Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 30, 2026 11:22
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Monday, June 29, 2026 6:05 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukrainian defence ministry adviser names Ukraine's main technological problems in war

By Iryna Levytska | 29 June, 11:02

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/29/8041560/

Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister, said that alongside positive news from the war, Ukraine faces a number of technological problems and named the main ones.

Source: Flash on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=27283162834658742&id
=100001751811701&mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=EygELGMVL6XcUXFm#

Quote:
I will try to name the main ones:
1. We do not have a serial and mass solution against KABs. It is KABs that cause us many problems on the fronts.
2. The enemy is increasing the use of MES modems for reconnaissance and online strikes with Shahed and Gerber. We are making unacceptably slow progress in developing electronic warfare means against MES.
3. There is a huge problem with drone attacks on front-line areas. And not only villages are suffering, but also Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Sumy. Warning systems and systematic actions are needed to combat drones.
4. I would like to have even more tactical radars so that the precise radar field is denser and larger. Without this, interceptors do not work.
5. We do not yet have our own ballistics. And it would radically change the course of the war.
6. There are no mass and mass solutions for electronic warfare on drone video channels. The enemy is ahead of us here both in development and in experience of application. It is such electronic warfare that would help us protect front-line zones from drones.
7. There are no proven solutions for protecting mid-range strikes and bombers from enemy anti-aircraft drones. If we do not create them, it will soon become very difficult to work.
8. There is no systematic technological approach to finding and destroying enemy tactical radars. And these are the enemy's front-line eyes in the sky.
9. Developments and solutions are needed in the field of alternative navigation for deep strikes.

This is what I can voice publicly.

Details: Among the key problems, Flash identified the absence of a serial and mass-production solution for countering guided aerial bombs.

"It is precisely the guided aerial bombs that are causing us many problems on the fronts," he noted.

He also said that Russian forces are increasing their use of Mesh modems for reconnaissance and strikes with Shahed and Gerber-type drones, while Ukraine is, in his opinion, unacceptably slow in developing electronic warfare countermeasures against this technology.

Flash also drew attention to the large-scale problem of drone attacks on frontline territories.

"It is not only villages that are suffering, but also Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Sumy. Alert systems and systematic action against drones are needed," Flash added.

He separately stressed the need to increase the number of tactical radar stations, since without a denser radar coverage, interceptor drones cannot operate effectively.

He also noted that Ukraine does not yet have its own ballistic missile, which in his view could radically change the course of the war.

Among other problems, the expert identified the absence of mass and serial electronic warfare systems against drone video channels, in the development and use of which, in his assessment, the Russians are ahead of Ukraine.

"Precisely this kind of electronic warfare would help us protect frontline zones from drones," Flash stressed.

He also said there is an absence of proven solutions for protecting medium-range and heavy strike UAVs from anti-drone interceptors.

"If we do not create them, working conditions will become very difficult very soon," Beskrestnov said.

Flash is convinced Ukraine also lacks a systematic technological approach to locating and destroying the Russians' tactical radar stations, which he called "the enemy's eyes in the sky at the front". He also noted the need for developments and solutions in the field of alternative navigation for long-range strike drones (deep strike).

Background:

• Flash previously reported that the Russian army is using the compact MSL 20045 radar station at the front, capable of detecting FPV drones at a distance of around eight kilometres.

• He also said that Russian Shahed and Gerbera-type drones with Mesh modems are reaching ever deeper into Ukraine's rear and that electronic warfare systems are not always effective against them.

• In February, a Russian FPV drone guided by a fibre-optic cable reached the northern outskirts of Kharkiv.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 29, 2026 8:18 PM

THG

Is also JJ. Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Something you will never, ever see from western press

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

You won't see it in the western press because it isn't real. You were conned by Trump. You even got to study him for years, yet you still fall for his con. You have no idea what's real. You completely lack any sound judgement skills. Watch this video. It is real.

T

Russia Uncensored

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Monday, June 29, 2026 8:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

OOOOOOOHHHHHHH.... look at that flabby sack of shit trying to look tough with those flabby slabs of shit crossed over his man boobs.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026 7:22 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

With America in Retreat, Europe Now Depends on Ukraine

Europeans are gaming out their future defense, and it’s unthinkable without Kyiv.

