Defense Researcher / Engineer @RANDCorporation | future tech, drones, air defense, Russia-Ukraine war | Husband, father, skier | Views my own. RT ≠ endorsement.
Joined March 2009
- Tweets3.1K
- Following575
- Followers4K
- Likes25.2K
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Drones are speedrunning the history of military aviation: scouts, then bombers, then fighters to hunt them, then carriers and relays. And they keep branching into classes aviation never had.
Everything gets tested in combat. Only what works survives.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
As someone that studied SAR for my master’s thesis, the fact that Russia chose a SAR satellite to mess with is kind of cool. Obviously I condemn the action, but ICEYE must be causing them a lot of trouble to do this.
Cosmos 2612 has been maneuvering closer to an ICEYE SAR satellite. Using OEL, I created these visualizations to help understand what’s going on.
The animation shows a 3D RIC frame animation of the recent motion
The second figure shows how individual parameters evolved over time. You can see that 2612 matched the orbital plane of the SAR satellite and closed the in-track separation.
The third figure shows that between gaps in TLEs the motion of 2612 changes in an unnatural manner. This indicates that a maneuver occurred.
The last figure shows 2D cuts of the 3D animation.
What do you think it’s up to?
Michael Bohnert retweeted
MORE: The Kremlin intends to accustom NATO militaries and governments to a baseline level of Russian activity and airspace violations in an effort to create tactical surprise if or when the Kremlin conducts further escalations — such as direct drone strikes on NATO targets.
The clearest historical comparison is Egypt’s actions in the lead-up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it conducted regular military exercises near the Israeli border that initially prompted Israeli reactions but were gradually treated as routine –with the result that the Israeli military partially dismissed Egypt’s actual deployments to invade as just another exercise.
The Russian military is not conducting a rapid military buildup on NATO’s borders, to be clear, and this is an inexact analogy — but NATO must ensure that it does not relax into treating Russian drone incursions and aggressive flight paths by Russian military aircraft as routine and unimportant occurrences, either in terms of raising the threshold of what Russian action merits a NATO response (a fight the Kremlin has unfortunately already partially won) or in terms of reducing the urgency with which NATO states and populations respond to individual Russian actions.
SPECIAL REPORT | NEW: Russia is operating within a war framework against Europe while Europe continues to function within a peace framework. A full-scale war between Russia and NATO is not inevitable or imminent, but NATO and European states must recognize the framework the Kremlin is using to conduct necessary efforts to deter Russian escalation.
The Kremlin is conducting several mutually supporting campaigns against Europe in order to support its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and advance its longstanding grand strategic objectives of breaking NATO and reestablishing dominant influence over former Soviet states.
ISW assesses that the Kremlin is conducting a series of overlapping campaigns to achieve at least two overarching strategic objectives: Reduce or eliminate European military and diplomatic support for Ukraine; and neutralize NATO as a unified alliance capable of opposing Russia.
The Kremlin is also conducting three coordinated military campaigns in distinct operational theaters targeting the airspace and territory of NATO member states and Moldova that are extensions of Russia's war in Ukraine.
The growing pace of Russian kinetic actions against Europe is intended to cause two effects: to raise NATO's threshold of what actions are considered worthy of a response, and to inure NATO governments and populations to constant alerts so that they do not take any individual Russian action seriously.
The Kremlin also benefits, however, from European underreaction to the Kremlin's ongoing campaigns, and particularly from the analysts and public officials who reject any discussion of ongoing Russian kinetic campaigns against Europe or warnings of the near-term Russian threat out of hand. Finding a balance between necessary urgency and panic will be incredibly challenging in the face of both Russian information operations and good faith policy disagreements, but NATO and Europe must address this balance.
The difficulty European governments face in acknowledging that Russia is operating within a war framework and pursuing actual military lines of effort against and within European states is proof of the success of Russian cognitive warfare efforts. European political parties and populations must understand the degree to which they have been conditioned by extensive Russian efforts to avoid calling Russian actions what they are — parts of a military campaign intended to achieve discrete effects.
No one desires a war with Russia. The purpose of describing the Russian war framework and advocating for responses to it is to avoid escalation and conventional war. Europe (and the United States) must find a way to open their discourse to the idea that they must recognize the war framework.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
I...worked on this proof for a year...and...they just…tweeted it out.
We’re sharing a solution to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, one of the deepest problems at the frontier of mathematics.
The proof was produced by a group of agents, using an OpenAI next-generation model significantly more capable than GPT-6 Astra.
