"Only member states can take out loans within the 150 billion euros instrument, but they can use these funds for joint procurement with Ukraine," EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said.
"We agreed to pursue ambitious measures to reduce Russia's ability to wage war by limiting Kremlin revenues, disrupting the shadow fleet, tightening the Oil Price Cap, and reducing our remaining imports of Russian energy."
Zelensky on May 12 removed Lieutenant General Ivan Havryliuk from the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the top command and control body for all branches of Ukraine's defense apparatus.
Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
The phone call comes as Moscow once again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, with Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming that a ceasefire would give "Kyiv a break to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia."
Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport en-route to Kuala Lumpur International Airport on July 17, 2014. Three hours into the flight, the Boeing-777 was shot down by Russian proxy forces using a Buk surface-to-air missile above Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
"I am grateful for the support and the readiness at the highest level to promote diplomacy," President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the phone conservation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We share the same view on the need for a ceasefire."
The convictions mark a significant development in Britain's efforts to counter Russian intelligence operations amid heightened tensions stemming from Moscow's war against Ukraine and repeated Kremlin threats toward Kyiv's allies.
According to the Verkhovna Rada's website, Ukraine completed the ratification of the U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement on May 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the deal.
Remains of a Shahed 136 kamikaze drone at an exhibition showing remains of missiles and drones that Russia used to attack Kyiv on May 12, 2023, in Kyiv. (Photo: Oleksii Samsonov /Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
A report from a weapons research group indicates that Russia has started making copies of attack drones obtained from Iran in the previous year and has been using them against Ukraine.
The researchers from the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) inspected the wreckage of two attack drones that were used in combat in southeastern Ukraine. Both appeared to be Iranian Shahed-136s, but they also contained electronic modules that matched those from Russian-made surveillance drones.
Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones have been one of Russia’s most effective weapons. On Aug. 3, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had launched almost 2,000 Shaheds at Ukraine.
The Russian-made versions of the Shahed-136 are commonly marked as Geran-2. The research group documented over 100 components spanning more than 30 unique models across the two Geran-2 UAVs, marked with the brands of 22 different companies based in 7 countries, including Russia. Most of the components that CAR documented bore the brands of companies headquartered in China, Switzerland, and the United States.
While Iranian Shahed-136 drones marked Geran-2 have previously been recovered in Ukraine, the report suggests that Russian-made copies with the same name are now in use.
"Almost a year after the first use of Iranian-manufactured UAVs in Ukraine, evidence that the Russian Federation has begun producing its own domestic versions marks a significant evolution in the country’s UAV capabilities that will allow it to sustain its reliance on single-use UAVs," reads the report.
Recent media reports claimed that the Russian Federation sought to produce its domestic version of the Shahed UAV by early 2024. CAR’s findings indicate that this production may have already started.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Anastasiia Lapatina
