Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 102 of 111
Quote:The world wasn't safe until Hitler was dead, along with millions of Nazis and their families. The surviving Nazis were intimidated by the death of so many of their kind to be quiet about exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and the whole spectrum of other people despised by the Nazis. The world won't be safe until Trump is dead, and millions of Trumptards are intimidated to be quiet about taking over America and exterminating the whole spectrum of other people despised by Trumptards. By the way, the Nazis did NOT publicly admit to exterminating the people they killed. Neither are Trumptards publicly admitting to their plans to exterminate people. The Russians did not admit to their plans to kill tens of millions, either, just like the German Nazis did not admit to their multi-million murder rampage.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Be real for once, 6ix. Your life is a fucked up mess because you are fucked up.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I don't give a flying fuck about Putin.
Your pansy, non-threatening faggot ass can say as much stupid shit about Putin as it wants.
There are no Nazis in 2026. Grow the fuck up, you stupid bitch.
We're sick of your hyperbole that you've allowed to evolve into full-blown psychosis.
You are not a serious human being.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
My life is fine. Why don't you worry about your own for once?
How was work this week? I haven't done that for seven years, next month.
Look at your pathetic life, dude. You spend all day here whining about Trump, calling people Nazis and telling people to kill themselves.
Get some help.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump declares 3-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine
By Abbey Fenbert | May 8, 2026 9:13 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/breaking-trump-announces-3-day-ceasefire-b
etween-russia-and-ukraine/
President Volodymyr Zelensky then issued an official declaration authorizing Russia to hold a Victory Day parade in Moscow. The declaration states that Ukraine will not attack Red Square while the parade is underway.
"For the duration of the parade (beginning at 10:00 a.m. Kyiv time on Saturday May 9, 2026), the area of Red Square shall be excluded from the plan for the use of Ukrainian weapons," the declaration reads. It also includes the precise coordinates of Moscow's Red Square.
The declaration makes no mention of a ceasefire on attacks elsewhere in Russia.
"They were concerned about one specific square, and now, as part of the diplomatic process, permission has been granted to hold a parade in that square," an official from the Ukrainian Presidential Office told reporters.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Putin’s attack dog flips — now he calls him a ‘war criminal’
By Kathrine Frich | May 8, 2026
https://www.dagens.com/war/putins-attack-dog-flips-now-he-calls-him-a-
war-criminal
Loyalty in a strict regime usually lasts right up until the moment it suddenly vanishes.
For years, insiders have followed the rules and crushed dissent. But when one of those fierce defenders abruptly changes sides, it often exposes a hidden, dangerous fracture.
A sudden shift
Ilya Remeslo spent roughly ten years working as a loyal lawyer and propagandist for the Kremlin. Then, this past March, he publicly turned on Russian President Vladimir Putin. He demanded the leader step down.
According to reports from the Washington Post and Ziare.com, authorities quickly moved to silence him. They dragged him to a psychiatric hospital against his will. The swift arrest happened right after he called the Russian leader a “war criminal and thief” in public.
Then something highly unusual happened. In a country known for locking up government critics for decades, officials released the blogger after just thirty days.
Not backing down
The former loyalist has chosen to stay in Russia rather than flee. He plans to keep fighting the current leadership. He insists he will not be quiet.
“I said from the beginning that I would not stop,” Remeslo told the Washington Post in his first interview since leaving the hospital. “I decided that this is my life’s work.”
The lawyer claims he is not acting completely alone. He told reporters that a colossal wave of discontent is sweeping through the system behind closed doors. He believes the current friction mirrors the final days of the Soviet Union.
Cracks in the wall
Tensions are boiling over as the economy falters and internet restrictions tighten. State polling firm VCIOM reported that the president’s approval rating recently hit its lowest point since the invasion of Ukraine began.
Experts suggest a massive internal fight is unfolding between political advisers and state security forces. Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky believes this hidden friction explains why the outspoken lawyer walked free.
“There is an absolutely clear conflict between the presidential administration and the second directorate of the FSB,” the London-based opposition figure explained.
Remeslo echoed this idea of an elite turf war, pointing to the obvious fractures in the government. “There is a very big battle for power,” he said. “The FSB and the administration are in strong conflict.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:The world wasn't safe until Hitler was dead, along with millions of Nazis and their families.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Be real for once, 6ix. Your life is a fucked up mess because you are fucked up.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I don't give a flying fuck about Putin.
Your pansy, non-threatening faggot ass can say as much stupid shit about Putin as it wants.
There are no Nazis in 2026. Grow the fuck up, you stupid bitch.
We're sick of your hyperbole that you've allowed to evolve into full-blown psychosis.
You are not a serious human being.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
My life is fine. Why don't you worry about your own for once?
How was work this week? I haven't done that for seven years, next month.
Look at your pathetic life, dude. You spend all day here whining about Trump, calling people Nazis and telling people to kill themselves.
Get some help.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
Shut the fuck up, psycho.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Not getting the Western weapons it wanted drove Ukraine to create the gear and tactics the West now seeks
Story by Sinéad Baker | May 8, 2026
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/not-getting-the-western-weapons-i
t-wanted-drove-ukraine-to-create-the-gear-and-tactics-the-west-now-seeks/ar-AA22G7Xm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted "victory will be ours" during his speech to mark Victory Day on May 9, addressing a parade lacking any military equipment due to Moscow's changing fortunes in the war in Ukraine.
The decision to not show off any military hardware at the parade this year was made in large part because of the threat of Ukraine's increasingly effective long-range drones.
https://kyivindependent.com/victory-will-be-ours-putin-tells-victory-d
ay-parade-without-any-tanks/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Ukraine is moving to implement a major expansion of defence spending in its 2026 state budget, building on a €90 billion EU support package designed to cover wartime financing needs through 2027.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up, psycho.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said the government has prepared budget amendments that significantly increase resources for the security and defence sector, with funding enabled by the EU loan agreement.
The package is expected to deliver €45 billion in 2026, with the first tranche scheduled for June. Earlier government planning outlined that initial disbursements would prioritise domestic defence production and energy security, particularly drone manufacturing and protection of critical infrastructure.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/08/eu-loan-fuels-major-ukraine-def
ence-expansion/
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For the first time since both sides started ramping up ranged attacks two years ago, the Ukrainians launched more systems against Russia than Russia used against them — about 7500 to 6500.
The steep rise in Ukrainian attacks over the last two months points to successes in Ukrainian manufacturing capacity. To go from a previous peak of just over 4000 strikes to about 7500 is a massive increase in a short period.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-184-a-most-revea
ling
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ukrainian defense successes on the battlefield have prevented Russian forces from making significant advances across the theater, depriving Russian President Vladimir Putin of any significant operational successes to celebrate on Victory Day. Putin did not discuss the battlefield situation in Ukraine during Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on May 9 and instead simply claimed that Russia’s victory is inevitable.[19]
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-may-9-2026/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Oh, baloney. A lot of the drones are being manufactured in Europe. Europe even says so.
Originally posted by second:
For the first time since both sides started ramping up ranged attacks two years ago, the Ukrainians launched more systems against Russia than Russia used against them — about 7500 to 6500.
The steep rise in Ukrainian attacks over the last two months points to successes in Ukrainian manufacturing capacity. To go from a previous peak of just over 4000 strikes to about 7500 is a massive increase in a short period.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-184-a-most-revea
ling
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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ANALYSIS: Why Russia Violated Every Ceasefire for 12 Years, Even Those They Proposed
Kyiv Post scrutinizes 17 ceasefires starting with the Kremlin’s initial invasion of Ukraine in February 2014. Since the first one on June 20, 2014, all have been violated by the Russians. Here, Kyiv Post covers why Russia does so and what Ukraine and its allies could do.
By Sergii Kostezh | May 9, 2026, 1:04 pm
https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/75728
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Planning three years ahead for more war with Russia
Swedish Gripen jets become top priority for Ukraine's air defense
Ukraine's Defense Ministry names key advantages of Swedish Gripen jets
By Daryna Vialko | Fri, May 08, 2026 – 23:04
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/swedish-gripen-jets-become-top-priorit
y-for-1778270002.html
Ukraine and Sweden are preparing to sign contracts for the supply of Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets. The aircraft has officially been identified as one of the top priorities for strengthening Ukraine’s Air Force, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
Key features of the Gripen fighter jets
The Swedish-made Gripen was specifically designed for conditions very similar to the realities of the war in Ukraine. One of the aircraft’s main advantages is its ability to operate from dispersed locations.
The fighter jet can take off and land on ordinary highways and short runways. This helps protect aircraft from strikes on airfield infrastructure, as it becomes harder for the enemy to locate the jets.
In addition to mobility, the Gripen is known for requiring only a minimal number of personnel for maintenance. For air-to-air missions, full refueling and rearming take less than 10 minutes, while preparation for ground attack missions requires under 20 minutes.
Features of the Gripen E variant
Ukraine is particularly interested in the Gripen E version. The aircraft is powered by a General Electric F414G engine, allowing speeds of up to 2,500 km/h and a combat radius exceeding 800 kilometers.
Its Raven ES-05 radar with active electronically scanned array technology can detect targets at long range, even under intense enemy electronic warfare interference.
The jet is also equipped with the Saab Arexis electronic warfare system. The aircraft can carry up to 7.2 tons of combat payload.
It is also capable of carrying Meteor missiles with a range exceeding 100 kilometers, giving it an advantage over Russian interceptor aircraft.
Ukraine and Sweden are in talks over Gripen jets
Earlier reports suggested Ukraine and Sweden could sign a Gripen agreement as early as this year. Under the proposed plan, both sides would finalize the contract terms and financing model for the fighter jet purchase.
Last autumn, Sweden also clarified when deliveries of Gripen E jets to Ukraine could begin. At the time, officials said the first aircraft could arrive within three years after all required agreements are signed.
Swedish officials have repeatedly highlighted the fighter’s technical advantages, especially its ability to operate from short runways and roads. That capability is seen as critically important for protecting Ukrainian airspace amid ongoing Russian attacks on airfield infrastructure.
How will the planes be financed? How many? Will Ukraine still be at war when the earliest planes are first delivered? Here: https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukraine-and-sweden-could-sign-gripen-f
ighter-1778176476.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Second day of "ceasefire": Russians have attacked Ukrainian positions 60 times so far
Originally posted by second:
ANALYSIS: Why Russia Violated Every Ceasefire for 12 Years, Even Those They Proposed
Russian forces are conducting artillery attacks on border areas. The following settlements have been affected: Korenok, Novovasylivka, Rohozine, Yastrubshchyna, Budky, Atynske, Neskuchne, Bachivsk, Luzhky, Volfyne and Iskryskivshchyna in Sumy Oblast.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/05/10/8034069/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Instability in Moscow
By Joshua Yaffa** | May 8, 2026
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/rumors-of-instability-in-mosco
w
. . . Since Putin first assumed the Presidency, almost twenty-seven years ago, his rule has rested on a certain mythology: that he is the country’s unitary authority and arbiter, the one figure who can hold together Russia’s many factions, clans, and interests. For members of the élite, even if they don’t like every decision—including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022—it is safer and more profitable to have Putin in charge than to face a Hobbesian all-against-all struggle for power and resources. “The defining characteristic of the Russian élite is its opportunism,” Konstantin Remchukov, a newspaper publisher in Moscow, said. “And its ability to survive in any conditions. That’s how they get to be the élite in the first place.” In Putin’s repressive state, the costs of disloyalty are clear: Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, after all, is not only full of political prisoners but ministers, generals, and governors.
The war has tested but not yet broken that loyalty. “Just about everyone would like to stop the war tomorrow—that’s obvious,” a fixture of Russia’s political élite told me. “There’s not a single person, other than Putin and the military brass, who wants to keep on fighting. But no one would ever dare to express their displeasure.”
The only real threat to Putin’s authority came a year into the war, when Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner, a Russian paramilitary organization, launched a mutiny directed against Russia’s military leadership. He claimed that he wasn’t targeting Putin, but the sight of Wagner mercenaries in armored vehicles barrelling toward Moscow was undeniably a sign of instability. Putin called it “treason against our country,” saying that “all those who consciously chose the path of betrayal . . . will suffer inevitable punishment.” Two months later, Prigozhin and Wagner’s top leadership were killed when a private jet they were on exploded shortly after takeoff from Moscow. Message received.
The recent series of events—none of which, on their face, are as dramatic as an armed uprising of mercenary fighters—has created a sense that the political system is at once tightly controlled and utterly rudderless. “On the one hand, the regime is more airless than ever,” Farida Rustamova, the founder of “Vlast,” a newsletter on Russian politics, said. “All the screws have been tightened to the max.” At the same time, she said, “it’s also never been as chaotic and unpredictable.” There is a sense, among everyone from military officials to regional bureaucrats, that “the old rules are breaking down, and no one knows what the new ones are, or whether they exist at all.”
The main factor is the seemingly unresolvable deadlock in Ukraine. . . .
_______________________________
** Joshua Yaffa is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of “Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia,” which won the Orwell Prize in 2021. He is currently the writer-in-residence at Bard College Berlin.
Download a free copy of Joshua Yaffa’s book from https://annas-archive.gl/search?q=Joshua+Yaffa
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Analysis: Is Ukraine starting to win the war again?
By Francis Farrell | Updated: May 11, 2026 1:16 am
Who is winning?
Since the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the information space around the war has been obsessed with this deceptively simple question, and the constant new iterations of answers to it.
In the hands of those fighting the narrative war, from officials on both sides, online cheerleaders, armchair generals, and a certain world leader who likes to talk about who has the cards, the answers differ radically, but all are delivered with consistent venom, emotion, and intellectual assuredness.
One camp says that Ukraine, with its stark disadvantage in manpower and without the backing of the United States, cannot hope to out-endure Russia, and should sign whatever peace deal now, as time is on Moscow's side.
The other camp says that Russia has already been defeated, their human wave attacks are stupid and hopeless, and at this rate they would take a century to take Ukraine.
Serious analysts are more careful, speaking of positive or negative trends as they grapple with the vast complexity of such a large-scale war. As much as Moscow might be humiliated by this or that event, as long as its plan to secure victory by slowly grinding down the outnumbered Ukrainian military continues, there is no cause for celebration, they say. The upper hand will be gained by the side in whose favor the long attritional fight is running.
Who is right? This spring, something strange is in the air. What? Find out at https://kyivindependent.com/analysis-is-ukraine-really-turning-the-tid
e-of-this-war/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Oh, baloney. A lot of the drones are being manufactured in Europe. Europe even says so.
Originally posted by second:
For the first time since both sides started ramping up ranged attacks two years ago, the Ukrainians launched more systems against Russia than Russia used against them — about 7500 to 6500.
The steep rise in Ukrainian attacks over the last two months points to successes in Ukrainian manufacturing capacity. To go from a previous peak of just over 4000 strikes to about 7500 is a massive increase in a short period.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-184-a-most-revea
ling
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead and signym is hiding, because the evidence over the years has been presented. Our comrade Russian friends were wrong about everything; everything. Russian interference not just in America but globally, and how Russia is a paper tiger; everything.
All we need to do is quote old posts and give updates with the current facts to show we were right.
Hey comrade; Russia is losing the war.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: Sunday, February 27, 2022 3:13 PM
Kiev surrounded, says the mayor.
https://california18.com/live-kiev-surrounded-follow-the-news-of-the-w
ar-in-ukraine/3558542022/
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
Are you sure?
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: Thursday, March 3, 2022 8:08 PM
SIGNYM
Humanitarian corridors were negotiated.
This could be useful
Reminds me of the battle for Aleppo. Remember, however, it wasn't the Russians who blocked the humanitarian corridors, but the various terrorist groups (ISIS,HTS etc) who didn't want to lose their human shields.
So let's hope that the far right Ukies stick to the agreement- something they don't have a great history of doing- and allow civilians and surrendering soldiers to exit safely.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
Russia slammed as ‘inhumane’ after blocking UN cross-border aid operation to Syria
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/europe/un-syria-aid-turkey-russia-veto-
intl-hnk
Oops...
T
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West has power to end Russia’s war against Ukraine — it’s choosing not to: Human rights lawyer tells us why
Human rights lawyer Simon Papuashvili on what Western governments won’t say out loud — and what it would actually take to stop Russia.
