Demeaning Ukraine, Elevating Russia, Trump's Stratagem

"I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal. For some reason [Zelenskyy] never does."

"[If I had been U.S. president in 2022], that war would have never started. There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence."

"[Zelenskyy has] lost 30 per cent of your country and you've had over a million people go between the two of them, over two million people killed. That's a war that should have never started. And I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president."

"I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia] to deliver millions of tonnes of diesel fuel over the next few months]."

"Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my greatest priority."

U.S. President Donald Trump 

 

"Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia." 

"[The attacks show Moscow understands] any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities."

"Russia's choice is war."

"[The diesel deal signalled to Moscow that] it is apparently permissible to continue attacking. And this needs to be corrected." 

"It plays into Russia’s hands — allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrive for a news conference on Oct. 4. Zelenskyy on Saturday criticized the new U.S.-Russia diesel deal. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

 

"Propping up Putin’s war economy is morally wrong as he uses that money to bomb cities."

"The President’s policies towards Russia and Ukraine are failures. We need moral clarity not moral ambiguity."

Republican Congressman Don Bacon, Nebraska  

Mercurial isn't quite the description of President Trump's instant thought process as he sets about in his typically idiosyncratic way solving problems whose details he doesn't quite grasp, offering solutions to conflicts startling in their simplicity, entirely lacking common sense. With an ego as wide as the Pacific Ocean and a belief in his persuasive impulses as a reflection of his genius for getting at the heart of the matter and arriving at a brilliant point where he personally and his political cronies stand to gain financially, and placing him once again on the short list for next year's Nobel Peace Prize, he is unstoppable.

 

The world balances itself on tenterhooks over what this man straddling the most powerful nation on earth's foreign political decision-making, volatile enough to take a U-turn at any moment, the reliable old international world order now stumbles into a future of growing uncertainty. What is certain is this man's fascination with the kind of power wielded by tyrants, an admiration for strongmen whose casual disregard of human rights and international treaties are appealing to a man who himself shreds signed and sealed agreements with impunity. 

 

That Mr. Trump has difficulty distinguishing allies from enemies, treating the former as hostile to his world view and proclivities, and the former as collegial think-alikes, puzzles both allies and enemies. And while allies have been forced by new circumstances beyond their control that is the sole agency of one single man to form new coalitions under the grave reality that dependence on the United States is no longer an option for the free world, countries like Russia and China whose hostility to the United States, vying against it for great power status find themselves honoured guests by an amiably-inclined American president. 

 

Trump rewards Putin and betrays Ukraine with Russia diesel deal - The Latest

 

A president who prefers to view victims as guilty of allowing themselves to become targets of aggressive warmongering territorial imperialists. The failure to use the power of his position to intimidate the Ukrainian president into submitting to his aggressor's demands to allow the evisceration of his country's geographic assets infuriated Mr. Trump while confusing Mr. Zelenskyy with its unreasonableness, even as he steadfastly refused the absurd recriminations tied to his government's counteroffensive against their mortal enemy rather than submit to Mr. Putin's demands.

 

Then came the news of the U.S.-Russia agreement of immediate supplying diesel fuel to the United States and to relieve global markets of its diesel shortage. Mr. Trump's calculated political imperative is to reduce the U.S. public's low approval rating of their president on economic grounds at a time of an increased cost of living, further aggravated by the on-again, off-again war on Iran and its effect of depleting the world supply of energy through the Persian Gulf, aligned with a similar situation with Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine.

 

The manipulation of public opinion at a critical time in the United States, with the approach of November 3's congressional elections to determine which party will control Congress, uppermost in the president's mind. So his 'highly successful' agreement where Vladimir Putin has agreed to supply an initial over 300,000 tonnes of diesel to U.S. and global markets, convinced Mr. Trump that the 'good news' would be universally welcomed. News, with its implied, if not actual forced surrender of Ukraine to Russia's ongoing predatory plans that served to stun an already-Trump-cynical world audience.

 

Washington had just latterly enacted additional sanctions on Russian energy producers, yet this latest scheme to isolate Ukraine and feed it bit by bit to the rapacious territorial appetite of Vladimir Putin to salve his own political future with a voting public irritated beyond end by the volatility and insensibility of their president as a prudent move, is destined for complete failure, adding another nail in the coffin of this president's reputation and historical legacy. 

Police officers standing next to the covered bodies of people killed by a Russian strike on a five-storey residential building in Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Ukraine national police/AFP/Getty Images

A further one million tonnes are to be made available to the U.S. under the newly-minted general licence the U.S. Treasury Department issued to allow the importation of Russian diesel dating to April of 2027. Greater amounts would follow "based on the condition of their diesel refineries", damaged by Ukrainian attacks, noted Mr. Trump. Excoriating Ukraine for those attacks and demanding that they cease forthwith in Ukraine's response to Russia's unending attacks on Ukrainian civil infrastructure and energy depots to deprive the population of winter heating and cooking in a demoralization drive. 

