This week, battles intensified along the front lines. Russia stepped up it drone and missile attacks as Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of missiles for the Patriot air defense systems, according to President Zelenskyi’s statement. Russia breached an Easter ceasefire more than 10,000 times, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Monday. It further increased the intensity of attacks since then.
A Russian missile strike on the city of Dnipro on Tuesday killed five people and injured 25 others. Drone attacks on Kherson on Tuesday injured five people, of whom four were hospital workers. Russia dropped six glide bombs on the Pechenihy dam in Kharkiv region that same day.
A deficit of missiles for the Patriot systems “could not get any worse,” Zelenskyi told German public broadcaster ZDF on Tuesday. Russia’s major drone and missile strikes on Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipro overnight on Thursday killed at least 18 people and wounded dozens of others.
Viktor Orbán’s election defeat opened a possibility for a change in Ukraine-Hungary relations. Commenting on the election results in Hungary, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Andriy Sybiha said the two countries “deserve to be good neighbors.” The Kremlin is downplaying Orbán’s election defeat to project confidence that Ukraine will still face pressure, the Institute for the Study of War said.
The EU is hoping to unblock its 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine. It plans to send the first tranche under the loan to supply Ukraine with domestic drones. The UK provided 120,000 drones to Ukraine in the largest delivery of its kind.
Russia’s offensive is on decline, 2026 could become war’s turning point, Welt says.
A Russian spring offensive is on the decline with the declared goals not being achieved, BBC Ukraine said Thursday, citing a Welt article. In parallel, Ukraine is building up its own defensive capabilities, including drone production in the first place.
This contrast creates momentum. A turning point in Russia’s war against Ukraine does not look distant anymore. Instead, it begins to look much like a real scenario that could happen sometime soon, maybe even this year, Welt said.
