Croatian police arrested a Ukrainian diver in Pula on 19 August 2026 over his alleged role in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions, Croatian broadcaster HRT reported. German prosecutors confirmed to AP that the suspect was Volodymyr Zhuravlov (Zhuravliov in Ukrainian official transliteration). Legal Tribune Online reported that he was detained on the set of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island.

The arrest gives German prosecutors a third chance to secure Zhuravliov after two attempts in Poland failed. If Croatia extradites him, he would become the second suspected member of the alleged team to face proceedings in Germany. Berlin has pursued other suspects in the Nord Stream case across Europe, but the identity of the person who ordered the sabotage remains unknown.

Previous arrests and arrest attempts

Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said Zhuravliov was a trained scuba diver who took part in the dives needed to place explosives on Nord Stream 1 and 2 near Denmark’s Bornholm island. Prosecutors say the group sailed from Rostock aboard a yacht that middlemen rented from a German company using forged identity documents.

The 2024 European arrest warrant accuses Zhuravliov of jointly causing an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage, and destroying structures. He would appear before an investigating judge at Germany’s Federal Court of Justice following extradition, prosecutors said. A Croatian court must first approve his surrender.

LTO reported that investigators first sought Zhuravliov’s arrest in Poland in the summer of 2024, but he crossed into Ukraine before police detained him. Polish police arrested him near Warsaw in autumn 2025. However, a court rejected Germany’s extradition request after finding that the pipelines could be treated as a legitimate military target during an armed conflict. Zhuravliov has denied involvement.

His lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, told AP that Zhuravliov understood the Polish ruling applied only within Poland.

Another Ukrainian suspect, Serhii K., was arrested near Rimini in August 2025 and extradited to Germany that November after unsuccessful appeals. Prosecutors allege he coordinated the operation rather than joining the dives. They charged him in Hamburg in June 2026.

What was Nord Stream?

Nord Stream 1 and 2 ran beneath the Baltic Sea, carrying—or designed to carry—Russian gas directly to Germany while bypassing Ukraine. Explosions on 26 September 2022 damaged three of their four lines at a depth of about 80 meters.

No court has established who ordered the attack. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office says no facts demonstrate Ukrainian state involvement and is examining whether Russia staged a false-flag operation using Ukrainians. LTO reported that Germany’s Federal Court of Justice found strong grounds in December 2025 to believe that a state had initiated and directed the sabotage, but did not identify which state.

Gasoline was available at 28% of Russian gas stations last week, down from 41% the week before—despite a July government decree that authorized refineries to divert chemicals from industry, including defense production, into fuel, Izvestia reported on 18 August.

The diversion has since triggered motor oil shortages, and, as Kommersant reported, a government commission that met in mid-August to reverse course could not agree on how.

Moscow runs dry

Izvestia correspondents checked 21 stations in Moscow and Moscow Oblast on 17 August: only seven sold AI-92, and five sold AI-98. Gazprom Neft has reimposed purchase limits—40 liters at automated pumps, 60 at staffed ones, RBC reported on 19 August.

Russia has meanwhile received a tanker of Indian gasoline in Murmansk, initially priced at 130,000 rubles ($1,550) per ton—nearly double the 73,000-ruble ($870) domestic exchange price, Izvestia reported.

The chemicals in question—benzene, toluene, xylenes, and phenol—are intermediate refinery products used to make rubbers, plastics, and synthetic materials for industry, including defense. A 2 July decree authorized refineries to blend more of them into gasoline as an octane booster. The ISW assessed on 19 August that the diversion is now draining raw materials from industrial supply chains.

Motor oil shows the damage. Prices have risen 15–20% since January, with some products up 40% and imported brands roughly doubling, Kommersant reported on 19 August.

Dmitry Prokofiev, director of external communications at NEFT Research, told the paper that the lower-grade Euro-2 and Euro-3 fuel now at Russian stations wears engines faster and requires oil changes 1.5 to 2 times more frequently.

Drivers forced onto worse gasoline burn through motor oil faster, but the raw materials that would go into producing it are being diverted to make more gasoline.

From rationing to Rosgvardia

A Russian insider source cited by ISW claimed on 18 August that Rosgvardia—Russia’s heavily militarized internal security force—has deployed to gas stations in Moscow Oblast.

Rosgvardia personnel have reportedly appeared at no fewer than 13 stations across Russia and occupied Crimea over the summer.

A month ago, the governor of Rostov Oblast did something similar, sending Cossacks and volunteers to gas stations to keep order.

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

Separately, Russia’s legislative commission approved a bill on 18 August authorizing rescue forces under the Ministry of Emergency Situations to use physical force and firearms when nonviolent means prove insufficient, Vedomosti reported.

United Russia deputy Anatoly Vyborny, one of the bill’s co-authors, framed the measure as a counter-drone tool for evacuations. ISW assessed that it also provides legal cover for suppressing domestic unrest—an assessment the institute linked to involuntary mobilization reportedly under consideration after September’s State Duma elections.

A deliberately set fire at a Tallinn building used by Milrem Robotics did not disrupt its deliveries of military ground robots to Ukraine, CEO Kuldar Väärsi told Reuters on 19 August 2026. Estonian prosecutors said three suspects had been detained in Latvia.

The Milrem arson case fits in a broader pattern of suspected or confirmed sabotage against Ukraine’s military supply chain. Similar attacks throughout Europe have hit plants making drones, thermal optics, and other equipment for the front. Milrem supplies unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that help Ukrainian units move supplies and evacuate wounded without putting drawing upon valuable manpower.

The fire broke out overnight on 15 August in Tallinn’s Lasnamäe district after a resident reported suspicious activity. Nobody was injured, and Milrem has not disclosed what was damaged.

Milrem says it is one of only two foreign suppliers with unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) fleets in active Ukrainian service and expects more than 200 of its systems to be operating there by year-end.

The Netherlands is funding more than 150 additional Milrem vehicles for Ukraine. In June, Milrem and VDL Defentec opened a Dutch production line to support the delivery of more than 100 THeMIS UGVs. Väärsi the fire had not affected production, supply chains, or delivery schedules for this year or next.

Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are tracked or wheeled machines with no crew aboard. ArmyInform reported that Ukrainian troops use them to carry ammunition, fuel, and food along exposed routes. A Ukrainian commander identified only as Nazar told ArmyInform that frontline units still rely mainly on UGVs for logistics, although some robots carry explosives.

Three suspects detained as investigators examine possible Russian role

State Prosecutor Gardi Anderson said prosecutors suspect all three detainees of taking part in the arson. Latvian authorities are holding them while the two countries arrange their transfer to Estonia. An Estonian court approved prosecutors’ requests to place two in pretrial detention. A decision on the third remained pending.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said investigators were examining whether the fire was the result of sabotage and whether Russia was involved. Authorities have not disclosed the suspects’ alleged motive, whether anyone directed them, or released evidence connecting the attack to Moscow.

Arson has hit other European suppliers to Ukraine

In March, a fire destroyed nearly all of the production capacity at a Czech plant that makes drones and thermal optics for Ukraine. Authorities detained four suspects while investigating possible terrorism and Russian involvement.

Lithuania also charged six people over an attempt to burn a factory supplying radio-wave scanners to Ukraine. Investigators said Russia-based organizers with GRU links coordinated the operation and connected the network to attempted attacks elsewhere in Europe.

Russia has denied Western accusations that it conducts sabotage in Europe.

The US Army Contracting Command—Detroit Arsenal has published a market survey seeking companies that can supply components for M2A2 ODS-SA Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) headed to Ukraine—parts that original manufacturers have stopped making. The posting asks for firms with immediate access to the components or a realistic plan to restart their production, Militarnyi reported.

Maintaining Western armored vehicles in active combat has strained repair chains throughout the war, with licensing requirements and long lead times slowing restoration of battle-damaged equipment. When components go out of production entirely, the problem shifts from delayed repairs to no repairs at all.

Parts nobody makes

The survey targets components affected by what the command calls an aging manufacturing base. Original suppliers have discontinued production of multiple subsystems, including turret drive control units, transmission control modules, heater mounts, ammunition chutes, specialized Dialight Corp lens assemblies, and other structural, electrical, and mechanical parts unique to the M2A2 ODS-SA.

The posting is not a tender and does not guarantee a contract. Its stated goal is to identify companies that can either deliver the parts now or credibly restart production.