"I said it to President Trump … to his team and to his people several times: we want peace, we are ready for [a] ceasefire, we are ready to begin from any kind of steps of de-escalation."

"And if the Russians want us not [to] attack their diesel, their refineries and etc., we are asking President Trump, give them signal not attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine."

"Don't attack us. Don't kill our children. We will stop attack[ing] your diesel. And I think it's [a] fair, fair deal."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

Tensions Rising in Europe as Russian Threat Increases

"There is a real risk that drones or other types of missiles may fly into the territory of one or more NATO countries on the eastern flank, even cause destruction."

"[Russia's] official narrative will be that this is an accident and that there is no reason for anyone to think about any response from NATO."

"Sustained, very frequent and intense attacks are expected on six major Ukrainian cities, including the destruction of warehouses, all types of products essential for the country's defence, and, as we have witnessed very strongly in recent weeks, the railway infrastructure." 

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

 

"[The security situation has never been] so serious and so tense." 

"Can anyone imagine that we're told to prepare 5,000 soldiers, 10,000 soldiers? And they'll go to fight somewhere we don't even know with whom, why or for what?"

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico 

Lithuanian soldiers secure the area where Italian fighter jets shot down a drone during NATO's Baltic Air Policing Mission near Pratkunai village, north of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, September 15.  AP

 

Addressing parliament, Prime Minister Tusk spoke of the Kremlin's plans to destroy the economy and logistics of Ukraine, a conclusion supported by evidence intelligence services have gathered. Russia's plans extend to NATO's resolve, which it has focused on weakening by attacking the coalition's member states; in effect challenging them to respond. By launching 'hybrid style' drones and missile strikes against countries that are in support of Ukraine, NATO is being tested, even as the conflict launched by Vladimir Putin enters its debilitating fifth year.

 

As a key transit passage for Ukraine aid, Poland has undergone a number of suspicious incidents; multiple cyberattacks on public utilities. Critical domestic water, energy infrastructure and hospitals have been affected in Poland. The railway linking Warsaw to the Ukrainian border sustained damage that had all the hallmarks of Russian sabotage. Late July  saw a Russian missile crash in eastern Poland. Other NATO nations close to Ukraine have experienced similar, albeit fewer such 'warnings' related to Mr. Putin's 'special military operation'.

 

At a time when Moscow has intensified its attacks against Ukraine, inclusive of targets adjacent the Polish border, NATO jets responded by shooting down a drone of Russian origin over Lithuania a week earlier. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico made it clear that Slovakia, while taking its commitments to NATO seriously, he is prepared to do whatever he can to ensure that his country not be pulled into a conflict of uncertain value and outcome, in his opinion.

 

The fact is that Mr. Fico speaking for Slovakia does not regard Russia as posing a security threat. Advocating rapprochement with Moscow, he clearly diverges from other NATO members' concerns regarding the threat to their security posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin's territorial ambitions, pining for a return to the Soviet era with eastern Europe appendages of Greater Russia. The consequences of invoking NATO's Article 5, requiring all coalition members to act in defence of one another are unthinkable in Mr. Fico's considered opinion.

 

Military personnel from Poland, Lithuania, and France take part in training exercises during Operation Brave Boar 26 at the Orzysz Land Forces Training Center near the Suwalki Gap in Poland, on June 17.

Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg/Getty Images

 

"The path the world is on leads straight to the gates of hell. It is leading  us to World War Three", added Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, another critic of the European mainstream, at the IISS Prague Defence Summit. On the opposite side of the equation, the "rapidly worsening" situation concerning security and energy supplies in the face of conflicts afflicting Ukraine and the Middle East, motivates French President Emmanuel Macon to meet with government, party leaders and military and security officials to address the issues.

 

The oncoming, inevitable difficult winter ahead has Kyiv's full focus, along with that of its western allies. In meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mr. Tusk spoke of the potential of co-operation through the "anti-ballistic coalition", and to fully address Ukraine's energy infrastructure, once again in Putin's crosshairs in the coming months. 

 

It is not only Eastern Europe that has become alarmed over gathering dark clouds of war. In the United Kingdom, its government has given notice that people should prepare to stockpile canned food and drinking water in preparation for the possibility of war as Britain faces the 'most dangerous' threat in decades. Hospitals in Germany are preparing for the possibility of an attack by Russia, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz warning of "decisive moments, defending the freedom and peace of our continent". Switzerland too issued calls for resilience and preparations to defend itself against an armed attack. 

  

Russian soldiers who participated in the military invasion of Ukraine march through the Victory Day parade in Moscow, May 9th. Getty Images

"[The Kremlin isn't ready for] any serious talks about a ceasefire, not to mention peace without -- de facto -- Ukraine's capitulation."

"They [the Russians] are convinced the winter will be tragically critical for Ukraine."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk 

Poland, Building a Resilient Defence System Against Russian Expansion

"This is a watershed moment in the history of both Poland and the European Union [with the signing of the Security Action for Europe defence budget]."

