Ukraine

Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution, and the price to pay has a name

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In the last four years, a flying device barely twelve feet long has gone from being a little-known Iranian military experiment to becoming a one of the protagonists of several simultaneous conflicts. Its design is so simple that it can be assembled in a few hours and its cost is thousands of times lower than the systems that try to take it down. That combination has changed the way many militaries understand air defense. The buzz that changed war. Since 2022, the sound of a small motorcycle-like engine was the alarm signal which preceded many explosions in Ukrainian cities. That metallic and persistent noise belongs al Shahed-136a cheap, relatively simple Iranian kamikaze drone designed to attack pre-programmed targets at long range. With about 3.5 meters in length and the capacity to transport an explosive charge of about 50 kilos, these devices have become one of the symbols of modern warfare because they combine two factors that are difficult to counteract: their low cost and the possibility of mass producing them. The jump between conflicts. After four years of war in Europe, these drones have reappeared in force in another scenario. Iran has launched hundreds of devices against Gulf countriesreaching military bases, airports, refineries and urban areas in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait or Qatar. The attacks seek less physical destruction than psychological and economic pressureforcing the attacked countries to activate expensive defense systems to intercept weapons that can cost only about $50,000. Although many of the aircraft are shot down, even a small percentage that manages to penetrate the defenses is enough to cause damage to critical infrastructure or generate fear among the population. A strategy perfected by Ukraine. The pattern of these attacks is clearly reminiscent of the tactics Russia has employed since 2022 against cities and infrastructure Ukrainian energy companies. Moscow turned the Shahed into the center of a strategy of attrition and terror based on launching large drone waves together with missiles to saturate air defenses and increase the probability that some projectiles reach their target. The mass production has been key in that strategy: Russia not only imported thousands of Iranian drones, but also raised an own factory to manufacture them on a large scale, which allowed hundreds of devices to be launched in a single night against power plants, ports or residential neighborhoods. The anti-drone laboratory created in kyiv. This constant pressure forced Ukraine to become one of the countries more experienced of the world in the fight against these types of threats. After facing tens of thousands of Shahed, kyiv has developed a defense system in layers that combines radarselectronic warfare equipment, anti-aircraft missiles, mobile units and even interceptor drones capable of shooting down attackers in mid-flight. The result is an improvised network but extremely effective which has allowed most of the attacks to be neutralized despite the massive scale of the waves launched by Russia. Terror reaches the Gulf. That knowledge has now acquired a new strategic value. The Gulf countries, which were not used to facing constant drone attacks, have discovered how difficult it is to protect entire cities against weapons that fly low, are difficult to detect and can appear from multiple directions. Even advanced systems designed to intercept ballistic missiles can be overwhelmed by swarms of cheap drones. The recent attacks They have hit airports, refineries, ports and military bases, demonstrating that even critical infrastructures of highly protected economies can be exposed to this new form of air warfare. Zelensky’s offer. In this context, Ukraine has launched an unexpected proposal: share your experience to help Gulf countries neutralize the Shahed. President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to send his best anti-drone defense specialists along with a group of experienced operators to reinforce regional defenses, but, of course, with one clear condition, a name. kyiv wants Middle Eastern governments to jointly use all his influence on Moscow to pressure Vladimir Putin and achieve at least a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine. If you like, it is an offer that mixes military cooperation and diplomatic calculation: one where Ukraine presents itself as the country that knows the enemy best, and there is not much doubt about that, asking in return help to stop the war which made him precisely that expert. Image | Kyiv City State Administration,X, National Police of Ukraine In Xataka | The US has launched its most ambitious weapon against Iran in the last decade: a missile that does not need fighters or warships In Xataka | It is not that Iran is resisting US attacks, it is that it has room to take the conflict to an explosive scenario.

The most surveilled place on the planet is not Ukraine or Taiwan. You are on a Canary Island with thousands of sensors pointing to a lethal threat

