Exclusives

Russia took the cages off its newest tanks. The new Arena-M shield bought them a few minutes.. The Russians' new Arena-M systems shoots tiny projectiles at incoming enemy drones. But it didn't save a rare Russian tank assault this week.

Washington taxes Russian goods at the same rate as Norway’s. It is a blanket forced-labor measure, not a Russia policy—and the sanctions that would hurt Moscow are still stuck in Congress.

Germany’s Zeitenwende stops at the Rosatom deal in Lingen. A licensed nuclear deal and a secret Baku channel surfaced in the same month. They are not connected. That is what should worry Berlin.

Russia just copied Ukraine’s cleverest drone hunter. A $500,000 missile is a costly way of taking down a $50,000 attack drone. So the Russians are arming old planes with cheap interceptor drones.

Ukraine’s defense minister explained how the country buys weapons—after he was sacked. A sacked minister spent 90 minutes explaining how Ukraine buys shells. He told more than the ministry had published in six months.

Russia will read shops’ cash registers to police food prices it can’t tame. Unable to bring down food prices, Russia is building a system to watch them instead.

Military

Poland offers to build Patriot air-defense missiles with the US and Ukraine, on its own soil The proposal comes as Ukraine seeks more Patriot interceptors to defend against increasingly frequent Russian ballistic missile attacks.

ATESH partisans report Ukrainian strike on Russian military fuel-tanker lot in occupied Luhansk The partisan movement ATESH says a Ukrainian strike hit five Russian military fuel trucks in occupied Luhansk before they could be sent to support a Russian brigade operating in the Donetsk direction.

From escorting to firing: Romania changes how it meets Russia's wandering drones The F-16 fighter downed the intruder near a village northeast of Bucharest. That same barrage threw Shahed and other drones plus five missiles at Ukraine, with border districts across from Romania among the targets.

Russia kills at least 10 in rare daytime ballistic strike on Kyiv defense industry event, as fears grow of larger attack to come The attack injured around 100 people, damaged 27 homes and 44 vehicles in Bucha district, and came amid a broader wave of Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine.

"From Simferopol to St. Petersburg": Ukraine's drone commander sums up one night of fire at Russia's online giant Same retailer, the fourth assault in a week. Ukraine has a clear new favorite target, and the Russian retailer's logistics network keeps ending up on fire.

One plant makes the seats that save Russian pilots. Ukraine's Flamingo missile torched it 1,200 km from home The Avitek factory is the country's sole serial producer of escape seats for every fighter and attack aircraft in the fleet.

Intelligence and technology

Intelligence: Russia's civil aviation deteriorates under sanctions, forcing it to dismantle even new aircraft to obtain spare parts

International

EU adopts largest sanctions package on Russia: 218 names and 100+ banks and crypto platforms among those on the list Banks, refineries, drone parts, crypto exchanges: the bloc's 21st sanctions package reaches further into Russia's economy than any round before it.

Zelenskyy meets team from Raytheon, US company that builds Patriots, and says Ukraine is now negotiating joint interceptor production President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Raytheon executives in Kyiv.

Ireland's PM brings $146 million aid package to Kyiv. He also shares findings on Russian-owned alumina plant in Ireland Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced €125 million in aid on a Kyiv visit, while saying an investigation found no definitive proof a Russian-owned Limerick plant supplied Russia's war machine.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine arrests two alleged Russian agents in Kyiv accused of activating Starlink terminals to support Russian missile and drone strikes According to the SBU, the suspects registered dozens of Starlink terminals that Russian intelligence planned to use for missile and drone attacks and to detect Ukraine's electronic warfare defenses.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Russia just copied Ukraine's cleverest drone hunter. A $500,000 missile is a costly way of taking down a $50,000 attack drone. So the Russians are arming old planes with cheap interceptor drones.

Ukraine's defense minister explained how the country buys weapons—after he was sacked. A sacked minister spent 90 minutes explaining how Ukraine buys shells. He told more than the ministry had published in six months.

Russia will read shops' cash registers to police food prices it can't tame. Unable to bring down food prices, Russia is building a system to watch them instead.

Crimea's political prisoners lost their lifeline—because keeping it open would have put more people in prison. The Crimean Solidarity movement backed families of the detained in the occupied peninsula, arranged legal defense, and circulated information that fell outside the official Russian narrative.

Team news

First order to Ukraine's new commanders: modernize force while holding it. Zelenskyy said Skybiuk will head the General Staff under new army chief Drapatyi.

Military

Two Russian oil sites burning north of Kazakhstan—Ukraine hit both in the dark. The twin strikes reached about 800 and more than 1,300 kilometers into Russia, hitting Ulyanovsk and Bashkortostan facilities.

ISW: Russia has taken just 81 km² of Ukraine this year—while claiming 2,226. The false picture is not just propaganda for the public but material that appears to reach the desk of Russia's leader, the think tank says.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's newest frontline motorcycle drives over anti-vehicle mines and works as power station. Ukraine codified the MUL.E, its first all-wheel-drive electric military motorcycle, whose detachable generator can charge FPV drones and power a whole unit in the field.

For first time, Russia merged two separate drone types onto one Mesh network. Ukraine already has answer. Russia has linked its Molniya drones to Gerbera relay drones over a MESH network for the first time, previously incompatible, the presidential adviser said.

Two companies that actually build Patriots describe Ukrainian production as "just started," while Russia is firing ballistic missiles every night. Two weeks after Trump promised Ukraine a Patriot license, Lockheed Martin and RTX say they are only in early talks and awaiting US government guidance.

Russia's Su-57 newest stealth fighter crashes near Moscow—and the suspects are Russian air defenders. A Russian military blogger pointed at a mobile air-defense group guarding the capital, though no official confirmed the cause.

France hasn't finalized terms or funding for the 16 Rafale jets promised to Kyiv. What a Paris summit unveiled two weeks ago remains, in the manufacturer's own words, a stated intention rather than a purchase contract.

International

"Putin droned Jesus Christ": Far-right Trump ally who opposed Ukraine aid says she was wrong after visiting Kyiv. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist close to Trump, visited the drone-damaged Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and told her followers Russia struck the heart of Christianity after years of pro-Kremlin rhetoric.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine finds uranium in six more Russian drones. Their radiation readings ran up to 80 times background. The Security Service found uranium in Geran-2 warheads striking Chernihiv Oblast and warned residents not to touch drone fragments, which can release radioactive dust.

Political and legal developments

"I'm not agreeing to any other position": Ukraine's fired defense minister says only return to his former job will help end army procurement corruption. Mykhailo Fedorov says he will accept no post Zelenskyy offers except defense minister, arguing only three roles truly shape the war and he will take only his old one.

New developments

Russia's construction on Crimea's only World Heritage site exposed 500,000 artifacts. UNESCO has just declared complex is in danger. UNESCO added Chersonesus Taurica in occupied Crimea to its List of World Heritage in Danger.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Crimea's political prisoners lost their lifeline—because keeping it open would have put more people in prison. The Crimean Solidarity movement backed families of the detained in the occupied peninsula, arranged legal defense, and circulated information that fell outside the official Russian narrative.

Some Ukrainian bomber drones aren't carrying bombs anymore. They're carrying robots.. Roads can be treacherous for Ukraine's explosive unmanned ground vehicles. So heavy bomber drones are now airlifting them into action.

Ukraine shut a quarter of Russia's grain exports—the world's wheat money now flows to Russia's competitors. Ukraine's Azov campaign built a paradox: the world pays more for wheat because Russia cannot ship it—and the windfall flows to Russia's competitors.

Russia offers farmers boiler fuel for tractors—Ukraine's strikes wiped out clean diesel. Russia's Agriculture Ministry is offering farms fuel 90 times dirtier than the diesel they bought last year—fuel that halves an engine's life.

Ukraine's army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers' pay, and one small number. The army chief apologized to Fedorov—and revealed only 2,000 soldiers signed the new contracts.

Military

Machines over men: Ukraine's new military leadership adopted fired minister's program. Acting Defense Minister Khmara, after meeting new army chief Drapatyi, says Ukraine will scale deep strikes and middle strikes to press Russia and save soldiers.

Ukraine's dismissed army chief departs with claim: he's handing his successor army on offensive, with 700 km² liberated this year. "I said it before, and I repeat it today: my work is war. Posts change, but this principle does not. In whatever status I am, I will serve Ukraine until Victory," he said.

Intelligence and technology

Deputy commander-in-chief says Ukraine's new laser can already kill FPVs. Ukraine could field laser air defense in two to three months, says Deputy Commander-in-Chief Andrii Lebedenko.

"We will answer their answer": Ukraine tests EW against jet Shaheds' MESH control. Ukraine is testing new electronic warfare against jet-powered Shaheds' MESH-network control channels, presidential adviser Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov said after a day at a test range.

International

Zelenskyy meets with NATO's US ambassador and general running Ukraine aid amid Patriot production plans. Zelenskyy met US NATO envoy Whitaker and NSATU commander Buzzard to push for more Patriot interceptors through PURL and to advance the Patriot license and a US-Ukraine Drone Deal.

"First time": Ukrainian troops joined Belgium's National Day parade in Brussels. Ukrainian soldiers marched at the head of the foreign units in Brussels on 21 July.

Political and legal developments

Zelenskyy fires both army chief and defense minister. Poll taken mid-protest shows Ukrainians only wanted one of them gone. A Rating Group poll taken during the protests found Ukrainians opposed the defense minister's firing 14 to 1, while backing the army chief's removal by a narrower margin.

From "flying BMP" to commander-in-chief: Ukraine's new army leader stopped Russia at Kryvyi Rih and held Vovchansk. Mykhailo Drapatyi, who once rammed a BMP through a militant barricade in Mariupol and later resigned over strikes on training centers, accepted command of Ukraine's army.

Bomb-maker working for Russia's military intelligence in Zaporizhzhia loses his freedom for 15 years. The court convicted him of high treason committed under martial law, the article of Ukraine's Criminal Code reserved for wartime collaboration with the enemy.

Former Ukraine's commander has words for Ukraine's new army chief: It will be "much harder than he imagines". But, he continued, "Mykhailo will certainly never be ashamed."

New developments

Russia's answer to Amazon has a new problem, and it is not delivery times—two more warehouses ablaze. Fires broke out at the company's Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk hubs overnight, days after two more of its warehouses burned near Moscow.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Some Ukrainian bomber drones aren’t carrying bombs anymore. They’re carrying robots.. Roads can be treacherous for Ukraine's explosive unmanned ground vehicles. So heavy bomber drones are now airlifting them into action.

Ukraine shut a quarter of Russia’s grain exports—the world’s wheat money now flows to Russia’s competitors. Ukraine’s Azov campaign built a paradox: the world pays more for wheat because Russia cannot ship it—and the windfall flows to Russia’s competitors.

Russia offers farmers boiler fuel for tractors—Ukraine’s strikes wiped out clean diesel. Russia’s Agriculture Ministry is offering farms fuel 90 times dirtier than the diesel they bought last year—fuel that halves an engine’s life.

Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number. The army chief apologized to Fedorov—and revealed only 2,000 soldiers signed the new contracts.

Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief. Organizers gave the government four days before nightly rallies begin.

Why Russia is importing gasoline made from its own oil. To keep its pumps supplied, Moscow has written India’s gasoline price into its own tax code.

Military

Breaking: Zelenskyy dismisses Ukraine's commander-in-chief after week of political turmoil Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Mykhailo Drapatyi will become Ukraine's new commander-in-chief, replacing Oleksandr Syrskyi after a week of political turmoil, military consultations, and nationwide protests.

Russian MiG-29 jet and the Pantsir air defense meant to protect it both hit in Ukrainian strike on Kursk airfield Ukraine's General Staff said Ukrainian forces also hit a maritime surveillance radar, logistics and ammunition depots, and several Russian drone control posts across occupied Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine's most feared kamikaze drone just showed up at UK arms fair—carrying missiles instead of being one The Liutyi flies one way into Russian refineries. This version comes back. Same airframe, opposite mission.

Whatever came down on Lipetsk overnight, it started with a missile warning and ended in flames by the steel mill Local Telegram channels had spread the missile-danger announcement hours before residents began filming blasts over the city.

Occupation official told Putin the Crimea highway is drone-proof—Russia's own milbloggers refuted him within hours One pro-war channel admitted traffic collapsed because drivers fear Ukrainian drones, not because Russian air defenses got better.

Everything that hits target gets used: Ukraine just proved 1940s Swedish weapon can kill modern jet-powered drone Ukraine used Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns for this operation.

Ukraine's new combat robot is silent, fits in minivan, and carries MK19 grenade launcher Ukraine codified the "Zmii Mini Strike," a recon-strike ground robot with a silent electric motor.

Drones found the FSB where it felt safest—a seaside resort deep in occupied Kherson Oblast The SBU's Alpha unit's strike set off a large blaze at a base ringed by checkpoints, guards and bunkers.

The Ukrainian combat divers who blew up a Russian bomber just built their own sea drone Ukraine's National Guard unveiled a naval drone designed by one of its own frontline units, reflecting a growing trend of soldiers building the weapons they fight with.

Russia keeps hitting Ukraine's couriers—so Ukraine went after Russia's Amazon: oil depot and warehouses hit near Moscow Drones struck logistics sites and an oil depot in Moscow Oblast's Sheremetyevo and Podolsk, days after Russian missiles battered Ukraine's Nova Poshta postal network.

Ten dead as Russia strikes a Turkish-owned bulk carrier off Odesa Rescuers pulled eight of the 18 people aboard from the burning ship overnight; the pilot brought on to steer it out was among the dead.

Ukrainian regiment that raised flag in Kostiantynivka says it's aware of reports that its soldiers were captured there These are the same troops who filmed a flag-raising after clearing the center.

Intelligence and technology

Hidden cameras in trees to guide Russian strikes: suspected FSB agent detained in Kharkiv Oblast Ukraine's Security Service says the suspect allegedly installed concealed cameras near military sites to help Russia monitor Ukrainian positions and direct missile, bomb, and drone attacks.

"Small service can cost life imprisonment": Ukraine warns against Russian Shahed-recording scheme Russia is recruiting Ukrainian traitors through social media to record FM signals broadcast by Shahed drones.

International

Oil exports from Europe's second-largest external supplier thrown into crisis by Black Sea tanker attacks Kazakhstan's primary Black Sea export route has been disrupted by recent tanker attacks, according to Bloomberg, threatening crude supplies from one of Europe's largest external oil suppliers.

Secret German-Russian meeting on Ukraine war took place in Baku without authorities' knowledge, Aliyev says Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev confirmed reports of undisclosed talks in Baku between former German and Russian officials on Russia's war against Ukraine, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz denied any government involvement, Bloomberg reports.

Britain's new PM Andy Burnham is opening with calls to Trump and Zelenskyy His first foreign calls go to Zelenskyy and Trump, with UK support for Ukraine "unwavering."

60-year-old Pole stood up for Ukrainian teenager on tram in Poznań. Three men beat him for it They turned on him and beat him so badly he suffered memory loss.

Humanitarian and social impact

First the pumps, then the harvest, now the commute—Russia's fuel shortage keeps finding new victims Public transport fares climb in 25 Russian regions. Fuel-sale restrictions officially cover more than 40 regions out of 83.

