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

'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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Meet Olha Kobylianska, the Ukrainian author who redefined women’s freedom

Editor's Note: This story is part of the "Hidden Canon"  – a special series celebrating Ukrainian classic literature and aiming to bring it to a wider international audience. The series is supported by the Ukrainian Institute. In Olha Kobylianska’s 1891 novella “A Human Being,” the heroine Olena commits an unforgivable transgression. Not adultery, not theft, not the abandonment of her family — her "crime" is intellectual freedom. She is a woman who thinks for herself and, far worse in the eyes

Olha Kobylianska, a Ukrainian modernist writer and feminist.

About Russia

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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This is Chris York reporting from Kyiv on day 1,435 of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today's top story: Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) on Jan. 28 released a video compilation of what it claimed was the destruction of more than $1 billion worth of Russian military aircraft in long-range drone strikes conducted by its "A" Special Operations Center, also known as "Alpha." "The enemy is used to feeling safe in the deep rear. But for the special forces of 'Alpha,' distance has long ce

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