With offensives stalling, Ukraine hitting Russian refineries, Western aid thinning, and winter power grids under fire, the gap persists as Moscow floats Donbas withdrawals and Kyiv rejects concessions while outside mediation muddies the waters.
Tag: crimea
From language bans to property seizures, residents of the Ukrainian port city of Berdyansk live under constant surveillance, intimidation, and the threat of losing everything.
With a long-range drone strike deep inside Russia, Ukraine sends a clear message ahead of Istanbul peace talks: we are ready to keep fighting if Moscow insists on total victory.
Once again, there’s talk of peace in Ukraine — a lasting, just peace. But the West has all the clues it needs in 25 years of Putin’s actions, and much of Russian history.
Even Russians are unlikely to have noticed that since Vladimir Putin came to power some 25 years ago, the biography the Kremlin presents of him has been repeatedly altered. A new investigation revealing details about his two sons is but an exception in a long history of authorities carefully hiding facts and evidence about Putin’s life and his relationship with his family and friends — and the Russian people.
Ukraine wants to bring back young men who have fled abroad as soldiers. Does a man have to fight for his country? Four young Ukrainians living abroad talk about their fears.
Through quiet diplomacy, Russia may be courting the rising star of Latin American populism, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. In time, he must decide between international respectability and a bear hug from Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin threatened major escalation if Ukraine was allowed to strike into Russian territory with Western weapons. Once the West crossed that red line, the escalation did not happen. The West knows that bluffing is Putin’s favorite way of conducting foreign policy, so why does it keep playing this game?
From Ukraine to the South China Sea, images of war are highly reminiscent of the horrors of the past. As the world marks 80 years since the Normandy landings of World War II, geopolitical analyst Dominique Moïsi wonders if history is bound to repeat itself.
Updated April 23, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. Roger Fenton’s photograph “the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” is considered the first-ever iconic war image, and was taken on this day in 1885. What is the Valley of the Shadow of Death? The area known as the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” is a narrow […]
Russia’s semantic war against Ukraine aims to create a discourse and future in which Ukraine never was and never will be. Ukraine — and its Western allies — must take this war as seriously as the military war.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, NATO has drastically upgraded its focus on the Black Sea. A visit to the Romanian air base that NATO uses as a base to monitor its southeastern flank, and the open questions even among allies.
Updated March 16, 2024 at 11:30 a.m. Crimea voted on this day in 2014 in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia. When was the Crimean referendum held? The referendum was held after the ousting of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the subsequent political crisis in Ukraine. The referendum was controversial as […]
Longtime Putin critic Alexei Navalny has died in prison at the age of 47, sparking outrage inside and outside of Russia. While widely esteemed for his courage challenging the Kremlin, the Russian politician’s views on Ukraine were more ambiguous. Here’s a commentary by a Ukrainian writer after a documentary last year about his struggle won an Academy Award.
While Ukrainians may be hoping for Russia to disintegrate, history shows otherwise. Only when Putin’s authoritarian regime will come down, will it be possible for Chechens, Dagestanis, Buryats, Yakuts, or Bashkortostans to gain any kind of autonomy or democracy vis a vis Moscow.
International support for Kyiv is waning and calls for negotiations are growing louder. But Ukraine has now managed to establish a bridgehead on the other side of the Dnipro River. From there, its troops could advance to Crimea — and turn the tide of the war.
No significant breakthroughs, growing skepticism about optimistic claims, and a war with no end in sight add to the psychological struggles of Ukrainians already facing the prospect of energy and heat shortages.
October 2 – October 8, 2023
Ukraine has stepped up attacks on the occupied Crimean peninsula, and Russia is doing all within its power to deny how vulnerable it has become.
A new biography of the Tesla, X (formerly Twitter) and Space X boss reveals that Elon Musk prevented the Ukrainian army from attacking the Russian fleet in Crimea last year, by limiting the beam of his Starlink satellites. Unchecked power is a problem.
Russia has entered the race for influence in Africa over the past decade, largely on the shoulders of the Wagner Group and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin. What happens now is unclear, though Vladimir Putin won’t want to cede any ground to other world powers in the race for influence on the continent.
High school students will now need to know details of the Russian annexation of territories in eastern Ukraine and “reunification” of Crimea with Russia. Regular topics in the past, such as democracy and human rights, will no longer be part of the high school exam.
Denmark and the Netherlands have jointly declared their intention to dispatch F-16 fighter jets to bolster the Ukrainian Air Force. Once Ukrainian pilots are trained, it may help tip the balance in Kyiv’s favor.
Russia has occupied of parts of Ukraine for almost a decade, busy promoting a pro-Russian narrative in those territories. Moscow’s aim is to ensure loyalty and deliberately create tensions among Ukrainians in free territories. It is a formula that has been
The Crimean bridge was attacked in the pre-dawn hours by two Ukrainian sea drones, the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee reported. The attack has impressed military analysts who spoke with Russian independent media agents.media (Agenstvo) about the weapons used and the potential next target.
After months of anticipation, expectations were impossibly high when Ukrainian forces finally launched a counteroffensive into Russian-occupied territory. But those expecting a lightning advance, like last year’s liberation of Kharkiv, overlooked one critical fact: the war is nearly 10 years old.
In the secrecy that often surrounds wars, and in the realm of information warfare, losses are often deliberately underreported or completely omitted. But this case in Crimean port city of Sevastopol is pure paradox.
Ukraine’s counter-offensive to liberate Russian-occupied regions has finally begun. Ukrainian news outlet Livy Bereg explains how it’s playing out over the first seven days, as the first villages are liberated.
Wagner-like military groups are being formed in Crimea. Are they preparing to fight the Ukrainian army? Or to evacuate the local oligarchs?
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.
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.
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.
A look back on some of the most striking magazine covers published this past year across the globe, marking the milestones in a bloody conflict that is entering its second year.
The public version of the Artificial Intelligence-driven chatbot is not yet fully plugged into the real-time internet. But there was an enlightening conversation going back to 2014, when the conflict in Ukraine actually started. ChatGPT’s hedging responses may help explain why the world wasn’t prepared for Putin’s invasion a year ago.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu has warned that Russia aims to install a pro-Kremlin leadership in the former Soviet country across the border from Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has both the means and desire to do so.
Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine face a tough moral question: How far are they prepared to go? Around the world, a group of Russians are organizing and raising money to send much-needed drones to help Ukrainian forces fight the Russian invasion.
After the annexation of Crimea, the peninsula’s prized resources were identified and distributed among Russian oligarchs with connections to the Russian President, handing out everything from wine vineyards to hockey clubs to steelworks.
Russia’s 2021 census showed a record drop in the number of Ukrainians living in Russia. But the cleansing of everything Ukrainian, including language and culture, started long before Putin’s invasion.
Russia has a complicated history with Islam, often built on Moscow’s repression of the religious minority. Now, Muslims in Ukraine are ever more committed to a project for a multi-religious society that Kyiv espouses. Ukrainian Mufti Said Ismagilov has taken up arms for that cause, and to defend his nation.
Will 2023 be the year of victory? A negotiated settlement? The beginning of the new year was a time for speeches in Kyiv and Moscow aimed at inspiring the respective nations 10 months since Russia’s bloody invasion. Yet, for one good reason, certain words were not spoken.