EXPOSED: Ukraine cuts off Crimea's 'energy bridge' crushing Putin's hopes | Battle Plans

Kiev is methodically turning what Vladimir Putin considers his crowning jewel into an absolute battlefield.The chain of command is lying to Vladimir Putin, and Russia cannot afford the casualties that it will take to get through there and punch through to take the rest of the Donetsk Oblast.The next two months are absolutely critical for forcing Russia to the negotiating table.

Vladimir Zelensky meets Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara, and the Kremlin officially declares its special military operation has become a real war.There are critical updates from the front line.I'm Philip Ingram and this is Battle Plans Exposed.On top of that, they're kick -starting $40 billion to an initiative called NATO's Drone Edge, investing heavily in unmanned systems, plus a massive $50 billion deep strike missile program.These huge projects may completely change the very dynamics of NATO, and alliance leaders have officially recognized Ukraine as a contributor to mutual security for the first time.Meanwhile, Ukraine's long -range campaign is well underway.

Oil infrastructure and military assets deep into Russia are now fair game.Kiev's forces are destroying 34 Russian supply trucks every single day, strangling Vladimir Putin's war machine.According to Ukraine's drone chief, 14 Shadow Fleet vessels were taken offline in just one night, and that's in the Sea of Azov.Even Putin has made rare acknowledgements that his country is suffering from fuel shortages because of Ukraine drone strikes, forcing him to order restrictions on gasoline for Crimea, and he has banned the export of diesel.But there are concerning reports from the United States of a poll.attack by Russia on a key European nation.

Before we analyse all of that, let's begin by looking at what's been happening on the front lines.Let's begin with the astonishing attacks on Putin's wallet.The newly created Deep Strike Centre of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces has just coordinated an unprecedented campaign in the Sea of Azov.At least 35 vessels have been struck over a frantic four -day period.Robert Brovde, commander of the KRAK USF unit, said the identified tankers are part of Russia's shadow fleet and are under international sanctions.Ukraine used a lethal mix of conventional air drones and these Seababy naval drones.

If you watch right here, despite the crew firing frantic defensive shots into the water, the Seababy ignores the chaos and delivers a devastating blow right to the stern of the ship.Because Ukraine has been so effective at cutting fuel trucks from supplying occupied Crimea, Russia is increasingly relying on seaborne transportation of gasoline and petrol, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're talking on, to support the peninsula.The new Deep Strike Centre is responsible for executing large -scale autonomous and connected military drone strikes, so expect to see more of these operations moving forward.From an intelligence perspective, this isn't just a hit.It's a massive autonomous campaign designed to choke Russia's economy where it hurts most.

It's also designed to have a psychological impact on the people of Crimea and on the people of Moscow who see Crimea as theirs.

To the air war next.This is the moment a top -tier Russian Su -35 fighter jet was completely torn out of the sky over the Kursk region.Ukrainian sources state an American -made Patriot system pulled off a high -stakes air attackclose to the border, striking the aircraft down from an immense distance.The pilot did manage to eject, but look at what's left, just a charred, smoking heap of scrap metal on the ground.The Patriot is the ultimate long -range weapon in Ukraine's arsenal, and at the NATO summit, Donald Trump announced that the US will grant Kiev the licenses to manufacture them.

If Ukraine can pull off ambushes like this just now, just imagine the sheer devastation they'll cause whenever they can manufacture huge numbers of Patriots themselves.That in itself is a real coup to get the licensing to do that.But also, complementing the Patriots, Ukraine has just got permission to use meteor missiles supplied by Scandinavian countries, and Sweden in particular, over Russian airspace.The front lines are changing.

Next up, we have a classic example of why Russia's campaign is running into the ground.This footage shows an FPV drone operator skillfully infiltrating a Russian base.Packed with armoured vehicles and ammunition, the pilot blows it up from the inside.Notice the low battery on the drone, indicating that this is at the very limit of its range.This middle strike is what Ukraine is excelling at at the moment.It is textbook asymmetric warfare.

You have a cheap, low -cost weapon delivering a devastating blow directly to critical logistics and supplies, shattering the enemy's ability to make any meaningful sustained attack.And now, imagine this scenario across the 1 ,000 -mile front line day after day.Now, here's the grim reality of being a Russian soldier in Ukraine.This video reportedly shows Russian soldiers having to share weapons.As the soldier filming points out, they have a total of two rifles and three body armor vests to split between six men.It shows the catastrophic failure in Putin's military logistics chain.

