Russia Is In No Mood To Celebrate As Kremlin's Big Parade Approaches

The deal the Russian people have made with the Putin Kremlin is that they will tolerate a high degree of repression in return for a decent standard of living - and safety. But the stymied, arguably failing, war against Ukraine is now threatening that bargain. Prices and taxes are high. Catastrophic Russian casualties are now leading to even once-invulnerable children of the elite to face conscription, which many Russians understandably view as a death sentence. 

The latest humiliation is that Ukraine has refused to agree to a ceasefire during the Kremlin Victory Day parade tomorrow, meaning that fear of Ukrainian drone attacks is rife. And the parade will not even feature any armored vehicles or big weapons systems because so many have been destroyed in the war with Ukraine. So the big news tomorrow will not be the unveiling of some new missile or tank, but whether or not Ukrainian drones strike Red Square during the parade. Kyiv, increasingly, controls the war's narrative. JL

Valerie Hopkins reports in the New York Times:

The May 9 procession on Red Square in the heart of Kremlin power is being curtailed because of the potential for Ukrainian drone strikes. The May 9 holiday, Victory Day, is the most important on the Russian calendar. The Kremlin has made the Soviet triumph in World War II a civil religion for Russians. (But) the mood is hardly festive. Prices and taxes are rising as the economy struggles to bear the cost of the war in Ukraine. A new wave of repressive measures has led to internet restrictions. Polls show record numbers of war-weary Russians want peace. Showing unaccustomed weakness, the Russian government appealed unsuccessfully to Ukraine for a cease-fire on the parade day and acknowledged “additional security measures” to protect President Vladimir V. Putin. 

How Russia's Catastrophic Special Operations Force Losses Have Hurt War Effort

Rather than responding to massive infantry and armored casualties against Ukrainian forces by rethinking their tactics, the Russian command chose, instead, to replace dead and wounded soldiers with elite, highly trained paratroopers, naval infantry (marines) and special forces. 

The result has been unusually high losses among its once-feared elite troops, who are difficult to replace because of their physical attributes, motivation and special training. This has contributed to Russia's cascading problems in Ukraine this year as they have few reliable units left to plug gaps and react quickly to immediate threats. JL

Julian McBride reports in The Small Wars Journal:

The war in Ukraine is seeing Russia amass significant casualties with few strategic objectives achieved. Due to significant losses of infantry, the RuAF have embedded special forces amongst motor rifle units resulting in paratroopers, special operators, and Marines (naval infantry) taking enormous losses, filling in frontline roles they are not used to. As of 2025, 50% of airborne troops have been killed or wounded. The Marines have also taken catastrophic casualties, resulting in Naval Infantry brigades being reconstituted repeatedly. The elite 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade has restructured eight times. And of the 900 Spetsnaz operators initially deployed to Ukraine, only 125 were able to return to combat. Decimation of specialized troops in Ukraine will not only take years to reconstitute, but have detrimental effects on Russian capabilities and ongoing battlefield operations.

Ukraine Has Emerged As the Big Winner of the Russian...and...Iranian Wars

Oh how the ironies abound. It was a year and a few months ago that President Trump publicly told Ukrainian President Zelensky "you don't have the cards" and Putin continued to insist that nothing short of maximal capitulation would satisfy Russia. Those statements did not age well. 

Not only is Ukraine winning - by a number of metrics - in its own war against Russian invasion, but it is doing so in such a significant fashion that as the US confronts its failure to subdue Iran, wealthy Gulf states and European countries are lining up to pay Ukraine vast sums for its drone and anti-drone weaponry, its expertise in using them and even in teaching its militaries how to fight a modern war. To put is succinctly, Ukraine has weathered - and even thrived under - the loss of US support, while American military prowess and reliability as wielded by the current administration have been exposed as wanting. But the US has good company - because Russia  and China have also revealed that they are feckless, unreliable allies whose promises of support to Iran turned out to not be worth very much, even against the relatively hapless Americans. Which leaves Ukraine as arguably the free, civilized world's best hope for protection against this planet's authoritarian wannabe bullies. JL

Con Coughlin reports in The Telegraph:

While  the world has been preoccupied with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Kyiv has exploited the conflict to its advantage. One of the tangible indications has been on the battlefield where, Ukraine has established a significant advantage in its war with Russia. It’s army recorded almost no gains in Ukraine in March for the first time in two-and-a-half years and the Ukrainians achieved a number of localized breakthroughs as the Russians  continue to suffer catastrophic casualties. Ukraine’s increasingly effective battlefield performance is attracting a great deal of interest from Europe and the Middle East. The Iran war has exposed the inadequacies of relying on China or Russia: neither was able to offer the ayatollahs meaningful protection. Russia’s appeal as a reliable ally is even less convincing given its underwhelming performance in Ukraine, which has resulted in Putin being forced to scale back his May 9 Victory Day parade for fear of Ukraine's drones.

