EXPOSED: Inside the ​masterclass ​siege ​trapping Putin’s ​crown ​jewel | Battle Plans

But if Putin knew his history, he'd be terrified.The reality of the war with Ukraine is coming home to the Russians.What we're seeing here is a tactic that is laying siege to Crimea.This is accelerating the path towards Putin wanting to get to the negotiating table as quickly as possible, and possibly even accelerating Putin's demise.

As Vladimir Zelensky warns Vladimir Putin, he's close to targeting Russia with homegrown ballistic missiles.and a Russian nuclear ballistic missile explodes in Belarus on a test run, we have major updates from the front lines.I'm Philip Ingram, and this is Battle Plans Exposed.In a diplomatic realm, it has been a frantic few weeks after Zelensky wrote an open letter to Putin and met European leaders.On the ground in Ukraine, signals and intelligence show that the logistics lockdown campaign is working and hitting its key objectives.We'll look at how Ukraine's medium and long -range strikes have drastically changed the dynamics of this war.

Plus, we'll analyse the latest on Crimea.But before we get into all of that, let's take a look at what's been happening on the front lines.This is the Chonhar, or Chongar Bridge depending on how it's spelt, one of the most vital arteries connecting occupied Crimea to the front line in southern Ukraine.It has just been hammered in a highly coordinated night -time strike.The precision work was carried out by Ukraine's 475th Separate Assault Regiment, known as Code 9 .2, working alongside the 1st Separate Assault Regiment.They used domestic mid -range Behemoth and Farpoint drones to hunt down the target.

More on those drones later.Analysts picked this specific crossing because it is the primary logistics route feeding Russian forces on the Hulyapol axis.The strike punched massive holes over a metre wide right through the concreteslabs.And while the main structural ribs are still intact, the damage has completely crippled the roadway.The occupiers have been forced to halt traffic entirely, shutting down the Dazhkoy checkpoint and choking off supplies.

This specific blow has severed fuel lines to Russia's 37th Motor Rifle Brigade.And reports on the ground say Russian drone operators are already running out of petrol just to run the generators for the UAVs.By executing what they call middle strike operations, Ukraine is systematically starving the Russian front line before the supplies can even get close to the fight.Now, this is called the deep battle when you're dealing with it from a tactical perspective.It's that bit beyond the tactical front line which influences everything that is happening on the front line.But taking it up one level further, which Ukrainians are doing to back it up, this is the operational level fight, hitting the key logistic nodes, the railway tracks, the logistic hubs, the command and control centers, and the ability for Russia to continue to finance the war.

Ukraine has got the initiative back, not just at the tactical level on the front line, but at the tactical level in its deep battle and its operational level attacks, and it is coordinating both very successfully.An example of that is here.It's not just trucks and Russian armour on Ukraine's hit list.Take a look at this.This is the Ukrainian kamikaze drone hunting down a Russian train in Russia's Bryansk region.Fighters from Ukraine's 413th battalion tracked the train and guided the drone right into the front of the engine cab.

This isn't an isolated incident.A separate drone attack struck a train locomotive on the Moscow to Simferopol route.That strike killed the assistant driver and injured the main driver, forcing authorities to suspend passenger routes.across Crimea.Russia's military is completely dependent on railroads to move heavy armor, ammunition, and troops, making them a top target for the Ukrainians.

Rail networks are massive, and repairing a broken track only takes a few hours.But locomotives?They're complex, expensive machines, hard to replace, and Russia is already running critically short of them.

By knocking out the engines, Ukraine is bringing Russia's military supply lines to a grinding halt.And it's important to put this into context.Western logistics rely a lot on air mobility, aviation mobility, i .e.helicopters, and then vehicles to get things to the front line.

We're not as reliant on the Russians as they are on the rail networks that they have.

So railway resupply to as close to the front line as possible is critical for Russia.is paralyzing it.As Sun Tzu says, the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.This clip shows Ukraine's art of war tactics in motion.We're looking at the Potrazhov airfield deep inside the Ryazan region of Russia, more than 300 miles from Ukrainian -controlled territory.That tiny speck is a Ukrainian FP1 long -range strike drone.

