The is disheveled head office of HUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, sits on a jagged patch of land in central kyiv known as Fisherman’s Island. Strictly speaking, it is not an island but a peninsula. And there’s not much fishing in these war days. But sporting a pirate beard, the agency’s deputy director, Major General Vadym Skibitsky, plays up a nautical theme. Raw, enigmatic and sharp as a captain’s hook, he exudes many of the qualities that have made HUR one of the most talked about secret services in the world. But he seems troubled when assessing the prospects from the Ukrainian battlefield. Things, he says, are as difficult as they have ever been since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. And they’re about to get worse.
He predicts that Russia will first pursue its plan to “liberate” all eastern Ukraine regions from Donetsk and Luhansk, a task unchanged since 2022. He claims a Russian order has been issued to “ take something” in time for the splendor of Victory. Day in Moscow on May 9, or, failing that, before Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing a week later. The speed and success of the advance will determine when and where the Russians strike next. “Our problem is very simple: we have no weapons. They always knew that April and May would be a difficult time for us.
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