Superb analysis of the Geran-4 (one of Russia’s most modern attack drones).
- Significant advances from the original Shaheds
- Almost exclusively foreign components
乌克兰最近把一架相对完好迫降的俄军最新型“天竺葵-4”（Geran-4）无人机，当场大卸八块。
拆完之后，桌上摆着的零件，呈现出一个既荒谬又无比现实的真相：
整架号称打得乌克兰防空防不胜防的喷气大杀器，除了最外面的机壳和总装螺丝是俄罗斯自己拧的，
里面所有的关键器官，几乎全是从外面运进来的。
先看动力。
过去老款天竺葵-2用的是活塞螺旋桨，飞起来像拖拉机一样嗡嗡响，时速不到两百公里，乌克兰机动防空队开着皮卡架挺机枪就能拦截。
但这次拆开天竺葵-4，机腹里塞的是一台微型涡喷发动机。
飞行高度直接从四千米拔到了八千米，是老款的两倍；
巡航时速干到了四百五十到五百公里，甚至还能更快。
这玩意儿已经能从克里米亚起飞，一口气狂奔七百多公里，直接扎进乌克兰西北部的卢茨克。
谁造的？
拆开一看，中国产的微型涡喷。有些虽然标着俄罗斯组装，核心组件也全是中国货。
再看眼睛。
头部装了一套光电转塔，白昼、夜视、红外三合一。
十倍光学变焦，加三十二倍数码变焦。
八千米的高空往下看，地面车辆的轮廓一清二楚。
它根本不需要前线侦察兵冒死指引。操纵员哪怕坐在几百公里外的布良斯克、奥廖尔或者克里米亚的后方工位上，只要链路连着，就能像玩模拟器一样实时遥控它扑向目标。
那实时信号怎么传？
专家从机身里抠出了两个普通的 GSM 模块，上面插着民用电话卡。
更离奇的是，现场技术人员在这些残骸里，不仅翻出了俄罗斯和白俄罗斯的 SIM 卡，甚至还找到了乌克兰本土运营商、以及欧盟国家的流量卡。
无人机只要一过境，直接蹭乌克兰本地民用基站的网络，把自己的实时位置往回传。
万一飞进没有手机信号的荒郊野岭呢？
它还有备手。
拆解人员从里面掏出了一块来自中国的自组网 Mesh 调制解调器，通信半径三百公里。
几架天竺葵在空中编队飞，彼此之间能自动互相当中继，你传给我、我传给后方，直接在天上搭出一套无中心的移动局域网，几百公里外的视频画面照样掐不断。
最后拆到最值钱的机载电脑飞控板。
刮开主板上的涂层，芯片上的丝印虽然被磨去了一半，但剩下的英文字母依然清晰可辨：
Texas Instruments——美国德州仪器。
现场专家给了一句很冷酷的总结：
“这架飞机上真正属于俄罗斯制造的，就只有复合材料的机身外壳，以及最后的总装车间。”
这些零件最后运到鞑靼斯坦的阿拉布加（Alabuga）特区，工人们把壳子一合、螺丝一拧，就成了前线每天夜里呼啸而过的精确打击武器。
而根据乌克兰军情局的评估，像阿拉布加这样的工厂，现在每个月能量产大概三千架天竺葵-4和天竺葵-5。
打了四年多，制裁令签了一叠又一叠，结果最前沿的致命武器内部，流淌的依然是全球供应链的血液：
动力与通信来自成熟民用货架，核心控制芯片来自美国转道走私，连定位回传都在蹭对手基站的 SIM 卡。
这才是现代战争里最棘手的现实：
威权体制根本不需要在温室里从头研发一套自给自足的军工帝国。
只要民用消费级工业品在全球随处可买，只要洗钱通道和转口贸易依然处处漏风，
他们就能用极低的成本，把全世界的民用技术拼装成工业级的杀人工厂。
如果外部世界的制裁只盯着军品清单打补丁，却堵不住庞大的双用途灰色管涌，
这种廉价而致命的涡喷蜂群，在流水线上就很难真正停下来。
Superb analysis of the Houthi shoot down of a Saudi F-15SA. Notably, this is an advanced F-15 model (more so than the F-15E/S versions).
The Houthis most likely used a Barq-1/2. Pilot likely took countermeasures vs a radar homing missile (dropped chaff), but it appears the Houthis have integrated ground-based passive thermal cameras to track targets. The Barq-1/2 use semi-active radar homing, but the overall launch and fire control system makes skillful use of EO/IR cameras.
