By SAMYA KULLAB and YEHOR KONOVALOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An emboldened Russia has ramped up military offensives on two fronts in Ukraine, scattering Kyiv’s precious reserve troops and threatening to expand the fighting to a new Ukrainian region as each side seeks an advantage before the fighting season wanes in the autumn.

Moscow aims to maximize its territorial gains before seriously considering a full ceasefire, analysts and military commanders said. Ukraine wants to slow the Russian advance for as long as possible and extract heavy losses.

Kremlin forces are steadily gaining ground in the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, the capture of which would hand them a major battlefield victory and bring them closer to acquiring the entire Donetsk region. The fighting there has also brought combat to the border of the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time.

In an effort to prevent Moscow from bolstering those positions in the east, Ukrainian forces are trying to pin down some of Russia’s best and most battle-hardened troops hundreds of kilometers away, in the northeast Sumy region.

“The best-case scenario for Ukraine,” said Russian-British military historian Sergey Radchenko, “is that they’re able to stall or stop the Russian advance” in the Ukrainian industrial heartland known as Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Then Ukraine could “use that as the basis for a ceasefire agreement.”

“There’s a better chance for Russia to come to some kind of terms with Ukraine” in the fall when the Russians “see the extent of their offensive,” Radchenko added.

While the battles rage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is waiting to learn whether the Trump administration will support tougher sanctions against Russia and back a European idea to establish a “reassurance force” to deter Moscow.

A setback came with the U.S. decision Tuesday to halt some weapons shipments to Ukraine out of concern over America’s own depleted stockpiles.

Ukraine faces relentless assaults in Sumy

In the Sumy region, Ukrainian forces face a constant barrage of aerial glide bombs, drones and relentless assaults by small groups of Russian infantrymen. They endure the attacks to prevent Russian forces from being moved to other battlegrounds in the eastern Donetsk region.

Ukrainian forces intensified their own attacks in Sumy in April and even conducted a small offensive into Russia’s neighboring Kursk region to prevent up to 60,000 battle-hardened Russian forces from being moved to reinforce positions in the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Ukraine’s top army commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said last week.

If those troops had been moved, they could have increased the tempo of Russian attacks across the front line and stretched Ukrainian forces thin.

The strategy did not come without criticism. Commanders who were ordered to execute it complained that it resulted in unnecessary loss of life.

Russian forces have penetrated up to 7 kilometers (4 miles) into the northern Sumy region from different directions along the border.

Ukrainian forces are determined to keep them there to avoid freeing up Russian forces to fight in the east. So far they have succeeded, locking up to 10,000 Russian troops in the Glushkovsky district of the Kursk region alone, where Ukraine maintains a small presence after being mostly forced out by Russian and North Korean troops earlier in the year.

Russia seeks maximum gains in Donetsk

The war’s largest battle is being waged in Donetsk as Russia inches toward its stated goal of capturing all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Unable to tackle the strategically significant logistical hub of Pokrovsk directly, Russian forces are attempting to encircle the city, a maneuver that requires encroaching on the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Bringing the war to a sixth Ukrainian region would be detrimental for Ukrainian morale and give Russia more leverage in negotiations if its forces manage to carve out a foothold there.

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Sabotage groups have crossed the border, only to be eliminated by Ukrainian forces.

But in time, commanders fear that Russia will advance as Ukraine continues to grapple with severe shortages.

Lack of soldiers and supplies across the 1,200-kilometer (745-mile) front line mean that Ukrainian forces must concentrate on holding their positions and conserving resources rather than advancing, said Oleksii Makhrinskyi, deputy commander of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion.

Commanders describe battles so intense under drone-saturated skies that rotating forces in and out of position has become a deadly operation. Ukrainian forces remain in combat positions for several weeks at a time or more, relying on supplies carried in by drones.

The Russians’ goal “is just to enter Dnipropetrovsk region, to have a good position politically if the presidents negotiate peace,” said Andrii Nazerenko, a commander of the 72nd Brigade, a drone unit in eastern Ukraine, referring to potential talks between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“They’re really close to getting what they want,” he said.

All eyes on Trump’s next move

Zelenskyy hopes U.S. President Donald Trump will move away from his administration’s past ambivalence toward Ukraine and signal his intention to continue American support, a move that could also alter Moscow’s calculations.

The two presidents met last week on the sidelines of a NATO summit and discussed a possible weapons package, including Patriot missile systems that Ukraine intends to purchase with European support.

