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⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 Riots in Moscow... Russian Citizens TURN Against Putin
18:19 Ukraine Just Revealed SOMETHING Secret… And It’s a MASSIVE Problem for Russia
37:47 Ukraine’s New TANK Is Putin’s Worst Nightmare... And Russia Paid for It
54:38 Putin's Plan to Weaken NATO Failed
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⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 Riots in Moscow... Russian Citizens TURN Against Putin
18:19 Ukraine Just Revealed SOMETHING Secret… And It’s a MASSIVE Problem for Russia
37:47 Ukraine’s New TANK Is Putin’s Worst Nightmare... And Russia Paid for It
54:38 Putin's Plan to Weaken NATO Failed
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
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NewsTranscript
00:00:01Down with the Tsar! Down with the Tsar!
00:00:04That's the chant that rang through the streets of Moscow,
00:00:07as protesters gathered to let Putin know their thoughts about his corrupt regime
00:00:12and the war that he has forced down Russian throats.
00:00:17There are riots in Moscow, Putin's own people have turned against him,
00:00:22and we may be on the verge of witnessing a seismic shock in Russian politics.
00:00:27On October 4th, Russia's Communist Party held a large rally,
00:00:31ostensibly to commemorate the events of Russia's 1993 constitutional crisis.
00:00:37But really, this was all about thousands of people coming together to express their anger at Putin
00:00:42and the policies that have led Russia into a black hole.
00:00:46The Moscow Times reports that an estimated 2,000 people gathered for the memorial,
00:00:51which is held annually to honour those killed in the 1993 crisis.
00:00:55It wasn't long before those gathered decided to vent their frustrations about their leader.
00:01:01Down with the Tsar! became a rallying cry.
00:01:04Other protesters delivered their own slogans.
00:01:07Freedom for political prisoners was another chant,
00:01:10highlighting the anger those in attendance feel about Putin's suppression of any and all opposition to his rule.
00:01:17For fair elections was another slogan,
00:01:20timely delivered in the wake of what many believe to be a sham State Duma election period.
00:01:25What started as a memorial descended into pure anger.
00:01:30White-hot rage directed at a man who has crippled his own country due to his obsession with the war
00:01:35in Ukraine.
00:01:36And in a moment we're going to explain all of the reasons why this protest turned into a riot that
00:01:41the Kremlin struggled to contain.
00:01:43But first, everything you see here is researched, verified and produced by real people.
00:01:49If you value that, subscribe and comment below.
00:01:52And consider becoming a member for access to exclusive content.
00:01:56Police descended on the protest, of course.
00:01:59Arrests were made and the Kremlin did its best to shut down an event that had spiralled out of control
00:02:05from Putin's perspective.
00:02:07But here's the craziest thing.
00:02:09It was the Kremlin that approved this gathering in the first place.
00:02:13Protests like these don't just happen in Russia, as the Kremlin wants to keep tight control over any public dissent.
00:02:19Putin's lackeys signed off on the Communist Party gathering because they believed it would just be a memorial and nothing
00:02:27more.
00:02:27After all, this is the Communist Party we're talking about.
00:02:31While technically an opponent of Putin's United Russia Party, they're usually opposition in name only.
00:02:37When push comes to shove, the Communist Party will rubber stamp whatever policies Putin puts forward.
00:02:43That's what makes this protest so big.
00:02:46What started as an approved event became something that the Kremlin couldn't handle.
00:02:51And what this shows us is that for all of his claims of control, Putin no longer has his finger
00:02:56on the pulse of the Russian people.
00:02:58If he did, he might have seen this riot coming.
00:03:02After all, there are plenty of reasons why what was supposed to be a memorial became a riot.
00:03:07We'll start with Russia's recent elections.
00:03:10Held in September, the State Duma elections wound up delivering a record State Duma majority to United Russia.
00:03:17Putin's favoured party won more seats in the lower house of the State Duma than it's ever won before, taking
00:03:23349 of the 450 available seats.
00:03:27The previous record was set in 2016 when United Russia took 343 seats.
00:03:32And to the outside observer, who has no idea how Russian elections actually work, this result would make it look
00:03:38like there is mass approval for Putin and his policies among the Russian people.
00:03:42Putin even managed to use the elections to make a political statement about the war in Ukraine.
00:03:47For the first time ever, Ukraine war veterans ran for office and won seats, taking 46 of those available.
00:03:54These are Russia's new elite, Putin declared in the wake of the elections.
00:03:58This is excellent. The experience of our heroes is in high demand.
00:04:02The results of the vote have clearly confirmed this, Putin lackey Dmitry Peskov said as he tried to force the
00:04:08idea that Russia's veterans are hailed as heroes in their own country.
00:04:12There is just one major problem with all of this United Russia back patting. It's all a sham.
00:04:17There was nothing democratic about the September State Duma elections and it means nothing that the incumbent party has won
00:04:25by a landslide.
00:04:27Putin's cronies were working behind the scenes the entire way to make it seem as though support for Putin is
00:04:32stronger than it's ever been before.
00:04:34In a September 24th video, TLDR News dug deeper into the State Duma elections, showcasing the sheer scale of electoral
00:04:41fraud that went on to create Putin's little everybody loves me fairy tale.
00:04:47For a start, the Kremlin managed to ban the only party that might have offered some true opposition from even
00:04:53fielding candidates for the election.
00:04:55Yubloco, which is Russian for Apple, is Russia's oldest liberal party and it typically argues for democratic reforms and peaceful
00:05:03relations with the West.
00:05:04Putin couldn't have that. He went through the courts that he controlled to do something about this threat to his
00:05:10power base.
00:05:11Yubloco candidates were banned from standing just a month before the elections were to take place, based on the results
00:05:18of a court case that was engineered to take the party out of contention.
00:05:21This matters because of the impact that it had on the numbers.
00:05:26In the past, Yubloco candidates were allowed to run, likely because they pulled in about 2% of the vote,
00:05:32TLDR News reports.
00:05:33They were useful, a way for the Kremlin to gauge anti-Putin sentiment.
00:05:37The problem in 2026 is that anti-Putin sentiment is far higher now than it's ever been before.
00:05:43Polls leading up to the September elections put Yubloco's support in the double digits.
00:05:48So they were out.
00:05:49The eventual results showed that the United Russia party won 58% of the vote from a turnout of 59
00:05:56% of the Russian population.
00:05:58But here's where the numbers come into play.
00:06:00When examining each party's share of the vote against turnout in each constituency that voted, you see something strange.
00:06:07There is a strong correlation between turnout and the United Russia vote share, TLDR News reports.
00:06:13That simply doesn't happen in legitimate elections.
00:06:17Uniformity in voting patterns related to turnout is rare, to the point of being almost impossible.
00:06:23And yet, in each constituency that was examined, we see the same pattern.
00:06:27A high turnout leads to a high United Russia vote share.
00:06:31This is the sham.
00:06:31The reality, TLDR News says, is that United Russia likely won 35% of the vote from a turnout of
00:06:3840% of the Russian population.
00:06:40That would put the Communist Party, which, don't forget, held the protest, at a vote share of 25%.
00:06:46This roughly aligns with unofficial polls, i.e. polls that didn't have Kremlin backing ahead of the election.
00:06:52And in the polls where Yabloko was included, before its expulsion from the elections, the party was polling at about
00:06:5825% of the vote.
00:07:00United Russia would have still gotten about a third of the vote if Russia's State Duma elections were legitimate.
00:07:05But we wouldn't see anything like the supermajority we see now.
00:07:09Both Yabloko and the Communist Party would have been represented much more in the State Duma.
00:07:14For the latter, this election, if carried out properly, could have represented a pathway to becoming more than a rubber
00:07:20-stamping party for Putin.
00:07:22Which brings us back to the October 4th protests.
00:07:25What we've just seen in those protests is the supporters of a party that has been railroaded into subservience by
00:07:31an unfair system.
00:07:33The September elections show just how much the Kremlin is willing to cheat on behalf of United Russia and fragile
00:07:38Putin.
00:07:39As Foreign Policy puts it, these sham elections have essentially closed the door on any legitimate parliamentary debate about Putin
00:07:46and his policies.
00:07:47The authoritarian is working to become a true dictator.
00:07:52With no political avenue for their discontent, the 2,000 Communist Party supporters who gathered in Moscow on October 4th
00:07:58chose another road.
00:08:00Get the Kremlin to approve a gathering that will become a protest, ensuring that dissenting voices are still heard, no
00:08:07matter what Putin tries to do.
00:08:08Though the State Duma elections were the likely catalyst for the protests and riots in Moscow, they weren't the only
00:08:14reason why thousands of people broke out in chants of down with the Tsar.
00:08:18A wellspring of discontent has just bubbled over, as protesters are as angry about the state of Russia right now
00:08:25as they are about a sham election.
00:08:27We're about to dig deeper, but before we do, this is a reminder that you're watching The Military Show.
00:08:32If you're getting insight from our video, don't forget to subscribe and enable notifications so you don't miss what we
00:08:38have coming next.
00:08:40In its report on the Moscow protests, AP News noted that they have happened against a backdrop of intensified drone
00:08:46attacks carried out by Ukraine inside Russian territory.
00:08:49Those attacks, which often target oil refineries, have led to a fuel shortage and massive disruptions to the average Russian's
00:08:56life, the outlet points out.