A Russian military channel leaked this footage.An independent analysis has already geolocated the blast.It wasn't a strike on regular military planes.Ukraine bypassed those to hit the Protoss Scientific and Production Center, a specialized drone facility operating right on the airfield grounds.The site houses over 50 resident companies dedicated entirely to developing, testing, and manufacturing Russia's unmanned aviation systems.It is a critical node in the state -directed supply chain that feeds nightly drone attacks on Ukraine.

cities.The FP1 drone used here carries a massive 120 -kilogram warhead and can fly up to 1 ,600 kilometers.By launching precision operations, this is deep into the Russian heartland.Ukraine is striking the factories before the weapons can even leave the assembly line.In military planning, we look at the entire kill chain, the sequence of events from the moment a weapon is manufactured to the moment it is fired in the battlefield.But even earlier than that, the components that go into the weapon, and this is linked to many of these factories.

If you only fight in the battlefield, the weapon at the very end of that chain, when a missile is really flying towards a city, or a drone buzzing over a trench.You're playing a reactive and incredibly expensive and incredibly dangerous game.Take a look at this.A civilian in Moscow's Sokolniki district filmed a Russian Mi -26, the largest serial helicopter in the world, airlifting a brand new Pantsir SMD -E air defence system.Where are they putting it?right onto the flat roof of a residential high -rise apartment block.

Imagine seeing a missile battery lowered onto a tar block in London or New York.When the Olympics are not happening, it did happen then.This is happening right in the middle of a dense residential area and tells us everything we need to know about the state of the Russian homeland security.The war is truly coming home for everyday Russians.For months, Ukrainian long -range drones have been punching through Russia's outer defensive rings, striking oil refineries and military factories.Moscow is supposed to be the most heavily defended city on Earth, but the Kremlin is clearly terrified.

They're so desperate to protect their own airspace that they are turning civilian homes into active frontline missile batteries, placing high -explosive anti -aircraft missiles on top of residential buildings,puts the families living underneath them at extreme risk.What they don't realise here is that building then becomes a legitimate military target.It is the ultimate admission from the Russian high command that their traditional air defences are failing to stop Ukraine's deep strike campaign.Let's begin with somewhere close to Vladimir Putin's heart.The place where he was born.

St Petersburg.St Petersburg.For over two years, Putin's shadow fleet of oil tankers has pumped billions into the Russian war machine.They sailed straight through European waters, completely untouchable, because they were guarded by heavily armed Russian warships.The Russian Baltic fleet was supposed to be a safe haven, sailing from St. Petersburg out through the Baltic Sea to get the shadow fleet out into the North Sea and then into the Atlantic.And also elements of Headquarters in Baliesk, deep inside the heavily militarized Kaliningrad Enclave.

And Kaliningrad was granted to Russia at the end of the Second World War.So it would have a port into the Baltic Sea that didn't freeze over during the winter, because this area of the Baltic can freeze over and has done fairly frequently.And I have sailed up through this area, so know it quite well.So Kaliningrad is a critical military outpost for Russia, even though it is geographically separated by NATO.And NATO now surrounds most of Russia in the Baltic Sea.It has another historic stronghold, Kronstadt, just outside St. Petersburg.

Historically, its job was protecting Russian military might across northern Europe.But recently, these warships have been reduced to acting as glorified bodyguards, escorting oil tankers to help Moscow bypass Moscow.sanctions, or to threaten the West, who were trying to impose sanctions onto Russian Shadow Fleet vessels.The Baltic was considered a sanctuary.Ukraine had other ideas.Today, we're looking at how Ukraine's latest wave of long -range kamikaze drones and daring saboteurs is systematically deleting the Russian Baltic fleet, bringing the war right to the doorstep of St. Petersburg, and striking deeper into the motherland than ever before.

If Moscow thought the Baltic was an impenetrable naval fortress, they're in for a devastating wake -up call.According to the latest tactical analysis from the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine has drastically escalated its long and intermediate range strike campaigns.Ukrainian unmanned systems forces are no longer just hitting border towns.They're penetrating deep into the heavily fortified Leningrad military district.

The first major cracks in the fortress appeared in April 2024, deep inside the Baltiysk naval base.

In a covert mission dubbed Operation Fisherman, Ukrainian intelligence working alongside a Russian defector codenamed Goga and the Freedom of Russia Legion pulled off a spectacular inside job.They sabotaged the Serpukhov Abuyan M -class missile corvette capable of launching deadly calibre cruise missiles.The ship was gutted by an internal fire that completely destroyed its crucial communications and automation systems.

It was a massive psychological blow, knocking a major missile carrier out of action for months without a single shot being fired from outside.

Fast forward to June 2026, and Ukraine took things to a staggering new level.In a 1 ,000 -kilometre deep strike, a swarm of advanced Ukrainian kamikaze drones penetrated Russian airspace and descended on the prestigiousKronstadt naval base.Their primary target, the Boyki, a Serygushchi -class guided -missile corvette.