Restoring and sustaining Bradleys for Ukraine

The parts shortage creates a two-stage problem. Before Bradleys can be shipped to Ukraine, the US military refurbishes them at its depots—restoring each vehicle to combat-ready condition under a standard called Fully Mission Capable + Safety. Without the discontinued components, that refurbishment stalls.

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Ukraine’s M-2 Bradleys engage Russian infantry at point-blank range

The same parts are also needed to keep Bradleys already fighting in Ukraine on the road. The posting specifies that field servicing must proceed without delays caused by parts shortages—meaning the crisis affects both the pipeline into Ukraine and the fleet already there.

Potential contractors must demonstrate repair and technical validation capabilities, supply chain management, and the ability to quickly resume manufacturing of parts that no longer have a producer. The command requires a detailed transition plan with a timeline from contract signing to the delivery of the first restored vehicle.

The US also plans to involve the future contractor in training Ukrainian military mechanics. The contractor would develop courses, manuals, and provide specialized tools and equipment—including instruction on armored recovery vehicles.

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The 25-mm cannon, stops T-72s, if the turret still turns

The M2 Bradley carries infantry into combat and mounts a 25-mm M242 Bushmaster cannon that fires up to 500 rounds per minute and can defeat Russian light armored vehicles and the side and rear armor of main battle tanks. The US has supplied more than 200 Bradleys to Ukraine under the previous administration, with combat losses mounting across multiple frontline sectors.

Separately, the US Army presented XM30 infantry fighting vehicle candidates at the Michigan Defense Expo 2026—the program is eventually designed to replace the Bradley.

Estonia is investigating whether Russia was behind a suspected arson attack at a Tallinn building used by Milrem Robotics, Prime Minister Kristen Michal said on 18 August.

Officials have not released evidence yet connecting Moscow to the fire.

The fire hit a site used by a defense contractor that makes unmanned ground vehicles, including THeMIS vehicles used in Ukraine. The Estonian investigation into the Milrem fire comes amid suspected or confirmed arson plots against other European factories supplying Ukraine.

Estonian prosecutors said the fire, which began overnight into 15 August, may have been deliberately set. A resident reported suspicious activity nearby. Investigators identified suspects and asked a court to detain them. No one was injured, and Milrem CEO Kuldar Väärsi told the Estonian outlet Postimees that it was too early to assess the damage.

The company executive said the site was not an office building but declined to identify its contents or what was damaged, including whether unmanned ground vehicles were inside. The company has not said whether production or deliveries were affected.

Milrem’s THeMIS vehicles have operated in Ukraine since 2022. By 2023, the company had delivered 15 of the vehicles to Ukrainian forces and border guards. A Dutch-funded order for more than 150 additional vehicles followed in 2025. A new Dutch production line began making them in June 2026 and handed over its first vehicles for Ukraine.

Other factories supplying Ukraine have faced arson

In March, a fire damaged a Czech facility belonging to LPP Holding, which had supplied hundreds of AI-guided drones to Ukraine. Czech authorities investigated possible terrorism and later detained a fourth suspect.

In January, Lithuania charged six people over an attempt to burn a factory supplying radio-wave scanners to Ukraine. Investigators said Russia-based organizers with GRU links coordinated the operation and connected the network to attempted attacks elsewhere in Europe.

Estonia has traced earlier attacks to Russian intelligence

Estonia has also uncovered Russian-directed attacks on its own territory. In 2024, Estonia’s security service detained 10 people over a Russian-coordinated operation that included damaging cars belonging to then-Interior Minister Lauri Läänemets and a journalist and defacing monuments. Officials said the operation sought to spread fear and tension. Journalists from The Insider, Re:Baltica, and Delfi reported how the GRU recruited Baltic residents for vandalism and arson.

In 2025, an Estonian court found that a Moldovan national working for the GRU burned a supermarket as a trial run before firebombing a Ukrainian restaurant in Tallinn. His cousin filmed the second attack.

Those cases explain why investigators are examining a possible Russian role in the Milrem fire, but they do not establish who caused it.

Ukraine has opened its own criminal investigation into the 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, months after Germany charged a Ukrainian over the blasts, Suspilne reported. Prosecutors in Kyiv registered the case on war-crimes grounds and say they will test whether Russia staged the sabotage to discredit Ukraine. Serhii Kuznietsov is due to stand trial in Germany in October.

Kyiv will test a Russian false-flag version

Ukraine's Security Service, under the Prosecutor General's Office, opened proceedings on 9 July under the article on violations of the laws and customs of war. Kuznietsov's Ukrainian lawyer, Mykola Katerynchuk, told Suspilne about the case.

The Prosecutor General's Office confirmed it is supervising a probe into the "possible commission in September 2022, amid the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, by citizens of Ukraine, of actions connected to the undermining" of both pipelines in the Baltic Sea. It said the case was registered after the "independent discovery in the media" that Germany had charged a Ukrainian citizen.

Given Russia's use of hybrid methods, investigators will also examine whether Russians organized the explosions as a "false flag" operation, using Ukrainian citizens or imitating their participation to discredit Ukraine.

The office said it used the laws-and-customs-of-war charge because it matches the qualification chosen by Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office.

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The case against Serhii Kuznietsov

The pipelines exploded on 26 September 2022. On 8 August 2025, Germany's Federal Court of Justice issued an arrest warrant for Kuznietsov, alleging he led a group of six who mined the pipelines and detonated them remotely.

Italian police arrested him on 21 August 2025, and Italy's Supreme Court later confirmed his extradition to Germany. A Polish court, by contrast, refused a German request for another Ukrainian suspect, Volodymyr Zhuravlov.

On 2 July 2026, Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office published its charges — an attack on civilian objects, causing an explosion, and destroying structures. Kuznietsov denies guilt.

Ukrainian drones struck Moscow and the surrounding oblast overnight into 18 August, cutting power, setting off fires, and hitting a warehouse of the Russian online retailer Wildberries, monitoring Telegram channels reported. Russian officials claimed air defenses shot down most of the drones and blamed the damage on falling wreckage. Ukraine's military did not claim the attack.

Fires and casualties across Moscow Oblast

Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ began posting footage of the strikes around 4:00. Fires broke out on an apartment-block roof and in another building in a town east of Moscow, and a retail pavilion caught fire near a shopping mall in a town to the southeast, Russian news Telegram channel Astra reported. Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov claimed air defenses downed more than 150 drones over the oblast. He stated three people were hurt, and that debris damaged homes.

The attack knocked out electricity for more than 5,000 customers and 46 "socially significant" facilities in two districts east of the capital, knocking 109 transformer substations offline, the regional utility Mosoblenergo said. It blamed equipment damage early on 18 August and estimated about two hours to restore power.

A Wildberries warehouse hit

A drone hit a Wildberries logistics warehouse in the region, where Vorobyov said a fire was quickly contained with no casualties. Wildberries said debris only grazed a wall, that staff had been evacuated in advance, and that its goods were unharmed. Footage shared by Exilenova+ showed a large hole near the roof and no visible fire.

Russia's claims

Russian officials gave sweeping counts. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed 620 drones flew toward the capital region overnight, with 180 downed there. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it destroyed 791 drones over 15 Russian regions and occupied Crimea. In a separate daily tally, it claimed 1,671 drones over 24 hours, Interfax-Russia reported. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti called the claimed drone figure an absolute record. 

Ukraine's response

Ukraine's General Staff listed strikes on an ammunition depot in Donetsk Oblast and several drone-control points in Russia's Belgorod Oblast and Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast, but made no mention of the Moscow attack. 

Ukrainian defense-technology company Fire Point posted video of drones over the region, citing reported explosions near a Moscow oil refinery and a possible hit on warehouse infrastructure. Fire Point manufactures the FP-1—one of the types of long-range drones widely used in such attacks.

A campaign on a Russian retail giant

Wildberries warehouses have become a frequent Ukrainian target. On 16 August, Ukraine struck the retailer's logistics sites near Moscow, halting operations, and Kyiv has now knocked out seven of its 10 largest warehouses. The strikes have cost the company at least 17% of its warehouse space and pushed it to seek storage in Kazakhstan.

Entry-level employers are finding it harder—and more expensive—to recruit young men. On Work.ua, one of Ukraine’s largest job platforms, the number of male candidates aged 18 to 22 who responded to vacancies fell 19% between July 2025 and July 2026, Lesia Prymakova told Ukrainska Pravda. The decline reached 29% in hospitality and retail.

