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On the eve of the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, I find myself wondering whether my country will still exist in another 35 years. Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, the rollback of democracy, a severely damaged market economy, and the degradation of every social system compel me, as a Ukrainian woman, to ask whether Ukraine will survive another 35 years if the status quo remains unchanged.

When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, its population stood at 52mn—larger than neighbouring Poland and twice the combined population of Hungary, the Baltic states, and Belarus. Today the official figure is only 20–25mn and declining rapidly. Last year alone the country officially lost 800,000 people—roughly half a million through death and 300 thousand through emigration—while the birth rate was three times lower than the death rate. This year the trend continues: a quarter of a million new refugees in the first half of the year alone, and births now running four times lower than deaths.

Meanwhile, nearly 12mn residents—more than half the population—are pensioners or people with disabilities. The war is draining the country’s last reserves of strength. On one side is life under constant, brutal Russian attacks; on the other is an economy short of people, without reliable electricity, with outdated healthcare lacking doctors, and with education inaccessible in full to a third of Ukrainian children.

The militarization of the economy—prioritizing weapons production while remaining wholly dependent on Western funding—cannot attract, support, or be accepted by the entire population. The only “value added” seems to be produced in endless social-media posts and videos of explosions inside Russia.

Ukraine’s external debt and poverty keep rising. According to the latest World Bank data, poverty has climbed from 36% to 41%.

That is why Ukraine today stands at a crossroads. One possible path is Finland; the other is Afghanistan.

Finland once lost battles and territory. The defeat was crushing and painful. Yet Finland won its nation and its future.

By contrast, the West today is supporting a strategy of Ukraine’s obvious defeat along Afghan lines. Twenty years of war and a trillion dollars in Western aid produced dependence in Kabul rather than sovereignty, an absence of genuine leadership, tolerance of the corruption that hollowed out Kabul’s institutions, and the censorship deemed necessary for “support.” The result was an Afghan government that, after many years of Western backing, could not stand against the Taliban on its own.

Today’s Western strategies are moving Ukraine down that very same road. Our institutions are buckling under corruption and a self-assured autocracy; our people are fleeing and losing their faith; and Russia keeps advancing. We lose territory and we lose people every single day, without pause—and with them, our chance at a future.

Read the ending here.

In Kherson, once a city of nearly 300,000, the population has fallen below 60,000 since 2022. Residents post videos of emptied streets as if in a grim flash mob. “Kherson is losing the most valuable thing it has—its people. Some leave, some survive, and some have already become history,” volunteer Anton Vlad captured the mood while documenting the departure of yet another family heading to Central Vinnytsia. “Conditions are getting worse and worse in Kherson,” he explains.

Similar stories surface elsewhere. One couple and their young son, Mark, finally left this summer after years of shelling, sirens, blackouts and fear. The child’s bed-wetting, nervous tics and nail-biting tipped the balance. The parents plan to move between countries so the father can keep working, the mother can continue online consultations, and Mark can start school in Italy in September. Grandparents, the family house and the aging dog remain behind. Who will blame them? Unbreakable and resistant have become empty words while ordinary people simply want to live the lives they once had.

Even the capital feels the strain. For the fourth consecutive year Kyiv ranks among the world’s ten least liveable cities. What, then, of the nine frontline regions that Russia has turned into something far worse?

Men of fighting age continue to risk illegal crossings. Border and emergency services long ago stopped publicly counting bodies recovered from the Tysa River that men are trying to cross hoping to escape to Romania or Hungary; the tally had grown too dark. Others share accounts of routes through the western mountains toward the EU. No one will ever know the precise number. Forced mobilization—leading either to the front or to bribery—has drained motivation to fight and stay in the country. Conservative estimates put the annual cost of corruption linked to draft avoidance above five billion dollars. Last year Czechia received more Ukrainian men of working age than women; the number of such men in the country rose by more than 21,000.

Depopulation remains one of the quieter subjects of wartime discourse, as does the scale of physical destruction. Last year, Ukraine’s official numbers registered around 600,000 of those who either died or left the country. The real numbers might be much higher. Roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory is under Russian control; another 10% endures near-constant shelling. In the active combat zones the intensity of drone, missile, artillery and guided-bomb strikes is difficult for distant observers to grasp. Daily existence becomes survival under weapons that Ukrainian air defences frequently cannot intercept. Total poverty keeps many residents in place; corruption adds a further layer of indignity. Knowledge of these conditions produces a quiet rejection of the status quo in which life itself is eroded by multiple means.

