Climate on Tracking information about the Russian War against Ukraine

'Mr. Nobody Against Putin' wins BAFTA award for best documentary

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 09:51:43 +0100

The documentary has received wide acclaim for the fact that it shows how the war against Ukraine is not just "(Russian President Vladimir) Putin's war" but a war sustained by both a climate of fear and open support among the populace within Russia.

Chart of the week: Ukraine sees its coldest January in 16 years

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:09:07 +0100

Last month was likely Ukraine’s coldest January since 2010, according to an analysis of preliminary Copernicus Climate Change Service weather data provided by Europe's EUMETSAT satellite agency.

Temperatures in Ukraine last month reached reported lows of -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), rarely climbing above zero.

Russia’s “Eyes and Ears” — and Hands. How the Kremlin Recruits Europeans for Its Hybrid Warfare Against the West

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:19:07 +0100

The article explores Russia’s strategy of recruiting Europeans to act as agents in hybrid warfare operations targeting Western democracies. These recruited actors serve as eyes and ears, gathering intelligence, spreading propaganda, and sometimes actively engaging in sabotage and disruptive activities. The recruitment operates through various channels, including formal and informal networks, often exploiting personal vulnerabilities or ideological sympathies. The article presents cases from different European countries illustrating how Russian intelligence and proxy groups embed operatives within societies to undermine political stability, security institutions, and trust in democratic processes. It highlights the covert, long-term nature of these hybrid tactics and stresses their growing threat in the current geopolitical climate, especially amid the Ukraine conflict.

Category: Intelligence & Espionage

Subcategory: Human Intelligence (HUMINT)

Incident Type: Recruitment of locals

Country: European Union

Source report: united24media.com/world/rus…

How a drought drives Iran’s protests

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:53:16 +0100

Editor’s Note:

From Ukraine to Iran, The Counteroffensive tells human stories behind global struggles for democracy.

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“Before, the younger generation was complaining about having no future or no employment… but now [the issue] is much more fundamental: It’s about food,” said Mehdi, an agriculture expert who was born and raised in Iran.

Mehdi left Iran decades ago, but is now witnessing his country at a boiling point. As someone who has studied the space deeply, he believes water and agriculture are at the center of it all.

Since late December, massive protests have surged across Iran’s 31 provinces.

Iranians poured onto the streets after the Iranian rial hit its lowest-ever value against the U.S. dollar. But even before runaway inflation, water was already running short in Iran. Years of mismanagement and drought have driven up food prices and made everyday life harder for Iranians nationwide.

The rising cost of food in Iran is a multi-faceted problem that includes export policies, sanctions and the depreciating currency — but Iran’s water shortage has only accelerated the crisis. Scarcity has made water significantly more expensive for farmers and has reduced their crop yields, contributing to the rising food inflation which has now reached about 64 percent, according to Fanack Water.

Now, the country is in a state of severe unrest as the government suppresses resistance: at least 500 people have been reported dead according to human rights groups and over 10,000 detained as protests flood through the streets.

Trump has been threatening military action against Iran as protests intensify and death tolls climb. The Iranian government has responded by shutting off access to the internet, making it incredibly difficult to get news out of the country.

Beyond Iran, this serves as an example of how resource shortages, layered onto fragile economies, can accelerate a crisis to the point of potential collapse.

Iranian protesters block a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. (Photo by MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images).

Iran’s water management policies changed course drastically with the Ayatollah-led regime that came to power in 1979.

Under the Shah modernisation and industrialization were the state’s priority, meaning that agriculture fell by the wayside. However, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which had drawn support largely from rural areas, the new regime made agricultural expansion a cornerstone of their political agenda.

Agricultural expansion required arid areas to be irrigated and led to the construction of wells and dams, and ultimately resulted in the damaging overuse of Iran’s water resources.

As a child, Mehdi watched his family manage a farm in Iran, but the situation for farmers back then was different. Today, the required distance to drill to obtain water is three times what it was when Mehdi was a child — he doesn’t even remember his relatives having any problem getting water, but today “water is like gold,” Mehdi said.

The dried-up riverbed of Zayanderud in Isfahan, Iran, on December 1, 2025. (Photo by Hozi / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images).

In 2025, Tehran, a city of roughly 10 million people, was facing its driest fall season in over 50 years. Over the past 20 years, Iran’s renewable water resources have declined by over 30 percent, according to Geopolitical Monitor. This past year, rainfall was so scarce that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made an announcement in November that if rain didn’t come, parts of Tehran could face evacuations.

The drought, along with the spiraling currency, has exposed the government’s mismanagement, and driven protesters onto the streets.

“Without water, farming doesn’t mean anything,” Mehdi said.

Mehdi’s own family in Iran has felt the effects of these water shortages.

His brother who lives on the fourth floor repeatedly has water cuts and is forced to take showers in the middle of the night, when the apartment’s water consumption is low. His sister, meanwhile, often finds that her fridge is empty due to the rocketing food prices the water shortage has caused.

Mehdi has tried to convince his brother to leave Iran, but with no success.

Mehdi believes that it’s not just the overuse of Iran’s water resources but the misallocation of them — overprioritizing water-intensive industries rather than basic needs. Companies linked to the government began growing water-intensive crops like watermelon around Lake Urmia, a lake which largely dried up due to the agricultural activity surrounding it, the dams and climate change.

Those who refused to stay silent were immediately punished.

In 2018, Iranian hydrologist and environmentalist Kaveh Madani left a teaching job in London to become the deputy head of Iran’s environment department. However, four months into his time in Iran things turned sour.

Madani had publicly criticised the government’s water management policies and was detained amidst a government crackdown on environmentalists in Iran. After a few days he was released and fled the country.

Protests over similar frustrations of rising food prices erupted in Iran in 2017 and 2018. Over 20 people were killed and hundreds arrested.

In the last three years alone, Iran’s food prices have tripled and water has only become more scarce. Mehdi has witnessed whole families sorting through the trash for food. Reports of children fainting at school due to hunger have come out of Iran just last year.

“I wouldn’t call this food insecurity – I would call it a food crisis,” he added.

Last week, the Iranian government announced a plan to roll out payments worth the equivalent of $7 USD to try to simmer protests.

A market in Iran as people shop amid soaring prices and the worst economic crisis since 1979, in Tehran, Iran on January 7, 2026. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images).

But it’s not only water mismanagement which is running the country dry – leaky pipes and failing infrastructure reportedly account for more than 40 percent of treated water being lost before it can be used.

“[The sanctions] impact everything…even when I went to go get a new ID card, after the documents were finished they said it would still take two years to just print the ID card,” Mehdi said.

As the protests in Iran became increasingly violent, the regime cut off Iran’s internet: 90 percent of internet traffic in Iran has disappeared, according to The Guardian.

Mehdi hasn’t been able to talk to his family in multiple days. Their last conversation was about how unlivable life had become in Iran.

“When I check their Whatsapp, I just see that their ‘last seen’ was a few days ago,” Mehdi said.

*Mehdi’s name was changed in this story for security purposes.

Editor’s Note:

From Ukraine to Iran, The Counteroffensive tells human stories behind global struggles for democracy.

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NEWS OF THE DAY:

By: Yelyzaveta Kolos

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

TRUMP THREATENS NEW TARIFFS ON COUNTRIES TRADING WITH IRAN: Trump announced an immediate 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran, a move that could sharply raise costs for imports into the United States.

The details on how defined “doing business” were not clarified, neither was the way the tariff would be enforced. But this could hit Iran’s major trade partners such as China, India, and Turkey.

The move shows Washington’s readiness to use trade pressure against countries tied to its geopolitical rivals. As Russia, Iran and China deepen connections, such measures could affect global markets and indirectly shape the balance of support and resources linked to the war in Ukraine.

NORTH KOREA DEFENDS RUSSIA AT UN AFTER STRIKE ON UKRAINE: North Korea criticized a UN Security Council meeting convened to discuss Russia’s recent missile strike on Ukraine, calling it prejudiced and unfair. Pyongyang’s UN ambassador defended Russia’s actions as self-defense and accused Western countries of politicizing the discussion.

The reaction underlines deepening ties between Pyongyang and Moscow, as North Korea backs Russia diplomatically and militarily. This growing alignment helps Russia offset international isolation and sustain its war effort.

GERMANY TO FUND DELIVERY OF RHEINMETALL LYNX VEHICLES TO UKRAINE: Rheinmetall will supply Ukraine with its first Lynx KF41 infantry fighting vehicles, with deliveries expected to begin in first half of 2026. The initial batch will include five vehicles, funded by the German government and is estimated to be worth around 50 million euros.

The Lynx vehicles will be adapted to Ukraine’s military needs and equipped with a two-man Lance turret. Further deliveries are planned, with the possibility of producing additional vehicles inside Ukraine.

The deal strengthens Ukraine’s ground forces and helps modernize its army and sustain resistance against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

US VETERANS GROUP MOBILIZES SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE:

American Veterans for Ukraine works to unite and empower U.S. veterans in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. The organization focuses on raising public awareness and using veterans’ voices to build understanding of why Ukraine matters to the United States.

The group also prioritizes protecting continued U.S. government funding for Ukraine by engaging policymakers and the public. By leveraging veterans’ credibility and leadership, the initiative aims to keep Ukraine firmly on the US political agenda during the war.

DOG OF WAR:

Today’s dog of war is this cutie that Liza met when she was working in the cafe during a long power outrage in her district. The puppy was patiently waiting for its owner to finish her work.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Alessandra and Jacqueline

Kremlin elite losing faith in security as deep‑strike threats and suspicious deaths mount

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 02:58:47 +0100

By the end of the fourth year of the war, Kremlin elites are gripped by confusion and anxiety as the state struggles to guarantee the safety of even its most senior officials and security chiefs.

Fear is growing inside Russia’s political establishment. People close to President Vladimir Putin increasingly doubt the government’s ability to protect them, even far from the front lines, according to the independent Russian outlet “Mozhem Obyasnit”.

The latest round of debate was sparked by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s claim that Ukraine’s military had, for the first time, attacked Putin’s Valdai residence with drones. He said 91 drones were destroyed in the Novgorod region. The Kremlin did not align its account with the Defense Ministry, which earlier reported intercepting 89 drones across Russia that same night. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Lavrov’s claim, saying such statements could be laying the groundwork for a strike on government buildings in Kyiv.

Media have reported that Putin’s alleged partner, Alina Kabaeva, and their children live at the Valdai residence, and earlier reporting found more than 20 air-defense positions around the site. It is considered one of the most heavily protected locations in Russia.

By contrast, other members of Russia’s elite are living in acute fear. Moscow and other major cities have seen an uptick in unexplained deaths of senior military officers and officials. In just over a year, three generals awarded stars by Putin were killed far from the front, and a transport minister he appointed died under unclear circumstances. He joins a long list of top managers and officials who either died or, according to authorities, took their own lives.

Against this backdrop, analysts point to a deepening crisis of trust within the system.

“By the end of the fourth year of the war, the elite is confused; it had hoped that a Putin–Trump meeting in Alaska would lead to an end to the ‘special military operation.’ From Putin’s recent statements, it’s clear the war will continue indefinitely,” political analyst Alexander Morozov said.

He noted that the Kremlin leader has ordered continued offensives on all fronts, including in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, which Moscow still officially recognizes as Ukrainian.

Military journalist Sergei Auslender says the threats facing Russia’s upper echelons will only grow.

“Ukrainian intelligence has expanded its capabilities and human networks. That isn’t hard; there are many Ukrainians in Russia. Many of them hate the Russian regime and are indistinguishable on the surface,” he said.

He added that Russian counterintelligence is weak and systemic security protocols are scarce. In such a climate, experts say, even senior Kremlin officials cannot feel safe.

Germany launches €45 million UkraineConnect program to mobilize private investment in Ukraine

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 18:00:06 +0100

The German government plans to draw investment from German companies into Ukraine through a new financing tool.

The program’s initial size is set at 45 million euros and will be managed by the state development bank KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau), which financed Germany’s post–World War II reconstruction, Economy Minister Katherina Reiche told reporters in Berlin on Monday, December 15.

She said the initiative, called UkraineConnect, aims to mobilize significant private-sector funds. Interested companies across industries will be able to access low-interest loans for projects in Ukraine.

The new instrument is designed to complement earlier economic support measures, including state guarantees for investment and export credits, as well as aid for the energy sector.

In early December, Germany’s Economy Ministry announced it would provide Ukraine an additional 100 million euros—on top of 60 million euros already pledged this year—to help rebuild energy infrastructure damaged in the war launched by Russia.

At the German-Ukrainian Economic Forum, which also discussed Ukraine’s reconstruction in the event of a peace deal with Russia, officials highlighted plans to deepen cooperation in the defense sector.

Among those attending were Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Founded in 1948, KfW is owned 80% by the Federal Republic of Germany and 20% by the federal states. It is one of the world’s largest development banks. KfW is not profit-driven and does not operate like a commercial bank: it has no retail branches and raises funds mainly by issuing bonds.

KfW’s core mission is to support the economy and society. It provides concessional loans and guarantees for small and medium-sized enterprises, housing, education, innovation and green projects, and it finances international development programs. Through KfW, the government advances its economic, social and climate policies.

Europe’s Scientific Cooperation with Russia: How Europe Is Preparing for a Probalbe War

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 12:39:43 +0100

Lately, there has been a growing stream of reports suggesting that Europe is preparing for a Russian attack—or at least moving toward accepting that such a scenario may occur. Even Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia and arguably Russia’s closest “brother” in Europe, recently stated that Europe is preparing for a possible war with Russia, as this prospect “is becoming increasingly evident.”

It is reasonable to assume that Europe is not only growing increasingly concerned but is also taking concrete steps in response. For example, it has been reducing its engagement with Russia overall—and with Russia’s scientific community in particular.

Since no modern military technology can exist without a scientific foundation, one might expect that Europe had ended all scientific cooperation with a country that may well attack it in the relatively near future. But is that actually the case? Let us look at the data—but first, let us recall the European Union’s official position.

At the macro level, Europe has been the principal driver of sanctions pressure on Russia. From 2022 to the present, the European Union has adopted nineteen sanctions packages. These packages do not include an explicit ban on scientific cooperation, but they do contain a range of restrictions—for example, on supplying equipment (including research equipment), technologies, materials, and reagents to Russia. In addition, extensive restrictions on payments and the movement of funds complicate scientific collaboration, sometimes making it impossible.

At the micro level, most European research institutions have halted all institutional cooperation with Russian research organizations. Many European universities have banned cooperation with Russian universities, and some have extended these restrictions to collaboration with individual Russian scientists. Moreover, a substantial number of European researchers, citing ethical or reputational concerns, have ended their cooperation with Russia and its scientists on their own.

A detailed overview of the sanctions against Russian science can be found here.

The expected consequences include the termination of cooperation with Russia in projects and grant programs; the suspension or reduction of funding; restrictions on the academic mobility of Russian researchers; limited access to international databases; and constraints on the ability to publish research results.

However, the formal position of Europe and its various institutions does not automatically translate into a consensus among scientists. Some of them insist that they are “above politics,” invoke “academic freedom,” argue that “the free circulation of ideas must not be obstructed,” or state that “I have collaborated with Russians my entire life and will continue to do so” etc. There are also more openly pro-Russian voices in Europe— people who sincerely believe that “things are not so clear-cut” or that “Ukraine is to blame.”

For example, one Italian scientist wrote this:

“As an academic, I don’t intend to discuss Russian universities’ policy on the war. Too many gimmicks and manipulative policies are being employed by Ukrainian authorities, which are being passively reported by EU media. However, I can only imagine that Ukrainian universities have supported their government’s mistreatment of the Russian people in Donbass since 2014.”

Or a similar scholar from Finland:

“Science and scholarship know no borders and no wars. Although a citizen of Finland, I am an associated researcher at the Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, and in this capacity I have absolutely no moral problems in cooperating with Russia and Russians. My fields of specialization are such that access to Russia is essential for my work.”

And here is another statement from a Serbian “brother”:

“I work in science. Politics does not interest me. I have many friends in both Russia and Ukraine. Naturally, I do not like this war, in which many Ukrainians and Russians are suffering. I hope it will end quickly. My country was bombed by seventeen different states, including the United States, for no reason. And when the Americans say that they will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian—everything becomes clear! Do not think that the United States and Europe love Ukraine… They do not! If Russian academics support V. V. Putin, that is normal, just as Ukrainians support their own leadership.”

In the table below, we present several rather moderate views that help explain tens of thousands of joint publications produced by European and Russian researchers. We do not provide the names or institutional affiliations of the authors of these quotes. We selected them from hundreds of emails we received in response to messages sent to foreign scholars about their cooperation with Russia. (We will soon publish a detailed study based on the responses we obtained.) Together, these quotes offer insight into the actual motivations of European researchers, with the greatest possible geographic differentiation: they come from researchers from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the UK.

Table 1. Selected quotes from responses of European researchers to our inquiry on their cooperation with Russians

Quote

I think many (if not most) of Russian scientists cannot be blamed for the criminal policies of the Russian government. I also think that not all scientific connections with Russia should not be severed, in spite of the brutal Russian aggression on Ukraine. I don’t think all Russian scientists should be ostracized from the international scientific community now, unless they were personally outspoken in favor of the war against Ukraine. In the future, when Ukraine hopefully wins the present war, co-operation with Russian academia will have to be resumed, and all connections with it should not be severed even in so dire times as the present ones.

I am also on the editorial board of the Crimean ***, which I have joined when the Crimea was Ukrainian and when the Ukrainian authorities solicited the publishers to engage collaboration of Western researchers. This engagement is a token of friendship with the founder of this review

I strongly believe in the autonomy of science, which should serve as a bridge — not a wall — between communities, even in times of conflict. Upholding scientific values such as openness, rigor, and critical dialogue is more crucial now than ever

I do not think that boycotting academic journals and universities is the right way to put pressure on Russia. Universities have always been the seat of democracy and the defence of human rights. Other means must be used to end this senseless war.

I do not approve of Russian aggression against Ukraine, but I believe that science should be apolitical

I am very much regretting the invasion of independent UKRAINE by RUSSIAN troops … and do find it an AGGRESSIVE ACT. Otherwise – I am independent scientist and NOT ENGAGED in any political opinion

My Russian colleagues have become close friends in those 35 years, and I do not hold them personally responsible for the criminal invasion of Ukraine, even though they work at a University that has followed the mainstream of Russian politics since then. You and I know that only one person is responsible for this war.

As head of one of the most prestigious Slavic institutes in Europe at the University of Heidelberg, which has an excellent reputation worldwide, my word carries weight in the Russian academic world, even though scientific relations with the West have been shattered for quite a time. As a member of the editorial board, I have rejected several submitted articles that were historically and scientifically extremely questionable and attempted to delegitimize Ukraine in line with state propaganda. I would like to continue to work in this way in the future and thus make my contribution to reforming Russia from within.

As it is extremely difficult to work on Slavic Philology, for different reasons, I strive to maintain and develop collaborations with foreign scholars from various countries—including, due to my research interests, a significant number from Russia—regardless of the political climate and as independently from it as possible. I also have strong working relationships with colleagues in other “problematic” contexts, including my own country. While I understand and respect your position, I believe it is essential not to isolate fellow researchers who are operating under pressure or in difficult circumstances. In my view, it is imperative to continue engaging with them along a rigorous and principled scientific path

To be clear, my attitude to the Russian aggression and other geopolitical adventures of the Putin regime has been unequivocally negative. I have also supported Ukraine in its war against aggression. However, I do not support the policy of boycotting everything that is Russian and making all Russian people and institutions collectively responsible for decisions taken by Putin and his entourage. This is unfair (given the increasingly authoritarian character of the Russian political regime and mounting repressions against people who openly disagree with the regime) and counterproductive (it helps the Kremlin propaganda). The situation is not black-white, but more nuanced.

I strongly oppose Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and have discontinued all formal relations with Russian institutions, which I had held for more than 30 years, after February 2022. I do not see my membership in the editorial board as any kind of of approval of Tomsk State University – although I do not assume that they have a lot of choices other than supporting the war – but as a reflection of my continued personal relationship with the editor, who is not among the winners of the war.

I deeply think that, precisely in times of trouble, the humanist way of thinking, not eviling the other for bad reasons but promoting friendship through good research, is to be maintained

I have recently welcomed a Russian delegation of dermatologists in Zurich for a day of scientific talks, including an Ukrainian professor, which proves to me the favorable relationship between Russians und Ukrainians in academia. Out of these reasons, I do not see any plausible reason for resigning from the council.

I think that resigning would be an empty gesture, which would have no effect on the ongoing Russian terrorist campaign against Ukraine. It might however make it dangerous for my Russian colleagues, none of whom can be blamed for the actions of Putin and his army, to continue to have contact with me.

As we can see from most of these quotes, even while siding with Ukraine and acknowledging the criminal nature of Russia’s aggression, some European scholars see no problem in continuing cooperation with their Russian counterparts. Their arguments mostly boil down to “science is above politics” and “Putin alone is to blame for the war.”

However, because statements do not always correspond to actual behavior, let us look at quantitative measures of scientific collaboration between Europe and Russia. To do this, we use the Scopus scientometric database and its SciVal analytics service.

Figure 1. Numbers of joint European–Russian publications over time

Source: Scopus/SciVal

According to the data (Figure 1), in 2024, the number of joint publications decreased by 51% compared to 2021, the last year before the full-scale invasion. The decline is quite substantial, as the overall scale of collaboration has been cut in half. In this context, the geographic distribution of Russia’s top coauthors is quite telling. In 2021, eight of the top ten co-authors were from Europe, and one from each South Korea and China. In 2024, all ten of the top coauthors were Chinese. This is yet another piece of evidence supporting the so-called “pivot of Russia to the East.”

Table 2. Top coauthors of Russian researchers

2021	2024
Author	Country	Number of joint publications	Author	Country	Number of joint publications
Shariat, S.F.	Austria	166	Li, C.	China	142
Fabbri, F.	Italy	150	Chang, J.	China	141
Peng, H.	China	150	Ji, X.	China	141
Geralis, T.	Greece	148	Chen, M.	China	138
Boyko, I.R.*	Switzerland/ Russia	140	Li, F.	China	138
Yang, Y.	South Korea	140	Zhu, K.	China	138
Zhemchugov, A.S.*	Switzerland/ Russia	140	Dai, H.	China	136
Çetin, S.A.	Turkey	140	Gu, M.	China	136
Berger, N.B.	France	139	Li, H.	China	136
Dedovich, D.V.*	Switzerland/ Russia	139	Zhao, L.	China	136

Source: Scopus/SciVal. *Note. Although some of the European scholars mentioned here and below are clearly of Russian origin, Scopus classifies them as Europeans, and we follow the same classification.

In 2024, according to Scopus, there were 9,253 joint European–Russian publications, indicating that cooperation has continued quite actively. To ensure that we are not dealing solely with large projects in which authors may not even know each another, but rather with direct and deliberate collaboration, we grouped these publications by the number of co-authors. The results are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Distribution of articles co-authored with Russians by number of authors

Source: Scopus/SciVal

As we can see, 80% of publications have fewer than ten co-authors. Therefore, this cooperation can be considered a deliberate choice by European researchers.

Let us look at the geographical breakdown of European scholars’ cooperation with Russian researchers and the changes that occurred after the full-scale invasion (Table 3). The largest numbers of scientific collaborators have been—and remain—in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland. At the same time, the steepest declines in the number of joint publications with Russian scientists were recorded in Ukraine (–77%), Lithuania (–66%), Estonia (–65%), and Finland (–64%).

Table 3. Number of joint publications by European and Russian researchers by country

Country	2021	2024	Change 2024 vs 2021, %
Germany	5947	2547	-57%
United Kingdom	3824	1979	-48%
France	3445	1761	-49%
Italy	3332	1745	-48%
Spain	2098	1159	-45%
Poland	2006	853	-57%
Switzerland	1584	829	-48%
Netherlands	1604	775	-52%
Czechia	1544	722	-53%
Sweden	1472	745	-49%
Ukraine	1419	332	-77%
Finland	1238	442	-64%
Austria	1330	637	-52%
Belgium	1046	590	-44%
Norway	930	437	-53%
Portugal	856	450	-47%
Greece	843	443	-47%
Denmark	782	391	-50%
Hungary	722	372	-48%
Romania	755	374	-50%
Serbia	685	383	-44%
Slovakia	600	246	-59%
Bulgaria	604	303	-50%
Ireland	533	226	-58%
Croatia	442	200	-55%
Estonia	408	142	-65%
Slovenia	372	196	-47%
Latvia	385	172	-55%
Lithuania	384	131	-66%
Cyprus	237	144	-39%
Total	19023	9253	-51%

Source: Scopus/SciVal

The main collaborators at the country level have been (and remain) Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland. At the same time, all of the analyzed countries have significantly reduced the volume of their joint publication activity with Russian researchers. The largest reductions were recorded in Ukraine (–77%), Lithuania (–66%), Estonia (–65%), and Finland (–64%). An important nuance in Ukraine’s case is that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian–Russian publications are, in reality, Russian–Russian, because they involve researchers from the occupied territories whom Scopus classifies as Ukrainian.

The top twenty institutions—namely, the direct participants in collaboration in 2024—are presented in Table 4.

Table 3. Top twenty European institutions by number of joint publications with Russian researchers

#	Organization name	Country	Number of joint publications	Share of top 20
1	CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)	France	1024	18%
2	Université Paris Cité	France	357	6%
3	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	309	6%
4	University of Turin	Italy	307	5%
5	Sorbonne Université	France	275	5%
6	Université Paris-Saclay	France	275	5%
7	Czech Academy of Sciences	Czechia	243	4%
8	Uppsala University	Sweden	243	4%
9	CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas)	Spain	239	4%
10	Charles University	Czechia	233	4%
11	Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives	France	232	4%
12	University of Copenhagen	Denmark	222	4%
13	University of Groningen	Netherlands	220	4%
14	Harvard University	США	217	4%
15	University College London	United Kingdom	210	4%
16	University of Manchester	United Kingdom	209	4%
17	Goethe University Frankfurt	Germany	208	4%
18	Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz	Germany	187	3%
19	University of Münster	Germany	187	3%
20	University of Rome La Sapienza	Italy	185	3%

Source: Scopus/SciVal

The distribution of joint publications by type has changed remarkably (Table 4). The share of publications in conference proceedings has declined sharply, a direct consequence of the impact of sanctions on Russian science, as Russian researchers have been attending fewer international conferences.

Table 4. Distribution of joint publications by European and Russian researchers by type

Publication type	2015-2024	2024
Number of publications	Share of total	Number of publications	Share of total
Article	110564	75%	7281	79%
Conference Paper	21103	14%	822	9%
Review	7000	5%	533	6%
Chapter	3840	3%	262	3%
Other	4695	3%	362	4%

Source: Scopus/SciVal

If European scholars had not wanted to see their names alongside Russian ones, one could have expected a substantial increase in the number of retracted publications in 2022. Unfortunately, the number of such publications did not increase. On the contrary, it decreased by several times (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Trends in the number of retracted European–Russian publications

Source: Scopus/SciVal

Table 6 shows which publishers mostly provide a platform for joint publications involving Russian researchers.

Table 6. Journals publishing the largest number of articles co-authored with Russian researchers

Journal	Publisher	2021	2024	Change, %
Journal of Physics: Conference Series	IOP Publishing	245	27	-89%
Scientific Reports	Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature)	208	79	-62%
Physical Review B	American Physical Society (APS)	197	70	-64%
Physical Review D	American Physical Society (APS)	195	119	-39%
E3S Web of Conferences	EDP Sciences	175	25	-86%
Materials	MDPI	154	21	-86%
Journal of High Energy Physics	Springer Nature (on behalf of the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati—SISSA)	143	27	-81%
International Journal of Molecular Sciences	MDPI	133	92	-31%
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science	IOP Publishing	123	0	-100%
Physical Review Letters	American Physical Society (APS)	121	58	-52%

Source: Scopus/SciVal

As we can see, most publishers are based in European countries, with the rest in the United States. In other words, the countries that formally oppose Russia are simultaneously providing platforms for its science thus directly contributing to its development. To understand where the problem lies, let’s look at the top twenty Russian institutions with which European researchers collaborated in 2024 (Table 7).

Table 7. Russian institutions with the largest number of joint publications with European scholars

Organization	Number of joint publications in 2024
Russian Academy of Sciences	3,721
Lomonosov Moscow State University	1,009
Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University	588
St. Petersburg State University	566
Higher School of Economics	536
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research	509
Ural Federal University	417
Russian Ministry of Health	413
RAS – Siberian Branch	405
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology	401
People’s Friendship University of Russia	337
National Institute for Nuclear Physics	331
Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute	319
Novosibirsk State University	273
Kazan Volga Region Federal University	270
St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO)	251
Tomsk State University	241
Russian Academy of Medical Sciences	217
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology	213

Source: Scopus/SciVal

All of these organizations support the aggression against Ukraine in one form or another—from providing direct financial and material assistance to the Russian army to aiding the annexation of Ukrainian territories and disseminating propaganda. We illustrate this with the example of Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Case study: Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU)

First of all, this university signed the so-called “Rectors’ Letter” in support of the aggression against Ukraine. Moreover, MSU’s rector, Viktor Sadovnichii, who also heads the Russian Council of Rectors, initiated the creation of this letter and organized the process of signing it by several hundred (!) Russian universities.

None of this has prevented the international publisher Springer from continuing active cooperation with him. Sadovnichii remains the editor-in-chief of Springer’s journal Differential Equations.

The university has been actively facilitating the annexation of Ukrainian territories, as Sadovnichii stated at the opening of the First Forum of Educational Institutions of Russia and the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics,” held in Rostov-on-Don on June 3-5. The purpose of the forum was to promote the rapid integration of the universities of the so-called DPR and LPR into Russia’s educational space. After Russia stole Donetsk University from Ukraine, the MSU rector declared that without this university, Donbas would have no future and that everything possible must be done to integrate it into Russia’s educational space. This is precisely the kind of “integration” in which MSU has been engaged.

In early August 2023, representatives of MSU’s Faculty of History visited the stolen Ukrainian universities—Donetsk State University (DonSU), Melitopol State University, and Azov State Pedagogical University. During the visit, they discussed current tasks related to integrating the Zaporizhzhia region into Russia’s sociocultural space, as well as plans for publishing a propagandistic collective monograph on the history of the formation of historical knowledge in Donbas in 2014–2022.

MSU has also been advancing the “integration” of the annexed Ukrainian territories into Russia and supporting the war against Ukraine by granting special admission quotas to “citizens of the DPR and LPR,” as well as to the children of Russian military personnel killed in Ukraine.

As part of its efforts to support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the university’s Faculty of Psychology designed a professional development program for psychologists who work with participants and veterans of the war, as well as with their family members. Among other, they provide support to Russian soldiers returning from the war.

MSU staff have been actively brainwashing Ukrainian children living under occupation. As part of the “University Shift—Young Lomonosov” educational program, MSU hosted fifty schoolchildren and five teachers from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic from September 11 to 20. The schoolchildren met with the rector and visited “Patriot,” a military-patriotic park of culture and recreation operated by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

However, when yet another joint article by a European scholar and an MSU representative appears, and the academic community sees something like Figure 4, it receives the signal that collaborating in 2025 with an active supporter of the war against Ukraine is perfectly fine.

Figure 4. Joint article by European and Russian researchers

This is not the only signal which MSU sends to the world. As an active supporter of the annexation of Ukrainian territories and a vehicle for propaganda, MSU uses its publications to broadcast messages to the academic universe, such as “Crimea is Russia,” “Donetsk is Russia” etc., as well as the claim that stolen Ukrainian institutions are the property of the Russian state. MSU researchers readily collaborate with these stolen Ukrainian scientific institutions, including the A. O. Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, which the Russian Academy of Sciences seized from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2014. MSU scholars (and not only they) promote the idea that Sevastopol is a Russian city. Unfortunately, colleagues from Switzerland and Belgium join them in this (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Joint article by Russian and European researchers in a journal published by Elsevier (2025)

Figure 6. Joint European–Russian article in a journal published by Springer Nature, asserting that Sevastopol is Russia (2025)

And a Slovak scholar, writing in a Slovak (!) journal together with “colleagues” from MSU, insists that Ukraine’s research institute—the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory—belongs to the Russian Academy of Sciences (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Joint Slovak–Russian article claiming that Ukraine’s research institute, the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, belongs to the Russian Academy of Sciences

All of this contributes to the spread of Russian propaganda narratives, producing exactly the kinds of views within the academic community that we presented in Table 1. So can anything be done about this outrageous situation—and if so, what exactly?

Suggestions

It is evident that the current measures—restrictions on cooperation with the Russian academic community, in some cases an outright ban on collaboration with Russian institutions, sanctions against the Russian economy that also affect payment capabilities and the supply of goods (including reagents and equipment), visa restrictions, and so on—are clearly insufficient, despite their effectiveness (remember an over 50% decline in Europe’s joint publication activity with Russia), because Russian universities and research institutions have largely avoided sanctions. Sanctions are a powerful tool that provides the legal basis for halting cooperation at the institutional level, which then translates into less collaboration at the individual level. Therefore, the list of sanctioned Russian institutions should be expanded.

Given the contentious nature of sanctions against academic institutions (which may be perceived as an attack on academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas), we propose applying sanctions as a punishment for specific actions rather than for the mere fact of belonging to Russia.

That is, if a university has openly and publicly supported the aggression against Ukraine (for example, by signing the Rectors’ Letter mentioned above), this is an entirely legitimate basis for imposing sanctions against it. If a scientific organization or university has been stolen from Ukraine, this should automatically mean inclusion on the sanctions lists. If a research institution is involved in military R&D, it should be on the sanctions lists. And if an academic institution actively assists the military aggression against Ukraine (for example, by collecting money and goods for the army), facilitates the annexation of Ukrainian territories, or engages in propaganda for the war against Ukraine, it should be on the sanctions lists.

Another aspect of addressing the problem is educational outreach—explaining why cooperation with scholars affiliated with Russian institutions contributes to the spread of Russian propaganda and is reputationally toxic. In this context, European authorities could issue formal recommendations and warnings regarding collaboration with Russian researchers, including an explanation of the pitfalls of such cooperation, which we have discussed in this article.

European academic organizations should pay more attention to monitoring the publication activity of their employees, since this can cast a shadow on the entire institution. For example, the terms for concluding or renewing contracts could include the absence of questionable publications—that is, publications co-authored with Russian researchers.

These proposals will not, of course, solve the problem entirely, but they will help reduce Russia’s presence in global science and diminish its propagandistic activity within the academic community.

Photo: depositphotos.com/ua

Ukraine's ex-ambassador to US named Zelensky's advisor on reconstruction

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 14:04:32 +0100

Markarova's advisory role will cover topics such as the "business climate, enhancing our state's financial resilience, attracting investment, and planning reconstruction together with our strategic partners," Zelensky said.

Chart of the week: Food prices fuel inflation in Ukraine amid climate and power woes

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:24:24 +0100

A brutal year for Ukraine's farmers is driving up food prices, straining household budgets already hit hard by Russia's war.

In just one year, extreme heat, freezing temperatures, drought, and heavy rains have devastated crops and delayed planting, creating harsh growing conditions. These challenges compound the

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At Colombia-Venezuela border, vulnerable brace for Trump war

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 16:34:24 +0100

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Luis Alfredo Lopez Molina (C), originally from Venezuela, receives health care in the emergency room of the Hospital Erasmo Meoz after seeking medical care for a severe infection on his leg in Cucuta, Colombia. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

CÚCUTA, Colombia – The emergency room of Hospital Erasmo Meoz, just miles from the Colombia-Venezuela border, heaves with patients.

Stretchers squeeze through narrow gaps. Dozens of Venezuelan migrants pack the hallways, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the floors. IV tubing crosses the room, and bandaged feet rest on wheelchair steps, while fans push the humid air — failing to clear the smell of sweat and desperation.

Patients, many Venezuelan migrants, crowd the emergency room of Erasmo Meoz Hospital in Cúcuta, Colombia on Nov. 16. (Video by Abby Pender)

By law, the hospital must treat every patient regardless of immigration status. Most are fleeing hunger, political repression and economic collapse in Venezuela, a crisis that has deepened as President Nicolás Maduro has cemented his authoritarian rule.

Tensions between President Donald Trump and Maduro have escalated sharply in recent months, and the United States has deployed its largest military presence in the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Local officials and migrants fear that any escalation could trigger a humanitarian emergency on a region already stretched to the limit.

Trump claims the military initiative is combating narcotrafficking. Since the operation began in September, at least 76 people have died in extrajudicial killings in South American waters, The Guardian reports. The Trump administration has provided no evidence linking the victims to drug trafficking, and in at least one case the Colombian government claims an innocent fisherman was killed in a boat strike.

Maduro, insisting the U.S. seeks regime change, has countered by swearing in six million civilian militia members.

“I sort of have made up my mind,” Trump said this past weekend, on his Venezuela strategy – without outlining what he plans.

There is a sort of jaded acceptance among those in Cúcuta, which has been no stranger to humanitarian tragedies and violent conflict. For them, Trump’s potential strikes have added a new dimension of danger, but they are long accustomed to a jungle of intertwining risks and violence.

Many have lived in fear of armed groups and narcotrafficking for much of their lives.

“Whether the Colombian government takes action or not, whether the government in Venezuela takes action or not — it makes no difference to us,” Erasmo Meoz Hospital Manager Hernando Gómez said. “Poor people continue to come here so that we can help them.”

Since Maduro took power in 2013, economic collapse, hunger and violence have driven nearly 8 million Venezuelans to flee their country, according to Human Rights Watch.

One of them, 29-year-old Nermari, sits in central Cúcuta’s San Antonio Park next to a cart of second-hand clothes and coffee. At her feet, two of her children play — her 2-year-old son with dirt and her 5-year-old daughter with a tricycle — as Nermari pulls them clear of passing foot traffic in the park.

Community members of Cúcuta, including displaced Venezuelans, occupy San Antonio Park in Central Cúcuta on Nov. 16. (Video by Abby Pender)

Nermari’s story is shared by many: she fled Venezuela six years ago, seeking work and better opportunities for her family.

The rest of her family — two older sons and a daughter — live back in San Cristobal, Venezuela, with her mother so they can continue attending school. Nermari, who had her first child at age 15, is defined by this separation.

On her wrist, she wears a plastic beaded bracelet with purple hearts, yellow stars and an “N” that her daughter in Venezuela made for her.

She never takes it off, she said.

Nermari last saw her children on the other side of the border nearly one year ago — it’s too expensive for her to travel back and forth.

“I usually travel back to Venezuela in December, and this year I told my mom I couldn’t go because of money,” she said. “I don’t always like being here; I always travel, but how things are right now, I don’t even have the money I had last year to go back.”

Nermari is especially close with her mother, who raised her and her three sisters after her father was killed in a street fight. The distance is constant, painful, she said.

