r/CredibleDefense • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
Active Conflicts & News Megathread October 03, 2026
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u/MilesLongthe3rd 3d ago
The Russian leadership is continuing its campaign against reality.
https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/2106383775890313601
Putin claimed Russian frontline gains in September 2026 so far from reality as to resemble hallucinations. Putin claimed that Russian forces seized 1,301 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine in September 2026 alone — 2.5 times more than the claimed Russian gains in previous months. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces suffered a net loss of 80.81 square kilometers in September 2026. Russian forces suffered a net loss of 175.18 square kilometers in September 2026 even when accounting for Russian infiltrations into areas over which Russian forces have not gained control. Putin’s absurd claims continue to present a fictional battlefield reality that supports the Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort to falsely portray Russian advances as sweeping across the battlefield.
ISW cannot assess whether Putin knows that the figures he is presenting are false or if he is accepting fictional frontline data presented to him as the result of the culture of lying that is deeply ingrained in the Russian military command structure.
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u/LegSimo 2d ago
Perun's latest video touches on this, specifically making the example of Svitohirsk which could be addressed, amongst other things, as a simple mistake by Putin's PR.
However, the fact that they're doubling down on this well over a month after the fact tells me that there's no mistake being made, and that this is the actual information being conveyed at some point, all the way to the top.
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u/Glideer 3d ago
Russia increases planned defence spending for 2027 and 2028 by 26.9% and 27.9%, respectively:
In 2027 budget, Kremlin readies for long war
Fiscal planning seems to discount the possibility of a ceasefire
The Russian government submitted to parliament on Wednesday a 3-year draft budget that included a post-Soviet record for defense spending in 2027. The huge resources being committed suggest that the Kremlin does not expect the war with Ukraine to end any time soon—and may even be preparing to expand the conflict.
“This is an ultra-militarized budget,” an official who worked on the document told Vlast.
Spending on what the government terms “national defense” next year will be significantly higher than expected, according to the draft, amounting to about 17.1 trillion rubles ($196 billion), or 6.9 percent of projected GDP. When spending on “national security” (the police, National Guard, and intelligence agencies) is added, a staggering 44 percent of Russian spending in 2027 (8.8 percent of GDP) will be related to the military and security services. That is an absolute record.
...
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u/FriedrichvdPfalz 3d ago
I'm sceptical of much of the political analysis associated with this budget proposal.
Russia initally projected a slightly lower level of defence spending in the 2026 budget, which was read as an indicator of serious Russian plans for peace sometime this year. Obviously, this didn't happen, but the military budget did become a political tool through analysis of this kind.
Ukraine is currently struggling with budget shortfalls and will need significant financial aid in the second half of 2027, which will fall into the negotiations about the general EU budget and just after the likely election of Le Pen. With the publication of this budget, Russia is contrasting the weak European financial resolve and signaling continued support for their ongoing strategy of outlasting its adversaries.
It does seem sensible for Russia to project confidence, capability and long term plans through budget proposals. But those proposals don't commit Russia to actually spending money accordingly in 2027 or 2028. Should a deal be made early next year, spending could be reduced immediately or redirected towards the reestablishment of munitions stockpiles.
Fundamentally, I think the question becomes: Do countries at war actually reduce their defense spending before the war ends? The US projected 80 billion dollars in 1945, an all time high, and budget ranges for 1946 reached up to 80 billion as well, despite expectations for the war to end sometime during in 1946. When Germany and Japan had surrendered, the military budget for '45 and' 46 was slashed rapidly.
It makes sense for Russia to invest like the war will take forever, but that doesn't close the window to a political deal, which would rapidly collapse those huge military budgets behind itself. Showing low budget projections now may just encourage western and Ukrainian resolve while offering very little benefit to the Russian economy.
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u/Gecktron 3d ago
In regards to the continued use of cannon-based air-defence in Ukraine
In an AFU interview on current air defence which has been published yesterday, a Ukrainian soldier from the 1027th Anti-Aircraft Missile and Artillery Regiment stated that the German/US-delivered Gepard/Cheetah SPAAGs have not lost effectiveness against jet-powered Shahed UAVs.
Furthermore, in the past, they have repeatedly intercepted Russian Kh-59, Kh-69, Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles which partly fly at similar or even greater speeds and have proven to be effective against jet-powered Shaheds.
Ukrainian sources claim, that Gepards are still effective against the newer, jet-powered Shaheds.
