Poseidon patrols and Sarmat regiments aren’t slide decks—they’re on the board. In Pokrovsk/Myrnohrad, the “cauldron” dynamic shows how electronic warfare and broken supply lines decide outcomes long before press conferences do. In Europe, rhetoric collides with reality: Hungary’s Drushba exemption, a slow-roll LNG phase-out, and an energy map still tied to pipes. Add a payments pivot: Russia–China SMEs meeting in Xi’an to normalize yuan/ruble settlement while Western banks tiptoe around sanctions. Finally, Brussels’ checklist for Kyiv’s anti-corruption bodies gets a hard read, not a headline. International Flavor: Where the Truth Just Tastes Better.