Zelensky Visits U.K. for Talks on Military Aid

The Ukrainian president’s trip on Monday comes after a whirlwind trip through Europe’s capitals over the weekend that included meetings with allies in Rome, Berlin and Paris.

The U.K. promises more missiles and drones for Ukraine.

Iran and Russia are discussing more drone sales, the White House says.

A former U.S. Embassy employee is being held in Moscow, according to Russia’s state news agency.

With a new tranche of weapons, Ukraine has much of what it needs for a counteroffensive, analysts say.

Ukraine claims further advances around Bakhmut.

The Wagner leader disputes a report that he offered to betray Russia.

State news media release a photo of Belarus’s leader amid speculation about his health.

Ukraine Diary: Under the threat of airstrikes, a film crew in Kyiv forged ahead to ‘tell a story.’

LONDON — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain pledged on Monday to provide a large package of missiles and attack drones to Ukraine, ahead of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who over the weekend secured promises of billions of dollars in additional military aid from European allies.

Mr. Zelensky, who has been on a whirlwind tour of Europe to shore up support ahead of a counteroffensive against Russia, hugged Mr. Sunak when he landed at the British leader’s country residence outside London, Chequers, on Monday morning. The Ukrainian president — who referred to Mr. Sunak in a tweet as “my friend Rishi” — later said he was “very pleased” by the results of his European tour.

Welcome back, @ZelenskyyUa 🇬🇧🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/ph57ZoUHpC

The prime minister’s office said that in addition to the cruise missiles it announced last week, Britain would deliver “hundreds of air defense missiles and further unmanned aerial systems,” including long-range drones to support Ukraine in its anticipated counteroffensive.

“This is a crucial moment in Ukraine’s resistance to a terrible war of aggression they did not choose or provoke,” Mr. Sunak said in a statement on Monday. “They need the sustained support of the international community to defend against the barrage of unrelenting and indiscriminate attacks that have been their daily reality for over a year.”

The two leaders met for around two hours at Chequers before emerging to take a few questions from journalists, with Mr. Zelensky expressing thanks to Britain, Germany and France for their new weapons pledges over the weekend.

“I am very pleased with our achievements and agreements,” Mr. Zelensky said, according to Ukrinform, a Ukrainian state-funded news outlet. “Powerful defense packages are really important.”

Recent Ukrainian military advances around the embattled city of Bakhmut prompted some Russian military bloggers to claim that Kyiv’s long-anticipated counteroffensive was already underway. But Mr. Zelensky said last week that Ukraine needed to wait for more hardware from the West to arrive, specifically armored vehicles, before it could launch the assault. When asked if that was still fair to say on Monday, Mr. Zelensky told journalists that “we really need some more time.”

“Not too much,” he said, according to the BBC. “We will be ready in some time.”

The Kremlin, though, dismissed the significance of Britain’s new military aid pledge.

“We take an extremely negative view of it,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists, according to the Russian state news agency Tass, but he said the new weapons would “not have any significant impact” on the course of the war.

Britain provided about $2.8 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in 2022, making it one of Kyiv’s largest backers. Mr. Sunak also promised to start training Ukrainian fighter pilots this summer, though he has yet to commit to sending British fighter jets to Ukraine. Instead, Britain has said it will help other countries that supply combat aircraft by providing support systems.

Mr. Zelensky’s brief visit to Britain comes after he traveled over the weekend to Italy, Germany and France, meeting with Pope Francis and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome, Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, and President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. On Saturday, Germany announced an arms package of almost $3 billion, and on Sunday, France also pledged more weaponry for Ukraine.

The British government confirmed last week that it would begin supplying Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles, continuing its policy of being in the vanguard in providing the Ukrainian Army heavier weapons to fight Russian forces.

The missiles, which are known as Storm Shadow and have a range of more than 155 miles, would “allow Ukraine to push back Russian forces based in Ukrainian sovereign territory,” according to Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace.

Britain, with its aggressive approach, has often acted as a catalyst for other Western countries to supply Ukraine with heavier weapons. Its decision to send a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks foreshadowed decisions by Germany and the United States to send more sophisticated tanks.

