Ukraine

Ukraine has asked Russia if they stop for Christmas like in the First World War. The answer could not have been more Russian

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The inevitable reference when talking about a Christmas break in the middle of a conflict is the spontaneous truce December 1914in the first months of the First World War. On several sectors of the Western Front, British and German soldiers left the trenches, exchanged cigarettes, sang Christmas carols and even played football in no man’s land. Ukraine has remembered it, but it is going to be complicated. The first time. On that occasion of the First World War, the truce was not ordered by the commanders nor was it part of a political negotiation: came from belowof human exhaustion in the face of a war that had not yet shown all its industrial brutality. Precisely for this reason it was never repeated. The high command considered it dangerous, subversive and incompatible with a modern total war. Since then, Christmas has been used many times as a rhetorical symbol of peace, but almost never as an actual interruption of fighting. The Ukrainian proposal. In this historical context full of symbolism, Ukraine has raised the possibility of a ceasefire during Christmas, an idea carefully formulated so as not to appear as a disguised surrender. Zelensky has spoken of a specific pauseespecially linked to attacks against energy infrastructure, at a critical time of winter and with the civilian population as the main collateral victim. At the same time, kyiv is preparing a new package of peace proposals backed by European partners and channeled through the United States, with the expectation that Washington will offer top-level security guarantees if Moscow rejects the plan. Zelensky, however, has shown caution and has lowered any expectations of a quick deal, publicly assuming that Russia may choose to continue the war and that, in that case, Ukraine will ask for more sanctions and more weapons. Officers and men of the 26th Division Ammunition Train playing football at Salonica, Greece, on Christmas Day 1915 The Russian response. The Kremlin’s reaction to the “Christmas break” has been immediate and bluntalmost ritual in its formulation. Dmitri Peskov has discarded any temporary ceasefire, including a Christmas truce, with an argument that Moscow has been repeating for months: a pause would only serve for Ukraine to regroup, rearm and prolong the conflict. In official Russian language, the word “truce” is presented like a trapwhile the word “peace” is reserved for a scenario in which Russia has achieved all your strategic objectives. According to Peskov, Moscow is not ready to replace a comprehensive negotiation (in their own terms) for “momentary and non-viable” solutions. The logic is clear and brutal: either the Russian framework of political and territorial victory is accepted, or the war continues without sentimental interruptions. Territory, guarantees and red lines. Behind the exchange of statements lies the real core of the conflict. Russia demands that Ukraine rspread to wide areas of its territory, accept permanent limits on its armed forces and rule out any future accession to NATO. Ukraine, for its part, rejects hand over the Donbaseven under ambiguous formulas such as a supposed demilitarized “free economic zone,” and remembers that it was already betrayed once when it renounced its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees that did not prevent the invasion. Polls show that a clear majority of Ukrainian society opposes withdrawing from the east and is willing to continue fighting, a domestic factor that greatly limits Zelensky’s political margin even as international pressure increases. Christmas without miracles. The proposal for a Christmas break actually exposes the abysmal distance between the war that we evoke in historical memory and the war that is being fought today. In 1914an improvised truce was possible because the soldiers still saw each other as human beings confronted by accident. In 2025, the war in Ukraine is a conflict of objectives strategic, existential red lines and cold calculation of power, where each day of pause is measured in kilometers of front, ammunition reserves and operational advantages. The Russian response dry and distrustfulis not only “very Russian”: it is confirmation that, in this war, Christmas has no capacity to suspend the logic of the conflict. Unlike more than a century agothere is no room for carols between the trenches, only for official statements that remind that, for Moscow, peace does not begin with a truce, but with the political defeat of the adversary. Image | RawPixel, WikiCommons, Ariel Varges In Xataka | 24 hours later, satellite images leave no doubt: a Ukrainian underwater drone has changed the future of wars In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right

Europe has finally approved how to help Ukraine. The great paradox is that the most unexpected vote has been imposed: that of Russia

