Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Ukraine and Iran are Changing Warfare
Here's what to pay attention to.

Francis Fukuyama
May 27, 2026

https://www.persuasion.community/p/were-in-the-midst-of-a-warfare-revo
lution

It is clear that we are living through a dramatic revolution in warfare brought about by changes in technology. Classic airpower, manned by human pilots, is increasingly being displaced by pilotless drones and ballistic missiles. This has led to surprising developments, as seemingly weaker powers like Ukraine and Iran have been able to stymie larger ones like Russia and the United States.

Over the last several weeks, the mainstream media has begun picking up on the fact that Ukraine has been doing much better on the battlefield, and that the war with Russia may at long last be turning in its favor. But some of the claims about the underlying technological revolution have been exaggerated, and we need to understand the precise ways in which warfare is changing.

Airpower by itself has always had great difficulties in achieving political objectives, something aptly demonstrated by the ongoing Iran war and Operation Epic Fury. What I want to investigate here is how airpower affects the land battle, which remains the main way that war influences political outcomes. In this realm, there are three main domains in which it has been used historically.

The first is strategic: the destruction of large targets deep in the enemy rear that have important roles sustaining the enemy’s war effort, like factories, railroad junctions, power grids, and the like.

The second use of airpower is operational: hitting military targets closer to the battlefield, perhaps 10 to 100 kilometers behind the front lines, including supply lines, air defenses, troops massing for an attack, communications facilities, command posts, barracks, or fuel storage needed by mobile armored forces. Such attacks are critical in “shaping” the land battle by disrupting communications and resupply.

The third mission is close air support: that is, attacking enemy forces that are actively engaged in battle on the front lines.

The first and the third of these have already been greatly impacted by new technologies, and we are about to witness big changes in the second category. Let’s see what recent wars have demonstrated.

A lot of recent media coverage concerns the Ukrainian campaign of long-range drone strikes that have targeted Russian oil and gas facilities, in some cases thousands of kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Observers have noted the lack of military hardware at this year’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations in Red Square for fear of Ukrainian strikes during the ceremony, and Vladimir Putin’s reported fear of assassination by drone.

Technology has made a huge difference in this realm. During World War II, the British Bomber Command and U.S. Eighth Air Force attempted to hit strategic targets like ball bearing factories in Germany. But Nazi air defenses forced bombers to fly at night, when their accuracy was atrocious. This led to the Allied decision to indiscriminately bomb urban civilian targets, leading to the flattening of cities like Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo, with accompanying civilian casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Despite the armchair strategizing of people like Lindsey Graham, these kinds of civilian attacks are both morally repugnant and have a poor track record in changing the political calculations of targeted countries. The Russians have been hitting Ukrainian civilian targets throughout the war; though they have made life miserable for its citizens, they have not brought about the country’s capitulation.

It is in the realm of close air support that drone technology has had the most revolutionary effects. This mission has historically been very difficult to carry out: until the advent of precision-guided munitions in the late 20th century, like the Maverick missile or guided GBU 10 and 12 bombs, it was hard to hit point targets from the air. Even so, “low and slow” aircraft like AC-130 gunships or the beloved A-10 Warthog were vulnerable to air defenses, and ran the risk of fratricide, where the aircraft would mistakenly hit a friendly target.

Inexpensive FPV drones, which are now being produced by Ukraine in the millions per year, have changed this calculus completely. Classic combined arms maneuver warfare—that is, rapid breakthroughs by armored vehicles that can drive deep into the enemy rear, cut supply lines, and capture territory—has been made virtually impossible. FPV drones have made the battlefield completely visible; they can see everything and strike everything they see, not just tanks and surface-to-air batteries, but individual foot soldiers. FPV drones are not, at least for now, vulnerable to modern air defenses, and are much more precise than earlier munitions.

The one mission that remains the domain of airpower is the operational one, beginning with the establishment of air superiority in the early stages of a campaign. By neutralizing SAM batteries and destroying the enemy’s aircraft, either on the ground or in the air, airplanes remain very useful. Airplanes are also necessary for certain kinds of strategic missions such as delivering heavy “bunker buster” bombs like those the United States used against Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant last summer.

But operational missions are now being transformed as well. Early in the war, the Ukrainians used American HIMARS rockets, with ranges in the tens or low hundreds of kilometers, to great effect. While these have been largely neutralized by Russian countermeasures, the Ukrainians are developing a new generation of drones and rockets that can strike at operational distances.

We see this unfolding as we speak in Russian-occupied Crimea. The Ukrainians have been systematically taking out Russian air defenses with medium-range drones and missiles. The peninsula has very constricted supply lines, with a road and rail connection through the narrow isthmus to the north, and the Kerch Strait bridge connecting it to the Russian mainland. The Ukrainians reportedly now control the isthmus route from the air, and have attacked the bridge repeatedly over the past three years.

Under these circumstances, it would not be at all surprising if the Russian command decided at some point in the coming year that its position in Crimea was untenable, and began to withdraw its forces there, just as it has already withdrawn the bulk of its navy. Such a withdrawal would, of course, mean an enormous political defeat for Vladimir Putin.

Airpower is not obsolete yet. Success in war still depends on layered defenses and systems that are capable of operating within each of the layers. In judging the future of drones versus legacy airpower, however, the question is not one of pure capabilities, since airpower will remain superior in certain operational and strategic missions. Rather, the issue is one of relative cost.

While a Patriot missile can shoot down a Shahed drone, the Patriot costs north of $4 million, while the Shahed is produced for less than $40,000, and in much larger quantities. In the future, countries like Ukraine will be able to unleash swarms of low-cost drones, controlled autonomously by AI systems. Operation Epic Fury in the Middle East, meanwhile, has demonstrated that the sophisticated air defenses provided to America’s friends in the Gulf have been unable to prevent serious damage to their facilities from Iran’s drones and missiles. This balance of capabilities will persist until someone comes up with a cheap and effective anti-drone system. Many countries and companies are working on that today, but we are not there yet.