At the same time, advertised entry-level pay moved close to Work.ua’s overall median. The median salary for vacancies open to students rose 24%, while pay for jobs requiring no experience increased 23%.

The candidate pool shrank after the government eased wartime travel restrictions for men aged 18 to 22 last summer, following an initiative by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The government said the change was intended to discourage families from taking boys abroad before their 18th birthdays, when the previous rules would have prevented them from leaving.

Hospitality and retail feel the squeeze

Restaurant owners tied the decline in young applicants directly to the eased travel rules. Sommelier Oleh Kravchenko, who owns Kyiv wine bar Win Bar, said two of his staff, a bartender and a cook, were preparing to leave the country, and that the bar had begun hiring more women, whereas server positions had earlier been held only by men.

He said his payroll had risen 5 to 10% and that he now raised wages at least every six months, even as rent, utilities, and food costs also climbed. Olena Borysova, who owns the GastroFamily group behind the Bilyi Naliv chain, said young applicants had become rare over the past year.

Ukraine’s labor shortage extends far beyond this age group. Ukraine’s full-time workforce fell from 7 million in 2021 to 5.3 million by late 2025, while the National Bank expects the net outflow of workers to continue into 2027.

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Ukraine’s economy posted its sharpest contraction since the wartime recovery began

Against that backdrop, 48% of companies reported labor shortages in a survey cited by Ukrainska Pravda, without attributing them specifically to the travel change, and Work.ua put the overall median advertised wage up 20% year on year. These are nominal advertised salaries; annual inflation stood at 7.7% in July, so the real increase is smaller.

No one knows how many stayed abroad

No reliable count shows how many young men remained abroad. Social Policy Minister Denys Uliutin cited an estimate from European partners that some 400,000 men aged 18 to 22 left Ukraine between August 2025 and April 2026. However, the estimate does not identify unique individuals or subtract those who later returned, Vasyl Voskoboinyk, head of the NGO Office of Migration Policy, told Ukrainska Pravda.

Voskoboinyk estimated that around 300,000 men in this age group had been working, equivalent to about 2% of Ukraine’s labor force, and said their departures had not caused a broader labor-market collapse.

Available education data show no comparable decline. The Education Ministry recorded a 28% year-on-year rise in university applications, while Kyiv-Mohyla rector Serhiy Kvit said the academy had not seen mass withdrawals. Applications count submissions rather than enrolled or retained students, so the increase indicates continued demand for places rather than a settled outcome.

Voskoboinyk said it was still too early to determine whether the policy had reduced departures among 16- and 17-year-old boys, its stated long-term aim.

Employers widen who they recruit

Employers are recruiting more broadly to fill the gap. Olena Kolesnikova of the Federation of Employers said firms were increasingly willing to hire from groups they had previously overlooked, with 94.4% open to internally displaced people, 91% to veterans, and 88% to people with disabilities.

Keeping young people in Ukraine, she argued, would take more than pay. "The right question is not how to keep young people from leaving, but how to make it worthwhile for a young person to start a career and build a life in Ukraine after they finish studying," she said.

Germany has placed part of a federal ministry directly next to a Berlin building that France links to Russian intelligence, the newspaper Tagesspiegel reported. The branch office shares a wall with the Russian House, a cultural center long suspected of serving as a Kremlin front. One of its units works on protecting Germany's critical networks from attack.

A shared wall in the heart of Berlin

The Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs opened a branch at Taubenstraße 42/43 on 1 July. It sits wall-to-wall with the Russian House on Friedrichstraße, reporter Claudia von Salzen found. The ministry moved in because its main headquarters nearby had run out of space.

Two of the ministry's six departments now operate there. One covers digital infrastructure, including a unit for the security and resilience of public telecom networks.

The other handles digital identities, trust services, and the cybersecurity industry. Both are fields a hostile intelligence service would want to watch.

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Why the address raises alarms

The Russian House is officially a science and culture center. It opened on Friedrichstraße in 1984 to promote friendship with the Soviet Union.

Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian state agency, runs it. The EU sanctioned that agency in July 2022 as the Kremlin's main tool for hybrid influence. In Germany, it allegedly helped organize pro-Russian rallies, and many of its staff abroad are Russian intelligence officers.

A leaked French Interior Ministry letter states the building serves as cover for Russian intelligence. The Russian House rejected that and claimed it is a purely cultural institution.

Other branches of government took the threat seriously

Across town, German lawmakers near the Russian Embassy hardened their offices years ago. They were told to avoid Bluetooth devices and to fit their windows with anti-espionage film.

Berlin is also reviewing whether to close the Russian House over the espionage suspicions, TVP World reported. A senior lawmaker, Roderich Kiesewetter of the CDU, called the ministry's choice a clear failure of risk awareness.

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The ministry said it picked the site because the building is federally owned and the right size. It did not answer whether the proximity to the Russian House counts as a security risk.

Russia's shadow war has already reached Germany

Germany has become one of the busiest fronts in Russia's campaign of drone incursions, sabotage, and spying. By December, Germany had logged more than 1,000 suspicious drone flights in 2025 alone. The drones have swarmed both civilian airports and military sites, shutting Munich Airport over two days in October 2025 and stranding thousands of travelers. Analysts judge it highly likely that Russia flew some 144 surveillance drones over a dozen NATO countries between August 2024 and February 2026, including near Ramstein Air Base and NATO nuclear sites. In early August 2026, security staff found an explosives-laden drone beside a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig-Halle airport, an incident Western intelligence tied to Moscow.

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A bomb-laden drone hit a Ukrainian An-124 in Germany, then lay unnoticed for hours

Much of the ground work runs through disposable agents recruited online. In March 2026, authorities arrested operatives who had surveilled the head of a Bavarian drone firm arming Ukraine, a case its domestic service treats as a planned assassination. Prosecutors separately charged three men over a plot to mail exploding parcels from Germany, described as a test run for future arson attacks.

As Russia damages Ukraine's holiest sites, other countries are paying to rebuild them. Switzerland will contribute about $730,000 to the preservation and restoration of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, whose Dormition Cathedral was damaged in a Russian strike two months ago, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.

The gift is a piece of an international effort to protect the Ukrainian heritage that Russia is attacking. On the night of 15 June, a Russian attack drone struck the altar section of the Dormition Cathedral, igniting a large fire that burned about 80% of the roof structures, according to UkrInform.

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, where the cathedral is located, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and carries enhanced protection under the 1954 Hague Convention's Second Protocol.

The strike hit a site weeks before its anniversary

Sybiha framed the strike as a deliberate blow to a spiritual landmark. Russia hit the centuries-old shrine two months before the Lavra's 975th anniversary, deliberately targeting one of Ukraine's most important spiritual and cultural landmarks, he said.

He tied the damage to a wider Russian aim.

"While Russia seeks to destroy Ukraine's cultural heritage and erase our identity, our partners stand with us in protecting and preserving it for future generations," Sybiha said.

Switzerland's aid comes through UNESCO

The Swiss contribution channels international heritage protection. Switzerland's Federal Council delegate for Ukraine, Jacques Gerber, announced in Kyiv that Switzerland would provide the contribution through UNESCO to protect and restore the shrine.

Sybiha thanked Switzerland for its support and for Gerber joining Ukraine in Kyiv to mark the 975th anniversary of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

"Together, we are safeguarding Ukraine's heritage and an invaluable part of Europe's and the world's cultural legacy," he said, framing the Lavra's preservation as a shared European and global responsibility, not Ukraine's alone.

The aid answers a documented campaign against heritage

As of the end of July 2026, Russian forces damaged or destroyed 1,990 cultural heritage sites and 2,625 cultural infrastructure sites in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian government.

The Ministry of Culture records the highest number of damaged cultural heritage sites in Kharkiv Oblast — 358, Kherson Oblast — 303, Kyiv — 272, Donetsk Oblast — 229, and Odesa Oblast — 211.

Cultural institutions have been damaged in 354 territorial communities, representing 24% of all communities in Ukraine.

