Exclusive

Spain pledged €1 billion to Ukraine—then helped block NATO's plan to count it. Four other allies blocked the metric, and six frameworks now run uncompared.

Why are EU farmers still protesting? Subsidies, not Ukrainian imports. Brussels imposed trade quotas in 2025—the CAP fight is the next one.

From hedging to solidarity: how Belarus's exiled opposition came to stand with Ukraine. The latest Belarusian prisoner releases returned key figures to public life. Their positions on Ukraine range from unwavering solidarity to studied ambiguity on Crimea.

France's Macron warned Lukashenka not to drag Belarus into Russia's war. The call was the first since 26 February 2022. Minsk confirmed it took place at Paris's initiative—but the French presidency hasn't yet.

Ukraine wrapped the occupied south in three layers of drones. Russian trucks are burning. Strikes doubled February to March—and the Russians retreated.

Military

"Flash" Beskrestnov on Russia's new threats to strike Kyiv: They have no dynamics on front and need result. Russia again threatens Kyiv with new strikes, but they're partly psychological pressure.

Ukraine destroyed a Russian S-300 launcher, rare radar, and fuel tank cars in occupied Donetsk in one day. Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces also struck multiple ammo and logistics depots, a field artillery store, and one of Russia's largest drones, the Merlin-VR reconnaissance UAV, on 24 May 2026.

Russia fails to capture Mala Tokmachka for 1,500 days — longer than Rome's siege of Carthage and three times siege of La Rochelle. The Book of Records of Ukraine has formally certified the position as one of the longest-held front-line defensive stands of the modern Russo-Ukrainian war.

Russia's fourth "Oreshnik" on Ukraine may have struck its own troops in occupied Donetsk Oblast — while first hit Kyiv Oblast. The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed one Oreshnik impact on Ukrainian territory, the strike on Bila Tserkva.

Ukrainian drones lit up a propane train in Russia's Kursk Oblast. The 24 May Lgov District strike caused a gas explosion that forced authorities to move 76 people from neighboring streets.

Ukraine's Sheskharis operation wasn't just about drones: Partisans say they blinded Russia's Novorossiysk air defenses first. ATESH partisans say they blinded Novorossiysk's air defense. Then the drones came.

Intelligence and technology

Ukrainian drone maker now in contention for US Army contracts: General Chereshnia advanced to second round of Pentagon's $1.1 billion drone competition. Twenty-five companies from around the world participated in the first round at Fort Benning, Georgia, each given two hours to demonstrate their systems to US military personnel.

Competition across six manufacturers saves Ukraine 16% on its largest-ever 155mm shell contract. Ukraine redirected money to tens of thousands more shells.

Ukraine's new air defense system convinces Russian missiles they are in Peru — at one percent cost of Patriot. Lima electronic warfare, Cascade Systems, Night Watch, Alchemist, Patriot PAC-3 alternative, Shahed jamming, Kometa antennas, Lima Quant.

Ukrainian intelligence: Russia's new jet-powered Geran-4 attack drone runs on Chinese turbojets. The Geran-4 has a brand-new reinforced airframe and can pull high-G maneuvers at 300-400 km/h, per Ukraine's military intelligence. It carries up to 90 kg of thermobaric explosives.

International

Ukraine offers African nations cooperation across eight sectors from food security to digitalization. Ukraine pledged equal partnership with Africa, where Russia recruits fighters from 36 countries.

Russia warns diplomats to leave Kyiv ahead of "systemic strikes" — day after it launched "Oreshnik" missile on region. Russia warned foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv ahead of announced "systemic strikes."

Smaller NATO economies already spend 0.25% of GDP on Ukraine. UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Canada block plan to require it. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had hoped to bring a binding commitment to the Ankara summit: each Alliance member to allocate 0.25% of GDP to military aid for Ukraine.

Sviatlana Tsikhanoŭskaya makes her first ever Kyiv visit — her train ticket reads "Przemyśl — Free Kyiv — Free Minsk". The Belarusian opposition leader went directly from the train station to lay flowers at the grave of fallen Belarusian volunteer Maryia Zaitsava.

Political and legal developments

Russia's "BARS-33" campaign is offering Kherson men close-to-home service. Documentation reveals what actually happens. The discharge papers never get signed.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine wrapped the occupied south in three layers of drones. Russian trucks are burning. Strikes doubled February to March—and the Russians retreated

Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI who called Biden a ‘warmonger’ for backing Ukraine is resigning. Gabbard resigns as US intelligence chief, citing husband's cancer.

Russia threatens NATO member Latvia with retaliation. Rubio calls it “concerning”. Russia's UN ambassador threatened to strike Latvia. The US Secretary of State said the situation raises concerns.

Ukraine’s attack on Moscow: Show of force? Yes. Path of revenge? Not quite.. Moscow's air defense "never coped under the pressure of regular UAVs."

Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister on the 2026 sowing, the labor crisis, and a sector holding steady under fire. Taras Vysotskyi on the 2026 sowing season, the war’s drag on labor, and a sector that has refused to contract.

EU will return to buying Russian gas once war ends, new Hungarian PM Magyar predicts. The new prime minister told Rzeczpospolita the calculation is set by competitiveness and geography, contrary to the bloc's three-year phase-out plan.

Military

Ukraine targets Russian fuel flows and Black Sea naval assets in coordinated overnight strikes. The General Staff says multiple strategic infrastructure sites were hit over May 23–24.

Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" hit fuel-pumping station supplying central Russia and Moscow region fuel network. The drone attack hit a key Transneft pipeline node in Vladimir Oblast, triggering a large fire.

BREAKING: Russia reportedly struck Kyiv Oblast with Oreshnik intercontinental ballistic missile.

Ukraine warns of possible third "Oreshnik" strike with Kyiv among likely targets — and US Embassy issues security alert.

Ukraine strikes Russia's Sheskharis terminal with 75 million tons of annual oil throughput and 2.5 million cubic meters of tank capacity.

Russian showed his military ID in mud and declared him dead. He survived and went back for gun. He also shot down eight Russian drones in the past few weeks.

Metafrax Chemicals plant, supplying dozens of military facilities, halts operation after Ukraine's strikes 1,700 km inside Russia. Today's strike was Ukraine's one in the series of attacks on the same Russian chemical plant in eight months.

Ukraine strikes "Rubicon" elite Russian drone unit in occupied Luhansk Oblast — while Moscow accuses Kyiv of hitting civilians. Ukraine's General Staff said the overnight strike package included a Russian unit known for drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Ukraine has struck 24 of Russia's 33 largest refineries since 2022, Russian media reports. Only the Omsk and Angarsk refineries, both located east of the Urals, remain outside the strike zone, the publication said.

Intelligence and technology

Russia is now losing 95% of its Shaheds to Ukrainian interception. Moscow's response will be jet-powered variants and border-area targeting. Russia previously lost 12-15% of its Shaheds to Ukrainian air defense. Now Ukraine intercepts 95%.

Russia's 1,392-vessel shadow fleet is now hybrid-warfare tool. It will continue as long as its export capacity remains unharmed. The 1,392-vessel shadow fleet carrying up to 80% of Russia's crude oil maritime exports is the financial backbone of Moscow's wartime economy.

Russia captures Hornet AI drone that Ukraine uses to cut logistics 150 km behind front — without software that makes it work. Russian-language military channels have themselves acknowledged that Hornet strikes are inflicting systematic losses on Russian supply routes.

International

France's Macron warned Lukashenka not to drag Belarus into Russia's war. The call was the first since 26 February 2022. Minsk confirmed it took place at Paris's initiative — but the French presidency hasn't yet.

Trump announces 5,000 US troops to Poland — one week after US froze scheduled combat-team rotation and amid Russia's threat. Meanwhile, Russia began its nuclear drills in Belarus, bordering Poland.

Russia is "directing" Ukrainian drones into NATO territory, Estonian foreign minister says. The minister spoke ahead of an alliance foreign ministers meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, where colleagues rejected Moscow's claims of Baltic complicity.

Humanitarian and social impact

Kyiv endures massive overnight aerial assault with widespread damage reported across 50 locations, at least 2 dead. Residential areas, schools, markets, and key cultural sites were damaged in an overnight attack.

Russian operators deliberately wound pensioners aged 83, 80, and 69, who can't escape their FPVs in Kherson Oblast. Russian drones wounded an 83-year-old man and killed a 64-year-old woman in her own home.

Russian operator saw funeral procession in Sumy on his screen and steered FPV drone into it, killing one person. A drone hit the bus carrying mourners the day after Ukraine's prosecutors released 11,000 cases of small-drone attacks on civilians.

Ukraine documents 11,000 Russian FPV attacks on civilians, including "double strikes" on same site after medics and firefighters arrive. The cumulative count rose from 2,427 in 2024 to 6,771 in 2025, and is already at 2,010 in the first four months of 2026.

Political and legal developments

Zelenskyy responds to Merz: Ukraine has been defending Europe fully, not with half measures and has to have right to vote in EU. With Orban out of power, Zelenskyy wants full EU membership, not Germany's "associate" compromise.

Ukraine receives remains of Andrii Melnyk, OUN's second head and Sachsenhausen prisoner. He will be reburied at pantheon of heroes. Nazi Germany arrested Melnyk in 1941. He spent 1944 at Sachsenhausen.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusive

Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI who called Biden a 'warmonger' for backing Ukraine is resigning. Gabbard resigns as US intelligence chief, citing husband's cancer.

Russia threatens NATO member Latvia with retaliation. Rubio calls it "concerning". Russia's UN ambassador threatened to strike Latvia. The US Secretary of State said the situation raises concerns.

Ukraine's attack on Moscow: Show of force? Yes. Path of revenge? Not quite.. Moscow's air defense "never coped under the pressure of regular UAVs."

Ukraine's deputy agriculture minister on the 2026 sowing, the labor crisis, and a sector holding steady under fire. Taras Vysotskyi on the 2026 sowing season, the war's drag on labor, and a sector that has refused to contract.

EU will return to buying Russian gas once war ends, new Hungarian PM Magyar predicts. The new prime minister told Rzeczpospolita the calculation is set by competitiveness and geography, contrary to the bloc's three-year phase-out plan.

Russia's secret "Skythen" project would station nuclear missiles on seabed, German media report. Investigators have been watching the specialized vessel "Zvezdochka" from Severodvinsk for some time, the broadcasters said.

Military

Ukraine warns of possible third "Oreshnik" strike with Kyiv among likely targets — and US Embassy issues security alert.

Ukraine strikes Russia's Sheskharis terminal with 75 million tons of annual oil throughput and 2.5 million cubic meters of tank capacity.

Russian showed his military ID in mud and declared him dead. He survived and went back for gun. He also shot down eight Russian drones in the past few weeks.

Metafrax Chemicals plant, supplying dozens of military facilities, halts operation after Ukraine's strikes 1,700 km inside Russia. Today's strike was Ukraine's one in the series of attacks on the same Russian chemical plant in eight months.

Ukraine strikes "Rubicon" elite Russian drone unit in occupied Luhansk Oblast — while Moscow accuses Kyiv of hitting civilians. Ukraine's General Staff said the overnight strike package included a Russian unit known for drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Ukraine has struck 24 of Russia's 33 largest refineries since 2022, Russian media reports. Only the Omsk and Angarsk refineries, both located east of the Urals, remain outside the strike zone, the publication said.

Russia's 4th-largest oil refinery in Kstovo halts its main crude unit after 20 May attack. The Lukoil-owned plant's CDU-6 unit, accounting for 53% of refinery capacity, processes 25,700 tonnes of crude per day, Reuters says.

Ukrainian drone strike halts NORSI's main crude unit, Reuters reports. The Lukoil-owned refinery near Kstovo, Russia's second-largest gasoline producer, was hit on 20 May 2026, two industry sources told Reuters.

Intelligence and technology

Russia is now losing 95% of its Shaheds to Ukrainian interception. Moscow's response will be jet-powered variants and border-area targeting. Russia previously lost 12-15% of its Shaheds to Ukrainian air defense. Now Ukraine intercepts 95%.

Russia captures Hornet AI drone that Ukraine uses to cut logistics 150 km behind front — without software that makes it work. Russian-language military channels have themselves acknowledged that Hornet strikes are inflicting systematic losses on Russian supply routes.

Russia is building 10 more launch pads at its Tsymbulova base for jet-powered missile-drones with 1,000 km range. The newest Russian Geran variant "is already approaching the shape of a cruise missile," a UK-based analyst said.

US approves potential $108.1 million sale to sustain Ukraine's FrankenSAM HAWK. Sierra Nevada Corporation will lead the deal, which includes erectable mast trailers and repair services for launchers Ukrainian forces use on the southern front.

Pentagon: Ukraine retook 400 km² after cutting Russian troops off from Elon Musk's Starlink internet. A Ukrainian offensive retook roughly 400 square kilometers of territory in early 2026 after thousands of Starlink terminals used by Russian forces were deactivated, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report.

Russia's 1,392-vessel shadow fleet is now hybrid-warfare tool. It will continue as long as its export capacity remains unharmed. The 1,392-vessel shadow fleet carrying up to 80% of Russia's crude oil maritime exports is the financial backbone of Moscow's wartime economy.

International

Trump announces 5,000 US troops to Poland — one week after US froze scheduled combat-team rotation and amid Russia's threat. Meanwhile, Russia began its nuclear drills in Belarus, bordering Poland.

Russia is "directing" Ukrainian drones into NATO territory, Estonian foreign minister says. The minister spoke ahead of an alliance foreign ministers meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, where colleagues rejected Moscow's claims of Baltic complicity.

Ukraine's FM Sybiha informs NATO allies of growing Belarus threats at Helsingborg meeting. The foreign minister urged action to deter and prevent the expansion of aggression by Moscow and Minsk at the informal Council on 21 May.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian operators deliberately wound pensioners aged 83, 80, and 69, who can't escape their FPVs in Kherson Oblast. Russian drones wounded an 83-year-old man and killed a 64-year-old woman in her own home.

Russian operator saw funeral procession in Sumy on his screen and steered FPV drone into it, killing one person. A drone hit the bus carrying mourners the day after Ukraine's prosecutors released 11,000 cases of small-drone attacks on civilians.

Ukraine documents 11,000 Russian FPV attacks on civilians, including "double strikes" on same site after medics and firefighters arrive. The cumulative count rose from 2,427 in 2024 to 6,771 in 2025, and is already at 2,010 in the first four months of 2026.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine receives remains of Andrii Melnyk, OUN's second head and Sachsenhausen prisoner. He will be reburied at pantheon of heroes. Nazi Germany arrested Melnyk in 1941. He spent 1944 at Sachsenhausen.

Putin wants war concluded this year on victorious terms including Donbas, Bloomberg reports. The Russian president also seeks a broader security agreement with Europe that would acknowledge Moscow's territorial gains, sources said.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine's attack on Moscow: Show of force? Yes. Path of revenge? Not quite.. Moscow's air defense "never coped under the pressure of regular UAVs."

Ukraine's deputy agriculture minister on the 2026 sowing, the labor crisis, and a sector holding steady under fire. Taras Vysotskyi on the 2026 sowing season, the war's drag on labor, and a sector that has refused to contract.

EU will return to buying Russian gas once war ends, new Hungarian PM Magyar predicts. The new prime minister told Rzeczpospolita the calculation is set by competitiveness and geography, contrary to the bloc's three-year phase-out plan.

Russia's secret "Skythen" project would station nuclear missiles on seabed, German media report. Investigators have been watching the specialized vessel "Zvezdochka" from Severodvinsk for some time, the broadcasters said.

Military

Ukraine strikes "Rubicon" elite Russian drone unit in occupied Luhansk Oblast — while Moscow accuses Kyiv of hitting civilians. Ukraine's General Staff said the overnight strike package included a Russian unit known for drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Ukraine has struck 24 of Russia's 33 largest refineries since 2022, Russian media reports. Only the Omsk and Angarsk refineries, both located east of the Urals, remain outside the strike zone, the publication said.

Russia's 4th-largest oil refinery in Kstovo halts its main crude unit after 20 May attack. The Lukoil-owned plant's CDU-6 unit, accounting for 53% of refinery capacity, processes 25,700 tonnes of crude per day, Reuters says.

Ukrainian drone strike halts NORSI's main crude unit, Reuters reports. The Lukoil-owned refinery near Kstovo, Russia's second-largest gasoline producer, was hit on 20 May 2026, two industry sources told Reuters.

Intelligence and technology

Russia's 1,392-vessel shadow fleet is now hybrid-warfare tool. It will continue as long as its export capacity remains unharmed. The 1,392-vessel shadow fleet carrying up to 80% of Russia's crude oil maritime exports is the financial backbone of Moscow's wartime economy.