Russian strike on Kyiv Oblast destroyed $2.6 million in HIV supplies serving 300,000 people This year's needs are covered. Next year's stock is gone.

"Policy of ethnocide": Ukraine says Russia has settled 300,000 Russians in occupied Crimea, replacing Ukrainians driven out Russia is resettling its citizens into occupied Ukraine to replace the population.

Political and legal developments

Russia jails two more of its own warbloggers days apart—one for extortion, one for "justifying terrorism" Both had cheered the invasion for years, and both had recently started blaming Russia's leadership for a war they say is going wrong.

Read our previous daily review here.

On the fifth straight day of protests demanding his removal, Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi ended his silence—with a rare column apologizing to dismissed defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov and insisting he is fighting Russia, not the ministry—three days before the protesters’ 24 July deadline expires.

The column carries hard facts along with the apology: a month after new military contracts were unveiled, about 2,000 servicemen in a million-strong army have signed them, Syrskyi wrote, and money for soldiers’ pay was redirected to drone purchases, putting second-half salaries in question.

Since Fedorov’s dismissal in last week’s government reshuffle, protesters in more than a dozen cities have set the government an ultimatum: reinstate the minister and remove Syrskyi by 24 July, or rallies go nightly.

Explore further

Contents

• Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  1. An apology, and a defense
     • New chief of Ukraine’s drone corps sets 100-day plan to reshape the sky
  2. The numbers he chose to publish
  3. An acting minister, a running clock
  4. In Lviv, a crossed-out cheese
  5. Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  6. “They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle
  7. Ukraine’s government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?

Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief

Syrskyi is the last of the principals to speak. Fedorov thanked his supporters on 18 July, writing that changes will come and that “dialogue exists.” Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov urged calm on 20 July, saying the position of society “has been heard” and warning that the enemy watches every internal dispute, waiting for Ukrainians to fight each other. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has promised decisions. The commander-in-chief’s column is the first point-by-point answer to the accusations.

“Mykhailo Albertovych, forgive me. I can be harsh.”

Oleksandr Syrskyi

An apology, and a defense

Syrskyi wrote in Militarnyi that media work does not interest him and that it came as a surprise to learn he and the minister had a “conflict,” having seen their relations as working ones—hard questions, different positions. Then he addressed the former minister directly: “Mykhailo Albertovych, forgive me. I can be harsh.”

He asked both Fedorov and the public to focus on victory rather than personalities, warning that splitting into a “Fedorov camp” and a “Syrskyi camp” reduces questions of life and death to slogans—the greatest favor Ukrainians could do the enemy.

He also answered the charge he called the strangest: that he does not want to fight with drones. The Unmanned Systems Forces were created as a separate branch under his command, he wrote, and he personally proposed Robert Brovdi, the officer known as Madiar, to lead them. “It was an unpopular decision, and I took full responsibility for it,” Syrskyi wrote.

But drones alone do not prepare a battlefield, he argued: the army also needs artillery, mortars, air defense, and electronic warfare, and the ministry must buy everything, not only what is in fashion. As for the demand that he publish a war strategy, he wrote that whoever asks the commander to present his strategy publicly is asking him to present it to the enemy.

Explore further

New chief of Ukraine’s drone corps sets 100-day plan to reshape the sky

The numbers he chose to publish

Beyond the apology, Syrskyi turned to the reform the protesters credit Fedorov with—and published a number: a month after the new military contracts were presented, about 2,000 servicemen had signed them. At the same time, he had received a stream of demotivated soldiers who expected one set of terms and got another.

Those contracts are the centerpiece of the army reform Fedorov launched a month before his dismissal: for the first time, soldiers can sign for a fixed term—10 to 14 months in infantry-assault roles, 24 months in other combat and support positions—with a guaranteed deferral from mobilization when the contract ends, replacing service without an end date, Fedorov explained in June. Signing opened on 15 June.

The government resolution behind the contract “experiment” raises serious legal questions, Syrskyi added, contrasting it with pay rises in the Interior Ministry system, which went through budget amendments and a parliamentary vote.

An acting minister, a running clock

While the general wrote, the government moved. From 20 July, deputy defense minister Yevhenii Khmara—who previously led the Security Service’s Alpha special operations center and served as the agency’s acting head—officially took over as acting defense minister under a Cabinet order signed by new Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi, the Ukrainian outlet NV reported.

A permanent minister still requires a parliamentary vote, and MPs closed their July sittings, leaving both ministries vacant until the next scheduled plenary on 18 August, unless Parliament is recalled early.

Meanwhile, ZN.UA reported that the President’s Office is considering offering Fedorov a new role as coordinator of military technology development—a “miltech czar”—while discussions continue on a possible replacement for Syrskyi, citing its sources in Washington. Neither has been confirmed.

In Lviv, a crossed-out cheese

The streets did not wait for the column. Protesters came out for a fifth straight day in cities across Ukraine, including Lviv, where two of them—Yarema, 20, and Khrystyna, 21—answered Euromaidan Press’s question about why they were there by pointing at their cardboard sign: a wedge of cheese, crossed out. Syr—cheese—is the first syllable of the commander-in-chief’s surname.

“We are here because we see the possibility, the opportunity, and the desire to fight for our future, the future of our country,” Yarema told Euromaidan Press. “We have seen the changes that were happening. And we want these changes to continue happening, because these were good changes, first and foremost, for our military.”

“This is not the first rally,” he added. “But I hope it’s the last.”

Exclusives

Ukraine's protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief. Organizers gave the government four days before nightly rallies begin.

Why Russia is importing gasoline made from its own oil. To keep its pumps supplied, Moscow has written India's gasoline price into its own tax code.

Military

Ukrainian regiment that raised flag in Kostiantynivka says it's aware of reports that its soldiers were captured there. These are the same troops who filmed a flag-raising after clearing the center.

Drones found the FSB where it felt safest—a seaside resort deep in occupied Kherson Oblast. The SBU's Alpha unit's strike set off a large blaze at a base ringed by checkpoints, guards and bunkers.

Russia keeps hitting Ukraine's couriers—so Ukraine went after Russia's Amazon: oil depot and warehouses hit near Moscow. Drones struck logistics sites and an oil depot in Moscow Oblast's Sheremetyevo and Podolsk, days after Russian missiles battered Ukraine's Nova Poshta postal network.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's new combat robot is silent, fits in minivan, and carries MK19 grenade launcher. Ukraine codified the "Zmii Mini Strike," a recon-strike ground robot with a silent electric motor.

The Ukrainian combat divers who blew up a Russian bomber just built their own sea drone. Ukraine's National Guard unveiled a naval drone designed by one of its own frontline units, reflecting a growing trend of soldiers building the weapons they fight with.

International

Britain's new PM Andy Burnham is opening with calls to Trump and Zelenskyy. His first foreign calls go to Zelenskyy and Trump, with UK support for Ukraine "unwavering."

Botswana warns its people about Russian job scams that end in the trenches against Ukraine. Officials say they keep getting distress calls from citizens already at the front, describing dangerous conditions they never signed up for.

Humanitarian and social impact

60-year-old Pole stood up for Ukrainian teenager on tram in Poznań. Three men beat him for it. They turned on him and beat him so badly he suffered memory loss.

"Policy of ethnocide": Ukraine says Russia has settled 300,000 Russians in occupied Crimea, replacing Ukrainians driven out. Russia is resettling its citizens into occupied Ukraine to replace the population.

Ten dead as Russia strikes a Turkish-owned bulk carrier off Odesa. Rescuers pulled eight of the 18 people aboard from the burning ship overnight; the pilot brought on to steer it out was among the dead.

Political and legal developments

"Small service can cost life imprisonment": Ukraine warns against Russian Shahed-recording scheme. Russia is recruiting Ukrainian traitors through social media to record FM signals broadcast by Shahed drones.

Russia jails two more of its own warbloggers days apart—one for extortion, one for "justifying terrorism". Both had cheered the invasion for years, and both had recently started blaming Russia's leadership for a war they say is going wrong.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Protesters demanding the return of dismissed defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov have set the government a deadline: reinstate him and remove Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi by 24 July, or they will begin open-ended nightly rallies. The demand came on the fourth straight day of protests that have spread across more than a dozen Ukrainian cities since his dismissal last week.

It is the second time in a year that Ukraine’s streets have set terms on one of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wartime decisions. Last summer, a week of rallies forced him to reverse a law that curbed the independence of the country’s anti-corruption agencies. This time, the target is the military command, and the movement has put a clock on a decision the president says he will not rush.

Protesters set a deadline

The movement’s coordinators set the ultimatum after gathering over the weekend. They called 20 July the decisive day to press their case, said they would wait until 24 July for the president and parliament to act, and warned that an indefinite protest—nightly rallies until the demands are met—would follow if they went unheard. The two conditions are unchanged: dismiss Syrskyi, and renominate Fedorov as defense minister.

Thousands returned for a fourth straight day on 19 July, filling squares in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and at least ten other cities, Ukrainian outlet NV reported. Some of the loudest chants were aimed at lawmakers on summer recess—“MPs, back to work,” “Recess is not the time.”

Explore further

“They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

Reinstating Fedorov is not the president’s decision alone. The defense minister is appointed by parliament on the president’s submission, and MPs closed their July sittings without filling the post, leaving both the defense and foreign ministries vacant until the next scheduled plenary on 18 August.

Under martial law, the Verkhovna Rada can convene at any time, so recalling it early is a political choice, not a legal hurdle—and the push for that runs inside parliament too, with the opposition European Solidarity faction of Petro Poroshenko demanding an extraordinary session to fill the vacant ministries.

It would not be the first recall of the summer. A year ago, with parliament likewise on recess, Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk convened an extraordinary session on 31 July that pushed that reversal through, 331 votes to none, under the same street protest and Western pressure.

The leverage is thinner now, though: last year, the anti-corruption agencies’ independence was a non-negotiable condition of the European Union’s 90-billion-euro ($97 billion) support package, giving Brussels a direct stake, while the command of the army carries no such external lever.

Zelenskyy consults commanders

The president has answered with consultations, not decisions. On 18 July, he said he had spoken at length with both Fedorov and Syrskyi, and that decisions on the army would be worked out.

The next day, he reported having met senior officers—Joint Forces commander Mykhailo Drapatyi, deputy General Staff chief Volodymyr Horbatiuk, and Air Assault Forces commander Oleh Apostol—for a review of the front and the country’s supply needs, naming air defense and the full delivery of drone-production contracts as the priorities. More talks with commanders were promised.

Explore further

As rumors swirl over Syrskyi’s future, Zelenskyy meets commanders and top general warns against political infighting

No successor to Syrskyi has been named—the gap the president cites as his reason to wait, and the reason no dismissal has come despite reports he is weighing one, conditional on finding a commander who can hold the 1,200-kilometer front.

A change at the top would meet the street’s most concrete demand. Whether that fixes the command dispute that pushed Fedorov out, or lets the president bank a win while the same problems remain, is what the 24 July deadline brings to a head.

Exclusives

Ukraine is trying to wreck Russia’s oil fleet without spilling its oil—the Black Sea can’t take another slick. Ukraine's countershipping campaign risks polluting the fragile Black Sea. Drone operators are trying to spill less oil.

Russian troops inch toward Lyman. Drones keep delaying the plan.. Fedorov's middle-strike drones are throttling the supply lines behind the Russian push. Whether they keep doing it without him is the question hanging over Sloviansk.

International monitors confirm Russia’s blockade of occupied Oleshky, where the living starve and the dead go unburied. Four months after Euromaidan Press first reported the siege, the UN, Human Rights Watch, ISW, and the OSCE have all confirmed it. An exiled official says 100 bodies lie unburied in the town's hospital basement.

“They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle. The entire government has been swapped, yet protests hit Kyiv and 16 more cities only in support of ex-Defense Minister Fedorov

Ukraine’s government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?. The official paper trail shows who decided first.

Military

Fires erupt at three Russian oil depots after Ukraine targets fuel supply chain overnight in Stavropol Krai. Ukraine confirmed strikes on Russian fuel infrastructure after drone attacks caused fires at oil depots in Russia's Stavropol Krai.

Ukrainian drones slash Kerch ferry crossing capacity by 75%, as daily strikes continue on Russian vessels and occupation energy infrastructure. Ukraine's drone forces reported strikes against Russian logistics and energy infrastructure, including the Kerch ferry crossing, Black Sea vessels, and power substations in occupied Crimea and eastern and southern Ukraine.

Russia launches record ballistic missile barrage on Kyiv, firing over 40 missiles in under an hour. Russia's overnight assault on Kyiv killed at least one person and injured at least 16.

Ukraine's Skelia Regiment says it pushed Russia out of Kostiantynivka — city Moscow claimed to have taken on 3 July. Ukraine's 425th Skelia Assault Regiment says it cleared Kostiantynivka and the city is under Ukrainian control.

Ukraine has netted over 1,000 kilometers of road. That's how completely drones reshaped front. Ukraine has built 1,066 km of anti-drone defenses along front lines.

"When karma works": Ukraine torched 188,000-square-meter warehouse of Russia's biggest online retailer after years of strikes on leading logistics company. A separate strike hit an oil depot at Noginsk.

Ukraine can now service its Polish Rosomak APCs without sending them out of country. Ukrainian repair troops completed Rosomak maintenance training in Poland.

Ukraine says it struck Russia's Svetlyak-class warship in Kerch. Ukraine's General Staff says its forces hit a Svetlyak-class patrol ship at Kerch, two tankers, and the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Yaroslavl over 16-17 July.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine says Russia may mobilize half million people this fall. Some of the mobilized may be thrown into battle within the first weeks.

Russia may have built flying jammer to hunt Ukraine's long-range drones, OSINT analysts say. Russia has built a new complex on an Mi-8 helicopter probably meant to jam the satellite navigation of Ukraine's long-range strike drones, Militarnyi says.

Ukraine's newest drone hunter doesn't chase its prey. It climbs above it. Ukraine codified the Tsyklop interceptor drone, which can climb higher than Russia's strike and reconnaissance UAVs. One variant has downed over 100 air targets.

When you can't get swarm through, you send one drone low and hand-flown. That's Russia's newest Shahed tactic. Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov says Russia is shifting from mass Shahed attacks to single, complex, manually-controlled strikes.

Ukraine gives its heavy bombers precision without single Western guidance kit. Ukraine codified FireFly, a domestic terminal-guidance module that lets heavy bomber drones drop munitions with 0.5-to-2-meter accuracy.

Ukraine contracted $8 billion in drones this year. In-stock ones reach units in nine days. It is twice the same period last year, with FPVs the largest share.

International

After France, Ukrainian troops will join parade in Brussels, home of NATO and EU, for first time. Ukrainian soldiers will take part in Belgium's National Day military parade in Brussels on 21 July, a week after marching in France's Bastille Day parade.

Vatican's top diplomat visits Russian strike site in Kyiv. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See's foreign minister, visited the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv that destroyed homes and killed civilians.

