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Yevhen Khmara in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, on Aug. 18, 2026.
Opinion

Shells, stalled contracts, and no armor for wounded — Ukraine's new defense minister's problem list

by Bohdan Miroshnychenko

Weapons production in Ukraine has a mountain of problems: short contracts, scandals over ammunition and other complex equipment procurement, inefficient drone purchasing, leaky quality control and oversight of manufacturers' capabilities, export rules that don't work, funding shortages, and more. All of this ultimately adds up to poor supply for troops at the front. Neither the dismissed minister Mykhailo Fedorov nor any other "six-month defense minister" has come even close to solving these p

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Budanov's political honeymoon is over

President's Office Head Kyrylo Budanov had something rare in Ukrainian politics: a reputation largely untouched by scandals. A career military officer, he is best known for running Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) and overseeing a number of formidable operations during Russia's full-scale war. Under his leadership, the agency came to be regarded as one of Ukraine's most competent institutions. Nine months after switching a military post for political office, Budanov became mired in

With no defense against ballistic missiles, Ukraine starts hunting Russian launch sites

Instead of trying to shoot arrows out of the sky, shoot the archer. The medieval analogy can come off as simplistic and even naive when describing the task of defending a huge country from one of the most advanced and deadly weapons systems in the world. But for Ukraine, with a track record of seemingly impossible military feats, and looking down the barrel of likely the hardest winter of its independence, trying is not a matter of choice. On Aug. 22, President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed tha

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