By Olena Mukhina | May 11, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/11/west-has-power-to-end-russias-w
ar-against-ukraine-its-choosing-not-to-human-rights-lawyer-tells-us-why/
There are people who know things, and there are people who will say them. Simon Papuashvili, Program Director of the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), is rare in being both.
The Brussels-based NGO documents killings, torture, and abductions through open-source investigations — and in 2016, their evidence contributed to the International Court of Justice proceedings against Russia over crimes in occupied Crimea.
Which is why, when I spotted him at B4Ukraine, a conference on strengthening sanctions against Russia, I wanted to talk to him.
What strikes you first is that he doesn't convey urgency. He is calm, with the occasional trace of a smile that suggests he has already thought through whatever you're about to ask. What he says, however, is not calm at all. He is one of the few voices willing to state it plainly: Europe has adopted sanction after sanction against Russia, and then, quietly, looked the other way on enforcement.
Can you tell what works better, kinetic or economic sanctions?
Well, I think they're both important, and they should be seen as complementary rather than one or the other.
If you look at the Russian state budget, a large part of its revenue comes from the sale of fossil fuels. Still, four years after the full-scale war, a big chunk of the fossil fuels that Russia sells are being bought by the European states. We're talking about hundreds of billions of euros that go directly into the Russian state budget.
Taking this into consideration, the most effective sanction would be to basically say no to buying Russian oil and gas. That will have a direct, immediate impact on the war and Russia's ability to continue it.
Is Russia's gas and oil biggest part of Russian budget?
Well, the most conservative estimate is 30%, and even if we stick to that, 30% of income is a lot, you know. Russia has still been able to operate a shadow fleet, beside Europeans continue to buy oil and gas.
"The price cap on oil and gas, mostly on oil, has not been effectively enforced. There are things that can be done in this regard," Papuashvili said.
What has worked with sanctions and what hasn't, and how can we tell?
The sanctions' impact has been limited, and this is partly because we have a big problem with enforcement.
This problem is partly due to the fact that sanctions are not far-reaching and come very slowly and painfully. Also, it's because Europeans and Americans, Ukraine's allies, don't have, and haven't been put in place, proper institutions that are well-resourced to ensure that the sanctions in place are effectively enforced.
"So you can adopt as many sanctions as you want, but if you don't enforce them, there's no point. We have a big problem with enforcement, or the lack of enforcement," the human rights lawyer explained.
Experts say that Russia's overall goals — Ukraine and Europe's destruction — will not change, even if its economy declines
To gauge the war, you need resources. War is expensive, and you can't conduct a war if you don't have money. It’s very simple.
The Russians are used to living in harsh conditions, and they probably still have room to go in terms of how bad it can get.
"But if the government of Russia does not have money to produce drones, missiles, military equipment, and pay the soldiers, they just will not be able to sustain this. Full stop," he stressed.
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Putin is down. This is the time to start kicking him
The West must ensure that Volodymyr Zelensky is empowered to secure a just peace for the Ukrainian people
By Hamish de Bretton-Gordon | 11 May 2026 5:02 pm BST
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/11/putin-russia-ukraine-war-m
oscow-victory-parade/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-is-down-this-is-the-time-to
-start-kicking-him/ar-AA22Vyqr
Russian President Vladimir Putin has attempted to project an image of strength and inevitability over Russia’s disastrous war in Ukraine. Yet the reality on display during Saturday’s deeply underwhelming Victory Day parade in Moscow told an altogether different story.
For the first time in two decades, Russia could not muster a single tank in what is traditionally the Kremlin’s grand annual exhibition of military might – an event Putin himself describes as a warning to Russia’s enemies. What the world witnessed was not power, but weakness: a diminished parade, hollow symbolism, and a regime increasingly fearful of its own vulnerability.
Speaking after the scaled-back spectacle, Putin declared, “I think that the matter is coming to an end,” referring to what he still absurdly calls his “special military operation” in Ukraine. Yet even the parade itself exposed the Kremlin’s anxiety. With Ukrainian drones and missiles now capable of striking deep inside Russia, Putin clearly dared not risk displaying valuable military hardware at a known time and location. Instead, the regime relied heavily on massed marching formations, including North Korean troops, to create the illusion of scale and strength.
A temporary US-brokered ceasefire undoubtedly allowed the event to proceed without incident, although both Ukraine and Russia later accused one another of breaching the three-day truce. Nevertheless, the atmosphere surrounding the parade was unmistakably subdued.
Even Putin’s speech, usually a lengthy endurance test in which the dictator indulges in imperial nostalgia and Soviet-era rhetoric, was remarkably brief and muted. Gone was the swagger of a leader convinced of inevitable victory. In its place stood a man attempting to justify an increasingly costly and strategically catastrophic war. Putin insisted Russia was fighting a “just” war and described Ukraine as an “aggressive force” being armed by NATO. It is an extraordinary claim from the man who launched an entirely illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago, having already illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
Later, during a press conference, Putin accused the West of fuelling confrontation with Russia. The irony is breathtaking. It is Russia, not the West, that has spent years conducting a sustained hybrid war against Europe and particularly the United Kingdom. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko and the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury remain chilling reminders of the Kremlin’s willingness to conduct state-sponsored attacks on British soil, alongside relentless cyber warfare, sabotage and espionage across Europe.
Nevertheless, the suggestion of peace emerging from the Kremlin offers some hope for Ukraine’s exhausted civilian population, many of whom have spent years sleeping in underground shelters rather than their own homes. The strategic landscape has shifted dramatically since previous negotiations, when Putin believed he could dictate terms demanding that Ukraine surrender territory, weaken its armed forces and abandon its Western ambitions.
Today, the battlefield reality is moving increasingly in Ukraine’s favour. Ukrainian forces continue to make incremental but meaningful advances while Russia suffers appalling losses in both manpower and equipment. Crucially, Ukraine is now beginning to manoeuvre armour more effectively through what had previously become a static, drone-dominated battlefield. These small tactical gains could soon evolve into something far more significant.
At the same time, Ukraine has demonstrated an increasingly sophisticated ability to strike strategically importan
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
]Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead and signym is hiding, because the evidence over the years has been presented. Our comrade Russian friends were wrong about everything; everything. Russian interference not just in America but globally, and how Russia is a paper tiger; everything.
All we need to do is quote old posts and give updates with the current facts to show we were right.
Hey comrade; Russia is losing the war.
I've decided, THGR, that you and SECOND are hopelessly brainwashed and that no amount of information will penetrate.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Yup.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Ukraine’s IMF lifeline depends on tax reforms parliament keeps stalling
A $614 million parcel tax that unlocks $8.1 billion in IMF funding is six weeks past its deadline.
By Peeter Helme | May 12, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/12/ukraine-imf-parcel-tax-wartime-
economy/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Putin’s War Comes Home to Moscow
He can no longer hide the consequences from the Russian public.
By Anne Applebaum | May 11, 2026, 11:31 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/russian-discontent-ukraine-w
ar/687131/
Four years ago, President Vladimir Putin offered Moscow and its business elite a de facto deal: Support my war in Ukraine, and in exchange you won’t have to think about it. In the past week, that deal was broken.
Not that Moscow was ever fully immune: As long ago as May 3, 2023, the first two Ukrainian drones to reach Moscow exploded over the Kremlin, doing no damage but revealing that the capital’s air defenses weren’t as stellar as advertised—and that the war wasn’t as far away as Muscovites assumed. Eventually, the Ukrainians shifted their efforts toward Moscow’s airports, using drones dozens of times to buzz the runways or circle the airports, deliberately creating travel chaos and expense.
Last week, the whining noise of unmanned flying objects could be heard in the city of Moscow once again. On the morning of May 7, the mayor of Moscow announced that the Russian air force had shot down hundreds of Ukrainian drones aimed at the city. Two days later, Moscow was due to host Russia’s annual May 9 military parade, a celebration linked very intimately with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who had revived this Soviet-era celebration of Stalin’s victory over Nazi Germany and his conquest of Europe.
Suddenly, and very publicly, Russian officials appeared nervous, afraid that their parade would be spoiled. The Russian foreign minister issued a threat, promising “no mercy,” whatever that means, if Ukrainians struck the parade. The Kremlin’s spokesperson reassured Muscovites that security was tight because the “threat from the Kyiv regime” had already been taken into account. The Russian president even persuaded the American president to ask the Ukrainian president for a one-day cease-fire. Volodymyr Zelensky granted Putin’s wish, after Trump offered to broker an exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war. Zelensky then issued a magnanimous, droll decree, formally granting Putin permission to hold the parade.
The tone of Russia’s official communications has changed, and no wonder: Three years after the first drones exploded over the Kremlin, and more than four years into a conflict that was supposed to be nothing more than a brief “special military operation,” Muscovites have no choice but to think about the war. Alleged security measures—some think they are a form of censorship—had already rendered cellphone coverage in Moscow and across Russia unreliable, at times nonexistent. Although Russians had already lost access to most forms of Western social media, in April the state cut access even to the Russian-built app Telegram, as well as many VPNs. Without public internet, many physical systems, including ATMs, also stopped working. Ride apps don’t function either. These inconveniences come on top of high inflation and high interest rates that have weighed on even Russia’s wealthiest businesses and consumers for months.
The war, and the Kremlin’s anxiety about the war, is also finally now visible on the streets. Briefly, during the former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin’s very short rebellion in 2023, Muscovites were told to stay home for fear of violence. For the past several days, they were once again put on high alert. According to a diplomat of my acquaintance, snipers were visible in and around Red Square, in advance of the parade, as well as soldiers with anti-drone weapons. Ordinary people were prevented from entering the city center. Photographs taken on the day of the parade show empty streets.
Russians watching the parade from farther away would also have noticed some differences. Fewer foreign leaders bothered to show up this year, and no tanks, missiles, or fighting vehicles were on display. The whole show was brief, lasting only 45 minutes. Putin looked gray, anxious. Solemn North Korean soldiers, marching alongside Russians, provided the only novelty. But their presen
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
]Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead and signym is hiding, because the evidence over the years has been presented. Our comrade Russian friends were wrong about everything; everything. Russian interference not just in America but globally, and how Russia is a paper tiger; everything.
All we need to do is quote old posts and give updates with the current facts to show we were right.
Hey comrade; Russia is losing the war.
I've decided, THGR, that you and SECOND are hopelessly brainwashed and that no amount of information will penetrate.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Sure it will, not brainwashed. The problem is that you post Russian propaganda and not truths. Like how powerful Russia's navy was. How they controlled the Black Sea. How no navy in the world dared enter there with Russia's permission. How they are advancing in Ukraine and not how they hold less ground than then did after the first week of the war.
Question; do you think Kamala would have started the wars Trump has? Would you still vote for Trump? Please don't tell me you didn't vote for him both times. Do you think that Trump is better for the economy? Should he be president or impeached? Is he the most corrupt president in modern history?
We did this before. You can't name any topic that his polling numbers show a majority of the people like what he is doing.
Question; can you name anything he is doing you like comrade?
I've posted this in another thread, but I want you to see and respond to it.
You post in this and other threads extensive posts informing what Putin wants and how America is an aggressor, an antagonist. You conveniently forget, Russia has broken every agreement they’ve entered into. Ukraine and the Budapest Memorandum. Crimea, The Minsk Agreements, Chechnya: Peace Treaties, Georgia: Occupation After Agreements, Moldova: Though a ceasefire was reached, Russia never withdrew its troops, Russia’s Expanding Map of Aggression
Countries and territories where Russia have invaded or maintained hostile military presence since 1992 includes Ukraine (2014 Crimea, 2022 invasion) Georgia (Abkhazia & South Ossetia, 1992–2008–present) Moldova (Transnistria, 1992–present) Chechnya (1994–2009), Syria (2015–present), African nations (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger via Africa Corps).
I don’t defend or agree with everything America does. Especially now with Trump, I’m too busy pointing out that Russia’s agenda is your agenda. This thread is another good example of that. Instead of pointing out the United States helped Russia After the Soviet Union’s collapse, you blame America for all that ails Russia and post their agenda as though it isn’t complete bullshit. The Soviet Union collapsed from the inside. Countries wanted out.
The truth is, the United States played a major role in supporting Russia and the other new independent states to prevent chaos, reduce nuclear risks, and promote market reforms at great expense to America.
America provided diplomatic and political support, economic and technical assistance, scientific and technical exchanges, arms control and security cooperation, humanitarian and development aid. These efforts were aimed at stabilizing Russia, prevent nuclear proliferation, and lay the groundwork for a new U.S.–Russia relationship in the post-Cold War era.
Then came Putin, your hero, who wound up destroying Russia. Yet you still promote his agenda. You also supported Trump. Another strongman bent on destroying America and doing a good job of it. What is it with you and strongmen?
T https://www.picgifs.com/emoticons/smileys-and-emoticons/coff
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead
HAHAHAHA! Kiki is not dead.
Quote:
and signym is hiding,
Nope!
Quote:
because the evidence over the years has been presented. Our comrade Russian friends were wrong about everything; everything. Russian interference not just in America but globally, and how Russia is a paper tiger; everything.
All we need to do is quote old posts and give updates with the current facts to show we were right.
Wrong again.
Quote:
Hey comrade; Russia is losing the war.
More wrongness
Quote:
SIGNY:
I've decided, THGR, that you and SECOND are hopelessly brainwashed and that no amount of information will penetrate.
THGR:
Sure it will, not brainwashed. The problem is that you post Russian propaganda and not truths. Like how powerful Russia's navy was. How they controlled the Black Sea. How no navy in the world dared enter there with Russia's permission.
You keep posting that and yet have never been able to find my post like that.
Liar. Or stupid. Your choice.
Quote:
How they are advancing in Ukraine and not how they hold less ground than then did after the first week of the war.
Russia is winning the war. The first invasion was a bluff meant to scare Zelensky into negotiating, not take and hold territory. It worked until BoJo got involved.
Quote:
mQuestion; do you think Kamala would have started the wars Trump has?
IDK.
Trump didn't start the war in Iran, Israel did.
Kamala prolly would have tripled down in Ukraine.
Quote:I didn't vote the 2nd time.
Would you still vote for Trump? Please don't tell me you didn't vote for him both times.
Quote:Better than who?
Do you think that Trump is better for the economy?
Quote:
Should he be president or impeached?
I think he should be Section 25'd.
Quote:IDK.
Is he the most corrupt president in modern history?
Quote:People are happy that he stopped the tidal wave of illegal immigrants. And altho ppl may not understand or remember, bowing out of the "free trade" agreements is a good thing.
We did this before. You can't name any topic that his polling numbers show a majority of the people like what he is doing.
Quote:
Question; can you name anything he is doing you like comrade?
I just did.
Quote:
I've posted this in another thread, but I want you to see and respond to it.
Well. I wasted my time responding. Don't expect it too often.
Quote:
You post in this and other threads extensive posts informing what Putin wants and how America is an aggressor, an antagonist. You conveniently forget, Russia has broken every agreement they’ve entered into. Ukraine and the Budapest Memorandum
Wrong
Quote:
Crimea
What?
Quote:
The Minsk Agreements
Russia wasn't even a signatory, ya dope.
Quote:
Chechnya: Peace Treaties
What?
Quote:What?
Georgia: Occupation After Agreements
Georgia attacked, not the other way around.
Quote:
Moldova: Though a ceasefire was reached, Russia never withdrew its troops
Ceasefire, not a treaty. Transnistrians want them there .
So much wrongness here.
Quote:
blah blah blah...
So, yanno, I have a metric crapton of things to do.
The End
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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May 12, 2026, at 7:26 AM
The Kremlin repeated Russian President Vladimir Putin's assertion that the war in Ukraine was almost over on Tuesday. [Not until every Russian and North Korean inside Ukraine is dead or imprisoned and every Russian refinery is a smoking ruin.]
"I think that the matter is coming to an end," Putin told reporters on Saturday of the war, now in its fifth year.
Asked to comment on Putin's remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a certain amount of trilateral work with Ukraine and the United States had been done towards finding a peace deal.
"This accumulated groundwork in terms of the peace process allows us to say that the completion is indeed approaching," Peskov told reporters, though he added that it was difficult to provide specific details at the current time. . . .
