The president's statement comes with a sense of déjà vu.

Zelenskyy promised demobilisation for military personnel back in late 2023, and government officials set out fixed terms for service in a draft law updating the mobilisation rules. But on the eve of the final vote in parliament, the military command asked parliamentarians to remove the demobilisation provisions from the bill. Why? So as not to cripple the front by releasing over a hundred thousand soldiers at once.

The authorities ignored the public's demand for fixed terms of service for more than two years. But in 2026, Zelenskyy decided to break the silence in a move that surprised even the Defence Ministry and the General Staff. He tasked government officials and the military with creating opportunities for soldiers to be demobilised.

This is only the first step towards what's been billed as a "major transformation" of the army. The pool of reformers includes representatives of the Defence Ministry, the General Staff and the President's Office.

Ukrainska Pravda has learned how Ukraine's mobilisation system may change; what terms and conditions are to be included in the new contracts; who will be able to leave military service; what changes are set to be made to the system of payments for carrying out combat missions; and what the next step in army reform will be.

Important clarification: the proposals described in this article have not yet been incorporated into any draft laws or government resolutions. We have summarised the most up-to-date work by the Defence Ministry, the General Staff and the President's Office. However, the drafts are being amended almost daily, so some of these points may never make it into the final documents.

The new demobilisation

"There is no consensus on fixed terms for service," a source in the President's Office told Ukrainska Pravda in mid-April 2026. "The General Staff is against this. The military leadership's position comes down to this: if there were large-scale demobilisation, the staffing of the army would be significantly reduced."

Although Zelenskyy has already announced fixed terms of service, government officials and the military are still locking horns over how to introduce them.

The reformers have managed to agree on a contract-based approach to the demobilisation of soldiers. The current draft provides for the introduction of three types of contracts with fixed terms of service – both for those already serving and for new recruits.

Mobilised soldiers will be able to sign a contract guaranteeing demobilisation and a deferment until their next call-up, while contract soldiers will be able to renegotiate their agreements with the state. Previous service will not count towards the new contract. But it will affect the length of the deferment, which is planned to be calculated individually.

"There will still be the option not to sign a contract," one official familiar with the details of the proposals made by government officials and the command told Ukrainska Pravda off the record. "But contract soldiers will have clear lengths of service: 10 months for current military personnel in combat positions; 14 months for new recruits applying for combat positions; and two years for all other roles – from UAV pilot to media officer [this applies to both current military personnel and new recruits – UP]. In addition, they will be able to choose their own positions – both combat and rear-line roles."

The plan is to increase the minimum salary for military personnel serving in the rear from UAH 20,000 (around US$455) to UAH 30,000 (US$683) per month. Salaries for commanders at various levels are to be roughly doubled.

Soldiers who sign the so-called "combat" contracts will be paid significantly more. Government officials and the military leadership are proposing to introduce 10/20/40 risk-based remuneration.

"UAH 10,000 (US$227) per day for being at the position. UAH 20,000 (US$455) for assault and search operations [retaking lost positions, mop-up operations]. UAH 40,000 (US$910) for active offensive operations. On average, an infantryman who regularly carries out combat missions will be getting UAH 250,000-400,000 (US$5,700-9,100) per month," explains an Ukrainska Pravda source who is involved in developing the army reforms.

"We will set a maximum cap on payments to prevent abuse."

Payments under the 10/20/40 system will accrue to soldiers on the basis of the orders issued by the commanders of their military units.

The Defence Ministry and the General Staff are expected to finalise their work on contracts with fixed terms of service by the end of May 2026. All the new measures are to be regulated through Cabinet of Ministers resolutions.

The next stage of army reform is a reboot of the enlistment offices (known as Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centres).

Read more: "You drive through a village and it's like a dead Texas town, only without the tumbleweed." Inside Ukraine's enlistment offices

Enlistment office reform

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainians have sent ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets nearly 12,000 complaints concerning violations of their rights in the course of mobilisation, the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights told Ukrainska Pravda. The lion's share of the complaints about the actions of enlistment offices have been filed over the past two years.

In January 2026, Zelenskyy instructed the new defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, to address the issue known as "busification" – the controversial practice of forced mobilisation in which recruitment officers detain men in public, often bundling them onto minibuses to transport them to enlistment offices.

Ukrainska Pravda has learned from sources in parliament that the Defence Ministry team proposes to transform the enlistment offices into "Reserve+ Offices" with separate units: recruitment offices and support service offices.

Staff at the recruitment offices will be responsible for keeping records of people liable for military service, planning mobilisation measures, recruiting, and processing people for military service. Additional recruitment points will also be set up in public spaces.

There will be recruitment hubs in separate premises to accommodate volunteers and military-age men brought in by police while they go through the procedure of joining the army. The Defence Ministry envisages that staff at the hubs will carry out document checks, military medical examinations, and assessments of psychological resilience and professional aptitude.

Staff at the support offices will be responsible for what are known as social services. Military enlistment offices aren't only involved in mobilisation: they also have to deal with a host of social issues, from processing compensation for wounded soldiers and one-off payments to the families of fallen defenders, to organising funerals. This part of their work is often neglected because they are overloaded with mobilisation-related tasks.

The support offices could take over all social functions. The Defence Ministry wants to digitalise some of these, such as processing payments and issuing certificates.

The advantages of the changes are obvious: decentralisation and a clearer distribution of the workload between structural units. But there are some details to be worked out. First, premises need to be found and equipped. Second, more staff need to be recruited – a time-consuming and expensive process.

"Enlistment offices are a vast structure that provide the army with 30,000+ mobilised personnel and contract soldiers a month. No one wants to break the system, so there are a lot of discussions going on," a source in the military leadership told Ukrainska Pravda off the record. "There was a long debate over who should bring men from the street to the enlistment offices. The Defence Ministry proposed that this should only be done by police officers, without military personnel being involved. But the police are opposed to that. Everything has now stalled – there is no consensus."

Ivan Vyhivskyi, chief of the National Police, makes no secret of his reluctance to take responsibility for street "recruitment". In a recent interview, he stressed that police officers "should not be left" to deal with the mobilisation process alone, as even being involved in it "has a very negative impact on their image".

In fact, under current legislation only police officers are authorised to detain military-age men and bring them to enlistment offices, so the Defence Ministry was not proposing anything new – and it seems strange, to say the least, to claim that the police have a negative image because of their involvement in mobilisation.

Call-up notices can be issued by employers and representatives of local authorities as well as military personnel from enlistment offices.

"But all of them are trying to distance themselves from mobilisation," says Iryna Friz, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence. "In some places, a village head may say: 'How can I go and issue a call-up notice? What if he's killed tomorrow – how will I look his family in the eye?' Our country will perish [with this approach – UP].

Mobilisation has been placed entirely on the shoulders of servicemen. This is absolutely wrong. In my opinion, the military should only take responsibility after a mobilised person or contract soldier has arrived at a training centre. Notification and transportation to basic military training should be handled by civilians."

There are currently no deadlines for when the enlistment office reforms will begin. Representatives of the Defence Ministry, the General Staff and the President's Office are still "refining" and "fine-tuning" their concepts. The end result should be a draft law.

And as the experience of the last initiative to update the mobilisation rules (in 2024) has shown, its passage through parliament could drag on for months, and the final version of the bill may differ significantly from the original.

***

"We began the reform with fixed terms for service, because uncertainty is what frightens people who are considering military service the most. Once we've done that, we'll move on to changes at the enlistment offices. Coercive methods of bringing people into the army are unacceptable. We will try to make mobilisation fair. The changes will take place within this year," a source involved in developing the reforms assures Ukrainska Pravda.

The introduction of contracts with the option of demobilisation will give soldiers certainty, which is critically important in a protracted war. Clear lengths of service combined with financial perks could even motivate civilians to join the army voluntarily.

But can a reform be considered fair if it involves resetting the previous period of service from the moment a contract is signed – both for those who have been serving continuously since 2022 and for those who only recently joined the Defence Forces? Hardly.

Where will the money for the new "combat" contracts come from? A source of Ukrainska Pravda's in the military leadership insists that the Ministry of Finance supports the initiative, but provides no specifics.

However, the bill amending the 2026 state budget, which the government approved and submitted to the Verkhovna Rada on 8 May, provides for no additional spending for increasing military salaries.

As Ekonomichna Pravda has reported, citing sources in the government and parliament, raising payments to soldiers would require at least UAH 60 billion (around US$1.4 billion) by the end of 2026. But this is not the final figure, as the final concept of the new contract system has yet to be approved.

Ultimately, will the authorities manage to implement the changes they've announced this time? Two years ago, for many servicemen and women, demobilisation became nothing more than a pipe dream.

"If those at the top have decided to go back to setting clear lengths of service, they must see it through to the end rather than feeding the military empty promises. Otherwise the number of soldiers going AWOL will break every record," one combat officer told Ukrainska Pravda.

He joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. When, or if, the reform takes effect, the countdown to his demobilisation will only begin after he signs a new contract.

Translated by Viktoriia Yurchenko

Edited by Teresa Pearce

Fibre-optic cables from drones are also on that list. Millions of kilometres of thin cables are littering Ukrainian land and creating a new challenge for humanitarian mine clearance teams.

Halting the use of fibre-optic drones for the sake of "environmental friendliness" would be absurd, but mine clearance experts are already assessing the risks they will face when attempting to carry out humanitarian demining in contaminated areas.

Meanwhile, for farmers the uncertainty is growing: it is impossible to conduct research in the fields or predict how events may unfold after the liberation of territories or the end of hostilities as this problem is new.

Ukrainska Pravda explains what humanitarian demining teams and farmers may face as they try to clear the land.

A challenge the world has never seen before

Fibre-optic cable is an extremely thin glass strand made of silicon, 0.2-0.5 mm thick. It is often covered with a protective polymer sheath. It was designed to be as strong and durable as possible: it does not rust, decomposes slowly and can remain in the soil for a very long time.

When a fibre-optic drone takes off, the spool gradually releases a thin, almost invisible wire. It trails behind the drone throughout the flight and settles absolutely everywhere. When the drone explodes, the fibre-optic cable does not disappear; it continues to exist in Ukrainian fields and forests.

Based on open-source figures for the supply of fibre-optic drones, Ukrainians and Russians use at least 100,000 such UAVs every month. The length of cable on a single spool can exceed 10 kilometres. In other words, millions of kilometres of fibre-optic threads are now covering Ukrainian territory.

At first, fibre-optic threads accumulate in the combat zone. Then the abandoned wires spread beyond it, settling in the soil or hanging from trees.

As drone technology develops, both the length of fibre-optic cable and the number of drones are increasing, meaning the area of contamination and the amount of fibre in soils and forests will inevitably grow. A spike in fibre-optic cable prices may somewhat slow the process, but it is unlikely to change the overall trend towards the use of this technology.

Fibre-optic cable poses more of a mechanical threat than a toxic one. A vivid and painful example is its impact on animals and birds. Some are cut by it, while others become entangled in cables they cannot even break. The result is a blow to the ecosystem.

But the main problem here is not even the birds.The issue is that it is a new type of war waste, and it is still unclear how to deal with it.

An obstacle to humanitarian demining

Edward Crowther, a mine action specialist with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine, told Ukrainska Pravda that the greatest challenges for mine clearance experts will be safety and visibility in the field.

The first problem is that long cables lying in the grass or hanging in bushes and between trees may become tangled up with ammunition. An unexploded drone may even be lying at the end of the wire. If these strands are pulled, it could trigger an explosion or start a large fire.

In addition, fibre-optic cable resembles a tripwire. Mine-clearance personnel will have to check every single strand, which will slow their work enormously.

According to the rules, anything that limits access to the soil, including vegetation, must be removed before demining begins. But strands of fibre-optic cable will have to be pulled out along with the grass. Simply yanking them out is too dangerous. Separate methods of removal will need to be considered, either manually or using machinery.

It cannot be ruled out that invisible, sturdy wires could become wound around parts of mechanical demining machines. In that case, the machinery would have to be stopped, cleaned and possibly repaired.

Another problem concerns drones used to survey and map areas. fibre-optic cable hangs between trees, above buildings or in bushes, sometimes forming an invisible net. A drone may catch its propeller on it and fall.

Once fibre-optic cable penetrates the layers of soil, metal detectors, of course, will not be able to detect it. That means another technological solution will have to be found.

A significant share of the territory near the contact zone will remain dangerous for a long time, so there will simply be no opportunity to remove the fibre-optic cable there. This means it will lie there for years, gradually mixing with the soil or becoming overgrown by forest.

A potential problem for farmers

Farmers, meanwhile, still do not have enough evidence for a substantive discussion about exactly how fibre-optic cable will affect their work. For now, it is impossible either to study or to predict this.

Oleh Khomenko, Director General of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, told Ukrainska Pravda that contaminated land is unlikely to return to cultivation in the next 10 years. So it is too early to speak of an impact on yields: first, it will be necessary to understand which crops, if any, can take root on such land.

For now, fibre-optic cable is not regarded as a separate type of pollutant, as it blends into a wider "bouquet" of hazards: soil degradation, crop losses and explosive ordnance. That is why there are currently no public complaints from farmers specifically about fibre-optic cable, as the Ukrainian Professional Association of Environmentalists of the World (PAEW) explained to Ukrainska Pravda.

But sooner or later, the issue of clearing these areas will arise. PAEW Vice-President Valentyn Shcherbyna believes that monitoring must be launched and methods developed to detect and control fibre-optic cable in order to address the problem.

For these steps to be implemented fully and systematically, they need to be enshrined in regulation. The first step would be to officially recognise fibre-optic cable as a separate type of war-related contamination.

Humanitarian mine clearance is a task that will take decades, so action must begin as early as possible. There is always room for technological innovation in this field. Perhaps, in time, Ukrainian mine-clearance specialists, engineers or scientists will find an effective way to study this problem and produce a ready-made solution to overcome it.

Translated by Viktoriia Yurchenko

Edited by Susan McDonald

In the newly released recordings, Tymur Mindich – co-owner of the TV production company Kvartal 95 and currently a person of interest in investigations by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) – is heard discussing operational matters with then defence minister Rustem Umierov on behalf of Fire Point.

The release of the recordings has sparked numerous disputes. Some claim the company has received a whopping UAH 311 billion (about US$7.1 billion) worth of orders from the government. Some are calling for it to be nationalised. Some argue that the anti-corruption activists have derailed important international contracts, while others have been attempting to assess the effectiveness of the company's drones on the battlefield by eye.

In an effort to cut through the emotional reactions from Fire Point's supporters and critics alike, Ukrainska Pravda set out to examine the most common myths and misconceptions that have surfaced in the public debate.

The "hundreds of billions" myth

The first myth to emerge from the publication of the NABU recordings is that Fire Point supposedly received UAH 311 billion in government funds. While the figure of 311 billion does indeed appear in the tapes, it's likely to have been misinterpreted by the general public.

The key moment occurs at 1:02:08 in this video by Ukrainska Pravda journalist Mykhailo Tkach. Tymur Mindich complains to then defence minister Rustem Umierov that Fire Point is short of working capital, as it supposedly needs to invest US$150 million in the development of ballistic missiles. He asks for financial support – loans, export opportunities, or simply payment for previous FP-1 drone orders, the profits from which would be reinvested in the missile programme.

Umierov replies that "all hope is pinned on 17 July". He then adds: "311 billion – that's the whole lot." When Mindich asks whether that is all for him, Umierov responds: "I'll tell you how much will go to you now." It was this exchange and the unclear phrasing that led to the UAH 311 billion being attributed to Fire Point.

The reality is more prosaic. "17 July" was the date when amendments were due to be made to the state budget, including an increase in defence spending. The UAH 311 billion represented the total increase in expenditure for the entire Ministry of Defence. That's why Umierov says 311 billion is "the whole lot".

Fire Point CEO Denys Shtilierman has denied the widely circulated claim about the UAH 311 billion and stated that the company's total revenue for 2025 was UAH 29.3 billion (US$669 million). Should this figure be trusted?

Chief Technology Officer Iryna Terekh told AP in August 2025 that the company was producing 3,000 FP-1 drones and 30 FP-5 Flamingo missiles per month. The declared cost is US$55,000 per drone and US$600,000 per missile.

Accordingly, if Terekh's figures are accurate, as of August, Fire Point was producing roughly UAH 8 billion (US$182.5 million) worth of products per month. At the time, however, the company was still in the process of scaling up, like many other long-range UAV manufacturers, so production volumes had been lower in previous months and would subsequently increase further.

The reported production figures broadly align with operational dynamics – during the same period, Russian sources reported detecting 3,000-4,000 Ukrainian drones per month.

It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Fire Point's revenue last year amounted to tens of billions of hryvnias, not hundreds of billions.

According to Shtilierman, the company now produces 6,000 drones per month, and at the end of last year it was producing 60-90 Flamingo missiles a month. This suggests that the company's revenues should have at least doubled in the new year.

Mindich and nationalisation

In the published excerpts from the tapes, Tymur Mindich – a former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – repeatedly referred to Fire Point as if it were his own company, saying "We won't manage the working capital," "We can produce," "We're a real company." He also discusses details of an investment deal with the UAE regarding the sale of the company.

Judging by the tone of his conversation with the defence minister, Mindich comes across as an authorised representative of the company's interests (lobbyist) at least, if not one of its owners.

Fire Point declined to publicly comment to Ukrainska Pravda on the possible context of this conversation or Tymur Mindich's status at the time.

However, in an earlier conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Iryna Terekh did not deny that Mindich may have assisted the company, "as many other people have".

Following the publication of the tapes, the Public Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defence (PAC MoD) raised the issue of the need to nationalise the company. The PAC MoD is an advisory body to the Ministry of Defence made up of civil society representatives.

Yurii Hudymenko, chairman of the PAC MoD, admitted to Ukrainska Pravda that he does not believe the state would be an effective owner and regards nationalisation as an unsatisfactory solution, but in his view there is no alternative.

Nationalising defence companies is nothing new for Ukraine. By law, the National Security and Defence Council can transfer companies' assets into state ownership until the end of martial law if they are critical to defence capabilities, subject to a corresponding decision by the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

This was the mechanism used when the engine manufacturer Motor Sich and the automotive company KrAZ (the Kremenchuk Automobile Plant) were nationalised at the start of the full-scale invasion. In those cases, the state had objectively solid grounds to do so: the owner of Motor Sich, Viacheslav Bohuslaiev, is currently on trial on suspicion of treason, while KrAZ was on the verge of bankruptcy when it was nationalised.

But what grounds could there be for nationalising Fire Point?

The PAC MoD's logic is straightforward. Hudymenko believes that based on the tapes, a Ukrainian court could rule that Tymur Mindich is the true owner of Fire Point. If such a ruling were issued, all of Fire Point's assets and operations could be immediately frozen, since Mindich has been sanctioned.

The PAC MoD is proposing that the company be "preventatively nationalised" to make it impossible for that to happen and ensure stable supplies to the defence forces.

"The same applies to the body armour supplier Milikon UA," Hudymenko said. "It's registered in the name of Dmytro Stetsenko, although Mindich says in the tapes that he invested the money and is therefore the beneficial owner."

Separately, the PAC MoD insists that the issue has a moral dimension, believing that "the state leadership must completely distance itself from former and current personal ties with individuals who have used their position, offices and connections for personal enrichment".

Nevertheless, the idea of nationalisation has come under criticism, as there are doubts about not only the effectiveness of state management, but also the legal framework and potential consequences.

Lawyer Yevhen Hrushovets, a partner at Ario Law Firm, told Ukrainska Pravda: "As a society, we may associate a particular individual with a particular company, but legally proving that that person is the actual owner would be almost impossible.

Even if Mindich were to say on tape that he owns 99% of Fire Point and is dismissing Shtilierman, legally this would mean nothing, because tomorrow he could say something different.

