Kamyanets-Podilsky: Bastion of Europe

Kamyanets-Podilsky, a small town in south-west Ukraine, close to the borders with Moldova and Romania, is one of the most beautiful in the country. Its geographical position, on a plateau surrounded by a deep gorge cut by the Smotrych river as it loops around the old town, explains its longstanding strategic importance. The castle, linked to the old town by a bridge across the gorge, dates to the period when the region, along with much of present-day Ukraine, was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In its heyday, it was one of the Commonwealth’s most important fortresses, defending against repeated Tatar and Ottoman invasions.

Kamyanets-Podilsky Castle

Kamyanets-Podilsky holds an important place in Polish literature, portrayed as a bulwark of Christian Europe. The final part of Polish Nobel Laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz’s historical trilogy, “Fire in the Steppe” features the Ottoman siege of Kamyanets-Podilsky in 1672. The fall of the town was followed by nearly three decades of Ottoman rule. The period of Ottoman rule was brief, but it left its mark on the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. Following the Ottoman conquest, the cathedral was converted into a mosque, and a minaret was added near the entrance. When the town was returned to Poland in 1699 under the Treaty of Karlowitz (present-day Sremski Karlovci, in Vojvodina, Serbia), the mosque was converted back into a cathedral. The minaret was retained however, and a few decades later was topped by a statue of the Virgin Mary, a quirky and incongruous sight.

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, with minaret

The fortress has undergone restoration, but is quite well preserved. The arches of the bridge were completely encased in thick stone walls during the period of Ottoman rule, so that it looks like a solid causeway across the gorge, linking the town with the fortress. The castle, with its towers, sitting on its rocky plateau, is a fine sight from across the bridge. Walking around the gorge surrounding the old town, with its steep rocky escarpments and its profusion of greenery, one comes across the remnants of other medieval fortifications, stone towers and gates. This was once a strongly fortified town. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries the castle served as a prison, first under Polish rule, and then under Imperial Russia, which took possession of the town in 1793 as part of the second partition of Poland.

Historically, Kamyanets-Podilsky was an ethnically diverse town, with significant populations of Jews, Poles and Armenians as well as Ukrainians. In the Middle Ages, the Armenian community had played a central role in the commercial life of the town. Shortly after the Ottoman conquest, the Armenians were expelled. Some of them returned after Kamyanets-Podilsky was restored to Poland, but they were a diminished community. Over time, the wealthy Armenian merchants assimilated into Polish society. Traces of the community remain, however, in the names of landmarks such as the Armenian Market Square and the Armenian Bastion, echoes of a time gone by.

The Smotrych Gorge and fortifications

The Polish population of Kamyanets-Podilsky and the surrounding Podillia region was devastated by Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. Suspected of being a potential fifth column, ethnic-Poles were targeted by the NKVD’s “Polish Operation.” Thousands were executed and tens of thousands more deported to Central Asia. As many as a hundred people per night were shot in the basements of the former Dominican convent. As in other such operations, the NKVD had quotas to fill, and the killings and deportations had no connection with any concrete actions by the victims. Poles who survived Stalin’s purges and the Second World War often chose to assimilate with the Ukrainian community in order to preserve themselves, although a small Polish community has re-emerged since Ukraine’s independence. I noticed that many of the Masses at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul are conducted in Polish.

For much of the town’s history, Jews had faced restrictions on their residence and commercial activities in Kamyanets-Podilsky. But under Imperial Russia, the town was part of the Pale of Settlement, where Jews were permitted to reside. In the 19^th century there were flourishing Jewish communities in the town and the surrounding region. By the early 20^th century, Jews made up nearly half of the town’s population. In the late-19^th and early 20^th centuries, many left the town for America. For those that remained, Kamyanets-Podilsky was the scene of one of the first mass-killings of Jews of the Holocaust. On 27-28 August 1941, 23,600 Jews, including people who had recently been deported from Hungary as well as locals, were shot over pits by German SS Einsatzgruppen as well as Hungarian soldiers and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police had been formed that month, largely out of member of the Ukrainian People’s Militia. The Ukrainian people’s Militia had been formed in June by the Bandera faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and had already played a leading role in the massacres of Jews in Lviv immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Today there is a street in Kamyanets-Podilsky named after Stepan Bandera, the leader of the OUN, as in many other towns and cities in Ukraine.

Mezhyhirya: Yanukovych's corruption palace

Following the flight of President Viktor Yanukovych from Ukraine in February 2014, thousands of people flocked to his abandoned estate at Mezhyhirya, on the bank of the Dnipro River north of Kyiv. They wandered through his ostentatious residence and walked through the grounds, marvelling at the ex-president’s opulent lifestyle. Activists and journalists moved in to sift through thousands of documents concerning his financial dealings, evidence of the monumental corruption of his regime. The estate, having been returned to state ownership, was later opened as a public park. I visited on a warm July afternoon in 2026, and joined a tour of the so-called “Honka House”, named after the Finnish company that had built it.