The Ukrainian leader last visited Britain in February, delivering an emotional speech in which he pleaded for NATO countries to supply Ukraine with fighter jets. Mr. Sunak has said fighter jets are on the table, but he has not yet taken the step of committing them.

A spokesman for Mr. Sunak’s office affirmed that point on Monday, telling the BBC that Britain had “no plans” to supply jets to Ukraine.

— Mark Landler

United States officials see continued indications that Iran and Russia are expanding their military partnership, with Russia having employed large numbers of Iranian drones against Ukraine and seeking to procure more, John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said at a press briefing on Monday.

Iran has provided Russia with more than 400 one-way attack drones since August, most of which have been used against Ukraine’s infrastructure as Russia presses its invasion, Mr. Kirby said, and discussions of buying more advanced weapons “are now continuing.”

By providing the drones, “Iran has been directly enabling Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine,” Mr. Kirby said.

Russia is also providing more “defense cooperation” to Iran, Mr. Kirby said, at a time when Iran is seeking to buy billions of dollars in Russian fighter jets, attack helicopters and Yak-130 combat trainer aircraft. Iran’s ability to carry out “destabilizing activities in the Middle East,” he said, has only been heightened.

The United States has tried to prevent the Iranian drone sales. It has choked off Iran’s ability to produce the craft, made it harder for Russia to launch them and helped Ukraine with its air defenses. Mr. Kirby said on Monday that the United States was “using the tools at our disposal to expose and disrupt these activities, and we are prepared to do more.”

The United States, the European Union and Britain have sanctioned Iran for supplying the drones. Iran has denied sending them for use against Ukraine; in November, Iran’s foreign minister acknowledged sending the drones to Russia but said the deliveries had all taken place before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Western officials believe Russia and Iran have developed an alliance of convenience, one that flows both ways. Iran has bought billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment, including fighter jets, from Russia, Mr. Kirby said.

“The partnership between Russia and Iran is directly enabling Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East, posing a threat not just to Ukraine, of course, but also to Iran’s neighbors,” he said. “This is a full-scale defense partnership that is harmful to Ukraine, to the region in the Middle East and to the international community.”

Mr. Kirby also said the White House plans to help businesses and governments understand the Iranian drone program and related illicit practices, so they can avoid “inadvertently contributing to” Iran’s efforts.

— Daniel Victor

Robert Shonov, identified as a former employee of the U.S. Embassy in Russia, was arrested in the Russian city of Vladivostok and charged with conspiracy, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. The report did not identify his nationality.

Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, told reporters at a briefing on Monday that he had seen the report but that “I don’t have anything additional to offer at this time.”

Tass, quoting an anonymous law enforcement official, said that Mr. Shonov was accused of “collaboration on a confidential basis with a foreign state or international or foreign organization.” He has been taken to Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, Tass reported, and no court date has been set.

Being held in isolation is commonplace at Lefortovo, a notorious high-security prison whose inmates currently include Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent who was accused of espionage in March, charges that his employer and American officials have strongly denied. It is also where Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a 16-year sentence on what the United States has said are fabricated charges of espionage, was held for 20 months until his trial in 2020. He is now at a forced labor camp several hundred miles away.

In the Soviet era, the K.G.B. kept Soviet dissidents at the prison, and it has been used more recently to isolate opponents of the Kremlin.

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed a nationality to the former U.S. embassy employee detained in Vladivostok. It is not known whether the person is an American; the Tass report did not identify the person’s citizenship.

An earlier version also incorrectly stated the whereabouts of Paul Whelan. He is not currently being held at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow; he is now at a forced labor camp in Mordovia, several hundred miles to the southeast of Moscow.

How we handle corrections

— Daniel Victor

The new long-range missiles, attack drones and tanks and other armored vehicles that President Volodymyr Zelensky has secured from allies in recent days will fulfill many, but not all, of the demands for weapons that Ukraine said it needs for a counteroffensive against Russia.

