May 21, 2026
DIANE FRANCIS
Vladimir Putin couldn’t even stage a full Victory Day parade in Moscow, his banks teeter, and his military is being slaughtered in a kill zone created by Ukrainian technology that is patrolled by drones. China refuses to build a giant natural gas pipeline from Russia, but lends it money to continue a war it cannot win, and which can only be repaid by ceding a gigantic part of China that is currently Russia’s. Trump’s “deal-plomacy” doesn’t work, and he’s now distracted by his war in Iran. Europe is a committee, not a country, that bickers and dithers as Ukrainians die. Thus, Ukrainians have taken control over their fate, overcoming Russia’s manpower advantage with sheer brainpower. They have reinvented war and built Europe’s largest military-industrial complex that does business all over the world. Denied permission to use long-range missiles by squeamish “allies”, Kyiv now makes its own and, in 2025 and 2026, has taken the war to Russia itself. Said one official: “Once we get the full capacity [of weaponry], we won’t have to listen to Trump or anybody else.”
Who can blame Ukraine for wanting full strategic independence? After all, it’s smarter than all of its allies or enemies; it has stared down Russia and will defend Europe for some time to come. Europeans pay for Ukraine’s American-made weapons, but the continent has yet to militarize itself. NATO is a dream, not an aligned force to be counted on, and America aims to pull out of Europe altogether. On top of it all, Kyiv has had to suffer Europe’s timidity and Trump’s stupidity: He no sooner took over the White House than he inaccurately concluded that Russia could not be beaten and that Ukraine “had no cards”. He then tried to bully Kyiv and negotiate an end to the war, but he got distracted when Putin dangled $ 14 trillion in business opportunities that didn’t even exist. (This week, China’s Xi Jinping finally tipped off Trump that “Putin might regret invading Ukraine.”)
In late February, American-backed peace talks to end the fighting in Ukraine were completely halted when the first bombs fell on Tehran. Once that war started, U.S. negotiators had “no time for Ukraine,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Worse, an American decision to suspend sanctions on some Russian oil in the hopes of lowering oil prices for American consumers has given the Kremlin “a sense of impunity,” he protested. Further, the Trump administration, in pushing Ukraine to trade territory for peace, “still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side” than on Russia, added the Ukrainian leader. This is why Ukraine has moved on and built a military that is preparing for a longer war with Russia, with or without American assistance.
Ukrainians had to get out from under Washington and Europe’s “no long-range weapons against Russia” vetoes. Now its factories produce long-range drones and missiles, and soon powerful ballistic missiles will roll off its assembly lines. By so doing, its military has turned Russia into a sitting duck. Putin’s troops are bogged down digitally, their homeland is being bombed, and dozens of Ukrainian special forces teams wreak havoc inside Russia, identifying targets, blowing
up things, or assassinating Russian officers. Now, Ukraine’s aerial attacks erode public morale in Russia and destroy its air defenses and infrastructure. Not surprisingly, these attacks have bolstered Ukrainian resolve and strength.
Its military is uniquely cunning and creative. In June, Ukraine’s finest hour was “Operation Spiderweb”. Operatives hid 117 powerful drones inside containers that were transported by trucks thousands of miles to Russian bases. Lids were opened remotely and simultaneously, releasing swarms of drones that targeted critical military aircraft deep inside the country, a fleet worth an estimated $7 billion. The assault crippled Russia’s Air Force. It was a brilliant military-technological-psychological coup. It was David slaying Goliath because David was smarter.
In March, Ukraine began outpacing Russia in drone attacks, 7,300 or more a month. Drones spearhead their swarms, drawing and exhausting air defense ammunition to pave the way for powerful missiles. Unlike Russia, Ukraine attacks industrial or energy facilities, not civilians. Its most recent campaign has forced nearly 40% of Russia’s primary oil refining capacity offline and halted at least 40% of its crude oil export capacity. Russia’s energy and military-industrial sectors have also been degraded, cutting Russia’s economic lifeline, reducing refining capacity, halting critical component production, and forcing Moscow to restrict fuel exports.
Unfortunately, Trump’s Strait of Hormuz blunder has impeded the Iran war, as well as the one in Ukraine. He diverted some weapons meant for Ukraine, but worse, a major strategy lapse by the Pentagon created the global oil price crisis. To try to lower prices, Trump issued temporary, 30-day “waivers” on some Russian oil, which has indirectly hurt Ukraine because it provides Putin’s regime with needed income. Also damaging is the fact that Washington remains preoccupied with negotiating a ceasefire with Iran rather than with stopping the slaughter between Russia and Ukraine.
The Ukrainian-Russian ground war is a stalemate. Each nation has one million soldiers, and Ukraine must mobilize another 100,000 ahead of an anticipated Moscow “summer offensive”. However, Kyiv has just revealed another tech advance — its first glide bomb, which is a primitive yet highly destructive weapon widely used against front-line areas. “This is not a copy of Western or Soviet solutions, but an original development by Ukrainian engineers designed to effectively strike fortifications, command posts, and other enemy targets dozens of kilometers behind the front line after launch,” announced Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov on May 18.
To date, human costs on both sides are staggering. Western intelligence estimates up to 480,500 Russian troops have been killed, and up to 140,000 Ukrainians. But Ukraine’s high morale and technological superiority have saved the day. Further, it’s also a good bet that Ukraine has already developed weapons of mass destruction or is close to building them. There’s no evidence of that as yet, and this would be top secret, but it’s only logical that the smartest country in the world, whose allies forced it to give up its nukes in 1991 and which is at war with an evil nuclear power, would have that up its sleeve. Besides, lest anyone forget, Ukraine was not only the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union, but it was also where its “Manhattan Project” took place.
Ukrainian scientists, engineers, and facilities were vital to the post-war development of Soviet atomic and thermonuclear bombs.
With the war still raging, it is only fitting that this year’s Vyshyvanka Day marks a national turning point and, hopefully, the beginning of the end of Putin’s genocidal war.