Trump and Putin will meet in Anchorage on Friday

An East Coast drought that’s fuelling wildfires is also drying up farmers’ fields, and has homeowners scrambling to refill empty wells.

Nova Scotia, eastern Newfoundland, southeastern New Brunswick and portions of Prince Edward Island shifted into moderate to severe drought conditions over the past month, says an Agriculture Canada update released Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has emphasized that no country, except European states, provides Kyiv with real security guarantees, including financial support for the army, the foundation of the country’s defense. Therefore, European leaders must be present at key international meetings, UkrInform reports. 

Zelenskyy’s plan: ceasefire, negotiations, and security guarantees

The Ukrainian president has presented his simple and clear plan to end the war: first, a ceasefire, followed by negotiations mediated by the US with clear security guarantees from all parties.

“My plan is not that complicated. It is very simple: a ceasefire, and during the ceasefire we must discuss and resolve the issues… with clear security guarantees,” Zelenskyy stresses.

The importance of Ukraine’s participation in the upcoming negotiations

The president announced that on 13 August, there will be a series of online negotiations with European leaders, US and NATO representatives, ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska.

“Such sensitive issues concerning Ukraine must be discussed in Ukraine’s presence,” Zelenskyy emphasizes.

These negotiations aim to coordinate a common position regarding peace, security guarantees, and support for Ukraine in the ongoing diplomatic process.

Earlier, the study showed that Europe leads in military aid for Ukraine, surpassing the US. According to research by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker, European countries have become the main donors of support to Ukraine, allocating over 35 billion euros for weapons procurement.

This sum is 4.4 billion euros more than the US has spent on the defense of Ukraine over more than three years of Russia’s aggression. 

The Belarus Defense Ministry has announced that Russia and Belarus will conduct Zapad-2025 joint strategic military exercises from 12 to 16 September.

Repeating the 2022 invasion preparation scenario

According to Valery Revenko, Head of the Department of International Military Cooperation at the Belarusian Ministry of Defense, the theme of the exercises is “the deployment of troop groups to ensure the security of the Union State.”

“The overall goal is to test the capabilities of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation in ensuring the military security of the Union State and readiness to repel possible aggression,” Revenko emphasizes.

Experts have previously noted that the Zapad-2025 scenario essentially repeats the preparatory measures under the cover of which Russia amassed troops near Ukraine’s borders in late 2021 – early 2022, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports. 

Russia is already deploying troops and equipment to Belarus

According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia has begun transferring the first units to Belarus — several hundred soldiers and dozens of pieces of equipment, as per Facty. 

Minsk assures that the exercises pose no threat to neighbors and will be conducted openly. Observers from nine NATO countries are involved.

NATO will respond harshly to possible aggression

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stressed that a new military conflict in Europe is currently unlikely but cannot be ruled out.

If anyone decides that an attack on Poland or any of our allies will go unpunished, they will face the full force of the alliance, Rutte warned.

Slipping past empty Ukrainian trenches northeast of the fortress city of Pokrovsk in recent weeks, Russian infantry quickly marched 15 km to the north. Now the Russians are threatening the village of Dobropillya, which sits astride one of two main supply lines into Pokrovsk.

“The development of the operational situation in the Dobropillya direction causes particular concern,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies warned. But you might know it reading the latest public social media post by Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief.

“Reported on the details of the operational situation at the front,” Syrsky wrote as the first reports of Russian troops in Dobropillya appeared online.

“It’s a tough one,” Syrsky wrote. “But the opponent is held back.”

The opponent is not held back. The Russian 51st Combined Arms Army’s foot- and motorcycle-borne breach of the Ukrainian line northeast of Pokrovsk has deepened fast. And for good reason: Ukraine is desperately short of trained infantry, largely owing to an inefficient and sometimes corrupt mobilization system.

In many sectors of the 1,000-km front line, as few as eight Ukrainian soldiers defend a 900-m length of trenches, according to the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team. Normally, at least 200 troops would defend that much of the front. It’s no wonder the Russians were able to simply walk past empty trenches in Donetsk Oblast.

At least one former officer is worried Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t appreciate the scale of the problem—perhaps because he’s getting bad information. “I sincerely don’t know what exactly is being reported to you,” Bohdan Krotevych, who recently quit as the chief of staff of the Azov Brigade, wrote on social media, “but I’m informing you: on the Pokrovsk-Kostiantynivka line, without exaggeration, it’s complete chaos.”

Growing chaos

“And this chaos has been growing for a long time, worsening with each passing day,” Krotevych added. “The command structures currently being appointed (or already appointed) to ‘fix the unfixable’ will most likely be blamed for the chaos that’s already unfolding.”

“The systemic problem began with the depletion of reserves,” Krotevych claimed. Ukrainian brigades may have suffered thousands of casualties capturing a small swathe of Russia’s Kursk Oblast starting a year ago—and may have suffered hundred more while retreating form Kursk after their supply lines were severed by Russian drones seven months later in February.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s antiquated mobilization system has consistently failed to generate enough new troops. Today, the Ukrainian military’s roughly 130 combat brigades may be short around 100,000 infantry, according to analyst Andrew Perpetua.