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Europe has finally closed an agreement to guarantee financing for Ukraine for the next two years through a loan of 90,000 million of euros backed by the common budget of the Union, a decision taken after more than 16 hours of negotiations in Brussels and under explicit pressure to avoid a financial collapse of kyiv at the beginning of 2026. In the background, a crystal clear idea: Russia has imposed its “vote”. The lifeguard and a pulse. The pact comes at a particularly delicate moment, with the United States and Russia advancing conversations parallels about a possible end to the war and with Trump publicly urging Ukraine to accept a quick agreement. For European leaders, the loan is not just an economic instrument, but a way to reaffirm that the EU wants and needs to have its own voice in any outcome of the most serious conflict experienced on the continent in the last eight decades. The political message is clear: Europe cannot stand by while others decide the future of Ukraine and, by extension, its own security. The failure of the ideal plan. For months, Brussels’ preferred option was to use the fences of 210,000 million euros in Russian sovereign assets frozen in Europe as collateral for a large “reparations” loan for Ukraine, a formula that made it possible to finance the war effort and the functioning of the Ukrainian state without directly resorting to European taxpayers’ money. The idea was powerful, both economically as symbolically: that Russia would pay, at least indirectly, for the destruction caused by its invasion. However, the plan fell apart at the last moment, a victim of the legal, financial and political risks involved in touching that capital, above all and as we told yesterdayfor a handful of countries. Russia, in fact, has already initiated legal action denouncing an illegal confiscation, and fear of economic or judicial reprisals grew as the decisive summit approached. Bucha and the passing of the war A pragmatic agreement. Faced with the impossibility of closing ranks around the use of frozen assets, France and Italy led a more pragmatic alternative: use the common EU budget to issue debt on the markets and channel the funds to Ukraine. The result is a two year loan which guarantees immediate liquidity to kyiv, although it is more expensive and less scalable than the original option. To achieve consensus, a complex political architecture was also accepted: Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic will not assume obligations direct financial measures, a key condition to avoid an internal blockage. Still, the agreement was presented as a minimal but necessary victory. Ukraine gets the money it needs to survive and Europe avoids a picture of total paralysis at a critical moment. The resilience narrative. From kyiv, Zelenskiy celebrated the agreement as a real reinforcement of Ukrainian resilience, underscoring both the arrival of funds and the fact that Russian assets remain tied up. For the Ukrainian president, the combination it is essential: short-term financial security and sustained strategic pressure on Moscow. Zelenskiy had defended the use of frozen assets until the last moment, appealing to moral, legal and historical justice criteria, but he accepted the compromise. like a lesser evil facing the existential risk of running out of resources. The EU, for its part, insists that Ukraine will only have to repay the loan when Russia pays reparationsa formula that keeps the narrative of Russian responsibility alive without yet crossing the line of direct confiscation. Belgium and type C accounts. It we explained yesterday. In the background of the agreement there was a key actor: Belgium. Most of the Russian money frozen in Europe is there, guarded through critical financial infrastructure like Euroclear and linked to mechanisms such as called type C accountsdesigned precisely to immobilize assets without transferring ownership. Brussels demanded “unlimited” guarantees against possible Russian demands and retaliation, a level of protection that the rest of the partners were not willing to assume. The final result, although presented as a European commitment, essentially coincides with what was best for Moscow: that its sovereign capital not be confiscated or used as direct collateral. Russia loses access to the money, but retains the fundamental principle that these funds remain formally its own, avoiding a far-reaching legal precedent. If you also want, indirectly, Europe has chosen the safest path for itself and, at the same time, the least disruptive for the Kremlin. Europe and its limitations. So things are, the agreement leaves an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, it shows that the EU is capable of mobilizing massive resources to support Ukraine and prevent its financial collapse in the middle of the war. On the other hand, it exposes again structural limitations of the European project when it comes to quick and risky decisions in foreign policy and security. The plan based on Russian assets promised to be more forceful and transformative, and the loan backed by the common budget is more conservativeslower and more politically comfortable. In a context in which Washington presses for an agreement and Russia hopes to buy time, Europe has chosen legal stability and internal cohesion over a direct financial confrontation with Moscow. Ukraine thus receives the oxygen it needs. The strategic pulse, however, is far from resolved. Image | RawPixel In Xataka | Ukraine’s biggest problem is not Russia. There are three European countries trapped in a perverse mechanism: type C accounts In Xataka | A Soviet missile is destroying Ukraine’s helicopters. The paradox is that it is not from Russia: it comes from the West

An underwater drone from Ukraine has changed the future of wars

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A little more than 24 hours ago an event occurred that was unprecedented in the history of war conflicts. It happens that there was only evidence from a video and statements of some involvedbut something else was missing that could certify that, indeed, an underwater drone had been able to disrupt a fortified port. Now there are no longer any doubts: the satellites have revealed what happened. Silent attack. The pfirst satellite images of the Ukrainian attack against a Russian submarine in Novorossiysk have confirmed that kyiv managed to introduce an unmanned underwater drone into one of the best protected ports in the Black Sea and detonate it a few meters from an Improved Kilo class diesel-electric submarine. According to the Ukrainian Security Serviceit would be the first known attack against a Russian ship using an unmanned underwater vehicle and, potentially, the first successful use of this type of system as an anti-ship weapon in a real conflict. Although the exact extent of the damage remains impossible to determine with certainty, the simple fact of having reached the objective is already a major operational and psychological milestone. What we know. Images obtained by commercial satellites confirm that the drone, named by Ukraine as Sub Sea Baby and until now unknown, detonated next to the stern of the submarine while it was moored to the dock. Part of the port infrastructure was clearly destroyed, consistent with the videos recorded from land and released by the SBU, where the explosion and damage to the dock can be seen. The submarine, a Project 636.3 Varshavyankaremains in the same position as before the attack, while two other units that were nearby have been displaced, suggesting an immediate security reaction. However, there are no unequivocal signs of sinking, no visible emergency operations, or fuel spills, which suggests that, if there was damage, it could be below the waterline or be of a limited nature, something impossible to confirm with aerial images alone. Satellite image after the attack, with a general view of the target submarine, inside the port, and another submarine moored outside. There are also other boats moored nearby Official denials. As expected, the Russian Ministry of Defense has denied any damage to the submarine or personnel, and has released a video which supposedly shows the ship intact, although without offering a clear view of the stern and with large areas censored. Still, even that material suggests concrete rubble on the dock, coinciding with the recorded explosion. The Black Sea Fleet has also rejected any operational impact, and Russian naval channels they have replicated that speechalthough without providing conclusive evidence. At this point, uncertainty is part of the information battlefield itself: Russia avoids recognizing vulnerabilities, while Ukraine emphasizes the audacity of the attack more than its physical effects. The same area seen before the attack, in an image from December 11, 2025. The gap in the defenses. Beyond the specific damage, the truly disruptive element of the attack is that the underwater drone managed to get through the defensive barriers of the port of Novorossiysk, designed to stop incursions Ukrainians. Those defenses had been deployed primarily in response to the surface drones that kyiv has used with notable success in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to adapt its port protection. The use of a UUV introduces a new dimension to the Russian defensive problem and confirms a key dynamic of the conflict: each countermeasure generates a different technological response, in a constant race of adaptation. Ukrainian ecosystem. He Sub Sea Baby It doesn’t come out of nowhere. Before this attack, Ukraine had already presented other underwater drones such as the Marichka, designed for kamikaze attacks against ships and maritime infrastructure, or the Toloka, of which fewer details are known. It is not clear whether there is a direct relationship between these systems, but the pattern is evident: kyiv is cbuilding a portfolio of unmanned submarine capabilities, aware that Russian underwater dominance was one of the few areas where Moscow still maintained clear superiority. The submarine as a target. The attack further confirms that the Black Sea Fleet remains a priority objective for Ukraine, especially its submarines Project 636 classcapable of throwing Kalibr cruise missiles regularly used against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Sustained pressure from kyiv had already forced Russia to withdraw a large part of its fleet from Crimea to Novorossiysk, and it is not the first time that these submarines have been attacked: in September 2023the Rostov-on-Don turned out seriously damaged in Sevastopol during a combined attack with missiles and surface drones. At the beginning of the large-scale invasion, Russia had six submarines of this type: each lost or neutralized one has considerable strategic weight. A message for Russia. Even if the submarine was not critically damaged, the attack has sent an unequivocal message: No Russian port is completely safe and naval warfare has entered a new phase, where underwater unmanned systems move from experiment to actual operational use. Other military powers, from United States to Chinacarefully observe a precedent that validates years of doctrinal development on UUVs as attack, reconnaissance and mining platforms. In that sense, the Novorossiysk episode reinforces a already recurring idea in the conflict: the war in Ukraine is not only fought over territories, but functions as a brutal laboratory for the military technologies of the future, where each innovation is tested in real conditions and its lessons are studied in all the military capitals of the planet. Image | VANTOR In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right In Xataka | If the video published by Ukraine is real, it has just blown up the naval war: an underwater drone has made history

