ISW: Every pause in US aid to Ukraine gives Russia battlefield gains

From the Institute for the Study of War:

"Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 2, 2025

...The United States paused weapons supplies to Ukraine, including critical air defense interceptors, artillery shells, missiles, and rockets. Western media outlets reported that sources stated on July 2 that the US pause on weapons supplies to Ukraine will affect dozens of PAC-3 interceptors for Patriot air defense systems, dozens of Stinger man-portable air defense systems, thousands of 155mm high explosive howitzer munitions, over 100 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, over 250 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets, dozens of grenade launchers, and dozens of AIM air-to-air missiles.[1] Familiar sources told Politico on July 1 that the United States decided in early June 2025 to withhold some of the aid that the United States promised Ukraine under the Biden administration but that the decision is only now taking effect.[2]... 

The suspension of US aid to Ukraine will likely accelerate Russian gains on the battlefield, as previous US aid suspensions have in the past. Delays in US military aid in Fall 2023 and Winter-Spring 2024 set conditions for Russian forces to make more accelerated battlefield gains than Russian forces had previously been able to make.[11] Russian forces significantly intensified offensive operations near Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast in mid-January 2024 and concentrated significant manpower and materiel to their effort to seize the settlement in mid-February 2024 amid the protracted debate in the US (from October 2023 until April 2024) about passing supplemental aid for Ukraine... ISW assesses that Russian forces advanced roughly three kilometers per day between the suspension of US aid to Ukraine on December 6, 2023 and the resumption of aid on April 24, 2024, much of which was in Donetsk Oblast — as compared to the six months prior to the December 2023 aid suspension when Russian forces actually lost a total of roughly 203 square kilometers at a rate of 1.1 square kilometers lost per day (due to Ukraine’s gains during the 2023 counteroffensive, which was enabled by the US and other allies surging military aid to Ukraine).

Russian forces also notably intensified offensive operations in Kursk Oblast following the suspension of US intelligence sharing in early March 2025.[13] Russian forces, augmented by North Korean forces, had been trying to push Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast through slow, grinding advances since the start of Ukraine's incursion in August 2024. The Trump administration suspended US intelligence sharing with Ukraine on March 5, and Russian forces intensified offensive operations to expel Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast on March 6 and 7.[14] Ukrainian sources reportedly stated at the time that Russian forces started making more rapid advances in Kursk Oblast on March 5 and that the suspension of US intelligence sharing impacted Ukrainian operations in Kursk Oblast the most. Kremlin officials at the time announced their intention to take advantage of the suspension of US military aid and intelligence sharing to "inflict maximum damage" to Ukrainian forces "on the ground."[15] Russian forces very likely exploited the US suspension of aid and intelligence sharing in March 2025 to accelerate Russia’s ongoing counteroffensive operation in Kursk Oblast. ISW assesses that Russian forces advanced at a rate of about 31 square kilometers per day in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast between the suspension of US intelligence sharing with Ukraine on March 3, 2025 and the resumption of intelligence sharing on March 11, 2025 — as opposed to a rate of advance of about 19 square kilometers per day in the six months prior to the intelligence sharing suspension.

The suspension of US aid to Ukraine will reinforce Russian President Vladimir Putin's theory of victory that posits that Russia can win the war of attrition by making slow, creeping advances and outlasting Western support for Ukraine. Putin articulated a theory of victory in June 2024 — and has emphasized this same theory of victory since — that assumes that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual, creeping advances indefinitely and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces.[16] Putin's theory assumes that Russia will be able to outlast pledged Western security assistance and that Ukraine will not acquire and sustain the manpower and materiel needed to prevent these gradual Russian gains or to contest the initiative and conduct counteroffensive operations to liberate Ukrainian territory. The latest US suspension of aid will strengthen Putin's belief that time is on Russia's side and his commitment to delaying negotiations toward a peace settlement and protracting the war...

Kremlin officials are responding to the US military aid suspension by publicly flouting Putin's theory of military victory as successful — in direct opposition to US President Donald Trump's stated goal of bringing Russia to the negotiating table and achieving a lasting and just peace. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on July 2 in response to the suspension of US military aid that the "fewer weapons that are supplied to Ukraine, the closer the end of the [Russian invasion of Ukraine] is."[19] Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) CEO Kirill Dmitriev, who has been heavily involved in diplomatic and rhetorical efforts vis-à-vis Ukraine and the United States, stated that the suspension "raises questions about the West's ability to continue supporting Ukraine."[20] Russian State Duma Defense Committee Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Zhuravlev suggested that the US military aid suspension will degrade Ukraine's ability to "hold out" against Russian offensive operations and claimed that the United States will not be able to "hide" any future arms deliveries to Ukraine from Russia.[21] These Russian statements underscore how the Kremlin perceives Putin's theory of victory as it relates to Western — particularly American — military assistance to Ukraine and flout the Kremlin's goal of coercing the United States and other Western states into ceasing military assistance to Ukraine.[22] The Kremlin is capitalizing on the US aid suspension to intensify its messaging that Europe should also cease weapons supplies to Ukraine. Putin had a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on July 2, the first Putin-Macron call in nearly three years, and used the call to reiterate boilerplate Kremlin narratives aimed at discouraging further Western military assistance to Ukraine.[23] Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova also criticized continued European military assistance to Ukraine.[24] The Kremlin's messaging about the suspension of US military aid to Ukraine is yet another indicator that Russia remains committed to achieving its war goals by force and is uninterested in meaningful peace negotiations to end the war.[25] These senior Russian officials’ statements indicate that suspending US military aid to Ukraine very likely will not compel Russia to conduct meaningful negotiations with Ukraine as President Trump desires, but rather embolden Moscow to continue protracting Russia’s war...