The U.S. Defense Department announcement now calls that into question although it did not specify which weapons were being held back when it disclosed the Pentagon review of American weapons stockpiles Tuesday. The halt of any weapons from the U.S. would be a blow to Ukraine as it struggles to confront Russia’s daily aerial barrages.

Zelenskyy also hopes Trump will punish Russia by imposing harsher sanctions on its energy and banking sectors, which bankroll the Kremlin’s war effort.

Europe and the U.S. have imposed successive sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion in 2022, but Zelenskyy says those measures have not been enough to pierce Moscow’s war machine. He has proposed a $30 per barrel price cap on Russian oil.

EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan said Europe needs to maintain the sanctions pressure while also “holding out the prospect that if Russia behaves correctly, we could have some kind of ceasefire and some kind of sense of negotiation, but for the moment Russia doesn’t seem to want that.”

Kyiv’s closest European allies are also awaiting a sign from Trump that he will support a plan to deploy foreign troops in Ukraine to guard against future Russian aggression after a ceasefire agreement. That is likely the best security guarantee Ukraine can hope for in lieu of NATO membership.

Meanwhile on the battlefield, Russian forces appear increasingly confident.

Nazerenko noticed a shift in the morale of advancing Russian infantrymen in recent months. Instead of running away while being assailed by Ukrainian drones, they keep pushing forward.

Nazerenko could not help but ask a Russian prisoner: “You know you will die. Why go?”

Because, the Russian soldier replied: “We will win.”

Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Republicans in Congress rushed forward with a massive tax and spending cut bill, a North Carolina renewable energy executive wrote to his 190 employees with a warning: Deep cuts to clean energy tax credits were going to hurt.

“(The changes) would almost certainly include the loss of jobs on our team,” wrote Will Etheridge, CEO of Southern Energy Management in Raleigh. “I’m telling you that because you deserve transparency and the truth — even if that truth is uncomfortable.”

The bill now in the House takes an ax to clean energy incentives, including killing a 30% tax credit for rooftop residential solar by the end of the year that the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act had extended into the next decade. Trump has called the clean energy tax credits in the climate law part of a “green new scam” that improperly shifts taxpayer subsidies to help the “globalist climate agenda” and energy sources like wind and solar.

Businesses and analysts say the GOP-backed bill will likely reverse the sector’s growth and eliminate jobs.

“The residential solar industry is going to be absolutely creamed by this,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a business group that advocates for pro-environment policies.

President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” takes aim at renewables broadly, including phasing out tax credits enjoyed by utility-scale solar and wind. But cutting the residential solar credit will happen sooner.

Companies have announced more than $20 billion in clean-energy investments in North Carolina in recent years. Etheridge, whose company installs solar panels and helps ensure buildings are energy efficient, was among many in the sector to lobby Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina for changes in the bill.

Tillis ultimately was one of three Republicans to vote against the measure, but in a sign of Trump’s power over legislators to pass it, Tillis said he wouldn’t seek reelection after Trump said he’d likely support a primary challenger.

Now, Etheridge says losing the tax credit will likely mean laying off 50 to 55 of his workers. He called the elimination of residential tax credits a “bait and switch.”

“I made a decision from being an employee to taking out a loan from my grandmother to buy into my business and put my house on the line” in part because of the stability of the tax credits, he said. He said he’ll scramble now to figure out ways to diversify his business.

“If you require a money-spigot from Washington to make your business viable, it probably shouldn’t have been in business in the first place,” said Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

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Michel said he doubted many clean energy companies would go out of business, but “I think that they will be right sized for the market and that the people that are employed with them will find better jobs and more stable jobs in industries that are actually viable and don’t require billions of dollars of federal subsidies.”

Even ahead of debate over the bill, experts at E2 said in May that $14 billion in clean energy investments across the country had been postponed or cancelled this year.

The bill the Senate passed Tuesday removes a tax on some wind and solar projects that was proposed in a previous version and gives utility-scale projects some time to begin construction before phasing out those tax credits.

Karl Stupka, president of Raleigh-based NC Solar Now that employs about 100 people, said the Senate’s bill eased the impact on commercial projects “while destroying the residential portion of the tax credits.” Roughly 85% of his business is residential work.

“They took it away from every average American normal person and gave it to the wealthier business owners,” he said.

Stupka said if the bill becomes law, companies will rush to finish as many solar jobs as they can before the credit ends. He expected to lay off half his employees, with “trickle-down” job losses elsewhere.

“It would cause a pretty severe shock wave,” he said.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By PAUL WISEMAN and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with Vietnam Wednesday that would allow U.S. goods to enter the country duty-free.