Russia captures Hornet AI drone that Ukraine uses to cut logistics 150 km behind front — without software that makes it work. Russian-language military channels have themselves acknowledged that Hornet strikes are inflicting systematic losses on Russian supply routes.

Russia is building 10 more launch pads at its Tsymbulova base for jet-powered missile-drones with 1,000 km range. The newest Russian Geran variant "is already approaching the shape of a cruise missile," a UK-based analyst said.

US approves potential $108.1 million sale to sustain Ukraine's FrankenSAM HAWK. Sierra Nevada Corporation will lead the deal, which includes erectable mast trailers and repair services for launchers Ukrainian forces use on the southern front.

Pentagon: Ukraine retook 400 km² after cutting Russian troops off from Elon Musk's Starlink internet. A Ukrainian offensive retook roughly 400 square kilometers of territory in early 2026 after thousands of Starlink terminals used by Russian forces were deactivated, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report.

International

Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI who called Biden a 'warmonger' for backing Ukraine is resigning. Gabbard resigns as US intelligence chief, citing husband's cancer.

Russia threatens NATO member Latvia with retaliation. Rubio calls it "concerning". Russia's UN ambassador threatened to strike Latvia. The US Secretary of State said the situation raises concerns.

Trump announces 5,000 US troops to Poland — one week after US froze scheduled combat-team rotation and amid Russia's threat. Meanwhile, Russia began its nuclear drills in Belarus, bordering Poland.

Russia is "directing" Ukrainian drones into NATO territory, Estonian foreign minister says. The minister spoke ahead of an alliance foreign ministers meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, where colleagues rejected Moscow's claims of Baltic complicity.

Ukraine's FM Sybiha informs NATO allies of growing Belarus threats at Helsingborg meeting. The foreign minister urged action to deter and prevent the expansion of aggression by Moscow and Minsk at the informal Council on 21 May.

Czech president to Europe: Ukraine isn't a charity case, it's your defense laboratory. Czech president opens GLOBSEC with warning against "bad peace."

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine documents 11,000 Russian FPV attacks on civilians, including "double strikes" on same site after medics and firefighters arrive. The cumulative count rose from 2,427 in 2024 to 6,771 in 2025, and is already at 2,010 in the first four months of 2026.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine receives remains of Andrii Melnyk, OUN's second head and Sachsenhausen prisoner. He will be reburied at pantheon of heroes. Nazi Germany arrested Melnyk in 1941. He spent 1944 at Sachsenhausen.

Putin wants war concluded this year on victorious terms including Donbas, Bloomberg reports. The Russian president also seeks a broader security agreement with Europe that would acknowledge Moscow's territorial gains, sources said.

Ukraine uncovers $1.6 million food-procurement scheme: defense official "forgets" quality-check clause on $9.1 million in contracts. Soldiers got rations mixing quality items with expired food.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine is lofting its AI drones 8,000 meters up—then letting them glide into Russia. With help from a balloon, a Hornet AI drone could double its striking range.

Ukraine threw out the international rulebook after firefighters stood helpless against burning mined forests. The international demining playbook does not cover Russia’s war—Ukraine is writing one as it goes.

Ukraine’s traditional vyshyvanka embroidered shirt submitted for UNESCO cultural heritage recognition. The embroidered shirt has become one of the country’s strongest cultural symbols both at home and abroad.

Philippines sends 40 generators to Ukraine through EU scheme as relationship deepens. Manila ships Ukraine 40 generators through the EU's rescEU framework — deepening a Manila-Kyiv relationship that didn't exist before Zelenskyy's 2024 visit.

Why Ukraine could not have held a wartime election on 15 May—the operational figures behind a lapsed deadline. Numbers from Ukraine’s own election commission, walked through at the Lviv Media Forum last week, explained why a 15 May vote was never possible.

Putin and Xi signed “multipolar world” declaration that teads as repudiation of what Russia is doing in Ukraine. The declaration's principles include respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.

Putin’s top foreign-policy aide disavows “Spirit of Anchorage” Kremlin has pushed for months after Putin’s visit to Beijing. In October he publicly defended the "spirit of Anchorage." Today he said he never used the phrase.

Kazakh court authorizes forced collection of $1.4 billion from Gazprom for Ukraine’s Naftogaz. A Zurich-seated tribunal ordered Gazprom to pay $1.37 billion in principal for unpaid transit services in June 2025.

Russia’s drones are trying to dogfight. They probably can’t beat F-16s—but An-28s should worry. Lag in Russia's command network protects fast jets. Helicopters less so

Russia threatens Latvia with “just retribution.” Von der Leyen calls it “absolutely unacceptable”. Latvia's government already resigned last week over its handling of the incursions.

Military

Ukrainian forces seize tactical initiative across frontline, Syrskyi says. Ukrainian counterattacks have liberated more than 400 square kilometers of southern Ukraine in winter and spring 2026, with further gains in Kupiansk and Zaporizhzhia.

"In 2022, offensive came from territory of Belarus": Zelenskyy announces stronger northern defenses and "other things". The message was direct: funding for all defensive measures on the Chernihiv–Kyiv axis is available.

Ukrainian strike on Russian FSB and Pantsir-S1 kills or injures around 100 Russian troops – Zelenskyy says. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the strike in a Facebook video and attributed it to the SBU's Special Operations Center "A."

Partisans burned locomotive in Saint Petersburg, disrupting key rail routes in Russia's northwestern logistics network, ATESH claims. The partisan network claims the engine was used for oil cargo transport and taken out of service after the attack.

Fire breaks out at Syzran oil refinery as drone attack hits Samara region. One processing unit was burning at the plant, which is involved in supplying Russia's armed forces, Telegram channels reported.

Russia-Belarus nuclear drills end with simulated launches; targets not made public. Russia and Belarus jointly released a video on 21 May showing nuclear munitions arriving at field storage points.

Russian overnight strikes kill two in Kharkiv and Chernihiv oblasts. Ukraine's Air Force said it intercepted 109 of 117 weapons launched; the missile and five drones struck targets across the country.

After more than 1,200 Russian strikes on Ukraine's railway, Ukrzaliznytsia says this summer will be hardest. Since the full-scale invasion began, roughly 17,300 railway infrastructure facilities and pieces of rolling stock have been affected.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's Blyskavka kamikaze drone gets new detail that gave 30% to its range. Around $880 buys a Ukrainian drone that flies 80 kilometers and carries an 8-kilogram warhead.

Kyiv moves to scale low-cost interceptor missiles to counter cost imbalance in defending against Russian Shahed strikes. Ukraine says low-cost air defense systems are now doubling interception rates while cutting reliance on expensive missiles.

Russia is preparing new campaign through 15+ Western "proxy outlets" to undermine Ukraine's external support, Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence says. EU media monitors have documented one of the named outlets calling Ukraine "a puppet state founded and run by the CIA."

International

Ukraine's demining equipment manufacturers get access to two new markets through Japan. Ukraine is exporting demining expertise to Colombia, and now Syria.

Latvia issues drone alert over three eastern municipalities, deploys additional air defense. Latvia's military told residents in the Ludza, Krāslava, and Rēzekne municipalities to follow the two-wall principle and call 112.

Poland's defense minister tells Kyiv: be "more precise" with drone strikes. Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz delivered the message from a press conference in Estonia, blaming Russian electronic warfare for redirecting Ukrainian flight paths and warning that Moscow is mining each Baltic incident for propaganda.

Humanitarian and social impact

"Human safari" and double strikes on medics: Ukraine's UN envoy lays out the case to boot Russia from the Security Council. Civilian casualties in Ukraine rose 93% in 2026 compared to 2024, making the first four months of this year the deadliest for Ukrainian civilians since the war began.

Political and legal developments

Russia forced Ukrainians to build military fortifications: Ukraine submits new materials on 1,800 prisoners to ICC. When Russia retreated from Kherson in November 2022, it took 2,000 Ukrainian prisoners with it. Most are still there.

Ukraine lets local governments directly fund community air defense units, expanding decentralization efforts. Local governments will now be able to finance territorial air defense groups operating under Air Force coordination.

Merz proposes interim EU "associate member" status for Ukraine. Berlin's plan would extend the bloc's mutual defense clause and partial budget access during wartime, with a snap-back clause if rule-of-law standards slip.

Read our previous daily review here.

In Ukrainian villages where Russian Shahed drones come down regularly, children have begun disassembling them with screwdrivers to harvest microchips—and Ukraine has had to invent a new category of demining work to handle them, one that the international playbook does not recognize.

When mine awareness teams went into the local schools to warn the children away, the children asked them something the teams had not prepared for: please, teach us how to do this safely. The risk—live munitions don’t always detonate on impact—is obvious.

Ihor Bezkaravainyi told Euromaidan Press the country has had to write its own playbook. Ukraine’s deputy minister responsible for humanitarian demining said the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS), the global rulebook for cleaning up after wars, do not contain a chapter on what to do when a child takes a screwdriver and a bicycle into a contaminated field.

Prohibition does not work

The standards distinguish between humanitarian demining—the structured, methodical process of clearing land with sappers and dogs—and now, in Bezkaravainyi’s framing, what he calls operational demining: the fast government response that has to follow immediately after a strike, before formal clearance procedures even begin.

The category did not exist in international practice. “If a Shahed lands in a cultivated field, no chapter in IMAS tells you what to do next,” he said. “It does not exist.”

The first reaction from international specialists, Bezkaravainyi said, was that the children should be strictly prohibited from approaching the drones.

“In theory, yes,” he said. “In practice, a child takes a bicycle, rides into a field, and starts working on a Shahed with a screwdriver. Prohibition does not work. We have to engage with reality.”

The children-and-Shaheds case is not the only place where the international playbook has run out of answers in Ukraine. Two years ago, Ukraine built its national demining priorities by following the IMAS sequence: first infrastructure, then socially important sites, then economic activities, then everything else, including natural parks and forests. It looked like common sense.

Uneven innovation

Then last summer, the wildfires started. Firefighting trucks could not get through mined roads. In Kharkiv Oblast, helicopters could not deploy because the front line was too close. Ukraine lost both firefighters and forest in the Kharkiv wildfires. “We lost two years on the forests,” Bezkaravainyi said. “Now we are starting again from scratch.”

In this war, innovation has been remarkably effective on the killing side—Russian Shahed drones, fiber-optic FPV strikes, AI-targeted artillery.

Explore further

Drone interceptor was last year’s innovation. Ukraine has already moved on

On the cleanup side, the picture is bleaker. Small plastic mines cannot be identified by drones or satellites. TM-62 anti-tank mines cannot be excavated by machines without human work afterward. Demining machines do not actually demine—they identify, and humans clear.

The real innovation in cleanup, Bezkaravainyi said, is in data analysis: knowing where not to look, so resources do not go to land that was never mined. “Innovation works very well for killing in this war,” he said. “Less well for cleaning up after it.”

The 20-kilometer zone along the front line, Bezkaravainyi noted, is not described in any existing international standard. “And the modern war is not yet described in any mine action standard,” he said. “We are writing the standards as we go.”

Ukraine has submitted the tradition of the Ukrainian embroidered shirt, the vyshyvanka, for inclusion on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna announced on 21 May, marked in Ukraine as Vyshyvanka Day.

The vyshyvanka has long been regarded as one of the most recognizable symbols of Ukrainian national identity. Different regions of Ukraine developed distinct embroidery techniques, colors, and ornament styles, many carrying local historical, spiritual, and cultural meanings.

Berezhna called the submission a “historic step” for preserving and promoting Ukrainian culture internationally. 

UNESCO nomination enters international review

According to her statement, the nomination dossier has already been transferred to UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and the country’s permanent delegation to UNESCO.

“The embroidered shirt is one of the strongest symbols of Ukrainian identity,” Berezhna said. She described the vyshyvanka as a tradition that connects generations, regions, and millions of Ukrainians living both in Ukraine and abroad.

The minister emphasized that embroidered shirts remain deeply tied to family and personal history in Ukraine, often passed down between generations and preserved as symbols of connection to home and heritage.

Traditional embroidery remains part of modern culture 

Berezhna also stressed that the vyshyvanka continues to evolve as part of modern Ukrainian culture. 

Traditional embroidery patterns are increasingly reinterpreted by Ukrainian designers, while vyshyvankas have appeared at international cultural events, on fashion runways, and in wardrobes around the world.

Museums, researchers, and designers joined the nomination effort 

She said the nomination was prepared through cooperation between government institutions, museums, researchers, cultural organizations, artists, and businesses involved in preserving and promoting Ukrainian embroidery traditions.

Among the organizations involved in the submission process were the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, cultural research institutions, regional cultural centers, and organizers of World Vyshyvanka Day.

Berezhna said the international recognition process is important because “the world must know that the vyshyvanka is Ukrainian.”

A quarter of Ukraine’s polling stations are out of action. Nearly a million of its voters are at the front. Five to seven and a half million live abroad as refugees. A single Russian missile alert can shut every working polling station in the country at once. The 15 May presidential election deadline Washington pushed came and went without a vote—on Kyiv’s own arithmetic, it was never operable.

Those were the figures the sociologist Tymofii Brik walked through at the Lviv Media Forum last week, in a live recording of the “Sociology Showed” podcast with Babel editor-in-chief Kateryna Kobernyk. This is the operational answer.

Explore further

Contents

• 10% now, 23% after a ceasefire, 59% only at peace—Ukraine’s verdict on a wartime vote hasn’t moved all year
  1. Names and dates
  2. Historical examples
  3. Plausible and implausible dates
  4. Kyiv signals election readiness—while 59% of Ukrainians say wait until war ends (INFOGRAPHICS)
  5. Even the FSB knows you won’t believe it—so Russia now lies only to Russians
  6. Don’t sign what Bosnia signed, a Bosnian journalist tells Ukraine

10% now, 23% after a ceasefire, 59% only at peace—Ukraine’s verdict on a wartime vote hasn’t moved all year

Names and dates

The figures have a name and a date. Ukraine’s deputy chief election commissioner, Serhiy Dubovyk, told CNN in December that 75% of the country’s polling stations are functional. The total on Ukraine’s State Voter Register is 33,258, which puts the missing quarter at more than 8,000 polling stations, concentrated in occupied territory and the front-line oblasts.

A free, safe national vote, Dubovyk added, would need at least six months of preparation before the first ballot box opened. He has been repeating those numbers to Western reporters ever since.

Where Kyiv’s agency reaches, the picture has moved. The State Voter Register reopened to full use on 1 January 2026, the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion. It now holds approximately 33 million people, of whom five to seven and a half million live abroad—with only 104 foreign polling stations registered to serve them—and more than 1.4 million lack official registration.

The Central Election Commission has been preparing the technical groundwork, and a parliamentary working group has been deliberating on the post-war framework.

Electronic voting, sometimes floated as a shortcut, has no legal framework and no system built, and Russia’s cyberattacks on Ukrainian state infrastructure make any rushed deployment uniquely dangerous. Where Kyiv’s agency does not reach—the line of contact, the refugee camps, the polling halls in occupied or shelled cities—the war freezes the picture.

Historical examples

Other wartime democracies have voted before. Britain held a general election in July 1945; Israel has voted through several conflicts; Ukraine itself voted in May 2014, months after Russia’s first invasion.

The difference Ukrainian institutions point to is operational, not ideological. A nationwide air-raid alarm goes up every time a Russian MiG-31K—the Kinzhal’s carrier aircraft—takes off, because the missile can hit any part of Ukraine within minutes once launched; every working polling station shuts at once when the alarm sounds, and an entire election day can be lost if the alert runs for hours.

Ukraine’s election-monitoring Civil Network OPORA, together with more than 400 civil society organizations, has declared that elections cannot be held under those conditions without sustainable peace.

Davyd Arakhamia, the Servant of the People parliamentary faction leader who in January proposed a 90-day post-ceasefire vote, made the same case to RBC-Ukraine: Ukraine has “no modern experience—organizationally, politically, or economically. Honestly, we are not really ready for this right now.”

Plausible and implausible dates

The legal calendar adds its own months. Parliament extended martial law for the 19th time on 30 April 2026; it now runs until 2 August 2026. Under a cross-party framework agreed in November 2023, no first post-war election can be called sooner than six months after martial law lifts.

By the CEC’s rules, no plausible Ukrainian vote arrives before spring 2027—and a realistic one, later. Until then, the constitution extends a sitting president’s powers until a successor is sworn in, so the absence of a vote does not create a legal vacuum.

Through the winter, Washington—its deadline tied to the American midterm calendar—and a chorus of foreign commentators pressed Kyiv to hold a vote on a deadline that, on Ukraine’s own arithmetic, was never operable. Asked the same question by Ukrainian pollsters, only one in ten voters wanted elections now. The 15 May deadline came and went.

