Russia Strikes Back as Ukraine Bets House on Asymmetric 'Terror' War
Russian strikes have been ravaging Ukrainian cities for the past few days, hitting what reports claim has been a combination of energy infrastructure and weapons manufacturing hubs. Zelensky fumed in a recorded address:
“Last night Russia hit Kyiv and Lutsk—400 drones, 40+ missiles. People killed. A hotel with athletes gone. Homes wrecked. Russia drags out the war.”
Track of the strikes:
This exclusive compilation video shows Russian Kh-101 missiles firing off flares before hitting Lutsk Repair Plant in the far western region of Ukraine:
Russian strikes on "Lutsk Repair Plant Motor". The enterprise carries carried out repairs of aircraft engines AL-21, AL-31 and RD-33
A strike in Kiev was said to have penetrated deep underground to destroy a rumored drone manufacturing base:
The most interesting shots appeared to show a pair of presumably ballistic missiles descending on Kiev, with the Patriot battery sending salvo after salvo of interceptors after them. Here’s an exclusive compilation of every angle of the confrontation—note the 0:35 mark where the ‘Iskander’ appears to hit the Patriot position:
Many have assumed this video captures the first ever interception of at least one Iskander missile by the Patriot system. However, the trajectory and flight characteristics of the missiles seem a little odd: in the opening video they appear to be descending at a shallow angle. This is more consistent with the famous hit on Kiev a few months ago which many believed was done by the North Korean KN-23 ballistic missile, which is a kind of Iskander knockoff often dubbed the ‘Kimskander’:
Note how it descends more at a diagonal angle, whereas Iskanders almost always appear to come straight down at 90 degrees.
Either way, it proves that Patriot batteries do infact respond with at least 2 missiles per ballistic threat, and even more so. And the rate of interception is at most 25% or less, judging by the first video.
By the way, the strikes have been ongoing, now with Kharkov city being subjected to what is called the largest ever strike on Kharkov of the war. Reuters claims Russia’s response is only just spooling up:
U.S. officials believe Russia’s response has “not yet happened in earnest and is likely to be a significant, multi-pronged strike.” Another senior Western diplomat anticipated a further devastating assault by Moscow. "It will be huge, vicious and unrelenting," the diplomat said. "But the Ukrainians are brave people."
Reuters
The notorious David Ignatius has a new piece in the discredited rag of WaPo that paints an alarming picture of the lengths Ukraine is preparing to go to in order to provoke Russia via expanded terror ops:
There are quite a few revelations. The most compelling has to do with PMR, otherwise known as Transnistria. We spoke many times here about Ukraine’s suspected plans to “open up a new front” by attacking the Russian garrison in PMR, perhaps seize ‘Europe’s largest’ ammo depot in Cobasna. Each time it never came to fruition because Russian intelligence got wind of it and either took precautions or indirectly made certain threats that caused Ukraine to back off. Ignatius, via US ‘intel sources’, confirms the operation was in fact planned—and undoubtedly still is, as a contingency:
The countries bordering Ukraine might become new battlegrounds as the war continues. An example is Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova on Ukraine’s western border that is aligned with Moscow and hosts a Russian “peacekeeping” force. Using Russian defectors and other local forces, Ukraine considered an operation to attack the Russian troops there but decided against opening this new front.
Now, Russia is considering sending 10,000 additional troops to Transnistria and seeks to destabilize pro-Western Moldova, the Moldovan prime minister claimed in an interview with the Financial Times this week.
Take special note of the last paragraph, which demonstrates the fetid hypocrisy of the West. MSM literally admits it was Ukraine that planned to launch an illegal attack on another uninvolved country’s territory, yet they clutched pearls and cried alarm this week when it was announced Russia was considering bolstering its peace keeping force there:
Putin’s “chilling plot” to start WWIII…all while admitting Ukraine is the one planning to invade another country. See how it works?
The other big revelation is that Ukraine “was”—and, again, likely still is—planning to do an ‘Operation Spiderweb’ style attack attacks on Russian merchant marine ships as far as the North Pacific; note the “and its allies” part.
Ukraine has considered a naval version of the sneak-attack tactic it used so effectively on Sunday. The sources said the SBU weighed sending sea drones hidden in cargo containers to attack ships of Russia and its allies in the North Pacific. But, so far, they apparently have yet to launch these operations.
Somehow Ukraine gets a pass for planning to attack various other sovereign nations, just as it did during the Nord Stream terror attacks and others. In fact, the article casually mentions Ukraine’s assassination of civilian Daria Dugina as just another ‘intelligence plot’, naturally omitting to mention the war crime nature of it. Just look how gleefully Zelensky smiles, along with his smugly grinning ABC interviewer, as he reveals Russian civilian truck drivers were once again used as sacrificial lambs in his drone attack:
He “forgets” to mention the trucks ‘self-destructed’ afterwards, seemingly killing these very civilian drivers as one video clearly showed. Terror, it seems, is a palatable antidote when it serves the West’s interests.
The more sinister ramifications of the above revolve around how Ukraine’s terror is being nurtured in conjunction with the UK’s plot to quell Russia’s “shadow fleet” and economy in general. This is clearly the case of Ukraine being used as the arrow tip for the London archer: Ukraine is meant to cripple Russian economic interests via increasingly illegal terrorist activity which will be given ‘pass’ under the sham of ‘international law’.
In response, Russia has again hosted a series of even larger Baltic Fleet exercises. Last time I posted a video of ‘anti-terror’ drills simulating the rescue of Russian ships “captured by [terrorists]” in the Baltic Sea. This time over 20 warships and other ground assets took part as a show of force against anyone daring to overstep:
Russian navy flexes hard in the Baltic Over 20 warships, Kalibr cruise missile carriers, and Tsirkon hypersonics join large-scale drills — striking targets up to 1,500 km away
On top of that, a Russian jet reportedly intercepted a Swedish Gripen over the Baltic Sea. Look closely: the Swede appears to salute the Russian pilot.
