Over 1,000km away, in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, another evacuation operation is under way. “New Kramatorsk” is the shorthand for an effort to transplant the city’s industrial heart, with its metalworking and machine-tooling factories, to Perechyn, a sleepy town of 7,000 people on Ukraine’s western border. The early stages began in 2022, not long after Russia’s full-scale invasion. It gathered pace as Russian lines moved closer. Few think there is much time left. NKMZ, Kramatorsk’s machine-building flagship, has just announced its closure and is dismissing or relocating its workers. In Perechyn, a vast industrial park has risen from the fields. Blue-and-white corrugated-iron factories now dot the mountains. There is a new main road, with lorries grinding in and out; schools, kindergartens and a technical college; and several prefab housing complexes. More than 3,500 skilled workers have moved west. Nataliya Shevchenko was among the first, arriving in 2023 with her husband. “Perechyn was a village when we got here,” she says. “There wasn’t even a proper road.” Most of the relocation is paid for by Kramatorsk’s firms, but the city administration is footing part of the bill. Serhiy Smirnov, Kramatorsk’s former deputy mayor, is based in Perechyn full-time, overseeing construction. Interviewed alongside Perechyn’s mayor, Ivan Pohorilyak, he
describes the effort as a “proof of concept”: no one has tried to move an entire industrial “ecosystem” in Ukraine before. Most of Ukraine’s industry was built on the “wrong” side of the country, near the border with Russia, at a time when it was assumed the enemy would come from the west. If Ukraine’s western regions are to support a new industrial core, they will need to build new infrastructure: roads, bridges, energy and gas networks. Mr Smirnov hopes the national government will help. The alternative, he says, is worse. “If our experienced engineers scatter —if they go to work in supermarkets, in shops—we lose essentially everything we have built.” “Shoulder to Shoulder”, as the project is officially known, has brought the local economy new revenues and opportunities. “We are trying to create a hub for the highest-quality engineers in Ukraine,” says Mr Pohorilyak. A new technical college is training local youngsters, who draw well-paid internships in the factories. But not every Perechyn native welcomes the easterners. There have been several protests. The initiative has not only relocated industry, but some of the risk too. In April a Russian drone struck an electricity substation alongside the industrial park after flying along the border with Slovakia. It was the first moment the sleepy town had seen war.
Svitlana, whose traditional hut stands directly opposite the industrial park, made a career change when it opened, becoming a skilled painter in one of the factories. She thinks the benefits may outweigh the cost. But her neighbour Vasyl, a labourer, complains that the Kramatorsk factory workers are shielded from the draft, while officers are stepping up the conscription of locals. “I don’t understand why we should fight for their land while they get to relax here,” he says. Yurii Kachur, a local entrepreneur who strove to stop his rented lavender fields being handed over for new housing, says locals struggle to be heard: “I understand these people didn’t come here by choice. But that doesn’t give them the right to walk over our heads.” Ms Shevchenko says she understands the hostility. She rarely hears the complaints directly, but gets reports from a sympathetic local beautician. The animosity is unfair, she says, but human. Western Ukrainians have not lived through the war as Kramatorsk has; they have not seen their home town slowly destroyed, or left loved ones behind. “To explain to them why it is unfair is impossible,” she says. “May God grant they never understand.” ■ To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//europe/2026/06/11/ukraine-is-transplanting-its- industrial-heart-to-the-west
Ukrainian strikes are inflicting pain deep inside Russia Our modelling suggests they are doing even more damage than commonly assumed June 11th 2026 or years, Ukraine’s forces have been on the back foot. But recent “deep strikes” inside Russia are a sign of change. Our analysis suggests they have been more extensive and damaging than commonly assumed. We looked at data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED), a monitoring group, on 1,289 Ukrainian strikes at least 100km from its borders. From 2022 to the end of 2024 there were 335 such strikes. In 2025 alone there were 658. At the current pace, Ukraine is on track for over 800 deep strikes this year. Not all are successful. Russian forces have become much better at moving and hiding their ammunition. But ports, oil depots and refineries have been repeatedly hit. From January until April, Russia’s fossil-fuel export revenues were 4.6% lower than the year before, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a think-tank in Finland. But that may understate the damage.