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University. His latest book is Liberalism and Its Discontents. He is also the author of the “Frankly Fukuyama” column, carried forward from American Purpose, at Persuasion.

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

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Thursday, May 28, 2026 8:57 PM

Orwell saw it all...

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 12:14 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Orwell saw it all...

Philip K Dick foretold it all in a novelette that became the 1995 sci-fi horror film Screamers, set in 2078 on a war-torn mining planet, where humanity is hunted by "Screamers"—self-replicating, AI-powered autonomous weapons. The surviving Alliance commander travels to negotiate a truce with the enemy, only to discover the machines have evolved into deceptive, humanoid killing devices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 1:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Orwell saw it all...
Philip K Dick foretold it all in a novelette that became the 1995 sci-fi horror film Screamers, set in 2078 on a war-torn mining planet, where humanity is hunted by "Screamers"—self-replicating, AI-powered autonomous weapons. The surviving Alliance commander travels to negotiate a truce with the enemy, only to discover the machines have evolved into deceptive, humanoid killing devices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety

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

Second Variety is one of my favorite short stories of all time, my dude.

When you're being a normal person, you're not half bad. You know that?

But I was thinking about the bombs just falling all over the place, and what it would be like to live a life where that's become normalized for you. Winston never thought about that while he was home or at work, but venture too far outside of polite society and it sounded like the bombing wasn't so frequent where everyone lived in abject terror 24/7, but they all walked around knowing deep in the back of their mind that any moment could be their last with a random bomb dropped right on their heads.

P.S. The movie Screamers was a great big pile of steaming horseshit though, wasn't it?

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 2:44 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Didn't Fukuyama declare "the end of history"?

I guess history didn't end after all!

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 3:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Didn't Fukuyama declare "the end of history"?

I guess history didn't end after all!

I was looking for a (very) short sci-fi story I can't think of the name of at the moment to post in reply, but then I got distracted after I finally figured out what I was looking at after Google's AI interpreted my query. It was quite a bit more interesting to me...

Dr. Aris Thorne pulled the main lever, intending to leap forward five minutes to prevent a spilled coffee. Instead, the temporal displacement tore a microscopic hole in the fabric of spacetime.

The universe didn't explode—it simply began unraveling from the edges in, erasing time, space, and memory into absolute nothingness. The catastrophic tear cascaded outward at the speed of light, folding galaxies into infinitesimal points before annihilating them.

As Aris watched his laboratory walls dissolve into shimmering, colorless static, he realized his fatal error. He had not just broken causality; he had erased the very canvas upon which the universe existed. In the final, blinding fraction of a second—as his own atoms scattered across the void—the scientist let out a hollow laugh. He had successfully destroyed all of time, permanently ensuring that no future scientist would ever make the same mistake.

Jesus Christ. It just wrote me a 3 paragraph short story about a scientist ending the universe and fit Time Travel in there. And it's not bad either. It made me laugh.

Not just the ending, but also when it decided that the Doctor leaping forward 5 minutes into the future to avoid spilling his coffee is the proper direction we need to be going in.

And yeah... I'm pretty damn sure it ripped off some of that from the story I was thinking about.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 3:19 AM

Oh... By the way. I've mentioned it before about A.I., but one of the (at least for now) telltale signs that you're reading something made by A.I. is seeing the Em Dash.

Known as: U+2014 : EM DASH

Symbol: —

The A.I. used it 3 times in that short story. Hardly any human uses it unless they've got a job or some hobby with a real specific purpose for using it since it's not something you can normally type on a keyboard.

I'm not sure if I use the ellipsis more than AI uses EM DASH, or the other way around.

Oh... and it also should be noted that the only reason A.I. still uses the EM DASH is because TPTB want stupid people to believe that they can always spot A.I. writing by checking if it has EM DASHes or not.

That obviously is not the case. The people who control the A.I. and/or the A.I. itself is already very aware of this action taking place. If they weren't before, they are after people on YouTube started talking about it.

Why would they remove this odd behavior now that people know about it?

Except for choice documents that maybe you don't want people believing were A.I. generated...

Ammiright?

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:55 AM

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

Back to reality, there are gadgets to keep you alive in a drone war:

By the time you hear the UAV coming, it’s often too late. It’ll be upon you in seconds — not enough time to react. All you can hope for is that the operator is bad at their job and the explosion misses your vitals.

With a good detector though, you can spot a drone coming from kilometers away, giving you time to scatter, jump into a dugout, switch on the jammer, or just grab the shotgun. When dealing with FPVs or drones with similar roles, maximizing reaction time is critical — both for troops on the front line and civilians like first responders and journalists.

Drone detectors have been a staple technology in Ukraine for years. These tools typically pick up on the signals transmitted between drones and their operators to provide a heads-up. As drone control systems and tactics evolve complexity, so too must detectors.

Kara Dag Technologies bills itself as a leader in this space — Euromaidan Press reviewed positive feedback from an investor and testimonials about its Obriy series of detectors, whose latest Obriy 1.3C and 1.4C iterations recently dropped. Several warfighters said the system “performed well in field conditions” while a foreign volunteer said "they save lives on a daily basis, especially in Kherson."

Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/28/in-the-age-of-drone-warfare-ear
ly-detection-grows-ever-more-urgent-not-just-in-ukraine-but-worldwide/

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:59 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I was looking for a (very) short sci-fi story I can't think of the name of at the moment to post in reply, but then I got distracted after I finally figured out what I was looking at after Google's AI interpreted my query. It was quite a bit more interesting to me...

This really happened:

Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

By Scott Aaronson | May 27th, 2026

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9782

. . . OpenAI helpfully included commentary from Timothy Gowers, Noga Alon, Will Sawin, Daniel Litt, and many other experts, reflecting on the breakthrough, the path that GPT took to get to it (which can actually be seen by examining its chain-of-thought), and what this might mean for the future of mathematical research.