Kyiv top of the list

Ukrainian authorities mention the long stretch of territory along the Russian and partially Belarusian borders far less often than they speak of Kyiv after each major strike. Acting Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha’s posts illustrate the pattern. After one heavy night he wrote: “A hell of a night in Kyiv. At least 9 people were killed and 23 injured as a result of Russia’s barbaric attack with three dozen ballistic missiles.”

Keyword and semantic reviews of his public statements from January through early August 2026 show far more frequent and detailed references to attacks on the capital than to those on Odesa, Kherson or Sumy. The disparity is consistent with the higher diplomatic signal value of strikes on Kyiv. It does not erase the fact that frontline regions often suffer more continuous and severe cumulative damage.

People from Kherson, Sumy and Odesa keep asking why their suffering receives less attention. MP Oleksii Goncharenko, who has repeatedly pressed the authorities over the silencing of attacks on Odesa that continued after the start of the much-publicized 40-day special operation, wrote: “Sometimes it seems we live in some parallel reality. Right now, the Black Sea ports are effectively blocked. Odesa is under constant Russian attacks. Civilian vessels are under fire from missiles and drones. Zaporizhzhia, Pavlohrad and other cities suffer daily from KABs and missiles.” He notes that the authorities distribute posts and advise citizens to think about their own safety.

Winter is coming

The phrase “this winter will be the harshest” has already become a bitter meme. It prompts questions about what concrete help the government will provide to the people.

The 40-day special operation targeting Russian oil refineries, tankers and warehouses was heavily promoted. Its results on the battlefield proved limited. Russian forces continued to advance, gaining more ground during the operation than they had in May. The response intensified: nearly 400 civilians killed and more than 2,100 wounded in July alone—record figures since 2022. Russia keeps destroying fuel stations, Odesa ports halted after strikes on shipping, and attacks on postal and logistics facilities increased. Mandatory evacuation zones keep expanding—Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Dobropillia, northern outskirts of Kharkiv, Sumy, and now additional villages in Dnipropetrovsk region. Evacuation often lags behind the approaching front; families are left to act on their own initiative.

Dearth of ammo

In search of a visible solution, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has widely advertised the prospect of 300 Patriot missiles from the United States. The number is impressive; the practical protection it can offer is narrower. Missiles of this type are concentrated on the capital and a handful of critical sites. Some frontline cities receive the equivalent of one Patriot interceptor a month—nowhere near enough.

Three hundred missiles spread across three winter months and 23 regions under Ukrainian control cannot shield hundreds of thousands, if not millions of civilians. They cannot stop the aerial guided bombs that Russia has intensified from Sumy in the north to Kherson in the south.

After four and a half years, Ukraine still lacks a comprehensive protective system of the kind Israel has long maintained: layered air defence, reliable shelters (more than 90% of existing ones currently fail basic standards), early warning, and economic measures that allow ordinary people to prepare for winter. The conversation about 300 Patriots sometimes appears less a solution than a means of shifting responsibility for the absence of protection onto Western partners.

Officials and politicians offer striking figures and statements of continued need. Ordinary people, meanwhile, joke online that every night they simply draw their “anti-drone curtains” and close their “anti-missile windows.” Survival, they suggest, still depends more on luck and private effort than on any systematic state shield. Ukraine does need improved air defence and additional missiles. Yet missiles alone will never be sufficient for a country of this size and geography. After nearly five years of large-scale war, the deeper requirement is a working architecture of protection—shelters that function, interception of drones and guided bombs, jets capable of contesting the air, safeguarded infrastructure, and an economy that leaves citizens able to help themselves. Developing domestic production of certain systems rather than remaining permanently dependent on external supplies could form part of that architecture. But this will demand resources that Ukraine does not have: time, capacities and even more money.

The resilience narrative has served an important diplomatic purpose: it has helped secure international support by projecting determination. The quiet departure of families before another winter, the emptying of cities like Kherson, Sumy or Sloviansk, the taboo surrounding depopulation, and the relative silence about the continuous hell of the frontline regions all complicate that narrative. They do not diminish the courage of those who remain or the legitimacy of Ukraine’s right to defend itself. They simply record that people are people, that exhaustion accumulates, and that protection of the civilian population remains incomplete – thus, perhaps, it will never be. Acknowledging these realities is not convenient for any propaganda machine. It is, however, necessary if the next phase of this war is to be met with something more durable than slogans and selective attention.

