could also play a role. Storm shadow incorporates several US technologies, meaning that

00:20:41Ukraine, the UK and France may have to seek American approval before production gets the full go ahead.

00:20:46However, it's unclear if this need for the US approval would apply to Ukraine's production of the

00:20:51missile. Plus, Ukraine has shown several times already that it can take a weapon from concept

00:20:55to production in record time. When it already has the blueprints, as the UK and France have now

00:21:00provided, there's a good chance that Ukraine will find ways to speed up a production process that often

00:21:05takes Western nations much longer to handle, just as Giles suggests. These are challenges that Ukraine

00:21:11will grapple with and overcome in time. The big news is that Ukraine now has almost all the pieces in

00:21:16place to produce as many storm shadow missiles as it wants to use against Russia. That matters for

00:21:21several reasons. Storm shadow is powerful, and Ukraine already knows exactly what it's capable of

00:21:27and how to use it best. Basic details about storm shadow come from Missile Threat and CNN. They say

00:21:34that the missile can be launched from ships, submarines and aircraft, with the latter the most likely choice

00:21:39for Ukraine. Measuring 5.1 meters and with a launch weight of 1,300 kilograms, storm shadow uses a turbojet

00:21:47propulsion system to carry a 400 kilogram high explosive penetrating warhead up to 550 kilometers

00:21:53away from the launch site. Once launched, storm shadow uses a combination of GPS, internal navigation

00:21:59systems and terrain referencing, all combined with automatic target recognition and infrared seekers to home in

00:22:06on a target. Weather doesn't affect storm shadow, neither do nighttime conditions. Ukraine can launch this missile

00:22:13when it wants against a whole array of targets and feel relatively certain of scoring hits due to storm shadow's

00:22:19precision.

00:22:21This isn't just a theory. Ukraine has been using storm shadow for much of the war with Russia, and it's

00:22:26scored some

00:22:26pretty major kills in the process. Before these new agreements, the UK and France were providing storm shadow and scalp

00:22:33missiles to Ukraine

00:22:34from their own stockpiles. Ukraine already has various platforms from which it can launch storm shadow, including

00:22:40Mirage 2000 fighter jets and its own modified Soviet-era fighters, including the Su-24. And those platforms have

00:22:47already been put to good use many times against Russia. The Black Sea fleet has felt the power of these

00:22:53missiles.

00:22:54Beyond strikes against individual warships, Ukraine has used storm shadow to attack the fleet's former headquarters in

00:22:59Sevastopol, as far back as September 2023. It's these types of strikes that forced Russia to abandon its

00:23:06Crimean naval base for the relatively safer Novorossiysk port, as staying in range of storm shadow was

00:23:12considered too dangerous. Ukraine has also used storm shadow missiles to strike hardened targets in the

00:23:17occupied territories and border regions of Russia. October 2025 showcased that, as Ukraine pulled off an attack

00:23:24against a Russian chemical plant in Bryansk using storm shadow missiles. All told, the BBC reports there

00:23:30are around 225 Russian bases that Ukraine will be able to target with storm shadow, assuming it had the

00:23:36stockpiles in place to do so. Those stockpiles are what this sharing of classified information by the UK

00:23:42could result in. And there's more. On August 22nd, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a

00:23:48tweak to Ukraine's air defense strategy. Rather than trying to shoot down Russia's dangerous

00:23:53Iskander ballistic missiles, which is difficult to do now that Ukraine has a shortage of interceptor

00:23:58missiles, Ukraine will instead start targeting the launch sites Russia uses to send these missiles

00:24:03into Ukraine in the first place. Ukraine has already started following this strategy, as Zelenskyy's

00:24:08announcement was accompanied by confirmation of a strike against an Iskander launch site in the border

00:24:13regions. What does this have to do with Ukraine being able to make its own storm shadow missile?

00:24:18It's all about range. According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance,

00:24:22Iskander missiles have a range of about 400 to 500 kilometers. That means Russia's launch sites have

00:24:28to be within this range of Ukrainian territory for Iskander missiles to be effective. Now think back

00:24:33to the storm shadow's range. At the top end, this cruise missile can strike targets up to 500 kilometers

00:24:39away. The pieces of the puzzle align perfectly. Ukraine needs to take out Iskander launch sites.

00:24:45With the storm shadow, it gets a missile that can hit those launch sites in the border regions and

00:24:48occupied territories. Russia's only solution to this would be to pull the launch sites out of storm

00:24:53shadow's range. But that would also mean that Iskander missiles can't reach Ukraine. Russia will

00:24:58be damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't. Either it leaves launch sites in place ready for

00:25:03storm shadow to destroy them, or it pulls back and strikes a massive blow to its own ballistic missile

00:25:08strategy. So the UK's announcement amounts to a win-win situation for Ukraine, but it's also a win

00:25:14for the UK itself. We mentioned that this technology transfer isn't a one-way street. The UK is getting

00:25:19something in return for its generosity. That is actually a good thing for Ukraine, and we're going

00:25:24to explain why in a moment. Before we do, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.

00:25:29If this is the kind of insight you want to see, make sure you're subscribed to the channel

00:25:32and have notifications enabled so you can catch more of our daily videos.

00:25:37In its report on the UK's latest move, The Aviationist revealed that Ukraine will be

00:25:42providing the UK with access to its Avengers AI labs in return for the storm shadow technical data.

00:25:47This deal is part of the 100-year partnership between the UK and Ukraine,

00:25:51and it means the UK gets access to an AI platform that provides real-world data gathered from cameras

00:25:57and infrared sensors installed throughout Ukraine. This data is used by Ukraine to train its AI models,

00:26:03enabling them to detect targets autonomously. For the UK, this kind of tracking capability is crucial.

00:26:08The UK has its own concerns over a potential fight with Russia, and it wants any tech that it can

00:26:13get

00:26:13that makes it easier for UK weapons systems to target whatever Russia might bring to the battlefield.

00:26:18The UK's Secretary of State for Defense, Wes Streeting, has highlighted what this means.

00:26:23Ukraine is pushing the frontier of defense innovation as they bravely resist Putin's illegal

00:26:28invasion. From supporting with military equipment and training to co-developing cutting-edge technology,

00:26:33the UK will stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine for as long as it takes, he declared.

