The appointment of Mykhailo Fedorov as minister of defense in January followed years of criticism of corruption and inefficiency, and complaints that the ministry was detached from the needs of active personnel, veterans, and new recruits.
Known for his focus on digital governance, fast implementation, and data-driven management, Fedorov promised a deep audit of the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces. The plan was not only to find money and fight corruption, but to make mobilization sustainable and national service fair. On July 15, he was sacked for what he claimed was a campaign by the old guard around Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi.
There were mass protests in Kyiv following his dismissal. President Zelenskyy said he could not allow the feuding between Fedorov and Syrskyi to continue.
His six months in charge won over many of the public, 50% of whom said they trusted him in a June poll, and among foreign diplomats.
One of the key elements in Fedorov’s whirlwind changes was unveiled on June 12, when Fedorov’s ministry announced reforms aimed at making military service more predictable and attractive through fixed-term contracts, higher and better differentiated pay, temporary discharges after contracts were completed, easier transfers between units, and a simplified route back for the estimated 200,000-plus personnel who are AWOL.
Fedorov said further changes would follow, and it is unclear what will survive his removal, but the reform process exposed the deep fragmentation in Ukraine’s system for wartime personnel.
For a lot of soldiers at the front, the discontent they feel isn’t just about money or contract length, it’s about justice.
For many, especially those who have served since the 2022 full-scale invasion or before, the new rules appeared aimed at attracting future recruits rather than fairly addressing the grievances of those already fighting.
They had, after all, signed up to serve without a clear end date and had limited control over where they would be assigned or whether they could transfer.
The most generous offer in the new system was the contract for assault infantry, the highest-risk and hardest-to-fill frontline role. It offered terms of 14 months for civilians, 10 months for those already serving, and six months or more for some previously discharged personnel.
Average monthly pay was projected at 300,000 hryvnia (roughly $6,900), with a cap of 460,000 hryvnia. Longer 24-month contracts would cover the rest of the force, including drone pilots, electronic warfare specialists and artillery personnel, with monthly pay ranging from 30,000-120,000 hryvnia. There was also a basic contract for positions outside combat units, starting at 30,000 hryvnia per month.
The fixed terms were significant because the old system made service seem indefinite, but there was anger that the new contracts favored future recruits. Soldiers who joined in 2022 were “not taken into account,” one soldier now stationed in the rear told me.
“I am already in my fifth year of service,” he said. “Now I sign up for two more years, while a new recruit will also serve only two. We are equal, but somehow we are not.”
The contract system also raised questions over which military service the state should give the highest rewards. While the assault infantry contract reflected a need to attract people into the army’s most dangerous roles, some soldiers argued the new structure incentivized risk more than effectiveness.
In a war increasingly shaped by drones, electronic warfare, and other high-skill disciplines, critics say Ukraine needs “more effective” soldiers as well as “more heroes.” Under the plans, UAV pilots would be paid much less than assault infantry, for example, even though their training is complex and their battlefield impact can be enormous.
A similar concern appeared in rear-area pay. Under the plan, the basic contract would start at 30,000 hryvnia per month, increased from 20,000 hryvnia, but many soldiers said it was still far too low given inflation, wartime prices, and the need to support families.
Many have parents, spouses or children depending on them, and are forbidden from taking other work, they are forced into the black economy to earn extra cash.
One soldier I spoke to, who is currently stationed in the rear, said many of his comrades work as taxi drivers at night, a practice so widespread that Fedorov mentioned it in an interview.
The issue is even more sensitive when it comes to wounded or medically limited personnel. Soldiers say any serious reform must include better support for those injured in service, especially when they are moved to lower-paid rear positions.
“One of my guys was injured and later transferred to the rear. His wife served too, but now they have twins,” a Ukrainian officer told me. “They have to survive on this ridiculous 30,000, with two babies and crazy inflation. It’s good that the boys and I help them financially from time to time, but what about others?”
Another major element of the reforms was the promise of temporary discharge after contract completion. This would start from a six-month base and increase depending on combat participation and previous years served.
While not full demobilization, it was a partial answer to the problem of open-ended service. Fedorov described the reform as only a first stage, with further changes planned in the fall, including clearer rules on the demobilization of those with long service. It is unclear if that will now happen.
Transfers were another vital part of the changes. The inability to move between units has long been a painful grievance in the army, especially for those stuck in unsuitable roles, under difficult commanders, or where their skills were poorly used.
Under the Fedorov reforms, a new mechanism using the Army+ app would allow eligible service members to request a transfer within the same corps structure once each year. The move, which was positively received, was intended to shift at least part of the process from informal negotiations and paper bureaucracy to a digital system.
One soldier told me a “digital army” could make procedures more transparent and harder to manipulate. “Before, everything was on paper,” he said. “And a logbook could be rewritten overnight.”
His response reflected the popularity of Fedorov’s desire to use audit, data, digital tools, and clearer procedures to reduce arbitrariness in the system.
The ministry also created a simplified return route for personnel listed as AWOL, replacing a process that could involve reserve battalions, long court procedures, and suspended pay.
The mechanism offered a 100-day window to return through Army+, with verification within seven days and the possibility of choosing from 55 top-rated units.
It suggested state recognition that soldiers going AWOL are not just a discipline issue, but a symptom of a personnel system that had lost people through exhaustion, poor placement, and lack of mobility.
Fedorov’s reforms were an attempt to create structure where soldiers and recruits have often seen uncertainty and threat, but predictability may not have been enough.
For many current soldiers, the deeper question was whether any new rules would recognize those who have already spent years fighting for Ukraine, and whether they are treated fairly. That question remains.