The pattern in the US and Britain is clear. They serve up stunt after stunt to mask incompetence and the betrayal of all those who trusted them

It’s a shame Nigel Farage ducked the announcement of his victory in the Clacton byelection, which confirmed his return as MP for the seat he had needlessly resigned from just a few weeks earlier. You’d have thought he would have loved it. It was the culmination of a stunt, an exercise in politics as performance. It was a display animated by – and seeking to inflame – grievance, a million miles away from the hard, grinding work of tackling the problems that underlie those grievances. It was an attempt to deflect scrutiny, distract attention and evade responsibility. It was, in other words, everything nationalist populists like him excel at. Indeed, the only thing.

Reform UK said Farage stayed away because Essex police had warned of a “credible threat” to his security, a claim swiftly denied by Essex police. (Add a flexible approach to the truth to that list of nationalist populists’ talents.) Still, it was a slightly odd claim to make. Recall Farage’s favoured explanation – there are others – for the undeclared £5m gift he received from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which prompted the very parliamentary investigation that so riled the Reform leader he felt compelled to quit his seat and seek a preemptive not guilty verdict from the people of Clacton: namely, that he needed the money to pay for private, enhanced security. It seems £5m was not quite enough to ensure the lucky recipient would be safe standing next to a man dressed as a bin.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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A Kyiv court has sentenced an unemployed man to 15 years in prison with confiscation of his property for carrying out arson attacks on behalf of Russian intelligence, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on 13 August. The man was recruited while looking for "easy money" on Telegram channels and carried out two arson attacks in Kyiv before fleeing to Odesa, the SBU reported.

Russian intelligence increasingly recruits Ukrainians through Telegram for arson and sabotage. It targets people seeking quick money and treats them as disposable operatives, paying small sums for a single task and discarding them once they are caught.

The Russian agent carried out two arson attacks

According to the SBU, the man first set fire to a relay cabinet belonging to a railway signaling system. Russia intended the attack to disrupt freight logistics, including supplies to areas near the front.

The agent later burned a volunteer’s SUV used to deliver humanitarian aid and evacuate civilians from areas affected by Russia’s war. He carried out the attacks at night, using a flammable mixture and filming each incident on his smartphone before sending the footage to his Russian handler.

The SBU arrested him in Odesa in July 2025, where he had attempted to hide after carrying out the attacks. Investigators seized his phone, which contained evidence of his cooperation with Russia.

A court found him guilty on two counts — sabotage committed under martial law, and intentional destruction of property by arson — both carried out as part of a group acting on prior conspiracy. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of his property.

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Easy money, hard time: other Telegram recruits jailed too

The case follows several similar convictions. In a May case, an agent received 15 years for burning a railway relay cabinet near a Dnipro station in an attempt to disrupt frontline logistics. The SBU said the unemployed local, recruited through Telegram, filmed the arson and reported it to his handler, then was caught before he could carry out a planned series of attacks on the city's critical infrastructure.

In June 2026, another agent was sentenced to 15 years for preparing to burn an electrical substation in Kropyvnytskyi.

In July, SBU investigators reported that a GRU agent in Zaporizhzhia received 15 years for preparing explosives for Russian-organized attacks.

On 13 August, the Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar partisan movement ATESH said its agents had disabled a communications tower near Pylna in northern Kharkiv Oblast. The group said the damage disrupted links between two Russian motor rifle regiments near the border.

Pylna lies on the Russian border and was among the villages seized when Moscow opened the northern Kharkiv front in May 2024. The claimed tower attack is part of a wider Ukrainian resistance effort behind Russian lines. Moscow's forces still depend on infrastructure in occupied territory to communicate, move supplies, and hold the line. Ukraine’s underground fighters exploit that dependence from within, targeting communications, transport, and fuel supplies to create problems for Russian units at the front.

ATESH said the tower carried data between Russian command posts and coordinated units in the area. The movement said its loss disrupted command channels and delayed border-zone mobile groups. It did not say how agents disabled the tower or how long the interruption would last.

The partisans stated that the communications between Russia’s 345th and 380th motor rifle regiments were hit hardest. The regiments operate in neighboring sectors and rely on stable links for joint action and rapid responses, according to the group. ATESH claimed their offensive tempo and ability to support each other had fallen.

Neither the claimed ATESH sabotage nor its reported effects have been independently verified.

ATESH attacks on Russian supply lines

The tower claim follows ATESH’s 10 August account of sabotaging an electric locomotive near Voronezh. The group said it carried military supplies toward the Kupiansk front in Kharkiv Oblast. In June, ATESH also said agents damaged power and rail equipment near Russia’s Novomoskovsk Azot plant, whose output feeds explosives production.

ATESH has also reported intelligence work inside Russian forces. In July, the group said an agent reported a Ukrainian strike on five military fuel trucks in occupied Luhansk. Together, the claims describe a campaign against transport, fuel, and communications behind the front.

Ukrainian resistance works behind the front

The claimed tower operation is one part of the Ukrainian resistance behind Russian lines. Underground networks also gather intelligence and sustain civil defiance. 

A Euromaidan Press investigation documented groups planting explosives, tracking Russian positions, distributing leaflets, and painting Ukrainian symbols despite the threat of imprisonment and torture.

ATESH says its network includes Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, anti-war Russians, and sources inside Russia’s military and occupation administrations. Its claims are often impossible to verify independently. Taken together, they portray a campaign to make Russia’s rear less secure while other groups preserve Ukrainian identity under occupation.

Russia may expand hybrid attacks against Poland and the Baltic states, including infrastructure sabotage or false-flag attacks, Bloomberg reported on 12 August, citing an unnamed European intelligence official. 

The warnings come amid concern that Moscow wants to intimidate Ukraine’s supporters. The CIA warning follows Russian threats, incursions, alleged sabotage plots, and disinformation against Poland and the Baltic states. Most Western military aid reaches Ukraine through Poland, while the Baltic states rank among Kyiv’s strongest supporters. Sabotage of transport, energy, or communications can slow aid delivery and test NATO while hiding Russia’s role.

Separately, a European government official told Bloomberg that the CIA had warned countries in the region of a possible future Russian attack. The CIA declined to comment.

The same official said Russia might instead be creating the impression of an impending attack to sow fear as part of an information operation. The official saw no signs that Moscow was preparing a conventional attack or invasion.

Moscow tests NATO’s eastern flank

Poland and Lithuania had already raised similar concerns. In July, Poland said it had credible intelligence that Russia was planning new provocations. Lithuania later warned that Moscow might rebuild captured Ukrainian drones for false-flag strikes on critical infrastructure.

In September 2025, between 19 and 23 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, shutting down airports and damaging buildings. Poland closed four airports as NATO aircraft responded.

Meanwhile, five people are on trial in Lithuania over attacks allegedly organized for Russian military intelligence in 2024, Bloomberg reported. Lithuania has reinforced infrastructure sites and deployed troops since June.

These warnings and incidents place the CIA alert within a wider pattern of pressure on NATO’s eastern flank and Ukraine’s supporters. 

How Russia strikes without starting a war

Bloomberg cited several recent unexplained drone incidents in Germany alongside the CIA warning. Citing Die Zeit, Euromaidan Press reported that an explosive-laden drone struck the wing of a parked Ukrainian An-124 at Leipzig-Halle airport and failed to detonate. A US Defense Department official in Europe told CNN that Washington assessed the drone belonged to Russian intelligence. 

Bloomberg also reported that a cargo plane hit an unidentified object and that drones appeared over a military base the following day. It did not connect either incident to Russia.

More broadly, Russian hybrid operations have grown sharply since the full-scale invasion. CSIS found that attacks in Europe tripled from 2023 to 2024, after quadrupling the previous year. Separately, the US Helsinki Commission mapped nearly 150 operations in NATO territory attributed to or suspected of Russia between February 2022 and November 2024.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges told Euromaidan Press in February that attacks on ports, railways, and cables can probe routes needed for NATO reinforcements. Their deniability raises the political cost of responding.

By hiding its role, Moscow can disrupt support for Ukraine and test NATO without openly starting a war. 

Poland will decide within days whether to send Ukraine another batch of Patriot interceptor missiles, Deputy Defense Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said in a radio interview RMF24. Any transfer, she said, has to be judged first against Poland's own security.

A Russian strike on NATO soil is now moving Warsaw where months of Ukrainian appeals had not. Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz leans toward sending more interceptors after a Russian missile crashed inside Poland on 30 July, and that he would rather one be shot down over Ukraine than reach Polish soil.

Tusk had signaled at the end of July that Warsaw would soon weigh sending more Patriots. Sobkowiak-Czarnecka's remarks are the first to put a timeline on that decision.

