Little by little, the US seems to be distancing itself from Ukraine, but with a kind of infant ‘separation anxiety’. From refusing to call Russia’s invasion “illegal”, to claims US will not re-up Biden’s weapons aid, to new statements claiming Trump is ‘walking away’, we’re now seeing a kind of slow dawning of reality unto the collective West—that Russia is in control and is ready to conquer all Ukraine should no one step in to put Ukraine out of its own misery before then.

Lavrov conveyed Russia’s fatigue with the “truce first” charade, saying there will be no more “truce then we’ll see”-style agreements:

And why is that? The reason was most clearly conveyed yesterday by Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken who said that NATO troops will immediately be able to operate on Ukrainian territory as soon as a ceasefire is established:

“The moment there is a ceasefire the coalition of the willing can operate on Ukrainian soil” — Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken says France, Uk, Belgium and others will move in troops into Ukraine instantly when the fighting stops. Russia cannot agree to a ceasefire because of that.

Well, there you have it—what I’ve been talking about for months now is spelled out with exceeding clarity: as soon as the ‘ceasefire’ trap is laid on Russia, Europe intends to flood Ukraine with troops in order to freeze the conflict until such time that Ukraine can be pumped up to the gills with new arms and is able to restart its aggression against Russia.

And as for what will happen if Ukraine doesn’t agree to Russia’s terms—an interesting exchange occurred at yesterday’s meeting between Putin and Kursk officials:

At a meeting with heads of municipalities in the Kursk region, in response to a statement by one of the meeting participants that Sumy should become Russian, Putin joked that Alexander Khinshtein also wants more of everything, which is why he was appointed acting governor of the region.

At the meeting, the head of the Glushkovsky district, Pavel Zolotarev, speaking about how many kilometers the enemy needs to be driven away from the border, stated:

"Sumy must be ours. We cannot live like on the peninsula. There must be more of us. At least Sumy. I think so. And with you as commander-in-chief, we will win," said a participant in the meeting.

"That's why they elected Alexander Yevseyevich, he also wants more of everything," Putin joked.

Putin did not seem to balk at the suggestion of Sumy being incorporated into the Russian Federation. That wasn’t even the most provocative statement of the day. Putin’s advisor Anton Kobyakov stated that the USSR was never even legally dissolved to begin with, and thus the Ukraine-Russia conflict is an ‘internal process’:

Sounded to me like he was being pretty serious.

I’ve recounted before how Ukraine never legally seceded from the USSR because the August 1991 parliamentary ‘declaration’ was illegal due to the USSR constitution’s strict requirement that secession can only be recognized via popular referendum. A retroactive referendum was held in December 1991 to “affirm” the earlier parliamentary secession, but this can only be deemed legally invalid given that the August secession itself was already illegal as per the constitutional requirements.

On the Front

Russia continues its season of advances. Recent data has shown another huge spike in Russian territorial captures:

Average daily advancement of the Russian Armed Forces in the SMO zone. Updated data from May 14 to May 17, 2025. The rate of advance is 31.5 km² per day for the period, the total advance is 126 km². In May, no less than 400 km will be captured, clearly marking a return to the offensive operations that began around this time in 2024 and lasted until early 2025.

Despite the above, here’s the lie Western mainstream yellow press is feeding its NPC audience:

Sure. Talk about a fragile house of cards built on lies.

Let’s start in the north, where Russian forces have continued capturing Sumy territory, with one story claiming Russian troops even “accidentally” captured Marino, seen just over the border below, when they ‘got lost’ and found the hamlet unoccupied by any Ukrainian troops:

More notably though they have captured Loknaya and are beginning to make headway toward Sumy city proper, giving credence to the earlier Putin video about capturing Sumy:

As a brief note: many on the Ukrainian side have poopooed the capture of any large city with Russia’s current ‘meager’ forces because it typically takes at least 100-150k troops to capture such a large population center. The problem is, that only works when the enemy likewise has such a strong number of defending troops. If the enemy has been thinned out via Fabian tactics to the point where only 10-20k can be spared to defend such a capital, then it’s hard to argue 150k would be needed to sack it.

