🇷🇺🇺🇦 Frontline realities of 2025

Small squads are fighting a huge war. A "strongpoint" can be held by a handful — two, three, or four people. The line of contact has been completely transformed. In 2023 our mission was to get a company into a village with ten BMP-3s. That was already difficult back then.

Now the vehicles sit tens of kilometers from the LOC. If in 2023 those same BMP-3s could play the role of little tanks, today they’re unlikely to reach a firing position. Not because the vehicles are "obsolete" — it’s that, for whatever reason, they can’t be systematically protected or covered from the main threat: kamikaze drones.

Here’s what “getting there” looks like for a regular infantryman. It’s a full march now. With all your kit — roughly 30 kilos — you get dropped 10–15 kilometers from the point where you will actually fight. Some approaches run up to 30 kilometers. Other routes, under forest cover, let you leap to within a few kilometers of the LOC. Beyond that, resupply and movement rely on ATVs, dirt bikes, and whatever sort of sketchy electric scooters people are improvising. The rear area now begins some 50 kilometers from the LOC.

The hardest part is getting there. Routes and lines of communication are being mined — via drones. Improvised mines and booby traps are shoved into medkits, casings are smeared with glue and covered with grass, scores of small bomblets are scattered on trails, and where you can see a wheel track there are large magnetic mines. If you don’t know how all these mines look, you will step on one.

The route is the single most dangerous segment. Small Mavics constantly watch movement and can instantly pass coordinates to an FPV strike team or an artillery battery. On the LOC itself — in a dugout — it can be less dangerous than on the way to it. The common pattern now: guys sit holed up for a month or two and pull through with no losses, then get into trouble on the exit.

There is no organized mechanized resupply. Everything moves on foot. The best you can hope for is a gutsy motorcyclist who’ll dash in and get out. At night the nastiness wakes up. Large drones with thermal sensors drop mortar rounds. If you haven't found your fighting position before sunset — you die.

That leads to the core problem. You can’t amass forces or sustain large numbers on the LOC anymore. That’s true for both sides. To fix this and start winning systematically you need unit-authorized ATVs, large logistics drones, small evacuation buggies, and drone interceptors. Right now all of those are off the books — bought privately or cobbled together through aid channels.

Micro-teams must do everything. There are no dedicated combat engineers, signalers, or medics in many units. You have to know it all yourself. First — navigation and working with mobile maps; second — radio and signal procedures; third — explosive ordnance recognition and basic EOD tradecraft. Without those skills you’ll get physically lost, lose contact with those who could help, and step on a little woolly thing in no-man’s land that will end you.

The gray zone is now about 2–3 kilometers. In that "no-man’s territory" there’s nothing but abandoned 200s and mines. It’s crushing for fighters’ morale. The enemy will often break and run after taking their first losses during an assault. The quality of their troops — you can see the forced draft and degradation for yourself. Even their special units have lost their old edge. Still, the bottom line is we can barely reach them.

https://fxtwitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1975482041786597784

🇨🇳🛢 China is adding eleven new oil reserve sites this year and next as Beijing accelerates stockpiling

The sites have a combined capacity of about 169 million barrels; China added 180-190 million barrels of storage capacity between 2020 and 2024

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-adding-11-new-oil-reserve-sites-2025-2026-2025-10-07/

📝 arctotherium: This, along with measures to create coal-feedstock chemical supply chains (which are not competitive with oil-based ones) are some of the most ominous signs coming out of China. Preparing for a cutoff of seaborn trade.

🇮🇳🚢🌏 With goodwill port calls in the East, training missions in the Indian Ocean & an ongoing Mediterranean outreach, September 2025 was a high-tempo month for the Indian Navy’s external engagements, here's a map that possibly reflects India’s growing push in naval diplomacy

🔗 Damien Symon

🇪🇺🤝🚩 Ilaria Salis has just been granted immunity by the European Parliament. She is a member of the infamous Antifa Hammer Gang, which attacks right wing politicians and activists with hammers.

Several of their victims were completely random people who were mistakenly identified as nationalists and were left with life-changing injuries.

Hungary wanted to prosecute Salis for a series of these violent attacks in Budapest, but the European Parliament has now voted to give Salis full immunity.

The ‘rule of law’ and ‘the law’ don’t exist in Europe. They are just another set of tools used by those in power to oppress the native population. That’s why I lost my immunity as a member of parliament and got a prison sentence for hatespeech, while Salis didn’t lose her immunity for attempted murder. Salis serves the Great-Replacement-regime, I oppose it.

🔗 Dries van Langenhove

🇹🇷🤝🇺🇸❌🇷🇺🇮🇷 — Reuters reports that Turkey is shifting away from Iranian and Russian gas imports by ramping up production and increasing US imports- which could fulfill more than half of their gas needs by 2028.

🇹🇷🕊🇮🇱🇵🇸🇪🇬 — Türkiye says a ceasefire will be "declared today" if Israel and Hamas reach an agreement in their indirect talks in Egypt.

🔗 Clash Report (@clashreport)