Two weeks before Ukraine's pivotal 2004 presidential election, 22-year-old filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk found herself at the center of a heated exchange during a trip to Moscow. The upcoming elections were a topic of group conversation and one Russian woman, bristling with anger, demanded, “How dare you Ukrainians think you are
A new political museum at the same site will open on Feb. 15, 2025, Finnish authorities announced. The museum will reportedly focus on Finnish-Russian relations, including developments in the 21st century.
Why do some young people in the West romanticize Communism? How did Russian President Vladimir Putin manage to sell the idea of retaining the imperialist regime to the Russian people?
Poland can make Ukraine's accession to the EU contingent on the resolution of the Volyn massacre as joining the bloc is not a matter of the country's survival, a Polish minister said in a media interview published on Oct. 15.
Ukraine commemorated the 83rd anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy on Sept. 29, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying that it is a "terrifying symbol" of what can happen when the world "lacks the determination to stand up against evil." The Babyn Yar tragedy was a mass murder of nearly 34,
Despite being scarred by Russia’s full-scale war, the city continues to draw locals and tourists to its lively streets, sunny beaches, and legendary nightlife.
Russian forces have damaged several ancient burial mounds on the front line in southern Ukraine, potentially violating the Hague and Geneva Conventions, according to research from the Ukraine Conflict Observatory published on Sept. 4.
Speaking on Polish television in late July, Poland’s Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz reminded Ukrainians that even his country’s overwhelming support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia has its limits. Ukraine could never expect Poland’s backing in joining the EU if it didn’t “resolve” the historical
Ukraine should become a member of the EU despite disagreements with Poland over the historical issue of the mass killings of Poles in Volyn in the 1940s, Speaker of the Polish Parliament Szymon Holownia said on Aug. 31.
Following a decade-long battle, a substantial part of Crimean artifacts is now on display in Kyiv until the occupied peninsula is liberated, officials say. After a lengthy legal struggle, the return of the so-called "Scythian gold" last year was, for Ukrainians, an important cultural milestone amid the ongoing decade-long war
The Kyiv Independent will launch a travel show called “Dare to Ukraine.” In each of the six episodes, host Masha Lavrova will travel to six regions across the country to explore the local culture, architecture, food, popular activities, people, and everyday life. The first episode of “Dare to Ukraine” will
Kiper made the statement after Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov criticized the renaming of streets on Aug. 1, claiming that Odesa City Council had "nothing to do with this."
The city of Kharkiv has decided to rename three metro stations and 48 streets to "remove Russian markers from public space," Governor Oleh Syniehubov announced on July 26.
Ukraine was “a blind spot” for Germans up until Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Franziska Davies, a historian of Eastern and Eastern Central Europe, told the Kyiv Independent in an interview. “And if there is a blind spot, propaganda narratives can easily fill it with falsehoods,” Davies said, explaining why Russia-planted
Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said that Poland supports Ukraine against Russian aggression as much as it can, but the relations are "not perfect" due to unresolved historical issues. Warsaw has been Kyiv's staunch supporter since 2022, although the ties have soured in the past months over trade disputes.
Foreigners will have to pass two exams — on Ukraine's Constitution and Ukraine's history — to obtain Ukrainian citizenship, the government announced on May 30.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it dramatically changed the continent. The largest conventional war in Europe since World War II demanded Western leaders move away from their peacetime thinking and step in decisively to
In late April 2024, in central Kyiv, heavy cranes began dismantling a sculpture erected to commemorate 17th-century Pereiaslav Treaty between the Cossacks and Muscovites, symbolically closing a chapter of a shared history. It was the very same agreement lauded by Russian President Vladimir Putin as supposed evidence of Ukraine's historical
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law in 2023 officially changing the date of Ukraine's World War II commemoration to May 8, aligning it with most of Europe and indicating a full break from the Soviet-era holiday.
The Pereiaslav Council of 1654 saw the Cossacks, inhabitants of modern-day Ukraine, enter into an alliance with Moscow against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Odesa City Council's historical and toponymic commission has proposed renaming three streets and one square named after Russian historical figures, the city council announced on April 4.
Ukraine's Parliamentary Committee on Regional Development supported the renaming of seven more cities and 44 villages, whose names do not meet the standards of Ukrainian language or refer to Russian or Soviet names, lawmaker Roman Lozynskyi wrote on X on April 4.
The word Cossack comes from the Turkic word meaning “free man” or “outlaw.” True to this moniker, Ukraine’s Cossacks — a semi-nomadic militaristic group originating somewhere in the 15th century — are renowned as sovereign warriors and pioneers of independence in Ukraine. Deeply ingrained in Ukrainian national mythology, particularly through the
Like any true detective novel, Andrey Kurkov’s “The Silver Bone” starts off with a brutal murder and endeavors to maintain high stakes until its final pages. The novel, now available to English-language readers in translation by Boris Dralyuk, was recently longlisted for the International Booker Prize, one of the
Ukraine's Parliamentary Committee on Regional Development adopted a decision to rename five cities and 104 villages that were given Russian or Soviet names, lawmaker Roman Lozynskyi announced on social media on March 20.
In nearly every village, town, and city across Ukraine today, you can spot some kind of monument to the 19th-century poet and artist Taras Shevchenko. Following Ukraine’s independence in 1991 and the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014, many of them replaced statues of 20th-century Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin that
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently weaponized and distorted history throughout his time in power since 2000. In a recent interview with U.S. far-right commentator Tucker Carlson, Putin went back more than 1,000 years to justify
“Today, Russia inflicted yet another blow to our heritage, once again proving that the Russian Federation is purposefully destroying our (Ukraine’s) material culture to erase Ukrainians as a nation," Acting Culture Minister Rostyslav Karandieiev said.
Unity Day, observed on Jan. 22 in Ukraine as a state holiday, typically commemorates the 1919 unification of eastern and western Ukraine. But this year, the date garnered attention for a decree signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky relating to modern-day Russian territories that were historically populated by Ukrainians. The decree
Ukraine will take steps to research, publicize, and protect the histories of Ukrainians living in parts of modern-day Russia that have been historically inhabited by Ukrainians, according to a decree signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky on Jan. 22.
In early March 2023, a video surfaced online showing the execution of a Ukrainian prisoner of war. The unarmed soldier’s last words were “Slava Ukraini” – a Ukrainian national salute that means “Glory to Ukraine” – before he was shot multiple times and collapsed to his death. Ukrainian officials condemned the
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