I heard the news maybe an hour after it broke, when some UT grad students came to my office to tell me. For what it’s worth: these students were morose, musing about how everything might soon be over for young scientists and mathematicians like themselves. I don’t know whether they’re right, but I feel like I should tell the truth about what their reaction was. . . .

And then, just today, Jelani Nelson alerted me to a new CS theory paper, which solves a longstanding open problem about electrical flows on graphs using a proof from GPT5.5Pro.

It seems to me that we’re now over the top of this particular rollercoaster, and it will keep accelerating until we reach the bottom, wherever that might be. I don’t know whether to hope or dread that solutions to P versus NP and all our other great problems will be included in the ride—that our role, as human mathematicians, will be reduced to (at most) deciding which questions we find interesting and then understanding AI models’ answers to those questions.

But maybe that won’t happen. Maybe the new AI mathematicians will soon hit a wall, because they lack the uncomputable quantum gravity microtubules of Penrose and Hameroff, or some other magic human ingredient. The fantastical thing is that, one way or the other, we’re going to find out empirically before very long.

_______________________________________________________________________

. . . But maybe we should just throw in the towel—as some of my colleagues have already done in the context of undergraduate projects? Maybe we should simply say that a good story is a good story, regardless of what manner of entity produced it?

As it happens, just last week I read my very first AI-written story that affected me as a story, to the extent that I wanted to read it more than once. This happened when I gave GPT5.5Pro the following simple prompt:

Write me a story about the most ancient Israelites that’s riveting like the stories of the Bible but that’s also consistent with all of the archaeological evidence.

You can read the result here. https://tinyurl.com/y8xa3ust One of my Facebook friends called it “disturbingly good,” and I share that assessment. Of course, I’m well aware that GPT could easily generate a thousand stories like this one—sampled from the same probability distribution—and then I could even do statistics on which tropes were the most common. This makes it feel silly to overindex on the first story that happened to be output, and yet somehow I did.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 9:53 AM

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

Number of Ukrainians forced abroad by war reaches 8 million, foreign minister says

By Anastasia Protz | 29 May, 14:29

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/05/29/8036931/

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has said that, based on Ukrainian government data, about 8 million citizens are abroad because of the war, and that Ukraine is working with international partners to create conditions for their return home.

Source: Sybiha during the Government Question Hour

Quote: "Based on our data, not even 6 million but 8 million Ukrainians are abroad involuntarily. For us, this is genuinely becoming a security challenge. We are saying directly that the necessary measures will be taken and the necessary steps developed to encourage Ukrainians to return home or create proper conditions for their return."

Details: Sybiha said the return of Ukrainians is the state's main strategic goal. To achieve this, he pointed out, security conditions must first be created in Ukraine.

Sybiha added that Kyiv is discussing possible mechanisms with partners to support the return of citizens, and said that "not all countries are interested in this" because of Ukrainians' contribution to the economies of their host states.

He also cited Switzerland as an example of a country that had introduced a programme to encourage Ukrainians to return. It provides financial support, including payment for travel and temporary rental housing after return to Ukraine.

Sybiha said Ukraine is holding talks with both European institutions and individual states on financial support for programmes to help Ukrainian citizens return.

Background:

• The European Commission and EU member states are discussing possible unified solutions regarding the status of Ukrainians living in the EU after March 2027, including both the potential termination of temporary protection and its extension for another year.

• The Temporary Protection Directive, introduced in March 2022, granted millions of Ukrainians access to a range of rights in the EU without overburdening asylum systems.

• Initially designed as a short-term emergency measure, the directive has been extended multiple times and is currently in force until 4 March 2027.

• In May, a study by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) projected that if a "fragile peace with concessions" were achieved in the Russia-Ukraine war this year, over half of the current number of Ukrainian refugees would remain in Europe until the end of 2029.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 11:00 AM

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

Ukraine’s first Gripens will come with Meteor missiles to push back Russian glide-bomb aircraft.

By Olena Mukhina | May 28, 2026

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/28/ukraine-will-receive-long-arm-a
gainst-russian-aircraft-battering-front-positions-with-glide-bombs/

Ukraine will receive its first Swedish Gripen fighters together with long-range Meteor air-to-air missiles, Deputy Head of the President's Office Pavlo Palisa said. The combination, Palisa argued, will let Ukraine push back the Russian aircraft that launch guided glide bombs (KABs) at Ukrainian positions from just behind the front line.

Russian fighter-bombers carrying KABs have battered Ukrainian forward positions throughout the war, typically launching from inside Russian airspace beyond the reach of Ukrainian air defense. Currently, Ukraine does not have a systematic weapon to counter them.

The first Gripen jets fall within a package Stockholm finalized this week that includes 16 donated Gripen C/D.

The C/D models Sweden intends to hand over are already-built aircraft, which would allow faster delivery than the in-production Gripen E/F line. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in late October 2025 that Ukraine expected its first Gripens in 2026. https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/05/28/sweden-prepares-to-donate-gripe
n-c-d-jets-to-ukraine-and-open-e-model-sale-talks/

Russia currently drops between 100 and 300 guided glide bombs (KABs) on Ukraine each day, depending on the intensity of air operations and weather conditions. Recent statistics from Ukrainian military officials highlight the massive scale of these aerial attacks: Daily Averages: Ukrainian military command notes that Russian forces typically carry out dozens of airstrikes daily, using between 200 and 300 guided bombs across the front lines. Record Peaks: The intensity of these strikes frequently surges. For example, the highest daily use of KABs recorded reached 328 guided bombs dropped on Ukrainian positions in a single day. Monthly Volume: Russia frequently releases roughly 5,000 to nearly 8,000 of these bombs on Ukrainian territory every month, with recent peaks setting all-time highs for the conflict. About the Weapons: KABs (sometimes referred to as GABs or UMPK glide bombs) are converted Soviet-era gravity bombs fitted with guidance and gliding kits. They are dropped by Russian aircraft—primarily Su-34 bombers—from standoff distances (often 40-65 km) behind the front lines, keeping the jets outside the effective range of many standard Ukrainian air defense systems.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 12:46 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: Monday, September 18, 2023 5:45 PM

Human rights have disappeared in Ukraine and significantly deteriorated in the EU, UK, USA, and Canada. Why no reports about THAT???

