У Сенаті США наприкінці вересня з’явилися одразу кілька ініціатив щодо імміграційного статусу українців, які перебувають у Америці. Один законопроєкт передбачає збереження Temporary Protected Status (TPS) для України до 1 липня 2029 року, інший – створення окремого механізму, за яким визначена категорія українців зможе подаватися на статус постійного резидента США, тобто Green Card. Паралельно понад три десятки сенаторів звернулися до адміністрації із закликом продовжити TPS ще на 18 місяців.

Як відомо, 24 вересня 2026 року сенаторка-республіканка від Аляски Ліза Мурковскі разом із сенаторами Крісом Кунсом та Річардом Блюменталем внесла до Сенату законопроєкт S.5521(https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/providing_ukrainians_a_pathway_to_permanent_residency.pdf) про зміну імміграційного статусу для українців, які відповідатимуть встановленим вимогам. Документ отримав назву Ukrainian Adjustment Act of 2026 і був переданий до Комітету Сенату з питань судочинства. Внесення законопроєкту також зафіксоване в Congressional Record за 24 вересня.

Днем раніше, 23 вересня, Блюменталь, Мурковскі, Кунс та республіканець Білл Кессіді внесли ще один законопроєкт – S.5490, покликаний законодавчо зберегти TPS для України після 19 жовтня 2026 року. Документ також передали до профільного комітету Сенату.

Законопроєкт S.5490 передбачає, що після завершення чинного періоду TPS 19 жовтня Україна продовжуватиме вважатися країною, визначеною для цієї програми, з 20 жовтня 2026 року до 1 липня 2029 року. Для отримання статусу заявник має бути громадянином України або особою без громадянства, яка востаннє постійно проживала в Україні, безперервно проживати та фізично перебувати у США від дати набрання законом чинності, відповідати вимогам допустимості та зареєструватися за процедурою, яку встановить Міністерство внутрішньої безпеки.

Таким чином, законодавча ініціатива стосується не лише технічного продовження вже виданих документів. У запропонованому тексті встановлюється новий період визначення України для TPS, а дата безперервного проживання прив’язується до моменту ухвалення закону. Якщо документ набуде чинності вже після 20 жовтня, його положення мають застосовуватися ретроактивно від цієї дати.

У заяві сенаторки Мурковскі зазначається, що ця ініціатива має зберегти для українців можливість легально жити та працювати у США. За її словами, багато українських сімей уже інтегрувалися у місцеві громади, а повертати їх до країни, де триває війна, небезпечно.

Блюменталь, представляючи законопроєкт, також наголосив на ризиках повернення українців в умовах російських ракетних і дронових ударів та проблем з енергопостачанням напередодні зими.

Інша ініціатива – S.5521, або Ukrainian Adjustment Act of 2026, – має принципово іншу мету. Вона пропонує не тимчасовий захист, а механізм переходу для визначеної категорії українців до статусу lawful permanent resident, тобто законного постійного резидента США.

До потенційно охопленої категорії віднесені громадяни України або особи, які востаннє постійно проживали в Україні, пройшли необхідні перевірки та вже фізично перебувають у США. Зокрема, документ охоплює осіб, яких у законному порядку перевірили та допустили до Сполучених Штатів до набрання законом чинності, а також тих, хто отримав parole після 20 лютого 2014 року, і певних членів їхніх сімей.

Самого факту перебування у США для отримання Green Card буде недостатньо. Заявник має подати окрему заяву, відповідати вимогам імміграційного законодавства та пройти перевірки, еквівалентні тим, які застосовуються до біженців у межах United States Refugee Admissions Program. Міністр внутрішньої безпеки також повинен встановити на основі індивідуальних обставин, що надання постійного статусу не суперечить громадській чи національній безпеці США.

Документ передбачає й захист на час розгляду заяви: за дотримання встановлених умов заявника не мають видворяти зі США до остаточного адміністративного рішення, цей період не зараховуватиметься як незаконне перебування, а заявник не вважатиметься особою без дозволу на роботу. Крім того, передбачена можливість звільнення від частини адміністративних зборів, а отримувачі статусу за цим законом не підлягатимуть звичайним чисельним імміграційним квотам.

Паралельно із законодавчими ініціативами 22 вересня сенаторка Теммі Дакворт та ще 30 сенаторів від обох партій звернулися до міністра внутрішньої безпеки Марквейна Малліна і держсекретаря Марко Рубіо із закликом продовжити та повторно визначити TPS для України ще на 18 місяців.

Йдеться про окремий від двох законопроєктів механізм. Продовження дозволило б зберегти захист для нинішніх отримувачів TPS, тоді як redesignation – повторне визначення країни для програми – дало б можливість претендувати на TPS додатковій групі українців, які прибули до США після 20 жовтня 2023 року. Саме на цьому сенатори окремо наголосили у листі до адміністрації.