In criminal cases, evidence is assessed only in its totality – that is, the tapes alone and their forensic analysis cannot serve as grounds for a court ruling recognising Mindich as the company's beneficial owner.

Another issue is that someone would have to conduct such an investigation. NABU does not have the authority to do so; it only investigates potential damage to the state budget. Who would file the claim and carry out the investigation?"

According to Hrushovets, nationalisation in such a situation could create significant legal and operational risks for the company – not only potential arbitration proceedings, including international ones, but also possible claims against officials, changes in the management structure, and the risk of the company's operations being destabilised during the transition to state ownership. And that would pose a threat to the missile programme as a whole.

Fire Point told Ukrainska Pravda that they have only heard about nationalisation from the PAC MoD, and that no authorised officials have seriously discussed the issue with them.

Was this a blow to international cooperation?

The risk of a disruption to funding and international partnerships is frequently mentioned in the context of the scandals surrounding Fire Point. The reason is that the lion's share of the company's orders is financed by Ukraine's European partners, who are sensitive to any signs of corruption.

The company's supporters argue that anti-corruption activists are deliberately damaging the manufacturer's image and making Fire Point toxic for partners. Their opponents insist that the company is discrediting itself through its alleged ties to someone so mired in corruption.

However, the key question remains: what impact have the Mindich tapes actually had on Fire Point's international activities?

The argument that this would be a blow to international cooperation was first raised when the first NABU tapes were published in autumn 2025 and rumours about Mindich's influence on the company began to swirl. Denmark, a key foreign investor in FP-1 production, did express concern and began requesting explanations from Ukraine.

But did the scandal lead to a decline in drone orders? No. Far from falling since the first Fire Point controversy, production has doubled. And as before, the majority of it continues to be financed by Ukraine's partners.

Why is that? Largely because the company enjoys a remarkably high level of trust among European partners. For instance, during a recent press tour in Brussels attended by journalists from Ekonomichna Pravda, European Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius held the company up as an example of rapid scaling-up in missile production and said European manufacturers could learn a lot from Ukraine.

This perception of Fire Point in the West is reinforced by the company's actual capabilities, which its management periodically demonstrates to ambassadors; by the significance of its facilities in the war against Russia; and by its pricing, which Western partners consider justified and which has been verified by external auditors. The presence of a prominent figure on its advisory board – former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – is likely another factor bolstering the company's reputation.

Another question is whether production could have grown even further had there been no scandals. To answer that, you would need access to all of Fire Point's international dealings – and that information is a commercial secret.

After the new batch of tapes were published, journalist Yefrem Lukatskyi claimed that a contract with Denmark to build a Fire Point factory there had collapsed as a result of Ukrainska Pravda's investigation.

"Congratulations to the corruption exposers – a contract with the Danish side related to the production of solid-fuel engines has been disrupted!" he wrote on Facebook.

The myth of the collapsed contract subsequently spread online, but it appears to be only partly true.

Fire Point told Ukrainska Pravda it was true that the agreement on the Danish factory had been due to be signed on the day the tapes were published. The parties were reportedly ready to proceed, but due to the surrounding discourse, the Danes decided to postpone the final signing so that all the circumstances could be clarified.

In other words, even if the signing was disrupted, it was only "in the moment"; overall, the negotiations are continuing, and no one has definitively withdrawn from the project. In this context it's worth recalling that Denmark's ambassador, Troels Lund Poulsen, stated in December 2025 that there was no corruption-related link with the factory in Denmark, as its operations would have to comply with Danish law. He added that he had no concerns regarding the establishment of Fire Point in Denmark, although he remains concerned about the ongoing discussion of the corruption scandal in Ukraine.

But it would be wrong to claim that the scandal has had no impact whatsoever on the company's activities. Any delays in signing key agreements represent a setback for the missile programme and push back the point at which mass production can be achieved.

Fire Point also told Ukrainska Pravda that besides the delayed agreement with the Danes, other processes related to cooperation with international companies have slowed down since the publication of the excerpts from the tapes.

Is Fire Point an effective company?

One of the key questions asked amid the corruption scandal is whether Fire Point is effective as a company. Its critics often point out the contrast between Zelenskyy's pledge to supply 3,000 missiles and an OSINT analysis by Ukrainska Pravda which documented only 23 Flamingo missile launches ever.

However, first of all, the president was talking about the supply of 3,000 missiles and so-called missile-drones – in other words, not only the Flamingo, but also Neptune, Peklo, Ruta, Palianytsia and so on. How many of these systems were delivered in 2025 remains unknown.

Secondly, Ukrainska Pravda only reported launches that have been visually confirmed. The real production figures are higher, and some strikes may not have been included in the statistics, as not all hits are publicised online. Only the General Staff can provide the true number of successful Flamingo launches.

Fire Point's core products are its long-range ("deep strike") FP-1 drones and mid-range ("middle strike") FP-2 drones. Ukrainska Pravda has described these systems and their role on the battlefield in a number of reports:

1. Attacks on Russia's defence industry
2. Attacks on Russia's energy sector
3. Mid-range attacks
4. Long-range attacks
5. Strikes over 1,000 km away
6. Flamingo missile attacks
7. The history of Fire Point

These articles provide an overall picture of the company's development and the effectiveness of its long-range drones and those of other Ukrainian manufacturers.

But do the results achieved correspond to the money spent, and is the cost of FP-1 and FP-2 drones and FP-5 Flamingo missiles justified in relation to their tasks? Only representatives of the defence forces, who have access to the most comprehensive data on their deployment and performance, can answer that question.

Translated by Myroslava Zavadska

Edited by Teresa Pearce

This year, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence aims to transition 100% of frontline logistics to robotic platforms.

What about Russia's use of this technology? Which side has been more successful in applying it – Ukraine or Russia?

Ukrainska Pravda has looked into Russia's ground-based robotic systems and how they are used. Meanwhile, State Watch, a Ukrainian think tank, has also analysed the market and the companies behind their production.

Read on to see how Russia is developing this cutting-edge technology and the fundamental problems it has encountered in scaling it up.

An army without robots

Until 2022, the topic of military robots in the Russian military was largely a propaganda tool used to project the image of an "army of the future". At that time, Russian design offices were pursuing two distinct paths.

Some were revisiting the Soviet-era concept of a remotely controlled tank, while others were developing ground robotic systems capable of performing a variety of battlefield tasks.

Most remote-controlled tank designs never made it beyond the conceptual stage. Several prototypes were built, such as the T-90M Platforma-M and BMP-3 Vikhr, but they were never deployed in combat. After Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian engineers instead turned to the T-55 "kamikaze tank". In one reported case, it was packed with up to 3 tonnes of explosives and used in an attack on Ukrainian positions.

Russian ground robots are a different story. The most prominent example is the Uran-9, unveiled in 2016 as a breakthrough in ground-based military robotics. It carried a 30mm cannon, a machine gun, anti-tank missiles and flamethrowers. In practice, it looked more like an infantry fighting vehicle than a robot. It was also intended to compete with infantry fighting vehicles for a battlefield role.

In practice, that competition never materialised. Trials in Syria exposed a series of critical issues. In urban environments, communication with the Uran-9 was limited to 300-500 m, and even then, it was frequently interrupted for periods ranging from one minute to an hour and a half. The running gear and weapons systems often malfunctioned, while optical devices struggled to provide a clear view of targets.

Ultimately, the Russians themselves admitted that such ground robots would not be capable of performing combat missions for the next 10-15 years.

There were also more successful developments, such as the Uran-6 mine-clearance robot, based on the Croatian MV-4 from DOK-ING, which proved effective, notably in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there has been almost no information on the use of these robotic systems. The only known case is the deployment of the Uran-6 for mine clearance in Mariupol, which resulted in the loss of one system. Other developments from the same period, including the Uran-9, Nerekhta and Kungas, have since disappeared from view.

At the start of the full-scale invasion, the absence of these systems was not a major problem for Russia. There was limited need for ground robots, and the battlefield was not yet saturated with drones striking targets from dozens of kilometres away. That soon changed.

The rebirth of Russian ground robots

The rise of first-person view (FPV) drones and reconnaissance UAVs has accelerated the emergence of a new generation of Russian ground robots.

Reports of Russian troops deploying new ground robots first emerged in 2023. Throughout the year, they experimented with their use for carrying supplies and evacuating the dead and wounded, and at times deployed them as kamikaze units. Most of the systems in use were modified versions of Chinese-made robots.

In 2024, the situation began to change. Russia obtained its first mass-produced, domestically developed ground robots. Among them was Kurier, a tracked system similar to the Ukrainian-made Termit and Numo. Notably, it was built not by specialised design offices but by volunteers from Ulan-Ude, who later handed over production to NRTK KAPS.

Meanwhile, new manufacturers have emerged in Russia, both private and state-owned. State Watch has identified at least 20 companies producing 29 types of ground robots, while the makers of a further three systems remain unknown. Twelve of these companies are subject to sanctions in at least one Western jurisdiction. Others, however, can still source components globally, particularly from China.

As a result, the Russian arsenal has gradually expanded to include a range of new systems. The Kurier has become one of the most widely deployed ground robots. Russian propagandists claim that thousands have already been distributed to dozens of units. The system regularly features in videos in various configurations.

Initially, the Kurier came in a logistics version and a combat variant equipped with either a machine gun or an AGS-17 30mm automatic grenade launcher, used to strike Ukrainian positions at close range.

Engineering variants later appeared, capable of laying and clearing mines and equipped with electronic warfare systems.

The Kurier was also adapted in improvised ways, particularly by mounting them with grenade launchers and multiple-launch rocket systems. The most ambitious project was the Ignis robot, fitted with a combat laser for engaging drones.

In parallel, other unmanned ground systems appeared: the tracked Impulse-M, Omich and Bogomol, the wheeled Depesha and the Chelnok heavy towing platform.

Communication issues

Russia is currently testing the capabilities of these systems. They are being used for assaults and diversionary tactics, as well as for mine laying and clearance, logistics and evacuation. In deployment, Russian forces are running into the same problems already familiar to the Ukrainian military.

Ukrainska Pravda has obtained internal Russian military documents outlining their forces' experience with ground robots. The documents point to faults in the running gear of the Kurier and Bogomol systems, which have led to overheating and failures of electronic components. The systems experience mobility issues in the rain, as well as camera and battery malfunctions. The Russians are fixing some of these faults directly at their positions or sending the units back to the manufacturers.

However, there is one problem that cannot yet be easily fixed – communication.

Like the Ukrainian military, Russian forces actively used Starlink terminals, which provided stable communications without range limitations. After the terminals were blocked in February, most Russian units lost access to Starlink. As a result, they were forced to revert to radio control, which has limited range and stability at the front due to signal obstruction from the terrain and Ukrainian electronic warfare operations.

To compensate, Russian forces are installing signal repeaters to form mesh networks and deploying Mavic UAVs to escort vehicles. Fibre-optic communication is also used in some areas, despite the risk of cable breakage. In isolated cases, operators control the platforms directly from within, undermining the core principle of robotic systems – operator safety.

Communication limitations are also restricting deployment tactics, keeping ground robot use in combat zones to a minimum. Russian forces mainly deploy them for logistics and evacuation in rear areas, or for mine clearance ahead of offensives. According to one document, a ground robot covers an average of 3 km per week, indicating rear-area use rather than deep penetration into the kill zone, a heavily contested frontline area under constant surveillance and fire.

Outlook for future use

The frequency of Russia's use of ground robots varies across individual military units.

"In comparison, the defence forces carry out thousands of operations using ground robotic systems, whereas Russia's use of them still appears to be experimental," says Pastor, commander of an unmanned systems company in the Boryviter battalion, who has encountered Russian ground robotic systems on the battlefield.

The relatively low rate of ground robot use is also reflected in recorded losses. Ground robots are expendable assets, and their destruction is inevitably captured on video. According to the Oryx portal, which tracks losses based on online photos and videos, at least 69 Russian ground robots have been recorded as destroyed. By comparison, Ukraine has lost 247 ground robots, as documented in photos and video, suggesting significantly wider use.

The use of horses and other pack animals by Russian forces also indirectly points to shortcomings in technical solutions for frontline logistics. Ukrainska Pravda has covered this issue in a separate article.

However, it is still too early to draw conclusions. Russia may instead focus on scaling up its basic models to achieve parity in ground robot use.

That effort could be supported by Russia's plans to increase the number of operators in its equivalent of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces to 101,000 personnel, rising to 165,500 by the end of the year. Russian universities have even launched recruitment campaigns to bring students specifically into these new units. Within Russia's "unmanned systems forces", personnel are also being trained and assigned specifically as ground robot operators.

Communications technology may ultimately have the greatest impact on the further proliferation of Russian ground robots. At present, the suspension of Starlink services has complicated Russia's efforts to develop their use.

One possible solution could be mesh repeaters or the Rassvet satellite constellation, a Russian satellite communications programme in which Russia is actively investing to build its own equivalent of Starlink. Whether it succeeds remains to be seen.

Translated by Artem Yakymyshyn

Edited by Susan McDonald

This system, developed by Fire Point, has generated both scepticism and admiration. On the one hand, there are claims of large production capacity and relatively low cost; on the other, there is talk of "simple" technological solutions and conceptual shortcomings that may affect its strike effectiveness.

For a long time, nothing was known about its real combat use. The key question, therefore, remains: is the FP-5 Flamingo still an experimental weapon, or is it becoming a fully operational strike system?

Ukrainska Pravda has analysed every attack using Flamingo missiles documented in open sources, as well as satellite imagery after strikes. The analysis used data from the CyberBoroshno, Exilenova+ and Dnipro OSINT communities. We assess which strikes were successful and how often these missiles actually hit their targets.

How was the analysis conducted?

Open sources confirm a total of six verified attacks using Flamingo missiles.

Fire Point chief designer Denis Shtilerman occasionally publishes FP-5 launch videos on his X account. These posts correlate with official reports from Ukraine's defence forces about the use of Flamingo, as well as Russian media posts and images.

However, launch data alone is not sufficient: a missile must not only reach its target but also hit it. To assess accuracy, we compared military reports with satellite imagery, which allows for a relatively precise evaluation of strike results.

In total, 23 launched Flamingo cruise missiles have been captured in available footage. Ukrainian OSINT analysts identified that six reached their targets, but only two successfully hit the intended objective. One additional strike remains disputed.

Below follows a breakdown of each strike. It is important to note that all information presented is based solely on open-source intelligence. The actual number of launches or hits may be higher, and the ratio of launches to successful strikes may differ significantly.

Debut: strike on an FSB border post in Crimea

Flamingo first appeared publicly in occupied Armyansk (Crimea), at an FSB border post 120 km from the line of contact. The strike took place on 31 August, conducted by Ukraine's defence forces. Out of at least three missiles launched, one definitely reached the target area – but it missed and fell into water near the base. Satellite imagery shows damage to a building, but it is unclear which weapon caused it, or whether it reflects the claimed power of the Flamingo.

Nevertheless, this was the first confirmed case of an FP-5 missile reaching a Russian target at all and demonstrated its existence.

Second strike: attempted attack on a combined heat and power plant in Oryol

On 13 November 2025, Ukraine's defence forces attempted to strike a combined heat and power plant in the city of Oryol, over 170 km from the border. At least four missiles were launched, but satellite imagery showed no fresh signs of hits or damage near the facility.

It appears the missiles were intercepted by Russian air defence. One likely downing of a Flamingo was captured on a video posted by the OSINT community Exilenova+.

Third strike: attack on artillery arsenal near Kotluban. First confirmed hit

The arsenal of Russia's Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) in Kotluban is of significant importance to the Russian armed forces. The facility includes reinforced bunkers for storing ammunition that are effectively out of reach of conventional UAVs. That is why the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile was used to strike targets of this kind.

On 12 February, at least six cruise missiles were launched at the GRAU arsenal from a distance of more than 500 km from the line of contact. Of the six, only one reached the target, striking a bunker with an area of 1,200 sq m. As a result, the ammunition began to detonate and the premises were destroyed.

This was the first recorded Flamingo hit and the first strike at such depth carried out by missiles of this type.

Fourth strike: attack on the Kapustin Yar training ground, the deployment site of the Oreshnik system – a miss

During January 2026, Ukrainian forces attacked the Kapustin Yar training ground, specifically Site No 105, from which missiles of the Oreshnik system are launched. On 27 January, at least four missiles were launched at the facility. Only one reached the area. However, it was either intercepted on approach or missed the target and fell near the perimeter fence of the site. The crater it left is visible in satellite imagery.

Nevertheless, the facility was hit during this period after all. However, analysts from the CyberBoroshno community report that these strikes were carried out by Ukrainian drones rather than missiles.

Fifth strike: attack on the Iskander missile production plant in the city of Votkinsk – a direct hit

We now turn to the location where the Flamingo demonstrated its best performance: the strike on a critically important facility belonging to Russia's military-industrial complex more than 1,300 km from the border.

The Votkinsk plant specialises in the production of ballistic missiles, including RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as engines for Iskander operational and tactical missile systems.

One of the three missiles launched struck Workshop No. 22 in Building No. 19, the electroplating and stamping facility, experts from the CyberBoroshno community report. "A strike on a workshop of this kind may have a critical impact on the production cycle, since it is here that the basic structure of the missile casings is formed and their technological preparation for the final stages of assembly is carried out," the analysts wrote.

We do not yet know all the details regarding the consequences, but this appears to have been a serious strike against the plant.

Sixth strike: attack on the buildings of the Promsintez plant in the city of Chapayevsk – a miss

On 28 March 2026, the defence forces launched at least three missiles at the Promsintez plant in Chapayevsk. The facility specialises in the production of explosive components used in the manufacture of ammunition.

During the attack, Ukrainian missiles were captured on video later posted by the Exilenova+ community. Of the three missiles, two reached the facility, but neither struck the intended building, instead falling near the workshops. It is likely that the missiles were either intercepted at the last moment or struck a nearby lightning rod. The strike on Chapayevsk could have been successful.

***

As can be seen from the available data, the FP-5 Flamingo still appears to be more of an experimental weapon than a regular strike asset. The missiles often reach their intended targets but fail to hit the required point.

Accuracy problems are acknowledged by the company itself. "Flamingo's accuracy issues are largely related to the fact that the flights are conducted at very low altitudes," chief designer Denys Shtilerman said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon.

It is difficult to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the programme as a whole, since open sources confirm only 23 launches, while as early as last autumn Shtilerman stated in an interview with Ukrainian media outlet Mirror of the Week that two to three missiles were being produced per day.

This means that the results of the overwhelming majority of launches remain unknown to the wider public.

By Harbuz (Dnipro OSINT)

Translated by Yelyzaveta Khodatska and Anna Kybukevych

Edited by Susan McDonald

But for more than two years now, her schedule has been shaped not by a queue of clients' orders, but by duty shifts as part of the Bucha Witches unit. She does this work as a volunteer, without pay.

Today, she is also the commander of a mobile fire group. By day, she may be holding a mixer for cream; by night, a weapon.

Liudmyla explains why she joined the Defence Forces, what her shifts are like, and what it means to combine the roles of creator and defender.

"When I returned to Bucha, the town looked like it had been through a zombie apocalypse"

On Instagram, Lysenko's page is filled with beautiful photos of multi-tiered cakes, colourful pastries and flowers. But behind that picture lies another reality: she voluntarily helps defend the skies over Kyiv Oblast as part of a volunteer territorial community formation.

She says the horrors of the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion and the sight of destroyed Bucha, where she has lived since 2016, pushed her towards joining the fight.

"I remember that feeling of uncertainty very clearly when the war began – what should I do, how should I defend us? Helicopters were flying right over our roof. It became clear that we had to leave.

