May 30: E-Stories
InUkraine CombatSitRep BehindLines Russia-China InEurope InOtherNews
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…
11 more Ukrainian children rescued from Russian-occupied territories, Yermak's advisor says. Among those rescued is a young girl whose mother and brother, both defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, spent more than three years in Russian captivity.
Russian ballistic strike hits a farm in Mykolaiv region: 1 killed, 3 injured — reports the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration. In Beryslav, a drone attack killed 2 men.
Russian attacks against Ukraine kill 1, injure 46 over past day. Russia launched five Iskander-M or KN-23 ballistic missiles against Ukraine overnight, as well as 88 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy drones, the Air Force said.
Reuters: There is no sign Russia is preparing to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, an official from the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday, after Ukraine complained about reports Russia was preparing to connect it to its grid.
Please see the press conference held by the UN Independent International Commission which released its report on the Russian drone attacks against the civilians of Kherson. It’s findings are that the Russian attacks are crimes against humanity, war crimes and terror.
A woman testified in September 2024:
“My husband died in my arms, bleeding to death because an ambulance did not arrive in time. I tried to stop the bleeding with a T-shirt but it was not enough.”
Overnight, Russia launched 90 Shahed-type and decoy drones from Millerovo, Orel & Kursk. Ukraine’s air defenses neutralized 56 UAVs—10 shot down, 46 jammed by EW units. Strikes targeted frontline areas in Sumy, Kharkiv & Donetsk regions.
Zelensky confirms his participation in G7 summit in June. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited Zelensky in March to attend the summit, shortly after he took office.
Combat Situation
Russian forces are already prepared for an attack on Sumy region, with sufficient troops concentrated near the border — State Border Guard Service spokesperson Andriy Demchenko. For weeks, Ukrainian commanders have reported on Russian troop movement near the Sumy region.
A total of 205 combat engagements have taken place across 10 fronts and Russia’s Kursk Oblast over the past 24 hours, with the heaviest fighting occurring on the Pokrovsk front where 54 clashes were recorded in total.
Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, and Velyka Novosilka.
Senior Lt. Viktor Samoylov, rocket artillery battery commander, was killed in Russia’s Belgorod region. As a former Sevastopol Nakhimovsky district official, he backed Crimea’s annexation in 2014, fought with the “BARS” unit from 2022, and signed a contract with Russia’s MoD in 2024.
Overnight, a drone strike in Odintsovo, near Moscow, damaged the facade of a luxury complex. In St. Petersburg, a fire broke out at the “Avangard” plant—known for producing microchips and radio electronics for Russia’s defense sector. Meanwhile, the Russian MoD claimed it downed 48 drones with "no misses," once again reporting a flawless record.
Royal Navy warships and helicopters have tracked Russian vessel activity in British maritime waters for the second time this month according to a Royal Navy statement. The British destroyer HMS Dragon monitored the Russian intelligence vessel Yury Ivanov, which was sailing near the Outer Hebrides off the coast of Scotland following NATO exercises in the area.
The next Ukraine Defense Contact Group (“Ramstein” format) meeting will take place on June 4, 2025, at NATO HQ in Brussels. Initiated by the UK and Germany. U.S. participation remains unclear. The previous meeting was on April 11, with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth joining online.
China has halted sales of Mavic drones to Ukraine and other European countries—but continues supplying them to Russia, where production lines even include Chinese personnel — Zelensky.
Behind the Lines
Russian oil company Lukoil, which earned nearly €100 billion last year, is bypassing European Union sanctions through a clever legal arrangement involving a subsidiary registered in Ireland as reported in The Currency, an Irish online media outlet.
Lukoil Capital Designated Activity Company was established in September 2021, just months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its sole function is to issue bonds on international markets, raising billions of dollars for the Russian parent company.
The total amount of bonds issued through the Irish subsidiary is US$2.3 billion. These funds ultimately reach the parent company in Russia.
The Irish subsidiary itself is not subject to sanctions, as the EU has not formally banned Lukoil’s operations – unlike the United States and the United Kingdom. This allows the Russian oil giant to maintain access to Western capital markets despite international isolation.
The directors of Lukoil Capital are linked to Vantru, a corporate services firm based in Northern Ireland. These same individuals also manage the Irish branch of a Moscow airport, which has also drawn journalistic attention.
In comments to The Currency, Vantru founder Rory Mulvaney confirmed that his firm works with Irish companies linked to Russia. He believes it is legal to raise funds from Russian businesses to pay Western investors, provided such payments are not prohibited.