00:26:38Before adding, By combining the UK's world-leading scientists, engineers, and tech companies with

00:26:43Ukraine's unique battlefield experience and data, we will strengthen both of our nation's defense and

00:26:48security. And that's why this is good for Ukraine. What looks on the surface like the UK only giving

00:26:54something if it's going to get something in return is actually a sign that Ukraine's drone diplomacy is

00:26:58paying off through deeper integration and enhanced cooperation with partners who can make Ukraine

00:27:03stronger. 2026 has been the year when Ukraine's non-stop investment in building stronger and smarter

00:27:09drones has really started to pay off, both on the battlefield and in terms of what those drones mean

00:27:14for Ukraine's ability to negotiate with its partners. Ukraine has been able to use its drones to build

00:27:19ties with Gulf nations impacted by the fallout of Operation Epic Fury in Iran. Forbes adds that Ukraine is now

00:27:25building a relationship with Azerbaijan, which is partially based on Ukraine's ability to build the

00:27:30types of drones capable of protecting against Russian attacks. What we're seeing with the UK

00:27:35gaining access to the Avengers AI labs is just another example of Ukraine's drones proving how useful the

00:27:41nation can be as a defense partner and collaborate. You could say the same of the UK and trusting Ukraine

00:27:46with storm shadow secrets. That showcases a level of trust that has been hard earned by Ukraine.

00:27:52And beyond Ukraine's drone diplomacy, this is just another example in a long line of Ukraine and the UK

00:27:57deepening their collaboration in the battle against Russia. We mentioned the 100-year partnership

00:28:03agreement. The two nations have also signed the agreement on security cooperation in 2024,

00:28:08the 2020 strategic partnership agreement, and the declaration of intent for the UK to take part

00:28:13in the deployment of a multinational group of forces to support the defense and reconstruction of Ukraine

00:28:19once the war ends. This wasn't a you give me something and I'll give you something in return

00:28:24kind of deal. It's the UK and Ukraine building on defensive integration and cooperation that has

00:28:29been in the works for years. Russia isn't happy about any of this and its reaction says it all.

00:28:36Putin has just been forced to watch as Ukraine adds another string to its long-range bow. Having the

00:28:41ability to build its own storm shadow missiles makes Ukraine an even more dangerous long-range threat to

00:28:46Russia. And it's not like it wasn't already leaving. Ukraine has identified deep strikes

00:28:51as the key to destroying the Russian war machine from the inside, both by crippling Russia economically

00:28:56and shattering supply chains that filter down to the front. On top of storm shadow production in the

00:29:01future, Zelensky says that Ukraine has the capacity to build up to 300 long-range drones,

00:29:06each with a range of 3,000 kilometers, every single day. It just needs the funding to make that happen.

00:29:12Ukraine has also been working on ballistic missiles. Ground tests on the FP7 ballistic missile,

00:29:19which is being developed by Firepoint, the makers of the famous Flamingo drone missile hybrid,

00:29:23have already been completed, UNN reports. Ukraine is now preparing to combat test that missile,

00:29:29which has a range of about 200 kilometers, via a strike against a Russian target at some point in

00:29:35the near future, claims Firepoint CEO Irina Terek. Ukraine has already developed a lethal cocktail of

00:29:41long-range weapons that is being forced down Putin's throat. Adding more storm shadow missiles into the

00:29:46mix built by Ukraine will just make that cocktail more bitter for Russia's president. Putin will also

00:29:52hate the fact that the UK's latest move means that Ukraine gets more control over how many storm shadows

00:29:57it has and how it uses the missiles. Once assembly lines are in place, Ukraine will be able to control

00:30:03production rates, replenishment and sustainment, rather than relying on foreign stockpiles to enable its

00:30:09storm shadow attacks. We might even see Ukraine granted permission to alter storm shadow for its own

00:30:14needs, perhaps by adapting it for launch from the ground or tweaking the guidance system. These are

00:30:19all possibilities. Russia knows this better than anybody, and it's furious with the UK.

00:30:24Ahead of Burnham's visit to Kyiv, Russia decided to withdraw its ambassador to the UK in a move that was

00:30:29clearly designed to intimidate the UK's Prime Minister. Andrey Kellyn, who had served in his

00:30:34ambassadorial role for seven years, was actually withdrawn a month prior to the visit, though news

00:30:39of Russia's decision only emerged on August 23rd. That withdrawal also came in the wake of the Russian

00:30:45embassy in the UK promising consequences for the UK's decision to provide attack drones to Ukraine.

00:30:52Russia will be p***ed that the UK is enabling Ukraine to build something more powerful than drones now,

00:30:57and we can see that in the Kremlin's August 25th response to Burnham's visit.

00:31:02Former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Fedorov has said there may be a semi-military

00:31:07response from unknown sources against UK drone factories due to the UK sharing storm shadow

00:31:13information with Ukraine. Russia isn't even trying to hide behind the veil of plausible deniability

00:31:18anymore. Nobody believes the sources would be unknown, especially when it's a Russian former

00:31:22minister who is making the claim. These threats are part of the psychological mind games that Putin

00:31:28tries to play on nations that get on his bad side, but they aren't a bad thing. Whenever Russia starts

00:31:33making threats, it's really telling the whole world that the Kremlin has been rattled. Whatever

00:31:38attempts were made in the past to scare the UK into withdrawing support for Ukraine have failed,

00:31:42so the threats escalate, not necessarily because Russia can back those threats up,

00:31:46but because Putin and his cronies are clawing for that one magic threat that will suddenly cause the

00:31:51UK to withdraw. Russia won't find that threat. Though withdrawing an ambassador is a new trick,

00:31:57the idea of Russia launching some sort of hybrid attack on a UK facility is nothing new. Russia has

00:32:02been doing that almost from the beginning of Putin's invasion. As The Independent points out,

00:32:07the Kremlin media has been issuing threats against the UK since 2022. The outlet provides examples of

00:32:13pro-war TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov talking about nuking the UK using Sarmat missiles,

00:32:18and others who have tried to position the UK as some sort of evil mastermind behind all Western

00:32:23policy related to Russia. So the latest threats will be like water off a duck's back for the UK.

00:32:28That doesn't mean the threats will be taken lightly. Not all are empty, but Russia is going to fail at

00:32:33intimidating the UK into inaction, just as it has many times in the past. Nobody says that better than

00:32:39Burnham himself. Ahead of the UK's major decision, Burnham declared,

00:32:42We are not fair-weather friends. We will be there in Ukraine's hour of need, and that won't change.

