Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared images she said depicted munitions associated with the Russia-Ukraine war in a post on X Monday as the conflict approached its fourth full year since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
In the post, which showed Clinton standing in front of drones from Russia and Ukraine, she framed Ukraine as the "front line in a wider fight for democracy and freedom."
Clinton served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and has remained an influential Democratic voice on foreign policy, making her commentary on Ukraine notable for domestic audiences tracking bipartisan positions on the war.
The Former Secretary of State was in Germany for the Munich Security Conference, an independent forum for debating international security policy.
Also at the conference were: current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, Elissa Slotkin, of Michigan, and Ruben Gallego, of Arizona.
The pictures shared by Clinton show her standing in front of a shot-down Russian Shahed drone and then beside a much-smaller Ukrainian interceptor.
She says the conference had the munitions on show to demonstrate the comparative "scale" of weaponry. "@munsecconf's Ukraine House installation featured powerful contrasts in the scale of this war's artifacts," she said in the post.
Independent monitors and media documented extensive use of heavy artillery, missile strikes, and drone attacks by Russian forces, and significant defensive and counteroffensive use of artillery, air defenses, and drones by Ukrainian forces since 2022, the BBC reported.
Rights groups reported multiple instances of cluster munition use during the war, condemning their long-term risks to civilians; the United States acknowledged in July 2023 that it decided to transfer dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) to Ukraine, describing it as a difficult choice made to bolster Ukraine's ammunition supplies, according to Human Rights Watch.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, following eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine that began after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.
As of February 16, 2026, the full-scale war had neared the second anniversary of the invasion's start, while the broader Russia-Ukraine conflict dated back nearly 12 years to 2014, according to Reuters reporting.
Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Secretary of State, said in an X post Monday: "Ukraine is the front line in a wider fight for democracy and freedom...We can't allow Putin's mania for control to determine our collective future."
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian President, said in a post on X Monday: "There needs to be greater unity within Europe in the work to hold Russia accountable."
The war's trajectory, front-line conditions, and international support levels remain active subjects of official reporting and independent analysis.