June 29, 2026, 10:11 AM

By Liana Fix, a senior Europe fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Paul B. Stares, a senior fellow for conflict prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/29/europe-nato-war-russia-ukraine-se
curity-defense-trump-alliance-deterrence/

Europe is preparing for its future security with little or no help from the United States. And in many such scenarios that European planners are now gaming out, Ukraine emerges as the linchpin of the continent’s defense. The weaker Washington’s security guarantee becomes, the more Europe needs Kyiv. Soon, Europeans will have to confront an entirely new burden-sharing question: What must they offer Ukraine for its help shielding Europe from Russia?

Until recently, European leaders could barely disguise their dread at the prospect of another acrimonious NATO summit, set to take place in Ankara in early July. The wounds are still raw from recent trans-Atlantic fights—including over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, his attempts to coerce Denmark to hand over Greenland, and recent U.S. troops withdrawals from Europe. Trump’s war against Iran and his accusations that European allies were insufficiently supportive of their principal security guarantor added to these wounds. This month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ominously warned: “I think the next meeting of NATO … is probably the most important meeting in NATO’s history because there are some things here that need to be cleared up and fixed.”

Concerns about a fracas at next month’s summit have subsided somewhat. The apparent U.S.-Iran cease-fire deal, the announced reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe’s offer to help police the strait once a final peace agreement is reached have lowered the temperature. The friendly tone of this month’s G-7 summit in France, where Trump seemed on his best behavior, was another welcome sign. Cue the longtime trans-Atlanticists, who will surely argue that this proves the enduring resilience of the U.S.-Europe partnership—and that another near-death experience for NATO has been averted.

Such thinking, however, misses how rapidly European views of the trans-Atlantic alliance are changing. To the continent’s policymakers, NATO resembles Schrödinger’s fabled cat—simultaneously alive and dead. They treat the alliance as alive in the sense that they still do and say all the things they did before to demonstrate that they believe in its existence, not least to deter Moscow. But they also view it as dead in the sense that they can no longer rely on Washington as before.

European leaders are making plans to secure their continent without U.S. help. They no longer take seriously the assurance from Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, that a U.S. drawdown will leave no “strategic gaps.” They have given up on the idea that the Trump administration will agree to a road map for handing off Europe’s conventional defense in a predictable, coordinated way. So they are improvising. At the European Union level, officials are war-gaming how Article 42.7—the bloc’s closest equivalent to NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause—might be invoked if NATO is paralyzed. Leaders are asking what happens if NATO’s command-and-control structure simply isn’t there. Paris and Berlin have set up a nuclear steering group to discuss the possible role of the French nuclear arsenal in Europewide deterrence.

What stands out across many of these planning exercises is Ukraine’s role at the center of European security. Bolstering Europe’s own defense and deterrence as Washington’s commitment wanes will take many years. In a scenario exercise that the Council on Foreign Relations recently held with European officials and experts (which we both designed and in which one of us participated), it became readily apparent that Ukraine is the bulwark for Europe’s defense at a time of U.S. retreat.

In our exercise, set in 2029, the starting point for participants was a brittle cease-fire in Ukraine and an isolationist U.S. government seeking normalization with Russia while further pulling away from NATO, including by withdrawing the U.S. supreme allied commander from the bloc’s Belgian headquarters. Convinced that the United States will not come to help, Russia senses an opening and progressively escalates against Europe: first, by demanding negotiations on the basis of the Kremlin’s December 2021 treaty drafts (which, among other things, called for NATO to effectively withdraw from 14 countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans) and then by escalating with conventional attacks and nuclear threats. In our exercise, the United States would stay detached and demand that Europe negotiate with Russia.

European participants had to decide how to react to U.S. passivity and Russia’s escalating attacks. Some Europeans initially tried to keep Washington on their side and continued to engage as they deliberated their response. British and French participants took the lead, while some Europeans were cautious and fearful of escalation with Russia without the United States by their side. Predictably, judging whether the escalation of Russian aggression reached the threshold to invoke NATO’s Article 5 was another source of contention among the more than 10 European NATO countries represented in the exercise.

Managing and coordinating an escalation ladder that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons without the United States was a huge challenge. As Washington was obstructing NATO involvement, European participants mostly chose coalitions of the willing as the format of coordination. They did not see the EU as a relevant mechanism in a fast-moving security crisis. However, their ad hoc coalitions had no decision-making structures in place, which could obstruct or slow down the European response in an actual crisis.