Russia is burning through its manpower.so recklessly that its commanders are forcing unequipped, unprotected men straight onto the front lines.And I have seen other videos where when soldiers have examined the ballistic plates in their body armour to find them just made of wooden blocks.They're not finding proper body armour in there.And the other thing you notice about these soldiers is they're all hobbling.These are wounded individuals.

These are not fit to be on the battlefield.That's the state Russian soldiers are in.To the tech world now, and here we have an exciting new drone that could be making its way onto the battlefield soon.This is the Ukrainian 8x8 heavy lift ground drone built by the VTAG group.This rugged unmanned vehicle can tear across rough fields at up to 42 kilometers per hour.Most importantly, it is a workhorse, capable of hauling up to two tons of cargo.

From a logistics standpoint, a machine like this changes the dynamics for forward supply lines.Instead of risking lives to move ammunition and heavy gear through contested zones, commanders can let autonomous tech do the heavy lifting.We've seen developments in sea drones.We've seen the huge developments in the air drones.The next area are these land drones, and we're going to see them develop to similar sorts of levels.So let's take a closer look at the front line of Ukraine and see what's been happening.

Overall, it's been incredibly cagey, but we have witnessed intense flashpoints of action across a few key areas.Crucially, the data reveals that the overall rate of Russian advance has fallen significantly.Putin's ground forces are moving forward at a miserable crawl, averaging just about one square kilometre a day across the entire theatre.That is a staggering dropcompared to the rapid bounds they were making last year.Down in the south, Ukrainian forces have successfully pushed from Novopavlivka towards Filivia.

Russian troops have tried desperately to occupy Novopavlivka since last winter, but they've been completely pushed out and are now launching frantic counter -attacks to save face.Further north, the Kremlin made a heavy push for the village of Kupyansk Vyslovky, which is in this area.Their infantry even went as far as waving victory flags for the cameras, but the triumph was completely short -lived.Ukrainian unmanned systems stepped in immediately and finished off the entire infiltration attack with clinical precision.Meanwhile, over in Zaporizhia, Ukraine has launched counterattacks from Stepanorsk, moving directly towards Kamenskoye.Tactical updates from this sector are understandably flaky at the minute, but we will keep you closely posted as the situation develops.

Finally, a massive and deeply volatile grey zone has descended upon Kostelnivka.

and this is where intense fighting means control is shifting by the hour.And the tactics that we're seeing along the front line here are typical of what we've been reporting for weeks and weeks.The Russians advance, they wave their flags, they take their photographs, they say they've captured that territory.Ukrainian UAV operators come in and destroy them and there's nothing left of the Russians there.The Russians sent more people forward to do exactly the same thing, trying to continue the bluff that they're actually advancing so that they can report that back up their chain.It's not happening.

The chain of command is being lied to.The chain of command is lying to Vladimir Putin.Ukrainians are holding effectively a stalemate on the front line.Russia's main effortremains the remnants of the Donetsk Oblast.Kostya Nevka is where they're focusing on at the minute.

That is the bottom of the fortress belt.I'll show you more of that in a second.But it's Russia's aim to try and push through and capture the rest of Donetsk.Vladimir Putin has supposedly given his troops until December to do it.This is about the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth different deadline he's put against his troops getting there.So let's have a little look at the Fortress Belt and what that means at the moment.

So the Fortress Belt, Kostanivka, Krematorsk, Slovyansk, and Liman.

We keep hearing reports where the Russians have said they've captured the city.Well, President Zelensky turned around to Vladimir Putin whenever Putin said we've captured the city and said, let us hold our first peace talks in Kostanivka.I will see you there.That tells me that if President Zelensky is confident about going there, that they haven't captured it.And the reality is the Russians have probably got about 350 troops inside the city.And as I've mentioned on a couple of occasions now, they're trying to advance building by building, block by block, as they fight their way through the city.

But again, a lot of these advances are they get to somewhere where they can fly a flag, they can take a photograph, they can get it geolocated, and then the Ukrainian UAV operators come in and destroy them.The city is being rubble -ized, as an American commander described attacks on cities to me in a different operation at some stage in the past.To get through the rest of the Donetsk Oblast, Not only do the Russians have to capture Kostolenevka, and remember, that's further on from Bakhmut.It took the Russians over two years to capture Bakhmut.They then have to go through Kremetorsk, Slovyansk, and Liman.The Ukrainians have spent a lot of time building their defenses.

in there.So if we take two years for there and we took two years for Pokrovsk, we take two years for here and another couple of years for here, here and here, that's a long time and Russia cannot afford the casualties that it will take to get through there and punch through to take the rest of the Donetsk Oblast.whether they would then stop or try and go for Kiev from this direction, I don't think the Russians could generate the combat power.But I don't think they can generate the combat power to take this fortress belt, which is why Vladimir Putin is insisting that it is given to him as part of any peace deal.And of course, years to get to here.If And it's a big if the Russians ever get to that.

