Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Poland has had a bright idea. They've kept the border with Belarus sealed and said they will do so whilst drone incursions continue, possibly as long as the Ukrainian war continues.

China, in a very uncharacteristic burst of energy, sent officials to Warsaw to almost plead with Poland to open the border. China's belt and road route goes through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland and then disperses goods across Europe. Keeping the border shut with no real alternative route available (the Baltic States are not going to help, Ukraine is at war, Russia's ports on the Black Sea do not have capacity) could result in serious economic hits on Chinese exports.

Poland has apparently presented the situation as a way for China to encourage Russia to wind down the conflict in the near future.

Interesting approach.

Russian propagandist Maksim Kalashnikov has publicly admitted that Russia's military operations have failed. In fact, he's said that Russia may have to withdraw in full from Ukraine, abandoning Donetsk and Luhansk. He notes that the Russians brought "ruin to Novorossiya," destroying the "most Russian" parts of the country and devastating so many settlements and industry that Russia simply cannot afford to repair it all and get it working again. He believes that Russia has lost the support of the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, and they'd now prefer to live under Kyiv once more. "The chance was missed in 2014."

A Kenyan national fighting under Russian colours has been captured. The individual travelled to Russia as a tourist, but was also interesting in work possibilities. He signed a work contract, thinking it was for a regular job, but was instead forced into the army. He was only given a week's training before being sent to the front. He escaped and spent two days making his way to the Ukrainian lines and surrendering to the 57th Otaman Kost Horiienko Motorised Brigade.

Gas prices in Luhansk and Donetsk are now three times what they were a few months ago, according to one local. Interestingly, she continues to refer to them as the LPR and DPR rather than as part of Russia. Prices in occupied Berdyansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast are also rising quickly. A man in occupied Donetsk has also been filmed by neighbours using a pump to get water into his flat, bypassing his neighbours, who were left with nothing.

A Russian state TV show admitted that the theatre in Mariupol, which was bombed killing dozens of civilians, was destroyed by Russian forces, not Ukrainians.

Dmitry Kozak has resigned as deputy head of Putin's government. Koazk is the most senior-known Kremlin figure to oppose the war (apart possibly from Nabiullina, who offered to resign and was turned down if the operation was launched). He apparently tried to dissuade Putin from launching the invasion and has recently proposed direct peace talks with Kyiv.

Sixteen children kidnapped by Russia have returned to Ukraine.

A sloppy Russian TV documentary on Russian drone operators allowed Ukrainian operators to identify their headquarters in the Patriot exhibition centre outside Moscow and hit it with a drone attack.

Ukrainian reconnaissance units investigating a captured Russian equipment depot were bemused to locate detonators with Nazi symbols on them. They realised the detonators had been imported from Germany to the Soviet Union in 1939, and Russia had not gotten round to using them even in WWII.

Ukraine is hitting Russian positions in Shevchenko, south of Pokrovsk, hard. Drones and airstrikes are pummelling the positions. According to some suggestions, several large Russian formations have massed there to attack Pokrovsk from the south whilst other elite units attacked from the north. Since Ukraine instead destroyed the positions to the north, these forces have been told to hold fast, which has done nothing other than provide Ukraine with a target-rich environment.

Ukraine seems to be targeting Russian air defences around occupied Donetsk City.

Germany has provided Ukraine with 33,000 AI "strike kits" to turn Ukrainian drones into swarm forces.

Russia launched a coordinated attack on Ukraine's rail network, trying to do to Ukraine what Ukraine has been doing to Russia for months. The attack was a failure, with all drones destroyed, disabled by EW or simply missing their targets.

Ukraine has destroyed a Russian battalion-level headquarters near the Dnipro River, south of Kamyanske in the far north of Kherson Oblast (near the border with Zaporizhzhia).

Significant engagements near Mala Tokmachka on the Robotyne front. Russian forces was repulsed with heavy losses, including a tank destroyed by a direct anti-tank missile hit. We haven't seen these for a while. This front, where Russia was expected to make a big move, has become more active recently, but there are some signs of troops being transferred to the Pokrovsk front.

Pankivka on the north Pokrovsk front has been retaken by Ukraine, leaving a second major contingent of Russian troops almost totally cut off. Four infantry brigades have been trying to relieve them but have been held off with heavy losses of their own. One report that between 6,000 and 10,000 Russian troops are strung out along this increasingly battered salient, although the number fully encircled is much lower (100-200 at the moment with around 1,000 likely to be fully encircled if the current momentum continues).

