Kollen Post is the defense industry reporter at the Kyiv Independent. Based in Kyiv, he covers weapons production and defense tech. Originally from western Michigan, he speaks Russian and Ukrainian. His work has appeared in Radio Free Europe, Fortune, Breaking Defense, the Cipher Brief, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, FT’s Sifted, and Science Magazine. He holds a BA from Vanderbilt University.
The focus for such U.S. contractors appears to be on helping to build new defenses and securing U.S. business interests in Ukraine, the Telegraph reported.
Polish authorities have expelled 15 Ukrainian citizens after they were detained for offenses like drug possession, drunk driving, theft, and illegal border crossings, RMF24 reported on Aug. 30.
Military spokesperson Andrii Kovalov acknowledged that reassignments take place, but said this does not concern air defense specialists protecting Ukrainian skies.
Ukraine's anti-corruption agency has been investigating the country's star deep-strike drone company — Fire Point — over concerns it misled the government on pricing and deliveries, five sources with knowledge of the investigation told the Kyiv Independent.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, is also looking into the co-owner of President Volodymyr Zelensky's former film studio as the alleged ultimate beneficiary of the company, sources said.
Until recently, the weapons maker was vir
Ukrainian President Zelensky is pushing a massive deal for U.S. weapons funded by Europe in what observers call a bid to buy the flighty U.S. President Donald Trump’s dedication.
Zelensky wants Europe to pay the U.S. $90 billion for weapons to Ukraine, "that we don’t have ourselves: above all, planes and air defense, etc. — we’ll leave it at 'etc.' for now," as he said in a briefing after the meeting earlier this week. Kyiv is also proposing a $50 billion drone deal with the U.S. as part of the
Russia is turning the parts of Ukraine it occupies into a giant military base — and a potential launch pad for future aggression.
Moscow's forces in the occupied territories, particularly in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, are converting civilian infrastructure into bases to house its soldiers, transport ammunition, and launch its drones from closer than ever to Ukrainian-held territory.
Among the clearest examples is the Donetsk International Airport. Recent satellite images that Pla
From the dawn of Ukraine's first-person-view drone industry up to a year ago, producers purchased almost all of the parts they used in assembly from Chinese firms.
Today, Ukrainian companies have started mass-producing the various electronics, controllers, cameras, and even motors that make up a drone at home.
The Chinese state-sponsored DJI, by some counts, has 75% of the global drone market cornered. Even manufacturers who make their own drones depend on Chinese makers in general and DJI in
The Kyiv Independent’s Kollen Post sits down with Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia and political scientist, to discuss the upcoming high-level talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, scheduled for Aug. 15 in Alaska, as well as both sides’ strategies for the meeting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 3 announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Anatoliy Kryvonozhko, who has been serving as the Air Force's acting head since the end of last August.
Ukraine’s drone manufacturers are scrambling to reach the Russian equipment that lurks beyond the radio horizon — the distance where the earth’s curvature blocks the video signal that Ukraine’s cheap strike drones depend on.
Over the past year and a half, short-range drones, like first-person-view (FPV) drones, have cleared a no-man’s land of roughly 20 kilometers on either side of the front line, where neither Ukraine nor Russia dares to put high-value weapons.
The area just beyond that curre
Ukraine’s wartime weapons technology looks bound for the West for the first time.
"Our joint projects are the first real chances for our Ukrainian production abroad," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said while announcing a newly signed agreement with Denmark on July 4. "This concerns drones, and many other necessary forms of weapons."
The deal "opens the path to the creation of Ukrainian defense production on the territory of Denmark," wrote Strategic Industries Minister Herman Smetanin
In an interview yesterday with the New York Post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky floated a new pending “mega-deal” with U.S. President Donald Trump to sell Ukrainian drones to the American military.
"The people of America need this technology, and you need to have it in your arsenal," Zelensky reportedly said.
The deal has not actually been completed, and it’s unknown whether a formal text of it actually exists. Indeed, Zelensky’s advertising of this deal in a publication that is known
Armed with a fresh round of investment from the West, Ukrainian drone autonomy startup the Fourth Law is showcasing new footage as it aims to become the first to reach the latest holy grail of drone warfare: full autonomy.
Amid ever-escalating aerial assaults, accelerating Russian advances in the east, and the weariness that comes with nearly 3.5 years of war, all eyes in Ukraine are once again focused upon one man — U.S. President Donald Trump.
"I think I'll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday," Trump said in an interview with NBC News on July 10, the latest development in a tortuously long and so far wholly ineffective U.S.-led peace process.
Short of a massive injection of military aid, or crus