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

How is it you completely ignore this, comrade?

T

Ukraine Documents Over 213,000 Russian War Crimes Since Start of Full-Scale Invasion — UNITED24 Media
Russian forces have committed widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, including attacks on civilians, forced deportations, torture, and the abduction of children.
Scope and Documentation
Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has documented over 213,000 cases of alleged Russian war crimes, with 242 convictions issued as of March 2026, and many more trials ongoing. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine and Human Rights Watch have confirmed systematic violations, including torture of prisoners of war, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, and attacks on civilian infrastructure. Russian forces have also targeted hospitals, schools, and energy facilities, causing widespread civilian suffering.
united24media.com
+3
Attacks on Civilians and Infrastructure
Russian military operations have included indiscriminate missile and drone strikes on populated areas, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths and injuries. Notable incidents include the Bucha massacre, the Kramatorsk railway station missile strike, and repeated attacks on hospitals such as Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt children’s hospital. These attacks often violated the Geneva Conventions, as civilians and civilian objects were deliberately targeted.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Forced Deportations and Child Abductions
Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including an estimated 150,000–300,000 children, to Russia or Russian-controlled areas. The UN Commission concluded that these actions constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, noting that children were often separated from their families, granted Russian citizenship, and placed in institutions or families without parental consent. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova for these crimes.
The Kyiv Independent
+4
Torture, Arbitrary Detention, and Sexual Violence
Russian forces have tortured Ukrainian POWs and civilians, including beatings, electric shocks, and threats of execution, often to extract false confessions or intimidate communities. Sexual violence has been documented, including cases involving minors. Thousands of civilians, journalists, and activists have been unlawfully detained in occupied areas.
Human Rights Watch
+2
Legal Accountability
The ICC, UN Human Rights Council, and national courts are investigating these crimes. Arrest warrants have been issued for top Russian officials, including military commanders accused of directing attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. The U.S. and EU support accountability efforts through evidence collection, universal jurisdiction prosecutions, and potential establishment of special tribunals. However, enforcement is complicated by Russia’s veto power in the UN Security Council.
Wikipedia
+4
Humanitarian Impact
The war has caused over 13 million displaced Ukrainians, including 6.7 million refugees abroad, and extensive destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, and cultural heritage sites. Millions remain internally displaced, and attacks on energy infrastructure have left civilians without electricity, water, and essential services. The abduction of children and forced deportations have caused long-term psychological trauma and family separations.
Human Rights Watch
+1
Summary
Russian war crimes in Ukraine are systematic, widespread, and ongoing, encompassing deliberate attacks on civilians, forced deportations, torture, sexual violence, and the abduction of children. International bodies, including the ICC and UN commissions, are actively documenting these crimes and pursuing accountability, though geopolitical constraints complicate enforcement. The humanitarian consequences remain severe, with millions of Ukrainians displaced and enduring long-term suffering.

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Friday, May 29, 2026 12:53 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Milley & Stoltenberg Agree: 'We Must Prepare Ourselves For A Long War In Ukraine'

Oh, they wish!!!

They've scaled back their ambitions from "victory in Ukraine" and "regime change in Russia" to "prepare for a long war".

Guys, it's too fucking late to "prepare" for a long war.

NATO/USA are out of ammo and weapons that can be conveniently spared, weapons manufacturing capability is paltry and vastly exceeded by Russia, troop levels are insufficient to tackle anything other than a third-world military, and many economies are in serious trouble. NATO and the USA will fall further and further behind. And now, they want to tackle China???

I think what they're REALLY doing is preparing the USA/NATO public for putting Ukraine on the back burner and eventually trying to memory-hole the entire clusterfuck. But I don't think Russia will let them. Russia has security issues it needs to resolve, ie. NATO expansion to the east. Creating a neutral Ukraine is just the first step.

If Russia succeeds, I don't know if it will pause, or move on to the next hot issue, which is those missile installations in Poland and Romania.

Just trying to bring some, yanno, reality to the realworld forum.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

Poor comrade Signym. She lives in a delusional state. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO has expanded. Expanded in a way that is a nightmare for Russia. NATO countries have also enlarged their military budgets. And as far as what America has sent in the way of munitions, it is mostly systems that are being phased out of service. No loss there.

Russia has lost many naval vessels including a submarine, unimaginable amounts of its combat capabilities; its hardware and munitions. And 3 hundred thousand troops killed and injured. All this without NATO firing a shot.

I told you comrade when Putin was raising a glass of Champaign to Trump being elected, that payback was going to be a bitch. Russia as you know it will never recover from this; ever.

Can_you_see_me_laughing?

T

Now the number is closer to a million and a half dead or wounded Russians.

T

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Friday, May 29, 2026 1:16 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: Monday, September 18, 2023 5:45 PM

Human rights have disappeared in Ukraine and significantly deteriorated in the EU, UK, USA, and Canada. Why no reports about THAT???

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

Sorry to hear your spouse is a drunk. Good luck with that.

T

Putin Played The "Crimea Card"... And Walked Into A Massive TRAP in Transnistria

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Friday, May 29, 2026 2:24 PM

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

What’s Wrong With Russia?

In a wide-ranging conversation, two prominent Kremlin watchers examine and discuss the effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine on the domestic politics and collective psyche of a nation obsessed with its own greatness.

By David Satter, Jason Jay Smart | May 27, 2026, 12:05 pm

https://www.kyivpost.com/interviews/76675

I remember once standing in a line for potatoes in the Soviet Union, and one of the men in the line started shouting, “How long can we tolerate these queues?” An old woman turned to him and said, “Never you mind, the whole world is afraid of us.”

Russians like the idea that they are great, that the world is afraid of them. They may not live the way people in the West live, and there’s some awareness of that. But they are part of a great enterprise. Before it consisted of spreading the benefits of communism to other countries. Putin tried to replace communism with the benefits of the Russian world. And finally, that could be dropped in favor of the benefits of Russian domination. But the world doesn’t want the benefits of Russian domination.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 4:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Now the number is closer to a million and a half dead or wounded Russians.