Russian interception of a Sweden Air Force JAS 39 Gripen (reg 39228) over the Baltics Sea today.
A few quick updates from the front. There were a lot of small advances in less significant sectors by Russian forces, such as Seversk and even Zaporozhye—but for now we’ll focus on the couple significant ones.
North of Bogatyr, Russian forces are making their way through Oleksiivka:
Do not confuse it with the roughly 3 other Oleksiivkas currently under assault by Russian forces.
Likely the biggest advance has been just southwest of there, in the area north of Velyka Novosilka. Recall it was just a couple days ago Russian forces captured Fedorovka, now they have finally entered Komar, with reports claiming Ukrainian troops are fleeing the settlement:
Even further southwest from there Russian forces expanded toward Malinovka, which I reported on last time. They are slowly building up the flank for an eventual enveloping pressure on Gulaipole:
There weren’t any dramatic new gains on the Sumy front, but Russian forces slightly increased their territory, working further south down the main roads from Yablonovka and the other Oleksiivka:
Nearby in the Tetkino region of Kursk, Ukraine reportedly had a little success in capturing a small swath of territory, as Zelensky continues desperately clawing at a shred of Russian land for PR purposes. However, Russian forces are holding and will likely expel the AFU forces after whittling them down with enough losses. Here’s what Tetkino looks like today, littered with Zelensky’s expendable meat.
One report from Sumy region:
"Our source reports that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a terrible shortage of UAV groups in the Sumy direction, which were urgently redeployed to the Pokrovskoe-Konstantinovskoe direction, as well as to the Kursk direction near the settlement of Tetkino, since Bankovaya threw all its forces into taking this urban-type settlement, it is very important for them for PR. For more than a month, the best units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been conducting a massive offensive there to achieve results.
At the same time, the Russians have seized tens of square kilometers in the Sumy region in a month and are approaching the conditional second line of defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the direction of the city of Sumy. The city is now being prepared for evacuation.
Bankova's strategy of "PR attacks" will lead to sad results."
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A few last items:
Russians soldier used an unexpected secret weapon to stop a Ukrainian fiber-optic drone which was hunting them:
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A Russian Fab-3000 bomb atomizes a Ukrainian apartment bloc converted into a stronghold:
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Ukrainian journalist Volodomyr Boiko reports that a whopping ~91,000 AFU have already deserted from the armed forces in 2025 alone:
A military catastrophe is coming: More than 90,000 since the beginning of the year - a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier on the scale of desertion in the troops
Kiev journalist Boyko, who serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reports the shocking scale of flight from the army.
In the first 5 months of 2025, 90,590 criminal cases were registered on the facts of escape from military units:
January – 18,145,
February – 17,809,
March – 16,349,
April – 18,331,
May – 19,956.
A total of 213,722 cases of desertion have been registered since the beginning of the Second World War.
Boyko notes that these data reflect only those cases for which criminal proceedings have been initiated; the real situation is much worse .
According to him, deserters are not actually sought out; they do not return to service.
"The reason for the military catastrophe approaching Ukraine is obvious: the demonstrative evasion of mobilization by court fabulists like Sternenko, Leshchenko or Bigus, mass shabuning - when tens of thousands of shabunins, vakarchuks, kipianis and other leaders are fictitiously listed in the troops and the lack of law and order in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations, caused by the liquidation of the military prosecutor's office in 2019," he writes.
Boyko also notes that in reality there are from 30 to 50 thousand Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers on the LBS from the Ukrainian side.
"The consequences of this situation are not difficult to predict," he concluded. RVvoenkor
We must admit that the numbers are hard to believe because they raise a number of questions. If Ukraine is really that hard up on men, then why isn’t the frontline collapsing much faster?
To play devil’s advocate, a few possible answers:
Ukraine’s ‘drone miracle’ really is as effective as they claim, where small clusters of drone units are able to hold entire fronts on their own against far more numerous Russian forces.
Most of the Ukrainian AWOLs return back. The above specifically posits they do not—however, previous reports always revealed the AFU as a lax organization where troops constantly went AWOL to visit their family, or “get their head right”, then eventually returned, even if it was weeks or months later. We can assume some potentially-significant percentage of the above AWOLs end up returning or being brought back by force.
The final possibility: Ukraine is nearing total frontline collapse, as those numbers are simply impossible to sustain.
We know Ukraine reportedly press-gangs upwards of 15-25k men a month, but loses upwards of 20k+ to hard losses (KIA plus disabled), and if we are to believe the above numbers, another 20-30k a month to desertion. This would give somewhere near 20k net depletion of manpower per month, or 240k per year, which is impossible to sustain.
By the way, note the journalist’s own assertion above, which would affirm my option #1: he claims Ukraine only has 30-50k men along the entire frontline. This seems very difficult to believe at face value, however consider the following. Both sides are claimed to have 600-800k total manpower, however only a portion of this refers to ‘combat troops’ along the actual frontline. Combat troops are usually 20% of the total force or less. Many recent Ukrainian reports claim Russians outnumber them from 5:1 to 8:1 on various fronts. If Russia has about 250k combat troops along the front with the rest being the ‘tail’, then perhaps it’s conceivable Ukraine’s own combat numbers are really that low—but still hard to believe, simply because it seems almost too catastrophic to be possible. But we may know the truth soon, given various predictions of Ukraine’s “collapse” this coming summer.