Military analysts believe at least some of the latest tranche of Western weapons will be quickly sent to the front lines to cut off Russian supply routes and to strike at their artillery systems and command centers in Ukraine’s south and east. Others may be delivered later, including in the autumn or beyond, to help Mr. Zelensky plan for future operations should the war continue to drag on.

But the robust package — announced as Mr. Zelensky visited four European capitals over the last three days — may signal that Western officials now believe Ukraine could retake significant swaths of territory in the counteroffensive, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a former Danish army intelligence officer.

“We wouldn’t be committing this amount of weapons to Ukraine at this point, if the thinking was that it was not likely that they would succeed,” said Mr. Kirkegaard, who is now a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund research group in Brussels.

Some Western officials hope that if the Ukrainians make substantial gains of territory, they would have more leverage in any peace negotiations.

Just last week, Mr. Zelensky had warned that the anticipated counteroffensive against Russia that was expected to begin this spring or early summer could be delayed unless Kyiv quickly received more weapons.

European allies responded in a matter of hours.

Perhaps the most significant commitment came from Germany, which on Saturday announced — just before Mr. Zelensky landed in Berlin — that it would send Ukraine 30 additional Leopard tanks and 20 armored fighting vehicles, 16 air defense systems, more than 200 drones and a slew of other arms and ammunition. The leaders of France and Italy also gave vaguer promises to send light tanks, ammunition and air defense systems.

The additional Leopards and infantry fighting vehicles that Germany is sending as part of its package worth 2.7 billion euros, or nearly $3 billion, will be most useful on Ukraine’s southern steppe, where the Russian-controlled terrain, Mr. Kirkegaard said, is well suited “for tank or maneuver warfare.”

But Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted that it was not clear that all of the newly pledged German tanks would arrive soon. (Berlin has already delivered 18 Leopard tanks to Ukraine.)

However, he said, the commitment “helps give Ukraine a degree of confidence” as military planners prepare for a drawn-out battle.

As of early March, only 31 percent of tanks and 76 percent of other armored fighting vehicles had been delivered to Ukraine for the coming counteroffensive, according to classified U.S. military assessments that were recently leaked, although American officials have said far more have been delivered in the months since. The Biden administration has also pledged to send 31 American-made Abrams tanks to Ukraine, but they are not expected to arrive until fall at the earliest.

The new air defense systems that were promised may help ease American worries that Ukraine did not have enough to protect itself as the counteroffensive neared. Four of the 16 air defense systems that Germany has newly pledged are considered among the most sophisticated on the market.

The newly promised long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which Britain pledged on Thursday, help answer a longstanding request from Ukraine. The United States has so far resisted sending American long-range missiles to Ukraine, in part to avoid potentially escalating the war with weapons that Ukraine could use to reach into Russian territory.

Mr. Kirkegaard said the long-range drones that Britain pledged on Monday are of particular threat to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol and other sites in and near Crimea, including the Kerch Strait Bridge that connects occupied Crimea to Russia.

Crimea has been a key staging ground for the Russians operating in captured territory in southern Ukraine.

— Lara Jakes

DONBAS REGION, Ukraine — Ukrainian soldiers made further advances around Bakhmut over the weekend, the country’s deputy defense minister said on Monday, putting pressure on Russian positions on the city’s flanks as Ukraine tries to retake momentum after months of being on the defensive.

While the battle inside the city continues to rage, the Ukrainian success around Bakhmut — while limited — presents Russian commanders with the difficult choice of whether to send reinforcements, which could weaken positions elsewhere in the face of Kyiv’s looming counteroffensive.

Hanna Maliar, the deputy defense minister, said on Monday that “against all odds, our troops managed to advance for several days.” A day earlier, she reported that Kyiv’s forces had “captured more than 10 enemy positions” after punching through Russian lines north and south of Bakhmut last week.

It was not possible to independently verify her claims. While Russia’s Ministry of Defense acknowledged on Friday that its forces had retreated in one segment around Bakhmut, it claimed on Sunday that “there has been no breakthrough” against Russian lines and that all Ukrainian attacks had been repelled. But in a rare acknowledgment of high-level casualties, it also said that two Russian colonels were killed in the fighting around the city.