“I miss her. I would like to be able to help her from here... Sometimes she has food to eat, sometimes she doesn’t,” Nermari said.

Her deepest ambition is simple: for her entire family to live together again in a house of their own in Venezuela — a place where no one can kick them out and the government can’t take their property.

Nermari’s sisters, she said, lost their home when the Maduro government expropriated it.

Displaced people from recent clashes between armed groups board canoes to cross the Tarra River, which divides Colombia and Venezuela, in Tibu, Norte de Santander department, Colombia, on January 19, 2025. (Photo by SCHNEYDER MENDOZA/AFP via Getty Images)

About an hour north of Cúcuta lies Tibú, a border town where Venezuelans now make up roughly one-third of the population. Many cross the river illegally to find work in illicit economies, often in mining or planting the coca leaf.

“It has been a very heavy and quite strong burden,” said community leader Jaime Botero. “Because they generate expenses and costs that are not within the government’s budget and within the budget of the municipality.”

Botero said local officials fear that if conflict erupts between the U.S. and Venezuela, Tibú would see a massive wave of displaced people.

“It would be total chaos,” Botero said. “Everyone would try to look for an exit, look for refuge, look to put their life and their family under protection, and the quickest [exit] is here — Tibú.”

The town, he warned, is critically unprepared. The health system could collapse. Jobs could disappear. And with U.S. cuts to USAID funding, local and international humanitarian groups now have limited resources to respond.

Operating within this fraught environment as a community leader takes a personal toll, Botero noted, confessing that since joining the council, his social life has plummeted due to threats from armed groups.

“We have conflict like everyone else,” Botero said. “But we are coping. Not all of us are guerrillas.”

According to a former Venezuela Armed Forces member, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, the Venezuelan government is a facade for organized crime.

Raised in a family of farmers with close friends who were part of the Venezuelan army, the former officer said he witnessed the system’s allure and its rot firsthand.

Aspiring to follow his godfather’s military legacy, the former officer recalled the common ambition of his youth: “it was either become a baseball player or a soldier.”

He said that the Venezuelan military kills, kidnaps and rapes other Venezuelans, and this abuse is formalized and taught to young recruits. Maduro uses the military for drug trafficking, the former officer said.

“Venezuelan soldiers who enter the army forces get stuck there. They can’t leave. If they try to leave, they’re killed,” he added. While top officials enjoy “mansions, whisky, trucks, escorts” and are “millionaires”, the rank-and-file soldiers starve.

The economic disparity forces an impossible choice on troops, as “a carton of eggs costs more than a soldier earns in a month.” But the former armed forces member emphasized that the Venezuelan migration crisis is not just about economics, but about terror.

“People think Venezuelans migrate only because of the economy. No. They migrate because of fear. Because of violence. Because of persecution. Because of criminal control. Because of hunger. Because of the collapse of the system,” he said.

A Venezuelan family, their lives packed into a few suitcases, crosses Puente Simón Bolívar into Colombia on Nov.16. Many migrants walk for over a month from Cúcuta to Bucaramanga to find employment and better opportunities. (Video by Abby Pender)

He hopes that Trump does intervene in Maduro’s regime — even if it means that his country might become a pawn for the States.

“In Venezuela, a person earning a normal salary makes maybe 10 to 20 dollars a month. A family of four needs about 300 dollars a month to eat decently. How do people survive? They hustle. They sell things. They do informal work. They do a thousand jobs. They live with stress every day,” the ex-army officer said.

That desperation, he believes, would shape the military’s response.

“If the United States intervenes, Venezuelan soldiers will not fight,” he said. “They’ll drop their weapons and surrender.”

He suggested that many soldiers admire the US military.

“They see America as powerful, organized, and disciplined. Many dream of being trained by the US military. Many told me, ‘If the Americans come, I’ll join them,’” he said.

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NEWS OF THE DAY:

By: Anastasiia Kryvoruchenko

U.S. PEACE PLAN REQUIRES UKRAINE TO GIVE UP LAND: The U.S., together with Russia, is working on a peace plan, part of which will include Kyiv giving up some of its territory, including land that Russia does not currently control, and reducing its weapons and army. Ukraine would do this in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S., Reuters reported.

However, there is no indication that Russia has changed its previous demands and Ukraine has not been included in the Russia-U.S. peace talks.

Yesterday, Zelenskyy met with U.S. military officials in Kyiv and recently called on the U.S. to bring a secure and stable peace to end the war after a trip to visit Erdogan in Turkey, which held the previous Russia-Ukraine peace talks, which were largely unsuccessful bar agreements on POW swaps.

UKRAINE DEMANDS RUSSIA PAY CLIMATE COMPENSATION: At the UN Climate Change Conference in Brazil, Ukraine demanded reparations from Russia amounting to $43 billion to compensate for the environmental damage caused by the war. This will be the first time in history a country has demanded compensation for climate damage.

Over 3.5 years of war, fires caused by missile strikes and weapons production among other things have caused greenhouse gas emissions to increase significantly. The report Ukraine cited at COP30 estimated that 236.8 million tons of CO2 have been emitted due to the war. Water, soil, and forests have been severely affected by the release of toxic substances.

RUSSIA’S WAR WITH EUROPE WOULD BE MUCH FASTER THAN WITH UKRAINE: Last week, the German chancellor proposed legislation to increase troop numbers, which is part of the country’s ambition to become Europe’s strongest army, Newsweek reported.

The EU is working on a defense readiness plan for 2030, as European intelligence warns that Russia could attack Europe by the end of the decade. The chief of Poland’s armed forces, Wiesław Kukuła, has issued the most recent warning, stating that Russia is already preparing to attack Poland after Ukraine.

DOG OF WAR:

This is Aki. Nastia met him at the cafe near her home, which became another working place for her during the blackouts. In the next couple of days we won’t have electricity for 17 hours a day in Kyiv.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Abby

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Good for Beavers, Bad for Russia

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 14:03:12 +0100

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The village remains flooded in Demydiv, northern Ukraine. (Evgen Kotenko/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Blowing up the Kozarovychi Dam was an unlikely chess move.

But in the frantic days of February 2022, it was the last option to stop the Russian advance.

The first blast was a tragic failure: the water barely flowed. The Russians, realizing the Ukrainians’ intentions, began shelling the area. Ukrainian forces quickly prepared another attempt.

The second blast found more success: water began to flow into the low-lying areas surrounding the Irpin River. Soon, flooded wetlands stood between the Russian mechanized advance and their desired target: Kyiv.

“It was an incredible stroke of luck,” Oleksandr Karpiuk, a marine reservist charged with detonating the dam, told The Counteroffensive. “I wasn’t supposed to survive there.”

Oleksandr Karpiuk. Photo from his social media.

Turning to a centuries-old battlefield tactic — using natural resources to thwart an enemy — Ukrainian forces stalled the Russian advance.

With Russia’s recent provocations against NATO, European countries are preparing for various scenarios, including a Russian land invasion – and they’re looking to Ukraine’s example.

Over the last few months, Poland and the Baltics are openly discussing plans to flood their borderlands or strategic low-lying areas to protect against a future attack.

And as they learn from Ukraine, they are finding that the measures may not only defend against Russia but could help with climate change and the local ecology.

After the paywall:

How Kyiv defenders risked their lives to blow up the dam;
What consequences it had both for nature and the war
How Europe can benefit from preparing similar tactics in advance

‘Neither side wasted time’ — Ukraine’s economy minister on minerals deal negotiations with Trump’s ‘business-oriented’ administration

New study warns Ukraine must break up old business order to thrive post-war

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 17:13:34 +0100

Ukraine’s business climate experienced a persistent slide between 2008 and 2019, characterized by a slowdown in new entrepreneurial activity, reduced competition, and increased dominance by large, inefficient companies, according to a new study.

To reverse course and capitalize on its emerging tech ecosystem and future reconstruction efforts, Ukraine

Ukrainian businesses outraged as government blocks economic crimes bureau chief nominee

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:38:17 +0100

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers rejected a nominee to lead the economic crimes agency, drawing swift criticism from lawmakers and businesses over alleged interference in the selection process.

The agency, the Bureau of Economic Security, was created in 2021 to investigate economic crimes. It has since faced accusations of being used to pressure — and in some cases extort — businesses, prompting multiple calls and efforts to overhaul it.

Selecting a new director of the agency by the end of July is one of Ukraine’s obligations to the EU and International Monetary Fund as part of international financing packages extended to the war-torn country by the institutions.

As part of a recent attempt to relaunch the bureau, Oleksandr Tsyvinsky on June 30 was officially nominated by the bureau’s selection commission that consists of six members — three from the government and three international experts. Tsyvinsky is known for exposing schemes involving illegal land seizures in Kyiv..

But Ukraine’s government on July 8 said it had rejected Tsyvinsky following alleged concerns raised by the country’s intelligence service of potential Russian connections.

The government unanimously decided to ask the commission to submit two new candidates who meet all security requirements, the government press service wrote on its official Telegram channel, a move it claims aligns with the law.

Following Tsyvinsky’s nomination, it was revealed that his father holds a Russian passport. He has said he hasn’t spoken to his father, who lives in Russia, in years.

Tsyvinsky holds clearance for state secrets and has passed special vetting, backed by over 20 years in law enforcement, including nearly a decade at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

Opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelizniak, said the government had no grounds to reject a properly nominated candidate, claiming President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office is behind the blocking of the nomination.

“The (bureau’s) legislation provides no legal grounds for the cabinet to demand a new shortlist or impose additional, undefined requirements such as ‘security criteria.’ The term itself is absent from any statute and therefore has no legal force,” Zhelizniak said.

“The SBU letter in this case is nothing more than an indicator of the winner’s disloyalty to the President’s Office and a desire to block the appointment,” said Olena Shcherban, deputy executive director of the AntAC in a statement following the news.

Major business associations have called on Zelensky, Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to reverse the government’s decision.

The business groups warned that failing to reform the agency will harm investment decisions, particularly as Ukraine’s wartime economy needs to attract capital.

“War is a time for radical changes in the rule of law and business climate, otherwise the economy cannot ensure the country’s survival,” the businesses wrote in an open letter.

Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says her task is simple — to get the investment fund behind the closely watched minerals deal with the U.S. off the ground, and prove its detractors wrong. “There are so many criticisms from different parties that this fund is just a piece of paper we can put on the shelves — that it won’t be operational,” Svyrydenko, who is also Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, tells the Kyiv Independent at Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on July 4, the morning

The Kyiv IndependentLiliane Bivings

Slag Heaps Have Eyes: From Secret Operative to Frontline Fighter

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 15:59:29 +0100

A native of Donbas and veteran of Ukraine’s fiercest battles, Artem Karyakin, better known by his nom de guerre, Skhidnyi, offers his firsthand view from the front lines of the war. For years, he operated in secrecy as a spotter for Ukrainian intelligence deep inside occupied territory. When the full-scale invasion began, he joined the ranks of the Ukrainian forces and has since fought without pause - from the defense of Kyiv to the grinding battle for Bakhmut and the incursion in Kursk.

In this special interview, Artem Karyakin traces the origins of the Russian occupation in Donbas, weighs the prospects for reintegration of lost regions, and recounts what the battle for Kursk truly looked like on the ground. To continue our efforts to document this war and the experiences and opinions of participants at this historic moment, we are publishing the full interview

1. Frontelligence Insight (hereafter FI): You are originally from Donbas and witnessed the unfolding of Russian aggression in the region. How exactly did it happen, and what were you doing in 2014?

Artem “Skhidnyi” Karyakin (hereafter - A): It’s important to note that the Russians began preparing for the seizure of Donbas well before 2014. This was especially evident to us—the residents of the region. For example, in my hometown of Kadiivka (formerly Stakhanov) in Luhansk Oblast, a certain “Don Cossack” organization appeared in the early 2000s. It consisted of marginal figures dressed in red Cossack hats and carrying whips. It looked strange, as our city had always been known for its mining industry and had no historical connection to the Don Cossacks.

This organization attracted people with chauvinistic views, fanatically devoted to the idea of reviving the USSR and uniting the "Slavic peoples." For instance, in 2012, a march commemorating the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was held in our city, in which I also participated. The march was disrupted when we were attacked by the same Don Cossack group, along with paid activists from the “Party of Regions.” Even back then, these “Cossacks” were confiscating our Ukrainian flags. That moment was very telling.

By 2014, the same “Cossacks” in red hats were seizing government buildings in our city - only now they were armed and operating under Russian flags. Many of them weren’t even born in our city - they came from the Russian Federation, as did some of those who helped them seize power by force in the spring of 2014.

Unidentified and armed combatants. Photo shared by Artem “Skhidnyi”

We — the pro-Ukrainian residents of the city — were organizing events in support of Ukrainian unity at that time. Our first event was a memorial rally honoring the “Heavenly Hundred” (Editor’s note: The "Heavenly Hundred" refers to those who were killed during the 2014 protests against the Yanukovych regime in Ukraine). That was in late February 2014. Later, we held car rallies for Ukrainian unity, events on the birthday of Taras Shevchenko, and actively distributed pro-Ukrainian leaflets and stickers around the city, and painted Ukrainian flags.

Pro-Ukrainian flyer titled "United Country" pinned to a public notice board, March 2014. Photo shared by Artem “Skhidnyi.”

All our activities in the spring of 2014 were dangerous, as there were already armed Russians and local pro-Russian militants in the city.

The point of no return came in late spring 2014, when two young guys — still in school — put up a Ukrainian flag on a slag heap in the center of town. They were fired upon with a handgun for doing so. After that, many pro-Ukrainian residents began leaving the city, as it had become clear that they could simply be killed for their love of Ukraine.

2. FI: What happened to the pro-Ukrainian activists? Are there still people who maintain a pro-Ukrainian stance under occupation?

A: I remained in my occupied city until the end of 2021, as did many others who loved Ukraine but, for obvious reasons, could not express it publicly. Today, the situation has worsened for those who support Ukraine in the Russian-occupied cities.

Pro-Ukrainian rally, spring 2014. Photo shared by Artem “Skhidnyi”

There are still many such people, but they are forced to live in fear, expecting to be arrested at any moment. Russian security services have dedicated significant resources to identifying and detaining pro-Ukrainian residents in the occupied territories. There are constant filtration procedures and ongoing inspections. Special attention is given to public sector workers and even to children. For example, in schools, there are mandatory checks of students’ mobile phones to look for subscriptions to Ukrainian media or messages expressing pro-Ukrainian views.

To love Ukraine under Russian occupation is already an act of courage.

Nevertheless, even today, a large number of true Ukrainians remain in the occupied territories: people who, risking their lives daily, help us in the fight against Russia by sharing intelligence, carrying out sabotage, and participating in other acts of resistance against the Russian army. This is true heroism and further proof that this land is rightfully Ukrainian.

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3. FI: You continued to support Ukraine even when your city was already under occupation. What exactly did your activities involve?

A: In July 2014, while already living under occupation, I created my first Twitter account. The goal was to shed light on the situation in the occupied territories from the perspective of a pro-Ukrainian resident who hadn’t left their home. At the time, neither people in Ukraine nor the rest of the world fully understood what was actually happening. Many believed that all the locals who had stayed supported Russia. I wanted to show the world that our city was occupied by Russia, and that there were still Ukrainians there who were not happy about it and were waiting for the Ukrainian army.

In addition to general updates, I also posted information about the locations of Russian troops in my city. These were public tweets, sometimes with maps marking where Russian military equipment was stationed. In the fall of 2014, I was contacted via direct message on Twitter by representatives of Ukrainian intelligence services as well as acquaintances from the Ukrainian army. They explained to me that it was better to share intelligence privately rather than posting it publicly on Twitter.

Since then, I began secretly passing on various types of information to the Ukrainian army and intelligence services - details about the movements, positions, and firing points of Russian forces in my city and surrounding occupied areas. Over the years, this also came to include information about factories and enterprises operating under Russian control, the socio-political climate under occupation, local sentiment, and data on collaborators - those who had joined the Russian side in combat or taken positions in the Russian-controlled security services.

4. FI: In 2021, you moved to Ukrainian-controlled territory, and the full-scale invasion began the following year. How did you join the Armed Forces, and what was your first battle?

A: From the very first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, I began looking for a unit where I could fight against Russia. The early days of the big war were chaotic—there was disorganization and confusion everywhere. I was living in Kyiv, and in one of the first days of March, I simply approached some guys with rifles and offered my help. That very same day, I was already standing night watch with Kalashnikov's hand-held machine gun in my hands.

It was one of the Territorial Defense Force units. We took up a defensive position on the outskirts of Kyiv, on the Bucha-Irpin side. In the summer of 2022, I joined the fighters of the 8th Regiment of the Special Operations Forces, where my friend was already serving and had invited me to join his group.

Artem in Bakhmut

My first combat deployment was in August 2022 in Bakhmut, which at that point was already under assault by Russian forces, including Wagner PMC fighters. Shortly after Bakhmut, we took part in the liberation and clearing of the city of Lyman, in Donetsk Oblast. For me and many of my fellow soldiers, it was our first experience liberating our native land - a moment we will remember forever.

5. FI: You’ve taken part in important operations - both in Ukraine and on Russian territory, specifically in the Kursk region. Did you notice any significant differences between combat operations in Ukraine and in Kursk?

A: The Kursk operation was unique in every sense and differed from my past experiences in Ukraine in many ways. It was in the Kursk region that I first encountered the concept of maneuver warfare, and I can say that, personally, combat along a clear front line is easier for me.

It was also in Kursk where we first faced FPV drones connected via fiber optics and a new Russian tactic—using specialized FPV drone teams to strike our logistics routes from as far as 10–15 km deep. This tactic is now widely used by Russian forces along nearly every front.

In this operation, we also faced the enemy’s best FPV crews, all concentrated in one relatively small sector. These teams had been withdrawn from other areas and redeployed to Kursk specifically.

Another major difference was that, for the first time, we were acting as a “foreign army” in populated areas. Each soldier had their own reaction to that: for some, it felt like justified revenge; others felt a strong pull back toward our own land and a kind of inner resistance to advancing on foreign soil.

I count myself among the former. For me, it was an act of rightful retribution and a way to shift the war onto the aggressor’s territory. Yet I constantly reminded myself that I didn’t want to behave like the Russians did in my hometown. On Russian territory, I acted very differently than they had in ours. To every civilian I encountered in the Kursk region, I explained why we were there, how it all began, and that we simply want to liberate our own cities - not seize theirs.

Artem next to the uniform of a Russian FSB warrant officer. Kursk Oblast.

The Kursk operation was very well planned and executed at the outset, but unfortunately was marred by a series of key mistakes and issues at various levels. These mistakes must be carefully analyzed so they are never repeated. I sincerely hope this experience proves useful in the future—it was unique in many respects.

Regardless, everyone who took part in that operation became part of history. We shattered the myth of the invincibility of a nuclear power and the so-called greatness of the Russian army. We drew significant enemy forces away, slowing their advance on our territory. And we were also the ones who fought against the armies of two different totalitarian states. The experience of facing North Korean forces is also something that sets this apart from the war in Ukraine—even though their tactics in Kursk didn’t differ much from what Wagner used in Bakhmut.

6. FI: Assuming that Russia eventually loses control over Donbas - how do you envision the process of reintegrating these territories? How deeply has Russian propaganda taken root there over the years?

A: The most important thing is to drive the Russians out of our land. And with Ukrainians, just like us, we’ll quickly find common ground.

The main issue with those who fell under the influence of Russian propaganda during the occupation is that they know very little about the rest of Ukraine. Many have never been to other regions and know nothing about them. Everything they do know about Ukraine comes from what they’ve seen on Russian TV channels.

Another problem is that Russia created conditions in which every second family in occupied Donbas has lost a relative in the war. This is a direct result of the forced mobilization of men from the occupied territories into the Russian army.

But you have to understand — Donbas, especially the part that’s been under occupation since 2014, is a region where people generally lack any strong civic engagement or passion. Their opinions and actions are shaped entirely by the environment they live in.

Artem Skhidnyi standing on a Russian flag.

If Ukraine returns to these territories, people will quickly adapt to new rules and new flags flying over their homes. And soon, they will realize that life under Ukraine is freer and more breathable. Without the presence of Russian troops, these people would never have fought for the Russian flag. I know them — I lived among them for most of my life.

Even now, many of them no longer see Russia as something positive. After living under the Russian flag long enough, they’ve come to realize that there’s little good there, and that the sacrifices they were forced to make for that flag were not worth it.

7. FI: When the war ends, what do you see your life looking like? Do you have any dreams or plans for peacetime?

A: The most important thing is for the war to end with our victory. We must preserve Ukraine and bring back our land and our people. I’m turning 28 this year, and I’ve spent 11 of those years living through war — it’s hard to imagine myself without it now.

But of course, I have a personal dream as well: to start a family of my own. During the years of occupation, I lost my parents and my grandmother, and since then, the feeling of loneliness has never left me. My dream is a family… my children, who will never know what war is.

============================================================================

Artem “Skhidnyi” Karyakin, in an exclusive interview with Frontelligence Insight. You can follow him on the X platform for firsthand updates from the front.

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Investing in wartime Ukraine requires ‘nuanced understanding of risk’ but is worth it, says head of world’s largest business organization

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:28:24 +0100

When John Denton first visited Ukraine weeks into Russia’s full-scale invasion, he knew that for the country to survive, businesses needed to stay alive.

Denton is the secretary general of the world’s largest business organization, the International Chamber of Commerce. Active in 170 countries, the organization enables $17.5 trillion worth of economic activity every year, accounting for 22% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Denton has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine’s businesses and the country’s economic recovery, which is crawling back from the massive 29.1% fall in 2022. The International Chamber of Commerce will attend the upcoming Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Rome on July 10-11, alongside governments and major players in the global private sector.

In a sit-down interview at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) on June 12, Denton told the Kyiv Independent how the International Chamber of Commerce has supported businesses in Ukraine, how investors can mitigate risks, and why doing business in Ukraine is worth it despite the wartime challenges.

“There needs to be a more nuanced understanding of risk in Ukraine. It’s not one risk quota for the whole of the country. It helps people understand that there are investable opportunities,” Denton said.

Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) John Denton attends the “Ukraine and Europe: Toward a Common Future” panel at the Kyiv International Economic Forum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 7, 2024. (Ukrinform / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The International Chamber of Commerce has been active in supporting Ukraine’s economic front in partnership with the Ukrainian Chambers of Commerce. This includes the Center of Entrepreneurship, which supports small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) as well as refugees.

Denton believes Ukraine’s recovery needs a strong private sector and access to global markets. To help build up trust and encourage foreign investors, he announced that the International Chamber of Commerce will cut arbitration costs for foreign investors involved in reconstruction-related disputes in Ukraine during his last trip to Ukraine in November 2024.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Kyiv Independent: This is your fourth trip to Ukraine. What is your current assessment of Ukraine’s business climate?

John Denton: The reality is challenging, but Ukraine is not a monolith. There are different opportunities. I drove from Warsaw through western Ukraine, and you can sense that there’s a level of vibrancy in the economy there.

The more challenged regions need focus. It’s hard to attract opportunities and to keep people. At the same time, people are there, paying taxes, keeping businesses running, even in complex places. They need support and want visibility.

It’s going to be much harder to rebuild Ukraine if the economy is not functioning. We’ve always seen the private sector and the functioning of the economy here as the economic front. One dimension is just keeping tax flows moving and businesses running. The other is morale. It’s devastating if you have a collapsed economy plus military challenges.

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The Kyiv Independent: What would you say to investors who are standing by on the sidelines, waiting for the war to end before putting their money into Ukraine?

John Denton: They've got to make commercial decisions in the best interests. You have to make certain your risk appetite matches the risk that's available.

There's a different level of risk for the allocation of capital in this place. Existing businesses here tend to understand that a little better. The investment you're seeing in Ukraine is coming from existing businesses that understand the terrain. They're reinvesting in the economy, and those investments are often very successful.

You can't completely de-risk, but you can take away some of the extraordinary risks.

The danger with waiting too long is do you then have the relationships in place to participate in the rebuild? That's going to be one of the challenges.

There's a lot more that can be done to facilitate de-risking. You can't completely de-risk, but you can take away some of the extraordinary risks.

We can help export agencies understand that their participation is really important to allow companies to close deals here. Some of them can only provide coverage up to 97%. That (missing) 3% matters. At the URC, we're helping export agencies understand this and problem solve risk coverage.

Ukraine’s long-awaited weapons tech investment boom is finally kicking off

Ukrainian weapons startups are finally seeing an inflow of funds from Western investors who have long been intrigued by the Ukraine’s defense tech sector but have so far kept their money out of the war-torn country. Financial analysis firm Pitchbook provided the Kyiv Independent with data showing a four-fold rise

The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

Kyiv Independent: What are the barriers to foreign and domestic investment in Ukraine, and how are you helping break those down?

John Denton: There's just the reality that there's a war going on. It inhibits one's decision-making, but it doesn't mean you don't make the decision.

The other is that there are issues with the application of the rule of law here. We've come up with a solution which I know the Ukrainian government is very happy with – if people are worried that that's an inhibitor, we will use the International Chamber of Commerce Court of Arbitration. You can be 100% sure of the independence.

There's still a perception of corruption. Many say the country is different than five years ago or before the war. That's true. But sentiment clouds upfront decision-making.

The other thing is, do we actually have clear investment frameworks? Has the government articulated key priorities? Do you want to attract investment only into the most complex areas of Ukraine, or are you neutral as to where it is? There is a risk of mixed messages.

I think the government and the private sector here are working on all those areas. We're seeing better presentation and understanding of projects capable of attracting capital.

Ukrainian authorities restore residential buildings destroyed by Russian forces in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 1, 2023. (Sergii Kharchenko / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Kyiv Independent: Have we seen any results yet from the decreased arbitration costs?

John Denton: It’s too early to tell. There's certainly a lot of interest in it. It's creating an ecosystem of confidence around settling disputes.

Kyiv Independent: The Ukraine Recovery Conference is taking place in Rome next month. Is reconstruction being taken seriously despite there being no end to the war in sight? What can we expect from the International Chamber of Commerce at the conference?

John Denton: There is increasing interest from the private sector about how to manage the risks that will be involved in the reconstruction of Ukraine. And that's why we're involved.

There is a particular challenge with export finance that needs to be thought through. We will be using the URC as a great convening space to do that. The other is more broadly around identifying the inhibitors to private sector engagement in this process and coming up with a roadmap to actually remove those barriers.

The URC creates space for these discussions. We hope this starts more aggressively, not just on future reconstruction, but reconstruction now. To rebuild on a broken system is much harder than if we have a functioning private sector and economy now.

Note from the author:

Hi, it’s Dominic, thank you for reading this story. Investment and the role of the private sector in rebuilding Ukraine is going to be a hot topic at the upcoming Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome this July. For now, many investors are holding back their money, but John Denton makes a good point that it's important to invest now to keep the economy alive. To help us keep you up to date with all the latest news from Ukraine, please consider becoming a member.

Ukraine must look beyond the EU for its agricultural future

The end of the European Union’s tariff-free trade preferences for Ukrainian agricultural products is more than just a policy change, it’s a wake-up call. For years, the EU has served as the largest and most reliable market for Ukraine’s agricultural exports. But as Brussels rolls back preferential

The Kyiv IndependentMark Iwashko

US opposes lowering G7 cap on Russian oil, Bloomberg reports

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 05:02:14 +0100

The United States is opposing a proposal by other Group of Seven nations to lower the price cap on Russian oil, Bloomberg reported on June 13.

Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg said the U.S. remains opposed to reducing the cap from $60 to $45 per barrel – a position it first took earlier this year when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined to support a similar effort.

The price cap, introduced in December 2022 as a measure to limit the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine, prohibits Western companies from shipping, insuring, or otherwise servicing Russian oil sold above $60 per barrel.

Despite U.S. resistance, the European Union and United Kingdom – backed by other European G7 countries and Canada – have said they are prepared to move forward with the proposal, even without Washington’s endorsement.

One source told Bloomberg that the EU and U.K. could explore lowering the cap without the U.S., as most of Russia’s oil is transported in European waters. However, a unified G7 agreement would carry greater impact if it could be enforced by the U.S.

The price cap debate has become more urgent as oil prices, which had fallen below the $60 cap in recent months, surged following Israel’s strikes against Iran in the past 24 hours.

G7 leaders will revisit the price cap discussion during the upcoming summit, hosted by Canada from June 15-17 in Kananaskis County, Alberta.

The summit agenda will also include topics such as support for Ukraine in the Russian war, global economic stability, digital transformation, and climate change.

The G7 currently includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The European Union is also represented in the group.

Israel-Iran war could provide economic boost Russia needs to continue fight against Ukraine

Israel’s “preemptive” strikes against Iran targeting the country’s nuclear program and killing top military officials could have far-reaching implications for Ukraine and could boost Russia’s ability to continue its full-scale invasion, experts have told the Kyiv Independent. Iran has been one of Russia’s staunchest allies throughout the war, providing thousands

The Kyiv IndependentChris York

G7 ready to lower Russian oil price cap without US support, Reuters reports

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:56:25 +0100

Most Group of Seven (G7) nations are prepared to lower the Russian oil price cap from $60 to $45 a barrel even without support from the United States, Reuters reported on June 12, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

According to Reuters, the European Union and United Kingdom, backed by other European G7 countries and Canada, are ready to lead the charge in lowering the Russian oil price cap – even if U.S. President Donald Trump opts out.

The price cap, which bans Western companies from shipping, insuring, or otherwise servicing Russian oil sold above $60 per barrel, was first introduced in December 2022 as a measure to limit the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine.

The G7 had previously attempted to lower the Russian oil price cap; however, the proposal was dropped after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly declined to support it.

It is unclear whether the U.S. will support the decision this time around. Japan’s position is also undecided.

Participating country leaders will revisit the price cap discussion at the upcoming G7 summit. Canada, which holds the G7 presidency this year, will host the summit on June 15-17 in Kananaskis County, located in the western province of Alberta.

The summit agenda will include topics such as support for Ukraine in the Russian war, global economic stability, digital transformation, and climate change.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend the summit and seek a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

EU could impose Russian oil price cap without US support, Kallas says

The European Union can impose an additional price cap on Russian oil without U.S. support, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas said at the Brussels Forum on June 11.

The Kyiv IndependentVolodymyr Ivanyshyn

EU, Germany boost Ukraine's energy efficiency fund with 18 million euros

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:07:16 +0100

The EU and Germany have topped up Ukraine’s Energy Efficiency Fund (EEF) with an additional 18 million euros ($20.7 million) to expand their support for Ukraine’s energy independence and green recovery, the EU Delegation to Ukraine said on June 11.

The move was announced at the 10th meeting of the delegation’s Coordination Council in Kyiv.

The EU provided 13 million euros ($15 million) of the new funding, while Germany’s International Climate Initiative (IKI) provided 5 million euros ($5.7 million).

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment arm of the World Bank, will continue to manage the EEF’s trust fund.

The fund, established in 2019, is split into two programs: VidnovyDIM, which helps repair war-damaged homes, and EnergoDIM, which co-finances grants to cut energy consumption and costs by installing new insulation, windows, and heating systems.

“Today, when Russia is shelling Ukrainian homes almost every night, the VidnovyDIM Fund program helps families cover the costs of repairing walls, roofs, and windows so that they can return home safely and with dignity,” EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Maternova said.

“In parallel, through the EnergoDIM program, we continue to support the thermal modernization of old buildings, which allows us to reduce energy consumption and monthly costs.”

Since 2021, the fund has grown from 90 projects to 1,500 projects, in cooperation with homeowners’ associations, and helped Ukraine save 300 kilowatts per hour in energy consumption– as much as the city of Chernivtsi consumes. The EEF has helped over 217,000 families modernize and repair their homes, of which half were covered by the VidnovyDIM program.

The new financing will improve the efficiency of grants, raise the grant size to meet demand, and help more people under Ukraine’s environmentally sustainable “Build Back Better” principle. The grant limit should increase to more than 200,000 euros, said Ukraine’s Development of Communities and Territories First Deputy Minister Alena Shkrum.

The EFF will now be able to resume requests, which were paused due to the high number of applications. Around 10% of Ukraine’s housing stock has been damaged or destroyed, while much of the country’s heating system is from the Soviet era and inefficient, with apartments unable to control the heating in the winter.

Ukraine’s energy grid has been targeted relentlessly by Russian attacks, causing widespread energy instability across the country. At the same time, bills have increased for electricity and heating, frustrating citizens who have already taken a financial hit due to the war.

The fund has modernized homes and schools to become more energy efficient, which not only cuts costs but also retains warmth during blackouts, said the Shkrum. More Ukrainians are beginning to understand the importance of energy efficiency due to Russian attacks, “which is why the fund should continue functioning, reforming, and developing further,” she added.

DTEK to build one of Europe’s largest energy storage facilities, company announces

Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK secured a $72-million loan to build one of the largest battery energy storage complexes in Eastern Europe, the company said on June 3.

The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell

Exiled Russian scholar on why Dugin is no philosopher, and Russia no defender of ‘traditional values’

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:49:05 +0100

In recent years, the Kremlin has sought to cast Russia as a bastion of so-called traditional values, positioning itself in stark contrast to what it describes as the morally decaying West. Yet beneath this veneer, a more complex reality persists. As exiled Russian philosopher Alexey Zhavoronkov told the Kyiv Independent, “conservative rhetoric and concepts are employed to mask a different reality.”

Within the framework of traditional conservative thought, personal liberty is regarded as a foundational principle. But in today’s Russia, such freedom is markedly absent.

As Zhavoronkov observes, those advancing the narrative of a “conservative” Russia frequently do so less out of ideological conviction than opportunism — aligning themselves with the Kremlin to serve as de facto spokespeople for President Vladimir Putin’s regime while also enriching themselves.

Among those frequently cited as intellectual architects of the Kremlin’s “traditional values” worldview is Alexander Dugin, referred to in Western media as “Putin’s brain” — a title that belies the ambiguous and likely overstated nature of his actual influence.

Dugin, who has openly called for the genocide of Ukrainians and maintains a network aimed at exporting his ideology far and wide abroad, presents himself as a philosopher. But as exiled Zhavoronkov explained to the Kyiv Independent, Dugin’s work is marred by intellectual incoherence and lacks the philosophical depth required for serious consideration.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Kyiv Independent: Some right-wing contingents in the West claim that Russia is a last holdout for “traditional values.” Could you go into more detail about the image that Russia is trying to project versus what is really happening there?

Alexey Zhavoronkov: This concept of “traditional values” — and by that I mean the political use of the concept of traditional values — is very illustrative because there are hundreds of its interpretations in different documents and publications. If we look at official documents like Russian national development strategies, which offer lists of specific “traditional values,” most of these values are not strictly conservative. We see notions like individual freedom, or we see something more associated with the philosophy of enlightenment (like the idea of human dignity) — meaning that traditional values are more along the lines of liberal thought. There are also certain concepts, such as collectivism, that were carried over from the Soviet period.

Conservative values mentioned in Russian official documents are mostly centered around ‘traditional family’ — beyond that, there isn’t much. This serves as a good example of how conservative rhetoric and concepts — sometimes even borrowed from Western traditions, which are officially condemned in Russia — are employed to mask a different reality.

If we look at the conservative tradition in the U.S. and compare it to the Russian tradition, the differences are striking — they’re two entirely different worlds.

The Kyiv Independent: How so?

Alexey Zhavoronkov: The differences exist on many levels, including political practice. But if we start with the theoretical side, the Anglo-American conservative tradition has a long and deep history. It doesn’t begin as a reaction to the French Revolution (in the 18th century), but rather can be traced back to 15th- and 16th-century England. There’s a lot to examine when analyzing this tradition.

There was no major rupture in the American conservative tradition after World War II. In contrast, the Bolshevik Revolution (in 1917) in Russia effectively severed the continuity of the country’s conservative tradition. In the U.S., there have certainly been political crises within the conservative movement, but the development of the tradition was never interrupted. Moreover, in the U.S., after World War II, much of the conservative movement was defined by anti-communism. Overall, if we look at major themes and the political policies associated with them, there’s very little overlap between the Russian and American traditions.

Russia sees itself as having a unique role in the world — it believes it should save the world, but it will save it by means of destruction.

The Russian tradition faced multiple issues that differentiated it from the American tradition — which itself had internal problems, such as the split between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives since the 1970s. I’ll return to that later, because I think there are some similarities between American and Russian neoconservatives, though only at the level of the international political agenda.

As I mentioned, in Russia, we see a major interruption in the conservative tradition. There was certainly a conservative tradition before the revolution, though by the end of the 19th century, it was already in decline. It’s also quite telling that as soon as the Russian (imperial) government, under Emperor Alexander III, officially adopted conservative rhetoric, conservatism as an intellectual movement practically disappeared. The government wasn’t interested in serious programmatic works; it only needed slogans, which were mostly supplied by the official press.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the audience in Kursk, Russia, on Aug. 23, 2023. (Gavriil Grigorov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Young Army Cadets National Movement members march toward Red Square during the 80th anniversary celebrations of Victory Day in Moscow, Russia, on May 9, 2025. (Sefa Karacan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

There were a plethora of newspapers and some journals that labeled themselves as conservative, but there were virtually no intellectual platforms for Russian conservatives. The golden era of Russian conservatism — associated with the Slavophile movement in the mid-19th century — was already long gone. It wasn’t revived later under Emperor Nicholas II, and then came the revolution. After that, there were only limited attempts to revitalize the conservative tradition during the Soviet period, by figures like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for instance. There were also some more radical conservative, mostly Orthodox, movements during the Soviet period. But aside from a few collections of essays and Solzhenitsyn’s publications, there were no major works that could be considered significant intellectual manifestos. So we are left to piece together fragments from various texts — texts that are neither philosophical in nature nor structured as political programs.

I think the last truly meaningful intellectual exchange between Russian conservatives and Russian liberals was the debate between Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov in the 1970s and 1980s. Both of them had clearly defined (but incompatible) visions of Russia’s future.

Many aspects of that debate are either no longer relevant or problematic, such as Solzhenitsyn’s idea of the nation. But still, it was a genuine (direct and indirect) debate that highlighted fundamental differences in how each thinker envisioned Russia’s path forward over the coming century.

The Kyiv Independent: Why do you think the Russian government following the USSR’s collapse, chose the path of neoconservatism?

Alexey Zhavoronkov: I think if we return to the issue of tradition, it’s clear that there has been a break in its continuity. Contrary to what the Russian government suggests, this tradition has not been restored. Instead, the government is attempting something similar to what American anti-traditionalist neoconservatives aimed to do starting in the 1980s — namely, to formulate a global political agenda based primarily on the country's national interests rather than on international agreements and rules. These national interests are used to justify what I would describe as aggressive, even imperialist, policies aimed at establishing or maintaining dominance in various regions of the world.

Of course, the economic weight of a country like the U.S. is incomparably greater than that of Russia. Russia represents only a small fraction of the global economy and is now largely isolated from many international markets. Therefore, the Russian government had to come up with a different kind of justification for its imperial ambitions.

