Biden and Netanyahu have finally talked, but their visions still clash for ending Israel-Hamas war President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally spoke Friday after a glaring, nearly four-week gap in direct communication during which fundamental differences have come into focus over a possible pathway to Palestinian statehood once the fighting in Gaza ends. Biden and his top aides have all but smothered Netanyahu with robust support, even in the face of global condemnation over the mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian suffering in Gaza as the Israelis have carried out military operations in the aftermath of…

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Kiev has lost nearly 500 pieces of Western war machinery – Moscow Kiev lost over 500 pieces of military and special equipment while trying to break through Russian fortifications during the course of its largely unsuccessful counteroffensive launched last summer, according to the chief of Russia’s Engineering Troops, Lt. Gen. Yury Stavitsky. Russian defensive fortifications have proven to be highly effective against Ukraine’s hardware, including Western-supplied equipment, he claimed in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper published on Friday. Among those losses were over 180 pieces of Western-supplied materiel, including German-designed Leopard tanks and US-made Bradley infantry…

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Ukraine buys six French Caesar howitzers, France to supply missiles Ukraine has bought six Caesar howitzers, France's defence minister said on Thursday, adding that Paris would send 50 precision-guided missiles a month to Kyiv to aid its fight against Russia's invasion. Speaking to France Inter radio, Sebastien Lecornu said Caesar manufacturer Nexter had managed to halve the production time of the howitzer to 15 months meaning that some 78 units would be available this year. In Ukraine's first purchase of French-made weapons since the start of the war, Lecornu said Kyiv had bought six for between 3 million…