One Ukrainian writer looks back on a year of international support for her nation, and what happened when the world’s attention shifted to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
Tag: russian invasion
It is a mistake to attribute the construction of authoritarianism in modern Russia to Putin alone. Serhiy Gromenko, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, explains the evolution for how Russia wound up an authoritarian state, and why Putin isn’t the only one to blame.
Latest reports show that Russia is stepping up its operations in eastern Ukraine, with a major offensive looking to be imminent. But international military strategists and tactical experts think that instead of sealing Kyiv’s fate, this rushed assault could precipitate the demise of Vladimir Putin and his war.
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.
Many of the convicts that the Wagner Group mercenary outfit enlisted to fight in Ukraine are dead or missing, which has created a major recruitment problem for the paramilitary group headed by Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Almost a year ago, a well-known lawyer, Yevhenia Zakrevska, became a soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and now serves as an aerial reconnaissance officer. She tells her story to Ukrainian news media Livy Bereg.
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.
Tens of thousands of Russian prisoners who’ve been recruited by the Wagner Group mercenary outfit have escaped from the frontlines after volunteering in exchange for freedom. Some appear to be seeking political asylum in Europe thanks to a “cleared” criminal record.
Consider the inverse of “collateral damage.” Envision Russia’s defeat and the triumph of a democratic coalition offers reflection on the most weighty sense of costs and benefits.
The next months will be decisive in the war between Moscow and Kyiv. From the forests of Polesia to Chernihiv and the Black Sea, Ukraine is looking to protect the areas that may soon be the theater of Moscow’s announced offensive. Will this be the last Russian Spring?
It remains unclear whether Belarus’ strongman Alexander Lukashenko will join Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet as popular support for the war remains low, many in the country are actively fighting back by sabotaging the rail network.
Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrsky was killed Wednesday in a helicopter crash. The cause is still unknown, but the high-profile victim could just have well been President Zelensky instead. It raises the question of whether there are indispensable figures on either side in a war of this nature?
Poland has a border with Russia and Belarus, so it is not just watching how the Ukraine war develops. Warsaw is rethinking its entire defense strategy.
Two years ago, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic Alexei Navalny was jailed. Much has and hasn’t changed since then, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine means that Russia has put itself on a course of no return.
Russian writer Maxim Katz breaks down what it means when a missile is destined for an ordinary apartment block, and death counts start to lose their meaning.
A Ukrainian reporter on the scene of one of the worst attacks on civilians since Russia’s invasion began.
After a grim New Year, a soldier and mother reflects on the trauma of the past 10 months: fear, the corpses of friends and the choice between her own children and joining the war effort.
Vladimir Putin used the Orthodox Christmas holiday as a 36-hour communication ops, while plans proceed to widen his war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Culture Minister has called for a total boycott of Russian culture. Such a move should be resisted because it ignores culture’s potential to challenge power.
Praising the courage of the Ukrainian people, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured Kyiv of Germany’s support for “as long as it is needed.” Not nearly enough, according to the country’s opposition.
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.
Russian-born, Kyiv-based writer Michael Sheitelman writes that while everybody is afraid of Russia’s bitter wrath should it be forced to relinquish Crimea, the same should go for Ukraine. Imagine that scenario now…
Volodymyr Vakulenko was a Ukrainian writer killed by the Russians during the invasion. He left behind a diary that is intensely personal, yet encompasses much of the tragedy of his nation.
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. […]
David Stulik, senior research analyst at the Prague-based European Values Research Center, explains the risks of continuing to calculate all our choices according to hypothetical fears of and future compromises with Russia.
Kremlin war aims in Ukraine have never been entirely clear. Part of that is due to the setbacks the Russian army has suffered; and now it appears that both the strategic and symbolic objective of reducing the capital of Kyiv to its knees is again very much on Vladimir Putin’s mind.
New Delhi has the ability and diplomatic space to lead an effort to halt the conflict. But timing is everything.
Russia takes away light, water, and heat from Ukrainians with their missile strikes against the nation’s energy infrastructure. It is a very intentional strategy of cruelty.
After months of trading barbs with Ukraine’s allies in the West, Tehran is now fully engaged alongside Moscow in the conflict, most notably with supplies of so-called Kamikaze drones. Although the fact that Iran still denies its activities is a sign that the partnership is loaded.
It’s worth remembering that Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad, just a decade after the brutal Nazi siege. A reflection on the Kremlin’s emerging war strategy from Ukrainian writer Anna Akage.
Staunch Putin ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has recently tried to distance himself from an escalating war. But a series of events over the past month look set to drag him into Moscow’s war with all the risks that entails for his small country.
Seven months after Russia’s invasion, the Pope finally called on Vladimir Putin directly to stop the war. But just days earlier, Francis had offered an elaborate theory on the causes of the war, which he blamed on competing “imperialisms” of Russia and the West, and the need to have wars to sell weapons.
Ever since Russia announced a “partial mobilization” of hundreds of thousands of new recruits, we’ve seen plenty of coverage of those evading the draft. But the real story is how many untrained and under-equipped citizens will blindly follow the Kremlin’s orders.
Negotiate? Stall? Double down? The Russian leader suddenly finds himself in front of a situation that offers no obvious good choices. Doing nothing, however, is not an option.
As Ukraine’s counter-offensive gathers steam, the city of Kharkiv is targeted by Putin’s forces. Here’s a view from up close, during heavy shelling that has sparked power and water outrages, even as the liberation of territory sets off scenes of joy and elation.
Russia’s progress on the frontline has stalled. But without weapons promised by the West, Ukraine has not been able to carry out decisive counteroffensives. The West’s indecisiveness risks the war being dragged out until next year — which is exactly what Putin wants.
The prolonged war in Ukraine is certainly not over. But six months in, we already know that Russia will come out the loser, both to its Western rivals, and to China, for whom it is now a junior partner.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent revelation that he knew about the likelihood of a Russian invasion has sparked major debate in Ukraine. But what it truly reveals about the source of war can also help ensure victory for Putin and other autocrats.
It’s been more than 150 days of Putin’s relentless invasion, and a clear-eyed view of the war now is neither side is winning. This will make bold decisions by Ukraine’s allies essential to any hope for victory.
For 200 years, the Black Forest spa town of Baden-Baden has been the destination of choice for Russian tourists, with oligarchs shopping in the luxury boutiques and buying up swathes of property. Now Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed all that and the town’s once-bustling streets are empty.