Warsaw had been split for weeks over whether giving up the missiles was the right call. She set that argument aside, saying only that a decision is a matter of the coming days.

A second handover from a thin stock

This would not be the first transfer. In the spring, Poland quietly gave Ukraine five PAC-3 MSE interceptors — the missiles a Patriot battery uses to stop ballistic threats — a move confirmed only in July, when the defense ministry declassified its aid records and Prime Minister Donald Tusk put the number at five.

The disclosure drew sharp criticism at home. Opposition figures noted that the PAC-3 is the only interceptor Poland holds capable of downing Russia's Iskander ballistic missiles — the same class of weapon now crossing into Polish airspace.

Why the interceptors are so scarce

PAC-3 interceptors are among the hardest munitions in NATO to spare. The United States builds them at a rate that does not cover its own needs, and only a handful of alliance members operate them at all.

Ukraine has been pressing for them for months. In early July, after one of the largest air attacks of the war, Kyiv appealed to nearly 40 countries to release Patriot missiles from existing stocks, warning that its air defenses cannot stop Russia's ballistic missiles without them.

Poland holds roughly 200 of the interceptors, by Ukrainian estimates — its own shield against the missiles now reaching its border. Kosiniak-Kamysz's reasoning turns that overlap into the case for giving some away: better the interceptor meets the missile over Ukraine than over Poland.

The transfer would come with Polish-Ukrainian relations at their lowest point in years. In May, Volodymyr Zelenskyy granted a special forces unit the honorary title "Heroes of the UPA" — the wartime insurgent army Poland blames for the Volhynia massacres of the 1940s, which Warsaw recognizes as genocide. Polish President Karol Nawrocki responded in June by stripping Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, the country's highest honor; three former Ukrainian presidents returned their own in solidarity, and Nawrocki has since tied Ukraine's path into the EU to the unresolved history. Yet the friction runs mostly at the presidential level. The aid decisions sit with the Tusk government, and it has kept the weapons — and now, in all likelihood, the interceptors — moving to Kyiv regardless.

Ukraine holds only about a tenth of the Patriot interceptor missiles it needs from the United States to stop Russia's surging ballistic strikes, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN. Selling Kyiv 5% of the current US stockpile would carry the country through winter, he said, and 10% would let it "destroy all the Russians' ballistic missiles" — but he holds 1%.

The plea puts a number on a shortage that has run through Ukraine's diplomacy all summer and left its cities increasingly exposed. It is the concrete cost of near-empty interceptor stocks: on 5 August, Russia fired 28 ballistic and anti-ship missiles at Kyiv and Ukraine intercepted none of them, killing 17 people, and four days earlier launched 27 ballistic missiles with only one stopped. July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, according to the UN.

The arithmetic of a losing race

"This year we have two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025," Zelenskyy said, while "Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before."

The interceptor that most reliably stops those missiles, the US-made Patriot's PAC-3, is scarce worldwide: the war between the United States and Iran drained stocks as American and Gulf forces spent dozens against Iranian missiles and drones, and the shortage has fallen hardest on Ukraine.

The bottleneck is structural, not budgetary. Only five or six countries build interceptors capable of stopping ballistic missiles, the US makes around 600 Patriots a year, and orders are placed years in advance — so money alone cannot close the gap before winter, defense expert Marc DeVore told Euromaidan Press in June.

A home-built Patriot, still uncertain

Zelenskyy said doubts remain over whether US President Donald Trump's apparent offer to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot interceptors will materialize. At the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump said he would license Ukraine to build the missiles, then days later said he was unsure; the Patriot makers have since sent officials to Kyiv, without result so far. "I hope that I will get it," Zelenskyy said, calling it "one of the biggest [challenges] I had from the very beginning of this war."

He described daily, largely private deal-making to close the gap: "million phone calls ... I try to exchange something to missiles ... I do some things which I can't even share. It doesn't mean that it's outside of the law. But I can't speak about it."

Putin, the Donbas, and the next war

On the stalled peace process, Zelenskyy said Kyiv had put new proposals to the Trump administration and needed "more involvement of the American side," adding that Vladimir Putin "doesn't want to stop this war now and (there's) not enough pressure on him now." He rejected ceding the rest of the Donbas that Putin seeks, arguing security guarantees matter more: "Why he will not come again ... to occupy us?"

He confirmed a recent call with Vice President JD Vance but declined to say whether Vance had asked Ukraine to halt strikes on a Russian Black Sea oil port that were hurting US firms and threatening a spike in global energy prices, as the Financial Times reported. Zelenskyy also endorsed Western assessments that Putin could widen the war toward a smaller NATO state, likely in the Baltics: "He wants quick victory ... occupy or destroy or control."

A Ukrainian court sentenced the former chief engineer of Lyman’s locomotive depot to 15 years in prison with property confiscation for helping Russia target the frontline city, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said on 11 August. Investigators report he sent a Russian handler the locations of Ukrainian positions intended for guided-bomb and artillery strikes.

Lyman blocks Russia’s northern route toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which are part of Ukraine's fortress belt in the Donbas. As attacks on supply lines intensify, information about Ukrainian positions can help Russia direct bombs and artillery. The case fits a broader pattern of Russian intelligence recruiting people inside Ukraine to locate targets. Russian services have used money and blackmail, including threats against recruits’ families, to secure their cooperation.

According to the SBU, the former engineer traveled around Lyman and its outskirts to record Ukrainian military bases. He marked possible targets on Google Maps, then sent screenshots to a handler in Russia through a messaging app.

The collaborator operated from basement

The agency said an acquaintance whom it described as a “DNR deputy” in occupied Donetsk Oblast connected him with Russian intelligence. The SBU said the man moved into an apartment building’s basement to shelter himself while directing Russian strikes on the community.

SBU officers detained him in Sloviansk in May 2026. The agency said a seized smartphone contained evidence of his reconnaissance and contacts with the Russian side.

The SBU did not identify the man, the court, or any specific strike enabled by his information.

How Russia turns locals into spotters 

The Lyman case involved an acquaintance of the former engineer, but Russian services also use money, blackmail, and online platforms to find recruits. The SBU says minors may initially receive simple assignments, such as taking photographs or painting graffiti, before being directed toward more serious sabotage.

Other recruits have allegedly answered Telegram offers of “easy money.” These include a Zaporizhzhia man later convicted of building bombs and a Dnipro suspect accused of activating more than 1,000 Starlink terminals for Russian forces.

Ukraine has prosecuted similar cases before. In November 2024, a court sentenced another Russian agent to 15 years for guiding missile and drone strikes in Zhytomyr Oblast.

More recent cases remain at the allegation stage. The SBU has accused a Kharkiv Oblast man of installing hidden cameras near military sites and a Poltava student of mapping energy facilities while filming air-defense units.

Newly analyzed airport camera footage shows a quadcopter drone loaded with Semtex explosive flew straight at a parked Ukrainian An-124 Ruslan cargo aircraft and struck its wing at Leipzig/Halle airport in Germany on the evening of 4 August, the media outlet Die Zeit reported on 10 August. The device bounced off the wing, fell to the ground, and failed to detonate. The drone attacked the aircraft at around 19:30 local time, the media outlet reports.

Russia's hybrid attacks are increasingly moving from the information domain into the physical one, including on the territory of other countries. This incident makes sabotage on NATO member states' territory potentially more dangerous if suspicion of Russian involvement is confirmed.

Footage contradicts the warning-shot theory

The drone struck the wing near the fuel tanks, then bounced off the aircraft's surface and fell to the ground. The explosive device also ended up on the ground and did not detonate. The device contained Semtex plastic explosive. Approximately four hours later, a tourist bus driver accidentally noticed it lying on the ground, put his foot on it, and reported the find to airport security.

Video analysis contradicts the earlier theory that the incident may have been intended only as a warning. The nature of the attack indicates an attempt to cause actual damage.

Investigators examining foreign state involvement

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt suggested that a state actor may have been behind the explosive-laden drone found at the airport. On 7 August, Germany's National Security Council convened under Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Earlier, the United States assessed that the drone discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany overnight into 5 August belonged to Russian intelligence, a US Department of Defense official in Europe told CNN.

The cargo aboard the Ukrainian aircraft targeted in the sabotage attempt consisted of military equipment and ammunition that had arrived in Germany from France and was being prepared for further transportation, Süddeutsche Zeitung stated, citing a confidential German police report. However, Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior denied this claim, according to dpa.