At the Lviv Media Forum last week, Brik laid out the political answer, and Kobernyk pushed back. The operational one—the figures Dubovyk gave CNN in December—is still the one Ukraine’s election commission has.

Exclusives

Russia's air-to-air Shaheds probably can't hit F-16s—but the slow planes are exposed. Lag in Russia's command network protects fast jets. Helicopters less so

Russia threatens Latvia with "just retribution." Von der Leyen calls it "absolutely unacceptable". Latvia's government already resigned last week over its handling of the incursions.

US presses Ukraine to ease Belarus sanctions—and lobby Europe to follow. The country struck by drones launched from Belarus is being asked to argue for softer sanctions on the regime that hosts them.

Russian mines cost Ukraine $11 billion every year. Clearing them is the work of decades. Deputy Minister Ihor Bezkaravainyi, who lost his leg to a mine in 2015, on clearing Russia's mines from Ukraine.

Beijing endorses Moscow's 'root causes' framing on Ukraine in Putin-Xi joint statement. The summit produced no agreed timeline for the long-stalled Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline.

ISW: Russia prepares the ground for Baltic aggression as its spy agency threatens Latvian "decision-making centers". Russia's SVR threatens Latvian military bases over Ukrainian drone claims Riga denies. ISW warns Moscow is manufacturing a pretext for Baltic aggression.

Wounded warriors can wait months for evacuation. Ukrainians are trying to solve this—here's how. From UGVs to experimental hexcopters

Military

Russia has five scenarios for its potential offensive from north of Ukraine, says Zelenskyy. Ukraine is tracking five Russian scenarios for expanding the war via the northern border and reinforcing its forces in the area.

Six of ten Russian refineries hit by Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces in May have stopped operating. Tuapse is indefinitely closed.

Drones strike Lukoil's Kstovo refinery, hitting primary crude unit. The plant is among Russia's largest fuel producers and supplies the Moscow region; it was also targeted on 18 May.

Ukraine must choose strike targets more precisely, Polish defense minister says. Kosiniak-Kamysz spoke a day after Estonia shot down a drone of likely Ukrainian origin near Lake Võrtsjärv.

Intelligence and technology

Russia's drone-air-defense arms race now includes depleted uranium — Ukraine found it in Geran-2 warhead. Depleted uranium is widely used in Russian conventional munitions. The change is mounting it on a drone to kill the helicopters defending against the drones.

360-degree armored capsule, V-shaped anti-blast underbody, thermal night-vision: Ukraine gets 20 Roshel Senator MRAPs. Russia's drones are hunting demining crews now, not just buried ordnance. This batch comes in an MRAP variant Ukrainian feedback helped design.

Ukraine's new Stinger training simulator lets crews drill without firing missile that costs $120,000–150,000. Global stocks are aging, too. The simulator means crews can train without firing one.

Every paid-for PURL weapon is reaching Ukraine, including air-defense interceptors, NATO's top operational military commander says. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexus Grynkewich told reporters in Brussels on 19 May that the program now totals nearly $5.5 billion in allied pledges.

International

Russia threatens Latvia with "just retribution." Von der Leyen calls it "absolutely unacceptable". Latvia's government already resigned last week over its handling of the incursions.

US presses Ukraine to ease Belarus sanctions—and lobby Europe to follow. The country struck by drones launched from Belarus is being asked to argue for softer sanctions on the regime that hosts them.

Beijing endorses Moscow's 'root causes' framing on Ukraine in Putin-Xi joint statement. The summit produced no agreed timeline for the long-stalled Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline.

ISW: Russia prepares the ground for Baltic aggression as its spy agency threatens Latvian "decision-making centers". Russia's SVR threatens Latvian military bases over Ukrainian drone claims Riga denies. ISW warns Moscow is manufacturing a pretext for Baltic aggression.

Pentagon cuts US combat brigades in Europe from four to three—Poland deployment "temporarily delayed". The drawdown follows a separate decision two weeks ago to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany.

Lithuania scrambles NATO jets and shuts Vilnius airport over drone from Belarus. It is the third Baltic air alert in four days, after a Romanian jet downed a stray Ukrainian drone over Estonia on 19 May.

IFMA restores Russian and Belarusian flags and anthems at every muaythai championship and age category. Wrestling, gymnastics, judo, sambo, and taekwondo have already done the same; World Aquatics has postponed the same step.

Putin's top foreign-policy aide disavows "Spirit of Anchorage" Kremlin has pushed for months after Putin's visit to Beijing. In October he publicly defended the "spirit of Anchorage." Today he said he never used the phrase.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian drone collapses Konotop apartment floors, destroys museum as strikes hit at least six regions. Russia hit six Ukrainian regions overnight 20 May, collapsing floors of a Konotop apartment building and killing two in Dnipro.

A Russian drone killed their parents. Soldiers found two children in a Dobropillia basement. Officially, the city had no children left to evacuate.

Russia is holding about 1,000 Ukrainians in indefinite detention and offering only one horrible way out. Russia stopped deporting foreigners in 2022. Around 1,000 Ukrainians now sit in indefinite detention.

Russian mines cost Ukraine $11 billion every year. Clearing them is the work of decades. Deputy Minister Ihor Bezkaravainyi, who lost his leg to a mine in 2015, on clearing Russia's mines from Ukraine.

After more than 1,200 Russian strikes on Ukraine's railway, Ukrzaliznytsia says this summer will be hardest. Since the full-scale invasion began, roughly 17,300 railway infrastructure facilities and pieces of rolling stock have been affected.

Political and legal developments

Kazakh court authorizes forced collection of $1.4 billion from Gazprom for Ukraine's Naftogaz. A Zurich-seated tribunal ordered Gazprom to pay $1.37 billion in principal for unpaid transit services in June 2025.

Russian court sentences Ukrainian woman to 12 years for wiring money to Ukraine's Armed Forces. Russian court sentences Ukrainian woman to 12 years for financing Ukraine's army via 78 transfers. Her Russian accomplice received 14 years for state treason.

New developments

Russia is preparing new campaign through 15+ Western "proxy outlets" to undermine Ukraine's external support, Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence says. EU media monitors have documented one of the named outlets calling Ukraine "a puppet state founded and run by the CIA."

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Wounded warriors can wait months for evacuation. Ukrainians are trying to solve this—here's how. From UGVs to experimental hexcopters

From job offers to "meat assaults": The deception of Russia's foreign fighters. A joint human rights report reveals that Russia's global recruitment system increasingly relies on deception, coercion, and economic desperation to funnel tens of thousands of foreign nationals into high-intensity combat in Ukraine.

After Trump's exit, Putin enters Beijing — with a gas price gap and Ukraine on the table. Putin visits Beijing days after Trump, seeking a $50 vs $258 gas price deal, Ukraine signals, and reassurance that China's US thaw won't sideline Moscow.

Even the FSB knows you won't believe it—so Russia now lies only to Russians. A Ukrainian military intelligence official maps how Russian disinformation flipped—from flooding Ukraine to feeding Russians.

Xi pledged to stop arming Iran—US intelligence warns the weapons still flow. Xi pledged to stop arming Iran, but US intelligence says covert Chinese weapons shipments continue via third countries—no deal, no monitors signed.

Is Ukraine about to repeat Hitler´s mistake with the London Blitz?. Is Ukraine about to adopt Russia´s playbook - bringing the war home by striking civilian infrastructure? The author argues that this would be an strategic mistake. But the West is not helping Ukraine.

Ukraine's homemade glide bomb may have an edge over the American and French ones. It took more than a year of development, but Ukraine's new precision glide bomb is finally ready for action.

Military

Flash warns air defense crews not to wait for orders, as Russia is now hunting them with real-time-piloted Shaheds. He also warned crews not to fire carelessly and reveal their location.

Ukraine strikes Kstovo refinery, supplying 30% of Moscow Oblast's gasoline 800 km from border. It is at least the third strike since November on the same refinery.

Drone hits Yaroslavl refinery for third time in two weeks as Russia's fourth-largest oil plant burns again. Yaroslavl governor confirms Ukrainian drone struck industrial facility on 19 May; fire contained, no casualties, six Russian airports closed.

"There was fear": Colombian "Tornado" held frontline position in Ukraine for 110 days, repelling relentless Russian attacks. He's blunt about why he came — a good cause, and the money. He's just as blunt about the rest.

Border drill: Belarus district near Ukraine rehearses rocket strike making mass casualties. Belarus border district drills for rocket strikes, mass casualties and utility blackouts as Zelenskyy warns of Russian attacks launched from Belarusian soil.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine shows sea drone carrying 27 AI-guided interceptors built to kill Russia's Shaheds in air. The Katran X1.2 is 9 meters long, powered by a 350-horsepower engine.

US wants Ukraine's AI-assisted targeting, GPS-free navigation, and IP to reproduce it, but Zelenskyy has red line. Ukraine plans 3 million attack drones this year; the US built 300,000 last year, and now wants the technology to reproduce them.

Beijing is far more directly involved in war than previously understood: China secretly trained 200 Russian troops in 2025. Chinese troops have trained in Russia since 2024. Russians training in China is the new part.

Ukraine trains demining specialists to use unique drone-mounted magnetometers. The sapper no longer walks the field — the drone does, reading the soil's magnetic shifts.

Frontline tool Ukraine can't fight without: 5,000 pickups now procured through largest-ever open tender. The Defense Procurement Agency will run the process in stages through framework agreements, with first deliveries expected by end of year.

Ukraine announces its first "Equalizer" for asymmetric warfare: 250 kg warhead, no donor restrictions, third of US JDAM-ER cost. Until now Ukraine had no domestic precision glide bomb, relying on scarce Western donations, such as JDAM-ER kits, ATACMS, Storm Shadow, and SCALP-EG.

Ukrainian soldier says supplier swapped ordered drone batteries for cheaper cells that risk thermal runaway at front. He had to slice open the casing himself to find out, and what was inside was not what the contract specified.

International

First Ukrainian drone shot down over Estonia: Kyiv apologizes, accusing Russian jamming. MFA: "Moscow is doing this deliberately."

Estonia downs first drone over its own territory – and suspects it was Ukrainian. Estonia shot down a drone over Lake Võrtsjärv for the first time. Defense Minister Pevkur suspects Ukrainian origin. Latest in a series of Baltic drone incidents.

Xi told Trump Putin could come to regret the Ukraine war, FT reports. First time Xi has offered such an assessment to a US president, per FT sources.

US extends Russian-oil waiver for second time — one Bessent had told allies he wouldn't make.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian drone tears off 68-year-old man's leg in Kherson's daily "human safari". Two more people were killed and 14 wounded across Kherson Oblast in the same 24 hours.

"One person may still be under the rubble": Kharkiv struck by back-to-back drone raids, 25+ homes damaged. Russian drones struck Kharkiv twice overnight on 19 May, damaging 25+ homes and injuring three people, as part of a 209-UAV assault across Ukraine.

Russia is holding at least 100 people in occupied Crimea with no contact with outside world and no lawyer — and no trials. For the same charges that brought 7–10 years before 2022, courts now hand down 10–20, a Ukrainian rights monitor says.

Political and legal developments

Russia's four-month budget deficit hit $75.4 billion — 50% above what Moscow planned for entire year. Ukrainian PM says even high oil prices aren't saving Russia. The IMF, citing those same prices, just raised its Russia forecast.

New developments

Ukrainian teenager tops 248 girls from 67 countries to win first-ever gold at European informatics Olympiad. Ukraine also brought home 2 silvers + bronze.

Read our earlier daily review here.

For most of the past 12 years, the test of a Russian fake was simple: did it travel inside Ukraine? In 2014, around the annexation of Crimea and the attack on Donbas, it usually did.

The 2014 “crucified boy” story—a staged eyewitness on state-owned Channel One who claimed Ukrainian troops had nailed a three-year-old to a board on a square in Sloviansk and then dragged his mother behind a tank—moved through Russian and Ukrainian feeds before journalists at Novaya Gazeta took it apart within a day, and before anyone noted that the square it described does not exist in that city. The story was false, but it still worked, because Ukrainian society had not yet built the reflex to stop it.

On the stage of the Lviv Media Forum on 15 May 2026, a serving Ukrainian intelligence official described a machine that has largely given up on doing that—not because it was defeated, but because it stopped working, and because Russia found other uses for it.

The speaker was Andrii Yusov, Representative for Strategic Communications of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR), in a conversation with communications expert Yarema Dukh.

The fakes that no longer travel

This was an asymmetric war from the first day, Yusov said. Putin’s Russia had spent years preparing—first for hybrid aggression, then for full-scale war—and it arrived with more than artillery and missiles: networks of agents, budgets for information operations, and the experience of running them.

At the start of the hybrid aggression, Yusov argued, Russia’s fake machine overpowered Ukraine’s information space far more than that space could push back. Society’s critical resilience was lower. A fabrication could enter and travel. That has narrowed sharply since.

“The penetration of Russian fakes into the Ukrainian information space, and into the European one, has become much smaller than it was in 2014,” Yusov told the forum. “There is more critical reflex now. A great deal simply does not reach people, or it reaches them and does not catch. The reaction has become: this is obvious nonsense, why would I even respond to it?”

What that machine produces now, he said, is increasingly aimed inward. A separate category of fakes is forming, made exclusively for the domestic Russian audience—what he called a continuation of the North Korea-ization of Russia’s future. It is no longer built for Ukrainians or for Europeans.

“Even the FSB understands that Ukrainians will not consume this and Europeans will not consume it,” he said. “But the willingness of Russia’s own population to keep enduring, to keep suffering, to keep listening to Putin, to keep sending its children to his war—that has to be sustained with something. This is part of what sustains it.”

That is where the 2014 atrocity story comes back, with sequels. The crucified-boy theme has been revived, Yusov said, with characters from a Soviet-era children’s film—ones several generations grew up with—deployed to retell it: a supposed sister added, a mother said to have been tortured and killed by Ukrainians, fresh detail accreting the way a television series adds seasons, because for that audience, that is exactly what it is.

The honest reading of a large share of current Russian output, on his account, is that it is no longer an attempt to convince Ukraine of anything. It is maintenance work on the Russian public’s tolerance for the war.

From inventing to inflating

Producing original content that actually lands inside Ukrainian society has become harder and harder for Russia, Yusov said, and that constraint has changed the method. When fabrication from scratch stops working, what remains is to take a crisis phenomenon that already exists, scale it, and, where useful, attach stories that do not exist at all.

His example was the one running that week: a supposed migration crisis. Ukraine does not have a migrant problem, he said. No one has seen queues of people trying to enter. The economy has a real and continuing need for labor, but that is a question to be managed, not a crisis.

The monitoring matches that. A coordinated anti-migrant information wave surged across Ukrainian social media this spring, with Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications recording more than 21,600 posts pushing anti-migrant rhetoric across roughly 14,000 sources between 1 and 10 May, concentrated on Facebook and Telegram and amplified with anxiety-inducing images and video.

The official data tells a different story: in the first quarter of 2026, the State Migration Service issued only 675 migration permits and canceled 445, figures that describe a very limited inflow rather than a flood. Among the “evidence” circulated was a doctored clip of a former regional administration head, edited to make him appear to promise foreigners benefits and positions—a fabrication fact-checkers had already debunked.

The mechanism runs two objectives in parallel, Yusov said. The first is to destabilize the situation inside Ukraine as far as possible. If that fails, the fallback still pays off: discredit Ukrainian society and Ukraine’s military and political leadership in front of Western partner societies, so that coalition support weakens and aid slows. The migration theme, he noted, is one that Russian services have used for a long time in their hybrid war against the European Union, not only against Ukraine.

The danger, Yusov said, is that these subjects are genuinely sensitive and can be born inside Ukraine’s own society, not only injected from outside, which makes it hard to see who is acting in whose interest. The single real problem, he said, is Russia and the continuation of this war; everything else is a distraction.

The asymmetry and the offset

Given that head start, Dukh asked how the Ukrainian side had held the information line at all.

Because of the kind of war this is for Ukraine, Yusov answered—a just defensive war, a war for independence. The consolidation of society pulled an enormous number of people—the creative class, a new generation, civil society, and partners around the world—into the security and defense effort, helping with open-source analysis, information campaigns, and cybersecurity tool development. Ukraine resisted effectively, despite fewer resources, against a larger but more outdated apparatus.

There is also a difference that is hard to manufacture, he said. “At certain moments, we simply made Putin ridiculous. Ukrainians can take a frightening Russian army and frightening aggression and metabolize it with harsh, painful humor, and then send that back out to the world. We can also turn it very brutally on ourselves. Russians unlearned how to laugh at themselves a long time ago, because there you are jailed for it—and that makes a whole class of their operations harder to pull off.”

