We are entering another war-filled autumn and winter. Witkoff and Kushner’s activities, having visited Moscow eight times and only once to Kyiv, should not be misleading. When parties are ready to negotiate, they move toward each other. There should be rejections of outrageous proposals like “retreat from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” money in the morning (withdrawal from Donbas), and chairs in the evening (ceasefire agreement, not even a peace treaty), disarmament, missile range limitations. Has any of this been voiced or proposed? Well, except for it being the plan of the Special Military Operation: sitting without fuel with destroyed marketplaces? No.
Meanwhile, the drones of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have for the first time reached the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug—a region where 70 to 80% of Russian gas is extracted, causing a fire at a facility in Novy Urengoy. Even the Luftwaffe didn’t fly there, but we managed. Perhaps, in this context, it’s time to stop talking about the Ukrainian Armed Forces leaving Kherson, and only then we’ll talk? No? Well then, another war winter approaches.
Those who continue to insist on peace at any cost do not fully understand the situation. They hope to defeat us with the help of a “black swan”—a front collapse, targeted morale, strikes on Rozetka, ATB, and publishers. But it has always been like this—it’s not a response to our strikes nor a change in tactics. In March 2022, the occupiers bombed and shelled Rozetka’s distribution center near Brovary, and in March 2023, a missile attack destroyed their own warehouse complex in Kopylov. Simultaneously, in March 2022, an air raid completely burned down ATB’s largest logistics center in Makariv, which supplied the entire north and center of Ukraine, and in April, a cruise missile strike took out their own hub near Odesa.
No less of a blow was dealt to civilian logistics and culture. “Nova Poshta” terminals became constant targets — from the S-300 strikes on the hub near Kharkiv in April 2022 and the deadly attack on Korotych in October 2023 to the systematic destruction of branches across the country. The culmination of infrastructure terror was the S-300 strike in May 2024 on the Kharkiv printing house “Factor-Druk”, which printed books for publishers Vivat, KSD, “Ranok”: seven workers died, and more than 50,000 books were destroyed by fire.
Those who say there should have been consultations with businesses before targeting WB and Ozon in 2026 have the memory of a guppy fish and the same intellectual abilities. And today, when Ukrainian UAVs with surgical precision dissect Russian logistics, the enemy experiences the same scenario firsthand — only on the scale of giant marketplaces and with trillion-dollar holes in the balances of its main banks. This game can be played by two. Of course, we get hit too. There’s a different question for the likes of MAKEUP, Comfy, and others: you’ve watched us hit their warehouses for months while they’ve been hitting ours for years, and you really kept billions worth of goods without dispersing them?
Here’s a simple analogy for peace at any cost: a neighbor, bigger and taller, hits you with a pipe; other neighbors throw sticks and pipes over the fence, but carefully, not to provoke escalation — nobody wants to check if the attacker’s grandfather’s shotgun is loaded. You’re barricaded and fighting back, heavily injuring the attacker. Catching his breath and wiping blood, the aggressor suggests: put down the pipe, give me the barricades, clear the debris at the door — and we’ll talk. Not sign a treaty and prevent the next war, just talk. That’s peace at any cost — it’s “put down the pipe, I won’t do anything, honest to goodness”.
“We don’t want to capture Crimea,” “a corridor from Ilovaisk, word of an officer,” “it’s just exercises,” “we will definitely sign the grain agreement” — we have thousands of examples of how the Russians view negotiation and honesty.
Meanwhile, Putin is fighting in Alpha Centauri — «controlling Sviatohirsk and Kupiansk». The funniest part is that for the third month in a row, the Third Army Corps has been successful in the sector, and the city is 25 km away from the events. The old man is literally raving to a 140-million-strong country. The supply line, extended from the bridgehead to the west of Terny, bypassing Lyman, has been cut off since May; enemy positions in Ivanivka have been surrounded, and those retreating were effectively targeted by drones and artillery.
«Forward-forward, infiltrating, supplied by drones, zipping through on motorcycles» played a cruel joke on the Russians who wanted to draw a conditional line of control as close to the buildings as possible, before the greenery diminishes, and attempt to catch up on the ground what they reported on paper upwards.
It turns out, it’s not so easy to supply even across the narrow Zherebets the 20th army units on this side of the river, when many drones operate over the crossings. Despite strict OPSEC in the sector, it is already known that we have serious successes here — about 250 square kilometers have been liberated, half a dozen villages have been freed, there is infiltration into the fish farm, and there is a threat of creating a bridgehead on the Russian-occupied shore. Additionally, the 46th brigade has strengthened the flanks of Kostiantynivka to prevent the encirclement of our positions in the western quarters of the city — where the pilots’ positions still are, and flanking attacks hit the enemy, preventing advancement.
Operationally, this counteroffensive is hard to overestimate — it reduces pressure on Lyman and attempts to push through the fields between Izium and Sloviansk. If there is a huge desire to take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, it needs to be done head-on, through ditches with razor wire and minefields, under drone strikes and corrected Western bombs on assault troops who infiltrated buildings. We continue to launch several hundred UAVs a night and produce up to 40 «Bohdan» a month, marine drones attack Sochi, and in Novorossiysk, the flagship was struck by «Neptune».
Overall, Russia has a strong advantage in aviation; they have used over 8,000 guided bombs per month, are actively increasing reactive drones, deploy dozens of ballistics monthly, and maintain the initiative. Throughout 2025, they launched about 500 ballistic missiles at Ukraine (this statistic includes their “Iskander-M” mixed with North Korean copies of KN-23). On average, this is about 40 per month. This summer’s peak was 174 — North Korea and reserves. Such peak consumption in summer (130–170 ballistic missiles per month) bluntly exceeds their current production capabilities. As a result, by August the intensity had already dropped to ~89 launches. They are depleting accumulated stockpile reserves for short peaks, after which they are forced to pause for accumulation again.
Modern Swedish and French aircraft, capable of pushing back launchers with “Meteor” missiles, will not reach operational readiness soon, Ukrainian ballistics will not become widespread tomorrow either, Germany is just starting to produce interceptors for Patriot, so active defense with specialist counterattacks, like near Stepnohirsk, slicing the bridgehead near Oskol towards Dvorichna and West, or the monotonous three-month counteroffensive near Lyman under enemy pressure — nothing else should be expected.
How many months ago did a certain red-haired enthusiast keen to end six wars say we have no maps and Russia will take what it wants? Yet we continue to control several streets in Chasyk. What about the face?
Russia, as I wrote, adapted to the fuel shortage: Moscow pulled everything from the hinterlands; for queues caught on video, fines and community service are given. Rationing, additives, imports from South Korea, India, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, spirits — it was meant to be that way. But about 30% of oil refining has dropped out; grain through the Black Sea hardly moves, through Rostov it’s mere tears. While the crisis is in full swing, oil and gas revenues are minus 16% compared to last August, the increase in damper payments amounted to 83 billion, in St. Petersburg, half the gas stations physically have no gasoline, grain storage is overflowing, and grain prices are falling.
We continue to stand and counterattack under pressure that not many countries on the planet can withstand. Another military autumn is in full swing.
Cover photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
