Russia is now tearing apart brand-new planes to keep older ones in the air. The country's civil aviation continues to deteriorate under international sanctions, forcing it to dismantle even new, fully equipped aircraft to obtain spare parts, Ukraine's Defense Intelligence (HUR) reports.

About 95% of all passenger traffic in Russia operates on Western-built aircraft, mostly Airbus and Boeing, according to HUR, a figure consistent with the roughly 90% EP has reported in earlier Ukrainian intelligence assessments.

Much of that fleet has flown past its guaranteed service life and would long since have been retired under international norms, but cut off from certified maintenance, Russia keeps flying it against the rules.

Repairs are carried out without proper certification, parts are often handmade from unsuitable materials, and what cannot be made is imported through third countries. 

The usable fleet is shrinking toward a hard floor

The risk of seizure abroad has boxed Russia's usable fleet into a narrow set of planes. Because of the danger of arrest in foreign jurisdictions, Russia can relatively safely operate only about 400 foreign aircraft and fewer than 150 Soviet and Russian-built machines, according to HUR.

The 400-aircraft figure tracks the roughly 400 Western jets Russia appropriated from foreign leasing companies after the 2022 full-scale war, planes it re-registered domestically and cannot fly to most of the world without risking impoundment. Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service reported in October 2025 that Russian carriers could shed hundreds of planes by 2030 as sanctions block imports of aircraft, parts, and maintenance, with more than a third of the civil fleet already cannibalized for parts. 

The homegrown replacement program is failing on the specifics

Russia's plan to replace Western aircraft with its own is ambitious on paper and stalling in practice. The state has a program running to 2030, worth about $12 billion, to build 994 civilian aircraft and 765 helicopters, according to HUR, but an industry cut off from Western technology cannot make components of adequate quality.

The failures are specific and checkable. The MC-21, meant to replace the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, had to have its capacity cut from 210 to 163 seats because of problems with its domestic PD-14 engines. The Superjet has hit similar engine trouble, and Russia has abandoned new modifications of the Il-96 entirely.

Regional aviation is no better. The LMS-901 "Baikal," meant to replace the Ukrainian-designed An-2, cannot do what its predecessor could: take off and land on unprepared dirt strips. The Il-114-300, meant to replace the An-24 and An-26, can operate only from paved airfields, and the use of unsuitable propeller materials carries a risk that the propellers could fail.

Ukraine's president has taken the question of Patriot production to the company that builds the missile.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy met a team from the American defense company Raytheon and said Ukraine is negotiating joint production of interceptors for the Patriot air defense systems, one of the country's key air defenses, he announced.

At the Farnborough Airshow this week, senior executives from Raytheon parent RTX and from Lockheed Martin described talks on Ukrainian Patriot production as "early days" and said they were awaiting US government guidance on licensing.

Zelenskyy's meeting, led by Raytheon Vice President Joseph Deantona, is the Ukrainian side pushing that process forward directly with the company rather than waiting on it.

Zelenskyy ties talks back to Ankara

Raytheon is a powerful defense company whose equipment Ukraine has long used to protect people from Russian attacks, Zelenskyy said at the meeting, thanking the team for its readiness to take the partnership to a new level, specifically on joint production of Patriot interceptors.

The sides also discussed other areas of cooperation, including non-offensive military equipment, and agreed that Ukrainian teams at the government level and in the private sector should stay in contact with Raytheon to work out the details of the partnership.

Interceptor shortage is reason for urgency

The Patriot interceptor is the weapon Ukraine most needs and can least produce, which is what makes any production deal so consequential and its timeline so pressing. Ukraine's interception rate against ballistic missiles was roughly 40% in June, against 89% for air threats overall, and only Patriots reliably engage the ballistic and hypersonic missiles in Russia's massed strikes.

The gap between negotiation and missile is the catch. Independent estimates put the first Ukrainian-built interceptors well over a year away, and the deepest bottleneck is a Boeing guidance component made in only two places on Earth.

For the near term, Zelenskyy has been clear that the missiles that matter come from existing American stocks.

He told NATO's United States envoy this week that increased interceptor deliveries through the PURL mechanism are "the key priority, because Russia's massed strikes do not stop." The Raytheon talks are about the year after this one, while the PURL deliveries are about tonight.

Ireland brought more aid to Ukraine. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee announced a new $146 million package of bilateral support for Ukraine in 2026, during the visit to Kyiv on 23 July, the Irish government reports. 

The package splits into $117 million for priority non-lethal military equipment and $29 million to help repair and protect Ukraine's critical infrastructure, with a focus on energy ahead of winter.

Martin arrived in Kyiv to show Irish solidarity three weeks after President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Dublin to mark the start of Ireland's presidency of the Council of the European Union, which runs through the end of 2026.

Alumina question follows Martin to Kyiv

The discussions were also focused on a Russian-owned refinery in Ireland, according to the Irish government. 

"I also briefed the President on the findings of our investigation into Aughinish Alumina and the export of alumina to Russia," he said.

The Aughinish plant is owned by the Russian metals giant Rusal, and the investigation into it is the uncomfortable subtext of Ireland's support for Ukraine.

Ireland's Department of Enterprise opened a review after The Irish Times and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project published an investigation into the plant's alleged role in supplying Russia's military industry.

Speaking during a visit to Kyiv on Thursday, Martin said the investigation into the Co Limerick facility did not find "definitive" evidence that it was supplying alumina to the Russian military, but could not rule out that scenario.

“What we have said is that the evidential threshold isn’t there to prove that it goes into weapon making; on the other hand, neither can you say definitively that it doesn’t," Martin said.

He said close to half of Ireland's alumina exports go to Europe, namely Sweden and France.

The government may look for another route to the same end. Ireland would work with the European Commission to find a way to ensure its alumina exports do not feed the Russian war machine, without necessarily sanctioning the product, Martin said, calling it "both an Irish issue and a European issue."

Exclusives

Russia just copied Ukraine's cleverest drone hunter. A $500,000 missile is a costly way of taking down a $50,000 attack drone. So the Russians are arming old planes with cheap interceptor drones.

Ukraine's defense minister explained how the country buys weapons—after he was sacked. A sacked minister spent 90 minutes explaining how Ukraine buys shells. He told more than the ministry had published in six months.

Russia will read shops' cash registers to police food prices it can't tame. Unable to bring down food prices, Russia is building a system to watch them instead.

Crimea's political prisoners lost their lifeline—because keeping it open would have put more people in prison. The Crimean Solidarity movement backed families of the detained in the occupied peninsula, arranged legal defense, and circulated information that fell outside the official Russian narrative.

Team news

First order to Ukraine's new commanders: modernize force while holding it. Zelenskyy said Skybiuk will head the General Staff under new army chief Drapatyi.

Military

Two Russian oil sites burning north of Kazakhstan—Ukraine hit both in the dark. The twin strikes reached about 800 and more than 1,300 kilometers into Russia, hitting Ulyanovsk and Bashkortostan facilities.

ISW: Russia has taken just 81 km² of Ukraine this year—while claiming 2,226. The false picture is not just propaganda for the public but material that appears to reach the desk of Russia's leader, the think tank says.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's newest frontline motorcycle drives over anti-vehicle mines and works as power station. Ukraine codified the MUL.E, its first all-wheel-drive electric military motorcycle, whose detachable generator can charge FPV drones and power a whole unit in the field.

For first time, Russia merged two separate drone types onto one Mesh network. Ukraine already has answer. Russia has linked its Molniya drones to Gerbera relay drones over a MESH network for the first time, previously incompatible, the presidential adviser said.

Two companies that actually build Patriots describe Ukrainian production as "just started," while Russia is firing ballistic missiles every night. Two weeks after Trump promised Ukraine a Patriot license, Lockheed Martin and RTX say they are only in early talks and awaiting US government guidance.

Russia's Su-57 newest stealth fighter crashes near Moscow—and the suspects are Russian air defenders. A Russian military blogger pointed at a mobile air-defense group guarding the capital, though no official confirmed the cause.

France hasn't finalized terms or funding for the 16 Rafale jets promised to Kyiv. What a Paris summit unveiled two weeks ago remains, in the manufacturer's own words, a stated intention rather than a purchase contract.

International

"Putin droned Jesus Christ": Far-right Trump ally who opposed Ukraine aid says she was wrong after visiting Kyiv. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist close to Trump, visited the drone-damaged Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and told her followers Russia struck the heart of Christianity after years of pro-Kremlin rhetoric.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine finds uranium in six more Russian drones. Their radiation readings ran up to 80 times background. The Security Service found uranium in Geran-2 warheads striking Chernihiv Oblast and warned residents not to touch drone fragments, which can release radioactive dust.

Political and legal developments

"I'm not agreeing to any other position": Ukraine's fired defense minister says only return to his former job will help end army procurement corruption. Mykhailo Fedorov says he will accept no post Zelenskyy offers except defense minister, arguing only three roles truly shape the war and he will take only his old one.

New developments

Russia's construction on Crimea's only World Heritage site exposed 500,000 artifacts. UNESCO has just declared complex is in danger. UNESCO added Chersonesus Taurica in occupied Crimea to its List of World Heritage in Danger.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Loomer had spent years minimizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and amplifying Russian propaganda to her nearly two million followers

Sometime late last year, some enterprising Ukrainian volunteers mounted a 7.62-millimeter minigun to the port fuselage hatch of an Antonov An-28 turboprop transport—and went hunting for Russian Shahed attack drones.

Months later, in April, the same crew added much heavier armament to their Shahed-killing gunship—in the form of inexpensive interceptor drones hanging from the old transport's wings. Interceptor drones normally launch from the ground before slamming into their Russian targets. But low clouds can blind them. Launching from an airborne An-28 means the interceptors can get above the clouds—and continue their hunt in all but the worst weather.

It's such a good idea that Russian forces have copied it. A new video that circulated online depicts Russian aircrew arming an Antonov An-2 biplane and a Yakovlev Yak-52 turboprop training plane with underwing interceptor drones. The Ukrainians also use Yak-52s for air defense against drones, albeit with a gun-armed shooter in the back seat.

The An-2 was designed in the 1940s. It cruises at barely 250 km/hr. The 1970s-vintage Yak-52 is slightly faster at 285 km/hr. But both types are stable and maneuverable and cheap to operate. They may not be able to take down the highest and fastest aerial targets, but they don't have to. They're for the lower, slower targets.

In other words, the An-2s and Yak-52s complement surface-to-air missiles and missile-armed fighters. They don't replace them. "This is the low-cost way if providing area air defense," wrote Michael Bohnert, an analyst with the California think tank RAND.

The interceptor drones hanging under the An-2 and Yak-52's wings function as inexpensive air-to-air missiles, helping the old planes hit Ukrainian drones from potentially 10 km away or farther. The concept is simple. The biplane or trainer takes off, maneuvers between incoming Ukrainian drones and their target and launches its underwing interceptors, most likely one at a time.

A crew member in the cabin of the An-2 or the back seat of the Yak-52 sees what the interceptor sees on a handheld console, and steers the interceptor to a collision with a Ukrainian drone. Some interceptors drones have a small explosive payload, but they don't normally need it: the impact alone should take down a drone.

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Ukraine’s 59-kill cargo plane proves low-tech can beat high-tech

Enviable concept

It's obvious why the Russians copied the Ukrainian gunship concept. Ukrainian drones struck no fewer than 1,000 Russian air defense systems and related facilities just between June and March, according to Ukrainian analysis group Tochnyii. The resulting gaps in Russian air defenses helped more Ukrainian drones reach strategic targets such as munitions factories and oil refineries.