"Poland will be safer in these difficult and highly risky times."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (May 2026), Warsaw

 

"Poland has long warned the rest of Europe of Russia's expansionist ambitions, even when other EU leaders weren't always willing to listen."

"Poland sees itself as a guarantor of regional security along the EU and NATO's eastern frontier, including the more vulnerable Baltic states. 

"[Poland's history with Nazi and Communist occupations has made its leaders] wary of being caught unprepared for foreign aggression."

"NATO's resolve is the single biggest deterrent to a westward expansion of the current conflict. Poland led the way at the start of the full-scale [Russian]invasion of Ukraine by supplying weaponry to the Ukrainians, that some said would lead to 'escalation'."

"[A key indicator of the program's success] will be a strong and sovereign Ukraine, because stability to Poland's east is inseparable from Poland's own."

Dominic Roszak, president, Canadian Polish Congress

Poland is spending more on defence than any other large EU nation. / WIKI COMMONS

 

With mysterious cyberattacks on Polish railways and hospitals; drones and missiles straying across Polish borders; jets scrambling to intercept Russian aircraft over the Baltic, it is more than obvious to Polish politicians that the imperative for deterrence is here and now, not at some indeterminate time in the future when it might face an existential crisis. Now, a European Union loan has enabled Warsaw to commit close to 44 billion euros toward upgrading its military infrastructure.

 

Poland has become the largest single beneficiary of Security Action for Europe's 150-billion-euro defence budget to modernize its military, expand its domestic arms sector and reward Polish companies collaborating with defence manufacturers. Poland has long plannede to commit 4.8 percent of the Nation's GDP to defence. Poland's link with Canada will see them pursue "joint projects involving emerging technologies", according to the Canadian Department of National Defence.

 

Poland is investing billions in a major military build-up to deter Russia, strengthen NATO and bolster European security. Photo by WOJTEK RADWANSKI /AFP via Getty Images

 

"For us, safety -- or I would say lack of safety - is a very present topic. It started long before the full state invasion of Russia to Ukraine."

"Russia has been always a threat for centuries. And we know that there is not much needed for Russia to be encouraged to attack again, either us or Baltic states."

Natalia Walsh Iwaszko, former vice consul economic affairs, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Toronto  

According to Minister Bartosz Grodecki, head, National Security Bureau of the Republic of Poland, in the almost 30 years in NATO, Poland has "transformed from a recipient of security to a creator of it". Poland, he stated, is aware that in "the event of an attack,the costs of a defensive operation and the consequences of wartime destruction will be far greater than those incurred in building a resilient defence system." 

 

As a result of the current paradigm shift and the consequent reconstruction of the international order, Poland is taking massive action to ensure its national and international security.  fondapol.org

 

"[Poles today] are conscious of bad things happening. It's a part of Polish history ... So they are attuned to kind of, better be prepared, and prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and work for the best."

"Reliance on America for moneys [sic] and/or sophisticated systems, which need constant replacement and upgrading [is precarious and unpredictable] with [U.S. President] Donald Trump being Donald Trump." 

David Lesperance, Lesperance & Associates, Gdynia, Baltic port city, northern Poland 

Ukraine, A Nation At War Becoming a Military Power

"Ukraine is now capable of striking Crimea, threatening Russian supply lines."

"Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine is still suffering. Russian missiles have so long hit civilian targets that it is no longer even remarked that such were once recognized as war crimes."

"More sobering, while Ukraine fights on, it is not evident how the war might end. It is entirely possible that Ukraine may not lose, but still not win definitively."

Fr. Raymond J. De Souza, National Post 

Ukrainian infantry soldier in Donetsk trench. Reuters

 

When Russia first fully invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Poland received almost two million fleeing Ukrainians. No refugee camps resulted. The Poles welcomed the refugees into their homes. A million such Ukrainian refugees are still left in Poland, sheltering themselves from constant Russian bombardment of missiles and drones over Ukraine's cities in the Kremlin's direct targeting of civilian populations, a noted war crime. 

 

More recently, a revival of Polish right-wing populism has arisen and with it hostility to Ukraine, shifting to viewing Russia's Vladimir Putin with a measure of tolerance. Memories are not dead in Poland to the reality of Ukrainian World War II alliances with Hitler's death squads, helpfully assisting in the murder of Poles and Jews through the auspices of the Waffen SS, where an SS battalion of Ukrainian volunteers was formed, during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. 

 

Nachtigall Battalion in 1941

Ukrainian auxiliaries were involved in the murder of Ukraine's Jews. Some of their leaders are still heralded as war heroes in Ukraine to the present day. Poles were their victims as well, while the Soviet military eventually became their liberators from the Nazi extermination project. Russia's President Putin has used that history to explain his full-scale invasion of Ukraine; 'liberating' it from the neo-Nazis still presumably governing the country from Kyiv.

