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'Impossible to ban grief' — how Russia tries and fails to hide its casualties in Ukraine
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'Impossible to ban grief' — how Russia tries and fails to hide its casualties in Ukraine

by Karol Luczka

Russia has tightened control over information about its battlefield losses in Ukraine, cutting off data and closing one public loophole after another. The effort has not stopped the evidence of the dead from surfacing. As 2025 came to an end, Western governments and independent groups alike tallied staggering figures for Russia's battlefield losses in Ukraine, reaching no fewer than 400,000 killed, wounded, and missing that year. According to some estimates, Russia could have lost more soldiers

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Wednesday, February 4

Keith Kellogg says he left Trump's White House to be 'free to talk' about Ukraine

Keith Kellogg, formerly U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy on Ukraine and widely regarded in Kyiv as one of the most pro-Ukrainian voices in the White House, said his work on Ukraine is far from over after leaving government at the end of 2025. A highly decorated, retired three-star U.S. Army general stepped down on Dec. 31 and has since joined the America First Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. In an interview with the Kyiv Independent, he described the shift as a way to remain enga

Kyiv groans a collective ‘WTF?’ to Trump’s latest Putin comments

U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that his Russian counterpart "kept his word" by not launching mass missile and drone strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure for a week has been met with bewilderment and dismay in Kyiv. "I believe this is either a mockery of our misfortune, a lack of understanding of the situation, or wishful thinking," Volodymyr Ariev, a lawmaker from the opposition European Solidarity party, told the Kyiv Independent. The confusing saga of a supposed truce on stri

U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. on Feb. 3, 2026.

Ukraine war latest: 7 dead, 8 injured as Russia strikes Donetsk Oblast city market with cluster munitions

Today's Ukraine War Latest live is brought to you by Francis Farrell in Kharkiv and Jared Goyette in Kyiv, both cities where temperatures plunged below -20 degrees Celsius overnight, as Russia's campaign against electricity and heating infrastructure continues. Today's top story so far: Russian forces attacked the city of Druzhkivka in Donetsk Oblast with cluster munitions in the morning of Feb. 4, Donetsk Oblast governor Vadym Filashkin reported. Seven people are reported killed and a furthe

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The Kyiv Independent’s coverage of news on Russia. Spanning eleven time zones across Eastern Europe and Asia, Russia has an estimated population of 146 million people. Russia’s capital city is Moscow, which is home to almost one in 10 Russians. Russia’s official currency is the Russian Ruble.

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