Ukraine News

KYIV, Ukraine—At the end of August 2014, the battle for the city of Mariupol loomed as a climactic showdown in Ukraine’s defensive war to repel a Russian armored invasion. The stakes were dire. Should Mariupol fall to Russia’s combined-separatist forces—an amalgamation of thousands of Russian regulars, pro-Russian separatists, and foreign mercenaries—Moscow would gain a virtually…

KYIV, Ukraine—How do you measure America’s greatness? By the size of its economy, or the strength of its military? By the height of its city skylines, or the audacity of the moon landings? Perhaps, by the heroism of the Marines who landed on Iwo Jima, or of the Army soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach?…

KYIV, Ukraine—The death of an American fighter pilot during an air combat exercise Oct. 16 in Ukraine was a tragic stumble as the U.S. ramps up its efforts to help the embattled post-Soviet country defend itself from Russia. California Air National Guard Lt. Col. Seth “Jethro” Nehring, 44, died when the dual-seat, Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker…

KYIV, Ukraine—A statue of Vladimir Lenin stood over Kyiv’s Bessarabska Square from 1946 until pro-democracy protesters tore it down on Dec. 8, 2013—more than 22 years after Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. Today, a metal trident now tops the denuded black granite pedestal. The trident is Ukraine’s national emblem. It’s a powerfully symbolic juxtaposition:…

KYIV, Ukraine—The U.S. Coast Guard was set to hand over two of its decommissioned 110-foot armed cutters to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at a ceremony Thursday in Baltimore. The move comes amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine over the free movement of merchant ships to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov. “The transfer…

KYIV, Ukraine—For the past four and a half years, Ukraine’s military has prioritized rebuilding land warfare units to meet the immediate needs of the ongoing war in the country’s embattled, eastern Donbas region. This year, however, Ukraine has stepped up efforts to rebuild its air force and navy, too. This emphasis reflects a national security…

After more than four years of constant combat, the artillery still thunders daily in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region along the 250-mile-long, entrenched front lines of Europe’s only ongoing land war. There, Ukraine’s military remains locked in combat against a combined force of pro-Russian separatists, foreign mercenaries, and Russian regulars. For years, the physical effects of…

KYIV, Ukraine—The war in Ukraine escalated this week to its most violent levels of the year with Russian artillery and rocket attacks targeting both Ukrainian military forces and civilian settlements along the front lines in eastern Ukraine’s embattled Donbas region. "The Kremlin controls the violence in eastern Ukraine and could bring this violence to an…

HORISHNI PLAVNI, Ukraine—The trenches, tanks, artillery, and snipers are only six hours to the east of here by car. The war is always there, as it has been now for more than four years, but there’s hardly any evidence of it in this city of about 52,000 people on the bucolic left bank of the…

KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine has gone to war against Russian propaganda. Last week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced the deployment of Ukrainian electronic warfare units to jam the transmission of about 40 Russian and pro-Russian television channels in the country’s embattled eastern Donbas region. "We will protect Ukrainians from the information poison coming from the Russian Federation,"…

KYIV, Ukraine—After more than a week of snowstorms and gray skies, Monday morning dawned sunny and clear in Ukraine’s capital city. Similarly, on that day, the clouds had also somewhat parted over a forestalled gas war with Russia—albeit briefly. “The period of gas blackmail of our country by Russia has already passed,” Ukrainian President Petro…

KYIV, Ukraine—On Wednesday, Russian weapons killed three Ukrainian troops and wounded five more in eastern Ukraine’s embattled eastern Donbas region, where Moscow continues to wage a 4-year-old proxy war, which has, so far, killed more than 10,300 Ukrainians. Meanwhile, grocery stores in Kyiv are still stocked with Russian products, such as caviar and vodka, and…

KYIV, Ukraine—In the days and weeks after Kyiv celebrated achieving its foreign policy holy grail—the promise of lethal U.S. anti-tank weaponry—China announced a laundry list of new infrastructure projects across Ukraine, pulling back the curtains on what some say is a looming competition for influence in the embattled, post-Soviet state. “There is indeed an obvious…

KYIV, Ukraine—U.S. President Donald Trump has approved the sale of commercial lethal weapons to Ukraine, a pivotal decision that comes amid an escalation of Russia’s ongoing proxy war in the country’s embattled eastern Donbas region. Trump has reportedly approved a $41.5 million deal for Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing to sell Model M107A1 sniper rifles, ammunition,…

KYIV, Ukraine—And it goes on and on in eastern Ukraine. Every day and every night. There’s never any end to the artillery, the rockets, the snipers. Or the killing. The war in Ukraine has so far killed more than 10,300 Ukrainians, including at least 2,523 civilians, according to the United Nations. “After three and a…

KYIV, Ukraine—A top Chinese official visited Kyiv this week to announce a host of new infrastructure projects and investments in Ukraine, underscoring a burgeoning economic relationship between the two countries that could nudge Kyiv away from the West—a scenario that would ultimately benefit Moscow, some say. “Russian-Chinese relations have no reason to diverge over Ukraine,…

KYIV, Ukraine—The weekend after Thanksgiving, shopping malls across Ukraine touted special Black Friday sales. Of course, Ukrainians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving (not yet, at least), so there was no post-holiday food hangover to slow down shoppers’ clip as they flooded the malls and shopping centers. Nevertheless, just like in the United States, the Ukrainian holiday season…