Tag: ukraine

US Approves “Homing All The Way Killer” Missile Support Sale To Ukraine

The US State Department has officially cleared a $108.1 million hardware and sustainment package to keep Ukraine’s frontline air defenses online, after there’s not been much in the way of big dollar headlines concerning Washington’s longtime military support to Kiev of late.

The cash injection targets the maintenance and optimization of the US-designed HAWK system – which is short for the “Homing All the Way Killer” surface-to-air missile system.

Depending on the exact missile variant deployed, the platform handles tactical interceptions of enemy aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles at operational ranges spanning 25 to 30 miles.

The newly approved sale reportedly does not provide new systems, which would bring a much higher price tag, but is instead focused on keeping existing legacy systems operational.

The State Department’s Thursday news release detailed a transaction which featured long-term systems support, including erectable mast trailers, major technical modifications, spare parts, consumables, software support, and contractor engineering services – per a media redout.

The statement sought to provide ongoing justification from the Trump admin’s Ukraine policy:

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political and economic stability in Europe,” it said.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has formally notified Congress of the package, and is expected to sail through, after which the contract will be mostly fulfilled by Colorado-based defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp.  

Ukraine originally integrated the HAWK into its arsenal at the tail end of 2022 via a $400 million security assistance package. And last year Washington authorized a foreign military sale dedicated to a HAWK Phase III upgrade and related sustainment.

Ukraine could see a new rush by Western partners to supply and update air defense systems across the war-ravaged country, given the air war is steadily escalating.

Russia earlier this month sent a record 1,500+ drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities in only a 48-hour period. This was immediately on the heels of a successful 3-day ‘Victory Day’ ceasefire having held, which was backed by President Trump.

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Lukashenko Offers To Meet With Zelensky ‘Anywhere’ After Russia Sent Belarus More Tactical Nukes

We reported earlier this week that for the first time Russia’s ‘Union State’ ally Belarus hosted multi-day drills involving a “rehearsal” of Russia’s use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.

The exercise ran from Tuesday to Thursday and was presided over by Presidents Lukashenko and Putin, and saw hundreds of Russian missile launchers, warships, nuclear submarines, and jets deploy and engage in military maneuvers. As part of it, Russia reportedly sent more tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

On the occasion, and amid angry denunciations from European leaders, the 71-year-old Lukashenko – who has ruled the former Soviet nation since 1994 – asserted that “We threaten absolutely no one.”

He followed with: “But we have such weapons, and we’re ready in every possible way to defend our common fatherland from [the western Belarusian city of] Brest to [Russia’s Pacific port of] Vladivostok.”

In Ukraine, President Zelensky warned Belarus of “consequences” over potential deepened involvement in Russia’s ‘special military operation’ – though Belarus did act as a staging ground for the initial attack waves in early 2022.

“The de facto leadership of Belarus” must “stay on its toes – that is, clearly understand that there will be consequences if aggressive actions against Ukraine, against our people, are taken,” Zelensky said while making a visit this week to a Ukrainian city which is just dozens of miles from the Belarusian border.

Interestingly, and in what appears another first, Lukashenko actually offered to meet with Zelensky, and that this meeting could take place “anywhere” in Belarus or Ukraine.

“If (Zelensky) wants to discuss something, seek advice, or anything else, please do. We are open to it,” Lukashenka said on Friday, according to state media.

“I am ready to meet with him anywhere – in Ukraine, in Belarus – and discuss the problems of Belarusian-Ukrainian relations,” the Belarusian leader emphasized. 

He also addressed Zelensky’s latest accusations, rejecting the premise, and explained that his armed forces won’t join the conflict unless “aggression is committed against (Belarusian) territory.”

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Ukraine Regained Territory After Cutting Russia’s Black Market Starlink Terminals

According to a newly declassified U.S. defense intelligence assessment first reported by Bloomberg, Moscow’s frontline command-and-control structures suffered a catastrophic blackout earlier this year due largely to coordinated crackdown that disabled thousands of black market Russian Starlink terminals.

The Pentagon document highlights just how deeply Russian forces had come to rely on Elon Musk’s commercial satellite terminals to patch over their own spotty military communication systems. For months, Russian units bypassed international sanctions via shadow supply networks to source the hardware.

