Rubio: Iran has always said it does not want a nuclear weapon. They just do not mean it.

They keep doing the things countries do when they want one: building long-range missiles, hiding enrichment in mountains and caves, and keeping parts of the program secret. 1/ Rubio: Iran kept highly enriched uranium at 60%, and that has no civilian use.

If all it wanted was a civilian nuclear program, it could do what many other countries do: import enriched material instead of hiding domestic enrichment underground. 2/

Kellogg: The [Hormuz] blockade is working, but I think we need to go further.

There are three things we should do: take strategic targets by land, keep hitting the Revolutionary Guards, and stop talking about negotiations. We should keep going until we finish this. 1/ Kellogg: I’m talking about taking Kharg Island and the islands in the Strait of Hormuz. We do not need to go into downtown Tehran.

We take what they cannot get back. We become the arbiter, the global oil power. Don’t just blockade them. Add to the blockade. 2/

Kellogg: When regimes near collapse, they lash out — raising risks at sea. Accept that risk, but avoid harming civilians.

Focus on IRGC command and control, overload the system, and force a breakdown while maintaining pressure.

1/ Kellogg: Increase pressure by breaking Iran’s command structure. Strike its 31 IRGC Headquarters and key nodes like Kharg Island and Hormuz.

The goal is to fracture unity of command so they can’t coordinate or control operations.

2/

Graham: I love the idea of a Second Amendment solution [arming Iranians to rise up] for the Iranian people.

We do not need American boots on the ground. We have millions of boots on the ground in Iran. They just do not have weapons. 1/ Graham: Give them weapons so they can rise up and destroy this regime. Arm the Iranian people and make the Revolutionary Guard’s life hell.

It is one thing to be bombed by America. It is another to have your own people shoot back. 2/

Kasparov: I cannot give a precise assessment of Iran, because this time the information is badly distorted from both sides.

Dictators always create fog, but here it is mirrored: Trump is no reliable narrator either. What we are seeing is a mutual deadlock. 1/ Kasparov: Trump has two options on Iran: finish it off or stop. Finishing it is politically almost impossible.

He would not get support even from loyal Republicans, and America likely is not ready for an operation of that scale. That still doesn't rule out some mad adventure. 2/

For 177 days, a Ukrainian soldier lay trapped in a factory ruin, surrounded by Russians, with no way out.

Roman Mongold, 38, survived on drone-dropped food — and weekly voice messages from his wife that kept him alive, WP. 1/ He entered Vovchansk on Mar 24, 2025.

4 bottles of water, canned food, grenades, cigarettes, a rifle — and a handwritten prayer from his wife tucked into his vest. Russians were already surrounding the city. 2/

Vincent Awiti, unemployed in Nairobi, signed up for a shop job in Russia. Weeks later he was wading past corpses floating "like waterlilies" in a Ukrainian river beaten by his squad for losing his gun.

1,000 Kenyans went. 30 came home — NYT. 1/ Vincent met a recruiter on the street who promised a shop job in Russia. The agent paid his flight to St. Petersburg on July 14.

On arrival, Russians handed him a contract in Russian. Sign, or repay travel costs. He had no money. He signed. 2/

Defense analyst Michael Clarke: If I were advising Trump, I would tell him to get out fast.

If he cannot win decisively — this war will define his legacy. He needs an exit he can sell as honorable before it damages not only the midterms, but his place in history. 1/ Clarke: That means moving toward a nuclear deal that looks a lot like 2015, even if Trump would never admit it.

Let Iran keep a civilian program, tighten the breakout routes, build international backing, and sell it as tougher and better than Obama’s deal. 2/

Defense analyst Michael Clarke: Trump set six deadlines on Iran and all of them passed.

Now we are on day 61 of a ceasefire with no real date attached. Hormuz is only partly open, Lebanon is still burning, and the whole war is effectively on hold until Trump turns back to it. 1/ Clarke: Friday matters because Trump hits the 60-day limit under the 1973 War Powers Act.

He started this war without congressional approval. Now he must face Congress, ask for more time, or try a legal dodge that is far less likely to work for him than it did for Obama. 2/

Fukuyama: Trump and Putin have been convinced for a long time that Ukraine is losing and cannot possibly win this war.

Yet we are now in year five, and the Russian victory they assumed was inevitable still has not happened. 1/ Fukuyama: A lot of Trump’s political posture has been built on the assumption of an inevitable Russian victory.

He has spoken as if Ukraine had no air force and no navy at all. That whole premise has simply not been borne out by the war. 2X

Fromer Ukrainian FM Kuleba: Western partners fear Ukraine will destroy Russia's oil industry so badly that it will push up global prices, which already spiked after the Iran war.

