Ukraine is playing by its own rules in the US game. The US asked Kyiv to stop striking Russian energy facilities. On April 5 Ukrainian drones hit a Lukoil refinery near St Petersburg anyway, writes The Telegraph. 1/ A 30-drone barrage hit the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region — 250 miles east of Moscow. Two facilities were damaged. Photographs showed large flames and explosions lighting up the night sky. 2/

Trump's land-for-security-guarantees formula for Ukraine has stalled. Russia won't stop at the Donbas. It wants to block Ukraine from Western weapons.

Ukraine won't surrender the "fortress belt" and become more exposed — Samuel Charap and Jennifer Kavanagh, Foreign Affairs.

1/ Negotiations have proceeded on separate tracks. US-Ukraine, US-Russia, Europe-Ukraine.

No meeting has included Russia, Ukraine, the US and Europe together. This creates misunderstandings and makes it impossible to identify terms all parties accept.

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Lesson for Ukraine from Ray Dalio: We must be strong and ready to endure Russia’s pressure.

Dalio: No country enforces global rules — conflicts spread. Wars are decided by endurance. The US is strongest, but with 750+ bases it’s overstretched — and Iran war is testing that.

1/ Dalio defines today’s wars as one system: Russia–Ukraine–US–Europe, Israel–Gaza–Iran, and Yemen–Sudan conflicts run at the same time. Nuclear states sit inside these wars, and trade, tech, and capital fights connect them.

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Keane: I do not trust the Iranians at all. Trump does not trust them either. He knows they are liars and cheaters.

My preference would have been to keep the war going as leverage. A ceasefire takes pressure off them, and that is exactly what they wanted from the start. 1/ Keane: The deal has to take away everything military force took from Iran. Number one is nuclear enrichment.

That was the issue at the start. We will know quickly if Tehran is serious when we get to the fine points of the deal, the verification, and the concessions they make. 2/

Tucker: Easter morning should have been about resurrection, peace, and victory over death.

Instead Trump threatened power plants and bridges in Iran. Civilian infrastructure, blackouts, refugees and dead noncombatants — including over a million Christians who live in Iran. 1/ Tucker: Millions of Christians backed Trump not because he was pious, but because he looked like a protector — of religious liberty, of Christians, of the unborn.

I think the first moment they should have stopped and asked what this really was came on Jan. 4, over Venezuela. 2/

A Russian artillery shell fired in August 2024 carried a message: “Subscribe to Russians With Attitude.”

The podcast has 422,000 followers on X — mostly American far-right. The Kyiv Independent unmasked the two men behind it. Both fundraised for sanctioned Russian neo-Nazi units. 1/ One lived in Germany for most of his life. Both fundraised for sanctioned Russian neo-Nazi units while building a massive English-language audience. 2/

"Ukraine survived this difficult winter because we had Patriots.
We constantly ask for more. If we're left without these critically needed rockets, Russians will destroy our critical infrastructure," says Yuriy Ignat, head of communications for the Ukrainian air force in The Times. 1/ Russia has changed tactics. For the past two weeks it has been launching massive drone swarms during daylight hours — some lasting up to 24 hours, using as many as 1,000 drones in a single attack. The goal: drain Ukraine's Patriot missile stocks and exhaust interceptor teams. 2/

Ukraine launched more attack drones than Russia.

For the first time since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, writes United24.

Zelenskyy: Never before in history has Ukrainian defense been so long-range and so tangible for Russia. 1/ The numbers: Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 7,347 Ukrainian drones in March — a record for the entire war, averaging 237 per day. 2/

NATO is on the edge. America may walk out.
Trump called allies “cowards”.

Rubio — who co-wrote the 2023 law blocking unilateral NATO exit — now calls the alliance “a one-way street” and demands a full re-examination after the Iran war, writes The Economist. 1/ Spain shut its bases and airspace to US forces attacking Iran. Italy blocked American planes from a Sicilian base. France barred US military aircraft from its airspace entirely. Britain allowed base access only to protect neighboring countries — not to fight. 2/

Ukrainian artillery is now guided by FPV drones mid-flight. A drone flying its own mission, spots a target — and corrects artillery fire in real time.

Colonel Dovhal, 147th Artillery Brigade: "We no longer chase a moving enemy. We fire ahead of him. — Oboronka.

1/ Reconnaissance drones transformed artillery. Operators now see strike results in real time and adjust fire.

Large drones like Shark and Gor reach 30–50 km deep.

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Zelenskyy: We proposed to Russia a ceasefire for Easter. But for them all times are the same.