00:32:48To prove it, the UK has just given Ukraine the keys to an all-weather weapon that can devastate

00:32:53Russia. Putin's lackeys will threaten and cajole, but they won't be able to stop the storm that is

00:32:58coming to them. In April 2025, a series of Ukrainian strikes hit a factory in the Russian city of Saransk.

00:33:07But unlike traditional military equipment factories, this one made fiber-optic cable,

00:33:12and it was the only one of its kind in the entire Russian Federation. According to the Center for

00:33:17Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, more than a year later, it was still offline.

00:33:23And that one loss produced the strangest sequence of events in the war. Russia's single most successful

00:33:28battlefield innovation in 2025 and 2026 is a unit called Rubicon, an elite drone formation built by

00:33:36stripping the best operators out of line units and concentrating them in one place. And Rubicon's

00:33:42signature weapon is the fiber-optic drone, which is connected to a physical spool of cable to make

00:33:48it immune to electronic jamming. Rubicon is the reason Russia pushed Ukrainian forces back out of

00:33:54Kursk on the timeline it did. And Rubicon was only possible because with Saransk in ruins,

00:34:00China stepped in and sold Russia the cable it can no longer make itself, at a 150% markup.

00:34:06But four years into this war, Rubicon being a novel development is an exception in Russia's

00:34:11overall battle tactics. Russia can buy almost anything it wants, but not the ability to use it.

00:34:17And that problem can cost Putin the entire war.

00:34:20But before we get into the meat of the video, consider becoming a member to directly support us.

00:34:26We make daily videos so you can get news as soon as they're posted and a membership allows you to

00:34:31access exclusive videos that aren't posted anywhere else. Let's start with a distinction that runs

00:34:37through everything else we're going to look at. When a country receives foreign military aid,

00:34:42there are two main issues at the center of that aid. The first is whether the aid showed up. Call

00:34:47that

00:34:48potential capacity. The second is whether the army receiving it can actually turn it into something

00:34:53that happens on the battlefield. Call that realized capacity. Most Western analysis of Russia's

00:34:59partners has focused entirely on the first question. How many shells did North Korea send? How many chips

00:35:05came through China? Which satellites is Moscow buying time on? Those import numbers make headlines.

00:35:11But a brief from CSIS asked a second question instead, and the answer is considerably more interesting.

00:35:17On paper, Russia is doing extremely well. As CSIS cited an estimate that roughly 90 percent of

00:35:24Russia's microelectronics came from China in 2023. North Korea had reportedly supplied Russia with more

00:35:31than 15 million artillery rounds by 2026, along with 120 multiple launch rocket systems by February 2025.

00:35:40On the G7's common high priority list are the items the West most wants to keep out of Russian hands,

00:35:46such as machine tools, semiconductors, integrated circuits, and lithium-ion batteries.

00:35:52China's share of what Russia imported rose from 54.3 percent in 2022 to 84.6 percent in 2025.

00:36:01But despite this, the Institute for the Study of War suggested Russia is advancing at a rate measured

00:36:06in single-digit square kilometers per week. So what's happening to all of it? The CSIS suggests a

00:36:13pattern that is much behavioral as it is logistical or strategic. When partner aid slots into something

00:36:19Russia already knows how to do, Russia handles it fine. When partner aid requires Russia to change

00:36:25how it's organized, Russia stalls. Iranian drones are the textbook case here. Russian officials reportedly

00:36:32visited Kashan airfield in Iran in June 2022 to look at Shaheed drones. By July, the White House was saying

00:36:39publicly that a transfer was coming, and the first shipment moved in early August. Within months,

00:36:45Moscow and Tehran were planning a factory inside Russia. The Iranian Shaheed became one of the most

00:36:50publicized parts of Russia's long-range drone capabilities, with better navigation and a few other

00:36:55improvements. CSIS reported that Russia went on to localize nearly 90 percent of Djeran production,

00:37:02finishing a 6,000-unit contract ahead of schedule. Ukrainian intelligence indicated that Russia was

00:37:07churning out roughly 3,000 jet-powered Djeran IV and Djeran V drones a month.

00:37:13North Korean shells are the same kind of input. There were quality problems early on, but a shell is a

00:37:18shell. It goes in the same gun barrel Russia already owns, fired by the same crew, on the same orders.

00:37:24It required Russia to change nothing at all, and it freed up Russian factory capacity that would

00:37:29otherwise have been making ammunition. Chinese components are where the second part of the

00:37:34pattern shows up. Ukraine's military intelligence has been pulling apart recovered Russian weapons

00:37:39for years, and what it finds inside is mostly Western. Over half the integrated circuits used in

00:37:45Russian AI applications actually trace back to US-based companies. China's role is not primarily to

00:37:51supply Russia with Chinese parts. China's role is to be the middleman, routing Western components

00:37:57into Russia through intermediary firms and domestic manufacturing of Western designs. But if China

00:38:02supplied Russia exclusively with Chinese-made parts, Huawei semiconductors and Chinese machine tools,

00:38:09Russia would be forced to redesign most of its systems to accommodate them. That would be painful,

00:38:14expensive and slow. It would also be a form of reform. By keeping the Western components flowing

00:38:19through the back door, China lets Russia avoid ever having to redesign anything. The aid keeps

00:38:25allowing Russia to go on, as it did before, at whatever cost. Perhaps a stronger illustration of

00:38:30this same problem is demonstrated with Starlink. Russian forces in Ukraine were unofficially using

00:38:35Starlink for years. SpaceX never outright sold infrastructure to Russia, but Russian units acquired

00:38:41terminals through grey markets and third countries and used them for frontline communications and drone

00:38:46operations. Ukrainian intelligence documented it and Western analysts wrote about it. Before long,

00:38:53everyone involved knew that the Russian army had become dependent on an American commercial satellite

00:38:58constellation. But starting in February 2026, SpaceX shut off the illicit Russian access, and Russia

00:39:05has struggled to field an alternative with comparable coverage and capacity. The fallback was supposed to

00:39:10be Yamal, the commercial satellite network owned by Gazprom. As of mid-2026, Yamal consisted of four

00:39:17functioning geostationary satellites. Starlink, for comparison, has 10,803 operational satellites in

00:39:24orbit. Yamal couldn't even cover the front line or carry drone video. Russian units reportedly described

00:39:30Yamal as unstable, and that was assumed to be a generous interpretation. But Russia, technically,

00:39:35has another solution that it's been trying to push, a government-sponsored low-Earth orbit

00:39:40constellation called Rasvet. The first launch was supposed to take place in 2025, but in March 2026,

00:39:48Russia eventually sent up a batch of 16 satellites. And within three months, one of them had already

00:39:53failed. Rasvet's target is 156 satellites by the end of 2026, and Russia is nowhere close. ISW reported

00:40:02another Russian military satellite launch in late August 2026, possibly part of the Rasvet build-out,

00:40:09but that's still a single satellite, and the country is missing over 100. Here's why that matters more

00:40:15than it might sound. When ISW assessed why Ukraine's Oleksandrivka counteroffensive succeeded across the

00:40:21first eight months of 2026, it listed several mutually supporting causes, including the February Starlink cutoff.

