The joint plea comes as U.S. Republicans continue to hold out on a fresh funding agreement for the war-torn country, and as European capitals mull their options to constrain Moscow amid signs of fatigue two years on.
“This war is the biggest test of our generation,” the pair write. “A wholly unprovoked invasion. A blatant threat to our collective security. The clearest example of one country trying to extinguish the independence of another.
“Other adversaries are watching how we respond. Will we stand with Ukraine? Will we stand up to Putin’s naked aggression? The consequences of failure will not just be felt in Ukraine — they will remake the world as we know it.”
Cameron, a former British prime minister-turned-foreign-secretary, got short shrift earlier this month when he traveled to Washington to try to drum up support for Ukraine. U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, told the U.K.’s top diplomat to “kiss my ass.”
But Cameron and Sikorski, who serves as foreign affairs point-man in Donald Tusk’s administration, quote 1996 American comedy film Jerry Maguire as they urge the U.S. and allies to “show me the money.”
“Britain and the EU have committed more funding to Ukraine, and we believe it is in the interest of America — and all of our allies — to do the same,” they write.
KYIV — The last time Valentyna Tkachenko, a 35-year-old mother of two from Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, saw her husband Serhii was just before Russia invaded her country.
Serhii, a National Guard soldier, was captured on February 24 of last year, the day Moscow launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. His unit was guarding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it was attacked by the Russians. When the Russian military retreated from Chernobyl and the rest of the Kyiv region at the end of March, they took Serhii and 167 other POWs with them.
Since then, the wives of the captured soldiers have only heard from them once — a short handwritten note: “I am alive, everything is OK,” sent more than six months after they were taken prisoner.
Like thousands of other relatives of Ukrainian POWs, Tkachenko has contacted Ukrainian authorities and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and had written four letters, but heard nothing back until November 29. That’s the day she got a video call on the Viber messaging app.
“It was Serhii. We talked only for three minutes. I was not allowed to ask him questions. As soon as I tried, he shook his head and just said no. Instead, he kept saying: ‘Valya, go make things hard for Kyiv. Kyiv does not want to take us back,’” Tkachenko recalled. “Then he said he was sorry and ended the call, promising to call me back if he ever has a chance.”
Tkachenko didn’t go off to demonstrate against the government, although family protests have taken place in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s coordinating staff on the treatment of prisoners of war, told POLITICO that other families have received similar calls from soldiers being held by the Russians.
“A person has not heard from a relative for more than a year, and here he calls and says that he is alive. Russians are ready to exchange him, but Ukraine does nothing. Recently these calls became massive. So, we understood that this is a campaign to cause distrust in the government,” Yatsenko said.
It’s a stark change in policy from the first year of the war, when the two sides regularly exchanged prisoners. In all, 2,598 people have returned from Russian captivity during 48 swaps, according to the Ukrainian military. However, the last major exchange was on August 7.
“It has really slowed down due to reasons from the Russian Federation, but there are very specific reasons for this,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv this week.
Playing politics with POWs
The Russian refusal to exchange POWs appears aimed at inflaming tensions in Ukrainian society, where dissatisfaction with Zelenskyy is rising in the wake of this year’s disappointing counteroffensive, and the mood is turning grim as crucial aid for Ukraine stalls in the U.S. Senate and Hungary blocks the EU’s efforts to boost civilian and military help for Kyiv.
Tkachenko thinks her family, as well as other prisoners of war, have become tools in a political game.
Anastasiia Bugera with her boyfriend Kostyantyn Ivanov | Anastasiia Bugera for POLITICO
“They started so well, exchanging so many. But then suddenly it all stopped. I think Russians want to discredit our government. People are exhausted, and POWs’ relatives are losing their temper. They want to cause havoc,” Tkachenko said bitterly.
A large number of the Ukrainian POWs were captured following the bloody siege of Mariupol, a coastal city where Ukrainian troops held out for three months of ferocious attacks before surrendering the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in May 2022.
Anastasiia Bugera, 22, from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, has not spoken to her boyfriend, 24-year-old Kostyantyn Ivanov, since March 2022. She was in Russian-occupied Izyum when Ivanov was ordered to surrender alongside several thousand other Azovstal defenders.
“I managed to call his mother from our neighbor’s outdoor toilet one day. She told me he was trying to call me and failed. I cried so hard standing in that toilet,” Bugera said. The toilet was the only place she could get a connection as the Russians were trying to block mobile signals. Izyum was liberated by the Ukrainians in September 2022.
“We have not had the opportunity to even say hello to each other. They were promised to be in captivity only for three to four months. But Russia lied,” Bugera said.
Ukraine has managed to exchange only a few dozen Azovstal defenders, including the commanders of the Azov Regiment, but thousands of regular troops, police and border guards captured in Mariupol are still being held. According to the Azovstal families’ association, Russia does not want to exchange them. Instead, families occasionally see them on videos from Russian courts, malnourished, exhausted, and on trial accused of war crimes. Russia continues to block any direct communication with them.
Life in prison
As of today, Russia holds more than 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers and some 28,000 civilians, the Ukrainian ombudsman’s office and reintegration ministry said. However, the real number may be even higher.
“For example, some of those who are in captivity have not been confirmed yet. Those people are still considered ‘missing’ although we have information they might be in captivity,” Yatsenko said.
The Ukrainians have not said how many Russians they hold, but they have so many that they’re building a second POW camp to hold them. Russians are also being held in a special facility in western Ukraine and housed in cells in pretrial detention centers.
