In a small town in Kyiv Oblast, 10th grader Alina Marynenko just beat her entire class to be the most accurate shooter on an AK-47 simulator. "Fourteen out of fifteen! I set a record! We beat the boys!" Marynenko yells out to her class. Marynenko and her classmates fired the
DRUZHKIVKA, Donetsk Oblast — A loud explosion goes off, followed by a second. People begin to run in different directions. Despite the chaos, taxi driver Serhiy Pohrebnyakov sits calmly behind the wheel, waiting for customers. Pohrebnyakov’s wife and daughter fled Druzhkivka after the start of the full-scale invasion, leaving him
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko declared himself the victor in the country's latest so-called presidential elections on Jan. 26, in which no political opposition was allowed to take part. The country's authorities claim Lukashenko won 86.82% of the vote, securing a seventh consecutive term in power. Despite international condemnation and
On either side of a basketball court in Kyiv, prostheses of various sizes rest alongside piles of water bottles, as two teams in wheelchairs fiercely compete for the ball just tossed up in the air to kick off the game. The players — wounded Ukrainian service members and veterans — are training
BILOZERSKE, Donetsk Oblast — Less than 30 kilometers north of embattled Pokrovsk, a market was in full swing in the town of Bilozerske. Meters away, however, a crowd has gathered in front of a building, nervously awaiting the doors to open. Tensions were visibly mounting as the doors remained closed and
Last winter as Olena Morozova braced for a long and arduous trip to Ukrainian-controlled territory from her Russian-occupied home in Lysychansk in Luhansk Oblast, her friends were traveling in the opposite direction. The friends — a family with two sons — came back to their house in Lysychansk because they couldn’t
Warning: This article contains descriptions of graphic scenes. For a moment, Oksana Latanska could not believe her eyes when she looked down at a cold, little body, gray from dust and ashes. It hardly resembled the little boy that she knew so well and whom she saw almost every weekend
For children around the world, the winter holidays are about gifts and a joyful time with their families. But for some Ukrainian children, the season is bittersweet, as it highlights the absence of one or both parents killed by Russia’s full-scale invasion. Nearly 1,800 Ukrainian children have become
WARNING: This article contains descriptions of graphic scenes. Anna Kotova was chatting with her sister on a video call, admiring her image on the screen. It was her 19th birthday, and for the first time in a while, she was feeling good about how she looked. “I used to dye
KUPIANSK — Volodymyr paused his Sunday stroll from a shopping center in Kupiansk to take pictures of rubble from a Russian strike that almost killed his wife late last month. "It was broad daylight when they struck," he said. "Our only luck was that my wife was in the kitchen, so
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
Marharyta Koldanova was standing at a bus stop in a residential area in Kyiv when a sudden loud noise went off, prompting her to take out a tourniquet from her bag and prepare to quickly apply it in case she got injured by an aerial attack. "I was overwhelmed with
Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, 27, was about to be released from Russian captivity and returned home, when the news of her death broke out on Oct. 10, shocking Ukraine and the world. Roshchyna disappeared in August 2023 while reporting in Russian-occupied territory. More than half a year later, Russia's Defense
Editor’s Note: The following article is the latest in a series of reports by the Kyiv Independent about the memorialization of Ukraine’s fallen soldiers. Ukrainians gathered at war memorials around the country on Oct. 1, the country’s National Defenders Day, to honor the soldiers killed defending their
The wedding of Olha Shevchenko and Mykyta Pukhkan earlier this September was unique. It was online. The couple was among the first to marry using a Ukrainian-developed Diia mobile application. “One day in May, my husband saw a notification about the beta version in Diia, which offered an online wedding
For the past eight years, Anton Lytvynov, a stage director at Lviv National Opera, has celebrated New Year in Kyiv with his three friends – Sandra, Mykhailo, and Volodymyr. However, on Dec. 31, 2022, work commitments kept Lytvynov in Lviv longer than he had expected. Determined to reunite with his closest
