YouTube link here.

By Ben Aris, Substack, 5/23/25

The money the West grants to support Ukraine’s economy and military campaign gets a lot of attention. So far the West has sent a total of $133bn to Ukraine over the last three years, according to the Ministry of Finance (MinFin) and continues to get a bit less than $40bn a year, although MinFin is anticipating that to more than halve in the next two years. From a fiscal point of view, Bankova needs the war to stop in the next year or so as it will become increasingly difficult to finance.

However, there are two other big and important funding questions that get almost no attention. The first is how is the reconstruction going to be financed? The second is that the EU is about to reimpose duties on Ukraine’s exports to Europe in June and that will swell a $20bn trade deficit that is already growing in the first quarter of this year. Ukraine’s corn and metal exports – two of the biggest revenue earners – are already becoming uncompetitive with rivals. How will that be funded?

The most recent World Bank estimate of the cost of the damage to the economy was $524bn, of which $178bn is physical damage – housing, transport, energy, commerce and industry, and education sectors, including 13% of Ukraine’s entire housing stock needing repairs or rebuilding, some 2.5mn households.

Private sector investment

Where is money going to come from? The common plan is that the “private sector” will provide it but having talked to a lot of fund managers that know Eastern Europe, they all say they won’t commit anything until the risk of a second Russian attack falls away. Don’t bank on seeing funds like Blackrock or private equity houses moving in for years.

Some direct investors might move a little faster. The FMCGs (fast moving consumer goods) companies are in it for the long haul and so usually willing to invest as soon as physically possible as for them it’s all about grabbing as much market share as they possibly can as soon as they can and then hunkering down until the market eventually booms. They have decades long time horizons, which is why some beer and fag companies like Carlsberg and Phillip Morris have already made investments into factories in Ukraine. I also discovered in the early 1990s in Russia that luxury luggage companies like Samsonite get into emerging markets very early for much the same reason: people tend to buy only one set of posh luggage in their lifetimes.

But even this foreign direct investment (FDI) will be minimal and won’t touch a lot of things that need investment most. FDI has been on its back since the war started, falling 97% y/y to a mere $121mn in 2022, before bouncing back to $4.8bn in 2023 (which is still peanuts for the $200bn Ukrainian economy) and is expected to have received about $4.3bn in 2024. (The final number is not out yet.) At this rate it will take Ukraine 125 years to raise the money to rebuild its economy.

The biggest source of investment capital in the meantime is going to be development banks like the EBRD and the IFC that are going to carry the bulk of the load. Also quango development banks like the European Investment Bank (EIB), which is a proxy tool for EU-back investment aid to Ukraine, are already playing an important role. The EU is now sending Ukraine about $1bn a month, as part of the G7 $50bn loan to Ukraine, approved on June 13 at a G7 summit in Italy, backed by Russia’s frozen assets.

If you add up all the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) pledges then there is some $75bn due over the next decade, which is still not enough but can at least make a real dent in the physical damage repairs.

However, during conversations at the recent EBRD annual meeting in London it was pointed out to me that most of the extreme damage – cities wiped off the face of the earth – is in eastern Ukraine and still under Russian occupation. It is Russian President Vladimir Putin who will have to pay for that repair work, not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Now it becomes more interesting. The experts I talked to estimate that some $300bn worth of damage has been done in the occupied territories, leaving Bankova to deal with the remaining $200bn worth of destruction, which isn’t as bad anyway.

If you use the same proportions of overall damage to physical damage that the World Bank does then the bill for physical repairs in the parts of Ukraine under government control comes to a much more manageable $68bn – in other words the MDBs can fund all of those repairs and as part of the “build back better” programme I’m sure we will hear a lot about when a ceasefire comes and these programmes get under way. Indeed, people like the EBRD are already doing the preparatory work for the obvious things, starting with emergency residential construction and small scale local generators to power things like hospitals and villages.

The key issue is if enough money can be invested to start a virtuous circle of: investment that primes a local economy, leads to jobs and rising incomes, to consumption, to profits, and closes the circle with increasing investment. How much pump priming money is needed to start the wheel turning? That is an open question.