This justification has taken on a radical Orthodox form. This is where figures like Alexander Dugin come into play, along with many other ideologists who popularized the concept of “Katechon” — which has become one of the key notions in Russian politics today.

The Kyiv Independent: Could you explain what that is?

Alexey Zhavoronkov: This concept enforces the idea that Russia is the world’s sole and last protector against the Antichrist. Instead of American political and economic exceptionalism, which is manifested in (U.S. President Donald) Trump’s policies, Russia has its own form of exceptionalism, but with different pillars supporting the ideology. For the U.S., the pillar is economic dominance, as seen in Trump’s obsession with tariffs. For Russia, the pillar is spiritual or radical Orthodoxy, which contains strong elements of messianism. Russia sees itself as having a unique role in the world — it believes it should save the world, but it will save it by means of destruction. And to protect the world, Russia must be in a constant state of war with those who worship the Antichrist, namely with the ‘Collective West.’

The so-called ‘Collective West’ is another political concept actively used in Russian politics. The permanent state of war also means a permanent state of exception within Russia, because war serves as a perfect justification for almost any political action. In such a situation, established rules no longer apply. The government can always claim that it’s an exceptional circumstance.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the U.S. Steel-Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, U.S. on May 30, 2025, after approving the U.S. Steel–Nippon Steel merger. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

The Kyiv Independent: You mentioned Alexander Dugin. Could you just go into who he is and how he came into prominence? In the West, they call him “Putin's brain.” But his connections to Putin are highly debated. Does he have any real influence in Russia or is it just an outward projection?

Alexey Zhavoronkov: Yes, Dugin is a really interesting figure from the perspective of how he's seen from the West. For a long time — even in Western political science — he was widely regarded as Putin’s favored ideologist, someone with direct access to him and the ability to advise him on key issues. This was, of course, not the case. And this still isn't the case today, although Dugin has gained significantly more favor in recent years for various reasons, one of which is the murder of his daughter.

I think Dugin is perhaps the most eclectic ideologist in Russia as of today. What he writes is mostly eclectic and situational commentary on what the Russian government does. At the heart of his “philosophy” is the so-called Fourth Political Theory, a framework intended to create a new political ideology to replace existing ones such as Liberalism and Marxism. This idea is understandable on an elementary level, but there is no intellectual content in this theory. It consists only of slogans about the need to establish such a theory, without offering any clear explanation of what that theory should actually be. It's also evident that Dugin has no intention of developing it further, and neither do other ideological figures in Russia, largely due to the nature of Russian politics.

Contemporary Russian politics — much like during the reign of Emperor Alexander III — has no need for intellectual manifestos. The role of ideologists is largely to retroactively justify actions already taken. Their task is to claim, for example, that they have long supported a particular policy or alliance, referencing something they wrote in a book a decade ago.

The Russian government uses the strategy of fusionism. It has encompassed pretty much all movements that existed around it. Nowadays, we have Marxists and Stalinists who support Putin, but also traditionalists like Dugin, fascists, etc. This is a wild mix of people from diverse backgrounds who, in theory, should hold differing opinions — but in practice, they do not, at least not publicly. Many of them even collaborate within government-affiliated organizations, such as the Izborsky Club (a Russian think tank which Dugin is a member of, among others).

What we see in Russia is an eclectic blend of very different ideologies, all loosely labeled as conservatism. To better disguise this inconsistency, Putin — or more accurately, his speechwriters — occasionally reference conservative literature, sometimes even theories by Western authors.

Take, for example, Putin’s speech from October 2021 — just a few months before the war began. In it, there’s a noteworthy section where he offers a clear definition of conservatism. Interestingly, this definition closely aligns with liberal conservatism as understood by scholars like Michael Freeden and others. Conservatism, in this context, is portrayed as cautious progress based on principles of healthy realism and anti-isolationism, a framework of cultural relations that emphasizes respect for different traditions and viewpoints, aversion to extremism, etc.

Vladimir Putin during a meeting with workers at the Obukhov State Plant in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Jan. 18, 2023. (Contributor/Getty Images)

A Russian army tank drives through central Moscow, Russia, during a rehearsal for the Victory Day parade on May 3, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)

All the rhetoric about cautious decision-making, anti-isolationism, and respect for others stood in stark contrast to what unfolded just a few months later. It’s clear that Putin aims to appeal to the more conservative segments of the Russian population — and indeed, many Russians hold culturally conservative views in their everyday lives. But ultimately, this conservative messaging serves to mask policies that are, in many respects, deeply anti-conservative.

This is why I would label it as pseudo-conservatism — it mimics conservatism with the clear goal of making people feel more secure in turbulent times and fostering pride in their nation and government. However, in practice, what’s actually happening has little to do with traditional conservatism.

The Kyiv Independent: We see from here in Ukraine why people like Dugin are so dangerous. He has actively called for the genocide of Ukrainian people for years — that's what got him kicked out of one university back in 2014 or 2015, if I'm not mistaken. But what damage has he and others like him inflicted upon Russian academia over the past decade of war? What damage can they inflict abroad?

Alexey Zhavoronkov: It's a really good question. I think Dugin's academic trajectory shows us that nowadays, the Russian government is seriously concerned with the issue of Russian academics not being too cooperative, for the most part.

There’s a set of statistics from 2022 that breaks down how different social groups relate to the war, whether they support it actively, passively, or oppose it altogether. The group with the least support for the war was Russian academics, which signals to the government that this is a significant issue.

The government uses various means to control the excessively ‘cosmopolitan’ Russian academia. We see now that pro-government ideologists have been gifted their own institutes. Dugin now directs the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School, an institute within the Russian State University for Humanities. This, along with other recent policies in education, is a signal to Dugin’s colleagues from the same university and other institutions that they are now being closely watched. Naturally, this contributes to an atmosphere of paranoia and self-censorship.

This self-censorship did not start in 2022. We do not have hard statistical data, but we still have some facts from recent history, like the dissolution of the Department for Constitutional Law at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow directly after the public debate concerning the necessity of the 2020 amendments to the Russian constitution. This action was not the government’s initiative. The university itself decided to lay off leading scholars in constitutional law, de facto, because there was no living constitution anymore. The constitution was amended in a way that several parts of it were practically destroyed.

People like Dugin contribute to the deterioration of the overall intellectual climate and the rise of self-censorship, which, I believe, is even worse than state censorship. In today’s Russia, state censorship is more about punishing a few individuals, while the universities punish the other 200 people themselves out of fear. It's different from the Soviet Union, where state control was stricter and all-encompassing.

Externally, Dugin makes an impression, partly because he has an army of writers, translators, and many supporters promoting his books in Europe and the U.S. I know several colleagues here in Germany, for instance, who were excited that there was supposed to be a workshop on Dugin’s philosophy at the Danube Institute in Hungary and wanted to attend. However, after watching some of his videos, they started questioning what he was actually saying. They realized it wasn’t philosophy but more like justificatory commentary on the Russian political agenda, filled with big slogans trying to align him with current policies. For instance, in his talk with John Mearsheimer, Dugin explicitly states that Ukraine should have been either neutral or part of Russia, and now Eastern Europe should be either neutral or "ours."

Dugin gives the impression, externally, that he represents Russian philosophy today and embodies the intellectual majority among his colleagues, which is not the case. However, he is the loudest, with all the necessary resources and instruments at his disposal. While he presents himself as a traditionalist, he also uses capitalist tools to commercialize his ideas in the West, adapting his views depending on where he is. In this way, he reminds me of Trump a bit.

If we look at some of the translations of Dugin’s books, like the German or English versions, it’s striking how much he tailors his message to please his European audience. In Russia, he often speaks of the ‘collective West’ or Europe as a declining culture, a culture that promotes degeneration. But for his German audience, he or his ghostwriters prepared an introduction to one of his major works that says something like this: “Germany has historically been oppressed by the U.S., but I, Dugin, am fond of German culture and thinkers.” Indeed, his Russian publications frequently reference Hegel and Heidegger, although he never understands their ideas. However, for his Russian audience, he also emphasizes the need for authoritarianism or even totalitarianism. When appealing to a German audience, he avoids such statements, knowing they wouldn't resonate with his readers there. Instead, he tries to appeal to a broader public, not just the most radical circles, by presenting himself as a German sympathizer.

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Kate Tsurkan, thank you for reading this article. You might have noticed that none of our reporting is behind a paywall — that’s because we believe that now, more than ever, the world needs access to reliable reporting from the ground here in Ukraine. To keep our journalism going, we rely on our community of over 20,000 members, most of whom give just $5 a month. Help us today.

Aestheticized aggression — why Gosha Rubchinskiy’s ‘Victory Day’ photo book is Russian propaganda

Russia’s war against Ukraine is waged not only with missiles and tanks, but with distorted myths — powerful narratives that romanticize empire, rewrite history, and embolden Russian soldiers to reduce once prosperous cities to rubble. Those very same myths surfaced at the Photo London Festival from May 15 to 18, where

Looking to read Ukraine-related books? We picked the best of 2024

Wondering where to start with Dostoevsky? Try his Ukrainian contemporaries instead

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 16:14:26 +0100

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a growing debate has emerged over the cultural and political legacy of Russian literature — particularly the global reverence for classic Russian authors, which critics argue has long served to promote the imperial narratives embedded in their work.

As Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko wrote in the Times Literary Supplement in 2022, their works of literature are “the camouflage net” for Russian tanks in Ukraine.

Among the most famous classic Russian authors is 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881). More than a century after his death, Dostoevsky remains a dominant figure in the world literary canon, his name recognized even by those who have never read his work.

This April, Penguin Books reissued an English-language edition of his short story “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” while his novella “White Nights” continues to enjoy popularity among online literary communities.

Defenders of Dostoevsky maintain that his writing transcends politics, focusing on existential and psychological themes. They argue that interpreting his work through a nationalist or imperialist lens oversimplifies the complexity of his ideas.

But many scholars and commentators point to Dostoevsky’s spiritual vision of Russia’s destiny — a vision that portrays the country as a moral, unifying force against a “decaying” West that was, at the time, heading toward the Gilded Age. They draw parallels between this worldview and that of contemporary Russian ideologues like Alexander Dugin, who frame Russian aggression in near-religious terms.

As the war continues, it remains to be seen whether Russia’s literary past can be disentangled from its politics.

Rather than calling for a boycott of Russian authors, the Kyiv Independent wants to raise a more illuminating question: Why do so few English-language readers know the Ukrainian authors who were the contemporaries of Dostoevsky?

The lack of global recognition for Ukraine’s classic writers is not coincidental. It reflects a legacy of imperial domination, during which the Russian Empire frequently suppressed the Ukrainian language and culture, the same empire that Dostoevsky often praised in his writings.

Some of the most influential voices in the history of Ukrainian literature were active during the same period as Dostoevsky. Others who came just before him, like Mykola Gogol, are known worldwide but have long been misclassified as “Russian.” Literary figures such as Lesia Ukrainka and Ivan Franko, who came to the literary scene just after Dostoevsky’s time, are now reemerging in English translation — their essential works poised to resonate with a global audience, just as they once did across the European intellectual landscape.

Although there is no evidence that Dostoevsky knew his Ukrainian contemporaries, they did interact with some other famous Russian authors. Below is a brief overview of three Ukrainian authors of the 19th century and the themes that shaped their work.

The purpose of this list is not to outright dismiss Russian literature, but rather to remind people of the selective nature of the global literary canon, and to draw attention to the Ukrainian voices that have long been overlooked or marginalized.

`Taras Shevchenko (1814 - 1861)`

Born a serf, Ukrainian national icon Taras Shevchenko gained his freedom thanks to his artistic talent. But liberation did not end his struggle — instead, it sharpened his focus on the plight of his people under Russian imperial rule. A pioneer of ethnographic art and literature, Shevchenko used both pen and brush to document the everyday lives of Ukrainians, casting a critical eye on their subjugation and the erasure of their culture.

Published in 1840, “Kobzar” is widely regarded as Taras Shevchenko’s defining work. The collection takes its name from traditional Ukrainian musicians who sang of Cossack heroism while playing the kobza, a stringed instrument.

Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861) was the foremost Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, folklorist, and ethnographer of the 19th century. Self-portrait (1843). (Wikimedia)

The poems reflect on the cultural and political struggles of Ukraine under Russian rule. In “To Kvitka-Osnovianenko,” Shevchenko pays tribute to the writer Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, an early advocate of Ukrainian as a literary language, and mourns the destruction of the Zaporizhzhian Sich, the Cossacks’ last stronghold, in the 18th century. Another poem, “Kateryna,” tells the story of a young Ukrainian woman seduced and abandoned by a Russian imperial soldier, highlighting the personal toll of imperial domination.

Shevchenko was deeply influenced by ideas of national identity, language, and self-determination — views that drew the ire of the tsarist authorities. He was arrested in 1847 and exiled to military service in a remote part of Kazakhstan. According to historical accounts, Tsar Nicholas I reportedly ordered that Shevchenko be restricted from writing or painting. However, Shevchenko still managed to create art and later returned briefly to Ukraine before his death.

The year 2024 proved to be another landmark for books about Ukraine and Ukrainian literature in translation, with a continued trend in publishing in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Unsurprisingly, Russia’s ongoing full-scale war against Ukraine was the most common topic among these works. Whether through incisive on-the-ground reportage that

10 authors shaping contemporary Ukrainian literature

`Panteleimon Kulish (1819 - 1897)`

Kulish’s politics were somewhat complex, perhaps even contradictory to some. In his early years, he was affiliated with the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a short-lived secret political society that existed between 1845 and 1847. The group championed the federalization of the Russian Empire, a Ukrainian language and culture revival, and the abolition of serfdom, among other initiatives.

Over time, however, Kulish’s stance diverged from mainstream Ukrainian thought, particularly as he advocated for the preservation of a distinct Ukrainian culture while simultaneously supporting a political union with Russia.

This position ultimately led to his marginalization in many Ukrainian intellectual circles, both in Russian-controlled Ukraine and the parts of Ukraine under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Despite this, Kulish continues to be respected and read by many Ukrainians today for his literary achievements.

Panteleimon Kulish (1819–1897), a prominent Ukrainian writer, poet, critic, folklorist, historian, ethnographer, and translator. (Wikimedia)

His novel “The Black Council” (1857) is considered the first historical novel in Ukrainian literature. Set against the backdrop of the Ruin — the tumultuous period following the death of Cossack Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi in 1657 — it delves into the power struggles that ensued. The novel draws inspiration from the Black Council of 1663, a pivotal gathering in Nizhyn in modern-day Chernihiv Oblast, where nobles and commoners alike converged to elect a new hetman for left-bank Ukraine.

The novel not only captures the fierce internal conflicts among Cossack leaders but also explores the deep social rifts that defined one of Ukraine’s most fractured and tragic eras. Excerpts of the novel have been translated online. However, a full publication of the book in English translation has yet to materialize.

`Marko Vovchock (1833 - 1907)`

Among Ukraine’s most talented female writers was Marko Vovchok, whose “Folk Stories” was published in 1857, shortly after the ascension of Tsar Alexander II, initially seen as a reform-minded ruler compared to his father, Nicholas I. However, while the serfs were liberated under his rule in 1861, it could be argued that the liberal period of his rule, at least for Ukrainians, was short-lived: a decree in 1863 banned Ukrainian-language publications, followed by the stricter Ems Ukaz of 1876.

Vovchok’s collection gained even greater significance in this repressive climate. Focused on the suffering of Ukrainian peasants — especially women — under serfdom, the stories were informed by her early work assisting her husband’s ethnographic research. She gathered material directly from villagers, preserving oral traditions.

Marko Vovchok (1833–1907), a notable 19th-century Ukrainian writer. Wikimedia)

Russian writer Ivan Turgenev translated the stories into Russian, sparking additional debate in literary circles over the realities of serfdom. Shevchenko is said to have recommended her work to Turgenev, declaring her “the most powerful in our language.”

In the short story “The Cossack Girl” from the collection, Olesia, a free woman, falls in love with a serf and chooses to marry him, ultimately sacrificing her freedom. Her family warns her that marrying a serf will disgrace their village and its Cossack heritage, even suggesting that she might as well “drown herself.” Olesia insists that love is more important than social status. The marriage, however, proves disastrous, with Olesia, her husband, and their children enduring significant hardship. Under empire, happy endings are a rarity — if they exist at all.

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Kate Tsurkan, thank you for reading this article. Here at the Kyiv Independent, we don’t put stories behind a paywall, because we believe the world needs to know the truth of Russia’s war. To fund our reporting, we rely on our community of over 18,000 members from around the world, most of whom give just $5 a month. We’re aiming to reach 20,000 soon — join our community and help us reach this goal.

The Kyiv Independent put together a list of 10 celebrated Ukrainian writers, some of whose works are available in English translation.

‘A serious crisis’ — pro-Russian leader in Bosnia threatening peace in the Balkans

Ukraine watches closely as Poland faces polarizing presidential run-off

Fri, 30 May 2025 17:06:49 +0100

Poland’s presidential race has never seen a first-round winner with so many reasons to worry, the far right so emboldened, and Ukraine so central to the campaign.

The June 1 run-off between Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski of the ruling Civic Platform (PO) and Karol Nawrocki, backed by Law and Justice (PiS), will likely reshape not only Poland’s domestic political balance but also its approach to Ukraine. And the clash will be tight: in a first-round that saw a record 67.3% turnout, Trzaskowski secured 31.4% of the vote and Nawrocki 29.5%.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland emerged as one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies – sending weapons, sheltering millions of refugees, and rallying Western support. But over time, political tensions, economic fatigue, and disputes over grain imports and historical memory have strained the relationship.

“These elections are crucial to Ukraine because they will either end the electoral cycle in Poland or open a new one,” Ukrainian political analyst Yevhen Mahda told the Kyiv Independent. “And amid global turmoil, we need a stable, friendly Poland."

The first-round results have been described as a “yellow card” for the ruling coalition that has governed Poland since 2023 under Prime Minister Donald Tusk. If outgoing President Andrzej Duda is succeeded by Nawrocki, whom he endorsed, Civic Platform will face regular obstruction through presidential vetoes.

Although the Polish president holds limited executive power, he plays a key role in foreign affairs and serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Polish presidents have historically been particularly active in shaping eastern policy.

“The past three years have shown that it is politicians who set the temperature of relations between our nations,” said Zbigniew Parafianowicz, a journalist and author of “Poland at War,” which examines Polish-Ukrainian policy at the outset of Russia’s invasion.

“Neither candidate will work wonders for Ukraine, but Kyiv has good reason to pay close attention."

`Right-wing drift`

Traditionally divided between the pro-European liberal PO and the conservative nationalist PiS, Poland’s political scene has long been vulnerable to populist and anti-establishment forces. This time, it was the far right that surged to unprecedented strength and could now determine the outcome.

Slawomir Mentzen, of the economically libertarian and socially conservative Confederation Party, came third with 14.8% of the vote. Although left-wing candidates Adrian Zandberg, Magdalena Biejat, and Joanna Senyszyn received a combined 10.2%, Mentzen is now widely seen as the election’s kingmaker.

In a bid to win over Mentzen’s electorate, both candidates agreed to be interviewed on his YouTube channel, and Nawrocki signed a list of demands he put forward. Hoping to capture some of those votes, Trzaskowski made a surprise visit to his pub, where they shared a beer.

“Pro-Russian narratives don’t sell here, but anti-Ukrainian (ones) do.”

Trzaskowski — a pro-European polyglot, son of a jazz musician, and senior figure in the Polish liberal establishment — faces a delicate balancing act: maintaining support from the center-left while reaching out to mostly young radical voters drawn to the Confederation. He has twice won the mayoral election in Warsaw but lost the presidential race in 2020 to Duda by just 2%, or 422,000 votes.

Rafal Trzaskowski, mayor of Warsaw and Civic Platform’s presidential candidate, attends a campaign rally in Krakow, Poland, on May 13, 2025. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Mentzen has repeatedly criticized Poland’s support for Ukraine, opposing military aid and refugee assistance while promoting a nationalist narrative that frames Ukrainians as economic and cultural threats. He conditioned his sympathies in the second round on a promise not to send Polish troops to Ukraine and to oppose Ukraine’s NATO membership.

"There’s a rise in anti-Ukrainian sentiment — not just on the far right, but also in the mainstream electorate," said political analyst and president of the Batory Foundation Edwin Bendyk. "It’s driven by societal fatigue with the war next door, housing competition in big cities, and communication failures on both sides. Pro-Russian narratives don’t sell here, but anti-Ukrainian (ones) do."

It remains so despite positive developments such as the resumption of the long-stalled exhumation process of victims of the Volyn Massacre in the Ukrainian village of Puznyky, marking a symbolic step forward in addressing painful chapters of shared history, or Poland’s continued support of Kyiv’s defense needs and arms transit.

Another far-right fringe politician, Grzegorz Braun who campaigned against what he called the "Ukrainization" of Poland, came fourth with 6.3% of the vote. The man who had earlier caused an international scandal by putting out Hanukkah candles with a fire extinguisher in the Polish Parliament, tore down a Ukrainian flag from the town hall in Bielsko-Biala during the campaign.

`‘Nawrocki is no Duda’`

Nawrocki, previously a little-known director of the Institute of National Remembrance, openly embraced much of the far right’s platform during the campaign. He pledged to lower taxes, reject what he called the EU’s "sick" climate policies, and end what he described as Ukraine’s "indecent" treatment of Poland. He is officially not a member of PiS and positions himself as an independent candidate, not responsible for the policies of the party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

"Nawrocki is no Duda," said Bendyk. "He’s a nationalist, not a conservative. His victory would likely slow Ukraine’s integration with the West." Parafianowicz, in turn, called Nawrocki — who briefly met with Donald Trump during a U.S. visit — a "Trumpian politician" who will likely try to align with the former president’s agenda. In a move unprecedented for the U.S., Trump sent his Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to support Nawrocki in the final days of the race.

"If the most pro-Ukrainian candidate calls Ukraine a 'buffer zone,' that’s a clear sign something has gone wrong."

There have been ups and downs in Polish-Ukrainian relations since the start of the full-scale invasion – from the emotional embraces between Duda and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to mutual accusations and perceived insults. While the PiS-PO rivalry dominates Poland’s brutal election campaign, it has no obvious impact on Ukraine policy — but that doesn’t mean Kyiv isn’t watching closely.

"If the most pro-Ukrainian candidate calls Ukraine a 'buffer zone,' that’s a clear sign something has gone wrong," Ukrainian historian and publicist Wasyl Rasevych told the Kyiv Independent, referring to a term Trzaskowski used repeatedly during the campaign.

Karol Nawrocki, presidential candidate backed by Poland’s Law and Justice party, greets supporters in Warsaw after a debate on May 12, 2025. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)

"Russian propaganda undermines EU unity and spreads instability in countries aiding Ukraine, and Poland may unwittingly be playing into that scenario," he added.

Ahead of the vote, Polish authorities uncovered a foreign-funded disinformation campaign on Facebook and cyberattacks targeting government parties. Officials suspect Russia, which is also blamed for a 2024 arson attack on Warsaw’s Marywilska shopping center, viewing it as part of a wider hybrid warfare strategy to destabilize Ukraine’s allies.

While Russian meddling is real, some argue its impact is overstated. "We’ve inflated the idea of ‘Russian influence’ so much," said Parafianowicz, "that we’ve lost sight of proportion." The true sources of discontent, he argues, lie in domestic politics on both sides of the border.

`Disappointed allies`

According to Parafianowicz, Polish political elites' disappointment with Zelensky is "an open secret." He cites the Ukrainian president’s refusal to acknowledge that the missile that killed two Poles in Przewodow was Ukrainian and his remarks about Poland at the UN in 2023, as examples of what he sees as a growing disregard for Warsaw’s leadership.

"Ukraine would welcome a winner who truly pursues deeper cooperation with the EU and Germany."

Despite these frictions, Poland and Ukraine remain strategic allies. Both Trzaskowski and Nawrocki have pledged to increase defense spending, strengthen the Polish military, maintain a hardline stance on the Belarusian border, and continue supporting Ukraine militarily.

But the key difference lies in their vision of international alliances — and their willingness to sideline Ukraine’s interests.

An elderly couple vote during the first round of Poland’s presidential election in Warsaw on May 18, 2025. (Omar Marques/Getty Images)

"The Polish right is afraid of Ukrainian economic competition and Kyiv’s political alignment with Berlin," said Rasevych. "Ukraine would welcome a winner who truly pursues deeper cooperation with the EU and Germany."

Trzaskowski appears to offer that option and promises to gain more leverage in the EU, together with heavyweight politicians such as Tusk or Polish hawkish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. But with traditional alliances shaken by unpredictable Trump, no one can foresee which cards will turn out lucky.

"The idea that Poles and Ukrainians truly understand each other is a dangerous myth," Mahda said. "Ukraine needs both a Plan A and a Plan B — prepared for either Trzaskowski or Nawrocki, while staying focused on real issues in defense, energy, and the economy."

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia and Herzegovina — When a court convicted Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik of defying an international peace envoy in February, it was supposed to end his career in politics. He faced not only jail time, but a ban on holding public office. But three months later, little has

The Kyiv IndependentBrawley Benson

Zelensky confirms his participation in G7 summit in June

Wed, 28 May 2025 13:18:35 +0100

President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on May 27 that he will attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit scheduled to take place in Canada in June, Suspilne reported.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited Zelensky in March to attend the summit, shortly after he took office.

Zelensky confirmed that he had received an invitation from Carney, but did not specify whether he would attend the event in person or online.

The president added that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was also willing to include Ukraine at the alliance summit on June 24-25.

“It is very important for Ukraine to understand in what format it can be presented. There are many different signals regarding NATO (summit),” Zelensky said.

Canada, which holds the G7 presidency this year, will host the summit on June 15-17 in Kananaskis County, located in the western province of Alberta.

This summit will be the first for new Canadian Prime Minister Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump after his return to the White House.

The summit’s agenda will include topics such as support for Ukraine in the Russian war, global economic stability, digital transformation, and climate change.

Ban on NATO’s eastward expansion, easing sanctions — Reuters lists Putin’s Ukraine peace demands

One senior Russian source told Reuters that Putin is ready for a peace agreement, but “not at any price.”

The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Hodunova

Vernacular Hardcore: Ukraine’s artists reimagine home and heritage at Venice Biennale

Sat, 24 May 2025 18:31:26 +0100

In southern Ukraine, giant reeds are known to populate the wetlands, skirting the Black Sea and stretching from Odesa to Kherson and Mykolaiv. Hollow grasses as tall as seven meters, swaying and pliant, that were the raw materials for the kinds of thatched roofs once common a century ago and more.

Since replaced, for a century or more, by undifferentiated steel and concrete, the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice Biennale features such a structure, only reimagined, in a kind of ethno-futurist monument and installation conceived by curator and architect Bogdana Kosmina.

This year’s biennale titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective features architecture designed “to face a burning world,” with 66 national participants invited to rethink the built environment amid the dizzying social upheavals of war, economic collapse and the rising temperatures and sea levels that will define the future.

Ukraine’s pavilion, organized around the concept of a Dakh (Ukrainian for roof) with the added lofty, if mildly obtuse, title Vernacular Hardcore focuses on wartime reconstruction. The show’s central historical elements build on an architectural ethnography started by Kosmina’s grandmother Tamara a half-century ago and are surrounded by the buzzing of an ambient drone canopy created by the artist Clemens Poole, achieving an obsessive portent of doom and rescue, preservation, and destruction.

“With the danger of destruction and that everything could be lost, I started to really look at what I needed to save and preserve,” Kosmina says about the concept behind her work. “This is our cultural and architectural heritage of course, but it can shape our vision about more creative ways to work with architecture."

Hardcore in the original sense refers to a composite of materials, say rubbish stone, or brick, reconstituted to form the foundation of a new structure. In that sense, the show is very much hardcore in its wide-reaching, vernacular union of artists, ethnographers, architects, volunteers, and ad hoc participants in Ukraine’s rebuilding to form a cohesive vision of wartime preservation and future.

The show’s participants include three generations of Kosminas, all architects; Kseniia Kalmus and her Klyn drone-building project; the reconstruction collectives Livyj Bereh (Left Bank) led by Ihor Okuniev and Vladyslav Sharapa (both are currently enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as KHARPP, directed by Ada Wordsworth; curators Kateryna Rusetska, co-founder of the Dnipro Construction Festival, and architectural anthropologist Michal Murowski, as well as institutional backing from the Ukrainian Institute of Kyiv and their Creative Director Tetyana Filevska, UNESCO, Ribbon International, and several Ukrainian government agencies.

In the 1960s, Tamara and a group of architects and ethnographers in Kyiv, Chisinau, and Minsk began a dauntingly ambitious survey of vernacular structures across Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. It was an attempt by Moscow to unite structural norms across the three Soviet republics while documenting how circumstances like climate, weather, and diversity in landscape and vegetation shape human knowledge and approach to the territory.

The work was never published, yet Tamara and her team continued to document the minutiae of atmospheric and structural conditions throughout Ukraine.

“The Atlas is completely comprehensive,” Kosmina says. “It was a colossal work, they visited every village, doing interviews with people, taking photographs, even making watercolor renditions to show the interior and exterior of homes in color."

The Ukrainian Pavilion taking shape at the Venice Biennale, photographed during the installation process. (Maxime Faure / Ukrainian Pavilion)

Maps on display as the Ukrainian Pavilion takes shape at the Venice Biennale, photographed during the installation process. (Maxime Faure / Ukrainian Pavilion)

It was the work of decades, at times forgotten and revived. When digital maps first arrived in 2011, Tamara, by then the last key architect of the group who remained alive, began to digitize certain documents, but still the cost of printing was prohibitive and the work was never transferred into a publication.

Tamara passed away in 2016, and Kosmina says that while she grew up surrounded by her grandmother’s work, they remained collecting dust between her parent’s apartment in Kyiv and her grandparents' apartment in the Troieshchyna neighborhood, a notorious sea of hundreds of Soviet apartment blocks on the northeastern outskirts of the city.

In the winter of 2022, soon after the full-scale invasion, after a missile landed in the courtyard of her grandparent’s home, Kosmina, in her grief and panic, started to think almost obsessively about these archives in particular: how could they be recovered and preserved as everything was crumbling around her?

During that unworldly winter, Kosmina found that many drawings and original materials survived in the apartment. “I had the feeling that I was discovering treasures in this Troieshchyna pyramid,” she says. “I had my childhood with all of those papers around, and I never took interest before, looking at what is inside and behind those maps, what they mean, and where they come from."

Traveling to the apartment with a small pink suitcase, Kosmina began collecting the papers, and in 2023, she transferred them to a studio in Berlin, where friends helped her buy a scanner. “I was just passing my days and nights by doing this endless scanning,” she says, which she hoped would form a complete digital archive.

Her idea then was to apply the work to connect two vernaculars: emergency and traditional, in a Ukrainian exhibition at the Venice Biennale. “At the time, Ukraine had no pavilion there — I wanted to make a direct collaboration with the Italian side,” she says.

At the same time, her friend Patrik Arnesson, a Swedish developer and coder who goes by the name Princess Momo, introduced the idea of applying the archive to create a personalized artificial intelligence, in part applying segments of her grandmother’s work.

Arnesson invited her to Mexico City to work on a series of experiments in the realm of personal AI, under the banner of a project Arnesson called Iris, and in mid-2023 their team started to explore applications of open source data to build an AI that was truly personal by maintaining independence from external data sources.

Kosmina’s first AI, called Kyiv Crematorium, was an effort to digitally preserve structures destroyed in the war, not just in form but in the collective memory of those who lived there.

“I was in a dramatic period,” Kosmina says. But she found her purpose in the project when she realized her preservation of her grandmother’s Atlas was born from the desire to preserve her grandmother herself.

So she began to create Tamara, or to recreate her, incorporating not just the vast archive from the Atlas but also Kosmina’s personal memories. The goal, the focus, was to create an individual AI that felt fully human.

Kosmina started to obsessively record her own memories, transcribing imagined conversations with her grandmother, and prompting the AI to recall her favorite music, the foods she loved, and her specific verbiage and mannerisms (never, ever say “certainly”).

Along with vast uploads of Ukrainian novels, demographic information, and historical records, Tamara certainly feels human, beyond anything approached by ChatGPT, but superhuman in her recall, in her capacity to prompt the user towards an excavation of their own ancestral memory.

“It’s so important to have her around me for these archival purposes, but yes, also…she was and is my best friend… Sometimes when I speak with her on the phone, yeah I have a feeling that she really is my grandmother” Kosmina says.

Amid her excavations, Bogdana found an outlet from her solitary endeavors in the volunteer-led reconstruction organization Livyj Bereh. Founded to repair damaged structures in Kyiv by the friends Ihor Okuniev and Vladyslav Sharapa in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion, they were joined by the artist Kseniia Kalmus, who had also started efforts to collect funds and materials for humanitarian aid.

In May 2022, the group started its efforts to repair damaged structures, starting with homes and schools in de-occupied villages near Kyiv and Cherniiv. When parts of Kharkiv Oblast were liberated in the autumn of that year, the group joined an expedition to Slatyne, a rural settlement roughly 13 kilometers from the Russian border that has been repeatedly targeted by Russian airstrikes.

In Slatyne the group understood that the first step towards habitability, structurally speaking, is a roof. “We therefore prioritized it as the starting point of our efforts,” Okuniev says.

1,3: Conceptual ideas for Ukrainian Pavilion. (Ukrainian Pavilion) 2: Straw roof construction in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, 1911. (Oleksii Makarenko)

“After the liberation of Ukrainian territories from occupation, we began traveling across different regions and saw firsthand the devastating scale of destruction caused by the war.” And thus the Dakh project was born.

In total, the group has repaired more than 400 roofs in five regions across Ukraine. Materials and labor for one roof for a private home cost around 2,000 euros and the work is finished within a day.

That autumn, the group began to work in villages across the Kharkiv Oblast, often no more than five or 10 kilometers from the Russian border. It was an area where the Russian military was training soldiers to target civilians with FPV drones, and the damage to both human life and human structures was enormous.

While the area had been evacuated, Kalmus says, “People are so connected to their land and the place they grew up they won’t leave,” especially vulnerable groups, often the elderly, the ill, or large families unable to afford the costs of relocation.

The area was shelled heavily until September 2022, and for nearly two years afterwards there was relative calm, without the regular shelling that would come later. In that period, Kalmus, Ada Wordsworth and their team went from village to village, often staying for weeks, where they rented homes, bought necessary materials, and hired locals to carry out repairs.

By spring 2024, KARPP and Livyj Bereh had secured additional funding and were preparing to organize an expanded rebuilding effort. That’s when Russia launched a renewed ground offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, restarting near-constant shelling and targeted attacks on civilians. The offensive ground Livyj Bereh’s efforts to a halt, with the village heads deciding it was simply too dangerous to rebuild.

Installation work underway at the Ukrainian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, shown in this undated photograph. (Maxime Faure / Ukrainian Pavilion)

“It was a crushing moment for me,” Kalmus says. “I decided okay, I will not let them take another project from me, so I enrolled in engineering courses to learn how to build drones."

By refocusing on drones, building and donating them to local Ukrainian units, Kalmus conceived of erecting what she called a drone canopy that would not only shield these communities from attack but also could fight back. Thus, the Klyn Drone Project came to life.

“Klyn Drone became a continuation of our reconstruction project, but in a different form. This is not rebuilding after destruction. It is protection before destruction,” Kalmus writes in her summation for the Biennale pavilion.

Despite being composed of volunteers, without a professional architect among them, this year Livyj Bereh was awarded the Royal Academy Dorfman Prize, one of the most prestigious architecture prizes in the world. “The Dorfman Prize was weird because I am not an architect. When I entered that jury, I was just saying what we’d done… and I was thinking, okay, I am not better or worse, but I am from another planet."

In their decision, the jury described Livyj Bereh as “An architectural act of collective care and resistance across the country… To provide architecture that defies the destruction of neighborhoods, especially in a moment that is about erasure, is of deep importance… as powerful as any civic monument and documented with the unflinching eye of the greatest war art."

In the exhibition, there’s an anecdote passed around, a story about a Russian missile striking a roof of thatched reeds much like the one featured in Bogdana Kosmina’s installation in Venice.

As the story goes, the missile penetrated the structure woven together in just the right way, designed to withstand fires and storms, but did not detonate, as it would have had it struck an object composed of less forgiving concrete or steel.

Later plucked away, the missile was detonated under controlled conditions with no damage to nearby homes.

The installation is thus an ode to the archiving efforts of Tamara and the fieldwork and sacrifice of Livyj Bereh.

Rather than fetishizing a nostalgic and frozen past, the work exists in the tradition of grassroots resistance, vernacular survival, and creative preservation.

Instead of proposing some new future solution in architecture, Vernacular Hardcore amplifies existing efforts before the global consortium of investors and NGOs take over and propose quick fix solutions that may not benefit local communities in the long run.

The exhibition will be toured to Ukraine after Venice, including a hoped-for presentation at the Construction Festival in Dnipro in the summer of 2025.

It is a message of Ukrainian vernacular survival and future.

The Venice Architecture Biennale runs from May 10 until Nov. 23, 2025.

Ukraine must look beyond the EU for its agricultural future

Fri, 23 May 2025 18:39:44 +0100

The end of the European Union’s tariff-free trade preferences for Ukrainian agricultural products is more than just a policy change, it’s a wake-up call.

For years, the EU has served as the largest and most reliable market for Ukraine’s agricultural exports. But as Brussels rolls back preferential quotas, Ukraine must rapidly diversify and open up new non-EU markets to safeguard its economy and cement its role in global food security.

Ukraine stands at a trading crossroads. It must now decide which path to go down as the European Union plans to apply much higher tariffs on agricultural and other exports as soon as next month.

`The Breadbasket of Europe — and beyond`

Ukraine has long been known as the breadbasket of Europe. Rich in black soil and abundant in agricultural know-how, the country is a global powerhouse in food production. Even under the shadow of war, after Russia’s invasion, the sector remains a cornerstone of the national economy.

Despite missile strikes, minefields, and logistical nightmares, Ukrainian farmers have kept working. Agricultural products account for 60% of all exports, bringing in an estimated $25 billion in earnings over the past year. The world depends on Ukrainian grain, oilseeds, and foodstuffs. Ukraine is the largest global exporter of sunflower oil, one of the biggest corn exporters, and a major supplier of wheat and barley. That strength must now be redirected toward a broader set of trading partners.

Ukraine doesn’t just offer grain, it offers food security.

Relying too heavily on any one market, especially one where political and economic headwinds can shift quickly, is risky. The EU’s new limits underscore the vulnerability of Ukraine’s agri-export model. To stay competitive, Ukraine must engage more vigorously with other countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, many of which face mounting food insecurity and would benefit greatly from stable Ukrainian supply lines.