Next, reports indicate Russian forces have activated the Vovchansk front in Kharkov for the first time in weeks, and have captured new blocks in the eastern part of the city.

‼️🇺🇦🏴‍☠️"Everyone's in Shock": The Ukrainian Armed Forces are suffering heavy losses and losing positions near Volchanskiye Khutors and Tikhoy, the Russian army is advancing

➖"The tense and difficult situation is systematically worsening due to the lack of adequate command in the settlements of Vovchanskie Khutora and Tykhoye," Ukrainian military analysts write.

▪️The Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost about 30% of the forest area in the Volchansky Khutors area. The logistics route to the settlement of Pokalyanoye is under threat.

▪️The enemy blames the Kramatorsk border detachment, which lost its positions and now the Ukrainian Armed Forces have to "plug the holes."

▪️The Ukrainian command demands that positions be recaptured; the Ukrainian Armed Forces have already lost dozens of militants in the bloody assaults.

▪️Now the 113th territorial defense brigade is plugging holes in this direction, according to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, "everyone is in shock from their command, planning and organization, which has failed at all levels."

▪️The command of the Kramatorsk border detachment itself is "unclearly where and is not concerned about the losses of its personnel."

▪️Command officers are already participating in firefights at firing positions.

➖"There is complete disorganization at all levels, which leads to the loss of the flank, and accordingly, logistics," the enemy complains.

RVvoenkor

South from there on the Seversk front, Russia likewise made a big breakthrough, finally capturing the fortress town of Verkhnokamyanske which had been hotly contested for ages, with Russian unable to ever gain a proper foothold:

Now Ukrainian defenses there have suddenly collapsed, leaving the gates to Seversk wide open for the first time. However, some Russian sources indicate the hold here is tenuous and could reverse in the future, so we’ll have to keep watch.

Skipping to the far southwestern front, just days ago Russian troops captured Bogatyr, now they are beginning to enter nearby Otradnoye from the south:

A few notes on Bogatyr: The 36th Motorized Rifle Brigade from Far Eastern Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia were responsible for Bogatyr’s capture:

Many continue to be surprised at Russia’s Far East unit compositions, with one recent example video making the rounds where ethnic minorities show amusement at their unit’s lack of a single ethnic Russian:

A little story from Bogatyr: Desperate Ukrainian commanders sent a sabotage team in full camo suits to take down and stomp the Russian flag to ‘prove’ that Bogatyr wasn’t ‘captured’. You can judge for yourself in the ‘before and after’ whether this ‘mission’ was worth it:

Top Ukrainian military channel laments the situation:

Not far away, for the first time in the war, Russian forces of the 90th Guards Tank Division managed to reach the Dnipropetrovsk border right near Novomykolaivka. Note the dotted line below indicating the border of Donetsk People’s Republic and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast:

This marks a milestone of a new oblast that Russia is now technically occupying a piece of—albeit a small one.

Areas both north and south of Kotlyarovka nearby were captured as well:

But by far the largest gains, which we’ve saved for last, came on the critical Pokrovsk-Toretsk axis. East of Mirnograd Russian forces made major captures all around the Novopoltavka area:

Then the cauldron around Zorya, south of Konstantinovka, was in large part collapsed from the western flank:

Essentially almost half of the cauldron was captured, with the eastern portion remaining.

Ukrainian analyst Myroshnykov writes:

Myrnograd direction

Currently, the enemy is concentrating on advancing towards Novoekonomichesky from the side of the T0504 highway and along the Kazennyi Torets River.

Has tangible successes of a tactical nature.

The battles for Malynivka and Myrolyubivka are still ongoing, but judging by the dynamics, it will not be possible to hold out like this for long.

Fighting in Myrolyubivka began relatively recently, but somehow the defense there collapsed quite quickly.

If this village is lost, fighting will begin for Novoekonomichne itself. And this is a big problem in the context of the entire defense of Myrnograd.

Unfortunately, right now, left-flank pins of the Pokrov-Mirnograd agglomeration are successfully forming.

On the right flank, they have been practically formed since winter.