00:08:58It isn't wrong on either count. In late August, Euronews reported that seven out of every ten Russian gas stations
00:09:05had run out of fuel, leading to massive queues at the pumps.
00:09:09This isn't anything new for Russia in 2026. Ever since the spring, Ukraine's refinery and logistics strikes have cut off
00:09:16the flow of gasoline and diesel into Russian regions.
00:09:19This shortage isn't likely to change anytime soon either.
00:09:22Russia is now being forced to buy what is supposed to be one of the country's own products from other
00:09:27nations.
00:09:28Putin has gotten so desperate that he's even leaning on countries that are ostensibly opposed to what Russia is doing
00:09:34in Ukraine.
00:09:34On October 6th, Ukraine accused South Korea of exporting over 176,000 tons of fuel to Russia through July and
00:09:43August,
00:09:43with South Korea accounting for 31% of Russian fuel imports in the latter month.
00:09:48This is desperation on Russia's part. But for as angry as Ukraine will be over South Korea's alleged actions,
00:09:55which undermine the Ukrainian strategy of cutting off Russian fuel supplies, it isn't stopping its strikes.
00:10:01According to PBS, Ukraine now claims to have taken out 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity with its drone
00:10:07strikes.
00:10:08We're also seeing an intensification of Ukraine's aerial assaults, as was the case on October 6th,
00:10:14when news broke of Ukraine unleashing a 1,750 drone barrage all over Russia.
00:10:20If you're the average Russian right now, you're feeling all of this.
00:10:23There's no fuel which impacts everything from your job to the costs of goods at the local markets.
00:10:29Ukraine's drone strikes are a near daily occurrence, which leaves you scared and angry.
00:10:34Putin promised this would never happen. The so-called special military operation was meant to be over years ago,
00:10:41with Ukraine never landing a strike on Russia. Now those strikes happen all the time,
00:10:46and nowhere in Russia is safe from Ukraine's drones.
00:10:50That seems like a good enough reason to protest to us.
00:10:53And it leads us to another reason for what we saw in Moscow on October 4th,
00:10:57which is that Russians are getting sick of Putin's obsession with his war.
00:11:02All of this pain could be over if Putin admitted that he has dragged his country into a painful conflict.
00:11:07Pushing for peace would go a long way toward quelling the anger that is leading to protests and riots.
00:11:12But Putin won't do that.
00:11:13He's going in the opposite direction, as proven by how he is now pulling money away from vital public services,
00:11:19so he can continue to fund his invasion.
00:11:22According to the latest Kremlin budget, invasion spending is going up by a third,
00:11:27while the Kremlin cuts healthcare spending in Russia.
00:11:29The New Voice of Ukraine reports that war spending now counts for 40% of the entire Russian budget.
00:11:36The sacrifice for keeping that war spending going is that 8 of 11 federal healthcare development projects
00:11:41have received spending cuts or have been outright axed by the Kremlin, the outlet says.
00:11:47Among them is a project to modernize Russia's primary healthcare clinics,
00:11:51which has seen its budget slashed by 52%.
00:11:53Other cuts include around $1.2 billion taken away from the Cancer Diseases Project,
00:11:59which would pay for equipment used by oncology centers and medicine for cancer patients.
00:12:04Medusa adds more in a September 29th report noting that Russian spending in the social policy category will drop by
00:12:107%.
00:12:11That's money taken away from things like pensions, maternity benefits and payments made to war veterans.
00:12:17Russia is also going to spend 6% less on education and 7.4% less on national economy projects,
00:12:25such as road building and agricultural subsidies.
00:12:28It's as though Putin has taken a handful of salt and rubbed it into the open wound of Russian society.
00:12:33As fuel shortages put Russians on the brink, Putin is now letting everybody know that helping them isn't the priority.
00:12:40Public health be damned. There's a war to be fought.
00:12:44Who needs healthcare when Putin is so determined to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people in Ukraine anyway?
00:12:51Putin is making it clear to his people that they come second to what he wants.
00:12:55And what he wants is Ukraine, not a healthy Russia.
00:12:58It's no wonder that people are chanting down with the Tsar when that wannabe Tsar is crippling Russia.
00:13:04Before we move on, it's worth coming back to what the October 4th gathering was supposed to be about before
00:13:08it turned into a riot.
00:13:09There's a certain amount of symbolism there.
00:13:12The 1993 constitutional crisis was a political standoff between the Russian parliament and the then-president Boris Yeltsin.
00:13:20Already we're seeing a small parallel between that crisis and October 4th.
00:13:24The crisis was sparked when Yeltsin attempted to dissolve the Russian legislature,
00:13:28despite not having the authority to do so.
00:13:31Again, another parallel.
00:13:32A leader who does whatever he wants, despite procedure, angering politicians.
00:13:37Russia's military was brought in to resolve the standoff, resulting in over 150 people being killed and hundreds more being
00:13:45injured,
00:13:45leading to the 1993 constitutional crisis being dubbed Black October in Russia.
00:13:51A Communist Party gathering to mark the events of that day turned into a protest against the man who holds
00:13:56all of the power
00:13:57is a reminder that not all Russians are willing to back down in the face of their leader.
00:14:02What better motivation to do so than one of the darkest days in Russia's recent history?
00:14:07Of course, the Kremlin had to respond to the events of October 4th.
00:14:11There was no way that Putin was going to allow a large protest to devolve into a riot with no
00:14:16recourse.
00:14:16Thankfully, Putin didn't decide to kill people for their dissent this time.
00:14:21Moscow's response was to send armed police into the fray, where they meted out their own brand of brutality.
00:14:28By the end of the protest, around 60 people had been arrested.
00:14:32Many of these arrests were far from peaceful.
00:14:34TVP World reports that at least one protester was forced to the ground where he was kicked by police officers.
00:14:40Another protester, this time a woman, had her hair pulled by police.
00:14:44Most of those detained were young people, the outlet adds, with the arrests happening in two waves.
00:14:50In the first wave, 26 members of the Communist Party were taken away.
00:14:54The second saw authorities arrest about 30 members of the Yabloko Party we mentioned earlier.
00:14:59The presence of both parties at the protest will give Putin some concerns.
00:15:04Remember what we said about Russia's elections earlier.
00:15:06Each party was polling at about 25% of the vote before the September sham.
00:15:11We may be seeing a team-up starting to take root, as Yabloko and the Communist Party realise that they
00:15:16are stronger together than they are apart.
00:15:18October 4th also marks the highest number of arrests made at a Communist Party rally since Putin launched his Ukraine
00:15:24invasion.
00:15:25If there is one thing we can tell you from all of this, it's that tensions are rising in Russia.
00:15:31Putin might have engineered a fake election that makes it seem like support for him and his favoured party is
00:15:36higher than ever, but the reality is far different.
00:15:40As for the Communist Party, it's starting to show signs that it may want to become more than the rubber
00:15:45stamp as we called them earlier.
00:15:46This protest is a sign of that, but if we go back a few months, we'll see another sign.
00:15:51Back in April, the party's leader, Gennady Zhiganov, issued a stark warning during a plenary session of the State Duma.
00:15:58After declaring that his party is doing everything that it can to support Putin and his policies, Zhiganov then delivered
00:16:04a harsh takedown of the Russian government.
00:16:06If you, the government, do not urgently adopt financial, economic and other measures by autumn, a repeat of what happened
00:16:12in 1917 awaits us.
00:16:14We don't have the right to repeat that. Let's take some decisions, the Communist Party leader said of the Russian
00:16:19government.
00:16:20There's some clever doublespeak going on here.
00:16:24Zhiganov claimed support for Putin, but then attacked the government that Putin has put in place to do whatever he
00:16:30wants it to do.
00:16:30This was an attack on Putin, despite being dressed up as a verbal evisceration of the government, and it was
00:16:36made in the State Duma.
00:16:38The same State Duma that has now become one of the reasons why the Communist Party just erupted in protest.
00:16:43What all of this should show Putin is that the Russian people simply don't support him the way he wants
00:16:49to pretend.
00:16:49In the summer, the Kyiv Post reported that Putin's approval rating had dropped five points to 66%, per a poll
00:16:58carried out by the Public Opinion Foundation.
00:17:00That's the steepest decline we've seen since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion, and it comes from a pollster that
00:17:07is state-backed and prone to manipulating its results to make them seem much better than they are.
00:17:14Putin's reality now is that his grip on power is weakening as his people turn against him.
00:17:19Not all are doing so publicly, as the 2,000 or so who turned out on October 4th.
00:17:24Some will even claim to support Putin, even as they secretly hate everything that he's doing.
00:17:28But the tide is turning, as there are too many factors in play to enable Putin to enjoy the level
00:17:34of support he wants.
00:17:36Putin's support from Russia's political and economic elite is crumbling.
00:17:40Beyond party leaders calling him out in the State Duma, Putin is being forced to watch as Russia's oligarchs funnel
00:17:46billions of dollars out of the country so he can't get his dirty mitts on it.
00:17:51Russia is on the brink of an economic disaster, helped along by Ukraine's non-stop strikes and Putin's war-obsessed
00:17:58policies.
00:17:58Despite Putin's attempts to control Russia's information environment, pictures and videos covering Ukrainian strikes spread across social media platforms like
00:18:07Wildfire.
00:18:08Bit by bit, Putin's grip is weakening.
00:18:11Open protests in the streets and chants of down with the Tsar are just another example of the tide that
00:18:16is turning inside Russia.
