Fighting has been fierce for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. What is the price of a victory that is, above all, symbolic?
Tag: putin
The Russian public is worried that waves of battle-hardened convicted murderers and rapists will soon be roaming the streets.
The killing of likely hundreds of Russian troops has set of a spiral of recriminations that could change the way Moscow approaches its 10-month-old invasion of Ukraine
Putin used to keep his respectable and criminal circles of friends separate. But the increasing power of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former prisoner and head of the Wagner paramilitary group, has many inside and outside the Kremlin worried.
Moscow has a tight grip on Russia’s media. But instead of trying to fully control the few remaining independent media outlets, it learned how to manipulate them for its own purposes.
On his historic trip to Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recalls Winston Churchill in multiple ways, including that we wouldn’t have thought much of either one before war turned each into leaders of epic proportions. A view from Germany.
For the Russians, the Ukrainian president went to the U.S. “begging for money.” But elsewhere in the world, this visit was shaping up as one of the most significant episodes of a 10-month-old war with planetary implications.
He’s been accused of multiple atrocities, and convicted in the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014. But since Russia’s invasion, Igor Girkin seems ever more in a state of despondency, with a uniquely dark view on the future, for Vladimir Putin most of all.
A skirmish between two law enforcement officers in Chechnya turned deadly last month, and ultimately led to a widespread crackdown by authorities. Strongman Ramzan Kadyrov taking sides in the dispute raises deeper questions about the lack of Chechen soldiers showing up for the war in Ukraine.
Five days after Minsk’s troops began amassing at the Belarus-Ukraine border, Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived for an impromptu summit with Alexander Lukashenko. Belarus’ strongman is increasingly seen as no longer having the option to say No to entering Putin’s war against Ukraine.
While Russia again launched a major missile and drone attack Friday, there are growing signs that Vladimir Putin is planning a major ground operation against the capital Kyiv in early 2023. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the path to Moscow victory would be through massive Russian troop casualties.
Few see reason right now for holiday optimism, though Christmas ceasefires have happened multiple times since the conflict in Donbas started in 2014. A new call by religious leaders has raised hope for at least a pause in the fighting.
There’s been no shortage of boasting in Russia after the return of arms dealer Viktor Bout, in exchange for U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner. But even if Vladimir Putin showed his negotiating muscle, it’s a pyrrhic victory as too many other compatriots haven’t made it home alive..
As they’ve done for the past year, Ukrainians have spent the past three days studying maps and calculating distances. But there’s a difference now: The maps are of Russia. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] The unprecedented drone attacks this week of airfields deep inside Russian territory open a new phase in the war that is both tactical and symbolic. […]
Russian commentators are asking if Ukrainian forces have the means and will to strike Moscow itself.
Reports of Ukraine’s possible use of kamikaze drones deep inside Russian territory.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin was open to negotiations, adding that the possibility of talks would be hampered by the United States’ refusal to acknowledge annexed Ukrainian regions as being part of Russia. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] “The United States still does not recognize new territories as part of the Russian Federation, and this complicates the […]
Predictions about the collapse of Russia are as old as the country itself. Yet a consistent centralization of power has gone on for decades, weakening Russia’s territories and republics. The war in Ukraine changes everything and nothing.
The European Union is committed to setting up a special court with the backing of the UN to investigate and prosecute Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and force Russia and its oligarchs to pay the growing pricetag for the destruction of the country. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised in a video […]
While retreating from Kherson, Russian troops forcibly removed more than 2,500 Ukrainians from prison colonies and pre-trial detention centers in the southern region. Those removed included prisoners as well as a large number of civilians who had been held in prisons during the occupation, according to the Ukrainian human rights organization Alliance of Ukrainian Unity. […]
Ukraine’s case for pursuing Russia and its leadership for war crimes now includes Moscow’s current strategy of trying to cut off energy supplies to Ukrainian civilians by destroying the country’s power grid. Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin told the BBC that strikes on key energy infrastructure targeted “the full Ukrainian nation,” which fall under the purview […]
In Russian schools, lessons on “important things” are a compulsory hour pushing state propaganda. But not everyone is buying it. Independent Russian media outlet Vazhnyye Istorii/Important Stories spoke to teachers, parents and students about how they see patriotism and Putin’s mobilization.
Fears of European discord over energy prices, as Ukraine is facing what the UN calls “appalling conditions of life” amid Russia’s onslaught timed with the arrival of winter.
The French President leads a growing chorus of outrage against Russia, including the strongest condemnation to date from Pope Francis.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Russia’s strike Wednesday on a maternity ward in southern Ukraine that killed a baby born two days ago. The newborn’s mother and a doctor were pulled from the rubble of the hospital in Vilnyansk, located in the Zaporizhzhia region. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] The morning strike was part of what appears to be […]
Sending Ukraine advanced weaponry would be a response from Israel to reports that Tehran is sending ballistic missiles to Moscow.
An inmate of the penal colony in the town of Kopeysk reveals the different ways convicts are recruited in the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, whose founder and Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin personally sought the most violent criminals with vows to pay big sums and expunge their sentences.
Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that Russia has no choice to continue the war because of Ukraine’s “unwillingness to negotiate.” [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] “First they negotiate, then they refuse to negotiate, then they pass a law that prohibits any kind of negotiations, then they say they want negotiations, but public ones,” Peskov told reporters. The comments come […]
Warsaw says that the missile that hit Poland was probably a Ukrainian air defense missile that went astray. The Russian-made missile fell on the Polish village of Przewodów, near the border with Ukraine, killing two people late Tuesday. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] Even though the missile was made in Russia, initial US assessments indicated that it had originated […]
Ukrainians, Russians and much of the rest of the world are still trying to make sense of Moscow’s decision last week to abandon the southern city of Kherson. Do not, for certain, underestimate the significance.
French President Macron used his bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping to try to convince China to take a tougher line with Moscow.
New Delhi has the ability and diplomatic space to lead an effort to halt the conflict. But timing is everything.
Kyiv has no intentions of letting Russian troops regroup with any “operational pause.” Events will begin to move quickly in Donbas, and may be heading for Crimea sooner rather than later.
This is among the most important signs of how the war has turned against Russia in the past three months.
After several weeks of mixed messages, the announcement of Russia’s withdrawal from the strategic city of Kherson caught many off guard. It is in many respects a momentous turn, with Ukraine poised to retake a city captured by Russian forces in the very first days after the Feb. 24 invasion. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] The pullout is not […]
Representatives for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, detained in Russia since February, have confirmed they do not know her current whereabouts. This comes after her attorneys said the courts had ordered her transferred to a Russian penal colony on Wednesday. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] “Our primary concern continues to be Brittney Griner’s health and well-being,” the WNBA player’s […]
Since the beginning of the invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has held the world’s attention with his powerful speeches. His rhetoric works because he reveals the power of remaining human in inhumane conditions.
A senior Ukrainian official said that Kyiv was not being pressured to negotiate with Russia, but would do so under certain strict conditions: restoring Ukraine’s borders, compensation for Russian attacks and punishing those responsible for war crimes. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] Mykhaylo Podolyak, a Ukrainian official advisor to the head of the Office of the President, speaking to […]
If not cannon fodder, many of the reservists are facing shortages of food, weapons and promised payments.
In the Ukrainian city of Izium, Russian troops left behind more than destruction, mass graves and testimony of torture. After their hasty withdrawal in early September, Ukrainians found traces of the regime’s propaganda indoctrinating school children.