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Sumy drone strike and Unilever listing, 3 July 2023
Summary
A look back at a day when Ukraine pressed for stronger air defences and named a British conglomerate as a sponsor of war.
What did Ukraine's security agenda look like on 3 July 2023? Two separate developments, one military and one financial, pointed to pressure on both fronts.
Russia launched drone attacks on Sumy, killing two people and injuring 19 others. In response, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for a major upgrade of anti-aircraft defences. The strike was part of the wider Russian campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure that had run since 2022.
On the same day, the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention added the British conglomerate Unilever to its list of "international sponsors of war". The agency claimed that Unilever's Russian operations indirectly fund the invasion.
Two fronts, one theme
The two items differ in kind, but both concern the means by which the war is sustained. The Sumy attack showed the cost to civilians of drone strikes and prompted a public demand for better air defence. The Unilever listing showed Kyiv's effort to challenge foreign companies that continued to operate in Russia.
The agency's claim of indirect funding was its own assertion, and the listing was a Ukrainian designation rather than a sanction imposed by an international body.