Sofia Slonovska is a CEPA Editorial Intern and a graduate of Bard College Berlin, where she studied politics, economics, and social thought. Ukrainian-born, her research interests include European security, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and transatlantic relations.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
In the late 1980s, Viktor Tsoi and KINO captured and advanced the spirit of perestroika and the hope of a new Russia emerging from the wreckage of the USSR.
While it was not an overtly political band, as the Russian music critic Artemy Troitskii contends, KINO’s lyrics, music, and style reflected individualism, freedom from state control, and shared globalism.
And the band was certainly anti-war, with many songs about the soldier experience in Afghanistan in their stadium-filling repertoire.
Many have asked what Tsoi, who died in 1990, would have said about Russia’s War on Ukraine. Other famous musicians of that era, including Boris Grebenshikov, Yuri Shevchuk, and Andrey Makarevich, as well as Alla Pugacheva, have all left Russia and spoken out against Vladimir Putin and his “special military operation.”
Given KINO’s enduring popularity and its songs demanding change and decrying the insanity and brutality of war, one could imagine the Kremlin wanting it to fade away too.
But its music not only lives on; the state is actively promoting it.
Pro-war correspondent Mariana Naumova has produced several videos on Tsoi, including a visit to his snowy gravesite, and the three surviving band members have reunited to play live shows across Russia, broadcast on national television. They perform with recordings of Tsoi’s voice dubbed in and a gigantic video screen showing the singer and his band’s videos.
On June 21, they performed at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, the site of one of their most memorable concerts, when they played a televised show in front of thousands of fans in 1990, just weeks before Tsoi’s death in a car crash.
Why is Putin’s regime actively encouraging Russians to love and embrace KINO as a national treasure, rather than banning it like other artists for its anti-war positions and lack of patriotism?
First, the band is being presented without reference to its politics. For example, at the Luzhniki concert, the video graphics accompanying the potentially charged topics of “War” and “Changes” were Tsoi-inspired artistic representations that appeared intentionally amorphous and disconnected from reality.
It seemed to be geared less at recruiting people for the war in Ukraine than at numbing them against its effects. The audience sang along and swayed with raised lighters without the energy or conviction of the 1980s concerts.
This was not a crowd that was going to head from the show straight to the barricades.
Second, the Kremlin is seeking to associate itself with the band’s popularity, especially among middle-aged professionals for whom KINO was a vital part of their coming of age.
The regime is playing not so much to Soviet nostalgia, but to youthful optimism and cultural pride in Russia. Tsoi and Kremlin propaganda chief Sergey Kirienko were born one month apart in 1962, and Kirienko will almost certainly have been a KINO fan in his earlier years, or at least will have positive memories of their music.
At the same time, Putin’s regime is mainly about control. With other late Perestroika cult bands such as Akvarium, Mashina Vremini, and DDT off-limits for political reasons, KINO’s popularity can be managed.
While the band once represented change and hope, today the regime allows KINO to play so society won’t demand change. And, with Tsoi long dead, there is no risk of him speaking out to contradict them.
Matt London was an exchange student in Moscow in 1989. Since then, he has worked for NGOs, the US Government, and private businesses connected to Russia and the Former Soviet Union. He is currently affiliated with Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
The European Union (EU) has approved one of its most strategically important energy infrastructure projects: the Black Sea Connectivity Submarine Electricity Cable. Yet while Brussels is offering €2.3bn ($2.6bn) for the program, neither the EU nor NATO has developed a security system capable of protecting it from the type of shadow war attacks Russia has launched elsewhere. The alliance needs to act, and swiftly.
The growing frequency of suspected sabotage incidents, from the Baltic and Black seas to the South China Sea, underscores that resilience in contested waters is no longer merely a critical infrastructure challenge but a strategic imperative. Diversifying energy sources and supply chains remains the most effective long-term strategy for Brussels to reduce dependence on Russia and limit its capacity for coercion. But diversification means little if the new infrastructure cannot be defended, which is precisely the test the Black Sea Submarine Cable now poses.
The bloc does recognize the project’s importance. This year, it designated the cable a Project of Mutual Interest (PMI), a status that unlocks access to EU funding and streamlined regulatory procedures.
The cable will carry renewable energy generated in Azerbaijan through Georgia and across the Black Sea via a fiber-optic submarine cable, and integrate into the EU’s electricity grid from Romania and Hungary.
The project’s strategic importance is threefold: it reduces the EU’s dependence on Russian energy, advances Europe’s green transition, and strengthens the bloc’s inter-regional connectivity from the Caspian Sea through the South Caucasus to southeastern Europe. But this ambition also carries a vulnerability.
Set to become operational from 2029, the cable — at 1,195 km or about 750 miles, and the longest cable of its kind ever built — will run close to the Russia-Ukraine theater of war across a seabed that Moscow likes to lay claim to. That routing all but guarantees Russia will have both the motive and the military capacity to sabotage it (Russia’s GUGI unit specializes in such tasks).
The EU’s Black Sea Strategy and its proposed Maritime Security Hub acknowledge the problem, but neither comes close to matching the defense capacity such an investment demands.
The result is a striking imbalance: Europe is investing billions in strategic Black Sea infrastructure while relying on a regional security architecture that remains insufficient to protect it. NATO should respond as it has with other regional threats by establishing a Sentry mission for the Black Sea. As with Baltic Sentry, established in 2025, and Arctic Sentry, which began this year, Black Sea Sentry would gather allied military contributions into a unified system of enhanced vigilance above and beneath the waves.
The aim must be to establish this permanent surveillance and protection mission before, not after, the first successful sabotage.
