🪖 Ukraine Hits Russian Retailer Wildberries Four Times in a Week
Ukrainian drones struck Wildberries warehouses near St. Petersburg for the fourth time in a week overnight on July 24, forcing the company to suspend operations at logistics complexes in Shushary and the "Utkina Zavod" industrial zone in the Leningrad region. Facilities in annexed Crimea were also hit.
The strikes on Russia's largest online retailer have killed nine people and left small sellers facing millions of roubles in losses, according to reports. Wildberries confirmed the attacks and the operational suspension.
The repeated targeting of a major civilian commercial hub marks a notable escalation in Ukraine's long-range drone campaign inside Russian territory.
🇪🇺 Greece Exposes Cracks in EU's Russia Energy Sanctions
EU member states reached agreement on the latest Russia sanctions package, with Brussels framing it as a show of European unity — but negotiations revealed persistent divisions over energy measures.
Greece led resistance to tighter restrictions on Russian energy, highlighting the core dilemma facing the bloc: sustaining economic pressure on Moscow while protecting member states heavily dependent on Russian supplies. The standoff underscores that, three years into the war, the EU's sanctions architecture remains constrained by the energy vulnerabilities of its southern and eastern members.
The compromise outcome signals that European unity on Russia, while largely intact, has limits — particularly where energy security and national economic interests collide directly with bloc-wide foreign policy goals.
🇪🇺 EU Fines Google €890M Under Digital Markets Act
The European Commission has fined Google's parent Alphabet €890 million ($1 billion) for two separate breaches of the EU's Digital Markets Act — the bloc's landmark law curbing Big Tech power.
A €460 million penalty covers Google illegally favouring its own Shopping, Hotels, and Flights services in Search results over rivals. A second €430 million fine targets Play Store rules that prevented app developers from directing users to alternative payment options outside Google's platform.
The ruling comes as Washington prepares fresh trade tariffs on the EU, raising the diplomatic stakes of Brussels' continued crackdown on American tech giants.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a new nuclear cooperation agreement that could allow Riyadh to enrich uranium for its civilian nuclear program.
The deal paves the way for Saudi Arabia to build nuclear reactors, marking a significant shift in US nuclear partnership policy in the Middle East. Uranium enrichment capability has long been a sensitive point — critics warn it could reduce barriers to weapons development, while Riyadh has previously insisted on its right to enrich on its own soil.
The agreement signals a deepening of US-Saudi strategic ties at a moment of heightened regional competition, with Iran's nuclear program remaining a central concern for both Washington and Gulf states.
🪖 Zelensky Fires Army Chief Syrskyi, Names Drapatyi
President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi as commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, replacing him with Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi.
The move follows public protests triggered by the earlier removal of Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Commentators are divided on the dismissal — some view it as a response to public pressure and a push for military reform, while others credit Syrskyi's wartime record or question Zelensky's leadership style.
🌍 Hitler's Birthplace Opens as Austrian Police Station
Austria officially inaugurated a police station in Adolf Hitler's former birthplace in Braunau am Inn on Wednesday, a conversion designed to prevent the building from serving as a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.
The move follows years of government debate over what to do with the property. Austrian authorities chose a police presence as a deliberate symbolic counter to far-right extremism, amid a broader rise in neo-Nazi activity across Europe.