[Tiste Simeon]

Seeing some weirdness about the potential that Putin is dead. Apparently there was some broadcast just playing Swan Lake which is a "the king is dead" type signal and I've seen many people saying that the Putin new year's address is AI.

Nothing substantial yet of course and I doubt anything would be easy to verify if there was something more.

Any of our experts have any further information on this?

[Macros]

Willfully optimistic new year slopes I would guess

[Tsundoku]

Wishful thinking.

[Werthead]

Hoo boy. Russian soldiers waking up to letters stating that all contract payments have ceased as of 1 January due to a lack of funding. All Russian soldiers on the front, and possibly everywhere, will only receive basic conscript pay. All sign-up bonuses appear to have been terminated. They're now asking about the bonuses for their families if they are killed, and there isn't a straight answer.

Some officers apparently learned about this 2-3 weeks ago and have asked about reinforcements, some sectors are extremely undermanned. A "shadow mobilisation" has been promised, to raise additional conscripts for the front. But a lot of Russians are freaking out about this, all pay incentives to join the military and basically die have ended, the prisons are as drained as they can be.

I suspect they'll either back down on this fast, or will pivot to one of Trump's more Russia-friendly peace deals.

Denis Nikitin (aka Denis Kapustin), the head of the Russian Volunteer Corps fighting on Ukraine's side, has turned up alive after being reported dead. Apparently the RVC and GUR worked together to fake his assassination and picked up a $500,000 reward from Russian intelligence. Nikitin is virulently anti-Putin and is working to convince more Russians to swap sides, although his work is problematic due to his Neo-Nazi past.

Ukraine has apparently reached a new record with a fibre optic drone, hitting a target 42km from the launch point.

Russia's failure to take Pokrovsk was apparently caused by the arrival of Abrams battle tanks on Ukraine's side. The Abrams worked as light artillery support and only engaged in direct fire in repulsing the heaviest assault. Damaged Abrams from earlier in the war were also deployed as drone decoys, attracting drone fire. One proper Abrams was seriously damaged in the campaign. Northern Pokrovsk remains in Ukraine's hands.

I saw one claim that Ukraine achieved 5/1 kill-to-loss ratio in 2025 and held it for most of the year, which is an improvement over their performance in 2022-24 (when they floated around 3/1-4/1). I'd be interested to see that confirmed because if so, that's a huge problem for Russia (Russia can make progress at around 3/1 but at 5/1 it's substantially screwing itself).

Good Tendar assessment on Russian gains in 2025: 1,573 square miles (4,075 square kilometres), or approximately 0.67% of Ukrainian territory. This has raised the amount of Russian control to 19.4% of Ukrainian territory, whilst Ukraine retains control of 79.4% of its own territory. 1.2% is in the "grey zone" without full operational control by either side.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 01 January 2026 - 11:31 PM

[Werthead]

The United States are reissued travel advisories that all American citizens should leave the Russian Federation immediately or be at risk of arbitrary and unlawful detainment. Those who remain should make a will "immediately." That's...something.

Ukrainian drones have struck and badly damaged Russia’s strategic reserve storage facility in Rybinsk, about 270 km north of Moscow. This is part of Russia’s Rosrezerv system (state material reserves), designed for large-scale storage and distribution of oil products in the event of national emergency or systems collapse.

A British Raven anti-air vehicle in Ukraine had to have its paintjob amended because the crew ran out of space to paint destroyed cruise missiles and drones. It had 108 kills confirmed.

[Werthead]

Other matters have taken priority, but reports are getting back to normal on Ukraine. For the last two days, Ukrainian drones have been buzzing Moscow's airports, causing them to shut down. Millions of rubles have been lost, aircraft have been diverted to other airports, stranding hundreds of people hundreds of miles from where they want to be in ultra-cold temperatures, and angry crowds are demanding compensation.