The US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine will particularly degrade Ukraine's ability to defend against Russia's enhanced long-range missile and drone strike capabilities that have inflicted significant civilian casualties — in sharp contrast to President Trump's stated objective of stopping civilian casualties in Ukraine. US provisions of Patriot air defense systems and interceptors have been critical for Ukraine's ability to defend against Russia's missile strikes, particularly those with ballistic missiles.[31] Russia's long-range strikes have increasingly targeted densely populated cities far from the frontline.[32]... Russia has also recently adapted its strike tactics to inflict maximum damage to civilians, including by deploying cluster munitions with delayed detonations, and Shahed drones equipped with capsules of chemical weapons and conducting "double tap" strikes that maximize casualties of civilian first responders.[35] Russia will very likely continue to increase the size of its combined strikes against Ukraine as Russia remains committed to accelerating its missile and drone production. The US suspension of critical Patriot interceptor supplies to Ukraine will likely impact Ukraine's ability to protect its critical, industrial, and civilian infrastructure. Russian forces exploited pauses in US military aid to Ukraine in late 2023 and early 2024 to conduct large-scale combined strikes designed to exhaust Ukraine's degraded air defense umbrella that was suffering from the lack of Western aid.[36] A dwindling supply of Patriot interceptors will force Ukraine to continue to make difficult defense prioritization decisions.

Key Takeaways:

• The United States paused weapons supplies to Ukraine, including critical air defense interceptors, artillery shells, missiles, and rockets.
• The decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine will likely force Ukrainian forces to continue to husband materiel, although the exact timing of the planned deliveries that the United States paused remains unclear at this time.
• The suspension of US aid to Ukraine will likely accelerate Russian gains on the battlefield, as previous US aid suspensions have in the past.
• The suspension of US aid to Ukraine will reinforce Russian President Vladimir Putin's theory of victory that posits that Russia can win the war of attrition by making slow, creeping advances and outlasting Western support for Ukraine.
• Kremlin officials are responding to the US military aid suspension by publicly flouting Putin's theory of military victory as successful — in direct opposition to US President Donald Trump's stated goal of bringing Russia to the negotiating table and achieving a lasting and just peace.
• The Kremlin is also using the US aid suspension as a basis to continue rhetorical attacks against European defensive efforts that are in line with Trump's initiative for Europe to shoulder more of the burden for collective defense.
• The US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine will particularly degrade Ukraine's ability to defend against Russia's enhanced long-range missile and drone strike capabilities that have inflicted significant civilian casualties — in sharp contrast to President Trump's stated objective of stopping civilian casualties in Ukraine." 

 

What Putin's talk of his solders' feet means

From the Hill / Yahoo!News:

"Opinion - Putin’s talk of soldiers’ feet puts the lie to Russian nationalist myths

Alexander J. Motyl, opinion contributor, July 7, 2025

Vladimir Putin recently admitted that Russia is an artificial construct created by violence. This is a bombshell, putting to the lie Russian propaganda’s longstanding claim that some spiritual entity called Russia has existed since time immemorial.

In fact, Putin reduced Russia to its soldiers’ feet — hardly an elevated comparison.

In his address to the plenary session of the Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 20, Putin made the following astounding, and deeply subversive, claim: “wherever the foot of a Russian soldier steps is ours.” Whereas we apply the word “Russian” to both the ethnic designation (russkii) and the political designation (rossiiskii), Russians distinguish between the two. Significantly, Putin specifically referred to the ethnically Russian russkii soldier.

In effect if not in intent, Putin reduced Russia (the political entity) to the lands conquered by ethnically russkii soldiers, thereby giving the lie to the claim that Russia is a “federation” of happily coexisting nations, the largest of which happens to be russkii. This is an admission both of Russia’s being (and always having been) an empire, and of the subordinate status of its non-Russian nations, brought into the imperial fold by soldiers — that is, by violence.

Ukrainians, Poles, Finns and scores of other nations know this quite well, and it shouldn’t surprise us that they are allergic to the presence of the feet of Mother Russia’s children on their lands. Who can blame them for wanting to put as many yards as possible between them and those imperialist Russian feet?

None of this is new or surprising to such leading Sovietologists as Paul Goble, who have spent decades reminding policymakers that the non-Russians of the former Soviet Union are strategically important to the West, because they are the only thing standing between Russia as an expanding empire and the rest of the world. These states possess the wherewithal to maintain Russia as a more or less stable object of containment.

But such ruminations presuppose that Russia exists, whereas Putin, its putative head, unwittingly subverted and reduced it to an artifice of history. The logic is simple.

In fact, Putin reduced Russia to its soldiers’ feet — hardly an elevated comparison.

In his address to the plenary session of the Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 20, Putin made the following astounding, and deeply subversive, claim: “wherever the foot of a Russian soldier steps is ours.” Whereas we apply the word “Russian” to both the ethnic designation (russkii) and the political designation (rossiiskii), Russians distinguish between the two. Significantly, Putin specifically referred to the ethnically Russian russkii soldier.

In effect if not in intent, Putin reduced Russia (the political entity) to the lands conquered by ethnically russkii soldiers, thereby giving the lie to the claim that Russia is a “federation” of happily coexisting nations, the largest of which happens to be russkii. This is an admission both of Russia’s being (and always having been) an empire, and of the subordinate status of its non-Russian nations, brought into the imperial fold by soldiers — that is, by violence.

Ukrainians, Poles, Finns and scores of other nations know this quite well, and it shouldn’t surprise us that they are allergic to the presence of the feet of Mother Russia’s children on their lands. Who can blame them for wanting to put as many yards as possible between them and those imperialist Russian feet?

None of this is new or surprising to such leading Sovietologists as Paul Goble, who have spent decades reminding policymakers that the non-Russians of the former Soviet Union are strategically important to the West, because they are the only thing standing between Russia as an expanding empire and the rest of the world. These states possess the wherewithal to maintain Russia as a more or less stable object of containment.

But such ruminations presuppose that Russia exists, whereas Putin, its putative head, unwittingly subverted and reduced it to an artifice of history. The logic is simple.

If Russia is a function of soldiers’ feet and where they happen to land, then it’s neither imagined by lofty-minded intellectuals determined to reach out to the oppressed masses nor primordially present as a self-identifying agent of history since the dawn of time. And Russia is certainly not the Third Rome or God’s gift to humanity. Rather, it’s just a bunch of real estate cobbled together by its soldiers’ feet. But if so, then the Russia that exists today or that existed in the past is an arbitrary collection of dirt.

Because Muscovite rulers sent the feet in one direction and not another, the resultant “our” territory is merely the product of the serendipitous whims of autocrats. Had its rulers not embarked on expansion and let the feet stay at home, Russia might have been as tiny as the Kremlin.