If there is finally peace in Ukraine, Russia has a surprise for the rest of Europe

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The talks in Berlin have revived the idea of ​​an agreement to end the war in Ukraine like never before, to the point that Donald Trump has assured that peace is “closer than ever” after prolonged contacts with both European leaders and Vladimir Putin. If this horizon occurs, Finland has just sounded the alarm. The peace that appears. The United States has put on the table a plan that, according to its own negotiators, would solve around 90% of friction points and that includes a ceasefire supervised by Washington, security guarantees powerful and a central role for Europe in the stabilization of the country. kyiv admits real progressalthough he emphasizes that the territorial issue remains the most painful core of the negotiation, with Russia demanding concessions in the Donbas that Ukraine is reluctant to accept. Still, the general tone is contained optimismwith the feeling that, for the first time since 2022, there is a minimally viable political architecture to stop the fighting. Security guarantees. The key element of the plan is a package of security guarantees described by US officials as the most robust ever offered to Ukraine, with explicit parallels to NATO’s Article 5. Europe is ready to lead a multinational force on the ground, a “coalition of the willing” that would help regenerate the Ukrainian armed forces, protect its airspace and guarantee maritime security, always with political and operational support from the United States, although no US troops deployed in Ukraine. Furthermore, Washington would assume supervision of a ceasefire and an early warning system for possible violations, while European countries would legally commit to act in the event of new aggression. For kyiv, these guarantees are the essential condition to accept any freezing of the conflict, even leaving aspirations such as membership in NATO on hold, something that Zelenskiy has come to openly raise. The hidden price of peace. However, beneath this apparent diplomatic advance lies growing unrest on Europe’s eastern flank. Finland has issued a warning as clear as it is uncomfortable: peace in Ukraine will not mean the end of the Russian threat, but very likely its geographical displacement. According to Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Moscow would take advantage of the end of hostilities to redeploy forces towards NATO’s borders, especially in the Baltic and northern Europe, strengthening its posture vis-à-vis the Alliance in a period of just three to five years. From Helsinki, it is insisted that Russia would continue to be a revisionist power and that interpreting peace as a general de-escalation would be a strategic error of the first order. The eastern flank prepares. The most exposed countries already act accordingly. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are on track to spend more than 5% of its GDP in defense, well above the traditional objectives of NATO, while coordinate common capabilities in air defense, drones and ground forces, and are working to accelerate the movement of troops and weapons across the continent. Finland, with its historical culture of preparation against Russia, maintains bunkers, strategic reserves and training programs civil, despite going through a serious economic crisis. These countries fear that a peace agreement will lead some European partners, further away from the front, to relax their attention and their military spending just when, in their opinion, the threat would be reconfiguring and not disappearing. Europe and a decision. The debate comes in a critical week for the European Union, forced to decide whether to support financially to Ukraine in the long term, unlocks the use of frozen Russian assets and assumes that your future security It depends less on Washington and more on its own deterrence capabilities. Orpo has been explicit by warning that Europe cannot afford to just talk about peace, but must act quickly and resourcefully, because there is no credible alternative plan if support for kyiv fails. Thus, the paradox is strongly imposed: the advance towards peace in Ukrainefar from closing the chapter on European security, could open another equally delicatein which Russia, freed from the Ukrainian front, once again strains the continental chessboard and forces Europe to finally face the strategic consequences of a conflict that never was only from Ukraine. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | Something unprecedented has happened in North Korea: a video has revealed that they are sending their soldiers in Ukraine to the “slaughterhouse” In Xataka | The drone war in Ukraine is complete nonsense: the manuals that were useful two weeks ago are a death trap today

