Wars

They learned cinema on YouTube, they have raised 300 million with their films and they have achieved something: defeating Star Wars

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Three horror movies. Budgets ranging from a ridiculous million dollars for one to ten million for another. Directors of 26, 34 and 20 years old trained on YouTube, not in schools for children of. So far in 2026, those three films have grossed more than $300 million in the North American market. Franchise cinema is not dead, of course, and we are going to prove it this year with the premiere of ‘Doomsday‘ (although, for once, surprises are no longer ruled out). But there are issues that seem to be changing in another sense. The ‘Backrooms’ explosion. Last weekend,’Backrooms‘ (directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons) collection 81.4 million dollars in North America and 118 million worldwide in its first weekend (and it does not arrive in countries like Spain until the end of June), with a budget of only ten million. It is the biggest premiere in the history of A24surpassing the previous record held by ‘Civil War‘by Alex Garland. Parsons also becomes the youngest director to top the US domestic box office, taking that record from Josh Trank, who was 27 years old when ‘Chronicle’ topped the charts in 2012. Unstoppable obsession. At the same time, ‘Obsession’ (by Curry Barker, 26 years old) added 26.4 million in its third weekend, 54% more than the previous week, starting from a budget of one million dollars. Its domestic total already exceeds 104 million. Meanwhile, ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘, with a budget of 165 million, fell 69% compared to its opening week and was third on the list of box office receipts that week. We will see ‘Obsession’ this weekend in Spain. The precedent. January had already given the first sign. ‘Iron Lung’ (written, directed, starring and self-distributed by Mark Fischbach, Markiplier on YouTube, 34 years old), debuted with 17.8 million domestic dollars and reached 52 million at the global box office from a budget of three. Fischbach didn’t even go through a study: he self-financed and distributed the film himselfpocketing half of the world gross. Young audience. It is obvious where these collections come from: 86% of the opening audience for ‘Backrooms’ was under 35 years old, and 44% under 21. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’, not to get away from Disney’s setback with a financially similar debut the previous week, had a share of those under 25 years of age of 27%, although on paper, it should have attracted more viewers of that age (which corroborates that at this point ‘Star Wars’ is entirely a franchise for kids over forty.) These directors who came from YouTube did not summon a new audience, but rather the one they already brought from the internet. Warner Bros. Motion Pictures co-head Michael De Luca summed it up in a conference in which said that these directors “They are in dialogue with their audience from the first moment.” By the time movies like these hit theaters, he added, “they’ve already had a billion screenings.” Three directors, a common pattern. In 2022, Kane Parsons uploaded a nine-minute short film to YouTube titled ‘The Backrooms (Found Footage)’shot from his bedroom with the help of the 3D graphics software Blender. Over the next few years, episodes of the series They accumulated more than 197 million views. Curry Barker, on the other hand, came from the sketch comedy channel ‘That’s a Bad Idea’ which currently has over 700 million cumulative views across platforms. In 2024 he filmed ‘Milk & Serial’, a found footage horror with $800 budget, almost all of it spent on the camera. He spent a year trying to get mainstream distribution without success. He uploaded it for free to YouTube and accumulated 1.6 million views. Mark Fischbach, for his part, has been on YouTube since 2012. He had experimented with the film format in two of his own productions for YouTube (‘A Heist with Markiplier’ and ‘In Space with Markiplier’) before adapting ‘Iron Lung’, David Szymanski’s indie horror video game published in 2022. Why the terror. American terror has exceeded 800 million dollars worldwide so far this year, and these three films directed by YouTube creators account for a third of that figure. But… why this devotion to the genre, which goes hand in hand with the good state of health that enjoy in recent years? Horror operates well with low budgets, and the young audience that grew up with creepypasta and found footages on YouTube has a particular relationship with that aesthetic space. Testing ground. The video clips of the nineties were the laboratory where authors such as David Fincher or Michel Gondry developed their visual grammar before jumping into cinema. Now, YouTube serves as a testing ground for the new generation of filmmakers. That’s why studios and agents now scour YouTube for new names. Now what. Barker has already filmed his next film, a horror comedy titled ‘Anything but Ghosts’, and A24 has hired him for a remake of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. Parsons wants to expand the ‘Backrooms’ universe, possibly in television format. Fischbach, for his part, has already made it clear that he would like to collaborate with a large studio on future projects, without giving up creative control. It is possibly the one with the most traditional discovery profile in the underground and jump to the big leagues. For now, ‘Backrooms’ could end its box office career between $140 and $160 million in the United States alone, which would make the film one of the biggest hits of the year. Not bad for an idea that started as just another meme on 4chan. In Xataka | Cinema can only survive by competing in the “experience” market. That’s why Madrid already has its 70 mm projector

