Ukraine’s new Commander-in-Chief Drapatyi in 2023: Ukraine is inconvenient for Russia’s history, because without Ukraine there is no Russia or empire.

That is why they still try to control us. Ukraine did not appear in 1991; it has centuries of culture, traditions and army.

1/ Drapatyi: In 7th or 8th grade, I dreamed of becoming a tank officer. After school, I entered the Kharkiv Tank Troops Institute.

That is how my military path began. My rule in life is simple: whatever I do, I do it well and responsibly, so I have nothing to be ashamed of.

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Volker: Crimea is everything to Putin — the jewel in his restoration of the Russian empire. If he fails to hold it, he's failed as the new Tsar.

Russia, an energy-rich country, is now rationing gasoline for consumers and, I'd guess, for its military too. 1/ Volker: Putin is going after people once assumed untouchable, like his old St. Petersburg associate Ilya Traber, and that's a signal to everyone else: know your place.

If even Traber is vulnerable, anybody is. 2/

NYT: Ukraine picked the pace of its drone war over a decorated general. Zelenskyy fired commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi late Tuesday, closing a four-decade Soviet-era career.

The trigger was a drone-contract fight. He hands the army to younger, tech-first commanders. 1/ The fight ran through Mykhailo Fedorov, the defense minister who built Ukraine's drone program. Fedorov said Syrskyi blocked military contracts for drones.

Zelenskyy fired Fedorov first. Soldiers and crowds then filled Kyiv's streets and demanded that Syrskyi go too. 2/

The Economist: The West keeps falling for the myth of Russian greatness.

Foreigners see power, spirituality, tradition or reform where Russia often shows coercion, corruption, weakness and imperial violence. Ukrainians have spent years breaking that illusion. 1/ Leo Hare, a Texan who moved his family to Russia for its supposed Christian values, later said he was swindled out of $66,000 and admitted, “I believed in the propaganda.” 2/

I told CNN Fedorov knows how tech can isolate Crimea and hit Russia’s rear. Russia should worry.

Moscow cheered his removal, now Drapatyi is back. Ukraine showed it is still a vivid democracy that wants innovation and younger leaders.

1/ Me: Zelenskyy first removed Fedorov, but hedged: in an ideal world, he said, he would also remove Syrskyi, yet could not do it then because it would disrupt military operations.

A week later, after protests continued and grew, he fired Syrskyi too.

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Caine: A Ukrainian F-16 recently achieved its first air-to-air kill against a Russian fighter, showing how far its layered defense has advanced.

Ukraine’s defense industry has made remarkable progress, scaling capabilities from surface-to-air to air-to-air systems. 1/ Caine: Cheap, widely available drones give states, terrorists, and other actors lethal technology at scale.
Ukraine shows we must adapt these lessons. Modern war spans land, sea, air, space, cyber, and the information domain at once. 2X

Applebaum: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner negotiated with Russia over Ukraine while discussing mineral, oil and gas deals for connected US companies. They were not bargaining for Ukrainian security or America's European allies. That is a profound abuse of American power. 1/ Applebaum: The Trump administration is not withdrawing from the world. In Ukraine, it is trying to broker an end to Russia's war while negotiators seek business gains. US power is being used for the clique controlling Washington, not for alliances or peace. 2X

Applebaum: Russian occupation in Crimea and eastern Ukraine immediately changed the laws, arrested Ukrainian speakers, expelled opponents and rewrote schools, curricula and language. That is how freedom can disappear overnight under invasion. 1/ Applebaum: Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea repeated the Soviet occupation playbook. Disguised troops arrived, local criminal groups were put in charge, institutions were captured and a disinformation campaign concealed the invasion until Moscow admitted it. 2X

Applebaum: Russia could not continue its war against Ukraine without Chinese components, North Korean troops and Iranian drones. These states exchange military technology, improve it and send it back. They are not close friends, but their cooperation is real. 1/ Applebaum: Russia undermines European democracies because their freedom offers Russians a threatening alternative. China applies the same logic to democratic Taiwan through political pressure, economic coercion, military threats and disinformation. 2X

Ukraine’s new Commander-in-Chief is Mykhailo Drapatyi, 43.

In 2014, his BMP smashed through a pro-Russian barricade in Mariupol.

That year, he also led 260 soldiers and 30+ vehicles out of the Izvaryne pocket, driving 160 km under Russian artillery fire.

1/ He later commanded the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade and fought in Avdiivka and along the Bakhmut highway.

In 2021, Drapatyi received the Queen’s Sword of the United Kingdom as the best graduate of the operational-strategic level at Ukraine’s National Defense University.

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McFaul: Putin is finally realizing he will not take Donbas. He has tried since 2014.

His soldiers cannot take it, and Trump will not hand it to him. If that is off the table, Putin may accept the current lines. Tragically but necessarily, Zelenskyy would take that deal.

