Ukraine War Attrition Widens as Europe Rethinks Defence

The clearest snapshot of where the Ukraine war is heading came from arithmetic. Defense Express chief editor Oleh Katkov said Russia now builds about 70 ballistic missiles a month for its Iskander and Kinzhal systems against roughly 56 PAC-3 MSE interceptors Lockheed Martin produces -- and with two or three interceptors needed per incoming Iskander, the real gap is far wider. The point landed hours after an overnight barrage of 729 missiles and drones killed at least 21 people in Kyiv and Dnipro and partly collapsed a nine-storey Kyiv apartment block; the UN's Matthias Schmale condemned it as the third such attack in three weeks. Yet the Institute for the Study of War judged that Ukraine has largely halted Russia's Spring-Summer 2026 offensive -- Russian gains a fraction of May 2025's -- even as Vladimir Putin resists his own economists' warnings to rein in unsustainable defense spending. Ukraine pressed its own offensive too, striking Russia's Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai and using AI-guided drones to destroy hundreds of Russian supply trucks a day in the zone behind the front.

The war is forcing a continent-wide recalculation of deterrence. The Financial Times reported that the US is in confidential talks to expand NATO nuclear sharing beyond its six host states, with Poland and the Baltic states pressing to host dual-capable jets armed with US B61 bombs -- a step that would cut against the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and is meant to reassure allies as Washington shifts conventional forces toward Asia. In London, Defence Secretary John Healey told the Commons the Russian threat was "real and rising," ordered air-defence aid to Ukraine accelerated and said he would chair this month's 50-nation Ukraine Defence Contact Group, telling Putin "we see you; we will expose you." The reassurance push follows US moves that unsettled allies -- the withdrawal of at least 5,000 troops from Germany and late-May reporting that Washington would halve its deep-strike capability in Europe and seek an accelerated drawdown at this month's NATO summit.

In Paris, France's chief of defence staff, Gen. Fabien Mandon, warned senators that the French military is too small and arms production too slow -- that missile-maker MBDA, though running its lines around the clock, cannot build enough, and that Germany may overtake France as Europe's top military power within five years -- even as the Senate weighs a planning law adding 36 billion euros by 2030 but no new aircraft or ships. Germany itself is straining economically: a confidential report put its Federal Employment Agency on course for 23 billion euros of debt by 2030, and euro-zone real wages fell for the first time in three years as May inflation hit 3.2 percent.

The Middle East offered no such reprieve. A widely reported assessment held that Iran has concluded a prolonged war with the US serves it better than a deal, using the closure of the Strait of Hormuz -- through which about a fifth of the world's oil moves -- and strikes on Gulf states hosting US bases to split Washington from its partners. On June 2, IRGC Brig. Gen. MohammadJafar Asadi said Iran had not revealed all its capabilities, and hardliners tied to acting commander Ahmad Vahidi were blamed for Monday's suspension of indirect talks; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was alive and engaging but that talks did not guarantee a deal.

One corner saw restraint. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the Israeli strikes threatened against Beirut "will not take place" after a Macron-Trump call and his own talks with Iranian and US counterparts, pressing a mutual Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and warning that Lebanon must not be "a scapegoat" for the stalled nuclear deal. Other diplomatic channels widened: Kazakhstan offered to hold Iran's stockpile of more than 440 kg of near-weapons-grade uranium as a neutral custodian, an idea endorsed by the IAEA's Rafael Grossi, while eight Muslim-majority states led by Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Egypt condemned Israeli settler incursions at Al-Aqsa in occupied East Jerusalem.

Asia framed the economic stakes. In Taipei, President Lai Ching-te opened the COMPUTEX summit by calling the cross-strait status quo the surest way to protect global technology supply chains, stressing Taiwan's role supplying chips to Nvidia and Apple. The wars' bill kept climbing elsewhere: the World Bank sees global growth slowing from 2.9 percent in 2025 to 2.6 percent this year, with energy prices up about 24 percent and Brent averaging an estimated $86 a barrel, while in Turkey housing now consumes nearly a third of household budgets and the Iran war pushed inflation back to 32.4 percent in April. And in Gaza, the UN's $4 billion humanitarian appeal remained just 12 percent funded, with food kitchens down to about a million meals a day from 1.8 million in February. Beyond the war zones, the UN flagged fresh violence in South Sudan, while the energy shock kept accelerating a clean-power pivot -- the Philippines racing ahead on solar and India fast-tracking permits for wind and batteries.