Russian Digest
Week of 5/4/26: Top stories I'm keeping an eye on
I want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!!
Starting this week, I’m bringing back the Russian Digest: a roundup of the top Russia, Ukraine, disinformation, and the growing Russian aggression news I’m keeping an eye on each week.
Also, sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. I’ve been dealing with some personal issues, but I’ll be posting regularly again going forward.
Ukraine Strikes Deep Inside Russia
Russia will celebrate the anniversary of its World War II victory over Germany this weekend, but the Kremlin is anxious. Ukraine is accelerating its long-range strike campaign on Russian territory, which, in addition to causing military and economic damage, is having a psychological effect.
Unlike in years past, the Victory Day parade in Moscow won’t feature heavy military equipment, the Russian Defense Ministry announced. “They fear drones may buzz over Red Square,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday. Vladimir Putin that same day unilaterally declared a cease-fire around Victory Day, with the Russian Defense Ministry noting “threats to strike Moscow” on the holiday.
Read More: Wall Street Journal
Secret document reveals Russia’s plans to aid Iran
There are many reasons why America’s war on Iran has been failing. One of them is the effectiveness of Iranian drones. Now a confidential document obtained by The Economist from a trusted source suggests that Russia has offered to provide Iran with unjammable drones and training on how to use them against American troops in the Gulf and perhaps elsewhere.
Read More: The Economist
Long Overlooked, Caspian Sea Provides Strategic Trade Route for Iran
Bright orange flashes and a roiling funnel of black smoke filled the air as Israeli fighter jets struck Iran’s naval command center at the port of Bandar Anzali. Israel said it also destroyed several Iranian navy vessels and called the strike “one of the most significant” it had conducted during combat operations against Iran.
Russia is shipping drone components to Iran via the Caspian Sea, U.S. officials say, helping Iran rebuild its offensive abilities after losing roughly 60 percent of its drone arsenal during recent fighting. The officials spoke anonymously to divulge private military assessments.
Read More: New York Times
Austria expels three Russian embassy staff after ‘forest of antennae’ discovered
Austria has expelled three Russian embassy staff on suspicion of spying after determining that a “forest of antennae” on the diplomatic mission in Vienna, Europe’s espionage capital since the Cold War, was being used for illicit data collection.
“It is unacceptable that diplomatic immunity be used to commit espionage,” Austria’s foreign minister, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, said on Monday. She added that the three embassy staff – whose expulsions bring the number of Russian diplomats sent home by Vienna to 14 since 2020 – had already left the country.
“We have communicated this to the Russian side in no uncertain terms, including as regards the forest of antennae at the Russian mission,” Meinl-Reisinger said. Spying was a problem for Austria, she continued, but the government had embarked on a “change of course” and was “taking consistent action”.
Read More: The Guardian
Royal Navy tracks Russian frigate for one month off UK coast
Britain’s Royal Navy tracked and followed a Russian frigate every day last month as it sailed from the Atlantic to the North Sea, as Moscow steps up its maritime presence after UK threats to seize shadow fleet oil tankers.
The Russian navy’s Admiral Grigorovich escorted six Russia-linked vessels during April, including at least three under economic sanction passing east through the Dover Strait, while being watched continuously by four UK ships and helicopters.
The frigate, which naval spotters believe remains in the North Sea, was able to maintain its presence near Britain by taking on supplies near Galloper windfarm off the Suffolk coast.
Read More: The Guardian
Poland finds spy drone near Russia’s Kaliningrad border
Polish authorities have discovered a reconnaissance drone near the town of Bartoszyce, approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast, the Polish military police reported on May 9.
“Preliminary findings at the scene suggest it was likely a military reconnaissance drone, with no combat capabilities,” the statement said.
Polish radio station RMF FM reports that the drone bears Russian-language inscriptions. The downed drone was also equipped with several cameras mounted on its fuselage.
RMF, citing unofficial information, reports that the drone may have flown into Polish airspace from Russia.
Read More: Kyiv Independent
Kim Jong Un praises soldier suicides, signals deepening role in Russia’s war
At the unveiling of a towering bronze sculpture of North Korean and Russian soldiers in combat, Kim Jong Un praised troops who chose death over capture while fighting in Ukraine. It was a striking and unusually explicit acknowledgment of Pyongyang’s long-suspected battlefield doctrine.