an army to “clean up” the most dangerous and lethal area of ​​Ukraine

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For months now, Western intelligence services and military analysts they were warning about what something deep was changing in North Korea: thanks to Russian support, the Kim Jong-un regime was beginning to accelerate the modernization of your armywith advances in missiles, drones and even signs of technical support in programs as sensitive as that of nuclear powered submarines. Moscow appeared to be breaking strategic taboos to shore up an isolated ally, but a key question remained unanswered. Now, it is beginning to become clear what the real price to pay for this military leap is. Alliance sealed with blood. As we said, the reactivated Moscow-Pyongyang axis alliance out of mutual necessity The true price of one side has been revealed with brutal clarity: North Korea is paying back its support for Russia by putting its own soldiers in the most dangerous task of the Ukrainian war. Not as advisors, nor as a symbolic rearguard, but as extreme risk meat, sent to clear minefields in active combat zones, where the probability of being killed or maimed is structurally high. The confirmation has come from Kim Jong-un himself, in an unusual gesture of propaganda transparency, and marks a qualitative leap in the degree of North Korean involvement in the European conflict. Engineers in the hell of Kursk. The North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia belong to specialized combat engineer units, sent to the Kursk region to carry out demining work after fighting with Ukrainian forces. This is a technically complex mission and psychologically devastatingeven for well-equipped professional armies, and even more so for troops coming from one of the most closed and disciplined regimes on the planet. According to the official datathe operation lasted about 120 days and resulted in the death of at least nine soldiers, although Western and South Korean intelligence services they estimate that actual North Korean personnel casualties in the war could run into the hundreds. Before these engineers, up to 15,000 troops North Koreans would have fought alongside Russian forces in the same region to expel Ukrainian units. The tacit agreement. The logic that supports this deployment It is as simple as it is disturbing. Russia, in need of men, ammunition and regeneration capacity after years of war, offers North Korea that in exchange what else do you need: fuel, food, financial aid and, above all, access to advanced military technologies that could modernize its military and its missile and weapons programs. For a regime suffocated by international sanctions, selling highly disciplined military manpower is a strategic asset. It is not just ideological or diplomatic support: it is a direct transaction in which Pyongyang exchanges human lives for economic and military oxygen. Scenery of the sacrifice. Over the weekend it was learned that the engineers’ return was celebrated in Pyongyang with a carefully designed ceremony to transform loss into epic. Kim Jong-un embraced wounded soldiers, some in wheelchairs, consoled families of the dead and awarded the dead with the highest state decorations, promising “eternal luster” to their sacrifice. The broadcast images by the KCNA agency show the leader kneeling before portraits of the fallen, placing flowers and medals, and talking about “miracles” achieved in deadly zones converted into safe spaces. All of this is part of a deliberate effort for normalizing the sending of troops abroad and strengthening internal support for a decision that, in any other context, would be politically explosive. Russian landmines laid during Ukraine’s advance in the 2022 Southern Ukraine counteroffensive. It reads “from a pure heart” and “with love from Russia” Propaganda and obedience. The official story goes beyond the tribute. North Korean state media they have spread images of soldiers advancing without hesitation through minefields or under intense fire, as well as scenes of wounded combatants committing suicide with grenades to avoid capture. It’s not just war propaganda: it’s an internal message of absolute disciplinewhere individual life is completely subordinated to the State and the leader. In this framework, the soldier is not an armed citizen, but rather an expendable strategic resource, trained to accept missions that other armies would consider almost suicidal. From ideological allies to operational partners. North Korean involvement is not limited to sending men. Pyongyang has supplied Moscow large quantities of projectiles of artillery, missiles and various weapons, de facto reactivating a mutual defense treaty inherited from the Cold War. However, the deployment of troops on the ground marks a new frontier: North Korea is no longer just a distant supplier, but an operational actor within the war. The choice of demining it is not coincidental: It is an essential, dangerous and inconspicuous function, perfect for an ally that can take losses without being accountable to public opinion. Disturbing precedent. That a State sells its soldiers to clear mines in a foreign war is not only a dark anecdote from the Ukrainian conflict, but a disturbing precedent. It demonstrates the extent to which war is becoming internationalized in layers, incorporating actors who exchange support not out of long-term strategic affinity, but out of sheer regime survival. In this scheme, North Korea has found an extreme way to break its isolation, while Russia obtains something increasingly scarce: men willing (or forced) to walk where no one else wants to. The price of this alliance is no longer measured in treaties or speeches, but in steps taken. on mined ground. Image | GoodFon, Stefan KrasowskiMinistry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | “It’s a level 10 Godzilla, but they only see a tiger”: South Korea’s surprising response to North Korea’s rearmament In Xataka | North Korea has been sending weapons to Russia for months. In return, Russia is giving him what he craves most: a functional army.

