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⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 Ukraine Turned a “FISH NET” Into the Weapon Russia FEARS Most
17:08 The Pink Thing That Just Destroyed Russia's Space Program
35:45 Russia Thought the UK Was Bluffing. They Were Dead Wrong.
52:17 UK Drones Just Struck Russia
01:09:27 Poland’s MONSTER Army

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Transcript
00:00:01Ukraine is going fishing. That seems like an odd thing to do when you're
00:00:05embroiled in a multi-year war with forces led by a psychopath. But this is
00:00:09a very special kind of fishing. Ukraine isn't using rods, it doesn't even need
00:00:14bait. All it requires are drones and some very clever mechanisms designed to
00:00:19unleash nets into the air. And there you have it, the most bizarre yet brilliantly
00:00:24simple way that Ukraine has come up with for hunting down Russian drones. Russia
00:00:28doesn't know what to do. Its shahids are being treated like sardines as Ukraine
00:00:33uses its new fishnet strategy to take them out of the skies. It all sounds
00:00:37crazy, right? Well, we'd like to introduce you to the Windfly Spider. First reported
00:00:44on by Militanyi, this amazing new drone is built using the chassis of a Windfly 10
00:00:49Hunter drone and it's impressive enough in its own right. Capable of reaching
00:00:53altitudes of up to 5,000 meters and hitting a top speed of 160 kilometers per
00:00:58hour. The drone is fast enough and flies high enough to deal with most Russian
00:01:02strike drones as a kamikaze threat. Throw a range of more than 18 kilometers into the
00:01:07mix and you can even argue that the drone veers close to being a mid-range air
00:01:11defense threat rather merely a short-range defender. The drone is smart and easy to
00:01:17set up too. Taking just three minutes to deploy, it can stay in the air for up to 25
00:01:22minutes and is capable of detecting and recognizing targets at a distance of
00:01:26500 meters. With the Windfly 10 Hunter, Ukraine had a drone that was perfect for
00:01:31loitering in threatened airspace, ready to strike whenever a Shah had got near. But
00:01:36that wasn't enough for Ukraine. Recognizing the potential in the Windfly 10 Hunter,
00:01:40Ukraine's brilliant innovators asked themselves what they could do to make the
00:01:45drone an even more effective threat against Russia's long-range drones.
00:01:49Adanet was the answer they came up with. Specifically, the Karakurt K2 Net Launcher,
00:01:55which is now being integrated into Windfly 10 Hunter drones to create a new beast
00:02:00entirely, the Windfly Spider. The name is symbolic. A spider catches flies in its web.
00:02:07And that's exactly what Ukraine's drone is doing now with a UAV that is capable of
00:02:11launching what amounts to a fishnet into the sky. That net wraps around a Russian drone,
00:02:16stifling its ability to fly before sending it crashing back down to the ground.
00:02:21It's a brilliant piece of kit. The Karakurt K2 is a net launcher, made using high-strength
00:02:26aluminium that is capable of operating in temperatures ranging from minus 20 degrees
00:02:30Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius. That pretty much covers the full gamut of temperatures
00:02:35that occur in Ukraine, making this an all-weather, all-year interception device. The launcher is
00:02:41light, weighing just 210 grams, so equipping it onto a Windfly 10 Hunter isn't going to weigh
00:02:46the drone down to the point where it's unable to keep the pace with the Russian strike drone.
00:02:50Plus, the launcher connects using a USB-C port, so Ukraine doesn't have to worry about
00:02:55proprietary mechanisms or complicated repairs. USB-C ports and cables are incredibly easy to source,
00:03:02so a malfunction in that aspect will take very little time to repair.
00:03:05Future-proofing is a huge part of the Windfly Spider's brilliance, as you'll soon discover.
00:03:10But a little more about the net first. The Karakurt K2 can unleash its net over a distance of about
00:03:1515 meters.
00:03:16The net then springs open at a distance of 3 to 5 meters from the target, engulfing said target in
00:03:22a
00:03:223x3 meter net that drags the strike drone down to the ground. So, the Windfly Spider has to get up
00:03:29close and personal. But that was the whole point of Ukraine using the Windfly 10 Hunter. Speed and range
00:03:34are its specialities, and the drone uses both to get within range of a Shahid before it fires the net.
00:03:40It all sounds insane, almost as though it couldn't possibly work in practice.
00:03:45But as bizarre as the whole idea may seem, working in practice is precisely what the
00:03:50Windfly Spider is capable of doing. And we don't have to take Ukraine's word for it. Footage of the
00:03:56spider catching its prey is already making the rounds. Shared by Windfly on its YouTube channel,
00:04:01we see the after effects of a net launch. A drone is trapped on the ground, tangled up in a
00:04:06net from which
00:04:07there is no escape. Okay, so that's the result, but what about how the drone got there? We soon see
00:04:12that as a Windfly Spider flies into the air en route to intercept a drone attempting to pass overhead.
00:04:18Within seconds, the net explodes out of Ukraine's drone. It wraps around the incoming UAV, sending it
00:04:24hurtling to the ground. Though clearly a demonstration of the drone's capabilities, this single video
00:04:29shows us two vital things. One, the concept behind the Windfly Spider, as strange as it may be,
00:04:35is sound. And two, it works very well. What we're seeing here isn't necessarily
00:04:41some one-off piece of technology that Ukraine's brilliant minds have created. Nets have long been
00:04:46a counter for drones, albeit not in the way that the Windfly Spider uses them. Only a few days before
00:04:51Ukraine unveiled its new interceptor, Business Insider reported that Russia was installing
00:04:56anti-drone nets at its Pacific submarine base, seemingly to prevent Ukraine's long-range drones
00:05:01from striking its subs. This is something that we've seen both sides do. Anti-drone netting is
00:05:07common on tanks, around military installations, and in Ukrainian cities, precisely for the reason
00:05:12we saw in Windfly's video. If a drone hits a net, especially if it's a propeller-driven drone,
00:05:17then the net will take it down. Ukraine has taken that simple concept and run with it. We mean that
00:05:23in
00:05:23more ways than just adding net launchers to its interceptor drones. As Pravda reports, UAVs that can
00:05:28deploy nets are becoming as common on the front lines of Ukraine as they are soon to be in its
00:05:32layers of air defenses. In fact, two companies have already come up with net launchers that are
00:05:37installed on FPV drones, offering soldiers on the ground a new way to protect themselves against FPV
00:05:42drones unleashed by Russia. Back in March, Potashka Drones, which is a Ukrainian company,
00:05:47revealed that it's going to start exporting infantry net guns to Estonia. These guns are clever.
00:05:53They're basically pistols that fire a net instead of bullets, with the idea being they can
00:05:58tangle up an incoming drone before it reaches the soldier that it's chasing. With a firing range of
00:06:03up to 30 meters, the gun can also ensure that the drone it catches falls to the ground far enough
00:06:07away from a soldier to minimize the threat posed by explosions and shrapnel, should the captured
00:06:12drone detonate. Also in March, another Ukrainian company named Bluebird Tech unveiled its chipper
00:06:19net launcher, which serves a similar purpose to the Potashka net gun. Again, a soldier points,
00:06:24fires and unleashes a net with a range of about 25 meters to take down an incoming FPV drone.
00:06:31And even better, neither of these systems relies on radio signals or frequency jamming,
00:06:36meaning they can't be disrupted, and they offer a more reliable mechanical method for taking down FPV
00:06:41drones. So this is clearly a concept that Ukraine's companies have been developing for a while.
00:06:47Only now it's being transplanted from guns used by infantry and into drones tasked with intercepting
00:06:53shards. There's one more aspect of the Windfly Spider we want to cover before we move on.
00:06:58You may remember that we mentioned future-proofing when discussing the maintenance benefits of using
00:07:03USB-C ports and cables. That only scratches the surface. The other aspect of future-proofing,
00:07:09which is much more important, lies in the Windfly Spider's reusable nature. Ukraine has been using
00:07:15interceptor drones to take out Russian UAVs for a long time now. Those drones aren't expensive. They can
00:07:21cost as little as $1,000 per unit, Military Times reports. However, they all have the same problem.
00:07:27When an interceptor drone succeeds in striking its target, it's not just the Shahid that is taken out
00:07:32of commission. The interceptor goes with it. Not a problem when dealing with a handful of strike drones,
00:07:37sure. But this can become a major money sink when deploying kamikaze interceptors against hundreds of
00:07:43strike drones, leading to six-figure bills per attack for Ukraine. It's here where the genius of the
00:07:48Windfly Spider really comes into play. The drone doesn't destroy itself to take out a Shahid,
00:07:54which is advantage number one. But the real kicker is that the nets used by these drones are insanely
00:07:59cheap. How cheap? Just $27 each. The economics are on point with this drone in a way that they haven't
00:08:07been for any of the interception methods that Ukraine has come up with so far. Even low-cost interceptor
00:08:12drones, as effective as they are, can't compete with the Windfly Spider when it comes to pure cost efficiency.
00:08:18What Ukraine has here is a drone that can be used to take out a Shahid with a $27 net,
00:08:22and then fly back to an operator to be reloaded with another net before it's sent back to take
00:08:27out another Shahid. At that price point, a Windfly Spider can take out around 37 Russian strike drones
00:08:34for the cost of even the cheapest of Ukraine's interceptor drones. This doesn't mean that interceptor
00:08:39drones are going the way of the dodo, of course. Rather, Ukraine now has a new type of interception
00:08:43method that it can use to take out propeller-based strike drones, leaving it free to invest more
00:08:48money into improving interceptors so they can destroy faster threats. And those threats are coming.
00:08:54But before we dig deeper, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show. If you haven't
00:08:58subscribed yet, now's the perfect time to hit the button and enable notifications so more of our videos
00:09:04show up in your feed.
00:09:06Like so many of Ukraine's ingenious developments, the Windfly Spider fills a niche even if it does
00:09:11so in a way that nobody could have imagined before Ukraine came up with it. The emergence of this
00:09:16drone is perfectly timed because Russia has been relying heavily on its combined drone and missile
00:09:21assaults in 2026, especially as its forces fail to make real progress on the ground. We've seen
00:09:27consistent escalation in the Russian drone threat throughout the year. According to Ukraine's
00:09:32Ministry of Defense, Russia launched over 9,000 missiles and drones in July. That is a huge number,
00:09:38amounting to an average of about 290 per day. That's the scale of the challenge Ukraine faces,
00:09:44and it shows us why cutting costs is so important for interception. If we assume 290 drones in a day,
00:09:51all taken out by $1,000 interceptor drones, that's $290,000 spent. With Windfly Spiders,
00:09:57the same mass of drones would cost $7,830 to take out of commission. It's an imperfect comparison,
00:10:05of course. Different varieties of Russian strike drones need different approaches, and the Windfly Spider
00:10:09isn't going to be able to deal with everything. Still, this comparison highlights just
00:10:14how much of a money saver Ukraine's new drone destroyer could prove to be. And the need for
00:10:19these sorts of savings becomes abundantly clear when taking recent intelligence from Ukraine into
00:10:24account. On August 12, United24 media revealed that Russia has built up a reserve of around 6,200
00:10:31Shahid drones, which means it's putting itself into a position where it could send between 600 and 1,000
00:10:37drones into Ukraine in a single way. Again, the cost factor is important here. But on just a sheer
00:10:43number scale, Ukraine needs every option that it can get its hands on to deal with this scaling threat,
00:10:48and a drone that can take out multiple Shahid's per Russian strike is as vital for its reusability
00:10:53as it is for its cost. A bright spot for Ukraine in all of this is that it's become exceptionally
00:10:59good
00:10:59at intercepting Russia's strike drones. In May, Ukraine achieved a 91.73%
00:11:04interception rate against Russia's UAVs. The percentage went down a little in June, reaching
00:11:0990%, but that still means the vast majority of Russia's drones don't make it to their targets.