He pointed to concrete results. The “I Want to Live” project, run by Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War with the Defense Ministry and military intelligence, gives Russian soldiers a route to surrender under the Geneva Conventions through a 24-hour hotline, a Russian-language website, and a Telegram chatbot.

A companion service, “I Want to Find,” lets Russian families trace relatives taken prisoner or killed in Ukraine. The surrender site has drawn tens of millions of visits, the vast majority from inside Russia, and Russia has repeatedly blocked access to it. Yusov described reach in the millions, hundreds of cases, and dozens of blocks by the Russian communications regulator—work done, he noted, by relatively small teams.

None of that is grounds to relax. What the enemy probes for, every day, is resilience. The operations Russian services run are constant work, not episodes, Yusov said, and he reached for a proverb to describe the method: “Where it is thin, it tears.”

They search for the point where society’s resilience is weakest: which sensitive subject, even one as painful as prisoners of war, can be used to weaken Ukraine’s position, destabilize it from inside, or rehabilitate Russia abroad.

What Ukraine stopped believing

The clearest measure of how far this has moved, on Yusov’s telling, is not in Russia’s behavior but in Ukraine’s expectations.

In 2022, he said, many people in Ukraine genuinely believed Russians did not know the truth: that a call, a letter, the right video, would reach them and they would stop the army. By 2026, that belief is gone, and recognizing it does not make anything easier.

The question is no longer how to inform Russians. It is about extending influence over the small share of the world that actually decides things and about staying demonstrably more credible than the other side, because that contrast is itself the argument.

There is a difficulty built into even discussing acceptable outcomes for Russia, he added. The moment Ukraine says out loud what it wants to see change inside Russia, Russian propaganda answers that anyone acting on it is working for Ukrainian intelligence.

So the interest is stated plainly: a neighbor with a functioning democracy, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, and independent media. The moment those exist, Putin’s regime loses the conditions it depends on.

In Yusov’s view, any protest against that regime, inside Russia or beyond it, is good; the most effective form is armed struggle against it, which is why the Russian volunteers fighting inside Ukraine’s defense forces for a different vision of their country matter as proof that such a struggle is possible.

Toward a more credible society

What Yusov described is an information war turned inside out over 12 years: the stream aimed at Ukraine has thinned as Ukrainian society learned to refuse it, while the stream aimed at Russians has thickened because their endurance now has to be manufactured daily.

Against the West, Russia no longer invents so much as inflates real fault lines, hoping that partners tire of Ukraine on their own. The change Andrii Yusov kept returning to was the one on his own side: the 2022 conviction that the right message could end the war is gone, and what replaced it is slower and far less satisfying—being the more credible society for as long as the war continues.

Exclusives

Ukraine's steel capacity fell fourfold after Russia destroyed Azovstal. Now EU's new quota could cost it €1 billion more. Brussels offered Ukraine 713,000 tonnes duty-free. Ukraine shipped 2.65 million tonnes to the EU last year.

10% now, 23% after a ceasefire, 59% only at peace—Ukraine's verdict on a wartime vote hasn't moved all year. At the Lviv Media Forum, sociologist Tymofii Brik laid out the polling behind a settled question—and a less settled one underneath it.

Russia is 'largely defeated' from Mali to Syria, France's foreign minister says. French FM Jean-Noël Barrot calls Russia "largely defeated" in Africa—as its Africa Corps flees Kidal and Mali's junta cries betrayal.

"Stop treating Russia's bankers as faceless technocrats": inside the war crimes case against Russia's central bank. A landmark ICC complaint reframes Russia's financial occupation of Ukraine — pillaged banks, forced rubles, and passport-gated medical care — as a war crime

Russian air-defense crews are now the hunted as Ukraine bolts rocket pods to its long-range drones. Ukrainian drone forces' operators of the 1st Separate Center hit a protected node near Myrnyi, occupied Crimea, and released thermal video of the attack.

The Freya air defense system could take down Russian ballistic missiles. Can Ukraine build it?. As the Iran war drains the world's Patriots, Ukraine needs to build its own long-range air defense. Freya could be just the thing.

Axios: Cuba has acquired over 300 Russian and Iranian military drones. A classified assessment shared with Axios says Havana has stockpiled the drones since 2023 and its military has begun weighing strikes on US targets.

Military

Ukraine has found key through Moscow's air-defense rings, military analyst says. Moscow is protected by three to four rings of around 100 air-defense positions, with Pantsir systems on the Foreign and Defense Ministry buildings in the city center.

Russians stormed empty houses for the cameras 26 km from the town they claimed to take—and Russia's top general announced its "liberation". Ukraine's own military command does not even list fighting for the place, which stays under its control behind the frontline.

Russia's harbor-guard boat struck in the Caspian — Ukraine's fifth reported vessel hit there this month. The vessel's whole purpose is stopping the kind of attack that just hit it, the General Staff said.

For first time in war, Ukrainian strikes begin worrying Russians more than front. Meanwhile, Russian state TV gave the largest Moscow attack of the war under a minute.

Russia just hit commercial vessel of its closest war ally in Ukrainian waters with Shahed drone. Russia has spent months hitting civilian ships across the Black Sea. This one belonged to its closest strategic partner.

Intelligence and technology

2,000-km strike missile, designed in Netherlands, tested in Ukraine, built in Germany: Rheinmetall and Destinus accelerate RUTA Block 3. Europe has largely lacked indigenous deep-strike missiles. This one is built to be mass-produced, not stockpiled in symbolic numbers.

A Russian airliner revival sold as breakthrough now survives on extended flight-cycle limits, Ukrainian spy agency says. Roughly 159 Superjets still depend on a turbofan built with a French firm that walked out after February 2022.

Ukraine says it has Russia's hidden war-damage assessment — one Moscow won't show its own population. A single mid-sized Russian oil company has been forced to shut down around 400 wells.

Ukraine clears private firms to down Russian drones—24 already in. A Defense Ministry project lets businesses defend their plants from drones with trained staff or licensed security firms, RFE/RL reported.

International

International Gymnastics Federation lifts all sanctions on Russia and Belarus without explanation. Both countries return to full international competition under their own flag and anthem, the federation's wartime rules scrapped entirely while Russia's invasion of Ukraine grinds on.

Russia's ex-combatants entering the EU is a risk flagged in a leaked threat assessment. The Council of the EU document was seen by RFE/RL and mostly covers 2025 trends.

Belarus is now drilling nuclear-weapon use with Russian forces from "unprepared" deployment areas next to EU and Ukraine. Minsk announces these drills, then says they threaten no one.

Humanitarian and social impact

British volunteers rescue 30 animals from front-line Kramatorsk. Ex-Royal Marine Pen Farthing's Nowzad team drove 13,000 km to pull 30 cats and dogs out of Kramatorsk as Russia strikes the Donbas city daily.

Take food for three days. Then you'll come back. The Crimean Tatars never did. The people who finally came home in the 1990s and their descendants are Russia's political prisoners again.

Political and legal developments

Russia fabricated an arrest of Ukraine's first lady—the named agencies deny it. Russian state-owned media disseminated the false claim, referring to unnamed "security structures," and the Ukrainian agencies say none of it is real.

Read our earlier daily review here.

The 15 May deadline Washington pushed for a Ukrainian presidential election came and went. There was no vote, and no one in Kyiv pretended there would be. The reason is not the one US President Donald Trump pressed through the winter—that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is holding onto power by refusing to call an election.

Parliament extended martial law on 30 April for the 19th time, until 2 August 2026, making a national vote illegal. The acute pressure that produced the deadline has since cooled into ceasefire diplomacy. And across every poll taken during the war, the share of Ukrainians who want elections now has stayed in single digits.

Waning confidence

That is the settled question. The unsettled one is underneath it: the same public that won’t accept elections while the war continues is also, slowly, losing some of its confidence in democracy itself.

Both halves were laid out on 15 May at the Lviv Media Forum, in a live recording of the “Sociology Showed” (“Соціологія показала”) podcast hosted by Tymofii Brik, rector of the Kyiv School of Economics and national coordinator of the European Social Survey in Ukraine, with Babel editor-in-chief Kateryna Kobernyk playing the skeptic across the table.

Brik, whose day job is running some of Ukraine’s largest social-survey operations, walked through the polling. “About 10% of people believe that we should have elections right now, regardless of the circumstances. It’s only 10%,” he said. “After the ceasefire, it is about 20 to 25%, depending on the survey. And then, after the complete peace agreement, it’s about 60% of people.”

He was citing the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology’s late-2025 figures. The KIIS November-December Omnibus survey found 10% backing a vote before a ceasefire—down from 11% in September—23% after a ceasefire with security guarantees, and 59% only once the war had fully ended.

One number moved across the year, away from the Trump position, not toward it. Support for a vote after a ceasefire with guarantees rose from 9% in March to 23% in December. Support for elections only after a full peace deal eased from 63% to 59%. The “elections now” share never left single digits.

Brik’s broader point was about how democracies work, not only about this one. A working democracy, he argued, is one where public opinion constrains the government—alongside checks and balances, independent media, and civil rights. Ukraine, he noted with some irony, is sometimes cast—by a fringe of foreign commentators—as a place where the president drives the war and blocks the ballot.

The polling runs the other way. “It is 60% of Ukrainians who believe that we cannot have elections unless we have a complete peace deal. And then 20 to 25% who are waiting for a ceasefire. This is the public opinion. So public opinion puts pressure on our government,” he said. That the pressure runs upward—from voters to government—was the point.

The obvious objection

Kobernyk pressed the obvious objection, the one a hostile reader reaches for first. Of course, an incumbent’s circle prefers no vote: Zelenskyy had just been through the worst stretch of his presidency. In November 2025, Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau NABU exposed Operation Midas, a roughly $100 million kickback scheme at the state nuclear operator Energoatom. The alleged organizer was Timur Mindich, Zelenskyy’s former business partner from his Kvartal 95 days.

Two ministers were dismissed; Andriy Yermak, the head of the President’s Office and the second-most-powerful man in the country, resigned on 28 November after investigators searched his home. And in a hypothetical runoff that December, the former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi would have beaten Zelenskyy 64% to 36%. A man who would lose an election is not a neutral source on whether to hold one.

Brik did not dodge it. He conceded the trust damage—Zelenskyy’s numbers had fallen about 10 points when the scandal broke—and then made the harder point. The “wait” preference is not a Zelenskyy preference. Among Ukrainians who say they completely distrust the president, only 28% want an immediate vote, the same KIIS survey found.

People who would vote him out still do not want a wartime election. And the scandal that dented him was not buried: it was exposed by Ukraine’s own anti-corruption institutions, mid-war, against the president’s inner circle—the checks-and-balances half of Brik’s definition, working as it happened. By mid-December, with Yermak gone, trust had recovered to roughly 63%.

What “elections now” would actually mean

The clearest answer to what a vote now would mean came from Moscow. At his year-end Direct Line on 19 December 2025, Vladimir Putin said Russia could “consider” pausing deep strikes—on voting day only—and then demanded that the five to ten million Ukrainians he said were living on Russian territory be allowed to vote there. That is the concrete content of the call for a vote now: a one-day reprieve from bombardment, and millions of people under Russian control casting ballots under Russian supervision.

The deputy head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, Serhiy Dubovyk, told CNN in December that only 75% of polling stations are operational, with nearly a million citizens serving in the army and more than six million abroad.

Trump’s framing had been categorical. Ukraine, he said in December, “is on the point of where it’s not a democracy anymore.” Zelenskyy’s elected term ran out in May 2024; he remains in office because the constitution extends a president’s powers until a successor is sworn in, and martial law bars the election that would produce one.

The crack underneath

This is where the less settled question surfaces. Polled by the Razumkov Center in November 2025, Ukrainians backing democracy as the single best system stood at 55.5%—down from 73% in May 2023, the wartime high. An 18-point fall, in the middle of the war. The floor has held: 87% still say a democratic system is good for Ukraine, flat since 2017, and 49% say order can come only through electoral democracy, the rule of law, and independent courts, up from 42% in March 2024. But the enthusiasm has thinned.

Brik put the contradiction plainly. “A country can have elections, but it is not enough to have elections to be qualified as a democracy. You also must have checks and balances. You must have independent media. You must have civil rights,” he said. “Ukraine right now doesn’t have a major factor of democracy—we do not have elections, for obvious reasons. But besides elections, we have everything else.”

The external scoring agrees with him. Freedom House rates Ukraine 51 out of 100 for 2025, “Partly Free,” up two points from the previous year. Russia scores 12, “Not Free,” in the same report; Russian-occupied Ukraine scores -1. Russia holds elections and still ranks 39 points below Ukraine on the index Washington cites most.

That was Brik’s point: the vote, on its own, is not what the index measures. Ukraine, barred from voting under martial law, clears a bar Russia falls below—because Russia’s elections are controlled and the state dominates the opposition and the press.

European Social Survey data, Brik said, show democratic support eroding across Europe and North America, not only in Ukraine. Against that drift, Ukraine still runs the other way—for now.

The question left on the table

Near the end, Kobernyk put the dilemma directly to Brik and to the room—a Lviv Media Forum audience of journalists, editors, and researchers: preserve Ukraine as a democracy, or ensure the nation survives even if that costs democracy? The room split almost evenly, the democratic side ahead by a sliver.

Brik chose democracy and explained why in terms that did not make the choice easy. “If we don’t have democracy here, there will be no mechanism to protect democratic institutions,” he said.

“There are countries around the globe that start wars with other countries. They kill people from other countries. I would rather commit to democracy because if we don’t have democracy, then what is the point? What is the point of having any other type of government? Because other types of government will bring misery to our own people, and they will bring misery to people outside.”

Brik also named a horizon: three to five years. Until then, martial law—extended to 2 August 2026—keeps the question legally closed, and the cross-party framework agreed in 2023 bars a first post-war vote sooner than six months after it lifts. When it finally comes, he said, the push will come from Ukrainians, not a foreign deadline.

Exclusives

Russia maintains military presence in post-Assad Syria – but Damascus now holds leverage. Satellite imagery shows renewed Russian cargo activity in Tartus as Damascus renegotiates the terms of Moscow’s long-standing military presence.

Russia fast-tracks citizenship for Moldova’s occupied Transnistria – a familiar playbook returns. Russia has eased citizenship rules for residents of the Moldovan breakaway region Transnistria, reviving a policy approach previously used in other contested regions.

Don’t sign what Bosnia signed, a Bosnian journalist tells Ukraine. At Lviv Media Forum 2026, Bosnian journalist Harun Karčić told Ukrainians what 30 years of a flawed peace deal bought his country. The 28-point plan currently on the table has a different shape—but the same trap.

Mendel told Tucker Carlson many tales about Zelenskyy. All blame the country being invaded. Most of what former Ukrainian press secretary Iuliia Mendel told Tucker Carlson about events after 2021 is secondhand. The facts tell a different story.

Ukraine wants the playbook of the German newsroom Russia banned. USAID is gone. The alternative was built by readers giving 20 euros each.

A Russian tank division rolls toward Pokrovsk, adding major manpower to Russia’s eastern push. Can the Ukrainian 7th Rapid Reaction Corps kill enough Russian reinforcements to halt an offensive toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk?

Russians published footage of a drone striking a UN convoy in Kherson. UN say they “don’t know” who did it.. Kherson has faced sustained FPV drone attacks on civilian and humanitarian movements from Russian-held territory across the Dnipro River.

Weaponizing the Westerlies: Ukrainian balloons sow havoc over Russia. Aerostats grow more instrumental in Ukrainian strikes, intel gathering, and making Russia waste its air defenses.

Russia hits Taiwan too—and three democracies are comparing notes on public media. Ukraine builds. Georgia dismantles. Taiwan defends. Notes from a packed hall at Lviv Media Forum, 15 May 2026.

Ukrainian supply robots are blocking Russia’s plan to starve Kostiantynivka. Ukraine's growing legion of resupply robots can prolong the defense of Konstyantynivka. But human soldiers are still necessary.

Military

Russia's Nevinnomyssk Azot chemical plant reported on fire after overnight explosions – at least 6th attack on the site. Regional authorities say air defenses were active, while online footage suggests damage at a facility central to Russia's chemical production chain.

Ukraine strikes Russian Caspian Fleet base deep inside Russia, home to missile-capable ships used in Kalibr strikes – General Staff. Kyiv reports damage to a major Russian refinery and naval vessels in the Caspian Sea base of Kaspiysk, alongside strikes on logistics and weapons storage sites.

Two more Russian air defense systems gone, along with a naval plane and helicopter. Drone forces destroyed a Tor-M2 in Luhansk Oblast and a Pantsir-S1 in Crimea, struck a ship in Berdiansk, destroyed the Be-200 amphibious aircraft and Ka-27 chopper in Russia's Yeysk.