Vietnamese exports to the United States, by contrast, would face a 20% levy.

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On his Truth Social platform, Trump declared the pact “a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries.”

In April, Trump announced a 46% tax on Vietnamese imports — one of his so-called reciprocal tariffs targeting dozens of countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. Trump promptly suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to allow for negotiations like the one with Vietnam. The pause expires Tuesday, but so far the Trump administration has reached a trade agreement with only one of those countries — the United Kingdom. (Trump has also reached a “framework” agreement with China in a separate trade dispute.)

“Vietnam has been very keen to get out from under this,” said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. ”This is forcing a smaller country to eat it, basically. We can do that. It’s the big countries that everybody’s keeping their eyes on.” She doubts that Trump will be able to impose such a lopsided agreement on big trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.

The United States last year ran a $122 billion trade deficit with Vietnam. That was the third-biggest U.S. trade gap — the difference between the goods and services it buys from other countries and those it sells them — behind the ones with China and Mexico.

In addition to the 20% tariffs, Trump said the U.S. would impose a 40% tax on “transshipping” — goods from another country that stop in Vietnam on their way to the United States. Washington complains that Chinese goods have been dodging higher U.S. tariffs by transiting through Vietnam.

A February study in the Harvard Business Review found that there was “much less rerouting than previously believed.”

In May, Vietnam approved a $1.5 billion project by the Trump Organization and a local partner to build a massive golf resort complex near Hanoi, covering an area roughly the size of 336 football fields.

Vietnam was a beneficiary of American efforts to counter China’s influence. Companies looking to diversify their supply chains away from China flocked to Vietnam.

In 2023, it became the only country to host both President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on state visits. That year, the U.S. upgraded Vietnam to its highest diplomatic status—comprehensive strategic partner—placing it on par with China and Russia.

Aniruddha Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.

“To the Democratic and Republican establishments, especially those gearing up for re-election next year, I would say: pay attention to the Mamdani campaign. It seems many Latinos are, and they will certainly make their opinions heard at the ballot box again.”

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, center, with NYC Comptroller (and former fellow mayoral candidate) Brad Lander and NYS Attorney General Tish James at this year’s pride parade. (Ayman Siam/Office of NYC Comptroller)

This analysis is part of a series of columns exploring the role of the Latino vote in the city’s 2025 municipal elections. Read more here, here and here.

Elections that produce seismic shifts in the political landscape are rare. With the shocking win last week of Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist assemblyman from Queens, New York experienced one of these shifts. Indeed, Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary is better understood as an unexpected political earthquake.

Few expected Mamdani to win. Many observers wondered whether he could pull together the type of coalition needed to defeat a longtime political powerhouse. Could he expand the electorate? Could he energize younger voters? Could he appeal to and turn out low-propensity voters like Asians and Latinos?

Apparently Mamdani did all the above. And interestingly, it appears that he has won a plurality of the Latino vote.

That in itself is a feat. Conventional wisdom held that Mamdani could not peel away enough Latino voters from Andrew Cuomo, considering that Latinos have always viewed the former governor favorably.

Amidst all of his troubles, Latinos remained loyal to a governor they felt had responded to many of their needs. When Hurricane Maria ravaged the island of Puerto Rico, Cuomo stepped up by coordinating flights to deliver goods and emergency services assistance. Likewise his responses to crises in the Dominican Republic. Latinos remember such efforts.

So, what gives? How and where did Mamdani manage to win a crucial voting bloc that Cuomo needed?

The New York Times has actually provided an excellent breakdown of the election results by a number of demographics, including ethnicity, based on U.S. Census and City Planning data. 

I have examined the preliminary first round votes of the mayoral candidates within Latino-majority election districts. These districts were identified using the L2 voter file, which not only draws on Census data but numerous other sources to identify ethnic information as precisely as possible. 

With this data, I have lasered in on election districts that are more than 60 percent Latino, so as to avoid the complications of deciphering Latino voters in election districts that are more diverse. (Until voter files are updated, we will not have a complete picture of the magnitude of this election. Thus, all current analyses, including this one, demand caution.)

Outside the early voting site at the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center in the Bronx on June 14, 2025. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

Here’s what I found:

In Manhattan, Mamdani outdid Cuomo by just over 2,000 votes. His greatest success was in Washington Heights and Inwood, the 72nd Assembly district. Mamdani lost the Latino-majority election districts in the Lower East Side by 151 votes. He won the super-majority Latino election districts in East Harlem (68th Assembly District) by 92 votes and the 71st Assembly district, covering parts of Hamilton Heights, Harlem, and lower Washington Heights, by 657 votes. Remember, I am only examining super-majority Latino election districts, so these results do not refer to the overall vote in these respective districts.

