Punch-Kroenig

Is The American War Machine Dead?

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President Trump In The Situation Room During Strike on Iran

Ending The War In Iran Means Winning, Nothing Less

America First

Iran Nuclear Deal

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Nicolas Maduro

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Strait of Hormuz

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday eulogized the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as &#8220;the giant of the United States Senate&#8221; whose unwavering belief in American strength defined both his public career and his personal life, telling mourners gathered at Washington National Cathedral that the longtime South Carolina Republican &#8220;felt in his bones that our destiny is to win.&#8221;
Speaking before a congregation that included Vice President JD Vance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, members of Trump&#8217;s Cabinet and congressional leaders from both parties, the president remembered Graham as one of the U.S. Senate&#8217;s defining figures whose influence stretched far beyond Capitol Hill.
&#8220;The giant of the United States Senate, a true American original who left us much too soon,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;Nothing of consequence happened in this capital without Lindsey Graham knowing about it. Nothing of significance happened anywhere in the world without Lindsey Graham having a view on it.&#8221;
Trump centered much of his remarks on Graham&#8217;s worldview, describing the late senator&#8217;s foreign policy philosophy as one rooted in projecting American strength abroad. &#8220;Above all, Lindsey Graham believed in a strong America,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;He had unwavering faith in the righteousness of American power and prayer. &#8230; He felt in his bones that our destiny is to win — and that his job was to do everything he could to ensure our enemies would lose.&#8221; 
Trump said that conviction motivated Graham&#8217;s 33 years of military service in the Air Force and Air National Guard, as well as his frequent overseas travel as a senator. &#8220;It was this conviction that took him as a senator to almost every country on earth, confronting America&#8217;s adversaries and standing up for America&#8217;s friends,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a testament to his towering impact that among those mourning him here today are leaders, presidents, prime ministers from all over the globe.&#8221;
The president also reflected on his unlikely friendship with Graham, recalling their bitter rivalry during the 2016 Republican presidential primary before the two became close political allies. &#8220;We became great friends, and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years,&#8221; Trump joked. &#8220;I always cherished the memories of our golf games.&#8221;
Trump acknowledged Graham&#8217;s reputation as one of the Senate&#8217;s most hawkish members while framing it as an extension of his patriotism. &#8220;He was extremely hawkish. I will tell you, he never saw a war that he didn&#8217;t like,&#8221; Trump said to laughter. &#8220;Only his true friends would understand that — but he wanted it for the good of our country.&#8221;
Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of Graham&#8217;s closest friends, echoed many of those themes during his own eulogy, rejecting criticism that Graham was a warmonger. &#8220;The truth was the opposite,&#8221; Hannity said. &#8220;Lindsey desperately wanted a lasting peace in the Middle East.&#8221; Hannity argued that Graham&#8217;s support for a strong military stemmed from what he called the senator&#8217;s &#8220;moral clarity.&#8221;
&#8220;He understood right from wrong, good from evil,&#8221; Hannity said. &#8220;He knew &#8230; there can be no path to peace until evil is defeated.&#8221; The longtime television host also reflected on Graham&#8217;s decades of military service, his devotion to South Carolina, and his friendship with Trump, saying the president had given Graham &#8220;the greatest gift of his life&#8221; by allowing him &#8220;a front-row seat at the highest levels of history.&#8221;
Graham&#8217;s niece, Emillie Boggs Roberts, offered a more personal portrait of the senator, reflecting on his deep pride in his family and the relationships that shaped him away from public life. She described him as more than an uncle or senator, but &#8220;the foundation of our family.&#8221; 
Roberts recalled how he became both brother and parent to her mother after their parents died, and said that despite decades in national politics, Graham never failed to prioritize his family, making time for holidays, vacations, graduations, hospital visits, and phone calls from home, no matter what demands awaited him in Washington.
The funeral concluded ahead of Graham&#8217;s burial in South Carolina, where the longtime senator will be laid to rest after more than three decades in Congress.

Services Held For Late Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham Funeral

Trump Honors Lindsey Graham: ‘The Giant Of The United States Senate’

