Critical Ukraine Update | May 27th, 2026.

Russia War-Expert: “THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY UKRAINIANS.” Situation For Russian Forces In Stepnohirsk Is Not Looking Good.

Kristina’s Recently Uploaded Rebutal To Pro-Russian Crowd. (source)

I wanted to start today’s update by touching on these two videos a Finnish-Russian influencer, Kristina Kulagina, posted after visiting Kondopoga, Karelia, Russia, showing just how depressing and neglected the region is, which sits just a few kilometers from the Finnish border. Interestingly, both Finland and the Soviet Union fought over this region during World War II, gaining temporary control over a large chunk of it during 1941–1944.

Why am I pointing this out? I initially thought to include her first video roughly three days ago, but it wasn’t really all that informative. Now, the situation got so problematic for the pro-Russia crowd that they began claiming that she recorded this video in Finland. As a result, she made a second video, addressing their blatant lies, as the footage is, indeed, shameful, as it depicts the Kremlin bad.

Whatever the case, Kristina pointed out the following, responding to the Kremlin’s never-ending propaganda narratives, which, thanks to this video, exposed it further to the younger audience:

I am in Russia why people are seriously arguing if this is Finland or Russia what the fu..! This not Kovola, Vanta, Estonia, Kondopoga. But there was a Finnish car well yes there is a Finnish car and I was surprised too but let’s look right here all the other cars are Russian. Number 10 Karelia! You wanna see Lada? Here is Lada with Russian bear beer and there is Russian flag where else would you. Also topic of the video was Russian ghetto then there was even a Russian flag. It’s so funny to read the comments. Are you actually fu….. stupid people?

The moral of the story here is that the tiny villages and towns right on the Russian border in Finland look like America to the Russians, compared to the neglected Soviet era infrastructure that many Russians still live in throughout this region.

Yet there are still people claiming that communism was a good thing because it supposedly centered around caring for ordinary people. If that were really true, then how did so many of these regions end up abandoned, underdeveloped, and visibly decaying decades later? And for one, what’s up with the strange correlation of communist leaders doing some really horrible things, like Stalin for instance, who unalived around 50,000,000 of his own people.

Image From My Folder From Either May 11th or 12th Update on Ukraine, Showing A Newly Built Apartment Building In Siberia.

For goodness sake, just looking at the conditions people live in completely undermines the narrative. On one side, even small Finnish border towns are maintained, functional, and continuously developed, while many Russian communities are still stuck with collapsing apartment blocks.

Though, given the way the good-old Russian regime is headed, saying anything of this sort in Russia, can get you both in a jail cell and have all your goods confiscated including your vehicles and homes. On which I will touch in a moment.

At the end of the day, if communism really was pro-people, we should have never seen conditions like this in the first place. Russia is the most resource-rich country in the world, yet apparently even that was not enough to create decent living conditions across its own regions.

Meanwhile, I had a pretty crazy realization: maybe there is a hierarchy of values within communist systems that places the preservation of the regime, centralized power, and expansionism above the actual development of the people’s living conditions themselves?

Looking at the kind of things the Kremlin prioritizes, it often feels like foreign influence mattered far more than improving the overall country. Yet Putin still dares to call himself a man of the people. The fact that even several KGB agents chose to escape this never-changing system should already tell us everything we need to know about the reality people were and are living in and why Kristina described it as a “ghetto.”

Yet, we have Russian people believing made-up lies about NATO and the evil West; maybe they should look at the living conditions of the Europeans and the Americans and other countries and stop relying on war money to buy themselves new Ladas, which are driven on undeveloped roads…

Now, regarding the newly approved resolution in the most precious Russia. Yesterday, I included a report touching on the Kremlin’s new decision in tackling misinformation, which is up to them to define.

However, more than likely, this will include anything positive being said about Ukraine, in any shape or form, and any negative words said about the Russian regime or military, in any shape or form. This, according to Putin, was done to increase the morale of the Russian citizens so they wouldn’t be discouraged from signing up for SMO, though Putin already called this a war. I touched on this extensively on yesterday’s update, on May 26th.

An operating independent news agency in Russia, Astra, reported the following information, later adding that the authorities now have the power to confiscate the prosecuted people’s property, of any type, to account for penalties. Which! The Russian courts can inflate as they see fit for the survival of the Russian Federation, that is.

These are articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) “illegal receipt of information with limited access (art. 13.14.1), “abuse of freedom of the media (art. 13.15), “violations in the dissemination of information, including among children, as well as materials calling for terrorism”

(Articles 13.36 and 13.37), “public identification of the actions and decisions of the leadership of the USSR and Nazi Germany” (art. 13.48), “violation of the dissemination of information about protected persons” (art. 17.13), “violation of the procedure for the activities of a foreign agent” (art. 19.34), “minor hooliganism with special signs” (parts 3–5 of Article 20.1), “production and distribution of extremist materials (Article 20.29).