Pickup that can be replaced when lost is what hunted Ukrainian border regions need. Germany just sent 12. Kharkiv Oblast received 12 pickup trucks and two road rollers from Germany's Federal Agency for Technical Relief for emergency response, evacuation, and road repair.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian missile kills 16-year-old boy at Odesa recreation park. Two-year-old is among wounded. Russia struck Odesa Oblast on the evening of 18 July, killing a 16-year-old boy and wounding at least seven others.

"Hardest summer yet": Russia double-tapped Zaporizhzhia passenger train. Rail workers evacuated everyone in time, and no one was hurt.

Political and legal developments

As rumors swirl over Syrskyi's future, Zelenskyy meets commanders and top general warns against political infighting. Zelenskyy held another round of talks with senior commanders as speculation over Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi continued, while Air Assault Forces Commander Oleh Apostol urged the military to stay out of politics.

ZN: Zelenskyy may bring former defense minister back as "miltech czar" amid nationwide protests. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy reportedly reconsiders replacing army chief Syrskyi.

Russia leveled 13 hectares of homes in Vyshneve. It fired missiles, but Ukraine says depot shouldn't have been there, and made its first arrest. A Kyiv court is deciding pre-trial detention for Ruslan Kuchynskyi, an enterprise head suspected over the improper ammunition storage that killed people in Vyshneve.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusive

Russia's war is killing the Black Sea—so Ukraine is crippling its shadow fleet without spilling the oil. Ukraine's countershipping campaign risks polluting the fragile Black Sea. Drone operators are trying to spill less oil.

Russian troops inch toward Lyman. Drones keep delaying the plan.. Fedorov's middle-strike drones are throttling the supply lines behind the Russian push. Whether they keep doing it without him is the question hanging over Sloviansk.

International monitors confirm Russia's blockade of occupied Oleshky, where the living starve and the dead go unburied. Four months after Euromaidan Press first reported the siege, the UN, Human Rights Watch, ISW, and the OSCE have all confirmed it. An exiled official says 100 bodies lie unburied in the town's hospital basement.

"They removed the auditor, not the thieves": why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy's reshuffle. The entire government has been swapped, yet protests hit Kyiv and 16 more cities only in support of ex-Defense Minister Fedorov

Ukraine's government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?. The official paper trail shows who decided first.

Military

Ukraine says Russia may mobilize half million people this fall. Some of the mobilized may be thrown into battle within the first weeks.

"When karma works": Ukraine torched 188,000-square-meter warehouse of Russia's biggest online retailer after years of strikes on leading logistics company. A separate strike hit an oil depot at Noginsk.

Intelligence and technology

Russia may have built flying jammer to hunt Ukraine's long-range drones, OSINT analysts say. Russia has built a new complex on an Mi-8 helicopter probably meant to jam the satellite navigation of Ukraine's long-range strike drones, Militarnyi says.

Pickup that can be replaced when lost is what hunted Ukrainian border regions need. Germany just sent 12. Kharkiv Oblast received 12 pickup trucks and two road rollers from Germany's Federal Agency for Technical Relief for emergency response, evacuation, and road repair.

Ukraine's newest drone hunter doesn't chase its prey. It climbs above it. Ukraine codified the Tsyklop interceptor drone, which can climb higher than Russia's strike and reconnaissance UAVs. One variant has downed over 100 air targets.

When you can't get swarm through, you send one drone low and hand-flown. That's Russia's newest Shahed tactic. Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov says Russia is shifting from mass Shahed attacks to single, complex, manually-controlled strikes.

International

Vatican's top diplomat visits Russian strike site in Kyiv. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See's foreign minister, visited the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv that destroyed homes and killed civilians.

Humanitarian and social impact

"Hardest summer yet": Russia double-tapped Zaporizhzhia passenger train. Rail workers evacuated everyone in time, and no one was hurt.

Political and legal developments

ZN: Zelenskyy may bring former defense minister back as "miltech czar" amid nationwide protests. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy reportedly reconsiders replacing army chief Syrskyi.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusive

International monitors confirm Russia's blockade of occupied Oleshky, where the living starve and the dead go unburied. Four months after Euromaidan Press first reported the siege, the UN, Human Rights Watch, ISW, and the OSCE have all confirmed it. An exiled official says 100 bodies lie unburied in the town's hospital basement.

Ukraine swapped its whole Cabinet, kept the one general nobody wanted, and lost the minister everyone did. The prime minister nobody rallied for is out. So did the defense minister thousands.

Ukraine's government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?. The official paper trail shows who decided first.

Russia's port strikes leave Ukraine's grain with almost nowhere else to go. Russia's strikes have halted Ukraine's deepwater grain exports—and there's no way around the damage: one rail line carries almost all of it.

Ukraine is turning Crimea into an island. It just fired the minister who armed the effort. The same pattern that cost Zaluzhnyi his job in 2024—success, popularity, a Syrskyi clash, a possible rival.

Military

Ukraine says it struck Russia's Svetlyak-class warship in Kerch. Ukraine's General Staff says its forces hit a Svetlyak-class patrol ship at Kerch, two tankers, and the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Yaroslavl over 16-17 July.

Ukrainian combat divers destroyed Russian bomber at Crimea's Saky airbase as it prepared to strike. Two drones, one Su-24M, caught on the tarmac before takeoff. It was the fourth reported strike on Saky in a month.

Ukraine just hit its 159th Russian ship in 12 days—and the campaign has no end date. The drone chief promised the "shipfall" would run indefinitely.

Ukraine kills bomber inside Russia. Soviet Union stopped building them decades ago — so this one is gone for good. Ukraine's SBU says its drones flew 800 km to Engels airbase and destroyed a Tu-95 strategic bomber, tearing off its tail section.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine gives its heavy bombers precision without single Western guidance kit. Ukraine codified FireFly, a domestic terminal-guidance module that lets heavy bomber drones drop munitions with 0.5-to-2-meter accuracy.

Ukraine contracted $8 billion in drones this year. In-stock ones reach units in nine days. It is twice the same period last year, with FPVs the largest share.

Ukraine can now service its Polish Rosomak APCs without sending them out of country. Ukrainian repair troops completed Rosomak maintenance training in Poland.

Ukraine's private air defense has quadrupled since spring: businesses are now shooting down Shaheds over their own sites. 51 Ukrainian companies have now joined the experimental program letting private firms run air defense crews under Air Force command.

Russian recruit reaches the front. Thirty minutes later, the drones find him. The figure came from Ukrainian open-source reports. Now US intelligence says its own findings match—and Washington wants the technology behind it.

International

US Sen. Graham's Russia sanctions bill sat stalled for over a year—now the Senate has the votes to pass it. Lindsey Graham told colleagues he had the White House on board just hours before his sudden death.

Baltic nation boosts security at dam, gas storage facility due to Russian threat. Latvia's Prime Minister named a gas facility and the dam upstream of the capital as the sites now under heavier guard.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia leveled 13 hectares of homes in Vyshneve. It fired missiles, but Ukraine says depot shouldn't have been there, and made its first arrest. A Kyiv court is deciding pre-trial detention for Ruslan Kuchynskyi, an enterprise head suspected over the improper ammunition storage that killed people in Vyshneve.

Olena Arkhipova spent three years teaching people how to save lives. Russian strike killed her as she ran her children to shelter. Her three children survived.

Political and legal developments

Everyone expected Klymenko as Ukraine's next defense minister. Zelenskyy offers him different job amid mass protests across Ukraine. Zelenskyy offered outgoing Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko the post of NSDC secretary, days after Klymenko was widely reported as the frontrunner for defense minister.

New developments

"Bear Paw" amulet: Russians are paying sorcerers to enchant their cars into using less gas amid fuel crises, intelligence says. Ukraine's foreign intelligence says Russian magic practitioners are selling rituals, as drivers queue overnight for 10 liters.

In five days, Ukraine dismissed its prime minister, installed a new Cabinet, and removed the defense minister who built its drone war—and for the first time since last summer, thousands of Ukrainians filled the streets of 17 cities against a wartime decision of their own president. The prime minister nobody protested for is gone quietly. Thousands demanded the reformer stay. He is gone anyway.

What the week decided is who now governs Ukraine, and the question reaches past Kyiv into EU accession talks and the shape of postwar politics. Three forces claim the ground: the constitutional institutions on paper, the Office of the President in practice, and a society that has now twice in 12 months forced its leader to answer to the street.

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Contents

• Ukraine’s government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?
  1. Five days, one government
     • Ukraine’s deputy Air Force commander resigns the moment Fedorov loses the ministry
  2. The explanation the president gave
     • Fedorov breaks his silence: Ukraine’s army chief Syrskyi gave him an ultimatum—then blocked his reforms
  3. “It was about personal loyalty”
  4. The other trust system
  5. Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number
  6. Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  7. Ukraine’s government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?

Ukraine’s government reshuffle followed the letter of the Constitution. But did it follow its spirit?

Five days, one government

Late on 11 July, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled coming personnel changes on the diplomatic front. The next day, he set out the scope.

“Ukraine is changing its political strategy,” he wrote on Telegram, assigning each foreign-policy priority to “a specific person,” announcing that the Cabinet would be renewed, and thanking Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko for her work while offering her “a new significant direction in relations with a key partner”—wording widely read as the Washington ambassadorship.

On 14 July, Parliament voted 258 to accept Svyrydenko’s resignation, which under the Constitution brought down her entire Cabinet with her.

On 15 July, it emerged that Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov—the 35-year-old who built Ukraine’s drone ecosystem, and whose first months in the ministry produced an audit exposing $7.2 billion in defense overspending—would not be renominated.

In a parting post, he named three unfinished reforms: completing the ministry’s NATO-standard reorganization, moving all procurement to open tenders, and building a culture of accountability for decisions taken.

In the same accounting, he pointedly noted that Ukraine had tested a ballistic missile developed within the ministry’s area of responsibility on 14 July—the very day the government fell—with its accuracy maximized and its cost cut by 30%. “Symbolically,” he called the timing.

Serhii Sternenko, whose foundation delivered over 118,000 FPV drones to the army, resigned as a ministry adviser the same day, calling the state “further from victory.” By evening, the first rallies formed in Lviv.

On 16 July, Parliament appointed Naftogaz chief Serhii Koretskyi as prime minister with 289 votes, then approved his Cabinet as a package with 264 votes, leaving open the two seats the president alone nominates: defense and foreign affairs.

Much of the government stayed: Denys Shmyhal kept the energy portfolio as first deputy prime minister, and several deputy ministers moved up a chair.

Outside, “cardboard protests” spread to Kyiv and at least 16 other cities. Deputy Air Force commander Pavlo Yelizarov resigned in protest, warning that the firing and the blocking of Fedorov’s reforms “will cause numerous casualties and destruction of Ukraine.”

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Ukraine’s deputy Air Force commander resigns the moment Fedorov loses the ministry

That evening, Zelenskyy did two things at once. He told the crowds they were right to protest even in wartime—then pressed ahead anyway, passing over both Fedorov and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, his own reported first choice for defense, to name special-operations commander Yevhenii Khmara acting defense minister.

Klymenko did not stay at Interior either: the president moved him to run the National Security and Defense Council, and National Police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi took over Interior.

By 17 July, the demonstrations had entered a second day, and Ukraine had a defense minister whom Parliament had not confirmed.

The explanation the president gave

This time, Zelenskyy offered reasons. The reshuffle would refocus the government on energy resilience before another winter of Russian strikes and on EU accession—a logic under which Koretskyi, who ran Naftogaz through Russia’s campaign against the grid, is a defensible pick.

On Fedorov, the president pointed to a broken relationship between the Defense Ministry and the military command, said he could not choose between the minister and Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, and refused to assign the blame to either side alone.

“Together we win, and together we bear responsibility for things that cause confusion and public resonance,” he said at a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, adding that he still wanted Fedorov on the team.

The stated reasons leave the central question standing. In a documented conflict between a reforming minister and his commander-in-chief—a conflict Fedorov himself has now described in detail—the president resolved it by removing the minister mid-reform, not the commander. Nothing in the public account says why that was the choice.

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Fedorov breaks his silence: Ukraine’s army chief Syrskyi gave him an ultimatum—then blocked his reforms

“It was about personal loyalty”

Oleksiy Haran, professor of comparative politics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and research director at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, told Euromaidan Press the search for a policy rationale starts from the wrong end.

The problem is not this reshuffle, he argued, but where decisions get made: in the Office of the President, on Bankova Street—under Zelenskyy and, before his dismissal, under his chief of staff Andriy Yermak. “Definitely, it was about personal loyalty,” Haran said.

In his reading, this is a system Zelenskyy built and cannot imagine running any other way: the president “is not democratic in essence” and believes himself a “messianic leader”—a self-conception dented by early wartime failures, then restored by success.

Haran also punctured the “wholesale purge” framing that dominated the week’s commentary. Much of the Cabinet simply stayed or shuffled sideways. “They are just moving around,” he said. Zelenskyy speaks of a new political approach, Haran noted—“but what’s that approach about? I don’t see it.”

One appointment inside that Cabinet showed the deeper pattern. The Digital Transformation Ministry—the body that built the e-governance and digitized document app Diia and reorganized the state around it—appointed Oksana Ferchuk, the first person to lead it who was not part of Fedorov’s founding team.

As Ukrainska Pravda noted, the ministry’s reach had leaned less on its projects than on Fedorov’s political weight and his direct line to the president—a reach Fedorov himself credited to Zelenskyy’s backing.

There is a deeper reading: that inner-circle rule is the inheritance of Soviet institutional distrust and the lawless 1990s, when only personal networks could be relied on. Haran is skeptical of the tidy version.

Many Soviet citizens believed the system’s promises of justice, he noted, and Ukrainians’ distrust of state institutions is a long-run trend that predates Zelenskyy rather than a trait he personally embodies. What the war changed, he added, is that trust rose toward the army, the security services, and the anti-corruption bodies.

The other trust system

That is the half of the story that the protests made visible. Whatever its roots, personalized power is only one of Ukraine’s two working systems of trust—and this week they collided in the open.

Polling shows how differently the two are priced. In the latest national survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, conducted in May, Fedorov’s trust rating climbed to 50% from 38% in January, and his trust-minus-distrust balance now edges slightly ahead of the president’s own, KIIS polling shows.

The figures Ukrainians trust most are military commanders and volunteers; nearly every career politician on the list is distrusted by more people than trust them. Svyrydenko, the dismissed prime minister, was trusted by 27%—and her removal drew not a single placard.

Fedorov’s drew thousands. In Lviv, one cardboard sign read: “The audit showed 300 billion in theft. They removed the auditor, not the thieves.” The protesters were not demanding elections or the president’s resignation. They were defending one official on one record—open procurement, a drone industry, an audit—against a decision made without them.

Olena Shandra, 18, stood among them at a downtown Kyiv demonstration on 17 July and told Euromaidan Press what the week looked like from the square. She read it as a contest between “Soviet Ukraine and the new one”—and, for now, the Soviet one winning through Fedorov’s removal, the minister she saw as the one person in government “really wanting to introduce something new.” She had marched last July, too, against the law targeting the anti-corruption agencies.

Yet she drew a hard line at where the anger should stop: the president “has overstayed,” she said, but toppling him now would be “senseless and bad for Ukraine, because it plays into the hands of our main enemy—the one outside, waiting for exactly that moment.”

