Tolkien imagined such a people. He called them the Rohirrim, and set their kingdom directly in the path of the enemy’s march west.

The actual West has sent Ukraine weapons, money, and intelligence, and Ukraine’s position would be far worse without it. But Rohan’s grievance was never about supply. It was about a neighbor who grew comfortable with someone else’s fields being the battlefield.

This time, Europe, like Gondor, should ride before Ukraine has to ask where it was.

BERLIN—Ukraine is a country of the open horizons. Beyond the industrial cities, beyond the Dnipro River, the land opens into the old Pontic steppe, broad and exposed beneath a sky that seems altogether too large for the villages scattered across it, a country once crossed by horsemen and Cossacks and armies, where freedom was historically understood not in the comfortable language of constitutions but rather more immediately, as the ability to carry weapons, choose one’s allegiance, and refuse the rule of somebody who arrived from elsewhere claiming the right to command.

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“Everyone can become a Cossack.” He did not mean ancestry. He meant character.

Anyone who has travelled through this landscape and then returns to Tolkien may experience a peculiar sensation of recognition, because somewhere in the mythology of Middle-earth there is another people living upon open grasslands, stubbornly independent, conscious of old obligations and unfortunate enough to have their home lying directly across the road taken by a much greater power moving west.

The Ukrainians are, in this sense, remarkably easy to imagine as the Rohirrim of our age. The Rohirrim belong to their land in a manner that precedes politics. Their horses, fields, villages, and the graves of their ancestors bind them to it, and their loyalty to Rohan grows from the rather simple conviction that this comparatively small kingdom is theirs and therefore worth defending.

Something similar survives in Ukraine with extraordinary force. The Cossack remains one of the central figures of Ukrainian historical imagination, particularly in precisely those southern and eastern landscapes which Moscow spent years describing as somehow insufficiently Ukrainian: the armed free man of the steppe, unruly, suspicious of distant authority, loyal to his comrades and unwilling to accept a master merely because that master claims historical rights over him.

Freedom becomes something inherited spiritually rather than ethnically. People from all over the world come to Ukraine

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During my conversations in eastern Ukraine these past months, Oleksander, a drone commander of the Da Vinci Wolves, described this idea in a sentence that has remained with me ever since. “Everyone can become a Cossack.” He did not mean ancestry. He meant character. To him, being a Cossack was first and foremost a state of mind, a willingness to live freely, defend one’s homeland and stand beside those to whom one had given loyalty.

It is an idea that feels surprisingly close to Tolkien’s understanding of Rohan. Even Merry, a Hobbit by birth and therefore as far removed from the proud horse lords as one could possibly imagine, earns his place among the Rohirrim not because of blood but because of courage. He rides with them because he proves worthy of riding with them.

Perhaps that is also why the modern Ukrainian revival of the Cossack myth matters. It is not merely folklore, embroidered shirts or historical pageantry. It has become a national narrative capable of including anyone prepared to defend the country, whether they come from Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, or the Russian-speaking villages of the south—or even from far abroad. Freedom becomes something inherited spiritually rather than ethnically. People from all over the world come to Ukraine—often because they see something noble in it that is felt and is actually there in plain sight.

At the borderlands

Rohan has another characteristic which feels unpleasantly familiar.

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Let’s speak with two calm experts: DEBORAH FAIRLAMB, American mil-tech investor in Kyiv and MAKSYM ERISTAVIM, Ukrainian expert in cognitive warfare and resistance to Russian imperialism.

Watch or listen to our weekly COALITION OF THE DOING podcast from Under Fire News:

Russia is now bombing Kyiv like it’s a frontline city, with near-hourly air-raids. so, what’s it like on the ground?

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Deborah Fairlamb (Green Flag Ventures; Kyiv) and Maksym Eristavi (author of Russian Colonialism 101; Prague) join JP Lindsley to break down what’s actually happening on the ground: shopping malls emptied mid-back-to-school, food warehouses hit with a fabricated “famine” narrative behind it, and 13 million Ukrainian books burned in just two months.

REVIEWS:

This was great. I needed to rally for my own efforts and this conversation delivered. LFG! TOGETHER TO VICTORY!

“Such good interactions between these three panel members on the several issues discussed. I appreciate [JP’s] penetrating questions that opened up such a wealth of information. [Deborah’s] analysis and particularly the points she made about the resilience of the Ukrainian people from the very outset of this war—going all out to provide what is needed for their relatives, friends, and defenders on the front lines. Maksym’s additional and supportive information and reflections also [are] very much appreciated.”

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro
00:37 – Under Fire News Substack
01:19 – Setting the scene: nonstop air raids in Kyiv
02:11 – The bingo game: how many alerts today?
02:57 – Shopping malls become a target, back-to-school disrupted
04:40 – Food warehouses hit, the "famine" narrative debunked
06:02 – 13 million Ukrainian books burned
09:02 – Stop calling it “retaliation”
11:35 – “Putin is cornered?” Media narrative pushback
14:02 – Why sanctions alone aren't enough
15:34 – Should top U.S. officials visit Kyiv instead of Moscow?
19:19 – The Fedorov dismissal and the protests
27:47 – How Ukraine's defense tech ecosystem was built from zero
29:37 – The Trump supply cutoff that changed everything
37:08 – The air defense gap and the Shahed drone evolution
44:12 – How to actually fund Ukrainian defense tech
45:30 – Closing thoughts: fighting the noise

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We also dig into why calling these strikes "retaliation" gets the war backwards, why "Putin is cornered" headlines in outlets like The Economist may be doing Moscow's work, what real cultural and political isolation of Russia would actually look like, the fallout from the Fedorov dismissal and the protests that followed, and how Ukraine's defense tech industry went from nonexistent to building its own drones, missiles, and rockets — accelerated by the moment the U.S. cut off direct supply.

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• Ukraine mounts standard Kalashnikov rifles on low-cost ground robots—remote firepower using the rifles and ammunition units already have

• Poland’s state-owned defense giant PGZ moves toward a joint venture to build Ukrainian-designed ground robots on Polish soil

• A new Ukrainian sensor listens for enemy vessels underwater without giving away its own position

• and more …

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1. Sweden Opens a Door for Buntar’s Drones

Ukrainian defense-technology company Buntar Aerospace has appointed Sweden’s Disarmament Solutions as an international distributor, giving the company a European partner to market and integrate its unmanned systems into allied defense networks. Buntar’s portfolio includes the Buntar-3, a vertical-takeoff reconnaissance drone capable of missions lasting up to four hours, and Copilot, mission-planning software that calculates flight sequences, forecasts scenarios, and helps crews avoid errors under battlefield pressure.

2. Poland Moves Toward Ukrainian Ground Robots

Poland’s state-owned defense group PGZ is preparing a joint venture with an unnamed Ukrainian manufacturer to produce unmanned ground vehicles, following intensified negotiations and the signing of a nondisclosure agreement in August. A formal cooperation agreement is still being negotiated, but the proposed project would place production in Poland under the Build with Ukraine framework, protecting capacity from Russian strikes while giving PGZ access to systems developed through continuous frontline use.

It would also extend a broader Polish-Ukrainian industrial relationship: PGZ has already agreed with Ukraine’s TAF Industries to localize drone and counter-UAV production in Poland.

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3. One System to Find and Jam FPVs

Ukrainian developer Rebel Group has unveiled Brama, a stationary system that combines signals intelligence and electronic warfare to defend positions against FPV drones. Brama detects an enemy drone’s analogue video transmission, decodes the feed, and then uses directional jamming against both its video and control links. Housing those functions in one device should shorten the interval between discovering a threat and disrupting it, while eliminating the need to relay targeting information between separate reconnaissance and jamming teams.

4. KAMIK Brings Starlink to the FPV Strike

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While Spain’s government denies it, many are asking whether the Moroccan government had a hand in the incursion.

Indeed there is a playbook: Pushing migrants at a neighbor’s border while denying any hand in it is exactly what Russia and Belarus have done to Poland and the Baltics for years.

KYIV—At dawn on Thursday 30 July, people were climbing out of the Mediterranean and running into the streets of a Spanish city.

They came across the rocks, around the breakwaters, on inflatable tubes and rafts, and through a border gate that could no longer hold them. Incredulous bystanders looked on as crowds of young men streamed inland. Shopkeepers pulled down their shutters. Residents locked their doors. Some began organizing their own protection because they no longer believed the police could do the job.

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This was Ceuta, a Spanish city of 85,000 people on the North African coast. It is a narrow piece of Europe surrounded by Morocco and the sea, and, for several hours on 30-31 July, its border belonged to whoever could reach it.

The smugglers did not invent the opportunity. They advertised it.

Seeing a disaster about to unfold, Ceuta regional government had already asked Madrid to declare a national emergency, assume unified command, and send police and military reinforcements. The central government refused, arguing that migratory pressure did not qualify as an emergency under Spain’s civil-protection law.

For one day, a European city was entered by a crowd almost larger than its whole population, and the state was reduced to reacting after the fact.

Only as the crossings exploded and local services were overwhelmed did Madrid mobilize a token force. By then, the first thousands had become tens of thousands. Spain’s Interior Ministry estimates that approximately 50,000 people crossed in barely 24 hours, while Spanish officials put the total as high as 80,000.