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For almost three months, between September and December 2021, the island of La Palma experienced the eruption longest and most destructive of its recent history. It happened when the Tajogait volcanoand opened the earth in the Cumbre Vieja dorsal and forced the evacuation of thousands of people, buried entire neighborhoods under lava and irreversibly altered the landscape and life of the island, inaugurating a new stage in which the end of the fire did not mean the end of the volcano. The town that did not stop breathing volcano. In Puerto Naos The lava never arrived, but the volcano did, seeping under streets, garages and foundations in the form of carbon dioxide, an invisible gas that for years kept the neighborhood evacuated and turned daily life into a permanent risk equation. After the eruption of Tajogaite, the ground continued to exhale CO₂ of magmatic origin, reaching in some points extreme concentrationstypical of a lethal environment, forcing the closure of homes, businesses and beaches while residents learned that the danger no longer burned on the surface, but silently accumulated under their feet. Thousands of sensors and an experiment. They counted this week in a BBC report that has approached the enclave that the response transformed Puerto Naos into the most guarded place in the world in terms of CO₂, with more than 1,300 sensors distributed throughout homes, streets, streetlights, beaches, garages and hotels, connected to a continuous monitoring system capable of detecting any spike in real time. This deployment, driven by the CO₂ Alert projectallowed gas to stop being an unpredictable threat and become a measured, interpreted and managed phenomenon, making it possible the progressive return of the neighbors and the reopening of the urban center, always under the premise that normality here only exists as long as the data confirms that the air continues to be breathable. Living with alarms. For years, life in Puerto Naos was reorganized around the sensorswith garages permanently open for ventilation, closed basements, cordoned off areas and neighbors who learned to live with warning beeps as part of the soundscape. CO₂, denser than air, accumulated in the low points and it became visible like a diffuse waterfall in narrow courtyards, killing small animals along the way, corroding metals and remembering that the volcano was still active even though it was no longer expelling lava, molding not only the terrain but also psychology and decisions of those who refused to leave their home permanently. View of part of Puerto Naos Playa Chica, the pulse. In 2026 the problem is no longer general, but surgical: a small strip in Playa Chica and some specific garages where CO₂ continues to emerge straight from the underground through extremely porous terrain, one described by technicians as a “volcanic Gruyere cheese.” All the effort is now concentrated there, not so much to bring the town back to life (because it has already returned) but to close the last point where the volcano still sets the pace, remembering along the way that the eruption did not end when the fire ceased, but when the subsoil stopped breathing its last breath. Extract gas from the earth. The proven solution successfully by experts changes the traditional logic in these situations: instead of ventilating the buildings, the ground has been ventilated, capturing CO₂ underground and conveying it through pipes to controlled expulsion points near the sea, where the gas is quickly dispersed without danger. Not only that. Tests have shown drastic reductionsgoing from concentrations close to half a million ppm to safe levels. In other words, it has been confirmed that the method works and that the pending challenge is not a conceptual hypothesis, but a technical one, a fine adjustment to avoid load losses and guarantee that the system can operate in a stable and permanent way. Close the volcano. Puerto Naos it’s already openinhabited and functioning, but closing the volcano means turning this experiment into a complete a definitive infrastructureintegrate the extraction of CO₂ into the urban network and accept that the island will continue to be a “volcano” even when it seems calm. Perhaps for this reason, no one expects inaugurations or epic endings to what happened, just a silent moment in which Playa Chica leaves to be an exception and the air will once again be just that, demonstrating that on the island of La Palma the volcanic forces not only have shaped the earthbut also the way in which a community has learned to live, monitor and resist over it. Image | Eduardo RobainaHyperfinch In Xataka | Gran Canaria is increasingly at risk of blackouts. And he already has an idea on the table: imitate Russia in the Arctic In Xataka | The Canary Islands and Galicia have set off the Navy’s alarm bells. Russia’s ghost fleet has arrived in Spain with warships

In this city in Ukraine, going outside is not an option because of the drones. So they have found a solution: live underground

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For decades war was thought of as a recognizable front line, with more or less secure soldiers, trenches and rearguards. The massive emergence of drones has dynamited that scheme: the sky has become a permanent hunting ground, the distinction between combatant and civilian has been blurred and entire cities now live under the constant threat of cheap and lethal machines that can attack at any moment. In Ukraine they have forced everyday life to hide underground to continue existing. Kherson and the threat behind the windows. The key Ukrainian city has become the most extreme example of how drones have transformed war and civil lifeto the point that going outside has become the closest thing to a “death sport”, with Russian quadcopters operating from the other bank of the Dnieper that they hunt random people in what the Ukrainians themselves describe as a “human safari.” In a city of wide avenues and tsarist architecture, today the sky is the true enemy, responsible for hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries in a single year, in what the United Nations and human rights organizations describe as war crimes and the world’s most intensive use of drones against a civilian population. Live underground. Faced with the impossibility of completely protecting the surface, life in Kherson has declined literally underground. There is no rhetoric, since they literally live underground with hospitals, maternity wards, public offices, theaters and cultural spaces moved to basements and former Soviet shelters, while playgrounds have been replaced. through underground game rooms and all schools in the city operate only online. This forced displacement has created a strange and oppressive routine in which day-to-day life passes between corridors, bunkers and improvised roomsbecause any exposure to the open sky can end in seconds with a guided explosion from a remote camera. It is the real version of any scenario that science fiction cinema or literature ever staged. Improvised defenses. Faced with this omnipresent threat, the authorities have deployed a combination of solutions that illustrate the extent to which the city lives in an almost post-apocalyptic future, with kilometers of anti-drone networks covering entire streets, mesh tunnels over the main access roads, electronic interference walls next to the river and hundreds of concrete capsules spread along the sidewalks to offer immediate shelter. Even so, those responsible themselves admit that nothing is completely effectivebecause drones evolve, dodge defenses, throw grenades or mines and turn any daily journey into a desperate race in which you cannot run faster than the machine you are chasing from the air. Live, not just survive. In this extreme context, the effort is not limited to keeping the population alive, but rather to preserving a minimum feeling of normalityespecially for the little ones, children, who grow up under constant stress and fear of going outside. In fact, there is a whole network of psychologists, educators and volunteers who organize dance, art or biology classes in basements, install sandboxes so that the little ones can touch the ground and even create spaces where choosing, playing and learning is a form of emotional resistance in the face of a war that invades everything. The idea is clear in Kherson: it is not enough to hide, you have to keep livingeven under layers of cement. The laboratory of a disturbing future. If you like, Kherson is not just a devastated city, but an advance which many fear will become the norm in many other conflicts of the future, one where cheap and precise drones democratize the ability to attack civilians with an ease that was unthinkable just a few years ago. Thus, after a Russian occupation, a liberation celebrated and an immediate return of horror from a distance, the city has been trapped a kilometer from the front, with a population reduced to a fraction of the original that, despite everything, refuses to leave. Underground, between networks, shelters and constant alarms, Kherson survives like a brutal warning of how the war of the future can empty the streets and push human life to simply hide to exist. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | A drone takes aim and blows up a Russian penguin in front. It is the result of an increasingly absurd war In Xataka | Three Russians surrender on camera: what was previously a “normal” scene in the war in Ukraine is science fiction

