When Russia kills Ukrainian heroes, Ukraine doesn’t forgive. The intelligence war between Ukraine and Russia won’t end with the hot phase of the war. It will continue in the shadows, in hotel hallways, parking lots, and spy offices across the globe, The Times reports. 

The Ukrainian colonel of the Security Service (SBU), Ivan Voronych, who was assassinated in Kyiv, may have been targeted by Russian intelligence for his role in some of Ukraine’s boldest covert operations in recent years, say intelligence sources.

Voronych was involved in big numer of operations, including the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Major General Viktor Yahun says the upcoming retaliation from the Ukrainian side will be compared to the Operation Spiderweb, when Kyiv hit 41 Russian aircraft. 

Voronych served as a deputy in the unit commanded by Roman Chervinsky, the same figure The Washington Post described as the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream attack. He also oversaw naval drone strikes against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The SBU colonel was a calm and quiet man who kept himself in excellent physical shape, his colleagues recall. He had served in the elite Alpha unit and carried out missions deep behind enemy lines, including in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

Some sources claim it was Voronych who initiated the ambush and elimination of Oleksiy Mozgovoy in 2015, the leader of the “Prizrak” group and one of the key commanders of Russian proxy forces in Donbas.

Any one of these actions could have sealed his fate, and, according to intelligence sources, his assassination in Kyiv was the direct result of a long list of high-risk operations where Voronych played a pivotal role.

Ukraine has already avenged his murder by eliminating the killers, but that’s just the beginning. Former SBU officer Ivan Stupak says that such assassinations will continue worldwide for many years. Ukrainians won’t want to operate on allied territory, but perhaps in Thailand, Africa.

Dmytro Zhmailo, a Ukrainian expert and the Executive Director of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, says Kyiv troops managed to stop the first wave of the Russian offensive. Currently, Moscow is trying to fulfill its main objective — the complete capture of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, UNIAN reports.

He notes that the second wave of Russian forces’ so-called summer offensive has just been launched. Although the Russians have had some successes in certain areas, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were able to repel the first wave of the offensive.

Zhmailo explains that the main reason for Russia’s advance near the Kostiantynivka settlement in Donetsk Oblast is the large concentration of Moscow’s units. About 100,000 troops from the overall 700,000-strong Russian grouping are concentrated there. Currently, the Russians are receiving reinforcements for the start of the second wave of the offensive.

However, according to him, the battle for Kostiantynivka has not yet begun. The city’s administration and police are still operating, although there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis with issues in water and electricity supply. Ukrainian troops hold positions in Chasiv Yar and on the outskirts of Toretsk, holding back the Russian occupiers’ rapid advance.

Moscow troops are focusing their most significant efforts along the Pokrovsk–Kostiantynivka highway, trying to “breakthrough” villages to get closer to the city. In the northern part of the region, activity has increased in the Lyman direction, with the prospect of reaching Sviatohirsk and squeezing the non-occupied territories of Donetsk.

Day 1236

On 13 July, the biggest news comes from the Baltic region.

Here, Russia is jamming GPS across Europe’s eastern flank with growing precision and reach, targeting not just military systems but civilian aviation and maritime traffic as well. Despite NATO safeguards, flights are being rerouted or canceled, and sea navigation is becoming increasingly compromised, with several governments now warning that a major accident is only a matter of time, but that might be exactly what Russia is looking for.

Russian GPS interference has now become a constant feature across the Baltic, northern Poland, southern Finland, and parts of Germany.

Civilian aircraft flying over these regions are regularly forced to switch to backup systems, and in more severe cases, divert or abort landings altogether, with Finnair already canceling all flights to Estonia for over a month due to safety concerns. Disruptions have been traced back to military installations in Kaliningrad, including the Okunevo antenna and jamming systems such as Borisoglebsk-2 and Murmansk-BN, also used in Ukraine. 

