Two pouty-lipped Russian TikTokers filmed a music video against the background of jet fuel tanks burning at Sochi, Russia’s premiere resort destination. After 30 explosions grounded jets at Russia’s fifth-busiest airport, the young tourists had time on their hands to lip sync a “hookah rap” — “Crimson Dawn.” Their selfie went viral, Russian censors took it down, and police issued wanted posters for the duo.
Another day, another airport. Another day, another oil refinery. Another day, another rail yard. Another day, another defense plant. Ukraine’s drone war increasingly punctuates the landscape of Western Russia. Russians increasingly adjust to the reality that their wartime president can’t protect them.
Up and down the 1,200-mile north-south length of Western Russia, Ukraine cherry-picks military targets. In response, Russia’s strategy is to fire drones and missiles into Ukrainian apartment buildings. The goal is to break the morale of Ukraine’s population. This strategy failed in 1944 and 1945, when Germany fired V-2 supersonic rockets into London.
Today’s military standoff between these two Slavic “brothers” may come to a head on Friday. That is President Trump’s deadline day for a ceasefire. Despite some verbal jousting about nuclear threats, President Putin shows no sign of complying with the ceasefire call. To break the logjam, Mr. Trump sends to Moscow tomorrow his de facto Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff.
They would “like to see” Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Trump said Sunday of the Russians. “They’ve asked that he meet, so we’ll see what happens.”
One cudgel the White House uses is to push Communist China and India to stop buying Russian oil. China refuses. Indian officials say they refuse. However, India’s three largest oil refineries say they have stopped buying oil from Russia.
On the ground, Russia’s much-feared summer offensive shows little progress. With the front line largely frozen for almost two years, Mr. Trump focuses on the human cost.
“I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine,” he posted Friday on Truth Social. “Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH!”
“Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly,” he continued. “They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025.”
To hamper Russia’s air war, Ukraine hit over the last week four Russian airports and air bases. One base, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, is situated on the southern shore of the Sea of Azov and serves as a prime field for launching drones north to Ukraine.
At another Russian base, Saky, Ukraine destroyed one Su-30SM aircraft and damaged three Su-24 aircraft. The planes have a total value of about $150 million. Saky, near the Black Sea, won a footnote in history in 1945 when it was used by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to fly in and out of Crimea for the Yalta Conference.
As the current war flares, Ukrainian drones over the last week hit four rail freight yards, two oil-tank farms, and four refineries. So far this year, Ukraine has hit 23 refineries. The refinery fires are so costly that Russia starts this week a 2-month ban on the export of gasoline.
On the public relations front, Mr. Putin is losing this week against women.
Yesterday, Elizaveta Krivonogikh, a 21-year-old woman described as Mr. Putin’s “love child,” came out of obscurity in Paris. Independently wealthy due to her mother’s affair with the Russian President, the young woman reportedly lives at Paris under the pseudonym Luiza Rudnova. There she works at an art gallery that specializes in paintings by dissident Russian artists.
“It’s liberating to be able to show my face to the world again,” she says in a private Telegram post, reported by Bild. In an apparent reference to Russia’s president, she writes: “It reminds me of who I was born to be and who destroyed my life. The man who took millions of lives and who destroyed mine.”
On a more modest level, a Sochi police dragnet came up yesterday with the two runaway rappers: Dasha Vladimirovna Loskutova 21, and Karina Evgenyevna Oshurkova, 19. Facing charges of failing “to comply with rules of conduct in an emergency,” the duo were paraded into a local court in front of TV cameras. At Moscow, nationalists accused them of glamorizing and publicising a Ukrainian military action, a raging fire that took 120 fire fighters and 24 hours to quench.
“We sincerely apologize for filming the video against the backdrop of a fire and posting it on a social network,” they said in a recorded confession. A judge found them guilty and ordered each to pay a ruble fine equivalent to $375.
From Kyiv, government advisor Anton Gerashchenko noted on Telegram: “Russian zoomers are happy about the burning oil depot — a new location for selfies.” He promised: “Ukrainian defence forces will definitely try to create as many such locations as possible.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
