Western Analysts Find Little Hope, as Russia Widens Military Gap
Several new analyses from Western and pro-Ukrainian analysts see nothing positive for Ukraine, as the Russian military machine continues to hone itself.
We have seen for the past few months the slow acceptance in the pro-Ukrainian information field of the fact that Russia will not stop, nor will be stopped by any feeble political games from the US and EU. But more than this, they have begun to accept that the war will last a long time, that Ukraine has few options—and most importantly—that no deus ex machina-style salvation will come by way of some magic wunderwaffen or huge financial windfall.
The latest to voice these hardening outlooks is military commentator—esteemed in the West—Michael Kofman, who has been quiet on the analytical front for a long time, given that he had little positive spin to share. Now he has returned from a trip—presumably to Ukraine—and decided to share his updated thoughts on the situation as a whole. It’s worth looking at because in many ways Kofman’s interpretations of events have always represented the ‘leading edge’ of the pro-UA analytical sphere, and thus serve as a kind of canary in coalmine for shifts in the narrative.
The thread-unrolled version can be read here.
The first main point he makes that other leading figures have recently voiced is that Russia has caught up in its tactical drone specialization, particularly with the introduction of the feared new ‘Rubicon’ drone unit, whose structure and tactics are being instituted across the armed forces.
Since then, the Russian military began deploying its own offensive ‘line of drones,’ and improving how it employs drone units. Russian Rubicon drone units have spread to every Russian grouping of troops, and are the most spoken of challenge across the front.
Rubicon formations focus on severing logistics with fiber-optic drones operating 20-25km behind the front line, destroying drone positions, and intercepting Ukrainian drones (winged ISR/heavy multirotor). In general, Russian drone units have become better organized.
This does not mean that Ukraine has lost its qualitative edge in drone employment, but that the advantage has narrowed, Russian forces continue to adapt, and Ukraine must find ways to stay ahead.
He notes that most Ukrainian lines are at this point manned by disconnected three-man foxhole ‘positions’ which Russians try to bypass and cut off during their assaults. Though he doesn’t say it, these ‘fodder’ positions essentially act as sacrificial flytraps for Ukrainian drone units on the second line, a bit further back; i.e. they attract Russian attacks only to buy Ukrainian drone units time to try and whittle these advancing forces down.
He next makes a point I made earlier this year, which is a stake through the heart of many pro-UA propagandist arguments which claim Russia will collapse when its armor runs out. He admits that Russia now uses far less armor in its assaults and yet is advancing at a much faster pace compared to last year:
This is why evaluating armor availability as a metric is still useful, but less relevant if Russian forces are advancing at a faster rate than in 2024 with much lower use of AFVs. Similarly, artillery fire rate asymmetry was critical 2022-2023, but no longer as relevant.
Think about it this way: the pro-UA side has long argued that Russian armor and artillery advantages were the “only” cards it possessed, and once these run out or parity is reached, Russia would be doomed. Yet now they are openly admitting that Russia barely even uses armor anymore and that Ukraine—according to them—has reached relative artillery ‘parity’—but in spite of this, Russia is somehow still advancing at an accelerating pace. Logical?
Next he echoes another one of my previous admonishments—that Ukraine’s over-reliance on and overestimation of drones will be its undoing:
Despite drones being the main casualty producing weapon (80%+), artillery remains important, with many units’ artillery use holding steady, or in some cases increasing. Artillery canalizes attacks, suppresses, operates in all-weather conditions, and is still relevant.
Overemphasis on drones overlooks that the current dynamic is due to a combination of mining, use of drones, and traditional artillery fires. Hence maintaining adequate supply of arty and mortar munitions remains important despite drones doing much of the lifting.
The fact is, the militarily successful nation will be one which has the most ‘diversified’ portfolio, and can use the right tools for the right job at any given time. Over-reliance on any one weapon no matter how hyped up or successful it is for brief ‘honeymoon’ periods before countermeasures are developed, will lead to failure. Recall that in his latest interview posted last time, Zaluzhny himself advocated for the ‘all eggs in one basket’ strategy: he believes Ukraine can ignore its manpower shortages and vest everything into drone tech to defeat Russia.
By the way, it’s worth nothing that many will think that US and Europe are well-positioned in this case, as they too operate ‘diverse’ militaries with wide-ranging capabilities. But one of the final lessons I hereby predict will be learned by the West pertains to the last missing piece of the puzzle. It pertains to the concept of ‘total war’ I have long expounded on.
The West is only now learning how modern warfare works: the importance of economic sovereignty as pertains to import substitution, localization, etc.; the importance of cheap weapons systems and the ability to sustain long periods of mass production. But the final missing piece the West has not even begun to wrap their heads around, and which is actually the most important by far, is that of culture, or in other words, civilizational integrity. The nation which will succeed in future wars of attrition is one that maintains the most cultural stability and durability, which is upstream from critical components like troop morale and the general population’s ability to endure long periods of hardship.
59% of Germans would not defend the country in case of an invasion, writes The Telegraph.
Only 16% of German citizens are ready to take up arms. Another 22% said they would "probably" do so, the article states.