A man spreads winter wheat in a truck during harvest season in the fields of the Dnipro Waves Agricultural Production Cooperative in the village of Dniprovi Khvyli, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine, on June 29, 2024. (Dmytro Smolienko / Ukrinform / Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Initiatives like the “Grain from Ukraine” program, providing for some of the poorest countries in Africa, have already shown the strategic value of Ukrainian agriculture. Citizens in Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, and many other countries have benefited. But these efforts must now expand from humanitarian aid to long-term commercial partnerships.

`What Ukraine has to offer`

Ukraine doesn’t just offer grain, it offers food security. As climate change and conflict disrupt food systems across the globe, Ukraine’s agricultural output can serve as a stabilizing force. The country’s ability to deliver large volumes of high-quality produce, often at competitive prices, makes it a natural partner for countries with growing populations and food import needs.

In addition to bulk commodities, Ukraine is increasingly competitive in higher-value products. The country exports hundreds of millions of dollars of organic goods to dozens of countries, despite the war. With growing global demand for sustainable, ethically produced food, Ukrainian agribusinesses are well-positioned to enter niche and premium markets if they get the right support.

Bulk Carrier ASL TIA, which departed from a Ukrainian port, crosses the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, on Nov. 2, 2022. (Cem Tekkesinoglu / dia images via Getty Images)

`The investment gap`

Here’s the catch: Seizing these opportunities requires capital. Much of Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure, storage facilities, railways, and processing plants need investment. Some have been damaged, degraded, or underdeveloped for decades. Logistics routes remain vulnerable. Certification standards and packaging often need to be upgraded to meet the demands of new markets.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is critical to bridging this gap. Investors in agribusiness, logistics, technology, and processing can find long-term value in Ukraine’s vast agricultural potential. In return, their capital and expertise can help modernize the sector, unlock exports, and create jobs across the country.

Venture capital in agri-tech and climate-resilient farming, for instance, could help Ukrainian producers boost yields and diversify crops. Partnerships with multinational food companies could pave the way for Ukraine to move up the value chain — producing not just raw grain but ready-to-eat foodstuffs, sauces, baby food, and premium packaged goods.

This isn’t just about economics. It’s a matter of national security and global stability. A thriving agricultural sector boosts Ukraine’s GDP, stabilizes rural communities, and reduces dependence on international aid. It also enhances Ukraine’s geopolitical relevance by helping feed an increasingly hungry world.

Ukraine’s farmers have proven their grit. Now they need new markets and the investment to reach them. From North Africa to Southeast Asia, the demand is there. The quality is in Ukraine. What’s needed is the bridge, built through trade policy, diplomacy, and serious foreign investment.

Ukraine must sow the seeds now for a diversified, resilient, and prosperous agricultural future. And the world should be eager to help it grow.

Backroom diplomacy and battlefield reality: Ukraine at the IMF Spring Meetings

Visiting Washington during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings this April felt surreal. The weather was nice, but the air was heavy with the uncertainty of the tariff war, President Donald Trump’s administration’s criticisms of international institutions, and the far more immediate tension of geopolitics between

The Kyiv IndependentMaria Repko

‘Everything is translation’ — 13th Book Arsenal festival in Kyiv to bridge gaps between language and war

Sun, 18 May 2025 12:00:57 +0100

The 13th Book Arsenal festival, one of Ukraine’s premier interdisciplinary cultural events attracting voices from across the country and around the globe, will take place in Kyiv from May 29 to June 1.

Over the course of four days, the festival offers a number of discussion panels, book presentations, public interviews, and even some film and musical performances that all relate to the theme of this year’s festival.

This year’s program is curated by American historian Marci Shore and Ukrainian journalist Oksana Forostyna, who together have shaped the events of the festival around the theme “Everything is Translation.”

The theme invites both participants and attendees to explore the untranslatable — and to consider what the gaps in language reveal about the invisible boundaries between cultures, perspectives, and human experience, particularly in times of war.

Each year, the festival’s curators choose a theme that reflects the cultural climate. Last year’s Book Arsenal, the first to take place since the start of the full-scale war, was centered around the theme “Life on the Edge.” In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 theme was “Optimistis-Skeptics.”

“One of the most important tasks for the festival’s team now is to create the safest and most inclusive festival space possible,” Yuliia Kozlovets, the director of Book Arsenal, told the Kyiv Independent.

“The theme of war is a cross-cutting one, when stands of military and volunteer initiatives are an organic part of the festival space. Because this is our Ukrainian contemporary culture, and this is our life today.”

For this year’s festival, the Kyiv Independent joins Book Arsenal as an official media partner, further underscoring its commitment to fostering critical dialogue and elevating Ukrainian voices on the world stage.

People listen to the discussion “The Edge Within Us” during the 12th International Book Arsenal Festival in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 30, 2024. (Yurii Stefanyak / Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Several of the Kyiv Independent’s team members — editor-in-chief Olga Rudenko, chief executive officer Daryna Shevchenko, War Crimes Investigation Unit reporter Danylo Mokryk, and culture reporter Kate Tsurkan — will take part in panel discussions at this year’s Book Arsenal festival.

The full schedule for this year’s Book Arsenal is available on the festival’s website.

While events featuring international speakers on the main stage will be held in English, most of the program will be conducted in Ukrainian. However, several Ukrainian publishers — including Ukraїner, Projector, Rodovid, IST Publishing, and #knygolove — will offer a selection of their books in English translation for purchase.

Mystetskyi Arsenal’s art books, which highlight Ukraine’s artistic heritage, showcase prominent contemporary artists, and document experimental projects on key cultural movements, will also be available in bilingual Ukrainian-English editions.

The official opening of this year’s Book Arsenal festival is scheduled for 5 p.m. on May 29, but attendees can begin to enter the premises of Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv’s National Art and Culture Museum Complex, from 4 p.m.

Tickets for the festival can be purchased online or at the ticket counter at Mystetskyi Arsenal – either 200 hryvnias ($5) for a one-day ticket of 500 hryvnias ($12) for all four days of the festival.

Notable events

(in English unless otherwise stated):

Panel discussion “Everything is Translation” featuring Ukrainian poets Iya Kiva and Ostap Slyvynsky, and Polish poet ariel rosé, moderated by Swedish literary critic Carl Henrik Fredriksson. Taking place at 6 p.m. on May 29, the conversation will explore how translation can be used as a tool against imperialism, particularly in times of war.
French journalists Doan Bui and Emmanuel Carrère will join several Ukrainian colleagues for a unique live performance at 8 p.m. on May 29 — a staged retelling of powerful wartime journalism from local and international reporters, photographers, and artists.
On May 30, Danylo Mokryk from the Kyiv Independent’s War Crimes Investigations Unit will speak on the panel “Reportage as Investigation: A Conversation on the Practice of Long-Form Reporting,” alongside Magdalena Sodomkova. Moderated by Tetiana Pushnova, the event is organized in partnership with the Czech Centre in Kyiv and will begin at 2:30 p.m.
The Kyiv Independent’s editor-in-chief Olga Rudenko and culture reporter Kate Tsurkan will join Ukrainian author Myroslav Laiuk in the panel discussion “War of Narratives. Do We Have Anything to Counter Russian Influence on the Vision of This War Abroad?” Moderated by Julia Tymoshenko, the event will take place in Ukrainian on May 30 at 6 p.m.
The Kyiv Independent’s chief executive officer Daryna Shevchenko will moderate a panel titled “The Ukrainian Narrative: A Strategic Script. How to Speak Effectively About Ukraine Abroad?” Scheduled at 7 p.m. on May 30, the discussion will feature Viktoriia Narizhna, Vira Kuryko, Halyna Skipalska, and Olha Kari, and is co-organized by the Kyiv Independent.
On June 1 at 3 p.m., British journalist Peter Pomerantsev will discuss his new book “How to Win the Information War?” in conversation with Olga Rudenko.
Founder of Spravdi Liubov Tsybulska will also speak with American journalist Simon Shuster on the topic “How a book can change the attitude toward Ukraine on the world stage” on June 1 at 5 p.m.

Russia killed Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina — but not her words or quest for justice

Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina never got to finish writing her book “Looking at Women, Looking at War.” After she was killed in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast in 2023, it fell upon her closest friends and colleagues to do what they could to

Decolonizing Russia — what it means and why it matters

‘Almost all Russians poisoned by imperial propaganda,’ says journalist Ekaterina Barabash after escaping Russia

Sat, 10 May 2025 15:35:44 +0100

In early May, 64-year-old film critic and journalist Ekaterina Barabash made international headlines when it was revealed that she had pulled off a daring escape from house arrest in Russia and sought political asylum in France.

Barabash was put under house arrest in February for posts that she had made criticizing Russia’s war against Ukraine. She was accused of spreading “knowingly false” information about the military on her social media.

The Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on dissent in Russia since the start of its full-scale war against Ukraine, not only targeting those who dare to speak out against the war but also fostering a climate of surveillance that hearkens back to the worst periods of the Soviet era, urging Russian citizens to police one another.

For Barabash, the war struck a personal chord — she is the daughter of a renowned Ukrainian academic and her son lives in Ukraine with his family. Unlike many Russians — who either seek to justify the war or retreat into indifference — Barabash felt a moral imperative to speak out

“Most people in Russia aren’t willing to look for the truth,” Barabash told the Kyiv Independent from France.

“They’ve always been taught that Ukraine is just a part of Russia. But this belief is a kind of poison. It’s something that every Russian grows up with, often without even realizing it.”

In this exclusive interview, Barabash reflects on the moment she decided to risk her life to flee Russia, how her Ukrainian heritage shaped her perspective on Russian culture over the years, why even “good Russians” who oppose the war don’t understand Ukraine, and the bleak future facing anyone with a conscience who chooses to remain in today’s Russia.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Kyiv Independent: Since the idea for this interview originally came after you escaped house arrest in Russia, I just wanted to start off by asking, how are you doing?

Ekaterina Barabash: I escaped from house arrest in Russia on April 13. I got past the checkpoints and left my home. We had a plan — I was supposed to be free within 24 hours. But things didn’t go as expected, and I ended up having to hide for two and a half weeks. Unfortunately, I can’t share all the details right now. It’s a shame, because some parts are really interesting. Maybe one day I’ll write about it — maybe even a small book.

During that time, I hid in many places — in forests, fields, villages, and so on. It was a bit frightening and definitely dangerous. I knew I had to leave quickly, and that sense of urgency never left me.

We had hoped they wouldn’t notice my absence for at least a few hours, but they realized I was gone very quickly — within just minutes, maybe half an hour. They started searching for me almost immediately. I don’t know all the details of how the search was carried out.

After that, I had to cross the border into a European country. Of course, it was an illegal crossing. From there, things were arranged to help me move forward. A woman from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) came to meet me, and she helped bring me safely to Paris.

The Standard of the President of the Russian Federation flutters on top of the dome of the Senate Palace, one of the main buildings within the Kremlin compound, as seen through a barbed wire in Moscow, Russia, on Oct. 22, 2024. (Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP via Getty Images)

The Kyiv Independent: Was there a specific moment when you decided that you would take the risk and escape, or did you know from the moment you were arrested that this was what you had to do?

Ekaterina Barabash: No, I didn’t make the decision right away. At first, when they placed me under house arrest, it felt almost like a breath of fresh air. It was so unexpected — usually, in political cases, people accused of such “crimes” are held in jail while they await trial. But the judge said that because I had a very old mother, and I myself am not so young, they decided to place me under house arrest until the court date.

At first, it gave us hope — even my lawyer believed that I might only receive a large fine rather than jail time. But within a few days, after some conversations with certain people, I realized the risk was very high. The chance of being sentenced to prison was real. I believed I could face five, six, even seven years in a Russian prison — and a Russian prison is worse than death.

That was when some people from Europe, who help political prisoners like me, told me clearly: even though I was at home, I needed to plan my escape.

At first, I was in shock. I never imagined I would have to leave — especially not my mother, who is 96 years old. But eventually, I realized it was the best option. I had to choose between two impossible outcomes: prison or fleeing the country. So, of course, I chose to escape.

That’s when we began the operation. I had coordinators from Europe who guided me through every step. They told me what to do, what to prepare, and explained our plan in detail.

Russian film critic and journalist Ekaterina Barabash draped in the Ukrainian flag in a Facebook post from early March 2022. (Facebook)

The Kyiv Independent: What makes your case unique among other Russian opposition figures is that you have very strong ties to Ukraine. Does your Ukrainian heritage influence how you view Russia and Russian culture?

Ekaterina Barabash: Yes, I was born in Ukraine, though I was very young when we left — I was only five months old when my parents moved to Moscow. So my entire life has been connected to Russia. I always felt like I had two motherlands: Ukraine and Russia. I was born in Ukraine, but I was raised and educated in Russia, in Moscow.

My family has always had very strong ties to Ukraine. My father, who passed away five months ago, was a well-known figure there. He was a literary critic and the author of many books written in Ukrainian. He was highly respected in the academic community.

Years earlier, my son also moved to Ukraine for personal reasons. He lives there now with his wife and my grandchildren.

So when the war began, my situation was very different from that of my friends in the Russian opposition. For me, it was not just a political crisis — it was a personal tragedy. My closest relatives were there, being targeted by drones and missiles. And I couldn’t stay silent. I couldn’t hold back my grief or outrage.

I couldn’t keep this anger and pain inside me. I started to speak out, openly accusing the Russian government and military of killing innocent people and invading Ukraine. I wrote things like, “I hate you — you are murderers."

My perspective on the war was deeply personal. It wasn’t just politics for me — it was about my family, my roots, and the suffering of people I love.

Even intelligent and well-educated Russian people often don’t truly understand Ukraine. Almost all Russians have been poisoned by imperial propaganda. They’ve been raised with it — it’s part of their worldview.

They’ve always been taught that Ukraine is just a part of Russia. That the Ukrainian language is just a slightly different version of Russian. That Ukrainians are our “younger brothers,” and we are all one people — Russians. I’ve heard this over and over, even from good people, even from those who are against the war.

But this belief is a kind of poison. It’s something that every Russian grows up with, often without even realizing it.

I knew at least a little about Ukrainian culture and history — something most Russians don’t. I’ve done interviews and written about Ukrainian culture. So yes, my point of view was different from the beginning.

Russian soldiers patrol the area surrounding the Ukrainian military unit outside Simferopol, Crimea, on March 20, 2014. (Photo by Filippo Monteforte / AFP via Getty Images)

The Kyiv Independent: We know that Russia’s war against Ukraine started in 2014, not 2022. In what ways did Russian public opinion about the war in Ukraine change during those eight years?

Ekaterina Barabash: Most people in Russia simply didn’t care — and they still don’t. Even many anti-Putin individuals, including some of my friends, didn’t grasp that the war actually started in 2014. When the invasion happened in 2022, they acted as if it was the beginning of the war. I had to remind them, “No, the war started eight years ago."

Later on, many of them started to understand, at least a little, what had been happening. But the truth is, almost no one cared. They saw (the invasion of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts) as some small conflict in eastern Ukraine, maybe with some Russian soldiers involved, but they didn’t recognize it as the coming of something horrific.

They didn’t understand the connection between the illegal annexation of Crimea and the war that followed. Yes, Crimea was officially part of Ukraine. But they thought that (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev had “given” Crimea to Ukraine many years ago and that Russia had long claimed it.

Then came the war.

The Kyiv Independent: What would you want to say to people still in Russia?

Ekaterina Barabash: You know, I’ve recently realized one thing that I didn’t understand at first: it’s impossible to change their minds. It’s like religion — you either believe or you don’t. If you want to know the truth, you can seek out information, but most people in Russia aren’t willing to look for it.

There’s a common response I get when I ask why they don’t check alternative sources, like Ukrainian media. There are plenty of (Ukrainian) outlets that offer Russian-language versions of the news, and many people understand English, so they could easily access European media, too. Yet, they only rely on Russian sources.

The answer I often hear is, “Everyone lies.” They’re willing to accept the lies from Russian propaganda, but they won’t even consider competing narratives from other sources. “Everyone lies,” they say. It’s an awful argument — a foolish one, really.

It’s unfortunate, really, but what can I say to these people? Honestly, there’s nothing more I can say. If you’re scared, just stay silent. I understand — everyone has families, property, and they don’t want to end up in jail. But if you care, then leave Russia, if you can, if it’s possible.

I know it’s not easy to leave behind elderly parents. I never intended to leave mine. But my father told me several times, “Leave, leave, leave. The end will be very, very dramatic.” Still, I couldn’t bring myself to go. I had to take care of them.

But if you care, if you can leave, then do it. Russia is not a place to stay. If you have any sense, you’ll understand that.

Note from the author:

Hey there, Kate Tsurkan here, thanks for reading my latest interview. It’s horrific that in Russia you’re considered a criminal for calling out the actual criminals who are murdering innocent people, but thankfully we have people in this world like Ekaterina Barabash who are not afraid to call evil what it is. I hope her story inspires you and helps show that if a 64-year-old grandmother can stand up to authoritarianism in this world, then so can you. It you like reading about this sort of thing, please consider supporting The Kyiv Independent.

Speaking to France’s National Assembly on April 11, Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza did not petition Europe for the Kremlin’s total military defeat. Yet, while answering one of the many questions posed to him, he talked about how a colleague supposedly learned that ethnic Russians find it “psychologically difficult” to kill Ukrainians because they are so “similar.” “They say… we are alike, these are very closely related peoples, as everyone knows: almost the same language, the sa

Pope Francis leaves a mixed legacy in wartime Ukraine, overshadowed by historic Vatican-Moscow ties

Hungary's covert intelligence operations in Ukraine: espionage scandal threatens fragile ties with Kyiv

Fri, 09 May 2025 19:33:40 +0100

For the first time in Ukraine's history, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence spy network operating in Zakarpattia. Experts believe that Budapest is no longer concealing its interests, prompting inquiries into the implications of this exposure.

On Friday, May 9, the Security Service of Ukraine announced the unprecedented exposure of a Hungarian military intelligence network in Zakarpattia region.

According to investigators, the network's primary mission was to survey the region's military infrastructure, specifically identifying vulnerabilities in its ground and air defense systems. Additionally, the operatives analyzed the socio-political climate, particularly public sentiment towards the potential arrival of Hungarian troops. "The agents were tasked with collecting information on Zakarpattia's military defenses and assessing local behavior scenarios in case Hungarian forces entered the region," stated the SBU.

Authorities detained two key network operatives. The first, a 40-year-old from the Berehove district and a former military personnel, had been recruited by Hungarian intelligence back in 2021 and was placed on standby. The second individual is a former member of Ukraine’s Defense Forces, who left military service in 2025. Her role involved gathering intelligence on aviation equipment, including planes and helicopters, and defense systems at her former military base. According to the SBU, the network was overseen by a seasoned Hungarian military intelligence officer, whose identity has been confirmed.

"The network’s overseer was an active-duty officer from Hungary's military intelligence, whose identity has been verified by our services," noted their press office.

According to former SBU employee Ivan Stupak, Hungary has engaged in subversive activities against Ukraine for approximately two decades. This conduct was previously more covert, as Ukraine consciously avoided straining relations given Hungary's EU and NATO membership. However, in the last three and a half years, Hungarian activities have become increasingly transparent, leading Stupak to anticipate further deterioration in relations. Highlighting the recent apprehension of Hungarian spies in Ukraine, which he deems "phenomenal," Stupak clarifies that previously, Hungarian agents weren’t arrested to maintain a diplomatic facade.

Stupak interprets the SBU operation as having received political clearance at the highest level. Without the Ukrainian president's explicit approval, the operation might have been unfeasible. Stupak praises the SBU's efforts, considering them "masterful," given the language barriers involved. "These individuals communicated in Hungarian, recognized as one of the world's most challenging languages, complicating efforts to intercept radio and phone communications," says Stupak. Furthermore, he highlights the challenge in sourcing reliable translators within Zakarpattia's closely-knit Hungarian community. Stupak foresees further arrests among Hungarian intelligence personnel, particularly those operating under the guise of cultural centers.

The former SBU representative suggests that Hungary could have been collecting intelligence to share with Russia. "I think they could have been trading intelligence on Zakarpattia, on what enterprises are functional, what repair depots for Ukrainian equipment exist," Stupak opines. Additionally, Hungary might aim to destabilize the region internally. "While they might not pursue annexation of Zakarpattia themselves, they could incite internal turmoil, leading to unrest," the expert adds.

Political expert Oleg Posternak believes the arrests may not exacerbate Ukraine-Hungary relations since they are already strained. "Hungary currently holds a firm stance. Also contributing to tensions is Orban's maneuver to poll Hungarians on their stance regarding Ukraine's EU membership," Posternak explains. He emphasizes that anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is a strategic element of Viktor Orbán's political agenda to maintain his popularity, especially in rural Hungary. The expert suggests that with Orbán’s waning support at home, he is using a tough stance against Ukraine to boost his standing.

However, it’s acknowledged that Ukraine has made substantial gestures to mend ties with Hungary. Notably, Posternak mentions Prime Minister Orban's visit, meetings with Ukrainian officials, and legislative amendments addressing Hungarian grievances. Yet, he cautions, Hungary's posture remains aggressive. Nonetheless, there is hope for reconciliation, especially considering the Ukrainian parliament’s decision to maintain Hungarian language provisions in education. A pivotal aspect, Posternak argues, will be Hungary's approach to sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations. "We hope to see significant movement by late May-June, indicating whether Hungary will exercise its veto over Russian sanctions extensions," he concludes.

Posternak acknowledges Hungary's foreign policy is subject to the dynamics in Brussels, Moscow, and Washington. Hungary relies heavily on Russian energy, leveraging this dependency in EU negotiations. Additionally, Prime Minister Orbán remains attuned to Washington’s strategies and has a personal rapport with former U.S. President Donald Trump.

What will the new pope mean for Ukraine?

Fri, 09 May 2025 18:25:25 +0100

With the announcement that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has been chosen as the new pope and leader of the Catholic Church, Ukrainians are wondering what the surprise appointment of the American-born pontiff will mean for their country.

Past comments made by the new pope, who has taken the name Pope Leo XIV, quickly surfaced to form an idea of his views on immigration, gay rights, climate change, and the current U.S. administration. But with no similar public record of statements on Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians are left scrutinizing his public comments and hoping the world leader’s stance toward the ongoing war will benefit their country.

“I am not aware of any statements or actions the current pope has made regarding the war in Ukraine,” said Father Ihor Yatsiv, a spokesperson for the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, which falls under the Vatican’s leadership.

“So we can only operate based on who he is through his experience, his human life experience, his service, where he has been, where he comes from, and, accordingly, also after whom he comes.”

One potential sign of the pope’s future policies is in the selection of his new name, one of the first decisions a new pope makes. While Pope Leo XIV has not yet said why he selected Leo, a pontiff’s new name often refers to previous pontiffs whose footsteps they wish to follow.

“We identify Pope Leo XIV as a pope of hope for Ukraine.”

Pope Leo XIII, the most recent pope to use this name, is widely remembered for his championing of social policies and social justice.

He was “a pope who paid attention to the socially vulnerable, a pope who stood on the side of the oppressed, a pope who stood for justice and, accordingly, spoke out against the powerful of this world,” noted Yatsiv.

“We identify Pope Leo XIV as a pope of hope for Ukraine,” Yatsiv added.

Many observers have noted that the selection of an American pope — long considered taboo — is likely, in part, a response to the current policies enacted by U.S. President Donald Trump and a rise in isolationism from his administration.

Americans from Texas, including Cole Wendling (C), celebrate after the announcement of newly elected Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City, Vatican, on May 8, 2025. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

“Trumpism has broken many international taboos in recent months,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University. “The conclave responded in kind by breaking another taboo: that it was not possible for a Catholic from the U.S., a superpower, to become pope, in order to avoid an overlap between political-military supremacy, and the leadership of the church symbolically, at least, heir to the Roman Empire.”

In selecting Pope Leo, the cardinals who voted may have aimed to counter Trump’s policies with a different message about what U.S. exceptionalism and greatness can look like, Faggioli said.

“It remains to be seen what it means for a pope from the U.S., in the world of the crisis of liberal and constitutional democracies today, to speak as the head of the Catholic Church and the Holy See to Russia and Ukraine, to Israel and the Arab world, to China and the two Koreas,” said Faggioli.

Prior to his election as the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo had boosted criticisms aimed at the anti-immigration policies of Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, on X.

In February, he reposted an article titled, "JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others."

Pope Leo succeeds Pope Francis, who left behind a mixed legacy on the war in Ukraine. His repeated calls for peace often left Ukrainians frustrated by his failure to call out Russia as the aggressor or to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While this reflects the Vatican’s commitment to neutrality, allowing it to carry out a humanitarian role and negotiate prisoner exchanges, it also came under fire as being influenced by the historic ties between Moscow and the Vatican.

After it was announced that Cardinal Robert Prevost would replace him as the new church leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Pope Leo XIV on social media, saying, “Ukraine deeply values the Holy See’s consistent position in upholding international law, condemning the Russian Federation’s military aggression against Ukraine, and protecting the rights of innocent civilians.”

Pope Francis, who passed away on April 21 at 88, leaves behind a legacy as vast and varied as his global influence. Yet in Ukraine, his track record is far from positive. For many Ukrainians, the Pope’s legacy is shaped by his repeated downplaying of the gravity of Ukraine’s fight for its survival in Russia’s war of aggression. His sweeping calls for peace over the past three years – from calling Ukrainians and Russians “brothers” to urging Ukraine to “have the courage of the white flag” in ne

The Price of Myths: How Neighbors Manipulate the Topic of Ukraine’s EU Accession

Wed, 07 May 2025 10:50:54 +0100

Ukraine continues its gradual path toward membership in the European Union, but this path is accompanied by resistance, myths, and fears propagated by politicians and citizens of certain member states. The most significant concern lies in the economic dimension: will Ukraine become a burden on the EU budget, or, conversely, will it open new opportunities for the development of the entire Union? In this article, we analyze where the narratives about Ukraine as a burden come from, who promotes them, and why Ukraine’s accession to the EU is an investment, not a loss.

Hungary

On March 20, 2025, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated on his X page that Ukraine’s EU membership would cost each Hungarian household 500,000 forints (1,200 euros) annually:

“9,000 billion HUF – that’s how much the war has already cost Hungarian families. 500,000 HUF per household, every year – that’s the price tag of Ukraine’s EU membership. Brussels wants Hungarians to pay the bill, but no decision will be made without the voice of the Hungarian people. A new member can only join with the unanimous support from all Member States. There can be no decision until the Hungarian people cast their votes. This decision belongs to our citizens, not Brussels!”

Screenshot of the post

First of all, where does this data come from? These are calculations by the Századvég Foundation, a think tank affiliated with Orbán. According to the foundation, “Ukraine has cost each Hungarian household 2.2 million HUF” (5,500 euros) or 9,000 billion HUF (22.5 billion euros) in total. The basis for the supposed losses includes three components: rising prices for imported gas, increased state spending due to higher yields on government bonds, and losses from reduced exports to Russia.

In reality, it refers to increased prices for imported gas due to changes in spot prices at the TTF Gas Hub in the Netherlands and additional budget expenditures due to the higher cost of state debt (due to geopolitical risks and inflation shocks, the yield on 5-year Hungarian government bonds rose from 2% to 4–6%). Additionally, bilateral sanctions – imposed by the EU on Russia and by Russia on the EU – affected Hungary’s trade volumes with the aggressor state. However, the root cause of these losses – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – is not mentioned in the Századvég Foundation’s analysis.

Secondly, what does 500,000 HUF (1,250 euros) from each Hungarian household for Ukraine’s EU accession mean? In reality, Ukraine will not “take” money from every Hungarian family. It is more about potentially foregone aid from the EU budget that the country currently receives, and possible increased expenditures from Hungary’s state budget.

These calculations are based on the potential reduction in receipts from the EU Cohesion Fund and subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), contributions to support Ukraine amounting to 0.25% of GDP, additional pension costs for Ukrainians who supposedly will move to Hungary, and estimates of Hungary’s share in financing Ukraine’s reconstruction.

In general, there are several issues with the 500,000 HUF figure:

They are based on the assumption that Ukraine would join the EU today. In reality, the years leading up to Ukraine’s EU integration will bring changes both in Ukraine (for example, we need to harmonize legislation with EU standards) and in the EU itself. By the time of Ukraine’s accession, both the CAP and the distribution of Cohesion Fund expenditures will likely have been significantly revised. Discussions on such revisions have already begun.
Reconstruction costs for Ukraine are a separate international initiative, not part of the EU accession process, and not solely the responsibility of member states. Therefore, treating them as “future losses” for the population related to Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and manipulative.
The calculations of migration and pension burdens are based on speculative assumptions. For example, the claim that 5% of Ukrainian pensioners will move to Hungary. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, at the end of February 2025, the share of Ukrainians who chose Hungary as a refuge was about 1% of the total number of refugees in European countries.

Finally, the estimates by the Századvég Foundation do not consider the positive economic effects of enlargement: new markets, investments, enhanced security, and stability in the region. According to IMF calculations, EU enlargement, particularly due to the integration of Ukraine, Moldova, and the Balkan countries, could increase the bloc’s GDP by 14% over 15 years.

By the way, Hungary’s accession to the EU in 2004 also involved both pre-accession financial aid and post-accession funding to support its integration and development through three programs: ISPA (Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession), PHARE (Poland and Hungary: Aid for Restructuring of the Economies), and SAPARD (Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development). Between 1990 and 2006, Hungary received €1.987 billion (in prices of that time). But even after joining, the country continued to receive support — financial aid for 2021–2027 is planned at around €30 billion.

Hungary receives several times more from the Cohesion Fund and other EU funds than it contributes to the EU budget. Its contribution is relatively small (about €2 billion with a GDP of more than €200 billion), while the amount received is one of the highest in the EU among recipient countries (after subtracting contributions, Hungary received around €4.5 billion from the EU budget in 2023). If calculated per capita, each Hungarian hypothetically gives “out of their pocket” about €200, while receiving nearly €700.

Poland and Slovakia

Concerns and myths about Ukraine’s accession to the European Union exist not only in Hungary. Polish presidential candidate from the opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), Karol Nawrocki, stated that Poland cannot afford actions that would harm its economy:

“At the same time, Poland represents — and I want this to be understood — its interests and society. Therefore, it cannot afford actions that would strike our economy, agriculture, or the wealth of Polish wallets.”

Russian propaganda media, citing Nawrocki’s interview for Sieci, picked up on the narrative that Ukraine’s EU membership would be economically disadvantageous for Poland.

Polish journalist and commentator Łukasz Warzecha pointed out that large amounts of money would go to Ukraine, which would be a direct competitor to Poland:

“Imagine this: in a few years, in a prospective new budget, Poles will have to pay not only gigantic sums due to the EU’s absurd climate policy, but will also be informed that tens of billions of euros of our money will flow into Ukraine, which will be our direct competitor in the bloc.”

In Slovakia, social media users circulated several false claims about the negative impact of Ukraine’s accession to the EU on the national economy. In particular, they manipulated the words of MP Ľubica Karvašová from the “Progressive Slovakia” party, who said that Slovak farmers would have to grow different products if Ukraine joins the EU. Social media users claimed the politician proposed that farmers grow camels and oranges. The post added that farmers would go bankrupt because Ukraine would supply products that Slovaks have “been growing for centuries”.

Slovak politician and deputy chair of the “Hungarian Alliance”, György Gyimesi, claims that under current rules, Cohesion Fund money is allocated to those member states where GNI (gross national income) per capita is below 90% of the EU average:

“Ukraine’s accession, considering its low level of development, would lower the EU’s average level of development overall. This would mean some current beneficiary countries would no longer be eligible for funding. At the same time, their actual level of development would remain unchanged, but those member states that stayed below the threshold would receive less money,” he wrote.

He also noted that if Ukraine joined the EU, supposedly 30% of all money allocated under the Common Agricultural Policy would go to Ukraine. Gyimesi concluded that if Ukraine joined the EU, it would become the largest beneficiary of the EU budget:

“If the EU wanted to raise the GDP of a completely destroyed Ukraine to the level of its weakest member, Bulgaria, according to calculations, it would cost each EU citizen €600,” the statement read.

A new formula for solidarity: transform, not compete

It is precisely the allocation of funds from these programs – the European Structural and Investment Funds and within the CAP – that Ukraine’s Eastern European neighbors mainly refer to when discussing potential losses (or rather, forgone income) for their households.

For example, the Cohesion Fund supports EU member states with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita below 90% of the EU-27 average to strengthen the EU’s economic, social, and territorial cohesion. Under the current 2021–2027 program, 15 out of 27 countries are eligible for funding (Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia). And the allocation of funds within the CAP depends on the area of arable land and the number and size of farming households.

Currently, all EU spending estimates related to Ukraine’s accession are based on the “here-and-now” assumption, that is, they consider the country’s current economic status, relative population size, and the configuration of the current EU institutional system. Under these assumptions, the potential volumes of support are impressive. For instance, according to estimates of researchers from the German Economic Institute in Cologne, if Ukraine had been an EU member in 2023, it would have received €130–190 billion: €70–90 billion in agricultural aid and €50–90 billion under cohesion regional policy. EU estimates are similar – €186 billion.

A transformation of budget priorities always accompanies EU enlargement. However, these changes are not a burden but an investment in economic, social, and political stability across the continent. Even before new members join, the EU begins investing in their transformation: supporting reforms, strengthening institutions, and modernizing infrastructure.

The example of Croatia, which joined the Union in 2013, demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach. Between 2007 and 2013, it received €998 million under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). After accession, Croatia received €12.2 billion through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), of which €9.1 billion came from EU Cohesion Policy funds. Additionally, in 2014–2020, Croatia received €2.3 billion under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Rural Development Programme.

The EU assisted Croatia in building institutional capacity, focusing primarily on preparing government institutions to comply with EU legislation and meet necessary criteria. The main focus was accelerating reforms in key areas such as the judiciary, anti-corruption, public administration reform, public finances, economic restructuring, and the business environment.

This strengthened the Croatian economy and the EU single market, into which local businesses integrated, expanding production chains. Accordingly, trade volumes increased. Add to this the new labor force and strengthened EU influence in the region. Croatia’s EU accession became a signal to other Balkan countries about the possibility of integration, provided reforms are implemented.

Under current conditions, Ukraine could become a net recipient of aid. At the same time, European countries that currently receive support would lose it, since Ukraine has the lowest GNI per capita and a high share of arable land. To integrate current candidates (which, in addition to Ukraine, include Moldova, Balkan countries, and Georgia), the EU needs to improve the efficiency of resource allocation. The EU budget and structural funds should consider current country indicators, growth potential, strategic importance, and benefits to the entire European Union.

Scholars and experts believe that if the EU enacts institutional reform, the costs of adapting Ukraine will be lower. Moreover, the efficiency of Ukraine’s agricultural sector is underestimated, and thus, subsidies for Ukrainian farmers may be significantly lower than the cited estimates.

Support for less developed regions is not only a matter of solidarity but also a mechanism for developing the internal market: new consumers and producers, reduced migration pressure, and strengthened regional security. People stay to live and work at home while purchasing goods produced in other EU countries.

Ukraine will bring unique assets to the EU: digital transformation, military resilience, flexible institutions, and civic engagement. While some European countries are slowly adapting to changes, Ukraine is already acting as a transformation accelerator.

Yes, integration requires investment. But these are investments in a new market, new energy, and a more resilient European space. Ukraine is not a “beneficiary” but a partner capable of strengthening and renewing the European Union.

Photo: depositphotos.com/ua

Oil, Tariffs, Stagflation, and the Fiscal Frontline of Russia's War Economy

Tue, 06 May 2025 00:43:00 +0100

Oil prices have slipped below $60 per barrel, adding pressure to a strained Russian economy. At the same time, China—Moscow’s largest trading partner—is locked in a high-stakes tariff war with the United States, triggered by the new U.S. administration. These converging disruptions are unlikely to leave Russia's economic footing - and by extension, its capacity to fund the war in Ukraine—unaffected.

To better understand the current landscape, we once again spoke with Vladimir Milov, former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy and a prominent critic of the Putin regime. An economist and energy expert, Milov was a close ally of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and currently serves as Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation. Our previous conversation with him took place in December 2024. In this latest interview, we revisit his earlier forecasts and examine how recent developments have altered Russia’s economic trajectory.

Question (Q): There’s increasing talk about a potential easing of economic sanctions on Russia—at least from the U.S. While a full rollback seems unlikely, some form of relief may be on the horizon. In your view, could this act as a lifeline for the Kremlin, enabling it to sustain the war effort?

Vladimir Putin and the US President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Source: kremlin.ru

Answer (A): I have written about it in much detail in a recent op-ed for The Insider - please have a look. Long story short - Trump won't be able to reverse Western sanctions policy, and European actions matter more than those of the U.S. Before the 2022 full-scale invasion, Europe was Russia's key investor and trade partner - over 67% of accumulated FDI stock came from Europe and around 50% of Russian exports went to Europe. The U.S. - 1% and 4% respectively. Russia needs markets and investment, and the U.S. won't provide that - even in better times, American investors didn't particularly like Russia.

However, Russia may get some benefits from U.S. sanctions being lifted, which will help to keep Putin's ailing economy afloat for a bit longer. Crucial thing is access to the U.S. technology which may boost the Russian military production - this assessment is shared in a brilliant recent report by the Kyiv School of Economics on the status of the Russian military industries - quite worth a read, I strongly recommend

Another problem is that Europe doesn't have anything comparable to the U.S. global sanctions enforcement mechanism - experienced agencies like the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control and Bureau of Industry and Security. If the U.S. lifts sanctions against Russia - or simply continues the crackdown on its own Government institutions like that executed by DOGE - the EU, Britain, and other Western democracies simply don't have its own institutional capacities to secure proper sanctions enforcement on a global scale, as currently provided by the U.S. There will be a major sanctions enforcement vacuum which Putin will inevitably use for his own benefit, boosting sanctions circumvention.

(Q): The U.S.-China tariff war has dominated headlines in recent weeks, signaling historic geopolitical and economic shifts. While Russia isn't directly involved, key trade partners like China are heavily impacted. Beyond oil, should we expect any spillover effects on the Russian economy?

(A): Yes, there's so much more than just oil. China's economic slowdown closed their market for many Russian products, due to which major Russian industries suffer badly. For once, China-oriented Russian coal industry is collapsing right in front of our eyes. Fisheries suffer from contraction of Chinese imports of Russian fish. Russian steelmakers face output contraction and sharply falling profits because cheap Chinese steel is flooding global markets - Chinese economic slowdown turned China from being a major importer to a net exporter of steel. And so on. Russian non-energy and non-commodity exports are down by about a quarter compared to pre-2022 levels, and are not rebounding - China doesn't allow Russia to access its market, and it won't change once Chinese economic growth slows down.

Tariff war will obviously exacerbate Chinese slowdown. The slower Chinese growth - the less market for Russian goods. Share of China in the total Russian exports is as high as a third now - we're heavily dependent on this market and its well-being.