Now the Ukrainians are launching more than 11,000 one-way attack drones a month at targets in occupied Ukraine and Russia itself, steadily bleeding the Russian war effort through thousands of pinpricks. Russia needs more air defenses, fast. The cheaper the better as it scrambles to replace destroyed missile batteries and plug gaps in the overall air defense network.

Old turboprop planes costing just a few thousand dollars and hour to fly, and carrying interceptor drones also costing just a few thousand dollars, are just the thing. An-2s and Yak-52s could fly over Moscow or other cities in western Russia, swatting down incoming Ukrainian drones and freeing up higher-end air defenses to focus on harder targets such as Ukraine's Fire Point FP-5 cruise missiles.

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Russia is running out of its best eyes in the sky

Where a propeller-driven attack drone cruising at just 200 km/hr is vulnerable to an interceptor drone speeding along at 350 km/hr or faster, an FP-5 jetting along at 950 km/hr is too fast to intercept with a drone. It's not that the Russians can't shoot down an FP-5—they can and do—but it's apparent they usually do so with missiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece or more.

Those missiles are in increasingly short supply in Russia, just as they are in Ukraine. The Russians are keen to save them for the hardest targets. And that means taking down the easiest targets with something like an old transport plane lugging $2,000 interceptor drones.

The Russians' improvised gunships aren't foolproof, of course. Russian forces adapted to Ukrainian forces' gunships by acquiring more jet-propelled Shaheds that can outrun the gunships. The Ukrainians could adapt in the same way: adding more jet drones to their attack mix in order to thwart the Russian gunships.

Ukraine's newest frontline motorcycle can carry two soldiers, avoid the mines that kill trucks, and recharge a unit's drones. The Defense Ministry codified the MUL.E, Ukraine's first all-wheel-drive electric motorcycle, and cleared it for use in the Armed Forces, the Defense Ministry announced.

Motorcycles have become one of the most sought-after vehicles on the front, alongside pickups, giving Ukrainian troops speed and mobility where logistics are hard, roads are absent, or small groups operate.

In 2026, Ukraine's Defense Procurement Agency contracted 1,500 motorcycles for the Armed Forces, three times last year's volume, and by bringing six companies into a competitive tender, it cut the final price and saved the state budget nearly $290,000. The MUL.E is the sharper end of that push: not just cheaper transport bought in bulk, but a purpose-built machine with capabilities no internal-combustion motorcycle has.

The MUL.E was developed at a Ukrainian defense enterprise in response to soldiers' requests for high-intensity modern warfare. It carries personnel with weapons, small cargo, and wounded across all surfaces, including off-road, and can tow a loaded trailer, per the Defense Ministry.

What sets MUL.E apart

During testing, the MUL.E confirmed its stated characteristics, the Defense Ministry said. Its distinctive features are the ones a conventional military motorcycle lacks: a 2×2 all-wheel-drive design, two independent motors for survivability if one fails, near-silent operation, fast deployment and packing, long autonomous running time, and significant range.

The mine resistance is the standout. The MUL.E's wide off-road tires and all-wheel drive let it cross difficult terrain, washed-out ground, sand, deep snow, and marsh, and because it exerts low ground pressure, roughly like an infantryman's foot, it does not trigger most mines designed to destroy cars and armored vehicles. A vehicle that can drive over anti-vehicle mines without setting them off is a real advantage on a front where mining has made many routes impassable.

Bike is also power station

The MUL.E's second role is what its makers call a bike-generator. A full charge lasts nearly 100 kilometers, and unlike other electric vehicles, the MUL.E does not simply stop when its batteries run out.

Mounted on the frame is an additional gasoline generator that recharges the onboard batteries. It is detachable, so it can be lifted off and used as a power source in its own right: charging the batteries of phones, communications equipment, and FPV drones, or supplying electricity to a unit in field conditions. That turns the motorcycle into mobile infrastructure.

A small group operating far from any grid can ride the MUL.E in silently, then use it to keep their drones and radios powered.

The dual function fits Ukraine's wider drive toward electric frontline transport that is quiet and hard to detect. Ukraine approved the WOLFSTORM electric motorcycle in June 2026, an 80 km/h machine that defeats thermal and acoustic detection and carries two soldiers in full gear.

The MUL.E adds all-wheel drive, mine resistance, and a generator to that concept, extending what an electric two-wheeler can do for the small mobile groups that increasingly define how Ukraine fights.

Russia has connected two of its drones that could not talk to each other before. Ukraine has documented a case in which Russia controlled "Molniya" drones via "Gerbera" relay drones over a MESH network, which was previously impossible due to a licensing restriction, presidential adviser on defense technology development Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov said.

That MESH network is the technology Russia now relies on for its entire drone-control system. In it, radio modems on the drones connect to one another in the air, each relaying to the next, so that if one drone drops out, the signal routes around it through another, Beskrestnov explained.

Same Chinese manufacturer produces these drones 

Even if 80% of the drones are destroyed, the rest can still relay. The network lets operators inside Russia steer drones over Ukraine from hundreds of kilometers away, and it is what makes the online-controlled Shahed a hard air-defense problem Ukraine faces.

The new development is that two previously separate drones have joined the same mesh. The MESH modems on the Molniya and the Shahed-family Gerbera come from the same Chinese manufacturer and operate on the same frequency band, Beskrestnov said, but until now they were not compatible with each other due to a licensing restriction.

"Today we have the first case of controlling Molniyas through a Gerbera," he said.

Flash says fix is simple: kill Gerbera

Beskrestnov called the change expected and told Ukraine's air defenders how to answer it. He asked everyone to note the fact, because the scheme will probably spread.

"If anything, we drop the Gerbera, and the Molniyas fall on their own," he said.

The logic is the relay chain's own weakness: if the Gerbera is the node passing control to the Molniyas, destroying that relay severs the Molniyas from their operators. A drone flying on a link that no longer exists loses its guidance.

That points at a target Ukraine already tracks. The Gerbera is a cheap foam decoy-and-reconnaissance drone Russia flies alongside Shaheds to draw fire, scout air defenses, and, increasingly, carry the mesh modems that relay control to other drones. Turning it into a control node for Molniyas makes it more valuable to Russia and more worth shooting down for Ukraine.

The former Ukrainian defense minister says he will only take back his old job, not another role. Mykhailo Fedorov explains that he is refusing every position Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has offered him in the state sector, because only the defense minister is among the roles that "really determine the course of the war," Suspilne reported.

His words came amid the fallout from a reshuffle that had run for over a week. Zelenskyy dismissed Fedorov on 15 July, per his own announcement, triggering six days of protests in Kyiv and at least 16 other cities that demanded his reinstatement.

Fedorov said he is grateful to Zelenskyy for the proposed ways to keep working for Ukraine, but that only three positions, apart from the soldiers on the battlefield, actually shape the war: the president, the defense minister, and the commander-in-chief.

"That is why I am not agreeing to any position other than that of the defense minister," he said.

No other post, in his view, has the real authority to defeat corruption in procurement, complete the army transformation he began, plan asymmetric operations against the enemy, and root out what he called a culture of lies and irresponsibility within the system.

Fedorov names the plan he says he was hired to finish

Fedorov grounded his refusal in unfinished work. He recalled that he came to the Defense Ministry in January 2026 at Zelenskyy's invitation, with a team and "a concrete plan for how to end the war."

That plan he called AIR-LAND-ECONOMY: defend the sky, halt the front, and strike the enemy's economy.

"Over six months, we consistently implemented exactly this plan. For the first time in recent years, Ukraine began to seize the initiative," Fedorov said.

The results, he argued, created something that had not existed before — a window of opportunity to force Russia to peace through strength — "and it cannot be lost."

Stance corners president

Fedorov's all-or-nothing position converts public sympathy into leverage. A Rating Group poll conducted on 20 and 21 July found that 72% of Ukrainians opposed his dismissal and 5% supported it, while 55% backed the removal of then-Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has granted the demand with less public backing, Syrskyi's removal, and stalled on the one with more, Fedorov's return.

Now Fedorov has removed the middle option. By refusing any role other than the defense minister, he leaves President Volodymyr Zelenskyy two choices: reinstate the minister he fired a week ago, or leave out of government the official three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted kept.

An American activist who spent years repeating Russian talking points told her followers she had been wrong about Ukraine. Laura Loomer, a far-right blogger and ally of US President Donald Trump, shared her impressions with hundreds of thousands of followers after visiting the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Dormition Cathedral, damaged by a Russian drone strike. 

The visit is the public face of a documented reversal. Loomer long echoed Kremlin narratives and criticized US aid to Ukraine, and after a fact-finding trip to Kyiv in July 2026, she acknowledged she had been "propagandized by Russian media."

"I was living in a media echo chamber, and I was propagandized by Russian media on social media to believe those things. So I came to Ukraine to see the country for myself," she wrote.

The Lavra tour, alongside senior Ukrainian officials, was the culmination of that trip, which also took her to the mass graves in Bucha and through Russian strikes on the capital.

"Putin droned Jesus Christ. The Woke Reich and Russia don't want you to see this video..." Loomer wrote on X, attaching a four-minute clip recorded inside the Lavra's main cathedral.

Ukrainian officials welcomed visit

Loomer toured the Lavra with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Tetiana Berehna and First Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Serhii Kyslytsia.

The National Reserve said she was shown the Tower of St. John the Recluse, the Mystetskyi Arsenal building, and the Dormition Cathedral, all of which were damaged in the 15 June Russian attack, and was briefed on the restoration.

"It was interesting to sit down and talk to LauraLoomer and then to go to Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on Wednesday," Kyslytsia wrote, thanking Loomer for "taking the initiative and traveling to Ukraine at this time."

Berehna framed it as a matter of witness.

"Russia is destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage while Ukrainians simply want to live, create, raise children, and build our future. Thank you, Laura, for visiting Ukraine," she said.

Dormition Cathedral lost most of its roof

The site Loomer filmed carries a specific loss. The Dormition Cathedral lost more than 80% of its roof in the Russian attack, and over a dozen sites across the National Reserve were damaged.

The cathedral is not incidental to the war on heritage. The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the holiest places in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, founded in 1051.

A Russian strike damaging it is the kind of event Ukraine has documented across its cultural landscape: nearly 2,000 heritage sites damaged or destroyed since 2022, according to Ukraine's prosecutor general.

Russia's strike at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra prompted condemnation from European foreign ministers. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that "For us French, this would be equivalent to bombing Notre-Dame or the Basilica of Saint-Denis." 

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna said Russia had "once again demonstrated its barbarity and contempt for humanity's shared heritage," describing the Lavra as a UNESCO World Heritage site and "one of Christianity's holiest monasteries" that had "been a place of worship for nearly a thousand years."

Ukraine says Russia keeps putting uranium in the drones it fires at Chernihiv Oblast, the only region of the country that borders both Russia and Belarus. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) documented six more cases of Russian forces using munitions with uranium components against Ukraine, found in Geran-2 attack drones that struck Chernihiv Oblast between April and June 2026.

The findings extend a pattern EP first reported in May, when the SBU found depleted-uranium striking elements in a Geran-2 warhead near Chernihiv.

Russia mounts old Soviet R-60 air-to-air missiles on the Geran-2 drones, and the uranium sits in those missiles' warheads. The purpose is the arms race in the sky: the R-60 turns a strike drone into an air-to-air weapon meant to kill the Ukrainian aircraft and helicopters that intercept incoming drone swarms. What the SBU is now documenting is that the radioactive warhead configuration is not a one-off but a recurring feature of the strikes.

The radiation readings are the concrete findings. During inspection of the drone impact sites and radiological survey of the warheads, an SBU investigative group and State Emergency Service specialists recorded radiation up to 80 times the natural background, with gamma readings on individual drone fragments running from 8.3 to 24 microsieverts per hour against a permissible sanitary norm of 0.3.