 

Even the Trump administration's soft spot for Putin expressed by President Donald J. Trump has had its influence, which  tended to view Ukraine with suspicion and Russia with a degree of admiration. There has been a levelling off of President Trump's expressed fondness for President Putin now that Ukraine's resolute self-defence has finally put Russia's plans on the back foot. No one appears to have realized that the Russian territorial grab of 2014 when it annexed Crimea and incited rebellion in the Donbas would lead to a full-scale invasion.

 

February 28, 2026 joint strikes by U.S./Israel on Tehran, Iran.  Reuters

 

Ukraine now is recognized as an Eastern Europe military power, producing its own armaments even while it continues to rely on military aid from Europe and North America. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been welcomed as an adviser for the Gulf countries under attack by Iran in response to the U.S.-Israel 2026 aerial attacks. Ukraine's formidable counteroffensive while producing millions of advanced drones, has enabled it to hit Russian targets from Moscow right up to Siberia. 

 

Ukraine's fervent wish to become a member of NATO will be realized, post-war. There have been errors in judgement made by President Zelenskyy and he has been brought up short by public anger over them, as when his appointed defence minister and the chief of the Ukrainian military were at loggerheads, the former opting for a new approach in meeting the enemy, the latter wedded to the tried-and-true conventional responses with conventional weaponry. 

 

When given an ultimatum to make a choice, the president fired his popular defence minister only to face days of demonstrations by furious Ukrainians, forcing him to reverse his decision. And the war goes on.

 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

 

Ukraine's 'Blood Experience' Parlaying Drone Expertise for Military Technology

 

"One night in March, a two-person Ukrainian crew established a record  for the Ukrainian Armed Forces by shooting down, in one engagement, 23 Russian Shahed drones with Sting interceptor drones designed by the Ukrainian military technology company Wild Hornets. The story is noteworthy not only for the number of intercepted drones, but also for the operation’s cost efficiency and Ukraine’s interceptor-production capacity behind it."

"A Sting interceptor costs about $2,500. In comparison, a single U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missile that does the same job costs more than $3 million and requires significantly more time and resources to build and operate than a drone. Lockheed Martin produced approximately 600 of the most advanced PAC-3 type of Patriot missiles last year; meanwhile, the Ukrainian Armed Forces used about 700 of these interceptors in the span of only four winter months in 2025-2026."

"The conflict in the Middle East has further exposed the shortcomings of a high-end, slow-production approach to defense systems. In March 2026, when Iran launched hundreds of Shaheds at Persian Gulf states, countries with the most advanced U.S.-supplied air defense systems outside NATO watched their defense capabilities erode as their interceptor stockpiles drained quickly. The air defense systems worked as intended, yet they were not designed to protect against the intensity and scale of Iran’s attacks."

"Kyiv is building drones in massive quantities out of wartime necessity against Russia’s ongoing full-scale assault, now in its fifth year. A key part of that necessity is Russia’s large-scale use of Iranian-made Shahed drones against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. That Russian campaign has raised serious questions about Iran’s responsibility under international law. In response, Ukraine is rewriting the global rules of air power and air defense, replacing sheer mass and large stockpiles of weapons as key factors in warfare with the benefits of quantity, speed, and the ability to learn faster than the enemy. It is a novel and adaptive, low-cost military-industrial model that is already catching the interest of other countries."

Lesia Bidochko, Just Security

 

Ukrainians train with handheld drones. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

 

"Together we can work on joint production, on making all of the components of the systems work, and provide both defense industrial bases with the impetus needed to step up investments and production [following The European Union and Ukraine's drone deal to merge Ukrainian expertise in unmanned warfare with the continent’s industrial capacity, with the goal of ramping up production of drone and counter-drone systems]."

"In Europe, we already have huge technological and industrial capacity that can be deployed. And we have safe and secure production sites that can help to scale up. But we do not have that battle-tested knowledge and expertise that Ukraine has forged. So the point I am making is that we need to combine our strengths. Together, we can work on joint production."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen 

EU launches Ukraine defence industrial partnership, Drone Deal and disburses €1 billion for drones  EU Neighbours East

 

Kyiv can be credited with many outstanding features in this uneven war imposed upon Ukraine by Vladimir Putin's ambitions to restore Greater Russia; among them the courage and intestinal fortitude to counter the full-scale invasion in its fifth year and add to that the determination to win this war, whatever it takes to repel the Russian beast. And nor can its ingenuity in designing new technological weapons of its own manufacture to match anything Russia obtains from the Islamic Republic in this new era of drone warfare, much less its entrepreneurial enterprise in marketing its products and its experience be overlooked.

 

So while Russian drones -- the Iranian Shaheds -- have wrought their weight in deadly measure as a means to kill thousands of soldiers and civilians in Ukraine, countermeasures to Russia's innovative first-person-view vehicles, jet power, fibre-optic tethers and similar innovations have led to Ukraine developing its own versions in countering the Russian military's. EU member-states such as Croatia, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Germany now see their own firms aligning with Ukrainian companies that specialize in first-person-view combat drones.