00:11:14That could lead you to question the wisdom of introducing a new technology to the field when
00:11:18Ukraine is already doing so well with interception using what it has. The Institute for Science and
00:11:23International Security, or ISIS, even points out that there are individual Russian strikes where Ukraine has
00:11:29intercepted up to 96% of Russia's gasoline-powered Shahid variants. The problem is that Russia has
00:11:35been paying attention to these interception rates, and it started to deploy jet-powered Shahid drones
00:11:40to evade Ukraine's interceptor drones. According to Reuters, as many as 20% of the strike drones that
00:11:46Russia now sends into Ukraine are jet-powered. This gives them a boost in speed that gasoline-powered drones
00:11:52don't have, allowing them to blow past the current generation of interceptor drones in Ukraine's arsenal.
00:11:57Russia has adapted. Ukraine needs to do the same. ISIS also highlights this, noting that the June
00:12:04decline in Ukraine's interception rate, along with a similar decline seen in July, suggests that Russia
00:12:09is fielding more of its jet-powered strike drones. We can't claim for certain that the Windfly Spider is
00:12:14capable of taking down this new generation of drones, but what it definitely offers to Ukraine is the
00:12:19ability to take out gasoline-powered variants in large numbers, which clears the way for Ukraine to
00:12:25upgrade its interceptor drone technology to handle the jet-powered Shahid. Ukraine is already doing
00:12:30just that. On August 10th, United24 media announced that the Litavar Plus drone has been unveiled by
00:12:36Ukrainian defense company ETH drones. Capable of exceeding speeds of 400 km per hour, it's fast enough
00:12:42to catch up to the jet-powered Shahid for interception. So we start to see the role the Windfly Spider
00:12:47can play in Ukraine's layered air defense strategy. It will slot into the niche of the past generation of
00:12:53interceptors field, either replacing or complementing them, to deal with Russia's slower, gasoline-powered
00:12:58Shahid drones. That then frees up Ukraine to invest more heavily in faster interceptors,
00:13:03due to the money it's saving using the Windfly Spider, so it can deal with Russia's new,
00:13:07jet-powered drones. Ukraine has countered Russia's latest move almost as soon as Russia made it,
00:13:13leaving the Kremlin to go back to the drawing board to figure out how it could make its long-range
00:13:17strikes more effective. Ukraine always takes the approach that whatever it's doing well already
00:13:21could always be done better. The Windfly Spider is a manifestation of that philosophy.
00:13:27Ukraine's ability to counter Russia may be genius, but there's one final aspect of this new drone that
00:13:32is perhaps even more brilliant than anything we've covered so far. We get a hint of that brilliance in
00:13:37the FPV drone nets that we mention. Those nets are capable of stopping Russian FPVs without using any
00:13:43explosive countermeasures. In other words, drones are being captured whole, rather than as debris,
00:13:49at least those that aren't capable of being detonated remotely. If the same applies to the
00:13:53Windfly Spider, and that seems to be the case based on the footage we've seen, this is huge for Ukraine.
00:13:59This new interceptor drone could hold the key to unlocking the technology that Russia builds into
00:14:03its strike drones. What explosives do they use? How are they made? What components are used, which is
00:14:09vital to know for sanctioning reasons? What other countermeasures could help against Russia's drones?
00:14:14These are all questions that Ukraine will be able to answer because it's just given itself a way to
00:14:18capture rather than destroy Russia's strike drones. And the brilliance doesn't end there.
00:14:23Once Ukraine has this information, it isn't limited to using it for its own purposes.
00:14:28This is all information that can be shared with Ukraine's allies, and Ukraine just so happens to
00:14:33have already created a mechanism that allows it to spread the information it finds around.
00:14:37On June 19, Ukraine's former Defense Minister Mikhailo Fedorov unveiled a new database named
00:14:43Trophy Lab. That database offers users access to information about captured Russian technology.
00:14:49As Fedorov put it at the time,
00:14:51Through this secure platform, allied governments, labs, and defense tech manufacturers gain access to deep
00:14:56technical data, reports, and vulnerabilities. Users can also request physical equipment for testing,
00:15:02significantly shortening the development cycle for countermeasures.
00:15:06The Windfly Spider is perfectly positioned to make that database an even more attractive proposition
00:15:11to Ukraine's allies. With it, Ukraine can capture Russian strike drones whole, examine them,
00:15:17and even send them off to its allies for study. More information will come from this capability.
00:15:22In turn, Ukraine will further ingrain itself into the wider Western defense ecosystem than it already has.
00:15:28Ukraine's drone diplomacy has just experienced an upgrade.
00:15:31Before, that diplomacy was all about sharing its expertise and the drones that it has developed,
00:15:36enabling Ukraine to set up new defense contracts with countries all over the world.
00:15:40Everyone from most European nations, to the Gulf states being threatened by the war in Iran,
00:15:45wants access to that knowledge. With the Windfly Spider and Trophy Lab, Ukraine may just be able to
00:15:50provide far more knowledge than Russia ever expected its enemies to have. And there will be demand,
00:15:56especially in Europe. Russia has been getting a little too confident with its drone incursions into
00:16:01other nations. On August 11th, a Russian drone found floating near Romania's largest natural gas
00:16:06project in the Black Sea had to be destroyed by army divers. That came on the back of Romania already
00:16:13shooting down several Russian drones that had entered its airspace. A new level of danger now exists in
00:16:19Europe, claims Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrynt, when talking about drones.
00:16:24These threats are not the work of amateurs. Rather, they require very professional preparation
00:16:28and execution. We're dealing with possibly foreign powers, Dobrynt declared.
00:16:33That threat needs to be countered. Both the Windfly Spider itself and the new information that its
00:16:38ability to capture Russian drones like fish being plucked out of a barrel are extremely valuable to
00:16:43Ukraine's partners. And who knows, maybe Ukraine's nets could net it some more defense contracts.
00:16:50Sorry, we'll see ourselves out. But before we do, Ukraine coming up with new ways to counter
00:16:54Russia's long-range threat isn't the only problem that the Kremlin has to find a way to solve.
00:16:59Ukraine's own long-range drones are wreaking havoc on its territory,
00:17:03and nobody knows that better than the people involved with Wild Berets.
00:17:08When SpaceX declared that Russia could no longer use its illicit Starlink terminals for planning or
00:17:15conducting strikes against Ukraine, Russia's entire military went into a tailspin. Ground was lost,
00:17:22soldiers died, and Ukraine gained a massive advantage. Russia has been trying to create its own
00:17:28version of Starlink ever since, and a Soyuz rocket center deep within its territory was a key cog
00:17:34in a space program designed to restore connectivity and communication for Russia's soldiers.
00:17:39You can probably guess what has happened. Ukraine found that Soyuz center, and it made the facility
00:17:46burn by sending something pink to destroy the Kremlin's dream of creating its very own Starlink.
00:17:52Today there are new significant results from our deep strikes. In Russia's Samara region,
00:17:57one of the key enterprises within Roscosmos, the Progress Center, which was involved,
00:18:02among other things in electronics production, was hit. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared
00:18:07in an August 15th expost. Zelenskyy went on to explain that the something pink that destroyed parts
00:18:14of the facility were FP5 Flamingo missiles, which traveled about 900 kilometers from Ukraine's border
00:18:21to strike deep into the heart of Russia. This isn't just about losing a rocket manufacturer that is vital
00:18:27to Russia's plans to create its own Starlink. What we've just seen is yet another example among hundreds
00:18:33in 2026 that there is nowhere that Russia can consider safe from Ukraine and its drones.
00:18:40Specifically, the facility that Ukraine took out is in southwestern Russia, and it's used to
00:18:44manufacture the Soyuz 2 launch vehicles that Russia needs to send satellites supporting its Razvet system
00:18:51into orbit. Take out the rockets and the satellites stay on the ground, making them absolutely useless
00:18:57to Russia as it scrambles to come up with a Starlink alternative. To make matters worse for Russia,
00:19:03this Progress Facility is the only one in the entire country where these Soyuz 2 launchers can be
00:19:09assembled, according to the Telegraph. This means that Russia now has two races on its hands,
00:19:15one to get the satellites into the air in the first place, and another to restore its means of launcher
00:19:20production. Russia has already confirmed that the strike took place, which tells us that it was
00:19:25too big to hide. Granted, Russian officials didn't name the Progress Facility directly.
00:19:31Samara Regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedoryshev would only say that an industrial facility had been hit,
00:19:37and Regional Mayor Ivan Moskov claimed that the attack was a large-scale missile strike, United24
00:19:43media reports. The same outlet adds that regular people on the ground have been more revealing.
00:19:48Residents reported loud explosions not long after a missile alert was issued for the Samara region,
00:19:54and it's likely thanks to some of these residents that we have some of the clearest proof that Ukraine
00:19:58hit exactly what it was trying to hit. There's footage. And that footage shows the Progress Facility
00:20:04in flames. Zelensky shared some of that footage in his ex-post. A 20-second clip shows several angles
00:20:11of a fire that has climbed so high, it can be seen burning from kilometers away. Thick clouds of smoke
00:20:17blacken the skies, and they're all emanating from the Progress Center. More footage comes from an
00:20:22interesting source, Denis Stilemer, who is the founder of Firepoint, which builds the pink missiles
00:20:28that Ukraine used in its Soyuz-busting strike. His footage shows the very beginning of the attack,
00:20:33showcasing the ground-based launch of the Flamingo missiles that Ukraine used, and offering just the
00:20:39briefest of windows into a long-range threat against Russia that is no longer emerging,
00:20:43and has instead turned into an everyday problem. The Flamingo missile drone hybrid isn't just here,
00:20:49it's hitting Russia hard with increasing regularity. Russia is terrified of this pretty
00:20:55and pink weapon, and it has every reason to be. The Flamingo delivers a long-range capability to
00:21:01Ukraine that it hasn't had for most of the war. According to the International Institute for
00:21:05Strategic Studies, the Flamingo, which is pink due to a factory error in initial production
00:21:11and has stayed that way as a little trademark, can travel around 3,000 kilometers and sports a
00:21:16powerful 1,150 kilogram warhead that is more than capable of wrecking hardened targets and large
00:21:23facilities. Forbes says the missile will reshape the dynamics of the entire Ukraine war, and you can
00:21:30argue that it's doing just that. Ukraine knows what it has on its hands, with its pink punisher here.
