If Russia has the Sarmat and a full nuclear arsenal, why can it still be "nibbled at and bitten"? That question was put to the Kremlin's spokesman after Moscow touted a successful test fire last week. Peskov's answer: nuclear deterrence remains integral to Russia's natsec. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

A man climbed onto the imperial throne at St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum and read a petition to Putin before drawing a knife on staff. The 46-year-old raved about corruption, debt, and financial ruin. He was detained and handed to police. www.fontanka.ru/2026/05/17/7...

A senior Russian lawmaker is calling for assassinating Ukraine's political & military leadership after overnight drone strikes on Moscow. Sergey Mironov, head of the State Duma's Fair Russia faction, says leveling Kyiv's govt quarter is "the fastest way to end the war." rtvi.com/news/bystryj...

India confirms that one of the civilians killed in Ukraine's massive drone attack on Moscow was an Indian national.

Z-bloggers trying to explain how Ukraine is managing to swarm attack drones into Moscow, despite Russia's sweeping mobile Internet crackdown, are entertaining the idea that Kyiv is using Starlink for navigation. t.me/batyachitaet... t.me/SergeyKolyas...

lol, Russian state media, citing unnamed Russian security officials, claims Ukraine's anti-corruption police are preparing to arrest First Lady Olena Zelenska. The claim comes amid a real money laundering case against Zelensky's former chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. ria.ru/20260517/ukr...

Ukrainian drone debris fell on the grounds of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, officials said, with no injuries or damage reported. The debris landed away from passenger terminals and aircraft, and operations are reportedly continuing normally. t.me/rbc_news/149...

Ukrainian drones hit two Moscow suburbs overnight, killing three people — a woman in Khimki and two men in Mytishchi — and leaving one person trapped under rubble, according to the region's governor, Andrey Vorobyov. t.me/ostorozhno_m...

just another day

Konami is shutting down its services for players in Russia and Belarus on June 15, pulling access to franchises including Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, and the soccer game eFootball. ria.ru/20260517/efo...

Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on Moscow tonight, with air defenses reportedly downing 110+ UAVs. Closures at all four major airports, with 93 flights delayed & two diverted. Emergency crews are at debris sites, Mayor Sobyanin says. t.me/bazabazon/46...

Terrific road-trip article by James Lasdun in LRB. He drove across the USA, dropping in on random court hearings as a public observer, collecting snapshots of America's justice system and people caught up in it. Loved reading this. Makes me want to do the same. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Putin will visit China May 19–20, after Trump's three-day trip to Beijing that he says yielded "fantastic deals." 🤥 Putins trip is expected to cover the stalled Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline (commercial terms remain unresolved), plus nuclear energy cooperation and oil supplies. t.me/kfm936/35101

Pulling the trigger and ordering a paper subscription to @wweek.com. Anybody know if it comes by special morning delivery or just in the post?

🤢

Graffiti showing a girl piloting a drone in VR — goggles stamped "Game over" — has appeared near a Yekaterinburg apt complex hit last month by Ukraine in the 1st drone strike ever on the city. Street art researcher Alexey Shakhov suspects the work is by the art collective Zlye. t.me/shahov_stree...

North Korea has amended its constitution to mandate an *automatic nuclear strike* if Kim Jong Un is killed in an enemy attack. The changes also formally drop the goal of peaceful reunification with South Korea, which the document now designates a "hostile state." t.me/vedomosti/77...

"I do not believe that you will see a US [...] security supplemental to Ukraine, for $6B, $60B, or any other amount," Congressman Brian Mast told RFE/RL. Only continued intel support and weapons sales. 1/2 www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-ru...

The U.S. Treasury's second temporary sanctions waiver on Russian oil expired Friday, closing a window first opened in March amid shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz due to America winning so much against already-defeated Iran. www.rbc.ru/politics/16/...

seriously considering converting all social media presence to drinking one too many beers while making Friday dinner and then posting about 90s cinema

Watching Cutthroat Island and am just blown away by the production values of 1990s Hollywood. America used to make real movies goddamit.

This week, Deepstate reported that Ukrainian troops liberated Odradne, a village in the Kharkiv region, where Russian forces had been advancing toward Kupiansk. Overall, Sunday through Thursday, the map shows Russian forces across Ukraine gained roughly 5 km² (less than 2 sq miles).

Thanks to a new Putin decree, Transnistrians (in Moldova's breakaway republic) can now get Russian citizenship without meeting the residence and language requirements for regular applicants. Moscow has contracted 1,500 peacekeepers in Tiraspol since the 90s. publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/000...

Two 20-something Russians got long prison sentences for their role in a supposed plot to poison humanitarian aid bound for the "DNR," targeting "Espanyola" paramilitary fighters. Rival, pro-Kyiv Russian nationalists allegedly orchestrated the scheme, though the whole thing is maybe an FSB fiction.

