May 1: E-Stories
InUkraine SitRep BehindLines Russia-China ISW UKDef Europe MineralsDeal Hao Gabon RUeco Simion EUDefStock Kallas Pak/India 5MlnGoldCard USGDP CNDPolitics
Catching up…
For specific news about Trump, his regime and its dealings with Russia, I direct you to Olga’s substack. She and Julie Roginsky publish a weekly podcast, “Pax Americana”, which is highly informative.
For a general view of news from various geopolitical threatres, Scott’s EA Worldview is always superb.
Let’s get going…
Stories we’re following…
On the night of May 1, 2025, starting at 19:30 on April 30, Russian forces launched a massive air attack against Ukraine, involving 5 Iskander-M ballistic missiles from Crimea and 170 drones, including strike UAVs and decoy drones. By 08:30, Ukraine confirmed the downing of 74 Shahed-type and other strike drones. Additionally, 68 decoy drones were neutralized without consequences.
Around 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 2,000 civilians are confirmed to be held by Russia, says Iryna Vereshchuk. During exchanges, some returnees were never acknowledged by Russia — meaning there's still hope for families of the missing.
Odesa: 2 people have been killed and another five injured in a Russian drone attack on the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
Habemus Minerals Deal: The minerals deal ran into a few snags yesterday before the announcement that Ukraine and the US had reached an agreement. According to news sources, the Ukrainians believed they were signing one document at first, because an agreement on the other two documents had not been reached. American authorities explained:
All three documents need to be signed today, but the Ukrainians are trying to reopen terms which have already been agreed upon as part of the package — this will be up to the Ukrainians, as the US is ready to sign.
Reconstruction Investment Fund Agreement: PM Denys Shmyhal said that the agreement was “good, equal and beneficial” in a nationally televised announcement. The deal is expected to be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament.
In a post on social media he said the two countries would establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund with each side having 50% voting rights.
Ukraine retains ownership rights “on our territory and in territorial waters belong to Ukraine.”
Income would come from new licences for critical materials and oil and gas projects, not from projects which had already begun.
The fund would not be an obstacle to Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
U.S. Contribution: The United States will contribute to the Fund with both direct financial resources and potentially additional assistance, such as air defense systems for Ukraine.
Profit Allocation: For the first ten years, any profits or funds generated by the Investment Fund will not be distributed but instead reinvested into Ukraine for new projects or reconstruction. Specific terms for these reinvestments will be negotiated in the future.
Scott Bessent: The agreement “signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said in announcing it.
“To be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine,” he added.
After the signing of the mineral deal, Trump administration approved $50M arms sale to Ukraine at first through direct commercial sales (DCS) as reported by Reuters. The move signals continued U.S. support.
Senator Lindsey Graham announced broad Senate support for new "bone-crushing" sanctions on Russia, with 72 colleagues backing a bill to impose tariffs up to 500% on nations buying Russian oil, gas, and key products as reported by Bloomberg.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, director of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, has called for the unconditional release of 1000s of Ukrainian civilians being held in Russian captivity as central to the peace process. She said that thus far, the US has focused on economic aspects, while failing to address what matters most:
“It’s a huge problem that we lose the human dimension in this political process. Only with solving the human dimension can we find a path to sustainable peace,” she said.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has released the following statement demanding a return to dealing with the real “road block to peace”: Putin.
Bloomberg Billionaires List: The first months of 2025, marked by the negotiations on Ukraine that began after Donald Trump came to the White House, were successful for the richest Russian billionaires. Their combined wealth increased by almost $15 billion during this time, reaching $305 billion. Such data are provided in the updated Bloomberg Billionaires Index (BBI) rating.
Combat Situation
ISW: Russian officials continue to demand full Ukrainian capitulation as the sole basis on which Russia is willing to accept a future peace agreement.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov overinflated Russia's current military strength and battlefield victories thus far in the war in an attempt to justify Russia's continued unwillingness to make territorial concessions.
Russian officials continue to call for the cessation of Western aid to Ukraine as part of efforts to reintensify offensive operations when Ukraine's defense capabilities are weakened.
Ukrainian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Toretsk. Russian forces recently advanced near Lyman and Toretsk.
