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Ukraine's Drone Surge, EU Oil Cap Freeze & China at Scarborough Shoal
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Ukraine has contracted five times more medium-range drones than all of 2025, formalising a logistical lockdown campaign targeting Russian rear-area infrastructure. Plus: the EU's Russian oil price cap under pressure, and China's counter-patrol at Scarborough Shoal following US-Philippines exercises.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Ukraine has quietly contracted five times more medium-range drones in early twenty twenty-six than it did across all of twenty twenty-five. That single procurement figure tells you more about where this war is heading than almost anything else right now.
This week, Kyiv formalized that logic into what it's calling a logistical lockdown program. The initial allocation is five billion hryvnia, and the targets are deliberately unglamorous.
President Zelensky took the strategy a step further this week with an explicit acknowledgment of strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, including the Tuapse refinery. The framing he used is worth noting.
That brings us to the European side of the economic war. The EU is now considering freezing the Russian oil price cap at forty-four dollars and ten cents per barrel.
In the South China Sea, China's PLA Southern Theater Command conducted what it described as combat readiness patrols near Scarborough Shoal, directly following the conclusion of US-Philippines joint exercises in the same contested waters. The sequencing is the signal.
Finally, Ethiopia opened polls this week in a general election where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's party is widely expected to dominate. The elections are proceeding while regional conflicts remain active across parts of the country.
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