NATO is asking Germany to provide seven more brigades — made up of around 5,000 troops each, so 40,000 troops total — to the alliance’s defense, Reuters reports. Sources said the additions would help NATO reach new targets for troop numbers, which members’ defense ministers are set to agree on next week. One senior military official said the new target for the total number of brigades provided by NATO allies will be 120-130 — an increase of about 50% from the current target of 80 brigades. Nothing has been confirmed; NATO would only describe the new targets as “ambitious.”
Sky News: A hacker group linked to Russia has posed as journalists and carried out a cyber espionage operation against the UK Ministry of Defence. The attack has been foiled.
Details of the foiled hacking attack emerged after Defence Secretary John Healey said the UK military was strengthening its offensive capabilities to carry out cyberattacks against enemy states such as Russia as part of a long-awaited review of the UK defence system.
"The nature of warfare is changing," Healey told a group of journalists during a visit to a secure facility in Wiltshire, where the team that repelled the Russian cyberattack is based.
"The Ministry of Defence detected a spear phishing campaign targeting staff with the aim of delivering malware," the National Cyber Security Centre said in its analysis.
"The initial campaign consisted of two emails with a journalistic theme attempting to represent a news organisation. The second campaign followed a financial theme, directing targets to a commercial file share," the centre said.
The Drone Coalition grows stronger: Turkey and Belgium are joining the international initiative co-led by Latvia and the UK. In 2025, coalition members will allocate €2.75B to support Ukraine, bringing total aid to €4.5B since 2024.
Official Readout: Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Secretary Rubio welcomed Russia and Ukraine’s exchange of “1,000-for-1,000” prisoners over the weekend. The Secretary reiterated President Trump’s calls for constructive, good faith dialogue with Ukraine as the only path to ending this war.
ISW: Putin reportedly maintains his demand that Ukraine cede all of the four oblasts that Russia has illegally annexed but not fully occupied, even as Kremlin officials have signaled that Russia has territorial ambitions beyond these four oblasts.
Trump holds off on sanctions to push Ukraine-Russia peace efforts. U.S. President Donald Trump said on May 28 that he has not yet imposed new sanctions on Russia because he believes a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine may be within reach.
Moscow proposes next round of Russia-Ukraine talks on June 2 in Istanbul. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the talks would be a continuation of negotiations launched in Istanbul on May 16.
Ukraine sends ceasefire memo, urges Russia to respond ahead of June 2 peace talks, Umerov says. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on May 28 that Kyiv is still awaiting the Russian side’s proposed ceasefire memorandum, which was expected following peace talks in Turkey earlier this month.
The Cipher Brief: Zelensky calls for trilateral peace meeting — Ahead of his trip to Germany, Zelensky told reporters that he wants a three-way summit with President Trump and Putin to end the war. "If Putin is not comfortable with a bilateral meeting, or if everyone wants it to be a trilateral meeting, I don't mind. I am ready for any format," Zelensky said, in comments to journalists that were published on Wednesday. He described such a summit as a “Trump-Putin-me” meeting.
Russian media report that Zaur Gurtsiyev, who was responsible for strikes on Mariupol, has been blown up in Stavropol. Reportedly, a person carrying an explosive device came up to him near a residential building. Both of them died.
He was a key figure in Russia’s air campaign over Mariupol and Avdiivka. Born in North Ossetia and trained in St. Petersburg, Gurtsiyev led deadly airstrikes that killed thousands of civilians in Mariupol, actions now investigated as war crimes. Despite receiving five medals for his role, he recently transitioned to civilian life as deputy mayor of Stavropol.
POLITICO: The final blow to Voice of America. This week, all remaining VOA staff are expected to receive reduction-in-force notices, likely closing the book on the network founded 80 years ago to combat Nazi disinformation during World War II.
Employees are anticipating termination notices to go out this week to all full-time staff at the embattled news network, according to four VOA employees familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss unannounced plans.
Those terminations would affect the 800 remaining workers at the agency, after the Trump administration dismissed nearly 600 VOA contractors earlier this month. Employees have been advised by management to expect termination notices in the coming days.
VOA has largely remained dark since March 15, when president Trump signed an executive order effectively eliminating the network. The president called VOA “anti-Trump” and referred to it as “The Voice of Radical America.” Its employees say they have stood by their commitment to reporting nonpartisan news.
Meanwhile in Russia & China…
Russia has given North Korea at least one Pantsir air defense system as compensation for its support in the war against Ukraine, according to the first report by the International Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), a group of 11 countries including the United States and South Korea. The team relies on intelligence data and focuses on Russia’s cooperation with North Korea.
