- Ukraine’s real dilemma is not whether to surrender or resist. It is whether its political system can do either effectively. Resistance requires competence, not just courage. Peace requires strategy, not just demands for justice. Corruption, inequality, military dysfunction and entrenched political interests undermine both. The paradox is brutal: war makes reform essential while strengthening those who benefit from preventing it. Ukraine needs a fundamentally different diplomatic approach: a new system of collective security in Europe, addressing the security interests of Ukraine, Europe, Russia and their neighbors. Not a struggle over intentions, but enforceable limits on capabilities, mutual guarantees and shared interests in postwar reconstruction. Ukraine’s settlement must become part of a European security settlement. But the fundamental challenge lies at home: replacing Ukraine’s existing political and economic model with one based on institutional accountability, effective governance and public interest rather than private rents. Without that transformation, even a peace agreement may become merely an intermission before another war with Russia - under even worse conditions. The war may end. The system that helped make Ukraine vulnerable must not survive unchanged.

- The debate over a new world order has become a debate about intentions. Brussels and Kyiv: “What does Putin really want?” Moscow: “What does the West really want?” Washington: “What does Beijing really want?” Beijing: “What do WE really want?..” Yet the solution is hiding in plain sight: - build a new collective security system that works regardless of anyone’s intentions. Focus on capabilities, not intentions. Then comes the real question: - will this new order emerge through faits accomplis - after everyone has fought everyone else? Or shall we try negotiating it first?

- The reactions to protests in France reveal a delicious irony. People project their grievances onto events, turning assumptions into facts and prejudices into explanations. In doing so, they rebel against the very European intellectual order built on evidence, reason, and the testing of hypotheses. Rebels against the European order, outraged by rebels against the European order. And the puppeteers pulling their strings? Themselves.

- Какая изощренная «операция прикрытия своего агента»)

- Ukraine has brilliantly defended its independence under immense pressure. But building an independent country and building a country of free people are two different historical tasks. Ukraine has learned to say “No” even in the Oval Office. Now it must learn to respect the “No” of its own citizens. Independence is freedom on the outside. Freedom is independence on the inside.

- Being labeled an “extremist” and “terrorist” in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine myself, let me extend a warm welcome to Pavel Durov. There’s a broader pattern here. When states can’t win in the marketplace of ideas, they often reach for blacklists, bans, and criminal labels instead. It’s much easier to outlaw an argument than to answer it.

- Burning Wildberries and Ozon warehouses expose a vulnerability built into Russia’s entire industrial model - civilian, dual-use and military. Iran spent 40 years dispersing, duplicating and burying critical infrastructure. Russia did the opposite, assuming no one would dare strike deep inside its territory and that its vast geography would keep key facilities beyond reach. So it centralized production in giant, exposed and often irreplaceable sites. Large target + monopoly function + long recovery time = strategic vulnerability. Russia is not Iran. This is a historic planning failure and structurally, Russia may be far more fragile.

- Something happened in Ukraine that gives me more hope than all future weapons packages combined. Veronika Osintseva survived the Russian strike on Kyiv on July 31, 2025. The blast threw her from the ninth floor. Her parents were killed. She has now publicly said that she forgives Russians - and that love, not hatred, is what can save the world. This does not mean Ukraine should stop defending itself. It must defend itself. It does not mean Ukraine should stop striking legitimate military targets in Russia. It must. It does not erase Russia’s collective and individual responsibility for the aggression and the crimes committed during it. It means something far more difficult: - a person who had every reason to choose hatred chose love instead. And what else is everything in this world ultimately for, if not for the possibility of such a choice? Predictably, some of Ukraine’s self-proclaimed “warriors of light” are already threatening her - including with violence. She deserves support: threads.com/@aletheia.v/post…

- “Russia launched its so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ to prevent NATO troops from being present in Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has now said. I stopped counting after roughly 67 official redefinitions of the war’s objectives. At some point, it became impossible to keep up. Three observations: 1. Personnel from NATO member states have long been present in Ukraine in various capacities, and Russia has shown no realistic ability to change that. 2. If this war continues on its current trajectory, the bigger question may eventually become not whether NATO personnel are in Ukraine, but whether NATO forces end up operating on Russian territory. 3. The strategic landscape has changed dramatically since 2014. Ukraine and its Armed Forces are now recognized in NATO doctrine as a key pillar of European security, cooperating with NATO allies well beyond Europe - including in Africa. It’s remarkable to watch the Kremlin define its objectives in 2026 as if the geopolitical reality were still 2014. That alone says a great deal about its ability to achieve “victory.”)