Ironically, the problem of rebuilding the occupied territories has led to a little noticed comment by the Kremlin saying that it is not entirely against signing over the frozen $300bn of CBR money to the West, however, only if “part of that money is used to rebuild the occupied territories.” Clear the Kremlin realises that hanging on to the four regions it annexed in particular is going to come with a massive reconstruction bill, as well as subsequent subsidies in the peace, if it hangs on to them. Gifting Ukraine the $300bn, but with a commitment to investing in Donbas, is one of the practical ways for the Kremlin to claw back at least some of this money, as surely at this point Putin never expects to see that money again even if there is a ceasefire.

Trade deficit

The West has sent a lot of money to Ukraine, but actually the EU is making a $20bn a year profit from trade with Ukraine. It exports more to Ukraine than it imports and those exports to Ukraine are going up.

One of the most useful funding policies the EU put in place in 2022 was to suspend the incredibly restrictive duties and miniscule duty-free quotas it granted to Ukraine as part of the pre-war Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTA). For example, Ukraine is a big producer of honey, which is also made in the EU, but the duty free export of honey quota for honey was so small that it was used up every year before the end of January.

Opening the borders to Ukrainian products allowed Kyiv to earn money from trade to supplement the Western loans and grants. And that caused problems. Last year cheap Ukrainian corn wrecked the Polish grain market causing prices to collapse in this key sector and on June 5 the EU is due to reimpose the limits and duties on 30 Ukrainian products – mostly in the agricultural sector. These won’t be dropped again until Ukraine becomes a member of the EU, in at least ten years time.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is chairman of the Council of Europe until July, was explicit about this dual view of Ukraine saying that he supports Ukraine politically in its struggle with Russia, but not at the expense of Polish farmers, a core election constituency. There is a double standard here: the EU is willing to support Ukraine but only as long as it doesn’t bring it into a potential military confrontation with Russia and as long as it doesn’t negatively impact member states’ agricultural sectors.

In the meantime, officials in Kyiv are desperately looking for new markets and have done deals in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Zelenskiy even asked US President Donald Trump for a free trade deal, but instead has got the basic 10% tariffs everyone else got.

How big a problem this will be going forward is hard to say. When Ukraine broke off trade relations with Russia in 2014, which used to buy half of its exports, it actually proved very good at finding new markets for its goods, pretty quickly. Given we now live under Trump’s transactional multipolar world model it should be able to do the same thing again and the Global South is also open for business and increasingly active. But in the short-term, funding the trade deficit will be a headache that the EU is about to make a lot worse.

YouTube video link here. Video posted on 6/10/25.

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 6/9/25

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that their forces had entered Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Region, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed is part of Putin’s buffer zone plan. This was foreseen as early as late August once the Battle of Pokrovsk began but has been achieved even without capturing that strategic fortress town. Russian forces simply went around it after breaking through the southern Donbass front. This development puts Ukraine in a dilemma.

It’ll now have to simultaneously fortify the Dnipropetrovsk front together with the southern Kharkov and northern Zaporozhye ones in case Russia uses its new position to launch offensives into any of those three. This could put serious strain on the Ukrainian Armed Forces as they’re already struggling to prevent a major breakthrough in Sumy Region from Kursk. Coupled with depleting manpower and questions about continued US military-intelligence aid, this might be enough to collapse the frontlines.

To be sure, that scenario has been bandied about many times over the past more than 1,200 days, but it nowadays appears tantalizingly closer than ever. Observers also shouldn’t forget that Putin told Trump that he’ll respond to Ukraine’s strategic drone strikes earlier this month, which could combine with the abovementioned two factors to achieve this long-desired breakthrough. Of course, it might just be a symbolic demonstration of force, but it could also be something more significant as well.

Ukraine’s best chances of preventing this are for the US to either get Russia to agree to freeze the frontlines or to go on another offensive. The first possibility could be advanced by the carrot-and-stick approach of proposing a better resource-centric strategic partnership than has already been offered in exchange on pain of imposing crippling secondary sanctions on its energy clients (specifically China and India with likely waivers for the EU) and/or doubling down on military-intelligence aid if it still refuses.

As for the second, the 120,000 troops that Ukraine has assembled along the Belarusian border according to President Alexander Lukashenko last summer could either cross that frontier and/or one of Russia’s internationally recognized frontiers. Objectively speaking, however, both possibilities only stand a slim chance of success: Russia has made it clear that it must achieve more of its goals in the conflict before agreeing to any ceasefire while its success in pushing Ukraine out of Kursk bodes ill for other invasions.