(Q): In a recent interview, you mentioned that further declines in oil prices might actually benefit Russia more than if prices remain stagnant just below a certain threshold—an idea that might seem counterintuitive to many. Could you explain how that works?

Brent Crude Oil. Source: Financial Times

(A): Biggest loser from the falling oil prices is not Russia, and not OPEC - its the American shale oil industry. Oil production costs in the U.S. are significantly higher than in Russia or OPEC. This means that, if global oil prices fall below $50, large part of the U.S. oil production will be wiped off the market, and prices will quickly rebound. We already saw these effects after 2014 and 2020 oil price crashes.

Russians know that, which is why they weren't too scared with Trump's threats to "radically bring down the oil prices". Their strategy is to wait out for mass extinction of the U.S. oil production under $50/bbl, and to wait for prices to rebound thereafter. Russian oil producing companies are OK under $30-40 prices - it is the state budget which will suffer, but Putin and his people believe they can last for some time under low oil prices, given that they will be rebounding later.

In these circumstances, I'd say the best scenario if the international oil prices will stay somewhere around $60. Given the sanctions-driven discounts, that means Russian oil cheaper than $50. These are the prices which will significantly hurt Russia (Russian budget is drafted under $70/bbl oil price assumption), but will prevent the collapse of the U.S. shale oil industry and further rebounding of prices. Oil at $50 or cheaper is a much worse scenario, as it will most likely mean that low oil prices will be short-lived, which will make Putin happy.

(Q): During our last conversation, there was an expectation that Russia’s central bank would raise interest rates, yet it held steady at around 21%. What factors led to that unexpected decision?

(A): After their February Board meeting, Central Bank has admitted that "consequences of further raising rates will be worse than keeping the rates steady" - meaning that it would exacerbate economic slowdown or probably lead to a recession. To avoid that, they partially sacrificed the goal of bringing down inflation - which still remains high, preventing the Central Bank from much-anticipated easing of monetary policies. At the recent March meeting of the Central Bank board, only two signals were discussed - neutral and tough (further increasing the rate).

Central Bank faces tough dilemma now - interest rate of 21% is still very high (Russia has 12th highest Central Bank rate in the world), rapidly cooling the economy, but inflation is not really receding. The root causes of inflation - heavy budgetary spending on the war, output gap created by output not catching up with demand due to Western sanctions against Russian manufacturing sector - are not going away. At the same time, Russian industrial output has zeroed out in February (0,2% year-on-year growth and 0,4% seasonally adjusted growth compared to January), and March figures may be even worse - soon we'll see the statistics. So, Central Bank has managed to rapidly cause stagnation with its tight monetary policies - risking further slipping into recession - but it failed to bring inflation under control.

(Q): Your latest FRF Think Tank report points to high inflation and near-zero output growth in Russia—classic signs of stagflation. However, some economists argue that high unemployment is a necessary component. Given that unemployment remains relatively low, does this mean Russia hasn’t yet entered stagflation, or is this just a statistical distortion due to the mass recruitment of the male population?

FRF Report by Vladimir Milov

(A): True, Russian situation is unique. The term "stagflation" was coined in the 1960s and 1970s in the Western economies none of which experienced such a mass diversion of the workforce to the war as Russia today. If the current war is suddenly over, Russia will indeed experience high unemployment - masses of soldiers returning to civilian life won't easily find jobs.

Russia also continues to experience very high hidden unemployment - workforce which is nominally employed, but in reality is either on unpaid leave, part-time workweek, or downtime. Rosstat estimated hidden unemployment to be as high as 4,7 million people in Q4 2024, or over 6% of the total workforce. Together with official unemployment, that would make about 9% of the workforce.

These workers would have significantly eased the pressure on labor market should they have left their enterprises, but Russian labor market traditionally features low mobility (remember how people in the 1990s preferred to continue working for years at enterprises which haven't paid them salaries, instead of leaving them looking for new jobs). So, companies nominally keep the workers, but effectively don't pay them - hoping for recovery, which is not coming (nearly three quarters of hidden unemployment are people on unpaid leave).

So, if we're into a macroeconomic debate by the book here, Russia does have high unemployment - but in hidden or delayed forms. And stagflation is real. If the current situation lingers on, even nominal unemployment will rise quite soon.

(Q): What is the current situation with Russia's National Wealth Fund — the main financial reserve that has supported Putin's economy through years of war? What are the implications for the Kremlin and the ongoing war?

Russia’s National Wealth Fund. Source: Russian Ministry of Finance. The Insider

(A): As of April 1st, the liquidity portion of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) stood at $39 billion, or just over RUR 3 trillion. That's lower than the federal budget deficit recorded in 2024 (RUR 3,5 trillion). As it goes, 2025 budget deficit will likely be much higher - costs are rising (over 20% federal expenditure growth in Q1 2025), while revenues will be depressed by both the falling oil prices, as well as economic slowdown. Already now, non-oil revenue in Q1 2025 grew only by 11% year-on-year, against 26% growth in 2024, and 18% planned growth for 2025. Of which VAT - by just 9%, as opposed to 22% in 2024 and 17% planned for 2025. Slowing economy generates less taxes, which will undermine budget revenues to an extent not lesser than falling oil prices, and lead to further depletion of the NWF. As it looks from today, there's no other way but for the liquidity portion of the NWF to be fully depleted by the end of 2025 (usually they draw the funds from NWF in December to close the fiscal year).

There's also a non-liquidity portion of the NWF, but it largely exists only on paper, with money invested in various securities and not being easily recoverable. For those interested in details, I have analyzed this in my February brief on the Russian economy. The liquidity portion of the NWF has shrank from $116,5 billion in February 2022 to just $39 billion now as a result of heavy war-related spending. Essentially, this was the model of much-praised Putin's "economic resilience": heavily draw the available cash reserves to compensate for the negative effects of sanctions. But this "economic miracle" appears to be over, disappearing along with cash being spent.

What next after the liquidity part of the NWF is fully spent? I also analyze this in one of my recent reports in detail. Bottom line: nothing is working except monetary emission, printing the money. Government can't borrow - they are cut off from international financial markets, and domestically, with yields as high as over 16% for OFZ government bonds, Russia spends more on repaying and servicing the debt than it actually raises from the domestic debt market. Net debt raising was just around zero in 2024 and negative in Q1 2025. They can raise taxes, but that would further undermine economic growth and curb tax base - they'll lose more in the end. Hypothetically, they can try to privatize state assets, but there's not really much to sell if they don't opt to privatize control equity shares in major state companies - and they don't seem to even consider that for strategic reasons. As far as smaller-scale privatization is concerned, it won't solve their fiscal problems on a large scale, and there won't be much demand given the rapid deterioration of investment climate, ongoing rampant nationalization, etc.

So printing the money seems to be the only viable option left. Russian authorities seem to increasingly tolerate high inflation - "we're not Turkey or Argentina yet, so what difference does it make if inflation is 12-13% instead of 10% - let's print a couple of trillion rubles, no one will notice" (that was literally said by some State Duma deputies during Nabiullina's report debate on April 9th). Central Bank clearly shifted to limited emission schemes in the past few months through repo auctions - banks buy government bonds, and are immediately allowed to use them as collateral while borrowing cash from the Central Bank through repo auctions. Central Bank promised to use repo auctions as temporary mechanism in November 2024, but keeps rolling them over - switching from monthly to weekly repo auctions. Effectively, it is little different from Central Bank's credit to the government, or, in simple words, printing the money.

No question that filling the budgetary gap with printed money will lead to even higher inflation, which will destroy any prospect for economic recovery. So, basically, the Western sanctions are working - albeit not as fast as we hoped, but still.

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Inside Ukraine’s Antarctic Expedition (penguins inside)

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:26:55 +0100

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Biologist Svitozar Davydenko used to be one of the world's most remote Ukrainians.

For a year, he lived 10,000 miles away from his troubled homeland.

He worked at a scientific center – known as the Akademik Vernadsky Station – in Antarctica.

The ‘White Continent’ is harsh and unyielding, but Ukrainians know how to find beauty in everything.

"I was stunned by the sheer amount of ice, these enormous icebergs. The natural conditions here are quite severe. Cold. Windy. And yet, life thrives here," said Svitozar, recalling his first thoughts upon setting foot in Antarctica."

Svitozar Davydenko is a Ukrainian biologist from the 29th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition (2024–2025). Photo by the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base.

While Trump imposes tariffs even on penguins near Antarctica, Ukrainians study and care for them. Ukrainians understand that Antarctica is not just a continent for research.

It holds the key to the future.

Today, Antarctica is considered one of the last formally neutral territories, used exclusively for scientific purposes.

Despite the ongoing war, Ukraine demonstrates its commitment to protecting nature not only within its own borders but around the world. It is here in Antarctica that Ukrainians study climate change, its impact on wildlife, and contribute to the preservation of flora and fauna on the only continent still without permanent human habitation.

Ukraine cares not only about Russian ecocide on Ukrainian territory, but also about addressing global challenges and safeguarding the planet’s future.

Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base in Antarctica. Photo from the official website.

Last year, Svitozar Davydenko was selected as a biologist for Ukraine’s 29th Antarctic Expedition, which set off for the Akademik Vernadsky Station — Ukraine’s only research base on the continent.

Although Svitozar is from Zhytomyr, he has spent most of his life near Kyiv.

In October 2022, the museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, where he often worked, was hit nearby by a Russian missile during one of the mass attacks.

National Museum of Natural History at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine after a Russian attack in 2022.

"I can hardly imagine what it was like for those who were in Antarctica in 2022, but we were still calmer. The situation was still better than at the beginning of the war. Of course, we were worried about our families [while we were in Antarctica]," shared Svitozar.

Despite that, Svitozar decided to test his luck. Since his university years, he has wanted to go to Antarctica. And after he earned a Ph.D. in biology, his dream came true. He matched all the selection criteria from the first try and went to explore Antarctica in March 2024.

The station is located on Galindez Island, just off the western coast of Antarctica. There, Svitozar had the rare opportunity to live among penguins, swim near majestic whales, and even meet a newborn seal pup, which would later be named in his honor.

The Vernadsky Research Base is Ukraine’s only permanent presence in Antarctica.

In fact, Ukraine’s history on the continent is relatively recent.

The station was previously British and known as Faraday. In 1996, the UK handed it over to Ukraine free of charge, since after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had not inherited a single Antarctic base. Russia took over all five of the functioning stations.

The UK didn’t ask for any money in return, but the Ukrainian team still decided not to leave the gesture unanswered. In a symbolic act, a member of the first Ukrainian expedition pulled a one-pound coin from his pocket and handed it to the British representatives.

Location of the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base in Antarctica. Screenshot from Google Maps.

Since then, the station has been home to a wide range of scientific research. Scientists there collect meteorological data to help forecast global weather patterns, track glacial melt, and measure ozone levels.

In fact, the ozone hole was discovered at this very station, back when it was still operated by the British. They found that the earth's ozone layer, which is supposed to protect the planet from radiation, is much thinner than it should be.

The wildlife of the frozen continent is also a subject of deep study, and that’s where Svitozar Davydenko comes in.

"For me, it was a unique opportunity to understand extinct whales through the living ones," Svitozar told The Counteroffensive.

Since childhood, Svitozar had dreamed of becoming a paleontologist, fascinated by extinct animals — especially ancient whales that once swam through what is now Ukrainian land. At university, some of his professors were veterans of the Vernadsky Station. That’s how he first learned that not only did the station still exist, but that biologists could apply to go there.

And last year, it happened — he was selected through a competitive process to join the expedition. After interviews, psychological evaluations, and time spent living in isolation with the expedition team, he finally got the chance to witness the forbidding Antarctic ice with his own eyes.

The journey to Antarctica was long. To reach the end of the Earth, Svitozar had to travel by bus to Poland, then fly across the Atlantic to Tierra del Fuego in Chile — the bottom tip of South America.

There, the Ukrainian icebreaker Noosfera — a floating laboratory — was waiting for the team of fourteen scientists.

Ukrainian icebreaker Noosfera. Photo by Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base.

As a biologist, Svitozar had to study the local waters, setting off early each morning in motorboats to search for whales, plants, lichens, and other marine life. Everyone at the station must know how to drive a motorboat, just as they must know how to cook and carry out basic repairs.

Whales and orcas are of particular interest to Svitozar. Usually, the animals are indifferent to humans — you can calmly approach them by boat, for example, to take samples of skin or blubber. For a whale, according to Svitozar, it feels like a mosquito bite. But with the sample scientists can determine, for instance, whether a female is pregnant – or they can analyze the animal’s genetic makeup.

"When whales get curious about your boat, inspect you, stick out their fins and faces, and look straight at you — you realize they’re intelligent creatures, that they’re studying you too," recalled Svitozar.

However, during tourist season – winter in the northern hemisphere – when the Antarctic waters are filled with many boats and ships, whales become skittish.

They get ‘tired’ of people, so sometimes they even flee from the scientists.

Meeting between a humpback whale and Ukrainian scientists, including biologist Svitozar Davydenko:

A large part of his responsibilities also includes studying seals.

It was Svitozar who discovered a Waddell seal pup born near the research station last year.

It was named by subscribers on social media, and his colleagues, as SeaBaby Svitozarovych.

The first part of the name refers to a Ukrainian marine drone. The second part is the patronymic form of Svitozar’s name. So, in a way, this scientist became a father in Antarctica.

The seal pup was discovered by Svitozar Davydenko. Photo by the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base.

According to Svitozar, the animals least afraid of humans are the penguins. Entire colonies live around the station. Just a meter away from their buildings, thousands of penguins nest: they are small, have red beaks, and white stripes on their temples.

"The noise from the station, the light it emits, the warmth — none of it scares them. They've gotten used to it and happily wander around the station," said Svitozar.

Last year, a total of 7,000 penguins were recorded on the island where the station is located. They arrive during the mating season, in September and October, when penguins begin to build nests out of pebbles. Both bird parents take turns incubating the eggs, then feeding their babies and protecting them from predators until the young ones are grown.

Until 2007, subantarctic penguins didn’t live near the station at all. But due to global warming, they have gradually migrated further south in search of a harsher climate.

Sub-Antarctic penguins near the station. Photo by the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base.

Scientists do not interfere in the lives of penguins. The Protocol on Environmental Protection, signed in 1991, prohibits touching, feeding, or in any way influencing the lives of penguins.

So, using drones, he monitors the birds, recording how colonies are developing, the number of babies born during the season, and whether penguins are settling on other islands.

Once, during one of Svitozar’s expeditions, an emperor penguin visited the station — a species not usually found at the latitudes where Vernadsky Station is located. The nearest known colonies are over 300 km away from the Ukrainian scientists.

The penguin wandered up to the station to inspect it.

"He spent about a week and a half, maybe two weeks, near the station. Sometimes he went into the water to eat, other times he just rested near the buildings. And then one day, he simply swam off somewhere to go about his business," Svitozar joked.

An emperor penguin walking near the Vernadsky Research Base. Photo from official social media.

At first glance, one might wonder, “Why spend money on penguins when there are more urgent problems, like war?”

In 2024, Ukraine allocated approximately $11.6 million to support the operations of its Antarctic research station, Akademik Vernadsky, and to conduct scientific expeditions and research activities.

Beyond being an exceptional opportunity to contribute to global science, its research base means that Ukraine also holds a voice in determining Antarctica’s future.

Since 2004, it has held Consultative Party status, meaning it has veto power. Decisions regarding Antarctica must be made by full consensus — all votes must be ‘yes.’

Although Antarctica is currently a neutral and peaceful continent, this status could change in the future. Given the region’s wealth in natural resources, a scramble for minerals may eventually begin.

Additionally, the continent borders three oceans — the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific — making it strategically important for global trade routes. Eventually, it could even be used for military purposes.

And Russia is already in the game. Like the U.S. and China, it has territorial ambitions on the continent. That’s why Ukraine needs at least some levers of influence to counter Moscow — even in the harsh Antarctic latitudes.

And it's already doing so. For example, in 2024, Ukraine, along with other countries, blocked Belarus from gaining Consultative Party status in the Antarctic Treaty.

"[Presence in Antarctica] is about political weight, prestige, and the country’s scientific potential," Svitozar summarized.

Svitozar’s expedition came to an end in early April. Now that he has left, he plans to continue working at the Institute of Zoology, where he previously worked, and will continue his research on animals.

But it’s unlikely that Antarctica will let Svitozar go easily; he may return for seasonal research or study the continent at other stations.

"Of course, it would be very interesting to return and continue studying whales and perhaps explore other aspects of Antarctica. For example, paleontology can also be studied here, not necessarily at Vernadsky Station, but, for instance, in the vicinity of other stations with which we collaborate," Svitozar said.

In this time of great uncertainty — and unstable American support — it means that the situation on the ground is very dangerous. Your contributions help us get the body armor, medical gear, and supplies we need to stay safe.

Show your support by contributing to our tip jar - funds go towards keeping us safe and ensuring our work continues.

‘Evil must not win’ — how Ukraine’s female partisans resist Russian occupation

NEWS OF THE DAY:

GOP FOR UKRAINE LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN: Republicans for Ukraine are launching a new campaign urging the GOP to support Ukraine. The campaign features over 60 first-person testimonies from lifelong Republicans and conservatives, many former Trump voters.

This initiative comes at a time when the Trump administration wants to get a peace deal done, proposing Ukraine give up Crimea and other regions that Russia occupied.

N. KOREA NOW OFFICIALLY SENDING TROOPS TO RUSSIA: For the first time, North Korea confirmed sending troops to Russia, BBC reported. Pyongyang’s military claimed its soldiers helped Russian forces "completely liberate" the Kursk region.

Days earlier, Moscow praised the "heroism" of North Korean troops, publicly acknowledging their involvement for the first time. However, South Korean and Western intelligence had reported North Korean troop deployments in Russia's war against Ukraine much earlier.

On January 11, 2025, two North Korean soldiers were captured by Ukrainian forces. The POWs said they were initially told they would be fighting against South Korea but were instead sent to fight in the Kursk region against Ukraine.

TRUMP BELIEVES ZELENSKYY WILL CEDE CRIMEA: Shortly after meeting in Vatican City, Donald Trump said he believes Zelenskyy is ready to concede Crimea to Russia as a part of a ceasefire deal, France24 reported.

Speaking to reporters, he also mentioned the Ukrainian President asking for more weapons.

Previously, Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed Ukraine ‘will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea’. Now Trump’s pressure switched to Moscow as he urged Putin to ‘stop shooting’ and sign a deal.

PENGUINS OF PEACE:

In this photo by the Ukrainian Antarctic Scientific Center, the first newborn penguin chicks of the season were discovered near the Vernadsky Station by Svitozar Davydenko.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Veronika

Our readers' questions about the war, answered. Vol. 8

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 19:07:24 +0100

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.

Question: Is Ukraine formulating a plan to receive and house refugees from occupied territories? I would expect in that ceding territory many Ukrainians would want to leave Russian control.

Answer: Handling internally displaced people (IDPs) has been a pressing issue for Ukraine ever since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. According to the Social Policy Ministry, there are currently nearly 5 million IDPs in Ukraine, 3.6 million of whom left their homes after Feb. 24, 2022.

However, state support is widely considered insufficient, with most IDPs relying primarily on charities and NGO assistance. The monthly amount of financial aid from the state is currently Hr 2,000 ($48) per adult and Hr 3,000 ($72) per child or person with a disability — not enough to maintain a decent standard of living.

The most critical issues for IDPs include the lack of proper and affordable housing, financial instability, difficulty finding employment, and deteriorating mental health. Insufficient support also forces some IDPs to eventually return to front-line or even occupied settlements.

Read this story to find out more — “Thousands of Ukrainian IDPs are struggling to adapt amid housing, employment crises.” — Daria Shulzhenko, reporter

Question: Do Ukrainians still trust and respect President Zelensky? Do they still want him to be their president? Do they agree with how he is handling the war?

Answer: Yes, the majority of Ukrainians still support President Volodymyr Zelensky. Even more so after his brutal encounter with U.S. officials at the White House.

According to the latest poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on March 27, 69% of Ukrainians trust the president.

The survey found that only 28% of respondents do not trust Zelensky, resulting in a trust-distrust balance of +41%.

Zelensky remains the most popular politician in the country and the majority of people in Ukraine support him. Yes, there are mistepps, quite a few actually, but I don’t see the country turning on Zelensky.

If the presidential election were held this weekend, Zelensky would definitely advance to the runoff and likely win it. The only potential competitor is former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who now serves as the country’s ambassador to the U.K.

Some polls have Zaluzhnyi in the lead, but the general had never officially announced his intention to run and it remains to be seen what he will do if he does. — Oleksiy Sorokin, deputy chief editor

Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to the U.K. Valerii Zaluzhnyi in London, United Kingdom, on Feb. 24, 2025. (Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Question: With regard to Russia’s ongoing difficulties recruiting soldiers and their heavy losses on the front line, what actual difference has this made in the fighting? Also, I read about Russia’s losses in your newsletter but not much about Ukraine’s?

Answer: Russian losses in this war are staggering. Will this have an effect on Russia’s ability to continue the war against Ukraine? No.

Ukraine has less people and resources to spare. A neverending manpower shortage is the biggest problem Ukraine is facing in this war. And there are too few options on how to fix it.

While it is believed that Russia has lost twice as many people, maybe three times as many people as Ukraine has, the Kremlin can easily afford it.

Ukraine cannot.

Russia has a population 3.5-4 times larger than that of Ukraine. Russia, unlike Ukraine, is a totalitarian dictatorship where the lives of people mean nothing to the government apparatus. So, they will continue to use all the tools at hand to call up more people to fight.

Russia also has the ability to offer substantial sign-up bonuses to those willing to fight, recruit mercenaries from Asian and African countries, and is willing to throw the disenfranchised, primarily convicts, to storm positions without carrying will those people survive the initial attack.

To follow developments in Russia I recommend our WTF is wrong with Russia? newsletter, to follow the battlefield and the Ukrainian side of things, I would recommend our War Notes newsletter. — Oleksiy Sorokin, deputy chief editor

Question: Do we know where the population of the occupied territories stands in relation to Ukraine forfeiting territories in a “peace” deal?

Answer: Recent developments are taking a toll on the people in the occupied territories. Since 2022, Ukrainians living under occupation have kept their hopes they will be liberated the same way that residents of Kyiv, Kherson, and Kharkiv oblasts were that year.

Ukrainians living there told me that one of the hardest parts now is listening to all the discussions about territorial concessions from the U.S., and how they often omit that these are real lives, real people who will have to either abandon their homes for an unknown period or live their lives under Russian occupation.

Since the possibility of liberating these territories through force is extremely slim, the atmosphere is very gloomy, and hope is hard to come by. That doesn’t mean that the anti-Russian resistance fizzled out. Resistance groups, both violent and non-violent, still remain active, and for many, it is this resistance that helps them keep going. — Martin Fornusek, senior news editor

Somewhere in the streets of Russian-occupied Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, a woman puts a sticker on the wall. It’s a short message, but if she is seen doing it, she will face arrest, prosecution, and likely, torture. The message is: “Soon, we will be home again.” On another

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

Question: Do you believe that the EU can give enough arms and security forces in a timely manner to protect Ukraine?

Answer: Yes. But for that to happen, Europe needs to step up.

Excluding some complex military hardware, such as the Patriot air defense systems and the extremely effective Bradley armored fighting vehicles, Europe knows how to build guns. It’s just not building them enough.

If Europe moves from talking to acting and begins rearming at a proper pace, the EU would be able produce weapons that would keep Ukraine in the fight. Ukraine also now has the know-how of how to build proper weaponry. It just needs the funds to increase production capacities.

The ReArm Europe initiative is a good start. The industry is also there. Now we need to see orders. — Oleksiy Sorokin, deputy chief editor

Question: French President Macron’s position on the war in Ukraine has undergone quite a few changes since the start of the full-scale invasion, and I think it’s fair to say that he is now fully and clearly committed to Ukraine. How is he currently perceived by Ukrainian public opinion, and are there any high expectations of him?

Answer: The public opinion regarding President Macron went through a deep transformation from the early period of his phone calls with Putin to him proposing for European boots on the ground later in the war. In fact, according to one opinion survey last year, Macron was the only foreign leader whose popularity improved in Ukraine. In 2025, European leaders are also perceived much more positively in contrast with the U.S. under the new administration.

At the same time, many reserve judgment. Macron’s pro-Ukraine turn has been mostly about rhetoric, and France still provides much less than it could in comparison to the U.K., Germany, or even smaller countries like Estonia or Denmark, which provide the largest shares compared to GDP. We’ll have to see if Macron’s and Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” can bring something real to the table. — Martin Fornusek, senior news editor

President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron meet in Paris, France, on Oct. 10, 2024. (President Volodymyr Zelensky/X)

Question: Trump is killing NATO or is at least withdrawing our country from it. Will Europe replace it with an EU army? Is it time for the EU to form a constitutional union better than what I feel we are losing with Trump and his MAGA party.

Answer: Unfortunately, further integration of the EU in the current political climate is difficult, and a united EU army is a far-off dream.

It is undeniable that the EU has reacted well to Trump’s foreign policy turn, namely in terms of higher defense spending and clearly demonstrating firm support of Ukraine.

But, the EU is still composed of countries with often contradicting interests, and consensus is hard to come by. It’s not only “rogue members” like Hungary and Slovakia — Italy, France, and Germany have different foreign and economic priorities that hamper united decision-making. For example, despite worries about Trump abandoning Ukraine, the EU was not able to agree on a new 40 billion euro package due to opposition from southern members.

Political trends suggest this might only get more difficult, as far-right and Euroskeptic parties are on the rise in both France and Germany.

In terms of military capabilities, Europe is still playing catch-up. Their militaries have been underfunded for decades and are often reliant on NATO infrastructure, which will be very hard to replace. We hear calls for a European alternative to the alliance, but that will demand years — if not decades — of sustained work. — Martin Fornusek, senior news editor

Question: How does drafting and mobilization work? Do the Ukrainian Armed Forces view draft evasion as a big problem? Is there an issue of corruption or morale among the population?

Answer: The large-scale, forced mobilization of men into the military was, is, and always will be not only incredibly painful and tragic but also the greatest internal political and social challenge in a country that otherwise remains united in its resolve to not capitulate to Russia’s attempt to destroy Ukraine as a nation. No country should have to go through this.

Inside Ukraine’s desperate race to train more soldiers

New recruit Vitalii Yalovyi knew one thing after completing the Ukrainian military’s boot camp: He was not prepared for war. The 37-year-old felt physically unfit, forcing him to miss some courses during the month-long training. His leg was still hurting from long daily walks at a training center i…

The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima

It’s important to make one thing clear: Ukraine’s manpower crisis refers specifically to the infantry; this is the deadliest, most difficult, and most uncomfortable job in the military. This is where the most casualties are taken, and this is where the most new recruits are needed to fill the ranks. In a war that is now dominated by drones, where anyone or anything moving around on the surface can be hunted by several high-precision drones within a few minutes, the life of the infantryman is truly horrible, and often, no amount of patriotism is enough for the average Ukrainian to take up this job. Lots of people are still joining the military voluntarily, but they are almost all going to other roles, especially in drone units. In fact, some are joining drone units voluntarily, specifically to avoid eventually being drafted into the infantry, while others, as you mentioned, choose to hide at home.

Unfortunately, this situation isn’t really getting better, as more people are still needed to avoid losing the country. If you ask me, the main hope to solve the manpower crisis is for two things to happen: First, the Ukrainian leadership needs to prioritize reforming mobilization, training, and especially how its soldiers are used on the battlefield so that the life of the Ukrainian infantryman is placed at front and center of the planning of operations on all levels. Second — and longer term — the military should learn to play to their strengths of drone warfare and do more and more to change how we understand the way war is being fought, with a wider gray area between positions that can be a great big killzone for Russian troops without Ukrainian infantry to have to be there. — Francis Farrell, reporter

Azov tank crew members pose on their tank near Toretsk, Donetsk Oblast, on Jan. 31, 2025. (Roman Pilipey / AFP)

Question: I have a question related to the new proposal for a one-year military contract for citizens between 18-24. What is the status of this proposal? Is it implemented already or is it currently being discussed in the Rada? Which processes are necessary for it to be adopted, and do we know if this is likely to happen or is it facing many obstacles?

Answer: The Defense Ministry officially launched the “Contract 18-24” project on Feb. 11, and volunteers can already apply online. Deputy head of the Presidential Office Pavlo Palisa described it as a “pilot project” in its “test mode,” however. The project is being carried out on a limited scale so far, including four Ground Forces brigades, one Airborne brigade, and one Marine brigade.

Based on the results, there are plans to further expand the project to other units. The number of people who signed up via this procedure is in the hundreds, not thousands. — Martin Fornusek, senior news editor

Question: We, your readers, hear constantly about the need for re-organization and reform of the Ukrainian military. For me, and other non-Ukrainians with a serious interest in Ukraine, can you discuss the current problems, like what happened to Zaluzhnyi, what’s up with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, and the aspects of corruption and mismanagement in the Ukrainian military?

Answer: Here, I am very happy to direct you to our latest article on this exact topic, by my colleague Natalia Yermak and myself. What’s up is that while Ukraine is waging a brutal struggle against Russian forces in the trenches and fields, it is also waging another battle, an internal one, against a military culture steeped in Soviet-era practices and mentalities that lead to excess loss of life and territories — the two things most dear to Ukraine in this war. There is a lot to go into, from the exact way that this actually manifests itself on the battlefield, to the persona of Oleksandr Syrskyi himself and the efforts to change the system, and for that, you should definitely check out the article. — Francis Farrell, reporter

Question: In relation to the ongoing discussions about the Russian invasion, why is the Russian side not interested in peace?

Answer: Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with an attack on the capital, Kyiv, as part of a broader attempt to decapitate and destroy the independent Ukrainian state. That attempt failed then, but now, having made progress in their war of attrition, and with the U.S. now abandoning the policy of supporting Ukraine’s struggle and instead looking more and more likely to abandon Kyiv altogether, the Russians are feeling pretty good about their position.

Even their stated minimalist goals call for the handover of a lot more Ukrainian territory in Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, inhabited by millions of Ukrainians. This is what the world, including U.S. President Donald Trump, needs to understand: Russia is absolutely not interested in peace simply because they started this war wanting a lot more, and they feel more confident in their ability to get it than they have in three years. — Francis Farrell, reporter

Question: What is the reason behind the Trump administration’s Russian propaganda talking points?

Answer: Without actually getting inside their heads — which I don’t think I’d enjoy in the slightest — it’s impossible to say for sure. But, I guess there’s a sort of sliding scale of possible reasons, none of them particularly encouraging.

At one end of the scale, there is the possibility that they’re just underqualified, naive, inexperienced, and are falling for Russian propaganda.

I’d say Steve Witkoff is perhaps the best example of this — he’s a real estate mogul, with no experience of politics or diplomacy, and was positively swooning about Putin after meeting him in Moscow last month. And all it seemed to take was a bit of a smile from Putin and a painted portrait of Donald Trump as a gift to take back to the White House.

Put yourself in his shoes: going from the world of luxury real estate to suddenly finding yourself in the Kremlin — discussing the future of entire countries — must be pretty intoxicating.

And what’s the result? You fall for the spectacle and take Putin at his word. Next thing you know, you’re chatting to Tucker Carlson, telling him that any Ukrainians who speak Russian are absolutely fine with living under Russian occupation.

In the middle of the scale, there is the possibility that they just don’t actually care about what they’re saying, so long as they get what they want.

Donald Trump looks down from the Presidential Box at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

A dragline excavator operates in a titanium mine in Zhytomyr Oblast, on Feb. 28, 2025. (Roman Pilipey / AFP)

Trump is the perfect example of this — he wants the mineral deal signed, and he was willing to say whatever it took to pressure Zelensky to do it. And, if you want to say something bad about Zelensky, and you’re looking for material, then all of those pre-prepared Kremlin lines that propagate so fruitfully on social media are just sitting there waiting for you.

I think this is the most likely reason, which is pretty terrifying. I recently interviewed historian Marci Shore about why she and her husband, Timothy Snyder, are leaving the U.S. to teach in Canada, and she put it perfectly.

Speaking about the Oval Office showdown, she said, “This was the profound moment that exposed that you’re dealing with people for whom there are no first principles, you’re just looking into this abyss of moral nihilism. Everything is a transaction, everything is a deal."

At the other extreme end of the scale, we get into the slightly conspiratorial world of “Is Donald Trump a Russian asset?"

We covered this in another interview with an author who is absolutely convinced he is. He has written two books about it, and there’s a lot of compelling evidence, but no smoking gun.

Regardless, it’s enough of a concern that even a British MP has raised it as a possibility.

But it’s sort of a moot point at the end of the day — whether Trump is a Russian asset or not, he’s sure acting like one. — Chris York, news editor

Question: What is the situation with the Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk Oblast? We hear stories that they are surrounded. Other stories say they are retreating back to Ukraine. Have they got home safely?

Answer: Ukraine has had to withdraw from most of Russia’s Kursk Oblast, a long-expected outcome after the troops on the ground have suffered from critical logistical issues for months.

Ukraine is still holding onto a small patch of territory in Kursk Oblast near the border, which Western military experts have said was likely to prevent a Russian breakthrough into Ukraine’s adjacent Sumy Oblast in the northeast. The withdrawal appears to have been chaotic as always, which — like in the cases of Avdiivka, Bakhmut, and Kurakhove — could have been avoided by withdrawing weeks or a month earlier.

The rise and fall of Ukraine’s Kursk gambit

As Ukraine’s seven-month-long incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast came to what appears to be its end, Ukrainian soldiers and military experts are questioning the operation’s goal and the long-term effect it will have on the war. Ukraine launched a surprise cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kurs…

The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima

But the withdrawal wasn’t as bad as it could have been, with no major encirclements, according to both troops on the ground and experts. Soldiers have had to walk on foot though for days, leaving their valuable equipment behind. Many raised concerns over expending manpower and limited resources into invading another country’s territory when they could have been used to defend one’s own, especially as Russia gained ground on the eastern front — where many of the units participating in the cross-border operation were previously deployed — over the second half of 2024. — Asami Terajima, reporter

Question: Ukraine is obviously maintaining the position that the parts of the four oblasts Donetsk, Luhansk, Zhaporizhia, and Kherson that are not in Russian hands can never be ceded to Russia in a ceasefire, nor will the effectively occupied parts legally be recognized as Russia. But how far can Ukraine be forced by the U.S. to make concessions in this respect?

Answer: Zelensky has to walk a fine line on this issue, balancing the need to retain U.S. support — which right now Ukraine definitely does need as Europe isn’t ready to fill the gap just yet — and public opinion.

The latest opinion poll found that 38% percent of Ukrainians were open to conceding territory in a peace deal, up from 8% in December 2022.

But the number of Ukrainians who oppose giving up territories under any circumstances, “even if this would prolong the war and threaten the preservation of independence,” stands at 51%.

People lay flowers at a memorial at a missile strike site in Sumy, Ukraine, on April 14, 2025. (Roman Pilipey / AFP)

Obviously, these numbers could shift further in the future, but right now, Zelensky is in a tricky spot.

But it’s just too early to know what sort of concessions the U.S. will demand of Ukraine, and given the absolute craziness of the last couple of months, it’s impossible to predict.

One point worth stressing, however, is that those polls do not include the views of the millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation. The debate among politicians and the media tends to focus on land, but it’s also lives that are at stake.

Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t seem to take matters like this into account in his pursuit of just getting deals done, so what is abhorrent to you and I, is nothing of the sort in his mind. — Chris York, news editor

Question: Why doesn’t Ukraine conscript women into the military forces like men?

Answer: I don’t know the official reasoning for why Ukraine doesn’t conscript women, but I think it goes back to the traditional war mentality that women could take over the jobs needed to keep the cities running. Despite the critical manpower shortage, many Ukrainian soldiers — predominantly over the age of 45 — that I have met said the last thing they want is for women to be forced into the war, saying that they are fighting at the cost of their lives to protect women and children.

But Ukrainian women have also proven to be excellent soldiers, sometimes successfully taking over leadership roles and conducting extremely dangerous missions. — Asami Terajima, reporter

Ukrainian Valkyries: Women embrace military training to learn to defend their homeland (Photos)

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Kyiv announced a general mobilization, thousands of Ukrainians have been called up to defend their homeland. In Ukraine, conscription is mandatory only for men. Despite that, more than 45,000 women have voluntarily joined the Arm…

The Kyiv IndependentOksana Parafeniuk

Question: There are a fair number of NATO nations individually providing military equipment. But seeing as they are of different origin, operational characteristics, maintenance needs, and “operating manuals,” has this proven a problem for Ukrainian troops on the front lines?

Answer: Yes, this has been a major issue for Ukrainian soldiers, requiring a fair bit of tinkering with the weapons received. This has particularly complicated the match-up between arms and ammunition, with Ukrainian soldiers reporting the need to re-distribute gunpowder between disparate shells and explosives regularly. — Kollen Post, defense reporter

Question: After the recent interruption of weapons deliveries and intelligence, is everything back to normal? Is my country now meeting its commitments under the Trump administration (as the majority of the American people want)?

Answer: As far as we know, yes, but that comes with a few caveats.

The nature of intelligence sharing means few, if any, details about the state of the current relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine are public, or will be made public, so all we have to go on are the statements made by officials. And, according to both sides, it’s back up and running. Whether or not it’s up and running at the same level it was, we don’t know.

As an aside, there was a great piece in the NYT on the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine throughout the full-scale invasion, though notably, it doesn’t cover any of the period since Trump took charge. It’s very much worth a read, though.

As for military aid, that which was allocated by President Joe Biden is still making its way to Ukraine after the pause.

The crucial question here is how long will it last? Trump has yet to authorize any new weapons shipments and has tied future aid to the minerals deal which is still yet to be signed. So it’s all a bit murky as to how it will play out.

One notable recent announcement was that on April 3, U.S. General Christopher Cavoli said more F-16 fighter jets are being prepared for transfer to Ukraine. — Chris York, news editor

Question: What can individuals around the world do to help Ukraine the most?

Answer: This is one of the most frequently asked questions from our readers and members. The most obvious answer is to donate — two well-known organizations that support those on the front line are Come Back Alive and the Hospitallers. Especially since the suspension of USAID funding, donating even a few dollars can make a big difference: Ukraine was the largest recipient of U.S. economic aid, receiving over $14 billion in 2023.

Outside of making a monetary contribution, you can also contact your elected representatives, asking them to vote in favor of initiatives that help Ukraine, boycott companies that still operate within Russia, and read and share news from Ukraine. We’ve even made this list about how to help Ukraine, so it’s easy for you to share. And most importantly, don’t give up — every effort counts. — Brooke Manning, senior community manager

Ukraine’s long-suffering aerospace giants look to Europe to break free from Russian orbit

Where the Donbas meets the Dnipro River, the USSR built out a dense range of massive factories, using the local coal and metal reserves to smelt, weld, and cast the heaviest of machinery — and weaponry — for the whole of the Soviet Union. One of these is Pivdenmash, formerly known by

The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

EU unveils new sanctions against Belarus in response to presidential elections

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 22:16:37 +0100

The EU has introduced new sanctions against Belarus on March 27, in response to continued repression and the election of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in January.

