SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — Russia's reaction to the new infusion of U.S. aid for Ukraine has ranged from shrugs to fury, from warnings of nuclear conflagration to arguments that the $61 billion will make no difference. Some top Russian propagandists have responded with conspiracy theories and disinformation. Overall, the Kremlin propaganda apparatus has kicked into high gearbut with a confusing mix of messages.

For months, Russia assumed that this part of its war in Ukraine was won: the flow of billions of dollars in American military aid was ending, and Russian forces would take advantage of shrinking Ukrainian air defenses and a rapidly growing edge in ammunition supplies.

SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to San Francisco last November to meet with President Joe Biden, Chinese pro-democracy activists in the U.S. turned out in force to protest Xi's authoritarian rule. They were met by other ethnically Chinese people wielding metal rods and pepper spray - a pro-regime presence that several protesters said was orchestrated by the Chinese government.

For Jinrui Zhong, a third-year law student at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, the pressure from Beijing has been more subtle. Zhong told The Cipher Brief that when Chinese security services suspected he was speaking out against Xi's regime, they detained his father in China and told him to tell his son to "love his country more and love the Party more." The message came with a warning, Zhong said: the family could lose its home and his father could lose his job as a low-level bureaucrat.

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — More than two years after its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. still does not have a clear way forward in the country, which means that two decades of investment and sacrifice by the U.S. and its alliesand two decades of gains for Afghansseems to have disappeared almost as if we'd never been there.

Today, Afghans continue to suffer under a brutal regime. Millions of Afghans have been displaced, women and girls have no access to education, the country is facing humanitarian and economic crises, and instability and the potential for terrorism create legitimate concerns across the region as well as in Europe and the United States.

SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — Ukrainians greeted Saturday's long-awaited House passage of $60.8 billion in aid with justifiable jubilation. For months, their soldiers, civilians, and political and military leaders had endured the practical, life-and-death impact of a shortage of ammunition and other essential weapons - as well as the psychological pain that came with thinking their greatest ally had abandoned them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel that the U.S. aid package "will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations become stronger." 

SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — A race for control of space is underway, and just as on earth, the U.S. and China are the top competitors. "Congested and contested" is the way Deborah Lee James, former Secretary of the Air Force, describes the current space environment, in which earthly frictions and ambitions are being projected into space, with China and the U.S. leading the way. 

James and other experts told The Cipher Brief that today's uneasy mix of economic competition and military rivalry between Washington and Beijing now stretches into the heavens.  

SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — For nearly a week, the Middle East and much of the world were on a knife's edge, waiting for a promised Israeli retaliation to the April 13 attacks carried out by Iran. When the response came early Friday, in the form of drone strikes near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and Tabriz, there was a collective sigh of relief in Washington, the capitals of Europe and in the Middle East as well. 

The Israelis hit a military air base near the city of Isfahan, in central Iran, and Iranian officials said another group of drones had been shot down in the Tabriz region, some 500 miles north of Isfahan. But Iran reported no Israeli warplanes in its airspace, no heavy bombings, and only minimal damage. Perhaps as important, there were no inflammatory statements from either side. For the moment at least, it appeared the much-feared escalation and wider war had been avoided. 

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT - Less than one week after Iran's attack against Israel, Israel struck Iran early on Friday, hitting a military air base near the city of Isfahan, in central Iran. Iranian officials and media reported blasts at the base caused by drone strikes, and said that another group of drones had been shot down in the Tabriz region, some 500 miles north of Isfahan.

The initial reports suggested that the worst fears of the U.S. and other countries hadfor now at leastnot been realized. Iran said no Israeli planes had entered its airspace. Iranian news agencies made a point of noting that no nuclear facilities had been hit. There was no comment from the Israeli military, and no vows from the Iranian government of a retaliation. Earlier in the week, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi had warned that "the tiniest act of aggression" on his country's soil would draw a response.

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — While Ukraine deals with shortages of troops, munitions, and equipment for its air defenses, some Ukrainians are teaming up with foreign investors to prepare for a post-war era. And if some might question the wisdom of putting money into a country as it fights a increasingly challenging war of resistance, others believe the moment to invest is now, not only as a gesture of support for Ukraine but as a smart financial move as well.

