Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.
Ukraine struck Russian military targets across occupied Crimea and Donetsk Oblast overnight, including two Pantsir air defense systems and a command post.
In a dusty industrial estate in the city of Bila Tserkva, a Ukrainian grandmother searches through the smouldering ruins of her storage unit for her harvest of potatoes.
Two days earlier it had been hit with what is supposed to be one of Russia's most fearsome weapons — an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).
"It sounded like thunder, a very long, drawn-out thunder. And then there were six explosions in a row," Nadiia, a Bila Tserkva resident who declined to give her last name
Editor's Note: Read the latest developments on Victory Day and Trump's surprise 3-day ceasefire.
Tensions have been mounting this week ahead of Russia's Victory Day celebrations on May 9, with an apparent uptick in Ukrainian drone attacks prompting a flurry of speculation, ceasefire proposals, and threats of strikes and counterstrikes.
What’s happening this weekend?
If you take the rhetoric at face value, possibly a Ukrainian strike on Russia's most important parade of the year, and a massiv
A Western-funded classified program supported a "non-violent resistance" initiative inside Russian-occupied Ukraine for more than three years that encouraged civilians to engage in "suicidal" activities despite credible reports of the deaths, torture, and imprisonment of activists, the Kyiv Independent can reveal.
Russian-occupied Ukraine is one of the most heavily surveilled and most repressive territories in the world, and some of the activities Yellow Ribbon and its sister initiative Zla Mav
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has been a boon for the Kremlin's war coffers — during just the first two weeks of fighting, Russian earned an additional 6 billion euros ($6.9 billion) as global oil prices spiked.
But two weeks later, Moscow was suffering from what Reuters described as "the most severe oil supply disruption in the modern history of Russia."
Alongside continued pipeline disruption and tanker seizures, Ukrainian drone strikes contributed to around 40% of Russia’s oil export capac
U.S.-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have stalled as Kyiv refuses to cede territory in the country's east without a fight, a Kremlin demand that officials familiar with the matter say is not opposed by Washington.
At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky faces scrutiny after offering differing assessments of U.S. readiness to provide security guarantees.
Kyiv has insisted that credible security guarantees are necessary to prevent Russia from launching another invasion.
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A feeling familiar to millions of Ukrainians was suddenly experienced across the Middle East over the weekend — the terror caused by Shahed drones flying overhead and smashing into buildings.
Footage flooded social media as Iran launched drones and missiles in retaliatory strikes in response to the U.S.-Israeli bombardment that began on Feb. 28.
"Welcome to the club, guys," Vladislav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian president's representative on sanctions policy, told the Kyiv Independent when asked wha
The Kyiv Independent’s Chris York speaks with Olha Polishchuk, a conflict data analyst who tracks military and civilian deaths in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