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Darline Graham

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Ukraine

Ukrainian drones have recently struck vessels and other assets used in military cargo shipments between Iran and Russia across the Caspian Sea. The attacks expand Kyiv’s long-range drone campaign into waters more than 430 miles from Ukraine’s nearest border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed responsibility for the attacks on Saturday. “We also achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea — including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship,” he wrote.
The Security Service of Ukraine said the strikes hit a Russian oil field, a Russian missile boat, and ships used to transport Iranian drones to Russia. The operation forms part of a wider campaign that has also reached oil refineries far inside Russia and contributed to an energy crisis in a country that remains one of the world’s largest petroleum producers.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, blamed Zelensky on Sunday for a strike he said killed a sailor on an Iranian commercial vessel. Araghchi said that he contacted Russian and European Union leaders and stated that Kyiv’s actions could not go unanswered, and Iran summoned the Ukrainian chargé d’affaires in Tehran.
Analysts noted the strikes also allow Ukraine to signal alignment with the Trump administration on Iran. Hanna Notte of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said the attacks more closely link the European and Middle Eastern theaters.
&#8220;The more that Zelensky can signal to Trump that he’s on Trump’s side against Iran, the better,&#8221; she said.
The Caspian Sea attacks come as Zelensky arrives in Washington for talks with President Donald Trump. Zelensky is expected to press for firmer U.S. commitments on air defenses, including a license that would allow Ukraine to produce Patriot interceptor missiles. Russia has stepped up ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv in recent weeks, Zelensky has said interceptors are urgently needed, and a Raytheon delegation visited Kyiv last week. 
After the meeting with Zelensky, Trump is scheduled to see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both leaders are in Washington for the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The timing has highlighted the growing overlap between the two conflicts. Kyiv has called Iran a “direct accomplice to Russian aggression against Ukraine.” Zelensky said his country has evidence that Russia shared satellite imagery with Tehran to help it attack U.S. military facilities and Gulf states. Trump said he would ask Putin about the claim and that it had no impact even if true.
Iran has supplied Russia with Shahed one-way attack drones since the fall of 2022. Russia later began producing its own version of the drones, the Geran, at a factory 600 miles east of Moscow. Ukrainian forces targeted that plant as recently as last year. The Caspian Sea has served as a key route for the shipment of these drones, along with other military shipments. Russia has used shipping companies to move equipment from Iran to the Russian mainland, with some vessels continuing via rivers and canals to the Black Sea.
The sea gives Iran its most direct path to Russia and Central Asia. Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at Sciences Po who has written on the Russia-Iran partnership, described the route as “somewhat unfettered by any kind of interdiction by the United States or other partners.”
Trump paused U.S. strikes on Iran over the weekend while considering further action aimed at loosening Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s southern ports remain more important economically, but the Caspian Sea offers a way around the blockade of its Persian Gulf and northern Arabian Sea facilities.
Israel targeted a naval outpost on Iran’s Caspian coast in March. Continued Ukrainian strikes there could pressure an economic link for both countries under sanctions. Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said Iran sees the attacks “in the context of this bigger picture of being under blockades from both the south and the north.”
Since the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran began in February, Tehran has used Shahed drones against commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, civilian airports and seaports, Gulf oil infrastructure, and American bases in the region.
The Ukrainian moves follow earlier U.S. efforts to isolate Iran’s key southern port. In mid-July, American forces struck bridges, railways, and other transport links around Bandar Abbas, the strategic city on the Strait of Hormuz that hosts Iran’s naval headquarters. Those <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-pounds-bridges-and-roads-to-cut-off-irans-strategic-port-city">strikes</a> were intended to cut the city off from the rest of the country while targeting maritime surveillance assets used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In Moscow, the mayor reported that more than 390 Ukrainian drones targeted the capital region overnight into Tuesday, with most intercepted. Damage was confirmed to a high-rise south of the city and a warehouse to the west. No casualties were reported.

