WARSAW/ODESA – Western leaders are well aware of the dangers of a Russian victory in Ukraine. “When dictators and autocrats are allowed to run roughshod in Europe,” U.S. President Joe Biden recently observed, “the risk rises that the United States gets pulled in directly,” with the “consequences reverberat[ing]
As Ukraine endures the ravages of Russia's full-scale invasion, the impact extends far beyond the physical destruction of its cities and the displacement of its people. A silent but equally devastating crisis is unfolding: the severe deterioration of the mental health of the Ukrainian population in wartime. A recent survey
On a trip to Mykolaiv in November, I passed an electronics store covered in shrapnel damage. I had assumed it was closed down — another victim of Russia’s attempted siege the previous year. Missing steps led to a door boarded up with plywood while a battered Apple logo clung to
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sought to blackball Ukraine’s bid to formally start EU accession talks last month, arguing that Ukraine was simply not ready. Ultimately, the other 26 EU member states decided to ignore Orban’s protestations and formally agreed to the start of accession talks with Ukraine.
As Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to wreak havoc both regionally and globally, the Ukrainian people and their allies demonstrate remarkable determination and courage. But nearly two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, it is increasingly clear that the international community can and must do much more to
Editor's note: Read our interview with Stanislav Haider here. The Defense Ministry is one of Ukraine’s oldest bureaucratic structures. As such, it has long-established customs and procedures, some of which no longer meet the challenges of today. My mission as the deputy minister for institutional development is to help
In 2023, several domestic developments in Russia, such as the summer mercenary mutiny by Yegveny Prigozhin or the autumn antisemitic riots in Makhachkala, indicated growing regime fragility. These and an accumulation of foreign policy challenges have renewed discussion of what happens to Putin’s system of rule after the current
We’ve got some bad news. In fact, we’ve got plenty of bad news. As well as some good news, and a handful of regular news. As with any media publication, we cover many topics and developments, both upsetting and inspiring. But lately, we have seen a worrying trend
The advantage historians have over journalists is that the passage of time offers them a perspective not available to those with immediate deadlines. But the year is about to end, which constitutes a firm deadline if the goal is to put 2023 into perspective. “Instant history” may well be an
STOCKHOLM – In his annual press conference, Russian leader Vladimir Putin made it clear that he will be ready for a peace settlement with Ukraine only after he has achieved his goals, which have not changed since he launched his full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. He wants Ukraine to be
WARSAW – This week, Donald Tusk won a vote of confidence in Poland’s parliament to lead a new government as the country’s new prime minister, following a failed bid by the incumbent, Mateusz Morawiecki to remain in that role. The vote provoked a visibly nervous reaction from the leader
BERKELEY/KYIV – Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration warned Congress that the U.S. is “out of money – and nearly out of time” to send aid and weapons to Ukraine. This, together with the recent warning by Ukraine’s top general, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, that “sooner or
Standing at an intersection just outside Russian-occupied Donetsk in the town of Marinka two years ago felt bittersweet. I could see the curtains in the windows of a nine-story residential building with my naked eye a few kilometers in the distance. The huge antenna tower I still remember standing next
One of the key insights I’ve gained about myself during this war has been that I held onto preconceived notions not only about foreigners but my fellow Ukrainian citizens. As a filmmaker and writer, I recognize the significance of the optics we rely on to perceive certain things. That's
“Attention equals help. No attention will mean no help. We fight for every bit of attention,” President Volodymyr Zelensky remarked in a recent interview. One of the groups that has played a vital role in keeping online attention focused on Ukraine has been the North Atlantic Fellas Organization (NAFO). This
BRUSSELS – “Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end three-degree temperature rise,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently warned. He is right. Unless we act decisively – beginning at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) underway in Dubai – the threat that climate change poses to humanity will become nothing
WARSAW – In October, Polish voters demonstrated that even extremely unequal elections against authoritarian incumbents can be won. The opposition’s victory, and the country’s subsequent re-democratization, may hold useful lessons for like-minded forces in Hungary, Turkey, and elsewhere. In Poland, the defeated populist leader, Jarosław Kaczyński of Law and
This November has been a particularly grim one here in Ukraine. Over the past month, two media sensations in big Western magazines served as a sober wake-up call about the state of the war. First, Simon Shuster’s profile in TIME magazine on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “lonely fight”
Editor’s Note: This is the speech of Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, which he delivered on Nov. 22 at the 17th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Ramstein format). Defense leaders from more than 50 partner countries participated in the meeting. The Kyiv Independent publishes the speech
People across Ukraine and around the world will light candles tomorrow in memory of the millions of Ukrainians killed in the artificial famine engineered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s regime in the 1930s. Known to history as the Holodomor, this man-made famine remained hidden in the Soviet shadows for
MILAN – In 1916, amid the horror of World War I, the American economist John Bates Clark made an observation that remains all too relevant. “There are effects of war which are more tragic than the economic burden it will place on future generations,” Clark noted, “and there are some that
One of the favorite protagonists in journalistic investigations of deeper sources of Moscow’s recent foreign policies is the flamboyant Russian idealogue Alexander Dugin. Equipped with a long beard, sonorous voice, and extroverted personality, Dugin is a telegenic speaker who easily checks the box of an archetypical Russian philosopher. He
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made headlines when he confirmed his belief that general elections should be postponed until after Ukraine wins the war. Despite some calls from Western allies to field elections sooner rather than later, polling shows that a majority of Ukrainians agree with Zelensky’s assessment that the
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielus Landsbergis didn’t pull his punches earlier in November when, pouring scorn on talk of a peace agreement with Russia, he noted that the West is flirting with catastrophe by missing the opportunity to “end centuries of the Kremlin’s imperial aggression.” If we fail, he
Ukraine has been wreaking havoc on Russia’s navy in the Black Sea through the use of new homemade sea drones and foreign-supplied cruise missiles. As a result of these suffocating attacks, Russia has been forced to have the bulk of its navy retreat from Sevastopol — a port that was
The Wagner Group’s aborted rebellion in June, coupled with the protracted war in Ukraine, has renewed fears about the security of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The risk of “loose nukes” or a vengeful leader going down with his finger on the trigger may seem far-fetched, but America must begin
Today, on Nov. 11, we mark two years since the founding of the Kyiv Independent. It’s been two years of relentless work and tough decisions. It’s also been two years of support from our community of readers around the world. For those who haven’t been following us
Ihor Kozlovskyi (1954-2023) was a renowned Ukrainian writer, scholar, and theologian from Donetsk Oblast. He was captured by Russian proxies in occupied Donetsk in 2016 for his pro-Ukrainian views and subsequently subjected to torture for nearly two years in Russian captivity. He was released in December 2017. One of Ukraine's
Bratislava announced the end of military aid to Ukraine on Oct. 26 following the election of the new Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico. Fico based his campaign on strong anti-U.S. sentiments, promises to halt weapons shipments to Ukraine, and a commitment to block Kyiv’s NATO aspirations. While Slovakia
The story around the Polish parliamentary elections earlier this month is one of a country at a crossroads. It was said that these were the most important elections since 1989, as a further Law and Justice (PiS) government would have cemented an increasingly illiberal system. In Western media outlets, the
Had it not been for Russia’s full-scale war, Ukrainians would have engaged in a heated political season in the lead-up to the parliamentary elections on Oct. 29, as well as the presidential elections in March of the upcoming year. Despite some voices in the West pushing for Ukraine’s
At the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia is moving to undo its ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that prohibits all nuclear weapons tests. This represents another step in the Kremlin’s effort to try to punish the United States and the West for their
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