Ukraine’s advances around Bakhmut have been the country’s first significant gains in the monthslong battle for the devastated city. At the same time, Russian forces control about 90 percent of Bahkmut, and have continued to pound the last remaining Ukrainian positions inside the city limits.

Both sides have suffered heavy casualties in the fight for Bakhmut. Since December alone, the United States estimates that more than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, many around the city.

The Ukrainians are now seeking to take advantage of Russia’s losses by attacking positions around the city that they were forced from over the winter, and they could be trying to encircle Russian forces inside the ruins of Bakhmut.

Maj. Oleksandr Pantsyrny, 26, the commander of Ukraine’s 24th Separate Assault Battalion, or Aidar, said he led an operation that resulted in a breakthrough against Russian flanks in the area of Bakhmut last week. Over three days, his battalion recaptured several miles of territory, he said. His account of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.

Major Pantsyrny said the Ukrainian breakthrough came as units of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded the assault on Bakhmut, began withdrawing units from outlying suburbs early this month in order to regroup.

“We were watching,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “They started step by step, handing over positions and moving troops for assaults inside Bakhmut.”

He said the Ukrainians spotted a weakness as the Wagner troops rotated out and hit Russian Army units as they arrived to take over. The next day, he said, his troops followed with a second assault against arriving Russian reinforcements.

“We guessed the right moment of the rotation,” Major Pantsyrny said, adding that the Russian defenders were unfamiliar with the terrain and “not used to such intensity of combat.”

Even as Ukrainian soldiers advanced along the rolling hills and open plains north and south of Bakhmut, the battle inside the ruined city was a different story. Russian forces have captured nearly all of the city over months of bitter fighting, with the remaining Ukrainian defenders confined to a small western section and facing relentless assault.

On Monday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that assault units, supported by airborne troops, continued to battle for the western neighborhoods of Bakhmut.

“Things are difficult in Bakhmut and the surrounding area,” Ms. Maliar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said on Monday, adding that “heavy fighting continues.”

— Marc Santora, Carlotta Gall and Oleksandr Chubko

The head of the Wagner private military group on Monday rejected a report that he had offered to share with Ukraine the positioning of Russian Army troops around Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, in exchange for a withdrawal of Kyiv’s forces from the area.

The Wagner group has been a driving force behind Russia’s monthslong battle to take Bakhmut, which has cost thousands of lives on both sides and reduced much of the city to rubble. Its founder, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, has publicly clashed with Russia’s military leadership over the fight for the city, accusing them of starving his forces of ammunition.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that a U.S. intelligence document leaked on the messaging platform Discord said that Mr. Prigozhin told contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate that he was willing to betray the Russian Army’s locations around Bakhmut if Kyiv agreed to withdraw from around the city. A Ukrainian official told The Post that Mr. Prigozhin’s offer — made “more than once” — had been rejected.

In an audio statement published on Monday by his press service, Mr. Prigozhin called the report “speculation” and a “hoax.” He suggested that Russia’s corrupt elites, who he said envied his fighters’ achievements on the front lines in Ukraine and were eager to tank his reputation, could be responsible.

Mr. Prigozhin’s mercenaries have taken lead in trying to capture Bakhmut, the site of the longest and one of the bloodiest battles of the war, while Russian troops have controlled the area around the city’s flanks. Over the last few weeks, Mr. Prigozhin has stepped up his accusations of incompetence against the Russian military leadership.

Despite openly feuding with top Russian officials, Mr. Prigozhin has been careful not to criticize President Vladimir V. Putin.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, said that he wouldn’t comment on The Post’s report, but said that “it looks like another hoax.”

Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service, would not comment on The Post’s report, either, but said on national television on Monday that Ukraine should “discuss such things when it is necessary and in line with Ukraine’s national interests.”

— Ivan Nechepurenko

Amid swirling rumors about the health of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, state news media on Monday released photographs of him, an apparent attempt to tamp down speculation that he was seriously ill.