The Friday Bloomberg report claims that a “Ukrainian offensive against Russia earlier this year retook about 400 square kilometers after thousands of portable Starlink internet terminals operated by Russian forces were deactivated,” citing analysis from the US Defense Intelligence Agency. 

The document, authored jointly by the DIA and US European Command, states that “Russian military capabilities in Ukraine were temporarily yet significantly degraded following Ukrainian officials’ efforts in February to deactivate thousands of Starlink terminals that were illicitly used by Russian forces to coordinate movements and unmanned aircraft strikes in areas where communications were unreliable or easily jammed.”

Ukrainian forces then made their first territorial gains since 2023, after years of steady Russian gains, with Russia military comms now said to be “temporarily yet significantly degraded” due to the loss of the terminals.

The report further describes that Kiev forces working in tandem with SpaceX were able to deploy sweeping geographic restrictions that target-locked and deactivated unauthorized terminals operating inside the combat zone. This resulted in “instant” results.

What also didn’t help is the Kremlin’s own tightening restrictions on the use of Telegram by Russian forces, and so also the recent lack of this favored encrypted messaging platform among military units left frontline commanders totally isolated.

While US intelligence noted that Russia still maintains an overall structural advantage in raw combat functions, and of course manpower and firepower remains on Moscow’s side, the incident demonstrates that communications are still a vital backbone to any modern warfare and command system.

SpaceX has long sought to officially bar Russian consumers from using Starlink, due to long-running sanctions, and to prevent military use against Ukraine.

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Zelensky Says Russia Planning Attack on Ukraine With New Oreshnik Hypersonic Missiles – Putin Ordered Retaliation After Kiev’s Drone Strike Killed 21 in College Dorm UPDATE: Massive Explosions Heard in Kiev

Retaliation incoming.

While the world has been gratefully surprised by the positive developments in the US-Iran war, the Russia-Ukraine war continues unabated, as brutal as ever.

In the aftermath of yesterday’s drone strike by Ukraine that killed 21 people – mostly students – in a college dorm in Luhansk, Russian president Vladimir Putin tasked the military with coming back with a plan for retaliation after what Moscow branded as a ‘war crime’.

So, today, Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Russia is gearing up to strike Ukraine using the new hypersonic Oreshnik (Hazel) ballistic missile.

Zelensky said the information comes from intelligence services in Ukraine, ​the US and Europe.

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Ukraine Uses High-Altitude Balloons To Extend Suicide Drone Strike Range

Ukrainian forces have borrowed a page from China’s hypersonic glide-weapon testing and applied it to the Eastern European theater, using one-way attack drones against Russia.

Instead of launching the Hornet strike drone from a ground-based catapult, Ukrainian operators tethered it to a high-altitude balloon, extending its range. 

Defense news website Defense Blog reports:

The test, details of which circulated through Ukrainian military channels, involved a Hornet manufactured by Perennial Autonomy being dropped from a balloon at approximately 8 kilometers altitude after the aerostat carried the drone 42 kilometers from its launch point.

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Ukraine Drone Strike on College Dorm in Luhansk Kills Six and Injures Over 35 – Putin Orders Russian Military To Prepare Retaliation

Students are still believed to be trapped under the rubble as frantic rescue efforts continue.

Let me just say that if today’s Ukrainian attack on the college dorm in Russian-conquered Luhansk had been perpetrated by Moscow forces, you would be hearing about it in all news shows, non-stop, all day long.

Over 80 young people were in the dorm at the time of the drone attack.

So far, 6 students are reported dead and more than 35 wounded, many seriously. There are reportedly still people trapped in the rubble, as the rescue efforts continue.

All day long, the bloody MSM erected a wall of silence around this alleged war crime, until Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military ‘to prepare options to retaliate against Ukraine’.

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Germany Becomes A Ukraine War Lab, and a Staging Ground For a Forever War On Russia

In February, under the white light of a Bavarian assembly hall, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, walked past rows of unfinished drones. The joint venture hosting them, linking Germany’s Quantum Systems with Ukraine’s Frontline Robotics, is already producing aircraft for Ukraine, plans to scale toward 10,000 units a year, and has already sent its first batch east. This is what Berlin now calls support for Ukraine, not crates on a runway, not old equipment hauled out of Bundeswehr depots, but German soil giving Ukrainian war design an industrial home.

