1/ Despite searing temperatures of up to 40°C (104°F), Russian fighter pilots in Ukraine and southern Russia are reportedly being issued with only 1 litre (36 oz) of water per day. In between sorties, they are said to be driving around nearby villages begging for water. ⬇️
2/ The Fighterbomber Telegram channel has published a despairing post complaining about a chronic shortage of drinking water for Russian pilots stationed at forward airfields. The author writes:
3/ "The guys have been fighting from forward airfields for several months and for several months everything has been bad with food.
You can say it doesn't exist.
If with dry rations everything was solved after a time, then with water everything turned out to be difficult.
4/ "It turns out that pilots are not allowed water.
None.
5/ "After the intervention of those who don't give a fuck, within a day the issue with rations was essentially resolved, and the water issue was partially resolved. A water standard has appeared.
One
Litre
Of
Water
Per day
Per person.
6/ "When not flying combat missions, pilots are forced to drive around the surrounding villages in search of water."
7/ It should be noted that the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has determined that an adequate daily fluid intake is about 3.7 litres (130 oz) of fluids a day. In very hot temperatures, more water is likely to be needed or dehydration will result.
8/ The channel appeals to Russian bottled water manufacturers to "deliver water to the nearest military airfield. Preliminary, this is Voronezh, Rostov, and any military airfield in Crimea. Wherever is more convenient for you.
9/ Water in one-and-a-half-litre bottles is more convenient, but we'll take any."
The south of Ukraine and Russia are currently experiencing very high temperatures and severe drought. The Kakhovka dam's destruction in June 2023 has cut off most of the water supply to Crimea.
10/ Ukrainian attacks on Russian supply chains are also likely to be a factor in causing shortages of food and water. Russian troops have recently filmed themselves having to drink nettle soup for lack of food supplies. /end
1/ Ukraine's attacks against bridges, ferries, and logistics in Crimea have virtually cut off the peninsula. Russian warbloggers are reacting with anger and dismay. "Crimea has become an island," one admits. "Are we tolerating it?", demands another. ⬇️
2/ 'Intelligence Diary' sums up the situation following a Ukrainian attack using hundreds of UAVs, with Russia claiming to have shot down 239 but many more getting through:
"Crimea has become an island.
No ferry
No gasoline
No Chongar Bridge
No buses
No trains"
3/ He reports gloomily that "Crimea is in a complete fuel lockdown and there's a gasoline panic.
People are close to hysteria. The peninsula is descending into chaos."
He notes that Ukraine's data-enabled attack planning is fundamentally changing the situation for Russia:
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."