These are things which are typically outside the sphere of military matters and thus not discussed within the constraints of “how to win wars”; but in reality, in long wars of attrition between near-peer powers, this is by far the most important aspect of all. And it just so happens to be the one area the West is most critically deficient in, given that it has been gutted out by cultural and social engineering projects which have deracinated its societies and demoralized its native citizenry. There’s no current Western nation which could fight a prolonged conflict against Russia without facing domestic revolt because the people hate their governments that much—and when that’s the case, they have nothing to fight and die for.
Meanwhile, here’s how people treated Putin during his recent visit to Valaam:
Of course, it’s not just about love for one’s leader—that’s only one tiny but representative aspect of it.
But getting back to Kofman’s analysis, where he gives a final veiled warning:
Russian tactics do not lend themselves to attaining operationally significant breakthroughs, but given the character of the fight, territory changing hands is a lagging indicator for what’s happening. Consequently, ‘gradually then suddenly’ transitions are possible.
Ukrainian forces are increasingly defending in salients, with Russian drone units working to constrain logistical supply to these areas in an effort to collapse the pockets. Hence the geometry of the battlefield lends itself poorly to stabilization.
The main culprit is a policy to hold onto every meter, even when in near envelopment, or in disadvantageous terrain. Rather than trading space for attrition, or conducting a mobile defense, AFU commanders are forced to try and hold onto untenable positions.
There’s a lot of subtext written between the lines of that statement—it’s clear he’s not allowed—by his conscience, or otherwise—to utter the full truth, a fact he seems to imply at the end where he writes he wasn’t able to include ‘everything’ he wants to say. But essentially, if you read between the lines, what he’s saying in the first paragraph above is that Russia is deliberately utilizing tactics that may not have the optics of breakthrough success, but that this is a poor indicator of what’s really happening ‘under the hood’ of the fight. He implies more by then essentially saying a sudden collapse for the AFU is possible, though he conceals it with the euphemism of “transitions”. As can be seen by his subsequent paragraphs he’s forced to be quite diplomatic and mincing in his criticisms of Ukrainian command, but his meaning is crystal clear.
These sentiments were echoed in another new analytical thread by Ukrainian analyst Tatarigami, who begins by venting on the tiresome pattern the war has devolved into:
Each year follows a similar pattern: Russian forces form a pocket around a town, Ukraine cites manpower shortages and lack of aid, Russia takes heavy losses but advances, Ukraine inflates already high Russian casualty figures, while Moscow grossly downplays them
Today, Russia is producing more drones, becoming increasingly organized, and gaining an edge, particularly in drone warfare, both in quantity and operational sophistication. The entire kill chain has improved, and training for drone operators has scaled.
He goes on to overtly state that the balance of the war is shifting toward Russia—as if it hadn’t shifted long ago. But his most important point is his final one, which again accords with Kofman’s conclusions, and goes to illustrate the increasing alignment in thought on the pro-UA side I alluded to in the opening:
Ukraine’s position in 2025 is better than I had anticipated last year. For example, I expected urban fighting in Pokrovsk to begin by late 2024 or early winter 2025 - but Russian forces have taken significantly more time to reach their current positions.
That said, constant self-reassurance that Ukraine is holding and Russia is on the verge of collapse is harmful. The front may stay static and advances slow, until the situation deteriorates to the point where Russia might seize thousands of square kilometers per month.
First, he’s forced to give the obligatory shoe-shine about Ukraine doing ‘better than expected’ merely to soften the blow for his audience of the real warning. This comes at the end, where just like Kofman he admits the possibility of the situation rapidly ‘deteriorating’ to the point where Russian forces begin making massive breakthroughs through collapsing Ukrainian lines.
Interestingly, the latest Reuters piece hints at something similar:
A “source” told Reuters that Russia believes the Ukrainian front will “crumble” in two or three months:
A third person familiar with Kremlin thinking also said Russia wanted to take all four regions and did not see the logic in stopping at a time of battlefield gains during Russia's summer offensive.
Ukraine has suffered some of its biggest territorial losses of 2025 in the past three months, including 502 square kilometres in July, according to Black Bird Group, a Finland-based military analysis centre. In total, Russia has occupied around a fifth of Ukraine.
Russia's military General Staff has told Putin that the Ukrainian front will crumble in two or three months, the first person said.
One interesting observation about Russia’s summer offensive thus far is that it appears to be surprisingly light on casualties. This is in total contrast to Western and pro-UA claims that Russian casualties have now ‘peaked’ to the highest they’ve ever been. It’s evident that the West’s claims of Russian casualties are directly inversely proportionalto Russian successes on the battlefield. The more territory Russia captures, and the more efficiently it does so, the more Ukraine and the West are forced to invent hyperbolic loss figures to staunch the negative information flow to prevent total narrative collapse.
I say this with full impartiality as someone who witnessed the monstrous Russian losses in both Bakhmut and Avdeevka: they were undeniable. There were almost daily videos of entire fields covered with Russian corpses, mostly of Storm-Z troops. There were far more instances of entire Russian squads being wiped out together, whether ten, twenty, or more people at a time, like in the case of Wagner’s hapless assaults on Kleeschevka and Ivanovske. But in the current season of offensives, there is no such evidence at all. There is only the regular lukewarm stream of a few drone hits on individual Russian soldiers here and there, and the total daily losses appear absolutely minimal by any previous standard.