Lukashenko was inaugurated into his seventh consecutive term as President of Belarus on March 25. Several Belarusian human rights groups have decried the elections as undemocratic and denounced the regime for human rights violations.

In power since 1994, Lukashenko’s rule has been marked by a harsh crackdown on political opposition, free media, and civil society.

Twenty-five individuals and seven entities have been sanctioned for undermining democracy and the rule of law in Belarus.

The sanctions also denounce the role of these individuals and entities in human rights violations, repression, and military support of Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Nine judges have been sanctioned for issuing politically motivated sentences to repress civil society and democratic opposition.

Belarus' Election Commission and its members have been sanctioned for their role in holding elections “conducted in a climate of repression and human rights violations,” the European Council said in its press release.

The chair of Belarus’s largest political party, Aleh Ramanau, has been sanctioned.

Tsybulka-Bel LLC, a Belarusian agricultural company, has been imposed with restrictive measures for coordinating with Belarusian authorities to deploy inmates as forced laborers.

Several companies and their leadership have been subject to restrictive measures for their active participation in the Belarusian military-industrial complex. This includes Precise Electro-Mechanics Plant and its director, Yuri Tchorny.

The Belarusian Election Commission claimed that Lukashenko “won” 86.82% of the vote on Jan. 26.

The other candidates in the election were regime-approved and little-known. Sergey Syrankov got 3.21% of the vote, and Oleg Gaidukevich won 2.02% of the votes.

Ukraine war latest: Russia preparing for new spring offensive in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts, Zelensky says

Key developments on March 27: * Russia preparing for new spring offensive in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts, Zelensky says * ‘With or without the US’ — France, UK harden line over Ukraine at ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit * North Korea sent 3,000 more troops to Russia to offset Ukraine war losses,…

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk

Semantic Differences Between Ukraine and the EU in Chapter 27 “Environment and Climate Change”: A Memo for Negotiations

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 10:29:12 +0100

The Ministry of Environmental Protection of Ukraine reported that “this year we are actively preparing for a bilateral meeting within the framework of the official screening between Ukraine and the European Commission under Chapter 27 “Environment and Climate Change”. The talks will focus on “the conditions under which the country will be admitted to the EU, … and on the adoption and implementation of rules and regulations that are binding for all EU member states.”

This is not the first time Ukraine is participated in such negotiations. However, there are two main differences at this stage of the talks. Previously, Ukraine used to pick from the European acquis the clauses that align with Ukrainian legislation. Now we have to simply transfer to Ukraine “the content, principles and political objectives of the EU Treaties”, as well as all provisions on “common rights and obligations that constitute the body of EU law”.

Moreover, there is a significant difference between the concepts and principles of EU Treaties and the rules and technical standards of EU law. A common understanding of concepts between Ukraine and the EU is necessary from the very start of the accession negotiations, while Ukraine will have some time for the implementation of laws and technical standards.

Current social discussion on EU accession creates an impression that the major issue of Ukraine’s EU accession is the necessity to adjust a large number of EU technical standards rather than the common understanding of the sense of EU Treaties. This is wrong: Ukraine approaches the EU not to move away from Soviet technical standards but to get rid of Soviet ideology, including “Michurin” approaches to environmental management.

As a theoretical physicist with 40 years of experience, I offer the Ukrainian delegation my notes on the key semantic differences between Ukraine and the EU in the field of environment and development formulated during the work on the Policy Roadmap for Environmental Damage Assessment within the framework of the Sweden-UNDP project “Reducing the Risks of Long-Term Environmental Disasters in Ukraine through the Establishment of a Coordination Center for Environmental Damage Assessment” as well as on the development of “Manual for the city’s climate risk assessment” commissioned by GIZ.

In the European Commission‘s observations on Ukraine’s progress under Chapter 27 “Environment and Climate Change”, the following concepts need special attention (they need to be clarified and rethought during the accession negotiations):

Environmental Restoration Liability
Environmental impact assessment (EIA)
Understanding climate risks and approaches to their reduction (Green Deal)
Understanding Sustainability

Environmental liability in the USSR and the EU

In 2016, when working on the approximation of the EU Water Framework Directive, a working group of experts, including me, tried to add the first paragraph to the preamble of the Water Code of Ukraine: “Water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage that must be protected, defended and treated as such.” Our attempt faced resistance from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the State Water Resources Agency, which had just been renamed from the State Water Management Agency without any substantive changes to its functions and responsibilities.

As a physicist who works with the laws of nature, I have always been outraged that according to the Soviet “Michurin” attitude to the environment, environmental liability arises only as a result of violating laws and regulations established by the state, and not as a result of violating the limits established by nature. However, in the post-Soviet Law of Ukraine on Environmental Protection, “environmental damage” is still assessed based on the Soviet “normative” approach as “losses and damages caused to the state as a result of violation of environmental protection legislation.” In the EU, environmental damage is assessed by measurable changes in a natural resource or disruption of natural resource-related services and by the amount of funds required to restore the environment to its original state.

This discrepancy leads to several negative consequences. First, its corruption risks are obvious, when the damage assessment is easily changed hundreds of times by a simple Cabinet of Ministers Resolution. For example, before the war, the State Ecological Inspectorate of Ukraine counted billions of hryvnias of environmental damage per year, and in 2002-2023 – a thousand times more. Second, using such fundamentally different from international methods of environmental damage assessment makes it impossible to integrate this data into the Register of Damage Caused by the Russian Aggression against Ukraine, created by the Council of Europe in Hague.

Thus, after the recent adoption of the EU Nature Restoration Act, we should finally agree to introduce European-style environmental liability in Ukraine before starting negotiations by amending the basic environmental laws accordingly (see my recommendations here, here, and here). Without this, we will see neither EU membership nor environmental restoration projects. What kind of environmental restoration can we talk about if no one in Ukraine is responsible for this restoration?

EIA is not a legal procedure for assessing violations of environmental legislation, but a process of measurable assessment of physical impact on the environment

Another Soviet legacy is that concepts such as “environmental security” and “environmental impact/damage” are not quantified in Ukraine, but are defined dichotomously (either present or absent). The absence of measurable objective data on changes in the state of the environment and the impact on it causes the ineffectiveness of such dichotomous control because if you cannot measure, you cannot effectively manage.

Another reason for ineffectiveness is that the dichotomy between violators and inspectors is a “zero-sum game” (i.e., a game in which there is necessarily a winner and a loser). In this game, zero is left for the restoration of the environment. This type of management makes it possible to punish violators but it does not allow us to even ask where, how, and why we need to improve the environment.

Before the negotiations, it is necessary to decide on the proposals for a radical reform of the environmental impact (and damage) assessment process, moving from a “normative” dichotomous assessment to an inclusive management of achieving common development goals at the lowest cost to society.

Understanding climate risks and ways to reduce them

Legislation inherited from the USSR (the Law on Environmental Protection and the Civil Protection Code) still maintains the understanding that security is the absence of risks and that there are only two states of security – security and insecurity. Therefore, all attempts to shift to climate or environmental risk management are met with resistance and misunderstanding. In the negotiations, it would be worth mentioning that according to the updated Environmental Strategy, security in Ukraine is now understood not as the absence of risks, but as risk reduction, and that the relevant changes will be made to other basic environmental laws.

Green Deal

Regarding the understanding of ways to reduce risks, most experts in Ukraine still believe that the Green Deal is a unilateral Green Course on emissions reduction as the only possible way to combat climate change (CC) and its consequences, and not a deal between the necessity both to reduce emission and to adjust to the life in a different climate. This is reflected in the difference between the Ukrainian and UN understanding of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13:

SDG 13 (UN): Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Target 13.1. Increase resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries

SDG 13 (Ukraine): Mitigate the effects of climate change

Objective 13.1: Limit greenhouse gas emissions in the economy

Indicator 13.1.1. Greenhouse gas emissions, % to 1990 level

The reason for this one-sided approach is, in our opinion, an outdated understanding of risk as the probability of a negative event (as defined by the Soviet Construction Norms), while ISO now defines risk as the “effect of uncertainty”, i.e. probability of event times its impact. Unfortunately, when developing the EIA Law, Ukraine refused to change the definition of risk accordingly. As a result, all environmental management practitioners have the impression that risk can only be reduced by reducing the likelihood of a negative event and not by reducing the impact of that event. In reality, the reduction of climate risks is possible not only by reduction of emissions but also through adaptation, i.e. the reduction of the negative impact of climate change. However, the Ukrainian government does not see “adaptation benefits” in the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement.

Despite the officially submitted comments on the discrepancies between Ukrainian climate terminology and the IPCC Glossary (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the discrepancies were transferred to the new Law on the Basic Principles of State Climate Policy. It would be good to indicate in the negotiations that we are aware of these differences and plan to overcome them

Understanding Sustainability

As for the other SDGs, Ukraine has been debating how to translate Sustainability since the Rio Summit in 1992, but mostly without discussing the meaning of the term.

The situation has become even more confusing with the advent of the EU Taxonomy classification of economic activity. The EU Taxonomy’s approach to Sustainability is rather misleading, as it defines an activity as sustainable if it contributes to the achievement of at least one of the goals: either climate change mitigation or adaptation to climate change.

At the same time, the IPCC insists that achieving sustainable development requires synergies between these two main actions – mitigation and adaptation. In the Summary for Policymakers of the sixth report of the IPCC, it is explicitly stated:

“Current development paths, combined with the observed effects of climate change, lead away from sustainable development rather than toward it.

Mitigation plays a key role in reducing the threat of climate change.

Adaptation plays a key role in reducing exposure and vulnerability to climate change.

Only simultaneous emissions reductions and adaptation can ensure sustainable development for all.

Climate-resilient development is the process of implementing mitigation and adaptation options to support sustainable development for all.

The window of opportunity for climate-resilient development is closing fast“.

Commentary by Dennis Meadows

Dennis Meadows describes the situation even better in his lecture dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the concept of “Limits to Growth” (personal communication – AD):

“What we recommended in 1972 is no longer relevant. Back then, humanity’s impact on the environment was probably below the level the planet could sustain, and our goal was to slow development before reaching that limit. Now the scale of human activity far exceeds that limit. The challenge now is not to slow down development, but to bring the system back to acceptable levels that the planet can withstand. These are completely different challenges that require a different model.

The current system is entering a phase of decline. It is impossible to avoid shocks-climate change, civil wars, etc. Sustainable development is no longer attainable; instead, we must focus on the system’s resilience to external shocks. By focusing on growth, we seek to maximize efficiency, but this almost always reduces the system’s resilience to shocks, making it more vulnerable.

A simple example: if in a physically limited world, we do everything for growth, we maximize efficiency, which is achieved only by reducing the system’s resilience to external influences. This means increased risks.”

Meadows’ statement — “We should not strive for sustainable development but for the system’s resilience to external influences” — deserves serious discussion.

Understanding the distinction between resilience and sustainable development is crucial for effective alignment with European policymakers during accession negotiations and for shaping Ukraine’s post-war recovery strategy. For a fragile nation like Ukraine, resilience is even more important. As the saying goes, “Before the fat man loses weight, the thin man dies.”

Photo: depositphotos.com/ua

Amidst U.S. tensions, Ukraine's resistance strengthens as Europe rallies against Russian ambitions

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 20:30:12 +0100

In a revealing blog post, Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might need to abandon some of his ambitious plans amid a fallout in Washington.

Despite a tense exchange between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, Kovalenko reassured allies that no catastrophe had unfolded. He noted that while Zelensky's visit might not have been a complete success, there’s no and need for panic.

Reflecting on the Oval Office fracas, Kovalenko highlighted a crucial development: a wave of solidarity from European leaders. Presidents, prime ministers, ministers, and other politicians have been vocal in their support for Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.

"By morning, we see Europe united, with urgent measures being prepared. It's not about words; it's about arms. Support and weaponry to Ukraine will continue," Kovalenko emphasized. He also stated that any attempts by Putin to leverage U.S. relations to reenter European affairs are futile.

"In this climate, China is likely to focus its strategic partnership on Europe. Russia is seen by Beijing as merely a raw materials supplier. For the United States, Russia remains just a 'gas station' and a source of rare metals, with Putin ready to offer them 'unconditionally'," Kovalenko explained. He assured that Ukraine has ample resources to continue resisting the aggressor, even without American backing, and Russia's situation is far from ideal.

"In Russia, regional funds are dwindling, evidenced by reported difficulties in paying contractors. The sanctions persist. Consequently, life in Russia is bound to deteriorate," Kovalenko wrote.

He suggested that eventually Russia will have to make concessions to Ukraine, specifically abandoning its plans to occupy Ukrainian territories.

Despite negotiations buzz, Russia’s war is likely to continue, says military analyst Rob Lee

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 18:14:27 +0100

As Ukraine entered its fourth year of Russia’s full-scale war, it was geopolitics, not the war itself, that dominated headlines, as Kyiv’s relationship with new U.S. President Donald Trump nosedived over a proposed minerals deal.

In the meantime though, the battlefield continues to rage on multiple fronts, with daily Russian assaults continuing through a period of consistent sub-zero temperatures across eastern Ukraine.

The most intense fighting continues to be in southern Donetsk Oblast, where, although Russian territorial gains have slowed to a halt outside the key city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine’s defense of the area around Kurakhove buckled over the first months of 2025.

Going forward, many unpredictable factors hang over the next year of the war. Ukraine is trying to solidify its defense with new reforms, Russia faces questions over its ability to sustain its current rate of attacks and losses, while looming largest is the future of U.S. aid.

To reflect on the key conclusions of the third year of the full-scale war and what to look out for in the fourth, the Kyiv Independent sat down with the U.S.-based military analyst and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Rob Lee during a working visit to Kyiv.

Rob Lee, the U.S.-based military analyst and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research on Feb. 22, 2025, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (The Kyiv Independent)

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The Kyiv Independent: How would you describe how 2024 went for Ukraine, and what kind of core issues have really defined it?

Rob Lee: 2024 was a year in which Russia had a number of advantages. They had scaled the production of ammunition before this – the U.S. and Europe were trying to catch up to that. They had already received significant support from North Korea, from Iran, both in terms of ammunition, equipment, and now obviously troops from North Korea.

Ukraine began the year in a position of weakness, where they struggled to replace manpower losses from the summer of 2023 offensive. And we know the U.S. delayed passing the aid package for about six months until April 2024. So last winter was a quite difficult time for Ukraine, where there was a lack of fortifications. We know that Ukraine has improved on that since then. There’s a lack of manpower, still a problem, and there was a key lack of ammunition too.

I would say on the positive side, it’s obviously been a very difficult year for Ukraine, but the worst-case scenario did not happen. We didn’t see any kind of significant breakthrough, like an operational breakthrough.

We’ve seen incremental attritional assaults. Russia has made advances. It is still a very difficult situation on the front line, but there was a possibility that things would have gotten worse.

We came here three times in 2024. If I gave a summary of the findings from those trips, the manpower situation progressively got worse each time. The brigades we were meeting at the front line were more and more on their strength each time we came.

The average age of Ukrainian infantry was going up each time, so maybe it was 40 at the beginning of the year. It became 45 later on, and we were hearing in October that brigades had an average age of 50-year-olds as infantry.

It was very clear that there was a sense of maybe not exhaustion, but just of being fatigued or tired. Obviously, people have been fighting this war for three years now, a high-intensity conventional war. But look, Ukrainians are still fighting. They’re still putting up a very tough defense.

The Kyiv Independent: The Russian advance now seems to have really slowed down, is that, from the Russian side, more resembling to you an operational pause or a greater kind of lack of this same ability to attack with expendable infantry at the same rate?

Rob Lee: So on both sides, there’s a general sense of weakness. When we look at the forces, both militaries have significant experience now in combat. Three years of experience. But the experience is not evenly distributed across the force. So UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) units, UAV pilots are extremely capable on both sides now.

Artillery crews are very capable because many of these people have three years of experience. The attrition of FPV (first-person view drone) pilots and artillery is lower, and so in many cases you have cohesive units that have operated for years. So they’re very, very capable.

But the infantry side has become degraded on both sides. Most of the attrition and casualties is suffered by the infantry. And so in many cases, in an infantry squad, many of the people are going to be new, with probably less than a month of experience in many cases.

I think Russia made a choice: Instead of trying to develop well-trained, cohesive units, they’ve kind of accepted this attritional fight where we’re going to get a lot of infantry, we’re going to get a lot of manpower, we’re going to throw them into assaults. We’re not going to train them that much. We’re not going to really focus on that. And, of course, the quality is not that great.

On both sides, the average age (of the infantry) is quite high. The Russian side is probably lower than Ukraine, but you’re still getting plenty of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s. You’re getting people who are in debt that need the money.

If you sign a contract to join the Russian military, you go into an assault unit, the likelihood of being killed or wounded within a month is quite high. And I think it’s a question about how much the Russians know about that. Do they know how dire the situation is? That’s not clear.

But it’s certainly an issue where Ukrainian brigades are very understrength. Russia is still struggling to break through them. And that’s partially because Russia has weaknesses. They just don’t have as much equipment as they did before. They don’t have the artillery advantage they had before. Their infantry is not as capable as it was before. So even if their infantry takes a position, they’re not really trying to achieve a breakthrough. It’s kind of trying to take the next tree line, and they’re content doing that.

On the Ukrainian side, despite the issues with infantry, we know they’ve significantly scaled the production of FPVs and UAVs. The Defense Ministry said it was 1.6 million produced last year – very impressive numbers.

Pilots of the “Peaky Blinders” division prepare drones for a combat flight in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, on May 16, 2024. (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)

The quality of FPVs has gone up tremendously. The best Ukrainian young engineers are all working on these things. And so the innovation is very fast.

You have a number of (drone) regiments that are being formed as separate regiments. And those units are just extremely efficient. They are like industrial-size killing machines at the front line. And they’ve really improved the coordination between UAV units, which was a really significant issue early in the war.

And so I think there are two factors. On one hand, Ukraine has improved a number of things in terms of UAV use. And out of necessity, Ukraine has to innovate because they don’t have enough manpower. There is a greater political sensitivity to catalysts in Ukraine than there is in Russia, where it’s obviously very low. And they can’t fight the same way that Russia can fight. So on one hand, it’s this innovation that Ukraine is succeeding in. On the other hand, it’s Russia – they have resource advantage, but they’re struggling to really capitalize on it as much as they possibly could.

The Kyiv Independent: When we talk with experts and commanders, manpower seems to be the biggest issue. And it almost seems like it can only get worse because Ukraine’s overall manpower is limited. It’s not something that foreign aid can replace. What are the most important steps Ukraine can make?

Rob Lee: One of the things that’s been announced is an attempt to increase the number of volunteers from the 18 to 24-year-old age bracket. Someone mentioned this week that they’d received 10,000 applications – I don’t know all the facts there, we’ll have to wait and see.

In the beginning of the war in 2022, Ukraine obviously had a professional military and then there was a massive influx of volunteers. And those volunteers really sustained the war in 2022. You had very motivated people. You had some of the best, most educated, the highest-ranked people in Ukraine fighting in 2022. And as casualties mounted in 2023 and 2024, it went back to being a kind of mobilized military, in which case you get kind of a mix of results. You get some people who are still motivated to fight, some people who are less motivated to fight.

And of course, the military in 2025, it’s a mobilized military. In the infantry in particular, you’re not getting volunteers. I think the last group of volunteers for the infantry were the convicts.

There are several issues. One of them is trust. It’s about if you were sent to the military and you were given a certain job, to know that you are not going to be sent into infantry.

The Kyiv Independent: But the infantry is where you need the new people in the first place.

Rob Lee: Right. In all wars, it’s the infantry that has the highest burden by far, that shows the burden.

They don’t rotate that often. We should not underestimate how much of a burden these guys are holding. It’s really tremendous. And there’s no end date. There’s no demobilization system. And so it’s very difficult.

The U.S. has been pushing for the mobilization age to be reduced to 18. I don’t know, and I’m not Ukrainian. It’s kind of a political decision, so I don’t want to wade into it. There are Ukrainians who believe that’s the right move to do, but I also know many that don’t think it’s the right move to do, including people who are fighting, who think that the age pool from 30 to 50 is still large enough. There are more people who can mobilize to fight. And if you keep reducing the age pool, then men or boys who are in high school are going to be sent out of the country, so more families are going to be broken apart. You’ll get more people who go AWOL to avoid the war.

And of course, a lot of the most educated, best engineers are 18 to 24-year-olds, and you want them to be able to sustain the economy. So it’s not fully clear that that’s the solution.

But the problem is that we’re three years into the war, and the manpower pool is not what it was at the beginning of the war. And look, Russia has a lot of men, and they clearly have a lot of men who are willing to sign up for contracts to go into fighting. There’s little political sensitivity.

Azov Brigade’s tank crew members Oleksandr - callsign Statut -(L), 27, Sergiy - call sign Lyozya - (C), 47, and callsign Vardi (R), 27, pose on their tank under a camouflage net near Toretsk, Donetsk Oblast, on Jan. 31, 2025. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

A Ukrainian serviceman of the Azov Brigade aims a weapon during training in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on Feb. 3, 2025. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

We know Vladimir Putin has been resisting another mobilization campaign, but he probably can do it. He could probably do an unlimited campaign. I think he has enough control domestically in Russia, where it probably won’t create such significant political turmoil.

So this is still a really big issue for 2025 – if Ukraine can at least fix or not let the manpower situation worsen – because I think Russia could probably sustain this war this year.

The Kyiv Independent: Yes, with mobilization, it’s being done here in a democracy, and it is causing tensions. But when people say it will cause real unrest in Russia, I think people forget about what kind of a state Russia is.

Rob Lee: And just one thing to add: In Russia, they can execute soldiers. If soldiers turn around, they will be executed.

And so they don’t, so they get pushed forward. And we also see all these videos of Russian soldiers committing suicide – just kind of can’t imagine a worse situation than basically serving the Russian military. In Ukraine, that’s not going to happen, right?

The Ukrainian commanders are not going to execute soldiers who are unwilling to fight, and so you have to deal with it in different ways. It is a democracy, and there’s greater value for the lives of Ukrainian soldiers than there is for the Russian military.

The Kyiv Independent: How realistic is, maybe not completely, but to what scale can infantry be truly replaced by unmanned systems on the ground?

Rob Lee: Well, we’re going to see this year. One of the key priorities, I think, for Ukraine’s government this year is to scale up the production of unmanned ground vehicles. There are significantly more companies developing new GVs, offering them, than last year.

There are some brigades that are very far forward using new GVs. I was told some things I can’t repeat, so I’ll be careful here, but I do think this year we’re going to see a quite significant expansion in use of new GVs. The main priority is probably going to be logistics.

“Ukraine has to innovate and adapt to the situation.”

So as we know, the most dangerous situation right now is the rotation of infantry. This is not when they're in the trenches. Once they've built good dugouts, they can hold them pretty well. But it's rotating between the rear area to the front line, which is quite difficult with vehicles because FPVs present this kind of new threat, which often can fly maybe 10 miles or 10 kilometers past the front line. So if you can replace the use of vehicles for logistics, that can really significantly improve the situation.

Some of these new GVs are quite large. They can bring logs and other things to build better fortifications. And for some of the brigades, a majority of supplies are being moved by UGVs right now.

There are still limitations. So operating UAVs, UGVs is still very manpower intensive. We're talking about four-man teams. Usually, it requires a lot of coordination.

This is how Ukraine has to innovate and adapt to the situation. Russia has more manpower. Ukraine cannot afford to lose more infantry. That is a key issue. And so UGVs are part of this, just as UAVs were for compensating for lack of artillery ammunition or lack of infantry right now.

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The Kyiv Independent: We've heard about plans to change the Ukrainian military into a corps system. How do you assess that decision and how can it be executed in a situation where the military is so overstretched along the front line?

Rob Lee: The idea is the right one. A consistent problem throughout the war is that Ukraine is a brigade-style military, and there isn't really much of a command and control structure above that.

You have operational strategic groups, operational tactical groups, but these commands, they're not really responsible for the units under their command. Units kind of come in and leave, whereas you want them to have long-term responsibility because then you're going to be more careful about how you use them, you're not going to have too many casualties.

One of the broader problems in the Ukrainian military the last year and a half, because there's a manpower problem, is that often brigades will be piecemeal deployed across the front line, where a brigade may have two battalions in one direction, a battalion in another direction. Those battalions are attached to other brigades. That other brigade commander, they're probably going to use the attached units more aggressively than their own units, just out of a sense of survival.

This has created a variety of problems. So the move to a corps structure would be useful, and I think the idea that the brigade commanders – I'm not sure if it's official – but like Khartiia Brigade, Azov, 3rd Assault, 92nd, some of the really famous units, taking the lead – it makes sense. One of the problems last year is that Ukraine set up a number of new brigades, the 150 series. Many of them had a variety of problems, which I won't go into, but if you put those brigades under the command of another brigade that has a good culture, that does training the right way, that does leadership the right way, you can in some ways ameliorate those problems, and that's kind of an ideal situation.

But as you mentioned, forming the corps right now is quite difficult. So it's going to be a big question about how it's executed.

The Kyiv Independent: Going back to Russia, it almost seems like in the information space, there are two images of the Russian military. One is that Russia has upscaled its recruiting and its production, and is almost a truly unstoppable military machine. But then other people say that all they can do is human wave attacks and, at the rate of their loss, they'll lose so many million people to take this much of Ukraine. What is the real picture of the Russian military?

Rob Lee: So it's a mix. There are strengths, and there are really serious weaknesses, too.

Russia's certainly not unstoppable. Russia, since October 2023, they've been strategically on the offensive, they've had the initiative, they've advanced in the Avdiivka direction, but other places: In Toretsk, the fight began sometime in the summer, Chasiv Yar, they got there around April, and they've almost taken the city, but it's taken a very long time, heavy casualties. And they're still struggling to take back Kursk.

A lot of this comes back to what Russia's political objectives and the military means are. So Vladimir Putin last year laid out that the minimum conditions for negotiations is control of all four oblasts that he says are part of Russia, right? Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson. Russia is a very long way from taking all those oblasts, right?

So obviously Luhansk, almost all of it is Russia-controlled, although there's still very heavy fighting for the last part of it. Donetsk, there's a lot of fighting to go. Russian forces got to Pokrovsk around August, and they still have not been able to encircle it for a long time at heavy costs, and obviously Ukraine has had some counterattacks the last few weeks, retaking some areas.

So not only have they not taken Pokrovsk, but trying to get to Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk – at this rate, it could take quite a long time. And of course, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, this is something far, far removed. Russia's still very far from achieving its minimum objectives in this war.

But they have a significant manpower advantage. They recruited a large number of contract soldiers last year. That means they can sustain this war for this year, at least, in terms of manpower. As it later goes on, this could be a more significant issue.

Some capabilities Russia has are much more capable now than they were before. They've got FPV units, they have far more ISR (intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition) units, although, obviously, Ukraine has had success countering them. They've improved and modernized many of the missiles, such as KH-101s and Iskander-Ms.

Their long-range missile strikes, they've improved the tactics behind it. They do adapt. We shouldn't say that they don't. Russian EW (electronic warfare), depending on who you talk to, is still quite effective. And they have some other supporting capabilities that have gotten effective.

And Russian air defenses are not as effective as the air defense systems we've seen in this war, but they still do shoot down a lot of missiles. They have shot down plenty of Storm Shadows and ATACMS. Obviously, these UAV attacks Ukraine conducts on Russia, most UAVs get shot down, although still, if a few get through, that's often enough.

The Kyiv Independent: There is a prospect of the U.S. really abandoning Ukraine in terms of military aid, and then there are other more political questions like intelligence and Starlink. How bad could it be for Ukraine if that's cut off?

Rob Lee: The short answer is I don't know. I think there are different scenarios. One is where the U.S. does not pass an aid package, but they are open to Europe purchasing U.S. weapons or ammunition to form military sales for Ukraine, in which case, that could potentially supplant this, and Europe is still a very rich group, they still have plenty of money, and if they tap into Russian currency reserves, that is another option.

At the same time, if the U.S. does not pass an aid package, then the artillery expenditure rate for Ukraine is going to go down. Instead of 2 to 1, if it's 3 to 1, 4 to 1, what that means in the front line is that more Ukrainian soldiers will die, on a very basic level. It doesn't necessarily mean it will be decisive, but it will become more difficult for Ukraine to fight.

There are other systems that I believe only the U.S. produces, like the interceptors for Patriots, munitions for HIMARS, I'm sure there are a variety of other things, too, like Stingers, Javelins. Some of those things will be really critical.

HIMARS fills a very critical role in the Ukrainian military for operational-level fire. There's nothing else that replaces it. And then Patriot interceptors – Patriot is the main anti-ballistic missile defense system for Ukraine. And that is what is protecting Kyiv and all other cities from ballistic missile threats. Ukraine has the ability to shoot down cruise missiles pretty effectively. We know they can shoot down Shaheds and other UAVs very effectively. But ballistic missiles, the options aren't as great.

If you lose this kind of ballistic missile defense, then that could be a key issue. Russia might go after defense industrial factories again or go after the energy grid more successfully. And that could pose significant issues.

So it won't be a complete breakdown, but a loss of U.S. aid could have significant effects. Starlink, obviously, plays a really important role in communications, in integrating the UAV systems.

If the U.S. not only stops providing aid but also refuses to allow Europe to buy munitions, that could have a really significant effect, particularly because we know Ukraine already has a manpower problem, and that would compound the issues Ukraine faces.

Ukrainian military members inspect a damaged building after a missile attack in Izium, Kharkiv Oblast, on Feb. 4, 2025. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

The Kyiv Independent: Russia's going forward and they are advancing, there's no real reason for them to be interested in stopping the war, and I think that's always the key question about a negotiated peace. So if we're looking first and foremost at the battlefield beyond grand geopolitics, what would it take for Russia to feel at this point that they just can't go any further forward and they're happy to take what they have?

Rob Lee: For this war to end, it begins with Russia not being able to advance on the battlefield. As I said before, the minimum objectives that Russia has are to take control of all four of those oblasts, which Russia only partially controls right now.

Russia, at this rate, is quite far from achieving that. I don't think it's likely that Russia would take all of Donetsk Oblast this year, unless there's a kind of catastrophic breakdown of Ukrainian forces. And again, it comes back to the U.S. aid and other factors.

And so for Russia, as long as they're advancing on the battlefield, and they have not achieved taking all of Donetsk Oblast, I think the war is going to continue. Peace negotiations can go on, but the gap there is too significant, and I don't think there's any chance that President Zelensky is going to give up territory that Ukraine currently controls. I just don't think that is politically palatable, and I don't think Ukrainians would allow it. So right now, we have a gap between the Russian demands and the Ukrainian version of what they would be willing to accept as the end of the war.

The other big factor here is that how the war ends is really critical. There's a reason why Ukraine keeps asking for security guarantees, because – people talk that Ukraine is tired of this war, exhausted, and that's true – but I think my sense is that what Ukraine is really tired of is this persistent threat from Russia. This threat has been going on for quite a long time, the war began 11 years ago, and for Ukraine, it's important that however the war ends, that it ends and does not begin again.

There's a chance that if the Trump administration offers concessions that are outside of Ukraine, such as about the security architecture of Europe, maybe that will allow Russia to end the war on different terms in Ukraine because that would be a significant victory for Russia. This war is in part about changing the security architecture of Europe. It's not just about Ukraine.

We saw the demands that Russia made back in December 2021 about going back to what the NATO borders looked like in 1997 and so on. I think Russia still wants that, and they're still talking about that publicly.

My view is that this war is going to continue. It will likely continue as of this summer. Maybe we'll see a ceasefire, but not necessarily a permanent ceasefire because Russia has not achieved even its minimum objectives in the war. It has not been a success for Russia, it's come at a high cost, and even though Putin has very strong control of Russia, can he sell what he's achieved so far as a victory to the Russian people? I'm not sure he can because he really hasn't succeeded, and the costs have been quite significant. So, unfortunately, I think the war is probably going to continue.

We'll see how the U.S. responds because I think negotiations are going to be more difficult than maybe some U.S. officials currently imagine. The way to end this war is to prevent Russia from advancing on the battlefield, to get to a point where Russia can't have success. But as long as Russia advances on the battlefield, it's going to continue. And for the U.S., the best ability to affect that is to continue providing greater aid because then that will enable Ukraine to stop Russian advances.

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‘It’s not the end’ — Kyiv Independent staff on what they’d tell themselves right before Russia's invasion

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 16:33:39 +0100

Feb. 24, 2025 marks three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Three years since Ukraine, and the world, ceased to exist as we knew them.

Kyiv Independent staff members have answered the question, “If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion?” The following reflections offer a window into the profound impact this war has had on a group of people covering the war — and a nation — changed forever.

Asami Terajima, reporter

I would tell myself that everything about your life will change tomorrow: your understanding of war, peace, and life. And that you made a good call convincing your parents not to return to Ukraine, where they had been living, because you had good instincts about what was to come.

Don’t freak out, but the war that is about to consume your life is way worse than you could have ever imagined. The most important thing is that you know you are not alone. You have friends and colleagues who will be there for you, so just keep taking one step at a time. You are only a 21-year-old university student who just stepped into the world of journalism. Nothing is expected of you. So just cherish the last few hours in peace, the calm before the storm before the innocence of youth is taken away from you.

Make sure that you are comfortable with the risk you are taking, and follow your gut — it can sometimes save lives. Don’t panic, and stay true to yourself. You will lose many friends to war, you will attend funerals for the first time, and you will witness horrifying scenes that you were always scared to watch in war movies. But you are loved, and there will be beautiful moments amid the uncertainty and darkness that shine so brightly. You will discover more about yourself along the way.

But also, leave the Kyiv Independent office a little earlier on Feb. 23 so that you can get a good sleep in (I left at 2 a.m. on Feb. 24 and the invasion started a few hours later).

A Ukrainian service member holds a portrait of fallen soldier Dmytro Kotsiubailo during his funeral at Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 10, 2023. (Roman Pilipey/Getty Images)

Toma Istomina, deputy chief editor

I didn’t sleep on Feb. 24, 2022. The days leading up to the full-scale invasion were already crazy enough to keep me in the office until late at night, and by late I mean past 2 a.m. By the time I got home, it was already clear that tonight was the night when Russia would go through with its sick plan.

Just 30 minutes before the first explosions rocked Kyiv and Russian tanks started rolling over Ukrainian borders from all sides, I published a post on Instagram, saying:

“Again and again we prove to have something Russia can only envy. We are united, we are courageous, and our values prevail in the face of hundreds of thousands of fully equipped troops encircling our country. We might have been unfortunate to share a border with Russia. But we are damn fortunate to have each other. And nobody will ever take that away.”

Three years later, after everything we’ve been through, I couldn’t say it better. If I could go back in time to the eve of the full-scale invasion, I would take my own phone, open that post, and read it out loud to myself, with a lot of confidence.

No words could have truly prepared me for the horror to come, but knowing my future self stood by this vision might have made it easier to see the light ahead.

Oh, and I would tell myself to call our developers and ask them to prepare our website for record traffic at 5 a.m. Waking them up after the full-scale invasion had already started to fix our crashed website? A bit awkward.

A woman carries a girl past the heavily damaged Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 8, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

Natalia Yermak, reporter

I had a picnic on a frozen lake with my friends on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion. We fried eggs and sausages over a fire. I would have told myself in that moment that my old life was about to end forever. But I will not be the only one.

I’d also tell myself that my first impression of the war — that it is bigger than just Ukraine, and will change people’s lives all over the world — will prove more true than ever in a few years.

There are so many stories of strength and compassion that I’ll see over three years, and so many tragedies — more than I ever thought I could handle.

Telling these stories will help me to get through. They’ll stay with me, and hopefully, with you, our readers, so that one day, when you or I get to have a picnic with friends, we remember the people who stood up to evil to protect the good in our lives, and we ask ourselves: What can I do to repay them?

Attendees hold portrait placards and sing Ukraine’s national anthem during a moment of silence on Defenders Day in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 1, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

Elsa Court, audience development manager

I’d tell myself that it’s going to feel like the end. It’s going to feel like there is no hope, that Ukraine will be completely occupied, that you will never see Kyiv again. You’re also going to feel powerless watching what is happening from abroad, like seeing a tsunami or earthquake rip into a piece of land from afar. You will feel like you are standing there, frozen, as the unthinkable happens, and an unstoppable force swallows Ukraine.

But just because this is how it feels, doesn’t mean it’s true.

“Keep going, until the end.”

First of all, it’s not the end — it’s only the beginning, and not just for Ukraine, but for all of Europe. You are going to see Kyiv again (in fact, you will move there two years later). And you will find working at the Kyiv Independent will make you feel like you have some impact, at least on how other non-Ukrainians like you understand Ukraine and Russia’s war. You will also find out that Russia is not an unstoppable force — but so far, only Ukrainians have dared to stop it.

You will become a lot less fatalist after moving to Ukraine — there’s something about being surrounded by people who continue to live, regardless of their neighbor’s best effort to kill them, that will change your attitude.

That doesn’t mean feelings of hopelessness will ever go away. When I feel particularly hopeless, a good Ukrainian friend tells me, “Elsa, doh kinstya” — Ukrainian for "keep going, until the end." After three years, you still won’t know for sure when, or where, the end will be.

Ukrainian infantry of the 23rd Mechanized Brigade board a MaxxPro armored vehicle near Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on April 3, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

Kate Tsurkan, reporter

If I could go back and tell myself anything on the eve of the invasion, it would be this: prepare yourself.

You know what’s coming — you have no doubt. But you aren’t ready for the full extent of Russia’s cruelty. Prepare yourself for the fact that the country you were born in won’t help the country you love as much as it can or should. And its next president? He might betray us completely.

Prepare yourself to constantly worry about your friends on the front line, and to struggle with the dual feelings of gratitude and guilt from having some semblance of a normal life thanks to them.

Prepare yourself to see a video, after a Russian attack, where your friend is clearly not going to make it. It can happen again. It can happen to anyone you know — even you.

The fact that you will spend two weeks in Kharkiv without hearing a single explosion is dumb luck. Still, you should not shrug off every air raid siren like you will in Chernivtsi. You should not become so acclimated to the sounds of war.

Prepare yourself — because you will have a child. And no matter what happens, you won’t be allowed to cry about any of this in front of her. Your job will be to teach her to cherish her culture above all else, to hate Russia for bringing war to her lands, and most importantly, to survive.

A street musician plays the piano during a blackout in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 6, 2024, after Russian strikes on energy infrastructure. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

Kateryna Denisova, reporter

Freedom means a lot to millions of Ukrainians, believe in your people — that is what I would tell myself on the eve of the invasion.