Ukraine has launched mass production of fiber-optic coils for FPV drones with a range of up to 30 km. 3DTech CEO Oleksii Zhulynskyi says all winding and assembly is fully localized, ensuring better quality control than unreliable Chinese imports.
Over 3,000 cars are stuck on the Russian side of the Kerch Bridge as tens of thousands of tourists rush to occupied Crimea for the May holidays—ignoring oil-covered beaches and the growing risk of Ukrainian strikes.
Behind the Lines
Ex-MI6 Chief Sir Dearlove urges Western leaders to ignore Russian propaganda about military advances in Ukraine, stating Putin’s negotiating position is weaker than it appears. Speaking to Gillian Joseph on Sky News’ The World, Sir Richard noted that at Russia’s current pace, “it would take them 80 years to conquer Ukraine.”
The former intelligence chief explained, “Russia probably needs a ceasefire rather badly—more than Putin himself realises. The war has been a disaster.” Dearlove cited Russia’s significant economic problems with cash reserves running out, alongside military challenges: decreased soldier motivation, less ammunition, and equipment shortages.
Oil prices set for largest monthly drop since 2021, Reuters reports. The decline in crude prices started in early April when U.S. President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on imports. China responded with its own tariffs, sparking a trade war between the world's biggest oil consumers.
CDS: In total, the Russian propaganda channel RT spent 31.7 billion rubles (approximately USD 390 million) in 2024, which is 4.2 billion more than in 2023. This amount is a record in the history of Russia Today. Most RT’s spending comes from the state budget. In 2024, the propaganda channel received 28.6 billion rubles from the Russian government. In total, from 2025 to 2027, RT will be funded from the budget with 79 billion rubles (about USD 1 billion).
Rosatom to consider the possibility of the US "presence" on the territory of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in the event of a corresponding decision by Vladimir Putin. "If the country's leadership makes a political decision, we are ready to discuss this with the American side," Likhachev said in a comment to Interfax.
The father of soft power, Richard Nye, was interviewed on CNN, during which he talked about Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Nye’s observations on hard and soft power were expanded to include full-spectrum statecraft: the combination of all tools of statecraft to further a nation’s foreign policy and national security objectives.
Meanwhile in Russia & China…
Gazprom has announced a return to profit. According to the IFRS report , which Gazprom published on April 30, last year the company managed to earn 1.2 trillion rubles after a record loss in history the year before (629 billion rubles)
Russia has more than tripled its 2025 budget deficit forecast to 1.7% of GDP, up from a previous estimate of 0.5%, citing falling oil prices triggered by the Trump administration’s escalating tariff war. (Mo: if this is what the Russians are admitting to, it’s actually much much higher.)
The Finance Ministry had initially projected a 2025 deficit of 1.17 trillion rubles ($14.3 billion), or 0.5% of GDP. Its latest revision, published late Wednesday, now expects the deficit to reach 3.79 trillion rubles ($46.2 billion), or 1.7% of GDP.
WSJ: Generous bonuses and increased military propaganda has increased the rate of recruitment of soldiers for the war, WSJ reports , citing American and European officials familiar with intelligence data. According to American estimates, the Russian army is currently recruiting about 30,000 soldiers monthly - 5,000 more than last summer. According to European data, the rate of recruitment can reach 40,000 people per month.
Russia and North Korea have begun construction of a road bridge between the two countries as part of an effort to strengthen their strategic partnership, Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, said. Mishustin announced work had started on the bridge across the Tumnen river while in a video meeting with the chair of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, Pak Thae-song, on Wednesday.
Gabon and Barbados demand removal of their flags from Putin's shadow tankers. The Kremlin’s attempts to “hide” its shadow oil fleet from sanctions continue to fail. Two more countries, Gabon and Barbados, have refused to fly their flags to ships of the state corporation Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, which before the war owned the world’s largest fleet of Aframax tankers.
BBC, Xi's real test is not Trump's trade war (long read)
If you say the name Donald Trump in the halls of wholesale markets and trade fairs in China, you'll hear a faint chuckle.
"For more than 70 years, China has always relied on self-reliance and hard work for development… it has never relied on anyone's gifts and is unafraid of any unreasonable suppression," he said this month.
