This week, fighting continued to rage along the front lines. Ukraine’s growingly successful strikes on targets deep into Russia were gaining traction.
Russia continues to plan offensive campaigns. Yet it is losing 2.1 times more troops per square kilometer of gained land than last spring, advisor to Ukraine’s Defense Minister on scaling up the use of drones on the front, Serhiy Sternenko said last week. Ukraine ranks as the world’s seventh largest defense spender in 2025, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released on Monday. The country’s estimated military spending was at its highest ever level last year, representing 40 per cent of its GDP.
Throughout the week, Ukraine carried out a number of strikes at targets deep inside Russia. On Tuesday, Ukraine struck the Tuapse oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region for the third time in a month. An overnight attack that same day set ablaze a Russian military base in occupied Crimea, hosting Iskander missile systems. Ukrainian drones struck the Perm Linear Production Dispatch Station in Russia, located more than 1,500 km from the border with Ukraine, Ukraine’s Security Service said Wednesday. The Ukrainian Navy struck the sanctioned Marquise oil tanker 210 kilometers east of Tuapse on Wednesday, using two one-way unmanned surface vehicles.
Ukraine and Norway will jointly manufacture middle-range strike drones for the Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine is preparing to export domestically made weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi announced on Tuesday.
Ukrainians’ trust in the U.S. and European security guarantees in case of a new Russian attack is on decline, a poll found.
Majority of Ukrainians continue to reject ceding all of Donetsk region to Russia in exchange for security guarantees, poll finds.
A majority of Ukrainians (57 per cent) firmly reject ceding all of Donetsk region to Russia in exchange for U.S. and European security guarantees, a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology between April 20 and April 27 found. Seven per cent say they would easily agree to the arrangement, while 29 per cent would accept it as a difficult compromise. Seven per cent more were undecided. The shares remain largely unchanged throughout the year, the pollster said.
The survey was conducted through computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI), using a random sample of cell phone numbers. The total sample of the poll consists of 1,005 Ukrainians ages 18 and older who live in government-controlled Ukrainian territory.
