Notes and Essays -- John Brown

The website proves useful for both research and humiliation. By Ilan Berman The Wall Street Journal July 29, 2026 6:01 pm ET The article contains links A farmer looks at fragments of a Russian tank in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, May 22. Andrii Marienko/ Associated Press The Ukraine war has evolved into an innovation contest since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Faced with a larger adversary that it can’t match tank for tank or aircraft for aircraft, Kyiv has compensated with ingenuity—adapting commercial tech for military purposes, pioneering new applications for drones, and refining battlefield tactics for maximum effect. The result has been a conflict in which information is as crucial as firepower. Ukraine is now exploiting that advantage in a new way. This summer, President Volodymyr Zelensky launched an online platform called TrophyLab, a digital repository devoted to the analysis of captured Russian military equipment. According to its official website, the portal is a ...

A flurry of diplomacy has eased tensions, officials said, after an incident risked triggering a wider war . Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said in a post on Tuesday that Andrii Sybiha, his Ukrainian counterpart, had described an attack on a cargo ship as unintentional. Credit... Hadi Mizban/Associated Press By Farnaz Fassihi   Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt The reporters have been covering the U.S. war against Iran.  July 28, 2026 Iran considered attacking a seaport in Ukraine in response to a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian ship, but a flurry of diplomacy has calmed the situation for now, according to Iranian and Western officials. Ukraine, which has accused Iran and Russia of supporting each other’s military operations, struck an Iranian commercial cargo ship in the Caspian Sea on Saturday, killing a civilian sailor. Iranian officials vowed to retaliate. Some people briefed on the intelligence said that they expected Iran to fire a ballistic missile with a smal...