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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.

Russian military forces supporting the Malian government have been heroically running away and retreating in the face of rebel attacks. Some of the Tuareg militias, possibly including those trained by Ukraine, have aligned with JNIM to carry out the attacks. Both Ukrainian and French satisfaction with these moves may be tempered by JNIM being a radical Islamist group aligned with al-Qaeda. These are not good guys, even if realpolitik makes them eliminating Russian forces beneficial.

Russia is withdrawing more heavy equipment from Crimea and Kherson to deploy elsewhere. Ukraine has identified some convoys of heavy equipment and attacked them, in one case destroying a rare Tornado-S MLRS.

Ukrainian forces have reached the rail line in the south of Kostyantynivka. I'm not sure this is as big a deal as some have made out, as the line has been under constant drone interdiction range (from both sides) for months on end. I'm not sure any trains have dared to make the trip along it this close to the front in some considerable time. Still, symbolic as Ukraine continues to regain ground (however marginally) on this front.

Bilohirya, near Orikhiv, has also been retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Some Russian sources noting puzzlement that Putin has not appeared in public for two weeks, which isn't quite the longest he's gone without appearing since the start of the conflict, but is getting up there.

Some controversy going on after the developers of the Russian Kukushka heavy bomber drone (a Russian equivalent to Baba Yaga) were revealed to have been sent into direct front-line combat duties, apparently a deliberate attempt to kill them after getting into an argument with their CO. The drone operators were in demand with other drone units, but the CO became angry with them thinkin they were more important than him, so basically sent them to their deaths. Their families and supporters in other units are now after the CO's blood.

Russia pushing again at Kupyansk and taking extremely heavy losses in the process.

Russia hosted a live linkup with solders on the front to address students at the Kuban State Agrarian University and talk them into signing up with the military. A Ukrainian unit got wind of this and hacked into the feed, to cheerfully inform the students about the sheer volume of Russian casualties before they were cut off.

Ukraine has adapted AN-28 transporters as drone interceptor launchers, maximising the interceptor time in the air to engage targets.

Interceptor drone command centres have been moved back further into Ukrainian territory, allowing drone operators to engage enemy drones at considerable distance from the front, minimising the chance of casualties.

The oil terminal at Feodosia, Crimea has taken a heavy hit and is on fire. Again. The Gorky oil pumping station in Nizhny Novgorod has also been hit, with significant damage reported.

Tuapse is still ablaze after four days.

Several middling OSINT sources reporting that Ukraine has retaken the centre of Primorskoye and is pushing the Russians back out of Lukyanovskoye. Heavy combat is now underway in Stepnohirsk. This is all on the western Zaporizhzhia front, hard by the Dnipro.

The Lyman front is also heavily engaged, with Russian units furiously reporting that when they do make grinding advances, they cannot capitalise because their logistics are completely hammered into oblivion and they run out of ammo, food or both, and then have to pull back again.