Brigades that should have thousands of troops instead have hundreds. “The widespread fragmentation of units across the entire front line, reports of ‘captured villages’ being touted as victories amidst failures of entire sectors, the allocation of mobilization resources to ‘cronies’ and the complete lack of strategic or even operational vision” have combined to undermine Ukraine’s defenses, Krotevych wrote.

But not according to Syrsky. “Our combat units will become stronger by receiving additional funding from the state budget,” the commander-in-chief wrote.

Explore further

Ukraine’s Leopard tanks rush to Pokrovsk—100,000 Russians wait to spring the trap

Europe leads military aid for Ukraine, surpassing the US. According to research by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker, European countries have become the main donors of support to Ukraine, allocating over 35 billion euros for weapons procurement.

The Ukraine Support Tracker project monitors military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine based on open data. It covers 40 countries, including the G7 members, as well as Australia, South Korea, Türkiye, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and India. 

Europe spent more on military aid than the US

From the start of the full-scale war until June 2025, Europe allocated at least 35.1 billion euros for Ukraine’s armaments — 4.4 billion euros more than the US. Importantly, a significant portion of weapons are purchased directly through the defense industry rather than taken from existing stockpiles.

The study highlights that Germany provided the largest bilateral aid package of five billion euros. Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and Denmark also provided significant aid packages.

The US supports, but Kyiv must finance purchases Itself

In May 2025, Trump’s administration approved large arms exports to Ukraine, but the country must finance these purchases independently.

Ukraine’s financing through international mechanisms

A significant part of Ukraine’s financial support is currently provided through the ERA loan mechanism, created by the G7 and the European Commission. A total of 45 billion euros is planned to be provided, partly financed by frozen Russian assets.

Experts warn that whether donors can maintain this level of assistance in the long term remains uncertain.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has targeted another Shahed drone storage facility in Russia’s Tatarstan, 1,300 km from Ukraine. The SBU announced the destruction of ready-to-use attack drones and foreign components in the latest strike.

Ukraine’s systematic targeting of Russia’s drone infrastructure aims to disrupt Moscow’s ability to launch nightly swarms of 100+ Shaheds that build reserves before unleashing massive coordinated attacks of 500+ drones against Ukrainian cities. 

Russia’s expanding drone production network now manufactures over 5,000 Shaheds monthly, transforming Iranian designs into a cornerstone of its terror campaign against Ukrainian civilians far from the front lines.

This is the second such strike within a week, as Ukraine continues to target Russia’s weapons supplies deep within the country. The most recent strike on 9 August destroyed attack drones and foreign components using a domestically-produced Liutyi drone with 75-kg warheads to hit a logistics hub in the region.  

Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan is home to the main production facilities for Shahed drones used by Russia, particularly the Yelabuga facility located within the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. 

Latest strike targets Shahed logistics

The SBU Special Operations Center “A” announced that their long-range drones struck a logistics hub in Kzyl-Yul, Republic of Tatarstan. 

Videos taken by local residents confirm the strike on the warehouse. 

The series of strikes is “aimed at reducing the enemy’s capabilities for ‘Shahed’ terror in Ukraine,” the SBU reports. They add that “operations at enterprises that provide weapons to the Russian military machine will continue.” 

Strikes expand to defense plants

The Tatarstan operations also follow drone strikes on two defense plants in Orenburg and Stavropol regions within 24 hours.

On 11 August, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) drones struck the Orenburg Helium Plant, Russia’s only helium production facility located 1,200 kilometers from the front line. In the early hours of 12 August, HUR drones also targeted the Monocrystal JSC plant in Stavropol, sparking a fire approximately 480 km from the frontline. 

Ukraine’s expanding deep-strike campaign

These strikes continue Ukraine’s systematic targeting of Russia’s drone production network throughout 2025, striking warhead labs, antenna plants, and control system factories deep inside the country. 

This week’s operations follow previous Ukrainian strikes on Shahed infrastructure, including January strikes that destroyed over 200 Shahed drones in storage facilities in Russia’s Oryol Oblast and attacks on the Yelabuga industrial zone, which houses Russia’s largest known Shahed production facility.

Russia has launched thousands of Iranian-designed Shahed drones against Ukraine since fall 2022. Western media reports that each Shahed-136 drone costs as low as $20,000, making them cost-effective weapons for mass attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and cities.

It’s a brutally hot August across the world, but especially in Europe where high temperatures have caused wildfires and droughts. In the UK, the water shortage is so bad that the government is urging citizens to help save water by deleting old emails. It really helps lighten the load on water hungry datacenters, you see.

The suggestion came in a press release posted on the British government’s website Tuesday after a meeting of its National Drought Group. The release gave an update on the status of the drought, which is bad. The Wye and Ely Ouse rivers are at their lowest ever recorded height and “five areas are officially in drought, with six more experiencing prolonged dry weather following the driest six months to July since 1976,” according to the release. It also listed a few tips to help people save on water.

Montreal police say a 23-year-old man has been charged in the assault of a Jewish father at a park last week.

Sergio Yanes Preciado was charged with assault causing bodily harm, and appeared briefly before a judge from a detention centre in Montreal’s north end.