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Russian attacks are killing and injuring civilians every day. Russians dropped FAB-250 guided bombs on a residential area of Sloviansk in Donetsk region, hitting two apartment buildings. One person was killed and 10 more injured. There may still be people trapped under the rubble. 📹V.Lyah

According to reports from the Ministry of Defense highlighted by the newspaper "Kommersant," the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, informed the president that Russian troops have taken control of the locality of Dobropillia in the Donetsk region. #GuerraUcrânia #Putin #ImprensaRussa (translated)

Ukraine announced that the 3rd Army Corps has liberated another 101 square kilometers of territory in the Donetsk region, including the villages of Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodjazi, and attacked a Russian military airfield located in the Voronezh region. #Ukraina #DonetskiOblast #Sõda (translated)

Nacho Montes de Oca claimed that Elon Musk had used Starlink for political purposes to pressure the Ukrainian government and that it was not the first time he, according to him, had aided Vladimir Putin or followed Donald Trump's orders at a critical moment. He stated that the decision could commercially harm SpaceX by exposing it to geopolitical risks similar to those that, in his opinion, contributed to the international ban on Huawei. Montes de Oca wrote that the intermittent use of critical technological infrastructure as a tool of political or military pressure could lead Western governments to accelerate the development of sovereign networks. He also pointed out that the interruption would have forced the cancellation or failure of several Ukrainian drone missions, reduced the commercial appeal of Starlink for defense customers, and put contracts with the Pentagon and the trust of European partners at risk. Among them, he mentioned Poland, which, he indicated, financed about 50 million dollars annually in terminals for Ukraine. The author estimated the global market for military communications and satellites in 2026 to be 22.03 billion dollars, if only encrypted tactical communication services were counted. He warned that defense buyers could consider their reliance on a private provider financially risky. In his background review, Montes de Oca stated that in September 2002 Ukraine requested to activate Starlink in the region of Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea, to guide maritime drones against the Russian Black Sea fleet, but Musk rejected the request. He added that on September 30 of that year, SpaceX interrupted the signal for several hours—and, in some areas, days—in the regions of Kherson and Donetsk during a Ukrainian counteroffensive, which, he wrote, left drones disconnected and temporarily halted military operations. Montes de Oca also said that the following month Musk threatened to stop providing the service because he could not finance it indefinitely and reversed the decision days later, before the Pentagon formally took over the contracts and Poland covered part of the costs. Additionally, he noted that in February 2023, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell confirmed that the company had technically limited the use of Starlink in Ukrainian attack drones and asserted that those restrictions had been tightened. Finally, he stated that Airbus was leading the European response and that, with 5.3 billion euros from the European military space program, it was designing and building low-orbit platforms for national and sovereign satellite networks. #ElonMusk #Starlink #Ucrania (translated)

Joren Vermeersch wrote that he did not view the closure of Starlink for Ukrainian drone operations on Ukrainian territory as a lever to make Ukraine stop attacking Russian refineries. According to him, Ukraine had already unilaterally halted those attacks at Trump's request. Vermeersch suspected that Trump might want to force Ukraine to withdraw from the non-occupied parts of the Donetsk province and hand them over to Russia. He derived this from Trump's statements that Zelensky did not want to reach an agreement and that Putin was more focused on an agreement than Zelensky. According to Vermeersch, Trump seemed to think that Putin would be willing to negotiate a ceasefire after such a Ukrainian concession. He described that expectation as dangerous wishful thinking and pointed out that, in his view, Putin also claimed the non-conquered parts of Zaporizhia and Kherson. According to Vermeersch, Russia had constitutionally annexed those provinces; the claimed areas also included both provincial capitals. A Russian presence there would give Russia, according to him, a foothold on the right bank of the Dnipro in two places, in view of a possible third phase of the conquest war. As the main obstacle to a ceasefire, Vermeersch mentioned Putin's demand that Ukraine unilaterally disarm and demilitarize. According to him, that would amount to capitulation and certainly provoke a new invasion. He wrote that Putin had repeated that demand in every diplomatic round, including during the last round in Moscow the month before, with Witkoff and Kuchner. Vermeersch believed that Trump was wrongly thinking that Putin did not take that demand seriously. Vermeersch argued that Ukraine could not afford dangerous wishful thinking, as it was fighting for the survival of its society, people, and state. Because Putin continued to insist on unconditional capitulation, Ukraine was forced to keep defending itself. He wrote that it would continue to do so until it achieved a ceasefire that left it free in the part of the country it had successfully defended. #Oekraïne #Rusland #Vrede (translated)

