"This is not how I imagined the world"
Donald Trump is turning his back on Ukraine. Many people in the country are horrified and disappointed – and this seems to be bringing them closer together again.
By Christian Vooren and Lara Huck and Sasha Maslov, Kyiv, March 4, 2025
The relationship between the governments in Washington, DC, and Kyiv is currently deteriorating daily. What do those who are most affected think? Photographer Sasha Maslov has portrayed Ukrainians and asked them about their mood.
Trump, says Oleksandr, is like a second Putin. He takes what he can. That doesn't bode well for Ukraine . "Even if the war were to end quickly, it certainly wouldn't be under good conditions for us," adds his companion Anton, a student. Neither of them really believes, however, that the war will end any time soon.
![Oleksandr and Anton believe that the scandal in the White House was deliberately caused by the USA.]()
What the two describe here largely corresponds to the mood in Ukraine . First of all, there is great horror at how quickly the USA is turning away. First Trump called President Zelensky a dictator, then he and his vice president JD Vance humiliated him in front of cameras in the White House . And now the USA has announced that it will temporarily suspend all military aid to Ukraine - probably in order to force Ukraine into a weaker negotiating position. The relationship between the governments in Washington, DC, and Kyiv is currently deteriorating daily. What do those who are most affected think? Photographer Sasha Maslov has portrayed Ukrainians and asked them about their mood.
Trump, says Oleksandr, is like a second Putin. He takes what he can. That doesn't bode well for Ukraine . "Even if the war were to end quickly, it certainly wouldn't be under good conditions for us," adds his companion Anton, a student. Neither of them really believes, however, that the war will end any time soon.
Andriy Viktorovych, who runs a stall at a flea market in Kyiv, also believes this. "Trump is a businessman, and that's how he does politics," says the 51-year-old. Trump just wants to exploit the country's resources. Viktorovych is referring to a raw materials agreement between the USA and Ukraine that was supposed to have been signed last Friday before the entire meeting in the White House escalated and the planned deal fell through.
The US President then accused Zelensky of not being particularly respectful. This is an assessment that the people of Ukraine do not share. "To put it carefully: it was the USA that did not behave particularly diplomatically," says 22-year-old Ksenia Kondaurova. Zelensky held his own in the situation as best he could. She believes that Trump is now trying to blackmail Ukraine by suspending arms aid is manipulative. "Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. But we don't want peace for a few months, we want peace for generations."
This also reflects part of the mood in Ukraine. Recently, the president has come under increasing criticism in his own country. The elections that were suspended due to martial law, the mobilization of many young men, setbacks at the front and general war fatigue were probably reasons for this. But is his own president a dictator? This attack went too far for many. Since the attacks from Washington, support for Zelensky has grown stronger. Many people like the fact that Zelensky has not allowed himself to be intimidated by Trump's insults.
Kateryna Cowina sees it the same way. "I support our president," she says. She had expected Trump to make some harsh decisions as president. "But not in our direction, but against our enemy, against Putin." Cowina is disappointed. "It now seems as if the USA is making common cause with North Korea and Russia . This is not how I imagined the world would be."
"A tragedy for the whole world," is how Olena describes it. In her opinion, the decisions made by the USA will lead to more people dying in Ukraine. But the 57-year-old is combative: " We have survived Russia for 300 years ." And there are other partners besides the USA with whom we can work together.
That sounds optimistic, almost defiant. But it is unlikely to be that easy. Beyond the United States, there is no alliance partner in sight that could compensate for a total failure of the USA as a supplier of weapons, ammunition and as a financial supporter, at least not in the short or medium term and not alone.
Captured North Koreans Describe Fighting for Russia in a War They Didn’t Understand
The only two North Korean soldiers caught alive by Ukraine said they were encouraged to blow themselves up to evade capture
Two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine knew nothing about the war they were sent to fight. They were handed Kalashnikov rifles and told they would be facing off against South Koreans who were aiding Ukraine.
Days later, they were fighting Ukrainians on the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region, they said.
They were instructed to evade capture at all costs—by blowing themselves up if they had to. That message was reinforced by North Korean secret police who conducted ideological sessions on the ground in Russia, stressing that surrender was tantamount to treason.
The indoctrination didn’t stop even under Ukrainian artillery fire. Military commanders read a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which some soldiers were told to transcribe by hand. “I really miss you comrades,” Kim said in the New Year’s greeting.
In interviews, the two North Koreans captured by Ukraine offered the most detailed pictures yet of how young soldiers dispatched by Kim’s regime to aid Russia are experiencing the war. The Wall Street Journal was the first Western outlet to speak with the men, who are being held at a facility in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Their accounts of the arc of their lives—from leaving home as militarized teenagers steeped in Kim’s personality cult to being flung into the vicious fight for Russian territory—offer a rare insight into the secretive world of North Korea and its armed forces, the regime’s paramount institution.
Days later, they were fighting Ukrainians on the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region, they said.
They were instructed to evade capture at all costs—by blowing themselves up if they had to. That message was reinforced by North Korean secret police who conducted ideological sessions on the ground in Russia, stressing that surrender was tantamount to treason.
The indoctrination didn’t stop even under Ukrainian artillery fire. Military commanders read a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which some soldiers were told to transcribe by hand. “I really miss you comrades,” Kim said in the New Year’s greeting.
In interviews, the two North Koreans captured by Ukraine offered the most detailed pictures yet of how young soldiers dispatched by Kim’s regime to aid Russia are experiencing the war. The Wall Street Journal was the first Western outlet to speak with the men, who are being held at a facility in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Their accounts of the arc of their lives—from leaving home as militarized teenagers steeped in Kim’s personality cult to being flung into the vicious fight for Russian territory—offer a rare insight into the secretive world of North Korea and its armed forces, the regime’s paramount institution.
read the full story on wsj.com
UKRAINE’S HARDEST WINTER
Weary soldiers and citizens express fatalistic optimism while preparing for the loss of U.S. military support.
Vitalii Ovcharenko, a soldier in the Ukrainian armed forces, in SumyThe soldier, a lanky, dark-haired sergeant named Vitalii Ovcharenko, met me at a gas-station café on an otherwise deserted stretch of highway near Sumy, not far from Ukraine’s northern border with Russia. He looked tired. His unit had been fighting in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine captured a swath of territory in August in hopes of trading it for some of the land it had lost in the east.
Ovcharenko first volunteered in 2014, and he has been involved in some of the fiercest battles of the past decade. But when I asked him to name the hardest moment he had faced, his answer surprised me.
“The most difficult time is now,” he said. The past year had been hard enough, with the Biden administration slow-walking the military support it had promised. “Every bullet that doesn’t arrive leads to the death of my friends,” he said. But ever since the election of Donald Trump, “the uncertainty is the hardest part.” The commanding officers said they would fight regardless of the American position. But the soldiers were troubled, because “the American politicians want to do a deal,” he said. “And we know it would not be peace—it would be a tactical pause that would allow the Russians to regroup.”
As if to illustrate his point, a huge explosion lit up the night sky, followed by a loud boom. All the lights went out, even the streetlamps on the highway. The Russians had hit a power station nearby, the latest strike in a continuing effort to destroy Ukraine’s power grid and demoralize the population as winter sets in. Ovcharenko flipped his phone light on and continued talking, as if nothing had happened.
Some of the people I met in Ukraine told me that the country could be facing its toughest winter yet—despite a history that includes some of the worst famine and human carnage of the 20th century. The Russians are pressing forward relentlessly in the east, even though in October alone, more than 1,500 of their soldiers were killed or wounded every day. This fall, Russia fired more than three times as many missiles and explosive drones as it had during the summer months.
