Kellogg: Putin just wants power. The Soviets left Afghanistan after losing 18,000 soldiers. Putin has lost 1.2 to 1.4 million.

Americans would never accept that. But he keeps going because he thinks he can occupy all of Ukraine. He is not winning.

1/ Kellogg: Europe’s security will no longer be built only around Germany, France, and the UK.

It will shift east — through Finland, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine, and Romania. Ukraine will be the Sparta of Europe, with an army of 800,000. Nobody else has that.

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"Who could have imagined Colombians fighting North Koreans in Kursk region? Our Colombians beat them well enough."

Captain Hamlet Avagyan, an Armenian, commands a Ukrainian assault regiment built mostly of foreign fighters, UkrPravda. 1/ Captain Hamlet Avagyan leads the R.U.G. assault regiment under Khartiia, a Ukrainian National Guard unit.

Foreign fighters make up most of the unit. In August 2024, R.U.G. joined Ukraine's surprise push into Russia's Kursk region. 2/

Petraeus: No western country is aggressively pursuing what needs to be pursued. A major German defense CEO belittled what the Ukrainians have done with drones.

Europeans will spend more on defense, but buy legacy platforms. Vested interests in buying what we've always bought. 1/ Petraeus: A senior army leader said they're giving 500 drones to a tank brigade. That is not revolutionary change.

Revolutionary change is you actually do away with part of the tank brigade and create entire unmanned forces that can do what we see in Ukraine so impressively. 2/

Petraeus: Ukraine is about to isolate Crimea. Gasoline so short they won't sell it to civilians. Tourists who came for beaches are trying to get home any way they can

Kerch Bridge rail no longer works. Ferries knocked out. Land bridges destroyed. Pontoon bridges now targeted 1/ Petraeus: Ukraine took down Russia's air defenses steadily. Russia pulls them to Moscow, vulnerabilities open everywhere else. Moscow refinery hit three nights running, out at least six months.

They're going after fuel storage, refineries, gas lines from Siberia to the west. 2/

Hodges: Not the time to take the foot off the gas on Crimea. Pour it on.

The West should help isolate Crimea — knock out bridges, ferries, all ways in and out, make it unusable for Russian forces. Airfields, air defense systems, logistics sites — targeted relentlessly. 1/ Hodges: I was criticized for being too optimistic about Crimea. I was so sure the US and UK would provide what Ukraine needed.

I was wrong — we did not support Ukraine as we should. So here we are now. Ukraine without too much help from us is doing this on their own. 2/

Hodges: This fairy tale about Russians being able to suffer better than anybody, I think that's an absolute fairy tale.

None of the oligarchs are suffering. Nobody in the upper class in Moscow and St. Petersburg is going to suffer. These are people as spoiled as anybody else. 1/ Hodges: The 90% that are not upper class — they're good at suffering because they've never had it any better.

People counting on Russians being able to just endure more and more are misreading the actual situation. People are starting to wonder what the hell's going on. 2/

Ex-UK Defence Attaché to Moscow, Foreman: Deterrence holds, nuclear and conventional. The biggest threat is unconventional cyber and political interference

Putin doesn't want to escalate from a local war to a regional war with NATO given the uncertainty of what Trump would do 1/ Foreman: I don't exclude Russia escalating versus Ukraine or mobilizing for one last heave.

Putin is very concentrated on winning as he sees it in the Donbas. But as long as deterrence is credible and capable and we communicate it clearly to Russia, we should be safe. 2/

Kellogg: Keep Ukraine's long-range pressure and Crimea's isolation intact through any negotiation — that's the leverage that brings Moscow to a real deal. You don't trade it away for a pause.

Treat Ukraine as a strategic asset, not a security case. 1/ Kellogg: What you end up having is Europe's largest combat-hardened military, 800,000 strong and its defense technology base. Look at drones and what they've done.

That should be anchored to the West, not drift towards China. They are a near-term strategic asset for Europe. 2/

Russian forces massacred hundreds of civilians in Bucha during a month of occupation in 2022, leaving bodies in the streets and a mass grave by the church.

What happened there is why Ukrainians refuse to give up occupied land in any peace deal — Dominic Pino, Washington Post. 1/ Ukraine retook Bucha so fast that Russian forces could not cover their tracks. The town looks like an American suburb, with stores, sidewalks, and a shopping mall.
It keeps a monument bearing the names of the murdered, where such a town should mourn fallen soldiers. 2/

Syrskyi: Putin ordered to calculate options for offensive operations, including from Belarus, to seize Kyiv and other territories.

I do not think Belarus’s leadership will now dare give its territory as a launchpad, but we account for this scenario.

1/ Syrskyi: Russia is testing forced contract signing in Penza region. Mobile groups gather men and force them to sign.

Moscow is adapting this model to spread it across Russia. They also recruit prisoners, people under criminal cases, and mercenaries to grow the army.

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16-year-old Tihran Ohannisian moments before his death: "That's it, it's death, guys. Goodbye. Glory to Ukraine."

Russia killed him and his classmate Mykyta Khanhanov after they attacked Russian personnel in occupied Berdyansk on June 24, 2023 — United24.
1/ Russian soldiers had detained Tihran in September 2022, beat him in front of his grandmother, and tortured him with electric shocks for days.