The "Honka House" - Mezhyhirya

The grounds with their lakes and streams, trees and shrubbery and well-maintained lawns, are actually very beautiful. The views from the house, across the trees down to the broad Dnipro River, are gorgeous. One can see why this spot was favoured by Ukrainian leaders from communist first secretaries down to Yanukovych himself. Mezhyhirya had during Tsarist times been the site of a monastery. The monastery was destroyed by the communists, and following the move of Soviet Ukraine’s capital from Kharkiv to Kyiv in 1934, the dachas of Ukrainian Communist Party leaders, among them Khrushchev, were built there. Under German occupation in World War II, it was the site of a residence of the Nazi Reichskommissar for Ukraine, Erich Koch.

View from the Honka House

Yanukovych took up residence at Mezhyhirya upon becoming prime minister in 2002 and later privatised it under controversial circumstances. After becoming president in 2010, he chose Mezhyhirya as his residence and embarked on the construction of the Honka House. The opulence of the house, with its parquet floors intricately patterned with many different kinds of wood, its varied kinds of marble and outsized chandeliers, is a monument to the extravagance of a president for whom power meant, above all, the opportunity to enrich himself and his family. But it is tacky. With its heavily ornate furnishings, it looks like what it is, the showy residence of a man who wanted to exhibit his wealth. It is opulent, but tawdry and tasteless. That said, Mezhyhirya was a private residence. It was for Yanukovych and his long-term mistress (his wife never lived there).

Inside the Honka House

One of the more bizarre features of the Mezhyhirya estate was the replica galleon floating at the water’s edge, which served as a private restaurant for the president. Perhaps even more than the Honka House, this vessel symbolised the ostentation and excess of Yanukovych’s lifestyle. When I visited, the galleon was in a sorry state, having partially sunk due to flooding earlier in the year.

Yanukovych's galleon, Mezhyhirya

Mezhyhirya came to symbolise the corruption of Yanukovych’s rule. During the Maidan protests of 2013-14, protesters made their way to Mezhyhirya. Following the savage beating in December 2013 of the activist and journalist, Tetyana Chornovol, who was known for her reporting on high-level corruption, a convoy of over a thousand vehicles drove out from Kyiv to the Mezhyhirya residence. The protest was led by the Automaidan organisation, which had been established by car owners to support the Maidan protests, ferrying people and supplies. Among the documents later recovered at Mezhyhirya was the diary of Yanukovych’s security chief, containing chilling details about Chornovol’s movements. Also among the documents was a long report about the Automaidan protest, including a list of the vehicles and details about their owners. Several of the vehicles were targeted in arson attacks, and some of the drivers had their licenses revoked. In January 2014, the Automaidan leader, Dmytro Bulatov, was abducted and tortured before being dumped outside Kyiv.

Yanukovych’s decision to flee Kyiv on 21 February has never been properly explained. Earlier that day he had signed an agreement with leaders of the parliamentary opposition, mediated by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland, as well as a representative of the Russian government. The agreement called for the reversal of controversial constitutional changes Yanukovych had instituted, such that powers would be transferred back from the presidency to the parliament. A government of national unity was to be put in place, and early presidential elections were to be held before the end of the year. But the agreement was quickly overtaken by events.

With power slipping from Yanukovych’s grasp, security forces began abandoning their positions in Kyiv. Yanukovych’s cronies began fleeing the country. Yanukovych himself went to Mezhyhirya, and later that night flew to Kharkiv. He may have feared for his life. Maidan activists threatened an armed assault on the presidency building if Yanukovych did not resign immediately. But video footage later showed that he had been packing up his belongings and preparing to leave Mezhyhirya two days before his flight. Yanukovych had intended to participate in a meeting of anti-Maidan regional government leaders from the east and south of Ukraine in Kharkiv the following day. He may have hoped to establish a powerbase in the east of the country to continue the fight against the Kyiv insurgents. But by then his stock had fallen so low that the organisers of the Kharkiv meeting persuaded him to stay away. From there he made for Donetsk, and then ignominiously left the country with Russian help.

Yanukovych left a miserable legacy. His corrupt regime was economically ruinous. It hollowed out the country’s institutions and left it weakened and unable to respond effectively to the Russian aggression that quickly followed. His precipitous flight led directly to Putin’s decision to seize Crimea. Yanukovych might have been the president who brought Ukraine into Europe with the signing of the association agreement. But, under Russian pressure, he abandoned it in November 2013, sparking the Maidan demonstrations that culminated in his downfall. Instead he will be remembered for his weakness, cowardice and greed. The “Museum of Corruption” at Mezhyhirya will be his memorial.