The drone war in Ukraine is advancing at the speed of light: what was useful two weeks ago is a death trap today

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Since the first months of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has converted the use of drones in one of the central pillars of its defense, and has done so to the point of transforming a conventional conflict into a permanent laboratory unmanned combat. In this environment of constant adaptation, drones have not only redefined the way we fight on the front, but have imposed an unprecedented pace of technological change that forces armies, industries and training centers to update almost in real time to avoid becoming obsolete. Classrooms at war. The Ukrainian drone schools have become one of the most extreme laboratories of military learning in the world, forced to rewrite their training programs at a dizzying pace that in some cases reaches the two weeks. In a conflict where drones have become the main instrument of attack, reconnaissance and attrition, the distance between an obsolete lesson and a lethal decision can be measured in days. For these centers, adapting is not an academic question, but rather a direct line between survival and death on the front, in an environment where technology, countermeasures and tactics change constantly and rapidly. In Xataka We had seen everything in Ukraine, but this is new: drones are disguising themselves as Russian soldiers, and it is working Synergy. To stay relevant, instructors are not limited to manuals or simulators. They regularly visit the battle lines, maintain permanent contact with alumni deployed and testing new technologies before incorporating them into their courses. In schools like Dronarium, with offices in kyiv and Lviv, its R&D manager, the veteran known as “Ruda”, explains that technological evolution on the front is so rapid that it requires almost immediate adaptability. There is no two equal classes: Each lesson incorporates small adjustments resulting from what happened days before in real combat. More than 16,000 students have passed through this center, and their experiences are directly integrated into the curriculum, turning training into a living system that feeds back on the war. Two-way learning. One of the pillars of this model is communication direct and permanent with the combatants. Messaging groups connect deployed instructors and operators, allowing soldiers to share new enemy tactics, technical problems or improvised solutions, while receiving advice in near real time from the rear. In centers like Karlsson, Karas & Associates or Kruk Drones, this relationship does not end at the end of the course: it is maintained throughout the operator’s operational life. The instruction is clear: nothing is taught that is not strictly necessary in combat, and what is no longer useful is unceremoniously discarded, no matter how recent it may be. A war that reinvents itself. The central weight of drones on the battlefield explains this urgency. The majority of frontline impacts and casualties already depend on unmanned systems, requiring continuous modification of both platforms and employment tactics. New models appear, others are neutralized by countermeasures, and the rules of the game are constantly rewritten. This speed has set off alarm bells in the West: military officials such as British Minister Luke Pollard warn that NATO forces run the risk of becoming obsolete, trapped in acquisition cycles that last years in the face of a war that repeats every two or three weeks. {“videoId”:”x8j6422″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Declassified video of the clash between Russian fighters and the American drone”, “tag”:”united states”, “duration”:”42″} The industry learns from Ukraine. The schools they are not alone in this race. Defense companies that observe the conflict have begun to copy this model of direct interaction with the front, shortening your cycles developmental. Manufacturers of anti-drone systems and UAV platforms visit the battlefield, chat with operators and fine-tune designs in a matter of weeks, not years. Some executives recognize that the ways in which Ukrainians use technology have surprised them, forcing them to rethink basic assumptions. At the same time, the soldiers themselves benefit from this exchange, providing constant feedback and receiving improvements, spare parts and solutions adapted to their real needs. In Genbeta According to psychology, those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s developed mental strengths that are being lost today Schools under fire. There is no doubt, this permanent adaptation has a cost. Drone schools are not only competing against the technological clock, they are operating under the direct threat from Russian attacks and with limited financial resources, often depending on donations to continue functioning. In this context, their fight is not only to stay updated, but to survive. Even so, their role has become central in modern warfare: they are the link that connects innovation, industry and real combat, and the best example of how Ukraine has turned the urgency of conflict into a flexible and brutally efficient national military learning system. Image | Heute, RawPixel In Xataka | The new episode of terror in Ukraine does not involve missiles or drones: it involves leaving a city without cell phones In Xataka | Europe faces a question it can no longer avoid: how to respond to a war that is rarely declared (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The drone war in Ukraine is advancing at the speed of light: what was useful two weeks ago is a death trap today was originally published in Xataka by Miguel Jorge .

Drones revolutionized warfare in Ukraine, now they are going to do it all over the world with one final trick: changing shape