00:18:19There are occasionally moments in a long war when the side everyone assumed was running out of options suddenly shows
00:18:25new tricks.
00:18:26For the war in Ukraine, that arguably happened in early September 2026 in the exhibition halls of Kielce, Poland, at
00:18:33a defence trade fair called MSPO.
00:18:35A number of Ukrainian companies displayed new hardware and declassified systems that had previously been classified under development were known
00:18:44mainly as mock-ups and development projects.
00:18:47And when you line up what appeared there, you get an almost complete picture of the Ukrainian strategy.
00:18:51One that is specifically what Russia has been betting on for the past two years of attrition.
00:18:56The bet that Ukraine runs out of missiles, runs out of vehicles, runs out of foreign support and eventually runs
00:19:03out of the ability to keep fighting at all.
00:19:05So, we want to walk through what actually got revealed, because each piece is interesting on its own.
00:19:11And then we want to do the more important thing, which is to show you how the pieces fit together.
00:19:16But before we get there, if you want to support the military show, consider becoming a member.
00:19:21Not only will you help us make more videos, but you'll also get access to exclusives that we don't post
00:19:26publicly.
00:19:27Now, let's start with the one that got the most attention, and the one that has the longest and strangest
00:19:32history behind it.
00:19:34Its name is Koral, and until that Tuesday in Poland, the system had pretty much only been known through development
00:19:40work and display models, rather than a public display of power.
00:19:43But at the trade fair, Ukraine's state-owned defense industry released an image showing the missile launching from a self
00:19:50-propelled launcher mounted on the chassis of a Czech-built Tatra truck.
00:19:54That may not sound like much, but it is enormous.
00:19:57The difference between a concept and a weapon. A missile on a stand at a trade show is an advertisement.
00:20:03A missile leaving a tube on a truck is a system.
00:20:06Work on Koral began back in 2016, and at that point it wasn't even conceived as a land-based weapon.
00:20:12The original documents described it as part of a planned ship-borne air defense system, or more specifically, a missile
00:20:19for a navy that Ukraine simply didn't have at that point.
00:20:22In 2021, the full-scale mock-up was presented at the Arms and Security Exhibition in Kyiv, and described as
00:20:28a modular, unified missile that could work from land launchers or ship launchers, with the designers openly musing about an
00:20:35air-to-air version as well.
00:20:36Then the full-scale invasion happened, and Koral talk went quiet, and what emerged in Kielsa five years later is
00:20:44a different missile entirely.
00:20:46The 2021 version has an engagement range of up to 30km, with the ability to fly up to 10km in
00:20:52the air while carrying a 25kg warhead.
00:20:55But the missile that appeared in Poland has a warhead that weighs 36kg. The entire missile is actually 50%
00:21:02heavier.
00:21:03The presenter then described Koral as designed to intercept aerial and ballistic targets, with a secondary ability to engage radar
00:21:11-visible targets on the ground or at sea.
00:21:13The missile is reportedly potentially compatible with launchers used by the US Patriot and S-300 systems.
00:21:20Notably, there's no clear definition of what ballistic targets means in this context, and the phrase covers an enormous amount
00:21:27of ground.
00:21:28The term ballistic targets covers a wide range of potential threats, from short-range ballistic missiles such as the Iskander
00:21:34to other weapons that follow ballistic trajectories.
00:21:36The publicly available information doesn't establish exactly which ballistic threats Koral is currently capable of intercepting.
00:21:44Those are two radically different engineering problems.
00:21:47An active radar seeker on a 450kg airframe is a serious piece of work.
00:21:52But, we designed it to engage ballistic targets is strictly a design intention that doesn't have a clear meaning.
00:21:59Even with that caveat fully in place though, the significance is hard to overstate.
00:22:03Because the thing you have to understand about Russia's air campaign is that it's not really a campaign about explosives.
00:22:09It's a campaign about arithmetic.
00:22:12Russia's approach to Ukraine's skies has been an exercise in cost exchange.
00:22:16Send cheap one-way attack drones in large numbers.
00:22:19Mix in ballistic missiles that force the defender to expend the most expensive interceptor in the inventory, and keep doing
00:22:26it every night.
00:22:27Ukraine's defense against this depends heavily on Western-supplied interceptors that cost enormously more than the things they shoot down,
00:22:34that are produced in limited quantities by a small number of factories, and that arrive on the schedule Kyiv doesn't
00:22:40control.
00:22:41In August 2026, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that allied deliveries of air defense missiles had fallen by two-thirds in
00:22:48the first half of 2026, compared with the same period in 2025.
00:22:52A domestically built interceptor could change that arithmetic, because Ukraine would have more control over production and supply, rather than
00:23:00relying entirely on foreign deliveries.
00:23:02And that brings us to the second thing revealed at MSPO, called the RK-19, which is a simple replacement
00:23:09round for the OSA AKM.
00:23:11The OSA is a Soviet design from the 1970s, an amphibious wheeled vehicle carrying its own radar and six missiles,
00:23:18built to move with troops and shoot down aircraft and cruise missiles.
00:23:22Ukraine has operated them for decades, and has used them hard throughout this war.
00:23:26The vehicles themselves are still technically functional.
00:23:29The problem is that they fire a missile called the 9M-33, and the world stopped making 9M-33s a
00:23:35long time ago.
00:23:36Every one Ukraine fires is one that can't be replaced, and the stockpile has been draining since 2022.
00:23:43The RK-19's effect was first shown publicly in April 2026, but in Kielsa it appeared as actual hardware, rather
00:23:51than a simple long-distance demonstration of a concept.
00:23:53It has a range of up to 10 kilometers, which is similar to the Soviet round it replaces.
00:23:58It does come with a speed increase to 600 meters per second, compared with around 500 meters per second for
00:24:04the 9M-33M3.
00:24:07But most importantly, it uses radio command guidance, deliberately similar to the Soviet system it's replacing.
00:24:13That last detail is the whole point, and it's the kind of engineering decision that never makes a thumbnail.
00:24:19Radio command guidance is old technology. Ukraine could have built something more sophisticated.
00:24:25But by matching the guidance philosophy of the original round, the RK-19 can drop into launchers and fire control
00:24:31systems that already exist,
00:24:32in vehicles that are already deployed, operated by crews who are already trained.
00:24:37There is no new vehicle to build, no new crew pipeline, no new logistics chain.
00:24:42You take an air defense system that was months away from becoming an expensive decoration, and you give it a
00:24:47magazine again.
00:24:49Multiply that across every OSA battery Ukraine still feels, and you've practically resurrected a layer of the air defense network.
00:24:56More specifically, this is the middle layer that covers troop concentrations, logistic hubs, and infrastructure against cruise missiles and drones.
00:25:04And this is exactly the layer that's been getting thinner since Russia has been probing it the hardest.
00:25:10Now, if you're finding this useful, take a second to subscribe and hit the bell.
00:25:14It helps the channel, and it means you'll be here when we follow up on whether any of this actually
00:25:19reaches the front in numbers.
00:25:21Now, back to the third reveal, and arguably the one that best fits the word secret,
00:25:26and the one that should worry Russian air defense crews personally.
00:25:28A company called EUCRA Spec Systems used MSPO to publicly unveil a loitering munition called the RAM-2X.
00:25:37While this X-wing strike drone had appeared in combat footage and charitable fundraising campaigns for two years,
00:25:43its official designation and developer remained anonymous due to security restrictions.
00:25:48To mark its public unveiling, the company opened what it called an X-archive of declassified combat footage,
00:25:54starting with strikes on Russian surface-to-air missile systems and radars.
00:25:59That choice itself is telling.
00:26:01A radar and a SAM launcher are the hardest targets a slow-flying drone can be asked to attack,
00:26:06because they're specifically built to detect and destroy flying objects like drones.
00:26:10According to the company, RAM-series loitering munitions have been credited with more than 450 target engagements,
00:26:16while the company's X-archive identifies more than 410 confirmed strikes against air defense targets.
00:26:23The company does say it cleared the footage with the units involved before releasing it,
00:26:27which gives credence to it being the right numbers,
00:26:30but a manufacturer counting its own successes at a trade show at which it's trying to sell their goods
00:26:35likely means that some of the numbers could be inflated.
00:26:37What can be verified is the architecture.
00:26:41The RAM-2X reaches past the immediate front line into the range where headquarters, logistics and air defense
00:26:47are situated at least 25 to 40 miles away from the actual front.
00:26:51It can also stay airborne for more than two hours,
00:26:54with the onboard AI assistant allowing it to automatically loiter or correct course if needed.
00:26:59And its warhead is an explosive penetrator weighing around 3kg.
00:27:03To go into more detail, the warhead is an explosively formed penetrator,
00:27:08which uses an explosive charge to form a metal projectile that can penetrate a target.
00:27:13This allows it to punch a precise hole in a specific thing, like a radar array, a launch canister, a
00:27:19vehicle cab or a generator.
00:27:21It's essentially a scalpel, and it's being pointed at the equipment that makes Russian air defense work.
00:27:26Then there's the part that makes it a system rather than a gadget.
00:27:30The RAM-2X has a data relay option that lets it work in tandem with reconnaissance aircraft.
00:27:35In that pairing, a scout flies high and deep, finds the target and hands off designation.
00:27:41The RAM-2X can then receive target designation from the reconnaissance aircraft and engage the target.
00:27:46And the reason that this matters so much comes down to one word.
00:27:50Jamming.
