Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

The United States fired 60 PAC interceptors at Iranian ordinance last night in one salvo.

One Ukrainian commentator going ballistic because some of the incoming ordinance did not warrant that level of response (though Iran did use several multi-warhead missiles which did).

Multiple, much more reliable sources now reporting the collapse of the Lyman salient and even claiming the scale of the victory is larger than initially claimed, with over 200 square kilometres liberated. Ukrainian forces are still advancing into Luhansk Oblast, and some units may be turning south-east to try to push the Russian units quite close to Lyman's eastern side back as well. Russian reinforcements to this sector appear to have been diverted to the central front in the Donbass, so it's unclear how quickly the Russians can shore up this area.

Romanian Intelligence has neutralised a Russian sabotage operation targeting critical infrastructure in Romania.

A Russian jet-powered drone overflew Transnistria, Moldova and Romanian airspace before flying back over Moldova and vanished. Investigators are trying to determine if it crashed in Moldova or reached Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian military intelligence assesses the growing probability of a renewed attack into northern Ukraine, potentially from Belarus, towards Kyiv. Ukraine has extremely heavily fortified these approaches and do not believe Russian forces could penetrate more than 10-20km into Ukrainian territory. Heavily fortifying the border itself is difficult because the area is within easy glide bomb and artillery range. Ukraine also assesses the autumn mobilisation may have been downsized to 300,000 troops after it became clear that a larger mobilisation risked damaging the Russian economy too badly.

Extremely enthusiastic reporting from less-reliable sources that Ukraine has collapsed the Lyman salient. The entire Russian-controlled front north of the town has broken, with Russian forces pulling back to the Zherebets River. If true, this would be around 151 square kilometres retaken and the northern front threat to Lyman itself and the Slovyansk-Borova area would effectively be destroyed. Some sources also suggested Ukrainian infiltration and recon elements have re-entered Luhansk Oblast in multiple places, further eroding Russian control of the one oblast they've claimed that they, at one point, controlled in full.

The more reliable sources are being more cautious, but have allowed that Russian forces seemed to have suffered heavy losses in this sector and Ukraine does seem to have advanced in around five settlements.

Two Russian Su-35s managed to fly into one another in Kursk Oblast for reasons that are still unclear, with both airframes destroyed.

Russia hit the SBU Headquarters in central Kyiv, in a rare direct attack on a Ukrainian government building. Russia has refrained from doing this for fear of Ukraine simply responding, and the PR damage from seeing bits of the Kremlin on fire would be incalculable. Ukraine is considering its response.

Ukraine hit Sochi overnight, destroying fuel storage tanks at a local refinery and hitting an S-300 AA battery. It looks like they scored a direct hit on the launcher with a missile locked in, destroying both launcher and missile, which is unusual.

Witkoff and Kushner will be in Moscow over the weekend and then Kyiv. Apparently they may travel by plane directly from Moscow to Kyiv in the first journey of its type since before February 2022. However, a Russian drone hit Kyiv's airport (despite the airport being effectively closed since the start of the war), casting doubts on this idea.

Marine le Pen has indicated if she wins next year's French Presidential election, as is possible, she might try to suspend French aid to Ukraine. She is pressing now for France to host peace talks.

Air Tanzania has suspended all flight operations to Russia, citing the danger as being too great.

Russia has passed 1,400,000 casualties, with 450,000 dead. This is more than all the US casualties across all of WWII (a planet-wide conflict with heavy fighting on four different continents for the US).

Witkoff and Kushner were in Moscow today and apparently talked "tough" with Putin on a deal to end the war. They have left Moscow by plane, it's unclear if they are flying direct to Kyiv or flying to Poland and then taking a train to Kyiv. Russia and Ukraine have agreed not to hit each other's capitals for the duration of the visits.

Russia's Starlink alternative is going well. The first launch batch reached 500km and have not been able to maintain a stable orbit, with several burning up. The rest are maintaining an orbit by using their thrusters but fuel is limited and will run out in the near future, probably resulting in the loss of the entire constellation. The second batch has only reached 300km and most of them appear to have already been destroyed.

Reporting from Russian sources that Putin was overheard telling someone he could not withdraw from Ukraine with the Donbas not completely taken as he would be "hanged."

On 28 June, Putin said that Russian forces were 10.5km away from Sumy city. Today, he said they were 12km away. The actual distance is 17.5km, and has remained so since May 2025. He also said today that Russian forces were approaching the ring road around Sumy. Sumy doesn't have a ring road.

Zelensky has suggested Ukraine could start targeting Russian civilian airports, not to kill civilians but to drive the insurance costs for flying to Russian airports so high that the remaining foreign operators will halt all travel to Russian cities. Zelensky has confirmed that Ukraine has abided by American requests to stop targeting Moscow whilst American diplomats are present. It also sounds like Zelensky has also agreed to suspend such attacks during visits by Chinese and Indian diplomats.