SNIHURIVKA, Mykolaiv Oblast — Early on Feb. 24, as Russian missiles started falling on Ukraine, a few human rights activists started a WhatsApp chat – right as they were sitting in bomb shelters. The next day, the chat transformed into a human rights coalition aimed at protecting those affected by Russian aggression
DNIPRO – Rushing to the hospital shortly after a Russian missile hit an apartment building in Dnipro on Jan. 14, Mykyta Pavlovskyi prayed that his mother's injury wasn't fatal. "We drove to the hospital hoping that everything will be alright with my mom," the 23-year-old graduate student told the Kyiv Independent.
Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Independent does not publish the last names of all interviewees to protect their identity. DNIPRO – With dark purple bruises around her eyes, 81-year-old Lidiia packed whatever she could fit into a plastic shopping bag and left home in a hurry on Jan. 15. A day
The liberation of Ukrainian settlements from Russian occupation inevitably comes with the revelation of new war crimes committed by Russian soldiers. In the liberated village of Chornobaivka, Kherson Oblast, at least 18 people were killed during its occupation.
SNIHURIVKA, Mykolaiv Oblast — When Russian forces seized her town, chemistry teacher Natalia Vorobiova had a choice: collaborate and be left alone or defy them and risk everything. She chose defiance. Even after Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) threatened to abduct and imprison her in Siberia, she continued to refuse to
Editor's note: The story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find graphic. CHORNOBAIVKA, Kherson Oblast – Two 23-year-old friends, Volodymyr Prylutskyi and Denys Dudchenko, were in front of their old school in Chornobaivka when they were shot dead at around 4 p.m. on March 4. The southern village,
KHERSON – KYIV – Kherson residents sat in an eerily quiet overnight train to Kyiv. It was Nov. 25, and they were leaving their hometown for the first time since February. The evacuees spent almost nine months under Russian occupation in Kherson, waiting for the arrival of Ukrainian forces. But a few
KHERSON — Huge numbers of Ukrainians were detained by Russians occupying Kherson. Many of them were interrogated by torture. The chief prosecutor of Kherson Oblast, Volodymyr Kalyuga, said that locals were tortured at four sites throughout the city. According to interviews with local officials and residents, these included a pre-trial detention
KHERSON – Standing outside her small, dimly lit grocery store, Natalia chain-smokes several cigarettes until a customer finally shows up at the door. The 48-year-old shopkeeper misses being busy all day. More than a week after Ukrainian forces recaptured her native Kherson, she is still waiting for her long-time customers to
KHERSON — Svitlana Dosenko stood dangerously close to the edge of the platform, anxiously waiting for her son to arrive on the first train from Kyiv to Kherson since Russia’s invasion engulfed the entire country. “I left home in a hurry because I was worried that the platform would be
SVIATOHIRSK, Donetsk Oblast – For centuries, the gleaming whitewashed walls of the Sviatohirsk Dormition Lavra, peeking out of the hilly forest above the Siverskyi Donets River, attracted pilgrims from across the Eastern Orthodox world. Now, in an obscene imitation of a Jackson Pollock painting, they stand in many places splattered with
PERSHOTRAVNEVE, Kharkiv Oblast – Less than two kilometers from front-line positions on the border with Luhansk Oblast, silence is deceptive and never lasts long. In one moment, the scene in any given village in this gray zone can be described as almost peaceful, as children play on sunny streets and flocks
KUPIANSK, Kharkiv Oblast — For the handful of Ukrainians left in the center of Kupiansk, life since liberation from Russian occupation has been reduced to an exercise in survival. The city in Kharkiv Oblast is shelled throughout the day by Russian artillery on the other side of the Oskil River, where
KHARKIV – In the early hours of Sept. 6, Vitaliy Zubenko left his bed to grab a glass of water when he heard an explosion. He didn’t immediately realize that a fragment of a Russian missile hit the roof of his house. “It was an enormous explosion, very loud,” Zubenko
MYKOLAIV – The bunker under the Mykolaiv academic theater was packed, with the last preparations well underway for an evening show 30 kilometers west of the front line. It was a special night. The theater's first film festival since February was about to begin in early August despite yet another night
BALAKLIIA, Kharkiv Oblast — In the early morning on Sept. 6, Alla Nikulina, an exiled school principal from the village of Verbivka, got a sudden and emotional phone call. “It’s happening,” Nikulina’s colleague was saying with her voice trembling. “Our boys are coming.” The Ukrainian military suddenly launched a