Emilia Clarke talks about her work in Marvel, Star Wars and Terminator: “it should never have happened”

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In one recent interviewEmilia Clarke reviewed her post-‘Game of Thrones’ career with unusual frankness. About ‘Secret Invasion’ he said: “I don’t think anyone liked the series.” On ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’: “The viewers were not happy either.” On ‘Terminator: Genisys’: “It should never have happened.” He adds: “But they were jobs I said yes to. I joined franchises that were already big and established. That’s why I don’t take it personally.” It is difficult to find a better summary of how the big franchise business works in Hollywood. Some collections. Let’s see if Clarke’s feeling that they were failures is accompanied by data. ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ cost between 275 and 300 million dollars and raised 393 million worldwide. According to is calculatedDisney lost about $77 million on the film, making it Star Wars’ first commercial failure. ‘Secret Invasion’ had a production cost of 211.6 million dollars, a figure known thanks to the transparency demands of the UK tax incentive program, where it was filmed. More than ‘Barbie’ or ‘Oppenheimer’ cost that same year. Viewership figures on Disney+ in its first five days were the second lowest of any MCU production, only above ‘Ms. Marvel’. Critical reception was equally poor. Regarding ‘Terminator: Genesis’, 155 million budget, collection insufficient to justify sequels that had already been announced, and weak reviews. It’s not the first. In 2021, with the MCU still dominating the box office, Anthony Hopkins summarized his experience in the ‘Thor’ trilogy, between 2011 and 2017: “They put armor on me and gave me a beard. Sit on the throne, shout a little. If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s acting in front of nothing.” Chris Hemsworth came to similar conclusions: recognized that in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder‘ “I got stuck improvising and clowning around, and became a parody of myself.” This time, critics and the public accompanied him in doubts. Hemsworth has described the dynamic that he calls “the curse of the superhero,” which is simply that “you get pigeonholed.” But at the same time he rejects the attitude of actors like Clarke, who criticize Marvel when their projects don’t work: “They are successful movies: put me in one. Mine doesn’t work? Well, I attack them all.” What Clarke is really saying. The heart of Clarke’s complaint is that major franchises operate as hiring machines that offer global visibility and financial rewards that few independent productions match. In return, the actor’s creative control over the result is minimal. Clarke said in the same interview that in ‘Game of Thrones’ she received the scripts and did “everything in my power to understand and empathize with the decisions.” This was not the case in later franchises. Not just Marvel. The pattern is not exclusive to a single franchise. When actress Jamie Lee Curtis rejected in 2022 participate in Marvel projects, he did so with the same type of argument as Hopkins: “they will stick stitches in my body and force me to perform in some warehouse.” What does seem to be clear and Clarke demonstrates is that when there is a commercial failure, actors seem to feel freer to point out the obvious shortcomings of a system in which they are just more meat for the content grinder. In Xataka | I have detected the exact moment in which things at Marvel began to fail and that culminated in ‘Captain America’

This Star Trek movie was canceled in 1977 because science fiction had no future. Two weeks later Star Wars premiered

