Ukraine Archives - Page 2 of 17

secret training for war in Ukraine

May 24, 2026 by usatoday24

The scene took place a few months ago. Ukrainian soldiers surprised British instructors when they discovered that many NATO armies still They did not use anti-drone networks on a regular basis. After several years of war, Ukraine was beginning to teach the West how to survive on a front dominated by drones. Much more than drones. For much of the Ukraine war, the relationship between China and Russia has been interpreted primarily in terms economic and technological. Beijing bought Russian oil and gas while Chinese companies appeared linked to the supply of electronic components, drones and machinery useful for the Russian military industry. However, the revelations he has had access Reuters on the secret training of Russian military in Chinese facilities point to something much deeper: China would not be limiting itself to indirectly supporting the Russian war economy, but rather participating in the tactical and doctrinal training of soldiers who then return directly to the Ukrainian front. This enormously changes the dimension of the relationship between both countries. War as a military classroom. According to the documents and sources European intelligence agencies, some 200 Russian soldiers were trained discreetly in China at the end of 2025 under an agreement signed between senior commanders of both countries. He program included training in FPV drones, electronic warfare, army aviation, mechanized infantry and demining. Some sessions took place in military centers in Beijing, Nanjing, Zhengzhou or Shijiazhuang. What is important is not only the relatively small number of soldiers, but the profile of many of them: instructors and commanders capable of relaying that knowledge to whole units once back in Ukraine. In other words, China would not simply be sending technology, but helping to perfect the way Russia fights modern war. China learns while Russia fights. It just so happens that the relationship also greatly benefits Beijing. The People’s Liberation Army has not fought a major war in decades and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has become the largest military laboratory real of the planet. Russia brings direct combat experience in drones, trenches, electronic warfare and mass attrition. China provides industrial capacity, advanced simulators, technological production and training methods increasingly sophisticated. The exchange is extremely valuable for both. Moscow gains access to technology and training difficult to obtain under Western sanctions, while Beijing can observe how modern weapons, tactics and doctrines really work without being officially involved in the conflict. Silent revolution. The heart of all this cooperation revolves around drones. Ukraine has completely transformed the way it fights using cheap FPV capable of destroying armored vehicles, fortified positions and even helicopters. Russia had to quickly adapt to that reality and now appears to be turning to China to further professionalize part of that ecosystem. The documents describe simulator training flight, coordinated use of drones with mortars, electronic warfare against enemy drones and physical interception systems through networks. All of this reflects the extent to which modern warfare is ceasing to depend exclusively on large traditional platforms to increasingly focus on cheap, massive and very difficult to neutralize systems. Europe’s concern. For the European agencies, what is truly disturbing is that part of those soldiers trained in China already they would have participated later in combat operations in occupied Crimea and Zaporizhzhia. This means that the knowledge acquired in Chinese facilities ends up being applied directly on the European battlefield. Beijing, for its part, continues to publicly defend a neutral position and continues to present itself as a possible peace mediator, but this type of cooperation seriously erodes that image. In the eyes of many Western governments, China would be entering a much more sensitive gray area: not officially sending its own troops or weapons, but contributing to improving Russian operational capacity in an active war against Ukraine. Increasingly military alliance. The revelation It also confirms the extent to which the “limitless” partnership announced by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin before the 2022 invasion has evolved far beyond simple joint exercises or diplomatic statements. China and Russia no longer seem to limit themselves to coordinating political positions vis-à-vis the West, they are beginning to share knowledge combat practices, training and doctrine. The most significant detail may be precisely the secrecy of the agreements: prohibition of media coverage, restrictions on information to third parties and programs developed discreetly away from the international spotlight. All this suggests that both countries perfectly understand the political sensitivity of a cooperation that, although still indirect, gets closer and closer to China to the real workings of the war in Ukraine. Image | Vitaly V. Kuzmin In Xataka | The closure of the Strait of Hormuz chokes the Chinese economy. Its only energy solution is a historic pact with Putin In Xataka | While everyone was looking at Hormuz, Russia has found a much more important route to supply drones to Iran

“Slaughterbots” are no longer science fiction in Ukraine. Russians wear masks to avoid the drone that aims at their heads