What SBU claims, and one caution on isotopes

The SBU's forensic account is specific. Its expert examination found the missile warheads contained nuclear material identified as Uranium-235 and Uranium-238, confirmed with dosimetric equipment and a mobile automated radiological complex. The agency opened a criminal case under Article 438 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, on war crimes, and neutralized the munitions.

Depleted uranium is dangerous mainly as dust and as toxin

The health risk from these munitions is real but specific, and worth stating precisely to neither understate nor inflate it. Depleted uranium's principal hazards are chemical toxicity as a heavy metal and the radioactive dust released when a round burns or shatters, rather than penetrating radiation from an intact fragment.

That is why the SBU has issued a warning about handling. The service urged citizens who find fragments of drones, missiles, or other munitions not to approach, touch, or move them, but to move to a safe distance and report the find to the SBU hotline at 1516, the State Emergency Service at 101, or the National Police at 102.

Damaged or burned munitions pose the greatest danger, as they may release radioactive dust hazardous to people and the environment. A gamma reading of 24 microsieverts per hour is roughly 80 times background and enough to flag debris as hazardous to anyone in prolonged contact, though a single brief exposure at that level is far below the dose that causes acute harm.

The companies that actually build the Patriot say the deal with Ukraine has barely started. RTX, the parent company of Raytheon, is studying how to proceed after US President Donald Trump announced the US would grant a license, a senior executive said Monday, cautioning that talks are still early, Breaking Defense reported from the Farnborough Airshow near London.

The manufacturer's account confirms the gap between Trump's promise and any actual missile. Trump announced at the NATO summit in Ankara on 8 July that the US would let Ukraine manufacture Patriots, but did not actually grant the license, and Lockheed Martin and RTX, the two firms that build the system, had not been informed. Two weeks later, at Farnborough, both companies described the process as just beginning.

"That process has just started. And we'll of course be following the US government's lead" on licensing, said Tom Laliberty, Raytheon's president of land and air defense systems.

The Patriot is not one product but several, which is why "a license" is not a single act. The system consists of an RTX radar and other subsystems, as well as interceptors built by both RTX and Lockheed Martin. RTX makes the GEM-T interceptor. Lockheed Martin makes the PAC-3, and both can engage air and missile threats.

Manufacturers describe separate tracks, all early

Laliberty laid out where Ukrainian involvement could enter, and none of it is close to a decision. There are different levels at which RTX's supply chain could be engaged, he said, pointing to partners worldwide that produce components, operate maintenance facilities, and, in some cases, assemble complete missiles.

The feasibility studies and the licensing work would run in parallel, he added, and then "hopefully something of all that will yield the ability for Ukraine to get the right level of support that they desire for increased Patriot production.”

Lockheed Martin's account matched it. Tim Cahill, President of Missiles and Fire Control at Lockheed Martin, said "it's early" and that discussions were underway with the US Army.

“We’re going to support the US Army and the [Trump] administration on what they want to go do. I believe they are evaluating options, and we will support each of those options and do what needs to be done based upon that,” he said.

Gap is measured against war that will not wait

The manufacturers' caution matters because the timeline they describe collides with the calendar Russia is setting. Ukraine's interception rate against ballistic missiles was roughly 40% in June, against 89% for air threats overall, and Russia's massed strikes continue nightly.

Independent estimates put the first Ukrainian-built interceptors far off. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of US Army Europe, told Euromaidan Press he is "pretty certain it will not produce anything in the next three to six months.

Through-line is promise still catching up to reality

What the manufacturers confirmed on Monday is that, despite all the political momentum since Ankara, the license that would let Ukraine build its own Patriots is, in their words, still in its early days.

The missiles Ukraine needs tonight will keep coming, if they come, from existing American stocks through PURL, not from a Ukrainian production line that does not yet exist.

What Mykhailo Fedorov described the day after his dismissal is not the residue of wartime secrecy. It is the result of conscious decisions taken on specific dates, by named ministers, against the advice of the partners paying for the weapons.

Speaking to Ukrainian journalists on 16 July, Fedorov said the largest ammunition tender in the country’s history had closed with five winners. A sixth company had joined late.

This firm had publicly campaigned against competitive bidding, had been searched by law enforcement, and had cut its own price by $1,000 per shell the moment it understood the tender would go ahead anyway. 

Fedorov said department heads at his ministry had been appointed by private companies, and would not attend meetings without bringing law-enforcement officers along. He described a contract proposal with a markup of 200–300%, for a company he said belongs to a well-known person who does not live in Ukraine.

Ninety minutes of it. Names withheld, sums exact, mechanisms laid out.

Not one word verifiable by anyone outside the ministry.

The ministry said the savings on the 155mm tender paid for tens of thousands of extra shells. A procurement figure is not accounting. It is whether a gun fires in October.

Ukraine will spend about $51 billion on weapons and equipment this year, much of it borrowed from the European Union. More than 90% of that spending is classified—NATO’s own figure, against an alliance norm of 5%.

How the money becomes rounds is decided inside a system that publishes percentages and withholds everything else.

That is the story, not whether Fedorov was fired to protect someone’s schemes, which cannot be established and which this article will not pretend to establish.

The story is why a country that spent four years building an oversight system for its arms spending has now reached a point where the only account of how that money moves comes from a fired ex-minister, and cannot be checked.

What the state published

In May, Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency signed the largest artillery contract in its history: six manufacturers, 155mm shells, a competitive procedure against a starting price, savings above 16%—enough, the ministry said, for tens of thousands more shells than planned.

Six manufacturers, unnamed. A percentage with no unit price on either side of it. No count of who bid and lost. That is the complete public record.

Explore further

Competition across six manufacturers saves Ukraine 16% on its largest-ever 155mm shell contract

There is a reason, though. A supplier named in a public document is one with a Ukrainian address Russia can find, so the procedure runs closed. Every specialist accepts the logic.

The rule is written down. NATO’s 2024 procurement review set the 90% against a Euro-Atlantic standard of up to 5%, a level it treats as a peacetime target. The six unnamed manufacturers are not an exception to Ukraine’s approach to buying weapons. They are the rule, and the alliance Ukraine wants to join has said so in writing.

Now read that against what Fedorov told reporters on 16 July. The published figure is accurate. It hides the holdout, the searches, and the $1,000 climbdown—everything that made the number mean something. True and useless.

Importantly, Fedorov had said something similar already before he was fired.

In a June interview, he described officials leaking material from meetings with the procurement agency and telling excluded companies why they had been excluded.

That cannot be dismissed as the grievance of a dismissed man. It also cannot be confirmed.

His own account contains the reform’s limits. By his description, only a fifth of drone purchases run through competitive tender; four-fifths go to manufacturers ranked highest on battlefield performance data. 

That may be the right design. But it is not what “moving procurement to open tenders” sounds like.

A tender with one bidder is competitive in name only.

What the monitors can see

StateWatch, a think tank that monitors defense contracts, went through every tender the Defense Procurement Agency published in March—99 of them, worth about 15 billion hryvnias ($340 million). The average number of companies bidding on each was 1.6, which means that most drew a single bidder. Drone purchases attracted more.

A tender with one bidder is competitive in name only.

StateWatch also marks the limit of its own work. It sees only what passes through Prozorro, the open electronic bidding system. Direct contracts never enter it.

Neither does anything classified, which is most of it.

What StateWatch can see is only a fraction of what Ukraine spends. It has recorded one clear improvement: the General Staff now specifies drones by technical characteristics rather than by manufacturer name, a change the think tank had recommended to remove preferences for particular producers.

The Logistics Forces command went public against Fedorov last week, arguing that announced tenders and signed contracts are not the same as equipment reaching units.

Procurement volume is presented as delivered supply, which a spokesperson called pure PR, citing grenade launcher rounds made in 1984 as an example of what arrives.

A serious argument, resting on the same unverifiable ground as the claims it disputes.

The oversight, unbuilt

It’s not that the oversight system was just thrown overboard. It was first built, then dismantled in stages, each stage documented—and it was built partly at the insistence of the states paying for the weapons.

The Defense Procurement Agency was set up in August 2022. At the Washington summit two years later, NATO and Ukraine approved a joint review of Ukrainian defense procurement—requested by Ukraine’s defense minister—resulting in 21 recommendations.

It told Kyiv to run two agencies throughout the war, one for lethal purchases and one for everything else, and to establish independent supervisory boards immediately to provide the agencies with governance and oversight outside the ministry.

But the agreed structure did not hold.

Over the following year, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov narrowed the board’s powers by decree and removed the agency’s procurement chief, despite the board voting unanimously to keep her. In December 2025, his successor Denys Shmyhal merged the two agencies into one, effective 1 January 2026.

NATO’s review had recommended the merger, but for peacetime. Regarding doing it mid-war, NATO said the opposite: no further centralization while the fighting continues—it would disrupt supply and erode public support for the reform.

Fedorov arrived thirteen days later.

So the tenders ran inside an agency consolidated during the period the review said not to consolidate, supervised by boards whose powers had been narrowed a year earlier, under a ministry that had already removed one procurement chief for reasons her own board rejected.

The secrecy protecting suppliers is unavoidable, and no one in Berlin or Washington disputes it.

But the narrowing of oversight is a different matter: the boards were weakened, and the agencies merged by choice, directly against the written advice of the countries paying for the weapons.

The dismissal

Fedorov was removed on 15 July during a cabinet reshuffle.

Yulia Svyrydenko lost the premiership the same week, and nobody marched for her. For Fedorov, protests broke out in 17 cities the next day, with signs reading “They removed the auditor, not the thieves.”

Officially, no reason was given. What exists is an account of a closed faction meeting, reconstructed by Ukrainska Pravda from deputies in the room.

The president said he could no longer tolerate a defense ministry and general staff at war with each other, and that Fedorov had not delivered his promised mobilization reform. In a line that has aged strangely, he added that both Fedorov and Syrskyi should by rights go—but that he could not do both at once.

The Financial Times reported a fourth reason, citing people familiar with the situation: that Fedorov had repeatedly blocked attempts to steer lucrative contracts toward favored companies. The presidential office declined to comment. The General Staff denied there was any dispute at all.

Four explanations, arriving by four routes. The analyst best placed to weigh them, Volodymyr Fesenko, told the paper there seemed to have been a trigger “which we still do not fully understand.”

Euromaidan Press reported a fifth reading: Oleksiy Haran, a professor of comparative politics at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, argued that Fedorov’s real liability was that he had grown too popular to be a reliable subordinate for Zelenskyy.

Fedorov’s trust rating had just overtaken the president’s own. The Financial Times also noted that people around Zelenskyy suspected the minister of his own political ambitions.

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“They removed the auditor, not the thieves”: why Ukrainians are protesting Zelenskyy’s reshuffle

Fedorov had asked for two men to be fired: the commander-in-chief and the chief of the General Staff. Instead, he himself was dismissed.

Six days later, amid ongoing protests, Zelenskyy dismissed Oleksandr Syrskyi and named Mykhailo Drapatyi as his replacement. On 22 July, the president signed the decree and appointed Ihor Skybiuk chief of the General Staff in place of Andrii Hnatov.

Five days before his own appointment, on the day after Fedorov’s dismissal, Drapatyi had written that the army needed rules under which making the right decision would not depend on an individual commander’s courage or on the backing of particular officials, and that the transformation had to continue regardless of which ministers or teams came and went.