Ukrainian flag flies again over Odradne, six months after Russia overran the village. The 129th Brigade's storm units pushed Russian forces out of fortified positions, treelines, and strongpoints in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.

Moscow's fuel supplier under fire: Ukrainian drones strike Rosneft's Ryazan refinery. The plant supplies all grades of gasoline, diesel, and jet kerosene to regions around the Russian capital. Vacuum distillation units were on fire after the overnight strike.

Ukraine's drone commander proposes "Standard-10" for every strike crew in country. Ukrainian drone crews average 3 confirmed kills a month. Madiar own 414th Brigade averages 30.6.

Intelligence and technology

Russia planning strikes on Ukraine's Presidential Office and state residence, Zelenskyy says. Zelenskyy said intelligence documents outline possible strikes on political leadership buildings, military command posts, and protected state facilities.

Russia wants Belarus to join new "aggressive operations" against Ukraine or NATO, Kyiv says. Kyiv says it has documented Russian-Belarusian contacts tied to potential planning for operations launched from Belarus.

Skyeton makes Raybird reconnaissance drone Ukraine has used since 2018. Russia just destroyed its Kyiv office. "We knew sooner or later Skyeton would become a target," the company said.

Russia starts ninth project 22350 frigate in St. Petersburg built for Mach-8 hypersonic anti-ship missiles that have already hit Ukraine. Project 22350 frigates are 135-meter open-ocean warships built for anti-ship, anti-submarine, and escort operations.

International

US sanctions relief for Russian oil shipments appears to end with no renewal issued. The waiver was introduced during global energy disruptions linked to the Iran conflict, allowing Russian oil to be delivered as part of a temporary effort to stabilize supply.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine recovers bodies of 528 fallen servicemembers from Russia. Forensic experts will now begin identification procedures.

Day of Mourning in Kyiv: final toll from Russian missile strike reaches 24 dead, including three girls aged 12, 15, and 17. The 28-hour search-and-rescue operation ended at the destroyed apartment block in Darnytskyi district.

After four years in Russian captivity, 205 Ukrainian defenders are home in the first stage of a 1000-for-1000 exchange. Most of those freed were taken at Mariupol in 2022; the oldest is 62, the youngest 21. The exchange was mediated by the US and the UAE.

Political and legal developments

"Point of no return": Special tribunal for Russia's war targeting leadership moves forward after 37-country agreement. The agreement lays groundwork for a court expected to handle prosecutions tied to the decision to launch the war.

As rescuers clear rubble of Kyiv apartment building, Russia's security council secretary lists same 2022 demands for ending war. Same demands as Russia's failed 2022 Istanbul talks were issued from Bishkek hours after Russia's biggest two-day strike on Kyiv.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine wants the playbook of the German newsroom Russia banned. USAID is gone. The alternative was built by readers giving 20 euros each.

A Russian tank division rolls toward Pokrovsk, adding major manpower to Russia’s eastern push. Can the Ukrainian 7th Rapid Reaction Corps kill enough Russian reinforcements to halt an offensive toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk?

Russians published footage of a drone striking a UN convoy in Kherson. UN says they “don’t know” who did it.. Kherson has faced sustained FPV drone attacks on civilian and humanitarian movements from Russian-held territory across the Dnipro River.

Weaponizing the Westerlies: Ukrainian balloons sow havoc over Russia. Aerostats grow more instrumental in Ukrainian strikes, intel gathering, and making Russia waste its air defenses.

Russia hits Taiwan too—and three democracies are comparing notes on public media. Ukraine builds. Georgia dismantles. Taiwan defends. Notes from a packed hall at Lviv Media Forum, 15 May 2026.

Ukrainian supply robots are blocking Russia’s plan to starve Kostiantynivka. Ukraine's growing legion of resupply robots can prolong the defense of Konstyantynivka. But human soldiers are still necessary.

Russia is fighting for a world that strips you of freedom, agency, and humanity. I spent two years in a Russian penal colony watching what Russia wants for the rest of us.

ISW: Russia’s grand territorial ambitions are divorced from battlefield reality. The think tank noted that Russian forces first infiltrated Kostiantynivka in October 2025 and have made no significant tactical gains in six months, even as Peskov restated Moscow's withdrawal demand on four oblasts.

Military

Ukraine strikes Russian Caspian Fleet base deep inside Russia, home to missile-capable ships used in Kalibr strikes – General Staff. Kyiv reports damage to a major Russian refinery and naval vessels in the Caspian Sea base of Kaspiysk, alongside strikes on logistics and weapons storage sites.

Two more Russian air defense systems gone, along with a naval plane and helicopter. Drone forces destroyed a Tor-M2 in Luhansk Oblast and a Pantsir-S1 in Crimea, struck a ship in Berdiansk, destroyed the Be-200 amphibious aircraft and Ka-27 chopper in Russia's Yeysk.

Ukrainian flag flies again over Odradne, six months after Russia overran the village. The 129th Brigade's storm units pushed Russian forces out of fortified positions, treelines, and strongpoints in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.

Moscow's fuel supplier under fire: Ukrainian drones strike Rosneft's Ryazan refinery. The plant supplies all grades of gasoline, diesel, and jet kerosene to regions around the Russian capital. Vacuum distillation units were on fire after the overnight strike.

Intelligence and technology

Russia planning strikes on Ukraine's Presidential Office and state residence, Zelenskyy says. Zelenskyy said intelligence documents outline possible strikes on political leadership buildings, military command posts, and protected state facilities.

Russia wants Belarus to join new "aggressive operations" against Ukraine or NATO, Kyiv says. Kyiv says it has documented Russian-Belarusian contacts tied to potential planning for operations launched from Belarus.

Ukraine's drone commander proposes "Standard-10" for every strike crew in country. Ukrainian drone crews average 3 confirmed kills a month. Madiar's own 414th Brigade averages 30.6.

Skyeton makes Raybird reconnaissance drone Ukraine has used since 2018. Russia just destroyed its Kyiv office. "We knew sooner or later Skyeton would become a target," the company said.

Russia starts ninth project 22350 frigate in St. Petersburg built for Mach-8 hypersonic anti-ship missiles that have already hit Ukraine. Project 22350 frigates are 135-meter open-ocean warships built for anti-ship, anti-submarine, and escort operations.

Russia's 1500-drone strike on Ukraine was timed to Trump's arrival in Beijing — Ukrainian Colonel explains why. Russia used the Victory Day lull to redeploy air defenses around Moscow and stockpile drones for a strike timed to Trump's Beijing arrival, Colonel Dmytro Kashchenko says.

Russia is building 168,000-strong drone force by year-end through stealing Kyiv UAV model, says Ukraine's drone commander Madiar. An average Ukrainian brigade is now intercepting up to 60 Russian "Molniya" strike drones per day because Russia has centralized production.

International

Lithuania signs full Drone Deal, Latvia receives Ukrainian air defense experts. The agreement covers joint production of long-range strike, naval, interceptor and bomber drones, with technology transfer between Ukrainian and Lithuanian companies. Latvia is hosting Ukrainian air defense specialists under a separate proposed deal.

If this were real life, they would already be dead: Ukrainian drone pilots force NATO drills on Gotland to stop three times. During the pause, the opposing forces had time to think about how to act better against the enemy.

Humanitarian and social impact

Day of Mourning in Kyiv: final toll from Russian missile strike reaches 24 dead, including three girls aged 12, 15, and 17. The 28-hour search-and-rescue operation ended at the destroyed apartment block in Darnytskyi district.

After four years in Russian captivity, 205 Ukrainian defenders are home in the first stage of a 1000-for-1000 exchange. Most of those freed were taken at Mariupol in 2022; the oldest is 62, the youngest 21. The exchange was mediated by the US and the UAE.

Russia strikes Kramatorsk daily. The city is putting its monuments out of harm's way. The Donetsk Oblast city dismantled its monuments to prominent Ukrainians and sculptures, and shipped them outside the oblast for safekeeping.

Political and legal developments

As rescuers cleared rubble of Kyiv apartment building, Russia's security council secretary listed same 2022 demands for ending war. Same demands as Russia's failed 2022 Istanbul talks were issued from Bishkek hours after Russia's biggest two-day strike on Kyiv.

Russian Kh-101 missile that killed 12 in Kyiv was manufactured this quarter — after 21 EU sanctions packages. The same missile type killed 31 in a Ternopil apartment six months ago. The production line is still running.

US House discharge petition reaches 218 signatures, forcing vote on Ukraine aid, bypassing Speaker Johnson. The bill authorizes $1.3 billion in military assistance and up to $8 billion more in direct loans.

Read our previous daily review here.

“Public media is not a political question, but a public one,” said Mariya Frey of Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne. The hall around her—at Lviv Media Forum, Ukraine’s largest annual media industry gathering—was packed with international journalists, civil society leaders, and media professionals.

On stage with her: a Taiwanese broadcaster and a Georgian media-freedom advocate, fielding questions from moderator Christian-Zsolt Varga, a German-Hungarian journalist covering Ukraine, Hungary, and Eastern Europe.

The panel, on 15 May 2026, was titled “From Informating to Sensemaking: How Public Media Guide Societies in the Eye of the Storm.” Varga asked the questions; panelists answered.

Ukraine: a public broadcaster, not a state one

In Ukraine, Frey said, the demand for independent public media has carried weight since 1989, when Ukrainians watched Western public broadcasting and asked why they did not have the same. It existed long before Suspilne took its current shape.

Creating Suspilne was both a major step and a frightening one, she said—people expected miracles, a broadcaster that would be independent, trusted, national, local, accountable, modern, and effective all at once. The political problem, Frey said, is that politicians keep misunderstanding what Suspilne actually is.

They imagine it as “number one”—a single powerful channel that can be controlled or influenced—and try to meddle accordingly. But Suspilne is not one channel: it is a network of local and nationwide outlets, radio stations, and platforms. That makes it harder to capture, and harder to explain.

Frey acknowledged Suspilne carries a lot of bureaucracy. With large amounts of public money involved, precision is not optional; procedural mistakes can carry severe legal consequences. Civil society, she said, remains Suspilne’s main partner, and that partnership deepened after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Taiwan: Russia hits the island too

Chris Liu of Radio Taiwan International said Taiwan is targeted not only by Chinese disinformation operations, but by Russia as well. That is why, he said, Taiwan understands Ukraine. Foreign information attacks no longer travel on separate fronts; they increasingly reinforce one another.

Georgia: independent as a crime

Tamar Kintsurashvili of the Media Development Foundation said Georgia is experiencing democratic backsliding, and the public broadcaster is not insulated from it. Independent media now operates in a narrow space, and Russian and domestic interference are increasingly difficult to tell apart.

Georgian independent media was never fully self-sufficient. There was always more media than the small market could support, which made outside support necessary. Now that lifeline is being severed.

Western funding and cooperation with donors are being criminalized. Attempts to influence public affairs are treated as crimes. Georgian independent media, Kintsurashvili said, is “in survival mode.”

“We remain,” she added. Legal fights are still possible, including challenges at the European Court of Human Rights.

She also pointed to an institutional contradiction. The Georgian Public Broadcaster remains under government control, yet still sits inside the European Broadcasting Union as a full member—and EBU has been hesitant to take steps against its own member organization. GPB has been an EBU member since 2005.

Varga, briefly stepping out of his moderator role, answered her directly. When it comes to the EBU and other membership-based organizations, he said, “you can only trust yourself.” Credibility, for public-interest media, cannot be outsourced.

Hungary: future unclear

Toward the end of the panel, Varga turned to his own region. Hungary’s public broadcaster has long been captured by politics, he said. Its future remains unclear, yet without a hope.

Exclusives

Russia starved Pokrovsk into submission. Kostiantynivka's robots are blocking the encore.. Ukraine's growing legion of resupply robots can prolong the defense of Konstyantynivka. But human soldiers are still necessary.

Václav Havel laureate: Russia is counting on you to look away. I spent two years in a Russian penal colony watching what Russia wants for the rest of us.

ISW: Russia's grand territorial ambitions are divorced from battlefield reality. The think tank noted that Russian forces first infiltrated Kostiantynivka in October 2025 and have made no significant tactical gains in six months, even as Peskov restated Moscow's withdrawal demand on four oblasts.

First real crash test for Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions. The key question surrounding Ukraine's anti-corruption reforms was simple: could the system investigate people from the very top of political power?

Ukraine just placed one of its highest-ranking corruption suspects under court-ordered custody. An anti-corruption court placed ex-presidential chief of staff Yermak in 60-day custody. The case alleges he helped launder $11 million through an elite housing project.

Hungary's new government summons Russian envoy after strike on Zakarpattia. Russia hit the Hungarian-bordering Ukrainian region with drones, days after Magyar's government took office.

Nicolas Tenzer: stop talking about peace, the question is victory. French geopolitical expert on his book Our War, Putin's nihilist regime, and the strategic autonomy Europe must build with or without Washington.

Military

ISW: Russia's grand territorial ambitions are divorced from battlefield reality. The think tank noted that Russian forces first infiltrated Kostiantynivka in October 2025 and have made no significant tactical gains in six months, even as Peskov restated Moscow's withdrawal demand on four oblasts.

As rescuers clear rubble of Kyiv apartment building, Russia's security council secretary lists same 2022 demands for ending war. Same demands as Russia's failed 2022 Istanbul talks were issued from Bishkek hours after Russia's biggest two-day strike on Kyiv.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's kamikaze drones can now attack and return. There's a tendency for single-use Ukrainian drones to become reusable. Now the Fire Point FP-1/2 has joined the reusable club.

Russia starved Pokrovsk into submission. Kostiantynivka's robots are blocking the encore. Ukraine's growing legion of resupply robots can prolong the defense of Konstyantynivka. But human soldiers are still necessary.

Ukraine's drone commander proposes "Standard-10" for every strike crew in country. Ukrainian drone crews average 3 confirmed kills a month. Madiar's own 414th Brigade averages 30.6.

Skyeton makes Raybird reconnaissance drone Ukraine has used since 2018. Russia just destroyed its Kyiv office. "We knew sooner or later Skyeton would become a target," the company said.

Russia starts ninth project 22350 frigate in St. Petersburg built for Mach-8 hypersonic anti-ship missiles that have already hit Ukraine. Project 22350 frigates are 135-meter open-ocean warships built for anti-ship, anti-submarine, and escort operations.

Russia's 1500-drone strike on Ukraine was timed to Trump's arrival in Beijing — Ukrainian Colonel explains why. Russia used the Victory Day lull to redeploy air defenses around Moscow and stockpile drones for a strike timed to Trump's Beijing arrival, Colonel Dmytro Kashchenko says.

Russia is building 168,000-strong drone force by year-end through stealing Kyiv UAV model, says Ukraine's drone commander Madiar. An average Ukrainian brigade is now intercepting up to 60 Russian "Molniya" strike drones per day because Russia has centralized production.

Lithuania signs full Drone Deal, Latvia receives Ukrainian air defense experts. The agreement covers joint production of long-range strike, naval, interceptor and bomber drones, with technology transfer between Ukrainian and Lithuanian companies. Latvia is hosting Ukrainian air defense specialists under a separate proposed deal.

If this were real life, they would already be dead: Ukrainian drone pilots force NATO drills on Gotland to stop three times. During the pause, the opposing forces had time to think about how to act better against the enemy.

International

Václav Havel laureate: Russia is counting on you to look away. I spent two years in a Russian penal colony watching what Russia wants for the rest of us.

Hungary's new government summons Russian envoy after strike on Zakarpattia. Russia hit the Hungarian-bordering Ukrainian region with drones, days after Magyar's government took office.

Nicolas Tenzer: stop talking about peace, the question is victory. French geopolitical expert on his book Our War, Putin's nihilist regime, and the strategic autonomy Europe must build with or without Washington.

US House discharge petition reaches 218 signatures, forcing vote on Ukraine aid, bypassing Speaker Johnson. The bill authorizes $1.3 billion in military assistance and up to $8 billion more in direct loans.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian Kh-101 missile that killed 12 in Kyiv was manufactured this quarter — after 21 EU sanctions packages. The same missile type killed 31 in a Ternopil apartment six months ago. The production line is still running.

Russia destroyed a section of a 9-story Kyiv apartment block overnight, killing 8 civilians in one of the war's largest combined attacks (updated). Across Ukraine, the same assault wounded seven more civilians near Kyiv, knocked out power for 31,000 near Chernihiv, hit Odesa's port, and struck Kharkiv.

Russia strikes Kramatorsk daily. The city is putting its monuments out of harm's way. The Donetsk Oblast city dismantled its monuments to prominent Ukrainians and sculptures, and shipped them outside the oblast for safekeeping.

Political and legal developments

First real crash test for Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions. The key question surrounding Ukraine's anti-corruption reforms was simple: could the system investigate people from the very top of political power?

