1/ Citizens of the puppet 'Donetsk People's Republic' (DNR) are complaining en masse that they are not being paid their promised compensation for deaths and injuries caused to local residents by the war. The DNR itself admits that it owes more than 38 billion rubles ($467m). ⬇️
2/ Relatives and soldiers of the DNR's armed forces – which have been decimated due to being used as so-called 'meat waves' against Ukrainian positions – have been posting numerous videos complaining about the lack of compensation payments and appealing to Putin for help.
3/ In one video, a wife says: "Starting from September 2022, funding for lump-sum compensation for wounded and killed DNR servicemen for 2022 was terminated. We submitted documents to the commission of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy of the DNR.
4/ "There are a lot of us. We applied to all authorities. From the presidential administration to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation.
5/ "All our appeals are forwarded to the government of the DNR, which redirects them to the Ministry of Labour, and the answers come from there that there is no funding. We write to the deputies and there are no results."
6/ According to the wife of one wounded soldier, his unit "collected all the necessary documents promptly, the medical examiner issued a conclusion of a severe injury.
7/ "In November we submitted all the documents for payment, and for seven months there have been no payments, the allowance during treatment is 30,000 rubles ($371). The answer is the same, there is no funding."
8/ People seeking compensation have complained to the DNR state prosecutor's office, which admitted that an audit had "established the fact of lack of funding for this type of payment, which requires an amount of more than 38 billion rubles."
9/ It's very unlikely that the DNR will be able to pay the sums it owes, as its finances are precarious, its economy is a mess and it's kept afloat only by Russian government funding.
10/ The Russian government has shown little concern previously for the welfare of DNR soldiers and their families, so there seems to be little likelihood that the relatives' video appeals will achieve much. /end
1/ Russian-occupied Donetsk now exists under a state of "drone terror", says a local Russian inhabitant. Local influencer 'Donetsk MartynoVa' describes how normal life is grinding to a halt under relentless Ukrainian mid-range strikes. ⬇️
2/ As the thread below highlights, Ukraine's 'drone siege' of the occupied regions of the country ramped up quickly during May 2026 and has come to threaten Russia's control over the area through the decimation of Russian logistics.
1/ The Russian authorities are threatening to charge people who photograph military cemeteries with treason. It highlights how the Kremlin has become sensitive to cemeteries representing a potent symbol of Russia's huge losses in Ukriane. ⬇️
2/ 'Mobilization News' reports:
"Treason charges have been threatened for photographs of military graves in Yekaterinburg cemeteries."
3/ "Local cemetery administrations, in conjunction with the FSB, are preparing information signs that will be placed "on information boards at cemetery entrances and along visitor routes."
1/ A fuel crisis is growing in Russia, with soaring costs for gasoline, quotas on how much can be bought, and long queues at the pumps. Miroslava Reginskaya, wife of the imprisoned Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin, highlights how shortages have become widespread and severe. ⬇️
2/ Reginskaya writes:
"The fuel crisis is steadily spreading across the country: reports of gasoline shortages at gas stations are already coming in from many regions."
3/ "In some places, this is a genuine fuel shortage, while in others, it's a result of retailers trying to profit from the difficult situation.
1/ The hot debate of the moment among Russian commentators is whether and how Russia will begin "fighting for real". Russia's former president openly calls for war crimes while others advocate striking the West, destroying Kyiv, killing Zelenskyy, and nuking Starlink. ⬇️
2/ Former Russian president and current Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev says on his channel on the Russian 'state messenger app' MAX that the laws of war no longer apply after Ukraine's drone attack on the Moscow Oil Refinery.
3/ "Given the enemy's massive terrorist attacks on our cities, the intensity of which is growing and will obviously continue to grow, it is time to openly declare that there are no longer, and cannot be, any rules regarding neo-Nazi Kyiv," he writes.
1/ Russian warbloggers have identified a new enemy in the aftermath of the Ukrainian drone attacks in Moscow: migrants, who have appeared in many videos of the strikes. They are calling for severe punishments of those who have violated the government's censorship regulations. ⬇️
2/ One of the most iconic videos from the attack, showing a fuel storage tank's lid being thrown high in the air by an explosion, was filmed by a Chinese migrant worker and posted on his TikTok channel.
"Migrants from fraternal China published a video of a surface-to-air missile (or a MANPADS missile) hitting a storage tank at a Moscow oil refinery. Now the footage is spreading across Chinese and global social media."
1/ Why do Russian anti-drone units fail shoot down drones? Russian drone developer Alexey Chadayev says they have numerous deficiencies, including bad communications, coordination, training, and drunkenness, that are undermining Russia's drone defences. ⬇️
"You can surround yourself with all sorts of equipment – radars, machine guns, state-of-the-art interceptors – and still miss an incoming aircraft simply because of a problem with the ‘padding between the steering wheel and the seat’.
3/ "– When mobile fire teams are afraid to shoot down drones (what if there's another one after them? What if it crashes somewhere wrong and gets called in?).
– When observers on duty are asleep or even drinking at their posts.