"I'm so fucking happy because so many fucking people who never did a fucking thing to me are dead!!!! DEAD I SAY!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

You're a fucking idiot, Ted.

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

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 4:53 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Now the number is closer to a million and a half dead or wounded Russians.

"I'm so fucking happy because so many fucking people who never did a fucking thing to me are dead!!!! DEAD I SAY!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

You're a fucking idiot, Ted.

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

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

Can you identify the bad guys in the following Hollywood scenario? In the movie Serenity, the Alliance flies to the town of Haven and kills everyone, including Book. But before he dies, Book shoots them down with an anti-aircraft gun. I think identifying the villain is obvious, especially if you follow the movie's plot over the previous hour. I think it is even more obvious that the Russians are the bad guys in Ukraine, considering that this war has been ongoing for thousands of hours. By now, everybody understands the plot, except 6ix and Signym, who keep Rootin' For Putin because of their psychology and personal depravity, the same mental problems as the Russians.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 5:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Now the number is closer to a million and a half dead or wounded Russians.

"I'm so fucking happy because so many fucking people who never did a fucking thing to me are dead!!!! DEAD I SAY!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

You're a fucking idiot, Ted.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Can you identify the bad guys in the following Hollywood scenario? In the movie Serenity, the Alliance flies to the town of Haven and kills everyone, including Book. But before he dies, Book shoots them down with an anti-aircraft gun. I think identifying the villain is obvious, especially if you follow the movie's plot over the previous hour. I think it is even more obvious that the Russians are the bad guys in Ukraine, considering that this war has been ongoing for thousands of hours. By now, everybody understands the plot, except 6ix and Signym, who keep Rootin' For Putin because of their psychology and personal depravity, the same mental problems as the Russians.

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

It's so simple, even a monkey could explain it!

Shut up, retard. Your opinion on any topic is meaningless.

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

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:01 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Shut up, retard. Your opinion on any topic is meaningless.

As Ukraine’s fortunes improve, it’s ‘zugzwang’ time for Putin

Drone warfare has produced a bloody battlefield stasis reminiscent of World War I.

By George F. Will | May 29, 2026 at 7:00 a.m.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/05/29/ukraine-russia-war-
huge-cost-putin/

Fifteen months ago, in an Oval Office tantrum that will live in infamy, President Donald Trump ordered Ukraine to surrender. He told President Volodymyr Zelensky, “You don’t have the cards.” He saw an incurable mismatch with Russia.

Was Ukraine a tulip confronting a bulldozer? Some tulip. Overrated bulldozer.

Russia’s subsequent stumble was dramatized this month by precautions Ukraine forced Vladimir Putin to take regarding Russia’s annual Victory Day. Usually the May 9 parade of military formations and hardware lasts much longer than this year’s 45 minutes. There were fewer men and machines because Moscow now lives with the threat of Ukrainian drones. Staging areas for the parade would have been inviting targets. In a splendid taunt, Zelensky announced that Ukraine would “permit” the parade by not targeting Red Square that day.

Putin’s limp recent assessment of the war was, “I believe the matter is coming to a close.” “The matter,” his “special military operation” to extinguish Ukrainian nationhood, began 51 months ago. He assumed it would require at most a few weeks.

So far this year, Russia has captured about 0.04 percent of Ukraine, and in April, Putin’s forces experienced a net loss of territory. By this month, the Economist estimates, the human cost of 4¼ years of aggression has been about 3 percent of Russia’s pre-war population of fighting-age men killed or wounded.

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed a Russian in a Ukrainian prisoner of war camp. He is a former heroin addict jailed for drug-related crimes, released to be cannon (actually, drone) fodder. He was sent into battle even though as a result of previous combat he is missing part of his right arm and has two titanium plates in his skull. The Journal reported that “he and many in the Russian army think the war is a deliberate campaign to purge society of those on its lowest rungs, culling the downtrodden, the homeless, and the prison population.”

Many such soldiers are given minimal training because little is needed to prepare them for their (often brief) lives at the front. Small “infiltration groups” creep under artillery and drone attacks to, say, a building or a grove of trees they hope to hold until reinforcements reach them through Ukrainian attacks that saturate a “kill zone” 20 miles deep, an area so dangerous that sometimes Russians allow no more than two trucks to travel together.

Drones have made this 2026 war reminiscent of 1916, with a crucial difference concerning massed infantry. In 1916, the 4½-month Battle of the Somme cost the British Empire 57,470 casualties on the first day. World War I ground on, indecisively; bloody stasis prevailed for two more years.

Today, micro-movements of Russian soldiers in Ukraine do not threaten to bring about a breakout from the stasis. Russia can lose hundreds of its scarcest resource — fighting-age men — in weeks spent seizing patches of land the size of the National Mall.

Fear of assassination-by-drone has Putin reportedly spending much time in underground bunkers, sharply curtailing his former tempo of public appearances and avoiding his known residences. Early this month a Ukrainian drone struck a high-rise building 3½ miles from the Kremlin. Seventy percent of Russia’s population is within the 1,200-mile range of Ukraine’s drones. In March, for the first time, Ukraine’s cross-border drone attacks were more numerous than Russia’s.

America’s April 1942 “Doolittle Raid” on Japan did negligible physical damage but shattered that nation’s sense of invulnerability, forcing resources to be diverted to defense. Ukrainian drones can do this daily.

Putin’s war has provoked the enlargement and strengthening of NATO, has accelerated the transformation of “Europe” from a merely geographic expression to a political fact, and has refuted his claim to Russia’s greatness. The stresses on Russia’s economy and society — especially the ever-larger cohort of war-damaged men — have Putin’s sagging nation in what Alexandra Prokopenko (of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, writing in the Economist) calls “negative equilibrium”: “holding itself together while steadily destroying its own future capacity.”