“I would say during the counteroffensive Ukraine managed to increase the POWs exchange fund that was already big because of the stalled exchanges,” Yatsenko said. “But we are ready to accommodate all Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, in case they decide to surrender.”
Ukraine says it is treating its POWs according to international rules, but accuses Russia of mistreating its prisoners.
“More than 90 percent of prisoners of war whom we interview after their return say that they were subjected to torture, deprivation of sufficient nutrition and sleep,” Yatsenko said. “People are being forced to burn out tattoos or to consume only Russian propaganda. They are not allowed to communicate with relatives.”
A photo Kostyantyn Ivanov sent to his relatives from Mariupol, where he was fighting against overwhelming Russian forces together with thousands of other Azovstal Steel Mill defenders | Anastasiia Bugera for POLITICO
Russia insists it is treating its POWs well.
Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova on November 30 visited 119 Ukrainian POWs and said they were being held in conditions that correspond to international standards.
“Many of them reported that they were allowed to call their relatives by phone by the competent Russian authorities,” Moskalkova said in a statement published a day after Tkachenko got the video call from her husband.
Moskalkova said that arrangements are being made with her Ukrainian counterpart to allow for mutual visits.
The International Committee of the Red Cross visits POWs on both sides of the front — so far seeing 2,300 of them — but Russia hasn’t fully opened its facilities to outside inspection and the ICRC is institutionally limited in its ability to criticize countries out of fear that its access will be cut off.
“We are painfully aware that there are POWs that we still have not visited, and this is why we are constantly working towards improving our access to the places where they are held. We have also delivered more than 3,800 personal messages between POWs and their loved ones, on top of facilitating the exchanges of over 9,300 letters from and to prisoners of war,” said Achille Després, the ICRC spokesperson in Ukraine.
He refused to reveal any information about the specific conditions in which POWs are held.
“Our goal is to work directly with the detaining authorities, to influence towards the concrete improvement of the interment conditions and remind the relevant states of their legal obligations, notably that POWs must at all times be treated humanely and their rights upheld, as well as their integrity, dignity and privacy respected,” he said.
Hoping for release
With big prisoner exchanges frozen, the only way captured soldiers can make it back to their own side is in informal battlefield swaps between commanders.
“Unfortunately, such sporadic exchanges cannot replace the ones at the state level,” Yatsenko said.
In his news conference, Zelenskyy said he hopes to see a change of policy that will allow for a resumption of prisoner exchanges.
“We are now working to bring back a fairly decent number of our guys. God willing, we will succeed,” he said.
Ukraine hopes to jar the Kremlin into restarting swaps thanks to the growing number of Russian POWs it’s holding.
“As soon as we accumulate, if you’ll forgive me the language, the appropriate stockpile of enemy resources, we exchange them for our Ukrainian defenders … I really hope that our pathway will soon be activated,” Zelenskyy said.
Russia’s interior ministry has added the spokesperson of U.S. tech giant Meta Andy Stone to its wanted list, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported.
Stone “is wanted under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” the agency reported, citing the ministry’s database. The reason Stone was added to the list was not indicated, according to the report.
In 2022, following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Moscow officially designated the American tech company — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — as a “terrorist and extremist” organization. That opened the door to heavier legal proceedings against its users in the country.
Western social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter) were banned from Russia and are only accessible in the country through VPNs.
On Sunday, Russian authorities also said they downed 24 Ukrainian drones. The day before, Russia had launched the largest aerial attack against Ukraine since its invasion started, barraging the country with 75 Shahed drones.
BRUSSELS — The EU will deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine — but not by the March deadline leaders had agreed, the CEO of the European Defence Agency Jiří Šedivý told POLITICO.
The agency has been at the heart of efforts to transform the bloc’s military industry by matching contractors with capitals in massive joint ammunition deals targeted at boosting local production and supplying arms to Ukraine.
The million shell target was decided by EU leaders last March to support Kyiv in its fight against invading Russian forces, but there were deep divisions over the success of the policy during Tuesday’s meeting of defense ministers in Brussels.
Some, like Germany Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, said the target wouldn’t be reached and questioned the sense of setting it in the first place, while others, like Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, said the bloc was capable of producing enough ammunition — as long as governments sign contracts with arms-makers.
The EDA chief leans toward a more optimistic assessment.
“The target of 1 million will be achieved — maybe even beyond that — but indeed, the timeline is too ambitious,” Šedivý said in an interview just hours after meeting defense ministers in his role as the chief of the bloc’s technical agency.
So far, EU countries have dispatched around 300,000 shells to Ukraine, with the EDA running a second track to jointly procure ammo to refill national stocks as well as provide further support to Ukraine.
In October, the agency said seven member countries agreed to place orders for critical 155 millimeter ammunition under a fast-track joint procurement scheme.
While the EDA won’t disclose the total volume of those contracts, Šedivý said that, coupled with national orders from larger countries like Germany, France and Sweden, it would add up to “lower 100,000s of ammunition” which would still put the bloc well beneath the 1 million mark.
“The orders are just being placed,” Šedivý, a former Czech defense minister, said. “The industry is just being engaged.”
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday at the ministerial that contractors should be urged to boost deliveries to countries supplying Ukraine by curbing exports to non-EU clients.
But that’s easier said than done.