May 22, 2026 by usatoday24

A few years before the start of the war in Ukraine, a Berkeley computer science professor presented at the UN a short called “Slaughterbots”a piece where small drones with facial recognition chased people autonomously. Many saw it then as another technological exaggeration in the style of the Black Mirror series. A few years later the short… has fallen short. Drones that search for tanks, search for people. For much of the Ukrainian war, drones were seen as a support weapon intended to destroy armor, correct artillery fire or monitor enemy movements. That phase has gone disappearing quickly. What is now emerging is something much more disturbing: cheap drones, produced by the millions, designed specifically to hunt down and kill soldiers. individually. They counted in Forbes that the Russian military channels themselves they are warning of Ukrainian FPVs equipped with thermal vision, reconnaissance systems and munitions capable of firing explosive projectiles at a distance directly against a human body. The detail that is generating the most fear is not the weapon itself, but the possibility that these drones are already learning to identify Where to hit to maximize lethality. The idea of small autonomous devices “hunting” specific people no longer belongs to technological dystopias or viral YouTube videos: it is beginning to form part of the front line’s routine. A gigantic aerial hunting area. The most profound consequence of this revolution is that huge parts of the front have been transformed in “kill zones”those corridors where any human movement can be detected and destroyed from the air in a matter of minutes. Ukraine has especially perfected this model around cities like Kostyantynivka or Chasiv Yarwhere small Russian groups are identified long before approaching the defensive lines. The result has been devastating for classical Russian doctrines: large armored columns and mechanized assaults have become too visible and vulnerable. In response, Moscow is trying to create their own “drone racers”infiltrating small teams of operators hiding in basements, destroyed buildings or tree lines to build temporary bubbles of local air dominance. In other words, war is no longer just about controlling the terrain, it is about controlling the sky just a few meters above each soldier’s head. The true technological leap. The most important thing about these new systems is not the size of the explosive charge, but intelligence that begins to guide them. Many Ukrainian FPVs already integrate autonomy modules capable of continuing the attack even when the operator loses signal due to electronic interference. Western companies and civilian developers have created relatively inexpensive kits that turn commercial drones into smart munitions capable of automatically locking on and pursuing targets. Until recently, that autonomy was mainly used against vehicles; now the focus shifts to the infantry. Some models use EFP loadsformed explosive projectiles that do not need to hit directly to penetrate protection and kill the target from a distance. That eliminates many of the defenses improvised measures that had proliferated on the front, from metal nets even the famous Russian “turtle tanks”. The problem for soldiers is that hiding no longer guarantees survival: the drone can continue observing, wait for the exact moment and attack when it detects vulnerability. “Slaughterbots” stopped seeming over the top. We said it at the beginning, in 2017 Professor Stuart Russell launched the short film “Slaughterbots” as a warning about autonomous drones with facial recognition capable of murdering specific people. At the time it seemed like a futuristic hype designed to open ethical debates about military artificial intelligence. Nine years later, the parallels are beginning to be uncomfortable even for those fighting on the ground. Russian soldiers develop countermeasures that seem straight out of a science fiction movie: using masks to confuse recognition systems, throwing helmets as decoys, hiding their heads behind obstacles or remaining completely still to avoid thermal tracking. Obsession reflects a huge psychological change. For centuries, a soldier could attempt to protect himself from enemy fire using cover, armor, or distance. Many fighters now feel that there is a camera constantly watching them from above, capable of deciding when to attack and possibly where to do it to ensure death. The industrial and algorithmic battle. The great Russian fear is that Ukraine will manage to combine mass production, autonomy and precision on an unprecedented scale. kyiv aims to manufacture millions of FPVs a year, and that completely changes the mathematics of combat. Whether a relatively cheap drone can chase soldiers with hit rates close to 80%human wear and tear begins to take on industrial dimensions. That is why Russia is desperately trying to build its own drone racersdeploy interceptors and saturate local airspace before moving larger troops. However, Ukraine maintains an advantage in both quantity and technological sophistication, especially in optics, autonomous navigation and aerial interception. What is being seen in the Donbas is not simply a tactical evolution of drone warfare: it is rather the birth of a new form of combat where thousands of semi-autonomous machines continually compete to detect, pursue and eliminate individual human beings. And the most disturbing thing is that this transformation is just beginning. Image | Defense Ukraine In Xataka | Satellite images reveal how much Russia fears Ukraine’s drones. 7,000 km away they are covering their nuclear missiles In Xataka | Ukraine has resurrected one of the oldest tactics of warfare. And he is isolating Russian cities without the need for soldiers

Russia turned gliding bombs into Ukraine’s nightmare. 17 months later Ukraine is giving him his own medicine

