Zelensky counts the cost, missing missile defense, Nazi memories surfacing, MAGA at a crossroads: RT stories that shaped the week

We look back at the essential stories that shaped the last seven days, from Russia’s retaliatory strikes on Ukraine to another AI escape Read more Ports in a storm: How Kiev’s warehouse warfare cost Ukraine its coastline Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s 40-day “influence” operation against Russia reached an ignoble end this week, with the murder of eight civilians on a beach in the Russian Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik. Six weeks of long-range strikes on Russian civilian targets seemed to convince some of Zelensky’s Western backers that Ukraine could defeat Russia, but Kiev’s debts quickly came due. Russia escalated its missile and drone campaign against Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, crippling the country’s already reeling economy and shutting off a key transit route for Western weapons entering Ukraine. RT examined the scale of Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian ports here, and as Russian missiles rained down on logistics hubs across Ukraine, asked whether Zelensky’s PR operation succeeded in “turning the tide.” Ukraine’s air defense drought For Ukraine to stand any chance of repelling Russia’s missile strikes, its military will need the latest American-made PAC-3 interceptors for its Patriot batteries. Zelensky spent the week begging for these valuable weapons, only to have his request publicly shot down by US President Donald Trump. “ We want missiles too ,” was Trump’s concise response. To Moscow, it appeared that Zelensky had once again misread the American president. RT translated and published a Gazeta column by Russian journalist Vitaly Ryumshin, who looked at Zelensky’s last meeting with Trump and explained why “the battle Zelensky travelled to Washington to win had, in reality, already been lost before his plane landed.” Read more Details released of new corruption case against Zelensky US envoy pick The chances of Zelensky’s diplomatic corps smoothing things over are slim.

His former US ambassador, Olga Stefanishina, was charged with embezzlement on Wednesday, once again dragging Kiev’s ever-present corruption into the spotlight. RT covered the details here , looking at the cloud of suspicion that’s followed Stefanishina’s two-decade career. The missile famine hits Washington The interceptor shortage is not just Zelensky’s problem: it’s also Trump’s. The US expended almost a quarter of all the PAC-3s it’s ever built in the first three days of the war on Iran earlier this year, and although Tehran and Washington both said this week that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “nearing completion,” Trump threatened to strike Iran at “levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II” if negotiations fall through. Should that happen, the US, Ukraine, and Washington’s Gulf allies will all be competing for a dwindling supply of interceptors. But the US is short on a much wider inventory of hardware, including tactical ballistic missiles. Trump reportedly lashed out at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this week, accusing Hegseth of misleading him over the sorry state of the Pentagon’s stockpiles. Trump also lashed out at the media for reporting the shortage in the first place, and for reporting his blow-up with Hegseth. READ MORE: Trump blasts Washington ‘ComPost’ as ‘treasonous’ Israel and the US vs. Spain Read more US and Israel staged Spain migration invasion – Iran Disharmony also reigned in Europe this week, as the fallout over the migrant invasion of Ceuta showed no signs of subsiding. Spain blamed Morocco for opening its border gates and allowing 70,000 migrants to pour into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta; right-wing European leaders blamed Spanish Prim