Olena Mukhina

Exclusives EU sends Ukraine $3.9 bn for drones — and explains the holdup. Contract vetting delayed the defense portion of the loan Polish-Ukrainian diplomatic spat hasn’t touched its memorial work in Lviv. A journalist is still tracking down the families of Ukraine’s Polish-descent dead, with consulate help. 1.7 million tonsContinue Reading

Bodies returned from Russia to Ukraine sometimes contain explosives. Ukrainian police have repeatedly found explosive devices and grenades during initial inspection of remains returned by Russia, said Taras Tarasenko, head of crimes against life and health investigations at Kirovohrad Oblast Main Police Department, in an interview with Ukrinform. The findingContinue Reading

The Kinburn Spit, occupied in 2022, holds particular strategic importance for Russia. This foothold allows Russian forces to restrict maritime access to the Black Sea from the port cities of Mykolaiv, according to Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk, UNIAN reports. Previously, the Southern Territorial Defense Forces reported that, following aContinue Reading

Ukraine has unlocked a $3.39 billion World Bank package by completing a slate of reforms. The Finance Ministry and the World Bank signed the first Development Policy Operation for jobs and private-sector growth at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, after Kyiv passed 13 laws and 7 bylaws required byContinue Reading

Ukraine has received 10 light planes to train its next fighter pilots at home. The Defense Forces took delivery of 10 ALTO NG trainers through the Air Force Capability Coalition, with five purchased directly by the Czech government and five paid for by Czech citizens through a crowdfunding charity, theContinue Reading

Russia has begun training engineers for its drone industry at a university in occupied Donetsk. A new Center for the Development of Industrial Robotics is opening at the Russian-run Donetsk National Technical University together with Russia’s Innopolis University, teaching mechatronics, machine vision, autonomous navigation, and robotic production lines, skills thatContinue Reading

Exclusives Towards clearer skies? What Ukraine gets out of the most recent Ramstein meeting—and what it doesn’t. The $4 billion buys Patriot interceptors now — but Ukraine’s home-grown Freya, five times cheaper, left Brussels with a partnership and no cash. As Russian air defense dwindles, Ukrainian glide bombs join theContinue Reading

Ukraine’s fund for repairing its war-battered power grid is €650 million short of what it needs for winter. On the eve of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, the European Commission, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry, and the Energy Community Secretariat urged current and would-be donors to channel funds into the UkraineContinue Reading

DeepState assesses that Russia would need about two years to seize the entire Donetsk Oblast. OSINT project’s co-founder Roman Pohorilyi estimates that Russian forces would suffer “a colossal number of losses” to achieve it at the current pace of advance, in a comment to LIGA.net.  The assessment quantifies the gapContinue Reading

Ukraine has codified an upgraded version of the Gyurza-2 armored vehicle. The Defense Ministry has announced that the vehicle was modernized based on combat experience and feedback from front-line troops operating it. The codification clears the upgraded Gyurza-2 for broader procurement and front-line deployment, with substantial protection upgrades from the originalContinue Reading

Exclusives Belarus’s exiled opposition hands Ukraine a 30-page file on how Minsk is being readied for war. The dossier reached Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha’s desk and lays out eight ways the regime has rebuilt the country into a launch platform for Russia, the report states. Ukraine has a million woundedContinue Reading

Nazar Bokii lost both hands and an eye to a Russian drone. The Ukrainian veteran returned to shooting and helped a workshop design an adaptive rifle, Army TV’s program “What’s that gun” reports.  The adaptive rifle illustrates Ukraine’s bottom-up pattern of front-line military innovation, where soldiers identify needs and workshopsContinue Reading