Further, notice how the Russian regime routinely accuses Ukraine of actions that more closely describe its own behavior. We have heard many lies from Russian officials about tampered information in Ukraine and the government there remaining to stay in power on their own and being hostile in general. Yet, each of these categories applies more to Russia than they ever would to Ukraine.

The chairman of the Duma committee, Kartapolov, stated the following about Zelenskyy, which intelligence services of various countries and Russian bloggers testified Putin himself does, according to very own Russian outlets but also foreign intelligence reports:

Zelensky doesn’t appear there. He sits in a bunker. The office has two guards and five cleaners. Is there any point in wasting expensive munitions on essentially an empty place?

Russian officials want us to think that Zelenskyy lives in some virtual reality world, as he casually records and uploads videos addressing the population and Russian-related issues outside… Russian officials are merely paranoid because they can’t get rid of him like the US got rid of Maduro. For goodness sake, Zelenskyy was handing out medals in Kyiv in the open to the marines three days ago or so.

Zelenskyy Chilling Out In Kyiv While Duma Members Claim He Is Living In A Bunker.

Also, the very own Russian president, Putin, had even altered the constitution to remain in power… But that’s what promoting a brainwashed KGB agent to the presidency does to your homeland.

Notice how Russian propagandists promoting nuclear threats don’t get convicted for spreading misinformation, according to Russian laws. But! The law forbids saying anything good about the West that challenges Putin’s long-pushed narratives…

In the midst of all this, Sergey Shoigu, Russia’s previous defense minister, referred to NATO as “in the so-called civilized Europe, gripped by a revanchist and militarist frenzy.”

Despite the fact that Russian fighter jets kept violating the Baltic airspace for over twenty years and invaded Ukraine under the false pretext of being armed up by NATO, which never occurred, only during 2014, when Russia illegally invaded Ukraine.

This was reported by TASS. I will not add hyperlinks to their reports, as I don’t feel safe in doing so. Whatever the case, serious drama is breaking out on Russian channels about Ukraine’s military capabilities.

One Russian expert with over 68,000 followers on Telegram described the situation in Zaporizhzhia, well… I think it is best if you hear it for yourself: “THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY Crests (UKRAINIANS.)”

It’s really tough for our soldiers there, there are too many crests. I still don’t understand where they get so many men from. Ours are fighting off attack after attack, and these guys keep pushing forward.

I repeat once again, if we don’t bring in either drone operators or simply thousands of drones right now, things will get even more difficult for us, and surrendering the city of Stepnogorsk (Stepnohirsk) is a huge loss, believe me.

It’s time to address this pressing issue in the area-the shortage of drones-since several of the settlements in front of Stepnogorsk have already been abandoned, and at this rate, the news from there won’t be good.

On top of this, one of the leading Russian war experts on Telegram also claimed that Russia is headed down a very dangerous route as they have no option in tackling Ukraine’s drone capabilities, given the context of what’s going on with Donetsk and Mariupol’s highways. Where the Russian logistics are being targeted:

We remind you that blocking the R-280 ‘Novorossiysk’ highway, which is vital for Crimea, was one of the objectives of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ unsuccessful counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.

Now, for the summer of 2026, Ukraine is attempting to undermine the logistics of the peninsula not directly, but through medium-range drone-kamikazes equipped with the Starlink system. Thousands of vehicles move along this route and adjacent highways day and night; therefore, to actually disrupt logistics, Ukraine will need to use hundreds of drones daily on this section alone.

The costs of transportation via the land corridor will increase significantly due to destroyed vehicles, drivers will have to be paid substantially more, and some may refuse such a dangerous route altogether.

This will force companies to expand their staff and vehicle fleets. In addition, they will need to invest in installing anti-drone nets on the roads, constructing safe night parking facilities for vehicles, and deploying fire teams along the routes to cover movement. Another problem may arise from the necessity to redeploy additional air defense complexes, which are already in demand everywhere and are in short supply.

Lastly, Macron is attempting to take over the role from the United States in reassuring the alliance with safety, involving the deployment of nuclear weapons on the Eastern European flank, hence responding to Putin’s actions in Belarus. Which makes me think he got nowhere with that phone call with Lukashenko which he initiated a few days ago.

According to initial information, Poland will now host French nuclear weapons. A game changer, to say the least. France is learning from Ukrainian war experts if nuclear deterrence really works. Incredible sight…

Mr. Valery Gartung, Not Making Sense As Usual. (source)

Also, another individual in Duma, Valery Gartung, asked Duma members as to what we (the people in charge of Russia’s future) are going to do in the face of the growing inflation and decreasing funds for fixing the economy?

Interestingly, out of all the ideas Valery Gartung could come up with, he concluded by saying that we must continue supporting the war until it ends in Russia’s victory. Which quite literally shows the contradictory mindset among Duma officials, considering he himself is part of the problem behind many of the economic issues affecting the Russian Federation today.

Why does it feel like we’re watching some horribly written movie script play out before our eyes? Russia has deteriorated on so many different levels in these four years, I don’t know how Russians can come up with anything positive about their leadership at all.