There are no penguin colonies in Ukraine.

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The Vernadsky Research Base It is a Ukrainian scientific station in whose surroundings penguin colonies have been sighted. It happens that it is in Antarctica, not in Ukraine, an enclave where these creatures that live almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere and, in any case, rarely and naturally in the northern hemisphere do not exist. However, in Ukraine they do not stop being sighted. Penguins on the battlefield. Yes, on the Ukrainian front one of the most disconcerting images of this very technological war: Russian soldiers advancing alone through snowy fields covered in white thermal ponchos that, seen at first glance, make them look clearly giant penguins. The logic behind this tactic is simple and desperate at the same time, since these ponchos (can be found by about 75 dollars), made with fabrics capable of retaining almost all body heat, seek to erase the thermal silhouette of the soldier in front of drones equipped with infrared cameras. The “but”. In theory, the human body should blend in with the cold of the environment, disappearing for thermal sensors. In practice and how they have been managed to advertise Ukrainian forces, camouflage only works under very specific conditions and during the night, and their repeated use in broad daylight has turned these “penguins” into targets that are easily identifiable by optical drones, which detect them without difficulty before attacking them. Camouflage as a mistake. The broadcast videos by Ukrainian operators show that the problem is not so much the garment as its tactical use. Ponchos can hide the heat of the torso, but they leave exposed parts like feet or create silhouettes artificially cold images that stand out against slightly warmer backgrounds, making target acquisition easier. Furthermore, the lack of training exacerbates the problem, since many soldiers seem to be unaware how and when use this type of camouflage. The result is paradoxical: what was supposed to reduce visibility ends up generating black and perfectly delimited figures on the thermal screens of the drones, making the carriers even more detectable. Even so, Russian units insist in repeating the tacticagain and again sending isolated men to cross open terrain, with almost always lethal results against explosive-laden FPVs. The battle of deception and decoys. It we have counted before. This extreme resource is not an isolated case, but part of a war of deception every time more sophisticated on both sides. While some soldiers literally try to disguise themselves to survive aerial surveillance, Ukraine has perfected the use of large-scale decoys, like inflatable F-16 fighters deployed at airfields. These life-size models have reached attract loitering munitions guided by satellite, forcing the adversary to expend expensive and technically advanced drones against targets of no military value. Even from the Russian side it has been implicitly recognized that some of their supposed big blows have ended up destroying simple models, an assumed cost that, however, reveals the limits of intelligence and target identification in an environment saturated with sensors. A drone war. If you like, all this costume exchange, thermal ponchos and plastic airplanes underlines a deeper and more repeated reality: the battlefield has been transformed into a permanent duel between detection and concealmentin which drones are responsible for the majority of casualties and set the pace of operations. Improvised human camouflage tactics and elaborate lures Industrial companies are part of the same phenomenon, a war in which deceiving the sensor is almost as important as destroying the enemy. In that context, the somewhat surreal image of a “penguin” advancing through the snow is not so much an anecdote, but the extreme symptom of a conflict in which survival increasingly depends on outwitting a camera that never blinks. Image | Telegram In Xataka | Three Russians surrender on camera: what was previously a “normal” scene in the war in Ukraine is science fiction In Xataka | “They are under our feet”: Ukraine has entered an inexplicable phase, that of its drones attacking Russians at absurd distances

Three Russians surrender on camera. A normal scene from wars, but science fiction in Ukraine because of the “soldier” who points guns at them