Ukraine just placed one of its highest-ranking corruption suspects under court-ordered custody. An anti-corruption court placed ex-presidential chief of staff Yermak in 60-day custody. The case alleges he helped launder $11 million through an elite housing project.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Ukraine's Higher Anti-Corruption Court placed Andrii Yermak, the former presidential chief of staff, under 60-day custody on 14 May. Yermak, Ukraine's ex-presidential chief of staff, rejected all charges after court custody, stating he doesn't have the millions in bail set against him, but hopes friends will help raise it, Liga reported.

"I don't have such money": Yermak turns to friends for bail

Reporters asked Yermak outside the courtroom whether he could afford the bail. 

"I don't have such money (about $3.2 million, - Ed.). I wasn't preparing for this. There are enough acquaintances, friends. I hope they can help me with this," he said.

Yermak declined to name any specific individuals who might help. Asked whether he was morally prepared for jail, he pointed to staying in Kyiv when Russia's full-scale invasion began. 

"I am a sufficiently strong person," he told Ukrainska Pravda.

Explore further

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies uncover major laundering scheme involving former top officials and elite real estate near Kyiv

"Absolutely empty": Yermak rejects every charge

After the ruling, Yermak rejected all charges in a statement to reporters, Censor reported. 

"I remain at my position. I deny any charges against me," he said.

Yermak called the case "absolutely empty" and said it had been built under months of public pressure on law enforcement. He vowed to remain in Ukraine and continue fighting. His defense will appeal the custody ruling.

Explore further

Ukraine drafted a ‘right to forget.’ Then NABU named Yermak a suspect.

Court conditions and 60-day clock

The Higher Anti-Corruption Court set bail at UAH 140 million, about $3.2 million. Prosecutors had requested UAH 180 million ($4 million). The court announced the ruling on the morning of 14 May.

If Yermak posts bail, he must report to investigators and notify them of changes of residence or work. He must also surrender his passports, stay within Kyiv, and wear an electronic bracelet. The court banned him from communicating with co-defendants Oleksii Chernyshov, Timur Mindich, and four other suspects.

The full text of the ruling is expected on 18 May. The defense has five days to file an appeal.

Explore further

Ukraine’s ex-energy minister charged with money laundering, caught fleeing at the border

The Dynastia case: million laundering allegations

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) issued the suspicion notice against Yermak on 11 May. Investigators allege over UAH 460 million — about $10.5 million — was laundered through "Dynastia" from 2021 to 2025.

The scheme allegedly financed an elite housing development in Kozyn, near Kyiv. NABU described the project as four 1,000-square-meter mansions, each worth roughly $2 million. It also included a shared estate with a spa, pool, and gym. The Dynastia investigation is part of Operation Midas, which focuses on graft at the state nuclear company Energoatom.

Investigators say Yermak controlled the construction of his own residence. After the media reported on the project, the owners tried to move the land and property out of the arrest's reach. The Higher Anti-Corruption Court then froze the land plots and five unfinished buildings. On 12 May, six more individuals — including Chernyshov and Mindich — received suspicion notices.

Yermak previously said he has no house, only an apartment and a car. His lawyer has called the suspicion baseless.

Exclusives

Hungary's new government summons Russian envoy after strike on Zakarpattia. Russia hit the Hungarian-bordering Ukrainian region with drones, days after Magyar's government took office.

Nicolas Tenzer: stop talking about peace, the question is victory. French geopolitical expert on his book Our War, Putin's nihilist regime, and the strategic autonomy Europe must build with or without Washington.

A pro-government think tank wants Russia's central bank chief replaced—the trap stays. The trap doesn't care who chairs the bank.

Ukraine retrains workers over 50 as the younger labor force vanishes. The new strategic reserve has gray hair.

Ukrainian drones halted Russia's spring advance. Russia is bombing back. It's a race. Can Ukrainian drones deplete Russian forces faster than Russian bombs deplete Ukrainian forces?

So many Ukrainian AI drones are hunting Russian trucks they're crossing each other's paths. Ukraine's AI drones are stacking up over the Russian logistical zone, each looking for a truck to blow up.

BBC: 184 sanctioned Russian tankers made 238 journeys through UK waters since the PM's March intercept threat. 94 instances saw vessels enter actual UK territorial waters, and a Russian frigate escorted one tanker through the Channel — with zero publicly confirmed boardings.

Ukraine's IMF lifeline depends on tax reforms parliament keeps stalling. A $614 million parcel tax that unlocks $8.1 billion in IMF funding is six weeks past its deadline.

Military

Russia is abandoning its push on Stepnohirsk where average mobilized Russian soldier survived 12 minutes. Russia threw elite units at Stepnohirsk. The average newly mobilized soldier lasted 12 minutes. Now Russia is leaving.

Intelligence and technology

Pentagon is now studying Ukraine's drone warfare up close.

Europe doesn't make missile defenses at scale. Thirteen countries just joined Ukraine to fix that. Thirteen European countries and NATO met in Kyiv on 12 May to launch coordinated anti-ballistic missile production—a shift from US Patriot dependence.

International

Russia wants joint economic projects with US — but only if Washington stops linking them to peace in Ukraine. Russia is offering Trump a deal that makes peace unnecessary.

Kremlin terms unchanged: Moscow repeats Putin's 2024 demand for four Ukraine's oblasts as peace push stalls. That is a demand for capitulation, not for peace.

One of few Western officials to witness war firsthand: What did Germany's defense minister see on Ukraine's front line? Boris Pistorius went to the front line. Then he joined an EU defense ministers meeting from headquarters near combat area.

Possessing weapons is only one of three essentials in modern war, Zelenskyy tells NATO's eastern flank at B9 summit. Meanwhile, Russia chose the moment of a NATO summit on its eastern flank to demonstrate it will strike anywhere, anytime, including regions it had previously avoided.

Lukashenka announces war preparations—Ukrainian official calls it Russian "information agenda". A war-readiness regime Belarus can run indefinitely without invading.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia is hitting Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, bordering Hungary with drones, for first time. Expert says this is linked to end of Orbán's era. The scale of the May 13 attack may break all previous records. And the timing is not a coincidence.

Russia seizes 900 Mariupol apartments from owners it forced to flee. Russia is redistributing nearly 900 Mariupol apartments. The owners fled the bombing. The new tenants will be Russian officials.

Read our earlier daily review

Exclusives

Ukraine’s AI drones are so thick in the sky that they cross each other’s flight paths. Ukraine's A.I. drones are stacking up over the Russian logistical zone, each looking for a truck to blow up.

Ukraine’s IMF lifeline depends on tax reforms parliament keeps stalling. A $614 million parcel tax that unlocks $8.1 billion in IMF funding is six weeks past its deadline.

Babiš didn’t scrap Czechia’s shell pipeline to Ukraine—he just stopped paying for it. New Czech government keeps program running, but external donors now carry the full cost.

What it means when Russia starts picking the EU’s negotiator—and what Brussels said back. Russia just tried to pick its opponent’s negotiator. Brussels said no. Berlin had already said no.

Portugal just hit highest defense-industry growth since 1986. Its defense minister links boom to Russia’s war. Nearly 100 new defense companies created in 16 months.

Military

"Mirror response": Ukraine confirms Orenburg strike 1,500 km from border after renewed Russian aerial attacks. A drone strike in Orenburg damaged a residential building near a major missile and aircraft components plant, according to analysis and local reports.

One radar sees 250 km out. The other measures altitude at 300 km range. Ukraine's drones just took both out in Donetsk Oblast. Ukraine drone forces and SOF reported more of their middle-range strike across the occupied territories. Targets: radars, fuel depots, bases.

A Kyiv Oblast kindergarten was hit hours after Russia's "ceasefire" ended. Russia also targeted Dnipro locomotives, Mykolaiv power facilities, bombed Zaporizhzhia, and shelled more regions.

Moscow's Victory Day ceasefire reduced combat but became Russia's stockpile window, ISW finds. A Ukrainian brigade in the Lyman direction said Russia held Molniya drones back before the truce, then released them during the pause while bringing up reserves.

Buk, Tor, Kasta, Tunguska—Russia's air defense menu shrinks by $131 million in another seven days. The destruction came in the drone forces' strikes across occupied Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Russia's Bryansk Oblast over the past week.

Intelligence and technology

"Future of war" meets Ukraine's black soil: ground drone commander on why combat robots often don't survive the first battle. Ground drones are often considered a big part of the future of warfare, but a Ukrainian commander says real battlefield conditions quickly expose their limits, from mud-clogged wheels to electronics failures and unreliable first missions.

Russia sacrificed fuel capacity on its Kh-101 to pack heavier warhead and added incendiary steel balls with zirconium. The original Kh-101 had a 500 kg warhead and 2,500 km range.

International

Ukraine and US prepare landmark "Drone Deal" to expand weapons production and exports. The agreement would formalize cooperation on drone manufacturing and technology exchange.

Ukraine pitches EU on an "airport ceasefire" with Russia—Moscow's two main airports are now in Ukrainian striking range. Ukraine's FM says the mutual halt could give Russia an incentive to engage, while letting European leaders broker as a complementary track to US-led talks.

BBC: 184 sanctioned Russian tankers made 238 journeys through UK waters since the PM's March intercept threat. 94 instances saw vessels enter actual UK territorial waters, and a Russian frigate escorted one tanker through the Channel — with zero publicly confirmed boardings.

Ukraine has built world's most battle-tested defense industry. Berlin plugs in with "Brave Germany". Germany and Ukraine just signed a joint defense technology program, and Berlin is already funding a third of everything Ukraine has.

Germany views Putin's Schröder ceasefire proposal part of Russia's hybrid strategy aimed at dividing West. It could consider him on one condition. Berlin's initial response was unambiguous, as German officials dismissed the proposal.

EU's 21st Russia sanctions package will target the shadow fleet, banks, and firms selling stolen Ukrainian grain—Politico. Brussels expects the package in late June or early July, EU officials told Politico, with Hungary's change of government unlocking measures previously blocked under Viktor Orbán, including sanctions on Patriarch Kirill.

Humanitarian and social impact

Nine-month-old girl lost a leg, at least six killed as Russia strikes Kryvyi Rih and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. A Russian Shahed drone hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih, officials said.

UK, EU, and Canada sanction Russian networks linked to deportation of Ukrainian children. The measures come amid estimates that more than 20,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia or occupied territories since the start of the full-scale invasion, with many still unaccounted for.

Nearly 50 countries join Ukraine's coalition to return children abducted by Russia. Switzerland and Cyprus have joined Ukraine's International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children as efforts continue to locate and bring home minors taken during Russia's war.

Russia tried to swap abducted Ukrainian children like POWs, Sybiha reveals. Sybiha rejects Russia's bid to swap abducted Ukrainian children for POWs. Only 2,000 of 20,000 home.

Four Ukrainians remain on MV Hondius cruise ship after hantavirus outbreak killed three. A fifth Ukrainian crew member is being evacuated by special flight to the Netherlands.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies uncover major laundering scheme involving former top officials and elite real estate near Kyiv. NABU and SAPO say they uncovered a UAH 460 million laundering scheme tied to elite construction near Kyiv, involving former senior officials and business figures.

Ukraine drafted a 'right to forget.' Then NABU named Yermak a suspect.. A use case is already pending in court.

Ukraine is preparing military contracts with guaranteed demobilization rights and combat pay up to $9,100 per month. For soldiers mobilized since 2022 with no legal pathway home, this is the most significant potential reform of the war.

Ukraine anti-corruption agencies serve suspicion notice to ex-Presidential Office head Yermak over alleged $10M laundering. Andrii Yermak was once the most powerful official in Ukraine after Zelenskyy himself.

Three months absent from your shop in occupied Luhansk? Russia declares it "ownerless" and takes it. Russia targets 150 commercial properties in occupied Luhansk for "nationalization," including shops left vacant for three months or with one unpaid utility bill.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

What it means when Russia starts picking the EU's negotiator—and what Brussels said back. Russia just tried to pick its opponent's negotiator. Brussels said no. Berlin had already said no.

Trump's State Department refused to recognize Lukashenka in 2020. Today he's a "friend.". Trump called Lukashenka his "friend" after the latest prisoner exchange deal. The Belarusian bank financing Russia's shells is back in the dollar system.

West has power to end Russia's war against Ukraine — it's choosing not to: Human rights lawyer tells us why. Human rights lawyer Simon Papuashvili on what Western governments won't say out loud — and what it would actually take to stop Russia.

Military

Ukrainian officer: Russian frontline assaults now rare as 60-70% of infiltrators die before reaching Ukrainian lines. A Ukrainian senior lieutenant with the call sign "Alex" wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia can no longer gather enough troops for even local offensives, leaving small-group infiltration as the main remaining tactic.

ISW: Russia's "Victory Day ceasefire" reduced combat but didn't stop it. Day 2 saw Russian attacks reach Ukrainian positions across six oblasts, killing at least two civilians in Kherson.

Talks continue on Trump-brokered prisoner exchange with Russia after Putin claimed that Kyiv was not ready for swap. Russia announced a ceasefire for 8–9 May — its own parade dates. Ukraine proposed starting earlier, on the night of 6 May. Russia violated it.

Intelligence and technology

Buk, Tor, Kasta, Tunguska—Russia's air defense menu shrinks by $131 million in another seven days. The destruction came in the drone forces' strikes across occupied Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Russia's Bryansk Oblast over the past week.

Russia sacrificed fuel capacity on its Kh-101 to pack heavier warhead and added incendiary steel balls with zirconium. The original Kh-101 had a 500 kg warhead and 2,500 km range.

Russia's Project 21980 "Grachonok", equipped with Igla missiles and grenade launchers, just got new defense. They couldn't protect themselves. Now Russia is wrapping them in nets and hoping that's enough.

Ukraine has built world's most battle-tested defense industry. Berlin plugs in with "Brave Germany". Germany and Ukraine just signed a joint defense technology program, and Berlin is already funding a third of everything Ukraine has.

Pistorius arrives in Kyiv to co-build the deep-strike weapons Europe lacks. Pistorius came by train, as Berlin seeks to build up its deterrence capabilities against Moscow.

International

Germany views Putin's Schröder ceasefire proposal part of Russia's hybrid strategy aimed at dividing West. It could consider him on one condition. Berlin's initial response was unambiguous, as German officials dismissed the proposal.

EU's 21st Russia sanctions package will target the shadow fleet, banks, and firms selling stolen Ukrainian grain—Politico. Brussels expects the package in late June or early July, EU officials told Politico, with Hungary's change of government unlocking measures previously blocked under Viktor Orbán, including sanctions on Patriarch Kirill.

Portugal just hit highest defense-industry growth since 1986. Its defense minister links boom to Russia's war. Nearly 100 new defense companies created in 16 months.

Humanitarian and social impact

Four Ukrainians remain on MV Hondius cruise ship after hantavirus outbreak killed three. A fifth Ukrainian crew member is being evacuated by special flight to the Netherlands.

Three months absent from your shop in occupied Luhansk? Russia declares it "ownerless" and takes it. Russia targets 150 commercial properties in occupied Luhansk for "nationalization," including shops left vacant for three months or with one unpaid utility bill.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine anti-corruption agencies serve suspicion notice to ex-Presidential Office head Yermak over alleged $10M laundering. Andrii Yermak was once the most powerful official in Ukraine after Zelenskyy himself.

Ukraine is preparing military contracts with guaranteed demobilization rights and combat pay up to $9,100 per month. For soldiers mobilized since 2022 with no legal pathway home, this is the most significant potential reform of the war.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Russia's T-72AM is a very old tank with a fresh coat of paint. Expect it to stay parked like other tanks.. Aging T-72As were some of the last tanks Russian industry pulled out of storage for service in Ukraine. They're beginning to arrive.

Can "good morals" become a legal weapon in Ukraine's new Civil Code?. Brussels says reform is "necessary." It also says that quick answers to complex questions are always a problem.

Bulgaria approves new cabinet led by Rumen Radev — the ex-president who called Crimea Russian. Bulgaria's parliament greenlit a cabinet headed by Rumen Radev, a former president who called occupied Crimea Russian, by 124 votes to 70.

101 air defenses ring Russia's 9 May parade. A Ukrainian drone already got through.. A Fire Point FP-1 hit a Moscow apartment block 6 km from the Kremlin on Monday. RFE's Mark Krutov called it "quite routine."

Military

9 May parade Russia held without single tank featured one thing Moscow has never shown before. This is who Russia is now.

Russian occupation troops fighting in Ukraine are inspired by WWII "generation of victors," says Putin at 9 May parade at Red Square. This year's parade had no columns of heavy military equipment. Since 2022, Russia has lost 11,894 tanks, 24,486 armored combat vehicles, 40,825 artillery systems, and 1,755 MLRS in Ukraine.

