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An employee counts trays of bread at the bread factory near Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 25, 2022.
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Reporter's notebook: What a factory says about Ukraine’s economy

by Luca Léry Moffat

The western part of war-torn Ukraine lies in the space between normalcy and reality. More tourists, more construction, more skiing. Fewer air raids, fewer blackouts, fewer speeding khaki pickup trucks. But no part of the country is immune to the effects of war. A local library hangs photographs of young men and women killed in action. Graveyards fly blue and yellow. Brigades advertise jobs on large billboards lining the highway. Driving past a small, unremarkable two-story building, my guide

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Russia's war is erasing Kostiantynivka's Soviet-era mosaics — this is why it matters

The mosaics covering the facades of factories, cultural centers, and apartment blocks across eastern Ukraine were designed with a specific kind of permanence in mind. They survived the Soviet collapse, the chaos of the 1990s, and decades of post-industrial neglect. What these mosaics couldn't survive was Russian artillery. As Russia’s full-scale war enters its fifth year, the fighting is erasing art that was meant to be indestructible. Photographer Oleg Petrasiuk has captured not just images o

Mosaics in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on Dec. 4, 2025.

Ukraine war latest: Ukraine hits Russia' S-300 air defense radars in series of strikes

Key developments on Feb. 28-March 1: * Ukraine hits Russia' S-300 air defense radars in series of strikes, shows footage * 'Ukrainians made it through,' Zelensky says on toughest winter of Russia's invasion * Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine, Budanov says * 'Freedom to the Iranian people' — Kyiv voices support for US-led strikes on Iran Ukrainian forces struck radar stations of an S-300 air defense system and an S-300V4 complex in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Obl

'I betrayed my country' — the Ukrainian prison where women collaborators wait for Russia

Nelia Checheta served the state for decades — first with the Soviet military in Turkmenistan and later in Ukraine's Emergency Service — earning official honors along the way. At 62, her story continues not with commendations, but with a long prison sentence for collaboration. Checheta was convicted of passing information on Ukrainian troops and aircraft movements to an agent of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). She insisted the case was fabricated, but the evidence presented in court sug

Olena Chuieva in a women's penal colony in Southeastern Ukraine on Feb. 5, 2026.

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The Kyiv Independent’s Business Desk covers the biggest news in business, economics, and tech from Ukraine, as well as global developments that shape the economy of the region.

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