00:21:35It has funded production scaling, and it's unleashing Flamingo drone missiles at all sorts
00:21:40of important targets inside Russia. The Progress Center is just one of those targets. There have
00:21:46been many others in 2026. According to an August 17 United24 media report, Ukraine is now launching
00:21:52Flamingos at Russia at around twice the pace it was a mere six months ago. Ukraine isn't saying that.
00:21:58Russian media outlets, including Ogentsvo, have reached that conclusion by tracking Flamingo attacks
00:22:03throughout 2026. That data only covers Flamingos that Russia claims to have intercepted, but Russia
00:22:10acts like it intercepts everything, blaming debris for every major strike that's recorded.
00:22:15Still, the numbers are illuminating. Between February and May, Russia claims to have intercepted
00:22:2031 Flamingo drone missiles. Ukraine has ramped up massively since then. The two weeks up to United24
00:22:27media's report have seen Russia claim to have shot down 25 Flamingos. Presumably the Flamingo
00:22:34that hit the Samara Progress Center is counted in those figures. And the footage shows us precisely
00:22:39what shot down means to Russia. The Progress strike shows us just how far Ukraine's ingenious drone tech
00:22:46has come. Evolving from drones used on the front lines as Ukraine relied on Western weapons for border
00:22:51strikes into a complete suite of long-range weapons that can strike almost anywhere of importance in
00:22:57Russia. Ukraine's drone innovation has been a momentum shifter, the Council on Foreign Relations
00:23:03declares. It has opened the door for greater success with strikes on Russian territory,
00:23:08backed by terrifying levels of firepower as seen in the Flamingo. Ukraine's drones have been key to
00:23:13retaking control over the Black Sea, implementing a strategy for Crimea that enables isolation without the
00:23:19sacrifice of soldiers and showing Russia that safety simply no longer exists for any of its key
00:23:25facilities. With the Flamingo in play, anything within 3,000 kilometers is a target, and according
00:23:32to Zelenskyy, that range will grow up to 10,000 kilometers by 2027. All of this is in service of
00:23:40cutting off the legs of the Russian war machine. That's what we've seen in Samara, symbolically speaking.
00:23:45On the face of it, this is yet another long-range sanction that has been delivered to place
00:23:49pressure on Putin and his Kremlin cronies. Every time a Flamingo or any of Ukraine's other long-range
00:23:55assets hits their target, a message is sent to every Russian who hears the buzz of the drones
00:24:00or feels the heat from the fires. Putin can't protect them. And his failure to protect Russia
00:24:06itself is the reason why the military is doing so poorly in Ukraine, and why so many Russian people
00:24:11are being choked in an economic stranglehold of high inflation and interest rates that make it
00:24:17impossible for them to repay loans. But it goes much deeper than that in Samara.
00:24:22We touched on it earlier. The progress facility was central to every plan that the Kremlin was
00:24:27concocting for Ukraine. Russia needs its satellites in the air, desperately. And in a moment we're going
00:24:32to explain why this Samara strike has utterly destroyed any dream that Russia may have had of
00:24:38turning the tide in Ukraine. Before we do, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.
00:24:43If you haven't subscribed yet, now's the perfect time to hit the button,
00:24:46enable notifications, and get ready for the daily videos we publish covering the Ukraine war.
00:24:53We've already touched on the Starlink replacement issue. Russia needs its progress base to build the
00:24:59launchers that send its Razvet satellites into space. The Samara facility isn't the only link in
00:25:04that launcher chain, but it is the most important. Components for the Soyuz launchers that Russia
00:25:10needs are being made all over the country, likely in an attempt to prevent Ukraine from wiping out
00:25:14the entire supply chain in one strike. However, all of those components converge at a central point,
00:25:20and that point is the progress facility that Ukraine struck on August 15th.
00:25:25Think of it like cutting off the head of the Russian chicken. The body may still be able to run
00:25:29around for a while, but what that body is sending to the heart spurts out into nothingness for as long
00:25:34as the
00:25:34progress facility is offline. How long that will be is still to be determined. The Telegraph reports
00:25:40that satellite imagery of the struck site seems to indicate that the onboard electronics assembly
00:25:45workshop was destroyed. That's painful for Russia. A rocket isn't going very far without onboard
00:25:51electronics, and it's likely that a whole lot of what was supposed to be loaded into Soyuz launchers
00:25:55has now gone up in smoke, along with the facility that was specially designed for assembling those
00:26:01electronics. It's going to take time for Russia to rebuild this workshop and replace every component
00:26:06that it's lost in the massive blaze. How ironic. Satellite imagery has revealed just how screwed
00:26:12Russia's own satellite project is. To understand how screwed Russia is, you need a better understanding
00:26:18of what Russia has to achieve to get anything that even remotely resembles its own version of Starlink
00:26:23up and running. In an August 17th report, RBC Ukraine says that Russia needs to carry out between
00:26:2912 and 15 launches of Soyuz carrier rockets into orbit to deploy the Razvet satellite network. Each
00:26:36Soyuz 2.1b can put 20 satellites into orbit, meaning Russia plans to have up to 300 satellites as part
00:26:43of
00:26:43its constellation. If that doesn't sound like much compared to Starlink, because it isn't. Satellite
00:26:49tracker says that Starlink has 10,977 satellites in orbit and that it plans a full constellation of
00:26:5642,000. At best, Russia's own version of Starlink is going to be a 36th of the size of the
00:27:04actual
00:27:04Starlink. Russia might argue that this isn't a problem. It only needs satellite coverage for Ukraine
00:27:09and perhaps parts of Russia and not the whole world right now. That may be the case. But there's also
00:27:15no
00:27:15denying that Russia's plans amount to a shoddy version of a technology that is lost. A poor copy
00:27:20of the original, which, come to think of it, suits Russia down to the ground. Ever since the Soviet
00:27:25era, Russia has stolen and copied rather than innovated. It's doing it as we speak by trying
00:27:30to copy Ukraine's drones, and the Razvet system is just the latest example. Despite all of this,
00:27:36there's no denying that Razvet is vital for Russia. Getting any satellite constellation into orbit,
00:27:41even if it isn't a patch on the Starlink system Russia illicitly accessed before, is better than
00:27:46nothing. That's why Russia has been pouring so many resources into building the new Soyuz capsules,
00:27:52which are one-way launchers that it can't retrieve or reuse. The faster those launchers are built,
00:27:57the better Russia's situation in Ukraine. And this is why. For years, Russia used illegally accessed
00:28:04Starlink terminals for everything from drone attacks to ensuring fluid communication between
00:28:09frontline units and command centers in the rear. That all ended at the beginning of 2026,
00:28:15when SpaceX founder Elon Musk cut all access to Starlink for Russia's forces. It appears that this
00:28:21was done by creating a white list of Ukrainian terminals and a black list of Russian terminals,
00:28:26essentially shutting down Russian access practically overnight. The impact was immediate and pronounced.
00:28:33By February, Russia's battlefield capabilities had declined drastically,
00:28:37as one Ukrainian drone operator going by the callsign Giovanni told the BBC at the time.
00:28:43The Russians lost their ability to control the field. I think they lost 50% of their capacity
00:28:48for offense. That's what the numbers show. Fewer assaults, fewer enemy drones, fewer everything.
00:28:54Russia had had its pants pulled down, and it started scrambling in desperation, tripping all over
00:28:59itself as it did. The comms blackout caused by this shutdown was catastrophic for Russia's 2026
00:29:05plans. The Atlantic Council says that Ukraine was quickly able to take advantage of Russia's loss
00:29:10of Starlink by launching lightning-fast counterattacks against weakened fortifications across the front
00:29:16lines. Within the first five days of the shutdown, the outlet says, Ukraine had liberated about 200
00:29:22square kilometers of territory, which was roughly equivalent to what the Russian army had gained during
00:29:27the entire month of December. Just like that, Russia's forces were being pushed back.
00:29:32And this trend of Ukrainian counterattacks, taking advantage of Russian weakness, has continued throughout
00:29:382026. Ukraine used Russia's Starlink blackout to push targeted offensives, primarily taking place in the
00:29:45south of the country. By mid-March, Ukraine had retaken about 400 square kilometers of territory, much of it in
00:29:52the
00:29:52Zaporizhia and the Dnipropetrovsk regions. Fast forward to August, and Zelensky revealed that Ukraine has
00:29:58also liberated 745 square kilometers of territory in the Oleksandrivka sector. Add all of that to the impact
00:30:05that the loss of Starlink had on Russia's drones, especially in the medium to near ranges, and you get a
00:30:11good picture of just how damaging the comms chaos caused by Musk's decision has had on Putin's forces.
00:30:16The setup work done for the 2026 offensive unraveled due to Ukraine's counterattacks, and it's not too
00:30:22much of a stretch to say that the quagmire Russia now finds itself in, as it tries to capture Donetsk,
00:30:28owes a lot to its loss of access to Starlink. Russia's desperation to get Razvet up and running
00:30:34is compounded by the sheer number of casualties the country is being forced to absorb, due to its
00:30:39frontline soldiers not being able to communicate with rear-line commanders effectively. Daily casualties
00:30:44are far above 1000 per day, often hovering closer to the 1500 mark. That was the case in the 24
00:30:52hours
00:30:52leading up to August 16th, when Russia lost 1510 soldiers to death or injury, along with 600 pieces
00:31:00of equipment. Again, this can all be traced back to the Starlink shutdown. Casting a wider net on Russian
00:31:07casualties, Russia lost a 2026 record of 42,860 soldiers in July, giving it a seven-month total
00:31:15of almost 225,500 losses, the Kyiv Independent reports. Those losses come amidst Ukraine also
00:31:23drastically altering the casualty ratio to the point where it's now losing around eight soldiers
00:31:27for every one Ukrainian casualty. The battlefield maths isn't mathing anymore. And again, the loss of
00:31:34Starlink is to blame. All of this explains why Russia has been so desperately building Soyuz launchers
00:31:40to send Razvet satellites into space. However, Russia faces another problem that Ukraine's latest
00:31:46flamingo strike compounds. It's not just the loss of a key workshop that hurt Russia in Samara.
00:31:52What Ukraine has also done, even if that workshop is rebuilt, is caused some serious issues for a space
00:31:59program that is getting deprioritized the longer the Ukraine war lasts.
00:32:04That may seem like a strange claim to make, especially if you remember that November 4th,
00:32:092024, saw Russia launch a record-breaking 53 small satellites into space, using Soyuz 2.1b carrier
00:32:16rockets. That launch would suggest that Russia's space program is fine and dandy. But looks can be
00:32:22deceiving. There's a good reason why we haven't seen a launch like that since, even though Russia is more
00:32:27desperate than ever to get its satellites in orbit. November 2024 was almost two years ago, and a lot
00:32:33has changed in Ukraine. More Russian equipment has been destroyed, and Ukraine now regularly conducts
00:32:39deep strikes, all of which are stretching Russia to the point where it's forced to prioritize between
00:32:43warfighting and its space program. It doesn't matter how quickly Russia can or can't build Soyuz
00:32:49launches. The war economy has collided with the space economy, and it's the latter that is losing ground.
