President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives to speak to parliamentarians at the Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 16, 2024.
Opinion

Tired, scared, or deliberately obstructive: Why Ukrainian lawmakers refuse to vote for reforms

by Tetiana Shevchuk

As Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada enters its seventh year without a general election, a troubling narrative has taken hold in Kyiv's political circles that parliament is broken, paralyzed, and incapable of delivering the reforms Ukraine's international partners require. MPs and governmental officials are giving two explanations for this supposed dysfunction: personal exhaustion and fear of anti-corruption investigations. Neither holds up to scrutiny. The crisis may be real, but it originates not in

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As Russian oil profits soar, so do Ukraine's drone attacks on refineries

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has been a boon for the Kremlin's war coffers — during just the first two weeks of fighting, Russian earned an additional 6 billion euros ($6.9 billion) as global oil prices spiked. But two weeks later, Moscow was suffering from what Reuters described as "the most severe oil supply disruption in the modern history of Russia." Alongside continued pipeline disruption and tanker seizures, Ukrainian drone strikes contributed to around 40% of Russia’s oil export capac

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