1/ McFaul: Putin will fight through winter because he thinks Ukrainian society is exhausted.

He hit energy infrastructure, and this will be Ukraine’s hardest winter by far. But he is wrong if he thinks Ukrainians will protest Zelenskyy and force him to end the war.

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McFaul: I know these oligarchs. Do not put Melnichenko on a cover as some dissident.

My friends like Navalny and Boris Nemtsov were killed by the man Melnichenko still makes money with every day. He is not an insider, not a split in the regime, and not a path to change.

1/ McFaul: That interview oversold Melnichenko’s message. But if he says those things, Putin wants us to hear them.

In that system, no interview happens unless Putin and the Kremlin approve every word. Russia is more totalitarian than the late Soviet Union I lived in.

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McFaul: People thought time was on Putin’s side: more soldiers, more money, the West losing interest.

The Trump administration cut U.S. aid to Ukraine nearly to zero. But today, I don’t know anyone who still thinks time favors Putin. Momentum has shifted to Ukraine.

1/ McFaul: Ukraine may not have the capability to liberate all its territory now. But Russia loses about 1,000 soldiers a day and makes no real gains in the green season.

Ukraine holds the line and uses new drones for deep strikes inside Russia. Momentum has shifted to Ukraine.

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Trump lifted CAATSA sanctions on Turkey to reopen F-35 sales, erasing the penalty Ankara earned by buying Russia's S-400 air defense system.

That decision tells every buyer of Russian arms that CAATSA is now a bargaining chip Washington plays selectively — Foreign Policy. 1/ Congress passed CAATSA in 2017 with bipartisan support, and Trump himself signed it into law during his first term.

It lets the president punish any government or company running major arms deals with Russia', from Rosoboronexport down to a single named buyer. 2/

German lobbyists and ex-politicians Ronald Pofalla and Matthias Platzeck are keeping a back channel to Putin’s circle.

Through meetings in Baku and Abu Dhabi, Moscow gets a private route into Germany’s SPD and CDU, — The Times. 1/ Last week, Pofalla and Platzeck met Putin associates in Baku. Russian participants included Valery Fadeyev, who heads Putin’s civil society council, and Viktor Zubkov, former deputy PM and Gazprom board chair. 2/

Europe Is Back in 1952. France and Germany are competing over weapons again — just when Europe needs them to build defense together against Russia, De Gruyter for FP. 1/ European countries still rely heavily on US defense firms: $68bn spent in 2024, compared with an average of $11bn between 2017 and 2021.

But Europe’s main internal problem is now the Franco-German rift. 2/

Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces commander Madyar:

First, NATO should build a buffer zone along every border.

Call it a drone work zone, not a kill zone. From 0 to 5 km, enemy movement must become impossible under a drone shield.

1/ Madyar: Second: run a fiber-optic grid into that zone. It should connect UAV launch pads to command posts far from the front.

One operator should not fly one drone. From a command post, one operator must be able to launch 5, 10 or 15 drones on the front line.

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Graham’s “hellish sanctions” got less hellish.

The bill drops automatic 500% tariffs on buyers of Russian energy. The new version lets Trump set tariffs up to 100% and delay some sanctions for 180 days, Babel.

1/ India buys Russian oil and sells a $100 product to the US.

Under the old bill, the US importer would pay an extra $500 tariff.That $100 product would cost $600.

The White House opposed automatic sanctions and 500% tariffs on partner countries.

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Yevhen Khmara appointed acting Defence Minister of Ukraine. Here is what we know about him.

Khmara, 40, led the liberation of Snake Island, helped plan Operation “Spider Web,” and commanded one of the top 3 most effective units in the army — Special Operations Center “A”.

1/ At the start of the full-scale invasion, Khmara served in the liberation of Kyiv region and carried out combat missions in Donetsk.

On January 5, 2026, he was appointed acting head of the Ukrainian Security Service, replacing Vasyl Maliuk.

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Russia is firing missiles faster than its factories build them. In 19 days of July, it launched 20 Zircons out of the 30 it is expected to produce in all of 2026.

It spent two-thirds of the year's planned Zircon output already, drawing on its reserve — United24. 1/ Alongside those 20 Zircons, Russia fired 107 ballistic missiles between July 1 and 19, counted from daily reports by Ukraine's Air Force and regional air commands.

That ballistic total alone already surpassed what Russia's factories are estimated to build in a full month. 2/

Palantir CEO Karp: Without AI systems, Russia would have won.

Without these technologies, Europe would face rampant terror attacks, and pro-Putin parties would run Europe. Europe as we know it exists because these tools are already in use.

1/ Karp: I will not support any party that sympathizes with Putin or the CCP.

These parties are complex, but they include people I suspect would not like me very much.

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