Well, July certainly wasn’t quiet.
If anything, it felt like one of those months where several different strands of my life and work suddenly started colliding at the same time: frontline reporting, writing, interviews, the legal fight against Russia, Voices From The Front, and, of course, simply trying to live in Ukraine while Russia continues throwing missiles and drones at the country.
My last update talked about how Voices was growing, getting back out towards the front, expanding the reporting and continuing the fight to hold Russia accountable.
July pushed all of that forward
Somewhat considerably faster than I expected.
One thing I have become increasingly frustrated with is the gap between some of the commentary surrounding this war and what those of us living here are actually seeing.
There has been a lot of talk recently about Ukraine “turning the tide,” Russia being on the ropes and Donald Trump suddenly changing his position, alongside the usual clickbait headlines predicting the collapse of the Russian economy next week, Putin’s imminent death from some mysterious serious illness, or that regularly regurgitated old classic: “THE COUP.”
I wish it were that simple.
Ukraine has achieved some genuinely impressive things, particularly with its long-range strike campaign, drone warfare and the pressure it has managed to put on Russian infrastructure, occupied Crimea and Putin’s only tangible strategic gain since 2022: the southern land corridor, connecting Russia to Crimea.
But wars are not won through good headlines, and we have to balance those successes with warnings about not taking the narrative too far, without coming across as too negative.
Russia is still firing ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities, many of them, and towards the end of July, Chris Sampson , a journalist who has lived in Kyiv since 2022, and I found ourselves in the middle of one of the largest ballistic attacks on Kyiv, something I talk about in my recent interview with Frontline & Times Radio.
North Korean ballistic missiles are also being used against us. There are serious concerns over interceptor stocks while another winter is approaching, Russia retains an enormous manpower advantage, and North Korea’s involvement appears to be increasing rather than decreasing.
That is why I keep banging on about air defence and being here, on the ground, it finds that balance. Those with the most to lose, understandably, often give the best SITREPs.
But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself, because July actually started somewhere I wasn’t expecting to find myself at all.
Portugal.
Shaun Pinner@ShaunPinnerUA
It was a real privilege to visit Portugal and take part in Arquiconsult’s Summer Review, where I spoke about positivity, resilience, and finding motivation even under the most extreme circumstances. I’m also immensely grateful for their continued support for Ukraine and their
10:17 AM · Jul 12, 2026 · 6K Views
5 Replies · 39 Reposts · 170 Likes
Weirdly, my work in Ukraine had taken me there after an unexpected invitation — and it turned out to be a pretty interesting way to start the month.
It was a real privilege to visit Portugal and take part in Arquiconsult’s Summer Review, where I spoke about positivity, resilience and finding motivation even under the most extreme circumstances.
Earlier in the year, I had met a group of Portuguese volunteers supporting Ukraine, and my friend Rui later invited me over to speak about my experiences and why continuing to support Ukraine remains so important.
I want to say a massive thank you to Rui and the entire team at Arquiconsult, who not only made Larysa and myself feel incredibly welcome, but even paid for my cat, Loki, to come along for the adventure.
Loki, naturally, became quite the star in his own right and probably received more attention than I did.
Although, by the end of it, he was absolutely shattered.
July also brought more horrific attacks on Kyiv and across Ukraine, but it brought something else too: change.
Somewhat surprisingly, we saw a major reshuffle at the top. General Oleksandr Syrskyi was out, and General Mykhailo Drapatyi was in, a commander who has built much of his military career fighting Russia and whose appointment potentially signals a new era for Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
But that wasn’t the only surprise.
To the shock of many, Mykhailo Fedorov was also out the door.
And what happened next raised considerably more questions than answers.
So, when one of the largest protests I have witnessed in Ukraine gathered in Kyiv — not just during the full-scale war, but since I’ve lived in the country — I felt it was imperative to be there and report on what was actually happening.
Shaun Pinner@ShaunPinnerUA
This protest was about more than just Fedorov. It was about military reform, with Fedorov seen by many, whether people like it or not, as the driving force behind that reform. This is one of the biggest protests I’ve seen in nearly 9 years living in Ukraine, for those in
8:45 PM · Jul 31, 2026 · 7.36K Views
19 Replies · 142 Reposts · 624 Likes
To be continued…
The pattern is depressingly familiar by now, unfortunately, and I’m not sure it’s going to get much better in the near term either: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hundreds of drones arriving through the night, forcing millions of Ukrainians to endure yet another night of air-raid alerts, explosions and uncertainty.