Mr. Lukashenko, a key Kremlin ally who usually receives fawning daily coverage from state-controlled news media featuring photos and videos, had not been shown since last Tuesday, when he attended events in Moscow and the Belarusian capital, Minsk, celebrating the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945.

He skipped an annual ceremony on Sunday in Minsk for Belarus’s flag day, an event at which he usually speaks, leaving his prime minister to read a statement.

Europe’s longest serving leader and an avid sportsman, Mr. Lukashenko, 68, has since 1994 ruled Belarus, a former Soviet republic that depends on Moscow for financial aid and security assistance, with a firm grip. In the past he has relished showing off his robust good health in public by rollerblading, playing ice hockey, and giving long speeches outdoors, regardless of the weather.

But the official Belarusian news agency, Belta, and state television had for the past week recycled old photographs and film clips of him.

Ukrainian officials and media fed a swirl of gleeful rumors around the health of Mr. Lukashenko, who is widely reviled in Ukraine for allowing Russia to use Belarus, which borders both nations, as a staging ground for its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

An opposition news outlet, Euroradio, reported that Mr. Lukashenko had been taken by motorcade to a Minsk clinic on Saturday, but the country has not officially commented on his health.

In what could be the most conclusive sign that he was ill, though perhaps not gravely, Russia’s tightly controlled news media — which rarely comment on leaders’ health — have in recent days reported that Mr. Lukashenko is unwell, citing Konstantin Zatulin, a senior Russian legislator who works closely with Belarus and other former Soviet republics.

Mr. Zatulin was quoted as saying of Mr. Lukashenko that “he just got sick but it is not Covid.” He gave no details and downplayed the severity of Mr. Lukashenko’s condition.

On Monday, Belta said that Mr. Lukashenko visited an air force command post and published what it said were photos of the leader that day. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm whether the photos were taken on Monday.

The intense secrecy of closed countries like Belarus and Russia allows wild rumors about their leaders to take flight. For instance, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is regularly rumored to have multiple fatal diseases.

The secrecy also makes it difficult to explain the deaths of apparently healthy officials, like Vladimir Makei, the veteran Belarusian foreign minister whose sudden death in November set off feverish speculation of possible foul play.

Nataliia Novosolova and Riley Mellen contributed reporting.

— Andrew Higgins

A Chinese government envoy was scheduled to begin a trip on Monday that included visits to Ukraine and Russia, in an attempt to help negotiate an end to the war.

China had announced its intention to send the official, Li Hui — the government’s special representative for Eurasian affairs — after a phone call last month between its top leader, Xi Jinping, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Beijing said that Mr. Li would “conduct in-depth communication with all parties” to try to reach a “political settlement.” His trip was confirmed last week by a government spokesman.

Beijing has been trying to position itself as a potential peace broker in the war, especially as Mr. Xi casts himself as a global statesman and China as an alternative to the United States for global leadership. In February, China issued what it described as a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine, though Western officials criticized it as lacking substance.

Mr. Li, the special representative, has his own long history in Russia. He served as China’s ambassador there for 10 years, and in 2019, Mr. Putin awarded him a Medal of Friendship.

Beijing has offered few details about what Mr. Li would do or whom he would meet with in Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Li will also be visiting France, Germany and Poland, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, said at a regularly scheduled briefing last week.

— Vivian Wang

This is one in an occasional series of dispatches about life amid the war in Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine — Alice Biletska knew that it would be challenging to film in wartime Ukraine, where the threat of missile or drone strikes is constant, but when she was deciding how to tell the story of a Ukrainian singer torn between her career in the United States and her family in a war-torn country, she and her co-producer saw little choice.

“There was never any question of where we would film,” Ms. Biletska said. “You have the soul of the people here. It’s very hard to fake that. Our Ukrainian crew all have their personal experiences of this war, and have gone through all of this, and everyone has a story.”

Ms. Bileska’s film, “Our House Is on Fire,” is wrapping up this week in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, after a two-month shoot under the specter of Russian airstrikes that has been an extremely personal journey for everyone involved.

