I tried to navigate the daily Russian Campaign Assessment of our situation published by the Institute for the Study of War, unsuccessfully. The June 19 brief contains more than 5,000 words, minus 100 self-referencing footnotes.
How annoying!
The biggest challenge to producing well-formed updates for the web about the war, I think, could be a bit of code that stops turning Putin’s pronouncments into a hyperlink with the title of the loaded page as an attribute.
Since 2022, the script to preflight for Russia-Ukraine war analysis has had a buttload of errors removed (doubtless there are more to find) and new (terribly optional) scripts are being been added to quickly reformat the environment and close the Risk-Confidence Gap☠.
Future updates should be able to pick up dry cleaning, wash your car and return phone calls.
Last night, Russia again attacked Odesa with Shahed drones.
Ukraine’s president has been invited for dinner hosted by the King of the Netherlands on Tuesday next week after the NATO summit, which this year has been shortened to two hours and will focus on getting member states to cough up more money. Donald is scheduled to attend, but might skip the beano altogether.
Sigh. It’s as if Ukraine today is suffering from the the diplomatic equivalent of REDs (Relative Energy Deficiency), a syndrome caused by insufficient resource intake relative to energy expended. In the human body, the mismatch, known as low energy availability (LEA), results in the body not having enough fuel to support both basic physiological functions.
Amy and Jamie at Politico write about how annoying Z’s right-hand man Andriy is and why US officials don’t like him (as if Ukrainians looks up to them)1. The article leaves out entirely the part about Ukrainians also distrusting Andriy. Last time I checked, he topped the trust-mistrust balance (the difference between the share of those who trust, and those who do not trust) of all Ukrainian politicians.
Kim tracked down the American civilian killed in the June 17 attack on Kyiv2.
Have a great weekend!
Washington has had it with Andriy Yermak. The top aide to Ukraine’s president may be setting back Kyiv’s agenda with U.S. officials (Politico, June 19, 2025)
This Oregon Native Went to Kyiv as a Volunteer. He Died in a Russian Attack. Fred Grandy was upset by the United States’ reversal in its support for Ukraine, his family said. This week, he was among the 28 people killed in a drone and missile assault (The New York Times, June 18, 2025)