Makeshift arms are pouring out of Ukraine’s ateliers

IT DID NOT take long for Pravda, a trendy microbrewery in Lviv, to switch from brewing beer to mixing Molotov cocktails. It began churning out these improvised incendiaries on February 25th, the day after Russia invaded. Equipment previously employed for brews that won awards in Brussels, Munich and Prague now blends and bottles a concoction made from six parts machine oil, three parts petrol, four parts expanded polystyrene dissolved in a solvent called thinner 646, and a sprinkling of powdered aluminium. The result (see picture above) is soupy, sticky and burns like crazy—the better to disable any Russian military vehicle it is hurled at. After running out of its own bottles, the brewery even stooped, jokes Yuri Zastavny, Pravda’s owner, to filling empties that had once held the likes of Corona and Miller.