Our model estimates the shortfall by assessing the historical relationship between Russian export revenues and the price of Brent crude. The results suggest that since June 2025 Russia has earned less than prices would predict. Between June and December 2025 revenues were $18bn, 12% lower than would be expected. In the first four months of 2026 they were 34% lower. Other factors contribute too, including a strong rouble, which offsets higher oil prices, and tightening sanctions, which force Russia to sell at a discount. Still, the strikes are clearly costing Russia billions of dollars. ■ To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//interactive/europe/2026/06/09/ukrainian-strikes-are- inflicting-pain-deep-inside-russia
Armenia’s election is a setback for Vladimir Putin Russia’s dirty tricks are failing to stop its pivot to the West June 11th 2026 MINERAL WATER and roses. Cognac and strawberries. Cherries and wine. Even the fish. By the time Armenia held its general election on June 7th, Russia had banned imports of swathes of the country’s goods. The Kremlin made dark threats about the Western-leaning prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and spread disinformation on social media. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, compared Mr Pashinyan’s pivot to the European Union to the “dangerous path” of Leon Trotsky (who broke with Stalin and was murdered by a Soviet assassin for it). The message to Armenia, once one of Russia’s closest allies, was clear: Think twice before you re-elect him.
In the end, however, the Kremlin’s pressure campaign backfired. Mr Pashinyan’s party, Civil Contract, won nearly 50% of the vote, giving it a majority in the National Assembly. A former journalist turned protest leader, Mr Pashinyan entered office eight years ago, following a peaceful uprising against Armenia’s old, Kremlin-backed elite. He has sought closer ties with America, the EU and Turkey, a historical foe. Since losing a long-running war with Azerbaijan in 2023, he has also been working on a peace deal. “The Armenian people voted for regional prosperity and co-operation,” said Mr Pashinyan. Western leaders welcomed the result. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said that Mr Pashinyan’s victory showed that “the spirit of the Velvet Revolution you led in 2018 is alive and well.” The union helped Armenia resist Russia’s economic blackmail, finding buyers for Armenian goods that Russia had banned. On June 4th the EU announced a small but symbolically important financial-aid package, worth €50m ($58m). It promised more to come. Shortly after polls closed Samvel Karapetyan, whose pro-Russian Strong Armenia party won 23% of the vote, cried foul. Speaking from his hilltop mansion, where he is under house arrest for calling for the government to be overthrown (a charge he denies), the Russian-Armenian oligarch accused the
authorities of meddling in the election. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, also hinted (apparently without irony) at “violations” during the vote. Such claims have little weight. The Organisation for Security and Co- operation in Europe, an intergovernmental organisation, said the election was “transparent and efficient”. The truth is that the opposition lost because of its message. While Mr Pashinyan promised peace and economic development, Mr Karapetyan offered reheated nationalism and a return to the partnership with Russia that most Armenians think failed them. A half-baked proposal for a “Ministry of Sex” to tackle falling fertility and ensure “there will be no unsatisfied woman”, suggested by Mr Karapetyan’s son on a podcast, showed the shallowness of Strong Armenia’s domestic platform. For his part Robert Kocharyan, a former president who led the second-biggest opposition party, conjured up bad memories of the violence and oligarchy that defined Armenia’s authoritarian past. Mr Pashinyan’s victory will reassure Armenia’s neighbours, Turkey and Azerbaijan, that its foreign-policy pivot is not about to unravel. Normalising relations with Turkey, which shut its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with its ally, Azerbaijan, is one possible prize. Armenia and Turkey have already agreed to rebuild a historic bridge on the border and are working on restoring an old railway route between the two countries. The completion of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, an American-backed trade route, now looks more likely. It would link Azerbaijan to its exclave in Nakhchivan via southern Armenia. Despite Mr Pashinyan’s victory, the mood among some of his supporters is bittersweet. Civil Contract fell short of the two-thirds majority that would allow it to hold a referendum on amending the constitution. The party wants to do so to reform the judiciary. But it also matters for the peace process. Azerbaijan wants Armenia to remove a reference in its constitution to Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory they once fought over, before signing a peace treaty. “The question now is whether Azerbaijan will be ready to move ahead with signing and ratification without further movement on Armenia’s constitution, or whether it will continue to insist on this issue,” says Zaur