Then, by morning, the photographs start appearing.
Destroyed apartments.
Burning buildings.
Rescue workers digging through rubble.
Families waiting for news.
It can all become statistics very quickly from outside Ukraine, and that is exactly why reporting from here remains so important, being on the ground allows you to pick up those subtle changes in mood, politics and the war itself that are easily missed by those commentating from thousands of miles away.
That reality is something I want Voices to continue capturing.
Unfortunately, what we didn’t expect was to find ourselves in the middle of a live attack, well not in Kyiv anyway, But that’s the thing about living in Ukraine: it always seems to come when you least expect it, essentially you are only seconds away from being the first to a mass casualty scenario, or worse, being in it.
We were only in Kyiv to cover the protests. Instead, we ended up reporting through the night until around 5am, and were among the first on the scene after a Russian missile strike, able to move through curfew because of our press passes.
That night, we didn’t simply report what happened.
We experienced and reported what it actually means to live through it.
Shaun Pinner@ShaunPinnerUA
03:50 a Russian missile struck roughly 1km/ 1.5km from our location. We were among the first on the scene. No emergency services had arrived. Around 20 missiles appear to have hit the Kyiv area over several hours. We are documenting what we can from the ground however one
1:13 AM · Aug 1, 2026 · 60.5K Views
25 Replies · 225 Reposts · 634 Likes
July also meant getting back out towards the front and spending more time around the people actually fighting this war.
Weirdly, that remains the reporting I feel most at home doing, being there, in the thick of it. Many of my friends are here, my family is here, and after everything that has happened, this war has become deeply personal to me.
I have always felt more comfortable talking directly to soldiers, engineers, drone teams and the people actually doing the work than sitting in a studio hundreds or thousands of miles away discussing what they are doing.
Of course, being this close to the frontline comes with its hazards.
During a live broadcast with Professor Phillips O’Brien, our interview came to a rather abrupt end when my wife quietly whispered to me that ballistic missiles were indeed heading our way.
At which point, there wasn’t much left to debate.
I had to dart off.
Another area I have been concentrating heavily on is Kherson & Oleshky.
My friend and journalist Zarina Zabrisky continues reporting from Kherson, where civilians are living under something residents have come to describe as a “human safari.”
Russian FPV drones hunt vehicles, pedestrians and civilians simply going about their daily lives — attacks I find myself writing about almost every day in my role as Chief Ukraine Correspondent for LondonLovesBusiness.
But behind those individual reports is a much bigger story: a sustained campaign against civilian life that has somehow struggled to receive the international attention it deserves.
I mean, outside those who live in Ukraine, who has ever heard of Oleshky? Yet this small occupied city sits beside the Oleshky Sands, one of Europe’s largest expanses of sand, and has endured occupation, flooding, isolation and now a deepening humanitarian crisis largely beyond the world’s view.
Across the Dnipro river thousands of people remain trapped in an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation and one of those stories that should be dominating international coverage, but it isn’t.
So I intend to keep writing about it for friends and colleagues.
That, ultimately, is one of the reasons Voices From The Front exists.
Meanwhile, Voices From The Front continues to grow, which is something I am incredibly grateful for.
We have now passed 3,000 subscribers on Substack, and Voices has regularly been sitting inside the platform’s Top 50 World Politics publications.
When I started this, I wasn’t entirely sure what it would become, now we have over 250,000 followers and subscribers on several different platforms.
Originally, it was simply somewhere I could write more freely, explain what I was seeing and occasionally have a bit of a rant without trying to squeeze everything into 280 characters.
It has developed into something much bigger.
There is now Voices Unfiltered, where I can dig deeper into the politics, military realities and personal experiences behind the headlines.
There is the podcast on Apple Podcast & Spotify
There are interviews and increasingly there is original reporting from Ukraine, that is exactly where I want it to go.
Voices From The Front & The Wire Tap is also returning to a more regular weekly rhythm, alongside a bit of a production upgrade.
Every Saturday at 21:00 Kyiv time, we’ll be live on my Substack discussing the week’s events from Ukraine and beyond — but with more than just two blokes talking into microphones. We’re adding maps, video clips, frontline updates and visual analysis to help explain not only what has happened, but why it matters.
