Putin could pay a personal price for failure in Ukraine. After four years he has not won, and defeat has ended more than one ruler in the Kremlin.
Russia has now fought longer than the Soviet Union fought Hitler, and this April it lost ground — Gideon Rachman, FT. 1/
The failure already reaches inside Russia. Moscow's main airports close often, mobile internet drops, and assassins have killed generals on the capital's streets.
Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries are pushing fuel prices up across the country. 2/
Anne Keast-Butler, head of Britain's GCHQ: close to 500,000 Russians have died in this war, with many more grievously wounded.
For a country whose population was already shrinking before 2022, those losses cut into its future, not just its army. 3/
Commander of Ukraine's 3rd Corps Biletsky: Russia runs short on manpower — you feel it every month.
The meat waves that were normal 7-8 months ago are gone, even at the hottest sections of the front. And Ukraine now dominates the air — from the first trench to 200km deep.
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Biletsky: Russia failed winter, failed spring. In May they captured roughly 10km² — Ukraine gained more.
When you can't win on the battlefield, you terrorize women and children. The tactical shift is happening right now.
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Biletsky: In 6-7 months Russia loses tactically on the ground.
Their answer: terror strikes on Ukrainian cities, new drone volumes to overwhelm air defense. Against drones alone, Ukraine can reach 100% interception.
Ukraine was supposed to have “no cards.” Now Putin is trapped in “zugzwang”.
Russia captured only 0.04% of Ukraine this year, lost territory in Apr, cut the Victory Day parade to 45 minutes, and now fears Ukrainian drones near Moscow, George Will for the WP. 1/
Zelenskyy turned Putin’s main war ritual into a security problem.
Ukraine “permitted” the May 9 parade by not striking Red Square, while fewer troops and vehicles appeared because Moscow feared drone attacks on staging areas. 2/
Russia’s battlefield gains now cost absurd amounts of manpower.
Putin’s troops can spend weeks losing hundreds of fighting-age men to seize patches of land the size of the National Mall. 3/
Sergei Magnitsky exposed a $200M Russian state tax fraud and was beaten to death in a Moscow prison in 2009.
His friend Jamison Firestone, who helped campaign for the Magnitsky Act, tells The Times the only way to beat Putin is to hand frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.
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The fraud: acquire companies that already paid large taxes, fabricate losses on paper, claim the taxes back as rebates.
When Magnitsky exposed it, authorities arrested him instead of the implicated officials.
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Magnitsky spent almost a year in detention. His eight-year-old son waited for a phone call.
The authorities waited exactly 30 days — the legal limit — before sending formal refusals to his written requests.
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Russia's war spending can exceed its budget by at least $28 billion this year. In a worst-case scenario — $56 billion over.
The Finance Ministry asked the cabinet to freeze $40 billion of planned civilian spending through 2028 to cover the shortfall, FT.
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Russia allocated $238 billion, nearly 40% of this year's entire budget, to defence and security. Still not enough.
In the first four months of 2026, Russia's deficit already hit 2.5% of GDP — the largest since the full-scale invasion began.
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Finance Minister Siluanov: "Our reserves are not endless. We can't allow any weak points in our finances while such major transformations are going on in the world."
The economy ministry cut its 2026 growth forecast to just 0.4%.
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