Several people have requested updates on the Azerbaijani flight situation, as well as the sinking of Russian Ursa Major ship. I wanted to wait until there was more information, but the topic fits the general theme of today’s report so let us discuss:

As far as the Aktau flight crash, today Putin reportedly ‘apologized’ to Aliyev for Russia’s involvement but both leaders appear to be skirting any direct declarations as to what happened. Both leaders’ statements referred to some ‘external events’ and seemed to have an agreement to not explicitly blame the crash on a shoot down. This could be for political reasons or it may simply be honest caution in not wanting to jump to conclusions as investigations go on, since no official conclusion has been reached.

However, it’s difficult to believe any ‘investigation’ is necessary given that if a Russian AD missile shot down the plane, Russia would likely have that data immediately available from the military, unless someone in the air defense battalion command has subsequently covered it up.

On first impression, it seems obvious the plane was in fact shot down by an errant missile. However, we must consider that the official flight log of the neutral Kazakh pilots does mention a ‘bird strike’, though at the moment we have no way of verifying if these transcripts are 100% real:

You could argue the pilots can make a mistake by assuming a blown engine is a ‘bird strike’ if nothing else was visible or obvious to them, however they specifically mention the cockpit being hit, which is strange; that would imply they watched birds actually hit the cockpit glass. The weather is claimed to have been foggy, so we could also hypothetically argue “something” hit the cockpit and they merely assumed it was birds—it’s difficult to know for sure.

For all we know, they were hit by one of the Ukrainian drones, which could have resembled a bird through the fog as they ran right into it—though admittedly that’s less likely.

Also, it’s interesting that the side of the plane with the shrapnel is the left side:

Notice this damaged flap track fairing is on the left wing from the photo taken by a passenger:

Since the plane was headed in a northerly direction when it was hit, the expected ‘missile’ would have come from the west, i.e. left—which is consistent with the shrapnel damage. This is consistent with videos from inside the cabin that appear to show shrapnel holes on the seats and overhead on the left side.

Red arrow showing potential missile direction:

But if a Russian missile did shoot down the plane as some claim, how could that be possible, some might ask? Well, for one there is no IFF (Identity Friend Foe) between AD systems and airliners. Airliners should simply not be anywhere near active combat zones. But modern AD systems are of course designed to differentiate between different objects based on their radar signature, flight characteristics, such as speed, altitude, etc. Unfortunately, a descending airliner ready to land could actually look a lot like a drone given that it’s airspeed and low altitude would precisely mimic one of these Ukrainian OWA-UAS which fly at the exact same speed and altitude as an airliner approaching a runway. This is particularly the case given that apparently heavy Russian GPS jamming was ongoing at the time, which may have seriously affected everyone’s signals including Russian AD, given that coordinating such things is often not as smooth as one would like.

Recall that modern radar systems may not be as discerning as you might think. For instance, days ago we found out from US military-connected sources that the US’ shoot down of its own F/A-18 Super Hornet was “far worse than we thought”, for two reasons:

The USS Gettysburg which shot down the Hornet had just gone through an extensive $200 million upgrade which vastly updated its AEGIS system, radars, etc., to the most modern and advanced standards. In fact, it was the first Ticonderoga class cruiser to successfully complete the Navy’s major SLEP (Service Life Extension Program) upgrade program.

On top of that, it turns out that the Gettysburg almost shot down a second Hornet, which just dodged the missile at the last second:

So: one of the US Navy’s most advanced ships which was just upgraded for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars was not able to discern its own incoming jets, especially given the presence of IFF, and tried to shoot two of them down in a row? It’s clear to see that modern radar discrimination is not as “perfect” as people think, no matter the country.

The presence of fog would have further complicated the situation near Grozny given claims that a Pantsir system was used, which also relies on electro-optical visual tracking of targets as redundancy to radar.

However, my one point of skepticism is that the airplane seems to have suffered very light shrapnel damage which is not consistent with a modern missile striking it. You see, a giant airliner is the easiest target in the world for any modern AD system where the chance of the missile striking a more “glancing” blow is very low. Such a ‘fat, slow target’ would be hit much more directly and completely shot down, with consequent fragment dispersion showing far more serious penetration rather than a light scattering which leaves the plane to continue flying hundreds of kilometers. But in this case, the shrapnel damage is so light, and the plane made it so far—across the entire Caspian Sea—that I’m left extremely skeptical that a missile was targeted directly at the plane. The type of damage seems more consistent with something exploding nearby but which was not directly targeted at the plane. The only scenario which fits the above explanation? A drone may have been shot down “near” the plane and the explosion from both the drone’s own fragmentation warhead plus the missile may have sprayed the plane that happened to be flying by, but just glancingly so.

The other thing to recall: I have reported before that Ukrainian SBU now regularly sends up smaller drones in the path of Russian planes precisely to cause AD systems to engage the target and hopefully hit the planes instead. This was reportedly done during the Il-76 and/or A-50 AWACS shoot downs. It is carried out by some operative on the ground who can anonymously fly a small Mavik style UAV or even FPV drone directly in the plane’s path in order to ‘bait’ the AD.