Filmed entirely in Ukraine, and mainly in the Kyiv region, the movie follows a young Ukrainian singer named Sofia — played by Anastasiya Pustovit — who is trying to make it in Los Angeles when she returns to Kyiv for her brother’s wedding.

While she’s home, the war breaks out, and she is forced to make an hard choice between career, and home and love. The film was co-written and directed by Ms. Biletska, who was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and the story is loosely based on her own experience of leaving her country and trying to make it in Hollywood. Her co-writer and producer is an American, Brian Perkins.

In one scene, Sofia is seen fleeing in a car on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, traveling through the forest near Hostomel, a Kyiv suburb where some of the heaviest fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces occurred in the early days of the war. The word “children” is seen taped to the car, but Russian soldiers open fire on the vehicle anyway, injuring a passenger.

Another scene offers an eerily realistic depiction of the panic at train stations across Ukraine at the time, with a crush of people shouting and pushing to board a train in Kyiv as a lone soldier tries to control the crowd.

Ms. Biletska, who studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and who spent weeks volunteering and helping with evacuations in the first few weeks of the war, said she asked herself what more could be done.

“I’ve always dreamed of making a film about Ukraine because I’m eternally in love with this country and the people, and home,” she said. “When you’re an immigrant, you really re-evaluate and understand what home is.

“And when this war happened, it was also another way of coping with the horrible feeling of uselessness: What can one person do when the entire country is facing evil? Well, I can tell a story.”

“We wanted to make this film now,” Ms. Biletska continued, “even while the war is still going on, because it’s really subjective. It’s a love story; it’s a story about home; it’s about all those choices we make — whether you leave or stay.”

Mr. Perkins recalled one instance in particular when the filming hit especially close to home for someone on the set.

“We shot one scene in the Kyiv Metro, and one of the extras had actually spent time sheltering in that exact Metro station with her kids,” he said.

Kyiv remained relatively calm until the last week of filming, when air-raid sirens rang out over the capital. On one night, a Ukrainian drone lost control and was shot down by an air defense system, sending its parts flying down close to where the film’s crew was. The next night, at least 30 drones targeted Kyiv.

For many in the film and theater industry in Ukraine, this is their first production since the war began. Viktor Shava, the film’s location manager, said he juggled his time between working on the set and being a part of an air defense unit that shoots down drones.

The filmmakers won’t have to wait long to share their work with the world. A preview of a scene from “Our House” is scheduled to be shown this month at the Cannes Film Festival, where the creators will be discussing the filmmaking process.

— Nicole Tung

On a dusty roadside on the outskirts of Dubai, Sohrab Fani is profiting from the West’s response to the war in Ukraine: His shop installs seat heaters into cars being re-exported to Russia.

Twelve thousand heating pads languished in his warehouse for years, he said, until Russia’s invasion and the resulting Western sanctions drove American, European and Japanese automakers out of the Russian market. Now, Russians import those cars via Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates — and because cars shipped to the Middle East tend to be made for warm climates, accessories shops like Mr. Fani’s are doing a brisk business outfitting them for winter weather.

“When the Russians came, I sold out,” Mr. Fani said, so he ordered several thousand more seat-heating pads. “In Russia, they have sanctions. Here, there is not. Here, there is business.”

More than a year into President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion, Western sanctions have damaged Russia’s economy but not crippled it. The web of global trade has adjusted, allowing the Russian leader to largely deliver on a key promise: that the war would not drastically disrupt the lifestyle of consumption for Russian elites.

Russia is still importing coveted Western goods, enabled by a global network of middlemen.

In Moscow, the latest iPhones are available for same-day delivery for less than the retail price in Europe. Department stores still stock Gucci, Prada and Burberry. Car-sales sites list new Land Rovers, Audis and BMWs.

Just about all of the West’s leading electronics, automobile and luxury brands announced last year that they were pulling out of Russia. Not all of their goods technically violate sanctions, but commerce with Russia became very difficult in the face of public outrage, pressure from employees and restrictions on semiconductor exports and financial transactions.

Still, Russian demand for luxury items remains strong, and traders in Dubai and elsewhere are meeting it.