Lviv, Ukraine

Ukraine Steps Up Attacks On Iranian-Linked Assets As Zelensky Visits Trump

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Senator Lindsey Graham died Sunday morning, hours after landing back in Washington from his tenth wartime trip to Kyiv, where he&#8217;d spent the week pushing a new Russia sanctions package and meeting twice with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In our era of social media-driven cognitive impairment, the hot takes came quickly and focused on how Graham had changed from a searing critic of Donald Trump in the 2016 cycle to one of Trump’s closest Senate allies. But there was little mystery to Graham’s evolution: he did us the favor of both saying explicitly what he was doing and — rarer for politicians — actually following through. In plain sight, Graham changed his means but not his ends; that combination is rare enough that pundits’ confusion is understandable. But accuracy is important, even online. Graham’s legacy is as one of the most inconsistent men in Washington in his approach towards Donald Trump — no small feat when J.D. Vance is Trump’s own vice president — but as one of the most consistent men in his principles. That combination confuses more people than it should.
Chris Cillizza and the quote that confuses those who do not wish to see
Chris Cillizza&#8217;s <a href="https://chriscillizza.substack.com/p/the-one-lindsey-graham-quote-that">post on the morning of Graham’s death</a> reaches for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/magazine/lindsey-graham-what-happened-trump.html">Mark Leibovich&#8217;s 2019 profile of Graham</a> to argue that he was a mere weathervane, pursuing relevance by any means necessary. Asked what had happened to him, Graham told Leibovich: “ ‘This,’ ” Graham said, “is to try to be relevant.” Politics, he explained, was the art of what works and what brings desired outcomes. “‘I’ve got an opportunity up here working with the president to get some really good outcomes for the country,’ he told me.”
Cillizza focuses on the first part of the quote: “This is to try to be relevant,” and stops there. But Cillizza not only ignores the second part of the quote about “working with the president to get some really good outcomes for the country,” but he also ignores Graham’s actual record, which belies Cillizza’s accusation of Graham as a man who &#8220;held policy positions lightly and a desire to matter tightly.&#8221; Graham did throw in wholly with Trump, but it was always in the service of his long-standing policy preferences for American leadership and an interventionist foreign policy. You can oppose those goals — plenty of people do, not all of whom are Democrats, liberals, or media members (I repeat myself) — but Graham always advocated for them, regardless of how cringe-inducing his public devotion to Trump could get. Even Will Saletan of the Bulwark, in his <a href="https://specialto.thebulwark.com/p/the-corruption-of-lindsey-graham">interminable 2023 series</a> excoriating Graham for his surrender to Trump, <a href="https://specialto.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-best-friend">noted</a> that when Graham was defending Trump most fiercely, “he was simultaneously lobbying Trump to adopt, or at least not to abandon, hawkish foreign policies.”
Anne Applebaum and the case of the missing Ukraine support
Anne Applebaum acknowledged Graham’s death by resurfacing her 2020 Atlantic cover story, &#8220;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3_RouLwI10rEYFfGKtdXD1Y&amp;utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=share">The Collaborators</a>,&#8221; in which she cited Graham as the marquee American example of a Republican who&#8217;d abandoned his convictions to accommodate a leader he privately despised — the domestic analog, in her telling, to the Eastern European and Vichy French officials who made their peace with regimes they knew were rotten.
Aside from the indecency of re-publicizing those accusations the day of Graham’s death and the questionable arguments made in the piece itself, what made Applebaum’s choice even more bizarre was her own body of work since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Few writers in America have made a more forceful, sustained case that Ukraine is, in her words, the front line of the entire contest between democracy and autocracy — that what happens there determines whether the free world holds. With that record, one would think she would have noticed Graham’s robust record of support for Ukraine. He visited Kyiv 10 times since the invasion. He co-sponsored the toughest sanctions package on Russia&#8217;s oil trade to move through Congress. He spent his final week alive lobbying the Trump administration for Tomahawks and locking down a bipartisan sanctions deal with the White House&#8217;s sign-off — the deal he announced, with evident pride, half a day before he died. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, NATO&#8217;s Secretary General Mark Rutte, and Ukraine&#8217;s own prime minister all said as much in their tributes Sunday. In other words, Graham&#8217;s record on Ukraine was the opposite of collaboration with authoritarianism: Applebaum&#8217;s silence on that record, even in a post marking his death, only shows her own inability to recognize reality.
Graham understood “The Room Where It Happens.” His critics don’t
Cillizza isn&#8217;t alone in reaching for the Broadway musical Hamilton song &#8220;The Room Where It Happens&#8221; as shorthand for what happened to Graham, and to Washington, D.C. more broadly. It&#8217;s an understandable reflex. Aaron Burr, as Lin-Manuel Miranda writes him, is the purest portrait we have in American pop culture of a politician who wants access for its own sake — envious of a compromise he had no hand in, chasing a seat at the table with no fixed idea of what he&#8217;d do once he got there. When Hamilton needles him about what he actually stands for, Burr not only has no answer but embraces, at the song’s close, the path of doing whatever he has to do to get into that room.
Miranda&#8217;s Burr accurately describes far too many Washington politicians, before and after the age of Trump. In fact, it is a better description of many of Graham’s most searing critics: the conservatives who spent many years advocating the same foreign policy goals as Graham and then renounced those beliefs, and all others that were connected to conservatism or the Republican Party, once Trump won in 2016. But it never accurately described Graham: he was closer to Hamilton, who fervently pursues his ambition and relevance but in the service of his long-standing goals to “build something that’s gonna outlive me,” like the national bank and the nation’s financial system. Graham has, to pick just one example, advocated for military action to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions and capabilities for many years, and died having seen his advocacy play at least some role in bringing President Trump around to making that happen.
The weekend of Graham’s death, we saw a different example of Miranda’s Aaron Burr reincarnated: Congressman Ro Khanna went to Israel to provoke an international incident in an effort to revive his fledgling 2028 presidential campaign and distract from his fervent support for a Nazi tattooed-Senate candidate in Maine who was forced to withdraw after a World Cup capacity crowd’s number of scandals. This culminated in a period of drastic principle reversals by this formerly respected Congressman, who has combined a newfound distaste for Israel worthy of Tucker Carlson and other formerly conservative podcasters with advocacy of a wealth tax, which would destroy the economy of Silicon Valley — a region that is not only the greatest wealth generator of the world but also based in his own district. As cringeworthy as Lindsey Graham’s devotion to Donald Trump could get, it’s worth contrasting him with Khanna to see what true surrender to illiberalism looks like. Graham may as well have been Alexander Hamilton by comparison.
Graham was a typical politician, and there are worse things to be
Graham was a politician and never pretended otherwise. In the Leibovich profile from 2019, Graham responds to Leibovich’s “what happened to you?” question with “Well, O.K., from my point of view, if you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this,” continuing with his quest to be relevant to help bring about his preferred policy outcomes. Many more conventional Republican politicians could not accommodate themselves to Trump’s way of doing business and left office; some chose the path of more consistent “#Resistance” and, mostly, failed. The best thing that can be said about Graham’s legacy is that he accepted the trade of making himself look ridiculous (as he often did) to help advance his long-standing principles – and the country was (I strongly believe) better off for that trade. Graham was emblematic of the politician who said, “A man never stands taller than when he is on his knees kissing someone’s ass,” only he never lost sight of why he was compromising his approach. Most politicians – before or after the age of Trump – pursue relevance for its own sake, and make themselves look just as ridiculous in doing so. If Lindsey Graham is to be remembered for his approach to Trump, those memories should accurately reflect what he did. And that is enough to make him stand out as a Hamilton in a town of Burrs.
***
Jeremy Senderowicz is a lawyer in New York City.