The likelihood of Ukraine cutting its losses by agreeing to more of Russia’s demands for peace is nil. Therefore, it might inevitably opt, whether in lieu of the aforesaid scenarios or in parallel with one or both of them, to intensify its “unconventional operations” against Russia. This refers to assassinations, strategic drone strikes, and terrorism. All that will do, however, is provoke more (probably outsized) conventional retaliation from Russia and thus painfully delay Ukraine’s seemingly inevitable defeat.

With an eye towards the endgame, it appears as though an inflection point is about to be reached or already has been in the sense of irreversibly shifting the military-strategic dynamics in Russia’s favor. It’s very difficult to imagine how Ukraine can extricate itself from this dilemma. All signs point to this being impossible, though the conflict has already surprised observers on both sides before, so it can’t be ruled out. Nevertheless, it’s a far-fetched scenario, and it’s more likely that Ukraine’s official defeat is nigh.

Kremlin website, 5/19/25

Later, following the meeting of the Talent and Success Foundation Board of Trustees, the President viewed information stands about the Sirius Secondary Special Music School. Head of the Talent and Success Educational Foundation Yelena Shmeleva gave him a tour around.

The Sirius Secondary Special Music School for students from form 1 to form 11 opened on September 1, 2024. It has become the twelfth institution among secondary special music schools that provide students with both musical and secondary education. Upon completion of studies, graduates may enrol in higher musical educational institutions of the country.

The building, erected on the coastline, houses over 60 academic and music classrooms, alongside dressing rooms, an audio library, a sound recording studio, and a concert hall. Up to 250 young musicians can study here simultaneously. Instruction is conducted in three specialised fields: piano, orchestral string instruments, and orchestral wind and percussion instruments. At all stages of education, significant attention is devoted to regular concert practice, the establishment of a creative environment, and collaboration with the nation’s leading musicians.

* * *

Mikhail Pirozhenko: Hello, Mr President. My name is Mikhail Pirozhenko. I am 15 years old and have come from St Petersburg.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Me too.

Mikhail Pirozhenko: I am a pianist, as is my entire family. I learned about Sirius from my elder brother: I have already been here twice and would love to come here for a third time this year. What I have always enjoyed here is the opportunity to interact not only with musicians like me but also with peers from other disciplines.

It is very interesting why Sirius specifically focuses on these three fields – sports, science, and the arts. How did the idea of creating Sirius originate? Was there something that inspired you? Perhaps, places similar to this?

Vladimir Putin: No. It was far more pragmatic: after the Olympic Games concluded, the question arose of what to do with the facilities and how to utilise them. There were many proposals, but ultimately, the idea emerged from the Soviet Union’s – and later Russia’s – tradition of prioritising specialised training for young talents from an early age. These include specialised physics and mathematics schools, chemistry schools, and later biology schools. This is where the concept began – gathering children from across the country here for a set period, then we decided it would be for just over 20 days – 21 days, right?

Head of the Talent and Success Educational Foundation Yelena Shmeleva: 24.

Vladimir Putin: Then I thought: why limit this to the sciences? We have specialised music schools affiliated with conservatoires and world-class – perhaps even surpassing world-class – dance schools training ballet artists. Thus, from the very beginning, we expanded Sirius’ scope of activities. That is how it came about, organically.

I have spoken before about how the name came to be. I simply asked my team: What is the brightest star in the sky? They said, “Sirius.” Since this place was meant for talented young people, children and teenagers, the name felt natural: Sirius.

What we see here today and what I am about to visit, is a continuation of that original idea, evolution of the Sirius concept: the creation of this school and the nearby concert hall. I believe both have been built to meet the highest global standards, and perhaps even exceed them in some respects.

This was the very idea behind preserving the Olympic legacy: it should serve the country and its people in the best way possible. I believe that goal has been fully achieved. But we must progress and continue developing Sirius. The opening of this music school, where we are now, is a significant step in that direction.

I hope everything will work out well for you here, that you will enjoy your time, and that this place will help you unlock and develop your talents. The environment is excellent, the teachers are outstanding, and I also hope so is the acoustics: it was Toyota that worked on that as well. As [Artistic director of the St Petersburg House of Music, Chairman of the Board of the Talent and Success Foundation] Sergei Roldugin keeps saying, sound in a space like this is as important as a musical instrument itself. He keeps telling me what other important things I can say about this place. The sound in the hall is like a musical instrument. It must resonate with the performances here. I believe that will be the case, just as in the concert hall. We are going to visit the concert hall, aren’t we?

