Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Kim lauds North Korean troops who died by suicide during fighting in Kursk Oblast
Kim Jong Un said suicide was common among North Korean soldiers who fought in Kursk Oblast.
By Alex Stezhensky | April 28, 2026, 07:31 AM
https://english.nv.ua/russian-war/kim-praises-north-korean-troops-who-
died-by-suicide-in-kursk-oblast-fighting-50603762.html
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un praised troops who took their own lives rather than surrendering while fighting Ukraine’s Defense Forces in Kursk Oblast, Bloomberg reported on April 28.
Kim made the remarks at the unveiling of a memorial to North Koreans killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Speaking to the families of fallen soldiers, Kim twice mentioned troops who “without hesitation” chose to detonate explosives “to defend the great honor.”
“They did not expect any reward, although they performed outstanding feats. They died heroic deaths,” he added.
On April 27, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un said his country would continue to “fully support” Russia’s policy of “defending its sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests.”
Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency said on Feb. 4 that North Korean troops were stationed in Russia’s Kursk Oblast as of January 2026. They have been carrying out strikes with tube artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, conducting aerial reconnaissance and practicing modern combat tactics, including the use of drone technology.
Yonhap reported on Feb. 13, citing South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, that about 6,000 North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian occupation forces had been killed or wounded in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It also reported that about 10,000 North Korean troops and 1,000 engineering units are currently deployed in Russia’s border region of Kursk.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russia’s War Boom Masks an Economic Implosion
Record-low unemployment is the result of millions of missing workers.
By Alexey Kovalev | April 28, 2026, 8:11 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/28/russia-putin-war-ukraine-economy-
industry-labor-shortage-demographic-implosion/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921
Earlier this year, the Alabuga industrial complex in Russia’s Tatarstan region released a series of job recruitment ads aimed at Russian teenagers. The company promised the children full-time wages significantly above the national average to assemble Geran attack drones—Russian clones of Iranian Shaheds that have been terrorizing Ukrainian civilians almost nightly for the past four years. The recruitment campaign was a simultaneous admission of two things: that Alabuga is not the vocational training institution it claimed to be in earlier ads and how severe Russia’s worker shortage has become. Competition with the military for labor has become severe enough that recruiting children into weapons manufacturing is now done openly rather than hidden and denied.
Alabuga has attracted international attention before. Its recruitment practices have been described by investigators and Ukrainian intelligence services as bordering on human trafficking: Young women from across Africa, Asia, and Latin America were lured with promises of study programs or civilian factory work, only to be assigned to drone assembly lines under strict curfews and oppressive conditions. Alabuga is not an anomaly but just the visible edge of a systemic crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin presents record-low unemployment—the official rate is currently 2.1 percent—as proof of a dynamic war economy. The reality concealed by the ultra-low jobless rate is that Russia’s manufacturing sector was short nearly 2 million workers in 2025, according to the Russian labor and trade ministry, with the overall deficit of workers officially projected to reach more than 10 million by the end of the decade.
Russia’s military industry—also acutely short of skilled workers despite being prioritized by the Kremlin—does not just consume the available workforce but has pushed wages beyond what civilian employers can match. Some factories producing weapons receive lavish state subsidies and the right to offer draft deferments to recruits as a non-monetary incentive; a welder who takes a job at Kalashnikov is not going to be building a clinic, but he also cannot be mobilized. Farms, civilian manufacturing, infrastructure companies, and other non-military but critical parts of the economy have no equivalent offer. On top of that, state-owned employers are actively encouraged to cannibalize their own workforce in order to satisfy the military’s hunger for more bodies to send into useless assaults at the front. Russia’s agriculture sector alone is losing an estimated 150,000 employees each year due to old age, according to Russia’s minister of agriculture, but the widening wage gap between military and civilian industries is also adding to the crisis, In the Volga and Ural regions, where arms manufacturing is concentrated, wage inflation has run at 30 percent to 60 percent since 2022, said Russia’s minister of labor and industry. The result is a bifurcated economy: a defense sector running three shifts and still understaffed; and a civilian economy quietly contracting in the sectors that feed, move, and maintain the country while sustaining the war.
While much exacerbated by the invasion, the labor crisis predates it. The Kremlin’s botched COVID response alone cost Russia an estimated 1 million excess deaths. The continuing demographic collapse is so severe that in 2025, the national statistics office, Rosstat, stopped releasing monthly birth statistics. It’s hard to see this as anything but an attempt to prevent the kind of straightforward arithmetic that would allow anyone to calculate, in real time, how many more Russians are dying than being born—and how many surplus deaths are attributable to the war. The suppression of demog
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Russia has a new missile — here's what we know about the S-71K
by Polina Moroziuk
April 28, 2026 9:44 PM
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-reveals-design-foreign-components-
of-russias-new-s-71k-missile/
Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) has revealed details of a new Russian air-launched cruise missile, the S-71K "Kovyor," offering a closer look at its design and production.
