Investigations

Investigation: A secret program, 'suicidal' missions, and death, torture in occupied Ukraine
Investigations

Investigation: A secret program, 'suicidal' missions, and death, torture in occupied Ukraine

by Jimmy Rushton

A Western-funded classified program supported a "non-violent resistance" initiative inside Russian-occupied Ukraine for more than three years that encouraged civilians to engage in "suicidal" activities despite credible reports of the deaths, torture, and imprisonment of activists, the Kyiv Independent can reveal. Russian-occupied Ukraine is one of the most heavily surveilled and most repressive territories in the world, and some of the activities Yellow Ribbon and its sister initiative Zla Mav

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Ukraine war latest: Russia claims deadly Ukrainian drone strike hit dormitory in occupied Luhansk Oblast, Kyiv calls it 'misleading information'

Key developments on May 22: * Ukraine denies Russian claim that drone strike killed civilians in occupied Luhansk Oblast * Ukraine strikes Russia's Yaroslavl Oil Refinery 4 times in month, Zelensky confirms * Russia offers university admission boost for students who pass drone piloting exam * Russian attacks kill 5, injure 52 across Ukraine as Dnipro drone strike leaves dozens wounded Ukraine's General Staff on May 22 rejected Russian claims that an overnight Ukrainian drone strike killed

Field report: With NATO forces training at Russia's doorstep

VORU COUNTY, Estonia — In southeast Estonia lies a lake-studded, woodland region locals call Missomaa, which makes up the country's three-way borderland with Latvia and Russia. Its innocuous-looking woods are overlaid by cameras and sensors feeding data to a British unit stationed nearby, informing their first-person-view (FPV) drone operators about an "enemy" vehicle closing in. Corey, an operator of the British 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland (2 Scots), simulates a strike by doing

Killing Ukrainian artists is Russia's century-old tradition

On May 22, 1979, thousands gathered in Lviv to bid farewell to Volodymyr Ivasyuk, one of the most influential figures in modern Ukrainian music. Weeks earlier, the composer had disappeared under mysterious circumstances before being found dead in a forest near the city of Lviv, in what Soviet authorities declared a suicide. Yet for Ukrainians, Ivasyuk's death became inseparable from the broader machinery of Soviet repression aimed at silencing Ukrainian culture and identity. His funeral transf

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