At least 100 people died, some in the water, others crushed against the border infrastructure. By the evening of the next day, many went back voluntarily after being disappointed to find no food, shelter, or onward passage to mainland Europe waiting for them. To this day, thousands of migrants remain in Ceuta, sleeping rough on the streets or on the beaches, as tensions continue to escalate with the local population. The Spanish government estimates up to 7,000 remain from the July incursion; the local Ceuta government says it’s more like 10,000.

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The most troubling aspect of the Ceuta border invasion however was the speed of the collapse, the scale of which stripped away the reassuring language with which Europe usually discusses illegal migration. For one day, a European city was entered by a crowd almost larger than its whole population, and the state was reduced to reacting after the fact.

Pedro Sánchez called the episode a “violation of Spain’s territorial sovereignty.” On this, the Spanish prime minister was right. What he avoided saying was that his own government had spent years weakening the credibility of the border now being violated.

The method is familiar from Europe’s eastern frontier, where Russia and its Belarusian client have pushed migrants toward Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states while denying responsibility for the resulting pressure.

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From Finland, which shares a 1,304-kilometer border with Russia, he runs 17Tech, an accelerator for defense startups. For Kosunen the work is driven by something more immediate than business: the Ukrainians already dying, and the possibility that his own sons—22, 24 and 25—could be next.

UFN spoke with Kosunen at the European Defense Tech Festival in Berlin.

The Daily Notebook returns on Monday 31 August.

Welcome to Voices of the Fight—a Saturday Q&A series featuring the warriors, innovators, advocates, and volunteers standing under fire for free people.

1 | Who are you, and what’s your mission?

My name is Antti Kosunen, and I am the CEO and a founding partner of 17Tech. My mission is simple: Get the Russians the hell out of Ukraine.

17Tech is a Finnish defense technology accelerator operating in Finland and Ukraine. We help startups validate their business cases, test whether their technology solves a genuine operational problem, and connect them with defense forces, military users, investors, and potential customers.

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The objective is to ensure that companies develop technologies which are actually needed—and that the people who need those technologies know they exist. Too many startups build products based on assumptions. In defense, those assumptions have to be tested against the requirements of soldiers, military organizations, and the battlefield.

[S]tartups do not fail only because their technology is poor. They also fail because they cannot find the right users.

I have personally invested in, or helped arrange investment for, almost 500 startups. Through 17Tech, we use that experience to bring founders together with the right investors and military customers.

Over the course of my career, I have managed 29 accelerator programs in 12 countries. That has taught me that startups do not fail only because their technology is poor. They also fail because they cannot find the right users, validate the right business model, secure the right capital, or explain why their product is needed. Our task is to connect all those pieces.

17Tech is a defense-first company. We are not interested in forcing every product into a civilian use case. We want to develop technologies that save Ukrainian lives, strengthen European sovereignty, and help rebuild a serious defense industry across Europe.

My sons are 22, 24 and 25. I do not want them to have to kill anyone, and I do not want them to be killed.

When the next war begins, it will be too late to start creating research programs and production facilities. Those capabilities must already exist inside European countries. We need companies that can develop, manufacture, and improve what our armed forces require.

The next war will also be different from the last one. Even the war currently being fought in Ukraine is constantly changing. Technology, tactics, and operational requirements evolve quickly. European defense companies must be capable of changing with them.

Finland understands this better than many European countries because we share a 1,304-kilometer border with Russia. I like to say that we have 1,304 reasons to do this.

2 | Tell us one powerful story from your experience in war, as you would tell someone over a drink.

War brings out both the best and the worst in human beings. It also makes you lose your humanity in some way, as tragedies become commonalities.

Two days ago, we were supposed to meet someone, but he had to reschedule because he was attending a funeral. When I heard what had happened, I confused the person being laid to rest with another person and said, “I thought he had been shot in the knee.”

No. They were two different people.

That exchange stayed with me because these things have become part of everyday life. People are wounded. People attend funerals. People are dying all the time. You can confuse one casualty with another because there are so many of them.

That should never become normal.

I would rather die than surrender to the Russians.

Before working in defense, I was the CEO of a company specializing in environmental impact assessments. I cared about that work and about protecting the environment. Now I am working to save human lives because I feel that I have to.

This is something all of us should feel responsible for. We are defending sovereignty, but we are also defending individual human beings. Sometimes that gets lost when people discuss the war only through strategies, systems, and national interests. Behind all of it are people whose lives have been cut short.

Finland has a history with Russia. My grandparents’ generation fought the Russians. Then came a generation that did not hate or fear them in the same way. My parents’ generation was more relaxed, and for much of my own life, I was as well. I met Russians and conducted business with them before the full-scale war.

Now we are afraid again.

My sons are 22, 24 and 25. I do not want them to have to kill anyone, and I do not want them to be killed. I do not want war to destroy their lives or take away their humanity. I do not want my mother to be afraid. I do not want my wife to be afraid.

I have had almost 60 good years behind me. My children still have most of their lives ahead of them. They need to survive and live—and so do everyone else’s children. So I would rather die than surrender to the Russians.

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3 | What decision, habit, or principle has mattered the most for you for surviving or staying effective under pressure?

In my current role, I do not really feel under pressure because this is something I believe I have to do.

I think about my values and the reason behind the work. We are creating technologies that can save lives. When your motivation is strong enough and you understand what is most important, pressure becomes less significant.

I am not helping to create another dating app. I am working on something that can protect people and countries.

Earlier in my career, I helped large corporations improve their businesses. There was nothing inherently wrong with that, but this work is different. I am not helping to create another dating app. I am working on something that can protect people and countries.

When you know that the outcome has real consequences, it becomes much easier to remain focused.

Purpose is now the stronger force

Before entering defense, sport was one of the ways I managed pressure. I practiced several martial arts. When you begin training, you stop thinking about ordinary business problems and concentrate completely on what is in front of you. It forces you into the present moment.

That discipline still helps, but purpose is now the stronger force. I understand my values, I understand why the work has to be done, and that removes much of the pressure.

4 | How can people support your work?

The most useful thing people can do is help us find founders and engineers who are prepared to build defense companies.

Talk about the opportunity. Encourage technical people to start businesses in defense. Connect us with teams that have promising ideas, existing technology, or expertise that could be applied to a real military need.

We want to meet as many capable engineers, scientists, and founders as possible. If they are serious about establishing a defense company, they should speak with us. We can help them validate the idea, understand the user, develop the business, find investors, and eventually scale production.

Making the correct introductions is much more valuable than making as many introductions as possible.

Europe does not only need interesting prototypes. We need companies large enough to deliver meaningful quantities, build production capacity, and create an operational impact. That requires investment, customers, and a path from early testing to manufacturing.

We also maintain relationships with other defense investors and accelerators, including organizations in Ukraine. Cooperation across the ecosystem is important because no single fund or accelerator can build Europe’s defense industry alone.

I have a network of roughly 1,500 investors, and one member of our team works full-time on connecting startups with capital. His task is not simply to send every company to every investor. He has to understand what each investor wants, what each company is building, and when the two are a good match.

The most direct way to support us … is to build.

That means investors receive opportunities relevant to their interests, while startups meet people who may genuinely want to fund them. Making the correct introductions is much more valuable than making as many introductions as possible.

The most direct way to support us, however, is to build. Start a defense company, bring us the technology, and be prepared to test your assumptions against what military users actually need.

5 | Where can people follow you?

The best place to connect with me personally is LinkedIn.

People can learn more about the accelerator, apply for a program, or contact the team through the 17Tech website. They can also follow the 17Tech LinkedIn page for updates about our programs, startups, testing opportunities, and events.

Nikolaus Muchitsch is chief of staff and strategy at Under Fire News.

The Daily Notebook returns on Monday 31 August.

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Their work is part of an accelerating technological battle above the Black Sea, but their presence also exposes Moscow’s central miscalculation: The Russian-speaking south did not welcome the invading army.

UFN spoke with the two defenders, and with a lifelong Odesa resident whose home was struck, about the city Russia came to “liberate”—and the people determined to keep it Ukrainian.

ODESA—Mykyta has been a civilian adult for roughly two months of his life. He is 26 now, speaks quietly and without much interest in making his biography sound more dramatic than it already is, and serves as a UAV operator in southern Ukraine, where the war has become a contest fought not only across trenches and minefields but increasingly through electronics, software and small machines chasing one another through the sky. Before all this he had completed his compulsory military service and expected, presumably like most young men leaving the army, that the uniform would now become something belonging to his past.

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The language spoken around the kitchen table did not necessarily determine which flag somebody wanted flying above the town hall.

Two months later Russia launched its full-scale invasion. He returned to military service and never really left it again. More than five years of his young life have now been spent in the military, he says, which at 26 means that an extraordinary portion of the years in which most Europeans finish university, begin careers, travel, fall in love, or simply waste time being young has instead been spent preparing for war or fighting one.

Alexander is older, a deputy commander of a UAV squadron, and his connection with southern Ukraine reaches back considerably further. He studied at Odesa Law University more than a decade ago, began his military service here and joined the Territorial Defence when the full-scale invasion came.

Talking to the two men in Odesa therefore means talking to representatives of slightly different Ukrainian wartime generations, but it also provides an opportunity to examine one of the more persistent assumptions surrounding this war. For years Moscow insisted that southern Ukraine was never entirely Ukrainian at all, that places such as Odesa were Russian cities temporarily separated from their natural political home, inhabited largely by Russian speakers whose language supposedly revealed where their real loyalties lay. If that proposition were true, then men such as Alexander ought to be rather difficult to explain.

