Ukraine's former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov has offered to help the United States build a fleet of attack drones if Washington sends Ukraine the Patriot interceptor missiles it needs to get through winter, he told the Financial Times. The idea is Fedorov's own proposal, not a deal, and he holds no government post that would let him negotiate one for Kyiv. He is in Washington mainly to raise American money for a fund that would both invest in Ukrainian defense-tech companies and build new ones of its own.

Over the past year, Ukraine's partners have shifted from handing over weapons off their shelves to funding and co-producing Ukrainian-designed drones and missiles, inside and outside the country.

What the fund would do

Fedorov used his working trip to Washington to line up venture funds, entrepreneurs and tech companies as backers, Suspilne reported. The fund would not simply invest in existing Ukrainian defense-tech firms, he wrote; it would also create new companies around the technologies the front line needs most. He set out three targets: battlefield robots to replace soldiers in the most dangerous positions, jet-powered interceptor drones to bring down Russia's faster new attack drones, and cheap missiles that use artificial intelligence. He did not say what his own role would be, or whether he would profit. He said the next step is to assemble a team and launch the first projects.

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The interceptors behind the offer

Fedorov framed the drone help as a straight swap.

"I'm ready to make that trade," he told the FT.

Ukraine is running low on interceptor missiles for its Patriot batteries, one of the few air-defense systems able to reliably stop Russia's ballistic missiles. Fedorov declined to say whether he would meet anyone from the Trump administration.

Ukraine's ex-minister turns open critic

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Fedorov on 15 July, after six months in the job. Fedorov said a feud with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, who he says blocked his reforms, drove the split, Zelenskyy removed Syrskyi on 21 July as protests spread. in an interview with Reuters published on 25 August.

"it looks as though we're gradually, slowly losing," he said in an interview with Reuters.

Ukraine has unveiled the largest robot boat in its Magura sea-drone family, and this one is built to carry and launch other drones instead of ramming enemy ships, the company UFORCE told Militarnyi. UFORCE showed the new V11 during Ukraine's Independence Day drone parade, signaling a move from single-use attack craft toward a floating base at sea.

Ukraine has fought its Black Sea war with throwaway robot boats—cheap, one-way, built to hit a ship and go down with it. Shifting toward reusable platforms that keep other machines running far from any coast marks a different bet.

A floating base, not a battering ram

The V11 is the biggest drone in its class. Earlier, Magura boats were made to hit warships. This one is a transport platform that carries other unmanned systems and gear. Its main feature is the ability to launch a larger number of unmanned systems straight from its deck, turning one boat into a mobile base for them. The company refers to the drone as both the V11 and the MV11.

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What the V11 can do

UFORCE says the drone carries up to 2,200 kg (about 4,850 pounds) and can stay at sea for up to seven days. The company built it for reconnaissance, surveillance, support of landing operations, and resupplying fuel and equipment to other naval drones.

"It is a platform that provides multi-domain capability: one carrier that carries and launches other unmanned systems far from shore for operations across all domains," said Oleh Rogynskyy, CEO of UFORCE.

He said the investment the company attracts works for Ukraine's Defense Forces.

From strikes to a US production line

UFORCE's design and engineering office in Portugal developed the V11, drawing on international investment and aiming at the needs of Ukraine's Defense Forces. Its work there was first reported in September 2025.

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In July, the company and the US firm ReconCraft signed a memorandum for the licensed production of Magura naval drones in the US. Ukraine's Magura boats have forced Russia's Black Sea Fleet back to safer ports, and some versions have even shot down Russian fighter jets.

Ukraine has brought another 103 servicemembers home from Russian captivity in the first stage of a new prisoner exchange, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported on 19 August 2026. Most of the returning defenders are wounded or seriously ill after captivity that, for some, reached back to 2022, the year of Russia's full-scale invasion. The United States and the United Arab Emirates helped organize the swap, the headquarters said.

