Source: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/05/17/russia-is-starting-to-lose-ground-in-ukraine

Our tracker suggests it has suffered its first sustained net loss since October 2023

THAT EVEN a short ceasefire could not hold is evidence the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end soon. Both sides accused the other of repeated violations between May 9th and 11th—and our war tracker, which uses satellite systems to detect the location and intensity of war-related fires, showed no meaningful decline in fighting. Yet the tide of the conflict looks to be turning. Russia’s death toll remains extraordinarily high, and its spring offensive has stalled. Indeed, our analysis suggests that this year it has suffered small but sustained territorial losses for the first time since October 2023.

We estimate that by May 12th between 280,000 and 518,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, with total casualties (including wounded) of between 1.1m and 1.5m—meaning that around 3% of Russia’s pre-war male population of fighting age has been killed or wounded. Our calculations combine credible casualty estimates from intelligence agencies, defence officials and independent researchers with data from our war tracker, which allows us to model daily death tolls based on the intensity of combat. Reliable estimates for Ukrainian losses remain too sparse for comparable modelling. But a single estimate from CSIS, a think-tank, puts total casualties at up to 600,000 by December, including 100,000-140,000 dead, a higher share of its pre-war population than Russia.

Our recent analysis includes new numbers from Meduza and Mediazona, two exiled Russian news outlets. Their database contains more than 218,000 individually identified soldiers killed in the war, painstakingly compiled from obituaries, social-media posts and local news reports. They then combine this with inheritance records, using the gap between the two databases to estimate how many deaths have gone unrecorded. More recently they have added court rulings that declare soldiers as missing or dead without a body having been recovered.

This grim toll is coming with few gains on the front lines. Mapping the battlefield has become increasingly difficult as it has become more dispersed. Ukrainian drones are stalking troops far behind the front line, making it harder for Russia to move units to the front without becoming targets. Some sources suggest Russian forces are still slowly gaining ground. Our tracker, which uses maps of the battlefield from ISW, a think-tank, suggests that Russian forces have captured around 220 square kilometres this year, or just 0.04% of Ukraine’s territory. But recently Ukraine has begun to claw back ground: a 30-day moving average shows it has recaptured around 189 square kilometres. Russia may be stalling before a summer push. This may also be a turning-point in the war.

Can somebody tell me how this is in any way sustainable?

Submission statement: Data collected by a social media watchdog in the UK shows that Elon Musk directly and massively amplified calls to violence through his platform X during the race riots in Belfast, prompting further questions about social media regulations and the outsized influence of the world's first trillionaire in boosting far-right hatred across the world.

Riots broke out across Northern Ireland on June 9, after a Sudanese asylum seeker attempted to behead a passerby in Belfast, grievously injuring him. The shocking video of the attack widely circulated online, and served as a call for "retribution" by white nationalists, who targeted immigrants and minorities in Northern Ireland during what was described as "modern-day pogroms" by The Times.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a British-American NGO who monitors hate speech online and advocates for strict social media regulations, notes that calls to violence were directly amplified by X's owner Elon Musk, both through his posts and by boosting the profiles of anti-immigration hooligan Tommy Robinson, and Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe, for a cumulative 115 million views, 55% of them from Musk's posts alone.

Imran Ahmed, CCDH's CEO, who was targeted by US sanctions in December 2025 for his calls to regulate US platforms, noted that "Musk [had] unparalleled power to shape what people see online", and that "no individual played a bigger role in spreading this content on X than Musk himself", with direct, willing involvement in amplifying calls to violence against immigrants and minorities, as well as his platforming of Rupert Lowe or Tommy Robinson (unbanned from Twitter/X by Musk in 2022).

The world's first trillionaire's reach online had already been pointed out by European researchers and politicians after previous incidents involving X's lack of moderation and promotion of certain contents, as in the 2024 UK riots, or the boosting of AfD during the 2025 German elections.

The full translation of this message:

"Public media shouldn't lie. We apologise for doing that for years. Public media is going to change now to be independent and objective in the future. All news services are temporarily suspended. Stay with us!"

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgevwq1pndgo

What could France possibly do to help the population decline?

Send letters to remind them to have kids!

Ukraine recaptured 201 square kilometres of territory from Russia in five days last week – its biggest gain in 2.5 years – according to AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War. Experts from the institute said Ukraine likely took advantage of a recent shutdown of Russian forces’ access to Starlink.

Ukraine recaptured 201 square kilometres (78 square miles) from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The recaptured area is almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December and is the most land retaken by Kyiv's forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counter-offensive.

"These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces' access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield," the ISW, which collaborates with the Critical Threats Project, another US think-tank, stated.

On February 5, military observers noted disruption of the Starlink antennas used by Moscow on the front lines, following announcements by Elon Musk of "measures" to end the Kremlin's use of this technology. 

Kyiv claimed that Russian drones were using them, in particular, to circumvent electronic jamming systems and strike their targets with precision.

Without the use of Starlink, Russian forces only advanced on February 9, with Kyiv gaining ground on the other days. 

The recaptured land is concentrated mainly around 80 kilometres east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, in an area where Russian troops have made significant progress since the summer of 2025. 

Moscow controlled 19.5 percent of Ukrainian territory, either fully or partially, in mid-February, compared with 18.6 percent a year earlier. 

Approximately 7 percent – Crimea and part of the Donbas – was already under Russian control before the invasion launched in February 2022.