The aim is simple: better production, better context and more voices directly from the front.
Chris Sampson and I have always wanted it to feel less like another polished political programme and more like two people who actually live with this war talking about what has happened during the week — occasionally with considerably more colourful language than you might hear on the BBC, and perhaps some Red Wine….
We will also continue bringing in guests who actually know what they are talking about.
Soldiers.
Analysts.
Journalists.
Politicians.
People involved in Ukrainian innovation.
And, most importantly, Ukrainians themselves.
Away from journalism, the fight to hold the Russian state accountable continues.
This is personal for obvious reasons, but it is also about something much larger. Russia has spent decades behaving as though international law is something that applies to everyone else. For me, pursuing accountability is simply another battlefield.
A slower one, certainly, and considerably more paperwork-heavy.
But we are making progress in the UK and at the European Court of Human Rights. We are now close to enforcing the verdict achieved in Kyiv, and Russia has been formally served.
It may look very different from the other battles I have fought, but it is a battlefield nonetheless.
There will be more on that as things develop.
We are also trying to begin the process of securing Ukrainian citizenship for former Marine Brahim Saadoun.
For those unfamiliar with Brahim’s story, he is a Moroccan national who served in the Ukrainian Marines and fought in the defence of Mariupol in 2022. He was captured by Russian-backed forces and, alongside Aiden Aslin and me, was put through a sham trial in occupied Donetsk and sentenced to death. We were eventually released in September 2022 as part of a Saudi-brokered prisoner exchange.
Brahim has since been unable to obtain a Moroccan passport, leaving him in an incredibly difficult position. After everything he has been through, we are now looking at what legal avenues may be available to help him establish a secure future in Ukraine, the country he chose to defend.
It may be a complicated process, but it is one we are determined to pursue. In many ways, helping people like Brahim is exactly why Voices from the Front began in the first place: using whatever platform we have to make sure those who fought, suffered and sacrificed for Ukraine are not simply forgotten when the headlines move on.
August is going to be about leveling up.
More original reporting.
More frontline access.
More interviews.
More photography and video.
More Voices Unfiltered pieces looking beyond the daily news cycle, and much more attention on what happens next. Ukraine is approaching another extremely important period and it maybe +30, but Winter preparations matter.
What happens politically inside Ukraine matters, because if we cannot get the leadership team right, then everything else — the sacrifices, the reforms, the support and the fight itself — risks being for nothing.
And whether Europe finally begins preparing for the scale of the threat in front of it matters enormously. North Korea has now committed substantial military manpower and ballistic-missile capability in support of Russia’s war and invasion West. This is increasingly difficult to describe simply as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is a war being sustained by a coalition of authoritarian powers, with Russia pushing westwards into Europe while North Korea and Iran provide varying degrees of military support.
Europe needs to start treating the threat with the seriousness its scale now demands.
I also want to develop Voices From The Front into something increasingly sustainable, with eventual ambition bigger than simply my Substack or social-media accounts.
I want a platform capable of supporting reporting, investigations, documentaries and projects from Ukraine that otherwise might not get made.
We are gradually moving in that direction.
A massive thank you to everyone who reads, subscribes, shares the work or argues with me in the comments.
Even those of you who tell me I’m talking complete bollocks occasionally contribute to the algorithm, so thank you too.
The paid subscriptions genuinely help.
That money goes straight back into the reporting: travel, production, equipment, projects and the wider work we are trying to build here, as well as helping support the ongoing legal and advocacy work against the Russian state.
The free updates will continue. I want Voices from the Front to remain accessible to everyone, regardless of whether they can afford to subscribe.
If you would simply like to make a donation, there is also my crowdfunder and PayPal @ShaunPinner, both of which genuinely help keep this work moving.
But if you are considering supporting us financially, I would much rather you take out a yearly paid subscription to the Substack. That way, we can actually give you something back in return: the deeper Voices Unfiltered pieces, our expanded reporting, live discussions and everything else we are building over the coming months.
Either way, every bit of support helps us keep reporting from here rather than talking about Ukraine from thousands of miles away.
But if you enjoy the deeper pieces and want to help us take Voices From The Front to the next level, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
July was busy.
August is going to be busier.
And there is a great deal more to come.
Stay safe.
Shaun
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