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Politics

Lee Jae Myung at a news conference in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 18, 2026.
Politics

'Blown out of proportion' — Domestic politics at the core of South Korea's rift with Ukraine

by Karol Luczka

Seoul's diplomatic spat with Kyiv continues to deepen, but experts say it is less about Ukraine than about South Korea's own politics. The East Asian country, traditionally counted among Ukraine's partners in the region, announced on Oct. 8 that it is recalling its ambassador from Kyiv amid a dispute over North Korean prisoners of war (POWs). The rift started on Sept. 23 with President Volodymyr Zelensky telling the U.N. General Assembly that Kyiv had transferred two North Korean POWs, capture

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Why Russia's war on Ukraine's data centers could backfire on Moscow

Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers could backfire, experts have told the Kyiv Independent, as Kyiv's retaliatory attacks have exposed vulnerabilities in how Moscow has organized IT infrastructure. On Sept. 23, a Russian attack damaged a Kyiv data center housing network equipment for internet provider UTELS, causing service disruptions. The attack also affected cloud service Fex.net and disrupted internet access for around 100,000 households in Kyiv. Since then, Russia has increasingly ta

People use mobile phones near the Moscow City business center in Moscow on April 15, 2026.

How Russia exploits echoes of war fatigue in Ukraine

On the night of Oct. 2, Russian drones struck Kyiv's Southern Bridge once again. The city closed it and Paton Bridge, restricted traffic on Metro Bridge, and was gridlocked by multi-kilometer traffic jams by morning. On the same day, Oleksii Honcharenko, a member of parliament from the opposition European Solidarity party, wrote that "we are losing the war" and need to "negotiate about everything under the sun." He proposed discussing a neutral status instead of NATO membership, making concess

Firefighters recover the body of an elderly woman from the rubble in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on Oct. 17, 2026.
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