Participants were unified in rejecting Russian negotiation offers as lacking credibility and good faith. Although they agreed on the need for military-to-military contacts to avoid unintended escalation, any negotiation with Russia on the basis of its 2021 demands had little appeal for European participants, even as Washington nudged them to negotiate. A key Kremlin demand—stopping all support for Ukraine and leaving it to Russia’s control—was not even considered during the exercise. It was clear to participants that if Ukraine fell, Europe would be next. Many participants were hopeful that China could put a stop to Russian nuclear blackmailing.

As the scenario developed and the Europeans developed their responses, they relied heavily on Ukraine as a launchpad for offensive counteractions in response to Russian attacks on NATO territory, potentially including a reopening of the front in Ukraine. In the exercise, the Ukrainian side suggested that their forces could also play a role in defending Europe’s eastern flank.

The exercise demonstrated that Ukraine plays a crucial role in Europe’s future security with less U.S. support. In peacetime before any future crisis, Ukraine can pin down Russian forces and buy time for Europe to rebuild its own capabilities. The integration of Ukraine’s defense industry with its European counterparts is critical for Europe’s future defense. In case of war, Ukraine fields the most powerful conventional land army in Europe, hardened by years of high-intensity combat. Its drone, air defense, and artificial intelligence capabilities are battle-proven in a way no European arsenal can claim.

Already in the current war, the balance of burden and benefit is shifting. It is still Europe that is keeping Ukraine in the fight. Europeans are largely filling the gap left by Washington’s stoppage of almost all military aid, either supplying weapons themselves or buying them from the United States, including the air defense interceptors that have grown scarce since the Iran war began. From January to April, European countries committed roughly 2 billion euros per month in new military support for Ukraine on top of the 90 billion euro financial lifeline they have provided to Ukraine.

Increasingly, however, defense support is a two-way street. Drone technology—including rapidly expanding joint production inside and outside Ukraine—is moving to the center of Europe’s military relationship with Kyiv. Europe’s drone-related funds for Ukraine have quadrupled from 400 million euros in 2022 to 1.6 billion euros in just the first four months of this year. This, of course, helps Ukraine but is also very much in Europe’s self-interest. Since the Russian drone incursion into Poland last September and the weak U.S. response to it, Europeans feel more exposed than ever. The further the United States pulls back from Europe, the more the importance of Ukraine not just for drone technology but as a conventional security provider comes into sight.

There was a time when some Europeans regarded Ukraine’s war effort with condescension and saw Europe’s help as charity, even as they admired the improvised but powerful means by which Ukraine held off the Russian war machine. Armin Papperger, CEO of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, not so long ago dismissed Ukrainian drone defense as “play[ing] with Legos”—somehow not comparable to the high-end technology of the Western defense industry.

European military planners know better than to be that arrogant. They understand that Ukraine is holding the line for them—and that an end to the current war would free up Russian troops to threaten NATO’s eastern flank. The Europeans know that their own armies could not endure even a few weeks of the attritional drone warfare that Ukrainian soldiers engage in daily. Meanwhile, the credibility of NATO’s conventional deterrent erodes with every Pentagon announcement of another reduction of U.S. forces and capabilities available to respond in a European crisis. All of this increases the temptation in Moscow to test the alliance.

Europe’s weak position increases Ukraine’s value. The more the United States retreats, the more Europe needs Ukraine, and the more justified Ukraine’s demand for something in return, such as full EU accession, becomes. Ukraine is well aware of its newfound value; at this month’s G-7 summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted on fast-tracked EU membership for his country: “Not all the leaders love such a format—fast track—because they want very understandable, clear steps for everybody. But we are not everybody, with all respect. … We are [at] war, and we need more creative steps.”

In time, even NATO membership for Ukraine comes into view, should the alliance become a European-led one with no role for the United States or less of one. Ukraine still lacks the nuclear, air, and naval power of France and Britain. But in the fight against Russia, no European state is as strong. As our scenario exercises have shown, there is no imaginable future defense architecture for Europe without the United States in which Ukraine is not a key element.