00:32:55The priority has become to get whatever is needed to Russian troops in Ukraine, and to replenish those
00:33:00troops as they are lost in massive numbers, which all means less money can be dedicated to a Razvet
00:33:06program that will be beneficial to Russia in the long term, but doesn't solve the immediate problems
00:33:11it has right now. Russia recognizes this as well as anybody. On April 10th, United24 media reported that
00:33:18the scientific director of the Space Research Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lev Zeleny,
00:33:24has admitted during a speech at the Russian Space Forum that Russia is a long way behind its
00:33:28competitors in the space race. The only project it has, beyond Razvet, is the creation of a new
00:33:34Russian orbital station. No manned deep space or lunar missions are planned for at least a decade.
00:33:39This comment is revealing. It shows us that money isn't being pumped into Russia's space program,
00:33:45meaning that even the vital Razvet program is operating on a shoestring budget.
00:33:49The Progress Center going up in flames isn't going to help. Now, the Kremlin has to make the
00:33:54difficult choice between pouring money it didn't expect to spend back into progress,
00:33:59or using that money to support troops on the front. Either way, it's the soldiers who lose out.
00:34:04And one more literally combustible element to add to all of this is Ukraine's refinery strikes.
00:34:09Soyer's launchers need refined kerosene. That fuel is made in oil refineries, and those refineries have
00:34:15been taking a beating all through 2026. So much so that Russia is now dealing with shortages in
00:34:21gasoline and diesel. Again, the Kremlin is forced to prioritize. Does it have its refineries producing
00:34:27fuel to serve the general population, relieving pressure on Putin in the process? Or do refineries
00:34:33continue making a type of fuel that the Russian people never see in action and is dedicated to
00:34:38a space program that is already struggling? Another catch-22 choice with no right answer.
00:34:44And Ukraine never relenting on its refinery strikes isn't going to help.
00:34:48On August 13th, the new voice of Ukraine reported that Russia's oil refining is likely to drop to 4
00:34:54million barrels of oil processed daily, all caused by unplanned repairs and outages due to Ukraine's
00:35:01refineries. That may sound like a lot of refining, but it's actually a low that hasn't been seen since
00:35:05the early 2010s, and it comes at a time when Russia needs its refineries to be working at maximum
00:35:10capacity due to the fuel shortages and the Razvet project. Russia will try to push on.
00:35:16It was launching Razvet satellites much faster than initially planned earlier in 2026,
00:35:21highlighting its desperation to get its Starlink replacement up and running. 16 satellites went into
00:35:27orbit back in March, and there was reportedly a second package sent into orbit in July,
00:35:31leading to Russia having about 40 Razvet satellites in space. It plans for up to 300. Those plans have
00:35:38been ruined. And it's all thanks to the pink nightmare dressed up as a daydream that has just wrecked the
00:35:43Progress rocket facility in Samara. Despite its many failures on the battlefield, there is one thing
00:35:49Russia can always hold over Ukraine, the nuclear threat. Always looming and constantly referenced by
00:35:57Putin and his cronies, Russia's nukes are the Hail Mary, the last resort. A constant threat that Ukraine
00:36:04has to take very seriously. What Ukraine needs is a comparable threat of its own, something that allows
00:36:10it to fight fire with fire whenever Putin suggests that a nuke could be heading its way. The UK may
00:36:17just
00:36:17deliver that threat. A new proposal making the rounds could see the UK go nuclear on Russia over Ukraine.
00:36:24The UK's nuclear umbrella is set to expand, and it's going to shield Ukraine from the atomic rain.
00:36:30In a post-Brexit deal that has been presented to new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the UK is considering
00:36:36extending its nuclear umbrella to include a host of non-NATO European nations, including Ukraine. First
00:36:43drawn up by Nick Bowles, who was a Conservative Member of Parliament who quit the party in 2019,
00:36:48and later helped former Labour Prime Minister Sakir Starmer set up his government. The proposal would
00:36:53see the UK use its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent to support Ukraine, Norway, Switzerland, and several
00:36:59of the Western Balkan states. The mention of a post-Brexit deal is also important, but we'll be
00:37:04getting to that. The headline here is that if this proposal becomes policy, and crucially, if the European
00:37:09Union accepts what the UK wants in return, Ukraine finally gets nuclear protection once more.
00:37:15Ukraine will think that it's about time. The entire nation has been waiting for somebody
00:37:19to offer it something similar to what it once had. It wasn't so long ago that Ukraine had nuclear
00:37:24weapons of its own. Well, sort of its own. During its time under the Soviet yoke, Ukraine was one of
00:37:30several nations where the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union collapsed,
00:37:34Ukraine still had the weapons. Today, it's likely wishing that it had kept them. However,
00:37:39in the early 90s, when Russia was trying to retrieve all of the nukes it had stored on the territory
00:37:44of
00:37:44other nations, Ukraine negotiated a deal that it thought would serve it well. Understanding the
00:37:49tactical benefits that maintaining nukes on its territory offered, Ukraine used the return of
00:37:54those weapons as leverage to get certain assurances. The outcomes were the Budapest Memorandum and the
00:38:00trilateral statement. The former, in particular, was vital for Ukraine. Under the 1994 Budapest
00:38:06Memorandum, the US, UK and Russia all offered security assurances to Ukraine related to its
00:38:12sovereignty. Satisfied that these promises would be kept, Ukraine transferred around 1,900 strategic
00:38:18warheads back to Russia, supposedly for disposal. Fast forward 20 years and Putin broke the agreement.
00:38:25He illegally annexed Crimea, attempted the same in the Donbass and then followed up eight years later
00:38:30with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia is still attempting to complete today.
00:38:35Since 2014, Ukraine has been asking the big question. Why did it give up the nukes if the
00:38:40agreements it negotiated were just going to end up meaning nothing? It's a good question and one with
00:38:45which many in Ukraine have grappled over the past decade or so. Ukraine's President Volodymyr
00:38:50Zelensky has repeatedly called for Ukraine to be accepted into NATO and the European Union,
00:38:54in part to get the security guarantees that it was supposed to have but was denied.
00:38:59Neither has happened yet. But now, with this new proposal in play, the UK looks like it's preparing
00:39:04to step up and offer the sort of nuclear protection that Ukraine sacrificed unsuccessfully
00:39:09to protect its sovereignty over 30 years ago. This is what we know about the proposal so far.
00:39:14We mentioned former Conservative Member of Parliament Nick Bowles earlier. He is the man behind
00:39:19the UK's plan, which has now been circulated to several top figures in the UK, including Burnham
00:39:24and the UK's National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell. Under the proposal, the UK would invite
00:39:30Ukraine and the other nations we mentioned to join a European Confederation, under which the UK will
00:39:36offer its nuclear umbrella under a NATO-like mutual defense clause. That seems to suggest a nuke for a
00:39:42nuke. If Russia uses its nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the UK would respond by deploying its nukes
00:39:47to strike Russia. Militarni adds that the proposal also includes an obligation for Ukraine to meet,
00:39:53and it's unlikely to be a requirement that Ukraine will refuse. Ukraine would have a special role in
00:39:58the European Confederation, as it would be required to maintain a large enough military to serve as a
00:40:03barrier against a future Russian invasion once the war is over. The UK is essentially proposing that
00:40:08Ukraine becomes the key eastern front against Russia, which is a role that it's basically serving
00:40:13already. Furthermore, the UK would call on Ukraine to share its expertise and experience with unmanned
00:40:19technology with European partners. Again, Ukraine is already doing that. So what we see here is a deal
00:40:24where the UK offers Ukraine nuclear protection in return for Ukraine simply continuing to do what it's been
00:40:30doing for years. Nice and simple, right? Unfortunately, there is a caveat toward this. The UK has an ulterior motive
00:40:37with this proposal, and our mention of a post-Brexit deal offers a hint to what that motive is.
00:40:42The Telegraph reports that the UK is looking to tie this offer of expanding its nuclear umbrella to a
00:40:48deal that would see the UK regain access to the European Union's single market, allowing for free trade of
00:40:53goods between the UK and EU members. The European Confederation would thus link the EU's free trade
00:40:59zones to the UK, in addition to offering nuclear protection to Ukraine and others. Right now it isn't
00:41:05known if those that the UK invites to the Confederation would also be offered access to the EU's single
00:41:10market under the deal. What the UK is doing here is trying to use its nuclear arsenal as the carrot
00:41:16on the end of a stick that is dangling in front of the EU. Bowles hasn't been shy about saying
00:41:21that.
00:41:21As he puts it, if we're trying to do a bilateral negotiation in which we try to persuade the EU
00:41:27to
00:41:27have us access the single market for goods, we will fail, Bowles says before adding. But if we make a
00:41:32proposal that solves other problems they have, like Ukraine, that's the possibility where the selling
00:41:37might be easier. We can explain this isn't just a selfish British deal. It's a deal you can use to
00:41:42solve other problems yourselves. The pot has to be sweetened for the UK to get back on course with
00:41:48the EU in the wake of Brexit. Offering nuclear protection to Ukraine and others is the honey
00:41:53the UK has chosen to fill that pot. And as an extra little incentive, the UK has also pledged
00:41:58that it will commit to spending 3.5% of its gross domestic product on defence should the deal be
00:42:04accepted. In other words, the UK will work toward making itself an even more invaluable cog in the
00:42:10European defence machine than it already is, all while expanding its nuclear umbrella.
00:42:15So there is some self-interest here for the UK. And it's easy to see why when you consider what
00:42:20losing access to the European Union's single market has cost the UK in the wake of Brexit.
00:42:25According to the Centre for European Reform, the trade cost of Brexit has been massive for the UK.
00:42:31Exports to the European Union have declined by 12%, while imports from the EU to the UK have fallen
00:42:37by 16%, the centre says. Considering these losses on a global scale, they ultimately mean that the UK
00:42:43has seen its worldwide exports decline by 5% and its imports by 8%, when compared to how it would
00:42:50have
00:42:50been trading if Brexit never happened. Other analysis, such as that conducted by Bloom and
00:42:55Economists from the Bank of England in June 2026, suggests that Brexit has cost the UK 6% of its
00:43:01economy over 10 years, much of which is linked to the single market. All of this amounts to billions
00:43:06of dollars of lost trade. The UK is looking to claw that money back by using its nuclear umbrella as
00:43:12a
00:43:12negotiating tactic. If that seems a little too conditional for Ukraine's tastes, there is another
00:43:17element to the deal that we've yet to discuss. Bowles points out that a new strategy like what he proposes
00:43:23is
00:43:23also needed because Europe is no longer sure that the US would come to its aid if Russia attacked with
00:43:28nuclear weapons. In Bowles's words, there is no guarantee that US President Donald Trump or any
00:43:33other future president would defend Europe as if it were Kansas in the wake of the worst case scenario
00:43:39happening. That statement reflects the distrust of the US that now exists in Europe. Some would argue
00:43:45with good cause. Trump has repeatedly rallied against European members of NATO for not paying their way in
00:43:51the organization, even going so far as to claim that he wouldn't help Europe if it was under attack back
00:43:56in January 2024. Trump has also announced troop drawdowns from Europe in recent months, including
00:44:01a May declaration that the US would withdraw 5,000 of its soldiers from Germany. Trump has suggested that
00:44:07this may just be the beginning. As he said at the time, we're going to cut way down and we're
00:44:12cutting a
00:44:12lot further than 5,000. There are suggestions that Spain and Italy could be next to lose US troops,
00:44:17Time Magazine reports. This mention of decoupling from the US will appeal to the European Union.