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-05-12/kremlin-repeats-
putins-assertion-that-ukraine-war-is-nearly-over-after-zelenskiy-casts-doubt
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead
HAHAHAHA! Kiki is not dead.Quote:
The Minsk Agreements
Russia wasn't even a signatory, ya dope.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
In early 2022, amid rising tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed," using this as a pretext for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This marked a significant escalation in the conflict and highlighted the agreements' failure to provide a sustainable framework for peace
kiki is dead.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead
HAHAHAHA! Kiki is not dead.Quote:
The Minsk Agreements
Russia wasn't even a signatory, ya dope.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
In early 2022, amid rising tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed," using this as a pretext for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This marked a significant escalation in the conflict and highlighted the agreements' failure to provide a sustainable framework for peace
kiki is dead.
T
Archived.
https://archive.ph/wIUHi
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:6ix, planning on killing yourself? Is your archive the revenge? Want somebody to pay because you are dead? There will be no consequences when you're gone, but there will be when Putin croaks:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Archived.
https://archive.ph/wIUHi
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
The Death of Putin
A Field Guide to the Day After In Russia
By Rick Wilson | May 09, 2026
https://www.againstallenemies.net/p/the-death-of-putin
Picture it. A crisp early summer Tuesday morning, Moscow time.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Tsar of All the Russias, Conqueror of Crimea, Bare-Chested Equestrian of the Steppe, Owner of a Stolen Super Bowl Ring discovers the unique cardiovascular properties of the third-floor window plunge workout.
Or the tea tastes…off. You know…oolong with a note of polonium. Or some cousin or younger brother of a Wagner remnant takes his shot. Or by sheer dumb luck, a Ukrainian drone swarm finds Putin’s motorcade.
However it goes down, the small bald man is gone, and the world wakes up to a Russia-shaped hole in the geopolitical map. . . .
. . . Look at the May 9 parade. No tanks. No ICBMs. No mobile column. For the first time since 2008, Red Square’s cobblestones carried some iffy-looking infantry and prerecorded propaganda videos because the actual hardware is either on fire in Donetsk or rusting in Novorossiysk. The guest list was Lukashenko, the King of Malaysia, and the President of Laos, a tableau so threadbare that even Slovakia’s thirsty Robert Fico couldn’t bring himself to attend the parade itself.
Forty-five minutes, start to finish. They call it “scaled back.” It was a wake. . . .
Much more at https://www.againstallenemies.net/p/the-death-of-putin
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, planning on killing yourself?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Archived.
https://archive.ph/wIUHi
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
Nope.
Sorry to disappoint you, psycho.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead.
HAHAHAHA! Kiki is not dead.
THGR
The Minsk Agreements
SIGNY:
Russia wasn't even a signatory, ya dope.
THGR:
In early 2022, amid rising tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed," using this as a pretext for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This marked a significant escalation in the conflict and highlighted the agreements' failure to provide a sustainable framework for peace
THGR:
kiki is dead.
a) I know for a fact KIKI isn't dead bc we've been in touch, ya dope.
b) Despite your misunderstanding, Russia was never a signatory. The agreements were between Kiev and eastern Ukraine.
Stop posting shit about which you know nothing.
It makes you look stupid.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Putin hails Russia's test launch of new ICBM known as Satan II, calls it "most powerful missile in the world"
The Russian leader has repeatedly brandished the nuclear sword after sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022 to try to deter the West from ramping up support for Ukraine.
May 12, 2026 | 5:23 PM EDT
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-test-launch-missile-satan-ii-calls
-putin-worlds-most-powerful/
________________________
Russian President Vladimir Putin is leaning on nuclear saber-rattling to project military strength after Russia’s apparent failure to ensure full security for the May 9 Victory Day parade without asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a ceasefire.
Putin’s posturing with the Sarmat ICBMs also likely aims to distract from Russia’s worsening performance on the battlefield, particularly during the Russian spring-summer 2026 offensive. Putin and senior Russian military officials have intensified their exaggerations of Russian battlefield successes throughout 2026, but the Russian rate of advance has declined monthly since October 2025 as Ukrainian forces escalated their mid-range strike campaign and imposed additional costs on Russian efforts to advance.[6]
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-may-12-2026/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Mikhail Kasyanova, Russian Prime Minister from 2000 to 2004, told Digi24 that Putin’s sudden death could trigger a ceasefire within three months or sooner, as a new leader would prioritize restoring ties with the West. He compared this to Stalin’s death in 1953, when Soviet leaders quickly moved to end the Korean War. Kasyanov claimed many in Russia’s current administration want the war to end, but President Putin remains the main barrier.
Elite dissatisfaction and potential change
Garry Kasparov told RBC-Ukraine that elites and ordinary Russians increasingly believe Putin cannot win the war, a situation that historically leads to leadership change. He noted that Russian tradition does not forgive a leader for losing a war, and signs of economic, military, and psychological strain are growing.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/insight/kasyanov-says-putin-s-death-cou
ld-end-war-in-3-months/gm-GMC2A74F1E
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Let’s Re-Do the Math on Ukraine
The deadly arithmetic of Russian casualties may add up to Putin’s defeat.
By Brynn Tannehill | May 12, 2026
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/lets-re-do-the-math-on-ukraine-vance-dron
es-support-war-russia-putin-trump
IN 2024, REPUBLICANS WHO WERE SOURING on Ukraine came up with lots of arguments for why the United States should cut off its support for the besieged democracy. They ranged from allegations that most of the aid was gobbled up by waste and corruption to warnings that helping Ukraine would lead to World War III to “we’re ignoring our own people’s problems.” Each of these arguments was flawed, but perhaps none exploded quite so spectacularly as the one championed by JD Vance and adopted by President Trump: that Ukraine is doomed to lose anyway, so American aid is a waste.
Vance became the chief proponent of this argument when he published an op-ed in the New York Times under the title “The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up.” His argument was simple: “Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more materiel than the United States can provide.” In other words, defeat was certain and “This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.”
President Trump, in his less articulate fashion, repeated this same argument to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the infamous February 28, 2025 Oval Office ambush: “You’re, right now, not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position,” Trump told Zelensky. “You don’t have the cards right now.”
This argument is worth reexamining not only because it proved so demonstrably false, but because the Russian government has dedicated such effort into ensuring that Trump still believes it. “Russian President Vladimir Putin has worked hard to convince the world that Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable when it is not,” reports the Institute for the Study of War. “His biggest success has come not on the front line but in the battle of narratives.”
As recently as December, Trump said that Russia had the “upper hand” in Ukraine, adding, “At some point, size will win.” If that was true then, it certainly isn’t now.
Last weekend, at Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations commemorating the end of World War II in Europe, Putin suggested that the war in Ukraine “may be coming to an end.” What he meant is open to varying interpretations, but whatever his intent, that “end” is clearly not the inevitable Russian victory Vance, Trump, and others have clearly had in mind.
WHEN VANCE PUBLISHED THAT New York Times article in 2024, he was thinking in terms of expensive and/or outdated U.S. weapons systems. He focused on surplus military equipment sent to Ukraine billed at the sticker price, such as 155-millimeter artillery shells. But, even as far back as May 2023 it was clear that the war was increasingly using drones, and that high-end systems and artillery would matter less over time.
Ukraine still needs a few high-value American systems, like PATRIOT missile interceptors used for defense against Russian Kinzhal and Iskander missiles. But almost all of the military items that Vance argued the United States would have to provide turned out to be largely irrelevant. Other particularly expensive U.S. systems, like Abrams tanks, Switchblade drones, and guided artillery have largely underperformed on the battlefield.
At the start of the war, Ukraine had to make do with whatever it could get its hands on. This was mostly “exquisite” Western weapons systems, but older and surplus models. By definition, Ukraine was getting the things the United States and other countries were most willing to part with. Since then, Ukraine has built up its own, far more cost-effective capabilities. As the effectiveness of PATRIOT has dropped over time, Ukraine has increasingly been using electronic warfare to severely degrade Russian Shahed drones, Kinzhal missiles, and thousands of precision gli
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead.
HAHAHAHA! Kiki is not dead.
THGR
The Minsk Agreements
SIGNY:
Russia wasn't even a signatory, ya dope.
THGR:
In early 2022, amid rising tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed," using this as a pretext for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This marked a significant escalation in the conflict and highlighted the agreements' failure to provide a sustainable framework for peace
THGR:
kiki is dead.
a) I know for a fact KIKI isn't dead bc we've been in touch, ya dope.
b) Despite your misunderstanding, Russia was never a signatory. The agreements were between Kiev and eastern Ukraine.
Stop posting shit about which you know nothing.
It makes you look stupid.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
She is dead. One day she was just gone, and she hasn't posted once since then.
T
PUTIN'S PARADE IS OVER
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Europe doesn’t make missile defenses at scale. Thirteen countries just joined Ukraine to fix that.
Thirteen European countries and NATO met in Kyiv on 12 May to launch coordinated anti-ballistic missile production—a shift from US Patriot dependence.
By Alexander Moisseenko | May 13, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/13/europe-doesnt-make-missile-defe
nses-at-scale-thirteen-countries-just-joined-ukraine-to-fix-that/
The American Patriot system armed with PAC-3 interceptors remains Ukraine's primary shield against Russian ballistic missiles, and the United States produces too few of them for everyone who needs them.
The math European armies are trying to fix
Russia produces roughly 70 ballistic missiles per month, 840 per year, many going directly from factory to launch site. Annual global production of the PAC-2 GEM-T and PAC-3 MSE interceptors that Patriot systems use against ballistic missiles is 850 missiles. That figure barely exceeds the lower-end estimate of Russia's annual ballistic missile output.
What the anti-ballistic coalition has not yet specified is timeline, production targets, financing structure, or how it will navigate the US State Department approvals that govern licensing of Patriot components and missiles. European defense manufacturer MBDA, which now produces Patriot missiles in Bavaria under joint venture with Raytheon, has flagged those approvals as the main constraint on genuine European independence from the slow US production rate of Patriot missiles.
Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/13/europe-doesnt-make-missile-defe
nses-at-scale-thirteen-countries-just-joined-ukraine-to-fix-that/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Second, I remember when anyone would post about Russia signym and kiki would respond in a flash. They were incapable of letting anything negative about Putin or Russia pass without a rebuttal. Now kiki is dead.
HAHAHAHA! Kiki is not dead.
THGR
The Minsk Agreements
SIGNY:
Russia wasn't even a signatory, ya dope.
THGR:
In early 2022, amid rising tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed," using this as a pretext for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This marked a significant escalation in the conflict and highlighted the agreements' failure to provide a sustainable framework for peace
THGR:
kiki is dead.
a) I know for a fact KIKI isn't dead bc we've been in touch, ya dope.
b) Despite your misunderstanding, Russia was never a signatory. The agreements were between Kiev and eastern Ukraine.
Stop posting shit about which you know nothing.
It makes you look stupid.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
She is dead. One day she was just gone, and she hasn't posted once since then.
T
By that logic, maybe Wish is dead. Maybe JO is dead. Maybe Chrisisall is dead. Maybe Frem is dead. Maybe every single person you've ever talked to or called a Nazi that once posted here is dead.
You need to get a fucking life, loser.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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The Kremlin is doubling down on its demand that Ukraine withdraw from all of Donbas as a precondition for the resumption of negotiations. . . .
Russia’s exaggerated territorial ambitions and aggressive territorial demands run completely counter to battlefield reality. Anonymous sources in contact with Putin and additional sources familiar with the matter, as well as a Ukrainian intelligence assessment shared with FT, indicate that senior Russian commanders have convinced Putin that Russian forces could seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by Fall 2026.[5] ISW is no longer prepared to forecast when Russian forces might seize Donetsk, including the Fortress Belt, since the slowing rate of Russian advances and the challenging nature of the Ukrainian-held terrain in Donetsk make it unclear that Russia is capable of seizing the territory at all.[6]
ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces have only advanced 349.89 square kilometers in Donetsk Oblast since the start of 2026, an advance rate of 2.63 square kilometers per day. Strong Ukrainian fortifications, the area’s challenging human and physical geography, and Ukrainian counterattacks and mid-range strike campaigns that are already inhibiting Russian offensive operations across the theater make the prospects for a Russian seizure of the rest of Donetsk dim.[7] Russian forces first infiltrated into Kostyantynivka (the Fortress Belt’s southernmost city) in October 2025 and have failed to make any significant tactical gains in the city over the last six months.[8] Ukrainian counterattacks in southern Ukraine since early 2026 have also forced Russia to choose between defending against them and allocating manpower and resources to priority sectors of the front, including the Fortress Belt.[9] Ukraine’s recent successes are accomplishing tactical, operational, and strategic battlespace effects that undermine Putin’s narrative that the Ukrainian frontlines are on the verge of collapse.[10]
Two people involved in back-channel negotiations over ending the war told the FT that Putin’s ambitions are still to control all the Ukrainian territory between Russia and the Dnipro River, and possibly farther into Kyiv City and the port of Odesa, despite Russia’s stalled offensive.[11] Putin’s thinking thus appears to be further and further removed from battlefield realities, likely resulting in orders to the Russian military to make gains it is not capable of achieving.
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-may-13-2026/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Nicolas Tenzer: the French geopolitical expert on Putin’s nihilist regime
• Putin is not negotiating territory — he is dismantling rules:
The Kremlin's project is destruction itself, which means there is no settlement to be reached with it.
• The West has made four mistakes when dealing with Russia:
ignoring Russia's crimes, treating its invasion as a land dispute rather than a war of extermination, being duped by Moscow's nuclear blackmail, and clinging to the romantic notion of a "Great Russia."
• Stop talking about peace; start talking about victory:
Every time a Western leader floats "peace talks," they hand Moscow leverage before negotiations begin.
• Europe has to build its own defense, with or without Washington:
European leaders can no longer assume the US will show up — not under Trump, and not necessarily under his successor.
• From "as long as it takes" to "whatever the cost and until final victory":
Europe must commit, not just support, and end business as usual with Moscow.
More at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/13/nicolas-tenzer-stop-talking-abo
ut-peace-question-is-victory/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Magyar said the Standard 10 formula is a target efficiency benchmark under which each attack UAV crew in Ukraine's defence forces would aim to kill 10 Russian soldiers per month.
According to Magyar, the current average performance of a single attack UAV crew is about 3 Russian soldiers killed per month. However, he said there is significant room for improvement, as similar crews within the Unmanned Systems Forces record an average of 15.2 Russian troops killed per month.
For example, this figure stands at 22.3 Russian soldiers killed per crew in the Phoenix unit from Ukraine's State Border Guard Service, while it stands at 30.6 in the Magyar's Birds unit – Ukraine's 414th Brigade.
Quote: "If most crews reach 10 confirmed hits per month, we will be killing twice as many as Russia can mobilise. In a few months, they will be overwhelmed."
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/05/14/8034620/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Magyar said the Standard 10 formula is a target efficiency benchmark under which each attack UAV crew in Ukraine's defence forces would aim to kill 10 Russian soldiers per month.
According to Magyar, the current average performance of a single attack UAV crew is about 3 Russian soldiers killed per month. However, he said there is significant room for improvement, as similar crews within the Unmanned Systems Forces record an average of 15.2 Russian troops killed per month.
For example, this figure stands at 22.3 Russian soldiers killed per crew in the Phoenix unit from Ukraine's State Border Guard Service, while it stands at 30.6 in the Magyar's Birds unit – Ukraine's 414th Brigade.
Quote: "If most crews reach 10 confirmed hits per month, we will be killing twice as many as Russia can mobilise. In a few months, they will be overwhelmed."
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/05/14/8034620/
So.
Ukraine is currently NOT killing more Russians than are being recruited.
And the Russian army, instead of being on the ropes, is currently getting stronger every day instead of weaker.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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[The Wall Street Journal made this sniper famous. Years later, it reinterviews him, learning that technology has made his skill obsolete. Now, anyone can do what he did]
In Ukraine, Snipers Give Way to Drones
By Alistair MacDonald and Ievgeniia Sivorka | May 14, 2026
https://www.magzter.com/stories/newspaper/The-Wall-Street-Journal/IN-U
KRAINE-SNIPERS-GIVE-WAY-TO-DRONES
A Ukrainian special-forces sniper claimed a world record in late 2023 with a shot that hit a Russian officer almost 2.5 miles away.
These days Vyacheslav Kovalskiy has a new job: supporting drone pilots. He hasn’t been out to shoot in more than a year and a half.
Small drones that are cheap and can be rigged with explosives have changed the face of warfare in Ukraine, pushing some military roles down the billing. Spotters who call in artillery strikes are no longer needed. Tank crews have lost their swagger as their vehicles are top targets for aerial craft.
