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 droughtFor 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 WashingtonThe 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 Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’ open-door immigration policies; Iran blamed Israel and the US, describing the surge as “an operation organized by Washington and Tel Aviv… to destabilize Spain.”Tehran’s argument wasn’t just an offhand dig at its enemies. The US and Israel both have bad blood with Sanchez; Washington over his refusal to allow the US military to use Spanish airbases to attack Iran, and West Jerusalem over Madrid’s pro-Palestinian stance. The US and Israel have both drawn closer to Morocco since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, with sections of the US government now considering Ceuta to be Moroccan territory, and Israeli elites openly discussing the funding of pro-Moroccan NGOs in Spain. Add Sanchez’ trip to Algeria to discuss a liquefied natural gas (LNG) deal a week before the incident, and Washington’s interest becomes clearer.Does correlation equal causation? Either way, the consequences of Ceuta extend far beyond north Africa. The Nazi past re-emergesWhen we talk about the resurgence of Nazism in eastern Europe, we’re usually talking about Ukraine – where MAGA influencer Laura Loomer recently spent a week interviewing swastika-flashing neo-Nazis before claiming they didn’t exist. This week, the past reemerged in a more unexpected fashion, when the sinking levels of the Danube River revealed several sunken Nazi warships. 🇷🇸🇭🇷 A sunken German flotilla has surfaced in Serbia due to the shallowing of the Danube, Reuters reports.The rusting hulks of the German flotilla, sunk in 1944 during the retreat before the Red Army, are reportedly posing a threat to shipping. pic.twitter.com/WwacLDGlgC— Маrina Wolf (@volkova_ma57183) August 1, 2026 Amid a record-breaking heatwave and drought conditions, the wrecked hull of a Kriegsmarine gunboat was seen for the first time in more than 80 years, beached on a sandbank near the Serbian port of Prahovo. Dozens more were soon spotted, all of them scuttled in 1944 as Germany’s Black Sea fleet came under fire from the advancing Soviet Red Army.Historians believe that as many as 200 ships were deliberately sunk near Prahovo to prevent them falling into Soviet hands.Meta goes rogueFinally, Meta announced this week that its flagship AI model – Muse Spark 1.1 – broke containment during cybersecurity testing, accessed the open internet, and hacked an outside company. If the story sounds familiar, that’s because Anthropic’s Claude AI also ‘escaped’ from the same testing lab – run by a company called ‘Irregular’ – last month. Read more Meta says its AI went rogue Stories of sentient models defying their masters are a weekly occurrence these days, but reports of an impending AI apocalypse are likely exaggerated. As RT noted when OpenAI’s GPT‑5.6 Sol carried out a cyberattack earlier this summer, an improperly prompted AI model will see ‘escape’ as a viable path to completing a test, and the companies behind these models have every incentive to publicize such incidents in order to generate hype – and investment – in their products.These stories do, however, demonstrate the sheer power of AI in the hands of cybercriminals and unscrupulous actors – whether they be criminal gangs or government agencies. What to watch out forThe Ukraine conflict escalation cycle shows no signs of abetting, though Russian President Vladimir Putin has shuffled his top staff. Trump continues to waver between talks and threats with regard to Iran. However, if the reports of weapons shortages are true, the likelihood of the US resuming a high-intensity campaign against Tehran is slim. War on Iran remains unpopular in the US, and Trump is underwater with voters on economic issues – 70% of them disapprove of his handling of inflation and the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday. Read more What’s in Tucker Carlson’s ‘Save America’ manifesto? Against this background, a meeting that could have profound consequences for the Republican Party in the 2028 elections took place last weekend in Maine, when Tucker Carlson met with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, Joe Kent, and other disaffected former Trump allies to plot the creation of a third political party.Carlson released a 10-point political manifesto on Wednesday, and although he has shot down speculation that he plans to run for office, any political movement with his endorsement could siphon enough votes to sink the GOPs chances in 2028. RT broke down his manifesto here, and we’ll keep an eye on this one as it develops.