Some, like Germany Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, said the target wouldn’t be reached and questioned the sense of setting it in the first place | Tobia Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s quite unrealistic to imagine that customers outside the EU would accept any reprioritization,” Šedivý said.
Instead, governments need to start committing to contracts running “five to 10 years” to spur investment in the EU, Šedivý added, in the same way that healthcare firms got bulk orders to build up stocks of COVID masks and testing kits during the pandemic.
“We will not achieve this [million rounds] target by March 2024, most probably,” he said. “But at the same time we are getting there.”
Mikhail Filiponenko, a pro-Russian lawmaker and ex-militiaman in occupied eastern Ukraine, walked over to a car outside his house on Wednesday morning … and was promptly blown to smithereens, Russian media reported.
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination.
“Yeah, it was our operation,” Andriy Cherniak, representative of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate, also known as GUR, told POLITICO in a phone conversation about the car bomb attack.
Military intelligence worked together with local Ukrainian partisans to prepare to assassinate Filiponenko, GUR said in a statement.
Filiponenko was born in Luhansk and studied in Kyiv. However, in 2014 he joined Russian-backed mercenaries who seized power and helped President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin to establish its rule over the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
“He was involved in the organization of torture camps in the occupied territories of the Luhansk region, where prisoners of war and civilian hostages were subjected to inhumane torture. Filiponenko himself personally brutally tortured people,” Ukraine’s military intelligence said.
GUR revealed the exact address where Filiponenko lived in Luhansk and added that Ukraine’s spies knew where other high-profile collaborators were living in the occupied territories.
KYIV — Mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group are back fighting on the front line in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian military official told POLITICO on Wednesday.
Several hundred fighters from the group once ruled by now-dead warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin were spotted fighting in the ranks of different Russian military units on the eastern front, said Colonel Serhiy Cherevatyi.
After Wagner was thrown into disarray following an aborted insurrection against the Kremlin in June led by Prigozhin — who subsequently died in a fiery plane crash in August — many of its troops were either welcomed to Belarus by its ruler Alexander Lukashenko or deployed to African countries where Russia has interests.
“Wagnerites were not hiding. Maybe they thought it would scare our soldiers. In fact, that showed Russia needs new meat for the grinder,” said Cherevatyi, deputy commander of Ukraine’s eastern group of troops for strategic communications. “Wagner as an organization was finished in Bakhmut. Now their more fortunate soldiers are sent to Africa, where there’s more money. The less fortunate ones are back to Ukraine.”
He added that Ukrainian wiretapping and reconnaissance had been used to confirm that former Wagner forces were back on the Donbas battlefield, but warned, “We know everything about them.”
Ukraine’s National Resistance Center previously reported that fewer than 1,000 Wagner mercenaries remained in Belarus as of September.
“Currently, 200 of them remain instructors in the special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of Belarus. The rest are those who do not want to be recruited either to the new PMCs or to the Russian defense ministry,” the resistance center said, citing its sources on the ground.
Earlier, CNN reported that Wagner fighters are back in Ukraine, citing Ukrainian soldiers fighting around Bakhmut. Wagner’s Telegram channels have been quiet on Ukraine, currently posting news from Belarus, Niger, and Mali.
“I see nothing special in their return. Wagner is no longer a powerful force. Those who returned are far from being in a good fighting mood, as they know what to expect here,” Cherevatyi said. “Furthermore, they are now under the control of the Defense Ministry.
“They used to call themselves soldiers of fortune but now they are more like misfortune soldiers.”
KYIV — Ukraine on Tuesday pushed back against a New York Times investigation, which said evidence suggested that Kyiv accidentally bombed a local market in its own town of Kostiantynivka killing 15 people.
According to the New York Times‘ report published Monday, a combination of witnesses, findings in Kostyantynivka and open-source investigation of video footage and local anonymous Telegram channels indicated the September 6 attack was actually a tragic accident, caused by a Ukrainian BUK missile system firing toward Russian forces from the Ukrainian-controlled nearby town of Druzhkivka.
Ukrainian law enforcement, however, says the evidence they have about the strike points at another Russian war crime.
“The enemy hit this civilian object from the S-300 complex. This is evidenced, in particular, by the identified fragments of the rocket recovered at the scene of the tragedy,” Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) spokesman Artem Dehtiarenko told POLITICO.
“The investigators are also studying a number of other materials that indicate the involvement of the enemy in this shelling,” he added.
Ukrainian Army Strategic Communications Center said: “Currently, an official investigation is underway, until the completion of which it is worth refraining from speculation and conjecture. Because this is actively used by Russian propaganda.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, agreed.
“No doubt, the appearance of publications in foreign media with doubts about Russia’s involvement in the attack on Kostiantynivka entails the growth of conspiracy theories, and therefore requires examination and legal assessment by the investigative authorities,” Podolyak said.
He said Ukrainian society will receive answers about what exactly happened in Kostiantynivka — a front-line town in the Donetsk region — after Ukrainian investigators finish their job.
“We must not forget: It was Russia that launched the invasion of Ukraine and it is Russia that is responsible for bringing war to our country. Ukraine, on the other hand, conducts exclusively defense actions, defending itself and its territories,” Podolyak said.
In a statement, Nicole Taylor, managing director for external communications at the New York Times, said: “We stand by this report. Evidence analyzed by The New York Times and independent bomb-disposal experts suggests the strike on the market was caused by an errant Ukranian missile and appears to have been a tragic mishap. Ukrainian authorities said they are investigating the incident.”