This matters because Russian political culture insists, and has insisted, that Russia is a quasi-mystical entity enjoined by the divine to save the world. That culture also insists that Russia was already present in the guise of the state known as Kyivan Rus some 1,000 years ago. Regardless of whether that state was or was not Ukrainian or proto-Ukrainian, it obviously follows from Putin’s own claims that it definitely wasn’t Russian. How could it be, since russkii soldiers and their land-grabbing feet did not exist in the city called Kyiv a millennium ago? They may have existed in the town called Moskva in the marshy wooded areas north of Kyiv, but that’s hardly a grand and glorious way to initiate a divinely ordained state.

So where does Putin’s demolition of Russia leave Russians and their feet? Pretty much nowhere. Russia is just a bunch of stuff randomly acquired over the years, Russians are reduced to an accidental agglomeration of folks — akin to the commuters at Grand Central Station during rush hour. Their soldiers’ feet are transformed into mere physical appendages without any rooting in a nation or state.

This bodes ill for Putin. If Russia doesn’t really exist as a nation, then he becomes little more than a puppet at the mercy of historical forces — and his imperial ambitions are doomed to fail. After all, if he can only ultimately rely on feet, he won’t get very far." 

ISW: Medvedev's unhinged statements are part of Putin's strategy

From the Institute for the Study of War:

"Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 8, 2025

 ...The Kremlin continues to leverage Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev's aggressive rhetoric to undermine support for US military aid to Ukraine, likely as part of a top-down, concerted Kremlin informational effort. Medvedev responded on July 8 on his Russian- and English-language channels to US President Donald Trump's statements about resuming weapons supplies to Ukraine, claiming that Russia should continue "business as usual."[6] Medvedev claimed that Russia will "push forward" to achieve its war goals and "reclaim [its] land." Medvedev's July 8 statements aim to present Western military aid to Ukraine as futile in the face of an alleged inevitable Russian victory. The West should not disregard all of Medvedev's statements as hyperbole or fringe, however. Russian President Vladimir Putin often leverages Medvedev to amplify inflammatory rhetoric designed to stoke panic and fear among Western decision-makers and discourage aid to Ukraine.[7] Medvedev's statements are part of a wider Kremlin reflexive control campaign against the West. Medvedev's provocative and at times threatening statements are very likely part of a top-down, concerted Kremlin informational strategy. Putin would be able to censor Medvedev's statements should Putin choose to do so, especially considering the coordination within the Kremlin on official statements and the Kremlin's overall grip on the Russian information space, internet, and media. Medvedev's continued use of his platform to make aggressive statements that specifically target the United States and Europe suggests that the Kremlin is approving and encouraging this effort. Medvedev's aggressive statements serve a specific purpose for Putin, as they push the West to see Putin's statements as more moderate and rational by comparison and open space for Putin to make greater demands or larger threats...

[6] https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/597 ; https://t.me/tass_agency/324380 ; https://t.me/medvedev_telegramE/86

[7] https://isw.pub/UkrWar062225 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar052525 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar052025; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-25-2025"

China is waging a proxy was against the West in Ukraine

From the Hill / Yahoo!News:

"Opinion - Xi Jinping is waging a proxy war against Trump in Ukraine

Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet, opinion contributors, July 10, 2025

In February, Chinese officials floated the idea of Xi Jinping hosting a peace summit with President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Team Trump wisely rejected Xi as an intermediary, given the growing military and economic alliance between Moscow and Beijing.

Xi’s offer was indeed a Trojan Horse, designed, at best, to obtain Ukraine’s unconditional surrender at the expense of the U.S., and, at worst, calculated to buy Putin time as his military is bogged down in a war of attrition.

Now we are seeing China’s real intentions. Beijing increasingly views Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a useful proxy war against the U.S...

Beijing’s participation in Putin’s war was indirect at first, coming in the form of cheap oil and gas purchases and then dual use technologies.

Now, Xi is dropping the pretense. Last week in Brussels, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said the quiet part out loud. During a private conversation with Kaja Kallas, he made clear that “Beijing can’t accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China.”

Then, on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brought receipts. Ukraine’s Security Service, sifting through the wreckage of Putin’s massive July 4 attack on Kyiv, found evidence that five Chinese companies were directly supplying key components of the Russian-built version of the Iranian Shahed 136/131 drone.

Ukraine immediately imposed economic sanctions on the five Chinese companies whose stamped parts were found in the drones — Central Asia Silk Road International Trade, Suzhou Ecod Precision Manufacturing, Shenzhen Royo Technology, Shenzhen Jinduobang Technology, and Ningbo BLIN Machinery.

Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, Beijing has taken an official stance of neutrality. In reality, however, Xi is fully colluding with Putin.

We have long warned of this growing ideological war that Russia and China alongside their Axis of Evil partners — Iran and North Korea — are waging against Washington and Brussels. It is increasingly kinetic and fast becoming global in nature.

Putin’s use of Chechen troops was its first indicator. Then his support of Oct. 7. to cover his counteroffensive in Avdiivka. Then North Korean soldiers, and now reportedly 50 Laotian engineers. Beijing is a key investor in Laos, including the China-Laos Economic Corridor and the China-Laos Railway.

Now Beijing’s role is increasingly in the open. Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, connected all of these dots in an interview with The New York Times.

Rutte warned: “If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory.”

In that context, it is easy to see how China now views Putin’s war against Ukraine as its own proxy war against the U.S. The connective tissue between Ukraine and Taiwan is very real and their fates intertwined.

If the West loses in Ukraine, Xi gets a win, because Putin then would be freed to use his rebuilt military against NATO. If Putin is defeated in Ukraine, then Team Trump could inflict a serious loss upon Xi — and go a long way in deterring Beijing in Taiwan and elsewhere across the Indo-Pacific...

Xi’s proxy war against Trump in Ukraine is only Beijing’s opening act. If we are to win this second cold war, then ensuring Putin’s defeat in Ukraine must become a strategic end state for the White House. The two conflicts are indeed connected...

China’s proxy war against the U.S. in Ukraine is just getting started. Team Trump winning in Ukraine is now a national imperative and it requires an “all-in” approach."

Putin's fingerprints are on Oct. 7, 2023 attack

This article isn't new but I find it important, so I share it - from the Hill:

"Putin’s fingerprints are all over the Hamas attack

by Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth, Opinion Contributors - 10/12/23

There was only one real winner last Saturday when war broke out in Israel — Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s enabling of his “Arsenals of Evil” ally, Iran, resulted in the opening of a new front in Gaza in his war against the West.  