Ukraine’s troops are exhausted after nearly three years of warfare. They are heavily outnumbered by the Russians, who have been bolstered by about 10,000 North Korean troops and thousands of mercenaries from other countries, some of them trafficked to the front against their will. Ukrainian civilians are exhausted too, especially now that they face the prospect of more power cuts in a season of bitter cold and darkness.
Ukrainians are watching Trump nominate his Cabinet, scouring each official’s past utterances for hints about future American policies. They can’t do much to influence the encounter that is coming between the Russian and American presidents—both mercurial men, each in the grip of very different delusions about how Ukraine’s war will end. Instead, Ukraine’s soldiers and politicians are taking a hard look at what it would mean to lose American military support, and how they might make up the difference, in a war where victory is being slowly redefined as mere survival.
Ovcharenko first volunteered in 2014, and he has been involved in some of the fiercest battles of the past decade. But when I asked him to name the hardest moment he had faced, his answer surprised me.
“The most difficult time is now,” he said. The past year had been hard enough, with the Biden administration slow-walking the military support it had promised. “Every bullet that doesn’t arrive leads to the death of my friends,” he said. But ever since the election of Donald Trump, “the uncertainty is the hardest part.” The commanding officers said they would fight regardless of the American position. But the soldiers were troubled, because “the American politicians want to do a deal,” he said. “And we know it would not be peace—it would be a tactical pause that would allow the Russians to regroup.”
As if to illustrate his point, a huge explosion lit up the night sky, followed by a loud boom. All the lights went out, even the streetlamps on the highway. The Russians had hit a power station nearby, the latest strike in a continuing effort to destroy Ukraine’s power grid and demoralize the population as winter sets in. Ovcharenko flipped his phone light on and continued talking, as if nothing had happened.
Some of the people I met in Ukraine told me that the country could be facing its toughest winter yet—despite a history that includes some of the worst famine and human carnage of the 20th century. The Russians are pressing forward relentlessly in the east, even though in October alone, more than 1,500 of their soldiers were killed or wounded every day. This fall, Russia fired more than three times as many missiles and explosive drones as it had during the summer months.
Ukraine’s troops are exhausted after nearly three years of warfare. They are heavily outnumbered by the Russians, who have been bolstered by about 10,000 North Korean troops and thousands of mercenaries from other countries, some of them trafficked to the front against their will. Ukrainian civilians are exhausted too, especially now that they face the prospect of more power cuts in a season of bitter cold and darkness.
Ukrainians are watching Trump nominate his Cabinet, scouring each official’s past utterances for hints about future American policies. They can’t do much to influence the encounter that is coming between the Russian and American presidents—both mercurial men, each in the grip of very different delusions about how Ukraine’s war will end. Instead, Ukraine’s soldiers and politicians are taking a hard look at what it would mean to lose American military support, and how they might make up the difference, in a war where victory is being slowly redefined as mere survival.
A bus stop in SumyUkrainians are immensely grateful for the backing they got from the Biden administration after Russia invaded in 2022. At the start of the war, frontline soldiers commonly wore the Stars and Stripes pinned to their chests. But almost three years later, many have come to see the American arms pipeline as a kind of torture: allowing just enough through to keep up a war of attrition, with no real hope of victory. One member of the Ukrainian Parliament described it to me as “feeding by teaspoons.” A pollster in Kyiv called it a policy of “slow death.” Viktor Yahun, a former Ukrainian intelligence officer, answered my question about how Ukrainians received Trump’s election by reciting a Russian proverb: “Better a horrible end than an endless horror.”
Despite that grim forecast, I heard a surprising degree of fatalistic optimism about Trump among many of the Ukrainians I met. This is partly a measure of their deep frustration with the status quo, and may also reflect the national habit of bravely shrugging off long odds. against all hope, i hope is a phrase spray-painted on walls throughout Ukraine (it’s a quote from Lesya Ukrainka, a beloved poet from the turn of the 20th century). Everyone knows about Trump’s worrisome promises to reach a quick deal with Vladimir Putin, which would entail a cutoff of American military support. But many people seem confident that Trump’s looming tête-à-tête with the Russian president will work to their advantage by demonstrating the Kremlin’s unreliability as a partner.
“They are incapable of cutting a deal,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, told me of the Russians. “Whenever there’s any symptom of negotiations—let’s say a grain deal, or the Istanbul agreement—they immediately ask for more.” He reminded me that Ukraine has twice made deals with Russia in exchange for security guarantees: first in 1994, when it gave up its nuclear weapons, and again in 2014, when it tried to end the fighting in the Donbas region. Russia violated both agreements. Mylovanov and others told me that they were confident Trump will eventually understand that Putin cannot be trusted, and that he will then take a harder and more realistic line.
In Kyiv, the very mention of the word negotiations elicits a dismissive wave of the hand. Yet this posture may mask a deeper pragmatism. President Volodymyr Zelensky and his aides have maintained that Ukraine will stop fighting only if it is granted NATO membership—a position widely understood to be an opening gambit for talks. (Zelensky’s office declined my requests for an interview; I was told that his administration has adopted a policy of strict discretion in preparation for the transfer of power in Washington.) In the same way, Zelensky’s refusal to cede any territory conceals the reality that many Ukrainians—perhaps most—are ready to accept the loss of the areas Russia now occupies in exchange for a durable peace. Anton Grushetskyi, a Kyiv-based pollster, told me that to say you will accept the loss of Ukrainian territory is still socially unacceptable, which makes people’s real feelings difficult to assess.
Defining a security guarantee will be the crux of any deal. Roman Kostenko, the chair of the Defense and Intelligence Committee in the Ukrainian Parliament and a decorated soldier, told me that a meaningful agreement would require a permanent defense structure along the front line, “so that within hours of a Russian attack, military operations can start. Without that, the security guarantees won’t work.”
Despite that grim forecast, I heard a surprising degree of fatalistic optimism about Trump among many of the Ukrainians I met. This is partly a measure of their deep frustration with the status quo, and may also reflect the national habit of bravely shrugging off long odds. against all hope, i hope is a phrase spray-painted on walls throughout Ukraine (it’s a quote from Lesya Ukrainka, a beloved poet from the turn of the 20th century). Everyone knows about Trump’s worrisome promises to reach a quick deal with Vladimir Putin, which would entail a cutoff of American military support. But many people seem confident that Trump’s looming tête-à-tête with the Russian president will work to their advantage by demonstrating the Kremlin’s unreliability as a partner.
“They are incapable of cutting a deal,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, told me of the Russians. “Whenever there’s any symptom of negotiations—let’s say a grain deal, or the Istanbul agreement—they immediately ask for more.” He reminded me that Ukraine has twice made deals with Russia in exchange for security guarantees: first in 1994, when it gave up its nuclear weapons, and again in 2014, when it tried to end the fighting in the Donbas region. Russia violated both agreements. Mylovanov and others told me that they were confident Trump will eventually understand that Putin cannot be trusted, and that he will then take a harder and more realistic line.
In Kyiv, the very mention of the word negotiations elicits a dismissive wave of the hand. Yet this posture may mask a deeper pragmatism. President Volodymyr Zelensky and his aides have maintained that Ukraine will stop fighting only if it is granted NATO membership—a position widely understood to be an opening gambit for talks. (Zelensky’s office declined my requests for an interview; I was told that his administration has adopted a policy of strict discretion in preparation for the transfer of power in Washington.) In the same way, Zelensky’s refusal to cede any territory conceals the reality that many Ukrainians—perhaps most—are ready to accept the loss of the areas Russia now occupies in exchange for a durable peace. Anton Grushetskyi, a Kyiv-based pollster, told me that to say you will accept the loss of Ukrainian territory is still socially unacceptable, which makes people’s real feelings difficult to assess.
