War analyst Barros: Russia's advance has flatlined, basically net zero.
Ukraine is mid-shaping operations to set up a breakout, and I'm confident we'll see Ukrainian territorial gains to talk about in the coming months. 1/
Barros: The front is genuinely contested for the first time in two years. Russia holds the initiative around Pokrovsk.
Ukraine is reportedly counterattacking near Kharkiv and Donetsk, and holds the initiative in Zaporizhzhia. 2/
Barros: Russia still has no answer to Ukraine's mid-range strike campaign.
Occupied territory now runs on makeshift fuel generators, which starves electronic-warfare systems of power and weakens drone defenses. Shaping phases like this can run four to six months. 3/
Loomer: If I were president and Russia supplied Iran with weapons, I would kill Putin.
Putin is afraid of Trump. He can pretend he is not, but he knows Trump calls the shots. Trump could be far more aggressive with Putin if he wanted. I do not speak for Trump.
1/
Loomer: I’m not saying Trump should kill Putin.
If I were president and a country lied to my face while arming an enemy whose state TV chants “death to America” and “death to Trump,” I would find a way for that leader to die of a sudden heart attack.
Loomer: I spoke to Trump about two days after interviewing Zelenskyy.
He told me he likes President Zelenskyy very much, but he also likes Vladimir Putin. He says he gets along with both. I do plan to meet with Trump when I get back.
1/
Loomer: Lavrov mocked questions about Russia arming Iran to kill U.S. soldiers.
U.S. officials should say “fuck the Russians” and come to Kyiv. If I survived ballistic missiles here, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff can come too.
2/
Loomer: Russia claims it is white and Christian. But Putin kisses a Quran with Kadyrov and sends his forces to wage jihad in Ukraine.
Moscow says “we’re the same.” No. Russia persecutes Crimean Tatars and anyone outside the Russian Orthodox Church.
A Russian soldier raped 63-year-old Halyna Tyshchenko at gunpoint, then marched her naked into freezing cold.
Russian guards raped captives with bottles and sticks and threatened to inject expanding foam into their anuses. They said they would leave them childless — The WSJ. 1/
Russians shocked captives' genitals and forced them to stand, crouch, and parade naked for hours. Some guards simply enjoyed it, former captives said. 2/
Serhii Boychuk, 33, told his wife before he left for the front that if captured, he did not want to be taken alive. The Russians held him for more than two years.
Guards raped him with bottles and sticks and pressed a knife to his genitals. He still struggles to walk. 3/
Kasparov: Ukraine's drones now reach 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers, close to stripping Russia of its oil-refining capacity.
That cuts both ways: it pushes Putin to speed up escalation while gutting Russia's offensive capability. 1/
Kasparov: Talk of this war reaching the Baltics has moved from speculation into real policy discussion among Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states themselves.
Look at their actions: rising defense budgets, border fortifications, drone barriers along the frontier. 2/
Kasparov: Zelenskyy said Russia could begin a new mobilization as early as September.
Baltic leaders are now citing actual intelligence about a possible escalation scenario against their own countries. 3X
Kasparov: Putin is betting on Europe's election calendar.
France votes for president in ten months, and a Le Pen win, under 50% likely, would shift the EU fundamentally. Germany's AfD sits in regional governments. 1/
Kasparov: The EU's 21st sanctions package is stuck partly because one private Greek shipping company doesn't want to eat the losses from cutting Russian gas-transport quotas.
A single firm's profit margin is holding up a wartime sanctions measure. 2/
Kasparov: I'd stop issuing Schengen visas out of Russia entirely. Make applicants travel through Yerevan, Podgorica, or Almaty instead.
At minimum, require a public document renouncing the war, and let's see how many people actually sign it. 3X