KYIV — Ukraine on Thursday confirmed it wrecked a Russian submarine with British weapons, during a missile attack on the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.
The Russian cruise missile carrier — the Rostov-on-Don — was significantly damaged in the massive Ukrainian strike, as was Kremlin warship the Minsk.
A senior Ukrainian military official confirmed to POLITICO that Ukrainian pilots used the British cruise missile Storm Shadow for the attack.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine launched 10 cruise missiles on the Sevastopol shipyard on Wednesday, but only three hit their targets, damaging two military vessels. Unusually, on Thursday morning Ukraine’s army claimed the attack and said Russia would not be able to repair the ships in the near future.
“The large Russian landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov-on-Don, which were hit during the night attack in Sevastopol, most likely cannot be restored,” Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, said on Ukrainian TV. Russian Telegram channels confirmed the names and types of vessels.
Natalia Humeniuk of Ukraine’s Army Operational Command South added that the military ships were most likely damaged beyond repair for the Russians, as the only place to carry out repairs was the shipyard which was razed in the attack.
Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk hinted publicly that the Ukrainian Air Force was behind the Sevastopol attack and used British Storm Shadow missiles for the attack.
“While the occupiers are still recovering from a storm in Sevastopol, I would like to thank the pilots of the Air Force for their excellent combat work! To be continued … ” Oleshchuk said in a pointed statement.
The operation happened a few days after Ukraine seized control of four oil and gas drilling platforms in the Black Sea near the shores of Crimea and deactivated Russian radar monitoring all movement in that part of the sea.
“Ukrainian forces used a rare opportunity to target a submarine while it was on the surface of the sea. It was the first time air-to-air missiles were successfully used against a submarine,” Ukrainian military expert and former military officer Roman Svitan told POLITICO. He compared the significance of the operation to last year’s sinking of Moskva cruiser in the Black Sea: “I would say this is an even bigger success.”
Invading Russian forces have frequently launched cruise missiles against сities and towns in the west of Ukraine from submarines in the Black Sea, as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war continues.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised retaliation for a Russian missile attack on Saturday that killed seven people including a six-year-old girl.
The missile hit the city center of Chernihiv, 150 kilometers north of Kyiv. The attack was carried out on a religious Orthodox festival and injured 144 people, including 15 children, Zelenskyy said in a statement early Sunday morning.
“Our soldiers will respond to Russia for this terrorist attack,” Zelenskyy said. “Respond tangibly.”
Zelenskyy is on a mini-tour this weekend to shore up military supplies from allies so Ukraine can continue its counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion. The Ukrainian leader was in Sweden on Saturday for talks about Gripen fighter aircraft and CV90 combat vehicles.
On Sunday, he traveled to the Netherlands, which said on Friday that the U.S. had given its approval for Dutch and Danish deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv’s air force. Zelenskyy is meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a military air base in the southern city of Eindhoven, the AP reported.
Following the Chernihiv attack, Russia said it had thwarted a Ukrainian drone assault on Moscow and the surrounding region, the second such incident in two days as Kyiv presses ahead with a counteroffensive.
“The air defense forces on duty discovered an unmanned aerial vehicle flying over the territory of the Stupinsky district of the Moscow region in the direction of the city of Moscow,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. “The UAV was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed in a deserted area. There were no casualties or damage.”
KYIV — Ukraine’s long-range Beaver drones seem to be making successful kamikaze strikes in the heart of Moscow, but Serhiy Prytula is coy about how much he knows.
“We are not sure whether we are involved in this,” he says with a charming but inscrutable smile, when asked about these mysterious new weapons.
Prytula rose to fame — just like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — as an actor, TV star and comedian, but is now best known for his contribution to the war, running a foundation that acquires components, helps support domestic arms production and supplies front-line forces. Tracking down parts for drones has proved to be one of his fortes.
Whether or not Prytula played any role in finding parts for the Beaver, it has now joined the ranks of other homegrown creations such as the Shark, Leleka and Valkyrie.
From the outside, his foundation looks like any other nondescript five-story apartment block in the quiet side streets of Kyiv. Inside, it is a chaotic human hive of volunteers, preparing packages and dispatching deliveries to soldiers on the front. On August 9, the team packed 75 drones for military units. That’s barely a drop in the ocean, given the needs of Ukraine’s forces across a 1,000-kilometer front, but every extra eye in the sky can help save dozens of lives.
The crowd of young, energetic volunteers at Prytula’s headquarters epitomizes an important dimension of the war: Ukrainians are increasingly taking matters into their own hands when it comes to weapons supply. With the defense ministry and the traditional state arms sector widely criticized for inefficiency and tarnished by corruption scandals over past years, the country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines and to ramp up domestic production in the most hazardous of conditions. With arms-makers being prime targets for Russian cruise missiles, factories are spreading their manufacturing over numerous secret locations.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home both by scouring the global arms bazaar for hi-tech gizmos and by making more of their own heavy armor and shells is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader. Other Republican candidates have only heightened Ukrainians’ fears that the next U.S. president could sell out their young democracy to the Kremlin.
In addition to the aerial drones, there have been other homegrown success stories — Ukrainian-made armored vehicles are on the front lines beside U.S. Bradleys and locally made maritime drones have hit Russian ships in the Black Sea.