Ukraine divided

 In 2026 Ukraine has experienced new levels of pain and hardship, subjected to ever more intense barrages of Russian drones and missiles. At the same time, Ukrainian forces’ battlefield successes have renewed hope that the country may yet be able to turn the tide against the Russian aggressor. As in previous years, during winter Russia directed relentless missile and drone attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, designed to terrorise and freeze Ukrainians and break their will to fight on. Each winter, there have been fears that strikes on power plants would leave people without electricity and heating during the coldest months. Last winter, the fears came true. Several cities were left without heating for extended periods, with temperatures dropping below minus 20 degrees. People posted photos on social media of ice-covered walls inside their apartments. The effects were not evenly distributed. Some suffered longer outages than others. The government and aid agencies expanded the provision of so-called invincibility points, heated shelters where people could warm themselves, charge their devices etc.

War damage in Kyiv

As Russia has continued to expand its missile and drone strikes, Ukraine, deprived of the most effective interceptor missiles, has been unable to defend its cities. Above all, America’s cutting off the supply of Patriot missiles has enabled Russia to exploit Ukraine’s vulnerability. Ukraine’s air defences are able to shoot down most of the slower moving drones and cruise missiles. But without the Patriots, they are largely defenceless against the fast-moving ballistic and hypersonic cruise missiles that Russia is deploying in ever greater numbers. Staying in Kyiv in July, the night-time air raids that Ukrainians have to endure with alarming regularity were of a different order from those I had experienced in previous years. Even while feeling relatively safe in a basement, the repeated loud bangs were unnerving.

Yet amid the misery of Russia’s war against Ukrainian civilians, Ukraine has managed to regain the military initiative for the first time since the failed offensive of 2023. Ukraine’s extensive use of drones has made the frontline an almost impenetrable kill zone. Russia’s offensives have been slowed to a crawl and made ever more costly in terms of the lives of its soldiers. While Russia’s advances have barely moved forwards in 2026, in some areas Ukraine has recovered territory. Meanwhile, since April 2026, Ukraine’s campaign of mid-range drone strikes against Russian lines of communication, especially in southern occupied Ukraine, have left Russian forces, notably in occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, increasingly isolated and short of supplies. Crimea, which relies on the highway across southern Ukraine as well as the bridge across the Kerch strait, has been particularly badly affected, with severe shortages of fuel among other things. In the long run, such strikes against Russian logistics aim to make the occupying force’s position in Crimea and southern Ukraine untenable.

In a further blow to Russia’s ability to sustain its war, Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile strikes have targeted Russian oil refineries and logistics centres deep inside the country. Such strikes directly undermine Russia’s economic ability to sustain its war. They also have an important psychological effect, bringing home to Russia’s people the price of the war their president started. Ordinary Russians see the billowing smoke and flames from destroyed oil refineries. They are inconvenienced by the disruption to air transport caused by drone attacks, and by the strikes on warehouses of the Wildberries company, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon. And inevitably, Russian civilians are sometimes the victims of off-target drones or drones that have been shot down by Russia’s air defences. Putin even had to slim down his 9 May World War II victory parade in Moscow for fear of Ukrainian drone strikes. As the war drags on, Russians have to pay an ever higher price for their president’s hubris and miscalculation. Long frustrated by the unwillingness of Western leaders to authorise long-range strikes against Russia, for fear of escalation, Ukraine now produces its own long-range weapons, and no longer needs anyone’s permission to strike back at the aggressor.

A recruitment poster in Kyiv: Together we are unbreakable

Yet amid these successes in bringing the war to its enemy, Ukraine faces growing challenges on the home front, as war weariness and divisions grow, threatening to undermine the successes its armed forces have recently achieved. The country has for some time been struggling to recruit enough soldiers. The stream of volunteers to defend the country in the first year has long dried up, amid stories of chaos, incompetence, and sometimes outright brutality in military units. There is strong resistance to the military draft in Ukrainian society. Frequent stories and videos posted online of draft dodgers, often vigorously supported by civilians, resisting recruitment officers, have soured Ukrainians’ sentiments against sending their young men to the army. The country was shocked by images from Lviv in early July, when a large crowd confronted recruitment officers, battering and overturning their vehicle. A report published in June by the Ukrainian media outlet Babel drew attention to widespread abuses, brutality and inadequate medical attention in one military unit, highlighting the excessive number of non-combat deaths. Such stories only compound the resistance to the draft among young men and their families.