Who came home

The freed group covers nearly every branch of Ukraine's forces. It includes members of the Armed Forces, the Navy, Territorial Defense, the National Guard and the State Border Guard Service. Alongside soldiers and sergeants, several officers were released.

The Coordination HQ detailed the composition. The Defense Ministry accounted for 92 of those freed, and the Interior Ministry for 11. Two of the returnees are officers, the rest enlisted personnel and NCOs. Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said his ministry's 11 broke down into five National Guardsmen and six border guards.

The defenders had been captured across the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Sumy directions, as well as at Mariupol. The single largest share, 72, fell on the Donetsk front. The youngest freed defender was born in 2000, and the oldest is 59.

Years behind Russian bars

The captures span the entire full-scale war. One of those freed had been held since 2022, 16 since 2023, and 48 since 2024. Another 31 were seized in 2025 and seven this year. By the same tally, the International Committee of the Red Cross had confirmed the captivity of 102 of the group before the handover, with a single case verified through other sources.

A previous swap in late June returned 160 defenders, all of them held since 2022.

Wounded and ill

The released defenders will undergo full medical examinations, receive physical and psychological rehabilitation, and obtain the state payments provided by law. The head of the President's Office, Kyrylo Budanov, said doctors were already doing everything necessary for the returnees, most of whom came back with wounds and serious illness.

Their condition fits a wider pattern Ukrainian officials have described, in which Russia starves most captives and executes many surrendered soldiers on the battlefield.

"We remember everyone still in captivity"

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the freed included men who had defended Mariupol. 

"We remember every man and every woman still held captive. We are doing everything possible to bring all our people home," he said.

The Security Service of Ukraine noted the swap ran through the joint center it operates to coordinate the search and release of prisoners. Oleh Ivashchenko, chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) and head of the Coordination Headquarters, met the returning defenders in person. 

The US plan to sell Türkiye F-35 stealth fighter jets has stalled, blocked by a Russian missile system Ankara bought years ago, Semafor reported. Lawmakers in Washington won't clear the deal while Türkiye keeps the hardware. The lone buyer in talks hasn't budged, and destroying the system is now on the table.

Russia has long used arms exports to pull buyers into its orbit, and the war it started raised the price of those ties—leaving governments that bought Russian air defense to clash with the supplier that sold it.

The Russian system is in the way

US sanctions law bars Türkiye from the F-35 program while it retains the Russian S-400, Semafor reported. That system is a long-range air defense, built to shoot down planes and missiles. Ankara already paid for six of the jets. They have sat in the United States since Washington expelled Türkiye from the F-35 program in 2019. US President Donald Trump announced plans to sell the jets more than a month ago, and nothing has moved since.

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No buyer, no easy exit

One way out is to sell the S-400 to another country. Türkiye reportedly opened talks with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last month, but they don't appear to have progressed. American lawmakers insist Ankara must give up the system entirely first.

Republican Senator Rick Scott told Semafor that Türkiye shouldn't get the jets unless it becomes a true partner—"so if they have the S-400, they cannot have the F-35." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, a longtime opponent, said the process is "at a standstill."

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Israel and Congress are the live block

The sharper obstacle sits in Washington, Semafor reported. A vote to sell would pit Israel against a NATO ally, and many of Trump's own allies want the S-400 scrapped completely. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the jets could "destroy the power balance in the Middle East." The outlet said AIPAC, the leading pro-Israel lobby in Washington, is pressing Congress to keep the block.

Selling it still runs through Moscow

Any resale carries its own catch: Russia must approve the transfer of the S-400, giving the Kremlin a reason to block it. The only option that bypasses Moscow is to disable or destroy the system outright. Türkiye earlier tried to return the systems to Moscow, hoping to thaw relations with Washington. It didn't work.