00:40:29Now, let's look at the input Russia has bought the most of and used the least.

00:40:33Russia's own space-based imaging fleet is roughly three optical satellites and three synthetic aperture

00:40:39radar satellites. That's not enough to service a front line a thousand kilometers long, so Russia

00:40:45buys, and the receipts were visible. The US Treasury sanctioned SpaceT China and its Luxembourg

00:40:51subsidiary back in January 2023 for providing imagery of Ukraine to a Russian company supporting Wagner

00:40:58operations. Beijing Yunze sold two satellites to a front company, Taiti Yevgevny Prigozhin,

00:41:04for over 30 million dollars. China even built and launched a satellite that just handed over control

00:41:09to a Russian company in 2024 and renamed it Stillsat-1. So, Russia has the pictures. What it doesn't

00:41:16have is the ability to turn pictures into targets fast enough to matter. Satellite imagery is genuinely hard

00:41:22to process. The objects you want to find are small and from orbit they occupy very few pixels.

00:41:28Finding them reliably requires trained machine learning models and training those models requires

00:41:33enormous volumes of your own imagery. Russia technically doesn't own the satellites that

00:41:38would generate that data or the capability to process them. A senior NATO air commander sessed as

00:41:43earliest November 2022 that Russia lacked anything resembling NATO s ISR-led strike capability or the

00:41:50targeting processes to exploit it. Now, compare that with what Ukraine built. Ukraine s battle

00:41:56management system is called Delta. It fuses satellite imagery, drone feeds, radar, and reports from

00:42:02frontline units onto one interactive map. One component, called Avengers, builds specialized models for

00:42:08detecting small objects in low resolution, poor quality imagery. The full system shortened the average

00:42:14time from spotting a target to relaying it for a strike from 72 hours down to minute. And in June

00:42:202026,

00:42:22Ukraine s unmanned systems force used that commercial satellite imagery to dismantle Russia s Shahid launch

00:42:27infrastructure at the occupied Donetsk airport. CSIS called it the first documented case of Ukraine

00:42:34closing a kill chain with commercial satellite imagery behind it. So both Ukraine and Russia have

00:42:39access to satellite imagery, but only one has managed to utilize it in mid-2026. Now, if you re finding

00:42:46this

00:42:46useful, take a second to hit subscribe. It genuinely helps the channel and there s a lot more of this

00:42:52coming.

00:42:52Now, this produces another problem which circles back to Russia s fear or inability to change. CSIS specifically

00:42:59noted that a pervasive fear of exposing the war s realities and thereby undermining Putin discouraged

00:43:05an honest analysis inside the Russian system. To put that into practice, the National Interest reported

00:43:11that Russian commanders regularly sent soldiers to infiltrate Ukrainian positions, plant a Russian flag

00:43:16and film it, so the video could be sent back to headquarters as proof and objective was taken. The

00:43:22soldier is often killed by Ukrainian units in the area shortly afterward, and the flag is quickly

00:43:27switched back to Ukraine. But all that mattered was the image, no matter how short the actual

00:43:31situation lasted. And in cases where Russia couldn t achieve the objective, it manufactured the success.

00:43:37One report indicated that Russia had used AI to generate fake videos of soldiers raising flags

00:43:43over ground it didn t hold. Normally, that would be an unverifiable claim. Except ISW has independently

00:43:50documented it twice. In late July 2026, when the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed its forces had

00:43:56seized the settlement of Kristor Forivka, Russian sources published footage to back it up, that ISW

00:44:02assessed to be likely AI-altered. At the time, Kristor Forivka sat roughly eight kilometers beyond

00:44:08the furthest extent of any Russian infiltration. Then in mid-August, Russian sources published footage

00:44:14of a flag raising in Oskil, southwest of Borova. ISW assessed that footage as likely AI-altered too,

00:44:21noting it had only observed Russian forces getting to win 17 kilometers of the place.

00:44:26And again in August, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the capture of a village called

00:44:31Shcher-Bakivka in Kharkiv Oblast. Ukraine Center for Countering Disinformation pointed out that Shcher-Bakivka

00:44:38hasn t existed for nearly 30 years. This failure has a structural cause, and CSIS argues it s about

00:44:45where the authority to shoot lives. According to the report, Russian regimental command staff stated

00:44:51there was effectively no company-level command in their army, and that command is exercised at the

00:44:56battalion. Everything below the battalion, the companies, the platoons, the squads, the drone

00:45:01crews watching a target on a screen right now, has to push a decision upward through multiple layers

00:45:06before anything is allowed to happen. On a battlefield where a target is visible for 90 seconds,

00:45:12that structure is too slow, and Russia knows this. Members of the Russian regimental staff

00:45:17themselves identified strike approval latency as the primary delay between detection and engagement.

00:45:23Russia has plans for an AI-enabled command and control system to fix it, and Russia has built

00:45:29targeting software Glaz and Groza that pulls coordinates automatically out of drone video

00:45:34and runs the ballistic calculations. But look carefully at what that software does.

00:45:39It makes the existing approval chain faster, but it doesn t actually move the authority to make the

00:45:44shot. CSIS argues that technological solutions can improve existing processes without necessarily

00:45:50addressing the underlying institutional structure. Ukraine did the opposite thing. Beginning in 2014,

00:45:57Ukrainian volunteers built tools that pushed decisions down to the people holding the drone controller.