"They are barbarians," 80-year-old Mustafa Dzhemilev tells the Kyiv Independent on Sept. 2, as he assesses the damage caused to the Islamic Cultural Center in Kyiv by a Russian missile attack in the early hours of the morning. "If they targeted a children's hospital, why wouldn’t they destroy a
Editor’s Note: The following is the first in a series of reports by the Kyiv Independent about the memorialization of Ukraine’s fallen soldiers. “I'm up for cremation,” Kostiantyn “Kostia” Yuzviuk wrote in a list of funeral requests in his newly created Telegram channel for friends in November 2022
The wail of the air raid siren in Ukraine, which signals potential or incoming attacks, has become as burdensome and commonplace a sound as that of traffic or construction work. More than 40,000 air raid sirens lasting from minutes to hours throughout the day and night have sounded across
“There was a summer kitchen, a single bedroom, and a little hallway… and behind the wall lived the pigs and goats,” said Maryna Baliasnykova, an internally displaced Ukrainian. She described the accommodation her family was given by local authorities in western Ukraine after evacuation. Baliasnykova, her husband, and their two
Editor’s note: This story was sponsored by Common Sense Communications, a Ukrainian non-profit organization specializing in pro-democracy strategic communications. One of their ongoing projects is “Voices of Civilian Hostages,” which aims to attract the world’s attention to the issue of Russia’s illegal abduction of Ukrainian civilians. Yaroslav
Editor’s Note: Kyiv Independent News Editor Nate Ostiller briefly attended a summer program at the same Estonian university where the main character of this report was a professor and received a passing grade in a one-week summer school course. A university professor is not the first profession that comes
At about 10:30 on the morning of July 8, just minutes before a Russian missile slammed into Kyiv’s main hospital for children, 4-year-old Dima Dorontsov was waiting to receive his final dose of chemotherapy at the oncology department with his mother Viktoria Zavoloka alongside. He’s spent much
Nurse Olesia Filonenko was preparing for the first operation of the day at the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv when she heard explosions "somewhere far away." "Then, in a second, everything was blown away," she told the Kyiv Independent. "Dust, smoke. We were all blown out of the operating rooms
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, volunteers from around the world have come to Ukraine to support the country’s struggle. They have not only joined the foreign battalions to fight on the front line but have also helped various volunteer initiatives: from weaving camouflage nets for the
DNIPRO – Most soldiers are unconscious by the time they arrive at Mechnikov Hospital, the main gateway for the wounded fighting in Donbas. Located in Dnipro, a city of 1 million people 185 kilometers west of the front line, the massive Soviet-era medical facility works around the clock to save as
Since the summer of 2023, local Ukrainian authorities announced the mandatory evacuation of families with children from multiple front-line areas due to the intensification of hostilities. The orders apply to several districts in Kharkiv Oblast, which borders Russia and has been heavily bombarded throughout the full-scale invasion, and the entirety
The Kyiv Independent follows one couple who escaped from embattled Vovchansk after losing their house and former life.
There was nothing extraordinary about the mission until combat medic Olena found herself frozen in fear. The situation wasn’t particularly dangerous, but she couldn’t bring herself to do her job as her fellow soldiers were getting wounded. "I found myself trapped in the dugout corner, trembling like a
In his battle for Ukraine, Pavlo Petrychenko used not only weapons but also his voice. A renowned Kyiv activist, he fought for the prosecution of corrupt Ukrainian officials, demanding justice for his fellow activists, including Kateryna Handziuk, who was murdered in 2018. As a team member of the Serhiy Prytula
Eleven-year-old Oleksandr Reshetniak from Kharkiv Oblast still vividly remembers holding the stump of his torn-off leg, trying to stop the bleeding. On Jan. 17, Oleksandr and his 13-year-old cousin Alina were heading to a grocery store in his native village of Malyi Burluk, near Kupiansk, in the east of Kharkiv
Editor's Note: The Kyiv Independent spoke with children under the permission of one of their surviving parents. At the age of 11, Arina Pervunina saw Russian troops killing her father. She and her younger brother were caught behind enemy lines at their grandparents’ house in Kherson Oblast shortly after the
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