Yelena Shmeleva: Not this time, but it’s almost ready. We are officially inviting you to its grand opening in October. We’re looking forward to it.

Vladimir Putin: It is beautiful on the outside. I hope the inside will fully meet the tasks and goals we have set.

Yelena Shmeleva: If I may say, musicians are our priority. This is a music school, though students in all disciplines are gathered here.

So, fellow musicians, who else wanted to ask a question?

Vladimir Putin: Please, go ahead.

Yelena Shmeleva: Dasha Malakhova, please.

Darya Malakhova: Good afternoon, Mr President. My name is Darya Malakhova. I am 16, and I am from Arkhangelsk. This is the second time I have come to the Music and Performing Arts section at Sirius.

I have been drawn to the arts and surrounded by music since I was a child. I went to a music school at three and to an arts school at six. I continue to develop in this direction, and Sirius has certainly been a great help in this.

I would like to ask you the following, since I know that you practised on the piano and learned to play as a child: Do you have time to play the piano now if you have the opportunity to do so? What role does music play in your everyday life despite your busy schedule? Do you think that music is really important, and how has it influenced your development as an individual?

Vladimir Putin: To begin with, unfortunately, I never played the piano, which I regret because music truly enriches your life. Music and painting, if they become part of our lives in childhood, help shape your personality, world outlook, and your attitude towards the world and yourself. Music is harmony, and harmony, if you found it, is what makes every human being happy.

You know, I lived in a very simple family that was not connected with music or art in any way. It was a worker’s family.

However, I started attending concerts and going to the philharmonic when I was in high school. There are many places in St Petersburg where you can listen to good music. Gradually, I started doing that more and more often. Having an appreciation for the arts and music, understanding it and tuning yourself to it is an art in itself. It happens at the level of the unconscious; it is not something very rational, maybe even not rational at all.

However, the ability to enjoy what you see and hear, that is, painting and music, must be part of education. I did not have the kind of education you are receiving, including a music school and so on. But St Petersburg offered an opportunity [to learn to love music and the arts], and thankfully, I took advantage of it. Gradually, I [learned to love it]. Later, I became friends with Sergei Roldugin, who invited me to various events, such as concerts and the like, and then I started going to concerts on my own.

I believe that this appreciation of music, ballet and painting very gradually helped me develop what I have always relied on later in life, supporting me and helping me formulate an attitude towards events and people. I believe that this is an extremely important element of education for everyone. We will support this in every way, just as we are doing it here and now.

Darya Malakhova: Thank you for your answer.

Anna Tsukanova: Good afternoon, Mr President.

My name is Anna Tsukanova. I am 17, and I have come from Barnaul. I study at the Music and Performing Arts section.

I have been playing the piano for 12 years, and my ambition is to become a professional musician. I understand that this takes a great deal of hard work and improvement, and Sirius is a great help in this. This is my fourth and last time here, and every time I get an extremely powerful boost in my professional advancement, as well as energy and inspiration.

However, I also understand that a musician needs not only professional skills but also personal qualities. One of these is probably the ability to take the lead, to conduct an orchestra and to play as part of a team.

I believe that you, as president, have outstanding leadership qualities. I would like to ask you if there are methods for developing them. Do you think that people are born leaders, or can leadership qualities be developed while growing up and acquiring experience? Did you specifically develop these qualities, or have you always had them? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: It is difficult to say if this is a born quality or not. That is for the geneticists to determine. But I think that it is a talent which you can inherit. But some qualities do not blossom without hard work and effort, even when you have a natural talent, like Mozart did. We know what happened in his family, where he was virtually tortured with music lessons. There are many other examples of this kind, when children fainted or even when mothers thought that their children had died, but they came to and continued with their music lessons. This incredible diligence is part of success, even for very talented people or even geniuses.

So, how can we determine what is important – diligence and self-improvement or inherited qualities? It probably takes both to achieve the highest results and maximum effect. It does take hard work, of course, and it cannot be any other way. Success is not a blessing but something you must strive for.

Vera Chichilenko: Good afternoon, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon.

Vera Chichilenko: I am a sixth-form student at the Sirius Special Secondary Music School. My name is Vera Chichilenko, and I am 13 years old.

As a child, I loved flying on aeroplanes and dreamt of becoming a flight attendant. However, sports then came into my life, and I aspired to become a master of sports in rhythmic gymnastics. At the age of seven, I enrolled in a music school to study the cello, and now my dream is to become a professional musician.