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In the mid-1970s, ‘Star Trek‘ was experiencing a unique phenomenon in the entertainment industry. The original series, canceled in 1969 after three seasons of discreet audiences, had found an unexpected second life. Continuous reruns and fan enthusiasm (the first phenomenon of its kind to develop pop culture) encouraged Paramount to extend the original mythology. In 1976, a full-page advertisement appeared in ‘The New York Times’ proclaiming the imminent production of a Star Trek film: ‘Planet of the Titans’, and which aspired to take the franchise into uncharted cinematic territories. The origin. Producer Gerald Isenberg assumed executive control of the project in July 1976, intending to transform ‘Star Trek’ into a first-rate cinematic event. To direct, Paramount hired Philip Kaufman, a filmmaker whose profile was unconventional for a franchise. Kaufman would direct acclaimed works such as ‘Chosen for Glory’ and would delve into a science fiction very different from ‘Star Trek’ in the remake of ‘Invasion of the Ultracorps’ in 1978. But by 1976 he had already directed the western ‘No Law or Hope’ and the arctic adventures of ‘The White Dawn’. Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, British writers of the superb and extremely rare ‘Shadow Menace’, were chosen as scriptwriters. The conceptual basis of the project was nourished by ambitious sources: Kaufman and Isenberg structured the narrative inspired by the novel ‘The Last and the First Humanity’ by Olaf Stapledon, which traces human evolution over billions of years. As a scientific advisor, Paramount hired Jesco von Puttkamer, a NASA engineer. Ralph McQuarriewhose conceptual work for ‘Star Wars’ was then in full development, would do the designs. The conflicts. Creative tensions quickly emerged. Kaufman aspired to create a cinematographic work that would dialogue with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ in visual and philosophical complexity. Gene Roddenberry, creator of the original series, defended its essence. Bryant and Scott they were trapped between these two incompatible visions, trying to balance the artistic ambitions of one and the fidelity of the other. The budget, initially set at three million dollars, rose to 10 million. What was it about? Captain James T. Kirk has disappeared three years ago, during a rescue mission near a black hole. The Enterprise remains operational, but Spock has returned to Vulcan. When Starfleet detects anomalous energetic emissions coming from the same black hole where Kirk was lost, Spock rejoins. They discover a planet trapped inside the black hole, the mythical home of the Titans, an ancient civilization possessing technology superior to that of humans. The planet is being inexorably sucked into the black hole. Spock locates Kirk, scarred by years of isolation and transformed by cosmic forces. The planned outcome was the most radical bet: to escape collapse, the Enterprise deliberately enters the black hole, emerging not in its time, but in our prehistory. The crew discovers that they themselves are the Titans of mythology. Kirk is Prometheus, the bringer of fire to early humanity. The script does not clarify whether the crew would finally manage to return to their time or would be trapped observing the slow development of human history that they themselves had started. Kirk is dead. But… why make a movie in which the legendary Kirk is practically absent? William Shatner’s contract with Paramount had expired, leading Bryant and Scott to develop a first draft that eliminated Kirk. After several weeks of work, the studio informed them that an agreement had been reached and that Kirk should be reinstated as the lead. This twist forced a substantial rewrite of the material. And the situation with Leonard Nimoy was even more complex: the actor withdrew from the project due to a conflict over the unauthorized use of his image as Spock in a Heineken advertisement, but an agreement was finally reached. The cancellation. Bryant and Scott submitted their first completed draft on March 1, 1977, after months of intense creative negotiations, but ultimately walked away from the project. Kaufman personally took on the rewrite of the script. His version intensified the role of Spock and developed the dynamic with a Klingon played by none other than the legendary Toshiro Mifune. Just when he was convinced he had found the definitive story, he was told that Paramount had canceled the project. This happened in May 1977, just seventeen days before the premiere of ‘Star Wars’. Kaufman would always remember the phrase that a studio executive told him as justification for the cancellation: “there is no future in science fiction.” Why was it cancelled? They converged different factors: the increase in costs, the fear that ‘Star Wars’ would saturate the science fiction market and the belief that they had distanced themselves too much from the original series. When ‘Star Wars’ grossed more than $775 million worldwide, Paramount pitched ‘Star Trek: Phase II,’ a television series planned as the flagship of a new company television network. It would also be cancelled, although one of its scripts would eventually become the basis for ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’, released in December 1979. The legacy. ‘‘Planet of the Titans’ was not the first failed attempt to bring ‘Star Trek’ to the cinema, but rather one more link in a chain of frustrated projects that reflected Paramount’s uncertainty about how to capitalize on the franchise: there are cases as popular as the legendary and disturbing film ‘The God Thing’, written by Roddenberry himself in 1975, or the many attempts to recruit science fiction authors to contribute ideas for films, as happened with Harlan Ellison in the late seventies. And although something remained from the film in the future after the cancellation of ‘Planet of the Titans’ (for example, the concept designs They were reused in 2017 in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’), this cursed movie is the perfect example of what ‘Star Trek’ has always been. A sign that there are more ways to do science fiction outside of spectacle pulp of Star Wars and, at the same time, the confirmation that it is very complicated to do so. In Xataka | More and more … Read more