Unmanned vehicles are particularly suited to the sniper’s two main tasks of reconnaissance and targeted killing. Their key advantages include their bigger visual range, maneuverability and expendability: If the mission fails, the loss is a craft worth thousands of dollars rather than a life.
Ukraine still uses snipers. The U.S. also continues to train them. But in Ukraine they are being used less and in a changing role that is becoming more dangerous. Many snipers, like Kovalskiy, believe the era of sniping has passed.
“Drones are just more effective and cost less,” said Kovalskiy, who is part of a military counterintelligence division of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU. “I used to be the sniper and everyone was dancing around me. Now the drone pilot, everyone dances around him, including me," he said.
Kovalskiy, a 60-year-old former businessman, vaulted to fame after The Wall Street Journal revealed him as the man who pulled the trigger on the record-breaking shot in November 2023. His name entered a pantheon of sniping that was developed by British and German troops during the trench warfare of World War I. The snipers include Ukraine-born Lyudmyla Pavlichenko, nicknamed “Lady Death” for her high kill rate in World War II, and the reputed deadliest American sniper, Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle.
On the front line, soldiers asked Kovalskiy for selfies, his children’s friends quizzed them about their father and chart-topping U.S. rapper Yeat posted his picture on social media.
But on the front lines, Kovalskiy’s star was beginning to wane. His unit was seeing fewer targets as it was assigned a smaller slice of the front line. Russian soldiers adapted to a battlefield with ubiquitous drones by improving concealment. In five trips in 2024, he didn’t hit a single target.
That fall, the team spotted Russian soldiers at a dugout around P/2 miles away. They stayed underground during the day, and Kovalskiy didn’t have the right optical sights to shoot in the dark.
Ukrainian drones bombed the dugout and the next morning Russian soldiers emerged to examine the damage. Kovalskiy fired, but he only counts a hit if he is 100% sure that it was.
That is one of the last times he went out.
Now he mainly works as an assistant to drone operators, helping them get into their position, fit explosives to the drone and sometimes help to navigate, while acting as part of a quick-reaction force if something goes wrong.
Drones have several advantages over snipers. In reconnaissance, a sniper can’t match the bird’s-eye view of a drone or the speed at which it can move. Drones, unlike bullets, can turn comers.
In 2022, a Ukrainian army sniper with the call sign Ivanhoe would spot enemy movement up to 2.5 miles away and relay that information to guide artillery. The process took three to five minutes.
Now, “the drone operator sees it, the strike follows almost instantly,” he said. Ivanhoe has become a drone operator.
A drone’s explosive warhead can do more damage than a sniper’s bullet.
Snipers typically work in teams
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Things are not going so well for Russia
It is not just its stalled advance in Ukraine and economic woes that are worrying the Kremlin. It is also a distant ‘near abroad’.
By Dimitar Bechev | 11 May 2026
Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/5/11/things-are-not-going-so-w
ell-for-russia
The annual ritual that is the Victory Day Parade in Moscow serves a dual purpose. It reminds Russia’s citizenry and the Kremlin’s audience across the former Soviet Union of the glorious past. The muscle flexing on May 9 each year benchmarks Russia’s geopolitical fortunes.
Last year on the 80th anniversary of the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin was flanked by foreign dignitaries from far and wide: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority.
This year, the lineup was much less impressive. Leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia and Uzbekistan attended – with Republika Srpska, Abkhazia and South Ossetia for some added flavour – but no heavy hitters like India or China.
The talk of Russia as a linchpin of a new multipolar world order rings a tad hollow today, not least because no heavy equipment was marched through during the parade out of fear of Ukrainian drone strikes. On top of it, United States President Donald Trump claimed credit for a three-day ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv.
The relatively dull affair that was this year’s parade speaks volumes about Russia’s current state. On paper, everything is going just fine. Trump has not wholly abandoned the idea of a deal to freeze the war in Ukraine, even at the cost of major concessions by Kyiv. The current US National Security Strategy calls for “strategic stability” with Russia while blasting Europe’s “woke” policies.
The inconclusive war against Iran, meanwhile, has exposed the limits of US military might. Oil prices have jumped, filling Russia’s coffers and improving its fiscal balance. On top of it, Trump has removed sanctions on some Russian oil to increase the global supply. Meanwhile, the Europeans are signalling they want to talk to Moscow.
In reality, the mood is gloomy. The Russian war effort in Ukraine continues to be stalled no matter how much money, materiel and human lives the Kremlin throws into the meat grinder that is the so-called special military operation (SVO). Ukrainian drones have hit deep inside the Russian homeland with even Red Square apparently not being immune to aerial attack.
Trump has lost interest in wooing Putin. With Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban gone, the European Union has consolidated ranks. In Russia itself, economic growth has plummeted from 4 percent in 2024 to a projection of just over 1 percent this year.
The prospects for long-term development, productivity growth and technological innovation are lacklustre. There are modest signs of discontent within the Russian elite. Even Putin’s sky-high popularity ratings are slightly down, according to pollsters.
The stifling of the mobile internet in Moscow and other big cities has been met with dismay. Russians could be excused for puzzling over how the SVO, sold as a glorious repeat of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, has gone on longer than the latter with no end in sight. It is no wonder Putin felt compelled to say on Saturday that “the matter” is coming to an end.
While its resources are focused on Ukraine, Russia is on the back foot in what it still calls its “near abroad” too. The past week showed that Europe is gaining momentum there.
On Monday, Armenia hosted the annual summit of the European Political Community (EPC), where European leaders gathered. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in attendance too. Once Moscow’s loyal client and member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation and Eurasian Economic Union, Yerevan (Capital o
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Do Putin’s generals know they are lying about the battlefield, or are they oblivious to reality?
A case can be made for both explanations.
By Jens Asbjørn Bøgen | May 15, 2026
https://www.dagens.com/war/do-putins-generals-know-they-are-lying-abou
t-the-battlefield-or-are-they-oblivious-to-reality
On May 14, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS cited Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu as saying that Russian forces are “confidently advancing along the entire line of combat contact” in Ukraine.
That assessment is in stark contrast to reality on the battlefield, as the Institute for the Study of War reported in early May that Russian territorial gains in Ukraine have been in steep decline in 2026.
In January, Putin’s forces reportedly advanced and took control of 318 km², but in February those advances had plummeted to just under 123 km².
March produced Russian advances of only 23 km², and April really turned the tables as Ukraine managed to retake approximately 116 km² from Russian forces.
Add to that Russian casualties of reportedly more than 35,000 a month, and you cannot help but wonder:
Do the Russian military commanders know they are not telling the truth? Or are they simply oblivious to what is actually going on?
The case for lying
“Truth is the first casualty of war,” as the old saying goes, and in Russia’s case, truth was killed in action even before the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022.
Leading up to the invasion, the Kremlin claimed that Russian forces did not pose a threat to Ukraine. It also claimed that Ukraine was committing genocide against ethnic Russians, and during the war, Russia has claimed that NATO and Ukraine actually had a secret plan to invade Russia.
All of these claims have either been debunked or denied, and the Kremlin has produced no evidence to support them.
This shows that the Kremlin’s relationship with reality is, at best, conditional, as Russian officials appear to tell the truth only when it suits the Russian narrative.
In the case of Shoigu’s claims about advances, this supports the Russian narrative that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable, while also projecting strength and control to the Russian public, which is increasingly feeling the strain of more than four years of war.
The case for being oblivious
On March 30, 2022, about a month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Reuters cited officials from the White House and the European Union as saying that Putin was actually being misled by “yes-men” who were afraid to tell the Russian leader the truth.
According to the officials, intelligence showed that Putin was not being told the truth about how poorly the Russian army was performing in Ukraine, as well as how much the economy was already suffering.
But try following this train of thought:
• Putin’s commanders lie to him out of fear.
• This forces Russian military commanders to provide the Russian leader with positive news from the battlefield.
• The Russian military is known for harsh punishments for a wide range of offenses.
• Could Russian commanders on the battlefield be afraid to tell the military leadership the truth out of fear of punishment?
It is important to note that there is no concrete evidence to support this. It remains pure speculation.
But if this turns out to be true, the Russian military command could actually be completely oblivious to the reality on the battlefield because it is receiving false information from commanders in the field.
So which is it?
Given the substantial evidence of the Kremlin and Russian officials in general blatantly lying, the Russian military command is probably doing exactly that.
There may be an element of Russian field commanders not telling the truth to military leadership, but the most likely explanation for officials like Shoigu making claims so evidently disconnected from reality is that it is part of Russia’s broader effort to maintain the narrative that a Russian victory is inevitable.
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[Ukraine would have the weapon now if some genius had been thinking clearly back in 2022, rather than Ukraine waiting for daily disasters to tell even ordinary people what to do.]
A Ukrainian Patriot Alternative? Fire Point’s Freya Interceptor Eyes to Hunt Russian Iskander-Class Threats
With Patriot interceptors scarce and Russian ballistic missile attacks still among Ukraine’s deadliest threats, Fire Point’s Freya project is aiming for a shortcut: a Ukrainian anti-ballistic missile built around ready-made European technology.
By Vlad Litnarovych | May 15, 2026 15:30
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/a-ukrainian-patriot-alternati
ve-fire-points-freya-interceptor-eyes-to-hunt-russian-iskander-class-threats-18851
Ukraine’s Fire Point is working on an ambitious new anti-ballistic missile project called Freya, aiming to create a domestic interceptor using already available European components at a time when Patriot PAC-3 MSE missiles remain scarce and in extremely high demand, according to Defense Express on May 15. https://defence-ua.com/news/jak_deshevo_ta_shvidko_otrimati_ukrajinski
j_zrk_proti_balistiki_proponujut_u_fire_point_za_projektom_freya-22962.html
The project centers on the FP-7.x Freya missile, which Fire Point says is being developed as a fast-track solution against ballistic threats such as Russia’s Iskander-M.
Defense Express notes that the idea is not to build every element from scratch, but to combine existing radars, command systems, guidance technologies, and missile design experience into a workable Ukrainian air defense solution.
The comparison point is obvious: the PAC-3 MSE missile used by the Patriot system. The American interceptor has become the benchmark for proven effectiveness against ballistic missiles, including in Ukraine, where Patriot systems have repeatedly demonstrated high performance against some of Russia’s most dangerous aerial threats.
But PAC-3 MSE missiles are expensive, limited in supply, and heavily demanded by multiple countries.
According to details released by Fire Point chief designer Denys Shtilerman and analyzed by Defense Express, the FP-7.x interceptor draws on the Soviet-designed 48N6 missile used in the S-300 and S-400 family, but reworks the concept with a new architecture, composite materials, and modern Western components.
The missile is expected to reach speeds of roughly 1,500 to 2,000 meters per second, measure about 7.25 meters in length, and have a body diameter of 0.53 meters.
One of the key questions is guidance. The PAC-3 MSE uses an active radar seeker operating in the Ka-band, allowing precise all-weather targeting.
Fire Point’s FP-7.x, by contrast, is expected to use an infrared imaging seeker from Germany’s Diehl Defence, the company behind the IRIS-T missile family.
Defense Express notes that infrared guidance is not unusual in missile defense systems, with THAAD also using an infrared seeker, although THAAD operates at much higher altitudes where atmospheric visibility is less of a problem.
The Freya concept may rely on a guidance approach similar to IRIS-T SLM, where the missile receives course corrections from ground systems before switching to its onboard seeker in the final phase.
References to the DataLink course correction in the project materials support this. Fire Point has also recently signed a technology cooperation agreement with Diehl Defence, adding weight to the possibility of deeper integration.
The proposed radar network is also built around existing Western systems. Long-range detection could use radars such as Saab Giraffe 8A or 4A, Thales Ground Master 400, or Hensoldt TRML-4D.
Some of these systems, including TRML-4D, are already used by Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Target tracking and illumination could be handled by Leonardo KRONOS Land or Weibel GFTR-2100/48 radars.
For command and control, Fire Point’s concept reportedly relies on the Norwegian Kongsberg FDC system with network access modules, while data exchange would use NATO’s Link 16 standard. Defense Express notes t
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Mendel told Tucker Carlson many tales about Zelenskyy. All blame the country being invaded
Most of what former Ukrainian press secretary Iuliia Mendel told Tucker Carlson about events after 2021 is secondhand. The facts tell a different story.
By Daniel Thomas | May 16, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/16/mendel-tucker-carlson-interview
-four-claims-examined/
By Iuliia Mendel's count, Zelenskyy has personally sabotaged around seven attempts to finish this war. Mendel does not enumerate the seven. She does not name the mediators. The framing she offers is simple: change the man, Zelenskyy, get the peace.
But the documented record points the other way.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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May 15, 2026
Thirty-six countries, mainly from Europe, have signed up to a special tribunal to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, which will be headquartered in the Dutch city of The Hague.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/05/15/point-of-no-return-36-co
untries-join-special-tribunal-to-prosecute-vladimir-putin
Australia and Costa Rica were the only non-European signatories.
The European Union also endorsed the initiative, even if four of its member states, Bulgaria, Hungary, Malta and Slovakia, did not add their names to Friday's resolution.
The list remains open for other countries, European and otherwise, to join.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Without components from Europe, Japan and US, the Russians couldn't assemble missiles
By Kateryna Tyshchenko — 16 May, 20:14
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/05/16/8034997/
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has named the key task as cutting off all supply channels to Russia of components for missile and drone production.
Source: Zelenskyy's evening address
Quote: "We are also working actively on the traditional sanctions track. The key thing is to cut off all supply channels of components for the production of missiles and drones in Russia.
In this week's strike on Kyiv, the Russians used missiles that were produced this year. Without components from companies in Europe, Japan and the United States, the Russians simply would not have been able to produce these missiles. The same applies to most other means of destruction that these bastards use to strike our cities and ordinary Ukrainian homes."
Details: Zelenskyy warned that "if the Russian war machine survives, its next strikes could be against Europe and other neighbours of Russia, and even in more distant regions: Russian evil has already shown itself in Syria and in African countries".
"Right now, the Russians are largely constrained here by our defence. But what comes next, where else will the Russians go? We need determination to push this country so that it becomes safer for the world. Sanctions and all other forms of pressure are the best tool for this," Zelenskyy added.
Background:
• On the night of 13-14 May, a combined Russian strike caused the partial collapse of a high-rise building in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv.
• A total of 24 people were killed in the attack, including three children.
• As reported by the Financial Times, Ukrainian authorities said that the Russian cruise missiles used in the deadly strike on Ukraine on 14 May were manufactured this year using Western-made components.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Good luck. You'll need it.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:You wouldn't know it because of your politics and general dishonest way of life, much like Trump's cheating and business swindles, but it is not luck. It is work. Too bad that Trumptards think being white is the only thing they need to be. Honesty? Work? Those are optional for Trumptards, not a requirement for success.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Good luck. You'll need it.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Drones Attack Moscow
By Alex Stezhensky | May 17, 2026, 04:55 AM
https://english.nv.ua/nation/videos-show-major-drone-attack-on-moscow-
region-with-deaths-and-fires-reported-50608618.html
Several cities in Russia’s Moscow Oblast reported drone attacks overnight on May 17, with explosions reported in Khimki, Durikino, Lobnya, Zelenograd and Naro-Fominsk outside Moscow. Witnesses also reported plumes of smoke and fires in some areas.
Russian Telegram channel Astra reported that the Elma technology park in Zelenograd was hit. More than 150 resident companies are based there.
A fire was also recorded at the Solnechnogorsk oil loading station, a Transneft facility in the village of Durikino used to store and transfer petroleum products.
In a video posted online, a male voice can be heard saying in surprise: “How is that possible?”
The video contains profanity.
An attack was also reported on the MKB Raduga plant in Dubna. MKB Raduga specializes in developing, producing and modernizing missiles of various classes. Its products include Kh-59 and Kh-69 guided air-launched missiles, as well as Kh-32 and Kh-101 cruise missiles.
In Moscow, the drone attack hit the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotnya.
The video contains profanity.
A fire was also recorded on the grounds of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. Russia’s Transport Ministry said 51 planes were unable to land in Moscow because of the drone attack. About 32 departing flights were also reportedly delayed by more than two hours.
Ukrainian monitoring channels said it was the largest attack on the Russian capital since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In one video posted online, a woman watching a drone fly overhead can be heard saying in surprise: “What is that?”