A former senior Russian government official, writing anonymously for the Economist, says the war Russia started has reached a situation known in chess as “zugzwang,” when every move worsens the position. By the end of this year, two current unknowns might be known: how Putin might lash out in response to the pain of Ukraine’s military revival. And how Trump might lash out in response to the painful (to him) fact that, refuting his clairvoyance, Ukraine holds good and improving cards.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:04 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Now the number is closer to a million and a half dead or wounded Russians.

"I'm so fucking happy because so many fucking people who never did a fucking thing to me are dead!!!! DEAD I SAY!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

You're a fucking idiot, Ted.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Can you identify the bad guys in the following Hollywood scenario? In the movie Serenity, the Alliance flies to the town of Haven and kills everyone, including Book. But before he dies, Book shoots them down with an anti-aircraft gun. I think identifying the villain is obvious, especially if you follow the movie's plot over the previous hour. I think it is even more obvious that the Russians are the bad guys in Ukraine, considering that this war has been ongoing for thousands of hours. By now, everybody understands the plot, except 6ix and Signym, who keep Rootin' For Putin because of their psychology and personal depravity, the same mental problems as the Russians.

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

Bingo...

T

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Now the number is closer to a million and a half dead or wounded Russians.

"I'm so fucking happy because so many fucking people who never did a fucking thing to me are dead!!!! DEAD I SAY!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

You're a fucking idiot, Ted.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Can you identify the bad guys in the following Hollywood scenario? In the movie Serenity, the Alliance flies to the town of Haven and kills everyone, including Book. But before he dies, Book shoots them down with an anti-aircraft gun. I think identifying the villain is obvious, especially if you follow the movie's plot over the previous hour. I think it is even more obvious that the Russians are the bad guys in Ukraine, considering that this war has been ongoing for thousands of hours. By now, everybody understands the plot, except 6ix and Signym, who keep Rootin' For Putin because of their psychology and personal depravity, the same mental problems as the Russians.

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

It's so simple, even a monkey could explain it!

Shut up, retard. Your opinion on any topic is meaningless.

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

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:30 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Bingo...

T

Back in 1860, most slave owners in the US were satisfied with their own imaginary moral superiority over abolitionists. The slave owners never did change their minds about the evilness of slavery until death nullified them, but they were forced during life to relinquish their slaves. 6ix and Signym will not change their minds about the evilness of invading Ukraine. They will go on until their deaths, believing they are morally superior to anyone who supports Ukraine.

It wasn't particularly certain in 1860 that the slaves would ever be freed. In 2026, it isn't certain that the Ukrainians will be freed from the Russians, but there is hope.

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 6:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Bingo...

T
Back in 1860, most slave owners in the US were satisfied with their own imaginary moral superiority over abolitionists. The slave owners never did change their minds about the evilness of slavery until death nullified them, but they were forced during life to relinquish their slaves. 6ix and Signym will not change their minds about the evilness of invading Ukraine. They will go on until their deaths, believing they are morally superior to anyone who supports Ukraine.

It wasn't particularly certain in 1860 that the slaves would ever be freed. In 2026, it isn't certain that the Ukrainians will be freed from the Russians, but there is hope.

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

Moral Superiority????

Why don't you tell us again about how Democrat voters never get divorced, never get sick, never have any vices and live forever because they vote Democrat.

Your level of projection is matched only by your lack of self-awareness.

I win every argument with you because I deal in truth. I don't hide from it. I don't hide my own flaws here, even knowing that your creepy stalker ass has a whole dossier you've saved up about me on your desktop. Meanwhile, you pretend to everyone that you are all that is good and right in the world, and that everybody who votes the same way that you do is as well.

I'm living in the real world, buddy.

Show me any Democrat Party manufactured box of people, and I'll show you a box where at least 70% of the people in that box are dogshit.

At least 70% of people who vote Democrat are dogshit.

At least 70% of people who vote Republican are dogshit.

At least 70% of people in America are dogshit.

At least 70% of people on the entire fucking planet are dogshit.

You are objectively and without a doubt one of those people.

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

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

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Friday, May 29, 2026 8:20 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The Institute of War is a wife- husband Nuland- Kagan project. Aside from handing out cookies on the Maidan, "Fuck the EU" Nuland was recorded handpicking the government of Kiev following the 2014 coup, and Kagan is a well known arch neocon.

Hardly an objective source.

-----------

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

Ok, how about this guy comrade; Former US Army Europe commander Ben Hodges?

T

110,000 Russian Troops SURROUNDED — Eastern Front Collapse Is INEVITABLE | Ben Hodges

? DEVELOPING: One hundred and ten thousand Russian soldiers are effectively surrounded in the eastern theater. Not in a single pocket — in a series of overlapping operational encirclements that have developed over six weeks as Ukrainian forces systematically compressed the logistics corridors and cut the supply lines on which those formations depend. The eastern front is not collapsing today. But the trajectory of what is happening to the operational capacity of 110,000 soldiers is pointing toward a collapse that no available Russian reserve can reverse on the timeline the operational situation is producing.

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 12:20 AM

Shut the fuck up, Ted.

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

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 2:43 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

“Altered or synthetic content"

Yeah, no shit!

-----------

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 3:40 AM

I'm glad old dude put the arrow in the upper right to show us which point of the AI slop we were supposed to be focusing on because he didn't do such a good job pointing to it himself.

It looks like he's pointing at the play button. He really wants you to ingest his AI slop.

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

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 6:03 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Bingo...

T
Back in 1860, most slave owners in the US were satisfied with their own imaginary moral superiority over abolitionists. The slave owners never did change their minds about the evilness of slavery until death nullified them, but they were forced during life to relinquish their slaves. 6ix and Signym will not change their minds about the evilness of invading Ukraine. They will go on until their deaths, believing they are morally superior to anyone who supports Ukraine.

It wasn't particularly certain in 1860 that the slaves would ever be freed. In 2026, it isn't certain that the Ukrainians will be freed from the Russians, but there is hope.

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

Moral Superiority????