What did you dream of as a child when you were five, ten, or 15 years old? And what do you dream of now?

Vladimir Putin: At five or ten years old – what I was passionate about, what I dreamt of: I do not want to invent anything for you now; it is rather difficult for me to recall what it was at five, just vaguely. Yet, oddly enough, I do remember certain things. What did I dream of? Everything depends on circumstances, on our level of development, our perception of the world around us, and the people who surround us. It is from there – from art, incidentally, from music, from the opportunity to visit museums – that images emerge, certain goals take shape, and preferences form.

The more positive external influence there is, the brighter and more concrete our plans and dreams become. I surely had my own. But as I grew older and chose a profession, things unfolded differently – I have spoken about this many times. Boys often make such choices: at one point, I wanted to be a pilot, then a sailor – heroic professions like that.

But gradually, gradually, I developed as a person. I was, of course, deeply drawn to how people act, how they live when dedicating their lives to their country. That is where the desire to work in foreign intelligence came from, and then, step by step, it led to what I do today.

I very much hope that your life, and the lives of your peers, will unfold in the same way – that in the end, you will choose a vocation to which you are ready to dedicate your life. Then life will be interesting, and you will achieve the greatest possible results in the field to which you devote your life.

Pyotr Bregadze: Good afternoon, Mr President.

My name is Pyotr Bregadze. I am 12. I play the flute and I study at this special secondary music school. I came here last year, and I live here without my parents. I miss them, of course, and talk to them every day.

What did your family mean to you when you were a schoolboy? Were there events in your childhood that were connected with your parents and that you never forgot? Can you tell us about them, if you don’t mind my asking?

Vladimir Putin: I have spoken about that on many occasions, and frankly, I would not like to repeat myself. But it is true that I remember some events that happened when I was about your age or a little older, as if they happened just now.

You know, the most important and interesting thing for me, which probably influenced my personality and development as a human being, is that my parents always – I would like to stress this – opted for what was best for me when they discussed everyday matters or issues related to my future.

I remember it to this day, and I am extremely grateful to my parents for their attitude towards me and for their love. That is how love is expressed; love is not only cuddling, hugs and kisses, although they are important too.

Overall, I saw that even when I was thinking about where to study, which university to enrol at and so on, my parents wanted something that was simpler to achieve, considering that I engaged in sports and some universities were ready to admit me practically without entrance exams. My coach encouraged them to make that decision, for my own good, and this would have been simpler for me. But I made my own choice, which seemed quite difficult at that time. I remember very well that when my parents saw that it was my choice, they accepted it respectfully and after that never interfered in any way. On the contrary, they did their best to support me.

And it has always been like that, with regard to all issues. They always supported my choices. I will never forget that, and I will always be grateful to them for it.

Asel Kuzbekova: Good afternoon, Mr President.

My name is Asel Kuzbekova. I am 12 years old, a sixth-form student at this special secondary music school, and I play the violin. My most cherished wish is to play the violin as well as my favourite violinist, Pavel Milyukov.

If you caught the golden fish, what wish would you make?

Vladimir Putin: Out of ecological considerations, I would simply release the fish back into the wild and not burden it with fulfilling my wishes. I would strive to formulate my own goals and work to achieve them.

Is that all? Perhaps the children could play something now?

Yelena Shmeleva: Yes, but I believe we still have some questions.

Daniil Sakharov: Good afternoon, Mr President.

My name is Daniil Sakharov, and I have come from Yekaterinburg. I am 17 years old. In my hometown, I am completing my second year at the Sverdlovsk Art College.

Since childhood, I have been drawn to nature and everything it creates in this world. In the future, I would like to become an artist who shows people their true, authentic essence – something innate that cannot be taken away from any person. I believe this could improve the lives and worldviews of future generations. For me, as for all aspiring artists, it is important that our work resonates with the viewer’s soul and conveys ideas that could help improve the lives and perspectives of future generations.

And so my question to you, Mr President: In your opinion, what values should contemporary artists convey? What qualities must a modern artist possess to ensure society hears them? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: There is one biblical value that stands above all: the most important thing is love. Love for what you do, love for the world around you, and love for the people who surround you.

I do not know – you would understand this better, as you are a future professional artist, as I gather. Therefore, you should already feel what drives you and what you wish to convey to your audience. This is extremely important. After all, it is not just about depicting something beautifully – though that matters – but about conveying to people your perspective on what you portray: nature, humanity, or anything else.