May 21, 2026 by usatoday24

Two years ago Russia launched a FAB-3000 pump of three tons over Kharkov and the shock wave was so powerful that several local seismic sensors recorded it as if it were a small earthquake. Until then, Ukraine barely had a way to respond to a weapon capable of striking from tens of kilometers away. The nightmare that changed the war. For much of 2023 and 2024, Russian gliding bombs became one of the most devastating weapons of the entire war. Moscow discovered that it could transform old Soviet bombs into long-range munitions simply by adding relatively cheap wings and guidance systems. The result It was devastating: huge FABs of 250, 500 or 1,000 kilos launched from dozens of kilometers away, out of the reach of many Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses, capable of destroying fortified positions, bridges, logistics centers or entire neighborhoods. For Ukraine, this became a problem almost impossible to solve. Shooting down each bomb was extremely difficult, attacking the launching planes forced them to get too close to the front and each new Russian kit multiplied the pressure on cities like Kharkiv, Sumy or Zaporizhia. Seventeen months searching for an answer. The appearance now of the first gliding bomb Ukrainian marks something much more important than the presentation of new ammunition. It represents the moment in which kyiv believes it has found your own answer to one of the weapons that have done the most damage during the last two years. Development reportedly began in December 2024 and has required 17 months of work until reaching the final tests and the first official order from the Ministry of Defense. The weapon, named like Vyrivniuvach (“Equalizer”), uses a 250-kilogram warhead and has been designed specifically for the real conditions of the Ukrainian war. It is not simply a question of copying a Western or Soviet model: Ukrainian engineers tried to build an adapted pump to a scenario where planes fly at low altitude to avoid radars, where anti-aircraft defenses cover enormous areas and where each weapon must be cheap, quick to manufacture and easy to integrate. The importance of manufacturing at home. The great advantage of this bomb is not only military, but also industrial and strategic. Until now Ukraine depended on Western kits like the JDAM-ER American or French Hammer to convert conventional bombs into long-range guided weapons. The problem is that these systems arrive in limited quantities, depend on external political decisions and often include restrictions on where they can be used. kyiv had been trying for months to escape that dependence by building its own war industry. The Vyrivniuvach fits perfectly into that logic: according to its developers it costs approximately three times less than a JDAM-ER, can be prepared in less than half an hour and is designed to be integrated into already operational platforms such as the Su-24, MiG-29, Su-27 and even Western F-16 or Mirage 2000. A Russian UMPK gliding bomb attached to a Su-34 An increasingly cheaper and more massive war. The evolution of gliding bombs also reflects a profound change in modern warfare. For years, cruise missiles seemed like the ultimate symbol of precision strike. Ukraine and Russia have proven otherwise: It is often more efficient to adapt old weapons with relatively simple kits and mass produce them. Russia understood this earlier and converted its FABs with UMPK modules into a true constant attrition machinery against the Ukrainian defenses. Ukraine has ended up following the same path. The logic is brutally practical: a gliding bomb does not need complex engines, can be launched from great distances, costs much less than an advanced missile and forces the enemy to expend much more expensive anti-aircraft interceptors or accept the impact. The problem of attacking from outside enemy range. They counted the TWZ analysts that what made Russian bombs especially dangerous was the possibility of launching them outside the radius of many Ukrainian defenses. Russian planes could get relatively close to the front, release their ammunition, and return without directly entering areas covered by Patriot or NASAMS. Ukraine now wants exactly that same ability. Your new bomb is designed to hit targets located “tens of kilometers” behind Russian lines, including fortifications, command posts or logistics centers. This allows you to attack without constantly exposing the pilots to the densest air defenses on the front. Furthermore, as it is a national system, kyiv can use it against any target it deems necessary without depending on external authorizations or political limitations imposed by Western allies. Ukraine’s industrial war. The Vyrivniuvach It also symbolizes the extent to which Ukraine has ceased to be simply a country that receives Western weapons and has become a power. of improvised military innovation out of necessity. In just two years, kyiv has developed long-range kamikaze drones, unmanned naval systems, new munitions and electronic warfare solutions built at high speed and at low cost. The glider bomb is part of that same transformation. Ukraine understood that it could not win a long war by relying solely on limited foreign arsenals or deliveries subject to political debates in Washington or Brussels. That’s why the message behind this new weapon is so important: Russia turned gliding bombs into one of the biggest symbols of Ukrainian vulnerability, but seventeen months later Ukraine seems to have managed to hit back using exactly the same weapon. industrial and military logic. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Russian Ministry of Defense In Xataka | Satellite images reveal how much Russia fears Ukraine’s drones. 7,000 km away they are covering their nuclear missiles In Xataka | Once again, Ukraine has opened a missile launched by Russia. Once again, surprising manufacturers have been found

Ukraine has resurrected one of the oldest tactics of warfare. And he is isolating Russian cities without the need for soldiers

May 20, 2026 by usatoday24

One of the many movie scenes that took place during the soviet blockade of berlin occurred in 1948, when the United States and its allies kept an entire city alive using an airlift that landed every few minutes with food, coal and medicine. The operation highlighted a lesson that military strategists never forgot: in any war, sometimes the most important thing is not to conquer a city, but to decide who can continue to supply it. A silent return. For centuries, sieges were one of the tools more brutal and effective of the war. Surrounding a city, cutting off supplies, and waiting for hunger, exhaustion, or lack of ammunition to do the job was a military logic as old as empires themselves. Ukraine is now recovering that same idea, but adapted to the drone era. The big difference is that you no longer need to physically surround a city or send thousands of soldiers to isolate it. It is enough to control the roads, monitor movements and constantly destroy everything that enters or leaves. What is happening around Mariupol It is beginning to look less like a traditional war and more like a medieval siege executed from the air and hundreds of kilometers away. Mariupol as a laboratory. After conquering Mariupol in 2022, Russia turned the city into one of the ggreat logistics centers of its southern front, using its roads and port to move fuel, ammunition, troops and equipment towards Donetsk and Zaporizhia. Ukraine has started to attack precisely that circulation network. Reconnaissance and attack drones patrol the main access routes to the city looking for tanker trucks, ammunition transports or logistical convoys. The logic is extremely simple and very old: There is no need to destroy a fortified position if you can prevent it from continuing to function. According to different military sources and published videos by Ukrainian units, some drones already operate up to 160 kilometers within of territory controlled by Russia, turning entire roads into permanent risk zones for any Russian military vehicle. Turn logistics into the new front. The most important transformation of this strategy is that the main objective is no longer necessarily soldiers, tanks or trenches. They are the supplies. Ukraine is exploiting a classic vulnerability: any army depends on fuel, food, ammunition and constant transportation to maintain positions. The drones greatly facilitate that job because logistics trucks are relatively easy targets: they follow predictable routes, have little protection and often transport extremely flammable or explosive material. Even small ammunition can destroy them completely. That explains why Ukraine is dedicating so many resources to chasing supply vehicles instead of directly attacking fortified positions that are much more difficult to neutralize. From Mariupol to Moscow. The same logic also appears behind the massive drone attacks against Moscow. They remembered in Insider that Ukraine no longer uses only small improvised FPVs near the front. Now deploy long-range platforms such as FP-1 Firepointthe RS-1 Bars or the new Bars-SM Gladiatorhybrid drones between a cruise missile and unmanned aircraft capable of traveling hundreds of kilometers and crossing one of the densest anti-aircraft networks in the world. The objective is not only to cause specific damage, but to force Russia to disperse defensesspending resources and living under constant pressure even far from the front. The attack with more than 120 drones on the Moscow region demonstrates the extent to which Ukraine attempts to transfer the logic of attrition and isolation far beyond the traditional battle lines. A battle for movement. What is really important is that Ukraine seems to be redefining a fundamental idea of modern warfare: it is no longer necessary to completely control the terrain to control the situation. Just control movement. If any road can be surveilled by drones, any convoy can be destroyed and any resupply can end up intercepted, maintaining a position begins to be much more difficult even if the enemy retains numerical superiority. There is no doubt, that profoundly changes traditional military logic. The future sieges They may no longer be represented with circles surrounding cities on a map, but with invisible networks of drones capable of slowly collapsing enemy logistics without the need for major ground offensives. The war in Ukraine is demonstrating precisely that: that today you can isolate a city, wear down an army and force it to abandon positions without moving practically a single soldier. Image | Pexels In Xataka | Once again, Ukraine has opened a missile launched by Russia. Once again, surprising manufacturers have been found In Xataka | Russia has been advancing at a snail’s pace in Ukraine for months. That’s about to change because of one season: summer.