With NATO as we know it in limbo, the urgent task is to accelerate Ukraine’s integration into European defense, whether formally through the EU or as part of a coalition of the willing. The burden-sharing conversation Europe needs to have is not the familiar one about the cost of supporting Kyiv. It is about the burden Ukraine already carries not only to defend its own territory but also to shield a continent that is still far from ready for the day when the United States walks away. European leaders should start asking what they can offer Ukraine—not what Ukraine owes them.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026 7:40 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Great Debate Is Between The Wrong Choices
This Is The Debate We Should Be Having

Phillips P. OBrien
Jun 30, 2026

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-great-debate-is-between-the
-wrong

Sometimes debates rumble on not because of their strong intellectual merits, but because of history, bureaucratic inertia, or simply innate conservatism (not an atypical phenomenon in militaries, it must be said). One of my favorite historical examples of such a debate was the obstinate refusal of some officers in both US and British cavalry units during the interwar period to give up their horses for combat roles. They came up with a host of what seemed to be semi-plausible arguments to justify their emotional and bureaucratic preferences.

Well, It Seemed A Rational Debate For The Time

Some claimed that vehicles would never be able to handle the varied terrain that horses could master, and therefore it was imperative to keep the man in the saddle. Other arguments were that vehicle technology still had a long way to go to mature, and in the meantime, it would be a shame to give up on horses who were tried and true. One of the favorite arguments of the horse backers was to claim that these new-fangled mechanized technologies were simply not mature enough yet, and in the meantime, it was important to prevent some “sheep-like rush to mechanization.”

These arguments effectively delayed the transition of some cavalry units to mechanized status for decades—until after World War II started in some cases.

And then, lo and behold, the horse appeared in combat next to the tank, and the whole debate was revealed as the farce that it was.

It is also worth noting that in the end, it was the most obstinate defenders of the old order that lost out. Many of those fine cavalry officers who clung to their horses in the 1920s and 1930s ended up being useless at the start of the war and had to beg and borrow their way into mechanized units to see the action that they so desperately craved.

The current debate over whether the future (present actually) belongs to human-controlled or remotely/artificially controlled combat vehicles on land, air and sea is much like the debate between cavalry and mechanization in the interwar period. It is ongoing, intense, and its result will make a big difference in the shape of future militaries for years, if not decades.

But it is also partly ridiculous.

Now let me declare an interest. I have, for many years, since before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, argued that large, expensive, manned weapons were on their way out. They seemed to me far too difficult to defend, actually limited in their capabilities, and wildly expensive. In other words, we were spending massive amounts of money to make systems less effective.

In the Spring of 2022, I imagined an impending future where smaller, cheaper defensive weapons would have the “computational performance” to push all these legacy systems towards obsolescence. Here was a quote from one piece which discussed this (I clearly did not anticipate at that point that everyone would soon opt to call these AI/Autonomous systems, but the point was the same).

Drones will be able to stay in the air for longer and avoid detection better, while increasing their lethality and improving their own computational performance. The ability of both to destroy heavy land vehicles while remaining unseen will improve. The massacre of Russian vehicles we have seen in Ukraine will become the norm, not the exception.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026 9:02 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 29, 2026

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-june-29-2026/

Russian President Vladimir Putin is carefully constructing a reality that seeks to portray a Russian victory in Ukraine as inevitable while downplaying the growing domestic economic costs of the war. This constructed reality is premised on a rejection of the tactical and operational developments that have characterized 2026 thus far and a continued Russian commitment to its untenable maximalist battlefield objectives. Putin’s control over the information space and his ability to shape and propagate narratives of Russian military success are critical to maintaining this false reality.

Putin appears to have accepted the reality that the August 2025 US-Russian Alaska Summit did not result in tangible or actionable diplomatic agreements. Putin stated to Kremlin journalist Pavel Zarubin in a likely carefully staged interview on June 28 that Russia and the United States did not reach any agreements at the Alaska Summit.[1] Putin acknowledged that there were no signed documents outlining the “spirit of Anchorage” but claimed that Russia agreed during the summit to US proposals about ending the war in Ukraine. Putin stated that Russia is ready to continue negotiations with the United States based on the Alaska Summit. The Kremlin readout of Putin’s interview omitted his statements about the Alaska Summit, but Zarubin posted a video of the full interview that retained those details.[2] Putin’s June 28 statement follows a similar remark from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on June 25 that there was only a “proposal” at the summit but no official or signed written agreement.[3] Putin is likely acknowledging lack of agreements in order to avoid directly confronting the Trump administration about what happened in Anchorage, given Rubio’s statements confirming the absence of a written agreement. Putin’s stated readiness to return to the Alaska Summit proposals, however, aims to push the United States to resume negotiations as if the battlefield situation has not changed since August 2025. Ukraine has since liberated territory on the frontline and significantly slowed Russian advances, while engaging in successful intermediate- and long-range strike campaigns against Russia — forcing Russia into a much more defensive mode of operation than it was in as of August 2025.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026 11:14 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
OOOOOOOHHHHHHH.... look at Trump, that flabby sack of shit trying to look tough with those flabby slabs of shit crossed over his man boobs.