What is not public

The personnel decisions are public. The procurement record, largely, is not. What stays sealed inside the 155mm tender and the cases around it:

• The five winners of the 155mm procedure, and the sixth company that joined late
• the initial and final unit price
• the losing bidders, in any category
• the companies said to have been represented by ministry officials
• the company said to carry a 200–300% margin, and the person said to own it
• the Bureau of Economic Security letter, or any case number attached to it
• the results of the internal investigations and the polygraphs
• which direct contracts were canceled, and which companies lost them.

Why he was fired cannot be known. Whether his reform survives him can—it will show in what the ministry does next, in public.

The second 155mm tender closed for offers on 7 July, eight days before Fedorov’s dismissal. Whether it was completed, how many bidders it drew, whether contracts were awarded—the ministry either publishes that or does not.

The drone tender is at the same stage. The share of procurement that is competitive rather than direct is a number the ministry chose to publish under Fedorov; whether it keeps publishing is a decision, and a visible one.

An acting minister runs the ministry now. Yevhenii Khmara, a career security service officer, took over on 20 July but has not been confirmed by parliament.

The merged agency’s supervisory board still exists, and what it is permitted to see is the closest thing the system has left to an independent instrument.

Fedorov said he did not know what to say. He said he was sorry.

Sumy Oblast, the week before

The week before he was dismissed, Fedorov went to Sumy Oblast. He had been getting messages, he said, that the region had been abandoned.

What he found he called typical: several units responsible for the area on paper, and nobody responsible for the sky over the city.

At a building struck by a guided bomb, Fedorov, still the minister then, met a man who had buried his wife and daughter the day before. The man, a soldier, had been heading back to the front when it happened. He was on the phone with his family and saw the bomb come in. The first one missed. The second hit the building.

Fedorov said he did not know what to say. He said he was sorry.

Then the man told him he had seen that Ukraine had signed the Gripen contract, that Gripen shoots down the aircraft that drops those bombs, and asked him to push it through and destroy the people who killed his family.

That contract was signed on 30 June: 16 Gripen E fighters, about $2.5 billion, paid for with a European Union loan. The aircraft are scheduled to arrive in 2029 and 2030.

A Russian military jet — reported to be the newest Su-57, the country's only operational stealth fighter — crashed in Moscow Oblast on 23 July, Russian and Ukrainian channels reported. The pilot ejected and survived, and officials reported no casualties on the ground. Russia's own pro-war blogger pointed the finger at Russia's air defense.

What is known about the crash

The jet went down around 13:50 in the Odintsovo district near Zvenigorod, west of Moscow. Russian outlet REN TV reported the crash, and local channel Zven_Info published photos of a fire in a field near homes. Russian Telegram channel Mash said the aircraft was a Su-57 on a training flight and that the pilot ejected.

Russia's Defense Ministry, through state news agency TASS, said a combat-trainer crashed during takeoff, that the pilot ejected, and that there was no destruction on the ground. Officials did not confirm the aircraft type or the cause.

Russia's own bloggers point at Moscow's air defense

Russia's bloggers went further than the officials. Milblogger Romanov wrote that "a number of questions" should go to the crew of BARS-Moskva, a mobile air-defense group guarding the capital. Another Russian channel, arrowsmap, said the jet's own air-defense crew shot it down and asked whether a shoulder-fired missile had felled a fifth-generation fighter.

Those bloggers also warned that pulling such crews back would leave Moscow's skies open to Ukrainian drones. Ukraine had no role in the loss, and none of the friendly-fire claims carried official confirmation.

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Russia kept its “fifth-generation” Su-57 stealth fighter near the Urals — Ukrainian drones found it anyway

The Su-57, and how often it meets trouble

The Su-57 is Russia's most advanced fighter, built by Sukhoi and first flown in 2010. Russia took its first serial jet into service in 2020, in small numbers. The type has a rough record: one of the first serial aircraft crashed in Khabarovsk Krai in December 2019, before the military even received it.

Ukrainian drones first damaged two Su-57s at the Akhtubinsk airbase in June 2024. In spring 2026, drones reached more of them at Shagol near the Urals, where Russian unit-cost estimates run to $100–120 million each. Russia has since kept the jet away from missions over Ukraine.

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“Quiet as mice”: Ukrainian pilots neutralized Russia’s Su-57 marketing campaign over their skies

Friendly fire

More often than not, Russian air defenders are yet another threat to their own pilots. 

Russia's air defenses shot down their own Su-27 over occupied Crimea in March 2024, killed a Su-35 pilot with an S-300 over occupied Tokmak in 2023, and opened fire on one of their own helicopters near Moscow in 2025 after mistaking it for a drone. 

Poor coordination between Russian aviation and its air-defense crews has cost Moscow its own aircraft again and again. Losing a scarce fifth-generation jet the same way would say more about the air defense meant to shield Moscow than about anything Ukraine did that day.

From 1 January 2027, authorities will track the cost of meat, milk, bread, and a dozen other staples at every step from producer to store shelf, using tax-secret data pulled from shops’ cash registers—and even Russian retail experts say it won’t make groceries cheaper. The State Duma passed the measure on 22 July 2026.

The Federal Tax Service will hand a still-unnamed list of agencies the sales volumes, revenues, and prices of food companies along the whole supply chain—what Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Roman Chekushov called visibility “from zero to the shelf.”

From producer to store shelf, the state will track the price of bread from zero to the shelf.

The stated aim is to let the government act faster on a power it already holds: capping markups on socially important goods. Until now, regulators worked blind, relying on average statistics that missed what was happening on the ground, a deputy chair of the State Duma’s budget committee, Kaplan Panesh, said.

Officials call this the first end-to-end monitoring of the entire chain. The list runs from beef, pork, and eggs to buckwheat, potatoes, onions, and apples—the basic food basket, and the goods whose prices people feel first.

The reach reflects how hard it is to hide inflation. By early 2026, bread prices had risen almost 15%, half again as fast as headline inflation, and Russian newspapers were describing “galloping inflation” at the start of the year, after the government raised VAT from 20% to 22% on 1 January.

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Russia cut small business support by a third—then sent the tax collector

Moscow has reached for price tools before, weighing forced fixed-price contracts in mid-2025; this one goes further, giving the state a live feed of the market.

Why watching prices won’t lower them

What the system cannot do is lower the bill, and the reason is structural. Russia’s inflation comes from wartime demand colliding with a shrinking workforce—the labor pool has fallen by 2.5 million since the full-scale invasion began—so money keeps chasing goods the economy cannot supply. None of that shows up in a till.

The costs that actually set food prices—logistics, rent, and wages—stay off the tax record, so the system can expose a retailer’s markup but not shrink a shopper’s receipt, trade-policy scholar Svetlana Ilyashenko said. She reads it as legalizing state access to raw transaction data and tilting the balance of power in the food market.

Others warn it could backfire. Past rounds of manual price capping on sugar, oil, and eggs “unbalanced the market,” and pooling that much commercial data invites leaks to competitors, retail-experts association head Andrei Karpov said.

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

For most of the war, Moscow shielded ordinary Russians from its cost; that buffer is thinning—in many regions, fuel is now rationed.

A separate, still-pending plan flagged by Ukrainian intelligence would freeze the assets of Russians who have left the country, ahead of a possible new wave of mobilization this autumn.

Ukrainian drones struck oil-industry sites deep inside Russia again overnight on 23 July, setting off fires that burned into the morning, monitoring channels reported. The targets sat far behind the front, and Russian air defenses reported downing drones over more than a dozen regions. Ukraine's military had not claimed the strikes by morning.

Bashkortostan: a pipeline node, not just a refinery

Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channels Exilenova+ and Supernova+ reported a strike on the Subkhankulovo pipeline dispatch station near Tuymazy in Bashkortostan, about 1,300 kilometers from the front. Residents reported roughly eight impacts and a burning storage tank. Long-range Liutyi drones carried out the strike, Supernova+ said. The station belongs to Transneft-Ural and moves crude and fuel between Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and other Russian regions.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra placed the fire at the station from eyewitness footage. Bashkortostan's emergencies committee later confirmed a fire, blaming falling debris — the explanation Russian officials routinely give for such strikes. A node like this is slower to repair than a single refinery, because it feeds several pipeline routes at once. 

Ukraine burned another Transneft-Ural station in the same republic on 8 July.

Ulyanovsk Oblast: fire at the NS-Oil site

Drones also hit the NS-Oil facility at Novospasskoye, about 800 kilometers from the war zone. Supernova+ published footage of a large fire, and Militarnyi reported drones had struck the refinery. Ulyanovsk governor Alexei Russkikh claimed drones hit a fuel-and-energy site and started a fire.

Monitoring channels differed on the target. Exilenova+ described a liquefied-gas base, while Astra identified the refinery itself. The plant makes gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil. Accounts of its size varied widely, with Astra citing 30,000 tonnes a year and other channels putting it as high as 600,000. 

Ukrainian drones hit the same plant in October last year.

Elsewhere overnight

Drones also reached Voronezh, the capital of a Russian region, bordering Ukraine's occupied northeast, where residents reported explosions. Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev claimed a falling drone set a detached house alight and killed a three-year-old boy, injuring his parents. He said the roof of an online retailer's warehouse was damaged. The company—Wildberries—had already halted night work after earlier strikes.

In occupied Crimea, the monitoring channel Krymsky Veter reported explosions near Feodosia, Yevpatoria, Sevastopol, and Yalta, and said Russian-installed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed a drone attack on the city. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it downed 223 drones overnight.

Ukraine's plan to buy 16 French-made Rafale fighter jets remains unsigned, the aircraft's manufacturer said. France has yet to lock down either the terms of the purchase or how it will be paid for. The comments put a hard limit on a deal that European leaders had unveiled with fanfare 10 days earlier.

No signature, no financing

Dassault Aviation chief executive Éric Trappier addressed the deal at the company's half-year results, French daily Le Figaro reported. Trappier said Ukraine had expressed an intention to buy 16 Rafales, but the contract was not signed. The French state, he said, still had to formalize the deal and its financing.

Dassault handed over 12 Rafales to customers in the first half of 2026. Ten went to foreign clients, and two went to the French military. A year earlier, the company delivered seven over the same period, four of them abroad. The company booked no new firm Rafale orders at all in the first half of 2026. 

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Ukraine secures 150 Swedish Gripens and 100 French Rafales in twin fighter jet deals

Where the Rafale sits in Ukraine's jet plans

The Rafale is the least-settled of Ukraine's three Western fighter tracks. Kyiv's pilots already fly American F-16s, delivered since August 2024, and are due their first Swedish Gripens in early 2027. Sixteen older Gripen C/D jets are set to arrive first, with a larger buy of newer models to follow.

The French jets sit further out. France set their delivery for 2028-2029, which would make the Rafale the last of the three types to enter Ukrainian service. Kyiv is assembling all three at once to retire its Soviet-era fleet, a mix that stretches pilot training and maintenance across incompatible aircraft.

Russia's forces have gained little ground in Ukraine this year even as Moscow inflates its battlefield tallies and stiffens its demands, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Ukrainian defenses and a counteroffensive have held Russian advances to a fraction of the official claims. That gap, the analysts said, appears to shape the Kremlin's thinking about war and peace.

The gap between the map and the front

On 22 July, the Russian Defense Ministry amplified a claim that its forces seized 2,226 km² in the first half of 2026. The figure came from a Russian propaganda Telegram channel. ISW assessed a far smaller number. By its count, Russian troops hold a net 81 km² gained across 2026 so far. Units seized or infiltrated about 627 km², the analysts found, but infiltration is not control. Soldiers who slip into a field or treeline do not hold it. Stripping those gains out leaves the smaller total. 

Moscow inflates the picture Putin sees

The exaggeration is not only public messaging. Russian officials keep constructing a false reality that appears to shape President Vladimir Putin and his choices. Russian channels have done this before over occupied Crimea's supply lines. Occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky recently assured Putin that the main road to Crimea was secure. Russia's own war bloggers refuted him within hours. ISW noted that inflated reports encourage Putin to keep refusing compromise.