[There is] discussion within parts of the Russian propaganda environment of southern Ukrainian territory as potential future settlement space for Kadyrov’s Muslim followers after a Russian victory.

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The language question produces one of the more interesting answers of the conversation. Alexander knows Russian-speaking people in Odesa who still use the language every day and who sometimes jokingly apologise to him for speaking what they call the “trophy language,” трофейна мова. They grew up with Russian, it remains natural to them, and changing the language of ordinary conversation is not something accomplished by political decree within a few weeks. Some are trying to switch to Ukrainian and find it difficult, while others continue to move between both languages.

Within the Armed Forces, Alexander says, the matter is considerably less dramatic than outsiders sometimes imagine. He knows brigade commanders, battalion commanders, infantrymen, and servicemen of different ranks who communicate in Russian as well as Ukrainian.

The Russian-speaking south did not behave according to the political script Moscow had written for it.

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Our chief of staff spent the weekend at the European Defense Tech Festival outside Berlin and came back convinced Europe can solve defense problems—and that the people who can are at last finding each other.

BERLIN—Hundreds of Europe’s most ambitious defense builders took over a former airfield, brought their prototypes, and had a runway on which to prove the things actually work.

I went to see whether they did.

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By the time I arrived at Neuhardenberg Airport on a Saturday morning, the four-day European Defense Tech Festival—read our Q&A with the event’s cofounder here—was already well underway. Inside the hangar, founders demonstrated prototypes, engineers discussed material questions, and military personnel posed the direct, sometimes uncomfortable questions that young defense companies need to hear. Outside, the airport’s runway allowed the technology to move beyond presentation slides and prove what it could do.

Berlin may have built its international reputation as Europe’s party capital, but it is rapidly becoming a mil-tech building capital as well.

By Sunday evening, I was convinced that this was one of the strongest defense-tech events Europe has held in recent years. Organized by the European Defense Tech Hub (EDTH), the festival combined a clear sense of purpose with an unusual degree of openness. One of the key aspects of EDTH’s conferences and gatherings is that they are highly informal, and yet very productive, and that is how it was this time again: Some of the most valuable conversations began unexpectedly beside a prototype or over coffee, then ended with exchanged contacts and plans for cooperation after the festival.

Dryad Networks uses solar-powered, AI-enabled gas sensors connected through a mesh network to identify wildfires at a very early stage.

The atmosphere reflected a sector undergoing a rapid transformation. European defense technology is no longer confined to a handful of major contractors, government procurement offices, and closed industry conferences. A new generation of companies is emerging, often founded by people with backgrounds in software, artificial intelligence, robotics, medicine, telecommunications, or emergency response. Many are small, some are still operating in stealth mode, and others have already begun working with military users. What unites them is a willingness to build quickly and test their assumptions against operational reality.

The festival, held August 20-23, brought that community together at an appropriate location. Neuhardenberg’s hangars and runway provided the space for demonstrations, testing, and technical discussions that would have been impossible in a conventional conference center. Berlin may have built its international reputation as Europe’s party capital, but it is rapidly becoming a mil-tech building capital as well. But true to local tradition, even an event devoted to rearming Europe still came with music, drinks, and an afterparty.

Among the companies I encountered was Steggo, whose platform transforms battlefield radio communications into structured intelligence.

Read on to see who else stood out at the European Defense Tech Festival …

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That is the point.

Germany found two of them after twenty years. The FBI needed more than a decade to dismantle one network. After 2022, Europe expelled hundreds of Russian diplomats—which made the embassy model harder and Moscow’s need for access greater.

How many perfect neighbors are still out there?

BERLIN—The perfect intelligence officer does not look like an intelligence officer. He does not spend his evenings exchanging envelopes beneath railway bridges, and there is no reason for him to possess a pistol hidden behind a false wall. He may have a mortgage. His children go to school with everybody else’s children, neighbors have known him for fifteen years, somebody from work remembers drinking too much with him at a Christmas party, while his passport, tax returns and professional biography describe a life so tediously ordinary that nobody would dream of looking at it twice.

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This is precisely the point. In the vocabulary of Russian intelligence such people have traditionally been known as illegals, officers operating without the diplomatic protection that normally surrounds embassy intelligence personnel, sometimes beneath identities patiently constructed over years. They are expensive to create and dangerous to lose, but their great advantage is obvious. A diplomat suspected of espionage can be watched from the moment he arrives. The friendly consultant who has lived around the corner since 1997 is another matter entirely. It is entirely plausible that these illegals are everywhere in the West. A few cases highlight that they have been around since the cold war.

The system is not a paranoid fantasy left over from John le Carré. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, inherited the Soviet tradition of illegal residencies and continued using it after the Cold War supposedly ended. What makes the phenomenon unsettling is precisely the amount of time involved. A useful illegal does not necessarily arrive with instructions to steal the defense minister’s papers next Thursday. His first assignment may simply be to become somebody. Education follows, then employment and friendships, perhaps marriage, while the invented biography slowly acquires the most useful quality a false biography can possess. And large portions of it become true. After twenty years there really are colleagues who have known this person for twenty years. The house is real. So are the children. Only the foundation underneath the life is fraudulent and build upon a mission: Infiltrating the enemies of Russia.

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The Anschlag-Case

Germany discovered an almost textbook version in October 2011 when Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag were arrested after having lived in the Federal Republic of Germany for roughly two decades. Their names were false. According to the German authorities they were Russian intelligence officers who had originally been inserted under the Soviet system and subsequently worked for the SVR. Their apparently unremarkable German existence concealed communications with Moscow and intelligence work that ultimately reached into NATO and the European Union. Particularly valuable was a source in the Dutch Foreign Ministry, Raymond Poeteray, who supplied large quantities of classified material. The Anschlags were convicted of espionage in 2013. Whatever one thinks about the romance attached to old-fashioned spy stories, there was nothing especially romantic about the result. Just two people had spent a substantial part of their adult lives inside German society while secretly serving Moscow, and through them Russian intelligence obtained access to a European official handling sensitive NATO and EU information.

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• Kyiv marks Independence Day with nearly 100 unmanned systems on Khreshchatyk and the Dnipro, replacing the tanks and troop columns

• Blackwater founder Erik Prince teams up with a Ukrainian drone firm to sell private air defense

• Ukraine codifies a jet-powered interceptor that launches from a catapult, hunts Shaheds and Gerans, and flies home if it misses

• and more …

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1. Erik Prince Enters the Air-Defense Business

Ukrainian-American drone developer Swarmer and Blackwater founder Erik Prince have launched Vectus Air Defense Systems, a U.S.-based company offering privately operated, multilayered protection for critical infrastructure. Swarmer receives a 20 percent stake and will contribute swarm-based interception technology, while Vectus plans to combine Ukrainian, American, Israeli, and other allied systems, including sensors, electronic warfare, interceptor drones, and large-caliber guns. The model reflects an uncomfortable reality: governments lack enough high-end air-defense batteries to protect every power plant, factory, port, and logistics hub from cheap massed drones.

Commercial protection could bring capital, faster procurement, and tailored defenses to exposed sites, freeing military systems for strategic targets.

2. Ukraine’s Independence Day Goes Unmanned

Ukraine marked its 35th Independence Day by staging what it billed as the world’s first military parade devoted entirely to unmanned systems. Nearly 100 aerial, naval, and ground platforms replaced the traditional columns of soldiers and tanks: robotic vehicles moved along Khreshchatyk, Magura and Sea Baby drones crossed the Dnipro, and reconnaissance, strike, and interceptor UAVs flew above Kyiv. The symbolism was unusually honest. Ukraine’s military power increasingly rests on adaptable machines, decentralized engineering, and a defense industry learning directly from the battlefield, rather than inherited Soviet mass.

The parade also showed foreign partners what Europe’s first major drone force actually looks like.

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3. From Nordic Funding to Joint Firepower

Ukraine and Norway have signed a “Drone Deal” to expand technology exchange and develop joint projects in unmanned systems and air defense, alongside a broader strategic partnership covering defense and energy. The agreement builds on production already under way in Norway for Ukrainian mid-range strike drones and follows roughly $130 million in Norwegian funding for maritime drones. Oslo also plans to provide around $9 billion in support through the Nansen Program in 2027.

The important shift is from buying weapons for Ukraine toward producing Ukrainian-designed systems inside NATO territory, combining Kyiv’s combat-tested engineering with Norwegian capital, manufacturing capacity, and secure supply chains.

4. Ukraine’s New 90-Kilometer Strike Drone

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He severed his relationship with a German anti-lockdown protest movement whose supposed opposition to authoritarianism dissolved into support for Moscow.

He explains why distrust of Western institutions should never replace independent judgment, why Ukraine has become a moral test for Europe, and why he believes lasting peace requires the dismantling of the Russian imperial state.

Welcome to Voices of the Fight—a Saturday Q&A series featuring the warriors, innovators, advocates, and volunteers standing under fire for free people.

1 | Who are you, and what’s your mission?

My name is Cemil Kerimoğlu. I was born in Azerbaijan, but my parents and I moved to Turkey when I was a child. I grew up there, attended university, and later moved to Germany for my PhD. I have now lived in Germany for many years.

I wanted to use my knowledge of Russian history, language, and society to make Ukraine’s case and explain the character of the state attacking it.