The An-124 Ruslan, struck by the drone, is operated by the Ukrainian company Antonov Airlines. After Russian forces destroyed its main base in Hostomel in 2022, the company has been using Leipzig/Halle airport as a temporary base for its aircraft.

Sweden says it caught and stopped a Russian spy operation. Säpo Security Service has exposed the intelligence operation aimed at discrediting the country, Sweden Herald reported.

The operation is one strand of Russia's hybrid campaign against Europe. Since the full-scale war in Ukraine, Russia has run espionage, sabotage, and influence operations across European states, from undersea cable damage in the Baltic to disinformation. The Swedish case is one such effort, aimed at undermining Swedish decision-making and discrediting Sweden and the EU.

The agent worked from a diplomatic mission

For the operation, Russian intelligence recruited its source inside a foreign embassy. The agent, recruited at a foreign diplomatic mission in Sweden, gathered information on the decision-making processes of Sweden's central government bodies and the kingdom's relations with other countries.

The goal was influence, not just information. The operation was meant to give Russian intelligence the ability to influence contentious issues, undermine Swedish decision-making, and discredit Sweden and the EU. It is the classic shape of a Russian influence operation: acquire inside knowledge of how a target state decides, then use it to steer or discredit those decisions.

Säpo watched it for a long time

The service said it tracked the operation before shutting it down. Säpo long monitored and documented the operation, recording meetings at which the agent passed information to two officers of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). It knew the tasks the agent was given and the questions he put to his handlers, Christoffer Wedelin, a deputy operations chief, said.

Säpo said it acted to contain the damage.

"Our assessment is that we have prevented the Russian intelligence operation. They have not succeeded in their mission," Wedelin said.

No one can be prosecuted

The case ends without arrests. The agent and the two Russian officers have left Sweden, and because all three hold diplomatic immunity, they cannot be arrested or prosecuted.

Ukrainian partisans say they crippled a locomotive moving Russian military supplies to the front. Agents of the ATESH movement carried out a sabotage operation near Voronezh, destroying the cab of an electric locomotive used to support military transport, ATESH reported.

Disabling a single locomotive cripples the entire supply line. The locomotive was supposed to continue its journey toward the Kupiansk direction, and after the cab was damaged, operating the machine at its former pace became impossible, disrupting the schedule for forming and dispatching the next trains.

The target was a rail supply line to the front

ATESH said the sabotage hit a link in Russia's military logistics chain. The locomotive was part of the rail transport that moves Russian military cargo, and it was bound for the Kupiansk direction, one of the active sectors of the front in Kharkiv Oblast.

Russia depends heavily on railways to supply its forces. Its army moves ammunition, fuel, weapons, and heavy equipment to the front largely by rail, so the locomotives and the lines they run on are critical arteries of its war effort. A partisan network can reach them behind the front lines at a vulnerable point.

One damaged locomotive slows the whole chain

ATESH framed the value of the strike in terms of the cascade it sets off. The loss of even one link in the mainline causes delays in the delivery of ammunition, fuel, weapons, and heavy equipment.

Those delays compound at the front. When rear supply operations are interrupted, units lose combat effectiveness and suffer significant personnel losses, ATESH said, casting a single sabotaged locomotive as a blow that reaches the soldiers, depending on what it was carrying.

The strike fits ATESH's partisan campaign

Euromaidan Press cannot independently verify the Voronezh sabotage, which is ATESH's own account. But rail sabotage is a documented feature of the war behind Russian lines, and the movement's focus on the logistics that feed the front reflects a real vulnerability in an army that runs on rail.

A Russian overnight strike heavily damaged a German-owned car-parts plant in Zhytomyr Oblast, forcing it to halt production, the company said. No workers were hurt, but the destruction was extensive. One of the region's major employers now has no restart date.

A German plant knocked offline

Russia struck Zhytomyr Oblast overnight into 9 August and hit the Kromberg & Schubert plant, which reported the attack on Facebook. Its production lines and infrastructure took heavy damage. 

"The most important thing for us is that no employees were hurt in the attack," the statement said. 

With the damage so severe, the plant suspended operations for an indefinite period. A restart depends on a technical assessment and the full scope of repairs, the company added.

Kromberg & Schubert is a civilian manufacturer with 100% German investment. It has run in the Zhytomyr region for 11 years and employs about 3,500 people. The plant makes the wiring harnesses that thread through cars, supplying European automakers.

Vitalii Bunechko, head of the Zhytomyr Oblast Military Administration, called it one of the region's budget-forming enterprises. He said the administration and local authorities are working to help the strategic investor and keep the plant running.

Part of a wider overnight assault

Bunechko reported that Russia had launched a massive strike on the oblast overnight. The attack also damaged civilian infrastructure, he said. State Emergency Service crews contained the fires, and investigators began work at the site. 

Russia has repeatedly struck Zhytomyr Oblast during the war, stepping up its drone strikes on northwestern Ukraine, often exploiting Belarusian territory.

US negotiators have quietly kept a deal to let Ukraine help build Patriot interceptor missiles alive, even after US President Donald Trump publicly cast doubt on it, Reuters reported. Four people familiar with the talks said Washington never ordered them stopped. Ukraine, running low on air defenses, urgently wants the missiles to blunt Russia's growing ballistic strikes.

Russian daily drone attacks forced Kyiv to chase air defense from every direction at once, including home-grown interceptors. But this year, Moscow has increasingly turned to ballistic missiles, the hardest weapons for Ukraine to stop. US-supplied PAC-3 interceptors fired by Patriot systems are among the few weapons that can reliably shoot them down, and Ukraine has now run out.

The talks Trump seemed to kill

Last week, Trump appeared to reverse course, telling reporters the US had not agreed to let Ukraine build Patriots and must be "very careful about letting somebody build them." 

According to Reuters, two sources tied that to a tense White House meeting with Zelenskyy. Yet the negotiations pressed on. 

"No order was given to halt the discussions," one source said, adding that talks continued with US arms makers and military officials.

Matthew Whitaker, Washington's envoy to NATO, is leading the drive for a deal. He visited Kyiv last month to weigh options with Ukrainian officials and weapons executives. His spokesperson framed the trip around drone collaboration that would benefit US forces, without naming the Patriot plan. 

A senior administration official told Reuters that any agreement must protect US technology. 

Reuters: The Patriot deal Trump denied is quietly still alive

What Ukraine could build

The options include making Patriot components in Ukraine and shipping them to Germany for final assembly, the sources said. A US official called that the most feasible route. Germany already produces an older Patriot model, and the advanced PAC-3, the newest Patriot interceptor, is expected to follow.

Ukraine could instead join an existing US-European Patriot program, or build a cheaper version of the PAC-3. 

It might also tap Lockheed Martin's new lower-cost interceptor, the PAC-3 ACE, unveiled last month.

A promise made, then pulled back

During a meeting with Zelenskyy in Ankara last month, Trump said the US would license Ukraine to make PAC-3s. His later reversal caught many off guard, including Zelenskyy. In a follow-up call, US Vice President JD Vance assured him that deals between presidents would hold, one source said.

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Reuters: The Patriot deal Trump denied is quietly still alive

Ukraine's clock is running

Even with a deal, Ukraine would not receive newly built interceptors for a year or more. So Kyiv is urging allies to hand over some of theirs and exploring swaps to get missiles sooner. 

Earlier, Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine had run out of Patriots. That day, it intercepted just one of 27 ballistic missiles Russia fired. 

Global stocks of high-end interceptors have shrunk since the Iran war, with Patriots once bound for Ukraine diverted to US forces and Gulf allies.

Russia has damaged or destroyed close to 2,000 cultural heritage sites and thousands more cultural venues across Ukraine since its full-scale invasion began, Ukraine's Ministry of Culture reported. The losses grew again over the past month, and officials say occupied territory keeps the true scale out of reach. As the tally rises, more of Ukraine's allies are stepping in to help protect what survives.

The toll keeps rising

By the end of July 2026, Russia had damaged or destroyed 1,990 cultural heritage sites and 2,625 cultural venues, the ministry said. Russia "continues to systematically destroy" Ukraine's cultural heritage and infrastructure, it added. 

Over the past month, the count climbed by 90, adding 41 heritage sites and 49 cultural venues. Of the heritage sites, 47 are gone entirely: one of national significance, 44 of local significance, and two newly identified. The remaining 1,943 are damaged. The full list includes 192 sites of national significance, 1,605 of local significance, and 193 newly identified.

