While 75th birthdays are usually a cause for joy and celebration, NATO's marking of this milestone at a three-day summit in Washington from 9-11 July is likely to be a rather more muted affair. Ukraine is understandably top of the agenda, with a Russian mass missile attack on July 8
Russia unleashed one of its deadliest attacks against Kyiv on July 8, killing more than 30 civilians and injuring over 100. Residential buildings and medical facilities suffered damage, with one Russian missile hitting Ohkmatdyt, the country's largest children's medical center. Rather than evidence of some technological edge on Russia's side,
As Kyiv gets ready to receive the first batch of Western F-16 fighter jets, Ukraine's airfields face an uptick in Russian strikes. Over the past week, Moscow carried out at least three missile strikes targeting Ukrainian airfields — in Myrhorod, Poltava, and Kryvyi Rih — all located around 100 kilometers (68 miles)
The view from the camera skims over the water, low and predatory. Dodging left and right between rows of white splashes, it sidles up to the aft of the looming gray hull. A shape appears to scramble across the deck of the Russian corvette before the feed cuts off. The
When Tucker Carlson, a popular American right-wing conservative, released an interview with lawyer Robert Amsterdam titled “Ukrainian churches are being burned and priests beaten,” it quickly gained traction with the so-called MAGA movement seeking the return of Donald Trump as president. The April interview was reposted as a YouTube short
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the Russian government has focused all of its financial resources on funding the war. As the war is the Kremlin's number one priority, all tools at its disposal have been used: increased taxation, sovereign funds, domestic borrowing, and the printing of
Russian losses in Ukraine recently passed another milestone, with the total number of "tanks" claimed destroyed by Kyiv passing the 8,000 mark. As of July 1, the figure stands at 8,099, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. At the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia
“There was a joke I heard the other day,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told the audience of the Politico Defense Summit in November 2023, as the mandate of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenburg entered its final 12 months. "The next Secretary General should be from a new member state…
In the first half of May, Russia opened a new front to its war against Ukraine in dramatic fashion. The two-pronged offensive on Kharkiv Oblast unfolded on the back of some of the most difficult months for Ukrainian forces, overstretched and depleted after a brutal winter and early spring campaign
In the latest blow to Russia's military prestige, Ukraine this week claimed to have for the first time struck at least one – and possibly two – of Moscow's cutting-edge, fifth-generation fighter jets, the Su-57. The aircraft were reportedly damaged after a strike on the Akhtubinsk airfield in the Astrakhan region in
During the D-Day commemorations in Normandy on June 6, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that Paris would give Kyiv an unspecified number of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets alongside the required training. This announcement sets the stage for Ukrainian pilots to potentially deploy these versatile aircraft in striking deep into Russian
Viacheslav Dydarenko, a farmer in the Myropillia community in Sumy Oblast that borders Russia typifies the hardship faced by the agricultural sector in the area. Shrapnel scars and gaping holes mark his farm buildings, and he cannot work some of his rented 4,450 acres — 70% of which is located
Editor's Note: The Kyiv Independent is not disclosing soldiers' full names since they disclosed information without authorization from their command. DONETSK OBLAST—As public attention shifted to Moscow's renewed offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, Russian forces steadily advance in the country's easternmost Donbas region, which remains Moscow's primary target. Moving west
Following a new Russian offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine is increasingly raising pressure on its allies, urging them to lift restrictions on the use of Western-provided weapons against military targets inside Russia. Months before the offensive, Kyiv had publicly pledged not to use Western-made weapons to strike targets outside of
Russia’s two-pronged assault in Kharkiv Oblast that began on May 10 is exploiting Ukraine’s troop shortage, forcing it to make difficult decisions about where to commit reserves. Two weeks into the offensive, one group of Russian forces is already fighting in the streets of the town of Vovchansk
Russian President Vladimir Putin's appointment of a new defense minister, Andrey Belousov, is seen as an attempt to streamline Russia's economy and mobilize it for the war effort. Russia's military has faced numerous supply and logistics problems that thwarted its all-out war against Ukraine from the get-go. Two years later,
