For more than a year, Ukrainian drones have struck Russian oil refineries and military-industrial facilities with remarkable consistency. Yet nothing seems to have rattled ordinary Russians quite like drones hitting "Russian Amazon" — Wildberries, shattering the sanctuaries that housed their eagerly awaited online orders. Beginning on July 18, Ukrainian forces launched a sustained campaign against the company's logistics network. The first strikes hit distribution hubs in Elektrostal and Kotov

Washington has not yet received President Volodymyr Zelensky's new plan to pressure Russia into ending its war, a U.S. official familiar with the matter told the Kyiv Independent. Zelensky said on Aug. 12 that Kyiv and its international partners have developed a joint plan based on pressure against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The plan comes as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner prepare to visit Ukraine and Russia in another attempt to revive stalled peace talks. "Putin does not

The large and controversial assault unit will also likely be brought together to fight in one sector, spokesperson Oleksii Bratushchak said on Aug. 13.

"Russian losses amounted to at least 9,550 people killed and more than 6,600 people wounded," Zelensky said.

As the founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Konovalets devoted his life to the cause of Ukraine's independence. He was assassinated by an undercover Soviet agent in 1938.

"Ukraine can be, and yes, it is wrong about Kosovo, but its right to be free remains unquestionable, and fighting for that right means fighting for Europe and for ourselves too," Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama wrote on X.

The move has been criticized for reducing overall transparency between the military, the media, and Ukrainian people as a whole about an issue that directly affects them.

The refinery is located around 1,300 kilometers (810 miles) from the Ukrainian border and was last hit overnight on July 14.

During previous repatriations, Russia at times returned the bodies of its own soldiers to Kyiv, with Ukrainian officials alleging the practice may have been aimed at avoiding compensation payments to Russian families or reflected a "negligent attitude toward their own people."

A bomb hidden inside a trash can has killed a Russian serviceman in the occupied city of Sevastopol, Crimea, Russian media reported on Aug. 13. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) confirmed the deceased was a member of the military without providing further details. The pro-Kremlin Mash Telegram channel reported the device had been placed in a trash can and killed the man instantly. Unconfirmed reports suggest the man was Robert Shageev, a former Ukrainian Navy officer who defected to Rus

The agreement with Moldova would cover just over 1% of Ukraine's total expected grain and oilseed exports.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski's threat to cut Poland's Starlink subscription mentions a $50 million-per-year fee, the same figure he cited previously as the cost of providing half of Ukraine's 42,000 terminals.

Russian attacks killed at least eight people and injured 50 others across Ukraine over the past day, local authorities said on Aug. 13. In Odesa Oblast, a Russian jet-powered attack drone hit a passenger train, killing the driver and his assistant, Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi said in a post on Facebook. Pertsovsky said the train was entering a station so passengers could be evacuated after a drone threat was detected. "The locomotive crew did not have enough time to completel

The figure includes 1,310 casualties Russian forces suffered over the past day.

"If they sell us 5% we will go through the winter and save people’s lives. If they can sell us 10%, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles," the president added.

Two Belarusian cousins were convicted on Aug. 12 by a Vienna court for supplying manufacturing equipment to Russia's weapons industry in violation of EU sanctions.

President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Aug. 12, discussing priority areas for cooperation between the two countries.

Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi's team has begun reviewing recommendations aimed at reforming Ukraine's mobilization system, Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said on Aug. 12.

Key developments on Aug. 12: * 4 Russian warships damaged in strike on Black Sea Fleet port * Ukraine liberated 745 square kilometers in Oleksandrivka sector since January, Zelensky says * Ukrainian unit reports shortages of food, water on front line, command promises evacuation when 'security situation allows' * Ukraine's HUR reveals size of Russia's Geran attack drone stockpile * Zelensky teases joint plan with allies to force Putin to stop war Four Russian warships were damaged in a Uk

"(Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not want to stop this war, but he will stop it. We have a plan," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Drone attacks were reported overnight in Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and across occupied Crimea, with explosions heard near Sevastopol and the Crimean Bridge.

President Volodymyr Zelensky's first official visit to Serbia was a diplomatic gamble. Ukraine needs partners wherever it can find them, including states that maintain close ties with Moscow. But Serbia is not becoming a conventional Ukrainian ally. Belgrade nominally supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and has provided humanitarian assistance, while Serbian-made ammunition has reached Ukraine through third countries. At the same time, Serbia has not joined the European Union's sanctions

In this interview, the Kyiv Independent’s Kateryna Hodunova speaks with “Khvoryi,” a soldier in Ukraine’s 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade “Kholodnyi Yar,” about what it takes to survive for more than six months at a combat position.

Platoon Commander Anatolii Syshchuk said his unit arrived at the position in April to relieve troops who had been stationed there for eight months without rotation. Their deployment was initially expected to last one month, he said.

"They purchased the equipment, but forgot to buy the ammunition," Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said, without disclosing further details about what systems he was referring to or who was responsible.

After weeks of protests over the dismissal of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, the movement is losing momentum as organizers struggle to decide what comes next and President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to ignore their central demand. Zelensky's lack of a public response has caught organizers off guard. While they say the protests have achieved some of their initial goals, they are now uncertain how to pressure the president into reinstating Fedorov. "I've been feeling some total frus

Odesa, one of southern Ukraine's most popular domestic tourist destinations, has spent much of this summer listening not to the sounds of a beachside holiday, but to air raid alarms — sometimes nearly every hour. "You don't hear the air raid siren because you're in a deep sleep," Yehven, 34, a resident of Odesa, told the Kyiv Independent. "You just wake up at some point to the sound of something with a jet engine flying overhead." "That engine is the scariest part because it sounds like a crui

During periods when Russian forces are replenishing their stockpiles, however, they typically launch around 150–200 drones per attack, with the number occasionally reaching approximately 300, the report read.

Subscribe to the Newsletter Ukraine Business Roundup Subscribe Ukraine's government wants to sell thousands of state-owned assets that are overwhelmingly unprofitable, inefficient, or nonoperational — sometimes all three. But it's facing a problem. Low prices aren’t enough to attract the foreign investors Ukraine wants most, particularly those from Europe. As Ukraine positions itself as an investment opportunity rather than a charity case to foreign partners, the country's State P

Nayara Energy Ltd., an Indian oil refining company backed by Russia's largest oil producer, Rosneft, was revealed to be the source of fuel that traveled aboard Russian-linked tankers through Egypt, Bloomberg reported.

Russian forces attacked Ukraine overnight on Aug. 12 with an Iskander-M ballistic missile, an anti-radiation Kh-31P missile, Kh-35 guided air-launched missiles, and 138 Shahed-type drones, the Air Force said.

When war, loss, and unimaginable suffering become routine, a book can offer a kind of lifeline — especially one by a writer who has lived through such an ordeal and tried to make sense of it. At the start of Russia’s full-scale war, some Ukrainians speculated if they’d see the rise of their own Ernest Hemingway: a writer whose books would not only capture the experience of a generation but come to define it. Yet it soon became clear that the old paradigms of war literature no longer spoke to t