The problem concerns whether the description of smooth three-dimensional fluid motion modeled by the Navier-Stokes equations can break down. It has remained unresolved for roughly 90 years.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
A developer using Bluetooth headphones accidentally caught Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba secretly hijacking his computer's audio system without making a single sound.
When his wireless headphones refused to switch audio to his phone while browsing AliExpress, he inspected the site's hidden code. He discovered background scripts holding his computer's audio pipeline wide open.
Alibaba was using the browser's WebAudio API to run invisible sound waves at zero volume. By measuring tiny hardware differences in how each computer processes those signals, the site created a unique digital fingerprint to track devices.
Because the secret audio path stayed active, it froze his Bluetooth connection while quietly scraping hardware memory, screen dimensions, and network data in the background.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Nobody should be buying security cameras from Russia, or China for that matter
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Unless Ukrainian operators are able to predict the launch points of Iskander-M launchers, which is highly unlikely, this will not be possible.
ERAM-type missiles are not equipped with the midcourse datalink and terminal guidance systems needed to effectively prosecute mobile and semi-mobile assets.
As others have already explained, the only real option for hunting mobile missile launchers is to enable Starlink inside Russia and penetrate Russian launch corridors, and even then it will be difficult.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
So: why can't the country's air defense stop Ukraine's drones?
Because the fix requires exactly what the strikes keep destroying — fuel, factories and time.
Full interview 👇
indavemedia.com/a-rand-engin…
Michael Bohnert retweeted
/RANT ON
You know, if someone told me in 2022 the fastest path to 500K followers on Twitter was copypasta from Telegram, vagueposting, not retweeting and taking other people's work, and just grabbing the analysis of others, changing a few words, and making it our own, I wouldn't have built relationships, hired journalists, bought satellite images, and spent countless hours with people smarter than me and the team, for 33.6K followers doing real journalism.
Ya - I'm salty this afternoon - again. Why? Because a lot of what we assessed, through discussion, arguments, research, and analysis from different sources, is coming to fruition.
Our 2022 prediction that Russia wouldn't be able to kick-start its civil aviation industry and Putin's goal of 1,100 aircraft by 2028 was delusional
Our end-of June 2022 analysis that Russia's combat potential had reached a culmination point after the Luhansk Oblast offensive, and the only effective fighting force left in the Summer of 2022 was the Wagner Group that was fighting for control of the Svitlodarsk Bulge at the time
Our analysis of the situation in southern Kharkiv from June to September 2022, and our repeated assessment to watch the western flank because Ukraine was actively setting conditions for something major - one day, when the Russia-Ukraine War ends, we'll finally be able to share why we had so much insight in the Izyum region and how much more we knew versus what we shared
Our October 2022 analysis that Yevgeny Prigozhin and Sergei Shoigu were on a political collision course of wills that would inevitably end with one of them being thrown under the bus by Putin - we just didn't see the Prigozhin Insurrection coming and the decision to stop it less than 48 hours after it started
Our 2023 economic analysis and prediction that the Russian economy would hit a brick wall by the end of 2025 if the Russia-Ukraine War did not end, and not wavering from that analysis
Fighting August-October 2023 accusations that Zabrina Zabrinsky was a "Russian agent" and we were so stupid that we hired a known Russian, and protecting Zabrina from the false accusations so she could focus on her work
Our February 2024 analysis that Ocheretyne was the key to Pokrovsk, and our in-depth report on what would happen if Russia gained control of the settlement, including the directions of attack, the order of when key defensive points would fall, and where Russian forces would get bogged down after a series of relatively rapid advances
Our 2024 analysis that Russia's use of VBIEDs and the development of FrankenIFVs was not a sign of innovation, but the first signs of a decline
Our October 2024 analysis that Ukraine's operational goal in Kursk was political, and not military - to prove that attacking Russian soil would not lead to the use of CBRN weapons, in the hope that Ukraine's allies would allow deep strikes into Russia
Our November 2024 analysis that Oreshnik was just a lightly modified RS-26 Rubezh and the later analysis when more information became available that the kinetic warheads had the equivalent destructive power of Russia's 240mm mortar with even less accuracy
Our Christmas Day 2024 analysis of Ukraine's published casualty figures against leaked information from Russia, with credit given to Mediazona/Meduza/BBC for part of our analysis, that Ukraine's daily casualty figures are shockingly accurate
Our early 2025 analysis that the combat potential of the individual Russian soldier had peaked and was now in a long-term decline
Our dismissal of Russia's repeated 2025 claims that all of the Kursk Oblast to the 1991 border had been liberated - it still hasn't - yes that's pedantic, but it's true
Our early 2026 analysis that Ukraine's SEAD/DEAD in southern Ukraine and occupied Crimea was part of a larger operational plan, and not just random strikes on poorly operated air defense systems
Our March 2026 analysis that Russia had reached an "inflection point" of national decline because everything has come together to drag the country down
Our early May 2026 analysis that Russia's fuel crisis would be much worse than 2025 - if anything, that analysis was too conservative
Our analysis from 2 days ago that Ukraine was not attacking the Crimean Bridge because the operational goal is for the Russians to start using it to go home
And we stand by our assessment of Kostiantynivka. Russian forces will consolidate gains in 75% to 80% of the city by the end of the summer, and then be stuck for months trying to capture the remaining 20% to 25%. And as we wrote a few days ago, due to Moscow's false capture claim, even that may be too optimistic for Russia.