Caught helpless in a dry dock for scheduled maintenance, the warship was repeatedly struck and set ablaze, and they didn't stop there.

Earlier in the year, an Arktika -class patrol ship was hit in the Baltic.

During that same June raid, drones dive -bombed a massive oil terminal in St Petersburg, sending thick black smoke billowing over the city just hours before Putin hosted the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, a massive event he historically uses to project global economic power.Ukrainian drones completely gatecrashed the party in a textbook humiliation.This wasn't a random target of opportunity.This advanced warship loaded with anti -ship and anti -air defence systems had a very specific high -priority job, acting as an armed escort for Putin's illicit shadow fleet.

Until now, these ageing tankers have smuggled Russian oil past Western sanctions, sailing right through the Baltic Sea and the English Channel with absolute impunity.Why?Because the presence of even a single Russian corvette was enough of a political and military deterrent to stop European navies from intervening.

But with Ukraine systematically hunting down and heavily damaging patrol boats, icebreakers and corvettes at Baltic ports like Primorsk and Kronstadt, the Russian Navy is running out of ships.Ukraine is quite literally deleting the escorts.And this is where the grand strategy comes together.By removing the armed muscle protecting these shadow tankers, Ukraine has opened the door for its European allies to finally step in.Without a Russian warship looming over the horizon, European nations are no longer afraid of military escalation.We're already seeing the results.

French authorities acting on British signals intelligence recently intercepted and seized a suspected tanker in the Atlantic.As Russia's naval power erodes, these undefended shadow ships are becoming sitting ducks for European blockades.So what's the damage?

Warships are burning, secret naval data has been stolen, and Russian air defences have been exposed as dangerously porous.

The Institute for the Study of War assesses that these relentless long -range strikes are forcing a panicked Moscow to pull vital air defence systems away from the frontline just to protect the capital and major cities.Ukraine is stretching the Russian military to its absolute breaking point.What we're witnessing is a masterclass in asymmetrical warfare.

Ukraine is using cheap, long -range drones to paralyse Russia's most elite naval base and strangle the illicit oil trade that funds the invasion.Ukraine's maturing drone programme has proven that the Baltic Sea is no longer just the NATO lake, as Ukraine is influencing it by stopping the Russians using it at all.The Baltic is rapidly becoming a trap for the Russian Navy.Putin's shadow fleet is losing its shadows and Europe is finally closing in.Vladimir Putin's war machine runs on rails, and it crosses into Ukraine over a handful of highly vulnerable bridges.For months, the Russian military has desperately tried to keep these vital arteries open.

But the Ukrainian armed forces are tightening the noose, and history is repeating itself in the most brutal way imaginable.Now, we're breaking down a catastrophic series of Ukrainian strikes that are systematically paralyzing Russian logistics.We're talking about the systematic attacksof the Chongar Bridge, the so -called gate to Crimea, and a ruthless new drone campaign obliterating Russian supply trains deep inside enemy lines.With passenger services in Crimea completely suspended and locomotives burning in Russian territory, there is a brutal reality now facing Moscow's generals.The Russian army isn't just being beaten on the battlefield, it is being starved of the very fuel, ammo and armour it needs to survive.

The Institute for the Study of War has been tracking what they call the Russian Ground Lines of Communication, or GLOCs.In plain English, the roads and railways keeping Russian soldiers alive.The most critical of these is the Chongar Bridge.It is the most direct, efficient route for moving heavy military hardware from the occupied Crimean Peninsula straight up to the front lines.But Ukraine has relentlessly targeted it, pounding the bridge with long -range precision strikes.

According to the latest tactical analysis, including reports mapped by military analysts, truck fire blowing the Chongur bridge creates a massive logistical bottleneck.When Chongur is down, Russian convoys are forced to detour west through the Armansk bottleneck, and this adds hours, sometimes days, to transit times.Worse for the Russians, it forces their supply trucks to drive closer to Ukrainian artillery positions.By choking off Chongar, Ukraine is ensuring that when Russian frontline units call for reinforcements, the radio responds with dead air.But if Putin knew his history, he'd be terrified.

Because this isn't the first time the fate of empires has been decided on these narrow, treacherous strips of land.Geographically, Crimea is essentially an island tethered to the mainland by fragile choke points like

and the pre -cop Isthmus.And whoever controls these bottlenecks controls the war.During the Crimean War in the 1850s, as I'm sure you all remember well, the Russian Empire suffered a humiliating defeat against British and French forces.Why?Logistics.While the Royal Navy supplied British troops by sea, the Russians had to drag their supplies across the vast muddy steppes of the mainland and squeeze them through the pre -cop bottleneck.

