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