Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal’s foreign correspondent based in Ukraine. Send an email to Nolan.
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U.S. ARMED FORCES, Iraq—The booms come at regular intervals like incoming artillery. In the background is a heavy metal soundtrack pumped through an iPhone speaker…. Read More
InternationalNews
U.S. ARMED FORCES, Southwest Asia—It’s dinnertime at the DFAC (the military acronym for chow hall) at this remote desert base somewhere in the Persian Gulf… Read More
InternationalNews
U.S. ARMED FORCES, Southwest Asia—For the 14th year in a row, a wartime U.S. military remembered the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But this was… Read More
InternationalAnalysis
KYIV, Ukraine—One year ago I was in Mariupol, Ukraine, when the first cease-fire was signed on Sept. 5, 2014. Late that afternoon I visited the… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—One Ukrainian National Guard soldier died and more than 100 law enforcement personnel and civilians were injured, several critically, after violent protests erupted outside… Read More
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URZUF, Ukraine—The vehicle yard at the Ukrainian National Guard Azov Battalion’s base here looks like the set of a Mad Max movie. There is a… Read More
InternationalNews
SARTANA, Ukraine—A biography of Winston Churchill sits on Stephan Machsma’s desk. Machsma is the mayor of Sartana, Ukraine, and he is leading the town’s approximately… Read More
InternationalNews
MARIUPOL, Ukraine—A mortar killed Daniel Kasyanenko on a battlefield in eastern Ukraine. He was 19 years old. He died on Aug. 6, almost six months… Read More
InternationalNews
MARIUPOL, Ukraine—Thunderstorms hovering over the Sea of Azov caught the setting sun, turning orange and then pink. A cool end-of-day breeze kicked up. Later Sunday… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—It was called position 18. The house, which was yellow and had its roof caved in from artillery hits, was only a hundred meters… Read More
InternationalFeature
KYIV, Ukraine—This was supposed to be a routine reconnaissance mission, but suddenly it became complicated. They had been crawling in the woods to stay concealed when… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—A Department of Defense plan to send Ukraine advanced, long-range counter-battery radars highlights both an evolution of the Ukraine war and a ratcheting up… Read More
InternationalNews
MARIUPOL, Ukraine—In a stuffy basement a block off Prospekt Lenina (Mariupol’s main street, which is named after Vladimir Lenin), about 30 Mariupol residents recently gathered… Read More
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MARIUPOL, Ukraine—A thunderstorm loomed over Mariupol on the afternoon of July 6. To the north, the sky turned dark and a cool pre-storm breeze kicked… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—Konstantin Bernatovich’s hands began to tremble. He leaned forward, breathing quickly. He tried to say something, but his English failed him and he pulled… Read More
SecurityCommentary
PISKY, Ukraine—There are a lot of ways to die in Pisky, and they all come down to seconds and inches. Snipers, artillery, mortars, booby-traps. That’s… Read More
InternationalFeature
PISKY, Ukraine—The notion that the Ukraine cease-fire is still largely holding, or even being followed at all, is fiction. In the eastern Ukrainian village of… Read More
InternationalNews
MARIUPOL, Ukraine—In 1995, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman coined the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, also known as “McPeace.” The idea was that… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—For those who might have thought the Ukraine conflict was finally fading from the headlines, this week should serve as sufficient evidence to the… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—In the predawn hours Wednesday, pro-Russian separatist tanks and artillery bombarded Ukrainian troops in the eastern town of Marinka, spurring Ukrainian military officials and… Read More
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KYIV, Ukraine—Despite Moscow’s warming rhetoric in recent weeks, the Ukraine conflict is showing little evidence of cooling off this summer. On Sunday, three Ukrainian soldiers… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—Prisoner abuse, including torture and summary execution, is a daily occurrence on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, reflecting a brutal, ongoing conflict in which… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—The top U.S. Army commander in Europe praised the Ukrainian military Tuesday for how it handled the capture of two Russian special forces soldiers… Read More
InternationalNews
KYIV, Ukraine—Andrei Kuznetsov leans forward, clinches his angular jaw, narrows his sharp blue eyes and says: “I could tell you things that would shock Americans.”… Read More
InternationalNews
YAVORIV, Ukraine—The sounds of gunfire and explosions are constant on the firing range at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center outside this western Ukrainian town…. Read More
InternationalNews
YAVORIV, Ukraine—At a former Soviet military base outside of the western Ukrainian town of Lviv, about 300 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade,… Read More
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LVIV, Ukraine—On Friday, a hush fell over the dozen or so customers in a coffee shop in this western Ukrainian city as President Petro Poroshenko… Read More
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CHERNOBYL, Ukraine—On April 28, two days after the 29th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a forest fire near the retired nuclear power plant threatened… Read More
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CHERKAS’KE, Ukraine—It takes about 10 minutes to drive to the highway from the Ukrainian army base in this small town. From there it is 130… Read More
InternationalNews
SHYROKYNE, Ukraine—For months, pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces have battled for the beachside town of Shyrokyne, which is about eight miles east of Mariupol. The… Read More