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France compares Lavra strike to bombing Notre-Dame, calls for tougher sanctions

A protected site struck in July

In July, a Russian attack damaged a site inside Odesa's historic center, which sits on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Kyiv and the Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts also saw fresh strikes on monuments. In the Zaporizhzhia and Sumy oblasts and in Kyiv, Russian forces hit heritage sites they had already damaged before.

The ministry records the most damaged heritage in Kharkiv Oblast, with 358 sites, followed by Kherson Oblast with 303, Kyiv with 272, Donetsk Oblast with 229, and Odesa Oblast with 211. Cultural venues have been hit across 354 communities, or 24% of all local communities in Ukraine. Over the past month, the Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Chernihiv oblasts saw the most new destruction.

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Village clubs bear the brunt

Community and club venues form the largest group of damaged cultural facilities, at 1,300 sites, or 49.5% of the total. Russian attacks destroyed 283 of them and damaged another 1,017. The heaviest facility losses fall on the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Russia also re-struck previously damaged sites in the Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Sumy, and Donetsk oblasts.

The ministry stresses the figures understate the loss. Russia's occupation of nearly all of Luhansk Oblast and large parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Kherson oblasts blocks any full assessment. 

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Earlier, Sweden signed a heritage-preservation deal and the EU backing a UNESCO initiative to catalog Ukraine's losses.

Each month of strikes turns reversible damage into permanent loss, and much of it now sits in land Ukraine cannot yet reach. The World Heritage site already declared in danger in occupied Crimea shows how far the erasure can run if the war grinds on.

German security services believe Russia was preparing to assassinate the head of a company that supplies drones to Ukraine, according to Die Zeit. Two suspected agents who surveilled him have been arrested, and officials warn the case marks a deadlier turn in Russian operations inside Germany.

Surveillance of a drone-maker

Investigators say the target is Stefan Thumann, head of the Bavarian startup Donaustahl, which makes reconnaissance and kamikaze drones for Ukraine. In December 2025, a recruit filmed his home and photographed the nameplate, focusing on the man rather than the company, security services believe. Thumann has been outspoken against Moscow, posting that "Russia doesn't want peace. It wants the destruction of the West."

Two arrests

A foreign intelligence service flagged Thumann as high-risk in December 2025. Bavarian police arrested Serhii N., a former bricklayer from Kharkiv with no intelligence training, then released him before analyzing his phones. The devices later showed contact with Russian intelligence and attempts to trail his father, investigators found. He fled to Spain, and a Romanian woman, Alla S., continued the surveillance. Both were arrested in March 2026, in Spain and North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Fourth suspect arrested in arson attack on Czech factory that made drones and thermal optics for Ukraine

Russia recruits such disposable agents online, paying people from precarious backgrounds for surveillance, arson, and sabotage, and discarding them afterward. Ukraine's own SBU security service has reported dozens of cases in 2026 of Russia recruiting Ukrainians at home for arson and sabotage, often by forging Ukrainian security summonses to pose as their own government.

The BfV, Germany's domestic intelligence service, classifies the case as a suspected planned assassination. A federal investigating judge was not convinced, so the arrest warrant cites only suspected intelligence-agent activity. Lawyers for both suspects declined to comment.

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A French factory that makes drones for Ukraine was firebombed with Molotov cocktails

A widening threat

A second German arms company is reportedly in Russian intelligence's sights, investigators say. On 11 June, Serbian officers stopped a truck of concealed explosives apparently bound for Bavaria, home to Donaustahl, Quantum Systems, and Helsing. 

The threat has precedent: agents had Rheinmetall chief Armin Papperger watched in 2024, and an FSB killing struck a Georgian exile in Berlin in 2019. It fits a broader Russian sabotage campaign across Europe. 

Thumann, now under guard, still taunts Moscow: 

"You won't break me."

A Russian drone clipped one of Serhii’s wind turbines; his crew repaired the blade and carried on. He runs an oil-pressing plant in southern Ukraine, where the grid gives him about two hours of power and then 10 without. The turbine is one of six he has bought—Dutch machines, pulled from wind farms in the Netherlands for being too small, and shipped east.

In the Netherlands, a turbine like that is barely worth the paperwork. Over a blacked-out Ukrainian factory, it is worth shipping across a continent. That gap is turning into a market.

The market has formed largely on its own. Buyers like Serhii got their turbines through what Bert van der Lingen, vice-chairman of the Dutch wind association NedZero, calls “free market conditions”—private deals, one at a time—ahead of the Dutch government program meant to organize the trade, “Renewed Energy for Ukraine,” which began only in December 2025 and is still in start-up.

NedZero wrote to Euromaidan Press to correct an earlier report, drawn from the Dutch daily De Telegraaf, that called the turbines worn out. They are not.

A machine comes down in the Netherlands only because a newer model on the same spot would earn five or six times as much. The old one still works. Stripped, inspected, and fitted with new bearings and a rebuilt gearbox, it has “fifteen to twenty years of technical life remaining.”

“This is a story we want to see grow,” van der Lingen added, “and getting the baseline right helps that.”

Why blacked-out Ukraine wants Europe’s spares

Ukraine is one buyer in a market that predates the war. “There is an active world market for refurbished wind turbines,” van der Lingen notes: Dutch machines freed up by repowering already spin from Poland and the Baltics to Jordan, Kenya, and Chile, sold with maintenance records and spare parts to match.

The supply is thin, and slow to move. By NedZero’s own survey, 486 Dutch turbines are due to come down over the decade to 2035—a floor, it says, since not every producer answered—and only a portion will be shipped anywhere, fewer still to Ukraine. A market like this gets built one deal at a time.

What makes Ukraine the eager buyer is what Russia has done to its lights. Four winters of strikes have destroyed or damaged more than 80% of the country’s power-generating capacity, by the energy ministry’s own count—its big Soviet-built plants are so few and so concentrated that one missile can darken a whole region.

Kyiv’s answer is to scatter generation so widely that no single strike can repeat the trick, an approach the ministry describes as “energy cells.” One refurbished turbine beside one factory is that doctrine at its smallest scale.

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Wind farms are harder to destroy—so why won’t Ukraine let them scale? (INFOGRAPHICS)

Small, slow, and off the books

Money is the bottleneck. Development banks lend in amounts far too large for a handful of turbines—support from the big institutions starts at around €10 million ($11 million)—so small orders have to be bundled into projects large enough to finance. How many turbines reach Ukraine, the association says, depends on whether that bundling comes together.

Then there is the wiring. A turbine only makes power when the wind blows, not when the factory needs it. And most are built to shut down automatically when the grid fails, so a blackout silences them too—exactly when the factory needs them most—unless they are rewired, with batteries, to run on their own. That is what the microgrids are for.

NedZero cannot say how many Dutch turbines are already working in Ukraine. It has no consolidated count of what its country’s firms have delivered, nor of the megawatts they have added to the grid, and offers only to go and count them. What is coming free is on the books; what is already turning above a Ukrainian factory, holding its lights while the grid is dark, is not.

Three men were found guilty on July 8 in connection with an arson attack on Ukraine-linked businesses in London, which British authorities say was orchestrated by Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Reuters reported.

The alleged ringleader, Dylan Earl, 21, had already pleaded guilty to aggravated arson over the 2024 blaze targeting companies that were supplying Elon Musk's Starlink satellite equipment to Ukraine, according to Reuters.

The systems are considered vital to Ukraine's communications and defense against Russia's ongoing invasion.

Earl also became the first person convicted under the U.K.'s National Security Act after admitting to a separate plot to attack a wine shop and restaurant in London’s upscale Mayfair district and to kidnap its owner, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Two others, Jake Reeves, 23, and Earl’s associate, also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson, with Reeves admitting to a charge under the National Security Act for receiving a material benefit from a foreign intelligence agency.

A jury at London's Old Bailey court convicted three additional men, Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, Jakeem Rose, 23, and Ugnius Asmena, 20, of aggravated arson. They had denied the charges. A fourth man, Paul English, 61, was acquitted.

Two other defendants, Ashton Evans, 20, and Dmitrijus Paulauskas, 23, were charged with failing to disclose knowledge of terrorist activity. Evans was convicted on one count and cleared of another. Paulauskas was acquitted of both charges and reportedly broke down in tears as the verdict was read.