The Trump administration says Ankara hasn't met all the conditions to buy the jets, and the State Department wants the S-400 issue settled with guarantees first.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said authorities had detained a Russian citizen recruited by Moscow to kill a man in Warsaw. The target holds US and Ukrainian passports, the Associated Press (AP) reported on 13 August. Tusk said Polish security services stopped the alleged attack “at the last minute.” 

Since 2022, AP has mapped about 200 acts of sabotage, arson, and disruption across Europe that officials have linked to Russia. European governments say the campaign aims to intimidate Ukraine’s supporters and disrupt military aid, while Ukrainian authorities report similar recruitment tactics inside Ukraine.

The suspect was detained on 7 August and remanded for three months, Warsaw police said. Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister overseeing Poland’s intelligence services, said the operation involved US services.

PM Tusk called it the first Russian-ordered attempt of its kind against a US citizen in another NATO country. He said the target was “inconvenient to the Putin regime,” without explaining why.

In their bulletin, Reuters reported that Russia’s Warsaw embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moscow denies conducting a sabotage campaign in Europe.

Russia has already gone after a German arms CEO and critics of the Kremlin

European authorities had already reported plots against arms-industry figures supplying Ukraine. CNN reported in 2024 that US and German services foiled a plot against Rheinmetall chief Armin Papperger. 

Former Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev said an intelligence insider told him he was on Russia’s kill list. He also warned Putin critic Garry Kasparov that a Russian agent trained in assassination had infiltrated exile groups to approach him.

Russia has also been accused of targeting Kremlin opponents abroad. In June, Kremlin critic Robert Kuzovkov was shot dead in Poland. Tusk said the killing resembled a political assassination, but Warsaw has not attributed it to Russia.

Russia uses disposable agents, not career spies

The alleged recruitment in Warsaw resembles tactics reported elsewhere in Europe. German investigators identified a former Ukrainian bricklayer and an untrained Romanian woman as the suspected operatives surveilling Stefan Thumann, head of Bavarian drone maker Donaustahl. German intelligence later classified the case as a suspected planned assassination.

Ukrainian authorities have reported similar recruitment at home. The SBU said an FSB-directed foreign pair killed Colonel Ivan Voronych in Kyiv in July 2025. Both suspects later died in a shootout with law enforcement.

Ukrainian police say Russian recruitment can escalate from surveillance and simple deliveries to arson, terrorism, and murder. Since the start of 2026, police and the SBU have registered 31 terrorist attacks and prevented another 14.

The United States and Ukraine are working together to put fresh missiles into Ukraine's aging Soviet-era S-300 air defenses, retired US Army colonel Robert Hamilton told PBS NewsHour. These long-range systems shoot down aircraft, but the missiles that feed them have been depleted. The effort—retrofitting old rounds or building a newer variant—would revive launchers Ukraine already owns.

Ukraine's air defense runs on a shrinking supply of interceptors, with Russian ballistic and drone strikes outpacing what allies can ship. The chokepoint is production capacity, not willingness—and Hamilton frames the S-300 rebuild as one of the slower-burn fixes that ease the strain on scarce Western systems rather than replace them.

A working system near the end of 2026

Hamilton, who heads the Delphi Global Research Center, said the joint effort should come online near the end of 2026 and could turn out "100 or a couple of hundred" anti-aircraft missiles a year. He described the work as an effort to "essentially retrofit or upgrade the old S-300 missiles or a newer variant of the S-300" and give the system better capabilities.

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In September 2024, then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced at the Ramstein contact group that Washington, in partnership with several European companies, was working with Ukraine to "design and build a substitute" for the Soviet S-300 and the R-27 air-to-air missile used by fighter jets. He never spelled out what that substitute would be.

Why Ukraine's S-300s ran law

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine held roughly 25-30 S-300PT/PS battalions in varying states of readiness. As the missiles ran out, Kyiv came to lean on Western air defense systems and interceptors while Russia keeps launching mass strikes.

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Anything Ukraine can build or rebuild on its own soil is a supply that no foreign stockpile or political fight can cut off.

