Eastern Flank Review, 24.06-30.06.2026

Bulgaria declares it has exhausted its capacity to provide military aid to Ukraine

On June 25, Prime Minister Rumen Radev stated that Bulgaria had reached the limit of the military aid it could provide to Ukraine from its own armed forces’ resources without compromising the country’s defense capabilities. The decision was made after the delivery of 13 military aid packages, approved since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Radev emphasized that this step does not end Bulgaria’s overall support for Ukraine or the activities of its defense industry; rather, the suspension applies to additional military aid—specifically, the transfer of weapons, ammunition, training, and participation in operations. The decision is not intended to affect military support such as maintenance, repairs, and the supply of spare parts. This stance was preceded by a statement in June by Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov, who argued that further arms deliveries would not alter the course of the conflict, pointing to a shortage of personnel—rather than equipment—as Ukraine’s main problem and calling for a greater emphasis on diplomacy. At the same time, Sofia is continuing its modernization efforts, declaring an increase in defense spending to 5% of GDP and considering the purchase of over 100 Greek Centauro anti-drone systems under the EU’s SAFE instrument.

This decision confirms that the new government is fulfilling voters’ expectations regarding policy toward Kyiv. Radev, until recently the country’s popular president and one of the most vocal critics of the defense agreement with Ukraine (signed by the “technical” government before the April snap elections), now heads the cabinet. Sofia deliberately distinguishes between “suspending aid” and “defense industry activities,” remaining a major producer of ammunition.

Bulgarian public sentiment on security and transatlantic ties

According to a poll commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations (conducted among a sample of 19,481 respondents, including 1,013 Bulgarians, in 15 European countries between April 30 and May 19, 2026), Bulgarians’ perceptions of the United States break down as follows: 7% consider it a reliable ally, 44% an “indispensable partner,” 11% an adversary with whom cooperation is necessary, and 15% a country with which Bulgaria remains in conflict. Bulgaria is the only country surveyed whose citizens believe that no other European country would come to its aid if needed: 23% do not expect any support, and only 12% are certain they would receive it. Regarding Ukraine, 26% of Bulgarians view it as an essential partner, 37% have no opinion, and 19% consider it an enemy; among the countries surveyed, Bulgaria has the most negative attitude toward sending military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, Bulgaria supports both the purchase of weapons from Europe and the creation of an alternative nuclear deterrent not reliant on the U.S.

The poll reveals a high level of skepticism among the Bulgarian public regarding the possibility of international support in the event of war. These views are not accompanied by a rise in pro-Russian sentiment; nevertheless, there is noticeable disappointment with the current security architecture and doubts about its effectiveness. This prevailing sentiment could be exploited in information operations conducted by third countries to undermine support for pro-Western integration structures or transatlantic relations.

V4 countries agree to participate in joint military exercises

Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia agreed to participate in each other’s military exercises during a meeting of defense ministers in Budapest, ahead of the July NATO summit in Ankara. The defense ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4)—Jaromír Zůna, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, and Robert Kaliňák—agreed on closer cooperation in the areas of military logistics, the defense industry, and joint exercises. A key outcome of the talks is a mutual invitation to participate in national military exercises, which is intended to allow the armed forces of the partner countries to become more familiar with each other’s procedures. At the summit in Ankara, the V4 countries intend to present a united front, promoting the expansion of north–south logistics corridors, particularly for fuel supply.

Revitalizing the format in the defense sphere is a positive step from the perspective of regional security; nevertheless, the practical implementation of the agreements must be closely monitored. Mutual invitations to exercises constitute a low-cost confidence-building mechanism rather than binding commitments regarding capabilities—much depends on the actual program and scope of joint training. The most concrete and truly significant element of the agreement from NATO’s perspective is the north-south logistics and fuel corridor, particularly in terms of the potential expansion of the alliance’s pipeline network—this element is also a priority for the summit’s host country, Turkey.

New targets for russian armed forces attacks in Ukraine

The Russian Armed Forces have added two new categories of targets to their targeting lists—logistics centers of Ukrainian postal operators and cultural sites. This was indisputably demonstrated by last week’s attacks, during which such facilities were struck once again in recent times. On June 17, the Russians attacked a Nova Poshta center in Sumy; prior to that, they struck in Kyiv on June 15 (the largest and most modern postal terminal in Ukraine), in Zaporizhzhia on June 12, and in Kharkiv on June 7–8. Warehouses and sorting facilities belonging to Nova Poshta’s competitor, Ukrposhta, were attacked on June 15 (allegedly a closed terminal in Kyiv) and on June 7–8 in Kharkiv. Another attack on an unspecified postal terminal near Kharkiv took place on June 20. Also on June 15, there was a very heavy strike on Ukraine’s cultural and national heritage sites. On that day in Kyiv, the Russians attacked, among others, the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex), the Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio, the Museum of Books and Printing, the Mystetskyi Arsenal (a modern cultural and museum complex), the 19th-century Palace of Children and Youth in Sumy, and the House of Organ and Chamber Music in Dnipro. The attack in mid-June was the second strike on Ukraine’s cultural heritage sites in less than a month. On May 24–25, a massive attack targeted the following sites: the Hinaus multidisciplinary cultural space, the Zhytniy Market, the Ukrainian House, the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the National Chernobyl Museum, the Small Opera House, the Kyiv Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, and the International Center for Culture and Arts complex (formerly the October Palace).