Russian soldiers were literally starving and their horses were dying of exhaustion before they even reached the battlefield at Sevastopol.The geography strangled them.Fast forward to the Second World War and these same land bridges became an absolute meat grinder.In 1941, it took Nazi Germany's 11th Army weeks of horrific bloody fighting to smash through Soviet defences at Prikop and Chongar in order to invade Crimea.And in 1944, when the Soviet Red Army came back to liberate the peninsula, they had to cross the exact same treacherous geography, launching a massive offensive over the shallow freezing waters of the Savish near Chongar.The lesson from history is written in blood.

Crimea is a fortress, but it is a fortress with a backdoor.And if that backdoor gets cut off, the troops inside are trapped.That was true for the Tsars, it was true for the Nazis and the Soviets, and today it is true for Vladimir Putin.

But hitting bridges is only half the battle.Russia's entire military doctrine relies on moving vast amounts of artillery shells and armour by train.If you kill the trains, you kill the Russian army.

And Ukraine's drones and drone operators are doing exactly that.Ukrainian drones are now loiteringin Russian airspace, successfully tracking, moving targets, and taking out multi -million pound pieces of railway infrastructure.Without locomotives to pull the heavy freight cars, thousands of tons of military supplies are left stranded on the sidings, completely useless to the Russian war effort.This relentless campaign has brought the transport network in occupied Crimea to its knees.The situation has become so dire that Russian occupation authorities have been forced to suspend regular passenger trains across the peninsula.

The lack of ability to resupply the petrol stations in Crimea with fuel being brought in by the trains means that the average civilian can only get 20 litres every time they visit a fuel station, if not only 20 litres every couple of days.The situation is becoming desperate.Crimea was a centre where, at this time of the year, Russians would go to for holiday.The Russian elite holidayed along the Black Sea coast.Bookings are down.Bookings are being cancelled.

People are not coming.The reality of the war with Ukraine is coming home to the Russians who holiday there, but more importantly, to the Crimeans who are suffering under Russian occupation.And what we're seeing here is a tactic that is laying siege to Crimea.Crimea is the jewel in Putin's crown.It is the one thing with any peace settlement he will not want to give up.But if it's strangled, and it's dead because of a siege, he will have no option.

This is accelerating the path towards Putin wanting to get to the negotiating table as quickly as possible, and possibly even accelerating Putin's demise.So let's look at the big picture.If you take out the Chongar Bridge and the trucks can't get through, you take out the local government.in Bryansk and the supply trains never even leave Russia.Ukraine is using its 21st century drone technology to exploit 19th century geographical weakness.They're using the ghosts of the Crimean War and the Second World War to haunt the Russian army today.

For the Russian forces stationed in southern Ukraine and Crimea, the writing is on the wall.you're cut off, history is against you, and the next train is definitely not arriving.And when we put this into context, if the Ukrainians can control this southern logistic route, having now dominated the roads as we've seen in previous episodes, dominating the rail, forcing the Russians to take longer routes through, if they can dominate these southern routes, the Ukrainians with drones can dominate anywhere inside the Russian -occupied area.the siege of Crimea.

Now let's look at the latest weapons Ukraine has developed that can turn the tide of the war.This is Ukraine's brand new Baymoth strike drone, publicly unveiled by Ukrainian firms Kulver Aerospace and GLEFA.

It looks a lot like the Iranian design Shahad drones.that Russia uses, but Ukraine has tailored this specifically to dismantle Russian logistics.Reverse engineering is something we see across the board, not just in the war between Russia and Ukraine, but we also saw the Americans reverse engineering the Shahad drone whenever they were carrying out their attacks on Iran.This thing is a beast.It carries a heavy 75 kilogram tandem warheadcombining an armoured pacing penetrator with a devastating thermobaric charge.

It flies incredibly low to slip under Russian radar, operates autonomously and can even be steered manually via Starlink.It has a range of up to 300km, placing it right at the top of Ukraine's exploding middle strike arsenal.This isn't just about a single new weapon.It represents a massive shift in how Ukraine is fighting.They're no longer relying on a few rare bespoke systems provided by the West or not provided by the Americans at times.Instead, they've built a complete ladder of drones for different distances and targets.

