Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum, only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection of articles from Ukrainian media offering insight into how Ukrainians themselves debate the issues shaping their country.American coverage often narrows the view to the battlefield — these pieces widen it, revealing the texture of daily life, politics, and public argument in a nation at war. The perspectives gathered here are varied, candid, and often surprising, together forming a more complete picture of Ukraine as it really is.Frontline and StrategyФокус…

“He said he was going to kill the dog, calling it a mask, and nobody said anything,” Silva said on YouTube (via MMA Fighting). “When I got up and started barking in his face, suddenly there were 20 videos saying that I tried to slap him in the face. If you go back and look at my fights, when guys go down semi-conscious, giving up, I never go after them. Westin Wilson was right in front of me [at UFC Vegas 84]. I could have taken his head off with so many elbows, and I didn’t. I asked the referee,…

Merab Dvalishvili has sent a chilling warning to Petr Yan while discussing what he plans to do differently when he and Yan meet a third time inside the octagon. Yan vs. Dvalishvili is set to take place at UFC 333 on October 24. Ahead of this title rematch, “The Machine” has identified the flaws in his game and what went wrong at UFC 323, when the Russian fighter dethroned him. In an interview with UFC on Paramount, Dvalishvili said that in the Yan trilogy bout, he will have to ‘chase Yan’s body, mix things up, and just be himself.’ The…

Last week, congressional Democrats and good government groups accused multiple Trump officials of violating the Hatch Act, a law that limits the political activities of government officials. While such organizations have filed several complaints since the start of the president’s second term, the agency that enforces the ethics law does not appear to have issued any findings yet concerning the potentially prohibited activities of senior administration appointees. Attorney General Todd Blanche House Judiciary Democrats on social media criticized Blanche ahead of his speech before the GOP’s midterm convention. “The nation’s chief law enforcement officer will be violating federal law on national TV in front…

After training in karate for the better part of two decades, Garry Howard came across Steven Seagal’s film Above the Law. Through a series of events stemming from a complimentary phone call, Howard found himself in front of the man himself and secured consistent instruction from Haruo Matsuoka, who made an annual trip to the small town of Brazil, Indiana. In this interview, Howard provides perspectives on both Seagal and Matsuoka, the growth of the latter, and how practitioners continue to refine their understanding long after the moment of “knowing” has passed. All images provided by Garry Howard. Martial Arts…

The war in Ukraine is causing undeniable harm across Russia. Ukraine’s deep strikes into Russian territory have added to the war’s civilian death toll; disrupted online commerce, a significant sector in a country as large as Russia; and prompted gasoline shortages. Burdened by a massive war, the Russian economy is delivering low growth rates and high inflation. In May, the prominent Russian banker Andrey Klepach offered a frank assessment in a speech published online: Russia is “falling behind. We are losing the [global] technological and economic competition.” In some respects, he added, “we are losing it to Ukraine.” In August,…

WARSAW, Poland — NATO allies could hold drills in proximity of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave in an attempt to push Moscow to weaken its military posture in Ukraine and withdraw some of its troops there, said Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister.Speaking at a Sept. 11 panel discussion held during the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv, Sikorski said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the Kremlin lowering its defenses in the Kaliningrad exclave, which borders Poland and Lithuania.While NATO should not engage in any offensive actions against Kaliningrad, an intensification of the alliance’s drills around the…

The space economy has surpassed $600 billion in annual value, with some projecting it will reach a trillion by the 2030s. Jonathan Panter is joined by Joseph Yaffe (Cowboy Space), Brian Weeden (The Aerospace Corporation), and Dan Wald (Booz Allen) to weigh where the real growth is. They discuss how AI infrastructure is blurring the line between the space economy and the regular economy, the regulatory tangle, the leap toward autonomous constellations of hundreds of thousands of satellites, competition with China, and the dual-use risks of data centers in orbit.Image: Giuseppe Donatiello via Wikimedia Commons.

Welcome to the Monday mailbag post. This is where you can submit your questions to us, the humble staff at MMA Mania. If you have something you want to ask, pop it in the comment section below.We’ll answer everything and anything (so long as you’re not trying to get us in trouble). But priority goes to time sensitive questions. For this week, that means stuff related to Noche UFC 4 or the upcoming UFC 331. You might also want to ask about Tom Aspinall vacating the Heavyweight title.You don’t have to ask UFC or MMA questions, though. I welcome off-topic…

The French DGA has launched a formal tender for embarked, long-endurance surface drones to support French Navy ISR missions, but the technical requirements for the USV are quite challenging. The French defence procurement agency (DGA) has issued a formal contract notice to acquire embarkable, long-endurance surface drones dedicated to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. As global naval forces increasingly pivot toward the “hybrid navy” model, this procurement marks a major milestone for the French Navy (Marine Nationale) as it moves unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) deeper into operational service. According to the tender documents, the project focuses on acquiring long-endurance…