00:44:24In an August 10 report, the insider said that the EU is actively looking to free itself from its
00:44:28reliance on American technology, thus putting itself in a position where it can develop and
00:44:33sell weapons without approval from the US. The EU has even set a target of at least 50% of
00:44:39defense
00:44:39contracts being fulfilled by the European market by 2030, which will be more than double the 22% that we
00:44:46see
00:44:46today. Let's bring it back to Ukraine. Right now, Ukraine has a prospective nuclear umbrella from
00:44:52the UK that could be placed over the entire nation, which is great news. Yes, there are conditions
00:44:57attached to the proposal. The UK wants something from the EU for this umbrella extension to happen,
00:45:02though the proposal does seem to be going all out to give the EU plenty in return.
00:45:07If we assume that the proposal becomes parliamentary policy and the EU says yes, we come to a question.
00:45:13The UK extends its nuclear umbrella, but what does that really mean, both in terms of Ukraine and
00:45:19the threat that could be posed to Russia? We'll answer that question in a moment. First, this is
00:45:24a reminder that you are watching The Military Show. If you're getting insight from our channel,
00:45:28consider subscribing and enabling notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.
00:45:34The UK is one of three NATO nations that have access to nuclear weapons,
00:45:39with the other two being the US and France. We're not going to pretend that the UK has a massive
00:45:44stockpile when compared to Russia. It doesn't. But what it does have, according to the Bulletin of
00:45:49Atomic Scientists, is a stockpile of about 225 nuclear warheads, of which up to 120 are operationally
00:45:57available for deployment in the UK's Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.
00:46:03So, the UK doesn't have a nuclear triad. It has subs, each of which contains 16 missile tubes that it
00:46:10can use to launch nuclear missiles at an enemy. Russia can be targeted by these missiles. The UK
00:46:15submarines could fire on Russia from the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and several other locations,
00:46:20so Ukraine doesn't have to worry about the UK threat being empty. The Nuclear Threat Initiative,
00:46:25or NTI, offers a little more information. It says that each of the UK's Vanguard-class
00:46:31subs can carry up to 40 nuclear missiles. With four subs, it offers a maximum capacity of 160 nukes,
00:46:38though the UK tends to stick to the 120 mentioned earlier. However, there are a few concerns about
00:46:44the UK's nuclear program that must be addressed. The first is that the UK hasn't carried out a
00:46:49nuclear test since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most recent of these tests was conducted in 1991,
00:46:54the NTI says. That raises questions about how well the UK stockpile has been maintained and,
00:47:00crucially, whether all of its missiles will actually launch as expected if the time comes.
00:47:05Another concern is the unique nuclear setup the UK has. Beyond only having one option for a nuclear
00:47:12launch with no aerial or ground-based missiles, the UK's entire nuclear program is very closely tied to
00:47:18the US. Under the 1958 US-UK mutual defense agreement, the two nations transfer research,
00:47:25training, technology and nuclear materials. It's fair to say that the US has done the lion's share
00:47:31of the transferring. The UK's Trident missiles come from a pool that is shared with the US Navy.
00:47:37Does this mean that the UK can't launch its missiles without US permission? No. Ostensibly,
00:47:42the UK's nuclear weapons systems are independent. However, as the Campaign for Nuclear
00:47:47Disarmament points out, the UK is heavily reliant on the US for its nuclear systems.
00:47:52Those Trident missiles we mentioned earlier have to return regularly to a US base in Kings Bay,
00:47:58Georgia for maintenance and replacement. Tests are typically conducted by the US,
00:48:02and the Campaign notes that it's very unlikely that the UK would launch a nuke without first
00:48:07seeking US approval. That casts doubts on the element of the UK's plan that calls for a decoupling
00:48:13of European defense from the US, but it doesn't mean that the UK's nuclear threat
00:48:17should be rubbished. The UK still has nukes and, very unlikely, doesn't mean
00:48:22impossible when it comes to the UK launching a nuke without US permission.
00:48:26Russia certainly doesn't downplay the nuclear threat that the UK poses.
00:48:30The UK doesn't come close to Russia when it comes to the sheer size of its nuclear arsenal.
00:48:35Russia has access to 5,459 nuclear weapons. Claims the international campaign to abolish nuclear
00:48:42weapons, though not all of these are active. Russia also has more options for launching those nukes,
00:48:48as it maintains a full nuclear triad that includes submarines, aerial bombers and ground-based launch
00:48:53sites. Russia has also been engaging in a nuclear modernization program designed to ensure its massive
00:48:59stockpile is actually usable if required. Those numbers may make the UK look like small fry on the
00:49:05nuclear front when compared to Russia, but that isn't necessarily the case. In July 2025, RAND published a
00:49:12study where it highlighted that the UK's nuclear missile arsenal, though very dependent on the US,
00:49:17is still a credible enough threat to Russia that it will be able to cause unacceptable damage.
00:49:22That alone tells you that the UK expanding its nuclear umbrella to include Ukraine would be
00:49:28massive. Putin would have a lot to think about. That brings us nicely to what all of this means for
00:49:33Ukraine and its war with Russia, assuming that the UK's proposal becomes policy.
00:49:38Replacing the nuclear threat that Ukraine lost in the 90s would obviously be huge,
00:49:43not least because it would finally give Ukraine a means of responding to Russia when Putin throws
00:49:47his nuclear threats around. And those threats are constant. In March 2023, Russia threatened to
00:49:52deploy nukes to Belarus, which it appears to have done. That nation borders Ukraine, so it's pretty
00:49:58clear who was being threatened there. 2024 saw Putin approve an alteration to Russia's nuclear doctrine,
00:50:03which has lowered the threshold for Russia's use of nukes. Even as far back as February 2022,
00:50:09when Putin announced his Ukraine invasion, the video address that he delivered came along with
00:50:14a very thinly veiled nuclear threat aimed as much at Western leaders as it was at Ukraine.
00:50:19Fast forward to May 2026, and Russia carried out nuclear drills with Belarus on land,
00:50:24sea and air, involving thousands of soldiers. Russia loves to throw its nuclear weight around.
00:50:30And though some may see this as a sign of weakness, especially given Russia's failures in Ukraine,
00:50:35that doesn't change the fact that Russia could absolutely destroy Ukraine with nuclear weapons
00:50:39if Putin loses his mind and decides to authorize a launch. Under the UK's nuclear umbrella,
00:50:46Ukraine would at least have a deterrent. A way to fight fire with fire,
00:50:50meaning that Russia will have to think long and hard about any future nuclear strike.
00:50:54Finally, what the UK's proposal also reveals is that there is a wider shift toward Europe trying
00:50:59to present a more serious nuclear threat against Russia. Beyond the UK, France has its own nuclear
00:51:05arsenal, which helps. United24 media reports that there are currently discussions taking place in
00:51:10the US about the potential of deploying dual-capable aircraft that can carry both conventional
00:51:15and nuclear weapons to NATO bases in Europe, so the US can't be discounted as a nuclear threat to
00:51:20Russia just yet. If these discussions result in anything concrete, the element of decoupling that
00:51:26exists in the UK proposal may not be required. Furthermore, Finland's parliament cast a historic vote
00:51:31back in June. With approval of 125 votes to 61, Finland has lifted its ban on nuclear weapons being
00:51:38stored on its territory. Finland doesn't have its own news. But what this ban lifting means is that the
00:51:44US, UK and France could all move nuclear weapons to Finland, placing them practically on Russia's
00:51:49border. There is still work to be done. Right now, the UK's proposal is just that. Proposal. It's been
00:51:55presented to Burnham, but he has yet to make the proposal part of UK policy. And if he does,
00:52:00the conditions attached will be debated by the European Union, meaning Ukraine will have to wait
00:52:04and see if the UK can finagle its way back into the single market using its nuclear weapons. But if
00:52:10everything works out, Russia will be worried. And it should be. One of the strongest cards that Putin
00:52:15has in his hands may be on the verge of being yanked away. It's no secret that Ukraine has upped
00:52:21its
00:52:21long-range game in 2026. 697 targets hit with deep strikes during the first six months of the year,
00:52:30costing Russia 6.1 billion dollars in the process. Show us that. But do you know what has been a
00:52:35big
00:52:35secret? Some of the drones that Ukraine has been using for those strikes. Now the secret is no
00:52:41more. In a stunning revelation, several British media outlets have revealed that the UK is supplying
00:52:48drones that Ukraine has been using to take out key targets. For the first time in history, the UK
00:52:53has droned Russia into oblivion. This is a special delivery to Putin from the UK and Ukraine are the
00:53:00couriers. In an August 16th report, the Times revealed that long-range drones made by two UK
00:53:06companies have not only been supplied to Ukraine, but are actively being used in some of the most
00:53:12important deep strikes that Ukraine is carrying out. This is a first-time event. Ukraine has used
00:53:18the UK's storm shadow missiles to attack Russia in the occupied territories and border regions before,
00:53:23but never drones, at least not until now. And what's more, this isn't something that's only just
00:53:29started happening. Ukraine has been using drones made in the UK to strike Russia for at least six
00:53:35months, the Independent adds. Nobody knew this until after the fact and those British drones have been
00:53:41busy. They've been involved in some of Ukraine's most important strikes. Oil refineries, which are
00:53:47one of Ukraine's most common targets, are being hit by the UK's drones. The Independent confirms that
00:53:53British drones have been used to hit at least two refineries in Volgograd and Yaroslavl. There may be
00:53:59others, but neither the UK nor Ukraine is talking. Still, it's clear that the UK is now involved in
00:54:04a 2026 refinery campaign that has seen Ukraine hit all 11 of Russia's largest refineries,
00:54:11impacting facilities that are jointly responsible for turning around 156 million tons of crude oil
00:54:17into usable products, such as gasoline and diesel, per year. These refinery strikes have played a huge
00:54:23role in causing a massive fuel shortage in Russia, as Ukraine used its attacks to take out 42 percent
00:54:29of Russia's refining capacity by early July. We thought that Ukraine was using its own drones
00:54:35for these strikes. Now we know that the UK's drones were involved in some of these attacks.