Not that anyone reckons going it alone is an option. Ukraine cannot even begin to match the vast military expenditure of Russia — Kyiv is expected to spend €24 billion on defense over 2023, while Russia is probably splurging well over €80 billion — so foreign assistance will always prove vital to keeping Ukraine in the fight.
But that’s no reason to sit idly by. Almost an entire country has mobilized for national defense, and there are many ways in which entrepreneurial private suppliers are now proving nimbler than state behemoths and bureaucrats in getting soldiers what they need.
When it came to the key question — on every Ukrainian’s mind — of continued Western support, Prytula stressed the efforts that Ukrainians were making to defend themselves made it less likely that outside aid would diminish. “I am convinced that they will keep supplying us with weapons because the world sees the war efforts of Ukrainian society.”
Beaver blitz
The back story of the Beaver is a closely guarded secret.
Last year, Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Ihor Lachenkov announced he was aiming to collect 20 million hryvnia (about €500,000) to produce and buy five Beaver drones for military intelligence, and later posted pictures of himself hugging one. Since then drones that looked like Beavers have hammered Russian oil depots and other military targets deep inside Russian territory and even hit Moscow’s business district. Officially, Ukraine is saying nothing about where this kit is coming from, and men such as Lachenkov and Prytula provide a useful smokescreen.
The country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines | Sergey Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Prytula in late July also showed off grinning pictures of himself walking past three Beaver drones on a landing strip, quipping ironically: “We have no idea what can fly to Moscow.”
Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Prytula’s foundation has raised $135 million, which has been used to buy more than 7,000 drones, 1,200 vehicles, over 17,000 communication devices and much more.
When asked about his role in getting the Beaver drones, Prytula diplomatically said a volunteer’s job is to buy what the military needs and hand it over. “But it is not always necessary to talk about it. We honestly always say that we have nothing to do with it. When we see oil bases are exploding somewhere in Russia, or that there are some attacks on military facilities, we are glad that our army has learned to take out the enemy outside the country,” Prytula said.
Indeed, Prytula’s volunteers play a key middleman role in acquiring components more quickly than the state bureaucracy can.
China is a key part of the puzzle as the Ukrainian defense ministry cannot buy Chinese-made civilian drones directly. Shenzhen-based drone maker DJI no longer openly sells to Russia or to Ukraine, so the key trick is to acquire their wares quickly from third countries, or pick up parts and components internationally that can be assembled by Ukrainian technicians. There is a boom in small Ukrainian arms producers, with more than 100 companies active in the field.
“For the Russians, it was always easier to get [the Chinese products] in the never-ending race. So, when I hear Ukrainians managed to snatch up 10,000 components for … drones from Russians, I am happy,” Prytula said, sitting in his office, beside a giant wooden map of Ukraine.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“The defense ministry also can’t buy [drones] that are not in serial production yet. But we can, and the producers can reinvest the money to increase the number, if soldiers’ feedback from the front was good,” Prytula continued. “So, by donating money people are not only helping the army, but also stimulating domestic military production.”
The game-changing role of drone producers has also made them a target. Over the weekend, Russia attacked a theater in the center of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, where drone producers and volunteers had organized a closed meeting with the help of the local military administration. Most of them managed to escape to shelter but people walking around the theater on the central square did not, with seven killed and 129 injured.
Bringing it all back home
While almost everyone now wants to get involved in the defense business, that wasn’t always the case. Just as Russia was building up its military from 1991 to 2014, Ukraine neglected its own arms factories. In the wild years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, illegal networks smuggled out arms. While the country remained a heavyweight military producer, it focused on export earnings rather than tailoring weapons for Ukraine’s own forsaken troops.
“No one predicted any military conflicts either with Russia or other countries,” Maksym Polyvianyi, acting director of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, told POLITICO. “In a way, Russia’s 2014 invasion boosted our defense industry. Dozens of defense companies appeared and started the modernization of Ukrainian armory and the army.”
Still, the old scourge of corruption held the country back, even after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 forced another change, however, accelerating diversification from the state industrial complex. “As of 2022, Ukrainian armed forces buy up to 70 percent of defense products from private military companies,” Polyvianyi said.
Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
With the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s defense producers became primary targets for Russian missiles. Many were bombed. But others managed to relocate to western Ukraine and spread out production.
“You have to be creative to survive nowadays. Two months after the start of the invasion, we resumed our work,” Vladislav Belbas, director general of Ukrainian Armor, told POLITICO. Since 2018, Ukrainian Armor produced the Varta and Novator armored vehicles, as well as 60mm, 82mm, and 120 mm-caliber mortars for the army. “We recently restarted production even though we’ve lost an important components contractor. It is now located on the territory controlled by Russia.”
Secrecy is also crucial. “We do everything to protect our staff, hide information about our production whereabouts. We move and test equipment at night, when it is more difficult to track us. We try not to concentrate equipment in one place,” Belbas said.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support. “In seven months of 2023, we made 10 times more artillery and mortar ammo than in the entire 2022. But we are still very far from what we need,” he told POLITICO. “Today we have a war of such a scale that the entire capacity of the free world is not enough to support our consumption. We definitely cannot do this without help.”
Ministry malaise
The defense ministry — the main supplier of weapons, food, uniforms and other necessities — is struggling to shake off a reputation for graft and inefficiency.
