Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

We've seen from the drones that war forces innovation in order to survive. This spirit extends to energy production. Russia's destruction of Ukraine's old energy infrastructure has led to a veritable boom in localised alternatives out of necessity.

https://happyeconews.com/ukraines-renewable-energy-rebuild/

It may not be a complete replacement for centralised energy systems, but it's certainly a welcome layer of resiliency.

Can’t find the article now from last week

But there are few things at play from what it mentioned

• Ukrainians have been prioritising air defence targets (long medium range) and drone operators (short range) top of their lists for years now
• Russians stupidly blew thru their vast Soviet air defence missiles stocks early in war using them up in ground attack mode often against civilians
• Ukraine flipped the script, “Russia is big” was something they hid behind but is now a huge problem
• An interesting tidbit that if you shoot down a drone in Russia and it hits a property, you are responsible for damage! Remember they are not at war^TM
• Russia had a similar bottom up drone industry like Ukrainians but the usual Russian corruption has killed it in its infancy with the innovators being forced to merge into large slow moving enterprises owned by oligarchs where like their military there is no incentive to innovate, they can produce large volumes of drones but often by time they come out they are obsolete
• This led to Ukrainians having really good interceptor drones and Russia not having them this could take years for them to rectify and copy
• Also the Russian military bloggers constantly moan that Ukrainians have webs of integrated systems like the acoustic trip wires that guide drone hunting teams and leading to 90% interception rate

Somewhat related to that the biggest problem Ukraine has are high end Patriot missiles for anti ballistic defence, but even there looks like in few months they will have their own homegrown and exponentially cheaper and numerous alternative in Firepoint

”Now assume Fire Point develops a cheaper, mass-producible alternative at “only” 1 million USD per round. Even with a reduced individual intercept probability of 50 percent, reaching the same 90 percent threshold requires four interceptors at a total cost of 4 million USD, roughly 27 percent of the Patriot package.”

I suspect this ^ is gonna get along direct European help just like their drone industry precisely because the US is both not capable of mass production and is busy abandoning Europe and lying about contracts, as Trump admin thinks of Russia as better friend than its old allies

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/04/us-germany-tomahawks-missiles-cancel-00950284

Yeh was on bbc news there

So Zelensky offered an olive branch, Putin turned it down and made look the fool he is again

meanwhile down in Crimea black market petrol is 3 euro a liter

That last part - the bit about Ukraine developing a viable alternative to the Patriot system - is going to be part of Trump's legacy.

Like his Kremlin idol, he burnt through a massive load of expensive missiles during the first month of Operation Epstein Fury, against an enemy that was far more nimble in its response.

Now he's shown all those Patriot customers that the US cannot be relied upon as a supplier, and left the door open for anyone (i.e. Ukraine) to come in with a better, cheaper, more readily available product.

If Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries don't need huge dollar revenues to pay for overpriced American weapons, it's yet another reason to hold/invest in other currencies.

In a way this is the opposite of the former strengths of the US. In WW2, the US did not necessarily have better kit, but it had a lot more of it. A Tiger tank was far superior to a Sherman tank, but 25 times as many of the latter were made and there was the logistics to supply them with fuel and ammo. Ukrainian drones are in this way of thinking, make more of them and overwhelm the enemy.

… and I think that's where both the USofA and the USSR … sorry, I mean Russia … are today: choosing to start unwinnable wars on the basis of past glories. It's really no surprise, when you consider they're two geriatrics (three, if you include Netanyahu) who are demonstrably living in a period of time that the rest of us have long since moved on from.

If Russia lose the war then they are over a barrel surely?

Putin would be ousted and they would have to take it up the hole from the west.

Yeah they will evolve into a wasteland where a lot it is third world standards.

Ukraine, with the support of others, need to step on the gas now.

Putin would be in trouble, but that's more a matter of personal survival, not national. Still, with him hopping from bunker to bunker and owning that 2 billion dollar palace, guess which one he probably values more…

If Russia weren't such a corrupt country, they wouldn't have to 'take it up the hole' from anyone. It's a vast country that's rich in natural resources, but its elites have long been sucking it dry in a way that western corruption barely compares to (currently).

Who knows, it could be drip, drip, drip then suddenly💣 there's famine or mass displacement or something.

China is already busily embedding itself in the occupied territories. Someone should have told Trump when the Russians were offering him riches that the Chinese are already there.

https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article78956

Yeah that's being reported now this morning

Noah pointing out the stupidity of letting China who are openly helping Russia dismantle European economies further