Applebaum: Trump is using a specific language from the 1930s: “enemies within,” “enemies of the people,” migrants and political opponents as “vermin,” migrants “poisoning the blood” of Americans.

That language comes from Hitler, Stalin and the Stasi. 1/ Applebaum: American politics has been racist before. Americans have called each other traitors and unpatriotic.

But calling people insects, vermin or parasites is different, it is language used by regimes that treat enemies as less than human. 2/

Garry Kasparov: Ukraine must win, and there is no other option for the future of Europe or the free world.

Putin is not on a trajectory to win. Ukraine has shifted the momentum, and the smart move now is to wait him out, The Telegraph. 1/ Kasparov: Conceding any land in Ukraine will only pause Putin's war machine for a while.

Then it keeps moving, past NATO's borders, into the Baltics, toward Europe's Western democracies. Giving up territory will not stop him. He wants Russia restored as a global superpower. 2/

Shtilierman, Firepoint co-founder: Our goal is a ballistic missile that can strike Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russia is a monocentric state. Everything is concentrated in Moscow. What happens in Volgograd, or Syzran has no impact on the elite. We need missile that can strike beyond 700 km. 1/ Shtilierman: We chose the path of simplifying and scaling fast. We use the same principle for missiles. The biggest mistake is saving money on R&D. Never buy one sample. Buy five. Even if one path has an 80% chance of success and the others 5%, develop all five at once. 2/

Putin could pay a personal price for failure in Ukraine. After four years he has not won, and defeat has ended more than one ruler in the Kremlin.

Russia has now fought longer than the Soviet Union fought Hitler, and this April it lost ground — Gideon Rachman, FT. 1/ The failure already reaches inside Russia. Moscow's main airports close often, mobile internet drops, and assassins have killed generals on the capital's streets.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries are pushing fuel prices up across the country. 2/

Commander of Ukraine's 3rd Corps Biletsky: Russia runs short on manpower — you feel it every month.

The meat waves that were normal 7-8 months ago are gone, even at the hottest sections of the front. And Ukraine now dominates the air — from the first trench to 200km deep.

1/ Biletsky: Russia failed winter, failed spring. In May they captured roughly 10km² — Ukraine gained more.

When you can't win on the battlefield, you terrorize women and children. The tactical shift is happening right now.

2/

Ukraine was supposed to have “no cards.” Now Putin is trapped in “zugzwang”.

Russia captured only 0.04% of Ukraine this year, lost territory in Apr, cut the Victory Day parade to 45 minutes, and now fears Ukrainian drones near Moscow, George Will for the WP. 1/ Zelenskyy turned Putin’s main war ritual into a security problem.

Ukraine “permitted” the May 9 parade by not striking Red Square, while fewer troops and vehicles appeared because Moscow feared drone attacks on staging areas. 2/

Sergei Magnitsky exposed a $200M Russian state tax fraud and was beaten to death in a Moscow prison in 2009.

His friend Jamison Firestone, who helped campaign for the Magnitsky Act, tells The Times the only way to beat Putin is to hand frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.

1/ The fraud: acquire companies that already paid large taxes, fabricate losses on paper, claim the taxes back as rebates.

When Magnitsky exposed it, authorities arrested him instead of the implicated officials.

2/

Blumenthal: Ukraine can win this war — if it has air defense interceptors to stop drones and hypersonic missiles.

Americans should understand: drone warfare technology advances at an astronomical pace. We learn from Ukraine as much as we help it.

1/ Blumenthal: The only way to get Putin to the table is strength. Interceptors, F-16s, long-range artillery.

Sanctions that choke his revenue. Show the US stands with Ukraine long term. That's how you get peace — not by going weak.

2/

Kasparov: The Ukrainian flag in Sevastopol was never a hyperbole for me.

It was a metaphor only in one sense: that flag must knock the imperial virus out of Russian consciousness. But I mean the actual Ukrainian flag over Sevastopol. 1/ Kasparov: I have no doubt this war ends with Ukraine’s flag in Sevastopol. The only question is timing.

Judging by what we now see, those timelines may be far more acceptable than they once seemed. 2/

Russia's war spending can exceed its budget by at least $28 billion this year. In a worst-case scenario — $56 billion over.

The Finance Ministry asked the cabinet to freeze $40 billion of planned civilian spending through 2028 to cover the shortfall, FT.

1/ Russia allocated $238 billion, nearly 40% of this year's entire budget, to defence and security. Still not enough.

In the first four months of 2026, Russia's deficit already hit 2.5% of GDP — the largest since the full-scale invasion began.

