Key developments on Sept. 23 * Staged voting begins in occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts as the Kremlin seeks to claim the invaded areas as parts of Russia * Police find 18 torture chambers in liberated Kharkiv Oblast. * 436 bodies exhumed at Izium’s mass burial site; 30 with traces
Key Developments on Sept. 22 * Russia attacks Zaporizhzhia’s telecommunication facility ahead of sham “referendums.” * Russia launches 4 missile strikes, 17 airstrikes against Ukraine. * Ukrainian forces continue inflicting logistical damages in occupied Kherson Oblast. Russia's hastily-planned sham "referendums" in occupied parts of eastern and southern Ukraine are set to start
Latest developments on Sept. 21 * Putin declares ‘partial mobilization’ in Russia * Shoigu says 300,000 reservists to be drafted * Russia launches 5 missile strikes, 11 airstrikes across Ukraine * 338 bodies exhumed so far at Izium’s mass burial site Ukraine and its Western allies played down Moscow’s mobilization announcement,
Key developments on Sept. 20 * Moscow’s proxies in the occupied territories of four Ukrainian regions say they will hold “referendums” to join Russia on Sept. 23-27. * Russia launches 7 missile strikes, 20 airstrikes across Ukraine * Erdogan alleges Putin willing to end the war in Ukraine * Moscow’s missile strike
Key developments on Sept. 19 * Russian missile strike hits nuclear plant in Mykolaiv Oblast * Governor says Ukraine recaptured a village in occupied Luhansk Oblast * 146 bodies exhumed so far at Izium’s mass burial site Ukraine appears to have made a breakthrough in occupied Luhansk Oblast. While Russia still controls
Key developments on Sept. 18 * Ukraine identifies some of the bodies found at Izium’s mass burial site * The exhumation process in Izium to continue for nearly 2 more weeks * Russia bombards several regions across Ukraine * Fighting rages on in Donetsk and Kherson oblasts Some of the bodies exhumed from
Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Sept. 17 that two civilians were killed in the cities of Bakhmut and Sviatohirsk within the last 24 hours, while 11 others were wounded.
Key developments on Sept. 16 * Bodies of Ukrainian soldiers with tied hands found at mass burial site in liberated Izium * Ukraine finds at least 10 Russian torture chambers in liberated Kharkiv Oblast * Mysterious explosions reported in occupied Luhansk, Kherson * Fighting rages in Ukraine’s east and south Law enforcement agencies
Key developments on Sept. 15 * Mass burial site containing 440 graves found in liberated Izium * Russia conducts 5 missile strikes, 5 air strikes * Houses in Kryvyi Rih still flooded after a Russian missile strike * Putin, Xi discuss the war in Ukraine Russian artillery fire, missile and air strikes have inflicted
Key developments on Sept. 14 * Zelensky visits liberated Izium in Kharkiv Oblast * Ukraine says it is able to strike targets almost anywhere in Kherson Oblast * Russia continues its missile strikes on critical infrastructure President Volodymyr Zelensky made a symbolic visit to the recently liberated city of Izium on Sept. 14.