His confidence may come in part because China is far less dependent than it was 10 years ago on exports to the US. But the truth is Trump's brinkmanship and tariff hikes are pushing on pressure points that already exist within China's own struggling economy. With a housing crisis, increasing job insecurity and an ageing population, Chinese people are simply not spending as much as their government would like.
Me: Yes, China will have to face challenges in terms of domestic policy. That being said, like the Russians, the Chinese see their population in serve of the CCP’s needs. If the Chinese are asked to sacrifice, so be it.
The way the Chinese see the world is very different from our own view. The official military map below was designed by Hao Xiaoguang (a geophysicist from Wuhan) in 2006, but introduced to the public by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 2014. China is in the centre. At the same time, Hao also designed China’s new vertical national boundaries map, which for the first time included China’s controversial nine-dash-line claims in the South China Sea as part of Chinese territory.
In the EU…
In Brussels, a dozen EU countries, including Germany and Poland, request flexibility in the bloc’s fiscal rules to ramp up defence spending, in a step towards rearmament of the continent: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Lithuania have indicated they plan to make the same request.
France, Italy and Spain have high government debts and are reluctant to deepen them.
Eyes on Romania May 4: The far-right frontrunner for Romania’s presidency reckons alignment with the U.S. president is still a winning ticket ahead of Sunday’s election POLITICO reports. George Simion has given interviews to Steve Bannon and reguarly dons a MAGA cap.
“We are the natural allies of the Republican Party and we’re almost perfectly aligned ideologically with the MAGA movement,” Simion said, referring to his party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR).
AUR’s party platform mirrors the right-leaning populist platforms circulating in Europe: an irredentist view of rebuilding a greater Romania, and anti-NATO sentiment accompanied by unilateral disarmament of Ukraine. Simion says he is not pro-Russian, but his platform begs to differ as would his campaign financing anomalies, which are under investigation by Romania’s Permanent Electoral Authority. Simion is barred from entering Ukraine and Moldova.
EU Stock Prices Soar: Since the American 2024 election campaign, EU officials began taking steps to increase the NATO European members’ defence capabilities. EU official sources revealed at that time that if Trump were to win the election, there was a real possibility that the administration would begin to withdraw its support and presence in Europe.
In the Trump administration’s first one hundred days, Europe’s calculus has not changed, as indicated by soaring EU defence sector share prices. Europe is rearming. and beefing up their stockpiles.
Rheinmetall & Lockheed Martin are expanding cooperation to boost missile production in Europe. They plan to build a European center of excellence for missile systems—strengthening NATO, EU defense, and reducing reliance on U.S. supply chains.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, confirming that the “EU is preparing a “plan B” on how to keep economic sanctions against Russia should the Trump administration abandon Ukraine peace talks and seek rapprochement with Moscow”.
“It’s a question whether the Americans will want to leave,” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy, told the Financial Times. “We see signs that they are contemplating whether they should leave Ukraine and not try to get a deal with the Russians because it’s hard.”
Rumours abound regarding the scenario of US abandonment of Ukraine and lifting sanctions from Russia, and what the EU member states may do in that case.
“It is clear that these types of discussions are going on in certain member states and maybe hopes that we don’t really have to support [Ukraine] any more,” said Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister. “But it’s also a false hope, because if you look at Russia that is investing more than 9 per cent of its GDP on the military, they will want to use it again.”
Kallas said Europe could step in financially to help Ukraine in case of a US withdrawal, but acknowledged that “in terms of military support, of course it’s harder to fill the gap if the Americans are leaving”.
While the Trump administration put Crimea on the table, Kallas also reiterated that Crimea was a red-line for Europe and the Ukrainians.
“There are tools in the Americans’ hands that they can use to put the pressure on Russia to really stop this war,” Kallas added. “President Trump has said that he wants the killing to stop. He should put the pressure on the one who is doing the killing.”
WSJ, U.S. Army Plans Massive Increase in Its Use of Drones.
Due to the lessons learned from the battlefield in Ukraine, the U.S. Army is embarking on its largest overhaul since the end of the Cold War, with plans to equip each of its combat divisions with around 1,000 drones and to shed outmoded weapons and other equipment.