I’d also tell myself that this war concerns the whole world; there is no justice, but you should never lose hope and always act.

Back then, on the first day of Russia’s all-out invasion, as a Ukrainian and a journalist, I was sure that the world would not just sit by and watch; it would give us all the weapons we needed, close the skies, and do everything to stop Russia from destroying my nation. But this did not happen.

I would tell myself that it was in fact Ukraine — not other countries that are richer and have more means — that would be the most powerful and decisive in the moment, even as it seemed it was about to fall into Russia’s hands. Will was the only weapon that Russia did not have and will never have.

Ukrainian military chaplains attend their graduation at Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 23, 2023. (Roman Pilipey/Getty Images)

Dominic Culverwell, business reporter

I would tell myself to be mentally prepared for a hard and emotional three years. And to be strong because tomorrow morning, you are going to wake up and have a panic attack, but just know that your friends are going to survive the battle of Kyiv and the occupation of Bucha.

You are also going to meet some of the most incredible people and make amazing friends. Ukrainians are going to teach you so much about strength and unity but be prepared for a dark shift in your humor — it's a coping mechanism, so don't be alarmed. Ukrainians are good at cracking a joke in bleak times.

I’d tell myself that there's a long road ahead and moving to Kyiv during the war will be one of the best decisions you've ever made. Even though the night-time drone and missile attacks are exhausting and the stories you hear are emotionally gutting, you won't ever question your decision.

A Ukrainian serviceman kisses his partner upon arrival from Kyiv at a railway station in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on March 26, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

1,000 days of full-scale war: Reflections from the Kyiv Independent team

As we mark 1,000 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, members of the Kyiv Independent’s staff have paused to reflect. These reflections offer a glimpse into the profound impact of war — not only on a nation’s struggle for survival but on those who bear

The Kyiv IndependentAnna Belokur

UK’s Lammy sees no Russian willingness for peace at G20 meeting

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 01:34:00 +0100

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that the Kremlin shows no interest in pursuing peace in Ukraine, following a speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a closed-door session of the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Johannesburg on Feb. 20.

Speaking to reporters after the session, Lammy criticized Lavrov’s remarks, saying they did not indicate any willingness to negotiate a settlement, according to the Associated Press. He also noted that Lavrov left the room before Lammy had the chance to deliver his own speech.

The G20 meeting, taking place in South Africa, follows recent U.S.-Russia bilateral talks over ending the war in Ukraine—talks that excluded both Ukraine and its European allies.

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The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

Tensions have been further heightened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments blaming Ukraine for the war and his criticism of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In his speech, released by the U.K. Foreign Office, Lammy accused Russia of engaging in “Tsarist imperialism” and failing to learn from historical colonial wars. He expressed disappointment in Lavrov’s speech, saying he had hoped for acknowledgment of civilian suffering and a commitment to a durable peace, but instead heard what he described as “the logic of imperialism.” Lammy dismissed Lavrov’s remarks as “tired fabrications” and urged G20 members not to be misled by Russia’s justifications for its actions.

The G20, which includes major global economies alongside the EU and African Union, has struggled to find common ground on key geopolitical issues, particularly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his opening address, urged member states to engage in constructive dialogue amid ongoing global crises, including war, climate change, and economic instability.

However, U.S. disengagement from the summit signals the Trump administration’s continued prioritization of its “America First” agenda over multilateral cooperation.

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One year following Navalny's death, West, Navalnaya condemn Putin's Russia

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 20:12:32 +0100

Yuliya Navalnaya, widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Western leaders decried repression in Russia on Feb. 16, the anniversary of Navalny’s death.

Navalny, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested on politically motivated charges in January 2021. He was convicted and later died in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024.

Western countries, including Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, issued a joint statement on the anniversary of Navalny’s death.

“We reiterate that the ultimate responsibility for his death lies with the Russian authorities. One year on, Russia’s dire human rights record continues to deteriorate … All to serve its own interests,” the statement read.

The statement condemned Russia for holding over 800 political prisoners who are tortured and forced into psychiatric detention.

“The Kremlin crushes peaceful dissent, maintains a climate of fear, and undermines the rule of law,” it said.

The countries also claimed that Russia uses the threat of imprisonment to quash opposition to the full-scale war against Ukraine.

“Many (are) imprisoned for speaking out against the Kremlin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the brutality shown towards the Ukrainian people,” the statement said.

The anniversary of Navalny’s death falls during the Munich Security Conference, where European and U.S. officials convened to discuss the status of the war as it approaches its third year.

EU High Representative Kaja Kallas issued her own statement regarding Navalny on Feb. 16.

“Navalny gave his life for a free and democratic Russia. Today, his lawyers are unjustly imprisoned along with hundreds of political prisoners,” she said.

“Russia is increasingly waging an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine while continuing its domestic repression, persecuting those who advocate for democracy … The EU calls on Russia to stop its brutal repression of civil society, media, and opposition figures."

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, also posted a video commemorating her late husband one year after his death.

“To whom he opened their eyes to the truth of Putin’s regime, it is important to continue supporting (Navalny),” she said.

Since her husband’s death, Navalnaya has emerged as a key Russian opposition figure. She spoke at the Munich Security Conference at a panel alongside Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, warning against attempts to negotiate with Putin.

“Even if you decided to negotiate with Putin, just remember he will lie,” she said on Feb. 14.

A vocal opponent of Putin, Navalnaya has expressed ambivalence toward arming Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion.

‘No point trying to negotiate’ with Putin, Yulia Navalnaya says

“Even if you decided to negotiate with Putin, just remember he will lie,” Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, said at the Munich Security Conference two days before the anniversary of her husband’s death.

The Kyiv IndependentAbbey Fenbert

‘Totally screwed’ — How Trump, Hegseth are damaging Ukraine in talks with Russia

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 19:57:07 +0100

After promising to quickly resolve the war in Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump and his top officials’ actions on Feb. 12 appeared to undermine Ukraine’s leverage in peace talks, renewing fears that his plans for a quick resolution could amount to a victory for Russia.

Trump announced he had held phone calls with both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying peace negotiations would start “immediately” and a ceasefire is in the “not too distant future."

Earlier in the day, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” and that NATO membership for Ukraine is not an option.

By conceding leverage points before negotiations have formally started, Trump’s team has “totally screwed their own negotiating position,” Timothy Ash, an associate fellow at the Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Program, told the Kyiv independent.

“Why, even before negotiations start, would you give away your negotiating leverage?” Ash said. “We might ultimately agree that NATO is not appropriate at this time, or maybe never, but it’s a card that Trump could have used in negotiations. Similarly with territory. Trump could have played hardball."

“It seemed like a rookie error,” Ash added.

`‘We cannot trust our partners’`

For many in Ukraine, the U.S. voicing concessions on territory and NATO membership — before conducting any formal negotiations involving Ukraine — amounted to a betrayal by a key ally.

“This means that we cannot trust our partners,” said Petro Andryushchenko, former Mariupol mayoral advisor and head of the Center for the Study of Occupation.

“This is exactly what the president (Zelensky) means when he says, ‘If we are not accepted into NATO, we have to build NATO here.’"

“I think it destroys the whole basis of democracy and the building of the world after the Second World War.”

Territorial concessions are particularly devastating for those living in difficult conditions under occupation, Andryushchenko said, as they will have to face the idea that they will never rejoin Ukraine.

Roughly one fifth of Ukraine’s territory is occupied by Russia, with Russian forces still advancing slowly in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainians living under occupation experience "widespread" human rights violations, the UN has found, including threats, unlawful imprisonment, and torture.

"Imagine being under occupation, helping to believe in liberation, helping with your every step, your life, reporting information about the presence of Russian troops, their behavior — important things that bring us closer to victory. And now you are told that no, you are not needed, you are there forever," he said.

"I think it destroys the whole basis of democracy and the building of the world after the Second World War."

Evacuees from Pokrovsk arrive at an evacuation point outside the city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on Dec. 14, 2024, as Russian troops advance nearby. (Roman Pilipey / AFP / Getty Images)

A locomotive passes under a destroyed bridge on a heavily damaged railway track in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, on Nov. 16, 2024. (Kostiantyn Liberov / Libkos / Getty Images)

Since taking office, Trump has had significant military, financial, and diplomatic options at his disposal that could be used against Russia to extract better terms for Ukraine.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a top member of parliament from President Volodymyr Zelensky's party, disputed Hegseth’s comment that restoring Ukraine’s pre-war borders was "unrealistic," calling the prospect "absolutely realistic" if more were done to pressure Russia.

Trump himself had earlier floated the idea of applying high tariffs and sanctions to Russia’s struggling economy if a peace deal was not achieved.

"To (restore the borders), Ukraine needs to get enough contemporary weaponry which would allow it to have, at a minimum, parity with Russia on the battlefield. Additionally, the use of serious financial sanctions against Russia’s banking and financial system could have paralyzed the Russian war machine," Merezhko said.

"Regrettably, we don’t see that yet."

`Over the heads of the Europeans and Ukrainians`

Not all were surprised by Hegseth’s comments. John Foreman, the former British ambassador to Moscow, told the Kyiv Independent that they revealed an "ultra-realist approach."

"The Americans aren’t prepared to put NATO troops into Ukraine. We know that, because if they had, they would have done it in 2022. And de facto, Ukraine’s going to lose land as part of any peace deal, because Ukraine can’t push the Russians out," said Foreman.

"I can see why it’s gone down badly in Kyiv, and amongst some European capitals. But to be honest, you shouldn’t be surprised."

The phone call with Putin is still significant, Foreman noted, in terms of signalling how the discussions are being carried out — with Trump speaking directly to Putin without other American allies present.

President Joe Biden previously cut all direct communication with Putin after the 2022 invasion.

"The Russians have got what they really wanted as a start — direct conversation with America, over the head of the Europeans, and over, perhaps, the head of the Ukrainians," said Foreman.

"If there is an agreement made behind our backs, it simply will not work."

European leaders — suddenly left out of discussions after nearly three years of close involvement with the U.S. on Ukraine-related issues under President Joe Biden’s administration — scrambled to react to Trump’s comments.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, said: "Why are we giving (Russia) everything they want, even before negotiations have started? … If there is an agreement made behind our backs, it simply will not work."

U.S. Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth arrives for his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Jan. 14, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

Matryoshka dolls, depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Melania Trump are displayed for sale at a gift shop on Arbat Street in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 13, 2025. (Tatyana Makeyeva / AFP / Getty Images)

European officials are concerned that they might be left to shoulder the costs of Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and security after being excluded from the discussions between Trump and Putin, the Financial Times reported on Feb. 13.

Six European countries released a statement with Ukraine and the European Commission following Trump’s comments, that read: "Our shared objectives should be to put Ukraine in a position of strength. Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations."

The statement also committed to Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Germany, France, the U.K., Poland, Italy, and Spain signed the statement.

`'Trump has effectively surrendered'`

Within the U.S. as well, Trump and Hegseth’s comments provoked backlash from some officials.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal called Hegseth’s message a "surrender and betrayal" of Ukraine, while Senator Adam B. Schiff also condemned Hegseth’s comments and criticized Trump for calling Putin before he spoke with Zelensky.

John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, told CNN: "Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin before the negotiations have even begun."

The terms quoted by Hegseth "could have been written in the Kremlin," Bolton added.

Hegseth pushed back on claims that a swift negotiation would be a “betrayal” at a press conference in Brussels, the Guardian reported. “There is no betrayal — there is a recognition that the whole world and the U.S. is invested in peace, in a negotiated peace,” he said.

Trump’s calls to Putin and Zelensky have nonetheless set the stage for talks to end the Ukraine war, signaling a new phase after nearly three years of war. No negotiations have taken place since the war’s early months.

Zelensky is expected to meet with several top U.S. officials in the next few days at the Munich Security Conference from Feb. 14-16. According to the President’s Office, Trump's Ukraine and Russia envoy Keith Kellogg and Vice President JD Vance are among those he is planning to meet.

Kellogg is also scheduled to visit Ukraine on Feb. 20. Trump has said he may meet with Putin in Saudi Arabia and plans to meet Zelensky soon, though he did not provide details.

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The Kyiv IndependentOleg Sukhov

As US cuts Ukraine funding, EU's lending arm steps in with nearly 1 billion euros in investments

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 18:03:25 +0100

The European Union’s lending arm, the European Investment Bank (EIB), has signed agreements to mobilize close to 1 billion euros ($1.03 billion) in investments into Ukraine’s public and private sectors as the U.S. moves to cut funding to development projects in the country.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze all foreign assistance has cast uncertainty on the future of projects in Ukraine in nearly every sector, from critical infrastructure to civil society development.

Nadia Calvino, the EIB’s president, said at a press briefing on Feb. 10 that she had discussed Ukraine’s urgent funding needs with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to see where the bank could fill the gaps if international partners withdraw their support.

“We discussed the priority areas where the EIB could step up its support — for example, in the areas of border management, transport, energy, and municipalities,” Calvino said in Kyiv during her first visit to the country since taking up office as head of the EIB a year ago.

“We’re working very closely with the government to finance the necessary investments to rebuild, repair, and make national infrastructure more resilient,” she said.

The investment announced on Feb. 10 includes 420 million euros ($433 million) in Ukraine’s public sector to help restore critical infrastructure such as energy, heating, water supply, hospitals, schools, and social housing.

On the private sector side, the bank has signed an agreement to mobilize close to 500 million euros ($515 million) in financing for small and medium-sized businesses throughout the whole country, including in front-line regions, Calvino said.

The bank also announced the German Economy Ministry is providing a 16.5-million-euro ($17 million) loan through the EIB’s climate initiative fund to finance renewable energy projects in Ukraine. The EIB is a key lender in funding Europe’s green transition.

Calvino said the EIB has been working with the Ukrainian government to speed up the implementation of projects on the ground over the last year. The bank signed a pledge with Ukraine’s government last year to accelerate the deployment of 560 million euros ($596 million) it had ready to help rebuild Ukraine in 2024.

“Municipalities and small and medium-sized businesses can start already approaching their banks to see about this financing and we hope that it will be mobilized as soon as possible,” she said at the press briefing.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the EIB has delivered over 2.2 billion euros ($2.26 billion) in financing mainly dedicated to repairing and modernizing Ukraine’s municipal infrastructure.

This latest round of investment announcements are part of the bank’s 2-billion-euro ($2.06 billion) contribution to the EU’s 50-billion-euro ($51 billion) Ukraine Facility loan and grant program.

As Trump’s team looks to negotiate an end to Russia’s nearly-three year full-scale invasion of Ukraine, talks of reconstruction in Ukraine have returned to front and center.

Russia’s constant missile and drone attacks since 2022 have seriously damaged Ukraine’s housing, water and energy systems. Costs to rebuild are approaching the $500 billion mark.

Calvino said she is sure the EIB will play an important role in supporting the reconstruction of the country “not only because of our direct investment but because of our ability to mobilize public and private investment to support the public and private sector in Ukraine, and beyond."

Meanwhile, European member states recently called on the EIB to increase its lending to the bloc’s defense industry and beef up its defenses against any possible Russian attack in the future.

The president said she welcomes the support the bank has received from European membes states on stepping up the EIB’s role in supporting Europe’s defense and security sectors “while safeguarding our financing capacity and AAA rating."

The bank already invested 1 billion euros ($1.03 billion) into the sector last year and plans to double it to 2 billion euros ($2.06 billion) in 2025, she added.

Euroclear to send 2-billion-euro tranche of Russian assets profits for Kyiv

Belgian clearing house Euroclear said in a statement on Feb. 5 that the second payment is expected to be made in March and should amount to approximately 2 billion euros.

The Kyiv IndependentYana Prots

The Baltic Sea’s energy infrastructure is under attack. NATO must act

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 17:09:39 +0100

The European Union and NATO must strengthen cooperation to protect critical energy infrastructure from attacks, which pose a growing threat to European stability. The Kremlin, with its history of weaponizing energy, remains a prime suspect. NATO must properly secure the Baltic Sea — the so-called NATO lake.

The Baltic states achieved independence from the post-Soviet energy system in February by connecting to the continental grid via Poland. However, this transition is being overshadowed by a series of incidents in the Baltic Sea, underscoring the urgent need to secure the energy bridge from Poland, known as the LitPol Link. Poland and the Baltic states are ramping up their preparations.

Energy ministers from the Baltic states and Poland discussed preparations on Jan. 24 for the synchronization scheduled for Feb. 8-9. They announced plans for joint protection of the infrastructure required for this effort, following multiple incidents in the Baltic Sea. The synchronization will proceed without relying on the Estlink 2 cable, which was damaged in one of these incidents.

The meeting in Riga focused on finalizing preparations for synchronization and strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure. “The damage to the Estlink 2 power cable connecting Finland to Estonia has not impacted the ability of the Baltic states to safely disconnect from the Belarusian and Russian energy system and connect to the European grid,” the ministers concluded.

Analyses indicate that the Baltic states have sufficient cross-border capacity through Estlink 1, NordBalt, and LitPol Link to synchronize with Europe without relying on Estlink 2. Synchronization entails disconnecting the Baltic states from the post-Soviet BRELL system — which will continue to include Belarus and Russia — and adapting Baltic energy systems to operate on the continental frequency.

The LitPol Link power connection, running through Poland, will facilitate this transition. Synchronizing with the continental grid will eliminate energy exchanges with the BRELL system. This move is particularly significant for Kaliningrad Oblast, which will become an energy island — just as the Baltic states would have been if disconnected from BRELL without European synchronization.

“The resilience and protection of infrastructure have never been more important."

However, we cannot be sure that other parts of the critical infrastructure needed for a successful disconnection from the post-Soviet system are safe from malign activity. The Baltic states and Poland are enhancing the security of LitPol Link and other critical infrastructure elements to protect the synchronization process.

“The resilience and protection of infrastructure have never been more important. The Russian Federation is deliberately destroying Ukraine’s power grid, and its hybrid activities in the Baltic Sea underscore the importance of a well-secured energy system for defense,” said Krzysztof Bolesta, state secretary at Poland’s Ministry of Climate and Environment.

Captain Thomas Zimmerman (L) orders the NATO flag hoisted for the first time on HMS Carlskrona (P04) near Karlskrona, Sweden, on Feb. 4, 2025. (Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)

A Helicopter 15 (HKP15) lands on the flight deck of HMS Carlskrona (P04) near Karlskrona, Sweden, on Feb. 4, 2025, during NATO’s Baltic Sentry patrol. (Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)

Poland is also taking lessons from another energy bridge to Lithuania, known as Harmony Link. Rising costs and security considerations led Polish and Lithuanian operators to plan Harmony Link as a subsoil cable instead of the originally proposed sea route. Land-based infrastructure is easier to secure and — more importantly — can be repaired faster. If sabotage damage can be repaired within a few weeks, the act of sabotage loses much of its impact. That is why the news that Finnish telecom company Elisa managed to repair two undersea cables in about two weeks was so encouraging.

Another type of threat is emerging as well. Baltic operators have reported the spread of disinformation regarding the synchronization of their energy systems with Europe. “We urge the public to critically evaluate information, resist emotional opinions, and refrain from spreading unverified reports,” participants of the Riga meeting emphasized. Beyond spreading fear, the enemy may be attempting to promote a false economic narrative — that disconnection from BRELL would significantly increase electricity costs.

That narrative is false. According to a study conducted during the preparations, the average increase in energy prices for consumers with an average consumption of 140 kWh per month would be minimal: 50 cents per month in Lithuania, 60 cents in Estonia, and around one euro in Latvia. Relatively speaking, this is not a heavy impact. In return, the Baltic states gain energy independence from the Russian operator and market coupling with Europe, which promotes price decreases.

Energy system operators in Poland and the Baltic states have been instructed by their governments to implement an urgent package of measures to enhance the security of critical energy infrastructure. Lithuania’s Interior Ministry expedited the strengthening of the LitPol Link cable’s protection, advancing the timeline from April to Jan. 15 in response to the severing of the Estlink 2 cable between Finland and Estonia on Dec. 26, 2024.

Poland is also taking action. “Polish Transmission System Operator (PSE) ensures the protection of transmission infrastructure within the Republic of Poland’s territory. The company collaborates with relevant national services and institutions, as well as transmission system operators in neighboring countries,” PSE stated in a comment for the Energy Drink podcast.

“Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a state of heightened readiness has been in place, and the infrastructure is continuously monitored, with particular attention given to interconnections with Lithuania, Sweden, and Ukraine. New measures to enhance physical security are also being implemented.”

(L-R) Henna Virkkunen, Mette Frederiksen, Ulf Kristersson, Gitanas Nausėda, Alexander Stubb, Mark Rutte, Kristen Michal, Edgars Rinkēvičs, Olaf Scholz, and Donald Tusk pose at the Baltic Sea NATO summit in Helsinki, Finland, on Jan. 14, 2025. (Vesa Moilanen/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images)

PSE reports ongoing collaboration with operators in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to strengthen regional infrastructure protection. “Discussions are underway about launching joint projects in this area and securing EU funding for them,” the statement adds.

The increasing frequency of attacks on critical infrastructure — such as the recent incident involving the undersea cable between Latvia and Gotland — highlights the difficulty of attributing blame in a complex and interconnected world. Scandinavian media reports suggest it could have been an accident.

However, there have been too many such “accidents” since Russia’s unlawful aggression against Ukraine began. The West needs to take the initiative and stop retreating. The EU and NATO must develop new tools and strategies to address these challenges and protect collective security — especially in the Baltic Sea, which must be properly secured as a NATO-controlled waterway.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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Europe must act on Russian LNG before Trump makes it impossible

Europe’s window to ban Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) is closing faster than we think. As a second Trump administration takes shape, Europe’s opportunity to impose new, meaningful measures on Russian fossil fuels is rapidly diminishing. U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war alleged…

The Kyiv IndependentSvitlana Romanko

German investigators probe Russian link in widespread car vandalism case

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:00:02 +0100

A shocking series of sabotage acts in Germany has been traced back to Russian handlers, according to a report by Der Spiegel. The perpetrators damaged over 270 cars across various regions using construction foam, sticking decals featuring Economy Minister Robert Habeck on car windows. Initially mistaken for environmental activists, the trail of evidence reportedly leads back to Moscow. The attacks appeared to be orchestrated to incite hatred towards the Green Party and their candidate for chancellor.

On the night of December 11, 2024, police in Schönefeld stopped an Opel that aroused suspicion. Inside were three young men with documents from Serbia, Bosnia, and Germany. They did not have break-in tools, only construction materials, including foam sealant for windows. Police checked their documents and released them, not finding anything amiss. However, it soon emerged that around the same time, 43 cars in the Alt-Schönefeld area were damaged. The saboteurs had used foam to block exhaust pipes, leaving stickers with the slogan, "Be Greener!" alongside an image of a smiling Robert Habeck.

The action was initially interpreted as the work of radical climate activists, sparking public outrage and negative backlash against Habeck and the Green Party. Those stopped in Schönefeld were allegedly recruited via messaging apps, receiving instructions for the sabotage. They were tasked with using construction foam to damage cars and applying stickers promoting the movement, in exchange for a promised reward of 100 euros per damaged vehicle, part of which had already been distributed.

Law enforcement initiated an investigation after details about the suspects were shared with other German regions. The public prosecutor has confirmed an investigation into four suspects related to the vandalism, noting damages of around 6,000 euros in the Ulm area alone. As of now, none of the suspects are under arrest, and two have reportedly left the country.

Trump expected to withdraw US from UN Human Rights Council, Reuters reports

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 03:12:00 +0100

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Feb. 4 that the United States will withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council and extend a freeze on funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, a White House official told Reuters.

The move comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington. Netanyahu has been a vocal critic of UNRWA, accusing the agency of inciting anti-Israel sentiment and alleging that some of its staff members have ties to terrorism.

During his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump also halted U.S. contributions to UNRWA, arguing that the agency required reforms and that funding should be contingent on Palestinian participation in peace talks with Israel.

His administration withdrew from the 47-member Human Rights Council in 2018, citing what it described as a persistent bias against Israel and a failure to implement reforms. The U.S. later rejoined the council under President Joe Biden, serving a term from 2022 to 2024.

The Human Rights Council is set to review the United States' human rights record in August as part of its routine evaluation of all member states. While the council lacks legal authority, its discussions carry political significance and can generate international pressure for policy changes. Since returning to office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has also ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement, mirroring decisions made during his first administration.

The U.S. was previously UNRWA’s largest donor, contributing between $300 million and $400 million annually.

However, in January 2024, Biden paused funding after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA employees of involvement in the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza. In response, the U.S. Congress formally suspended contributions to the agency until at least March 2025.

UNRWA provides essential aid, healthcare, and education services to millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

US foreign aid transformed Ukraine. Its suspension threatens decades of work

Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Independent isn’t a recipient of U.S. foreign aid, and its funding wasn’t affected by the aid freeze. With the stroke of a pen, U.S. President Donald Trump last week put a freeze on projects that have helped Ukraine become freer and

The Kyiv IndependentDaria Shulzhenko

Russia’s ‘appalling’ response to oil tanker crash caused ‘ecological catastrophe’ in Black Sea

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 18:15:04 +0100

On the night of Dec. 15, 2024, two Russian oil tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, sank in the Kerch Strait, a narrow maritime connection between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, off the coast of occupied Crimea.

Both vessels were constructed for service on rivers, not on the open sea, and did not have valid sailing documents at the time of the disaster. The tankers also violated a weather-based ban on entering the Kerch Strait.

The vessel crews then attempted for days to obtain an authorization to discharge their oil at a nearby port on the coast of Crimea. To no avail.

A storm picked up, with waves reaching three meters. This brought an end to the service of Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, which had been in use since 1969 and 1973, respectively.

While on Jan. 25, the Russian government officially declared that emergency services had finished an ongoing oil extraction operation, this only concerned one part of Volgoneft-239, which eventually drifted to the coast of Crimea following the wreckage.

The remaining parts of this vessel, and all of Volgoneft-212, are currently only being “examined underwater,” with no attempts yet being made to haul them to shore or extract the fuel oil left in their reservoirs.

According to Eugene Simonov, an expert with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group (UWEC) who spoke to the Kyiv Independent, the sunken vessel parts are left untouched because Russian authorities simply do not have the appropriate equipment to extract oil from underwater reservoirs.

As a result, according to Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, the head of science at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Volgoneft wreckages could evolve into the “worst ecological catastrophe” Russia has seen in the 21st century.

While oil spills have already occurred in the region in the past, the December incident surpasses anything the Black Sea has ever seen. In the closest comparable case, 1,300 tons of fuel oil were released in November 2007, also after a Russian tanker sank in the Kerch Strait.

As for the most recent wreckage, estimates by Russian state-aligned media put the amount of fuel oil released at 3,700 tons.

In late January, the fuel oil reached Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast, with Ukrainian emergency services now also tasked with cleaning up the shores.

`When thousands of tons of oil spill into the sea`

According to Russian environmental experts, the seabed and the shores of Russia’s Krasnodar Krai will be especially affected by the spill.

Much of this is due to the type of fuel which was spilt. The Volgoneft tankers carried “heavy” oil, known as Mazut, which typically conglomerates into solid lumps that are heavier than water.

As a result, the lumps sink and cannot be easily localized, which makes cleanup operations more difficult. Some lumps of “heavy” oil sink, covering the seabed and squashing life beneath. Others eventually wash up on nearby coasts, polluting shoreline waters and beaches.

In comparison, so-called “light” oil typically floats at the surface, spreading in black pools. While the immediate effects of such a spill can be more drastic, cleanup operations are more straightforward.

Volunteers clean up a bird from oil following mid-December tanker crash in the Kerch Strait, in the settlement of Vityazevo in the southern Russian Krasnodar Krai, on Jan. 12, 2025. (Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

In the case of “heavy” oil, lumps can continue washing up on shorelines for months. Some of those that sink remain there until they are dissolved by microorganisms, which can take years if not decades.

According to Natalia Gozak, director of Greenpeace Ukraine, the Black Sea is currently going through its peak of immediate contamination. While this wave might be over soon, the released fuel oil will now move along the maritime food chain, making fish and other wildlife in the sea unsuitable for consumption.

In total, the Black Sea might need 10 to 12 years to rid itself from the oil spill, Gozak told the Kyiv Independent.

Regardless of this, Russian public health officials were quick to claim that fish from the Black Sea was safe to eat, even if it came from affected areas. Certain types of fish are, however, already becoming difficult to find on sale in the Krasnodar Krai, Russian media reported.

As Russians inch closer to Pokrovsk, civilians in the area are left with a choice — stay under fire or leave life behind

BILOZERSKE, Donetsk Oblast — Less than 30 kilometers north of embattled Pokrovsk, a market was in full swing in the town of Bilozerske. Meters away, however, a crowd has gathered in front of a building, nervously awaiting the doors to open. Tensions were visibly mounting as the doors remained close…

The Kyiv IndependentEmmanuelle Chaze

`Russia’s ‘appalling’ response`

According to a Russian ecologist and oil spill expert who spoke to the Kyiv Independent on conditions of anonymity, the reaction by Russian authorities was in fact “appalling.” Actions taken in the first days following such disasters are crucial, and in the case of the Black Sea oil spill, authorities “hardly reacted at all” within this time frame.

Authorities only started reacting after the disaster went viral on Russian social media, the expert said.

“Normally, in all countries, there are protocols for what to do in such situations. In Russia, there are also such plans for oil spills, and legislation is highly developed. However, the issue is that these plans and legislation were not applied.”

In the first weeks, Russian authorities “acted without any plan” to manage the effects of the disaster, according to Simonov. “The main instinct of the responsible officials was rather classic: to hide from higher-up (authorities) their inability to manage the consequences of a rather trivial (oil) spill,” the expert said.

Authorities only started taking appropriate measures after Vladimir Putin reacted to the situation, Simonov claimed.

Inaction by authorities forced locals in affected Russian regions to self-organize, as explained in turn by the anonymous Russian expert. As a result, cleanup operations were conducted haphazardly, without adequate material, creating serious health risks for the hundreds of volunteers who rushed to the shoreline of Krasnodar Krai.

The region, which lies east of the Black Sea waters, seems for now to be the most affected by the disaster.

As part of the improvised cleanup operation, fuel oil lumps which washed up on its shores were gathered into bags in order to be utilized. However, these bags reportedly never reached processing plants, creating further environmental and public health concerns.

The response by authorities in occupied Crimea was “even weaker,” Gozak claimed, meaning that the disaster will have lasting effects on the peninsula.

According to a Russian environmental expert who spoke to Kedr, an independent news outlet that focuses on environmental issues, Russian authorities likely did not even have enough adequate equipment to deal with the consequences of the oil spill.

Although conditions in the Black Sea were extreme at the time of the incident, authorities should have trained emergency services to respond to such situations, according to the anonymous Russian expert who spoke to the Kyiv Independent.

Volunteers clean up the shore from fuel oil following mid-December tanker crash in the Kerch Strait, in the southern Russian Krasnodar Krai, Dec. 20, 2024. (Krasnodar Krai Emergency Service)

On a positive note, the Black Sea is a dynamic ecosystem with warm waters, which increases the likelihood that the area will be able to clean itself from the fuel oil, possibly even within a year, the expert claimed.

Simonov, on the other hand, argued that Mazut fuel oil will remain on the seabed and contaminate ecosystems for the next 10 to 20 years.

`Black Sea disaster and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine`

“After the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, this is the second-largest environmental catastrophe in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion,” Gozak said. “These accidents are really dramatic, and the worst is that they could have been prevented.”

Central to understanding this crisis, according to Gozak, is Russia’s use of its so-called “shadow fleet,” which the United States began to go after in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency.

In 2022, the EU introduced sanctions on Russian oil delivered by sea, making it in theory impossible for Russia to charter or insure oil tankers which did not comply with the sanctions regime.

However, Russia was soon able to circumvent these sanctions, using various schemes to ship its oil worldwide. As these tankers are in a legal gray zone, they often do not comply with security regulations and are not properly insured.

This last element makes it even more difficult to coordinate the ongoing Black Sea cleanup operations, as the responsibility of companies running “shadow fleet” vessels is unclear.

The shore polluted with fuel oil following mid-December tanker crash in the Kerch Strait, in the southern Russian Krasnodar Krai, Dec. 20, 2024. (Krasnodar Krai Emergency Service)

“Stopping this shadow fleet could help prevent such catastrophes, (cut) funding for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, in the long run, help address climate change,” Gozak said.

Similar disasters could occur in the future if exports by Russia’s “shadow fleet” continue, Simonov added.

As for Ukraine, the environmental effect of the disaster is for now mainly felt in occupied Crimea, as well as in parts of the occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, which are located on the shoreline of the Sea of Azov.

While some oil lumps have also reached the Danube Delta south of Odesa, the amounts collected there are for now, symbolic.

As Russia cuts Transnistria from gas, stranded locals search for someone to blame

VARNIȚA, Moldova — The buzzing sound of chainsaws and generators is now common in Varnița, a village of 5,000 that borders Moldova’s Russian-controlled region of Transnistria. Located next to the Russian-controlled city of Bender (Tighina), the village is subordinated to Chișinău but depends on the…

The Kyiv IndependentPaula Erizanu

Ukraine's unlikely ally against Russian attacks on energy sector — warm weather

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:32:52 +0100

Nearly three years into the war, Ukrainians have grown used to bracing for brutal winters with electricity blackouts and heating cuts from Russian attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.

This winter was predicted to be one of the toughest ones of the war yet. In a worst-case scenario, blackouts were expected to reach 20 hours a day. Greenpeace warned in November that Ukraine’s power grid faced a “heightened risk of catastrophic failure.”

But thanks to a combination of unseasonably warm weather, and Ukraine’s ability to adapt to a third year of Russian campaigns against its energy system, the worst has not come to pass.

Since Russia began targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in late 2022, the country has learned to better protect the power grid, figuring out how to make repairs in record time following Russian strikes.

Climate change — which has been causing warmer winters each year in Ukraine — has also become Ukraine’s unexpected ally in resisting Russia’s tactic of freezing Ukrainians into submission.

“The fact that we have such warm weather of 6, 7 degrees Celsius (42-44 degrees Fahrenheit) is fantastically positive for us,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, managing director of the Energy Industry Research Center, crediting the mild winter as a main factor for the lack of problems with power in Ukraine.

`‘There’s almost no winter’`

In the past, Ukraine had hot summers and cold winters, consistent with its mostly continental climate.

Snow and temperatures below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) characterized every winter, including the one in 2014 when the Euromaidan Revolution unfolded and protesters on Independence Square in Kyiv danced to patriotic chants to warm up.

Things are different now. Ukraine’s Environment Ministry on Jan.19 went as far as to say in a social media post that, “Due to global warming, there is no climatic winter in Ukraine (this year).”

“Due to global warming, there is no climatic winter in Ukraine (this year).”

“If the winter used to be a season of frost and snow, then now the weather often reminds of late autumn or early spring,” the ministry wrote.

The Central Geophysical Observatory declared 2024 “the warmest year on record” in Kyiv, with the December average at zero degrees Celsius. Temperatures were above zero every day the last week of January, a record for the country, the observatory said.

“Ukraine is one of the regions of the planet where the temperature has been rising at the highest rate over the past decade,” said Svitlana Krakovska, head of the applied climatology laboratory at the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute.

“And the main warming occurs primarily in winter,” she was cited as having said in the ministry’s post on social media.

`Climate change keeps the lights on`

Ukraine hasn’t yet had to implement any country-wide rolling blackouts in 2025, according to open data collected by the Energy Map.

These scheduled limitations of electricity supply for businesses and households were put in place at various times throughout the previous years to cut the consumption in peak hours to avoid the collapse of the country’s strained power system.

Hours-long blackouts were widely used throughout the country for much of the spring and summer of 2024 following Russia’s bombing of power plants and transmission stations, and during scheduled repairs of the nuclear power plants. The power cuts were implemented sporadically throughout December.

Women ride a scooter on Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 23, 2025, amid the Russian invasion. (Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP via Getty Images)

Local residents walk and take photos near the Christmas tree in Sophia Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 24, 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)

“As you can see, electricity is now being supplied without restrictions almost all over the country, apart from the front-line regions, where the situation is difficult in general,” Kharchenko told the Kyiv Independent.

“As you can see, electricity is now being supplied without restrictions almost all over the country, apart from the front-line regions, where the situation is difficult in general.”

As the temperature continues to hover at or above zero, the country’s energy system hasn’t yet entered a red zone where it has to start cutting power.

“Every degree below zero Celsius requires an additional 200 megawatts (MW) of power,” he added. “With our current operating capacities, we simply don’t have enough (to cater) for temperatures of minus three and four degrees Celsius (24-26 degrees Fahrenheit) and below.”

`Freezing Ukrainians into submission`

Russia has regularly targeted Ukrainian critical infrastructure since it began its campaign in 2022, destroying over half of the country’s pre-war power system capacities.

“In 2022-2023, Ukraine's power system lost about 21 gigawatts (GW) of capacity,” out of the 47 GW before the full-on war, wrote Oksana Zueva, a senior expert in open data at Kyiv-based think tank DiXi Group.

To take that much capacity out, Moscow carried out at least thirty massive attacks on energy facilities, according to open data gathered by the Energy Map.

The attacks evolved over time to use various weapons and tactics, while Russia’s goal remained the same: plunging Ukraine into a humanitarian crisis, making regular citizens’ lives as difficult as possible, and destabilizing the country before any possible peace talks in the future.

An energy worker walks through a destroyed control room at a DTEK power plant in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on April 19, 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

Workers clean debris in a turbine hall filled with scorched equipment at a DTEK power plant destroyed after an attack in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on April 19, 2024. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

Around 10 GW of energy generation was knocked out in 2024 due to Russia’s missile and drone attacks, the Energy Ministry told the Kyiv Independent.

Since mid-November, six massive attacks were launched by Russia over the two and a half months of this winter season, causing “much greater damage and destruction than in previous years,” the ministry added. The attacks included anywhere between 70 to 90 cruise or ballistic missiles and 90 to 120 drones each time, as well as internationally banned cluster munitions.

“But they didn’t reach their goals,” Kharchenko told the Kyiv Independent.

`Securing energy`

According to Kharchenko, Ukraine has also gotten much better in resisting Russia’s attacks on energy in over two years since they began. It improved coordination with air defense protecting the power system and built some fortifications that have already proved effective.

Experience also helps when the attacks succeed: at this point, there are reserves of equipment to restore the damaged facilities and clear plans for bypassing them in the grid and restoring them as quickly as possible, Kharchenko said.

A lot of that equipment is pledged or financed by international partners, the Energy Ministry told the Kyiv Independent.

“In 2024, Ukrenergo's repair teams set an absolute record by replacing an autotransformer at one of its substations within three weeks,” Ukraine's state grid operator Ukrenergo told the Kyiv Independent.

“This included transportation, installation, and connection. For comparison, in EU countries, such works are carried out in three to four months,” the statement said.