They are not defending Russia. They care only about global energy prices.

1/ Q: Why doesn't Ukraine destroy Russia's oil wells, not refineries?

Former Ukrainian FM Kuleba: Hitting the refinery is smarter. If you shut down the processing industry, they will close the wells themselves — because they have nowhere to put the oil.

2/

Macron: The Russian war against Ukraine revealed our over-dependence on Russian gas.

We are experiencing the cost of our over-dependence on the US in defense and security, and will probably experience the cost of our over-dependence vis-à-vis China.

1/ Macron: You cannot have sustainable strategic autonomy on defense if you are 100% dependent on other countries for semiconductors or food.

We experienced the cost of over-dependence in past years, including dependence on China.

2/

Putin fears a coup, an assassination and distrusts his own elite. The top risk: Sergei Shoigu.

CNN: Putin installed surveillance in staff homes, banned cooks and guards from public transport, introduced double screening for visitors and switched inner circle phones to offline.1/ On March 5, 2026, authorities arrested Ruslan Tsalikov, Shoigu’s close ally.

This move weakens Shoigu and breaks informal “elite protection” rules inside the system. 2/

Denys Yeromov spent 38 months in captivity in Chechnya. No toilet in the cell — only five-liter bottles. Washing once a week.

In all that time he was allowed to call his father once. On April 24, 2026 he was exchanged, writes Suspilne. 1/ Denys was mobilized in the summer of 2022 and went to serve in the 10th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade Edelweiss in Donetsk Oblast. Seven months on the front line and in March 2023 contact disappeared. 2/

Stubb: “We Europeans have to understand we need Ukraine more than Ukraine needs us.”

Europe has 800,000 Ukrainian soldiers, AI-guided drone technology and battle-hardened veterans, writes The Economist. 1/ Poland’s PM Tusk at the EU summit in Cyprus on April 23-24: Russia could attack Europe’s eastern flank within “months.”

Europe must strengthen its common defenses within NATO and the EU. 2/

Kasparov: In Russia, tsars and dictators are forgiven everything except a bad war. If the war goes well, nobody cares how many die.

But when the ruler cannot win, discontent begins. That is the law of Russian history, and we are seeing it again now. 1/ Kasparov: There is no remorse in Russia for starting this war. The complaint is only that it cannot be won.

Ukraine is not striking homes. It is striking military, oil, and arms targets. Even that was enough to make Russians feel abandoned, exposed, and afraid. 2/

Zelenskyy: This summer, Putin will choose — escalate or move to talks.

We must increase pressure now to force him toward diplomacy.

1/ Zelenskyy: The Iran war is unresolved and risks long-term instability, higher energy prices, and political shifts.

We need real energy coordination, prepare for winter, and secure the Strait of Hormuz.

2/

Applebaum: Of course Orban was authoritarian. The fact that he gave up power peacefully proves nothing by itself.

What matters is what it took to beat him: 16 years in power, panic before the vote, and a campaign that felt to Hungarians like regime change. 1/ Applebaum: To defeat Orban, Peter Magyar had to endure bugging, sex-tape leaks, grotesque smears, and an 18-month grassroots campaign.

No democratic leader should have to go through that. That is what unwinding authoritarian rule looked like. 2/

Applebaum: Trump clearly did not expect the Iran war to last this long. He seems to have imagined it would be easy.

If people in the room told him otherwise, he ignored them. He knows very little about Iran and even seemed surprised by Hormuz and Iranian strikes. 1/ Applebaum: People around the world now read news from Washington by first asking whether it is real.

Trump helped create that post-reality world by nurturing conspiracy theories and undermining trust in media. That is a classic authoritarian tactic. 2/

The US, EU, Turkey and China all now compete with Russia for control over the Caucasus.

Armenia and Azerbaijan just ended a decades-long war, and that peace opened new energy and trade routes through the narrow strip linking Europe and Asia. — Bloomberg.

1/ The US secured exclusive rights to develop the TRIPP corridor — a rail and road route across Armenia's south connecting Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhchivan.

The agreement extends to oil and gas pipelines and fiber optic networks for 99 years.

2/

A group of five Ukrainian hackers tricked 2500 Russians into revealing their location — The Times.

They created a bot that posed as a group of cybercriminals. Russians asked to add their Starlinks to the database as Ukrainian. In exchange, they gave their crypto wallet.

1/ “Fucking Ukrainians, you are liars! Always find a way to take money. You are worse then Jews” — a Russian soldier after he was told that he was scammed by Ukrainian military.

After getting the wallet, the hacker group always revealed themselves to demmoralize Russians.

2/