00:46:02An initiative called Army SOS built Kropiva, which turned cheap tablets into automated fire control

00:46:08terminals that were widely adopted into artillery units as their primary system. And Delta began back

00:46:14in 2016 and was adopted force-wide by August 2024, scaling the same logic. Russia s answer to Delta is

00:46:22a

00:46:22system called SWOT, but news of it circulated in early 2026 and has stopped since, suggesting it s either

00:46:28underdeveloped, underperforming or failing to scale to the entire military. Now, here s where this stops being

00:46:34about software and starts being about people, because the same institutional trait that keeps authority

00:46:40locked at battalion level does something much worse to the men at the bottom. According to the national

00:46:45interest piece, the culture of the Russian army dates back to 1941 and hasn t changed. Here s what that

00:46:51looks like in

00:46:52practice in 2026. Russia has launched meat grinder assaults wave after wave into positions covered by drones, though

00:47:00commanders prefer smaller infiltration groups because drone surveillance combined with cluster artillery makes

00:47:05anything larger suicidal. The average age of a Russian contract soldier may be as high as 50 and the national

00:47:12interest reports that a new soldier doesn t survive more than a few days once he s committed to a

00:47:17frontline assault. In fact,

00:47:18some reports suggest that once they re committed to an assault, some troops only last between 20 and 35

00:47:25minutes. Compiled reports suggest that Russia has also drastically reduced the uptake time for its

00:47:30troops from what was supposed to be months into mere days. In May, Russia also cut training for elite

00:47:36airborne troops to 10 days. Russia s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, a formation that was supposed to be among

00:47:43the best in the force, has reportedly been reconstituted a dozen times and then reorganized

00:47:48into a whole different unit. If you need a translation, reconstituted means destroyed and re-recruited,

00:47:55meaning thousands of troops died and were replaced until Russia decided the brigade was making too many

00:48:00headlines and tried to cover it up. And Russia s recruit quality has fallen accordingly. Men with gambling

00:48:06debts, men with alcohol problems, men with criminal records. Some are simply lied to, promised a place in

00:48:12a drone unit and then sent on assaults anyway. HIV-positive prisoners were reportedly promised

00:48:18treatment if they agreed to fight. And wounded men get recycled back into assault, which is how national

00:48:23interests started framing crippled battalions. This practice points to drastic manpower shortages,

00:48:29as declining recruitment is pushing commanders to utilize literally everyone, including men in no

00:48:34physical condition to fight. To support this, just look at the numbers from the start of 2026.

00:48:40According to Ukrainian estimates, Russia lost more troops than it recruited in the first three months

00:48:45of the year, with roughly a 9,000-man shortfall. And how Russia treats those troops is also similar

00:48:51to World War II tactics. Back in November 2025, some Russian units were being sent forward without

00:48:57body armor or rifles, instructed to take them off Russian dead they passed along the route. The men who

00:49:03refused are reportedly humiliated and even tortured. One Russian prisoner of war said that if his group

00:49:08retreated, their own commander would shoot them. In September 2024, two Russian drone operators,

00:49:15Dmitry Lysakov, callsign Goodwin, and Sergei Gritsay, callsign Ernest, recorded a video saying their

00:49:21reconnaissance unit had been dissolved and its drone operators reassigned to infantry assaults after they

00:49:27criticized their commanders. Both men were dead shortly afterward. Russian war correspondents have

00:49:32described this category of incident as serial murder of personnel disguised as meat grinder assaults.

00:49:37So, Russia's answer to a drone operator who tells the truth is to disband his unit and send him into

00:49:43an infantry assault. And the troops that are performing are consolidated under the barely

00:49:48successful Rubicon, so it keeps the positive field result. And Russia's partners were supposed to

00:49:54solve the manpower problem. When Ukraine invaded Kursk back in August 2024, it was North Korea that sent

00:50:01troops. By mid-2025, various estimates put the number of North Korean troops in Russia at around 15,000,

00:50:07most sent to Kursk. But their presence hasn't gone well. Estimates suggested more than half of the

00:50:13forces were lost within three months. North Korea built a monument in 2026 that suggested over 2,300

00:50:19troops died. In one incident, in December 2024, North Korean troops fired on a vehicle belonging to a

00:50:26Chechen Akhmat Special Forces Battalion and killed Allied forces. Ukrainian reports suggested North Koreans

00:50:33were hopelessly lost on the battlefield. Which brings us to the deepest part of the argument, where Russia

00:50:38can't fix this problem because neither side really wants to. Leaked Russian counterintelligence documents

00:50:44showed deep-seated distrust of Beijing. And under a July 2025 agreement, Chinese instructors trained

00:50:51only 200 Russian personnel in drone operations, electronic warfare and counter-drone tactics,

00:50:57with Ukrainian intelligence confirming all of 180 of them. But Ukrainian intelligence reported 550

00:51:03Chinese troops training in Russia, suggesting that the exchange runs more in the direction of Russia

00:51:09teaching China from battlefield experience than the reverse. So, even if China is sending out drones,

00:51:16it isn't teaching Russian troops how to use them nearly as effectively as it could. Of course,

00:51:21it's fair to mention that Russia does adapt. Drone units that looked exceptional in 2023 are routine

00:51:27across the Russian force. Russian air and missile strikes have gotten harder to stop, as Moscow shifted

00:51:32toward jet-powered Jeroen variants and ballistic missiles that Ukraine is no domestic answer for yet.

00:51:37But the argument is less about capability and more about speed. Russia will keep adapting,

00:51:43but the rate is set by the rigidity of its institutions, and CSIS's judgment is that the

00:51:48rate is too slow for the timeline this war imposes. This leaves us with three things to watch. The first

00:51:54is manpower. Ukrainian intelligence relayed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assesses that Russia

00:52:00is preparing large-scale involuntary reserve call-ups after the September 2026 state Duma elections.

00:52:07Potentially several hundred thousand men by the end of the year, and the same again in 2027,

00:52:12with preparations for a figure as high as 500,000. But if Putin mobilizes at that scale,

00:52:18he's pouring hundreds of thousands of men into a structure that can't train them properly,

00:52:23doesn't equip all of them, and won't command them below battalion level. It's just pouring more men

00:52:27into the meat grinder without resolving the issues surrounding it. The second is Russia's satellite

00:52:32program. Approximately 156 satellites by the end of 2026 was the target, and only 16 went up in March.

00:52:40One has already died, another batch reportedly launched, and the count has crept upward at a

00:52:45miserable pace. The next four months will determine whether Russia can make up for something it should

00:52:50have done back in 2022. The third is Rubicon, or rather everything that isn't Rubicon. If Rubicon remains

00:52:57the elite force, it weakens Russia's entire drone force by accumulating all its power within a single

00:53:02box. And will any of these lose the war outright? They won't, at least not by themselves. Russia has

00:53:09enormous resources to waste, and doesn't face an immediate threat to the country's identity as a

00:53:14whole. However, Russia's benefactor China stands to gain from everything. If the war continues,

00:53:20Russia will need larger injections of resources, and China is the one that provides them.