00:27:51Russian electronic warfare has been terrifying on Ukrainian drone operations,
00:27:55and the standard countermeasure is to break the radio link between drone and operator.
00:28:00The RAM-2X answers that with redundancy.
00:28:03It supports several radio bands and Starlink terminals,
00:28:06so a jammer that closes one door doesn't blind the aircraft.
00:28:09Add scout-provided targeting on top,
00:28:11and the drone doesn't necessarily need a perfect continuous link to a human to finish its job.
00:28:16Put all that together,
00:28:18and what Ukraine has quietly built is a suppression of enemy air defense's capability
00:28:22without relying solely on manned aircraft.
00:28:25In every other modern war,
00:28:26killing an integrated air defense network was a job for expensive aircraft flying dangerous missions
00:28:31with specialized anti-radiation missiles.
00:28:34Ukraine has been doing a version of it with smaller propeller-driven aircraft
00:28:38that cost a rounding error by comparison,
00:28:40in enough volume to matter,
00:28:42and has been keeping quiet about it while doing so.
00:28:45If those numbers hold up,
00:28:46the effect on the war's geometry is the same one Ukraine's naval drones had in the Black Sea.
00:28:51Not winning a domain,
00:28:52but making it too expensive for the other side to operate in.
00:28:56Now the fourth piece is less about a weapon,
00:28:58and more about a factory.
00:29:00Ukraine's BARS is a jet-powered strike drone.
00:29:02Its developer specifically calls it a missile drone
00:29:05because it has a jet engine like a missile,
00:29:07but can be flown by a pilot like a drone.
00:29:09It carries a warhead of up to 60 kilograms,
00:29:12has a range of up to 1,000 kilometers,
00:29:14and flies at more than 700 kilometers per hour.
00:29:17The platform is reportedly modular enough to be used across three distinct roles,
00:29:22deep strike, middle strike, and front strike.
00:29:24At the time of the MSPO disclosures,
00:29:28the BARS was reported to have a localization rate of nearly 75% from Ukrainian components.
00:29:33The missing piece has been the turbojet engine,
00:29:36which is imported from all over the world.
00:29:38According to the developer,
00:29:40the main constraint on scaling up BARS production has been the delivery time for those engines.
00:29:45But a domestic engine program is reportedly closing in on that gap.
00:29:49And if it does do that, it could be one of those changes that sounds boring,
00:29:53but can turn the tide of the weapons efficiency.
00:29:55Everything Ukraine has done at long range over the past two years,
00:29:59the refinery strikes, the energy infrastructure campaign,
00:30:02the strikes reaching thousands of kilometers into Russian territory,
00:30:05has been rationed by the number of engines Kyiv can buy from suppliers.
00:30:09Each of them has their own politics, their own export controls, and their own delivery queues.
00:30:14If you suddenly remove that, the ceiling on the deep strike campaign stops being a supply question
00:30:20and becomes a question of how much you can manufacture in a given month.
00:30:23And on that end, Ukraine is considerably better than it was in 2022.
00:30:28The international dimension of the weapon is also intriguing.
00:30:32Ukraine and Germany signed an agreement on joint production of BARS drones.
00:30:36In the first phase, Germany finances production,
00:30:39and every aircraft built goes to Ukraine's armed forces.
00:30:41A joint venture in Europe began production in early September,
00:30:45with the first products expected to reach Ukraine's armed forces from October 10, 2026.
00:30:51That's Ukrainian design with German money and European industrial capacity backing it,
00:30:56which could drastically speed up the supply chain.
00:30:58Producing the system in Europe also reduces the risk that Russian strikes could disrupt production inside Ukraine,
00:31:04although facilities outside Ukraine would not be immune to attack.
00:31:07It basically allows Ukraine to manufacture and import drones of its own design without worrying that Russia will impede that
00:31:14progress.
00:31:15Finally, there's the last unveiled category, the vehicles.
00:31:19Ukrainian armor rolled out two new machines at MSPO, and they cover opposite ends of the same problem,
00:31:25which is moving human beings around a battlefield where everything is watched.
00:31:28The first is the Syhack 1, and it's deliberately modest.
00:31:32Its hull is rated to the Ukrainian PZSA-3 ballistic standard,
00:31:37enough to stop standard 5.45x39mm and 7.62x39mm rifle rounds,
00:31:44with STANAG Level 1 mine protection against anti-personnel mines and fragments.
00:31:49A 240-horsepower diesel and four-wheel drive push it to 140km per hour,
00:31:55and an 80-litre tank gives it about 600km of range.
00:31:59It seats a crew of two plus three more troops, with front and rear cameras,
00:32:03automatic fire suppression, run-flat tires and climate control.
00:32:07The company's chief executive, Vladislav Velbas, framed its purpose plainly.
00:32:12It's meant to replace the military's ordinary everyday transport with something protected.
00:32:16The company also notes it works as a disaster and accident response vehicle.
00:32:21This matters, because an enormous share of Ukrainian casualties happen not in assaults,
00:32:26but in the rotation, meaning troops driving to and from positions through a kill zone.
00:32:30And thanks to drones, that kill zone extends up to 20-25km,
00:32:35back from the actual front line or trench works.
00:32:37A great deal of that driving still happens in civilian pickups.
00:32:41A cheap, far slightly armoured vehicle that survives fragments and small arms and outruns trouble,
00:32:46is not a prestige item, it's a casualty reduction programme with wheels.
00:32:51The second vehicle is the Vata 3, and it sits at the heavy end.
00:32:55It's an improved Vata 2 built on a German Mercedes-Benz Unimog chassis,
00:33:00and its hull meets the higher PCSA-6 standard, stopping armour-piercing 7.62x54 rounds.
00:33:06Its mine protection is rated STANAG Level 3A and 3B,
00:33:10meaning it's designed to survive a blast equivalent to 8kg of explosive.
00:33:15A 326hp diesel engine moves the vehicle at up to 100km per hour.
00:33:22It carries two crew and eight troops in mine-resistant seats,
00:33:25with communications and navigation gear, video surveillance, filtered ventilation,
00:33:29run-flat tyres and automatic fire suppression.
00:33:32It can also mount a rotating machine gun platform or a remotely operated weapon station.
00:33:38And then this one that isn't built yet, which is arguably the most significant of the three.
00:33:43The Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau brought a tracked infantry fighting vehicle called Pegas.
00:33:50Its claimed protection is STANAG Level 6 frontal,
00:33:53which is enough to resist 30mm cannon fire from the front.
00:33:56Elsewhere, the protection is Level 4, good against 14.5mm rounds.
00:34:01It carries a 30mm cannon, a twin 7.62mm machine gun,
00:34:06two anti-tank guided missiles and a 30mm automatic grenade launcher.
00:34:11In terms of scale, Pegas is roughly comparable in weight to Germany's KF-41 Lynx without a combat load.
00:34:18Notably, this vehicle is still a development project rather than a production vehicle.
00:34:22But if it reaches mass production, it could become Ukraine's first domestically produced tracked infantry fighting vehicle.
00:34:29Ukraine has proposed vehicles in this class before,
00:34:32usually built on tank chassis or adapted from existing hulls.
00:34:36And every one of them died at the model or prototype stage.
00:34:39So, what does all of this actually add up to?
00:34:42Four things, and they compound.
00:34:44The first is import substitution.
00:34:47In 2022, Ukraine's domestic defence industry meant refurbishing Soviet equipment and welding armour onto trucks.
00:34:54By 2024, it meant artillery shells, drones by the 100,000 and long-range one-way attack aircraft.
00:35:01What Kielsa showed is the next step.
00:35:04Active radar seekers, surface-to-air missiles built to intercept things on ballistic trajectories,
00:35:10a turbojet engine, a tracked IFV with a domestic combat module.
00:35:14Those are hard engineering problems that take years of institutional knowledge to solve.
00:35:19And the fact that they're surfacing simultaneously means the work has been running the entire time quietly.
00:35:25The second is that every single one of these improves the economics of the war.
00:35:29The RK-19 refills magazines Russia was counting on running dry.
00:35:33Coral offers an interceptor no foreign government can decline to ship.
00:35:37The Ram-2X potentially allows Ukraine to use a relatively inexpensive loitering munition
00:35:42against high-value air defence targets.
00:35:45A domestic bars engine removes the throttle on a deep-strike campaign
00:35:48that's been hitting Russian refining and energy infrastructure all year.
00:35:53The Sihak and Vata reduce the human cost of the single most routine task in the war.
00:35:58In every case, the direction is the same.
00:36:00Make the thing Ukraine spends cheaper than the thing Russia loses.
00:36:05The third is the timing and the venue.
00:36:07This all happened while peace negotiations were grinding along,
00:36:10with American envoys shuttling and Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly insisting
00:36:15he can take the entire Donbas by the end of 2026.
00:36:19Declassifying a drone with hundreds of kills in the same week in a NATO country is a message with an
00:36:24audience.
00:36:25To Moscow, the message is that the assumption of Ukrainian exhaustion is wrong.
00:36:29To European capitals, the message is that Ukraine is a producer and not only a recipient.
00:36:34Which brings us to the fourth thing.
00:36:37Look at what these products have in common on paper.
00:36:39STANAG 4569 protection ratings.
00:36:42NATO standard weapons.
00:36:44A Czech truck chassis.
00:36:45A German commercial chassis.
00:36:47A German production partnership.
00:36:49A stand at a European arms fair.
00:36:51This is equipment built to be sold by Ukraine.