According to a transcript published by North Korean state media KCNA, Kim declared that those who “unhesitatingly opted for self-blasting” and suicide attacks had shown the highest form of loyalty, a reference to soldiers throwing themselves on grenades or detonating explosives rather than risk being taken prisoner.
Read More: CNN
How Private Capital Can Accelerate European Rearmament
The continent has increased its financial commitment to its own security, as it scrambles to compensate for an increasingly stretched and less committed partner in Washington. Weapons purchases alone won’t solve its procurement crisis.
The challenge is much deeper: an industrial base that is constrained by its inability to rapidly manufacture systems at volume and scale.
Where defense innovation once faced a so-called Valley of Death of bureaucratic and funding barriers, the new constraint is the Valley of Production: a system that’s too slow to meet urgent military needs.
The capability gap could take a generation to close, and that is time Europe does not have. Russia’s shadow war is accelerating as fighting in Ukraine grinds on, and there are ever louder warnings about Moscow’s capacity and desire to strike at NATO’s Eastern flank.
Read More: CEPA
Ukrainian battlefield gains expose Russia’s communications problems
Russia lost ground in the war against Ukraine during April 2026 for the first time since summer 2024, according to battlefield analysis conducted by the Institute for the Study of War. This is the latest indication in recent months that the tide may be turning against Moscow as Putin’s faltering invasion approaches a fifth summer.
Ukraine’s recent battlefield gains have not come as a result of any innovative new weapons systems or a sudden surge in Western arms deliveries. Instead, they appear to have been enabled primarily by mounting command and communications problems within the Russian military.
Read More: Atlantic Council
The Think-Tank Spy: Russian Diplomat Infiltrating Orbán’s Right-Wing Elite Quietly Expelled
A Russian spy who spent years infiltrating think-tanks and academic institutions close to the Orbán government was sent home from Budapest — but only after Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat removed the political obstacle that had shielded the operative for months.
Hungary has quietly expelled a Russian spy operating under diplomatic cover who infiltrated right-wing and foreign policy think tanks close to the Orbán government — running informants and scouting for potential recruits, VSquare has learned from multiple Hungarian government sources.
Read More: VSquare
Europe fears Putin’s ‘window of opportunity’ is now
European governments worry Vladimir Putin will see this as his moment to strike.
Defense officials and lawmakers fear the Kremlin will consider the next year or two, while Donald Trump is still in the White House and the EU hasn’t yet reinforced its military capacity, as the time to test the West’s commitment to NATO, according to three EU politicians with direct knowledge of the discussions, interviewed for this article. While Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown the limits of Moscow’s might, the Russian president has long signaled his desire to take more territory.
“Something could happen very soon — there is a Russian window of opportunity,” said Mika Aaltola, a Finnish center-right member of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “The U.S. is withdrawing from Europe, transatlantic relations are in a shambles, and the EU is not yet fully ready to take on the responsibilities by themselves.”
Read More: Politico EU
Investigations…
Revealed: Russia’s top secret spy school teaching hacking and election meddling
Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.
He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students.
What the Kremlin readout of Putin’s visit did not mention was a secret faculty inside the university, known simply as Department 4, or “Special Training”.
Here, a select group of students are quietly prepared for careers in the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence directorate, whose operatives have hacked western parliaments, poisoned dissidents on foreign soil and interfered in elections across Europe and the US.
Read More: The Guardian
Russia Has Lost More Than 350,000 Soldiers, New Estimate Finds
About 352,000 Russian soldiers had died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025, according to a new estimate, underscoring the high cost that President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to bear to pursue his battlefield aims.
The figure was released on Saturday — the day of Russia’s annual May 9 parade celebrating victory over Germany in World War II — by the exiled Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazona.
Read More: New York Times
Russian propaganda spreading fake stories about mobilization and “abuse” in Armed Forces of Ukraine
Russians created a staged video and used AI to discredit the AFU
Russian Telegram channels are spreading an image allegedly showing a Ukrainian Defense Ministry advertisement banner. The picture depicts a citylight billboard in Kyiv featuring a serviceman and another man hiding under a school desk. The poster includes the slogans: “A desk is a shelter for cowards” and “Sign a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine – be a real hero.”
This is fake. The image was generated using artificial intelligence. An analysis by the Hive Moderation service showed a 99.4% probability that the picture was AI-generated.
Read More: Ukrinform
Thank you for all you do Olga 🐕🦺❤️🇺🇦🇺🇸
Thank you! Happy Mother’s Day to you as well! The Russian Digest is a great gift to us all! 🥰❤️💕