Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Su-57s exit, they're just nowhere near as good as what they are supposed to be (at least an F-22-level equivalent, if not an F-35). The massive rivets they are built with disrupting the stealth skin when that's the whole damned point of the aircraft is incredibly comical (and to be fair, not the Sukhoi designers' fault, more the engineers).

Multiple Su-57s and Su-34s damaged, possibly one of each destroyed. Pretty big hit.

Tuapse attacked again overnight, the plant is a goner at this point. Perm taking more hits.

Russian bankers and finance bloggers and even some experts talking openly about how to avoid a wholesale banking sector collapse. The general message is grim, with bankers now discussing seizing the assets of the oligarchs (some oligarchs have been hurriedly moving liquid and some physical assets abroad) or converting deposits over a certain amount from ordinary citizens to credit notes, but they fear this would trigger a physical run on the banks. The term "like the 1990s" keeps coming up, which in Russia is likely to trigger wholesale PTSD.

Some suggestion of Ukraine tying a major defence agreement with the EU to its own EU accession by December 2027 (possibly Moldova as well). Some EU members are bullish on this, others have major concerns, as Ukraine's corruption measures, though advanced, are not completed as they would like.

Ukraine is interdicting the land corridor from Crimea to Russia, hitting Russian supply columns moving between Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Mariupol and Donetsk City. Individual vehicles and entire convoys have been hit.

Ukraine is retaking Stepnohirsk in western Zaporizhzhia by blowing up tower blocks with drones and glide bombs. The tower blocks have been taken over by Russian soldiers using them as fire control points. Ukraine prefers to liberate towns without levelling them, but in this case clearing the towers would be insanely costly.

Russian oil output has dropped to below 4.7 million barrels a day, the lowest amount since December 2009 in the wake of the financial crisis.

Ukraine is employing HIMARS on a larger scale again, destroying multiple Russian artillery pieces on the Zaporizhzhia front. This reflects the dwindling number of Russian drones over the front, which had started to push HIMARS back out of useful range.

Steven Witkoff is apparently tired of travelling to Kyiv by train so is delaying any further travels to Ukraine for peace talks. The word for this is "pathetic."

Ukrainian drones are currently pummelling Russian positions around Mariupol, apparently with almost no air defences responding. Ukrainian drones and possible partisan activity also active around Melitopol, with a large fire near the town centre.

EU support for Ukraine has surpassed $200 billion, and officially now more financial aid than has been supplied by the USA.

Two Russian patrol boats guarding the Kerch Strait Bridge were hit by drones overnight.

Ukraine is implementing a new policy of two-month rotations, ending the practice of keeping units on station for months and months at a time. Some suggestion that increased Ukrainian drone usage for defence makes this easier than previously.

The US and European nations may cooperate on a new safety confinement system for Chornobyl after damage to the previous one.

A large explosion has hit a Russian military garrison in Khabarovsk Krai. It appears to be Ukrainian intelligence targeting Major General Azatbek Omurbekov, one of the architects of the Bucha Massacre in 2022. His condition is unclear but one person is reported dead.

Putin has mentioned there is nothing to worry about regarding the Tuapse refinery attacks, which has prompted people to start worrying.

There is a brewing rumour from Ukrainian intelligence that Putin has decided to declare a new mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of additional troops. Russian milbloggers are being more circumspect, but seem to be agreeing with Strelkov's line that this is useless without a massive industrial mobilisation of drone production. Ukrainian sources seem to be relishing the idea, saying it's a massive strategic mistake rather than improving Russian drone production instead.

This may have prompted Elvira Nabiullina, the Governor of Russia's Central Bank (widely-respected for her insane ability to keep the Russian economy functioning as it has) to make a startling statement:

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Apparently the Russian Central Bank is now going to force anyone with over $32,000 in the bank to convert that extra money automatically into war bonds to fund the war, which if true, is going to go down extremely poorly.

Cause, on 27 April 2026 - 09:44 PM, said:

Ukraine can't scale down. They need to maintain this level of arms output, potentially indefinitely, because scaling up to it again mid-invasion took too long and was too hard. They need to keep at this level by basically turning into the biggest arms-exporter at least in Europe, and half the planet will be desperate to buy from them.

This is the hedgehog strategy, Ukraine needs to turn itself into a arms-producing behemoth with insane defences so that if Russia ever decides to pull this stuff again, they'd need to basically amass massive amounts of material, troops and drones beforehand which would take years and cost an insane amount of money, and Ukraine and Europe will see it coming years in advance.

Interesting analysis on the drone war, concluding that Ukraine has achieved a significant material and quantitative advantage over Russia. It points out that 7 million drones produced this year will likely mean over 10 million in 2027, and 10 million per year is when Ukraine believes it can start retaking significant territory.

In particular, it identifies March 2026 as a key month when Ukraine carried out more drone and missile attacks on Russian soil - 7,300 - than Russia carried out on Ukrainian - 6,400. The next key moment may come when the Russian Northern Fleet base at Severomorsk enters strike range (they're not far off now).

There is also now a growing analysis, even backed up by some Russian milbloggers, that Russia's spring 2026 offensive has been halted in its tracks even as it started, and Russian military commanders are now starting to really get into a tailspin. Some strategic reserves of equipment and troops for the summer campaign have already been deployed to meet the Ukrainian counter-thrusts in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and to reinforce the central Donetsk push around Pokrovsk. These are the forces that were not supposed to be engaged for another 2-4 months, and using them was meant to avoid a major Russian mobilisation this year. Them being depleted now puts Putin in a difficult position. Mobilisation against a backdrop of cutting off the internet and public demonstrations against that (though modest so far) could create a flashpoint Putin wants to avoid. Russian recruitment is also apparently down 20% on last year, whilst casualties are significantly up.

There also appears to now be a deficit in the Russian workforce of around 3 million people, and by 2030 that could hit 11 million, with massive economic damage to the country as the inevitable result.

They also analyse Ukraine's weaknesses and confirm the country has its own manpower and recruitment problems. However, they concur with the general assessment that Ukraine's position is much stronger than it was 18 months ago (when things looked shaky for a while) and that Ukraine taking the lead in both air and ground drones is a decisive shift that Russia does not look able to replicate.

Putin has at least resurfaced, greeting Iran's foreign minister in St. Petersburg.

Russian tanks are being used on the front again, possibly out of desperation. We have some of the first footage for some considerable time of Javelins being used to eliminate them.

Current assessment is that Ukrainian forces may have reached Krashnohirske, Berezove and Vorone, leaving Russia with the barest of toeholds in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Berezove may be their last significant holding in the entire oblast. Ukrainian forces further south and north-east have already crossed the oblast border and driven Russian forces back into Donetsk Oblast.

Russian forces have negotiated a withdrawal of their forces from the northern Malian city of Kidal, sparking fury in the government, which has said that "Russia has betrayed us." The move came after rebel drones hit several Russian targets around Kidal and destroyed them.