Defining a security guarantee will be the crux of any deal. Roman Kostenko, the chair of the Defense and Intelligence Committee in the Ukrainian Parliament and a decorated soldier, told me that a meaningful agreement would require a permanent defense structure along the front line, “so that within hours of a Russian attack, military operations can start. Without that, the security guarantees won’t work.”
Roman Kostenko, the chair of the Defense and Intelligence Committee in the Ukrainian Parliament
Kostenko did not seem to think a deal of any kind was imminent; he said the Russians were gearing up for an effort to capture the remainder of the Donetsk region by mid-winter. The recent rush of military supplies from the Biden administration following Trump’s election had been helpful, he said. But he added, a little grimly, that if the supplies continued at the current rate, “we may get through the winter” without major losses of territory.
American military hardware has been essential to Ukraine’s self-defense, and the soldiers and volunteers I met recited the most badly needed items like Christmas wish lists. Bradley fighting vehicles, armored against mines and gunfire, are often at the top of the list, as are Abrams tanks and parts to keep them running. Long- and medium-range missiles are seen as essential to striking at the Russian bases that fire on Ukrainian cities. And “you can never have too many drones,” a frontline soldier told me.
One of Ukraine’s most valuable resources is the goodwill of the West, and many people I met seemed acutely conscious that everything could depend on the way their war is framed in Trump’s mind. They plied me so assiduously with reasons for supporting Ukraine that I sometimes had the odd feeling that the whole country was gearing up for a life-and-death audition with an unpredictable boss. Their pitches ranged from simple arguments (“Trump likes success—surely he wouldn’t want Ukraine to fail?”) to more sophisticated ones about the impossibility of separating Ukraine from one of Trump’s top priorities: countering China. The idea here is that China, which has become an indispensable supplier for Russia, would be emboldened if Russia wins, and might go on to challenge American power in the Pacific.
American military hardware has been essential to Ukraine’s self-defense, and the soldiers and volunteers I met recited the most badly needed items like Christmas wish lists. Bradley fighting vehicles, armored against mines and gunfire, are often at the top of the list, as are Abrams tanks and parts to keep them running. Long- and medium-range missiles are seen as essential to striking at the Russian bases that fire on Ukrainian cities. And “you can never have too many drones,” a frontline soldier told me.
One of Ukraine’s most valuable resources is the goodwill of the West, and many people I met seemed acutely conscious that everything could depend on the way their war is framed in Trump’s mind. They plied me so assiduously with reasons for supporting Ukraine that I sometimes had the odd feeling that the whole country was gearing up for a life-and-death audition with an unpredictable boss. Their pitches ranged from simple arguments (“Trump likes success—surely he wouldn’t want Ukraine to fail?”) to more sophisticated ones about the impossibility of separating Ukraine from one of Trump’s top priorities: countering China. The idea here is that China, which has become an indispensable supplier for Russia, would be emboldened if Russia wins, and might go on to challenge American power in the Pacific.
Sviatoslav Yurash, a Ukrainian parliamentarian and soldier, and Kateryna Doroshyna, a longtime friend and aide, in Kyiv
Perhaps the most eloquent spokesperson I encountered was Sviatoslav Yurash, who became the youngest-ever member of Ukraine’s Parliament when he was first elected five years ago, and is now 28 years old. Yurash is tall and very thin, with clunky glasses and thick brown hair swept fully sideways, as if he’d been standing in a gale. When I met him in a Kyiv café, he had just returned from the front line, where he mans a Browning M2 machine gun when Parliament is not in session. “Mr. Putin is very clear—he sees us the way Hitler called the Swiss: renegade Germans,” he told me. Yurash likened Putin’s Russia to “a big icebreaker that is destroying the international order,” adding that the ultimate beneficiary will be China.
Yurash told me he’d been in touch with Americans across the political spectrum in his effort to promote the Ukrainian cause. He mentioned Tucker Carlson, who interviewed him early in the war, and Jordan Peterson’s daughter, who spoke with him for a documentary she was making. “I’ve met people who organized prayer breakfasts,” Yurash said with an amused grin. He seemed intensely curious about America’s tribal divisions but a little baffled by what he’d encountered, both on the left and the right. At one point his assistant, Kateryna Doroshyna, held up her phone with a puzzled expression and showed me a social-media post that read, in English: “How can I show Ukrainians that they benefit from white privilege?”
I wasn’t sure how to begin explaining that to someone who regularly risks her life delivering supplies to soldiers on the front line. But both of them shrugged and laughed it off. “We just need to tell our story,” Yurash said. “For us, the idea that Trump could persuade the Europeans to do more is quite welcome.”
Unlike trump, many European leaders see Russia’s war in Ukraine as a threat to their own safety and have acted accordingly. The Baltic states have given their entire stock of some weapons types to Ukraine. One Polish official told me that his country—which has provided more tanks to Ukraine than any other in Europe—has no more to give now, “because we are next on the front line.” Tomas Kopecny, the Czech envoy for Ukraine reconstruction, told me that Czech factories had increased their production of large-caliber ammunition elevenfold in the first two years of the war. Kopecny also leads the Czech Ammunition Initiative, which acts as a broker for states with ammunition to sell, including some that would not be willing to sell directly to Ukraine out of fear of angering Russia. The Czech initiative has delivered about 500,000 rounds of 155-millimeter artillery to Ukraine in 2024, Kopecny said, and will deliver more next year.
And yet, even if the Europeans were to give everything they have, they could not supply enough matériel to compensate for an American cutoff. Ukraine will need a prolific weapons industry of its own. As it happens, some of the rudiments are already in place, because Ukraine was an engine of the Soviet Union’s military industry during the Cold War, with 750 factories. After the wall fell, Kyiv transferred much of its arsenal to Russia, and some of those weapons are now being used against it. Some friendly states have begun injecting money into Ukraine’s domestic arms plants. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have collectively allocated about $680 million to Ukrainian defense production so far, including money from the interest on Russian financial assets frozen in Europe.
Yurash told me he’d been in touch with Americans across the political spectrum in his effort to promote the Ukrainian cause. He mentioned Tucker Carlson, who interviewed him early in the war, and Jordan Peterson’s daughter, who spoke with him for a documentary she was making. “I’ve met people who organized prayer breakfasts,” Yurash said with an amused grin. He seemed intensely curious about America’s tribal divisions but a little baffled by what he’d encountered, both on the left and the right. At one point his assistant, Kateryna Doroshyna, held up her phone with a puzzled expression and showed me a social-media post that read, in English: “How can I show Ukrainians that they benefit from white privilege?”
I wasn’t sure how to begin explaining that to someone who regularly risks her life delivering supplies to soldiers on the front line. But both of them shrugged and laughed it off. “We just need to tell our story,” Yurash said. “For us, the idea that Trump could persuade the Europeans to do more is quite welcome.”
Unlike trump, many European leaders see Russia’s war in Ukraine as a threat to their own safety and have acted accordingly. The Baltic states have given their entire stock of some weapons types to Ukraine. One Polish official told me that his country—which has provided more tanks to Ukraine than any other in Europe—has no more to give now, “because we are next on the front line.” Tomas Kopecny, the Czech envoy for Ukraine reconstruction, told me that Czech factories had increased their production of large-caliber ammunition elevenfold in the first two years of the war. Kopecny also leads the Czech Ammunition Initiative, which acts as a broker for states with ammunition to sell, including some that would not be willing to sell directly to Ukraine out of fear of angering Russia. The Czech initiative has delivered about 500,000 rounds of 155-millimeter artillery to Ukraine in 2024, Kopecny said, and will deliver more next year.