Certainly that’s the message Lenna Koszarny brought to The Cipher Brief’s Kyiv Economic and Security Forum in early April. Lenna Koszarny is an American of Ukrainian ancestry who has been traveling to Ukraine and investing in the country for more the better part of three decades. While Ukrainian government and military leaders plead for more international aid, Koszarny says she isn’t looking for handouts, and she insists there is big money to be made in Ukraine. “All of our funds are profitable,” she said at the Kyiv forum, speaking about Horizon Capital, the investment firm where she serves as CEO. The money that she and others have helped bring in are “ensuring there’s capital, creating jobs, and powering Ukraine’s resilience, but at the same time, investors expect a return.” Her message today? “Investors should ignore Ukraine at their peril.”

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — With a mere 1.2 million citizens, Estonia is among NATO's smallest members, but its contributions to Ukraine have led the pack by a wide margin. Estonia's military aid to Ukraine has reached 3.6 percent of GDP; by that metric, Denmark is the second most generous donor, at 2.4 percent; the U.S., by comparison, has given the equivalent of 0.32 percent of GDP, according to the Kiel Institute's Ukraine Support Tracker. There's a reason for Estonia's generosity; it was invaded by the Russian-led Soviet Union twice in the past century and ultimately won its freedom from Moscow in 1991. And given its small size and border with Russia, Estonia is likely to be among the first victims if the Kremlin widens its war on Europe beyond Ukraine. 

Margus Tsahkna, the country's 47-year-old foreign minister (and former defense minister), has gained a reputation for speaking plainly about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his clearly-stated aim to rebuild the Soviet Union, or the Russian Empire of Tsar Peter the Great. Putin’s ambitions, Tsahkna says, are the reason why Russia must be defeated in Ukraine, before the war spirals out of control and moves to other parts of Europe.

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE BRIEFING — Drone weapons are part of the daily narrative of the war in Ukraine - from Russia's use of Iranian drones against infrastructure to Ukraine’s drone strikes against Russian territory and Russian vessels in the Black Sea. Beyond those headline-grabbing attacks, both sides are now using drones in nearly every military operation, and as the volume of drone strikes soars, Russia and Ukraine have invested heavily in domestic drone manufacturing to meet a soaring demand.

And if Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine sparked the world's first true drone war, other global theaters of conflict aren't far behind. Hamas used drone weapons in its October 7 assault on Southern Israel, Israel has an arsenal of high-end drone weapons, and Iran - beyond its shipments of drones to Russia - used dozens of drones in its weekend attack on Israeli targets, and has armed several of its proxy militia groups with drone weaponry. Meanwhile, experts in drone proliferation and East Asian security say drones will play outsized roles if conflict comes to Taiwan.

SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE ANALYSIS — Iran's retaliatory strikes against Israel this weekend were both a potentially game-changing, historic first - and an underwhelming response. Historic, because Iran itself had never attacked Israel directly, choosing instead to use its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas to play that role. The last country to fire missiles at Israel was Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. 

But the strikes were also underwhelming, given that for two weeks, observers in the region and around the world had feared a massive Iranian response to the April 1 Israeli air strike that killed three Iranian generals and four others at Iran's embassy in Damascus. “The Zionist regime will be punished by the hands of our brave men," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week. "We will make it regret this crime and others it has committed.” The U.S. had warned that Iran’s retaliation might ignite a wider regional war, exactly what the Biden Administration and others have been trying to avoid since the October 7 Hamas massacre.

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — Ukraine was hit by a fresh round of Russian missile attacks on Thursday, strikes that targeted and damaged the country’s power grid infrastructure. The Trypilska Thermal Power Plant, the largest in the Kyiv region, was destroyed, and explosions were reported in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and western Lviv regions.

A day earlier, Russian missile and drone attacks damaged Ukrainian energy facilities in the Black Sea regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv. Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said the attacks were part of a Kremlin effort to to cripple the country's energy capabilities.