I have a feeling that the enemy has decided to play the game of "guess where we will deploy the main forces of the entire summer campaign."

Because this Mirnograd-Toretsk isthmus between Pokrovskoe and Konstakha can cause a lot of trouble.

After all, this really allows the enemy to constantly change the vector of effort of the main forces.

And it all started with another unsuccessful rotation. We've seen it somewhere before. Was it near Toretsk a year ago? It can't be, some kind of cognitive dissonance.

Yes, back to the same rake🫠 (ed: ‘stepping on the rake’—i.e. self-sabotage)

A top Ukrainian army officer channel adds about the direction:

To summarize, one Russian analyst writes of the 90th Division’s arrival on the Dnipropetrovsk border, positing that a new phase is thus begun:

The arrival of the 90th Tank Division units on the border of the DPR with the Dnipropetrovsk region means, among other things, one important consequence. They now have a completely different terrain ahead of them, where the industrial landscapes of the Donbass, gradually fading away, give way to steppe lands with much rarer settlements - all the way to the Dnieper (in this case, we are talking about the great Russian river, the city is called Dnepropetrovsk). And the occupation of these points, the same Pavlograd, as well as the exit of our troops to the Dnieper already in this area, will mean a completely different negotiating situation and a general perception of the war. No, this is not tomorrow, but this is a prospect that is now hanging constantly, and there are no conceivable ways to close it off - it is generally difficult to defend oneself in an open field. There is little doubt that Trump's clearly increased desire to leave the war is also based on the Pentagon's assessments of these prospects. Let's see how long it takes the EU to realize this.

-"Meister"

—

Last time we reported on the troubles of the Ukrainian 47th Brigade—the commander who resigned wrote a further damning statement that’s worth reading:

Another important thing to note. Recall at the Istanbul talks the only ‘breakthrough’ was the agreed upon 1000 to 1000 prisoner exchange. Many rightfully were dubious if Ukraine even had that many Russian prisoners, now evidence has emerged those doubts were justified. Ukrainian outlet ‘Strana’ reports all kinds of political prisoners are being given the opportunity to be included in the exchange in place of Russian POWs:

Ukrainian newspaper "Strana" reports: “On the eve of the largest prisoner exchange under the '1000 for 1000' formula, detainees in Ukrainian detention centers who are charged with treason, separatism, collaborationism and similar offences have begun to be summoned and offered inclusion in the swap.”

“Those receiving these proposals are mostly Ukrainian citizens. 'They include businessmen, teenage photographers who snapped missile strikes and military objects, car arsonists, hard‑core pro‑Russians, and people who were simply framed', our interlocutor noted. Russian citizens make up only a tiny share of the political detainees in the detention centers.”

“'Strana' has already suggested that, after this exchange, Ukraine may be left with virtually no Russian prisoners—or very few. This may explain the push to recruit Ukrainians in pre‑trial detention who are willing to take part in the swap.” Again, this is not a new practice. It goes back to 2014. Kiev started taking hostages from their own civilian population and exchanging them to the militias for their own captured soldiers back in the first Donbass War.

Russian Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov confirms, stating that Zelensky is rounding up random people because he doesn’t have that many Russian prisoners to offer up:

This confirms our longstanding findings that the Russian-Ukrainian POW disparity is likewise off the charts as with the casualty figures. Ukraine has ever had as much as 1,000-2,000 Russian POWs at any given time, with the bulk of them coming during the first Kursk debacle where a comparatively large amount of border guards were captured on the border in the first surprise assault. Russia on the other hand has provably maintained upwards of 10,000+ Ukrainian POWs since the early portion of the war. Literally every day new videos of Ukrainian POWs being captured flood the networks, here’s just a sampling of the past week alone:

Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, Video 5, Video 6, Video 7, Video 8, Video 9 and there’s many more. Ukraine manages a video of captured Russians maybe once every week or two by comparison.