00:53:26During Operation Epic Fury, the US and Israel's ongoing conflict against Iran, the US has launched

00:53:33a diverse and extensive array of weaponry against the Iranians, ranging from the very latest missiles

00:53:39to stalwarts of their stockpiles. On the cutting edge, at least two brand new systems

00:53:44made their combat or operational debuts during the conflict. The precision strike missile, or PRISM,

00:53:51long-range ballistic missile, was used in combat for the very first time. And the low-cost unmanned

00:53:57combat attack system, or LUCAS, a one-way long-range attack drone, reverse-engineered by the US from

00:54:03the Iranian-designed Shahid-136, was deployed in its first operational engagement. Now, the initial waves

00:54:10of air strikes were mostly conducted from beyond the reach of Iranian air defences, using standoff munitions

00:54:16like the LUCAS, PRISM, Tomahawk, and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASM missiles.

00:54:22But once those air defences had been sufficiently degraded, it was time for one of the flying grandpas

00:54:28of the US Air Force to really show its worth, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber. There aren't too many 70

00:54:35-year-old

00:54:36aircraft out there that can still make a decisive difference in an ultra-modern battle, but that's

00:54:41exactly what the B-52 has done. So here's how the US employed the B-52 against Iran to such

00:54:47deadly

00:54:47effect, and while it will likely remain a key component of US air power for years to come.

00:54:52It's unclear, though, whether the US had seriously intended to launch a major ground operation against

00:54:58Iran. So far, the campaign ultimately centered on air and missile strikes. Detailed plans for ground

00:55:04operations seem to have been planned, and some authorities have claimed that certain low-key

00:55:09ground operations have in fact been conducted, but President Donald Trump seems to have ultimately

00:55:14pulled the plug on those. Instead, the initial plan seemed to be for revolutionary elements inside

00:55:20Iran, possibly backed by an insurgency from neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan, to seize power,

00:55:25rather than a major ground invasion by US and or Israeli forces. Iran had just been rocked by

00:55:32widespread anti-government protests that turned violent. Anywhere from 3,000 to 50,000 Iranians

00:55:38died during the protests, depending on whose propaganda you read. But whatever the real number,

00:55:43the idea was that if the US could destroy the Iranian regime's military and leadership with a

00:55:48devastating air campaign, protesters would be able to seize power in the resulting power vacuum.

00:55:54That didn't happen, despite one of the most intense and relentless bombardments of a nation seen in

00:55:59decades that indeed decapitated most of Iran's leadership. The first part of the campaign was

00:56:05conducted primarily from standoff ranges, and for good reason. Before the war, Iran had assembled a

00:56:11relatively advanced multi-layered defense network, spread across its vast territory. To achieve complete

00:56:17air superiority over the whole country, so that the US could get deep inside and do the serious damage,

00:56:22that network obviously had to be taken out upfront. Most crucially, the strategic long-range layer had

00:56:29to be disabled, so that US fighters and bombers could safely enter to within standing range,

00:56:35and its long-range missiles could have uncontested airspace to travel through at extended ranges.

00:56:40The air defense systems comprising that long-range layer, primarily the domestically produced Bavar 373 and

00:56:47Arman systems and the Russian S-300 PMU were thus among the highest priority targets. Associated systems

00:56:54like fixed radar installations, command and control nodes and associated logistics sites joined them at

00:57:00the top of the target bank. Then the bombing started. In the first weeks of the war, wave after wave

00:57:06of US

00:57:06and Israeli long-range missiles and drones bombarded targets across Iran relentlessly. The majority of

00:57:13these were carried out from standoff range beyond the reach of Iran's defenses. To conduct this long-range

00:57:18opening phase of the operation, the US military deployed a tiered fleet of manned bombers, tactical fighters

00:57:24and unmanned systems. The aforementioned Lucas and the ever-reliable MQ-9 Reaper comprised the unmanned component

00:57:32of the force. F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-15E Strike Eagles, F-A-18EF Super Hornets and F-35 Lightning

00:57:40II,

00:57:41fired their AGM-158 JASM long-range missiles and AGM-154 JASO standoff guided glide bombs.

00:57:49But the backbone of the long-range strike campaign was the US bomber force, due to its ability to carry

00:57:54the largest payload of standoff munitions. The B-1B Lancer was used for ultra-long-range sorties,

00:58:01striking air defenses and deep inland targets like missile production facilities and maritime

00:58:06infrastructure. It operated primarily with JASM ERs, the extended-range variant of the missile,

00:58:13leveraging its high-speed and large payload to penetrate contested airspace effectively

00:58:17from standoff distances. The B-2 Spirit also played a role in standoff air defense suppression.

00:58:23But in the early stages of the war, the US also leveraged its stealth profile to sneak behind the

00:58:29long-range defenses and carry out a special mission, delivering extremely heavy-duty massive

00:58:34ordnance penetrators, or MOPS, and £2,000 precision bombs against Iran's many hardened underground

00:58:41facilities. Rounding off the triads, the B-52 also played a decisive role in those early standoff

00:58:48missions. Deployed early in the conflict primarily for night strikes, the B-52 served as a massive missile

00:58:54truck, primarily launching JASM and JASM ER cruise missiles against ballistic missile sites and command

00:59:01nodes. The AGM-158 JASM is 14 feet long and weighs in at around 2,250 pounds. It can be

00:59:09released at a

00:59:10range of 200 nautical miles using its GPS-aided internal navigation for mid-course flight and an

00:59:16imaging infrared seeker with automatic target recognition for terminal homing. The B-52 is ideal

00:59:23for deploying JASMs because it can carry so many of them at once. It can carry 20 in a single

00:59:28SAW-T,

00:59:298 mounted internally on a rotary launcher in the bomb bay, and 12 carried externally on underwing pylons.

