I don't think much has changed in a long time now. The amount of Ukraine still being occupied is probably more or less the same as the last time you looked. Russia can't replenish its losses anymore, and Ukraine has built strong fortifications just behind the frontline, so maybe some population centers will change owners, but the big picture is unlikely to change much. As for troops, I think they're waiting for a ceasefire or a proper peace deal and are only supposed to help retain peace. Other support keeps flowing at what seems like a sufficient pace but not much more.

Personally I reckon this is now a waiting game, with the exception of Trump trying to force Ukraine to accept a bad peace deal. I think Europe is waiting for Russia to run out of money to continue the war because support or capability for more just isn't there, and Russia is waiting for either Trump to force Ukraine's hand or the support for Ukraine to run dry in Europe, because they can't really win the war on the battlefield anymore - or Putin is delusional due to his bootlickers giving him misinformation and thinks Russia can still win on the battlefield. If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Russia running out of money, with a slight chance of Trump's peacemongering ending the war before that.

Belgium’s special forces boarded and seized an oil tanker from the “shadow fleet” Russia uses to circumvent Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, the government said on Sunday.

Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot said the vessel was intercepted in the North Sea during an overnight operation.

“Today, a vessel from Russia’s shadow fleet was intercepted in the North Sea,” Prevot wrote on X, thanking Belgian special forces for their “exceptional professionalism and courage”.

Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken said the intercepted tanker was “being escorted to the port of Zeebrugge, where it will be seized”.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed on X that French naval forces assisted in the operation, calling it a “major blow” to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.

Russia has used a flotilla of ageing tankers of opaque ownership to get around restrictions on its lucrative crude exports imposed over its 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union has blacklisted hundreds of vessels in a bid to sap Moscow’s war chest.

“Sanctions only matter if they are enforced. Today, we enforced them,” Prevot said, suggesting the seized ship might have operated under a false flag.

The operation was carried out alongside Belgium’s G7, Nordic and Baltic partners and in coordination with France, he added.

*Finally

Anyone knows the size of Russia's shadow fleet by any chance?

Either way, every lost ship means many barrels of lost oil trade, and thus tons of money that can't be spent in the military anymore...

Less than 600, but a minorty are tankers.

Edit: extra info

ETHERA (9387279) is linked to the Iranian figure Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani. His father, Ali Shamkhani, who up until yesterday was the chief political advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, was killed in yesterday's bombings. Shamkhani's fleet consists of nearly 40 tankers.

That was in 2022. Most current estimates are around 1200-1400. Many are used as floating reservoirs, many are used to pump oil from one tanker into another to hide origin so you don't really see them sailing around.

Effing Trump

War with Iran 'good news for Russia and bad news for Ukraine'

A surge in oil prices, driven by worries about supply disruptions connected to the widening conflict in the Middle East, stands to benefit Russia, according to an energy analyst.

“The capability of Russia to continue the war in Ukraine is very much linked to oil rents (revenues), and with these events the Russian state is getting additional oil rents,” Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at think tank Bruegel, told CNN Monday.

“This is good news for Russia and bad news for Ukraine,” he said.

The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, briefly surged above $82 a barrel early on Monday before giving up some of those gains. By the afternoon, it was trading 6% higher on the day at around $77 a barrel.

Although Russia’s revenues from oil exports have plunged in recent years, income from crude production remains a considerable contributor to the Kremlin’s budget – and its war effort. According to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, oil and natural gas revenues accounted for around 23% of the country’s federal budget last year.

“Any increase in the price of oil contributes to the budget and helps finance (Russia’s) war machine in Ukraine,” said Tagliapietra.

Never heard of this moron. It's exactly the other way around.

The price of Russian oil is capped (by sanctions) at a very low value. What Iran no longer delivers to Russia is war material like drones, rockets, etc. They have to use this stuff for themselves now.

While it's capped, Russia was due to the low oil prices actually forced to sell quite below their cap recently. Of course now that the prices jump up again and the uncertainty about the oil supply from the middle east means that Russia can sell at the cap again.

And of course, Russia has a large shadow fleet with which they can circumvent the cap entirely and sell at market prices.

All in all, Russia's income will go up significantly if the oil price continues to go up, and the Russian economy desperately needs more funds as their economy is increasingly shaky.

As for the drones, Russia is fully independent from Iran by now. markings on the downed or unexploded drones don't show anything Iranian anymore for over half a year now, only Russian markings, meaning that they are now producing them all domestically.

Also, rockets? The rockets Iran uses are mostly of soviet origin. They can do all of them themselves. Those that aren't are either very old (like the predecessor of the Javelin ATGMs, which the US phased out in 2001 and Iran copied in 2016, or their original Fateh rockets), so Russia has better alternatives already, or very new (like their copy of the Israeli SPIKE or their newer Fateh designs) and thus in low numbers Iran wouldn't have sold anyway. pretty much all rockets Iran has are derived from the Soviet Scud missiles anyway.

Iran was useful for mostly the Shahed drones, which Russia licensed a long time ago. Iran getting attacked will disturb them as much as a fly buzzing around, while the increased money flow more than outshines any inconveniences from losing Iran as a trading partner.

It would seem that Putin doesn't have long before he meets his master, the devil.  He dissappeared for about 13 days recently, which isn't a good sign from a leader.  They know that they need to be in front of the public or press basically every day.  He's looking worse and worse.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2177542/putin-health-fears-erupt-haggard-picture

 This picture was taken from the linked article.  

The oil income is doing pretty bad right now from Ukraine's constant attacks on the refineries, and now the worldwide crackdown on the shadow fleet.