—

A few last items of note:

After mocking Russian moto-assaults, Ukraine has now proceeded to adapt and copy Russia’s increasingly successful tactics, launching its own full moto-unit in the 425th Skala Regiment:

—

We reported last time on Russia’s new ‘Yolka’ (Spruce/Fir) drone. Additional footage has emerged of its use:

Another interception of Ukrainian medium-altitude optical-electronic reconnaissance UAV ‘Furia-11SM’ by a "Yolka".

This device is equipped with a bi-spectral thermal-television homing head, synchronized with an AI module loaded with algorithms for selecting optical and thermal-contrast aerial targets against open space and ground backgrounds, without the need for operator radio correction from a control terminal. According to the developer, the declared operational range of the device reaches 20 km, and its flight speed is 350 km/h, which is sufficient to intercept all Ukrainian Armed Forces gasoline-powered UAVs without exception, even when pursuing them.

These interceptor drones will become the main support for assault groups in forming an anti-drone barrier over sectors of offensive operations.

—

Note again the mention of AI auto-tracking being prominent in the Yolka drone. Now Ukrainians report another Russian drone which uses AI target selection through the entire operation chain:

Ukraine’s top radioelectronics expert sounds the alarm:

Important! For the attention of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. An attack was recorded by the UAV with artificial intelligence, but this time the engine is already gasoline (max range). This allowed to attack our object 100 kilometers away.

I asked to bring this topic to the technological stake with the President. I'm not there, so I'm asking others.

I try to collect and systematize information on this topic as much as I can. Please send any information.

I suppose we’re getting closer and closer to full Skynet automation in the killing fields—it’s good that at least for once Russia has taken the initiative here rather than waiting to catch up.

—

A new Russian Iskander strike leveled a Ukrainian training ground in Sumy.

Ukrainian officials were again shrill about the incompetence of commanders:

The official Ukrainian National Guard account confirmed the strike killed 6 and wounded over 10—but many have rightfully called into question the accuracy of such low casualty numbers:

Interestingly, just as in the previous Iskander gatecrash of a large Ukrainian training session, there appears to be evidence that French mercenaries sustained casualties in the attack:

🇫🇷🇺🇦 French Mercenaries Eliminated in Strike on Shostka? – Reports Suggest Heavy Foreign Casualties

A group of French mercenaries could have been killed during a precision strike on the training ground of Ukraine’s 1st Special Forces Brigade near Shostka, Sumy region.

Shortly after yesterday's strike, a Boeing 737 operated by SAS Air Ambulance—a so-called “flying emergency room” from Germany—landed in Rzeszów, Poland, around 17:30 on May 20.

Earlier today, the plane flew from Rzeszów to Paris, and now it's en route from Paris to Amsterdam.

Kiev has only admitted to six deaths. But the urgent dispatch of a large medical evacuation aircraft raises serious questions—why such a response if only a handful of casualties were involved?

According to sources, the strike was highly effective. It's likely that the bodies and wounded foreign personnel were immediately transported to Poland, which may explain the aircraft's extended stay in Rzeszów.

Why else would major Ukrainian political figures like Mariana Bezugla and Goncharenko be in fits over so few casualties?

—

Belousov officially swore in Andrey Mordvichev as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces, replacing Oleg Salyukov, seen on the left:

In a brief video, Mordvichev was seen at the command HQ of Center Group now inhabiting his new role, with his own replacement Valery Solodchuk—Center Group’s new commander—seen sitting beside him:

⚡️Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov inspects Tsentr Group of Forces

🔹 Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov held a meeting at the command post of the Tsentr Group of Forces. There he was briefed by Group’s Commander Colonel General Valery Solodchuk on the current situation and gave a number of orders.

🎮 The head of the Russian Defence Ministry was reported on the employment of modern unmanned aerial vehicles, based on the experience of the special military operation and the proposals made by servicemembers, who are effectively deploying the UAVs during the tasks on the line of contact.

🔹 In addition, the Russian Defence Minister visited the command posts of the Tsentr Group's formations and was informed by commanders of brigades on the nature of the enemy's actions.

🤝 At the end of the inspection, the Russian Defence Minister thanked the Group's commanders for their high results and presented the servicemen who had showed bravery, courage, and heroism with state awards.

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