За наведеними у зверненні даними, нині TPS мають близько 101 тисячі українців. Сенатори також посилаються на економічні оцінки, за якими ця група щороку забезпечує близько 2,6 млрд доларів економічного внеску та приблизно 716 млн доларів податкових надходжень. Ці цифри є даними, наведеними самими авторами звернення на обґрунтування їхньої позиції.

The conditions are grueling. Temperatures regularly soar above 110 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, then drop sharply overnight. Water is scarce and the dust and sand get everywhere. But at least they are working above ground. This elite group of Ukrainian drone operators has spent years hunting Russians from dugouts in Ukraine. They are still doing the same – but in the desert in northern Mali.

Some 15 Ukrainian specialists have been deployed to the junta-led country in Africa’s Sahel region to assist local rebel forces who are fighting Russian troops – part of Kyiv’s mission to weaken its enemy wherever it operates. And Kyiv has also branched out to other theaters of conflict, capitalizing on its hard-won expertise in drone warfare to forge new anti-Russian partnerships.

Speaking to Ukrainian soldiers and officers involved in operations in Mali and Libya, CNN can reveal for the first time the extent of these operations on other continents. A Ukrainian Defense Intelligence source with knowledge of the operations told CNN that several Ukrainian specialists were also stationed in Sudan and that troops from Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso had previously traveled to Mali to receive drone training from Ukrainian soldiers there.

When Iran began striking US allies in the Middle East earlier this year, Ukraine sent teams of military experts to at least five countries in the Middle East. They spent several weeks teaching local forces how to take down the Iranian-made Shahed drones which Russia has been using to terrorize Ukraine for several years. One Ukrainian soldier who was deployed to the United Arab Emirates told CNN they were operating in combined teams with local troops driving alongside them and mirroring their every move.

In exchange for sharing its know-how, Kyiv received an array of security cooperation agreements and promises of ammunition.

In the Sahel, a vast semi-arid region to the south of the Sahara Desert, the situation is more complicated.

Russia has been trying to assert itself as a power player in Africa, especially in the mineral-rich, coup-prone Sahel region. It has tried to fill the security void left by the withdrawal of French and other Western forces in recent years, propping up governments in exchange for cash and lucrative mining rights.

At first, the Kremlin outsourced these operations to the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by entrepreneurial warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. After Prigozhin’s death following his attempted coup in 2023, Moscow merged what remained of Wagner with its regular military, creating the Africa Corps, which deploys in support of Moscow’s local allies.

The Ukrainian group in Mali is embedded with a separatist group that calls itself the Azawad Liberation Front and is composed mostly of northern Tuareg rebels. They are not directly involved in the frontline fighting but provide the rebels with support, training and operational help, two Ukrainians deployed there told CNN.

“I coordinate their operations remotely. The signal from their drone comes to me over the internet, and I immediately tell them via radio what to do and where to fly,” one of the Ukrainian drone operators currently in Mali told CNN.

“They go out on missions, then return to me, and we go over every detail of their actions. I don’t go out to the front lines myself — that was a direct order from my superiors,” he said.

Russia has previously accused Ukraine of participating in massacres against civilians in Mali – an accusation Kyiv has denied. Separately, rights group Human Rights Watch released two reports over the summer accusing Russian troops in Mali of killing civilians, and another report that said that “all parties” directly engaged in the conflict unlawfully attacked civilians during a flare-up in violence in April. The report did not mention Ukraine.

Asked about the allegations last month, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters the Africa Corps “operates strictly within the bounds of legality” and “in response to official requests from the legitimate governments of African states.”

The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence source told CNN the point of the overseas deployments is to put pressure on Russia and undermine the notion that Moscow can be a reliable ally. “We are turning our experience in the field of (drones) into a foreign policy tool,” the source said.

But he said the mission is also beneficial to the Ukrainians because it gives them a chance to test their equipment and skills in a completely different environment – and to show partners their methods work everywhere.

“Dust and heat cause equipment to fail faster. Filters, cooling, electronics protection, batteries… everything works differently (and) requires serious adaptation,” he said, adding that even the way the war is fought is vastly different.

“In Ukraine, it’s high intensity, massive strikes, constant pressure. Here it’s more of a maneuverable war over large territories, ambushes, route control, working in small groups and depending on knowledge of the terrain.”

Differences in discipline and training require adaptation on both sides, he said, adding: “We teach them tactics; they teach us to survive and fight.”

Russia is also using its operations in Africa to expand and adapt its military technology. Just this week, the state-owned weapons exporter, Rosoboronexport, presented new missiles and drones at the El Alamein International Airshow in Egypt, with the agency’s chief telling the Russian state news agency TASS these weapons are “proven” for combat in Africa and the Middle East.