There are signs the alliance is inching in that direction. July’s NATO Summit in Ankara produced the now-familiar headlines about defense spending and Ukraine, but one of its less discussed elements may prove among the most consequential for the southeastern flank.
On the sidelines, the defense ministers of Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey signed an amendment expanding the mandate of their trilateral Mine Countermeasures Task Group (MCM Black Sea) to include the protection of critical underwater infrastructure. What began in January 2024 as a joint demining effort neutralizing more than 150 drifting sea mines along key commercial routes since its establishment is now, on paper at least, a standing regional tool for defense beneath the Black Sea.
Yet the mandate’s reach has limits, and one of them runs straight through Georgia. Because the cable crosses Georgian territory before entering the Black Sea, the country’s growing political distance from NATO introduces an additional strategic uncertainty. Georgia, despite being a Black Sea littoral state, was not invited to Ankara, a consequence of its democratic backsliding that leaves a gap in the very corridor the cable depends on.
The timing of MCM Black Sea’s mandate expansion was not accidental. Just a month before the summit, a naval drone exploded inside the Romanian port of Constanța, meters from an oil terminal, one of four such drones that detonated in or near Romanian waters that day. Kyiv acknowledged the drone was Ukrainian, thrown off course by Russian electronic warfare.
That detail should reassure no one. It shows how easily the war’s undertow can reach NATO shores, and how exposed the infrastructure there really is. The Baltic has already offered the playbook: dragged anchors, severed cables, plausible deniability. The Black Sea offers Russia the same opportunities.
The Baltic case, in fact, offers more than a warning — it offers a template. When cables between Finland and Estonia were cut, NATO answered within weeks, launching Baltic Sentry with frigates, patrol aircraft, and naval drones, backed by a dedicated maritime command in Rostock.
The Black Sea has received nothing comparable, even as the stakes grow. MCM Black Sea deserves the same level of allied attention, resources, and surveillance architecture as its Baltic counterpart. A sentry project before the first incident rather than after it.
Nino Lezhava is a research analyst based in Georgia and a Non-Resident Fellow for the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at CEPA, specializing in Euro-Atlantic relations, geopolitical competition, the wider Black Sea region, and the Caucasus.
Antonia-Laura Pup is a research assistant within the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and a member of the CEPA Black Sea Working Group. She previously served as a policy advisor to the President of the Defense Committee in the Romanian Parliament.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
The once far-fetched idea is being discussed not only in Chișinău and Bucharest, but also in Brussels, which says the two nations should decide their own fates. For Moscow, it represents a nightmare.
Moldova was part of Romania from 1918 until 1940, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union as part of Moscow’s pact with Nazi Germany. It declared independence when the USSR collapsed in 1991.
A nation of 2.3 million people, Moldova lies between Ukraine and Romania which is a member of both the European Union and NATO. Unification would require referendums in both countries and is complicated by frozen conflicts in the separatist republic of Transnistria and the autonomous region of Gagauzia, both of which have strong ties to Russia and oppose unification.
“Unification is being discussed now because of the [Ukraine] war and geopolitical realignment,” said Armand Gosu, associate professor at Bucharest University’s Faculty of Political Sciences. “The chances are low, but they do exist.”
Tensions have intensified since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Moscow has stepped up its information warfare since Moldova started accession negotiations with the EU in 2024. It opened its first negotiation chapter in June and hopes its entry will be fast-tracked by Brussels. About 80% of the population speaks Romanian, which the Soviets called Moldovan to discourage any idea of a common history with Romania.
While joining the EU is Plan A, some believe the country, which is one of the poorest in Europe, will continue to struggle as an independent state and needs to consider merging with Romania, which shares a common history and language.
“It is getting more and more difficult for a small country like Moldova to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country, and of course to resist Russia,” Moldovan President Maia Sandu said in January.
More than 850,000 citizens in Moldova, including Sandu, had been granted Romanian citizenship by 2024, according to official data quoted by Radio Chișinău.
Sandu, who says EU membership would guarantee the country’s future as a democracy, said she would vote yes in a hypothetical referendum to unite with Romania as an alternative to the EU. She is the first Moldovan president to publicly express this view.
Eugen Osmochescu, Moldova’s deputy prime minister, also suggested union with Romania as a backup plan if Moldova fails to join the EU in 2028. He warned that there needs to be swift and visible progress in accession talks, and any delays could strengthen Moscow’s efforts to undermine public support for European integration.
He also acknowledged Moldova’s vulnerability compared with Ukraine. The country lacks both a significant defense industry and the military capacity demonstrated by Kyiv. “We are not as resilient as Ukrainians,” he said.
Ileana Racheru, a political scientist in Bucharest, said unification depends on what happens in Ukraine and any peace settlement agreed there.
“In the worst-case scenario, in which Russia is given the south of Ukraine [and so borders Moldova], Moldova would have no chance as an independent state,” she said. “The authorities in Chișinău would probably have to decide whether they want to place their country under a Russian dictatorship or try to unite with Romania.”
Romanian President Nicușor Dan says his country is ready for unification with Moldova as long as a majority of Moldovan citizens support it, echoing a declaration by Romania’s parliament in 2018.
Moldova would automatically become a member of the EU and NATO if it joined Romania, much like East Germany after it united with the Federal Republic in 1990.
A May survey found 72% of Romanians favor reunification, while opinions across the border were more divided. A poll in March found 44% of Moldovans backed the move and 39% were opposed, marking a significant shift since 2015, when the split was 21% in favor and 53% against.
Support is even stronger among Moldova’s diaspora, which includes about a third of its citizens, many in the EU. Some 61% were in favor and 24% opposed.