My academic background is in molecular biology and genetics. I completed my PhD in neuroscience, remained in academia for a time as a senior research scientist, and later moved into bioinformatics and data analysis. Today, I work in industry as a data scientist.

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At the same time, I have always been interested in history and philosophy, particularly the history of Europe, Eastern Europe, and the different manifestations of the state we now call Russia. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, my mission has been to explain the nature of the Russian state, Russian society, and Russian imperialism to Western audiences. I write independently on my Substack, From Baltic to the Black Sea, contribute to Under Fire News, and participate in the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum.

The more closely you understand Russia’s history, political culture, and treatment of neighboring nations, the harder it becomes to accept the romantic image of Russia that still exists in parts of the West.

My connection to the subject is not merely academic. Russian was the first language I learned as a child. I also speak Azerbaijani, but Russian was the language initially spoken in our home. I grew up within a Russian-speaking cultural environment and watched Russian television, although my family never accepted its narratives uncritically. My parents have always supported Ukraine.

Ukraine first became a major focus for me during the Orange Revolution in 2004. After electoral fraud initially handed the presidency to Viktor Yanukovych, Ukrainians took to the streets and forced a new runoff, which Viktor Yushchenko won. What I remember particularly clearly is the reaction on Russian television. The hostility toward Ukraine and Ukrainian society was already extraordinary. This was ten years before the Revolution of Dignity and 18 years before the full-scale invasion.

Russia first tried to control Ukraine through propaganda, manipulation, economic pressure, and the infiltration of Ukrainian institutions and security services. For a time, it succeeded. Yanukovych eventually became president in 2010. But during the Revolution of Dignity in 2013 and 2014, Ukrainians once again demonstrated that a determined population could overthrow a corrupt government acting against the country’s interests.

Distrusting an institution does not excuse you from examining the evidence.

When Moscow realized that manipulation alone could no longer keep Ukraine within its orbit, it turned increasingly to military force. Russia began its invasion in 2014 and expanded it into a full-scale war in 2022.

That was when I decided I had to become more vocal. I was shocked by how little many people in Western Europe understood about the causes of the war. They treated the invasion as an isolated geopolitical dispute rather than the continuation of a much older imperial project. I wanted to use my knowledge of Russian history, language, and society to make Ukraine’s case and explain the character of the state attacking it.

It is not about whom you believe. It is about what you know.

People sometimes ask why I am so hostile toward Russia when I grew up speaking Russian and know its culture so well. But that is precisely the point. I do not hold these views despite knowing Russia. I hold these views because I know Russia.

I did not encounter Russia as a distant foreign observer. I grew up inside its linguistic and cultural sphere. The more closely you understand its history, political culture, and treatment of neighboring nations, the harder it becomes to accept the romantic image of Russia that still exists in parts of the West.

Their argument was that the same media organizations that had supported COVID restrictions were now supporting Ukraine, so anything favorable to Ukraine had to be false.

That made no sense to me.

This also helps explain why so many Russian-speaking Ukrainians fight Russia. Some Westerners ask why people who speak Russian would resist a supposedly Russian state. Many resist precisely because they understand it. They know what the “Russian world” means when it arrives in their cities. Their language does not determine their political loyalty, national identity, or willingness to submit to Moscow.

2 | Tell us one powerful story from your experience in war, as you would tell someone over a drink.

My breaking point came inside Germany’s anti-lockdown protest movement.

During the final months of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, I was actively protesting Germany’s COVID restrictions and vaccination policies. I spoke at demonstrations and met many people whom I believed were genuinely committed to personal freedom and opposed to coercive government.

Then Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

To me, the moral question was completely unambiguous. Ukraine was the victim of aggression, and Russia was the aggressor. Yet many of the people beside whom I had protested either openly supported Russia or immediately began making excuses for Russia. They blamed NATO, repeated Moscow’s claims about Ukraine, or insisted that the situation was simply too complicated to judge.

Rejecting everything said by a source you dislike is just as intellectually lazy as believing everything it says.

If the BBC tells you that one plus one equals two, you do not have to conclude that the answer is five.

The massacre in Bucha exposed the contradiction beyond repair. When evidence of the killings emerged in early April 2022, I shared the images and reports in the Telegram groups used by people from the protest movement. The responses were immediate: Ukraine had staged it, the West had invented it, or the photographs were propaganda.

Their argument was that the same media organizations that had supported COVID restrictions were now supporting Ukraine, so anything favorable to Ukraine had to be false. That made no sense to me. A source can be wrong about one subject and correct about another. Distrusting an institution does not excuse you from examining the evidence.

Shortly afterward, I attended a large demonstration against the remaining COVID restrictions in Dresden. I also gave a speech there. Although the event had nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine, I saw more Russian flags than German flags.

I had already been disturbed by the movement’s response to the invasion and Bucha. But standing at a demonstration supposedly organized against authoritarianism while surrounded by the flags of one of the world’s most repressive states made the contradiction impossible to ignore.

I asked a friend recording my speech to frame the video so that none of the Russian flags appeared behind me. She managed it, but afterward I thought about the absurdity of what I had just done. I did not want to spend my time concealing the character of a movement with which I no longer belonged.

That was when I left.

I could have continued arguing in private Telegram groups, but I realized that it was a waste of time. I had knowledge of Russian history and society that could be more valuable in public. Instead of spending hours fighting with the same people in closed chats, I began writing openly and dedicating myself to making Ukraine’s case.

The experience taught me something important. Opposition to one form of government overreach does not necessarily mean that a person opposes authoritarianism as a principle. Some people were willing to denounce relatively limited restrictions in Germany while waving the flag of a state imprisoning its opponents, invading its neighbors, and murdering civilians.

People still ask me how I can distrust Western governments or media on certain issues while agreeing with them about Ukraine. My answer is that it is not about whom you believe. It is about what you know.

I do not support Ukraine because CNN or the BBC tells me to support Ukraine. Nor did I oppose COVID policies because an alternative Telegram channel told me to oppose them. I examine the evidence, use my own knowledge, and reach my own conclusions.

Rejecting everything said by a source you dislike is just as intellectually lazy as believing everything it says. If the BBC tells you that one plus one equals two, you do not have to conclude that the answer is five. If CNN tells you not to jump from the tenth floor, you do not prove your independence by jumping.

Independent thought means judging the claim, not merely reacting to the identity of the person making it.

Over time, my work also developed beyond supporting Ukraine’s immediate defense. I became convinced that simply containing Russia would not produce a durable peace. As long as the Russian Federation remains a centralized imperial entity, it will continue threatening its neighbors, manipulating Western societies, and attempting to rebuild its power for another war.

That led me to become involved with the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum. It brings together national and regional movements seeking independence from the present Russian Federation and asks what a post-Russian political order could look like.

My position is that the Russian imperial state must ultimately be dismantled. Its constituent nations and regions should have the opportunity to form independent states based on their own identities. The process would also require demilitarization, denuclearization, and the rejection of the imperial identity that Moscow has imposed across that vast territory.

Stopping the current invasion is necessary. Helping Ukraine survive is necessary. But neither permanently solves the problem. If the Russian imperial system remains intact, it may return in twenty or fifty years. Even when it is not invading another country, it will continue using propaganda, political financing, intelligence operations, and social manipulation against Europe.

A lasting peace will require confronting the source of the aggression, not merely treating its latest manifestation.

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3 | What decision, habit, or principle has mattered the most for you for surviving or staying effective under pressure?

Justice and moral clarity.

For me, this is among the most morally unambiguous conflicts in modern history. Ukraine is defending its people, its territory, its identity, and its right to exist. Russia is attempting to destroy them. The distinction is not complicated.

Western assistance has been essential. We have to acknowledge that Ukraine would have struggled to survive without weapons, financial support, intelligence, and humanitarian aid from Europe and the United States. But the support has never matched the scale of the crime or the sacrifices Ukrainians are making.

The least someone in my position can do is explain their case to Western audiences, challenge Russian narratives, and argue for stronger support.

That is shameful. Faced with such a clear case of aggression, much of the West still cannot commit fully to the side of the victim. Governments delay decisions, impose restrictions on weapons, fear escalation, and provide enough assistance to prevent Ukraine’s immediate defeat without providing what it needs to win decisively.

That injustice keeps me focused.

I live safely in Germany. I am not fighting at the front. I do not spend my nights under missile and drone attacks. I have not lost my home. Ukrainians are enduring all of that while defending not only their country, but the security of Europe.

The least someone in my position can do is explain their case to Western audiences, challenge Russian narratives, and argue for stronger support. What I do cannot be compared with the sacrifices of Ukrainian soldiers, their families, or the civilians who continue living through the war. But that does not make it meaningless.

When you recognize a profound injustice, you have a responsibility to do whatever lies within your ability to oppose it. That principle keeps me working.

4 | How can people support your work?

The most useful thing people can do is read and share it.

My Substack ( ) is free because my primary objective is to reach as many people as possible. I want more people in the West to understand Russian history, the nature of Russian imperialism, and why Ukraine’s victory is necessary for Europe.

Readers can share my articles on social media, send them to friends and colleagues, or use the arguments in their own discussions. Expanding the audience is more important to me than placing the work behind a paywall.

People who value my writing and want to support it financially can also make a voluntary contribution or become paid subscribers. I am grateful for that support, but my articles will remain publicly accessible. The ideas have to travel.

5 | Where can people follow you?