The scale and timing of the attacks clearly indicate that postal operators’ distribution centers and national heritage sites have become direct targets of attacks by the Russian Armed Forces. In the first case, the aggressor’s goal is to disrupt logistical operations in Ukraine—not in a military context, but in civilian life. Despite the war, Ukraine remains a very large country whose population has become significantly dispersed across its territory as a result of evacuations and voluntary departures, and postal services constitute the primary means of small-scale trade. Additionally, soldiers serving on the front lines use these operators’ services to receive packages from their families or orders from mail-order stores. In the case of cultural sites, Russian actions serve a significant strategic purpose. By targeting museums, libraries, and educational centers, the Kremlin aims to strike at the material foundations of Ukrainian culture, national identity, and linguistic and religious distinctiveness. On the one hand, this is an expression of frustration at the inability to achieve military and political objectives; on the other, it is an act of retaliation for the highly damaging attacks on Russia’s oil and industrial infrastructure. This situation also holds important lessons for Poland. On the one hand, it highlights the role of postal operators (both state-owned and private) as important components complementing state logistics. On the other hand, it unequivocally obligates the state to ensure the security of national cultural sites, which may become targets of attacks in the event of an armed conflict. The Ukrainian authorities are well aware of this and have evacuated collections from threatened areas (approximately 100,000 items were removed from the Kharkiv Oblast alone).

Successful ukrainian armed forces strikes on targets on the Crimean Peninsula

In recent days, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have carried out a series of successful, systematic strikes on various targets located on the Crimean Peninsula. These included air defense and anti-aircraft positions, radars, air bases, as well as energy infrastructure (including a power plant in Sevastopol and a combined heat and power plant in Kerch), gas infrastructure, and bridges. As a result, living conditions on the peninsula have deteriorated significantly. This is most acutely felt in the fuel sector, where sales to individual consumers have been completely suspended. There are also major difficulties with the availability of electricity, as the grid operator regularly imposes restrictions on its supply.

As a result of these problems, a state of emergency was declared on June 26 at 1:00 p.m. Moscow time in the so-called Republic of Crimea and in Sevastopol. To reduce energy consumption, operating hours for public transportation (5:30 a.m.–9:00 p.m.), retail (7:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.), and restaurants (8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.) have been restricted; street lighting has been completely shut off; and mass events and public gatherings have been banned until further notice. Until September 1, children’s and youth vacation programs in Crimea were banned, and those facilities already providing such services were ordered to evacuate. Further restrictions are likely to be introduced. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, stated that the campaign of attacks—if closely coordinated with Ukraine’s foreign partners—aims, among other things, to paralyze the occupiers’ logistics in the occupied territories. For over a dozen months, Kyiv has been conducting a campaign of strikes against targets in Crimea, which has become increasingly effective in recent weeks. Initially, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ main targets were radar, air defense, and electronic warfare systems; their systematic elimination has increased the effectiveness of attacks on other facilities.

Currently, Ukrainian forces are focusing on strikes against facilities whose destruction has a direct impact on Crimea’s economic situation and the living conditions of its residents. The spectacular results of these attacks are then leveraged in Kyiv’s information warfare and propaganda efforts.

The ukrainian ministry of defense is creating a data platform on russian military equipment

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has launched the TrophyLab platform, which aims to collect and share knowledge about Russian military technologies. The data entered into the platform comes from research on captured equipment or the wreckage of used weapons (drones, missiles, glide bombs, etc.) conducted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, research institutes and centers, and defense contractors. The knowledge gathered there is to be made available to partners “from the free world,” which includes foreign government institutions and companies in the military-industrial sector, as well as domestic companies and institutions. All these entities must apply to join the program. According to Mykhailo Fedorov, TrophyLab offers several modes of collaboration: ranging from access to the compiled documentation, through independent examination of samples held by the Ukrainians, to the dismantling, disassembly, or destruction of specific items.

The Ukrainians will likely strictly differentiate access to the platform, and the data obtained through the research will be made available only after the expected benefits from individual partners have been secured. These benefits may include, for example, priority access for the Ukrainian side to further research results and conceptual work conducted by foreign partners.