“It’s no secret Bucharest is hatching plans to annex Moldova. This is nothing new to us; we talk about it all the time,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said after Romania’s Chamber of Deputies adopted a bill in June authorizing its government to begin unification talks with Chisinau.
In reality, there is little doubt about Russia’s aims. Its 2022 war plan was to drive through southern Ukraine and link up to Transnistria so that Moldova would face a Russian army on its doorstep. When that failed, the Kremlin launched well-funded efforts organized by its intelligence agencies to subvert and destabilize the country, including payments to buy the loyalty of people in Gagauzia.
Sandu’s priority is to fast-track Moldova’s accession to the EU by 2028, and the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the breakaway region of Transnistria “will not become an obstacle” in its path to membership.
Marta Kos, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, said Moldova was well ahead of other EU candidate countries that benefit from accession funds or Growth Plans and should open all negotiating chapters “as soon as possible.” The bloc is paying €1.9bn ($2.2bn) to assist the country’s growth from 2025-7.
“In recent years, I’ve seen a country that has defended itself from foreign meddling and hybrid attacks and has chosen the European path,” she told the European Parliament on July 8. “This sovereign choice deserves our full support.”
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Romania was the first country to recognize Moldova’s independence on the same day it was declared. Moldova’s first president, Mircea Snegur, spoke openly of a common identity between Moldovans and Romanians and appeared open to reunification.
Thirty-five years on, it may finally be possible.
Alison Mutler is a British journalist who has been working in Romania for almost 35 years. She was the Associated Press bureau chief for 25 years and was part of a team that covered the Romanian revolution for the British TV channel ITN. For the past five years, she has worked for the Romanian-English website Universul.net and has been its director for the past three years.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
For most of the full-scale war, Russia enjoyed a dangerous strategic asymmetry. It could destroy Ukraine’s power plants, refineries, heating systems, and civilian infrastructure, while much of Russia’s own war economy remained far behind the front line and largely out of Ukraine’s reach.
Not anymore.
Ukraine appears to have found one of the few pressure points capable of changing the Kremlin’s cost-benefit calculation: the oil industry. The purpose is not symbolic retaliation. It is to raise the economic, military, and political cost of continuing the war until Moscow understands that prolonging it may become more expensive than ending it.
This logic was clear from the beginning of the invasion. Ukraine had to convince Russia that the war would become unaffordable. Yet in 2022 and 2023, it lacked the long-range weapons to systematically strike the infrastructure that funds the Kremlin’s war machine.
Western allies, meanwhile, were reluctant to provide long-range weapons or allow their use against targets deep inside Russia, fearing escalation. In 2024, Washington urged Kyiv to halt strikes on energy infrastructure, warning that they could provoke retaliation and drive up global oil prices in an election year.
Ukraine therefore had to build much of this capability itself. Over the past year, it has made significant progress in developing mid- and long-range drones, while also demonstrating several domestically produced cruise missile capabilities. The results are now visible. The expanding strike system was first used to hit Russian military and energy infrastructure 400–600 km (250-370 miles) from the border. It is now reaching targets more than 2,500 km away.
The clearest example is the Omsk oil refinery, located roughly 2,700 km from Ukrainian-held territory. On July 6, drones struck the facility in one of the most ambitious attacks of the war. The target was not peripheral: Omsk is Russia’s largest refinery and one of the pillars of its domestic fuel market, responsible for roughly 12.5% of national gasoline output. Reuters reported that the plant halted operations after the attack, with key crude-processing units damaged and repairs expected to take months.
It’s not just about distance. The new drones are extremely accurate and are hitting key and hard-to-repair refinery facilities. The Omsk targets include crude distillation units (CDUs), which are the initial processing point. CDU-10 was damaged and caught fire; it processes 38% of the refinery’s production, and CDU-11 likewise. It accounts for another 37%.
This was a strategic milestone, and the message was unmistakable: even Russia’s most important energy assets deep in Siberia are no longer beyond Ukraine’s reach. Earlier Ukrainian attacks had shown that refineries in western and southern Russia were also vulnerable. Omsk proved something more consequential: Russia no longer has a safe rear, and distance is no longer protection.
This was not an isolated operation. Ukraine has turned refinery strikes into a systematic campaign against the core of Russia’s oil-processing network. Meduza reported that by the end of May, citing Reuters, every large refinery by processing volume in the European part of Russia has now been attacked at least once by Ukrainian drones.
The Moscow refinery is another important example. It was the largest fuel supplier to the capital region and therefore one of the most politically sensitive energy facilities in the country. The plant was struck three times in June, forced to halt operations, and was unlikely to resume production this year.
The cumulative effect is now visible. Ukraine’s General Staff has claimed that its strikes disabled more than 40% of Russia’s gasoline production capacity. Independent reporting confirms a large-scale disruption of gasoline supply in Russia, with long queues at filling stations across all its regions.
The Kremlin’s emergency measures show the scale of the problem. Russia has begun seaborne gasoline imports from India, and Moscow has also considered temporarily relaxing fuel-quality standards. On July 8, Russia banned diesel exports in an effort to stabilize domestic supply and gasoline exports have also been restricted.
This is a profound reversal given Russia is one of the world’s largest oil producers and exporters.
Ukraine’s refinery campaign is also reshaping Russia’s export flows. With damaged refineries unable to process normal volumes of crude, Moscow is being forced to push more unprocessed oil into global markets while exporting fewer refined products. Unrefined exports generate lower revenues.