Why don't you tell us again about how Democrat voters never get divorced, never get sick, never have any vices and live forever because they vote Democrat.

Your level of projection is matched only by your lack of self-awareness.

I win every argument with you because I deal in truth. I don't hide from it. I don't hide my own flaws here, even knowing that your creepy stalker ass has a whole dossier you've saved up about me on your desktop. Meanwhile, you pretend to everyone that you are all that is good and right in the world, and that everybody who votes the same way that you do is as well.

I'm living in the real world, buddy.

Show me any Democrat Party manufactured box of people, and I'll show you a box where at least 70% of the people in that box are dogshit.

At least 70% of people who vote Democrat are dogshit.

At least 70% of people who vote Republican are dogshit.

At least 70% of people in America are dogshit.

At least 70% of people on the entire fucking planet are dogshit.

You are objectively and without a doubt one of those people.

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

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

I love your answer, 6ix. You don't know the difference between good and evil. You have never understood that Russia is evil when it kills Ukrainians and steals their land. By the way, the owners of slaves in 1860 never did and never would understand from 1865 until the day they died that owning slaves was evil. In places like Kentucky, where slavery had been legal, but the state didn't join the Confederacy, the slave-owners were resentful that they had to start paying the workforce. The concept that slavery was evil was incomprehensible to the minds of the former slave owners. When the war in Ukraine is over, it will never cross the average Russian's mind that killing Ukrainians was evil.

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 6:04 AM

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

Ukraine Has Gained the Upper Hand Over Russia

By Brendan Cole | May 30, 2026 at 04:00 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-upper-hand-over-russia-12007941

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s upbeat assessment that his troops were “holding more positions and inflicting more damage” to Russia points to a turnaround in their war fortunes after fears that reduced U.S. support for Kyiv would hand Vladimir Putin an advantage.

Zelensky's boast on May 19 about dynamic changes in Kyiv's favor would have been hard to predict earlier this year amid stalled United States-led peace talks, the Trump administration lessening support, and a winter of relentless Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy and critical infrastructure.

But its use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has offset dwindling American aid. Successful drone strikes behind the front lines and deeper inside Russia have given Kyiv reason for optimism.

“The overall dynamics of the war are gradually shifting in Ukraine’s favor compared to previous months,” Giorgi Revishvili, a military analyst and founder of the Russia Analyzed Substack, told Newsweek. “The situation for Ukraine is markedly better than it was last year.”

Ukraine’s defense ministry has touted a significant increase over the last year in the production of reconnaissance, mid-strike, and deep-strike drone systems, as well as fiber-optic first-person view (FPV) drones, which are effective along parts of the frontline.

“Over the last six months Ukraine has demonstrated that it has the initiative in drones,” said Matthew Arnold, director of the Democratic Resilience in a New Age of War Program at the London School of Economics think tank, LSE Ideas.

He told Newsweek that Ukraine will gain confidence from knowing that the withdrawal of much U.S. aid did not collapse the war effort. “It is learning, adapting and deploying drones quicker and more successfully than Russia can.”

Revishvili said it was a notable recent development that Kyiv had intensified its mid-range strike campaign against Russian logistics at an operational depth of 18 to 65 miles inside occupied territories, such as in southeastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s forces have also stepped up frontline operations to increase their elimination of Russian troops, while expanding their deep- and mid-range strike campaigns to pressure the Russian economy and disrupt logistics in the operational rear, he added.

Establishing a land corridor linking occupied Crimea to Rostov in Russia was one of Moscow's objectives, which Ukraine tried to thwart during its unsuccessful 2023 counteroffensive.

“Now, Ukrainian forces are targeting Russian supply lines there almost daily, and even pro-war Russian military bloggers are sounding the alarm,” Revishvili said.

Next Six Months ‘Critical’

General Andriy Biletskyi, the commander of Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps, told Reuters that if Kyiv maintained momentum over several months, frontline gains could force Putin to abandon the part of the Donetsk region it does not occupy.

Russian demands in U.S.-backed peace talks include getting the entire oblast it claims to have annexed in the eastern Donbas region. Kyiv has repeatedly said this would not be acceptable.

Biletskyi told Reuters that Russia’s army is exhausted and incapable of making major breakthroughs, a situation complicated by Elon Musk's decision to cut access to his Starlink satellite-based internet service for Russian forces. He said his troops were holding the flank around Sloviansk, the northern bastion of eastern Ukraine’s highly defended Fortress Belt, forcing Moscow to attack the city head-on, but causing a heavy loss of Russian troops and field commanders.

Ukraine’s forces must define those directions “where we can improve our positions, take some strategic points,” which would give Kyiv leverage over Russia in talks, Biletskyi said, stressing that on the battlefield, the next six months “are the most critical."

Revishvili from Russian Analyzed said that if Ukraine can sustain and expand its campaign, it could create significant challenges for Russian forces. Controlling the operational depth and the steady attrition of logistics can significantly affect Russian frontline operations, reducing their ability to sustain offensive momentum and advance, he said.

“This could also create gaps across the frontline that Ukraine may be able to exploit,” Revishvili said. “However, the extent to which Ukraine can capitalize on such opportunities remains to be seen and will depend, in part, on its ability to address its ongoing manpower shortages.”

Ukraine Gains

Zelensky said this month that Ukraine had retaken nearly 230 square miles of territory this year. By contrast, Russia’s advances slowed to 40 square miles in Ukraine this year, compared with 625 square miles in the same period last year, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The U.S.-based think tank said Kyiv's forces were challenging the war's positional character and could soon stage limited mechanized assaults.

The ISW said Kyiv had re-secured an overall drone advantage and its success in curbing Russian advances and reversing gains, combined with Kyiv's reintroduction of some tactical mechanized maneuver, “may mark the beginning of a new phase of the war.”

Ukrainian Strikes Inside Russia

Zelensky said Ukrainian "middle strikes" against Russian air defenses and military logistics up to 120 miles behind the front line had quadrupled since February. These have slowed Russian advances and hampered the transport of personnel and material to the front.