That same logic is pushing Kyiv toward co-producing Patriots with US firms and fielding its own ballistic interceptor—a race to turn air defense into a domestic industry before the next winter of strikes.

U.S. President Donald Trump is considering sending Ukraine an additional Patriot air defense system, a move that would mark his administration's first major weapons transfer to Kyiv, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on July 8, citing two defense officials.

The report is the latest in a series of contradictory messages from the Trump White House in recent days regarding military aid to Ukraine. While the Pentagon on July 2 announced a halt in weapons shipments to Kyiv due to dwindling U.S. stockpiles, Trump later claimed he wasn't responsible for the decision and wanted to send more weapons to Ukraine.

A U.S. defense official told the WSJ that Trump has asked the Pentagon to look into options for supplying Ukraine with more arms, including a Patriot air defense system. Officials are also reportedly exploring whether other nations can send Patriots to Kyiv.

The claim dovetails with recent media reports about the administration's plans to bolster Ukraine's air defenses. Axios reported on July 8 that the White House is pursuing a plan to have Germany sell another Patriot battery to Ukraine, with the U.S. and European allies splitting the cost of the purchase. Sources told the outlet that Trump also pledged to send 10 Patriot interceptor missiles to Kyiv.

If the U.S. provides Ukraine with an additional Patriot system, it would mark the first time Trump has approved a major military aid package to Kyiv that wasn't previously greenlighted by former U.S. President Joe Biden.

Washington has thus far provided Kyiv with three Patriots, a former Pentagon official told the WSJ. Germany has also sent three, while a group of European countries provided one. According to the official, not all systems are in use at the same time due to maintenance issues.

The U.S.-made air defense systems are in high demand around the world. Each system consists of two or three launchers, a radar, a command and control element, and interceptor missiles. Patriot missiles are also in short supply globally: Ukraine faces an urgent need for the munitions amid increased Russian aerial attacks, and the Guardian reported on July 8 that even the U.S. has only 25% of the interceptors required by its defense readiness plans.

According to one of the officials who spoke to the WSJ, the U.S. military would be able to supply an additional Patriot to Ukraine if ordered by the White House.

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Ukraine's current ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, will be replaced in the near future, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha confirmed in an interview with Ukrainian Radio on July 8.

Earlier on July 8, a source in the Presidential Office told the Kyiv Independent that President Volodymyr Zelensky had informed Markarova of her pending dismissal.

"We can expect about 20 decrees dismissing and appointing new heads of foreign institutions," Sybiha said, specifically mentioning the U.S. as one of the planned replacements.

In his comments, Sybiha described Markarova as "one of our most successful ambassadors."

"She is extremely effective and charismatic, but surely every diplomat has a rotation cycle," he said. "I can confirm that the Ukrainian president's vision is to carry out rotations in all countries, both G7 and G20. That is, first and foremost, to strengthen these countries, in particular the U.S. track."

Zelensky and Sybiha on June 21 announced plans to overhaul Ukraine's diplomatic corps, teasing major personnel changes in a bid to secure better military aid packages and other support from international partners.

Zelensky discussed replacing Markarova specifically in a recent phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, a source in the President's Office told the Kyiv Independent on July 7.

There are multiple "strong candidates" in the running to replace Markarova, the source said. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, and Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko are among the candidates, Bloomberg previously reported.

In his evening address, Zelensky said that a meeting with all Ukrainian ambassadors is scheduled for July 21. It was not immediately clear as to when the changes to the posts may take effect.

Markarova has served as Kyiv's ambassador to Washington since April 2021, and played a central role in coordinating U.S. military and financial support during the early phases of Russia's full-scale invasion.

The announcement of her dismissal comes at a high-stakes moment in relations between Kyiv and Washington. The U.S. Defense Department recently paused shipments of critical weapons systems, including Patriot air defense missiles and precision-guided munitions, even as Ukraine faces intensifying Russian attacks.

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