Discussions about the war in Ukraine in the West often boil down to tactical, short-term decisions that amount to unsystematic actions which frequently lag behind the challenges. The price of this approach is a country that looks increasingly devastated and unattractive both for living and for investment. The problem is that all these decisions are half-measures that do not aim to change the status quo—that is, to stop the war. They resemble a boat in which holes are patched while new ones keep appearing. No amount of resources or public patience will be enough to sustain such a large country indefinitely for decades. The only way forward for Ukraine, if it wants a future as a prosperous country, is to end the war.

The piece was first published here.

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The same outsiders then provide special slingshots, training courses, and carefully selected stones—financed by long-term loans the victim will repay for decades. The injured person can no longer maintain a home or lead any normal life.

His own family also starves and strikes him. Yet the advice remains the same: endure your family, buy more slingshots, throw more stones, and keep fighting.

In this delirium the victim loses all sense of what is actually good for him and begins performing the role of hero that others demand. This is not a Hollywood dystopia.

This is Ukraine—a geopolitical disabled person that has already lost over half its nation in thirty-five years of independence.

Some still insist that hiding the war’s true horrors and polishing the image of an unbreakable fighter will somehow help Ukraine win, or at least remain a relevant player who continues to receive more weapons and more loans. That strategy sustains a lethal status quo. Every day Ukraine loses people, territory, economic capacity, and democratic substance. Every day it loses the war.

Concealing the scale of territorial losses, the real magnitude of human casualties, the stories that tear society apart, the erosion of democracy, and the growth of authoritarian practices is not solidarity. It is anti-Ukrainian propaganda dressed as support. It costs Ukraine its future.

That is why the truth must be spoken without varnish. The daily grief that floods the country with blood cannot be muffled by applause and heroic slogans. The incompetence and cynicism of the current leadership cannot be politely ignored. Naming these realities is not defeatism. It is the only coherent refusal of a status quo in which the country is slowly dying. It is the only genuinely pro-Ukrainian position left

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When the United States shifted its approach to the Russia-Ukraine war in late May, the potential for serious negative consequences quickly became clear. The results of this attempted policy shift are already visible — and the situation is likely to worsen by autumn. Ukraine will bear the heaviest cost, but the United States and Europe will not escape unscathed.

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The pattern began in April 2022. Under Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov — a lawyer and longtime friend of presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak — the first large-scale corruption schemes in the defense sector took shape.

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Ukrainians are fighting the government that is breaking the society. And it is going to get worse. Literally every Ukrainian blogger is talking about the situation in Lviv.

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I am accused of being “pro-Russian” the moment I state basic facts about the war or express disagreement with Zelenskyy’s policies of endless escalation. Often it’s bots, but sometimes also people from the comfortable West who genuinely believe they understand Ukraine and this war better than I do — someone who has covered the conflict since the very beginning in 2014, visited Donbas multiple times alongside Zelenskyy, participated in negotiations, helped craft communications for the President, and remained in the country when the full-scale invasion began in 2022. I was shelled, narrowly survived, traveled across the country helping civilians in need, and reported intensively as a journalist.

Yet now some dare to label me pro-Russian simply because I refuse to support the primitive populism that allows Zelenskyy to prolong the war, profit from it, and cling to power.

So let me be perfectly clear:

Everyone who buys into Zelenskyy’s illogical drama, who is willing to fight Russia with Ukrainian blood while ignoring the suffering of ordinary people — they are acting against Ukraine.

By shamelessly supporting Zelenskyy’s policies, people are defending the current status quo and this means:

Ukraine reduced to a permanently bleeding nation where people merely survive under constant Russian shelling and Kyiv’s increasingly authoritarian rule;

Massive human rights violations, with men hunted on the streets, forcibly conscripted, beaten, tortured, and sometimes killed in recruitment centers;

Rampant corruption — almost every close partner, friend, or high-ranking official around Zelenskyy has faced accusations of money laundering or other graft, while companies run by his inner circle receive billions in Western tax money; Putin started this war, but Zelenskyy figured out how to profit on it greatly;

Crushing poverty, including average pensions of just $180 per month;

A catastrophic demographic crisis — last year, three times more Ukrainians died than were born;

Educational collapse, with at least one-third of Ukrainian children receiving no proper schooling and many fourth-graders unable to read;

Brain drain, mass emigration, societal depression, and generational trauma that will take decades to heal.