The video contains profanity.
Russian authorities claim three people were killed in the attack.
Robert Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, stressed that Moscow is not beyond the reach of Ukrainian drones and has lost its “exclusive pass” to a peaceful life.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Good luck. You'll need it.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Pipeline Infiltration by Russian Troops in Ukraine Meets Expected End
By Ivan Khomenko | May 17, 2026 14:13
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/pipeline-infiltration-by-russ
ian-troops-in-ukraine-meets-unexpected-end-18888
Russian assault troops attempted to infiltrate Ukrainian rear positions through a major gas pipeline in the Zaporizhzhia region, but were captured by Ukrainian forces after traveling more than 13 kilometers inside the underground route.
According to Ukrinform on May 17, the operation was confirmed by Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Defense Forces, who said Russian troops had been preparing to use the pipeline system for logistics and covert infiltration for an extended period. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/4124046-rosiani-vikoristovuut-magi
stralnij-gazoprovid-dla-perekidanna-sturmovih-grup-na-pivdni-volosin.html
“This is an entire system and controlled infrastructure with elements of logistics, shelters, and even internal communications,” Voloshyn said.
According to Voloshyn, Russian troops established communication posts, bypass tunnels, and dugouts inside the pipeline network. The entry points were reportedly located in Russian-controlled territory, while exits were positioned near Ukrainian defensive lines on the Orikhiv axis in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukrinform reported that captured Russian soldiers said the assault groups used a 1,000 mm diameter gas pipeline and moved through it using “carts and scooters.” The troops reportedly traveled more than 13 kilometers underground before reaching Ukrainian positions.
One captured Russian soldier, quoted in footage released by Ukraine’s 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade, described how the operation was organized.
“It became clear that we were sent there as cannon fodder. Everyone already understood perfectly well that there was no way back for us. After each group entered, the pipe was welded shut. Every group that went in—whether 8, 6, or 12 people—the pipe was welded behind them,” the prisoner said.
According to Ukrinform, the pipeline used in the operation may have been part of the Shebelynka–Dnipropetrovsk–Kryvyi Rih–Izmail gas transportation corridor, specifically branches connected toward Enerhodar or Melitopol.
The report added that Ukrainian forces had prepared the area near the pipeline exits in advance. Captured Russian troops said leaflets containing surrender instructions had been scattered near the exit points before Ukrainian FPV drones, heavy bomber drones, and infantry units engaged the infiltrating groups.
“When the ‘Baba Yaga’ and FPV drones flew away, I heard soldiers speaking. At first, I didn’t know who it was, but then I realized they were Ukrainian soldiers,” one captured Russian serviceman said in footage published by the 65th Brigade.
Earlier, Russian forces attempted a similar infiltration in Ukraine’s Sumy region through a section of the Druzhba gas pipeline near Yablunivka. According to Ukraine’s 71st Separate Airmobile Brigade, Ukrainian troops repelled the assault, marking at least the fourth known pipeline infiltration attempt in 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 Fastest Russian Weapons Are Hardest To Shoot Down – May 17, 2026
In that heaviest overnight wave, on 14 May, 43 of 753 attack drones and six of 35 Kh-101 cruise missiles got past Ukrainian missiles, guns, interceptor drones and electronic warfare. Ukraine already builds effective defenses against one-way attack drones. In particular, speedy interceptor drones that cost just a few thousand dollars apiece. And Ukrainian air force warplanes have proved they can intercept cruise missiles.
The ballistic missiles are the exception. Six of 18 Iskander-M and S-400 ballistic missiles got through, and all three Kinzhals. Against those, Ukraine has fewer than a dozen Patriot and SAMP/T batteries, and they are running out of interceptors.
The war in Iran has drained nearly half the US Patriot stockpile. The intercept rate has slipped to around 25%. Kyiv has received 600 interceptors in four years. It says it needs 2,000 a year.
Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/17/freya-air-defense/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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[After the fighting stops in Ukraine, what is next for Russia?]
I Was the Russian Commander in a War Game. This Is How I Defeated NATO.
Decision paralysis and divisions among alliance members were easy to exploit.
May 15, 2026, 2:00 PM
By Franz-Stefan Gady, an associate fellow for cyber power and future conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/15/russia-war-game-nato-invasion-bal
tics-ukraine-putin-germany-ernstfall/
With Ukraine stabilizing the front line and striking more and more targets deep inside Russia—while Russia’s spring offensive has hit a wall—perhaps it is true what Col. Nicholson said in The Bridge on the River Kwai: “Suddenly you realize you’re nearer the end than the beginning.”
With prospects that the war may be approaching a ceasefire, if only a temporary one, toward the end of this year or in 2027, European policymakers should be clear-eyed that once the fighting stops in Ukraine, Europe will enter its most dangerous period vis-à-vis Russia. Europe’s military capabilities—and thus ability to deter—will likely be at their weakest point relative to Russian power. Allies will face a Russian military that has grown in size, absorbed nearly five years of combat experience by then, and built real advantages that Europe has been slow to match and will need years to catch up to, especially stand-off warfare and dynamic targeting from behind the front line. What’s more, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s only instrument for forcing his demands to restore Moscow’s Soviet-era sphere of influence is his military. Europe thus faces a hammer-and-nail dilemma: For Putin, every problem looks like one that he can solve with war. That makes the risks very clear.
It is thus worth revisiting my role in a December 2025 war game, when I attacked NATO and won. That is, I played the role of the Russian chief of the general staff in a war game at a German military college. Although the game involved battles, it was not an operational war game testing a campaign plan, military doctrine, or force design. Rather, the focus was on political decision-making. My task as a member of the Red Team was to create a military crisis on NATO’s eastern flank and force the Blue Team, the German government, to react to it. By attacking Lithuania in my first move, I so overwhelmed German political and military decision-making that NATO’s most important European ally did nothing.
Held at the German Bundeswehr’s Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg and produced as a podcast by the Berlin newspaper Die Welt, the war game received outsized media attention—including when a journalist asked NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about its outcome during a press conference.
To beat and essentially break NATO, I focused on three simple points where I believe Russia holds an advantage.
First, speed. The fundamental problem for NATO is that in a military scenario involving one or more of its Baltic members, Russia will already have a large number of troops in the area. NATO, as of 2026, does not. Along the Russian and Belarusian border with NATO, sizable Russian formations will be positioned in the event of a crisis. NATO, by contrast, needs time—days at best, weeks or more at worst—to bring up reinforcements. Second, if Russia acts quickly, it can seize ground in a limited offensive before a counter-attack materializes. Third, Russia should be able to hold that ground and threaten to escalate to the nuclear level, deterring NATO from counterattacking. Why do I believe this? Because Germany’s political leaders dare not pose a fundamental question head-on: Would they actually risk a direct war, possibly a nuclear one, against Russia for a Baltic state?
The scenario was pretty straightforward, if not to say standard, for these types of games: After a hypothetical Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in the summer of 2026, Moscow offers Berlin economic cooperation and a return to pre-war relations, even as the Kremlin escalates its t
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Ukraine reveals its first glide bomb — here's why that's a big deal
By Tania Myronyshena | May 18, 2026 5:49 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-develops-first-domestically-made-g
lide-bomb-minister-says/
Ukraine has developed its first domestically produced guided glide bomb, which is ready for combat use, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced on May 18.
The development is significant as glide bombs are a primitive yet highly destructive weapon widely used against front-line areas. Russia has continuously modified the bombs to increase their range and destructive power, turning them into one of the biggest threats to both Ukrainian troop positions and civilians near the front line.
According to Fedorov, the Ukrainian-made glide bomb carries a 250-kilogram warhead and took 17 months to develop. The Defense Ministry has already purchased an initial experimental batch, while pilots are currently rehearsing combat scenarios and adapting the weapon for use in real wartime conditions.
"This is not a copy of Western or Soviet solutions, but an original development by Ukrainian engineers designed to effectively strike fortifications, command posts, and other enemy targets dozens of kilometers behind the front line after launch," Fedorov said.
A glide bomb is a conventional air-dropped bomb fitted with wings and guidance systems, allowing it to travel long distances after being released by an aircraft instead of falling directly onto a target.
Up until now, Ukraine has relied on Western-supplied Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits to modify so-called dumb bombs into glide bombs.
Russia has relied heavily on glide bombs since 2023, using upgraded Soviet-era FAB bombs equipped with so-called Unified Gliding and Correction Modules (UMPK). The weapons are relatively cheap to produce compared to cruise or ballistic missiles, but have proven highly destructive against both front-line positions and Ukrainian cities.
Russian forces regularly use glide bombs weighing 250, 500, and 1,000 kilograms, while Moscow has also introduced the much larger FAB-3000 bomb with a 3,000-kilogram warhead.
The bombs have become a major threat to Ukrainian positions as they can be launched from outside the range of many air defense systems while delivering massive explosive payloads against bunkers, logistics hubs, bridges, and defensive positions.
Russia has also repeatedly used glide bombs against civilian areas, particularly in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
Fedorov said the new Ukrainian weapon reflects Kyiv's broader push to shift from importing individual weapons systems to developing its own high-tech military industry.
"Soon, Ukrainian glide bombs will be striking enemy targets," Fedorov said.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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2,000-km strike missile, designed in the Netherlands, tested in Ukraine, built in Germany: Rheinmetall and Destinus accelerate RUTA Block 3
Europe has largely lacked indigenous deep-strike missiles. This one is built to be mass-produced, not stockpiled in symbolic numbers.
By Olena Mukhina | May 18, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/18/2000-km-strike-missile-designed
-in-netherlands-tested-in-ukraine-built-in-germany-rheinmetall-and-destinus-accelerate-ruta-block-3/
Destinus and Germany's Rheinmetall have announced they are accelerating the development of a 2,000-kilometer strike missile to be tested in Ukraine. The companies say the RUTA Block 3 flight tests are planned for 2027.
Destinus and Rheinmetall are structuring Block 3 for industrial-scale production across three countries under European design control. It is a deliberate break from the small, expensive deep-strike stockpiles that European militaries have relied on, many of which are sourced from the US.
250-kg warhead
The Ruta Block 3 is planned to be equipped with a next-generation turbojet engine, an enlarged Destinus T220, and a 250 kg-class warhead.
The system will combine advanced autonomous navigation for environments with degraded GNSS signals with terminal sensing and guidance capabilities currently under development. It will also feature a standard ISO container launch architecture, enabling deployment on land, at sea, and from fixed platforms
Deep-strike class that European militaries have largely lacked
Block 3 is built for a 2,000-kilometer range, roughly four times that of the RUTA Block 2 now in flight testing, placing the family in a category European forces have mostly had to buy from Washington or do without, AeroTime reported.
Production chain is split across three countries
RUTA Block 1 is in serial production in the Netherlands, while Block 2, developed with Ukraine's state-backed Brave1 platform, is in flight tests in Ukraine and ramps up production in 2026, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
The Netherlands serves as design authority, Ukraine handles testing and key components, and Germany hosts the Rheinmetall Destinus Strike Systems joint venture — Rheinmetall 51%, Destinus 49% — at Unterlüß, with the first missiles expected before the end of 2026, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
The program is built around industrial scale, not exquisite numbers
The company said the program is designed to transition European long-range missiles from limited stockpiles to sustained industrial production, according to UNITED24 Media.
"Europe is entering a new defense era where the decisive factor is ... the ability to produce, replenish, and evolve at an industrial scale during prolonged high-intensity operations," said Mikhail Kokorich, CEO of Destinus.
RUTA Block 3 is "designed around that reality: sovereign European architecture, distributed industrial production, and the ability to scale rapidly across allied nations," he added.
The objective, he added, was "not to manufacture symbolic quantities of exquisite missiles, but to help establish a credible European long-range strike capability with real industrial depth."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Fuck Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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The two largest remaining Donbas cities are Slaviansk and Kramatorsk. They merge into each other on a north-south axis. This urban agglomeration is now enclosed in a semicircle, the Russian army within single-digit miles from the urban perimeter.
Meanwhile, the third, smaller city to their south, Konstantiovka, is about 50% taken.
It looks as if Russia is aiming at Kiev from the north. Having superior numbers, the Russian MOD can afford to switch their activity on or off anywhere along the entire front.
*****
It looks as if the EU sees defeat on the horizon, cranking up their drone production and having Ukraine send them deep into Russia. If the Baltic states panic enough, they'll openly allow Ukraine to use their airspace. If EU nations openly expand the war beyond the Ukrainian border, Russia has promised to strike EU decision -making centers.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Day after day, Russian warplanes pummel Ukrainian positions with as many as a hundred KAB glide bombs. The 40-km-range, satellite-guided bombs, some as heavy as three tons, are among the most devastating weapons in Russia's 51-month war on Ukraine—and a crucial factor in Russia's plans for a renewed push in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.
Russia rains thousands of glide bombs on Ukrainian troops every month. Ukraine gets a few dozen American- and French-made ones. A homemade bomb is Ukraine's only realistic way to start closing that gap.
There's a destructive disparity as Ukrainian drones lightly tap Russian supply lines while Russian glide bombs heavily smash Ukrainian supply lines. A steady supply of Ukrainian-made glide bombs could help close the middle-strike gap.
Ukraine is now preparing to bomb back with its own homemade glide bombs.
More at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/19/ukrainian-kab/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Is Ukraine about to repeat Hitler´s mistake with the London Blitz?
Is Ukraine about to adopt Russia´s playbook – bringing the war home by striking civilian infrastructure? The author argues that this would be a strategic mistake.
By Hans Petter Midttun | May 19, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/19/is-ukraine-about-to-repeat-hitl
ers-mistake-with-the-london-blitz/
In 2026 so far, Russia has launched 30,587 long-range strike drones — an increase of 172% over the same period last year. Ukraine downs about 90% of them. The remaining 10%, multiplied by an escalating launch rate, still translates into rising civilian casualties and accelerating destruction of energy, water, heating, hospitals, and schools.
The outlook is grim. Russia's ability to produce and launch long-range strike drones continues to grow, on top of an escalating campaign of missile strikes and guided glide bombs. In 2026 so far, missile strikes are up 190% over last year, according to Ukrainian Air Force daily reporting. Guided glide bomb strikes are up 173% — and their range is increasing too. Targeting predominantly civilian infrastructure, Russia's strike campaign amounts to war crimes — and it is escalating.
Kyiv now faces two questions: how long can it restrain itself from responding in kind? How will its western allies react if it does?
In August 1940, the Luftwaffe was about to win the Battle of Britain. RAF bases, radar stations, and aircraft factories were taking daily punishment. Nazi Germany was within reach of the air superiority it needed for an invasion.
Then a German bombing raid accidentally hit London. Britain retaliated with a symbolic raid on Berlin. Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring — furious — ordered the Luftwaffe to abandon the RAF and bomb British cities instead. The Blitz began.
That decision relieved the pressure on Britain's air defense network. The RAF used the reprieve to repair airfields, restore radar, regroup fighter squadrons. Historians widely view Hitler's pivot as the moment Germany lost any realistic chance of invading Britain.
That lesson is becoming relevant again.
On 10 May, Zelenskyy said Ukraine would now respond in kind to Russia's actions. "If the Russians decide to return to full-scale warfare, our 'sanctions' [meaning missile and drone strikes] for this will be immediate and tangible," he said.
On 14 May, a red line was crossed. At a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Zelenskyy instructed Ukraine's defense forces and special services to identify possible formats for response to the continuous Russian strikes. "I instructed the defence forces of Ukraine and the special services to propose possible formats for our response to this Russian attack."
The phrasing signals a possible shift in strategy. Hypothetically, it could mean adopting Russia's playbook — bringing the war home to Russia by striking civilian infrastructure: residential heating, water plants, civilian railways, civilian airports.
I understand the impulse. I share it. I am still going to argue against it.
Ukraine's deep-strike campaign — against Russian oil refineries, military airfields, ammunition depots, and drone factories — is the most effective instrument Kyiv has against the Kremlin's war economy. Strike capacity is finite. Diverting it to hit Russian apartment buildings and heating plants would force Ukraine to scale back the strikes that are bleeding Russian gas and oil revenue — the same strikes that are constraining the Kremlin's ability to fund its war.