The growing dissatisfaction was exacerbated by President Zelensky’s decision in mid-July to replace the popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. Thousands took to the streets in Kyiv and other cities to protest against the decision. Following the example of protests against the decision a year earlier to neuter two independent anti-corruption watchdogs by placing them under the prosecutor-general, who is appointed by the president, the mainly youthful protesters carried pieces of cardboard with their demands scrawled on them. On that earlier occasion, following pressure also from the European Union, Zelensky quickly reversed course. The protesters this time expected a similar outcome, that pressure from the street would force a climbdown. The experience of past mass demonstrations on Kyiv’s central Maidan square in 2004 and 2014 has inculcated a sense in part of Ukraine’s civil society that street protesters have a special legitimacy before which governments should bow. It reflects an enduring lack of trust in state institutions and elected officials among much of the population. But for Zelensky to bow to pressure from the street a second time risked fatally undermining his authority, and his ability to prosecute the war.

Cardboard protests in Kyiv, July 2026

Fedorov had only been defence minister since January, but had acquired a reputation for successfully promoting technological solutions, above all drone warfare, that enabled the military to achieve battlefield successes without heavy losses of soldiers. Even before his appointment to the defence ministry, Fedorov had an impressive record as an innovator and reformer. As minister of digital transformation, he steered the introduction of the Diya mobile app and web portal which digitalised citizens’ and businesses’ interactions with the state. He brought the same zeal for digital transformation to the defence ministry, introducing a digitised system of procurement tracking, designed to increase efficiency, lower costs and tackle corruption in defence procurement. He also sought to scale up drone production.

However, Fedorov’s reforms brought him into conflict with the military high command, above all with the commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky. Syrsky was an accomplished general. As commander of Ukraine’s land forces, he had led the defence of Kyiv at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and was behind the successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv Region later that year, when Ukrainian forces regained swathes of territory in the north-east of the country. However, Syrsky was unpopular among sections of the media and civil society. Born in Russia, and having begun his military career in the Soviet army, Syrsky was accused of being an old-style Soviet commander, too ready to accept high rates of casualties among his troops, notably in the battle for Bakhmut in 2022-2023. His detractors dubbed him the “butcher” for his allegedly callous disregard for the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. The criticisms were never fully justified. In the early stages of the war, before drones had come into their own, Ukraine’s army suffered a significant disadvantage in the supply of artillery shells. Battles such as Bakhmut were brutal, but they slowed Russia’s advance. Syrsky was undoubtedly a tough and demanding commander. The real question was whether Ukrainian society was ready to accept the sacrifices in soldiers’ lives that the defence of their country would unavoidably entail.

For many Ukrainians, tired of the war and reluctant to send their young men to the army, Fedorov offered hope of victory with less pain and sacrifice, victory through technology. It was a compelling narrative. Contrary to the stereotype peddled by some in the media, Syrsky fully appreciated the importance of drones in modern warfare. Indeed, it was under his command, in June 2024, that the Unmanned Systems Forces were established as a separate branch of the military, the first army in the world to establish a separate, dedicated command for drone warfare. Ukraine’s military was highly innovative well before Fedorov became defence minister. Where Syrsky and Fedorov appear to have differed was that Syrsky and other senior commanders did not believe that drone technology could substitute for conventional weaponry, for artillery and infantry. The hope Fedorov held out of victory through technology, without the sacrifices of soldiers, was almost certainly illusory.

Fedorov’s dismissal crystallised longstanding dissatisfaction with the way the war was being fought, with Zelensky himself, and above all with Syrsky. In public comments, Fedorov complained that Syrsky had been blocking him at every turn. Zelensky explained his decision to replace the defence minister saying that it had reached the point where Fedorov and Syrsky were unable to work together, so that he had reluctantly to choose between them. However, with thousands taking to the streets in Kyiv and other cities, calling for Fedorov to be reinstated and for Syrsky to be replaced, Zelensky bowed to the pressure and removed Syrsky, appointing General Mykhailo Drapatyi in his place.

The protests did not stop, however. Thousands of young people continued to come out every evening, persisting in their demand for Fedorov’s reinstatement. Zelensky attempted to appease the protesters, offering Fedorov other positions, including as deputy prime minister for military innovation. However, Fedorov refused the offers, insisting that he would only accept reinstatement as defence minister.

No doubt, Zelensky hoped that in time the protesters would grow weary, and that their numbers would dwindle. Whether or not Zelensky manages to weather this storm, the crisis has weakened him. The perception that Zelensky is intolerant of anyone whose popularity threatened to eclipse his own had already taken root before the Fedorov affair. Furthermore, corruption in his inner circle has eroded support for the president, amid suspicions that the uncovering of scandals among those close to him was behind the attempt to neutralise the anti-corruption bodies. Zelensky is in a bind. During wartime, under martial law, holding elections would be both impractical and forbidden by the constitution. However, having already exceeded his original mandate as president, Zelensky’s political legitimacy is inevitably diminished. Despite the admiration and respect he still inspires abroad, mis-steps and controversies such as the clumsy removal of Fedorov only diminish him further inside the country. The greatest tragedy of all this would be if such divisions in Ukrainian society would undermine the country’s ability to prosecute the war, even as the military has been scoring some notable successes.