In a high-profile profiteering scandal earlier this year, it transpired the ministry had paid absurdly inflated prices for soldiers’ rations to a contractor. The ministry denies violations, but keeps hiding behind military secrecy.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Other more recent scandals and procurement hiccups have focused on the ministry’s failure to secure delivery of everything it paid for. In private, Ukrainian officials admit the defense ministry is not up to scratch in supplying the army, and some Ukrainian lawmakers openly criticize the minister, Oleksii Reznikov, over his record on procurement.
The Ukrainian government has found alternative ways to cover some of the needs of the Ukrainian army, with the digital transformation ministry engaging in drone supplies, using state donations platform UNITED 24, and liberalizing customs and production rules for drones in Ukraine.
“President Zelenskyy took domestic defense production under personal control,” Kamyshin said.
Prytula, the founder of the foundation, said it was hard to judge the defense ministry during war. “They are quite successful when it comes to accumulating help in the international arena, but have some troubles at home. I think the defense ministry is doing what it can in terms of its responsibility. But with such a war it is never enough,” he said.
But Polyvianyi noted that’s where volunteers were coming into their own as parallel supply lines, filling the gaps left by the ministry. “The task of the state today is to provide heavy equipment. Without help, the state cannot provide all the needs of each army unit. Charitable foundations work in close connection with the ministry of defense and other structures.”
That’s a partnership in which Prytula is one of the most important players. But he is among the first to admit that all of Ukraine’s Herculean efforts at home will amount to nothing without the support of the international coalition.
“So it is hard to imagine we can win if we’re left on our own. As in the war of two formerly Soviet armies, the one with more people and weapons will win. Only better technology can help change the situation,” Prytula said. “It will be very difficult for us to fight alone with such a huge monster. But the civilized world has two options: to help us restore our 1991 borders, or to throw away all claims of shared values and just watch us bleed.”
Madrid and London do not look kindly on the American decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine.
The Biden administration announced on Friday that the weapons will be included in the U.S.’s next $800 million arms package to Kyiv — a decision that has raised humanitarian concerns.
A cluster bomb is a weapon engineered to scatter submunitions (or “bomblets”) over a wide area, potentially risking civilian collateral damage. Washington is not party to the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions, endorsed by more than 100 countries, including the U.K. and Spain, and banning their use. Neither are Russia and Ukraine.
“It is important to note that the Russian Federation has been indiscriminately using cluster munitions from day 1 of the unprovoked large-scale aggression,” tweeted Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov after the U.S. announcement. He committed to use the weapons with caution.
But the “five principles” Kyiv is pledging to abide by failed to convince some European allies.
“Spain, based on the firm commitment it has with Ukraine, also has a firm commitment that certain weapons and bombs cannot be delivered under any circumstances,” Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told reporters on Saturday. “No to cluster bombs and yes to the legitimate defense of Ukraine, which we understand should not be carried out with cluster bombs,” she said.
The U.K. is determined to honor this commitment too, as a “signatory to a convention which prohibits the production or use of cluster munitions and discourages their use,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Saturday.
“We will continue to do our part to support Ukraine against Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion, but we’ve done that by providing heavy battle tanks and most recently long-range weapons, and hopefully all countries can continue to support Ukraine,” Sunak said.
Sunak is due to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden in London on Monday, ahead of a NATO summit starting Tuesday in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
The Russian regions of Belgorod and Kursk came under fire from across the Ukrainian border in the early hours of Wednesday, according to local governors.
Both officials blamed Ukraine for the attack — claims which have not been independently verified.
Statements from the regions’ governors say one woman was injured in the attack, which targeted the town of Valuyki in Belgorod and the village of Tyotkino in Kursk.
Belgorod’s Governor Viacheslav Gladkov said Valuyki was shelled for more than an hour, and that Russian air defenses shot down three targets and one drone. Another 12 shells from Grad multiple rocket launcher systems (MLRs) were fired at a residential area, according to Gladkov. Eight buildings and a powerline were damaged, and a woman suffered shrapnel injuries.
Kursk’s Governor Roman Starovoit said 12 shells were fired at Tyotkino, damaging a school.
In the last few months, Russian regions on the border with Ukraine and even further east have come under frequent shelling and drone attacks.
Russia claims that Ukraine attacked Moscow with at least five drones on Tuesday. Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for such attacks. Following Tuesday’s events, Andriy Cherniak, a representative of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence, told POLITICO that such attacks “are the consequences of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine.”
Ukrainian forces recaptured the village of Piatykhatky in the southern Zaporizhzhia region on Sunday, a local occupying Russian official said.
This is one of Ukraine’s first wins on that front since the start earlier this month of the counteroffensive against Russia’s unlawful invasion of the country.
“The enemy’s ‘wave-like’ offensives yielded results, despite enormous losses,” said Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov on his Telegram channel, Reuters reported.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said on Sunday that “heavy fighting has continued, with the most intense combat focused in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, western Donetsk Oblast, and around Bakhmut,” the devastated town that was captured by Moscow last month. The ministry added that in all these areas, Ukraine “has made small advances,” but that “Russian forces often conduct relatively effective defensive operations.”
“Both sides are suffering high casualties, with Russian losses likely the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March,” the U.K. ministry said.
The Ukrainian military also said on Sunday that it had destroyed a “significant” ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk in the southern region of Kherson.
Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said “our armed forces dealt a good blow in the morning — and a very loud one — in the village of Rykove, Henichesk district, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region.” He added that “there was a very significant ammunition depot. It was destroyed,” Reuters reported.