The main place to read my work is my Substack, From Baltic to the Black Sea. I am also active on X, Facebook, and Telegram, where I publish political, historical, and philosophical commentary.

People can also read my contributions to Under Fire News. Wherever they choose to follow me, my request is the same: Read critically, think independently, and share the work if you believe it deserves a wider audience.

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• Non-response is read as permission. Every unanswered drone invites the next one.

• Russia doesn’t need to invade. Disrupt a country’s airspace and you can switch its critical infrastructure on and off.

• Deterrence only works if the consequence is named before it’s needed—and then carried out.

• Russia’s Starlink alternative might go live this year. Europe might arrive by 2035.

• Better equipment won’t save you if nobody knows how to fix it under fire.

See details below—and a link to our Coalition of the Doing podcast.

TIRANA, ALBANIA—Yesterday I drove into the Albanian alps, home to much guerrilla warfare from the age of Homer to just a few years ago. I was prepared for some August fresh air and nothing was going to get in the way of it. Then my driver-guide and I saw smoke on a distant ridge: wildfires, as so much of the world is now experiencing. From one switchback turn to the next, I kept seeing that mountain on fire. A helicopter passed, dropped its bucket in a river deep below us, and returned to the fire.

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“Listen to Ukrainians today, because it means the difference between saving your life and the lives of your loved ones tomorrow.”

When I reached my destination, the isolated town of Pukë, I had a view of smoke engulfing a mountain in the distance.

Eh, it’s far away, locals said. Indeed, in Pukë the air was clear and clean.

But my Donbas instinct, forged these past years in Ukraine, said: get the hell out, now. I thought of the people in Spain and France who assumed the fire was safely distant and woke to flames licking at their yards with hardly time to escape.

We turned around swiftly. Coming back through the same passes an hour later, the smoke was at least ten times worse. Today the spot where I stood briefly yesterday, in that otherwise pleasant place called Pukë, is covered in smoke as the fire expands. I imagine the visibility on the only roads to get out of there is near zero.

What today seems far away and of little concern for us, can quite quickly be our tomorrow problem. We should know this by now, whether its wildfires or fiery war.

Ask Ukrainians. Many of them in 2021, and even in January and February 2022, were sure Russia would not launch a full-scale invasion, and so they were unprepared. Many Americans and Europeans are just as sure today that invasion, whether armed Russians in Ukraine or unarmed migrants in Ceuta, are someone else’s problem. But as our panel of experts cautions this week, the matches have already been lit in our own backyards.

The mood is dour. Russia hit Kyiv like hell last night and the West is not ready to face such a fire. All the more reason to stand with Ukrainians: perhaps the world’s best survivalists.

Let’s now get our weekly hit of the COALITION OF THE DOING: UFN’s Panel of Experts:

SOURCE ONE: CHRONICLER OF COGNITIVE WARFARE

Maksym Eristavi is a Ukrainian journalist based in Prague and author of the award-winning Russian Colonialism 101. He is a former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

1. Europe Thinks Russia Reasons the Way Europe Does. It Doesn't.

THE NEWS: Leaked plans this week for new Russian bases along the Ukraine–Belarus border, putting Bucharest and Sofia inside the range of Russian drones.

“I definitely think that we’re oftentimes talking different coding languages. Part of the reason is because the Russians have been so successful at their influence operations and propaganda and cognitive influence over Europe—convincing Europeans that the Russian Empire is another European nation state, that they think like Europeans and follow the same logic. When in fact, when you study Russian imperial warfare through centuries, you understand that they have a certain logic that is completely different. …”

“And part of it is the importance of these power flexes. When you flex your power and you flex your capacity to signal that I can do that—even without doing it directly. That’s exactly what Russia has been trained to do. Not only operationally: mapping the vulnerabilities, testing, looking to see where the cables are, where the critical infrastructure is. They’re also doing it in a not very discreet manner, to send the signal that I can do it.”

“And if you don’t do anything back, it’s just an invitation for them, automatically, to keep doing it. They don’t have to, at some point, even invade. If they have total control of your airspace, they can switch on, switch off your critical infrastructure. They’re already in control.”

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2. The Russian Athletes Are Not a Sideshow. They Are the Master Code.

THE NEWS: The campaign to readmit Russian athletes under their own flag and anthem is gathering pace ahead of the next international season.

“This push to return Russian athletes under Russian flags, and hearing Russian national anthems in international sports arenas, is happening absolutely not as a coincidence. This part of the great Russian culture narrative is even a kind of master code for Russian imperialism in general.

“When bad things start happening for Russia as a state, there has to be a refuge for Russian imperial narratives and greatness. And Russian culture comes to this rescue all the time. What they’re trying to do at the moment is shield all of that from the accountability that is catching up with ordinary Russians, with the state, with their economy, with their reputation, which is absolutely destroyed all over the world.”

“There’s this video of a Russian athlete crying—these imperial tears, that she cannot perform under her flag and people are not nice to her. And she wonders why. After her country killed hundreds of Ukrainian athletes, destroyed entire stadiums, destroyed the sport infrastructure, mass murdering people who could have competed alongside her.”

3. The Deep Strikes Are Not About the War Economy. They Are About the Myth.

THE NEWS: Ukrainian strikes, including with British drones, reached further into Russia this week, hitting oil depots and warehouses—and Russians filmed their own petrol queues.

“We cannot possibly think that Ukraine, on its own, with its limited resources, a country ten times smaller than the Russian Empire, can destroy the entire war economy in Russia. But what they’re doing is piercing this superiority myth—that you can face consequences for those crimes done in your name. As a Russian citizen, they’re all done in your name. Not in Putin’s name. In the name of the greatness of Russia.”

“The average Russians, who have not faced any consequences in the last four years, are starting to feel it. And they’re starting to ask these questions: okay, if we’re so superior, why do I see Ukrainian drones bombarding my neighbourhood, destroying warehouses and all those supposedly unreachable sites?”

“Despite having fewer resources, they have the initiative. And then Russia hits back in a mirror way, because they’re already following that initiative. Losing this initiative, and showing their public that they’re not in control and are just responding, is such a huge hit to Russian imperial greatness.”

SOURCE TWO: AMERICAN INVESTOR IN KYIV

Deborah Fairlamb, an American, is founding partner at Green Flag Ventures in Kyiv and co-hosts our Coalition of the Doing podcast.

4. Europe’s Non-Response Is Not Caution. It Is Appeasement.

Read more

From Leipzig to Warsaw, Moscow’s shadow campaign is probing the infrastructure that keeps Ukraine supplied—and testing how much violence it can inflict before Europe finally admits that the war has already moved west.

BERLIN—While Russia’s war on Ukraine is fought openly, another front has spread across Europe, quieter and deliberately difficult to recognize as war. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, security services throughout Europe have investigated fires, sabotage plots, explosive packages, cyberattacks, and operations against the infrastructure supplying Ukraine. Some cases remain unresolved. In others, prosecutors and governments have publicly identified links to Russian intelligence.

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The pattern is not one dramatic attack but a steady campaign below the threshold of conventional war. Moscow can impose costs, disrupt military support, and frighten decision-makers while keeping enough distance from the people carrying out the work to deny responsibility. A Russian tank entering Poland would settle the political question within minutes. A warehouse burning outside Warsaw may occupy investigators for a year before anyone can establish who ordered it.

Read more

• An interceptor that costs €700 and flies at 200km/h: the unit economics Western air defense hasn’t solved

• 100,000 combat missions flown on Ukrainian autonomy software, now entering US Special Operations platforms

• British and Nasdaq-listed money moving into Ukrainian ground robotics—one deal signed, one memorandum, and what separates them

• and more …

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1. A Ukrainian Drone Built to Put Siberia in Range

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has approved the domestically produced Dovbush T40 for military use, clearing the strategic drone for procurement and deployment. The aircraft has a reported range of more than 2,000 kilometers, endurance exceeding 24 hours, a wingspan of nearly five meters, low radar visibility, and strong resistance to electronic warfare. It can conduct deep reconnaissance and fire adjustment, carry and release munitions, or operate as a one-way attack drone, theoretically placing targets beyond the Urals and in western Siberia within reach.

Russia can no longer assume that factories, airfields, and military infrastructure deep inside its territory are protected by distance, while Kyiv becomes progressively less dependent on Western permission to strike them.

2. British Capital Backs Ukraine’s Next Ground Drone

Ukrainian ground-drone manufacturer Forland Systems has secured investment from British venture platform Grenadyr to develop a modular unmanned ground vehicle for logistics, inspection, and battlefield-support missions. The amount and terms were not disclosed, although Grenadyr’s seven completed investments have ranged from $350,000 to $1.3 million. Forland is developing the platform alongside Ukraine’s Achilles unmanned systems brigade, giving engineers direct access to operational feedback, while Grenadyr is assisting with British manufacturing, component sourcing, and industrial connections.

Five of the investor’s seven deals have gone to Ukrainian defense startups, with the remaining two backing British projects closely connected to Ukraine.

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3. Ukraine Is Rewriting Air Defense Economics

Ukrainian drones produced by General Cherry hit more than 16,000 Russian targets in July, including over 13,000 fixed-wing UAVs intercepted by its AIR Speed and Bullet systems. Even allowing for the usual difficulties of independently verifying battlefield statistics, the scale points to a decisive change in air defense economics: cheap interceptors are assuming missions that scarce missiles cannot perform sustainably. General Cherry’s experience also carries significance beyond Ukraine.

