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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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/
Russia’s war machine increasingly runs on Chinese components, Chinese drones, Chinese machine tools, and Chinese chemicals — while Beijing officially claims neutrality.
Putin arrived in Beijing as the dependent partner, The Economist. 1/
Chinese semiconductors and microelectronics are now critical for Russian missile and drone production.
They power precision-guided weapons striking Ukrainian cities, while China also dominates the FPV drone supply chain Russia relies on. 2/
Russia’s military factories are now heavily dependent on Chinese industrial machinery.
~90% of Russian machine-tool imports come from China, including CNC systems essential for weapons and ammunition manufacturing. 3/
Ukraine is launching one of its largest security operations near Belarus since the start of the war amid fears Russia may again try to attack Kyiv from the north.
The operation involves the military and SBU across border regions with Belarus and Russia, Bloomberg. 1/
Ukraine says agents will search buildings, inspect vehicles, restrict movement, and hunt for spies and sabotage groups.
The SBU calls the operation “unprecedented in scale” in personnel and resources deployed. 2/
Zelenskyy warns Russia may again try to use Belarus as a staging ground for a northern offensive.
The first 2022 invasion pushed toward Kyiv and Chernihiv through Belarus before collapsing under Ukrainian resistance. 3/
Iran is the new Vietnam, and Ukraine is the new Korea.
Trump compressed 5 years of LBJ's Vietnam policy into 2 months on Iran and moved to Nixon's playbook of bluster and extrication via an unsatisfying deal — Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs. 1/
Iran ends like Vietnam in 1973, with an unstable compromise that stops the fighting but punts the hard questions.
The deal leaves the fate of the Iranian regime and its nuclear program for another day. 2/
In June 2025, Israeli and US strikes damaged Iran's nuclear program. In late February 2026, a joint US-Israeli decapitation strike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
His son Mojtaba succeeded him. The regime kept functioning. 3/