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.
KRASNOHORIVKA — The sound of canon fire has become more distant of late in Krasnohorivka. But the war continues to haunt Lioudmila Sidonnka. The young mother’s stories are those of soldiers running in all directions, of smoking tanks, never-ending detonations, nights spent in her building’s basement, houses on fire. Little wonder that so many residents […]
Though brother fights brother on opposite sides of the war in eastern Ukraine, some people manage to bridge the gap that divides them.
WARSAW — More than 60 Ukrainians of Polish descent in the breakaway region of Donbass have asked Poland if they could be evacuated there, a request Warsaw has refused. Instead, it offered a modest aid package. “Many of us are elderly people. There are single mothers too. It’s not possible to live here any more. […]
It was the worst nuclear plant accident in history, measured in both casualties and cost. And though the death count paled in comparison to the more than 100,000 killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, the amount of radioactive material released in Chernobyl was 400 times higher. Six months after the 1986 disaster, the Soviet […]
Despite two peace agreements signed by Kiev and Moscow, fighting rages on along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia.
KIEV — In real life, Nadiya Savchenko’s eyes are neither large nor blue. But on welcome posters splashed across Kiev Airport recently with the slogan #freesavchenko, the doctored photos of the just released air force pilot — who was captured by Russia and elevated to heroine status back home during her long imprisonment — played […]
As plants and wildlife struggle to survive in the area contaminated by the April 26, 1986 nuclear disaster, some elderly villagers have returned.
Forced to abandon his Ukrainian companies because of corruption under the ousted pro-Russian president, Olexander Martynenko has risked it all on the front line.
The unlikely tale of how a young Colombian’s communist convictions led him to leave his family in Spain to fight with Ukraine’s Putin-backed separatist rebels.
StopFake, established by Kiev journalism students, analyzes media coverage in both Russia and Ukraine, fact-checking reports — and separating fact from prolific fiction.
Under cover of darkness, right-wing militias felled a massive Lenin statue in Sloviansk. Now there’s talk of selling it to finance reconstruction in the war-damaged city.
DONETSK — Komsomolets Donbas is one of the largest coal mines in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. But for more than a year now, it’s been out of operation due to serious damage suffered by the war. There are holes from falling explosives. The electricity has been interrupted. And the entrance is practically collapsed. […]
Separated families, refugees and a deeper sense of national loss for Ukrainians who saw an entire region of their country taken over by Russia last March.
A new ceasefire, which has not been fully observed, should be in effect in eastern Ukraine. But the announcement of the creation of a military air force could bring dangerous escalation.
While Ukraine combat continues despite peace efforts, the Donbass region’s famously rugged coal miners have divided their loyalties: some keep working on Kiev’s behalf, others fleeing to the pro-Russian rebels.
The risk is real of armed conflict between the West and Moscow on European soil. Searching for a way out means learning the lessons of Finland, and counting on leadership from France.
Fleeing war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, and even Crimea, some Ukrainians are finding life difficult in the capital.
Last December, amidst dramatic protests in Kiev, few imagined that the Maidan protests would lead to land grabs and open warfare. The symbols and substance of Ukraine’s iconic square.
DNIPROPETROVSK – Last week, in this central Ukrainian city, a public farewell was bid to 21 soldiers, even if their names were never determined. The coffins, draped with Ukrainian flags, were brought to the the square between the Opera and Ballet Theaters on Karl Marx Avenue in Dnipropetrovsk, the country’s fourth-largest city. “The soldiers who […]
Troops fighting around the world are often chasing enemies from somewhere else. A global tour of how the shards of ‘broken nations’ are fed into the conflicts of others.
Nobody wants to die for Donetsk, but much more is at stake for the West than just Ukraine’s borders. In the face of Vladimir Putin’s ambitions, it’s time to ask the hard questions.
Driven by the belief that Russia is the last bastion against liberal globalization, a small band of French fighters, some of them former military officers, have taken up arms against Ukraine.
BERLIN — For many in Ukraine the city of Enerhodar is known simply as “Atomic City.” It was founded a couple of decades ago to accommodate a power station, and the city with its 50,000 inhabitants in southeastern Ukraine is known today as one of the country’s main energy suppliers. The six reactor blocks of […]
-Analysis- PARIS — What can Europe do after Kiev’s desperate call for help in dealing with the invasion of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, where separatists are gaining control? Let’s leave aside for the moment the hypothesis of military aid. European defense doesn’t exist. What’s more, we run the risk of escalation — an imbalance […]
MOSCOW — The war in eastern Ukraine is being fought on several fronts — with deathly weapons and munitions on the one hand, and with competing interpretations of reality on the other. As the conflict drags on, it’s increasingly becoming a propaganda war. From the beginning, the Russian media has taken an active part in […]
It isn’t just the Ukrainian military defending the country against pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine. Voluntary fighters, many of them intellectuals, have left their jobs to help the cause.
The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, located on the Moldovan border with Ukraine, has relied on Russia for the past two decades. A perfect example of potential new burdens for Moscow.
Parallel portraits in the making of a civil war: one man is fighting for Kiev, the other is a Russian separatist.
By destabilizing the situation in Ukraine, the Russian president became party to the death of the 298 passengers of the MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
The Malaysian airliner wasn’t the only one following the route over Ukraine, as detours can bring major time and fuel costs. When is it time to close air space?
KIEV — Representatives of the new Ukrainian government are convinced: It is time for Maidan Square to be free of tents. The only question is how to get rid of the protestors from the site that became the center of the pro-democracy movement. The police think Maidan should be cleared with force, as if it […]
The new Ukrainian president’s attempt at peace has failed. What now?
MOSCOW — The funeral for the two young men was held on June 7 in a church in Kubinka, near Moscow. Aleksander Efremov and Alekei Yurin had gone to Donbas in the midst of the battle over the Donetsk airport in the eastern Ukrainian city. Neither came home alive. It was May 22 when 20-year-old […]
From a once-contested region in the Russian Federation, anti-Kiev forces are spotted in the battleground eastern region of Ukraine. They are “more Russian than the Russians,” says one.
DONETSK — When Ilya Pogorelov leaves his apartment, everything seems normal, at least in the neighborhood where he lives. The 21-year-old student lives with his parents in Kirowski, on the outskirts of Donetsk. “You don’t see any fighting here,” he says by phone. In this residential area, parents are out walking with their kids, and […]
While billionaire incoming president Petro Poroshenko takes over in Kiev, the fate of the country may also be in the hands of another super-rich businessman from contested eastern Ukraine.
Maidan protesters remain in Independence Square, keeping guard despite the election of a new president. When will they leave? The vegetable gardens and henhouses suggest no time soon.
A sit-down with a top Ukrainian defense official, who lays bare the realities on the ground in the embattled country and draws clearly the lines that will not be crossed
Old battles are renewed in the May 25 vote to be Ukraine’s next president. But the first order of business is to make sure the ballot takes place.
Somewhere between war preparations and street theater, the barricades along the roads in Ukraine offer a sign of where the country may be heading.