- The discussion about Oleksandr Syrskyi and the replacement of Mykhailo Fedorov should not be about personalities. Ukraine’s strategic challenge is institutional: building a military system with clear command, effective civilian oversight, accountability, and a pipeline of future leaders. Strong institutions outlast strong individuals. In war, that difference can determine victory.

- $70 billion in military aid to Ukraine from NATO allies this year - and roughly the same next year. Plus the EU’s earlier €90 billion support package. Around €230 billion over two years. The key point is not just the scale, but predictability: the West is moving from ad hoc aid packages to a long-term defense-industrial model. In effect, this economically anchors a strategy of compelling Russia toward peace through sustained pressure. Russia hoped to intimidate the West into abandoning Ukraine. Instead, Western support is becoming one of Russia’s own strategic problems.

- Zelensky has imposed sanctions on Boryslav Bereza - a former MP and one of the most aggressively anti-Moscow public voices in Ukrainian politics. That makes the official explanation harder to take at face value. When sanctions supposedly meant to protect national security are used against political critics, they become a tool of extrajudicial punishment. Democracy cannot survive if courts are replaced by executive decisions. Today it is someone you dislike. Tomorrow it may be you. The rule of law protects everyone or, eventually, no one.

- The Kremlin woke up this morning claiming it had captured Kostiantynivka and all of Luhansk Oblast. That’s the third Kostiantynivka and the seventh “fully captured” Luhansk Oblast Russia has announced capturing in just the past few months. And that’s not even counting Kupiansk - they’ve been capturing Kupiansk nonstop.

- France’s Parliament has given final approval to a €436 billion defense package through 2030. Four years. Nearly half a trillion euros. And that’s before taking into account funding from the EU’s SAFE defense instrument. Underestimating Europe’s capacity for a strategic awakening remains one of the biggest forecasting mistakes I’ve made. Even the fact that many Europeans themselves seem not to have anticipated the scale of this transformation does nothing to diminish that mistake.

- The key lesson, perhaps the most important one, is this: The moment long-range precision strikes started producing tangible results, all the rhetoric about sacrifice and moral righteousness quietly faded into the background. What remained was a simple question: How many targets were hit? The conclusion is straightforward: - grand ideological fervor is often what fills the space where real capabilities are absent or have never been built in the first place.

- On Ukraine’s Constitution Day, it is worth remembering the difference between democracy and a republic. Democracy asks: Who governs? A republic asks: What limits those who govern - even when they represent the majority? The core republican principle is simple: - fundamental rights cannot be taken away even by 99% of voters. Ukraine has remained a democracy during the war. But democracy alone is not enough. When constitutional guarantees are ignored, people are sanctioned without due process, and entire religious communities face political restriction, the issue is no longer elections. Freedom is not majority rule. Freedom is protection from arbitrary power, including the power of the majority itself.

- The investigation into alleged abuse and deaths of mobilized soldiers in Ukraine’s “Skelya” assault unit is a defining test. The issue is not only justice for the victims. It is whether wartime necessity can be allowed to override the rule of law. A democracy ultimately proves itself not only by defeating an external enemy, but by refusing to sacrifice its own principles in the process. If a state can justify abuse or even the deaths of its own mobilized soldiers in the name of an existential war, it creates a precedent that can ultimately be used against anyone. The real goal is not only accountability, but reform: a military that protects its soldiers before asking them to sacrifice their lives.

- Russia was offered sanctions relief, international reintegration, major investment projects, and a path toward a negotiated settlement. In Moscow, however, these proposals seem to have been interpreted as signs of weakness rather than opportunities for peace. The irony is difficult to miss: a war launched in the name of strategic independence has left Russia more dependent on both China and the West than before. In international politics, the distance between a valued partner and a defeated adversary can be shorter than leaders imagine.