00:36:54And a Ukraine that supplies NATO armies, rather than only consuming their surplus,
00:36:58is a very different country at any future negotiating table,
00:37:01and a permanently worse neighbour for Russia, regardless of where the line eventually freezes.
00:37:06Now, there's a caveat with MSPO being a trade show, and trade shows reward optimism.
00:37:13Coral existed as a mock-up for five years before this launcher image appeared,
00:37:17and one photograph doesn't guarantee a production line.
00:37:19The Ram 2X strike numbers are the manufacturer's own claims.
00:37:24The bar's engine story is a developer describing his own program in an interview,
00:37:28and by his own account, the imported engine was still the bottleneck as of the 7th of September.
00:37:33Pegas is a development project without a notable contract for production.
00:37:37Of course, Ukraine has been very good at going from prototype to frontline faster than anyone expected.
00:37:43Even then, faster than expected is not the same as next month.
00:37:47The armed forces of Ukraine just received an incredible new upgrade.
00:37:51Together with their European allies, they turned a relic of a tank into Vladimir Putin's worst nightmare.
00:37:57And they're not stopping there.
00:37:59A second tank transformation program is also underway,
00:38:02which will give Ukraine yet another amazing way to fight back against the Kremlin's invading force.
00:38:09The best part? Russia was made to foot the bill.
00:38:11On the face of it, the arrival of new tanks for Ukraine may not seem to make that much sense
00:38:16at this stage of the war, given how much the conflict has changed over the years.
00:38:21Tanks, armoured vehicles and mechanised assaults were all common sights in the earliest stages of the invasion,
00:38:27with Russia relying heavily on its massive fleet of main battle tanks and Soviet-era armour
00:38:31to overwhelm Ukrainian defences.
00:38:34Ukraine, too, entered the war with a sizeable supply of Soviet tanks, like T-64s, T-72s and T-80s,
00:38:41which it used to halt the early Russian advances, protect infantry and push enemy forces back during its counter-offensive
00:38:48campaigns.
00:38:49It also received hundreds of tanks from its Western allies, including the German Leopard 185, which we'll come back to
00:38:56shortly.
00:38:57But, before we go any further, why not join the military show channel today?
00:39:02You'll get instant access to exclusive reports and in-depth videos about conflicts and military news from around the globe.
00:39:09Now, as the years went by and drones began to dominate the battlefields of Ukraine,
00:39:15tanks became far less useful, to the point where Russia mostly stopped using them in frontline locations,
00:39:21only sporadically launching mechanised assaults and preferring instead to send its troops into battle on foot
00:39:27or aboard smaller, simpler and significantly cheaper vehicles.
00:39:31Ukraine, meanwhile, didn't stop using tanks. It merely changed the way it used them.
00:39:36It understood that the days of the large armoured columns were coming to an end as first-person view,
00:39:41FPV kamikaze drones swarmed through the skies, so it began positioning its tanks in safer locations,
00:39:48further from the front lines, and began using them more as mobile artillery systems and long-range sniper platforms.
00:39:54It didn't want its assets to go to waste, so it began seeking more innovative and efficient ways of putting
00:40:00them to good use.
00:40:01And that's where these new tanks come into play.
00:40:04They started life as Leopard 1A5s, with the 1A5 being a popular variant of the original Leopard 1 design, which
00:40:11dates back to the 1950s.
00:40:13Original Leopard 1s were the result of a collaborative effort involving West Germany, France and Italy,
00:40:19with German firm Porsche handling the design and defence giant Krauss-Maffei tasked with piecing the tanks together.
00:40:25At the time, the designers believed that, because anti-tank munitions were becoming so powerful and accurate,
00:40:32there was little point in weighing tanks down with steel plates and other pieces of heavy armour.
00:40:37Instead of a big and bulky design, they wanted to make something lighter and faster,
00:40:41a tank that could dart and dash across the battlefield, carrying out quick ambushes and surprise attacks,
00:40:47before swiftly retreating to safer ground if and when the conditions became too dangerous.
00:40:51It was thanks to this that the first batch of Leopard 1 tanks weighed just 40 tonnes,
00:40:57which was significantly less than other tanks of the time.
00:40:59They were fitted with powerful 830-horsepower multi-fueled diesel engines,
00:41:05which allowed them to reach impressive road speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, 65 kilometres per hour
00:41:10and tackle tough terrain more comfortably than their competitors.
00:41:13The Leopard 1 was also famed for its relatively quick and easy maintenance,
00:41:18along with its British-designed 105mm Royal Ordnance L7 rifle gun,
00:41:23which was capable of defeating the Soviet tank armour of the era.
00:41:27In short, the Leopard 1 proved to be the perfect Cold War-era tank.
00:41:32Thousands of units were produced and went on to become mainstays in many armies across Europe and beyond.
00:41:37And while the Cold War never kicked off into active large-scale conflict,
00:41:42the Leopard 1 still saw action in other engagements,
00:41:44like the Bosnia and Kosovo wars of the 1990s and the war in Afghanistan in the 2000s.
00:41:51Its design was also steadily refined over the years,
00:41:54with the Leopard 1 A5 variant being rolled out in the 1980s.
00:41:58This brought multiple improvements to the original Leopard 1 design,
00:42:02including a new computerised fire control system,
00:42:05which introduced a laser rangefinder and ballistic computer,
00:42:08along with a thermal imaging camera and passive night sights,
00:42:12which allowed the tank to operate in complete darkness or foggy and smoky settings
00:42:16much more easily than before.
00:42:18The 1A5 also got a turret redesign and additional armour,
00:42:22bringing the original tank in line with evolving standards at the time.
00:42:26And while a prototype 1A6 variant of the Leopard 1 was also made,
00:42:30the 1A5 proved to be the last large-scale upgrade the tank would ever receive,
00:42:34and it went on to become the standard option.
00:42:36From 1990 onwards, however,
00:42:39the Leopard 1 was gradually phased out from many militaries.
00:42:42It was pushed into secondary roles as newer models,
00:42:45like the Leopard 2, took over as main battle tanks.
00:42:48And while some nations still operate sizeable fleets of Leopard 1s to this day,
00:42:52such as Brazil and Greece, many have moved on from it,
00:42:55but still have dozens or even hundreds of their old units sitting around in storage.
00:42:59So when the war in Ukraine began,
00:43:02several of those countries looked at their old Leopard 1A5 stockpiles
00:43:05and decided they could still be of some use if they were sent to Kyiv.
00:43:09Germany was first in line.
00:43:11In fact, German defence giant Rheinmetall attempted to buy back 96 Leopard 1A5 tanks
00:43:17held by Swiss defence company Ruag AG to refurbish and transfer to Ukraine.
00:43:22However, the Swiss government blocked Ruag from completing the deal,
00:43:26citing Switzerland's strict neutrality laws.
00:43:29Unfortunately, the company encountered difficulties and delays,
00:43:32and it wasn't until February of 2023, a year into the conflict,
00:43:36that Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands finally came together to pledge 170 1A5s to Ukraine.
00:43:42The tanks came from German, Danish and Belgian stocks
00:43:45and were refurbished by Rheinmetall in Germany before dispatch,
00:43:49with Ukrainian engineers later equipping them with anti-drone armour,
00:43:53cages and protective modifications inside Ukraine.
00:43:56Ukrainian engineers have also made some of their own modifications to the original design,
00:44:01like adding additional armour, explosive reactor armour, ERA blocks on some of the weaker sections,
00:44:06and anti-drone add-ons, like cages and netting to protect the turrets from unmanned aerial vehicle UAV strikes.
00:44:13The tanks have since been rolled out for use among at least five Ukrainian units,
00:44:18the 44th Mechanised Brigade, the 5th Heavy Mechanised Brigade,
00:44:22the 425th Assault Regiment, the 142nd Mechanised Brigade and the 13th National Guard Brigade.
00:44:29However, even with all of their improvements, they were only able to offer limited value on the ground,
00:44:34and when these tanks came face to face with Russian UAVs, many were left damaged and destroyed.
00:44:40Indeed, according to the most recent data from open-source intelligence analysts,
00:44:44Russian forces have struck at least 37 of Ukraine's Leopard 1A5s,
00:44:49with a minimum of 30 being completely destroyed.
00:44:51Ukraine's 44th Mechanised Brigade has suffered the most.
00:44:55Based in some of the most fiercely contested locations close to the Eastern Front,
00:45:00not far from the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk,
00:45:02this brigade has sadly seen around half of its 31 Leopard 1 tanks wiped off the map.
00:45:08Fortunately, more tanks are on the way.
00:45:10An additional 35 of them are set to arrive,
00:45:13but Ukraine doesn't want to keep seeing these tanks get blown up
00:45:16before they have a chance to do some real damage to the enemy.
00:45:19That's why it's decided to divert some of the original 170 to two separate conversion programs
00:45:25that completely change the 1A5's capabilities and make these tanks far better suited for the type of war that Ukraine
00:45:32is fighting today.
00:45:33Both programs are equally exciting, but completely different.
00:45:37The first is being overseen by Ryan Mattel and involves tanks having their old turrets and 105mm cannons removed
00:45:44and replaced with something completely different.
00:45:46A Sky Ranger 35 short-range anti-aircraft gun, to be exact.
00:45:52This, in effect, turns the Leopard 1A5 from a conventional battle tank into more of a self-propelled anti-aircraft
00:45:58gun,
00:45:59SPARG, similar in style to the Flak Panzer Gepard, which is also featured in the war in Ukraine.
