A Turning Point For Ukraine

• 2.09.2025, 7:51

The Ukrainian armed forces are preparing an autumn surprise for the Russians.

As expected, Moscow has again increased the intensity of its air and missile strikes, but Ukraine certainly looks stronger in this confrontation at present.

The Ukrainians have recently focused on two types of targets: fuel infrastructure - especially oil refineries - and railroads, including both bridges and trains. By using attack drones to plant enough anti-tank mines to bring down a bridge, sending kamikaze drones to disable much of the enemy's oil refining capacity, and hitting railroad hubs with UAVs and possibly the new Flamingo cruise missiles, the Ukrainians are clearly inflicting serious damage on the enemy.

And even leaving aside the high probability that Ukraine will unveil its own medium- and short-range ballistic missile designs in the fall to rival ATACMS, already the ability to produce thirty large cruise missiles a month, and over two hundred by the end of the fall, becomes almost a tipping point in the battle for Ukraine. Since the Flamingos are large cruise missiles, a significant number of them will be shot down, but the use of decoys and attack drones virtually guarantees that in a salvo launch at least some of the missiles will reach their target and deliver a devastating blow to any facility hundreds of kilometers deep into the empire. The warheads and propellant can still be optimized, so that the claimed maximum range of three thousand kilometers is indeed achievable - even taking into account the necessary maneuvering to deceive air defenses - if the size of the warhead can be reduced without loss of destructive capability.

Strategic strikes alone do not win wars, but their impact on Putin's empire could be far more devastating than his own attacks on Ukraine.

Andrew Tanner, New Voice