The political context is shifting as well. In 2024, Washington worried that Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure could escalate the war or raise global oil prices. By July, the tone had changed. At the NATO summit in Ankara, President Donald Trump said Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian refineries were “an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that could help lead to an end” of the war.
That is an important signal. Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign should no longer be viewed primarily as an escalation problem. It should be understood as a means to war-shortening.
The Kremlin is unlikely to stop the war because it is asked politely. It may stop only when the cost of continuing becomes higher than the cost of ending it. Striking Russia’s oil industry moves the war closer to that point.
But Ukraine cannot exploit this opportunity alone. Partners should act on three priorities.
First, Ukraine urgently needs stronger air defenses. It says it can cope alone, except in anti-ballistic missile systems. Time is short because Russia is ahead on this metric and will use it ruthlessly, especially against power facilities during the winter.
Second, partners should help Ukraine raise domestic long-range strike production. The Omsk strike shows that Ukrainian systems can reach strategic targets once considered safe. More financing, components, intelligence support, and joint production are needed. Every additional Ukrainian long-range drone or missile forces Russia to disperse air defenses, protect assets thousands of kilometers from the front, shut down exposed facilities, and spend more resources defending the rear.
Third, the West should intensify pressure on Russia’s oil revenues. Ukraine is physically degrading Russia’s refining and export system. Sanctions should reinforce that pressure by targeting shipping, insurance, shadow-fleet logistics, port services, payments, and the supply chains needed to repair damaged refineries.
Ukraine has not found a magic key to peace. But it may have found something more realistic: a means of striking at the economic foundations of Russia’s war.
There is now a rare opportunity. Ukraine has shown that Russia’s oil system can be disrupted. Russia is visibly in trouble as a result. The West can help to raise the cost of the war for the Kremlin.
That may be the most credible path toward ending it.
Sergiy Makogon is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He is a seasoned executive and energy expert with over 20 years of expertise in the Ukrainian and Central and Eastern European (CEE) gas markets, as well as European security.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Ireland took over the rotating chair of Council, which houses member states’ governments, and with it digital policymaking at a moment when the bloc is debating a new Tech Sovereignty package that favors European suppliers and raises barriers to foreign imports. The proposed European regulations have set off alarm bells in Washington.
Few countries have more at stake. The US is Ireland’s biggest foreign investor, accounting for €800 billion, according to the Irish Central Statistics Office. The country is home to the European headquarters of many of America’s biggest companies, from tech stalwarts Alphabet and Apple to pharma giants Eli Lilly and Pfizer.
Ireland aims to avoid taking sides in digital disputes, determined to preserve a workable transatlantic tech framework. Between July and December, the country hopes to forge a European consensus negotiating position on the Chips Act 2.0, steer the contentious Digital Omnibus, and manage a Cloud and AI Development Act whose sovereignty clauses worry major American cloud providers operating in Europe.
The Chips Act 2.0 builds on its 2023 predecessor, which turned out to be wide of the mark in addressing Europe’s semiconductor vulnerabilities. Industry Associations and think tanks such as Bruegel criticized Chips Act 1.0 for its lack of focus and feasibility.
Instead of simply aiming to attract manufacturing by state subsidy, Chips Act 2.0 is intended to stimulate demand. The Act includes “Grand Challenges,” which are large-scale, mission driven industrial programs (rather than individual research projects) that are designed to bridge the EU’s persistent research-to-production gap.
The intention is to develop, integrate, and industrialize semiconductor technologies that are critical for Europe. Chips Act 2.0 has received more positive reception than Chips Act 1.0 did. The European Semiconductor Industry Association calls it “an important next step.” While “the Chips Act did not address all vulnerabilities,” the Global Electronics Association writes, “Chips Act 2.0 could move Europe closer to reclaiming a measure of ownership of its most critical systems.”
The Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), uncontroversially, aims to triple EU data center capacity within five to seven years by fast-tracking permitting processes and easing access to energy and financing. Yet the proposal also introduces a four-tier framework to assess and certify cloud providers handling sensitive public sector workloads, while ensuring that data remains secure and free from extraterritorial third-country laws. It requires public sector bodies and essential entities to prioritize European-based cloud and AI services.
Certain European governments have already asked for clarifications on how the proposed sovereignty framework interacts with existing artificial intelligence, data, and cybersecurity legislation. CADA would hand “recognition” of cloud and AI providers to the company’s European headquarters. Ireland, as European home to most American cloud providers, would play a central role in how sovereignty assessments would work in practice. Given the dossier’s sensitivity, Ireland’s goal is not to force a sprint, only to steer a constructive discussion.
Then there is the Digital Omnibus, a package that aims to simplify compliance with a wide variety of digital rules, from privacy to data sharing to cybersecurity. Ireland inherits the file, along with the political tensions that surround it. European Parliament rapporteur Aura Salla of Finland, who previously worked with Meta, has been blunt in her view that the US can no longer be considered a reliable partner. That is not an encouraging starting point for a dossier impacting how American firms operate in Europe.
The backdrop to these digital dossiers is an unstable transatlantic relationship. Although Europe swallowed an increase in US tariffs in the Turnberry trade deal, which entered into force on July 1, President Trump has threatened new 100% tariffs on countries levying digital services taxes. Hundreds of millions of euros in European fines on US tech companies add to his anger.
Brussels is determined to stand firm. The European Commission recently moved to designate two leading American cloud producers, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act. A final decision is expected within twelve months, but the direction of travel is clear.
The Commission has pushed back on the digital tax tariff threat, asserting the EU’s sovereign right to regulate. Ireland will have to hold that line while remaining the European country most exposed if Washington retaliates.