And yet, even if the Europeans were to give everything they have, they could not supply enough matériel to compensate for an American cutoff. Ukraine will need a prolific weapons industry of its own. As it happens, some of the rudiments are already in place, because Ukraine was an engine of the Soviet Union’s military industry during the Cold War, with 750 factories. After the wall fell, Kyiv transferred much of its arsenal to Russia, and some of those weapons are now being used against it. Some friendly states have begun injecting money into Ukraine’s domestic arms plants. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have collectively allocated about $680 million to Ukrainian defense production so far, including money from the interest on Russian financial assets frozen in Europe.
Sumy National University
Sooner or later, some Ukrainians say, the country will have to rely entirely on its own resources. Trump may just be hastening that day. One Ukrainian who thinks this way is Maria Berlinska, a driven 36-year-old from western Ukraine and a prominent figure in the domestic drone industry. One Ukrainian general labeled her the “mother of drones” last year.
Berlinska met me in her Kyiv office, an atticlike space with the flags of various military units pinned to the walls and ceiling. She’d been getting a graduate degree in Jewish history when the 2014 revolution started, and later that year she joined the army on a volunteer basis. She spent much of the following three years on the front lines in the east, teaching soldiers how to fly drones and integrate them with other military technologies. She also lobbied politicians to support the industry.
“My message was very simple: Sooner or later, Russia will return,” she told me. “We should invest in technology, because we can’t rely only on Western countries.” She always brought a sample drone with her, explaining to ministers and lawmakers that it could be a dangerous weapon not just against enemy soldiers but against tanks and armored vehicles as well.
“They were laughing,” she told me. “They said it’s just toys.”
They are not laughing anymore. Ukraine now has at least 100 active drone companies in different stages of production, says Kateryna Bezsudna, a co-founder of a nonprofit, called Defence Builder, that assists start-ups in Ukraine’s defense sector. Bezsudna told me that Ukraine has become a testing ground for new drone technologies that it could eventually export abroad. At a dinner party in Kyiv, I met a couple who work for a new firm called Hard Cat Drones, which makes marine drones specifically designed to destroy enemy drones, boats, and mines—a useful weapon on the Black Sea, where Ukraine has had some remarkable successes in beating back the Russian navy.
Berlinska met me in her Kyiv office, an atticlike space with the flags of various military units pinned to the walls and ceiling. She’d been getting a graduate degree in Jewish history when the 2014 revolution started, and later that year she joined the army on a volunteer basis. She spent much of the following three years on the front lines in the east, teaching soldiers how to fly drones and integrate them with other military technologies. She also lobbied politicians to support the industry.
“My message was very simple: Sooner or later, Russia will return,” she told me. “We should invest in technology, because we can’t rely only on Western countries.” She always brought a sample drone with her, explaining to ministers and lawmakers that it could be a dangerous weapon not just against enemy soldiers but against tanks and armored vehicles as well.
“They were laughing,” she told me. “They said it’s just toys.”
They are not laughing anymore. Ukraine now has at least 100 active drone companies in different stages of production, says Kateryna Bezsudna, a co-founder of a nonprofit, called Defence Builder, that assists start-ups in Ukraine’s defense sector. Bezsudna told me that Ukraine has become a testing ground for new drone technologies that it could eventually export abroad. At a dinner party in Kyiv, I met a couple who work for a new firm called Hard Cat Drones, which makes marine drones specifically designed to destroy enemy drones, boats, and mines—a useful weapon on the Black Sea, where Ukraine has had some remarkable successes in beating back the Russian navy.
Maria Berlinska at the offices of Dignitas Fund, in Kyiv
Berlinska has no illusions about what drones can and cannot achieve. Her highest priority now, she told me, is an ambitious effort to compensate for Ukraine’s personnel shortages by training civilians to help build and deploy drones and other kinds of defense technology, a project she calls the “technological militarization of society.”
That phrase gave me pause. It sounded more like North Korea than the vibrant democracy Ukraine hopes to maintain. Berlinska conceded the point. “I would like to be wrong in my predictions,” she said. But with the prospect of losing American support, Ukrainians need to get used to the idea of being citizen-soldiers. She was one of several people in Kyiv who invoked Israel—with its mandatory conscription for men and women—as a model.
Ukraine’s survival may depend as much on strength of will as on weapons. The spirit of national unity on display in 2022, when so many citizens took part in their country’s defense, is being tested as fissures widen between those fighting the war and the rest of society. There is a greater reluctance to serve, and I heard stories in Kyiv about young men who stay off the streets during the day because they fear being forcibly conscripted. Ovcharenko, the soldier I met in Sumy, made clear that he had questions about “some parts of society” that were not pulling their weight.
Russian hackers and trolls work constantly to exacerbate these divisions, largely through social media. “We can see that the enemy is doing massive psyops,” Kostenko, the Parliament member, told me. “They try to discredit the military and the institutions.” Real frustrations can be hard to distinguish from propaganda that plays on them. Not long ago, Ovcharenko told me, he was evacuating a wounded soldier in a car, driving very fast. “Usually other drivers understand,” he said. “But there was a video online accusing the military of abusing its privileges, that they’re reckless and drive drunk.” He couldn’t help wondering what the civilians on the roadside were thinking as he went past.
That phrase gave me pause. It sounded more like North Korea than the vibrant democracy Ukraine hopes to maintain. Berlinska conceded the point. “I would like to be wrong in my predictions,” she said. But with the prospect of losing American support, Ukrainians need to get used to the idea of being citizen-soldiers. She was one of several people in Kyiv who invoked Israel—with its mandatory conscription for men and women—as a model.
Ukraine’s survival may depend as much on strength of will as on weapons. The spirit of national unity on display in 2022, when so many citizens took part in their country’s defense, is being tested as fissures widen between those fighting the war and the rest of society. There is a greater reluctance to serve, and I heard stories in Kyiv about young men who stay off the streets during the day because they fear being forcibly conscripted. Ovcharenko, the soldier I met in Sumy, made clear that he had questions about “some parts of society” that were not pulling their weight.
Russian hackers and trolls work constantly to exacerbate these divisions, largely through social media. “We can see that the enemy is doing massive psyops,” Kostenko, the Parliament member, told me. “They try to discredit the military and the institutions.” Real frustrations can be hard to distinguish from propaganda that plays on them. Not long ago, Ovcharenko told me, he was evacuating a wounded soldier in a car, driving very fast. “Usually other drivers understand,” he said. “But there was a video online accusing the military of abusing its privileges, that they’re reckless and drive drunk.” He couldn’t help wondering what the civilians on the roadside were thinking as he went past.
A resident of Bilopillia, near Sumy, in the courtyard of his apartment building; most windows have been damaged from multiple shellings.
Ukrainians know that any deal worked out by Trump and Putin is likely to be a respite rather than a resolution, and that knowledge carries its own psychic burden. A 31-year-old woman told me that she was dreading the uncertainty of a cease-fire. “When the war is happening every day, you’re used to it,” she said. “But I feel anxious knowing that when it stops, we will just be waiting and worrying until it starts again.” Others told me they feared that the adrenaline rush of war would give way to depression as the nation faced the scale of its destruction. The World Bank has estimated the cost of rebuilding Ukraine at $486 billion. And many refugees may be reluctant to return to their home in a cease-fire. “There is no trust,” Grusketshyi, the pollster, told me. “What if Russia attacks two years later? People will say, ‘Why live in a frontline city?’ Mariupol was rebuilt after 2015,” when the Russians first destroyed it. “Then it was destroyed again in two months.”
The greatest fear for Ukrainians is a true collapse. This could play out in a number of ways. Mylovanov, at the Kyiv School of Economics, told me that a Russian victory would surely send enormous numbers of refugees across Ukraine’s western border. Poland and other border states would “arm themselves to the teeth,” he said, and Ukraine itself might devolve into a patchwork of armed uprisings.