Ukraine has opened the missile that devastated kyiv. They have found 100 reasons to be angry, and not exactly with Russia

May 18, 2026 by usatoday24

In 2014, after the downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, international investigators spent months reconstructing fragments metallic weapons scattered among fields and roads to identify the weapon responsible. One of the biggest surprises was not just the missile itself, but the enormous amount of information that they could reveal small pieces seemingly insignificant. Ukraine has been “surprised” for some time by what is inside Russian war technology, but the latest perhaps exceeds anything seen before. The 100 components that should not be there. It we have been counting with numerous intercepted drones and missiles by kyiv, but the latest “unboxing” has set off alarms. The reason? When the Ukrainian teams they began to analyze the remains of the Kh-101 missiles that had hit residential buildings in the capital, they hoped to find Russian technology, perhaps Chinese parts or improvised systems to avoid sanctions. What they found was much more uncomfortable for the West: more than one hundred components manufactured by American and European companies inside each missile. Chips, microelectronics and systems produced years after sanctions began, including from this same 2026continued to appear in some of the most advanced weapons in the Russian arsenal. For Ukraine, the discovery has ended up generating a particularly bitter sensation: the missiles that they devastate the cities Ukrainians continue to partially depend on technology designed and manufactured by the same countries that support kyiv militarily. The Kh-101 is mounted on pylons The great crack of sanctions. He Kh-101 case is revealing one of the biggest problems of modern technological warfare: sanctioning does not necessarily mean cut off the supply real. Russia continue accessing to Western microelectronics through re-exports, intermediaries, opaque distributors and commercial networks that are extremely difficult to control. Some pieces even arrive from china as clones or compatible copies of Western designs. The result is that Moscow has achieved maintain and expand its missile production despite economic isolation. Ukraine maintains that many of the components found were fOpened in 2024 and 2025years after the sanctions packages that were supposed to strangle Russian military capacity. The feeling in kyiv is that there is a huge difference between announcing restrictions and making them actually work. The missile that Russia does not stop perfecting. Yes, because the Kh-101 has become a of the central pieces of the Russian air campaign. Launched from strategic bombers and designed for long-range flights at low altitude, Moscow has multiplied its production since 2022 to levels far above those before the invasion. But also, Russia is continually modifying the missile to make it more difficult to intercept. Ukraine assures that the new versions incorporate anti-interference improvements, more sophisticated navigation systems, double charges reducing fuel and even fragmentation munitions with zirconium elements to increase damage. kyiv continues to intercept a good part of them, but each new development forces spend more resources defenses and demonstrates that Russia maintains sufficient industrial capacity to sustain a prolonged technological war. The Western Paradox. Also it we have been counting. The history of the Kh-101 reflects, one more timean extremely uncomfortable contradiction for Europe and the United States. As the West delivers anti-aircraft systems, intelligence and economic aid to Ukraine, part of the global technology industry it keeps leaking towards the Russian military machine. In practice, some Western companies may end up seeing their own chips end up inside the missiles which then force the use of expensive Patriot or NASAMS interceptors also financed by the West. That paradox explains much of the Ukrainian frustration. For kyiv, the problem is no longer just Russia, but the inability of global trade chains to prevent critical technology from ending up feeding the Kremlin’s military production. The industrial war of the 21st century. He analysis of the remains The attack on kyiv is also leaving a deeper conclusion about how modern wars work. No great power today manufactures advanced weapons completely isolated of the global market. Missiles, drones and guidance systems depend of an international network of microelectronics, software and components extremely difficult to control. Russia has shown that even under massive sanctions can still access much of that global technological infrastructure. And Ukraine has discovered something equally disturbing: that in the wars of the 21st century, open a missile enemy is no longer only useful for studying its military technology. It also serves to discover to what extent the connected world continues feeding indirectly the war he is trying to stop. Image | Office of the President of Ukraine, Russia MoD In Xataka | Russia has been advancing at a snail’s pace in Ukraine for months. That’s about to change because of one season: summer. In Xataka | The war in Ukraine has entered such a crazy phase that soldiers are shooting at their own drones

Russia has been advancing at a snail’s pace in Ukraine for months. That’s about to change because of one season: summer.