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

An underwater drone from Ukraine has changed the future of wars

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A little more than 24 hours ago an event occurred that was unprecedented in the history of war conflicts. It happens that there was only evidence from a video and statements of some involvedbut something else was missing that could certify that, indeed, an underwater drone had been able to disrupt a fortified port. Now there are no longer any doubts: the satellites have revealed what happened. Silent attack. The pfirst satellite images of the Ukrainian attack against a Russian submarine in Novorossiysk have confirmed that kyiv managed to introduce an unmanned underwater drone into one of the best protected ports in the Black Sea and detonate it a few meters from an Improved Kilo class diesel-electric submarine. According to the Ukrainian Security Serviceit would be the first known attack against a Russian ship using an unmanned underwater vehicle and, potentially, the first successful use of this type of system as an anti-ship weapon in a real conflict. Although the exact extent of the damage remains impossible to determine with certainty, the simple fact of having reached the objective is already a major operational and psychological milestone. What we know. Images obtained by commercial satellites confirm that the drone, named by Ukraine as Sub Sea Baby and until now unknown, detonated next to the stern of the submarine while it was moored to the dock. Part of the port infrastructure was clearly destroyed, consistent with the videos recorded from land and released by the SBU, where the explosion and damage to the dock can be seen. The submarine, a Project 636.3 Varshavyankaremains in the same position as before the attack, while two other units that were nearby have been displaced, suggesting an immediate security reaction. However, there are no unequivocal signs of sinking, no visible emergency operations, or fuel spills, which suggests that, if there was damage, it could be below the waterline or be of a limited nature, something impossible to confirm with aerial images alone. Satellite image after the attack, with a general view of the target submarine, inside the port, and another submarine moored outside. There are also other boats moored nearby Official denials. As expected, the Russian Ministry of Defense has denied any damage to the submarine or personnel, and has released a video which supposedly shows the ship intact, although without offering a clear view of the stern and with large areas censored. Still, even that material suggests concrete rubble on the dock, coinciding with the recorded explosion. The Black Sea Fleet has also rejected any operational impact, and Russian naval channels they have replicated that speechalthough without providing conclusive evidence. At this point, uncertainty is part of the information battlefield itself: Russia avoids recognizing vulnerabilities, while Ukraine emphasizes the audacity of the attack more than its physical effects. The same area seen before the attack, in an image from December 11, 2025. The gap in the defenses. Beyond the specific damage, the truly disruptive element of the attack is that the underwater drone managed to get through the defensive barriers of the port of Novorossiysk, designed to stop incursions Ukrainians. Those defenses had been deployed primarily in response to the surface drones that kyiv has used with notable success in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to adapt its port protection. The use of a UUV introduces a new dimension to the Russian defensive problem and confirms a key dynamic of the conflict: each countermeasure generates a different technological response, in a constant race of adaptation. Ukrainian ecosystem. He Sub Sea Baby It doesn’t come out of nowhere. Before this attack, Ukraine had already presented other underwater drones such as the Marichka, designed for kamikaze attacks against ships and maritime infrastructure, or the Toloka, of which fewer details are known. It is not clear whether there is a direct relationship between these systems, but the pattern is evident: kyiv is cbuilding a portfolio of unmanned submarine capabilities, aware that Russian underwater dominance was one of the few areas where Moscow still maintained clear superiority. The submarine as a target. The attack further confirms that the Black Sea Fleet remains a priority objective for Ukraine, especially its submarines Project 636 classcapable of throwing Kalibr cruise missiles regularly used against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Sustained pressure from kyiv had already forced Russia to withdraw a large part of its fleet from Crimea to Novorossiysk, and it is not the first time that these submarines have been attacked: in September 2023the Rostov-on-Don turned out seriously damaged in Sevastopol during a combined attack with missiles and surface drones. At the beginning of the large-scale invasion, Russia had six submarines of this type: each lost or neutralized one has considerable strategic weight. A message for Russia. Even if the submarine was not critically damaged, the attack has sent an unequivocal message: No Russian port is completely safe and naval warfare has entered a new phase, where underwater unmanned systems move from experiment to actual operational use. Other military powers, from United States to Chinacarefully observe a precedent that validates years of doctrinal development on UUVs as attack, reconnaissance and mining platforms. In that sense, the Novorossiysk episode reinforces a already recurring idea in the conflict: the war in Ukraine is not only fought over territories, but functions as a brutal laboratory for the military technologies of the future, where each innovation is tested in real conditions and its lessons are studied in all the military capitals of the planet. Image | VANTOR In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right In Xataka | If the video published by Ukraine is real, it has just blown up the naval war: an underwater drone has made history

The terror of wars was always stepping on a mine. In Ukraine they carry scissors, because the panic is thinner: a spider web