In Sumy, the city I visited near the Russian border, I met a number of Ukrainians who were preparing themselves for the worst-case scenario. Sumy had been encircled by the Russian military for two months after the 2022 invasion, and that period was a crucible for the city’s people. The Ukrainian military and local authorities all withdrew, leaving citizens to fend for themselves. They quickly organized themselves into civilian militias, one resident told me, “collecting money and food and bottles for Molotov cocktails.” In the end, the Russians withdrew without a direct assault on the city.
I saw a small example of the city’s resilience the day after I arrived. A Russian missile had struck the courtyard of a large housing complex, killing 11 people, including children, and injuring scores of others. When I got there, about 12 hours later, debris and shattered glass littered the area, and the missile had left a deep crater. The police and emergency services were there—but so were hundreds of local people, sawing boards to patch up broken windows, offering food and tea, and consoling the victims’ families. One woman told me that immediately after the strike the night before, groups of young volunteers had gone straight to the site to help out.
The greatest fear for Ukrainians is a true collapse. This could play out in a number of ways. Mylovanov, at the Kyiv School of Economics, told me that a Russian victory would surely send enormous numbers of refugees across Ukraine’s western border. Poland and other border states would “arm themselves to the teeth,” he said, and Ukraine itself might devolve into a patchwork of armed uprisings.
In Sumy, the city I visited near the Russian border, I met a number of Ukrainians who were preparing themselves for the worst-case scenario. Sumy had been encircled by the Russian military for two months after the 2022 invasion, and that period was a crucible for the city’s people. The Ukrainian military and local authorities all withdrew, leaving citizens to fend for themselves. They quickly organized themselves into civilian militias, one resident told me, “collecting money and food and bottles for Molotov cocktails.” In the end, the Russians withdrew without a direct assault on the city.
I saw a small example of the city’s resilience the day after I arrived. A Russian missile had struck the courtyard of a large housing complex, killing 11 people, including children, and injuring scores of others. When I got there, about 12 hours later, debris and shattered glass littered the area, and the missile had left a deep crater. The police and emergency services were there—but so were hundreds of local people, sawing boards to patch up broken windows, offering food and tea, and consoling the victims’ families. One woman told me that immediately after the strike the night before, groups of young volunteers had gone straight to the site to help out.
Yuri Shvydkyi and Anatoly Snihiriov
The man who drove me there was a 59-year-old local named Yuri Shvydkyi, who had lost a close friend in the bombing. He used to run a travel-goods store but had transformed it into a military outfitter. Shvydkyi told me that when the Russians invaded in 2022, he withdrew cash, got in his car, and drove his daughter and her children to relative safety in Kyiv. Then he turned around and drove back to Sumy to rejoin his wife, passing through Ukrainian and Russian checkpoints on the way. He described the return journey as “like The Metamorphosis—you feel you are slowly turning into an insect.” He was lucky to survive it; many Ukrainian civilians were shot and killed on that road.
Now he spends much of his time as a paramilitary defender at a guard post on the outskirts of town. From there, he and some other men shoot at the Russian drones that fly over the border. The city hasn’t compensated them for months, but they man their posts 24 hours a day anyway, Shvydkyi told me, “filling in the gaps where the army is not,” because “I know the Shahed drones are targeting my granddaughter.”
One evening, Shvydkyi invited me and my translator to join him at the home of some of his friends. The power was out, so we climbed the stairs to their 10th-floor apartment in the dark, using our phones to light the way. Our host, a ruddy-faced man named Anatoly Snihiriov, had retired from army service at the age of 60 a few months earlier. He and a female friend prepared an eclectic meal in the dark—cheese, sausage, mango-flavored cake, tea, cognac. Snihiriov showed me a framed photograph on the wall of him with his infantry unit, taken last year: a dozen or so men standing with autumn foliage behind them. “This guy was killed by a sniper,” he said. “This guy was killed by a mine. This guy is a prisoner of war. This guy is maimed on his whole right side.”
Now he spends much of his time as a paramilitary defender at a guard post on the outskirts of town. From there, he and some other men shoot at the Russian drones that fly over the border. The city hasn’t compensated them for months, but they man their posts 24 hours a day anyway, Shvydkyi told me, “filling in the gaps where the army is not,” because “I know the Shahed drones are targeting my granddaughter.”
One evening, Shvydkyi invited me and my translator to join him at the home of some of his friends. The power was out, so we climbed the stairs to their 10th-floor apartment in the dark, using our phones to light the way. Our host, a ruddy-faced man named Anatoly Snihiriov, had retired from army service at the age of 60 a few months earlier. He and a female friend prepared an eclectic meal in the dark—cheese, sausage, mango-flavored cake, tea, cognac. Snihiriov showed me a framed photograph on the wall of him with his infantry unit, taken last year: a dozen or so men standing with autumn foliage behind them. “This guy was killed by a sniper,” he said. “This guy was killed by a mine. This guy is a prisoner of war. This guy is maimed on his whole right side.”
A concrete barricade along one of the roads near Sumy
The conversation over the next two hours was an odd blend of apocalyptic and cheerful. Snihiriov and his friend, who had also served in the military, talked about the proper use of tourniquets; both of them knew people who had lost limbs because the dressings hadn’t been applied properly. They argued about which is worse, to die instantly in battle or to survive with debilitating injuries that leave you unable to care for yourself. When I asked about the future of their city, they said they expected all but the smallest businesses to fail or move away, because of the constant threat of Russian drones and glide bombs. “You need to be small enough that the Russians can’t find you or they think it’s not worth it,” Snihiriov said.
At one point, Snihiriov mentioned that they kept assault rifles in their home. “When you live in a border area, you have to be prepared,” he said.
Later, after saying goodbye and emerging into the frigid darkness, I found myself thinking about the painful uncertainty that these people faced, with their homes so close to the front lines of what looks more and more like a global war.
“We are grateful to the American people that we could win so far against Russia,” Snihiriov told me before I left. “Now we feel a bit betrayed. But we will keep fighting to the end.”
At one point, Snihiriov mentioned that they kept assault rifles in their home. “When you live in a border area, you have to be prepared,” he said.
Later, after saying goodbye and emerging into the frigid darkness, I found myself thinking about the painful uncertainty that these people faced, with their homes so close to the front lines of what looks more and more like a global war.
“We are grateful to the American people that we could win so far against Russia,” Snihiriov told me before I left. “Now we feel a bit betrayed. But we will keep fighting to the end.”
Ukraine Asks if Telegram, Its Favorite App, Is a Sleeper Agent
The messaging app’s popularity has soared during the war with Russia, leading Ukrainian officials to increasingly weigh Telegram’s upsides against its security risks.
Telegram’s Air Raids Map channel. Roughly 70 percent of Ukrainians use Telegram as a main source of news, according to a recent survey.
In the nearly three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the messaging app Telegram has been a lifeline for millions of Ukrainians. It provides information about coming attacks and helps communities organize food, medical aid and other support.
But what has been a salvation has increasingly turned into a major source of concern. In recent months, Ukrainian officials have become more alarmed by the country’s dependence on Telegram, as worries that the app was used as a vector of disinformation and a spying tool for Russia have mushroomed.
Ukraine is now trying to disentangle itself from Telegram. In September, authorities ordered the military, government officials and those working on critical infrastructure to limit their use of the app on work phones. More sensitive communications have been moved to encrypted apps like Signal. Some senior officials have proposed new restrictions for Telegram, including rules to disclose who is behind anonymously run channels with large followings.
“We understand we are dependent,” said Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament who has drafted a law to tighten regulation of Telegram. “It’s a problem for us.”
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament who has drafted a law to tighten regulation of Telegram, said the country’s dependence on the app was “a problem.”
Ukraine’s experience with Telegram illustrates the benefits and drawbacks of being beholden to a single app. Rarely has a country been so reliant on a platform it has no control over for communication, information and other critical services, particularly during a war.