May 16, 2026 by usatoday24

During World War II, many commanders discovered that a simple station could completely alter the rhythm of a military campaign: on the eastern front, the arrival of spring turned roads and fields into seas of mud capable of immobilizing tanks for weeks, while summer suddenly reopened enormous corridors of advance for both armies. The war that no longer advances as before. I counted the weekend the new york times that for months, the Kremlin has tried to sell the idea that a Russian victory in Ukraine is only a matter of time, pressuring even Trump and Western negotiators with the argument that kyiv Donbas will end up losing inevitably. However, on the ground the reality is much less spectacular. Russia has been advancing at a snail’s pace practically all year, to the point that, maintaining the current pace, it would take decades to completely occupy the region whose surrender it demands to negotiate peace. The problem is that this apparent paralysis can be misleading. Both Ukrainian commanders and military analysts carry weeks warning that summer is slowly changing the conditions of the front: the dry terrain allows the use of motorcycles and light vehicles to recover, the vegetation offers coverage against drones and Russian infiltrations are beginning to gain effectiveness after extremely difficult months for Moscow. The front is a drone war. The great transformation of this phase of the war is that Russia can no longer advance as in previous conflicts. Massive assaults with armored columns have become too vulnerable in a field of battle saturated by dronessensors and constant surveillance. Every movement is exposed from the air and any concentration of troops can be quickly destroyed. That has forced Moscow to completely modify its tactics. Now small groups of soldiers predominate slowly infiltratingon foot or on motorcycles, trying to open gradual gaps within a huge “gray zone” where control of the territory is no longer clear for either side. In other words, the conflict is looking less and less like a conventional war and more like a technological competition permanent between drones, electronic warfare and improvised survival systems. Russia makes little progress, but continues to push. The big problem for Ukraine is that even these minimal advances remain generating constant wear. Russia has suffered huge human lossesrecruitment problems and technological difficulties, including communications restrictions and obstacles to coordinate your drones. However, the Kremlin appears to have accepted that a slow and costly war remains preferable to launching large, risky offensives that could end in failure. In places like Pokrovsk or Chasiv YarMoscow has been fighting for years without managing to definitively break the front, but it has not retreated decisively either. Their troops infiltrate little by little, occupy temporary positions and turn huge areas of Donbas into spaces impossible for either army to completely control. The sensation is that of heavy, slow and damaged machinery that still continues advancing meter by meter. Summer is coming. That’s where it comes into play the seasonal factor which worries kyiv so much. During the mud and cold, Ukrainian drones have been especially effective at detecting Russian movements over open terrain. But the arrival of summer changes part of those dynamics. Trees and vegetation make aerial surveillance difficult, dry routes allow faster movement, and small Russian units find more opportunities to infiltrate without being immediately detected. In fact, Ukrainian officials recognize that Russian operations are already showing signs of improvement and that offensive activity is intensifying along the front. This is not yet a large mechanized offensive like those at the beginning of the war, but something much more disturbing: a constant pressure and diffuse design designed to exploit any weakness accumulated after years of wear. Between wear and tear and negotiation. All this greatly complicates international negotiations. Putin needs keep the image of a Russia advancing towards victory to pressure Ukraine and convince the United States that time is on the Kremlin’s side. But the real data show an exhausted army, enormous human losses and a front that barely moves. At the same time, Ukraine also does not have a comfortable situation: suffers from personnel shortages, desertions and difficulties in sustaining such a technological and costly war indefinitely. That’s why summer worries so much on both sides. Not because it will produce an immediate definitive rupture, but because it may slightly alter the balance of a war that has been trapped for months in a kind of lethal stalemate. And in a conflict where every kilometer costs thousands of lives, even small changes in the terrain, vegetation or climate They can end up having enormous strategic consequences. Image | Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 7th Army Training Command In Xataka | While we all look at Iran, something is moving in the Arctic Circle: Russia is sending bombers with missiles In Xataka | To achieve the milestone of building the largest drone industry without China, Ukraine has found an explosive ally: Taiwan

The war in Ukraine has entered such a crazy phase that soldiers are shooting at their own drones