And I think it's highly unlikely.

The Ukrainians are preparing what comes next and they're building a number of huge defensive lines or have built a number of huge defensive lines behind the cities.So they're continuously preparing their way of slowing the Russians down.

This is territory.Most of the town's villages in this area have been completely destroyed.And therefore, what Ukraine is doing, realising that it is facing a much stronger army, a much bigger military that can afford to send its troops in through the meat grinder, what Ukraine is doing is holding on as much as they can, preserving their forces as much as they can.And that means giving a little bit of territory here and there every now and again, because they're trading space for time.Again, I've said this on a couple of occasions.If they were doing that and Russia was advancing and they weren't doing anything with that time, then Ukraine would be losing.

But what is Ukraine doing with that time?It's carrying out its medium -range strikes into the rear.It's impacting Russia's logistics, its ability to resupply the frontline troops.But it's then going further.It'sfiring its weapon systems deeper into Russia.

It's attacking its ability to continue to fund the war, to continue to manufacture weapons to resupply the troops on the frontline.It's beginning to attack the morale of the Russians by restricting their ability to move around, restricting their access to fuel.It is taking the message that this is now a war not from the Kremlin spokesman coming out with it, but they're sending that as a clear message from Kiev to Moscow and to St. Petersburg that the war is coming home.Putin can't wait another two, three or four years to take these cities or to go forward.The Russian people won't stand for it.

As Russia's advance grinds to a standstill in Ukraine, let's zoom out and look at where Putin may attack next in Europe.Putin is playing a highly dangerous game of chicken with the West.Washington has quietly passed a severe warning to Warsaw that Russia is planning an armed provocation right on Polish soil.The direct target of this operation?NATO's resolve.Now, I'm not referring to a classic full -scale invasion.

Russia's conventional military is completely tied up in Ukraine and simply lacks the industrial capacity for total war with the alliance.Instead, Moscow is preparing for hybrid warfare.a series of calculated, deniable strikes designed to test whether NATO is a paper tiger or if we'll actually fight back.Let's get straight into what the intelligence is telling us.American intelligence shows Putin currently has two distinctoptions on the table.

Option one is a strike on critical infrastructure.

We could see deniable Russian drone or missile hits on Polish power stations.Alternatively, they might simulate air strikes near the border to trick Poland into turning on its air defence systems so Moscow can map out their networks.Option two is far trickier, a small ground incursion.

This would involve a small group of Russian or Belarusian troops crossing the eastern flank on foot or in helicopters.

If they get caught, Moscow's already the excuses lined up.They'll blame the sudden GPS failure or claim it was an emergency rescue mission for a broken chopper.Why take such a wild gamble?Because Putin bets that instead of shooting, the US will force Poland straight to the negotiating table.If Russia walks away with a diplomatic deal, it's a massive win for Moscow.Their ultimate goal is to shatter the alliance's unity and force the West to drop its vital support for Ukraine.

But NATO isn't sitting on its hands.Germany's Air Force chief has already warned that any armed provocation will see immediate direct NATO strikes on Russian assets, including the city of St. Petersburg, the Baltic Sea Fleet, and the heavily armed nuclear enclave of Kaliningrad.And time is rapidly ticking away to stop this escalation.Czech President Petr Pavel, the former chief of NATO's military committee, has just warned that the next two months are absolutely critical for forcing Russia to the negotiating table.

He reveals that allies have a very tight window to ramp up strategic pressure before Russia holds its parliamentary elections on September the 20th.Pavel's warning is clear.Once those elections are wrapped up, the window shrinks.Putin will no longer have to worry about domestic voters and is highly likely to order general mobilisationthrowing hundreds of thousands more men into the meat grinder and triggering a massive, dangerous escalation across all of Europe.The countdown has officially begun.

And Kaliningrad is interesting.We've got Kaliningrad isolated completely by NATO countries, we've got the Baltics, we've got Poland, and there is a small gap between controlled by NATO, between there and Putin's puppet state of Belarus, the Sovaki Gap.Another area that Putin could put pressure on, if he could persuade Belarus to do anything, would be to threaten to cross into this area.

And Kaliningrad was effectively given to Russia at the end of the Second World War as a non -freezing port into the Baltic Sea, because its ports further north and out into the Arctic all freeze over during the winter months.