That dependence is emulated perhaps only in Russia, where Telegram is used by roughly half the population, including many in the military and government. That has made the app a central information battlefield in the war. In some cases, Ukrainian and Russian drone pilots use Telegram groups to taunt each other and share videos of attacks.
Ukraine’s concerns about Telegram parallel rising global scrutiny of the platform, which is approaching one billion users. Once seen as a haven for activists and those living under authoritarian governments, the app has angered governments as it has become a hub of illicit and extremist material. Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder, was arrested in France in August on charges related to the company’s failure to address criminal activity on the platform.
For Ukraine, distancing itself from Telegram will not be easy. Roughly 70 percent of Ukrainians use Telegram as a main source of news, according to a recent survey commissioned in part by the U.S. government. When air raid sirens wail and missiles descend on Ukrainian cities, people flock to Telegram groups for real-time updates. The government broadcasts official announcements and gathers intelligence inside Russian-occupied territories through the app.
Kyiv residents sheltering during a missile strike last year. When air raid sirens wail and missiles descend on Ukrainian cities, people flock to Telegram groups for real-time updates.Credit...Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
Yet in secret cybersecurity meetings this year, Ukrainian officials discussed putting new limits on Telegram, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. The country’s intelligence service concluded the app posed national security risks and was used by Russia for disinformation, cyberattacks, hacking, spreading malware, location tracking and adjusting missile strikes.
As a security measure, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who regularly posts war updates to his more than 700,000 followers on Telegram, does not use the app on his personal phone, a Ukrainian cybersecurity official said. In March, officials took the unusual step of asking Apple to rein in the platform because the Silicon Valley giant can leverage its app store — which Telegram needs for global distribution — to get the company to act.
In a statement, Telegram defended the security of its platform, saying Russia “has not — and cannot — access user information.” The company added, “Telegram is and always has been safe for Ukrainians and users around the world.”
But what makes Telegram so powerful also makes it a threat, Ukrainian officials said. Unlike other social media, Telegram has few guardrails. There is no algorithm determining what people see and little content moderation, enabling the rapid spread of lifesaving warnings but also exposing the app to exploitation. Broadcasting features allow users to quickly share text, videos and files with large groups.
“I have some relatives in the occupied territories and the only way to get in touch with them is Telegram,” said Maksym Yali, an analyst for Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, a government agency that monitors Telegram and other apps for disinformation. “But under the conditions of war, do the risks outweigh the benefits?”
He said Ukrainians visiting friends or family in Russia must hand over their phones at the airport to security officers who use specialized software to check their Telegram app, including deleted material, for pro-Ukraine content.
Telegram denied that deleted messages could be accessed and said any examples of intercepted communications by Russia that it had investigated were the result of a device being physically confiscated or infected with malware, not security weaknesses on the app.
Ukrainians’ affection for Telegram began in 2017. That was when the country banned the Russian-controlled social media platform VKontakte, which was used to amplify Russian disinformation and propaganda.
Telegram’s prominence grew during Mr. Zelensky’s presidential run in 2019. His campaign deftly used the service to connect with voters, thanks partly to Mykhailo Fedorov, a young digital strategist who now leads the Ministry of Digital Transformation. In a 2020 interview, Mr. Fedorov said he had regular contact with Mr. Durov and his management team.
Mykhailo Fedorov, chief of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, said in a 2020 interview that he had regular contact with Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder.
In 2022, just before Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian intelligence cautioned Mr. Zelensky about Telegram, two people with knowledge of the matter said. In a memo, military intelligence warned about the risks of Russian influence but said the threat did not merit an outright ban of the app.
Mr. Zelensky’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The war revealed that many Telegram channels were run from Russia. Accounts that appeared to be Ukrainian peddled disinformation, including unfounded claims that Mr. Zelensky had fled the country.
Still, the app’s popularity soared as traditional media struggled to keep pace.
“Telegram is the main source of information, more than television, radio and all the other media,” said Maksym Dvorovyi, head of digital rights with Digital Security Lab Ukraine, a civil society group. He said that was a “sad reality” because of the security risks and volume of unverified information and propaganda.
For many popular Telegram channels, the money flowed. With millions of followers, they charged thousands of dollars per ad, with promotions from cake shops and crypto boosters sitting alongside warnings of drone attacks and announcements of blackouts.
Few know the operators of some of the most-visited channels, which have names like “Legitimate” and “Cartel.” A September study by Detector Media, a European Union-backed watchdog group, found that 76 of the 100 most popular Telegram channels in Ukraine were operated anonymously.
Ukrainian officials have worried about the allegiances of Mr. Durov, who was born in Russia. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said in 2021 that the government had “reached an agreement” with Telegram after the authorities tried to block the app during a dispute over access to user data. Ukrainian officials fear Russia can get access to private data and communications on the app, pointing to examples when Russian authorities presented copies of private Telegram conversations to people under investigation.
Ukraine has not shown conclusive evidence linking Mr. Durov or the company to the Russian government, and Telegram said it had no ties to the Kremlin.
“Telegram has never been legally or physically connected to Russia,” the company said. “Telegram was founded specifically in the context of protecting user data from Russian surveillance.”
Early this year, disinformation on Telegram about the war was so rampant that Ukraine asked Apple to intervene. The government requested that the tech giant use its leverage to push Telegram to remove certain fake accounts run from Russia. By April, Telegram had taken down the accounts.
But the resolution came with a twist. Telegram also briefly blocked several Ukrainian government-run accounts that let citizens share information about Russian troop movements. Ukrainian officials viewed the move as a thinly veiled warning: Pressuring the company too hard could come at a cost.
“It was unspoken, but it was a threat,” Mr. Yurchyshyn said.
Telegram confirmed it took down the fake accounts after receiving a request from Apple, but said the Ukrainian channels were erroneously removed and were reinstated within hours. The company said it was developing tools to combat disinformation, including new fact-checking features.
Mr. Fedorov, the digital minister, said in a statement that he had requested assistance from Apple in communicating with Telegram as “part of our ongoing work with all platforms that have such extensive reach and cover the war in Ukraine.”
Apple declined to comment.
Yaroslav Anzhiuk, enterpeneur and one of the co-founders of Kremlngram, a grassroot organization that advocates for limiting Telegram in Ukraine.After a September meeting of Ukraine’s National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity, use of the app was limited in the government and military. Some universities have also banned the app.
Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s top intelligence official, publicly warned about Telegram’s threats, but said he did not believe it should be blocked altogether. He has called for the abolishment of anonymity for administrators of large channels. Telegram has long argued that anonymity is key to protecting users.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, has publicly warned about Telegram’s risks and has called for a prohibition on anonymity for administrators of large channels.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Russia has its own concerns about Telegram. After Mr. Durov’s arrest in France in August, Russian commentators and military analysts publicly raised alarms about the country’s own reliance on the app, saying he could give Western intelligence services access to private data.
In Ukraine, Mr. Durov’s arrest emboldened efforts to curtail Telegram. Mr. Yurchyshyn said he was working on legislation to add warnings, akin to those on cigarette packets, that remind users that the information on the platform may be unreliable and that the operators of channels are anonymous.
But he acknowledged that any new rules were unlikely to diminish Telegram’s sway.
“Who wants to be the politician or leader to take responsibility for banning such a popular network?” Mr. Yurchyshyn said.
Sasha Maslov contributed reporting from Kyiv.
Drones swarm Kyiv every night. These volunteers shoot them down.
A searchlight, a World War II-era machine gun and lots of caffeine help a band of volunteers protect the night skies over Ukraine’s capital.
December 15, 2024 - By Siobhán O'Grady, Serhii Korolchuk and Serhiy Morgunov
Nearly three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv is still using unpaid volunteers manning antiquated weapons to shoot down the daily swarms of drones targeting the capital, underscoring the government’s urgent requests to partners for new air defense systems.