Optimizing AI's Impact Requires "Fundamentally Restructuring Workflows"

Wait! You mean AI isn't just plug and play? It can't take care of the hard stuff and increase profits without throwing off executive pickleball schedules? I want my money back!

We've been hearing variations on that theme since the few remaining graybeards still haunting offices from the dotcom era were starting their careers. And the lesson remains the same: to optimize returns from new technologies - including or especially AI - requires investment, turmoil, tough decisions and, yes, significant upfront costs. Because rethinking and reimagining how the enterprise functions is part of the price of scaling an ostensibly thermonuclear economic revolution. It doesn't just happen. That reality is also part of the reason why so many organizations are taking so long to adapt to and adopt AI. And why the costs are greater than the Silicon Valley hype machine promised. Smart businesses committed to realizing AI's opportunities are buckling up, taking their medicine and getting on with it. JL

Chip Cutter and colleagues report in the Wall Street Journal:

Business leaders risk missing out if their use of AI is overly focused on efficiencies. Maximizing ROI in AI requires a fundamental restructuring of business workflows rather than just adopting new technology. As adoption progresses from individuals to small teams to cross-functional groups, so do the returns on AI investment. To enable AI to scale across the enterprise, processes need to be redesigned. That’s less about tech than updating processes and social dynamics. Instead of thinking about it as an IT project, focus on the end-user experience. There are challenges: documentation hardly ever matches the reality of how work is done. Businesses are bogged down by rules and legacy systems. Redesigning a process with AI requires new checks and balances to ensure the effort doesn’t skew performance or lead to unintended outcomes. The line between those that make broader use of AI and those that don’t "will come down to their operating model.” 

Ukrainian Marines Capture Russian Paras In Dnipro River Ambush

The Dnipro River sector has been out of the news for at least a year, as the fighting focused in other areas to the north, east and south. 

But recently, as the stymied Russians fruitlessly attempt to seek any sort of gain, no matter how minor or strategically insignificant, they have made some new attempts along the river frontier. Those have been as unsuccessful as have the other Russian efforts elsewhere, even when carried out by elite airborne units, as was the case here. JL

Dmytro Shumlianskyi reports in Militarnyi:

The Ukrainian 34th Marine Brigade captured paratroopers from the 331st and 217th regiments of Russia’s 98th Guards Airborne Division in the Dacha area near the Antonivskyi Bridge on the left bank of the Dnipro River. According to one of the Russian prisoners, during a crossing over the Konka River to an island held by Ukrainian forces, he lost his weapon, but his commanders ordered him to continue the assault “with a shovel.” Units of the 34th Brigade are operating in the Kherson direction: defending the right bank of the Dnipro and positions on the left bank.

Putin: The Man Who Broke Russia

When the Murdoch-owned, Trump-supporting Wall Street Journal suggests that Vladimir Putin has 'broken' Russia with his ill-advised and poorly executed invasion of Ukraine. 

And that follows similar reports in generally Russian-friendly mainstream media that he is increasingly paranoid about Ukrainian drone attacks as well as internal assassination and coup attempts, you know, if you are a Russian oligarch or Kremlin apparatchik, that it is time to reassess your options. JL

Walter Mead reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Will Vladimir Putin be remembered as the man who broke Russia? The master of the Kremlin made a critical error. Ukraine wasn’t a real country, he reasoned. Its people weren’t nationalist. Its government was a hollow shell. That turned out to be wrong. Mr. Putin’s army is stalemated. Even as he struggles vainly in Ukraine, Mr. Putin has been forced to watch the decline of Russian influence in Europe. The war has gone on so long, cost so much (that it has) weakened the sinews of Russian power severely. The  likely outcome is an agonizing stalemate that continues to chew up Russian manpower and economic resources, threatening Mr. Putin’s grip on power and the future of Russia itself.

Trump Gave Russia $10 Billion In New Oil Funds, Kyiv Burns $7 Billion...So Far

The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian oil in a vain attempt to offset the unintended affects of its poorly planned and executed attack on Iran. This provided the Kremlin with an estimated $10 billion in additional revenue. 

But Ukraine's persistent and increasingly effective attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure, particularly on its two primary energy complexes at Krasnodar Krai and Ust Luga, have eliminated at least $7 billion of that windfall so far. JL

Decimus reports in Daily Kos:

The giant fire in the major oil refinery at Tuapse can be seen through the massive smoke plume from the fire which stretches over 380 kilometers across the Black Sea, making it visible from Crimea, as well as the coastal regions of neighboring countries like Georgia and Turkey. Ukraine has disabled considerable parts of the eight major oil and gas facilities in Krasnodar Krai including the Tuapse Refinery. The installations Ukraine is hammering in Ust Luga and Krasnodar Krai are not replicated anywhere else in Russia. Nor can they be easily and quickly replaced. Even though Trump lifting the oil sanctions on Russia in order to help Putin’s coffers to an estimated $10 billion, Russia has lost at least $7 billion since the start of 2026 due to Ukrainian strikes on its oil infrastructure.