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Ukraine war latest live: 'Ukraine's defense forces have regained positions in Kupiansk'
 (Updated:  

Ukraine war latest live: 'Ukraine's defense forces have regained positions in Kupiansk'

This is Chris York reporting from Kyiv on day 1,441 of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today's top story so far: Ukraine's Armed Forces have regained positions in the embattled city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrainian open-source mapping project DeepState said on Feb. 3. Russia has been trying  to push across the front by launching heavy offensive operations on multiple axes, including in the Kupiansk sector, to recapture the city it lost to a 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive. Rus
How Soviet nostalgia and silence enable wartime complicity on Russian YouTube
Opinion

How Soviet nostalgia and silence enable wartime complicity on Russian YouTube

"Everyone was equal," the kerchiefed babushka of Eli from Russia — a YouTuber who documents everyday life and regional culture across the Russian Federation — tells her granddaughter wistfully, recalling life in the Soviet Union. "There were no rich and poor." And as Russian missiles strike Ukrainian cities, Eli's grandmother remembers something else with longing: "We worked for our country. And it was united." The Russian public's complicity in the war of aggression against Ukraine is confoun
'This is our life' — staff at Kyiv's National Botanical Garden battle to keep plants alive amid war, sub-zero temperatures

How Kyiv's National Botanical Garden survives amid war and blackouts

On a bitterly cold winter morning inside Kyiv’s M.M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden, scientist Liudmyla Buyun checks a thermometer mounted against the glass wall of a greenhouse. She pauses, notes the reading, and moves on. The routine repeats several times a day, and sometimes through the night. "This is not a job that ends when you go home," says scientist Liudmyla Buyun. "For many of us, this is our life." Winter has pushed the National Botanical Garden into a daily fight to keep thousan
How the Kremlin drafted Russia's hackers to attack the West, leading to a rare US court case

How Russia rebuilt hacker gangs to attack the West, leading to a US indictment

Muleshoe, population 5,000, sits in the Texas Panhandle, next to the New Mexico state line, and about as far away from Ukraine as anywhere can be. A small, arid town linked to the outside world by a patchwork of county roads and a smattering of private airports for single-engine planes, it’s about an hour's drive away from the nearest metropolises of Lubbock or Amarillo, and two hours away from Roswell, New Mexico. One could say that Muleshoe is prime territory for cowboys looking to ranch, al
Rethinking Ukraine's economy
Opinion

Rethinking Ukraine's economy

What kind of an economy does Ukraine have? This question is not of abstract interest. International financial institutions, supporting governments, private investors — anyone with an economic interest in Ukraine needs to know what they have a stake in. Without having a realistic macroeconomic framework, it's hard to make sense of various economic indicators — like real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, inflation, investment, money demand, imports, exports, and capital flows — they remain is
How Ukraine appears in the latest Epstein files
Crime

How Ukraine appears in the latest Epstein files

The U.S. Department of Justice on Jan. 31 published over 3 million documents in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Some of them had a direct connection to Ukraine. The files linked to late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein include email conversations with at least two modeling agencies in Ukraine, travel arrangements for women from Kyiv and Odesa, booking arrangements in the Hyatt hotel in downtown Kyiv allegedly involving the hotel's owner, a plan to purcha
How to keep an elephant and a gorilla warm during Kyiv's coldest winter of the full-scale war
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How to keep an elephant and a gorilla warm during Kyiv's coldest winter of the full-scale war

Life in Kyiv right now is difficult for any 51-year-old, but when you are also a western lowland gorilla more suited to the warmth of central Africa, the ongoing energy crisis is particularly tough. This is the current plight of Tony, one of the oldest residents of Kyiv Zoo, a popular attraction in the capital that is somehow managing to stay functioning even as Russia continues its relentless campaign to freeze Ukraine into submission. Zoo technician Anastasiia Larionova is one of the team of
Ukraine war latest: Russian forces trying to 'bypass and infiltrate' Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast, military says
 (Updated:  

Ukraine war latest: Russian forces trying to 'bypass and infiltrate' Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast, military says

This is Asami Terajima reporting from a very cold Kyiv on day 1,440 of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today's top story: Russian troops are trying to "bypass and infiltrate" the destroyed town of Vovchansk in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, and the situation is "frankly difficult," Viktor Tregubov, a spokesman for Ukraine's Joint Forces in charge of the area, said on Feb. 2. Speaking on national TV, Tregubov said Russian troops are pressing on Ukrainian positions on the outskirts of Vo