The second cost compounds the first. If Ukraine begins copying Russia's war crimes, the international support that underwrites its resilience will erode — and with it, the flow of weapons, ammunition, and defense industrial backing that lets Ukraine absorb the strikes in the first place. The moral argument is also a strategic one. Both end in the same place: l
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The two largest remaining Donbas cities are Slaviansk and Kramatorsk. They merge into each other on a north-south axis. This urban agglomeration is now enclosed in a semicircle, the Russian army within single-digit miles from the urban perimeter.
Meanwhile, the third, smaller city to their south, Konstantiovka, is about 50% taken.
It looks as if Russia is aiming at Kiev from the north. Having superior numbers, the Russian MOD can afford to switch their activity on or off anywhere along the entire front.
*****
It looks as if the EU sees defeat on the horizon, cranking up their drone production and having Ukraine send them deep into Russia. If the Baltic states panic enough, they'll openly allow Ukraine to use their airspace. If EU nations openly expand the war beyond the Ukrainian border, Russia has promised to strike EU decision -making centers.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Funny comrade, funny.
T
RUSSIAN DEPUTIES DEMAND PUTIN TO END WAR Vlog 1414: War in Ukraine
Russians Admitted a Total Disaster on Frontlines. Ukraine has an Advantage
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Russia prepares the ground for Baltic aggression as its spy agency threatens Latvian “decision-making centers”
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on 18 May that Ukrainian forces are preparing to launch drone strikes against Russia directly from Latvian territory, stating that Ukrainian drone operators have "already deployed to Latvian military bases."
The SVR went further, heavily implying that Russia intends to strike the claimed Ukrainian drone launch points — specifically identified as Latvian military bases — as well as "Latvian decision-making centers," in response to any strikes it attributes to Ukrainian forces operating from Latvian soil.
Latvian authorities have repeatedly denied Russian accusations that Latvia allowed Ukraine to use their airspace or territory to launch strikes against Russia.
Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/20/isw-russia-prepares-the-ground-
for-baltic-aggression-as-its-spy-agency-threatens-latvian-decision-making-centers/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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A sitting member of Russia’s State Duma said the country’s economy will crash if the Russo–Ukrainian war continues for much longer, in comments published on May 19.
Renat Suleymanov (CPRF) told regional news site Continent Sibir that “it is perfectly obvious that the economy cannot survive a prolonged continuation of the SMO [Special Military operation, Kremlin’s preferred term for the invasion of Ukraine].”
“Officially, 40% of the federal budget is defense and security,” he said.
“What development, investment or capital spending can you talk about? Tanks and shells have no consumer value: the economy produces them, but they cannot be consumed by the population.”
Suleymanov said defense spending supports jobs and wages in defense industries and acts as a driver of employment, but it also fuels inflation and forces cuts in social and investment programs.
He said an end to the war is “simply necessary,” noting it has already lasted longer than the Soviet participation in WWII. He also warned that merely trimming military spending would not solve the problem.
“Adopting a budget that reduces military expenditures is not the hardest part,” said Suleymanov.
“What will happen to the people employed in defense? To those now under arms? One million people will return to civilian life. Where are the jobs, decent pay, social adaptation?”
Independent outlet Agentstvo.Novosti noted it was likely the first such statement by a State Duma member, and that it comes amid a noticeable shift in political rhetoric ahead of autumn parliamentary elections.
https://english.nv.ua/russian-war/russian-economy-can-t-sustain-war-fo
r-much-longer-50609319.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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War Spending Pushes Russia’s Classified Budget Outlays to Post-Soviet High, Study Finds
The Moscow Times | May 20, 2026
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/20/war-spending-pushes-russias-
classified-budget-outlays-to-post-soviet-high-study-finds-a92798
Russia’s rapidly expanding war spending is driving a sharp rise in secret federal budget expenditures, with nearly one-third of all state spending now hidden from public view, according to estimates by the Gaidar Institute.
The share of classified spending in Russia’s federal budget rose to 28.6% in 2025 from 24.9% in 2024 and nearly doubled from 15.1% in 2021, the last full year before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, the institute said in a budget review.
Russia has not published detailed federal budget expenditure data since 2022, forcing analysts to reconstruct spending patterns using partial information from multiple sources.
The Gaidar Institute cautioned that its calculations were based on “fragmentary information available from different sources” because budget expenditure data has not been fully disclosed since the start of the war.
Based on the institute’s estimates, classified spending reached 12.3 trillion rubles ($172.2 billion) out of total federal expenditures of 42.9 trillion rubles ($600.6 billion) in 2025.
Open spending amounted to 30.6 trillion rubles ($428.4 billion), roughly 1 trillion rubles ($14 billion) less than the amount listed in draft legislation on the implementation of the 2025 budget. Official documents disclosed spending of only 31.6 trillion rubles ($442.4 billion), with the remainder omitted because it was designated secret or top secret.
Russia had already surpassed its prewar record for classified expenditures in 2023, when secret spending reached 22.6% of the budget.
Before that, the highest share had been 21.7% in 2016, when the government moved to repay loans to defense companies backed by state guarantees ahead of schedule.
The institute said spending under the “national defense” category remained the main driver behind the increase in secret expenditures in 2025, accounting for more than one-third of all federal spending.
It also said some expenditures had been shifted from the open to the classified portion of the budget, particularly social policy spending.
Open social policy expenditures fell to 6.5 trillion rubles ($91 billion) from 8.4 trillion rubles ($117.6 billion), a decline of 26.6% in inflation-adjusted terms.
Combined with what the institute described as “optimization” of spending on healthcare, education, the economy and inter-budget transfers, this left open spending largely unchanged in nominal terms at 30.6 trillion rubles ($428.4 billion) in 2025 versus 30.2 trillion rubles ($422.8 billion) in 2024.
Adjusted for inflation, however, that amounted to a reduction of 3.8%, or 0.4 percentage points of gross domestic product.
Among the 13 categories of open expenditures, excluding debt servicing, inflation-adjusted spending fell in eight sectors, including defense.
Spending on the economy and inter-budget transfers dropped 8%, while the largest increases were recorded in “general state issues” at 42%, housing and utilities at 24%, and healthcare at 7%.
The Gaidar Institute warned that budget pressures were becoming increasingly difficult to sustain and called for tighter spending discipline.
“Risks of chronic budget imbalances from year to year are clearly increasing,” it said, adding that expenditures should be brought into line with Russia’s revenue-generating capacity.
Read this article in Russian at The Moscow Times' Russian service.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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10,166 posts.
80% are crap.
No wonder fff.net is choking!
SECOND, how can your bot be so unerringly wrong?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:I am wondering. Signym, what do you think is happening in Ukraine to Russia? Winning? On a path to Russia's prosperity and peace?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
10,166 posts.
80% are crap.
No wonder fff.net is choking!
SECOND, how can your bot be so unerringly wrong?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
I think Russians are wasting their lives. Kind of like 6ixStringJoker wasting his life.
In the not-too-distant future, Russia is gonna be sorrowful for electing Putin as the leader. Meanwhile, Ukraine resists because surrender is death. What hardships it faces are preferable to becoming Russian property again. And Eastern Europe knows Russia, after decades of temporarily being Russian property, which is why some of the EU continues to support Ukraine. Obviously, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of the EU would prefer to drink wine and forget Russia's violent past, where it killed tens of millions for no better reason than the dead were in the way of the glorious plans made by leaders such as Stalin and Putin.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-population/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russians Fear Ukraine ‘Slaughterbot’ Drones Are Head-Hunting Them
By David Hambling | May 19, 2026, 11:41am EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2026/05/19/slaughterbots-no
w-ukraines-head-hunting-drones-terrify-russians/
Russian military bloggers are warning of a new type of Ukrainian FPV drone with thermal imaging and AI, which detects the target’s face and fires a high-velocity projectile at them. A video shows a Russian soldier cut down with what look like a precise headshot from one such drone. A further video confirms the kill. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/2056316815832170717
It is impossible to validate the claim, but this looks like a plausible evolutionary step. Ukraine aims to produce some 7 million FPVs this year. With AI guidance and suitable warheads they could inflict unprecedented casualties on Russian foot soldiers.
Kill Mechanism: Explosively Formed Projectile
FPVs are typically armed with armor-piercing shaped charges, typically repurposed RPG warheads, or fragmentation warheads. Both of these detonate on impact; the warhead in the video looks like something different. It is detonated around 20 meters from the targets, with a projectile leaving a trail of smoke from the point of the explosion to the impact point.
This is characteristic of an Explosively Formed Projectile or EFP. In a typical shaped charge, the blast from a hollow cone of explosive lines with metal converts the metal liner into a high-speed armor-piercing jet. In an EFP, a heavier metal liner is converted into an aerodynamic slug.
EPPs are less efficient at punching holes in armor, but have a greater range, while a typical shaped charge needs to be set off within a meter of the target. EPFs have ranges of tens or even hundreds of meters.
One of the most commonly seen EFP in the current conflict is the BONUS 155mm artillery round used by Ukraine, made by Bofors of Sweden and Nexter of France and supplied to Ukraine. The round ejects two submunitions above the target area which scan for targets and, if they locate one, aim and detonate, firing an EFP at it. A video from July 2022 shows a BONUS round destroying a Russian tank. Some small anti-tank mines also fire EFPs.
Drones with EFP warheads are an obvious countermeasure to netting, wire cages and other forms of protection, including “turtle tanks” as the drone can attack from some distance and the slug will go right through such protection. However, this type of warhead needs to be aimed and detonated at the right moment, which requires a higher level of operator skill.
Using EFP as an antipersonnel round is more challenging. Ukraine has previously used FPVs with Claymore-type warheads spraying shrapnel forward over a wide arc. These are not widely seen, possibly because of the skill needed to use them properly. As well as being detonated at the right distance, an EFP needs to be aimed even more exactly, or it is useless. That’s a tall order, unless the operator has some AI assistance.
AI Headhunting
Back in the innocent days of 2018, YouTuber Michael Reeves made a funny video about his efforts to create a swarm of quadcopters to home in on a target’s face. Facial detection software ensures that cameras focus on the right point in an image. Reeves had the idea of combining face detection software with a simple autopilot to make a bargain-basement autonomous attack drone that sought out and crashed into heads. After a few false starts, he succeeded, and his video racked up millions of views.
Fast forward to 2026 and similar quadcopters are everywhere in Ukraine. Many now have AI capability, thanks to companies like Auterion and The Fourth Law, who produced add-on modules that will convert any small drone into a smart munition with terminal guidance to lock on to a target and pursue it. So far, these autonomy systems have been used to improve the hit rate against vehicles, by allowing them to operate even under intense jamming which breaks the link with the operator. Some makers claim that AI-enabled FPVs have a
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I am wondering. Signym, what do you think is happening in Ukraine to Russia? Winning? On a path to Russia's prosperity and peace?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
10,166 posts.
80% are crap.
No wonder fff.net is choking!
SECOND, how can your bot be so unerringly wrong?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
I think Russians are wasting their lives. Kind of like 6ixStringJoker wasting his life.
In the not-too-distant future, Russia is gonna be sorrowful for electing Putin as the leader. Meanwhile, Ukraine resists because surrender is death. What hardships it faces are preferable to becoming Russian property again. And Eastern Europe knows Russia, after decades of temporarily being Russian property, which is why some of the EU continues to support Ukraine. Obviously, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of the EU would prefer to drink wine and forget Russia's violent past, where it killed tens of millions for no better reason than the dead were in the way of the glorious plans made by leaders such as Stalin and Putin.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-population/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Another point is that by reading comrade signyms’ posts, it becomes obvious she wants Putin, i.e. Russia, to win. Why, Ukraine is not a part of Russia so why does she always post Putins’ propaganda?
T
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Quote:Signym's father was a prisoner of the Russians. He absorbed Russian propaganda about their superiority to Western Europeans and passed it on to his daughter. When the father did NOT prosper as highly in the US as the family felt they deserved, the daughter became bitter at the US.
Originally posted by THG:
Another point is that by reading comrade signyms’ posts, it becomes obvious she wants Putin, i.e. Russia, to win. Why, Ukraine is not a part of Russia so why does she always post Putins’ propaganda?
T
6ixStringJoker has a slightly different motivation. He is angry, poor white trash who feels like he has not prospered as highly as he deserves. He is bitter that money was spent on ammo for Ukraine instead of being spent on him.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I’m the Foreign Minister of Sweden. Don’t Overestimate Russia.
May 20, 2026
By Maria Malmer Stenergard
Ms. Stenergard is Sweden’s minister for foreign affairs. She wrote from Stockholm.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/opinion/sweden-intelligence-russia-
economy.html
The war in the Middle East may be consuming much of the world’s attention, but Russia’s war against Ukraine has not abated. It will not end until we make it cost President Vladimir Putin more than he believes it is worth.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, the Kremlin has tried to make the world believe that the Russian economy is strong and that sanctions don’t work. The Swedish government disagrees, and has commissioned several studies by leading economists and intelligence services to uncover the truth behind Russia’s official statistics: The economy is more fragile than it appears.
Having an accurate picture of the state of the Russian economy is crucial. We can’t afford to underestimate Russia’s strength and its ability to harm Ukraine and NATO allies — by providing Iran with intelligence, for instance — but we must not overestimate it either.
There are several reasons to believe that Russia has been exaggerating its economic strength. Russia has claimed that its economy grew by around 13 percent between 2020 and 2024, but by measuring nighttime luminosity, an established way of assessing economic activity in countries where official statistics are not available or cannot be trusted, we have estimated that the economy actually contracted by around 8 percent during this period.
We also believe inflation is substantially understated. In 2024, when inflation in Russia was reportedly around 10 percent, the central bank raised the benchmark interest rate to 21 percent, suggesting that inflation was higher. And Sweden’s Military Intelligence and Security Service believes that it is higher than the current official forecast of around 5 percent. This would mean Russia is overstating its purchasing power, and that its military spending capacity is weaker than it appears.
A study published by the British government estimates that the overall losses to the Russian economy as a result of international sanctions amount to at least $450 billion since February 2022. The effect on sectors such as energy exports has been devastating: Russia’s energy revenues in January 2026, before the beginning of the war in Iran, were down by 50 percent from the same month the year before.
Russia is benefiting from the waiving of some sanctions because of the war in Iran and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but Swedish intelligence estimates that Russia would need the average oil price for Urals oil to remain above $100 a barrel for the rest of the year to make a significant difference. The benefits to Russia have also been limited by Ukraine’s successful strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Not everyone agrees with Sweden’s assessment of Russia’s reporting on its economy, but there is growing agreement about the economy’s general fragility. Inside the country, elites are increasingly alarmed. Mr. Putin has acknowledged some weaknesses in the economy’s performance, and last month ordered officials to improve it. A Kremlin-friendly think tank, run by the brother of the Russian defense minister, recently warned of the risks of a systemic banking crisis this year. And last week, the economic growth forecast for 2026 was downgraded to 0.4 percent, despite rising oil prices.
Then there are Russia’s strategic failures in Ukraine. Advances at the front have almost ground to a halt, with Ukraine even regaining some territory. Russia’s casualty rates at the front are catastrophic. Russia has suffered 1.2 million casualties since the start of the invasion, by some estimates, an average of roughly 35,000 a month in 2025. Recruitment is increasingly expensive.
Ukraine is in a stronger position than it has been in a long time. It has given counterdrone assist
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Unexpected Words from Ukraine: We Have an Overproduction of Drones
A chat with the Ukrainian ambassador to Poland reveals that the government in Kyiv now finds itself with more drones than it needs in certain areas.
By Jim Geraghty
May 20, 2026 10:20 AM
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/unexpected-words-from-
ukraine-we-have-an-overproduction-of-drones/
Warsaw, Poland — For a man representing a country still fighting off a full-scale invasion for the fifth year, Vasyl Bodnar, Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, can find promising signs of a transformed landscape in the war. With the U.S. war against Iran demonstrating the terror that Shahed drones can inflict upon civilian populations, suddenly every country on earth wants to build its own anti-drone defenses, and fast. And no country has spent more time fighting off drone attacks than Ukraine, and no country has more expertise, experience, production lines . . . or, believe it or not, more extra drones lying around.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last year that Ukraine was pursuing joint weapons production agreements with Canada, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, and the United Kingdom. In April, Ukraine signed ten-year defense export agreements with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. As mentioned yesterday, Poland is trading nine decommissioned MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine in exchange for some unspecified assistance with drone technology.