In the past two months, Russia has dramatically ramped up its air assaults on Kyiv and other major cities, killing and wounding civilians and destroying energy infrastructure across the country. At least 165 civilians were killed and nearly 900 wounded in Ukraine in November, the United Nations reported. Ninety-three percent of those casualties occurred in Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Despite Russian threats to deploy nuclear-grade missiles against Ukraine, Moscow more often targets Ukraine with Iranian-designed drones called Shaheds. Use of these 11-foot-long winged drones that crash into their targets has nearly doubled since September: That month, Russia launched about 1,300 of them. By November, the count had reached 2,500.
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In Kyiv, Territorial Defense volunteers spend cold December nights on a rooftop monitoring the skies for Russian drone attacks.
The few U.S.-made Patriot missile air defense systems Ukraine has received are largely dedicated to shooting down more dangerous guided missiles. Shaheds, however, are small enough — and slow enough — that they can be taken down by machine guns.
This job often falls to civilian volunteers working several 12-hour shifts a week, manning guns at mobile and static air defense positions around the city. Many work regular jobs by day and shoot down drones by night.
Washington Post journalists embedded with one such unit from Ukraine’s Mriya volunteer formation for a 12-hour overnight shift in Kyiv starting at 9 p.m. on Dec. 1. That night, Russia launched 110 attack drones, including Shaheds. Ukrainian forces shot down 52. Another 50 were lost en route, which Ukraine’s air force attributed to its military’s successful disruption of their signals through electronic warfare.
By 8:30 the next morning, one Shahed was still circling over Ukraine.
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Mriya volunteers with a machine gun on a rooftop. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
It was just after 9 on a Sunday night, and maps on a Ukrainian military app showed a swarm of drones heading toward the capital.
Seven men in military uniforms, ranging in age from mid-30s to late 60s, huddled inside a small room on the roof of a high-rise building in Kyiv. They made coffee and tea and started cutting up a cake to eat as they awaited orders to man their World War II-era Maxim 7.62mm twin machine gun.
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Oleksandr Muzyka, 53, commander of a Mriya formation. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Artem, a musician from the eastern city of Donetsk, monitored the drones on a tablet as they moved toward the capital.
“We are on high alert; drones are already in the Kyiv region,” he said. Then he pointed to the table: “We should eat the cake now, while it’s fresh.”
For two years, Mriya volunteers have used this location, which The Post agreed not to reveal because of concerns it would be targeted, as an air defense position to protect the city against Russian drones. Story continues below advertisement
From the roof, the volunteers monitor the live military maps and then move to the gun outside if the air alert goes off. They scan the sky for drones with their searchlight and listen carefully for the distinctive hum. If it gets within their designated shooting zone, one volunteer mans the Maxim gun and another feeds the bullets, like a scene from an old war movie.
At 9:41 p.m., the map showed a Shahed was approaching Ukraine’s long-shuttered international airport just outside the capital. By 9:49, the air raid sirens were blaring.
The men rushed outside, fastening their helmets and removing a cover hiding the gun from view.
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Mriya volunteers before their shift starts. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Two years ago, this rooftop was empty. Then Russia started launching Shaheds at Ukraine.
Serhii Sas, a former Constitutional Court judge who now serves as the commander of Mriya, saw one fly right over his head — and realized he might not need much more than a gun to shoot it down.
The military agreed to provide Sas’s volunteer unit with bullets and weapons, including the 1944 Maxim twin machine gun. The rest, the volunteers have bought themselves, such as the flak jackets, helmets, hand warmers, camouflage uniforms and food supplies — including the cake.
In 2022 and 2023, the city of Kyiv provided bonuses to the unit’s volunteers of about $550 over two years. They have not been paid yet this year.
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Serhii Sas, 67, a former judge on Ukraine's Constitutional Court and former air assault soldier in the Soviet military. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
“We would like to see much more support, not so much in monetary terms but in technical assistance,” Sas said. “I believe this is within the capability of the Kyiv city government.”
The volunteers say they need more gear, such as thermal imagers, tablets, projectors and laser pointers. “These are not large expenses, really. But this is exactly what would improve the effectiveness of our work,” Sas said.
Roman Tkachuk, director of the security branch of Kyiv City Council, said bonuses are planned again for 2024. Material and technical support for such units, he wrote in a message, can be facilitated through territorial defense commanders.
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A Mriya volunteer checks his tablet for drones. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Outside, the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance as other air defense positions fired at the drone. The Mriya volunteers stood on the ready — they could hear its hum nearby through the fog. But it never entered their firing zone.
When the siren shut off, they stepped back inside to warm up from temperatures hovering around freezing.
Then it blared again. And again. And again. The threats came and went all night long: air alert, increased air alert, all clear.
The men moved in and out, helmets off, helmets on. They took turns warming up inside, boiling water for tea, grabbing hand and foot warmers — and telling stories of how they get sick again and again from standing in the cold.
Around 12:30 a.m., Oleksii Tkachenko, 50, came inside for his break. He described how his wife, Anastasiia, and 4-year-old son, Mark, moved to Ireland to avoid these sleepless nights. “It’s better to live separately and eventually win than to live together under Russia.”
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Serhii Zamidra, 46, former mayor of a small town in the Kyiv region, is now a Mriya volunteer. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Like many in Ukraine, Tkachenko sees the nightly flocks of drones as a sign that Moscow lacks enough missiles to regularly strike its targets deep inside Ukraine. Instead, it stockpiles them for occasional large-scale attacks. In the meantime, it relies on the cheaper drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defense systems and provoke general anxiety among civilians.
Serhii Zamidra, 46, came in for his turn to warm up. The drones had split off to the west, and the next alert might come in 40 minutes, he said as he boiled more water for coffee.
At 1:10 a.m., explosions were reported in the western city of Ternopil. A Shahed had struck a residential building, killing one person and wounding several others.
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Mriya volunteers try to spot drones approaching Kyiv. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
The Shaheds often change course again and again, triggering air alarms in various regions of the country before they strike a target or are shot out of the sky. These attacks have helped Russia destabilize Ukraine’s energy system during the coldest and darkest days of the year, with recent strikes plunging some cities into days-long blackouts and forcing others, including Kyiv, to adapt to rolling power outages.
“Every time, the team must stay up all night like this,” Zamidra said. “Then go home and go to work.”
The near-nightly assaults also terrify civilians, who wake up to sirens and rush to cold basements, corridors and train stations to take cover. Often, just after the alert is declared over, another wave of drones will trigger a new one, sending them scrambling for cover again.
At 1:39 a.m., the siren sounded again.
“It sometimes lasts the whole day,” volunteer Maksym Krutsevych, 49, said. “We feel it physically. We have to stay in all the gear. It takes a toll.”
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Maksym Krutsevych, 49, a lawyer who owns an auto shop. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
At 2:37 a.m., after the air raid alarm had shut off, Ihor Bielski, 67, carried the light inside. Maybe the volunteers would now get a bit of rest.
Four hours later, the alarm was back on. The men stood by the gun as the sun rose over the city.
At 7:06 a.m., the air alert shut off. The shift was almost over.
Some would go home to rest; others would go home to shower and head to work. At least one would come back that night. Others would return to the cold rooftop in the coming days.
Zamidra sometimes gets home in time to drop his 4-year-old daughter off at kindergarten on his way to work.
The air raid alerts he monitors all night, he said, have turned into a game for Ukrainian children.
“They sit in the sandbox, and then someone shouts, ‘Air raid!’” he said. “They start running around the playground, hiding, playing tag — just like we used to play back in the day.
“But for them, the game now is air raid alerts, unfortunately.”