This leaves us with the following systems:
• Barq-1 and Barq-2 missiles: These are medium-range radar-guided missiles, in addition to the existence of a version equipped with an infrared seeker. The Barq missiles are based on the technology of Iran's Ta'er (Tair) missiles. Their respective ranges are 50 km and 70 km, with engagement altitudes of 15 km and 20 km. They can therefore be considered highly likely, and are the most probable candidates.
• R-27ET Soviet medium-range infrared-guided air-to-air missile: The Houthis modified this missile after seizing it from Yemeni Army stockpiles, converting it for use as a surface-to-air missile. It was designated Thaqib-2. Its range when launched from the ground is approximately 12–20 km, and its flight time is approximately 20–30 seconds. The Houthis also have a history of using it against aircraft belonging to the Arab Coalition.
Nevertheless, it can be classified as probable, because the launch sound suggests a large, powerful motor. The R-27T has a less pronounced engine sound and exhaust signature.
For this reason, I assess the Barq-1 or Barq-2 as the closest explanation.
Good source for understanding Ukraine’s recent successes in the Lyman region. They’ve been an open secret for the past few months, but the true details are starting to emerge.
Tomorrow, I will share a long thread covering the situation in Lyman during the last 4 months.
Finally, Russian (and thus pro-Russian) sources started talking about it, which means it is now safe for the local units to talk about the situation that they successfully hid for months.
I have 4 pages of text, 15 maps, and much information about the chronological events (which will not be perfect, of course) for everyone to understand what happened, why it was not revealed before, and what most of the maps still didn't catch.
Best analysis of Russia’s summer 2026 Donbas offensive. Summary: grinding progress with extremely heavy casualties.
It’s worth noting how far the Russian army has fallen: gone are the days of the BTG, maneuver warfare and massed armored columns. Russia is reduced to infiltrating small teams at great expense and after 4.5 years struggles to capture ruined villages a few km from the 2022 front line.
Informative article on the “New Donbas Line.” Worth the time to read. @clement_molin is definitely worth a follow if you are not doing so already.
Slava Ukraini!
2/ Since December 2024, the Ukrainian military has shifted its defensive strategy. Together with @playfra0, we named these new lines the "New Donbas Line" a term now regularly used by journalists and analysts.
Why name these lines this way? Because the two initial lines were dug in a uniform style behind the major Donbas cities of Kramatorsk and Dobropilla. Today, this style of defense can be found across the country: in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, the Donbas, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia.
Superb targeting by Ukraine. 🇺🇦
W nocy, Ukraina nie uderzyła w losowy hangar, ale w „mózg” całej fabryki rakiet "Sojuz", wynoszących rosyjskie satelity. Zniszczeniie hali o wysokiej klasie czystości, gdzie montuje się elektronikę, oraz brak dostępu do zachodnich mikroczipów z powodu sankcji oznacza, że rosja może na wiele miesięcy stracić możliwość wysyłania w kosmos nowych satelitów szpiegowskich i komunikacyjnych.
SZU uderzyły w Centrum Rakietowo-Kosmiczne «Progress» w Samarze - jedyne w rosji przedsiębiorstwo zajmujące się seryjnym montażem rakiet nośnych z rodziny "Sojuz-2".
Trafienie nastąpiło prawdopodobnie w budynek 106A. Wchodzi on w skład kompleksu produkcyjnego rakiet nośnych "Sojuz". Budynek 106A funkcjonuje w warunkach podwyższonej sterylności (wysokiej klasie czystości): to tutaj montowana jest pokładowa elektrotechnika, oprzyrządowanie oraz płytki drukowane.
Elektronika pokładowa "Sojuzów" opiera się na importowanej bazie komponentów o ograniczonym dostępie, której obecnie nie da się dokupić na rynku. Strategiczne znaczenie zakładów 'Progress' wynika z ich unikalności. Jest to jedyne miejsce montażu całej linii rakiet "Sojuz-2", za pomocą których rosja wynosi na orbitę zarówno uzupełnienia dla swojej wojskowej konstelacji satelitarnej, jak i własnego 'Starlinka'. Produkcja ta nie ma swojego odpowiednika ani zapasowego zakładu.
A very important piece of the overall campaign. Ukraine prioritized hitting Russia’s few A-50Us, and the results are visible now.
Russia only has ~6 airworthy A-50Us left, and with their limited endurance, it takes 4 to provide 24/7 coverage.
This partially explains how even moderately sophisticated Ukrainian drones can consistently successfully penetrate “highly defended” airspace.