The explosions and bursts of gunfire were terrifying. I had no idea how to save my children, so leaving was the first logical decision. Unlike us, neighbours who had already lived through the occupation of Donetsk reacted more calmly, but for me the sounds of helicopters and explosions were frightening," Liudmyla recalls.

The family evacuated to Rivne Oblast, but returned to Bucha by mid-April. According to Lyudmila, the town looked like it had been through a zombie apocalypse – uncleaned, without electricity, water and with barely any connection to the outside world.

"We came back simply to see whether our house had survived. It was still standing, although a mortar round had struck nearby and destroyed everything around it. Even now, there are ruins left standing, with only their foundations remaining. Those houses have never been rebuilt.

Shells kept flying over our house as they attacked Irpin," the heroine says.

"Russia's full-scale war has been going on for years, and I asked myself: 'What useful thing have I done?"

Two years after the start of the full-scale war, Liudmyla decided to join Ukraine's Defence Forces. She says the decision was not impulsive, but a well-considered one.

When faced with claims that military service is not for women or mothers, Liudmyla has her own answer. She is convinced that defending her home is the highest form of maternal care today – creating comfort and warmth at home is only possible when the enemy is not standing at the doorstep.

"There is a war in the country, and I realised I knew absolutely nothing about defence. So I started looking for training courses. On Instagram, I found reservist training run by Azov fighters and veterans – to me, they are extraordinary people whose heroism and humanity are deeply inspiring.

"It covered everything: medicine, shooting, digging trenches. It motivated me enormously and made me believe that I was capable of far more," Liudmyla says.

Later, an acquaintance told Liudmyla about the Bucha Witches – a women's mobile air-defence fire unit formed in the spring 2024 as part of the Bucha volunteer territorial hromada formation (a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories). The unit hunts down and destroys Russian drones over Kyiv Oblast.

Liudmyla passed the interview and joined the unit. She says her husband was not thrilled about her decision, while her children took it more calmly. Now, she has been serving for two years.

"At first, I was learning the specifics of how a mobile fire group operates. There are cast iron rules here – everyone has their own role. While one person is resting, another is on guard by the vehicle or behind the machine gun. I started my journey with guard duty. By then, I already had a fairly good command of weapons.

"It can be difficult at times, exhausting night shifts and winter colds, when your hands quite literally freeze to the machine gun, but I love this work.

"Now I see safety in a completely different way and always silently thank those who protect my sleep when I am off duty," says Liudmyla.

"When you shoot down a Shahed drone, the adrenaline goes through the roof, but there is no fear"

At present, Liudmyla serves as the commander of a mobile fire group. Officially, she does not hold the status of a servicewoman, but she has her own set of responsibilities.

Service in a mobile fire group is not limited to combat deployments, it also involves strict daily training and preparation.

Liudmyla begins duty at 8am with the rest of her team. She admits there is currently a shortage of people. The work starts with technical checks: the team inspects weapons, counts ammunition rounds, checks the vehicle's condition and makes sure there is enough fuel. It is an essential daily routine.

The unit also takes turns guarding the vehicle, as the weapons cannot be left unattended.

"As soon as an air-raid alert is announced, the group immediately heads out to a designated position. There, we deploy the machine gun and set up the sights, bringing everything to full combat readiness to shoot down Shahed drones.

Sometimes the target does not enter our strike zone – then we work as reconnaissance. We track the drone's movement and pass on its exact route to the next group in the chain. This gives our colleagues time to prepare and open fire. Each of us has clearly assigned duties, and the overall result depends on how coordinated those actions are," Liudmyla explains.

She recalls the feeling of shooting down a Russian Shahed for the first time. She says her adrenaline was through the roof. There was no fear – only the understanding of responsibility for her team and for the country. It is like your first battle: the enemy is flying towards you, wanting to kill you, and your task is to stop it.

"The hardest part of being a commander is the responsibility," she says. "After opening fire, I have to make sure my entire team is alive and unharmed. On top of that, you must monitor every movement. Bullets must not fall on our settlements.

"Everything here is very serious. One wrong move and the consequences can be fatal. You have to keep absolutely everything under control."

According to Liudmyla, skills gained in civilian life can become critically important in service. For instance, her knowledge of geography proved useful particularly the ability to navigate with a compass and calculate an azimuth (the horizontal angle of a particular direction).

"Physical training is a separate matter," says the pastry chef. "You constantly have to work on your endurance and fitness. We have women with different levels of training, but the main thing is the willingness to improve, to train and to be useful."

"I cannot simply fly like a butterfly and care only about the flowers on a cake when there is a war all around us"

After a difficult shift, Liudmyla returns home and swaps her weapon for an apron. For several years now, she has been passionate about pastry-making and bakes custom cakes to order.

"After my children were born, I decided to try something completely new. It all began with the reality show Cake Boss, which tells the story of the bakery Carlo's Bake Shop. It was run by a brother and sister who created artistic cakes. I was fascinated by it. That is how I started baking for family and friends. Guests were delighted, and soon the first orders began to come in.

"This work suited me perfectly – I could stay at home with my children while also fulfilling my creative potential."

Liudmyla enjoys unusual orders most of all. She likes bringing her clients' boldest ideas to life, whether it is a cake shaped like a book or a skull with smoke rising from its eyes.

"I love sculpting, decorating and thinking through every detail. You also have to calculate where to place the support and whether the structure will hold the weight of the decoration.

Every time a difficult order comes in, my first thought is that it will not work. But as soon as you start, you realise experience takes over and everything is entirely possible," Liudmyla says with a smile.

Despite her love of baking, she admits it is now difficult to think about growing the business – war sets its own rules.

"I cannot simply fly like a butterfly and care only about flowers on a cake. Of course, there are fewer orders now, and it is impossible to take on too many: service, 24-hour duties and night shifts take a lot of energy. After a sleepless night, it is physically hard to work in the kitchen.

"Today, the most important thing is not to sit idly by, but to help the army. I believe everyone should be preparing to defend. It will not get easier, and our neighbour [Russia], unfortunately, is not going anywhere. So all of us will have to learn how to live in this new reality. The mindset of 'someone else will fight while I sit it out' simply does not work."

"The perspective of finding myself under occupation again frightens me deeply, so I am doing everything I can to prevent it. Perhaps my skills will not be needed tomorrow, but anything can happen, and we have to be prepared. The time has come to be decisive, strong and, at times, uncompromising," Liudmyla says.

Vira Shurmakevych

Translated by Viktoriia Yurchenko

Edited by Shoël Stadlen

The push for such a radical procurement reform was driven by the pace of technological change, delays in getting drones to the front and abuse of office, with some officials able to buy low-quality equipment at inflated prices.

Ukraine began building a competitive drone market back in 2023. Markets drive innovation, but they also bring chaos and create opportunities for corruption and bad value for money.

That left the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) with a tightrope to walk: how could they introduce quality controls and keep prices within reason without stifling the free market's "magic"?

The DPA opted for digitalisation, creating what is effectively a military marketplace. The idea has drawn interest well beyond Ukraine: the US and France have begun exploring similar approaches, as few other models can keep pace with rapid technological change.

To understand how the system works and where it falls short, Ukrainska Pravda spoke to manufacturers, service personnel and Ministry of Defence officials, as well as DPA director Arsen Zhumadilov.

What is DOT-Chain Defence for?

Standard drone procurement is essentially handled manually. The General Staff defines what is "needed" and submits a request to the Ministry of Defence, often specifying models from particular companies. Once purchased, drones are routed through the Logistics Forces Command's warehouses, a process that can significantly delay their arrival at the front.

The system functions, but it carries obvious risks. The "needed" list may prioritise drones from "friendly" suppliers rather than the most effective models. It also limits genuine competition and leaves combat brigades unable to choose what works in the field and at the right time, or to communicate directly with manufacturers.

The DPA set out to change this. Its in-house IT team has built a digital platform that allows brigade representatives to order drones directly and receive them within days.

This market-based model is closely associated with the agency's current head, Arsen Zhumadilov. He previously rolled out a similar system for food supplies, known as DOT-Chain. After taking over the DPA, he moved to scale it up to weapons, branding it DOT-Chain Defence.

The idea initially drew predictable – and reasonable – criticism: buying weapons is not the same as buying tinned meat. The arms market is far more complex, more closed and governed by its own rules. There was also scepticism among senior military officials. Defence industry sources told Ukrainska Pravda that some officers had to be persuaded in person that it could work.

DPA officials also knew that a sudden switch to a new platform risked disrupting supplies if anything went wrong. DOT-Chain Defence was therefore rolled out gradually, with the mechanisms tested as it expanded.

At first, the marketplace included only products from what Zhumadilov calls "mature" segments – areas where many companies already produce similar goods and compete directly.

The platform already covers FPV drones, bomber drones, reconnaissance drones, unmanned ground systems, electronic warfare equipment and interceptor drones. Ammunition for UAVs is expected to be added next.

More complex weapons – artillery shells, long-range strike systems, missiles and artillery – have deliberately been left out. For now, they will continue to be procured under the old procedure, which requires tighter oversight, scale and substantial advance funding.

The rollout has been gradual in another sense too: the number of units using DOT-Chain Defence and the volume supplied through it have risen step by step. In 2025, just 7% of all FPV drones were delivered via the system.

That share is now growing. Weapons worth UAH 10.5 billion (US$238 million) were supplied through the platform over a six-month period last year. In the first three and a half months of 2026, the figure has already reached UAH 22.9 billion (US$519 million). The Ministry of Defence says it wants to move up to transferring 70% of drone procurement onto the platform.

Some purchasing will still take place under the old procedure. But the DPA says "conventional" procurement will now be monitored using DOT-Chain Defence data, allowing auditors to spot large orders of drone models that troops do not want.

How does DOT-Chain Defence work?

In practice, DOT-Chain Defence works much like an online marketplace. The platform has all the familiar features: product listings, filters, reviews and a channel for direct communication with suppliers.

Here is how it works for a Ukrainian drone manufacturer. First, a company submits documents to the DPA confirming that it is a legitimate business, has fulfilled previous contracts and has no ties to Russia. If the paperwork checks out, the manufacturer signs a framework agreement with the agency.

The agreement sets out the model name, specifications and price, along with a potential supply volume – for example 10,000 drones over six months.

In effect, the framework agreement says the DPA may buy up to that number if military units choose the product. The company is paid only after military units place orders via the platform. After a batch is delivered to the front, the agency signs a follow-up agreement and releases payment.

If demand is high and the initial volume is exhausted before the framework agreement expires, the DPA renews the contract with an increased quota.

The agency says onboarding takes less than a week, though it can be accelerated at the request of a military unit.

Once onboard, the manufacturer starts trading. Through a personal account it can list what is in stock and what still needs to be produced, set delivery volumes and timelines, review feedback and communicate with users, including responding to complaints.

The military, however, view DOT-Chain Defence from a different angle – that of the end user. First, the General Staff and the Ministry of Defence decide which units will be granted access to the platform and allocate a spending limit for procurement.

A representative of each military unit then assigns responsibility across three separate roles: one person places orders, another receives the goods and a third signs the acceptance certificate. This division of responsibilities limits each individual's access to sensitive supply information, creating an additional layer of security.

The supply process itself is designed to minimise risk. The system does not display the exact delivery address, only the oblast or another administrative area. The logistics are handled by a company that maintains direct contact with the military unit and agrees the precise delivery address and schedule separately.

If a product fails to meet the required standards, it is returned to the manufacturer for replacement. Repeated incidents of this kind negatively affect a supplier's reputation on the platform, where verified reviews can be submitted.

Security has been given particular attention by the Agency. This explains both the role-based access system and the absence of exact delivery addresses within the platform. A similar approach is used in other military digital solutions, including the Delta situational awareness system. DOT-Chain Defence also incorporates additional security layers, including a profile developed in line with international standards such as ISO 27001 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

At present, 218 units of Ukraine's defence forces are connected to the marketplace. There are also plans to integrate units from the Drone Line project, which aims to create a kill zone along the line of contact.

Connected units can choose which notional "account" to use when paying for goods. One account contains funds allocated by the Ministry of Defence, while the other holds e-Points earned in combat. If necessary, the Ministry can increase the spending limit for a specific unit, for example if intensified fighting is expected in its sector.

Currently, the platform offers 536 different products from 140 manufacturers. Items can be sorted by category and filtered by price, popularity or newness and users can also read reviews from other military personnel.

If an item is already in stock, it can be delivered within 10 days. If not, it can be pre-ordered, in which case the manufacturer must dispatch it within 60 days. Delays in delivery result in financial penalties for the company.

What are the drawbacks?

Ukrainska Pravda surveyed around two dozen users of the system, both manufacturers and military personnel. Overall, feedback has been largely positive.

DOT-Chain Defence has shifted a significant portion of procurement into a digital format. Lengthy approvals and paper documentation have been replaced by electronic documents and digital signatures, significantly reducing the time required to conclude contracts. In addition, manufacturers maintain direct contact with military users, allowing for communication and immediate feedback.

"Our interaction with manufacturers has been reduced to a minimum. We select the equipment, place an order and it arrives within a few days," one serviceman noted.

The system also enables forward planning of procurement, testing of different products and more informed decision-making based on practical experience when scaling up purchases.

However, the platform is not without its shortcomings.

The first issue is that the system currently operates on a post-payment basis – goods are delivered first and payment follows. The lack of advance payments forces manufacturers to restock using their own working capital. This is manageable for small batches, but for larger volumes it ties up significant resources that could otherwise be invested in development or production.

This issue is expected to be resolved soon. Zhumadilov told Ukrainska Pravda that an advance payment mechanism is being prepared, linked to product demand and delivery speed.

The second issue concerns production timelines. One manufacturer of high-end, technologically advanced drones noted that the system allows up to 60 days between order placement and delivery, while their production cycle is significantly longer. As a result, the company must again rely on its own working capital to produce expensive drones in advance, otherwise it risks failing to meet delivery deadlines.

Thirdly, Ukrainska Pravda was able to review the platform from a client account and found that military users are not yet very active in leaving reviews. This is because only procurement officers – not the end users – are permitted to submit feedback.

To address this, the Agency plans to grant access to brigade workshops, allowing those who directly deal with equipment – and experience the consequences of poor-quality drones – to provide evaluations.

The fourth issue is an emerging imbalance in favour of well-known and trusted manufacturers. Military units tend to favour these suppliers and are less inclined to try alternative products, even when they may be equally competitive. This undermines supply diversification, which is essential for managing risk.

The Agency is experimenting with ways to encourage users to try products from other companies. At present, this is being addressed through the platform's interface, where moderators highlight new products and suggest alternatives.

For example, on 14 February, the Defence Procurement Agency launched a campaign called "Cupidrones" – effectively a "Tinder-style" matching system designed to pair military needs with suitable drones and promote lesser-known manufacturers.

The effectiveness of these measures will become clearer over time, as procurement volumes through the platform increase.

The fifth issue is the demand – from both manufacturers and buyers – for drone customisation and the separate procurement of components for use in workshops. At present, the platform does not offer a "drone builder" function.

Sixth, manufacturers are calling for greater flexibility – for example, the ability to adjust prices more quickly or add new models to the system. Currently, this process is time-consuming, as it requires additional agreements, documentation and other bureaucratic procedures.

There is also an issue with extending framework agreements. "If production takes two to three months and only one month remains before the contract expires, we are forced to stop accepting orders. Since the Defence Procurement Agency usually does not extend contracts until they have actually expired, this creates an unavoidable gap in supply," a company representative explained.

Seventh, as the platform operates as an open market system, the Ministry of Defence cannot impose domestic production requirements on components. Companies compete solely on price, quality and delivery speed. Since DOT-Chain Defence is designed to simplify procedures rather than impose conditions, the state will need to find alternative tools to encourage manufacturers to move away from Chinese components and switch to domestic ones.

Despite these challenges, the overall direction – reducing bureaucracy, cautiously introducing new procurement practices and bringing manufacturers closer to the market and the military closer to manufacturers – can be considered sound.

However, one key question remains: whether the system will be able to function effectively at genuinely large supply volumes. Only time will tell.

Bogdan Miroshnychenko, Illia Volynskyi, Ukrainska Pravda. Defense

Translated by Anna Briedova and Tetiana Buchkovska

Edited by Susan McDonald

In early 2026, following an overhaul of the defence management system, Yelizarov was appointed Deputy Commander of the Air Force, with a focus on the development of short-range air defence and counter-drone capabilities.

This interview with Ukrainska Pravda took place 100 days after Mykhailo Fedorov took over the Ministry of Defence – a period that many within the system have described as a time of acceleration, new approaches, and attempts to change the logic of the war.

It took a long time to arrange this conversation, and we are grateful to Pavlo Yelizarov for finding the time to speak to us. In this interview, he outlines the current state of Ukraine's air defence, its weaknesses and systemic mistakes, and the efforts that have been made to fix them. He also reveals how he built up Lasar's Group, why efficiency matters more than scale, and why this war will be won not by those with more people, but those who think faster and are better organisers.

"Sometimes I feel like we're in a car with no pedals. You know what to do and where to go, but there's no pedal to press"

At the invitation of Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, you became Deputy Commander of the Air Force at the start of this year. One hundred days have passed – how has your life changed since then?

Everything that was good and pleasant has, as they say, turned into hell. Over the past four years, we set up the work in our unit so well that I actually had quite a lot of free time to think about strategy and military tactics. I'd finally started using the leave I'd accumulated over the past three years. And now… we had our first day off at Easter. Enough said.

Why did you agree to it? You already had an effective and well-known unit, recognition. Why take on the role of deputy commander?

I was on holiday, fishing, drinking beer, looking at the sea and thinking: what a wonderful life. Then I got a call – it was Mykhailo Fedorov. He said: "There's something to discuss." And made me the offer.

I replied: "Mykhailo, you realise the truth is never going to be told here. If one single Shahed attack drone gets through, people will only notice that one." Like the last time in Lviv: we shot down loads of them, only a few got through, but there was still damage, still tragedy – and that's what the media shows. So it creates the impression that the job wasn't done.

He said: "Look, you and I can sit in front of the TV, watch the football and explain how the players should play. Or we can go onto the pitch and play. I'm inviting you to join the team – to play in the match."

That argument really resonated with me. It was the challenge that convinced me. I cut my leave short and went to Kyiv.

Read more: Ukraine's new, young defence minister has won over many sceptics: what is he expected to achieve?

From what I've heard about short-range air defence, until you arrived as deputy commander responsible for this area, chaos reigned. There was no coordination between mobile fire groups, no properly organised processes. Have you managed to change the approach and turn things around since then?

When you do something, first you need to identify the problem. Before treating a disease, you need to understand exactly what you're treating. We definitely managed to do that in the first two months, and also to lay down the basic, fundamental elements that would allow us to build on that.

We were all focused on the front line and we assumed the enemy was there. In reality we have a second, no less important front – our airspace, which we are defending. And in my view, that defence wasn't getting enough attention. Things that seemed minor, like Shahed drones, were being overlooked. The result was that everything that was being built was being developed on the basis of whatever was left over.

The people entrusted with this protective coverage were in one branch of the military to start with and then transferred to the Air Force. That meant that the Air Force could not fully change the commanders there. Technically they could, but it required particular phone calls and negotiations.

Basically, it's as if you're running a restaurant, and my task is to provide you with waiters. I take people from petrol stations and assign them to you as waiters. You complain, and I say: "We don't have anyone else – just train this lot."

Within the first month, the commander-in-chief had grasped this problem, we raised it with the president, and a conceptual model was approved that we now follow. Those units have been transferred to us, and now personnel changes are underway to create a foundation on which everything else can be built.

How has the Shahed interception rate changed over this period?

We've made a slight change in the way we view the Shaheds that pass through.

