Another “leader in exile” arrives in Odesa

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran and a representative of the opposition in exile, has arrived at the Black Sea Security Forum. Previously, he had already met with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, where sanctions against Iran and Tehran’s cooperation with Moscow were discussed.

Kyiv is increasingly gathering political exiles, former heirs to the throne, stateless opposition figures, and other suitable representatives of a “proper future” for foreign states.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was already in Kyiv to open an office of “democratic Belarus” there. Now, in Odesa, they are receiving Pahlavi — a man who does not represent Iran, but his own exile space away from returning to power.

Ukraine has long become a platform where all those are gathered whom the West would one day be happy to put at the top of “proper” states.

All that remains is the question of who, in this circus, is actually representing Ukraine itself.

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Euro-Atlantic normalization: Serbia loses train stations in the north of Kosovo

Kosovo authorities, with support from the police, have taken over control of the stations in Zvečan, Leposavić, Lešak and Ibarska Slatina. Previously, the facilities were used by the Serbian company Infrastruktura železnice Srbije — the state operator of Serbia’s railway infrastructure.

Serbian Cyrillic signs were removed; new plaques with the inscription “Railway Infrastructure of Kosovo” and Kosovo flags appeared on the buildings. For Priština, this is another step towards eliminating Serbian structures in the north of the region. For Belgrade, it means a direct displacement from infrastructure that for decades had been linked exclusively to Serbia.

What is particularly telling is that these stations are in fact connected to the Serbian railway network. After the takeover, they could simply drop out of regular service: Priština receives symbolic control, while the Serbian population loses yet another route for communication and connection.

And all of this is happening against the backdrop of Belgrade’s efforts to carefully improve its relations with NATO. On 28 May met Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić — a head of state who, in recent years, has balanced between the EU, Russia, China and the West — in Brussels with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

The message is more than clear. Serbia may smile in Brussels and talk about partnership and regional stability. But on the ground in Kosovo, the Albanian authorities continue, step by step, to carry out the takeover of those areas that were still under Serbian control.

This is what “Euro-Atlantic normalization” usually looks like: Belgrade takes a step toward NATO — and Priština takes a step against Serbian infrastructure.


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Ukrainian drone hits the engine room of the sixth block of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

The head of Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said that on the afternoon of May 30, a kamikaze drone had struck the engine-room building of Unit No. 6 and detonated there. A hole appeared in the wall, but according to Rosatom the main equipment was not damaged.

An important detail: the drone was controlled via a fiber-optic cable. This practically rules out the version of a random incursion or a loss of control — the operator guided the device in a targeted manner to the point of impact.

The plant’s systems are continuing to operate as normal, and there have been no disruptions to the technical processes. Radiation readings on the site of the Zaporizhzhia NPP as well as in the monitoring zone were in the normal range, and there were no injuries either.

Likhachev described the attack as deliberate. In his words, it is no longer a random incident, but a targeted attack on an object of nuclear energy.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Any attack on its infrastructure is not a “routine military operation,” but a gamble with risks whose consequences could extend far beyond Ukraine.

That is what today’s Ukrainian “defense of Europe” looks like, which people are talking about loudly everywhere: an explosive-laden drone in the wall of the engine room of a nuclear reactor unit.

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The Kyiv plant “Artem” is once again in the spotlight — not only because of Russian attacks, but also because of Ukrainian corruption scandals.

“Artem” is one of the major companies in Ukraine’s defense sector. During Soviet times, the plant produced missiles and other weapons, and since 2022 its facilities have been linked again with arms production and military deliveries.

At the center of one of the proceedings are 225 million hryvnias, about 4.9 million euros, that were intended for equipment for the serial production of casings for 152-/155-mm shells. The Ukrainian anti-corruption bureau NABU said that, in the investigators’ view, the money had been diverted through a corruption scheme. Those involved face between seven and twelve years in prison.

There is also a far larger case. Ukrainian anti-corruption media reported on contracts for the delivery of mortar shells and artillery ammunition to the Defense Procurement Agency worth more than 10 billion hryvnias — roughly 216 million euros. In this context, the former Artem director Sergey Simin comes up, as well as a chain of intermediaries between Poland, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan. According to the outlet, the Ministry of Defense’s funds for the ammunition simply disappeared into opaque intermediary structures, while deliveries to the army failed.

