Iryna Terekh, CEO of the Ukrainian defense technology company Fire Point, during interview with Reuters, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, July 29, 2026 (Alina Smutko/Reuters)
Sunday’s Coverage: Zelensky Hails Visit to Serbia
UPDATE 0722 GMT:
The Financial Times reports that Russian army recruiters are using increasingly coercive tactics, including snatching men off the street and tricking students into signing up.
“Year by year and month by month, it’s harder for the Russian army to find people,” says Grigory Sverdlin, director of Get Lost, a non-profit that helps Russian soldiers desert. “Putin is evidently putting off a new wave of mobilization, so the Defense Ministry has to put more pressure on all sorts of people to sign contracts.”
Former President Dmitry Medvedev claims the army recruited 200,000 more men in the first half of 2026, but amid Russia’s high casualty rate, most of them have replenished frontline units rather than providing a reserves. As a result, Russian forces are stretched outside their main attack on the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s General Staff says Russia has lost almost 1.46 million troops during its 53 1/2-month full-scale invasion.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed in July that its forces seized 2,226 square km in the first half of the year. However, the US-based Institute for the Study of War estimates the net advance at just 81.1 square km.
The Kremlin has ordered local officials to meet quotas for new recruits for a target of 409,000 this year. Russians can receive referral bonuses for persuading others to sign up.
But although new soldiers receive bonuses of up to 4.5 million rubles ($56,000). However, Get Lost’s Sverdlin says: “They replenish the losses with people who sign new contracts, and there haven’t been enough people willing to sign up for quite some time — even for the huge sums offered in the contracts.”
Activists report that in Penza in southern Russia, police have raided workplaces and taken people off the street to military recruitment offices, where they have been forced to sign contracts.
Similar sweeps have taken place in other cities, including Ulyanovsk and Rostov.
UPDATE 0642 GMT:
Russia is maintaining its maximalist demands on Ukraine, including the surrender of more territory and the rest of the country kept weak without meaningful security guarantees.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said, “As Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated, no ‘freeze’ is possible without addressing the root causes of this crisis.” He railed that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has “lost all touch with reality” and is “trying to escalate the conflict”.
Galuzin criticized the Trump Administration as “contradictory”: “The continued supply of American weapons to the Kyiv regime, the provision of intelligence, and other assistance speak for themselves, which is inconsistent with the desire for peace.”
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says Kyiv’s ballistic missiles could be combat-ready in two to three months.
In an interview with State TV, Zelensky supported the claim of Fire Point, the Ukrainian company developing the missiles.
Fire Point officials said on Tuesday that their FP7 ballistic missile is being certified by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, a process expected to be finished within by September. They expect the larger FP9 missile, capable of reaching Moscow, to be ready by late autumn.
Zelensky said of the scale of production, “As for their large-scale use, I can’t say, because some things do not depend on Ukraine. It is the same with Russian ballistic missiles: they contain components from other countries. The same applies to our ballistic missiles — there are few such components, but some do come from other countries.”
A variant of the FP7 is being repurposed into an anti-ballistic missile akin to the US-made Patriot system, in collaboration with nine European partner countries under the Freya program.
Fire Point CEO Iryna Terekh said the aim is the first successful ballistic missile interception by mid-2027.
Zelensky: North Korea Sending Up to 50,000 Troops to Russia
Calling on South Korea to support Ukraine’s air defence, Zelensky said up to 50,000 North Korean troops will be deployed in Russia.
The President added that Kyiv has found North Korean missiles on Ukraine’s territory: “It is absolutely clear that North Korea will continue to build its experience in modern warfare, receive licenses from Russia, and receive all kinds of military tools from them.”
Earlier this month, a Ukrainian military intelligence official said a North Korean missile unit has begun deployment of personnel and equipment in western Russia. It could be equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine.
North Korea sent around 12,000 soldiers to Russia in autumn 2024, helping Moscow push back Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into the Kursk region. Thousands were killed or wounded.
Pyongyang has also supplied Russia with millions of artillery and mortar rounds and with ballistic missiles, long-range artillery, and multiple-launch rocket systems.
Turkey Ready to Sell US-Made Missiles to Ukraine
Turkey is poised to sell 70 US-made ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine, according to US congressional documents.
The package also includes 47,000 artillery rounds, 12 M270 multiple-launch rocket systems, and more than 2,000 cluster bombs.
The US must approve the resale of the weapons. The State Department indicated to Congress that it is prepared to give permission.