The company is entering final stages of Pentagon trials while establishing production partnerships abroad, giving Western militaries access to systems refined through thousands of real engagements rather than controlled demonstrations.

4. The Robot Built for Dangerous Errands

Read more

In 2022, Ukrainians were making Molotov cocktails in their kitchens—and crowdfunding millions to buy foreign drones. Today German factories build Ukrainian designs under license, and European firms are graded against Ukrainian standards by Ukrainian experts. A fix welded in a Ukrainian trench can now become licensed property in Europe.

Weapons still travel east. The technology, the expertise and the money have started traveling west.

June 22, 2022. On his birthday, Ukrainian television host Serhiy Prytula asks the public for 500 million hryvnia in seven days, the price of three Turkish combat drones. Two days later, it’s done. Ordinary Ukrainians send 600 million, about 20 million dollars at the official rate, enough for four aircraft. The manufacturer then refuses the money and donates the drones. The cash buys a satellite instead.

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July 2026. The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, commits 35 million euros to have six young European defense firms evaluated against scenarios drawn from the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian experts among the judges. Four years separate the two scenes. In between, the direction of the flow reversed.

This article explains one thing: how proof earned in Ukrainian combat became a resource Europe now pays for. It does not claim the money is enough, and it does not excuse how slowly Western equipment still arrives.

It concerns you for a precise reason: a country the West has mostly been asked to give to has begun to sell, and Europe has started paying. If someone around you calls aid to Ukraine a bottomless pit, what follows is a usable answer. The thread from here to the end is one word, ownership: who holds it, who pays for it, and what it changes for the men doing the fighting.

The technical part rests on a single idea, and here it is in plain terms. When a country receives a howitzer, it owns a howitzer, and the transaction ends at delivery. When a country lets others build what it designed, nothing ends: there is an owner, a defined object, written conditions, and money that keeps coming back.

That arrangement has a name: a license. Nobody licenses charity. A license is what you sign when the other side owns something you cannot produce on your own. Keep that distinction in hand; everything below is one country moving from the first column to the second.

Proof earned under fire has become an asset, and Europe is the buyer.

The collection era

The TV host’s fundraiser was not an outlier. It was a template: a public figure names a weapon, a counter climbs in the open, and private emotion converts into hardware in front of the whole country.

The counter mattered as much as the money. Every donor could watch his own contribution join a number that ended in an aircraft, and that visibility is what kept trust alive while the state’s institutions were fighting for their lives.

Those campaigns bought more than drones. They proved, in public and on a deadline, that a nation’s anger could be converted into weapons, and the whole world watched the receipts come in.

The template repeated for two years. In February 2024, a campaign of the same kind was funding Sea Baby naval drones: same open counter, same direct conversion, a weapon at the end of the line.

It was generous, it was fast, and it had a ceiling. A campaign ends when the counter stops; it leaves no owner, no written conditions, no claim on what the weapon becomes next. The collection era produced weapons. It produced no property.

The pivot

Then the scale changed hands. Foreign funding for Ukraine’s defense industry rose from 600 million dollars in 2024 to 6.1 billion in 2025, according to Ukraine’s defense ministry. Ten times more in a single year, and no telethon in sight.

The soldier becomes an author, in the property sense of the word.

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This American investor explains how Ukraine is building an entirely new system of warfare, why foreigners should stop sending drones and start buying Ukrainian, and how Ukrainians can help the free world shed Chinese components.

Welcome to Voices of the Fight—a Saturday Q&A series featuring the warriors, innovators, advocates, and volunteers standing under fire for free people.

1 | Who are you, and what’s your mission?

My name is Perry Boyle, and I am an American from Idaho. I am the CEO and Co-Founder of MITS Capital in Ukraine, and the Chairman and Co-Founder of MITS Industries A/S in Denmark.

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My mission is to defend democracy against autocracy. The mission of MITS Capital is to help get Russia out of Ukraine by investing in the tools that Ukrainian warfighters tell us will advance that aim. The mission of MITS Industries A/S is to keep the Russians out of the rest of Europe by integrating Ukraine into Europe’s defense architecture.

‘[I was] pissed off that that f****r Putin had almost killed me before I could have an impact.’

2 | Tell us one powerful story from your experience in war, as you would tell someone over a drink.

At 7 am on December 20, 2024, I was woken by the hotel’s air-raid alert in Room 504 at the Holiday Inn in Kyiv. I put a pillow over my head and tried to ignore it. Four minutes later, a missile hit the street in front of the hotel, tearing off the façade. Two minutes after that, a second missile struck the top floor of the building next door. Room 504 was on the back side of the hotel. My windows bulged more than I thought possible, but they held.

‘There was a desk attendant standing behind what was left of the front desk. I asked her, “How do we check out?” Her response was typically Ukrainian: “Check out of what?”’

I walked down the stairs to survey the damage. The elevator shaft had collapsed, and every piece of glass on the hotel’s street side was shattered. I stood there, trying to figure out what to do. I could not see anyone who was injured and needed help.

I assessed my emotional state. I was not scared or in shock; I was pissed off. Pissed off that that f****r Putin had almost killed me before I could have an impact.

There was a desk attendant standing behind what was left of the front desk. I asked her, “How do we check out?” Her response was typically Ukrainian: “Check out of what?”.

I dragged my duffel across the rubble, went to the office, then to a conference where I handed out money with Mariia Berlinska to the winners of a Victory Drones + MITS drone innovation contest. Investing in Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia felt good.

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3 | What decision, habit, or principle has mattered the most for you for surviving or staying effective under pressure?

Build a system, not a plan. A plan is a single bet on how events will unfold; a system adapts as new information comes in. One of the most important “lessons of Ukraine” is that Ukraine survives not because it uses drones, but because it is building an entirely new system of warfare.

I try to apply the same systems-level approach to my effectiveness that Ukraine applies to warfare. It requires being ruthless in triaging your time. Keep your eyes on the objective and don’t let anyone pull you off track.

4 | How can people support your work?

I am laser-focused on ending the root cause of Ukraine’s suffering by defeating Russia in Ukraine. If you share the objective, we have lots of ways to help.

Ukraine needs capital to scale its defense tech industry. It needs to control that capital if it is going to retain its defense technology. We have many opportunities to invest in Ukrainian defense tech companies to keep them Ukrainian. Send potential investors our way.

For those in the defense industry outside Ukraine who want to support Ukraine, don’t send drones: please buy Ukrainian. Our portfolio of companies produces a broad range of China-free components for the drone supply chain and several unique USVs, UGVs, and UAVs. Please direct potential customers our way.

5 | Where can people follow you?

I post quite a bit on LinkedIn about Ukraine, the new system of war, and geopolitics:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/perryboyle/

https://mits.capital/

UFN Daily Notebook—
What else we’re watching today:

• Ukraine Offers a Black Sea Truce—Ukraine has proposed a mutual halt to attacks on civilian vessels and infrastructure in the Black Sea, using a third party to transmit the offer after escalating strikes nearly paralyzed agricultural shipping on both sides. Ukraine’s grain exports have fallen 76 percent year over year in August as shipowners avoid Odesa following repeated Russian attacks, while Ukrainian strikes temporarily closed all three terminals at Novorossiysk. Moscow has since dismissed the idea, rejecting any “half-measures” that might give Ukraine breathing space.
  
  A monitored maritime truce could protect global food supplies and Ukraine’s economy, but only if violations trigger immediate consequences. Russia abandoned the previous grain agreement in 2023.

• Europe’s Crises Take No Holiday—Europe’s leaders have scattered for their summer holidays while wildfires, migration pressure, war in Ukraine, and instability in the Middle East continue testing the continent. Heads of government are entitled to rest, and modern communications keep them reachable, but the political risk is obvious: a leader photographed at leisure while citizens face evacuation, disorder, or economic pain can quickly appear detached and unserious.
  
  The deeper problem is institutional rather than photographic. Europe increasingly confronts year-round security threats with governments still operating on a peacetime calendar, leaving crisis management dependent on hurried returns and improvised coordination.

• The End of Cheap Chinese Drone Dependence—President Trump has imposed tariffs of up to 100 percent on imported drones and components, targeting systems over 25 kilograms, thermal-imaging platforms, docking stations, and other technology considered especially sensitive to national security. Smaller drones and components face a 25 percent duty, while products genuinely originating in allied economies receive lower rates.
  
  The policy confronts an uncomfortable reality exposed by Ukraine: drones have become basic instruments of military power, infrastructure protection, policing, agriculture, and industry, yet Chinese companies dominate America’s commercial market and much of the component supply chain. Beijing’s ability to restrict exports—or potentially exploit data and software access—makes that dependence strategically reckless.

• Can 100,000 Missions Become a Global Business?—Ukrainian autonomy specialist Swarmer increased its second-quarter revenue, to $216,000. The company also invoiced $1.5 million through its expanding SkyKnight licensing program, collected $1.4 million, and raised the program’s contracted value from $2.9 million to $3.9 million. Swarmer’s software has now supported more than 100,000 combat missions, while new partnerships are bringing its technology into U.S. Special Operations platforms and American-compliant onboard computing. Its $7.3 million quarterly loss reflects heavy spending on engineering, personnel, and integration, so the company must still turn pilots and partnerships into sustained procurement.
  
