Ukraine News

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 the jeep with four separatists inside pulled up and parked along the road a few hundred meters away. They had two options: Start running, or the other thing. Mikael Skillt…

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 of U.S. military support for the post-Soviet state, which continues to fight a war in its eastern territories against combined Russian-separatist forces. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported on…

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 for a lesson in democracy. It was raining and thundering outside. And, like during most storms in Mariupol since the war began in spring 2014, it wasn’t immediately clear if…

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 up as the sounds of distant thunder began to roll in. A waitress at the Natalka coffee shop on Prospekt Lenina smiled and said, “It’s only a storm. Not artillery.”…

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 out his smartphone to type a Russian message into Google Translate: “Seeing you makes me feel very nervous. I have to go smoke a cigarette for a moment to calm…

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 Pisky, only six kilometers from the separatist stronghold of Donetsk, and two kilometers from the ruined Donetsk airport, the Ukrainian army 93rd Mechanized Brigade is engaged in sustained combat with…

Military training is appreciated, but Ukraine needs more from the U.S. if it is to stave off Russia, its prime minister said in Washington this week. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine asked the U.S. for economic assistance as well as defensive lethal weapons to help Ukrainian troops push back the 10,000 Russian troops in…

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 countries stable enough economically and politically to court a McDonald’s franchise share too many democratic values to go to war with one another. “People in McDonald's countries,” Friedman wrote, "don't…

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 contrary. Renewed fighting has left the Feb. 12 cease-fire, as well as towns in eastern Ukraine, shattered, and edged the conflict closer to a full-on war between Ukraine and Russia….

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 media to speculate whether a major separatist offensive, anticipated for months, had begun. “There were many casualties. Krasnohorivka and Marinka are on fire," Ukrainian Member of Parliament and Kyiv-1 Battalion…

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 were killed in combat in eastern Ukraine, at least seven more were wounded, and another two were taken prisoner, according to the Ukrainian military. These casualty figures are not exceptional,…

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 both sides are accused of human rights violations and war crimes, according to an Amnesty International report released this week. The 36-page report, titled, “Breaking Bodies: Torture and Summary Killings…

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 during a battle on Ukrainian territory over the weekend. "I was impressed and want to congratulate Ukrainian armed forces with how they handled the capture of the two Russian solders,”…

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. At one spot, behind an earthen bunker, U.S. Army paratroopers are qualifying Ukrainian National Guard soldiers in Soviet-era shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Further down the line, Ukrainian soldiers shoot at…

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, which is based in Vicenza, Italy, are training the Ukrainian National Guard. The six-month U.S. training exercise, called Fearless Guardian, officially began on April 20. The training is focused both…

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 appeared on television to give a speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of World War II. "On May 8, for the first time, the people of Ukraine will join the European…

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 miles, about a three-hour drive over Ukraine’s pothole speckled roads, to the front lines in the Donbas. The war is close, both in distance and in the futures of the…

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 fighting has been intense. Most of the town has been left in ruins. Nearly every vertical surface is pockmarked by shrapnel, and almost every window is broken. Artillery craters dot…

DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine—Outside this city at a Ukrainian army facility called the Polygon, which is typically used for tank training, about 200 civilian volunteers gathered this past weekend for a military exercise. Many had no military experience; some had never held a weapon. But many decided to train for war due to widespread worries about an…