00:46:04But before we learn a little more about what it can do and what it means for Ukraine moving forward,
00:46:10there's more where this came from, so if you're getting value from the military show, don't forget to subscribe.
00:46:16With its new Sky Ranger 35 tacked onto the place where its old turret once was,
00:46:21the new and improved Leopard 1A5 becomes a much more formidable force for Russia to deal with,
00:46:26because it's no longer a sitting duck for drone strikes.
00:46:29Instead, it has an extremely powerful weapon designed specifically to deal with enemy UAVs.
00:46:35The 35mm cannon can shoot a staggering 1,000 rounds every minute at distances of up to 2.5 miles
00:46:42or 4 kilometers,
00:46:43making use of air burst ammunition, which explodes ahead of the drone, creating a dense cloud of heavy tungsten pellets,
00:46:49a veritable wall of shrapnel that the drone flies straight into.
00:46:53The pellets then tear the drone's body to pieces, chopping up its rotors, body and electronic systems,
00:46:59and leaving little left over, apart from small pieces of debris that are sent spiraling down to the ground below.
00:47:05Thanks to this, the Sky Ranger 35 doesn't need to have pinpoint accuracy.
00:47:09As long as it fires in the approximate direction of the enemy's drones, it will, more often than not, be
00:47:15able to bring them down,
00:47:16and its onboard computer carefully tracks the movement, speed and projected flight path of incoming threats
00:47:22to figure out exactly where and when to fire.
00:47:24This anti-aircraft gun is also equipped with an active electronically scanned array ICER search radar system,
00:47:32which scans the skies on a continuous basis to seek out enemy drones.
00:47:36Or in situations where operators don't want to rely on active radar signals and prefer to keep their positions under
00:47:42wraps,
00:47:43the Sky Ranger also comes with a passive infrared and optical tracking system,
00:47:47which can spot enemy targets without having to emit its own radar signals.
00:47:51In short, it's an exceptional addition to Ukraine's drone arsenal,
00:47:55and it arrives at an ideal time, as Russia has been upping the ante with its drone attacks,
00:48:00sending larger and larger swarms over the border towards Ukrainian towns and cities.
00:48:05With these new and approved Leopard 1s in the ranks,
00:48:08Ukraine's armed forces should stand a much stronger chance of dealing with their enemies' attacks.
00:48:12They can position their tanks in between Russian drone launch sites and important towns, cities and pieces of infrastructure across
00:48:19Ukraine,
00:48:20scanning the skies to spot swarms and take them out before they get too close to their destinations.
00:48:25It won't necessarily work against the high-speed jet-powered drones that often fly at significantly higher altitudes
00:48:31in order to evade air defenses like this, but it's more than strong enough to cope with other kinds of
00:48:36UAVs.
00:48:37Rheinmetall has already made several of these systems from one of its factories in Italy,
00:48:42and Germany is so impressed with the results that it ordered 19 for its own army
00:48:46and is considering the possibility of purchasing hundreds more.
00:48:49Meanwhile, the first units are already in use across Ukraine,
00:48:53with the first images of Leopard 1A5s fitted with Sky Ranger guns circulating on social media in early September 2026,
00:49:00showing one of these tanks being used by Ukraine's 1020th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment.
00:49:07The sweetest part of this story from a Ukrainian and Western perspective is that Russia is actually being made to
00:49:13pay for its own demise, literally.
00:49:15An unnamed European Union country is paying for the tanks' modifications using funds that were taken from frozen Russian assets.
00:49:22Back when the war began, one of the first big moves EU nations and their allies made was to free
00:49:28several hundred billion dollars' worth of Russian central bank assets,
00:49:32effectively preventing Russia from moving or withdrawing those funds.
00:49:35Since then, there's been much debate about how the money could be used to support Ukraine,
00:49:40with a large part of the profits and interest going towards a $50 billion Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration ERA loan,
00:49:48which has since been used to fund military equipment, air defense systems and drones for the Ukrainian military.
00:49:54It seems that the Sky Ranger systems are also being bought and paid for with that same money,
00:49:59so Ukraine doesn't even need to worry about finding funds to cover the costs.
00:50:03It can simply wait for the systems to arrive, roll them out, and start shooting down countless more Russian drones,
00:50:09free of charge.
00:50:10And that's just the first program.
00:50:12Work is also underway on a second plan to modify the Leopard 1A5.
00:50:17This conversion program also involves removing the tank's turret,
00:50:20but instead of replacing them with an anti-aircraft gun, it introduces a much more modern unmanned turret system.
00:50:27Produced by John Cockerell Defense, which is based in Belgium,
00:50:30the new turret comes with its own autoloader, which means that the tank crew can be reduced from four people,
00:50:36driver, commander, gunner and loader, to just three.
00:50:39With this new configuration, the loader is no longer needed, since the turret can load its own munitions.
00:50:44More importantly, the gunner and commander get to move down into the safer section of the tank beside the driver,
00:50:50where they'll be protected by thick walls of hull armor, rather than sitting close to the turret,
00:50:54which is one of the weakest places of the tank, and is often targeted by enemy drones and other weapon
00:50:59systems.
00:51:00The new turrets will be welded from ballistic aluminum, rather than steel.
00:51:04This makes them much lighter, shaving a full three tons off the tank's overall weight,
00:51:09which frees up space for other additions, which might include anti-drone nets and cope cages,
00:51:14electronic warfare jammers, or ERA plates.
00:51:17And the benefits don't end there.
00:51:19The new Cockrell 3105 turret also allows the tank's 105mm gun to elevate much higher than it did on the
00:51:26base Leopard 1A5.
00:51:27It can now reach 42 degrees of elevation to be exact, while it could only manage a relatively meagre 20
00:51:33degrees originally.
00:51:35That matters, especially if and when Ukrainian crews choose to use these tanks more for mobile artillery strikes than frontline
00:51:42assaults.
00:51:42The additional elevation allows the tank to fire its shells at distant targets over the horizon,
00:51:48or on the other side of hills, tree lines and other obstacles.
00:51:51Cockrell itself notes that no other western main battle tank can shoot indirectly as this one can.
00:51:57And during trials, one of these systems managed to strike targets over 6 miles, 10km away from concealed positions.
00:52:03That's an exceptional achievement, and the implications are enormous for Ukraine in the months and years ahead.
00:52:09If it had a sizeable fleet of tanks like this, it could hide them in relatively safe locations and rain
00:52:15down fire on Russian positions from afar,
00:52:17with the enemy having almost zero warning and no idea how to respond.
00:52:21It's no surprise then, that Kyiv has already placed an order for 30 of these turrets,
00:52:26and already has one in its possession, which has been used for testing purposes.
00:52:29It's believed that the new tanks will hit Ukrainian soil at some point in 2027,
00:52:35and Cockrell hopes that the country may choose to order many more should the initial batch prove successful,
00:52:40with a spokesperson stating,
00:52:42The system is currently under evaluation, and we hope that Ukrainians will soon say,
00:52:47we'd like to replace all other turrets on our leopard fleet with your turrets.
00:52:51Together, these two tank programs have the potential to breed brand new life into a system that many other militaries
00:52:57have already written off.
00:52:58But, in order to do that, Ukraine has to make some big decisions.
00:53:02Combined, the programs require at least 50 tank chassis, but only 35 new ones are still waiting to be delivered
00:53:09to Ukraine.
00:53:10That means that, Ukraine theoretically needs to take 15 or more tanks away from the five brigades that currently use
00:53:16them.
00:53:17Those brigades, and the ground forces of Ukraine in general, are already quite low on armour,
00:53:22so wouldn't be too happy to see some of their tanks taken from them and shipped off to Rome or
00:53:26Belgium to be upgraded.
00:53:28Fortunately, there's a much better solution on the table.
00:53:31The remaining tanks should be able to be sourced from other nations around Central and Western Europe,
00:53:36allowing Ukraine to carry on using those that are already at its disposal.
00:53:40There are reportedly hundreds of old Leopard 1A5s sitting around gathering dust in warehouses across Europe and beyond,
00:53:46with French historian Stevius concluding,
00:53:49The stocks in Europe are far from exhausted.
00:53:51In 2022, FFG declared it possessed 99 Leopard 1A5 DK and Rheinmetall 88 Leopard 1A5,
00:53:59to which are added 50 Leopard 1A5 BE repurchased from OIP Land Systems in 2023.
00:54:06Some of those leftover tanks may be a little too rusty or worn down to be usable today,
00:54:11but others should be in a good enough condition,
00:54:13and it doesn't seem like it should be much of a challenge for Germany and other nations
00:54:17to track down a couple of dozen 1A5s to feed the Sky Ranger and Cockrell turret programs.
00:54:22If and when that happens,
00:54:24it will almost be as though Ukraine has a completely new and fully modernized tank fleet,
00:54:28ready to roll out against Russia's aging units,
00:54:31further shifting the frontline momentum in Kyiv's favor and making life even harder for the Kremlin's troops.
00:54:38In February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,
00:54:44and while he publicly proclaimed that the purpose of his so-called special military operation
00:54:49was to denazify the Donbass, his real objective was to make Russia great again,
00:54:54to restore his country to the same sort of status he'd seen and experienced first-hand
00:54:58as a young man growing up in the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
00:55:02where the entire world lived in fear of Moscow's military capabilities.