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Moscow’s offensive has lost ground since it started — yet Russia’s top brass declared Luhansk Oblast fully seized for the fourth time

Moscow hardens its Ukraine capitulation demands

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed on 22 July that Russia's 2024 terms still stand. Those terms demand that Ukraine withdraw from its Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts. They also require Ukraine to drop its bid to join NATO. Bloomberg reported that Russia now refuses to return any occupied Ukrainian land. Sources close to the Kremlin said Russia's Defense Ministry assured Putin it can seize all of Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026. ISW called that extremely unlikely and would not endorse it on any timeline.

Ukrainian president says Kremlin aides signalling Russian leader alone responsible for frontline losses

Ukraine's new military command is now complete, and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy says its first job is to change the army. The new leadership is preparing a modernization of the Defense Forces that must proceed in coordination and without easing pressure on the enemy, the president said in his evening address.

Zelenskyy dismissed Oleksandr Syrskyi as commander-in-chief on 21 July after six days of protests and named Mykhailo Drapatyi in his place. On 22 July, he appointed Major General Ihor Skybiuk as Chief of the General Staff, replacing Andrii Hnatov, per Interfax Ukraine. 

"The guys are combat-experienced. The troops know them, Drapatyi, Khmara, Skybiuk," Zelenskyy said, naming the new commander-in-chief, Acting Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara, and the new General Staff chief.

Zelenskyy warns against transition gap

The Ukrainian leader said the next step is to prepare the modernization of the Defense Forces in such a way that denies Russian forces any chance to exploit the transitional period.

"It is important that everything goes absolutely coordinated, and that the Russians get no crack and no opportunity," Zelenskyy said.

Pressure on Russia must only grow, he added, listing long-range strikes, mid-strikes, partners' sanctions, and the strengthening of Ukrainian positions at the front. That list matches the program that Acting Defense Minister Khmara outlined after his meeting with Drapatyi, which is built on deep-strike, middle-strike, and ground robotic systems.

President thanks society and gives tasks to new command

Zelenskyy thanked military personnel and civilians for their trust in the new command and called for them to turn that trust into additional motivation for the Defense Forces.

"It is important that the guys are strong, that they justify the trust society has now demonstrated. We are giving all the tools," he said.

The trust he referenced is measurable and uneven. A Rating Group poll conducted on 20 and 21 July found 55% of Ukrainians backed Syrskyi's removal, while 72% also opposed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's dismissal and 5% supported it, sparking the protests. The command changes have satisfied the first number. The second remains the open question of the reshuffle, and Zelenskyy has still made no commitment on Fedorov's return.

Exclusives

Crimea's political prisoners lost their lifeline—because keeping it open would have put more people in prison. The Crimean Solidarity movement backed families of the detained in the occupied peninsula, arranged legal defense, and circulated information that fell outside the official Russian narrative.

Some Ukrainian bomber drones aren't carrying bombs anymore. They're carrying robots.. Roads can be treacherous for Ukraine's explosive unmanned ground vehicles. So heavy bomber drones are now airlifting them into action.

Ukraine shut a quarter of Russia's grain exports—the world's wheat money now flows to Russia's competitors. Ukraine's Azov campaign built a paradox: the world pays more for wheat because Russia cannot ship it—and the windfall flows to Russia's competitors.

Russia offers farmers boiler fuel for tractors—Ukraine's strikes wiped out clean diesel. Russia's Agriculture Ministry is offering farms fuel 90 times dirtier than the diesel they bought last year—fuel that halves an engine's life.

Ukraine's army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers' pay, and one small number. The army chief apologized to Fedorov—and revealed only 2,000 soldiers signed the new contracts.

Military

Machines over men: Ukraine's new military leadership adopted fired minister's program. Acting Defense Minister Khmara, after meeting new army chief Drapatyi, says Ukraine will scale deep strikes and middle strikes to press Russia and save soldiers.

Ukraine's dismissed army chief departs with claim: he's handing his successor army on offensive, with 700 km² liberated this year. "I said it before, and I repeat it today: my work is war. Posts change, but this principle does not. In whatever status I am, I will serve Ukraine until Victory," he said.

Intelligence and technology

Deputy commander-in-chief says Ukraine's new laser can already kill FPVs. Ukraine could field laser air defense in two to three months, says Deputy Commander-in-Chief Andrii Lebedenko.

"We will answer their answer": Ukraine tests EW against jet Shaheds' MESH control. Ukraine is testing new electronic warfare against jet-powered Shaheds' MESH-network control channels, presidential adviser Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov said after a day at a test range.

International

Zelenskyy meets with NATO's US ambassador and general running Ukraine aid amid Patriot production plans. Zelenskyy met US NATO envoy Whitaker and NSATU commander Buzzard to push for more Patriot interceptors through PURL and to advance the Patriot license and a US-Ukraine Drone Deal.

"First time": Ukrainian troops joined Belgium's National Day parade in Brussels. Ukrainian soldiers marched at the head of the foreign units in Brussels on 21 July.

Political and legal developments

Zelenskyy fires both army chief and defense minister. Poll taken mid-protest shows Ukrainians only wanted one of them gone. A Rating Group poll taken during the protests found Ukrainians opposed the defense minister's firing 14 to 1, while backing the army chief's removal by a narrower margin.

From "flying BMP" to commander-in-chief: Ukraine's new army leader stopped Russia at Kryvyi Rih and held Vovchansk. Mykhailo Drapatyi, who once rammed a BMP through a militant barricade in Mariupol and later resigned over strikes on training centers, accepted command of Ukraine's army.

Bomb-maker working for Russia's military intelligence in Zaporizhzhia loses his freedom for 15 years. The court convicted him of high treason committed under martial law, the article of Ukraine's Criminal Code reserved for wartime collaboration with the enemy.

Former Ukraine's commander has words for Ukraine's new army chief: It will be "much harder than he imagines". But, he continued, "Mykhailo will certainly never be ashamed."

New developments

Russia's answer to Amazon has a new problem, and it is not delivery times—two more warehouses ablaze. Fires broke out at the company's Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk hubs overnight, days after two more of its warehouses burned near Moscow.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Ukraine could receive laser weapons for countering aerial targets within the next two to three months, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Andrii Lebedenko said at a briefing, according to UNIAN. Teams inside the Armed Forces and private Ukrainian companies are working on the systems.

Ukraine's main laser system is Tryzub, built by the Ukrainian company Celebra Tech, which EP reported in May 2026 was in final testing on a trailer-mounted mobile platform with a stated range of up to 5 km against drones. Ukraine also became the world's fifth country to deploy a combat laser system in December 2024.

"We will have the same kind of means"

"It can already shoot down FPVs today, it is already working today on Shaheds. And this is a story of the next two to three months, when we will have the same kind of means," Lebedenko said.

According to the official, the system will let Ukraine hit aerial attack weapons even better than machine guns.

He called the direction genuinely promising and said that everything is working out today.

Lasers solve cost problem that machine guns only partly solve

The comparison Lebedenko drew to machine guns points to what a laser is for. Ukraine's mobile fire groups shoot down Shaheds with heavy machine guns and cannons because missiles cost more than the drones they kill. A laser takes that logic further, since each shot costs electricity to fire.

The limits are physical rather than financial. Lasers need line of sight, lose power through cloud, rain, smoke, and dust, and must hold a beam on a moving target long enough to burn through it.

Ukraine's laser claims have run ahead of its fielding before

Lebedenko's forecast lands in a program that has been announced repeatedly. Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces demonstrated the Tryzub system in April 2025, and Ukraine's drone forces commander at the time said laser technologies were already striking objects at altitude.

In May 2026, the system was still described as undergoing final testing.

None of that makes the current claim wrong. Directed energy weapons are genuinely difficult, and a system that moved from lab demonstration to trailer-mounted final testing to claimed FPV kills has advanced in that period. But the operational date has shifted multiple times. What would make it verifiable is a documented Shahed kill.

Ukrainians opposed the firing of their defense minister by 14 to one. A Rating Group survey conducted on 20-21 July found that 72% of Ukrainians did not support Mykhailo Fedorov's dismissal as defense minister and 5% supported it, while 55% backed Oleksandr Syrskyi's resignation as commander-in-chief and 15% opposed it.

Zelenskyy dismissed Fedorov on 15 July after six months as defense minister, and Fedorov said the day after that Syrskyi had given him an ultimatum and blocked his reforms. After that, protests broke out in Kyiv and at least 16 other cities demanding Fedorov's return and Syrskyi's removal.

On 21 July, Zelenskyy dismissed Syrskyi and named Mykhailo Drapatyi commander-in-chief. Meanwhile, Fedorov remains outside the government, and protests continue.  

Numbers match what streets were chanting

The survey ran on the fifth and sixth days of protests that began on 16 July, when demonstrators in Kyiv and at least 16 other cities carried cardboard signs reading "Bring Fedorov back" and "Syrskyi out."

Rating Group's figures put a national number on those two slogans and show they carried different weights. Nearly three-quarters of Ukrainians rejected the removal of the reformist minister who ran drone procurement and the Army of Drones program. A smaller but decisive majority wanted the commander-in-chief, whose command style soldiers criticized, to go.

Zelenskyy has met weaker demand and left stronger one open

The sequencing now sits awkwardly against the numbers. Zelenskyy dismissed Syrskyi on 21 July and appointed Drapatyi in his place, the change 55% wanted. He has not made his decision on Fedorov, the man whom most Ukrainians did not want removed, though he met him on 21 July, and reports have suggested a possible role in coordinating military technology.

Earlier, protesters demanding the return of dismissed defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov set the government a deadline: reinstate him and remove Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi by 24 July, or they will begin open-ended nightly rallies. 

It is the second time in a year that Ukraine’s streets have set terms on one of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wartime decisions. Last summer, a week of rallies forced him to reverse a law that curbed the independence of the country’s anti-corruption agencies.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker and Lieutenant General Curtis Buzzard, commander of the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine mission, to discuss the defense of Ukraine's sky.

The second is production: implementing Trump's decision, announced at the Ankara NATO summit on 8 July, to grant Ukraine a license to build Patriot systems. This promise was made without a named manufacturer or timeline.

The country's interception rate against ballistic missiles was roughly 40% in June, against 89% for air threats overall, and Russia's massed strikes continue nightly.

He also awarded Buzzard with the Order of Merit, Third Class.

Zelenskyy names interceptors the key priority

"A good conversation, above all, about how to protect the Ukrainian sky through increased supplies of interceptors for Patriots within PURL. Right now, this is the key priority, because Russia's massed strikes do not stop," Zelenskyy said.

The sides also discussed the bilateral defense partnership, including the realization of the Ankara licensing decision and the Drone Deal.

"This has real potential, and we hope to finalize it soon," Zelenskyy said of the latter.

Presenting Buzzard's award, Zelenskyy thanked the general for standing with Ukraine through the years of aggression.

"Ukraine is grateful to President Trump, the US Congress, and the American people for their support," he said.

License needs implementing, and the interceptors can't wait for it

The meeting's two Patriot tracks run on different clocks. A production license, even implemented smoothly, yields missiles years out. PURL deliveries are the near-term supply, drawing on existing American production that runs around 700 PAC-3 interceptors a year against a Ukrainian need its officials put far higher.

Meanwhile, Russia builds roughly three Iskander-M ballistic missiles a day, and July's massed attacks on Kyiv have repeatedly included ballistic and hypersonic missiles that only Patriots reliably engage.

Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi’s appointment as head of the military has met wide approval in Ukraine, with many disliking the rigid Soviet-style of General Oleksandr Syrskyi, writes Askold Krushelnycky in Kyiv

For the first time, Ukrainian soldiers marched among the foreigners in Brussels. The defenders joined the foreign part of Belgium's National Day military parade on 21 July, according to the General Staff.

Belgium placed the Ukrainian unit in the city that houses NATO and EU headquarters in a deliberate signal of where Europe now positions Ukraine's army. The 23 soldiers were the same ones who marched in France's Bastille Day parade a week earlier.

Belgium has been Ukraine's ally in the struggle against Russian aggression. It has supplied Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, air defense systems, restored Gepard anti-aircraft guns, Leopard tanks, armored medical vehicles, drones, ammunition, and small arms, and has provided annual military aid exceeding €1 billion.

Francken calls participation historic

Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken underlined the first.

"This is the first time a Ukrainian unit takes part in the 21 July parade, and we are very proud of it," he said.

The General Staff thanked Belgium for its support throughout the full-scale war and singled out the people alongside the hardware.

Belgian instructors and technical specialists train Ukrainian pilots and mechanics to operate the F-16, as Belgium co-founded the fighter coalition and has delivered jets from its own fleet. Belgian medical and rehabilitation facilities treat wounded Ukrainian soldiers.

"Our peoples are united by a shared belief that independence, democracy, and human dignity are worth defending. Thank you for standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine," the General Staff said.

In April, Belgium and Spain decided to provide Ukraine with €1 billion each in defense assistance. The funding was directed toward strengthening air defense, developing drone capabilities, and supporting the “Czech initiative” to supply the front line with long-range artillery. The funds were also channeled to key defense sectors, such as the development of modern unmanned technologies, which have already become decisive on the battlefield.

Ukraine's new military leadership has named its program: machines over men. Ukraine will bet on long-range strikes, robotic systems, and other technologies to increase pressure on Russia and preserve the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, acting Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said after meeting the new Commander-in-Chief, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. 

The direction is the one championed by Mykhailo Fedorov, the reformist defense minister whose dismissal on 15 July set off six days of nationwide protests. Fedorov is the architect of Ukraine's "Army of Drones" but was fired after a clash with then-Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The protests demanded his reinstatement and Syrskyi's removal. Syrskyi is now gone, and Fedorov remains out of government, too.

What is first priority?

The first-priority decisions of the new military leadership, Khmara said, are to strengthen the front, reinforce support from international partners, and, to the maximum extent possible, transfer combat operations onto the aggressor's territory.

"We must scale what we are already effective at: deep strike, middle strike, ground robotic systems, and other solutions that preserve soldiers' lives and inflict maximum damage on the enemy," Khmara claimed.

Ukrainian units will receive more modern strike systems, above all long-range ones, and new technological solutions that let them carry out combat tasks with less risk to personnel.

"Ukraine will continue its strike and technological pressure on Russia by all available means," he said.

The statement is the first joint declaration of intent from the leadership that emerged from a week of protests.

Khmara says he proposed Drapatyi for job

The acting minister disclosed his own role in the appointment. Khmara said he fully trusts Drapatyi, whose candidacy he himself had earlier proposed to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the post of commander-in-chief.

"We agreed to be honest with each other, and to resolve all differences exclusively in the interests of Ukrainian soldiers," Khmara stated.

He and Drapatyi see the further development of the Defense Forces in the same way, he said, and Zelenskyy has backed that vision.

What the statement leaves unsaid is the question the protests have not dropped: whether Fedorov himself returns.

Ukrainian presidential adviser on defense technology development, Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, spent a day at a test range, jamming the control channel of its hardest air-defense problem. Ukraine is testing new electronic warfare means against jet-powered Shaheds, he said.

Russia's new Banderol jet-powered drone is fast, cheap to make, and dangerous to Ukrainian cities. The S8000 "Banderol" is a hybrid of a kamikaze drone and a cruise missile. 

"At a meeting, the President defined one of the most important tasks — the question of countering jet Shaheds," Beskrestnov wrote.

Both sides will escalate in war of technologies 

Jet Shaheds are a real challenge for Ukrainian air defense, but they are most dangerous in online-control mode through a MESH network. 

"Today I spent the day at a test range where we tested options for countering MESH networks with electronic warfare," he revealed.

EW producers, with support from the Brave1 defense-tech cluster and the General Staff's Main Directorate of Electronic Warfare, are advancing technologies to suppress the control channels of enemy Shaheds that run over MESH radio modems, he said.

"I know how and with what the enemy will answer our EW. And we will answer their answer. Welcome to the world of the war of technologies," Flash wrote.

MESH-controlled jet Shahed is threat that beats both defenses

The target of the tests is the combination that defeats Ukraine's two main counters at once. Jet-powered Geran variants cruise at 300 to 350 km/h and burst to higher speeds, outrunning much of Ukraine's cheap interceptor-drone fleet. And a drone flown live by an operator over a MESH radio network is not following a preprogrammed route.

Beskrestnov identified this exact evolution in May, when Ukraine's interception rate against ordinary Shaheds hit 95%: Russia's response would be jet-powered variants and border-area targeting, where mesh radio control works.

This month, he documented the next step. According to him, Russia is shifting from mass raids to single, complex, hand-flown strikes, including one Shahed that dropped to 22 meters to slip under Ukrainian radar.

Former Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a statement on the morning of 22 July that he is passing on to his successor an army that not only holds the defense but is also on the offensive. He has seen this war "from its first day in 2014," he wrote, has "lived the front," and knows the price of every liberated kilometer of Ukrainian land.

The statement is Syrskyi's own account of his tenure, published the morning after Zelenskyy replaced him with Mykhailo Drapatyi following six days of protests.

Syrskyi claimed that 700 square kilometers of Ukrainian land were liberated this year under his command, and an army that two years ago fought a hard defense now attacking "with initiative, with structure, with people who know how to strike the enemy."

"I sincerely hope this offensive will be continued. Everything for it is in place," Syrskyi wrote.

"Destruction of most combat-capable part of Russian army"

In February-March 2022, Syrskyi said he had the honor of commanding the defense of Kyiv, and the capital held. That spring, the threat of a full siege of Kharkiv was lifted, too.

Then came the Kharkiv counteroffensive, when Balakliia, Izium, and Kupiansk were liberated in a matter of weeks, and later, in Donetsk Oblast, what he called the destruction of the most combat-capable part of the Russian army, the Wagner private military company, happened.

He took command in February 2024 "at a very difficult time," with Avdiivka's defenders standing half-encircled. One of his first orders was the organized withdrawal from the city.

"It was a hard decision. But I made it, because for me one main priority applied: preserving people's lives," he wrote.

Then, he said, came "a year that changed the course of this war": stopping the Russian offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, preempting the one aimed at Sumy, and conducting the Kursk operation. This was the first transfer of combat operations onto enemy territory in this war. 

The goal was never to occupy foreign land, he stressed, but to derail the prepared Russian offensive on Sumy and Kharkiv, draw off Russia's most capable troops, and replenish the exchange fund to bring Ukrainians home from captivity. All of it, he said, was accomplished.

He lists structural changes alongside battles

Syrskyi claimed the army's transformation as well as its operations.

Ukraine became the first country in the world to create a separate branch of unmanned systems forces, he noted, growing them "from individual units to a system that today makes the enemy feel it has no safe rear."

A new air defense was built: a separate command for unmanned air-defense systems, staffed interceptor-drone crews, and an echeloned shield over the rear.

"What was recently the experiment of enthusiasts today shoots down every night what was considered undownable," he said.

He cited the closure of the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, the systematic destruction of Russia's shadow fleet, the army's transition to a corps structure, and combat officers arriving on staff, with a new rule that "the path to leadership positions runs through the front."

This year's Dobropillia operation and the offensive on the Oleksandrivka direction, he said, continue. Of some operations, he still has no right to speak: "History will tell of them. I will say only: the enemy remembers them."

A Crimean Tatar human rights movement has ended a decade of documenting political persecution in Russian-occupied Crimea, Crimean Solidarity said in its final statement. The status Russia imposed on it puts anyone connected to it at risk, from the lawyers named on the same list to people who simply pass its reports on. Its website and social media pages have stopped updating, and the movement plans to appeal.

Why it stopped

Russia's Justice Ministry entered Crimean Solidarity in its register of so-called "foreign agents" on 26 June 2026. That status changes neither the movement's values nor its goals, the activists said, but leaves no possibility of working in the earlier format. Every text they publish must now carry an 18+ marking and a block-capital disclaimer, which in occupied territory and Russia must sit above the text. That disclaimer opens administrative and then criminal cases against designated people and against whoever shares what they publish, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group noted. With the label in place, the rights group said, no one who has had dealings with the movement is safe from prosecution.

"We have carefully studied the legislation and taken a joint decision to terminate the activities of our civic movement," the activists wrote on 21 July.

Eleven names, sentences up to 20 years

The ministry listed eleven Crimean Tatar lawyers, journalists, rights defenders, and activists alongside the movement. Among them are Server Mustafaiev, already a political prisoner, and journalist Lutfiye Zudiieva, designated separately in May 2025. Three well-known defense lawyers are on the list as well. Many of the movement's people are serving terms of up to 20 years, and Russian officers detained more than 20 of its men in a single raid on 27 March 2019.

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What the peninsula loses

For 10 years the movement supported families of the detained, arranged legal defense and put out material that often never reached the official agenda. Many of the people doing that work were themselves fined, held under administrative arrest or prosecuted.

"History shows that civic solidarity is not defined by state registers," the statement said.

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Tamila Tasheva, a Ukrainian lawmaker and former permanent representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, called the decision an act of pressure meant to isolate and discredit rights defenders. Hundreds of families of political prisoners and thousands of residents of occupied Crimea may now be left without legal support, she wrote on Facebook.

A decade under pressure

Crimean Solidarity took shape in 2016, after Russian forces stormed Crimean Tatar homes and jailed the human rights defender Emir-Usein Kuku along with three others. By 2017 the Russian FSB was fairly openly going after its civic journalists and activists. In August 2023, FSB officers searched Crimean Tatar homes and took several activists to the security service's office in Simferopol. Pressure on independent initiatives there has built up for years.

Crimean Tatars who stayed there could still become the backbone of resistance to the Russians when Crimea is liberated, Aider Rustemov, mufti of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, told ZN in an earlier interview.

Kremlin says Russian forces will continue attacking vessels they believe are transporting weapons for Ukraine

"Serving Ukraine has always been an honor for me, and during a war for independence, it means absolute responsibility." These words appeared in Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi's first statement after his appointment as Ukraine's new commander-in-chief.  

His appointment came after six days of protests against the resignation of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and in support of the dismissal of Oleksandr Syrskyi, who has been criticized for his Soviet-rooted command style.

"I thank the President of Ukraine for the trust, the Defense Minister for the support, and the Defense Forces for a new stage of service," Drapatyi wrote.

He also said that he is grateful to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi for his consistent efforts to strengthen the Ukrainian army.

"I grew up in it. I will work responsibly, with focus, and with respect for the people who defend our state today. Glory to the nation. Death to the enemies," he claimed.

Zelenskyy announced the appointment on 21 July, the most significant shake-up of Ukraine's military leadership since the full-scale invasion began. The 43-year-old Drapatyi was the protesters' favored candidate — and his biography explains why.

Drapatyi's full-scale war began inside flying BMP

Drapatyi's path started in the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade. In May 2014, at the start of Russia's aggression, he commanded the brigade's 2nd Battalion during the operation to free hostages in Mariupol, per RBC-Ukraine.

The famous "flying BMP" video comes from that fight with an infantry fighting vehicle that rammed a barricade of pro-Russian militants at speed and leaped over it. Drapatyi gave the order for that assault from inside the vehicle.

