Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

President Zelensky has sent a letter to Putin. It's very impressive reading.

I suspect Putin will not read it.

Oof, Ukrainian forces are making a counter-attack between Dobropillya and Pokrovsk. 1,000-pound JDAM bombs are pummelling entire Russian positions into nothing. These are being air-launched by Su-27s as well, which should be well within Russian AA range, except all of the Russian AA units anywhere near this front have been destroyed.

Multiple gas stations in Donetsk city now saying they are out of fuel and shutting up shop. Simferopol in Crimea is also increasingly cut off, Ukrainian drones showing a "road of death" of burned-out fuel tankers extending around the city.

Clearer footage showing the Boikiy listing in its berth in Kronstadt, still on fire, with dozens of fire engines and hoses spraying water on it, rather ineffectually from the look of it. Kronstadt is famed in Russian history as playing a key role in both the revolutions of 1917, and later the betrayal of the navy by the Bolsheviks who massacred the sailors there (many of them veterans who'd helped the Bolsheviks come to power) in 1921 for demanding better conditions.

Ukraine’s Spalakh drone operators from the 28th Brigade claim to have brought Horlivka under full fire control. The city, located 40km from Ukrainian positions, behind Pokrovsk, has been surrounded by loitering drone units destroying any supplies trying to enter or leave the city. Horlivka is a major supply node for the main Russian offensive effort in Donetsk Oblast.

Russia has banned the reporting of any and all news about Russian supply truck movements in the entire occupied zone.

Russian tankers and truck drivers in Prymorsk have refused to drive any more fuel trucks, pointing to a tanker Ukrainian drones left ablaze near the town.

Moscow, Leningrad, Ryazan, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Oryol, Novgorod, Samara and Murmansk regions have all introduced fuel rationing.

A Swedish vessel has boarded and captured Caffa, a Russian shadow fleet tanker, reportedly using intelligence gained by Ukraine.

Ukraine's Unmanned Systems have reported 100,000 Russian casualties inflicted since this time last year, with over 350,000 targets struck and 1.65 million combat missions flown.

Hungary has formally withdrawn its veto on Ukraine's EU accession bid.

One of the Russian patrol boats guarding the Kerch Strait Bridge has been hit by drones.

Ukrainian drones on the Lyman front are targeting key logistics routes over the Zherebets River, destroying Russian resupplies and dropping bridges and pontoons supplying the Lyman front. Some excited claims of a major Russian reversal on this front but nothing confirmed yet.

Russian milblogger Rybar claims that Ukrainian reinforcements have arrived south of Mala Tokmachka and are now pressing hard to recapture more of the N-08 highway. Russian retreats on this front had eased after additional reinforcements arrived, but Ukraine is pressing hard and still hoping to retake at least Kamyansk.

Rubio has confirmed that Ukraine has achieved significant successes and gains in the last few weeks.

Ukraine has launched a major drone attack on St Petersburg on the opening day of the World Economic Forum. The oil terminal took multiple hits and the Kronstadt naval yards (where arguably the Russian Revolution was kick-started) were attacked, with a corvette heavily damaged.

Recent territory exchanges in Ukraine as mapped by ISW are illuminating:

Dec 2025 - Russia +519 sq km
Jan 2026 - Russia +319
Feb 2026 - Russia +123
Mar 2026 - Russia +23
Apr 2026 - Ukraine + 116
May 2026 - Ukraine +281

Can the trend continue? Interesting to see.

Ukraine has conducted tests of the FP7.X ballistic missile interceptor, its homegrown alternative to Patriot. The interceptor shows promise but will not be deployable at scale until arguably well into 2027. Ukraine now regards Russia's ballistic missiles as its sole remaining major threat.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet Headquarters, aviation division, in Sevastopol has taken a direct missile hit.

St. Petersburg's air defences apparently failed to engage drones during the Ukrainian attack, with only small arms being used to try to down them.

Gas stations in Moscow have started rationing fuel.