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From dug trenches rush to heaven buzzing without restthe war in Ukraine has become a testing ground where the classic rules of combat have long since lost the battle. Every month scenes appear that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago and that force us to rethink what it means today to fight, resist or survive in a front dominated by unexpected technologies. The last example shows a surrender. The first time before a machine. Three Russian soldiers emerge from a building, one of them bloody, raise their hands and obey orders while a camera records everything. The scene would be routine in any war conflict in history, but in Ukraine it marks a breaking point: The one who points the gun at them is not an infant, but an armed robot. It’s not the first time we see such a surrenderbut it is the first to be documented on video and in front of an unmanned land vehicle, a scenario that symbolizes the extent to which the line between science fiction and real combat has been definitively erased in this conflict. From marginal experiment to centerpiece. It we have counted before. Ukrainian ground robots, known as robotic ground complexes, began the war as imported rarities and today are an industrial and military mainstay of their own. 99% of UGVs in use They are already manufactured in Ukrainewith more than 200 different models produced by dozens of local companies in ultra-fast design cycles, fine-tuned directly with feedback from the front. Small, cheap and assembled from commercial components, these robots have moved from transportation and evacuation to carry heavy machine gunslead assaults, hold defensive positions for weeks, and now, accept prisoners without any human soldiers having to expose themselves. Machines that do not bleed. The tactical value of these systems goes beyond firepower. Accepting a surrender with a robot eliminates the risk of ambushes, false capitulations or instant decisions between life and death, a recurring problem on the Ukrainian front. At the same time, the psychological impact It’s huge: fighting an enemy who doesn’t feel paindoes not die and can be replaced quickly erodes morale and makes the option of surrender more rational. Hence the image of confused soldierss surrendering to a machine summarizes that moral and human imbalance. Some of the varieties of Ukrainian ground drones The sky as a weapon. This qualitative leap on the ground fits with an even more overwhelming reality in the air. According to Zelenskymore than 80% of effective strikes against Russian forces are already carried out with drones, the vast majority manufactured locally. In 2025, Ukraine claims to have attacked about 820,000 targets with these systems, recording each impact on video within a points system that rewards units for each confirmed casualty and accelerates the acquisition of new material. In other words, war has become a closed loop of sensors, cameras, algorithms and rewards. An unprecedented cost. Almost four years after the invasion, Russia’s human toll in Ukraine reaches unprecedented figures since World War II: around 1.2 million soldiers dead, wounded or missing, according to the latest report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This massive attrition contrasts with very limited territorial advances, barely 12% more territory controlled since 2022, with daily progress that in some sectors is measured in meters and is even lower than that recorded in battles of the First World War. The Ukrainian defense-in-depth strategy, combining trenches, mines, obstacles, artillery and drones, has tipped the balance of casualties by a proportion clearly unfavorable for Moscow and questions the idea of ​​an inevitable Russian victory. The Russian rearguard. The impact of the conflict goes far beyond the front and is degrading Russia’s economic and strategic capacity, the same as the SCIS report already described as a second or third order power. The combination of inflation, labor shortages, industrial weakness and technological stagnation has left growth stunted and a committed futurewhile human losses exceed the recruitment and replacement capacity. In fact, compared to past conflicts, the figures are devastating. The war future. In short, between swarms of FPV drones, armed ground robots and electronic warfare systems, the war in Ukraine has advanced decades of military development in just a few years, while much more expensive and slow Western programs they stalled or were canceled. Therefore, the filmed surrender facing a robot is not an isolated anecdote, but a sign that modern combat no longer revolves only around the human soldier, but rather cheap, disposable and omnipresent machines. In Ukraine, the war of the future is no longer being imagined: it is being recorded in the first person. Image | UKRAINE MOD In Xataka | “They are under our feet”: Ukraine has entered an inexplicable phase, that of its drones attacking Russians at absurd distances In Xataka | We had seen everything in Ukraine. Until Russia sent a soldier to the front that we had only seen in the movies

Ukraine has entered an inexplicable phase, that of its drones attacking Russians at absurd distances

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In every modern war there has been a moment when technology brutally shortened the distance between the front and death. In fact, it already happened with the machine gun in 1914 or with the precision artillery at the end of the 20th century. In Ukraine, everything indicates that is going through now that same turning point, one in which the combat stops being deep and maneuverable and becomes immediate, constant and suffocating. Drones as a dominant weapon. The figures from the Ukrainian war have made it crystal clear that drones are no longer a complement, but the main cause of death and destruction, responsible for between 70% and 80% of casualties on both sides according to European intelligence services. This massive lethality has transformed the conflict into something very more dynamic at a tactical levelbut also more rigid strategically, because the omnipresence of drones makes it extremely difficult for either army to achieve a decisive break from the front. The result is a war of attrition in which each meter is paid dearly and where the balance increasingly depends on industrial, technological and foreign political support. War underfoot. In this context, Ukrainian drones are operating at distances that just a year ago would have seemed absurd, attacking Russian infantry at just over one kilometer from the frontliterally and as rthey knew the controls in Insider, “under the feet” of their own positions. The use of elite drone units to strike so close reflects the extreme pressure on defensive lines and the need to stop Russian assaults before they reach the trenches, one of the deadliest scenarios for Ukrainian soldiers. Low-level air warfare has thus become a direct extension of hand-to-hand combat, with drones acting as the last barrier before human contact. Kamikaze combat. It is a war, and the doctrinal ideal is still to destroy the enemy several kilometers away, when it concentrates or prepares to attack, but the reality of the front has pushed Ukraine to use its best operators in immediate deletion tasks. More and more combat drones are dedicated to attack infantry instead of high-value logistics or systems, a very clear sign that combat has become shortermore reactive and closer to sacrifice. This drift towards an almost kamikaze logic does not respond to a tactical preference, but to the urgent need to save positions and gain time. Russia adapts. At the same time and as we have countedRussia has been closing the gap in drone warfare from the end of 2024adapting quickly and betting on mass productionand the recruitment of technical talent. The plans to manufacture tens of thousands of drones per year and active search for students with technological profiles show that Moscow assumes that mastery of the air at very low altitude is key to sustaining its ground offensive. This adaptation explains why the front has become so lethal and compressed, with both sides forced to operate under a constant threat from the sky. A question of distance. As the 20th century progressed, military evolution was marked by the elongation of the battlefield: improvements in aviation, missiles and precision weapons They allowed the enemy to be hit further and further away, reducing the need for direct contact. However, the war in Ukraine is reversing that logicbecause drones, cheap and everywhere, have compressed combat to unimaginable distances. The result is another historical paradox: there has never been so much capacity to destroy at long range, but it has never been so dangerous to be so close to the frontwith flying machines that turn every advanced meter into an immediate risk. War blocked by technology. In short, the enormous effectiveness of drones is making war, if possible, a little bloodieralthough less decisive. The saturation of the battlefield with sensors and flying munitions punishes any movement and reduces strategic maneuver options, turning the conflict into a protracted fight where industrial resistance and western support They outweigh local tactical victories. In this scenario, Ukraine fights ever closer, ever faster and, most disturbing of all, increasingly with less margin of errorin a battle where the distance between living and dying is already measured in seconds and meters. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, National Police of Ukraine In Xataka | 1,418 days have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine: the war has already lasted longer than the Soviet fight against Hitler In Xataka | The latest camouflages of Russian troops confirm an open secret: the war in Ukraine is the most Looney Tunes in history