The regions used to operate on the principle: if the drones flew past me and didn't strike my region, then thank God, no one's going to tell me off tomorrow morning.

Now the model is different: Shaheds enter and exit [a particular area of airspace]. If they exit, that's a bad thing. They were able to leave – how come? So now there's monitoring: how many entered, how many exited.

We also analysed all the radar coverage. Sometimes groups or people responsible for radar were making decisions at their own discretion, like: "I want to stand here because I like it here."

Now it's more structured: the radar systems are placed according to a certain logic and repositioned depending on what happened during the previous attack. There's constant analysis of errors.

Are our interceptor drones now the main tool for intercepting Shaheds?

Personally, I have more faith in short-range missiles, even though drones are my field.

In reality, there is no single universal solution. There are different components. No one's abolished the mobile fire groups.

Interceptor drones have their place too, as they are indeed a fairly effective and cost-efficient solution. But for them to work, you need three key components.

The first is radar systems. Without them, there's no point using interceptor drones: flying blind in the dark in search of a target is expensive, inefficient and pointless. The second component is the quality of the drone itself. The third is the level of pilot training.

When these three elements work together, the system is highly effective, and the drone really does its job.

Interceptor drones are now reaching speeds of up to 700 km/h. They're evolving as fast as the attack drones that are attacking us, effectively becoming comparable to cruise missiles in their specifications.

What is currently the main bottleneck in Ukraine's air defence? A lack of resources, lack of equipment, or lack of political will?

Ukraine's air defence should be divided into at least two components. The first is, let's say, long-range air defence. We have highly skilled personnel there with specialised training that you just can't acquire if you joined as a volunteer soldier in 2022.

But in short-range air defence, which is what counters the Shaheds, there's a lack of structure and system. And that's where we need to sort things out.

So for now, you don't regret taking that call when you were fishing…

I regret it every morning (smiles).

What about when you see the statistics, or when fire groups don't perform the way you'd like them to?

You know, sometimes I feel like we're in a car with no pedals. You know what to do and where to go, but there's no pedal to press.

In Lasar's Group, everyone was in the right place. Now, as we build a team within the command structure, Yevhen Khlebnikov, Commander of the Close Air Defence Forces, and I are effectively our own assistants and secretaries.

So the problem isn't just resources, but people as well?

Yes. Effective people. The kind where you explain something to them once and they immediately get it. There's no need to be constantly supervising them or checking up on them. If anything isn't clear, they'll call and get clarification themselves.

Right now, the key issue is forming a team of high-quality people.

When you were appointed, there was talk of creating an anti-drone "dome". Have we moved closer to that goal?

Yes. Every day. We aren't standing still, we're moving forward.

What will be unique about this system? Will it be something like Israel's Iron Dome, or a completely new solution?

There will definitely be no direct equivalent. What makes it unique is that we have to build it using the means available.

Ukraine is too big a country, and we can't afford a system like Israel's. Even the one they have in the UAE – a multi-layered defence system with advanced assets – is beyond our reach physically and financially. And no one's going to give one to us.

You know, a Shahed is like a cockroach. It might look simple, but it's incredibly persistent…

"Lasar's Group is the full stop at the end of the sentence"

[Defence] Minister Mykhailo Fedorov came into office with a new team. Yet at the same time we see that almost nothing has changed in the General Staff. Is there a conflict between the new team that wants change and the old guard in the army?

I'm comfortable talking to both the General Staff and [Commander-in-Chief] Oleksandr Syrskyi. We first met back in 2022, when I brought the first drone group to the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group and we started working together. So when I have questions, I can call Oleksandr directly and discuss them.

We definitely have different ways of thinking. That doesn't mean one is better or worse; it's like oil and water. They are hard to mix, but if the system is organised properly, it can contain both.

The military has its own logic of development. If you look at the American army, European armies, or ours, they're more or less structured the same way: there's a clear daily routine, there are set tasks and activities to keep the troops ready and engaged. This shapes a certain approach to executing missions.

It's different with civilians: there's no need to invent things to do – we don't have enough time to implement all our ideas. Sometimes I think that if meetings were cancelled in the military, they really wouldn't know what to do for six hours.

Oil and water: can the teams in the Defence Ministry and the General Staff work together as one "engine", or is conflict inevitable?

I would very much like this to work, because it would benefit all of us. In this matter, I'm more of a peacemaker – I'm all for synergy. But it's crucial that both sides move towards each other.

You are now fully immersed in air defence efforts. But how does Lasar's Group function without Pavlo Yelizarov?

I'm always curious about that myself (laughs). There's a principle: a good manager is one who does nothing. That's how I've always built systems.

When we set up Lasar's Group, over the past two years my role was communication and support. In each area, there are people who are self-sufficient and understand what needs to be done. They don't need daily tasking or constant oversight.

And I'm very pleased that the group continues to perform.

If we take March as an example, the Ministry of Digital Transformation has performance indicators called e-points that measure effectiveness – the number of tanks, multiple rocket launchers etc. that were destroyed. [E-points are earned by Ukrainian units for confirmed strikes on Russian soldiers and equipment – ed.] There are eight categories, and Lasar's Group is top in all eight. That shows that the quality of work has not declined.

What's the key to that success?

We're focused on results. And everyone who joins Lasar's Group is too.

I always rely on people. My key process is selecting the right people. And when you're building a system out of them, there are different ways you can do it.

You can build it like a stone wall: each stone is different – big or small – but together they form a structure. Or you can build it like a brick wall, with a pattern and standard-size bricks. These are different approaches.

In Lasar's Group you have both civilians and military personnel. And did some of the civilians use to work at Savik Shuster Studio [the production company co-owned by Yelizarov, which produced a political talk show hosted by well-known journalist Savik Shuster]?

Yes. More than 10 people from the studio went to serve from the early days [of the full-scale invasion]. And many of the key innovations in the unit came from them.

We joined the Territorial Defence Forces and started launching drones. Our tech guys looked at what we were doing and said: "This is so primitive." I replied: "Less of the comments – this works for me, it's better than a rifle. But if you can suggest something better, we'll make progress."

And what happened next?

We attached Starlink to a drone. The first launch was on 6 May 2022.

And that was an initiative by people from the studio?

Yes.

Was that a turning point?

Absolutely. It was thanks to Starlink that we overcame the limitations of the radio horizon. Before that, since the Earth is round, if you flew too far, without a signal you couldn't descend below a certain altitude.

And we managed to drop almost to ground level without losing the video signal. It was truly a game changer.

Lasar's Group has always delivered impressive statistics in terms of the value of the equipment destroyed. The last figure I remember was around US$12 billion. What is it now?

Now it's over US$13.8 billion.

How do you calculate it?

It's very simple. From the earliest days, we realised that the model was effective, but that people might not believe that. So I kept a notebook and wrote everything down: the coordinates, what was destroyed, which brigade it was for, which drone was used, the drone's serial number. We even had names for the drones.

Then the notebook wasn't big enough, so we created an Excel spreadsheet. All these years, we've recorded everything. Each strike has a corresponding video clip.

If you open up those spreadsheets, you can see exactly what happened and why the target was hit.

But now such detailed tracking is rare?

Tanks?

Equipment in general.

Yes, there are a lot of strong and capable units doing excellent work. And when we meet up, they say: "Of course, no one can catch up with you on tanks now because there aren't any left [within the range of FPV drones – ed.]."

There is competition between units for the same e-points, because the same tank can appear in different units' statistics. I've also heard that the statistics don't always reflect reality.

There are different statuses – a target is either "hit" or "destroyed". We're like the full stop at the end of a sentence: we usually finish the job. That's because an FPV drone causes damage, but a tank is protected, and the munition carried by an FPV drone is not that large.

Sometimes the guys hit very precisely, and the shaped charge jet causes the ammunition inside to detonate. But in general, when we properly pierce the tank from above, it's destroyed.

"Unfortunately we've lost our drone advantage. With what we had in 2022-2023, we could have done game-changing things"

You have always said that Lasar's Group is managed like a business. Right now, many units are trying to scale up and even export their solutions. What is your business logic here?

For a long time, we received no funding from the state. At first we used our own money, then friends joined in.

Our model was this: people would contribute US$20,000 and get the chance to name a drone. We built the drone, it went into action, striking targets, we recorded the results on video and sent it back with a note of thanks. People could clearly see their contribution and see exactly what they'd helped destroy. At this point we'd already destroyed US$30-40 million worth of equipment – things were looking very promising.

Later we were invited to a meeting and told: "You know what you're doing – here's some funding." I remember that meeting well: there were intelligence representatives, White Wolf, and us. Back then even five drones, or seven, felt like a big number. They asked: "How many do you need?" Someone said "100." And there was a pause. When you have five or seven, 100 sounds huge. Someone else said "150."

But on the way to the meeting, I'd realised we needed 1,000. I said: "We need 1,000." Everyone looked at me: "Do you even understand what 1,000 is?" At the time, it really did sound like the stuff of fantasy.

I explained: "Look, we need to deploy a certain number of groups at a certain density. If we want to operate systematically for six months, that's how many we need."

I said: "Give us 1,000 – I'll recruit the people and build a systemic model." In the end, we received funding for that volume and began working with state resources.

From what I've heard about the drone assault forces, conflict between Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's team and Oleksandr Syrskyi's seems almost inevitable, because their approaches are different. Is that the case?

You know, conflicts arise in any family. We're dealing with large-scale issues and different approaches. Time will tell whether compromises and solutions can be found. The ability to compromise is itself a sign of intelligence.

Since Mykhailo Fedorov arrived, there's clearly been innovation and movement – that's absolutely right. Put it this way, the system's "metabolism" has speeded up significantly.

But unfortunately we've lost our drone advantage. In 2022-2023, we had a chance to do game-changing things. We managed to stop the Russians, destroy a significant portion of their equipment and stabilise the situation – they weren't expecting that. But we didn't regain territory.

If the "metabolism" had been faster then, we could have retaken some territory as well. That moment was lost.

So if I understand you correctly: if the decisions we're discussing now had been implemented two years ago, the frontline situation would be different?

Completely different.

When he took office, Fedorov said we need to kill 50,000 Russian troops per month. Have we approached that figure?

They are short of manpower. We could do more according to the plan. But, you know, it's hard to pick apples in an orchard where there aren't any left.

So Russia's problem now is a lack of personnel?

Yes. They need to increase the pace a bit.

But overall, the strategy chosen at the time was the right one?

Yes, absolutely.

How many Russian troops are we killing per month now, if those figures can be disclosed?

They're publicly available – it's around 35,000.

If they increase the intake, losses will rise. If they move slowly, it will remain at around 30,000-35,000.

"Out of over 300 Air Force crews, 66 had shot down more than 10 Shahed drones that year, but 170 hadn't downed a single one"

What currently determines what happens on the front line: the human factor and the shortage of personnel, or the ability to adapt and scale up technological solutions?

It's a matter of effective use. When we arrived, the first thing we did was analyse what was happening in the Air Force as regards interceptor drones and the quality of pilot training.

In one oblast, we did an experiment and tried to implement our model. There were 28 crews there, and 24 of them hadn't shot down a single drone over the past year.

How is that possible?

It is possible. We went further. We looked at all the crews under our command – there were over 300. Of those, 66 had shot down more than 10 Shahed drones, while the rest had downed fewer than 10. And 170 crews hadn't shot down a single one that year. [The Air Force later explained that this is because many crews were set up fairly recently, are still undergoing training and do not have sufficient equipment to deliver results – ed.]

When we talk about human resources – whether there are many or few – I believe that even the resources that have been mobilised are enough. They simply need to be used effectively, structured and analysed.

Everyone says: "Give us people, give us people." But where would we assign them? Lasar's Group, for example, hasn't grown in three years. We built the structure from the beginning and have never been either a regiment or a brigade, although now everyone wants to become a brigade or a regiment.

How many people are there in Lasar's Group now?

We currently have around 1,900 people. And I always ask: why would we need more? We have enough people for the functions we perform. I don't want five or six thousand people. People are a resource, but they're also a problem: they need to be provided for, they have families, illnesses, emotional needs.

Right from the start, we built the structure differently – we set up three teams, and that's enough for us. Each has its own administrative unit, an accounting department, and all the necessary infrastructure. They work efficiently and well, and carry out combat missions.

We could have been greedy and said: let's become a fully-fledged brigade. We were offered that opportunity back in 2023. But why? So that an additional layer appears, with about 40% of the people just servicing the system?

We already have proper support within the existing structure. And frankly, this situation is not unique to us – but many have chosen the path of expansion: brigades, regiments, corps. I'm against this. Given that human resources are in short supply, they should be optimised and even partially freed up instead.

I understand that a new concept for the use of human capital from Defence Minister Fedorov is going to be presented soon. In your view, is demobilisation justified now – something many servicemen are asking for? At least partially?

From the point of view of fairness, yes. But from the point of view of a commander, it's difficult. Everyone has key people on whom everything depends. If they leave, the system could simply collapse. This is a very delicate issue, and it needs to be worked through in detail at the level of the commander-in-chief and the minister.

"Andrii Yermak and I haven't spoken once during the full-scale war"

I can't not ask you this. Lasar's Group proved its effectiveness almost immediately in 2022-2023, but for a long time, you remained in the shadows. I understand there were reasons for that, including misunderstandings with Andrii Yermak, former head of the President's Office. Did he, in a way, want you to stay out of the spotlight?

The fact that we stayed in the shadows wasn't to do with that. The fact that Andrii Yermak and I have our own history is a separate thing. Overall, our relationship was always on an even keel.

As for publicity, I was fundamentally opposed to showing footage of bomb drops, FPV strikes, or the process of getting drones ready. In 2022-2023, I believed that was wrong. If it had been possible, we would have published with no names – or better still, not published anything at all.

But in 2025, we went public for the first time – there was an article in Forbes. And that was more of a forced decision. Funding was beginning to go to those who talked about themselves the loudest. When budgets were being allocated, public-facing units were getting more, and we were being pushed into the background.

And that was despite the fact that in terms of effectiveness and the quality of our work, we certainly weren't among the weakest. I realised that without visibility, we'd be left with no funding and the unit would simply fall apart.

Not only that – a lot of the high-profile units tried to poach our people. Everything held together thanks to the authority of the unit and our internal relationships.

In 2022-2023 we were working directly with the command, and not everyone understood the importance of our work for those on the line of contact. In the end, we weren't allowed to be torn apart, and we remained a team. But unfortunately we had to step out of the shadows to secure resources and continue working.

But your relationship with Andrii Yermak was tense, particularly because the Savik Shuster Studio once covered the so-called Wagnergate?

Andrii and I have not spoken even once during the full-scale war. So unfortunately I can't comment on the reasons why he might have a negative attitude.

You and I were at the YES Conference, remember – we were standing there, he walked past, we greeted each other perfectly normally, and that was it. We haven't had any contact since.

Although he seemed to say he was ready to speak with you.

He was, but the meeting never happened. There was no reason. I'm focused on my work, and objectively speaking, no one interferes with it.

Maybe we haven't advanced in status – not everyone's been awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. We have two Heroes in our unit, and they truly are the best. But there are others no less deserving.

I once even joked: let's allocate some quota for every billion [that the equipment destroyed is worth], because some people work for years and truly deserve recognition. But these are often political decisions – whether to award it or not.

And to be honest, it has no impact on the quality of our work.

Do you think your appointment would have been possible if Andrii Yermak had still been head of the President's Office? It happened after the reshuffle.

It's hard for me to say. That decision was made by the president. Whether he was listening to Mykhailo Fedorov, Andrii Yermak or [current Head of Zelenskyy's Office] Kyrylo Budanov at the time, there are many people around him who shape the agenda in different ways.

Did you personally have a conversation with the president about this?

Yes. When Mykhailo Fedorov called me, I said I still had ten days of leave left and didn't really want to come back early. But he replied: "You need to be here by Wednesday at the latest, because the president wants to speak with you."

I couldn't say no. He's the supreme commander-in-chief, and I'm a serviceman. So I bought a ticket and flew back the same day.

Mykhailo introduced me, and we had a normal conversation. The president gave us time to refine the concept – to look at how we envisioned it.

Within three weeks, we'd prepared a model together with the General Staff and Oleksandr Syrskyi. We coordinated everything, worked through the details. Anatolii Kryvonozhko [Commander of the Air Force] said the model aligned with the Air Force.

After that, we went to see the president together and presented how it should work. Kyrylo Budanov was there. The president approved the model, and now we are effectively moving forward according to that plan.

"I tell Shuster he should take a drone course and go to the UAE to shoot down Shaheds"

You've said more than once today that you'd like to go back to civilian life. But personally, have you closed the chapter with the Savik Shuster Studio, or could it still come back?

If Savik Shuster learns Ukrainian, then we'll think about it (laughs). If I'm still forgiven for not mastering the language perfectly… I can speak it in everyday life, but not at the level of an interview like this – I start losing my train of thought.

So for a TV presenter in Ukraine, not speaking Ukrainian is, of course, challenging.

I take it you're still in touch?

Of course, we talk regularly.

What is he doing now?

I tell him he should take a drone course and go to the UAE to earn some money – shooting down Shaheds (laughs).

And how does he react?

He says he's ready. Ready to learn.

Does he follow the war? What is his assessment of what's happening?

He's very interesting to talk to. I sometimes call him for advice on international politics. Right now, I physically don't have time to read everything – and even what I do read, I don't always have time to analyse.

But he still reads in different languages, from various sources, and has very strong critical thinking skills. I say to him: "Savik, explain where this is all heading," and he breaks it down for me. Essentially, I get bespoke lectures on international affairs.

How does he assess the situation in the Middle East?

He thinks it's an absurd situation that could have been avoided. I think a lot of people see it that way. There were other ways of doing it, but this one was chosen – and it's a mistake.

If he knows that many languages, I guess he could learn Ukrainian too.

Sometimes I deliberately speak to him in Ukrainian. At the moment, his level is lower than mine (laughs). That's why I say: "Savik, when your level is higher than mine, then you'll be ready for the spotlight."

So you haven't completely closed that chapter for yourself?

I don't think I could return to the role of producer I had before. Back then, I was very democratic – I allowed a lot of freedom.

Now, when I meet the team occasionally, I joke: "Guys, that chaos you had before, when you could do whatever you wanted – that won't fly anymore. I'm in the military now; meetings will be more disciplined: there are things we say and things we don't say" (laughs).

But seriously, the experience we've gained over this time is far more valuable. It's about something different now; it's about applying knowledge and solutions in a military context.

"Given the choice of a drone or a tank, I'd choose the drone"

Let's talk about where this war is heading. It's very difficult right now to predict how or when it will end, but still – is there a chance to defeat Russia, and what might that look like?

The first thing we need to understand is that we can't simply take this war and end it. That is not within our control. If it was up to us, we would have said long ago: that's it, stop. But it's up to the aggressor, and they're playing their own game.

Their goals aren't just [to take] Donbas or certain territories. Their goal is the political regime in Kyiv, the ability to impose their rules here and restore the influence they used to have.

Understanding this, we have to be strong. Can we turn the situation around? At this stage, yes. But to do that, we need to be as effective as possible.

What do you mean by effectiveness? Are you talking about specific personnel decisions or about approaches?

About the people who manage the processes. They need to build teams of people who make decisions fast and adapt fast. War is about adaptability.

This is not a call to replace the commander-in-chief, though?

No, absolutely not. I don't want this to be politicised. The commander-in-chief has experience, and the minister brings innovation. They need to work together – that's the right combination. This isn't about ambition – it's about results.

If we improve efficiency, we won't need to increase the number of people – we'll be able to implement decisions faster.

You often use the example of drones and tanks. What's the idea behind this comparison?