Tensions in ukrainian-belarusian relations

The Ukrainian authorities are consistently informing the public and their allies that Belarus is conducting long-term preparations for a Russian military strike on Kyiv and Volhynia from Belarusian territory. The Ukrainian Presidential Office released this information on June 25 of this year following a meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SZU), Oleg Lugovskyi. He informed the president (the information was subsequently made public) that six bridge crossings are being built along the northern side of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border (across the rivers: Muzhaviec, Pripyat, Dnieper, and Sozh rivers, as well as the Dnieper-Bug Royal Canal) and a road junction in the Rzeczyca area. In addition, infrastructure is to be expanded at the 1405th Artillery Ammunition Depot (Velyka Haroza, Mogilev Oblast) and at the 2766th Fuel and Lubricants Depot No. 2766 (Krasnyy Bereg, Gomel Oblast). According to a statement from the Office of the President of Ukraine, the SWZU assesses that all of the above infrastructure is de facto being built at the behest of the Russians and is intended to enable a future invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces from the territory of Belarus. In the quoted statement by President V. Zelenskyy, there was a reference to the need to “halt the development of infrastructure for aggression in Belarus.” At the same time, on the same day, a spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU) confirmed the SWZU’s reports. He also stated that the situation along the border remains stable and that the Belarusian Armed Forces units deployed there are carrying out tasks to support border protection. He noted that the size of the Belarusian contingent remains constant, and a rotation of the forces stationed there is currently underway.

For about two weeks now, the Ukrainian side has significantly changed its rhetoric toward Minsk, on more than one occasion even going so far as to issue threats against Belarus. The most recent such incident concerned relay stations deployed along the border with Ukraine, which were allegedly intended to guide and correct the course of Russian drones during their strikes on Ukraine. Kyiv unequivocally demanded that they be shut down and dismantled, threatening to attack this infrastructure. On June 24, five days after issuing this de facto ultimatum, Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that the equipment had been shut down and that the intensity of the attacks had decreased (in the Chernihiv direction) or ceased altogether (along the section of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border further to the west).

Putin at the United Russia Congress – state Duma Elections as a tool for war mobilization

On June 28, Vladimir Putin attended the 23rd congress of the United Russia party in Moscow, dedicated to the upcoming fall elections to the State Duma of the 9th convocation. In his speech, Putin stated that the Armed Forces of Ukraine “are retreating on all fronts and have resorted to terrorist methods,” and that the West “cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield.” The convention drew nearly 4,000 participants.

United Russia’s election convention, held amid an ongoing war campaign, serves a dual purpose. Internally, it consolidates the Kremlin’s political base ahead of the elections by invoking the narrative of a besieged fortress; externally, it sends a signal that Russia retains full institutional capacity and does not intend to negotiate under military pressure. The rhetorical juxtaposition of Kyiv’s “terror” with democratic elections is a classic war propaganda tactic.

Belarus – mass exercises by the KGB and military commissariats in the Grodno Region

On June 16–18, in one of Belarus’s regions (the Grodno Region), the KGB announced the conduct of multi-level exercises involving the armed forces, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES), the Belarusian Border Committee, and other state agencies. At the same time, exercises were conducted in Grodno with military commissariats, including the summoning of reservists to assembly points, the verification of personal data, and drills simulating the replenishment of personnel in state institutions, military units, the MIA, and the MSE.

The simultaneous conduct of KGB (anti-sabotage) and military commissariat (mobilization) exercises in the region bordering Poland and Lithuania is a pattern of activity that Belarus employs regularly, but their frequency in 2026 is clearly increasing. The Grodno region is chosen for such scenarios for good reason—it is the corridor of greatest potential operational significance both for possible actions against Poland and for assessing Minsk’s mobilization capabilities within the framework of the Regional Military Group (the military grouping of the Union State of Russia and Belarus).

Reform of finland’s military intelligence Act

In June 2026, the Finnish government, at the request of Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen, submitted to parliament a draft amendment to the laws governing military intelligence and counterintelligence. The need for changes stems from experience gained in applying the current regulations, technological advances, and the necessity to adapt the agencies’ mandates to the evolving security environment, in which the persistent threat from Russia remains the primary challenge. The most significant proposed change is the repeal of the absolute ban on conducting intelligence activities at permanent residences. Once the reform takes effect, the use of such measures would be permitted only in cases of serious threats to national security and subject to strictly defined conditions and control mechanisms. The draft also significantly expands the range of technical measures available to military intelligence. It provides for new powers regarding the monitoring of network traffic, including the definition of search criteria and the processing of technical data to identify anomalies. It also allows for operations within the IT systems of state entities by gathering information on the functioning and content of systems used for military activities or posing a serious threat to national security. At the same time, the draft permits the conduct of necessary intelligence activities in foreign information and communications systems, as well as the installation and removal of devices, processes, or software used to gather information. The amendment also expands the scope of inter-agency cooperation. The Border Guard would be granted statutory authority to support, at the request of military intelligence agencies, the operations they conduct, and participation in intelligence tasks would be incorporated into its mandate. At the same time, the draft bill provides for an expansion of information sharing between military intelligence and the tax administration, the financial supervisory authority, as well as insurance and pension institutions and employment funds.