Some people are so eager to see Russia burn and so enchanted by Zelenskyy’s primitive role-playing that they choose to remain blind to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Ukraine. To me, that makes you anti-Ukrainian.

If one truly wants to fight Russia, he/she should go to the frontlines. Not keep censoring Ukrainians who call for peace. Sitting comfortably in the West and attacking those who demand an end to the slaughter does not make one a hero — it makes one miserable and hypocritical.

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Wives sleep just 3–4 hours a day juggling two or three jobs, remote work with toddlers on their laps, sewing at night, or washing dishes, all while paying skyrocketing rents, heating homes with scarce firewood, and choosing between medicine and food.

Children grow up in debt-ridden homes; wounded veterans with lost limbs drive taxis or cut wood on ruined legs because state support arrives months late or not at all. Families of the missing or fallen with “non-combat” status receive almost nothing.

It is a slow-motion economic tragedy that erodes morale, deepens distrust in institutions, and threatens national security as exhausted defenders question why the state can raise police salaries to €800+ but not index military pay to today’s reality of ~€1,500 per month.

When some Western "patriots" talk we fight for dignity -- they must see how "dignity" in war looks today.

The world that supports Ukraine should think about the poeple of Ukraine more, not just red carpets for Zelenskyy. Ukrainian military families are broken.

As a person who worked closely with Zelenskyy and held TOP-level position in the government I beg you to understand this won't be changed unless the war is over and a democratic and technocratic government is fairly elected.

A blog about this was published by Alina Sarnatska in Ukrainska Pravda. You may find her blog and the stories here: https://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2026/06/12/8038907/

In this piece, I will let a handful of Ukrainian Instagram voices speak. Some are more or less known, others are not that famous. Yet almost the entire feed tells the same stories. The dominant narratives are relentless criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and an overwhelming desire to stop the war.

One of the most active voices belongs to the blogger known as “Vilna” (meaning “Free”). In a recent video she reacts to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s statement that British intelligence warned him in 2030 about Russia planning attacks on NATO. Her reaction is brutally direct: “And what does that have to do with us? As a Ukrainian woman, I say — fuck that. If they attack NATO, let them defend themselves. Ukraine and Ukrainians do not want to be Europe’s shield. We don’t want to be a steel porcupine. We want to live normal lives — raise children, travel, exist like you Europeans do.”

In another video she dismantles propaganda from United 24 media (tied to the current Defense Minister and Zelenskyy who has always wanted and always failed before the war to have own good media) claiming 65% of Ukrainians are ready to endure the war “as long as necessary.” Vilna fires back: “I am Ukrainian. I am not ready to tolerate this war for one more day. Not for the sake of endless fighting, not for the enrichment of some and the destruction of others.”

Another blogger “paru.bok” dismantles the militarist propaganda that has become the only acceptable public discourse in Ukraine. He targets the slogan “Ukraine Above All” — once associated with ultra-nationalist groups that had dark chapters of collaboration during World War II — now mainstreamed by Zelenskyy’s administration. Paru.bok argues forcefully that no state or abstract nation should be placed above human life. “That is Third Reich rhetoric,” he says. “This is how the national superiority starts. But the Ukrainian man and Ukrainian woman — their lives — must come first. This is embedded in our Constitution.”

Financial blogger Eduard Melnikov posted a simple question months ago: “Are Ukrainians ready to exchange territory for peace?” The video, already 24 weeks old, has gathered over 5,000 comments. The responses are raw.

Natalia Kapats rages against radical voices pushing to send 18-year-olds to the front instead of 40-year-olds: “Children to the war? There isn’t enough evil in the world! You gave birth to them, you fed them, you raised them… So send your own! We still have plenty of women to give birth to more, right?” The sarcasm drips.