If I was asked to choose between a drone and a tank, I'd choose the drone. It's more mobile, cheaper, doesn't depend on terrain, doesn't get stuck in mud, and requires fewer people to maintain.

The problem is logistics, though. We still deliver drones according to tank logic.

I always give this simple example: what's the difference between delivering potatoes and delivering pizza? Potatoes can be dug up in the autumn, delivered in spring, and used with no issues. Whereas pizza needs to be delivered within 15 minutes of being made.

Drones are like pizza. But we're trying to deliver them like potatoes.

What does that mean in practice?

It means inefficiency. Every unit has its own R&D groups which are forced to remake what arrives.

For instance, there may be a situation where 100 drones and one UAV control centre are contracted, while somewhere else, there are 36 control centres and 3,500 drones sitting in storage. But they can't be used because there are no control centres that match.

The result is that some people are saying "We don't have enough drones," while others have them standing idle.

There are many such imbalances. This is a problem of poor planning and modelling. This is precisely where strong managerial decisions are needed.

Do we have time to fix this?

On the front line, the situation has, so to speak, stabilised. In modern warfare, major advances are very difficult for both sides.

There are technological solutions that could change the situation – both for us and for them. The question is who implements them faster and how the other side responds.

But large-scale breakthroughs like before – dozens of kilometres with moving convoys – are now practically impossible.

You often hear people saying the war could go on for another two years. Does Ukraine have the resources to endure for that long?

That depends largely on international support: how our partners see us and whether they are willing to continue supporting us.

Europe, for one, is ready to provide funding – tens of billions of euros have already been allocated. Is that enough?

Yes, if this support continues. We have all become military in a certain sense. Ukraine has very strong intellectual potential, and we are transforming these resources into new types of weapons.

For example, our interceptor drones are now reaching speeds of 700 km/h. We started at 100. That's a whole other level.

We have no choice. We'd all like to press a button and wake up in a peaceful country. But we are forced to defend ourselves.

How do you think this war could end?

Any war ends. The question is on what terms.

If we improve efficiency and increase enemy losses – of both equipment and manpower – that could lead to a decline in morale. Then, I wouldn't rule out a counteroffensive.

A Ukrainian one?

Yes. We could conduct a counteroffensive and secure favourable positions.

But there is another factor – the risk of tactical nuclear weapons being used. And that is a question for our international partners. They need to clearly define in advance how they would respond.

Because if they only start making decisions afterwards, it will be too late.

Sevğil Musaieva, Ukrainska Pravda

Translated by Myroslava Zavadska

Edited by Teresa Pearce

The geographical scope of their use has also expanded markedly. While earlier Ukrainian strikes were largely focused on border areas, drones are now reaching almost all regions of the European part of Russia.

These shifts reflect the gradual build-up of Ukraine's domestic capabilities in both the production and deployment of this type of drone.

Analysts from the Come Back Alive Foundation Initiatives Centre have examined for Ukrainska Pravda how Ukraine has moved from localised strikes near the front line to the systematic use of long-range unmanned aerial vehicles.

How was this calculated?

Data on the number of downed Ukrainian UAVs is published daily by the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) on its official platforms. These reports indicate how many fixed-wing drones were shot down over various regions.

The Russian MoD is not a reliable source and frequently manipulates information. At the same time, its figures on the number of detected (downed) Ukrainian drones and the regions where they were spotted broadly align with Ukrainian data, while the geography matches open-source reporting.

For instance, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in October 2025 that Ukraine was launching around 100-150 UAVs at Russia every day. According to data from the Russian Ministry of Defence, the average number of "downed" UAVs over the same period stood at 122. Meanwhile, one of Ukraine's major manufacturers announced plans at the time to scale up production to as many as 200 kamikaze drones per day.

Russian regions where Ukrainian UAVs were recorded on a given day are also listed in the Russian MoD's briefings. These data generally correspond with findings from Ukrainian and international OSINT analysts, who track drone activity deep inside Russia.

At the same time, Ukraine's Air Force reports daily on the number of Russian UAVs deployed.

Although data from both sides may contain distortions and inaccuracies, taken together they provide a useful basis for assessing the dynamics of Ukrainian UAV launches and the depth of their deployment.

The number of UAVs is increasing

Over the past two years, the number of Ukrainian long-range drone launches has been steadily increasing. From 110 UAVs in January 2024, the figure rose to more than 7,000 in March 2026. The sharpest growth came last year, with Ukraine increasing the number of launches fivefold over the course of 2025.

Financial support from international partners has played a key role in this growth, as an increasing share of funding has been directed towards the production of Ukrainian weapons, including long-range systems. In September 2025 alone, Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Union would allocate €6 billion for drone production in Ukraine.

Notably, the gap between the number of Ukrainian and Russian long-range UAVs launched has been steadily narrowing. While in 2024 Russia was launching on average 250 more drones per month than Ukraine, by 2026 this figure had decreased to 150. In March 2026, Ukraine even managed to overtake Russia in the number of launched or recorded UAVs.

The geographical scope is expanding

For Russia's border regions, Ukrainian drones in the sky have effectively become a daily occurrence. For example, in Bryansk Oblast, Ukrainian UAVs were detected on more than 400 days between the beginning of 2025 and March 2026 – meaning there were only a few days each month when they were absent.

Nearby regions are accessible to a broader range of Ukrainian UAVs, as many of them have a shorter operational range. Border oblasts are therefore an ideal target, given the high concentration of military and logistical facilities used to sustain combat operations that are located there.

At the same time, these border areas host a significant number of air defence systems. This increases the likelihood of both detection and interception, and consequently the frequency with which drones appear in official reports.

Although border regions remain priority targets, the geographical scope of Ukrainian strikes continues to expand. Ukrainian UAVs are more frequently being recorded at sites located hundreds and even thousands of kilometres from the front line.

This is clearly illustrated by the map: since the beginning of 2024, drones were largely concentrated in regions close to the Ukrainian border, whereas in subsequent periods they have increasingly appeared in central and northern parts of Russia. The number of regions where they are detected has also been steadily growing. This is not limited to isolated incidents: in a number of more distant regions, drones are now recorded regularly, and at certain times, almost daily.

Cumulative number of days when at least one UAV reached a region on the map

Certain attacks are also reaching remote areas. For example, in February 2026, an oil refinery in the city of Ukhta (Komi Republic) was struck – more than 1,800 km from the Ukrainian border. Such cases indicate not only an increase in numbers, but also a growing operational range.

Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda reported that cases of drone strikes at extremely long distances (900+ km) are already becoming systematic.

What does this change?

The growing number of Ukrainian UAVs is creating a range of challenges for Russia's air defence system. The more drones Ukraine deploys, the more targets need to be tracked and intercepted simultaneously. When a large number of drones are concentrated in one area, air defence systems can become overloaded and are unable to cope with all threats at once. As a result, some UAVs manage to penetrate deeper and strike their targets.

In addition, some of these launches consist of decoy drones – UAVs made from inexpensive materials and without a warhead, designed to force the Russians to spend resources on intercepting them.

The expanding geographical scope of the strikes is forcing the Russians to choose which targets to protect: whether to concentrate air defence systems closer to the contact zone to shield its troops, or redeploy them deeper inside the country to defend industrial and energy facilities. Given the sheer size of Russia's territory, it is simply impossible to cover all critical sites with limited resources.

All this is unfolding as Ukraine's Defence Forces are continuing to destroy more and more Russian air defence systems. Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda reported that over the past year alone, at least 172 strikes on Russian air defence assets – including radar stations, launchers and command posts – have been recorded on video in open sources. In reality, the number of such strikes is significantly higher.

This way Russia risks facing the same challenges it has imposed on Ukraine: countering large-scale daily strikes with limited air defence resources, while maintaining the operation of critical infrastructure and defence industry facilities when even with a high interception rate, a significant number of drones are likely to reach their targets.

Translated by Viktoriia Yurchenko

Edited by Susan McDonald

That was the path taken by Liliia (name changed for security reasons), a Ukrainian artist whose bold decisions led her to Air3F, a producer of unmanned systems, where she rose from newcomer to head of the drone relay assembly workshop in six months.

Training new professionals from scratch, quickly and in real-world conditions is now a reality for many Ukrainian manufacturers. The reason is the broad labour shortage across the defence industry.

An increasing number of women are entering the sector, particularly those from humanities backgrounds. Weapons manufacturing has become a destination for those seeking work, looking to change their lives, or wanting to support the troops defending Ukraine on the front lines.

Ukrainska Pravda tells the story of an artist who chose the path of weapons manufacturing and rapidly progressed in the field. A soldering iron proved surprisingly similar to a paintbrush, making her artistic background an asset.

An unexpected opportunity

Art has always been at the centre of Liliia's life. Since graduating from art school in the 2000s, she has always had fine brushes, pencils, pens, canvases and stacks of stiff paper to hand.

For many years, she lived a busy life, packed with meticulous work, exhibitions, a creative circle of friends and teaching young artists.

And in one of those fast-moving twists and turns, while working on a creative project, Liliia got to know some representatives of the drone manufacturer Air3F.

During the conversation, she was offered an unexpected opportunity: a chance to join the weapons team. Liliia admits she did not take it seriously at first, but soon she found herself unable to stop thinking about it.

The desire to work at an arms factory did not come out of nowhere. At that stage of her life, Liliia found herself increasingly reflecting on her role in a country at war, especially as she saw people she knew join the military or work in dangerous areas. She began to feel that creativity alone was not enough to bring about real change.

"All of us in the arts try to influence society in different ways," she said. "Many artists, both in Ukraine and abroad, simply turn to war-themed subjects in their work, but I don't think that's an effective way to contribute to the struggle."

Liliia later had the opportunity to see the production process with her own eyes. After that, the decision came naturally. "I wanted to give it a go," she says, smiling.

She was undeterred by the prospect of physical labour, or the deep-seated myths about the work being "unfeminine".

"You can talk about 'unfeminine' professions in art, too. Take monumental art, church painting, mosaics, frescoes – that's physically demanding work," she emphasises.

Liliia had no background in technical work. She admits that her only exposure to it was studying physics at school and growing up in a family of engineers she looked up to as a child.

She had to learn everything from scratch.

Skill comes with patience

The training began straight away in a real-world work environment. Liliia was assigned the simplest, most tedious task – coating the contacts on voltage regulators with solder. At first, she spent a day or two doing the same thing over and over to get a feel for it and grasp the basics.

She explains that newcomers are always given the simplest tasks to practise. After that, they either stay on that process or gradually proceed to other stages. If they perform well, they can move on to assembling the full product.

Liliia was keen to delve deeper into the field, as the more she progressed, the more the work drew her in. It was challenging due to her lack of technical background, but she was able to compensate for that by drawing on the skills she had gained through art.

Her neatness and attentiveness helped her to do everything carefully, and her fine motor skills came in handy when soldering and assembling electronic components. Her perseverance also played a significant role, for there is a clear rule in the world of artists: "Skill comes with patience."

Liliia often compares her work in defence with painting. In botanical painting, for instance, microscopic details have to be rendered with exceptional precision. Circuit boards, she says, resemble this painstaking kind of work.

There is a technique in which artists create works using a silver needle. Whether it is that or soldering, both involve micro-movements that require complete control of the hand for fine, precise touches to a surface.

A soldering iron and a silver needle are very similar even to look at, and in terms of design and in how they are used. The shape of the tip – a very thin, sharp piece of metal – is designed for surgical precision, and the hand movements are almost identical.

In both cases, mistakes are almost impossible to correct, so you only have one chance to get it right.

Liliia compares it to watercolour: "With watercolour, if you've messed up, you've messed up. And nothing can save it. It's the same here – you have to get it right the first time."

It was difficult for her as a newcomer to keep up with the pace of production. Eventually, after learning the ropes through various minor processes, she was able to move on to assembling drones entirely on her own.

"There's so much information available now," Liliia said. "The internet, books and so on. You can always walk around the workshops and chat with colleagues to find the answers you need."

Very soon, her diligence and curiosity would lead her to a managerial position.

Becoming a manager and returning to teaching

Just six months after her first day at work, Liliia was offered the chance to head up a new department.

She explains that in manufacturing, it often happens that one department is swamped with orders while another experiences a slowdown. In such cases, staff are simply moved wherever extra hands are needed. She found herself in these situations all the time.

"Over time, I had learnt how to assemble everything the company produced," she says.

Then one day, colleagues from the R&D department asked her to help out. After working together, they were impressed by Liliia's skills. "And suddenly they were offering me the chance to head the drone relay assembly department the company was planning to open soon," she says with surprise.

Under her management, the team now assembles 10-inch first-person view (FPV) drones, including fibre-optic models, 15-inch bomber UAVs and relay drones. Their specifications and design are more complex than the models she started with: more functional units, more components and even higher quality standards.

Liliia has found it difficult to manage the department. Although it is not large, communication, coordination and responsibility for other people's work bring a different kind of burden and stress. She admits that assembling a product with her own hands is still closer to her heart.

"Before, I depended only on myself. But here, I depend on the team," she explains.

On the other hand, teaching people comes easily to her, as she is an expert in this field. Something that had seemed to be a thing of the past has come back to Lilia. She used to teach painting to young artists, and now she trains production staff.

"Management is more about teaching someone how to do something. It's here that my teaching experience really comes into its own," says Liliia.

Despite her lack of technical training, many of Liliia's skills have simply carried over from creative workshops to the production floor. It is this sense of continuity in her journey that she finds most inspiring.

Liliia says enthusiastically: "I don't see this as just a job, because everything here is interesting. Especially when something new happens, when our department is the first to take on a product straight from development, test it and look for solutions. Usually you're just happy when it works and everything goes as planned."

Liliia's story shows that even after a lifetime as an artist, it's never too late to take a risk and change direction when a new opportunity appears on the horizon.

Everything can be learnt, and valuable skills can be repurposed to bring new ideas to life. Ukraine's defence sector needs workers, and this can be a fascinating path to take.

Translated by Artem Yakymyshyn

Edited by Zechariah Polevoi and Teresa Pearce

The Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant is only 16 km away from the border with Belarus, meaning that Russian troops were able to quickly enter the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and occupy it.

The plant was liberated by Ukrainian forces in early April of that year. However, as they retreated, the Russians took 169 National Guard soldiers captive and stole over $100 million worth of equipment.

Up until 2022, visitors – even tourists – could enter the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, and it was quite a popular destination. But after the invasion, access to the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant was closed, and entry is now impossible without a special permit.

However, shortly before the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Ukrainska Pravda, together with Greenpeace, managed to visit the plant and enter the infamous reactor number four.

Here's what we saw there.

The April sky is enshrouded in thick grey clouds. Darker and lighter layers of cloud overlap, scattering sleet onto the ground. The wind is biting, penetrating through several layers of clothing to sting any exposed skin. Empty space stretches out all around.

The abandoned, rusted-over fifth reactor of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant looms on the horizon. It would have been put into operation at the end of 1986, but construction was halted after reactor 4 exploded. For 40 years it has stood there out in the open, surrounded by the skeletal remains of rust-coloured cranes.

Behind us is a memorial to those who died trying to extinguish the fire in the nuclear reactor nearly half a century ago. Ahead of us is the main building of the plant. The grey concrete against the grey sky is broken up by a huge mural depicting a human hand holding the "peaceful atom" in the foreground, with Przewalski's horses in the background.

Forty years ago, as a result of Soviet policies, this was the site of one of the worst man-made disasters in the history of the planet. Russia (or rather the USSR) had concealed design flaws in the RBMK-1000 (high power channel-type) reactors and covered up earlier, smaller-scale incidents, and the experiment that led to the explosion of reactor number 4 had been poorly planned.

As the reactor effectively "breathed" radiation into the outside world, the Soviet authorities chose not to warn citizens about the possible risks, and the traditional May Day parade went ahead as normal in Kyiv, only about 100 km from the site of the explosion.

Later, during the investigation, the authorities shifted the blame entirely onto the plant's staff. The damage caused by the tragedy remains incalculable even to this day.

Yet even 40 years on from the tragedy, the Russians are giving Chornobyl no peace. As we queue for dosimeter checks, an air-raid siren begins to wail: drones are flying over Chernihiv Oblast, likely heading in our direction.

On 14 February 2025, a Russian Shahed drone struck the New Safe Confinement (NSC, also known as "the Arch"), tearing a 15-sq-m hole in it. The layer of materials beneath the metal shell – designed to shield the outside world from the sarcophagus and the sarcophagus from the outside world – began to smoulder. Firefighters had to cut into the structure to extinguish the blaze. As a result, what was originally one large hole became more than 300 smaller openings, through which snow and water are now seeping inside.

From a distance, however, the damage is not visible. The confinement structure looks like a giant arch covering the reactor. The original plan was that over the next hundred years, several generations of plant workers would use special cranes to dismantle the sarcophagus and the radioactive debris that part of reactor 4 has turned into.

But now, engineers have to find a way to reseal the confinement structure in order to maintain a stable temperature and pressure inside. Experts and workers from other countries are unlikely to agree to work under the threat of Russian drones, which still fly over the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone occasionally.

According to the most optimistic estimates by the Chornobyl NPP's management, it could take several years to restore the hermetic seal of the confinement structure, as the work will have to be carried out at considerable height and with exposure to radiation.

Getting under the Arch to the sarcophagus itself is no easy task. You start by walking down the so-called "Golden Corridor" – a long passageway connecting all four of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant's reactor buildings.

But before that, you have to get changed: the clothes you wear to enter the contaminated area must remain within the territory of the plant.

The changing room feels more like a hospital: bare walls, narrow metal lockers. The space is flooded with a pale white light that makes your eyes ache: you keep wanting to turn up the brightness.

First we change our shoes, leaving ours at the entrance and replacing them with slippers provided by the plant. Then we undress to our underwear at the lockers. In the next room, we are given two pairs of trousers and shirts each, jackets to go on top, and caps and helmets to cover our heads. Replacement socks and replacement shoes complete the outfit. Everything, apart from the blue jackets, is the same stark white as everything around us.

We walk down the dimly-lit corridors. The cold goes with us. It feels omnipresent. At least the wind can't reach us indoors. At times there are no windows in the corridor at all, and the darkness is broken only by yellow lamps that cast circles of light into the surrounding gloom.

The sound of dozens of footsteps echoes ahead of us and behind us. Apparently it's not often you see so many people here at once. A few minutes later, we notice that the walls are lined with gold-coloured metal panels – the reason this is called the "Golden Corridor". The panels are designed to shield against radiation, our guides explain.

Our escorts warn us that if anything falls onto the floor or the ground, it will stay there until staff have checked it for contamination. In the worst-case scenario, the item will have to be sent for decontamination.

Talking as we walk, we reach the Unit 3 control room, a small room containing several panels that once controlled the third reactor. Here we are given another dosimeter – one that will monitor the amount of radiation exposure we receive. We put respirators over our faces and gloves on our hands. From this point on, touching anything is strongly discouraged.

After another 20 minutes we find ourselves outside, right next to the confinement structure. Some twisted metal is lying there a few dozen metres from the main wall – the remains of the New Safe Confinement's outer cladding after it was hit by the Russian drone.

Up close, the Arch seems vast: it's over 90 metres high and 270 metres wide. It's tall enough to fit Kyiv's Motherland Monument inside and wide enough to fit the Sydney Opera House.

The New Safe Confinement control room is like a futuristic spacecraft, full of screens, computers and buttons. Monitors display pressure, temperature, humidity, radiation levels and countless other readings from inside the confinement structure. The handful of workers keep a close eye on the indicators.

They say radiation levels around the protective shield did not rise critically after the Russian attack, which is good news. But that doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future, which is why the structure needs to be resealed within the next few years. Besides, radiation and exposure to the elements will cause the shield to age faster.