May 15, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1943, during a night mission over Europe, several British pilots returned convinced that they had been pursued by strange luminous objects that appeared and disappeared around their planes. Some thought it was a secret German weapon, others thought it was nervous breakdowns caused by the stress of combat. Decades later, that aerial confusion He continues to remember a disturbing idea: there are moments in wars where the problem is no longer just the enemy. A schizophrenic heaven. They counted on Insider that the war in Ukraine has entered such a phaseDrone Aturation that, in many sectors of the front, soldiers no longer know what aircraft flies over their heads or who controls it. The consequence is an almost absurd situation even by military standards: Ukrainian troops shooting against their own drones for pure survival, operators cutting with scissors fiber optic cables without knowing if they belong to the enemy or a friendly unit and electronic warfare systems blocking any signal that appears in the air even if that means disabling their own equipment. The battlefield has become so crowded with small flying devices, jammers and data links that distinguishing between ally and enemy takes mere seconds. If something approaches too quickly, the automatic reaction is to destroy it first and ask later. Disposable drones due to excess. Part of the problem stems from how both sides have transformed the drone into a mass consumption weapon. These are no longer expensive and scarce platforms like those used by Western powers a decade ago, but rather relatively cheap systems manufactured at enormous speed and designed to be constantly lost. Russia and Ukraine consume drones in such gigantic amounts that losses due to friendly fire have been integrated almost as another operational cost. Units expect to lose devices due to interference, coordination errors, enemy jamming or simply because a nervous soldier open fire against any object that buzzes near your position. The result is a combat environment where technological saturation has begun to generate chaos even within one’s own side. The new logic: destroy them before they exist. This uncontrolled explosion in the use of drones is also pushing the war towards a new strategic stage: attack the factories before the devices in flight. Russia and Ukraine have understood that intercepting drones one by one is no longer enough when both produce thousands of systems continuously. That’s why the long range attacks attacks against industrial plants, logistics centers and component manufacturers have multiplied in recent months. Ukraine is hitting Russian facilities linked to Shahed drones, sensors, navigation modules and jam-resistant electronic systems, as Russia seeks destroy Ukrainian workshops where FPV drones or long-range attack devices capable of penetrating hundreds of kilometers into Russian territory are assembled. The logic begins to look less like a conventional war and more like a permanent industrial hunt. Electronics don’t keep up. The problem for both sides is that technological adaptation it moves too fast. Each defensive upgrade generates an immediate modification to enemy drones. Interference systems stop working when faced with fiber optic links. GPS locks lose effectiveness against new navigation modules. Drones incorporate more autonomy, greater processing capacity and increasing resistance to electronic countermeasures. In parallel, Ukraine and Russia they use satellite intelligencepattern analysis and constant recognition to locate production centers, antennas, warehouses and logistics chains. The front already It doesn’t end in the trenches.: continues hundreds or thousands of kilometers behind, inside factories, industrial parks and supply networks that have become priority military targets. A machine out of control. The most disturbing thing is that this dynamic gives the sensation of having partially independent of the soldiers themselves. There is drones attacking dronesautomatic systems jamming any available signal, operators trying coordinate safe corridors so that their own devices are not demolished and entire factories turned into objectives daily to sustain a rate of losses that seems impossible to absorb. If you like, the war in Ukraine is still a war of artillery and attrition, but it is also transforming into something much stranger: an aerial ecosystem saturated with cheap and disposable machines where survival depends on react before identifying. And when an army ends up shooting at its own drones because there are too many devices in the sky to distinguish them, it means that the conflict has crossed a whole new frontier. And crazy. Image | mod-gov-ua In Xataka | Ukraine has found a new way to assault buildings occupied by Russia: sending a robot with a 300-kilogram surprise In Xataka | The war in Ukraine is being filled with “Mad Max” ships: metal screens and nets against FPV drones in the Black Sea

To achieve the milestone of building the largest drone industry without China, Ukraine has found an explosive ally: Taiwan

May 7, 2026 by usatoday24

In the midst of the Cold War, several Western engineers they were surprised upon discovering that some of the most reliable small electronic components on the world market came from an island that barely made the big geopolitical headlines. Decades later, that silent specialization in manufacturing tiny and apparently invisible parts would end up becoming one of the industrial capabilities most coveted on the planet. The war that changed an industry. For decades, Taiwan was known primarily for making chipselectronic components and invisible parts that ended up inside telephones, computers or servers spread all over the planet, but modern wars are beginning to push that industrial capacity towards another, much more explosive terrain. The Guardian said that what is happening between Ukraine and Taiwan reflects a quiet change that barely existed a few years ago: the creation of a new technological alliance born directly from drone warfrom Chinese pressure and the desperate need to produce millions of cheap, autonomous and combat-ready systems. Ukraine wants to break its dependence on China. The war forced Ukraine to build at full speed a gigantic industry of drones capable of feeding a front that consumes absurd quantities of devices every month. The problem is that much of the global supply chain remains dominated by China: Motors, batteries, navigation systems, electronic components and rare earths continue to depend heavily on Chinese manufacturers. As we said, kyiv began to consider this dependence as a strategic risk When suspicions grew about indirect support from Beijing to Russia and fears grew of possible export restrictions. There Taiwan began to appear as an alternative unexpectedly important. His huge experience in semiconductors, microelectronics, electronic integration and advanced technological production made it one of the few places capable of supplying critical parts without being completely dependent on the West or trapped under direct Chinese control. For Ukraine, finding industrial partners outside of China stopped being a commercial issue and became literally a matter of survival. And Taiwan found Ukraine. While Ukraine seeks to produce millions of drones, gradually moving away from China, Taiwan observes the conflict with another concern: the possibility of one day confronting Beijing on its own territory. That coincidence of threats is creating a relationship ever deeper between both worlds. In fact, The New York Times said what Taiwanese engineers They send drones to Ukraine to be tested directly in combat, American companies transfer designs born on the Ukrainian front to Taiwanese production and former Taiwanese soldiers who today fight in Ukraine return home telling how modern war really works. Many Taiwanese militaries are beginning to discover that traditional doctrines are completely outweighed by swarms of FPV drones, unmanned maritime systems or cheap ground robots capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles. Ukraine is thus becoming a kind of university improvised military for Taiwan, one where the lessons do not come from simulations but from a real front where every mistake costs lives. The new military industry no longer resembles the old one. One of the most profound changes of this war is that military production no longer depends solely on gigantic state factories or large traditional contractors. Ukraine has developed more than one hundreds of local manufacturers of components while constantly adapting its systems to specific front-line needs. Ukrainian companies modify drones, software and guidance systems at a much higher speed to the Western classical industry. Taiwan fits perfectly in that transformation because it has exactly what Ukraine needs to accelerate that production: advanced electronics, specialized chips and flexible industrial capacity. Several Taiwanese companies already operate from Poland or Lithuania to indirectly supply kyiv, while Taiwanese drone exports to Europe have skyrocketed massively. In parallel, American companies are using Ukraine and Taiwan like two extremes of the same industrial chain: Ukraine provides combat experience and accelerated development, and Taiwan provides technological capacity and scalable manufacturing. The obsession with building drones outside of China. Both Ukraine and Taiwan share another priority that is becoming almost an industrial doctrine: building supply chains at the expense of Beijing. The problem is much more complicated than it seems because even many components manufactured outside China still use materials, batteries or magnets that depend from Chinese suppliers. Even so, both territories try gradually reduce that exhibition. Taiwan wants to build a drone industry completely disengaged from China by 2027 and increase its own production of rare earth magnets, while Ukraine continues to shift production within its borders. There is no doubt, the challenge is gigantic because Chinese products continue to be much cheaper and more abundant, but strategic logic is beginning to outweigh the economic cost. In the middle of a war, the priority shifts from buying the cheapest to ensuring the supply chain continues to function when the next crisis hits. Building something bigger than drones. If you also want, the most important thing in this relationship may not only be the production of drones, but the emergence of a new technological and military axis informal between two territories that live under permanent threat from much larger neighbors. Ukraine contributes real experience of war, proven tactics and a brutal speed of innovation under extreme pressure. Taiwan contributes industrial capacitysemiconductors and access to critical technologies that the West does not produce quickly enough. The result is beginning to look like something much more ambitious: an entire international network of distributed military production where private companies, engineers, volunteers and manufacturers work beyond official diplomatic limitations. Even the Ukrainian government recognize as drone factories based on Ukrainian designs are popping up outside its borders, including one in Taiwan. One more thing. Ultimately, what the war is accelerating is an idea that a few years ago would have seemed improbable: that to build the largest drone industry on the planet outside chinaUkraine has ended up finding one of its most valuable and strategic allies in Taiwan. Image | x, Trydence In Xataka | Today in “the war in Ukraine beyond all comprehension”: drone pilots are training with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ In Xataka | Ukraine has barely … Read more