  Yet the trajectory is encouraging: battlefield-proven Ukrainian autonomy is beginning to acquire the contracts, capital, and Western industrial connections needed to become a scalable defense business.

• NATO Just Let Private Companies Shoot Down Drones, With Their Own Pilots—Latvia tested drone interceptors against Shahed-style targets during NATO’s Baltic Trust 26 exercises at the Selija range, releasing video of a successful intercept. Around 650 personnel took part — from Latvia, NATO members, and partners including Ukraine, Australia, and Japan — trialing radars, sensors, cameras, and EW systems.
  

  The novel part wasn’t the hardware. The exercise tested a format new to NATO: once a target is detected, soldiers can hand the engagement to private companies, who fly their own interceptors with their own pilots and engineers.
  

  Latvia is moving fast on this. In July it signed memoranda with Ukraine on UAV development and technology transfer; in June, the two announced plans for joint drone production in Latgale.

  Ukraine solved counter-Shahed interception under fire. Latvia is importing the technology — and the doctrine.

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• Russia Is Building Its Own Starlink—Russia is deploying its Rassvet low-orbit satellite network faster than expected, with 16 satellites already providing intermittent connections over Ukraine and plans for 292 by 2027 and 924 by 2035. Once sufficiently dense, the constellation could restore reliable Russian battlefield communications and allow Moscow to control strike drones in real time over Ukrainian territory—an advantage Ukraine cannot mirror over Russia because Starlink is geofenced there.
  
  Kyiv’s successful effort to disable illicit Russian Starlink terminals helped shift battlefield momentum earlier this year, but Rassvet could make Moscow independent of both smuggled Western hardware and an American company’s cooperation.

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• UFN’s COALITION OF THE DOING podcast: Live From Kyiv Mid-Attack: Why the Defense Industry is Betraying AMERICA—

  Topics included:

  • Live attack on Kyiv

  • New Russian attack tactics as psychological warfare

  • Collapse of ballistic missile defense — and why it's not just Ukraine's problem

  • North Korea and China's role in supplying Russia

  • Defense industry lobbying against Ukrainian production

  • The physical and psychological toll of living under bombardment

  • Ukraine's innovation vs. the West's "old boys club" defense model

• NATO Opens Fire Over Latvia—An Italian Eurofighter operating under NATO command shot down an unidentified drone over Latvia after it crossed from the direction of Russia, while Finland temporarily restricted aviation and maritime traffic in the eastern Gulf of Finland. Two Italian jets launched from Lithuania and two Turkish F-16s from Estonia, demonstrating that NATO’s recently strengthened Baltic air-defense posture can respond across national boundaries.
  
  The drone appeared during Ukrainian strikes on Russian ports near St. Petersburg, but its origin remains unconfirmed; previous Ukrainian drones have been diverted into Baltic airspace by Russian electronic warfare.

• Why Russian Tankers Are Wearing Cope Cages—Russia’s shadow fleet is beginning to resemble its battered armored columns. The 28-year-old sanctioned tanker Caruzo crossed the Bosphorus carrying Russian oil with nets draped around its bridge, metal cages over its superstructure, and water tanks suspended along the hull to absorb or prematurely detonate Ukrainian drone warheads. Another sanctioned vessel, Rizvel, has appeared under similar netting, while Novorossiysk is increasingly enclosed by nets, booms, and barges.
  
  The improvisation may offer limited protection, but its real significance lies in what it reveals: Ukraine’s campaign against Russian shipping is forcing Moscow to modify vessels, harden ports, pay higher insurance premiums, and accept rising freight costs before a drone even reaches its target.

• Ukraine Offers a Black Sea Truce—Ukraine has proposed a mutual halt to attacks on civilian vessels and infrastructure in the Black Sea, using a third party to transmit the offer after escalating strikes nearly paralyzed agricultural shipping on both sides. Ukraine’s grain exports have fallen 76 percent year over year in August as shipowners avoid Odesa following repeated Russian attacks, while Ukrainian strikes temporarily closed all three terminals at Novorossiysk. Moscow has since dismissed the idea, rejecting any “half-measures” that might give Ukraine breathing space.
  
  A monitored maritime truce could protect global food supplies and Ukraine’s economy, but only if violations trigger immediate consequences. Russia abandoned the previous grain agreement in 2023.

• The Patriot Shortage Was a Choice—President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine needs 5 percent of America’s Patriot interceptor stockpile to survive the winter and 10 percent to defeat Russia’s ballistic-missile campaign; Kyiv currently has roughly 1 percent. Ukraine possesses two and a half times fewer interceptors than last year, while Russia is launching twice as many ballistic missiles each month. The Iran war has further depleted American inventories, but this crisis did not arrive without warning: Russia has bombarded Ukraine for more than four years, and the missile threat from Iran has been obvious for decades. Yet Lockheed Martin, RTX, and the wider American defense industry have still not expanded production anywhere close to wartime demand, while remaining hesitant about licensing production abroad.
  
  Companies sustained by enormous Western defense budgets cannot treat surge capacity as someone else’s responsibility. Immediate deliveries, new factories, multiyear orders, and licensed production in Ukraine and Europe are all necessary.

• Russia’s Kill List Reaches NATO Soil—Polish security services have arrested a Russian citizen accused of preparing the assassination of a dual Ukrainian-American national in Warsaw on orders from Russian intelligence. The suspect was detained on August 7 after Polish and American agencies reportedly disrupted the operation at the last moment; the intended victim, whose identity remains undisclosed, was described only as troublesome to the Putin regime. If proven, the plot would mark Russia’s first known attempt to murder a U.S. citizen inside another NATO country and a dangerous expansion of Moscow’s covert war in Europe.
  
  Assassination, sabotage, cyberattacks, and recruited proxies are not peripheral irritants but instruments Russia uses to erode Western sovereignty without triggering a conventional response.

• China Forces Silicon Valley to Cut AI Prices—Chinese competition is forcing America’s leading AI laboratories into their first serious price war. OpenAI has cut GPT-5.6 Luna’s developer price by 80 percent, to $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, while Anthropic launched Opus 5 at half the price of its flagship Fable 5 and canceled a planned increase for another model. The cuts follow growing adoption of cheaper Chinese systems from DeepSeek and Moonshot by companies including DoorDash and Airbnb, although nominal token prices can obscure differences in accuracy, retries, and total cost per completed task.
  
  OpenAI and Anthropic are defending premium pricing at the frontier while discounting the middle, a difficult balance for companies spending extraordinary sums on computing infrastructure and pursuing trillion-dollar valuations.

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• Ukraine’s New Middleweight Drone—Ukrainian manufacturer Warbirds has unveiled the TRX, a reconnaissance-and-strike drone with more than 200 minutes of endurance and a stated total flight range of up to 450 kilometers. The 46-kilogram aircraft cruises at 120 kilometers per hour, operates at low altitude, and can carry a 7-to-12-kilogram warhead, alongside daylight and thermal sensors, automated target-acquisition equipment, and either satellite or digital-radio communications.

  

  Ukrainian forces are already using the platform as a communications relay, while the strike version is undergoing codification and is expected to enter service soon.

• Air Defense Moves Onto Tracks—Ukraine has officially codified Tencore’s TerMIT ground robot and UGV Robotics’ Predator weapon station as a single combat system, clearing the way for serial production and military procurement. The tracked, ballistically protected TerMIT can travel up to 40 kilometers at 15 kilometers per hour, while the stabilized Predator turret uses thermal imaging, a laser rangefinder, automated target recognition, and a 7.62 mm machine gun to detect, track, and engage FPV drones—even while moving.

  

  That turns a platform developed primarily for logistics, casualty evacuation, mining, and engineering into its own mobile escort.

• Ukraine’s Interceptors Go Jet-Powered—Ukraine has begun combat trials of one of its first jet-powered interceptor drones, designed to exceed 600 kilometers per hour and pursue Russia’s rapidly expanding fleet of jet-powered Shaheds. The system has not yet recorded a confirmed interception, so the decisive tests will be guidance accuracy, endurance, reliability, and—above all—whether it can be manufactured cheaply enough for mass defense. Its urgency is already clear: Russia is gradually replacing slower propeller-driven Shaheds with faster variants that sharply reduce warning and engagement time, threatening to render much of Ukraine’s existing interceptor fleet obsolete.

  

  Kyiv built an effective low-cost defense against the previous generation, only to see the technological cycle turn again. Europe, still struggling to counter ordinary Shaheds without firing expensive missiles, should pay attention.

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Mil-tech investor DEBORAH FAIRLAMB recorded this week’s UFN podcast from Kyiv while missiles shook her building.

MAKSYM ERISTAVI, an expert in cognitive warfare, asks the question nobody in the US defense industry wants asked: If a cheaper system saves more lives, why isn’t it the better product?

Not only is Kyiv unprotected. So are European and American cities. Welcome to UFN’s INTELLIGENCE THURSDAY.

SOURCE: BRITISH ARMY VETERAN AND FORMER MP

Bob Seely MBE is a British Army veteran, a former Member of Parliament who served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the author of The New Total War. He is an investor in the Ukrainian mil-tech startup Trypillian.

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1. The Next Pearl Harbor Will Be an Attack on Our Resilience, Not Our Forces

“People think [a big invasion is] not going to happen because the Russians can’t march into Poland World War Two style. That’s not the issue … If there is ever going to be a Pearl Harbor moment again, with either Russia or China or potentially some combination of them, it’s not going to be a military operation.