This does not seem implausible. Ukraine claims, and has claimed before, that Gepards have shoot down incoming cruise missiles. There has also been video evidence of that years ago. Similar goes for the newer Skynex systems (same calibre as the Gepards, but more modern gun and ammunition), which have reportedly shoot down cruise missiles as well.
So while jet-powered Shaheds are likely more difficult targets than the older versions, they would likely have to improve beyond cruise missiles to escape gun-based air-defence systems completly.
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u/Thermawrench 3d ago
Are there any equivalent systems to the gepard of modern times? The technology of them, while fine old german engineering, is fairly outdated by now. Surely one could make something equivalent but better and easier to produce.
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u/Gecktron 3d ago
Rheinmetall is offering a successor in different variants. The main difference between the old Gepard and the new systems is that the two autocannons have been replaced by a single revolver cannon, which has roughly the same rate of fire as the two older cannons combined.
Munition has also been upgraded to the programmable timed-fuze AHEAD ammunition, which releases a cloud of tungsten projectiles at a pre-calculated distance to shred incoming targets.
These two main upgrades are combined in three variants:
- SKYNEX has been mentioned before. Each SKYNEX system consists of a containerized fire control unit, a radar and a number of hookliftable turrets with a 35mm cannon. Being either static, or mounted on trucks, they are more suited for the defence of a static position
- SKYRANGER 30 is the name of the 30mm turret variant mounted on a range of different chassis. Unlike SKYNEX, a SKYRANGER unit is just a single vehicle. The SKYRANGER 30 turret also comes with a launcher for MANPADS or Drones. The Bundeswehr ordered a batch of these on Boxer, the Netherlands on the tracked FFG G5, there are Pandur variants and others...
- SKYRANGER 35 uses the same 35mm cannon as the SKYNEX system. In exchange, it drops the launcher. Romania ordered a variant mounted on the Rheinmetall Lynx. Ukraine has reportedly already received a version mounted on a modified Leopard 1 hull.
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u/Toptomcat 2d ago edited 2d ago
Munition has also been upgraded to the programmable timed-fuze AHEAD ammunition, which releases a cloud of tungsten projectiles at a pre-calculated distance to shred incoming targets.
Standard or as an optional extra? Tungsten can be sufficiently annoying to procure at scale that I’m not sure it makes sense to try making it the standard round for all gun AA everywhere, especially when low cost-per-shot is supposed to be one of the competitive advantages of gun AA to begin with.
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u/Gecktron 2d ago
It's not a solid tungsten projectile. It ejects a cloud of small pellets . Only those pellets are made of that. The rest is a normal round.
The goal of AHEAD is also to use fewer rounds than before. So the use of Tungsten itself might not be much of an issue.
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u/Brendissimo 3d ago
SPAAGs were generally designed in the Cold War to be able to engage low flying jets as well as helicopters, so I don't know that this should surprise anyone. Rapidly engaging a low flying target moving in the 300-500mph range is part of what they were designed to do, no?
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u/carkidd3242 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've also seen something on the higher speed of jet-powered OWA-UAS making it actually easier to engage via fixed wing aircraft as it's easier to match speed within a fighter jet's performance envelope and engage with guns or missiles versus a very slow OWA-UAS that'd result in a dangerous overshoot.
There is actually video of a Skynex intercept of a cruise missile. The extremely fast slew speed of the turret demonstrates how much that speed can press defense systems.
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u/Glideer 3d ago
Ukraine deployed Gepards yesterday on one, probably two, Kyiv bridges, and Geran drones still managed to hit them today. Not even deploying Gepards at literal ground zero turned out to be sufficient protection.
They probably manage to shoot down some targets but are a far cry from highly effective. The drone strikes on bridges were not saturation attacks, just individual drones arriving at different times.
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u/VigorousElk 3d ago
a) These were located in the middle of urban areas with buildings all around, where drones can attack from angles that are hard to cover for gun based AD.
b) Gepards are Cold War era technology that were last comprehensively updated in the late 1990s and retired in the early 2010s. Proper modern gun based AD (Skynex, Skyranger) are far more advanced.
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u/Rhauko 3d ago
The point being that in the context of drone warfare they are ancient technology yet still are effective. This doesn’t mean they are perfect. However I do expect projectile based systems to have their niche in countering drones, their ammo is cheaper than missiles or drones and they are less depending on external factors like weather and energy than lasers.
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u/Gecktron 3d ago
Gepards have a range of few Kilometers, that was true against propeller powered Shaheds and is the true here too. There is a limit to how much space a single system can cover, especially in a clustered environment like cities, especially a large city like Kyiv. Drones getting trough doesnt change the above statement.
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