Even photography, incidentally, is a form of creativity, yet it captures something real, an actual subject. An artist, however, seeks above all to communicate their own vision to the viewer, to another person. What matters is not so much the subject being depicted but the attitude of the person portraying it – whether it is nature or even a still life. This, too, reflects the artist’s relationship with their work. The artist themselves, their worldview, is what is important. That, I believe, is the essence – and it is not easy to achieve, as I understand.

It is important to have the talent to depict, but even more crucial is the ability to convey – to be capable of communicating to the viewer your own perspective on what you portray. That is the most important, the most challenging, and the most precious thing.

By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 5/25/25

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On May 23rd, The Times published an extraordinarily candid probe into how militarised drones have irrevocably revolutionised warfare in the 21st century, with Russia far at the forefront of this radical shakeup of how conflicts are waged. Meanwhile, there is little indication NATO members even vaguely comprehend this battlefield reality, let alone a single one of them is undertaking any serious measures whatsoever to prepare for conflict such as that currently unfolding and evolving daily throughout Ukraine’s eastern steppe.

The Times piece is a first-person report of a visit to the assorted headquarters of Kiev’s 93rd Mechanised Brigade, in basements of abandoned buildings and homes throughout the Donetsk city of Kostiantynivka. It’s a devastating picture of the realities of war in the era of drones, which has “[altered] the physical make-up of the front line, the tactics of the war and the psychology of the soldiers fighting it,” while “having a devastating impact on Ukraine’s logistical ability.”

At one stage, The Times reporter was warned they were standing nine kilometres – 5.5 miles – from the nearest Russian position, and thus “well inside the kill range.” A Ukrainian soldier told them with a shrug, this was “now an easy range in which to die”:

“No other weapon type has changed the face of the war here so much or so fast as the FPV drone. Almost any vehicle within five kilometres of the front is as good as finished. Anything moving out to ten kilometres is in danger. Drone strikes at 15 or 20 km are not that unusual.”

Since the proxy war erupted, both Ukraine and Russia have innovated in the field of FPV drones to an unprecedented degree. Kiev has become so reliant on drones, they are her “weapon of choice.” Yet, as The Times records, Russia has now decisively “taken the lead in the drone race, outproducing Kyiv in the manufacture and use of medium-range FPV drones and fibre optic variants that have changed the shape of the entire 1,200 km front line.”

Not only are FPVs “dramatically” striking ever-deeper into Ukrainian territory, but fibre optic FPV drones have gained “dark prominence over the killing fields.” While emulating the quadcopters equipped with munitions typically deployed by both sides previously, this “highly manoeuvrable killer drone” is connected directly to pilots by “a gossamer thin fibre optic thread.” This makes the contraptions difficult to track, and impervious to electronic jamming. A local infantry battalion commander told The Times:

“The changes posed by drones are so fast that concepts we implemented just a month ago no longer work now. We live in a space of perpetual fast adaptation. In the past week alone, Russian drone strike ranges have increased by four kilometres.”

These developments have sent Ukrainian forces scurrying en masse to regroup at regular, abrupt intervals ever-further away from the front line (also known as “zero point”), while logistical convoys to Kramatorsk – “long considered the bastion of Ukraine’s defence of the Donbas region” – have been repeatedly struck. One lieutenant recorded how Russian drones “swarm our armoured vehicles whenever they get near the zero point,” obliterating them and their crews. He believes drones represent such a world-changing military hazard, “the days of the tank are truly over.”

‘Danger Estimate’

The “drone-filled skies” of Donbass are so deadly, getting soldiers and equipment to the ever-expanding frontline and back is not only a logistical and practical horror, but also a frequently suicidal task. The Times reports that until late 2023, Ukrainian infantrymen “were usually carried to a position near the front in armoured personnel carriers, walking the last few hundred metres on foot.” Today, they are dropped off up to eight kilometres away at night, walking “meandering routes through trees to avoid detection, just to take up their positions.”

Deployments to the frontline have also vastly extended in length. While at the start of 2024 Ukrainian soldiers spent “a week or two” at zero point, now they’re routinely trapped there for months at a time, “often devoid of almost any other human contact, resupplied with water, rations and ammunition by agricultural drones.” Resultantly too, “casualty evacuation has become a nightmare.” Wounded fighters are “commonly” rescued at night, and “even then the operation is fraught.” A senior logistician for the 93rd Brigade’s drone crews lamented:

“As a word ‘stressful’ doesn’t even come close to describing it. Every mission I think, ‘God forbid we get a casualty and have to work out how to get them back’.”