There is also ongoing friction over content moderation and online speech. The Trump administration has decried the Digital Services Act as “censorship,” insisting it unfairly targets US platforms. Ireland must navigate that debate carefully rather than let it become another front in an already crowded agenda.
There’s also pressure from Brussels. European parliamentarians Andreas Schwab and Pablo Arias Echeverria sent a letter to the European Commission accusing Dublin of “systemic failure to fully apply” EU privacy laws. A group of 60 academics penned another letter calling on Ireland to recuse itself from digital dossiers, because of its allegedly “questionable track record regarding the protection of EU digital rights and the EU’s fiscal base.” Politico reported on both letters.
The Irish government has pushed back, insisting that it will act as an honest broker — neutral between member states, not leaning on its US ties to shape outcomes. That is understandable; EU presidencies govern by consensus.
But honest brokering and passivity are not the same. Ireland’s relationships with US tech gives it a special responsibility to help navigate turbulent waters.
Lucinda Creighton is a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Digital Innovation Initiative at the Center for European Policy Analysis. She is also the Founder and CEO of Vulcan Consulting. Lucinda is a Barrister, qualified New York attorney, former Irish Minister for European Affairs, Deputy Foreign Minister, and Member of the Irish Parliament.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Tech 2030
A Roadmap for Europe-US Tech Cooperation
It is a time of huge strain on the Russian despotism. Drones strike oil refineries with near-clockwork regularity, fuel queues stretch for miles from filling stations, and the leader’s aura of invincibility is under question. So it might seem a curious time for Russia’s guard dogs to be dredging up old conspiracy theories about Osama bin Laden.
Or perhaps not. The security services, always prone to explaining difficulties and failures with reference to the evil intent of the West, are returning to the favored stories of old.
So it was that Nikolay Patrushev, one of Putin’s closest allies and a former FSB chief, claimed that Osama bin Laden, the infamous al-Qaeda leader, was a CIA asset until he began to operate free from its guiding hand.
According to Patrushev, this was the moment when the CIA decided to eliminate him. As evidence, Patrushev referred to a joint Russian-American operation to kill bin Laden, which was supposedly sabotaged by the Americans at the moment when the Russians figured out his whereabouts and told the CIA. “They were supposed to strike and eliminate him. That was the agreement,” he said. The CIA Director never fully explained why the agency failed to act, Patrushev said.
Whatever the exact nature of any FSB-CIA deal (and the Russians offered no detail on the when and where of the supposed arrangement), it was enough for Patrushev to advance his conspiracy theories.
The FSB began playing that game in January 2001, when Patrushev’s service accused the CIA of working with bin Laden. That month, the two national newspapers, Izvestia and Komsomolskaya Pravda, ran front-page stories about a former Russian army non-commissioned officer, Vasily Kalinkin. It sounded like a spin-off from the TV series Homeland, but was made 10 years earlier: the papers claimed that Kalinkin changed sides and was jointly trained in the arts of sabotage by the CIA and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
According to the FSB, Kalinkin deserted the Russian army to join the Chechen rebels in 1991, converted to Islam, moved to Afghanistan, and received terrorist training from an instructor named “Bill.” Upon graduation, Kalinkin, according to the FSB’s version, signed a cooperation agreement with US intelligence bearing an image of the Statue of Liberty in the upper left corner and, in the upper right, the words “Osama bin Laden Sabotage School.” He was then sent back to Russia as a sleeper agent. He spent six years in hiding until he gave himself up to the FSB.
That fantastical story left little doubt about what the FSB was trying to achieve: to blame the CIA for the upsurge of terrorism in Russia, playing on deep-rooted anti-Western feelings and paranoia.
Opportunistic as they were, this didn’t prevent the FSB from changing the narrative after the September 11 attacks. On September 17, just days after al-Qaeda struck the United States, the FSB announced that it had “discovered” a CD containing technical information about Boeing aircraft together with a pilot’s manual — a frankly unsophisticated attempt to tie the Chechens to the attacks.
This time, the objective was to fold the war in Chechnya into the newly declared global war on terror, making it harder for Washington to criticize the bloody and unscrupulous way in which the Russian army and the FSB were fighting the insurgency in the North Caucasus.
That narrative was further elevated in 2004, when Russia felt at its most vulnerable after a series of horrific terrorist attacks, including the hostage takings at a Moscow theater and a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. In October 2004, the FSB spokesman in the North Caucasus claimed that al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were the main drivers of the hostilities in Chechnya. The same month, Patrushev, then FSB director, described Chechnya as another front against al-Qaeda.
That approach was successful, to a degree. The following year, in October 2005, a group of Russian generals directly involved in conducting the “counterterrorist operation” in the North Caucasus went to the UK to talk to their British counterparts.
It was a very high-level visit: the Russian group, which included Mikhail Belousov, head of the Counter Terrorism and Political Extremism Directorate — the closest thing the FSB had at the time to a secret police — was granted meetings with senior officials at the Northern Ireland Office, the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and went to Belfast to study the delicate history of dialogue between British governments and Sinn Fein in the light of the upcoming elections in Chechnya.
The Russians were cordially invited to return the following year to take part in anti-terrorist exercises on British streets.
The following year — Putin gave Chechnya to the brutal psychopath Ramzan Kadyrov, and the FSB did come to Britain — but not in the manner foreseen by the cordial meetings of the previous year. Instead, they poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with polonium and left a radioactive trail across the British capital.
In 2011, when bin Laden was killed by US troops, the FSB found it suitable to change the narrative again. In May of that year, just a few weeks after US forces raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Channel One, Russia’s main television channel, aired a documentary implying that bin Laden was “a link in the chain of monstrous staging operations of the American intelligence services.”