00:54:40The strike against the Volgograd refinery alone targeted a facility that processes 14.8 million tons
00:54:46of oil per year. There may be other refinery strikes. However, the other revelation to come
00:54:51from the Times and the Independent is that the UK's drones have also been used for attacks near Moscow,
00:54:57specifically focusing on logistics hubs inside Russia. Anybody who has been paying attention to
00:55:02what's happening to Russia's domestic logistics right now will conclude that this can only mean one
00:55:06thing. The UK has been helping Ukraine to squash some wild berries. The company, which is often
00:55:12referred to as Russia's version of Amazon, became a target for Ukraine in July due to its importance
00:55:17to Russia's logistics and economy, as well as the fact that wild berries platformed vendors,
00:55:21as well as the fact that wild berries platformed vendors selling equipment that could be used in
00:55:27the war against Ukraine. And Ukraine hasn't held back with its strikes. According to United24 media,
00:55:33Ukraine had knocked seven of wild berries ten largest logistics hubs out of operation as of August
00:55:38the 16th, forcing the owners of the e-commerce platform and Russia's economy onto their collective
00:55:43knees. DW adds that the cost of these strikes to wild berries has been immense. It reports that as
00:55:49much as $5.7 billion worth of products have gone up in smoke as wild berries warehouses all over Russia
00:55:55have burned. The total cost to the company, when accounting for repairs, compensation and every
00:56:01secondary cost associated with Ukraine strikes, is now estimated to be around $9 billion and growing.
00:56:07Just as with the refinery strikes, we assume that the drones being sent to pick apart wild berries
00:56:12facilities were Ukrainian-made. Most were. But now we know not all. The UK has played its part with
00:56:19at least two types of drones that Ukraine has been using for months. All of these revelations come on
00:56:24the back of Ukraine carrying out one of its largest attacks against Russia yet. During an overnight
00:56:29attack into August 16th, Ukraine sent 822 drones into Russia, around 600 of which were aimed at
00:56:37Moscow, the BBC says. Another wild berries warehouse was hit in Moscow and Ukraine also did damage via
00:56:43attacks targeting Rostov and Belgorod. Were the UK's drones used in these attacks? We may never know.
00:56:49However, we don't have to rely on UK outlets alone to confirm that UK drones have been touching
00:56:54down on targets inside Russia. The Kremlin itself has confirmed that it's happening in frothingly
00:57:00angry reports. The BBC reports that Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has
00:57:05slammed the UK for providing components for drones that have been used in attacks against Russian
00:57:11territory. She claims that these components were found in drones used in a strike against a fuel
00:57:15depot in Rostov, revealing yet more types of targets that Ukraine uses UK drones to hit.
00:57:21Russia is fuming about all of this. As for the UK and Ukraine, both are playing coy.
00:57:27Officially, none of this is happening at all. As Crypto Briefing points out, the use of UK drones
00:57:32in attacks against Russian targets hasn't been confirmed by either the UK or Ukraine. This is
00:57:38deliberate. A sort of strategic ambiguity designed to keep Russia guessing while minimizing the diplomatic
00:57:43tension will be caused by the UK confirming that it's helping Ukraine to drone strike Russia into
00:57:49oblivion. The UK is taking a page out of the Russian playbook here. Conduct strikes in ways that allow
00:57:55for plausible deniability and you leave your enemy impotent and furious. Russia has been doing that
00:58:01for years with hybrid attacks, including many targeting the UK. Now the UK is getting its own
00:58:07back with drones. The UK and Ukraine may not be willing to confirm that British drones are being sent
00:58:13into Russia, but they are. And this is what we know about. According to The Independent, Ukraine is using
00:58:18at least two drones that originated in the UK. The first is the Nyan one-way effector drone. Built in
00:58:25Wiltshire by a subsidiary of BAE Systems named Callan Lentz, this drone has been tested extensively in the
00:58:31UK before heading into Ukraine. On July 3rd, the Royal Navy carried out a first-time test from a warship
00:58:38using a
00:58:38launcher that was installed on the ship's deck. The Royal Navy also confirms that the drone has undergone
00:58:43extensive testing on land and that it has autonomous features. What those features are
00:58:48haven't been confirmed, though we can assume that the Nyan is capable of automatically tracking and
00:58:52targeting whatever it needs to hit. This isn't a drone designed to strike deep into Russia. It has a 2
00:58:59.9 meter
00:58:59wingspan and a range of about 240 kilometers, which makes it ideal for attacks in the occupied territories
00:59:05and against Russia's border regions. The Nyan is confirmed to have been used in at least one strike
00:59:11against Belgorod, which adds fuel to the fire when it comes to the potential for UK drones to have been
00:59:16used in Ukraine's August 16th attack. After all, Belgorod was a target in that strike, and the Nyan is
00:59:23tailor-made for targets at that sort of range. The drone isn't a powerhouse, it has a maximum takeoff
00:59:29weight of about 75 kilograms, and it's only capable of carrying a 20 kilogram payload, Militani reports.
00:59:36However, the drone is modular, allowing for different equipment to be installed on it depending
00:59:40on mission requirements, and it can hit a top speed of 222 kilometers per hour, making it difficult to
00:59:46stop when flying quite literally under the radars of Russia's air defense system. As for the second
00:59:51drone, this is where things get a little murky. The other drone the UK has provided for Ukraine is far
00:59:56more
00:59:56mysterious than the first. All we know so far is that it's manufactured in factories in the UK.
01:00:02It has a range of over 965 kilometers, and it's launched using a catapult system, meaning Ukraine
01:00:08doesn't need a runway to get it up into the air. That catapult also allows Ukraine to send several
01:00:13of its second type of drone into the skies in quick succession, allowing for the quick creation of a
01:00:18swarm that then descends upon Russia. Beyond that, neither the drone nor the company making it has been
01:00:23named reportedly for security reasons. Ukraine and the UK wants to keep this drone quiet.
01:00:29The longer that Russia has to spend guessing, the more effective this unnamed drone will be
01:00:33against Russia's air defenses. Frankly, Russia should have seen this coming. Though the UK hasn't
01:00:39officially confirmed the use of its drones on Russian territory, it hasn't been shy about providing
01:00:44Ukraine with the weapons it needs to do some serious damage. Back in April, the UK's Ministry of
01:00:49Defense declared that its commitment to supporting Ukraine was unwavering, as it outlined what the UK
01:00:54will be providing to Ukraine in 2026. We are committed to providing the equipment Ukraine needs to
01:01:00defend itself against Putin's illegal invasion, a ministry spokesperson declared before adding.
01:01:06This includes over 150,000 drones this year, cutting-edge stone cloak devices that hinder Russian air
01:01:12defenses and innovative low-cost cruise missiles. Before we move on to what UK-made drones being used
01:01:18against Russia means in the wider context of the war, that mention of stone cloak devices deserves
01:01:24a little more attention. Stone cloak is a very clever piece of equipment. An electronic warfare or EW
01:01:30system, stone cloak is designed to be installed directly onto drones. The device is about the size
01:01:35of a tablet computer and it creates electronic interference that makes it hard for air defense
01:01:40systems to track and engage whatever aircraft the stone cloak is installed on, sort of like chaff or
01:01:46air defense targeting systems. Why do we mention this? Think back to what we said about the Nyan
01:01:51drone earlier. It's modular and can be equipped with whatever is needed for the mission it's sent to
01:01:55complete. We know that Ukraine has stone cloak devices. It's not too much of a jump to assume that
01:02:01some of these devices may have been installed onto Nyan drones that attack Belgorod and other targets in
01:02:06the border and occupied regions. The pieces align. A UK-made drone loaded with a UK-made EW system,
01:02:13striking Russian targets sends a clear message to Putin. The UK's military ties with Ukraine are only
01:02:19getting stronger. Russia is worried and it should be. Those ties are both powering up Ukraine and
01:02:25ensuring that the UK is prepared for a fight that it thinks Putin is gearing up to start. But before
01:02:30we
01:02:30go deeper into both of those issues, this is a reminder that you're watching The Military Show.
01:02:34If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, then now is the time to hit the button and enable notifications.
01:02:41So those ties we mentioned. What we're seeing with the UK-made drones being used to attack Russia is
01:02:47the latest indication that the ties between Ukraine and the UK are getting so strong that they're
01:02:52becoming very worrying for the Kremlin. And there's so much more as those ties have been developing for
01:02:57years now. Right from the start of the invasion, the UK has been one of the top providers of military
01:03:02aid to Ukraine. The UK government says that the country has provided almost 34 billion dollars to
01:03:08Ukraine so far, most of which has come in the form of military support, though Ukraine has also
01:03:13received over 7.5 billion dollars in non-military aid, such as fiscal guarantees and bilateral commitments.
01:03:20That's a pretty substantial showcase of support right off the bat, but the relationship between
01:03:24the UK and Ukraine goes so much deeper, 100 years deeper. Back in January 2025, the UK and Ukraine signed
01:03:32the 100-year partnership agreement. Under this agreement, both nations have committed to closer
01:03:37defense and industrial cooperation and the creation of rapid response mechanisms. The UK has also tied
01:03:43itself to providing Ukraine with a minimum of about 4 billion dollars in assistance every year until the
01:03:48end of the 2030-31 financial year. After that, the UK says it will provide aid for as long as
01:03:55needed to
01:03:55support Ukraine. In other words, if the war still rages by 2031, the UK's support won't stop coming.
01:04:02But perhaps more important than the actual commitments made is the message sent by this agreement.
01:04:07This isn't just the UK saying it's going to help Ukraine. It's the UK telling Putin that Ukraine is
01:04:13going to exist a century from now. In other words, you are going to fail in your efforts to transform
01:04:18Ukraine from a sovereign nation into part of Russia, Mr. Putin.
01:04:23We can keep going with the ties. Other examples include the UK and Ukraine signing a $27 million
01:04:28deal in January 2026, right on the anniversary of the 100-year commitment, to help Ukraine with
01:04:34energy infrastructure repairs following Russia's brutal campaign against Ukraine's energy
01:04:38infrastructure during the winter. On August 10, Euromiden Press reported that the UK is gearing up to
01:04:43allow Ukraine to purchase weapons made in the UK using $70 billion loan money that Ukraine received
01:04:50from the European Union. That's an important step. We often refer to Europe as a collective and the
01:04:55UK is indeed part of Europe, but it isn't part of the European Union and hasn't been for several
01:05:00years in the wake of the 2016 Brexit vote. So we're not only seeing another level of UK's support of
01:05:05Ukraine here, but also more cooperation between the two separate entities of the UK and the European
01:05:10Union, which can only spell more good things for Ukraine's future on the collaboration fund.