The most dangerous aspect of these operations is their unpredictability; pilots can lose satellite navigation mid-flight with little warning, raising the risk of crash landings, instrument failure on approach, or even mid-air collisions in dense or low-visibility airspace. Although NATO has rapidly developed a backup navigation system called R-mode to guide aircraft and ships with ground-based radio beacons without GPS satellite input, even this system may not be reliable enough to prevent a crash, according to Baltic and German officials. 

Maritime disruptions are also growing, with vessels losing positional accuracy in the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad, adding strain to both civilian shipping and military logistics.

If a commercial plane or passenger ferry were to crash due to Russian jamming, the event would be treated not as an accident but as a deliberate escalation, one NATO has warned Moscow about for years. Such an incident would force NATO to respond, triggering a chain reaction that could escalate the confrontation far beyond electronic warfare.

The first step would likely involve indirect pressure: an immediate surge in military aid to Ukraine, including systems that have so far remained in reserve, combined with a renewed push to scale up Western defense production, and possibly even actively aiding Ukraine in taking down Russian jets, missiles, and drones flying into Ukrainian airspace.

However, if hundreds of civilians die in a GPS-jamming-related crash, NATO might pursue a more direct route, potentially targeting Kaliningrad’s jamming installations directly. Kaliningrad’s jamming systems might be targeted through cyberattacks or covert sabotage of the electronic warfare nodes with secret operatives. In a worst-case scenario, NATO countries could take direct individual military action to eliminate the Russian GPS jamming threat. These measures remain unlikely for now, but they are no longer theoretical, as Russia is operating near the line, and every near miss brings the region closer to a tipping point.

But this is exactly what Moscow wants. These GPS disruptions, hybrid strikes, and sabotage campaigns are not random acts of nuisance; they are part of a broader strategy designed to provoke the Baltics to strike first.

If a country like Estonia or Poland were to act on their own, and preemptively strike Russian systems, Moscow would claim it was under attack, flipping the narrative and eliminating the defensive nature of Article 5 from the playing field.

That ambiguity would fracture NATO unity, allowing Russia to isolate smaller countries and deal with them one at a time, while larger members stall, negotiate, or only send a limited response. A limited strike could also be used by Russia to justify military escalation, foreign support from its allies in Asia, or even the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons according to Russian nuclear doctrine, using it as an excuse to scare others into backing down.

The Kremlin’s goal is to test the outer limits of Western tolerance without crossing a line itself, hoping that someone else on the other side will.

Overall, Russia is not just interfering with airspace or shipping routes; it is baiting its adversaries into a conflict of Moscow’s choosing. These GPS jamming operations are part of a pattern: stretch the rules, create instability, and wait for a mistake. But the more successful this strategy becomes, the greater the chance that one of those mistakes will spiral out of control. The Baltics know they are being pushed, but they also know what is at stake. One crash, one overstep, and the hybrid war may turn into something much harder to contain.

In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

While Moscow is busy relentlessly attacking Ukraine, gas pipelines are blowing up inside Russia itself. According to Ukrainian Defense Intelligence sources, a powerful explosion occurred in the city of Langepas, located in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, damaging a major section of a large trunk gas pipeline, UNIAN reports. 

This pipeline supplied gas to Russia’s defense industry facilities in the Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, and Sverdlovsk oblasts. The destroyed section had an annual throughput capacity of 2.6 billion cubic meters.

“With the price of 1,000 cubic meters of gas at around $350, the immediate damage alone amounts to at least $1.3 million,” the source emphasizes.

At the time of the explosion, about 4.1 million cubic meters of gas were flowing through the pipeline. Due to the difficult, swampy terrain, repairs will take at least a month. This will temporarily reduce supply by 25 million cubic meters, potentially leading to indirect losses of up to $76 million.

Local media writes that residents were “deeply concerned” by the “powerful bangs.” Emergency crews and repair teams quickly arrived at the scene.

Ukrainian intelligence reminds that “Western Siberia feeds Moscow,” but Siberians are dying on the front lines for the Kremlin’s interests.