00:55:06Not content with ruling over the largest country on Earth,
00:55:09Putin wanted more.
00:55:10More land, more resources, and more power.
00:55:14Power that would allow Russia to exert even more pressure, influence, and intimidation across the world,
00:55:19and especially against its NATO enemies.
00:55:21Now, more than four years into the war, Putin must be deeply regretting his decision.
00:55:27Not only has his army failed to achieve its objectives,
00:55:30and his economy has been plunged into chaos,
00:55:32but his war has had the exact opposite effect he'd hoped for.
00:55:35It's made Russia weaker and NATO stronger than ever before.
00:55:39The alliance has been reinvigorated.
00:55:41Defense spending is reaching record highs.
00:55:44Two new members have signed up,
00:55:45and European nations are making military modernizations and border defenses their absolute top priorities.
00:55:51This is all an indirect end result of Putin's aggression.
00:55:54And that's not just the assessment of casual observers or war bloggers.
00:55:58It's the view of one of the most experienced and respected military minds on the planet today,
00:56:03David Petraeus, a former four-star US army general,
00:56:07who once served as the head of both US Central Command and the CIA itself.
00:56:11Petraeus has dedicated his entire life to the military,
00:56:14and even now, in his retirement years,
00:56:17he continues to share the benefits of his unmatched wisdom and experience,
00:56:20speaking at conferences, councils and summits on the big issues of the day,
00:56:24like the war in Ukraine.
00:56:26And he doesn't just share his views from the safety of the US.
00:56:29He's visited Ukraine on close to a dozen occasions since the war began,
00:56:33meeting with commanders and studying Ukrainian emerging technologies and autonomous weapons in person,
00:56:37sometimes putting his own life in peril in the process.
00:56:41Indeed, in mid-September 2026,
00:56:44the former CIA boss was at a Ukrainian train station
00:56:47when a Russian drone struck a passenger train just a short distance away.
00:56:51And it was during that same trip that Petraeus sat down with Ukrainian news agency RBC Ukraine
00:56:57for an in-depth interview about his views on how the war is going,
00:57:00which side has momentum and the bigger picture of how this conflict is shaping the wider world for generations to
00:57:06come.
00:57:07But before we get into what he said,
00:57:09if you want to stay informed and up-to-date on all of the latest big military news from Russia,
00:57:14Ukraine, Iran and beyond,
00:57:16become a member of the military show today.
00:57:18You'll enjoy instant access to a complete content catalogue,
00:57:21including exclusive reports about the latest military matters.
00:57:25Now, when asked for his view on which side, if any, holds the operational initiative at the front lines,
00:57:30General Petraeus' response was clear and concise.
00:57:33I think on the front, Ukraine has the initiative because Russia is unable to achieve what it's set out to
00:57:38achieve.
00:57:39Contrary to Vladimir Putin's assertions that they're making great progress, this is just not the case.
00:57:44I think it's increasingly clear that Ukraine will deny the Russians their objectives for the spring and summer campaign.
00:57:50He went on to note that Russian forces haven't even managed to reach the fortified cities that they're so desperate
00:57:56to take and that Ukraine is so eager to hold on to,
00:57:59such as Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, but are barely even beginning to approach these locations.
00:58:04Adding to this, Petraeus highlighted the catastrophic losses that the Russians are enduring.
00:58:09Over a thousand killed and wounded per day for me is just incomprehensible, actually.
00:58:14He explained that despite all of his experience in places like Iraq and Afghanistan,
00:58:19even he cannot begin to fathom the sheer quantity of soldiers that Russia is losing on a daily basis,
00:58:24and data from throughout 2026 shows that Russia has been consistently losing more troops than it can realistically recruit to
00:58:30replace them each month.
00:58:32So again, these losses, these killed and wounded, a recent estimate was that for a single month it was over
00:58:3735,000.
00:58:39The overall killed and wounded sustained by the Russians now are over 1.5 million,
00:58:44which is more than the US sustained in all of World War II, to put this into context.
00:58:48And the crazy casualty rate is just one of many problems mounting up on Putin's desk.
00:58:53Petraeus adds that Ukraine may not be advancing or retaking vast swathes of territory at rapid rate,
00:58:59but it's achieving arguably a more important objective,
00:59:02of denying the Russians the achievement of the objective set out publicly by Vladimir Putin.
00:59:07He goes on to add that Ukraine quite clearly has the initiative in terms of cutting off Crimea with its
00:59:12middle strike campaign,
00:59:14wiping out hundreds of boats, tankers, ferries and barges that could have been used to resupply the peninsula,
00:59:19and striking every single Russian oil refinery within 3,000 kilometers at least once, many more than once.
00:59:25As a result, the entire country faces a catastrophic fuel crisis,
00:59:30can't export any refined fuel products like gasoline and diesel,
00:59:33and is forced to import refined fuel from other nations like Belarus and Kazakhstan just to keep the lights on.
00:59:39Petraeus also highlighted the importance of Ukraine taking out Russian air defenses and radar stations,
00:59:45forcing the Kremlin to reposition its remaining acids in order to keep its most important infrastructure safe,
00:59:51by opening up new gaps and corridors for drones and missiles in the process.
00:59:55Finally, he touched on the economic problems facing Putin,
00:59:59combined with growing levels of fatigue and frustration among the public as they face economic uncertainty,
01:00:05fuel shortages, a labor crisis and countless other challenges.
01:00:09In short, he feels that the momentum of the war is well and truly with Ukraine,
01:00:13with Kyiv's forces doing everything in their power to make Putin realize he simply cannot win.
01:00:18They're blocking Russia's battlefield progress, they're wiping out soldiers at record rates,
01:00:24they're taking air defenses, high-value assets and infrastructure off the map,
01:00:28and they're compounding the many crises that the Russian president is supposed to solve,
01:00:32leaving him with more headaches, more problems and more questions than answers.
01:00:36However, the former four-star general also issued a clear warning,
01:00:40noting that Russia may soon attempt a mass mobilization in order to replenish its ranks
01:00:45and increase its intensity along the front lines,
01:00:47with potentially several hundred thousand new soldiers added to the Kremlin's army.
01:00:52While Petraeus isn't sure if this will bring the sweeping gains that Russia is hoping for,
01:00:56he admits that it could help Moscow move closer to achieving at least some of its goals.
01:01:01He adds that Russia's increasing usage of jet-powered Shahid drones is problematic,
01:01:05since these high-speed UAVs are more difficult to intercept with the traditional drone interceptors,
01:01:11before underscoring the threat of Russian missiles as well.
01:01:14They're hitting Ukraine hard with these, and in the past,
01:01:17these would have been intercepted at a higher percentage.
01:01:19Now, Ukraine has dwindling numbers of missile interceptors, and that's a big concern.
01:01:24Russia once again will try to turn off the lights and turn off the heat in Ukraine this winter.
01:01:28To ensure that Ukraine maintains its momentum,
01:01:32and doesn't give up valuable ground to Russia in the not-too-distant future,
01:01:35Petraeus calls on Western countries to do everything they can
01:01:38to help Ukraine with the areas in which there are vulnerabilities.
01:01:42Fortunately, Petraeus is confident that those countries will step up,
01:01:46as they've done consistently throughout the war so far,
01:01:48like the United States' enormous levels of support,
01:01:51particularly during the first two to three years of the conflict,
01:01:54and the fact that European countries and the EU Commission have stepped up since then,
01:01:58notably committing a €90 billion loan to Ukraine for 2026 and 2027.
01:02:04This leads to perhaps the most impactful soundbite of Petraeus' entire interview.
01:02:09While discussing the fact that Ukraine is, in effect, fighting NATO's war for it,
01:02:13by confronting the alliance's ultimate enemy, Vladimir Putin,
01:02:17the former CIA director came to a clear and obvious conclusion,
01:02:21a conclusion that will send shockwaves straight to the heart of the Kremlin itself.
01:02:25The whole reason NATO has been reinvigorated is because of Vladimir Putin.
01:02:29Putin set out to make Russia great again, and what he's really done is make NATO great again.
01:02:34In fact, he's even added two more countries to it.
01:02:37Putin can't simply laugh off those words as lies or Western propaganda,
01:02:41because, unfortunately for him,
01:02:44Petraeus' assessment is painfully accurate and grounded in cold, hard facts.
01:02:48But before we dig into those facts, this is why we make the military show,
01:02:52to explain how power really moves.
01:02:55If you're new here, hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
01:02:59Now, one of the reasons why Putin felt confident enough to invade Ukraine in the first place
01:03:04was because he felt as though NATO wasn't strong enough,
01:03:07or more importantly, united enough to do anything about it.
01:03:11And he'd already tested the waters in 2014,
01:03:13when he ordered the illegal annexation of Crimea.
01:03:16He sent in his special forces to ruthlessly overthrow the region's government,
01:03:21installed his own puppets in their place,
01:03:23falsified a referendum,
01:03:24and claimed a large part of another country's territory as his own.
01:03:28And while the Western world and many NATO members condemned his actions,
01:03:32nobody actually stepped in to stop him in any major way.
01:03:35Putin likely believed that his full-scale invasion would play out in a similar way.
01:03:39It was a far larger operation, of course, and was likely to last much longer,
01:03:43and evolve more bloodshed than the quick and relatively clean takeover of Crimea.
01:03:47But the Russian president felt that his army was strong enough to achieve its objectives so efficiently,
01:03:52that the West, trapped in a state of hesitation, fear and uncertainty,
01:03:56wouldn't be able to stop them or even disrupt them.
