Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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A rash of stabbings, shootings and other violent incidents involving students in Russian schools has spread across the country in recent weeks.
By Anna Snegireva | March 27, 2026
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/27/a-lot-of-war-in-society-viol
ent-student-attacks-rock-russian-schools-a92247
Militarization, war propaganda and normalization of violence
Psychologists say that the surge in school violence is linked to the broader normalization of force in Russian society amid the war in Ukraine.
“Militaristic discourse is becoming more and more popular, more and more imposed,” Lapshin said.
He noted that war is framed not only as heroic but also as a legitimate way to resolve conflicts.
“Authoritative adults talk about it and invite children to play it as if it were an interesting game. War is presented as something just — we are defending our values and honor. At the same time, there is this underlying message: people solve their problems by going to war,” he said.
Alexandra Ivanova, a clinical psychologist working with adolescents, said exposure to narratives like this, combined with what she described as a perceived lack of accountability for violence, can distort how teenagers process conflict.
Throughout the war in Ukraine, Russian media have reported cases of men returning from the front, committing violent crimes and avoiding prison by re-enlisting.
Military servicemen, including Wagner mercenaries, have also regularly visited school classrooms to speak to students since the start of the war.
“When violence is normalized in society — and it is being normalized now — plus the absence of punishment, which they also see and hear about, these people who come back from the war and what they are allowed to do without consequences — then teenagers don’t have an adequate picture of reality,” she said.
While a Wagner mercenary might not necessarily become a role model to students in a direct sense, his visit amid the wider school militarization signals to students that this is normal, she said.
Pavel Talankin, a former school videographer in the Chelyabinsk region, said he witnessed a major shift toward military and patriotic-themed lessons at his school soon after the invasion in 2022.
“We started receiving prepared lesson plans, presentations and video materials. There was a lot about the war,” he told The Moscow Times.
Talankin's film “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which documents the militarization of Russian schools during the war, won the 2026 Academy Award for best documentary feature.
Free download from https://uindex.org/search.php?search=Mr+Nobody+Against+Putin&c=1
https://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=Mr+Nobody+Against+Putin&cat=
0
He said his school was instructed to broadcast slides and hold mandatory patriotic classes. While formally labeled “additional education,” refusal was often not an option in practice.
He also noted the growing presence of weapons in schools during visits by military personnel.
“Military personnel come in, show grenades, show real weapons and teach [students] how to use them,” Talankin said. “They show them where to put the bullets, how to disassemble and assemble the rifle, how to clean it, and explain which weapons are more effective and which are less effective.”
“There is a lot of war in society,” Lapshin said. “And if there is a lot of it in society, there will be a lot of it in people’s heads.”
Talankin argued that the impact is less about direct imitation and more about desensitization.
“When children are given very aggressive information in a very aggressive form, that human life is worth nothing, children become angry,” he said.
Officials also appear to have anticipated the rise in school violence, Talankin said. After leaving Russia in 2024, he remained subscribed to his school’s mailing list. That September, he received new guidelines “on how to identify violent and terrorist tendencies in children.”
More at https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/27/a-lot-of-war-in-society-viol
ent-student-at
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Weekend Update #178: Two Weeks Into The Russian Spring Offensive And The Ukrainians Have Gained Territory
Phillips P. OBrien
Mar 29, 2026
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-178-two-weeks-in
to
Starting around March 17, there was a massive spike in Russian ground attacks in Ukraine. According to General Syrskyi, in four days near the start of the offensive, the Russians launched more than 600 different assaults across the front.
When the Russians attacked this year, they ran into very well-prepared Ukrainian defenses. There were minefields, fortifications, and a growing and increasingly effective Ukrainian defensive drone wall.
Many factors seem to be interacting in the stopping of the Russian offensive. One thing that is getting more and more mention is the decreasing quality of the Russian soldier. This should not be surprising (I would have expected it to have happened sooner) but the enormous losses that the Russians have suffered, and their insatiable need to send more and more forces into the attack, seem to be reaching a point of diminishing returns.
Even in a closely guarded society such as Russia, news of the massive casualties, miserable conditions in the army, and poor training has been circulating. To actually raise soldiers, the Russians have to rely increasingly on those who have no other option and probably understand that they are signing up for close to certain death or serious disability. And those soldiers the Russians do raise seem barely trained. There were reports in the last week that the amount of training that Russian soldiers are getting before being sent to the front is down to one week.
And after their extremely quick training, these soldiers are sent forward quickly to make bloody assaults for little/no gain. The tactics are resulting in such high losses and low morale that the extremely nationalistic Russian milblogger community is now regularly bemoaning the present state of the Russian army. Btw, the casualty rates the Russians are suffering make this all plausible. While the week before saw two higher days, Russian casualties over the past week averaged comfortably over 1000 per day.
Here is the daily reported breakdown of Russian personnel losses as judged by the Ukrainians:
• March 28: 1,300 casualties
• March 27: 1,000 casualties
• March 26: 1,210 casualties
• March 25: 1,220 casualties
• March 24: 890 casualties
• March 23: 970 casualties
• March 22: 940 casualties
The issue with poorer quality soldiers getting less training, is that once a ship heads in that direction it is very hard to turn it around. The losses and frustrations on the battlefield will continue to be a disincentive (to put it mildly) dissuading those from serving, and that means those men that somehow end up in the Russian army will be needed at the front sooner and sooner—which means they will get even more degraded training. You can see the vicious cycle developing.
