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
This chapter of Ukraine's True History will explore the historical context that led to Crimea as it is today and answer why Russia doesn't have a "historic right" to annex Ukrainian Crimea.
Russia's war against Ukraine began in Crimea. In February 2014, as the pro-Russian regime in Kyiv was killing protesters on the barricades of the EuroMaidan Revolution, thousands of Russian troops without insignia began occupying strategic locations and military bases in the Crimean Peninsula. Within a month, Russia had illegally annexed
CHASIV YAR, Donetsk Oblast – Ten months after Russia's assault on the once-flourishing city in Donetsk Oblast began, Bakhmut has now been effectively occupied by Russian troops. This hasn’t been confirmed yet by Kyiv, but is evident based on both official statements and those made by soldiers on the ground
“This Week in Ukraine” is a video podcast hosted by Kyiv Independent’s reporter Anastasiia Lapatina. Every week, Anastasiia sits down with her newsroom colleagues to discuss Ukraine’s most pressing issues.
On the evening of May 9, just half a day after a single T-34 tank rolled through Red Square during Moscow’s subdued Victory Day celebrations, something unexpected happened. Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, announced that units of the Russian regular army’s 72nd Separate Motorized
KYIV – At first, everything about the small, solemn gathering in the grounds of Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery had all the signs of a traditional Ukrainian military funeral. A guard of soldiers, a Ukrainian flag held over the coffin, the rolling verse of Orthodox prayers, the national anthem,
After seeming to have calmed down over early spring, the internal conflict between Wagner mercenary group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Ministry has escalated dramatically. In the early morning of May 5, Prigozhin recorded a video in front of what he claimed to be the bodies of dozens
Editor’s Note: Some of the soldiers interviewed in this piece declined to give their last names for security reasons or because they had relatives in occupied territory, and are identified by first names and callsigns instead. KHARKIV OBLAST – At an undisclosed part of the front line in Ukraine’s
Episode #5 of the video podcast "This Week in Ukraine" is dedicated to Ukrainian attacks deep behind enemy lines – on Russian soil, and in occupied Crimea.
Two months after Ukraine’s defense of Bakhmut seemed doomed, the bloodiest battle of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine is still going against all expectations. Making rapid advances at the end of February, Russian forces seemed to be on the cusp of surrounding the city, as the only roads
DONETSK OBLAST – Climbing to a firing position through trenches dug into black Ukrainian soil, the relative quiet in the air is only reassuring to an extent. At the most forward point, a Soviet-era recoilless rifle stands watch, dug into a shallow depression in the ground. Bohdan, a company commander of
Episode #1 of "This Week in Ukraine" is dedicated to Ukraine’s military strategy in Bakhmut, an embattled city in Donetsk Oblast in the east of Ukraine. The battle for Bakhmut has already proven to be one of the most brutal and costly fights of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