The Army’s 10 active-duty divisions would shift heavily into unmanned aircraft if the plan is carried out, using them for surveillance, to move supplies and to carry out attacks.
“We’ve got to learn how to use drones, how to fight with them, how to scale them, produce them, and employ them in our fights so we can see beyond line of sight,” said Col. Donald Neal, the commander of the U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment. “We’ve always had drones since I’ve been in the Army, but it has been very few.”
“Land warfare has transitioned to drone warfare. If you can be seen, you can be killed,” said Jack Keane, the retired general who served as vice chief of staff of the Army and observed the exercise here. “A soldier carrying a rocket-propelled grenade, a tank, command and control facilities, artillery position can all be taken out by drones very rapidly.”
YLE: TikTok plans to build a data center in Finland for one billion euros, Reuters reports. The project is estimated to cost one billion euros, according to Reuters. The social media giant is currently moving the storage of its European users' data to Europe. The background is concerns that the Chinese government could gain access to the data of European users of the social media platform, because Tiktok is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance.
In an interview yesterday Putin said, "Sooner or later, Russia’s relations with Europe will be restored. Many share our position, but are afraid to speak openly."
Mo: He would say anything to divide the European Union and sow discord, which has been part of the gray zone warfare Russia has been waging against the EU in earnest since 2012, at first covertly, and then overtly. This kind of statement sows doubt amongst the EU public, and EU authorities will be looking over their shoulders.
In other news…
Amid rising tensions, India has closed its airspace to Pakistan-registered aircraft. This follows Pakistan intercepting four Indian Rafale jets over Kashmir. India has deployed jamming systems and rejected calls for an independent investigation into a recent attack. Pakistan's intelligence suggests an attack could occur within 36 hours.
A Chinese national was arrested in Manila yesterday, while operating a surveillance device near offices of Philippine election commission. As reported by Ian Chong, he was caught using a IMSI catcher device capable of mimicking a cell tower & snatching messages from air in a 1-3km radius.
Mo: The Philippines has been at the forefront in countering Chinese penetration and hybrid actions in the Indo-Pacific.
Follow-up on the slump in the American GDP: Trump has reacted to news yesterday that the American economy isn’t doing as well as he claims.
This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden “Overhang.”
This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!
Crunch time for Republicans on Ukraine, says ex-US State Senator. The Kyiv Independent's Francis Farrell sits down with retired U.S. Army officer and former Nebraska State Senator Tom Brewer in the front-line city of Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, to discuss U.S.-Ukraine relations under the Trump administration, why Nebraska is interested in Ukraine's post-war recovery and why it's important for U.S. politicians to visit Ukraine to counter myths by Russian propaganda.
Can’t let this one pass: Lutnick said playfully talking about Trump’s $5 million gold card: “Last night I was out to dinner and someone came up and said can I buy ten? How do I buy ten? It's good, $50 million for dinner. It’s paying for my dinner.”
The White House has become the shopping channel. Is there anywhere in the universe where this is ok?
Need to clean up: Foreign interference in Canadian politics is an issue that was brought to light regarding the Truckers’ Convoy, and subsequently, during Pierre Poilievre’s campaign. Foreign interference has just touched the Conservative sphere, but also the Liberal Party, via CCP penetration. John Schindler explains that,
During former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decade in power, the Chinese Communist Party consolidated its prominent position inside the Liberal Party at both the federal and provincial levels. This is a decadeslong covert espionage-influence campaign executed by Beijing, employing spies, political operatives, businesspeople, and organized crime cadres acting in insidious concert to subvert Canadian democracy.
Carney has done nothing to address the issue that may affect his decision-making calculus in the future, which certainly constitutes a threat to Canadian security. The issue must be addressed by the incoming Carney government because China is invested:
China’s foreign ministry welcomed Carney’s victory by stating that Beijing stands “willing to develop China-Canada relations on the basis of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefit.”
The Republican Party of Alberta has 5,000 members within a voting population of 1.8 million Albertans. Since I can remember, there has always been a few isolated voices floating the idea that Alberta should separate from Canada.
However, this is not what they are really advocating: they would like a sovereign relationship with Canada. In other words, more control over their resources, while the federal government picks up the bill for healthcare etc.