Nearly three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv is still using unpaid volunteers manning antiquated weapons to shoot down the daily swarms of drones targeting the capital, underscoring the government’s urgent requests to partners for new air defense systems.
In the past two months, Russia has dramatically ramped up its air assaults on Kyiv and other major cities, killing and wounding civilians and destroying energy infrastructure across the country. At least 165 civilians were killed and nearly 900 wounded in Ukraine in November, the United Nations reported. Ninety-three percent of those casualties occurred in Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Despite Russian threats to deploy nuclear-grade missiles against Ukraine, Moscow more often targets Ukraine with Iranian-designed drones called Shaheds. Use of these 11-foot-long winged drones that crash into their targets has nearly doubled since September: That month, Russia launched about 1,300 of them. By November, the count had reached 2,500.
In Kyiv, Territorial Defense volunteers spend cold December nights on a rooftop monitoring the skies for Russian drone attacks.
The few U.S.-made Patriot missile air defense systems Ukraine has received are largely dedicated to shooting down more dangerous guided missiles. Shaheds, however, are small enough — and slow enough — that they can be taken down by machine guns.
This job often falls to civilian volunteers working several 12-hour shifts a week, manning guns at mobile and static air defense positions around the city. Many work regular jobs by day and shoot down drones by night.
Washington Post journalists embedded with one such unit from Ukraine’s Mriya volunteer formation for a 12-hour overnight shift in Kyiv starting at 9 p.m. on Dec. 1. That night, Russia launched 110 attack drones, including Shaheds. Ukrainian forces shot down 52. Another 50 were lost en route, which Ukraine’s air force attributed to its military’s successful disruption of their signals through electronic warfare.
By 8:30 the next morning, one Shahed was still circling over Ukraine.
Mriya volunteers with a machine gun on a rooftop. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
It was just after 9 on a Sunday night, and maps on a Ukrainian military app showed a swarm of drones heading toward the capital.
Seven men in military uniforms, ranging in age from mid-30s to late 60s, huddled inside a small room on the roof of a high-rise building in Kyiv. They made coffee and tea and started cutting up a cake to eat as they awaited orders to man their World War II-era Maxim 7.62mm twin machine gun.
Oleksandr Muzyka, 53, commander of a Mriya formation. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Artem, a musician from the eastern city of Donetsk, monitored the drones on a tablet as they moved toward the capital.
“We are on high alert; drones are already in the Kyiv region,” he said. Then he pointed to the table: “We should eat the cake now, while it’s fresh.”
For two years, Mriya volunteers have used this location, which The Post agreed not to reveal because of concerns it would be targeted, as an air defense position to protect the city against Russian drones. Story continues below advertisement
From the roof, the volunteers monitor the live military maps and then move to the gun outside if the air alert goes off. They scan the sky for drones with their searchlight and listen carefully for the distinctive hum. If it gets within their designated shooting zone, one volunteer mans the Maxim gun and another feeds the bullets, like a scene from an old war movie.
At 9:41 p.m., the map showed a Shahed was approaching Ukraine’s long-shuttered international airport just outside the capital. By 9:49, the air raid sirens were blaring.
The men rushed outside, fastening their helmets and removing a cover hiding the gun from view.
Mriya volunteers before their shift starts. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Two years ago, this rooftop was empty. Then Russia started launching Shaheds at Ukraine.
Serhii Sas, a former Constitutional Court judge who now serves as the commander of Mriya, saw one fly right over his head — and realized he might not need much more than a gun to shoot it down.
The military agreed to provide Sas’s volunteer unit with bullets and weapons, including the 1944 Maxim twin machine gun. The rest, the volunteers have bought themselves, such as the flak jackets, helmets, hand warmers, camouflage uniforms and food supplies — including the cake.
In 2022 and 2023, the city of Kyiv provided bonuses to the unit’s volunteers of about $550 over two years. They have not been paid yet this year.
Serhii Sas, 67, a former judge on Ukraine's Constitutional Court and former air assault soldier in the Soviet military. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
“We would like to see much more support, not so much in monetary terms but in technical assistance,” Sas said. “I believe this is within the capability of the Kyiv city government.”
The volunteers say they need more gear, such as thermal imagers, tablets, projectors and laser pointers. “These are not large expenses, really. But this is exactly what would improve the effectiveness of our work,” Sas said.
Roman Tkachuk, director of the security branch of Kyiv City Council, said bonuses are planned again for 2024. Material and technical support for such units, he wrote in a message, can be facilitated through territorial defense commanders.
A Mriya volunteer checks his tablet for drones. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Outside, the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance as other air defense positions fired at the drone. The Mriya volunteers stood on the ready — they could hear its hum nearby through the fog. But it never entered their firing zone.
When the siren shut off, they stepped back inside to warm up from temperatures hovering around freezing.
Then it blared again. And again. And again. The threats came and went all night long: air alert, increased air alert, all clear.
The men moved in and out, helmets off, helmets on. They took turns warming up inside, boiling water for tea, grabbing hand and foot warmers — and telling stories of how they get sick again and again from standing in the cold.
Around 12:30 a.m., Oleksii Tkachenko, 50, came inside for his break. He described how his wife, Anastasiia, and 4-year-old son, Mark, moved to Ireland to avoid these sleepless nights. “It’s better to live separately and eventually win than to live together under Russia.”
Serhii Zamidra, 46, former mayor of a small town in the Kyiv region, is now a Mriya volunteer. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
Like many in Ukraine, Tkachenko sees the nightly flocks of drones as a sign that Moscow lacks enough missiles to regularly strike its targets deep inside Ukraine. Instead, it stockpiles them for occasional large-scale attacks. In the meantime, it relies on the cheaper drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defense systems and provoke general anxiety among civilians.
Serhii Zamidra, 46, came in for his turn to warm up. The drones had split off to the west, and the next alert might come in 40 minutes, he said as he boiled more water for coffee.
At 1:10 a.m., explosions were reported in the western city of Ternopil. A Shahed had struck a residential building, killing one person and wounding several others.
Mriya volunteers try to spot drones approaching Kyiv. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
The Shaheds often change course again and again, triggering air alarms in various regions of the country before they strike a target or are shot out of the sky. These attacks have helped Russia destabilize Ukraine’s energy system during the coldest and darkest days of the year, with recent strikes plunging some cities into days-long blackouts and forcing others, including Kyiv, to adapt to rolling power outages.
“Every time, the team must stay up all night like this,” Zamidra said. “Then go home and go to work.”
The near-nightly assaults also terrify civilians, who wake up to sirens and rush to cold basements, corridors and train stations to take cover. Often, just after the alert is declared over, another wave of drones will trigger a new one, sending them scrambling for cover again.
At 1:39 a.m., the siren sounded again.
“It sometimes lasts the whole day,” volunteer Maksym Krutsevych, 49, said. “We feel it physically. We have to stay in all the gear. It takes a toll.”
Maksym Krutsevych, 49, a lawyer who owns an auto shop. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)
At 2:37 a.m., after the air raid alarm had shut off, Ihor Bielski, 67, carried the light inside. Maybe the volunteers would now get a bit of rest.
Four hours later, the alarm was back on. The men stood by the gun as the sun rose over the city.
At 7:06 a.m., the air alert shut off. The shift was almost over.
Some would go home to rest; others would go home to shower and head to work. At least one would come back that night. Others would return to the cold rooftop in the coming days.
Zamidra sometimes gets home in time to drop his 4-year-old daughter off at kindergarten on his way to work.
The air raid alerts he monitors all night, he said, have turned into a game for Ukrainian children.
“They sit in the sandbox, and then someone shouts, ‘Air raid!’” he said. “They start running around the playground, hiding, playing tag — just like we used to play back in the day.
“But for them, the game now is air raid alerts, unfortunately.”