One of the reasons for that likely has to do with the success of Russian “barn” or “cope cage” technology for tanks. It really does often work in preventing casualties and allowing tanks to take dozens of hits, for instance in the famous recent case of this tank which even according to first-hand Ukrainian sources took nearly 60 drone hits before being disabled:
Here is the latest beast showcased yesterday:
Everything including civilian transport cars is getting adequate cover these days:
In his piece, Kofman remarked that the last remaining area where Ukraine is measurably ahead of Russia is UGVs, or ground robots:
One area where Ukraine remains clearly ahead of Russian forces is UGV employment for logistics, and medivac. This is more about establishing capable mesh networks to enable UGV use across terrain, and the cost of the comms can easily equal that of the platform.
On one hand, I’m not convinced that’s the case because I’ve seen about an equal amount of UGV deployment from both sides. But on the other, it is logical for Ukraine to utilize these systems more for logistical and medivac purposes given that Ukraine is on the defensive and faces far more situations where its troops are trapped in besieged positions and are in need of remote resupply.
One recent development caught everyone’s eye:
The article concerns new videos that emerged last week from Russia showing the testing of several unmanned combat modules:
A video of the new "Shturm" remote-controlled robotic tank for urban combat operations has appeared online
The tank is equipped with a shortened 125 mm cannon and a bulldozer blade.
Made on the basis of the T-72/T-90. It is remotely controlled during combat by a tank-based command vehicle.
This allows the crew to be kept several kilometers away from the battle.
The command vehicle in the video follows the tank.
Above the turret of the "Shturm" stands a tanker - the vehicle has retained the possibility of manual control.
The design of the vehicle has been developed since 2018.
The assault tank and command vehicle should be complemented by an unmanned armored fire support vehicle (pictured), similar to the BMP-T "Terminator."
The main platform is a modified T-72 with shortened barrel for urban fighting, and the vehicle behind it stacked with antennas is the command vehicle meant to control an entire platoon of such unmanned tanks. This clearly foreshadows the next advancement where Russian ‘barn tank’ assaults will feature converted UGV tanks to really minimize troop losses. In such cases in particular, even older and cheaper converted tanks will work great, like T-55s and 62s, etc. Of course, the Armata tank was developed precisely with this kind of wireless or even autonomous operation in mind, but it is too expensive and pointless to use in the current role of reinforced armored grunt-ferry during assaults.
Tanks like the Armata were created to defeat other highly advanced tanks, but with tank-on-tank warfare mostly nonexistent in Ukraine, tanks are now utilized as armored bulldozers to soak up damage while dropping off dismounts. For such a role it’s preferable to have an expendable but heavily armored vehicle that can be wirelessly piloted.
Oddly enough, last week we had the first tank-on-tank engagement of probably this entire year during one of Russia’s assaults on Seversk, which we now know was successful. A Ukrainian tank of the 54th Mechanized Brigade ambushed and fired upon one of the Russian ‘barn’ tanks. Recall these tanks have poor visibility and reduced maneuverability, which includes turret traversal—or lack thereof—so such situations are sometimes unavoidable; although in this case, it appears the Ukrainian tank either missed, with the shot landing just to the side, or did no damage, as the video cuts off early:
The fact is, Russia is taking command of the drone race from every perspective. One of the latest Geran attacks filmed in Ukraine:
Meanwhile, the US Army and NATO are only in the earliest stages of even understanding the modern battlefield:
Recall last month’s US Army manual that instructs Abrams tanks to take down FPV drones by shooting at them with their main barrels.
Contrary to some claims that Russia is putting the war on a backburner to keep society at a distance from it, Budanov now believes that Putin is in fact embarking on the largest rearmament program since the USSR:
Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to allocate around $1.1 trillion to rearm Russia by 2036, according to Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR).
This will be the most extensive armament program undertaken by Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He states there is a total mobilization of war effort across every societal sphere:
“There is a total mobilization of Russian politics, economy, and society to prepare for a future large-scale war,” Budanov said, as cited by a HUR update.
But the numbers are deceptive: $1.1 trillion sounds like a lot, but divided by the number of years until 2036, it amounts to merely $110 billion a year, which is roughly Russia’s planned yearly defense budget, and a reduced one at that. It shows just how simple it is to twist things to fit one’s particular agenda, and the conflict can exist in almost any analytical state to different people, depending how one decides to ‘shape’ the data.
On the other hand, it’s true that Russian society is being reshaped around the SMO to many extents. Chairman of the State Duma and ex-Putin aide Vyacheslav Volodin recently hailed SMO veterans as the ‘new elite’ of society, which comes at a time when an increasing number of them also happen to be joining governmental bodies across various regions. Likewise, the Duma itself is being reshaped, as Volodin also announced that newly elected members are increasingly younger, with far more candidates contesting each slot than ever before; the entire Russian political structure is being cleansed by a new generation of energetic and forward-looking young patriots.