Mitt Romney got it right in 2012 when he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “Russia [is] without question, our number one geopolitical foe. … They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors.”

Later, during a presidential debate, Barack Obama responded to Romney, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

But this is not your 1980’s Russia — it is worse. Under Putin’s leadership, it has militantly sought to restore its prominence and establish a new global order in its likeness.

There was never going to be a Russia reset. And the ramifications of failed Russia policy has been on full display for the last 11 years — under both Republican and Democratic presidential leadership.

Russia has fomented discord, violence and division throughout the Sahel, the Black Sea, the Middle East, the Balkans and the Baltic States. It has done so by sowing disinformation through social media platforms, by direct interventions and by funding and training insurgents to overthrow governments through the use of mercenaries such as PMC Wagner.

Moscow has brutally suppressed uprisings in Chechnya and Syria, supported insurrections in Niger and Sudan, illegally annexed “Russian-speaking” territories in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Crimea, and, in February 2022, launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine — so far a failure that threatens Putin’s aspirations. 

He needed a distraction, and last weekend he got it.

The Kremlin’s surreptitious activities resurfaced in a surprise attack on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas, code-named Operation Al-Aqsa. Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, described the attack as “the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”

It was a multi-domain assault — air, land, sea, and cyber. Well beyond the recognized capabilities of Hamas, fueling speculation that the terrorist organization received direct support from Iran, and likely from Russia as well.

The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal confirmed the speculation with respect to Iran. Both reported that Hamas “began planning the assault at least a year ago, with key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons” — and greenlighted the operation last week in Beirut. They also reported officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had trained Hamas.

Putin also likely saw an opening after Congress passed its 45-day continuing resolution last week that provided no additional funding for Ukraine.

Now Israel, a historic and strategic ally in the Middle East, is under attack, facing its own 9/11, just as Russian forces in Ukraine are teetering on the edge of defeat in the Donbas and Crimea. Coincidence? Had the White House, while publicly supporting Ukraine, unwittingly painted itself into Putin’s corner?

The evidence for Russian involvement in this atrocity is circumstantial but present. Putin benefited from leveraging Hamas to incite terror and generate an Israeli response to distract the U.S. government from supporting Ukraine, and he used Iran to achieve his end.

Russia’s relationship with Iran — a principal supporter of Hamas — suggests a more nefarious relationship.

Hamas leaders traveled to Moscow in March 2023, where according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, their meeting “touched on Russia’s unchanged position in support of a just solution to the Palestinian problem.” More recently, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Moscow on Sept. 10. At the time, Hillel Frisch, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, thought the purpose of the meeting was “to signal [Moscow’s] displeasure with Israel, perhaps in relation to Ukraine.” 

Given the events of Oct. 7, a more likely explanation would be that he back-briefed the Kremlin on Hamas’s final preparations for the attack timed to take place on Putin’s 71st birthday — a quid pro quo.

Other activities suggest Russian support and organization.

According to the Ukrainian Center of National Resistance, members of PMC Wagner, who left Belarus for Africa, allegedly participated in the training of Hamas militants on “assault tactics and the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles to drop explosive devices onto vehicles and other targets.”

Israeli government and media websites were repeatedly targeted with distributed denial-of-service attacks — “a type of cyberattack that floods websites with traffic and forces them offline” — by hacking groups associated with Russia and allied with Hamas. Killnet and Anonymous Sudan claimed they had brought down multiple Israeli websites, including those of Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet and the Jerusalem Post.

A Russian disinformation campaign was launched immediately trying to associate weapons found in Gaza, used by Hamas to slaughter innocent civilians in Israel, with “Western-donated weapons” to Ukraine, implying that they had been sold on the black market to Hamas, in an attempt to “erode support for Ukraine.”

Finally, shortly after the initial attack, there was a call by Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova for Palestine and Israel to “implement an immediate ceasefire, renounce violence, exercise the necessary restraint and establish, with the assistance of the international community, a negotiation process aimed at establishing a comprehensive, lasting and long-awaited peace in the Middle East.”

After 20 months of the Biden administration providing Ukraine just enough military aid to survive, the Kremlin likely created conditions in Israel to divide the U.S., allowing disinformation to seep within the American political fabric, designed to create dissension and paralysis while placing doubt in the minds of America’s allies. 

The administration must now support two crises, Ukraine and Israel, while managing a Chinese threat to Taiwan and a North Korean threat to South Korea and Japan. It will not be able to pivot its way out of this.

The National Security team that got the U.S. into this predicament is not the team Washington needs to get us out of it. Bold and resolute solutions are required. The administration can continue to battle the hydra, or it can cut off its immortal head.

That requires a Russia-first strategy — a decision that helps Ukraine actually win, while setting conditions for Israel’s security.

Defending Israel is a top priority. The White House must strike a balance that meets Israel’s and Ukraine’s needs. The White House is trying to tie military aid to both together, and that is a step in the right direction. 

But it must provide Ukraine with what it needs to win — namely, precision deep strike weapons and munitions, fighter jets, HIMARS-delivered cluster munitions, and engineering equipment to breach minefields and obstacles.

As Hamas continues its relentless rocket assault on Israel, the U.S. must sustain the Iron Dome missile defense system, while leveraging American military assets, including the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford carrier task force, to keep Hezbollah and other potential regional adversaries in check.

In March, Biden got it right in Warsaw when he exclaimed, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” A Russian defeat in Ukraine would likely bring an end to the Putin regime, and the cancer it propagates throughout the world — including Hamas."

Why Ukrainian victory is in US interest

From the Hill / Yahoo!News:

"Opinion - Ukrainians are fighting Russia so US troops don’t have to

Khusanboy Kotibjonov, opinion contributor, July 10, 2025

The debate over Ukraine aid often frames the conflict as a choice between domestic American priorities and foreign assistance. But this framing fundamentally misunderstands what is at stake. Ukraine is a direct investment in American national security that could prevent U.S. troops from directly fighting Russian forces in the near future.

Recent statements from Moscow make this calculation clear. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov declared in June that the Ukraine war cannot end until NATO “pulls out” of the Baltic states. This demand represents a dramatic escalation from Russia’s previous position, which focused solely on Ukraine’s NATO aspirations. Now the Kremlin is demanding the abandonment of NATO allies who have been treaty-protected members since 2004.