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyer Zelenskyy, pushing the drone deals whenever and wherever he can now realizes a ready market. Where Hezbollah deploys unmanned aerial vehicles to attack Israel, and Iran uses them against several regional countries, a case in point. Kyiv has signed ten-year security agreements with Gulf allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates since the joint U.S.-Israel aerial attacks on the Islamic Republic which led to its missiles and drones hitting its neighbours' U.S. military bases. A proposal, Zelenskyy stated is "also on the table for our American partners".

 

Ukrainian soldiers of the 127th Heavy Mechanized Brigade carry a Heavy Shot UAV across a field on May 8, 2026, in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. Yevhen Titov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Image

 

"Latvia will adopt Ukraine's unique combat experience in airspace defence against drone attacks." 

"[The deal includes] immediate access to technologies, but most importantly, the immediate arrival of Ukrainian anti-drone combat unit experts in Latvia."

"Our skies can only be protected if we follow Ukraine's example, know-how and experience." 

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kilbergs  

A joint drone production facility is to be built near Latvia's border with Russia. Russia's Eastern Europe neighbours are fully cognizant of the potential danger they are in, following Ukraine's invasion, led by the Russian President's roving eye and territorial acquisitiveness. Kyiv anticipates more military and economic support, in particular American-produced Patriot missiles in short supply, given U.S. forces fighting Iran. Its breakthrough arrived when President Trump stated Kyiv would be allowed to make Patriot missiles itself in Ukraine.

 

"The terms must be beneficial for Ukraine, and the proceeds from exports must strengthen Ukraine's defence", stated President Zelenskyy of plans to release exports of Ukrainian drones. Reliance on early warning systems, radar, electronic warfare, mobile fire groups, helicopters, jet fighters and interceptors encompass Ukraine's anti-drone defences. Interceptors are increasingly being realized as the main line of defence for intercepting drones.

 

Over 100 Ukrainian companies produce interceptors. "We have approximately 15 to 20 very effective interceptors, which are also extensively used at the front", revealed Andrii Hrytseniuk, chief executive of Ukrainian government organization Bravel, providing a platform for the country's defence tech sphere. 

 

A Sting interceptor drone flies during drills at the Yatagan School for Unmanned Aerial Systems in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, Efrem Lukatsky/AP

 

"There is no one single bullet. There is sort of this funny magical thinking that a lot of people are doing in terms of 'hey, just send us all your drones or your interceptors'. "

"And what people are sort of missing is that is, even though there's tech and that's what everybody sees, it's only one piece of everything." 

Deborah Fairlamb, American investor in military technology 

Ukraine Unsettling Russia in Crimea

"There's no place to hide in Crimea."

"The Ukrainians have the ability to touch every single place where there's an air defense weapon or a logistics hub or an airfield."

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, retired commanding general of U.S. Army Europe 

 

"To achieve the final objective, this blockade must be intensified."

"This situation must be maintained for a sufficiently long period of time."

Kostiantyn Mashovetz, Ukrainian military analyst

 

"According to announcements by Ukraine’s drone forces, the USF (Unmanned Systems Forces), dozens of electrical substations or other power infrastructure have been hit by Ukrainian robot aircraft across Crimea in recent weeks, with 38+ strikes claimed in the first week of July and 45+ in the second week of July. Besides power transmission and generation infrastructure, attacks have hit gas distribution stations and compressor stations."

"Most of the strikes have been carried out by Ukraine’s workhorse FP-2 push propeller drone, a slow-flying plane roughly the size of a large sofa. USF commanders have said attacks against the Russia-run power grid in Crimea are succeeding because of months of preliminary attacks that hit and destroyed Russian air defenses. The top Ukrainian target in those preparatory drone attacks has been Russia’s Pantsir gun/missile system, an air defense weapon designed to shoot down drones."

Stefan Korshak, Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent 

Temporarily occupied Crimea (Photo: Reuters)

 

Crimea, annexed by Vladimir Putin in 2014 is being given very special attention at this point in time, a dozen  years later by the Ukraine military, where attacks in recent weeks have been increased substantially for the dual purpose of returning the critical geography to its rightful owner, as well as depriving the Russian military of its supply lines. The Kerch Strait Bridge is in Ukraine's crosshairs, the sole direct link to Russia. Ukraine has targeted bridges and roads in its bid to transform the peninsula from its current status as a Russian-occupied fortress into a military nightmare for the Kremlin.

 

This most recent wave of attacks saw Ukraine targeting air defense and radar systems across the peninsula. The energy grid and fuel reserves have also received attention from the Ukrainian military, battered to the extent that blackouts occur, shaking life in Crimea. Causing Russian forces along the southern front to shift into defensive mode. 

 

In the last week alone, Russia bombarded Kyiv, killing 30 people, in its own show of retaliatory force; its usual tactics, targeting civilian enclaves claiming they were aiming at military targets. A stark contrast in military priorities, where Kyiv focuses on military installations or fuel depots to deprive Russia of its critical fuel lines, and Moscow's response is to hit civilian areas.

