Ukraine News

KYIV, Ukraine—A Russian bank in the historic heart of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, has become the epicenter of an escalating crisis that has Ukrainians doubting whether a political solution is still possible to end a three-year-old war against a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars. On March 13, protestors built a wall of cinder…

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine—At the public library in this eastern Ukrainian city about 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, from the war’s front lines, a group of teenagers gather on a Monday afternoon to learn about life in America. This is Presidents Day back in the United States, and, as a way to practice their English, the students…

TARAMCHUK, Ukraine—The war is always there, even if the shooting stops for a while. It is a quiet, overcast winter morning in the front-line village of Taramchuk in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian soldiers from the National Guard’s Aidar Battalion mill about outside the abandoned homes within which they have garrisoned, tending to their morning chores. The…

KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine’s population decreased by about 170,000 people in 2016, the government reported last month, underscoring a demographic trend that began after the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and which threatens to derail the country’s political and economic development. “This is a serious problem for the country,” Alex Ryabchyn, a…

KYIV, Ukraine—It’s cold, and I’m alone. I walk along Khreshchatyk, this city’s main boulevard. The street lights cast shadows on the ground, concealing patches of slippery ice and trampled snow. I walk thoughtfully and carefully, unable to clearly see the obstacles in my path. As is so often the case in a foreign country, even…

VOLNOVAKHA, Ukraine—On Tuesday in this embattled front-line town in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army’s 30th Brigade came under 120 mm mortar fire from its enemy—a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars entrenched across no man’s land about 2 kilometers away. The indirect fire skirmishes in Volnovakha underscore a more widespread surge in heavy…

KYIV, Ukraine—Artillery and rockets have been raining down on the front-line town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine since Sunday, leaving 16,000 civilians, including 2,000 children, without heat, electricity, or clean water as temperatures dipped to 20 degrees below zero Celsius, or about minus 4 Fahrenheit. “[The] recent intensification of hostilities on the contact line in…

KYIV, Ukraine—Using artillery, tanks, and rockets, combined Russian-separatist forces attacked Ukrainian forces along the front lines in eastern Ukraine on Sunday and early Monday morning, highlighting, once again, that the February 2015 cease-fire has failed. “This is barbarism,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Monday in response to the attacks, according to a tweet from his…

KYIV, Ukraine—Making his last visit to Ukraine as U.S. vice president, Joe Biden, true to form, had a blunt farewell message—hang tough in the war against Russia and its proxies in the east, but don’t let up on the nationwide corruption crackdown. "Ukraine, like every country in Europe, has a right to determine its own…

KYIV, Ukraine—Kalashnikov assault rifles are among the most iconic symbols of the Soviet military. Weapons such as the AK-47, the AKM, the AK-74, and the AK-103 are ubiquitous reminders of the Red Army’s legacy among the modern militaries of former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet client states. Also, the contemporary, worldwide use of Kalashnikovs by…

NOVOMYKHAILIVKA, Ukraine—In the woods outside this front-line town in eastern Ukraine, a battle-worn unit of Ukrainian soldiers have hunkered down for the winter. The troops live and fight sometimes only a few hundred yards across no man’s land from their enemies, a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars. Some of the Ukrainian soldiers…

MARINKA, Ukraine—In the night I wake with a start to the sounds of artillery and gunfire. The shelling is loud enough and close enough to shake the walls. A stir from the body lying next to me. I look over at my brother, Drew, sleeping there. Both of us cocooned in our sleeping bags. Above…

MARINKA, Ukraine—As the war in Ukraine nears its fourth calendar year, Ukrainian troops remain entrenched along a static front line in eastern Ukraine where they exchange small arms and artillery fire with combined Russian-separatist forces every day. More than 21 months after it was signed, the cease-fire is a charade. The war may be at a…

KYIV, Ukraine—Mikheil Saakashvili sits at a desk devoid of any photos or personal memorabilia. On this day, the 48-year-old former Georgian president has only been on the job for four days as leader of a startup Ukrainian opposition political party called Wave. This is the next chapter of Saakashvili’s anti-corruption crusade following his resignation as…

KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko congratulated Donald Trump on his election win by inviting the newly minted U.S. president-elect to visit the war-torn, Eastern European country. “This is a symbol of true democracy when nobody knew the results of the elections until the very last moment,” Poroshenko told U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during…

KURAKHOVO, Ukraine—More than two and a half years after the war in Ukraine began, a cease-fire has failed to stop the fighting. And it’s still too dangerous for many of Ukraine’s 1.7 million internally displaced persons to return home. For those who fled the conflict, they’ve had to adapt to life as de facto refugees…

KYIV, Ukraine—The young man never told anyone he was going to war. The 20-year-old student at Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University slipped away in June 2014 to join a civilian paramilitary group fighting in eastern Ukraine. The young man, whose name was Sviatoslav Horbenko, was a star pupil at the university’s Institute of Philology, where…

KURAKHOVO, Ukraine—They all have a reason to go home. For some, it’s to reunite with friends and family, to regain their dignity, or to find a job so they can afford to pay the rent and buy groceries. Others simply want to rejoin the lives they left behind to escape the Russian artillery and rockets….

KYIV, Ukraine—The shaky cease-fire in eastern Ukraine has reached a “tipping point,” a high-level Ukrainian government official says. The official’s comments underscore how geopolitical events—from the war in Syria to the rise of nationalist parties across Europe—have tested international resolve to maintain sanctions on Russia. “There is no alternative” to the current cease-fire, the official…

KYIV, Ukraine—More than two years after a Russian surface-to-air missile shot down a civilian airliner over eastern Ukraine, the embattled region remains a de facto no-fly zone for both civilian and military aircraft. On Wednesday, an international investigative team concluded there was “no doubt” the Buk missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on…