1/ If yesterday's Victory Day parade had been a true reflection of Russia's frontline army as it is now, it would have been a chaotic display of battered vehicles, motorbikes, exhausted soldiers on crutches, and donkeys. A Russian warblogger imagines how it could have been. ⬇️
2/ 'Jon Snow and the Second Singer' writes:
"A parade. It will be led by children carrying portraits of their fathers—old photographs, of course, from their civilian lives, from that time.
Mavic 3 drones will fly overhead.
3/ "Next will come a thin line of Chinese enduro bikes, dirty to the point of being colorless, with riders dressed in whatever’s available at Chechen military surplus stores: pink Chinese cartoon T-shirts, 5-ruble hats, 5.11 caps, and backpacks from Avito.
4/ "A few ATVs with trailers will pass by, hung with so many antennas that even satellites in space would go off the charts, and [footballer Anton] Dzyuba will lose his erection.
5/ "Something rattling and belching diesel fumes will speed by—something resembling a huge rusty shell-shaped garage with bristles of cables sticking out...
6/ "A ragged group of limping yokels will pass by, some on crutches. They all have huge, shapeless backpacks; some carry five-litre bottles of water, wearing fishermen’s winter boots.
7/ "A cowboy-style parade will trudge by, consisting of two horsemen and a donkey driver with a donkey loaded with 120 mines.
9/ "With the intensity of Mad Max, a convoy of five passenger cars, stripped down beyond recognition, will race by; inside, standing up, are dirty people with Vepr and Saiga shotguns.
9/ "Four Vampires [heavy drones] will fly by: one with a PG-7V [RPG], one with a TM-62 [mine], one with 1.5-litre bottles of drinking water, and one with bags of chicken bouillon cubes, instant noodles, and Snickers.
10/ "A passenger car with two women will drive by, packed with boxes and masks; a sticker on the rear tinted window reads “Z,” and a trailer with a gray tarp is hitched to the back—its contents are invisible.
11/ "Somewhere in the distance, a jet plane will fly by. It will be clear that it’s ours, but we won’t be able to see it.
12/ "Bringing up the rear will be a group of old, battered [UAZ] Patriots [SUVs] in various colours, one of them on a tow rope, with a trail of oil dripping from its axles trailing behind it. Above them, a Geran drone.
13/ "P.S. I forgot the loaf [UAZ-452 van]. It has to be a loaf with a grill and a mesh on top of it. So that on the bumps the back doors would open, and someone from inside would slam the door shut with a mat." /end
1/ A Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine's Donbas region provides a gloomy picture of life on the front lines. A constant flow of doomed stormtroopers go on one-way trips, drones make logistics a game of Russian roulette, and thirsty men drink from muddy, corpse-filled holes. ⬇️
2/ 'BCh 3' writes on Telegram:
"It’s been said before—war gives rise to many different truths."
3/ "The enemy has one truth—that’s understandable; the bureaucrats have another; the mothers of the killed and missing have yet another; and the soldiers whose dugouts flooded yesterday—with no supplies arriving—have their own truth as they drink the water pooled at their feet,…
1/ The war in Ukraine has been very beneficial for one particular group: Russia's aging elite of super-rich oligarchs, who have recorded a record-breaking increase in their wealth. It's a sign of how sanctions and state capture have hugely boosted the oligarch class. ⬇️
2/ 'Political Report' notes that the collective wealth of the 155 Russian members of the 2026 Forbes rich list has increased by 11 percent during 2025, reaching a record $696.5 billion, despite the pressure of sanctions and an increasingly difficult economic situation.
3/ However, the oligarch class in Russia is effectively closed to outsiders: "the path to independently accumulating billions in wealth, without inheritance or integration into the networks established in the 1990s, remains virtually inaccessible to younger generations."
1/ Yuri Kozarenko, the high-profile Russian drone developer who was arrested last Friday on fraud charges, is being accused of passing off Chinese products as his own. Other Russian UAV developers say that his firm was notorious for "brazen relabeling of products from China." ⬇️
2/ The video above shows a drone claimed by Kozarenko's company to be its 'Quadcopter Krechet' model. It's actually a Chinese-made Autel EVO MAX 4T, which has been relabelled as a Russian-made product without even any cosmetic modifications to disguise its origins.
3/ Kozarenko's arrest (see the thread below) is being greeted with glee by Russian UAV specialists who have been accusing his company, Transport of the Future (TB), of fraud for at least the past year.
1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin thinks things are terrible in Russia, which is "being beaten and will continue to be beaten" and is being "humiliated before the entire world" due to the failures of "the cretins in power." He also ridicules his prison's motley Victory Day parade. ⬇️
2/ In a letter to a friend, posted on his Telegram channel, he writes:
3/ "[T]he forecast we made at the start of 2026 has been fully vindicated: “We are being beaten and will continue to be beaten.” — On all fronts and in all directions. (Including—and in the literal sense—on the active front.)
1/ The Russian ultranationalist community has exploded into a fit of apoplectic rage over Volodymr Zelenskyy's decree 'permitting' Russia to hold its Victory Day parade. They condemn it as a humiliation for Russia and call for maximum retaliation. ⬇️
2/ Russian Telegram channels have had a meltdown over Zelenskyy's decree declaring Red Square to be off-limits for attacks on 9th May in order "to permit the holding of a parade in the city of Moscow (Russian Federation)." Many helpfully translate it for their readers.
3/ 'DSHRG Rusych' grumbles: "Is this denazification or demilitarisation? (We can't figure it out)."
'Novorossiya militia reports' is furious: "Is this what the Russian government was aiming for?"
1/ A recent video filmed by Russian soldiers shows Ukrainian AI-controlled Hornet drones hunting for Russian targets near Mariupol. A Russian UAV specialist warns that advanced AI processing will soon turn the Hornet into a fully automated system. ⬇️
2/ Ukraine introduced the US-designed Hornet into large-scale battlefield use in the last few months. It is already being described by the Russians as a game-changer and a severe threat to their rear logistics, due to its advanced design and AI systems.