Ukraine Update May 31

2026 — Dazzle is BACK! Oil is not.

I thought this day wouldn’t come. Seriously. My wife informed me last night that May has 31 days, and I had to check my knuckles to be sure. But here we are.

<<FIEND LINK>>

So Goes the Invasion of Ukraine

Another strike on the refinery in Saratov, Russia. Three separate fires are burning at the refinery.

A drone strike in Matveev-Kurgan, in Russia’s Rostov district, set alight an oil storage facility. This is one of many areas that serve as logistics for fuel to the front lines, pushing back Russian deliveries even farther.

Ukraine attacked the fuel depot at Feodosia, occupied Crimea, again last night. Before the attacks, five out of the 33 tanks at the site had been destroyed. Imagery from today from the NASA FIRMS fire detection satellite, and a diagram from Oko-Gora on the situation at Feodosia before last night.

Ukrainian drone footage from last night shows a drone hitting one of the green pairs of tanks visible on the left of the diagram above.

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Ukrainian drones hit the Lazarevo pipeline station in the Kirov region of Mordor. This pumping station splits the deliveries between Western Russia and the Druzhba pipeline network, and southern Russia and the Transneft pipeline system along the Volga River. These are the Surgut-Polotsk and Kholmogory-Klin pipelines. This is a major pumping station between the Siberian oil fields and the refineries in the West and South.

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Ukraine took out two Tu-142 Bear F, the anti-submarine warfare version of the TU-142, at the “Yuzhny” (south) airbase in Taganrog. They are also used to patrol the Black Sea and search for naval drones. Russia has very few of these remaining.

The drones appear to have used radar-based guidance, as the bomber’s internal structure is visible in the drone footage.

The Russians claim that these were old aircraft that were there for repairs, having been taken from Ukraine in the 1990s as part of the Budapest Memorandum agreements. However, they are, of course, lying, because overhead imagery shows that the aircraft had been moved around the airfield and had been flying missions (sometimes absent from imagery).

Satellite-based radar imaging, known as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), offers lower resolution but similar results. Below is an example from the archives of two aircraft at an airfield.

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The Russians hit something in Rivne, Ukraine, that is burning, but the Ukrainians are better about OPSEC than the Russians are, and none of the videos show what it was. Fuel depot? Maybe. There is a privately owned OKKO-brand gas station depot in the area.

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Russians are preparing a withdrawal from Transnistria. They won’t say that openly, of course, but that is what is going to happen. The army will withdraw, and those with Russian passports will either flee to Russia or use one of their other passports and flee to the civilized world. Right now, this is the theory among warbloggers, but it will happen. There is no method by which the Russian forces there can be reinforced, and there is no confusion as to the political situation.

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A fuel convoy was stopped on the way to Crimea, having already made it through most of the ‘highway of death’. The drone hit the cabin, killing the driver, but the fuel tank appears unharmed.

The occupational governor of Kherson region compares the situation there to the siege of Leningrad. That might be a little bit of an exaggeration. However, there are 150,000 Russian troops (allegedly) in the area who are in danger of running out of … well … everything.

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Russians converted a truck into a makeshift “bridge” by building a steel box entirely around the chassis. While driving it into position, they ran over several antipersonnel mines but were ultimately stopped just short of the tiny river they hoped to bridge when the drones got tired of watching them. Video courtesy of the 2nd Motorized Rifle, 57th OMPBr, UAF.

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A Russian drone killed the driver of a civilian train in Zaporizhzhia.

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Ukrainian and Russian numbers don’t add up. The Ukrainian total of drones and missiles launched into Russia for May is 6,500-ish. The total number of drones intercepted by Russia, reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense and repeated by various regional governments, is around 8,500. I do have two explanations. Either Russians are double-counting some of the drones, and that’s understandable — better to overestimate than underestimate. But it could be that Ukrainian drones are reproducing in flight, in a kind of grey goo scenario.

The “gray goo” scenario is a hypothetical doomsday scenario where self-replicating nanobots consume all biomass on Earth, turning everything into a mass of nanomachines. But don’t worry, we are at least twelve years away from that.

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Dazzle! History repeats itself. The Russians are trying to confuse AI-powered drones with wild paint schemes. Left: a Russian truck; right: an Allied (US) warship from WW2. Or possibly an island. It’s hard to tell.

Zebras, sadly, are not native to Ukraine, but there are some animals with black-and-white stripes. Four birds, the Eurasian Hoopoe, the Great Spotted Woodpecker, the Eurasian Magpie, and the White Wagtail, have some black and white striping, as well as the European badger (badger mushroom snake).

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Ukrainian soldier Nazar Dalaetskyi, pronounced dead for four years, visits his own grave.

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Girkin, from his prison cell, says that the attack on Starobilsk “college” (drone training center) “isn’t all that clear,” mentioning that he had been there before, and that there were not only students there.

Politics

US Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is in Odesa, expressing support for Ukraine.

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On Poland. I’m tired of these complaints about Volyn. Sorry, nobody who participated in those things is alive anymore. There is plenty of blame and hatred to go around. European history is bloody and long, and if we want to keep digging up (literally) the past, we can’t move forward. Every Pole who mentions these things is a useful idiot, working for Russia.

Poles killed Ukrainians. Ukrainians killed Poles. The Ukrainians got over it; the Poles are still complaining. If Poland can join Germany in the EU, then it can join Ukraine, too.

As for the excavations, Poles should exercise caution. So far, the excavations have shown that some of the bodies had Polish military uniforms and medals, and some of the victims were Ukrainian. This Polish “history” is not as simple as the Russians have presented it.