The sarcophagus, surrounded by engineering structures, looms over you like a concrete and metal monolith. You can't take your eyes off those rust-streaked walls. Half of the building that once housed reactor 4 is hidden in the gloom. Part of the "Golden Corridor" is somewhere there, too, but, as staff explain, entering the territory of reactor 4 is not advisable – radiation levels there are higher, so that section of the corridor is avoided unless absolutely necessary.

Suddenly you look down and notice water beneath your feet – a consequence of the Russian attack a year ago. Rain and snow seep through the holes in the Arch and drip onto the concrete floor, forming small puddles. We try to step over them to avoid getting our feet wet. The staff tell us to go back outside: it's not advisable to spend much time near the sarcophagus.

After passing through several more sanitary control points, we find ourselves in what is probably – however dramatic this may sound – one of the most significant rooms in modern history. We are in the control room of reactor 4 at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The place where the infamous button was pressed, the one that set the apocalypse in motion. Incidentally, that button is no longer there on the control panel. Nor is most of the equipment that was once here.

The panels are covered in grey dust. The dosimeter shows 23 microsieverts per hour. For comparison, the normal background radiation level in Kyiv is around 0.1 microsieverts per hour. Twenty-four hours in this room would expose you to roughly six months' worth of radiation under normal conditions.

As we look around at the abandoned room in the freezing cold, the staff explain that the control room of Unit 4 looks like this because of its age, and because the room was never sealed off when the sarcophagus was built, so the wind and rain were left to do their work. Preserving the room did not become a consideration until much later, in the 2000s. It was only then that part of the control room was cordoned off and a separate passage was created to run alongside the Golden Corridor.

We make our way back to the changing rooms in silence. On the way, we hand in our dosimeters. In the hour and a half we've spent under the confinement structure and on the territory of reactor 4, each of us has received about 20% of the daily radiation exposure limit. In the changing room, we hand back our white protective clothing. An hour later, after additional checks, we step outside again under the grey April sky.

Yevhen Buderatskyi, Stas Kozliuk, Ukrainska Pravda

Translated by Vikroria Yurchenko

Edited by Teresa Pearce

The lack of attention from the political authorities and, to some extent, society to mobilisation issues has put the "broken windows" theory in motion.

On the one hand, civilians are attacking people in military uniform with knives, pistols and rifles, including those who until recently were defending them at the front. Since the start of the full-scale war, 619 such attacks have been recorded, three of which resulted in the deaths of servicemen.

On the other hand, as recent reports from Odesa show, some servicemen who work at military enlistment offices have been given "leeway" for unjustified violence and corrupt extortion. The servicemen who physically extort money from civilians in minivans moving around the cities undermine trust in a process vital for a country at war – mobilisation.

Throughout these eighteen months, military enlistment offices and the servicemen staffing them have largely remained silent in public. This article is an attempt to understand the makeup of military enlistment offices, how notification groups – those checking men's military enlistment status on the streets, who are also subject to violence – operate, and whether the military enlistment office has the resources and capacity to carry out the functions assigned to it by the state.

The article below describes the experiences of four servicemen who, at different times and in different regions, have served or are serving in the military enlistment office, and were also seconded there to mobilise personnel for their units. All names have been changed at the request of the interviewees.

The makeup of a military enlistment office

A year or two ago, servicemen actively corrected journalists who referred to military enlistment office personnel as "military enlistment office employees" – and there was a reason for that. Each military enlistment office includes both servicemen – those most often mentioned in the news – and civilian staff.

Servicemen can be broadly divided into three groups: the head and deputies, the headquarters staff and the security company.

The military enlistment office head is appointed by the Operational Command of a given region – for example, Operational Command Zakhid (West) or Operational Command Pivden (South). Typically, this is a serviceman with significant experience and a high rank, such as a colonel. It is the head who sets the tone and rules for the entire unit.

The headquarters handles recruitment, conscription, mobilisation and, to some extent, notification. Much of its work involves issuing certificates and processing documents. A particularly notable role is that of the Oberih system operator – someone who undergoes special training, gains access to the register of persons liable for military service, and can place individuals on or remove them from wanted lists.

It is the Oberih operator who assigns a person the status of "wanted" and effectively authorises their street-level expedited mobilisation.

Two of the people featured in this text, Mykola and Valentyn, were assigned to work in military enlistment office HQ immediately after mobilisation – in 2023 and 2025. Neither was eager to serve, but after receiving call-up papers, both fulfilled their constitutional duty.

"I was mobilised straight off the street myself," Mykola told Ukrainska Pravda. "In 2023, I was driving through a checkpoint, was stopped, had my documents checked, and then proudly drove a military enlistment officer to the unit – in my own car. I passed the medical board and within a few hours was already standing in uniform. I stayed there because they needed my specialism [in law – ed.]. The structure is like any other – there are good people and bad people everywhere. It's just that all the world's sins have now been placed on this structure."

Both Mykola and Valentyn had specialist occupational skills that the military enlistment office's bureaucratic system required, making them valuable personnel.

"I thought to myself: serving in my own region in the fourth year of the [full-scale] war is like being born under a lucky star, you have to agree with me here. I never saw military enlistment officers as enemies, I even argued with friends about it, and believed most of the negativity was driven not so much by Russian information operations as by ordinary human fear," Valentyn said. "But I left with a much worse impression."

A third person in this story, Oleksandr, spent a year and a half trying to enlist through his local military enlistment office. No combat unit would take him due to health restrictions. Eventually, after a repeat medical examination, the military enlistment office relented and offered him a staff position.

"However, I should say that what I had been promised at the start didn't become reality – even though I had relevant experience. Because we constantly needed people for notification work," Oleksandr said.

The third group of servicemen in the military enlistment office is the security company. It often includes soldiers who have been transferred to rear positions after being wounded. Some perform daily duties at military enlistment offices – cooking, cleaning and so on. Others go out to distribute call-up papers in the streets and at checkpoints, escort mobilised individuals to training centres, drive service vehicles, and so forth. This is mostly fieldwork and is more dangerous.

It was in the security company that 39-year-old Oleksandr Sykalchuk, who was killed at a petrol station in Pyriatyn, served. He had been escorting a bus of newly mobilised recruits to a training centre.

Another interviewee described an attempted strangulation of a driver from his military enlistment office – one of the mobilised individuals attacked him while the vehicle was in motion on the way to a military unit.

There are relatively few civilian employees in military enlistment offices; they work under military supervision, for example in recruitment departments. Most are women.

In total, a small district military enlistment office may have around 50–60 personnel, while a city-level centre may employ over a hundred.

How notification teams operate

The most difficult and, as recent months have shown, the most dangerous job within the military enlistment office is working in notification teams. These are the crews that check men's military registration documents on the streets and, if they are listed as wanted or have other violations of military registration, take them to the recruitment centre – voluntarily or by force.

Despite Cabinet Resolution No. 560 assigning much of the responsibility for notifying the population – that is, delivering call-up papers – to local authorities (including handing them out themselves), in reality this burden largely falls on the military. Since spring 2024, police have started to provide assistance, particularly with transporting people to recruitment centres.

The problem is that some village heads, mayors and local officials fear backlash from neighbours and relatives, so they avoid distributing call-up papers. At most, they help with mobilising equipment (which is also the responsibility of the military enlistment office), obtaining fuel, and similar tasks.

"They receive the papers that they're supposed to deliver, but they don't go out and do it. They write all sorts of silly replies: this employee is abroad, that one doesn't live here, someone else has problems. I tell them straight, 'You're doing nothing,' and they say: 'We don't want our house burned down later,'" says Mykola, a military enlistment officer.

Only servicemen are sent out to distribute call-up papers – either from the security company or headquarters. For example, Kyiv Oblast Military Enlistment Office says that only combat-experienced soldiers handle notifications (though whether this should be the case remains an open question).

In military enlistment offices with competent leadership, distributing call-up papers is routine work shared among most servicemen on a rotating basis. In centres with more authoritarian leadership, it becomes a form of punishment for failing to meet mobilisation targets.

"If a new person appears who can even slightly cope with notification work, they'll most likely be assigned to it," says Oleksandr, another serviceman.

"Because no one else wants to?" we clarify.

"I don't know a single person who does," he replies. "It's an incredibly thankless, physically and mentally exhausting and objectively dangerous job. On top of that, you have superiors demanding that you meet targets and bring in new recruits.

"Guys who transferred to us from combat units said that there, in the war zone, they felt like soldiers. Here… I will never forgive our authorities for what the image of a soldier in the rear has become."

A similar sentiment is shared by Vasyl, a 37-year-old former serviceman from a brigade of the 3rd Army Corps.

In 2025, Vasyl was seconded for two months to a military enlistment office in Ternopil Oblast. He handed out call-up papers on the streets and mobilised people directly into his own corps as part of a pilot project.

Over those two months, his team mobilised 140 people – a significant number. Meanwhile he continued to oversee his unit fighting in Donetsk Oblast.

"In two months at the military enlistment office, I experienced the worst moral trauma of my four years at the front. When you're with the military enlistment office, everyone hates you – the military, civilians, even your own command. Soldiers on leave try to provoke you into a 'nice viral video', and commanders tell subordinates that if they do a poor job, they'll be sent to the front. Good thing I was going there anyway – once the assignment ended," Vasyl says with a laugh.

Notification teams begin work at 06:00, regardless of the weather. A typical crew consists of three to four people – for example, two military enlistment officers and two police officers. In border areas, border guards may also join.

Each team has its own area of responsibility – for instance, several streets that they go through on foot or by car. They stop men of military age and check their data using the Reserve+ app, if available, or through the Oberih system. The latter requires contacting an operator based at the military enlistment office.

In some small settlements where there are hardly any men left to stop, teams may spend part of the day driving around, waiting in wooded areas or sitting at petrol stations.

"First, because we're lazy; second, because these trips make no sense; third, because neither I nor they need it," Valentyn admits.

There is both shame and relief in his voice – relief that he can finally speak about it. It seems his main reason for talking is the hope that the system can still be changed.

"You drive through a village and it's like a dead Texas town – only the tumbleweed is missing," he says. "Everyone who sees a police car runs behind fences. You overtake a cyclist, stop, and before the police even get out, he's already riding the other way because he knows why we stopped. How are you supposed to mobilise anyone? It doesn't work like this."

In 2023 and even 2024 military enlistment teams could hand out dozens of call-up papers per day, in addition to volunteers who came in on their own. By contrast, in 2025–26 there are days when only one call-up paper is delivered in 16 hours of work.

This makes it impossible to meet recruitment targets – which might be, for example, recruiting enough men to replace infantrymen who have been holding positions near Pokrovsk for 150 days.

"I know people get angry just hearing that there are quotas, but I actually understand it. The Armed Forces have tasks and needs, and each requires a certain number of personnel. That makes sense to me," Valentyn says.

Targets are set daily, weekly and monthly – specifying how many people each military enlistment office must supply to the military. Police have their own quotas, focused on the number of people physically delivered to recruitment centres. Whether they ultimately serve is irrelevant to them.

"The police bring in another homeless person, get their certificate from us saying they delivered someone, and that's it – they're satisfied," Mykola says bitterly.

According to the interviewees, military enlistment offices currently meet around 40–60% of their monthly targets.

"The first person I brought in had learning difficulties," Valentyn recalls. "It was obvious he had difficulty speaking. I called the Oberih operator, gave his name – they said he was a violator and hadn't updated his data. The commander shouted: 'Bring him in!' He was crying, the police were shouting. I thought: how did I end up here? What was the point?"

The man was eventually released without penalty. After several months of service he recalls with discomfort and even disgust, Valentyn transferred to a combat unit and now serves in Donetsk Oblast.

According to servicemen interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda, around 20 out of 30 men of military liable age currently stopped by military enlistment teams on the streets are either "reserved" [an exemption given to civilians working in industries critical to the economy or the military – e.g in the energy, defence or specialised technology sectors – ed.] or have deferments due to caregiving, studies, or other reasons. Of the remaining ten, only one is typically fit for service.

Current legislation provides more than 20 grounds for deferment, including continued higher education – even for students aged 30, 40 or 50. The number of reserved citizens is growing; by early 2026 it stood at around 1.3 million – more than the number serving in the Ukrainian army.

Many of these exemptions and "reservations" are, of course, fictitious.

"I was at a checkpoint on the road to Bukovel," says Vasyl. The more expensive the car, the more 'serious' the disability. Rolls-Royces, Bentleys… or they're removed from the register altogether. The first two days I saw this, I was stunned. I had never really thought about mobilisation before – it was the first time I saw how much people don't want to serve."

"When a sales rep selling instant noodles gets a reservation, it's hard not to laugh," Mykola adds.

When asked how often conflict situations arise during document checks, the servicemen we interviewed said – somewhat surprisingly – that it happens quite rarely.

However, wives and relatives of detained men would fairly regularly gather outside military enlistment offices, demanding that they be "released".

"In reality," said Vasyl, "the videos that everyone shares are greatly exaggerated. There aren't that many aggressive people – at most, they might say something to you or grumble. In the two months of my assignment, no one attacked me. There were a couple of times when a crowd gathered to try to take someone back, but I just continued doing my job. When there's shelling, you don't stop – you keep working. How is this task any different?"

Oleksandr, who had actively sought to serve in the military enlistment office, was less fortunate.

At the beginning of this year, while working in a notification team together with police, he encountered a man whose documents they were checking. The man initially responded aggressively, then tried to flee, and eventually opened fire with a firearm.

Fortunately, he did not hit anyone.

"It was a striking experience – when, during wartime, it's not the enemy but a fellow citizen aiming at you," Oleksandr told Ukrainska Pravda.

"When the police officer tried to chase the shooter, I heard people shouting insults at him. They probably just thought we were trying to detain a draft dodger at any cost… It's getting absurd."

Unlike police officers, military enlistment officers working in notification teams do not carry weapons and therefore have no means of self-defence. In rare cases, some bring their own registered firearms, particularly for checkpoint duty, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Some of the military enlistment officers we spoke to have not even completed basic military training. Due to training centres being overloaded, those serving in positions in the rear are sent for training on a rotating basis.

"In this regard, the state is the biggest bastard," said Mykola. "It hasn't given you any real tools for mobilisation, no right to defend yourself. You just stand there, take everything people throw at you, and then they still ask: 'Where are the results? Where's the plan?'"

Mobilisation as a form of power and a source of income

Alongside the painful stories of attacks on military enlistment servicemen who are genuinely trying to serve the state, there are also those who have turned their service and authority into a means of earning money and exerting pressure – as is often the case with almost any social group that gains power.

Of the four people featured in this piece, only Valentyn encountered such examples (or at least he is the only one who admitted it).

The scale of corruption in his particular military enlistment office is not comparable to that reported in Odesa, for instance. However, these examples still help illustrate what is happening in smaller towns across the country.

Valentyn divided the servicemen in his military enlistment office into those who had "crawled out of the trenches" – meaning soldiers transferred to the rear after being wounded (like himself) – and those who had "latched onto rear service".

He primarily placed the head of his military enlistment office and his deputies into the second category. They seemed to have arranged fake certificates for themselves – citing caregiving responsibilities or personal disabilities – in order to remain in the rear for as long as possible. Meanwhile, subordinates were regularly threatened with being sent to the front – which Valentyn eventually volunteered for – for failing to meet mobilisation targets.

In Oleksandr's military enlistment office, commanders punished subordinates for missing targets with sudden late-night assignments – at 21:00 or even midnight – despite the fact that these contravened regulations.

Among all the interviewees, Valentyn was the most critical of his former place of service – and not without reason. He held a key staff role as an operator of the Oberih unified register of conscripts.

In his conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Valentyn said colleagues repeatedly approached him with requests not to place certain individuals on the wanted list – and he complied.

"Don't flag that one – he's the only priest left in the village, how can the village function without him, who will bury people? Another – because he's a bedridden person with a disability without official documents, since childhood – well, that I can understand, actually.

"But there were also cases of 'just don't flag him' because he's a relative or a friend. These are small communities, everyone knows each other. They all support each other.

"Another example: we put citizen N on the wanted list, and a higher-level military enlistment office removes him. Then two or three days pass, and suddenly he becomes officially exempt," Valentyn says.

Incidentally, Vasyl from the 3rd Corps said one of the reasons his team managed to mobilise 140 people in two months in Ternopil Oblast – a very strong result – was that they were not locals and so the team had neither the desire nor the temptation to "let them off the hook".

In addition to helping "their own", Valentyn says his colleagues were also motivated by profit. There were several different schemes.

Servicemen in notification teams could send citizens' data to Valentyn, as the Oberih operator, via private messages instead of the official work chat. This meant that, for a certain sum, a person could be released and it would appear as though they had never been stopped – at least until they encountered another team.

Servicemen from the security company escorting mobilised individuals to training centres or military units could arrange for a specific person to "escape" at a designated point along the route.

"In that case, the serviceman who 'lost' the recruit gets fined UAH 20,000 (about US$452) – but earns about US$2,000 from it," Valentyn explains.

This is not an exhaustive list of schemes operating within the military enlistment offices – there are certainly more, and some on a larger scale.

The aim of this piece, however, is to reflect the experiences of servicemen who have served or are serving in such institutions and feel a need to speak about the system's problems in order for them to finally be addressed.

***

Forced mobilisation is an integral part of any prolonged war. And now, in the 12th year of the Russo–Ukrainian war, its effectiveness is increasingly being called into question.

To a large extent, this is because the state, represented by the president and the Ministry of Defence, and society, represented by opinion leaders, have distanced themselves from it.

Both the authorities and society have shifted the burden of mobilisation onto the most disenfranchised and compliant social group – servicemen. And the military enlistment personnel interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda say openly: they are not coping.

Because of a lack of personnel, resources and authority. Because of the absence of a coherent state policy on mobilisation and, to some extent, even the state's neglect and detachment from the process. A lack of trust. Cracks within the system itself, often led by individuals driven by personal gain. And, of course, because of the one and a half million Ukrainians who are doing everything they can to avoid military service – something we all, in one way or another, tolerate.

The mobilisation system needs change. We all need change – if we are to survive.

Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda

Translated by Myroslava Zavadska

Edited by Shoël Stadlen

These stories are about infantry soldiers, who bear the heaviest burden of the war and are carrying Ukraine on their shoulders – and it's right that their stories should be told. But almost no one ever points out that this situation is fundamentally wrong and not normal. It shouldn't be this way, first and foremost because prolonged deployments in the combat zone reduce soldiers' effectiveness, take a serious toll on their health, and can end badly both for them and for the stability of the front itself.

The main reason for prolonged combat deployments is the acute shortage of infantry. Oleksii, who is 37 and serves in the 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion of the 128th Zakarpattia Separate Mountain Assault Brigade, knows this from his own experience. He spent nearly an entire year – 343 days – in the contact zone without a break. This is one of the longest-ever combat deployments in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

"In 2020, the enlistment office invited me in for a coffee to 'discuss some work-related matters' – and handed me a call-up notice"

Oleksii's case is unique not only because of the length of time he spent in the combat zone, but also because he is an officer – a captain and the commander of a mountain assault company. Good company commanders are often present at contact line positions, but usually not for long, as they have a wide range of responsibilities beyond combat duties.

Oleksii spent longer in the combat zone than anyone else has: he arrived at the positions on 1 April 2025 and left on 8 March 2026. Both dates carry a certain symbolic weight which, with a bit of imagination (plus a sense of humour – essential for anyone in the army), can easily be applied to Oleksii himself. The day he left his position was International Women's Day, and he immediately went on leave to celebrate his daughter's 10th birthday. The significance of 1 April becomes clear when he describes how he ended up in the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the first place.

Oleksii was a civilian from Luhansk Oblast – the part that has been under occupation since 2014. He studied biology at V.N. Karazin National University in Kharkiv. At the same time, he completed military training and received an officer's rank. That was before Russia's 2014 invasion began.

