Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

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.

Complete scenes in Tehran and several other Iranian cities, where for four days now massive crowds have marched shouting "Long live the Shah!" Spiralling inflation costs have triggered massive protests against the regime, with people also yelling "We want the mullahs gone!"

You know it's bad because the regime tried to mobilise police and military containment, but got a desultory response, so they've switched to offering dialogue with the protest leaders. That didn't mollify them, and there was an attempt to break into the main government buildings in Tehran that was just about headed off.

Netanyahu has apparently been mooting fresh attacks on Iran, but Israeli and American security officials are trying to dissuade him, pointing to the massive protests in the spring that were gaining momentum but stopped during Israel's summer bombing campaign, which resulted in patriotic support increasing. This time the protests seem far larger and possibly capable of reaching an inflection point (though we've heard that before).

ETA: Some protests now heard yelling, "Death to Khamenei." Major clashes in Isfahan.

The Iranian Central Bank has issued emergency directives to other banking bodies and local branches preparing for worst-case scenarios, the collapse of central banking infrastructure, internet shutdowns and bank runs. 

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.

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.

It looks like Trump and even Witkoff found the Russian claims of a Ukrainian attack on Putin's house to be BS, with Trump retweeting an NYT article saying that Russia is standing in the way of peace. Witkoff apparently agreed in a call with European leaders and Zelensky that the story was not credible.

Steven Segal apparently tried to "help" by showing himself looking at random debris claiming it was debris from the fake attack. Not even the Russian government or prominent Z-bloggers could be bothered to agree with him. Many Z-bloggers also openly called the story drivel.