This escalation reveals Russia’s true strategic objective: not just preventing Ukraine’s NATO membership, but rolling back the alliance’s existing commitments. The Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are full NATO members covered by Article Five, which states that an attack on one member constitutes an attack on all. Unlike Ukraine, any Russian aggression against these nations would legally require direct American military intervention.

The strategic logic is clear: If Russia succeeds in Ukraine and then moves against the Baltics, American soldiers will be legally obligated to fight Russian forces directly. There would be no choice, no debate, no alternative.

Supporting Ukraine today costs money and weapons. Fighting Russia tomorrow under Article Five would cost American lives. The current investment in Ukrainian defense represents perhaps the most cost-effective military expenditure in modern U.S. history.

Critics might argue that Russia’s Baltic demands are mere negotiating tactics. But this ignores the pattern of Russian aggression established over the past 16 years: Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine in 2022. Each time, Western leaders assumed Moscow would be satisfied with its gains — each time, they were wrong.

The difference now is that Russia’s next logical target, the Baltics, cannot be abandoned without destroying NATO itself. The alliance’s credibility rests on the principle that Article Five means something. If NATO retreats from the Baltics under Russian pressure, the alliance becomes meaningless, and America’s security guarantees across the globe lose their deterrent effect.

There is now a unique strategic opportunity. Ukraine has demonstrated remarkable resilience and military capability, effectively serving as a force multiplier for U.S. security interests. Ukrainian forces are doing the fighting that American troops might otherwise have to do later, against a Russian military that grows weaker with each passing month.

The choice facing American policymakers is between stopping Russia in Ukraine or potentially fighting them in the Baltics under conditions far less favorable to U.S. security.

Every dollar spent on Ukrainian defense today is an investment in preventing American casualties tomorrow. Every Ukrainian victory weakens Russia’s capacity to threaten NATO members. Every month this conflict continues reduces the likelihood that American troops will face Russian forces in direct combat.

The question isn’t whether America can afford to support Ukraine. It’s whether America can afford not to."

Why Russia isn't interested in ceasefire

From the Hill / Yahoo!News:

"Opinion - Why the Kremlin isn’t interested in a ceasefire in Ukraine

Ilan Berman, opinion contributor, July 9, 2025

 

...“I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” Trump told reporters in late May. The same day, he posted on Truth Social that Russia’s leader “has gone absolutely CRAZY.” Since then, although the administration has continued to press Moscow for some sort of compromise with Kyiv, more of its officials now seem to grasp that Russia has no real interest in de-escalation.

But why, precisely? After all, the Kremlin has already expended enormous blood and treasure in its efforts to dominate Ukraine, and is continuing to do so. Russian battlefield casualties are estimated to have hit 1 million, making its campaign against Ukraine more costly than all of the country’s post-World War II conflicts combined.

Still, the Kremlin has persisted in its war of aggression, for both ideological and practical reasons.

Ideologically, recent years have seen the revival of Russia’s dreams of Eurasian empire and concerted attempts by the Kremlin to revise its borders outward — and to do so at the expense of its nervous neighbors. Underpinning all of this is an expansionist ideology that sees both territorial gains and conflict with the West as inevitable. Or, as one-time Kremlin insider Vladislav Surkov put it earlier this year, “The Russian world has no borders.”

That helps explain Russia’s ongoing aggression toward Ukraine — and its objectives in the current truce talks. “The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime,” Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, recently proclaimed on Telegram, referring to the Ukrainian government.

The second reason for Russia’s militarism is economic. Growing evidence suggests that in the face of sustained international sanctions, the Kremlin has retooled the country’s economic sector, prioritizing military industries (while neglecting others) and making its armed forces the focal point of national development... This has helped make Russia’s war machine the engine of its national economy, and locked the state into a sustained campaign of militarism.

Increasingly, European officials see the writing on the wall. In a recent speech in London, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that Russia could be ready to attack a NATO treaty nation within five years, and that the bloc needed “a quantum leap” in collective defense as a response. “Danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends,” he said. 

Those words are a grim acknowledgment of Russia’s revisionist ideology, which views Ukraine as simply the first in a series of inevitable conquests. It is also a sober recognition that, in a real sense, Putin now requires ongoing war in order to keep his regime afloat...

The corollary is that, unless Moscow is stopped in Ukraine, it will inevitably need to be stopped somewhere else — and at potentially far greater cost to the U.S. and its European partners."

Russian drone operators hunted a 1-yr-old baby, paid for it

As we all know, Russia tries to kill as many Ukrainians as possible, including children. On July 9, in the Ukrainian village of Pravdino, a Russian drone attacked a 1-yr-old boy named Dima and his grandmother as they were in the yard of their home. The baby was killed on the spot, and the old woman was injured. Below is the cover of the July 11 issue of the New York Post:

 Ukrainian drone operators managed to trace the location and successfully target their Russian colleagues who had murdered the baby, bringing retribution for his death.

The hell Russia is putting Ukrainian civilians through

The photos below are from a report by AP: Russia blasts Kyiv with another missile and drone barrage, killing at least 2, by VASILISA STEPANENKO and HANNA ARHIROVA, July 10, 2025

Oleksandra Umanets, 23, calms her 10-month-old son as they take cover on the platform of a metro station during a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

People rest in a metro station, being used as a bomb shelter, during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A fire burns at a residential building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

 Maria, 25, holds a cat on the platform of a metro station as they take cover during a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 A woman carries her cat as she walks on a street at the site of a residential building that was damaged after a Russian attack, Ukraine, early Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Why Trump is frustrated with Putin

From MSNBC:

"The real reason Trump’s so publicly frustrated with Putin

President Trump wanted to play hero in the Russia-Ukraine war. Vladimir Putin won't allow it. 

July 11, 2025

 

By Nicholas Grossman, political science professor at the University of Illinois

President Donald Trump is reportedly frustrated with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war and is considering new sanctions and indirect military support via sales to NATO countries. But in his half year back in office, U.S. policy, on balance, has still shifted in an anti-Ukraine, anti-democracy, anti-NATO, pro-authoritarian, Russia-favorable direction.

