REPORT: Druzhkivka Hit by Guided Bombs and Drones; Four Dead in the Donbass

A War That Won’t End

Russia isn’t giving up. It never has. This is one of the hardest lessons of this war—one that weighs heavily on every Ukrainian leader, every soldier, and every civilian. Moscow is banking on time, on Western fatigue, and on the moral exhaustion of an entire nation. The daily strikes on cities like Druzhkivka are not blunders; they are not tragic accidents. They are part of a cold, methodical, calculated strategy: to break the civilian will, to empty the Donbas of its indigenous population, and to create the conditions for a lasting annexation through gradual depopulation. This is an ancient, brutal imperial logic, one that has already left its scars on European history. Official Russian statements speak of military targets, logistical bases, and defense infrastructure. But the numbers tell a different story. The dead are named Oleksandr, Mykola, Volodymyr. They had first names, jobs, and loved ones. None of them wore a uniform.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, along with the Office of the Prosecutor General, is documenting every strike, every victim, and every location. This grim tally feeds into the case files that may one day be examined by the International Criminal Court. But in the meantime, on the ground, a different kind of tally takes precedence: that of coffins, notifications to families, and flowers laid on the asphalt. Vladimir Putin has committed his country to a war that he can no longer afford to lose politically without bringing about his own downfall. This equation explains why the intensity of the fighting shows no sign of abating, why peace talks are stalling, and why every diplomatic opening closes as soon as it begins to take shape. The Kremlin is betting on Kyiv’s exhaustion, on Washington’s weariness, and on European division. This gamble is cynical, methodical, and terrifying in its patience.

The Donbas: A Testing Ground for 21st-Century Warfare

What is at stake in the Donbas goes far beyond the territorial issue. This region has become a testing ground for a new form of conflict, where inexpensive drones and gliding bombs are redefining the tactical equation. Armies around the world are observing, studying, and copying. Defense contractors—from the United States to China, including Israel and Turkey—are scrutinizing every innovation, every adaptation, and every lesson learned. Ukraine has become a forced testing ground for military concepts that will shape the coming decades. But this learning comes at the cost of human lives, wiped-out cities, and sacrificed generations. Druzhkivka is not a testing ground. It is a city—with schools, park benches, markets, and cemeteries that were not built to accommodate so many new graves.

Ukrainian authorities keep repeating a message that may sound repetitive to weary Western ears: every sanction, every arms shipment, every political decision matters. Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated this just recently, stating that every Ukrainian long-range strike provides another reason to pressure Russia into ending the war. Air defense remains the Achilles’ heel. The American Patriots, the German IRIS-Ts, and the Franco-Italian SAMP/Ts save lives every night, but they cannot cover the entire territory. The Donbas, due to its proximity to Russian bases, remains particularly vulnerable. And as long as the Russian air force can operate in relative safety beyond the range of Ukrainian defenses, FAB bombs will continue to fall on towns like Druzhkivka across the country.

We talk about strategies. About doctrines. About tactical calculations. But behind every scholarly term, there is a body that was picked up off a sidewalk. That is the true vocabulary of this war. And I don’t want to forget that as I write.

Holding On, Again and Again

Ukraine isn’t giving up either. It has even become the very foundation of its identity, its backbone, its reason for holding on. Facing an adversary that’s banking everything on the long haul, Kyiv has learned to turn resistance into a permanent way of life. The cities of the Donbas, starting with Druzhkivka, have become the outposts of this determination. Every morning when the city wakes up, it is a silent victory. Every child who returns to school, every shopkeeper who raises their shutter, every driver who takes to the road despite the threat of drones, contributes to this existential equation. Ukraine is not fighting merely for square kilometers. It is fighting for its right to continue to exist as a nation, as a culture, as a language, and as a collective memory. This symbolic dimension sometimes escapes foreign observers, who are accustomed to viewing conflicts solely through the lens of troop movements.

The Ukrainian armed forces, despite attrition, casualties, and a chronic shortage of personnel, continue to innovate. Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov recently announced that Ukraine is testing low-cost missiles capable of shooting down the Iranian Shahed drones used extensively by Russia. Mass production is planned for the fall. This technological race—asymmetrical yet tenacious—illustrates the Ukrainian spirit: doing more with less, turning constraints into innovation, and refusing to accept the inevitability of defeat. Air defense units, drone operators, ordnance experts, engineers, and military doctors all embody this collective determination that defies the odds. The West sometimes refers to this war as a complicated issue. For Ukrainians, it is quite simply daily life, their only horizon, their sole reality.

The human cost of a nation that refuses to yield

That cost is immense. It is measured in soldiers fallen on the front lines, in civilians torn apart in their sleep, in children deported to Russia, in villages wiped off the map. It is also measured in invisible wounds: trauma, unbearable grief, families torn apart between exile and the front lines, couples separated by endless mobilizations. More than five million Ukrainians still live outside their country, scattered across Europe, North America, and elsewhere. Each carries within them a homeland they no longer know when they will see again. For many, returning is no longer even a realistic option—especially for those whose hometowns are now under occupation or in a gray zone. This depopulation, intended and orchestrated by Moscow, is one of the silent weapons of this war.