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In May we count that an unexpected weapon had begun to be added among the Ukrainian troops: scissors. Given the brutality of the conflict, a technology had sneaked in to evade electronic warfare and enter the enemy camp on both sides as he had not done before: destroying the lines, making attacks invisible and evading any attempt at interference. Now, the tangle of cables has intensified. A deadly web. In 2025, the Ukrainian front is no longer understood without a sky and ground crossed by thousands of drones and by kilometers of optical cable that transform the land into a physical and tactical tangle. What started as a technological revolution to compensate for human shortcomings has evolved into an industrialized war in which each innovation immediately generates a counter-innovation, and where Ukraine, which for years led the initiative, now faces a scenario in which Russia obtains a sustained advantage. Fiber optic drones (invulnerable to electronic shielding) have colonized trenches, roads and wooded areas, leaving visible and invisible networks that slow down every movement and that, in the middle of the night, they get confused with real traps. Narratives from units like the Ukrainian Rangers show a landscape in which advancing is as dangerous as retreating: cables hanging from trees, entrenched in mud, or accidentally attached to weapons and vehicles after each mission. There is no “safe zone.” The great transformation is not in territorial advances, but in the Russian ability to hit supply lines tens of km from the front. What yesterday was a rearguard today is a vulnerable gray zoneand what once required manned aviation is now accomplished by swarms of small, remotely guided vehicles. The explosions that convoys have reached on theoretically protected roads confirm that Moscow has given absolute priority to the war of attrition: attacking where it hurts most, preventing rotations, exhausting Ukrainian drone pilots and forcing brigades to walk dozens of kilometers on foot to avoid detection. This logistical pressure not only undermines military resistance, but also alters the political balance: a country that loses strategic depth also loses negotiating capacity. The Rubikon unit. It we have counted before. The appearance of Rubikon, the elite unit that reorganized Russian doctrine after the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, marks a before and after. Recruiting the best pilots, integrating optical drones, FPV and “mother” platforms like the Molniya, they exported a lethal model to the Donbas: attack supply before infantry, eliminate enemy pilots before riflemen, destroy capabilities before positions. Its success lies less in technology than on the scale: Russia produces more, deploys more and lets China nurture its fiber optic industry without limits. In Pokrovsk (the crudest laboratory of this mutation) Ukrainian soldiers calculate that Russian drones surpass them in a ratio of 10 to 1. The city, turned into a puzzle of ruins where the front line changes every few hours, exemplifies how tactical air dominance has become the decisive factor in controlling the terrain. The Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine continues to cause severe damage in the final strip before the front, where traditional FPVs remain lethal. But the rest of the board has leaned against her: a shortage of optical cables, pilots forced to launch from ever greater distances, disrupted logistics chains and a military industry struggling to produce what Russia receives on an industrial scale. Some controls they insist in which the strategic error is to prioritize the destruction of Russian infantry instead of replicating the Rubikon model: hunt down the operators, saturate the logistics nodes and act in depth. However, any solution requires resources that Ukraine does not have and that its allies provide too slowly. Chinese fiber optics, the officers point outis tipping the balance with more weight than many Western diplomatic decisions. Between swarms and cables. The conclusion is disturbing: war no longer depends so much on territorial advances as on who controls the drone ecosystem, who has more operational pilotswho can saturate the most kilometers of enemy rear and who turns rival logistics into a prohibited zone. The front, turned into a spider web physically by wires and digitally webed by unmanned swarms, is being redefined at a speed that Ukraine struggles to match. If kyiv does not regain the technological initiative and achieve a steady supply of optical capabilities and long-range platforms, 2026 could be the first year in which Russia’s structural advantage in drones not only complicates Ukrainian offensives, but seriously limits its ability to sustain current defenses. Image | reddit In Xataka | Russia had managed to manufacture drones and missiles despite the sanctions. So selling Zara clothes was a matter of time In Xataka | The round of peace meetings in Ukraine has ended. Russia says it is “ready”, but for war with Europe

Russia has found an old ally from other wars to bring down Ukraine’s most impenetrable defense: snowfall