Ukrainian strikes have targeted Russian facilities far from the frontline, ranging from export terminals on the Gulf of Finland to inland refineries. Overnight Thursday, Ukrainian forces struck an oil facility in Volgograd, only a day after they had hit the Tuapse oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region for the fifth time this spring.

A Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow on May 18 targeted Sheremetyevo Airport, the Moscow Oil Refinery, a petroleum pumping station, and two firms that make electronics for the Russian military.

“It is much more palpable inside Russia that the war is shifting through increased Russian vulnerability inside the homeland,” said Arnold, the program director of LSE IDEAS’ Democratic Resilience in a New Age of War Program. “Ukraine has a very deliberate strategy of undermining Putin’s notion that he can wage war on Ukraine with limited costs to Russia’s economy or people.”

Putin Maintains His Demands

Despite reports of a decline in Russia’s battlefield performance, Putin still believes his forces can capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which comprise the Donbas region, by autumn, according to the Financial Times, citing unnamed sources who spoke to the Russian president.

Putin also this month reiterated his call for Ukrainian troops to surrender, saying they were about to collapse and suggesting that he is in no mood for backing down. This could be in part fueled by the Russian military command, which likely shows Putin exaggerated maps, giving him a false sense of the frontline, according to the ISW.

Revishvili said that some axes remain more challenging for Ukraine. Around Kostiantynivka, a critical city for the defense of Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces are employing small-group infiltration tactics while leveling the city through heavy bombardment as they seek to make it ultimately untenable for Ukrainian forces to defend.

“Russian troops are working to establish footholds and expand their presence around the city before gradually penetrating deeper into urban areas,” Revishvili said.

"The battle for Donetsk is not solely a military matter—it also carries significant political weight,” he said, “therefore, Russia must experience not only military setbacks but political ones as well.”

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 12:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Bingo...

T
Back in 1860, most slave owners in the US were satisfied with their own imaginary moral superiority over abolitionists. The slave owners never did change their minds about the evilness of slavery until death nullified them, but they were forced during life to relinquish their slaves. 6ix and Signym will not change their minds about the evilness of invading Ukraine. They will go on until their deaths, believing they are morally superior to anyone who supports Ukraine.

It wasn't particularly certain in 1860 that the slaves would ever be freed. In 2026, it isn't certain that the Ukrainians will be freed from the Russians, but there is hope.

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

Moral Superiority????

Why don't you tell us again about how Democrat voters never get divorced, never get sick, never have any vices and live forever because they vote Democrat.

Your level of projection is matched only by your lack of self-awareness.

I win every argument with you because I deal in truth. I don't hide from it. I don't hide my own flaws here, even knowing that your creepy stalker ass has a whole dossier you've saved up about me on your desktop. Meanwhile, you pretend to everyone that you are all that is good and right in the world, and that everybody who votes the same way that you do is as well.

I'm living in the real world, buddy.

Show me any Democrat Party manufactured box of people, and I'll show you a box where at least 70% of the people in that box are dogshit.

At least 70% of people who vote Democrat are dogshit.

At least 70% of people who vote Republican are dogshit.

At least 70% of people in America are dogshit.

At least 70% of people on the entire fucking planet are dogshit.

You are objectively and without a doubt one of those people.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
I love your answer, 6ix. You don't know the difference between good and evil.

Yeah. I kind of liked it myself.

Don't try to lecture me on the difference between good and evil, Satan.

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

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 1:45 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yeah. I kind of liked it myself.

Don't try to lecture me on the difference between good and evil, Satan.

The devil knows the difference between good and evil; you don't because you are the "genius gifted child with so much potential who got burned out and fell mentally ill," which is just the nerd equivalent to the jock who "could have been a pro at sports if it wasn't for the injury".

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 1:46 PM

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

Russia cancels debts for citizens who join Ukraine war

May 30, 2026

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/insight/russia-cancels-debts-for-citize
ns-who-join-ukraine-war/gm-GM51FA6CB1

Moscow’s latest recruitment drive includes a law canceling up to 10 million rubles in debt for new enlistees. The debt cancellation joins a package of wartime benefits — from high salaries to housing aid — intended to make service attractive beyond patriotic appeals.

Inside Putin’s debt cancellation law
Effective for contracts signed from May 1, 2026, the law covers debts already in court-ordered collection, with possible extension to a spouse’s obligations. Full family debt cancellation applies if a soldier dies or suffers severe disability. Reuters and Russian outlets note the relief’s value could reach about $140,000, representing significant financial reprieve for indebted households.

From mobilization backlash to financial lures
Following protests and emigration after the September 2022 partial mobilization, authorities have avoided repeating the move. Instead, they are boosting contract recruitment with financial perks and quietly screening reservists through enlistment offices. This strategy aims to maintain troop numbers while sidestepping the public anger a broad draft might provoke.

Start at 9 minutes into this video. Putin is plundering the banks when he forgives enlistees' debts. The Russian government is NOT paying the banks to cancel the debts. The banks are forced to cancel the debts. If that bankrupts the bank, too bad.

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 6:39 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

“Altered or synthetic content"

Yeah, no shit!

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

Sad, just sad...

T

Russia's Black Sea Fleet Is GONE — What Putin Lost Changes Everything | Ben Hodges

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 7:48 PM

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

By Brendan Cole | May 30, 2026

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-upper-hand-over-russia-12007941

“The overall dynamics of the war are gradually shifting in Ukraine’s favor compared to previous months,” Giorgi Revishvili, a military analyst and founder of the Russia Analyzed Substack, told Newsweek. “The situation for Ukraine is markedly better than it was last year.” https://russiaanalyzed.substack.com/

Trajectory of War

The current situation across the entire front is the best it has been for Ukraine probably since the autumn of 2022. I would not say it is extremely optimistic, but it is the best position Ukraine has been in since then.

https://russiaanalyzed.substack.com/i/199626157/trajectory-of-war

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

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Saturday, May 30, 2026 10:42 PM