Why make all this effort?
It should be understood that the claim that bin Laden was some sort of CIA asset is not just a conspiracy theory. It establishes a moral equivalence in brutality: it suggests that the 9/11 attacks were organized by the CIA, which, in turn, means that there is no difference between the methods used by American agencies and the services known for committing the most horrible crimes against their own population and anyone else who walks into their crosshairs.
That narrative, promoted by the FSB, did not change in the years to come, although Russian generals continued to be entertained in Western capitals, most spectacularly, in 2017 when the heads of all three major Russian intelligence agencies — the SVR, the foreign intelligence service; the FSB, the domestic security service; and the GRU, military intelligence — flew to Washington for high-level talks with their American counterparts.
And in the meantime, Western counterparts continued to share intelligence on terrorist threats with the FSB, as the Americans did when they warned Moscow about the impending terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in 2024. The warning was ignored, and the US was thanked by the FSB with allegations that the West was involved in the attack.
It is well understood that Western intelligence services have no choice but to work with the most horrible regimes — because national security demands it, or because the lives of civilians are at stake.
The problem is that while Western agencies make these decisions for practical reasons, Russia’s services use the cooperation to reinforce a carefully constructed narrative that essentially erases any moral distinction between Western intelligence services and the Soviet — and now Russian — security services.
This game is played in the open for everyone to see, and every difficult compromise made by a Western intelligence agency — including intelligence sharing with the FSB — is simply misused to reinforce the FSB’s point.
Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities. Their book , Our Dear Friends in Moscow, The Inside Story of a Broken Generation, was published in 2025.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
When I walk back from the supermarket to the apartment we rent in Zaporizhzhia, the city feels almost ordinary.
The apartment costs about €30 ($34) a month. It has peeling Soviet wallpaper layered over the decades, old wooden windows opening onto a sea of green trees, and furniture straight from the 1980s. My partner, a soldier, spends five days on the front line and five days here. I come whenever I can, making the seven-hour drive from Kyiv.
This time, I got the timing wrong. I wanted to surprise him, but arrived the day he left for the mission. Instead of seeing him, I spent five days alone, listening to explosions in the city, and hoping for his return.
As I walk through the market, I stop to read all the handwritten signs beside the vegetables. They don’t simply say tomatoes. They describe them as very sweet, perfect for salad, or especially delicious. Someone has taken the time to make buying vegetables feel joyful.
At the same time, Russian explosive drones hunt civilian cars nearby. Guided aerial bombs carrying huge explosive charges fall on the city streets. The River Dnipro glitters in the summer sun.
This is what prolonged war looks like. Beauty does not disappear. It simply exists beside terror.
Here in Zaporizhzhia, I got a tattoo that reads, “Love is worth it all.” The women at the tattoo studio were warm, funny, and endlessly patient. They talked about their children while air raid alerts echoed outside. Like so many Ukrainians, they had quietly adjusted to a reality that would once have seemed unimaginable.
What struck me most was not their courage but their perception of danger. They believed Kyiv, with its ballistic missile attacks, was far more dangerous than Zaporizhzhia. I believe exactly the opposite.
Neither of us is wrong. We are simply doing what human beings do to survive; comforting ourselves with small truths.
People cannot live every day believing they may die at any moment. To protect themselves, they convince themselves that somewhere else is worse. Parents need to believe their children are relatively safe. Otherwise, how would they get up every morning, send them to school, or let them play outside?
We don’t compete over whose city suffers more. We tell one another to hang on because surely the others have it worse.
The truth is simpler. None of us has enough protection.
Zaporizhzhia is different from Kyiv in one crucial way. Here, the air raid alert barely ends anymore. Now it just continues for the entire day. And then for several days. The warning becomes so constant that it no longer serves its purpose.
Shops no longer close during alerts because they would remain closed almost permanently.
Supermarkets continue operating.
People continue shopping.
Life continues.
The loudspeakers inside still repeat the same announcement: “Attention. Air raid alert. Please proceed to the nearest shelter. Do not panic.”
Do not panic.
Every few minutes.
Twenty-four hours a day.
Seven days a week.
Eventually, those words lose their meaning. They become part of the city’s background noise, like traffic or birdsong. And that may be one of Russia’s least visible victories.
Not because Ukrainians panic — but because we have become so good at not panicking that outsiders begin to mistake adaptation for safety.
Market functioning, children laughing, and conclude that life has adjusted. They see resilience. They often fail to see exhaustion.
One of my closest friends lives in Zaporizhzhia. She is a former army sniper and a single mother of four. She recently bought an old hotel and is slowly renovating it while trying to earn enough money to finish paying for it.
Sitting in her garden, watching her youngest children chase cats through the grass, she casually mentioned that we crossed a street when driving to her home only minutes before a guided bomb hit nearby.
I recognized something in her that I had once seen in myself. A few months before Russia’s full-scale invasion, I bought a tiny cabin near the Belarusian border. Looking back, I think it was my own way of saying: No. This isn’t really going to happen.
Perhaps renovating a hotel in a city under constant bombardment is another version of the same instinct. Not denial exactly, but faith. A stubborn insistence that the future still exists.
This is what prolonged war changes. Not only buildings. Not only infrastructure. It changes the baseline of what feels normal.
Tomorrow, my partner will come back from the front. I hope he will. And that will be enough to make me genuinely happy.
Not because life has become normal.
But because, after years of one endless air raid, happiness is no longer measured by peace.
It is measured by the brief moments when the people you love come home safe. From the military mission. From the market where they sell those sweetest tomatoes. From school.
