New @Maxar satellite imagery today, June 4, of Russia's Belaya and Olenya airbases struck by Ukrainian drones. Multiple Tu-95 and Tu-22 bomber aircraft are destroyed and some cleanup activity is seen near the plane debris, Maxar says. Cloud cover obscured several of the other Russian airbases that were reportedly also struck by drones. A thread 🧵 1. after Ukrainian drone strike, overview of Belaya airbase, June 4
2.before drone strike, group of Tu22 aircraft, Belaya airbase, May 22
3. after drone strike, group of Tu22 aircraft Belaya airbase, June 4
4., before drone strike, Tu95 aircraft, Belaya airbase, May 22
📸: @Maxar

Satellite images made by @Maxar before Ukraine's big drone strike operation show Russian airfields in Belaya, Ivanovo, Ukrainka, Olenya & Ryazan Dyagilevo, as well as close-up views of bomber, transport and airborne warning aircraft.

Maxar writes: "At each of the five airbases, defensive measures have been observed on many of the planes, presumably in an attempt to protect the aircraft from drone attacks by placing tires and other objects on the top of the wings. Additionally, the use of decoy aircraft was also seen at the airbases including painted aircraft outlines on the tarmac and materials positioned in the shape of bomber aircraft."

A thread. 🧵 1. overview of belaya airbase, May 22
2. objects on Tu 22 aircraft at belaya airbase, May 20
3. Tu 160 bombers and decoy painted on tarmac at belaya airbase, May 20
4. Tu 160 bombers at belaya airbase, May 20

Ukrainian SBU security service sources tell @FT the agency is conducting "a large-scale special operation to destroy enemy bomber aircraft" deep inside Russia.

"SBU drones are targeting aircraft that bomb Ukrainian cities every night. At this point, more than 40 aircraft have reportedly been hit."

Video footage filmed by a Ukrainian reconnaissance aircraft and shared by the official appeared to show Russia’s Belaya airfield, located in south-eastern Siberia some 5,500km east of the frontline, in flames.

This was a hugely ambitious SBU operation. According to people familiar with the attack, codenamed “Spiderweb”, it was planned more than a year in advance and “personally supervised” by Zelensky. It used dozens of FPV drones armed with explosives that were smuggled into Russia. Photo: SBU Chief Vasyl Malyuk looks over a map of Russian targets in today's attack.

Trump spoke to @BretBaier on Fox News on Friday. Here's what the US president said about Putin and Russia, Zelensky and Ukraine. Link to the interview here: foxnews.com/video/63729349…

Baier: "You said [to Putin], get to the table... stop bombing. He hasn't stopped bombing..."

Trump: "Well he is at the table. And he wanted this meeting. And I always felt there can't be a meeting without me because I don’t think a deal is gonna get through. There’s a lot of hatred on both sides. I have a very good relationship with Putin, I think we’ll make a deal. We have to get together and I think we’ll probably schedule it up, because I’m tired of having other people go and meet and everything else. With that I think Steve Witkoff is doing such an incredible job, but it’s a very tough job and it’s a job that because of position that I think I’m the only one that’s gonna be able to do that one and I think we’ll do it fast too. I think Putin is tired of this whole thing and he’s not - he’s not looking good. And he wants to look good. Don’t forget this was supposed to end in one week and if he didn’t get stuck in the mud with his army tanks all over the place, they would’ve been in Kyiv -- Kiev -- in about five hours. And who gave the javelins? Do you remember who gave the javelins? Was it Barack Hussein Obama who gave the javelins? No it was Donald Trump who gave the javelins." Trump on Zelensky: "I had a real rough session with Zelenskyy because I didn't like what he said. And he was not making it easy. And I always said he doesn't have the cards, and he doesn't have the cards. And I'm being honest, he doesn't have the cards."

