George Barros

Exclusive: Inside Russia’s 2026–2036 Tank Fleet Modernization and Buildup Plans In the spring and summer of 2025, as part of our own operation, our team obtained exclusive documents that provide new insight into Russia’s tank-production plans and confirm the existence of a little...

Our exclusive report on Russia’s tank production is out. Using internal files and state contracts, we show production plans for the next decade and current output. A short thread will follow soon, but for now, you can read the report

frontelligence.substack.com/p/exclusive-inside-russias-20262036

Russia launches 500+ Shahed drones at Ukraine every few days. If Ukraine had tomahawk missiles, Ukraine could destroy the factory in Tatarstan that has the capacity to produce 2,700 of them monthly.

Current Trump Administration policy is not working. Putin is emboldened. He will not stop unless we stop him.

"Reducing US military aid to Ukraine will neither lead to a sustainable peace in Ukraine nor compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to reassess his theory of victory" understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

Maxar collected images of before / after damage to Russian aircraft as a result of Operation Spiderweb.

This is not a comprehensive view of the damage. Cloud cover obscured several of the other Russian airbases that were reportedly also struck by drones.

📷 @Maxar

Ukraine demonstrated that it can cause strategic effects using FPV drones.

Small UAS are not confined to the tactical level of warfare.

Tremendous operation.

Same energy.

There are things the US can do to *make* Vladimir stop.

Putin has vulnerabilities we are either overlooking or choosing not to leverage.

Putin is banking on the US letting Russia off the hook despite Russia's own precarious position

The Kremlin falsely framed Ukraine's extension of martial law & continue mobilization through August as an effort to inhibit the peace process.

The Kremlin, however, failed to acknowledge that Russia also has been intensifying its recruitment campaign to continue its war.🧵

1/ Today's occupation update focuses heavily on Russia's efforts to deport Ukrainian children and teens to Russia and expose them to Russification programs. I discuss how programs such as "University Shifts" and "Cultural Map 4+85" are just a small part of a much larger ecosystem ⬇️

Thrilled to share that @cnn.com cited my analysis on the news surrounding a popular Russian commander - Major General Ivan Popov - who attempted to weaponize his popularity & Russian information space to resist his removal from command in July 2023.
www.cnn.com/2025/04/15/e...

A quick 🧵on Popov:

Interesting footage of Russian forces' tactical training to defeat FPV drone threats using shotguns.

Russian sport skeet shooters are helping instruct Russian soldiers learn how to hit fast-moving targets with shotguns.

Putin is likely afraid of having over 700,000 Russian veterans return to Russia in the event of demobilization out of fear that veteran groups could threaten the stability of his regime upon their return.

Putin launched a deliberate campaign to suppress veteran civil societies.🧵

Satellite imagery collected on March 21 shows damage from Ukrainian strikes on storage facilities at Russia’s Engels airbase.

An ammunition & weapons storage area on the airbase's NE edge was damaged. Destroyed buildings & storage bunkers with craters are visible.

Image Maxar Technologies

Waiting for Moscow to offer one (1) concession.

Available evidence from the battlefield does not indicate any Russian encirclements of Ukrainian forces at scale, and certainly not by the thousands.

You're falling for Kremlin language and mind games if you think Putin's statement means he accepted the US-Ukrainian 30-day ceasefire deal.

Putin actually rejected the terms of President Trump's proposal and is now trying to change the proposal's substance.

The Kremlin is not responding enthusiastically to the US-Ukraine proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.

The temporal correlation between the suspension of US intelligence sharing with Ukraine and the start of Russia's collapse of the Ukrainian Kursk salient is noteworthy.

Russia, not Ukraine, is the obstacle to peace.

This is evident in the data. Russia has intensified its drone/missile strike campaign against Ukraine after President Trump was inaugurated.

Ukraine has offered many concessions to start peace processes.

Russia has offered zero.

Russia is the obstacle to peace in Ukraine. Not Ukraine.

The proper strategy should be to erode Russia's leverage and grant Ukraine leverage until peace talks.

Not the other way around.

Terrible decision. Cutting intel sharing will grant Russian forces enhanced protection at the operational level. Russian battlefield gains have been dropping since late 2024, but this stands to help Russia rebuild lost momentum.

For the 58th time in two weeks:
Europe, stop freaking out over every crazy thing Trump says. He will keep saying crazy things every day, and he changes his mind constantly. Focus on what YOU are going to do to advance Ukrainian victory and undermine Russia.

Interesting things are happening in Toretsk.

Belarus has ratified an agreement that will allow Russia to build military bases / installations in Belarus, permanently expanding Russia's forward presence on NATO's Eastern flank.

Not surprising. I've been forecasting such a development for years.

tass.ru/mezhdunarodn...

Since minerals in Ukraine have become relevant for the policy debate, our interactive control of terrain map of Ukraine now includes Ukrainian minerals.

Clicking on a mineral tells the user what it is.

storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7...

Block aid, argue that aid doesn't matter, blame all issues on Ukrianian underperformance vs Western lag and under-resourcing, etc.

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff referred to the early 2022 Istanbul protocols as offering "guideposts" for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on February 23.

An agreement based on those protocols would be a capitulation document.

Any peace deal starting from the basis of the 2022 Istanbul protocols must be a non-starter.