01:05:16And to cap it all off, just a couple of months before this loan announcement was made,
01:05:20the UK revealed that it was flight testing a trio of long-range systems designed for both the UK
01:05:25itself and to help Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The specifications for these systems are
01:05:30revealing. The UK wanted a weapon that could travel at least 500 kilometers, carry a warhead weighing at
01:05:36least 225 kilograms, and reach a top speed of over 600 kilometers per hour. Hmm. That mystery drone we
01:05:44mentioned as part of the pair that Ukraine is now using against Russia has a range above 500 kilometers,
01:05:49965 to be exact. Could that second drone be the result of one of those June tests? Again, we may
01:05:55never
01:05:56know, as the UK and Ukraine aren't revealing much. However, as with the stone cloak and Nyan drone
01:06:01speculation, the pieces do appear to fit together fairly well. There's one thing that we can conclude for
01:06:07certain now that UK drones are flying into Russia. The UK has transformed from being a thorn in Putin's
01:06:13side into a major threat, all due to its support of Ukraine. Russia has already been casting the UK
01:06:19as a primary villain in the narrative that the Kremlin concocts around the Ukraine invasion.
01:06:23The Guardian notes that Russia has, at various times, accused the UK of planning drone strikes
01:06:28against Russian airfields, enabling what Russia calls terrorist attacks inside Russia, and even
01:06:34playing some sort of role in the terrible concert attack at Krakos City Hall in Moscow, which left at
01:06:40least 145 dead and over 500 injured. The last one in particular is nonsense, but it shows just how
01:06:47far Russia is willing to go to cast the UK as the villain in Putin's story. And all of this
01:06:52narrative
01:06:52twisting is happening because the UK has been as steadfast in its support of Ukraine as it claims to
01:06:58be. So what we're seeing with the UK helping Ukraine to drone strike Russia into oblivion is simple.
01:07:03If Putin wants to make the UK the villain in the skewed Russia narrative,
01:07:07then the UK is going to play the best villain it can be. And it has reason to slot into
01:07:12that role.
01:07:13Some think that Russia is creeping ever closer to starting a war in the UK than you might think.
01:07:18In June, Sir Richard Knighton, who is the Chief of the Defence Staff of the United Kingdom, said that
01:07:23the UK faces the highest threat from Russia that it's faced since the Cold War era. He calls now the
01:07:28most dangerous period for the UK in several decades, adding that Russia has been crossing lines with
01:07:34hybrid attacks that include assassination attempts, cyber criminality and sabotage.
01:07:39This is the most dangerous time I have known in my working life. And it's important that society
01:07:44and all of us recognize and understand that. And that may mean that we need to make different
01:07:48choices and different priorities, Knighton declared.
01:07:51Different choices and different priorities may translate into,
01:07:55give Ukraine drones that it can use to hurt Russia before Russia can hurt the UK.
01:07:59It may also translate into some of the interesting steps that the UK has either taken or is considering
01:08:04taking to deal with the Russian threat. For instance, February saw the UK deploy a carrier
01:08:09strike group led by HMS Prince of Wales into North Atlantic and High North waters as part of Operation
01:08:15Firecrest. There's only one reason that the UK has sent a carrier so far north. It wants Putin to know
01:08:21that it's ready to defend itself and its NATO allies as Russia tries to expand its interests in the Arctic
01:08:27region.
01:08:28Another interesting example is currently a proposal that could soon become policy.
01:08:33Earlier in August, The Telegraph revealed a UK political op-ed proposing the creation of what
01:08:38it calls a European Confederation. That proposal matters because of what it would mean for Ukraine.
01:08:43In return for renewed access to the European Union's single market in the wake of Brexit,
01:08:48the UK could offer to cover Ukraine with its nuclear umbrella, giving Ukraine a countermeasure to
01:08:54Russia's nuclear threat. What all of this means is very simple. The UK drones flying into Russia
01:08:58are just the start. The UK wants to make Russia pay for everything that it's done to Ukraine,
01:09:04but it also wants the Kremlin to know that Russian attempts to intimidate through hybrid warfare
01:09:08aren't going to work. If Putin wants a fight, the UK has already taken its gloves off
01:09:13and is getting ready to turn that fight into a brawl. It may all start with providing drones to Ukraine,
01:09:18Ukraine, but if the likes of Knighton are right and Russia goes further than it already has,
01:09:23then the UK is going to be ready, standing side by side with Ukraine and its NATO allies.
01:09:28Poland is not to be messed with. That's the message that the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has
01:09:35delivered as he pledges to make Poland the owner of Europe's largest and most powerful army.
01:09:41This isn't mindless chest puffing. Poland doesn't want to just be the strongest for the sake of it.
01:09:47The monster army that is in development is being built up so that it will leave Russia terrified.
01:09:52The numbers are insane. The project is ongoing. Poland is already strong, but it's quietly building
01:10:00itself up into the true powerhouse of Europe. Our army, our armed forces will soon be the largest in
01:10:06Europe, Tusk declared, as he stood proudly to deliver a speech at the August 15th Polish Military Day Parade.
01:10:13That parade was a record breaker in its own right. Tusk had just watched a procession of 300 armoured
01:10:20vehicles and 2,000 soldiers passed by when he delivered his remarks. And he continued, adding,
01:10:26We can already say that we are building a force that will determine the fate of the region with
01:10:31its modernity and sheer numbers. And the entire world appreciates this, especially our allies.
01:10:37An important point delivered. For Poland, becoming the strongest force in Europe isn't about dominance or
01:10:43holding its might over its allies. That's a Russian approach. And Poland wants to be anything but
01:10:48Russian in the way that it handles its military. The Polish plan is to be one of the most powerful
01:10:53parts of a larger whole that is designed for two reasons. One, scare Putin straight. And two,
01:10:59if that fails, be ready to fight tooth and nail to stop Russian aggression.
01:11:04If there is any doubt that Poland has Russia on its collective mind as it builds Europe's largest army,
01:11:11then Tusk puts those doubts to bed. He mentioned Russia by name as he spoke about the outside forces
01:11:16attempting to influence Poland, despite Russia being the obvious enemy creeping up to the doorstep.
01:11:21You know those forces, those political parties, those politicians who want to convince Poland and
01:11:26Poles that our main problem is Europe, that Ukraine is our enemy, that the European Union is unnecessary,
01:11:31and Germany is our greatest enemy. Tusk declared during his speech before immediately rubbishing all
01:11:37of these claims and pointing the Polish finger of blame at Putin. And somehow they forget about Russia,
01:11:42the neighbor, the dangerous neighbor, who is waging war just beyond our borders. And sometimes this
01:11:47war even encroaches upon our borders. Saying that the Ukraine war is encroaching on Poland's borders
01:11:53is an understatement. It's more like exploding. That's what a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile did after
01:11:59flying 90 kilometers into Poland. Thankfully, the explosion happened in an empty field and the missile
01:12:05was shadowed by fighter jets as soon as it entered Polish territory. Still, it's clearer than ever that Russia
01:12:11is a threat to Poland. The Kremlin continues to deny that the missile was Russian. It denies involvement
01:12:17even as the missile has been identified. But this incident only reinforces Tusk's point that Poland
01:12:23transforming its military into Europe's largest isn't just about Poland. It's about everybody that
01:12:28faces the Russian threat. Real alliances and sensible foreign policy covering the Baltic region,
01:12:34Poland's own eastern shield, existing defense treaties and especially Ukraine, are all part of making
01:12:40Poland stronger, Tusk declares. It's a symbiotic relationship. As Poland's might grows, so does the
01:12:46strength of its allies and vice versa. And all of this is in service of the key point that Tusk
01:12:51made as
01:12:51he railed against the Russian threat. Poland doesn't want to go to war, but only the strong are able to
01:12:57prevent war. Or in Tusk's words, only those who are strong, well prepared, truly independent and sovereign
01:13:04will avoid war. These are all grand declarations made by a man who has a vested interest in making
01:13:10Poland appear as strong as possible, both to Russia and to the nation's own allies. But Tusk's words
01:13:16aren't bluster. There is no braggadocio here. Tusk has told the world that Poland is building a monster
01:13:21army that is the stuff of Russian nightmares. The numbers across the board back him up. Let's start with
01:13:27Poland's land army. As the Washington Times pointed out in a May 20th piece, Poland's deputy minister
01:13:33of national defense, Pawel Zalewski, has already pointed out that Poland leads the way in numbers
01:13:38and capabilities when it comes to land warfare. We have the biggest land NATO army in Europe with
01:13:43the biggest capabilities, Zalewski said, adding, we are taking lessons learned from Ukraine. It shows that
01:13:49a country at war must have very short supply chains. So we're investing in this capability also.
01:13:55Manpower alone is a major factor for Poland. In an August 17 article, the Defense Post revealed
01:14:01that Poland's armed forces now have 220,000 active personnel for the very first time,
01:14:08following a recruitment drive that has added 5,000 more soldiers since the beginning of 2026.
01:14:13156,000 of those soldiers are professionals in the Polish army. Another 40 serve in the country's
01:14:19territorial defense forces, and the rest are assigned per what the outlet calls
01:14:23other active duty arrangements. And this is just the start of growth in Polish manpower.
01:14:29Poland aims to have 300,000 active military personnel by 2035, representing the tripling of
01:14:35the size of a force that stood at 99,000 soldiers back in 2014. By 2039, Poland aims to have
01:14:42an army
01:14:43that is 500,000 personnel strong, broken down into 250,000 operational troops,
01:14:4950,000 territorial soldiers, and 200,000 people serving in the reserves and ready to call up when
01:14:55needed. Massive investment will be required to build all of this, and Poland is spending the money,
01:15:00as you'll soon discover. But the largest European land force isn't just about the soldiers,
01:15:05it's also about the equipment. Poland's goal is to have more battle tanks by 2030 than the combined
01:15:11forces of France, Italy, Germany, and the UK. Contracts have already been signed for many of these tanks,
01:15:17including an order of 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks from the US, that cost Poland $4.7 billion back in July
01:15:252021. These aren't any old tanks, they are among the most advanced main battle tanks in the world,
01:15:32and they have proven themselves effective against Russia and Ukraine. Poland has also bought refurbished
01:15:37tanks, including 116 M1A1 Abrams in a $1.4 billion deal back in January 2023. Combined, these tanks
01:15:45replaced the 240 or so Soviet-era models that it gave to Ukraine to battle back against Putin.
01:15:51Add to this a massive plan to acquire up to 1,000 K2 Black Panther tanks from South Korea,
01:15:57starting with an initial $3.4 billion order for 180 tanks, and you get a formidable tank force designed
01:16:04to counter Russia's favored method of war, a fight-fire-with-fire approach to be taken against
01:16:09a Russian nation that prefers ground warfare, but has already burned through almost 12,300 tanks in
01:16:15Ukraine and is resorting to ancient and decrepit Soviet-era models. Speaking about taking on Russia
01:16:21at its own game, Poland is also pulling ahead of the rest of Europe on the artillery front. Russia loves
01:16:26artillery. Before it was forced to accept that drones are as important as they've become in Ukraine,
01:16:31Russia's entire approach was built around artillery. This Russian god of war, as Business Insider dubs it,
01:16:38is the only reason why Russia has been able to advance as far as it has in Ukraine,
01:16:42as its methodical approach of getting into artillery range, pounding away at fortifications,
01:16:47and then moving forward formed the backbone of the country's entire strategy during the first few
01:16:52years of the war. Poland has seen Russia's propensity and realized that the fire-with-fire
01:16:57approach works once again. It has spent around $5 billion to buy more than 360 canine howitzers from
01:17:04South Korea. And that's only the start of Poland hoovering up as much artillery as it can get its
01:17:08hands on to combat Russia. Poland also builds its own artillery system, the AHS Crab, which appears to
01:17:15be built at a rate of around 50 units annually, with capacity to expand. But this is all tube artillery.