The Wheels Are Coming Off Putin’s War

Fuel shortages, military unrest, and a strangled Crimea while the Kremlin dictator’s attempts to project confidence do nothing of the sort.

Cathy Young
Jun 30, 2026

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-wheels-are-coming-off-putin-ukrain-wa
r-crimea

A FEW YEARS AGO, when there was still some leeway for acts of public dissent in Russia, some protesters against the Kremlin’s imperialist policy toward Ukraine carried signs that flipped the patriotic slogan Krym nash, “Crimea is ours,” into Nam krysh—a humorous abbreviation of the slang phrase meaning “We’re done for.” [The literal meaning of the full phrase nam krysha is, “It’s the roof for us.”] Today, nam krysh seems prophetic: The occupied peninsula that became the (stolen) jewel in Putin’s crown in 2014 finds itself under a Ukrainian blockade that has all but cut it off from the Russian mainland—and, since Friday, under a state of emergency.

Starting in May, the vaunted “land bridge” by which Russia supplied occupied Crimea, the Novorossiya highway, turned into a death trap for trucks due to unrelenting Ukrainian drone attacks. Since then, other strikes have targeted bridges and taken out ferry operations. Severe fuel shortages are the blockade’s tangible result. Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-installed governor of Crimea, recently announced a complete halt to gas sales to individual car owners; fuel is reserved for public transit and official vehicles. Power outages have become widespread; the latest reports show that food shortages are already starting. The Crimea vacation long coveted by Russians has become a nightmare. Recent data from travel websites show that nearly 80 percent of hotel bookings on the peninsula have been canceled. While a few brave or stupid souls are still heading to Crimea, far more people are getting out. Thousands of cars have been lining up at the Crimean Bridge (a.k.a. the Kerch Strait Bridge, famously attacked multiple times by Ukraine) in the direction of the mainland, with hardly any traffic the other way.

The Ukrainian effort to turn the Crimean peninsula into “an island,” in the words of Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, has marked a new chapter in the war, in both symbolic and practical ways. Russia’s Krym nash moment—the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, immediately followed by the Russian incursion into the Donbas—was the beginning of Putin’s proposed reconquista of Ukraine. Moreover, the Crimea grab was almost universally seen as de facto irreversible even by those who were optimistic about the prospect for Ukraine to recapture its other occupied lands. Today, while no one believes Ukraine could recapture the peninsula soon, the occupation powers are beleaguered.

In his televised address last Wednesday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that the actions taken to isolate Crimea were part of a “carefully calculated operation” intended, with help from Ukraine’s Western allies, to “force Russia to choose peace.” Some Russian propagandists saw this statement as a signal that Ukraine was preparing an actual military operation to recapture Crimea. That seems doubtful: Such an operation would be extremely costly at a time when Ukraine still faces significant manpower shortages on the frontlines. One possibility, however, is that if supply lines are cut off, the Russian military contingent on the peninsula may be forced to evacuate—opening the way to an unresisted Ukrainian capture that would, in effect, be a reversal of Russia’s bloodless seizure of Crimea in 2014. (As the saying goes, history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes.)

What’s not in doubt is that Ukraine has succeeded in turning Crimea from Russia’s prize into a liability. And it’s part of a larger Ukrainian strategy: The next day, on Thursday, Zelensky announced that he had approved a forty-day “operation of influence” against Russia, coordinated with Ukrainian intelligence and intended to force Moscow to end the war.