“We get a lot of bulls--- thrown at us by Putin,” Trump told reporters at a White House meeting. “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

But that’s always been the case. Ukraine supporters have said so since the beginning (it’s part of why they chose to support Ukraine).

So Trump is frustrated, but with what? 

Not that Russia aggressively invaded Ukraine. When Putin ordered that over three years ago, Trump gushed that it was “savvy” and “genius.” He has never denounced Russia’s attack as aggressive, illegal or wrong, nor expressed support for independence and sovereignty on principle. If anything, it’s been the opposite, as he threatens U.S. allies and partners, saying he’ll take Greenland from Denmark or the canal from Panama, both in violation of signed treaties. 

Nor is Trump frustrated that Russia frequently fires at civilian targets. Trump sometimes laments the war’s destructiveness, but always generically, without blaming Russia, like how people talk about natural disasters. To cite a recent example, Trump unspecifically said, “So many people are dying in that mess.” At a meeting in February at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump and Vice President JD Vance echoed Russian propaganda, blaming Ukraine for the war and denigrating Zelenskyy’s efforts to highlight Ukrainians’ suffering.

If Trump actually cared about Russia killing civilians, he never would have blocked aid for air defense. When he was asked at the news conference where he expressed frustration with Putin who ordered the pause, Trump said, “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me.”

Support for Ukraine later resumed (for now), though that too seems primarily geared toward managing Trump’s image. His primary complaint is that Putin hasn’t dealt fairly with him, not that Russia’s war is illegitimate.

Most likely, what’s frustrating Trump is that events aren’t following his reality TV script, or Russia-sympathetic conspiracy theories. He promised he’d end the war on his first day back in office, using pressure on the Ukrainians and his personal rapport with Putin to stop the fighting, and get himself a Nobel Peace Prize. Now that self-aggrandizing fantasy is crashing into reality.

Trump put Putin above U.S. national interests, and Putin hasn’t returned the favor. Instead of prioritizing Trump’s image-crafting, Putin keeps prioritizing Russia’s national power. Putin wouldn’t even need to do much — he could just say this was all Joe Biden’s fault and give Trump something flimsy he can call a deal — but Putin won’t do even that. If anything, Putin seems to enjoy these displays of dominance, toying with Trump rather than giving him a fig leaf.

It may have finally been too much. Trump reportedly will authorize increased weapons sales to NATO countries, knowing they’re bound for Ukraine. If he follows through, it will improve Ukraine’s position, though even in that positive scenario it won’t undo the damage from six months of farcical negotiations.

At the end of May, Trump expressed frustration that talks hadn’t produced a deal and told reporters he might impose new sanctions on Russia. Then he didn’t, supposedly because doing so would hinder negotiations. But he had already eased sanctions enforcement, reducing leverage over Russia before talks even began.

Congress is considering a new sanctions package, but Republicans won’t do it without Trump’s approval. Even if they pass it, enforcement could be lax and haphazard, and subject to the president’s moods...

Occasionally pausing and overall reducing U.S. military aid to Ukraine made Russia less likely to negotiate, since battlefield gains improve their position in talks. That’s true even when some aid resumes, because the delays hinder Ukraine’s ability to fight, and make Russia think Ukraine will be weaker in the future. The only way to send a different message would be a big increase and credibly returning the American posture to unambiguously pro-Ukraine, with unqualified opposition to Russian aggression. 

The fundamental truth of the Ukraine war today is the same it’s been since the beginning, no matter how many times Trump and others have denied it.

Putin attacked without provocation, for national and personal aggrandizement. He could stop it at any time, but chooses not to. That’s because he doesn’t want peace, he wants to dominate Ukraine, and thinks the death and destruction he’s causing is worth it.

Ukrainians, quite reasonably, don't want to bow down to a foreign tyrant. They weren’t somehow tricked or forced into resisting Russia’s invasion — they chose to fight for their freedom...

Changing Russia’s calculus is hard. It’ll take time and sacrifice. It will bother Putin fans in Trump’s coalition, who genuinely want Russia to win because they see it as a culture war champion. It requires admitting that the Biden administration and America’s NATO allies got this one right from the start. And none of that is primarily about putting on a show to glorify Donald Trump.

So you can see why he’s frustrated.

If we see a sustained net increase in American weapons shipments and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, stepped up economic pressure on Russia, and real, sustained solidarity with NATO and democratic Europe, only then will it be true that Trump has changed his Putin-sympathetic position.

But to get a real peace deal, U.S. pressure must be high and sustained enough that Putin comes to believe he’ll get more by compromising most of his war aims than by continuing to attack while playing on Trump’s combination of incompetence and susceptibility to manipulation. Given Trump’s long record with Putin, that’s a tough sell."

Western aid to Ukraine is mostly pretense

From the blog of the former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, July 12:

"Thank you for your inattention to this matter

In 1961, Daniel Boorstin coined the term pseudo-event — an event staged for its own sake. The goal is not to say or do anything meaningful, but to keep the public engaged. The observer’s attention becomes the objective.

The pinnacle of the pseudo-event category is professional wrestling, sometimes called "athletic theatre". No one is actually competing. The crowd cheers, picks favourites and watches victories. But nobody truly wins anything, it's theatre.

To me, watching politics in recent years feels like watching professional wrestling. Recent announcements that “Trump is finally fed up with Putin” are the perfect example. 

I get questions from the press: “Is this real? Is White House policy changing?”

I mean, come on… let’s look at the substance.

Take the Reuters headline: a possible $300 million delivery of equipment to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia announces next year’s defense budget — roughly $300 billion. It’s like we’ve donated a phantom weapon to fight a very real war. But the headlines are nice. They keep people reading. And those who seek hope can keep hoping — maybe this time, it’s real...

You could say this is just Trump’s show. But it’s happening on both sides of the Atlantic — and it has been for a while. Remember the “coalition of the willing” and their “crippling sanctions”? It looked like a stunt slap: missing the opponent just enough not to hurt him.

Taurus missiles? I am starting to doubt that they even exist. And remember Biden’s big announcement: Ukraine will finally get ATACMS. Headlines roared. Days later we found out: Only eleven missiles were delivered.

Why is the spectacle necessary? Who demands it?

In the US, the answer is simple — the electorate demands a good show. Politicians produce it. Their goal is to keep people entertained, buzzing about the last episode, on tenterhooks for the next. Who’s the villain this week — Zelensky or Putin? Who gets hit next — Canada or Brazil?...

