“Ukraine – Russia”

Prison guards led Vitalii Kryschenko to an inhospitable, cramped cell. Inside, the prisoners were curious. They watched with great interest as Kryschenko found his allotted place. A small, gentle man with a nervous expression, he wasn’t a typical criminal but a Jehovah’s Witness. Kryschenko was jailed by Ukrainian authorities for refusing to go to war; taking up arms is forbidden by his religion. He was now going to share his days with the very worst of Ukrainian society. This would include thieves, those guilty of assault or worse.

‘I was living with murderers, people jailed for life,’ he said. ‘It was terrifying. On my first night, I asked myself how I would survive in these conditions. All the same, I continued my daily prayers and read the Bible.’

Britain and France have scuppered a proposal for Nato allies to spend 0.25 per cent of GDP on military aid for Ukraine.

Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary-general, this week conceded his plan wouldn’t be taken forward because it didn’t have sufficient support.

“I don’t think this one will be proposed,” he told reporters, without naming the opponents.

But now The Telegraph can reveal that the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Canada blocked the idea when it was floated in discussions for how to boost support for Kyiv.

We’ve already spent over 20 Billion with no indication the spigot will be turned off. This sounds like performative BS for domestic consumption.

Small skulls hover on screens inside boardrooms in Kyiv. What looks like the scoreboard of a video game represents the number of Russians killed on the front line in Ukraine.
Kills translate into points and the more virtual points a Ukrainian unit scores, the better the weapons it can buy on the Brave1 online marketplace.

This gamification of the war does not suit everyone. Western leaders have apparently left the meetings grim-faced, perhaps because the cold reality of modern warfare is difficult to square with the Call of Duty-style icons.

The decision to ease sanctions on Russian oil is a disappointing and deeply concerning step by the United Kingdom. For all these years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has looked to Britain as one of its strongest and most principled allies.

It was among the first countries to provide military assistance, political support and tough sanctions against Russia. That support was both practical and symbolic. It showed Ukrainians that democratic countries were ready to stand firmly against aggression and defend international law. That is why Sir Keir Starmer’s move sends a very dangerous message.

The battle between Ukraine and Russia has long come down to drone warfare, but now, drone warfare is even replacing highly-trained snipers on the battlefield, as proven by Ukrainian special forces soldier Vyacheslav Kovalsky.

“I used to be the sniper and everyone danced around me. Now everyone dances around the drone pilot, including me,” Kovalsky told the Wall Street Journal, as cited by Mandiner:

Kovalsky is known for his world-record shot back in 2023, when he shot a Russian officer from a distance of almost four kilometers. However, nowadays, he mainly assists drone operators.

Ukraine is doing the unthinkable: winning its war against Russia. I doubt it will achieve its war aim of removing all Russian soldiers from all its territory, especially Crimea, but it certainly has Russia on the run.

For the first two years of the war, the Europeans, and especially Biden, simultaneously poured billions of dollars of weapons for the country’s defense and restricted the use of those weapons so heavily that the inevitable result was a bloody stalemate and a forever war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s former right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, appeared in a Kyiv court on Tuesday after being named by Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies as a suspect in a money-laundering scheme.

Yermak’s lawyer had earlier denounced as “baseless” the allegations that the former head of the presidential office had been caught up in a corruption scandal surrounding a €8.9m ($10.5m) luxury construction project outside Kyiv.

A major political dispute has opened in Austria after it was revealed that the country has quietly overseen transports of close to €20 billion to Kyiv over the past four years.

The sum was unveiled in response to a parliamentary question from Austria’s right-wing populist FPÖ, following Hungary’s interception in March of an armoured cash convoy carrying tens of millions of dollars and gold from Austria to Ukraine. Hungary has since returned the seized assets in a less-than-transparent move, following the electoral defeat of the ruling Fidesz party.

The trouble was a long time coming. More than a year ago, after the inauguration of President Trump, the United States stopped being the kind of partner it used to be for Ukraine in the war against Russia. But now, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine seems to be stepping back from that relationship as well, distancing his country from what was once its biggest ally.

Call it a trial separation, largely set in motion by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. American-backed peace talks to end the fighting in Ukraine have been halted since late February, when the first bombs fell on Tehran. With the negotiations now on life support, Mr. Zelensky has publicly criticized the United States in ways that would have been unthinkable last year, when Ukraine was waging a delicate fight against the Trump administration’s push for a quick peace that favored Russia.

Germany will do “everything in our power” to ensure that the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia are not brought back into service, a cabinet minister has said.

The 760-mile route along the floor of the Baltic Sea, previously a symbol of Europe’s dependence on Moscow for fossil fuels, was rendered largely inoperable in September 2022 by a series of underwater explosions, which Berlin attributed to a team of Ukrainian saboteurs.

Volodymyr Zelensky has scrapped open-ended military contracts to attract new recruits.

Ukraine’s army has consistently struggled with severe manpower shortages, with troops spending months at a time on the front line and recruiters dragging civilian men off the street to force them into service.

In an attempt to make the military more attractive, the Ukrainian president on Friday promised to increase soldiers’ pay and make it possible for them to be discharged after a set period.

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