It’s going to be one where our enemies attack the resilience of our society … In the UK, and I’m sure the US is very similar, the average family keeps about three days’ supply of food. If you suddenly attack that just-in-time supply system—through software, through traffic lights, through chaos on ferries and in shipping—you’re really going to hit the ability of Western societies to actually look after their populations.”

THE NEWS: The Washington Post reported this week on Chinese and Iranian cyber operations against American water systems. Seely notes that Russia has spent years mapping the 65 undersea cables through which the UK receives almost all of its data.

2. We Are Only Rearming Because China Is Letting Us

“The US is doing very well stripping Chinese components out of their military supply chain. Europe and the United Kingdom have got to get with the program … If the Chinese have some kind of kill switch in it, you can’t actually use your weapon in the years to come if the Chinese don’t want you to.

The fundamental problem is that we’re only rearming at the moment because the Chinese are allowing us to do so. And if the Chinese stop supplying components, we’d be in a world of pain.”

THE NEWS: British naval drones were revealed this week to carry Chinese cameras. Ukrainian student-volunteers were stripping Chinese components out of donated drones in 2022.

Everyone understands that America can restrict how American weapons are used. China can do the same thing—quietly, without announcing it—and almost nobody is discussing it.

SOURCE: AMERICAN INVESTOR IN KYIV

Deborah Fairlamb is a founding partner at Green Flag Ventures in Kyiv and co-hosts our Coalition of the Doing podcast. Ninety seconds into recording, she stopped mid-sentence.

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BOROUGHBRIDGE, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND, a few hours before what will here be a partial solar eclipse—

The regular sunset—is that a charade? Hiding from us how irregular and wild our place in this universe really is?

In 2017, the path of totality passed just an hour or so south of where I grew up and where my parents lived. So with friends and siblings I flew to Charlotte, and we drove to a hamlet in South Carolina and set up camp for the day on a hill topped by a Baptist church.

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A festival atmosphere—a good crowd, not too crowded. My brother, then a bartender working on his PhD in the philosophy of physics, had brought his cocktail kit and made us drinks—Martinez and Tom Collins.

Then we began to time travel.

First a noticeable chill in the breeze. Then the sky began to darken, quicker and quicker and quick—time was moving up, the day ending faster than we had ever seen a day end. The birds started their evening songs. With every minute the darkening accelerated.

Whoa whoa whoa, time! Slow down! Hold on! How do we stop it! Time was moving too fast. We were moving too fast!

Then clouds drifted over the sun. Damn. Would we miss it?

We looked behind us. People were running through the field toward a better vantage point. We joined the race to a road on a ridge across the way. It felt like a zombie apocalypse—scores of people running together toward nothing, turning into shades, in silence.

We made the ridge. Clear sky. Cold now, the last light of day fading.

Then: darkness. Coyotes howled, or foxes. Owls hooted. Down the road a lone car came toward us with its headlights on. Did they not realize what was happening?

People around us were shouting animalistically, others laughing deliriously. It was simply wild. Everything I knew about eclipses I had read as a boy in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court—the hero, thrown back into medieval England, remembers that a famous eclipse is about to occur and tells the king he will blot out the sky.

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Fortunately for the time-traveling trickster, the people relent to his demands before the sun returns. They were terrified. I had always thought: If you had no idea what an eclipse was, the event would indeed be terrifying. Standing there, I understood it was scary anyway for all of us. And we knew exactly what it was. Scary because it revealed how what seems so sure and sturdy to us is fleeting and small.

Those few seconds of total darkness held a universe. Each of us alone in it, and all of us together—tiny cogs, rolling around on a planet racing through the sky among other planets and galaxies. The veil between reality as we understand it and that which our minds cannot comprehend had gone thin, or maybe had vanished.

Then the diamond ring: that moment just before the moon begins to move off, when a single point of light bursts from the edge while the sun's corona still hangs around it. Magnificent: Awe, and the sense of living inside a fantastical epic, which we indeed are without realizing it.

Daylight came back the same way it left, at that sped-up, time-f-ing pace. We went from chilly autumn to hot summer in a few minutes. The night animals gave way to the day animals. And with the full light, time resumed its ordinary speed.

We drove home mostly in silence. What had we just seen. Who are we, and what is this life, this planet, this universe.

When the real sunset came that evening back on the deck in my parents’ home in Charlotte, I saw twilight differently. No sunset has been the same since that one time when time sped up, and the sun set midday, and the seasons changed in a moment, and we fell into wonder.

The regular sunset—is that a charade? Hiding from us how irregular and wild our place in this universe really is?

JP Lindsley, an American journalist based in Ukraine, is co-founder and editor-in-chief of UnderFire.News.

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In a war where few rules are still taken seriously, civilians have become both victims and perpetrators. Russia recruits them on Telegram for a few hundred dollars—a delivery, a photograph, an errand.

Lured by promises of easy money for projects seemingly of little consequence, desperate Ukrainian civilians are increasingly used as unwitting tools of terrorism by the Russian Federation.

Ukraine has a growing problem that is difficult to solve. The Kremlin is using social media, namely Telegram, to recruit Ukrainian civilians to carry out terror attacks. In wartime, with the economy in a challenging state, people are easily tempted to make a quick buck

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And with the internet and access to messaging platforms such as Telegram, it’s easier than ever for foreign intelligence services to recruit civilians to carry out missions. Both Russia and Ukraine have used this tactic throughout the war. Early in the war, Ukrainian scammers convinced older Russian pensioners to firebomb Russian military offices.

There have been multiple cases where Russia has attempted to use children to conduct suicide bombings without their knowledge. Ukrainian police say that in 90% of cases, financial incentives are involved.

The most recent high-profile example involved a 69-year-old Ukrainian man from Kharkiv who was fed AI-generated images portraying a Ukrainian commander as a Russian collaborator. His Russian handler then arranged for him to receive a pistol, which he attempted to use to assassinate the commander. But the weapon failed to fire, and he was unable to carry out the attack.

According to Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Russian intelligence recruitment is driven largely by money rather than ideology. “The foundation is poverty,” he said, adding that Ukrainian officials called recruits the “$300 people” because $300 was a standard recruitment price. “If $300 is a lot for someone, nothing you can do. Someone will always take the money.”

In March 2025, two teenagers in Ivano-Frankivsk were recruited on Telegram with promises of easy money. They planted a bomb on instructions from their handler, and one was killed while the other was injured.

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But this I knew: Just as this now-serene cathedral has in ages past seen war, war could once again return to places unexpected. In fact, it already has.

EVREUX, FRANCE—The organ thundered with a flourish at the end of Mass in this white limestone thousand-year-old cathedral in Normandy. Standing in the back, after four years of being in Ukraine every day of the war, I felt in the organ’s thunder the same intensity of missiles landing around me. And just at that moment, my phone dinged—air raid alert in Kyiv.

In this gleaming, towering church, people walked around in awe feeling the pounding of the organ. At that moment, people in Kyiv were ducking in terror feeling the pounding of the missiles.

This church has also been under hellfire. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Évreux burned in 1119, and Henry I of England—who had ordered the town burned—paid to rebuild it as penance. Philip Augustus, King of France, burned it again in 1198 in his wars with Richard the Lionheart. It was rebuilt in the thirteenth century.

Then modern wars found reasons to come here. Évreux sits on the rail line to Cherbourg on the Normandy coast, with an airfield two miles east. The Germans took the airfield in 1940 and flew from it against Britain. In June of that year their bombs fell on the town and the centre burned for nearly a week. In 1944 the Allies came for the railway and the airfield, and the town caught it too. The wooden spire on the south tower was never replaced.

On a sweltering June Sunday, I sat within the vast coolness of the white cathedral. The organist was making his post-Mass flourish with heart-pounding drama that amid the lofty pillars became something majestic. That organ can depict the whole drama of salvation history, the fear and hope of mankind. It’s not there for entertainment but to stir us to think of our purpose, pitfalls, and possibilities.

The organ’s thunderous soundtrack is in fact an accurate representation of the soundtrack of life in Ukraine. And it was warning us of the weight and majesty of eternity: what we do in this short space of life governs what comes after for us and for others.

The people in Kyiv know that weight. They face it daily. I felt it listening to the organ in a French cathedral watching the air-raid alerts for Kyiv—recalling so many of the attacks I have endured along with the Ukrainians.

Does the rest of the world feel this weight as something real, or as a curiosity? Does the rest of the world realize that what now might be loud sounds in movies or churches can quite quickly become the real soundtrack of our lives?

JP Lindsley, an American journalist based in Ukraine, is co-founder and editor-in-chief of UnderFire.News.

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UFN Daily Notebook—
What else we’re watching today:

• Russia Produces Ballistic Missiles Faster Than the West Produces Answers—A new Financial Times editorial argues that Ukraine’s worsening ballistic-missile vulnerability is no longer explained by a lack of suitable Western technology. Patriot works, but there simply are not enough launchers and PAC-3 interceptors. Russia is reportedly producing around 70 ballistic missiles monthly and recently approached 200 launches in a single month, while Western production remains unable to provide ammunition at comparable scale.
  
  The uncomfortable implication is that Ukraine’s air-defense crisis is increasingly a manufacturing failure. Spain and Greece still hold Patriot capacity, European alternatives remain scarce, and plans for expanded production will take years. Russia has succeeded in turning air defense into a factory race.

  

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