We also stand by our assessment that if you're waiting for a 1917-style economic and political collapse in Russia, you're going to wait forever.
And when we get things wrong, we admit our mistakes. For example, in August 2024 when Russian forces first entered the eastern edges of Toretsk and consolidated their gains, we called for Ukraine to withdraw from the city. Our argument, Ukraine couldn't afford another attritional urban war like in Bakhmut, and there was defensible territory at the city's outskirts. That assessment aged like warm milk on a summer day.
We admitted we got Russia's loss of Starlink wrong, declaring it would only cause short-term problems and that Russia would adapt within 8 weeks.
We admitted that our initial assessment that Ukraine's localized offensive in the Pokrovske AO was tactical in nature had understated Ukraine's operational goals, and did a further analysis. In other news, Ukraine has unraveled one year of Russian advances, almost to the day, in 5.5 months with significantly fewer resources. Our initial assessment that by advancing on the northern flank of the Huliaipole AO, Russia's offensive would slow, was partially correct. The loss of Starlink and Russia's fuel and logistical crisis have also contributed to the fighting west and southwest of Huliaipole becoming positional.
And some of our assessment will be left for historians to decide. We maintain that as costly as the defense of Bakhmut was, it was the right decision. We strongly disagree with how that defense was conducted. Had Ukraine withdrawn to Chasiv Yar in February 2023, Russian forces might very well be fighting for control of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk today. Yes, we know this is a very controversial take.
When we've made mistakes in our SITREP, we have called it out with an Errors and Omissions section.
Some people would be very surprised if they ever saw our client list and the consumers of our reports.
Long nights and days wondering if key contacts that went dark had died. Sobbing when my wife walked into my office on April 1, 2022, looked at me and asked what's wrong, just minutes after we finished our analysis of photos, videos, and satellite images from Bucha. Screaming for joy and sobbing privately after a key contact who hadn't communicated with us since May 2022 escaped the occupied territories in December 2022 through Soledar. Through SOLEDAR - in December 2022. Not to mention the repeated near heart attacks Zarina gave me in Kherson.
But on Twitter? I guess that isn't good enough. Because although the truth matters, most of the time the truth is really boring. I hate writing sensational headlines for Google News and Newsbreak, but that's what gets the clicks.
If you want to support independent journalism, a team with a track record of getting a lot more right than wrong, that does its own analysis, and an organization that practices ethical journalism by retweeting instead of copypasta, and providing credit when we use OSINT and public sources to feed our analysis, give us a follow.
The team doesn't think that's a lot to ask for.
/RANT OFF
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Happy 250th, America! 🇺🇸
Red (Mars), white (Moon), and blue (Earth) brought to you by the solar system.
ALT A crisp photo of Mars against black space. The Red Planet appears rust-colored with dark texturing along its middle and a light patch on its lower right side. Credit: USGS Astrogeology Science Center
ALT A newly-released photo of our Moon taken by the crew of Artemis II. The top portion is shadowed by black space. This angle captures a mostly uniform, light gray portion of the lunar surface, with darker patches in the lower third. Craters of various sizes are visible all over the Moon’s surface—most easily visible at the edge of the upper shadow. Credit: NASA
ALT A newly-released photo of Earth's horizon taken during the Artemis II mission from the window of the Orion spacecraft. This view shows the hazy, blue atmosphere on top of faded, textured clouds. The Moon appears as a tiny, white dot in the distance. Credit: NASA
Michael Bohnert retweeted
New footage confirms that an errant Russian surface to air missile was responsible for the tank roof toss at the Moscow Oil Refinery this morning.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
The fuel crisis is spreading across Russia.
A resident of Novorossiysk asks for life hacks on how to live without gasoline.
