Exclusives
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Defense expert: Ukraine’s interceptor shortage has no quick fix. Only a handful of countries can build ballistic-missile interceptors, and all are short. Defense expert Marc DeVore explains why money can’t fix Ukraine’s interceptor shortage fast — and where the real leverage lies. |
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I came to be bored, then a Ukrainian poet’s reading hit me like a freight train. Victoria Day in Lviv marks the close of the fellowship named for writer Victoria Amelina. A skeptic’s account of an evening about home. |
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In the world’s most jammed battlefield, a Kyiv company keeps the signal alive. Light, enduring mesh network enables complex operations in difficult environments |
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Russia is bolting World War II-style bridges onto armored tractors. They’re slow—and Ukraine’s drones are fast. Every bridge over the Vovcha is gone, so Russian crews drive improvised spans into the river and bail out—leaving the vehicles behind as makeshift bridges. The drones find them anyway. |
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Recovery conference for Ukraine opens in Poland as Warsaw-Kyiv ties hit bottom. Both presidents stayed away from Gdańsk—and the corridors talked less about rebuilding Ukraine than about whether Kyiv and Warsaw can rebuild their own partnership. |
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After eight months, Kostiantynivka is falling. Why some Ukrainian commanders would rather fight the open fields behind it. Russia’s first strategic win of the year is a ruined city—and Ukraine’s drone-centric defense may not miss it the way it once would have. |
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Ukraine’s banks got too profitable to sell—so the deadline keeps slipping. The central bank sees a “good chance” of two sales by December. The price the market will pay says otherwise. |
Military
Crimea isolation: SBU hits two Russian spy ships and an S-400 in occupied Kerch as 2,760 cars piled up trying to get off the peninsula. Russia shut the bridge for six hours during the air alert, and the queue never recovered by midday.
Russia built its air defense in layers. A Ukrainian commander says the drones are peeling them off one by one. The layers were the whole point—each system covering the next. Now the sky over the occupied south opens for Ukrainian jets.
Drones flew 1,300 km to Russia’s Ufa—then struck Bashneft refineries. Bashkortostan’s head claimed air defenses had shot down the drones and that the damage was caused only by falling debris.
Occupied Crimea’s grid takes another night of strikes as Yalta and Sevastopol lose power. Drones came in from every direction while the occupation’s air alert lagged hours behind.
A depot supplying two Russian regions with fuel is burning after an overnight drone strike. Russian officials again blamed “falling drone debris,” the phrasing Moscow uses to avoid admitting a direct hit.
Ukraine’s drones cut Crimea’s fuel. Now, Russia can’t even move its political prisoners. The week-long paralysis leaves Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian detainees held in Simferopol indefinitely.
Intelligence and technology
Russian MoD claims it shot down nearly 40,000 Ukrainian long-range drones over Russia and Crimea. The figure comes from Defense Ministry tallies compiled by a Russian newspaper.
Ukraine wants an AI-driven army. Its new defense center is already putting AI inside kill chain, steering drones onto target in final seconds. From last-mile targeting that beats jamming to autonomous turrets, the Ukrainian military center wants AI everywhere, but humans still pull the trigger.
International
Russia continues targeting Ukraine’s grid. Britain’s $381.5 million package bets on nuclear fuel to keep it running. Most of the money, £210 million, is a nuclear-fuel deal first announced this month.
Half of Ukraine’s new trainer planes were bought by Czech charity. Fund is called “Gift for Putin”. The light planes let Ukraine train future fighter pilots at home and slash the cost of every flight hour.
The UK may turn a captured Russian tanker’s cargo into cash for Ukraine’s troops. The crude came off a shadow-fleet tanker that Royal Marines boarded in the English Channel.
In Mali, Russians and Malian army killed four civilians, then staged a corpse into a swastika. The victims near Timbuktu were herders with no ties to armed groups, local sources and a rights group told RFI.
Russia has hit Ukraine’s energy system 6,000 times. Allies pledge €375 million at Gdansk conference, but fund is still short. The US, Sweden, and Norway led the pledges in Gdańsk, but Ukraine still needs over 3 gigawatts of thermal power repaired before winter.
Humanitarian and social impact
“We remember everyone who is in captivity” – Ukraine brings home 160 defenders held since 2022. This is the 76th exchange since 2022, as part of a coordinated exchange involving international mediation.
Russian strike on a Norwegian charity’s demining team kills two, wounds four in Kherson Oblast. The workers were clearing mines to make farmland safe when the strike hit, the group said.
Russian strike killed assistant driver in his train cab in Zaporizhzhia. The driver of the third train in Zaporizhzhia reached safety. His assistant, in the rear cab, could not be saved, the railway chief says.
Political and legal developments
Trade, banks, energy, crypto—the EU keeps its full Russia economic sanctions wall standing to 2027. The Council also held open the door to a 21st package still being negotiated.
Russia’s former soldiers may face a locked EU border—if France and Italy stop balking. The two governments worry the measure could open the door to keeping every Russian out, sources told Bloomberg.
Ukraine passes 20 reforms to unlock $3.39 billion from World Bank. The UK and Japan backed the loan, and a $2.35 billion grant fund covered the rest.
Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s ongoing Crimea operation is “carefully calculated”. The President linked it to a single condition: getting from G7 partners what Kyiv quietly asked for.
Washington just removed seven more Russians, two ships, and two Turkish firms from its sanctions blacklist. The Treasury’s sanctions arm gave no reason for the 24 June deletions, which restore asset access and let American companies deal with the named parties again.
Read our previous daily review here.
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