00:59:36Among US aircraft, only the B-1B Lancer can carry more, 24 to be precise. The B-2 Spirit can

00:59:43carry 16,

00:59:44while the significantly smaller and lighter F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-A-18 Super Hornet can carry

00:59:51only two at a time. The F-15E Strike Eagle can comfortably carry two to three missiles,

00:59:56with a five-missile payload also successfully demonstrated. So, the ability to deploy so many

01:00:02standoff missiles at once made the B-52 an ideal choice for the sustained salvo focus of the initial

01:00:09long-distance bombardment. But of all the many airborne systems at play, the B-52 was probably the

01:00:15aircraft the US was least keen to deploy at closer ranges above Iranian airspace, at least until Iran's

01:00:21long and medium-range air defense layers had been defeated. That's because despite its many endearing

01:00:27and enduring qualities, which we'll discuss in more detail shortly, it's one of the easiest aircraft

01:00:32in the US fleet for long-range air defenses to spot, track and target. When the B-52 first entered

01:00:39service in 1955, its top speed of around Mach 0.84, or 650 miles per hour, made it the fastest

01:00:46in the

01:00:47world at the time. Its swept wings and eight jet engines represented a major technological leap,

01:00:53allowing it to achieve speed that the previous generation of propeller-driven heavy bombers could

01:00:57only fantasize about. It was around 50% faster than the B-36 Peacemaker it replaced, seen as a critical

01:01:04factor in successfully penetrating Soviet airspace in the emerging Cold War dynamic. But by today's

01:01:11standards, it's not very fast at all. In fact, it was the slowest moving manned aircraft used by the

01:01:17US during the war. Not that much slower than the B-2 spirit, to be fair. The B-2 maxes

01:01:22out at around

01:01:23Mach 0.95, or a little below 729 miles per hour. Now that's in the same ballpark as his big

01:01:30brother in

01:01:30the sky. But compared to the US tactical fighter's top speeds of Mach 0.16 to 2.5, or even

01:01:37the B-1B

01:01:38Lancers Mach 1.25, or around 900 miles per hour, the B-52 is competing in the seniors race. And

01:01:45that

01:01:45makes it the easiest of the US manned aircraft for Iran's radar and other sensors to detect and track,

01:01:52and vulnerable to a wider range of slower moving anti-aircraft projectiles. The B-52 is also enormous.

01:01:58It stands 159 feet 4 inches long, 40 feet 8 inches tall, has a wingspan of 185 feet long enough

01:02:07to

01:02:07carry those eight powerful Pratt & Whitney TF33 P3103 turbofan engines and weighs in at roughly 185,000

01:02:16pounds. That massive size is what enables the B-52 to be such an absolute beast in terms of payload

01:02:23capacity. It can carry 70,000 pounds of ordnance. For comparison, a single F-35 can carry 18,000 pounds

01:02:31of ordnance, which is considered formidable. Even better, because the B-52 has both internal and

01:02:37external carrying capacity, it can carry a mix of munition types tailored to the mission. The internal

01:02:42bomb bay is equipped with a conventional rotary launcher and can hold a mix of up to eight different

01:02:47smart weapons. For example, a combination of JDAMs, JASM missiles, and Mold decoys. At the same time,

01:02:55the underwing hardpoints can carry up to 12 large munitions, typically six per wing, or dozens of

01:03:00smaller unguided bombs. So, without even taking into account the internal bay capacity, a B-52 can

01:03:06simultaneously carry JASM or Harpoon missiles, JDAM or MK-82 guided bombs, and naval mines like the

01:03:13Quickstrike series. This flexibility allows combatant commanders to tailor a single aircraft's payload

01:03:19to engage multiple target types, say a fixed air defense installation, a command and control bunker,

01:03:26and a radar site, without needing to call in different specialized aircraft. And do it at scale.

01:03:32A single B-52 can carry large numbers of JDAMs or JASMs with the exact loadout depending on the weapon

01:03:38configuration and mission. Combine that fearsome configurable firepower with the B-52's ability

01:03:44to stay in the air for extended periods, and you have an ideal system for the kind of extended,

01:03:49multi-faceted air campaign the operation required. The B-52 has an unrefueled combat range of approximately

01:03:568,800 miles, allowing for roughly 12 to 14 hours of continuous flight with its fuel capacity of just

01:04:03over 312,000 pounds. But when supported by tankers like the KC-135 or KC-46, the aircraft's range becomes

01:04:12virtually unlimited. It can remain airborne for extremely long periods, with the only constraints

01:04:18being the physical and mental limits of its five-person crew, engine oil consumption and system wear over

01:04:23extreme durations, and the logistics of keeping fuel flowing to the bomber via tankers. The official

01:04:29endurance record for the B-52 is 47.2 hours, set in August 1994 during exercise global power.

01:04:38Two B-52s circumnavigated the globe, covering over 20,000 miles with the help of five mid-air refuelings.

01:04:45That phenomenal endurance and range were crucial to Operation Epic Fury, given how far away from Iran

01:04:51the participating B-52s were based. Many of the B-52 flights during that early phase of the war took

01:04:57off

01:04:58from the massive Diego Garcia, making it a secure launch point for the opening salvo of cruise missile attacks.

01:05:04Some bombers also flew directly from their permanent home bases back in the US,

01:05:09conducting marathon sorties of 30-plus hours with multiple mid-air refuelings.

01:05:13B-52s were tracked leaving Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota,

01:05:21heading either directly for the conflict zone or to the main base used for the B-52 sorties during the

01:05:26war.

01:05:26RAF Fairford in the UK. The UK initially restricted the use of its bases, but on March 1st,

01:05:33the government authorized US use of RAF Fairford for specific defensive operations against Iranian

01:05:39missile facilities. But after a policy reversal by the UK government in early March, the US concentrated

01:05:45a significant bomber force there. The base's proximity to a large store of pre-position munitions

01:05:50at the nearby RAF Welford facility made it the ideal choice. Now, as we've seen, the B-52's enormous

01:05:57size and capacity meant it could carry more of those munitions than any other aircraft at the US's

01:06:02disposal. But that size also contributes to making the B-52 the easiest of the US's manned aircraft to

01:06:09shoot down, because it's a major factor in the B-52's rather large radar cross-section, or RCS. In part,

01:06:16due to its age, the B-52 is one of the least stealthy planes in the US arsenal. Its estimated

01:06:22RCS is

01:06:23around 100 square meters, just over 1076 square feet. That makes it a massive non-stealthy target

01:06:30comparable to a large commercial airliner or cargo ship. By comparison, the B-1B Lancer has an RCS of

01:06:37just 10 square meters, an order of magnitude smaller. The F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor both have

01:06:44an

01:06:44estimated RCS the size of a golf ball. But even those tiny RCS profiles are roughly 50 times larger

01:06:51than the B-2 Spirit, whose estimated RCS of around 0.0001 square meters is comparable to a bumblebee

01:06:59or large insect. Put that massive RCS together with its relatively slow speed, and you can understand

01:07:06why the US tended to keep its B-52s well beyond the reach of Iran's air defense, until they'd been

01:07:11sufficiently worn down for the massive bombers to safely zoom in. How did that initial standoff

01:07:16campaign against Iranian air defenses turn out? Well, according to CENTCOM, more than 1,500 strikes

01:07:23against air defense targets were carried out, and they appear to have been highly successful.