In a surprise move, Belarus has invited American military observers to witness the Zapad-25 exercises. Some suggestions the move was unexpected by the Russians as well. As ever, Lukashenko playing an interesting game. He is playing off Putin, Xi and Trump and benefiting from being in the middle.

Belarusian nations were also detained in Warsaw after flying a drone over a Polish government building. The drone has been shot down. 

Russia has resorted to direct bartering, with a direct exchange with China and Pakistan, sending wheat and oil in return for electrical components. This technically negates some of the sanctions as no money changes hands.

US Ukrainian envoy Keith Kellogg has said that Russia is losing the war, that minor gains on the battlefield are cloaking a massive attrition of men, material, ammunition, resources and the economy. He has reiterated that he has told Trump this directly, and believes he cut through Trump's belief that Russia is winning. Trump has also called Russia "the aggressor" for the first time.

The Kirishi refinery near St. Petersburg has been hit and is burning, and the Bashneft Novo-Oil Refinery in Bashkortostan, also struck.

The British have joined Operation Eastern Sentry, with multiple aircraft now patrolling the skies near the Belarusian and Russian borders over Poland and Lithuania. Some reports that the aircraft have open authorisation to engage any target that enters NATO airspace.

What the hell.

Russian forces in Oleksiivka, Sumy, were preparing to fall back as the rest of the front collapsed. They were then told to hold fast and then nothing happened. Ukraine is now attacking hard into their flanks and might be about to cut off several hundred Russian troops in another encirclement. It looks like the Russian troops themselves have said screw that and are trying to fight their way out. Most of the western part of the Sumy salient is now gone.

Ukrainian special forces launched an operation based the headquarters of the 47th Battalion of the 155th Separate Guards Marine Brigade, which is near Vladivostok (!). There was a series of large explosions that resulted in several deaths and more injuries among the troops. They are blaming it on a gas explosion.

Zelensky notes Ukraine's readiness to engage aerial targets dwarfs anything in Europe. During a recent attack, Ukraine shot down 700 out of 810 drones. Poland only managed 4 out of 19. Ukraine stands ready to provide assistance, advice and training (and has been already, to some extent). Zelensky also says that Russia has planned five heavy offensive operations for 2025. Ukraine has defeated three of them.

Small gas chains are going bankrupt in Russia amidst ongoing fuel shortages. Occupied Melitopol is the latest area to have their fuel supplies completely dry up. Transneft has told producers its storage capacity has been maxed out and they may have to drop oil output. The Kremlin is apparently unamused.

Unconfirmed attack on Morozovsk Airfield, Rostov Oblast. It appears that parked aircraft were destroyed. The Saratov oil refinery has been attacked again, with fires reported.

Russian Telegram channels urgently demanding the evacuation of Oleksiivka. Reinforcements from the 30th Motor Rifle Regiment have arrived but been described as "pensioners and drunks." They claim entire regiments were obliterated in the battle for Kondrativka and the situation in Oleksiivka looks far worse.

Modi and Trump had a phone call for Modi's birthday and apparently toned down some of their recent disagreements.

Ukraine has released 10,000 prisoners for recruitment to the Ukrainian military. The plan has been criticised and compared to Russia's similar plans, but only certain prisoners are eligible: those sentenced for national security crimes, murder, sexual violence and assault, major corruption and terrorism are not applicable. 

Russian saboteur groups attempted bypass the Donetsk front, dressed as civilians. They were identified and arrested. There are ongoing problems with these saboteur groups as Russian infiltrators either do not speak Ukrainian, or do so with a notable accent, whilst many more Ukrainians are fluent in Russian and can infiltrate Russian positions with greater ease.

For some reason Russian personnel filmed themselves killing a horse for fun.

Putin's United Russia Party has recently promoted many veterans of the invasion into deputies and junior roles in the party, including "elected" officials. Putin is reportedly concerned over what might happen should the war end and hundreds of thousands of injured and traumatised troops return home and attempt to reintegrate into civilian life.

Russia is trying to buy back its S-400 launchers from Turkey amidst a rapidly-escalating AA shortage on the front. Ukraine has destroyed further Buk systems overnight.

Russia was using 4km-long pipelines in the Kupyansk sector to advance behind Ukrainian lines. Ukraine has located and destroyed several of these pipelines. Since they've been rumbled, Russian soldiers have been sharing videos of the experience of using the pipes, which was unpleasant.

