Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Russian bloggers now saying that Ukraine has "fire control" over most of the length of the M-14 highway, the main road linking Crimea to Russia proper via the land corridor. Supplies and reinforcements are starting to find it as hard to get to Crimea this way as if they were trying to advance at the front, leading to concerns that forces in Crimea can no longer be sustained.

One report saying, "we can defend Crimea or we can defend Russia, we can't do both."

The bridges are still up but they cannot handle all of the resupply needs by themselves, especially since Ukraine sank several of the cargo ferries as well.

Unhinged rumour that Putin was considering a ceasefire but was talked out of it by commanders claiming they can capture the rest of Donetsk Oblast before the end of the year. Take that with a pinch of salt.

American-made Hornet drones flying unopposed over Donetsk City, diving down between buildings to destroy Russian military vehicles and targets of opportunity. We've seen a lot of anger about this happening in Mariupol, but as Donetsk is much bigger and closer to the front, the anger seems a lot more widespread.

Ukraine is targeting several bottleneck pumping stations which transfer oil from the big fields in the east to European Russia. If Ukraine can destroy these, Russia's oil problems get much, much worse.

Analysis of the interdiction of the Mariupol-Donetsk highway suggests 1-in-20 Russian fuel tankers or transportation vehicles is destroyed per trip. These vehicles have to make hundreds of trips per month to help keep not just the military supply lines open, but also helping provide Donetsk City itself with fuel and to keep the lights on. Obviously that ratio can quickly build up so no trucks are getting through at all, putting this entire area, deep behind the front, under siege.

Ukraine has deployed a ground-level drone which can carry 300kg of high explosive. During one operation it simply drove inside a building occupied by eight Russian soldiers and detonated, destroying the entire building. If the Russians had engaged it at close range, the same outcome. Ukraine is apparently scaling these to be used on front line fortifications.

Ukraine's success in western Zaporizhzhia seems to be down to the 153rd Mechanised Brigade and the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, whilst HUR special forces units (Tymur and the International Legion) have reinforced.

The Russians have deployed the reserve regiments of the 7th Air Assault Division, alongside the 108th and 247th Air Assault Regiments. The 299th Airborne has also been deployed. These units have so far failed to halt the Ukrainian offensive.

In addition, the Russians had the 7th, 104th and 98th VDV Divisions and part of the 11th VDV Brigade in the area. These appear to have been mauled heavily in combat, despite being "elite" units. They have little or no answer for Ukrainian drone attacks.

Meanwhile, Russia appears to have lot an entire infantry column which was walking from Bakhmut to reinforce Chasiv Yar. Russian troops having to walk crazy distances to the front is now commonplace, but them bunching together in one group easily dispatched by a few drones is rare. Possibly new recruits who didn't know any better.

Ukrainian forces have advanced into Hrekivka. This is extremely entertaining because this is inside Luhansk Oblast, the Ukrainians had to cross the border from Kharkiv Oblast to do it.

As a result of this, Russia no longer controls 100% of any of the oblasts it has been contesting since 2022.

To be clear, this is like 0.01% of the oblast, but it is amusing.

Meanwhile, a building on the Kremlin grounds has burst into flames.

It is doable. Ukraine now has shown the ability to cut Crimea off from resupply, it can interdict most of the land bridge. They're also showing more success in anti-drone operations (they destroyed a forward drone base near the Dnipro in Kherson today). If Ukraine can keep up the pressure on the main highways, start to retake more ground more successfully with lighter casualties, then Russia's ability to resist that on the ground basically ceases to exist. Once the momentum goes, you could then have a stampede operation at least among Russian civilians, probably best achieved in Crimea, where there's already been several mini-panics and civilians fleeing back to mainland Russia. Mariupol is also a good target for that, Russian residents there are already in arms about the sheer number of Ukrainian drones overhead.

The things standing in the way of that are Trump and Putin doing something insane if he believes he's on the way out. Also the possibility of difficult elections in Europe putting more pro-Putin or Putin-neutral figures into power.

ETA: Now seeing reports that Ukraine has pushed Russian forces back down the Dnipro from their previous positions (though the scale seems unclear) and have now retaken a larger part of Chasiv Yar. Again. I think we just had the three-year anniversary of the first Russian ground assault on the town, making it the longest-contested settlement of the conflict (I think).

Also OSINT sources saying with increased confidence that Russia has cleared 400,000 dead, probably significantly more. One saying 500,000, but that seems unsupported for now (though by the end of this year, entirely possible).

Rybar seems to be saying "game over" as well, which has sent shockwaves through the Russian OSINT fanbase. Rybar claims that Russia has ordered tanks to no longer take part in frontal assaults and has not prioritised the anti-drone weapons they urgently need.

Ukrainian forces have crossed the border back into Donetsk oblast on another part of the line, attacking in the Zeleniy Gai - Zirka direction.

ISW has confirmed multiple reports that Ukraine is conducting a long-range interdiction programme along the T-0509 highway linking Mariupol to Donetsk City. Ukrainian drones are flying well over 100 km to impact convoys and individual vehicles on the highway, destroying resupply vehicles, troop carriers and fuel tankers. This kind of drone interdiction operation is usually conducted on roads much, much closer to the front and the Russians don't seem to entirely know how to stop them, especially as the drones can attack from difference directions (possibly including overflying to the Sea of Azov and then doubling back).

ISW also assesses that ground lines of communication between Russian supply and reinforcement hubs and the front are the worst they've been since the war started. Russian forces can now take several days to simply get to the front, let alone start infiltrating beyond it into Ukrainian territory, and are exhausted and demoralised by the fear of drone strikes, actual drone strikes and enemy artillery before they even fire a shot in anger. Vast amounts of Russian equipment is simply destroyed without seeing use. Not just the ISW, but multiple sources show that the Russian Spring/Summer offensive of 2026, the fifth of the war, is the most shambolic, badly-supported, barely-reinforced and least effective they've seen. It's possible combat effectiveness will improve as more troops, anti-drone measures and resupplies arrive, but the Russians really seem to have fundamental problems at the moment.

Whether this can extend to Ukraine breaking the Russian lines and starting to retake territory in short order, as some of the more unrealistically pro-Ukrainian sources have suggested, is another matter. ISW does believe that this will require close coordination between Ukrainian ground forces and drone units, which we have started to see in Zaporizhzhia and Kupyansk.