Putin doesn’t care if he’s called a villain this week. He’s not emotionally moved by such categorisation. He wants to obliterate Ukraine anyway, with or without our theatrical framing.

Outside the US, other Western leaders continue the theatrics. Are they really trying to scare Putin? That would be naive. It’s not difficult for him to see through their press-releases and figure out what’s really happening. Crippling sanctions? One call to Budapest or Bratislava to check if all is well, and, as always, it is. *laughs in putin*

Five percent in ten years, except for anyone who doesn’t feel like it? Weeell good luck, comrades.

Ten Patriot missiles out of thirty that were supposed to go to Ukraine? Weeell, that is indeed “a step in the right direction”, from Putin’s point of view. 

Perhaps the real aim is to demobilise supporters in the West that genuinely want to help Ukraine. Public pressure is asking for a stronger position and more assistance, so pseudo-events of pseudo-value are created to satisfy demand. The truth takes a while to come out — especially when governments declare all future support “classified.”

And that’s how it works. You’re told something is being done, but unless you’re ringside and viewing from exactly the right angle, how can you tell if the wrestler actually landed that jump? Or missed by a foot?

In past wars, governments had to rally their populations — to convince them why it mattered. Today, some of the messaging seems designed to avoid real mobilisation. Instead of geopolitical strategy, we get entertainment, but the real world doesn’t stop. We’re just seeing less of it.

If you are looking for an example of real action, look at the current German debate on defense spending. It’s real. If the proposals are implemented they will make a real difference. The Chancellor is struggling to defend it in the Bundestag, and he has to put his own political future on the line — but that’s precisely what makes it matter. If he pulls it off, Europe just might be safer.

For further examples of real action, take Denmark, Sweden or Finland silently but openly sending new tranches of support to Ukraine. Not for headlines and attention but to help Ukrainians win the war. 

But what is scary is that there are so few of these examples — the last remnants of good old responsible statecraft.

What to do?

We must demand less show, more substance... To win in Ukraine we need to commit to much, much more than even our biggest current commitments can cover. New programmes, new initiatives, new money. This requires embracing life in the reality which pseudo announcements are not altering. One shipment of rockets is a good thing… which in no way changes the trajectory of the war. 

Staying the current course fundamentally signals conciliation with defeat. This is worse than mere appeasement. We are not even trying to win, or to prevent a larger war. Many who should be making difficult decisions are hoping that theatrical distractions will cover the tracks of their inaction long enough for the problem to disappear or to become someone else’s problem.  

The reality we live in isn’t a reality show. But if we keep treating it like one, then the fires in Kyiv will become the season finale."

The empty talk of the West on Ukraine

From the Telegraph / Yahoo!News:

"The West’s cry of solidarity with Ukraine has never rung so hollow

Lisa Haseldine, July 11, 2025 

Emmanuel Macron took time out of his address to Parliament earlier this week to declare that France and Britain would “fight to the very last minute” to secure a lasting peace for Ukraine. This was in Europe’s – and not just Ukraine’s – interest, he said. His was not the only grand statement of intent made by one of Kyiv’s numerous western allies this week. Yesterday, the so-called “coalition of the willing” met to reaffirm their “unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity”.

These lofty pledges are all very well and good. But the trouble is that, in the nearly three and a half years that Ukraine has been doing its best to throw off Russia’s invasion, we have heard iterations of these promises time and time again. Rarely, however, have they been backed up by actions robust enough to help turn the tide on Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

Since February 2022, there have been several sliding doors moments when, had Kyiv’s allies seized their chance, decisive blows could have been dealt to the Kremlin’s troops and war machine. From delays sending crucial weaponry such as tanks, fighter jets and long-range missiles to sanctions packages that have over-promised and under-delivered, time and again the West has failed to strike when the time was right.

But never have the West’s stock phrases of solidarity that we have heard felt so hollow – and its help so desperately needed – as this week. The Russian army has been ramping up its aerial assaults on Ukraine with alarming rapidity since the spring. On Tuesday night, hours after Macron’s address in London, Putin’s forces launched their largest drone attack on the country of the war so far, consisting of 728 drones and 13 missiles, according to the Ukrainian armed forces.

This came just four days on from Moscow’s previous record of the conflict, when 539 drones were directed at Ukraine. On Monday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky revealed that Russia had in total directed over 1,200 drones and 1,000 glide bombs at the country over the past week alone.

Europe’s feeble support of Ukraine has only been matched by the volatile, transactional backing given to the country by US president Donald Trump in his six months in office. From his Oval Office ambush of Zelensky in February, to several cosy phone calls with Putin to discuss the “normalisation” of relations between their two countries, he has turned America into an unreliable ally for Kyiv. His strategy to bring an end to the war in “24 hours”, as he so infamously promised on the campaign trail appears to involve trying to bring Ukraine – rather than Russia – to its knees as quickly as possible. 

There are a few slivers of hope to suggest things may yet change in Kyiv’s favour. On Wednesday, Trump told his cabinet that “we get a lot of bulls**t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth.” He has pledged new military aid to Ukraine for the first time since he returned to the White House – but only after an existing aid package was paused by his defence secretary Pete Hegseth a week prior in the name of putting “America’s interests first”...

Russia is currently advancing rapidly through the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, and the White House has made it clear that any peace deal brokered by Trump is highly likely to include handing these territories over to the Kremlin.

European leaders are reportedly concerned about how Trump could attempt to ram through such a deal without Ukraine’s consent, but despite their many platitudes about supporting Kyiv for “as long as it takes”, they have yet to come up with an alternative half-decent plan to weaken Putin’s negotiating position.

Of course, nobody truly expected Trump to be able to bring about a swift end to the war. But Europe, also so good at talking the talk on supporting Ukraine, has failed to walk the walk. It was very telling that during this week’s coalition of the willing meeting, plans to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire were quietly put on the back burner, in a tacit acknowledgement that that ceasefire is unlikely to be coming any time soon. Simply put, Ukraine has been let down by its allies over the last three years – and badly.

The West has many levers it repeatedly promises to pull to strengthen Ukraine’s fight and weaken Putin’s regime, including tougher sanctions against Russia and its allies and more aid for Kyiv. But, without delivering it, all this support amounts to is empty words. Such hollow white knight diplomacy benefits no one." 

