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Last Friday, Albert Ojwang, a young blogger in the western Kenyan town of Migori, was arrested over a complaint by a senior police officer regarding a post on X and taken 350km (217 miles) away to the Central Police Station in the capital, Nairobi. By the next day, he was dead, with police claiming – incredibly – that he had committed suicide by banging his head against the cell walls. The truth, as confirmed by a postmortem, is that he was beaten to death.

This comes as no surprise to Kenyans who are depressingly familiar with police violence. But Ojwang’s arrest and brutal murder were more than that. The incident is a chilling message to a troublesome generation as the country approaches what has become its protest season – “do not test us”.

Not long before, Rose Njeri, another young Kenyan, was arrested. Her “crime”? Designing a digital tool to make it easier for the public to participate in hearings on the government’s controversial 2025 Finance Bill. The irony is both cruel and stark: a government that routinely exhorts citizens to engage in “public participation” arrested a citizen for doing precisely that efficiently and at scale.

These arrests are not isolated incidents. They are the latest flare-ups in a growing and deliberate crackdown on youth-led dissent. And they are a reminder that Kenya’s increasingly paranoid ruling elite is still haunted by the spectre of last year’s Gen Z protests – massive, spontaneous, decentralised demonstrations that erupted in response to the Finance Bill and its punishing economic proposals.

In fact, over the last decade, the annual publication of, and public debate over, the government revenue and tax proposals have become the main focal point of antigovernment protests, linked to widespread anger over the cost of living. Last year’s protests, however, took a new turn, sidelining the country’s politicians, giving voice to a new generation, and even forcing President William Ruto to veto his own bill and fire his cabinet.

That uprising was unlike any other in Kenya’s recent history: leaderless, tech-savvy, angry, and hopeful. It drew energy from online platforms and informal networks, cutting across ethnic and class divisions. For weeks, young people took to the streets, demanding an end not just to a specific bill, but to a broader system of exclusion, corruption, and indifference. The state responded with force. Dozens were killed. Others disappeared. The violence did not break the spirit of protest, but it did send a message: this government is willing to use deadly force to silence dissent.

And now, as the 2025 Finance Bill winds its way through the public consultation process, the early signs are that the cycle may repeat. The arrests of Ojwang and Njeri, even before protests have properly begun, suggest a strategy of preemptive suppression: neutralise the nodes of mobilisation before the network can activate.

But this paranoia is not uniquely Kenyan. Just weeks ago, Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan journalist Agather Atuhaire were arrested while in Tanzania to attend the trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu, and allegedly tortured and raped by Tanzanian police. This points to the emergence of a regional authoritarian consensus. Fearing a coming together of popular movements in their individual nations inspired by the successes of Kenya’s Gen Z movement, the Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan governments are forming their own informal alliance, sharing not just intelligence and resources, but political fears and tactics.

Their calculus is clear. Each is led by a regime facing economic turmoil, discredited democratic processes, and fragmented opposition movements. Each sees youth-led mobilisation as the most potent threat to its hold on power. Each has, in recent years, responded to such mobilisation with brutality. And, crucially, each knows that the costs of repression are lower than ever.

For much of the post-Cold War era, authoritarian excesses in Africa were tempered by the fear of inciting Western disapproval. Rhetorical condemnation was not just embarrassing but carried real risks, not only of losing aid or feeling the weight of economic sanctions, but, perhaps more consequentially, a loss of popular legitimacy. However, democratic decline and moral disarray in the West have dramatically altered that equation.

Today, the West is shedding the false image of moral superiority which cloaked its domination of the globe. From arming and supporting a genocide in Gaza to the brutal suppression of dissent on its own streets and the demonisation of immigrants and refugees, it turns out that the first world is just the third world in drag. Their words of condemnation for the atrocities and brutalities of others would now simply reek of dishonesty and hypocrisy.

Further, the same governments that once demanded good governance and civil rights now prioritise counterterrorism, migration control, and market access. They strike deals with autocrats, turn a blind eye to repression, and reframe their interests as “stability”. Western support for civil society has withered. Funding has declined. Visibility has shrunk. The result is a shrinking civic space and a growing sense of impunity among East African elites.

From the vantage point of these governments, this moment presents both a threat and an opportunity. The threat is clear: protests could spiral into a full-scale political reckoning. The opportunity is darker: to act now, preemptively and brutally, while the world is not looking and the opposition is disorganised.

But it is also a moment of possibility for the movements these regimes are trying to suppress.

The 2024 Gen Z protests in Kenya marked a political awakening. They showed that it is possible to bypass traditional gatekeepers – political parties, NGOs, foreign donors – and mobilise around economic justice and dignity. They rejected the logic of ethnic patronage and elite negotiation. And crucially, they exposed the hollowness of the old accusations that civic protest is always the work of “foreign puppets”.

By framing civic activism as inherently un-African or externally manipulated, regimes attempt to delegitimise protest and sow doubt. But today’s youth activists are pushing back – not by seeking validation from the West, but by grounding their struggles in lived reality: the daily pain of high taxes, joblessness, debt, and corruption.

The current crackdown is evidence that these movements have rattled the powerful. But fear is not the same as victory. The lesson of the past years is that organised, principled dissent is possible, and effective. What comes next must be regional. If authoritarianism is becoming a cross-border project, then so too must resistance. Kenya’s civic actors must stand with Tanzanian and Ugandan activists. Solidarity must be built not only through shared hashtags, but through shared strategy: legal defence networks, data collection on abuses, secure communication channels, joint campaigns.