Shadow fleet tankers Kusto and Cai Yun were damaged in the attack on Primorsk, near St. Petersburg. The tanker terminal was shut down for over a day.

Russian swimmers crossed a river to raise the Russian flag over, Filiia, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The Ukrainians eliminated them and returned the Ukrainian flag. Russian soldiers seem really annoyed about this operations, as they are resulting in deaths, severe injuries or captures for basically a TikTok moment. The "Kadyrovisation" of the entire Russian army is not something they like.

Ukraine EW systems have reportedly been upgraded and can now target Kinzhal semi-hypersonic missiles. The targeting effectiveness of Kinzhal has degraded significantly in recent months, now frequently missing the target, sometimes by miles. Ukraine also appears to be integrating Israeli-inspired targeting systems, which can track incoming ordinance and only fires an interceptor (whether that's a Patriot missile or rocket drone) if it confirms it will hit something valuable.

Russia lost an Su-35 in a landing accident at Kubinka Airport in Moscow.

A Russian drone violated Romanian airspace by around 10km before returning to Ukrainian airspace. Romanian fighters intercepted but did not shoot down.

Poland also sounded air alerts after drones came close to the border, but apparently did not cross.

Unconfirmed, but Ukraine is reported to have retaken Novokostyantynivka on the Sumy front and pushing hard along the rest of that front. Russia might have no choice but to withdraw from the Sumy salient to hold more favourable defensive lines on the international border.

Ukraine's recent attacks have impacted 42% of Russia's total oil production and taken around 20% offline for significant periods. Interesting to see if Ukraine can keep that up, as that's a tactic that could really have war-ending potential.

Ukraine and the UK are collaborating on a massive drone production programme, which will see thousands of interceptor drones built each month in the UK and then transferred to Ukraine. Ukraine will share IP and patents on the interceptor drone, which will allow UK companies to build the interceptors at large scale for other NATO nations.

NATO is well aware of that danger, which is why they've put various options on the table. One is to shoot down all drones that come within AA range of NATO defences, including over Ukraine. I suspect that won't include Belarusian or Russian airspace (over Kaliningrad), at least in the first instance.

Another idea has been to expand NATO AA coverage into western Ukraine as far as Lviv, and to open a civilian air corridor to Lviv Airport to allow civil aviation to start again in Ukraine. I suspect some airlines would be hesitant to test that, but Russian aircraft have not been able to operate over Ukrainian airspace for some time so that might be relatively safe.

The north Pokrovsk salient appears to have divided into two three pockets, one completely encircled, a second almost so and a third where the encirclement lines are still ~2km apart but are grinding forwards. Multiple Russian units are inside these pockets, including some special forces surged into the area to either exploit the Dobropillia breakthrough (which then collapsed) or to take part in the planned "final assault" on Pokrovsk from the north. It looks like Ukraine may have turned what was supposed to be a major offensive into a desperate defensive battle which, so far, Russia is losing, to the tune of thousands of casualties and hundreds of PoWs taken. Ukrainian units involved include the 33rd and 425th Air Assault Regiments, 1st Assault Regiment, 24th and 25th Assault Battalions, and the 79th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades.

Obviously we've seen promising encirclement actions before fizzle out, so this could go the same way, but so far, promising.

Some analysis that Russia's manpower situation along several areas of the front have become super critical, forcing Russia to remove over 30,000 troops from occupied Kherson Oblast to maintain offensive operations in Zaporizhzhia and Pokrovsk. A few weeks ago there were around 60,000 troops on the Kherson front, so Russia has halved its presence there (the 11th Air Assault Brigade has been rotated into the area, but that's only around 2,000 combat-capable troops). Russian troops in Kherson are warning this is dangerous, they can't maintain their attacks on the river mouth islands and hold the coastal peninsulas plus the whole river with that number of troops.

Ukraine launched over 220 drones in a series of large strikes on Russian territory, including Bryansk and even an oil refinery north-west of St. Petersburg, 950km from the Ukrainian border. Primorsk Export Terminal took several hits, with a tanker (part of Russia's "shadow fleet") set ablaze in the harbour and a pumping station destroyed.

Sixty Croatian M-84 tanks have arrived in Ukraine.

One German politician has urged that NATO member states resurrect their plan to engage all Russian drones and missiles within AA range of their launchers over the territory of Ukraine.