Denys Prokopenko, 1st Azov Corps commander: Russia loses because its army is built for political control, not battlefield effectiveness.
Russians sacrifice enormous numbers of soldiers to please their leadership, even when it was doomed from the start — Ukrainska Pravda.
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Prokopenko: Ukraine wins because its army is built on trust and initiative.
HQ defines the goal and purpose. How to achieve it stays with the officers on the ground, who have the best picture of the battlefield. High trust, high initiative. The unit becomes a single organism.
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In summer 2025, Russia broke through the front near Dobropil — 15 km wide, 20 km deep. Azov Corps stopped the advance, conducted counteroffensive operations, and restored the line.
Now enemy hardware, depots and positions burn at depths up to 250 km.
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Bolton: Iran is using negotiations to prove it controls the Strait of Hormuz, that everyone must bargain with Tehran before Arab oil and cargoes leave the Gulf.
If Iran can turn Hormuz on and off like a light switch, the precedent is disastrous. 1/
Bolton: Tehran is desperately playing for time.
If Iran gets control of the Strait and resumes oil revenues, it will rebuild the Quds Force, militias, nuclear program, missile program and drone program — then threaten the Gulf even more. 2/
Bolton: Freedom of the seas is the core issue. Hormuz was an international waterway where commercial vessels and even warships had the right of innocent passage.
If Iran can control passage or charge tolls, that right is becoming history. 3/
Russians kidnapped and killed priest Stepan Podolchak from Kherson Oblast because he refused to hold sermons in Russian and transfer his church to the control of the Moscow Patriarchate.
His wife had to identify his body after he was taken from his home — United24. 1/
By 2024 Russians had killed around 50 priests. Russia uses religion as a tool of occupation as systematically as it uses schools, internet and property. 2/
The Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate is the only one allowed to operate freely in occupied territories. All other denominations are either closed or driven underground. 3/