"Russian losses have increased in recent months," President Zelenskyy said, noting that Ukrainian Warriors continue their active defense&are gradually pushing back Russian occupying forces. "In the Dobropillia direction [Donetsk region] alone, Russians are losing around 200 troops killed every day

Henri Vanhanen wrote that he doubted whether Vladimir Putin had a realistic understanding of the situation in the war in Ukraine or whether he would be willing to accept information contrary to his own views. Vanhanen assessed that in Russia's system, reporting bad news to the leadership could be dangerous and that the military leadership, subordinates, or the president's inner circle might distort or filter information. Vanhanen referred to a recent assessment by the think tank ISW, which stated that Ukraine's successful counteroffensive in northern Donetsk had shattered Russia's plan to encircle the region's key defensive cities from two directions. According to him, Russia's goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region appeared to be further away as a result. Vanhanen wrote that Putin might continue the war to achieve unrealistic goals if he believed that Russia was closer to victory than reality suggests. He deemed it even more concerning that Putin might be receiving accurate information but did not want to believe it. Vanhanen emphasized that Russia's military failure, in his view, might not necessarily change Putin's goals or his desire to continue the war. He believed that an unrealistic situational picture could lead to the prolongation of the war and taking greater risks, and he appealed for continued support for Ukraine and to resist Russia's military pressure. https://t.co/Lb2advefv2 #Ukraina #Putin #sota (translated)

Ukraine’s counter-offensive on the Lyman axis collapsed the northern arm of a Russian pincer movement aimed at surrounding Ukrainian-held Donetsk, liberating up to 176 square kilometres and forcing Russian units onto the defensive, the Washington-based think tank said. #Ukraine #Donbas #OperationVivaldi

Amalia accused Russia of deliberately launching attacks against civilians in Ukraine, citing strikes on apartment buildings, schools, shopping centers, public transport, playgrounds, and bridges. She argued that most of the victims were Russian-speaking individuals in Eastern Ukraine and criticized those who, as she wrote, showed sensitivity towards Palestine and Iran in Greece, but not towards Ukrainians. Regarding the recent strikes, she mentioned that in Pryluky, Chernihiv Oblast, 22 civilians were killed, including 5 children—three of them one year old—and 54 were injured. For Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast, she wrote that two city buses were attacked and 33 people were killed, while the number of injured remained unknown. She added that 9 people were also killed in Kyiv, 2 in Kremenchuk, 2 in Konotop, 2 in Oleksandriia, and 1 in Zaporizhzhia, raising the death toll of civilian casualties over the two days to 71, according to her. Regarding the negotiations with U.S. intervention, Amalia claimed that Zelensky was accepting a ceasefire with the troops in their current positions and was asking for guarantees from the West. She stated that pro-Russian separatist forces controlled 60% of Donetsk Oblast before the Russian invasion of 2022, that since then the Russian army had captured an additional 20%, and that it had not managed to capture the remaining 20%. She asserted that Putin did not want a ceasefire, but a peace agreement that would require Zelensky to go to Moscow, the demilitarization of Ukraine, a constitutional commitment not to seek EU or NATO membership, and the recognition of the territories occupied by Russia since 2014, including Crimea. She added that Russia was also demanding the surrender of the remaining 20% of Donetsk Oblast that it had not captured. Amalia compared the situation to Cyprus, where, as she wrote, since August 1974 a ceasefire had been in effect under UN supervision, without a permanent peace agreement, because Turkey demanded recognition of the loss of territories and the pseudostate. She concluded that Russia sought, in her view, the humiliation of Ukraine and not peace. #Ουκρανία #Ειρήνη #Πόλεμος (translated)

The most intense combat operations have taken place in the same areas as in recent weeks: the direction of Pokrovsk and Konstantynivka in Donetsk, the southern Slobozhansky direction in Kharkiv region, the direction of Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia, and the direction of Lyman in Donetsk continues. Ukrainian counterattacks have still occurred in the Kupiansk direction in Kharkiv region and in Donetsk in the directions of Sloviansk, Lyman, and Kramatorsk," said Kiviselg. #Ukraina #Venemaa #sõda (translated)