Btw, this was one of the reasons those who for two years were clamoring for Ukraine to draft more unwilling people for the army and send them to the front were being so dangerous. Compelling unmotivated soldiers to serve in such a horrible battle area could make things worse. It is far better to reform the military you have (the Ukrainian military was/is in need of reform) and adjust to the technological realities of the battlefield than generate soldiers through force and send them to the front. Here is a piece from late 2025 which tried to walk readers through just this dilemma. The Russians decided to throw troops at the question, the Ukrainians have tried to adapt.
Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-178-two-weeks-in
to
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ukraine's defence minister: Every day we have frontline footage of Russians killing themselves after being hit by drones
By Roman Petrenko — 29 March, 15:53
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/03/29/8027688/
"Secondly, the Russian military leadership forbids soldiers from surrendering. Their propaganda says it is better to die immediately, even though after being taken captive, a soldier has every chance of being exchanged – exchanges take place regularly between the parties. But Russia takes away its citizens' right to life."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Drone swarms: The potential AI future of drone warfare
The architect of Ukraine's drone program Oleksandr Kamyshin told Holly Williams drone swarm technology that uses AI would provide a major advantage in the war with Russia, and there is an arms race for the technology. "Both countries are close. None got there yet," he told 60 Minutes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/drone-swarms-the-potential-ai-future-of-
drone-warfare-60-minutes/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ukraine’s last friend in the Trump regime just walked away
Marco Rubio was supposed to be the exception—the adult in the room who understood how dangerous Putin is. But Marco has changed his mind. Ukraine and Europe should take note—because the guardrails are gone.
By Michael Andersen** | March 30, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/03/30/ukraines-last-friend-in-the-tru
mp-regime-just-walked-away/
In a Trump administration crowded with opportunists and MAGA cranks, Marco Rubio was meant to represent the last trace of old Republican foreign policy seriousness: alliances matter, dictators must be resisted, aggression must be punished. If there was one man expected to understand what Russia's war against Ukraine actually means, it was him.
That illusion has now collapsed. Ukraine and Europe better pay attention.
Rubio's public broadside against Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday was not a spur-of-the-moment outburst. It was a signal flare. When the US Secretary of State accuses Ukraine's president of lying and casually suggests American weapons could be diverted to the Middle East, he is not freelancing. He is announcing a new reality: in Trump's Washington, Ukraine is no longer a cause to be defended. It is a problem to be managed.
That matters because Rubio was never supposed to be this guy.
He built his political brand on confronting authoritarians, defending American alliances, and speaking clearly about Russian aggression. He was not an isolationist or a Tucker Carlson-style apologist. He was part of a Republican tradition that claimed to believe power should deter conquest. As recently as late 2025, NBC News reported that Rubio "sees Russia as the culprit for having launched an unprovoked invasion."
Now he sounds like a translator for Trump's worldview.
And Donald Trump's worldview has never had room for Ukraine. Trump does not think in terms of sovereignty, deterrence, or the moral and strategic cost of rewarding invasion. He thinks in terms of grievance, spectacle, and transactions. To him, Ukraine is not a frontline state resisting imperial violence. It is a nuisance. Zelenskyy is not a wartime leader. He is an annoying and dodgy skimmer of US taxpayers. The war is not a test of Western resolve. It is an annoying obstacle to "deals," headlines, and self-glorification. "Where is my Nobel Peace Prize?"
And now, even Marco Rubio has stopped resisting that worldview. Worse, he is now legitimizing it.
That is the real significance of his shift. It tells us how Trumpism works in power. It does not require every official to begin as a true believer. It only requires them to learn what cannot be said. And in Trump's White House, what cannot be said is that Ukraine is worth defending on its own terms—that its democracy and freedom are important.
So Rubio has adapted. His role is no longer to advocate for Ukraine or warn against Putin. His role is to dress up Trump's instincts in the language of statecraft. A year ago, he told reporters in Jeddah that Ukraine would have to make territorial concessions. By January 2026, he was telling senators that Donbas remained the central unresolved issue—framing Russia's demand for 5,000 square kilometers it never captured as a mere "gap to be bridged."
The consequences are enormous.
When Rubio suggests Ukraine's weapons could be sent elsewhere if Washington has "other priorities," he is saying something brutally simple: Ukraine has been demoted. Its survival is now contingent, negotiable, subordinate to whatever captures Trump's attention this week. That is not strategy. That is abandonment with bureaucratic polish.
Europe should hear this clearly. The guardrails are gone.
For too long, many in Kyiv and across the West clung to the comforting fantasy that "serious people" inside a second Trump administration would prevent the worst. Rubio was central to that fantasy. His transformation should kill it. As far back as February 2025, the Ov
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Ukrainian drones hit a shell casing factory in occupied Alchevsk — Russia’s air defense was nowhere to be seen
The same night, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Taganrog in “the worst attack” on the city since the war began, a chemical plant in Tolyatti, and targeted Krasnodar.
