Putin says Ukraine must give up Zaporizhzhia region.

DeepState: Russia controls slightly more than 2/3 of the region.

But on the strategically important Orikhiv axis, Russian forces have had no major success since April, — Babel.
1/ Russian forces are about 20 km from Zaporizhzhia in some areas of the front.
They launch over 800 strikes on the city every day, mostly with FPV drones. Their closest positions are now from the Stepnohirsk direction.
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Holger Neumann, chief of the German air force: We are ready to fight Russia tonight if Moscow attacks any NATO ally.

We will go in with everything we have, in the air force and across NATO, to defend our country, our population, and our alliance — The Telegraph. 1/ Neumann: It must be clear, there are no zones of different security. NATO is NATO, down to the last inch.
We have to make a very strong effort to over watch and, if required, act along certain regions. 2/

Ukraine is sealing Crimea off from land and sea. In mid-June, drones struck the bridges at Chonhar, Henichesk, Myrne, and Armyansk, the links to the mainland.

Robert Brovdi, commander of Unmanned Systems Forces: “Ukraine will fully isolate it soon”— United24. 1/ Ukraine is closing the sea routes too. Naval drones wait around Crimea, block shipping, and have hit several ferries. Some now launch their own drones and strike aerial targets.

The fuel shortage runs so deep that Russian mobile teams lack the petrol to hunt those drones. 2/

A Russian soldier kept Sofia, Ukrainian, for over a year as a sex prisoner — holding her in a flat with bars on the balcony, boarded-up windows, locked doors, and padlocks.

He took her phone, left food, and returned there only to rape her — The Times. 1/ She was 21. She lived with her disabled mother and two younger brothers in a village in Kharkiv region. When Russian troops occupied it, one soldier began harassing her. She refused. 2/

In May 2025, ten Ukrainian drone operators wiped out a British tank battalion of 17 armoured vehicles in half a day during a NATO exercise in Estonia.

Britain has 8,000 drones. Ukraine uses 200,000 a month. Russia produces 15 million a year. UK wouldn’t be able to defend itself, The Times.
1/ Retired four-star general Deverell: "The MoD has bought drones numbered in the low thousands. That's like a day's worth of drones in modern conflict.
Could British forces defend themselves today? Against a threat a decade ago — probably yes. Today, I'm afraid the answer is no."
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Ex-US ambassador to Ukraine, Taylor: Putin likely expected Trump to pressure Zelenskyy into accepting Moscow’s view. That has not happened.

Zelenskyy is more confident because he knows, war ends only when enough pressure is put on Putin, not when Ukraine is pushed to concede. 1/ Taylor: Territorial concessions are off the table. Russia illegally occupies about 19% of Ukraine, that is a fact, but Ukraine and its partners will not give that occupation legal standing.

They will never recognize Russia’s claim or turn aggression into lawful territory. 2/

A Russian militant known as “Grom” raped filmmaker and journalist Alisa Kovalenko for four days.

Before that, militants beat and interrogated her. They threatened to cut off her fingers and teeth.

Alisa was 27. She came to Donbas to film the start of Russia’s war, UP.

1/ Ukrainska Pravda tells the stories of people from occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Makiivka, Yasynuvata and other cities who refused to live under the Russian tricolor.

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Guards beat Russian mathematician Azat Miftakhov on the soles of his feet, threatened him with rape and shocked him with electricity in Kharp, the Arctic prison where Navalny died.

His global fame both shields him and marks him as a target inside — The Moscow Times. 1/ Police raided a Moscow State University dormitory in February 2019 and detained Miftakhov, then 25 and a fourth-year graduate mathematics student, with 11 others.

At the police station he slit his wrists to avoid abuse. Officers tortured him with a screwdriver anyway. 2/

Sen. Mark Kelly: We got here because in 2018 Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA and got America into an unauthorized war with Iran.

All it has done for Americans is drive up costs, energy, gasoline and food, while people are already struggling to afford life. 1/ Kelly: Secretary Hegseth told the Armed Services Committee it will take years to rebuild U.S. munitions stockpiles.

So yes, America has a munitions problem. When you attack over 10,000 targets from the air, you use a lot of weapons. 2/

Kasparov: With Trump, it is hard to separate reality from fantasy because he constantly blurs that line.

If the Iran deal is signed in the form being discussed, it would not be a peace breakthrough, it would be a catastrophe for America and Israel. 1/ Kasparov: Such a deal may be a tactical gift to opposition forces in America and Israel, but strategically it is a defeat for both countries.

For America, it shows that all the talk about U.S. power has turned out to be empty noise. 2/

Russia recruits teenage Ukrainian girls to kill Ukrainian servicemen. Police chief Vyhivskyi: six cases of contract killings via Telegram this year, one prevented.