“When locals begin to actively demand their own independence… such ‘mysterious explosions’ will stop,” the source notes.

Earlier, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence identified dozens of Russian companies involved in producing the missile, most of which remain unsanctioned.

Its War & Sanctions platform published a list of over 70 Russian companies manufacturing Kh-101 components. These companies still have access to Western equipment and technology, enabling Russia to replenish its missile stockpiles and continue targeting civilian infrastructure.

They are brave fighters who have already proven their strength on the battlefield. In the Ukrainian 47th Mechanized Brigade Magura, a reconnaissance and strike group composed mainly of Colombian volunteers has been formed.

A video showcasing this unit of Colombian volunteers was published by ArmyInform. 

The company commander, known as Hamlet, personally organized the arrival of foreign volunteers, including Colombians and fighters from Peru, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Italy, and Mexico. Ukrainian state programs allow them to quickly undergo training and integrate into the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“The work of the Colombian assault troops shows excellent results and significantly helps on the battlefield. They have already fought alongside elite Russian brigades and North Korean special forces in Kursk Oblast,” the command of the Colombian assault company states.

They have also been described as “brave and humane,” who retrieve their wounded comrades and injured Ukrainians from the frontline, and are ready to carry out essential missions.

Earlier, BBC Russian Service identified the names of 523 foreign mercenaries killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine, using only open-source confirmations.

The outlet reported that those were from 28 countries and died in Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion. The database relies strictly on publicly available information, including Russian official announcements, social media posts by family members, and grave photographs. It excludes Ukrainian sources and Western intelligence.

Today, there is a lot of interesting news from Russian-backed Transnistria, a breakaway state of Moldova.

With gas reserves depleted, energy production cut in half, and Moscow planning a 10,000 strong troop deployment, the enclave is quickly becoming both a liability and a flashpoint. However, behind this local collapse lies a larger risk: if Russia loses its grip on Transnistria, it will also lose the strategic payoff of any future advance through Odesa.

For months, signs of strain were building. In January, Ukraine cut off Russian gas transit across its territory, no longer willing to tolerate the role of middleman in a trade that indirectly financed the Kremlin’s war effort. That decision plunged Transnistria into an energy crunch. Moscow responded with short-term shipments rerouted via Hungary, but volumes remained small, inconsistent, and subject to immediate political pressure from both Moldova and Russia.

However, this was by design; Russia reportedly blocked Transnistria from receiving energy imports from the West, preferring to let the region suffer rather than risk losing influence. If Western countries stepped in and improved conditions, the local population might begin to question their dependence on Moscow. If they did not, Russia ensured that Transnistrians remained dependent through gas.

Meanwhile, Moldova has refused to act as a fallback supplier. The government in Chisinau halted liquefied gas shipments and phased out centralized deliveries to Transnistria, arguing that it cannot be expected to support a breakaway territory still in a formal frozen conflict with the state of Moldova.

 In parallel, Russia reportedly pressured the Transnistrian leadership to reject any Western assistance, further isolating the region. With no official transit routes, no contracts, and no backup reserves, the region’s economy has tanked. Industrial output is down 43%, trade has fallen by 31.5%, energy production has halved, and metallurgy and chemical industry output have dropped by over 60%. This is having terrible effects on the Transnistrian economy, with GDP expected to decline by 12% and inflation to rise by 16%, casting doubts among Transnistrians if continued cooperation with Russia is in their best interests.

However, to maintain control, Moscow is now preparing to deploy up to 10,000 troops to Transnistria, a dramatic increase from the current 1,500 strong contingent, according to Western and Moldovan intelligence reports. This is not defensive positioning, but rather a preemptive move to secure Russia’s last position west of Ukraine before it becomes irretrievable. The buildup would deepen the risks of confrontation with Moldova and its European backers, but for Moscow, losing Transnistria would mean forfeiting a key staging area for future operations.