The Kubinka Airbase just outside Moscow also seems to taken some heavy hits. Factories in Yelets have also been hit overnight.

A Russian ship suspected of damaging undersea cables has been captured by Finnish forces in the Baltic.

[Werthead]

The UK and France have committed ground troops to a post-peace deal Ukraine. Turkey has pledged naval warships to guard the coast. The USA has firmly agreed to provide a military backstop to any deal, and potential aircraft for air patrols. Trump was apparently dragging his feet but the weekend seems to have made him more enthusiastic. Russian sources, unsurprisingly, are lukewarm.

Ukraine has destroyed Russia's 100th GRAU arsenal, a massive missile storage site in Kostroma, NE of Moscow. The site has been pretty thoroughly demolished.

Russia is trying to transport hundreds of tons of uranium ore through Niger. The convoy started from Arlit Mine in the north and took ten days to reach the capital, Niamey. Now it's stuck there because the Niger government is reluctant to provide the escort needed to get it through hundreds of miles of jihadist territory in both Niger and Burkina Faso before it gets to the Togo border and then the export terminal on the coast. Understandably, the locals are pretty alarmed about this situation.

[Mentalist]

all of these arrangements are contingent on putler agreeing to a ceasefire.

Which is to say, it's all fiction for now.

[Abyss]

 Werthead, on 06 January 2026 - 08:53 PM, said:

...Russia is trying to transport hundreds of tons of uranium ore through Niger. The convoy started from Arlit Mine in the north and took ten days to reach the capital, Niamey. Now it's stuck there because the Niger government is reluctant to provide the escort needed to get it through hundreds of miles of jihadist territory in both Niger and Burkina Faso before it gets to the Togo border and then the export terminal on the coast. ...

This reads like something from a Tom Clancy novel B-plot.... the thing that proceeds quietly in the background and then goes absolutely bugnuts at the worse possible time in the A-plot and suddenly escalates everything.

[Werthead]

​Ukrainian drone operators becoming increasingly proficient at dislodging Russian horse-riders with drones before detonating. According to one report: "the animal was destroyed, the horse was not harmed."

The UK and US have joined to forces to capture a Russian-flagged Venezuelan ship in the North Atlantic and take into a British port for searching. Some suggestions it may have been trying to evacuate Russian weapons back home. A Russian submarine was reported in the area, and Russian surface ships had been dispatched to intercept, but are too far away. Potentially a flashpoint, though Russian sources are privately acknowledging they can't do anything about it. "The US is too strong, we are not the Soviet Union or China."

Major renewed assault on Pokrovsk, after some signs Ukrainian units had stabilised the situation. Russia assaulted the main defensive line running through the north of the town with an armoured column like in the good old days, with the exact same result as in the good old days: 59 Russian soldiers KIA in a single engagement (possibly a record, at least for the last year or two). Seven armored vehicles destroyed, though three of those can perhaps better be described as "vans."

The 425th Assault Regiment Skelya continues to be active in and around Pokrovsk with heavy use of drones and close-quarters urban combat.

Ukraine increased its defence output by around 50% in 2025 versus 2024, though in some areas (like drones) it was far higher.

Russia still pulling this nonsense:

Quote

Ukrainian Defenders of the 63rd Mechanized Brigade captured a Ugandan named Richard Akantoran, who, according to him, was forced to fight on the Russian side.

He shared that he took a loan from the bank to buy a plane ticket to Russia after someone offered him "good-paying jobs" in the supermarket, factory, etc. But upon arriving in Balashikha, Richard had only two choices - to sign a contract with the Russian military or die from a bullet to the head.

According to Richard, three more people from his country signed the contract. One night, he decided to flee the positions without equipment and surrendered to Ukrainian soldiers near Lyman, Donetsk region.

​

[Werthead]

1,418 days ago, Russia invaded Ukraine.

1,418 days is also the time elapsed between the first German units crossing the border into the Soviet Union at the start of Operation Barbarossa, and the Red Army securing the surrender of Berlin.

