Editor’s note: Due to security concerns, the Kyiv Independent isn’t publishing the real name or the photo of the police officer at the center of this story. He is identified in the story as Oleksandr. KUPIANSK, Kharkiv Oblast – Kupiansk police officer Oleksandr doesn’t like remembering the time
Editor’s note: Some soldiers, local police officers and residents of Kupiansk district, Kharkiv Oblast, are not identified by name due to security concerns. All of the reporting and interviewing for this story was completed before the order was announced on Aug. 10 to evacuate 12,000 district residents from
Ukraine made a "tactically significant" advance along two lines of attack towards the southern coast, according to the Russian and Ukrainian sources.
Work to dismantle the Soviet emblem on Kyiv's Motherland Monument has started, the Culture Ministry reported on July 30. The monument will instead be fitted with a Ukrainian trident, which will reportedly be finished by Ukraine's Independence Day on Aug. 24.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited a rehabilitation center in Ivano-Frankivsk on July 30 to meet with soldiers undergoing treatment. The president reportedly awarded the recovering soldiers state medals of courage.
Ukraine has begun using American cluster munitions in the field and is doing so effectively, according to the White House. "They are using them appropriately," National Security Spokesman John Kirby said on July 21. "They're using them effectively, and they are actually having an impact on Russia's defensive formations and
Ukraine collected many promises at Vilnius, except the one it craved the most. In a joint communique, the 31 NATO member states said Ukraine's future is in the alliance, which it will one day join. They got rid of the need for a Membership Action Plan, effectively reducing the number
Ukraine has been forced to do battle with less equipment than it needs because of the caution of its international partners, said Mark Carleton-Smith, the U.K.’s former top military commander, during his visit to Kyiv. Carleton-Smith, who was in the country as part of the Warsaw International Forum,
As Yevgeny Prigozhin's mutiny exposed Russia's political weakness, there's an opportunity to follow up with an economic punch by targeting foreign companies that stayed in the country. This is the belief of Mark Dixon, the director of the Moral Rating Agency, which scrutinizes foreign companies that operate in the Russian
DONETSK OBLAST — Moscow has fought bitterly to avoid giving up control over the lands it conquered over the centuries — and made many enemies in the process. Now, as Russia is leading yet another war of conquest, in Ukraine, many of those enemies have joined Ukrainians on the battlefield to fight
A column of Wagner military vehicles en route to Moscow have reached Lipetsk Oblast, putting them within around 400 kilometers of the capital. Reuters reported that Wagner vehicles were moving toward Moscow at top speeds, not encountering significant resistance along the roads.
Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Independent introduces soldiers interviewed for the story by their first names or callsigns due to security reasons. DONETSK OBLAST – Islam’s mind was empty of thoughts and feelings as he crawled carefully towards the Russian trenches near Siversk, with grenades prepared. “You crawl forward and
U.S. President Joe Biden called "absolutely irresponsible" Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that the first of Russia's tactical nukes have been deployed to Belarus.
Russian forces tried to advance toward the towns of Kupiansk, Lyman, Avdiivka, Marinka, and Shakhtarsk in eastern and southeastern Ukraine but failed to make any headway on June 17, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.
Episode #11 of our weekly video podcast “This Week in Ukraine” is dedicated to Russia's destruction of Ukraine's Kakhovka dam, and the catastrophic flood it caused.
Editor’s note: For this story, we spoke to people living or having family in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. For their safety, they are identified by first name only. After destroying the Nova Kakhovka dam and stranding thousands of Ukrainians in the catastrophic flood zone, Russians prevented people in
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam can lead to serious humanitarian, ecological, economic, military, and legal consequences. The demolition was carried out by Russian forces in southern Ukraine in the early hours of June 6. And it’s among the most dramatic violations of the Geneva Conventions in recent decades.
The Security Service of Ukraine on June 3 arrested a Kherson regional military administration official on suspicion of collaborating with Russian occupiers. He faces 15 years in prison.
As Ukraine gathers forces for the counteroffensive, Russia continues to build defensive lines on a massive scale. The lines are especially formidable in the southwestern part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, where many observers expect the main Ukrainian assault to strike. But defenses have been prepared along pretty much the entire front;
“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.
Private armies are illegal in Russia, so naturally, Moscow has been using them for decades. Now, it’s making them the main invasion force. The rate at which Russia creates new private military company-like units sped up after 2014 but it really took off during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,
Editor's Note: This is episode 2 of "Ukraine's True History," a video and story series by the Kyiv Independent. The series is funded by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting within the program “Ukraine Forward: Amplifying Analysis.” The program is financed by the MATRA Programme of the Embassy of
When did Russia's war against Ukraine start? Spoiler: not in 2022. Moscow has been trying (often successfully) to subjugate the territories that make up modern Ukraine for nearly 400 years.
A major U.S. intelligence leak exposed very detailed reports about Ukraine and its war effort. The documents detail the strength of Ukraine’s counteroffensive buildup, the U.S.’s doubt that it will go very far, Ukraine’s approaching vulnerability to air attacks, the sad state of the Russian
A leak of hundreds of classified U.S. documents, noticed by the media last week, surprised the world with their incredibly granular details about the war in Ukraine. Some writers have called it the leak of the decade. Intelligence scholar Thomas Rid wrote that it was in the top five
Episode #3 of "This week in Ukraine" is dedicated to the massive leak of U.S. military intelligence, and what it revealed about Russia's war against Ukraine.
An overhaul of how the military determines bonus pay may cause more harm than good, six servicemen from multiple brigades told the Kyiv Independent. This change, which came into force in February, takes away the money that many service members need to both support their families and get vital military
DONETSK OBLAST — The Donbas battlefront meanders for over 1,000 kilometers through a land that has not known peace since 2014. In some points like Bakhmut, it flares into a meat grinder of incalculable human loss. At others, it appears to be coiled and waiting, limited to probing attacks by
VELYKA NOVOSILKA – Lyubov Andreeva, a retired builder, helped create the small town of Velyka Novosilka with her own hands. “All that there is in Novosilka, my hands were there,” the 73-year-old recollected, sitting in one of the town’s underground shelter-communes. “We had a stonemason, a plasterer, a painter, a
KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Donetsk Oblast – Russia’s relentless assault on Bakhmut is sacrificing waves and waves of unprepared men being sent to their deaths. But multiple defenders of this embattled city in Donetsk Oblast feel that they are in a similar boat, according to interviews with more than a dozen soldiers currently
Future Ukrainian counterattacks using modern Western combat vehicles are being discussed everywhere, from Washington news conferences to Ukrainian military expert circles. Ukraine hopes to receive up to two brigades of tanks, on top of many infantry vehicles from Western allies. But there are two main obstacles to using the tanks
It took a year of pleading to get the Western allies to promise to send modern main battle tanks, which Ukraine sorely lacks. The country has been making do with Soviet-era T-64s, donated T-72s, and a smaller number of T-80 and T-84 variants. Ukraine has also captured hundreds of upgraded