Russia has turned Ukraine into a scene from Minority Report. He has sent a “soldier” named Svod to anticipate the future

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At the doors of fourth year of warRussia still has not found a consistent formula to break the Ukrainian defenses, despite having more troops, a much more stable flow of material and a wide repertoire of advanced technologies that, on paper, should have tilted the battlefield. If the war in Eastern Europe was already a unprecedented laboratory of war technologies, Moscow has taken the most unprecedented step of all. The problem that Russia is trying to solve. They counted in Forbes that, among the many causes of this below-expectation performance, there is one especially painful: the inability of many Russian officers on the front line to take quick tactical decisions and sustainable over time, precisely those that decide the outcome of local clashes that, accumulated, determine an entire offensive. This deficit does not arise from nothing, but from the combination of a military culture rigidly hierarchicaldesigned to execute orders rather than improvise, and from a generation of extremely young commanders with limited experience, pushed to lead units in a type of combat that mercilessly punishes hesitation and rewards immediate adaptation. The “soldier” Svod. The announced answer is Svod, a digital tool AI decision support system conceived as a tactical situational awareness system for front-deployed officers. Its function, according to the description of the Russian Ministry of Defensewould be to gather and merge in the same information space multiple sources of intelligence, from satellite data and aerial images to reconnaissance reports and open source material, to convert that chaos of signals into a common usable image. From there, the system I would apply advanced processing and models assisted by artificial intelligence to analyze what comes in, project operational scenarios plausible futures and guide the command towards the most convenient course of action. The underlying intention is not hidden: to accelerate the decision cycle, reduce friction between “what is happening” and “what is ordered”, and guide managers towards rmost effective answers in an environment where every minute lost translates into casualties, burned material and wasted tactical opportunities. Software connected to what already exists. Svod does not present itself as a device magical that a soldier hangs on his chest, but rather like a software architecture that is integrates into networks and media now available. It works as a layer that merges data and displays it to commanders on computers or tablets, with secure communications and decision support tools. The important thing is the effect it produces: converting a crowded battlefield of signs into something that looks legible, and that the tactical command has concrete guidance when the environment changes faster than the upper echelons can keep up. Deployment and focus. Furthermore, the plan wants to be implemented at full speed: after various operational tests in December 2025, it is expected to begin deploying it in April 2026 and extend it widely by September. In fact, the first units to receive it would be involved in the Pokrovsk axiswhere Russia concentrates part of its offensive effort. That portrays it as an immediate solution to correct command and control failuresnot as a quiet modernization ten years from now, and explains why it is prioritized where wear is maximum and the margin of error is minimum. A perverse incentive. In an army like the Russian one that rewards obedience and punishes improvisation, a local commander may be forced to attack even if he knows it is a bad idea. With constant pressure, some they execute and accumulate casualtiesothers seek to survive within the system by simulating results, sending small groups to mark their presence and using drones to appear successful. In this context, Svod intends to push more coherent decisions with the real situation, giving a shared and more immediate vision to the front without touching the core of the model: continuing to command from above, but with a tool that reduces “surprises” and imbalances. Minority Report in military version. There is no doubt, the bet has something of a futuristic scene that we had already seen in the cinema: just like works as Minority Report that had played with the idea of ​​algorithms that anticipate the future, Russia seeks to anticipate what is going to happen before it happens, with that “soldier” called Svod that calculates, projects and recommends. The promise is very easy to understand: if the system sees better and faster, it will be able to anticipate where the weak point is, when to press and when to readjust the attack. It is a way of turning combat into a prediction problemwhere human intuition and improvisation are replaced by a living map that attempts to order chaos. What it can contribute. If it works well, Svod could improve identification of objectivescoordination and detection of gaps in the Ukrainian defense, as well as other similar tools have proven valuable in other armies. The problem, most likely, is that its effectiveness will clash with the reality of the front: electronic warfare, degraded communications, incomplete data, and models that fail when the enemy learn and change patterns. In this sense, Ukraine has adapted quicklyand that makes it much more difficult for a system to accurately predict what will happen next. Still, the movement is more than significant: war is becoming a sensor competitionnetworks and decisions, and Russia is trying to have AI reduce a problem that has cost it too dearly. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | 1,418 days have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine: the war has already lasted longer than the Soviet fight against Hitler In Xataka | The latest camouflages of Russian troops confirm an open secret: the war in Ukraine is the most Looney Tunes in history