In 1,418 days, Soviet units retreated from the frontier, lost Kyiv, Smolensk, Minsk, the Baltic States and all of Ukraine and Belarus, endured one of the most horrific sieges in history at Leningrad and very nearly lost Moscow, then fought back, defeated the Germans (at stunning cost) at Stalingrad and Kursk, and finally pushed the Germans all the way back to Berlin. Ukrainian forces played a key role in that victory.

In 1,418 days, Russian units have advanced from Donetsk city to (squints at map) about 40km west of Donetsk city, has lost ~350,000 soldiers killed, 1 million more injured, captured or deserted, seen between 1 and 2 million of its brightest citizens flee the country, and been reduced to begging such capable economies as Iran and North Korea for aid. And it has failed to seize a single major Ukrainian city (the only one that came close it lost again, almost immediately). It has also somehow doubled the size of the Ukrainian army and helped Ukraine equip itself with F-16s, Mirages, HIMARS artillery, Abrams, Challenger and Leopard main battle tanks, and a couple million drones. It has also added two new, powerful militaries to NATO, more than doubled the length of its direct border with NATO, and exhausted almost the entirety of Russia's strategic reserve of tanks, artillery and infantry fighting vehicles. It has also performed an impressive feat of economic wizardry in that its economy is now propped up by military spending, so if the war ends, the Russian economy may simply collapse, but if it keeps fighting, the Russian economy may also just implode.

Ukraine has endured terrible losses of civilian and military life, and massive disruption to its economy. But it's also gained a sense of purpose and identity in the conflict. It has proven itself on the world stage, and woken up Europe to a threat it should have really perceived a decade ago, at the latest. It remains in danger, cities remain in darkness and the cold because the Russians can somehow hit a power transformer outside Kyiv but not a military target of any significant value, and there are areas of danger on the front. But if they can outlast the Russian war effort, continue some very impressive (if only idiotically necessary) diplomatic footwork with the Americans and keep up the fight, the Russians will be forced to stop, and if the Russian position collapses, Ukraine could still retake a lot of its land.

In the meantime, Ukraine defeated the Russian Black Sea Fleet despite not having any ships, destroyed almost half of Russia's strategic bomber fleet and is now bombing Russian oil platforms in the Caspian Sea (somehow).

I suspect Stalin would, by this juncture, just have had Putin shot out of hand.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 11 January 2026 - 09:46 PM

[Mentalist]

To make things less optimistic:

Over the course of 1418 days, the orcs pushed roughly 180 km out of Crimea (from the Chonhar bridge to Stepnohirs'k)
Over the course of 1418 days the orcs captured the agglomeration of Kreminna-Rubizhne-Severedonets'k-Lysychans'k that served as temporary capital of Luhans'k Oblast. They currently control all of Luhans'k Oblast with the exception of ruins of 3 tiny hamlets on the Lyman axis.
Over the course of 1418 days, the orcs roughly doubled the area of Ukraine they controlled since 2015.
Over the course of 1418 days the orcs forced millions of Ukrainians to leave their country. The lion's share of these are unlikely to return, and every passing week, month and year makes that number bigger.

This doesn't mean I'm saying that people need to give up; but I'm against overtly rosy evaluation of the situation. Ukraine hasn't yet reached a point where we can say "this war can't end with the eventual disappearance of Ukrainian statehood and peoples in a near historical horizon". The danger is still very clear and evident, and much more effort is needed to ensure this does not come to pass.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 11 January 2026 - 10:19 PM, said:

To make things less optimistic:

Over the course of 1418 days, the orcs pushed roughly 180 km out of Crimea (from the Chonhar bridge to Stepnohirs'k)
Over the course of 1418 days the orcs captured the agglomeration of Kreminna-Rubizhne-Severedonets'k-Lysychans'k that served as temporary capital of Luhans'k Oblast. They currently control all of Luhans'k Oblast with the exception of ruins of 3 tiny hamlets on the Lyman axis.
Over the course of 1418 days, the orcs roughly doubled the area of Ukraine they controlled since 2015.
Over the course of 1418 days the orcs forced millions of Ukrainians to leave their country. The lion's share of these are unlikely to return, and every passing week, month and year makes that number bigger.