A 17-year-old was arrested in Zhytomyr after poisoning a soldier. — Reuters.

1/ The scheme: recruiters find young women on messaging platforms, promise easy money, pay for apartment rentals to meet soldiers.

Then instruct them where to obtain methadone — a synthetic opioid lethal in high doses — for lacing drinks.

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Zelenskyy: Trump said very right things about Crimea today. That this war started in 2014, with the occupation of Crimea, and if the leadership had been better then, the war wouldn’t have started.

We agreed to meet in the coming days. Also with Europeans and G7.

1/ Zelenskyy: The UK arrested a Russian shadow fleet tanker today. This year, Europeans arresting Russian tankers has become a tradition.

Oil must stop. To stop the war in Ukraine. Thank you UK!

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Snyder: The U.S. is not just unreliable, it is behaving strangely.

Allies like Romania, Poland, Taiwan and South Korea expect America to save resources for serious moments, not waste munitions, reputation and focus on wars it cannot explain. 1/ Snyder: Trump wants to be Putin but cannot. He wants Putin’s money, Putin’s ability to fight wars, Putin’s power.

But he lacks the patience, attention span and competence and he is afraid of American public opinion. 2/

Snyder: Right-wing populism claims to defend the nation, but often hurts it by pulling the country away from the European Union.

What looks like nationalism often becomes cooperation with far-right oligarchy across borders. 1/ Snyder: The foreign policy of right-wing populists is predictable: Trump, AfD, Orban, again and again, they are pro-Putin.

That is not in Romania’s interest, or in the interest of any state threatened by Russian imperial aggression. 2/

Sen. Mark Kelly: Odessa’s port is critical, around 40–50% of Ukraine’s economy goes out through it.

Russia is aggressively attacking Odessa because that port is a huge source of revenue, and Crimea gives Moscow easy access to strike it. 1/ Kelly: The night I spent in Odessa, five Shahed drones came in and all were intercepted.

We toured a bunker at the port; 48 hours later Russia hit it with a drone or cruise missile. Being there shows what Ukrainians live through every day. 2/

Sen. Mark Kelly: Every Ukrainian I spoke to felt more positive about the future. I think it is fair to say right now Ukrainians are winning.

Russia usually launches bigger offensives this time of year, but they are struggling and the momentum is shifting. 1/ Kelly: Russia is losing upwards of 35,000 troops every month.

Ukraine is trying to push that closer to 50,000, and Russia is having a hard time replacing killed and wounded troops. This is becoming a very challenging time for Putin’s army. 2/

Madyar, Ukraine’s top drone commander: We will isolate Crimea. Striking vehicles on that highway is as easy as shooting partridges in an open field.

Military personnel and defense workers will find it impossible to remain there or use access routes to it.

1/ Madyar: The pain felt in every Ukrainian town should now be felt in the consciousness of Crimea's residents too.

Ukraine has not and will not strike civilians — unlike Russia's accusations, which are false.

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Russia could be ready to invade NATO by 2029 or earlier — Germany’s army chief Christian Freuding, Politico.

Russia is expanding military infrastructure near Finland, Norway, and the Baltic region. 1/ Europe has raised defense budgets since the full scale invasion of Ukraine. But procurement, stockpiles, and production capacity move slowly.

The gap between spending plans and usable capability is the operational problem. 2/

Fiona Hill: Autocracies see the state as strong and society as irrelevant. Individuals have no real role.

The fundamental difference with democracies is that societies still matter and in Ukraine, society has shown extraordinary resilience. 1/ Hill: In Ukraine, strong society is beating strong state.

The state was weak and messy, but society mobilized, networked, flattened hierarchies and worked with the military. That is the opposite of Russia’s vertical, top-down system. 2/

Fiona Hill: Trump does not understand the complexity of the Middle East. Lebanon, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah and Ukraine are connected in different ways.

For him, it is simpler: deal with whoever is on top, negotiate with himself, and ignore advice. 1/ Hill: Trump weakens his own negotiating position every day because he tells Iran what he is thinking in real time.

Tehran has no incentive to make a deal when there is no certainty, no assurance and no clarity about what the outcome would be. 2/

Applebaum: What binds Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is not religion or ideology.

China is communist, Russia nationalist, Iran theocratic. What binds them is fear of liberal language: rights, rule of law, separation of powers and independent courts. 1/ Applebaum: Ukraine has changed how the war is fought. The front is now a 20-mile transparent zone where Ukrainian drones can see almost everything.

Every Russian truck, car or soldier entering that zone can be identified and hit. 2/