While Russia held its 9 May parade, Warsaw activists placed crosses and photos of killed Ukrainian children outside Russian Embassy. "We want to remind the whole world that Russia is a terrorist state waging a genocidal war in Ukraine, committing war crimes, and must be held accountable for this," said Euromaidan-Warsaw leader Natalia Panchenko.

Intelligence and technology

Russia is still receiving modernized T-90M, T-80BVM, and T-72B3M tanks. All of them are built on Soviet-era platforms. The much-hyped T-14 Armata, Russia's supposed next-generation tank, exists mostly in announcements. Serial production is effectively absent.

Russia planned major naval counteroffensive against Ukraine in 2026. Drones were built, but they can't be used. According to Defense Ministry advisor Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, that single decision collapsed Russia's entire unmanned naval campaign before it began.

Ukraine deploys AI-powered turret that can shoot down FPVs. Operator's only job is to press button to confirm strike. First combat use was recorded by soldiers of the K-2 Brigade. More than ten frontline units are already operating the system across key sectors.

300 defense factories, 500,000 workers: North Korea's arms industry reaches records amid Russia's demand for shells in war. North Korea claims current shell production has quadrupled compared to normal levels.

Russian Uragan MLRS can wipe out city block in 8.8 seconds. Ukraine just destroyed one of its loaders 40 km behind front. Russia learned in 2023 that keeping heavy equipment near the front line was a death sentence. So it moved everything 30–40 kilometers back. Ukraine's drones followed.

International

Cheap energy from Russia, cheap goods from China, and cheap security from America are all over. Europe needs its own defense alliance. Anders Fogh Rasmussen served as NATO's secretary general for 4 years. Now he says NATO is disintegrating — and Europe needs to build something new before it is too late.

Ukrainian cadets complete RAF flight training in UK — now moving to jet aircraft instruction. The graduation was marked by the presence of RAF Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth and Air Vice-Marshal Shorrocks, Commander of No. 22 Group.

Political and legal developments

Russia's "Great Victory" cult wasn't built in 1945 — it was constructed in 1965. Russian propaganda presents May 9 as a sacred, unbroken tradition stretching back to 1945.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Russia’s T-72AM is a very old tank with a fresh coat of paint. Expect it to stay parked like other tanks.. Aging T-72As were some of the last tanks Russian industry pulled out of storage for service in Ukraine. They're beginning to arrive.

Can “good morals” become a legal weapon in Ukraine’s new Civil Code?. Brussels says reform is “necessary.” It also says quick answers to complex questions are always a problem.

Bulgaria approves new cabinet led by Rumen Radev — the ex-president who called Crimea Russian. Bulgaria's parliament greenlit a cabinet headed by Rumen Radev — former president who called occupied Crimea Russian — by 124 votes to 70.(

101 air defenses ring Russia’s 9 May parade. A Ukrainian drone already got through.. A Fire Point FP-1 hit a Moscow apartment block 6 km from the Kremlin on Monday. RFE's Mark Krutov called it "quite routine."

Ukraine’s EU membership: when, not if—but 2027 is unrealistic, says veteran MEP. A Lithuanian MEP who negotiated his own country's EU accession explains why 2027 is unlikely, why the procedural machinery isn't moving yet, and why Ukraine's membership is still a question of when, not if.

Exclusives

A 26-year-old Russian flew into Argentina to break Milei. He's not flying out. Dmitry Novikov ran Russia's biggest 2024 Latin American influence operation—targeting Milei for backing Ukraine. Argentina caught him in Lanús.

Why won't most Ukrainian women refugees come back? The war is no longer the main reason. Ahead of the EAUW leadership forum at the European Parliament, Violetta Dvornikova on what would bring 5.9 million Ukrainians home.

Ukraine's diaspora question lands at the European Parliament on Monday. "Power. Voice. Legacy" takes place 11–12 May in Brussels, with around 100 participants debating what comes after EU protection for Ukrainian refugees ends.

Why Ukraine's EU membership is stuck—and it's not just Zelenskyy. The EU can't agree on what to offer. Ukraine can't pass the laws to earn it. And the EU's own accession rules were built for a world that no longer exists.

Russia is waging a long war against the West. Switzerland's spies say it is escalating.. Switzerland's annual intelligence report names Russia the biggest threat to Europe, lining up with Dutch, German, Danish, and Estonian assessments of Moscow's preparation for a possible NATO conflict.

Military

Ukraine proposes "Brave Sweden" to Stockholm and moves toward finalizing Gripen contracts. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov traveled to Sweden for a packed round of meetings.

Ukraine's air defense intercepted nearly 6,000 Russian aerial targets in April — at 90% effectiveness rate. Some 5,861 were destroyed before reaching their targets.

Russian "Karakurt" missile corvette just got hit at its Caspian Sea base — days after another one was struck in Baltic. These are the ships Russia uses to fire at Ukrainian civilian infrastructure from hundreds of kilometers away.

Ukrainian drones target Russia's main army logistics hub—days before Putin's Victory parade. Russian monitoring channels say drones reached the 200-hectare Nara complex—the Defense Ministry's hub for distributing military cargo to the Russian armed forces.

After refusing Ukraine's ceasefire, Russia is now signaling strikes on Presidential Office, Parliament, and embassies in Kyiv on 9 May. Meanwhile, EU refuses to pull diplomats from Kyiv.

Intelligence and technology

75-hectare forest fire in Ukrainian region bordering four European countries is being investigated as possible Russian arson. No open flame remains, but smoldering hotspots persist in the forest floor and dry vegetation.

US lifts its 1997 ban on importing Ukrainian weapons — Russia remains only country on list. The old rule was a Cold War relic — paragraph 447.52(b) bundled Ukraine together with a list of former Soviet republics under blanket import restrictions.

International

"We know Russians, and these are means they use": Germany won't evacuate its Kyiv embassy ahead on Russia's Victory Day. Russia is trying to empty Kyiv's diplomatic quarter before its parade. Germany is staying.

"He was just shocked": Russia's UN ambassador walked out of diplomatic event after seeing Lviv craft beer. At an informal diplomatic beer tasting for UN permanent representatives in New York, Ukraine presented a selection of craft beers from Lviv's Pravda brewery.

Luxembourg MEP is recruiting European Parliament colleagues for June trip to Russia — and meetings with State Duma. The invitation letter proposes participation in meetings with Duma members on 3 June, on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

France issued 23% more visas to Russians as EU rules tightened. EU governments approved 620,000 Schengen visas in 2025, 10% more than 2024 — even as Brussels promised tighter rules over sabotage and espionage.

Humanitarian and social impact

Drone-and-mine siege: Ukraine takes Oleshky crisis to UN as 2,000 civilians starve in occupied city. Russia rejects humanitarian corridor as Ombudsman pursues longer route.

Five Ukrainians on board MV Hondius — the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak, MFA says. Five Ukrainian crew members are on board MV Hondius, the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship now sailing to Spain's Canary Islands, the MFA says.

Political and legal developments

Moscow's airports experience largest aviation disruption of 2026 after Russia breaks ceasefire with Ukraine. Passengers are sleeping on terminal floors. The chaos has now stretched into a third consecutive day.

Latvian police debunk fake claim that Ukrainian drone hit passenger train. Latvia's State Police debunked online claims that a Ukrainian drone hit a passenger train, saying a 5 May fire on the Rīga–Daugavpils line was likely engine damage.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Why Ukraine’s EU membership is stuck—and it’s not just Zelenskyy. The EU can't agree on what to offer. Ukraine can't pass the laws to earn it. And the EU's own accession rules were built for a world that no longer exists.

Russian oil revenue jumped 52%—Moral Rating Agency lays out how to make Russia poor. Only three sanction boxes ticked. Agency shows extra ways to inflict red tape.

Ukraine flipped the drone math—and Russia’s assault tempo just stopped buying ground. Russia pressed every Donbas sector in April, with assault tempo at a two-month high. The territorial line moved the wrong way anyway—and Ukrainian intelligence figures show the cost per kilometer of Donetsk soil has nearly tripled in a year.

Europe spent two years waiting for US Tomahawks. Ukraine spent them building its own.. Trump pulled the Tomahawks. Yet Kyiv has opened the export door.

Ukraine’s E-300 drone bombers come home full of bullet holes—and fly out again tomorrow. Ukraine's middle- and deep-strike sorties have multiplied six-fold in 10 months — and Russia's spring advance shrank 60%.

Irish Cabinet defends alumina exports to Russia by citing refugees—then evicts 16,000 of them. 27 days between defending the trade and evicting the refugees.

Ukrainian troops lay out what defense companies get wrong—and right. Companies have 3-4 months to make their tech work to keep up with innovation cycle

Military

Take off in formation, fly low, navigate by terrain—Ukraine's F-16 trainees finished a UK course Russia helped design. RAF instructors said the trainees' aircraft handling was solid from the first 10 sorties, with the months-long course shaped by jamming realities on the front line.

Satellite imagery reveals Flamingo missile damage at Russian plant making Shahed navigation antennas. The imagery shows the Ukrainian cruise missile sliced into the front of the main workshop at VNIIR-Progress in Cheboksary, while two Liutyi drones hit a second building.

Russia wanted a 9 May ceasefire. Kyiv announced one starting earlier. Russia killed a woman in a kindergarten, and hit 1,820 times. The Ukrainian Air Force said it had downed or jammed 89 of the drones. Nine drones, two ballistic missiles, and one air-launched missile struck eight locations across the country.

Ukraine hit VNIIR-Progress in Cheboksary — plant behind GPS components in Russia's Shaheds and glide bombs. The plant manufactures "Kometa" adaptive antenna arrays. Without them, Russia's precision weapons become significantly less precise.

Mobilization gap: Russia now losing more troops than it can replace, for fifth month running. Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov calls it the "mathematics of war", and it is turning decisively against Russia.

Ukraine did math on Tuapse — and Russian reaction tells rest. Ukraine's drones hit Tuapse four times in a single month. Each strike deepening the wound on Russia's only Black Sea oil refinery.

Intelligence and technology

Russia is waging a long war against the West. Switzerland's spies say it is escalating.. Switzerland's annual intelligence report names Russia the biggest threat to Europe, lining up with Dutch, German, Danish, and Estonian assessments of Moscow's preparation for a possible NATO conflict.

Problem with Ukraine's 25,000 combat robots isn't hardware — it's keeping them connected on battlefield. A brief loss of connection does not mean the robot pauses gracefully.

International

China asks Ukraine to treat Chinese POWs well, but doesn't say if it wants them back. Chinese MFA spokesman invoked international law on the two Chinese citizens captured fighting for Russia, while sidestepping the question of whether China is acting to repatriate them.

US approves potential sale of JDAM-ER joint direct attack munitions to Ukraine. The US State Department has approved a potential $373.6 mn sale of 1,532 JDAM-ER kits to Ukraine. Boeing will serve as the principal contractor for the deal.

Russia recruited 994 Armenians for its war. Yerevan is pivoting west anyway.. 994 contracts. 204 dead or missing. The country that wouldn't defend Armenia in Karabakh is now extracting Armenian lives at industrial scale.

Kim Jong Un urges North Korean youth aged 14 to 30 to fight for Russia after losing 6,000 troops in Kursk. At a Pyongyang youth congress, Kim Jong Un cast 14- to 30-year-olds as the "vanguard" of state goals while the ruling party praised dead soldiers in Russia's war as "bombs and flames."

FP: Patriot supplies to Ukraine hinge on the war in Iran, which has already drained nearly half of the US stockpile. Foreign Policy reports US officials see Ukraine as unable to last two days without aid, as the Iran war drains the Patriot stockpile and clouds the PURL program.

Humanitarian and social impact

800 mobile shelters installed to expand Ukraine's rail protection system amid sustained attacks.

Russia is making military training a mandatory school subject in occupied Donbas. Kyiv asks the ICC to act. "Cossack classes" enter the curriculum on 1 September. Ukraine's ombudsman calls it a crime against humanity—and says international silence is complicity.

While Russia talks about 9 May ceasefire, its guided bombs just killed 12 people in Zaporizhzhia. There was no military infrastructure at the targets. The impact zones were businesses and homes.

What brings 28-year-old North Carolina construction worker in Ukraine's 47th brigade? He explains in his own words.

Eurovision 2026 final lineup confirmed — two Ukrainian winners join Lordi, Rybak, and Kostov in Vienna. Ruslana and Verka Serduchka will perform at the Eurovision 2026 final in Vienna on 16 May as part of the contest's 70th anniversary reunion show.

Political and legal developments

100+ foreigners, $56,000 in cash, 10 raids — Kyiv police bust foreigner-legalization racket. Kyiv police have charged two men with legalizing over 100 foreigners — including two Russian citizens — through fictitious companies and a fake charitable fund, with fees up to $6,000.

Hungary hands back the Oshchadbank cash and gold the Orbán regime grabbed in March. All cash and bullion held by Hungarian special services for two months are back on Ukrainian soil, the president confirmed on 6 May.

From "defending Crimea" to defendants: Russia jails its own Española naval unit fighters in occupied Sevastopol. The unit was set up by Stanislav Orlov in late 2024 to hunt Ukrainian sea drones with FPV drones. Six months after Orlov's death, his men are facing prison.

Read our previous daily review here.

The story making rounds in Brussels now is that Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't understand how EU enlargement works.

"Zelenskyy and his entourage have never had a real understanding of how it works," one EU official told the Financial Times. Seven officials, speaking anonymously, painted a picture of a wartime president too stubborn to accept that membership isn't a gift.

"We are the only friends he has, so he might be better off keeping his mouth shut," one said after the 23 April Cyprus summit, responding to the Ukrainian side’s rejection of “symbolic membership” prospects.

The story has a problem: it's missing the other half.

Not only Ukraine wants quick membership

The picture one might be tempted to imagine after reading mainstream media coverage: Ukraine wants to play the pity card because it’s at war and get accepted into the EU without doing the homework, while principled capitals say only merit-based membership will do.

It is true that Ukraine needs the EU. Russia's entire war against Ukraine is being waged because Ukraine chose to join Europe rather than remain in Russia's sphere of influence in the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution, which ousted a pro-Russian president who refused to sign the EU Association Agreement. For Ukraine, EU accession is simply existential: within the Russian world, it has few chances to survive as an independent nation-state.

But the EU needs Ukraine as well. A hostile or disillusioned Ukraine on its eastern border, with the US pulling back, is a security threat the EU can't afford.

However, the current stringent EU accession rules, which, in the words of the EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, were "designed for a stable, rules-based world that no longer exists,” risk creating exactly that scenario. Ukraine is being expected to meet rules no standing EU member has met, all during an active war.

Both the EU Commission and Kyiv race to lock in Ukraine’s membership as quickly as possible—Kyiv has set 2027 as its target date, driven by the prospect of a peace deal that could come at any moment and EU elections in 2029 that could produce a parliament far less interested in enlargement.

And Ukraine's potential membership would transform the EU's untested mutual defense clause into something credible for the first time—the only country in the union with four years of combat experience against Russia.

Not everyone shares the urgency. “I don't believe in the fast-track membership by 2027,” Lithuanian MEP Petras Auštrevičius told Euromaidan Press. He doesn't see the 2029 political cycle as a hard deadline either: “I'm still very optimistic about the center-based forces still being in charge.”

The search for creative solutions—and why none have landed

But urgency or not, both sides are stuck. The EU can't agree on what to offer, and Ukraine can't pass the laws to earn whatever is offered, scoring 9 out of 100 on its own reform plan.

The growing understanding that the current EU accession rules might contradict the best interests of both Ukraine and the EU has led to a search for “creative solutions.” None of them have truly landed yet.

On 28 February 2022, five days into Russia's full-blown invasion, as Russian tanks encroached on Kyiv, Zelenskyy called on the EU to immediately grant membership "under a new special procedure." What he was asking for would later be termed "fast-track" membership: Ukraine would get accession now, and benefits—including voting rights—would follow later according to completed reforms, bypassing the reforms-first approach that could take decades.

In early 2026, a similar concept was floated in Brussels circles as "reverse membership," presented in the Foreign Affairs Committee, and killed by member states by March, Petras Auštrevičius said.

Full interview with Petras Auštrevičius

Ukraine’s EU membership: when, not if—but 2027 is unrealistic, says veteran MEP

The idea collapsed because of "toxic narratives" around it, European Council on Foreign Relations senior policy fellow Leonid Litra told Euromaidan Press: it created the appearance that Ukraine wanted to simply barge into the EU, bypassing all of the rules. But the rejection may have been less about substance than process. As one EU Council official told ECFR, "this was not a rejection of creative models per se, but rather a reaction to being kept in the dark by EU institutions."

