Russian stuff blowing up: Ukraine has reportedly cleared the salient north of Lyman

Ukraine is reported to have cleared the salient north of Lyman, capturing several villages and about 150 square kilometers in the process. Details about what is going on there are scarce, however. There is no report that I have seen about Russians killed or captured in this operation, but presumably most of them would have escaped back across the Zherebets River. The Lyman salient is GONE. 🇺🇦Ukrainian forces have cleared the entire sector north of Lyman, pushing Russian remnants back to the Zherebets River.🔹 151.88 km² recaptured.🔹 5+ villages liberated.🔹 Threat to Slovyansk/Borova eliminated.🔹 Infiltration into Luhansk Oblast… pic.twitter.com/xFgW1KcS5R I'd like to note that pretty much all of the Russian formations were able to withdraw before being encircled. This was already occurring a few weeks ago from west of the Nitrius River, but an order to withdraw from the areas between the Nitrius and Zherebets River was given some… Andrew Perpetua, who is fairly conservative in how he assigns territorial gains on his daily updated map, has moved the entire area of the salient into the contested category. Obviously, we have been tracking Ukrainian advances north of Lyman the entire time. We have tons of backdated geolocations, along with video footage, of the attacks dating back a long time. But the operation was deemed sensitive enough to be protected, similar to what happened in… But the operation was deemed sensitive enough to be protected, similar to what happened in Kupyansk and then in south Donetsk. However, the operation in Lyman seemed even more protected since even the most in the know and honest Russian reporters seem to be missing it. Or at least silent about it. It was honestly shocking to watch how out of the loop the Russians really were, which I think is in large part due to the collective action of OSINT to avoid speaking about the situation. Trump called Putin today and plans to call Zelenskyy later. Putin said he has no plans to attack Europe. He swears. He crosses his heart and hopes to die. President Trump and Putin held a phone call and "exchanged views on the results of Witkoff&Kushner's visits to Moscow and Kyiv,"Putin's aide Ushakov said.He also said:▪️ The conversation was "constructive&candid."▪️ "Putin told Trump that Russia has absolutely no aggressive plans toward Europe." You should always yield the right of way to downed drones or air defense missiles. An explosive day in Donetsk! 💥 A Russian drone wandered around Romania and Moldova before finally crashing. 🇷🇴 Today, one of Russia's drones spent about half an hour casually wandering through Romanian airspace – after, of course, passing through Moldova – and nobody was in much of a hurry to shoot it down. So it happily headed back toward Ukraine, only to run out of fuel and crash somewhere in Moldova. A Russian drone breached Moldovan and Romanian airspace this afternoon, causing major disruptions, including the closure of Iași Airport.NATO CAP was launched to hunt down the drone, with Spanish EF-18 Hornets scrambled from Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base. pic.twitter.com/jfCb9ORV5s Russia's missile campaign against Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine continues. A supermarket in one of Kyiv's districts, where half of the building was destroyed by a strike overnight, leaving a huge crater nearby. Instead of a thousand words.A mom is carrying her baby through the destruction in #Kyiv after they spent the night in the shelter, trying to stay safe during a massive Russian attack on the city.📹: Yan Dobronosov/Telegraf In Pryluky, Chernihiv region, Russia struck a hypermarket, triggering a massive fire.Three people were injured in Dnipropetrovsk region. Russian forces attacked four districts nearly 20 times with drones and artillery.📹 Pryluky Russia also struck a passenger train and a TV station. In Zaporizhzhia Russian drone struck a passenger train, killing a railway worker‼️ Fortunately, passengers had been evacuated prior to the attack and escaped unharmed. Resistance is futile. 💥 "Achilles" disrupts enemy offensive actions in the Kharkiv direction Buk goes bavovna. A HIMARS missile strike hit a position with two Russian Buk air defense systems, triggering a spectacular secondary detonation.The strike was carried out jointly by Ukraine's K-2 unit, 45th Artillery Brigade and 3rd Army Corps. Ukraine is also signing an agreement to use EU funds to purchase Patriot missiles for this winter. I predict that in the beginning Koral won't be nearly as good at Patriot at bringing down ballistic missiles but it will be improved rapidly as time goes on. ⚡️ Ukraine has unveiled its new domestic Koral air defense missile designed to hit ballistic targets. Burn, baby, burn. 