Oleksiy Sorokin

President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 19 accused Belarus of facilitating Russian drone attacks on Ukraine and warned that Minsk has one week to remove communications equipment allegedly helping guide strikes from Belarusian territory, or Ukraine would take action itself.

Ukraine's top anti-corruption agencies say they have widened a sweeping bribery investigation tied to the former chairman of the Supreme Court, alleging that several senior judges accepted illicit payments in exchange for a ruling favoring a powerful businessman.

According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, those charged are a former deputy prime minister, an alleged ringleader of the Energoatom corruption scheme, and four others.

President Volodymyr Zelensky's former chief of staff has been charged with money laundering tied to the construction of a luxury residential compound outside Kyiv, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) said in a statement. Although not named in SAPO's statement, the chief of staff in question is Andriy Yermak, a source in law enforcement familiar with the case told the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Pr

Semen Kryvonos, the chief of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, breaks down Ukraine’s most high-profile corruption investigations.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly condemned Israel, which he accused of buying grain stolen by Moscow from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

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

Over the past year, a string of scandals has pushed Ukraine's independent anti-corruption agency into the spotlight. After surviving a government power grab in July, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) exposed a $100 million corruption scheme involving several ministers and a former business partner of the president. Parliament has not been spared, with around 50 lawmakers now charged or on trial in cases brought by the bureau. Four years into Russia’s full-scale war, Ukrain

On March 30, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv is ready to implement a ceasefire during the Easter holidays. The following day, the Kremlin rejected the initiative.

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. Y

A prominent pro-Kremlin blogger known for his aggressive attacks on Russia’s opposition abruptly turned against President Vladimir Putin publishing a series of scathing critiques. A day later, he was allegedly admitted into a psychiatric hospital in St. Petersburg. The blogger, Ilya Remeslo, had built his public profile by targeting the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his allies, often filing complaints and supporting legal cases against them. His sudden reversal — and the speed wit

The Kyiv Independent’s Oleksiy Sorokin speaks with Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, about the state of Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms and their impact on the country’s bid to join the European Union.

Two points remain high on Ukraine's agenda: surviving the Russian onslaught and joining the European Union. President Volodymyr Zelensky believes the two should be tied together, with his office proposing to engrave a set date for Ukraine's EU membership in a potential peace deal with Russia. Tom Berendsen, the new Dutch foreign minister, disagrees with this approach. "If you set a date, you need to make sure that you get (everything done before) the date. It needs to be a realistic date," Be

On Feb. 26, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was feeling adventurous, sending two letters — one to Brussels, another one to Kyiv — with a set of demands. The intended target audience for both, however, were not EU and Ukrainian officials, but the domestic population soon heading to the polls. "Viktor Orban's ominous post is not an open letter to a foreign head of state, but rather a campaign message targeting a domestic audience," Daniel Hegedüs, deputy director at the Institute for Europ

The Kyiv Independent’s Oleksiy Sorokin speaks with Katarina Mathernova, the European Union Ambassador to Ukraine, after Russia's large-scale missile and drone attack on Kyiv during one of the coldest days of the winter, leaving parts of the city without heat and electricity.