Ukrainians are currently teaching 18,000 NATO troops on the Swedish island of Gotland.

The Aurora 26 exercises bring together 12 NATO members and Ukraine as a tutor. Ukrainian soldiers are sharing their experience in drone warfare — Radio Svoboda.

1/ For Sweden, the Aurora 26 exercises are part of the process of deepening its integration within NATO, which it joined just two years ago.

Gotland provides a strategic location between mainland Sweden and the Baltic states to the East.

2/

Zelenskyy: Russia is considering plans for operations to the south and north of Belarusian territory, either against the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction in Ukraine or against one of the NATO countries directly from the territory of Belarus — Reuters. 1/ Russia has already deployed tactical nuclear warheads and Oreshnik hypersonic missiles in Belarus.

Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia all share the border. Both systems shorten Moscow's flight time to Warsaw, Vilnius, and Riga. 2/

Keane: China dominates the U.S. militarily in the region on every platform except submarines.

But deterrence is not platform-to-platform — it is forward capability and political will to impose costs and make Beijing doubt it can succeed. 1/ Keane: Xi has said for years he intends to take Taiwan. The goal is not only geopolitical — it is technological.

The world’s most advanced AI chips are made in Taiwan. Whoever owns that capability owns the future of AI. 2/

Budanov: Ukraine is fighting the most brutal war on the European continent since World War II.

By casualties, geography, and the range of weapons used, we are at the top. A bad “top,” but still the top. 1/ Budanov: Unity means uniting around the state. During war, it is not the time to undermine the hierarchy.

When media feeds only scandals and betrayal, the soldier in the trench starts asking: why am I here? 2/

Applebaum: Europe can give up — or it can fight back by building.

New technologies, new platforms, new rules, more transparency, and democratic control over data and algorithms can replace systems designed to divide and exploit us. 1/ Applebaum: Europe should lean into its achievements. It remains an oasis of security, stability and rule of law.

In a world of unpredictable powers, Europe’s predictability is an advantage. 2/

NATO war game ended with Russia cutting off the Baltics in 24 hours — because Germany froze politically while the US stayed out.

Retired Ukrainian Gen. Romanenko, playing Russia’s commander, says NATO’s biggest weakness was not troops but hesitation, FP. 1/ Scenario assumed a ceasefire in Ukraine by late 2026.

Russia rebuilt forces, left troops in Belarus after joint exercises, then used a “humanitarian crisis” in Kaliningrad as justification for escalation against Lithuania. 2/

NATO will press Europe's defence industry to invest without guaranteed contracts. Mark Rutte will ask Rheinmetall, Airbus, Safran, MBDA, Saab and Leonardo to scale production now.

This breaks the procurement model that has stalled European rearmament — Aaron Kirchfeld, FT. 1/ The meeting itself is unusual. Rutte meets defence executives regularly, but pulling this many top companies into one room is not routine.

NATO needs visible industrial expansion before the Ankara summit in July. 2/

A 12-year-old Ukrainian boy saved his siblings by doing something many soldiers fail to do under pressure.

Anatolii Prokhorenko grabbed a fiber-optic cable connected directly to Russia and stopped a drone seconds before it hit children playing near his house, The WP. 1/ The drone was hunting civilians.

Russia uses FPV drones to track and strike people biking, driving, walking, or standing near their homes in border regions — a tactic Ukrainians call “human safari.” 2/

Ukraine is fast-tracking FP-7.x Freya, a domestic anti-ballistic missile built to hunt Russia's Iskander-M.

Fire Point is welding it together from ready European components instead of waiting years for a from-scratch system — United24. 1/ The airframe draws on the Soviet 48N6 from the S-300/S-400 family, reworked with a new architecture, composite materials, and Western internals.

Speed — 1,500–2,000 m/s. Length — 7.25 m. Body diameter — 0.53 m. Chief designer — Denys Shtilerman. 2/

Russian Kh-101 cruise missiles that hit Kyiv this week were built in Q2 2026 and still packed with western chips.

One missile contained more than 100 western made components from Texas Instruments, AMD, Kyocera AVX, Nexperia, Harting — FT. 1/ Ukrainian officials and an independent missile expert reviewed debris from the apartment block strike that killed at least 24 people.