And yet, despite this exorbitant cost, the country holds firm. Institutions are functioning. Elections have been postponed, but democracy continues to exist. The press works amid the bombs. Artists create despite everything. Writers are writing. Musicians are playing in shelters. This cultural resistance, sometimes invisible to foreign ministries, may be Ukraine’s most profound victory. Defeating Russia is not merely a military objective; it is a civilizational goal. Refusing to let force take precedence over law. Refusing to let an empire crush a free nation through the sheer numbers of its cannon fodder. Refusing to become a footnote in a history textbook written by others. In Kyiv’s eyes, this vision justifies every sacrifice made since 2014—and even more so since February 2022.

I’d like to write a comforting sentence here. I can’t. Holding on isn’t the same as winning. But not holding on means losing everything. Ukraine has known this for a long time. That’s what moves me deeply in each of its ordinary days.

A War That Is No Longer Just Ukraine’s

What is happening in Druzhkivka directly concerns Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, and Brussels. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha recently discussed with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte the growing threats emanating from Russia and Belarus, calling for strengthened collective deterrence. This request is not merely a diplomatic stance. It reflects a tangible reality. Russian strikes are no longer limited to Ukrainian territory. Drone overflights of Polish, Romanian, and Baltic airspace are on the rise. Acts of sabotage attributed to Russian intelligence services are occurring repeatedly in Germany, the Czech Republic, and the Nordic countries. Europe is already in a hybrid war, whether it wants to acknowledge it or not. Druzhkivka is just one front line among many in a conflict that extends far beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Western aid, despite its inconsistencies, remains vital. Arms deliveries, budgetary funding, and economic sanctions form an indispensable trio. But this aid is regularly called into question by political cycles, elections, and shifts in parliamentary composition. In the United States and Central Europe, isolationist voices are gaining ground, sometimes openly accommodating toward Moscow. Every month that passes without a clear decision on frozen Russian assets, long-range missiles, or future accessions to the European Union and NATO is a month granted to the Kremlin to consolidate its positions. Western procrastination comes at a cost. That cost is also felt in Druzhkivka, at 11:00 a.m., in the silence that follows the explosion.

The Test of Democratic Resolve

Whether we like it or not, this war has become the real-world test of the West’s democratic resolve in the face of imperial revisionism. If Russia prevails through attrition, the message sent to all the world’s autocracies will be crystal clear: might makes right. The tactical patience of dictatorships trumps the electoral volatility of democracies. Beijing is watching. Tehran is watching. Pyongyang is watching. Every European hesitation, every U.S. congressional deadlock, every diplomatic ambiguity fuels this calculation. Conversely, every demonstration of unity, every on-time delivery, every effective sanction weakens Russia’s position and sends the opposite message. The war in Ukraine is also a battle for the post-1945 international order, already chipped away by decades of erosion.

European policymakers are slowly beginning to grasp this dimension. Some are now speaking openly of rearmament, massive military production, and the reinstatement of national service. The word “war,” long taboo in Western capitals, is resurfacing in official discourse. But there remains a considerable gap between rhetoric and the budgets actually approved. The European defense industry still does not produce enough shells, enough missiles, or enough precision munitions to sustain a prolonged effort. This industrial sluggishness is a major strategic flaw that Moscow is exploiting with utter cynicism. As long as Western production lines are not running at full capacity, Ukraine will be forced to ration its counterattacks, prioritize its targets, and endure more than it would like.

I look at this world and tell myself that we’ve forgotten what a real decision looks like. Not a statement. Not a tweet. A decision. A weighty, far-reaching, and fully committed one. Ukraine makes such decisions every day. We, on the other hand, are still debating them.

Four names, one city, one country

Four dead in Druzhkivka. Five wounded. Just another day. And yet, each of these ordinary days builds a collective memory that transcends the isolated event. These names, unknown beyond their immediate circles; these families, mourning in silence in apartments with taped-up windows; these neighbors, laying flowers where the car burned—together, they form the living fabric of Ukrainian resistance. A nation is defined not only by its victories, but by what it refuses to lose. Ukraine refuses to lose Druzhkivka. It refuses to lose Kramatorsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, and Zaporizhzhia. It refuses to lose its right to write its own history in the first person. This stubbornness, which may seem suicidal from a distance, is in reality the only authentic political greatness of 21st-century Europe.

Russia will continue to strike. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week. FAB bombs will fall again. FPV drones will continue to hunt down civilian cars. The sirens will wail again. And each time, journalists will document, prosecutors will record, and families will bury their loved ones. This macabre repetition is the very essence of protracted war. But on the other side, Ukraine will also continue to hold its ground. To fight. To innovate. To bury its dead with dignity and return to work the very next day. Triumphing over an enemy like Russia does not mean crushing it militarily—which remains unlikely in the short term. It means preventing it from winning. It means forcing it into such a strategic failure that it will have to abandon its imperial project. This goal is immense. It justifies every sacrifice. It honors every death. It sustains every survivor.

At 11:00 a.m. in Druzhkivka, three men died. An hour later, a fourth. Tomorrow morning, at the same hour, a coffee maker will whistle somewhere in this city, and someone will carry on living. It is this tiny, stubborn, almost derisory persistence that brings down empires. Russia does not yet know this. Ukraine, however, has known it for a long time.

By Jacques Pj Provost, columnist