So, my personal assessment for now in the absence of new information is that it’s likely a Russian AD missile may have had something to do with it, but still feels wrong that it was a directly targeted hit—there appears more to the story. But there’s still also the chance it was an outright Ukrainian provocation in the form of a terrorist attack made to look like a Russian shoot down.

Ursa Major

There’s not much to say on the sinking itself other than that it was almost certainly carried out by Ukrainian and possibly British special services as claimed. I have long wondered when Ukraine would begin exporting its naval drones to hound Russian fleets across the world, rather than just in the Black Sea. We’ve seen that these drones have massive ranges, able to go from Odessa to the Kerch Bridge in a circular path that takes them far outside of Crimea, which can be nearly 1000km in total distance. This means Russian ships in the Mediterranean and elsewhere can be easy prey, given that the Starlinks powering these drones are able to navigate them anywhere.

I’m not saying a naval drone was responsible in this case, but it was only a matter of time before Ukraine began targeting Russian naval assets all over the world, which are essentially sitting ducks.

But this brings up a much larger theme, which also ties into the Aktau flight ‘shoot down’:

Russia is entering a very dangerous time period. It may sound cliche to say this because for a long time now we’ve constantly spoken of Ukraine’s “collapse”, but this time it really is getting to that point where things are hitting the wall. Particularly depending on what Trump does, Ukraine may not last out the next year. Zelensky is now forced to embark on a major global operation to “fire all guns” in provoking Russia to the maximum, full tilt.

This is not just my speculation but has been supported by several reports that affirm Ukraine has activated such a wide-scale plan. It involves other countries in broadly increasing the pressure on Russia’s operations from every conceivable angle. The most obvious and overtly declared one has been the new announcement that the US and allies are declaring an elevated war on Russia’s “shadow tanker fleet”. This has created immediate results, as a new provocation surrounding Russia’s ‘Eagle S’ ship was seized yesterday under suspicion of allegedly cutting more undersea cables between Estonia and Finland.

Now Russia’s SVR reports that the same UK and US intelligence agencies are gearing up to increase hybrid pressures on Russia’s remaining Syrian bases:

SVR (Foreign Intel. Service)

⚡️🇬🇧🇺🇸 US and UK intelligence agencies are preparing terrorist attacks on Russian bases in Syria

After the overthrow of Assad, the US and UK are making efforts to prevent the situation in Syria from stabilizing, the Foreign Intelligence Service reports.

Terrorist attacks against Russian military facilities in Syria should be organized by militants of the banned ISIS. The terrorists have already received attack drones (Stock Photo) for attacks. In order to hide their involvement, the US and UK military commands have instructed their air forces to continue sporadic strikes on ISIS positions.

London and Washington hope that such provocations will force Russia to evacuate its military from Syria. At the same time, the new Syrian authorities will be accused of failing to control the radicals, the department emphasized.

This is particularly worrying as “moderate rebels” have posted ominous videos of themselves watching Russian Su-35S planes taking off just outside Khmeimim airbase:

The provocations continue, and the West knows precisely which choke- and pressure points to apply:

Lithuanian special forces reserve officer Aurimas Navis dreams of capturing Kaliningrad: ‘Kaliningrad is very important if we start thinking seriously about how to stop Russia. If it were taken away from Russia, it would be a very big step forward towards ending the war. I said 10 years ago that NATO countries should simply enter Kaliningrad and hold a referendum. I hope that the people of Kaliningrad would choose Europe. This can be done simply because there are few soldiers left there.’

Or how about this:

🇷🇺⚔️🇫🇮 Russia is working on a scenario of attacking Finland – Finnish propagandists are intimidating the population

▪️The Iltalehti Journal publication, citing sources in NATO, writes in a new crazy article that Russia is allegedly preparing for a possible attack on Finland and other countries on the eastern flank of the Alliance.

▪️”According to estimates, the target of the Russian invasion could be the borders of the 1743 Peace of Turku. In particular, Russian forces could target the region up to the Kymijoki River, and in the north – the Puumalan Strait.”

RVvoenkor

Again, they have lost the war on the ground, so now they have no choice but to make Russia bleed all over the globe. They will attempt to burn every relationship Russia has, like with Azerbaijan over the flight crash. That’s in addition to the newly launched campaign to destabilize Russian society via SBU-funded arson attacks: all over Russia the past couple weeks people have been coerced and suborned into setting fires, perpetrating sabotage, etc.

This naturally energizes the ‘turbo patriot’, doomer, and concern-troll crowd into heaping invectives on Putin for being ‘weak’ and not nuking London, Washington, Kiev, etc., as a “message” to stop these provocations. Realistically speaking, there’s not much Russia can do to directly halt these escalations. The only way to stop them is to win the war as quickly and decisively as possible.