A creeping sense of nam krysh is spreading far beyond Crimea. The recent Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries in Moscow, which produced apocalyptic images of plumes of smoke and flames rising over the city and shut down a key gasoline-producing facility for at least the next six months, became a rude wakeup call for many Muscovites who have clung to the belief that the war won’t come near them except on television. (And it keeps coming near: Thursday, a missile alert was issued in the Moscow region, with residents advised to shelter indoors.) What’s more, it’s not just in Crimea that Ukrainian strikes against the Russian oil industry are causing a fuel crisis. As of June 24, reports Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, 55 of Russia’s 83 regions had either government-imposed restrictions on gasoline and diesel fuel sales or caps imposed by private companies. Shortages have also been observed in nearly all remaining regions. Some commentators have recalled the late John McCain’s 2014 comment that Russia is “a gas station masquerading as a country”—which greatly offended Russian patriots at the time—and acidly noted that the gas station has run out of gas. At this point, it’s bidding to buy gasoline from Kazakhstan—and getting turned down.

Video clips in which Russian motorists report shut-down gas stations and multi-mile-long lines at the few that remain open are proliferating faster than Russian propaganda can churn out talking points about hysteria and hype. “I don’t want to start trouble, especially here on my page, but I’m afraid that we’re in for hard times, lean times. God forbid, of course, but these are hard times,” says one man in such a video, waiting in line for forty minutes after making the rounds of six other stations. In another clip, a man curses about thieves siphoning off gas from his tank a day after he filled up. Meanwhile, a woman who seems sincerely perplexed inquires, “Hey guys, what’s going on with the gas stations? I don’t watch the news. Where are people filling up? What’s happening? The lines everywhere are a kilometer long.”

Here’s a tip for you, lady: Find a news source outside the Kremlin propaganda machine.

MEANWHILE, RUSSIAN FORCES remain mostly stuck on the frontlines, even if Putin keeps telling audiences that the war is going well and that “our boys are pounding them every blessed day.” Yes, the Russians may succeed in taking the city of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region after an eight-month siege, which could potentially clear the way toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk (though any Russian attacks on those cities would run into heavy fortifications). But Ukrainians have their own battlefield successes, such as forcing Russian troops off the Black Sea’s Kinburn Spit peninsula, an important foothold for control over critical waterways. And right now, Ukrainian strikes inside Russia—not only on oil facilities but on military targets such as munitions factories—are creating a powerful sense of Ukrainian momentum. It’s not just drones, either: Ukraine’s new long-range Flamingo missiles, introduced last fall and touted as an alternative to the American Tomahawks, have just taken out a key military-industrial site in Volgograd that manufactured everything from artillery systems to ballistic and nuclear missiles launchers.

There are also growing signs of discontent in the Russian military. On June 25, two days after the third anniversary of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny, a blogger and Ukraine war veteran named Aleksandr Lunin posted an angry, expletive-laden Instagram video describing horrific abuses endured by Russian soldiers on the frontlines: extortion by commanding officers, sadistic punishments, de facto murder by suicide missions. That in itself is nothing new, but Lunin, who claimed to be speaking on behalf of unnamed military and security officials, also demanded a televised meeting with Putin in which he could tell the country about the reality of what was happening in Ukraine. And he warned that if such a meeting was not granted, “the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.” The video had 11 million views in the first twenty-four hours and got hundreds of thousands of likes.

The next day, Lunin (whose identity has been confirmed) backtracked a little, claiming that his statement had been misunderstood as a threat of mutiny and appearing to withdraw his demand for a meeting—which, evidently, has not saved him from arrest. But, despite the internet crackdown, or perhaps because of it, the video has gone viral on Russian social networks.

Other viral videos appear to show forcible conscription raids in which men are grabbed in the streets, beaten, and coerced into signing army contracts. With a severe shortfall of volunteers, there is also talk of a new round of mobilization in the fall, a move Putin has resisted ever since the partial mobilization in the fall of 2022 led to a tangible rise in discontent.

It’s hard to get an accurate measure of popular sentiment about the war in Russia, given that people have gone to prison for liking posts critical of the war and that people in a fear-based society are prone to be skittish even in anonymous polls. As Israel-based dissident video blogger Maxim Katz has quipped, most Russians, asked what they think of Putin or the war, hear the question as, “Are you overjoyed about everything that’s happening, or do you want to get eight years in the slammer?” Nonetheless, the polls, such as they are, do show growing levels of war fatigue. Independent Russian journalist Farida Rustamova reports that internal polling conducted by the United Russia party in May showed over 60 percent saying they wanted to war to end in one way or another. Open polls, too, show growing support for a peace agreement—though with such caveats as Ukrainian recognition of Russian sovereignty over captured territories. (Again, it’s hard to say to what extent such answers are chosen as politically acceptable.) In United Russia’s closed focus groups, Rustamova’s sources told her, many people expressed readiness to accept an end to the war—even what of those sources euphemistically put it a “non-victorious outcome.”

