Exclusives

Russia’s newest “drone protection” exposed as painted household cookware.

Ukraine calls to reject “good” Russians framework— it omits broader imperialism issue. While the West loops in the trap that splits support for Kyiv, Ukraine reveals why this cycle helps Putin by design — burying the only real path to Moscow’s democracy.

Meet the Ukrainian GenZ engineers morphing TikTok drones into Russian tank killers. Warfare’s future has hipster beards and startup vibes

Russia just copied Ukraine’s drone mothership tech—and wiped out a key Ukrainian advantage. Now Moscow can strike deep behind the front, using Ukraine’s own tactics against them.

Ukraine gets green light to strike Russia — and it’s no longer enough. As Western allies finally approve cross-border strikes, Russia has ramped up its monthly drone output to daily levels, turning Ukraine’s defensive strategy into an economic death trap.

Military

“Your bombers were ready to kill our children,” Ukraine slams Putin’s retaliation threats after Spiderweb Operation. Kyiv says, quit whining and accept a ceasefire.

Frontline report: Ukrainian spies create multi-country network surrounding Russia to execute its historic Operation Spiderweb. Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb destroyed 40+ Russian strategic aircraft worth $7B across 5 airbases, eliminating 34% of Russia’s bomber fleet in an unprecedented deep-strike mission.

Ukraine strikes first at Russian launchers which carry 800-kg explosive missiles prepared to hit Kyiv after Operation Spiderweb. Ukraine destroyed Russian Iskander launchers before planned Kyiv strike, intercepting revenge attack through advanced intelligence in high-stakes preemptive operation.

Ukraine targets Millerovo air base, cripples energy in occupied south. Drone attacks plunged occupied Ukrainian territories into darkness, complicating Russia’s plans to reactivate the occupied Zaporizhzhia power station.

Spiderweb operation: This is how Ukrainian drones destroy Russian bombers that attack Ukraine

. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) revealed that when communication was severed, the drones continued missions using pre-programmed routes and AI algorithms before automatically activating warheads at designated targets.

Intelligence and technology

New chief of Ukraine’s drone corps sets 100-day plan to reshape the sky. Robert “Madiar” Brovdy, a battlefield-tested commander and former entrepreneur, has taken charge of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

Moscow mass-produces drones—China pretends it’s not helping. From microchips to optics, Chinese firms are arming Russia’s drone war through proxies and shell companies, allowing Moscow to close the tech gap.

Ukraine’s cheap drones did not just hit Russia—they prompt US to rethink homeland security. After a massive Ukrainian drone strike on airfields in Siberia, the US army secretary acknowledged: America may face a new kind of war.

China secretly helps Russia build massive long-range drone fleet. While China blocks drone exports to Kyiv, Russian access continues.

Ukrainian workshops forge tomorrow’s weapons with allies while Washington watches from sidelines. As the US Defense Secretary misses Ramstein, Ukraine and its European partners strike a game-changing pact: not just weapons, but weapons factories—on Ukrainian soil.

Montenegro will produce drones for Ukraine in a US-backed deal. The $15 million agreement aims to create UAVs and build export capacity from Podgorica. Initial production will be donated to Ukraine, with long-term export and defense goals.

Anti-aircraft weapons bound for Ukraine discovered abandoned in Polish hangar. Polish prosecutors are investigating why a licensed defense company failed to complete its contracted delivery of anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine, instead leaving the weapons in border region storage, where they remained without proper oversight.

International

Europe offers Ukraine postwar shield—but Washington refuses to help raise it. Plans for a Western coalition to deter future Russian aggression stall as Trump’s White House declines to back Europe’s security guarantees,

Kim Jong Un promises full support for Russia’s Ukraine war, says North Korea. Strategic partnership with Moscow deepens as Shoigu visits Pyongyang.

Bloomberg: Trump denies Europe air support for Ukraine force post-war. Washington’s reluctance complicates the UK and France’s plans for long-term security guarantees.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine warns of Europe-wide nuclear disaster as Russia plans to reconnect Zaporizhzhia plant. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhzhia, remains in cold shutdown and is powered by Ukraine’s own grid, with no spare parts or qualified personnel available to maintain it. Yet, Russia is reportedly building power lines to forcibly reconnect the station, raising fears of a nuclear crisis across the continent.

Russia kills Ukrainian baby and seven more people as Trump keeps pushing predictably doomed peace talks. The Russian drone strike on Pryluky alone killed five, including a one-year-old, his mother, and grandmother.

Political and legal developments

Trump stalls Senate bipartisan sanctions bill. The proposed legislation seeks to impose massive tariffs on Russian exports amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, while Trump pursues “peace talks.”

Putin “gives the finger” to the entire world, Zelenskyy says after Trump’s call with Russian president. As Trump relays Putin’s threat, Zelenskyy urges stronger international action and frames inaction as silent approval of Russian crimes.

It's time to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth. The internet, as we've known it for the last 15 years, is breaking apart. This is not just true in the sense of, say, China or North Korea not having access to Western services and apps. Across the planet, more and more nations are drawing clear lines of sovereignty between their internet and everyone else's. Which means it's time to finally ask ourselves an even more uncomfortable question: what happens when the World Wide Web is no longer worldwide?

Over the last few weeks the US has been thrown into a tailspin over the impending divest-or-ban law that might possibly block the youth of America from accessing their favorite short-form video app. But if you've only been following the Supreme Court's hearing on TikTok you may have totally missed an entirely separate Supreme Court hearing on whether or not southern American states like Texas are constitutionally allowed to block porn sites like Pornhub. As of this month, 17 US states have blocked Pornhub for refusing to adhere to "age-verification laws" that would force Pornhub to collect users' IDs before browsing the site, thus making sensitive, personal information vulnerable to security breaches. 

But it's not just US lawmakers that are questioning what's allowed on their corner of the web. 

Following a recent announcement that Meta would be relaxing their fact checking standards Brazilian regulators demanded a thorough explanation of how this would impact the country's 100 million users. Currently the Brazilian government is "seriously concerned" about these changes. Which itself is almost a verbatim repeat of how Brazilian lawmakers dealt with X last year, when they banned the platform for almost two months over how the platform handled misinformation about the country's 2023 attempted coup.

Speaking of X, the European Union seems to have finally had enough of Elon Musk's digital megaphone. They've been investigating the platform since 2023 and have given Musk a February deadline to explain exactly how the platform's algorithm works. To say nothing of the French and German regulators grappling with how to deal with Musk's interference in their national politics.

And though the aforementioned Chinese Great Firewall has always blocked the rest of the world from the country's internet users, last week there was a breach that Chinese regulators are desperately trying to patch. Americans migrated to a competing app called RedNote, which has now caught the attention of both lawmakers in China, who are likely to wall off American users from interacting with Chinese users, and lawmakers in the US, who now want to ban it once they finally deal with TikTok.

All of this has brought us to a stark new reality, where we can no longer assume that the internet is a shared global experience, at least when it comes to the web's most visible and mainstream apps. New digital borders are being drawn and they will eventually impact your favorite app. Whether you're an activist, a journalist, or even just a normal person hoping to waste some time on their phone (and maybe make a little money), the spaces you currently call home online are not permanent. 

Time to learn how a VPN works. At least until the authorities restrict and regulate access to VPNs too, as they already do in countries such as China, Iran, Russia and India. 

A version of this story was published in this week’s Coda Currents newsletter. Sign up here.

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