Exclusives
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Ukraine counterattacks to the north. Russia doesn’t care—it wants Zaporizhzhia.. Despite the chaos all around it, the Russian 5th Combined Arms Army is determined to capture a key Ukrainian fortification in the southeast. |
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Not enough Patriot missiles to stop 60 Russian Iskanders a month. The Iran war is draining what’s left.. Ukraine's only defense against ballistic attacks became a whole lot harder to obtain |
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Hungary took the oil, thanked nobody, and blamed the country that sent it. MOL’s chairman says Ukraine pumped oil through Druzhba to stop a fire. Hungary accepted every barrel. |
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Russian manufacturers can’t find workers—but they’re cutting the ones they have. Production declined for the 12th straight month, but firms are now shedding workers, too. |
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Ukraine must meet EU pig welfare standards—while Russian missiles knock out farm electricity. Production costs rising, sale prices stagnant—and Spanish pork is heading east. |
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Did the US just fund Russia’s war by bombing its drone supplier?. Urals crude hits budget target for first time in months as Gulf chaos drives global prices up. |
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Anne Applebaum wrote the book on autocracy. Then she thanked a sanctioned oligarch at his Oxford school.. She attacks Trump's envoy for his Russia ties—without mentioning he's business partners with the man she thanked at Oxford. |
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Russia lost Europe as trade partner and alternative markets can’t fill this gap. EU-Russia trade shrank 5.4 times since invasion as Moscow faces isolation. |
Military
With Kharkiv under growing artillery fire, Zelenskyy demands buffer zone on Russian soil. No artillery would reach Ukraine's second-largest city if the zone is deep enough, he says.
Russia is 3D-printing mines and hiding them in the grass where Kherson residents walk. The plastic devices detonate when someone steps on them or a vehicle drives over them.
Russian armor vanishes from front lines north of Kharkiv as drones fill the gap. A Khartia Brigade officer says armored vehicles have been pushed so far back that strikes on them happen across the Russian border. Meanwhile, fiber-optic FPVs have appeared near Kharkiv itself.
Russia's winter offensive ground to a halt as Ukraine recaptured more land than it lost in February, Syrskyi says. The Commander-in-Chief reported that over three winter months, Ukrainian forces killed or wounded nearly 100,000 Russian troops — more than Russia managed to recruit into its ranks over the same period.
Diplomacy is going great in Moscow's understanding: Russia struck suburban train in motion full of passengers amid "peace talks". Russia's drones have found a new prey: moving passenger trains carrying people in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
Russia wants Odesa to control entire Black Sea and reach Moldova — but every arm it extends gets cut off. Odesa is Russia's white whale — endlessly hunted, never caught, and defended by drones that already sank the fleet that tried.
Oleksandrivka direction sees breakthrough—Russia loses coordination as Ukrainian paratroopers exploit chaos. Kyiv units cut Russian supply lines while securing nine key settlements.
Intelligence and technology
Russia is building fake trees to hide communications antennas that Ukrainian drones keep finding. Plastic mesh, foam, and paint — shaped to fool aerial reconnaissance.
€500,000 in 60 seconds — Latvians are buying robots to get wounded soldiers out of drone kill zones. NATO doctrine says wounded soldiers need extraction within an hour; on Ukraine's drone-saturated front lines, it can take 24 hours or more.
Russia's Starlink replacement is giving away its positions — Ukrainian brigade tracks drone pilots by their Wi-Fi antennas. Ukraine's 59th Brigade soldier says Russia's Wi-Fi alternatives require clear line-of-sight placement, making every antenna a marker for a drone operator position or EW station.
International
Ukraine's defense industry is building a direct pipeline into Europe's weapons market — one NATO certification at a time. Finland became the eighth Alliance member to finalize a mutual quality assurance deal, with five more in negotiation.
Two wars, one missile supply: Zelenskyy fears Iran conflict will starve Ukraine's air defenses. Last year's Israel-Iran war already slowed deliveries. Zelenskyy worries it could happen again.
EU banned Russian gas by 2027. The Iran war may undo it, Norway warns. European gas prices hit multi-year highs as Gulf disruptions shake energy markets.
Lithuania just raised €5.12 mn for drones that go where soldiers can't survive on Ukraine's front lines. Three squads have already been formed and are being sent to units in active operations, LRT says.
Zelenskyy exposes Hungary's pipeline hypocrisy after fifteenth energy strike. Croatia was ready to supply Hungary oil, but Budapest preferred Russian profits.
World's best Shahed hunters are in Ukraine — and Kyiv to deploy to Gulf, but only on one condition. Arab states have economic leverage over Russia. Ukraine has the world's best drone hunters. Zelenskyy proposes a trade.
Ukraine will help Gulf states shoot down Iran's Shaheds — if their leaders push Putin toward a ceasefire. The proposal came hours after Shaheds struck Dubai and a US base in Bahrain — the same weapon Ukraine has intercepted over 57,000 times since 2022.
Humanitarian and social impact
337 Ukrainian POWs "consciously and brutally" executed by Russia – nearly all others tortured. Ombudsman calls torture a state weapon at UN Human Rights Council session.
Political and legal developments
Iran hit Abu Dhabi but not the peace talks — Kyiv says the next Ukraine-Russia-US round is still days away. The Ukrainian president says the 5-6 March trilateral is on track — he prefers Geneva, though Austria, the Vatican, or Türkiye are also options if Russia wants a neutral venue.
Read our previous daily review here.
