From a secret Ukrainian waterfront location, I follow my trainer’s directions on how to steer a kamikaze sea drone, this time not armed with explosives, from a gamer’s console toward an imagined target at sufficient speed to lift the boat’s nose above the waves. The technology is so advanced and the payload so devastating that Western partners are beating a path to Ukraine to witness and invest in the future of modern warfare. Ukrainian sources say that the Trump administration is in the early stages of negotiating what could amount to a fifty-billion-dollar, five-year deal in which the two sides would jointly produce ten million drones a year—doubling Ukraine’s forecasted output for 2026. Welcome to the front lines of freedom, well into the fourth year of Russia’s criminal, unprovoked, and now-stalemated war—the deadliest and most consequential European conflict since World War II. With Ukraine’s airports still closed, those heading to the country must undertake a minimum fourteen-hour train or car ride from Poland to Kyiv. My trip to the Ukrainian capital this month began with a visit to our hotel’s bomb shelter, three floors below the lobby, at check-in. An average of two air-raid alarms a night followed, easily heard without even downloading the ear-piercing app that sends out alerts. Amid these wartime realities, ample doses of bravery, ingenuity, resilience, and national pride have kept Ukrainians’ hope alive—the hope to survive and eventually thrive as a sovereign, independent, secure, and democratic state, anchored in the European Union (EU) and someday also in NATO. This powerful hope, along with shifts in battlefield dynamics and US and European support for Ukraine, is opening previously unthinkable paths toward ending the war.
Dispatch from Ukraine: The path to a durable peace is emerging – Atlantic Council