"We've learned to live without water, electricity, and the internet. Without everything. But how the hell are we supposed to live without fuel? What app do I need? How do I beat the system?"
The fuel crisis in Russia is expanding - restrictions are now in place in at least 14 regions.
After reports of fuel shortages in occupied Crimea, similar problems have started appearing across Russian regions.
In the Kursk, Belgorod, and Pskov regions, some gas stations are limiting sales to no more than 20 liters of gasoline per customer. Similar restrictions have also been reported at certain stations in Moscow, the Moscow region, and St. Petersburg.
In Krasnoyarsk and the Tomsk region, drivers are being refused fuel sales in jerry cans. In Karelia, authorities blame the restrictions on the holiday season, while residents in the Murmansk region are also reporting difficulties refueling their vehicles.
Drivers in the Voronezh region complain about gasoline shortages at some gas stations, while in the Novgorod region there are reports of a 20-liter limit per vehicle.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Russia is not standing still.
Ukraine intercepts up to 90% of Russian aerial attack weapons. So Russia is engineering its way around that 90%.
But here is what makes that engineering possible: Western components. Microchips. Microcomputers. Moving through grey import channels — supplied, knowingly or not, by companies in countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia.
Without that foreign microelectronics supply chain, Russia could not integrate AI guidance into its Shahed variants. Could not build EW resistance into its drones. Could not improve Kh-101 precision. Could not modernise its strike arsenal at the pace it is moving.
Ukraine’s State Research Institute for Testing and Certification of Armaments just briefed domestic and foreign journalists on exactly what Russian engineers have been building with those components — and what every air defence planner and sanctions enforcement agency needs to understand.
🧵👇
Michael Bohnert retweeted
This sort of FPV tactic to "explosively erode" civil infrastructure points out the crazy cost advantage of FPV drones.
43 times $1,500 is $64,500.
That is roughly the price of a single 2,000 lb JDAM without the $32,000 an hour overhead cost of flying a F-16 strike jet.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
В The Economist вийшла чудова стаття «Ukrainian strikes are inflicting pain deep inside Russia», яка описує вплив ударів вглиб РФ. Видання провело власний аналіз даних — і висновки для України просто чудові. Розберу головне.
«Ми проаналізували дані про 1289 українських ударів від проєкту моніторингу Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) по цілях, що були щонайменше за 100 км від кордонів. З 2022 року до кінця 2024-го під це визначення підпадало 335 ударів. У 2025 році Україна здійснила 658 таких ударів — майже вдвічі більше за один рік, ніж за три попередні разом узяті. Цього року за нинішніми темпами Україна на шляху до понад 800 глибинних ударів.»
Ці цифри означають просту річ: наша програма глибинних ударів зростає не поступово, а лавиноподібно. Те, на що раніше йшли роки, тепер робиться за місяці. І причина відома — власний ОПК, який вийшов на серійні масштаби і більше не залежить від чужих дозволів та поставок.
Окрім кількості ударів невпинно росте і їхня географія:
«Ми склали перелік із 6351 російського стратегічного об'єкта, розташованого щонайменше за 100 км від кордону... Ми виявили, що 2377 із цих об'єктів торік опинилися в радіусі 5 км від глибинного українського удару, зафіксованого ACLED. Для порівняння — лише 32 у 2022 році.»
При цьому видання чесно визнає, що навіть ці цифри, які надає ACLED, занижені, і будує власну модель за супутниковими даними:
«Протягом 2025 року наша модель зафіксувала приблизно втричі більше ударів, ніж зафіксував ACLED.»
Реальний масштаб нашої роботи настільки великий, що за ним уже не встигають навіть професійні моніторингові групи. І окремо The Economist підкреслює нашу тактику повторних ударів по тих самих об'єктах — саме так ми працювали по Туапсе, по пітерських терміналах, по «ВНДІР-Прогресу» в Чебоксарах.
«По-перше, це ускладнює швидкий ремонт... Ремонти коштовні, вони відволікають кошти, які інакше пішли б на військову та цивільну економіку. Дані російського центробанку показують, що з першого кварталу 2024 року банківське кредитування нафтових компаній на ремонт НПЗ зросло на 22 мільярди доларів.»
22 мільярди доларів — лише на латання дірок від наших дронів і ракет. Кожен повторний приліт обнуляє попередній ремонт і змушує починати спочатку. Це гроші, які Кремль виймає з війни проти нас і закопує у власні руїни.