01:03:59He envisioned a near future, in which Russia was even greater,
01:04:02with its brand new buffer zone extending into Ukraine,
01:04:05fresh territories to mine for resources,
01:04:07and a larger sphere of influence than ever before.
01:04:10Perhaps more importantly, he believed that his army was so strong,
01:04:14it would easily overwhelm Ukrainian resistance and prove to the world,
01:04:17once and for all, that it should fear the Kremlin's war machine.
01:04:20He effectively wanted to see NATO nations bend the knee.
01:04:24He wanted them frightened of Moscow, scared to antagonise the Kremlin in any way.
01:04:28Because if he could achieve that, then countries like Poland and the Baltic state
01:04:32would be fearful of even attempting any sort of border defence programmes or military modernisations.
01:04:39They'd continue to grow weaker while Russia grew stronger,
01:04:42which would, eventually, pave the way towards even greater gains
01:04:45if Putin decided to target a country like Latvia or Estonia,
01:04:49or form a land bridge through Lithuania to connect the Russian mainland with its exclave of Kaliningrad,
01:04:54or extend its presence in Moldova, to name but a few possible scenarios.
01:04:59He wanted these countries to be utterly unable to defend themselves,
01:05:02and he wanted NATO, as a whole, to become more divided and disparate,
01:05:06with the wealthy Western European nations continuing to spend only the bare minimum on defence,
01:05:11and the US growing increasingly disinterested in playing the role of Europe's bodyguard.
01:05:16As we know now, however, that's not at all what ended up happening.
01:05:20Instead, Russia's invasion was perhaps the biggest wake-up call in modern military history.
01:05:24It was the catalyst for a completely new era for NATO,
01:05:27an era in which members step up to the plate,
01:05:30accept the responsibilities that they've shied away from for years,
01:05:33increase their defence spending to record highs,
01:05:35and do everything in their power to become stronger,
01:05:38so that if Russia, or any other world power, dares to threaten their sovereignty,
01:05:42they'll be ready to defend themselves.
01:05:44None of this would have happened, had it not been for Putin.
01:05:47Even after Crimea, most NATO nations didn't really change their approach to defence spending or military matters.
01:05:53Many of them, particularly those further west like Germany, the United Kingdom and France,
01:05:58continued to live in their blissful bubbles,
01:06:00believing that the days of large-scale wars in Europe were over,
01:06:03that armies would never come to their doorstep and threaten their sovereignty ever again.
01:06:08For many NATO nations, war was simply something that happened in other parts of the world, far from them,
01:06:14and while they might play parts in those wars and step in to help their international allies,
01:06:18they didn't need to build massive armies of their own,
01:06:21or erect defences and barriers along their borders and coastlines,
01:06:24because they didn't fear the threat of invasion.
01:06:26It was a worry for others, but not for them.
01:06:29And so, had Putin left it at Crimea, and not gone ahead with his full-scale invasion,
01:06:35that status quo would almost surely have continued.
01:06:37Most NATO nations would have carried on spending less than 2% of their GDPs on their militaries,
01:06:43with the US taking on the lion's share of responsibility in terms of global defence and deterrence,
01:06:48and Russia could have quietly gone about its business,
01:06:50investing in new military technologies, developing new missiles,
01:06:54and building up towards an eventual war with a relatively weak NATO alliance.
01:06:57Instead, when NATO nations saw an entire army marching into Ukraine,
01:07:02when they saw cities being bombarded, civilians being slaughtered,
01:07:06missiles being fired into residential buildings, and schools and hospitals reduced to rubble,
01:07:11those images sent a collective jolt into the alliance,
01:07:14reinvigorating it in a way that had once seemed extremely unlikely, if not impossible.
01:07:18Almost immediately, NATO leaders came together to discuss their next steps.
01:07:23Realising that their alliance could be next in the Kremlin's crosshairs,
01:07:26they set aside differences, put the problems of the past behind them,
01:07:30and worked together to ensure that Ukraine had the money, the military equipment,
01:07:34and the backing it needed to not merely survive the war, but give Moscow the fight of its life.
01:07:38And they weren't alone.
01:07:40Mere months into the war, several countries that had long maintained military neutrality
01:07:45were eager to join the alliance, with Sweden and Finland filing their application papers in May 2022.
01:07:51Finland officially entered the alliance first in April 2023,
01:07:55while Sweden became the 32nd member in March 2024.
01:07:58Other nations have also expressed much more active interest in becoming part of NATO since the invasion began,
01:08:05such as Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,
01:08:07and even those who aren't able to become members at the moment have still sought to strengthen ties such as
01:08:12Moldova.
01:08:13None of these nations can necessarily be classed as major military superpowers,
01:08:18but they all bring something to the table and all help to make NATO a stronger force, on the whole,
01:08:23which is the exact opposite of what Putin wanted.
01:08:25And it's not just that NATO is broadening its base and building bonds with emerging allies,
01:08:30but the existing members have taken unprecedented strides towards making the alliance war-ready.
01:08:35A recent report from the Centre for European Reform, CER,
01:08:39found that European NATO nations, plus Canada,
01:08:42spent a whopping $574 billion on defence in 2025 alone.
01:08:47More than half of NATO nations are now also spending over 30% of the defence budgets on new equipment,
01:08:53which is way ahead of the NATO guideline of 20%,
01:08:56with EU NATO nations investing over €100 billion,
01:09:00$115 billion on equipment for the first time in 2024,
01:09:04with that figure rising to around €130 billion or $150 billion in 2025.
01:09:10All NATO nations have also hit the 2% of GDP military spending goal,
01:09:15and many are moving closer to the 3% target, with some, like Poland, aiming far higher.
01:09:20More money spent means more equipment, more armour, more vehicles, more drones, artillery, air defences, border defences, military personnel,
01:09:29and everything else that's needed to fight a war in the 21st century.
01:09:32And while some euros inevitably go to waste on needless acquisitions or inefficient procurement projects,
01:09:38many countries are spending their funds wisely on assets and equipment that can make a real difference in any future
01:09:43conflict.
01:09:44They're looking at Ukraine and learning the lessons of what it's like to fight a war with Russia today,
01:09:49investing in the likes of unmanned systems, AI technologies, advanced air defences, and electronic warfare,
01:09:55so if and when an invasion comes, they won't be caught off guard.
01:09:59But spending money is arguably the easy part.
01:10:02The CER report also notes that NATO nations have to do more to solve the problems that have plagued Europe
01:10:07for years,
01:10:08such as maintenance backlogs, spare parts shortages, insufficient munition stocks,
01:10:13shortages of trained personnel, and inadequate infrastructure.
01:10:17The exact weaknesses that Putin has known about for years and would have sought to exploit,
01:10:21if and when he chose to attack the alliance.
01:10:23Thankfully, steps are being taken to address every single one of them.
01:10:27Countries like Germany and the Netherlands are tackling maintenance and readiness backlogs
01:10:32by partnering with American companies to start making more of their own missiles
01:10:35and building new production plants and maintenance hubs, for example.
01:10:39Much more is being spent on munitions production, too,
01:10:42as Europe attempts to build the vast stockpiles of bombs, missiles, and interceptors it would need
01:10:47in order to deal with Russia's immense aerial threats.
01:10:49Many countries are also exploring an array of methods to get more people engaged with their militaries,
01:10:55including voluntary service incentives, more modern draft systems, and expanding reserve pools.
01:11:00Germany has introduced a new scheme to offer bigger salaries and better benefits for military members, for example,
01:11:06while Poland has launched a program to train civilians in essential survival, first aid, and crisis management skills.
01:11:13Many countries, particularly those with smaller budgets, are also investing in cheaper unmanned systems
01:11:18and affordable modular military equipment that will allow them to generate mass and rapidly expand their military capacities
01:11:24without having to spend small fortunes on world-beating tanks and fancy fighter jets.
01:11:29Then, there are initiatives like Baltic Sentry to guard critical undersea infrastructure
01:11:34and Operation Eastern Sentry to strengthen NATO's eastern flank,
01:11:38with many nations also streamlining customs processes, slashing red tape,
01:11:43and combating the kinds of administrative bottlenecks and bureaucracy that have in the past
01:11:47led to European military programs being unnecessarily slow to progress.
01:11:52From modernizing bridges, highways, and airports, to strengthening cyber-defensives,
01:11:57European NATO nations are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to prepare for a possible war with Russia.
01:12:03There's still plenty of work to be done, there are still challenges to solve and hurdles to overcome,
01:12:08but the continent and the broader NATO alliance are moving in the right direction,
01:12:12and it's giving Russia more and more to worry about with every passing week.
01:12:16Putin began this war hoping to flex his military muscle and frighten the Western security system.
01:12:22Instead, the conflict has absolutely exposed Russia's limitations and roused Europe from a decades-long slumber,
01:12:28forcing the continent to confront weaknesses it ignored for years
01:12:32and build the sort of strength it will need for whatever comes next.
01:12:35Now, you can learn more about how NATO is taking steps to counter Russian aggression in this video,
01:12:41or discover how the alliance's newest members, Sweden and Finland,
01:12:44recently joined forces to bolster their borders in this video.
01:12:47And finally, don't forget to subscribe to The Military Show to make sure you don't miss out on more content
01:12:52like this,
01:12:53and consider becoming a member for instant access to all of our exclusive reports.