POLITICO could not independently verify the information.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian armed forces launched a counteroffensive to try to regain control of occupied territories in the south and east of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin predicted on Friday that Ukraine had “no chance” of success in this endeavor.
Just as Kyiv’s counteroffensive was starting, the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine was blown up, forcing thousands to flee and restraining the pace of potential advancement by the Ukrainian military. Ukraine said on Sunday that the death toll has risen to 16 following the flooding, while Russian officials said 29 people died in territories controlled by Moscow, Reuters reported.
A New York Times investigation published Friday found evidence suggesting that Russian forces could be responsible for the bombing of the dam.
A delegation of African leaders led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with Putin in St. Petersburg on Saturday to try to spur peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Putin replied he was ready to review any peace plan proposal, but he poured cold water on the African initiative by listing numerous reasons why the proposed plan wasn’t meeting Russian demands. These include Russia’s right to recognize the independence of the Russian-occupied Donbas region — a red line for Kyiv.
Putin also reiterated his position that Ukraine and its Western allies had started the conflict long before Russia sent its armed forces over the border in February last year, something they deny.
“The special military operation against Ukraine, against the Kiev regime, was launched to ensure the safety of the people of Donbass … Now it is practically a war between Moscow and the collective West,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, state-controlled TASS news agency reported.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Monday that the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces could last “weeks, even months.”
“The counteroffensive has started. It’s going to be deployed for several weeks and even months. We are supporting it within the limits that we set ourselves,” Macron said alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda at the Elysée Palace.
Ukrainian forces have stepped up operations in the last couple of days and announced on Monday evening that they had liberated several villages in the south and the east of the country.
“We want [the counteroffensive] to be as victorious as possible so that we can then start a period of negotiations in good conditions,” he added.
The French, Polish and German leaders were meeting in Paris to discuss Ukraine’s request for security guarantees and a clear pathway to NATO membership ahead of a summit of the military alliance in July. However, on Monday evening it appeared that the leaders were sending different signals in a press conference that was held ahead of a working dinner in Paris.
While Duda called for Ukraine to be given “a clear signal, a clear perspective” on its future membership of NATO, Scholz was less forthcoming, noting that debates were “intense.”
“We have been discussing security guarantees since the start of the war … We have taken decisions to support Ukraine for as long as needed. This debate is intense between us, between Germany, France, and its U.S. partners,” Scholz said. “We will finalize [our position] when we have the results of our talks. But … it must be very concrete.”
Earlier this month, Macron called for Ukraine to be given “strong and tangible” security guarantees but stopped short of calling for full-fledged NATO membership.
Macron, Scholz and Duda all pledged that their countries would continue supporting Ukraine during the counteroffensive. Scholz told reporters that Germany would support Ukraine for “as long as necessary” and said his country had also set up systems to repair weapons during the current assault.
Macron meanwhile said that France had “intensified deliveries” of weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles.
KYIV — Ukraine is facing fierce Russian resistance in the south and east, as it plugs away with a counteroffensive to retake Russia-occupied territory.
The Ukrainian forces have been gaining ground, but fighting is taking place for every meter, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said in a statement.
“The enemy is doing everything to keep the captured positions. Russians actively use assault and army aviation, and conduct intense artillery fire,” Maliar said. “During the offensive, our troops encounter continuous minefields, which are combined with anti-tank ditches. All this is combined with constant counterattacks by enemy units on armored vehicles and the massive use of ATGMs and kamikaze drones.”
Over the past day, Ukrainian troops have advanced 250 meters in the direction of Bakhmut in the area of the Berkhiv Reservoir, and another 200 meters in the direction of Toretsk in the Donetsk region, Maliar said. In the Zaporizhzia region, Ukraine’s army took back up to one kilometer in the Berdiansk direction, making it a three square kilometer total advance in the region so far.
According to Maliar, battles are currently ongoing in several districts across south and east Ukraine.
Ukrainians and Russians have been reporting their gains in meters for months now. For example, in the nine-month battle for Bakhmut alone, Russia reportedly lost one soldier killed or wounded for every 48 centimeters of territory gained, the British defense ministry reported in recent days.
Outsize expectations
After last year’s rapid counteroffensive success in Kharkiv and Kherson, Ukraine is facing pressure to deliver equal or even better results.
A “successful Ukrainian counteroffensive could force Putin to negotiate an end of the war,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Washington on Monday.
However, people not directly involved in the war may have outsize expectations, Taras Chmut, a Ukrainian military analyst and head of the largest Ukrainian military volunteer foundation, called Come Back Alive, told POLITICO.
“This is not a Hollywood movie. Ukrainian forces are advancing with the speed they need this time. The same way as last year’s counteroffensive. People do not have information on how many failed attempts were made last year before the grand success everyone cherished,” Chmut said.
Despite the Ukrainians having to push through minefields under artillery and aerial bombings, they have still reported gaining some ground. Over the past week, Ukraine reported liberating seven villages in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. However, during the first weeks of the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian army has already lost at least 16 Bradleys and four Leopard tanks, open source intelligence project Oryx has reported. Ukrainian command did not comment on military equipment losses.
Targeted attacks
Meanwhile, Russian forces are having their command points and supply chains destroyed.
On Monday, Ukraine eliminated Russian army general Sergei Goriachev, Russian media reported, citing so-called Russian military bloggers. This information could not be independently verified. Russia’s defense ministry has not commented on Goriachev’s death.