How to make Putin wish to end the war

Translating from the Dialog:

"Podolyak hinted at what Russia needs to be "provided" with so that Putin "wants" to end the war

Mikhailo Podolyak assured that Russia and its citizens understand only the language of force, which is what we need to talk to them in. 

Putin himself will not stop, but there is a way to "help" him do it, said [Ukrainian official] Mikhailo Podolyak. Only forceful methods of influence will be effective when more and more drones fly to Russia every day and the population of this country feels what war is like on their own skin. 

The adviser... expressed his opinion about the Russians, so that everyone understands who Ukraine has to deal with: "The Russians like it. They like to come, cut, kill, rape, deport and at the same time puff out their cheeks, as does Lavrov, and talk about the fact that there are some root causes, that "we want to cut them out because they want to join somewhere." [i.e. that the destruction of Ukraine and wholesale slaughter of Ukrainians is allegedly justified by Ukraine's wish to join the EU and NATO - M. M.] That's what they like and, accordingly, without the use of tools that will kill this side of the war that they like, nothing will work."  

Then Mykhailo Podolyak named an effective way to force Russia to cease fire: "We have already discussed with you more than once what coercion instruments are. The first is the cost of war for Russia and the second is the cost of the perception of war. Roughly speaking, the cost of war is the economy, and the cost of perception is the number of strikes on Russian territory, the destruction of military infrastructure, military logistics or simply logistics, as regards the social perception of war (when airports do not work)."  

"This is the feeling of war, that is, when the normal schedule of life is completely broken. This is what Russia needs to receive. Unfortunately, until this happens, they will continue to implement their favorite pastime - raping and killing," the political strategist summarized."

Trump is a bully and a surrender monkey

From the Guardian:

"What if Ukraine falls? This is no longer a hypothetical question – and it must be answered urgently

Simon Tisdall

 

Europe offers platitudes, Trump dithers, and Ukraine and its extraordinary people stand on the brink. Nato must step up 

 

For 40 cruel and bloody months, Ukraine has fought the Russian invader. Since February 2022, when Moscow’s full-scale, countrywide onslaught began, its people have faced relentless, devastating attacks. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded, millions have lost their homes. Ukraine’s industries, shops, schools, hospitals and power stations burn, its fertile farmlands are laid waste. Its children are orphaned, traumatised or abducted. Despite repeated appeals, the world has failed to stop the carnage. And yet Ukraine, outnumbered and outgunned, has continued to fight back.

Ukrainian heroism amid horror has become so familiar, it’s almost taken for granted. But as Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, escalates the war, raining nightly terror on Kyiv and other cities using record waves of armed drones, as US support and peace efforts falter, and as Ukraine’s overstretched frontline soldiers face exhaustion, such complacency looks increasingly misplaced. A no longer hypothetical question becomes ever more real and urgent: what if Ukraine falls?...

Increasingly, too, Ukraine is short of reliable friends, though maybe that has always been the case. Putin has assembled his own “coalition of the willing” – China, Iran, North Korea and others – to support his war machine. The west’s equivalent, led by Britain and France, is in limbo...

Speaking in London last week, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, regurgitated familiar pledges of unflinching support. That’s easy. Effective military assistance is harder...

Trump, the US’s surrender monkey, remains Kyiv’s biggest diplomatic headache. His lopsided 30-day ceasefire plan was rejected by Moscow, his proffered US-Russia commercial deals spurned. After months of slandering Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and sucking up to Putin, the “very stable genius” has concluded the Russian leader, an indicted war criminal, talks “bullshit” and cannot be trusted. Well, fancy that.

Trump now says he will resume limited supplies of defensive weapons to Kyiv and may back additional sanctions. But this is not about policy or principle. His ego is damaged. His feelings are hurt. One flattering word from his smirking Kremlin bro could turn him around in a flash. Like all bullies, Trump instinctively favours the stronger party. Little wonder Putin calculates he can wear down Ukraine, outlast the west and win the war.

All is not lost. With or without Trump, Nato could take a tougher line, as repeatedly urged here, by imposing air exclusion zones over unoccupied Ukraine and targeting incoming missiles and drones... Fence-straddlers such as India that refuse to sanction the Kremlin and profit from the war should be invited to read the European court of human rights’ shocking new report on Russian war crimes savagery – and told to pick a side... Putin, not Ukraine, must fall."

Russia's chemical warfare "unbearable"

From Politico:

"Russia’s increasing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine ‘unbearable,’ says top EU diplomat

Moscow is using banned chemical weapons to inflict as “much pain and suffering” as possible to force Ukraine to surrender, Kaja Kallas said. 

July 15, 2025 7:20 pm CET

By Nicholas Vinocur

BRUSSELS — Russia is increasingly using chemical weapons in Ukraine in an effort to subdue the country by causing as much pain and suffering as possible, Europe’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after a gathering of foreign affairs ministers in Brussels, the Estonian politician cited German and Dutch intelligence reports showing that Moscow has used chemical weapons at least 9,000 times since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and was now ramping up their use.

“As the intelligence services are saying this is intensifying, I think it’s [Russia’s use of chemical weapons] of great, great concern,” Kallas said. “It shows that Russia wants to cause as much pain and suffering so that Ukraine would surrender. And, you know, it’s really … unbearable.”...

Kallas’ comments add to a growing sense of alarm in EU capitals that Russia is escalating its campaign to subdue Ukraine, unleashing larger and larger nightly attacks by missiles.

The worsening onslaught, which coincides with an ongoing summer offensive by Russia, prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to announce Monday that he would support a bill penalizing Moscow via powerful tariffs on Russian exports.

However, the fact that Trump has said he would only approve the secondary sanctions against Russia after 50 days if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t stop his assault of his own accord has led to disappointment in Europe and Ukraine.

Trump’s announcement that he will allow NATO to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine is also sitting awkwardly with European officials. Asked about the move, Kallas said she welcomed the possibility of delivering more weapons to Ukraine, but added that Europe would “like to see the U.S. share the burden.”

Trump, however, has said the U.S. would not keep financing Ukraine’s defense. “We’re not buying it, but we will manufacture it, and they’re going to be paying for it,” Trump said, referencing “very rich” European allies.

Kallas said: “If we pay for these weapons, it’s our support, it’s European support.”