France and Germany suggested something lighter. As reported by the Financial Times on 20 April, Germany proposes an "associate membership" status; France dubs it "integrated state status." Both envision a seat at ministerial and leaders' meetings and potentially open the EU's mutual defense clause through a political declaration—but deny Ukraine voting rights and access to the EU budget.

The Franco-German model is not an alternative to full membership. Berlin says that the new status, adopted by a political decision of EU leaders without “lengthy procedures,” would carry “symbolic strength through the name.”

Zelenskyy rejected at the Cyprus summit. “Ukraine does not need symbolic membership,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine is “not defending Europe symbolically — people are really dying.”

But Kyiv isn’t inflexible. Speaking to Bloomberg TV one day after the Franco-German proposal landed, Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka—who has publicly committed to signing an accession treaty by 2027—said Ukraine was ready to delay receiving subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy for several years.

However, Kyiv's priority, he made clear, is full irreversible EU membership as quickly as possible; everything else is negotiable.

Lithuania's MEP Petras Auštrevičius, weeks before the Franco-German proposal emerged, told Euromaidan Press he had "sensed this kind of possibility for a second-class membership—with no voting rights, for example." He was cautious: "You never know when it will end up. Sometimes it becomes a kind of decision for longer periods of time."

Aiming to bridge the gap, Litra created an accession model called PACT (Political Accession with Commitments to Transformation): immediate political membership with limited rights, such as voting in the EU Parliament and having observer status in EU institutions, while delaying voting rights in the most sensitive sectors like agriculture.

Full political rights and funding access would be unlocked as reform progress is verified annually by the European Commission. A "reversibility mechanism" would allow the Commission to re-lock rights and funds if democratic backsliding occurs, addressing the Hungary 2.0 fears.

This aims to address concerns of member states such as Ukraine gaining access to a large part of the EU's agricultural budget.

PACT would also immediately open Article 42.7, the EU's mutual defense clause—an appealing option for Kyiv at a time when NATO membership remains off the table.

The model means creating a fundamentally new pathway for EU accession, which has hitherto always followed the logic of "reforms first, full membership later." How such a model could be adopted when every EU member has veto power over changing accession rules remains unclear.

Meanwhile, influential European capitals such as Berlin, the Hague, Paris, Madrid, and Rome understand that creative solutions must be found—although the discussions are happening “in the kitchens” with no certain answers, Litra told Euromaidan Press. Several member state officials privately cautioned that "the cost of non-enlargement could be higher than the cost of enlargement.”

"They are looking for balance—how to accept Ukraine without destroying the EU, because Ukraine is a very serious player in agriculture," Litra explained, touching upon the largest obstacle to Ukraine's quick accession: reconciling Ukraine's agricultural powerhouse status with the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, which distributes roughly €55 billion in annual subsidies—about a third of the entire EU budget.

The creative proposals are proliferating—and diverging. As Auštrevičius noted: "Nothing is ready. Nothing is on paper. Nothing is on the table."

The wall the EU built to protect itself

The current stringent accession rules were created after the EU was burned by the democratic backsliding of Hungary and Poland, accepted with fanfare in the 2004 "big bang" expansion. The 2020 revised enlargement methodology introduced a Fundamentals cluster—rule of law, judiciary, anti-corruption—that opens first and closes last, gating everything else behind it.

The system the EU built to prevent another Hungary now requires new members to meet demands no standing EU member was ever required to meet. So when Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said war-time Ukraine must fulfil all conditions “just as we had to”—Poland joined in 2004, before the Fundamentals cluster existed, before the 2020 methodology, under rules so lax they produced the very backsliding the new rules were designed to prevent.

What Magyar's victory in Hungary changed

Magyar’s victory: what it unlocks for Ukraine—and where it stops short

A result of the new rules: no new member has joined the EU since Croatia in 2013, with the Western Balkans locked in what seems like a permanent waiting room. Montenegro has been negotiating for 13 years. Serbia for 11.

But beneath the 2020 revision are 40-year-old rules that the EU’s commissioner for enlargement Marta Kos says were “not adapted to the difficult times we live in." The reforms first–membership later, chapter-by-chapter logic created for a Spain and Portugal in 1986 could result in the EU risking losing Ukraine and Moldova, she warned.

Many in the EU currently prefer that the rules designed to make accession as hard as possible stay. Enlargement "is not in the top three" priorities of the European Parliament, Lithuania's MEP Petras Auštrevičius, a member of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee and former chief negotiator for Lithuania's own accession, told Euromaidan Press.

"Security, competitiveness, Green Deal, and so on and so forth. Enlargement, yes, it is present, but it's not a dominating agenda," Auštrevičius said. He added that if EU member states were asked to vote on Ukraine joining by 2027 right now, "we might receive a negative response."

And Auštrevičius was blunt about Ukraine's own shortcomings: ”We need a parliament which supports the process fully. Anti-corruption efforts must be done so that nobody can point a finger.”

Political deadlock in Kyiv

But the EU's frustration isn't only about the rules. Ukraine's own reform engine has stalled—and the reasons are as ironic as they are structural.

In the summer of 2025, President Zelenskyy attempted to subjugate Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to a politically appointed prosecutor general.

The coup attempt failed thanks to sweary teenagers with cardboard signs, but the fallout shattered his parliamentary faction. NABU then went after the faction itself, charging five MPs with taking cash for votes. The faction's working core dropped from 180 to 110 deputies. The parliament that needs to pass hundreds of EU integration laws can barely assemble the 226 votes needed for any single one.

Attempting to reverse the damage, Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka and EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos created a 10-point trust-rebuilding plan in December 2025—focused entirely on anti-corruption and rule of law reforms, the very area Zelenskyy had undermined months earlier. Ukraine set itself a 12-month deadline.

Three months in, an independent expert consortium rated progress at 9 out of 100. Zero on prosecution reform. Zero on anti-corruption internal controls.

The irony: the EU required Ukraine to build NABU. Ukraine built it. NABU did what it was built to do—and the parliament stopped working.

Explore further

How far has Ukraine come on its key EU reform commitments? Nine points out of 100.

"Do prove that you will not let us go"

On 1 March 2022, six days after the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy addressed the European Parliament, dressed in the military attire that became his signature look for years. "Do prove that you are with us. Do prove that you will not let us go," he pleaded. MEPs met his speech with a standing ovation.

What followed was the fastest political process for any EU candidate in history. Ukraine received candidate status in four months. Opened negotiations in two years. When Hungary blocked the way, 26 member states improvised an overnight workaround, opening all chapters of EU law through “informal meetings.” The Commission's own enlargement chief calls the current rules obsolete.

Four years later, the contradictions stack. The EU needs Ukraine in but can't agree on how. Ukraine needs to pass laws but broke the parliament that passes them. Poland demands conditions it never met. The Commission calls its own methodology obsolete but hasn't replaced it. Both sides need a lock and neither has built one.

The question is whether the rules the EU built to protect itself will become the reason it loses the country it most needs to keep.

Exclusives

Europe's defenses arrive in 2030. Putin's window opens now. Two years of intelligence warnings have met a US troop withdrawal from Germany—the EU's rearmament plan is still four years out.

Russia hit a record oil revenue month—yet the federal budget still came up short. Sberbank's CFO forecasts the ruble will fall to 90 per dollar. Three ports already show 13–43% drops.

NATO is dead. Meet CALM.. Discussing alternatives to the Alliance has long been taboo. That changed in 2026.

Military

After Russia unilaterally announced 9 May ceasefire to hold parade, Zelenskyy set Ukraine's silence regime to start three days earlier. The announcement existed on Russian social media. Not in diplomatic channels.

Belarus is building training grounds, transport hubs, and logistical routes — Ukraine says Russia could use them for offensive at any time. "At any moment, all this infrastructure that Belarus is creating can be used by Russia."

Ukrainian soldier stumbled into a Russian dugout. Two weeks later he walked out with a POW. A wounded Ukrainian corporal spent 14 days unarmed beside an armed captor. The captor surrendered.

From Caspian Sea to Baltic coast: Ukraine's April strike campaign reached every corner of Russia's oil empire. Since the beginning of the year, Russia has lost at least $7 billion due to Ukrainian strikes on oil infrastructure.

May 9 in Moscow without weapons — and maybe with Ukrainian drones, Zelenskyy says. At the EPC summit in Yerevan, Zelenskyy said Russia's 9 May parade will be without military hardware — and Ukrainian drones may fly over Moscow.

Drone slams into Moscow high-rise 6 km from Kremlin — Sobyanin says no casualties, airports halt operations. A drone hit a high-rise on Moscow's Mosfilmovskaya Street, 6 km from the Kremlin. Russia claims 117 UAVs downed overnight; Samara reported strikes but isn't in MoD's tally.

Intelligence and technology

US decision not to deploy Tomahawks to Germany was even worse than withdrawal of 5,000 US troops. But Ukraine can help. Three years of full-scale war have made Ukraine's defense industry one of the most combat-experienced on the planet.

Russia fired 75 drones at Ukrainian ports in early 2025 — this year, the figure is over 800. Russia launched over 800 drones at Ukrainian ports in the first four months of 2026 — more than 10 times the 75 of the same period in 2025, Vice PM Kuleba reported.

Russia's AI-enabled "Klin" drone runs on US-made Nvidia modules and Australian flight controller. Its flight controller uses the Cube Orange system from Australia.

Russia's new jet-powered Geran-4 just met Ukraine's STING interceptor: Who won?. What makes this significant: the Geran-4 is not a standard propeller drone. It uses a turbojet engine.

International

Russia and "those sympathetic to it" will try to force Ukraine into capitulation this summer – source in Ukraine's presidential circle. Russia demands control over Donbas, where 200,000 civilians still live.

Europe has 2 mn troops, Russia 1.3 mn, Ukraine 800,000 — and Kyiv is the one teaching, Stubb says. In Prague, Finland's President Alexander Stubb said Europe should ask what Ukraine offers it, not what it needs — and that no Western army fights a modern war the way Ukraine does.

Germany hands Ukraine the gas plant that warmed Russia's Nord Stream. Germany will transfer an 84 MW gas-fired power plant in Lubmin — built to serve Russia's Nord Stream 1 — to a Ukrainian operator as humanitarian aid, Die Welt reports.

NYT: Growing number of African men sign up for civilian jobs in Russia and end up on the Ukrainian front line. NYT reports African men are being lured by fake civilian job offers on WhatsApp and Telegram and forced into Russia's war on Ukraine. Contracts are in Russian.

167 flights, one country — how Russia turned Algeria into its African air bridge – investigation. Defense News tracked 167 Russian shadow airline flights to Algeria in 14 months, linking Su-57 and Su-35 plants to Algerian bases and onward to Niger and Guinea.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian missile turns Monday morning in Kharkiv Oblast into a mass-casualty scene — 5 dead, 19 injured in Kharkiv Oblast. The hit damaged an auto service station, 4 shops, and private and apartment buildings.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

“Just reaching the front line has become very risky”: Ukraine’s AI drones are hunting Russia’s supply vans. AI targeting cuts through Russian electronic warfare. The supply vans aren't reaching the front.

What does $350 billion in Ukraine aid look like? Nothing—it’s not a real number. POTUS is making a case American business has spent decades refusing to make.

The lobbying to bring back Russian gas is back. Faster electrification is the answer. The Iran war is reviving Russia's revenues—and Europe's gas-back lobbying. Both should be refused.

A Ukrainian project wants you to 3D-print a waterer for thirsty city birds. The initiative promotes simple printed attachments for AC units that provide birds with access to condensation water, which is clean enough for direct drinking in urban conditions.

Russia’s state-run doping program racks up 302 WADA sanctions — weightlifters and runners caught the most. WADA announced 291 individual Russian athletes punished, with 11 of them sanctioned twice for separate violations.

Mindichgate widens: new tapes force an impossible choice on Ukraine’s missile maker. Sanction the corruption network, lose the missiles. Don’t sanction, lose the EU funding.

Russia is losing ground first time in 27 months. Ukraine’s drones might be why.. It's increasingly evident that Ukraine's mid- and long-range drone strikes are weakening Russian combat units.

Venice Biennale jury walks out in full — Russia and Israel return to award contention. Venice Biennale's international jury resigned on 30 April 2026 over a war crimes dispute. Russia and Israel return to award contention as ticket-holders take over voting.

Military

Daytime Russian drone swarm hits western Ukraine, knocking Ternopil offline and injuring 10. Hundreds of drones struck across Ukraine, with impacts reported in Ternopil, Rivne, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, and Odesa oblasts.

Ukraine hits both Russia's military and the infrastructure funding it – from a refinery in Perm to air defenses in occupied Donetsk. Strikes hit a Perm refinery, air defenses, and multiple ammunition and drone sites across occupied territories in a coordinated overnight operation.

Russia kept its "fifth-generation" Su-57 stealth fighter near the Urals — Ukrainian drones found it anyway. Drones struck Su-57 stealth jets and a Su-34 fighter-bomber at the Shagol airbase in Chelyabinsk Oblast, with satellite imagery confirming the damage.

Ukrainian drones 4–0 Tuapse oil: refinery ablaze again after fourth strike last night. Cleanup from the earlier strikes is still pulling fuel and contaminated soil from the ground. The 1 May attack lit up another section of Rosneft's refinery/terminal complex.

Russians crawl through a gas pipeline from Sudzha for two weeks to attack Ukraine's Sumy Oblast. Six Russian troops were killed on 29 April in the latest failed infiltration attempt on the Northern-Slobozhansky front, the military says.

Zaporizhzhia NPP loses external power — again. Fifteenth blackout since the full-scale invasion. A drone strike on Monday also killed one person in a workshop near the plant. Grossi called it "a stark reminder of the very real dangers" of military activity near nuclear facilities.

Intelligence and technology

Army reform in Ukraine to boost combat pay and reshape how troops are recruited and retained. The changes aim to link pay more closely to combat exposure and responsibility, with infantry and frontline roles receiving the largest increases.

"Octopus" interceptor goes to serial production: 8,000 units ordered to counter Russia's Shahed strikes. The drones are backed by the UK and 29 domestic enterprises.

"AI makes it possible to automate parts of kill chain," says Ukraine's top defense AI official. Ukraine built its AI defense capability under fire, with no margin for slow procurement cycles or multi-year development timelines.

International

Post-Assad Syria still dependent on Russian oil despite shift to the West – Reuters. Russian shipments now cover most of Syria's crude needs as domestic production remains far below demand and alternative suppliers have failed to fill the gap.

Finland already builds drones with a Ukrainian partner. Joining the drone coalition is the next step. The Latvia- and UK-led group already has more than 20 members; Finland wants in for both Ukraine's frontline and its own defense industry.

Ukraine and Morocco open first direct road-transport, as trade turnover hits $280 million. "Business is ready, but the system was blocking the route for a long time," explains Deputy Minister Serhii Derkach from the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development.

Humanitarian and social impact

Crane truck driver runs the red signal at Lviv crossing — the train engineer he killed was a war veteran. Two more people are in hospital after the collision, passengers walked away unhurt.

"The voice of her generation" — Marina Er Gorbach takes SEEfest 2026 Legacy Award. Ukrainian director Marina Er Gorbach has received the South East European Film Festival's 2026 Legacy Award in Los Angeles, the festival announced on 29 April.

Most Ukrainians reject giving up Donetsk Oblast to Russia even for security guarantees — KIIS survey. For Ukrainians, the real substance of "guarantees" matters more than empty promises.

Political and legal developments

$7 billion lost from Russia's war economy this year through Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" on oil sector – Zelenskyy. Damage to processing and export facilities has reduced Russia's ability to sell oil abroad at full capacity, driving a sharp drop in export earnings.

Ukraine launches push to sync sanctions with allies — Russia's shadow grain fleet first on the list. President Zelenskyy announced that Kyiv is building a system against Russia's shadow grain fleet modeled on its work against the shadow oil fleet, with sharper sanctions coordination with partners coming in May.

Russia just got its Crimea looter back — and he's not even pretending to lay low. Russia's Butyagin, freed in a Polish-Belarusian 5-for-5 prisoner exchange on Monday, told Russian state media within three days that he plans to resume the same illegal digs Ukraine charged him for.

European Parliament backs establishment of a special tribunal for Russia. MEPs name the State Duma and Constitutional Court among those who must face prosecution.

Norwegian Nobel Committee logs 287 nominations for 2026 Peace Prize, Trump and Zelenskyy among the nominees. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has logged 287 candidates for the 2026 Peace Prize — 208 individuals and 79 organizations. Winner announced on 9 October.

Ukraine's April strikes pushed Russia's refinery output to its lowest level since December 2009. Moscow has compensated by increasing seaborne crude exports in April, but this may prove temporary if Ukraine resumes port strikes.

Read our previous daily review here.