This planned deployment runs parallel to Russia’s growing interference in Moldova’s internal politics, where it is backing a pro-Kremlin candidate, against a rival who supports initiating formal European Union accession talks, raising the stakes for both Russia and the West. 

The military buildup, the election meddling, and the economic pressure are all part of maintaining the same strategic goal: Russia still wants to create a land bridge from the mainland to Transnistria. If Moscow allows Transnistria to fall, it forfeits both its last foothold west of Ukraine and its only chance to link that outpost to future territorial gains.

A successful land bridge from Kherson to Odesa only makes sense if it links up with a viable Transnistrian base. Without that, Russia would face two bad options: abandon its ambitions or prepare for a full-scale invasion of Moldova. The former would be humiliating, the latter, highly risky. 

Unlike Donetsk or Crimea, Moldova offers no Russian population large enough to legitimize annexation through referendum, and no fallback if things go wrong. With Transnistria collapsing and Moldova shutting the door, Russia risks losing the very reason to attempt a southern advance at all.

Overall, the crisis in Transnistria is more than just a local energy crisis; it marks the potential collapse of Russia’s westernmost outpost and exposes a critical vulnerability in Moscow’s regional strategy. The deployment of 10,000 troops signals desperation, not a show of strength, but a last-ditch attempt to hold ground in a region where Russia once had all the leverage.

If the West stays focused and Moldova continues to deny legitimacy to the breakaway enclave, Transnistria’s collapse could mark the beginning of the end for Russia’s land bridge ambitions. And with it, a major blow to the idea that military might alone can reshape Europe.

In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

They pieced together a heavy grenade launcher under enemy fire, on Russian territory. Ukrainian soldiers of the 39th Brigade assembled a heavy automatic UAG-40 grenade launcher on Russian soil to support an infantry assault in a bold operation. 

A Ukrainian defender from the brigade, known by the callsign Philosopher, says that a team of eight soldiers from the fire support company risked their lives to disassemble and transport the mobile grenade launcher.

Its ammunition was also taken into Russian territory, from the Sumy axis, to provide fire cover for advancing Ukrainian assault groups.

“We dragged the UAG-40… onto enemy territory and directly supported assault operations,” Philosopher recalls.

The team rotated positions during the mission. A single ammo box with 32 grenades weighed 15–16 kg, and they needed at least five boxes daily. The UAG-40 itself weighed another 40 kg.

Russian forces bombarded their position with guided air bombs, scoring four direct hits that destroyed their shelter, but the Ukrainians dug themselves out and kept firing.

“When we had to pull back, I gave the order to destroy the UAG so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands. But they didn’t abandon it, they carried it out,” the defender says. 

Today, the legendary launcher is kept with the brigade as a symbol of Ukrainian soldiers’ courage, skill, and tenacity.

The rail war rages on. On 1 July, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (HUR) announced the destruction of a Russian locomotive on temporarily occupied territory in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The targeted railway section, heavily used by Russian forces to move weapons and equipment, has been shut down again.

This marks the second strike on this key logistics route in recent days. On 26 June, Ukraine’s resistance movement, in coordination with HUR, sabotaged the same track. The resulting explosion disabled the line for over a week.

Despite rapid repair attempts, Russian troops fell into a trap once more.

“On 1 July, the occupiers restored the rails and ties, sent a military train, and then came another thunderous surprise: the enemy locomotive was knocked out,” HUR reported.

The agency added that one of the main supply arteries for the occupying army is now out of action again.

In the early hours of the same day, Russian forces launched more than 400 strikes across 13 settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, said regional governor Ivan Fedorov.

A 56-year-old man was injured in the attack. Over the course of the day, Russian troops carried out four airstrikes, 271 UAV launches of various types (mostly FPV drones), six attacks using multiple rocket launchers, and 122 artillery strikes.

Authorities recorded 23 reports of damage to apartments, private homes, vehicles, and businesses.