Petraeus: The U.S. is in a strategic cul-de-sac with Iran. Any route out has downsides.

Iran has been badly weakened militarily, but it still has drones, missiles, fast boats and the ability to create serious problems in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. 1/ Petraeus: The challenge is restoring freedom of navigation through Hormuz without giving Iran authority to charge tolls or navigation fees.

While still dealing with enriched uranium, sanctions, proxies and the future of Iran’s nuclear program. 2/

Kasparov: This war has been a war of miracles from the beginning. On February 24, 2022, how many people expected Ukraine to survive at all?

Now we are in the fifth year, and Putin has failed to achieve his objectives one after another. 1/ Kasparov: Putin may no longer be able to continue this war on the basis of economy, production and numbers, but he cannot end it either.

If he ends the war without a meaningful result he can sell to Russia, he could be politically cooked. 2/

Putin faces a succession crisis in Chechnya that could erupt into a new war inside Russia, draining troops and money he needs for Ukraine — Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy.

The region's ruler Ramzan Kadyrov, 49, is probably terminally ill, and his heir is his 18-year-old son. 1/ Putin built his presidency by crushing Chechen rebels in the late 1990s, then made a deal with Akhmad Kadyrov. Kadyrov suppressed the insurgency and accepted Moscow's rule, and in return ran Chechnya as he pleased.

A bomb killed Akhmad in 2004. Power passed to his son Ramzan. 2/

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US, Stefanishyna: If Russia had any real desire to negotiate or compromise, there would be zero obstacles.

Ukraine has shown openness and flexibility in every format proposed, including by President Trump. The aggressor never had real intent. 1/ Stefanishyna: Ukraine’s capabilities are now seen and felt by Russia on its own territory.

They deprive Moscow of the ability to attack Ukrainian cities and kill more families. That pressure is one reason Putin is being forced back toward the option of dialogue. 2/

Gen. Wesley Clark: Putin is trapped. He sees no way out that preserves his survival as Russia’s leader, so he keeps pushing and hopes Trump’s friendship, Chinese help, Iranian help and U.S. distraction will cut support to Ukraine until Ukraine somehow collapses. 1/ Clark: Putin really believed he could seize Kyiv, capture Zelenskyy, shoot him in the street and take over, despite 10 years of war already showing Ukraine’s resistance.

He did not understand the spirit of Ukraine and was blinded by his own desire. 2/

Even some of Russia’s most prominent hawks are starting to say publicly that Russia cannot win this war.

The debate inside Russia is no longer how to achieve victory in Ukraine. It is whether victory is still possible at all, WSJ. 1/ Oleg Tsaryov was supposed to become the Kremlin’s man in Kyiv after Russia captured the Ukrainian capital in 2022.

Now he says Russian propaganda created an illusion of inevitable victory that is colliding with reality “in the most painful form.” 2/

Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Soviet leader:

There's no [Ukraine] deal because Putin wants what he wants.

Trump likes strongmen, so Putin thought he could milk it. In Anchorage last August Trump probably said he'd push Zelenskyy out of Donbas. He couldn't deliver. 1/ Khrushcheva: Putin thinks history will favor him — that's why he pushes for Donbas, a promise he must keep.

But most Russians don't care and didn't want this war, only 20–25% did. They call it a special military operation, but an operation can't last 4.5 years. 2/

Starmer: The UK and NATO intelligence assess Russia could attack a NATO country as soon as 2030.

That's the urgency behind everything we're doing now.

1/ Starmer: Ukraine war pushed energy prices up. Iran crisis pushed them up again.

UK deploys forces to the Gulf defending civilian targets from Iranian attacks — our pilots were airborne within hours. All of this hits our resources at home.

2/

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/