5. In March, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also recorded a total of 12 medical facilities and 32 educational facilities destroyed or damaged. 7/
6. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was attacked for the first time since November 2022. Russia accuses Ukraine, Ukraine accuses Russia of the attacks 8/ bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the top U.S. military commander in Europe, warned that Ukraine could lose the war with Russia if the U.S. does not send more ammunition to Ukrainian forces quickly. 9/
7. Frontline Ukrainian forces are rationing artillery shells due to lack of a reliable Western supplier, allowing Russian troops to outfire them 5-to-1, a ratio that could soon increase to 10-to-1 without additional U.S. aid. 10/
8. Russia has reconstituted its army faster than initial U.S. estimates, increasing frontline troop strength by 15% to 470,000 and expanding the conscription age limit. Russia plans to expand its military to 1.5 million troops. 11/
9. Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's energy system, bombardment of Kharkiv, and advances along the front are stoking fears that Ukraine's military is nearing a breaking point. 12/
Western officials say Ukraine is at its most fragile moment in over two years of war.
Ukrainian officials don’t comment on the “breaking point” but increasingly voice alarming pleas for weapons and air defense 13/
There is a risk of Ukrainian defense collapse which could enable Russia to make a major advance for the first time since the early stages of the war. The next few months will be Ukraine's toughest test. 14/
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his country's allies to make good on their promises of military aid on Thursday, particularly in the form of desperately needed air defence systems as Russia scales up its air strikes 15/
So, in short, Ukraine is running out of air defense and weapons, and Russia is taking advantage of it.
Russia can break through unless the West overcomes its political infighting and dysfunctionality to provide support to Ukraine
16/
Democracies are messy, I often hear, but it is the best system. True, but this mess currently makes democracies unable to effectively address Russian threat. It looks more and more like a lack of leadership rather than the usual weakness of democracies. 17X
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Trump administration moved Germany ahead of Switzerland to deliver 2 Patriot systems quickly.
Allowing Berlin to transfer existing units immediately to Ukraine.
Similar agreements are expected soon. — WSJ 1/
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will discuss further military aid to Kyiv in a virtual meeting with NATO defense chiefs on Monday.
A follow-up meeting on Patriot support scheduled Wednesday.
2/
Germany, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Britain, Canada, and Finland agreed to Trump’s initiative to supply offensive and defensive weapons to Ukraine, with replacements purchased from the U.S.
Ukraine just gave the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church a deadline: cut all ties with the Russian Church by August 18 — or face legal consequences, report Ukrainska Pravda.
1/
On July 17, Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics ordered the UOC-MP to formally sever affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), whose activity is banned in Ukraine.
2/
The order demands:
— Withdrawal of all UOC clergy from ROC synods and councils
— Annulment of all ROC decisions over UOC dioceses
— Official UOC exit from the ROC charter
— Public rejection of ROC leadership by Metropolitan Onufriy
3/
Putin abducted 19,546 Ukrainian children and returned just 1,200. Ukraine handed him a list of 339 names on June 4. Putin stayed silent, The Times.
1/
Putin’s envoy Medinsky: These so-called kidnapped children were saved by our soldiers. We’ll see how many are here. If you want people crying, show a lost child with a kitten. That’s what they show.
2/
One child, Margarita Prokopenko, disappeared from a Kherson orphanage. Russian MP Sergei Mironov adopted her, renamed her Marina, and issued a fake birth certificate.
3/
Zelenskyy: We maintain full control over state institutions and secured Ukraine's candidacy for the EU. I thank the government of Denys Shmyhal.
New government will transform defense sector and increase Ukraine's economic potential.
Yulia Svyrydenko, welcome to the office! 1/
Zelenskyy: Today is the 1,240th day of full-scale war. Ukraine has been fighting Russia for its independence longer than anyone in the world expected. 2/
Zelenskyy: We maintain full control over state institutions.
We provide the front. Increase our own weapons production, conduct our own defensive operations on Russian territory, inflicting significant damage on Russia. 3/