Tugendhat, Conservative MP: "The Kremlin is at war with Europe and its allies in Beijing are helping."

Russia has been conducting warlike acts against every European democracy for years, but Britain is asleep at the wheel — The Telegraph.

1/ 2006 — Litvinenko poisoned in London.

2018 — Skripals poisoned with Novichok in Salisbury.

2024 — GRU plot to assassinate Rheinmetall CEO Papperger. Same year, incendiary devices disguised as pillows sent through DHL, nearly brought down a cargo plane over Europe.

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Czech President Pavel: if Russia's violations of NATO airspace continue, the alliance will have to shoot down unmanned, or manned , aircraft.

Russia does not understand nice language. They mostly understand the language of power. — The Guardian. 1/ Pavel proposed asymmetric responses: switching off Russia's internet or satellites, cutting Russian banks from the global financial system.

"Not killing people — but sensitive enough to make Russia understand this is not the way they should go."

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Former Ukrainian FM Dmytro Kuleba: Poroshenko already understood Normandy was really a 3+1 format: Russia, Germany and France on one side, Ukraine on the other.

Not because Berlin and Paris wanted us destroyed, but because they imagined peace through Ukrainian concessions. 1/ Kuleba: In Paris, Putin realized Zelenskyy had become president of Ukraine. He expected a show-business Zelenskyy from the post-Soviet world.

Instead, Zelenskyy came as president — and refused the Minsk algorithm Russia had pushed onto Ukraine with Germany and France. 2/

Two years ago a Ukrainian seven-year-old boy named Oleh was declared an orphan and placed with the family of a Russian paratrooper from Pskov Oblast.

In 2022 his adoptive father served in the unit that killed civilians in Bucha — Ukrainska Pravda. 1/ Oleh is one of 37 children taken from the Donetsk orphanage “Teremok” on February 18, 2022 — six days before the full-scale invasion. That day 626 orphans were taken from occupied territories to Russia. 2/

Russia’s elites start to believe Putin is leading the country into a dead end — but still expect him to escalate the war, not stop it.

One businessman close to the Kremlin: “There is profound disappointment in Putin,” The Guardian. 1/ Putin publicly projects calm and control.

Days after reports claimed he was hiding in a bunker fearing assassination or a coup, Kremlin TV showed him casually driving his former schoolteacher to dinner at the Kremlin carrying flowers in jeans and a light jacket. 2/

Zelenskyy: Russians just destroyed the Chornobyl museum — built one month ago. Crazy assholes.

We strike military targets — weapons production, energy that funds their army. Russia hits museums, schools, apartments.

1/ Zelenskyy: Russia destroyed the Chornobyl museum — built to honor those who saved lives. Then hospitals, kindergartens, schools.

They call it retaliation. They started this war. When we respond, we hit military targets. When they respond, they kill civilians.

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Rubio: Iran deal still in progress. The offer is solid — open the Strait, enter real time-limited nuclear talks.

Every country we've briefed calls it the right thing for the world. President won't rush and won't take a bad deal. Diplomacy gets every chance first.

1/ Rubio: Lebanon and Israel aren't the problem — Hezbollah is. Last night they called for the Lebanese government's overthrow.

100% Iranian proxy. They victimize Lebanon's own people. The 45-day ceasefire holds. We work the track and make progress.

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Former Ukrainian FM Dmytro Kuleba: China is carrying out an ultra-slow absorption of Russia, starting from the side closest to it.

For Siberian peoples, China is understandable — and they see that where China is, there is welfare and order, while where Russia is, everything is the opposite. 1/ Kuleba: “Russian” is not really an ethnic belonging — it is imperial belonging.

That is why someone who is clearly not ethnically Russian can still shout: “I am Russian, I am for Russia.” The empire works through identity, not blood. 2/

Kasparov: Putin is not just at war against Ukraine. He is at war against Europe, European institutions and the free world.

Dictators lie about what they have done, but very often they tell you exactly what they are going to do. Putin has for decades. 1/ Kasparov: Putin’s goal was, is and will be to restore the Russian Empire and push NATO back to 1997 borders.

Ukraine is the main target now, but not the ultimate goal. Europe still treats this as hypothetical. It is not a threat — it is a menace. 2/

Kasparov: Nothing will happen in Russia unless Ukraine wins the war. Period. Ukraine must win, Russia must lose.

Any war that ends “okay” for Russia strengthens the regime; only Ukrainian victory can open the road to change by proving the empire is dead. 1/ Kasparov: This is not just Putin’s war or one inner circle’s war. The mistake after 1991 was thinking the problem was only the communist virus.