The war in Ukraine is the most Looney Tunes in history

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In Ukraine, camouflage has ceased to be a tactical detail and has become an issue immediate survival. The front is no longer just a line of trenches but a space permanently illuminated by sensors, reconnaissance drones and attack FPV that appear in seconds and punish any routine. In that scenario the difference between ingenuity and desperation is a blurred line for hiding. The new battlefield. The consequence is simple and brutal: what previously served to hide from a soldier with binoculars now it is insufficient in front of an electronic eye that does not get tired, does not blink and can observe from above, repeating passes until it finds the smallest error. At that point, Russia is forced to improvise new forms of concealment for his troops, not because it is an aesthetic eccentricity, but because the alternative is being exposed in an environment where detection is almost automatic and punishment comes with surgical precision. “Realistic” camouflage. One of the most striking adaptations has been the use of camouflage covers that are no longer limited to breaking silhouettes with spots of color, but incorporate materials and shapes designed to mimic terrain elementsas if it were a hand-built scenario: fake rocksrough surfaces, textures that imitate rubble and irregularities that deceive the view from above. The idea is simple and quite logical in a front saturated with drones: if the enemy watches from the air, it is not enough to “look green”, there is that “seem terrain”integrate into the visual noise of the landscape and reduce the clues that give away a position. It is an attempt to gain those minutes of invisibility that separate a possible advance from a failed ambush, and it fits with an evolution in which Russia tries to rely more in small and mobile attackswith small groups, assuming that massive concentrations and obvious deployments have become a gift for Ukrainian surveillance. Urban debris like skin. The same logic is transferred to devastated urban areas, where the terrain is not a forest or an open field but a broken brick, fallen walls and dust, and where the most useful camouflage is not so much the traditional “military” one but the one that makes you in part of the destruction. There appear nets and covers designed to look like rubble, construction remains and fragments of buildings, as if the soldier was not hiding behind the ruin but rather merging with it. It is also the response to constant pressure: the impact of drones on the Russian infantry has become so frequent that the front is transformed in a crusher of small movements, and each exposed position can become a scene repeated thousands of times. It is still another paradox in a landscape of rubble, one where effective camouflage is what turns you… in rubble. Debris camouflage “tarps” Field booths. Then there is the image that seems to be taken from a parody, although possibly born of real tactical desperation: soldiers taking refuge in individual vertical structureslike capsules or covers that cover them almost completely and only leave a small gap to observe. They are not typical tents, nor shelters to live in, but rather packaging designed to reduce visual signature and, above all, thermal, against drones that search for targets and finish them off with precision. The logic is simple: if the drone finds you, you are dead, so the first thing is to prevent it from finding you. That said, the price to pay can be enormous because hiding like this means give up all mobilityreaction and situational awareness, just what a soldier needs when danger comes quickly and from any angle. Thermal camouflage The great invisible enemy. It we have counted these days. The most decisive turn, however, is not only in what is seen, but in what is felt: the heat. In winter, thermal cameras become even more lethal because the contrast increases and everything that emits a constant temperature (human bodies, engines, electronics, heaters) stands out like a light signal on a frozen background, even at night. Ukrainian bomber drones, nicknamed “Baba Yaga”they have exploited that advantage effectively: they search for formations or positions, identify thermal anomalies, and release ammunition with an ease that turns concealment into an almost mathematical problem. In these conditions, visual camouflage is of little use if the position “glows” in infrared, and even what seems insignificant (recent footprints in the snow, repeated activity at a fixed point) can become a clue. That’s why it appears thermal camouflagewhich does not eliminate heat because that is impossible, but tries to break the silhouette and blend it with the environment, even if it is degrading the signal instead of erasing it. The great Russian dilemma. The situation forces Russia to move in an impossible balance: If you try to advance towards death zones under drones, the exposure multiplies, and if you decide to stay in fixed positions, persistent observation ends up discovering patterns, entrances and exits, moments of activity, small routines that a drone can record until the attack arrives. The result is that each defensive measure brings with it a new limitation: hiding better usually means seeing less and reacting worse, moving more usually means being detected sooner. And while Ukraine reserves thermal cameras for reusable drones because they make the system more expensive and cannot be used in everything, also play with smart combinations, using a drone with good optics to detect and cheaper ones to execute. Looney Tunes, but with real casualties. If you also want, all this leads us to an idea that sounds like a joke that is not: the war in Ukraine is resembling an episode from Looney Tuneswith soldiers hiding in vertical capsuless, networks that imitate bricks and camouflages that look like movie props. There is no doubt, the background is terribly serious, because this absurd aesthetic is born from a real technological pressure, from an environment where air It is full of sensors and camouflage no longer competes against human eyes, but against machines … Read more