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Winter has once again established itself as a decisive actor in the Ukrainian war. To the mud and fog A new enemy has been added to the Ukrainian defenses. Heavy snowfall and freezing rain are degrading the tool that has allowed kyiv to make up for its numerical inferiority for two years: the swarms of light, agile and deadly FPV drones that form the backbone of their “death zones” defensive. Winter as a weapon. The meteorology, which in other winters had shaped the strategy, this year is dismantling a defensive system which Ukraine had perfected into a nearly impenetrable barrier. Russia understood this before anyone else and launched large scale assaults taking advantage of the climate vulnerability of drones, opening gaps around Kharkiv, Huliaipole and especially Pokrovsk. For the first time in months, Moscow is advancing not because it has decisively improved its military, but because nature has given it a window that it is exploiting. with brutal determination. The unexpected weakness. It turns out that FPV drones, so effective in summer, are extremely fragile in winter. Their lack of inertia makes them victims of the wind, which pushes them and makes their trajectory falter with each gust, humidity and ice fog the cameras, snow reduces contrasts, fog blurs the depth of the visual field and the lenses become covered with drops that distort the image at the most critical moment. The pilot, who needs perfect vision to hit with surgical precision, encounters a blurry screenwithout references, unable to distinguish trenches, obstacles or even the final objective. The slightest loss of clarity turns an attack in a crash against the terrain or in an erratic missile. The result is devastating for the Ukrainian defensive strategy: when the drones do not fly, the death zones they cease to existRussian columns can advance under dark clouds and motorcycles and pickup trucks carrying troops take advantage of the fog to infiltrate towns like Pokrovsk, where urban fighting is already fierce. A dangerous opportunity. The adverse weather has created for Russia an opportunity that it has not enjoyed since the beginning of the war. With Ukrainian drones forced to remain on the ground, Russian forces have managed to maneuver with greater freedom of movement, something that drone warfare had made nearly impossible for months. They have crossed rivers in fog, entered towns with light vehicles without being detected and pushed through Ukrainian lines while the defense was reorganized while waiting for the weather to improve. Moscow’s advance, although limited in territorial terms, is having an impact psychological and tactical significant: it exposes the fragility of the Ukrainian defensive model when it is left without its star tool and shows that Moscow has learned to detect weather patterns to time attacks precisely. The November Fog already allowed its troops to deepen positions in Pokrovsk, a critical point whose control has become a symbol both for the Kremlin (which seeks to show progress to Washington) and for Kyiv, which is struggling to resist on a front where pressure is constant. Innovation against the clock. But the climate does not act in a unidirectional way. Just as quickly as drones became inoperable, atmospheric improvements allowed Ukraine to recover part of their kill zones and launch counterattacks with your FPV. The brigades, such as the 28th Mechanized, have taken advantage of the clear weather to hit Russian units newly deployed in Kostiantynivka, trapping them in exposed positions. This dynamic confirms that Ukraine is not defeated: is forced to adapt faster. Its industry, extremely flexible since 2022, is already developing a new generation of drones with more wind-resistant fuselages, low-light cameras, simplified thermal systems and control algorithms capable of stabilizing flight in adverse conditions. The arrival of these drones, scheduled for the coming months, will be key to reverse the advantage temporary that Russia has obtained. If Ukraine manages to deploy a winter-hardy FPV force, the balance on the front could tip again. The other winter war. While the drones fight in the white sky ahead, winter hits the cities otherwise: with blackouts of up to 16 hours, failed heating, stopped elevators and parents who go to the shelter with their children in their arms between explosions. The BBC told cases like that of Oksana, in her apartment in kyiv, who lives with a 2,000 euro battery that only extends normality by a few hours. Her daughter plays by candlelight and her husband works in the dark when bombing cuts off supplies. Millions of Ukrainians are preparing for what the authorities describe how “the worst winter in our history.” Moscow has intensified its attacks against transmission networks, not only to leave the population without electricity and heat, but to close bakeries, paralyze factories, stop transportation and suffocate the economy until causing social discouragement. According to the Ukrainian government itself, the Russian objective is not only to defeat the country militarily, but to destroy its internal cohesion. human wear and tear. After almost four years of war, fatigue has become widespread. He insomnia affects three times as many Ukrainians as people in countries at peace, and the nights are marked by sirens, Shahed drones and waves of missiles that have reached record numbers. Moral fatigue is mixed with the physical: the front is far away, but the war is in every hallway, in every staircase, in every unlit light bulb. And yet, surprisingly, the surveys show a rebound in optimism: more than half of Ukrainians believe in a better future, even if it is a fragile, oscillating one that depends on the evolution of blocked negotiations, the arrival of foreign aid or the result of a Russian offensive that is still far from a decisive victory. Frozen diplomacy. Plus: international negotiations are going through their most uncertain moment. A possible Trump-Putin summit is on pause. The EU is still discussing how to use 180,000 million on frozen Russian assets, and kyiv sees with concern how Washington sends mixed signals and how some European governments could change with elections less … Read more

The Star Destroyer is the terror of Star Wars. But as one fan has calculated, building it in real life wouldn’t be cheap.