And now:
Kyiv has said that the US is seeking the transfer of technology and access to intellectual property rights from Ukraine as part of a drone deal that is awaiting approval at the highest political level, a person familiar with the matter said.
The US Department of Defense has asked to test a range of Ukrainian defense products, including drones and electronic warfare systems, as Washington is considering their potential purchase for military use, the official said. The agreement has not been finalized, the person added, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.
Growing interest from the US shows how the world’s largest military is looking to tap into the drone expertise that Ukraine has acquired over four years fighting against the Russian invasion. Through a combination of new technology and tactics, Kyiv’s forces have been able to strike deep into Russia territory, to slow and in some cases even reverse battlefield gains by Moscow’s bigger army, and to inflict significant damage on oil facilities that help finance the Kremlin’s war machine.
(Hey, do you remember a bit more than a year ago, someone loudly insisting that Ukraine didn’t have any cards?)
“In the beginning of the war, we were asking for everything, because we were lacking everything,” Bodnar recalled. “We were traditionally, a peaceful country who had nothing to fight with. . . . Here at the embassy, we have an officer of the border guard who had been in the surroundings of the city of Sumy fighting for a couple of weeks without [enough] ammunition, without any supplies, just like a partisan group. They organized attacks on the Russians, and were fighting, even without any orders.”
That early desperation prompted a lot of Ukrainians in and out of uniform to start experimenting with off-the-shelf, commercially available recreational drones and jury-rigging them to drop grenades on Russian positions. “It was a completely new, an unbureaucratic approach,” Bodnar said. “Businesses that yesterday had been creating kitchens, cooking things, started making drones. They started from small innovations, which are now widely used on the front line.”
Ukraine was one of the scientific, engineering, and manufacturing cornerstones of the old Soviet Union; during one stretch, Ukraine was producing around half of all the USSR’s tanks and missiles. Even for the generation after the Cold War, the country churned out about 130,000 engineering graduates annually, which adds up to a lot of highly motivated engineering minds thinking up new ways to fly ove
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Putin threatens Armenia
May 20, 2026
Given Armenia’s extensive trade with Russia, Putin went on, the issue of EU membership really ought to be put to a referendum. And anyway, he added, remember “everything that’s happening on the Ukrainian track”? Remember how it all started? That’s right, with “Ukraine joining, or trying to join, the EU.” And look what happened next! “A coup, the Crimea incident, the positioning of southeastern Ukraine, and the military action—that’s where it all led.” Of course, Putin was blaming Western malfeasance, but the coded threat to Armenia was still transparent: Nice little country you got there. Shame if it got reduced to rubble.
Other high-level Russian officials, from Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin to foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, have followed up with even more belligerent messages in recent days: charges that Armenia is being “subjugated” by the West and force-fed “liberal values,” warnings that the country is in danger of losing its sovereignty and its spiritual foundations, and personal attacks on Pashinyan himself. Meanwhile, Russian authorities have, by total coincidence, found dangerous pests or harmful chemicals in imported Armenian fruit, vegetables, dairy products, cognac, and flowers. And Kremlin bots in Armenian internet spaces have been busy spreading anti-Pashinyan fakes from their familiar dog-eared playbook: allegations of corruption, rumors about grave health problems, or dire warnings of warmongering plans for confrontation with Russia.
More at https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-empire-putin-tried-to-rebuild-armenia
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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It is nice to see the uppermost echelon in Ukraine has finally figured out that war is a 24/7 3-shift factory rather than an episode of Firefly ( adventure | drama | action | heroics | run the credits at the end )
Ukraine is developing low-cost interceptor missiles for Russian Shahed-type drones, Fedorov says
By Kateryna Hodunova | May 21, 2026 2:29 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-developing-low-cost-missiles-to-in
tercept-russian-shahed-type-drones-fedorov-says/
Ukraine is developing low-cost interceptor missiles to counter Russian Shahed-type drones, with prototypes already undergoing testing, Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told journalists at a closed-door press briefing on May 16.
"We have already identified solutions that are nearly ready and have begun testing them," Fedorov said.
The Iranian-made Shahed is one of Russia's main long-range strike systems used against targets in Ukraine. First deployed in 2022, it was later produced domestically by Russia, which developed its own variant, the Geran.
Fedorov added that Ukraine plans to increase production of the missiles "tenfold" and build up additional stockpiles for the fall and winter season, following this winter's Russian strikes on energy infrastructure that caused widespread power outages and left many areas without heating during periods of severe cold.
The minister said the steps are necessary to counter Russia's expanded use of Shahed-type jet-powered drones, which can reach speeds of up to 600 km/h. Such kamikaze drones were first recorded in Ukraine in early 2024.
Over the past four months, Ukraine has doubled its rate of downing Shahed-type drones, even as Russian attacks have increased by 35%, Fedorov said. The minister added that interceptor drone supplies have also grown 2.6-fold, with a strategic goal of achieving a 95% aerial interception rate.
"The introduction of the after-action review played a significant role in this process. This is a standard NATO procedure for conducting a detailed analysis of combat operations after they have concluded," Fedorov said.
"For us, it has become one of the key elements in building a modern air defense system."
Fedorov also said the number of private air defense units protecting businesses has increased to 27 in Ukraine, with requests to create additional units growing each week.
Fedorov added that the Defense Ministry has three main near-term priorities, including revising recruitment and service terms in the Ukrainian army, shifting to competitive defense procurement, and implementing a basic guaranteed minimum supply of drones to brigades.
However, the minister did not give a timeframe for the planned changes. The recruitment and service reforms would reportedly cover fair pay, clear terms of service, unit staffing, and efforts to reduce AWOL cases.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on May 1 that a reform of the Ukrainian military's pay system for soldiers, sergeants, and commanders is set to begin in June. Under the new system, personnel in non-combat roles would receive at least Hr 30,000 ($680) per month, while infantry soldiers would be paid between Hr 250,000 ($5,645) and Hr 400,000 ($9,000) depending on their combat duties.
Zelensky also said changes will be made to the way units are staffed to introduce fixed terms of service and begin the gradual discharge of personnel who have served since 2022 and earlier.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said in an interview with Militarnyi published on May 20 that the Ukrainian military is considering introducing new contract terms of six to 10 months for personnel who have served for an extended period.
Syrskyi added that Ukraine has the capacity to conduct rotations for troops who have been in the combat zone for a long time.
"We have calculated everything — the number of personnel stationed in brigades on average at their positions and the number of personnel deployed to the area
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Ukraine aims to inflict 200 Russian casualties per square kilometer of advance, Fedorov says
By Kateryna Hodunova | May 21, 2026 5:35 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-aims-for-200-russian-personnel-cas
ualties-per-square-kilometer-of-advance-fedorov-says/
Ukraine's strategic objective is to impose up to 200 casualties among Russian military personnel for every square kilometer of advance, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on May 16 at a closed-door press briefing.
The statement comes amid reports that earlier this year Ukraine briefly seized the initiative on the front lines, retaking more territory than it lost to Russian forces for the first time in about 10 months.
While Russia lost 67 soldiers per square kilometer of advance in October, that figure rose to 165 in January, 244 in February, 254 in March, and 179 in April, according to Fedorov.
"The situation on the ground confirms that Ukraine has succeeded in significantly slowing the enemy's advance and is gradually regaining the initiative," Fedorov said.
"At the same time, we are stepping up offensive operations and liberating territory."
Russia lost 35,203 military personnel — killed and wounded — in April 2026. In March, the figure was 35,351, and in December 2025, it was 34,544, Fedorov said, pointing to an increase in Russian casualties.
"Today, every kilometer the enemy advances comes at a disproportionately high cost in terms of casualties," the minister added.
Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on May 20 that since the beginning of 2026, Russia has lost 141,500 military personnel, of whom more than 83,000 were killed.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 10 that "out of 100% of losses, 62% are killed and 38% wounded" among Russian forces, citing intelligence assessments reviewed by Ukraine — a ratio of nearly 2:1.
Syrskyi's latest figures show a slightly lower split: 58% killed, 42% wounded.
Ukraine's General Staff has not revealed its own losses during the full-scale invasion, citing operational secrecy.
A January 2026 CSIS report said Ukraine has likely suffered between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties from February 2022 to December 2025, of which between 100,000 and 140,000 are thought to be killed in action (KIA). https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine aims to inflict 200 Russian casualties per square kilometer of advance, Fedorov says
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"- Mike Tyson
*****
Oh, BTW SECOND, you're as misdirected about my motives as THGR is.
Yanno what formed my politics (besides Pope John XXIII's version of Catholicism)?
Like you, it was the Vietnam war.
But instead of jumping in with both feet, like you did, I became very anti-war.
I see the USA as a great source of misery and destruction across the globe, so unworthy of us.
Stop posting shit about which you know nothing.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Clearing Russian mines will take decades
By Peeter Helme | May 20, 2026
https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/20/ukraine-demining-bezkaravainyi-
11-billion/
The annual economic losses from contaminated land are around $11 billion. Around $9 billion of that is lost exports, and roughly $1.1 billion is lost local tax revenue. About 57,900 km² of agricultural land has been affected, which is approximately 40% of the 133,300 km² of national territory affected by the war.
Kharkiv Oblast alone accounts for roughly 475 km² of confirmed or suspected hazardous agricultural land. That is about 59% of all such areas in Ukraine. Mykolaiv has around 205 km², and Kherson around 111 km².
Peeter: Tell me about the compensation program for farmers. How does it actually function?
Bezkaravainyi: It started from a number we refused to accept. A few years ago, a widely cited report, I believe Time picked it up, suggested Ukraine would need 700 years to be demined. We were not satisfied with that, so we started thinking about what we could change.
The bottleneck was simple. We had farmers who needed clearance, and Ukrainian companies ready to provide it. The missing piece was payment, because farmers do not have those resources. So we built a state program that pays for the service when a farmer applies.
A farmer applies through the state agrarian register. We filter for farmers who are officially registered in the area, pay taxes, and have no record of cooperation with the Russian Federation. Then we assess what the clearance will require—what kind of ordnance is likely on the site, how active the area was during combat. Operators bid for the contract, and competition drives prices down.
More than 15,500 hectares have already been cleared and returned to farmers under the program. The average cost is around UAH 60,000 per hectare ($1,360). The state has allocated UAH 2 billion ($45 million) this year within the Ukraine Facility framework.
The costs have risen. Prices are about 30% higher now than two years ago, partly because of broader economic shifts and partly because the tasks themselves have become harder.
When we started, we worked on the easiest cases first—fields with a few craters and a destroyed tank or two. As we move to fields with trenches, combined minefields, and cluster munitions contamination, the work becomes much more demanding. War is not cheap. The result of war is not cheap either.
One thing the program keeps surfacing is older history. In the past year, companies clearing agricultural land have found Second World War ordnance on three different sites. Two weeks before this interview, an operator clearing a field in Kharkiv Oblast uncovered a large Second World War air bomb two meters underground. We came to clear after a modern war, and we kept finding the previous one.
The First World War left France with the Zone Rouge, territory deemed too dangerous to ever return to productive use. We can compare it to Chornobyl. To Fukushima. It is our assessment that something similar will happen in Ukraine on a large scale: areas where we will never operate safely. We do not have full evidence yet, but the trajectory points that way.
Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/20/ukraine-demining-bezkaravainyi-
11-billion/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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‘Whoever Controls Mala Tokmachka Controls the World’: How the Battle for a Ukrainian Village Became a Meme
By Anna Snegireva | May 21, 2026
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/21/whoever-controls-mala-tokmac
hka-controls-the-world-how-the-battle-for-a-ukrainian-village-became-a-meme-a92734
Mala Tokmachka has been mentioned so often in Russian military reports and pro-war Telegram channels lately that it has started to sound as though it were the key to victory in the entire war.
The long-running battle for this small Ukrainian village in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region — and Moscow’s repeated claims of progress and victory there — has now become an unexpected meme.
It all started when a video compilation of pro-Kremlin military commentator Boris Rozhin’s repeated comments over the past year that Russian forces were “continuing to press” near the village went viral on the Russian internet.
Russia’s Defense Ministry first claimed control of the village in March 2022, during the opening phase of its full-scale invasion. By that summer, reports said Ukrainian troops had returned to the area.
From then on, Mala Tokmachka became a regular feature in Russian military updates, with the Defense Ministry and war correspondents alike repeatedly reporting strikes on Ukrainian positions there.
In May 2024, the Defense Ministry even staged an exhibition showcasing what it described as Ukrainian military “trophies” captured there.
In 2025, Russian military briefings reported that troops had begun direct combat operations in and around the village itself.
Then, in November, the Defense Ministry announced what it described as the village’s “liberation” for the second time since the start of the war. Defense Minister Andrei Belousov congratulated Russia’s 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division and called the capture “a major step toward victory.”
Yet by 2026, Russian officials and military commentators quietly dropped references to the village being under Russian control.
The back-and-forth has inspired an outpouring of memes in both Ukraine and Russia.
“Expectation: Kyiv in three days. Reality: spending an entire year ‘continuing to press’ near Mala Tokmachka,” Ukrainian journalist Denis Kazansky wrote on social media, referring to the Rozhin compilation video.
“If not for Mala Tokmachka, they’d already be in Berlin by now!” joked the Ukrainian Telegram channel Zabor Zaporizhzhia.
The jokes soon spread into Russia’s own nationalist and pro-war online circles, where some users used the village as shorthand for what they saw as exaggerated official narratives of battlefield success.
“It’s hilarious and depressing at the same time,” wrote Russian military Telegram channel, Reporter Filatov. “I get the need for propaganda. Back in the Soviet Union, under ‘wild and merciless censorship,’ they would simply say ‘local battles,’ even when there was a slaughter going on. But they didn’t spend a year and a half [in 1944-45] storming some random granny village. Stalin’s army knew how to wage both war and propaganda.”
In comment sections under pro-war Telegram channels, users voice frustration and fatigue with what they see as endless declarations of progress without decisive results.
Much more at https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/21/whoever-controls-mala-tokmac
hka-controls-the-world-how-the-battle-for-a-ukrainian-village-became-a-meme-a92734
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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"Every third sortie results in a hit": How the 412th Nemesis brigade destroys Russian air defence with mid-range drones
By Bohdan Miroshnychenko and Iryna Lutsak | 21 May 2026, 12:50
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2026/05/21/8035736/
Over the past year, Ukrainian mid-range drones have conducted reconnaissance and destroyed targets up to 200 kilometres away, potentially disrupting logistics, slowing down offensives and thinning out surface-to-air missile systems, opening the way to the enemy's oil infrastructure.
Pavlo Laktionov, deputy commander of the 412th Nemesis Brigade, told Ukrainska Pravda how these drones are developing:
Why cannot Russian air defence protect itself from drones?
Soviet-designed radars are not well suited to shooting down small aircraft with composite air frames. Russian surface-to-air missile systems do shoot down our drones quite often, using up missiles in the process, but we fly at low altitudes, making the assets less visible to radar. Some of their missiles have a minimum altitude for interception, and we fly below it.
Overall, the small size of the aircraft, the right tactics, the dispersal of air defence systems and the depletion of their missile stocks give us a significant advantage. But Russian interceptor drones are causing us serious problems. Ukrainian manufacturers should already be thinking about developing countermeasures.
How effective are your strikes at the moment?
In our case, roughly every third sortie ends in an effective hit. There is a difference between "hit" and "destroyed". "Hit" means the target has been damaged and may be repaired. "Destroyed" means it no longer can be. So effectiveness is not just about whether the asset hits the target.
Much more at https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2026/05/21/8035736/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Zelenskyy confirmed asking for "ammunition, not a ride." Four years ago, I got pushback for reporting that.
By James LaPorta | May 21, 2026 4:54 PM EDT
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zelenskyy-i-need-ammunition-not-a-ride-wh
ite-house/
Zelenskyy's reply: "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." The story and the quote were verbatim accurate in the English translation — in Ukrainian, it's "I need a weapon, not a taxi."
In a speech marking four years since the full-scale Russian invasion had begun, the embattled president recounted that as Russian forces were closing in, the U.S. offered to evacuate him. That line was his response. Zelenskyy told Ukrainians he had said it "not because we are all fearless or made of steel…but [that] on some invisible level, all of us know that we have no other Ukraine, that this is our home."
