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Morning Headlines
France 24: France and its allies have detained a sanctioned Russian oil tanker in the Atlantic over the weekend, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
The Kyiv Independent: More than half the world's sanctioned oil vessels run the risk of causing serious environmental harm, the Financial Times reported on May 31, citing leading ship recycler Anil Sharma.
Kyiv Post: Further analysis of a drone that smashed into a Romanian apartment building, sparking furious condemnation of Russia, has shown that it undoubtedly came from Moscow’s forces, Bucharest said Sunday.
ISW: Ukraine’s mid-range strike campaign against Russian ground lines of communication is disrupting Russian logistics across the theater, from occupied Luhansk Oblast to Crimea.
31.05.2026
CBS News: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CBS News in an exclusive interview that his government has evidence that Russia is abducting Ukrainian children and training them to fight against fellow Ukrainians.
Reuters: The U.S. has historically championed accountability for some of the world’s worst atrocities. Now, the Trump administration has slashed funding to investigate Russia’s alleged attacks on civilians, torture and child kidnapping.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian forces struck several military warehouses serving as crucial logistics hubs for the Russian army in occupied Donetsk Oblast, the 413th Regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces said May 31.
United24 Media: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the United States to let Ukraine produce Patriot interceptor missiles, warning that current US output is far too low as Russia ramps up ballistic missile production and increasingly tests NATO air defenses with drones flying toward allied states.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian drones have gained control over key Russian military supply routes in occupied parts of Luhansk Oblast, the Third Army Corps said on May 31.
Yahoo Finance: The European Union is considering temporarily freezing its price cap on Russian oil as the conflict in the Middle East continues to drive higher energy prices, according to a Bloomberg report on Sunday.
The Kyiv Independent: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on May 31 that Ukraine had received a new IRIS-T air defense system from Germany the previous day.
Reuters: Ukrainian drones struck targets across several Russian regions overnight, including an oil pipeline pumping station, a refinery and a fuel depot, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday, in an escalating campaign of strikes against energy infrastructure often hundreds of miles inside Russia.
The Kyiv Independent: Russian proxy authorities will implement the use of "fuel vouchers" across occupied Crimea, as well as set limits to the amount of gasoline residents of the peninsula can purchase, amid ongoing fuel shortages in the region caused by Ukrainian strikes.
30.05.2026
The Kyiv Independent: The Ukrainian military on May 30 denied Russia's claim that a Ukrainian drone struck a power unit at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
The Kyiv Independent: The Irish factory Aughinish Alumina has been shipping the bulk of its product to Russia, despite claims from Dublin that the plant primarily serves the European Union, the Irish Times reported on May 30.
LRT: The Lithuanian military has brought together its leading drone experts to form a special new unit, while the armed forces on the ground are also set to receive a major boost with over 900 Patria armoured personnel carriers.
ERR: The Police and Border Guard Board has installed the first section of fixed counter-drone detection and surveillance systems on Estonia's eastern border.
Yle: Russia systematically circumvents sanctions by using international procurement networks that also operate in Finland, according to Teemu Liikkanen, head of counterintelligence at security and intelligence agency Supo.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces struck the training grounds and military camps of Russia's 3rd and 36th Combined Arms Armies in an overnight drone operation on May 30. The attack also struck the positions of Russia's 64th Separate Motorized Rifle brigade, one of the units responsible for the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha during the early days of the full-scale invasion.
BBC: The Ukrainian military is stepping up its campaign to destroy vehicles supplying Russian forces along crucial roads in occupied Ukraine using new AI drone technology, experts say.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian drones have destroyed two Russian Tu-142 naval aircraft and an Iskander ballistic missile system, overnight on May 30, Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert "Magyar" Brovdi reported.
Reuters: Ukrainian drone strikes hit Russia’s oil infrastructure overnight, damaging a tanker and an oil refinery in Taganrog and striking an oil depot in Armavir, Russian regional officials and Ukrainian military said on Saturday.
AP News: Russia’s intelligence agencies have grown more aggressive in their efforts to steal Western technology and defense secrets as sanctions squeeze the country’s wartime economy, three senior European intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
29.05.2026
Reuters: Britain said shipowners and operators who recklessly damaged subsea internet cables could face tougher penalties, including prison sentences, under proposals to help deter Russia and other hostile states from sabotaging vital national infrastructure.
Meduza: Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov asked the government in February to cut spending across every budget line item for 2026 except military expenditures, the Financial Times reported.
The Kyiv Independent: An examination of the wreckage of a Russian Oreshnik missile shows it contains crucial components manufactured before 2016, rubbishing the Kremlin's 2024 claims that it was a completely new weapon, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the presidential sanctions commissioner, said on May 29.
Reuters: The United Nations on Friday added Israel and Russia to a U.N. blacklist of countries suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict zones, a move that prompted Israel's foreign ministry to say it would sever all ties with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Canada's Department of National Defence and the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine signed an arrangement to support the production of Ukrainian uncrewed aerial systems in Canada.
Reuters: A Russian-led economic union of former Soviet republics said on Friday it would consider suspending Armenia for seeking European Union membership and called on Yerevan to hold a referendum so its people could vote on which path to take.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian forces have launched new counterattacks along the southern front line, clearing and pushing back Russian troops from eastern Dnipropetrovsk and western Donetsk oblasts, the open-source mapping group Deep State reported on May 29.
Reuters: Four bankers have lost an appeal against their convictions for failing to exercise due diligence in financial transactions when setting up accounts for a friend of Putin, Switzerland's highest court said on Friday.
France 24: A Russian influence campaign hijacked hundreds of Bluesky accounts -- many belonging to influential Americans -- to spread propaganda, researchers said, in a striking disinformation tactic that weaponized authentic identities rather than relying on fake accounts.
Reuters: Moscow’s plans ahead of the June 7 election in Armenia have included disinformation campaigns in favour of pro-Russian candidates and an audacious scheme to transport tens of thousands of Russian-Armenians to sway the vote, according to interviews with five Western intelligence officials and documents seen by Reuters.
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