🔥 Russia: Partisan doused a police van in gasoline and set it on fire in broad daylight in Oktyabrsky, occupied Republic of Bashkortostan. Let's check in on the fuel situation in Russia. On fuel in Russia: nationwide, gas station stock levels have been stuck in a narrow 35-38% range for the past two weeks. And that's strange. The elections are in 12 days, so you'd expect them to make things look nice for the masses – but it's possible the reserves are simply exhausted. . Caveat emptor "Don't even consider going to Russia… They will deceive you, they will rob you, and you will probably end up dead."Captured Latin American recruits detailed how Russian operatives forced them into combat. Russia has arrested a 21-year-old Moldovan man and charged him with the attack on the Russian Air Force general several days ago. The man confessed (of course he did) and said he was recruited by Ukraine and paid $70k. The arrest comes days after pro-Kremlin media reported that Major General Nikolai Varpakhovich was shot and wounded in the Saratov region. Russian bloggers act like Putin is some innocent dupe being misled by those evil military guys. 1/ Russian warbloggers are furious that the Russian army has set Vladimir Putin up for public humiliation by claiming falsely that Sviatohirsk has been captured. The army "continues to lie, and the scale of the lies is only increasing," one says. ⬇️bsky.app/profile/pere… 4/ Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov was widely mocked last year for falsely claiming to Putin in person that Kupyansk had been captured, showing egregiously falsified control maps that the Ukrainians soon refuted. 5/ The same thing has happened with the latest claims about Sviatohirsk, which have been exposed as relying on old videos (the town was captured but later liberated in 2022) and even AI-generated fakes. The Russian warblogger 'Artjockey' highlights the problems with such claims. 6/ The video above from Andrii Biletskyi shows 'not just complete control, but also that this was a deeply held rear area for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, where some semblance of normal life still existed. This situation is becoming an increasingly embarrassing debacle for Putin.' Another 1,410 Russians who drew the short straw. We are just a day away from hitting the magic 1.5 million mark. 1410 Losers. 1,499,390 Gee. What a shame! Kabardino-Balkaria is in the Caucasus north of Georgia. 🇷🇺13 Russian National Guard special-forces soldiers lost their lives in an avalanche in Kabardino-Balkaria.They were reportedly conducting scheduled mountain-training drills on icy terrain. Another corruption scandal to shake things up. Ukraine's prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, submitted his resignation after a senior subordinate was charged in an alleged bribery scheme involving scam call centers. Kravchenko denies any wrongdoing, though journalists say a figure called 'the Boss' in released recordings may be him. Forget the legal niceties. Just grab 'em. 1/ Russia's police will be used to detain men en masse and force them to sign military contracts, according to a Russian source. It's claimed that rather than carrying out a 'traditional' mobilisation, the same effect will be achieved by exploiting pretexts to force men to join the army. ⬇️ 3/ At the same time, the police have emerged as a principal vehicle for 'quiet mobilisation'. Men are arrested for minor offences – even things as trivial as a broken indicator light – and taken to recruitment offices to be pressured into signing a military contract. 4/ Police officers are incentivised to act as 'headhunters' by being paid bonuses as high as 500,000 rubles ($5,700) for each man they recruit. Inevitably, this has led to abuses such as men being beaten or forced to drink alcohol until they sign a contract. 5/ As a result, many physically incapable people have been forcibly recruited into the army, including drunks, drug addicts, the homeless, and the elderly, with predictably harmful results for military readiness. This is just a wild guess but I don't think these guys are from Moscow. New recruits in Russian army 🤔 Hungary shows Russia that elections have consequences. ⚡️Hungary kicks out 10 Russian diplomats as Moscow vows 'harsh' retaliation"This decision protects Hungary's security and sovereignty," Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban said. Just when you think the right-wing drift in Europe is on the decline with Orban's defeat. 😬 Merz says he is 'deeply shocked' by the pro-Russian AfD's victory in Saxony-Anhalt'Of course, we have to accept it — those are the rules of our democracy. But what happened yesterday changed the situation not only in Saxony-Anhalt, but across Germany. The results of this… https://t.co/Vz3FEAeCOD pic.twitter.com/jDHNeQQrfY ⚰️ Ratko Mladić was buried with military honors in Serbia — a war criminal convicted of genocideThousands of people came to bid farewell to the former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, widely known as the 'Butcher of Bosnia.'He was buried at Topčider Cemetery in… pic.twitter.com/QN22Iqemi9 They do look like coffins. Riders have taken notice of the benches at a Moscow metro station on the newly opened line — to some, their shape resembles coffins. meduza.io/en/news/2026… How did the Russian team lose this competition? ⚰️ An international gravedigging championship was held in HungaryIn Nyergesújfalu, teams of gravediggers competed on speed and quality: participants dug graves by hand, while judges literally went around with measuring tapes to inspect the results.The winning team came from… pic.twitter.com/Era1RIPQtw Probably better to stay in Vietnam anyway. Over 600 Russians have been unable to fly from Vietnam to Moscow for the second straight day. Russian tourists are stuck at the airport due to flight delays. The reasons cited include issues with aviation insurance as well as safety risks associated with flights to the Russian Federation. The music of war. Ukrainian girl turns air raid siren into improvised track. A little performance. pic.twitter.com/fG4uSJoW93