Ukraine's war and the West's response to it dominate today's coverage, tied together by one pattern: measures exist on paper but keep falling short in practice, whether that's sanctions, air defense, or arms production.

Ukraine's war economy under fire

  • Russia struck Izmail, Ukraine's largest Danube port, overnight, damaging grain export terminals as Moscow said it downed 362 Ukrainian drones and Kyiv hit an oil refinery in Russia's Salavat region — more.
  • EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is urging member states to voluntarily send Patriot air-defense batteries to Ukraine, but neither Brussels nor the Commission can order any capital to hand systems over — arms transfers stay a national decision — more.

Sanctions that don't quite land

  • Ukraine's anti-corruption watchdog NAKO mapped 482 subsidiaries and affiliates beneath Russian defense conglomerate Rostec, most still unlisted by the EU, letting them keep trading, banking and importing components legally despite Rostec's own sanctions since 2022 — more.
  • Senate Democrats are demanding the Trump administration explain a 17-month freeze on new sanctions targeting networks that help Russia dodge existing restrictions — more.

Elsewhere

  • Taiwan disclosed a state-linked hacking campaign using AI tools that hit it last month, one of the first public disclosures of an AI-enabled attack on a government; the sponsor and targets remain unconfirmed — more.
  • An analysis piece ties together the Pentagon's Golden Dome contracting fix, a DRAM price surge pushing Apple, Dell and HP toward a Chinese-designated military chipmaker, Britain's shrinking navy and stalled South Korean arms exports: the common constraint is factory capacity, not money — more.