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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10010 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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Your Quarterly Ukraine War check-in

Three and a half months ago, we checked in on the war in Ukraine. That post was itself a check in to follow up on dire predictions from the pro-Russia posters in fall of 2025 that the loss of Pokrovsk was heralding the collapse of Ukrainian front lines and encirclement of Ukrainian troops. Amusingly, @No_one went back and deleted all of their posts after the last check in, so I can only leave you with this:

Going by the aphorism 'If you're reading this, it's for you', it looks like the American press is preparing the public for a closing act of the majestic capeshit arc that started with the Maidan massacre. Ukrainians are generally eager to negotiate, nobody believes in winning anymore

I expected the Iran war to be a major tailwind for Russia (oil prices, sanctions relief, US distraction) but on the contrary, the western information space seems to argue that things will remain stalemated for the foreseeable future. Ukraine seems to be pumping out drones (is this all that matters now?), and has started hitting Russian oil refineries. People have been hyping up what seems to be a mostly symbolic bombing of Moscow. The map hasn't moved, supposedly Russian recruitment is down. The Russian spring offensive has been underway for several weeks and made no progress:

Russian forces have so far failed to make meaningful gains in their ongoing spring-summer 2026 offensive, Ukrainian forces have contested the tactical initiative in several areas of the frontline, and Russian forces have failed to defend the Russian deep rear against increasingly devastating Ukrainian strikes.[8]

On the flip side, people write articles about how bad the Russian economy is, and then drop this line near the end:

Russia’s national debt is low at around 17% of GDP, the banking system is stable, employment rates are high, and wages are still creeping up.

I'd be interested to hear whether anyone has insight into the rhetoric on the Russian side or the pro-Russian perspective at the moment.

So - any new/modified predictions? We had @ABigGuy4U saying collapse in July-August (still a few months to go), @Lizzardspawn saying to look at the frequency of blackouts in Kiev (still unchanged at 6-8 hours a day afaict).

No mention of this?

Seems like Putin floating the trial balloon for negotiated settlement to me.

Or he's just saying that because it makes Trump happy. A happy Trump is a Trump more willing to provide sanction relief.

Maybe, or maybe because the negotiations have an end in sight and the battlefield doesn't. Hard to say, we know nothing of the diplomacy and due to misinformation, less than nothing about the military state of things.

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