Both boys remained under surveillance for months, formally charged with plotting to sabotage a railway, facing up to 20 years in prison.
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Historian, James Holland: Ukraine can now isolate the battlefield. Anyone that moves gets killed. Supply lines attacked 25-50 miles behind the front — bridges, roads, assembly areas. Deep strikes into Russia's oil.

Putin can have a media blackout. He cannot hide that destruction. 1/ Holland on Crimea: Right now I can't see what will prevent Ukraine from regaining it. They're isolating Crimea — effectively besieged. Russians will have to give it up.

Putin's myth that Crimea has been "forever Russia" is nonsense. It's been Turkish too. It keeps changing hands. 2/

Ex-Ukrainian FM, Kuleba on Lukashenko entering the war: Can't exclude it. He was close, exercises, running around in uniform. Then someone explained where the strikes would land. He reversed

Putin is pushing him again. Lukashenko understands, this is the end of his regime 1/ Kuleba on Poland-Ukraine rivalry: Not immediately, but it will go there. Poland will compete with money, we with security capabilities and audacity.

Together we'd dictate our will to Western Europe. I believed in that story very strongly. We are competitors, unfortunately. 2/

Kasparov on Georgia: An inclined plane has only one direction — down — and the speed always increases. After the 2012 elections, Georgia started sliding backward.

Today it is much closer to Russia and Belarus than to Ukraine or Moldova. I fear the situation is already tragic. 1/ Kasparov: Ivanishvili never stopped being a Russian oligarch. Putin says there are no former KGB agents — same applies here. No former oligarchs. Those connections are preserved.

Georgia's behavior is because they orient toward Putin and believe his power shields them. 2/

Kasparov: The imperial idea sits deeper than communism in Russia. Communist dictatorship lasted 74 years. The imperial idea has lived for centuries. It mutates, transforms, you can't simply pull it out

You need a shock and I believe there is only one such shock that will work 1/ Kasparov: The only thing that can make Russians understand the empire is dead — a Ukrainian flag in Sevastopol. Crimea is the sacred core of the imperial idea.

Liberation of Crimea is exactly the shock needed for Russians to realize: it's over. Start again from scratch. 2/

Bolton: Iran and North Korea got the same Chinese nuclear weapon designs from A.Q. Khan. Same enrichment technology. Both programs share the same basis from the very beginning.

North Korea built a reactor clone in Syria's desert for Iran. Israel found and destroyed it in 2007 1/ Bolton: Iran is oil-rich and has no nuclear weapons. North Korea is one of the poorest countries on earth — it has detonated six nuclear devices.

How hard is it to imagine Iran contracts out its nuclear work to North Korea, under some mountain we can't see through? 2/

Zelenskyy: Putin can tell his TV audience he controls everything, that there's fuel, that his ministers are competent.

But Russians in gas lines across the country can see for themselves — their "three-day war" is now in year five, and even the oil state has a fuel deficit. 1/ Zelenskyy: This is a direct consequence of war. We return the reality of war to Russia and make it as difficult as possible to continue the occupation.

Our long-range sanctions plan is being executed. We strike precisely, not with terror. We target the system, not civilians. 2/

Estonian PM Michal: Russia has more men under arms now than at the start of the war. What happens when fighting stops?

They won't become teachers. They'll go to Europe, Asia, Africa. We had Wagner before and during the war. Do you want these people at home, in your country? 1/ Michal: If anyone thinks investing 5% of GDP in defense is easy, it's not. Takes a heavy toll on any government. But it has to be done.

Estonia is at 5.4% this year. Poland 5 to 6%. Latvia, Lithuania the same. We're showing that this is real money, real decisions, real steps. 2/

Ex-US Ambassador to Ukraine, Taylor: While we weren't looking, Ukraine took the initiative. Taking more land back than Russia takes. More deep strikes into Russia than Russia fires into Ukraine.

Killing more Russians than Russia can recruit. That's the momentum shift. 1/ Taylor: Ukraine has cut off fuel and ammunition for the Russian military in Crimea. They're threatening the last connection — the Kerch Bridge — which Ukrainian drones can now take out.

They are the masters of the drones. And Crimea is being squeezed from every direction. 2/

Hodges: Momentum has indisputably shifted to Ukraine. Ukrainians strike over 1,000 km deep with precision, bypassing Russian air defenses. Russians don't seem able to stop it.

In a country with more oil and gas than almost anyone on the planet — queues at gas stations. 1/ Hodges: Three effects. First — Russian people realize they've been lied to. Ukrainians are fighting ferociously and successfully. Russia's military has been stopped. Tourists in Crimea asking "what the hell's going on?"

That well of resilience is going to run dry. 2/

Ex-Ukrainian FM Prystaiko: Putin’s signal to his own people is: do not corner me, because I am dangerous and unpredictable.

But this signal is wearing out. Drones in Moscow and St. Petersburg show that the king is not dressed as well as he wants people to think.

1/ Prystaiko: From Poland’s point of view, Ukraine escalated. The problem is old; it is not about today’s Ukrainians or today’s government.

But Poland is strategically vital for our survival, and we still have not found a way to manage these risks and exit such crises.

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