Acclaimed Ukrainian filmmaker offers his candid judgement on situation in Ukraine
Source: Oleh Sentsov/Facebook
Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov who is serving as a volunteer soldier took to social media on Monday to offer his scathing jugdment of the situation in Ukraine. Sentsov vented his frustration over a shift in public discourse as the ideas of Ukraine’s victory and mobilization are now drawned out by discussions about professional examptions for men and negotiations with Russia.
Sentsov says he can see a taboo about demobilization while the idea of Ukraine’s victory plan is now depands more on President Joe Biden’s administration.
The loss of territories and towns like Vuhledar, Sentsov said, has become a routine part of life, with the forecasted losses of towns by the year’s end already known, painting a troubling picture of what lies ahead.
Sentsov is also bitter about the problems on the home front as the soldiers come back home and learn about coruption issues in agencies like the Medical-Social Expert Commission where one of regional senior officials was caught with 6 million dollars stacked around her home in Khmelnytskyi. i
In a sharp critique, the filmmaker drew a parallel with the scene from The Godfather Part II, where a lavish party in Havana continued uninterrupted while Castro’s forces were entering the city.
“We’ve already lost so much time, resources, and lives that even drastic changes now will only stabilize the situation in the future. Yet, we continue to choose the ostrich strategy because keeping our heads in the sand feels much safer than facing the harsh reality,” Sentsov wrote.
In 2025, the deadliest year yet for civilians, Ukraine’s three largest charitable foundations raised a record 105.9 billion hryvnias. It is more than the years 2022–2024 combined. According to the UN, humanitarian aid in Ukraine was delivered by more than 450 organisations, reaching five million people over the course of the year. Civic foundations hold licences to purchase lethal weapons, which is a function states have monopolised for centuries. These record sums were underwritten by international government grants, which means foreign states now channel billions directly through Ukrainian civic funds, bypassing inter-state channels. It is hard to imagine a stronger institutional trust in civil society.
During the GLOBSEC Defence Forum 2026 in Prague, representatives of “Steel Front”, an initiative by Rinat Akhmetov, discussed with NATO delegations, military officials, and representatives of the European defense industry the lessons learned from Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
After the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine witnessed an unprecedented wave of private support for the army. Citizens, big businesses, charitable foundations, and international philanthropists began financing the country’s defense alongside state assistance provided by international partners. Estimates of total private contributions range from tens to hundreds of billions of hryvnias. However, determining the exact amount remains difficult. In many cases, companies combine military aid, humanitarian programs, tax payments, social spending, and employee support in their reporting.
Rinat Akhmetov’s military initiative, “Steel Front”, has delivered a batch of drones worth UAH 214 million to the 1st “Azov” Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine. This shipment is part of the Metinvest Group’s ongoing support for the unit in 2025.
On October 6, the Administrative Cassation Court within the Supreme Court of Ukraine continued hearing case No. 990/80/25, in which the fifth President and leader of the party “European Solidarity”, Petro Poroshenko, seeks to have Presidential Decree No. 81/2025 from February 12, 2025 — enacting sanctions by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) — declared illegal and annulled. The plaintiff claims the document was falsified and that the sanctions are a tool of political persecution of the opposition, contrary to international norms. Government representatives deny the allegations and insist their actions were lawful. Journalists of Bukvy were present at the hearing.