“The wealthy people always stay wealthy,” said Ecaterina Condratiuc, the director of communications at a Dubai luxury car showroom who recently shipped a $300,000 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT to a Russian dealership. The war, she added, “did not affect them.”

Anton Troianovski reported from Dubai and Jack Ewing from New York. Reporting was contributed by Vivian Nereim from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Al Omran from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Oleg Matsnev from Berlin.

— Anton Troianovski and Jack Ewing

This is one in an occasional series of dispatches about life amid the war in Ukraine.

LUKASHIVKA, Ukraine — The young, mostly urban youth came to clear rubble and rebuild the destroyed homes of villagers, many of them in their 70s and 80s. In turn, the elders hosted the volunteers in their temporary shelters, and cooked them meals as they worked.

Repair Together, a volunteer organization, has been helping civilians rebuild since areas in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions were retaken from Russian forces last year. The group says that 120 houses in over a dozen villages have been cleared of debris over the past year, and with the weather warming, the pace has picked up.

The effort has brought together Ukrainians from different generations who, under normal circumstances, would rarely interact with each other. They said they have grown closer in their shared experiences during the war.

In addition to its core work, the organization also hosts DJs, as well as holding cultural events with local residents of the villages where they work.

As the sun beat down on Saturday in Lukashivka, the aroma of savory pastries and soup filled the area, near where cinder blocks were stacked up, ready to become walls for Olga Varenyk’s new home. She called over about a half-dozen volunteers to take a lunch break. Bowl after bowl of food came out of her temporary kitchen, and she busily ensured they all sat down and ate.

Tamara Kryvopala, 66, was watching over a pot of stew and washing dishes as she recalled how her daughter-in-law was so terrified by the shelling last year as they sheltered in the cellar that she was not able to breastfeed her 8-day-old son. Ms. Kryvopala said they had to sneak out to get cows’ milk, which they would mix with water, to keep the child alive. She said she was grateful that her new house was nearly completed, and for the company of the volunteers.

In Baklanova Muraviika, a village near Lukashivka, Zeena Mezin, 73, climbed up a rickety set of stairs into where she was living temporarily, and made a large bucketful of cherry compote — a sweet beverage made from cooked cherries, water, and sugar to give to the helpers clearing rubble from the lot where her house once stood.

Ms. Mezin had been sheltering in the basement with her husband last March when a shell hit their house, setting the roof on fire and destroying everything they had.

“I’m very thankful to all these children, it’s very hard work,” she said.

— Nicole Tung

Rocket launchers, precision-guided missiles and billions of dollars’ worth of other advanced American weapons have given Ukraine a fighting chance against Russia ahead of a counteroffensive. But if even a few of the arms wind up on the black market instead of the battlefield, a Ukrainian lawmaker gloomily predicted, “We’re done.”

The lawmaker, Oleksandra Ustinova, a former anti-corruption activist who now monitors foreign arms transfers to Ukraine, does not believe there is widespread smuggling among the priciest and most sophisticated weapons donated by the United States over the past year.

“We’ve literally had people die because stuff was left behind, and they came back to get it, and were killed,” she said of Ukrainian troops’ efforts to make sure weapons were not stolen or lost.

But in Washington, against a looming government debt crisis and growing skepticism about financial support for Ukraine, an increasingly skeptical Congress is demanding tight accountability for “every weapon, every round of ammunition that we send to Ukraine,” as Representative Rob Wittman, Republican of Virginia, said last month.

By law, U.S. officials must monitor the use, transfer and security of American weapons and defense systems that are sold or otherwise given to foreign partners to make sure they are being deployed as intended. In December, for security reasons, the Biden administration largely shifted responsibility to Kyiv for monitoring the American weapons shipments at the front, despite Ukraine’s long history of corruption and arms smuggling.

Yet the sheer volume of arms delivered — including tens of thousands of shoulder-fired Javelin and Stinger missiles, portable launchers and rockets — creates a virtually insurmountable challenge to tracking each item, officials and experts caution.

All of which has heightened anxieties among Ukrainian officials responsible for ensuring weapons get to the battlefield.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.

— Lara Jakes