Lera Burlakova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She is a Ukrainian journalist and former soldier who served as an infantrywoman from 2014-2017 after joining up following the Russian invasion of Crimea. Her war diary, Life P.S., received the UN Women in Arts award in 2021. She lives in Kyiv and works as the Campaigns and Media Coordinator for the new Amnesty International Ukraine team.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Ukraine has been waging a global campaign against Russian interests. Cheap, portable drones are increasingly expanding what’s possible against a wide range of targets, including Russian merchant vessels and foreign-based mercenaries.
They have also allowed Ukraine to strike key targets deep inside Russia without deploying conventional military forces, as with Operation Spiderweb last year. This broader Ukrainian asymmetric strategy has been in place since 2023.
Cheap drones can be launched from a wide range of seemingly innocuous places. Spiderweb used civilian trucks, but alternatives include cargo ships that could be used to launch drones, or even low-cost missiles, greatly expanding the range of potential threats that Russia must guard against.
Unable to match Russia’s conventional resources, Ukraine has increasingly sought to disrupt Russian interests wherever in the world Moscow projects influence. Whether targeting the financial networks that help sustain Russia’s war effort, disrupting Wagner and later Africa Corps operations, or threatening military assets deep inside Russia, Kyiv has steadily expanded the geographic scope of the conflict.
Cristian Terheș, a Romanian Member of the European Parliament, argues such operations are consistent with Ukraine’s right to self-defense. “Russia is bombing Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on a daily basis,” he said in an interview. “It is expected that Ukraine will respond by undermining that war effort in accordance with its right to self-defense under international law.” Russia, meanwhile, has called Ukrainian attacks on shipping illegal, while failing to acknowledge that it has been firing on merchant vessels since 2022.
Many of these attacks by both sides have occurred in the Black Sea, but Ukraine’s campaign ranges far and wide. In late 2023, Ukrainian military intelligence operators were reported to be operating in Sudan, where they supported government forces with drone operations against Wagner personnel. Wagner’s presence there helped Moscow exploit Sudanese gold to finance its war and blunt the impact of Western sanctions.
Ukraine’s campaign also extended to West Africa. Reports indicated Ukrainian intelligence supported Malian rebels with drone training and intelligence for use against Wagner convoys. More than 80 Russians were said to have died in a July 2024 attack that Ukraine said involved its forces. In Syria, Ukrainian operatives reportedly shared drones with the rebels.
At sea, Kyiv attacked the tanker shadow fleet vessel Qendil in the Mediterranean in December. A few weeks earlier, the Russian-linked tanker Mersin was damaged by a series of external explosions off the coast of Senegal. According to Le Monde, investigators considered a Ukrainian operation among the possible explanations.
In April, the Associated Press, citing Libyan officials, reported that Ukrainian drone specialists operating from western Libya had launched what Russia claimed was a sea-drone attack against the LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz in the Mediterranean, further extending Kyiv’s campaign to neutralize the shadow fleet, which is helping finance Moscow’s war.
“Ukraine has acquired capabilities that could support drone operations beyond its territory, but their use depends on the availability of launch infrastructure and operational priorities,” said Dmytro Zhmailo, deputy head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, an independent analytical organization, in an interview.
In the Black Sea, Ukraine has regularly struck Russian shadow fleet tankers. But now, it is developing sea drones designed to intercept and seize sanctioned vessels instead of destroying them. They can travel hundreds of miles, remain dormant until activated, launch first-person-view (FPV) drones inland, and even target Russian fighter jets. Technical problems persist, of course — in June, Ukraine apologized to Greece after a wayward explosives-filled sea drone was found near the Ionian island of Lefkada.
Containerized launch systems concealed aboard commercial ships or trucks, and which can be controlled from far away, offer an opportunity to strike an enemy in ways that were once unthinkable. Such operations are likely to become much more common.
“Ukraine’s actions against Russian interests abroad – whether shipping or mercenary networks – raise costs and risks for Moscow. That alone has value,” Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of US Army Europe, told this author.
Others believe Ukraine should expand the model. Xen, a former US Special Forces operator who trained Ukrainian special forces, argues Kyiv has already demonstrated it can strike Russian interests abroad without provoking major escalation, as with the strikes on shadow fleet tankers. However, he also warns that the global deployment of drones isn’t limited to the Ukrainians.
“Cheap, mass-produced autonomous drones pose a strategic threat to carrier strike groups and even the US homeland,” Xen said in an interview. “With autonomy increasingly viable at price points around $2,000 per drone, offense is scaling faster than countermeasures.”
Bryan Pickens, a former US Army Green Beret who fought in Ukraine, similarly told this author Ukraine should work with NATO partners to contest Russian and Chinese influence in regions such as Africa and Latin America.
“Whether Ukraine can conduct such operations abroad depends less on technology than on strategic priorities and available resources,” Zhmailo said. The lack of political willpower in the West becomes the primary blocker, not the technology.
“The growing emphasis on technology allows Ukraine to extend its operational footprint without proportionally increasing manpower,” said Ed Bogan, a former CIA officer, said in an interview. “As technology becomes more effective, personnel can be allocated elsewhere.”
In August 2025, a Hudson Institute report by Luke Coffey and Can Kasapoğlu argued Ukrainian planners were likely exploring ways to containerize sea drones aboard commercial ships, enabling covert attacks against Russian naval facilities as far away as Russia’s Pacific coast.
Projecting military power overseas historically required significant infrastructure. Now, Ukraine is demonstrating that small intelligence teams armed with inexpensive commercial drones can increasingly produce strategic effects once reserved for major military powers.
David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist who has been covering Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine since 2022, and is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.