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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Putin’s meat grinder update — Russia lost 35,203 troops in April alone with almost no territorial gains to show.
More than 70,000 Russian troops were killed or wounded in just 2 months of spring. No major Ukrainian city captured. Front lines largely unchanged, United24. 1/
Russia’s “spring offensive” stalled almost entirely in Donetsk.
More than 2/3 of Russian attacks are concentrated there, with losses exceeding 400 soldiers per km² while failing to fully occupy the region. 2/
Kremlin has so little to present that Russia reduced the military part of its May 9 parade.
Fewer vehicles, fewer weapons displays — while Putin even discussed a possible ceasefire around Victory Day. 3/
Ukraine is building a Hague tribunal for Putin, Lukashenko, and Russia’s top leadership — while demanding over $1T in reparations from Russia.
Iryna Mudra, deputy head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office: “Accountability is not a subject of bargaining in peace talks,” EP. 1/
Russia repeatedly demanded immunity.
During talks in 2022 and in its recent 28-point “peace plan,” Moscow pushed for lifting sanctions, ending court cases, and granting amnesty for Russian leadership and war crimes. 2/
Tribunal moves from politics to implementation. Council of Europe ministers will finalize legal creation of the court in Chisinau on May 14-15. It will operate in Hague.
Putin now spends weeks in bunkers, bans officials from using internet-connected phones, and fears assassination after Iran’s supreme leader was killed in a US-Israeli strike.
Russian elites increasingly discuss what happens after him, Times. 1/
Kremlin fears Ukraine could track Putin through Moscow’s surveillance system.
After Israel used cameras to monitor Iranian officials, Russia restricted mobile internet across Moscow, where 250,000 CCTV cameras operate. 2/
Putin’s approval fell from 77% in December to 65% in April — the lowest since the invasion began — as war losses and economic pressure intensify. 3/
In 1973, the Arab oil weapon worked once and broke within months. Iran built one that doesn't break.
Mines, drones, and small boats now hold 20% of global oil hostage in the Strait of Hormuz — and the US Navy has not pried them loose — Gregory Brew, Foreign Affairs. 1/
20% of global oil and 20% of global LNG sit trapped in the Persian Gulf, alongside helium, aluminum, and urea.
US gasoline crossed $4 a gallon and may break $5 by late May. Global oil demand is falling for the first time since COVID. 2/
Since Feb 28, Iran has hit 20+ ships in waters around the strait — Joint Maritime Information Center.
Mines, antiship ballistic missiles, drones, and swarms of fast boats. Decades of investment, deployed with little effort. 3/
Only one ground-launched missile in Europe reaches deep into Russia today. It is Ukrainian.
Russia's Kinzhal hits Warsaw, Berlin, Munich. From Kaliningrad — London, Paris, Rome. Europe's own answer won't arrive until the 2030s — Financial Times. 1/
Trump canceled the Tomahawk deployment in Germany, but the gap predates him. Europe outsourced deep-strike to Washington for decades.
Pistorius, German defence minister, warned the cancellation would be "very unfortunate and detrimental" for Europe. 2/
DPS — missiles with 1,000–3,000km range and pinpoint targeting. They destroy a bomber on the runway, a submarine in port, a drone factory before launch.
Western military official: "You want to be able to strike a Russian drone factory before they send 500 drones at us." 3/
One year in, 76% of voters are unhappy with Merz and their coalition. He promised to restore growth, but got Trump tariffs and an energy shock.
Yet abroad he’s taken a harder edge, openly arguing with Trump and pushing support for Ukraine, – DW. 1/
Merz came in weakened. The Bundestag did not elect him on the first ballot.
Before that, he broke two promises: he cooperated with the far right on a vote, then reversed a pledge not to take on debt. 2/
Then he ran into a coalition designed to block itself.
Merz campaigned on reversing Scholz’s center-left course. The SPD’s incentive is to preserve it. The “reforms” became compromises or drafts. 3/