An apartment building in Romania, near the border with Ukraine, burns on Friday after being hit by a suspected Russian drone.
As the fifth year of the Ukraine war grinds on, the besieged nation is slowly gaining the upper hand. This dynamic makes Russian President Vladimir Putin more unpredictable and dangerous — and makes the case for supporting Kyiv as persuasive as ever.
On Friday, what is suspected to be a Russian drone crossed into NATO airspace and crashed into an apartment building in Galati, Romania, setting it ablaze and wounding two people. It was apparently part of a salvo of 232 drones that Russia sent toward Ukraine in the wee hours of the night and the 28th time Russian drones have breached Romanian airspace since Moscow began hitting Ukrainian ports across the Danube.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, warned Europeans that this will be their new normal. “Let them get ready: this will continue to happen,” he said on Friday. “The citizens of E.U. states, as the population of the belligerent countries, will not be able to sleep peacefully.”
This kind of boasting is a sign of weakness. Britain’s intelligence services estimated this week that nearly half a million Russian soldiers had been killed in fighting since 2022, with one official declaring that Putin is “going backwards on the battlefield.”
Russian forces suffered a net loss of territory in April for the first time since 2024, according to the Institute for the Study of War. And Ukrainian drones and missiles have been reaching ever deeper into Russia, striking targets in Moscow this month.
Putin, it turns out, doesn’t have all the cards. And his behavior is becoming more obviously desperate. On Monday, the aging dictator signed a law authorizing his military to deploy abroad to “protect” Russian citizens facing prosecution by foreign courts.
The Kremlin dressed the move up as a stand against Western “Russophobia,” but the real purpose is narrower. The seizure of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of sanctions-dodging tankers by foreign coast guards could now theoretically trigger Russian military intervention.
The saber rattling continued in space. In mid-May, open-source trackers caught at least four Russian military satellites burning unusual amounts of fuel to slip into the same orbital plane as a commercial radar satellite that has fed targeting imagery to Ukraine for years. While no one outside Moscow knows the satellites’ intent, Russia warned in 2022 that Western commercial satellites aiding Ukraine are “legitimate targets for retaliation.”
This is not the behavior of a confident leader. It is bluster meant to intimidate. President Donald Trump, who prides himself on sensing and taking advantage of weakness in his international counterparts, is not playing his hand well when it comes to Putin.
Just last week, a Pentagon envoy reportedly told NATO officials in Brussels that the United States plans to sharply cut the forces it commits to the alliance in a crisis. He added that the U.S. would prioritize allies who move fastest to fill the gaps, a line some in the room heard as a threat.
Europe has made progress and still has a long way to go. Yet the moment a cornered Putin is hurling drones into NATO territory and menacing Western satellites is an awful time to negotiate burden sharing. Time would be better spent finding ways to pressure Russia into ending its unprovoked and disastrous war.
Whatever Washington intends, the Kremlin will read a shrinking American commitment as the alliance flinching. That will invite even more reckless behavior from Putin.
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Summary: The conversation explores the strong criticism of former President Donald Trump and his perceived relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Participants in this discussion express concerns about Trump's inability or unwillingness to stand up to Putin, suggesting that he may be compromised or influenced by the Russian leader. Many comments highlight Trump's perceived admiration for authoritarian figures and his failure to support Ukraine and NATO effectively. There is a recurring theme of skepticism about Trump's leadership abilities and his strategic decisions on the international stage, particularly regarding Russia and Ukraine. Additionally, some comments reflect a broader concern about the implications of Trump's actions for American democracy and international alliances.
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