2/

Ukraine hit Rosneft's Saratov oil refinery in southwestern Russia.

The plant processes 7 million tons of crude per year and produces fuel for Russia's military. This is the third strike on it this year. — Bloomberg. 1/ The same night, Ukraine hit an oil-pumping station on the Surgut-Gorky-Polotsk pipeline in central Russia's Kirov region.

Russia's Defense Ministry said 216 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight.

2/

Russia declared it had captured all of Luhansk. Ukrainian drones answered by striking Izvaryne, the crossing on the Russian border that funnels armor, ammunition, and troops into the region.

The deepest strike landed 205 km inside occupied territory — Kyiv Post. 1/ Izvaryne is the primary artery moving heavy equipment and reinforcements from mainland Russia to the Donbas front.

Cut it, and resupply into occupied Luhansk slows for thousands of Russian troops. 2/

Valery Zaluzhnyi, former Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces:

“It is impossible to create a reliable counterbalance to Russia in the Black Sea without Ukraine.” — Interfax. 1/ Ukraine’s participation in shaping the future security space in the region is only possible through membership in a political and security alliance. 2/

Sen. Chris Murphy: Trump does not want to do what is necessary to support Ukraine, and Republicans follow his lead.

A bipartisan Russia sanctions bill has sat for a year and a half because Trump will not let Senate Republicans move it. 1/ Murphy: Congress allocated $400 million to help Ukraine, and Trump has not spent a dime of it despite loud public and private protests from Senate Republicans.

He has decided he does not want to help Ukraine, and Republicans lack the courage to fight back. 2/

Bolton: The ceasefire has been a gift from God to the Iranian regime.

If Trump will not return to full-scale military activity, the minimum is clear: open the Gulf Arab side of Hormuz, get Arab oil and gas out, and keep Iranian exports blocked. 1/ Bolton: When diplomats say “sequencing” is the only problem, hold on to your wallet.

It usually means there is a much bigger problem they are trying to obscure. 2/

Bolton: Trump is getting what he wants, a deal about gasoline prices at the pump. He worries about inflation and November.

But this is not a deal that ends the war in a satisfactory way for the U.S. If Iran’s regime survives, we will be right back where we started. 1/ Bolton: If Iran’s regime survives and the Strait reopens, Tehran will sell more oil, gain more revenue and entrench itself in power.

It will get time to rebuild its nuclear program, its military and its terrorist proxies. 2/

While Russia fights in Ukraine, it loses Armenia.

Babel: June 7— Armenian parliamentary elections. First since Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 while Russian peacekeepers did nothing.

Pashinyan runs on: no CSTO, EU visa-free, peace deal with Azerbaijan and Turkey. 1/ Pashinyan shifted positions multiple times. In 2021 he called Russia a strategic ally.

Now he wears a pin shaped like Armenia’s map — without Karabakh. He says Karabakh was never Armenian land. He once said: “Artsakh is Armenia, period.” 2/

For 15 years Russia kept two Tu-142 patrol aircraft parked at the Taganrog plant, too deep in the rear for Ukraine to reach.

This spring Russia moved them. Ukrainian drones destroyed both within weeks — United24. 1/ Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces hit the two aircraft overnight on May 30 near Taganrog, in Russia's Rostov region.

The Tu-142 is a long-range patrol aircraft built from the Soviet Tu-95 bomber to hunt submarines and shadow navies. 2/

Ukraine's military intelligence says its strike drones now fly 3,500 km, far enough to reach every target in Russia up to the Urals and nearly to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.

The previous record was 1,750 km, set in Feb 2026. The reach has doubled — 24 Channel. 1/ That record came in Feb 2026, when Ukraine's SBU drones hit the Lukoil refinery in Komi, then the deepest strike of the war.

The new reach opens Siberian industry to the same drones already hitting Russia's western refineries. 2/

Zelenskyy: Lifting sanctions helps Russian soldiers and Russia’s defense industry.

Russians do not understand words or emotions; they see that as weakness. That is why we must be strong and put sanctions on them. 1/ Zelenskyy: Russia stole thousands of Ukrainian children. We know about 20,000 by name and have brought back only 2,200, around 10%.

Russia even proposed exchanging children for soldiers. That proves they stole the children. 2/

Zelenskyy: Russia is preparing another big attack with drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

People must be very careful and use shelters. The last massive strike had more than 600 Iranian Shaheds and around 90 missiles. 1/ Zelenskyy: Russia uses drone incidents toward Romania, Poland,

Moldova and the Baltics as political and military pressure on NATO. Putin is watching the reaction and testing the air defense of countries bordering Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. 2/