"You're dealing with a massive army and you're dealing with someone that's brave and had great equipment." [Unclear if he's talking about Putin or Zelensky, I think the latter?]
foxnews.com/video/63729349…

President Zelensky has rejected a US proposal to take ownership of around 50% of the rights to Ukraine's rare earth minerals and is trying to negotiate a better deal, according to several people familiar with the matter.
w/ @felschwartz @HenryJFoy via @FTft.com/content/b08b72… Ukraine’s main concern with the US offer is the lack of connection to broader security guarantees, according to people who reviewed the proposal. Ukrainian officials asked how the agreement would contribute to their country’s long-term security, but were only told it would ensure an American presence on Ukrainian soil — a vague response that left key questions unanswered. ft.com/content/b08b72…

Zelensky really hammered Europe in his Davos speech, addressing its future and the threats facing it.
"Right now, all eyes are on Washington. But who’s actually watching Europe at the moment?"
Here are some highlights from his speech 🧵

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1881699715206754630

Zelensky: "Most of the world’s now thinking – so, what’s gonna happen to their relationship with America? What will happen to alliances? To support? To trade? How does President Trump plan to end wars? But no one is asking these kinds of questions about Europe. And we need to be honest about that."

New poll by Kyiv-based @NEC_Ukraine. Ukrainians surveyed in Nov. In sum: 'Mix of disappointment & optimism. More faith in ourselves than partners. Trust in Western leaders has fallen. Most Ukrainians believe partners not doing enough to ensure victory.' neweurope.org.ua/en/analytics/z… Some bits that stand out: 64.1% of Ukrainians believe negotiations with Russia not worthwhile unless Ukraine receives real security guarantees from West, because "Russia will start the war again after a short pause." Those 30–39 years old are most in favor of negotiations (~40%).

New and terrifying: Kherson’s civilians have been the target of an experiment without precedent in modern European warfare: a concerted Russian campaign to empty a city by stalking its residents with drones.
w/ @samjoiner @inari_ta @FT + @Cen4infoRes
on.ft.com/4fTNzAL “They are hunting us,” Oleksandr Prokudin, head of Kherson region military admin, told me when I visited last week. Since mid-July Kherson residents suffered 9,500+ attacks with small drones, killing at least 37 people and injuring hundreds more. ft.com/content/31b630…

Ukraine today: A fresh poll shows Ukrainians’ interest in negotiations; and Zelensky tells Ukrainian reporters he’s “not afraid” of Trump 2.0, and signals more govt shakeups likely ahead. (Rumors of PM Shmyhal’s departure, etc. have swirled for months.) 🧵 A new poll by @RazumkovC for @zn_ua found that 44% of Ukrainians believe it’s time for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia (35% say not yet; 21% undecided). That's a big shift compared to last year, when 64% of Ukrainians opposed talks with Moscow.
zn.ua/ukr/UKRAINE/44…

NEW: Our @FT team identified and located four Ukrainian children who were abducted and taken to Russia and are now advertised as up for adoption on a Russian government-linked adoption website, including one child under a false Russian identity. on.ft.com/3KLKm85 .@FT confirmed the children’s IDs with help of Ukrainian Child Rights Protection Centre. We are awaiting further confirmation on two more children located by the FT who we strongly believe are Ukrainian. The children’s guardians and Ukraine’s authorities had previously been unaware of their whereabouts.

NEW: US is close to signing new security pact with Ukraine in signal of support to assuage Kyiv after “tense” relations that some officials say have hit their lowest ebb since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Story w/ @JamesPoliti @HenryJFoy. More in 🧵below.
ft.com/content/966970… Zelensky’s frustration with Biden was laid bare when the Ukrainian prez rebuked his US counterpart in blunt terms, saying Biden’s plan to attend a Democratic fundraiser rather than Ukraine’s peace summit on June 15-16 was “not a strong decision”. ft.com/content/966970…

Russia’s occupying forces in Bakhmut just published on one of their Telegram channels new video footage and photos of the eastern Ukrainian city almost a year after it was destroyed and captured. The photos are stomach-churning and I admit they fill me with rage. I’ll post them below beside my own photos from when I lived in Bakhmut in 2010-2012, when it was a vibrant, peaceful city that 80,000 called home.

These images show the central square fountain and city hall — or where city hall stood before it was blown up. The first two were taken under Russian occupation. The other two are mine from 14 years ago.


This was the Bakhmut Ferris wheel in the city’s upper central park. It usually operated on holidays and was a meeting place for families. Left: under Russian occupation this month. Right: my photo from 2011.

The Russian air force is stepping up its use of Soviet-era weapons that have been retrofitted for 21st-century warfare and are pounding Ukrainian forces, pulverising towns and giving Moscow an advantage on the battlefield.