The real problem is the imperial virus, mutating in Russia for centuries, and it will not die without defeat. 2/

Putin put a nuclear-capable Oreshnik into Russia’s overnight strike on Kyiv region.

The hypersonic missile hit Bila Tserkva as Moscow launched around 90 cruise and ballistic missiles plus hundreds of drones. 4 people died, at least 80 were injured — Telegraph. 1/ Oreshnik travels 10 times faster than sound and can carry nuclear warheads. Russia had used it before near Dnipro and Lviv with dummy warheads, causing little damage but sending a symbolic threat.

Ukraine said earlier this year Moscow had only 4 of these missiles. 2/

Only death or Russia can depose Putin. Democracies cannot remove him.

They can still defeat his external ambitions. The only language he understands is military and economic force backed by political will — Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian. 1/ Putin wants to subjugate Ukraine, restore the Russian empire, destroy NATO's credibility, undermine the EU, and rebuild a Russian sphere of influence over eastern Europe.

To prevent each of these is to defeat him. 2/

Ukraine is building air defense to intercept 95% of Russian air threats.

Interceptor drones doubled their Shahed kill rate in 4 months, while Russia launched 35% more Shaheds per month — United24. 1/ The Defense Ministry works on three lines, protecting the skies, stopping Russia on the ground, and draining the Russian economy.

The aim is to force Russia to negotiate through sustained pressure. 2/

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba: Ukraine’s victory is not just a line on a map.

Victory is preserving an independent, sovereign, European Ukraine: not absorbed by Russia, not controlled by Russia, and not part of the Russian world. 1/ Kuleba: Putin’s death could seriously break the course of this war.

Apart from Putin and maybe Patrushev, there is no one in Russia’s elite for whom destroying Ukrainian statehood is the meaning of life at this level of obsession. 2/

Former Ukrainian FM Dmytro Kuleba: We have an illusion that Ukraine is needed by America. It is not. E

urope did not keep us out for 30 years because we were “not reformed enough,” but because it saw us as part of the Russian world. 1/ Kuleba: We must stop building Ukraine on the idea that someone in the world needs us.

We are finally building a country on the idea that we need ourselves. Only when we understand our own strength can we enter alliances from strength, not dependency. 2/

Petraeus: The U.S. has not remotely learned the lessons it should from Ukraine.

This is the future of war: Ukraine alone uses 10,000 drones a day, and 90% of Russian casualties are caused by drones. That should force institutional change. 1/ Petraeus: Tanks cannot maneuver anymore. Armored vehicles cannot survive.

You cannot even drive vehicles in the 35-km death zone on either side of the front, because drones can fly into trenches and kill people. This is a vast change. 2/

Fukuyama: The key issue was Taiwan.

A $14B arms package was held up, and Trump seemed to see Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with Beijing — trading an ally’s security for economic advantage while repeating false claims about Taiwan stealing U.S. chip technology. 1/ Fukuyama: The optics showed how far Trump had fallen in Chinese eyes.

Xi did not meet him at the airport, Trump was seated to look smaller, and the worst part was Trump’s constant flattery — calling Xi a great leader, a friend, someone from central casting. 2/

A Russian drone is still outside my window. And air-defense machine guns are working a hundred yards away.

This night Russia attacked Kyiv again.

For the first time, our university KSE, was hit.

One staff member was injured. No one in our community was killed, thank God. 1/ Windows and doors in two main buildings are shattered.

The team is checking for structural damage.

So far, I have no reports of any more student, staff or faculty injuries. But one apartment and one house are destroyed, another apartment damaged. 2/

Putin "may not be able to negotiate from a position of strength anymore," Estonia's intelligence chief said.

In 4 to 5 months, Russia may lose the leverage it still has on the battlefield — CNN. 1/ Russia bleeds men it cannot replace, and the Kremlin avoids decisions that would stabilize the front.

Kaupo Rosin, head of Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service: "I do not hear any more talk about total victory."

Russians recognize the battlefield is not going well. 2/

Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi: It is now easier and cheaper to reach a person or object deep in the rear than to move the front line by 20 meters.

New weapons shift war from destroying military potential to destroying the state itself. 1/ Zaluzhnyi: Cheap, mass weapons with no reliable physical protection have changed war.

They allow any state — or even organization — to use new force against any opponent. The line between front and rear has almost disappeared. 2/

Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi: Ukraine can no longer be part of any gray zone.

Our experience shows that if you agree to become a buffer zone, you should wait for war. It is already moving toward you — first hidden, then openly. 1/ Zaluzhnyi: In a war where the price is the life of an entire nation, compromise may simply stop existing.

You cannot be a little killed or half alive — and you cannot accept conditions that mean helping finish off your own state. 2/