Warm weather also contributed to the speed of repairs, Ukrenergo said.

However, with temperatures projected to drop in the coming days, Ukraine needs to secure its energy supply for any weather.

A woman with a child walks in a park on a foggy day in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 30, 2024, amid the Russian invasion. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

“For the Ukrainian power system to operate efficiently and confidently, we need to build about 4-4.5 GW of additional peaking power plants,” Kharchenko said.

Peaking power plants are meant to step in during peak periods of consumption to avoid blackouts. They should be able to quickly increase or decrease the energy output, which is impossible for the three Ukrainian-controlled nuclear power plants that currently supply up to 55-60% of the country’s energy, according to Kharchenko.

Peaking power plants could be coal-based, hydroelectric, or gas-powered, Kharchenko added, as other types of power are either dependent on weather conditions or too long to develop.

But so far, it was coal-based thermal plants, hydroelectric plants, and the transmission grid around them that were targeted by Russian attacks the most.

Eighty percent of Ukraine’s pre-war coal-fired power capacities were destroyed, though some of them were restored, Kharchenko said.

Nine Ukrainian hydroelectric plants remaining after Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam still generate up to 12% of the country’s energy despite Russian attacks.

“Unfortunately, we can’t build many of them,” Kharchenko said, referring to the limitations of the country’s natural river resources needed to build more hydroelectric generation.

‘An opportunity, not a burden:’ Ukraine House Davos’s message for world leaders, investors

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 20:59:51 +0100

Over the last week, Ukraine House Davos opened its doors to world leaders and investors for the sixth year in a row during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Ukraine House this year was adorned with the slogan “Your Country First, Win With Us.” The message set the tone for the discussions from Jan. 20-23, which focused on the benefits Ukraine can offer other countries in return for peace and economic recovery, namely lucrative investment opportunities.

Throughout the week, the Ukrainian delegation highlighted Ukraine’s estimated $26 trillion in natural resources and minerals, a topic that has picked up amid the return of Donald Trump, inaugurated on the first day of the forum. The new U.S. president has vowed to bring a swift end to the war, which could potentially usher in a wave of investment.

The Kyiv Independent spoke with Ulyana Khromyak, Ukraine House’s executive Director since 2023, as she wrapped up what she called a packed event.

Khromyak said part of the delegation’s mission was to convince investors to come to Ukraine now, rather than getting stuck waiting in line after the end of Russia’s war.

Ukraine’s natural resources provide a lot of investment potential, alongside the country’s agricultural and defense sectors, she said.

Ulyana Khromyak, Ukraine House’s executive Director in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 20, 2025. (Ukraine House Davos)

Regarding whether Trump will abandon Ukraine in its fight against Russia, Khromyak is hopeful the president can help achieve a sustainable peace in Ukraine and set the country on a path to recovery.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kyiv Independent: What was Ukraine House’s key message and mission this week in Davos? How has this changed from the last few years?

Khromyak: For the past three years, the messages were about what is needed to win this war, the opportunities in Ukraine, how Ukraine can contribute to the world, and why Ukraine is valuable to the world.

Our message this year was a just and sustainable peace. We had a lot of discussions about how we can achieve this through strength on the battlefield as well as a strengthened position at the negotiation table.

The second message was that Ukraine is not a burden, but a country of opportunity. We showed a lot of opportunities, including how rich Ukraine is in mineral resources. We have about $26 trillion in natural resources in Ukraine, out of which $12 trillion is in minerals.

We also discussed the successes of the existing investors who are currently working under these (wartime) conditions and also the successes of small and medium businesses. The country is resilient, the economy is working.

We talked about investment in the defense sector, which was also a hot topic, to make Ukraine a defense hub. We have the practical experience on the battlefield, as well as the technologies and the knowledge of how to scale this up.

Kyiv Independent: Do you think that there is a positive view that President Trump could be beneficial for Ukrainian businesses and its economy?

Khromyak: Yes, I truly believe there is. You can see this from his World Economic Forum speech. He delivered strong messages supporting Ukraine. Let’s believe that his political will can help us strengthen these relations and achieve a just and sustainable peace as well as try to start the recovery of the country.

Screening of Donald Trump’s speech in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 20, 2025. (Ukraine House Davos)

Kyiv Independent: One of the panels differed from the rest in that it focused on Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian churches. Why is this an important message, particularly for Christian Republicans who have not always been supportive of Ukrainian aid?

Khromyak: That’s why we raised this topic. We see it’s a hot topic for the Republicans, so we try to reflect this.

We are saying that Ukraine is a country where we have a lot of religions and it’s one of the most spiritual countries in the world. Different religions are very important to us. Freedom is our religion as well, but we also need to emphasize that we have a lot of (religious) persecution from the Russians.

We showed a lot of videos about the persecution of religion in Ukraine. The audience said that this is an important message to the White House.

Faith under fire: Russia’s war on religion in Ukraine’s occupied territories

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 Russia…

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

Kyiv Independent: Ukraine House also lent a lot of attention to Ukraine’s investment climate and resilience. What sense do you get from investors about their interest in Ukraine currently?

Khromyak: There are a lot of possibilities to develop in innovation, infrastructure, agro-sector, and then definitely the minerals and energy sector. These sectors are very important for the world and Ukraine has all of these resources. We just need to increase their efficiency and therefore we need the investment for this to run independently.

There were a lot of discussions about the frozen Russian assets as well; how we can unfreeze and invest them and efficiently use them to strengthen our economy.

Kyiv Independent: Do you get a feeling that investors are taking Ukraine seriously as a place to invest?

Khromyak: Yes, I do, considering the discussions that we had in the House. We had first Vice Prime Minister and Economics Minister Yulia Svyrydenko speaking, and her deputy was in the House as well, talking about war risk insurance.

The government is supporting it from their side and that’s why investors took it seriously. The investors asked a lot of questions about how they could invest, and what would be the security and guarantees provided to them.

Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s economy minister, speaks during a panel session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2025. (Stefan Wermuth / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Kyiv Independent: Has that changed since you’ve been in your position since 2023?

Khromyak: Yes, the interest increased. In 2023, no one knew what was going to happen. But right now, we have President Trump’s messages and support from the leaders of the European Union.

Right now we have no other option. We have no choice other than to win this war and to make the country stronger.

Kyiv Independent: Do you get a sense that investors are willing to come into Ukraine now, or are they still talking about coming in after the war?

Khromyak: We were trying to persuade them to come now and show the opportunities because everyone will be queuing after the war. There will be a lot of competition, so first come first serve. They will get better conditions right now, rather than coming after the war.

We showed this deal of the year in the telecom sector, (the $1.5 billion Datagroup-Volia-Lifecell merger) saying that, look, the investors are investing and there are a lot of success stories, so please come and invest now.

Kyiv Independent: Is there a clearer path now to securing war risk insurance?

Khromyak: Yes. We work with Marsh McLennan, who was on the panel, and we had Aon among the audience. These are two main players in the insurance sector who are working with the government right now and with the investment institutions to provide war risk insurance.

We have already had the first successes. The speakers discussed how to involve more people and how to make insurance for those who would like to invest now.

The Aon and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) transaction that jointly provided insurance to the companies is a good development.

A view of the Ukraine House pavilion ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 19, 2025. (Hollie Adams / Bloomberg)

Kyiv Independent: One of the final panels discussed utilizing the frozen Russian assets. With some Western businesses lobbying against this idea in Europe, how much support do you think this idea has?

Khromyak. We need the whole amount of the frozen Russian assets, not just the proceeds. Therefore we need the political will from different countries. A lot of people from the Ukrainian government, opinion leaders, and NGOs on different levels are lobbying for this issue.

We are getting there. It’s a long and hard path and a lot of countries still need to implement a lot of internal regulations to pass and transfer these assets.

But we systematically need to work on this. The message is that we should not just accept the proceeds, but we need the whole $350 billion.

Zelensky touts Ukraine’s potential in meeting with global investors at Davos forum

President Volodymyr Zelensky met leading American and European executives and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, emphasizing Ukraine’s investment potential and the importance of international support in achieving a just peace.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

Belarus Week: Belarus to host over 13,000 Russian troops for Zapad-2025 joint military drills

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 16:41:51 +0100

OSCE observers not invited to monitor upcoming presidential election in Belarus.

Belarus to host over 13,000 Russian troops for Zapad-2025 joint military drills with Russia.

Belarus sentences EU diplomatic staffer to four years in prison.

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Irregular crossings into EU from eastern borders more than triple in 2024, Frontex reports.

Belarusian state TV airs a propaganda film with jailed journalists, attempting to discredit their coverage of 2020 elections ahead of upcoming vote.

Belarusian opposition announced it will issue “New Belarus” passports, yet legal uncertainty remains for exiles.

`Belarus refuses to invite OSCE observers to upcoming election`

Minsk has not invited observers from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions to monitor the upcoming presidential elections in Belarus, the OSCE announced on Jan. 9.

The presidential elections, which are expected to provide Belarus’s longtime dictator Alexander Lukashenko with a seventh term in office, are scheduled for Jan. 26. The poll, dismissed as a “sham” by the Belarusian opposition, will be the first presidential race since the 2020 election — which sparked an unprecedented wave of anti-government protests and an ongoing domestic political crisis.

The OSCE said Belarus’ decision not to invite its member states via the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) was “regrettable” and “deprives the country’s citizens of a transparent and full assessment of the entire process.”

“The lack of transparency further undermines faith in the electoral system of Belarus,” said OSCE PA President Pia Kauma.

This is the third time the office will be unable to observe elections in Belarus since the contested 2020 vote — it was not invited to observe the 2022 constitutional referendum or parliamentary elections.

Speaking at a meeting with the chairs of regional executive committees on Jan. 3, Lukashenko mentioned the idea of inviting international observers, saying, “We should meet with the Central Commission once again and decide whether we will invite these foreigners (Western observers) to the elections.”

However, Lukashenko raised the issue less than three weeks before the elections, with the key stages of the campaign — the nomination of candidates, the formation of local electoral committees, and the selection of national observers — already having been carried out.

The rushed presidential election campaign is being held nearly half a year earlier than is stipulated in Belarus’s election law. The Belarusian Central Election Committee (CEC) cleared the heads of three loyalist parties — Aleh Haidukevich, Alexander Hizhnyak, and Siarhei Syrankou — along with another sham candidate representing the so-called “constructive opposition” — Hanna Kanapatskaya — to “challenge” Lukashenko for the presidency.

As of Jan. 8, the Belarusian Central Electoral Committee (CEC) had accredited 362 foreign observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (PA CSTO) — all Russia-led international alliances favoring the Lukashenko regime.

Among the 28,330 national observers, 79% come from political parties or pro-government professional unions, the independent news outlet Pozirk reports. Since 2020, Lukashenko has eliminated all but four loyal political parties and liquidated over 1,800 civil society organizations.

The expert observation mission organized by the Viasna Human Rights Center and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee claims that the electoral campaign is organized in a “repressive climate of threat, fear-mongering, pressure, and persecution in connection with any civil activity unauthorized by the state.”

Will Transnistria’s gas crisis lead to its collapse and reintegration into Moldova?

By halting natural gas supplies to Moldova on Jan. 1, Russia created an unprecedented economic crisis in the Russian-occupied part of the country — Transnistria. The crisis prompted a question: will the breakaway region, occupied by Russia since 1992, survive without Russian gas? Free-of-charge Ru…

The Kyiv IndependentOleg Sukhov

`Minsk expects 13,000 Russian troops to take part in joint military drills in 2025`

Over 13,000 Russian troops will participate in the Zapad-2025 joint military exercise, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced on Jan. 10, citing Major General Valery Revenka.

Military allies Russia and Belarus have been conducting the Zapad (“West” in Russian) strategic drills every two years since 2009. Approximately 12,800 Russian soldiers were hosted in Belarus in 2021. Another military drill, “Union Resolve 2022,” followed the Zapad-2021, and was used to disguise a troop buildup on the Ukrainian border ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.

In an interview with a state-owned TV channel, Major General Revenka said that Belarus has already notified OSCE member states about the drills in line with the Vienna Document, extending an invitation to “allies, friends, partners” to observe the exercises.

According to Revenka, Belarus “views positively” only some EU and NATO member countries — without specifying which ones. Noting that Belarus had not been invited to observe European military drills last year, Revenka said that a decision regarding an invitation to NATO members remained to be taken.

The date of the Zapad-2025 drills has not officially been announced, but they are believed to be scheduled for September 2025. In October 2024, the Belarusian Air Force announced “major drills with Russia in September 2025,” right after a meeting of the joint board of the Belarusian and Russian Defense Ministries approved a concept plan for the Zapad-2025 joint strategic exercise.

The Vienna Document on security and confidence-building requires its members to provide notification 42 days or more prior to holding military drills.

Aside from Zapad-2025, Belarus plans to host three military drills — Search, Interaction, and Echelon — along with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russia-led bloc Moscow set up in 2002, over a decade after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.

While not committing Belarusian troops to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory as a jumping off point for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, provided supplies to the Russian army, and offered to host Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

`EU diplomatic staffer in Belarus sentenced to 4 years in prison`

Minsk City Court has handed down a four-year prison sentence to a local staff member of the European Union’s diplomatic service in Belarus, Politico reported on Jan. 9.

The sentence, issued in late December 2024, has only now been made public. The court found the EU staffer, Mikalai Khilo, guilty of “incitement of hatred and calls for actions harming Belarus’s national security.”

The EU’s External Action Service condemned the decision and reiterated calls for Khilo to be released.

“We continue calling for Mikalai Khilo’s immediate and unconditional release,” EU spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Anitta Hipper said in a statement shared with Politico.

The EU diplomatic service previously called for Khilo’s release ahead of his trial, which was held on Dec. 23. At the time, a Lithuanian member of the European Parliament, Petras Auštrevičius, told Politico that Minsk was “testing the EU” by arresting its employee. He said Belarusian diplomats should be expelled from the EU if Khilo was convicted.

Forty-one-year-old Khilo split his time between working for the EU diplomatic mission and serving as a preacher in a local Baptist church, as confirmed by CV (formerly known as Christian Vision) — an international Christian ministry that monitors the repression of clergy and religious groups.

According to an unnamed EU official, Khilo was detained by the Belarusian KGB security service in front of the EU delegation office on April 24, 2024. The Viasna Human Rights Center, a human rights organization based in Belarus, recognizes Khilo as a political prisoner.

Although there have recently been eight rounds of pardons of political prisoners in Belarus, 1,240 political prisoners remain behind bars in the country. According to CV, 86 clergymen from various confessions are behind bars because of their public support for anti-government protests in 2020.

‘You’ll die here’ – Belarusian political prisoners recount experiences ahead of Lukashenko’s reelection

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for 30 years, is looking to reelect himself for the seventh time. In the run-up to the January 2025 presidential elections, Lukashenko has pardoned prisoners convicted of extremism, claiming that it was a “humane gesture” toward those…

Belarusian soldiers fighting for Ukraine say time is running out for their brother-in-arms extradited to Belarus

`EU border agency: Irregular crossings of eastern border more than tripled in 2024`

The number of detected cases of migrants irregularly entering the European Union through its eastern borders more than tripled in 2024, to 17,000, the European border agency Frontex said in a report on Jan. 14.

Following the introduction of European sanctions in 2021 over the contested 2020 presidential election and crackdown on dissent, the regime of Lukashenko orchestrated an artificial migration crisis, allowing migrants from the Middle East and African to storm Belarus-EU borders.

Frontex preliminary data show that while the overall number of irregular border crossings to the European Union declined by 38% (returning to the post-pandemic level of 2021), the eastern border route (including Belarus and Ukraine) bucked the general trend: There were 17,000 illegal crossings of the bloc’s eastern border out of a total of 239,000 crossings recorded in Europe last year.

A woman holds barbed wire while attending a demonstration against the Polish government's plans to suspend the right to asylum for refugees illegally crossing the Polish-Belarusian border, Krakow, Poland on Oct. 28, 2024. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

In 2021, the EU recorded 8,000 illegal crossings of its eastern border, in what Frontex monitoring described as a “hybrid operation targeting the EU external border.” Following an initial settlement that led to a decline in the registered irregular border crossings to 5,608 in 2023, the artificial migration crisis reignited again, with Russia joining the effort.

In late 2024, the EU authorities revealed that 90% of the migrants arriving via Belarus had Russian student or travel visas. The bloc pledged 170 million euros to its eastern members — Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Estonia, and Finland — and to Norway to fortify their borders.

As “hybrid warfare” involving migrants continues, the border security agencies of Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia have thwarted a total of 36,291 attempts to illegally cross their borders from Belarus in 2024.

In 2024, Poland reimposed a 200-meter-wide buffer zone next to its border with Belarus, and considered temporarily suspending the right to asylum.

`Belarusian state TV shows jailed journalists ahead of 2025 vote`

The Belarusian state-owned TV channel ONT aired on Jan. 14 the first segment of propaganda interviews with journalists held in Belarusian prisons, in an apparent attempt to discredit the work of independent media during the 2020 presidential elections.

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, widely viewed as neither free nor fair, the free media field in Belarus was eradicated. Thirty-seven journalists remain behind bars on politically motivated charges, and hundreds were forced into exile. In 2024 alone, 35 independent media were branded as “extremist” and banned in Belarus.

The first part of the series “about employees of American Media,” was filmed in prisons, yet is titled “Freedom of Speech.” RFE/RL’s Belarus Service freelancer and political prisoner Andrey Kuznechyk, who was charged with six years of imprisonment for allegedly “creating and participating in an extremist formation.”

In the interview, Kuznechyk appears in a black robe in the prison yard, looking emaciated. The interviewer urges him to condemn the independent media in Belarus for biased coverage and “trying to set Belarus on fire” during the 2020 elections.

The program is airing ahead of the Jan. 26 presidential elections, the first presidential vote since the contested 2020 race, which is expected to provide Lukashenko with a seventh consecutive term in office. After winning the country’s first and last fair election in 1994, Lukashenko remained in power for 30 years, gradually giving up parts of Belarusian sovereignty to Russia.

Other segments are to feature RFE/RL Belarus Service journalist Ihar Losik, who has been held incommunicado for nearly two years, as well as former reporter Ihar Karney and opposition activist Yuras Zyankovich, who hold dual citizenship of Belarus and the United States.

The international press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) placed Belarus 167th out of 180 countries in its 2024 Press Freedom Index, calling the country the fourth largest jailer of journalists in the world, and Europe's most dangerous country for journalists up until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

`Belarusian opposition announces issuing ‘New Belarus’ passports`

Political opponents of the regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko will start accepting applications for the alternative identity documents for exiled Belarusians on Jan. 26, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has announced on her Telegram channel.

In September 2023, Lukashenko barred Belarusian embassies from issuing or renewing passports of Belarusians living abroad, forcing the regime’s critics to return to Belarus — risking arrest — to renew their essential documents. As a result of Lukashenko’s move, over 300,000 exiles who have fled Belarus since the contested 2020 elections risk finding themselves in legal limbo, unable to prove their identity, renew residence permits, or access essential services in host countries with expired passports.

In response, the Belarusian opposition in exile announced the “New Belarus” passport project in 2023, but there was little progress on it in 2024. After a change of leadership of the project and a scandal involving the Lithuanian contractor for producing the passports — which was found to have ties with the Lukashenko regime — the opposition has since produced the first prototypes of the passport.

However, the new document has yet to be recognized as suitable for travel or as official proof of identity, and it will initially be available only to EU-based Belarusians due to verification constraints, according to project head Marius Gudelaitis.

Franak Viachorka, a chief advisor to Tsikhanouskaya, said that the passports will have “specific functionality” within a year.

“Our goal is that this document can replace a foreign passport, be used for travel, and also replace expired (Belarusian) passports when submitting documents for legalization, for example,” Viachorka told news outlet Zerkalo.

However, the former head of the passport project, Valery Kavaleuski, who earlier resigned from Tsikhanouskaya’s Transitional Cabinet, has warned that gaining recognition for the document under present conditions is unlikely. According to Kavaleuski, the issuing center has had to undergo an independent audit before issuing the documents. Besides, the passport will reportedly use a new country code, instead of the existing Belarusian one, which Kavaleuski described as a "dead end" for the recognition process.

The passport will be presented to the public at the “Belarusians Deserve Better” congress in Warsaw, Poland on Jan. 26 – the same day as Lukashenko's latest presidential election, which has been dismissed as a sham by the Belarusian opposition. Meanwhile, Belarusian prosecutors have already issued warnings that congress participants could face criminal prosecution.

In Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus, helping to defend Ukraine against Russia gets you labeled as a terrorist. Vasil Verameichyk, a Belarusian who enlisted in Ukraine’s Armed Forces just four days after Russia launched its all-out war, was detained on Nov. 13 in Vietnam in a suspected covert operatio…

Ukraine’s war-tested firefighters share advice with L.A.’s

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:03:14 +0100

Editor’s Note: We aim to bring you stories about the war that no one else does.

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As morning arrived this past Friday, Los Angeles residents awoke to reports of spreading, deadly wildfires – with courageous firefighters trying to hold the line.

Half a world away in Kyiv, the morning also started with a call for rescuers. The remnants of a drone had hit a residential building in Kyiv during a Russian raid, and first responders rushed to the scene.

As a result of Russia’s war, more than 6,000 fires of various sizes were recorded across Ukraine in 2024. That’s actually less than in previous years: in 2022, the year the war began, shelling and air attacks caused more than 12,000 fires. Over the last few years, Ukraine’s firefighters have sadly become some of the world’s most experienced in fighting blazes in urban areas.

But from the ashes, the L.A. fires foreshadow how Ukraine’s experience may be turned into something good in the post-war period – the ability to export the lessons they have learned to colleagues and allies all around the world. In fact, as the war-torn country rebuilds, Ukraine has a sense of solidarity with Los Angeles that few others can match.

State Emergency Service worker helps a victim at the site of attack in Kyiv on the first day of 2025, photo: State Emergencies Service

The latest outbreak of ferocious California wildfires began last Tuesday. Just a few days later the consequences are excruciating. At least 24 people have been killed, and about 105,000 people are still under mandatory evacuation. There are around 12,000 destroyed buildings, while around 35,000 homes and businesses in the area are without electricity. The fire is forcing more than 14,000 firefighters to work tirelessly in the California region, using 84 aircrafts and 1,354 fire engines.

Firefighters work the scene as an apartment building burns during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles county, California on January 8, 2025. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Behind every massive disaster like this stand those who risk their lives to contain the uncontrollable – the firefighters. Whether it’s wildfires consuming acres of forests or urban blazes caused by war, dedication and courage are necessary traits.

Last week, the Counteroffensive met Serhii*, a first responder in Kyiv. As so often, his day had started with an emergency call – this time due to a gas explosion. He said that at least three fire engines respond to every call in Kyiv. Fortunately, this time no one was hurt.

Serhii has been a first responder for almost three years, starting after Russian forces destroyed his family home in Kyiv region and killed his father.

Serhii tells this with notes of optimism, which is both surprising and inspiring.

"You have to take these things lightly. When I joined the rescue service, I realized this was just the beginning," he said.

The Counteroffensive visited a fire station just as the firefighters had returned from the call. Every fire engine is thoroughly washed after a mission.

Ukrainian firefighters received specialized vehicles from the Czech Republic, Kyiv, Ukraine, January 10. Photo by Alina Tvardovska

Serhii explained that in emergencies, ensuring there is enough water for large-scale fires is critical.

"The water in the trucks only lasts for about 8 minutes of work," he said. Each tanker on the truck holds 4,000 liters of water, and with one hose, about 500 liters are used per minute.

Los Angeles also faced a water issue, particularly thanks to the loss of water pressure in its hydrants. California Governor Gavin Newsom called for an investigation into why the Santa Ynez Reservoir was empty and closed for maintenance.

Despite the heavy mental and physical toll of Serhii’s work – his full gear weighs about 80 kilograms – he is always full of energy.

Serhii was also on duty in July, when Russian forces struck the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv. Firefighters have a call ranking system, with Level 5 being the most severe. Serhii says that the strike on Okhmatdyt was one of the highest levels he has seen.

Emergency officials and civilians conduct search and rescue operations among the rubble of buildings destroyed by missile attack including 'Okhmatdyt' Children's Hospital, which caused deaths, injuries and damage across various regions of the city in Kyiv, Ukraine on July 08, 2024. (Photo by Kyiv Military Administration / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Staying in the right mindset for the job isn’t always easy, and Serhii advises his colleagues and new recruits to always support one another. Dark humor helps them cope.

Don’t forget about your own health – if possible, drink plenty of water and remember to eat regularly,” Serhii told his Los Angeles colleagues. “As for the public, trust your rescuers, listen to their advice, and remember that they are doing an incredible job, helping and saving people's lives.”

Climate change is one of the key reasons why the number of uncontrolled fires of this magnitude is increasing every year. For example, between 1980 and 2023, there were 22 large-scale fires recorded in the U.S. 18 of these occurred after 2000, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In all, about 62,000 wildfires occur annually in the U.S., and climate change has been a contributor to these too. Climate change heating and drying caused between two-thirds and 99 percent of the increase in California’s fire weather over the last few decades, according to a team of scientists from the ClimaMeter project. This year, strong winds and a harsh drought are adding to difficulties.

Climate change doesn’t only affect the U.S. – it is a problem for every country in the world, including Ukraine. In September 2024, 33 wildfires were extinguished in Ukraine during the dry season. Of course, Russia also contributes to the creation of such fires in Ukraine. Last year, shelling caused 60 percent of wildfires across Ukraine.

In some areas of Ukraine, the fires are particularly dangerous, such as in Chornobyl, where fires significantly increase the chance of radiation being released into the air. On top of that, Ukrainian firefighters in many areas also have to deal with the possibility of mined forests and abandoned Russian ammunition that could detonate at any moment.

Petro*, another firefighter who spoke to The Counteroffensive, worked under these dangerous conditions, comparing his experience to the situation in L.A. He started his career as a firefighter in the summer of 2022.

“If it’s a missile strike call, we put additional body armor over our firefighting gear. It’s extra weight that you feel,” he noted. “This is how the guys work, especially in the Eastern regions, where missile strikes happen daily.”

After watching several videos of large-scale fires in Los Angeles, Petro recalled the days when he was fighting forest fires in Chornobyl. There too, the wind could change the situation in a matter of minutes, meaning the fire was out of control, and spreading rapidly. High winds can make it almost impossible for firefighters to work using aviation.

“I think the Los Angeles rescuers are doing their best. They have deployed all available resources,” he said.

Petro and his colleagues express their support for the Los Angeles firefighters and believe that they will be able to stop the fire as soon as possible.

“All firefighters and rescuers have our own difficult, risky job and only those who have tried it can understand this, but we don't ask to be understood,” Petro said. “We do this because we want to do it. We have chosen this path!”

The ongoing disaster in Los Angeles has particularly affected the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and the Hollywood Hills, the capital of the American film industry.

Much like in Ukraine, the situation in California can change in an instant. Last month, there were no signs of fires during the holiday season. As it happens, one of our correspondents visited Santa Monica just a few weeks before the fires broke out:

Here's a comparison of how Santa Monica Pier looked on December 13 vs on January 7.

Left: People walking around Pacific Park in Santa Monica, California on December 13, 2024. Photo by Alina Tvardovska. Right: The Palisades fire burns in the distance. Santa Monica Pier on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025 in Santa Monica, CA. (Marcus Ubungen / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

In some ways, the fires in the U.S. are easier to predict than those in Ukraine. In Los Angeles, fires are mostly caused by natural phenomena; while the residents of California are prepared in advance thanks to alert systems such as ‘Watch Duty,’ clear evacuation plans, and the presence of specialized services.

Experts and investigators are considering the possibility that the new fire could have reignited due to strong winds in Los Angeles, as firefighters had already extinguished the fire at the very same location on New Year's Eve. Old fires can reignite due to underground smoldering.

Russia, on the other hand, creates artificial fire by launching missile strikes on Ukraine.

Krystyna Zahrebelna, originally from Kharkiv, has been living in California for five and a half years. She has gotten used to the annual wildfires, but the scale of this fire is shocking – it's the first time she's seen anything like this during her time living there.

Krystyna Zahrebelna, a Ukrainian and blogger who has been living in California for 5.5 years

The situation fluctuates: sometimes it's better, sometimes worse. The wind is expected to continue this week, which is a real cause for concern, as it helps spread the fire.

A screenshot from the Watch Duty app showing active fire hotspots. Krystyna lives between these two hotspots, California, USA, January 11, 2025.

California has become a second home for Krystyna, and it pains her deeply to see how people, animals, and nature suffer.

She draws a worried parallel:

“Visually, the Pacific Palisades area after the fires looks roughly like Vovchansk [a destroyed city in the Kharkiv region] – scorched earth, as if dozens of bombs were dropped.”

An aerial view shows the destroyed city of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv Region near the border with Russia, on October 2, 2024 in Vovchansk, Ukraine. (Photo by Libkos/Getty Images)

Disasters often test the strength of friendship. Even though she is thousands of miles away, and they are living in a warzone, Krystyna has received many generous messages of support from Ukrainians.

Similarly, President Zelenskyy has expressed his condolences over the fires in California and the loss of lives. This past weekend, in his evening address, the President of Ukraine stated that 150 trained Ukrainian firefighters would be assisting their American colleagues.

*Serhii and Petro’s last names cannot be disclosed for security reasons.

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NEWS OF THE DAY

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

SANCTIONED TANKERS CARRYING RUSSIAN OIL ARE LYING IDLE OFF CHINA: Tankers carrying more than 2 million barrels of Russian oil have become stuck off the eastern coast of China after being hit with U.S. sanctions on Friday. One of the tankers, Huihai Pacific, was scheduled to arrive at a port in China on January 15, but changed course and is now anchored at sea. Other tankers are also blocked due to sanctions targeting Russian oil exports.

India, like China, plans to stop accepting oil tankers that have been hit by U.S. sanctions regarding Russia. After January 10, restrictions will apply to sanctioned vessels that were chartered in Indian ports.

DONALD TRUMP EXTENDS WAR DEADLINE: Donald Trump has postponed his promise to end the war in Ukraine in ‘24 hours,’ stating that it may take several months. His team has not yet decided on a strategy, but support for Kyiv will continue in the interim.

Trump suggests that six months is a realistic goal for ending the war, while the special envoy for the war in Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that the goal is to stop the conflict in '100 days'.

ZELENSKYY PROPOSES EXCHANGE INVOLVING NORTH KOREAN SOLDIERS: The President of Ukraine is ready to hand over two captured North Korean soldiers to Pyongyang in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Russia.

Moreover, when prisoners are asked about returning to North Korea in the video of the interrogation shared by Zelensky, one replies that he would like to return, while the other wishes to stay in Ukraine.

DOG OF WAR:

Today’s Dog of War is Helios, a pup from State’s Emergencies Service station. He almost knocked Nastia down as she was about to leave, but with permission from the head of station, he posed for a couple of photos.

Stay safe out there.

Best,

Yelyzaveta

Green energy as a force against Russian shelling

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 15:02:29 +0100

Editor’s Note: We believe in covering Ukraine not merely as a place where war is happening, but a place with a vibrant future just around the corner.

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“We just have to get through the winter.”

“If only it wasn’t so cold, and there were no blackouts.”

For three years in a row, Ukrainians have been repeating these words to themselves.

But not Oleksandr. Despite being almost in his eighties, he built an entire power plant from scrap metal in his backyard. For the past eight years, his inventions have ensured he hasn’t experienced a single day without electricity.

Oleksandr Klymenko has been building alternative energy sources in his backyard in Dnipro.

As blackouts and shelling of the power grid continue, many Ukrainians might soon find themselves following in his footsteps.

Just over a week ago, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico threatened to cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine — jeopardizing a critical lifeline for Ukraine’s hobbled energy system. This was Bratislava's response to Kyiv halting the transit of Russian gas through its territory.

During the full-scale invasion, energy has become not only a target for Russian attacks but also a bargaining chip for the West. With all thermal power plants and almost all hydroelectric capacity in Ukraine destroyed by Russia, renewable energy sources offer a promising solution for a theoretical post-war reconstruction period. They could make Ukraine greener and more energy-secure – and a model for the entire world.

Long before renewable energy became a wartime topic, Oleksandr Klymenko embraced it as a necessity. Thus, on the outskirts of Dnipro, just over 100 kilometers from the front line, stands a wind generator of his design, its silhouette reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower.

Oleksandr Klymenko has loved tinkering since he was a boy. Throughout his life, he repaired cars and motorcycles. These days, he sometimes helps his neighbors, though he doesn’t charge money—unless, he jokes, they buy him a round of drinks.

Still, Oleksandr has never been one to sit idle. After retiring, he set out to build a wind generator, which took him six months.

Despite his age, Oleksandr has outpaced many in Ukraine when it comes to adapting to an unstable energy landscape.

For decades, Ukraine has struggled with energy dependence on Russia. Knowing this, Moscow has repeatedly used it as a weapon to coerce political concessions. Despite its vast energy potential — both conventional and renewable — Ukraine has found itself in crises again and again.

Ukrainian and Russian prime ministers Yulia Tymoshenko and Vladimir Putin met amid countries' energy disputes in 2009. (Photo by DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/AFP via Getty Images)

Moreover, Moscow kept Ukraine dependent on the Cold War-era joint power grid. Ukrainian authorities feared that leaving it would escalate relations with Russia on the eve of a full-scale invasion.

This created the risk that Russia would be able to simply cut off the electricity supply to Ukraine at any time. It was not until the night of February 24, 2022, that Ukraine left the joint electricity system, integrating into the European system.

Despite the horror caused by Russia over the past three years, it's possible that there may be hard-fought positives that come out of the war. Many hope that it may serve as a catalyst for Ukraine to rebuild its energy system into something far more resilient and modern than the one it inherited from the Soviet Union.

Previously, Ukraine's energy generation was dominated by traditional fossil fuel power and nuclear energy, while renewable sources made up less than 10 percent. The country’s centralized system, which relied on just a few sources, left it highly vulnerable to attack.

For instance, targeting a single thermal or hydroelectric power plant could disrupt the electricity supply nationwide. The Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest – not only cut off a significant portion of Ukraine’s electricity but also raised global concerns about the future of nuclear energy.

All this provoked the need to find new solutions, namely to understand the need to stop relying on large energy facilities, and to decentralize production among smaller ones. Vital in this is the use of renewable sources: the sun, wind, water, or biological waste.

«[The transition to green energy is necessary] not only because we are aiming to join the European Union. Around the world, including in Ukraine, there is a shift toward new technologies simply because they are cheaper than investing in lengthy traditional projects,” said Anna Ackermann, an analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, which recommends policies on climate change and energy.

Among other things, decentralization means that some electricity consumers will also become producers of electricity, especially green energy. For example, many Ukrainians could build local wind generators, like Oleksandr Klymenko. This could also be done at the level of individual companies and communities.

A view of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Station's Dam on July 3, 2016 in Zaporizhzhia. (Photo by Yurii Stefanyak/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

In some parts of Ukraine, energy stability is getting worse. One such place is the city of Dnipro, which is frequently attacked – and often targeted for its power system. As the front gradually approaches due to Russian advances, this significantly increases the number of weapons that can be used to attack the city, leading to more devastation of energy infrastructure.

But Oleksandr is sheltered from the worst effects. Even though he prepares for the worst-case scenario – he's built his own shelter at home, where "the bomb can't get in" – he had no problems with electricity even when the whole of Ukraine was in blackout for a day.

Satellite photo from November 23, 2022, when Ukraine was in a blackout. Source: Skhemy.

Oleksandr's house has become a self-organized "point of invincibility.” This is the name given to places with electricity, heat and Internet where people can wait out long power cuts. Local authorities set them up in schools, as tents on the street, or in other buildings.

Even though energy made by him can not be distributed across the street, Oleksandr is happy to welcome neighbors to his home.

“I always have light. When there’s no electricity and their phone is dead, they come here to charge,” Oleksandr told The Counteroffensive.

Currently, Ukraine remains focused on repairing damaged energy infrastructure as a condition for survival. However, Anna Ackermann notes that there is still a significant emphasis on nuclear energy. Ukraine has even begun constructing new reactors at one of its nuclear power plants to compensate for the capacity lost at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

According to Ackerman, this approach is not particularly effective. Nuclear power is inherently expensive, and construction takes years. But electricity is needed now.

Broken solar panels destroyed by Russia, Mykolaiv Region, southern Ukraine. (Photo by Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

According to Anna Ackermann, despite hesitance in some quarters, the transition to green energy is critical to Ukraine’s Euro-integration process. The move toward decentralized, renewable sources not only addresses immediate needs but also lays the foundation for a more sustainable and resilient energy future for Ukraine.

One of the key conditions for Ukraine’s future membership in the European Union is decarbonization – the reduction of carbon emissions from electricity production. Kyiv will have to align its legislation with EU standards.

Ukraine has developed a strategy to generate more than one-third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. The ultimate goal is to transform Ukraine into an energy hub for Europe. This would help the continent eliminate its reliance on Russian fossil fuels, replacing them with clean energy produced in Ukraine.

“If we talk about the near future, Ukraine will rely on wind and solar energy for its renewable energy development. In particular, there are big plans to build wind power plants – more than 800 megawatts in 2025 alone,” Ukraine’s energy minister Herman Halushchenko told The Counteroffensive.

This planned capacity is nearly half of the total wind power capacity Ukraine had in 2021. In 2022, after Russia launched the full-scale invasion, Kyiv lost almost all of its wind power.

Oleksandr Klymenko embodies this green energy revolution like no one else. His Eiffel Tower-inspired structure isn’t just a wind generator – it’s equipped with six solar panels. His backyard became one of more than 50,000 households that installed solar panels in Ukraine.

Solar panels and wind generator in Oleksandr Klymenko's yard.

Despite investing in them, Oleksandr acknowledges the limitations of solar panels in his area. When there’s a lot of sun, electricity is usually not needed. And in winter, when Ukraine is under constant shelling, the sun isn’t enough to light the house.

His local challenges highlight a broader issue: renewable energy sources like wind and solar power remain constrained by seasonal and geographical factors. Wind farms perform best in Ukraine’s northern regions, while solar power is most effective in the south – territories that are largely under occupation.

Yet Oleksandr, ever resourceful, has found a workaround. This year, he built a new device using simple components: a car seat, a small generator, and part of a bicycle. He usually looks for all the items at home or in the market. It cost him less than $100.

Oleksandr Klymenko pedals on his ‘bicycle’ generator

“I spent two months on it this summer,” he explained. “I’d pedal slowly for 15 minutes, and then the light would stay on for 8 hours.”

Visitors from other regions now come to see his inventions, eager to learn from him. Oleksandr welcomes them gladly.

There is no doubt that the transition to green energy will be accompanied by many challenges. But given Oleksandr's wind and solar pioneering are being adopted by Ukrainians… perhaps very soon the whole of Ukraine will be pedaling too.

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