Russia received up to 9 million artillery and rocket munitions from North Korea in 2024, including 122 mm and 152 mm calibres, detailed in the first report by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), established by 11 UN member states. "The munitions were then sent via rail from Russian Far East ports to ammunition depots in southwestern Russia, for use by Russian military forces against Ukraine."
In 2024 alone, North Korea transferred at least 100 ballistic missiles to Russia, which were later launched against Ukrainian territory with the aim of destroying civilian infrastructure and intimidating the population, including in cities such as Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia.
U.S, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, and ROK issue a Joint Statement on the publication of Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team’s first Report Covering DPRK-Russia Military Cooperation.
Russian authorities are cutting spending on five state programs for economic and scientific development amid problems with the federal budget, which has been hit by falling oil prices and a strong ruble.
The state program for industrial development, under which the Kremlin demanded a 40% increase in civilian goods output by 2030, has lost 97.15 billion rubles in funding, according to amendments to the 2025 federal budget that passed their first reading in the State Duma the day before.
The state program for “scientific and technical development” of Russia, which aims to bring Russia to 8th place in the world in terms of scientific research, will lose 22.17 billion rubles in budget money.
Steve Rosenberg for the BBC: First, a statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin appears in the Moscow Metro. Then a Kremlin adviser says that “from a legal standpoint the USSR still exists.” In Russia the past hangs over the present. My report from Moscow.
The Central Bank unexpectedly gave the economy and financial markets hope for a quick reduction in the key rate. "The situation has changed somewhat, a lot has appeared that will be interesting for us to discuss [at the meeting of the Central Bank's board of directors on June 6]. I think that our options for solving both the rate and the signal will be even more diverse than in April," said Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Filipp Gabunia.
Russia's budget deficit triples amid sanctions and low oil prices, Ukrainian official says. Ukrainian commissioner for sanctions policy Vladyslav Vlasiuk said international sanctions remain a key driver behind the decline in Russia's energy revenues.
Following the resulting deficit of potatoes and a number of other vegetables, problems in the livestock sector have worsened in Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko said that the scale of livestock deaths in Belarus has reached an anti-record. "What do the statistics say? The death toll has reached a historical maximum!" he was indignant during a meeting with members of the government.
The Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC), together with the Lithuanian center Siena and the Russian publication "Chronicles.Media", with the support of "Cyberpartisans", have uncovered a scheme for the supply of sanctioned luxury clothing from Europe to Russia via Belarus. At the center of this scheme was the "Trading House Eksporttorg", associated with businessman Alexander Zaitsev, a former assistant to Alexander Lukashenko's eldest son Viktor and close to the Belarusian president's entourage.
Victor Orban at CPAC Hungary: This isn’t the Europe we were promised. Brussels hijacked our future. Mass migration shattered public safety, green dogmas wrecked prosperity, and globalist governments are failing us. It’s time to occupy Brussels!
Scabolz Panyi: CPAC Hungary has its weakest US lineup ever. Despite aiming for JD Vance, Orbán’s team only got two congressmen. Trump sent a one-minute video saying nothing. Meanwhile, CPAC Poland landed Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem.
Reuters: Orban championed Polish nationalist presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki at the CPAC Hungary conference on Thursday and announced a "patriotic plan" that he said should "transform" the European Union.
In Europe…
Reuters: Trust in the European Union and its institutions has risen to an almost two-decade high, a report released on Wednesday shows, as U.S. President Donald Trump upends global trade and foreign policy.
The Eurobarometer poll by the European Commission shows 52% of Europeans trust the EU, the highest figure since 2007, with young people aged 15-24 expressing the strongest confidence at 59%.
Support for the euro reached the highest ever, with 74% of all EU citizens and 83% of euro zone residents backing a European economic and monetary union with one currency.
ZDF: Chancellor Merz remains noncommittal on Taurus missile deliveries to Ukraine, saying it's "within the realm of possibility" but pointing to long training requirements. Instead, he stresses urgent military aid and deeper cooperation on long-range weapons, agreed during talks with President Zelensky in Berlin.
Jim Sciutto: European officials increasingly express a loss of trust in U.S. leadership: “I do not trust the current administration because they are not neutral arbitrators…the United States are not a reliable partner in supporting Ukraine. They are a reliable partner for Putin to break Ukraine into pieces. Sorry to say that,” German MP Roderich Kiesewetter tells me.
Mo: From sources in the EU, there is the marked sensation that the US is retreating as the leader of the free world, and going into a different direction. That being said, for the time being, the Trump administration is still providing armaments and intelligence to the Ukrainian forces. Let’s see how long this will last.