Albert Ojwang’s death, Rose Njeri’s arrest, the violations against Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire – these are not aberrations. They are signals. Signals that the ruling classes of East Africa are preparing for a fight. The question is whether the rest of us are preparing to fight as well.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Swarms of Russian kamikaze drones broke through Ukrainian air defence fire early on Tuesday, screeching and shrilling over Kyiv in one of the largest wartime attacks.

Oleksandra Yaremchuk, who lives in the Ukrainian capital, said the hours-long sound of two or perhaps three drones above her house felt new and alarming.

“This horrible buzz is the sound of death, it makes you feel helpless and panicky,” the 38-year-old bank clerk told Al Jazeera, describing her sleepless night in the northern district of Obolon. “This time I heard it in stereo and in Dolby surround,” she quipped.

Back in 2022, she crisscrossed duct tape over her apartment’s windows to avoid being hit by glass shards and spent most of the night in a shaky chair in her hallway.

This week’s Russian attack involved seven missiles and 315 drones – real, explosive-laden ones as well as cheaper decoys that distract and exhaust Ukraine’s air defence, Kyiv’s officials said.

The assault was the third since Ukraine’s June 1 sting to destroy Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers on four airstrips, including those in the Arctic and Siberia.

The wave of attacks also showed Russia’s tactics of overwhelming Ukrainian air defence units with the sheer number of targets that approach from different directions.

“The drones have been evolving for a while, now [the Russians] use massiveness,” Andrey Pronin, one of Ukraine’s drone warfare pioneers who runs a school for drone pilots in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

The attack mostly targeted Kyiv, killing one woman, wounding four civilians, damaging buildings in seven districts and causing fires that shrouded predawn Kyiv in rancid smoke.

It damaged the Saint Sophia Cathedral, Ukraine’s oldest, whose construction began a millennium ago after the conversion of Kyivan Rus, a medieval superpower that gave birth to today’s Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The onslaught also hit the southern city of Odesa, killing two civilians, wounding nine and striking a maternity ward in the Black Sea port that lies close to annexed Crimea and lacks Kyiv’s Western air defence systems.

‘The Russians learn, every time, after each flight’

The Russia-Ukraine war triggered the evolution of drones that already rewrote the playbook of warfare globally.

While Kyiv focuses on pinpointed strikes on Russian military infrastructure, oil refineries, airstrips and transport hubs, some observers believe Moscow deliberately chooses to strike civilian areas to terrify average Ukrainians – and perfects the strikes’ lethality.

“Of course, [Russians] learn, every time, after each flight. They make conclusions, they review how they flew, where mobile [Ukrainian air defence] groups were,” Pronin said.

To save pricey United States-made anti-drone missiles, Ukraine employs “mobile air defence units” that use truck-mounted machineguns often operated by women and stationed on the outskirts of urban centres.

The Russians “used to fly the drones in twos, now they fly in threes,” Pronin said about the Iranian-made Shahed drones and their modified Russian Geran versions that carry up to 90 kilogrammes of explosives.

Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, named three factors that contribute to the harrowing efficiency of recent drone attacks.

Firstly, the number of Russian drones rose dramatically, requiring more air defence power and, most importantly, more ammunition, he told Al Jazeera.

“The latter causes most problems, and after three massive attacks within a week, their number possibly didn’t simply suffice,” he said.

Earlier this week, the White House diverted 20,000 advanced anti-drone missiles intended for Ukraine to Washington’s allies in the Middle East.

Secondly, the Geran (“Geranium”) drones “evolve” and fly more than five kilometres above the ground at a height unreachable to firearms and many surface-to-air missiles, Mitrokhin said.

These days, Gerans have a range of 900km (660 miles) and are linked to their operators via satellite, US-made Starlink terminals smuggled into Russia or even hacked SIM cards of Ukrainian cellphone operators, according to Ukrainian officials and intelligence.

A Russian plant in the Volga River city of Yelabuga started manufacturing Gerans in 2023 and now churns out some 170 of them daily.

Thirdly, Russia uses more decoy drones that waste air defence ammunition, Mitrokhin said.

Therefore, Kyiv “needs massive amounts of drones that could quickly gain the height of five to six kilometres, locate flying Gerans and their analogues and shoot them down”, he said.

Instead, Ukrainian forces have focused on long-distance strike drones such as Lytyi (“Fierce”) that have hit military and naval bases, oil depots, arms factories and metallurgical plants in western Russia, he said.

“Now, Ukraine needs to quickly change its strategy and produce 5,000-10,000 high-flying drone hunters a month. Which is not easy,” he concluded.

‘I felt the return of what we all felt in 2022’

Russia’s attacks underscore Washington’s failure to start the peace settlement of Europe’s largest armed conflict since 1945.

The attacks “drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, hours after Tuesday’s attack.

US President Donald Trump pledged to end Russia’s war on Ukraine “in 24 hours,” but his administration’s diplomatic efforts yielded no results.

Despite occasional criticism of the Kremlin’s warfare in Ukraine, Trump prefers not to use the White House’s diplomatic and economic arsenal to force Russia to start a peace settlement or even a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv proposed.

While Washington continued to supply US military aid in accordance with the commitments of President Joe Biden’s administration, Trump’s cabinet did not pledge to provide any additional arms or ammunition shipments.

“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

“We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe,” he said, without specifying the extent of cuts.

Trump’s policies leave many Ukrainians reeling.

“He single-handedly lost the Cold War to Putin,” Valerii Omelchenko, a retired police officer in central Kyiv told Al Jazeera. “I honestly can’t fathom how one can be so indecisive and cowardly towards Russia.”

The horror of drone attacks, however, helps further unite Ukrainians, he said.

“In the morning, I felt the return of what we all felt in 2022, when we were treating total strangers like family, asking them how they were, trying to help them,” he said.