Daily review

Russia preached a 9 May ceasefire and ran 1,820 strikes anyway, killing a woman in a Kharkiv kindergarten. Switzerland's annual intelligence assessment confirmed what the strikes already said—Russia is escalating its long war against the West. Ukraine's Flamingo missile hit the Russian plant making Shahed antennas, the US cleared JDAM-ER kits for Kyiv, and Hungary handed back the Oshchadbank cash and gold its services grabbed in March.

Guided bombs kill 12 in Zaporizhzhia as Russia promotes a ceasefire it won't observe.

Ukrainian drones reached a Su-57 stealth fighter base near the Urals, a Perm refinery, and Buk-M3 air defenses in occupied Donetsk overnight, while a daytime Russian drone swarm hit Ternopil, Rivne, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, and Odesa, knocking Ternopil offline and injuring 10.

The Kyiv Security Forum achieved consensus that Russia's threat to Europe is existential but stopped short of charting a path to defeating Moscow.

Zelenskyy unveiled a "Drone Deals" export framework as Ukrainian strikes tore through Russian missile bunkers in Crimea and reignited the Tuapse refinery — the same day the FT reported the US ambassador in Kyiv is quitting.

Ukraine's new B-2 drone, whose specifications remain classified, has already begun punching holes in Russian air defenses up to 200 kilometers from the front.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu came to Kyiv on the 40th anniversary of Chornobyl and said Ukraine is the reason Russian forces are not on her country's border. The same day, Prime Minister Shmyhal disclosed that Russia has struck Ukraine's nuclear-linked energy infrastructure 155 times, and Kyiv opened a fund to raise over €500 million to repair the Chornobyl shelter damaged by a Russian drone last year. Overnight, Ukrainian forces hit three Russian warships in Sevastopol and a major refinery in Yaroslavl.

Syrskyi says Ukrainian drones are killing Russian troops faster than Moscow can replace them — for four months running. At home, Brave1 Market's points-for-kills system has put 181,000 items in soldiers' hands this year.

Brussels cleared a €90 billion loan for Ukraine and adopted its 20th sanctions package against Russia on 23 April, with the first tranche expected in May or June for weapons, budget, and energy defense. The new measures blacklist 20 Russian banks, 46 shadow fleet tankers, and crypto platforms used to circumvent oil-price caps.

Meanwhile, Hungary prepares to lift veto on Ukraine's aid.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine must end its dependence on Western air defense by scaling domestic missile and system production, with partners on board. The US warned NATO's eastern flank of delayed weapons shipments as the Iran war drains European stockpiles. A private-sector group in Kharkiv Oblast downed its first jet Shahed, Russia's 300+ km/h drone.

Meanwhile, Austria joins aggression tribunal for Russia.

Ukraine's defense transformation is no longer a secret.

Viktor Orbán's 16-year grip on Hungary ended in a democratic landslide on Sunday, as Peter Magyar's Tisza party swept to a two-thirds supermajority.

Ahead of Easter, 182 Ukrainians come home from the Russian captivity.

Russia announced a unilateral Easter ceasefire days after dismissing an identical offer from Kyiv, repeating a pattern from 2025 when Moscow violated the same kind of truce more than 2,000 times. Zelenskyy warned that withdrawing from Donbas would open an unobstructed Russian route to Kharkiv and Dnipro, with replacement fortifications taking up to 18 months to construct. Ukraine struck two Russian oil platforms in the Caspian Sea, nearly 1,000 km from the front, as Russia's envoy arrived in Washington hours before a 30-day US oil sanctions waiver expires.

Russia is racing to field 165,000 drone troops by year's end, Ukraine's commander-in-chief said, as Ukrainian forces struck the Krymskaya oil station, destroyed a ninth Tor-M1 in nine days, and Zelenskyy accused Washington of ignoring proof that Moscow passed US base coordinates to Iran.