“If Russia tried to seize Kyiv again, it would be the biggest bloodbath in world history. Two million drones would swarm over the tanks and burn them mercilessly.”

The Guardian: Madyar is Russia’s top assassination target after Zelenskyy. 1/ Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, leads the 414th brigade — the unit that has made Putin cancel tanks at this Saturday’s Victory Day parade for the first time in nearly 20 years. 2/

Trump expected another Venezuela — days, a toppled regime, a victory lap.

Instead Iran mined Hormuz, shut 20% of global oil flows, and turned gas prices and polls into the real front.

Iran does not need to win militarily. Iran needs to make the exit humiliating — The Atlantic. 1/ Trump can sell almost any paper as a win. He cannot sell a war with no ending.

The White House is still waiting for Iran to answer a one page memorandum that extends a cease fire, not a treaty. 2/

Applebaum: Ukrainian drone technology now lets Kyiv control the frontline almost completely.

Ukrainians can see everything, making it very hard for Russians to move, and, by Ukrainian counts, kill more Russians each month than Russia can recruit. 1/ Applebaum: Ukraine’s long-range drones are now repeatedly hitting major Russian targets far beyond the border.

Refineries, pumping stations, and other oil-and-gas infrastructure, producing huge black smoke and knocking big facilities out for long periods. 2/

Former Russian PM Kasyanov: There is no real threat to Putin's life from inner circle, but Putin is increasing his security because problems are growing.

Attitudes toward the war and Putin’s regime are changing. 62% of Russians want to stop the war and move to negotiations.

1/ Kasyanov: Victory Day has always been a major date for Putin, and he has used it a lot. The parade sends a strong signal to the world.

I think we may hear him speak about ending the war soon, but only on his own terms. Still, the situation is moving and changing.

2/

Putin: Russian soldiers are confronting an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc. And despite this, Russia’s heroes are moving forward.

The great feat of the victorious generation inspires our soldiers carrying out the special military operation today. 1/ Putin: No matter how military technology and methods of combat change, the main thing remains unchanged: people decide the fate of the country.

Russia’s success rests on moral strength, courage, valor, unity and the ability to endure any trial.

2/

Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi: Mobilization must change because war itself changed.

Drones and robotic systems reshaped the battlefield, making old mass-army models obsolete. For the first time in history, robots entered war at scale.

1/ Zaluzhnyi: Russia tried to break the battlefield deadlock with new technology and tactics, but the result stayed the same: old-style offensives in a machine war only turn soldiers into expendable manpower that constantly needs replacement.

2/

Xi believes time will deliver Taiwan. Each year, Beijing builds economic, military, and diplomatic leverage that he expects to make unification unavoidable.

The first major test comes in 2028 — Amanda Hsiao and Bonnie Glaser, Foreign Affairs. 1/ Beijing's confidence comes from 2025. It hit Trump's tariffs with rare-earth export curbs and watched Washington back down.

DeepSeek showed China can match US AI models at a fraction of the cost. 2/

Congressman Mike Levin: Ukraine adapted faster because necessity forced innovation.

Ukrainians built cheap drone-against-drone warfare, while the US still often spends missiles worth millions of dollars to destroy drones that cost only tens of thousands.

1/ Mike Levin: J.D. Vance does not represent all Americans or all of Congress on Ukraine.

Ukrainians continue to defend a free society under constant Russian attacks, and support for Ukraine still holds across much of Washington.

2/

Kasparov: If Ukraine had the technological ability to bring down the Kerch Bridge in Crimea, it could become the end of Putin.

The regime rests on symbols. While Putin is in power, the war will not end. 1/ Kasparov: Ukraine’s strikes now hit the money and infrastructure that keep Putin in power.

Kremlin elites lose profits, and Putin fears pressure inside his own circle. Moscow wants talks and sanctions relief to pause, regroup, and stabilize the regime. 2X

Kasparov: Russia will lose territories after the war. The North Caucasus will likely break away first.

China already eyes the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia — lands that belonged to China until 1860.

1/ Kasparov: Ukraine now hits the infrastructure that feeds Putin’s regime.

Oil, logistics, and industry keep the Kremlin elite rich. Putin can’t keep burning their money forever for a war that brings no victory.

2/

China built a system where the world’s second-largest economy runs through markets, but political power still flows through one man.