Notably, most of the elected officials in these areas did not endorse Mamdani, including Congressman Adriano Espaillat, whose district encompasses all these neighborhoods. Only State Sen. Robert Jackson and Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee (I am not factoring in those elected to party positions who made their own endorsements in the race).

The Bronx tells a different story with the Latino vote. Cuomo handily beat Mamdani in most of the majority-Latino sections in the Bronx, which is the only majority-Latino borough in the city. In the South Bronx, 51 percent of voters went for Cuomo. In the Kingsbridge, Fordham, and Belmont neighborhoods, 51 percent of voters went for Cuomo and 39 percent for Mamdani. 

Of the Soundview, Longwood and Hunts Point neighborhoods, 57 percent of votes went for Cuomo. Mamdani held on to 31 percent. And we see similar results in the Morris Heights, University Heights, and Tremont neighborhoods. In the Bronx, too, Cuomo earned the lion’s share of endorsements from Latino elected officials (State Sen. Gustavo Rivera bucked the trend, strongly supporting Mamdani). This election proves once again that most endorsements are meaningless and very few endorsers have the capacity to move the needle on any given election.

Moving to Brooklyn, I note that Mamdani won these super-majority Latino election districts over Cuomo by a total of 1,664 votes. Mamdani’s largest support was in Sunset Park (51st Assembly District), Bushwick, and Williamsburg (53rd Assembly District). Because of the stark gentrification of these neighborhoods, especially the latter two, I have been especially careful to identify those precincts which are 60 percent-plus Latino. In the 54th Assembly District, covering parts of East New York and Cypress Hills, Mamdani bested Cuomo by 21 votes.

(Photo by Adi Talwar)

The Queens results in Latino neighborhoods present us with even more fascinating realities. I looked at the 60 percent-plus Latino election districts in Corona, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, Ozone Park and Ridgewood. Mamdani won those precincts by 1,151 votes. While these numbers may appear similar to results in Manhattan and Brooklyn, they show an interesting dynamic in Latino voting patterns, particularly in Queens.

My analysis of the presidential election in Queens showed an increase in support for Donald Trump, though this increase was not as pronounced as some thought. Of all Latino neighborhoods in the city,  Queens saw the most significant decline in support for the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Recalling this very recent history makes the current mayoral primary results in these neighborhoods seem erratic. How could Latinos vote for a democratic socialist after voting for the conservative authoritarianism of Donald Trump?

If anything, these results remind us yet again of what has now become almost a cliché: Latinos are not homogenous. We do not fit any once-size-fits-all formulations. Latinos are quite diverse in cultural variety, countries of origin, language nuances, and political philosophies. This can also be seen at the ballot box. In fact, we can see it in this election—most Bronx Latinos went with Cuomo, while a plurality of Latinos in other boroughs went with Mamdani.

Moreover, Latino support for Mamdani, particularly in Queens, should help us understand that the increase in support for Trump in 2024 was not necessarily an indication of an ideological rightward shift. What these results may be telling us is that economic populist messaging resonates deeply with Latino audiences. And this should come as no surprise. It surely was not a surprise for Mamdani. Mamdani, a truly generational political talent, has understood quite well the plight of struggling communities, like Latinos, whose quotidian realities evoke continuing economic anxieties.

A recent Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy and Robin Hood report shows that Latinos are the poorest ethnic group in New York City, followed closely by Asian and then Black New Yorkers. It should come as no surprise, then, that Mamdani, who lasered in on affordability issues, would earn the support of a plurality of Latinos, and win the Asian vote. Mamdani’s support among Black New Yorkers was also higher than some anticipated.

It should also come as no surprise that most Latinos do not see fare-free buses, no cost childcare, and freezing rents as a vice. These are issues that Latinos care deeply about because their very livelihoods depend on all these important, day-to-day matters.

To the Democratic and Republican establishments, then, especially those gearing up for re-election next year, I would say: pay attention to the Mamdani campaign. It seems many Latinos are, and they will certainly make their opinions heard at the ballot box again.

Eli Valentin is a former Gotham Gazette contributor and currently serves as assistant dean of graduate and leadership studies at Virginia Union University. He lives in New York with his family.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post Latino Voters and the Political Earthquake in New York appeared first on City Limits.