The Washington Post fact-checked the quote in March 2022 and reported that Biden administration officials expressed confusion about the claim and denied Zelenskyy was asked to leave Kyiv by the U.S. government. The Post quoted me: "I can understand why they have been denying it. It makes them look bad."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Vladimir Putin wants to conclude the war against Ukraine by the end of this year, but only on terms he considers "victorious," Bloomberg reported on May 22.
According to an anonymous source who spoke to the publication, these conditions include the complete capture of Donbas and a broad security agreement with Europe that effectively recognizes Russia's "territorial acquisitions."
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that Putin set any deadline.
https://english.nv.ua/nation/facing-drone-strikes-and-elite-panic-puti
n-aims-to-end-the-war-by-late-2026-50610106.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine aims to inflict 200 Russian casualties per square kilometer of advance, Fedorov says
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"- Mike Tyson
*****
Oh, BTW SECOND, you're as misdirected about my motives as THGR is.
Yanno what formed my politics (besides Pope John XXIII's version of Catholicism)?
Like you, it was the Vietnam war.
But instead of jumping in with both feet, like you did, I became very anti-war.
I see the USA as a great source of misery and destruction across the globe, so unworthy of us.
Stop posting shit about which you know nothing.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Funny comrade. There are decades of posts by other browncoats accusing you of being a Russian propagandist. We have decades of posts by you and kiki defending Putin’s wrongs globally. He does something subhuman and you are right there supporting him or denying he did it altogether.
Like his kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. You said he did it to save them; bullshit. Or gassing civilians in Syria, women and children. And intentionally destroying hospitals; one after the other there and in Ukraine. You comrade like Putin, are a pig.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60521&p=1#1
244047
T
Update from Ukraine | This is Huge! Ukraine Strikes Russian FSB Base in Crimea
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine aims to inflict 200 Russian casualties per square kilometer of advance, Fedorov says
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"- Mike Tyson
*****
Oh, BTW SECOND, you're as misdirected about my motives as THGR is.
Yanno what formed my politics (besides Pope John XXIII's version of Catholicism)?
Like you, it was the Vietnam war.
But instead of jumping in with both feet, like you did, I became very anti-war.
I see the USA as a great source of misery and destruction across the globe, so unworthy of us.
Stop posting shit about which you know nothing.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Funny comrade. There are decades of posts by other browncoats accusing you of being a Russian propagandist. We have decades of posts by you and kiki defending Putin’s wrongs globally. He does something subhuman and you are right there supporting him or denying he did it altogether.
Like his kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. You said he did it to save them; bullshit. Or gassing civilians in Syria, women and children. And intentionally destroying hospitals; one after the other there and in Ukraine. You comrade like Putin, are a pig.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60521&p=1#1
244047
Signym's Catholism is NOT real. The Pope is a real Catholic and does not support Russia, unlike Signym. Pope: ‘War of aggression against Ukraine is inhuman and sacrilegious.’
Pope Francis calls the war in Ukraine an act of violent aggression and a sacrilege without justification, and appeals for an end to the violence and long-term welcome of Ukrainian refugees. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-03/pope-francis-ukraine-w
ar-inhuman-sacrilegious.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russian officials privately admit Putin’s system has no future
May 22, 2026, 09:20 AM
https://english.nv.ua/russian-war/russian-officials-privately-admit-pu
tin-system-has-no-future-verstka-50610201.html
Russian officials are moving their children abroad, fearing criminal cases and worrying they could lose their jobs under a future government, with some privately admitting that Vladimir Putin’s system has no future, Russian outlet Verstka reported on May 22.
The original article being summarized by the Ukrainians was written in Russian. Could it be mistranslated? Here it is:
"The jackals have flocked to the taste of blood": How the Russian elites are living in anticipation of the end of the war and the crisis of power
Officials are taking their children abroad, fearing criminal charges and job losses under the next government.
https://btvrwdbs---fuvomvkb-vaa6o7gpmq-ez.a.run.app/kak-rossiiskie-eli
ty-zhivut-v-ozhidanii-koncza-voiny-i-krizisa-vlasti
The google translation continues: "The fact that the system has no future is obvious to everyone, and we're all discussing it. But no one goes beyond stating a fact. The idea hasn't really taken off," a mid-level presidential administration official told Verstka. He added that "despite the natural thought that something needs to be done about it," they try to avoid expressing such things "even in bars and smoking rooms": "Because no one knows for sure whether anyone is a rat or not."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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THGR, a specific listing of everything that you're wrong about would take forever. So, in sum:
You're brainwashed, son.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Russia Uses 695 Forms of Torture Against Ukrainian POWs, Includeing Sexual Violence
By Dariia Mykhailenko | Updated May 22, 2026 20:09
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/russia-uses-695-forms-of-tort
ure-against-ukrainian-pows-includeing-sexual-violence-19092
. . . Lubinets added that one of the forms of torture known as the “barber” involves deliberately cutting not only hair during shaving, but also pieces of skin from the head. He added that if a detainee begins to scream, they are immediately beaten again and subjected to electric shocks.
The ombudsman noted that international partners have identified 29 detention sites used to hold Ukrainian prisoners—18 located on the territory of the Russian Federation and 11 in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. At the same time, he said Ukrainian intelligence agencies have verified 186 locations where Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages are being held across Russia and occupied territories, including facilities in Siberia.
According to Lubinets, detention conditions are largely similar across these sites and are not suitable for the humane treatment of prisoners.
He argued that the weak international response to documented cases of systematic torture sends Moscow a signal that such actions can continue without consequences. . . .
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Circassians are commemorating the 162nd anniversary of their final subjugation and genocide by the Russian Empire in 1864, where it is estimated that between 95 and 97% of all Circassians were killed by Russians or deported under inhuman conditions to the Ottoman Empire.
Other smaller peoples, closely related to Circassians, were also targeted. The Ubykh, a small nation living in an area around modern Sochi, were deported entirely.
https://kyivindependent.com/the-anniversary-of-russias-long-forgotten-
genocide/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Signym, your standard response is that your enemies are brainwashed and you have behaved well despite provocations. But that is standard for all Russians: We are not at fault; you are.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, a specific listing of everything that you're wrong about would take forever. So, in sum:
You're brainwashed, son.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russians Establish “Drone Corridors” Through Ukrainian Kill Zones
By Vikram Mittal | May 19, 2026, 06:50am EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vikrammittal/2026/05/19/russians-establis
h-drone-corridors-through-ukrainian-kill-zones/
Over the past year, the Russian offensive has effectively stalled, unable to push through Ukraine’s drone-patrolled “kill zones.” As a result, Russia has had to adopt new approaches to break through these defenses, with its current strategy centered on the creation of what can be termed “drone corridors.” These are pathways through contested areas where Russian tactical drones can operate in sufficient numbers to dominate the local airspace. The goal appears to be for these drone corridors to turn into mobility corridors that allow Russian forces to move through Ukrainian kill zones without suffering the heavy losses currently associated with direct assaults. However, while these tactics may improve Russia’s ability to penetrate Ukraine’s defenses, they have yet to produce meaningful operational gains.
Russia’s Drone Corridors
Despite Russia’s advantages in manpower, weapons, and armored vehicles, it has generally struggled with the Ukrainian kill zones. These areas are heavily patrolled by Ukrainian drones that can detect Russian formations, especially squad-sized units or larger, long before they are within range of the Ukrainian lines. Once detected, those formations are targeted with drones and artillery. These kill zones can extend several kilometers forward of Ukrainian lines and have been used extensively around urban areas such as Kostyantynivka and Chasiv Yar.
Given the effectiveness of these kill zones, the Russian military has had to move away from the large-scale armored assaults common in its doctrine. Instead, Russian forces are sending small groups of three to five soldiers into these contested areas to infiltrate the Ukrainian defenses. These teams consist primarily of drone operators, though they may include a security element. Given their size, they are able to avoid detection by Ukrainian drones. The teams move quickly to designated sites that offer cover and concealment, including basements, damaged buildings, and tree lines, where they establish forward outposts for launching and operating drones. Once established, they may deploy counter-drone systems to reduce the effectiveness of Ukrainian drones.
Russian forces are establishing a large number of these drone outposts, which collectively form drone corridors through the kill zone where Russian drones can dominate the local airspace. These forward drone outposts can then support larger Russian elements as they push through the kill zone. They launch drones to hunt for Ukrainian drone teams and artillery positions, both of which become more visible when engaging advancing Russian forces. Russian drones are also used to intercept Ukrainian drones already in flight. In addition, they can monitor and strike Ukrainian ground forces moving into position to counter the assault. These strikes have been highlighted by the Russian Ministry of Defense which has released numerous videos showing drones launching from these forward positions and destroying various Ukrainian targets in support of assault operations.
Current Russian Drone Corridors Around Kostyantynivka
Russia recently established drone corridors in Kostyantynivka, in its effort to take the city. They have spent the past year trying to seize the city as part of a broader effort to capture the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk urban belt, which anchors Ukraine’s defenses in Donetsk Oblast. Russia currently controls approximately ten percent of the city, primarily in the eastern sector. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces are conducting infiltration missions, pushing numerous small teams of drone operators into the western portion of the city. These forward outposts, scattered throughout western Kostyantynivka, combine to form a series of drone corridors intended to support broader assaults.
While the Russian infiltration teams hav
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, a specific listing of everything that you're wrong about would take forever. So, in sum:
You're brainwashed, son.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
I always bring receipts.
T
Russia's Worst Nightmare Just Happened to Crimea
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Clickbait thumbnails from channels you watch that are always wrong about everything are not classified as receipts.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:A reminder of how Russia blundered in the first 10 days of invasion. Ukraine would have long been defeated if only Putin were better at careful planning than at sloppy murdering. Trump is even worse at careful planning. The Iran War is proof of wishfully believing in inherent superiority.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Clickbait thumbnails from channels you watch that are always wrong about everything are not classified as receipts.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
This video was originally published in March 2023 by the Imperial War Museums
Russian invasion of Ukraine: How Putin lost in 10 days
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Since the initial attack, pain, destruction and bloodshed has been caused, with hundreds of thousands killed and millions more displaced from their homes. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
According to research by the think tank RUSI, when Vladimir Putin began his invasion, he expected to take control of Ukraine within 10 days. So what went wrong? Why did his plan fail? And how close did he come to succeeding?
We answer these questions in our YouTube video below. Visit our War in Ukraine page to watch more videos from our Ukraine series. https://www.iwm.org.uk/Ukraine
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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US senators press Hegseth on delayed $400 million aid package for Ukraine
By Dmytro Basmat | May 23, 2026 7:57 am
https://kyivindependent.com/us-senators-press-hegseth-on-delayed-400-m
illion-aid-package-for-ukraine/
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a May 23 letter to release a previously approved $400 million aid package for Ukraine that has been delayed for months.
The letter, spearheaded by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, comes after months of delays and mounting pressure from U.S. lawmakers for the Pentagon to release a broader $600 million security package, that includes $400 million in assistance to Ukraine and $200 million for Baltic states.
The $400 million package was approved by Congress in December 2025 but remained stalled at the Pentagon for months. Hegseth previously told the House Armed Services Committee on April 29 that the funding had been unlocked after bureaucratic hurdles were resolved. Despite promises by the Pentagon to deliver a spending plan to the Senate by May 15, senators say they have yet to receive details as to how the money will be disbursed.
"Any further delays — particularly as the Department reportedly plans troubling U.S. troops withdrawals from the region — risks our ability to adequately deter Russia," the letter read, according to the Associated Press (AP).
"Ukraine has persistently and bravely repelled a four-year Russian onslaught, but its military needs and deserves continued American support," the letter, co-signed by three Republican and three Democratic senators, continues.
Congress reauthorized the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) in December as part of a $900 billion defense spending bill, allocating $400 million annually for fiscal years 2026 and 2027 to sustain military support for Kyiv. The broader legislation also reinforced congressional oversight of Ukraine policy, including new reporting requirements if the Pentagon seeks to limit intelligence sharing or alter troop deployments in Europe.
Since his inauguration in January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has not allocated any new defense aid packages under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) — a tool frequently used by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. Instead, the Trump administration has opted to sell weapons to Ukraine via NATO partners, using the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL).
On May 21, the U.S. State Department approved a $108.1 million sale of equipment to Ukraine to support the HAWK air defense missile system.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy reported on Feb. 11 that U.S. military aid to Ukraine fell by 99% in 2025, with the European Union now providing the majority of financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, while a small group of donor countries providing most of the military aid.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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At the Scene of a War-Game: How the UK Would Respond if Russia Attacked the Baltics
While Russia has dismissed claims it has plans to invade NATO, the alliance is rushing to prepare for the nightmare scenario.
By Ellie Cook | May 23, 2026
https://www.newsweek.com/at-the-scene-of-a-war-game-how-uk-would-respo
nd-if-russia-attacked-baltics-11977606
The main fear on NATO's eastern edge is that with the U.S. pulling back, Russia may be more willing to risk an invasion.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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You are so fucking dumb, dude.
Go ahead. Ruin another weekend of yours. You don't have a lot of weekends left to waste though, old man.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
At the Scene of a War-Game: How the UK Would Respond if Russia Attacked the Baltics
While Russia has dismissed claims it has plans to invade NATO, the alliance is rushing to prepare for the nightmare scenario.
By Ellie Cook | May 23, 2026
https://www.newsweek.com/at-the-scene-of-a-war-game-how-uk-would-respo
nd-if-russia-attacked-baltics-11977606
The main fear on NATO's eastern edge is that with the U.S. pulling back, Russia may be more willing to risk an invasion.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
OMG. Such fear- mongering.
Yanno what the "decision- making centers" of NATO states SHOULD be afraid of?
A quick Oreshnik strike.
In thanks for helping Ukraine deliberarely strike colleges and apartment buildings.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:The Oreshnik is an advanced Russian intermediate-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile designed to travel at hypersonic speeds exceeding Mach 10 (approx. 8,000 mph). It features Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs), making it notoriously difficult to intercept and capable of delivering strikes with little to no warning.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG. Such fear- mongering.
Yanno what the "decision- making centers" of NATO states SHOULD be afraid of?
A quick Oreshnik strike.
In thanks for helping Ukraine deliberarely strike colleges and apartment buildings.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
There is a connection between Russia's first nuke in 1949 and NATO's formation the same year.
The West was acutely aware of the Soviet Union’s pursuit of atomic technology. Allied intelligence had observed the Soviets actively increasing their mining and processing of uranium, with some British and American reports as early as 1948 hinting at the locations of Soviet plutonium production reactors.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Nobody cares about your irrational fear of Russia while you put on full display your desire for Muslims to invade America and Europe every day.
Your opinion, on any topic, doesn't matter and is not necessary.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:Russia gets ready to strike Ukraine with Oreshnik [which was designed to deliver nukes]
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody cares about your irrational fear of Russia while you put on full display your desire for Muslims to invade America and Europe every day.
Your opinion, on any topic, doesn't matter and is not necessary.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
Sat, May 23, 2026 - 19:37
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/russia-gets-ready-to-strike-ukraine-wi
th-1779554072.html
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that, according to US and European partners, Russia is readying a strike against Ukraine using the Oreshnik system. Kyiv is currently verifying this information.
"There was a briefing from our intelligence: we received data, including from American and European partners, about Russians preparing a strike using Oreshnik. We are verifying this information," President Zelenskyy said.
He noted that Ukrainian intelligence sees signs of preparations for a combined strike on Ukraine, including on Kyiv, using various types of weapons. In this context, the president urged Ukrainians to respond to air raid alerts.
"This medium-range weapon may be part of such a strike. It is important to respond consciously to air raid alerts starting this evening. Russian madness is truly boundless, so please take care of your lives — use shelters," the head of state wrote.
Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine draws the attention of partners in both the United States and Europe to the fact that the use of such weapons and the prolonging of the war are a global warning sign, including for other potential aggressors. Kyiv, therefore, expects a preventive response from the international community.
"If Russia is allowed to destroy lives on such a scale, then no agreement will stop other similar regimes based on hatred from carrying out aggression and strikes. We are counting on a response from the world, and that it will be preventive, not post factum. Pressure must be put on Moscow, so it does not expand the war," the Ukrainian leader emphasized.
He added that Ukraine is strengthening its air defense as much as possible and will respond justly to every Russian strike.
In conclusion, Zelenskyy said the war must end.
"We gave permission for a parade, but there is no permission for madness in Russia. This war must be ended — we need peace, not missiles for the satisfaction of one person's sick ambitions," 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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