For years, German officials sold their Ukraine policy in the language of restraint, solidarity and defensive necessity, but today, that language is buckling under what Berlin is now doing in plain sight. Germany has signed onto Ukraine’s defence innovation platform, opened itself to battlefield-data sharing, backed joint ventures that turn Ukrainian combat know-how into German-produced drones and robots, and committed itself to work on long-range strike systems with a reach of up to 1,500 kilometres. The result is no longer the picture of a cautious donor helping from a distance. It is a state folding Ukraine’s war labs into its own industrial base and building the rear area of a long war against Russia on German territory.

Germany Becomes the Factory Floor

The Munich drone line strips away the euphemism. Ukraine is not simply receiving German kit from stockpiles. Ukrainian battlefield-proven designs, software and operational lessons are being fused with German capital, German factory capacity and German political cover inside ventures built to scale weapons production for a war Berlin still insists it is not fighting. The Auterion-Airlogix Joint Venture GmbH makes the point even more bluntly. Registered in Germany and launched in February, it combines Airlogix’s battle-tested Ukrainian UAV platforms with Auterion’s autonomy software and is meant to produce thousands of autonomous, combat-ready systems in Germany for the Ukrainian armed forces. Every time Ukrainian engineers find a way through Russian jamming or air defences, German industry is there to absorb the lesson and turn it into volume.

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Ukrainian police bosses detained in porn probe 

Senior Ukrainian police officials have been detained on suspicion of accepting regular bribes from underground porn studios.

Among the high-ranking law enforcement figures arrested on Wednesday in western Ukraine were the police chief of Ivano-Frankovsk Region and his deputy, as well as deputy police chiefs from the Ternopol and Zhitomir regions, authorities said.

A fifth suspect works in the Interior Ministry’s garage and served as a personal driver for a deputy minister, officials said. Investigators allege that he acted as an intermediary and money courier in the corruption scheme.

The anti-graft operation, carried out by several agencies together with the National Police’s internal investigations division, targeted the production of adult content, an illegal but reportedly thriving industry in Ukraine. The suspects are accused of receiving monthly payments of around $25,000 per studio in exchange for shielding porn producers from law enforcement scrutiny.

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Romania Uncovers €1.7 Billion Cash Trail from Ukraine to Turkey

The Romanian Ministry of Finance released a staggering report on May 13th, detailing a massive, repetitive flow of cash across the nation’s borders during 2024 and 2025, Romanian national news agency Agerpres said.

None of the persons who led the National Office for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering and of the responsible offices of the Romanian Customs Authority during the period in question are in management positions today, having been dismissed during the past months, the report says.

According to the news agency’s report, over €1.7 billion in declared cash transited through Romania, with the vast majority—73%—originating from Ukraine. 

The ministry’s revelations paint a picture of a highly professionalized courier system: of the 1,464 declarations made by travelers from Ukraine, a shocking 64% were submitted by just 21 individuals. The findings suggest that the legal provisions and internal rules regarding the control of cash entering or leaving the European Union have been repeatedly broken.

Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare said that the peak of this phenomenon occurred between March and May 2025, reaching nearly €100 million in a single month. 

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Russian Media: Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Agencies Preparing To Arrest Zelensky’s Wife Elena – Kiev Authorities Deny Report

Is Zelensky’s wife the next domino to fall?

Ever since Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky failed at curbing the power of Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO, the rampant corruption that is allegedly taking place in his government began to be exposed.

With Zelensky’s close friend and partner Timur Mindich fleeing justice and hiding in Israel, the number of Kiev regime figures who were fired and are facing investigations/indictments is long – and growing.

So far, these are the fallen ones: Herman Galushchenko – former Minister of Energy and former Minister of Justice; Svitlana Hrynchuk, former Minister of Energy; Oleksiy Chernyshov, former Deputy Prime Minister; Mykola Solskyi, former Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food; Andriy Pyvovarsky, former Minister of Infrastructure; Andriy Smyrnov, former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office.

And, of course, Andriy Yermak, chief of staff and right-hand man to Zelensky, formerly the second most powerful man in all of Ukraine, who has been indicted and ordered to pre-trial arrest.

But now, things may get much worse for Zelensky.

Today, Russian outlet RIA Novosti is reporting that the arrest of Zelensky’s wife, Olena (Elena), is being prepared by NABU and SAPO, who reportedly have ‘ample ground’ for detaining her.

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