Ukraine sensed that there was a superpower behind Russia’s kamikaze drones. The surprise is that there are actually two

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Many phases have passed since the Russian invasion in 2022 until today, but if one thing has become crystal clear, it is that the war in Ukraine has become a brutal laboratory where drones are the most decisive and fastest weapon to improve, to the point of concentrating a huge part of the recent losses and setting the pace of the war of attrition. In this scenario, Ukraine has been asking itself the same question for some time: how does Russia get so many drones? An industrial war. In the current scenario, the front is not only in Donetsk or Kharkiv, but also in industrial parks from Guangdong and Shenzhenwhere processors, cameras, motors, sensors and controllers are made that determine how much a drone flies, what it sees and how accurately it hits. The most disturbing thing here is not only the technological dependence, but the fact that this dependence is shared by both sideswhich turns the supply of parts into a kind of undercurrent that sustains the conflict even when sanctions seek to cut it off. The Geran-5. Now, Ukraine claims have identified a new Russian attack drone, the Geran-5which breaks with the classic “delta wing” type profile associated with the Iranian Shahed and adopts a shape more similar to a conventional aircraft, visually linking it Iranian Karrar and, by extension, to older designs inspired by American systems. The key is that it would be a more powerful and faster jet model, with an estimated speed up to 600 km/hand with tactical ambitions that go beyond the simple cheap “kamikaze drone”: it is attributed a range of about 900 km and an approximate war load of 90 kilos. Ukraine affirms that Russia is studying launching it from Su-25 aircraft to expand your radius of action, as well as explore configurations that include R-73 air-to-air missiles to complicate life for Ukrainian aviation. In other words, Russia is not only multiplying quantity, it is also testing a ladder of sophistication that mixes loitering munitions with concepts closer to a combat UAV. Geran-5 He Deja Vú. The central element, and the most politically controversial, is the list of foreign components that Ukraine claims to have found in the wreckage of the new Geran-5, including more than a dozen western and chinese electronic partswith at least nine attributed to American manufacturers and one identified like german. are mentioned critical components for navigation, communications and control, such as signal processors, clock generators and transceivers, that is, the type of electronics that does not “explode” by itself, but that turns a drone into a reliable, stable and reproducible system. For kyiv, this shows that Russia continues to avoid sanctions structurally, relying on gray markets and supply chains where real traceability is dissolved, and which has a huge machinery behind it headed by two superpowers (China and the US), along with the rest of Western “allies”. The underlying message is simple: modern war is not only won by manufacturing metal and explosives, also getting chipssensors and modules that are cheap, easy to transport and difficult to block without paralyzing global trade. Image provided by GUR showing the partial remains of a Geran-5 China as epicenter. The Financial Times said an almost absurd scene: Ukrainian businessmen visiting Chinese factories with schedules calculated to the second so as not to coincide with Russian buyers, entering through side doors and waiting in corridors, as if the conflict was managed with hotel logistics. The reason is that both armies they need the same parts and they go after the same suppliers because China dominates the material base of the commercial drone: not only does it produce a large part of the drones on the market, it also controls key elements such as cameras, sensors, controllers and propulsion, with costs much lower than Western equivalents. The result is that innovation leaks on both sides almost at the same time: if Ukraine sees a new transmitter on Russian drones, it locates the Chinese manufacturer and tries to buy it. If Ukraine asks for a specific upgrade, you may find that a week later that same supplier offers it to Russia as well. The war thus becomes a race of “components” more than doctrines, and China goes from being a “neutral” country to being the place where it is decided how quickly the conflict evolves. The supply chain. Beijing maintains the public line of neutrality and affirms that it does not supply lethal weapons, that it strictly controls dual-use goods and that its position is “objective and fair.” However, as we have said, the reality It’s different: Even if controls are in place, the system is filled with middlemen, shell companies, opaque routes and deliberate ambiguity about the end user. A market where some exhibitors show platforms with simulated weaponswhere military buyers mix with civilian fairs. In parallel, there is an imbalance of power: Russia, with more resources and priority state, can pay more, buy earlier and secure quotas, leaving Ukraine waiting or forcing it to improvise at the front due to lack of parts. Neutrality, in practice, is not just about prohibiting, but about who can best circumvent the restrictions. How to avoid restrictions. The real circumvention ecosystem works with shipments via indirect routestransportation through third countries, trucks crossing Central Asia with limited controls, and a logistics market specialized in “sensitive merchandise” that continues to operate because the economic incentive is enormous. Plus: the role of regional financial clearing platforms, which facilitate payments for sanctioned productsand the ability to create intermediate entities even in European countries to disguise operations. If you like, sanctions, as they work, introduce friction, but not rupture: they make it more expensive, slow down, force people to hide better, but they do not cut off the flow of chips, motors or cameras. And in a war where an FPV drone can be as decisive as an armoredthat logistical continuity is equivalent to operational continuity on the battlefield. Ukrainian dependency. Ukraine has made a lot of progress in … Read more