It is the same civic reflex that, last July, combined with a freeze on EU aid, forced Zelenskyy to reverse a law stripping the anti-corruption agencies of their independence within days.

The president has acknowledged the crowds’ right to stand there. He has not, so far, moved for them. Ukraine ends the week with a prime minister chosen for the winter, an acting defense minister awaiting a confirmation vote, a reform program running without its architects—and, on the squares of 17 cities, a piece of cardboard that reads “Results take time.”

Ukraine completed a wholesale government reshuffle in just four days, with every constitutional requirement observed—formally. But according to a leading Ukrainian constitutional expert, the sequence of events tells a different story.

But according to a leading Ukrainian constitutional expert, the sequence of events tells a different story. Instead of the parliament choosing a prime minister and the president acting on that decision, Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to settle the outcome first, leaving parliament to ratify what had already been decided.

“Politically, however, it looked as though the decision had already been made by the Presidential Office,” says Andrii Biletskyi, a lawyer and criminologist who serves as administrative director of the Anti-Corruption Research and Education Centre (ACREC) at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

It raises questions about transparency, constitutional practice, and the growing concentration of power in wartime Ukraine. And it could very well damage Ukraine’s international reputation.

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Contents

• “They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle
  1. The sequence ran backward
  2. A parliament that confirms rather than chooses
     • Zelenskyy defends the right to protest and hands defense to his strike-war chief
  3. What martial law allows
  4. What the EU can and cannot do
  5. Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number
  6. Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  7. “They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

“They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

The sequence ran backward

On 12 July, Zelenskyy announced the government “reset”, and the same day, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko confirmed that she would step down. Parliament voted her out on 14 July, dissolving the entire Cabinet with her. On 15 July, the president told journalists that Serhii Koretskyi was “surely the most prepared candidate for the post of prime minister of Ukraine.”

The formal submission reached parliament the same day, registered as Draft Resolution No. 15414, its subject of legislative initiative listed as the President of Ukraine.

“Formally, the constitutional procedure was followed,” says Biletskyi.

Under Article 114 of the Constitution, parliament appoints the prime minister on the president’s submission, which should rest on a proposal from the parliamentary majority.

“However, in practice, the sequence of events looked different,” Biletskyi said in comments shared exclusively with Euromaidan Press. The president announced Svyrydenko’s departure—though formally her resignation should have been her own initiative—and publicly indicated Koretskyi’s name before the parliamentary majority had officially nominated him.

“Legally, parliament’s role was preserved because MPs still voted on the appointment. Politically, however, it looked as though the decision had already been made by the Presidential Office, while parliament simply confirmed it,” Biletskyi said.

A parliament that confirms rather than chooses

In Biletskyi’s assessment, “parliament’s role has become largely formal.” The Constitution assigns the Verkhovna Rada a central role in appointing and overseeing the government; in reality, he says, most key political decisions appear to be made by the president and the Presidential Office, with parliament approving them afterwards.

The war explains part of the concentration of power in the executive. Still, “the system of checks and balances works best when parliament acts independently rather than simply endorsing decisions that have already been made elsewhere.”

The pattern continued past the vote. Hours after the new Cabinet was approved on 16 July, Zelenskyy appointed Yevhenii Khmara, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), as acting defense minister, saying he would seek parliamentary approval afterward. Appointment first, ratification after.

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Zelenskyy defends the right to protest and hands defense to his strike-war chief

That appointment carries a legal problem of its own, Biletskyi notes: Khmara is a serving military officer—a major general—while Ukraine’s Law on National Security requires the defense minister and his deputies to be civilians. A serving soldier or security service officer must leave active service before he can be formally appointed.

Parliament, meanwhile, has dispersed until 18 August, MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak wrote on Telegram. Zelenskyy appeared to acknowledge the hurdle himself: “Once the necessary legal procedures have been observed, I will turn to parliamentarians for support of Yevhenii Khmara for the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine,” he said in a statement. Until then, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry is run by a man the law does not yet permit to run it.

What martial law allows

No rule bars replacing a government in wartime, Biletskyi says. Article 10 of Ukraine’s law on the legal regime of martial law states that the Cabinet’s powers may not be terminated while martial law is in force. But the provision reads together with Article 115 of the Constitution, which expressly allows the prime minister to resign, and provides that the resignation brings down the entire Cabinet.

The outgoing government must then keep working until the new one starts. That is what happened: Svyrydenko’s ministers stayed on in acting capacity until the 16 July votes.

What the EU can and cannot do

The EU cannot tell Ukraine who should be prime minister or how its government should be formed—“those are decisions for Ukraine’s constitutional institutions,” Biletskyi says. But Brussels does expect “candidate countries to have strong democratic institutions and an effective system of checks and balances.”

“When major political decisions are made without a clear public explanation, it raises questions about transparency and the concentration of power,” he said. The EU has few practical tools to intervene in what is essentially an internal political matter: “The biggest consequences are likely to be reputational. A government reshuffle without a convincing public explanation can undermine trust, both inside Ukraine and among its European partners.”

The explanation gap remains open. Zelenskyy tied the change to winter preparation and an updated political strategy; government sources told Suspilne the president was satisfied with Svyrydenko’s work and had no complaints. The dismissal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, folded into the same Cabinet dissolution, drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, and other cities.

Exclusives

Russia’s port strikes leave Ukraine’s grain with almost nowhere else to go. Russia’s strikes have halted Ukraine’s deepwater grain exports—and there’s no way around the damage: one rail line carries almost all of it.

Ukraine is turning Crimea into an island. It just fired the minister who armed the effort. The same pattern that cost Zaluzhnyi his job in 2024—success, popularity, a Syrskyi clash, a possible rival.

The Syrskyi feud was not it: why Ukraine really dropped its drone-war minister. As crowds fill the streets in cities across Ukraine to support the forced-out minister, a deputy air force commander says he joined in 2022 to win the war, not to watch reforms stall.

Russia bet 50 vehicles that the drones would miss. The drones did not miss.. Russian commanders had banned their own vehicles from these roads, knowing what the drones do to them. Then they lined up 50 and sent them anyway.

Russia’s fuel crisis has moved from the pump to the harvest.

Military

Ukraine is deliberately building the fragmented fighter fleet every air force is trained to avoid. Militaries standardize to survive the logistics. Ukraine is doing the opposite, and there's a reason.

Ukraine reportedly strikes Russian airbase used to attack its cities, using a drone similar to the Russian Shahed. A reported overnight drone strike sparked a fire at Russia's Engels-2 airbase, home to the strategic bombers that regularly launch cruise missile attacks on Ukraine.

UK fast-tracks new ballistic missile for Ukraine with "pared-down" design. The UK's Project Nightfall will reportedly trade range and warhead size for faster development, as London seeks to arm Ukraine while expanding Europe's defense industry.

Ukraine's spy service and navy team up to strike two Russian crude tankers in the Black Sea. The "Mamai" naval drones destroyed vessels the SBU calls legitimate targets and working parts of Russia's war machine.

Ukraine hit 147 Russian shadow-fleet ships in 10 days. Now Moscow is pulling its best drone unit off the front to guard the tankers, partisans say. Rubicon built its reputation hunting Ukrainian logistics near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. A partisan network says it's being sent to sea instead.

Ukraine's 412th Nemesis brigade destroyed rare Russian Zemledeliye system with FPV drones. Russia can scatter a minefield from 15 kilometers out. Ukraine takes out one of the machines that does it.

Intelligence and technology

You can't jam what you can't identify: Ukraine just fielded its first portable drone detector. Ukraine has gone the whole war without a portable, mass-produced drone-signature detector, while nearly every Russian soldier carries a Chinese "Bulat".

Brussels let Ukraine spend EU defense funds on Chinese drone components. The bloc does not turn out these parts in the volumes a front-line drone war burns through, so Kyiv looked east.

20,000 confirmed hits make General Cherry Ukraine's top FPV drone maker. Ukraine's combat-driven drone market crowned General Cherry its top FPV manufacturer in June after more than 20,000 verified target hits.

International

1,500 British and French troops are heading to Poland in September—the first physical test of Europe's plan to guarantee Ukraine's security. The Coalition of the Willing will hold its first joint military exercise in Poland this September, moving the European-led initiative for Ukraine's security from political pledges toward operational planning.

One Greek company keeps Russia's Arctic gas moving—and Athens won't let the EU touch it. Dynagas has carried more than 10 million tons of Russian LNG since 2025 across 144 voyages.

A nationwide bomb-shelter overhaul is underway in Belarus as Moscow pushes Minsk toward its war against Ukraine. Belpol documented shelter modernization at government offices, telecom sites, factories, utilities, and the National Bank, framing it as another stage of Minsk's war readiness.

A month's worth of Russia's oil exports is stuck at sea—135 million barrels loaded but not delivered. Bloomberg's vessel-tracking and price data put the four-week value of Russia's seaborne crude exports back near $1.7 billion, down from a weekly spike near $2.5 billion on the chart earlier this year.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine repatriates 501 bodies Russia says are Ukrainian service members. The latest humanitarian operation returned 501 bodies from Russia to Ukraine, where forensic specialists will work to establish their identities and prepare them for return to their families.

"Cardboard" protests against Zelenskyy's firing of Fedorov erupt across Ukraine. The rallies were timed to the parliament session set to seal a wider government reshuffle.

From Russia's contract to death in about a month: Cameroon student and 23-year-old were found dead in Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence identified two Cameroonians killed on the front weeks after signing Russian army contracts. HUR puts Cameroon's war dead at 106.

Political and legal developments

Zelenskyy defends the right to protest and hands defense to his strike-war chief. He passed over the expected frontrunner and gave the job to his special operations chief, the man behind Ukraine's long-range strikes.

Fedorov breaks his silence: Ukraine's army chief Syrskyi gave him an ultimatum—then blocked his reforms. He confirmed the feud with Oleksandr Syrskyi drove the dismissal, at a briefing hours before the vote.

Ukraine's deputy Air Force commander resigns the moment Fedorov loses the ministry. Pavlo Yelizarov, the No. 2 in the Air Force since January, made the departing minister's removal the sole reason for handing in his report.

"Symbolically," says Ukraine's departing defense minister: New ballistic missile was tested on day government resigned. On his way out, Fedorov said Ukraine ran a successful ballistic missile test on 14 July, developed in the Defense Ministry's zone of responsibility.

"Our state became further from victory": Ukraine's top volunteer, whose fund bought 286,000 FPV Drones, just lost his defense post. Serhii Sternenko, whose foundation delivered 118,000 FPV drones to the front, is out as defense adviser after Fedorov's exit.

Ukraine's reformist defense minister is out after six months. Earlier, his audit exposed $7.2 billion in defense overspending. Mykhailo Fedorov, the drone-warfare architect who became Ukraine's youngest defense minister, is leaving after six months, having opened his tenure with an audit that found $7.2 billion in overspending.

Russia built Crimea's power grid on sanctioned Siemens turbines. Ukraine has struck cooling system of one in Balaklava. Ukraine's Special Operations Forces struck Sevastopol's Balaklava power plant, damaging the cooling system of a Siemens turbine that sanctions leave unrepairable.

Read our previous daily review here.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has removed the defense minister who built Ukraine’s drone war and pushed Elon Musk to cut Russia off from Starlink—Mykhailo Fedorov, a minister whom Ukrainians, in the last national poll, trust more than the president himself. Analysts and anti-corruption campaigners say the entire government was dissolved to make his removal possible without a scandalous vote.

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Contents

• Ukraine’s reformist defense Minister is out after six months. Earlier, his audit exposed .2 billion in defense overspending
  1. A resignation from inside the air force
     • Ukraine’s deputy Air Force commander resigns the moment Fedorov loses the ministry
  2. The minister who outpolled the president
  3. A former minister’s harsher read
  4. Doubts about the successor
  5. Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number
  6. Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  7. “They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

Ukraine’s reformist defense Minister is out after six months. Earlier, his audit exposed .2 billion in defense overspending

The move has set off a sharp public backlash, which commentators are comparing to last summer’s anti-corruption protests. A senior air force commander resigned, and cardboard-sign crowds returned to the streets of Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and other cities on the morning of 16 July, hours after Russian ballistic missiles killed two people in Kyiv overnight. Parliament is expected to vote on Zelenskyy’s nominee, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, later in the day.

The crowds gathered at the same Kyiv square, beside the Ivan Franko Theatre and in sight of the Office of the President, where they massed a year ago to defend the country’s anti-corruption agencies. This standoff forced Zelenskyy to reverse course within nine days. By mid-morning, the protests had spread to more cities—Ivano-Frankivsk, Kremenchuk, Poltava, Mykolaiv—with crowds in Kyiv chanting “Shame.”

A resignation from inside the air force

Pavlo Yelizarov, a deputy commander of the air force, announced his resignation in protest, saying he had joined the armed forces in 2022 to win the war, not to imitate activity, and warning that stalling Fedorov’s air-defense reforms would let more Russian missiles and drones through. He called the dismissal grave harm to the country’s defense but said he would stay in uniform.

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Ukraine’s deputy Air Force commander resigns the moment Fedorov loses the ministry

Serhii Sternenko, who advised the ministry on drones, also stepped down.

By the figures Fedorov published in his farewell message, the air force’s interception rate for attack drones rose from 83% to 91% during his six months, and for cruise missiles from 47% to 87%—gains he tied to after-action reviews of each mass Russian strike. His team also ran the Logistics Lockdown program, which is choking Russian resupply to occupied Crimea.

The minister who outpolled the president

Zelenskyy has cast the decision as a management problem. At a Servant of the People faction meeting on 15 July, he pointed to a running conflict between Fedorov and Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. He said Fedorov had failed to deliver mobilization reform, according to lawmakers who were there.

Olexiy Haran, professor of comparative politics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and research director at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, offered Euromaidan Press a different read.

The stated reason for dismissing Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko—the need for an energy specialist before winter—was unpersuasive, he said, since outgoing first deputy prime minister and energy minister Denys Shmyhal was already a high-level specialist in the field.

The more convincing explanation lay in Fedorov: dissolving the whole cabinet let Zelenskyy drop him without a targeted dismissal vote that would have drawn a scandal. Anti-corruption campaigner Daria Kaleniuk reached the same conclusion, telling the Kyiv Independent the entire government resignation was conceived to remove Fedorov.

The trigger, Haran said, may be Fedorov’s popularity. In a recent KIIS poll from May and early June, more Ukrainians trusted Fedorov than distrusted him by a margin of 29 points—wider than Zelenskyy’s 27, and beaten only by the Kharkiv mayor and the war’s most-trusted commanders, among them former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Zelenskyy, Haran said, may have come to see his defense minister as a rival, and he predicted the removal would only lift Fedorov’s standing.

A former minister’s harsher read

Former infrastructure minister Volodymyr Omelyan told Euromaidan Press that the reshuffle could be an attempt to strengthen the government before a hard winter—but only if real professionals are appointed and left to work free of the Office of the President, which he doubted would happen.

Zelenskyy’s overriding aim, Omelyan argued, is to consolidate the security services and sideline the opposition to hold power indefinitely, with the war effort, arming the military, and EU integration all ranked behind the private interests of a few people around him.

