Putin says Ukraine must give up Zaporizhzhia region.
DeepState: Russia controls slightly more than 2/3 of the region.
But on the strategically important Orikhiv axis, Russian forces have had no major success since April, — Babel. 1/
Russian forces are about 20 km from Zaporizhzhia in some areas of the front.
They launch over 800 strikes on the city every day, mostly with FPV drones. Their closest positions are now from the Stepnohirsk direction.
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Russia wants to capture Stepnohirsk by the end of June.
It is bringing in manpower, forming assault groups, and using guided aerial bombs. But its assault groups still cannot fully entrench there.
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Holger Neumann, chief of the German air force: We are ready to fight Russia tonight if Moscow attacks any NATO ally.
We will go in with everything we have, in the air force and across NATO, to defend our country, our population, and our alliance — The Telegraph. 1/
Neumann: It must be clear, there are no zones of different security. NATO is NATO, down to the last inch.
We have to make a very strong effort to over watch and, if required, act along certain regions. 2/
Neumann named the regions NATO would strike back. Kaliningrad, St Petersburg, the Kola Peninsula where Moscow is massing nuclear weapons, and the Black Sea fleet.
Any defensive response would amount to "32 against X" — the alliance's 32 air forces against one. 3/
Ukraine is sealing Crimea off from land and sea. In mid-June, drones struck the bridges at Chonhar, Henichesk, Myrne, and Armyansk, the links to the mainland.
Robert Brovdi, commander of Unmanned Systems Forces: “Ukraine will fully isolate it soon”— United24. 1/
Ukraine is closing the sea routes too. Naval drones wait around Crimea, block shipping, and have hit several ferries. Some now launch their own drones and strike aerial targets.
The fuel shortage runs so deep that Russian mobile teams lack the petrol to hunt those drones. 2/
In May, Ukraine set the summer plan, a logistics lockdown that cuts Russian supply lines to seize the initiative on the battlefield.
Middle Strike drones reach Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, with Crimea at the center. 3/
A Russian soldier kept Sofia, Ukrainian, for over a year as a sex prisoner — holding her in a flat with bars on the balcony, boarded-up windows, locked doors, and padlocks.
He took her phone, left food, and returned there only to rape her — The Times. 1/
She was 21. She lived with her disabled mother and two younger brothers in a village in Kharkiv region. When Russian troops occupied it, one soldier began harassing her. She refused. 2/
One day he came armed, with two other soldiers.
“Do you want your family to be dead?”
Then he took her to a nearby building and raped her, according to investigators. It happened again and again. 3/
In May 2025, ten Ukrainian drone operators wiped out a British tank battalion of 17 armoured vehicles in half a day during a NATO exercise in Estonia.
Britain has 8,000 drones. Ukraine uses 200,000 a month. Russia produces 15 million a year. UK wouldn’t be able to defend itself, The Times.
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Retired four-star general Deverell: "The MoD has bought drones numbered in the low thousands. That's like a day's worth of drones in modern conflict.
Could British forces defend themselves today? Against a threat a decade ago — probably yes. Today, I'm afraid the answer is no."
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Of Britain's 107 Typhoon jets, only four are armed and ready to scramble at any one time. There are no missile interceptor batteries in the UK.
If Britain came under a sustained attack on multiple sites — it would have to choose which ones to protect and leave others exposed.
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Ex-US ambassador to Ukraine, Taylor: Putin likely expected Trump to pressure Zelenskyy into accepting Moscow’s view. That has not happened.
Zelenskyy is more confident because he knows, war ends only when enough pressure is put on Putin, not when Ukraine is pushed to concede. 1/
Taylor: Territorial concessions are off the table. Russia illegally occupies about 19% of Ukraine, that is a fact, but Ukraine and its partners will not give that occupation legal standing.
They will never recognize Russia’s claim or turn aggression into lawful territory. 2/
Taylor: Everyone knows Russia wants total control of Ukraine, either to eliminate it or absorb it into Russia.
A ceasefire may stop Moscow temporarily, but it is not enough. Ukraine needs security guarantees that make another Russian invasion too costly to attempt. 3/