The Ukrainian contingents are small, but they are a sign of Ukraine’s growing confidence that its drone expertise has elevated its global status.

Héni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, told CNN that Mali is one of the countries where Russia now plays a crucial role.

“They provide an essential lifeline to the regime,” he said, adding that Africa Corps forces have been “instrumental in preventing a more profound collapse, and possibly even the fall of the regime.”

“But (the Russians) also need this military regime in place in order to be able to stay in Mali,” Nsaibia added.

The first allegations that Ukraine was helping the Tuaregs came in 2024. In July that year, the rebels ambushed and killed dozens of Wagner fighters and Malian soldiers near the town of Tinzaouaten, on the border with Algeria.

Andriy Yusov, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, said at the time that the rebels received “necessary information” to fight the Russians. And while Ukraine later denied any substantial cooperation with the rebels, Yusov’s comment prompted a backlash from the military juntas of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, who lodged an official complaint with the United Nations Security Council, accusing Ukraine of sponsoring terrorists.

CNN asked Defense Intelligence for comment for this article and was referred to earlier comments made by officials.

The drone operator told CNN that Ukrainians also assisted rebels in the takeover of the strategic northern Mali town of Kidal earlier this year. The Tuareg rebels and militants linked to al Qaeda launched simultaneous attacks against the Russian troops, forcing them to withdraw. The Russian Defense Ministry accused Kyiv of playing a role in the attack, saying in a statement that “Ukrainian and European mercenary instructors” trained the rebels before the assault.

Nsaibia said the Kidal takeover marked a key defeat for the Malian regime – and the Russian troops that have been propping it up.

“It was a major setback that they lost Kidal and had to negotiate a safe corridor to be able to withdraw,” he told CNN. However, Nsaibia said that the situation could have been much worse for the Malian regime, had it not been for the assistance of Russia’s Africa Corps.

The attack in Kidal highlighted the massive difference drones can make on the battlefield in Mali and elsewhere in the Sahel, where war still tends to be fought in more traditional ways, using infantry troops equipped with rudimentary weapons.

The Ukrainians in Mali told CNN the partnership with the Tuareg is one of convenience, not necessarily conviction.

“Culture and religion are different, but when you are being attacked by the same idiots, ideological differences fade into the background,” the Defense Intelligence source said.

The drone operator told CNN that his personal opinions and feelings are irrelevant.

He described some of the rebels as “radicals” who are prone to spontaneously shoot in the air and act in “disruptive ways.”

“Sometimes it’s emotionally hard to ignore certain things. It just so happens that we’re on the same side of the barricades right now… if these guys go on to successfully beat the Russians, we’ll be more than happy to train them,” he told CNN.

He believes any operation that weakens the Russians can help Ukraine move the needle towards victory at home. “It puts pressure on them. This whole story has both psychological and real results,” he told CNN.

Earlier this year, a group of Greek fishermen spotted a mysterious black vessel floating near the country’s western island of Lefkada.

It turned out to be a Ukrainian naval drone carrying explosives. Greece issued a formal diplomatic protest to Ukraine and Kyiv officially apologized for the incident, but it blamed Russia for creating the situation by attacking Ukraine and using a “shadow” fleet of oil tankers. These allow Russia to sell its oil in defiance of international sanctions, helping to finance the war.

The drone had escaped from Ukrainian operators deployed to northwestern Libya, where they have been stationed since the end of 2025, the Ukrainian defense intelligence source told CNN.

Their presence there was first reported by French public broadcaster RFI in the spring, and while never officially confirmed by the Ukrainian government, it is now an open secret. One Ukrainian naval drone operator deployed in Libya told CNN his unit was using the international military base in Misrata as a launchpad to attack Russia’s shadow fleet in exchange for training local forces.

Like the aerial drone operator in Mali, he was recruited earlier this year by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence straight from his previous post in Ukraine.

Ukraine – a longstanding contributor to UN-peacekeeping missions in northern and central Africa before Russia’s full-scale invasion – has made no secret of its desire to become a different kind of player on the continent.

Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s former spy chief who is now the head of Zelensky’s presidential office, said in 2023 that Ukraine’s goal was to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

It’s a sentiment shared by all the Ukrainian troops who spoke with CNN.

On Monday, Budanov once again pointed to Ukraine’s growing global footprint, posting a statement on social media celebrating its Defense Intelligence for protecting the country’s interests around the world, from “Russia to Africa, in a suit and in camouflage.”

Vladimir Putin has in recent weeks notched a series of wins in his offensive against the West. John Ratcliff, the director of the CIA, travelled to Moscow to speak to Russian officials, but we have little idea of everything that was discussed, or what compromises may have been made with the regime.

