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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Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi: It is now easier and cheaper to reach a person or object deep in the rear than to move the front line by 20 meters.
New weapons shift war from destroying military potential to destroying the state itself. 1/
Zaluzhnyi: Cheap, mass weapons with no reliable physical protection have changed war.
They allow any state — or even organization — to use new force against any opponent. The line between front and rear has almost disappeared. 2/
Zaluzhnyi: In an existential war, survival itself means victory. For Russia, stopping without victory threatens the existence of its state system.
That is why this has become a war of attrition where endurance decides everything. 3/
Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi: Ukraine can no longer be part of any gray zone.
Our experience shows that if you agree to become a buffer zone, you should wait for war. It is already moving toward you — first hidden, then openly. 1/
Zaluzhnyi: In a war where the price is the life of an entire nation, compromise may simply stop existing.
You cannot be a little killed or half alive — and you cannot accept conditions that mean helping finish off your own state. 2/
Zaluzhnyi: NATO may have lost the ability to guarantee security to its members.
Because of technical unreadiness for modern war and the political inability of democratic institutions to make unpopular decisions when force must be used. 3/
Bolton: The only way to deal with Iran on oil and Hormuz is for the U.S. and Gulf Arabs to force the Strait open.
That is how you restore deterrence against Tehran turning access on and off like a light switch. 1/
Bolton: The six-week ceasefire benefited only Iran.
It let the regime get back up, dig out arsenals and storage sites, and reportedly restart drone production, maybe ballistic missiles too. That shows the IRGC’s real mission is regime survival. 2/
Bolton: If the U.S. declares the operation over and lets the regime recover, Iran will go back to drones, ballistic missiles, the nuclear program, terrorism and repression.
In five years, it would be a tragedy to see this was all for nothing. 3/
Bolton: Ukrainian strikes inside Russia undercut Kremlin propaganda.
They show ordinary Russians the war is not going well — not only by causing real military damage, but by making the reality of the war visible on Russian territory. 1/
Bolton: Russia expected significant territorial gains this spring, and that has not happened.
If anything, Russia has lost territory in Ukraine. By August or September, Putin may need another plan because the current strategy is not working. 2/
Bolton: Putin would like to keep U.S. attention focused on Iran or China because that buys him more time to decide what to do next in Ukraine.
Moscow may think Trump is so diverted by Iran that Ukraine will not catch his attention. 3/
Kasparov: Ukraine hits targets tied to Russia’s war machine, not civilians. Russia hunts civilians to terrorize and break morale.
Ukraine hits military logistics. These are two fundamentally different concepts of war — and now it happens almost every night. 1/
Kasparov: The strikes on Moscow have huge psychological meaning. War has returned to the place where it started.
Putin kept Moscow calm for four years while war became profitable business; now that illusion is breaking — and politically dangerous. 2/
Kasparov: Ukraine objectively leads Russia in modern weapons.
Its drones are more effective, its anti-drone defense is cheaper, and effective Ukrainian ballistic missiles are only a matter of time — probably not a distant one. 3X