Russian invasion The world's response

Even Europe is running out of Patriots for Ukraine

Ukraine's shortage of US-made Patriot anti-aircraft missiles has made Russian nighttime missile attacks on Kyiv increasingly deadly. Now Europe is also running out of Patriot missiles to send to Ukraine, writes Politico.

Kyiv needs hundreds of missiles, but the Iran war is rapidly depleting the US weapons stockpile, and several of Ukraine's largest European donors have so few missiles left that they barely dare to spare any more.

- In recent months, Russia has fired more missiles at us per week than we receive from our allies in a month, said Ukraine's former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov last week.

At the same time, Russia is receiving help from outside. According to Ukraine, a ballistic missile system from North Korea has been deployed in Voronezh in western Russia, and several North Korean missiles were fired at Kyiv overnight Tuesday.

Analysis: NATO door closed for traumatized Ukraine

In 2024, NATO declared that Ukraine's path to membership is "irreversible." Those were empty words - membership was not mentioned once at this year's summit, writes David Averre for Newsweek.

Ukraine is starting to tire of the empty promises, he continues. Zelenskyy cannot say it openly - but the popular former Prime Minister Valery Zaluzhny, now ambassador to the UK, can. He thinks Ukrainians should realize that it's over.

- I know NATO inside out. For twelve years I worked to ensure that we would live up to NATO's demands, and every year I listened to fairy tales that we were on the verge of becoming a member. Unfortunately, it will never happen, says Zaluzhny.

At the same time, Ukraine is facing the challenge of dealing with an entire generation of children traumatized by war and Russian attempts to eradicate their national identity, writes Luke McGee for Foreign Policy.

In addition to those who have lost parents and loved ones, he points to the millions of Ukrainian children living under Russian occupation. In school, they are constantly force-fed Russian propaganda about the inevitable existential war against the West and NATO, he writes.

– Even if the war ends tomorrow, an entire generation of Ukrainian children will carry it inside them, says Julia Sotska, communications director at the aid organization Children of Heroes.

US-Russia relations
Russia releases American – was “near death”

Former US Marine Robert Gilman has been released from a Russian prison after four years, American media reports.

The Kremlin confirms that he was released for humanitarian reasons. His family and aid organizations raised the alarm last week that he is “near death” after years of mental and physical torture in prison.

Donald Trump writes on Truth Social that he had Gilman released after a conversation with Vladimir Putin.

The 32-year-old was arrested in 2022 and convicted of assaulting an officer after being thrown off a train while he was acting in a disruptive manner.

He was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, but had his sentence extended to ten years after several convictions for alleged attacks on prison staff.