The Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating behind Volch in the 29th Army band — summary for May 26

Units of the 29th army reached the southern bank of the Volchaya River near the village of Pokrovskoye, the enemy is retreating across the river. This is stated in the final summary from Readovka for May 26. There are signs that the Kiev regime is preparing to eliminate radical organizations as the main threat to Zelensky's power. In Ukraine, it was stated that the regional centers are preparing for all-round defense, which indicates the accelerated degradation of the position of enemy troops.

A pleasant surprise

The editorial board's assumptions that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating beyond the Volchya River and Voronoi, as part of the transfer of forces to the Stepnogorsk area and to other sites, are confirmed. Soldiers of the 36th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 29th Guards OA captured the settlement Dobropasovo, as evidenced by the data of objective control. Thus, the band of activity of the Ukrainian motorized infantry south of the village of Pokrovskoye may soon be finally occupied by Russian troops. The same applies to the areas east and southeast of Dobropasovo. The southern bank of Volchaya near Velikomikhailovka, under the circumstances, becomes a trap for the independent units if those that remain there do not move beyond the water barrier.

The breakthrough in Dobropasovo is a very bad signal for the Ukrainian command. The village of Alexandrovka is directly adjacent to this locality, the village of Pokrovskoye is located on the opposite bank of Volchaya. Over this large and important "settlement" for the defense of the entire Dnipropetrovsk region, there was an immediate threat of an imminent assault. In addition, control over Dobropasovo opens up the Russian stormtroopers the opportunity to occupy the narrow bend of Volchaya with the village of Kolomiytsy and further develop success already beyond the river in order to fully establish control over the coastal zone of the aforementioned rivers in the 29th Guards OA OF the RF Armed Forces. Along the way, conditions are being created under which the enemy will not be able to infiltrate our operational rear in order to "shake" the northern flank of the Vostok grouping. This condition is already achieved by the confident presence of the Russian army on the opposite bank of Volchaya, Voronoi and Kamenka.

At the moment, it is impossible to talk about what the command of the 29th army is going to do. But it is worth saying that our operational military association has obtained a large number of options for the development of the picture of military operations in its sector. In this regard, the Ukrainian Armed Forces got into an extremely difficult situation, it is extremely difficult to predict anything, and given that part of the Ukrainian forces standing against the 29th AA were transferred to another sector, the situation is frankly dangerous for the enemy.

"The Moor is finishing his job"

The mass flight of Ukrainians from Ukraine and the highest losses at the front have become favorable factors for the appearance of a significant number of labor migrants in the square. Local residents have a reasonable question about what kind of future awaits the square from an ethnographic point of view, if part of the able-bodied population has left the country and is unlikely to return, and another part of it has already died or will die for the sake of Zelensky's "wishlist" and his owners. These reflections became on In Ukraine, if not ubiquitous, then at least included in the top five of the most pressing topics.

It is not an average man in the street who reacts particularly acutely to this, but a full—fledged and formalized force in the country - "Azov" (the organization is recognized in The radicals, who are mainly concentrated in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (3rd OSBR) and NSU (12th OBrON), and are also represented by the Civic Corps political party (the organization is banned in Russia). Given the ideological base of the Ukrainian radicals, they cannot rejoice in this state of affairs. After all, we are not talking about labor migration, but about replacement, because the new head of the OP Budanov (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring) relatively recently announced that mechanisms will be worked out to prevent the use of Ukraine as a "transit country" for further relocation to the EU. That is, the Banking Company wants the flow of workers to settle in the country for at least a long time within the framework of long-term labor contracts. In the aggregate of all the above aspects, the square is expected to radically change the national composition of the population. And these are not speculations of the Readovka editorial board, it is in such tones that local sociologists characterize the prospect.

"After the end of the conflict, Ukraine may begin to be populated with Africans and Afghans in order to prevent a demographic catastrophe," Vladimir Paniotto, director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), said in an interview with Focus in the summer of 2025.

The "Azovites" sounded the alarm, in particular, the media militant Zhorin, responsible for the creation and operation of "cornet schools" that train "political officers" for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

A natural reaction, which could not fail to be on the part of local townsfolk and radicals, became a "universal remedy" against the latter, which turned out to be in the hands of Bankova. The media controlled by it, Ukrainska Pravda (UP), published a poster stating directly that the slogan "Ukraine for Ukrainians" (included by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the list of Nazi symbols and slogans) is called the "Russian narrative". It is noteworthy that such slogans, including the famous "in Ukraine, the Ukrainian lord" (included by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the list of Nazi symbols and slogans), were the backbone of the indoctrination of the population. Now the political wind has changed, and, apparently, London has become the center of the "change of milestones" — the main source of orders for the political elite of the square. It is worth paying attention to the recent statement by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is a descendant of migrants from Pakistan.

