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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Kasparov: I cannot give a precise assessment of Iran, because this time the information is badly distorted from both sides.
Dictators always create fog, but here it is mirrored: Trump is no reliable narrator either. What we are seeing is a mutual deadlock. 1/
Kasparov: Trump has two options on Iran: finish it off or stop. Finishing it is politically almost impossible.
He would not get support even from loyal Republicans, and America likely is not ready for an operation of that scale. That still doesn't rule out some mad adventure. 2/
Kasparov: Pulling troops from Germany would be catastrophic for US. Those bases are not there to defend Germany.
They are the infrastructure that lets the US operate across the world. This is another step toward America’s geopolitical bankruptcy and a direct gift to Putin. 3/
Vincent Awiti, unemployed in Nairobi, signed up for a shop job in Russia. Weeks later he was wading past corpses floating "like waterlilies" in a Ukrainian river beaten by his squad for losing his gun.
1,000 Kenyans went. 30 came home — NYT. 1/
Vincent met a recruiter on the street who promised a shop job in Russia. The agent paid his flight to St. Petersburg on July 14.
On arrival, Russians handed him a contract in Russian. Sign, or repay travel costs. He had no money. He signed. 2/
Four days of training near Shebekino. Then Awiti's squad was sent to Vovchansk in Ukraine's Kharkiv Province.
The order: cross two small rivers and a patch of open ground to reach a Russian trench. 3/
Fromer Ukrainian FM Kuleba: Western partners fear Ukraine will destroy Russia's oil industry so badly that it will push up global prices, which already spiked after the Iran war.
They are not defending Russia. They care only about global energy prices.
1/
Q: Why doesn't Ukraine destroy Russia's oil wells, not refineries?
Former Ukrainian FM Kuleba: Hitting the refinery is smarter. If you shut down the processing industry, they will close the wells themselves — because they have nowhere to put the oil.
2/
Q: Do you link the recent attacks on Russian oil refineries to preparations for an invasion by Putin in the West?
Kuleba: No, these are not connected things. We simply now have capabilities. We fly further, hit more precisely, intelligence is better.
Macron: The Russian war against Ukraine revealed our over-dependence on Russian gas.
We are experiencing the cost of our over-dependence on the US in defense and security, and will probably experience the cost of our over-dependence vis-à-vis China.
1/
Macron: You cannot have sustainable strategic autonomy on defense if you are 100% dependent on other countries for semiconductors or food.
We experienced the cost of over-dependence in past years, including dependence on China.
2/
Macron: Democracy, rule of law, free trade, and climate through innovation create real links among allies. Our predictability on this agenda is a big advantage.
When I look at the Gulf, Asian countries, Latin America or Africa — they just want predictable partners
Putin fears a coup, an assassination and distrusts his own elite. The top risk: Sergei Shoigu.
CNN: Putin installed surveillance in staff homes, banned cooks and guards from public transport, introduced double screening for visitors and switched inner circle phones to offline.1/
On March 5, 2026, authorities arrested Ruslan Tsalikov, Shoigu’s close ally.
This move weakens Shoigu and breaks informal “elite protection” rules inside the system. 2/
On December 22, 2025, attackers killed Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov in Moscow.
After that, Putin expanded protection: 10 more senior commanders received FSO security. 3/
Denys Yeromov spent 38 months in captivity in Chechnya. No toilet in the cell — only five-liter bottles. Washing once a week.
In all that time he was allowed to call his father once. On April 24, 2026 he was exchanged, writes Suspilne. 1/
Denys was mobilized in the summer of 2022 and went to serve in the 10th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade Edelweiss in Donetsk Oblast. Seven months on the front line and in March 2023 contact disappeared. 2/
His father Serhiy and mother began searching for any information: scrolling social media, watching videos, joining groups about prisoners of war and writing appeals to Zelenskyy, Lubinets, Budanov and Maliuk. 3/