And, even in official polls, the ratings for Putin’s ruling United Russia party (currently with around 33 percent approval) have dropped so low that the Kremlin’s siloviki—top military and security officials—have been reportedly pushing Putin to cancel or postpone September’s elections for the Duma. Apparently, there are fears that the anti-United Russia landslide could become (with apologies for quoting Donald Trump) too big to rig.

A MEASURE OF RUSSIA’S FLOUNDERING fortunes in Ukraine can also be seen, perhaps, in international support. Donald Trump is currently in “Ukraine is fighting well” mode, while Marco Rubio says that no U.S.-Russia agreements were made in Anchorage last year. Also, U.S. sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, waived during the war in Iran, appear to have been restored. Of course, everything could change the next time Trump has another chat with Putin, or for any other reason; but it’s worth noting that over in the Kremlin, at least, they seem to be in genuine Et tu, Donald? mode. At a June 23 press conference, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov darkly insinuated, in an “I don’t even want to suspect it” way, that last year’s Alaska summit may have been just a ploy to buy more time for Kyiv. (No, but it’s a nice thought.)

And there’s trouble brewing in Belarus. On Thursday, in a meeting with Russian ambassador to Minsk Boris Gryzlov, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko emphatically said that while Belarus “stands with Russia,” it will resist any efforts to draw it into the war—and made it plain that the efforts were coming from Gryzlov. This would be standard rhetoric for the canny Belarusian strongman—except for one detail. Since the start of the war, Lukashenko’s insistence that he was not involved in it went hand in hand with providing low-key logistical support to Russia. Since last December, that logistical support included relay stations on the Belarus/Ukraine border that helped guide Russian drone strikes on Ukraine. Then, on June 19, Zelensky issued an ultimatum to Lukashenko that if those stations were not disabled, the Ukrainians themselves would act to remove them. Three days later, Zelensky told the press, citing reports from Ukrainian intelligence and armed forces, that the relay stations were now offline. Ukrainian drones, it seems, make Ukrainian ultimatums much more persuasive. A subsequent Putin-Lukashenko summit at Putin’s Valdai residence ended in a boilerplate statement about discussions of “trade and economic cooperation” and “regional security issues.”

Could it be that Lukashenko—who, in the words of expatriate Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, is a “political animal” with a fine nose for power—can smell Russian defeat?

ON SUNDAY, PUTIN GAVE AN INTERVIEW to one of his favorite propagandists, Pavel Zarubin—often dubbed a “court journalist” because of his access to the Kremlin dictator—reiterating, yet again, that Russian troops were on a forward march in every combat zone in Ukraine. In a pathetic display that even many pro-war bloggers mocked, Putin tried to show his grasp on the situation by rattling off the names of specific towns, villages, and even streets—and not only got the facts wrong but even garbled a name, referring to the Ukrainian river Oskol as “Stary Oskol,” a town in Russia’s Belgorod region. He claimed that Russian troops were close to seizing the town of Kupyansk, whose supposed capture was celebrated by the Russian military and by Putin himself at least twice earlier this year.

And what about the Ukrainian strikes inside Russia? Mainly a psy-op, Putin explained, but Russia was already working on better air defense systems. Crimea? Sure, gas supplies were low, but deliveries by both land and water were imminent (he didn’t explain how) and the problems would be resolved. As for fuel problems on the Russian mainland, Putin said, “we are currently observing some shortages, but they are not critical.”

On the same day, ? viral video showed a man in the Novgorod region waiting in a long gas station line after trying his luck at two other gas stations railing against “those who spread bullshit that everything is fine.” At the end of the 34-second clip, the man’s rant turned more personal. “Vova ought to be bent over for this!” he yelled, using the common nickname for Vladimir. “Bend him over right there on Red Square!”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026 11:22 AM

THG

Is also JJ. Keep it real please, and use a VPN

tick tock comrade.

T

Ukraine Starts Cracking Open the Occupied Territories

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