He dismissed a theory foreign analysts had raised with Euromaidan Press—that the change is meant to reset relations with Poland—as nonsense, saying it would take new presidents in both countries.

Doubts about the successor

Klymenko, tapped to replace him, brings his own controversy. Non-affiliated MP Liudmyla Buimister warned that handing him defense would endanger a key wartime ministry, saying he had failed outright as interior minister.

She blamed him for the chaotic “busification” mobilization drives—in which men are seized off the street into vans—that police, she said, first stood back from and then made worse, in remarks on Telegram.

Incoming prime minister Serhii Koretskyi defended the nominee, calling him a results-driven minister. The objection lands on the exact ground Zelenskyy used to justify the swap: he faulted Fedorov for failing on mobilization, and mobilization is the brief on which Buimister says Klymenko has already failed.

Whether the protests move Zelenskyy is the open question. Last summer, mass protests and a freeze on EU aid reversed a similar move in nine days. Haran expects it to be harder this time: a reversal would mean Zelenskyy openly readmitting Fedorov, and the president, he said, is stubborn in such moments.

Exclusives

Russia bet 50 vehicles that the drones would miss. The drones did not miss.. Russian commanders had banned their own vehicles from these roads, knowing what the drones do to them. Then they lined up 50 and sent them anyway.

Russia’s fuel crisis has moved from the pump to the harvest.

How Ukraine came to build more weapons than it can fund. Its top defense-industry chief just resigned after a deadly blast at one of his company’s depots.

Russia plans to build 120 Banderol missiles in month. Analyst who found it in 2025 says weapon is “nothing outstanding”. Russia plans to build 120 Banderol cruise missiles a month, but the factory hasn't hit the target, says Ukrainian military adviser Serhii Beskrestnov.

Military

Russia built Crimea’s power grid on sanctioned Siemens turbines. Ukraine has struck cooling system of one in Balaklava. Ukraine's Special Operations Forces struck Sevastopol's Balaklava power plant, damaging the cooling system of a Siemens turbine that sanctions leave unrepairable.

The Azov Sea wasn’t enough—Ukraine’s drones followed Russia’s oil fleet into the Black Sea. Six drone units opened the new phase together, from Magyar's Birds to the Raid regiment that has been burning ships for days.

This Ukrainian female soldier flies one of war’s heaviest drones. She turns down promotion twice to keep doing it. "Tsyhancha" went from FPV operator to heavy bomber pilot in the 125th Brigade.

Intelligence and technology

You can’t jam what you can’t identify: Ukraine just fielded its first portable drone detector. Ukraine has gone the whole war without a portable, mass-produced drone-signature detector, while nearly every Russian soldier carries a Chinese "Bulat".

20,000 confirmed hits make General Cherry Ukraine’s top FPV drone maker. Ukraine's combat-driven drone market crowned General Cherry its top FPV manufacturer in June after more than 20,000 verified target hits.

Ukraine’s Navy just showed the Barracuda sea drone leading a three-drone strike—no crew in the fight. Ukraine's Navy has demonstrated what increasingly looks like the next stage of naval drone warfare: multiple uncrewed platforms carrying out different combat roles within a single coordinated strike, without exposing sailors to enemy fire.

Russia’s Arctic bases sit near-naked as air defenses vanish to guard Moscow and refineries burning inland. Satellite images show S-300 and S-400 batteries gone from long-held sites near Rogachevo and the nuclear-submarine city of Severodvinsk, RFE/RL says.

International

Brussels let Ukraine spend EU defense funds on Chinese drone components. The bloc does not turn out these parts in the volumes a front-line drone war burns through, so Kyiv looked east.

Latvia logs 111 straight days of migrants pushed across from Belarus—and blames its support for Ukraine. Lithuania and Poland together absorbed barely a tenth of the roughly 9,100 attempts recorded across the bloc's Belarus frontier since January.

Ukraine opened its captured Russian arsenal to allies. Hundreds of applications came in within month.

Humanitarian and social impact

From Russia’s contract to death in about month: Cameroon student and 23-year-old were found dead in Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence identified two Cameroonians killed on the front weeks after signing Russian army contracts. HUR puts Cameroon's war dead at 106.

Russian drone tracked moving car on Kharkiv road and killed man driving it. A Molniya drone hit a Peugeot on the Zolochiv-Maksymivka road in Bohodukhiv raion. Prosecutors opened a war crimes investigation.

Political and legal developments

“Our state became further from victory”: Ukraine’s top volunteer, whose fund bought 286,000 FPV Drones, just lost his defense post. Serhii Sternenko, whose foundation delivered 118,000 FPV drones to the front, is out as defense adviser after Fedorov's exit.

Ukraine’s reformist defense Minister is out after six months. Earlier, his audit exposed $7.2 billion in defense overspending. Mykhailo Fedorov, the drone-warfare architect who became Ukraine's youngest defense minister, is leaving after six months, having opened his tenure with an audit that found $7.2 billion in overspending.

Russia fired its missile at ammo that was stored next to civilian homes. Now Ukraine’s top defense-industry chief is out. Herman Smetanin left Ukroboronprom days after a Russian strike on one of its ammo depots — stored next to homes in breach of the law — destroyed five streets in Vyshneve.

New developments

A nationwide bomb-shelter overhaul is underway in Belarus as Moscow pushes Minsk toward its war against Ukraine. Belpol documented shelter modernization at government offices, telecom sites, factories, utilities, and the National Bank, framing it as another stage of Minsk's war readiness.

A month’s worth of Russia’s oil exports is stuck at sea—135 million barrels loaded but not delivered. Bloomberg's vessel-tracking and price data put the four-week value of Russia's seaborne crude exports back near $1.7 billion, down from a weekly spike near $2.5 billion on the chart earlier this year.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine's premier listed a record year to the parliament that dismissed her. No one in Kyiv has said why. Her own farewell leaves out the name that would explain it.

Hungary swapped its pro-Russian prime minister. Yet it is still slowing Ukraine's path to the EU.. Hungary has allowed two stages of Ukraine's EU talks to open while holding up the other four. Péter Magyar is no Viktor Orbán, but years of anti-Ukraine politics might still make blocking Kyiv safer than helping it.

The US Army's former commander in Europe is "withholding applause" for Trump's Patriot pledge—and expects no interceptors before winter.. Ben Hodges is pretty certain Ukraine will build no Patriot interceptors for three to six months. Until then, Ukraine will remain dependent on allied supplies—amid a global interceptor shortage.

A $50 computer just flew Russia's newest jet drone into a Ukrainian grain ship—and jamming couldn't stop it. Russia's fast, highly autonomous Geran-4 one-way attack drone is the weapon of choice for strikes on Ukrainian grain ships.

Russia has the oil. It no longer has the gasoline—so Russians are learning to make their own. Ukraine's drone campaign has cut Russian refining to its lowest level since March 2005—and the diesel Russia can no longer sell is driving world fuel prices to multiyear highs.

Russia stalled bankruptcy reform for six years—then passed it in two days. Russian companies owe more than the country produces in a year, and a reform frozen since 2020 was cleared by parliament in two days.

Military

Ukraine sank Russian ship that shot at its sailors in 2018 with Sargan-3000 naval drone. The satellite image confirms the destruction of the Russian border patrol ship Izumrud at the mooring wall.

Consequences of own destruction: Russia is stripping canal it killed to fix Crimean substations Ukraine keeps hitting. ATESH says Russia has begun removing 10-40 MVA transformers from Northern Crimean Canal pumping stations, idle since Moscow destroyed the Kakhovka dam.

116 Russian ships in nine days: One big export tanker needs 12–15 small ones to fill it. Ukraine is burning the small ones. Three drone units carried out the latest overnight strikes under operation MoLoChKa, whose name reads like Ukrainian slang for dairy products.

A plant making 150 products from gasoline to polyethylene caught fire 1,300 km from the war zone—Ukraine hits two refineries overnight. Fires broke out at the Afipsky refinery's tank farm area, the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat complex, and, likely, the Rosneft-Opt depot next door, monitoring channels and Astra report.

Ukraine put armed robot on Russian-held ground. Naval drone was landing craft. Ukraine's 123rd Brigade delivered a ground robot to the Russian-held Kinburn Spit aboard an unmanned surface vessel and landed it to fight.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine kills Russian radars with drones, then strikes through gap. France flew both in one package on jet Ukraine gets in 2028. Dassault and Harmattan AI say a Rafale F4 controlled a drone carrying the new NAMIB system, which found a simulated enemy radar dozens of kilometers away.

Denmark sent Ukraine something essential that keeps F-16 parts airworthy.

Ukraine is building a flight school under fire—and the simulator delivery shows how fast. Scarce jets, contested skies, no fixed base that can stay hidden. Ukraine's answer: train pilots on Ukrainian soil, in equipment that moves.

Europe's answer to the Patriot costs $700,000 a shot—and no foreign government can switch it off. Ten nations joined the coalition. Ukraine has the missile. Germany has the seeker Ukraine still needs to sign for. Nobody has an intercept yet — and the clock says 12 months

Russia's ex-space chief calls for "systematic zeroing out" of the Starlink satellite constellation. Senator Dmitry Rogozin claims cutting Ukraine off from SpaceX's network would end the war within two to three weeks — and that Russia knows several ways to do it.

International

Ukrainian pilots opened the Bastille Day flypast from French fighter jets. Macron's last parade as president had no American aircraft and one deliberate message. Ukraine flew it

Hungary votes to remove Orbán-loyal president as Magyar dismantles Fidesz system. The constitutional amendment targets Tamás Sulyok and caps lawmakers' tenure at 12 years. Magyar's break with Orbán remains sharper at home than on Ukraine.

Two months in office, three blows to Ukraine: Bulgaria's premier stacks Coalition of the Willing exit on aid freeze and sanctions blocks. Since May, Radev has stopped state military aid, defended two prominent Russians from EU blacklists, and now removed Bulgaria from the group backing Kyiv against Russian aggression.

Warsaw refuses to lift its embargo on Ukrainian agricultural products. The new EU-Ukraine trade agreement should erase all unilateral restrictions from November, yet Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary hold on to their own bans.

Humanitarian and social impact

Polish man approached passerby in Łódź and hit him twice in head. Police say he took him for Ukrainian. Police in Łódź are searching for a man who fractured a passerby's nose and jaw after mistaking him for a Ukrainian.

Political and legal developments

Ukrainian new state award's second criterion contributes to security of all Europe. 271 MPs backed a new state award for services to Ukraine's EU accession, a day before the EU is due to open Ukraine's sixth negotiating cluster.

Ukraine votes to dismiss its PM. She hasn't accepted the exit job offered. Three sources say the outgoing premier is not considering the Washington posting used to justify her removal.

Olenivka officials and Taganrog jail land on EU sanctions list for abuse of Ukrainian prisoners. Brussels adopted the listings under two human-rights regimes, targeting the command chains of detention facilities in occupied Ukraine and inside Russia.

"Incredible legacy for him": Days after Graham's death, Trump says he's ready to move on his Russia sanctions bill. Trump supports the sanctions package the late Senator Lindsey Graham spent two years trying to pass. The Senate needs a new lead sponsor.

Ukraine's Supreme Court refused to lift Zelenskyy's sanctions on opposition leader. The Supreme Court rejected Poroshenko's challenge to sanctions that freeze his assets and strip his state awards. He says the judges were pressured.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Ukraine’s parliament dismissed Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko on 14 July, 258 votes to one, three days short of her first year in office. No official reason has been given—not by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and not by Svyrydenko, who used her last hour as premier to read parliament a list of what her government had achieved.

On 1 July, her Cabinet approved the rules that let partner countries buy Ukrainian weapons directly from the firms that make them. The first permit sent combat drones to the US military. Thirteen days later, parliament voted her out.

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Contents

• Ukraine clears its first-ever export of finished combat drones — and they went to the US
  1. The ledger
     • Ukraine votes to dismiss its PM. She hasn’t accepted the exit job offered
  2. The name that is not in the ledger
  3. Twice in one war, without a vote
  4. Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number
  5. Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  6. “They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

Ukraine clears its first-ever export of finished combat drones — and they went to the US

The ledger

“You also know that I love concrete results,” Svyrydenko said in her address to the parliament, and listed them: record defense funding, an electricity grid that survived the war’s hardest winter, $19.2 billion in international financing, negotiations opened on two European Union accession clusters, and the export mechanism. She thanked the president for his trust.

The defense number is not her arithmetic alone. Parliament raised security and defense spending by 1.56 trillion hryvnias ($35 billion) in June, lifting the 2026 total to a record 4.4 trillion hryvnias ($98 billion), of which 2.3 trillion ($51 billion) buys weapons and equipment. Most of that money rests on the €90 billion ($104.4 billion) EU loan her government negotiated.

Zelenskyy is satisfied with her work and has no complaints, government officials say.

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Ukraine votes to dismiss its PM. She hasn’t accepted the exit job offered

The name that is not in the ledger

Svyrydenko took office days before the largest corruption scandal of Zelenskyy’s presidency broke. The Midas case—a $100 million kickback scheme at state nuclear operator Energoatom—cost her two ministers and, in November, brought down Andrii Yermak, the head of the President’s Office, who resigned after investigators searched his home. He denies wrongdoing.

Svyrydenko had been Yermak’s deputy at the President’s Office in 2020–21 and was widely seen as his protégée when parliament made her premier. Her farewell does not mention Yermak, the scandal, or the two ministers she lost to it.

Orysia Lutsevych of Chatham House told RFE/RL that replacing her shows Ukrainians the president is “cleaning up the executive of Yermak’s influence.” Yevhen Mahda of the Institute of World Policy called the decision abrupt: a premier with no public complaints against her went to a meeting with the president and was told to resign.

Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent that Svyrydenko cut herself loose from Yermak the moment he fell—but that the public needs to see “de-Yermakization” continue, including through the replacement of the prime minister.

Twice in one war, without a vote

Ukraine has now replaced its government twice during the full-scale invasion, and no election has been held for either. Elections are suspended under martial law, and martial law also prohibits dismissing the Cabinet, a rule Kyiv treated as a gray area when Svyrydenko arrived, and treats the same way now.

The Cabinet now works in acting capacity, likely under First Vice Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal—the man Svyrydenko replaced a year ago. Parliament votes on a new premier on 16 July, with Naftogaz chief Serhii Koretskyi the front-runner.

Sources say Zelenskyy wants an energy figure in place before the next heating season. The Washington ambassadorship offered as her exit remains unaccepted. She says she will announce her plans now that the government has been dismissed.

Exclusives

One Russian ship every 112 minutes for a week: Ukraine hits 14 more vessels as total tally nears 100. The Unmanned Systems Forces put July's running total at 91 vessels, with the live scoreboard still updating as reports get verified.

Military

Ukraine says Russia's Alabuga workers, including minors, are now inside Zaporizhzhia's reactor complex, turned into military base. Ukrainian intelligence says Russia has placed armor in ZNPP turbine halls, machine-gun nests on reactor roofs, and drone control points staffed by Alabuga workers.