This doesn't mean I'm saying that people need to give up; but I'm against overtly rosy evaluation of the situation. Ukraine hasn't yet reached a point where we can say "this war can't end with the eventual disappearance of Ukrainian statehood and peoples in a near historical horizon". The danger is still very clear and evident, and much more effort is needed to ensure this does not come to pass.

What would happen if Trump lifted all sanctions and export controls on Russia and started actively aiding the Russian military?

Then again I'm not sure how much he could get away with without congressional approval... if he doesn't seize Putin-like power when confronted with the prospect of Republicans losing their majorities in the midterms (though in that case I expect he'd be preoccupied with solidifying his rule over the United States for a while, "if he can keep it").

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 11 January 2026 - 10:31 PM

[the broken]

He can't lift all sanctions because he's neither the only person involved of the only country involved. If he started militarily assisting Russia, all of Europe withdraws permission for US troops to be on their soil and general co-operation, and the US suffers the greatest reversal since... WW1? 1812? for no reason at all.

Edit: I'd imagine he'd also be impeached at that point.

This post has been edited by the broken: 12 January 2026 - 12:16 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

the broken, on 12 January 2026 - 12:10 AM, said:

He can't lift all sanctions because he's neither the only person involved of the only country involved. If he started militarily assisting Russia, all of Europe withdraws permission for US troops to be on their soil and general co-operation, and the US suffers the greatest reversal since... WW1? 1812? for no reason at all.

Edit: I'd imagine he'd also be impeached at that point.

Of course I meant US sanctions. Congress did pass a law in 2017 (CRIEEA) to try to stop him from lifting Russian sanctions unilaterally, but the law requires a two-thirds majority vote to stop him from doing it:

https://www.steptoe....ctions-act.html

Trump also risks most of the rest of Europe kicking US troops off their soil if he invades Greenland---as the chairman of the "NATO enlargement committee" NGO predicted they would, though afaik no official NATO representatives have backed him up on that. (Unfortunately some news articles mistakenly implied that he had some sort of official NATO position.)

https://fr.wikipedia...nther_Fehlinger

Quote

"If you take it, we take every single base of the Americans from Aviano to Ramstein, from Romania, to all the other military bases will be confiscated, and you will lose it, and the whole position of American power since World War II, if you take Greenland, you have to leave, [...] And we can defend ourselves very well, and we will do that without the U.S. nuclear shield, without the U.S. troops in Europe, without the American bases. We will simply run the spaces ourselves, and we will run your boys home into Chicago and Ohio. And goodbye"

https://www.msn.com/...ing/ar-AA1TNSbX

So if Trump invades Greenland and (non-US) NATO nations do in fact respond by ordering the US to withdraw all US military forces from Europe---I wonder if they'd also try to forcibly prevent them from traveling over to Ukraine to provide "aid"... and then turn on the Ukrainians. Or prevent them from going over to Russia....

Perhaps more realistically though, if (non-US) NATO nations kick out the US troops, they'll almost certainly also attempt economic sanctions against the United States for invading Greenland---which might make it seem like a good time for Trump to drop sanctions against Russia. However, if CRIEEA is still in effect and Trump has not yet consolidated power to the point where he can just ignore it, he would have to submit a report to congress, wait 30 days for congressional hearings, and then veto the vote, and wait for congress to fail to override his veto.

But if the midterms force Trump to use his control of the military and federal law enforcement to seize power from congress and the courts, congress will become irrelevant. The probability of that happening this year is not small.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 January 2026 - 12:37 AM