Keane: If kinetic operations resume, everyone influencing them is target one.

The [Hormuz] blockade is holding, the US now has twice the power in the region it had when the war started, and Israel is replenished. That is why the blow available now is absolutely significant. 1/ Keane: Tehran thinks it made progress by forcing the US into a pause and ceasefire after closing Hormuz.

That only encourages it to drag the talks out. In its mind, the longer this runs, the more pressure builds on Trump to make concessions he never wanted to make. 2/

Ukraine Def. Minister Mykhailo Fedorov: cut Russia’s Starlink access, signed a record Patriot missile contract, bought more drones in one quarter than in all of last year, launched an AI center, reorganized the MoD and started an audit of the defense-industrial complex. 1/ Three months of new leadership — Fedorov for United24. First move: together with SpaceX, they cut Russia’s access to Starlink terminals. The Russian army lost communications for managing Shahed drones. 2/

Surrendering Donetsk Oblast without a fight means strategic suicide for Ukraine.

If Ukraine withdraws, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts become immediately vulnerable with no urban areas to anchor defenses, writes Mykola Bielieskov in Kyiv Independent. 1/ The Kremlin framed withdrawal from northwest Donetsk Oblast as a minor concession for peace. Trump largely accepted this framing.

The result: the White House now casts Zelenskyy’s defense of Ukrainian territory as the main obstacle to a ceasefire. 2/

North Korea has 50 nuclear bombs and enough material to build 40-50 more. It has 20 delivery systems including ICBMs that reach the US. Denuclearization has failed across 7 US administrations, Time for a new strategy, writes Victor Cha in FA. 1/ In 2006 at the six-party talks in Beijing, a North Korean diplomat told Cha directly: “We will never give up our nuclear weapons.”

The US attacked Afghanistan and Iraq because they had no nuclear weapons. North Korea was not willing to tempt the same fate. 2/

“I am Ukrainian. If you [Russians] come here, I will have no choice but to kill every one of you who signs a contract.”

A Ukrainian soldier crashed a Russian university recruitment Zoom call in Krasnodar after posing as a Russian drone officer — The Telegraph. 1/ “The front line has barely moved in four years and Russia’s invasion created “a cemetery the size of two countries. Any Russian who steps onto Ukrainian soil will be killed.” 2/

Europe’s economy runs on American infrastructure.

iPhones powered by Apple and Google, cloud from Amazon and Microsoft, payments via Visa and Mastercard, LNG from the US replacing Russian gas — core systems are controlled by US firms, The Economist. 1/ European companies failed to compete at home.

Strict regulation slowed local firms, while US tech scaled globally and captured European markets — even governments rely on Palantir for data and SpaceX for satellites. 2/

Kasparov: Trump made the worst geopolitical mistake by separating Iran from Ukraine.

He openly sides with Putin against Ukraine while attacking Iran, even though the drones hitting US bases and Gulf allies were Iranian designs whose effectiveness was improved by Russia. 1/ Kasparov: At the UN, America no longer votes with Ukraine and Europe. It votes with Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua and North Korea.

That is shame beyond imagination. US reputation has been damaged so badly that I am not sure the next president will be able to restore it quickly. 2/

Kasparov: There is no diplomacy. Trump’s only priorities are glory and money.

That is why, instead of professional diplomats and experts, he relies on his son-in-law and Witkoff — a man with zero diplomatic experience and, I’m sure, plenty of experience soliciting bribes. 1/ Kasparov: There was no process behind the Iran war, because process implies strategy. We heard at least four different reasons for it: regime change, uranium, oil.

You do not start a war against a serious enemy like Iran with no plan. The objectives change every hour. 2/

China is expanding into Russian-occupied Ukraine. Its firms handle cash-yuan trade at 80 Donbas bank branches and ship mining equipment and heavy trucks across the occupied territory.

Beijing officially does not recognize the occupation — United24. 1/ Large state-owned Chinese corporations avoid the region to dodge secondary sanctions. Medium-sized private firms fill the gap.

Chinese students and community leaders based in Russia act as intermediaries, keeping ties with manufacturers back home. 2/

The US-Israeli war on Iran is a gift to Moscow and Beijing.

Russia and China are feeding Iran a full kill chain — imagery and signals intelligence for targeting US and Israeli forces, plus damage assessment after the strikes — Jon B. Alterman and Ali Vaez, Foreign Affairs. 1/ Moscow and Beijing see the Ukraine playbook in reverse. The US has tied down Russia for four years at a cost of tens of billions.

Now they want the US mired in a simmering Gulf war that drains American resources and erodes its standing. 2/

Stubb: If Russia fired missiles at 12 European countries, we’d call it world war.

