5. In March, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also recorded a total of 12 medical facilities and 32 educational facilities destroyed or damaged. 7/
6. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was attacked for the first time since November 2022. Russia accuses Ukraine, Ukraine accuses Russia of the attacks 8/ bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the top U.S. military commander in Europe, warned that Ukraine could lose the war with Russia if the U.S. does not send more ammunition to Ukrainian forces quickly. 9/
7. Frontline Ukrainian forces are rationing artillery shells due to lack of a reliable Western supplier, allowing Russian troops to outfire them 5-to-1, a ratio that could soon increase to 10-to-1 without additional U.S. aid. 10/
8. Russia has reconstituted its army faster than initial U.S. estimates, increasing frontline troop strength by 15% to 470,000 and expanding the conscription age limit. Russia plans to expand its military to 1.5 million troops. 11/
9. Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's energy system, bombardment of Kharkiv, and advances along the front are stoking fears that Ukraine's military is nearing a breaking point. 12/
Western officials say Ukraine is at its most fragile moment in over two years of war.
Ukrainian officials don’t comment on the “breaking point” but increasingly voice alarming pleas for weapons and air defense 13/
There is a risk of Ukrainian defense collapse which could enable Russia to make a major advance for the first time since the early stages of the war. The next few months will be Ukraine's toughest test. 14/
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his country's allies to make good on their promises of military aid on Thursday, particularly in the form of desperately needed air defence systems as Russia scales up its air strikes 15/
So, in short, Ukraine is running out of air defense and weapons, and Russia is taking advantage of it.
Russia can break through unless the West overcomes its political infighting and dysfunctionality to provide support to Ukraine
16/
Democracies are messy, I often hear, but it is the best system. True, but this mess currently makes democracies unable to effectively address Russian threat. It looks more and more like a lack of leadership rather than the usual weakness of democracies. 17X
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Remember Greenland crisis? Trump's allies now run a covert influence campaign in Greenland.
A network of Americans with White House ties has bribed a dogsledding association, cultivated opposition politicians, and highlighted Denmark's colonial crimes — Reuters.
1/
The main face: Jørgen Boassen. Banned from Nuuk's main hotel, its public pool, and its fight club.
In December, he confronted a senior Greenlandic parliamentarian outside a restaurant and challenged him to a fight.
2/
Tom Dans, linked to Project 2025 and reappointed by Trump to chair the US Arctic Research Commission, coordinated with National Security Council staff.
He raised $250,000 for the dogsledding championship in exchange for inviting US officials.
3/
The same FSB unit that poisoned Navalny also runs Russia’s state doping program. It shares the same staff, the same lab, and the same command.
The workers handle urine samples and nerve agents under one roof and joke: “you don’t want to mix urine and Novichok” - The Insider. 1/
At the 2014 Sochi Olympics, FSB officers ran a system that swapped dirty urine samples for clean ones.
They used a hidden hole in the lab wall, opened sealed bottles, replaced the samples, and closed them again. Russian athletes passed tests and won medals. 2/
Staff edited the Moscow anti-doping lab database before handing it to investigators.
They deleted positive test results, removed raw data files, and added fake entries designed to shift blame onto whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov and hide the state program. 3/
Russia spends $500m a day on the war — the cost of 5-7 large hospitals.
A ceasefire would free these resources and cut the prohibitive interest rate. But it will not fix the economy. The system was broken long before 2022 — The Moscow Times. 1/
Russia's economic deformations predate 2022. The war merely accelerated them.
The foundation: concentrated power among big business, regional elites, Kremlin bureaucrats. Systematic underinvestment in hospitals, schools, roads, utilities across most regions. 2/
Depressed regions, deprived of economic prospects, became the reservoir from which the Kremlin draws its contract soldiers. The ruling class keeps its children safe.
The fiscal reserves that made the war possible were built by technocrats who called themselves pragmatists. 3/
Zelenskyy: Russia openly says it wants to control its neighbors and decide Europe’s security order.
It has carried its war agenda as far as Syria and Africa. This is a global threat — and more countries now see it that way.
1/
Zelenskyy: Putin knows exactly what he’s doing and who he resembles.
He is rightly compared to the Nazis: the same expansionism, the same urge to decide which nations may exist.
2/
Zelenskyy: The freedom Ukraine still lacks is freedom from ruins and from those who bring them.
Freedom is never abstract — it must be fought for, protected, and built on security, law, culture, education, and one clear principle: evil must be punished.
Stubb: When Europe feels threatened by Russia, it unites.
When it feels mistreated by US tariffs, it looks elsewhere — deals with Mercosur, India, closer ties with Canada. This isn’t a rupture with America, but a new phase in the relationship.
1/
Stubb: We wrongly thought history ended after the Cold War and failed to reform global institutions.
Then came Russia’s war on Ukraine and faster disruption under the new US administration. When institutions weaken, conflicts spread.
2/
Stubb: The world won’t return to the old post-Cold War order. We’ve swung to the other extreme — tariffs and territorial claims.
The pendulum may swing back, but likely only when the US finds itself increasingly isolated.
Oleksiy "Botanik" spent 343 days on the front line without leaving.
Russians attacked on APCs, motorcycles, ATVs and on foot — but his company did not give up a single meter of territory, writes Ukrainska Pravda. 1/
Before the war Oleksiy worked at an employment center in Cherkasy Oblast. He recruited contract soldiers for the army and regularly dealt with military recruitment offices. 2/
One day the recruitment office invited him for coffee and handed him a draft notice. He did not hide.
"I decided to serve my 18 months and look people in the eye without shame." 3/