This Week in Ukraine Ep. 39 – After 2023, what's next for Ukraine?
Episode #39 is dedicated to Ukraine’s biggest events of 2023, and what to look forward to in 2024.
Team
Francis Farrell is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has worked as managing editor at the online media project Lossi 36, and as a freelance journalist and documentary photographer. He has previously worked in OSCE and Council of Europe field missions in Albania and Ukraine, and is an alumnus of Leiden University in The Hague and University College London. The Kyiv Independent received a grant from the Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust to support Farrell's front-line reporting for the year 2024-2025
Episode #39 is dedicated to Ukraine’s biggest events of 2023, and what to look forward to in 2024.
“If you want to live, dig.” The words, often spoken by Ukrainian troops, are universal advice for trench warfare in general, but especially for both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Normally expressed as advice to the individual soldier, the maxim now applies to the country as a whole.
Episode #38 is dedicated to Ukraine’s failure to prepare its defensive lines for the long war.
DONETSK OBLAST – “Our working hours are as follows: first you do a 12-hour shift, then another one, until you’ve done seven of these 24-hour-shifts, and that’s your week” said Oleksandr Kolesnikov, a 47-year-old surgeon, sitting hunched over on a bench-turned-overflow hospital bed at a Ukrainian stabilization point in
Episode #36 is dedicated to the dark new phase in Russia’s war, and why the possibility of losing is once again a risk for Ukraine.
This November has been a particularly grim one here in Ukraine. Over the past month, two media sensations in big Western magazines served as a sober wake-up call about the state of the war. First, Simon Shuster’s profile in TIME magazine on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “lonely fight”
In the bubble of pro-Ukraine communities on the Internet, the constant inflow of battlefield videos showing the destruction of Russian equipment regularly lifts the moods of hundreds of thousands of supporters of Ukraine’s struggle around the world. Wander over to the Russian side of the internet, whether it’s
Episode #32 is dedicated to Ukraine's surprising successes in the Black Sea.
The Russian offensive in Avdiivka has been an undisputed failure so far. Russian gains have amounted to little more than a handful of treelines on the flanks. The Kyiv Independent's Francis Farrell explains how it happened and what to expect in the future.
Starting on Oct. 9, Russian forces launched an offensive at the flanks of the city of Avdiivka. It has been an undisputed failure so far.
Episode #30 is dedicated to recent front-line updates, including Ukraine's first use of ATACMS and Russia's offensive on Avdiivka.
NESKUCHNE, DONETSK OBLAST – Vitalii Ivanov stepped gingerly across the messy floor through the kitchen to what was once the living room of his family home. Scattered across the floor and countertops were the iconic markers of a space that was once occupied by Russian soldiers. Cardboard military ready meals complete
Editor’s note: The soldiers featured in this article are identified by first name and callsign only for security reasons. ZAPORIZHZHIA OBLAST – Even months before it started, just the idea of Ukraine’s large-scale counteroffensive in 2023 carried on its shoulders a historic weight. Having held back waves of brutal
Episode #26 is dedicated to the question of when Ukraine’s counteroffensive might end, and what comes next for Ukraine when it does.
On Sept. 19, just under three years after the end of the last major war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku moved decisively to finish what it started in 2020. Shortly after the announcement of the launching of “anti-terrorist” measures by the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry,
Editor’s note: The soldiers featured in this article are identified by first name and callsign only for security reasons. DONETSK OBLAST – One sunny day in eastern Ukraine, two grown men in pixel camouflage sit together in the shade of lush summer bushes on the edge of a field, playing
In a scene all too familiar for central Kyiv and for Ukraine as a whole, a large column of mourning soldiers and civilians walked through the capital’s streets on Aug. 28 to say goodbye to another high-profile commander killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Serhii Ilnytskyi, call sign
Editor’s note: Though the commanders quoted in this story are public figures, the other soldiers are identified by first names and callsigns only due to security reasons. DONETSK OBLAST — In a wide field in Donetsk Oblast, the silence of what would otherwise be a sleepy August afternoon is broken
Episode #21 of our weekly video podcast “This Week in Ukraine” is dedicated to Ukraine's counteroffensive, gains and setbacks of the last two months, and what to expect going forward.
In early June, a bizarre and mysterious joint operation was carried out between two of Ukraine’s neighbors, one to the east and one to the west. Eleven Ukrainian soldiers, after having been held in Russian captivity for an unknown amount of time, were moved from Russia to Hungary. Although
Fresh videos of Western-made armor rolling across open fields, a new settlement liberated, and a lot of noise on Russian military blogger Telegram channels heralded to the world on July 28 that the Ukrainian summer counteroffensive had upped its gear. Almost eight weeks into the long-awaited operation that began on
In late June, 16 months into the full-scale Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelensky alerted his nation of an unprecedented threat. Russia, the president said, had rigged the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant with explosives, and was ready to set off the charges and cause radiation to leak into surrounding areas.
This June was meant to be all about the great Ukrainian counteroffensive. After months of waiting, dozens of public statements from exasperated Ukrainian officials bound to silence, and even more analyses from experts and commentators in the media, the moment finally came when Ukrainian soldiers on their Leopards and Bradleys
Episode #14 of our weekly video podcast “This Week in Ukraine” is dedicated to Wagner mercenary group's failed attempt to take on the Russian military establishment and its consequences.
Visually, the scene was a familiar one. Russian armored vehicles emblazoned with the Z logo in the central streets of a once peaceful city, masked soldiers standing at key intersections, and confrontational conversations with bemused local civilians. But this wasn’t a Ukrainian city in the first days of Russia’
Destroyed apartments, burnt-out cars, lives upturned or extinguished altogether: Russia’s June 13 missile attack on the city of Kryvyi Rih was, in many ways, nothing out of the ordinary for wartime Ukraine. The evening after the attack, which killed 13 civilians, President Volodymyr Zelensky came out in his daily
Episode #12 of our weekly video podcast “This Week in Ukraine” is dedicated to the beginning of Ukraine's much-awaited counteroffensive, its early results, and what to expect in the weeks to come.
Ukraine’s large-scale counteroffensive, anticipated for months, spearheaded by new Western tanks and armored vehicles, has finally begun. No longer limited to shaping operations or localized counterattacks, evidence shows the beginning of major Ukrainian offensive pushes to break through fortified Russian lines along several axes. Though Ukraine’s offensive operations
KHERSON – Since Russia’s full-scale war began, first came eight months of terror under occupation, then came seven months of intense shelling across the river, then came the river itself to Kherson. Over 24 hours after Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and its massive dam over the
The dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant across the Dnipro River, occupied by Russian forces, was destroyed on the morning of June 6, sparking a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster across southern Ukraine. Ukraine's Southern Operational Command reported early in the morning that Russian forces blew up the dam.
In the early hours of June 5, the first announcement of what looks like it could be the start of a large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive came from an unusual source. At 1:31 a.m. Kyiv time, the Russian Defense Ministry, which famously floundered in silence in response to Ukraine’s
Editor’s note: As per the regulations of the unit, soldiers interviewed for this article, many of whom have relatives remaining in Russian-occupied territory, are identified by first name and/or callsign only. SOUTHEASTERN UKRAINE – After months of seeing Russia’s war against Ukraine through the drab gray-brown landscapes of