That summer, his unit was caught in a fire pocket near the border in Luhansk Oblast. Under prolonged artillery fire from Russian territory, Drapatyi took responsibility and led 260 soldiers and more than 30 vehicles out of the "Izvaryne cauldron", covering 160 kilometers under fire.

He later commanded the 58th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade in Avdiivka and on the Bakhmut highway, and was awarded the British Queen's transferable sword as the best graduate of the National Defense University.

He stopped Russia at Kryvyi Rih and helped free Kherson

In March 2022, he took over the "South" operational grouping, which stopped the Russian advance on Kryvyi Rih. In the fall of 2022, he led the "Kherson" grouping during the successful operation to liberate the right bank of Kherson Oblast.

In May 2024, he took command of the "Kharkiv" operational-tactical group as Russia opened its new offensive and stopped the threat near Vovchansk. Then, Zelenskyy singled him out when appointing him commander of the Land Forces in November 2024.

Under his later Joint Forces command, Ukrainian units, including the Khartiia Brigade, recaptured swathes of territory around Kupiansk.

He once resigned to take responsibility for the killed soldiers. In June 2025, Drapatyi submitted his resignation as Land Forces commander after Russian strikes on Ukrainian training centers hit the defenders. But after a conversation with the president, he moved to command the Joint Forces instead.

Ukrainian drones struck logistics and fuel sites across Russia's south overnight on 22 July, setting off large fires, monitoring channels reported. Russia's largest online retailer said it evacuated staff from two warehouse complexes that caught fire. It was the third round of strikes on the company's logistics network in five days.

Krasnodar: the retailer's fourth-biggest warehouse burns

Residents on the outskirts of Krasnodar, the main city of Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia, heard between 20 and 30 explosions overnight. The air-raid siren went off only afterward, ran for about two minutes, and stopped. Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ published their footage, which showed several separate fires in different districts of the city.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra's open-source analysts placed the largest of them at the Wildberries warehouse on Tikhoretskaya Street. The company had already announced it was evacuating the complex. The site covers 150,000 square meters and ranks fourth among the marketplace's distribution centers. Ukrainian drones have hit Krasnodar Krai repeatedly, including a refinery about 300 kilometers from the front line.

Krasnodar Krai's operational headquarters claimed the warehouse caught fire after drones "debris" fell on it, and reported damage to two apartment buildings. It first counted three injured. Governor Veniamin Kondratyev later raised that number to 10. The headquarters also claimed that debris damaged two detached houses in Dinskoy District, north of the city.

Armavir: an oil depot on fire in the east of the same krai

Drones also hit an oil depot in the northern industrial zone of Armavir, a city in the eastern part of Krasnodar Krai. Exilenova+ showed the depot burning. By morning, the city administration put the fire at 800 square meters. Local authorities claimed 16 or more drones took part in the attack.

Nevinnomyssk: the second warehouse, one region further east

Nevinnomyssk lies in Stavropol Krai, the Russian region bordering Krasnodar Krai to the east, deeper inland from Ukraine. Around 05:00, Governor Vladimir Vladimirov statee a fire at a warehouse complex there, and two people hurt. He later put the figure at five employees.

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Exilenova+ videos and Astra's analysis identified the burning site as a second Wildberries center. Video posted by witnesses showed storage buildings alight, with black smoke rising tens of meters. That complex covers 120,000 square meters and ranks sixth in the network. Wildberries said it had cleared staff from both hubs before the drones arrived, and that workers were injured anyway.

A Ukrainian court has convicted a man of treason for building homemade bombs intended for attacks in Zaporizhzhia, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said. Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, reportedly picked him out of Telegram channels where he was hunting for easy earnings. The devices were still meant to go into caches when officers took him.

Russia recruited him from a chat channel

SBU officers detained the man in March 2025. The investigation established that the assignment for Russia went to a local resident struggling with drug addiction. Russian services noticed him while he was looking for easy earnings in Telegram channels, and the offer of side work turned into an order to build weapons, the security agency said.

The SBU described what followed in its statement. 

"In exchange for the promise of 'quick' side earnings, the agent began assembling improvised explosive devices, reinforcing them with metal nuts and bolts for greater destructive effect. For this, on the instructions of the Russians, he bought chemical components, construction materials, and other elements for producing bombs at home."

Recruitment through job ads in messaging apps has run through case after case in Ukraine, including plots against soldiers in several cities.

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Officers searching him turned up a canister of solvent, other chemical components, and shrapnel elements set aside for building the devices. Officers also seized the mobile phones he used to stay in touch with his Russian contact.

Two tasks: bombs in caches and leaflets

He was to hide the finished devices in caches inside Zaporizhzhia and on its outskirts, the SBU said. Then he was to send the coordinates to his handler in Russia. His handler also assigned him information work for Russia. He pasted provocative leaflets around the city, aimed at unsettling the internal situation across southern Ukraine, the SBU noted.

The court found him guilty under Part 2 of Article 111 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, which covers high treason committed under martial law. It sentenced him to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property. 

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom and former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, commented on Telegram on the appointment of Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi as commander-in-chief.

On 21 July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Drapatyi will replace Oleksandr Syrskyi, with the General Staff's configuration to be renewed in the most significant shake-up of Ukraine's military leadership since the full-scale war began, following six days of nationwide protests.

A person's calling, Zaluzhnyi wrote, is filled above all with moral principles and values that form honor, "which is dearer than any posts and awards." Those who think and act otherwise, he added, "will always, sooner or later, receive shame."

The words carry the weight of the author's own history. Zaluzhnyi was himself dismissed as commander-in-chief by Zelenskyy in February 2024, at the height of his popularity with no public explanation, and replaced by Syrskyi — the man now removed. He commented on the change from London, where Zelenskyy sent him as ambassador to the UK.

"Much harder than he imagines"

Zaluzhnyi's message to his successor's successor is a warning wrapped in confidence.

"It will be very hard for the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Much harder than he imagines. But Mykhailo will certainly never be ashamed. A man of honor has no idol, so he has nothing to lose. The only thing he has is duty," Zaluzhnyi wrote.

Honor, he said, "creates ideas and seeks ways to realize them. And it is this that drives one to seek people who will carry their heavy cross with you, with honor."

Drapatyi inherits reformist mandate and strained army

Drapatyi, 43, arrives as the protesters' candidate. Demonstrators, soldiers, and veterans widely viewed the Joint Forces Commander and former Land Forces chief as the leading choice to replace Syrskyi, whose centralized, Soviet-rooted command style drew criticism for micromanagement and, some soldiers said, unjustifiably high losses.

Drapatyi is seen as a general of a new generation.

He had also aligned himself publicly with the reform camp whose defeat triggered the crisis. Drapatyi praised dismissed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's six months at the ministry as a genuine effort to change long-standing military rules. 

"The military needs change, but without justice, no change will make sense to the people who carry this war on their shoulders every day," he warned.

Zelenskyy thanked Syrskyi for delivering results in the defense of Kyiv, the Kharkiv counteroffensive, and the Kursk operation. The protests that ran from 16 to 21 July had demanded both Fedorov's reinstatement and Syrskyi's removal. Whether the first follows remains the open question of the reshuffle.

Ukrainian president says Kremlin aides signalling Russian leader alone responsible for frontline losses

Exclusives

Some Ukrainian bomber drones aren’t carrying bombs anymore. They’re carrying robots.. Roads can be treacherous for Ukraine's explosive unmanned ground vehicles. So heavy bomber drones are now airlifting them into action.

Ukraine shut a quarter of Russia’s grain exports—the world’s wheat money now flows to Russia’s competitors. Ukraine’s Azov campaign built a paradox: the world pays more for wheat because Russia cannot ship it—and the windfall flows to Russia’s competitors.

Russia offers farmers boiler fuel for tractors—Ukraine’s strikes wiped out clean diesel. Russia’s Agriculture Ministry is offering farms fuel 90 times dirtier than the diesel they bought last year—fuel that halves an engine’s life.

Ukraine’s army chief broke his silence—an apology, a warning on soldiers’ pay, and one small number. The army chief apologized to Fedorov—and revealed only 2,000 soldiers signed the new contracts.

Ukraine’s protesters set a 24 July deadline as Zelenskyy weighs replacing his army chief. Organizers gave the government four days before nightly rallies begin.

Why Russia is importing gasoline made from its own oil. To keep its pumps supplied, Moscow has written India’s gasoline price into its own tax code.

Military

Breaking: Zelenskyy dismisses Ukraine's commander-in-chief after week of political turmoil Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Mykhailo Drapatyi will become Ukraine's new commander-in-chief, replacing Oleksandr Syrskyi after a week of political turmoil, military consultations, and nationwide protests.

Russian MiG-29 jet and the Pantsir air defense meant to protect it both hit in Ukrainian strike on Kursk airfield Ukraine's General Staff said Ukrainian forces also hit a maritime surveillance radar, logistics and ammunition depots, and several Russian drone control posts across occupied Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine's most feared kamikaze drone just showed up at UK arms fair—carrying missiles instead of being one The Liutyi flies one way into Russian refineries. This version comes back. Same airframe, opposite mission.

Whatever came down on Lipetsk overnight, it started with a missile warning and ended in flames by the steel mill Local Telegram channels had spread the missile-danger announcement hours before residents began filming blasts over the city.

Occupation official told Putin the Crimea highway is drone-proof—Russia's own milbloggers refuted him within hours One pro-war channel admitted traffic collapsed because drivers fear Ukrainian drones, not because Russian air defenses got better.

Everything that hits target gets used: Ukraine just proved 1940s Swedish weapon can kill modern jet-powered drone Ukraine used Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns for this operation.

Ukraine's new combat robot is silent, fits in minivan, and carries MK19 grenade launcher Ukraine codified the "Zmii Mini Strike," a recon-strike ground robot with a silent electric motor.

Drones found the FSB where it felt safest—a seaside resort deep in occupied Kherson Oblast The SBU's Alpha unit's strike set off a large blaze at a base ringed by checkpoints, guards and bunkers.

The Ukrainian combat divers who blew up a Russian bomber just built their own sea drone Ukraine's National Guard unveiled a naval drone designed by one of its own frontline units, reflecting a growing trend of soldiers building the weapons they fight with.

Russia keeps hitting Ukraine's couriers—so Ukraine went after Russia's Amazon: oil depot and warehouses hit near Moscow Drones struck logistics sites and an oil depot in Moscow Oblast's Sheremetyevo and Podolsk, days after Russian missiles battered Ukraine's Nova Poshta postal network.

Ten dead as Russia strikes a Turkish-owned bulk carrier off Odesa Rescuers pulled eight of the 18 people aboard from the burning ship overnight; the pilot brought on to steer it out was among the dead.

Ukrainian regiment that raised flag in Kostiantynivka says it's aware of reports that its soldiers were captured there These are the same troops who filmed a flag-raising after clearing the center.

Intelligence and technology

Hidden cameras in trees to guide Russian strikes: suspected FSB agent detained in Kharkiv Oblast Ukraine's Security Service says the suspect allegedly installed concealed cameras near military sites to help Russia monitor Ukrainian positions and direct missile, bomb, and drone attacks.

"Small service can cost life imprisonment": Ukraine warns against Russian Shahed-recording scheme Russia is recruiting Ukrainian traitors through social media to record FM signals broadcast by Shahed drones.

International

Oil exports from Europe's second-largest external supplier thrown into crisis by Black Sea tanker attacks Kazakhstan's primary Black Sea export route has been disrupted by recent tanker attacks, according to Bloomberg, threatening crude supplies from one of Europe's largest external oil suppliers.