The photos match Kh-101 wreckage, including the turbofan and airframe. 2/

The EU is cutting steel import quotas by 47% from July 1, which could cost Ukraine up to €1 billion in lost export revenues.
Vodoviz, Metinvest: "They will completely kill any possibility of Ukrainian companies to deliver on the European market." — FT. 1/ Brussels will cut its steel import quota 47% from July 1 and add a 50% tariff on any additional imports. The measure was pushed by France, Spain and Poland in response to a glut caused by Chinese overproduction that has cost tens of thousands of jobs in European factories. 2/

Graham: Everything Obama and Biden did was designed to keep Iran to a civilian nuclear program.

There is no way they can have 60% highly enriched uranium unless they cheat. Everything you did failed. You allowed Iran to become a threshold nuclear nation. 1/ Graham: Did Iran shoot missiles at Diego Garcia?

Caine: Yes, sir.

Graham: Under the protocols we had, were they supposed to be able to do that?

Caine: Without reviewing the fine print, I believe the answer is no.

Graham: No, they weren’t. You failed there. 2/

Blinken: The Iran nuclear deal was not perfect, but it boxed the program in with intrusive inspections and pushed breakout time past a year.

Trump tore it up and replaced it with nothing. Iran went from more than a year to a few weeks. 1/ Blinken: Trump is constrained by two things: markets and munitions. Oil, gas, fertilizer, helium — this has moved from prices to actual availability.

The reserves and ships already on the water are now a very thin shock absorber. 2/

Cheap flights are ending. Spirit Airlines collapsed this month. Wizz Air short positions hit one-sixth of its shares.

Jet fuel doubled after the Iran war shut the Strait of Hormuz, nearly 40% of Europe's kerosene — Peter Campbell, Financial Times. 1/ Andrew Lobbenberg, airlines analyst at Barclays: "We have seen lots of crises — 9/11, Covid. This is the next Covid."

He predicts bankruptcies, mergers, and faster retirement of old aircraft. 2/

Ukraine's FP-1/2 long-range drone now flies into Crimea carrying two FPV drones strapped to its wings.

One FPV is fitted with a flat antenna that matches a compact Starlink terminal — United24. 1/ Russian sources filmed the downed mothership in a bay near occupied Crimea. The wings still held two attached FPV drones.

Analysts identified the antenna on one of them as Starlink-grade. 2/

Bolton: Leaving the Strait of Hormuz in Iran’s hands is unacceptable. It is an international waterway.

Iran cannot be allowed to impose hegemony over it — and the only way to stop that is militarily. 1/ Bolton: If Iran can turn control of Hormuz on and off like a light switch without paying a price, it will do it again.

Opening the strait militarily would remove Iran’s leverage and restore deterrence. 2/

Putin and Zelenskyy are both losing faith in Trump’s peace talks — but for opposite reasons.

Russia believes it can still win militarily. Ukraine believes it no longer has to accept a bad deal under US pressure after stabilizing the front, FT. 1/ Putin is shifting from negotiations back to territorial expansion.

Russian commanders told him they could seize all of Donbas by autumn, after which Moscow plans to raise demands further. 2/

Ukraine secretly launched a counterattack in southeastern Ukraine so compartmentalized that commanders feared soldiers’ online girlfriends could be Russian FSB agents.

Only 10 people in a 2,000-man brigade knew details 2 weeks before it began, The Kyiv Independent. 1/ The goal is to retake territory Russia seized in late 2025 before Moscow could fortify it.

Ukraine later claimed 400 km² recaptured in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro region during the winter-spring offensive. 2/

Defense analyst Michael Clarke: Militarily, this is simple. The US tried to hit Iran’s political center of gravity by decapitating the IRGC.

It did not work. Iran’s political center is now stronger. 1/ Clarke: The US could go into Hormuz, fight a battle and win, but there would be losses.

Trump is not prepared to take that cost, so America is trying to win from 400–500 miles away with robotics, drones and AI. 2/

McFaul: Iran has a good reason to think it did not lose.

Trump team declared Epic Fury over without achieving its major goals: no nuclear deal, no missile limits, no end to terror funding, no regime change. 1/ McFaul: If the Americans have already quit, Iran is in a strong negotiating position.

Now the whole discussion is about reopening Hormuz — something that was open before Epic Fury even started. That is perfect for Tehran. 2/

Last night Russia bombed Kyiv for 8 hours and killed 24 people.

Today it forced the city into air raid sirens again. KSE students ran to shelters four times during classes and came back to continue studying each time.

This is what university life in Kyiv looks like now. 1/ On May 14 Russia launched 1,560 drones at Ukraine in 24 hours — one of the largest drone attack since the start of the full-scale war.

Most of them hit Kyiv. Air raid sirens lasted from 00:50 until 8:43 a.m. 2/