So I got a lot of questions about the A-50U and Russia. Here is an update that explains why these aircraft are so important for air defense. I'll also explain why Russia won't be getting replacements anytime soon
Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft are basically flying quarterbacks. They are able to see farther than most sensors. They can talk to almost everyone. Their crews can control many assets.
This all comes down to understanding the curvature of the Earth. The figure with the Red and Gray "blobs" is an annotated image of the reasonable area a radar can cover. Most radars must have a line of sight to the target. Because of the curvature of the Earth, a surface radar can only see a low flying object 10 to 20 miles away. An airborne radar can potentially see it from over 200 miles away.
This has two major implications. The first is it provides much earlier warning. Up to an hour for a strike drone and 10 to 30 minutes for a cruise missile. The second is it covers a much larger area easily replacing a dozen or more surface radars.
This means those ground radars can stay turned off until they need to target a missile. A radar that is turned off is much harder to find as there are no radar emissions to detect.
This line of sight advantage extends to communications as well. These aircraft have crews specially trained to control air and ground assets. They see and talk to almost everything.
Ukraine has spent considerable effort hitting these on the ground and the air. They take a lot of time to replace. The last A-50 was produced around 1992. Even with upgrades over the years, they have been out of production for a while. Note that the base IL-76 airframe is still produced, the radar requires special structures and reinforcements.
The replacement, the A-100, has still not entered serial production after over a decade. The radars are very expensive to build and require a lot of specialized parts. In 2025, Ukraine targeted one of the facilities with FP-1 drones, destroying the test aircraft and damaging the factory. Work has likely been on hold since.
New aircraft are unlikely for several years.
Russia is stuck with the half dozen or so they have for now. Basically just enough to protect Putin and occasionally help Russians fend off increasingly frequent Ukrainian FP-1 and FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles. The fact Ukraine has sent UK Storm Shadow missiles at near max range into Russia shows how far these A-50U aircraft are kept from the front.
Until tomorrow. Have a nice Sunday.
Excellent summary of the current operational/strategic level of Russia’s ill-fated invasion. War has shifted in past few months, and Ukraine generally holds the initiative across the broad front.
Russia Delenda Est.
Madyar on the War
Putin sends 400,000 people to the front every year. The same plan, three years running.
A full mobilization would damage the regime more than any strike on Tuapse. That is why Putin is unlikely to announce one before the fall.
Right now, approximately 700,000 Russian troops are deployed at the front. Each month, roughly 35,000 new soldiers arrive. Roughly 35,000 are killed. Ukraine's task is to make those losses higher.
In a recent interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Madyar laid out where things stand:
"Five months ago, we found Russia's weak spot. For the first time, we matched them in monthly mobilization."
"They know our problems, and we know theirs. Information moves quickly. Since December, we have maintained this balance. Our goal is to prevent Russia from gaining a manpower advantage."
"In 2026, no one is standing in line to go to war. We select people rather than grabbing everyone indiscriminately. We train fully prepared crews and supply them with ammunition that we now produce ourselves."
"We destroy the enemy within a 1,500-meter radius of the front line."
Each of Ukraine's 17 corps holds a sector of approximately 100 kilometers. Permanent units hold the line. Attached units reinforce it. Each commander bears full responsibility for his sector.
The kill zone now extends 25 kilometers on both sides of the front. Drones operate so densely across that depth that any movement becomes dangerous. This territory belongs to no one.
No occupier. No vehicle. Nothing moves safely.
Their pickup trucks, tanks, and motorcycles sit and rust.
"We burn them whenever we choose."
Russian armored vehicles have become increasingly rare near the front. Ukraine has destroyed most of what was available.
Because Russia lost access to Starlink, it is developing its own satellite communications system. Early prototypes are large and easy to detect.
"Give them a year, and they will cover the entire front with their own communications network. We are already struggling to process the volume of signals and separate noise from actionable data."
Putin is inflicting the greatest damage on his own people – extracting their money, suppressing social media, crushing freedom.
"Every dictator must know his limits. This regime knows none. And it is destroying itself."
According to Madyar, ending the war immediately is impossible. Stopping it may be possible – but only through sustained pressure.
Russia demands that Ukraine surrender the Donetsk region.
"That will never happen."
Without third-party guarantees, no agreement is possible. And even freezing the front would only give Russia several years to rearm before moving again.
"First Ukraine. Then NATO countries."
Source: translated and adopted from Tymofiy Mylovanov
Very true! The best resources for those seriously following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 🇺🇦 @clement_molin is definitely worth following in his own right if you are not already doing so
6-stars! Highly recommend.