Many comments analyze how dramatically Zelenskyy has reversed his pre-2022 positions — from pleading with Putin on his knees to end the war, to opposing any Russian-language restrictions, to defending the absurdity of banning Kyiv-born writer Mikhail Bulgakov. Yet this week, on June 4, 2026, authorities in Kyiv dismantled Bulgakov’s monument on Andriyivskyi Descent. Yes, the decision came from the Kyiv authorities, but this is the direct consequence of the militarized nationalism that is promoted as Ukraine’s identity on international level. Let me remind you that Bulgakov was born in Kyiv and lived there first half of his life.

The protest against Territorial Recruitment Centers (TCCs — the military draft offices) has become a point of national pride. Women are leading what some call a “war” against them — physically blocking officers, hiding husbands and sons. Ukraine’s own ombudsman has admitted that 93% of shelters are inadequate, some non-functional entirely. Criminal cases have been opened against staff at the Uzhhorod draft center, including the head, for torture: handcuffing men to ladders, illegal detention, beatings. The same center previously ran an illegal “jail” for conscripts. While forced mobilization grows more brutal, the government simultaneously tightens reservation rules to make legal exemptions harder. Videos of women screaming “Beasts! Let him go!” at hunting-style conscription raids circulate widely.

Short satirical cartoons, likely funded by certain political forces, have also appeared. Whether fully accurate or not, these animations resonate because they capture a genuine disconnect between the president’s polished media persona and the steelier reality many insiders describe. Whatch this series, it rightly says that Zelenskyy himself has repeatedly complained that people have become “too angry” and refuse to accept any criticism of him. I have heard this multiple times.

These Reels and videos are only a fraction of what is spreading. The volume is staggering. The breaking point came in February 2026 when war exhaustion, blackouts, and constant death became unbearable. The internet gave the psychological refuge where people could finally speak.

Not everyone. Not always openly. Many fear visits from the Security Service. A significant portion of outspoken critics now operate from abroad. There is still no unified opposition leader or party that people can rally around. Even if some content (like the cartoons) is astroturfed by political money, no single figure has emerged to lead this energy.

This digital revolution reveals deep fractures. Zelenskyy’s government has increasingly leaned into radical nationalist ideology — that is alien to his own background and previous positioning. The result is a society where people feel turned into “slaves sent to defend freedom,” as blogger Pavlo Haidai put it. That contradiction is no longer sustainable. What is said online is something I hear from Ukrainians in personal communication too.

Reading Western English-language media fills me with despair. I see my own voice and the voices of millions of Ukrainians rendered invisible or inconvenient. The narrative of Ukraine as an eternal “shield of Europe” conveniently skips the war-weariness, the corruption scandals, the mobilization abuses, and plummeting trust. Official approval ratings for Zelenskyy are still quoted as gospel, even as anecdotal evidence and social media suggest a much darker picture.

We have already lost roughly half our population over 35 years of independence through emigration, low birth rates, and now war. We cannot afford to continue a policy of “war until victory” that increasingly looks like war for the sake of war — enriching a small circle while destroying the nation. No matter how geopolitically convenient this may be for certain Western political forces.

This online revolution may not topple Zelenskyy tomorrow. But it is eroding the foundations of his moral authority daily. Millions of Ukrainians are saying, in comments, Reels, and private chats: enough. We want peace. We want our children alive. We want normal lives. The regime can censor, intimidate, and mobilize by force — but it cannot stop millions of exhausted citizens from thinking, speaking, and sharing the truth online.The digital trenches are open. And the Ukrainian people are no longer staying silent in them.

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The timing is striking. By May 2019, Andriy Yermak had already joined Zelenskyy’s team as a key figure handling Russian and American directions — often described as the president’s “chief negotiator.” Yet his father was casually flying into Putin’s Russia. Eight years into war with Russia.

This revelation emerged during a May 12, 2026, court hearing at the High Anti-Corruption Court (VAKS), where prosecutors mentioned Boris Yermak’s role while seeking a preventive measure for his son. Andriy Yermak stands accused by NABU and SAP of participating in an organized group that laundered over 460 million UAH (approximately $11 million) through the construction of luxury residences in the “Dynasty” cooperative in Kozyn, near Kyiv. Prosecutors claim the land was acquired in summer 2019, and Boris Yermak personally oversaw construction of one of the houses — holding meetings with contractors, approving budgets, and coordinating payments as late as December 2022. He later allegedly transferred oversight to designer Nataliya Kvelenkova.