On its War&Sanctions portal, the agency published a 3D model of the missile, along with a breakdown of its components. Two major takeaways are the missile's reliance on foreign-made electronics and its relatively simple construction.
According to HUR, the missile was developed by Russia's United Aircraft Corporation and was first used against Ukraine towards the end of 2025.
The S-71K was designed for integration with the Sukhoi Su-57, one of Russia's most advanced combat aircraft.
A simplified cruise missile design
The S-71K missile uses an OFAB-250-270 high-explosive fragmentation bomb weighing 250 kilograms as its warhead, mounted in the missile's forward section.
Ukrainian military historian and defense expert Andrii Kharuk told the Kyiv Independent that this approach reflects a broader shift toward simpler, lower-cost cruise missiles.
"Traditional cruise missiles are expensive," the expert said, referring to systems such as the Kh-101 and Kalibr.
"What we are now seeing is a concept of simpler, cheaper missiles that can be launched in greater numbers."
The missile's body is constructed from multilayer composite materials based on fiberglass, with internal elements made from aluminum alloys. Its onboard systems include a flight controller and an inertial navigation system based on relatively simple sensors.
Kharuk described such systems as a bridge between Shahed-type drones and conventional cruise missiles, combining lower costs with a strike capability greater than drones.
"They are designed to saturate air defenses," the expert said, adding that intercepting such targets may require more expensive air defense missiles rather than mobile fire groups.
The missile is powered by an R500 turbojet engine and is estimated to have a range of up to 300 kilometers, supported by a main fuel tank and two auxiliary tanks.
At the same time, the expert cautioned that production constraints remain uncertain.
"The main critical component is the jet engine," he said, noting that Russia has historically faced challenges in producing small turbojet engines at scale.
HUR added that Russia is considering adapting the missile for launch from the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik unmanned combat aerial vehicle.
Despite being designed for the Su-57, the expert said the missile is unlikely to be used only from that platform due to the small number of Su-57 aircraft in service, and could instead be deployed from more widely used aircraft such as the Su-34.
Reliance on foreign components
HUR said that "the overwhelming majority" of the missile's electronic components are of foreign origin, including parts produced in the United States, China, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Ireland.
"Continued access to foreign technologies and components allows the aggressor state to develop new weapons and scale their use in the war against Ukraine," the agency said.
Despite export restrictions and sanctions imposed on Russia after the full-scale invasion, investigations have repeatedly found Western-made microchips and electronics in Russian weapons used in Ukraine.
These components often enter Russia through intermediary countries, civilian supply chains, or front companies, all of which complicate enforcement efforts.
Ukrainian authorities have imposed sanctions on foreign firms and networks accused of supplying components for Russian missiles and drones, including companies operating through third countries such as China, the United Arab Emirates, and former Soviet states.
However, intermediaries
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Germany Overtakes the US in Ammunition Production Capacity
Apr 28, 2026 at 11:12 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/germany-overtakes-us-in-ammunition-production
-capacity-11886409
Concerns over whether the U.S. under Trump would come to Europe's aid in the event of Russian aggression have fueled political momentum to make the continent's armed forces more formidable, particularly as European countries have been transferring ammunition and military equipment to Ukraine for the past four years.
Against this backdrop, NATO countries pledged in June 2025 to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on their militaries and related infrastructure costs each year within the next decade. Several nations were not meeting the alliance's previous defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP ahead of last summer, the surge marking the most significant hike in military investment across Europe in decades.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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“Russia has never seen this”: Russia’s central bank chief admits a 2.5 million worker deficit
Reserve down 2.5 million as the state squeezes small business and retrains war widows.
By Peeter Helme
29/04/2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/04/29/russia-labor-floor-nabiullina-a
dmits-unprecedented-shortage/
Russia’s war economy has hit its labor floor, and the country’s central bank chief has now publicly admitted it.
“We have never, until now, in the history of modern Russia, lived with such a deficit of labor force.”
The labor reserve has fallen by 2.5 million workers since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, audit firm FinExpertiza found in figures published this week. Bank of Russia chair Elvira Nabiullina confirmed the scale at the Alfa Summit on 28 April. “We have never, until now, in the history of modern Russia, lived with such a deficit of labor force,” she told the audience. “Never had this. And it affects the entire economic situation.”