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‘Star Wars’ is full of iconic ships. From the Millennium Falcon and its Kessel Corridor in just 12 parsecs to silhouettes identifiable at a glance such as the X-Wing or the TIE Fighter. We associate ‘Star Wars‘ with frenetic combats in space, but we also have iconic mastodons, authentic galactic monsters like the unmistakable Imperial Star Destroyer. Well: now we not only know how much it impresses us, but also how much it would cost us. What is a Star Destroyer. This 1.6 kilometer long, wedge-shaped beauty exhibits measurements and characteristics that make it a mini space station of considerable power. Let’s see: Approximate mass: 40 million metric tons Engines: Three KDY Destroyer-I ion engines and Cygnus Spaceworks Gemnon-4 units Maximum speed in atmosphere: 975 km/h Hyperlight Capability: Yes, with a class 2 impeller Heavy and medium turbolasers located in batteries throughout the ship Ion cannons to disable enemy systems 30 torpedo launchers or missile slots Ability to deploy 72 TIE fighters, as well as AT-AT and AT-ST ground vehicles Estimated total crew: between 37,000 and 60,000 people It functions as a small floating city, with areas for operations, daily life, maintenance and storage So the money what. Although less monumental than the Death Star, Star Destroyers require immense resources to construct. Estimates based on scientific analysis and data from the saga and collected on the website Gamestar They suggest that building, maintaining, and even disposing of when the time comes for a single Star Destroyer could cost a fortune. Used as a basis for comparison the price it costs to build a real aircraft carrier: between 13,000 and 17,000 million dollars each. And that’s just the beginning. We’re not just talking about construction itself. Resources and construction time skyrocket when considering mass production, as the Empire deploys dozens of destroyers to maintain its dominance. In addition, training and supplying personnel generate recurring costs. And maintenance, of course: refueling, repairing war damage, technological updates and replacing parts, which requires the construction of strategic space bases. We are going in parts, breaking down this authentic black hole of pasta. The initial transport. Transporting 40 million tons of construction material to space is logistically complex and expensive. With an extremely optimistic price of 10,000 euros per ton, the initial cost would be around 400 billion euros. In the long term, the cost could be reduced to about 200 euros per kilo, equivalent to about 8 billion euros. If we talk about current technologies (that is, no teleportation or similar), the realistic cost for this volume would be around 40 billion euros. What the material costs. The construction of the Star Destroyer would likely use high-strength, low-alloy steels, the cost of which is estimated at around €90 billion. More advanced systems such as propulsion, weapons and other high-performance components would require more expensive special alloys, adding at least an additional 110 billion euros. Altogether, conservative estimated costs for materials would be around €200 billion in total. To ride. The Star Destroyer is significantly more expensive to manufacture than mere materials, as labor and countless tests can cost five to fifteen times as much. The construction cost is estimated at around 2 billion euros. Furthermore, adding the costs of research, testing, infrastructure and development, especially in new energy and propulsion systems, could conservatively add another 5 billion euros to the total budget. The invoice. In short, these gentlemen will have to go and digest: the total expense to build and maintain the imperial Star Destroyer is estimated at around 15.2 billion euros, assuming transportation costs. Without including development expenses, the cost would be around 14 billion euros. But we can go up: if additional elements such as technical reserves, energy systems, lifetime maintenance and scrapping are considered, the joke can approach 40 billion euros. To put it in perspective, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier cost around 12 billion euros, so a Star Destroyer would cost almost four thousand times that amount.​ In Xataka | Adam Driver launched a Star Wars movie project about Kylo Ren. Disney rejected it because they didn’t understand it.

This flying motorcycle that seems removed from ‘Star Wars’ reaches 200 km/Hy can already be purchased. The “can” go in quotes

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Year 4 dby (after the battle of Yavin). The Galactic Empire invades the Endor Moon, home of the nice Ewok, and puts the at -st on the ground and the 74-Z sliding motorcycles. These flying motorcycles, piloted by explorers and very cool, all said, were not enough to prevent the rebel alliance from destroying the second star of death. However, his legacy seem to last to this day. The test? The Volonaut Airbike, a flying motorcycle of the most curious that can already be bought and that could pass perfectly through a means of transport of ‘Star Wars’. Volonaut? Maybe the name doesn’t tell you anything. Maybe that of its founder, Tomasz Patan, either. But if we talk about Jetson One Maybe the bell sounds. The Jetson One is a unipersonal evtol AKA an electric flying car that made a lot of noise a few years ago. Well Volonaut It’s like Jetson, but in motorcycle format. Patan is behind both companies and his proposal with the Volonaut Airbike is, at least, striking. Volonaut’s team took references to ‘Star Wars’ quite seriously | Image: Volonaut in X A flying motorcycle … According to Volonaut on its website, this “Supermoto for the Skies” is designed to transport a person (up to 95 kilos, by the way). Use a reaction engine capable of reaching 200 km/h, it has no rotating propellers and, according to the firm, is seven times lighter than a conventional motorcycle “thanks to the use of advanced carbon fiber materials, 3D printing and a minimalist approach.” … that little flies … Seeing it in motion is impressive and really remembers science fiction films. The problem is that its autonomy is quite scarce. The Volonaut Airbike uses diesel, biodiesel, jet-a1 or kerosene and is able to fly for only ten minutes. They have to be ten spectacular minutes, but only ten minutes. Positive part? Reposting is fast: less than a minute. … And what “can you” buy. The device has been developing for several years and has not been until now that it has been put up for sale. You still have to finish polishing, but you can book. How much? Here is the reason for the quotes. Image | Volonaut If there was someone interested in her, Today I would have to deposit 2,000 non -refundable dollars to reserve a hole. Then we would have to deposit $ 80,000, which guarantee the unit and confirm the buyer’s interest. Finally, once the motorcycle is ready, the buyer will have to put the remaining $ 798,000. Total cost: more than 700,000 euros to change, a price quite remote from the average pocket, but perhaps not so high for those who see in the Volonaut Airbike a whim like any other. And where where? In the United States a specific license is not necessary, since it enters within the category Ultralight of the FAA. Another different story would be to fly this vehicle in Spain, where it would be at least, A regulatory level challenge. Cover image | Volonaut In Xataka | Alef Aeronautics’s “flying car” can already fly: the only problem is that it has little car and much of Evtol

