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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NATO’s eastern flank is getting much harder for Russia. Europe fields roughly 8,000+ tanks across NATO members.
Russia has 3,460 active plus 2,100 in storage — but most are T-55s, T-62s, and Soviet-built T-72s. NATO is pulling ahead on quality, writes United24. 1/
Turkey has the most tanks in Europe — 2,381. But Poland is becoming NATO’s most dangerous armored power. Because of what it is building. 2/
Poland today fields 180 South Korean K2 Black Panthers, 233 American Abrams, 202 Leopard 2s, and 251 older PT-91 and T-72s.
Total: 897 tanks. Not the biggest fleet. But the most modern mix on NATO’s eastern flank. 3/
Fukuyama: Hungary’s election was an extraordinarily important victory for liberal democracy.
Orban built “illiberal democracy”: no guardrails, no rule of law, no constitutional checks. JD Vance went to help him, and that seems to have hurt Orban. 1/
Fukuyama: Peter Magyar and Tisza won a supermajority and can now reverse many of the constitutional changes Orban put in place to keep himself in power.
That is a real chance to stop the slide toward authoritarian government and populism. 2X
Sup. Com. of Sweden, Claesson: Russia is not 10ft tall. It’s their favorite tool to make us believe that they are. If Russia would make a true military assessment, they know they would lose [to NATO]. That leads to a hybrid warfare to exploit vulnerabilities in our societies. 1/
Claesson: With the means available to the Ukrainians, it is very compelling to see how they bring multi-domain situation awareness together, how they do targeting and make the command & control arrangements work throughout the whole structure. 2/
Claesson: One aspect of the Ukrainian success — they work incrementally, they try, they test, they take risks. With the back against the wall they must not be risk avert. It is important to learn from them and be less risk avert to apply those lessons. 3/
Keane: You do not need 10,000 troops to seize Iran’s uranium. The US controls the airspace.
The real threat is rockets and missiles. Another option is to threaten Kharg Island: give up enrichment, or lose more than 90% of your export lifeline. 1/
Keane: Trump’s blockade already shuts down Iran’s oil exports. Zero export oil leaves Iran under this order.
Kharg Island handles more than 90% of that flow, so cutting that artery hits Tehran hard and fast and strips away Tehran’s leverage. 2/
Keane: Iran misread the ceasefire. Tehran thought the shutdown gave it leverage and would push US negotiators into concessions.
Instead, talks collapsed, Trump wanted everything, and Washington’s answer was simple: absolutely not. 3/
Russian soldiers go to war for money, then pay it back to survive.
“I gave $650 to be moved to guard duty in Crimea. Others paid more. One guy said he pays more than he’ll ever earn. Someone turned this war into a business.” — Meduza. 1/
Commanders run it like a system.
Skip a mission: $2,600. Stay in the rear: up to $6,500. Soldiers pay again and again — every rotation, every order. 2/
They pay for everything.
Armor, radios, fuel, food. Units collect $400 monthly per soldier. Some give away $25k+ over time. 3/