1/ Ukraine's rapid advances in recent days have revealed that many Russian claims of capturing settlements along the length of the front were false or tenous. Russian warbloggers complain that this has exposed more lies by their side's commanders. 📷
2/ Rybar provides a gloomy assessment of Ukraine's progress:
"The situation on the western flank of the Zaporizhzhia front has deteriorated sharply over the past 24 hours."
3/ "The enemy is attempting to cut off the penetration toward Zaporizhzhia along the shore of the former Kakhovka Reservoir. Ukrainian forces have launched an offensive along a sector approximately 20 kilometers wide.
4/ "▪️Recent [Russian] reports of the liberation [i.e. capture] of Mahdalynivka turned out to be false. The enemy has amassed its forces and launched attacks toward Lukianivske , which has come under firm control of Ukrainian forces. Fighting continues in Novoiakovlivka.
5/ "▪️ The situation in Prymorske has deteriorated significantly. The northern part of the town remains a "layered" zone with intermingled positions.
6/ "While Richne was previously claimed to have been liberated, the current dynamics suggest that the town was not under the stable control of the Russian Armed Forces. It's likely that, at best, only small groups [of Russians] entered the area.
7/ "▪️ The enemy advanced along the E-105 highway between Prymorske and Stepnohirsk and deployed stormtroopers in Plavni. As a result, Russian units in Prymorske were cut off from their main positions.
8/ "In Stepnohirsk itself, the enemy not only held positions in the north of the city but also managed to increase its presence...
9/ "We previously wrote about the threat of a Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at pushing Russian forces back from the Kinka line and the approaches to Zaporizhzhia.
10/ "In fact, we can confirm, if not the beginning of such a counteroffensive, then a very large-scale reconnaissance in force. The question of how many enemy forces were deployed in the "liberated" villages is one that will almost certainly remain unanswered."
11/ 'Combat Reserve' is angry about the false claims made previously by the Russian Ministry of Defence about the capture of Mahdalynivka:
"Bullshit again, Mahdalynivka is as far away as China.
Why?
Why talk shit when you haven't even gotten there?"
12/ 'Alex Parker Returns' calls out another false claim from the Russian MOD:
"The Russian Armed Forces have liberated the village of Minkivka in [Donetsk], the Russian Ministry of Defence reports. They're lying. In reality, it's under the control of the [Ukrainians]."
13/ "After Kupyansk, someone took it upon themselves to liberate everything on credit. The results are out the window."
'Callsign "Osetin"' sarcastically calls on the Russian military to stop falsely claiming victories, using a frequent euphemism for Russia:
14/ "Comrade soldiers and senior Laotian officials, please stop reporting on the liberation of settlements while the enemy is still present. There's no point in doing so.
15/ "It doesn't raise morale, it doesn't demoralize the enemy, it doesn't liberate settlements any faster, it doesn't lead to victory in the information arena, and it doesn't make the people any happier (they will be,…
16/ …but only until they learn that Laotian soldiers are still fighting for the village.
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.