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If something has become clear after these years of war in Ukraine, it is that drones are no longer a mere complement from the battlefield: they have become a such transformative technology like gunpowder or the Kalashnikov, and are entering a second, even more disruptive phase, driven by artificial intelligencethe miniaturization and the accelerated production. Their next landing is planetary. The second revolution. As we said, drones have gone from being tactical support to becoming a structural factor of modern warfare. Ukraine has shown that an inferior actor in means can degrade a great power with cheap swarms air, naval and land. At the same time, insurgencies, militias and states with few resources use the same logic to compensate for conventional disadvantages. The result, as we will see below, is a global diffusion of precision capabilities at low cost that reduces own risks, complicates defense and makes conflicts more accessible and resistant to resolution. War spine. The trajectory of drones goes from radio-controlled experiments in world wars to smart cruise missiles and platforms like the predator and the reaper in the “war on terror.” The recent turning point is Nagorno-Karabakhwhere an average country combined decoys and UCAVs with artillery to neutralize anti-aircraft defenses and dominate the air without powerful traditional aviation. Since then, the central lesson is that no need be a superpower: simply integrate drones, sensors and indirect fire intelligently to alter the tactical balance. Ukraine as a laboratory. In Ukraine, the drone design, testing and tuning cycle has been compressed to weeks. kyiv has scaled from imported platforms to its own industry that produces millions of unitscombining FPV, reconnaissance, long range and fiber optic guided systems to circumvent Russian electronic warfare. The proximity between workshops and front allows for rapid iterations on sensors, frequencies and flight profiles. Russia responds with mass production and specialized units like Rubikon. The front thus becomes an environment where each innovation is copied or counteracted in a very short time. Swarm globalization. The intensive use of drones has extended to conflicts with a lower media profile. In Africa, dozens of states and non-state actors have built-in armed UAV to internal wars, with markets dominated by exporters such as Türkiye and China. In Myanmar, rebels have converted commercial drones into a substitute for artilleryforcing army withdrawals. In Gaza, Hamas used them to blind Israeli sensors before raids. This shows that technology not only balances power relations, but also increases lethality and makes subsequent stabilization difficult. AI, ammunition and fire economy. The AI integration Drones transform the economy of combat: the cost per useful impact decreases and precision increases. Now there are kits software and hardware that allow existing platforms to locate, track and attack targets with limited human supervision. The practical effect is to reduce the need for classical artillery and increase the efficiency of fire, both on land as in sea. However, this does not eliminate the value of artillery or manned platforms, but rather shifts part of the fire load to systems more fungible and scalablewith clear implications for budgets and logistics. The new unmanned spectrum. And here comes one of the big changes, possibly the least expected. The drone family is expanding and transforming, changing shape and size: from nanodevices for close reconnaissance to enormous ships and underwater vehicles autonomous. The former allow discreet exploration in urban or closed environments, and the latter expand the presence on the surface and under the sea without embarking crews or assuming their risks. Between both extremes, ukrainian naval systems, Chinese XLUUV or AUV as the Ghost Shark redefine surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and area denial operations. The common pattern is to eliminate the need to protect lives on board, making it easier to accept high-risk missions and speed up production. A new generation of contractors. Companies like AndurilAuterion or Shield AI operate with startup logic: short development cycles, strong software integration and commitment to assuming own risk before winning large contracts. Some choose to control the entire chain (hardware and software), others to offer “operating systems” applicable to multiple platforms. This puts pressure on traditional, less agile contractors, and reconfigures the industrial ecosystemwith more mid-sized players competing in specific niches (loyal squires, swarms, mission software). The result is greater speed of innovation, but also more fragmentation of solutions. China, the US and the race. China part with advantage in commercial drones and transfers that leadership to the military fieldwhile investing very heavily in countermeasures after observing the performance of cheap drones in Ukraine. The proliferation of manufacturers of anti-drone systems and directed energy weapons indicates a strategic commitment to control both attack and defense. The United States, despite the accumulated experience, appears out of date in volume and in anti-swarm systems, with dispersed programs and irregular financing, which forces to emergency measures to accelerate purchases and use dual suppliers. This anticipates a long race in which quantity, cost and active defense weigh as much as the individual sophistication of each platform. Strategic limits. This point is often not taken into account. The destructive capacity of drones can lead to overestimating their strategic impact. From there what spectacular operations against high-value infrastructure do not always translate into lasting changes in the control of territory or in the political will of the adversary. Controllers like Radakin they underline that drones and algorithms do not replace the need for a coherent strategy or forces capable of occupying and holding ground. The temptation to build campaigns based on high-visibility specific hits can generate a dangerous gap between tactical success and strategic results. The era of eternal wars. All this breeding ground leads to a final scenario: by reducing costs and risks for those who prolong the combat, drones favor conflicts. no clear outcome. Statistics show fewer decisive victories and fewer peace agreements since the 1970s, while stagnant wars increase. In this context, drones provide continuous capacity for harm to actors who would otherwise be forced to negotiate or give in. The probable result is more long wars, distributed … Read more

that of Ukraine with disaster tourism

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In October we met that Ryanair was going to escalate its confrontation with the Spanish government with a figure that was going to appear in all the media: a 1.2 million cut of seats in the summer season of 2026, with enclaves such as Asturias especially affected. The figure, added to the previous cutsmeant three million fewer places in just twelve months. Now, in a surprising turn of events, the airline, along with the rest of Low Cost, is preparing an unexpected landing: Ukraine. Fly after the war. Yes, Europe is preparing for a scenario in which Ukrainian airspace reopens after a peace agreementand low-cost airlines see at that time not only the recovery of lost routes, but the beginning of an unprecedented stage in European commercial aviation. Wizz Air, which before the Russian invasion was the country’s largest foreign operator, anticipates a massive return supported by the diaspora that wants to return, in the gigantic reconstruction that will transform the Ukrainian economic geography and in an uncomfortable, but historically recurring phenomenon: the disaster tourismthat collective drive to visit scenes that have marked a traumatic chapter in recent history. A known phenomenon. That’s how it is, how it happened With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the visible wounds of war will attract millions of interested people for a time in being witnesses from the place where everything happened, and the airlines seek to position themselves before that human tide. For Wizz Air, this translates into deploy fifteen aircraft in the first two years after peace and fifty in a horizon of seven, a leap that outlines the ambition to quickly rebuild a network that operated more than 5,000 flights annually before February 2022. Ryanair’s strategy. In parallel, Ryanair has moved pieces with a speed that reveals the extent to which it considers Ukraine a key territory for its future growth. The Financial Times said A few hours ago its managers visited the main airports in the country with a plan already closed to achieve the four million passengers annually, almost tripling the 1.5 million it transported before the airspace closure. The fortress of your model (dozens of bases distributed throughout Europe and the ability to open routes from practically any point in a matter of days) would allow it to fly to cities like kyiv, Lviv or Odessa as soon as two weeks later that it is declared safe to do so. That logistical muscle will make the difference in a race in which each airline seeks to be the first to occupy an infrastructure that, although damaged, retains enormous strategic potential. Ryanair, depending on the mediuminsists that filling planes will not be a problem: the return of citizens, pent-up demand and the natural flow of European travelers guarantee robust occupancy from day one. The role of EasyJet. For its part, EasyJet, which never operated in Ukraine before the war, is eyeing the country as what could be Europe’s biggest civil project in decades. The attraction is not only tourist or demographic, but economic: The volume of investment that reconstruction will mobilize promises to turn Ukraine into a hub of activity that will attract companies, workers and entire logistics chains. The airline insist in that operational viability will depend on the ability to restore control towers, runways and terminals, but emphasizes that these processes can be restarted relatively quickly once the military risk ceases. Even so, unlike Wizz Air and Ryanair, EasyJet does not plan to base aircraft in the country in the short term, reflecting a more cautious approach in a market that continues to be conditioned by geopolitical uncertainty and the need to rebuild essential infrastructure from scratch. Security and the past. All this planning hits an inevitable and obvious obstacle: air safety. The European Aviation Safety Agency maintains the veto to fly over or land in Ukraine while the risk of attacks, misidentification or collateral damage persists, a warning that echoes the memory of the demolition of flight MH17 in 2014, a trauma that continues to mark continental aeronautical policy. The warning reflects the precarious balance between the economic urgency to reconnect the country with Europe and the need to prevent a hasty reopening from turning civil aviation into an easy target or an accidental victim of a conflict that has not yet been completely extinguished. Currently, only the Russian Smartavia has recorded flights in two years, an indication of the air vacuum in which Ukraine has lived since the beginning of the invasion. A future tied to the end of the war. There is no doubt, the renaissance of air traffic Ukrainian will depend, ultimately, on the long-awaited peace signing and the pace at which its airports are rebuilt, but also the narrative that the country manages to project. Ukraine will become a space where memory, economic opportunity, return mobility and a massive reconstruction effort converge that will reconfigure its position in Europe. And in this scenario, low-cost airlines are already competing for stand on the front line of a renaissance, convinced that, when the country reopens to the world, it will not only recover the almost fifteen million passengers before the war, but that it will become a symbolic destination of a new European stage. Paradoxically, their deceased aim to be the first to generate an economy. Image | Michael OrtegaZohra Bensemra, RawPixel In Xataka | A giant spider web has taken over the front lines in Ukraine: a death trap made of almost undetectable threads In Xataka | If the question is how peace negotiations in Ukraine are going, Russia’s answer is disturbing: “we are ready”

