Attention to the Unseen

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister, writes: We Ukrainians want peace more than anyone in the world. For about 100 days, we have been fighting Russian forces on the ground, in the sky, on the sea, and in cyber and information spaces. Defence experts originally gave us little hope of success. They changed their position when we showed our ability to resist. Now we need to demonstrate the strength to hold our course and resist the temptations of a…

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The Guardian reports: Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has called for talks on a new government after her ruling coalition fell apart, urging unity because of security concerns over neighbouring Russia. Kallas spoke to reporters after President Alar Karis accepted her request to dismiss seven Centre party ministers from the 15-strong cabinet, including the foreign minister, Eva-Maria Liimets. “More than ever, Estonia needs a functioning government based on common values,” Kallas said on Friday, according to the Baltic news agency….

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BBC News reports: Ukraine’s foreign minister has hit out at French President Emmanuel Macron after he said it was vital that Russia was not humiliated over its invasion. Mr Macron said it was crucial President Vladimir Putin had a way out of what he called a “fundamental error”. But Dmytro Kuleba said allies should “better focus on how to put Russia in its place” as it “humiliates itself”. Mr Macron has repeatedly spoken to Mr Putin by phone in an…

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David Axe reports: The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden plans to offer to Ukraine the General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle, the U.S. Army’s best unmanned aerial vehicle. The possible forthcoming offer, which Reuters first reported, would be subject to approval by the U.S. Congress. But if the president follows through, lawmakers sign off on the deal and the White House can arrange financing—likely via the federal government’s fund for foreign weapons deals—Kyiv’s forces soon could operate one of the…

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The New York Times reports: In a scorched, gold-rich area 200 miles north of the Sudanese capital, where fortunes spring from desert-hewn rock, a mysterious foreign operator dominates the business. Locals call it “The Russian Company” — a tightly guarded plant with shining towers, deep in the desert, that processes mounds of dusty ore into bars of semirefined gold. “The Russians pay the best,” said Ammar al-Amir, a miner and community leader in al-Ibediyya, a hardscrabble mining town 10 miles…

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The New York Times reports: Vladimir Efimov, a local politician on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East, was charged with “discrediting the army” and ordered to pay a $500 fine three times in recent months over antiwar images that he displayed on social media. When he continued, reposting battlefield pictures like the wholesale destruction of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol under Russian bombardment, prosecutors ratcheted up the charges and accused him of a felony — punishable by up…

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Sky News reports: US military hackers have conducted offensive operations in support of Ukraine, the head of US Cyber Command has told Sky News. In an exclusive interview, General Paul Nakasone also explained how separate “hunt forward” operations were allowing the United States to search out foreign hackers and identify their tools before they were used against America. Speaking in Tallinn, Estonia, the general, who is also director of the National Security Agency (NSA), told Sky News that he is…

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  Channel 4 News travelled to the northern front line in the Donbas to speak to soldiers about life under relentless Russian bombardment.

Der Spiegel reports: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is exasperating. For months, the narrative has been that he would prefer not to deliver any weapons at all to Ukraine, and certainly not any heavy weaponry. The chancellor, according to the scuttlebutt, has had to be forced into every single concession and then he delays the deliveries. On Wednesday, Scholz had to listen in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, as opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) lambasted him as…

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The New York Times reports: Since Western allies announced extensive restrictions on exports of semiconductors, computers, lasers, telecommunications equipment and other goods in February, Russia has had difficulty obtaining microchips to replenish its supply of precision-guided munitions, according to one senior U.S. official, who, along with most other officials interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters based on intelligence. On Tuesday, when asked if a chip shortage was crippling the Russian military, Commerce Secretary…

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MarketWatch reports: The almost 1,000 companies that have opted to pull out of Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are not just benefiting from a reputational boost. They are also being rewarded by financial markets, while those who remain behind are being punished. That’s according to a new report from Yale Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and his research team at the Yale School of Management. The team has been monitoring almost 1,300 companies that do business in Russia and has…

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The New York Times reports: The old nuclear order, rooted in the Cold War’s unthinkable outcomes, was fraying before Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, it is giving way to a looming era of disorder unlike any since the beginning of the atomic age. Russia’s regular reminders over the past three months of its nuclear might, even if largely bluster, were the latest evidence of how the potential threat has resurfaced in more overt and dangerous ways. They were enough to draw…

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