If you didn’t notice, Russia presented in St Petersburg a “positive scenario” for Europe’s future:
- nuclear strike on Ukraine,
- war till 2036;
- occupation of Kyiv;
- disintegration of EU;
- Russia’s domination in Europe.
Think about it next time when saying 🇷🇺 means well.
China expands its spy networks across the EU: at least 30 agents operating on Beijing’s behalf have been uncovered in the European area over the past two years https://t.co/V90qfydkuB
My article "How To Investigate A Person Of Interest In 2026" is now available as a PDF.
A practical guide to digital footprint analysis – from email reconstruction to metadata mining and entity graphing.
Thanks @osintnewsletter for the mention.
PDF: https://t.co/86YlE9e2pB
Finnish Security and Intelligence Service, Supo: Networks connected to the Russian state operate in Finland
#NAFO#RussiaIsATerroristState
https://t.co/4bOELK2iNd
"The turning point has already begun. Russians are starting to understand that the war is no longer somewhere far away — it is reaching them personally..
"It's going to get even worse."
- Budanov🇺🇦
@laralogan You're a piece of trash Lara, having the audacity to victim blame Ukraine who's been invaded and after 4years is still standing, whereas it's Ruzzia who's the aggressor.
You want the war to end, tell that to fucking Ruzzia instead 🤡🗑️!
"The Russian Federation is not fighting for territories. It is fighting for the existence of its imperial myth.
Sooner or later, all empires collapse. Russia is no exception"
- Budanov🇺🇦
⚠️‼️ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝘀𝗸: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮 𝗜𝘀 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
BLUF: Russia claims Ukraine killed “children” during a 21-22 May 2026 overnight strike on what the AFU identified as a Rubicon unmanned systems training and operations center in Starobilsk, occupied Luhansk. Russian sources report approximately 16 FP-1/FP-2 type loitering munitions were used in the strike.
The evidence tells a more nuanced and damning story.
On 24 May, Russia's own Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the names of 21 dead with dates of birth ranging from 2003 to 2007.
That makes the youngest victims 18 or 19 years old and the oldest, 22 or 23.
This is the recruitment and training age for Rubicon personnel and not students at a vocational college.
Yet Russia immediately declared these were "children aged 14 to 18."
Those two claims cannot both be true, and Russia produced both of them.
The narrative was constructed from the first hour.
Russian-installed governor Pasechnik, Children's Rights Commissioner Lvova-Belova, TASS, and Russian MFA statements all repeated the 14-to-18 framing within hours of the strike.
It circulated globally before any casualty list appeared.
However, there is a strong possibility Rubicon personnel were co-located with vocational students in the same complex.
Some genuine students were likely among the wounded.
The evidence instead points to a strike on a legitimate military target operating within a dual-use civilian complex.
Moscow has a systematic pattern of militarizing civilian infrastructure across occupied territory.
Placing military assets among civilians is a deliberate choice, not an accident.
The timeline further exposes the pretext.
Russia had already intensified strikes on Kyiv from 12-13 May, over 12 days before Starobilsk.
The massive 23-24 May barrage of approximately 90 missiles and more than 600 drones just 24-48 hours after Starobilsk, one of the largest combined strike packages of the war, was also immediately branded retaliation.
@TheStudyofWar (ISW) assessed that assembling a package of that scale requires weeks of preparation, not 24-48 hours.
Russia used Starobilsk as a pretext to justify attacks it had already planned.
Russia then called an emergency UN Security Council session to internationalize a narrative its own casualty list contradicts.
The Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies is a documented Russian Defense Ministry unit established in 2024 and involved in drone strikes on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.
Ukraine struck a legitimate military target operating from a dual-use site Russia deliberately embedded within civilian infrastructure.
Moscow then reframed the casualties as murdered children to manufacture justification for escalation already in motion.
It is the same pattern Russia has repeatedly used to legitimize attacks on civilians after the fact.
#OSINT #Ukraine
⚠️‼️ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝘀𝗸: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮 𝗜𝘀 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
BLUF: Russia claims Ukraine killed “children” during a 21-22 May 2026 overnight strike on what the AFU identified as a Rubicon unmanned systems training and operations center in Starobilsk, occupied Luhansk. Russian sources report approximately 16 FP-1/FP-2 type loitering munitions were used in the strike.
The evidence tells a more nuanced and damning story.
On 24 May, Russia's own Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the names of 21 dead with dates of birth ranging from 2003 to 2007.
That makes the youngest victims 18 or 19 years old and the oldest, 22 or 23.
This is the recruitment and training age for Rubicon personnel and not students at a vocational college.
Yet Russia immediately declared these were "children aged 14 to 18."
Those two claims cannot both be true, and Russia produced both of them.
The narrative was constructed from the first hour.
Russian-installed governor Pasechnik, Children's Rights Commissioner Lvova-Belova, TASS, and Russian MFA statements all repeated the 14-to-18 framing within hours of the strike.
It circulated globally before any casualty list appeared.
However, there is a strong possibility Rubicon personnel were co-located with vocational students in the same complex.
Some genuine students were likely among the wounded.
The evidence instead points to a strike on a legitimate military target operating within a dual-use civilian complex.
Moscow has a systematic pattern of militarizing civilian infrastructure across occupied territory.
Placing military assets among civilians is a deliberate choice, not an accident.
The timeline further exposes the pretext.
Russia had already intensified strikes on Kyiv from 12-13 May, over 12 days before Starobilsk.
The massive 23-24 May barrage of approximately 90 missiles and more than 600 drones just 24-48 hours after Starobilsk, one of the largest combined strike packages of the war, was also immediately branded retaliation.
