Editor's Note: This story was originally published in The Kyiv Independent's first-ever print edition, titled "The Power Within." You can order a copy in our e-store. If there were four women named Yaryna Chornohuz, they would all be 30 years old, all born in Kyiv, yet each would follow a different path. One of them would be a combat medic on the front line, risking her life to liberate Ukraine from Russian aggression. Another would write poetry, weaving the beauty of the Ukrainian language i

For Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs), release from captivity can feel like escaping hell. But for Russian POWs, it might mean walking straight into another. Lengthy interrogations by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), criminal prosecution, and forced return to the front line are often what await Russian POWs after they return home, despite efforts from the Kremlin to disguise it. "(Russian) propagandists film videos where the released POWs appear to be having fun on cue. But we under

Editor’s Note: This article was selected through a vote by members of the Kyiv Independent’s community. Become our member today and join our exclusive members-only Discord channel, where you can discuss and suggest stories, ask our journalists questions, and more. This article contains graphic descriptions. In almost two years of Russian captivity, former Ukrainian marine Vladyslav Zadorin lost 60 kilograms — half his body weight — along with his gallbladder and nearly his toes. He returned ho

For Volodymyr Mykolaienko, the former mayor of Kherson, this year’s Independence Day became a second birthday — he regained his freedom after over three years in Russian captivity on Aug. 24. “For the past few years, I haven’t seen anything but bars and concrete walls,” Mykolaienko told journalists upon his release. “I always wondered what my second birthday would be like, and it turned out beautifully that it fell on Aug. 24.” Shortly after the full-scale invasion began in 2022, 65-year-old

Although this time Ukraine has not yet announced the number of people released, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) said among them were eight civilians, including Ukrainian journalists Dmytro Khyliuk and Mark Kaliush and former mayor of Kherson, Volodymyr Mykolaienko.

Zelensky’s statement follows a recent report by the Wall Street Journal saying that the U.S. has quietly implemented a review process giving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authority to bar Ukrainian long-range strikes inside Russia with American missiles.

The upcoming delivery is part of the support package Canada pledged earlier in June during the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta.

According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the defense ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Lithuania, and Latvia, as well as the U.K. Minister for Veterans Affairs, are also in Ukraine for Independence Day.

Ukrainian drones struck a natural gas terminal in Russia's Leningrad region and an oil refinery in Samara region on Aug. 24.

"We prove that Ukrainians exist and Ukrainians will remain on this land," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his address.

Ukraine shot down a total of 48 drones, while a missile and 24 Shahed attack drones struck 10 locations, the Air Force said, without specifying the targets.

Editor’s Note: Some of the service members interviewed for this story are introduced by callsign or first name only due to security reasons. As U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin prepare for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers remain skeptical the meeting will yield any productive outcome, noting that Russian forces have ramped up their offensive on the ground. "I believe these negotiations will lead nowhere," Artem Fysun, a soldier with t

Amid ever-escalating aerial assaults, accelerating Russian advances in the east, and the weariness that comes with nearly 3.5 years of war, all eyes in Ukraine are once again focused upon one man — U.S. President Donald Trump. "I think I'll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday," Trump said in an interview with NBC News on July 10, the latest development in a tortuously long and so far wholly ineffective U.S.-led peace process. Short of a massive injection of military aid, or crus

In the early hours of July 10, many Kyiv residents were jolted awake by the thundering sound of ballistic missiles shaking their buildings. Others were already lying awake in beds, bathtubs, and underground shelters across the city, as residents endure a new normal of intensified Russian strikes on the capital. "You lie down, look into the abyss of night, and hear the loudest attack," Hryhorii Matsebok, a 47-year-old artist, told the Kyiv Independent. "And you think the end has already come."

Russia's full-scale invasion may have turned Ukraine into the world's largest minefield. As of March 2025, Ukraine’s mine-affected land spans an estimated 139,000 square kilometers — or 23% of its territory — covering more ground than all of Greece and posing an immense threat to civilian life and recovery efforts. Clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance is essential to preventing civilian casualties and enabling the safe use of land and infrastructure, fostering the country's recovery and