For more than four years, Ukrainian working people have fought courageously to protect their country’s sovereignty in the face of Moscow’s murderous assaults. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who claims Ukraine doesn’t exist as a real country, is incapable of understanding their determination. The effects of the war are now inducing cracks in his regime, amid fears that opposition among working people in Russia will spread.
Moscow’s war has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s war to defeat German imperialism’s invasion during World War II. The toll on Russian workers in uniform is well over 1 million dead or wounded. His invading army has lost territory in recent months.
Since the start of 2026 alone, Moscow has lost nearly 86,000 troops killed, with another 59,000 seriously wounded. That’s seven to eight times the losses suffered by Ukrainian forces. Hundreds of Russian soldiers, some of whom looked to give themselves up, have been taken prisoner this year. For five straight months Putin’s army has suffered more losses than the number of new troops it has recruited.
Ukrainian forces have developed a technological advantage in drone warfare. Its drone strikes on command posts, ammunition depots, fuel storage and troop concentrations behind the lines are hindering Moscow’s preparation to mount a new offensive.
Ukrainian-built drones have successfully targeted oil infrastructure up to 1,000 miles inside the Russian Federation. At least 10 oil refineries, including some of the largest, were hit in May, with six forced to shut down.
Putin’s victory propaganda has worn thin. His decimated Black Sea fleet has been forced to withdraw to mainland Russian ports. His scaled-down May 9 Victory Day in Moscow’s Red Square had no tanks, missiles or significant foreign representatives.
Moscow’s war economy is weighing on working people, amid inflation and labor shortages. Factional divisions are widening in the Kremlin and Putin’s popularity has slumped.
Acclaimed Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev used his acceptance speech after receiving an award at the Cannes Film Festival May 23 to call on Putin to “put a stop to this carnage.”
“Millions of people on both sides of the line of contact now dream of only one thing: that the massacres finally stop,” he said.
His film, “Minotaur,” is set against the backdrop of Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. A callous businessman has to choose which of his employees are to be drafted into the army to be sent to the front. It portrays the Kremlin’s voracious appetite for cannon fodder from Russia’s working people.
Zvyagintsev, who now lives in exile in France, doesn’t expect the Kremlin to release his film in his homeland. But he’s sure millions of Russians who want to see the film will easily find ways to circumvent the censors.
Moscow carried out one of its biggest aerial assaults of the war on Ukraine’s capital and surrounding region May 24, launching hypersonic ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones.
Moscow targets included not only civilian areas, to maximize deaths, but also Ukraine’s cultural institutions, including the National Art Museum, National Philharmonic, Kyiv Opera, and the new Chernobyl Museum dedicated to the world’s worst nuclear disaster and protests against Stalinist rule.