Reuters: International travel spending in Europe is expected to rise by 11% to $838 billion this year, with France and Spain among the countries set to receive record numbers of tourists, according to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council.
The rosy forecast may be influenced in part by some tourists avoiding the United States as the WTTC expects foreign visitors' spending in the U.S. to decline by about 7% this year.
The far-right Chega party in Portugal is now the second place in the country’s third snap election in three years, edging out the socialists to become the biggest opposition party in parliament. The centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD), led by the prime minister, Luís Montenegro, finished first in the election 10 days ago, but once again fell well short of a majority, taking 31.8% of the vote and winning 91 seats in Portugal’s 230-seat assembly. But the race for second place was a closely fought contest between the Socialist party (PS) and Chega.
In other news…
CNN: Trump administration will ‘aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,’ Rubio announced on Wednesday. The Secretary said the State Department would work with the Department of Homeland Security on the revocations, which will target Chinese students, “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” He added, “We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,”.
Kevin Carrico commented on the expulsion of Chinese Communist Party members from the US in 2020, when Apple Daily was closed.
The near universal shock at the possibility that any country in the world may not be eager to roll out the welcome mat for members of the Chinese Communist Party highlights to me the stunning degree to which membership in the Party has been normalized on a global scale.
At a time when many around the world are calling out various types of entrenched privilege, it is well past time to also push back against what I call here CCP privilege: the assumption that one can be a member of an organization opposed to basic human dignity and engaged in genocide without any potential repercussions, even on a global scale.
One argument defending CCP privilege claims that the Chinese Communist Party today is less a Leninist authoritarian party than just a social club or honor society. That being said, “no social club that I ever joined has engaged in genocide or other crimes against humanity. And if by chance I had ever mistakenly joined such a social club, I would personally be eager to depart such a club once I understood what was happening, as being part of such a club would be a form of complicity in these crimes.”
Another argument defending CCP privilege is that people join the Party for all types of reasons, and those reasons rarely include a genuine faith in communism. Rather, Party membership is useful as a resumé booster, or for the purposes of making connections. This point has the benefit of at least being true, but still includes glaring logical fallacies in its attempt to defend CCP privilege. It should be quite unsurprising that members of a communist party practicing state capitalism would not in fact believe in communism.
Rather than fretting about non-existent communism, we should ask members of the Chinese Communist Party whether they believe that the democratic nation of Taiwan should be annexed by a totalitarian state, whether the Uyghur people of Xinjiang deserve to be held in concentration camps and forcibly sterilized, whether the people of Tibet deserve the suffering that they live under because Tibet is supposedly part of China, whether the rights and freedoms guaranteed to the Hong Kong people in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law can be revoked, whether practitioners of Falun Gong deserve incarceration and torture, and whether people of Sinitic descent the world over need to be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party to avoid becoming “race traitors.”
Still another line of argument supporting CCP privilege argues that there are plenty of good people in the Party. For example, Dr. Li Wenliang, who attempted to alert colleagues to the spread of COVID in late 2019, was a Party member, as is Professor Ilham Tohti, who is currently serving a life sentence for separatism. We were even reminded that Liu Xiaobo once lived in the dormitory of the PRC’s Ministry of Finance. This argument earns an A for effort, but an F for basic logic. Highlighting three people associated with the Party who have stood up for their beliefs seems like a thrilling subversive exercise at first. Yet from another perspective, highlighting three people whose lives have been destroyed by the Party is not exactly a compelling argument in the Party’s favor. It also goes without saying that none of the examples cited are likely to be applying for visas to visit the United States anytime soon.
These attempts to defend CCP privilege raise a deeper question: why would any CCP member be travelling to the United States, much less settling there in retirement? I could swear that today’s CCTV Evening News told me that everything is awesome in China while the United States is trapped in endless chaos. Is this a manifestation of the self-sacrificial dictum of “serving the people”?
No, in fact, it is just another manifestation of CCP privilege: while talking endlessly about the rise of China and the decline of the United States, the ultimate CCP dream is to use Party membership to advance one’s interests in China and then emigrate to the United States to celebrate China’s rise at a comfortable distance from all of the indignities that the Party forces on its people. This is the primary form of CCP privilege: using the benefits of Party membership to build connections, collect power, and accrue wealth in China, while conveniently using that wealth to give one’s family a better life abroad, free from the system that one enables and indeed empowers back home.
This primary form is completed by the secondary form of CCP privilege, wherein this organization has been normalized on a global scale to a point that its members are not held accountable for their complicity in the Party’s crimes against humanity and are able to travel freely.