The terror of wars was always stepping on a mine. In Ukraine they carry scissors, because the panic is thinner: a spider web

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In May we count that an unexpected weapon had begun to be added among the Ukrainian troops: scissors. Given the brutality of the conflict, a technology had sneaked in to evade electronic warfare and enter the enemy camp on both sides as he had not done before: destroying the lines, making attacks invisible and evading any attempt at interference. Now, the tangle of cables has intensified. A deadly web. In 2025, the Ukrainian front is no longer understood without a sky and ground crossed by thousands of drones and by kilometers of optical cable that transform the land into a physical and tactical tangle. What started as a technological revolution to compensate for human shortcomings has evolved into an industrialized war in which each innovation immediately generates a counter-innovation, and where Ukraine, which for years led the initiative, now faces a scenario in which Russia obtains a sustained advantage. Fiber optic drones (invulnerable to electronic shielding) have colonized trenches, roads and wooded areas, leaving visible and invisible networks that slow down every movement and that, in the middle of the night, they get confused with real traps. Narratives from units like the Ukrainian Rangers show a landscape in which advancing is as dangerous as retreating: cables hanging from trees, entrenched in mud, or accidentally attached to weapons and vehicles after each mission. There is no “safe zone.” The great transformation is not in territorial advances, but in the Russian ability to hit supply lines tens of km from the front. What yesterday was a rearguard today is a vulnerable gray zoneand what once required manned aviation is now accomplished by swarms of small, remotely guided vehicles. The explosions that convoys have reached on theoretically protected roads confirm that Moscow has given absolute priority to the war of attrition: attacking where it hurts most, preventing rotations, exhausting Ukrainian drone pilots and forcing brigades to walk dozens of kilometers on foot to avoid detection. This logistical pressure not only undermines military resistance, but also alters the political balance: a country that loses strategic depth also loses negotiating capacity. The Rubikon unit. It we have counted before. The appearance of Rubikon, the elite unit that reorganized Russian doctrine after the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, marks a before and after. Recruiting the best pilots, integrating optical drones, FPV and “mother” platforms like the Molniya, they exported a lethal model to the Donbas: attack supply before infantry, eliminate enemy pilots before riflemen, destroy capabilities before positions. Its success lies less in technology than on the scale: Russia produces more, deploys more and lets China nurture its fiber optic industry without limits. In Pokrovsk (the crudest laboratory of this mutation) Ukrainian soldiers calculate that Russian drones surpass them in a ratio of 10 to 1. The city, turned into a puzzle of ruins where the front line changes every few hours, exemplifies how tactical air dominance has become the decisive factor in controlling the terrain. The Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine continues to cause severe damage in the final strip before the front, where traditional FPVs remain lethal. But the rest of the board has leaned against her: a shortage of optical cables, pilots forced to launch from ever greater distances, disrupted logistics chains and a military industry struggling to produce what Russia receives on an industrial scale. Some controls they insist in which the strategic error is to prioritize the destruction of Russian infantry instead of replicating the Rubikon model: hunt down the operators, saturate the logistics nodes and act in depth. However, any solution requires resources that Ukraine does not have and that its allies provide too slowly. Chinese fiber optics, the officers point outis tipping the balance with more weight than many Western diplomatic decisions. Between swarms and cables. The conclusion is disturbing: war no longer depends so much on territorial advances as on who controls the drone ecosystem, who has more operational pilotswho can saturate the most kilometers of enemy rear and who turns rival logistics into a prohibited zone. The front, turned into a spider web physically by wires and digitally webed by unmanned swarms, is being redefined at a speed that Ukraine struggles to match. If kyiv does not regain the technological initiative and achieve a steady supply of optical capabilities and long-range platforms, 2026 could be the first year in which Russia’s structural advantage in drones not only complicates Ukrainian offensives, but seriously limits its ability to sustain current defenses. Image | reddit In Xataka | Russia had managed to manufacture drones and missiles despite the sanctions. So selling Zara clothes was a matter of time In Xataka | The round of peace meetings in Ukraine has ended. Russia says it is “ready”, but for war with Europe