I find myself agreeing (yet again) with my third favorite war criminal. Who knows if he actually wrote it, but it does show an unusual level of strategic thinking and clarity regarding Russia’s current position via-a-vis Ukraine.
Russia lost the war in 2022, but it will take a while longer before they finally retreat back across the border…
Girkin concludes that Ukraine, unlike Russia, has a workable strategy in the war:
“Ukrainians long ago ‘set their priorities’: when drones and missiles were scarce and the pressure of Russian troops at the front was dangerously strong, they used what little they had mainly against military facilities and targets. (By the way, they still use them this way — just more, because their capabilities allow it.) But when ‘abundance arrived,’ they seriously set about ‘taking out’ our industrial facilities, prioritizing targets where it ‘hurts the war and the economy the most’ — and now (more than predictably! Just look at my forecasts from last year! And earlier ones as well…) they are systematically and ‘without sparing’ knocking out one plant after another, one refinery after another, not disdaining smaller targets and continuously expanding the geography of raids/strikes.
As for us — it’s a ‘Trishkin’s caftan’: you can’t stretch air defense across all objects (especially since, naturally, the Valdai residence must be protected first).
The production of air defense systems and ‘consumables’ is clearly not catching up with the sharply increased demand (which, for the Ministry of Defense leadership, apparently ‘arose suddenly’). And there is certainly a shortage of personnel — after all, you can’t train them in a couple of weeks (like a ‘disposable assault trooper’)… The Crimean Bridge cannot be left uncovered? — It cannot! Moscow must be protected? — Without a doubt! So there isn’t enough left for ‘places like Tuapse and Cherepovets’… And the further it goes, the greater the shortage will be. From this we draw the sad conclusion that the enemy’s strategy may not be the most ‘brilliant,’ but it is quite workable.”
Excellent analysis of Russian short-range air defense (Pantsir and Tor-2). The Pantsir continues to underperform, and the Tor-M2, while historically reasonably effective, seems to be on the decline.
“Птахи Мадяра” в ходе очередной аннигиляции российских ЗРК малого радиуса действия, Оса-АКМ и Тор-М2 продемонстрировали очень важный аспект, который уже давно является определяющим в вопросе: “А где российское ПВО?”
Помимо ответа в виде – оно системно уничтожается, есть ещё и ответ – оно не способно справиться с поставленной задачей перехвата малогабаритных, манёвренных целей.
Такие системы как Оса-АКМ и Тор-М2 как раз и должны перехватывать малогабаритные, манёвренные цели. Причём именно Тор-М2 оставались долгое время основной эффективной опорой российской ПВО малого радиуса действия. Нет, не ЗРПК “Панцирь-C1”, а именно ЗРК Тор-М2.
Ещё в далёком 2015 году первые ЗРПК “Панцирь-C1” стали отправляться в Сирию, для усиления ПВО российской группировки на базе Хмеймим, где и проявились все их недостатки, которые за 10 лет таки и не смогли исправить.
Согласно прекрасно всем известной статистике, 1 июля 2018 авиабазу Хмеймим атаковала группа БПЛА, которые сбросили несколько СВУ. Из всей группы БПЛА российские ЗРК “Тор-М2У” уничтожил 4 дрона, использовав 5 ЗУР, а ЗРПК Панцирь-С1 в тот день уничтожил 3 дрона, применив 13 ЗУР! При этом ни один из БПЛА не был сбит из пушечного вооружения.
В течение следующей недели авиабазу неоднократно атаковали БПЛА и за этот период ЗРК “Тор-М2У” уничтожил 7 дронов, использовав 9 ЗУР, а ЗРПК Панцирь-С1 - ни одного... С апреля по октябрь 2018 ЗРК “Тор-М2У” уничтожил 80 дронов, использовав 100 ЗУР, ЗРПК “Панцирь-С1” сбил лишь 19% целей...
Ещё тогда стало понятным, какая система более эффективна в вопросах малогабаритных целей, но сейчас мы видим обратный эффект. Уже даже надёжный Тор-М2 промахивается, косит и не показывает того КПД, который демонстрировался в предыдущие года. А видео от “Пташек Мадяра” это только доказывает.
Процесс технологической деградации укрывает даже такие надёжные, по российским меркам, системы как ЗРК Тор-М2.
Fantastic news! One should never underestimate the impact of institutional corruption on the Russian war machine.
As usual, Garry is correct. If only JD was aware of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and the 1997 Friendship Treaty…