Senator Lindsey Graham Speaks On President Trump’s Announcement Of Troop Withdrawal In Syria

Lindsey Graham: A Hamilton, Not A Burr

Aaron Burr

Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton

Ukrainian resistance fighters are reportedly using fake romantic identities online to extract battlefield information from Russian soldiers, turning one of the oldest forms of human deception into a tool for modern drone warfare.
As detailed in a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/06/underground-intelligence-network-russia-ukraine/687578/">report</a> by The Atlantic, Ukrainian fighters have allegedly posed as lonely women online, slowly building relationships with Russian soldiers in hopes of getting them to reveal useful information about their units and locations. That information has led to Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian positions.  
One case described in the report involved a Ukrainian military-intelligence officer named Serhiy, who pretended to be a 35-year-old housewife trapped in a cold marriage. Over several months, “she” exchanged WhatsApp messages with a Chechen commander named Achmad, who was stationed somewhere in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine.
The messages were not immediately about war. They were ordinary and intimate. They talked about their days, their frustrations, and what they hoped life might look like when the fighting ended. Then, gradually, the fake housewife began asking about the front.
Achmad eventually sent a photo from inside the barracks, showing himself and another soldier smiling for the camera. Behind them, according to the report, was a map of the compound that showed the unit’s position.
The woman the commander thought he was speaking to did not exist. “She” was Serhiy, an officer working for Ukraine’s military-intelligence directorate. The coordinates revealed in the photo were later hit by a Ukrainian drone.
“Serhiy was great at flirting,” his commander told Harbaugh. “Guys in our team started asking him for dating advice.”
The episode depicts how Ukrainian fighters are reportedly using digital conversations to gather information Russian soldiers may not realize they are giving away. It also shows how a single photo can become useful intelligence when it reveals background details.
According to Harbaugh’s report, the Ukrainian agents involved in these efforts have little formal training. Their digital networks are also vulnerable to Russian interception. Still, they have reportedly relied on hard-copy tradecraft manuals, including a Soviet-era handbook describing CIA catfishing tactics in Africa during the Cold War.
“Your CIA was good at this,” one Ukrainian interviewed for the article told The Atlantic. “You bastards knew how to use sex.”
The reported tactic comes as Ukraine’s drone warfare capabilities have improved dramatically since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Ukrainian forces have been able to hit strategic targets hundreds of miles inside Russian territory, including oil refineries in Moscow earlier this month, according to the report.
For the Ukrainians interviewed by Harbaugh, the motivation was not abstract. They described murdered civilians and evidence of sexual assault they had witnessed during Russia’s invasion. One doctor said they had treated sexual assault victims ranging in age from 4 to 75, with injuries so severe that her facility had become a leader in new methods for gynecological reconstructive surgery.
The report points to the subtle role digital communication now plays in the war. For Ukrainian fighters, information can come not only from surveillance or military equipment, but from the small details Russian soldiers choose to share online.

Moscow oil refinery damaged again in UAV attack

Russian Troops Duped By Fake Online Romances That Led To Drone Strikes

Russian Troops Reportedly Duped By Fake Online Romances That Led To Drone Strikes