What the war in Ukraine has not achieved, Greenland has done. Europe has taken out its “commercial bazooka” against the US: Ozempic

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For more than a year, Europe has become accustomed to living trapped in an uncomfortable balance where depends on the United States for its security through NATO, to sustain the Ukrainian effort and, ultimately, for the strategic architecture that has protected it since the Cold War. Now Greenland has done jump into the air part of the rhetoric. Europe and the counterattack. The crisis has erupted when Trump has returned to ignite a trade war using Greenland as an excuse and as an ultimatum: either some type of “agreement” that brings the island closer to the United States is accepted, or tariffs arrive first from 10% and after 25% a group of European countries designated by a minimal but symbolic gesture, to participate in Arctic maneuvers with Denmark. What until recently many in Europe preferred to interpret as bravado or negotiating tactics becomes an explicit message of political pressure that no longer leaves room for the fantasy of appeasement. And there appears the real change: what the Ukrainian war had not completely achieved (a frontal European response to American reprisals) Greenland is doing itbecause the coup is not against a geopolitical adversary but against alliesand because it puts Europe before a brutal choice: accept the blackmail and normalize it, or respond even if it hurts, even knowing that it continues to depend on Washington for its security and to contain Russia. The European bazooka. There is no doubt, the European reaction It is not born from enthusiasm, but from the feeling that there are no longer many other solutions: Greenland cannot be “handed over”, nor can Denmark sell an autonomous territory against the will of its population, and the very idea that an acquisition could be forced due to commercial threats opens a pandora’s box that affects the entire continent. In this context, Brussels dusts off for the first time his toughest tool, the so-called anti-coercion instrumentdesigned precisely to punish political pressures through rapid and forceful economic measures. on the table two paths appear that mark a leap in mentality: reactivate a package of tariffs worth of 93,000 million of euros already prepared and, if the escalation continues, go further of goods and target services, investment and even access to the European market for large American companies. The European message tries to be twofold, seeking a de-escalation that avoids an open clash, but making it clear that, if Trump turns trade into a method of extortion, Europe can also respond strongly. The crash that nobody wanted. The most disturbing thing about this episode is not only the economic impact of a tariff war, but the strategic fracture that it implies: Europe knows that a serious trade conflict with the United States will would infect NATOto Ukraine and the entire deterrence architecture against Russia. That is why the continent moves cautiouslycalling emergency meetings, preparing the ground for talks in Davos and even delaying previously agreed trade detente measures. But the core of the problem is that Trump is not negotiating a percentage or a clause: you are elevating a territorial objective to a national priority, presenting it as a requirement to “improve the security” of the Arctic, and implicitly denying that Europe can guarantee it. In this framework, Europe tries not to break the bridge, but assumes that it can no longer behave as if the bridge were indestructible. The sovereignty of Greenland. We’ve told it before: while Washington talks about “acquisition,” Greenland insists that its future belongs to them, that many they want more independencenot change flag. This point is essential because it explains why Europe doesn’t want to give in: it is not just about Danish pride or formalisms, but about sovereignty and democratic legitimacy, as well as an explosive precedent within the Union itself. The tariff threattherefore, works as an attempt to isolate Denmark and make it the weak link, although it has the opposite effect: it reinforces the idea that if you are attacked over a strategic issue, you will be respond as a block. And therein lies the paradox: instead of dividing, the pressure forces coordination, especially between Paris and Berlin, which push a harder line while others ask for time to see if Trump offers a “way out” before the punishment is activated. The “Ozempic bomb”. Amid the noise of bases, submarines and Arctic routes, the unexpected weapon appears: Denmark is not a commercial giant, but it exports products to the United States that directly affect the pocket and everyday lifeand that turns any tariff into a kind of political boomerang. The half of its sales Recent visits to Washington focus on medicines, vaccines, insulin and related products, because Novo Nordisk is there, the Danish economic engine and the factory of the global phenomenon Ozempic and Wegovy. That dependency converts Denmark in a kind of de facto “pharmaceutical state”: Your private growth and employment largely revolve around that industry, and any trade turbulence impacts both sides. If Trump makes these medicines more expensive, the blow will not stay in Europe: it enters the US market like health inflation and social unrest, just where the political margin is most fragile. And that is why Ozempic, more than a product, works as symbol of interdependence reality that makes a tariff war not just a lever, but rather a grenade. Lego and other reminders. The same effect is seen with Lego and other products Danes beloved in the United States, or with less visible but critical sectors such as hearing aids and certain medical equipment. In the real world, supply chains do not respect emotional boundaries: many parts are manufactured in different countries, assembled in others, and sold in markets that depend on global logistics. This means that tariffs punish not only the “enemy” exporter, but also companies, distributors and consumers. Trump can imagine squeezing Denmark to bend it, but the pressure leaks out in prices and disruptions in the US market itself, and also erodes the relationship with an ally that already offers military access in … Read more

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