01:17:21Poland also needs multiple launch rocket systems, so it's getting its hands on those types of systems too.
01:17:272023 saw Poland receive a delivery of 20 US-made HIMARS systems, under a $414 million contract
01:17:35signed five years earlier. Again, this is battle-tested equipment in Ukraine that Poland knows
01:17:40will be effective against Russia. More HIMARS are coming, 486 of them, per a framework deal worth
01:17:47around $10 billion that Poland signed with the US back in September 2023. If Russia's way of war
01:17:54involves brutal and grinding land campaigns, then Poland is going to be ready. It'll bring the soldiers,
01:17:59tanks and artillery that many of its NATO allies don't have, and that's only the beginning. The
01:18:04numbers only get more insane from here. But before we go deeper, this is a reminder that you are watching
01:18:09The Military Show. If you're getting insight from the channel, don't forget to subscribe and enable
01:18:14notifications to see more.
01:18:17Defence is just as important to Poland as offence, and there are two areas in which Poland has been
01:18:22investing to boost what is already the largest ground force Europe has to offer, air defence and
01:18:28the Eastern Shield. On the air defence front, Poland has been hoarding Patriot missile interceptors,
01:18:34which is precisely what it needs to deal with the Russian ballistic missile threat. Back in 2018,
01:18:39Poland created the Wiesla program, which essentially amounted to the purchase of a pair of Patriot missile
01:18:44batteries along with a bunch of missiles. Poland spent $4.75 billion to get its hands on this
01:18:50Patriot hardware. Two batteries amounts to four fire units, 16 launchers and, per this particular deal,
01:18:56208 PAC-3 Patriot missiles. And this was just phase one of the program. Phase two will see Poland spend
01:19:03another $15 billion on six Patriot batteries, which means 48 launchers and another 644 PAC-3 missile
01:19:11interceptors. Poland will also be getting the Ghost Eye radar as part of this second phase,
01:19:16which improves Patriot detection and tracking. If you're wondering how Poland was able to respond
01:19:21so quickly to the Russian missile that flew into its territory in late July, this radar might well be
01:19:26the answer. Poland is also investing heavily domestically and in drones to boost its air defence
01:19:31further. In October 2025, Poland poured over $700 million into expanding the production capacity of its
01:19:39four leading air defence manufacturers, who combined to build NARU air defence systems
01:19:44and the radars that go along with them. NARU gives Poland short and mid-range options to deal with
01:19:49aircraft, missiles and drones, complementing the longer-range Patriot. January 2026 also saw Poland
01:19:56spend $1.67 billion on a contract with the Norwegian defence company Kongsberg Gruppen for coastal missile
01:20:03defence systems. Again, this is a case of Poland seeing what Russia does and reacting to it.
01:20:08This time, rather than fire with fire, Poland sees Russia's reliance on missile and drone swarms in
01:20:13Ukraine and it's building its own layered air defences to counter that approach.
01:20:17Then there's the other aspect of Poland's defences, the Eastern Shield.
01:20:22This shield is all about guarding the borders that Poland and the Baltic states share with Belarus,
01:20:27Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. And this particular aspect of Poland's military
01:20:32build-up is very much a work in progress. Poland has 700km of borders with Russia or Russian allies
01:20:39that it needs to build up. By the end of 2026, it intends to have about 200km of that border
01:20:44secured
01:20:44with a combination of linear fortifications, what Colonel Marek Pietrzak of the Polish Armed Forces
01:20:50calls border-blocking infrastructure and seals for roads and rail crossings that will prevent Russian
01:20:55forces from using them. Polish authorities are also purchasing land at a rapid pace to make these
01:21:01border defences possible, having purchased 38 properties in 2025, with plans to buy another 150
01:21:07across 52 locations in 2026. Anti-drone fortifications are also being set up alongside the
01:21:14fences and spools of barbed wire. Machine guns, cannons and jamming systems to deal with missiles and
01:21:19drones have all been mentioned, per a December 2025 article in the Guardian. Add bunkers, trenches,
01:21:26anti-tank barriers and AI-powered command centers into the mix and you get a massive border project.
01:21:32The intended completion date is 2028. The total estimated cost to Poland is $2.55 billion.
01:21:39What we're seeing in all of this is two-fold. First, Poland is building a vast military
01:21:44ecosystem that extends far beyond its borders. Second, Poland is putting its money where Tusk's
01:21:50mouth is with vast spending commitments. You don't get to have Europe's largest army without pouring
01:21:55billions upon billions of dollars into building that army. And you also don't get to level up that
01:22:00army in terms of equipment and capabilities without building a strong defense ecosystem. It's two sides
01:22:06of the coin that Poland wants to ram down Putin's throat. When it comes to the ecosystem, you've seen
01:22:11examples of how that's been growing already. We mentioned purchases from the US and South Korea,
01:22:16showcasing how Poland is willing to look beyond Europe to create the strongest army in Europe.
01:22:21Poland is also working with Norway. It's buying sensors and reconnaissance equipment from both the UK
01:22:26and Israel. There is more beyond what we've already mentioned. 36 FA-50 PL aircraft from South Korea,
01:22:33mounted with phantom strike radar and capable of firing US-made AIM-120 AMRAAMs. A memorandum of
01:22:39understanding signed with Sweden in 2025 will see the two nations work together to get their hands
01:22:44on A-26 submarines that Poland can use in the Baltic Sea and beyond. Over and over we can see
01:22:50Poland
01:22:51building ties, buying weapons and building a military that is designed to counter everything that Russia
01:22:56can throw at it. Over the last five years, Poland has been NATO's largest arms importer, notes from
01:23:02Poland reports. That statement is built on data provided by CIPRI, which shows that Poland accounted for
01:23:083.6% of global arms imports for the period between 2021 and 2025. The US came second with 2
01:23:15.9%,
01:23:15and there were even wider gulfs between Poland and the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. There are
01:23:21non-NATO nations that import more. Ukraine tops the entire list, accounting for 9.7% of imports. But
01:23:27then Ukraine has the only military that's really capable of giving Poland a run for its money as
01:23:31Europe's strongest, and it unfortunately isn't a member of NATO or the European Union, as Poland is.
01:23:37Showcasing Poland's renewed focus on strengthening its military, the volume of arms imports it purchased
01:23:42during the period CIPRI examined is 852% higher than the volume for the previous five-year period.
01:23:49That's the fifth largest increase among arms importers when considering these two periods, with only
01:23:54Germany, Hungary, Belgium and once again Ukraine ranking ahead of Poland when it comes to percentage
01:23:59boosts in weapons imports. Poland is buying a lot of weapons, is the point we're making.
01:24:05However, and perhaps even more importantly, Poland is integrating itself into the defense
01:24:09ecosystems of nations all over the world. There's no better way to build defensive ties with an ally
01:24:14than to show you trust that ally's weapons enough to spend billions of dollars on them. Money talks,
01:24:19and that brings us nicely to another area where Poland comes out ahead of the rest of Europe in army
01:24:24building – the sheer amount of cash that Poland is splashing on its defense.
01:24:29Poland's defense budget has grown rapidly in line with its army's expansion and the growth in its
01:24:33arms imports. Between 2020 and 2025, Poland has gone from spending about $13.6 billion on defense annually to
01:24:41$45 billion. It plans to spend over $55 billion in 2026, representing a quadrupling of expenditure since
01:24:502020. Naturally, this also means that Poland is spending more as a percentage of its gross domestic
01:24:55product or GDP than ever before. Back in 2020, Poland spent 2.3% of its GDP on defense. Good
01:25:02in
01:25:03the sense that it was above NATO's 2% recommendation, but not spectacular. In 2025, the percentage had risen
01:25:09to 4.3% of GDP following several years of budget increases spurred on by the beginning of the Ukraine
01:25:16invasion. Poland is also preparing for future spending. Poland has secured a Security for
01:25:22Europe – or SAFE – funding agreement with the European Commission, which will see it receive $50.9
01:25:27billion as a loan to strengthen its army. Many of Poland's more recent acquisitions are built on the
01:25:32back of this loan agreement, and Poland received the first $7.65 billion it will be getting under the
01:25:37deal at the end of May. More money is coming. That means more growth is also coming to Poland's military.
01:25:43We mentioned Poland putting its money where Tusk's mouth is earlier, and this is what we meant.
01:25:48Out of every European nation that is a member of NATO, Poland is the big spender. And every number,
01:25:53statistic and purchase that we've mentioned in this video is the outcome of that spending.
01:25:58What we see in all of this isn't just a military bill. It's a culture shift in a nation that
01:26:03was once
01:26:04trapped behind the Iron Curtain and never wants to find itself under Russia's controls again.
01:26:08And the perfect example of this culture shift spreading beyond the military and into Polish
01:26:13society at large comes from the vast civil defense program Poland has launched to accompany its military
01:26:18builder. In June, France 24 reported that Poland has launched large civilian courses designed to teach
01:26:25everyday people survival skills that they can use during a time of crisis. The first of these programs
01:26:30was launched in November 2025, and it saw Polish Minister of National Defense, Wladyslaw Kosiniak
01:26:36Kamysh, declare his hopes that 400,000 Poles will have completed the course by the end of 2026.
01:26:41There is no age range. Everybody from teenagers to seniors can take part. And this program serves
01:26:47Poland's purpose of developing Europe's largest and strongest army in a different way. It's preparing the
01:26:52Polish people psychologically for a war that Poland hopes will never come, but it will be ready to fight,
01:26:58if it does. That echoes back to Tusk's comments that we shared near the beginning of the video.
01:27:03Poland has turned itself into Europe's powerhouse because it has to. There can be no avoidance of
01:27:08war if you aren't strong enough to show an enemy that you are capable of fighting. That is ultimately
01:27:13what Poland is doing here as it continues to build up. The monster has been created. Right now that monster
01:27:19is caged, but Poland is making sure that Russia knows about it and that the monster will be unleashed if
01:27:24Russia crosses the line from threats and aerial incursions into full-blown European war.
01:27:29Oh, and there's one more thing that Poland is mulling over. As it builds up its air defenses,
01:27:34the question is being raised by some very prominent politicians. Should those air defenses be used to
01:27:39protect Ukraine by destroying Russian missiles as they fly into Ukrainian territory? Check out all of the
01:27:45details of what Poland is preparing to do and what it would all mean in our video. And if you
01:27:50enjoyed this
01:27:50video, don't forget to subscribe to The Military Show and enable notifications as we chart how Putin's
01:27:56invasion of Ukraine has created a ripple effect throughout Europe.
01:28:00And thank you for watching.

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