My piece for @FT on the Russian "glide bombs" targeting Ukrainian towns and troops positions on the frontline: ft.com/content/0d6612… Russian glide bombs are wreaking havoc on Ukrainian positions.

“For [Russia], it is much cheaper than using hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, when one of these bombs will demolish several buildings,” said Vlad, a 27-year-old soldier serving in the eastern Donetsk region.

“They are very scary, very lethal,” said Bohdan, another soldier in Donetsk region. “Even a kilometre away, the blast rips the doors of buildings off their hinges.”

ft.com/content/0d6612…

Hidden cameras in hotel rooms. Months-long surveillance. Leaked footage on a murky black PR website. Highly disturbing incidents targeting Ukraine’s top investigative journalists in recent days has many in Kyiv concerned about a re-emergence of bad-old-days-type antics.

https://twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1747376208470323336

Unsurprisingly, supposed chief editor of "Narodna Pravda," bogus black PR website that has gone after Ukraine's top investigative journalists who've been critical of govt, has no publicly available social accounts and her image appears to be AI-generated.

https://x.com/tweetsNV/status/1747363095469830198?s=20

“Ukraine is not alone, and Ukraine will never be alone,” Sunak told reporters inside the Mariinsky Palace, vowing that the UK would “provide the support Ukraine needs” if Russia “attacks again”.

Our report on Sunak's big Kyiv visit, w/ @LOS_Fisher.
v @FTft.com/content/8d55de… "If Russia attacks [Ukraine] again," Sunak said, meaning with another large-scale invasion, the UK "will provide the support Ukraine needs, fast and reliable security support, modern weapons on land, sea and air, economic support, and sanctions that will have a price on Russia."

Another horrific Russian attack on a busy hotel in Kharkiv tonight. Video here shows the moment of impact in the strike on Park Hotel that injured 11 people, hospitalizing 9, according the head of the regional administration and Suspilne Kharkiv public broadcaster. The aftermath of the attack on Park Hotel in Kharkiv, via Shapkina public broadcaster.

🧵An end-of-year thread. Since Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine began, many books have been written & more will be soon. I wrote one myself: The War Came To Us: Life And Death In Ukraine, which I hope you'll read. It provides a unique view of Ukraine & war going back to pre-2014.

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1681278741144633344

Here’s what reviewers have said about The War Came To Us. And links to find the book here, in case you're in need of a last-minute Xmas or New Year gift: linktr.ee/thewarcametous

At UNGA Biden called Russia's war on Ukraine "an illegal war of conquest brought without provocation." Zelensky listened closely; Russia rep stared at his phone.

"Like every nation in this world the US wants this war to end. No nation wants this war to end more than Ukraine."



Biden: "And we strongly support in its efforts to bring about diplomatic resolution that delivers justice and last peace. But Russia alone -- Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it's Russia alone that stands in the way of peace..."

Ukrainians in flooded areas under Russian control and people trying to save them told me and @NastyaStognei that Moscow-installed authorities have left them stranded and blocked rescue efforts.

"Many people have drowned. Bodies have started to emerge."

ft.com/content/7e6d36… People in flooded areas under Russian control publish desperate pleas for help on social media. Volunteers collect them on an interactive map that now has more than 650 color-coded requests. Blue pins show those who can afford to wait for help, red denotes the most urgent cases.

Ukraine's counteroffensive has begun.

Kyiv has committed German-made tanks into battle against Russian positions in south-eastern Ukraine, launching the first heavily armoured assaults of its long-anticipated counter-offensive.

ft.com/content/9b282d… via @FT 2 UA military personnel, 2 western officials & analysts say it is now clear that Ukraine’s summer push is on.

“Based on the action yesterday, and the western systems employed, it appears that the Ukrainian offensive is under way,” @KofmanMichael said.

ft.com/content/9b282d…

New satellite images showing the consequences Russia's destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power facility in southern Ukraine.

Before and after close-up views of the dam and power facility, June 5 and June 7. (location: 46.776, 33.371) 📸: @Maxar Before and after close-up views of flooded Nibulon granary in Kozatske, a village on the Ukrainian controlled right/west bank of the Dnipro river. June 5 and June 7. (location: 46.779, 33.326)
📸: @Maxar