Commander Dominic Murphy of the London Metropolitan Police reportedly said he was confident the Wagner Group and the Russian state were behind the attacks.

The U.K. has designated the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization.

Earl had exchanged hundreds of encrypted messages with a supposed Wagner handler using the alias "Privet Bot" on Telegram. According to reporting by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the account was previously advertised by Grey Zone, a Wagner-affiliated channel.

Prosecutors said Earl expressed interest in fighting for Wagner and was encouraged to recruit contacts from British soccer hooligan networks, Irish republican groups, and organized crime circles, Reuters reported. He and Evans also admitted to unrelated charges of dealing cocaine.

The Russian Embassy in London has denied any involvement in the warehouse attack and accused the British government of blaming Russia for domestic issues.

The Kremlin has consistently rejected accusations of sabotage and espionage, despite growing evidence and convictions tied to Russian-linked operations across Europe.

‘Neither side wasted time’ — Ukraine’s economy minister on minerals deal negotiations with Trump’s ‘business-oriented’ administration

Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says her task is simple — to get the investment fund behind the closely watched minerals deal with the U.S. off the ground, and prove its detractors wrong. “There are so many criticisms from different parties that this fund is just a piece of paper we can put on the shelves — that it won’t be operational,” Svyrydenko, who is also Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, tells the Kyiv Independent at Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on July 4, the morning

The Kyiv IndependentLiliane Bivings

BRICS summit participants condemned recent attacks on Russia’s railway infrastructure, according to a joint declaration on July 6 from Rio de Janeiro.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the attacks on bridges and railway infrastructure deliberately targeting civilians in the Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation on May 31, and June 1 and 5 2025, which resulted in the deaths of several civilians, including children," the document says.

Bryansk, Kursk, and Voronezh oblasts are all located near Ukraine’s northeastern border and have played a central role in Russia’s war effort, serving as key logistical hubs and launch sites for missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities–often targeting civilian infrastructure and causing casualties.

In their declaration, BRICS leaders also called for a negotiated peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

“We recall our national positions concerning the conflict in Ukraine as expressed in the appropriate forum, including the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly,” the document said. “We expect that current efforts will lead to a sustainable peace settlement.”

The statement comes a few days after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 3, in which Putin said "Russia will continue to pursue its goals" in the war against Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended the summit in person, while Russian President Vladimir Putin participated via video link.

Brazil is a member of the ICC and a signatory to the Rome Statute, meaning it is obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country.

The ICC issued a warrant for the Russian leader's arrest in March 2023 over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The BRICS declaration also condemned recent U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as violations of international law and criticized the presence of foreign forces in Syria and Gaza, calling for Israeli withdrawal from Syrian territory.

BRICS, originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has expanded in recent years to include Iran, Egypt, the UAE, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

Lavrov meets Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi at BRICS summit, reiterates Russia’s offer to mediate disputes over nuclear program

Russia reiterated its offer to mediate the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program during a meeting between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart at the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Reuters reported on July 6.

The Kyiv IndependentSonya Bandouil

The Atesh partisan group set fire to a signal cabinet that helps control traffic on a railway line near the Russian-occupied city of Yasynuvata in Donetsk Oblast, a route used for Russia's military logistics, the group claimed on Telegram on June 28.

Yasynuvata lies some 22 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the occupied city of Donetsk and is considered to be a major railway junction in the region.

According to the group, the sabotaged section is located near Russian military units, warehouses, and industrial facilities.

Atesh said the attack disrupted the delivery of a train carrying fuel for Russian forces.

"On Ukraine's Constitution Day, we remind the occupiers that this is an independent and free country. And Donetsk will always be Ukrainian," the statement read.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.

The Atesh partisan group regularly conducts sabotage attacks in Russia and Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories.

In early June, Atesh claimed to have destroyed a signal cabinet on the new Volnovakha-Mariupol railway, which had been recently built by occupying Russian forces.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia

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The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk

Ukraine's security service (SBU) is teaching teenagers how to avoid recruitment by Russian intelligence online, the New York Times (NYT) reported on June 21.

"Maybe not all of these special operations are reported in the media — but believe me, the enemy is not sleeping... They are working actively and carrying out illegal activities, as strange as it may sound, directly inside your phones," SBU spokesperson Roksolana Yavorska-Isaienko told students.

Approximately 22% of Ukrainians recruited by Russian intelligence to conduct sabotage or terrorist attacks are minors, Artem Dekhtiarenko, SBU spokesperson, said on April 2.

Russian intelligence attempts to recruit Ukrainian civilians online, offering easy money in return for sharing sensitive data or preparing sabotage or terrorist acts.

Russian intelligence finds its recruits using social platforms, including Telegram, Discord, and TikTok.

Unsuspecting teenagers are often offered hundreds or even thousands of dollars to conduct simpler tasks such as delivering packages or taking photos of energy sites, the NYT reports.

More serious tasks are commonly assigned to teenagers once they have been blackmailed for conducting less serious operations beforehand or when their phones are hacked to reveal compromising photos.

Russian intelligence is actively attempting to recruit Ukrainian nationals for illegal operations across the EU, Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) said on June 2.

"The recruitment of Ukrainians for hostile operations in Europe is yet another tool of hybrid aggression that the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine and the entire European community," HUR said.

The SBU caught a Russian agent as he was filming a military airfield in preparation for a Russian strike, the agency reported on June 15.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited the unemployed 24-year-old via the Telegram messaging app to collect coordinates for air attacks on airfields and logistic depots, the SBU said.

The Russian FSB allegedly offered "easy money" and instructed the recruit to find military facilities and carry out reconnaissance on the ground.

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The Kyiv IndependentKate Tsurkan

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) caught a Russian agent red-handed as he was filming a military airfield in preparation for a Russian strike, the agency reported on June 15.

According to the SBU, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited the unemployed 24-year-old via the Telegram messaging app to collect coordinates for air attacks on airfields and logistic depots.

The FSB had allegedly instructed him to find military facilities and carry out reconnaissance on the ground in exchange for “easy money.”

The man was detained outside an airfield in Rivne Oblast while filming its outer perimeter with a hidden camera in his car. The SBU seized a phone and the camera on the scene, while other evidence was taken from the agent’s apartment.

If found guilty, he faces life imprisonment for high treason.

The SBU regularly announces it has foiled Russian agents and terrorist plots against military and civilian targets. The FSB usually targets unemployed people, those with criminal records, or addicts, according to the SBU's data.

In April, the SBU detained an instructor at a training center in Lviv Oblast who was planning to assassinate the base's commanders. That same month, the SBU detained nine FSB agents, including five minors, for plotting terrorist attacks in central and eastern Ukraine.

More than a fifth of FSB recruits in Ukraine are minors.

Power cut off in Russia’s Kaliningrad in sabotage operation, Ukrainian military intelligence says

In the early hours of June 14, Ukrainian agents drained the coolant from the substation’s power transformer before setting the facility on fire.

The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) ignited an electrical substation during a sabotage operation in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, causing $5 million in damage and cutting electricity to a military production site, a source in HUR told the Kyiv Independent.

In the early hours of June 14, Ukrainian agents drained the coolant from the substation’s power transformer before setting the facility on fire. The inferno inflicted major damage on the facility and caused a power cut, impacting nearby Russian military sites.

"We once again remind you that Russia no longer has a rear either in the east, in the west, or anywhere else on the planet. Everything Russian involved in the war against Ukraine will burn, sink, and be destroyed regardless of its level of protection or location," the source said.

Ukraine continues to carry out numerous secretive attacks within Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories, targeting military sites, like airfields, as well as key infrastructure like railways and oil refineries.

The attacks involve HUR, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) as well as partisan and sabotage groups.

HUR was behind explosions near Desantnaya Bay in Russia's far eastern Vladivostok on May 30, which reportedly damaged military personnel and equipment. The operations took place approximately 6,800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, making it Ukraine's furthest incursion into Russian territory, if confirmed.

On June 1, the SBU launched Operation Spiderweb, a game-changing drone attack on four key Russian military airfields, damaging 41 planes, including heavy bombers and rare A-50 spy planes.

Ukrainian drones destroy Russian air defense systems in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, military intelligence says

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) destroyed three Russian air defense systems using drones in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast on June 14, HUR says.

The Kyiv IndependentVolodymyr Ivanyshyn