Each night too, the Brigade’s frontline drone crews are resupplied with batteries, drone frames and munitions. Logistics teams are dropped off up to seven kilometres from the frontline, then carry up to 36 kilograms of equipment forward on foot. The risk to these crews is “enormous”. One driver was quoted as saying he conducted three missions nightly, “and I never know if each one will be my last, if I’m going to make it there and back in one piece.”

The Times records how a logistics vehicle was recently struck by a Russian drone while returning from a resupply mission. The driver lost an arm, but there were so many drones buzzing nearby, he couldn’t be evacuated from the position for five hours, so bled to death. Five Ukrainian armoured vehicles were destroyed by drones in the same sector the next day. However, none of this is seeping out to the world via the mainstream media, which once published videos of Ukrainian strikes on Russia daily.

As The Times notes, drones have adversely affected a core component of Kiev’s war effort – “media communications”. The 93rd Brigade was once “renowned for allowing reporters good access to…the war from the front.” Now though, “access for journalists has been dramatically reduced,” with “many media organisations…reluctant to commit reporters into areas within 15 km of the front.” Ukrainian brigades are likewise “wary” of the risks “they expose their own troops to in taking journalists by vehicle to the front.”

The Times reports that in 2023, the 93rd Brigade’s press officer “organised hundreds of visits to the front by reporters.” The number of visitors has now “dwindled to a trickle”. Since the proxy war’s eruption, the psychological field of battle has been where Ukraine has performed most effectively, eagerly assisted in its propaganda efforts by a media apparatus reflexively reporting the fantastical claims of officials in Kiev and their Western proxy backers as fact. Now, those days are long over. The press officer complained:

“The risks get bigger and bigger, and the coverage gets less and less. We get a journalist’s request to go to the front now and we wonder how rational is it? What is the danger estimate? What is the benefit?”

‘Technological Adaptations’

The Times report is a vanishingly rare mainstream acknowledgement of how the conflict raging in Donbass is a war unlike any other in history, and its key spheres of battle are wholly uncharted territory for Western militaries. Despite this media omertà, the proxy conflict’s unparalleled operating environment, and obvious lessons, have not gone entirely unheeded in certain elite quarters. Nonetheless, despite alarm bells ringing accordingly, they are evidently falling on deaf ears in American and European centres of power.

In September 2024, Britain’s House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee published a bombshell report, Ukraine: a wake-up call. It found the proxy war had “exposed fundamental weaknesses” in the “military strength” of both Britain and NATO, concluding London was effectively defenceless, with its “small” military reliant on unaffordable “status symbols” such as non-functional aircraft carriers. The country lacks the ammunition, armour, equipment, industrial capacity, personnel and vehicles to withstand a Donbass-style conflict for more than a few weeks at absolute most.

Amidst relentless condemnation of the state of Britain’s armed forces, the report contained a dedicated section on how “the use of drones in Ukraine” had “exposed the sheer variety of possible drone threats in a conflict scenario, ranging from disposable and commercially available drones to high-end, sophisticated ones.” It noted the development has “inserted an extra layer of weaponry between the land and air domains”, while augmenting “existing capabilities that both sides have, particularly offering new defensive options in the absence of air superiority.”

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As such, the House of Lords Committee called for London to “invest in research and development to maintain a strategic edge in drone technology (including amphibious drones), and support the rapid development of new technologies that can compete in contested environments.” It implored decisionmakers to constantly consider and monitor “the pace of technological adaptations on and off the battlefield,” and the Ministry of Defence “to support continuous adaptation,” such as “[incorporating] learning on the use of drones in Ukraine across all domains.”

The report went entirely unremarked upon by the media contemporaneously, and today there is no sign of its multiple urgent calls to action having produced any meaningful results in any tangible regard in Britain’s armed forces. Similarly, despite NATO officials openly warning the alliance is wholly dependent on US electronic warfare capabilities, which in any event are woefully inferior to Russia’s own, public indications of Western leaders or militaries taking the drone warfare revolution seriously are unforthcoming. Should they end up in direct conflict with Russia, they’ll be in for quite a shock.