There is nothing sacred to them. If Russia can afford this war and finance it, it will not move toward peace on its own. That is why pressure on the aggressor cannot drop. 1/ Zelenskyy: Our long-range sanctions are working. They are cutting Russian revenues, above all oil revenues.

Only serious financial losses force Russia to think about an exit from the war. Everything Russia earns from shock oil prices, it will pour back into war. 2/

Trump spent his first year back in office imposing tariffs on Europe, threatening to withdraw US troops, and flirting with NATO exit. Europe wants to reduce its dependence on Washington.

But the US accounts for over 20% of European exports — Jacob Kirkegaard, Foreign Affairs. 1/ Two-thirds of Europe's cloud market runs on Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Three quarters of European firms run on US software.

Visa and Mastercard handle roughly two-thirds of card transactions in the euro area. 2/

DW: Ukrainians bring a lot of expertise in UK. They are showing the British how they operate drones.

"Our partners have a certain understanding of drones, but they have not encountered them. They don't fully understand how drones affect the battlefield, how intense it is.” 1/ Ukrainian serviceman: A Ukrainian warrior is an intellectual warrior. He knows why he's going to the front. He knows what he has to do at the front. This is in contrast to the Russian soldier who doesn't know why he's there, who gets sent there by Putin. 2/

Orbán has vetoed more EU decisions than any leader in the bloc's history.

On April 12, Hungarians vote in what may end his 16-year grip on power — AP News. 1/ "He entered a club, read the rules, figured out how he can rig the rules, and then started to blackmail all of the other club members" — Dániel Hegedűs, Institute for European Politics. 2/

Syrskyi: Russia gets about $700M a day from oil, and that money finances the war.

Our strikes on refineries, Ust-Luga, Primorsk, and missile plants are strategic actions. They cut export capacity, hit military production, and reduce the aggressor’s offensive potential. 1/ Syrskyi: There is no instant straight line from a strike on Ust-Luga to a trench in the east.

But the effect builds over time: fuel delays, disrupted deliveries, tanks that do not arrive, missiles that do not fly, and a smaller stockpile for Russia’s war machine. 2/

Syrskyi: Since Jan. 29, we have been conducting an offensive operation on the Oleksandrivsk direction.

As of today, we have liberated more than 480 sq. km. Those actions forced Russia to change plans and shift part of its forces from the Pokrovsk direction. 1/ Syrskyi: Russia advertised a “spring offensive.” In reality, it never stopped attacking. But its plans were disrupted. Pokrovsk still stands.

Every day the enemy attacks, takes losses, rolls back, and ends with dead and wounded — but no success. 2/

Bolton: We need to accelerate opening the Strait of Hormuz. We need to tell China it is not getting another barrel of oil from the Gulf.

We need to blockade the strait so no more Iranian oil gets out. And we need to keep going after regime leaders and the Revolutionary Guard 1/ Bolton: I think the regime is beginning to fracture.

And let’s be clear: what we have seen so far shows why the only path to lasting peace and security is to get rid of the regime itself. We should be doing a lot more to help the regime’s opponents inside Iran. 2/

Trump: Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home.

If it were up to me, I'd take the oil, I would make plenty of money.

I'd also take care of the people of Iran much better than they've been taken care of. They've killed 45,000 protesters. 1/ Trump: We sent guns, a lot of guns [to Iran]. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back.

The people they sent them to, kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun, I think I'll keep it. I'm very upset with a certain group of people. 2/

Russia is moving missile production facilities deeper into its territory.

Ukraine's drone and missile campaign forces the Kremlin to retreat from strike range

Kyiv's long-range strategy is working, — The Telegraph. 1/ Roscosmos, Russia's space agency heavily involved in missile production, will relocate facilities from Moscow region to Omsk in Siberia and Perm near the Urals — both far beyond Ukraine's current strike range. 2/

How exactly did Ukrainian troops "fuck" NATO during Hedgehog drill?

Daily Mail: First, NATO troops didn't check the roads, some blew up on mines. Next, they got spotted by drones.

Attack drones hit several vehicles at once when parked too close, and hit tanks on the move.

1/ Ukrainian pilots destroyed 17 armored vehicles in a few hours, and defeated 6000 NATO soldiers in 4 days, defending their position.

One NATO commander said: “We are fu**ed”.

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Korcok, former Slovakia FM: For me, pragmatism means nothing when Fico is betraying the national interests of Slovakia.

He is losing credibility, has no influence within the European Union, and is destroying the credibility of Slovakia. 1/ Korcok: Fico is misleading the public. It is ridiculous to say Ukraine damaged the pipeline.

The cause is Russian aggression and the consequence is that the EU decided to stop taking Russian oil and gas.

While Fico is missing Russian oil, Zelenskyy is missing peace. 2/