Iran did to the US what Ukraine did to Russia in Operation Spiderweb

May 7, 2026 by usatoday24

In the first weeks of the war, published reports on the damage inflicted by Iran to bases and radars of Washington in the Middle East. For example, attacks on 14 US military sites or air defense facilities were documented, or the bombing of a US base in Kuwaitthe first time in years that an enemy fighter jet hit a US base. However, it has now just become known that, in reality, it has been much worse. The war that the images began to reveal. For years, Western armies assumed that absolute control of the air and satellites was enough to hide damage, movements and weaknesses in the middle of a war… until recent conflicts began to demonstrate just the opposite. In Ukraine, simple commercial photographs Taken from space, they allowed Russian convoys to be followed, bombers to be located, and destroyed facilities to be detected long before governments acknowledged anything. To that mission he called it Spiderweb. It so happens that the same thing is happening now in the Middle East. What began as a campaign presented by Washington as a punishment operation against Iran has ended up leaving an image much more uncomfortable: that satellite photographs are showing a level of destruction on US facilities much higher than publicly admitted. The uncomfortable discovery. Latest Washington Post analysis More than a hundred satellite images have revealed that Iran hit at least 228 military structures or equipment Americans distributed throughout bases in the Middle East, a figure much higher than that officially recognized. The impacts hit hangars, barracks, fuel tanks, Patriot systems, THAAD radarscommunications centers, electrical installations and even strategic aircraft, making it clear that Tehran was not launching symbolic or indiscriminate attacks. The most delicate thing for the United States is that many of these images initially came from Iranian media and were subsequently verified through European systems and other independent commercial sources. In other words, the initial narrative of limited attacks began to collapse when the images began to show something much more serious: that Iran had achieved penetrate advanced defenses and hit critical American infrastructure in numerous countries at the same time. Damage to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait visible on March 4 Iran found the weak point of the bases. Wapo counted that one of the most striking aspects of the attacks is the precision with which they were executed. Military analysts highlighted the absence of random craters and the concentration of impacts on specific targets, a sign that Iran had very detailed prior intelligence on US facilities. The attacks were not limited to military runways or depots traditional facilities, they also hit gymnasiums, lodgings, mess halls, and staff buildings, reflecting a deliberate attempt to increase human casualties and force the United States to empty entire bases (as, in fact, that’s how it happened). Because several facilities ended up being considered too dangerous to operate normally, causing partial evacuations and the transfer of troops beyond Iranian reach. Some bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, used to launch attacks against Iran or deploy HIMARS systems, were especially punishedfueling the feeling that Tehran had managed to quickly identify which platforms were directly participating in the campaign. Nine fuel tanks at the Ali al-Salem air base in Kuwait were damaged Drones changed everything. Much of this battlefield transformation is directly related to a lesson learned in Ukraine: cheap and unidirectional attack drones are eroding the traditional advantage of great powers. American experts recognize that the Pentagon did not adapt its bases quickly enough to this new threat, despite spending years observing how relatively simple drones destroyed armored vehicles, radars or critical infrastructure in other conflicts. Although many Iranian drones carried reduced explosive charges, they were extremely difficult to intercept and they could attack stationary targets with enormous precision. This forced the consumption of gigantic quantities of Patriot and THAAD interceptors, dangerously reducing American and allied reserves in just a few weeks. The result was paradoxical: the most advanced military power in the world began to be forced to play defense around its own bases, while Iran found relatively cheap ways to overwhelm multibillion-dollar anti-aircraft systems. The enormous hidden wear. While Washington publicly insisted that the damage did not significantly alter the military campaign, the images they showed a more complex reality. Some key facilities were damaged considered “extensive” even by American officials, and part of the regional command had to be relocated out of the Middle East. As we said, the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain was one of the most affected areasto the point of moving functions to Florida, while the internal debate grows over whether certain bases will operate as before. Worrying signs also emerged on structural failures: Strategic aircraft repeatedly parked in vulnerable positions, insufficiently protected tactical centers, and a shortage of hardened shelters for critical personnel and equipment. All of this fueled one conclusion: that the United States had underestimated both Iranian resilience and the speed with which modern wars are making transparent facilities that previously seemed untouchable. The true strategic signal that this war leaves. Beyond the specific damage, what really worries strategists and military personnel is the change of perception left by satellite images. For decades, the presence of US bases throughout the Middle East functioned as a symbol of absolute control and immediate response capacity, but now those same facilities appear exposedvulnerable and permanently observed from the air and from space. If you will, the conflict has left a feeling that is difficult to ignore: that Iran may not be able to defeat the United States militarily in a conventional confrontation, but it can. inflict enough damageattrition and political pressure to profoundly alter the US strategic calculation in the region. And that idea that began with Spiderweb operation in Ukrainemultiplied by hundreds of photographs of destroyed hangars, hit radars and partially emptied bases, may end up being one of the most important consequences of the entire war. Image | Iran media, Planet In Xataka | Türkiye has taken a look at the … Read more

