When Ursula von der Leyen last stepped off the night train in Kyiv, in late February, the city was in the grip of a brutal winter. Russian strikes had knocked out much of the power grid, leaving millions without heating in sub-zero temperatures. This week, under a blazing July sun, the European Commission president struck a markedly different tone. “The tide is turning,” she said as she arrived at the station.
The statement, bold and deliberate, captured a transformation that has unfolded in less than five months. On the battlefield, Ukraine has shifted the fight to the skies, launching long-range drone strikes against Russian oil refineries, some located thousands of kilometres from the front lines. The strategy has strained Moscow’s war chest and forced Russia, a major energy exporter, to restrict fuel exports. “Russia may have darkened your skies with smoke. But no one is fooled. No cloud of smoke can hide the reality on the battlefield,” von der Leyen told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a joint press conference. “Russia’s momentum is weak. Ukraine, on the other hand, continues to resist.”
It was fitting, then, that the centrepiece of her one-day visit was a new EU-Ukraine defence industrial partnership focused on unmanned aerial vehicles. The deal, the first of its kind, aims to merge the bloc’s industrial scale with Kyiv’s cutting-edge battlefield expertise into joint ventures. Notably, it will allow drones to be stored on EU soil before deployment to Ukraine. Funding will come from the military strand of the €90 billion support loan and the roughly €10 billion still available under the SAFE defence programme. Down the line, the partnership is expected to expand to missile technology.
Vulnerability beneath the surface
Yet the declaration that “the tide is turning” does not mean Ukraine is winning. Russia continues to exploit Ukraine’s severe shortage of US-made Patriot interceptors, essential for deflecting ballistic missiles, to pummel cities at a relentless pace. Residential blocks, supermarkets, warehouses, railway stations, schools and museums have all been hit in recent weeks, killing hundreds of civilians. Von der Leyen was reminded of this extreme vulnerability when an air raid alert forced her into an underground shelter. The intervention, which this correspondent witnessed, proceeded calmly and lasted only a few minutes.
Shortly after leaving the shelter, she toured the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a historic monastery whose golden-domed cathedral was set on fire by a Russian attack in June. As she marvelled at the frescoes, she spotted areas still blackened by flames—another reminder that for Moscow, nothing, not even the holy, is off limits.
Meanwhile, murmurs of political turmoil grew louder during the visit. The following day, after von der Leyen had left, Ukrainians took to the streets to protest the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov, the popular defence minister credited with advancing drone warfare. The reshuffling underscored the internal pressures Zelenskyy faces even as the war grinds on.
Accession talks gain real momentum
The tide is not only turning on the battlefield. Ukraine’s path to EU membership has also experienced a remarkable turnaround. In February, von der Leyen had little to show for. The accession process was under the tight grip of Hungary’s veto, thwarting any formal decision. Hope was virtually lost for as long as Viktor Orbán remained in office. On top of that, Zelenskyy had made an impossible request: full membership by 2027, a date that had emerged during US-led peace negotiations.
This week, the story played to a vastly different tune. Von der Leyen arrived in Kyiv just a day after Ukraine opened a new cluster of negotiations—the second in one month. The breakthrough, made possible after the Hungarian elections in April, has laid a reasonable path to unblocking the remaining four clusters after the summer break. Progress is finally tangible. Much to von der Leyen’s relief, Zelenskyy has stopped talking about 2027. After backlash from EU leaders, his goalposts have shifted from fantasy to reality. Now, his attention is on maximising the tried-and-tested methodology. “Our relationship with Europe is now the strongest, most meaningful and most personal than at any other point in our history,” he said this time.
Privately, von der Leyen and her team welcomed what they saw as Zelenskyy’s improved understanding of enlargement as a step-by-step trajectory that can be politically sustainable only if its core rules are credible. The shift in tone, combined with the new defence partnership, suggests a renewed synchrony between Kyiv and Brussels—one that may prove as important as any battlefield gain.
