Ukraine Seeks 10-Year Army Funding as Russian Strikes Hit Power Grid and Poltava Homes
Ukraine wants Western backing to finance an 800,000-strong army for at least a decade after the war, a plan European estimates put near $700 billion. As talks continue in Abu Dhabi, Russian attacks on substations, rail links and homes show the stakes for Ukraine’s security and basic services.
Ukraine is asking Western partners to commit to long-term funding for a large standing army while Russian forces step up strikes on its energy system and civilian sites.
A senior Ukrainian source told AFP that Kyiv wants at least ten years of Western financial support to sustain an 800,000-strong army after the war. Ukrainian media report that this demand has been put forward as one of Kyiv’s conditions in the negotiations, aimed at protecting the country against a possible new Russian attack. According to those reports, such support would cost Europe about $700 billion.
The request comes as delegations from Russia, the United States and Ukraine meet in Abu Dhabi for a second day of trilateral talks. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov has said the day would begin with a three-way meeting with the US and Russia, followed by talks with European partners.
Territorial questions are also on the table. The Telegraph, citing a Ukrainian source close to the negotiations, reports that Ukraine has rejected a US proposal to revise Kyiv’s stated territorial boundaries in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The plan, reportedly put forward by representatives of Donald Trump ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks, was described as a way for Moscow to declare victory while Kyiv kept control of still-unoccupied cities. Politico has reported that today’s negotiations will focus on territorial issues.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian officials describe a widening campaign against the country’s infrastructure. Regional authorities said that overnight the Russian military attacked six large electrical substations in the Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr and Cherkasy regions. Power transmission lines were damaged in Kirovohrad and Rivne regions, and a district heating company in Kryvyi Rih was hit. Rail infrastructure in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions also came under attack.
Separate Ukrainian reporting says Russia is focusing its main strikes on southern regions, with recorded hits on energy substations in Kryvyi Rih and the Odesa region. According to these accounts, Russia is fragmentarily disconnecting Ukraine’s energy clusters from the national grid, deepening an energy crisis that is already straining the system.
The human cost is visible in cities like Poltava. The regional administration reported that a private enterprise and a residential house were struck there. Six people were injured, two of them in serious condition.
The fighting is not one-sided. Russian-controlled areas have been hit by Ukrainian drones and strikes, including mid-range drone attacks reported in the Russian-held parts of Donetsk Oblast, and large-scale Ukrainian drone operations aimed at the Leningrad region. Russian military aviation sources have hinted at serious losses during air defence operations against Ukrainian drones near St. Petersburg, and Ukrainian channels have claimed casualties among Russian Aerospace Forces personnel and the loss of a Ka-52 helicopter while repelling attacks in the Leningrad region.
The Abu Dhabi talks are taking place against this moving front line and under repeated strikes on Ukraine’s grid and transport network. How Western governments respond to Kyiv’s call for a decade of funding, whether there is any shift on territorial proposals, and whether Russia adjusts its targeting of energy infrastructure as winter advances will determine whether these negotiations ease the pressure on Ukraine’s security and basic services or leave the current trajectory unchanged.
Sources
- OSINT