Key developments on Sept. 13. * Ukraine liberates more than 300 towns and villages in Kharkiv Oblast * About 150,000 Kharkiv Oblast residents freed from Russian occupation * Ukraine continues its southern counteroffensive * Russia masses artillery fire across Donetsk Oblast's front line Ukraine recaptured more than 300 settlements in northern Kharkiv Oblast,
Ukraine’s military reports that it had liberated over 20 settlements in Kharkiv Oblast within days of launching a surprise counteroffensive in the country’s northeast. Ukrainian forces have advanced 50 kilometers deep into the Russian-occupied territories near Balakliia, Kharkiv Oblast, according to Deputy Chief of Ukraine's General Staff Oleksiy
Key developments of Sept. 7: * Unconfirmed reports that Ukraine liberates settlements near Balakliia in Kharkiv Oblast * Southern counteroffensive continues in Kherson Oblast * A Russian missile strike hits a psychiatric hospital in Kramatorsk * 1 dead, 2 missing after a missile strike on Sloviansk Ukraine’s military appears to have launched an
Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported on Sept. 6 that several settlements in Kherson Oblast were liberated by the Armed Forces. Operational Command’s spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk said that the military is now conducting demining in those areas and will give more details shortly. Ukraine has also been active in
Fierce battles continue as Ukrainian Armed Forces push Russians out of three villages in the east and south. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces liberated two villages in Kherson Oblast, and one village in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces have also advanced, gaining new heights. Despite not naming the liberated villages,
As an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team carried out a mission to inspect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s major counteroffensive continued in the south. Tensions remained high around the Moscow-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant while the inspectors continued to assess the safety and security of the damaged facility,
Despite obstruction from Moscow, the UN-led International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission finally reached the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Sept. 1. As the IAEA team of 14 experts headed through the battlefield to Europe’s largest nuclear plant, Russian forces began shelling the occupied city of Enerhodar and
It's the first day of school. Even as fierce battles raged in the east and south of Ukraine, many Ukrainian children returned to classrooms for the first time since their offline education was disrupted by the full-scale war. While Education Minister Serhiy Shkarlet said nearly 3 million school-aged children were
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. After visiting the war-torn areas near Kyiv, British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice said he was disappointed with one Ukrainian decision. Even as Ukraine focuses its main efforts on defending itself, it shouldn’t be relying on its international
Ukrainian forces continue to target Russian strategic positions in Kherson Oblast amid a new ongoing southern counteroffensive that could be a major turning point in the war. As the war enters a new phase, the Kremlin’s troops are continuing their onslaught in the eastern Donetsk Oblast, while signs of
Fighting rages in Kherson Oblast as Ukraine’s military begins an offensive aimed at retaking territory captured by Russia in the early days of the full-scale war. But as more reports of the unfolding counteroffensive in the south appear, Russia intensifies its attacks on a number of Ukrainian cities, including
As signs that Ukraine had launched its long-awaited counteroffensive to liberate Russian-occupied Kherson began to emerge on Aug. 29, the Ukrainian government once again called on the remaining residents in occupied Kherson Oblast to evacuate. The Ukrainian military launched its counteroffensive in “many directions” in the south, Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson
Many Ukrainian schools will be reopening on Sept. 1 for the first time since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The whole idea of children going back to school sounded surreal in the early stages of the war. Education was abruptly disrupted and children who had access to the
A nearby fire sparked by Russian shelling disconnected the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the Ukrainian grid for the first time in its history, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom reported on Aug. 25. The two operating reactors at the plant suffered a "complete disconnection” from the grid, according to
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include the new number of casualties. A Russian missile strike hit a railway station in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on Aug. 24, killing at least 15 people and wounding about 50 others, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his address to the UN Security Council.
On a cold day in 1918, a young student battalion began digging trenches to fortify their positions near Kyiv. They were filled with dreams of independent Ukraine and stood up to another of Russia’s attempts to subjugate their land. As about 5,000 Bolshevik troops came to seize Kyiv,
Even with a semblance of normalcy returning to liberated areas around Kyiv, burial ceremonies continue for unidentified victims killed under Russian occupation early in the full-scale war. Another 21 bodies of unidentified victims were buried in Bucha on Aug. 17. Instead of names, they were put to rest with number
A series of explosions were reported in the northern part of Russian-occupied Crimea early on Aug. 16. According to the Crimea Inform news site, a fire broke out at a transformer substation in the town of Dzhankoi, and in the nearby village of Maiske ammunition detonated at a depot. Sergey
Months after the Russian military retreated from Kyiv Oblast, a 21-year-old Russian soldier confessed to killing a civilian man in the then-occupied village of Andriivka on March 12 by order of his commander. Speaking to a journalist from Russia-focused investigative news site iStories, Daniil Frolkin confessed to committing atrocities during
Editor's note: The photos were provided by Alex Chan Tsz Yuk, a Hong Kong-based photojournalist, now covering the war in Ukraine. Heavy Russian bombardment continues to pummel eastern Donetsk Oblast nearly six months into the full-scale war. Russian forces have fired missiles and shells across the entire region, indiscriminately killing
Editor’s Note: The names of some of the people interviewed by the Kyiv Independent for this story have been changed to protect their identity as they have shared sensitive information that could place them and their families in danger. Three months after Russia’s brutal months-long siege of Mariupol
A series of loud blasts were heard from the direction of a Russian military airbase in the western part of occupied Crimea in late afternoon on Aug. 9, according to multiple media reports. Shortly after the explosions took place, videos of black smoke rising above what is believed to be