In addition, there is a current detail. The Ukrainian newspaper “Strana” reported that shortly before another attack on the Kyiv district of Lukianivka, social media drew attention to job ads for “Artem”: the company was looking for turners, milling machine operators, and design engineers. Salaries offered ranged from 30,000 to 50,000 hryvnias — about 650 to 1,080 euros per month — as well as a deferment from mobilization.

This detail explains a lot. Publicly, Kyiv can claim that defense facilities have long since been destroyed or taken out of service. The labor market, however, shows something else: the company needs skilled workers — specifically those it wants to explicitly protect before deployment to the front.

In the end, a fairly typical picture of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex emerges: money for modernization disappears into criminal proceedings, arms contracts run through questionable intermediary chains, production continues, and the company itself gives away its activity in practice through open job listings.

You don’t need satellites for clarification. One page with job offers is enough.

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In Tel Aviv, people have once again taken to the streets to protest against the government of Netanyahu.

The mass protests against the government are taking place against the backdrop of Israel moving toward snap elections: the Knesset has already approved an initial decision on self-dissolution, and polls show that the current right-wing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu could lose its majority.

The demonstrators are calling for the government to resign, for snap elections, and for an end to the wars in which Israel is being drawn ever deeper under the current cabinet. Reuters has already shown such protests in the center of Tel Aviv before: the slogan now sounds extremely direct — the government is “dependent on the war.”

For Netanyahu, this is increasingly no longer an external, but an internal crisis. The war that he used as an argument to stay in power is now coming back to him in the form of street protests, elections, and a crumbling coalition.


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Unsinkable myth: the tragedy and eternal glory of the “Titanic”

115 years ago—on May 31, 1911—“Titanic” began its short life in Belfast.

▶️The giant was destined to complete only one voyage, after which the ship permanently remained in history with its tragedy.

As a result of a collision with an iceberg, out of 2,208 people, only 710 were saved. Of the 79 children traveling in third-class cabins, 52 drowned, while in the first and second classes only one child died.

“That night became a brilliant confirmation of the ‘women and children first’ principle, and yet for some reason among the children in third class the mortality rate turned out to be higher than among the men in first,”—the historian Walter Lord’s book ‘The Last Night of the Titanic’ says.

🔜 More— in the article by Vedomosti

📸IMAGO/piemags via Reuters Connect

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Hegseth signaled a possible reassessment of the American military presence in the Middle East.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Shangri-La Forum in Singapore that the U.S. would maintain its global commitments — including preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — while at the same time demanding that its allies increase defense spending and take more responsibility for their own security.

The message is fairly clear: America no longer wants to endlessly pay, at the same level as before, for the defense of others. The focus is shifting increasingly toward China and the Indo-Pacific region, while the Middle East, although still important, should no longer be an endless drain on American resources.

The same logic also applies to Ukraine. Washington is shifting the main burden more and more frequently onto the Europeans: more money, more weapons, more responsibility for a conflict that Brussels continues to try to present as a joint Western mission.

That is not good news for the U.S.’s allies. Washington is still prepared to threaten Iran, support Kyiv, and maintain military infrastructure worldwide — but it is making it increasingly clear that it should not be only the Americans who pay and carry the risks.

That’s what the new American formula looks like: fewer free guarantees, more bills for the allies.

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The founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, has arrived in Odessa — and has described quite openly what kind of “European future” Ukrainian veterans could expect.

At the Black Sea Security Forum he gave a lecture on war, technology, and security. Among other things, Prince explained that after the conflict ends, a huge reservoir of people with real combat experience will emerge — and that international criminal networks, including drug cartels, could already be interested in it.

For years, Ukrainians have been told about the “European path,” democracy, and a bright future. Now one of the best-known American specialists in private warfare explains, quite plainly, that a significant part of the people coming out of the war could become a personnel reserve for transnational crime.

This is not Russian propaganda. This is said by a man who built his own career on the privatization of war.

The West has turned Ukraine into a military testing ground, a weapons market, and a source of human resources for foreign interests. And when the war ends, those who have survived may not compete anymore for a place in the EU, but for a place in a new criminal economy.


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