It is an anomaly that is now a thorn in the side for NATO, but it's also a thorn in the side for Putin.

Now let's look at the peninsula turning into a complete nightmare for the Kremlin.Where am I talking about?Of course we talked about it beforehand, Crimea.Kiev is methodically turning what Vladimir Putin considers his crowning jewel, the Russian elite's beloved Riviera, into an absolute battlefield.

The Ukrainian defence minister previously stated their clear intention to systematically isolate Crimea and turn it into an island.And it is connected from the north by a number of bridges, across some swamp and flooding territory, and of course by the south.by the Kirsch bridge.They are well on their way.and down into Crimea have caused Russian military cargo traffic to plummet by 71 % in just two weeks.

They expect Ukraine to have total fire control over that vital road within a month.Brovde likened picking off exposed Russian trucks on that tarmac to shooting partridges in a field.But they're dialling in their attacks to take Crimea offline.In early July, Ukrainian drone units targeted and hit 50 separate energy facilities across Crimea and the occupied southern territories.The biggest hit came on the 8th, when drone forces successfully struck the PP2 transition station near Halzivka.This facility is the main receiving point for the massive Cuban -Crimea energy bridge, which funnels power directly from Russia across a 14 -pole underwater cable system.

The switch has been flipped.The strike took out five major electrical substations, three radar stations and a training ground.At the same time, drone units hammered 53 distinct Russian military targets across the occupied lands.As the unmanned systems commander put it, a deep and total blackout for the occupiers is now completely inevitable.The real world chaos on the ground is sparking severe panic.The peninsula has descended into survival mode, plagued by constant water outages, rolling blackouts, oil slicks on the beaches and endless lines at the petrol stations.

Distressed and outraged Russian vacationers are flooding social media in tears, openly demanding to know why Moscow and Putin have completely abandoned them.But while regular citizens face total uncertainty, Putin's inner circle remains insulated in extreme luxury.An investigation by Alexei Navalny's Anti -Corruption Foundation has exposed a sprawling secretive palace built right on the Black Sea coast at Cape Aia in annex Crimea.

Originally a modest dacha, the property was seized after the 2014 annexation and funnelled through a network of front companies tied directly to Putin's closest billionaire chums.

Mirroring the exact ownership schemes used for his multi -billion pound palaces in Glenzhnik and Lake Valdai, it is the ultimate insult to the Russian people.While under -equipped soldiers are split, sharing rifles on the front lines, and civilian families are left freezing in the dark, the elite are completing luxury billionaire estates on the very same battlefield.

So what Ukraine is essentially doing is isolating Crimea from the north.The supply routes coming through the rest of occupied Ukraine, this land bridge to Russia, are now being cut off.Ukraine is influencing any crossings around Kirsch.The Kirsch bridge has got reduced capacity but it hasn't been dropped yet and I'll explain why in a second.But the ferries that bring heavy equipment across and railway carriages across have all been sunk.We're seeing Ukraine now attacking tankers that were bringing fuel in to try and get fuel into Crimea, attacking them in the Sea of Azov.

So whythe Kirsh Bridge not dropped any time soon?Well, the Ukrainians are giving an out for the people that are living in Crimea.If Russia has to deal with tens of thousands of people trying to get out of Crimea and back into Russia and deal with the refugees they will become as they get in there, that will give Moscow another headache.Before Inevitably, Ukraine isolates Crimea completely.This is having a physical blow on Russia's ability to use Crimea as a launchpad for attacks up into Ukraine, but it's having a psychological blow on not just the Russian people, but those very people that are in Putin's inner circle, and Vladimir Putin himself.

As I've said in a previous episode, Vladimir Putin had his honeymoon in Crimea.His inner circle, his oligarchs, all have luxury datches and apartments in this area and they can't go and use them anymore.They can't fly off.to the ships in the Mediterranean.There are massive yachts in the Caribbean or anywhere else.They're now isolated in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

And Ukrainian drones, as we heard President Zelensky say to Donald Trump, when Donald Trump said, why don't we both go to Moscow, President Zelensky said, it might be difficult.There are too many Ukrainian drones over Moscow.So that's all for today's Battle Plans Exposed.Remember, please share it amongst your friends.Thank you for everyone who's watching.And please, put some comments in.

If you want us to cover anything in particular, we look at the comments, and we will try and do that.But share, like, and subscribe.Those are the things that I ask you to do.And get your friends to do it as well.But most of all, thank you for watching.I'm Philip Ingram.

Goodbye.