Goriachev, who reportedly died in a missile strike in the Zaporizhzhia region, was a commander of the 35th Russian army. Russian independent media Istories reported Goriachev has become the 10th Russian general killed during the war.
Ivan Fedorov, exiled mayor of Melitopol — a city in the Russian-occupied part of Zaporizhzhia — said in a statement Tuesday that Ukrainian forces destroyed several bases of Russian soldiers in and around Melitopol.
Earlier Monday, Fedorov also reported that a Russian diesel locomotive was taken out in a local depot. “Russians have been using rails to transport fuel and weaponry to the war front. Every day their travel opportunities decrease,” Fedorov said.
Ukrainian mechanized brigades are redoubling their assaults around Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and neighboring Zaporizhzhia, but appear to be facing forceful Russian resistance with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy losses in the past five days.
As their counteroffensive ramps up, the Ukrainians say they’ve made advances of up to 1,600 meters around Bakhmut, the salt-mining town that Russian forces only recently overran after months of vicious close-combat warfare.
And Russian military bloggers with close ties to the country’s defense ministry have acknowledged the Ukrainians have had some success there. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner paramilitary group, bemoaned earlier this week a fallback of Russian troops in Bakhmut, dubbing it a “disgrace.”
But in Zaporizhzhia, the picture appears much more mixed. “Ukrainian forces conducted a limited, but still significant attack in the western Zaporizhzhia region on the night of June 7 to 8,” the Institute for the Study of War reported in its daily campaign update. “Russian forces apparently defended against this attack in a doctrinally sound manner and had reportedly regained their initial positions as of June 8.”
The Washington-based think tank said geolocated footage suggested that Ukrainian forces likely broke through a first line of defense between Robotyne and Verbove, about 15 kilometers southeast of Orikhiv, a strategic town. But the Russians appear to have pushed Ukrainian forces back, to restore their original positions. There is also fierce fighting reported around Velyka Novosilka, near the border of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
Ukrainian servicemen from the 24th Mechanized Brigade ‘King Danylo’ stand next to a BM-21 ‘Grad’ multiple rocket launcher system (MLRS) before firing in the direction of the frontline city of Bakhmut | Oleg Petrasyuk/EFE via EPA
Ukrainian officials are maintaining largely an operational silence on the counteroffensive — as they said they would ahead of the campaign to reclaim Russian-occupied territory. In a YouTube post Friday, the Ukrainian army said that “the adversary remains on the defensive.”
While not formally acknowledging the counteroffensive is in full swing, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly television address Thursday that he is “in constant communication with our military.”
He added: “Donetsk region — very tough battles. But there is a result, and I am grateful to everyone who ensures this result! Bakhmut — well done. Step by step.”
The fierce fighting was foreshadowed by weeks of Ukrainian attacks probing for weaknesses along the front lines. Speaking at a White House press conference Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “very optimistic” about how events are “evolving.”
‘Major tactical challenge’
Pro-Kremlin social media platforms posted videos of a long Ukrainian armored column coming under heavy attack Thursday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu briefed President Vladimir Putin on the battles, including a large assault by Ukraine’s 47th mechanized brigade, which he claimed was repelled in an hours-long battle in Zaporizhzhia.
Russian forces have prepared several defensive lines in Zaporizhzhia, including minefields, trenches, and “dragon-teeth” tank traps. Britain’s Royal United Services Institute noted in a recent report that Russian defenses could cause major problems for a Ukraine counteroffensive. “Engineering has proven to be one of the strongest branches of the Russian military,” the report said.
“The defenses now constructed, consisting of complex obstacles and field fortifications, will pose a major tactical challenge to Ukrainian offensive operations,” it added.
Zaporizhzhia was seen by seasoned military observers ahead of the counteroffensive as the most likely main target of the Ukrainians, as a successful counterattack would provide the biggest potential payoff — allowing Kyiv’s forces to push toward Berdiansk, Melitopol and Tokmak, with the aim of severing the so-called land bridge connecting mainland Russia and the southern Ukrainian territories that Russia occupies via the Crimean isthmus.
But Zelenskyy a week ago prepared Ukrainians for a tough, long slog ahead and sought to temper expectations, saying the battlefield struggle would take some time and come at a heavy cost.
Ukrainian forces advanced between 200 meters and 1.1 kilometers in various areas around the key battleground city of Bakhmut and are now on the offensive, according to military reports.
“In the direction of Bakhmut, our troops switched from defense to offensive,” Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said in a post on Telegram. “Over the past day, we have advanced from 200 to 1,100 meters in various sections of the Bakhmut direction.”
The news comes as multiple mediaoutlets reported Thursday that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive had begun, with Kyiv’s forces battling to retake territory occupied by Russia.
In its daily Ukraine intelligence update on Thursday, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said: “Amidst a highly complex operational picture, heavy fighting continues along multiple sectors of the front.”
It added: “In most areas Ukraine holds the initiative.”
Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a video released Thursday that Ukrainian forces had mounted an attack in the area of Zaporizhzhia, with 1,500 troops and 150 armored vehicles. Shoigu claimed that Russian forces had held off the Ukrainians.
Ukrainian officials have previously said they would not announce the beginning of the counteroffensive, so as not to ruin the element of surprise.
In his nightly address Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said cryptically: “I thank each of our warriors, all units, all brigades that continue to fight the occupiers. The Bakhmut direction, Avdiivka, all of Khortytsia, all of Tavria — great job!”