He got married in 2013, and the following year he moved to his wife's home in Cherkasy Oblast, where he began working at an employment centre in a small town. Two years later his wife gave birth to their daughter, and he became a dad.

And this is where the symbolism of 1 April comes in. One of Oleksii's responsibilities was to provide career guidance for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In other words, he helped recruit contract soldiers and frequently interacted with Territorial Recruitment Centres (military enlistment offices) as part of his job. In the end, this "karma" caught up with him. At the end of 2020, staff from an enlistment office invited him in for a coffee to "discuss some work-related matters" – and handed him a call-up notice for 18 months of service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a reserve officer.

"The 18 months will fly by. You'll serve in a brigade and receive a proper rank, and it'll all be fine," they promised.

In theory Oleksii could have dodged this "attractive" offer – but he said yes.

"I decided to settle this matter and not to hide away, but to serve the 18 months, return home, and be able to look people in the eye," he explains.

Oleksii was assigned to the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade, where he became the commander of a platoon of flamethrower troops in an NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) protection company. The brigade was holding the defence in Mariupol at the time, but mobilised reserve officers were not deployed to the Joint Forces Operation zone. However, after six months of service, Oleksii was persuaded to sign a one-year contract so he could go on a combat rotation and obtain combatant status. That's what his commanding officer promised.

"I agreed," Oleksii says. "The one-year contract was supposed to end in June 2022, which was when my mobilisation would have ended as well, so it suited me. But in February the full-scale war began."

Oleksii spent the first few months at the brigade's permanent deployment point in Zakarpattia, reinforcing the company with mobilised personnel. Later, he deployed to the combat zone with his unit.

The NBC protection company is considered a unit that operates behind the lines, with the exception of the flamethrower platoon, which was actively involved in combat. Although Oleksii, as commander, did not operate a flamethrower himself, he was often present at combat positions. Because of his education and intellectual appearance – notably his glasses – he was given the alias "Botanik" (Nerd), and it stuck.

Later, the flamethrower troops began to be reassigned to infantry units, and Oleksii stayed with the battalion he had been working with. Initially he was made deputy company commander, and when the company commander was promoted, he took over. That was in June 2025, when Oleksii was in the combat zone during what would become his longest deployment.

"There were several critical situations when enemy infantry jumped into our trenches"

The mountain assault company's positions are located on the Orikhiv front in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, in wooded areas between settlements (we can only describe them in general terms for security reasons).

The firing positions are arranged in a staggered pattern: one further forward, the rest positioned to the sides and behind, with a total area of responsibility of around 2 km. The company's command and observation post is set up behind the lines but is still part of the fortification system. Each position is equipped with Starlink, which operates on a schedule, as a constantly active antenna creates a thermal signature and may reveal the location. The rest of the time, communication is maintained via walkie-talkie.

"Behind our positions there's a village that's been almost completely destroyed," Botanik says. "For a while there was a house there where the drivers used to stay, and they even set up a shower. In theory we could have gone there occasionally to have a proper wash and do some laundry. But we never used that opportunity, and later the constant strikes by guided aerial bombs, artillery and drones forced the drivers to move to a safer location."

Whenever possible, supplies, equipment and ammunition are delivered by pickup trucks on rainy and foggy nights. When the weather conditions favour Russian UAVs, the deliveries have to be made by large bomber drones.

"In the contact zone there are periods of relative calm as well as intense fighting. First of all it depends on the weather: the worse it is for our drones, the more enemy assaults there will be. Secondly it depends on the date. The Russians have certain symbolic dates when they seek to distinguish themselves – Victory Day, Army Day or whatever… We know we have to hold out for that period of time, then they wear themselves out and there's a lull," Oleksii adds.

The lull is relative: even when there are no assaults and the artillery is silent, there are nearly always drones in the air. Still, such periods are somewhat easier for the infantry. At the same time, the monotony, poor living conditions, lack of proper food and the unchanging surroundings put significant psychological pressure on them and can trigger minor conflicts.

"To minimise this, I tried to rotate people – moving them from one position to another," Botanik says. "And it helped."

The Russians would periodically attempt to break through the front, assaulting positions using infantry fighting vehicles, motorcycles, quad bikes or on foot.

"There were several critical situations when enemy infantry jumped into our trenches. But they were killed each time. The razor wire and wire entanglement in front of the forward line helped a lot – they slowed down the assault troops and gave our drone operators and machine gunners some time," Oleksii recalls.

Of course, some Ukrainian soldiers were wounded, and some were killed. All of them were evacuated.

"I have good drivers. If a soldier was seriously wounded, we'd activate all the electronic warfare systems, bring in some small arms, and I'd ask the drivers to come in. They'd rush over to the position, pick up the wounded person within seconds and be out of there. They never refused. In that sense I was lucky, because it can be very different…"

Infantry at the positions were rotated whenever possible, and there would be occasional mini-rotations. But it was very rare for anyone to spend less than three months in combat. The constant tension, sense of danger, assaults, strikes and difficult living conditions gradually wore people down. Several developed gastritis and ulcers; others suffered from trench foot.

Two of the soldiers died: one at the position itself (he lay down to have a rest after duty at an observation post and never woke up – his heart stopped), the other immediately after leaving the combat zone (he, too, lay down, on a bed in a village in the contact zone, and never woke up – heart failure). Both were over the age of 50.

These deaths were undoubtedly caused by the war, but as they are officially classified as natural deaths rather than combat-related, the families will not receive the compensation paid for those killed in action. This is yet another injustice of this war.

"There isn't a single career soldier in our company. We're all former civilians"

"I tried to make the fighters' time at the combat positions as bearable as possible," says Oleksii. "I made sure everyone had a chance to talk to their families every day – that helps a lot. When the Starlinks in the contact zone were being verified in February, our terminals stopped working as well, some for quite a long time (although no one spoke about this publicly). So we kept in touch with the soldiers via radio and passed messages to their families by phone.

I know from my own experience how important this is – I try to speak with my daughter every day, and if that's not possible, she sends me voice notes. It helps you keep going. Plus, good commanders matter – and mine are reasonable. I try to be the same for my men."

Not a single member of Oleksii's company is a career soldier who was trained at a specialised military academy. They are all former civilians; some, like Botanik himself, signed a contract after joining the Armed Forces. Yet since this "civilian assault" company has been deployed on the Orikhiv front, they have repelled every Russian assault, not allowing them to advance a single metre, and held every position, even though the situation has been extremely intense at times.

"I understand the cost at which this is achieved. And the main reason for these unnaturally long combat deployments is also clear – the lack of personnel. My company is understaffed (like all the others), and of those we do have, around half are over 50, constantly falling ill and needing treatment. No people – no proper rotations. Another reason is the danger of logistics, but that's secondary. If we had enough people, we could at least find safe windows for rotation once a month.

Ideally an infantryman would spend a month in combat and a month recovering in a frontline village. But the way things are at the moment, this is completely unrealistic because we don't have enough people," Botanik complains.

After his combat deployment, Oleksii was granted leave – a "full" 15 days (plus travel time). He was home for his daughter's 10th birthday, and he gave her a bike and taught her how to ride it. Then he went back to his unit.

"I see my primary role as a commander as minimising personnel losses – ideally ensuring there are none at all," Botanik says. "But unfortunately in war, and in the infantry, that's not possible. As for my personal motivation, I don't want my loved ones, my daughter, to see what I see – explosions, bombs, destroyed villages, death. That's why I'm here."

Iaroslav Halas, officer in the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Zakarpattia Brigade, for Ukrainska Pravda. Zhyttia (UP.Life)

Translated by Viktoriia Yurchenko

Edited by Teresa Pearce

However, the question remains: will this money be subject to reform conditionality? After all, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government are insisting that financial assistance to Ukraine be provided unconditionally.

At the same time, the attack on anti-corruption bodies in the summer of 2025 undermined the EU's confidence in Zelenskyy and cast doubt on his genuine commitment to fighting corruption and ensuring the justice the Ukrainian people demand.

Reforms of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies have become central to the so-called "Kachka-Kos plan" — an agreed set of priority measures essential to further progress toward EU membership. The plan was announced in November last year as an effort to restore trust. Although the Ukrainian authorities were given the entire 2026 to implement these measures, in the first three months of the year, Zelenskyy's administration has so far failed to implement even one of the 10 items in good faith.

Such stagnation would give Brussels yet another reason to tie Ukraine's funding to specific reforms from the very same Kachka–Kos plan.

The most contentious issue of these reforms is the procedure for selecting and dismissing the heads of law enforcement and judicial institutions. Competitive selection processes and the role of international experts could become a major stumbling block for Zelenskyy on the path toward European integration and securing EU financial support. Sooner or later, he will have to cede part of his unlimited authority over the security apparatus.

Among the EU's key demands are revising the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General, as well as rebooting the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). The current heads of these two institutions, Ruslan Kravchenko and Oleksii Sukhachov, dutifully played the roles assigned to them by the Office of the President (OP) in the July attack on NABU and SAPO.

Brussels understands this well and therefore expects the procedure for appointing senior officials to be reformed in accordance with clear, transparent, and fair rules. Top-level appointments in the law enforcement sector since 2015 have shown that clear and fair rules can only be guaranteed if international experts have a decisive say.

Zelenskyy is a well-known proponent of a system in which loyalty outweighs professionalism. That is precisely why he is so reluctant to give up the ability to appoint a "hand-picked" Prosecutor General.

Yet it is clear that meeting this EU requirement is in Ukraine's own interest. After all, it offers a long-overdue chance to appoint a Prosecutor General capable of independent judgment, rather than one who simply carries out Bankova's orders, as Ruslan Kravchenko does today, and as Yurii Lutsenko and Viktor Pshonka did before him.

Without complying with these requirements, Ukraine can knock on the EU's door as loudly as it likes and demand membership as early as 2027, but the door will remain closed, and the treasury will remain empty.

The Ukrainian people have paid in blood and sweat for the right to return to the European family. However, the Ukrainian authorities risk wasting this hard-won chance not just to survive, but to live with dignity.

"This is a loss of sovereignty," "we cannot allow external governance," "no EU country has anything like this," "we're at war, and you're asking for too much" — with these standard excuses, Zelenskyy justifies sabotaging selection processes in which international experts would have a decisive role.

Unsurprisingly, Yulia Tymoshenko is using very similar rhetoric, and even before the full-scale invasion, this propaganda was spread by Viktor Medvedchuk's TV channels.

Most recently, the government went so far as to remove all references to competitive selection for the heads of law enforcement bodies from the draft Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030.

We take a ten-year look back at the history of competitive appointments to top positions in Ukraine's judiciary and law enforcement agencies. It is a story of both failures and successes, of how the justice system and the law enforcement agencies should and should not be reformed.

This is not a story about losing sovereignty, but about building a genuine system of checks and balances to counter arbitrariness. It is a path toward a just state, forged in Ukraine. Not a panacea, but a necessary minimum.

2015. The first competition for the NABU Director

Following the Revolution of Dignity, in 2014, Parliament adopted a series of anti-corruption laws that, among other things, established the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and introduced the electronic asset declaration system. At the time, the composition of the selection commission was politically driven.

The selection model was as follows: nine commission members, appointed by the President, the government, and Parliament, selected three finalists, from whom the President appointed the winner.

Amid the high expectations that followed the Revolution of Dignity, the commission included widely respected Ukrainian public figures and even a serving senior EU official.

Despite the absence of a quota for international experts, the commission itself proved independent. Unprecedented public attention, combined with a level of transparency in the selection process that was unusual at the time, ensured that the eventual winner had no ties to any political forces, despite attempts to push through preferred candidates.

As a result, Artem Sytnyk became the Bureau's first director in April 2015. His tenure can be criticised. Yet one fact is beyond dispute: at that time, he was certainly not a political appointee and was therefore given a genuine chance to build a truly independent institution.

The Ukrainian authorities drew conclusions from the competition's outcome and, in the years that followed, used every available means to prevent the selection of candidates who were not "their own."

2016. The first competition for the SBI Director

At the same time, in 2014–2015, the process of establishing the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) began.

The SBI was meant to become Ukraine's version of the FBI and to finally strip the prosecution service of investigative functions. High expectations were placed on the Bureau as the key body for investigating Maidan cases; above all, crimes committed by Yanukovych's law enforcement officers, including the Berkut special police unit.

Political elites were well aware of the enormous power this agency would wield. After all, the SBI investigates crimes committed by top officials, law enforcement officers, civil servants, and the military. That is precisely why a political model for appointing the SBI's leadership and governing the Bureau was built into the law from the outset. For example, the law stipulated that the SBI director could make decisions only with the consent of his deputies.

The law itself was adopted at the end of 2015. Under the selection model, a nine-member commission was to select the Bureau's director, first deputy director, and deputy director. The quotas for appointing members of the selection commission were the same as those used for selecting the NABU director.

In practice, however, the process turned into a sham. A commission composed of politically appointed members exposed the model's inherent ineffectiveness. After all, in such a system, the only real safeguard is political will.

In reality, the competition merely formalised a political deal: the SBI's director and one deputy were aligned with President Poroshenko, while the first deputy answered to Prime Minister Yatseniuk.

As a result, Roman Truba was appointed Director of the State Bureau of Investigation, with Olha Varchenko and Oleksandr Buriak serving as his deputies. Under their leadership, the SBI was marred by numerous high-profile scandals and a complete breakdown in its functioning.

The previous authorities used the SBI for one of the first attacks on NABU. At the time, Olha Varchenko and Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko publicly declared a NABU detective a suspect, alleging abuses in a defence sector investigation. Within months, the case fell apart, and the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

The new authorities inherited a politically controlled State Bureau of Investigation. The next "competition" was likewise merely an imitation, designed to legitimise leadership loyal to President Zelenskyy. The Bureau continued to be used as a tool of political pressure and in efforts to dismantle the anti-corruption system.

2018. The first selection of judges for the High Anti-Corruption Court and, for the first time, a requirement for the participation of international experts

The failure of Poroshenko's Supreme Court reform paved the way for the creation of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC).

It also became clear that ordinary local courts were incapable of properly hearing high-profile corruption cases and authorising investigative actions. Meanwhile, NABU had already begun delivering tangible results. A telling example was the case of Roman Nasirov, in which the Solomianskyi Court openly played along with his now-infamous "checkered blanket" charade.

The establishment of the High Anti-Corruption Court became an IMF condition for providing financial support to Ukraine. For the first time in history, international partners insisted that independent international experts be given a decisive role in selecting judges.

The law was adopted in 2018. The selection of judges, with the participation of international experts, took place in early 2019, and the court began operating in September of that same year.

Under this selection model, a key role was assigned to the Public Council of International Experts (PCIE), composed of six foreign experts. The PCIE was established as an auxiliary body to the High Qualification Commission of Judges. In practice, however, no candidate could pass the integrity assessment without the support of at least half of the PCIE members.

As a result, the PCIE blocked the majority of candidates whose integrity raised well-founded concerns. This ensured an unprecedented level of success and transparency in the selection process, especially compared to other competitions within Ukraine's judicial system at the time.

2019. The SBI "reboot" as a way of entrenching past mistakes

In 2019, President Zelenskyy decided to reboot the SBI, reforming an institution that the previous administration had turned into a fully politicised body. In the end, however, his team chose the very same path as Poroshenko's, cementing the SBI's role as a politically controlled law enforcement agency.

In late 2019, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that transformed the State Bureau of Investigation from a central executive body into a state law enforcement agency. This automatically led to the dismissal of then-Director Roman Truba and his deputies. The new selection model once again provided for a nine-member commission, with three representatives each delegated by the President, the Verkhovna Rada, and the Cabinet of Ministers. This time, however, it was specified that the Cabinet's quota would be composed of individuals designated by international partners.

Since the law granted these international experts no real influence over the process and instead reduced their role to merely legalising the outcome, Ukraine's international partners refused to delegate their representatives to the commission.

As a result, the competition was conducted by a commission operating with only six members, five of whom were effectively under the control of the Presidential Office.

At the time, Schemes journalist Serhii Andrushko uncovered academic ties linking several commission members, as well as Oleksii Sukhachov, then acting director of the SBI, to Oleh Tatarov, Deputy Head of the Office of the President.

This OP controlled competition ultimately led to the recommendation of the same loyal candidate, Oleksii Sukhachov, for the position at the end of 2021. With this move, Zelenskyy's team effectively repeated the previous administration's playbook, creating a politically dependent institution.

2015 and 2020. Competitions for the SAPO head: how the first failed and the second produced an independent leader

In 2015, Nazar Kholodnytskyi became the first head of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). Having seen the outcome of the NABU competition, the authorities opted for a more aggressive approach.

Under the selection model, the commission consisted of 11 members, divided as follows:

– 7 delegated by the Verkhovna Rada;

– 4 appointed by the Prosecutor General (at that time, Viktor Shokin).

Each parliamentary faction (there was no monomajority at the time) nominated one candidate to the commission. As a result, Parliament delegated seven members, including Vitalii Shabunin, Head of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.

The Prosecutor General, in turn, appointed four prosecutors from the General Prosecutor's Office. However, the candidates put forward by Shokin had such a controversial reputation and raised so many questions about their integrity that international partners began demanding their replacement.

However, this did not save the competition from failure. Due to the commission's political composition, the compromise and weak candidate, Nazar Kholodnytskyi, emerged as the winner. He eventually became fully loyal to the authorities, and in 2018, NABU detectives documented his conduct in the so-called "aquarium tapes."

Kholodnytskyi resigned in the final year of his term, in August 2020, prompting a new competition.

A new competition dragged on for two years due to unprecedented obstruction by the authorities. Only when the appointment of the selected candidate became a condition for Ukraine's EU candidacy did Zelenskyy's Office unblock Oleksandr Klymenko's appointment.

The selection model remained unchanged: an 11-member commission, with seven representatives delegated by the Verkhovna Rada and four by the Council of Prosecutors, effectively controlled by Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

This time, however, the prosecutors' quota included four independent experts: three foreigners and Ukrainian expert Roman Kuibida. All four were appointed on the informal recommendation of Ukraine's international partners, with the consent of the then Prosecutor General.

The real game-changer of this competition was a rule under which a decision was deemed adopted only if it received the support of at least two international experts and five members nominated by the Verkhovna Rada. This safeguard prevented the authorities from advancing "their own" candidates who failed to meet the standards of integrity and professionalism.

When Klymenko, an independent former NABU detective, reached the final stage, the parliamentary quota resorted to outright sabotage of the process.

In the end, this sabotage turned the competition into a disgrace: parliamentary representatives openly blocked Klymenko's appointment for months because of his previous high-profile investigations. These included cases involving Oleh Tatarov, by then already deputy head of the Presidential Office; MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko; Fiscal Service head Roman Nasirov, and the Svynarchuk family.

Despite the eventual appointment of an independent SAPO head, this competition delivered a clear lesson for both international partners and Ukrainian society: the decisive role of independent international experts must be enshrined in law. Otherwise, compliant members of selection commissions will resort to procedural manipulations.

2021 and 2025. Competitions for the ESBU head and the attempts to derail the process

In 2020, the Verkhovna Rada, dominated by Zelenskyy's ruling majority, adopted a new law "On the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine."

The creation of a new, modern body to investigate economic crimes had been one of Zelenskyy's campaign promises to the business community back in 2019. The ESBU was supposed to become a powerful tool for fighting oligarchic abuse and replace the discredited tax police, which had been harassing businesses for years.

In 2021, the first competition for the position of ESBU director got underway. As in many failed competitions, the commission consisted of nine politically appointed representatives: three from the National Security and Defence Council, two from the Verkhovna Rada's Tax Committee, one from the Verkhovna Rada's Law Enforcement Committee, and three from the Cabinet of Ministers.