Andriy Yermak denies any involvement, insisting he owns only one apartment and one car. On May 14, VAKS ordered him held in custody for 60 days with an alternative bail of 140 million UAH ($3.2 million) — an extraordinarily high sum. Just four days later, on May 18, the full amount was paid, and Yermak walked free from the pretrial detention center. Supporters, including prominent figures like footballer Serhiy Rebrov, reportedly contributed. His defense has appealed the ruling, maintaining the charges are groundless.

The case raises uncomfortable questions about accountability and the construction of influence. MP Anastasiya Radina has highlighted that witnesses connected to the “Dynasty” project faced threats, suggesting an attempt to silence those who could expose the full picture of this alleged elite real estate scheme.

Yermak’s rapid four-day stint behind bars — followed by swift release on record bail — perfectly illustrates how Ukraine’s anti-corruption system works for the well-connected. NABU and SAP deserve credit for pursuing the case despite Yermak’s enormous past influence. Yet the optics are damaging: a man once called the second-most powerful person in Ukraine now fights serious money-laundering charges tied to wartime elite construction.

This is not merely about four families or four luxury residences. It touches on deeper issues of trust. While ordinary Ukrainians endure blackouts, mobilization, and economic hardship, questions swirl about luxury compounds allegedly built with laundered funds. The father’s post-2019 trips to Russia only add to the unease, especially given earlier reports of the family’s business ties to Russian-linked partners.

Andriy Yermak is now actively fighting the charges in court. Whether justice will ultimately prevail depends on the strength of evidence, the independence of judges, and the political will to see the process through — regardless of who is involved. In a country at war, where sacrifices are demanded daily from the people, the public has every right to expect that no one — not even former heads of the President’s Office — stands above the law. The “Dynasty” case will test whether Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions can deliver on that promise.

In a live broadcast of the talk show “Right to Power” in April 2019, the comedian-turned-candidate declared that he could never…

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These are fragments of the so-called “Mindich tapes” and “Midas” case, allegedly documenting first a $112-million graft scheme inside the state nuclear giant Energoatom and other strategic enterprises, and then, records reached discussions of seven billion dollars allocated for the company of Mr. Mindich, Zelenskyy’s friend and partner Firepoint that Zelenskyy himslef advertises everywhere.

What they reveal is simple and damning: friends and appointees of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have treated state companies as private fiefdoms, even dictating terms to foreign board members and planning how to survive a peace deal.

Take the German top-manager Hartmut Jakob. Appointed to an independent supervisory board in the energy sector, he was supposed to embody Western standards of governance. Instead, after the first tapes surfaced last year, he was removed under suspicion of involvement in corruption with Zelenskyy’s friends.

Opposition MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak did not mince reading the tapes: Jakob was described as “obedient as a dog, like a German Shepherd” — a “poslushnyy sobaka,” a lapdog who followed orders from Zelenskyy’s friends rather than enforcing transparency. The message was unmistakable. Even “independent” foreigners could be pressured or replaced if they failed to play along.

Then came MP Oleksiy Honcharenko’s release. In one fragment, Igor Khmelev, a top official at the company Firepoint (repeatedly mentioned in earlier tapes as a conduit for state financing), describes a meeting with a senior general. The general’s warning is chilling: “As soon as the peace is signed, the decree under which we were given financing will immediately stop acting. And at this moment, with a large share of probability, the contract will be stopped right there.” The conversation that follows, involving Khmelev, Alexander Tsukerman and Igor Fursenko — all central figures in the Energoatom embezzlement probe — shows cold calculation rather than patriotic urgency.

Khmelev: “Here we need… here we need somehow to think through…”

Tsukerman: “The fact that seasonality (in the war) is absent, that’s yes.”

Fursenko: “This agreement, that it will be exactly the first point about the ban on launching this whole story.”

Tsukerman: “We have a code, we can switch to drones.”

The casual pivot to “drones” — another lucrative wartime sector — suggests these men were not merely skimming procurement contracts. They were positioning themselves for whatever comes next: war or peace. So here I wonder if Zelenskyy’s active work to establish contracts with as many partner countries as possible is his way to prepare for peace?

Another fragment released the same day drives the point home. Fursenko tells Tsukerman: “I understand that as long as Vova is somehow in place, we will live.” Vova is the affectionate diminutive for Volodymyr — allegedely President Zelenskyy himself.

