THIS TELLS RUSSIA: YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

Over the past week the Ukrainian military release a long film of a set of vast defence lines that stretch across much of the east of Ukraine, some way back from the current front line.

Some $2 billion has been spent on what appears to be on the surfaces, a set of difficult defence lines. They look like something from a late WW1 or early WW2 defence line. There was always a way to overcome them, you either went through, went around or blew them up.

There’s no real going around these – it would mean the war had gone on for years more and profoundly changed. If on the off chance Russia gets this far, they will not find millions of men stacked behind them and engage in bayonet stabbing contests after using infiltration tactics to cross the artificial no mans land.

Even if they chose to blast the defences to oblivion with artillery and glide bombs, all that will do is make a tangled mess of obliterated razor wire and concrete, probably thick mud and be agonizingly difficult to cross.

Even in the few places roads cross the line you know that the Ukrainians are well aware of them, both as choke points and traps. The Russians will know it too.

If they try and breach the line, their presence, even if at multiple points will be registered and dealt with remotely, as a swarm of drones, probably unjammable fiberoptic controlled, will soon be on them, that’s if the new robot sentinel drones, already demonstrating their recent capacity to defend certain points incredibly efficiently, will not be there ready. If they run out of ammo, a heavy drone flies in with a new cartridge and exits with the old one.

This defence line isn’t about stopping the Russians, it’s about slowing them down so effectively by making it impossibly difficult to cross, that Ukraine can take its time to mow them down. Every attack the Russians make on the line is an opportunity to coral them and kill them, whatever they use, whatever their intention.

It’s a force multiplier, a trap, a concentration point. Western militaries are starting to comprehend what Ukraine already knows. As the first 50km+ fiberoptic drones enter service, controlled from remote places with no radio comms, the war is becoming increasingly remote controlled and Ukraine is at the forefront of these developments. The Russians get there in the end but these days they tend to follow rather than lead. Ukraine prioritizes this type of warfare and the industrial might to make it viable.

Russia struggles, its system just isn’t as intellectually bright, financially resourced or motivated. In every sclerotic oppressive society, willpower and independent thinking are not prized virtues. The result is a tendency to fall behind in technology, but more importantly, innovation. There’s a tendency to rely on the tried and trusted rather than innovate their way out of a problem. That has always been a Russian trait, and will likely remain so. Except this time the casualties mount up and deaths start to hit home, depressing frontline morale and troop combat capability.

I have mentioned this fact before but I want you to understand the monumentality of it, because it’s vital to understanding Ukraine’s success and Russia’s failure:

On January 11th 2026 The Russian invasion of Ukraine will have lasted as long as what the Russians refer to as the ‘Great Patriotic War’, something of a misnomer but humor them because its a fact they need their faces rubbed in to, hard. The same amount of time would have elapsed as it did from June 22nd 1941 when some 3,000,000 German and Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union, all the way to the battle for Moscow, the siege of Leningrad (St Petersburg) – the story of which deeply shaped Putin’s life as a native of that city, to the battle of Stalingrad and the turning of the tide, then the greatest tank battle of all time at Kursk, to Warsaw and the crushing of Polish hope, all the way to Berlin, and Hitler’s suicide as shells rained down and Russian troops were barely 400m from the bunker. Nothing, absolutely nothing explains to Russians how utterly pathetic and what an utter failure Putin’s war has been for them.

Russia is nothing in comparison to its past. Ukraine – a country they think should not even exist, has ground them into the dust, humiliated them at almost every turn, outmaneuvered them at almost every opportunity, and is now bringing the strategic drone war to Russia on a scale that’s been long awaited. And if Putin thinks he can reach this defence line – whose mere existence represents an obstacle of physical and mental proportions they have no clear idea how to approach, it also tells them something they don’t want to hear or face: Ukraine isn’t giving in. Not now, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. In the depths of Moscow’s elites they know it. They either take advantage of their own situation to prolong it, knowing that its in their best interest to prolong a pointless war for their own selfish ends, or deep in the recesses are those who can do something, but haven’t yet figured out how to end it.

The fat has long gone from the body of an increasingly emaciated Russia. The muscles are weakening. Its life blood drains slowly away from one tiny cut after another. There system is diseased and worsening. It’s just a matter of time. The very idea of overcoming Ukraine seems more preposterous every day and the existence of the defence line is a clear political demonstration it has no intention of ending its fight against Russian aggression. How much more persuading does Russia need? Sadly history tells us it learns only slowly and after a great deal of pain, and by the time it does learn, it’s usually too late to save itself.

The Analyst

militaryanalyst.bsky.social