 

Moscow's special attention toward its prize restoration of Crimea as part of Russia saw to it that years were spent fortifying the geography with advanced air defenses and coastal batteries, fighter jets and bomber-packed airfields -- while on land, missile launch systems abounded. Russia gave itself direct access to Crimea when it built the $3.7 billion Kerch Strait Bridge. 

 

Even in the conflict's first years, Ukraine had targeted Russia's naval headquarters in Sevastopol, driving Russian warships from Crimean ports. They were limited however, by the weapons in Ukraine's possession at that time. According to Ukrainian officials now, their arsenal is capable of inflicting more pain, in essence sufficiently so, to convince Moscow it needed to return to the negotiating table. 

The view from a Ukrainian drone during what the military says was a strike against Russian tankers in the Sea of Azov. (Commander of Unmanned Aerial Systems Force/Reuters)

 

Videos were posted by Ukrainian military units in June of their Crimean strikes. The clips are a vital part of Ukraine's wartime propaganda, illustrating battlefield successes against Russia. Russian forces were increasingly attempting to counteract Ukrainian drone strikes by patrolling critical southern routes with drones and interceptor units, according to Kateryna Stepanenko, analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. "But they need more mobile air defense to blunt the impact of Ukrainian strikes" she noted. 

 

Ukrainian commanders anticipate that Russian troops would adapt, to shift their tactics in turn: "Adaptation can take days, weeks or months, but we consistently find new ways to strike in any direction, at any depth, with whatever assets we have", stated Artem Bielienkov, chief of staff of Ukraine's 412th Unmanned Systems Brigade. 

 

Widespread blackouts in Crimea have resulted from strikes on fuel facilities. Local authorities have declared a state of emergency, gas stations have run out of fuel, and thousands fled the peninsula since the latest strikes began by Ukraine. There were Ukrainian strikes on oil and gas storage facilities, compression stations and power plants.  

 

"The occupiers' attempts to fix the  damage to key facilities -- like the Tavria and Balaklava thermal power plants, major substations and fuel terminals -- are running into complex technical and logistical problems."

Hennadii Riabtsev, Ukrainian energy analyst 

Four Years and Counting...Putin's War

Firefighters try to put out a fire at a city marketplace following a Russian missile and drone attack in Kyiv, 15 June, 2026 AP Photo

"To intercept ballistics, we need the means for interception."

"Russians are certainly using the fact that there is a serious deficit of interceptor missiles now, in Ukraine and the world."

Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat

 

"As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies' stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep 'vanquishing' residential buildings."

"The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

 

"When we were leaving the building, bodies were lying there."

"When we got downstairs, cars started exploding, and we came out from under the rubble straight into the fire."

Khrystyna Piatetska, 20, Kyiv's Darnytskyi district 

Rescuers use a crane to remove debris while they work at the site of an apartment building, which was hit during Russian missile and drone strikes in Kyiv. (Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters

 

 It goes on and on. So far, Vladimir Putin's 'special military operation' has been the death of 15,000 Ukrainian civilians. The Russian military claims it aims its missiles and drones only at military targets. The reality is Moscow considers civilian infrastructure to be 'military targets' in its campaign to demoralize Ukrainians and place pressure on Ukraine's government to collapse its resistance against Russia's goals of annexing as much Ukrainian territory into Greater Russia as can be accomplished before Mr. Putin is satisfied that what he set out to accomplish has been achieved -- perhaps less than more -- but satisfactorily to the extent that he can rest on his land-grab laurels and agree to a Russo-advantaged 'peace' agreement. 

 

In the latest attacks on Ukraine, civilians have been killed and wounded as is usual for Russian attacks. Ukraine, on the other hand, has tasked its forces to damage over two dozen Russian tankers and other such shipping vessels in the Sea of Azov. Ukraine's achievements have been a world of difference from Russia's. Its intention is to hit Russian oil refineries across Russia in a bid to undercut its war plans. Ukraine's Russia infrastructure hits have succeeded to a considerable degree, triggering a widespread fuel crisis of notable gasoline shortages. 

 

The Kremlin's rather less-than-honourable response has been to intensify Kyiv bombardment along with other cities, knowing full well Ukraine's vulnerable state in fending off ballistic missiles. According to Ukraine's General Staff, 21 tankers meant to transport oil and petroleum products were most recently damaged overnight as well as four tugboats, two cargo ships and a dredging vessel. Russia reported a single individual dead as well as their count of ships having been struck as being no more than four in total.

 

A local resident inspects a damaged car after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press)

 

Two Russian aerial glide bombs struck a crowded area in Ukraine's northeast Sumy region killing four, a child included, wounding many others. Another eleven civilians were wounded in missile and drone attacks overnight on Kyiv -- while in Odessa, two people were dead following a building struck by a Russian missile. Across Kyiv's Solomianskyi, Darnytskyi and Dniprovski districts, according to the emergency service, explosions and fires were reported.