On that account, I think criticisms against Russia’s approach do have merit: there are many arguments that can be made that Russia could end the war much more quickly by applying more brutality; Oreshniks on Dnieper Bridges, anyone? Unfortunately it’s impossible to say for certain which approach would have been more effective in the long term. One argument claims hitting Kiev with Oreshniks will have no effect on defeating the actual AFU. But there’s some possibility that a decapitating strike taking out Ukraine’s leadership could cascade the state into a morale collapse, or chaotic infighting for control that will result in the collapse of order as the entire AFU dissolves into hostile factions.

For now we have to live with the choices Russia has made, which appear to rest on hedging bets and not overloading the deck in any one direction. Russia appears to believe they can minimize blowback from these provocations and escalations for long enough to allow the Russian Armed Forces to break the AFU’s spine. It’s probably the correct assessment, but there’s always the dark horse or ‘wild card’, particularly with renewed reports about Ukraine again planning a nuclear provocation.

For now though we can expect a period of intensely heightened international pressures on Russian maritime assets and merchant marine fleets, timed in accordance with new gas and energy transit games, which are also now activating.

It is all part of a wider systemic operation to cripple Russia’s economy over the long term, to make the costs of war as high as possible to effect societal discontent against the ruling class.

But according to a new Financial Times report, Trump could put a swift end to all that:

Trump could force Ukraine to make peace without security guarantees and ease sanctions against Russia, – Financial Times

▪️”Trump’s businesslike nature, his determination to avoid wars and his disdain for democratic allies will lead the US to facilitate major deals with Russia and China…

▪️America will focus on asserting dominance in its own region, pushing Mexico and Canada around, and intending to take the Panama Canal and Greenland. Trump will force Ukraine to a peace deal without backing it up with security guarantees. He will ease sanctions against Russia and be happy to see Putin at Thanksgiving dinner at Mar-a-Lago.”

This is just another reason for why Russia likely chooses to play it more cautiously—it sees that the outcomes favoring Ukraine’s collapse have higher probability without needing to resort to extreme or desperate measures.

Corollary to the above is an eye-opening new NYT article making the rounds:

Its big revelation?

That Biden gave Ukraine up to 500 ATACMS missiles—and they’re already almost completely out, with no more batches incoming:

In the spring, President Biden relented. The administration shipped Ukraine as many as 500 missiles from Pentagon stockpiles, the U.S. officials said.

…

At that point, Ukraine had only “tens of the missiles” left — maybe about 50, the two U.S. officials said. It had no likelihood of getting more, they said. The limited American supplies had already been assigned for deployment in the Middle East and Asia. Officials in Britain, which allowed Ukraine to use its long-range Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia after Mr. Biden’s decision, also said recently that it didn’t have many more to provide.

Think on that a moment: the total US stockpile of ATACMS was said to be maybe 1500-2000 max. That means the US shipped upwards of 25-33% of its entire strategic reserve and that gigantic amount has already been fired at Russian targets with virtually no noticeable result.

That certainly doesn’t bode well for Ukraine—nor even for the US in a hypothetical war against Russia.

And a new WaPo piece gives further grim accounting of Ukraine’s frontline situation:

But most Ukrainian military personnel acknowledge that soldier shortages are now just as critical as the weapons deficits. Some specialized jobs in the 33rd — such as a driver for armored personnel carriers — were down to just one person in a battalion,soldiers said, complicating logistics to transport troops safely back and forth from trench positions.

Now Russian gains continue.

A major breakthrough in Chasov Yar is reported, with Russian forces storming the entire Pivnichnyi district:

Meanwhile the main supply route of Velyka Novosilka was reportedly cut:

Now one report claims this dirt road is the only way out of the stronghold:

The largest gains by far included the expansion in every direction of control north of Kurakhove, toward the Pokrovsk axis:

And Kurakhove itself saw the final industrial section with the thermal plant being stormed, which means Russia is now within final striking distance of capturing the entire city:

There were many other smaller gains as well, but we’ll discuss them another time when they consolidate into more significant movements.

Europe continues collapsing, with the German president now fully dissolving the Bundestag until snap elections in February:

With Trump’s entry to the scene, the European crisis is expected to worsen—which bodes even more ill for Ukraine’s future.

Next year, Ukraine will have even less systems to strike Russia with, as we have seen ATACMS and other such weapons have nearly run out. Russia on the other hand continues to improve its defensive abilities: not only through Belousov’s new initiative of decentralizing every brigade logistics node and ammo dump, but the vast scale infrastructure surge when it comes to airbase bunkers. New photos have shown a large scale campaign to build concrete shelters is proceeding, which means Ukraine will have less and less opportunity to actually conduct painful strikes on Russia, all with a dwindling weapons supply.

Arestovich has proposed the new theory that Ukraine will lower mobilization to 18 or even 15 and will attempt to hold out until 2026 when US Congressional midterm elections stand to rebound the Democrats back into control of Congress. Others have espoused this theory along the track that Ukraine may then again have some semblance of a chance for more assistance. At this rate, however, it’s difficult to believe that even with mobilization Ukraine can hold out for that long.