I attended Chatham House’s European Bank for Reconstruction and Development-sponsored conference this week, titled “From Destruction to Recovery: Building Ukraine’s Future Prosperity.” Unusually, it was not conducted under Chatham House rules so it is freely attributable. All this is again in preparation for the latest Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) this year to be held in Poland. These are the now – unfortunately (given the long duration of the war) – the annual get-together of the Ukraine support community to figure out how, once the war ends, we support Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Telling here was the comment from the Polish URC head this year who noted that he is not even sure if the US will participate. It’s not as though the US is really even providing much financial support for Ukraine these days. More, the US is now a free rider on all the defense tech innovation that the Ukrainians are learning in the battlefield – and if the war in Iran is anything to go by, the US seems to have learned zilch from the war in Ukraine when it comes to the changing nature of warfare, and drones in particular. It was eye-opening though to hear UA Army Secretary Dan Driscoll testifying in Congress this week about the remarkable capabilities of the Ukrainian tech and drone community. I seem to remember Driscoll being a hawk in terms of pairing back US support for Ukraine – he seems to have changed his tune after visiting Kyiv.