 

A dozen missiles, among them six ballistic missiles, as well as 121 drones were launched by Russia overnight, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who went on to state that most of the drones and some of the missiles had been shot down. The ballistic missiles, however, reached their targets, a reflection of dire air defence gaps in Ukraine's defensive armaments. 

 

Two missiles and 111 drones were shot down or electronically suppressed according to Ukrainian air defences, while according to the air force, direct hits were recorded at 11 locations. Russian forces, according to its Defence Ministry, targeted drone production facilities in Kyiv. The ports of Izmail and Chornomorsk in the Odesa region were also targeted. 

 

Although Oleksseandr Syrsky, Ukraine's commander-in-chief spoke of a turning point in the war with Russia was "still a long way off" in spite of a string of recent successes for his troops, Kyiv's military has stopped the Russian advance in recent months across much of the front line, while delivering a string of major long-range attacks on Russian oil refineries. In Ukraine, many observers, along with some of their European backers feel that the Ukrainian troops are now on the front foot in the four-year war.

 

A Ukrainian serviceman of K-2 brigade of the Unmanned Systems Forces operates a midrange drone during a flight towards Russian positions at the frontline, 21 June, 2026 AP Photo

 

  

World War I With Drones

"Four years since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia still occupies roughly 20 percent of the country after gaining almost five thousand square kilometers of territory in 2025." 

"Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities, while Ukraine maintains drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and military sites."

"Since January 2022, Ukraine has received about $188 billion in aid from the United States and $197 billion from the European Union."

"Fighting and air strikes have inflicted nearly 56,000 civilian casualties, while 3.7 million people are internally displaced, and 5.9 million are registered as refugees. 10.8 million people need humanitarian assistance."

Global Conflict Tracker 

 

"In many respects, this war in Ukraine is the one that most closely resembles World War I."

"[In both wars it was the intensity of firepower that forced armies to turn to trenches]: You bury yourself to protect yourself."
Michel Goya, former French colonel, historian 

People visit the graves of their relatives, who were killed during Russia's attack on Ukraine, as a large-scale light installation illuminates the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 23, 2026, marking the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. (Roman Baluk/Reuters)

 

The heavy casualty counts and brutal infantry assaults of the ongoing war in Ukraine strikes some war historian as comparable to conflict conditions experienced during World War I. By June 11, the war in Ukraine -- Vladimir Putin's 'special military operation' -- saw a point in time where it has been prolonged for four years and three months, its duration outlasting World War I's epic conflict. 

 

Mr. Putin's expectation that his large operational full-on incursion of February 2022 would swiftly see Ukraine surrendering, his goal accomplished in a mere matter of months if not weeks. The Ukrainian counter offensive which saw Russia effectively opposed and the conflict became a war of attrition, it would have seemed inconceivable to any strategists, much less servicemen fighting for their lives on either side of the hostilities that the war would drag on for so many weeks, months and years. 

 

Yet the war has a life of its own, reflecting the level of determination on both sides; Moscow's to achieve its objective; Kyiv to sustain its sovereign rights and push its aggressor entirely out of its geography, including from Crimea and Donetsk, both of which fell to Russia in 2014. 

 

Ukrainian servicemen of the 33rd separate assault regiment participate in a training at an undisclosed location in Zaporizhzhia region on Jan. 30, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP via Getty Images

 

Recent polls indicate that almost fifty percent of Ukrainians feel the war will not end before 2027. Among Ukrainians many are prepared to argue that the war's beginning in reality was 2014 when Russian troops with the assistance of Russian-Ukrainian rebels swept Crimea to seize it for Greater Russia, complementing Vladimir Putin's yearning for the days of firm control of eastern Europe during the Soviet Union, and he a modern-day Czar. 

 

According to Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak, the conflict that Russia imposed upon Ukraine will rank in historical accounts as among the most consequential in modern European history. Alluding to both wars, having altered geopolitics in Europe through the reshaping of military alliances, driving a feverish defense buildup through NATO, unseen since the end of the Cold War. 

 

The war in Ukraine has now exceeded the first world war in duration. And while the comparison between these two conflicts is imperfect, it is becoming difficult to ignore.

 

 A century earlier, point out military analysts, it was the new technologies of warplanes and tanks that drove the fighting antagonists, while today advances in unmanned aerial war machines have taken centre stage in an increasingly brutal onslaught against humans more attuned to conventional warfare. As in 1914, so too in 2024, where a frozen front line maintains a status quo and where neither attacker nor defender can claim the upper hand. 

 

Historians see World War I trench warfare repeated in the trenches and bunkers that Ukrainian soldiers have been using where assaults with artillery barrages followed by storming enemy trenches by infantry squads were the elemental formulaic schemes brought to play in the early years of the current war, echoing what had been current a hundred years earlier. 

 

Once drones were brought into play, trench-like networks became outdated as unsafe, where drones monitored the battlefield, striking with precision greater than that of artillery shells. Survival now depends on smaller, more discreet and deeper trenches to outfox the drones; shelters now house a handful of soldiers in dugouts. As for the fearsome tanks of WWI, they have become targets for drones, and have been largely retired. 

