Polish authorities have reported that an object of still unknown origin has violated Polish airspace and fell in its territory early this morning. "Everything indicates that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% sure of the type of missile and who launched it," stated the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, who described the incident as "very serious." The Polish Minister of Defense, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, also confirmed that it is "very likely" to have been a Russian cruise missile. "The (Kh-101) missiles are used exclusively by Russia's strategic air force," added the head of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski.

Who would have thought four years ago, when the Russian attack on Ukraine took place, that on July 14, 2026, Ukrainian units would parade on the Champs-Élysées in Paris with a not exactly victorious, but satisfied air. Hopeful. Ukraine's drones continue to harm Russia and Putin continues to take refuge in rhetoric and missiles exploding in Kyiv. But this crisis –perhaps the beginning of the end of the war– also highlights the democratic shortcomings of the regime managed by Volodymyr Zelensky. The latest episode has been the dismissal of the Minister of Defense, Mykhailo Fedorov, and as a consequence the head of the military command, Oleksandr Sirski, who was the one demanding it. By expelling Fyodorov, the Ukrainian president gets rid of a rival, but loses one of his best strategists with a lot of support in the streets of Kyiv. A conflict that gives indications of how Ukraine would end up if Putin finally threw in the towel. Or if the Kremlin's dens forced him to throw it in.

In a gloomy basement of a destroyed building in Druzhkivka, a soldier pilots a small drone against a Russian antenna somewhere in Ukrainian Donbas. The pilots take twenty-hour shifts to fight Russian positions sixteen kilometers away, and fatigue does not prevent them from being optimistic about the new army commander-in-chief, Mikhailo Drapati, after his predecessor was sacked this week by President Volodymyr Zelensky, amid the most significant protests the country has experienced since the Maidan revolt in 2014.

It was a long time ago the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, in Alaska, where the American president received his Russian counterpart – against whom an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court is pending – with a red carpet. That August, the leaders spoke of a possible general peace framework in Ukraine that would involve Kyiv ceding the Donbas region. The optimism of the meeting crystallized in three-way negotiations in Geneva, in February of this year, which were abruptly interrupted without any agreement. Since then, it seemed that the White House – distracted by the war in the Middle East – had set aside diplomacy in Ukraine.

"Drapati! Drapati! Drapati!" This name has been heard often in recent days' protests in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, that of who, as of a few hours ago, is the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Mikhailo Drapati. Since last week, many Ukrainians have taken to the streets daily to protest the dismissal of the Minister of Defense, Mikhailo Fédorov, a decision with which Volodymyr Zelensky sided with the old military guard to the detriment of younger voices with an initiative for change. The Ukrainian president chose to dismiss Fédorov and keep the commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Sirski. But on Tuesday night, after six days of demonstrations, he announced Sirski's dismissal and Drapati's appointment as his replacement, responding to the proclamations in the streets.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced late Tuesday the resignation of the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Oleksandr Sirski, and the appointment, in his place, of Mykhailo Draparti, who until now led the joint forces of the army. The move comes after six days of protests in several cities of the country for the dismissal of the Minister of Defense, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had clashed with the general over the strategy to follow in the war against Russia.

"The main defense against drones is eyes and ears," says Bogdan Zuyakov, a Ukrainian volunteer who has evacuated over five thousand people from the Donetsk province since the beginning of the war. At only 26 years old, Bogdan explains that the worst scars are left in memory, not on the body, when he recalls the number of evacuees and volunteers who have died along the H20 national road, which connects the towns of Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk, in the known belt of fortresses where the Ukrainian army is fiercely defending the quarter of the Donetsk region it still holds. the well-known belt of fortresses where the Ukrainian army is fiercely defending the quarter of the Donetsk region it still holds.

A few months before leaving the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron wants to set the idea he has been pursuing for years on track: Europe must militarily emancipate itself from the United States and work together for its security and defense. Donald Trump's arrival at the White House gave impetus to the idea, and the war in Ukraine has contributed to European countries working together to defend themselves, albeit with still unencouraging results.

In recent months, Ukraine has deployed a successful campaign ofdeep attacks on Russian refineries and supply routes to Crimea with medium-range drones, which has generated optimism among European allies and Western analysts. But, despite these good results, the advance of Russian troops in Donbas – a region formed by the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, the latter almost completely occupied – seems inexorable and has accelerated with the battle of Kostiantynivka, an enclave south of the large Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk, where Ukraine still holds a quarter of the territory.

Margaryta Yakovenko (Tokmak, Ukraine, 1992) arrived in Spain at 6 years old, but every summer she returned to her hometown to spend it with her family. In 2022, with the Russian invasion, everything changed. Now Tokmak is an occupied city to which she cannot return. This is the common thread of the book Occupation (Seix Barral).

The Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Ermolaev, his wife and his thirteen-year-old daughter were victims last week of a sudden explosion as they entered the building where they live, on Révérend Père Louis Frolla street, in Monaco. According to police sources, the detonation was caused by a device hidden in a backpack that targeted this businessman with a troubled past, leaving him critically injured, as was his wife. On Friday, the Monaco Prosecutor's Office identified Anastasiia Berezovska, a 39-year-old Ukrainian woman, as the presumed perpetrator of the attack. Berezovska, disguised as a man, left the device at the door and detonated it remotely when Ermolaev, his wife, and his daughter arrived at the building, according to the prosecutor. The suspect, who allegedly did not act alone, fled on foot to France and was seen in Frankfurt days later.

With NATO mired in its internal tensions, Russia and Ukraine have decided to intensify the strategy of inflicting maximum possible damage on each other, before any talk of negotiating their immediate future resumes.

Russia does not loosen its pressure on Ukraine. This Monday in the early morning, Moscow has once again bombed Kyiv, just four days after the last fatal attack on the Ukrainian capital. At least 14 people have died in Kyiv and six more have lost their lives in the neighboring town of Vyshneve, where 500 people have been evacuated due to the risk of new explosions following attacks on fuel depots. In addition, according to the balance of the Ukrainian authorities, 87 people have been injured.

It is not at all common to see Putin take responsibility for political or military errors with words equivalent to self-criticism. Such as acknowledging that Ukrainian drones are putting Russia in difficulty. He said it just ten days ago. The head of the Kremlin promised security to Russians with a tone of humility. Citizens who for weeks have been forced to endure air raid alerts, drone explosions, and the surprise of discovering fuel shortages for their vehicles. Shocks that are added to figures that can no longer be hidden, not in the kitchens, nor in the air shafts, nor on the street sidewalks: half a million Russian soldiers could have died in the war in Ukraine according to the latest data from British intelligence services.

The European Commission has proposed this Friday to extend by one year plus the temporary international protection regulations for Ukrainians who flee the war and seek refuge in the European Union. However, Brussels has proposed amending legislation to exclude from the right to remain in EU territory all Ukrainian citizens who are of military age (mostly men between 23 and 60 years old) and are able to serve in the Ukrainian army.

The European Union wants to have a say in the war in Ukraine again. After months on the sidelines of negotiations sponsored by Donald Trump, which were paralyzed as soon as the war with Iran began, Brussels considers that there is now a momentum for diplomacy with Russia and to put an end to the Ukrainian conflict.

In the great Russian metropolises there are no air-raid shelters, no emergency protocols, the sirens do not sound when drones approach. People record from home, between fascination and unreality, how the aircraft fly over buildings with an unsettling parsimony until they crash. No one wants to think that these explosions could affect their apartment or that they could be the next victims. In the fifth summer of the war, the bulk of Russian urban society refuses to accept that it is at war, even though it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to hide the ravages of the conflict within its cities.

Donald Trump appeared triumphantly on the stage of the G-7 summit in the French city of Évian. In the closing press conference, he stated that, with the memorandum of understanding agreed with Iran, the United States had achieved "everything they had set out to do and much more." As usual, he boasted that the U.S. military is the most powerful in the world and assured that they could have continued bombing Iran for weeks or even years, but that he stopped it to avoid "an economic catastrophe." Hours later, he signed the agreement in a solemn place: the Palace of Versailles. In front of the host, Emmanuel Macron, and some cameras, Trump stamped his signature on the document on the table of the state banquet that the French president had offered in his honor. In theory, the agreement was to be signed this Friday in Switzerland, but at this time it is unknown if Trump will do it, if his vice president Vance will go, and if Iran will send someone of importance. What is certain, however, is that Trump has already signed it.

In geopolitics, things change very quickly, and while a few weeks ago Vladimir Putin appeared to be one of the indirect winners of the Iran war, as the closure of Hormuz benefited his oil exports, now with the agreement to reopen the strait, the tables may have turned. At least that is what the European members of the G-7 intend, who plan to pressure Donald Trump to take advantage now to increase pressure on the Kremlin to desist from the occupation of Ukraine and agree to sign a peace deal. Trump himself has agreed, and he was seen in a friendly attitude chatting with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Evian summit in France.

If there is one thing the G-7 countries agree on, it is that the pact between the United States and Iran to end the conflict could provide a boost for peace in Ukraine. With the war in Iran, that of Ukraine had taken a back seat. But now, with the Middle East conflict on track – albeit with a fragile agreement – the wind is blowing in the right direction. At the summit gathering the seven major world powers – France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States – in the French city of Évian-les-Bains until this Wednesday, the G-7 leaders have united to redouble pressure on Russia to sit down and negotiate peace. "Russia should reach an agreement," warned US President Donald Trump.