America announces an energy ceasefire. Ukraine abides by it. Russia doesn’t. America punishes Ukraine for abiding by the energy ceasefire it announced.

By depriving the defending side of the resources it needs to defend itself, you are not stopping the war. You are turning it into a massacre.

Most of the time, those who say they want to “achieve peace” and “stop killing” make decisions that lead to more killing and more war. Because by making Ukraine defenseless, you don’t satisfy Russia; you make it even more bloodthirsty. We, Ukrainians, want peace. More than anybody else. But we know that we can achieve peace only by depriving Russian aggression of resources, not by depriving Ukrainian defense of resources.

a very sober analysis of the war - with Andriy Zagorodnyuk, @Andriypzag ukraineworld.org/en/podcasts… choose your platform: li.sten.to/explaining-ukrain… How can Ukraine protect itself against Russia's ballistic missile threat? What role can Europe play, particularly through joint production? Can Ukraine develop its own anti-ballistic missile? Who is winning this war now?

Russia wants to turn Ukraine into a concentration camp. Into one vast prison. The principle of the concentration camp is relentless pressure. You are given not a single minute for yourself, for your own world, for your own thoughts. Constant, grinding pressure. They take away your ability to switch off. You cannot sleep. You cannot dream. You cannot think. You cannot simply be alone with yourself. They take you away from you. All that remains is the shell. This is what Russia is now trying to do with Ukraine with these endless missile and drone strikes, with its endless air raid alerts which never stop. Broken people have no inner core, no will of their own. They become automatons. Robots. While the world is creating an artificial humanity by rapidly expanding intellectual capacities through artificial intelligence, Russia has spent centuries creating its own artificial humanity through the slow degradation of the intellectual, emotional, and volitional capacities of people who already exist. While the world is trying to turn robots into human beings, Russia has spent centuries trying to turn human beings into robots. Now it wants to tell us: you are in prison, and we are your guards. We will watch you, punish you, kill you. But most importantly, we will strip you of your intelligence, your feelings, and your will. The empire’s method is simple: drain people of their intelligence, their feelings, and their will—and then you can do whatever you want with them. This is what has been done to much of Russia’s own population. And this is what Russia wants to do to us. The inner resistance to this is equally simple: to preserve an intelligence of your own, feelings of your own, a will of your own. In other words, to have a culture of your own, a society of your own, and a state of your own. This is what resilience means.

Russia destroyed over 10 million Ukrainian books in three months. Think about this figure - over 10 million Ukrainian books on this topic - statement of PEN Ukraine, @PenUkraine **** Russia attacks Ukraine every day, killing people and destroying civilian infrastructure. It seeks to turn Ukraine into a wasteland. The Russian army also seeks to destroy Ukrainian culture. That is why its targets are not only our homes, businesses, power plants, shopping centres, and warehouses. Ukrainian books are also its targets. On the night of 28 August, Ukrainian publishing houses once again reported that their warehouses had been burned down, along with tens of thousands of books. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture, over the summer of 2026 alone, Russia has already destroyed more than 10 million Ukrainian books. This amounts to one-third of Ukraine’s annual book production. These include works by Ukrainian authors as well as books translated into Ukrainian from dozens of foreign languages. Why does the Russian army destroy Ukrainian books? Because it knows that reading is the foundation of culture and meaning. Books shape our values, our ways of thinking, our cultural memory, our identity, and our sense of community. They are also a foundation of national education — and the new school year in Ukraine begins in just a few days. Russia is waging war not only against Ukrainians. It is waging war against the very possibility of being Ukrainian. It seeks to destroy Ukrainian identity and Ukrainian self-awareness. This has happened before, many times. For centuries, the empire killed Ukrainian writers, destroyed Ukrainian books, and sought to deny us the right to speak our own language, read our own literature, and translate works from other literatures into our own language. Russia has done — and continues to do — the same to dozens of other cultures it has subjugated. We call on the Ukrainian state to support the publishing industry. We call on Ukrainian citizens to buy Ukrainian books more actively. We call on the international community to provide Ukraine with modern defensive weapons, particularly those urgently needed to protect Ukrainian skies. We also call for joint efforts to hold representatives of the Russian Federation criminally accountable for committing international crimes. We call for more consistent engagement of international partners in providing financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, including support for Ukrainian publishers and booksellers. We ask the international community to urgently help Ukraine in its struggle for survival. Ukraine’s struggle today is not only a struggle for independence. It is also a struggle for our culture. It is a struggle for culture itself. ****** Link: pen.org.ua/en/rosiya-masovo-…

Ukraine’s greatest problem today is not elections, political rivalry, or corruption scandals, important as they may be. Ukraine has been at war for more than twelve years, and the full-scale invasion is approaching its fifth year. The most urgent question is whether Ukrainian cities can survive the coming winter. Last winter, millions experienced electricity cuts and hundreds of thousands in Kyiv lost heating. Now the situation may be worse because Ukraine lacks enough PAC-3 interceptors for Patriot systems, while Russia is increasing its production of ballistic missiles.

Ballistic missiles are much harder to stop than drones and can destroy the infrastructure on which modern life depends: electricity, heating, water, railways, ports, hospitals, and residential buildings. Ukraine can try to strike mobile launchers or missile factories inside Russia, but these are difficult targets. The fastest solution would be to obtain several hundred additional interceptors, yet American stocks are depleted and other countries are reluctant to give away weapons they may soon need themselves.

The consequences are already visible. Kherson is becoming increasingly unlivable, Zaporizhzhia is under growing pressure, and even Kyiv is losing the protection that once distinguished it from cities closer to the front. Europe must therefore understand that Ukraine is exposed to the danger of a real missile massacre. This is not only Ukraine’s problem: Russian missiles can reach across the continent. The immediate priority is clear—to protect the sky, preserve the infrastructure of life, and help Ukrainian society survive the winter. *** More: patreon.com/ukraineworld/pos…