«Цієї весни російська нафтопереробка була на 15% нижчою, ніж роком раніше, попри високі ціни. Уряд запровадив обмеження на експорт бензину й авіаційного пального, щоб уникнути дефіциту... Росія може бути змушена скоротити видобуток нафти пізніше цього року, бо не зможе переробити чи продати всю сиру нафту, яку видобуває.»
Зверніть увагу на останню тезу. Йдеться вже не про тимчасові перебої з бензином — ідеться про перспективу скорочення самого видобутку. Важливо розуміти, що закриті свердловини з нинішнім становищем РФ не зможе просто заново відкрити, а це величезні втрати.
«Між червнем і груднем 2025 року експортні доходи країни від викопного палива становили 18 мільярдів доларів, або на 12% менше, ніж можна було б очікувати за звичайних умов. За перші чотири місяці 2026 року вони були на 34% нижчими.»
Мінус 34% нафтогазових доходів лише за чотири місяці цього року. Це гроші, які не перетворяться на «Шахеди», «Іскандери» і зарплати окупантам.
Також було відмічено, що й технологічно Україна стрімко розвивається:
«Її нова крилата ракета "Фламінго" має заявлену дальність 3000 км, а її балістичні ракети можуть незабаром піти в серійне виробництво.»
Дуже важливо, що всі ці наративи — це холодний аналіз одного з найавторитетніших ділових видань світу, на супутникових даних, банківській статистиці та незалежних моделях. І цей аналіз підтверджує: стратегія глибинних ударів працює, і працює системно.
Усе це зроблено власною зброєю, на яку не поширюється жодна чужа «червона лінія». Поки партнери роками радились, куди можна бити, а куди ні, часто через витоки інформації при тривалій підготовці Росія була готова до ударів. Тепер ми збудували інструмент, який дістає ворога на 3000 кілометрів і вже вийняв із російського бюджету десятки мільярдів доларів.
Michael Bohnert retweeted
I looked into the U.S. Navy's Corsair drone boat that just rescued two American pilots in the Strait of Hormuz, and the engineering is remarkable.
Built by Texas-based Saronic Technologies, the Corsair is a 24-foot autonomous surface vessel powered by AI. It hits 40 mph, carries 1,000 pounds of payload, and can sail more than 1,000 miles without a human aboard. Each unit costs roughly $1 million to produce, which is a fraction of what comparable manned naval assets cost.
The platform runs on Saronic's autonomy stack, which fuses real-time sensor data, computer vision, and AI decision-making to navigate, identify targets, and execute mission objectives without remote piloting. It's part of the Navy's Task Force 59, the unit dedicated to AI-powered unmanned vessels operating in the Middle East.
Saronic stood this up in 12 months from prototype to production. The company is on track to build more than 20 vessels per year by 2027.
This is what American AI looks like in the field. 🇺🇸
Michael Bohnert retweeted
People are finally waking up to the reality on the ground in Ukraine.
The defeatist narrative is over, and the world is realizing that Russia has completely botched this invasion.
The tone of the conversation has fundamentally changed. For a long time, outside observers mistakenly thought Russia would eventually win a war of attrition through sheer mass. But well over four years into this full-scale invasion, people are realizing that mass does not always equal victory.
The data speaks for itself. Out of the 23 regional capital and special status cities under Ukrainian control at the start of the full-scale war, Russia has failed to take a single one. Ukraine still proudly controls every single one of those 23 cities today. Russia is completely stuck, and their grand strategic goals of total subjugation are entirely out of reach.
Things are going to get progressively worse for Russia as their economy and military capacity continue to erode. But we cannot afford to be complacent. Russia has little to lose.
The war will still last, and Russia will undoubtedly cause massive amounts of suffering before they are decisively defeated.
The trend line is clear, but the struggle is far from over. Russia is on track to lose the war.
Buckle up
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Since Pope Leo XIV mentioned this in encyclical, this means if your employer is pushing you to use AI, you can cite religious conserns as a reason to not use it at work
Michael Bohnert retweeted
Today, among the goods that are universally intended for everyone, we must also include new forms of property, such as patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructure and data. In a context where the wealth of nations depends increasingly on knowledge and technology, when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few, without adequate forms of sharing and access, a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods. In turn, it widens the gap between the included and the excluded, between those who can participate in the digital revolution and those who remain on the margins. #MagnificaHumanitas
Michael Bohnert retweeted
1/ The world faces a catastrophic cliff-edge shortage of oil due to the Strait of Hormuz blockade in the next four weeks, analysts warn. This will cause a deep recession, fuel rationing, the shutdown of entire industries, and oil prices potentially as high as $370 per barrel. ⬇️
