🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 Observers geolocated close to 3000 artillery, mortar and air strikes from February to May 2026 on a frontline going from the approaches to Orekhov in Zaporozhye Oblast to Pokrovsk-Konstantinovka and Slavyansk in the Donetsk Oblast.

The highest concentration of artillery, mortar and airstrikes are situated on two sectors, Orekhov in Zaporozhye and the sector immediately north of Pokrovsk, revealing Russia's plans for the 2026 summer offensives.

A closer look at the Pokrovsk-Konstantinovka sector, shows the shift target shift. White dots show artillery and airstrikes geolocated between May and October 2025 while the Red dots show artillery and airstrikes geolocated between February and May 2026. If in 2025 Russia tried to drive a wedge between the cities of Dobropolye and Druzhkovka, in 2026 it will try to take Dobropolye from the southeast.

Despite the loss of Pokrovsk and Myrnograd, Ukrainian resistance in this area was largely successful as the frontline largely remained the same showing that Russia has been unable to capitalize on the conquest of both cities.

🔗 Maps by Clément Molin

🇮🇱 In a direct and unprecedented disclosure to the Israeli Supreme Court, Mossad Director David Barnea asserts that the agency operates in a state of near-total legal autonomy, without a “Mossad Law” or any formal oversight mechanism comparable to those governing other agencies. Barnea explicitly states that for 99% of its activities, the Mossad has no obligation to report to its supervisor, and acknowledges that its operations are often carried out in outright violation of the laws of the foreign countries in which it operates. This “vast gray area,” he argues, is a structural necessity for the Mossad’s mission, but one that places an immense and singular burden of responsibility on the person leading the organization.

Drawing a sharp contrast with the wider Western intelligence community, Barnea writes that “unlike the heads of Western intelligence agencies,” the Director of the Mossad operates with “almost absolute freedom.” According to Barnea, the chief alone determines both the strategic objectives and the methods used to achieve them, without the external checks, balances, and legal constraints common in other democratic states. Because the Mossad exists largely outside standard legal frameworks, he argues, the personal integrity and moral restraint of its director become the final and only barrier preventing strategic disaster or a dangerous abuse of power.

Against this backdrop, Barnea frames his opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s choice for the next Mossad chief, Roman Gofman, not as a routine professional disagreement, but as an extraordinary warning about character, judgment, and “purity of values.” He argues that Gofman’s history of bypassing military procedures and disregarding established protocols demonstrates a willingness to cross boundaries that a Mossad director must know how to impose on himself. In Barnea’s view, placing a leader who “seeks shortcuts” and “violates procedures” at the helm of an organization that already operates abroad beyond the law and at home with virtually no oversight would pose an unacceptable strategic danger to the State of Israel.

🔗 Faytuks News Network

🚷 🇨🇦 📉 Canada now *firmly* in negative-net-migration territory, driven by a massive effort to expire visas for temporary migrants and see them removed.

Of course, still many miles to go before returning to anything like "normal" 5-year-rolling net migration.

📎 Lyman Stonec

🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇶🇮🇷 Satellite images show IDF airstrip built on dry lakebed in Iraq

Israeli forces appear to have built a makeshift airstrip on a dried-out lakebed in Iraq’s western desert on the night of March 1 into March 2, according to satellite imagery and other media reviewed by Faytuks Network intelligence and geolocation analysts.

The site, near al-Nukhayb in Anbar province, appears to have served as a temporary forward arming and refueling point for operations against Iran. By March 2, the dry lakebed near al-Nukhayb in Iraq’s Anbar province had been transformed.

Satellite imagery and other material reviewed by Faytuks Network analysts show that a makeshift runway had been cut or marked across the lakebed overnight, turning what had appeared to be open desert into a temporary airstrip. Aircraft were visible at the site that morning, alongside what appeared to be temporary structures, support equipment or additional aircraft near the western edge of the operating area.

The site appears to have served as a temporary forward arming and refueling point for Israeli operations against Iran. Its location offered clear operational value: a remote desert lakebed, close enough to Iran to reduce flight distances and limit reliance on U.S. refueling aircraft, but isolated enough to be difficult for Iraqi authorities to monitor in real time.

The March 2 imagery shows several small objects clustered near the aircraft operating area. The resolution does not allow each object to be identified with certainty, but their placement suggests they were part of the temporary site. They may have been tents, light shelters, support vehicles, equipment or additional aircraft.

Seven objects consistent with helicopter airframes were visible south of the support cluster. A dirt road also appeared to run toward the airstrip, indicating recent ground access into an area that, one day earlier, had shown no obvious signs of military activity.

The pace of activity increased quickly. On March 5, a large formation of aircraft entered the base, according to footage reviewed by the Network.

On March 6, two more Chinook helicopters were seen entering the site. By then, the temporary structures visible in earlier imagery were no longer present.

Local officials said Iraqi forces had been sent to investigate reports of foreign military activity in the Najaf-Karbala desert. Zuhair al-Fatlawi, a member of parliament from Karbala province, said a force believed at the time to be American had entered the area by helicopter under air cover and deployed about 40 kilometers from al-Nukhayb.

Al-Fatlawi said the Iraqi reconnaissance force came under gunfire and aerial bombardment during the mission, killing one fighter, wounding two others and damaging a vehicle. Another lawmaker, Mohammed Jassim al-Khafaji, said about 30 Iraqi army Humvees from the Karbala Operations Command had been sent to assess the area before they were struck.

U.S. Central Command later denied carrying out an airdrop operation in Najaf province.

By March 20, the base appeared to have been destroyed by rainfall, satellite imagery shows.

The timeline points to a short-lived but significant Israeli presence inside Iraq. In less than 24 hours, a dry lakebed was turned into an airstrip. Within days, aircraft were moving through the site in formation. Within three weeks, the base had effectively disappeared.

🔗 https://faytuksnetwork.com/middle-east/satellite-images-show-suspected-idf-airstrip-built-on-dry-lakebed-in-iraq/