@TheStudyofWar (ISW) assessed that assembling a package of that scale requires weeks of preparation, not 24-48 hours.
Russia used Starobilsk as a pretext to justify attacks it had already planned.
Russia then called an emergency UN Security Council session to internationalize a narrative its own casualty list contradicts.
The Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies is a documented Russian Defense Ministry unit established in 2024 and involved in drone strikes on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.
Ukraine struck a legitimate military target operating from a dual-use site Russia deliberately embedded within civilian infrastructure.
Moscow then reframed the casualties as murdered children to manufacture justification for escalation already in motion.
It is the same pattern Russia has repeatedly used to legitimize attacks on civilians after the fact.
#OSINT #Ukraine
Overnight, Ukrainian attack drones struck Russia’s Taganrog airfield, and for the first time, successfully destroyed a pair of Tu-142 Bear-F long-range maritime patrol aircraft.
"Weak civic identity, low critical thinking, and decades of Russian narrative absorbed without resistance."
Dat klinkt zowat als @VredeVZW's @Ludodb, @ScioAlexandrum, en de immer populistische @peter_mertens + rest van 5e colonne volk op Belgisch grondgebied 🤡. Goede maatstaf!
2/5
579 people are currently serving sentences in Ukraine for collaboration with the enemy.
Ukraine's Penitentiary Academy surveyed 100 convicted collaborators — 30 case files, 20 in-depth interviews, a control group of 50 ordinary citizens.
The analytical picture is sobering:
→ ~90% held Ukrainian citizenship
→ 72% male, average age 42–44
→ 82%+ had no higher education
→ ~70% were unemployed before arrest
→ Cases concentrated in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson — but researchers are explicit: collaboration has no fixed regional address.
The common denominator is not geography. It is a specific psychological profile: weak civic identity, low critical thinking, and decades of Russian narrative absorbed without resistance.
That profile exists in every post-Soviet society. Not just Ukraine.
#Ukraine #HybridWarfare #StopRussianAggression
"I didn't break my oath. I swore to the Soviet Union — and Russia is its successor..."
Male. 59. Kyiv. Distributed Russian propaganda. Active in closed pro-russian online communities. This man lived among Ukrainians in 2024 — and was actively working against them.
Ukraine just presented the most forensically detailed portrait of who collaborators are. Every country bordering Russia needs to read key findings from this study.
🧵👇
#Ukraine #UAF #HybridWarfare
The Virgin NATO Article 4 vs. The Chad Article 5. Lookin at you 🇷🇴. Come on. Let's punch this bully in the nose. It's the only thing Russians understand.
У контексті теми Старобільська, яку російська пропаганда намагається подати виключно як «удар по цивільних», читачі InformNapalm звернули нашу увагу на низку цікавих OSINT-деталей.
▪️ За наявними відкритими даними, у п'ятиповерховій будівлі, що зазнала удару, на четвертому та п'ятому поверхах розміщувалися студентські гуртожитки двох структурних підрозділів у статусі філій нелегітимного «ЛГПУ» — так званого «Старобільського педагогічного коледжу» та «Старобільського факультету ЛГПУ». Перші три поверхи використовувалися як навчальні аудиторії та адміністративні приміщення цих закладів.
На сайті самого «Старобільського факультету ЛГПУ» збереглися повідомлення про проходження студентами військових курсів Центру «Воин» (архів: https://t.co/mXDNJB8NW6). На опублікованих фотографіях можна побачити сертифікати про проходження підготовки, а також елементи інфраструктури для навчання операторів БПЛА.
▪️ Підготовка з бойового застосування дронів у Луганській області організована через мережу Центру «Воин». Зокрема, навчання проводиться на базі Коледжу автосервісу та «Інституту цивільного захисту» у складі так званого «ЛГУ імені Даля». У форматі інтенсивних курсів там навчають не лише школярів, а й студентів «ЛГПУ», включно з представниками філій зі Старобільська.
Нагадаємо, що раніше виходило масштабне OSINT-дослідження (https://t.co/4ucz2vLX2Q) діяльності Центру «Воин» та його ролі в системі військової підготовки молоді на окупованих територіях.
▪️ Цікавим є й гендерний аспект набору. Аналіз відкритих відгуків на ресурсах Центру «Воин» показує, що значна частина позитивних відгуків належить саме випускницям віком від 14 до 19 років. Із 40 опублікованих відгуків 21 залишений дівчатами (архів: https://t.co/vejTZr6O9n).
Не можна виключати, що така увага до залучення молодих жінок пов'язана зі специфікою напрямку БПЛА. Для багатьох із них служба оператором дронів може виглядати менш ризикованою та більш привабливою, ніж інші військові спеціальності. Водночас чоловіки призовного віку добре розуміють, що навіть після підготовки за спеціальністю оператора БПЛА жодних гарантій від подальшого переведення до штурмових підрозділів не існує.
▪️ Варто також враховувати, що учасників таких програм навчають базовим принципам OPSEC. Саме тому прямі свідчення про залучення студентів до військової підготовки часто відсутні у відкритих профілях соціальних мереж.
Через це особливу цінність для OSINT-дослідників мають непрямі індикатори: участь у програмах Центру «Воин», проходження курсів в Алабузі, фотографії із сертифікатами, згадки про профільні інтенсиви, витоки документів та інші фрагменти інформації, які в сукупності дозволяють відновити повну картину процесу мілітаризації молоді на тимчасово окупованих територіях.