Europe’s position is clear: keep the Strait of Hormuz open and defend freedom of navigation. Once there’s a ceasefire or deal, Europe can help monitor and secure it with allies. 1/ Stubb: Any Iran deal has four pillars: uranium enrichment, ending proxy groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis, limiting missiles, and securing the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran now sees Hormuz as leverage — a kind of economic nuclear weapon controlling 20% of global oil exports. 2/

Ukraine is producing drone unicorns worth over $1 bn The founders will be extraordinarily wealthy. The soldiers who fought for those companies to exist may return to bombed factories and destroyed housing.

After WWII the US faced the same problem — Mitzie Purdue in KyivPost. 1/ Dmytro Kavun, president of Dignitas Ukraine, has spent two decades in cybersecurity and works closely with Ukraine’s defense-tech ecosystem.

He says several Ukrainian drone companies are on track to reach billion-dollar valuations. US investors are eager to buy. 2/

Pentagon circulated options to punish NATO allies over the Iran war — including suspending Spain from the alliance and reconsidering US support for UK control of the Falkland Islands.

The proposals are already discussed at senior levels, Reuters. 1/ The trigger: allies refused basing, overflight, and access rights for US operations.

Spain blocked use of its bases and airspace. US officials call this the “absolute baseline” obligation inside NATO. 2/

Igor Bagnyuk works at Russia's General Staff. He programs ballistic missile trajectories. On Easter Monday his calculations killed two-year-old Hanna and her mother Daria Sapun in Odesa. Putin awarded him a medal, writes Andrew Chahоyan for Hromadske. 1/ Sixty years ago Hannah Arendt covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann — a Nazi official who organized deportations of Jews to death camps without killing anyone himself — and introduced the concept of the "banality of evil." 2/

Tykhyi, spokesman of Ukraine's FM: Orban's defeat is a signal to other parties and movements that anti-Ukrainian rhetoric does not work.

We showed the whole world that Ukraine is not an obstacle to negotiations, — Suspilne. 1/ Tykhyi: Russia continues to insist, in ultimatum form, on maximalist and unrealistic demands, such as unilateral withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donetsk region.

For this language to change, much more pressure is needed — both economic and on the battlefield. 2/

On his first-ever combat mission, a Ukrainian scout captured five Russian soldiers. He used the first POW to convince the other four to surrender from inside the bunker.

Scout callsign Vzhyk, had been a barista in Kyiv less than six months earlier — ArmyInform.

1/ Vzhyk: There was no fear. We planned everything. I knew if I gave in to emotions, mistakes would follow.

The first POW "Sem" climbed back into the bunker on Vzhyk's suggestion. Five minutes later all four came out. Sem handed over a Russian radio set.

2/

EU leaders signaled Ukraine can start the first stage of membership negotiations in the coming weeks.

But full membership remains years away. Croatia, the last country to join, took a decade, Bloomberg.

1/ The push gained momentum after Hungary lifted its veto on the €90 billion loan to Ukraine. Orban's election loss removed the main blocker.

Peter Magyar is expected to be sworn in as Hungary's new PM in early May.

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Russia's Communist Party leader, Zyuganov: If you don't urgently take measures, in autumn we'll face what happened in 1917 (revolution). We have no right to repeat that.

Putin's approval rating has slipped to 66%. The lowest since the full-scale invasion began — The Times.

1/ The Kremlin struggled to contain a viral video — 30 million views. Monaco-based Russian model Victoria Bonya accused officials of hiding the truth from Putin.

"People will stop being afraid. They're being squeezed into a coiled spring — and one day it will snap."

2/

Clearing the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian mines could take six months. And the operation won't start until the war ends, the Pentagon told Congress.

Gas prices could stay elevated through the midterm elections, The WP.

1/ Iran deployed 20+ mines in and around the strait. Some were floated remotely using GPS — making them difficult to detect as they move.

US forces have no confirmed plan yet. Options include helicopters, drones and explosive ordnance disposal divers.

2/

Kellogg: No more Mr. Nice Guy. Keep tearing apart Iran economically, and if that means going to the home base of Kharg Island, that’s what we’ll do.

You are looking for domestic revolt. That is the only way the regime falls or stops causing us problems. 1/ Kellogg: Break the impasse by breaking off negotiations. We’re done with these guys. Take a harder line.

If it means taking Kharg Island and the other islands in the strait, so be it. We have Marines offshore and the 82nd Airborne ready to move immediately. 2/

Budanov: Russia’s bigger loss is reputational. War sanctions may end someday, but doubts about Russia as a reliable supplier will last much longer.

Deliveries through the Black Sea and even the Baltic face major disruption.

1/ Budanov: Striking one target now often requires many drones as effectiveness drops under EW and air defenses. It’s a constant race.

The next leap must be AI, new communications, and better control systems — current methods are near their limit.

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