Fires at both ends of Russia's fuel chain: a Lukoil depot in Stavropol Krai and a ferry port facing Kerch. The governor confirmed the blaze in the industrial zone and evacuated a street; satellite data showed the oil transshipment complex at Port Kavkaz alight.

Ukraine hits 15 Russian vessels as drone blockade of Crimea spreads across Azov Sea. Thermal anomalies flared from occupied Mariupol to Kerch as Ukrainian drones struck ships, power links and the air defenses guarding Russia's routes into the peninsula.

Every primary unit at a Rosneft refinery is burning — 100% of its crude processing capacity. The plant turned 8.5 million tons of oil a year into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Analysts say it now turns out nothing.

Intelligence and Technology

Ukraine approves more than two new drone systems a day this year. Almost all of them are now homemade. Ukraine's Defense Ministry codified 413 unmanned aerial systems in the first half of 2026, up 73% on 2024.

France licenses Ukraine to build missile for system that has already downed Russian jet. Macron announced a license for Ukraine to build Aster missiles for its SAMP/T systems, as well as for Rafale fighter jets to fly in Ukrainian skies by 2028-2029.

Ukraine's new grant list reads like map of war: exoskeletons, dugout-busters, lasers, and humanoids. Ukraine's Brave1 defense cluster opened new grants, including the BraveTech EU program for exoskeletons, evacuation drones, torpedoes, and anti-dugout munitions.

New York Times: Russian spies used Japan to source technology for war. A little-known GRU unit allegedly operated through an Aeroflot office near Japan's national police headquarters, according to NYT's reporting. They used business and logistics ties to obtain equipment for Russia's war machine.

Russia builds three ballistic missiles per day: Japan's entire annual Patriot output would cover only one mass strike on Kyiv, expert says. Ukraine needs 2,000 PAC-3 interceptors per year to defeat Russian ballistic missiles, Ukrainian analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko says.

International

Zelenskyy wants FREYJA flying within 12 months. Ten nations just joined European Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition for first time. Zelenskyy told the first meeting of the European Anti-Ballistic Coalition that Ukraine is finishing its interceptor and hopes to see FREYJA working within 12 months.

Italy wants continental defense alliance, including Ukraine. Kyiv already out-produces all of NATO on drones. Italy's defense minister says European defense must extend past EU borders to Britain, Norway, Türkiye, and Ukraine as Washington looks to the Indo-Pacific.

EU says Russia's Venice pavilion could cost Biennale €2 million grant. Its commissioner is daughter of FSB general. The European Commission officially recommended terminating the €2 million grant to the Venice Biennale after Russia's pavilion reopened.

Humanitarian and Social Impact

He was saving 99 goats' worth of bride price. Russia sent him to die in Ukraine instead. A captured Kenyan told a Ukrainian journalist he signed what he believed was a security guard contract and learned he was in the Russian army only when they handed him a uniform.

100,000 dolphins killed in the Black Sea because of Russia's war, Ukrainian scientist warns: "We may lose a unique ecosystem". Researchers say documented strandings represent only a fraction of the true toll because an estimated 95% of dolphin carcasses sink before they can be counted.

Political and Legal Developments

Their father died defending Ukraine. A former Ukrainian brigade commander is now suspected in the murder of his two sons. Investigators suspect the former commander of the 155th Separate Mechanized Brigade ordered the abduction and killing of the two brothers of a fallen serviceman.

Russian who helped Ukraine's military faces deportation after decade under false identity. Ruslan Puptaiev says he fled persecution in Russia and built a new life in Ukraine under a false identity. After authorities uncovered his real identity, he was detained for deportation, though the European Court of Human Rights has temporarily blocked his return to Russia.

New Developments

Russia wants to run grain through its Syrian naval base—one berth for cargo, one for warships. Syrian officials say the commercial berth would take Russian grain, feed, oils, timber, steel, coal, rice and sugar—while Syria's port authority insists no such project exists.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine’s Patriot shortage was solved, Washington said. The missile makers hadn’t been told.. Ukraine's NATO ambassador cheered the summit. The analysts watching it didn’t.

Russia risks losing part of its grain harvest as Ukraine’s refinery strikes dry up diesel. Farmers in the country's southern breadbasket face fuel limits, empty pumps, and price spikes at the exact moment combines need to roll, as Moscow continues its costly war against Ukraine.

As Ukraine’s draft crisis erupts in Lviv, its own soldiers keep walking out. Many of the men who went to save the day in 2022 are still at the front; the ones who didn’t are still at home, and the government has wasted four years not saying why that has to change.

Ukraine is advancing in the southeast. It’s still not enough to win the war. The ongoing fight for Komar is a microcosm for the wider war. Ukrainian troops are advancing. But that doesn't mean the war is about to end.

Lviv mobilization riot exposes the draft system Ukraine’s government has refused to fix. Two official watchdogs said the fault lies higher up—with a mobilization overhaul that hasn’t reached the recruiters.

Russia’s war economy is starving its own strategic projects. Russia’s top arms maker can’t afford to build its own garbage incinerators.

Military

48 Russian vessels hit over 5 days as Ukraine turns Crimea's fuel routes into a new battleground Ukraine says drone operators struck 48 Russian vessels over five days, while the General Staff reported additional overnight attacks on logistics ships, oil terminals, and fuel depots supporting Moscow's invasion.

With a 2-to-1 edge, Russia shrank its offensive from 13 fronts to 6, Syrskyi says Russia's offensive campaign has narrowed dramatically despite its numerical advantage, according to Ukraine's commander-in-chief, who says Ukrainian forces are increasingly slowing Russian advances while expanding long-range strikes inside Russia.

Ukraine's deep and mid-range strikes converge on Crimea and Russia's Azov coast Drones hit tankers, both loading ports of the targeted tanker run, five oil depots, and the peninsula's power grid in one night of the isolation campaign.

Anti-drone nets keep failing: Russia's fuel tanks burn from Azov to Moscow Fuel facilities burned from Krasnodar Krai and Rostov Oblast to Moscow and Tatarstan as Russia claimed hundreds of drones downed.

ISW: Ukraine has opened a new phase of Crimea's isolation by hunting seaborne fuel tankers The think tank says strikes on Russian gasoline shipping show Kyiv rapidly adapting after land routes to the peninsula were degraded.

Year ago, Russia fired 28 ballistic missiles in month at Ukraine. Now it's firing three times that Ukraine's Ministry of Defense reports 89% interception of Russian air targets in June, but only 40% on ballistic missiles.

35 ships in four days: Ukraine's campaign against Russia's Azov Sea fuel run keeps widening 12 more shadow fleet riverine tankers, a cargo ship, and a tug among the latest targets.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine is turning its long-range strike campaign into a permanent military command Ukraine is creating a dedicated command for long-range strikes alongside new Joint Rapid Reaction Forces in a restructuring of the Armed Forces aimed at strengthening deep-strike and frontline capabilities.

Japan builds the missiles Ukraine needs most—its own rules forbid the handoff The day after Trump promised a production license, Zelenskyy named the production partner he wants. The problem: Japan still doesn't sell weapons to countries at war.

Ukraine is building its own ballistic interceptor for $700,000 per shot. Eight countries may join project Ukraine's Freya anti-ballistic project may add up to eight European partners, President Zelenskyy told journalists.

Ukraine rewrote the Patriot playbook—but it's still running out of missiles Single-shot intercepts. $30,000 decoys. Ukrainian crews training Gulf forces. Ukraine has become an air-defense innovator—and it is still losing the race against Russia's missiles.

Ukraine wants to make its own Patriots. Hard part isn't missile — it's Boeing part made in two places on Earth The analysis details the specific technical, supply chain, and security constraints on Ukraine's Patriot production.

Ukraine wants robots doing 100% of frontline logistics. In June, they ran nearly 17,000 supply and evacuation runs Ukraine's ground robots completed 16,676 logistics and evacuation missions in June, up 122% since the start of 2026.

CEO of one of Ukraine's biggest drone makers just got raided. He also owns outlet that exposed 25 non-combat deaths at military unit No court order. Forty locations searched. One in four Ukrainian front-line drones at risk of disruption. And a timeline that Babel's editor says "leads to very bad conclusions."

International

British weapons poised to join Ukraine's €60B EU arms program A new EU-UK agreement would allow Ukraine to spend its €60 billion EU defense loan on British weapons, broadening Kyiv's procurement options, Bloomberg reports.

Britain's incoming leader promises Ukraine aid "will not waver"—but money is the catch Andy Burnham pledges British support "will not waver." The reassurance is real—and it answers a question Kyiv was never really asking.

Poland armed Ukraine with Patriot missiles. Its president's camp called it "treason" Warsaw sent the interceptors at Washington and NATO's request. The opposition-aligned presidency framed it as betrayal — and the defense minister fired back.

Nine jets for drone tech: the Polish-Ukrainian barter that collapsed in June is alive again, Polish minister says Warsaw froze the transfer weeks ago, accusing Kyiv of walking away from the drone-technology side of the deal.

Poland: we have credible information Russia is planning new provocations in Europe FM Sikorski said going public is deliberate — the same tactic that helped derail Moscow's false-flag plans before it invaded Ukraine.

Sports federations are quietly readmitting Russia, which killed 660 Ukrainian athletes. UEFA is about to become holdout UEFA is ready to block Russian teams from returning to international football even after the IOC lifted Russia's disqualification.

Russia laid Nord Stream to bypass Ukraine amid preparations for war. Four years after it exploded, Kyiv says it had nothing to do with blasts Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office says no facts show state involvement in the September 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian drone killed last resident of Tokarivka Druha. Now, village has no one left A Russian FPV drone killed a 57-year-old hospital worker.

Read our previous daily review here.

An overturned draft-office car is no longer news in Ukraine. This one was different for the place, and for the response. It happened in Lviv, the heartland of the war effort, and within a day, two of Ukraine’s own oversight officials had blamed not the crowd but the government for a mobilization system it deferred fixing for years and has only begun, haltingly, to reform.

On the evening of 8 July 2026, a crowd of about 200 people in Lviv’s Sykhiv district blocked, smashed, and overturned a car belonging to the city’s territorial recruitment center, after draft officers stopped a man wanted since 12 June for dodging military registration, Lviv Portal reported. The standoff ran about five hours, into the early hours of 9 July; at least two servicemen were hospitalized with light injuries.

The friction is structural. Ukraine drafts about 30,000 men a month—only about half what the army needs, the secretary of parliament’s national-security committee, Roman Kostenko, told Radio NV—so the ranks are topped up by draft officers stopping men on the street, a system Euromaidan Press has argued was left broken because the hardest fixes were deferred.

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Contents

• As Ukraine’s draft crisis erupts in Lviv, its own soldiers keep walking out
  1. What happened—and what remains disputed
  2. A flashpoint reaches the heartland
  3. When the state steps back, others step in
  4. Two watchdogs, one root
  5. Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number
  6. Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief
  7. “They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

As Ukraine’s draft crisis erupts in Lviv, its own soldiers keep walking out

What happened—and what remains disputed

The recruitment center’s account, from deputy chief Petro Storozhuk at a briefing: draft officers checked the 30-year-old’s papers, found he was on a wanted list, offered to drive him in for a records check and a medical exam, and he got in—only then, they say, did an unknown group block the car and refuse to let it leave.

Accounts of how it started diverge. Eyewitnesses told NV the recruiters had beaten the man and dragged him into a minibus; one widely shared clip—which Euromaidan Press has confirmed was filmed at the scene, though not what led up to it—appears to show a recruitment officer getting out of a car and punching a man, The Ukrainians reported.

The district chief said that the footage was incomplete and out of context, that the conflict had begun earlier off-camera, and that, as he saw it, the officer was defending himself; police will make the legal call.

Someone fired shots into the air during the fighting; police said the gunman was a bystander who turned out to be an off-duty serviceman, firing to disperse the crowd, and that the shots hit no one, spokeswoman Alina Podreiko told Tvoemisto.

Separately, how many were hurt across the night is disputed—the recruitment center said two servicemen; police reported four members of the security forces.

Two inquiries followed: a criminal case against the crowd and a review of the officers’ own conduct. By midnight, the man the crowd had gathered to free was sent for a medical exam—in effect, mobilized.

The 23-year-old charged over the assault on police, named in court as Oleh Havrylov, told the hearing that he is himself a soldier of the 53rd Separate Mechanized Brigade, absent without leave since February 2026, formerly a drone operator near Kramatorsk—an account Euromaidan Press cannot independently verify. He faces up to five years.

Police mostly watched as the car was destroyed and sent no one to the next day’s briefing, even as a regional official praised their restraint, Focus.ua reported.

A flashpoint reaches the heartland

Anti-recruitment unrest is not new—a 2024 Kovel crowd that stormed a recruitment office, protests in Vinnytsia, and a wave of attacks on draft centers in early 2025. What is new is the address.

Lviv buries its war dead often and directs much of its budget into the army; its 58,000 residents in uniform make it one of the country’s most mobilized cities, said mayor Andrii Sadovyi, who called the scene “not yet a diagnosis but already a symptom” and noted Moscow most wants Ukrainians fighting each other.

Russia has turned its information war from attacking politicians to wrecking the state’s ability to raise an army, wrote Olesia Horiainova, deputy head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre. Her team logged nearly 10 million mentions of mobilization in six months, most on Facebook and Telegram, plus AI-generated “soldiers” pushing Russian lines in Ukrainian.

The negativity fills whatever vacuum the state’s silence leaves, she argues—so one clash reads as “total collapse” while the tens of thousands of quiet call-ups each month go unseen. The sharpest criticism, though, came from Ukrainian officials, not bots.

When the state steps back, others step in

As the state hesitated, others moved. A volunteer, Anton Petrivskyi, said he and “active residents” had tracked down participants and filmed their apologies—one pledging on camera to enlist—while withholding parts of the “conversation” so Facebook would not block it. The apologies were extracted not by the police, who were charging the same people, but by self-appointed enforcers.

Two watchdogs, one root

The state’s own answer came a day later, and in words. Condemnation ran from the top down: the head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Budanov, warned that anyone who strips and beats a soldier of their own army should ask who will defend them tomorrow; the defense ministry called mobilization necessary but its methods in need of work, as LIGA reported.

The two officials whose job is oversight aimed higher. The human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, urged the ministry to establish a working group to rewrite the rules, warning that when reports of draft abuses go years without a legal response, trust erodes.

The military ombudsman, Olha Reshetylova, blamed the government and local authorities for never settling who stays in the workforce and who goes to the front. Reform has to start with the draft-exemption rules, she said—and she rounded on the politicians and media who exploit mobilization for clicks and stoke hatred of the soldiers who enforce it.

They point from opposite ends at the same gap. Ukraine did finally move: in 2026, it launched a personnel overhaul—new contracts, higher frontline pay, a phased path out for the longest-serving. Yet soldiers panned it as an illusory reprieve, months more service before a short deferment rather than a way home, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

What it has not touched is the recruiters’ side of the system—the street stops and unfixed exemption rules that put a crowd around a car in Lviv in the first place.

Exclusives

Russia's war economy is starving its own strategic projects. Russia's top arms maker can't afford to build its own garbage incinerators.