In three days, Russia celebrates its Victory Day. And Ukraine has a surprise prepared 1,500 kilometers away

May 6, 2026 by usatoday24

In May 1987, a young 19-year-old German pilot named Mathias Rust He managed to cross a good part of Soviet airspace with a small civilian plane and land next to Red Square. without being stopped. The episode caused enormous humiliation for the USSR because it showed that even the heart of Moscow could be reached in ways that no one expected. Countdown to Putin’s big parade. Russia prepares for May 9, the most symbolic day of its entire political and military calendar, while Ukraine intensifies a campaign of attacks that seems designed precisely to ruin that sense of control and security. The Kremlin has even announced a unilateral truce for the days of the parade, but kyiv has responded by making it clear that it does not intend to coordinate anything with Moscow and remembering that Russia cannot quietly celebrate Victory Day “without the good will of Ukraine.” The situation is especially uncomfortable for Putin because, for the first time in many years, Moscow faces this date with the feeling that even its capital can become a target. Moscow no longer seems like a completely safe place. The recent attack against a skyscraper luxury hotel located a few kilometers from the Kremlin has been much more than a simple symbolic coup. Ukraine has been trying to bother to Moscow ahead of the May 9 parade, but this time the message comes in a different context: Russia has reduced the size of the event, eliminated some of the heavy military deployment and greatly reinforced the defenses around the capital for fear of new drones. Meanwhile, Zelensky has hinted directly that Moscow fears seeing drones flying over Red Square during the parade, something unthinkable just a few years ago and extremely delicate for a celebration designed precisely to project power and control. The big news is the distance. The most important change in this phase of the war is happening far beyond Moscow. Ukraine is managing to attack industrial cities and military bases located more than 1,500 kilometers from the front, reaching regions of the Urals that for decades were considered a safe rear even in Soviet times. Cities like Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk or Perm begin to experience airport closuresinternet restrictions and attacks against refineriesmilitary installations or industrial infrastructures. The psychological impact is enormous because many of these areas experienced the war as something distant until just a few months ago. New missiles and drones are changing the rules. The appearance of the transonic missile F-5 Flamingo reflects the extent to which Ukraine is transforming its deep strike capability. kyiv claims to have used this system to destroy a factory Russian military about 1,500 kilometers away, a facility linked to components for missiles, aviation and naval systems. Beyond the specific damage, what is important is the trend: Ukraine no longer depends solely on improvised drones or isolated attacks, but is beginning to build a sustained capacity to hit strategic infrastructure deep inside Russia. The jam-resistant navigation systems, extreme range and possible integration of Western technology clearly show that kyiv is trying to make Russian territorial depth much less useful than it was at the start of the war. The Soviet rearguard in doubt. Plus: there is a huge historical burden in the places that Ukraine is attacking. During the Second World War, much of the Soviet industry was moved to the Urals precisely because they were considered territories impossible to reach from Europe. Cities like Chelyabinsk became known as “Tankograd” because of the concentration of military factories far from the front. Now, eighty years later, Ukrainian drones and missiles are demonstrating that that strategic depth no longer guarantees security. What once required bombers and huge air campaigns can now be achieved with long-range drones and relatively cheap missiles capable of traversing thousands of kilometers. Avoid vulnerability on its most important day. Because he May 9 parade It is not just any ceremony for Russia. It is the great annual showcase of Russian military power, the event where the Kremlin connects the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with Putin’s current political legitimacy. That is precisely why it is so sensitive that Ukraine is increasing pressure just before the event. Russia is shooting down hundreds of drones around Moscow and strengthening security of the capital while trying to avoid any image of chaos during a day observed by foreign leaders and broadcast throughout the country. The problem for the Kremlin is that Ukraine has already managed to install a most uncomfortable idea: even more than 1,500 kilometers from the front, there is no longer a complete sense of refuge, and that includes beyond the Urals. Image | Fire Point In Xataka | Today in “the war in Ukraine beyond all comprehension”: drone pilots are training with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ In Xataka | Ukraine has barely captured any North Korean soldiers. The reason is brutally simple: they prefer to immolate themselves

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