The fact that Russia's prison pop has dropped by 183,000 since the start of the Ukraine war, falling to 282,000, is undeniably remarkable and is clear evidence of mass inmate recruitment for the army. But it's worth remembering that Russia's prison pop has plummeted under Putin, ironically.

A truly shocking outcome here, uncallable: A Moscow court has sided with Russia's Central Bank in its bid to recover ~€200B from Euroclear, the Belgian depository with its hooks in most of Russia's frozen assets. Euroclear intends to appeal. Good luck with that, lads. www.rbc.ru/finances/15/...

Veteran human rights activist Nina Litvinova has taken her own life. In her suicide note, she cited despair over the invasion of Ukraine and imprisonment of dissidents. State media mentioned her death (she was the granddaughter of a prominent Soviet diplomat) but ignored her Putin condemnation.

The Council of Europe has endorsed the establishment of a Special Tribunal for Ukraine, but leave it to the Europeans to target Putin with a tribunal that isn't empowered to prosecute officials still in office. www.coe.int/en/web/porta...

this line randomly enters my brain all the time

It's often said that Russians don't protest under Putin today, but some 200 locals assembled in Novosibirsk on Friday against a planned expressway that would route freight traffic routed through their neighborhood and destroy the local forest. t.me/Sib_EXpress/...

Kremlin political czar Sergey Kiriyenko told United Russia's leadership not to "forget" the Ukraine war veterans who lose in the party's upcoming primaries, Vedomosti reports. 535 vets are among the 4,400 candidates. In 2021, United Russia won 324 of Duma's 450 seats. t.me/vedomosti/77...

Ukrainian drones struck Enerhodar — the Russian-occupied city adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — overnight, reportedly hitting cell towers, a gas station, and residential buildings. The city's Russian-appointed head says there were no casualties. ria.ru/20260515/ene...

A Ukrainian drone attack on Ryazan killed 3 people and wounded 12 others, including children, according to the region's governor. Two apartment buildings were damaged, and the area's schools and kindergartens will be closed on Friday as a safety precaution. t.me/rtvinews/120...

Kyiv has declared May 15 a day of mourning after an especially horrifying Russian missile and drone attack killed 24 people, including three children, and injured 47 others. Rescuers are still working through rubble in the Darnytsky district, where a building collapsed. t.me/tvrain/104750

Sasha Kon, a 37-year-old traveler "walking to Brazil" with a 661-pound homemade cart in tow, was reportedly killed by a Ukrainian drone strike in Russia's Bryansk region on May 13. Locals had been photographing and encouraging him the day before. tass.ru/proisshestvi...

watching Reagan–Clinton–era movies from my childhood all over again with a sick four-year-old and remembering that the class politics of films i loved as lighthearted distraction are bonkers, regressive fantasia

lol

State Duma confirms Yana Lantratova as Russia's new human rights commissioner. Ukraine charged her in 2024 with forcibly deporting two children from occupied Kherson, purportedly for medical treatment. Also, Lantratova once ran a controversial anti-pedophilia sting operation using minors as bait.

Decorated scholar Gennady Onishchenko says he failed the ЕГЭ — Russia's standardized college entrance exam — after the education minister asked him to try it. "I didn't understand anything on the sheet," Onishchenko admitted, arguing that teachers capable of a proper exam have all retired.

How about withholding food and water instead, you rich assholes

Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service chief says the nation's prison population has nearly halved since 2021, from 465,000 to 282,000. Gostev cited sentencing reforms as one cause but acknowledged that recruitment of inmates as contract soldiers for the war in Ukraine has also played a role.

People talk about AI lowering the human mind's capacity, but I’ve been working on a long‑prompt pipeline, and I spend most of my time managing Claude’s limited attention span. At this point, I might as well be shouting at a TikTok‑addicted Zoomer to go read a book.

Russia's consumer safety agency is refusing to release water and sand quality data to an Anapa city council member following last Dec's Black Sea tanker oil spill, citing a govt commission's orders that explicitly bar sharing cleanup information with media or the general public.

excellent

Russia's "Sever" Army Group claims its forces killed Colombian, Spanish, and Brazilian fighters in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, capturing one Colombian survivor. The group also alleges that Moldova is funnelling foreign mercenaries into Ukraine through Turkey. t.me/warriorofnor...

Meduza's latest count of Russian military deaths puts the total at 352K between Feb 2022 & late 2025. This instalment adds a new category of soldiers, currently estimated at 90K: men whose deaths left no body for a civil registry to record. I wrote this summary explaining how the calculations work.

The U.S. Army has canceled a planned deployment of roughly 4,000 soldiers to Poland, offering no public explanation. Defense News ties it to an Army budget shortfall of $4–6B, driven in part by National Guard deployments to DC & troops sent to the southern border. www.defensenews.com/news/your-ar...

finally, a good one

oh brother

Has anyone checked to see if the passenger was Baby Moses?