Located a mere 30 kilometers from the war’s southern front lines, Ukraine’s shipbuilding capital Mykolaiv has been a constant target for the Russian military throughout its full-scale invasion. Shelled almost daily, the regional capital with a pre-war population of 480,000 has seen over 500 residential buildings destroyed
ODESA – Odesa has always been Ukraine’s prime summer destination. Packed streets, buskers on promenades, and a relentless mass of busy restaurants and bars filled with tourists ready to party until dawn were the regular scenery in the city from early May to late September. But this summer, the loud
NIKOPOL – On nights when he hears them, Mykhailo Kling runs to his panoramic ninth-floor balcony in Nikopol to watch Russian rockets being fired at his hometown. “See the reactor buildings there,” he said, pointing across the wide expanse of the Dnipro River at the eerie shapes of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear
MYKOLAIV — Nights are short in the southern embattled city of Mykolaiv. Since Russia took control of neighboring Kherson in early March, Ukraine’s shipbuilding capital has been shelled nonstop. Counting the dead has become a daily routine for Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych. The morning of July 29 was no exception. “About
MYKOLAIV — Russia continues to bombard residential areas of Mykolaiv, Ukraine’s major shipbuilding city 50 kilometers west of the front line. At 9.45 a.m., on July 29, Russian cluster munition killed at least five people and injured at least seven more. Those killed and injured were standing in
VINNYTSIA – Andrii Artymovych felt that he needed a lazy start to his day. The 34-year-old IT specialist spent the day working from home in bed with his laptop. That decision nearly cost him his life. An hour into his slow morning, Artymovych heard a loud noise. The sound of warplanes
SLOVIANSK, Donetsk Oblast — The battlefield stretches through the dense forest on the banks of the Siversky Donets River. Soldiers with Ukraine’s 79th Airborne Brigade crawl out of sandy trenches, preparing their 40 mm under-barrel rounds. Barrels up, they aim at an imperceptible enemy line running some 300 meters away,
MYKOLAIV – Days into Russia’s all-out war, the regional capital of Mykolaiv became a bastion of Ukraine’s southern defenses. After Russia rapidly occupied Kherson in late February, Mykolaiv immediately became its next target. Their forces shelled, bombed and fired missiles at the regional capital, trying to encircle the city
BUCHA, Kyiv Oblast — With cameras clicking and reporters crowding around, three men in grey uniforms began pulling a dead civilian in a black body bag out of the ground. Their movements were confident and precise. They have repeated the procedure dozens of times in recent days. After Kyiv Oblast was
CHERNIHIV OBLAST – After Russian troops have withdrawn from Ukraine’s northmost region, an expected, yet no less horrific destruction was uncovered. Russian airstrikes targeted both high-rise buildings in Chernihiv and small houses in nearby villages, leaving many people in the regional capital and its suburbs dead, injured, and without a
BORODYANKA, Kyiv Oblast -- Burned and shattered, high-rise residential buildings in the center of Borodyanka, a town 40 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, hide even more horror underneath. Around 200 people have been buried alive in the basements when Russian bombs destroyed the buildings, local authorities estimate. “Hope dies last,” said
Irpin, Kyiv Oblast -- The urban ruins of the Battle of Kyiv contain many secrets. Irpin, a town just northwest of Ukraine’s capital, a battlefield of ruined homes, charred streets and broken glass, now seems forsaken in a lull. But beneath the debris is a living and buzzing underworld.
RUSANIV, Kyiv Oblast — Ukrainian emergency response workers dig into the fresh soil by a riverbank. “Careful,” they tell each other. “Just like that. Remove the upper layer bit by bit.” Every strike of the spade unearths new items in the moist dirt. Parts of cloth tatters, boot bottoms, traces of
BORYSPIL, KYIV OBLAST – About a hundred people gathered in a city memorial park to say their last goodbyes to an outstanding combat commander, colonel Valeriy Gudz, who had been killed in a battle near Russian-occupied Luhansk on March 12. Gudz, 51, had defended Ukraine from Russia’s army since the
IRPIN, Ukraine — Hundreds of terrified people cautiously walk through the debris of concrete and twisted metal, trying to cross the Irpen River on foot. “Come on, no need to rush, careful,” a Ukrainian soldier says while helping civilians onto concrete blocks leading to a stairway. Mothers hold up their crying