(Reuters) — NATO accused Moscow on Friday of reckless behavior and pledged to &#8220;defend every inch of Allied territory&#8221; after Romania said a Russian drone had crashed into a civilian apartment block in the alliance member state during an attack on neighboring Ukraine.
Romania&#8217;s defense ministry said a woman and a child suffered minor injuries in Galati near the border with Ukraine overnight after radar tracked a Russian drone entering Romanian airspace.
Photos from the scene showed charred and damaged brickwork on the roof of the 10-story apartment block which Romanian authorities said was hit by a drone that exploded on impact, tearing through a top-floor flat.
Russia&#8217;s TASS news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said President Vladimir Putin had been informed about the incident.
<div id="attachment_1104439" style="width: 857px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1104439" class="size-large wp-image-1104439" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T065911Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0DZ_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-1-847x576.jpg" alt="" width="847" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T065911Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0DZ_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-1-847x576.jpg 847w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T065911Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0DZ_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-1-300x204.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T065911Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0DZ_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-1-768x522.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T065911Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0DZ_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-1.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 847px) 100vw, 847px" />A Romanian law enforcement officer works on the site of an explosion at a residential block of flats following a drone hit close to the border with Ukraine, in Galati, Romania, May 29, 2026. Inquam Photos/George Calin via REUTERS</div>
Separately, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia&#8217;s powerful Security Council, warned European leaders that drones would continue to stray into their countries and prevent their populations from sleeping peacefully.
It was the first time a densely populated area in a NATO country had been hit causing injuries during Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine, and the incident is likely to increase tensions on the alliance&#8217;s eastern flank as member states worry about the war spilling over their borders.
&#8220;Russia’s reckless behavior is a danger to us all,&#8221; NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on X after speaking by phone to Romanian President Nicusor Dan, whose country is in both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
&#8220;I affirmed that NATO stands ready to defend every inch of Allied territory,&#8221; he said, without making any mention of triggering NATO&#8216;s mutual defense clause. &#8220;We will continue to enhance our readiness to deter and defend against any threat, including from drones.&#8221;
Dan said the Russian consulate in the southeastern city of Constanta would be closed and the consul expelled.
TASS quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying Moscow would respond swiftly to Bucharest&#8217;s decision to close the consulate.
Romania, which shares a 400-mile land border with Ukraine, said Russian drones had breached its airspace 28 times since Moscow began attacking Ukrainian ports across the Danube River following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Stephen Evelyn, a 44-year-old American citizen who lives in Galati, called it &#8220;another provocation by the Russians&#8221;.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe this was an accident, this has happened too many times for the Russians to be doing this by accident,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Either that or they&#8217;re highly incompetent at waging war, but NATO needs to do something about this.&#8221;
There have been multiple airspace incursions into NATO airspace since Moscow invaded Ukraine, most notably when more than 20 Russian drones entered Poland&#8217;s airspace on the night of September 9-10.
In recent weeks Ukrainian drones have strayed into Baltic countries&#8217; airspace, sowing confusion and raising tensions with Russia.
Romania has asked NATO allies to deploy additional anti-drone capabilities to Romania, with official sources saying Bucharest needs low-altitude radars and interceptor drones. A NATO spokesperson said on Friday &#8220;potential additional defensive measures are considered.&#8221;
Local authorities in southern Ukraine said Izmail port in the Odesa region, across the border from Galati, had come under attack from drones early on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was ready to support Romania &#8220;in whatever way is necessary&#8221;.
<div id="attachment_1104441" style="width: 659px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1104441" class="size-large wp-image-1104441" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T054159Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0AI_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-649x576.jpg" alt="" width="649" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T054159Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0AI_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-649x576.jpg 649w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T054159Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0AI_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-300x266.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T054159Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0AI_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES-768x682.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/2026-05-29T054159Z_1_LYNXMPEM4S0AI_RTROPTP_4_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ROMANIA-DRONES.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 649px) 100vw, 649px" />A fire burns on the roof of a 10-story block of flats after a drone crashed into the building, causing an explosion and injuring two people, near the border with Ukraine, in Galati, Romania, in this handout image released on May 29, 2026. Romanian Department for Emergency Situations (DSU)/Handout via REUTERS</div>
The Romanian defense ministry said two F-16 fighter jets had been scrambled and a military helicopter was sent to monitor the attack, with the pilots authorized to shoot down any drones without endangering inhabited areas. The residents of border counties Braila, Galati and Tulcea were warned to take cover.
The drone was in Romania&#8217;s airspace for four minutes and flew at a low altitude for 6.2 miles, making it difficult for radar to detect, Romanian Brigadier General Gheorghe Maxim said.
He told a press conference that although the U.S. anti-drone system Merops is operational in Romania it is not yet fully integrated with national air defenses and it would have been too risky to use in a city.
In addition to the woman and her child who were taken to hospital with minor injuries, two people were treated on the scene for panic attacks and 70 were evacuated from the apartment block, local authorities said.
Deputy Interior Minister Raed Arafat, who is in charge of the emergency response agency, told private broadcaster Digi24 that the drone affected two building stairwells, an elevator shaft and damaged five cars.
A drone also damaged an electricity pole and a household annex in Galati in April.
In a separate incident, a drone without an explosive charge was found in northwestern Romania, state TVR broadcaster said late on Thursday, citing local authorities.
(Reporting by George Calin in Galati, Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Jekaterina Golubkova in Tokyo, Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk in Warsaw, Jason Hovet in Prague and Lily Bayer in Brussels; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Kate Mayberry and Timothy Heritage)