The vessel damaged at St. Petersburg has been confirmed as the Steregushchy-class corvette Boikiy, one of the most formidable vessels in the Baltic Fleet. The vessel's superstructure was shown to be ablaze.

With Ukrainian regular military units unable to advance in many sectors due to a lack of manpower or overwhelming Russian defences, these units have developed drone divisions to continue carrying out combat operations. Non-specialist drone units attached to regular formations have been responsible for a large amount of Ukraine's recent drone success.

Russia lost 517 fuel tanks, tankers and fuel storage depots yesterday, destroyed by Ukrainian drones, missiles and artillery. This is the highest 24-hour tally of the war, coming just after a string of days and weeks where the record was broken every single day. The war-long average is 65, which is huge but apparently sustainable with new trucks built an with d old ones yanked out of storage and reconditioned. 500+ a day is definitely not sustainable. SAM systems destroyed also reached a near-record high with 56 large units destroyed in March-April alone.

Russian milbloggers are using the term "zugzwang" to describe the current Russian strategic position. That's a German term for a chess game where your opponent puts you in a position where any move you make is the wrong one, but you have no choice but to move.

Ukraine apparently now has over 300 dedicated demining platforms, some capable of clearing entire farm fields full of mines in an afternoon. Ukraine has been using them to clear some minefields on the front where they've rolled back Russian forces, at least partially solving a problem that stymied their summer 2023 offensive.

Ukrainian drones continuing to hit Dzhankoi in central-northern Crimea, this time going after rail infrastructure. Ukraine is stepping up efforts to cut off resupply routes to the entire Crimean Peninsula.

ISW shows a net loss to Russia of 241 square kilometres of territorial control from December 2025 to May 2026.

Putin's original plan to reduce defence spending in 2026 has apparently been scrapped, and he has asked for further cuts to be made to non-defence areas of the economy. Some defence officials have requested an increase to the defence budget. Putin apparently remains confident of the war ending in the near-to-medium term.

Ukraine has advanced on the Kotlyne axis, with forces moving back towards Pokrovsk rather than withdrawing away from it. Possibly advances in the same area at Bilytske and Rodynske, but marginal gains so far.

Some interesting claims that Russian units manning the banks of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast have either retreated or asked to retreat, citing Ukrainian drone dominance up to 30km from the river banks. Supplying the forward Russian units is hard and considerable losses have been sustained. Russia won't let any units withdraw, believing (probably correctly) that if they fall back, Ukrainian units will cross the river unopposed and they can then begin the rollup of the land corridor and complete the encircling of Crimea.

A major Ukrainian drone strike is underway, targeting Crimea, the western oblasts and the Moscow region.

Apparently yesterday and today's strikes on Ukraine brought the total number of Shahed attacks on Ukraine to over 100,000. Based on current information, around 30,000 of these drones were decoys. Over 85,000 drones were jammed or shot down before they could reach the target, though in some cases debris or the fall of the warhead did inflict damage on different targets.

Ukraine is using Hornet drones to pummel logistics all over Crimea today. Apparently a high number of hits on fuel and ammunition dumps, and going after fuel tankers. Dzhankoi taking a lot of hits.

Fuel companies TES and ATAN have ceased providing fuel vouchers for use in Crimea.

France has seized the Russian shadow fleet tanker Tagor in the Atlantic.

Refinery operations in Russia are apparently at their lowest levels since 2010.

Confirmed battlefield casualties for Russia yesterday topped 1,400 for the first time in weeks. It should be noted these are casualties that can be confirmed on the day itself and do not include casualties identified only days or weeks later. The real number of casualties per month is running at between 35,000 and 40,000 once all sources (including Russian) are taken into account.

Russia used a Tor missile defence system to shoot down a Ukrainian drone. After missing (possibly twice), the Tor was destroyed by the exact same drone.

Russian soldiers complaining because body armour arriving at the front consists of missing metal plates, with the missing plates instead replaced by the infamously bullet-proof material known as "wood."