Here we finally find a real-life example of the type of elusive “win-win situation” that Party sloganeering is always celebrating: there is literally no downside to Party membership. There should be, however. Being a member of the Chinese Communist Party today is being a member of an organization engaged in oppression, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
The self-interested nature of Party membership, based in the search for privilege, has always been the Party’s greatest strength. Yet if there is ever a price to be paid for membership, it may become the Party’s greatest vulnerability.
CNN: Trump administration orders some US companies to halt sales to China. The Trump administration has effectively cut off some American companies from selling goods to China, a Commerce Department spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday. The spokesperson said the department is “reviewing exports of strategic significance to China. In some cases, Commerce has suspended existing export licenses or imposed additional license requirements while the review is pending.”
TACO Trump now enters our lexicon. Trump Always Chickens Out.
NYT: Trump Tariffs Ruled Illegal by Federal Judicial Panel. A panel of federal judges blocked President Trump from imposing some of his steepest tariffs, finding in two cases that he vastly overstepped his ability to issue those expansive duties under federal law.
It also prevents Trump from enforcing his tariffs placed earlier this year against China, Mexico and Canada, designed to combat fentanyl coming into the United States.
The court ruled in favor of a permanent injunction, grinding Trump’s global tariffs to a halt before “deals” with most other trading partners have even been reached. That means the bulk – but not all – of Trump’s tariffs are put in a standstill.
The order halts Trump’s 30% tariffs on China, his 25% tariffs on some goods imported from Mexico and Canada, and the 10% universal tariffs on most goods coming into the United States. It does not, however, affect the 25% tariffs on autos, auto parts, steel or aluminum, which were subject to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act – a different law than the one Trump cited for his broader trade actions.
President Trump warned Prime Minister Netanyahu last Thursday not to take any action that could jeopardize negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on a new nuclear deal—including military strikes. Asked by reporters on Wednesday if he told Netanyahu not to attack Iran, President Trump said,
“Well, I’d like to be honest. Yes, I did. I told [Netanyahu] this would be very inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. “That could change at any moment. It could change with a phone call. But right now, I think [Iran] wants to make a deal, and if we can make a deal, [that would] save a lot of lives.”
CNN: Elon Musk says his "time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end". In a tweet, he said:
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk said in a post on X, the social media platform he owns. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
Note Bien: Vincenzo De Luca is the governor of Campagna in Italy, and an extremely out-spoken politician. He’ll call a spade a spade.
Golden Dome: Analysts, businesspeople and former defense officials interviewed by Axios cast doubt on the Trump administration’s ability to meet its goal of constructing the first phases of the Golden Dome missile defense system within three years.
Axios reported that planning, building, operating, maintaining and financing the Golden Dome would take “intense coordination between the Pentagon, Congress, current and future presidents, defense contractors and troops.” With so many moving parts, it said, analysts expressed skepticism that the U.S. could create the continental-scale defense system on the desired timeline.
President Trump’s enthusiasm for the idea remains strong. He has even said that the Golden Dome system could be expanded to defend Canada, provided Canadians "pay their fair share." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said there are ongoing “high level” talks about Canada joining the initiative.
The Cipher Brief: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament Wednesday that Hamas Gaza leader Mohammad Sinwar, younger brother of the architect of the October 2023 attack Yahya Sinwar, died in a May 13 Israeli airstrike on a hospital in southern Gaza.
Sinwar’s death hasn’t been confirmed by Hamas, but Israel has claimed the killing before; Netanyahu’s announcement appears meant to put any questions to rest. "In the last two days we have been in a dramatic turn towards a complete defeat of Hamas," Netanyahu said. He has said repeatedly that the war won’t be over until Hamas is annihilated.
The claim comes as Netanyahu and his government face withering criticism over its prosecution of the war and the fate of Gaza’s 2 million civilians. On that front, Netanyahu said today that Israel was "taking control of food distribution" in the besieged enclave. Israel and the U.S. are backing a new humanitarian aid distribution system in Gaza, to be managed by a U.S.-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
That initiative has encountered considerable difficulty getting started, with several instances of aid distribution centers being overwhelmed and overrun. Several Palestinians have been killed and dozens more wounded in the chaos. ù
The Financial Times reports that Safe Reach Solutions, a U.S. military contractor run by an ex-CIA officer, has been chosen to provide security for aid distribution hubs and is trying to staff them. Some prominent Gazan businessmen have refused to cooperate on grounds the scheme furthers the forced displacement of Palestinians, who have been ordered to evacuate to Israel-designated areas covering 25 percent of the enclave’s territory. Israel has said that its military will control the other 75 percent of Gaza.