ROMANIA-NATO-DEFENCE-EXERCISE

NATO Sends Clear Message To Russia After Attack On Member Nation

When historians look back on this period of war in Ukraine and Iran, they will be deeply puzzled by a simple question: why can’t the leaders of the Western Democracies hear our enemies?
There were two examples last week, one from Russia and one from Iran, in which our enemies were extraordinarily clear about their view of things.
In both cases, our enemies’ comments were dramatically different from what we have been telling ourselves.
We keep hoping for reasonableness, for negotiating to a peaceful conclusion, for finding some common ground to build a better future.
Our enemies share none of those goals, and they are very clear about their goals and how different they are from the West’s self-delusion.
Consider first the Russian position.
While Putin was having a very nice chat with President Donald Trump for over an hour, his senior national security spokesperson was preparing a radically different message.
Dmitry Medvedev has been president, prime minister, and now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia. He would never make an aggressive, hostile speech without Putin’s approval.
Yet the day after Putin’s call with President Trump, Medvedev gave a speech in which he declared that the United States is Russia’s geopolitical rival and that the conflict with the West is “a question of existence” that will last longer than this generation. He rejected any American mediation between Russia and Ukraine and asserted that victory over Ukraine would solve a lot of Russia’s problems.
Medvedev’s speech was a pretty clear statement of long-term conflict. Remember that Putin, in his April 2005 State of the Nation address, said he believed the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
Why would we expect a former KGB Colonel who is a fervent Russian nationalist and who wants to reassemble a very strong Russian state to settle for the survival of a Ukraine he is determined to conquer?
While the Russians were telling us we were in a very long conflict that would last over a generation, the Iranians were sending us a clear, unambiguous statement about their intentions.
As the Institute for the Study of War reported:
<blockquote>
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei declared on April 30 that Iran will retain control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and maintain its nuclear and missile capabilities, which supports ISW-CTP’s assessment that the Iranian regime is unlikely to make meaningful concessions in its next proposal to the United States … Mojtaba also underscored that Iran will defend its nuclear, missile, and advanced technological capabilities as resolutely as it defends its territorial borders. A senior Iranian official speaking to the Washington Post on April 30 similarly asserted that Iran’s security establishment rejects compromise on key matters, such as Iran’s ability to enrich uranium.
</blockquote>
It seems clear that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Major General Ahmad Vahidi now dominates the Iranian dictatorship and represents the hardline position that Iran can withstand American and Israeli attacks and ultimately win the war simply by not giving in.
Western analysts, including those who dominate Washington, D.C., simply cannot break out of their rational, Enlightenment model of reasonableness to understand how unreasonable alternative systems can be, and yet, within their own values and their own experiences, they are following a logic train that is easily understandable.
This was the key problem Winston Churchill faced after reading “Mein Kampf” in the early 1930s and understanding the logic of Hitler’s insanity. He simply could not get the British establishment to listen to Hitler and rearm accordingly.
Consider first the belief system and history that shape General Vahidi. He is part of a religious dictatorship that has been chanting “Death to America” for 47 years. General Vahidi was born in 1958 and joined the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in 1979 at the age of 21. He is sanctioned by the United States, Canada, and the European Union for terrorism and nuclear activities.
When we think about the pain our bombing campaign is causing the Iranian government, we have to put it in the context of their experience of the war with Iraq from September 1980 to August 1988. This was a brutal meat grinder in which the Iraqis used chemical weapons. The best estimate is that Iranian casualties were over 1,000,000, with the Iranian death toll somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000.
If you consider that General Vahidi’s experience from the age of 22 to 30 was this brutal war, and since then he has waged terrorist campaigns against the West while focusing on building nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach Europe and the United States, you get a different sense of what we are up against.
If the religiously inspired (and this is the vital fact which the rational West refuses to consider) dictatorship, when it was barely established, could endure an eight-year war with a million casualties, what is the historic yardstick by which we should expect them to accept terms they would regard as a betrayal of the revolution?
This question of pain levels also applies to Putin and the Russian dictatorship. The Soviet Union lost over 20 million dead in World War II. At Stalingrad alone, they lost 40,000 civilians and had about 1,100,000 soldiers killed or wounded.
From a Ukrainian perspective, the horror of the Stalin-enforced famine of 1932 and 1933, which killed 3,900,000 (about 13% of the population) through starvation, is a horrifying reminder of why they fight against Moscow so intensely and at such costs. The Ukrainian word for the famine is Holodomor, which combines the Ukrainian words for starvation and to inflict death. It is reasonable to suggest that the Ukrainians will fight to the end rather than accept subjugation to a city that deliberately starved millions of them to death.
Our enemies are trying to tell us who they really are. Future historians will puzzle at our inability to hear them.
The Chinese and North Korean dictatorships are watching carefully our inability to confront and respond to reality. They will develop their own strategies accordingly, and both will help Russia and Iran survive the inadequate efforts of the United States and its allies.
Literally, the future of the world will be decided by the American ability or inability to learn and change when faced with aggressive evil.
If we do not change and recognize that our enemies are enemies who think differently from us, we will lose. It is that simple.
***
Newt Gingrich was the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Follow him on X @NewtGingrich. Join his newsletter at <a href="https://www.gingrich360.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.gingrich360.net/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1778011290065000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1zn9zi0baZTNq2_7KeHn-r">Gingrich360.net</a>.

IRAN-POLITICS-US-HOSTAGE-ANNIVERSARY

Newt Gingrich: Why Can’t We Hear Our Enemies?

