The Swiss-headquartered Mediterranean Shipping Company acquired a stake in the TIS container terminal in Ukraine's Pivdennyi Port, one person with close knowledge of the deal confirmed to the Kyiv Independent, who was granted anonymity to discuss closed talks.

The EU is set to discuss extending Ukrainian refugee protections for a sixth time, amid thorny questions over whether and when more than 4 million refugees in Europe will return home.

Russia has no right to call its ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine "retaliatory strikes" in a war that it started. There is only one side that has the right to retaliate: the side that was attacked. By launching a large-scale war against Ukraine, Moscow effectively made itself a legitimate target for Kyiv's forces. The attacked side has the right to defend and protect itself, its territory, and its people. Yet many American media outlets, after five years of Russia's brutal full-scale invasi

Chemical weapons are something the world formally banned a hundred years ago. Yet today, Ukraine's Defense Forces have already recorded around 13,000 cases of chemical agents used by the Russian forces on the front lines since the start of the full-scale war. And that number keeps growing. In April 2024, the U.S. State Department published a document directly accusing Russia of using chloropicrin against military personnel. International media reported on this as well. The Telegraph, in partic

Anton Yarmolenko was killed after arriving at one of the attack sites in Dnipro to help the victims and sustaining fatal injuries in Russia's "treacherous follow-up strike," the State Emergency Service said.

Armenia will hold parliamentary elections on June 7, a vote most observers describe as crucial. Eight years after the country's Velvet Revolution, Armenia's pro-European Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is seeking reelection for a third term, amid tensions with Russia and seemingly full support from the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump took to social media on May 27 to offer his "COMPLETE and TOTAL endorsement" for Armenia's leader. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin t

Ukraine struck Russian military targets across occupied Crimea and Donetsk Oblast overnight, including two Pantsir air defense systems and a command post.

Russia launched a large-scale aerial attack against Ukraine overnight on June 2, targeting Kyiv with missile and drone fire.

If an agreement is reached at the "technical-level" talks, Peter Magyar said he is ready to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky as early as next week.

Far-right opposition MP Krzysztof Bosak also said that Warsaw should stop paying for Starlink satellite communications systems used by Ukraine and opt out of EU loans to Kyiv in order to "exert real pressure."

The Kyiv Independent has added a new item to its merchandise store: a vyshyvanka, Ukraine's traditional embroidered shirt. For this project, we partnered with the fashion embroidery brand Gaptuvalnya to design and create a unique vyshyvanka for the modern world, produced right here in Kyiv.

Located roughly 500 kilometers (311 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the refinery is among the largest in southern Russia, producing nearly 6,6 million tons of fuel annually.

Moscow has sought to deflect blame after Bucharest said a Russian Shahed-type drone injured two civilians in the Romanian city of Galati.

Mobilization has consistently been one of the weakest elements of Ukraine's military response to Russia's full-scale invasion. The system is widely hated by the public, plagued by corruption, and has often failed to meet targets needed to ensure the country's defense. Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has proposed bold new plans to reform the system, but is facing opposition from within the military and Ukraine's top leadership. This private briefing will explore the following questions: * Wh

KI Insights is planning to expand coverage of Russian political and economic issues. The current briefing is aimed to be the first in a series. If you are interested in learning more or would be open to supporting this direction of work, please contact us at insights@kyivindependent.com. Russia's legislative elections are just 4 months away. Years of full-scale war are increasingly being felt, presenting a challenge to domestic political and socio-economic stability. However, those dynamics are

"Our warriors now have the capability to reach Russian military logistics across virtually the entire depth of the temporarily occupied territory. There are practically no safe roads left for the occupier in the south and east of our state," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Key developments on June 1: * Russian monthly territorial gains slip into negative for first time since 2023, DeepState reports * Ending Russia's war before winter is realistic, Budanov says * Romania confirms Russian Shahed-type drone behind earlier strike on residential building * Russian drones hit Odesa residential area as attacks across Ukraine kill 3, injure over 60 Ukraine has gained more territory than Russia occupied over the same period in May, pushing overall Russian advances in

Ukraine's military intelligence urged civilians to take air raid alerts seriously and "be ready to react."

This is despite the group's public map showing a Russian advance of 14 square kilometers (about 5.4 square miles) in May, due to the delay in publicly acknowledging advances by the Ukrainian military amid security concerns, according to DeepState.

"The president has tasked us with trying to end this war as quickly as possible. I can confirm that this is indeed his goal — to bring hostilities to an end as soon as possible, preferably before winter," President's Office Head Kyrylo Budanov told the Kyiv Independent.

In January 2023, World Central Kitchen teams traveled to recently liberated communities in Kherson Oblast, delivering hot meals and food packages. People came for aid, but almost immediately they asked for a way to call home — to reach their children, spouses, relatives in another city, anyone who might know whether the others had survived. That experience changed my understanding of critical connectivity. A system matters only when it is ready when a team arrives: a vehicle stops, people gat

Even before stepping onto the grounds of the Venice Biennale, visitors are met with a striking image visible from behind the gates: a concrete deer, suspended midair from the crane of a parked truck, its form secured by vivid orange lifting straps that crisscross its body. From a distance, the installation resembles a temporary construction site more than a national pavilion. People stop beneath it, trying to understand whether the structure is still being assembled, or whether this unstable su

The vessel, Tagor, has been transporting Russian crude oil and petroleum products and is sanctioned by the EU, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine.

"We don't comment on comments." "We won't comment on an ongoing investigation." "That's a domestic issue, and so we won't comment." If you hang around EU press briefings for a while, you will hear these reasons and many more for not answering your question. Requests for comment on Ukraine can, like any other topic, go unanswered, but sometimes for reasons you would not get elsewhere. And it's not that the EU isn't bothered. In February, senior EU officials shared with the Kyiv Independent thei

The next step on Ukraine and Moldova's EU accession path could happen slightly earlier than expected, with EU and national diplomats confirming to the Kyiv Independent that everybody is working towards June 15 as the day to open the first of six so-called "enlargement clusters." Ukraine and Moldova's EU applications are proceeding in tandem, and further formal progress has been blocked for a year by Hungary, chiefly over 11 demands from the government in Budapest to grant additional rights to t

"The evidence identified at the scene is structurally and functionally identical to those recovered... in previous incidents involving Geran-2 type unmanned aerial vehicles," the country's Defense Ministry said.

Russia launched 265 Shahed-type attack drones against Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 228 of them, while 27 drones struck targets at 18 locations.

"Every Arc7 tanker serviced in Denmark could help prolong Russian Arctic LNG exports for years," Alexander Kirk, a sanctions campaigner at Urgewald, said.

The number includes 1,560 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.

"This is a ticking time bomb and I think everybody in shipping knows it," shipping executive Alexander Saverys told the Financial Times.

With Ukrainian forces regaining the battlefield initiative, Kyiv has until winter to effectively negotiate with Moscow, Zelensky told CBS News in a May 31 interview.

"The strike locations are situated at the junctions of major railway lines and road networks. In other words, the attacks targeted key logistics hubs where the enemy had been concentrating personnel and resources for further offensive operations," the 413th Regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces said.