Three F-16s and a Patriot battery teamed up to kill Russia's best fighter. The two systems each have a weakness against Russian jets. Working together—one seeing, the other shooting—they cancelled both out.

The Marta effect: Ukraine's tennis players are doing what its diplomats can't. The Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk is through to the semifinal at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. But for Marta, and her fellow Ukrainian tennis players, this is about much more than tennis.

Swedish volunteers confronted Tesla over Russian aluminum at a Ukraine rally. Tesla still hasn't replied.. A Swedish tech entrepreneur has spent months trying to get Tesla to confirm whether its Berlin factory has stopped sourcing aluminum from Rusal. Tesla hasn't replied.

A $50k Ukrainian drone just hit a refinery 2,500 km inside Russia. The expensive missiles couldn't. With bigger wings and more fuel, Ukrainian drones can range deeper inside Russia to hit once unreachable targets.

A Kyiv court gagged reporters probing the anti-corruption chief's brother's 143 properties—no lawsuit required. No verdict, no trial—just a ban, and a lawsuit that may never come.

Military

Year ago, Russia fired 28 ballistic missiles in month at Ukraine. Now it's firing three times that. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense reports 89% interception of Russian air targets in June, but only 40% on ballistic missiles.

35 ships in four days: Ukraine's campaign against Russia's Azov Sea fuel run keeps widening. 12 more shadow fleet riverine tankers, a cargo ship, and a tug among the latest targets.

Russia wrapped its fuel tanks in protective nets—Ukraine's drones burned them regardless: two oil depots burned last night. The Tver depot's defenses, visible on satellite imagery, did not survive their first real test. SBU confirmed the strikes.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine is building its own ballistic interceptor for $700,000 per shot. Eight countries may join project. Ukraine's Freya anti-ballistic project may add up to eight European partners, President Zelenskyy told journalists.

Ukraine wants robots doing 100% of frontline logistics. In June, they ran nearly 17,000 supply and evacuation runs. Ukraine's ground robots completed 16,676 logistics and evacuation missions in June, up 122% since the start of 2026.

Ukraine rewrote the Patriot playbook—but it's still running out of missiles. Single-shot intercepts. $30,000 decoys. Ukrainian crews training Gulf forces. Ukraine has become an air-defense innovator—and it is still losing the race against Russia's missiles.

Ukraine wants to make its own Patriots. Hard part isn't missile — it's Boeing part made in two places on Earth. The analysis details the specific technical, supply chain, and security constraints on Ukraine's Patriot production.

Russia's AI drone can't be jammed or detected—so Ukraine shot it down. No antenna. No operator. No emissions for a detector to catch. Ukraine's answer is no longer electronic warfare—it's a bullet.

International

Sports federations are quietly readmitting Russia, which killed 660 Ukrainian athletes. UEFA is about to become holdout. UEFA is ready to block Russian teams from returning to international football even after the IOC lifted Russia's disqualification.

EU "remains ambitious" on opening all Ukraine clusters as several capitals hold back. A senior diplomat said the bloc wants everything open "as soon as possible" but refused to name the member states raising objections.

Italy expels two Russian military attachés over espionage uncovered by Rome prosecutors. The expulsion follows this week's arrests of two former Italian intelligence officers suspected of selling secrets to Moscow.

EU officials call to strip the IOC of funding after it reinstates Russia's Olympic committee. Estonia will propose excluding the International Olympic Committee from EU programs, including Erasmus+, over the 7 July decision.

NATO jets over the Baltics get authority to shoot down "objects that pose a threat". Lithuania's president announced the change, saying the security environment around the three states is no longer peaceful.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia attacks Ukraine's civilians at a scale few people realize. Kyiv reveals number at UN. Kyiv used a counterterrorism forum — not a war crimes tribunal to argue that what Russia is doing has a name the whole UN already agreed to condemn. Moscow took the floor three speakers later.

Political and legal developments

Russia laid Nord Stream to bypass Ukraine amid preparations for war. Four years after it exploded, Kyiv says it had nothing to do with blasts. Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office says no facts show state involvement in the September 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

CEO of one of Ukraine's biggest drone makers just got raided. He also owns outlet that exposed 25 non-combat deaths at military unit. No court order. Forty locations searched. One in four Ukrainian front-line drones at risk of disruption. And a timeline that Babel's editor says "leads to very bad conclusions."

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine has a new 3,400-km attack drone. More refineries will burn.. With bigger wings and more fuel, Ukrainian drones can range deeper inside Russia to hit once unreachable targets.

Reporters traced 143 properties to Ukraine's anti-corruption chief's brother. A court just banned the story.. The lawsuit that justifies the ban hasn't been filed yet

Ukraine's reserves fell for four months. Oil eased for one, and they grew back.. The buffer that drained all spring just grew again. A new spike in oil prices says not for long.

Kostiantynivka: Why one city in Donbas matters so much that Putin lies about having captured it. Putin declared the city "liberated" while Ukrainian troops still held it, a lie aimed at the negotiating table, not the battlefield

Russia is running out of its best eyes in the sky. Russia's giant radar early warning planes can spot incoming Ukrainian missiles. What happens when there aren't enough planes?

From Karelia to Kamchatka: Russia rations fuel where drones strike and stockpiles it where they cannot. A drone campaign against refineries has Russians buying gasoline by QR code, license-plate number, and five-hour queue.

Zaporizhzhia, Chornobyl, Kakhovka: a playbook of terror the West still calls deterrence. The West keeps reading the Kremlin's nuclear threats through a Cold War lens, Svitlana Matviyenko argues. The mistake, she says, is doing Russia's work for it.

Military

"Your flip-flops will melt along with gas pedal": Ukraine's drone chief warns Russian truckers off Crimea corridor. Ukraine's SBS commander told Russian truck drivers moving cargo through the land corridor to Crimea to f*ck off to Rostov.

Ukraine says it downed Russian Su-35. Replacing it won't be easy. Ukraine's Air Force says it shot down a Russian Su-35 multirole fighter on the eastern direction on 8 July.

Russia's refinery in Saratov, two in Tatarstan, a pumping station in Bashkortostan — one night's oil target list. Fires broke out at the Saratov plant and the Nizhnekamsk refining cluster, while Ukraine's security service struck an oil-products pumping station 1,500 kilometers from the border.

Russia's transport ministry quietly confirmed what happened to its border bridges in Belgorod. A month-long traffic ban on the Valuyki–Urazovo road followed within hours of videos showing both Urayeva River crossings wrecked.

Three days, 21 ships: Russia's Azov Sea fuel run to occupied Crimea is turning into a shooting gallery. Ukraine's drone forces say 19 sanctioned tankers, a cargo ship, and a ferry in occupied Kerch have all been hit since the maritime operation began on 6 July. Videos confirm strikes.

Intelligence and technology

Russia has found way to jam Starlink and take down Ukraine's drones. Russia has deployed 10 electronic warfare systems to jam Ukrainian drone control via Starlink. Ukraine has destroyed two.

Ukraine captured Russian position with robots alone in 2026. Now, it's codifying new combat robot almost weekly. Latest one called Tanchik. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense codified the Tanchik Droid 12.7 ground robot for reconnaissance and light-armor destruction.

Standing beside Zelenskyy, Trump promised Ukraine Patriot license. But missile for system on Ukrainian soil is still months away. The PAC-3 missile producers, Lockheed Martin and RTX, weren't informed.

Czech government that campaigned against arming Kyiv will now buy it American weapons for Ukraine. Czech FM said Prague will redirect budget money into the NATO program that buys US-made arms for Kyiv.

Humanitarian and social impact

Kyiv marked this basement official shelter. It didn't save people inside — and authorities won't say why no new ones are built. Rescuers completed operations at a Darnytskyi apartment building where 11 people were killed by a Russian strike.

Russia is hitting Ukrainian fuel stations 20 times a week. Ukrainian law tells them exactly where each one is. 186 strikes since April. The targeting intelligence isn't coming from drones — it's in a public registry

"Even 50% must be destroyed": Russian MP openly calls for exterminating Ukrainians. Alexei Zhuravlyov told his interviewer that killing Ukrainians is justified "so that no one threatens us," calling the nation a "contagion."

Read our earlier daily review here.

A Ukrainian court has blocked the publication of a completed investigation, using a legal tool meant to protect evidence in a lawsuit that, as of publication, does not exist.

On 24 June, investigative outlet Slidstvo.Info and the Anti-Corruption Action Center (ACC) sent questions to a company called Parkovyi-2 about 143 real estate properties that the reporters had traced to Oleksandr Sukhachov, a Kharkiv businessman and the brother of State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Director Oleksii Sukhachov, according to Slidstvo.Info’s own statement.

Parkovyi-2 never answered; on 3 July, a Friday, it asked the court for an injunction instead, and by Monday, 6 July, Pecherskyi District Court Judge Serhii Vovk had signed an order barring Slidstvo.Info and the ACC from publishing anything about the property.

The underlying defamation or privacy suit that would normally justify such a ban has still not been filed. According to the court’s own account, the claimant now has 10 days from 6 July to file the suit, or the order will lapse on its own, the Pecherskyi court told Suspilne.

Why a request turned into a courtroom order

The mechanism at work is an interim injunction, ordinarily used to freeze assets or preserve evidence while a court case is underway, not to stop a story before the case behind it is lodged.

The court defended the ban as a routine practice under Ukraine’s martial-law provisions, arguing that weighing free expression against the injunction is a matter for the court once the actual lawsuit is filed.

A tool built to prevent evidence from disappearing mid-case has just been used to stop a finished story from appearing at all, while no case is open yet to test it against. If it survives this use, any person facing embarrassing reporting has a template: file an injunction first, then decide later whether to sue at all.

Media lawyers and the outlet descrive this specific sequence—an injunction granted before the underlying suit is filed—as unprecedented in Ukraine.

As Ukrainska Pravda reports, the court’s order itself gives two reasons for the ban: that publishing details of the properties and how they were financed could cause Oleksandr Sukhachov “irreparable harm,” and that the information could expose Parkovyi-2’s trade secrets.

“We believe the Anti-Corruption Action Center and Slidstvo.Info are simply being used to test an instrument for banning journalists from exposing corruption,” ACC director Daria Kaleniuk said in a statement.

Slidstvo.Info co-author Maksym Savchuk told Ukrainska Pravda the months-long investigation had traced 143 properties to Oleksandr Sukhachov and found “threads leading directly to” the SBI his brother runs.

Reporters Without Borders expressed concern, saying courts should not be used to suppress reporting on matters of public interest.

Why the SBI’s own family matters here

Ukraine’s SBI investigates officials and law enforcement, including cases that touch its own ranks. A court has now shielded the family of the person who runs it from published scrutiny, days before any legal case against that scrutiny existed.

This is not the only recent case of pressure on Ukrainian outlets reporting on state institutions. On 7 July, investigators raided the home of Babel co-founder Oleksii Babenko, days after his outlet published an investigation into deaths at Ukraine’s largest assault regiment.

Explore further

Ukraine opened a criminal case over 25 non-combat deaths at its largest assault regiment. Serving soldier’s response was to call reporter “media killer”

Judge Vovk has a documented history of rulings favoring politically connected figures, according to Slidstvo.Info, which reports he sentenced former Interior Minister Yurii Lutsenko in 2012 in a case the European Parliament later called inconsistent with international fair-trial standards, and separately lifted an asset freeze on 415 properties linked to businessman Ihor Kolomoisky.

In 2015, parliament approved Vovk’s own arrest after prosecutors accused him of a ruling that unlawfully stripped someone of property rights; he was suspended, then reinstated in 2016. In 2022, Slidstvo.Info found that his wife had become the owner of a Volkswagen Multivan, now worth roughly $90,000; when asked how she had afforded it, Vovk said it had been a gift from unnamed family members.

The DEJURE Foundation reported that the SBI searched Ukraine’s High Qualification Commission of Judges in March 2025, shortly after judges from the Pecherskyi court, including its chair, were called in for a review that could have cost them their posts.

DEJURE stopped short of alleging a direct link between that episode and this ruling, describing the two courts’ relationship instead as an exchange of favors.

Slidstvo.Info and the ACC say the case carries the hallmarks of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP—a suit filed less to win than to exhaust and silence the party being sued, and note that Kyiv has committed to EU-standard anti-SLAPP legislation by 2027 as part of its accession process, under the same first cluster of talks covering judicial reform and freedom of expression.

I want to tell you about a city that used to make glass.

Not weapons, not steel — glass. Windows, bottles, mirrors. Kostiantynivka, in Donetsk Oblast, sits on the Kryvyi Torets River, and about 67,000 people lived there before Russia's full-scale invasion. By the spring of 2026, only2,500 remained — mostly elderly people who had decided that dying in their own homes was preferable to leaving them.

On the evening of 3 July, Vladimir Putin appeared in military uniform at a command post and announced that Russian forces had "completely captured" Kostiantynivka. Flag photos circulated on Russian Telegram channels and the Kremlin called it an important strategic achievement. But there was just one problem — the city had not fallen.

Ukraine's General Staff called the announcement a fabrication, stating that units of the Eastern Grouping were continuing defensive operations inside Kostiantynivka.

“Of course, that is not true. It is just another Russian lie, an attempt to generate some kind of a news story. If Kostiantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed it on social media.

DeepState, the Ukrainian OSINT monitoring project, continued to show Russian forces present in parts of the city but not in control of it. 

The Institute for the Study of War went further. It assessed that Putin had likely staged the late-night meeting to shape Western coverage ahead of the US July 4 holiday — a choreographed announcement in a documented series of inflated battlefield claims ISW describes as cognitive warfare. The institute had already flagged several of the Russian flag-raising videos from Kostiantynivka as likely AI-altered. 

The last link in the chain

Picture four cities strung along a single road running north through a valley in eastern Donetsk Oblast: Kostiantynivka, then Druzhkivka, then Kramatorsk, then Sloviansk. Analysts call this chain the Fortress Belt — the last fortified line between Russia and control of the whole oblast. 

Kostiantynivka is the southernmost link, the gate. Kramatorsk, at the far end, is the nerve center of everything Ukraine still holds in Donetsk: the headquarters, the logistics, the main hospital. Everything flows through that one road.

Putin has stated openly that full control of Donetsk is a central war aim and a precondition for any ceasefire. As of April, his own spokesman put roughly 18% of the oblast still outside Russian hands.

 A false announcement of Kostiantynivka's capture serves that narrative directly — it moves the claim of precondition from aspiration toward apparent fact, in Western news cycles, before the ground truth catches up.

“Inside” is not the same as “captured”

Russian forces first entered Kostiantynivka in October 2025. Through the winter and spring they ground forward block by block, and by June they were pushing in from several directions at once. Ukrainian military sources reported 100–250 Russian troops operating inside the city — not on the outskirts, inside. As of 23 June, Ukrainian soldiers still outnumbered Russian ones within the city limits. 

ISW's June assessments put Russian forces in control of or infiltrated into roughly 37% of Kostiantynivka — and that single city accounted for 77% of all Russia's June gains across the entire front. What Russia has achieved, at enormous cost, is to turn the city into a continuous gray zone where neither side holds clean ground. 

What Russia has achieved, at enormous cost, is to turn the city into a continuous gray zone where neither side holds clean ground. The advances are real — and not liberation.