American History

A historic Catholic church and monastery complex in western Ukraine, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, was damaged in a Russian strike this week, underscoring the continued toll of the war on religious and cultural landmarks.
Russian forces launched <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/24/russia-strikes-civilian-areas-ukraine">a large-scale aerial assault</a> on Tuesday, striking the 16th-century Bernardine monastery complex in the city of Lviv, including St. Andrew’s Church, a cornerstone of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic community. The site, located in what has been described as the heart of Ukraine’s Catholic region, dates back roughly 400 years.
The attack comes just days before Holy Week, the most sacred period in the Christian calendar. Local officials confirmed that nearby residential buildings were also hit, with fires breaking out and parts of the monastery, including its tower, sustaining damage. 
The nearby Church of Saint Mary Magdalene was also impacted, with shattered windows and debris strewn across its interior. “Thank God it happened in the afternoon,” <a href="https://catholicreview.org/russian-drone-strikes-damage-historic-church-monastery-in-lviv-ahead-of-holy-week/">said</a> Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki of Lviv, noting that the timing likely prevented fatalities. “People were still at work, children had not yet returned from school.”
Even so, the broader assault was deadly. Ukrainian officials reported that Russia launched nearly 400 drones in a single night, one of the largest aerial attacks since the war began in 2022, killing at least six people and injuring dozens more. In another strike, a maternity hospital in the Ivano-Frankivsk region was also hit.
UNESCO <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-alarmed-strikes-lviv-world-heritage-site">said</a> it was “deeply alarmed” by the damage to protected cultural sites, emphasizing that such landmarks are safeguarded under international law. For those on the ground, however, the destruction of churches is nothing new.
“This happens a lot,” said Steven Moore, executive producer of the documentary A Faith Under Siege, speaking from Kyiv to <a href="https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/europe/ukraine-monastery-hit-in-russian-missile-strike-most-historic-church-targeted-so-far">EWTN</a>. He noted that Russia has repeatedly targeted religious buildings throughout the conflict, including Orthodox churches, despite claiming to defend traditional Christian values. 
St. Andrew’s Church, he said, may be “the most historic church they have targeted so far.” The strike also comes at a moment of renewed intensity across the front lines, as both sides escalate operations ahead of the spring campaign season.
In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-offensive-civilian-attacks-48a46d2503513c903bc3e4de31b96e00">continued grinding advances</a> in the Donetsk region, particularly around the heavily contested areas near Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar, where months of attritional fighting have yielded incremental gains at high cost. Ukrainian defenses, while still holding key lines, have been strained by manpower shortages and the constant pressure of artillery and drone assaults.
At the same time, Ukraine has expanded its use of long-range drone strikes deep into Russian territory, targeting oil depots, airfields, and logistical hubs in an effort to disrupt Moscow’s war machine beyond the front. These strikes, often carried out hundreds of miles from the battlefield, represent a strategic shift toward asymmetric pressure as Ukraine seeks to offset Russia’s numerical advantages.
Drone warfare, in particular, has become the defining feature of this phase of the conflict. Both sides are deploying thousands of unmanned systems monthly, from inexpensive first-person-view (FPV) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/drones">drones</a> used in trench warfare to long-range Iranian-designed Shahed drones that can strike cities far from the front. The scale and speed of this technological adaptation have transformed the battlefield into a constant, low-altitude threat environment where traditional lines of safety once assumed in Western cities such as Lviv no longer hold.
The war’s international dimensions are also becoming more pronounced. Iran continues to supply drone technology to Russia, while intelligence assessments have pointed to growing cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. Reports of North Korean personnel supporting Russian operations have further underscored concerns that the conflict is increasingly drawing in actors beyond Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/masshtab-ciyeyi-ataki-svidchit-duzhe-chitko-sho-nemaye-v-ros-103497">addressing</a> the latest strikes, said their scale demonstrates that “Russia has no intention of really ending this war.” Now in its fifth year, the conflict continues to reshape daily life across Ukraine. Air raid sirens, damaged infrastructure, and the constant threat of attack have become routine, even in cities like Lviv, once considered relatively safe.
For Ukraine’s religious communities, the war has taken on an added layer of meaning. Churches that once stood for centuries as symbols of faith and continuity are now being drawn into the front lines, damaged, shattered, and, in some cases, destroyed. As Holy Week approaches, the strike on one of Ukraine’s most historic Catholic sites stands as a stark reminder: the war is not only being fought on battlefields, but in the cultural and spiritual heart of the nation itself.

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Russia Bombs Iconic Centuries-Old Christian Landmark

Christians

Church

Holy Week

Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing six people and inflicting damage across several regions of the country, Ukrainian officials said.
Five of the dead were in Kyiv region outside the capital, where President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces targeted energy infrastructure, but also damaged residential buildings, schools and businesses. Fifteen people were injured.
Zelensky said the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions were also targeted in an attack that included around 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were downed by air defences.
Later in the day, the governor of the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, said a residential area of the city of Zaporizhzhia had been hit by Russian-guided bombs, killing one person and injuring three.
Reuters Television footage showed emergency crews at work amid piles of rubble and twisted metal. Windows and frames on balconies were smashed.
&#8220;The second attack was strong. The kitchen window flew out, as did those in the living room and bedroom, everything went into a roar. I ran and got slightly injured,&#8221; Olha Kiyashko, 65, told Reuters.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve got no strength left. They took away our pension years — the years we could have lived on, the years we&#8217;d planned and counted on. All our health is gone.&#8221;
Saturday&#8217;s strikes come as the Iran conflict has distracted international attention from a U.S.-backed peace push in the four-year war, which Kyiv says Moscow has no interest in ending.
&#8220;Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine,&#8221; Zelensky wrote on X.
He repeated his call for Kyiv&#8217;s partners to boost production of air-defense weapons, stocks of which have been diminishing as the U.S. and its allies in the Gulf have fended off Iranian strikes.
Russia&#8217;s winter attacks on Ukraine have left swathes of major cities without power or heating, part of a campaign to weaken resolve as Moscow&#8217;s troops press a battlefield offensive and demand Kyiv cede more territory in the east.
Ukraine&#8217;s forces have targeted Russian strategic infrastructure such as oil refineries, depots and terminals in long-range strikes.
Ukraine&#8217;s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that consumers in six regions were without electricity after the overnight strikes and Russian shelling of frontline areas.
&#8220;There&#8217;s no way Russia will stop,&#8221; said local resident Natalia Fetko, 57, whose building was damaged in the strike. &#8220;Nothing is enough for them.&#8221;
Damage was recorded in four districts outside the capital, according to regional military administrator Mykola Kalashnyk.
Saturday&#8217;s attack also prompted NATO member Poland to scramble jets to protect its airspace, but no violations were observed, Warsaw&#8217;s military said.
In Moldova, on Ukraine&#8217;s western border, the Foreign Ministry denounced what it said was an intrusion by a Russian drone into its airspace in a border district, saying Moscow&#8217;s actions undermined regional security and posed a danger to its citizens.
(Additional reporting by Yurii Kovalenko, Serhiy Chaliy and Alexander Tanas; Editing by Toby Chopra, Gareth Jones, Rod Nickel, Ron Popeski and Diane Craft)