The reform should be viewed as an attempt to adapt Finnish legislation to threats against which the relatively new Military Intelligence Act of 2019 has become insufficient in two key areas—technological and operational. From a technological perspective, the provisions take into account the development of encrypted communications, digital infrastructure, and cyber operations. Far more controversial from the perspective of the Finnish public debate is the proposal to lift the absolute ban on conducting intelligence activities at permanent residences. This change affects the fundamental balance between the effectiveness of the intelligence services’ operations and the constitutionally protected privacy of citizens. It is important to distinguish between the measures introduced by the bill and those that require an amendment to Article 10 of the Finnish Constitution, which guarantees the protection of private life and domestic peace. The fact that the reform bill is being processed in parallel with the proposal for constitutional amendments indicates that the full exercise of the new powers may depend on the completion of the constitutional amendment process. In the Finnish legal system, this requires a qualified parliamentary majority and, as a rule, is spread over two parliamentary terms. Also worthy of note is a less prominent but strategically significant element of the reform—the expansion of information sharing between military intelligence and the tax administration, the financial supervisory authority, and insurance, pension, and employment fund institutions. This reflects a shift in the focus of military intelligence activities toward financial and economic analysis—a characteristic of countering hybrid threats—as well as identifying networks of influence and detecting the financing of activities carried out by hostile states. The inclusion of the Border Guard in the list of entities supporting military intelligence complements this concept. Given the ongoing threat from Russia and the more than 1,300-kilometer Finnish-Russian border, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate traditional border protection from intelligence and counterintelligence activities.

Kongsberg acquires Zone 5 Technologies, strengthening its low-cost guided missile segment

The Norwegian conglomerate Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace has finalized the acquisition of a 90% stake in the U.S. company Zone 5 Technologies, which specializes in the design and production of low-cost, mass-producible guided missiles and effectors for countering unmanned aerial vehicles. The financial terms were not disclosed, and Zone 5—headquartered in San Luis Obispo, California—will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary under its current management.

Zone 5 Technologies is participating in several key programs for the U.S. military, including the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM) and the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM). The company develops weapons designed to combine a relatively low unit cost with the capability for very large-scale production. Its solutions include, among others, the Rusty Dagger strike missile, the Group 3+ White Spike interceptor designed to counter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and the Paladin multi-role unmanned aerial vehicle, capable of, among other things, intercepting drones, airdropping munitions, and conducting short-range operations. The flagship product remains the Rusty Dagger—a turbojet-powered maneuvering missile weighing approximately 225 kg with a range exceeding 930 km, at an estimated unit cost of approximately $246,000, developed as the basis for the ERAM variant.The acquisition of Zone 5 Technologies means that Kongsberg—previously associated primarily with advanced systems such as the NSM, JSM, and NASAMS—is now also entering the mass-produced weapons segment. In recent years, NATO countries have concluded that a potential high-intensity conflict requires the capacity to produce thousands of missiles and effectors annually. This applies to both long-range precision munitions and systems designed to counter drone swarms or replenish stocks following intense combat operations. Through the acquisition of the American company, Kongsberg gains access to technology and the U.S. industrial base, while strengthening its position as one of the key European manufacturers of weapons for NATO. News from the Eastern Flank Institute (IWF):IWF expert Grzegorz Matyasik published an article on the website obronanarodowa.pl titled “From a Registry Reserve to a Competency Reserve: An Analysis of the Management, Training, Organization, Equipment, and Support of Reserve Soldiers in the Polish Armed Forces—Part 1.” The author outlines a model for creating a “Competency-Based Reserve of the Polish Armed Forces,” based on the following pillars: a competency-based reserve model comprising four reserve tiers and reserve readiness classes; the organization of assignments for reservists; and the management of reserve resources by military units. Read the article at this link.We recommend reading the paper titled “European Solutions for Defense Financing—Implications for Poland Regarding the Necessary Development of Defense Support Instruments”, co-authored by Krzysztof Michalski, a member of the Eastern Flank Institute team. The publication analyzes European models of defense financing and their significance for Poland in the context of international security as well as the EU and NATO frameworks. The authors also discuss the role of the Polish financial sector and public development institutions in supporting defense investments, with particular emphasis on hybrid instruments, technological security, and regulatory conditions.