It is not that Russia does not find the F-16 of Ukraine, is that kyiv has discovered the perfect hiding place for the future of wars

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The problem of modern wars is that they have ceased to be A geographical matterand the current technological abilities, with the drones and the AI in the lead, are eroding the physical barriers that previously existed. That was clear, for example, with The Spiderweb operation of Ukraine on the Russian air bases. In fact, in the first 18 months of the war, Ukraine lost Very few planes On land in front of the Moscow number, and the last movement predicts an even lower figure. The mobility war. The Arrival of the F-16 To the Ukrainian Air Force has been accompanied by a parallel effort to create a mobile ecosystem capable of sustaining continuous operations in a scenario where each base is a potential white of aviation and Russian missiles. Solution? The Ukrainian Foundation Eat Back Alivein cooperation with the state conglomerate Office 61 and with the financial support of the UKRNAfta energy company, recently delivered a set of vehicles specifically designed to provide the F-16 of the necessary logistics flexibility. Four wheels and fighters. The acquisition It included workshop trucks for armament preparation, crane trucks for missile and pump load, pickups for personnel transport and, above all, a missions planning complex on wheels composed of A 6×6 truck and a habitable towing module, which will allow briefings, plan operations and move quickly where it is required. With this investment, encrypted in just over 1.2 million dollarsUkraine obtains not only a technical improvement (for example, reducing from a dozen to three the number of operators necessary to assemble ammunition in each plane), but also a Operational advantage in an environment where speed and dispersion are survival synonyms. The concept of distributed operations. The logic behind this innovation is simple but strategic: prevent Russia from being able to anticipate or destroy on land Western manufacturing fighters. Ukraine had already developed the custom of Alternate air bases and even use highways as impromptu tracks, an inherited practice of the Soviet design to operate in austere environments, but now amplified by the high -tech character of the F-16. This ability to Move with infrastructure Wheel support converts each road into a potential base and each mission into a concealment game. In this sense, new vehicles are not simple trucks: they represent an adaptive doctrine in which aviation abandons the notion of fixed bases and embraces total mobility as a shield against missile attacks, drones and enemy bombers. NATO and American learning. The lessons that Ukraine applies in extreme conditions are being observed carefully by the United States and its allies. It We count The other day: the doctrine of AGILE COMBAT EMPLOYMENT (ACE), which seeks to disperse combat aviation in multiple locations Temporary, is nourished directly from the Ukrainian experience. USAF generals They recognize that Ukraine has managed to avoid the mass destruction of his aviation thanks to not taking off or landing in the same place twice in a row, forcing the enemy to waste intelligence and ammunition. The counterpart of this agility is Logistics demand: Each site needs fuel, ammunition and maintenance equipment that must be compact, transportable and fast to install. The United States Marines itself has started projects To provide air-terrifying trucks on C-130s and lighter and more modular equipment that can accompany squadrons in constant movements, which marks a deep turn in the conception of the air war. Aviation future. What’s doubt, what is today Test in Ukraine It has global implications. In a eventual confrontation with China in the Pacificno power could guarantee the protection of all its air bases, and mobile dispersion will be the key to survival. The fighters will not be able to remain in the same airfield without dense anti -aircraft defense; Their operations will be measured in hours or days, with specific deployments for refueling and rearming before returning to main main bases. This will require redesign support equipment lighterto think about new sustaining architectures and maximize land and aerial mobility. Ukraine, again laboratory. In short, the incorporation of these Ten vehicles At the service of the F-16 it may seem a lower detail in the heat of the war, but embodies a deeper transformation: that of an aviation that can no longer rely on the solidity of its bases and that depends on speed, dispersion and Logistics creativity. Ukraine thus becomes Test field of a doctrine that west, and in particular the United States, contemplates as essential to survive the high intensity conflicts of the future. Thus, each workshop truck and each rolling planning module are not only metal pieces, but symbols of how war forces to reinvent the way of conceiving today’s aerial power. Image | “Come Back Alive” Foundation In Xataka | A new challenge has arrived to Ukraine: it measures 4 meters, it has 75 kilos of explosives and uses AI to hit Russia In Xataka | The last Russian tactic are not kamikaze drones: their soldiers carry a helmet with antennas that is surprising Ukraine

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