You've got the smaller Morrigan drone hunting logistics corridors.You've got the massive FP2 carrying a colossal 200kg warhead out to 370km.And you've now got the Beemoth.It moved from its first public reveal to active battlefield use in record time, successfully hammering the Chongar Bridge to choke off Russian supplies to the Southern Front.Think about the strategy here.Russia is turning out an estimated 30 ,000 attack drones a year across a network of 21 firms.

But instead of trying to shoot down 30 ,000 drones in the sky, Ukraine is using middle strike weapons like the Baymoth to hit factories making them.They've already struck a drone factory in Tangarog, a missile plant in Tambov, and a facility manufacturing navigation antennas deep inside Russia.It is simple, brutal maths.Why waste a million pound cruise missile when a cheap low -flying drone can blow Russia's weapons to bits before they ever leave the factory floor?

Now contrast Ukraine's high -tech drone ladder with what the Russians are doing on the ground to survive.Look at this.

It looks like a joke, but it's dead serious.Russia is now painting its supply and troop transport trucks with zebra stripes.This is happening because Ukraine's breakout strategic success this year has been its mid -range drone strikes, which quadrupled between February and May.

Kiev is wreaking havoc on Russian logistics up to 112 miles behind the front line using American -made Hornet drones.These drones use AI trained on thousands of hours of footage to automatically recognise Russian military equipment.To break up that digital silhouette, Moscow has dug all the way back to the history books to a First World War tactic called Dazzle Camouflage.And the description doesn't stop with zebra stripes.Because Ukrainian drones are hunting so deep behind the front, Russian forces have also begun disguising their heavy military transport trucks to look exactly like ordinary civilian delivery trucks.This Ural truck was spotted with a blue paint job.

They're even adding fake commercial branding and civilian registration plates to blend in with everyday traffic.

A century ago, the Allies painted thousands of warships these exact types of wild geometric patterns to confuse German U -boat commanders.Today, Russia is reviving the concept to trick the AI optical sensors on Ukrainian drones.But you may have also seen this sort of pattern somewhere else on the motorways of the UK or the motorways across Europe.Because car manufacturers, when they're testing their latest models and don't want the details to fall into the hands of the filthy press, will use the same sort of dazzle patterns to confuse people.So, it's good to see simple tactics coming out again, but not good that the Russians are using them to deal with AI.I'm sure the Ukrainians will find a solution.

to that very quickly.But this joins a long list of weird battlefield adaptations we've seen, like the turtle tanks covered in metal sheds and vehicles fitted with whirling cables to swat drones out of the sky.Will zebra stripes work?Analysts are highly sceptical.If a drone is using a thermal imaging camera, the paint is completely useless.And because a human operator is still making the final targeting decisions, a weird paint job won't stop them pressing the button.

It is a clear sign of absolute desperation.The Kremlin knows that supply lines are completely exposed, and they are resorting to century -old tricks just to keep their trucks from being blown to pieces.And again, modern technology brings these multiple sensors together.You've not just got what the AI brain sees, but the thermal image, the optical image, combined with other patterns that can look at and possibly even a radar image for the truck with, as we've said, the human operator making a final decision.Nice try, but it's not going to work.And of course this is something that in my military career we considered as well.

I remember during the Cold War we were deploying, and this was before I became an intelligence officer, I was an electrical mechanical engineer.We deployed workshops out to provide that mechanical and electrical first aid to all of the equipment that would have been fighting the Russians.We had to deploy into industrial areas because we could hide our thermal signature in normal factories.We had to deploy into built -up areas because our vehicle movements were around the place.We had big cranes, we had big pieces of kit, and we even considered painting our cranes the same colour as German civilian cranes, or as yellow as we see across in South Africa.cranes in many other countries.

This is nothing new.This is something that's considered by militaries in just about every conflict that there is going.And of course, when you understand the sensors that are there, you can improvise.to confuse those.I remember during the conflict in Kosovo, the Serbs were fantastic at carrying out deception operations.And one of the things that they identified very early on was the fact that microwave ovens give out a similar signature to air defence radars and they'd take the door off a microwave oven tape over the microswitch and switch it on and watch very expensive anti -radiation missiles coming from Western aircraft destroying many hundreds of microwave ovens.

Deception is a critical part of warfare and it is something that Sun Tzu in his Art of War talks about as well.Thanks for watching Battleplans Exposed.Make sure you like, subscribe and share with your friends on across your social media channels.And of course, you can get more frontline analysis in our next edition.If you've got any ideas, please put them in the comments below.If you've got any questions, put them in the comments below and we'll happily try and answer them.

But this is the analysis from the sun with Battleplans Exposed.

I'm Philip Ingram.Thank you.Goodbye.