Xi Jinping made sure nobody inside the Communist Party can become a true No. 2, Deng Yuwen for Foreign Policy. 1/ Many outsiders now see Cai Qi as China’s de facto second-most powerful man because he controls Xi’s schedule, documents, meetings, information flow, and security.

But proximity to Xi is not the same as independent power. 2/

Russia planned to use Iran to kill Americans.

The plan involved training 10,000 students from Iran, Tajikistan and Syria to operate drones that would sink American landing ships and destroy personnel — The Economist. 1/ A ten-page GRU proposal prepared for the Iranian side contained three elements: 5,000 short-range fiber-optic drones that cannot be jammed, an unspecified number of long-range drones with Starlink terminals, and operator training. 2/

Putin is losing his grip on Russia.

Every move he makes to preserve power accelerates the system’s decay, writes a former senior official in the Russian government for The Economist. 1/ The first signal is language. As recently as spring 2025 officials, governors and businessmen spoke in terms of “we” and “ours.” Now they describe the actions of the authorities as “his” business. Not our project, not our agenda, not our war. 2/

Trump created the opposite of the Russian dream world.

Putin wanted a world where Russia ignores rules, but America follows them. Trump gave him the opposite: an America that also ignores rules.

Russia doesn't benefit — Hanna Notte, Foreign Affairs.

1/ Russia relied on the UN Security Council veto as its key lever of global power. Trump is now dismantling the UN — withdrawing from 66 international bodies, withholding dues, stripping funding.

Russia's veto becomes worthless in a system that no longer matters.

2/

Blumenthal: Iran has a lot of cards. Americans are paying much higher prices for gasoline, food and everything dependent on petrochemicals and plastics.

You can't count on war being quick and easy or base it on bombing alone. The costs of this war have yet to be fully felt. 1/ Blumenthal: A nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable. The President made a fundamental miscalculation that bombing alone would accomplish his objectives.

Those objectives have been shifting and contradictory. None has been achieved. 2/

Russian GRU opened its own Hogwarts — where students learn to hack servers, write viruses, produce disinformation videos and run propaganda campaigns.

The Insider reveals how Russia’s military intelligence trains its hackers. 1/ Department 4 is a secret faculty inside Bauman University in Moscow — 30,000 students, reputation of Russia’s MIT. The faculty’s name is deliberately meaningless: “Special Training.” 2/

Zelenskyy: Hungary returned $82m in Ukrainian cash and gold seized from Oschadbank.

Ukraine brought the staff home earlier, now the money and valuables also returned in full.

1/ The shipment included:

- $40m cash
- €35m cash
- 9 kg of bank gold

Oschadbank transported the assets from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank to Ukraine when Hungarian security services stopped the convoy on March 6 in Budapest. 2/

Russia spent 20 years attacking the “rules-based order.” Now Trump is dismantling it faster than Putin ever could.

This may hurt Moscow more than help it: Trump ignores Russia as an equal, weakens the UN[Russia holds veto] and could target allies like Cuba next, Notte for FA. 1/ Putin wanted Russia free from rules while the US stayed constrained by them.

That strategy worked only while Washington still followed the old system. 2/

Putin’s meat grinder update — Russia lost 35,203 troops in April alone with almost no territorial gains to show.

More than 70,000 Russian troops were killed or wounded in just 2 months of spring. No major Ukrainian city captured. Front lines largely unchanged, United24. 1/ Russia’s “spring offensive” stalled almost entirely in Donetsk.

More than 2/3 of Russian attacks are concentrated there, with losses exceeding 400 soldiers per km² while failing to fully occupy the region. 2/

Ukraine is building a Hague tribunal for Putin, Lukashenko, and Russia’s top leadership — while demanding over $1T in reparations from Russia.

Iryna Mudra, deputy head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office: “Accountability is not a subject of bargaining in peace talks,” EP. 1/ Russia repeatedly demanded immunity.

During talks in 2022 and in its recent 28-point “peace plan,” Moscow pushed for lifting sanctions, ending court cases, and granting amnesty for Russian leadership and war crimes. 2/

Putin now spends weeks in bunkers, bans officials from using internet-connected phones, and fears assassination after Iran’s supreme leader was killed in a US-Israeli strike.

Russian elites increasingly discuss what happens after him, Times. 1/ Kremlin fears Ukraine could track Putin through Moscow’s surveillance system.

After Israel used cameras to monitor Iranian officials, Russia restricted mobile internet across Moscow, where 250,000 CCTV cameras operate. 2/