Politics

President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, on April 23, 2026.
Politics

From showman to commander-in-chief: Zelensky's struggle to balance war, governance, and trust

by Kateryna Denisova

Riding a wave of political momentum in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky, a showman turned wartime leader, could have hardly imagined the path his presidency would take. Some argue that Zelensky's 2019 election was less of an endorsement of his political platform, a populist one, rather a rejection of the old entrenched elite seen as ineffective and corrupt. Years later, Zelensky still faces the domestic challenges that confronted his predecessors — issues he once promised to resolve. On the internatio

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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

US admits Ukraine peace talks at standstill

"If we see an opportunity to pull together talks that are productive, not counterproductive, and that have the chance to be fruitful, we're prepared to play that role," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

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