Russia Launches 400+ Drones, Dozens Of Missiles In Ukraine Strike, Killing 6

Global Politics

Vladimir Putin

World

Ukraine hit a Russian plant manufacturing ballistic missiles in a missile strike in the remote Udmurtia region, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Saturday.
Ukraine said its forces attacked the plant manufacturing Russian missiles, including the short-range Iskander and intercontinental Topol-M, in Votkinsk, east of Moscow and about 1,400 km (800 miles) from Ukraine.
It said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that the Ukrainian forces used domestically produced ground-launched Flamingo cruise missiles. The attack caused a fire on the site, the Ukrainian military said.
Alexander Brechalov, the governor of the Udmurtia region in Russia, had earlier said a site there had been attacked overnight with drones.
&#8220;There has been damage and injuries as a result,&#8221; Brechalov said in a video posted on the Telegram app. He provided no other details.
The airport in Udmurtia&#8217;s main city, Izhevsk, and those in cities in nearby regions suspended operations, the civil aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said.
The unofficial Russian Telegram channel SHOT, which often quotes contacts in the security services, said residents in Votkinsk reported hearing at least three explosions and the humming of drones.
Russia uses its ballistic missiles to reinforce its drone attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, knocking out electricity and heating supplies for millions across Ukraine during the cold winter months.
Ukraine is increasingly targeting military and energy infrastructure deep inside Russia. Kyiv says that hitting the weapons producers and the energy system that fuels Russia&#8217;s military is the best way to gain leverage over its bigger enemy as the war enters its fifth year next week.
The Ukrainian military said it also hit a gas processing plant in the Russian Samara region. Russian officials in the Samara region issued no report of such an attack.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Editing by Alex Richardson)

Missile

Ukraine Strikes Ballistic Missile Producer Deep Inside Russia, Kyiv Says

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got into a heated spat with Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
Clinton and Macinka, a right-leaning populist, disagreed on a number off issues — but the trouble really began when Clinton accused President Donald Trump of effectively conspiring with Russian President Vladimir Putin to exploit Ukraine.
&#8220;I think that the effort to force Ukraine into a surrender deal with Putin is shameful. I think that the effort that Putin and Trump are making to profit off the misery and death of the Ukrainian people is a historic error, and corrupt to the nth degree,&#8221; she said, adding, &#8220;I believe Ukraine is fighting for our democracy and our values of freedom and civilization on the front lines, losing thousands of people, and having their country destroyed by one man’s mania to control them, and I think Trump either doesn’t understand or could care less about that suffering.&#8221;
Macinka, when asked whether he would agree with Clinton&#8217;s assessment, turned to the former Secretary of State and said, &#8220;I think you really don’t like him.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
REALITY CZECH: Hillary Clinton clashes with Czech Deputy PM Petr Macinka after he says President Trump reacted to policies that went &#8220;too far.&#8221;
MACINKA: &#8220;We saw the woke revolution. I don&#8217;t agree with the gender revolution, the climate alarmism&#8230;&#8221;
CLINTON: &#8220;Which gender? Women… <a href="https://t.co/bCCYKXqvWa">pic.twitter.com/bCCYKXqvWa</a>
— Fox News (@FoxNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/2023159967310590332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Clinton gave no argument to that: &#8220;That is absolutely true. Not only do I not like him, I don’t like him because of what he’s doing to the United States, and the world, and I think you should take a hard look at it if you think there is something good that will come out of it.&#8221;
Macinka defended Trump then, arguing that he was only attempting to push back against policies that the people believed had gone too far to the Left — &#8220;too far from regular people, too far from reality.&#8221;
&#8220;We saw the cancel culture, we saw the woke revolution, I don’t agree with the gender revolution, the climate alarmism,&#8221; Macinka offered examples when asked, but then Clinton interrupted him.
&#8220;Which gender revolution? Women having their rights?&#8221; Clinton asked, apparently misunderstanding his comment.
Macinka explained that he was not talking about women&#8217;s rights, but radical gender ideology, replying, &#8220;I think there are two genders.&#8221;
Clinton once again attempted to commandeer the narrative: &#8220;How about half of us, can we have our rights?&#8221;
Macinka was undeterred, however, and continued, &#8220;Some of us think there is more than two genders. I think there is male and female, and the rest, probably, is a social construct. This is something that went too far.”
“But does that justify selling out the people of Ukraine who are on the front lines dying to save their freedom and their two genders, if that’s what you’re worried about?” Clinton tried once more.
&#8220;Can I please finish my point? I’m sorry that it makes you nervous‚&#8221; Macinka shot back.
Clinton protested, &#8220;It doesn’t make me nervous, it makes me very, very, unhappy.&#8221;

Hillary Clinton Appears At Women Transforming Global Security Event

Watch Hillary Clinton Panic When Czech Leader Declares There Are Only Two Genders

Hillary Clinton

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