By Yuri Zoria | March 30, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/03/30/ukrainian-drones-hit-a-shell-ca
sing-factory-in-occupied-alchevsk-russias-air-defense-was-nowhere-to-be-seen/
The complete absence of any interception attempt is consistent with a pattern Ukraine has been deliberately building. In the first half of March alone, Ukrainian forces destroyed 27 Russian air defense assets — most across occupied territories — S-400 launchers, Tor and Pantsir systems, and multiple radar stations, including several in Luhansk Oblast specifically.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Kyiv’s experimental project turns businesses into Russian drone killers — Zala already taken out
Private units linked to Unified Air Force Command with the full integration into national defense.
By Olena Mukhina
March 30, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/03/30/kyivs-experimental-project-turn
s-companies-into-frontline-russian-drone-killers-zala-already-taken-out/
In Ukraine, businesses are joining the effort to destroy Russian attack drones. Early results have already been reported in downing Shahed-type strike drones from the private sector, according to Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov.
This is part of a government-launched experimental project involving the private sector in Ukraine’s air defense system.
“One of the companies participating in the project has already prepared its own air defense team. To date, several enemy drones have been shot down in Kharkiv Oblast, including Shahed and Zala,” Fedorov said. [Zala drones: https://zala-aero.com/en/about/ ]
Ukraine enters a revolutionary era of private air defense
The minister added that new air defense teams are being formed simultaneously at 13 other enterprises that have received official status from the Ministry of Defense as authorized economic entities.
“At present, all groups are at different stages of training: some are already performing combat missions, others are undergoing instruction,” Fedorov emphasized.
Experimental military initiative reduces defense load
Fedorov explained that private air defense is integrated into the Unified Air Force Command System of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is already operational, protecting facilities and participating in Shahed interception operations.
“This is a systemic solution that allows rapid scaling of air defense capabilities without adding extra burden on front-line units,” the minister claimed.
He noted that a model has been created in which the state, the military, and private business operate as a single coordinated system.
“We are opening the air defense market and creating competition: businesses can develop private air defense capabilities and protect their own infrastructure,” Fedorov said.
These private air defense units are armed, operate under Air Force coordination, and become part of the overall air protection architecture, enabling fast responses to attacks and rapid scaling of defensive capabilities.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine negotiated with Arab countries to export naval drones, which are deterring the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. The parties discussed the possibility of Ukraine assisting in unblocking the Strait of Hormuz.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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A prominent Russian ultranationalist military and political commentator claimed that Western economic potential is “orders of magnitude” larger than Russia’s and is becoming militarily evident as “Western-backed” Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia have increasingly involved hundreds of drones.[1] The commentator claimed that the size of such strikes will only increase, and that Russia cannot produce enough interceptor missiles to compete with Western economic potential and is thus “doomed to defeat” and forced to immediately “solve the problem of ending the war.”
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-march-30-2026/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Ukrainian in Hungary Who Has Europe’s Hardest Job
Ukraine’s ambassador to Hungary represents a government that has become Viktor Orbán’s primary target.
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
March 31, 2026, 9:09 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/03/europe-ukraine-a
mbassador-hungary-orban/686617/
It’s not easy being Fedir Shandor, the Ukrainian ambassador to Hungary. His host country is holding elections next month, and the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has made his whole campaign about Ukraine. Specifically, Orbán is asking voters to believe that Hungary risks becoming a Ukrainian colony, and that he’s the only person standing in the way of Volodymyr Zelensky drafting them into the fight against Russia.
That might sound far-fetched, but Hungary occupies an awkward position as the most reliable Russian ally inside Europe. Its election is making things weirder and more sinister: Orbán’s government has tried to paint the main domestic opposition party as a Ukrainian front, accusing Kyiv of carrying out a hostile operation designed to depose Hungary’s leader.
So when the ambassador agreed to meet with me over the weekend, at a pastry shop on the outskirts of Budapest, I expected him to disguise himself in some way, or perhaps to talk in hushed tones and skirt sensitive topics. I was not prepared for the tank of a man who came careening into the shop’s sunroom—waving his arms, ripping off his hat, and speaking about 12 decibels louder than anyone else. His bearing is that of a bouncer, except for the traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt.
“Do you feel safe here?” I asked Shandor when we sat down. He is a favorite boogeyman of pro-government media, and he has been summoned to the foreign ministry for so many dressings-down that he says he has earned a place in the Guinness World Records. “Yes!” he replied immediately. “It’s no problem, no problem.” The reason for the absence of a problem is simple. “I am a sergeant,” he explained.
When you’ve actually gone to battle, as Shandor has, information warfare isn’t so daunting. Just outside the window from where we were speaking, Zelensky glowered from an Orbán campaign poster styled like a “Wanted” notice. “Yeah, it’s my president, very popular,” the ambassador said, slouching in his chair with his hands clasped over his stomach. “Maybe next election, he’ll be the president in Hungary.”
He sat upright and elbowed me. “It’s a joke,” he said.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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