The city sits inside what reporters described as a kill zone ruled by drones. The road north is so exposed that the wounded and the dead are carried out on foot — evacuation vehicles cannot use it. 

According to ISW, Russian forces seized or infiltrated just over 30 square kilometers across the entire front in June 2026 — compared to roughly 481 square kilometers in June 2025. Russia's rate of advance has fallen to one-sixteenth of last year's pace, at nineteen times the casualties per kilometer. 

Why drones are not enough 

In 2026, Ukraine's long-range drones have hit oil refineries on the outskirts of Moscow and choked Crimea's supply lines with mounting intensity. Those are real achievements, and they have bought Ukraine military, political, and symbolic momentum.

But Kostiantynivka is where that advantage runs out. Russia's method here is to funnel very small infantry groups — the ones who survive the approach — into the city, moving under summer foliage and through basements and rubble.

This tactic could be very useful because in an open field, a drone sees everything, but in a ruined city, the equation is older and grimmer: infantry, cellars, building by building.

Pokrovsk was the rehearsal

The world has seen this method before, in Pokrovsk, the city to the west of Kostiantynivka that Russia spent months taking in early 2026 — no lightning assault, just small groups seeping in, logistics strangled, and eventually a choice between mounting losses and withdrawal. 

But Pokrovsk also showed the ceiling. After Russia took it, it could not convert the capture into a breakthrough. Russian forces sit in the ruins eyeing tens of kilometers of mined, fortified, drone-patrolled terrain stretching between them and the next major objective. 

The people who stayed

For months, reporting from inside the city documented how it dies without surrendering: the elderly carried down darkened stairwells, water hauled up by hand because the utilities are gone, evacuees who know they will not come back. 

Vladyslav Samusenko, who runs a small evacuation group, walked eight kilometers into the city to carry out an elderly couple — a woman and a paralyzed man. "There are many bodies there, in the backyards and on the streets," he told DW. "You can smell them when you walk past a house." 

Those who remain live, in the words of a 28th Brigade spokesman, "in basements, burn wood, and scavenge garbage, like in the Middle Ages." 

The negotiating table, not the battlefield

Watch what Russia did in the 72 hours after it declared Kostiantynivka taken. It proposed a six-hour ceasefire on 6 July, framed as humanitarian — an offer to hand over the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. The assault continued throughout: Russia's own pattern of using ceasefires as operational cover, documented across 26 violations between 2014 and 2020. 

When Zelenskyy challenged Putin to meet him in Kostiantynivka if it was truly under Russian control, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied that Kostiantynivka was "already a part of Russia" and that Moscow's standing invitation for Zelenskyy to come to the Russian capital remained open. 

Zelenskyy's answer was not only a denial. In one sentence, he turned the lie into a verification test — and Moscow, which insists any summit be held in the Russian capital, failed. 

Every day the city holds, the precondition Putin needs goes unmet — which is why, when Kostiantynivka would not fall, he announced that it had.

The fight for it now runs on two fronts: the streets where a few thousand people are still trying to survive alongside Ukrainian soldiers trying to hold on, and the coverage in Western capitals where pressure to end this war is being measured out.

Exclusives

From Karelia to Kamchatka: Russia rations fuel where drones strike and stockpiles it where they cannot. A drone campaign against refineries has Russians buying gasoline by QR code, license-plate number, and five-hour queue.

Zaporizhzhia, Chornobyl, Kakhovka: a playbook of terror the West still calls deterrence. The West keeps reading the Kremlin’s nuclear threats through a Cold War lens, Svitlana Matviyenko argues. The mistake, she says, is doing Russia’s work for it.

“Just give me some proof that my son is alive”: Mother from Kherson spends five years searching for her son, taken away by Russians from Oleshky boarding school. Emil foundation names four reasons Russia holds adult Ukrainians with disabilities.

Russia now loses more soldiers than it recruits. But the war won’t end because of that.. For the first time, Russia’s losses outrun its recruits—four years of General Staff data explain why that still won’t end the war.

Russia banned her for studying the famine it denies. She put it online for the whole world anyway. . Millions of Ukrainians died in the Holodomor—Stalin's deliberate starvation of Ukraine in 1932–33. Russia calls it a hoax—all while it replicates its methods in occupied Ukraine. Marta Baziuk, who helped build a course on the Holodomor, explains why the famine matters now—and why the course she helped build could only exist now.

The one sport moving against Russia is run by its ex-deputy PM. Moscow has hijacked the federation, says Malcolm Pein, the English delegate now standing for deputy president on a ticket challenging the Russian incumbent.

Military

Ukraine's drones are sinking Crimea's fuel lifeline, hitting 12 Russian tankers in 2 days
Ukraine says its drone forces struck 12 Russian fuel tankers in two days as part of a campaign to disrupt fuel supplies to occupied Crimea, alongside other military infrastructure.

"Ukraine's urgent needs should be front and centre": Nine EU ministers push Brussels to unlock Patriot air defense missiles as Russia's ballistic attacks intensify
Nine European defense ministers urged the European Commission to speed approval for Ukraine to buy Patriot missiles and other critical weapons from outside the EU under its €90 billion support loan.

Belgorod gas facility burns as Moscow fends off over 430 drones in one night
Fires broke out at Belgorod's gas pipeline dispatch station, airport, and thermal power plant after missiles struck the Russian city on 7 July.

Kyiv death toll rises to 19 after Russia's overnight strike, State Emergency Service says
Rescue crews kept searching rubble in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district on 7 July, more than a day after Russia's missile and drone barrage struck the capital.

Intelligence and technology

Russia tried to secure Japanese jet fuel amid shortages. Tokyo closed the loophole
Japan said its ban on jet fuel exports to Russia covers shipments through third countries and ship-to-ship transfers after Reuters reported Moscow was seeking a cargo via traders.

International

"Ukraine is becoming a security provider for Europe": Ukraine signs Drone Deals with Estonia, the Netherlands, and Denmark as Europe taps Kyiv's battlefield-tested weapons technology
Ukraine is expanding a network of defense partnerships focused on drones, air defense, and military technologies developed during the full-scale war.

As Ukraine urgently seeks more air defense, Canada announces $900 million military aid package
Canada announced nearly $900 million in new military aid for Ukraine, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the package includes support to strengthen the country's air defenses.

Political and legal developments

Zelenskyy arrives in Ankara for NATO summit. Defense minister Fedorov is not in Ukraine's delegation
The Ukrainian president landed in Ankara seeking interceptor missiles and drone agreements.

Budanov: Ukraine won't accept ultimatums from Poland, just as it refused Russia's
The presidential office chief expects the rupture to peak around the 11 July Volyn anniversary.

NATO leaders open Ankara summit as Trump prepares bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy
The Netherlands will unveil over $3 billion in new defense contracts as the alliance seeks to demonstrate compliance with US spending demands.

Read our previous daily review here.

When Russia menaces a nuclear plant, or a drone strays near an occupied reactor, Western audiences hear an echo of the Cold War: deterrence, the standoff of two rational powers each too afraid to shoot first.

The Ukrainian media scholar Svitlana Matviyenko thinks that the frame is not just wrong but useful to the Kremlin. What Ukraine faces, she argued at a public talk in Lviv on 6 July, is not deterrence but terror: a tactic built on randomness, meant to get Western voters to do Moscow’s calculating for it. She likes to start with a taxi ride.

In April 2024, Matviyenko was invited by the Canadian Senate’s Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs to testify in Ottawa on disinformation. The driver who collected her from the airport had no idea who she was.

He drove her through the city, gestured at what the Canadian government had built with public money, and told her the rest of it was flowing to Ukraine—a waste, in his view. When she asked why, his reasoning was blunt: Russia already had nuclear weapons, so what was the point? She opened her testimony, she told the Lviv audience, with that ride.

The talk was part of a fellowship run by INDEX, a Lviv institute that brings foreign researchers to live inside wartime Ukraine. Its subject that night was ecocide and what the organizers call nuclear colonialism.

It fell six weeks after a Russian barrage on Kyiv badly damaged the National Chornobyl Museum, which had reopened only weeks earlier for the 1986 disaster’s 40th anniversary; part of its collection was lost; crews saved the rest. That loss hung over the room. But the night’s sharpest argument was not about the past. It was about the word the West uses for the present.

Deterrence is the wrong word

For most of her audiences abroad, Matviyenko said, any mention of nuclear danger summons a single Cold War idea: deterrence—the logic of two rivals holding each other in check, each restrained by the other’s arsenal.

Raise the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, seized in 2022, or the Chornobyl zone, taken in the first weeks of the invasion, and Western listeners reach for the same frame.

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Russia blacked out Europe’s largest nuclear plant 15 times since occupying it in 2022

It is the wrong frame, Matviyenko argued. Deterrence is a game of cold arithmetic: two sides, each move calculated to avoid the worst, each assuming the other wants to avoid it too. Terror works the other way. Its logic is randomness, not calculation—something done at a distance that stuns, freezes, and kills all the same.

You cannot know where the next strike will land or when, only that something will. A drone hits a spent-fuel store; a line fails at an occupied reactor. Each incident can be waved away as an accident, she said, because the trajectories cannot be proven—and that deniability is not a flaw in the system but the point of it. Randomness, in her account, is not a breakdown of the order. It is the order itself.

A card the Kremlin keeps playing

The taxi driver was the argument in miniature. On a far larger scale, so was the autumn of 2022.

As Sasha Dovzhyk, INDEX’s head, put it from the floor—drawing on her recent interview with the historian Serhii Plokhy for the London Ukrainian Review—Moscow reached for nuclear blackmail just as its front was collapsing at Kherson and Kharkiv, its defense minister warning NATO capitals that Ukraine was preparing a “dirty bomb.”

By his account, the bluff worked. Fear of escalation slowed Western arms deliveries, including F-16s. It helped produce the failed 2023 counteroffensive—the drive to sever occupied Crimea from the Russian mainland and, with it, break Russia’s hold on the Zaporizhzhia plant. That the plant is still occupied, Plokhy argues, is largely the blackmail’s doing.

Matviyenko’s interest is in why the bluff keeps working. Terror, she said, colonizes the imagination: it gets people abroad to rule out helping Ukraine before Moscow has to lift a finger.

That week, she said, she was publishing a piece in a Canadian outlet making the same case: that what the West takes for deterrence is, in fact, terror. She keeps explaining the difference wherever she can. The fear, she said, spreads faster than she can correct it.

Who gets to speak for the colonized

The evening’s other live argument was aimed at a tactic Ukrainians increasingly meet abroad. The card of great Russian culture, Dovzhyk said, no longer plays well with thoughtful people, so Russia has reached for a newer one: the rights of ethnic and linguistic minorities, of its own colonized peoples.

The trouble is who ends up holding the microphone—often émigré Russians from Moscow and St. Petersburg, with polished reputations, speaking on behalf of communities they do not belong to, and doing it, more often than not, against Ukraine.

Matviyenko was less alarmed by this than by a parallel move she does expect in earnest: the weaponizing of ecocide. On the minorities front, she was more sanguine. In North America, she said, the norms of decolonial discourse are strong enough that a Russian speaking in place of an Indigenous person is challenged on sight. Indigenous activism, especially on the environment, is real and deserves genuine partnership. The answer, she said, is not to cede the ground.

The moderator, Nina Direnko, offered the bluntest version. When minority rights are raised to put Ukraine on the back foot, she said, someone in the room should simply raise a hand and ask what those rights mean when Russia is erasing them across occupied Ukraine—and conscripting some of the same minorities to kill Ukrainians. It is a crude move, she allowed. It is also, she said, exactly the one to make.

The harm you cannot see

The ecocide the evening was named for had a clear anchor. Opening the night, Dovzhyk had reached back to 6 June 2023, when Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka dam, draining the reservoir whose water once cooled the Zaporizhzhia reactors and sending a wall of water and decades of toxic sediment down the Dnipro to the Black Sea. The environmental crime and the nuclear one, in this telling, are the same crime.

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Russia won’t start a nuclear war. It might cause a nuclear disaster.

The curator and writer Kateryna Iakovlenko traced how Ukrainian artists have followed the harm underground. Early in the war, she said, they favored the view from above—maps, the drone’s-eye survey of scarred terrain.

Then the gaze turned downward, to what lies beneath: contamination, buried and unexploded ordnance, the remains of the dead. She has written about a “new geography” being drawn by the war’s rusting leavings, and about art’s power to record not only what is visible but what slips past the eye.

The story does not start in 1986

If the threat is colonial, the panel argued, so are its roots—and they run deeper than the reactor that exploded in 1986. To talk about nuclear colonialism honestly, Matviyenko said, you have to move your gaze back to the 1970s and earlier, to the Soviet decision to develop this stretch of Ukraine as a nuclear landscape in the first place.

She has been going to the Chornobyl zone for a decade, several times a year, and she watched the 40th-anniversary wave of remembrance with some unease: too much of it, she said, ran on the comforting myth of nature quietly reclaiming the exclusion zone, greening over the disaster as if it had healed. A book she hopes to finish this year makes the same case—decenter 1986, and look instead at the decades of engineering and politics that built the landscape before it failed.

Larissa Babij, managing editor of the London Ukrainian Review, followed the same thread through the work of Orysia Kulick, whose essay traces the roots of the Soviet program back to the scramble for Nazi Germany’s V-2 rocket technology.

The weapon had been assembled at a slave-labor camp; as the war ended, both superpowers seized its designs and its engineers. In the United States, that inheritance ran through Wernher von Braun; in the Soviet Union, it ran through the Zhytomyr-born Sergei Korolev, who had himself survived the Gulag.

And the wider enterprise, from uranium to reactors, was built on Gulag labor, its plants and atomic cities concentrated in Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, Lithuania—the very lands the camps had drawn their postwar prisoners from. Ukrainians, Babij argued, should not borrow ready-made colonial theory but make outsiders look at Ukraine on its own terms.

That history also holds a lesson about solidarity. The same Chornobyl issue carries an essay by Kacper Szulecki on Poland, where the fallout reshaped politics: Catholic groups, mothers, and ecological activists found common cause in their fury at a government that had hidden the danger, and the movement helped push the country toward democracy. The catch, as Babij drew it out, is that once such coalitions were folded into institutions, the broad ties that had powered them frayed.

That is the thread Matviyenko wants Ukrainians to pick up. Empires, she argued, survive by keeping their subject peoples turned against one another; the work now is to rebuild the horizontal bonds that make a different aftermath possible.

Not justice, but negative peace

Matviyenko, who called herself a pessimist, doubts that justice—courts, convictions, a full reckoning—is what waits on the far side of this war. She reached instead for the peace scholar Johan Galtung and his term, negative peace: the kind that settles in when the fighting stops but the wrongs are left standing.

After the Second World War, Matviyenko noted, only a fraction of the guilty were ever punished; she would be surprised if this war ended any differently. The work, then, is to prepare for that—to build the ties and habits of care that make survival in an unjust aftermath bearable.

It was not a hopeful evening. Six weeks after a missile tore through a museum built to remember one nuclear catastrophe, in a country living above the next, the panel was not offering comfort—only a clearer view of the danger.

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Read our earlier daily review here.