 

According to Admiral Pierre Vandier, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in NATO, the Ukrainian front has been lethalized by drones. And the strategy that Ukraine relies upon to use drones to strike deep into Russia to hit its oil assets, strikes at its very economy which funds Putin's special military operation. The battlefield has been flooded with small attack drones of Ukrainian design and forward technology. "This is World War I, but with drones", said historian Yaroslav Hrytsak.  

 

Ukraine's Existential War

"Millions have left -- many of them young and able-bodied. You see them here in Calgary [Alberta]."

"They're here on temporary status. They can work, but it's very, very difficult. People are not going to come back if no inch of Ukraine is safe -- and I don't use those words lightly. That's what Ukrainians tell me they feel."

"No one voluntarily leaves their home. So the question is, if we give them citizenship, does that make it easier -- or harder -- for them to return? I'll be honest, that needs to be decided."

"We know Russia is waging hybrid warfare here, including election meddling [in Canada]. Our friends in Ottawa seem to think if we expel theirs, they'll expel ours and we'll lose so much. We can get other countries to represent us."

"Ukraine is still fighting. It will fight to the end. This is an existential war."

"Whether it's the missiles, either defensive or offensive military kit, or really hard-core sanctions, I think many Western leaders are actually still afraid of Putin ... we're afraid that if we push him too hard, he'll do the worst and reach for the nuclear button."

Michael Bociurkiw, Canadian-Ukrainian journalist, Odessa, Ukraine 

A  man carries a dog among rubble outside a residential building which was damaged during Russian missile and drone strike on Kyiv on June 2, 2026. Ukrainian refugees “are not going to come back if no inch of Ukraine is safe,” Canadian journalist Michael Bociurkiw warns. Photo by Roman PILIPEY/AFP via Getty Images

 

"Yes, you [Vladimir Putin] can still force Russians to exist this way. But your resources are shrinking significantly. You will not have enough money or political capital to keep buying the loyalty of Russians the way you have for the past 26 years."

"The front line today is the line from which diplomacy must begin [to negotiate an end to the war]."

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meeting proposal with Vladimir Putin

 

"I see no sense [in a meeting after receiving such a 'rude' letter]."

"Is it a way to create conditions for a personal meeting and negotiations, or is it creating an environment in which it's impossible to hold any personal meetings at all?"

"I think it's the latter."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his office in Kyiv. The Ukrainian president tells Vladimir Putin in an open letter: ‘If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence.’ Photograph: Ukrainian presidential press service

 

After over four years of relentless attacks by Moscow's larger military against Ukraine's domestic infrastructure and its civilian population, attacks geared to destroying the country's energy structures to impact as deleteriously as possible winter living conditions year after year, while denials from the Kremlin assure the watching world that its military never sends missiles or drones to target civilians -- only military targets -- the Russian president is incensed over the social niceties spurned by the president whose nation he has mercilessly and without cause shattered.

 

  Putin insists Russia is winning the war and Ukraine must surrender territory   EPA

 

Russian efforts at destabilizing the Ukrainian government and its society and demoralizing its population  have failed. There is unity of purpose in Ukraine, even among the exhausted war-weary population -- and morale continues to be as elevated as can be possible in such conflict circumstances. By seeking to divide the civilian population from its hard-pressed government, Russia has succeeded in pushing them closer together in the common existential purpose of survival.

 

And while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a rare open letter to his Russian counterpart proposed a meeting for the purpose of negotiating an end to the war, face-to-face, it is clear that Russian demands and Ukraine's steadfast position can never come to any agreement, despite the urging of U.S. President Donald Trump, pleased at the prospect of the two meeting: "I'm glad that they're maybe talking about meeting, I think we had a lot to do with it. But I think it would be great if they met, they should get it done."

 

Trump says Zelenskyy-Putin meeting would be ‘great’ after Ukraine president’s letter - still from video

 

For starters, President Zelenskyy made it clear that he was prepared for a "full ceasefire" and "all-for-all exchange of prisoners of war", even before such a meeting could take place. He made it abundantly clear that it is imperative for Russia to return the Ukrainian civilians and children who had been forcibly taken to Russia during the war. Alluding to recent successes for Ukraine on the battlefield, Mr. Zelenskyy also reminded Mr. Putin that Ukrainian intelligence-gathering affirmed that over 30,000 Russian soldiers were killed or seriously wounded in May alone.

 

Russia itself has been caught up in a war its population never dreamed would reach them, as long-range Ukrainian drones have brought the civilian population in Russia the undreamed-of nightmare reality that they too, not only Ukrainians can become targets of deadly missiles and drones. The peace proposal reached by Putin and US. President Donald Trump last year in Alaska, requiring Ukraine to surrender land in exchange for an end to the conflict was rejected by Mr. Zelenakyy: "You can see for yourself that Ukrainian and European issues are not decided in Anchorage", he responded. 

 

A Ukrainian serviceman of the 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade walks on a street near the frontline town of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday. (Reuters)