01:07:27Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kane claimed that US and coalition forces had

01:07:33destroyed approximately 80% of Iran's air defense systems. With air superiority directly over Iranian

01:07:39territory now more or less secured, it was time for the B-52s to really show its worth,

01:07:44striking a much broader range of targets from closer range. The exact spread of targets has not been

01:07:50disclosed, but based on what we do know, the B-52 crews likely targeted and saturated missile

01:07:55production sites, underground bunkers, what was left of Iran's airfields, command and control sites,

01:08:01and logistical hubs. The effect of these attacks would be to deepen the severity of the damage already

01:08:06inflicted, as well as to greatly reduce the operating capacity and effectiveness of Iranian ground and

01:08:12air units and their command elements. Given its vast payload capacity, the B-52 was the perfect choice

01:08:18for this stage of the operation. And now, operating at closer ranges, the B-52 could unleash a new type

01:08:25of

01:08:25ammunition. The Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM. The JDAM is known as the US's smart dumb bomb,

01:08:32and it's an ingenious piece of military repurposing. Initiated in the early 1990s, the JDAM program was

01:08:38specifically created to leverage the US's massive existing stockpiles of MK-80 series general purpose

01:08:45unguided dumb bombs, including the MK-82, MK-83, MK-84, and the Blue 109 penetrator. The goal was to

01:08:55provide an all-weather, low-cost precision capability without designing entirely new weapons. The mechanism

01:09:01was to attach a bolt-on guidance kit to convert that mountain of dumb unguided bombs into smart

01:09:06precision guided munitions. When a JDAM is deployed, it consists of an unguided iron bomb body fitted with

01:09:13a tail kit containing GPS INS guidance electronics and control fins. Once combined, the composite unit is

01:09:20designated as a specific GBU, short for Guided Bomb Unit, for example, the £2,000 GBU-31 or £500 GBU

01:09:29-38.

01:09:30When it's released from an aircraft, the JDAM doesn't glide towards its targets in a hit-or-miss

01:09:35manner like an unguided glide bomb. The guidance kit allows it to navigate to pre-arranged coordinates

01:09:40in all weather. Its much-talked-about accuracy is achieved when GPS is available, while its inertial

01:09:46navigation system allows it to continue operating when GPS signals are unavailable with reduced

01:09:52accuracy. According to the manufacturer Boeing, target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft

01:09:58before take-off, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered

01:10:03through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. In its most accurate mode, the JDAM system

01:10:09will provide a weapon's circular error probable of 5 meters around 16.4 feet or less during free flight

01:10:16when JPS data is available. Other sources state that the JDAM has a proven 95% system reliability

01:10:23during testing and has likewise achieved less than 1.7 meters or just over 5.5 feet of circular error

01:10:30probability against a 3.3 meter or 10.8 feet requirement. Those excellent performance stats seem to be

01:10:37consistent across the full range of JDAMs, which include 500lb, 1000lb and 2000lb variants. In other

01:10:44words, it gives the B-52 the ability to deliver large numbers of precision-guided weapons against

01:10:50multiple targets in a single sortie. And the B-52 is the ideal carrier for them. While capable of being

01:10:57carried on fighter aircraft, as we've seen, these weapons can be used in much greater numbers from a B-52.

01:11:03But that's only part of the reason why B-52s were used so prodigiously once air superiority over Iran

01:11:09had been achieved. Perhaps Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 pilot and director of future concepts and

01:11:16capability assessment at AFA's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, sums it up best.

01:11:22What the bombers bring to the equation is that they have larger payloads of weapons and longer

01:11:26duration missions, which gives them the ability to maintain a presence in the weapons engagement zone

01:11:31for longer periods of time to respond to dynamic targets that have just been located, such as

01:11:36mobile missile launchers breaking concealment. Now, the situation on the ground was changing

01:11:42dynamically. For example, Iran was extracting mobile missile launchers from underground bases

01:11:47in different locations, firing and then attempting to shoot and scoot back underground. With much more

01:11:52limited payloads and ability to stay aloft, the US's far nimble fighters might already be out of

01:11:58weapons after previous strikes, already returning to base before those types of targets emerge.

01:12:03Not so with the B-52. Now, with the end result of the conflict still up in the air,

01:12:08no pun intended, it's unclear how the US will make use of its B-52s going forward. Estimates vary greatly

01:12:15depending on whose propaganda you read. But it's clear that during the current extended lull in massive

01:12:20strikes, Iran has patched up its smashed air defenses to some extent or another. Likewise,

01:12:25it appears to rehabilitated many of the sites and entrances to its underground missile and drone

01:12:30facilities severely damaged by JDAM and other strikes. On the one hand, the war has greatly

01:12:36depleted the US's stockpiles of standoff missiles, and it's likely to take years to replenish them.

01:12:41With the US mindful of drawing down too many missiles from other theaters like the Indo-Pacific

01:12:46and Europe to fill the gap, its massive stockpiles of JDAMs will become all the more important if a serious

01:12:52kinetic conflict re-erupts. On the other hand, with the Iranian air defenses being gradually restored,

01:12:58the risks of using the relatively easy-to-target bomber from stand-in ranges are increasing,

01:13:03and it's from those ranges that JDAMs need to be deployed. However, as the conflict evolves next,

01:13:09it's almost certain that the B-52 is likely to play a significant role in it and continue being at

01:13:14the

01:13:14core of US air power for years to come. Not least because Grandpa is getting a new lease on life.

01:13:20In fact, the US Air Force is in the process of upgrading its entire remaining fleet of 76 aircraft

01:13:26to a new configuration, the B-52J. The core upgrade is the commercial engine replacement program,

01:13:33which will swap the eight old Pratt & Whitney TF-33 engines for the same number of modern,

01:13:38efficient Rolls-Royce F-130 engines. This alone is expected to extend the aircraft's life by more

01:13:44than 30 years. The B-5J will also include new ISA radars, digital flight controls, modernized

01:13:51cockpits and structural improvements. We'll of course be following developments closely and keeping you

01:13:56updated as and when they occur. So, if you haven't already, subscribe to the channel to hear about it

01:14:02first, thanks for watching.

Something Italy Just Gave Ukraine Could END the Entire War & Other War Stories

Category

Transcript

Recommended