The commission was chaired by Tymofii Mylovanov, a figure close to the Presidential Office. Among its members was also Yuliia Svyrydenko, who at the time served at the same Presidential Office as a deputy to Andrii Yermak.

During interviews with the finalists, most commission members joined online but did not even appear on screen, asked no questions, and gave no indication that they were actually present.

In the end, the commission, composed entirely of Ukrainian representatives, selected Vadym Melnyk as ESBU head: a candidate drawn from the very same discredited tax police. Moreover, his victory was known long before Mylovanov's commission formally announced its decision.

The consequences are now well known. 60% of the "new" ESBU staff came from the ranks of the tax police. And within just a few years, Ukraine was forced to reboot what was supposed to be a fresh, modern institution.

In 2025, the ESBU head was selected with the participation of international experts. Under the new selection model, the commission was to choose no more than two finalists, with international experts holding a decisive vote. Six members were delegated by the Cabinet of Ministers, three of whom were international experts.

A decision was deemed adopted if it received the support of four commission members, at least two of them international experts.

The commission's work proved effective, as the ESBU ultimately did secure an independent head. However, the authorities still tried to derail the process, most notably by bringing in the Security Service.

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Competitions in which international experts have a decisive vote are, of course, not a silver bullet or a 100% guarantee of institutional success. Yet a decade of experience with such selection processes in law enforcement and the judiciary shows that this remains the best model available, one that at least offers a chance for genuine political independence. There is little need to explain that without competitive selections at NABU, SAPO, and HACC, we would not even have a chance for cases like "Midas" to exist.

At the same time, we are witnessing how unreformed institutions, led by politically controlled appointees, are openly attacking independent anti-corruption bodies in an effort to discredit and dismantle them.

That is precisely why independent competitions must become the norm for key leadership positions in the justice and law enforcement sectors.

A competitive selection process for the Prosecutor General is a reform Ukraine needs both domestically and to fulfil its commitments to international partners. Experience shows that the only way to make such a process effective is to minimise political interference.

The appointment of Ruslan Kravchenko as Prosecutor General in 2025 is a telling example of why reform is critical.

No one explained why Kravchenko was suited for the role, what his prior achievements were, or assessed his integrity and independence. Notably, he had previously failed in competitions for the SAPO prosecutor position and the NABU head position. Yet immediately after his appointment, Kravchenko attempted to strengthen his control over NABU and SAPO, which would have undermined the independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions.

In conclusion, the track record of appointing Prosecutors General and their subsequent conduct proves that without a competitive selection process and independent assessment, the result is inevitable political control over the institution. Instead of acting professionally and independently, the Prosecutor's Office becomes a tool of political pressure.

Only an independent selection process for the Prosecutor General, coupled with safeguards against politically motivated dismissal, can drive real change within the prosecution system.

The model of selection, with international experts playing a decisive role, is open to criticism. Yet for now, it remains the only mechanism that has consistently proven effective in practice across Ukraine's law enforcement and judicial systems.

So far, no better way to appoint senior officials to these institutions has been found.

Today, Notte is Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She specialises in Russian foreign policy, the Middle East, and arms control.

Notte has spent years studying how Russia projects power beyond its borders. In this interview with Ukrainska Pravda, she explains why the war around Iran is currently more beneficial for Russia than it may seem, yet carries long-term risks; why Moscow and Tehran remain strategic partners, but not allies; and how Ukraine has unexpectedly emerged as a new player in the Middle East.

You study Russian foreign policy in the Middle East. Is the current war around Iran more of an opportunity or a problem for Russia?

I think in the short term, the benefits and the opportunities outweigh the risks for Russia. We've seen several benefits materialise for Russia over the last six weeks or so [the interview was conducted on the 15th of April – ed.], I think the most meaningful one being Russia's renewed ability to export oil and rising oil prices.

The International Energy Agency said yesterday that Russian oil revenues, or revenues from oil sales, doubled in March compared to February, and this is happening at a time when Russia has a record budget deficit. So it comes at a very convenient time for Russia – it gives the Russian economy some breathing space.

The second benefit for Russia will be in the diversion of Patriot interceptors from Ukraine to the US allies in the Persian Gulf – the Gulf Arab states. Even if the war were to stop tomorrow, Gulf states will need to replenish their interceptor stockpiles, and so there will probably be pressure on those stockpiles and less for Ukraine.

And the third benefit for Russia, I would say, is not so much a diversion of attention from Ukraine to the Middle East – because coming from Berlin, I do believe that the Europeans remain very focused on Ukraine, even after four years of this war – but what this war has done is it has again produced some friction in the transatlantic relationship, with the Trump administration being upset at European NATO allies about not providing more support in the Strait of Hormuz.

But what this war above all has done is I think it has undermined US credibility, and it is exposing the United States or the Trump administration as weak. And this is of course welcome from Moscow's perspective.

Now, having said all this, I do think that there are risks or challenges for Russia from the Iran war that could manifest over the medium to long term depending on how this war further plays out.

And I want to suggest three risks or challenges for Russia. One is if there's a protracted war or even another escalation, it could lead to significant dampening of global growth or even a global recession. I think the IMF downgraded its forecast for global growth yesterday.

And so while Russia benefits from higher oil prices, Russia will not benefit if there's a global recession, because then overall demand for Russian hydrocarbons will be dampened.

The other risk relates to potential trajectories in the war that could lead to anything ranging from a significant weakening of Iran via fragmentation of Iran, internal unrest, insurgency, all the way to potential regime change.

The Iranian regime looks quite resilient today, and it looks like it is sitting firmly in the saddle, but we are still in the middle of something, and we don't know where we will be three months down the line. So there are some risks for Russia in terms of how the Islamic Republic will look some weeks or months down the line, and of course, fragmentation of Iran or even regime change are very negative scenarios for the Russian Federation.

And the final undesired consequence of this war for Russia is that it has put Ukraine newly on the map as a partner for Middle Eastern countries in a way that Ukraine arguably wasn't before this war. Now we see the Ukrainian president negotiating drone defence deals with the Gulf Arab states; he was in Jordan to discuss security cooperation; he visited Damascus to meet with the new Syrian government. So there's a new interest in Ukraine as a defence and economic partner, and this is something that Moscow does not like.

How deep is the Russia-Iran relationship now?

To me, Russia and Iran are strategic partners. They're not allies.

Of course, the defence cooperation has deepened over the last four years. The most significant manifestation of that is with Russia acquiring the Shahed technology from Iran. Russia also gave political and some economic and some defence support to Iran in return.

If we look at what Russia is doing now in the current war, it is providing some humanitarian aid – by Azerbaijan mostly. It is providing quite intensive political backing to Iran, especially on the UN Security Council. And there's some military assistance. There is the sharing of targeting data. There is the provision of operational guidance on how to employ Shahed drones in strike waves. And there is some evidence that Russia is also providing some Shahed drone shipments to Iran.

But I don't think Russia can go much further in supporting Iran in this war. They're not military allies. Russia has made it clear time and again that it is not obliged to fight on Iran's behalf. There's no mutual defence clause in the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement that they signed early last year. And we know that Russia also did not intervene last summer during the 12-day war.

So I don't think that they will intervene directly. They also cannot ship sophisticated weapons to Iran at this time for two reasons. One – and this has been a problem throughout the last four years – Russia doesn't actually have the bandwidth to do that, because its priority is Ukraine.

And secondly, Russia must also be prepared for the fact that probably the Israelis will strike any Russian weapons shipments bound for Iran, and we've already had some examples of this happening. The Israelis two weeks ago struck a shipment in the Caspian Sea on the Iranian side near an Iranian port which was presumably carrying Russian shipments to Iran. Israel did not comment on this much. They didn't call out Russia publicly, but they attacked the shipment.

So what this war is producing for Russia is also a situation where they have to walk a careful balancing act between Iran, their strategic partner, and Israel and the Gulf Arab states, which are also Russian partners. And you are already seeing growing friction again in the Russian-Israeli relationship because of this war.

The Russians complained that Israel targeted an RT journalist in southern Lebanon a few weeks ago, and the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador in Moscow. You had the situation with the shipment that was targeted in the Caspian Sea. And just a few days ago, the Russians sent a letter to Israel criticising the Israeli strikes near the Bushehr nuclear power plant in quite strong language.

I think there's a desire on all sides to not let the relationship blow up, but this is a situation that the Russians have to manage. And that's also why I think they will not go overboard in terms of supporting Iran.

So to put it in basic terms, to come back to your questions, Russia and Iran are partners. They share a common objective in wishing to undermine the United States and US allies in their respective regions. They share joint grievances against the international system as now not affording them the room to manoeuvre that they think they're entitled to. They will support each other. But Russian support to Iran is mostly support so that Iran can save itself – so some capabilities, some assistance, but short of direct military intervention, because Russia needs to prioritise Ukraine.

You mention Russia-Israeli relationships. Has anything changed or could change in this relationship because of this war?

For me, the Russia-Israel relationship has had its ups and downs already over the last four years against the backdrop of the full-scale invasion. Initially, the Israelis tried to mediate, remember, in March 2022 between Russia and Ukraine. They didn't join sanctions against Russia. Then the relationship soured a little bit when Yair Lapid took over the prime ministership in Israel. He, I think, criticised the Bucha massacre and was more forward-leaning in criticism of Russia, and you had a certain cooling in the Russia-Israel relationship.

It got worse after Hamas's October 7th attack and amid the Gaza war, where Russia opportunistically tapped into grievances over the Palestinian issue on the UN Security Council and you had a spike in opportunistic antisemitism in Russian state media and statements by Russian officials. But even as this was happening, at the highest level, at the strategic level, the Russia-Israel relationship remained intact.

Because the Israelis always knew, first of all, Russia is still present in Syria. So they have to deal with that. And the Israeli-Russian deconfliction channel on Syria stayed intact all the way until 8 December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad fell. And secondly, the Israelis always worry what more could Russia do for Iran.

And so from their point of view, they need a constructive channel with Moscow to make sure that Russia does not give sophisticated weapons to Iran. And I think they feel vindicated in this approach, because actually if we look over the last four years, yes, Russia has given some support to Iran, but it has not delivered the SU-35 fighter aircraft. It has not delivered sophisticated air defences.

So from an Israeli point of view, I think this approach was right, and it remains important even amid the current war. And I think the same logic applies to the Gulf Arab states. They need to deal with Russia for the same reasons and additional reasons: the fact that they sit together in OPEC+ and have to talk about oil production levels; the fact that you have thousands of Russian businesses also in the UAE. There are different layers of interests that tie these countries together that these countries have to navigate.

And this is the last thing I'll say on this – from all these countries' point of view, the worst-case scenario, and it is not an an improbable scenario, is that there will be no regime change in Iran, that the Islamic Republic stays intact, and that the current theocratic leadership stays, or maybe a leadership in which the IRGC will play a greater role.

Iran will be greatly weakened, but the regime is in power and it will need to reconstitute its military after this war, and who will Iran turn to? China and Russia. So there is a future of Russia-Iran cooperation that you also have to keep in mind from the perspective of these countries. And so you need channels to Moscow to talk about these things.

So you think that in the future, the Russian-Iranian relationship will be closer?

Not necessarily closer, but not weaker. Assuming that the regime stays in place, I think it will become even more dependent on Russia and China at least for a certain period because a lot of Iranian production sites and capabilities have been destroyed by Israel and the United States.

So it's going to be like a period after – I mean, it's not a perfect analogy, but after the Iran-Iraq war, after the 1980s, Iran needed to reconstitute militarily in the 90s, and they also turned to Russia during that period. So there could be a similar period where they need things from Russia and China to reconstitute. So we'll see a greater reliance by Iran on Russia and China.

And if Iran does not collapse, if it comes out of this war, it will have proven its resilience and also its utility in resisting the United States of America, and that will be useful to Russia in that regard.

So Russia will definitely keep its ties with the Islamic Republic intact, because that relationship gives Russia leverage with all other players in the Middle East. So I'm not necessarily seeing a much closer partnership, but I don't see a weakening of the partnership either.

As of now, who is more dependent on whom: Russia on Iranian drones, or Iran on Russia's diplomatic umbrella?

I think Iran is much more dependent on Russia than the other way around. I don't think that Russia at this time needs a lot from Iran in order to prosecute the war against Ukraine.

Russia has successfully localised the production of Shaheds and has even upgraded the systems in various ways: the anti-jamming capability, the speed, the warheads that they can carry. So they are more sophisticated weapons now than the original technology, and Russia is producing them in very high numbers now, so Russia doesn't really need drones from Iran anymore.

I also don't think that Russia needs Iranian ballistic missiles. There were some reported deliveries of Fath-360 ballistic missiles from Iran, but we never saw those deployed on the battlefield in Ukraine. And we also know that Russia is producing high numbers of ballistic missiles. So the short answer is, Russia doesn't need Iranian support to prosecute the war.

I think what North Korea provides Russia has long eclipsed the significance of Iranian support. That doesn't mean that Russia doesn't care about Iran being weakened – they can still work together in certain niche areas, they can maybe work together on new drone designs or other areas – but it's not existential for the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

But Iran needs Russia right now mostly for diplomatic backing. The Russian veto on the UN Security Council is important, and we saw recently that Russia and China vetoed a Bahrain GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council]-sponsored resolution on the Strait of Hormuz at the UN Security Council which was seen as anti-Iranian, and the Russians ended up vetoing it.

That's important for Iran, but I will also note at the end here that politically and diplomatically, Russia is not that important a player in this war at the end of the day. President Putin tried to insert himself as a mediator or as someone putting forward suggestions early in the war, just like he tried last summer during the 12-day war. Donald Trump rebuffed him. And Pakistan emerged as a chief mediator or facilitator. The Chinese played some role getting us to the ceasefire last week.

And what you have is a certain, I would call it Russian diplomatic hyper-activity behind the scenes – Sergei Lavrov speaking constantly with counterparts in the region. This week he's in China also to discuss the Middle East.

But the Russians are not really playing a key role in mediating or facilitating with Iran, because other players don't want them at the table. And so they're important to Iran at the Security Council, but they're also not a key mediator between the United States and Iran.

On the mediation side, the only scenario in which Russia could play a role is if there is an agreement on what to do with Iran's highly enriched uranium. The Russians have offered for years to play a role, and there's a precedent in the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] – Russia to ship the highly enriched uranium outside Iran and convert it into fuel – and the Russians keep reiterating this offer. So if we actually ever move into a phase where we have nuclear negotiations and a deal, there's theoretically a role for Russia if the United States is willing to let Russia play that role – and there's big question marks over that.

At the moment the two sides seem quite far away from each other, with the United States demanding a 20-year Iranian suspension of enrichment and the Iranians offering five years.

Is there any kind of scenario which will involve Russia more in the Iranian war and withdraw some Russian forces from Ukraine?

I'm quite sceptical. I do not think that Russia will intervene militarily.

The only scenario in which I could conceivably see it is: if this war produces a situation in which there's protracted internal instability inside Iran, I could see maybe some Russian emergency deployments, maybe PMCs [private military companies], to stabilise the regime. I don't see the Russian military intervening in fighting with the United States or Israel in this war – only this first scenario of stabilising the regime.

But even in that scenario, I think it would be calibrated. I think the Russian military has been quite risk-averse over the last four years while it has been fighting Ukraine. From Russian peacekeepers standing aside when Azerbaijan took over Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, to the decision to abandon the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024 and not surge Russian forces to help him withstand the rebel offensive, to the aversion to any entanglement in the war with Iran last summer – there's a pattern emerging here where I think the Russians understand that they cannot spare this kind of capacity.

And even in theatres where they have been going on the offence, like in the Sahel where after Prigozhin's failed mutiny, the Africa Corps has been deploying to more countries, it is in low numbers, and it is low-investment, low-risk deployments, because I think there is an understanding that, again, the priority is the war against Ukraine. And so for all of those reasons, I think it would be only under extreme and very specific scenarios that Russia could do something more for Iran.

Do you think it's because Russia just doesn't want to, or because it doesn't want to spoil the relationship with the US?

These factors are not mutually exclusive. Inability and political calculus can both play a role and both point in the same direction. I think there is a lack of bandwidth to do much for Iran at this time, so it's a lack of capacity. But it is also a political calculus. It is about not antagonising Israel, the Gulf Arab states and the Trump administration by being too forward-leaning in support of Iran.

But we have also seen so far that Russia has been getting away with providing some support for Iran. When Trump administration officials were confronted with the information that Russia is sharing targeting data with Iran – Donald Trump, Marco Rubio at one point – they essentially brushed this off as either inconsequential to the American war effort or, in Trump's case, even understandable when he kind of said, "Well, I guess Russia is doing for Iran what we are doing for Ukraine." So at this point, Russia is not paying a political price for the calibrated support it is giving to Iran.

My point is that if Russia were to escalate its support for Iran drastically, that could change. Not necessarily with the Trump administration, but perhaps with Israel and with the Gulf Arab States. So it needs to walk this balancing act of balancing these different relationships.

Ukraine has become useful for Iran's adversaries. What are the prospects of this, in your view?

Ukraine is becoming newly important to the Arab states for sure as a result of this war. The Ukrainian president towards Gulf Arab capitals. Ukraine has capabilities to offer that no one else has in that way, and expertise. And I really hope that the Ukrainian government is getting a good bargain for what it is offering to these countries.

So I think there is definitely a prospect for building more robust bilateral ties with all of these countries.

Will it mean that Ukraine can achieve a situation where these countries are also willing to reduce their cooperation with Russia? I honestly have doubts, because these countries have multi-layered long-standing ties with the Russian Federation too.

All these countries understand that Russia has a veto on the UN Security Council that it can wield. These countries look at Russia as a great power. The Gulf Arab states need to deal with Russia in OPEC+.

There are these complex layers of interests and ties. And so I think what the Arab states will do is they will expand their cooperation with Ukraine, no question, but they will try to do so without antagonising Russia. and they will also keep dealing with Russia. They are looking beyond Russia and Ukraine.

The Middle East is a region that's changing. It is a region that's at war. These countries are also hedging against an uncertain future in terms of the United States' presence and commitment to the region. They're looking towards China. They're looking towards other security partners. Saudi Arabia not so long ago signed a security agreement with Pakistan. So they're hedging for an uncertain future. They want a variety of partners and they don't want to put all their eggs in one basket. So that will apply to the Ukraine-Russia equation too.

And my last question for you today will be a more philosophical one: from your point of view, has World War III already started?

I don't look at what is happening in the world as a Third World War. We have a hot war in Europe, which I think will go on for some time. Even if we have a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, it does not solve the fundamental issue: the fundamental Russian intent to politically control Ukraine and in fact to revise the European security architecture as it crystallised after the end of the Cold War.

And we have a war in the Middle East now, which to me is the logical culmination point of October 7th, which is when Israel decided to take on Iran and the Axis of Resistance militarily, and did so in sequential steps and witnessed an opportunity to take on Iran, because its partners are weakened because you have a partner in the US administration that was amenable. So different factors came together for Israel to decide this is the time to do this. So we have this situation.

Now of course there are interlinkages between these theatres, because we have the Russian-Iranian partnership that we talked about, now we have a Ukrainian-Gulf partnership emerging, so there are these linkages because we are in an interconnected world.

My own view is that even with a Russian partnership with China, North Korea and Iran, which has without hesitation been incredibly important to the Russian war effort, I don't look at the world and understand it as being composed of a Russia-Iran-China-North Korea camp and the rest.

I think that the world is much more complicated. I think that a lot of players are hedging between different partners, between different powers. I don't think we're moving towards some kind of new bipolarity of democracies versus autocracies or CRINK [China, Russia, Iran and North Korea] versus the Western world. I think we're moving into something much, much messier and much more complex that is not going to fit into neat categories.