Secret German-Russian meeting on Ukraine war took place in Baku without authorities' knowledge, Aliyev says Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev confirmed reports of undisclosed talks in Baku between former German and Russian officials on Russia's war against Ukraine, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz denied any government involvement, Bloomberg reports.

Britain's new PM Andy Burnham is opening with calls to Trump and Zelenskyy His first foreign calls go to Zelenskyy and Trump, with UK support for Ukraine "unwavering."

60-year-old Pole stood up for Ukrainian teenager on tram in Poznań. Three men beat him for it They turned on him and beat him so badly he suffered memory loss.

Humanitarian and social impact

First the pumps, then the harvest, now the commute—Russia's fuel shortage keeps finding new victims Public transport fares climb in 25 Russian regions. Fuel-sale restrictions officially cover more than 40 regions out of 83.

Russian strike on Kyiv Oblast destroyed $2.6 million in HIV supplies serving 300,000 people This year's needs are covered. Next year's stock is gone.

"Policy of ethnocide": Ukraine says Russia has settled 300,000 Russians in occupied Crimea, replacing Ukrainians driven out Russia is resettling its citizens into occupied Ukraine to replace the population.

Political and legal developments

Russia jails two more of its own warbloggers days apart—one for extortion, one for "justifying terrorism" Both had cheered the invasion for years, and both had recently started blaming Russia's leadership for a war they say is going wrong.

Read our previous daily review here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on 21 July that Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi will become Ukraine's next commander-in-chief, replacing Oleksandr Syrskyi in the most significant shake-up of the country's military leadership since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Syrskyi's replacement follows a week of upheaval that began with Zelenskyy's dismissal of the popular reformist Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The move exposed deep divisions over military reform and battlefield strategy, with Fedorov publicly criticizing Syrskyi's leadership and the decision prompting several days of protests across Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said the decision followed consultations with Drapatyi, SBU special operations commander Yevhen Khmara, and presidential office deputy head Pavlo Palisa on restructuring the General Staff. 

He thanked Syrskyi for leading Ukraine's defense during the Battle of Kyiv, the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive, and the Kursk operation, adding that he, Syrskyi, and Chief of the General Staff Andrii Hnatov had also discussed the transition and their future roles.

"Tomorrow we will formalize all the decisions," Zelenskyy said in his evening address. "Ukraine must emerge stronger from this situation, and it must become harder for Russia."

Zelenskyy also said he met with Fedorov today and offered him a new role in government focused on bringing together Ukraine’s technological capabilities and supporting their development. The president did not specify the position.

Drapatyi thanks Zelenskyy and Syrskyi

Drapatyi thanked Zelenskyy for his trust and Ukraine’s Defense Minister for their support, saying that serving Ukraine during the war of independence carries “absolute responsibility.”

He also thanked Syrskyi for his work in strengthening the Armed Forces, saying he had grown professionally under Syrskyi’s leadership.

“I will work responsibly, with focus, and with respect for the people who are defending our state today,” Drapatyi wrote on Facebook.

Fedorov welcomes Drapatyi’s appointment

Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov welcomed Drapatyi’s appointment, calling it “new air and new hope” in Ukraine’s fight for independence and justice.

Fedorov said the new military leadership would need to meet high expectations with a clear vision for ending the war, a strong team, and actions focused on preserving soldiers’ lives, expanding battlefield robotics, carrying out asymmetric strikes, and weakening Russia’s economy.

He also thanked Syrskyi for his role in defending Kyiv Oblast, the Kharkiv counteroffensive, and other major battles, calling them an important part of Ukraine’s history. At the same time, Fedorov said Ukraine needed to move faster and correct past mistakes.

A week of turmoil

Syrskyi's dismissal comes less than a week after Zelenskyy removed Fedorov in the most significant government reshuffle since the start of the full-scale war.

The move quickly evolved into a public confrontation over the future direction of Ukraine's military. Zelenskyy acknowledged that relations between the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces' leadership had broken down, saying he ultimately had to choose between Fedorov and Syrskyi because the two could no longer work together effectively.

Fedorov accused Syrskyi of blocking reforms

Following his dismissal, Fedorov publicly confirmed he had been in conflict with Syrskyi, accusing the commander-in-chief of obstructing military reform and resisting changes needed to adapt Ukraine's armed forces to modern, drone-centric warfare.

He said initiatives developed by the Defense Ministry were systematically blocked after Zelenskyy decided to keep Syrskyi in command. Fedorov also accused the general of fueling internal divisions rather than focusing on defeating Russia, while stressing that he respected the president's authority as supreme commander.

The former defense minister argued that Ukraine needed fundamental changes to its military leadership to gain an advantage over Russia, framing the dispute as one between reform and the preservation of existing command structures.

At its core, the dispute represented a clash between two visions for Ukraine's military future: a faster transition toward a technology-driven force centered on drones and innovation, and a more traditional command approach focused on established military structures and battlefield experience.

Rare wartime protests spread across Ukraine

Fedorov's dismissal sparked the largest public protests seen in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion began.

Demonstrations began in Kyiv before spreading to cities including Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, and others, with protesters demanding Fedorov's reinstatement and Syrskyi's removal. Many argued that replacing the architect of Ukraine's defense technology reforms risked slowing military innovation at a critical stage of the war.

The protests continued across Ukraine on 21 July, with demonstrators again calling for Fedorov's reinstatement and Syrskyi's dismissal. Protesters carried signs reading "Bring Fedorov back" and "Syrskyi out," accusing the military leadership of resisting reform.

Zelenskyy consulted military leaders as pressure mounted

As pressure mounted following Fedorov's dismissal, Zelenskyy launched consultations on the future leadership of Ukraine's Armed Forces.

Over the last several days, the president met with senior military commanders, government officials, and representatives of the defense sector, but did not confirm that the consultations were related to changes in the military's command structure. 

He said the discussions focused on improving coordination, accelerating battlefield innovation, and strengthening Ukraine's ability to respond to Russia's evolving tactics.

The consultations came amid growing public debate over the direction of Ukraine's armed forces, with supporters of Fedorov arguing that the military needed to accelerate reforms and expand its use of emerging technologies, particularly drones and autonomous systems, while others stressed the need for continuity in wartime command.

Just days after landing robots on an enemy shore in the first all-robot amphibious assault, Ukrainian forces flew one into battle. This week, a Russian video circulated depicting a Ukrainian heavy bomber drone airlifting an explosives-laden unmanned ground vehicle into action.

What happened next is unclear. Did the exploding UGV successfully strike its target?

Regardless of the outcome, however, the unmanned air assault is notable. If Ukrainian forces can use an unmanned aerial vehicle to airlift one unmanned ground vehicle, they can do it a second time. And a third. And fourth. So on until these kinds of all-robot operations become routine.

And that's indeed the aim in Kyiv. To make robotic combat operations an everyday occurrence in order to help alleviate a deep and persistent manpower shortage. This spring, recently sacked Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov claimed Ukraine would acquire 25,000 UGVs in just the first six months of 2026.

That's twice as many UGVs as Kyiv bought in all of 2025. The rapid mass acquisition would allow more Ukrainian brigades to shift to robotic resupply missions, removing potentially thousands of precious human logisticians from dangerous roads.

But UGVs perform combat missions, too. Armed with guns, they help counterattack Russian infiltrators and also patrol roads inside the disputed gray zone. In November, one gun-armed UGV belonging to the Ukrainian 5th Assault Brigade, fighting north of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, inadvertently advanced UGV tactics in an accidental encounter with an up-armored Russian MT-LB infantry transport.

The UGV, equipped with thermal night vision and armed with a remotely operated M2 .50-caliber machine gun, was reportedly on a combat trial—crawling around the battlefield at nighttime for testing purposes—when an MT-LB rolled toward it on the same road.

Connected via radio, the UGV operators opened fire, peppering the tracked MT-LB with rounds until the Russian vehicle passed by—and escaped in the opposite direction.

One-way drones

Other Ukrainian UGVs are meant to fight exactly once. They're suicide bombers, hauling payloads of explosives into Russian strongpoints and blowing themselves up. Back in January, the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade's NC-13 robotics unit piled a dozen TM-62 anti-tank mines, each with 7.5 kg of explosives, onto one of its UGVs and carefully steered the robot into a Russian bunker presumably somewhere south of the ruins of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast.

It made a very big boom. As seen in an official video, the NC-13 team broke into cheers when an escorting aerial drone registered the blast. The team had carefully assembled, painted, and deployed the robot apparently over a period of days before maneuvering it 19 km across rough terrain to deliver the explosive payload.

The recent robotic air assault addressed the mobility problem. A 19-km trip is a long trip for a remotely controlled vehicle that's susceptible to enemy radio jamming and prone to getting stuck in potholes. Airlifting a UGV underneath a heavy bomber drone gets the UGV into action faster and with less risk of a loss or accident en route.

A heavy bomber drone could just drop a bomb, of course. But a UGV can do something an aerial bomber can't do: drive straight through the open door of a Russian bunker regardless of how much protection the Russians pile atop the door.

The Ukrainians are finding more and more new ways to get their UGVs into action. On 13 July, the Ukrainian 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade sailed several unmanned surface vessels across the western Black Sea and landed gun-armed unmanned ground vehicles on the Kinburn Spit, at the westernmost edge of the Russian occupation zone in southern Ukraine.

The 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade released a video montage—shot by a USV, a UGV and an escorting UAV—depicting the UGV firing on a Russian installation with its suppressed .50-caliber machine gun.

It was an all-robot amphibious assault. "An impressive feat," RAND analyst Michael Bohnert wrote.

The later robotic airlift was no less impressive.

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Ukraine put armed robot on Russian-held ground. Naval drone was landing craft

Kazakhstan has been forced to halt crude oil flows to its main Black Sea export terminal after a series of attacks on tankers near Russia's Novorossiysk port disrupted shipping, Bloomberg reported on 21 July, citing people familiar with the matter.

The reported disruption comes as Ukraine has stepped up efforts to target Russia's maritime logistics and energy infrastructure in the Black Sea, while Moscow continues using the region to support its war effort and energy exports.

According to Bloomberg, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal near Novorossiysk stopped accepting pipeline deliveries because tanker operators were unwilling to send vessels to the facility following recent attacks in the Black Sea. It was not immediately clear whether the suspension had already taken effect.

The reported disruption threatens Kazakhstan's oil exports and could force producers to reduce output if pipeline deliveries remain suspended through the end of the week, Bloomberg reported.

Critical export route under pressure

The CPC terminal handles about 80% of Kazakhstan's crude oil exports, making it the country's primary outlet to international markets.

Kazakhstan is Europe's second-largest external oil supplier after Norway, and much of its crude is produced through projects involving international energy companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell. 

A prolonged disruption could tighten supplies for European refiners already facing pressure from instability affecting energy shipments through the Persian Gulf, Bloomberg noted.

The CPC press office declined to comment, according to Bloomberg.

Tengizchevroil, Kazakhstan's largest oil producer and a Chevron-led joint venture, said it was monitoring loading operations at the Novorossiysk terminal. In a statement cited by Bloomberg, the company said production and deliveries into the CPC pipeline system "may be adjusted from time to time in response to operational conditions," but declined to comment on specific output levels.

Tanker attacks raise pressure on Russian Black Sea exports

The disruption follows a series of recent attacks on tankers in the Black Sea.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the specific attacks cited by Bloomberg. Kyiv has, however, acknowledged responsibility for numerous strikes on vessels supporting Russia's maritime logistics in recent months, including attacks on oil tankers in the Black Sea.

Although the CPC terminal is located on Russia's Black Sea coast, the facility primarily exports Kazakh crude and is not subject to Western sanctions.