Nabiullina has been the Kremlin’s most disciplined economic voice. She warned analysts in 2024 that labor was “almost exhausted.” Now she has named the ceiling. Vladimir Putin has avoided a second general mobilization since autumn 2022.
Wage-driven inflation persists and new tax hikes promise to slow the economy further.
Russia’s main tank manufacturer, Uralvagonzavod, began mass layoffs in November 2025, citing both sanctions and worker exhaustion. AvtoVAZ, the country’s largest carmaker, shifted to four-day weeks already in September 2025; Russian Railways announced 6,000 job cuts for 2026; Russian factories themselves cut their workforces for three consecutive months going into 2026, with production falling for a twelfth straight month, even as the same firms reported they could not find enough hands.
The Bank of Russia, which set its key rate at a record 21% in late 2024, cut it by five points through 2025—even as wage-driven inflation persists and new tax hikes promise to slow the economy further.
The Russian labor pool is collapsing. Where 2.5 million workers went
Russia’s labor reserve—the people without formal employment but ready, in principle, to take a job—has fallen from 7 million at the end of 2021 to about 4 million at the end of 2025, Russian outlet Izvestia reported, drawing on FinExpertiza analysis of Rosstat and federal employment service data.
The workforce will shrink by another 1.4 million in 2026.
That is a drop of nearly half. The reserve as a share of those employed has slid from 10% to 6%. In 2025 alone, 415,000 more workers vanished from the available pool. Rosstat now forecasts the workforce will shrink by another 1.4 million in 2026.
“Available labor resources are becoming fewer and fewer,” FinExpertiza president Elena Trubnikova said. Anastasia Gorelkina, who chairs the Sibirsky Delovoy Soyuz holding’s board, told Izvestia that some 2 million workers will need to be replaced annually through 2030 to keep pace with people leaving the workforce. The economy, she said, “literally took the available resources” through “defense orders, industrial restructuring, and logistics.”
Hundreds of thousands of Russians emigrated in the first years of the invasion.
The World Bank estimates Russia would need productivity growth of 3-4% a year to make up the gap—a rate the country has not hit since the Soviet collapse.
The army accounts for the largest share of the loss, The Moscow Times also reported, drawing on the same FinExpertiza data. Hundreds of thousands of Russians emigrated in the first years of the invasion. 1.5 million more were absorbed by the front: 300,000 in the autumn 2022 mobilization, then 500,000 contracts with the Defense Ministry in 2023, 450,000 in 2024, 420,000 in 2025.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates 325,000 of those men have been killed. Total casualties—killed, missing, severely wounded—reach 1.2 million, a record for any army in any war since 1945.
Russia’s birth rates have been below replacement since the 1990s.
The civilian economy i
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Specifically, what is causing Russia's labor shortage?
Answer: Russia’s offensive tactics, which are on full display in the fight for Sloviansk
With all attempts to win Donbas at the negotiating table failing, Moscow is preparing for an all-out summer campaign to take it by force.
by Francis Farrell
April 29, 2026 5:49 PM
https://kyivindependent.com/with-fresh-pressure-near-sloviansk-russias
-stop-start-offensive-nears-ukraines-fortress-belt/
For a long time, despite Russia's best efforts to break through, the defense of this sector was one of the most stable in Donetsk Oblast.
But over winter, with a renewed Russian push, quickly overrunning the city of Siversk, Ukrainian brigades in the area have been forced to pull back.
Now, with Russian first-person view (FPV) drones reaching Sloviansk for the first time, an intense summer campaign ahead, the brigade's soldiers are bracing themselves for what could be one of their toughest fights so far.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev emphasized Russia’s commitment to its war aims in Ukraine and claimed that Russia is in an existential conflict with the West immediately after Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 29.[1]
Medvedev gave a speech at the Znanie Pervye (Education First) federal educational marathon on April 30 in which he labeled the United States as Russia’s main geopolitical rival and stated that Russia is in a conflict with the West that is “a question of existence” and will not end “within a generation.”[2]
Medvedev claimed that Russia’s victory in the war in Ukraine will bring stability to Russia and allow Russia to address its economic, demographic, and social issues.[3] Medvedev also rejected the ability of the United States to mediate peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.[4]
Medvedev has frequently made outlandish statements that represent a more extreme view than the Kremlin itself is willing to publicly portray, and his articulation of these statements a day after a Putin-Trump phone call is likely intended to make Putin’s false claims about the battlefield situation and the supposed inevitability of a Russian victory appear rational in comparison to Western policymakers.[5]
Medvedev’s statements are likely also intended to reinforce to Russians the Kremlin’s justifications for continuing its war in Ukraine, namely that the United States is an adversary and that Russia is engaged in an existential war against the West, and to reassure the Russian population that Russia is and will continue to achieve all of its war aims.[6]
Other, more relatively moderate Kremlin officials also continue to reiterate Russia’s commitment to its war aims. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has continually stressed the need to address the so-called “root causes” of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s shorthand to reiterate its maximalist demands for any peace agreement in Ukraine, as a precondition to a long-term peace agreement several times in April 2026, including on April 30.[7]
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-april-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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Russia is losing ground for the first time in 27 months. Ukraine’s drones might be why.