The round of peace meetings in Ukraine has ended. Russia says it is “ready”, but for war with Europe

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The last two rounds of contacts between the Kremlin and Trump’s envoys have confirmed that the peace process for Ukraine is technically alive, but politically blocked. Putin took advantage of the arrival of the emissaries to launch a verbal offensive: Accused Europe of torpedoing peace, suggested the EU “is on the side of war,” and said Russia does not want a continental conflict but that if Europe starts one, “we are ready right now.” A trapped peace process. For Moscow, the talks are “very useful” as they allow it probe the limits Washington and explore what it is willing to sacrifice in exchange for a stable ceasefire. For the United States, they are an opportunity to zoom in positions without openly acknowledging that the original plan favored Russia too much and was unacceptable to kyiv. Five hours of meeting in Moscow served to review successive versions of the US document, but not to generate a “compromise option”: Russia accepts some elements, rejects others with a “critical and even negative attitude” and, above all, keeps intact its objective of translating its military advances in territorial gains formalized on paper. Moscow red lines. At the center of the disagreement is the territorial question. Moscow insists Ukraine must resign to 20% of Donetsk which he still preserves, while boasting (not without response from kyiv) of having taken Pokrovska key logistical hub that had been in operation for more than a year trying to capture with a great cost in lives and material. This insistence is not only cartographic: is part of a maximization logicin which victories at the front are used as an argument to tighten political conditions. Added to this are other structural requirements: deep cuts in the Ukrainian armed forces, severe limits on Western military aid and a fit of Ukraine into the Russian sphere of influence that would empty its formal sovereignty of content. In this context, talking about “progress” is, in reality, talk about margins: Washington explores how far it can give in without kyiv perceiving it as a capitulation, while Russia calculates how far it can stretch its demands without completely breaking the diplomatic channel that is useful to buy time and legitimize its narrative. Parallel diplomacy and mixed signals. Witkoff and Kushner’s role adds a ambiguity layer to the process. They are not classic diplomats, but political emissaries who operate in a gray zone between official diplomacy and American domestic politics. His presence in Moscow, after meeting with Ukrainians in Florida and reviewing a 28 point plan which initially tilted the board towards Moscow, sends several signals at once: kyiv is shown that Washington “listens” to its objections and tweaks the document, Moscow is made clear that the White House is willing to continue negotiating concession frameworks, and Europe is reminded that the decisive conversation remains, above all, Washington-Moscow. The Trump statement Calling the war a “mess” that is difficult to resolve fits with that approach: rather than a closed strategy, the administration seems to seek an agreement that reduces the political and economic cost of the war for the United States, although the final balance is very delicate for Ukraine. Europe as a scapegoat. The Putin’s words on Europe reveal a perfectly calculated strategy: presenting European capitals as the real obstacle to peace, accusing them of “being on the side of the war” and of preventing Washington from closing an agreement. By saying that “Europe is preventing the US administration from achieving peace in Ukraine,” the Kremlin is trying several things at the same time: put pressure on the Europeans to lower their demands, feed the fatigue of war in Western societies and drive a wedge between the United States and its allies, suggesting that Washington would be more flexible if it were not bound by “European demands.” The added threat that Russia “does not intend to fight Europe, but is ready if Europe starts” has a double effect: it works as a military warning and, at the same time, as an internal message to reinforce the idea of ​​a besieged Russia that only defends itself. The risk of being isolated. For Ukraine, cross-play is especially dangerous. Zelenskiy insists on receiving security guarantees “livable” for the future, that is, mechanisms that prevent a new Russian attack once an agreement has been signed. HE frontally opposes to any formula that forces him to give up territory that he currently controls or to reduce his army to levels that leave him defenseless. But, at the same time, it knows that a part of the European capitals and the American political class are seeking, with increasing urgency, an outcome that freezes the war and stabilizes the front, even if that enshrines a status quo very unfavorable for Ukraine. Its margin consists of supporting in the European bloc tougher (those countries that see a bad agreement as a disastrous precedent for continental security) and to remember that any credible reconstruction involves using frozen russian assets and for a framework of Western guarantees that makes another Kremlin attack politically unaffordable. Putin’s calculation of strength. The threats “cutting off Ukraine from the sea completely” and intensifying attacks on ports and ships entering them fit into a broader strategy: combine slow but steady advances in the Donbas with the ability to strangle the Ukrainian economy and make the protection of its maritime corridors more expensive. Each city taken or partially controlled serves the Kremlin as proof that time is in its favor and that it can rise the price of peace at each plan review. Editorials from related media, as Komsomolskaya Pravdareinforce this idea by presenting the negotiations as a scenario in which Russia can afford to tighten its conditions as “more and more Ukrainian territory” passes into its hands. The implicit message is clear: if the current proposals already seem harsh, the next round could be worse for kyiv if the war continues. Uncertainty. The final result is a peace process that formally remains open, but that moves on a dangerous … Read more

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