Post-war Hormuz escort mission takes shape, despite Trump-Macron row
“If they attacked a French or Italian boat [in Hormuz after the war], it’s Iran against the world not Iran against the US,” said retired Italian admiral Giampaolo Di Paola.
EU and the World
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Risk of death or injury in Russian regiment almost 100% (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,498)
Russia also declared it had captured the entire Luhansk region of Ukraine, but this was the third time it said so, and it was still not true.
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Poland’s refusal to send ‘Patriots’ to Middle East shows Europe’s air-defence anxiety
Gulf countries have fired at least 2,400 interceptor missiles, close to their estimated pre-Iran war stockpiles of 2,800 units, but Poland and Ukraine declined to help due to Russian threat.
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European lawyers warn US: Trump’s attack on attorneys is road to fascism
“History shows that suppression of the legal profession is both a symptom and an instrument of democratic decline,” said the ‘amicus’ brief, on behalf of 1 million European lawyers.
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Fear, but not panic, in Europe, after Trump threat to leave Nato
“Will there be panic in Europe? Depends when Moscow attacks. I personally think it will be this year, in which case we’re not ready,” said an EU diplomat.
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Ukraine’s Russia-type counter-attack went badly, causing some 100 deaths (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,497)
“We laugh at the enemy when it sends its soldiers in columns under conditions of drone dominance … what are we to think of Ukrainian commanders who do the same?”, Ukrainian defence aide said.
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Single mother escapes Sloviansk, as bombs and drones turn city into warzone
As Russian strikes intensify near the Donetsk frontline, the bombing of a maternity ward has forced families to flee. Among them is Minko Svitlana, who escaped Sloviansk with her son. Now in a transit centre, they join hundreds of traumatised children seeking safety and a future far from the rubble.
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Bucha anniversary sees EU call for Russian war-crime prosecutions
“Anybody who claims that Putin is not a war criminal should come and see for themselves”, said Polish minister Sikorski.
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Leaked phone call reveals how Orbán’s Hungary and Fico’s Slovakia helped Russian oligarchs
Hungarian foreign affairs minister Péter Szijjártó, in a conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, said that Budapest and Bratislava would help Russians get off the EU sanctions list. Meanwhile, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also lobbied Robert Fico in a letter on behalf of a Russian oligarch.
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Ukrainian ‘housewives’ defending Europe, after German CEO’s gaffe (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,496)
“In their kitchens they [Ukrainians] have 3D printers and produce parts for drones … this is not the technology of companies like Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, or Rheinmetall,” said Rheinmetall boss.
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No movement on EU sanctions, as Israel passes ‘apartheid’ death penalty
“I say to the people of the European Union who have applied pressure … We are not afraid,” said Israel’s Ben-Gvir, while wearing a noose lapel-pin.
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Israel scorns EU criticism of new Knesset law to hang Arab ‘terrorists’
The terrorism bill is worded to apply to ethnic Palestinians convicted in future of murdering Jewish Israelis for political reasons.
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EU signs off on €260m grant for Ukraine’s defence
The new funds are from the European defence industry programme, part of the bloc’s plans to scale up its defence industry.
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Putin’s man describes Ukraine’s latest drone tactics (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,495)
Ukrainian heavy artillery fire and tactical drones open path for long-range drones to reach and strike Russian rear, Rogozin said.
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Going to Kyiv: ‘Everything will be fine’
EUobserver reporter Nikolaj Nielsen is on the ground in Ukraine this week, as Russia escalates drone attacks and and the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas visits to mark the Bucha massacre anniversary, amid rising tension over blocked EU aid and Russian oil transit.
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[Interview] Ukraine journalist Vitaliy Sych: When Russians discuss Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, it means ‘they got their asses kicked’
Vitaliy Sych, editor of Ukrainian online media NV, talks to EUobserver (in an interview interrupted by 75 Shahed drones bombing Kyiv) about Russian losses and propaganda, the flock of Gulf leaders now wanting to buy Ukrainian military tech, Vladimir Putin’s mindset, the Druzhba pipeline and Viktor Orban.
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[Long-read] The Kremlin believed its own myth and still dreams of taking Odesa, but Ukrainians call it ‘impossible’
On Odesa’s sunlit Langeron beach, life resumes under gunfire as residents defy drones and propaganda alike. From fallen imperial statues to frontline defences, this port city fights not just Russia’s attacks, but the lingering shadows of empire today in the streets.
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France again ‘disappoints’ Trump on Hormuz, after Rubio talks
France would only lead a Hormuz mission “once calm returns, once the military objectives of the US are attained”, it said after EU powers met the US secretary of state. Marco Rubio said: “Ukraine is not America’s war, and yet we’ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world.”
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Russians debunk theory that Ukraine drones used Nato airspace (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,492)
Ukraine’s attack on oil terminals near St Petersburg prompted conspiracy theories of Nato collusion, but serious Russian bloggers did not take the bait.
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Ukrainians caused the largest short-term disruption of oil exports in modern Russian history (Ukraine Battlefield update, day 1491)
Russia’s revenues from oil and natural gas sales fell by 47 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.