Then, Trump’s trusty negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner paid their own visit to Moscow to negotiate with the Russian leader. I believe the trip was the next step in a series of concessions to Putin, thus bolstering his confidence in his ability to manipulate the West.

To make matters worse, the decisive victory of the AfD in local Germany elections only further emboldens the despot, cementing his conviction that he can play a role in orchestrating Western politics.

And yet, Nato’s eastern flank seems to finally be waking up to the threat posed by the regime. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, spoke with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte about the imminent threat to eastern Europe and warned against a repeat of the 1938 Munich appeasement.

The countries of the East, given their immediate proximity to Russia, understand the urgency of the threat in a way that western Europe and America still do not.

I welcome these realisations, but I hope they are not too little too late. It seems that at least parts of Europe are waking up from their long slumber. But they are still in that in-between state between sleep and wakefulness, where you start to take in your external surroundings but don’t quite sharply register them as reality. Slowly dawning recognition is not going to be enough to win the war against Putin.

Every time I write about the conflict, the stakes get higher. Originally, tough diplomacy may have been enough to see off the Russian threat. Later, robustly enforced economic sanctions could have done the job. Later yet, more limited military assistance to Ukraine would have been sufficient. But now, there is no option short of the kind of full-throated war effort that will guarantee Ukrainian victory and, in doing so, lead to the collapse of the Putin regime.

Yes, I said it: nothing but the destruction of the Russian state in its current form will be enough to protect the continued peace and prosperity of the West. As long as Putin’s regime lives on, it will pose an existential threat to democracy worldwide.

The war in Ukraine will not stop if Putin gets the Donbas; it will just change form and move forward to the Baltics, and then the rest of Europe, as its leaders are now starting to recognise.

Some ask why Putin would attack Europe if he knows, realistically, that it won’t end in military success. But that thesis rests on defining success as territorial conquest or some other concrete concession. Putin is a rational actor despite the desire to brush him off as an out-of-touch megalomaniac, but he is operating according to a logic that the West has continued to miscalculate. Still he is treated as a member of the international system.

Putin’s goal with an incursion into Nato would not be a clear victory, but a continued undermining of Western institutions. He is operating as a well-trained KGB agent would: confuse, subvert, fracture the opposition.

When the goals of war are murkier, and the way it is carried out is itself shadowy, as is the case in hybrid war, it becomes even easier to turn a blind eye. But hybrid war is still war, and the extension of Putin’s war into Nato territory is very much an existential threat that must be countered.

And the only way to counter a dictator is through strength: in this case, a policy of deterrence that leaves no question about a) where the red line has been drawn, and b) what will be done if it is crossed.

Stepping up support for Ukraine and engaging in a broader politics of deterrence aimed at the Putin regime, are, of course, two sides of the same coin. A demonstration that the West stands unconditionally with its ally would be a show of strength that any dictator would take seriously.

But in conjunction, Europe must issue a clear warning about what it will do if Putin dares to mount an incursion into a Nato country – and then be ready to enforce it. This warning must come with an already-agreed-upon set of implementation mechanisms that will kick into effect immediately if the trigger comes to pass. No more hesitation or discussion.

So, at this critical juncture, I am calling on Europe to match Putin in the urgency and ruthlessness with which he has been waging war in Ukraine, with an eye toward the imminent threat to eastern Europe.

Europe must:

1. Provide complete protection of Ukrainian airspace – the bare minimum for an ally at war.

2. Immediately send Ukraine all the weapons it needs; no delay. Why are Greek Patriot systems defending Saudi energy infrastructure when war is at Europe’s doorstep?

3. Instead of issuing more rounds of sanctions, enforce the existing packages that are in place, which are more than powerful enough on paper but have been evaded shamelessly by the Russian authorities. Everyone knows who the violators are; now it’s time to go after them with all of the enforcement mechanisms at Europe’s disposal.

4. Initiate a complete cessation of diplomatic affairs with Russia, including recalling all ambassadors from Moscow, barring Russia from participation in all international bodies founded on democratic principles; and immediately terminating all official language that so much as acknowledges Russia as a legitimate international actor.

5. Seize Russian sovereign funds immediately and use them to power the war effort in Ukraine. Why is Belgium acting as the custodian of Russian money? It is absolutely unconscionable that Putin is taking advantage of European legal protections while openly waging war at its northern border.

Steps one to three are immediate actions that must be taken to defend Ukraine. Steps four and five are the steps that must be coordinated now, and made explicit, to provide a credible threat against future military action.

Most importantly, all of this must be done with the recognition that the West is engaged in all-out war – fighting not just to defend an ally, but for its very own survival, and the survival of democracy worldwide.