Polish far-right “leaders” and an army of trolls are creating a division between Poland and Ukraine, and the only benefactor is Russia. Poland will pay a price for their short-sighted hate mongering. They are kept out of high-level negotiations. Pettiness plays well domestically, as Americans know better than anyone, but on the world stage, it is suicide. European leaders are, for the most part, serious people. Poland does itself a disservice.

I will point out that Stepan Bandera and the UPA were Polish citizens.

Ukrainians view Bandera in the same way every country views its historical figures — one-sided. Ukraine sees Bandera as fighting for Ukrainian independence. Period. Independence from Russia, Poland, and the Nazis. All three were occupiers. This is the same way Poles view their national heroes, Russians view theirs, and Americans view theirs.

Thomas Jefferson was a rapist and a slaver, but that’s not what we teach children in America. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves. Of the first eighteen presidents, all but four owned slaves. John Adams (2), John Q. Adams (4), Van Buren (8), and Lincoln (15). The rest all owned slaves, and Van Buren is even questionable, since his family owned slaves, although he didn’t personally own any.

Everyone has baggage. Every culture has done things it should be ashamed of, and every culture is very selective in how it views its history. What Bandera is known for in Ukraine is killing Russians and fighting for independence.

Jozef Pilsudski, a renowned Polish hero, killed thousands of Ukrainians, but is remembered in Poland for fighting against the Russians. He built concentration camps in the 1920s, imprisoning tens of thousands of Ukrainians. There were plenty of local Polish commanders who committed crimes against Ukrainians as well.

Wladyslaw Sikorski, Roman Dmowski, and Edward Rydz-Smigly were powerful leaders in Poland who were in power during crimes against Ukrainians, or justified the repression and occupation of Ukraine through genocidal language. They banned the Ukrainian language and attempted to erase Ukrainian culture, sometimes through force, sometimes through bureaucracy. Poles do NOT want the history of this area to be scrutinized too closely, as it will not work out for them in the long run.

Polish troops round up Ukrainians in the 1920’s.

But do Ukrainians bring these things up during discussions between adults? No. Because Ukrainians aren’t dwelling on the past, they are working towards a future in which Europe no longer has to worry about Russia. Poles should get on board.

That said, the recent concentration on dead history in Poland is 100% Russian propaganda at work, and it will go away when Russia does.

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There was a riot in France because of a football match.

While in America, the government is protecting a network of billionaire pedophiles and transparently using the power of the government for personal profit, and nobody can be bothered to do much of anything.

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Meanwhile, in Russia

The occupational government of Crimea promises to resolve the gasoline crisis “within 30 days.” What they think will happen in 30 days is a mystery to me. I suppose Ukrainian forces might bring some gasoline with them… (j/k, that will be much later in the year).

A-95 gasoline is rationed and will be used for public transport and government officials through a rationing program. A92 gas will be sold in 20-liter quantities, and no, don’t bring your gas cans with you, because those aren’t allowed anymore.

Meanwhile, videos from residents of Crimea continue to show that there is no gasoline at all.

“With coupons” means that government officials, public transport, and emergency vehicles can buy gasoline, but no one else.

The “Shoigu, Gerasimov” quote is a reference to Prigozhin’s rebellion in 2023, where he blamed the Minister of Defense Shoigu and the head of the Army Gerasimov for the terrible losses at Bakhmut.

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Also, what tankers?

Drone footage from last night of Ukraine hitting a tanker in the port of Taganrog.

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As the Kremlin and the regional governments run out of money to give soldiers for signing a contract to die in Ukraine, they have promised to migrate to “debt forgiveness.” I can just imagine a man going into a bank, taking out the biggest loan that he could, and then showing up at the recruitment center, thinking the debt would be canceled. Well, it turns out that those promises aren’t being fulfilled.

“People, don’t even bother to sign these contracts — bitch, it’s fucking fucked up. It’s just that wherever they can, they clamp down on people.” Dmitri Vladislavovich, former SVO soldier.

“This is our state of the Russian Federation, bitch. We’re simple, I don’t know that Uncle Vova is fucking on TV, that we’re all good, — damn, we don’t have anything good. <…> They treat animals like some kind of thing, fuck.”

Sorting through his anger and foul language, he complains that he was promised that his debts would be forgiven, but the bailiffs and courts are seizing his accounts anyway.

“The “Defenders of the Fatherland” fund is completely insane. It’s real, people, insanely fierce. Don’t fucking believe everything they tell you there.”

Meanwhile, in Iran

Iran has, reportedly, allegedly, claimed to reject the US demand to transfer enriched Uranium out of the country.

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It appears that the F-15, which was shot down over Iran, the one that caused the very strange evacuation operation, was shot down by a Chinese missile.

“President Xi promised me that he is not supplying weapons to Iran. That is a wonderful promise. I take him at his word.” — DJT

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Humor?

Timothy Snyder (?) compares American foreign policy to a baby with a bulldozer. Europe is entertaining the baby, hoping to redirect the bulldozer, quietly terrified. Russia is encouraging the baby, relishing the spectacle of chaos. China is watching the baby because it is far away from the bulldozer and quietly laughing.

ChatGPT did its thing.

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“I’ve spent 15 years working with Russian cosmonauts. Took me 5 years to understand what motivated them. Number one, the appearance that they were in charge of something. Two, who to blame when something goes wrong. Three, what to steal today. Only four, mission success. …. apparently there’s a saying in Russian that if you didn’t steal something at work that day, you did not have a good day.” — Senator Mark Kelley, former NASA Astronaut, Naval aviator, war veteran.

Advice: Don’t accidentally search for Mark Kelley on twitter when you meant to search for him on Google. I found out that he is a lizard man in a mask posing as a human, that he faked his entire astronaut career, and that it was all a reality show, and that he is a puppet of George Soros.