It’s increasingly evident that Ukraine’s mid- and long-range drone strikes are weakening Russian combat units.
by David Axe | May 1, 2026
Russia Matters, a project of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, quantified what Ryan described as the "sputtering" Russian offensive. Borrowing data from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War, Russia Matters found that Russian forces suffered a loss of 67 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the month ending 28 April.
The Russians have actually been falling back, overall, for two months now. Russian forces gave up 31 square kilometers in March after gaining 119 square kilometers in February.
The important caveat, according to Russia Matters, is that the Russians' losses are net losses. Moscow's regiments have retreated from some settlements in southeastern Ukraine but, according to Ukrainian mapper DeepState, have advanced in 10 other settlements: some in the southeast and others along the most important axes in the east, including the Pokrovsk-to-Kramatorsk axis and the Chasiv Yar-to-Kramatorsk axis.
But losses are losses, and reason for optimism in Kyiv if they continue. There is evidence that Ukraine's drone campaign is working. "It seems Ukraine wants to use strategic drones as a game-changer," mapper Clément Molin explained.
Molin mapped 440 drone strikes in April alone: 330 mid-range strikes inside occupied Ukraine and another 110 long-range strikes inside Russia.
Mid-range strikes in the Russian logistical zone, stretching as far as 200 km from the disputed gray zone, have an immediate military impact as supply trucks, regimental headquarters and drone bases burn. Long-range strikes inside Russia damage factories and refiners in pursuit of longer-term economic impact.
More at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/01/russians-falling-back/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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On 30 April, in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump said that Joe Biden gave Ukraine $350 billion, and that this is one of the reasons the war continues.
He has said this many times. He cannot tell anyone where the figure comes from, and his own officials have been unable to reproduce it when asked. It has been corrected so many times by so many fact-checkers that one more correction will not change anything. Yet here we are. Again. Because the inflated figure is not the real story. The real story is that POTUS is using it to argue for a Russian market that American business has already, and decisively, walked away from.
The actual number, depending on what is counted, ranges from $114 billion (Kiel Institute, total US aid allocated through end-2024) to $188 billion (Council on Foreign Relations, total US appropriations through end-2025). Ukraine’s president said that his country received $98.5 billion.
The implicit case Trump is making, every time he repeats this $350 billion figure, is that America gave too much to Ukraine and got too little, and that the real opportunity lies in normalizing relations with Russia. Both halves of that argument are wrong, and they are wrong in ways that anyone can verify in an afternoon.
More at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/01/350-billion-ukraine-aid-not-rea
l-number/
Begin with Russia. After three decades of attempted normalization — warm relations under Yeltsin, the “reset” under Obama, the cordial Trump-first-term posture, and a procession of summits, working groups, and energy memoranda along the way — the total US foreign direct investment position in Russia in 2021 stood at $12.3 billion.
But in 2022, American capital withdrew from Russia. Yet American capital remained in Ukraine, investing more than $50 billion.
American business is already on Ukraine’s side, a country far from perfect yet increasingly integrated into European markets and governed by enforceable contracts. Trump stands on the other side, with those whose interests in Russia are not the interests of the US Treasury or of the 600 American firms operating in Kyiv. It is a personal interest, dressed up as a national one.
Trump is making the case for a deal. But it’s not America’s deal. It’s his personal one.
The $350 billion allegedly “wasted” on Ukraine is used to obscure the choice.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Army reform in Ukraine to boost combat pay and reshape how troops are recruited and retained
The changes aim to link pay more closely to combat exposure and responsibility, with infantry and frontline roles receiving the largest increases.
By Benjamin Murdoch
01/05/2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/01/army-reform-in-ukraine/
. . . a more “fair” pay system, where compensation reflects combat exposure, command responsibility, and operational effectiveness.
. . . the minimum level for rear positions should be at least 30,000 hryvnias ($680 USD), while frontline roles would receive significantly higher payments depending on tasks performed.
. . . infantry troops holding frontline positions will receive special contracts with payments ranging from 250,000 to 400,000 hryvnias ($5,690 - $9,100 USD), depending on combat duties.
. . . introducing clearer service terms and enabling a phased release of earlier mobilised personnel based on defined time criteria.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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