Honcharenko’s blunt commentary landed like a grenade: “And who is this Vova who allows his corrupt friends to live peacefully? Interestingly, even after this, the President’s Office will try to say that Zelenskyy knew nothing?”

These are not abstract ethics seminars. They are raw transcripts from people who allegedely ran a “laundry” operation that forced contractors to pay 10-15 percent kickbacks to keep Energoatom contracts alive. The same tapes have already triggered ministerial resignations, arrests, and flight attempts by former energy and justice ministers.

Yet the drip of new fragments continues, each one showing the same pattern: presidential associates treating state assets as personal ATMs while the country fights for survival.

The implications are brutal. Ukraine asks the world for weapons, sanctions against Russia, and reconstruction money. At the same moment, insiders allegedly plan how to shut down financing channels the day peace is signed and how to pivot their schemes into new sectors like drone production.

The German manager’s humiliation, the casual talk of “codes” and “bans,” the reliance on “Vova” remaining “in place” — all paint a portrait of a patronage network that views anti-corruption institutions not as threats but as inconvenient tape recorders.

Ukraine’s defenders rightly point out that Russia is the existential enemy. But corruption is the internal one. If friends of the president can control state enterprises, bully foreign board members, and openly discuss post-peace insurance policies, then the war is being fought on two fronts — one against Moscow, another against Kyiv’s own new oligarchic habits. The transcripts do not prove the president’s direct involvement; they prove his circle believed they could operate with impunity because “Vova is in place.”

The conclusion is unavoidable. Real victory requires more than battlefield success. It demands that the same anti-corruption bodies whose recordings are now public be allowed to finish the job — without fear or favor. If “obedient dogs” on supervisory boards, drone-code schemes, and peace-contingent contracts are the price of loyalty, then the democratic Ukraine millions are dying for will remain a slogan, not a reality.

The tapes keep playing. The question is whether anyone in power will finally listen.

arly one and a half billion dollars—was reportedly set to be pure profit for the insiders: Zelensky’s inner circle and the ministers he personally appointed.

This is the very same company that Zelensky himself has been hawking nonstop—personally flying it around to foreign investors as Ukraine’s great success story. The details come from secret audio recordings made by Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Bureau and leaked to an independent investigative journalist.

Right now in Ukraine, politicians are openly talking about impeaching Zelensky. Tomorrow, a sitting member of parliament is going to read even more of these recordings publicly. I’m told some of the voices captured may include the First Lady herself. Other tapes casually refer to “Vova”—Zelensky’s nickname—as both a participant in the deal and the owner of one of four massive luxury mansions being built in Ukraine’s richest suburb outside Kyiv, each worth millions.
Here’s the kicker: Out of 90 billion euros the European Union is lending to Ukraine, the first tranche is earmarked for “drone production.” They call it “defending the country.” Guess which company is first in line to get the money?
On the recordings, a former Defense Minister is heard openly discussing how to steer a billion dollars from Western partners straight into the company of Zelensky’s friends.

But let’s be honest: this isn’t really about defense. Drones aren’t just shields—they’re weapons. This is about offense. This is about keeping the war going. While ordinary Ukrainians continue to die under shelling, flee a collapsing economy, and watch our country disintegrate, the president’s inner circle is getting filthy rich.

This bloody war is now entering its fifth year. And the people closest to Zelensky are profiting handsomely from it. Ukrainian activists, members of parliament, and independent media have been screaming this out loud.

The only ones who refuse to report it? Western mainstream media. Instead of any serious scrutiny of corruption, you get glowing tributes to Ukraine’s “drone sector,” endless praise for “democracy’s great leader Zelensky,” and stories about exporting surplus weapons.

So I’m asking my former colleagues in the media directly: Is this what journalism is now? Covering up massive corruption at the highest levels? Is this what “standing with the people” looks like?

My country is dying. My people are dying—so that one man and his friends can get obscenely wealthy. If you’re in Ukraine, you already know there is nothing democratic about Zelensky’s government. This war is the only thing keeping him in power and money. The moment peace comes, it all evaporates.
This isn’t about one man playing Winston Churchill. This is about the destruction of an entire nation.

You may not be able to publish this by quoting your Ukrainian colleagues yet. But tomorrow, when a member of parliament—the highest elected office in the country—publicly reads these records, there will be no more excuses.
The gap between what Western media tells you and what is actually happening in Ukraine has grown too wide. It’s time to close it.