Guillaume Ptak

Cutting-edge drone, anti-air expertise has world focused on Ukraine’s battlefield innovations

At the Lviv Arena stadium last month, the buzz of drones competed with the din of investor chatter.

October 6, 2025

Kremlin’s shadow war: Assassinations and sabotage beyond the front lines

The daylight, sidewalk assassination of a former speaker of Ukraine's parliament on Aug. 30 sent shockwaves through a nation already hardened by three years of war. The shooting on a shady street in the quiet western city of Lviv reminded the country that even far from the front, no one is truly safe.

October 1, 2025

Inside Ukraine’s drone battle: Exclusive video from besieged Kostiantynivka’s front lines

In Eastern Ukraine, one town stands between Russia and the Donbas heartland.

September 10, 2025

Zelenskyy’s drone campaign proves to be winning hand; strikes hit Russia where it hurts

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tightly locked in war with Russia, may have found the "card" President Trump once insisted he lacked.

August 27, 2025

Ukraine watches Washington for concrete security pledges as fears of concessions linger

Ukrainians are feeling more optimistic after European leaders rallied to Washington this week to join President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, easing the fear and disappointment stoked by last week's unexpectedly chummy summit between U.S. President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

August 20, 2025

War-weary Ukraine skeptical of summit as Russia advances on battlefield, spreads chaos in Europe

Russia's battlefield breakthrough in Ukraine this week and the Kremlin's relentless sabotage campaign across the rest of Europe are ratcheting up the already high stakes for President Trump ahead of Friday's summit -- and worrying already pessimistic Ukrainians.

August 14, 2025

Zelenskyy looks abroad for soldier pay; military low on recruits, options without cash incentives

The Ukrainian army, which swelled to 1 million soldiers at the beginning of Russia's 2022 invasion, is now struggling to replenish its ranks. Enlistments have declined sharply, forcing Kyiv to rely increasingly on mandatory mobilization.

August 4, 2025

Zelenskyy faces backlash as Ukrainians protest new anti-corruption law

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been taking potshots from Russia's Vladimir Putin for years, but this week the Ukrainian president came under friendly fire, as thousands of protesters took to the streets of Kyiv and other cities to oppose a sweeping new anti-corruption law.

July 23, 2025

Russia’s escalating aerial assault threatens to overwhelm Ukraine defenses

As the now-familiar wailing of air-raid sirens echoed across Ukraine on Sunday night, civilians across the country again sought refuge in metro stations, underground shelters and dimly lit basements, bracing for yet another massive Russian aerial assault.

July 21, 2025

Out of sight but still at war: Ukraine war sidelined as Middle East developments take center-stage

For many Ukrainians, the deadliest war on European soil since World War II feels like it's becoming a footnote to the global news cycle, fueling fears that Western attention is increasingly focused elsewhere as Russia has ramped up its attacks on the country.

June 26, 2025

Beijing’s new frontier: China stakes a claim in the Caribbean

From the Bahamas to Barbados, China's footprint is expanding through infrastructure, trade and diplomatic engagement.

May 29, 2025

In Ukraine, hopes dim for a fair ceasefire deal with Russia

The Trump administration is optimistic it can secure a fair peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. In Ukraine, there is a much more cautious, perhaps even pessimistic view.

April 16, 2025

Ukrainians shocked, angered by White House showdown

Ukrainians reacted with a mix of shock, anger and unease after Friday's diplomatic row at the White House, with both President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump coming in for criticism over a clash that could have a very direct impact on the country's future.

March 2, 2025

Buffeted in Washington, Zelenskyy gets a boost back home

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy faces significant risks and an uncertain reception when he meets with President Trump on Friday to discuss the war with Russia and Mr. Trump's sharp diplomatic pivot since taking office.

February 27, 2025

Hope and fear mingle as Ukrainians await first moves by Trump in war

It's hard to disrupt a stalemated war that will pass the three-year mark later this month, but the shift in power in Washington has managed to do just that.

February 3, 2025

On the front line, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians fiercely resist a costly peace deal

While polls show that a growing percentage of Ukraine's war-weary population is ready to cede territory to Moscow to secure a peace deal, many soldiers and civilians in the country's eastern Kharkiv region, the theater for some of the bloodiest battles of the war, stoutly oppose the idea.

December 29, 2024

Ukraine, Russia eye window of opportunity as they await return of Trump

No audience outside the Beltway may be more hungry for details of the looming transition of power in Washington than Ukraine, whose very existence may hang on decisions to be made by President-elect Donald Trump and the security and foreign policy team he is assembling.

December 5, 2024

The enemy within: Ukraine’s security forces battle Russian allies close to home

As Russia's remorseless offensive keeps gaining ground in the east, Ukraine's besieged security service is working overtime to catch the enemy from within -- a network of Russian saboteurs, collaborators and secret sympathizers with deep roots throughout the large part of the country still controlled by Kyiv.

November 22, 2024

Beleaguered Ukrainians deplore unpalatable choices as U.S. votes

Americans who are unhappy with their choices in the presidential election should spend some time in Ukraine. The anxious nation doesn't get to choose between a continuation of the Biden-Harris administration, which has been a source of mounting frustration, and a Trump administration, which promises perhaps more ominous policy shifts.

November 4, 2024

Ukrainian civilians face searing decisions as Russians advance in east

On a grey Tuesday morning in mid-October, a beaten-up Lada comes sputtering around the corner of a destroyed country house in the village of Hryshyne, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk oblast, stopping in front of what's left of the town's center: A closed-down administrative building with its facade shredded by shrapnel, a few red-brick "Stalinka" housing units damaged by shelling, and a small grocery store with its windows boarded up.

October 29, 2024