One critical factor in Russia's recent battlefield successes in Ukraine is its extensive use of glide bombs. Every week, hundreds of these large, deadly weapons rain down on Ukraine, creating 20-meter-wide craters and obliterating military positions and entire settlements. Russia has heavily relied on glide bombs in its new offensive
Editor's note: We asked members of the Kyiv Independent community to share the questions they have about the war. Here's what they asked and how we answered. Join our community to ask a question in the next round. Read our previous answers here, here, here, here, and here What do
President Volodymyr Zelensky's term in office is supposed to end on May 20, 2024 – but it won’t. As Russia’s war delayed the elections and Zelensky's term is looking indefinite, Ukraine’s President’s Office is preparing to weather the storm of critics questioning the president’s legitimacy. Officially,
As Ukraine’s defenders and allies display a constellation of weaknesses, Russian forces are taking advantage and pushing forward in Donetsk Oblast. The Russians have begun their assault of Chasiv Yar, while a complementary, flanking assault is slowly pushing up from occupied Avdiivka, in an attempt to cut the supply
Ukraine has just received the second Skynex air defense system from Germany as part of the latest package of military aid, the German government announced on April 29. It's the latest addition to Ukraine's struggling air defenses, running low on ammunition due to delays in U.S. aid but bolstered
Over March and April, Russian airpower launched a new wave of mass attacks on energy infrastructure in Ukraine. Energy generating facilities, in particular coal-fired and hydroelectric power plants, have come under the heaviest attacks. For the first time, Russia destroyed or damaged several of Ukraine's biggest power stations, including the
As the U.S. took months to approve the next package of much-needed military aid to Kyiv, Russia used the moment to step up its offensive operations in Ukraine. After capturing Avdiivka and multiple villages in the east, Moscow now has its eyes on the next primary target, the town
The first Russian Tu-22M3 long-range strategic bomber was reportedly shot down by Ukraine and crashed over Russia's Stavropol Krai overnight on April 19. The aircraft was carrying out a combat mission when a Soviet-era S-200 anti-aircraft system shot it down, an intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent. The Russian Defense
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a significant milestone in Ukraine’s push to increase domestic weapons production on April 18, saying that Kyiv was on track to produce 10 Bohdana howitzers this month. The Bohdana – or the 2S22 Bohdana to give it its full title – is a self-propelled howitzer, essentially an
The Kyiv Independent’s Alexander Khrebet and Oleksandr Karasiov from the Ukrainian military and tactical clothing brand, M-TAC, examine several samples of Russian military uniforms.
KARLSKOGA, SWEDEN – In a nondescript industrial area nestled among a forest of Swedish pine, a continent-wide effort to ramp up defense production is playing out in real time. A modest, one-story building is home to a seemingly endless ceiling-mounted rail — essentially an upside-down conveyor belt — snaking through machine halls and
Editor's note: This story initially said that Shahed-136 drones are said to weigh 10-15 kilograms. It was corrected since that is the weight of the warhead, and the drones weigh about 200 kilograms. Iran's massive aerial assault on Israel over the weekend felt close to home for Ukraine. In a
Hitting a building, waiting for first responders and the media to arrive, and hitting the same place again to target those who came to put out the fire, help the victims, or document a potential war crime is a well-honed tool of Russia in its wars. This ruthless and illegal
Since March, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said more than once that Ukraine is expecting a major Russian offensive that could start in May or June. Ukrainian experts and military officials now say it might begin even sooner. All eyes are currently on the Bakhmut axis as Russian troops gradually inch
Russia's Engels air base has once again come under attack on April 5 after what the Kyiv Independent's sources in the military intelligence claimed was a drone strike on one of the Kremlin's most strategically important military installations, deep inside Russia. According to a source in the military intelligence, who
Russia's war and occupation of large swaths of Ukraine have led to hundreds of churches being damaged or destroyed, dozens of priests killed or kidnapped, and entire religious groups that don't conform to Moscow's brand of Orthodoxy being banned. With entire Ukrainian cities being leveled by Russian artillery fire, religious
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