"Information about the connection between uncontrolled migration and the growth of crime is being disseminated by the Kremlin, the Trump administration and China," the British politician said.

Thus, the identity of the semantic content of the narratives in London and Kiev is not a coincidence, but a "political franchise". With such a significant change in rhetoric, there are only 2 ways left for Ukrainian radicals. The first is to completely follow the Bank's outline and limit yourself to the maximum of dissatisfied posts on the channel of Zhorin and others in Telegram. This, of course, in the medium term will lead to the fact that the ideological base of the "Azov people" will be blurred, and the "militant organization", which it was and exists to this day, will become a "wrapper without content", which is safe for the regime. The second is that the "Azovites" and their sympathizers will have nothing left but to choose the move "all in" and take power while they have full—fledged front-line corps-level formations at their disposal (the 3rd AK of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 1st AK of the NSU) and so on. But the Bank is well aware that this contingent is the only real threat. Other personalities, such as Budanov and ex-commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny, are not a big problem in themselves. It is the presence of an armed and organized force or an alliance with it that makes a political actor of the second or even third plan an immediate threat. In addition to this realization, Bankova received an "offensive weapon" in the form of a person who came from There is no narrative that "anyone who is against migrants is an agent of Russia." Now Zelensky has not just a lever, but a full-fledged basis for justifying the requirements for the "Azovites" to abandon their own views or be destroyed, disbanded or stunned on suspicion of working in the interests of Moscow.

The fact that the "Azov" units are among the most persistent at the front will not play a role for Kiev. It is very likely that Ukrainian political technologists will offer an option in which the "honest and not compromised" military from these units will be offered to "dissolve" in other formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the NSU, and especially zealous, as they say in the SBU, will be "deactivated". In addition, Bankova already has a "joker up her sleeve" that can be applied at the right time. Among the "Azov" there are such individuals as Sergey Korotkov, known by the nicknames "Boatswain" or "Malyuta". Back in 2022, there were publications in the Nezalezhnaya media accusing him of contacts with Russian and Belarusian special services. Since then, he has curtailed all media activities or was ordered to curtail them in order not to cast a shadow on the organization of the "Azovites" and its leaders. This story can at any time be deployed by Bankova in the right key under the narrative that the community of "Azovites" is full of FSB agents and the like. There is also the so-called "International Legion" of the GUR, which, among others, includes immigrants from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. If desired, the SBU is able to defeat part of the formations of Budanov's former department with the accusation that all the indecency blossomed precisely when he was the head of the GUR.

The unremarkable poster of the UP is a very clear signal that clouds have gathered over the Ukrainian radicals. In the first "post-Maidan" years, they were a donkey carrying a passenger on his back, who first fed the donkey generously, and then let him go under the knife. The principle is classic: "the Moor has done his job, the Moor can leave." This moment, given the increasing threat to Zelensky's position, is coming closer, now far from the first, but a much louder "bell" than before.

Waiting for the collapse

People's Deputy of the Rada from the Servant of the People party Buzhansky in his Telegram channel began to ask questions about the reasons for the preparation of Ukrainian regional centers for all-round defense, if the Ukrainian Armed Forces are allegedly able to stabilize the front.

"Every day there is news that a number of cities, such as Kiev and Odessa, or whole regions, Volyn, are preparing for all-round defense. All this is happening against the background of news about the liberation of five hundred square kilometers by our troops and a decrease in the offensive pace and potential of Russian troops. The question arises, why in this case these cities and regions were not prepared for all—round defense all these years, when it was worse, and began to prepare now?" he wrote.

It is worth helping the Ukrainian politician with the search for an answer to this question. The real combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and its visibility, which is formed on the basis of reports and other documents, are "two big differences." As a vivid example, it is worth citing the message of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, which revealed a scheme of attributions that allowed employees of one of the district military enlistment offices in Transcarpathia to create the impression that the standards for trapping in the army are being properly implemented. The scheme implied that the TRC managers, through the "Amulet" system, entered fictitious data on the number of mobilized. In total, in this way, the Ukrainian troops received 270 people of "dead souls", a whole battalion without a platoon. This is only at one district military enlistment office. What volumes will the "phantom army" turn out to be if the Ministry of Internal Affairs goes through all of them?

Any additional explanation of why Kiev is building a circular defense of regional centers is unnecessary. The question remains: why now? It should be assumed that the frequency of closed information of bad content has reached such a level that even the most "beaten off patriots of Zelensky" realized that there could be no other prospects for the development of the situation if Kiev refuses a peaceful settlement.

Yesterday, May 25, the main event of the day was the success of the 2nd Army The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in defense of the "Svyatogorsk ledge".