WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on Ukraine from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Ukrainian politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Kyiv, Ukrainian history, and current events.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that France will train Ukrainian pilots appears to pave the way for the delivery of fighter jets to Kyiv. Similar moves are coming from the UK. It’s a delicate process to never declare war on Russia, while maximizing Ukraine’s ability to repulse the invaders.
Pavlo Kazarin is a journalist for Ukrainska Pravda. He is also serving in the Ukrainian army: With the good and the bad, heroes and otherwise.
In the ambulances transporting the wounded to the field hospitals, in the vans traveling to the front or in the trains returning them home for a few days’ rest, the soldiers stationed on the Bakhmut front do not talk about military victories or war strategies. They talk about death, and life.
The West has been eagerly awaiting Ukraine’s counteroffensive, but is mistakenly convinced it will be a major tank assault. Kyiv has already launched the first actions, as it also tries to lower its allies’ expectations of rapid victory.
Russia has just celebrated its Victory Day over Nazism. It’s a good time to reflect on what retribution means, and how it’s not always black and white.
May 8th and May 9th crystallizes the divergent fates of Ukraine and Russia. For Vladimir Putin, the victory of the “Great Patriotic War” is at the core of his national narrative. More than 14 months into his invasion of Ukraine, who still believes the story?
In Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, an estimated 19,000 children have been abducted and put in so-called “filtration camps,” Soviet-era-like facilities where they are being “re-educated” in brutal conditions. Exclusive testimony from several victims who managed to escape.
After its initial blitzkrieg failed, and with Ukraine gearing up for a counteroffensive, Russia sees its best hope in holding out for a protracted conflict. Kyiv, instead, is trying to convince its Western allies that achieving victory as soon as possible is the only path forward.
Moscow is accusing Kyiv of trying to assassinate Putin in a drone strike on the Kremlin. It will likely be used as a pretext for Putin to escalate attacks.
Whether Ukraine or Russia is behind the clamorous attack on the Kremlin, which Moscow says was an assassination attempt against Vladimir Putin, it is bound to shape the imminent counter-offensive.
Tamila Tasheva, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, issues an appeal on the eve of Kyiv’s counter-offensive to seize this moment in history — but do so carefully.
When the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, Iryna Zhyvolup hunkered down with three generations of her family in Izyum, Ukraine. A few weeks later, she lost her loved ones in a missile attack.
After a year of full-scale war, Russian businesses have figured out tricks to get around international sanctions: reselling, repackaging, rerouting: Almost everything is available — for a price.
Even as Ukraine’s Western allies are sending much needed military hardware, there is an unofficial market for used equipment — from armored vehicles to drones and satellites — that has been vital for Kyiv. But how do these second-hand goods make it from Britain to the front?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted an invitation to attend the next NATO summit in July, but he will arrive with expectations that the alliance is ready to pave the way for the country’s accession to the military alliance, even as the state of the war itself remains crucial to the decision.
Analysts have been talking about a Ukrainian counteroffensive since the end of last year. But when, where and how it will happen is still a closely guarded secret, thrown into further turmoil by the embarrassing leaks from inside the U.S. Defense Department. Ultimately, however, there are other factors that matter more.
Ukraine became the country with the most landmines in the world. Kyiv has limited resources, so NGOs are trying to help by training soldiers to identify and destroy the potentially deadly devices even while protecting themselves from new assaults from Russian forces.
The Freedom of Russia Legion consists of Russian army defectors who are fighting against their homeland, outraged that Vladimir Putin has destroyed the moral standing of Russia by invading its neighbor. Still, it’s a delicate “double-life” on the front line.
The Ukrainian and Russian presidents made separate visits to the frontline recently, in closer physical proximity than anytime since the war began. It was a sign that we should not expect negotiations anytime soon.
In the parts of eastern Ukraine liberated by Ukrainian forces’ lightning counteroffensive six months ago life is bittersweet, including a constant lack of electricity and water — and the constant risk of shelling.
Vladimir Kara-Murza was handed the heaviest prison sentence since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin is making an example of the rare few who dare to speak out against him, evoking the reign of Joseph Stalin.
Poland’s unilateral decision to ban imports of Ukraine’s agricultural products, in violation of EU agreements, has caused shock among Ukrainians. Nazar Bobytsky, head of the Ukrainian office of the Polish Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers, says Brussels must show Kyiv it is serious about Ukraine joining the EU.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukrainians have begun a radical revision of their cultural habits and beliefs, casting off the relics of Russian colonialism. How Ukrainians see themselves and their country’s past will directly affect how they fight for the future.
The war in Ukraine has been going on for a year. Many have died, fled or been traumatized — day after day and night after night. Such harrowing experiences leave deep wounds. But there are ways to overcome traumatic experiences.
Translated in full from French, here is the exclusive interview French President Emmanuel Macron gave to three reporters on his way back from his trip to China, in which he insisted that Europe needed more autonomy from the United States.
Even if Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky were willing to find a compromise on territory, their respective constitutions explicitly forbid signing off on such a deal.
Ukraine was the trickiest part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to China. And though Xi Jinping didn’t say much, Macron made his voice clear on the war and possible arms shipments to Russia — and the West is watching closely.
A visit to the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia, which borders Hungary and is home to about 150,000 Hungarian-Ukrainians, where the pro-Russian stance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is wreaking havoc.
After more than a year of war, a journalist from Spanish publication La Marea returns to one of the capital’s top clinics for foreign couples looking for children. Business is better than ever, though the clinic is looking for women from other former Soviet republics to become surrogate mothers.
The French President begins a three-day visit to China. He has the difficult task of forging a “third way” for Europe between U.S. and Chinese interests in an increasingly polarized world.
For a long time, Kyiv didn’t have to resort to mass conscription, because so many people were enlisting. But as the war drags on, and casualties continue, Ukrainian recruitment becomes an urgent necessity. From the capital to the frontline of Bakhmut, Die Welt traces the current state of Kyiv’s fighting power.
From ballet to opera to classic literature, Russia has turned its culture into an instrument for its own expansion. The West must fight back, Ukraine’s culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko writes in an op-ed in German daily Die Welt. It’s time to stop supporting Russian artists and seek out Ukrainians instead.
Citizens of the now destroyed Ukrainian city of Maryinka are left struggling to remember what their town used to look like.
With a decisive deal with Putin out of the question, the only way to create a lasting peace is to recreate some fundamental dynamics of the Cold War.
Journalists from Ukrainska Pravda report directly from the trenches near Avdiivka, one of the oldest settlements in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, where troops are facing near-constant Russian fire.
To trace Moscow’s decision to transfer nuclear weapons to Belarus, we may need to look to Beijing — and the recent summit of Xi Jinping-Vladimir Putin
What does Russia’s ruling class really think of Putin? A leaked audio recording of Russian producer Iosif Prigozhin and Russian billionaire ex-senator Farhad Akhmedov criticizing Putin has been verified by Russian intel service FSB, offering a peak into the anger toward the Kremlin’s war.
Thousands of foreign soldiers are fighting alongside Ukraine. German daily Die Welt met a Chechen battalion to find out why they are fighting.
Near the embattled city of Vuhledar, Ukrainian artillery reconnaissance units detect enemy positions. They work with drones, tablets and satellite internet — and they are often the last line of defense from a Russian onslaught.
Independent Russian media Vazhnyye Istorii has obtained a major data leak from the top Kremlin information agency that reveals the scale and extent of anti-war protests across the Russian Federation.